Boston Marathon Bombers: Is Terrorism a distortion of Islam?
The following video was brought to my attention by a reader. It charges that the Western World is collectively avoiding facing the true nature of Islam because of the desire to be tolerant and non-judgmental regarding religion and life style issues i.e., politically correct. Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of terrorist acts in the modern world are carried about by Muslims - we are told that we should view this as a perversion of Islam which is claimed to be inherently a peaceful religion and tolerant of other religions and lifestyles. There is no question that the overwhelming number of Muslims and their leaders are peaceful people and do not support terrorism. Therefore I welcome reasoned debate and refutation of the thesis presented in this and similar videos that are on the Internet. I am well aware that some of my readers are Muslims - and I am not presenting this to be offensive. The arguments and backlash against Islam already exist - at least from the time of the attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11. I would like to hear the other side. This is obviously not just a theoretical issue or an exercise in compartive religions. It strongly impacts Jews and in particluar Israel
I am puzzled by your choice in this posting. You could have put up Sefer Torat Hamelech to demonstrate the same points about Judaism and followed it with Eidah Charedis denunciations of how the Zionist Israeli state engages in violent abuse of non-Jews.
As everyone knows,Islam, Christianity, and Judaism have complex and ambiguous texts and doctrines. The proof of the pudding is in actions. Some practitioners are humane and others use their religions in abusive racist terroristic ways. To argue that Islam is especially bad ignores the fact that for most of the last 1400 years, Christians were much worse for Jews than Muslims. The refugees of the Spanish and Portugese persecutions knew what they were doing when most of them headed for the Muslim world.
I am puzzled by your puzzlement. Simple question - when there is a terrorist attack anywhere in the world - does the thought occur to you -"Maybe it is a Jew or Christian?"
To argue that 1400 years ago it might have been different is true but irrelevant. It ignores the fact of the consistency that or the reality today. Your point is that in the absolute sense Islam does not have to justity terrorism because most Muslims are not terrorism nor were they in the past. However since significant numbers read it differently - esepcially those that end up as terrorist - it makes no sense to ignore that reality because of the way it used to be.
In short, Islam today apparently is "the" source for terrorists that justifies their terrorism. Comparing blowing up people to burning trash cans in Meah Shearim is a bit much. The issue is whether the terrorists understanding of Islam is the source of their crimes against humanity or not. Furthermore is that understanding there or are they reading into texts ideas that aren't there and were never understood that way before by religious authorities.
Oh really? I wasn't aware of the Edah Charedis setting off bombs in time square or planting "underwear bombs" on planes. Get real, Lopin. And no one uses a military manual (you mentioned Torat Hamelech) for civilian life. But Muslims do use the Koran for everyday life, and it is speaking about everyday life not just national wars. Afterall, the dar al Harb vs. Dar al Islam system requires war against ALL places that are not Islamic in order to convert them to dar al islam.
Your comments demonstrate the confused moral relativism and liberalism prevalent among many Modern Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews today.
Yes, Christians have terribly persecuted Jews in the past, but they are not waging any “holy wars" now against the Jews that I’m aware of. On the contrary, many American Christians have treated the Jews decently, despite the promotion of atheist-liberal-anti-Bible agendas by some Jews.
At this time Jews are facing their greatest enemy of all time - Islam. Regrettably our (presumably) Christian friend who produced the video here demonstrates much more seichel (intelligence) than many Jews who are infected with PC moral relativism.
“NO GREATER ENEMY HAS THREATENED US, AND NO NATION HAS DONE MORE TO SUBJUGATE AND HUMILIATE US ... KING DAVID SAW THROUGH RUACH HAKODESH ALL THE TROUBLES SLATED FOR ISRAEL, BEGAN TO WAIL AND LAMENT THE WICKED ISHMAELITE NATION ... ‘WOE IS ME, THAT I SOJOURN WITH MESHECH, THAT I DWELL BESIDE THE TENTS OF KEDAR!’ (TEHILLIM 120:5) ...THE PSYCHOPATH MOHAMMED WAS DESCENDED FROM KEDAR ... DANIEL ONLY MENTIONED OUR HUMILIATION AND SERVITUDE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE ISHMAELITE KINGDOM, MAY IT SOON BE CRUSHED … WE ARE STILL SUFFERING THEIR ENSLAVEMENT, PERFIDY, AND LIES, WHICH SURPASS THE BOUNDS OF HUMAN ENDURANCE.” (Rambam, Iggeret Teiman, 12th century C.E.)
Sahih Bukhari Book 52. Fighting for the Cause of Allah (Jihaad) Narated By Abu Huraira : Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him." ( http://www.hadithcollection.com/sahihbukhari/85/3715-sahih-bukhari-volume-004-book-052-hadith-number-177.html )
In judaism, there is still a mitzwa to kill amalek wherever you find them. If they want to take that up for propaganda, they could state that judaism is a pro-genocide religion, one of the few that enshrines genocide as a religious duty.
Yerachmiel: The difference is that Torat haMelekh got soundly condemned and has no circulation. You are comparing 10-15% of the population with the kind of extreme fringe any community will have? And... a fringe created by years of being attacked, defending ourselves, and watching friends die?
Remark: Yes, someone could point to an obligation to commit genocide on an ethnic group that hasn't existed for 2,500 years. Similarly, Yehoshua and Shofetim are pretty bloody. That shouldn't convince anyone of what Judaism is like today, but given antisemitism, some would buy it.
Between ourselves and other non-antisemites, the reason why the application of these laws died out in practice is that we no longer live among people with warring tribe kill-them-all psychologies. Living among the Canaanites was living among barbarians where taking a position of brutal warfare was the only language they understood; and getting them to fear us was the only way to prevent far more killing. When such populations do crop up in modern times, we deem the Nazis "Amaleiq" and apply the mitzvah to them. Not very brutal, a law to kill out people trying to commit genocide on you. After all, the original genetic Amaleiq declared an oath of genocide on us first, before we got that mitzvah.
@Micha - "Torat haMelekh got soundly condemned and has no circulation":
I have never learned Torat HaMelekh, nor do I know if condemning it was justified in any way.
However, YoelB's post below has a link to videos on PJmedia.com. Those videos claim that Muslims are taught to eat human infidels, and one video shows Arab Muslims allegedly eating the body parts of Jewish soldiers.
So in view of those videos, why should Jews condemn Torat HaMelekh like knee jerk liberals simply because the book may advocate harsh military action against cannibalistic Arab Muslim enemies in Israel?
The visceral hatred for Torat Hamelech is astounding. It is clearly driven by exile mentality and psychological complexes which are too complicated and beyond my expertise to address. That text has also been slandered and portrayed dishonestly in the antisemitic media such as failed messiah, so this adds to the negative perception and group-think condemnation surrounding it. But the book itself - It is NOT a call to Jewish form of jihad against arab civilians. It is NOT a call for Jewish civilians to commit any act at all or to do anything. It examines the question of Jewish army operating procedures and how to deal with carrying out military operation on a place such as Gaza when in addition to genocidal terrorists, there are mixed among them "civilians" that harbor them, "civilians" that support them wholeheartedly, and of course, plain old civilians. Some of you act like Rabbis shouldn't even consider this question. Or that Jewish law or the Torah should not even be considered when deciding how the IDF conducts itself. And yet many of you are quite observant and feel that Torah has a say in every other aspect of life. (And humorously, many of you also desperately want to see more haredim in the army... You think their rabbis won't start having something to say about army conduct once their own boys are filling the ranks?!) Ever stop to consider or ask yourself why it is that you feel that way about that one particular subject?
In any case, the idea of Torah or rabbinic law playing a role in determining the operating procedures of a Jewish army, as explored in Torat Hamelech, is an alternative to the suicidal "Purity of Arms" doctrine currently in place which governs the operating procedure of the IDF and unnecessarily puts the lives of our soldiers at risk for the sake of protecting the enemy and its so-called civilians. Do you realize how many IDF soldiers have been killed because of this insane policy? It is a system based not on Torah or Jewish tradition, or Talmud or Rabbinic law, but rather a warped system of mercy-ethics cooked up by the twisted minds of secular and self-hating "ethicists" who are absolutely consumed by the galus mentality. A system that handcuffed us in Lebanon resulting in countless deaths. A system that is even more strict than UN guidelines on combat. A system that is more strict than any employed by any other country that fights wars because other countries don't want to see their own soldiers die and don't try to create pointless and absurd PR campaigns saying how "moral" their army is.
The people who support this system get some sick twisted satisfaction about telling the world "We are the most moral army in the world" - which of course is an absolute joke because it is IMMORAL to endanger the lives of your own troops, and of course also because not one other country in the world believes this claim! So their entire exercise is in vain, in addition to being groundless and self-defeating.
Now a newsflash - Every single country in the world that goes to war utilizes policies similar to what is discussed in Torat Hamelech (except Israel) in combat with other countries and/or against terrorists. Russia. The United States. All of them.
There is absolutely no comparison with the religion of Islam or the jihadi preachers and practitioners who have attacked Jews and westerners countless times. Those Jews who equate these completely different things are so desperate to self-flagellate that they fail to see reality. You are so afraid of acknowledging that some group of people might be adhering to a modern-day equivalent of nazi ideology that you convince yourself "it must be that they are really not that bad, and in fact, we are truly nazi-like deep down on the inside - so everyone is equal" in order to escape that uncomfortable reality. When you try to convince others of your idiotic views, it is beyond nutty - it's downright fraud.
Remark said: "In judaism, there is still a mitzwa to kill amalek wherever you find them. If they want to take that up for propaganda, they could state that judaism is a pro-genocide religion, one of the few that enshrines genocide as a religious duty."
Remark, your comment fails to address reality. Jews are not carrying out genocide. Not against anyone. And yet, what behavior are Muslims exhibiting? No matter what the Torah says about Amalek. Jews follow Judaism, which goes by the Talmud and rabbis and how they interpret the Torah. You can't make up your own interpretation and then say as "propaganda" that Jews follow your interpretation because that's not what happens in reality. Jews follow the Jewish legal system. Lehavdil, Muslims follow theirs. They follow Islam. And Islam is what the hadith says it is.
As for "propaganda" about religions - no one is trying to "score points" on other religions here and say how much better this or that thing is because of flaw x y z. Obviously we follow Judaism here so we don't need to convince ourselves about which religion, and we have no need to denigrate Islam. The point of this whole discussion is that due to the content of Islam and the behavior of Muslims, it is a threat and needs to be treated as such. Because they carry out what their religion calls for - and the vast following for al qaeda and like-minded groups is due to the fact that what they preach has backing in those sources.
Why do you think that Judaism being a "pro-genocide" religion in your opinion makes us all equivalent and therefore Muslims are not a threat and their religion not jihadist? Do you honestly believe that?
Apart from genocide, there are also other avenues that could open judaism for terrorism, e.g. "din rodef" taken in too large a meaning, which was the paragraph that allowed some crazy rabbonim to convince Yigal Amir to shoot Itzhak Rabin.
I'm just saying, like Yerahmiel, that texts are flexible and you can make them say whatever you want.
I don't think that militant djihadist are more than 10% of moslems. Actually, I think they are far less than 1%. But since there are more moslems in the world than jews, this represents a larger number.
But Amir wasn't "jihadist" in the sense of what we're talking about here. He killed rabin for a specific reason (oslo policy) and didn't attack the public. You may not like that, but that's what happened - not a jihad attack against infidels. And no, rabbis did not convince him, despite the attempts to slander the religious public which have been proven false now. But it may have been Avishai Raviv, agent "Champagne" who was hired by Rabin himself, who played a major role in convincing him. This was established in court!
I still don't get your point, even if what you claimed about Amir was true. Even if we pretend he was a Jewish "jihadi." Why does that make Islam and Judaism equal in your mind and therefore Islam and Muslims not a threat? Do you comprehend how many hundreds of jihad attacks there have been, and how widespread support is for these attacks throughout the middle east and on social media, and you are taking one guy from 10 years ago doing a completely different act and saying, well that wipes out all that stuff because there are less Jews in the world. Really?
RDE: On the question of whether it was never understood that way before by religious authorities, the answer to that question is painfully obvious. The Hadith (which is like the "oral law" lehavdil of Islam) abrogated most of the peaceful verses, and the reason Rambam's family had to flee Spain was because of the interpretation of Islam by the Almohad dynasty and others which swept across the middle east including North Africa Morocco Yemen, etc where Rambam speaks about communities in great peril facing beheadings, forced conversions and so on. The same reading of the religion present then is present today because the hadith is binding. It's a traditionalist religion which has canonized the interpretations from that earlier period. So those who try to turn Islam peaceful or present it as such are basically Islamic versions of Abraham Geiger, or simply lying. Perhaps many Muslims are perfectly fine with a Reformist version of their faith, but it doesn't make it "true Islam" - it's something else, and there will probably always be some core of 'true believers' who want the old time religion.
This was sad but in a way Jewish People go through the very same issues. The Jews are at the forefront of all things liberal. People look at me and say to me that they know that since I am a Jew I support gay marriage and abortion.Great.I get blamed for what these liberals do despite the fact that I am 200% against the liberals. I don't blame non-Jews.The Jewish Daily Forward ran a headline over Shabbat "Orthodox Slumlords".I am not a slumlord.I am not rich.I have never harmed people but like this man I am the victim of prejudice.Most of it is spread by publications such as the Jewish Daily Forward.The man in the video has a bit more mazal.Anti-Muslim hate is not spread by Muslims.
Logically, even if 100% of terrorists were Muslims, it would not tell us anything about what percentage of Muslims are terrorists, and therefore we cannot draw any conclusions (from that fact alone, leaving aside polemics about what the Koran says) about whether or not Islam is a "religion of peace".
But that's on a theoretical plane. The relevant practical question is not whether Islam is a "religion of peace", but when we want to preempt or defend ourselves against terrorism, who are the most likely suspects? And the answer there, PC or not, is Muslims. When you're running airport security, ferinstance, and you're scanning the crowd for people who are more likely than others to be carrying explosives, you've got to give more attention to Mo, rather than the old granny in the wheelchair. (Not that you should ignore everyone who's not obviously Muslim; terrorists can disguise themselves.) Likewise, when you're on the trail of the Boston bombing suspects, the odds are at least 10:1 it's a Muslim behind it, so your investigation should start with that presumption.
These are the "tzaddikim" falsely claiming the gittin of rav gestetner and rav abraham don't follow halocho. How do you explain all of this rabbi michael tzaddok? what a sick joke!
While in general we should hold innocent until proven guilty this is not the case with dayonim. They need not only to be just bust appear to be just.
While US Vice President Joe Biden says that he will not allow Jonathan Pollard to be released "over his dead body" and now it is revealed that the FBI knew about the Boston bombers and their links to radical Islam in Chechniya and received strong information that they were connected to Chechen Jihadists -- in the meantime, Joe Biden and the FBI and their boss Barack HUSSEIN Obama, and US Sec of Sate SPINMEISTER John Kerry (From the land of Boston himself) are fast asleep at the wheel and get caught with their pants down while innocent Americans, joggers and spectators are blown to smithereens now in Boston it could be anywhere else the next day. When the US ambassador in Benghazi Libya was murdered, Obama and Hillary Clinton could cover up, it was far away, but Boston is right in the core of the USA.
This is reminiscent of the FBI hunting down what they thought were the "dangerous" JDL and (with the help of the Israelis) monitering the late Rav Meir Kahane HY"D while at the same time they were blissfully ignoring the REAL threat of the Islamic terrorists who were planning to blow up NYC landmarks and bombing the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 by the same killers of Kahane who was assassinated (on 5 November, 1990) by one of the same Islamic thugs that blew up the WTC. Kahane Z"L became the first victim of the Islamic Jihad in America.
Likewise, George W. Bush was so busy coddling up to the oil rich Saudis letting their Wahabi acolytes infiltrate into the USA that they forget to note that the Wahabi's had affiliated members, such as Bin Ladin, with a Jihadist agenda to destroy America.
And it was all very nice that Ronald Reagan in his anti-Communist obsessions armed the Jihadist Mujahadin to the teeth to kick the Russians out of Afghanistan, but then forgot to "turn off the switch" -- many were recruited from mosques in America, and then turned their guns and bombs on their American hosts.
What about Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski his National Security Advissoer who were so obsessed about fight the atheist communists and thereby ushered the "better" Ayatolas into Iran, and then were also caught red-handed with their pants down as America was humiliated by the Islamists they helped bring to power.
For the West to try to make a deal with Islam is IMPOSSIBLE, it can never be done. There can be arrangements that some Islamic rulers or states turn for help from ANY source that will help THEIR CAUSES, but Muslims do not and cannot come to the "help" of anyone else because they are an absolutist watertight religion with a "take no prisoners" ideology -- either one converts to Islam or its death to the infidels. The moderates have long lost their sway (or heads)!!! They use Jews or anyone if it suits them. Even Mohamed first used the Jews in his day (they were the majority in the Saudi Arabian peninsula in some place, especially in Mecca and Medina -- having fled their from the times of the Churban Bayis Rishon and continued escaping from Rome. Jews had communities and armies there, but Mohamed used deception to first trick them then to eithe forcibly convert them or kill them. Mohamed even had a Jewish wife who was his favorite.)
And nothing has changed, just the people in the West are fools and naive. They think everyone in the world thinks like Westerners. No one can see how radical Islam is following in the footsteps of early Nazism, in fact Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS founded the Nazi units in Bosnia to fight the Allies and he saw a great opportunity in Muslims willing to die for their cause based on an ABSOLUTIST RELIGION as helping in the same goals that the Nazis wanted-- elimination of world Jewry and conquest of the West..
This is a great problem that has yet to be understood.
To those wondering about the percentage of Muslims that are against Jihad, I challenge you to provide me 1 credible instance of Muslims protesting Jihad violence.
Where were the myriads of Muslims falling over themselves to condemn 9/11?/ Silence
Where were the Muslims now protesting the Boston Marathon slaughter. Birds chirping and complete silence.
This proves that the vast majority supports the violent approach.
The Torah tells us that in the end of days Eisuv and Yishmael will unite to combat us and that is exactly what is happening in America with the total denial of Islamic violence.
May Hashem yisborach save us all from chevlay moshiach.
My impression is that there are far more Muslims who accuse that 9/11 was done by the Mossad, zionists, tha joooz, or some other conspiracy and blamed on Muslims, than the number who simply stand up and say, that was evil and the people who did it were evil muslims. However, you will find people like the former also! It just happens to be IMO they are Islamic Abraham Geigers. But in my opinion, the number or percentage of Muslims who protest or disagree with 9/11 is largely irrelevant to a much bigger problem at large, as alluded to by RAP.
The fanatical Islamic Jihadist global Al Qaida movement, using all its cunning and resources and Muslims willing to die for it, is directly responsible for the Boston bombing just as it was responsible for the 9/11 bombings and other bombings in Madrid, London, Moscow, Bali, Israel, all over.
If one follows the links and connects the dots from some articles on Wikipedia, you don't have to be the FBI to know it's Al Qaida.
See this trail, it's simple: the main Boston bomber/jihadist Tamerlan Tsarnaev (an ethnic Chechen Islamist) --> is recruited by someone in Boston/perhaps family, working for --> Imarat Kavkaz that's run by arch-jihadist terrorist --> Dokka Umarov --> affiliated with the main Al Qaida that was founded by Osama bin Laden:
"Tamerlan Tsarnaev - 2011–present: In early 2011, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) domestic intelligence security agency told the FBI that Tamerlan was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer, and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups. The FBI said in a news release that it had been informed by a foreign government that he had prepared to travel to the Russian region to join unspecified underground groups...
Tamerlan traveled to Russia in January 2012. During the six months he was overseas, he visited the North Caucasus, including Dagestan and Chechnya, an area of separatist movements, ethnic rivalries, extremist Islamic ideology, and a "hotbed" of militant Islamic activity. House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul said he believed Tamerlan received training during the trip, and radicalized. His activities during this time remain unclear.
Upon his return to the United States that July, he had grown a long, thick beard. His life took on an "increasingly puritanical religious tone" with "Islamist certainty." He appeared, to some family members, to become an "extremist." He appeared to have been unemployed.
After he came back, he created a YouTube channel with playlist links to two videos which were tagged under a category labeled "Terrorists"; the videos were later deleted. CNN and the SITE Institute found a screen grab of one of the videos, which featured members of the militant Islamist group Imarat Kavkaz, from the north Caucasus, which includes Chechnya and Dagestan. He had Jihadi videos posted to his YouTube account, including ones by a radical cleric and a Syrian jihadist video posted on April 9, 2013; in one video, voices can be heard singing in Arabic as bombs explode. He recently also shared videos of lectures from a radical Islamic cleric...."
"Imarat Kavkaz = Caucasus Emirate...a self-proclaimed virtual state entity, partially successor to the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and was officially announced on October 31, 2007 by former President of Ichkeria Dokka Umarov, who became the first Emir. Its military branch is the Caucasian Front organization. Both the Russian Federation and the United States have designated the Caucasus Emirate as a terrorist organisation. The United States government has offered US $5 million for information leading to the capture of the group's leader Dokka Umarov. On July 29, 2011 the United Nations Security Council Al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee added the Caucasus Emirate to the list of entities associated with Al-Qaeda...."
"Dokka Umarov: (born 13 April 1964) is a Chechen Islamist militant in Russia. He is responsible for numerous attacks on civilians, earning himself the nickname "Russia's Osama Bin Laden" ...
He subsequently became the self-proclaimed Emir of the Russian North Caucasus, declaring it an Islamic state of the Caucasus Emirate. He is currently wanted by Russia for the crimes of kidnapping, homicide and treason. He is one of the major rebel leaders in Russia and has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks, including the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings and the 2011 Domodedovo International Airport bombing. The attacks killed 40 and 36 civilians respectively, and injured hundreds....
On 10 March 2011, the United Nations Security Council Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee added Umarov to the list of individuals associated with Al-Qaeda..."
Oh, and the bombing took place on April 15 which just so also happened to be Yom Ha'atzmaut in Israel...in the home state of the new US Secretary of State John Kerry who just so happens to have been the long-time Senator from Massachusetts with Boston its biggest and best city...
Look at Jews for a minute. There are 12-15 million Jews in the world more or less. How many are Shomer Shabbos? Maybe 3 million. Since the majority are not Shomer Shabbos, does that mean that the Torah does not endorse Shmiras Shabbos?
Just like with Judaism, we have centuries of precedent with Islam. It has been true throughout history that according to the quran non-muslims are chayiv missah! No chiddush here.
Mohammed starts his violent career by killing 4 unarmed merchants of the Quraysh tribe.
He lead a band of 300 men to raid a caravan and again killed 70 Quraysh merchants in Badr. Then followed up to slaughter much of the Quraysh army when it came to defend them.
At the Battle at the Trench, he had Al Nadr ibn al Harith killed for having the nerve to say he could tell better stories than Mohammed. Mohammed rejoiced when they threw his head at Mohammed's feet. In fact, a number of the victims of Badr were decapitated, bodies hacked to pieces after death, etc..
At this point, Mohammed entered a treaty with the Quraysh at Haduybiyeh. (Arafat y"sh compared Oslo to this treaty on a number of occasions). Mohammed violates the treaty less than two years later to attack and conquer Mecca.
Mohammed sent people to kill Asma bint Marwana for writing verse in protest to what he did in Badr. But not after pulling her infant off her brest and hacking it to peices, making her watch them kill her other three children, and raping her. The Prophet's words "You have done a service to A-llah and his messenger; her life was not worth even two goats!"
A month later he had an ancient poet killed (Abu Afak, said to be older than 100) for his protest.
Now we get to his love of Jews. He laid seige to the Jews of Banu Qaynuqa for 15 days. When the starving survivors surrendered, he tried to initiate a massacre. The Jews' ally Abdallah ibn Ubayy forcibly stopped him. Their property was seized, and the prettier women taken as sex slaves.
Mohammed organized at least 86 violent ventures, 26 of which he lead himself.
And this is from Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul All-ah (Ibn Ishaq died about 130yr after M), not an outsider's version of their history.
Fortunately, most contemporary Moslems are "Reform". The problem is, 10-15% of 1.22bn people still comes to 122mm people who are willing to kill or support those who do.
Although not completely on topic, I wanted to know what other people felt about the following: Every time there is a bombing or terrorist attack in Israel, the world, including America tells the Israelis to use restraint, come back to the table to hold peace talks etc, whereas as soon as there is a bombing on American soil, there are no calls from the American president to show restraint, or lets engage in peace talks. The only thing that he says is we will go to the end of the earth to stop these terrorists, we will not leave one stone unturned etc. Do others also find this absolutely hypocritical or do you see clear differences? And if others also find this hypocritical, why have there been no articles highlighting this point? I think it would would make an interesting article for the New York Times if someone digged up all the responses from Obama to terrorist attacks in Israel and compared them to his response to Boston.
Rabbi Eidensohn,I really resent you censoring my comments,either you delete it completely as it is your prerogative and right,or leave it the way i wrote it,why censor? i expected this from the Hamodia or Yated but not from you CH.S
Browswer there was no justification for your slanderous attack against another commentator. But I agree that in the future I will not try to edit your comments and will simply completely delete them if they have any objectionable material
"A very influential and widely viewed imam named Safwat Hegazy has consecrated Aztec-like ritual human sacrifice of a Shia cleric named Yasar Habib. Hegazy justified his desire by referencing the Islamic story of Khalid Abdullah al-Kasri, who seized one Jaad bin Durham, dragged him to a mosque, sacrificed him, and then crucified him:
Hegazy is not some obscure character; he was the one who in fact launched Mohammad Mursi’s campaign in 2012.
He quoted the proclamation of al-Kasri before he committed the slaughter:
'O people, sacrifice, Allah accepted your sacrifices. I am now sacrificing Jaad bin Durham.'
He killed him on the Festival of Sacrifice, 119 A.H., and established that it was permissible for a Muslim to conduct human sacrifices on this holiday."
I am puzzled by your choice in this posting. You could have put up Sefer Torat Hamelech to demonstrate the same points about Judaism and followed it with Eidah Charedis denunciations of how the Zionist Israeli state engages in violent abuse of non-Jews.
ReplyDeleteAs everyone knows,Islam, Christianity, and Judaism have complex and ambiguous texts and doctrines. The proof of the pudding is in actions. Some practitioners are humane and others use their religions in abusive racist terroristic ways. To argue that Islam is especially bad ignores the fact that for most of the last 1400 years, Christians were much worse for Jews than Muslims. The refugees of the Spanish and Portugese persecutions knew what they were doing when most of them headed for the Muslim world.
I am puzzled by your puzzlement. Simple question - when there is a terrorist attack anywhere in the world - does the thought occur to you -"Maybe it is a Jew or Christian?"
DeleteTo argue that 1400 years ago it might have been different is true but irrelevant. It ignores the fact of the consistency that or the reality today. Your point is that in the absolute sense Islam does not have to justity terrorism because most Muslims are not terrorism nor were they in the past. However since significant numbers read it differently - esepcially those that end up as terrorist - it makes no sense to ignore that reality because of the way it used to be.
In short, Islam today apparently is "the" source for terrorists that justifies their terrorism. Comparing blowing up people to burning trash cans in Meah Shearim is a bit much. The issue is whether the terrorists understanding of Islam is the source of their crimes against humanity or not. Furthermore is that understanding there or are they reading into texts ideas that aren't there and were never understood that way before by religious authorities.
Oh really? I wasn't aware of the Edah Charedis setting off bombs in time square or planting "underwear bombs" on planes. Get real, Lopin. And no one uses a military manual (you mentioned Torat Hamelech) for civilian life. But Muslims do use the Koran for everyday life, and it is speaking about everyday life not just national wars. Afterall, the dar al Harb vs. Dar al Islam system requires war against ALL places that are not Islamic in order to convert them to dar al islam.
Delete@Yerachmiel,
DeleteYour comments demonstrate the confused moral relativism and liberalism prevalent among many Modern Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews today.
Yes, Christians have terribly persecuted Jews in the past, but they are not waging any “holy wars" now against the Jews that I’m aware of. On the contrary, many American Christians have treated the Jews decently, despite the promotion of atheist-liberal-anti-Bible agendas by some Jews.
At this time Jews are facing their greatest enemy of all time - Islam. Regrettably our (presumably) Christian friend who produced the video here demonstrates much more seichel (intelligence) than many Jews who are infected with PC moral relativism.
“NO GREATER ENEMY HAS THREATENED US, AND NO NATION HAS DONE MORE TO SUBJUGATE AND HUMILIATE US ... KING DAVID SAW THROUGH RUACH HAKODESH ALL THE TROUBLES SLATED FOR ISRAEL, BEGAN TO WAIL AND LAMENT THE WICKED ISHMAELITE NATION ... ‘WOE IS ME, THAT I SOJOURN WITH MESHECH, THAT I DWELL BESIDE THE TENTS OF KEDAR!’ (TEHILLIM 120:5) ...THE PSYCHOPATH MOHAMMED WAS DESCENDED FROM KEDAR ... DANIEL ONLY MENTIONED OUR HUMILIATION AND SERVITUDE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE ISHMAELITE KINGDOM, MAY IT SOON BE CRUSHED … WE ARE STILL SUFFERING THEIR ENSLAVEMENT, PERFIDY, AND LIES, WHICH SURPASS THE BOUNDS OF HUMAN ENDURANCE.”
(Rambam, Iggeret Teiman, 12th century C.E.)
Sahih Bukhari Book 52. Fighting for the Cause of Allah (Jihaad)
Narated By Abu Huraira : Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."
( http://www.hadithcollection.com/sahihbukhari/85/3715-sahih-bukhari-volume-004-book-052-hadith-number-177.html )
thumbs up for Yerachmiel.
DeleteIn judaism, there is still a mitzwa to kill amalek wherever you find them. If they want to take that up for propaganda, they could state that judaism is a pro-genocide religion, one of the few that enshrines genocide as a religious duty.
Yerachmiel: The difference is that Torat haMelekh got soundly condemned and has no circulation. You are comparing 10-15% of the population with the kind of extreme fringe any community will have? And... a fringe created by years of being attacked, defending ourselves, and watching friends die?
DeleteRemark: Yes, someone could point to an obligation to commit genocide on an ethnic group that hasn't existed for 2,500 years. Similarly, Yehoshua and Shofetim are pretty bloody. That shouldn't convince anyone of what Judaism is like today, but given antisemitism, some would buy it.
Between ourselves and other non-antisemites, the reason why the application of these laws died out in practice is that we no longer live among people with warring tribe kill-them-all psychologies. Living among the Canaanites was living among barbarians where taking a position of brutal warfare was the only language they understood; and getting them to fear us was the only way to prevent far more killing. When such populations do crop up in modern times, we deem the Nazis "Amaleiq" and apply the mitzvah to them. Not very brutal, a law to kill out people trying to commit genocide on you. After all, the original genetic Amaleiq declared an oath of genocide on us first, before we got that mitzvah.
@Micha - "Torat haMelekh got soundly condemned and has no circulation":
DeleteI have never learned Torat HaMelekh, nor do I know if condemning it was justified in any way.
However, YoelB's post below has a link to videos on PJmedia.com. Those videos claim that Muslims are taught to eat human infidels, and one video shows Arab Muslims allegedly eating the body parts of Jewish soldiers.
So in view of those videos, why should Jews condemn Torat HaMelekh like knee jerk liberals simply because the book may advocate harsh military action against cannibalistic Arab Muslim enemies in Israel?
The visceral hatred for Torat Hamelech is astounding. It is clearly driven by exile mentality and psychological complexes which are too complicated and beyond my expertise to address. That text has also been slandered and portrayed dishonestly in the antisemitic media such as failed messiah, so this adds to the negative perception and group-think condemnation surrounding it.
DeleteBut the book itself - It is NOT a call to Jewish form of jihad against arab civilians. It is NOT a call for Jewish civilians to commit any act at all or to do anything. It examines the question of Jewish army operating procedures and how to deal with carrying out military operation on a place such as Gaza when in addition to genocidal terrorists, there are mixed among them "civilians" that harbor them, "civilians" that support them wholeheartedly, and of course, plain old civilians. Some of you act like Rabbis shouldn't even consider this question. Or that Jewish law or the Torah should not even be considered when deciding how the IDF conducts itself. And yet many of you are quite observant and feel that Torah has a say in every other aspect of life. (And humorously, many of you also desperately want to see more haredim in the army... You think their rabbis won't start having something to say about army conduct once their own boys are filling the ranks?!) Ever stop to consider or ask yourself why it is that you feel that way about that one particular subject?
In any case, the idea of Torah or rabbinic law playing a role in determining the operating procedures of a Jewish army, as explored in Torat Hamelech, is an alternative to the suicidal "Purity of Arms" doctrine currently in place which governs the operating procedure of the IDF and unnecessarily puts the lives of our soldiers at risk for the sake of protecting the enemy and its so-called civilians. Do you realize how many IDF soldiers have been killed because of this insane policy? It is a system based not on Torah or Jewish tradition, or Talmud or Rabbinic law, but rather a warped system of mercy-ethics cooked up by the twisted minds of secular and self-hating "ethicists" who are absolutely consumed by the galus mentality. A system that handcuffed us in Lebanon resulting in countless deaths. A system that is even more strict than UN guidelines on combat. A system that is more strict than any employed by any other country that fights wars because other countries don't want to see their own soldiers die and don't try to create pointless and absurd PR campaigns saying how "moral" their army is.
The people who support this system get some sick twisted satisfaction about telling the world "We are the most moral army in the world" - which of course is an absolute joke because it is IMMORAL to endanger the lives of your own troops, and of course also because not one other country in the world believes this claim! So their entire exercise is in vain, in addition to being groundless and self-defeating.
Now a newsflash - Every single country in the world that goes to war utilizes policies similar to what is discussed in Torat Hamelech (except Israel) in combat with other countries and/or against terrorists. Russia. The United States. All of them.
There is absolutely no comparison with the religion of Islam or the jihadi preachers and practitioners who have attacked Jews and westerners countless times. Those Jews who equate these completely different things are so desperate to self-flagellate that they fail to see reality. You are so afraid of acknowledging that some group of people might be adhering to a modern-day equivalent of nazi ideology that you convince yourself "it must be that they are really not that bad, and in fact, we are truly nazi-like deep down on the inside - so everyone is equal" in order to escape that uncomfortable reality. When you try to convince others of your idiotic views, it is beyond nutty - it's downright fraud.
Remark said:
Delete"In judaism, there is still a mitzwa to kill amalek wherever you find them. If they want to take that up for propaganda, they could state that judaism is a pro-genocide religion, one of the few that enshrines genocide as a religious duty."
Remark, your comment fails to address reality. Jews are not carrying out genocide. Not against anyone. And yet, what behavior are Muslims exhibiting?
No matter what the Torah says about Amalek. Jews follow Judaism, which goes by the Talmud and rabbis and how they interpret the Torah. You can't make up your own interpretation and then say as "propaganda" that Jews follow your interpretation because that's not what happens in reality. Jews follow the Jewish legal system. Lehavdil, Muslims follow theirs. They follow Islam. And Islam is what the hadith says it is.
As for "propaganda" about religions - no one is trying to "score points" on other religions here and say how much better this or that thing is because of flaw x y z. Obviously we follow Judaism here so we don't need to convince ourselves about which religion, and we have no need to denigrate Islam. The point of this whole discussion is that due to the content of Islam and the behavior of Muslims, it is a threat and needs to be treated as such. Because they carry out what their religion calls for - and the vast following for al qaeda and like-minded groups is due to the fact that what they preach has backing in those sources.
Why do you think that Judaism being a "pro-genocide" religion in your opinion makes us all equivalent and therefore Muslims are not a threat and their religion not jihadist? Do you honestly believe that?
Apart from genocide, there are also other avenues that could open judaism for terrorism, e.g. "din rodef" taken in too large a meaning, which was the paragraph that allowed some crazy rabbonim to convince Yigal Amir to shoot Itzhak Rabin.
DeleteI'm just saying, like Yerahmiel, that texts are flexible and you can make them say whatever you want.
I don't think that militant djihadist are more than 10% of moslems. Actually, I think they are far less than 1%. But since there are more moslems in the world than jews, this represents a larger number.
But Amir wasn't "jihadist" in the sense of what we're talking about here. He killed rabin for a specific reason (oslo policy) and didn't attack the public. You may not like that, but that's what happened - not a jihad attack against infidels. And no, rabbis did not convince him, despite the attempts to slander the religious public which have been proven false now. But it may have been Avishai Raviv, agent "Champagne" who was hired by Rabin himself, who played a major role in convincing him. This was established in court!
DeleteI still don't get your point, even if what you claimed about Amir was true. Even if we pretend he was a Jewish "jihadi." Why does that make Islam and Judaism equal in your mind and therefore Islam and Muslims not a threat? Do you comprehend how many hundreds of jihad attacks there have been, and how widespread support is for these attacks throughout the middle east and on social media, and you are taking one guy from 10 years ago doing a completely different act and saying, well that wipes out all that stuff because there are less Jews in the world. Really?
RDE: On the question of whether it was never understood that way before by religious authorities, the answer to that question is painfully obvious. The Hadith (which is like the "oral law" lehavdil of Islam) abrogated most of the peaceful verses, and the reason Rambam's family had to flee Spain was because of the interpretation of Islam by the Almohad dynasty and others which swept across the middle east including North Africa Morocco Yemen, etc where Rambam speaks about communities in great peril facing beheadings, forced conversions and so on. The same reading of the religion present then is present today because the hadith is binding. It's a traditionalist religion which has canonized the interpretations from that earlier period. So those who try to turn Islam peaceful or present it as such are basically Islamic versions of Abraham Geiger, or simply lying. Perhaps many Muslims are perfectly fine with a Reformist version of their faith, but it doesn't make it "true Islam" - it's something else, and there will probably always be some core of 'true believers' who want the old time religion.
ReplyDeleteThis was sad but in a way Jewish People go through the very same issues. The Jews are at the forefront of all things liberal. People look at me and say to me that they know that since I am a Jew I support gay marriage and abortion.Great.I get blamed for what these liberals do despite the fact that I am 200% against the liberals. I don't blame non-Jews.The Jewish Daily Forward ran a headline over Shabbat "Orthodox Slumlords".I am not a slumlord.I am not rich.I have never harmed people but like this man I am the victim of prejudice.Most of it is spread by publications such as the Jewish Daily Forward.The man in the video has a bit more mazal.Anti-Muslim hate is not spread by Muslims.
ReplyDeleteLogically, even if 100% of terrorists were Muslims, it would not tell us anything about what percentage of Muslims are terrorists, and therefore we cannot draw any conclusions (from that fact alone, leaving aside polemics about what the Koran says) about whether or not Islam is a "religion of peace".
ReplyDeleteBut that's on a theoretical plane. The relevant practical question is not whether Islam is a "religion of peace", but when we want to preempt or defend ourselves against terrorism, who are the most likely suspects? And the answer there, PC or not, is Muslims. When you're running airport security, ferinstance, and you're scanning the crowd for people who are more likely than others to be carrying explosives, you've got to give more attention to Mo, rather than the old granny in the wheelchair. (Not that you should ignore everyone who's not obviously Muslim; terrorists can disguise themselves.) Likewise, when you're on the trail of the Boston bombing suspects, the odds are at least 10:1 it's a Muslim behind it, so your investigation should start with that presumption.
how about another posting on the corrupt rabbanut?
ReplyDeletehttp://daattorah.blogspot.co.il/2013/04/haifas-chief-rabbi-police-say-to-indict.html
These are the "tzaddikim" falsely claiming the gittin of rav gestetner and rav abraham don't follow halocho. How do you explain all of this rabbi michael tzaddok? what a sick joke!
While in general we should hold innocent until proven guilty this is not the case with dayonim. They need not only to be just bust appear to be just.
You seemed to have confused a city Rabbi with the Israeli Rabbinut. YOu also seem to have confused Rabbi Shlush with HaRav Shlomo Amar.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWhile US Vice President Joe Biden says that he will not allow Jonathan Pollard to be released "over his dead body" and now it is revealed that the FBI knew about the Boston bombers and their links to radical Islam in Chechniya and received strong information that they were connected to Chechen Jihadists -- in the meantime, Joe Biden and the FBI and their boss Barack HUSSEIN Obama, and US Sec of Sate SPINMEISTER John Kerry (From the land of Boston himself) are fast asleep at the wheel and get caught with their pants down while innocent Americans, joggers and spectators are blown to smithereens now in Boston it could be anywhere else the next day. When the US ambassador in Benghazi Libya was murdered, Obama and Hillary Clinton could cover up, it was far away, but Boston is right in the core of the USA.
ReplyDeleteThis is reminiscent of the FBI hunting down what they thought were the "dangerous" JDL and (with the help of the Israelis) monitering the late Rav Meir Kahane HY"D while at the same time they were blissfully ignoring the REAL threat of the Islamic terrorists who were planning to blow up NYC landmarks and bombing the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 by the same killers of Kahane who was assassinated (on 5 November, 1990) by one of the same Islamic thugs that blew up the WTC. Kahane Z"L became the first victim of the Islamic Jihad in America.
Likewise, George W. Bush was so busy coddling up to the oil rich Saudis letting their Wahabi acolytes infiltrate into the USA that they forget to note that the Wahabi's had affiliated members, such as Bin Ladin, with a Jihadist agenda to destroy America.
And it was all very nice that Ronald Reagan in his anti-Communist obsessions armed the Jihadist Mujahadin to the teeth to kick the Russians out of Afghanistan, but then forgot to "turn off the switch" -- many were recruited from mosques in America, and then turned their guns and bombs on their American hosts.
What about Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski his National Security Advissoer who were so obsessed about fight the atheist communists and thereby ushered the "better" Ayatolas into Iran, and then were also caught red-handed with their pants down as America was humiliated by the Islamists they helped bring to power.
For the West to try to make a deal with Islam is IMPOSSIBLE, it can never be done. There can be arrangements that some Islamic rulers or states turn for help from ANY source that will help THEIR CAUSES, but Muslims do not and cannot come to the "help" of anyone else because they are an absolutist watertight religion with a "take no prisoners" ideology -- either one converts to Islam or its death to the infidels. The moderates have long lost their sway (or heads)!!! They use Jews or anyone if it suits them. Even Mohamed first used the Jews in his day (they were the majority in the Saudi Arabian peninsula in some place, especially in Mecca and Medina -- having fled their from the times of the Churban Bayis Rishon and continued escaping from Rome. Jews had communities and armies there, but Mohamed used deception to first trick them then to eithe forcibly convert them or kill them. Mohamed even had a Jewish wife who was his favorite.)
And nothing has changed, just the people in the West are fools and naive. They think everyone in the world thinks like Westerners. No one can see how radical Islam is following in the footsteps of early Nazism, in fact Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS founded the Nazi units in Bosnia to fight the Allies and he saw a great opportunity in Muslims willing to die for their cause based on an ABSOLUTIST RELIGION as helping in the same goals that the Nazis wanted-- elimination of world Jewry and conquest of the West..
This is a great problem that has yet to be understood.
To those wondering about the percentage of Muslims that are against Jihad, I challenge you to provide me 1 credible instance of Muslims protesting Jihad violence.
ReplyDeleteWhere were the myriads of Muslims falling over themselves to condemn 9/11?/ Silence
Where were the Muslims now protesting the Boston Marathon slaughter. Birds chirping and complete silence.
This proves that the vast majority supports the violent approach.
The Torah tells us that in the end of days Eisuv and Yishmael will unite to combat us and that is exactly what is happening in America with the total denial of Islamic violence.
May Hashem yisborach save us all from chevlay moshiach.
My impression is that there are far more Muslims who accuse that 9/11 was done by the Mossad, zionists, tha joooz, or some other conspiracy and blamed on Muslims, than the number who simply stand up and say, that was evil and the people who did it were evil muslims. However, you will find people like the former also! It just happens to be IMO they are Islamic Abraham Geigers. But in my opinion, the number or percentage of Muslims who protest or disagree with 9/11 is largely irrelevant to a much bigger problem at large, as alluded to by RAP.
Delete1 of 2: It's Al Qaida stupid!
ReplyDeleteThe fanatical Islamic Jihadist global Al Qaida movement, using all its cunning and resources and Muslims willing to die for it, is directly responsible for the Boston bombing just as it was responsible for the 9/11 bombings and other bombings in Madrid, London, Moscow, Bali, Israel, all over.
If one follows the links and connects the dots from some articles on Wikipedia, you don't have to be the FBI to know it's Al Qaida.
See this trail, it's simple: the main Boston bomber/jihadist Tamerlan Tsarnaev (an ethnic Chechen Islamist) --> is recruited by someone in Boston/perhaps family, working for --> Imarat Kavkaz that's run by arch-jihadist terrorist --> Dokka Umarov --> affiliated with the main Al Qaida that was founded by Osama bin Laden:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzhokhar_and_Tamerlan_Tsarnaev#2011.E2.80.93present :
"Tamerlan Tsarnaev - 2011–present: In early 2011, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) domestic intelligence security agency told the FBI that Tamerlan was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer, and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups. The FBI said in a news release that it had been informed by a foreign government that he had prepared to travel to the Russian region to join unspecified underground groups...
Tamerlan traveled to Russia in January 2012. During the six months he was overseas, he visited the North Caucasus, including Dagestan and Chechnya, an area of separatist movements, ethnic rivalries, extremist Islamic ideology, and a "hotbed" of militant Islamic activity. House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul said he believed Tamerlan received training during the trip, and radicalized. His activities during this time remain unclear.
Upon his return to the United States that July, he had grown a long, thick beard. His life took on an "increasingly puritanical religious tone" with "Islamist certainty." He appeared, to some family members, to become an "extremist." He appeared to have been unemployed.
After he came back, he created a YouTube channel with playlist links to two videos which were tagged under a category labeled "Terrorists"; the videos were later deleted. CNN and the SITE Institute found a screen grab of one of the videos, which featured members of the militant Islamist group Imarat Kavkaz, from the north Caucasus, which includes Chechnya and Dagestan. He had Jihadi videos posted to his YouTube account, including ones by a radical cleric and a Syrian jihadist video posted on April 9, 2013; in one video, voices can be heard singing in Arabic as bombs explode. He recently also shared videos of lectures from a radical Islamic cleric...."
Indeed, the radical cleric he promoted on his youtube site is said to be Australian former boxer, Feiz Mohamed.
Delete2 of 2: It's Al Qaida stupid!
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasus_Emirate:
"Imarat Kavkaz = Caucasus Emirate...a self-proclaimed virtual state entity, partially successor to the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and was officially announced on October 31, 2007 by former President of Ichkeria Dokka Umarov, who became the first Emir. Its military branch is the Caucasian Front organization. Both the Russian Federation and the United States have designated the Caucasus Emirate as a terrorist organisation. The United States government has offered US $5 million for information leading to the capture of the group's leader Dokka Umarov. On July 29, 2011 the United Nations Security Council Al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee added the Caucasus Emirate to the list of entities associated with Al-Qaeda...."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dokka_Umarov
"Dokka Umarov: (born 13 April 1964) is a Chechen Islamist militant in Russia. He is responsible for numerous attacks on civilians, earning himself the nickname "Russia's Osama Bin Laden" ...
He subsequently became the self-proclaimed Emir of the Russian North Caucasus, declaring it an Islamic state of the Caucasus Emirate. He is currently wanted by Russia for the crimes of kidnapping, homicide and treason. He is one of the major rebel leaders in Russia and has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks, including the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings and the 2011 Domodedovo International Airport bombing. The attacks killed 40 and 36 civilians respectively, and injured hundreds....
On 10 March 2011, the United Nations Security Council Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee added Umarov to the list of individuals associated with Al-Qaeda..."
Oh, and the bombing took place on April 15 which just so also happened to be Yom Ha'atzmaut in Israel...in the home state of the new US Secretary of State John Kerry who just so happens to have been the long-time Senator from Massachusetts with Boston its biggest and best city...
I believe the first video is 100% correct.
ReplyDeleteLook at Jews for a minute. There are 12-15 million Jews in the world more or less. How many are Shomer Shabbos? Maybe 3 million. Since the majority are not Shomer Shabbos, does that mean that the Torah does not endorse Shmiras Shabbos?
Just like with Judaism, we have centuries of precedent with Islam. It has been true throughout history that according to the quran non-muslims are chayiv missah! No chiddush here.
Mohammed starts his violent career by killing 4 unarmed merchants of the Quraysh tribe.
ReplyDeleteHe lead a band of 300 men to raid a caravan and again killed 70 Quraysh merchants in Badr. Then followed up to slaughter much of the Quraysh army when it came to defend them.
At the Battle at the Trench, he had Al Nadr ibn al Harith killed for having the nerve to say he could tell better stories than Mohammed. Mohammed rejoiced when they threw his head at Mohammed's feet. In fact, a number of the victims of Badr were decapitated, bodies hacked to pieces after death, etc..
At this point, Mohammed entered a treaty with the Quraysh at Haduybiyeh. (Arafat y"sh compared Oslo to this treaty on a number of occasions). Mohammed violates the treaty less than two years later to attack and conquer Mecca.
Mohammed sent people to kill Asma bint Marwana for writing verse in protest to what he did in Badr. But not after pulling her infant off her brest and hacking it to peices, making her watch them kill her other three children, and raping her. The Prophet's words "You have done a service to A-llah and his messenger; her life was not worth even two goats!"
A month later he had an ancient poet killed (Abu Afak, said to be older than 100) for his protest.
Now we get to his love of Jews. He laid seige to the Jews of Banu Qaynuqa for 15 days. When the starving survivors surrendered, he tried to initiate a massacre. The Jews' ally Abdallah ibn Ubayy forcibly stopped him. Their property was seized, and the prettier women taken as sex slaves.
Mohammed organized at least 86 violent ventures, 26 of which he lead himself.
And this is from Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul All-ah (Ibn Ishaq died about 130yr after M), not an outsider's version of their history.
Fortunately, most contemporary Moslems are "Reform". The problem is, 10-15% of 1.22bn people still comes to 122mm people who are willing to kill or support those who do.
Although not completely on topic, I wanted to know what other people felt about the following: Every time there is a bombing or terrorist attack in Israel, the world, including America tells the Israelis to use restraint, come back to the table to hold peace talks etc, whereas as soon as there is a bombing on American soil, there are no calls from the American president to show restraint, or lets engage in peace talks. The only thing that he says is we will go to the end of the earth to stop these terrorists, we will not leave one stone unturned etc. Do others also find this absolutely hypocritical or do you see clear differences? And if others also find this hypocritical, why have there been no articles highlighting this point? I think it would would make an interesting article for the New York Times if someone digged up all the responses from Obama to terrorist attacks in Israel and compared them to his response to Boston.
ReplyDeleteRabbi Eidensohn,I really resent you censoring my comments,either you delete it completely as it is your prerogative and right,or leave it the way i wrote it,why censor? i expected this from the Hamodia or Yated but not from you
ReplyDeleteCH.S
Browswer there was no justification for your slanderous attack against another commentator. But I agree that in the future I will not try to edit your comments and will simply completely delete them if they have any objectionable material
DeleteHere's an excerpt from an important article:
ReplyDelete"A very influential and widely viewed imam named Safwat Hegazy has consecrated Aztec-like ritual human sacrifice of a Shia cleric named Yasar Habib. Hegazy justified his desire by referencing the Islamic story of Khalid Abdullah al-Kasri, who seized one Jaad bin Durham, dragged him to a mosque, sacrificed him, and then crucified him:
Hegazy is not some obscure character; he was the one who in fact launched Mohammad Mursi’s campaign in 2012.
He quoted the proclamation of al-Kasri before he committed the slaughter:
'O people, sacrifice, Allah accepted your sacrifices. I am now sacrificing Jaad bin Durham.'
He killed him on the Festival of Sacrifice, 119 A.H., and established that it was permissible for a Muslim to conduct human sacrifices on this holiday."
http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/04/22/the-tsarnaev-brothers-and-the-coming-savage-empire-of-islam/
Note: horrible, graphic violence in embedded videos
America is getting tired of political correctness. http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/04/did_bill_maher_just_trump_bush_on_islam.html
ReplyDeleteMuslims are violent towards non-Muslims, Jews especially, in direct proportion to the Muslims' adherence to the letter of the Koran and Sharia law.
ReplyDeleteHere's an explanation centering around collective punishment for dhimmis:
Deletehttp://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/islams-collective-punishment-of-christians/