Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Portrait of the cartoonist as an Islamophobe

Yes it is.  It truly is.  So says Pam Geller (notice the quotation marks–I didn’t say that) of Atlas Shrugged and one of the world’s most distinguished forensic psychologists and learned scholars of Islam.  Er, not really.  The only forensic psychology this woman has ever practiced involves writing her own blog which is a repository for pathological hatred.  As for her scholarly credentials, she earned them at the Merkaz HaRav Kahane yeshiva or was it the Bernard Lewis School of Neocon Anti-Jihadism?  Actually, she is the one of the blog world’s greatest Jewish purveyors of Muslim hate.  How else could she come up with this blog post title?

MISTRIAL IN JEWISH FEDERATION MASSACRE:ISLAM IS A MENTAL ILLNESS

I only learned about this dreck thanks to her link to a blog post I wrote about the Naveed Haq murder trial, which ended in a mistrial recently.  This, as you might guess, drove the Jewish anti-Muslim right into paroxysms of rage since it clearly meant that a hard-core jihadi was abusing the legal system to get off scot free.  As for the ten years during which Haq was under psychiatric care for serious mental disorders, well mental illness be damned.  Islam itself is a mental illness, don’t you know.

An irony totally lost on Geller is that Haq hated Islam and tortured his family with his angry outbursts against the religion.  In fact, he went so far as to be baptized a Christian in his twisted pursuit of a spiritual identity.  So much for Haq as a Muslim adherent.  Has it never crossed her mind how bizarre and contradictory it would be for a healthy individual to express hatred for his religion and then go out and supposedly kill for it?  This is clearly the act of a terribly deluded, twisted and ill mind.

Daniel Pipes, a more sophisticated but no less toxic Jewish anti-Muslim chirpily calls Haq “Seattle’s jihadi.”  He rails against Seattle’s soft Jews who don’t know a committed Al Qaeda fanatic when they see one.  Actually, if you look at a picture of Haq, you see an overweight, confused, and clouded individual.

Pipes practically screams out against the shooting victims: instead of recognizing the “real” threat Haq represents they persist in their Kumbaya notion that the true enemy in this case was freely available guns and a paucity of mental health options for the seriously ill:

In response to the hideous assault on herself and her co-workers, however, [Dayna] Klein offers this pablum: “I see this as an amazing opportunity. I see this as a chance for Seattleites and people across America … to look at some serious issues about workplace safety, gun control, gun violence and empowerment.” What about jihad, Ms Klein?

…Even more appalling, the parents of Layla Bush, 23, Haq’s most severely wounded victim who is battling for her life, focused entirely on Haq’s supposed mental illness.

Imagine that, shot by a Jihadi assassin and the victim’s parents refuse to acknowledge the evil looking at them in the face and get suckered by pablum about mental illness.  Imagine Pipes’ tut-tutting as he penned this attack on shooting victim, Cheryl Stumbo’s comment, published here at this blog:

One of Haq’s victims appears to remain in utter denial of the cause of her trauma. A writer identifying herself as Cheryl Stumbo writes today:

“…The man who shot me and five of my colleagues (killing one and seriously injuring the rest of us, not to mention traumatizing the entire staff and volunteer base) was raised Muslim, yes, but by peace-loving parents, from all accounts. His problem was long-term, very serious mental illness. Let’s not attribute blame to ethnicity/religion when there are documentable medical explanations. Rationality and reason should prevail.

Ah yes, rationality and reason–not qualities in great supply when it comes to the Jewish wingnut brigade epitomized by Pipes and Geller.  And to think of it, without his link to Stumbo’s comment at this blog I might’ve missed this jewel of penetrating anti-jihadi analysis.

What specially strikes me about all this blowhardery is the unmitigated chutzpah shown by them in attacking the feelings and beliefs of the victims.  Isn’t there some element of human decency which should require anyone, even a wingnut, to grant a few shreds of credence to the views of victims of this horrible tragedy?  Isn’t it sheer effrontery for them to substitute their superior wisdom and analysis for that of those ‘poor deluded sheep,’ victims Stumbo, Klein and Bush?

The problem with Pipes is that he’s got the world figured out.  He knows who are the good guys and who are the bad guys and he’s not afraid to tell you.  And woe betide anyone who stands in his way or muddies the waters of his moral clarity.  Off with their heads.  This is the mark of the true believer–the type of person who’ll lead you on a moral crusade.  The type of person in fact has brought nothing but devastation and pestilence on the human race.  He’s the Savanarola, the Torquemada, the Robespierre of the anti-jihadi set.  Woe unto a generation and a world that feels it must turn to such a one for moral leadership.

Personally, I am deeply thankful for the courage, bravery and moral clarity of these victims.  They can teach us all a thing or two about persevering in the face of tragic violence and adversity.  My Jewish tradition calls not only for strict justice, but for mercy as well.  The Midrash teaches us that a world where there is only justice and no mercy is a hellish world that cannot long endure.  Our victims have shown us that that is true and I am proud of them for it.

It is for this reason that I have dedicated myself to the Weekend of Twinning of mosques and synagogues sponsored by the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.  Here in Seattle, we are planning a program in the coming weeks that will partner Congregation Beth Shalom with Redmond’s Muslim Association of Puget Sound mosque.  I look forward to sharing our questions, conflicts and mutual views about our religious traditions then.