Why should Jewish people be able to have what no other people in the world can have? A place where they are allowed to expel people based on their ethnicity?
We weren’t talking about all of Africa, though, were we?
I never said that it was Muslims against everyone. I said that I support a secular Palestine that is free for all religions, not under the thumb of the Israelis or those who would establish an Islamic state there. The issue here is not “a free Palestine or an Israel-occupied Palestine”; this is something on which Christians and Muslims agree, because as you rightly observe, they both live under terrible conditions right now, and they both thirst for and deserve freedom. I brought in religion because the idea of what a “free Palestine” should look like does have to do with religion. If it is freed from Israeli occupation only to become another Islamic state, then it once again ceases to be free. I know you will not agree with me because you are a Muslim and you see Islam as perfectly compatible with and even beneficial to the rights of minority religions, but a Christian Palestinian is unlikely to see it that way, even if there is comparatively less oppression under Islamic rule than there is currently under Israeli occupation (which is, to put it diplomatically, a debatable conjecture).
Since that’s precisely not what I am doing, and since I do agree with you here, I am confused as to why you are addressing my post in this manner. These are two separate issues: 1) Should Palestine be free? (I think we both agree: YES!); 2) What sort of government should preside over a free Palestine? (I think will probably disagree; I think it should be secular with no attempt to Islamicize or place under direct rule or “protection” any minority population and complete freedom of conscience and religion for everyone)
I agree.
Again, I agree. I would extend this type of warning to those attempting to build “Muslim” states by oppressing native non-Muslim minorities (which are also often ethnic minorities, e.g. the Assyrians and Armenians in Iraq-Iran-Turkey, the non-Arab African Christians in southern Sudan, etc). None of this behavior is right, and for precisely the same reason that the Israeli maltreatment of the Palestinian Arabs is wrong: the governments’ desire for a Muslim (/Jewish) state does not invalidate the right of those who are native to the land and not Muslim (/Jewish) to live in the place that they have always lived, and practice the religion and culture in which they most completely express their identity and their theology. I would also demand that this right extend to people who want to change their religion, as you yourself have done by converting to Islam. Again, anything less than this is not acceptable. These are basic human rights, not special exceptions to be granted so long as one is converting to the “right” religion from the point of view of the state (hence, why I would only support a secular Palestine).
Absolutely, you are right here.
I’m afraid I don’t follow you here, Sister Amy. What does this mean? Who said that a democratic Israel is wrong because it has a large population of Palestinians? If you think that is what I said or was implying, I’m afraid I have to be much more careful in crafting my words next time. Keep in mind, I am actually FOR a democratic and free Palestine…
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**dzhereme, well said. But you should have said it in years 630 A.D. when Muslims had a young weak state in Madinah and the christians (aided by the powerful Roman Empire) were ready to attack the new found state of Madinah.
This is a typical tactic of yours, and I’m not buying into it. “What about when Christians did/do X?” Planten, when are you going to learn that things that are WRONG are objectively so, and not dependent upon whether or not you share a religion with the wrong-doer? So what about that? This topic is about Muslims, and what they do.
Frankly, I would NOT like to believe you, because you don’t know what you’re talking about. To claim that Islam was spread peacefully is an insult to the millions who were killed, enslaved, or forcibly converted by Muhammad and his successors. If you want to believe that everyone who ever came to Islam did so of their own free will, fine. No doubt some did. But there were a great many who did not. This idea that “peace” only comes with the acceptance of Islam is only true because Muhammad, unlike the apostles of Christianity, did not heed this idea that should someone refuse your message, you are to shake the dust from your feet and move along. Instead, what Muhammad himself could not accomplish (namely, moving Islam outside of the Arabian peninsula) was left to his disciples, who “opened up” the world for Islam with their OFFENSIVE WARS. There is no nice or peaceful way to characterize it. Nearly everyone in the Middle East who is now Muslim was once Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, or some kind of pagan. They did not just all simultaneously voluntarily give up their religion once Islam came into their country. To believe that they did just because you want to continue in your idolization of Muhammad and the early generations of Muslims is just sad.
Tell that to, for just two examples, Iranian martyrs Mehdi Debaj and Haik Hovsepian. They would answer you, but they cannot. Debaj was murdered for converting to Christianity from Islam, and Haik was murdered for Christian activism that consisted of trying to secure basic rights for Christians in Iran by petitioning the government and writing to the world press regarding the lack of human rights for the Christians in the Islamic Republic, and for refusing to turn away Muslims who wanted to come to his church or to turn their names in to the authorities so that they could be arrested and tortured (as many Iranian converts from Islam are, and they are the lucky ones). For that, they were murdered.
Well, no need to apologize, because we’ll continue to do it anyway. I personally will not disparage Muhammad if I can help it, but there are no conditions under which you will revoke my right to spread the word of God, because this is a duty that is incumbent upon all Christians, and yes, it does involve explaining the differences between Christianity and Islam to Muslims such as yourself who believe that they understand Christianity based on what the Qur’an says (they don’t, because the Qur’an itself does not understand). What you are effectively saying is that if at any point in having discussions like this I ever mention that Muhammad was wrong or taught a false doctrine, I should not be allowed to preach anywhere, ever. If that is what you say, sir, then what should I say to you when you talk about how false and misguided Christianity is? Should I turn to you and say “you are not allowed to give your opinion anywhere, because it offends me and I don’t agree with it?”
No, but more of Africa is hammered by AIDS than has diamonds.
Saudi Arabia…I cannot even visit mecca (and I would love to, just to see the pilgrimage)
How ? By killing 400 + children in 3 weeks as a name of self defense ??
The state of Israel is not free for Palestinians, but it is slowly and surely still taking Palestinian land for itself!I never said that it was Muslims against everyone. I said that I support a secular Palestine that is free for all religions, not under the thumb of the Israelis or those who would establish an Islamic state there. The issue here is not “a free Palestine or an Israel-occupied Palestine”; this is something on which Christians and Muslims agree, because as you rightly observe, they both live under terrible conditions right now, and they both thirst for and deserve freedom. I brought in religion because the idea of what a “free Palestine” should look like does have to do with religion. If it is freed from Israeli occupation only to become another Islamic state, then it once again ceases to be free. I know you will not agree with me because you are a Muslim and you see Islam as perfectly compatible with and even beneficial to the rights of minority religions, but a Christian Palestinian is unlikely to see it that way, even if there is comparatively less oppression under Islamic rule than there is currently under Israeli occupation (which is, to put it diplomatically, a debatable conjecture).
Since that’s precisely not what I am doing, and since I do agree with you here, I am confused as to why you are addressing my post in this manner. These are two separate issues: 1) Should Palestine be free? (I think we both agree: YES!); 2) What sort of government should preside over a free Palestine? (I think will probably disagree; I think it should be secular with no attempt to Islamicize or place under direct rule or “protection” any minority population and complete freedom of conscience and religion for everyone)
I agree.
Again, I agree. I would extend this type of warning to those attempting to build “Muslim” states by oppressing native non-Muslim minorities (which are also often ethnic minorities, e.g. the Assyrians and Armenians in Iraq-Iran-Turkey, the non-Arab African Christians in southern Sudan, etc). None of this behavior is right, and for precisely the same reason that the Israeli maltreatment of the Palestinian Arabs is wrong: the governments’ desire for a Muslim (/Jewish) state does not invalidate the right of those who are native to the land and not Muslim (/Jewish) to live in the place that they have always lived, and practice the religion and culture in which they most completely express their identity and their theology. I would also demand that this right extend to people who want to change their religion, as you yourself have done by converting to Islam. Again, anything less than this is not acceptable. These are basic human rights, not special exceptions to be granted so long as one is converting to the “right” religion from the point of view of the state (hence, why I would only support a secular Palestine).
Absolutely, you are right here.
I’m afraid I don’t follow you here, Sister Amy. What does this mean? Who said that a democratic Israel is wrong because it has a large population of Palestinians? If you think that is what I said or was implying, I’m afraid I have to be much more careful in crafting my words next time. Keep in mind, I am actually FOR a democratic and free Palestine…
Statements like that make me sick. You want to “see the pilgrimage?” It’s not a tourist attraction!
Subhanallah, sister, you are SOOO right. It hurts everytime I hear about how Indian women abort female fetuses, it’s so sick, but I never hear it blamed on religion.
Alright. So am I. My position is that the Palestinian territory is too important to all people of the area (being home to Jerusalem/Al-Quds, Bethlehem, Al-Aqsa mosque, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre/the Resurrection, etc.) to be the site of any further armed conflict. The people there deserve to live free and peaceful lives, as all people everywhere do. If this is best done in a mixed Jewish/Muslim state, so be it. But I think that realisitically this is the least likely to happen, given the attachment to the idea of the Jewish state that many Israeli citizens have. So a two-state solution seems more reasonable, if imperfect.
There are a couple of points I would like to make.
No! Its not a jewish state, in that jewish civil law is implemented for everyone.
Jews want someplace to call home, someplace where they are in control.
**Sister Amy, you are right. Please add to that the habit of the Hindus where there had been a practice of burning the widow when her husband died, as religious duty. That was called Satti. I hope it is made illegal now, I am not sure.
The point isn’t to have the land, so much as to control the land.
**algebra, I assure you that Islam is not for politics. There is least politics in islam. It is true that, like the Jews of the time of Jesus, the muslim religious leaders (I call them irreligious) have started yearning to establish a muslim state where they would enforce their own laws. That is alright (no harm) if they understand the peaceful nature of Islam, i.e. no oppression and no compulsion, no forced conversion and no death penalty on reversions.
Yes, I have accepted Jesus as my personal Saviour.
If you are a white muslim…sure.
No, I believe that israel today has the right to exist as it is (without further expansions)