My intention that to be in peace with no confilect,or war

I've attended interfaith dialogues as a teenager in the 1990's and again in college. They do help build bridges, but they work on a decades long timeline.

Dhimmi

I invite anyone who wants to participate in Muslim-Jewish dialogue to join me on mepeace.org.

mepeace.org is a community of peacemakers advancing peace in the Middle East. We are not waiting for the Politicians. We are creating the "Tipping Point" elegantly described by Eboo Patel.

Joining us is free, and easy, on mepeace.org. Most of our conversations are online, but this week we had our own little tipping point as our peacemakers, Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Druze, convened for the first time in Amman, Jordan.

I look forward to seeing you in our community,

Eyal Raviv
Founder, mepeace.org
Email: eyalpeace@gmail.com

Until Muslims treat non Muslims as equals, there can never be dialogue.

Asim,
You said;
"“Arif”:Pls don’t use this Arab name!!!
"
Why? This is the name given to me. It's a name before islam besides muslims have no monopoly on names. Also, I am originally from Pakistan a country whose people have an identity problem. They don't want to admit that they are actually Hindu converts so they falsy claim that they are Arab or Persian decedents. What a shame, this is what Islam does to people, it assimilates them such that they become ashamed of their past. If you are from Pakistan too which I think you are, you should have a name like Ajit Singh or something. So, you change yours and I'll consider changing mine to Dick.

About the rest of your rant...
Why are you so enamored by people like Karen or Tariq or that other idiot? Can't you read and reason for yourself? Do you think Tariq Ramadan will shed some different light on the thug prophet Mohammed that'll make me a believer?

Asim writes:
"On the treachery/treason committed by the jewish tribe of Banu Quraizah in Medina against the infant Muslim state of the Prophet in the 7th century, here is the true story of the treacherous jewish tribe of Banu Quraizah by all historical accounts:
"
Asim, you start your story with "treacherous Jewish tribe", think for a little, use your own brain for just once. Mohammed your prophet was the thug of the town, he was the aggressor. He invades these peoples town and begins to change things. He dislikes the polytheists, their places of worship, he wants Mecca, he tries to win over the Jews by telling them to believe in him. Imagine a Jewish person being asked/forced to believe in a prophet who is from the illegitimate child of Abraham. A man with no scruples, a raider, one whose henchmen raid commercial routes leading to Mecca. They raid caravans kill and take people captive. Of course the Jews were agitated and wanted to do something with this thug (mohammed). The Muslims were strangling Mecca's trade. The Meccans had enough, they were sick of this virus that had attacked their city and you call it "infant Muslim state"? It was a deadly virus for heavens sake, one that we still can't shake off.
Another thing you need to consider was that Mohammed had already expelled two other Jewish tribes. You read about it I can't type so much.
After what you call war with the Banu tribe, this man (your prophet) goes on a killing rampage to the point he beheaded the men and the pubescent boys and enslaved the women and children. What kind of a man is this? Beheading people and calling himself the closest thing to Allah? Hogwash! Astagfurallah!!!

Here more BS from you:
"During the reign of the Prophet in the city/state of Medina early 7th century, every one was a full citizen with full civic and religious rights:
"
Your thug did not know the meaning of full citizenship; you don't know it till this day. Walk into any Muslim country and ask the minorities what kind of "citizenship" they enjoy.
Asim please don't quote your worthless book the koran to make a point. If you do that then I can quote the same book and make a stronger point to prove just the opposite.

Here watch:
Your Koran quote:
" The Quran states unequivocally that” No Compulsion in Religion)."

My Koran quote:
Qur'an 9:29 "Fight those who do not believe in Allah or the Last Day, who do not forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, or acknowledge the Religion of Truth (Islam), (even if they are) People of the Book (Christians and Jews), until they pay the Jizyah tribute tax in submission, feeling themselves subdued and brought low." [Another translation says:] "pay the tax in acknowledgment of our superiority and their state of subjection."

Asim says:
"Why all the fuss about justice served to traitors of a state of which they are citizens?? "
Typical response from a brainwashed Muslim. One who cannot reason for himself, one who hangs onto the coattails of Karen, tariq and other “scholars”. These people were peaceful inhabitants of the city and Mohammed and his cult thugs were the invaders and aggressors. Read more and think outside the box.

Have a Happy Friday!!!

ARIF

Georgiason: "THE SOUTHERN BOY"

Here is what you wrote in one of your posts:

"It's not just what Muslims do inside their own countries, bad as it is. What frightens me is the fact that Muslims who have lived for years in America still have their behavior determined by the extremist religious values they brought with them. That is the disturbing lesson of the two incidents I cited."

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

I cited your ignorance which you took offense of.

(1) Did you know that 50% of all Muslims in America are born here in America?

(2) 2 million of 7 million American Muslims are Black and have lived here for many many generations. Did they bring "extremist religious values by them" ?

You wrote: "it is not what Muslims do in their own countries..." For those millions of Black Muslims and countless others, America is their country. Many of them have not known any other country.

I remember several episodes from Archie Bunker's "All in the Family". Whenever Archie could not differentiate the Polish from the Russians or any other minority group, he would say, "whatever".

Muslims in America are proud Americans and are as assimilated in America as any other group.

REPLY TO ANONYMOUS who wrote July 16, 2008 10:38 AM in response to my comment:

“Do you recognize the folly of generalizing about any group based on isolated cases?”

I’ve seldom seen a more pluperfect example of someone revealing themselves to be what they are criticizing. Where in my entire comment is there any “generalizing?” Are you, for example, alleging that I said something like “all Muslims” do this or that, hoping that no one will go back and read my actual words? I did no such thing. What I did was:
1. Cite two recent real cases involving Muslims in America.
2. Follow up with citations of and quotes from two op-ed pieces that commented, respectively, on the two cases I cited.
3. State that it concerned me that the incidents involved Muslims who had been living in America.

That is simply a logical progression of thought. Where is the “generalizing?” Please cite the specific words or sentences where I generalized.

But let me hit the nail on the head of your own clichés and distortions. That’s your reference to “isolated cases.” The entire thrust of the articles by the two columnists I quoted was to point out that neither honor killings nor the presence of American Muslim youths in extremist madrassas in Pakistan were “isolated cases.” Both authors cited chapter and verse to back up their conclusions that honor killings and extremist indoctrination are serious problems in the Muslim community. Further, any person who has accessed this blog has the ability to do a Google search that will result in thousands of credible, reliable reports that back up those conclusions.

And you blow right past all this evidence and all this reality by using your own cliché that I am simply using “isolated cases” to make my point! In short, you stand accused of committing the very crime you accuse me of, i.e., making allegations based solely on your own biases.

Let me put Muslims like you on notice, Anonymous. We Southern boys are on to you. You see, we live in a culture where people could point out that “only a few” white Southerners owned slaves. Therefore, why make such a big deal out of slavery? And only a tiny number of white Southerners ever participated in lynching a black man. Therefore, why make such a big deal out of lynchings?

I’ve noticed how Muslims—especially American Muslims—in defending their religion, increasingly sound like white Southerners defending segregation. Massive amounts of hot air and generalities defending the virtues of some way of life, while totally ignoring the specific negative aspects. Covered over by a great deal of deliberate obscuratinism. Take it from me. This house of cards will ultimately collapse.

What is wrong with all of you?

Eboo Patel writes a post about young Jews trying to find ways to communicate better with Muslims and all the majority of you can do is post back and forth about how much you hate whatever religion you're not a part of and spew endless garbage about how there can't be any kind of reconciliation between members of different faiths.

You spend all your time trying to "prove" that your faith is superior and the other (Islam, Judaism, Christianity, whatever) is really the more brutal, evil one in an attempt to justify your own bigotry. That's pathetic. Your total inability to even make an attempt at improving relations is the reason there is so much wrong with this world.

Why don't some of you do something useful for a change, like make a small, tiny attempt at understanding other peoples' points of view?

I'd hoped that Mr. Patel's blog about interfaith relations would engender useful dialogue where people could talk about actual solutions for interfaith challenges. Apparently I placed too much faith in humanity in thinking that it could actually be the case here.

For the few of you on here who actually bother to post anything positive, I salute you. You have far more patience than I do with the intolerant hate-mongers around here and are the people I'd most like to see posting on websites and blogs focused on interfaith issues. The world really needs more of you.

For the rest of you, try to prove me wrong. Prove to everyone else here reading this blog that human beings are better than this and can actually work toward positive change. I ask you to try, but I really doubt any of you demonstrating your blatant intolerance with your comments are up for it, at least not after reading the posts on here.

Still, on a blog about interfaith relations, you could at least TRY to communicate positively with one another instead of using the site to tell the world how much you hate people who aren't like you.

“Arif”:Pls don’t use this Arab name!!!

The anonymous post is mine-posted inadvertently without my signature.

So any one who disagrees with u such as Karen Armstrong is wrong and justifies “killings;” no mention of the Islamic Swiss scholar Tariq Ramadan teaching now at Oxford because neo-cons and AIPAC agents pressured the State Dept from his tenure at Notradame University and denied him a visa to enter the US, Why? Because they do not want the American people to hear moderate and enlightened Muslims as Ramadan is-they prefer to show over and over again Osama bin Laden and his troupe instead. U also dropped the name of the Zionist Bernard Lewis who even admits the tolerant and decent Muslim treatment of jews throughout history.

On the treachery/treason committed by the jewish tribe of Banu Quraizah in Medina against the infant Muslim state of the Prophet in the 7th century, here is the true story of the treacherous jewish tribe of Banu Quraizah by all historical accounts:

During the reign of the Prophet in the city/state of Medina early 7th century, every one was a full citizen with full civic and religious rights: the new Muslims, Christians, the Jews and the Pagans of Arabia. The Quran states unequivocally that” No Compulsion in Religion).The Prophet who just established the first Islamic city/state in Medina, had signed a treaty with-among others-the Jewish tribe of Banu Quraizah-to defend the new state and where the treaty stipulated that the members of this tribe being citizens of the new Islamic city-state agreed never to ally themselves with the enemies of the infant Islamic state nor to carry arms against it in exchange for granting them-the Jewish tribe- the aforementioned full citizenship rights including guarantying their protection and security. However the Jewish tribe conspired with enemies of the Islamic state and committed gross treason, treachery and violated the treaty by joining the enemies of the state against the Muslims that threatened the very exist Nance of Islam.
The Islamic state, lead by the Prophet defatted the aggressors on the battlefield including the treacherous Banu Qraizh tribe which was an ally and turned against the Muslims at the worst timing possible-citizens betraying their state.

Thereafter the Prophet requested the leaders of the Jewish tribe to select a neutral judge of their choice to make a ruling on the treachery of the tribe which they confessed to it; the jewish tribe chooses their trusted friend and confidante Sa’ad ibn Muath, who was a leading figure in Median and the Prophet accepted their choice. The Judge ruled out that the Jewish tribe was guilty of both joint military aggressions with the enemies of the infant Islamic state as well as treason/treachery thru violating the treaty signed with the Prophet as they were citizens of Islamic state. The judge ordered the death penalty to be carried out against the treacherous member’s males of fighting age of the tribe who committed treason and aggression-as any state would do in self-defense even by modern standards of international law. The numbers of those deserving the death penalty is both exaggerated and fabricated by Jews as usual but reported to be eight hundred.

Why all the fuss about justice served to traitors of a state of which they are citizens?? Of course there was no AIPAC and no forty three jewish membarers of congress to defend their treachery.

Compare that justice served to the treacherous jewish tribe to the Genocide of the Euroean Bosnian Muslims and the murder of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and other Arabs by the apartheid jewish occupying Palestine for the past sixty years just because they are resisting jewish occupation of their homeland-or is jewish blood and life more precious than others because they are “”the chosen people? My God treats all human life as equal and precious regardless. Over fifty million died in WW11 but we only here about the six million jews-however regrettable their holocaust was.

Eight thousand Bosnian Muslim boys and men were handcuffed, blindfolded and led to by Serbs Orthodox Christians and with full knowledge of the UN Dutch military unit (Protestant and Catholic Christians) to a forest in Bosnia just outside Srebrenica: they were murdered in cold blood, en masse genocide-summary executions; thou those innocent victims were European Slavs and citizens of ex-Yugoslavia, their only crime was that they were Muslim-the same as the jews of the holocaust were jewish. This did not happen 2000 years ago, it happened in 1991.The total number of Muslims murdered by the “Christian” Serbs in that war exceeded 250,000 including mass rape of children and women in the heart of and while “Civilized Christian Europe” looked on. The number would have been much higher were not for the intervention of USA to protect whatever remained of Muslim population.

So who is violent?

Anonymous,
"
-u should not hide behind a Muslim name,brave one.
-I know for a fact that u are either profoundly naive and ignorant or simply a propagandist who peddles nothing but lies and distortions-this is clear from u repeating already recyceled garbage.
"
Why? What makes you believe that? Why do you think I am naive and ignorant?

You say:
"Just open your mind, be neutral and objective and put your biases and prejudices aside then study the Quran and the Sunnah from Muslim sources... "

I ask you to do the same. I only quote and read Muslim sources, they are the best! Karen Armstrong justifies Mohammeds killings and massacre at Banu Qurayza, I know all Muslims do too, do you? Killing people is not justified especially since they had unconditionally surrendered. Mohammed slaughtered helpless people and therefore I dismiss this man.

You and your co-believers believe in this...
"-The Prophet Muhammad-pbuh-is the seal of all prophets... "
Why believe in such childish garbage? Can a man who weds multiple women, forgave no one, married his best friends toddler daughter, snatched his sons wife because he found her attractive, beheads people, rapes women after killing their husbands, authors the Koran a despicable book be a prophet? What do you find in your koran that absolutely unconditionally proves without doubt it is authored by the supernatural? Verse 111?

"I recommended the above assuming that u are seeking the ultimate truth-not sterile monologue-and am sincere about my advice.
"

Anonymous, you seem to be a decent Man-but lacking in some ways, Islam has made you blind. You blindly follow a madman from Arabia; renounce Islam, Why do you need religion?

I'm a hot black single girl, I feel lonely... What I really need is love, Feel free to chat with me on ---Mixed Mingle. c o m--- where i upload my photos and many black or white singles seeking love online.

The raw truth is that Islam is DEATH CULT.It's a SUPREMACIST CULT.
Everybody knows that I am speaking the facts.Is it polically correct?No,it isn't.The sheer reality is often despicable,but it won't change because we dislike it.
I've got a picture of a collapsing World Trade Center tower in front of me,to remind here and then what kind of evil I am dealing with.Sometimes I remember DANIEL PEARL's grisly fate at the hands of muslims.He was BEHEADED,obeying Islamic law.

"Islam,a religion of peace..."

All of those who dare to utter that remark aloud,is fully aware that it's a downright LIE
and only say that for the sake of being politically correct,a very dangerous behavior.

"Arif":
-u should not hide behind a Muslim name,brave one.
-I know for a fact that u are either profoundly naive and ignorant or simply a propagandist who peddles nothing but lies and distortions-this is clear from u repeating already recyceled garbage.

-every decent human being is a Palestinian as is every Arab and every Muslim-Palestine has been Arab for the past five thousand years since the Canaanites settled it.

-The Prophet Muhammad-pbuh-is the seal of all prophets and his lasting miracle is his examplary life and the Quran whose truth transcends time and palce;thousands and thousands accept Islam every day around the world including America:the truth prevails regardless of all the obstacles and it has a momentum of its own.

Just open your mind, be neutral and objective and put your biases and prejudices aside then study the Quran and the Sunnah from Muslim sources and in its own context and not from Polemicists-I have no doubt that u will either accept Islam or be a friend of it-it is the faith of sound uncorrupted human nature and it is the faith of reason.

Read Karen Armstrong's book:"Muhammad a Prophet fro all Seasons," MAxime Rodnison's Muhammad translated from the Frecnh and also Tariq Ramadan's rcent book "In the foot steps of the Prophet."
Also read the translation of the Holy Quran by Abdullah Yousef Ali alond with the foot notes and commentory.

I recommended the above assuming that u are seeking the ultimate truth-not sterile monologue-and am sincere about my advice.

Asim,
The famous case of Mohammed's "merciful" nature in Volume 5, Book 59, Number 505 is shocking to say the least, here's why;
1. This man was a self styled "prophet", needless to say he should have behaved like one.
2. He offered shelter to some folks after they converted to his cult/religion.
3. They (the said thieves) might have also seen that he; Mohammed the "prophet" was a fornicator, womanizer and a thief, thereby deducing that he was a rascal too.
4. They also wondered where Mr. Prophet got those camels from.
5. It may have turned out that Mohammed procured those camels on one of his raids.
6. They, the thieves nonchalantly re-stole those camels and fled.
7. When caught they were mercilessly murdered in the most inhumane way only "prophet" could dream of (read Bokhahri for more details). Islamic justice starts from "last" prophet.

Ask yourself this... if you dare; how does a man who claimed to talk to a singular Jewish angel, who no one in history had seen (baring the Christians Mary-Jewish), be so cruel to fellow thieves like himself? Could Mohammed have not pardoned these camel thieves? No, he had to devise the cruelest way to kill them.

If you want to look at how cruel Islam really is don't waste your time reading books that no body ever reads, simply read the Koran and Hadith, then read current news and see for yourself what "last" prophet has done to you and so many like yourself.
Asim, I bet you are not even from Palestine; you probably met your first Palestinian in San Antonio mosque or the falafal palace? The first Jew who got all your money when your stock tanked?

Asim, get out of that basement install some games on your computer – (Grand Theft Auto) go outside and enjoy life, leave Islam, you’ll be a happy man.

Arif (Apartheid-Mecca)

Georgiason:

What frightens me is the fact that Muslims who have lived for years in America still have their behavior determined by the extremist religious values they brought with them. That is the disturbing lesson of the two incidents I cited."
****************************************************************
There have been times when different ethnic groups have been maligned and intimidated by the bigots and the ignorants of our society.

" All Japanese Americans are traitors" (during WW II)was the paradigm during that difficult period for the Japanese Americans.

"All Italians are mafia" was the mantra for quite some time.

"All Blacks are criminals" is still the belief of some bigots. The hatred for Blacks is still expressed openly on the blogs one can read.

Now it is poor Muslims' turn.

Do you think based on one or two isolated cases of "honor killing" in America, all 7 million
American Muslims are killing their daughters in America?
That all Muslims are monolithic and have the same values is preposterous. To claim that all Muslims condone 'honor killing' is ridiculous.

The Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned this recently and so has the Islamic Society of North America. If some people live in their cocoons and do not like to read what newspapers in Muslim countries are writing about such issues is not the fault of American Muslims.

The last sentence in your quote above is meant to frighten American people about Muslims.
Fortunately, a vast majority of Americans understand this.

Do you recognize the folly of generalizing about any group based on isolated cases ?

It is essential for the sake of future generations that Jews and Muslims work together to overcome mutual mistrust and suspicion and build a strong relationship that hopefully some day counter religious extermisim and intolerance.

Shalom, Salam, Peace.

To get a true picture of organized religion one only has to look at the history of mankind. One will find that, even though the Christian, Jewish and Islamic religionn and the Budhist and Hindu philosophies all profess "Thou shalt not kill" another human, since the beginning of recorded history more people have been killed and tortured in the name of god than for any other reason.

Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, the Inquisition, the Crusades to name just a few.

The promotion of improved Muslim-Jewish relations is great, no question. Let's hope whatever moderating influences are at work among Muslims gains enough force to allow it to happen. Two events just in the Atlanta Metro area shows how far we are from that goal.

First, another incident in that fine old Muslim custom of "honor killing." A Pakistani immigrant strangled his daughter because she wanted to end her arranged marriage, and that would disgrace the family. When the father appeared in court, he said, "I have done nothing wrong."

Second, we've been treated to the riveting story of two Muslim youths, born in the U.S. to a Pakistani family, who were shipped back to Pakistan by their father against their will and enrolled in a radical Muslim madrassa. Their story came to light only because a documentary film maker happened upon them and made a film about their ordeal. The resulting public outcry--by non-Muslims, that is--finally got them returned to the U.S.

After I first posted these stories in response to another article on Eboo Patel's blog, a Muslim responded with an ad hominem attack that labeled me ignorant and a bigot. Meanwhile, there have been two follow-up op-ed pieces in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on each story. The one on the Pakistani boys was a reprint of an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer and can be found at http://www.ajc.com/search/content/rubined.html. It notes that the story of these two American-born Muslim youths is only the tip of the iceberg of the truth about the number of Muslims from America now being indoctrinated in hate and anti-Americanism in radical Pakistani madrassas. Remember: These people have U.S. Passports!

The other article was headlined, "Islam Looks the Other Way on 'Honor Killings'."
http://www.ajc.com/search/content/opinion/stories/2008/07/14/honored.html.

It was written by a female commentator who lived for years in the Middle East, in response to another comment on the original article by a Muslim female spewing the usual whitewash that some atrocity committed in the name of Islam is not really sanctioned by the Koran. Some excerpts:

"The problem is that no one in Western culture can possibly understand the malicious actions and thoughts of the men, most of whom are Islamic, who commit these atrocious crimes... The saddest part is that most of the men, even when found guilty, get little more than a slap on the wrist. It's a kind of "good ol' boy" attitude and is unlikely to ever change...Islamic countries are governed by Islamic religious law, or sharia...honor killings...are treated gently by Islamic law. Like it or not, men rule the Middle East, and until the laws get serious, nothing will ever change. Women are afraid to stand up to the male guard, and it's no wonder. If they do, they will likely pay with their lives. Whitewashing is not going to change the sickening facts on honor killings. While domestic violence occurs in every country and every religion, civilized countries make the perpetrators pay a price. Having lived in the Middle East and seen the many things that I have seen, I must honestly say that Middle Eastern culture and religion still supports this heinous crime by looking the other way more often than not..."

Over to you, Eboo. Oops, I forgot. You are above responding to the comments on your own blog. Hmmm. Wonder if that attitude is part of what's wrong with Islam?

"Islamic Justice," what u claimed is a typical jewish and neocon modus operandi of lies and distortions:u have omitted at least the improtant half of the event: the Prophet's heart-pbuh- was broken when he heared the misreable conditions of those teracherous bedouins and gave them a refuge,camels and food to sustain themeselves and ordered some of his companions to take good care of them-only to get the news that they had murdered in cold blood the companions of the Prophet that cared for them and stole and fled with the camels and other possessions of the companions-clearly a case of treason and treachery for which they recieved justice:execution.

Their crimes included murder of the innocent hands that were caring for and feeding them, theft and treachery.This is punishable in all modern socities with the death penality.

That they were served justice because they renounced Islam is absolutely false:never ever did the Prophet or any Muslim authority ever killed or persecuted a person for changing his faith because the Quran clearly states that :"No ocmpulsion in religion," along with many other verses in the Quran.

Catholic Spain introduced and exceuted the shameful and horrendous Inquisition before and after 1492 AD on Muslims and jews by either forced conversions to Christianity,exceution or exile and confescation of property and children who then were incarcerated in churchs and were forced to convert to catholcism.

The British historian of the university of york Richard Fletcher stated in his book "Morrish Spain" that headstones in Spainsih cemetries show graves with Spanish first names and yet Muslim surnames-clearly indicating forced conversions of Muslims.

Apostacy has no punishment in Islamic Law but inciting sedition in a muslim community by an apostate is punishable by death because it theratnes the very existence of the community.

Six million jews were incenrated in the heart of civilized Europe as well as quarter of a million Bosnian Muslims were muredered in a Serb genocide in Serb 1992 with the perpetrators still at large-both communities jeiwsh and muslim suffered this horrendous faith because they were of a different faith,respectively jewish and muslim.

It is outrageous that u lie in full day light and underestimate and insult the commonsense and intellignece of the readers on this forum as u insult the from itself.

Asim, San Antonio

Volume 5, Book 59, Number 505:

Narrated Anas:

Some people of the tribe of 'Ukl and 'Uraina arrived at Medina to meet the Prophet and embraced Islam and said, "O Allah's Prophet! We are the owners of milch livestock (i.e. bedouins) and not farmers (i.e. countrymen)." They found the climate of Medina unsuitable for them. So Allah's Apostle ordered that they should be provided with some milch camels and a shepherd and ordered them to go out of Medina and to drink the camels' milk and URINE.

So they set out and when they reached Al-Harra, they reverted to Heathenism after embracing Islam, and drove away the camels. When this news reached the Prophet, he sent some people in pursuit of them. So they were caught and brought back to the Prophet .

The Prophet gave his orders in their concern. So their eyes were branded with pieces of iron and their hands and legs were cut off and they were left away in Harra till they died in that state of theirs. (See Hadith 234 Vol 1)

The Arab-jewish conflict in Palestine is not,repeat not in any shape or form a religious conflict at all:it is about jewish invader aliens stealing and occupying all of Arab Palestine and tormenting its population in concentration camps,ironically,no diffferent than the horrendous nazi camps in which the jews themselves were incenerated.

As Ivnery and all historians testify including Bernard Lewis, the god father of Islam bashers and haters and the frequent vistor to W's white house to spout his venom against Muslims so the naive and cluless guy takes in like a sphonge-asserted that Muslims throuoght history have treated jews very decently as full citizens-not any where comaprable to the inhumane jewish treatment of Palestinians.

Yes Ivenery is a fair and decent human being-but still he is an occupier and lives in house of an ethnically cleanesed Palestinian-will his words of truth end the jewish occupation and return the six million Palestinian refugees to their homes who were replaced by six million invading settler jews?

Will Mr.Ivnery hand over the very hosue in which he lives now to its rightful owners-the Palestinians????

A Palestinian refugee who has been languishing in refugee camps in Lebanon,Syria or Jordan for the past sixty years, want to return to his homeland and not hear words that do not get him across one jewish military check point in the west bank or across Aushwitiz # 2-Gaza.

That was a mundane article Schrock.

In America, your optimism may be well-founded.

However vile anti-Semitism is all too normative among the Islamic world. This most recent example is striking in it absolute pettiness:

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=63330§ionid=3510211

Somali says;
“There CANNOT be any relations BUT BAD relations between Muslim and Jew as long as the terrorist war on Muslims persist(s)”
Hogwash! The relation between the two soured during the time of Mohammad in the 7th Century when the Jews refused to accept the “Messenger of Allah” as one of their prophets. When he gained enough followers he cleansed Arabia of anything called Jewish, and in the process demonized them for all times. There is nothing the Jews can do now or ever to escape being described by Muslims as pigs and monkeys.
To Somali and his elk whether Arabs or Muslims, all we Palestinians get from you is hot air. You never give any kind of meaningful aid to us yet when we opt to settle with our adversaries you all condemn us and egg us on to go it alone . Many amongst you benefited and still benefiting from the Palestinian catastrophe in the form of aid from those who consider Israel as a strategic asset. There are now 6 million Palestinian refugees who are stateless except the ones who spilled into Transjordan and the few who managed to emigrate to the West.
The Palestinians are not totally blameless. Very few sold some lands to the Jews which gave the Zionists foothold into their country, but the unforgivable mistake was allowing a Muslim cleric to lead them during the critical period in the country’s history. What does a Muslim priest, such as the Mufti of Jerusalem, know about international relations and high level diplomacy?

Amused:

I am amused with Amused's ignorance or hypocrisy. How have the Hindus treated other Hindus during the last 3,000 years since the Aryan invasion?

The caste system of the Hindus is the most abhorrent thing humanity has experienced and is still experiencing in India.

The Dalits (the untouchables) have been treated as animals. Their entire villages burned down.

Hindus of India are known for urine drinking, burning alive of the young brides for the sake of dowry, the burning alive of the widows in the name of Sati, the abortions of female fetuses on a massive scale. etc. etc.

At the time of the end of the Muslim rule in India, Delhi was still a non-Muslim city and India was a non-Muslim country.

The Jan Sanghis in the U.S. support the communal Hindu Janta party. They are sponsoring the visit of their Gujarati fanatic, Narendra Modi, the Butcher of Gujarat.

There will be more if you come back.

As long as Abraham's children zealously believe each has the one true God in their respective box, there will be no peace. Meanwhile, Satan dances in delight as religion is the most divisive force in the universe.

In general, Islam is an intolerant and violent religon. Please come and see all the temples destroyed and defaced by Muslim invaders for over 1000 years in India. Every Muslim ruler of India (except AKbar, perhaps Jehangir, Shah Jehan)were very harsh to the Hindu majority whom they sneeringly referred to as Kafirs, like using the N word today on African Americans. They were ruled harshly, had to pay a special tax levied on non-Muslims. No wonder millions converted to Islam, yet the country remains Hindu majority.
Muslims in India, and now the US, speak aproovingly of secularism, ha, ha!!! Isn't it ironic, when the countries where they are a majority are anything but.

Notice that the fundamentalists, and personality cultists are nowhere to be found?

Notice that it is the young people doing the hard work?

It is time to throw the dinasaur's, the fundamentalist's, and the personality cultist's ideas INTO THE GARBAGE.

God hates them.

Somali:

You are incorrect in using the word Jew or Muslim in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There are many many honorable Jews both inside Israel and outside Israel who condemn the Israeli policy of appropriating Palestinian land, bull dozing Palestinian homes and businesses, cutting down olive trees, building a wall to separate the Israelis and the Palestinians. Thus, it is morally wrong to generalize about Jewish people as a whole.

The starting point for a dialog between Jews, Christians, and Muslims is to recognize that all life is precious and all humans must have HUMAN RIGHTS regardless of their faith, skin color or their nationality.

t is amazing how supposedly educated people assign cause and effect relationship to a predetermined mindset. Consider the following examples:

(1) A student pores over the prison records and finds that our prison population is overwhelmingly black. He assigns criminality to skin color. Of course, the student should have considered the historical, economic and educational status of the black population at large and compared it with other groups.

The student should also have taken into consideration the bias of the law enforcement agencies against blacks. A black, for example, driving a car is more likely to be stopped by the police than an individual of any other group. Such an analysis might give this student an obligation to draw a different conclusion than his first superficial conclusion.

(2) A student wants to know the death rate of a particular state. He examines the death records of all the hospitals of that state and then calculates the death rate by dividing the total number of deaths from hospital records by the total population per 1,000 of that state. What do you think of his methodology of collecting data and conclusions? Should the death rates be calculated this way?

This student gets an 'F' grade from this professor.

(3) A medical researcher looks at the data of all the heart attack patients and seeks to demonstrate an association of heart attacks with grey hair. Since most of the victims of heart attack did have grey hair the researcher concludes that there is a correlation between heart attack and grey hair.

This medical researcher failed to recognize that there are millions of people in the age group 30-50 who have grey hair but never had heart attack.This professor-referee recommended that this medical researcher's paper in that journal be rejected on grounds of flawed methodology.

Eboo Patel is trying to promote interfaith understanding. What he gets: a bunch of crap from deeply troubled individuals blaming everything on Islam and Muslims.

Oy!:
Keep repating your propaganda and u yourself might even start believing it.

Three points:
1)U have not uttered one word of truth on the PAlestine isse:how could have the Arabs accept the stealing and occupation of 78% of their homeland,historic Arab PAlestine,in which they lived for the past five thousand years,since their ancstors,the Arab Canaanaites settled it,how?? -the jews had not existed then and when they existed under the Romans in Palestine their presence and influnce was very maginal at best;

2)On the ethnic celaensing of 80% of the indigneous Palestinian Arabs in 1947/8, see
WWW.PALNDS.ORG and even the so called jewish neo-historians such as ILAN PAPPE,Beni Moris and others who documneted these facts.

Settler states never survive for long even with a nuclear arsenal:The French were evicted by the Alegerian National Liberation Front after 130 yeras of occupation and Apratheid white south Africa and its nuclear arsenal vanished into oblivion too.
On the lengthy French occupation of Algeria:am not in any way or shape suggesting that "israel" will surviv that long:see the French historian Maixime Rodnison -also jewish but a frist rate schoalr -assretd that in his book "Israel-a Colonial Settler State."

2) The ethnically cleanesed Palestinians need no proof of the jewish ethnic cleanesing inflicted upon them: the very victims who feels the agony ,pain and exile, need no proof of their pain, agony and exile in refugee camps for the past sixty years.

3)U must understand as AIAPC should,that US national interests and the interests of the racist apartheid miltaristic jewish theocracy are mutually exclusive and the jewish lobby should stop abusing US blood and tresaure to launch more wars on Muslims-Iraq is a case in point-and unneccessairly provoke the hostility of 1.5 billion Muslim souls against America to appease AIPAC and the apartheid entity.

Like all jews,u are agitating for another war this time on Iran; in fact the only way to have peace in the ME is for Iran and other Arab states to develop or acquire nuclear weapons to defend it self against and the israeli monopoly of nuclear weapons:for deterence-MAD-mutual assured destruction worked for fifty years during the the cold war;nuclear weapons are badly needed by Iran and the Arab states in the ME to deter israel from terrorising the region and to stop its cancerous settlemsnts and theft of more PAlestinian land which is now less than 10 % of historic Arab Palestine. Where will the so called Palestinian state be establsihed???????

Other wise isarel should disarmed from its nuclear weapons and atomic agency should be allowed to inspect israel's nuclear facilities as it has done countless times!!!!!!!!

thanks Anonymous for the piece by Uri Avnery-

because he is an israeli- his balanced view of history are even more welcome on a board speaking to jewish-muslim dialogue-

let's not forget indonesia- when one asserts the old accusation that islam was spread by the sword- it is always overlooked-

indonesia is country whose population almost matches ours- 260 million people- and islam came peacefully and was accepted so that now it is the largest muslim populated country in the world.

Anonymous (2) tells anonymous (1)

"You are being a little harsh on Islam. What is required of Islam is that it have an encounter with Enlightenment values. Both Christianity and Judaism had such encounters in the eighteenth century. Islam did not. It is now going through the pains of having such an encounter."

The Enlightment age for the West was much earlier than the 18th Century, and that was when the Church was reformed and not the Christian religion. In the case of Islam the fault is in the core of its belief system and not only in its practices . That is why it could not be reformed.

Eboo,

If I ever questioned the worth of the interfaith work you are doing, the comments below have erased all doubt. Please keep up the good work - much needed. It sounds like the next generation has it priorities in order.

Anonymous at 6:29 A.M.

It is false to say that Islam did not encounter tolerance. Evidently you are not aware of Rumi, Averroes and a host of others. I have great respect for Judaism, Christianity and Islam. My view is that hostility to Islam is political. Read on:

Here is what a great Israeli peace activist has to say:

The Israeli is Mr Uri Avnery, a scholar and peace activist and once a Knesset member. In a recent article, Mr Avnery says, “The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: how did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years when they had the power to ‘spread the faith by the sword’?”

For many centuries, he says, the Muslims ruled Greece. “Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone try to Islamise them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration.

The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christians”.

Then he points to a fact which perhaps most Christians do not know. When the Crusaders invaded Palestine, the majority had remained Christian in spite of 400 years of Muslim rule. Then “in the name of gentle Jesus”, he says, the Crusaders “massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants”.

He adds: “There is no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule, the Jews of Spain enjoyed a boom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time.”

Then giving the names of some great Jewish poets and scholars, Mr Avnery says, “In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, and scientists” and “Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was indeed the Golden Age.

How would this have been possible had the Prophet decreed the ‘spreading of the faith by the sword’?” Then he refers to the re-conquest of Spain by Catholics and says: “The Jews and Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave”.

Then he asks, “Where did the hundreds of thousands of Jews ... escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco...to Iraq, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman empire)… to Sudan. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition… and the terrible mass expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries up to the Holocaust”.

He asks, “Why?” and then he answers, “Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of ‘peoples of the book’. In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians...” Is this fascism?

Then he says something touching: “Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times ‘by the word’ to get them to abandon their faith”.

The story about “spreading the faith by the sword”, he says “is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe” during the many wars with Muslims.

Muslims are mindful that Islam shares common roots with both Judaism and Christianity--the belief in the God of Abraham, Old Testament prophets, and the virgin birth of Jesus, the Messiah.

"Nobody believes you guys actually exist,” I said to the group I was eating dinner with.

I was sitting with the North American Board of Reform Judaism’s youth movement (called NFTY) at their summer leadership camp, Kutz."
------------------------

Mr. Patel: this comment at the beginning of your piece is offensive. The people who don't believe there are Jewish people seeking understanding and peace between Jews and Muslims are the same people who would prefer to be ignorant of the truth and hostile to those whose religious views differ from theirs. There is no excuse for denying the existence of Jews and others reaching out for understanding and peace - unless one seeks to perpetuate stereotypes and ignorant hostility.

ANONYMOUS AT 6:29am:

You are being a little harsh on Islam. What is required of Islam is that it have an encounter with Enlightenment values. Both Christianiity and Judaism had such encounters in the eighteenth century. Islam did not. It is now going through the pains of having such an encounter. Better late than never. Although it is good that the West learn more about Islam, Islam must take on the responsibility of learning more about the West and Islam's role in modernizing itself. This will be easier to accomplish with Muslims in the West then it will be in the Ummah itself. This is the problem.

There can be no reconciliation with Islam by non-Muslims until Islam is reformed to include the following:

1) Admitting that Allah was the family idol of the Qureishi clan and that the Koran is a work of humans completed in the 9th century. An idol that commands men to beat up their wives (4:34 of the Koran) cannot be God.

2) That the hajj was and is a continuation of a pagan custom.

3) Admit that Muhammad was an evil man, a pedophile, a murderer, a slave monger, a thief and bandit and ethnic cleanser, the founder of both Islam and nazism

4)Liberate women. Abolish the talaaq system of divorce, give women equal inheritance rights, ban wife beating and child marriage(justified because the 56 year old Muhammad took a nine year old child to bed), equal testimonial rights

5) Stop killing Muslims for leaving the faith

6) Allow non-Muslims to build their places of worship freely in all countries including Saudi Arabia
7) Stop honor killing of women which is permitted by Islam.

8) Give half of Arabia back to the Jews and make Arabs leave Gaza and the West Bank.

Islam has to become human before it is admitted into the human fold. Right now it is an evil faith

This is the difference between those who have the faith of Abram and those who have the faith of Jesus.

And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

“Look now toward heaven”
“tell the stars”
“So shall thy seed be”
“he believed in the Lord”
“he counted it to him for righteousness”

And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim
That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,
The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles;
The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.

“beyond Jordan”
“Galilee of the Gentiles”
“darkness saw great light”
“shadow of death light is sprung up”

And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him,
And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.
And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.
The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.

“Jesus was entered into Capernaum”
“there came unto him a centurion”
“centurion answered and said”
“Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof”

But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.
And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.

“Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven”
“shalt be brought down to hell”

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer”
“how art thou cut down to the ground”
“which didst weaken the nations”
“I will exalt my throne above the stars of God”
“in the sides of the north”
“I will ascend above the heights of the clouds”
“I will be like the most High”
“Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit”

And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man.
And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned.

“when the centurion saw what was done”
“Certainly this was a righteous man”
“all the people that came together to that sight”
“smote their breasts”

Re:Hussein
Here again another Muslim quoting another Jew to “prove” the tolerance of Islam. He quotes the following;
“They(non-Muslims) enjoyed the free exercise of their religion , normal property rights , and were very frequently employed in the service of the State , often in the highest offices."
Does the following ”constitution” for the treatment of non-Muslims in lands ruled by Muslims show that non-Muslims enjoyed anything?

The following is a partial list of Omar Pact.

"We shall not build, in our cities or in their neighborhood, new monasteries, Churches, convents, or monks' cells, nor shall we repair, by day or by night, such of them as fall in ruins or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims."

"We shall keep our gates wide open for passersby and travelers. We shall give board and lodging to all Muslims who pass our way for three days."

"We shall not manifest our religion publicly nor convert anyone to it. We shall not prevent any of our kin from entering Islam if they wish it."

"We shall show respect toward the Muslims, and we shall rise from our seats when they wish to sit."

"We shall not seek to resemble the Muslims by imitating any of their garments, the qalansuwa, the turban, footwear, or the parting of the hair."

"We shall not speak as they do, nor shall we adopt their kunyas."

"We shall not mount on saddles, nor shall we gird swords nor bear any kind of arms nor carry them on our- persons."

"We shall not engrave Arabic inscriptions on our seals." etc. etc. etc.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pact-umar.html

PAGANPLACE wrote : QUOTE '' Islam can only tolerate us, khaffirs ( infidels ) , under the
Dhimmis status . Saying otherwise is a sheer display of naivety and sheer lack of Islamic history knowledge . '' END OF QUOTE .
May I please comment on this statement , as well as on other similar ones posted here , by reference to one of the most illustrious orientalists , BERNARD LEWIS , PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE NEAR AND MIDDLE EAST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON . In pages 57 and 58 of his book THE ARABS IN HISTORY , published in 1950 and therefore not influenced by the present political conflicts , Bernard Lewis , who, by the way is a Jew , writes : QUOTE '' The conquerors ( Muslim Arabs ) did not interfere with the internal civil and religious administration of the conquered peoples , who received the status of Dhimmis . The change from Byzantine to Arab rule seems to have been generally welcomed by the subject peoples, who found the new yoke far lighter than the old , both in taxation and in other matters . Even the Christian populations of Syria and Egypt preferred the rule of Islam to that of the orthodox Byzantines. A Jewish apocalyptic writing of the early Islamic period makes an angel say to a rabbinic seer : '' Do not fear , Ben Yohay ; the Creator , blessed He , has only brought the kingdom of Ishmael in order to save you from this wickedness ( i.e. Byzantium ) ... the Holy One , blessed He , will raise up for them a Prophet according to His will , and conquer the land for them , and they will come and restore it ...'' We may compare with this the words of a later Syriac Christian historian : '' Therefore the God of vengeance delivered us delivered us out of the hands of the Romans by means of the Arabs ....It profited us not a little to be saved from the cruelty of the Romans and their bitter hatred towards us '' . The peoples of the conquered provinces did not confine themselves to accepting the new regime but in some cases actively assisted in its establishment .'' END OF QUOTE.
The later situation at the peak of the Islamic Empire was not different as regards the Dhimmis . Here again I refer to Bernard Lewis in page 94 of that same book . QUOTE '' By and large their position ( that of the Dhimmis ) was infinitely superior to that of those communities who differed from the established church in western Europe in the same periods. They enjoyed the free exercise of their religion , normal property rights , and were very frequently employed in the service of the State , often in the highest offices . They were admitted to the craft guilds , in some of which they actually predominated . They were never called upon to suffer martyrdom or exile for their beliefs.'' END OF QUOTE .
I would like to add that while the Jews were persecuted and humiliated throughout western Europe they , as well as the Christians ,enjoyed
complete freedom of faith in Spain under Islamic rule . After the reconquest of the Iberian peninsula by the Franks and the following horrific rule of the Inquisition the Jews had to leave the country or adopt Christianity or live as Cryptojews .
As for those who claim that Islam was spread by the sword I would like to remind them that the most populated Moslem countries ( Pakistan and Indonesia )never saw a single Moslem soldier trying to occupy them .
As for the situation in my lifetime , I would like to say that our neighbours just next door in Alexandria , Egypt , were Orthodox Jews , and so were many of my classmates . It is only after the foundation of Israel that the Jewish population of the Middle East countries started to be affected by this disease of dual loyalty and the following sequence of events is well known to everybody . It is only after a fair solution could be found to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that a return to the old peaceful and prosperous coexistence could be achieved .
I would like to end this comment by stating that I am an elderly ,retired university professor , born of a Muslim Egyptian father and a Catholic Italian mother , but I consider myself a Pantheist , believing in the identity of GOD and NATURE .

hi HL, long time no see!

after i posted i thought it would have been more fun if i'd have started it with 'a jew, a christian, and a muslim got onto a bus...he he

Ajit quotes a Jew by the name of Avneri to prove the tolerance of Islam. I shall quote the Quran; the supposedly exact words of Allah.

Amputations and slaughter of unbelievers: God is acting through the Muslims when they do this
8:12-13,17 Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): "I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them." This because they contended against God and His Apostle: If any contend against God and His Apostle, God is strict in punishment. ... It is not ye who slew them; it was God

God wanted Muslims to exterminate non-Muslim army
3:152 God did indeed fulfill His promise to you when ye with His permission Were about to annihilate your enemy,- until ye flinched and fell to disputing about the order, and disobeyed it after He brought you in sight (of the booty) which ye covet.

The importance of military fighting for Islam
2:216 Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But God knoweth, and ye know not.
2:217 They ask thee concerning fighting in the Prohibited Month. Say: "Fighting therein is a grave (offence); but graver is it in the sight of God to prevent access to the path of God, to deny Him, to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, and drive out its members."

Tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter.
4:84 Then fight in God's cause - Thou art held responsible only for thyself - and rouse the
believers.

Fight the non-Muslims to submission or conversion
8:38-39 Say to the Unbelievers, if (now) they desist (from Unbelief), their past would be forgiven them; but if they persist, the punishment of those before them is already (a matter of warning for them). And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God altogether and everywhere; but if they cease, verily God doth see all that they do.
9:5 But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them: for God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.

Ajit quotes a Jew by the name of Avneri to prove the tolerance of Islam. I shall quote the Quran; the supposedly exact words of Allah.

Amputations and slaughter of unbelievers: God is acting through the Muslims when they do this
8:12-13,17 Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): "I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them." This because they contended against God and His Apostle: If any contend against God and His Apostle, God is strict in punishment. ... It is not ye who slew them; it was God

God wanted Muslims to exterminate non-Muslim army
3:152 God did indeed fulfill His promise to you when ye with His permission Were about to annihilate your enemy,- until ye flinched and fell to disputing about the order, and disobeyed it after He brought you in sight (of the booty) which ye covet.

The importance of military fighting for Islam
2:216 Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But God knoweth, and ye know not.
2:217 They ask thee concerning fighting in the Prohibited Month. Say: "Fighting therein is a grave (offence); but graver is it in the sight of God to prevent access to the path of God, to deny Him, to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, and drive out its members."

Tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter.
4:84 Then fight in God's cause - Thou art held responsible only for thyself - and rouse the
believers.

Fight the non-Muslims to submission or conversion
8:38-39 Say to the Unbelievers, if (now) they desist (from Unbelief), their past would be forgiven them; but if they persist, the punishment of those before them is already (a matter of warning for them). And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God altogether and everywhere; but if they cease, verily God doth see all that they do.
9:5 But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them: for God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.

Victoria,

Thanks for sharing that "wee slice of life."

Marcos Bernstein: Have you read the following?

Mohammad's Sword

Uri Avneryby Uri Avnery
September 27, 2006

Since the days when Roman Emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.
Constantine the Great, who became Emperor in the year 306--exactly 1700 years ago--encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine . Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the Emperor accept his superiority.

The struggle between the Emperors and the Popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some Emperors dismissed or expelled a Pope, some Popes dismissed or excommunicated an Emperor. One of the Emperors, Henry IV, "walked to Canossa ," standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope's castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.

But there were times when Emperors and Popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present Emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week's speech by the Pope, which aroused a world-wide storm, went well with Bush's crusade against "Islamofascism," in the context of the "Clash of Civilizations."
IN HIS lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God's actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.

As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this "war of civilizations."

In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?

To support his case, the Pope quoted--of all people--a Byzantine Emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th Century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had--or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt)--with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?

WHEN MANUEL II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.

At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube . They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece , and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire . On May 29, 1453 , only a few years after Manuel's death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul ) fell to the Turks, putting an end to the Empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.

During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.

In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim "Axis of Evil." Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe , this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.

IS THERE any truth in Manuel's argument?

The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur'an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant verse 257) which says: "There must be no coercion in matters of faith."

How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur'an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes--Christian, Jewish and others--in Arabia , when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.

Jesus said: "You will recognize them by their fruits." The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"?
Well, they just did not.

For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece . Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.

True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith--and they were the forefathers of most of today's Palestinians.

THERE IS no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the "spreading of the faith by the sword"?

What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi ("Spanish") Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire ) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.

WHY? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the "peoples of the book." In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll-tax, but were exempted from military service--a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion--because it entailed the loss of taxes.
Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for 50 generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.

THE STORY about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims--the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna . I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?

There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of "Islamofascism" and the "Global War on Terrorism"--when "terrorism" has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush's handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world's oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade.

The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?

Uri Avnery is a peace activist.
URL: http://www.strike-the-root.com/62/avnery/avnery9.html

Berny says:

"Another 'hudna' won't do. We want PEACE, but not
at the price of giving up Jerusalem. This simply won't happen...not now or ever. The Jordanians are aware of that."

Moi:
Jerusalem is the holiest place on earth for Christians, Arab as well as non Arabs, and the second holiest place for Muslims. The world considers Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem, where most of the Christian and Muslim holy places are, as illegal. The whole of Jerusalem should be internationalized. The Christians along with Muslims do not want their holy places under the supervision of anyone but themselves. The Israelis have to be ready to fight not only the Arabs but the whole world if they want to keep the whole city.

Paganplace, Paganplace, Paganplace,

Being a pagan, it is obvious you have not read any books on the historical Jesus. Might want to check the reference in the synopysis of Catholicism noted previously.

And once again, I am a "Crossanized" Catholic and have yet to feel any pain from "needled" voodoo dolls so you might as well give it up. Oops, sorry, Wiccans are not into the pagan aspect of "voodooing the hoodoo".

Well,if Islam really wants to reconcile with Judaism,it must renounce all Jihad-related talk.The islamic rhetoric is,to put it mildly,abhorrent.
Other little thing:Israel is here to STAY.If Israel should be destroyed,so it will be the WHOLE MIDDLE-EAST.The Syrians knows that.

Israeli people isn't kidding about their will to survive,doesn't matter what could happen.

Another 'hudna' won't do.We want PEACE,but not
at the price of giving up Jerusalem.This simply won't happen...not now ou ever.The Jordanians are aware of that.

Threatening Israel of utter destruction isn't healthy for you,since the very opposite of that remark is quite more possible.Don't brag about the SHIHAB missiles,for Israel has the capability of intercept them,but Iran DOESN'T how to do the same with the incoming ISRAELI MISSILES that will certainly decorate Teheran's sky while they're falling.It'll be a quite interesting picture.

The thing is:War is a total WASTE of time,money and more important:HUMAN LIVES.Let's put an end at all of this at once.

i'm in new york- and i just got home and off the bus a few minutes ago-
i have some of my most interesting interfaith experiences on the bus- buses are equalizers- we all know if we had the dough, we'd be in a cab or driving our car- no one really wants to be on the bus- and you're captive too- having to make or avoid eye contact with a person 3 feet directly opposite-

today a lady of entirly unknown ethnicity asked of me in an unidentifiable(to me) accent, "are yo a nun?"
i get this about every week- even though i
'm in bright salmon pink from my purse to my hijab(headscarf)-
i told her i'm a muslim- and that being irish american i look like a nun to people- i don't know if she understood- she seemed convinced that i'm a bright pink nun- i repeated muslim, but she said something about nuns and smiled and got off- off to my right a bengali lady offered salaams(greeting of peace) to me and we talked for a minute too-

then an older lady got on with some heavy package- faltering as the bus lurched off and i took it and scooted to give her a seat-
she was an older jewish lady and she said,"may god bless you as you deserve"
i replied, "we have the exact same saying" and then we talked for a minute about mitzvahs, and the dual nature of the blessing- until i got off the bus-

it's not much of a story- just a wee slice of life-

but, having just experienced it, and similar events every day-
i realize the smallness and plain out silliness of haters- and i feel kind of sorry because i imagine that no one is talking to them on the bus.

peace

The President of ISNA, an Islamic organization in the USA, says:
“I believe that the Jewish community will also benefit from having Muslim partners in the struggle to uphold the constitutional separation of church and state, to promote civil liberties, to extend religious accommodation to minorities and to counter prejudice and hatred.”
If you believe in these “virtues" shouldn’t you and your coreligionists be spreading them among Muslim societies around the world instead of preaching to the choir? Or what good for the goose is NOT good for the gander?

Patel,
It's a start. But there are certainly fundamental issues that have to be addressed, and not just here in small pieces. When you have mobs of Muslims around the world calling for the death of a Dutch cartoonist, and when you have tens or hundreds of thousands cheering on the streets after 9-11 and also saying it's a Jewish conspiracy, the efforts must be much more far-reaching.

To Asim,
you are the problem Patel is talking about. Spread lies, blame everyone else, spew hate.
If we take your advice, well, the Jews were there first, about 2600 years before the Islamists.
And...

1. Read Natan Sharansky's book about democracy. He says there are two types, a Fear Democracy and a Free Democracy. In a place, like most of the Arab/Muslim world and certainly in the territories, 'twas a Fear Democracy. Where one can't practice a religion, speak out, criticize the government, vote, etc without fear of negative consequences, there goes a Fear Society.
Israel, alone in the ME, is a Free Society/Democracy. Arafat and Hamas, and the group in Lebanon are merely the sham of a freely elected democratic process, in reality, they are no different than an election in Russia, China, Syria, Cuba, etc, where the people really aren't free to choose.

2. Had the Arabs accepted the two state solution in 1948 and not gone to war against Israel, there would be two prosperous states in the ME, fewer refugees, etc. There would not have been the 850,000 Jews kicked out of the Arab countries, nor the 650,000 Arabs who fled, per the Mufti and other "leaders" so the Jews could be pushed into the sea and the flee-ers could then come back and plunder the Jews property.

3. How is it the the "peace loving" Arabs/Muslims teach their children that the Americans are Crusaders, the Jews dogs, apes, and monkeys, that no Jew can live in any Muslim land, and that somehow that's going to lead to peace?

4. Bush's heart was in the right place, his strategy and tactics suffered from tunnel vision and not getting input from a variety of resources on what to do after we won the war.

5. Where were the Arab armies opposing Sadam when he went into Kuwait? What would the world be like now if he had been allowed to stay?
What would the world be like if the Israelis hadn't bombed his nuclear reactor in 1981?
Heck, what will the world be like if Israel doesn't bomb the Iranian facilites?

6. You forgot to explain how the war between Iraq and Iran was Israel's or America's fault.
Or how the takeover in Lebanon by Syria and it's proxies is contributing to freedom and democracy.

7. Also waiting for the condemnation of killing of Israeli civilians, including many Muslims, by terrorist bombs, rockets, guns, etc. And explain why the terrorists purposly position themselves behind civilian shields hoping to draw return fire and civilian causalities.
Explain why Arafat turned down an offer of 98% of what had been requested.
Explain why, after the withdrawl of Israeli troops and civilians from Gaza, the rockets continue, the business like the famous greenhouses were destroyed instead of put into use providing jobs, and why 850,000 Jews could be resettled in Israel almost immediately, but 650,000 Arabs, now numbering over 2.5 million in Israel alone, could not be absorbed into any Arab/Muslim country in over 60 years?
Tell me why, from 1948 until 1967, the Jews had zero access to Eastern Jerusalem, and why Jewish gravesites, synagouges, buildings, etc, were systematically destroyed and defaced.

I'm guessing I'll have a very long wait...

"You can shop either hallal or kosher in many cities in the Northeastern U.S. As we all know, it is quite different in the Middle East. Especially in the Ummah, where an independent Jewish state is anathema."

It's actually kinda funy, cause I as a Pagan carnivore sometimes thank rabbis for blessing those creatures in an agribusiness assembly line, and sometimes Muslims end up going to Pagan homesteaders to dfind feast-meat that meets halal.

Wondering if it could possibly be not as partisan as people make it out to be.

Or, CCNL, are you just trying to get approval from the worst among Christians while denying being one so as to escape their scorn of 'Atheists?'

Cause you're no different, CCNl.

It's natural to think that a heritage someone took away by force and coercion must be 'flawed,' too, but that's how they get you.

Where is your *home,* ye human?

These Abrahamics brought us nothing but war and hate.

This does not mean that's the only option.

It might hurt. But what else can we do.

Or are you a robot *they* programmed?

I don't believe that, 'Liberated Christian.'

I believe you are a real human being somewhere in there.

As much as you try to imitate a computer.

Brother.

What would you like to do now?

Oh, yeah. You don't have to use the *keyboard* to speak it. However, you seem bound to that idea. What would you like? Blessing? Forgiveness for things unjustly called crimes? You want to be a 'conservative' to have power over others, but unless ou're just thinking you're on a 'crusade' to defame atheists, I think it's the OCD talking.

You, too, CCNL, have a soul and a spirit and a home that no words can give or take away.

What would you like?

Will you speak it?

Ugly truth of all this talk is no one wants or cares for it. We all gotta breathe, sooner or later. Even if the universe don't even *register* excuses.

What are you trying to prove?

And what do you think it would do for you if you did?

Mr. Patel,

All things are possible here in North America. Jewish youth and Moslem youth talk together and make nice, nice, peace signs, and share their experiences. Moslems and Jews live together cheek by jowl in Brooklyn, NY, without any suicide bombing or raiding.
You can shop either hallal or kosher in many cities in the Northeastern U.S. As we all know, it is quite different in the Middle East. Especially in the Ummah, where an independent Jewish state is anathema.
Do you think Moslems in the Middle East would be willing to see Israel as a fulfillment of the national aspirations of the Jewish people, just as an other ethnic group like the Palestinians might have national aspirations and make nice, nice with Israel? I don't think so. The Ummah is still the Ummah is it not?

I know it's irregular to say it on the Net, CCNL, but where is your soul home, and how would I help you get there, presuming you don't own Earth?

A while back I promised you attention, and you made ill use of it, but,

What do you want. Speak as a man, not a cut-and-pasted piece of text. That's for those you have such contempt for.

What do *you* want, man most mortal?*

'Concerned Liberated Christian,' Now?

Speak it.

And no dodges. I'll laugh at you.

I want to know when the Jewish-Muslim theoduopoly will open a "dialogue" with us Pastafarians. They've been so busy stamping out competing religions that they've blinded themselves to the loving touch of His noodly goodness. All they have to do is open their hearts to and be touched by Him. Ra-Men.

Shut up, CCNL. Seriously.

If you have such a big issue with these theists, get them out of your head. Only thing you are doing here is thinking getting attention, 'Earth-man.'

A real human being does not need these things, child of the Dineh.

But let's not mince words, here. If all you holy and righteous and variously-infallible people can't sort it out amonsts yourselves, why you giving *me* a hard time, who wants no part of your 'holy' ambitions?

After all what you monotheist *crotch) grabbers* have done, all I can say is that, after all I've been through at all of your hands, I ever have to strike anybody with any weapon for any reason, I will be very pissed. At all of you Sons of Abraham.

And don't mistake that for weakness.

Just, you so mighty, *don't make me cry.*

Holy *@&# dudes.

It's not that hard.

Eboo, Eboo, Eboo,

You still cannot come to grips with the reality of contemporary religions.

Once again for your perusal:

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was either the embellishment of the lives of three different men or a mythical character as was Moses, the "Tablet-Man" who talked to burning bushes and made much magic in Egypt.

Many of the 1.5 million Conservative Jews and many of their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.

simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm

2. Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter/simple preacher man who suffered from hallucinations and who has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus). Analyses of Jesus’ life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists) via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.

The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics. earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

For added "pizzazz", Catholic/Christian theologians divided god the singularity into three persons and invented atonement as an added guilt trip for the "pew people" to go along with this trinity of overseers. By doing so, they made god the padre into god the "filicider".

Current crises:

Pedophiliac priests, atonement theology and original sin!!!!

3. Luther, Calvin, Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingie thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).

Current crises:

Adulterous preachers, "propheteering/ profiteering" evangelicals and atonement theology. .

4. Mohammed was an illiterate, womanizing, lust and greed-driven, warmongering, hallucinating Arab, who also had embellishing/hallucinating/ plagiarizing scribal biographers who not only added "angels" and flying chariots to the koran but also a militaristic agenda to support the plundering and looting of the lands of non-believers.

This agenda continues as shown by the assassination of Bhutto, the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the Islamic bombers of the trains in the UK and Spain, the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani “koranics”, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases, the Taliban nut jobs, and the Filipino “koranics”.

And who funds this muck and stench of terror? The warmongering, Islamic, Shiite terror and torture theocracy of Iran aka the Third Axis of Evil and also the Sunni "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.

The current crises:

The Sunni-Shiite blood feud and the warmongering , womanizing (11 wives), hallucinating founder.

5. Hinduism (from an online Hindu site) - "Hinduism cannot be described as an organized religion. It is not founded by any individual. Hinduism is God centered and therefore one can call Hinduism as founded by God, because the answer to the question ‘Who is behind the eternal principles and who makes them work?’ will have to be ‘Cosmic power, Divine power, God’."
The caste/laborer system and cow worship are problems when saying a fair and rational God founded Hinduism."

The current crises:

The caste system and cow worship/reverence.

6. Buddhism- "Buddhism began in India about 500 years before the birth of Christ. The people living at that time had become disillusioned with certain beliefs of Hinduism including the caste system, which had grown extremely complex. The number of outcasts (those who did not belong to any particular caste) was continuing to grow."
"However, in Buddhism, like so many other religions, fanciful stories arose concerning events in the life of the founder, Siddhartha Gautama (fifth century B.C.):"

Archaeological discoveries have proved, beyond a doubt, his historical character, but apart from the legends we know very little about the circumstances of his life. e.g. Buddha by one legend was supposedly talking when he came out of his mother's womb.

Bottom line: There are many good ways of living but be aware of the hallucinations, embellishments, lies, and myths surrounding the founders and foundations of said rules of life.

I mean, alla yas.

Those lands are so 'holy,' what you plan to be doing with em when you get it?

Hint: It never helps.

And as for the 'Holy Land.' You think that real estate is so 'Holy,' well,

All a y'all.

Impress me with dat holiness.

Or let my people go our own way.

I mean, really. Do you understand the depth and meaning of the world shifting so much that I was a bit worried to contemplate leaving Liberty's lands lest I lose my religious freedom, to it being me and my partener wanting to leave the country *for* religious freedom?

Islamophobes and anti-Semites and all the rest of 'yall' are *so incapable of civic trust between human beings* cause you look with justifiable horror upon that which all of your 'holy scriptures' say can be done with a clear conscience to anyone else.

The bastiches who declared 'Culture War' here in America before we even got out from under all those nukes were all untidy SOBs praying to their God they wouldn't outlive their own scams.

Those who'd rather see the world *end* than not hold *power.*

They're croaking, now, but looky, looky.

We get to pick up the pieces.

Meet the people.

That's America.

"Islam can only TOLERATE us,khaffirs(infidels)under the dhimmi status.Saying otherwise is a sheer display of naivety and sheer lack of Islamic History knowledge."

So can the Noahide laws only *tolerate* *me.* And that just cause I'm a 'soft polytheist' which isn't even essential to all branches of my religion.

And pardon me if I note that when bashers come, they don't have the finer points of theology in mind.

Get real, here. *All* you Abrahamic monotheists have the capacity and Scripture to kill or hurt anyone you so please, and call it 'God's Will.'

This is *America.*

You wanna do this America thing, or should I be contacting various consulates?

This cultural Christian can't figure out why any of us think these religious views are going to be good for Western civilization - why is America, in which one's religion is only supposed to be one aspect of one's identity - supporting a "Jewish state" or negotiating for denominational division of a[n artificially created] state in Iraq?

1500 and 2000 years aqo my ancestors were Magyars and Huns and Teutons and little Gaul-ite Celts -- so should we all get to go back and get land that was "stolen" or abandoned or conquered? Do we each get a little cult-defined corner of the planet? Doesn't anyone teach people about the wars of the reformation and counter reformation of Christianity? Of the inter-cult strife of all religions?

True belief in beng chosen by god has made nothing but trouble for humanity - only humility in being expected by the diety to do well to our fellow creatures has ever made real progress in humanity.

When you're told you're the chosen, everyone else is just sorry detritus - give it up.

Ebo,
U are delusional:their will never ever be peace with or trust in the jews unless they reliquish the whole of Arab historic Palestine in 1947/9 and 1967 and the return of 80% of the indigenous Palestinians that were terrorised and ethnically cleanesed by jewish terrorist gangs such as Haganah,Palmach,Irgun and Shtern and where the apartheid entity razed to the ground over 500 towns and villages to prevent from returning to their homeland.

All jews who landed in Palestine at or after 1914 should pack up and leave to where they come from including those smuggled by the treacherous and conspiring British mandate authority;they were 12,000 jews in 1892 and living in peace;where did the six million jews in occupied PAlestine come from? where are the six million ethnically cleanesed Palestinian refugees go?? They are in refugee camps within one or two hour drive from Palestine and the shoukd and will return sooner or later....remember apartheid white south afirca with nuclear weapons...it is no longer.......

The word should take a pause at Aushwitz # 2, that is Gaza with collective punishment imposed on the 1.5 million "terrorists" while world enjoys the show....

Why do not American jews speak up against the shameful jewish apartheid regime imposed on the PAlestnians and enforced by brutal military occupation and a nuclear arsenal? There shouild be no Muslims-jewish relations in America unless the Palestinians get their full right and its essentially the US jewery that keeps the oxyen to israel's 60 year occupation of Palestine....

This so-called 'relationship' is utterly
useless,since Koran call we,Jews,as 'sons of monkeys and pigs' among several diatribes against Jewish faith and its followers.
Islam can only TOLERATE us,khaffirs(infidels)under the dhimmi status.Saying otherwise is a sheer display of naivety and sheer lack of Islamic History knowledge.
I'd LOVE to be wrong in my assessment,for I'd hate to see an Islamic-dominated world.It'd be the very demise of Western Civilization as we know it.
These fellow Jews are just a bunch of idiots.

Jewish Muslim tensions will not subside until Muslims acknowledge the holocaust that Muhammad, the founder of Islam, perpetrated on Jews. Muslims should give back half of Saudi Arabia that Muhammad stole from them and Muslims must leave Gaza and West Bank as that land rightfully belongs to the Jews.

I am the Chicago Representative for Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA) and I was planning to hold a dialogue between NFTY and MYNA. I was also planning on including IFYC.

However, those plans recently changed because another representative approached me and said, it was impossible.

I was frustrated. But, I am not going to give up. Jews and Muslims, anyone, including atheists, can be brought together. this movement will only be possible by those with open minds and those that believe that a change can take place.

Anonymous, you most definitely cannot say that someone is not trying. One person can set a thousand movements in motion. It takes time, because change is widely un-welcomed.

Inshallah, God Willing, there will be change.

Don't give up! What you are attempting could make our religion impaired world a safer, better place!
Thanks!

Mr Patel,
by placing the word "Reform" in front of Judaism, this fairly recent jewish religious denomination has made it clear that they are different from others. In contrast, putting the word "American" in front of Muslin does NOT gives us any message that American Muslin are willing to diffentiate themself from the original Muslin religion that follows they sacred Texts literally; a religion that is NOT compatable with democracy, because in democracy we are all equal under the laws: Women equal to men and non-believers equal to believer.

Any Muslim groups bending over backward to try to reform Islam to better accomodate Jewish people?

Nope, didn't think so.

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

Koran 2.065

Eboo, this news is refreshing and uplifting. Thanks so much for for bringing it up on the radar. Jazakh'Allah