Mac,

I am sick and tired of hearing this totally misunderstood adjective when applied to Muslims of the Middle East: "ANTI-SEMITE" it demonstrates such complete ignorance on the subject.

Muslim and Christian Arabs ARE SEMITES. If you want to criticize a people at least understand the basics. There are more pure Semites in the Arab world then there is in the entire State of Israel as most of the Jews in Israel arrived from Europe and America and their genes were mixed with the citizens of those countries.

As for the Quran being the mad musings of a wandering nomad. Islam is the first and only religion that recognized women as something other than an inferior human for man’s pleasure.

Women were given the right to own land in their own name and were allowed to inherit money from their husbands rights not accorded them by Christianity or Judaism.

If you want a rant please inform yourself on the fundamentals of the subject and then have a rant.

[“The fratricidal family feud continues. It has been going on now for two thousand years and is far from abating. What is it that justifies that the members of the same family of religious belief continue to tear each other apart ?”]

Religious Jew and religious Muslim have NO problems co-habiting and have been doing so for generations. They are kinfolk, brothers and the God of Abraham made a Covenant with both of them in which he promised to make both prosperous for loyalty and obedience of his laws. At one time the two united under Saladin and threw the Kingdom of Jerusalem back to Europe bringing seven hundred years of peace to South western Asia that lasted till the return of Europeans and terror in 1914.

The situation turned into the festering, pus dripping sore that it is today on the arrival in Palestine of European Zionist settlers who began the rot by forcibly displacing the Palestinians from their homes, farms and towns. The Zionists also introduced discriminatory practises regarding ethnicity, skin colour and religious choices applying them not only against the Palestinians but to their own fellow Yehudi that had remained in Southwest Asia/North Africa such as the Mizrahi and Sephardi.

[“There are hundreds of verses demonizing non-Muslims in the quran. Allah makes it very clear that unbelievers are lower than animals and deserve the vilest punishment.”]

Yes indeed......the Bible also gives explicit details on God’s barbarity in the treatment of the Aboriginals of Palestine and others. Nice juicy bits for ya regarding the treatment of non-Jewish females and what can be freely done to them!

[“The fact is that Muslim values are not those of the west. They don't believe in freedom of speech and religion, equality, human rights and separation of religion and state. The mass immigration of Muslims to the West has been, is, and will be a disaster.”]

The question should be “but why the mass migration”?

Gee....is it because the militaries of the west are tearing their countries apart? So it’s leave or die, let’s see what would a normal sensible person do?

Foxy,

The authorities cannot just "step in" as you put it. They need a legal basis for their actions and none exists. The Supreme Court has ruled that acts such as those Jones contemplated were protected by the first amendment*. The ruling is binding on courts throughout the US.

So what do you expect the authorities to do Foxy?

Arrest Jones? On what grounds?

Serve him with a court order prohibiting him and his church from burning their own property? What would be the legal basis of such a court order in the light of the Supreme Court's ruling?

I also strongly contest the notion that giving in to religious bullying and death threats serves the greater good. I think it does exactly the opposite.

The "greater good" as you put it is better served by standing up to bullies.

But if you feel so strongly about it agitate to have "A Life of Brian" banned lest outraged Christians go on the rampage.

Or get Arjay's outrageous claims about the Jews banned from OLO in case I get so wounded by his posts that I go on a shooting spree in Flinders Street Station.

Or is it only people who threaten violence whose feelings need be considered? And what kind of example does that set?

And where does it stop? If someone finds "The God Delusion" so hurtful that they feel bound to kill people in revenge do we ban the book? Do we stop teaching evolution because somebody thinks it's "anti-God"? Is that really serving the "greater good"?

Eventually we're going to have to stand up to religious bullies or go back to servitude. The longer we delay the inevitable confrontation the worse it will get.

Right now is as good a time to draw a line in the sand as any.


* Texas vs Johnson 491 U.S. 397 (1989).

I wish one of our leaders would say:

Sensible people realise that all Muslims are not to blame for 9/11. Muslims can be sensible enough to realise this is one nut burning his own property which he has a perfect right to do.

It is a bigoted stupid act, but it is the act of one stupid bigot.

As we don't blame all Muslims for 9/11 we think it unreasonable for Muslims to blame us for one man who acted offensively but legally.

"As we don't blame all Muslims for 9/11 we think it unreasonable for Muslims to blame us for one man who acted offensively but legally."

Oh right, that kind of understanding should stop suicide bombers from killing innocent people .. sheesh, it's sooo simple.

Dear ulis,

The word, antisemite, was coined in 1879 by Wilhelm Marr, and he meant it to mean hatred of Jews. That is what he meant, and the way the word has been understood. Marr was not referring to Arabs or other semitic people.

There is no such thing as a semitic gene as the adjective, semitic, refers to a language group. Some of those semitic languages are Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, Akkadian, Amharic, Ge'ez, Maltese, Phoenician, Tigre and Tigrinya.