Among the trendy Left, and particularly on elite academic campuses, hatred of Israel, and by association of all Jews, has long been on the ascendant. The Anti-Defamation League traces the origins of the “Boycott, Divest, Sanctions” movement against Israel to the early 2000s. By the time we get to the most recent ten years, every elite academic institution has multiple student groups and scores of faculty members advocating for delegitimizing Israel as oppressors of the Palestinians, or even as an “apartheid state.”
And thus the current wave of atrocities perpetrated by Hamas against Israel has brought out statements of support from some 30+ student groups at Harvard, from the Student Bar Association at NYU, from a group of students at Stanford, and many other such around the country.
In the bigger picture, the treatment of Israel and Israeli Jews by Muslims is not at all unique. Around the world, the fact is that the Islamic religion and its members are not tolerant of members of other religions. And by “not tolerant,” I mean, absolutely willing to kill to force the non-believers to conform. I’m not saying that all adherents to the Muslim faith are so intolerant; but many are, and the rest support the intolerant ones, either explicitly or implicitly. The world is full of news — very sparsely reported by our dominant press — of persecution and killings of members of any and all other religions by Muslims when they are in a dominant position. Although our press systematically suppresses information on this subject — as they do with almost everything that it is important to know about — this activity is sufficiently widespread that it is inexcusable for well-informed people not to know about it.
So the thing that is unique is not the violence by Muslims against Jews in Israel, but rather the widespread acceptance in trendy Western Left circles that Israel is not just going somewhat too far in trying to control violence in its midst, but is somehow the worst among all possible oppressors.
It will be useful here to have a small roundup of recent violence and persecution by Muslims of members of other religions living in their midst. The following is just a small sample of recent news.
Armenia/Azerbaijan.
Have you read about the recent developments in Nagorno-Karabakh? I have seen almost no reporting in our press, although this is going on right now.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are two countries in the South Caucasus region. The Armenians are Christians, and the Azerbaijanis are Muslims. Both countries were previously part of the Soviet Union, and became independent when the Soviet Union collapsed around 1991. During the Soviet era, borders had been drawn that left the two ethnicities intermingled, with an Armenian ethnic enclave, Nagorno-Karabakh, surrounded by Azerbaijan territory. Here is a map:
Since 1991, the Azerbaijanis have repeatedly attacked Nagorno-Karabakh. But this has all come to a head in just the last 30 days or so. The Azerbaijanis have launched some kind of final assault on Nagorno-Karabakh and essentially driven out the entire remaining Armenian population of over 100,000. Here is a report from The Intercept on October 4. Excerpt:
NEARLY THE ENTIRE population of 120,000 ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh has been forced to flee their homes after the latest Azerbaijani military assault, according to Armenian authorities and the U.N.
It makes any Israeli conduct seem extremely tame by contrast, but inspires almost no attention, let alone criticism, from the trendy Left here in the West.
Gatestone Institute coverage.
While press coverage of Muslim persecution of members of other religions is sparse in the mainstream press, there is a site called the Gatestone Institute that focuses on the subject. A writer there named Raymond Ibrahim files one post after another. If you follow him, you cannot help but be regularly horrified.
In his most recent post on October 1, Ibrahim had reports from countries including Pakistan, Kenya, Indonesia, Nigeria, Uganda, and many others including even Sweden. Here is just a tiny sample:
Pakistan: All hell broke loose on Aug. 18, after some Christians were accused—falsely, it was quickly revealed—of desecrating a Koran in Jaranwala. Thousands of enraged Muslims rampaged against the region's Christians, prompting hundreds to flee their homes. Among other damage, the rioting Muslims set 25 churches aflame, destroyed or damaged 400 Christian homes, and desecrated at least one Christian cemetery.
Nigeria: A few of the incidents in August of the genocide of Christians include:
Aug. 9: Muslim terrorists killed a Christian woman, Gloria Isa, as she slept at her home.
Aug. 23: Muslim gunmen "shot to death" the Rev. Jeremiah Mayau, a 61-year-old pastor of a Baptist church. According to a press statement, "The incident occurred when the cleric was [working] on his farm. It was barbaric."
Aug 10: Around 2 a.m., Muslim Fulani herdsmen launched a raid—the third of its kind on the same Christian majority village where people were sleeping after a long day's work. They slaughtered 21 villagers.
Uganda: Rioting Muslims stoned a pastor unconscious during the funeral of a former Muslim turned Christian. While officiating, Pastor Davidson Okirori, 39, cited the Koran, the Hadith, and the Bible, in order "to witness the love of Christ to Muslims who had gathered at the funeral," he later said from a hospital bed (where he was recovering from wounds to his head, back and arms) . . . Separately, on Aug. 11, Muslims thrashed another preacher and 20 other Christians at an open-air evangelistic event. After Pastor Robert Faisali Miya cited Koran verses that "acknowledge the uniqueness of Christ," Muslims began chanting the jihadist slogan, "Allah Akbar [Allah is greatest]," and a Muslim sheikh, Hiisa Mubaraka, ran to the podium and knocked the evangelist down. According to an eyewitness,"Others were saying that Allah has granted to them authority to kill all infidels.
And this is just a small sample of one Ibrahim post. He posts multiple of these every month. Go to this link for a collection of them.
Ibrahim focuses mostly on attacks by Muslims on Christians, but the attacks are not at all limited just to Christians. Since World War II, almost all Jews have been driven out of the entire Middle East and North Africa (where previously around a million of them lived). And for some truly harrowing reading, you might want to learn about the treatment of members of the Baha’i faith in Iran.
I won’t try to justify everything that Israel has done, but I think there is no doubt that Israel needs to take aggressive steps to control ongoing violence and atrocities against their citizens. The steps taken by Israel are not remotely comparable to the real genocides and ethnic cleansings regularly carried out by Muslims against members of all other religions in their midst. Why the trendy Left never criticizes any of this, and reserves its ire uniquely for Israel, I cannot explain.
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