ORTHODOX ISLAM versus ORTHODOX JUDAISM - a comparison

• LEFT-WING ANTI-SEMITES LIKE BILL MOYERS HAVE RECENTLY BEEN ARGUING THAT JUDAISM IS INTRINSICALLY BLOODTHIRSTY.

• OTHER POSTMODERN LEFTISTS ARGUE THAT ALL RELIGIONS ARE THE SAME - AND ALL BAD - OR ALL PRONE TO THE SAME DIATHESIS FOR VIOLENCE.

BOTH ARE WRONG.

LET'S LOOK AT THE FACTS AND SEE IF WE CAN SPOT A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ISLAM AND JUDAISM:

FACT:

• Islam doesn't permit non-Muslims to go to Mecca - its religious capitol.

• Jews not only allow non-Jews into Jerusalem and live there, the Temple Mount - the most sacred real estate in all Judaism - was put under the control of the Muslim Waqf by Israelis.

In this is there ANY resemblance?

NO, NOT A SCINTILLA OF SIMILARITY.

FACT:

• For nearly 1500 years - and today in many nations and in more and more communities worldwide - Islam has forced non-believers to adhere to Muslim law.

• Judaism doesn't expect or demand gentiles to follow Jewish law or customs. (Orthodox Jews don't even expect all other JEWS to - though they'd prefer it!).
  

In this is there ANY resemblance?

NO, NOT A SCINTILLA OF SIMILARITY.

FACT:

• Islam aggressively seeks converts - sometimes under pain of injury or death, sometimes under threat of genocide.

• Judaism doesn't seek converts. Never has.
  

In this is there ANY resemblance?

NO, NOT A SCINTILLA OF SIMILARITY.

FACT:

• Islamo-terrorists and islamo-terrorist groups - (such as Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hizballah, Abu Sayyaf, et al) - act in accordance with written Muslim laws, to the principles and traditions of Islam explicitly articulated in the Koran and Hadiths; they are not "renegades" misinterpreting a "religion of peace"; [this according to Muslim and Muslim-scholar Irshad Manji, who has written extensively and argued far and wide that Binladen and his ilk are "LITERALISTS" and that Islam needs a reformation which would entail seeing much of Muslim "scripture" as "FIGURATIVE".]

• Jewish fundamentalists not only don't seek submission of non-believers; they don't even harass reform Jews who practice gay marriage and have female rabbis - though both are anathema to their core beliefs.

In this is there ANY resemblance?

NO, NOT A SCINTILLA OF SIMILARITY.

• Additionally, Jews have contributed enormously to human progress and modernity in every realm - science, humanities, arts, letters, and so on, and have done so - despite horrific persecution - in nearly every nation, in nearly every decade for the last 2000 years.

• Muslims have contributed ZILCH.

In this is there ANY resemblance?

NO, NOT A SCINTILLA OF SIMILARITY.

Any and all policies which equate the two are not only immoral, but they are doomed to fail because they're based on a delusion.

The delusion may be antisemitic or postmodern - it matters not. It's a delusion.