{"id":442,"date":"2011-11-10T20:41:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-10T20:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/11\/some-thoughts-about-islam-and-the-israeli-arab-conflict.html"},"modified":"2011-11-10T20:41:00","modified_gmt":"2011-11-10T20:41:00","slug":"some-thoughts-about-islam-and-the-israeli-arab-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/11\/some-thoughts-about-islam-and-the-israeli-arab-conflict.html","title":{"rendered":"Some Thoughts About Islam (And The Israeli-Arab Conflict)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

These days, it seems that most critiques of the Islamic world come from American and European wingnuts.\u00a0 Pamela Geller literally makes my skin crawl with her imbecilic bombast about a Sharia takeover of the U.S. and the dangers of a mosque near Ground Zero.\u00a0 David Horowitz hypocritically names his anti-Islamic organization \u201cThe Freedom Center\u201d while he endorses a U.S. constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.\u00a0 And don\u2019t get me started on the fundamentalist Christian right and their ongoing religious war with Islam.\u00a0 Up until now it is these folks and their knuckle-dragging followers who have shouted the loudest about the problems with Islam.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s a damn shame.\u00a0 Because in their own clumsy and inept ways, they are actually circling around the truth.<\/p>\n

I say it\u2019s time to wrest this issue away from these cartoon characters and hand it over to more enlightened spokespeople.\u00a0 Fortunately, there is a reasonable and educated group of thinkers that is also quite critical of the current trends in Islam:\u00a0 Atheists.<\/p>\n

Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens have been particularly vocal about the rising danger of Islam.\u00a0 For their efforts, they have often been tagged as \u201cIslamaphobic,\u201d a charge of irrational hatred of Islam.<\/p>\n

There is no question that Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones and the above-mentioned Ms. Geller can look pretty irrational when they take on Islam.\u00a0 But as my mom used to say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.\u00a0 The Islamic world is, indeed, a real threat to peace and progress.<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s women, Jews, freedom of expression, science, alternative sexualities or pretty much any modern enlightened western value, Muslims around the world are increasingly against it.\u00a0 Against it in the sense that they\u2019ll burn it down, stone it, repress it and slaughter it.<\/p>\n

And yet many of my fellow liberals who are quick to join me in blasting American Christian religious extremists like Pat Robertson or Michele Bachmann, somehow draw the line when it comes to the far scarier, far more incendiary Islamic religious extremists who rule the Muslim world.<\/p>\n

This is never more true than in the case of Israel.\u00a0 On campuses and at protests around the world, pro-Palestinian leftists have no compunctions about making common cause with Hamas.\u00a0 HAMAS!\u00a0 If ever there was a repressive, homophobic, misogynist, antisemitic, anti-liberal regime, it is Hamas.\u00a0 And it\u2019s just one example in a vast and rising Islamic sea that, with very few exceptions, turns its back on human rights.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, I have long realized that the core of the problem is Arab\/Muslim antisemitism.\u00a0 The Islamic belief that all land that has ever been under Muslim rule is theirs forever and ever and ever is certainly a big part of this.\u00a0 However, it is grossly aggravated by the fact that in Israel\u2019s case, it is the Jews (\u201capes and pigs\u201d) who are living there.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I overstate the case when I point out that Palestinians, like most Arab (and other) Muslims, really, really, really hate the Jews.\u00a0 \u201cThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion\u201d is a still a great bestseller in Arabic and Farsi.\u00a0 Not too long ago, televised \u201cdramatizations\u201d of that horrid book were produced in Egypt and Lebanon and screened throughout the Arab world.<\/p>\n

This is no mere spinoff of the Israeli-Arab conflict.\u00a0 It is one of its root causes.\u00a0 The founder of modern Palestinian identity, Haj Amin Al-Husseini was an admirer of Hitler.\u00a0 When the Nuremberg Laws were passed, the Nazis received thousands of letters of congratulations from Arab Muslim admirers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hitler Meets With Al-Husseini<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

This rabid Jew-hatred continues today.\u00a0 Consider a tiny handful of examples.\u00a0 The official press of numerous Islamic nations frequently declare the Holocaust to be a fraud.\u00a0 This includes Israel\u2019s peace partners in Egypt and Jordan.\u00a0 Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas\u2019 own Ph.D. dissertation was a work of devastating Holocaust denial and anti-Jewish accusations of Nazi collaboration.\u00a0 A few years ago Raed Salah, head of the \u201cIslamic Movement\u201d in northern Israel, invoked the ancient blood libel accusing Jews of using the blood of non-Jewish children to make matzas.\u00a0 A Saudi Arabian academic begged to differ.\u00a0 He said that the blood is for Purim pastries.\u00a0 I\u2019ve barely scratched the surface.\u00a0 For more information, see here<\/a> and here<\/a> and here<\/a> and here<\/a> and even here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And please don\u2019t compare any of this to the anti-Arab antics of some Israeli extremists.\u00a0 Israelis have condemned them, arrested them and pulled their writings from circulation.\u00a0 In cases where officials have not interceded, the Israeli press and public have been up in arms.\u00a0 That\u2019s because most Israelis possess basic human decency, something rarely displayed by Muslim antisemites.<\/p>\n

If the past half decade of Islamic rule in Gaza has taught us anything, it is that Israel is up against a monstrous enemy that wants nothing more than its complete destruction.<\/p>\n

I began this post by pointing out how we need to take leadership on this issue away from the histrionic right-wing.\u00a0 Too many liberals are slaves to political correctness, even when it\u2019s not justified.\u00a0 In the case of the Islamic world, it most certainly is not.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to be writing about Islamic hatred and intolerance more frequently.\u00a0 Another atheist who is already speaking out is famous YouTube monologuist Pat Condell.<\/p>\n

Here are two of his best videos.\u00a0 Both are about Israel and the Palestinians. \u00a0I agree with every word. \u00a0Like him, I\u2019ll probably also receive a lot of flack about this post.<\/p>\n