UI – Part 465 – Islam Leading Followers Down the Wrong Path

Dolphi

A member of a Palestinian family, their father a religious leader, a wise council and a member of Hamas, enjoyed friends and family and most never thought of themselves as radical Muslims.  They wanted an independent Palestine.  Their neighbor, Israel, became a target for their stones, when young and having no access to guns or rifles.  It was as a child’s game, like cowboys and Indians, but in this case, Jews and Muslims.  In time the realization hit that it was not a game.  Israeli soldiers would take as prisoners family members, even neighbors, those who might be a threat to Israel or a source of information, in an effort to thwart any serious attack on citizens of the Jewish State. Then there were suicide bombings.  Israeli’s were killed.  Talk of martyrdom was received with attentive ears and seldom condemnation.

In June of 2001, after suicide bombers earlier in the year killed small numbers or attempts were stopped, a happy crowd and line of mostly teenagers were gathered to enter a popular Tel Aviv disco, the Dolphi.  A Palestinian boy, Saeed Hotari, was among them.  Strapped to his body was a vest containing metal fragments and powerful explosives. 21 died and 120 were injured in this massacre.  Ripped apart by shrapnel and torn to shreds by the magnitude of the blast there was blood and flesh and body parts stuck to walls, hanging from lampposts and spattered on the remains of dead bodies and disoriented survivors.  Hotari’s neighbors congratulated his father, who expressed his desire that his other sons do the same.

The family member realized there were many from his community that were aware of this tragedy before it took place.  He considered them moderates.  The moderate Muslims were not participants, but they did not criticize, in fact cheered the outcome. “How could this be,” this person asked himself. Information was available that could have saved lives.  The ire of the Israeli’s could have been kept at bay.  The situation would only rile them further.  Stones may have caught their attention but the killing of innocents, the destruction and mayhem caused to the area, to those directly impacted and their family members, could have been prevented. Lives saved. Those with influence, that could have alerted the authorities, did nothing. They could have at least tried.  Again, they did nothing. Yes, there was a movement, a desire and goal to have the Israeli’s leave the West Bank.  Opposition would continue until achieved.  But was this the way to do it?  Was this what the moderates were allowing to happen?  Were they, by doing nothing, also terrorists?

Finding Answers

Is this the answer to ‘what would Muhammad do?’

What would be the answer if the question was ‘what would Jesus do?’

Those who at one time were seen as heroes for the sake of Palestine, were now seen as supporters of the death squads, as conspirators in killing innocents, and for what purpose – for attention, for notoriety?  Was the Quran leading its people down the wrong path?  Is the Quran leading its followers down the wrong path?

Peaceful co-existence is possible, if you choose to live and love your neighbor.  Ah, but that is not what the Quran says to do.  Yet the Bible says to love God with all your mind, soul and heart, and to love your neighbor too.  What a sensible, compelling directive!

What were Hotari’s people, his family, being told by the leaders?  Go kill yourself for the cause.  Allah will give you a place in Paradise. Some parents will even be paid a bounty for having their children become a suicide bomber.  Saddam Hussein did that. Yasser Arafat did that.  But that is not what the Quran says, while it is what many Islamic leaders tell their constituency.  They lie. They lie to achieve an end, their end which can provide money, personal financial wealth, power and political status. They use hate filled rhetoric as an incentive, repeating and repeating, as a football coach encouraging his team to defeat their opposition today, but for the Islamist until they are no more.  The Jew will always be their opposition until exterminated.  Hate them, they are told, be they Palestinian, Iranian, Shiite, Sunni, Saudi, and so on, as long as you are a Muslim you must commit Jihad for the cause, and the cause entails killing Jews, Christians too, and any innocents that may be nearby.  That is a sad, barbaric, and certainly unGodly, goal.  That only leads to an end zone called Hell.

Arafat

Unique to the way Islamists think may be the recent example of Yasser Arafat.  As leader of the PLO he achieved for Palestine “something few Palestinians would have dared imagine possible” (pg 126, Son of Hamas by Mosan Hassan Yousef). The Camp David Summit brought together Israel (Ehud Barak), America (Bill Clinton) and Arafat, in July 2000, wherein a ‘land for peace’ accord was made possible.  Yet, “…it was not enough for Arafat” (pg126).  The reason why had more to do with the selfish nature of Islamist leaders and the spoils they can achieve when confronting their enemy, of which the Jewish State is primary. Yousef wrote, “Yasser Arafat had grown extraordinarily wealthy as the international symbol of victimhood.  He wasn’t about to surrender that status and take on the responsibility of actually building a functioning society.”  He then made demands he knew Israel would not, and could not, accept.  In Yousef’s mind Arafat was “a traitor who sold out his people for a ride on their shoulders….who plundered the poor and made himself rich….who bought his place in the limelight with Palestinian blood” (pg 127). Arafat was not the first Islamist to do so, and will not be the last.  They cannot settle with those they hate as what then would be their focus, their cause, their call for support and the opportunity for power and self-aggrandizement. They will always ask for more, no matter how close they come to peace, to be able to continue their tirades and profiteering.

Who more than Muhammad achieved the honorific title of being the Prophet, although self-proclaimed, for Islam?  He is held more as an idol, yet that would be blasphemy in Islam, than the mortal sinner self-indulgent militant ideologue he was in reality. When did Muhammad, as the example, ever reach an accord with those he looked upon with disdain?  The only instance might have been when those in opposition bowed to his demands, accepting a god, Allah, not of their choosing, to live. Israel will not do that.

Stop the Bleeding

There is a way to stop the bloodshed between Islam and the rest of the world.  The answer will not be found in a mosque, a madrassas or the Quran.  The silent majority moderate Muslims are not helping to achieve a peaceful end either.  “Loving and forgiving one’s enemies is the only real way to stop the bloodshed,” Yousef realized (pg. 148, Son of Hamas), the more and more he read the Bible.

Understand Islam, the Islamic culture and the ideology.  Let us not make Islam, Islamists, radical Islamists or Moderate Muslims, a victim.  Islam is not a religion of peace, never will be.  It is an ideology of conquest. At the highest levels oppression is more the objective, control, than peace.  Certainly freedom and love of neighbor is a definite ‘no-no.’

Even the son of the Hamas co-founder and leader (1986) Sheikh Hassan Yousef became a Christian once able to read the Bible, and as a witness to atrocities of the Islamist and the true nature of those who sought peace on the surface, but resisted in actuality. He left the culture of his homeland and family. He embraced the love of the Biblical God, the divine nature of Christ, Jesus as the example of a peaceful world, and the moral and ethical values, great values, put forth in the Bible. He wrote, “Allah had no problem with murder, in fact he insisted on it.  But Jesus held me to a much higher standard” (pg 178).  The local leaders, religious and secular,  used, and still do so today, the people for a cause that resulted (results) in contributions making great personal wealth possible. Funds were used to aide the Jihadists, but also to line their pockets.  With Swiss Bank accounts full, and bags packed, some moving daily to escape an enemy’s missile, they continued to encourage their people to fight, to engage in suicide bombing, and to commit Jihad as called for in their Scripture, while bathing in the benefits of their madness.

As a follower of Islam think about the path you are on.

The book, Son of Hamas, by Mosan Hassan Yousef, 2011, Tyndale House Publishers, has been translated into Arabic.

Grace and Peace