Fjordman profiles those who are asking this question and answering in the affirmative, arguing that criticism of Islam is equal to Nazi antisemitism, and then explains why the analogy is faulty on so many levels. A sampling:
If criticism of Islam causes Muslims to behave badly, then what has 2,000 years of persecution done to the Jews? Surely the Holocaust and other pogroms in Europe would have made Jews start their own Jihad? Then how come Jews don’t go on the rampage throughout Europe? The comparison between Muslims today and Jews 70 years ago is nonsense, and needs to be confronted and dismissed as such. It is an insult to the Buddhists who are beheaded in Thailand, the Christians who are persecuted in Indonesia, the Hindus who are killed in Pakistan and the Europeans who are no longer safe in their own cities. But above all, it is an insult to the memory of the millions of teachers, artists, writers and intellectuals who were murdered in Nazi-controlled Europe.
Read it all. Please.
Only an intellectual could believe something that
stupid!
American:
We used to be plagued by a poster named "KingTolerance" who likened the sentiments of the anti-jihad posters here to the antisemites of pre-WW II Europeans who made completely bogus claims including the notorious blood libel against their Jewish neighbours whose only crime was simply to cling to the faith of their forefathers, ignoring completely that what has drawn our collective attention to Islam is a real, present threat that draws its inspiration from the pages of the Quran.
I am not saying that all Muslims are terrorists, but far too many are apathetic or in denial about the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism and its bellicosity. And way too many quietly donate money and provide other forms of support to "the cause", knowing full well, or wishing not to recognize that the money they give for "charity" is actually supporting terrorist activities. Hardly an analogy to the Jewish communities of Europe who were persecuted for centuries out of pure religious intolerance and ultimately decimated by Nazism.
"Only an intellectual could believe something that stupid!"
Words of wisdom. Only by isolating oneself from the taint of facts can such conclusions be reached.
This is a constant theme at meetings of "Muslim-Jewish" groups -- in reality, campaigns of disinformation by Muslims, or a few of them (the handful of them willing even to talk to Jews for the purposes of fooling them, and here and there willing as well to allow them to sully a local mosque, usually one run by Shi'a Pakistanis who are the most eager to "reach out" and not exactly touch someone but to find allies who will make their own existences in the United States more secure). How those speakers love to get up and say "I have a theory. Muslimis are the new Jews." In the audience the handful of carefully selected or self-selected smiling and plausible Muslims may nod a bit in agreement, but are mostly waiting to see if the whole thing can be pulled off. How delighted they are to see that the Jews in the audience, at least two or three times as numerous as the Muslims, are beaming at the very idea, at the heart-rending appeal to the current undeserved suspicion of Muslims in the United States and an appeal to memories of their own suffering, as they see it, that makes them ready to hand over, if not the keys to the kingdom (that wouldn't quite be right, under the circumstances) at least the keys to their heart. How wonderful, those pleased smiles convey, to be So Very Tolerant and Understanding When So Many Seem Incapable of Being So. Fools, and their numbers are diminishing. But still fools. The Muslim-Christian Dialgoues (Search for Understanding, Search for Common Ground, give it whatever name you choose -- you know what I'm describing) of course focusses on other things, including hints, here and there, that it is in the interests of carefully-unnmaed "Others" (hmm, not Muslims, not Christians -- who could it be?) who are responsible for the bad press that the poor misunderstood Muslims have been getting.
There's more in this vein. Not just that the "Muslims are the new Jews" (said with a melancholy expression, and sad eyes), but that Muslims like kosher food when they can't buy halal food, and "Moses" (Musa) is a name frequently mentioned in the Qur'an. Of course there won't ever be any mention of what is contained all over the Qur'an. And the Hadith and the Sira will not, never, ever be mentioned at all, in the hope that the non-Muslims will never look into them, or understand their importance.
That's the shtick. It's fairly obvious, fairly routine. But not so obvious that it doesn't fool those eager to continue to be fooled. A very strong impulse.
It's curious, isn't it, that the same people who equate criticism of Islamic-inspired terrorism with antisemitism find nothing to complain about when it comes to the relentless anti-Jewish bigotry spewed out by Islamists. See the great website www.memri.org for examples of what comes out of the Arab and Iranian press every day. One goal of the left is to trivialize the Holocaust by suggesting that valid criticism of Islamic-inspired violence is the moral equivalent of genocide of the Jewish people.
Can anyone think of a dangerous religious cult that died out of its own accord? Unfortunately, I can't. Anyone?
In Russia, they have banned the Jehovah's Witness.
The Mormons in the United States were forced to submit to U.S. law by U.S. forces.
The Falun Gong in China is brutally suppressed.
Muslims in Singapore are regulated into submission.
This cult is something else. When I re-read 1984, I am so reminded of Islam.
One of the main reasons why this is foolishness; the Jews are peaceloving, intellectual, people who contribute to society and value tolerance and freedom, while the muslims, on the other hand, only know oppression, genocide, murder, jihad, lying, and their delusional bid at world domination at any costs. The Jews done nothing wrong when the Holocaust took place, or before or after. The muslims, they are barbaric, uncivilised cretans, who are bringing their destruction upon themselves. Anyone who would think that modern muslims are the equivalent of Jews 60-70 years ago need a reality check from a professional psychologist.
13 Million Jews. 1 Billion Muslims.
How ridiculous can you get? The worst the Jews ever had were the likes of Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel and Dutch Schultz, gangsters who mainly killed each other. There is no comparison to the likes of Bin Laden who wants to destroy whole nations and populations.
"Dutch Schultz..."
-- from a posting above
Dutch Schultz deserves special note, not for his criminal career, but for his Dying Words, which were included by the long-suffering (much-tuition-paying for his two sons, mentioned by the author as the reason for the book in the first place) Dwight Macdonald, in his excellent anthology "Parodies." Those words of Arthur Flegenheimer, uttered in his dying delirium,in that hypnagogic state between being awake and being permanently asleep, in Macdonald's view, for their sounding like an unintentional parody of Gertrude Stein. Or possibly James Joyce. Or possibly a whole bunch of people.
Dutch Schultz deserves indulgence. The kind that Dwight Macdonald gave him.
Of course muslims are the jews of today! after all, look at how all those jewish suicide bombers blew themselves up in the 1920s, and used ethnic cleansing 'purify' their states.
And there is a corollary to this repulsive view which is certainly adopted by pro-Muslim and mainly left-wing souls in the UK: that the Jews, or at least the Israelis, are the new Nazis. Many here would say that, albeit because of persecution, the Jews indeed became persecutors. The big lie and the big liars have thought of all angles. You might recall the UK poll which held Israel to be the world's greatest threat to peace and, generally, the most vile and racist state on earth
You can still see this almost daily in the Guardian or the Independent and on BBC websites. I can't write a rebuttal like Fjordman (or Hugh) but fortunately Melanie Phillips attacks it constantly.
Simply put, this is an attempt to squash criticism of Islam.
After debating Islam on several other boards, the defenses that come out seem to fall in the following categories:
1. The Personal: I know several Muslims and they are nice. This argument always seems to be like saying "I know several KKK members and they are nice."
2. Religious Equivalence: Don't talk about Islam but just point out that Christianity has/had the same problems. I call this the Brain Dead response. You don't have to think about what makes religions different, you just have to say they are all the same at their core. It's an off-shoot of multicultural thinking.
3. Religious Freedom: As long as they don't hurt me, I don't care. Of course, Islam has a plan and your's is to sit by and wait until you can't do anything about it.
4. Hate Speech: You are making anti-Muslim statements. Again, if you associate with a religion that says death to the infidels and people point that out, you have to expect to take some heat. It's the same as Christian groups that believe homosexuality is a sin. Is it anti-Christian if you point out that is what they believe? No, it's fact.
Right now, these are the main defenses people provide. This latest attempt to make the Jews and Muslims equal is a mixed defense of numbers 2 and 4.
FWIW, I don't think you'll immediately convince most people with any arguments against these four defenses. But, I think by presenting logical arguments against all four, you lay the groundwork for people to change their minds as the reality becomes too hard to ignore.
The taxonomy provided by Terrahawk is exactly the kind of thing that should be expanded into an article, for wide distribution. Break down and analyze, and offer examples of, the different appeals made by Muslims and by non-Muslim apologists. There are only a handful. All the rest is mere variation on one of several themes.
I'd like to make one other point in addition to the excellent postings above. Those who try to compare criticism of Islam with antisemitism grievously confuse the issues. Islam is solely a belief system. One either accepts its teachings or rejects them. Criticism of Islam relates to its theology. It is not a rejection of the humanity of those who practice Islam. Judaism, on the other hand, is not just a theology, but also a civilization. Antisemites do not just attack a belief system, they deny the humanity of Jews. It matters not to the antisemite what a Jew believes. All that matters is that a person is a Jew. Antisemites hate Jews not because of what they believe or what they do, but because of who they are. This is a crucial distinction that is deliberately blurred by those who insist on the moral equivalence between criticism of Islamic-inspired terrorism and antisemitism.
H,F&H:
"Antisemites do not just attack a belief system, they deny the humanity of Jews. It matters not to the antisemite what a Jew believes. All that matters is that a person is a Jew. Antisemites hate Jews not because of what they believe or what they do, but because of who they are."
Absolutely. That's why antisemites need to promote complete fabrications like the Protocols, holocaust denial, etc. to justify the virulent hatred of all things Jewish in general and Israel in particular. Few of them know anything about Judaism other than its adherents failure/refusal to abandon the old faith for Christianity or Islam.
The cuckoo is a clever bird. She enters the nest of another species, and rolls the eggs out of the nest to their doom. In their place she lays an egg of her own... A large egg, which represents a huge lie. When the cuckoo chick emerges, the hapless parents, who have already been victimized once by the murder of their offspring, are victimized now again. They are unaware that all of their efforts are now in vain -- they feed the offspring of the alien species, one who will later kill more of their offspring, and which meanwhile will greedily and thanklessly consume the output of all of their suffering and labor... It is a clever and insidious ploy which works very well.
According to the fevered Muslim imagination, Jewish accomplishments in the West can be boiled down to a recipe for Jewish domination and subjugation of the non-Jewish majority in the West... They are determined to emulate this recipe as they perceive it -- claiming victimhood is just one strategy to exploit what they perceive the Jew has accomplished in the West -- This ingredient isn't used because Muslims have experienced anything remotely similar to the historical victimhood of the Jews in the West, but rather because the Muslims see that victimhood is an effective ploy to stifle criticism and confer immunity against attacks. It is also a cheap and easy way to demand and win concessions from the pliant and foolish infidels. This fits with their notion that the infidel is placed on earth to serve the Muslim, and to provide fodder for Muslim Jihad.
This grotesque caricature of reality by Muslims is a splendid example of projection -- revealing their intentions for world dominition. It is also poisonous in several ways, not least of which is the complete misunderstanding of the accomplishments, intentions, and experiences of the Jewish community in the West --
It reminds me of the speech by Maylasia's PM Mahathir Mohamad in 2003... In this infamous speech he received a standing ovation from the representatives of virtually every Islamic country on earth when he urged them to emulate (according to him) the methods of the Jews to acheive so much in the world with such small numbers -- the lens through which he chose to interpret the record of the Jew in the West wasn't one of contributions in medicine, laws and governance, astonomy, physics, music and the arts, but rather a series of ploys to enhance the victimology of the Jew, make him immune from criticism through claiming victimology, and ultimately to facilitate (according to the Muslim supremacist mind) Jewish aims to achieve dominance of the non-Jewish Western world through subterfuge, victimology, and villainy -- -- This is part of what he said...:
"We are actually very strong - 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today, the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them... Over the past 50 years of fighting in Palestine, we have not achieved any result. We have in fact worsened our situation... [The Jews] survived 2,000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking. They invented and successfully promoted Socialism, Communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so they may enjoy equal rights with others. With these, they have now gained control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have become a world power. We cannot fight them through brawn alone."
For the Muslim -- it's all about the fight for Islam. Claiming victimhood, or any other parallel between the Jew and the Muslim is transparently malignant. It is an attempt by the Muslim to trade on the experience of the Jew in the West, to usurp this Jewish experience and the contributions of the Jewish community, and to elicit a programmed response from the West based on the Jewish legacy. All of this is cynically and maliciously done in order to cheaply further Islam's cause and further rob the West of its true legacy... This is very dark -- extremely sinister -- and gravely foreboding...
The primitive eating machine of Islam may prove to be our nemesis... Their methods are like the shark's and the cuckoo's --primitive, barbaric even, yet supremely effective...
It is doubtful to me that we will ever resort to the apolcalyptic measures that are probably required to defeat their evil war against us... At the very least, we will be required to utterly repudiate Islam -- to call it what it is -- an evil ideology of fascism, hatred, lies, and ignorance. We MUST make Islam illegal in our homelands -- it must not be allowed to practice the dark religion here. We will probably require the wholesale deportations of anyone who embraces Islam. It will require the destruction of their centers of promulgation, the mosque -- it will require the degrading and destruction of their major power centers -- the evil regimes of Iran and Saudi Arabia for starters, and the complete disruption of their geometric breeding trends world wide. It will require brutal and lethal suppression of all of their sickening predations on all non-Muslim communities across the globe.
Enter Kurt Weill:
"Oh, the shark, has pretty teeth, dear....and he shows them pearly white
Just a jackknife has MacHeath, babe.....and he keeps it, out of sight
When that shark bites with his teeth, dear....scarlet billows start to spread..."
Lotte Lenya would have understood. So would Kurt Weill. Brecht, on the other hand...
TerraHawk:
What other boards do you visit? I might be moving on in the future, connected to a modest proposal I intend to post, and I'm looking for new grounds, preferably 'moderate' to get started on.
Geoff
Brecht was a brilliantly talented but tragically blind demagogue... His own worst enemy... But oh, Mr. Weill!
Brecht was a brilliantly talented but tragically blind demagogue
You're half right.
Geoff, typically the boards I post on aren't dedicated to this issue. What I do though is I post according to the subject matter of the board. Once in awhile the opportunity arises to make a comment about Islam and I take it. I do so in a polite way and avoid the trolls and the screaming dhimmis.
My latest adventure was on a bad movie website that I frequent. I posted on the general stupidity of TV/Hollywood for the show "E-Ring" about the episode they showed recently about radical Christians taking over a mosque. The discussion morphed into one about Islam in general. It's a nice board with a wide political spectrum and the people are polite. But, they try to avoid politics most of the time and I try to stay away from it mostly. The reviews though are pretty funny. www.jabootu.com
I also post at evangelicaloutpost.com. That board has a handful of people who hang around there just looking for a flame war. But, the discussions can be interesting.
I also post at a couple of local blogs in my area.
In general, the rules I recommend are to:
1. Stay on the topic. If people see that you aren't a one issue person, they will take you seriously when post on Islam. If you post on Islam regardless of the subject, the troll alert goes out.
2. Be Polite. I've been pushed over the edge from time-to-time, but usually I can remain polite and not start calling names.
3. Link and Quote Credible Sources.
4. Don't expect to win over the people you are debating. It's the lurkers who are watching who count which is why the first three rules are important.
I post by the same handle on most sites, so I'm not to hard to pick out.
Just because the Jews don't really want to take over the world (what the heck would we do with it?), that Muslims don't want to. Remember--The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a spurious fabrication. The Koran, on the other hand, with its central precept of jihad and a "perfect" Prophet devoted to conquering, dominating and subjagating non-Muslims, is, sadly for us, all too genuine.
In truth, I am a democrat...
Scara,
Well, look, if you don't want it, can I have it then?
Prophet Geoff
That reminds me that Ramadan is celebrated at the white house, Eid is celebrated by NSW government, but does anybody in government celebrate Hanuka or other Jewish festivals?
Claiming to be what they are not, is as Islamic as Mohammed himself, who told us that 'war is deception'....
By claiming to be the "Jews of today"- a truly sickening comparison-, they do indeed get many to drink the Kool aid, no matter how bad it tastes, but their hosts still swallow.
This 'schtick', lets call it the "Jew-line", is the nail in the coffin of Germany and France. Everybody cringes when Mohammedans claim they are "todays Jews"- everybody knows they are not, but nobody seems to be able to argue against this preposterous claim, for fear of saying the 'wrong' thing.
The comparison above with the Cuckoo is also right on the money!
A very valuable thread with many good contributions, bookmark it!
Make use of it....
To add to the confusion and alarm.David Kimche, head of Israeli Council on Foreign Policy, former deputy head of MOSSAD, said, when he addressed the Islamic section of the recent OSCE conference on antisemitism
"If someone is antisemitic they are also Islamophobic".
And that equation of moral equivalencey comes from an Israeli Official, who served as deputy head of MOSSAD.
OT:
Fjordman is, sadly, going to stop his blog. If any of you haven't perused his site (http://fjordman.blogspot.com), I strongly suggest you take a look before he shuts it down. It's an excellent source for the jihad in Europe.
He deserves a big "thank you" for his efforts!
The terrible atrocities musslims have suffered entitles them to rule the universe now and forever. Anybody who dares oppose this noble thought is a hateful islamophobe!
/sarc off
Muslims have nothing to do with Jews.
Muslims are unreliable because Islam thrives on spreading hatred.
I, as a kafir i their eyes, can never gauge how or when their hatred is going to be directed against me.
This hatred could easily take a violent form, for they don't allow the rational outlets of free dialogue and criticism in their midst.
So while I feel threatened as a Westerner and unbeliever by any of the numerous Islamic Jihadi outfits (they could decide to attack my city tomorrow), I never have felt threatened by any Jewish radical group.
Muslims want to compare themselves with the persecuted Jews because, while being violent and aggressive, they love to pretend they are not. They love to say "Islam is peace". This means that they have two faces.
So Muslims always take the chance to mask themselves as victims and cry out that injustices are being inflicted on them.
Muslims love to whine while their hands are dripping blood.
An important thing to realize about Islam is that Islam is among other things a mythology about Israel. Muslims from Mohammed on believe that they are, collectively, the true Israel, and that the Jews carry on a tradition of deformed rebellion against and corruption of Allah's absolute "guidance". Insofar as Jews are, in the Muslim mythology & mentality, inveterately and perversely (and ingeniously in a wicked sort of way) rebellious against Allah and his guidance, they are to be feared and hated and fought and killed and/or controlled. But the Jewish mythology is something Mohammed envied, and appropriated and subverted in order to steal that great inheritance. There's something of the evil brother who resents, envies and steals (but can never truly understand) his good brother's love of his Father in Islam's relationship with Israel, and Muslims with Jews. (And Christianity, in this same vein, is to the Muslim a third step-brother, corrupt and crippled with deformations of the Truth, and in competition with Islam for Israel.)
Dr Pepper,
This just staes what I have said about islam having two faces.
From one hand the bani Israiil mentioned in the coran ib the context of their counterfeit Moses' story seem to be good guys.
But then the jews of Yathrib are bad guys.
Truly unreliable and schizophrenic Islam is.
JUST DO THE MATH:
Islam has 1.3 billion mesmerized adherents
Judaism is only 12 million strong and the Nazis came very close to killing all Jews in Europe
Wiping out Muhammadanism is a lot harder than killing all Jews. Hitler knew this. Anyone with half a brain knows this
Just because the Jews don't really want to take over the world (what the heck would we do with it?), that Muslims don't want to. Remember--The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a spurious fabrication. The Koran, on the other hand, with its central precept of jihad and a "perfect" Prophet devoted to conquering, dominating and subjagating non-Muslims, is, sadly for us, all too genuine.
Posted by: scaramouoche at November 28, 2005 03:06 PM
Scaramouoche:
You summed it up very well in a few sentences didn't you? Talk about a classic case of projecting -- accusing the Jews of attempting to dominate the world when that is precisely what the meglomaniacal Mohammed was after.
Prophet Geoff:
Doubtless you envision becoming a benevolent dictator... ...benevolent to yourself and dictatorial to everyone else, just like... ...Mo?
Water,
How generous of you to offer! Of COURSE, I accept [vigorously shakes hand].
As for the benevolence/dictatorial thing, well, it's what us prophets do.
...well, not so much the first one. All right, then.
...not the second one either. That one was all about benevolence. Pfft. Pretty much seems to be just that last guy. No, not the Bahai one - the OTHER guy. The failed merchant. Yeah THAT'S him, yeah, the one with the scimitar.
Should I ready a five-year plan? Do you need an HR form?
Or, to paraphrase Chicken Little...what were we talking about again?
Prophet Geoff
bbuh
"Insofar as Jews are, in the Muslim mythology & mentality, inveterately and perversely (and ingeniously in a wicked sort of way) rebellious against Allah and his guidance..."
-- posted by Dr. Pepper
The very quintessence of Islam is its corrective nature. Islam is right and everything else is wrong. To fix the wrong, Islam must swallow up all that which it does not already possess.
It must follow, therefore, that being a Moslem is an open act of aggression against all non-Moslems.
SWT SWT SWT SWT SWT SWT SWT SWT SWT SWT SWT SWT SWT SWT SWT SWT SWT SWT
To wit, when they finally cobbled the Koran into a book, God's furious anger with infidels is declared by the 7th ayat:
Koran 1:6 Keep us on the right path.
Koran 1:7 The path of those upon whom Thou hast bestowed favors. Not (the path) of those upon whom Thy wrath is brought down, nor of those who go astray.
jsla writes:
"At the very least, we will be required to utterly repudiate Islam -- to call it what it is -- an evil ideology of fascism, hatred, lies, and ignorance. "
... and much more.
I'm with you. I'm also with you on your "much more", and I'd even take it up a notch, but it
has been requested that we exercise self censorship on this site, and I intend to (mostly)
honor that request.
to: American
from: jsla
Yep.