"Moderate" Relativism

B"H

I'm lately very upset with what has been going on with the whole "Ground Zero Mosque" thing. I don't think people totally comprehend what it means. So I'll give you a small idea:

Imagine you are living in a house. You and your family have lived in this house for generations. You live in the community and you know most of the people in your community. You often house guests who are in need of a bed for the night and the guests have always been polite and respectful. One night, you house a family. The family comes in, they treat you like a servant. They stay longer than the night and they just never leave. They destroy the room you have allowed them to sleep in, and redecorate it in their style and tell you that you owe it to them because you have had so many people staying in your house. Little by little, they start to edge you into a smaller and smaller place in your own house until one day, you come home and the locks have been changed and, when you attempt to enter your own home, they call the police and have you arrested. (Thanks to my friend Michelle Nevada for suggesting part of this analogy)

At this point, with the "request" to build a Mosque at Ground Zero, the Muslims have only gotten to the point in the analogy where they are redecorating the house. But Lebanon suffered the entire analogy and Europe is well on its way to being "Eurabia" -- just another province in the world wide Sharia empire.

The US is well on its way to being part of that global empire. By allowing a mosque at "Ground Zero" Michael Bloomberg is falling for the English language propaganda and not listening to what the leaders of the Islamist "movement" are saying in Arabic.

I was reading a wonderful article recently Our 'Moderate Muslim' Problem by Bret Stephens. He says that part of the reason we are in a quandary is that "Moderate Muslim" is a relative term. It's sort of like the difference between a NJ Republican and a Utah Democrat -- the Utah Democrat is probably more "right wing" than the NJ Republican. Stephens quotes one of my favorite writers, Irshad Manji

"[M]oderate Muslims denounce terror that's committed in the name of Islam but they deny that religion has anything to do with it." By contrast, she noted, "reform-minded Muslims denounce terror that's committed in the name of Islam and acknowledge that our religion is used to inspire it."

In addition, the "Moderate Muslims" are really just the nicer of the two faces of Islamism. "Moderate Islam" is just terrorism in a suit."Moderate Muslims" give us platitudes and feed on our need to think that all people can be reasoned with, that all people want peace deep inside, that we can resolve our differences at a table rather than on the field of battle.

In addition to their terrorism and murder, Islamists feel the need to deny the historical connection of any other people to any land (but they are quick to create a history for themselves) and the suffering of others. They act like spoiled rich children who have an air of entitlement (and, with Islamist as well as spoiled rich children, people often feed into this feeling of entitlement). Only their "history" (real or imagined) matters. Only their "suffering" (again, real or imagined) matters. This is why they want to "mark their territory" by placing a Mosque at the place they destroyed two heavily populated buildings in one of the most densely populated places on earth.

Unfortunately,  people like Mr. Bloomberg (and other Jewish apologists, Jews who worry about the "poor Palestinians" but not their own people or their own land) think that by going to all the Holocaust memorial programs they have done what they need to in the universal fight for justice. I have noticed that people who focus on the Holocaust quote the platitude of  "Never Again". But that's just lip service.They don't understand (or don't want to admit) that by allowing (nay, encouraging) the Mosque at Ground Zero they are part of the problem, part of the group of people who are still allowing injustice to prevail. In this sense, they are no better than the Holocaust deniers, using the Holocaust to promote their own agenda. Thomas Mann said, "Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil." Saying "Never Again" is just too easy -- go to a lecture/program, condemn something that happened 65 years ago but don't concern yourself with what's happening today. (For comparison, it's sort of like saying Slavery in the US was a terrible institution, but still using the "N" word or not wanting "them" to move next door to you.) The problem with saying "Never Again" is that it is still happening. Between the demonization of Israel and Jews (prejudice is a no-no unless you're an anti-Semite or anti-Israel), the imbalance of "concern" (people are SOOOOO concerned about the poor, downtrodden "Palestinians" -- who, mind you, are only being suppressed by their own leaders, NOT by Israel -- but couldn't care less about the Afghani women, non-Muslims in Darfur, Tibetans under Chinese rule, the Basques who DO deserve their own country, I could go on and on....), etc., the people who allow the Islamists, despite their history, to use our laws against us (as they did in Lebanon), the Holocaust is still, unfortunately, with us though wearing a different costume. "Never Again" may make us feel better, but truth is truth and suffering and genocide are alive and well and living all over the world. It's a hard fight, but we all need to fight it.

Check out my other blogs:

Jewish Sandwich
Everything Goes
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women
Bayit and Garden

Check out some of my squidoo lenses (articles):

Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Why be Vegetarian?
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington