veiled4allah

the Jewish mirror

Mozaffar at other|matters writes to Muslims about the Jewish mirror:

If the Prophet -p- has been reported to have said that we (Muslims) and they (the Jewish people) are so alike that we are like two shoes of a pair, then what does that tell you? Further, look at al-Baqarah; our Blessed Creator speaks to us by way of speaking to the Children of Israel, and then (almost immediately afterwards) speaks directly to us. He even repeats some of the same things that He says to them. What does that tell you? As a community, explore all the different personality types we have. Look at our community aspirations and concerns, successes and mistakes. You'll see the exact same thing among the Jewish people. Compare histories; you will see amazing similarities... ...Thus, in terms of Muslims and Jews, we have that collective commonality as two shoes of a pair. Mirror images of each other. If you as a Muslim really want to see yourself, take a good honest look at the Jews. Like it or not, that's the reality.

I tried not to excerpt too much, but it was hard. I encourage Muslims to read the whole thing. Anti-semitism is like a cancer eating the umma away from within and we have to get past that. Via thabet.

racist garbage

The new Saudi policy. Why antisemitism is unIslamic. Via Procrastination

a damaging obsession

While getting caught up at alt.muslim, I found an excellent article by Haroon Moghul about the obsession some Muslims have with blaming everything that's wrong with the Muslim world on Zionism, Israel, or Jews:

The Islamic faith is set apart from all other faiths not because it centers itself on God, but because it does so absolutely. We do not just worship God. We worship only Him. Tawhid, the Islamic idea of the unity of the Divine, is not just the formula: There is no deity but Allah. It is that, but also, that the Lord is incomparable in power, in attributes and in effect. No one, not Muslims, Christians or Jews, controls the world. God does. Now, more than ever, the leaders of Muslim communities must initiate a process of change. Our obsession with these sham politics is even more galling because of the strangeness of this addiction; we aren't Zionists, but we are, nonetheless, infatuated with them. Countless problems go unsolved because we have decided, whether consciously or not, that these issues are no longer within our capacity to address. Life is much simpler when it consists of anesthetized existence, punctuated now and then by angry shouts about ghosts in the shadows and nightmares in our dreams, preventing us from being what we do not have the courage to become.

Related entries on my blog: Muslims and anti-Semitism and Conspiracy theories running wild

chess pieces in somebody else's game

I would like any of my readers, especially the Muslim ones, who think that "the Jews" are behind the impending war on Iraq to read An Open Letter to Paul Wolfowitz by Josh Reubner. Reubner is the co-founder of Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel. He writes about what he calls "court Jews", a small number of Jewish individuals who are appointed to very prominent positions in government so that they can later serve as scapegoats and so that people will blame Jews in general for wrongs committed by the government. Here are some excerpts:

"Court Jew" is a term that originates in the context of anti-Semitism in "enlightened" Europe. On that blood-soaked continent, the reigning monarchs and other despotic rulers thought up an ingenious system to perpetuate their oppressive systems of government. These shrewd, Machiavellian rulers made a psychologically brilliant pact with an elite, assimilationist group of Jewish subjects who craved nothing more than acceptance by the power structure of society... ...Take a few "court Jews" and give them unimpeded access to the mainstream media and, voila, you create the impression among the masses that "the Jews" are spoiling for a war. Do you see brother how you are misrepresenting us? I wish that we in the Jewish peace movement could have as much access as you do to the mainstream media so that we could shatter the monolithic view of the Jewish community which the "court Jew" by definition is set up to propagate. Of course, we are denied that access by the same power structure which has an interest in making sure that yours is the only "Jewish" voice heard... ...Please, before it is too late, tell the world that it is not the powerless Jews who are pushing for this war, but the greedy, venal barons of corporate America who stand to profit while cowering behind the myth of the all-powerful Jew. Tell everybody what you and I both know. That the real interests hawking for this war are the defense contractors and the oil industry who will make billions of dollars to first destroy Iraq and then "rebuild" it under the protective wing of American "democracy."

Muslims, don't let yourselves be blinded by hatred and played for a fool. Don't fall into this trap.

Muslims and anti-Semitism

O you, those who have faith, stand up for God, witnesses in equality. And do not let hatred of a folk swerve you so that you do not do justice. Be just, that is the closest to God-fearingness. And fear God. Surely He knows what you are working - Quran Surah al-Ma'ida verse 8 Anti-Semitism is a real problem among Muslims today. Some Muslims cheered when the Israeli astronaut Col. Ilan Ramon died and said "one less Israeli in the world". Some Muslims talk about how "the Jews" are liars or enemies or evil. They talk about "Zionist pigs" and how they "hate the Jews". Jewishness is an ethnic and a religious identity. If you believe that all Jews are some way or other, you have to believe either that they were born that way or that their religion commands them to be that way. The first idea is the worst sort of racism and the second is no better because it assumes that all Jews are mindless robots who are incapable of dissenting from their religion. And this is assuming that Judaism teaches such a thing, which it doesn't. This kind of thinking is totally contrary to Islam. Islam teaches us that every human being is born with a fundamentally good nature and an innate faith in God. This is called fitra. Islam also teaches us that God made us into different races and nationalities so that we can learn from each other, and it teaches us that no race or nationality is inherently superior to any other. The only thing that makes a person better than another is his piety. There are several verses in the Quran and a number of hadiths that state this clearly. What's even worse about racism among Muslims is that people often treat us the same way. Not only do they call Islam evil, but they seem to assume that all Muslims are mindless robots who are incapable of dissenting from their religion. In today's climate we see a lot of this bigotry and we know how much it hurts. So how can we turn around and do the same thing to somebody else? Shouldn't we know better than that? Some people argue that they're just retaliating in kind, treating others the way that the others treat them. What kind of morality is that? We don't follow the rule of "do what's done to us". We follow the rule of God. Yes, an eye for an eye is mentioned in the Quran, but the Quran also tells us not to exceed the limits that God has set. We don't mutilate people because they mutilated us. God has forbidden mutilation. We don't kill the civilians of another people because they killed our civilians. God has forbidden the killing of civilians. We don't hold racist attitudes about a people because they hold racist attitudes about us. God has forbidden racism. When you think that way, you follow your caprices, not God's command. That is not Islam. This hatred of Jews is a cancer that will eat us up from inside and may ultimately destroy us. It takes us away from what God has commanded and it leads us to do what God has forbidden. Yes, some people who are Jews have hurt and oppressed Muslims. And some people who are Jews have helped Muslims. Remember what the Quran says: They are not all alike. Among the People of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) is an upstanding community. They recite the signs of God and spend the night prostrate (in prayer). They have faith in God and the Last Day and they command what is right and forbid what is wrong. And they strive with each other to do good works. Such are of the righteous. What they do of good will not be rejected. And God knows those who fear Him - Surah Ali Imran verses 113-115 This is the same as any other people. The same as us. We need to judge all people by their own deeds and beliefs, not by what we think they must be like because of their race or religion. That is how God judges us and that is how we need to judge others.

excellent article on anti-Semitism

This is an excerpt from Strange career of Arab anti-Semitism, an editorial at Arabnews.com:

For now, I submit only one reason as to why we cannot and should not sanction the promotion of racism in our culture - be it anti-Semitism or any other - and seducing the viewing public in our part of the world to get a cheap thrill out of demonizing a whole race of people: Our faith. Especially as we observe it during the blessed month of Ramadan, when compassion, and charities of the imagination and the human spirit define our state of mind. When Islam set out more than 1,400 years ago to build a commonwealth of nations, it set out to do just that - to build a commonwealth made up of white, black and brown peoples, of Africans, Indians and Orientals, a multicultural, multiracial, multilinguistic and multinational polity where, predating the American Declaration of Independence by several centuries, all men were considered to be created equal. We have a problem with the Israelis. There is no question about that. And we are entitled to fight them in order to gain our human rights to dignity and freedom, and fight them, if need be, till the end of time, till the sun dies. But we are not fighting them because they are Jews. Would we not have fought them with the same tenacity had they been, say, Dutch Catholic?

we should not let opposition to Israel's policies become bigotry against Jews

Here is an excerpt from a good article by Qais S. Saleh, a Palestinian business consultant living under occupation in Ramallah, about why Muslims and Arabs need to reject anti-Semitism. You can read the full article at the following link: A Horseless Rider

As a Palestinian currently living under a new Apartheid, I cannot but reject any ethnic stereotyping and demonizing such as advocated by the program, and I totally reject the notion that such programs will strengthen the support of the Arab world toward the Palestinians, any support generated by racism should be unwelcome by people suffering from it. It is very unfortunate that while we as Arabs have paid a heavy price for past European prosecution of Jews, we are currently importing and reviving the ugliest embodiments of that tradition of anti-Semitism.

anti-Zionist not anti-Semitic

I keep getting hits to my website from people who are using search engines to look for the names of pro-Palestinian journalists along with the word "anti-semite". For instance "eric margolis anti-semite". If even to criticize Israel is "anti-Semitic" then what do they call real hate crimes? There's something disturbing about the way that some people support Israel so totally. We don't act like that to any of our other allies like the UK or Canada. This kind of blind patriotism always strikes me as kind of fascist. What's even worse is that these people aren't even acting like that about their own country, they're acting like that about some distant foreign country. It's surreal.