As I write this, people in Toronto are preparing for what is being billed as an 8000-person rally outside the Israeli Consulate. It's a protest against Israeli actions in the Gaza conflict which continues even now. Well frankly, I'm damn tired of incredibly stupid people who seek to wrongly assign blame for what has happened to anyone BUT the actual perpetrators...Hamas. Bottom line...if you think there's any blame to be assigned to Israel, go and find another whipping boy. Israel, Jews and so many others worldwide have had entirely enough of that warped thinking. The conflict is not a run-of-the-mill war. It is about hatred and denial. Hamas hates Israel and all Jews and is committed to the destruction of every last Jew on earth. It's driven by a misguided belief that land never owned nor worked nor developed by Arab or Muslim residents of the area is somehow Palestinian. Then, there is the fundamental loathing of Jews, no matter where. It is all connected to the dark side of Islam and shared by the likes of Hezbollah, Hamas, ISIS and other Islamic terrorist groups.
Yesterday, I received a link to a video that shows an actual beheading somewhere in Syria. The man whose life was taken was a Christian, forced to convert on the spot to Islam. His knife-wielding captors told him he wouldn't be shot because he was now a Muslim...and then hacked off his head from front to back as he struggled and died in agony. That was about the same time I heard a newscast saying that a couple of dozen rockets had been fired from Gaza as soon as the ceasefire ended. Today, it was death by crucifixion and stoning (for adultery) in Syria and Iraq. I thought...what kind of perverse religion does these things in God's name? Meanwhile, so many simply avoid the truth. My Muslim friends and acquaintances see the world just as I do...but they and many others recoil in stunned silence. Who will bring these animals to heel? It's certainly not the secular world or people of other beliefs. So, I'm sick of hearing that Islam is a wonderful, peaceful religion and that it's just a few bad apples ruining things for everybody else because it just isn't so! If you say nothing, you condone inconceivable actions and behavior by your silence. Videos have emerged from Gaza showing mass executions of "collaborators" - these are people who spoke out against purposely placing innocents in harm's way. From Iraq and Syria, we see photos of heads in boxes and mounted atop stakes...so-called non-believers. ISIS has ordered all women and girls to undergo female circumcision or, as we in the civilized world call it, female genital mutilation. What more do you have to hear before you say to yourself "these people are insane"? And who is marching to the Consulate of Israel in Toronto to protest precisely what??
Every religion has zealots. None that I know of murder non-adherents or spew venom about non-believers. There is, quite simply, no religious group like this anywhere. Radical Islam is unique in the world. And 'radical' or not, it is unique to Islam. So, to Muslim readers and friends I say "stand up and speak out!" There is an expression..."if you're not with me, you're against me". The reciprocal is "if you're not against me, you're with me". That means people of good faith in the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds alike must step up and publicly challenge what these lunatics are doing in the name of Allah and tell them that co-existence is the only workable way.
Look at the fallout from the current situation in Gaza. Death, maiming, and massive dislocation of families and children. And let's be crystal clear -- the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza is entirely the work of an insane and genocidal terrorist group called Hamas, no other entity...and it is born of the incomprehensible hatred described above. These hostilities are not between Israelis and Palestinians. They were initiated by Hamas terrorists and demanded retaliation by Israel. This is not debatable and has been widely verified by impartial journalists and observers.
Yesterday, I received a link to a video that shows an actual beheading somewhere in Syria. The man whose life was taken was a Christian, forced to convert on the spot to Islam. His knife-wielding captors told him he wouldn't be shot because he was now a Muslim...and then hacked off his head from front to back as he struggled and died in agony. That was about the same time I heard a newscast saying that a couple of dozen rockets had been fired from Gaza as soon as the ceasefire ended. Today, it was death by crucifixion and stoning (for adultery) in Syria and Iraq. I thought...what kind of perverse religion does these things in God's name? Meanwhile, so many simply avoid the truth. My Muslim friends and acquaintances see the world just as I do...but they and many others recoil in stunned silence. Who will bring these animals to heel? It's certainly not the secular world or people of other beliefs. So, I'm sick of hearing that Islam is a wonderful, peaceful religion and that it's just a few bad apples ruining things for everybody else because it just isn't so! If you say nothing, you condone inconceivable actions and behavior by your silence. Videos have emerged from Gaza showing mass executions of "collaborators" - these are people who spoke out against purposely placing innocents in harm's way. From Iraq and Syria, we see photos of heads in boxes and mounted atop stakes...so-called non-believers. ISIS has ordered all women and girls to undergo female circumcision or, as we in the civilized world call it, female genital mutilation. What more do you have to hear before you say to yourself "these people are insane"? And who is marching to the Consulate of Israel in Toronto to protest precisely what??
Every religion has zealots. None that I know of murder non-adherents or spew venom about non-believers. There is, quite simply, no religious group like this anywhere. Radical Islam is unique in the world. And 'radical' or not, it is unique to Islam. So, to Muslim readers and friends I say "stand up and speak out!" There is an expression..."if you're not with me, you're against me". The reciprocal is "if you're not against me, you're with me". That means people of good faith in the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds alike must step up and publicly challenge what these lunatics are doing in the name of Allah and tell them that co-existence is the only workable way.
Look at the fallout from the current situation in Gaza. Death, maiming, and massive dislocation of families and children. And let's be crystal clear -- the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza is entirely the work of an insane and genocidal terrorist group called Hamas, no other entity...and it is born of the incomprehensible hatred described above. These hostilities are not between Israelis and Palestinians. They were initiated by Hamas terrorists and demanded retaliation by Israel. This is not debatable and has been widely verified by impartial journalists and observers.
There
is other fallout beyond the region, some unpleasant and some quite
welcome. The negative side is the increase in overt anti-Semitism the
world over including demonstrably anti-Semitic acts like the destruction of
stores in the Jewish quarter of Paris and cries of “gas the Jews” and “Hitler was
right” at rallies in support of Hamas in different cities. But, as noted, there is also good
news from this chaos and it is that more people everywhere have finally heard
the message from Gaza loud and clear -- the one that points directly to those truly guilty of murdering defenceless children.
Have you listened as Hamas' apologists accuse Israel of using disproportionate force? Are Jews (of all people) actually guilty of genocide? If the objective were actually to destroy Gaza's people, Israel could have done that in moments. The unwitting and subjugated people of Gaza are pawns, abused as “camouflage” to shield rocket launchers which must necessarily be targets. In other words, their leadership expects them to die as 'martyrs' for the
cameras. Israel, takes on a self-imposed duty to advise them they’re
in harm’s way. The good news (if there can be any in such a
perverse operation) is that the world now knows it!
Hamas
is a cowardly organization with disdain for its own people. None of its neighbours has been even mildly interested in assisting or supporting this pariah's efforts against
Israel - but still, they haven't spoken out. The people of Gaza (quite distinct from Hamas!) have a clear choice. Leave Hamas in place and risk the engagement continuing at their peril or remove Hamas and set about building a homeland. There’s help available, especially from Israel, which has had more than a little success at
nation building. People of Islam the world over need to be shouting from the rooftops that there are indeed 1.5-billion co-religionists who do want peace in a world of complementary races and religions...it's the only way to force an end to this and so many other conflicts.
Let there be no more death, no more innocent children maimed in an
invented battle designed for worldwide television consumption. There exists a ray of hope...it resides in the belief by many that Hamas
is indeed the guilty party. This needs to be leveraged to create a groundswell of public pressure underscoring the truth that a future of conflict is a tragic waste of human life…this groundswell must be carried to the long-suffering people of Gaza who, with clarity, can decide that it’s time for Hamas' reign to end and for Hamas to be relegated to the trash heap of history on which it so rightfully belongs.
Peter
Peter
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