That's fine. They need to put a muslim sign on TOP of the cab, so we can choose NOT to ride in a muslim cab. Case solved.

Posted by: freewoman at September 18, 2006 9:02 AM

OOPS! Wrong thread.

Posted by: freewoman at September 18, 2006 9:03 AM

"Love truth and peace" we do love truth and peace, we are trying to resist Islam destroying it for us.

Posted by: dizzyfatplonka at September 18, 2006 9:07 AM

Mr. Spencer,

As chief Rabbi of Israel his words are certainly prominent, but by no means the only voice. I gave this link on another post:

Rabbi Yisrael Rozen's column, Benedict is right.

Posted by: ZionistYoungster at September 18, 2006 9:14 AM

Those Muslim spokesmen who are complaining the loudest, about the Pope's quotation of the Bizantine emperor, know that spreading the religion by sword is a fundamental principle of Islam.

From the Muhaddith site (thanks to Infidel Pride)
http://www.muhaddith.org/cgi-bin/e_Optns.exe

Result 30 from 64
The Reliance of the Traveller. Version 1.06 - By Ahmad Ibn Naqib Al-Misri
BOOK O: JUSTICE >> Chapter O-9.0: Jihad

"Chapter O-9.0: Jihad
(O: Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada signifying warfare to establish the religion. And it is the lesser jihad. As for the greater jihad, it is spiritual warfare against the lower self (nafs), which is why the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said as he was returning from jihad.
``We have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad.''
The scriptural basis for jihad, prior to scholarly consensus (def: b-7) is such Koranic verses as:
1- ``Fighting is prescribed for you'' (Koran 2:216);
2- ``Slay them wherever you find them'' (Koran 4:89);
3- ``Fight the idolators utterly'' (Koran 9:36);
and such hadiths as the one related by Bukhari and Muslim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said:
``I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for the rights of Islam over them. And their final reckoning is with Allah'';
and the hadith reported by Muslim,
``To go forth in the morning or evening to fight in the path of Allah is better than the whole world and everything in it.''Details concerning jihad are found in the accounts of the military expeditions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), including his own martial forays and those on which he dispatched others. The former consist of the ones he personally attended, some twenty-seven (others say twenty-nine) of them. He fought in eight of them, and killed only one person with his noble hand, Ubayy ibn Khalaf, at the battle of Uhud. On the latter expeditions he sent others to fight, himself remaining at Medina, and these were forty-seven in number.)"

Result 37 from 64
The Reliance of the Traveller. Version 1.06 - By Ahmad Ibn Naqib Al-Misri
BOOK O: JUSTICE >> Chapter O-9.0: Jihad

"O-9.8: The Objectives of Jihad
The caliph (o-25) makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians (N: provided he has first invited them to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya, def: o-11.4) -which is the significance of their paying it, not the money itself-while remaining in their ancestral religions) (O: and the war continues) until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax (O: in accordance with the word of Allah Most High,
"Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His messenger have forbidden-who do not practice the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book-until they pay the poll tax out of hand and are humbled" (Koran 9.29),
the time and place for which is before the final descent of Jesus (upon whom be peace). After his final coming, nothing but Islam will be accepted from them, for taking the poll tax is only effective until Jesus' descent (upon him and our Prophet be peace), which is the divinely revealed law of Muhammad. The coming of Jesus does not entail a separate divinely revealed law, for he will rule by the law of Muhammad. As for the Prophet's saying (Allah bless him and give him peace),
"I am the last, there will be no prophet after me,"
this does not contradict the final coming of Jesus (upon whom be peace), since he will not rule according to the Evangel, but as a follower of our Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) )."

Posted by: Archimedes at September 18, 2006 10:00 AM

"And even when there is a struggle between peoples it is wrong to make it a religious struggle. Love truth and peace.'"

Uh. Isn't this essentially what the Pope said in his lecture?

I would think reasonable people would have no problem supporting a Reasonable God .. no matter what their religious persuasion.

Posted by: Daisytoo at September 18, 2006 10:01 AM

***********************************

Due to the Pope's remarks and growing alertness to the threat we all face I am please to announce -

I have changed from

Churchill1938

to

Churchill1939

This is to reflect the change that occurred to how Churchill was percieved in these years before the Nazi's were finally taken seriously.

CHURCHILL

1938
When he was 64, he continued his unpopular warnings about Germany and Hitler in his newspaper columns. He also wrote another a book called Step by Step. These were said to be depressing times for Churchill, and perhaps the lowest point of his career. On the other hand, he did have the satisfaction from writing his books.

1939: Asked to be Prime Minister
World War II broke out in September 1939 when Germany marched into Poland. Britain and France responded to the invasion of Poland by declaring war on Germany. The German attacks on Norway, Holland and Belgium ended public confidence in Prime Minister Chamberlain, and he resigned. King George VI then asked the 65-year-old Churchill to be Prime Minister. British political parties agreed to form a wartime coalition government.

Gave stirring speeches
Churchill set the tone of his leadership in his first report to the House of Commons, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." It was only the first of his stirring wartime speeches, which knit the country together and inspired people around the world.

I feel that we are getting close to having a new Churchill - whomever that may be - the climate is ripe for people to listen.

Posted by: Churchill1939 at September 18, 2006 10:13 AM

Ignorant and spineless... not entirely unlike the Archbishop of Canterbury whose "defense" of the Pope today consisted of commending his "apology".

Posted by: Null at September 18, 2006 10:52 AM

This approach only works among people willing to reciprocate. Between opponents instead of enemies. You can't force the enemy to behave in a reciprocal way, especially if the Golden Rule is missing and their minds have been sealed.

Maybe someday... but not now. Still the free world can't simply annihilate them all. They have prisoners of mind and hypocries and bad muslims that can be freed. This makes it much more difficult. We're capable of taking the problem on, should we ever be wise and courageous enough to face it.

Posted by: A_Plague_on_Both_Houses at September 18, 2006 11:02 AM

I nearly had an aneurysm while reading this...

"We cannot afford to maintain these ancient prejudices against Islam"

The Pope's remarks were dangerous, and will convince many more Muslims that the west is incurably Islamophobic

Our Islamophobia dates back to the time of the Crusades, and is entwined with our chronic anti-semitism.

and

But the old myth of Islam as a chronically violent faith persists, and surfaces at the most inappropriate moments. As one of the received ideas of the west, it seems well-nigh impossible to eradicate. Indeed, we may even be strengthening it by falling back into our old habits of projection. As we see the violence - in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon - for which we bear a measure of responsibility, there is a temptation, perhaps, to blame it all on "Islam". But if we are feeding our prejudice in this way, we do so at our peril.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1874786,00.html

Posted by: Mr Krabs at September 18, 2006 11:04 AM

Until we're more worried about Islam in Paris France as opposed to who's in Paris Hilton we will fail.

Posted by: A_Plague_on_Both_Houses at September 18, 2006 11:08 AM

Rabbi Yisrael Rozen's column:Benedict is right.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3304995,00.html

Bravo!!

Posted by: adobe at September 18, 2006 11:15 AM

"Our way is to respect all religions, nations and peoples according to their customs," continued Amar. "As the prophet [Micah] said: 'For let all people walk everyone in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.

Here are some Quranic citations that may tell you what your Muslim 'brothers' are required to think of you:

2:65 And ye know of those of you who broke the Sabbath, how We said unto them: Be ye apes, despised and hated!

5:60 Shall I tell thee of a worse (case) than theirs for retribution with Allah ? (Worse is the case of him) whom Allah hath cursed, him on whom His wrath hath fallen and of whose sort Allah hath turned some to apes and swine, and who serveth idols. Such are in worse plight and further astray from the plain road.

7:166 So when they took pride in that which they had been forbidden, We said unto them: Be ye apes despised and loathed!

Posted by: Infidel Pride at September 18, 2006 12:40 PM

Maybe we can find the secret "help me!" message in his text.

Also, can Rabbis be defrocked?

Posted by: Concerned Citizen at September 18, 2006 12:51 PM

It is time to say No More ! Ils ne passeront pas !

The West must coalesce around core values - and find new politicians in place of these tired and uninspired old men like Chirac. It is time for a resolute NO.

We have lived for a long time on the inheritance of Jan Sobieski, Charles Martel, and El Cid. Now we should set about a concerted reduction in oil imports - and import tariffs on Chinese goods to cut their demand for oil - and force the Muslim lands to drink their oil and watch their incomes shrivel.

It is time for a United Front - The West as the fear it but have not yet met it. A Walled Fortress and ready to stand and fight, or advance and fight.

It is Pakistan and the Middle East which is the witches' cauldron, and so far we have dabbled at the edges as politicians continue to serve their Saudi paymasters rather than their own angry citizens

Posted by: Voyager at September 18, 2006 12:51 PM

With all due respect to the Prophet Micah, he never had to contend with jihadis.

Posted by: scaramouoche at September 18, 2006 12:53 PM

"We cannot afford to maintain these ancient prejudices against Islam..."
-- from the Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar, making idiotic amends for Pope Benedict's speech

If the government and people of Isral had understood Islam long ago, had realized the essential futility of attempting, not even through genuine compromise but through surrender after surrender, of Jewish rights, legal, moral and historic, if they had understood that every negotiation can only lead to some farcical agreement that will be breached, by the Muslim side, whenever it feels able to do so, because --as Majid Khadduri and ten thousand other Muslim scholars of Islam have pointed out, any treaty made by Muslims with Infidels has a limited life, and must be broken, by the Muslims, whenever they feel strong enough. The very idea that Muslim Arabs (those whose Islam is not diminished, but rather supported by their ethnic self-conscousness) could ever permanently accept the idea of Israel shows a breathtaking refusal to understand Islam -- and many Israelis have had, and will have, as a consequence, their breath taken away.

The explanation for this idiocy is simple. Many Israelis feel themselves to be not quite in the position of the Copts and of Pope Shenouda, but half-way between the fully dhimmified Christians of Egypt, and the as yet -- or at least one hopes as yet -- undhimmified non-Muslims in such places as the Vatican. They are, they feel, betwixt and between. They are wrong. Israel can defend itself. Israel can defend itself as long as it possesses several hundred more nuclear weapons than do the Muslims -- and as long as Israel keeps it that way.

The view of Shlomo Amar infuriates, but does not surprise.

There are, in Israel, other views. They will gain ground, and the assorted fools of Chelm, beginning with Olmert, Peres, and Peretz, will be thrown -- at long last --- out. As for Meretz (rhymes with "Peretz"), the ability of its leaders to prevent Islam from being recognized for what it is, cannot continue forever. Just as Karen Armstrong, who just this past week delivered a lecture to a claque of largely-approving Ladies Who Listen (in their own way, as much to be mocked as Ladies Who Lunch), in which she, that bitter ex-nun and supporter of Muhammad, denounced the Pope for his perfectly intelligent remarks, and received the expected, and nauseating, applause (for another example of a similar claque, read Nabokov's "Conversation Piece, 1945" about a Women's Club being addressed by an apologist for Nazi Germany after the war had ended, all told from the point of view of the narrator, mistaken for that German apologist).

If the Israelis cannot understand what they face -- and some of them refuse to -- too bad. They should not be listened to on the silly theory that "gee, those Israelis must know the score. I mean, they live right there. They know what's what."

Oh no they don't.

Posted by: Hugh at September 18, 2006 1:00 PM

Mr Krabs
No surprise there. That article was written by Karen Armstrong, chief dhimmi/apologist for all things islamic.
She got a right pasting in the comments though!

Posted by: Silvester at September 18, 2006 1:06 PM

And even when there is a struggle between peoples it is wrong to make it a religious struggle.

That is the root of a common misperception: the assumption that the Israeli-"Palestinian" conflict is a common, garden-variety struggle over boundaries and nationhood. If the Israelis just give the "Palestinians" some land, everyone will be happy right?

Except that this has been a religious struggle in the mind of the Muslims for 1,350 years. By mentioning the violent acts that Muslims do on a daily basis, we're not "making" it a religious struggle. And pretending not to notice the religious motivations of the jihadists does not protect us from the religious war being waged against us.

Mohammad wasn't "protesting" Israeli "occupation" of Judaea and Samaria, or the Golan Heights, or the Gaza strip, when he beheaded 800 hundred Qurayza Jew prisoners. As a man of religion, Rabbi Shlomo Amar should be aware of the Qur'an's position on lands that were held at one time by Muslim rulers, and whether Allah allows those lands to be ruled by non-Muslims.

Posted by: special_guest at September 18, 2006 1:06 PM

Some of these Sephardic Chief Rabbis in Israel
are more than a litle whacked. I can say that in
the Conservative congregation I belong to, even
in the bluest blue state, it's almost a running
gag when someone says "religion of peace". We
all know Benedict is right.

Maybe Rabbi Amar is worried about the tiny
Jewish communities behind enemy lines, in
Morocco, Syria, Iran, and France, so he has to
tread lightly.

Posted by: root_cause at September 18, 2006 1:53 PM

"Our way is to respect all religions, nations and peoples according to their customs," continued Amar. "As the prophet [Micah] said: 'For let all people walk everyone in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever."

Hello Schlomo! It works a little better when both sides adhere to this creed! When only one side adheres, but the other side is bent on genocidal world domination, well, not so much.

If anyone should know this, a Sephardic Jewish Rabbi should.

Posted by: jsla at September 18, 2006 2:07 PM

Hugh's words:

If the Israelis cannot understand what they face -- and some of them refuse to -- too bad. They should not be listened to on the silly theory that "gee, those Israelis must know the score. I mean, they live right there. They know what's what."

Sadly right. One need only view a few snippets from the Israeli Left after the recent Lebanon War to see even having it in front or your eyes isn't necessarily enough to wake you up. But then there are others whom the strike of reality did wake up.

The question I've been asking myself ever since the October 2000 Intifada was, "What will it take for people to wake up?!"

Posted by: ZionistYoungster at September 18, 2006 2:16 PM

"What will it take for people to wake up?!" -- from above

Sadly, probably something far far worse than what we've seen so far. Still, I'm not hopeless that this is the only course. But I'm worried more and more that we won't have the luxury of incrementalism.

The optimist in me says that people are still trying to metabolize it all and that they will by simply seeing and observing who says what -- the post 9/11 events DID shatter the West in a certain way -- at least it shattered our complacency regarding the forces at play in our world -- for some it reinvigorated and amplified their false views and constructs, for others it awakened knowledge of the slow Jihad already raging under our noses -- that's the one where little bake sales at the mosque help conduct da'wa, where da'wa in the prisons raises more recruits, where the agents of Islam steadily and surreptitiously infiltrated Western infrastructures without being noticed, and the drip drip drip of Muslim breeding (sorry) behind enemy lines proceeded little alarm in the West. 9/11 wasn't enough to persuade us to stop the little Jihad, the slow Jihad, the bake sale da'wa, the prison da'wa, the breeding and infiltration, but it did make all of us notice Islam in a way that nothing else ever would have done. This includes Islam's apologizers too. This eventually will accrue far more to the anti-Jihadists than it does to the Muslims or their apologists. When push comes to shove, the Muslims and the apologists will be the ones forced to choose, not us.

And while still largely blind and confused, people ARE becoming alarmed at developments -- this is inevitable because we haven't yet awakened to their causes or their remedies -- Though I destest the fact that these primitive idolators are disrupting and threatening our magnificent society, I'd rather KNOW about their little da'wa, I'd rather KNOW about their sneaky surreptitious infiltration, I'd rather KNOW about their plans for the victory of Islam's wombs than NOT know. And without 9/11 -- all the other things we now know about Islam could not be known by us, at least not known by the vast majority of us.

Pushing on a string a bit, and imagining more horrors as they play out...

If it then it takes something worse than 9/11 which murders, say, 30,000 or 300,000 (like a nuke going off or a mildly successful attack with a nasty pathogen, and only then we finally wake up and decide that Islam' has at got to go, at least from our dominion, then that too may be the price we have to pay in order to know it. But know it we will. I refuse to contemplate our annihilation at their hands.

In a larger cosmological sense big mistakes have been made by both sides. Here are some of them, but not all:

Blunders of the West:

1. Forgetting our own history. Admitting upwards of 30,000,000 Muslims into our domain without the slightest memory as to their self-avowed agenda, never imagining it might be completely inimical to our own. We've seen this movie before after all -- we just forgot. That's OUR fault, not theirs. But we can relearn our history, and are doing so even now. (too slowly)

2. Reticence to discuss our options rationally. This is also OUR fault, not theirs. Muslims are nefarious, ruthless, and relentless. And their religion is singularly designed for them to do exactly what they're doing. In a way, it's not right to blame them for practicing their 'religion' as deplorable as it is. OK -- I can and do blame them. I deplore the fact that most Muslims still appear unable to internalize the problems of their own making, prefering instead to project them onto us, and make it our responsibility to fix them also. How many times have we heard, even anti-Jihadists, suggest that WE must help the 'moderates' reform Islam? It's absurd. This is a problem of Islam's making. It's an insane world where the people who have the right to rampage against calumnies are the ones sitting silently on their hands while the perps rampage, blame us for their rampages, and then rampage some more. Failing to discuss Islam's heinousness, or allowing Muslims and their abettors in the West to squelch our discussions is OUR fault too.

Blunders of Islam:

1. Attacking the West too soon. The Muslims have consistently over played every card they've been dealt -- and this is usually fatal. They arrogantly placed too much confidence in the revelations of their ultimate agendas for the West long before they had an unassailable perch in our domain. It may not look like it in Britain, or France, or Germany, or Canada, or even the USA. But they jumped the gun and reprised the terror portion of the movie before it was time. They convinced (and continue to believe) that their PR about is is true ... that we are weak and wrong -- that we will not fight them. Arrogance and belief in their own PR proved to be the fatal flaws of the Nazis and the Japanese. That and our overwhelming capacity to counter their every move.

2. Islam has chosen inflexibility and brutality over flexibility and tolerance. They long ago murdered off the concept or notion of reform and opted instead to simply continue their heinous spreading and their hatred based form of governance. Communism had a much shorter trajectory, but in the end it failed to enforce the totalitarianism required to perpetuate itself. The leftist avant-garde has been fighting a rear guard action to hold on ever since the communists began to hold power. One day China will turn her back on Communism, and it will be largely over. Only force, and inorganic processes could postpone its loss of control over its slaves. While the Muslims have a much better track record of conquering and holding onto slaves and territory, (and this should give us pause when making any analogy between Islam and all other totalitarian nightmares) the comparison seems apropos.

3. Islam's God is killable. Muslims appear to have set the world on a cataclysmic path that they can't possibly win -- really -- if it finally comes to a world dominated under their stone aged terror god, utter annihilation of their terror god -- I don't recommend speculating on condos around Mekkah or Medina. Someone will do it -- it may even be some crazed hashhish smoking mufti in France -- but it will be 50,000 years before it's safe to fish again in those dirty round puddles of seawater.

So Boom! goes London, Boom! Paree -- NY, LA and more too -- but we will not end. Yet two radioactive bungholes in the dead land of Arabia would rip asunder their god's black heart and soul in a flash. There's no way to prevent someone, somewhere, at some time showing for once and for all that their monster god is eminently killable, if not unpleasantly.

Posted by: jsla at September 18, 2006 7:02 PM

Watching the National news here in Western Canada, I was stunned to see some of the responses that were shown of Christians living in the Mid-East.

Regrettably most interviewed stated they were upset at the Pope and disagreed with what he said about their Muslim neighbours. However there was one woman interviewed who stated "We all know this is true, but we are scared to say it as we are trying to live with these people."

I don't know how many of you here are from Western Canada, but I'm absolutely blown away with glee that the last lady was even shown to us. I don't believe even last year, that the opinion of that woman would have ever been broad casted here. A little glimmer of hope that more people on my part of the planet might be exposed to more truth, even if it's in small doses.

Niv

Posted by: niv at September 18, 2006 8:35 PM

I am phugin fed up with muslims whining about humiliation and persecution..fact is that it is Islam that humiliates non muslims.. that's what being a dhimmi is all about.. being humiliated. and that's why those poor baby muslims are soo sensitive to being "humiliated"...poor babies. If I got my hand on them I would show them humiliation.. better yet they need a trip to an S & M bondange seminar (if there is such a thing).

I resolve firmly to take advantage of every opportunity to humiliate a muslim.. and I start now.. I'm thrilled, absolutely thrilled that those two morons (the black muslim converts Bilal and Sa'eed) didn't make it past the first checkpoint on the Amazing Race.. especially after that moron Bilal, hollered Allahu akhbar as he started the race.... morons.

Posted by: Nariz at September 18, 2006 8:47 PM

An unexpected dhimmi very disapointing. I am not familiar with him are there other Chief rabbi's? I pray they don't agree with him.

Posted by: pissedoffcanadian at September 18, 2006 9:26 PM

Somebody please post this Chief suicide pig of a rabbi's email adress in order so rightly outraged people can send strongly worderd letters to him explaining to him why he just lost the respect of every westerner, and that his suprising bit of dhimmitude hurts Israel by placing it on the side of dhimmitude while every single muslim on the planet wants Israel destroyed.

This is worse then Rowan William's siding with Muslims since this Chief Rabbi knows exactly how it feels for a senior cleric side with Islam over your cause.

Hugh you should do a piece on Israeli Dhimmitude, God knows there are plenty of examples even excluding this clear one.

On top of that guys you should take a look at this

2005 Kidnapping Scandal
In May 2005, Rabbi Amar's family was accused of kidnapping and beating a Haredi 17-year-old who was dating Amar's daughter, which is highly inappropriate for Orthodox teenagers. The youth claimed that Rabbi Amar had direct knowledge of the incident, which occurred first in an Israeli Arab village and then moved to the Amar home, and was partially responsible for planning the kidnapping, which was carried out by his 31-year-old son Meir Amar [5], [6]. Police evidence confirmed that the Rabbi was in the home at the same time as the captive boy. Amar claimed that he had been asleep at the time and disavowed all knowledge of the incident. Rabbi Amar was repeatedly questioned but not charged with any wrongdoing [7]. Meir was convicted of kidnapping, abuse of a minor, illegal confinement, extortion, threats, and causing bodily harm. He was sentenced in January, 2006 to 32 months in prison and a 35,000 shekel fine. Rabbi Amar pledged to try to help the anonymous youth re-integrate into yeshiva life, something analysts have suggested may be near-impossible after the case being so highly publicized.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Amar#2005_Kidnapping_Scandal

Posted by: NicephorusPhocas at September 18, 2006 10:08 PM

Canadian there is another Chief Rabbi who I know of because of his anti-dhimmitude, Rabbi Yona Metzger who has made Armenian Genocide Recognition a central theme in his political life, and is overall a great anti-Dhimmi, I heard him speak a few times and he was right on the mark.

Posted by: NicephorusPhocas at September 18, 2006 10:11 PM

Jihad fi sabil Allah.

So sad the Chief Rabbi doesn't get it.

Posted by: jawa at September 18, 2006 10:19 PM

NicephorusPhocas, let's hope there are more Rabbi's out there that want to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Personally I can't understand anyone in that position that can agree or sympathize with the Muslim hordes.

Niv

P.S. Pissed of Canadian give me a call sometime you dufus.

Posted by: niv at September 18, 2006 10:31 PM

Our Muslim brothers would add respect to their religion if they outdid themselves and overcame the feelings of humiliation.

That's the only bit that'll be remembered.That's what all attempts at appeasment come to.

Posted by: AbuNudnik at September 18, 2006 10:39 PM

Infidel Pride:

Hey, I'm no dhimmi but the text you quoted does not call Jews apes but only those Jews who broke the Sabbath. There is no reason why Muslims can't respect those Jews who respect their covenant with God, it's just that, these days, very few do because of the Wahabbi literalist interpretation coupled with Islamofascist terrorists and state leaders. But, hey, your quote:

2:65 And ye know of those of you who broke the Sabbath, how We said unto them: Be ye apes, despised and hated!

just doesn't cut it at all.

Listen, we can't kill 1.2 billion Muslims so it's time to help those moderates who are terrorized to death to get up the courage to do the job they must do We can't do it without them so we need to try to work together. Otherwise why are we working to create democratic regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan? To go against them? Hey! We don't have that kind of money! We have to do work other than war and that's why we're fighting the war on terror: to end it so we can all -- all of us -- get on with life. Jeez, sometimes I think the Right can be almost as stupid as the Left!

Posted by: AbuNudnik at September 18, 2006 10:55 PM

Perhaps the chief rabbi should read Muslim holy texts a bit more closely.

And Bukhari recounts Muhammad's genocidal dreams about Jews:

Volume 4, Book 52, Number 177:
Narrated Abu Huraira:
Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."

The Immunity
[9.30] And the Jews say: Uzair is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away!

Posted by: Johnathan at September 18, 2006 11:06 PM

If this is how the Chief Rabbi feels he should behave, well, that's his right. But don't expect
Catholics to run to his defence when his Muslim
brothers get around to chopping of his head.
Maybe he is a descendent of the Jews of al andalus and is still living that dream that Christian, Jew and Muslim once lived in peace.
Islam has a compulsion to dominate, wake up Rabbi, you are not serving Peace, only Submission.

Posted by: sul3j at September 19, 2006 1:18 AM

AbuNudnik,

1. Even if it only applies to those Jews who broke the Sabbath, since when would it be appropriate to call tem apes (or, more, turn them into apes as the Sahih Bukhari hadith claims)?

2. Verse 98:6 goes much farther, calling all Jews, Christians, and idolators the "worst of created beings."

3. Ask Muslims right now today what they think of Jews. Do a survey. Ask some clear questions. In private, quote the "apes" thing and find out what they say.

Posted by: Archimedes at September 19, 2006 8:07 AM

re: 98:6, i.e, those who reject Mohammad's message, thereby retaining their original religion. (also see 3:85, which states that islam is the only acceptable religion.

Posted by: Archimedes at September 19, 2006 8:08 AM

and AbuNudnik, no one here was advocating killing 1.2 billion Muslims.

Posted by: Archimedes at September 19, 2006 8:11 AM

Maybe we can find the secret "help me!" message in his text.

Also, can Rabbis be defrocked?

Posted by: Concerned Citizen at September 18, 2006 12:51 PM

Concerned Citizen:

One of my favourite Jewish jokes is too long to recount here, but the upshot of it is that two parties to a dispute sought the rabbi's opinion on the matter. After deliberating for 10 days on the question as to whether rent monies were owed despite an initial promise of one party to the other to allow him to stay with him rent-free, the rabbi determined that rent was owed anyway. When the "tenant" goes to pay the "landlord", the landlord tells him to forget about the debt. The "tenant" asks the "landlord" why then, did he seek the rabbi's opinion on the matter. The response: "I just wanted you to see how stupid the rabbi is, before you returned home."

If you think Rabbi Shlomo Amar is a bit confused and labouring under an illusion, then what do you make of the Naturei Kuerta, an Orthodox sect so extreme in its views that only the Almighty can create a Jewish state that they actually demonstrate against Israel, and sent a delegation to Iran to participate in Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial festival, although they are recipients of state funding.

Posted by: waterdragon52 at September 19, 2006 8:36 AM

Dear Archimedes,

You know a great deal more about the Quran than I do but I still don't read the passage I cited saying all Jews are apes. In fact it specifies those who abandon their covenant. Why apes? Obviously it is a poetic characterization of regression. That most Muslims today would say Jews are pigs and apes is an unfortunate fact. They teach this junk to children. But that doesn't mean it is inevitably so because of the Koran. I have no comment about your other example, not knowing it. But I still think there are other interpretations, and this is my point, for Muslims to interpret their scriptures in a more intelligent way. The way they do so now speaks volumes of the corrupt religious and political leadership they have: it's a sewer and we agree on that. The keeping down of the Muslim intellect by rote "learning" of the Koran instead of teaching literacy skills is probably the number one problem in the Muslim world. Ignorance spawns evil.

About the killing, you're right, no one here has advocated killing 1.2 billion Muslims. But if we don't see this war as essentially a battle within Islam about modernity with us as demo targets, we can't contain it to the Muslim world where it belongs. Moderate Muslims need to be weaned off the Wahabbi message. Muslims wrongly believe that we are imposing our ways upon them when in fact there are lots of McMuslims that love the intellectual freedom alcohol burgers debate strippers jazz rock'n'roll cellphones democracy but they are as conflicted as Jamaicans up the street in my town who will not talk to the cops about a shooting they saw because they'd like to breathe a little tomorrow, thanks. It's terror. It's terror here for sure but it's terror way more in Iran, Syrian, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan. These people are massively Stockholmed. It's the tone of many of the posts I was objecting to. The painting of all with the same brush.

We probably disagree on very little, by the way. I think Bush's original doctrine was right: the enemy are terrorists and all states that support them. Hit the states and watch the terrorists disappear. I agree with Iraq. I agree with disarming Iran by force since it will not happen any other way, I believe that the UNIFIL is a terror enabler and the world should have got off Israel's back in '67 and let them bomb Damascus until they unconditionally surrendered. Anyway, nice talking to you…

Posted by: AbuNudnik at September 19, 2006 12:13 PM

Before you get too excited about Rabbi Amar representing the rabbinic point of view, there are some things you should know about him and his family -- there is a lot of scandal associated with him, particularly surrounding an event of a couple of years ago. It seems that his daughter was having an online flirtation with a religious Jewish boy from another city, and Amar's oldest son decided to intervene, with the blessing of Rebbetzin Amar (Rabbi Amar's wife). No doubt Rabbi Amar himself was in on this. Amar's son, who had spent years wandering the desert living with Arabs, invited a couple of his Muslim Arab goons to come over to his house, and he had his sister lure the poor unsuspecting Jewish boy over, whereupon the boy was jumped and taken to an Arab village, his sidelocks cut off, and beaten up very badly, then brought back to Rabbi Amar's home and beaten some more, then dumped back in town. He needed medical attention at the emergency room for his injuries. Thankfully he was not killed. It came out that Rabbi Amar was home at the time this beating took place but he claims he was asleep and didn't hear anything. Right. The son is serving time in prison and I think the mother was under house arrest for a while. Rabbi Amar scooted under the wire and was not prosecuted.

He is a disgusting human being and NOT a man of G-d, to say the least. And this is our Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. Heaven help us. Most rabbis are certainly NOT condemning the pope or appeasing the Muslims. Rest assured.

Posted by: AmericanJewess at September 19, 2006 1:00 PM