The American Muslim (TAM)

The big lie about Muslim exceptionalism - updated 5/27/13

Sheila Musaji
Posted May 27, 2013 •Permalink • Printer-Friendly Version

The big lie about Muslim exceptionalism

by Sheila Musaji

This article originally published 1/4/2013, it is being re-published now as it is relevant to current events.

In a recent article article, Pamela Geller lambasted Jewish and Christian Clergy who participated with Muslims in posting a “Love Your Neighbor” ad. We have already dealt with that article HERE. However in that article were a couple of points relevant to this discussion of the Islamophobes attempting to present Muslims as “exceptional” in the sense of different, other, not like us, in a category by themselves.

... How silly. All decent and rational human beings love love. These self-righteous nudniks are standing with those who are oppressing and subjugating their brothers and sisters. Why aren’t these voices of love speaking out against the vile Islamic Jew-hatred that inspires the war against the tiny Jewish state? Why aren’t these voices of love speaking out against the systematic extermination of Christians in Muslim lands? Why aren’t these voices of love condemning the slaughter of Buddhists in Thailand? Hindus in Pakistan? No, instead they provide cover for the most brutal and extreme ideology on the face of the Earth, and further obfuscate the most lethal threat the free world faces. “Love Thy Neighbor.” Gotta love it. There is no golden rule in Islam, clowns. This moral equivocation completely ignores the facts on the ground. Jews and Christians are simply not murdering people and justifying the murders by quoting their Scriptures. The violence in the Bible is descriptive, while the Quran’s violence is prescriptive. The fantasy these quislings are advancing is at odds with reality and the rivers of bloodshed in the cause of Islam. Never do we see Jews slaughtering in the name of HaShem or Christians in the name of Jesus Christ. ... Sept. 11 was hate. March 11 in Madrid was hate. July 7 in London was hate. The Fort Hood jihadi was hate. The Christmas underwear bomber was hate. The Fort Dix Six was hate. Pushing back against such hate is not hate. ... “

Her partner Robert Spencer published an article adding to Geller’s moral indignation about “Why aren’t these voices of love speaking out against” Muslim crimes. Spencer gives an example of a bombing in Libya and says

“And yet there are people in the world who focus their moral indignation not on the perpetrators of acts such as these, but on those who dare to call attention to them and to the ideology that inspires them. This is a monstrous moral evil. It must not prevail.”

I said in an article some years ago Muslim Violence, Christian Non-Violence: People in Glass Houses Should Not Throw Words :

“Let’s consider the premise that “violence is not the norm” in Christianity. How to measure something like this is tricky, but this was certainly not true throughout large portions of history. Whether it is true today is arguable. One look at our our cities, our schools, or even our homes, and violence by Christians, and every other group, is apparent.

Since 9/11, there has been a rise in hate crimes against minority groups, and the aggressors often identify themselves and their motives as being Christian. Looking at the bigger picture, what country is the primary supplier of weapons to the rest of the world? Hint: it is not a Muslim country. What country has the highest military expenditures per capita of any country on earth? See previous hint. Which country has proposed bombing other countries into the stone age? The answer to all three is the US, which no one would identify as a Muslim country. Those who developed and dropped the atom bomb were a multicultural group—but none were Muslim. Looking outside the US, where have arguable violent and repressive systems like fascism, communism, and Naziism been produced? Not in Muslim countries. Was it Muslims who carried out the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides? Are the Italian and Russian mafias Muslim? Are the South American drug cartels Muslims? Who talks about sanctions, pre-emptive strikes, invasions? Who allows the torture of Muslims in various secret and not-so-secret prisons.

So, the idea that ALL or even MOST violence or terrorism is carried out by Muslims is laughable. All these examples show, as would a simple glance at any collection of court-documents, that there is an unfortunately common occurrence of violence today, and it does not all involve Muslims (not even close). By population, violence is an aberration found in EVERY group.

“In the first half of the decade, from 1990 to 1995, 70 international states were involved in 93 wars which killed five and a half million people.(5) Most of the casualties were civilians, noncombatants. At the beginning of this century, most of the war casualties were military (85-90%). In World War II more than half of all war deaths were noncombatants. Today, at the end of the twentieth century, more than three-fourths of all war deaths are civilians.(6)” (Source) Were any Christians involved in these wars? Of course.

Jesus may have asked his followers to lay down their lives for others and to concern themselves with the heavenly kingdom and not to fight with the sword — but the reality of the last 2,000 years has not been typified by such actual behavior except in the case of small groups like the Amish and the Quakers. More typical have been clergy like Charles Stanley, “pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, whose weekly sermons are seen by millions of television viewers, led the charge with particular fervor. “We should offer to serve the war effort in any way possible,” said Mr. Stanley, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. “God battles with people who oppose him, who fight against him and his followers.” In an article carried by the convention’s Baptist Press news service, a missionary wrote that “American foreign policy and military might have opened an opportunity for the Gospel in the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” ...

Let’s look at just a few examples and see if it is possible for any sane person to make such statements and really believe them. Geller and Spencer, et al are fond of repeating lists of Muslim crimes and lists quotes from the Qur’an out of context, that they consider to be violent, perhaps they might consider other lists.

“The violence in the Bible is descriptive” and not prescriptive?

In the article The use and abuse of scriptures, I discussed this misleading and vicious tendency to compare “their” book and “our” book by extremists on all sides. That article discusses the misuse of many Biblical and Qur’anic quotes. Here are just a few quotes from the Bible that no one could call “descriptive and not prescriptive”.

“2 If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the Lord gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God in violation of his covenant, 3 and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky, 4 and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, 5 take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death. 6 On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. 7 The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting that person to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you.” Deuteronomy: 2-7

“Now go, attack the Amalekites, and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.” 1 Samuel 15:3

” When they came into the house, as he lay on his bed in his bedchamber, they smote him, and slew him, and beheaded him. They took his head, and went by the way of the Arabah all night, and brought the head of Ishbosheth to David at Hebron. And they said to the king, “Here is the head of Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life; the LORD has avenged my lord the king this day on Saul and on his offspring.” 2 Samuel 4:7

“at Jezreel by this time tommorrow…And when the letter came to them, they took the king’s sons, and slew them, seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets, and sent them to him at Jezreel. When the messenger came and told him, “They have brought the heads of the king’s sons,” he said, “Lay them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until the morning.”. (2 Kings Chapter 10 verse 6) “God has now fulfilled the prophecy of the prophet Elijah. So Jehu put to death all who were left of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, as well as all of his close friends and priests, until he had left not one single survivor.” (2 Kings Chapter 10 verse 10) “He put to death all of Ahab’s house, who were left there and so blotted it out, in fulfillment of the word which YAHWEH had spoken to Elijah.” (2 Kings Chapter 10 verse 7)

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you. And when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them.” (Deutronomy 7:1-2)

ѓI tell you that to everyone who has, more shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence.” (Luke 19:26-27)

“Do not think that I have come to send peace on earth. I did not come to send peace, but a sword. I am sent to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law” (Matthew 10:34-35)

I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.Ӕ (Exodus 23:27)

And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. At God’s instructions, the Israelites “utterly destroyed the men, women, and the little ones” leaving “none to remain.” 2:34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain. (Deuteronomy 2:33-36)

Joshua said to the people of Israel, “The Lord has given you the city of the all silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the Lord: They shall come into the treasury of the Lord. The people utterly DESTROYED ALL THAT WAS IN THE CITY, BOTH MAN AND WOMAN,YOUNG AND OLD, AND OX AND SHEEP, AND ASS, WITH THE EDGE OF THE SWORD.Ӕ (Joshua 6:21,23)

“And he should go and worship other gods and bow down to them or to the sun or the moon or all the army of the heavens, .....and you must stone such one with stones and such one must die.” Deuteronomy 17:3-5

“Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” (Romans 1:20-32)

“Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.” (Numbers 31:17-18)

In that article, I also said:

They Were Reading the Same Scriptures:

Father Damien of Molokai and Dr. Mengele were reading the same Bible.

Abdul Sattar Edhi and Saddam Hussein are reading the same Qur’an.

Adolph Hitler and Mother Theresa were reading the same Bible.

The Badshah Khan of Afghanistan who raised the first non-violent (of 100,000 men) army to oppose British rule in his country and worked closely with Gandhi was reading the same Quran as those who find the only solution to their problems in violence.

Paul Rusesabagina of Hotel Rwanda fame who rescued as many of his fellow countrymen as he could at great risk to his own life was reading the same Bible as those who massacred 800,000. (Sidenote: the Muslim population has doubled from 7% to 14% of the population of Rwanda since the massacre partly because the Muslims were not involved in the genocide)

The Bulgarian Christians and Muslims who protected Jews from the Nazis were reading the same Qur’an and Bible as those responsible for the genocide against the Jews in Europe.

Mohamed Chelali, the Algerian born Muslim who saved the life of Jacques Chirac by foiling an assassination attempt in 2002 was reading the same QurҒan as those who take the lives of their political enemies.

The Muslims who blew up the statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan were reading the same Qur’an as their ancestors have been reading for centuries, and as Mohammed Yassin Fattah who is working tirelessly to save and restore Hindu Temples near Calcutta

The Serbian Orthodox monks who saved Muslim lives during the genocide in Kosovo were reading the same Bible as those responsible for the genocide against the Muslims.

The Hamas members in Bethlehem who dressed up in Santa suits to give out presents to Christian orphans were reading the same Qur’an as those Muslims who attacked churches in Pakistan.

The Hindu man who rescued a Muslim family from a mob during the riots in Ahmenebad India was reading the same scriptures as those Hindus who killed Muslims at a mosque.

Anwar Khalifa and Rabbi Neil Katz of Texas who work together to help the needy through Habitat for Humanity are reading the same Quran and Torah as those who work for division and violence instead of for dialogue and peace.

Hamoud al-Hattar of YemenҒs Religious Dialogue group working against terrorism and violence is reading the same Quran as Osama bin Laden.

The list could go on and on. Human beings somehow find in their scriptures both the inspiration for greatness and the justification for evil.

Jews and Christians are simply not murdering people and justifying the murders by quoting their Scriptures. Never do we see Jews slaughtering in the name of HaShem or Christians in the name of Jesus Christ.

Here are just a few examples that prove that these statements are propaganda and lies:

— In Uganda, American Evangelical Christians have pressed for the death penalty for homosexuality on the basis of Leviticus 20:13. ** This law was endorsed by Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, which is a Christian lobbying group in the U.S. **
— In Uganda, The Lord’s Resistance Army, is a Christian terrorist guerrilla army engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government. It forces children to be child soldiers and has carried out crimes against humanity; including massacres, abductions, mutilation, torture, rape, and forced child labor as soldiers, porters, and sex slaves. A quasi-religious movement that mixes some aspects of Christian beliefs with its own brand of spiritualism, it is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the “Holy Spirit” which the Acholi believe can represent itself in many manifestations. LRA fighters wear rosary beads and recite passages from the Bible before battle. ** The NYT reports that “... Mr. Kony’s fighters wear rosary beads and recite passages from the Bible before battle. Kony says he is fighting to impose the Ten Commandments on Uganda.”
— The terrorist group, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) in India has the motto ‘Nagaland for Christ’. **
— The terrorist group, the National Liberation Front of Tripura is an explicitly Christian terrorist group in India, forcibly converting people. They want to expand what they describe as the kingdom of God and Christ in Tripura ** The BBC has reported that the Baptist Church of Tripura is supporting them financially and ... The NLFT is accused of forcing Tripura’s indigenous tribes to become Christians and give up Hindu forms of worship in areas under their control, and they have issued a ban on the Hindu festivals of Durga Puja and Saraswati Puja.
— Anders Behring Breivik who carried out a terrible terrorist act in which 77 were killed and over 200 injured identified himself as a “Christian Crusader who was defending Norway’s traditional Christian values. ** [Pamela Geller Shamelessly Attacking the Memory of Norway Terror Victims and Debbie Schlussel “out-hated” Geller.]
— The Hutaree was a Christian militia group plotting terrorist acts, and they were not an isolated phenomenon. **
— On the FBI’s official website, there is a chronological list of all terrorist attacks committed on U.S. soil from 1980 to 2005. That study concludes that of all acts of terrorism within the U.S. during that period 7% were committed by Jewish extremist and 6% by Muslim extremists.
— In the U.S., the Army of God has carried out a number of terrorist attacks against abortion clinics and doctors in the U.S. including bombings, arson, and murder. They regularly justify their criminal actions by their “Christian” beliefs.
— The goals of the KKK included, from an early time on, an intent to “reestablish Protestant Christian values in America by any means possible,” and believe that “Jesus was the first Klansman. Their cross-burnings were conducted not only to intimidate targets, but to demonstrate their respect and reverence for Jesus Christ, and the lighting ritual was steeped in Christian symbolism, including the saying of prayers and singing of Christian hymns **
— In Ireland during the “troubles”, numerous acts of terrorism were carried out by Protestants and Catholics claiming a religious justification. For example, a Grand Protestant Rally in Ballymena started with a prayer, and the event was followed with a murder of a Catholic “enemy”. **
— An academic paper Christian Churches and Genocide in Rwanda by Timothy Longman prepared for Conference on Genocide, Religion, and Modernity of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum notes that
My own research in Rwanda in 1992-93 and 1995-96 confirms these conclusions. According to my findings, church personnel and institutions were actively involved in the program of resistance to popular pressures for political reform that culminated in the 1994 genocide, and numerous priests, pastors, nuns, brothers, catechists, and Catholic and Protestant lay leaders supported, participated in, or helped to organize the killings.(4) ... The church was implicated in the genocide in numerous ways. People who sought sanctuary in church buildings were instead slaughtered there. According to some estimates, more people were killed in church buildings than anywhere else.(30) At one parish where I researched, the communal mayor reports that 17,000 bodies were unearthed from one set of latrines alongside the church. Numerous Tutsi priests, pastors, brothers, and nuns were killed, often by their own parishioners, sometimes by their fellow clergy. While the failure of the population to respect the principle of sanctuary cannot be blamed on the churches, the failure of the church leadership to condemn massacres on church property and attacks on church personnel in the years preceding the genocide clearly undermined the principle of sanctuary in Rwanda ... There are numerous examples of clergy who turned people over to be killed. In one incident in May, the Catholic archbishop himself turned over to a death squad a number of nuns and priests gathered at the cathedral at Kabgayi.(32) In several cases I investigated, clergy participated in death squads. In some cases, clergy helped to locate parishioners who were in hiding.(33)

— James Kopp murdered Dr. Barnett Slepian quoting Chistian beliefs
— John Salvi killed two receptionists in two abortion clinic attacks in Brookline, MA
— Cody Crawford was arrested for firebombing the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Mosque in Corvallis, Oregon. He called himself a “Christian warrior”.
—Justin Carl Moose plotted to bomb abortion clinics. The FBI alleges he referred to himself as the “Christian counterpart to (Osama) bin Laden”
— On October 1, 2005, Joel Henry Hinrichs III, a Christian college student at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK detonated a large bomb made of TATP outside of a packed football stadium in Norman, Oklahoma.
— Actor Michael Brea (of Ugly Betty program) arrested for murdering his own mother with a samurai sword while reciting Biblical passages.
— A number of terrorist attacks were attributed to individuals and groups with ties to the Christian Identity and Christian Patriot movements, including the Lambs of Christ
— The motive for anti-abortionist Scott Roeder murdering Wichita doctor George Tiller on May 31, 2009 was a belief that abortion is criminal and immoral, and that this belief went “hand in hand” with his religious beliefs
— Christian Identity is a loosely affiliated global group of churches and individuals devoted to a racialized theology that asserts that North European whites are the direct descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, God’s chosen people. It has been associated with groups such as the Aryan Nations, Aryan Republican Army, Army of God, Phineas Priesthood, and The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord. It has been cited as an influence in a number of terrorist attacks around the world, including the 2002 Soweto bombings in South Africa
— Roberto Sandalo arrested in Italy, allegedly the leader of a Christian anti-Islamic terrorist movement called Fronte Combattente Cristiano or ‘Fighting Christian Front’.The mysterious group has been responsible for bomb attacks against Islamic centres and mosques as well as death threats to Muslims. Sandalo has justified his actions as a fight in the name of Jesus against ‘Islamofascism’. **
— Yigal Amir who murdered Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin proclaimed after his arrest that this was justified, even commanded, by the rulings of Din Mosser and Din Rodef, as described in the Jewish religious law, or halacha. **
— At a Batyam rally in Israel, protestors shouted ““Any Jewish woman who goes with an Arab should be killed; any Jew who sells his home to an Arab should be killed.” **
— Rabbi Saadya Grama, an alumnus of Beth Medrash Govoha Yeshiva in Lakewood, N.J. has published a book that attempts to employ classical Jewish sources in defense of a race-based theory of Jewish supremacy. In this book he argues that gentiles are “completely evil” and Jews constitute a separate, genetically superior species. **
— Rabbi Mordechai Eliahu said “According to Jewish war ethics, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets.” ** He also proposed “hanging the children of the terrorist who carried out the attack in the Mercaz Harav yeshiva from a tree.” **. He also said that according to Jewish law there is no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians in Gaza.**
— Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu delivered a eulogy for the terrorist Meir Kahane and said that “there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza” because “all citizens are collectively guilty,” based on readings of Genesis 34 and Kings 9,14. **
— Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu on the Moriah site (which posts Rabbis responses to questions said that the members of the Jewish terror underground were “completely righteous.” He also said, “I don’t think they are lowly murderers. Heaven forbid! They have already paid their price to society. They sacrificed many years for the people of Israel. Among us, in Judaism, there is justifiable murder. Killing a murderer is justified.” He based this on Jewish law. **
— Rabbi Yousuf Falay called for the extermination of all Palestinian males over 13 years old. “We have to make sure that no Palestinian individual remains under our occupation. If they (Palestinians) escape then it is good; but if anyone of them remains, then he should be exterminated”. **
— Five Towns Jewish Times, a Long Island, NY newspaper published an article that defended killing Muslims **
— Fountains of Salvation, an Israeli Orthodox “family magazine,” suggested that Israel will create death camps for Palestinians in order to wipe them out like Amalek - “It will be interesting to see whether they leave the assembly of the Amalekites [Palestinians] in extermination camps to others, or whether they will declare that wiping out Amalek is no longer [historically] relevant. Only time will tell…” This refers to 1 Samuel 15:3. This is basically saying Palestinians to the ovens. **
— Rabbi Manis Friedman, of Chabad of Minnesota said he “doesn’t believe in Western morality” and “The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle).” Again referring to Biblical verses. ** and **
— Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburg, author of a book ( Baruch the man ) glorifying Hebron terrorist mass murderer Baruch Goldstein said that revenge and terrorism are purifying. Jews are encouraged to take revenge against those who harm them to recover their inner power after centuries of humiliation. Revenge, he argues, “is stressing my positive essence, the truth in my being. . . . It is like a law of nature. He who takes revenge joins the ‘ecological currents of reality.’ . . . Revenge is the return of the individual and the nation to believe in themselves, in their power and in the fact that they have a place under the sun and are no longer stepped on by everybody.” ** - He also said “If you saw two people drowning, a Jew and a non-Jew, the Torah says you save the Jewish life first,” - and “If every simple cell in a Jewish body entails divinity, is a part of God, then every strand of DNA is part of God. Therefore, something is special about Jewish DNA…If a Jew needs a liver, can you take the liver of an innocent non-Jew passing by to save him? The Torah would probably permit that. Jewish life has an infinite value.” **
— Shmuel Hacohen, a teacher in a Jerusalem college, said: “Baruch Goldstein was the greatest Jew alive, not in one way but in every way…There are no innocent Arabs here…He was no crazy…Killing isn’t nice, but sometimes it is necessary.” **
— A group of Rabbis declared that the Halacha (Jewish religious law) commands the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians if this helps to save Jews. The declaration is signed by the heads of the “Arrangement Yeshivot”, the West Bank settlement rabbis and other religious leaders. They were later joined by one of the two chief rabbis (the Sephardic one). **
— Rabbis connected with a movement to resurrect the Sanhedrin have issued a halachic opinion implying that OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Yair Naveh deserves to be killed. They said in their halachic ruling that Naveh was guilty of being a moser, a Hebrew word that can be roughly translated as an informant or traitor. The rabbis see the Olmert government as the equivalent of a gentile enemy that “evilly and violently expels and causes mental and physical damage to Jews.” Maimonides ruled in his Mishneh Torah: “It is permitted to kill a Jewish moser anywhere, even today when rabbinic courts are not permitted to decide on capital punishment matters.” **
— Rabbi Avraham Hecht (chief rabbi of Congregation Sh’are Zion in Brooklyn and at the same time president of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, a national organization of 540 Orthodox rabbis) said that surrendering any of the Land of Israel violated halakah (Jewish law), and anyone who did so could be killed as a rodef, “one who pursues a Jew trying to kill him.” “All I said was that according to Jewish law, any one person—you can apply it to whoever you want—any one person who willfully, consciously, intentionally hands over human bodies or human property or the human wealth of the Jewish people to an alien people is guilty of the sin for which the penalty is death. And according to Maimonides—you can quote me—it says very clearly, if a man kills him, he has done a good deed.” **
— Jewish underground group set off car bombs that crippled two Palstinian mayors, and plannned to bomb five Arab commuter buses and and blow up Al-Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem, partly in hopes of provoking a war so cataclysmic that it would hasten the arrival of the Messiah. **
... Rabbi Colonel Eyal Karim of the Israeli IDF implied that rape is allowed in war. When asked a question about this he said “The wars of Israel […] are mitzvah wars, in which they differ from the rest of the wars the nations wage among themselves. **
— Rabbis at Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem granted rabbinical approval to avenge Jerusalem yeshiva attack by an attack on a senior official at the Temple Mount mosque (who had nothing to do with the yeshiva murders). ** Mercaz Harav extremist Yeshiva teaches that “non-Jews living under Jewish law in Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel) must either be enslaved as water carriers and wood hewers, or banished, or exterminated.” **
— Rabbi Marzel, leader of the Jewish National Front party and was affiliated with Meir Kahane & acting spokesman for Kach terrorist organization for 10 years. He called on his supporters to kill journalist Uri Avnery, and called for a religious war against homosexuals. http://www.redress.btinternet.co.uk/gush_shalom15.htm
— Rabbi Jaacov Perrin said during his eulogy of the terrorist Baruch Goldstein “One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail” ((New York Daily News, Feb. 28, 1994, p.6) **
— Purim party in Israel 2010 praises Baruch Goldstein ** - Militant Jews gathered at the grave of Baruch Goldstein to celebrate the sixth anniversary of his massacre of Muslim worshippers in Hebron. **
— Rabbi Itzhak Shapira was arrested for firebombing a mosque. Rabbi Shapira published a book entitled The King’s Torah in which he claimed that it was permissible under Jewish law for a Jew to kill a non-Jewish civilian (including a child). ** The book, called Torat ha-Melekh (“the Teaching of the King”) deals with the killing of Goyim. It says that in peacetime, Goyim should generally not be killed – not because of the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” which, according to the book, applies to Jews only, but because of God’s command after the Deluge (Genesis 9:6): “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man.” This applies to all Goyim who fulfill some basic commandments. However, the situation is totally different in wartime. And according to the rabbis, Israel has been at war since its foundation, and probably will be for ever more. In war, in every place where the presence of a Goy endangers a Jew, it is permitted to kill him, even though he be a righteous goy who bears no responsibility for the situation. It is permitted – indeed, recommended – to kill not only enemy fighters, but also those who “support” or “encourage” them. It is permitted to kill enemy civilians if this is helpful for the conduct of the war. ** He also advocated the expulsion or genocide of all male Palestinians above the age of thirteen. ** He also said “It is permissible to kill the Righteous among Nations even if they are not responsible for the threatening situation,” he wrote, adding: “If we kill a Gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments - because we care about the commandments - there is nothing wrong with the murder.” ** He also encouraged the use of Palestinians as human shields ** and preaches slaughter of gentile babies **

These lists could be much longer, and could be made not only for Christians, Jews, and Muslims, but also for Hindus, Buddhists, and most of humanity. We are doing a terrible job of fulfilling any obligations of forgiveness, mercy, tolerance, or justice. This is an exercise in futility. Is the goal of such lists to “prove” that they are worse than us? Or that we are better than them. Who wins? No one! Those who focus ONLY on the sins of others and totally ignore their own, and attempt to spread such bigotry are doing a disservice to all of us. No community is exceptional in exhibiting either goodness or evil.

There is no way forward except to work together to marginalize the extremists on all sides.

Geller and Spencer want people to speak out against crimes committed by Muslims.

To repeat Spencer’s words: “And yet there are people in the world who focus their moral indignation not on the perpetrators of acts such as these, but on those who dare to call attention to them and to the ideology that inspires them. This is a monstrous moral evil. It must not prevail.” I would suggest that the Islamophobes, if they wish to be part of the solution, focus on all crimes against humanity in the name of religion or any ideology or world view. When will they call attention to crimes such as those listed above? Certainly the crimes committed by some Muslims are “savage”, and so are the crimes committed by some members of other faiths. The Islamophobes anti-Muslim bigotry and hatred is blinding them to the “reality on the ground”. This is the monstrous moral evil that must not prevail.

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-5 )

Let not the hatred of the people—because they hindered you from the Sacred Mosque—incite you to transgress. Help one another in goodness and reverence, and do not help one another in sin and aggression . (Qur’an 5:2 )

O ye who believe, be upright for God witnesses injustice; and let not hatred of a people cause you to be unjust. Be just — that is closer to piety. (Qur’an 5:8 )

UPDATE 5/27/2013

Once again Islamophobes are using a terrible crime, the murder of Lee Rigby in London to spread their own extremist poison. Pamela Geller published an article about possible radicalization of the criminal perpetrators of this crime at a British University. In that article, she again made the false claim that “Rupert Sutton, from Student Rights, an organisation aimed at preventing extremism at universities, said he hoped chancellors would draw up lists of speakers liable to preach hatred or violence. He said: ‘There is a problem with Prevent at many universities, partly because it comes from government and partly because it is seen as anti-Muslim. It needs to be refocused much more clearly as being opposed to extremism of both right and left.” Very dangerous—the right aren’t beheading people in the streets or blowing themselves up on buses.”

Actually, this terrible murder carried out by Muslim political extremists using a specious argument that the crime was “Islamic” has been addressed quite fully by Muslims.

See these articles many of which have lengthy article collections with links to sources; Woolwich, Britain Attack Condemned by Muslims ** — Could Woolwich attack have been foreseen? ** — New British extremism task force targets only Muslim extremists ** — Woolwich and the Muslim Response, Assed Baig **— Muslims and the War on Terror, Faisal Kutty **

Most importantly, the Islamophobes should be aware that in the past few weeks, there were TWO brutal machete/knife murders in London. They have been treated and characterized very differently. In the first brutal murder, Mohamed Saleem, a 75 year old man was brutally stabbed to death by strangers as he returned home on a public street from his local mosque at night. In the second brutal murder, Lee Rigby, an off-duty British soldier was attacked and killed on a public street in broad daylight by two strangers. See Mohammed Saleem and Lee Rigby both victims of senseless, extremist violence for details about both of these crimes carried out by extremists - one by Muslim extremists, and one by right-wing extremists.