I would argue that common Christian sentiments didn't leave that "phase" in the west until after WWII. Antisemitism was incredibly common and mainstream by today's standards across Europe and the United States, and only lost mainstream popularity with the end of the war in Europe, after the breadth of the Holocaust became apparent and the United States became the dominant political force. People fail to realize just how recently it was that things like casual racism and antisemitism were socially acceptable, and the extent to which they still are.
Saying that Islam is going through a "phase" is ridiculous, since the causes of religious extremism across the Islamic world have very little to do with the religion itself. In the Middle East, European colonialism ended in a rushed and incomplete fashion (which is true of essentially everywhere, but particularly so in the Middle East), and the results were typical of post-colonial states elsewhere. Popular nationalist movements led by a minority of educated anti-imperialists were given/seized power, devolved into dictatorships, and from then on became more preoccupied with retaining power than anything else. After the invasion of Suez and Nasser's growing international popularity, associating with the West became increasingly problematic for leaders, and those that didn't drift over to Soviet influence toed of line of exploiting popular resentment and making security/economic agreements with (primarily) the United States.
So for around 60 years the people living in these newly created countries been living under dictators both unable to completely endorse and embrace the west (the United States) and completely dependent on them (the United States), all while failing to advance things like education and civil rights, clinging to whatever forces can keep them in power (the United States). Pro-democratic uprisings across the Middle East largely failed recently, which isn't surprising considering the total lack of any democratic tradition, and any kind of a nationalist movement can't move forward when the alleged successors to the nationalist movements are the ones in power. So what's left? You've got a population of disgruntled overwhelmingly conservative and disenfranchised people permeated with a general sense of dissatisfaction and mistrust, in a time period (since WWI) when it's seemed that they and their religion have experienced nothing but intrusion and exploitation by foreigners and autocrats. It's completely understandable for terrorist groups to emerge from that kind of an environment of helplessness and ubiquitous resentment, and the fact that religion happens to be the excuse in this case is more due to things like the creation of Israel and the genuine piety of the population than the nature of Islam itself.
If anyone does want to analyze Islam for confirmation of preconceived violence and oppression, the dredges of centuries old propaganda and inherited cultural ignorance, I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Hadiths. Most of the practices we in the west view as typical of the religion don't come from the Qur'an, but rather these compilations of observations regarding the life of Muhammad, and they partially account for the great variation present between sects. It's like trying to write a hate speech against Catholics with only the bible as reference.
Well, we agree on one thing (Actually, Two, i also agree about christianity contribution to anti-semitism). its not a phase in islam. it was always here, sometimes below surface, sometimes as apparent as always but hidden from the western masses because the media was not as far reaching as it is now.
And of course it has to do with religion itself, like it had been for a thousand years, its just that lately, decades of years or so, the issues had different side causes that made people think religion has had nothing to do with it, but it was always there below the surface.
The principle goal of Islamic extremists across the world is the establishment of an Islamic government in their country, yeah? That's a political movement, not a religious one. Their primary opponent is always the existing government (usually the dictator successors to post-colonial nationalist movements), with their secondary opponent being the United States and their European allies who continue to prop up said governments.
I think it's important to make that distinction, that what these groups are fighting for is political power, not for the sake of fighting infidels or whatever. They may think that what they're doing is for the glory of their religion, but that's the "side cause", and it's the only thing that distinguishes these groups from communist rebels in the cold war or nationalist rebels fighting for independence in the European colonies.
Lets take that claim of yours of the creation of israel as an "excuse". obviously, its an interesting opinion that disregard one very important factor: The creation of israel was only opposed by the arab countries because israelis were jews. if they had been muslims, there wouldn't be a problem at all, as evidently, no arab country attacked jordan in 1948. of course, there would be small territorial disputes here and there, but the independence war, six days war and yom kipur wars? only the result of religion, not an excuse for other motives or sentiments, a definite reason.
This is an incredibly inaccurate generalization of events with specific causes. There's something you're failing to keep in mind here by trying to give wars with specific causes a broad religious cause, which is that all of the actors at the time were largely secular, and before the Suez invasion most were at least privately pro-British. Religion really had little to do with it at the time. Supporting Palestine was about supporting Nasser's popular vision of anti-imperialist pan-Arabism, during a time when Britain still had colonies in the Middle East (including Palestine, Aden, Kuwait, Qatar, and others) and the region was in a period of monumental change. For these rulers, the conflict in Palestine was a perfect opportunity to keep face by being outwardly anti-British, anti-imperialist, and anti-Zionist through the Arab League without actually giving up security and economic agreements with Britain. Abdullah of Transjordan's motives in pursuing the 1948 war were purely territorial, since the state the British had given him wasn't economically viable, and the guy even privately negotiated with Zionists about privately supporting the creation of Israel as an independent government.
So no, it wasn't a war about killing and expelling infidels, and none of them were. It wasn't even a "side cause", or something utilized in propaganda. I could go into the following wars in detail as well (I don't know what they teach in Israeli schools if you didn't know this already), but I think the 1948 war gets the point across well enough.
But for religious extremists, Israel's existence and the failure of their governments to defeat them (thanks to the help of that lovely figure who keeps popping up in this narrative, the United States) is an issue on which even some moderate Muslims may be in agreement over, with the following actions on Israel's part (and to this day) being nothing short of atrocious. If you were to look for the single largest reason why it's the religious extremists and not other revolutionaries who are able to get support, Israel's existence is hard to deny.
And obviously you should judge christianity first and foremost on the New testament and the bible, just like Islam should be judged on the Quran. i mean, we could judge islam by bahai texts, but that wouldn't be very telling.
If you were to try to judge Catholicism by the bible, you would get absolutely nowhere. That's why I used that analogy. Islam is a religion with over a thousand years worth of theological material beyond the Qu'ran, and you're simplifying it to sound bites you find in confirmation of preconceived notions. That's the point everyone here has been trying to make. The reason why people bring up similar examples from the old/new testament is to point out how ridiculous it is to take specific passages as representative of the entire religion, considering the incoherence and inconsistency of every religious text out there.
The religious war:
1) The hostility toward jews began long before 1948. there was no centralized hostility toward muslim immigrants. the difference was only because jews were jews.
Couple things worth bringing up here. During WWI, with Britain fighting its long time anti-Russian prop the Ottomans, the government made various promises to Arab nationalist leaders in conquered territories that at the end of the war they would be given independence from the Ottomans. The reality, of course, was that agreements had been made prior with France to divide up the region into colonies, and these promises were carelessly made during the war as a matter of convenience. So, after the war, the nationalist leaders assumed that they were on the road to independence, even if they had to riot in the streets to get more conservative governments to speed up the process.
The problem was that they had simultaneously made another promise to the Zionists in 1917 as some in the government were persuaded with extensive lobbying, a vague agreement (more among individuals than official policy) to support the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine. Later this and other lobbying efforts in the United States translated into an official policy by the League of Nations for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine in 1922, in complete contrast to the principles of self determination that Wilson set the organization up for in the first place. Local British officials stated the obvious in saying that allowing immigrating Jews to displace and dominate the local backwards Arab population would lead to an uprising, but were ignored.
It was thought that the industrious and well educated Jewish immigrants would vitalize a desolate area, and of course make for more suitable allies long into the future to retain a military presence than the shaky puppet monarchies. And they were right. At the cost of that was completely ignoring how disastrous it is for an already hated imperial power to aggressively resettle one of their holdings with complete and total cultural foreigners, who would come to dominate the local population of previously homogeneous and unworldly people.
You could say the conflict started because the Zionists were Jewish, but what difference would it have made if their were wealthy Muslim Turks, Moroccans, or Cypriots? Some whites in the America get upset if they see too many people from Central and South America in their suburb, is that because Americans hate Catholics? Or if that analogy wasn't generalized and inaccurate enough to be on the level of a religious war explanation, because Protestants hate Catholics? If there's one common thing everyone can agree with, it's that populations of local people tend to react irrationally to an influx of people they view as "different", and Israel's example is such an extreme case that it should be obvious just disastrous it would be.
So no, you're right, the conflict didn't begin in 1948. And who are the "muslim immigrants"? Are the people who lived there for generations before the Zionists came now considered immigrants?
2) Nasser didn't lead egypt in 1948 and so the first trigger (and the real triggers for the rest of the wars, bar the sinai short operation) is well established. it was simply because israel was jewish. the anti-imperialisim and other side effects, only rise when you look at the only difference between israel and jordan. israel is filled with jews. anti-imperialism was a means to an end. "with the following actions on Israel's part (and to this day) being nothing short of atrocious" - Ah, i understand where you'r coming from now 
You're right, I was lumping Nasser's movement with earlier nationalist movements that took hold in the Arab League.
The funny thing is that Israel and Jordan are fairly similar, in that both are states with no historical pretext that were created by the British to satisfy immediate political motives. Creating Transjordan, however, was a matter of drawing lines on a map and giving a disgruntled prince some security agreements. Creating Israel required the influx of millions of European immigrants into one of the most historically contested and religiously revered regions on the planet, and only people distant from the local reality or blinded by zeal would think that the result could be anything short of disastrous.
3) Abdul Rahman Azzam, the Arab League's first secretary-general: the establishment of a Jewish state would lead to "a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades." why not about jordan? why because jordan was not a jewish state.
This wasn't an opinion held exclusively by Arabs, nor was it a declaration of intent. In the build up to the 1948 war, it was what was assumed would happen if the British left across the world by delegations completely involved in the conflict. When the Partition was put a vote, representatives opposed to the measure would say exactly this, and the vote only passed when the United States under Truman essentially bribed and cajoled as many votes in support at the last minute as possible. It had been made perfectly clear during the lead up to the vote that a war would begin immediately if it passed, but it did anyway.
But the reality was that the Arab leaders around didn't really care about the Palestinians, nor did they fundamentally oppose Israel. They were more interested in the acquisition of Palestinian territory and demonstrating their power as newly independent states. The foundations of the conflict are in the allowed mass immigration of foreigners by an imperial power, who yeah, were Jewish, and the overwhelming negative reaction of the people who lived there as a result. If Palestine had been a predominately Jewish province before any of this began, then the war wouldn't have happened. You seem to be thinking it would have, just on the basis of religious differences.
Islam and Hadith:
I have refrained from the hadith, because a) there isn't a unified acceptance of them, b) its doesn't help the islamic apologetics since you can find even worse stuff in the hadith than in the quran.
That's the point. They're too diverse, and Islam is too large of a religion to condense like that. But it's inescapable that without considering the Hadiths, the sects, the other religious texts, and the cultural traditions independent of Islam, you're painting a caricature of something much more complex. I'll use the analogy again, because it's so fitting... it's like pretending to have any understanding of Catholicism with no prior knowledge just by reading the bible. It's worse than that. It's like trying to understand the KKK's motives just by reading the bible, and then concluding that the Catholics, Protestants, Unitarians, Ethiopian Coptics, and every other Christian group are evil as a result.
Author
Topic: Abrahamic Religions; Discussion, Cross-reference, and Beliefs (Read 30422 times)