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Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Islam: Religion of Peace? Why This American is Concerned

Nadene Goldfoot
Our government tells us that Islam is a religion of peace, but after reading the Koran, I had my doubts, especially after reading about their attitude towards Jews, of which I am.  Jews do have a problem thinking ill of others' religions since we have been persecuted for maintaining our faith for over 2,000 years under a lot of pressure, but it's time to face the facts here in the states that I believe Israel has been facing.  We're facing a possible religious war. 

What makes Islam different from other religions?  Granted, there are good parts, borrowed and altered from Judaism and Christianity as well, but there are bad parts which do not teach the same fundamental goals of peaceful living that are found in Judaism and Christianity, Buddaism and other religions.  The ones that scare me are the parts that say to kill Jews even if they are under a rock or behind something.  There is a mad-on towards Jews, no doubt added on when Mohammed found out that Jews were not ready to convert willingly.  Jews that lived in Muslim countries were not treated as full citizens ever, but as 2nd class ones with penalties attached called a dhimmini status.  They were barely tolerated. 

Since 9/11, many Americans are wary of Muslims since it was Saudi Arabians who flew into the Twin Towers and killed 2,998 civilian people of 90 countries.  The USA had been involved in the Gulf War, and had been backers of Israel, so I think we all figured that there was something here that ticked these Saudi pilots off.

When the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor, it put us in the "we have to join the world war club" and we found ourselves declaring WWII.  We were attacked by planes then as well, and lost 3,581 military people and 103 civilians in that attack.  That definitely wasn't a religious war.  It was very political.  We had interferred with Japan's oil resources and they felt threatened. 

Our president Bush reacted pretty much the same way when we were attacked in 2001 and with the help of our intelligence service, attacked Iraq, which happened to be another Muslim country.  That was  touchy business being Saudi Arabia's king was a good friend of Pres. Bush, so it had to be an Iraq inspired attack. 

All the surrounding Muslim Arab states of Israel had attacked her in 1948 and had been doing so in successive wars; 1947-1949, 1956, 1967, 1968-1970, 1973, 1982, and then there was the Gulf War of 1991 which was a real threat of destruction to Israel as well as the 2nd Lebanon war of 2006.  It was in 91 that all Israeli citizens had to be issued gas masks because of the threat. 

Today we have the Emirs and heads of state of these Arab nations falling with the Arab Spring.  Our government is excited about that being they think that Democracy will step in, but  the best organized group is the Muslim Brotherhood which is able to change its goals to keep its popularity and stay in power for the time being.  Their goals are to kill all Jews everywhere and take over Israel. 
The religious leader in Qatar, Qaradawi,  who is a main man in the Muslim Brotherhood has put out a fatwa of just that.  He's the spiritual guide for Hamas, the main terrorist group of Gazans and supports suicide bombings against Israeli citizens.  This head of the "Union of Good", a group of charities-for terrorist organizations like Hamas, is free to do his thing as the US has not touched him.  He has protectia  from the Emir of Qatar, who with his Qatar Foundation, is one of the most influential people in the Muslim world.  They've already given out a lot of money to main USA Universities such as the Mellon Institute and have outreach centers in Qatar because of it. 

The Muslim Brotherhood is the heart of hatred for people that are not Muslims.  They've won in Egypt.  The Salafist group is even harsher and they received 20% of the vote, so the twosome will be the wheeler-dealers.  Their fundamental concepts is to establish an Islamic state and world domination under Islam.  They believe and carry out the personal religious duty of military Jihad and are working on its timing.  Qaradawi should be so happy to see what has happened to Egypt, where he had been ousted by Mubarak for his religious ideas.  Qaradawi can't wait to see this happen as well to Jerusalem with a conquered " Al Aqsa", where they have built a mosque over the Temple Mount of the Jews. 

Still and all, Muslims have been getting a bad rap in the states.  This is where Unity Production Foundation has stepped in.  Led by Bill McCarthy, Kenneth Pollack and Alexander Kronemer, Executive Producers, They have been creating films or videos to replace our negative perceptions of Muslims to positive ones.  There is even a program on TV showing the simple life of Muslim Americans to prove that they are just like us.  (from the producers mind to G-d's in that I only wish this is so.) 

Getting back to Qatar, they have given our Lincoln High school $70,000 and a teacher of Arabic studies to make this school special, as there are only 5 in the whole United States that have been thus rewarded with such a program.  Otherwise, the school could not have afforded this program.  The plan of Qatar is to increase this number 5 times over by 2020.    Soon many of our students will be studying from Qatar sources and reading and speaking Arabic.  This brings in the culture, such as DAM, a hip-hop trio of Palestinian Arab Israeli citizens who are now unfullfilled and presenting a program of their discontent which advocates the end of Israel, actually.  They've already turned a few students into Israel-haters at Lincoln.  This is the part of the program that many of us are upset about. 

I don't know about the necessity of learning Arabic, but Chinese would have been nice to incorporate in our public schools, being we owe so much money to China already.  Chinese students have had to be like Jewish students, go to their special schools after public school hours.  Jewish students need Hebrew to be bar-mitzvahed at age 13, so study that besides their daily studies. 

Muslims are not shy.  They are pushing their Sharia law wherever they go.  Since Jews were treated like pariahs, we have never been able to pull such a thing off, nor have we ever tried.  The problem is that Sharia law is not the same as our democratic values in many sections.  For instance, a head of Islam, Sec Gen Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu,  is meeting with Sec of State Hillary Clinton wanting to bring about suits against people who say something offensive to a Muslim.  This man wants to do away with Freedom of Speech by criminalizing criticism of Islam, which is something that makes the USA so special. 

I think Americans could just look at Europe and the Islamization that has been going on there to see where Sharia law could go.  These are great times when American are far more open-minded than they were in the 30's, and have the ability to incorporate many new social ideas, but must not become too naive.  The question is about how good are Muslims not to become enveloped into the Muslim Brotherhood philosophy?  We've already seen a few in our own states jump into that quagmire.  They weren't all poor, either.  Economic status is not the decisive factor; religious ideology is. 

Resource: http://www.historyguy.com/battle_of_pearl_harbor.html
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern+History/Israel+wars/
MEMRI  Sheikh Al-Qaradawi & Qatar's Education City Hosting American University Branches
http://www.adl.org/NR/exeres/788C5421-70E3-4E4D-BFF4-9BE14E4A2E58,DB7611A...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Aqsa_Mosque
http://www.jewishmag.com/57mag/dhimmi/dhimmi.htm
http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&... on Al Jazeera and Qatar-The Muslim Brothers' Dark Empire? 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_September_11_attacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia

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