Tuesday 18 September 2012

The film "Innocence of Islam" was in bad taste but so what?

What is it with a religion which constantly demands respect for itself and its founder from those who don't subscribe to it? Why should I need to tread on coals every time think of Islam? I don't do that with my own religion, not with christianity, a religion that I can nowadays say without fear was founded upon hatred of jews, whose proponents carried out literally thousands of massacres against jews over the ages and whose representatives even nowadays are often engaged in a war of propaganda against jews and Israel. Anyone who has read the gospels of John or Mathew realises just how the charge of deicide was framed in order to justify the ostracizing and murder of jews.

And islams's founder was little better. The supposedly 'holy' Koran is full of hatred towards jews and christians and celebrates the killing of the jews of Medina. Jews are sometimes described positively in the Quran but usually they are described in a negative light as being untrustworthy and as being cursed,"And they say: Our hearts are covered. Nay, Allah has cursed them on account of their unbelief" [2.88],[4.46], "do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends" [5.51], you shall always discover treachery in them excepting a few of them; [5.13].

So it is hard to respect a religion that promotes hatred against me, but i'm not going to disparage it or its followers. If their religion makes them happy then all well and good. I don't know of any religion that is 'a religion of peace', certainly not christianity or islam but as long as their adherents refrain from violence against others, let them have their beliefs.

If christians or muslims wage a propaganda war against me, then I write about them and expose their writings to a wider public, wider than they would perhaps wish. And that is the wonderful thing about the internet. It is now much easier to get inside the head of an extremist, christian or muslim.

When a catholic priest Father Aridah travels to Germany of all places to poison minds against jews then the Latin Partriarchate which published the writeup exposes itself yet again as being an organisation that does not wish the Jewish People any good.

 I don't feel violent towards this catholic institution, only a certain sadness that even now a catholic church institution can not let go of the old hatred towards jews. That a catholic priest, a supposedly righteous man could pen such deliberately lying propaganda about jews and Israel makes me pity him. All his religion, his culture and his education have not conspired to make Father Aridah truthful or to be a seeker after peace and reconciliation.

Christian propaganda nowadays does not however lead directly to violence as happened in the past when priests would whip up their congregations at  easter time in order to beat up and kill jews. My grandfather fled abroad from such church inspired pogroms. I never knew him but he told my father about how his  jewish community was in a state of terror at easter. If he could live through pogroms, I can cope with Father Aridah and his ilk.

Nowadays the violence is overwhelmingly as a result of muslims reacting to slights against their religion, real or imagined. Of course the maker of the film about islam's founder Muhammed meant his work to be disparaging and insulting. The furious mobs however can not deny that the facts are as stated, that Muhammed did abuse children, and women and he was so proud of his murder of whole communities of jews such as those of Medina that he put it in the Koran.

Mr Bassily or whatever his true name is might have been better advised not to make his film, but the fact is that for adherents of islam, there is always a pretext to become offended and violent. Just as with christians at easter and other times there is always a reasons to go killing those who by their very existence offend you.

In India recently a newspaper published an article that was considered 'disrespectful ' and which led to violence on the part of the outraged muslims. If the world was run on such lines of allowing violence whenever we feel upset then the result would be anarchy. What did the muslim leader who demanded an apology from the newspaper in question hope to achieve? Such an apology backed by violence is worth nothing. 'Respect' born out of threats of violence is nothing but an expression of fear. It is resented and can itself become the reason for yet more unpleasantness at a later date. Violence seems to be a regular occurrence in the area concerned.

HINDI DAILY PUBLISHES DISRESPECTFUL CONTENT AGAINST THE PROPHET

Another act of hurting the sentiments of Muslims came to surface in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh. On August 18, a Hindi daily published some disrespectful content regarding the Prophet of Islam (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) which led to anger and frustration among the local Muslims. As a protest, Muslims burnt the copies of the newspapers on a large scale. The act also gave way for many rumours which made the situation very tense and marketplaces witnessed chaos soon after the news broke out. The local Muslims under the leadership Maulana Mufti Mohammad Ayub, Rector, Mumtaz Deeni Darsgah, Jamia Naeemia, immediately contacted the newspaper authorities and demanded an apology. The newspaper agreed to do so in the next edition and the apology got published in the issue of August 19. A case has also been registered in Nagphani Thana.

 It is time for islam and its proponents to grow up, to realize that violence is not the answer to those who upset you. Those who wish to silence critics of islam through violence and threats of violence do no justice to their own cause. They should learn from Israelis and jews who live with constant threats and vicious writings against them without reacting violently.

An example of the hatred of jews was seen recently at the Fatah 47th Conference where the Mufti of Jerusalem called for genocide against the Jewish People.

As is usual with film that is too embarrassing for genocidal muslims, the film has been taken off youtube. It is however posted here. The Mufti of Jerusalem's incitement against jews should be seen by anyone in the least interested in the Arab ('Palestinian')-Israel Conflict. Only people who have seen the Mufti rant on about the extermination of the Jewish People will understand why after all Israel's concessions over the years, there is still no peace in the Holy Land. There is no peace to be had with muslim states, only state of ceasefire, until the next round. The more punishing the lesson, the less likely arabs will want war against Israel. But Israel never plays according to the arab rules. Israel fights humanely, tries its hardest to avoid any loss of arab life, attempts to avoid killing civilians. Arabs can not understand this as when they fight, they aim to kill civilians, the more the merrier. I would never promote the killing of arab civilians, but when the Israeli army has a lawyer attached to every company of the IDF to tell the soldiers what they can and can not do, there must be something wrong. War is not proportionate, and human rights lawyers mixing in on every battlefield decision means that Israeli troops fight with one hand tied.
The idea of war is to win, and if it is harder for Israel to win then it takes longer, and actually prolongs the suffering of the enemy civilian population. Israel must make its priority to win, and as in the past, win fast, without for example daily truces to send humanitarian aid to the enemy. No other country has ever done this, and that Israel does this shows it misunderstands the main rule of war, to win.
That Israel did not finish the Cast Lead war with a clear defeat and toppling of Hamas has lead to thousands more rockets fired at Sderot, at Netivot, Ashdod and Beer Sheva to name the main sufferers. This is the real human rights crime, that Israel has allowed these cities and towns to be sacrificed so that the enemy does not get hurt too badly. Israel must look again at its priorities, and these should be that Every Israeli will sleep soundly in his bed other than in time of war. But that doesn't happen. Hamas sees to it that children will have their first day of school disrupted by rockets, that the sabbath peace will be torn apart by rockets, and parents will never know whether a rocket will greet their children as they return from school. The Hammas and Jihad terrorists know civilian patterns of life in Israel along with the jewish holidays, and they prepare specially for those. Non muslim countries have not been exposed to the levels of violence that are normal in the middle east, against women and against other religions. But the world is learning about the problem and the more that violence is ascribed to muslims and islam, the less respect will be gained for that religion. There is a growing resentment in western countries of islam inspired violence.
 
Muslims are not everywhere violent but where they are it is time for the world to hold their leaders to account. Israel should have prosecuted the Mufti of Jerusalem for his hate speech. The man should have been given time inside a jail in order to reflect on where such language leads. That those who advocate violence can get away with their actions because of the high positions they hold means that violence becomes all but inevitable.








No comments:

Post a Comment