Tuesday, October 20, 2015

The real threat facing Islam

Sar Shalom

The current spate of stabbings in Israel is driven by what Abbas claims is a threat to Islam's holy sites in Israel. Of course we know that Abbas and the PA are peddling lies, but that does not mean that Islam is not facing any threat at all. To understand the actual threat Islam faces, it would help to consider the statues of "Ecclesia and Synagoga" that were placed across Christian Europe during the Middle Ages. The humiliation shown in the statue "Synagoga" was meant to show medieval viewers how objectively mentally ill the Jews were in rejecting the truth of Christianity. Since the last century, most of Christendom has rejected the supercessionist theology underlying "Ecclesia and Synagoga."

However, as Elder pointed out in March, much of Islam today has not abandoned its supercessionist theology. While the manifestation of serpercessionism is different in Islam from how it was in Medieval Christianity, one feature of Islamic supercessionist theology is that Jews have to demonstrate their subservience to Islam. The existence of the State of Israel is the most blatant rebellion against that demonstration of subservience. However, positing that Israel exists, there remain ways for Islam to demonstrate its dominion over Judaism. One of them is in denying Jews access to their holy spaces. That is what is threatened by Jews visiting the Temple Mount. There is nothing more than that that is threatened even if the Temple itself were to be rebuilt if its location were at El Kas, in between Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock.

However, Abbas cannot stand at the dais in Turtle Bay and declare, "Islam is the master faith. Jews ignore this at their peril. Muslims will take keen offense if they lose dominion over sites they have controlled for centuries." Therefore, he has to describe the threat as though a "legitimate" interest is threatened, hence the claim that Al Aqsa itself is under threat.

What we have to do is stop playing defense and describe what is really motivating those who are "protecting" Al Aqsa. Further, we have to let those westerners who respond to Abbas and the PA's insinuations about threats to Al Aqsa with "coddle, coddle, coddle; Israel must respect Islamic holy sites; coddle, coddle, coddle," that they are enabling those who seek to lord Islam's dominion over Judaism through control of Judaism's holy sites.

3 comments:

  1. I hate to say it - because I always hate to say this - but I could not possibly agree more.

    This is not a land war. It is a religious war and it is one that the Jewish people simply do not want and, yet, Israeli Jews, the victims, get the blame.

    "...one feature of Islamic supercessionist theology is that Jews have to demonstrate their subservience to Islam. The existence of the State of Israel is the most blatant rebellion against that demonstration of subservience."

    Precisely.

    Should it not be obvious to everyone that if Israel was yet another Islamic state no one would care how it treats its Muslims? No one cares how the rest of the Islamic states treat their people, they only care about Israel because it is the lone, sole Jewish state.

    The great irony, of course, is that Israeli Arabs have greater economic and educational opportunity than do Arabs any place else throughout the Middle East. Needless to say, this matters not at all to the western press which continually portrays Israel - which is to say, the Jewish people - as an aggressor.

    I could not be more horrified and disgusted, but you get used to that after awhile.

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  2. Here's a different kinda threat to Islam (and antisemites by association.)

    "Far-right Jewish mob tries to attack 'anti-Israel' French journalist in Paris ..."

    http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Far-right-Jewish-mob-tries-to-storm-offices-of-anti-Israel-French-journalist-429920

    This will get a lotta panties in a bunch...Jews going on the offensive....in FRANCE of all places. OMG...the world is turned upside down.

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  3. Yes, "far right" is a way of saying "just plain bad" and "do not heed such person's ideas."

    I've been called right-wing in a disparanging manner for years. I find it rather peculiar given the fact that I favor a woman's right to choose, don't give a damn what my Gay friends do with one another, favor a tax code more benefical to the poor and the middle class, and marched against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    And merely because I believe that Jewish people should have every rights to property in Judea this somehow makes me a hard-line, right-wing, crazed-maniac.

    And what are we supposed to say to such nonsense other than, "Well, OK, then. Good-bye. So long. Good luck. And go f**k yourselves"?

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