Douglas Murray has penned an excellent piece at Gatestone called The Encouragers: Jihadists' Agents of Influence.
It's an outstanding essay and I urge you to read the whole thing.
"We are so intent upon avoiding the problem of our time, radical
Islam, that in one scenario we are willing to ignore the people who call
for violence and murder, and on the other hand pretend that those who
have never called for violence or murder have actually been calling for
it all along. If any Muslim anywhere is attacked, the Western media is
eager to attribute the fault to anybody who has ever analysed or even
noticed radical Islam. They blame the person who has noticed the fire
rather than tackling the fire that is being pointed to."
"Yet when that
same fire is burning, when Christians, Jews, other Muslims, secularists
and others are targeted around the world by Islamists, we remain intent
on hoping that this urge has nothing to do with any of the texts or
books or preachings or encouragements in the milieu from which the
perpetrators come. And all this in spite of the circumstance that it is
we in the West who are often the ones financing and legitimizing these
people, and sometimes -- as with the Palestinian Authority -- even
handing them the funds to target us with."
"The willful effort to ignore what is in front of our eyes, to cast
blame where there is none and ignore it where there is, are not
demonstrations of entirely wholesome societies. Rather, they are
examples of societies suffering through a sickness. And if we cannot see
our way through this, then it is this sickness that may yet prove to be
the one historians in the future will recognize to have been terminal."
Contrast his lucid, clear prose with the absolutely disgusting tripe written by "Rabbi" Shmuley Boteach, spiritual minister to the late Michael Jackson-who had a prediliction for hosting little boys at "sleepover" parties.
"Imams must condemn the murders".
Is this guy for real?
It is breathtakingly arrogant of Mr. Boteach to suggest that Jews owe a debt to Islam. And it's foolish and dangerous and stupid of him to write that imams must condemn the murders. The incitement to murder comes from within the sacred texts, and within the mosques and from the sermons of the imams.
Perhaps the most ignorant and evil statement in his stupid essay is this:
"Hamas’ values are an utter disgrace to the principles of Islam."
Really? So we should listen to Michael Jackson's "Rabbi" teach us about Hamas? We should listen to his opinion of Hamas rather than the Hamas charter itself? Rather than the Hamas jihadists who actually spell out quite clearly what their motivation is?
When Hamas representatives say that they want to kill the Jews, slaughter the infidels and that they are motivated by Islam-we should ignore that and listen to the good Rabbi?
This ignoramus has clearly never read the Hamas Charter or the Koran.
It is the height of arrogance and stupidity to assume that he knows better than Hamas about the intentions of Hamas. And what principles does he refer to?
A pathetic call for condemnation probably makes Mr. Boteach feel better about himself. After all, he condemned Baruch Goldstein! What a pillar of moral integrity is he!
Unfortunately for the Jewish people, in this article, he reveals himself as naive at best and dangerously foolish at worst.
So, dear reader, ho are you going to believe?
Mr. Boteach on Hamas, or your own lying eyes?
Shame on this pathetic excuse of a Jewish "leader".
UPDATE:
This outstanding piece by Mark Steyn "Hath Not A Jew Eyes?" is appropriate for this post.
The comments from Steyn about Abe Foxman are equally applicable to Boteach.
