The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #71709   Message #1229919
Posted By: CarolC
20-Jul-04 - 12:21 PM
Thread Name: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
I did not hear of a single Muslim Imam who condemmed the acts of 9/11 from the pulpit or chastise their congregations for dancing in the streets in celebration of this tragic event.

Are you telling me that you have knowlege of what is said by every single Imam in every single Muslim Temple in the world, Rabbi Sol? Don't you think this is a bit of hyperbole on your part? There are more than a billion Muslims in the world. That's a lot of Imams for you to have to keep track of.

This is what Baruch Goldstein's tombstone says on it:

Here lies the saint, Dr. Baruch Kappel Goldstein, blessed be the memory of the righteous and holy man, may the Lord avenge his blood, who devoted his soul to the Jews, Jewish religion and Jewish land. His hands are innocent and his heart is pure. He was killed as a martyr of God on the 14th of Adar, Purim, in the year 5754.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Goldstein

While extremist Jews in Israel and the US comprise only a small minority of all Jews in the US and Israel, they still comprises a significant enough number of people to be as much of a problem for peace in Israel/Palestine as extremism among Muslims. The reason you don't hear much about it isn't because it doesn't happen. It's because most of the time, the news outlets in the US prefer not to report on it.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684853442/002-9009130-2358433?v=glance&vi=excerpt

Excerpt from BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER : VIOLENCE AND EXTREMISM IN ISRAELI POLITICS FROM ALTALENA TO THE RABIN ASSASSINATION by Ehud Sprinzak

"Chapter seven considers the violent consequences of the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO in the context of Baruch Goldstein's massacre in Hebron. The chapter describes the shock and confusion created within the settler community by the 1992 Labor electoral victory and the signing of the Oslo Accords. It identifies the tension between moderates and extremists over the proper settler responses to the peace process and Palestinian terrorism. The chapter addresses the classic question of what happens to messianic movements when prophesy fails, and explains the Hebron massacre within the framework of the crisis of messianic fundamentalism. Baruch Goldstein, a dedicated Kahane disciple, is shown to have been a killer by proxy, a representative of an articulated culture of violence that was bound to explode in response to the Oslo Accords and the resumption of Islamic terrorism.

Chapter eight traces the countdown to the Rabin assassination, examining the radicalization of the religious right since the Hebron massacre with special attention to the rhetoric of opinion leaders and rabbis. The movement of the radical right from delegitimation of the government as a political collectivity to the depersonalization, character assassination, and dehumanization of its leaders, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, is documented in great detail. While distinguishing between the extremist and pragmatic components of the radical right, the chapter follows the extremist's takeover of the antigovernment struggle and the unwillingness of the pragmatists to curb their militant behavior and rhetoric. Attention is also devoted to the personality of Yigal Amir, Rabin's assassin, and the rulings of din rodef and din moser, which convinced the young man that in killing Rabin he was following the Halakha. Also discussed is the doctrine of Jewish zealotry, which made it possible for Amir, an obedient Orthodox Jew, to kill without rabbinical authorization."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/nrabin75.htm>http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/nrabin75.htm">http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/nrabin75.htm

Investigation of Jewish extremism reaches into USA (USA Today 02/16/96)

"A second New York angle: Rabbi Abraham Hecht, a prominent 72-year-old Orthodox rabbi in Brooklyn, last June cited a religious law that allows a person to be killed who "willfully, consciously (or) intentionally hands over human bodies or human property to an alien people." Amir said Monday that he was not guilty of a crime because he shot Rabin for handing over land to Palestinians. Hecht was not available for comment. No matter where Israeli agents take their probe, it's not likely to be pretty."

The Kach movement, with Rabbi Meir Kahane as its candidate, won 26,000 votes in the 1984 election, and Rabbi Kahane became a member of the Knesset. His position was that the Kach movement would not support any government that did not advocate the expulsion of the Arabs from Israel. Fortunately, in 1985, the Knesset passed an amendment to the Basic Law stating that incitement to racism would be grounds for barring a party to participate in elections. Still, in a country the size of Israel, 26,000 votes is not a totally insignificant number.

Religious extremism is not confined to just Christianity and Islam. It's a problem in all of the world's major religions, with the possible exception of Buddhism.