by Jerry Gordon, The Iconoclast
Jerusalem Post Washington Correspondent Hilary Leila Krieger had a comment to an article she filed this week about a finding from the results a recent poll of American Jews. The comment was that American Jews allegedly preferred Muslims over the Christian Right sic Zionists, see here. That finding was drawn from a poll on Presidential prospects in 2012 that indicated that 62 Percent of American Jews supported Obama’s re-election, a drop from the 78 % that voted for him in 2008.
She noted:
- Jews have warmer feelings towards Muslims and Mormons than the Christian right. None of the groups cracked the warm feelings half of the favorability scale, where 100 equals very warm feelings and equals very cold feelings. But Mormons came close with an average score of 47 out of 100 points and Muslims behind that at 41 out of 100 points. Jews rated the Christian right at an average of just 21 out of 100.
This may come as a shock, but it shouldn’t. Most American Jews are committed to interfaith dialogue, including with Muslims. However they are virtually ignorant of the primordial Jew hatred in doctrinal Islam. That is compounded by the Da’wa tactics of religiously sanctioned taqiyya and kitman used to great effect by Imams in Dar al Hijra (the land of immigration in the West) to deceive the unbelievers in these dialogue sessions, whether Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and other of the world’s major faiths.
We have written about how prevalent and dangerous dialogue is to American Jews in a January 2012 New English Review (NER) article, Dialogue with Radical Muslims is Dangerous for American Jews.
- At the B’nai Israel Synagogue presentation, a mixed audience composed of mainstream and Evangelical Christians, Reform, Conservative, and Messianic Jews with a sprinkling of religious skeptics listened attentively to his discourse on the broad sweep and diversity of Muslim demography across the Ummah, the EU and potentially here in America. He revealed how Jews and Christians fared in the wake of the Islamic Jihad conquest across northern Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Indian sub-continent. Israeli explained the Islamic system of dhimmitude for subjugated peoples in conquered lands under the oppressive creed of Islam. These conquered lands were predominately Christian with Jewish minorities in North Africa and the Middle East, Hindu and Buddhist in other realms.
Israeli’s presentation showed how rapid conquest and occupation of settled communities by rampaging Islamic Arab nomads evolved into a system of Islamic Sharia laws. This system pressured indigenous captured populations survived to accept the choice of conversion, living in a despised status without human or civil rights, or fleeing. Over time, the Islamic system turned once non-Muslim majority countries into majority Muslim ones.
He addressed examples of the contemporary eruption of fundamentalist Islam that appears poised to further deplete the remnants of ancient Jewish and Christian communities in the Middle East who suffered centuries of depredations from jihad conquest, subjugation and persecution. That is evident in the continuing pogroms against the Coptic community in Egypt and the Assyrian Christian one in Iraq. Like the one million Jews who fled Arab and Muslim lands and found sanctuary in the Jewish State of Israel and the West, the surviving Christian communities are now seeking refuge in their respective diasporas in the wake of the “Arab Spring.”
At the conclusion of Israeli’s Pensacola lecture the audience streamed up front to linger and ask both of us questions about the implication of his talk. Without hesitation the all too frequent response was, “there are no negotiations with their God Allah”. Proving that if a cross section of Americans, Jews, Christians and skeptics, can get this message after getting the facts about Islamic doctrine, then there is hope that message could penetrate the fog of ignorance conveyed by mainstream and even Jewish media.
That is the raison d’être for Jews Against Jihad, a new group now in the initial stages of development led by Don Feder, former syndicated columnist for the Boston Herald and coordinator for the Shariah Awareness Action Network Conference held in November 2011 and sponsored by theTennessee Freedom Coalition in Nashville in November 2011. Among others involved with formation of this new group are Rabbi Jonathan Hausman, an NER contributor and expert on Halacha Jewish Law versus Shariah and Dr. Andrew Bostom, author of The Legacy of Jihad, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism and the forthcoming Sharia versus Freedom–The Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism. I have signed on as one of the early backers of Jews Against Jihad, which despite the name of the group the invitation to join is extended all concerned persons.
Should you wish to join the new group, write directly to Don Feder at his website, here. In the alternative, you may write me at my NER email address and indicate your support by using this response, “I’m in” and indicating your affiliation.
Below is the Statement of Principles of Jews Against Jihad:
- Jews against Jihad — Statement of Principles
Everywhere the Jewish people are under attack by Muslim terrorists, regimes and religious authorities.
Jews are regularly murdered, tortured, terrorized and demonized in the name of Islam. This is happening in Israel , the Middle East, Europe, and the United States and around the world.
Far from being isolated incidents, these crimes are connected and come from a central source – Islam’s theological hatred for the Jewish people and paranoia stretching back centuries to its origins.
This can be met in one of two ways.
The Jewish establishment and Jewish left choose to pretend reality doesn’t exist – to ignore the atrocities and hate speech – or to blame it all on the Middle East conflict, thus rationalizing a pogrom in progress.
Worse, they indict those of us who dare speak the truth as “Islamophobes” – bigots and hate-mongers who incite violence against innocent Muslims.
While Jews are slaughtered by Muslims in the name of Islam – while a modern Kristallnacht takes place in Western Europe (spurred by Muslim immigration), while 80% of U.S. mosques contain pro-jihad material (according to one survey) — they engage in campaigns against “Islamophobia.”
It’s the Stockholm syndrome on a massive scale.
Or the gravest threat to the survival of the Jewish people since the fall of the Third Reich can be met by Jews who unflinchingly stand for the truth and are determined to sound the alarm.
Jews Against Jihad was born out of necessity and exists to warn both Jews and non-Jews of the nature of Islam and the relationship between this savage war against the Jewish people and the rhetoric of the Muslim elite and history and tradition of Islam.
muslims and thier idea for the jewish people are nothing short of distroing jews
@ bernard ross:
Sir, it is absolutely insane for my fellow “jews” to “proceed with caution”. They are not in fact proceeding with caution as they REFUSE to hear or see any pro-Israel speaker, Jew or non-Jew. I cannot tell you how many times(100’s) I’ve tried to get lib “jews” to educate themselves as to who their friends are and who their enemies are. If only they would try to “proceed” in any direction other than suicide. Yes, the majority will vote obama once again as they are utterly incapable and unwilling to step out of their socialist, tolerant, progressive mindset. This is NOT caution, it is sheer unadulterated insanity!
If Jews vote for Obama (the abomination) again, they are stupider than crap, and deserve what he is planning to do to them next, in collaboration with the Muslim brotherhood.
The numbers of Jewish deaths were far higher than 180. The farhud saw uniformed Iraqi troops and Baghdad’s own police openly & actively participating — along with enthusiastic university & secondary school students — in the two days of carnage & rape that ultimately left as many as 600, or more, Iraqi Jews dead.
Fatalities have actually been estimated at substantially higher levels, but, as Edwin Black has noted, “The final toll may never be known, [as] Rabbis were forced to sign statements vastly minimizing the numbers of casualties.” [Edwin Black, Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq’s 7000 Year History of War, Profit and Conflict (John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, 2004), p. 334]
Jews were forbidden by the government to bury their dead. Instead the government itself collected the dead & buried them all in one mass grave.
“Iraqi soldiers, police and members of youth groups seized Jewish pedestrians, bound them hand and foot, and threw them under the wheels of tramcars, others were stabbed. Murder, pillage, rape and the burning of Jewish shops and houses continued for two days.” [Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide, Miriam Kochan, David Littman, trans. (Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, Rutherford, NJ, 2002)]
Children were tossed into the Euphrates, or disembowelled in the presence of their parents. A madness seems to have poisoned — inhabited — the very air. The Batawe’en District [Baghdad’s main Jewish quarter] became the scene of a free-for-all slaughter.
The Farhud would mark the beginning-of-the-end of the Iraqi Jewish minority — till then, the largest non-Muslim community in the country. The fact that Iraq had been signatory to the League of Nations’ Protection of Minorities Declaration — required for admission to the League — hadn’t done the Jews of Baghdad a damned bit of good.
As for the claim that Mizrahi Jews are/were anti-Zionist, they were until 1941.
Baghdad at the time of the Farhud was home to 90,000 Jews, who constituted a fourth of the city’s total population and two-thirds of Iraq’s Jewish (and thoroughly assimilated, anti-Zionist) community.
“Iraqi Jews woke up on June 1 as staunchly anti-Zionist. By the time they fell asleep on June 2, forlorn and traumatized, Zionism and Jewish Palestine had become an option — perhaps the only option.” [Black, op cit., p. 338]
@ HaLevi:
If this were true, then the rise of Islamism of recent decades should be characterized by a decrease in hostility to Jews.
It’s true that Arab nationalism — actually a retarded (i.e., delayed) version of nationalism, brought with it a special virulence toward Jews, whom it viewed as a convenient foil — but nationalism never really caught on in the Arab world as it had in Europe, despite the efforts of Europeans to cultivate it (for their own ends); Hajj Amin al-Husseini got on well with the Nasties not because both he & they were nationalists, but because both he & they hated Jews.
What’s more, if Arab nationalism had had real staying power, there would have been no vacuum to be filled now by the resurgence of Islamism.
Laura Said:
It is only logical that Jews would be wary as thousands of years of history is not corrected in a few decades. It was certainly not earlier than the latter half of the 20th century that the talk of Jews not being the killers of Christ started to emerge. To this day many Christians still believe that concept. We are talking about a period of less than 50 years. We can see in Europe, so s oon after their latest blood frenzy, the reemergence of anti semitism in the disguise of anti zionism. This disguise will soon fade away as Europeans become more comfortable again with their old habits. Apparently, I do not see the 21st century as being vastly different from all the others. However, I am not saying that the Jews should reject the support of Christian Zionists but that it is quite logical to proceed with caution. lest another sleeping lion is awakened.
HaLevi Said:
Cant at all agree with this, there is more than a 1000 years of dhimmi status to refute this. IN the end the Ashkenazi Jews and the Mizrahi generally did not want to leave anywhere. Like today, jews want to be a part of their nation. The problem is, in the past and in the present, it has always come to pass that they are either regularly slaughtered or driven out by fear of slaughter. Both the Ashkenazi and the Mizrahi came with their bonds to their former cultures, in spite of their travails, but those bonds are only in their eyes and not the eyes of their former cultural slavemasters.
BlandOatmeal Said:
I believe that this quote expresses why Jews “distrust” evangelical Christians and Christians in General. Only a few decades ago the Jews were “Christ killers” and the greatest bearers of that message were the most religious Christians of all sects including the “Bible belt” Christians. Jews are also aware that the new found friendship is subject to the particular beliefs Christians hold from their current interpretations of their bible. Basic logic screams to proceed with caution, as Jews have done in similar situations through the ages. I notice that you quickly paint all US Jews as wanting to make America a Godless society. The experince of the Jews is that the less a society promotes a particular religion the more freedom the Jews have to worship. The Jews have never been a people to shove their religious beliefs down the throats of others and therefore would naturally think that those of other religions will find their way to their God if he is truly their desire. Jews have maintained their religion in spite of most govts through the ages being against their religion. “Puts them in bed with the devil” says it all: Jews are evil!!!
Yamit82, it was the secularisaation of Arab countries, by the French, Italians, and British and the rise of Arab nationalism which encouraged the anti semitic murderous creed adopted by the Arabs today. Nazism and Arab nationalism went hand in hand. Eager to copy Europe they embraced everything including Mein Kempf which is a best seller because it’s considered ‘cool’.
Laura, your black and white view is not entirely accurate, it was the decline of Islam and rise of nationalism and secularisation which gave birth to anti semitism. When Islam was dominant, Jews were dhimmis and often treated like dirt but treated no worse than other dhimmis. Nor is it entirely accurate that Ashkenazim did not come into contact with Moslems The Baltic, Albanian, Turkish, Russians had and still do have favourable relations Jews. The lesson to be learned here is that the rise of democracy and nationalism and secularisation made the lot of Jews worse, not better as it should have if you insist it is Islam only which is a problem. The secular and non moslem of the Arabs are just as anti Israel, perhaps more so.
Thank you Ron and happy Easter to you.
Laura and Yamit82, recall, that Mordecai Vananu was a Mizrahi.
ISRAEL: POST-ZIONISM & THE SEPHARDI QUESTION
By Meyrav Wurmser
MIZRAHIM & ASHKENAZIM: THE CULTURAL FAULTLINE IN ISRAELI SOCIETY — RADICAL POST-ZIONIST ANALYSIS OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN ISRAELI JEWS OF TWO DIFFERING ETHNIC & SUBCULTURAL IDENTITIES & HOW THIS CONFLICT WILL & SHOULD IMPACT ON THE FUTURE OF ISRAEL: WHY POST-ZIONISM & ITS RADICAL REJECTION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL CONSTITUTE THE WRONG ANSWER TO THE PROBLEM EXISTING BETWEEN MIZRAHI & ASHKENAZI JEWS
FULL STORY: A growing group of Jewish Israeli professors is challenging the legitimacy of the Israeli state from within. Many are Mizrahim, as the Sephardi Jews from the Middle East and North Africa are increasingly called, and do so from a distinctly Mizrahi outlook. In July, 2004, for example, a poem appeared online entitled, “I Am an Arab Refugee”:
http://www.proconservative.net/PCVol7Is099WurmserPostZionism.shtml
THE MIZRAHI REJECTION OF ZIONISM
This view contradicts the mainstream Zionist narrative, which maintains that Zionism saved Mizrahi Jews. [7] According to this view, the Mizrahi Jews were devout Zionists, who deeply wished to leave the Diaspora and return to Zion. [8] Zionism saved these Mizrahim when persecution in their Arab and Iranian homelands intensified after Israel’s independence. It also rescued them from the backwardness of Arab society and introduced them to the technology and culture of the civilized world. Zionism helped them to overcome the disadvantages of the illiterate, despotic societies from which they came.
In contrast, post-Zionist Mizrahi writers believe that this official Zionist account is false and needs to be de-constructed. They maintain that the Mizrahim did not come from backward or primitive societies. Cities like Alexandria, Baghdad, and Istanbul were great metropolises of wealth and culture. Most Mizrahim had been exposed to Western culture and ideas, since they came from countries once subject to British or French rule. The Mizrahim were also largely literate, if not highly educated. Most men and even some women could read the Torah.
The post-Zionist writers also attack the claim that the Mizrahi Jews longed to immigrate to Israel. In reality, they argue, as loyal residents of the Arab world, Zionism played a relatively minor role in the Mizrahi world-view. Despite the role that the longing for Zion played in their religious lives, they did not share the European-Zionist desire to leave the Diaspora. Even after the Holocaust, post-Zionist writers maintain, Mizrahi Jews remained largely opposed to Zionism and lived peacefully with their Arab neighbors. Yehouda Shenhav, Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University, writes in his study of the Jews of Iraq that the Mizrahim were never really Zionists. Instead, he argues that the Ashkenazi establishment encouraged their immigration less to protect the Mizrahim and more to address its own need for cheap labor. [9] Instead of saving the Mizrahi Jews, Zionism only ruthlessly displaced an entire community, Shenhav maintains, and removed its members’ right to determine their own future. Pursuing this logic to its end, he argues that Zionism cannot be considered a liberation movement for all Jews. It liberated European Jews, but enslaved the Mizrahim, who, like the Palestinians, are an abused Third World people suffering under the yoke of First World Ashkenazi oppressors.
One of the main complaints of this radical intellectual school is the belief that Zionism destroyed the Mizrahi sense of community and culture by forcing the adoption of new “Zionist” and “Israeli” identities so as to eradicate any threat of a Mizrahi-Arab alliance. This action not only destroyed the natural Arab-Jewish identity of the Mizrahim, these post-Zionists argue, but also sparked the Arab-Israeli conflict. Shiko Behar, a Mizrahi post-Zionist writer, asserts that identity in the Middle East today is shaped around post-colonial nationalism, not the religious division between Muslim and non-Muslim Arabs. [10]
Before the rise of modern Jewish and Arab nationalism, Mizrahim and Arabs could coexist without conflict because they all shared an Arab identity and only differed in their religious beliefs. [11] In Zionist Israel, continues Behar, the Mizrahim could not be considered Arab-Jews, even if their historical identity was more closely aligned with the Arab rather than Israeli identity. The Arab-Israeli conflict meant that the Mizrahim were forced to choose: either they were Jews, or they were Arabs. Mizrahim suffered communal schizophrenia, because, for the first time since perhaps the time of the Caliph Harun ar-Rashid (763-809), when the Islamic Caliph forced Jews to wear yellow patches, Arabism and Judaism were in conflict. Yet, for this very reason, argues Behar, the Mizrahim — victimized by both Ashkenazi Zionism and the rise of Arab nationalism — are the key factor in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict. They alone can serve as the bridgehead into the Arab world, since they, like the Palestinians, are refugees whose identity was destroyed. [12]
yamit82 said
Ashkenazim Jews not only were not harmed but had positive relations with Moslems, like Baltics Turks and so on. Mizrahi too.
dweller said
Again not so. It’s not the Arab Islamo world that turned into an anti semitic demon, it was the secularisation of it, by the Italian, British, French. For as long as it was Islamic it was tolerant. The rise of secularisation and nationalism brought with it anti semitism. During the Moslem rule, the Arab Moslems were generally no less hostile to Jews than they were to other minorities.
http://www.enotes.com/topic/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_and_Muslim_lands
Ghazi began promoting arab nationalist organizations, headed by Syrian and Palestinian exiles. With 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, they were joined by rebels, such as the Mufti of Jerusalem. The exiles preached pan-Arab ideology and fostered anti-Zionist propaganda.[12]
Under Iraqi nationalists, the Nazi propaganda began to infiltrate the country as Nazi Germany was anxious to expand its influence in the Arab world. Dr. Fritz Grobba, who resided in Iraq since 1932, began vigiously and systematically to disseminate hatred of Jews. Among other things, Arabic translation of Mein Kampf was published and Radio Berlin had begun boadcasting in Arabic language. Anti-Jewish policies had been implemented since 1934, and the confidence of Jews was further shaked by the growing crisis in Palestine in 1936. Between 1936-1939 ten Jews were murdered and on eight occasions bombs were thrown on Jewish locations.[13]
In June 1941 a pro-Nazi regime was formed in Iraq, headed by Rashid Ali al-Galyani. Following a widespread incite and propaganda, an anti-Jewish pogrom erupted in the final days of the regime in Baghdad, leading to deaths of 180 Jews. The Farhud progrom has become a shocking event to Iraqi Jewish community, with much of Jewish property seized and as many as 50,000 Iraqi Jews affected. Many Jews turned displaced and some began fleeing to Israel in a rate of about 1,000 per year. Some 10,000 Jews left Iraq in 1941-1948, following the Farhud.
During the Second World War Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya came under Nazi or Vichy French occupation and these Jews were subject to various persecutions. In other areas Nazi propaganda targeted Arab populations, in order to incite them against British or French rule.[14] National Socialist propaganda contributed to the transfer of racial antisemitism to the Arab world and is likely to have unsettled Jewish communities.[15]
Laura said
The opposite to what you believe is the case. The decline of Islam and rise of Arab secularism is combined with nationalism brought about the rise in anti Jew genocidal ambitions. Even the ones that do use it are only using it as a rallying call. Cult worship of xtian zionists is bizarre considering it is free and doesn’t cost them anything.
Xtianity at its core is socialist and leftist (and pagan). The constitution separates religion from state, and in the USA the xtian right will always be the outsider because they are against what the nation stands for. Liberalism and secularism. That they support Israel is neither here nor there. Since the majority, whether they be Xtians, Jews, blacks, hispanics, moslems, are liberal and secular they will oppose the xtian right.
@ rongrand:
Thanks ron.
PASSOVER
To all my friends, Yamit, Ted, Laura, Bill Narvey and Ayn (where ever she may be, sadly missed) so many others I want to wish you all a very Happy and Blessed Passover.
Time to reflect G-d freeing His people from slavery in Egypt and leading them to the Holy Land.
He has returned Jews home again and has been there to aid them in defending their nation and people.
G-d bless Israel and G-d bless the courageous men and women of the IDF.
@ yamit82:
Yamit, your explanation makes a great deal of sense. Jews need to bring their mindset into the 21st century. Their skewed notion of who constitutes a threat to Jews is still in the mid 20th century.
Correction: radical leftists whether Jewish or gentile want to do this to America.
@ BlandOatmeal:
Muslims dream of things far more wicked on us. Oatmeal, it sounds like you prefer muslims to Jews.
@ yamit82:
First of all, Yam, I think Laura was very close. Substitute “spiritual” issues for “psychological”, and you’ve hit the nail on the head. You are correct, in that Jews want to make America an “irreligious”, i.e. “Godless” society. That pretty much puts them right in bed with the Devil, doesn’t it (the Devil that you and they don’t believe in, of course). It’s spiritual wickedness on the highest level, and American Jews are right in the center of it, leading the charge.
That’s a less charitable assessment than you gave. US Jews love Muslims more than Christians, because the they have common ground with them, in wanting to destroy the fabric of American Christian society. Hatred of Israel plays second fiddle. 78% of US Jews voted for Obama That’s less now, but it may be because they think BO isn’t radical enough. A surer figure is the 81% who support same-sex marriage. The aim of these people is to turn America into Sodom, with deranged men groping blindly to have sex with one another on the day of their calamity. No Muslim would dream of wishing anything so wicked on us.
American Jews “feel safer” without God. No kidding. In THEIR god they trust. It’s evil, Laura and Yam, nothing less — evil, raw and deep, dressed up in a business suit.
@ yamit82:
True. Ashkenazim are more likely to view the unknown Muslims with less suspicion than they do Christians — whose history they (or their forbears) have shared.
OTOH, Mizrakhi Jews, having family histories in the Arabo-Islamic world, are more inclined to see the picture in reverse:
They’re less likely to trust Muslims — whose history they have shared — than they do Christians: who, for them personally, are largely unknown.
This may well be true; but then, most “Arab-Americans” are of Christian background, not Muslim — while most American Muslims are not ethnically of Arab extraction.
When talking about Israel, I would feel less apprehensive about getting a negative reaction from a fundamentalist Protestant than I would an affluent liberal Jew in suburban Washington, D.C.
This indifference, and even antipathy, to Israel and Zionism goes back many years in the American Jewish community. A very sophisticated Jewish community professional who worked in Los Angeles told me that there was more hostility to Israel in the Jewish community than there was in the Black community.
I think he attributed a lot of this to the presence of hard-core leftists, including Stalinists and fellow travelers in the Jewish community. As an anti-totalitarian democratic leftist himself (and pro-Israel) he was an expert in identifying and fighting them.
This is a real problem with American Jewry. I think some of this is because of the deep-seated liberalism which makes many Jews suspicious of the very religious and strong believers. Some are scared of the fear of proselytization. Another problem is that most American Jews never lived in the south or other parts of the Bible Belt. They have interacted very little with fundamentalist Protestants who are concentrated in those areas. It’s unfortunate that our community does not recognize our friends and very valuable allies. Our community has to realize that the “replacement” theology that they might fear is not really any threat to a strong Israel and strong Diaspora community. (I could care less about Mormons baptizing our departed relatives–it might not be the most considerate practice, but it is absolutely no threat to us).
@ Laura:
Laura Said:
Since most American Jews stem from the Ashkenazim European ethnic branch of Judaism and were never harmed historically by Muslims they tend to view Islam differently than Fundamentalist Christians. I don’t think psychologically they connect Arabs with Islamic fundamentalism. I think if you exchange the term Muslim with Arabs the numbers would equal or be even less than the number they gave to Christians. Jews in America take social and political stands based largely what their peer Christians friends and neighbors think and most gentiles especially the liberal variety are negative on Christian fundamentalists.
Jews feel safer and more secure in a largely irreligious society. The more pluralistic and religiously diverse the American society is the safer American Jews feel.
This can only be explained by deep psychological issues.
Suicidal liberal Jews have far warmer feelings for muslims calling for a Jewish genocide than they have for Christian Zionist friends.