Posted on 12/01/2008 6:40:04 PM PST by goldstategop
All terrorism is monstrous, but the murder of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg by "religious Islamic extremists" stands out for its unspeakable infamy. The deliberate targeting of a small Jewish center and its married young directors, whose only purpose it was to provide for the religious needs of a community and feed travelers, proves that those who perpetrated this crime are bereft not only of even a hint of humanity, but every shred of faith as well. The world's most aggressive atheists are more religious than these spiritual charlatans and pious frauds.
When Osama bin Laden, whose beard masks the face of the ultimate religious hypocrite, attacked the World Trade Center in New York, the target was purportedly chosen as the very symbol of American materialism and excess. But what could these "religious" people have been thinking in exterminating a 20-something couple with two babies who moved from the world's richest country to India to provide religious services and faith to the poor and the needy? What blow against Western decadence were they striking by targeting a Chabad House whose entire purpose it is to spread spirituality to people whose lives lack it? Now is not only a time to remember the victims but to hate their killers. One cannot love the innocent without simultaneously loathing those who orphan their children.
I KNOW how uncomfortable people feel about hatred. It smacks of revenge. It poisons the heart of those who hate. But this is true only if we hate the good, the innocent or the neutral. Hating monsters, however, motivates us to fight them. Only if an act like this repulses us to our core will we summon the will to fight these devils so that they can never murder again.
I am well aware that my hero Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." But surely the great man never meant for this to apply to people like Hitler, who was never going to be stopped by love but only by an eloquent loathing, as articulated by Winston Churchill, which summoned an Allied campaign to carpet-bomb his war-making apparatus into oblivion. Indeed, had King's nonviolent movement not been protected, at crucial times, by federal marshalls and the National Guard, the terrorist thugs of the Ku Klux Klan might have killed every last one of them.
As for my Christian brethren who regularly quote to me Jesus' famous saying, "Love your enemies," my response is that our enemies and God's enemies are different parties altogether. Jesus meant to love those who steal your girlfriend, cut you off on the road or swindle you in a business deal. But to love those who indiscriminately murder God's children is an abomination against all that is sacred. Is there a man who is human whose heart is not filled with moral revulsion against terrorists who target a rabbi who feeds the hungry? Would God or Jesus ask me to extend even one morsel of my limited capacity for compassion to fiends rather than saving every last particle for their victims instead?
Could God really be so unreasonable, could Jesus be so cruel, as to ask me to love baby-killers? And would such a God be moral if He did? Could I pray to a God who loves terrorists? Could I find comfort in Him knowing that He offers them comfort as well? No, such a god would be my enemy. He would abide in Hades rather than heaven. And I would be damned before I would worship him. I will accept an eternity in purgatory rather than a moment of celestial bliss shared with these beasts.
NOW IS the time for our Muslim cleric brethren to rise in chorus and condemn the repulsive assassins who use Islam to justify their hatred. One such courageous imam, and one of the North America's most prominent, is my friend Imam Shabir Ali of Toronto who courageously responded to my call with a public statement the day after the murders: "Such terrorist attacks are not justifiable on any grounds. Islam cannot condone such murder of innocent civilians. From what you have described, Rabbi and Mrs. Holtzberg are of great service to humanity. Our knowledge of their service adds to our sense of loss and grief that such bad things can happen to such good people. Islam is built on the monotheist foundations which the Jewish people struggled for many centuries to maintain in the face of much severe opposition. Muslims and Jews should work together for a better world in which the terrorist acts we have seen in Mumbai this week are a thing of the past. I pray that the perpetrators will be brought to justice, and that the Lord with compensate the victims with a handsome reward in this world and the next."
BUT AS the next world is reserved for God, Who also has much to answer for as to how He can allow righteous people like the Holtzbergs and all the other Mumbai innocents to die, it is for us the living to recommit to their work. I suggest that best possible response by the world Jewish community to this tragedy is to implement a program of a Jewish peace corps to Chabad Houses the world over. Young people, especially students 16 to 30, should offer to spend two weeks of each summer volunteering for a Chabad House somewhere in the world to help the emissaries with their very difficult and important work. This past summer three of my teen children volunteered to work for Chabad in Cordova, Argentina, and it was one of the most rewarding experiences of their lives, as they shared in the isolation of a dedicated Chabad family who have lived there for 20 years to cater to the spiritual needs of the local community.
Finally, the world witnessed how the Holtzberg's non-Jewish nanny, Sandra Samuels, saved their two-year-old Moshe's life, running out with the child while risking being mowed down by machine-gun fire. In that instant, we saw how religious differences pale beside the higher of us all being equally God's children, Indian and Jew, Muslim and Christian, and how acts of courage and compassion are what unite us. As I write these lines, the State of Israel is being lobbied by the Holtzberg's remaining family to grant Ms. Samuels immediate citizenship. A hero of her caliber would be an honor to the Jewish state and the request should not be delayed by even a single day.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
The Apostle Paul was a pretty murderous guy before God saved him. While, as a human, I do hate those who kill like these terrorists did, I am not entirely comfortable thinking God calls me to do that.
Islam is not a religion. It is a cult of death founded by a megalomaniac pederast, rapist and mass murderer. This cult cannot be redeemed. It is violent to its very core. Its followers should be offered the choice that they offer we infidels. Conversion or death.
We really don’t need your approval Rabbi, so skip the “Righteous Gentile” bullsh!t. We’re on the same side here, Shmuley old pal, but cut the cr@p. Otherwise it stinks of “Jewish blood is worth more than Gentile blood.” Bottom line, we need to kill more terrorists, and worry about it less. Of course the Islamists want to make it hard to supply Afghanistan, which is why they do this stuff, so Pakistan separates from the West (well sort of, because the country [and leadership] is divided). That said, if we go, we’ve got to go all the way. This might be the end of of Iran and Pakistan both if that’s what it takes to convince the Islamists that they lost.
Don’t hold back. Tell us how you really feel. Agreed, btw.
I suggest the good Rabbi suffers from cranio-rectal inversion.
The best possible response by the world Jewish community is to do whatever they can to hunt the animals who sent these animals down and kill them.
L
We have very different beliefs, Jews and Christians about forgivenss.
In Christianity we are told to forgive and Christ even modeled forgiveness of his own executioners from the cross. But forgivenss does not mean no punishment. No retribution. Forgivenss has never meant that the deed is erased, just that our God values all humans and finds them worthy of redemption. Redeption and forgivenss do not preclude punishment.
For example, if your enemy is a bloodthirsty killer, it is perfectly consistent with loving your enemy to seek to kill him as quickly as possible. Why? Because he is certainly going to continue to murder, and every murder adds to his punishment in hell, therefore, you save him from even greater punishment by killing him today rather than a month from now.
To love someone is always to seek for them what God seeks for them, practically by definition. The sinner's conversion is ideal. Barring that, if some extremely serious moral object (like the lives of innocent victims) is at risk, ending the sinner's career of sinning is perfectly consistent with loving him. If you can't get him to heaven, you can save him from an even worse hell (and save his victims as well)
This is why, for example, Count von Stauffenberg's attempt on Hitler's life was perfectly consistent with "love thy enemies".
May God forgive me for what I say next.
This little boy needs to be adopted by a family in Israel. He needs to be raised remembering what was done to his world by these Muzzies. When he is of age he needs to be given a position in the Mosad as an assassin. When his training is complete give him a list of all of the Mumbai terrorists and where they came form and the location of their families.
Again, may God forgive me.
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
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What I would really like to say would get me banned so this shall have to suffice
“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.
The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.
A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the infence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it.
No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.
It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”
Sir Winston Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50, London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).
Christ never said anything about forgiving the unrepentant murderer. Ever.
Read Luke 17 3-4.
Christians are told to forgive the truly repentant who ask forgiveness. None of the monsters who trained and sent these monsters has repented, and none has asked for forgiveness.
Therefore forgiving them is a decidedly un-Christian thing to do.
L
Of course it isn't. It's nice to run into someone else who gets that.
L
Not to mention the fact that although we have the right to forgive whoever sins against us>/b>, it is not our place to forgive those who sin against others.
I agree
Forgive them for they know not what they do
Meaning
Jesus’ words from the cross, asking forgiveness for those who put him to death. More widely, of course, the plea was for all humanity.
Origin
From the Bible, Luke 23 (King James Version):
23:33 And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.
23:34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.
You have no right to offer forgiveness to the murderers of these fine people. They haven't asked for it. They don't want it.
L
I’ve read several of Churchill’s books. Including The River War. Agreed.
btt
Ready to go to war with the side of light YET?
Take Florida with you.
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