65 thoughts on “2 Dead in Suspected Islamist Terror Attack in Denmark – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. @Richard

    You seemed genuinely puzzled by these sorts of attacks. I don’t think you’ve gotten your head around the concept of ‘jihad’.

        1. @ eli: There is of course a concept of milhemet mitzva in Judaism and many, if not most settler rabbis subscribe to it in relation to Palestinians, including Rabbi Shapira who wrote Torat Hamelech which obligates Jews to precisely such an commandment. This includes the scores of Israeli & Diaspora rabbis who portray Palestinians as Amalek. And you do know what is the command upon Jews concerning Amalek, don’t you? To exterminate them. That’s what I call milhemet mitzvah.

          1. you keep on changing the subject.

            in your previos response you claimed there is an idea of obligatry war againd islam. now you talk about an obligatory war against palestinians. islam and palestinians are two diffrent things.

          2. @ eli: Islam and Palestinians are not two different things in the minds of many Israeli extremists as they aren’t different in the minds of Islamophobes like Geller, Yerushalmi, Horowitz, Spencer, etc. You know that. So stop posturing.

            This was your last comment in this thread. Move on.

          3. ” But I’ll get my head around jihad when you get your head around milhemet mitzvah against Islam. ”

            I didn’t know that the Sanhedrin was still in session.

  2. I’m a little disturbed by the notion that had I been in Copenhagen, and been identified as an Israeli, an Islamist targeting and murdering me would be maintaining “a somewhat coherent political-theocratic agenda” even though I am not a hater of Islam.

    Also it’s “Marine Le Pen” not “Marie LePen.”

    1. @ pea: No, you’re not disturbed about any of that. You’re disturbed I don’t share your view of Islam, Arabs, Palestinians, you name it. So you dig looking for a needle in a haystack till you find one & then shout “Eureka!”

      1. Islam and Arabs? And what pray tell do you think my views on Islam/Arabs and Palestinians are? I love my religion and culture and all I ask is to be allowed to worship in peace. For my part I extend the same respect to others including the vast majority of Muslims who do not support ISIS inspired terrorism and the misplaced murder of innocents. I have also participated in and volunteered with a number of inter-faith dialog groups that included Muslims from around the world as well as Palestinians and Arabs. I would strongly encourage everyone to do the same. These allow us to revel in our shared humanity and enjoy the wonders of breaking artificial barriers that keep us separated and fearful of each other. That having been said, I don’t know where our opinions regarding Muslims/Arabs/Palestinians differ in any significant way.

        Your response was a non-response. Rather than address the issue of what sort of victim by an Islamist gunman in Europe would pass ideological muster, you merely attacked me in a very unsubstantiated way. And I didn’t scream “Eureka!” You made a small error and I pointed it out as an aside so that you could fix it.

        1. @ pea: “All you ask is to be allowed to worship in peace.” That would be cool except that your State is doing its damndest to ethnically cleanse and otherwise destroy another people, not to mention disrupt their own worship. So you see it doesn’t work that way. By supporting such a State you don’t show “respet” for the “vast majority of Muslims.” In fact, you show disrespect.

          “Inter-faith” groups mean gornisht. It’s like taking homeopathic medicine when you have terminal cancer. I would discourage anyone from engaging in the sort of palliative, meaningless “care” you’ve attempted. If you participated in such a group in which you found your views of the conflict didn’t differ in any “significant way” from the Muslims & Palestinians in it, this proves conclusively that you are all completely lost & engaging in self-deception.

          There, now I’ve attacked you in a quite substantiated way. You are pathetic & your attempts to assuage your conscience about the crimes of your State are pathetic.

          My comment about you screaming “Eureka” had nothing to do with Marie Le Pen’s name. It had to do with the earlier part of your comment in which you claimed to have exposed a major flaw in my views about the Danish attack and what I wrote about it.

          You are entirely transparent and disingenuous, now & always.

          1. Sigh. Just because I support the State, doesn’t mean I support everything the government does. And I don’t. Please don’t conflate the government with the State – the two are separate entities, and you know that. You get mad at people who say that you are anti-Zionist and/or anti-Israel. Your reasoning is that you can be a Zionist and pro-Israel and not support the policies of the government, and your reasoning is completely correct! I sure won’t be voting for any of the major parties and am seriously considering voting for the Arab block because I really admire Hanin Zoabi and those MKs seem to represent their constituents way more than the other MKs who, for their part, seem to be mired in cronyism and corruption. In any case, I aspire to live in a State that respects the rights of all its citizens, and I believe that such a thing is possible. Maybe that’s where we differ I suppose, but there’s no need to call me disingenuous. I actually do strive to be as transparent as possible.

            Your understanding of the interfaith groups I have participated in is presumptuous to the extreme! While we strive to focus on the things that we have in common, I can assure you that the Muslims and Palestinians that I met, most often had very differing views on the conflict. As such nothing was “proven conclusively” at all. I have no idea what you think you know about my interfaith experience, but your conjecture is based on, well… nothing. You said you attacked me in a substantiated way but really you’re just projecting and being presumptuous.

            I didn’t expose anything – I was really just seeking clarification. But whatever. You don’t owe me anything. It’s your blog.

          2. @ pea: “Don’t conflate the government with the State?” Umm, then you have a little problem with something called democracy because the government represents the State. When the government engages in theft ethnic cleansing, war crimes, etc. and the voters don’t turn out the villains, then the government for all intents and purposes IS the State. As for them being “two separate entities,” no, not really.

            I am opposed not just to the government’s policies, but to the political structure of that government and the basic fundamental underlying principles of a State which supports Jewish supremacism. So my “criticism” goes farther than opposing policies. I want the State to be fundamentally different than it is. I want it to be truly democratic, which it isn’t.

            You want to live in a State that “respects” all citizens. But you don’t want to live in a State that mandates by law equal treatment for all citizens. There’s a major difference, one you refuse to embrace because you believe in tokenism.

            Interfaith dialogue is nothing more than a way for liberals like you to assuage your guilty conscience. You can trot out your noblesse oblige here & say “look how serious I am. Look at the commitment I made to meeting Palestinians half-way.” When you’ve done nothing of the sort.

            You won’t vote for the “Arab” [sic] bloc as you claim. Liberals don’t vote for “Arabs.”

    2. But Israelis are the enemy so, yes, it would make some sense.

      But, in a certain sense, it is not crazy to hold Jews accountable because world Jewry has sponsored the state of Israel and its crimes. Jews are responsible here in the much the same sense that Americans are responsible for the drone killings or Viet Nam etc. Making a target out of someone because they are Jewish is not so wrong-headed as RS wishes it to be. Sure, one can say “some Jews” this and “some Jews that” but that’s like saying that some Germans did not like Hitler and they should not be targets, say, of bombing. LIkewise, Israel is the doing of world Jewry. It is our responsibility to undo that ugly regime. I don’t a world of difference between attacking an Israeli civilian in Jerusalem or a Jew in Copenhagen. There is not a world of difference here. I do not say that Israel is the land of the Jewish people, I say only that the Jewish people created and sustain that state.

  3. @ pea: “You made a small error and I pointed it out as an aside so that you could fix it.”

    How kind. But then, you would say that, wouldn’t you.

  4. The man killed in front of the Synagogue in Krystalgade was 37-years old Dan Uzan who was controling identity papers as there was a Bat Miztvah in the community center next to the synagogue. The man killed in front of the café was a director of documentary films, Finn Norgaard.
    And Bibi has expressed his condolences to the Danish people …. just before delivering his message: that the Jews of Europe should come ‘home’ to Israel.
    http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/2015-02-15-netanyahu-angreb-mod-joeder-vil-fortsaette-kom-hjem-til-israel

  5. Calling brainwashed and frustrated youth from broken families and with often perturbed relationships with their father (but not necessarily from poorer backgrounds) and a long history in crime, ‘militants’ may be easy from far away places like Seattle, but bear no relationship with the obvious facts on the ground. Berlin Social Science Center WZB has published a poll conducted among 9000 European Muslims, showing they overwhelmingly support the notion that Islam can be only interpreted in one way and that Muslims should abide by that interpretation, that they should return to the source of their faith, and that Islamic guidelines are more important than the laws of the countries they live in. A majority also exhibited a hatred of homosexuals and a distrust of Jews. Not Israelis, not Zionists, not settlers, but Jews.

    http://www.wzb.eu/en/press-release/islamic-fundamentalism-is-widely-spread

    1. @ eric: Congratulations, you managed to find a single poll compiled by a social science think tank proving that Muslims are ‘backwards’ and ‘primitive’ and ‘anti-western.’ I can find 5 that say the opposite. So what does it prove? BTW, I can find hundreds of Judean settlers who believe that the secular Israeli state is treif and should be superceded by a Davidic kingdom with a reconstructed Third Temple and destroyed Haram al-Sharif.

      I can find hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Jews who believe Judaism can only be interpreted “one way” and Jews should return to such a hard-core theological foundation. Many of them, especially the Haredim believe halacha is more important than the laws of the secular state. They also exhibit hatred of homosexuals and distrust of non-Jews. Big deal. You proved zip, zilch, nada.

      Your comment was racist and Islamophobic and violates the comment rules. Nor do Muslims need you to attempt sociological analysis of their home life. I find it offensive & insulting. Consider this a warning.

    2. Eric. Either you, or the Berlin Social Science Center WZB is bent on twisting faith-views of Muslims in order to “prove” how Muslims are bent of hate and destruction.

      Berlin Social Science Center WZB must have selected their population VERY carefully or, their questions must have been crafted to elicit the answer that islam can only be interpreted one way. I am Muslim, I know hundreds of Muslims in the Washington state, Puget Sound area and I cannot find even a few hundred, randomly-selected Muslims, who would say Islam can only be interpreted one way.
      I challenge Berlin Social Science Center WZB to conduct an impartial, random survey with objective questions. If they do, they will find Muslims have as divergent views as Jews do, about their faith, if not more.
      I would not use the word “Hatred”, it is far too extreme and powerful, but you are correct, there is a LOT of distrust of Jews among Muslims…I dare say there is an equal propoertion of distrust of Muslims among Jews. Considering what Israel is doing to Palestinians and considering the gusto with which some (many?) US Synagogues continue to host anti-Muslim hate-mongers, such distrust is not irrational.

      The statement, “guidelines are more important than the laws of the countries they live in”, is completely idiotic and appears designed to show how Muslims are irrationally-driven. OF COURSE many Muslims feel their religious laws are more important than state laws! what follower of ANY religion would not say that? Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists…are you so incredibly naive that you believe that ONLY Muslims would hold such an outlook?
      What other “facts on the ground” would you like to share with us, to prove we Muslims are bent on “Hatred” for Jews and the destruction of the “Judeo-Chriswtian Civilization”?
      I hope one day, both faiths will come closer to each other instead of following an idiotic mutual hate that will destroy us all.

  6. @Richard – It is one thing to fight Islamophobia and another to recognize there are quite a few extremists whose ideologies included Jihad. The only time you mention that word is ‘anti-Muslim extremists’.

    But what Muslim can support wholesale murder?” – Seriously? Yes, there are over 1 billion Muslims who are all for peace but are we lacking examples of people killing other people in the name of Islam? Even if you call it minority (which you didn’t do), the question sounds like you served as a cosmonaut on a space-station and lost all communication for a little while.

    1. @ Ariel: Muslim terrorists are no more “Muslim” than Judean settler terrorists are “Jewish.” When I used the word “Muslim,” I used it in portraying the 99.95% of Muslims who abhor murder and bloodshed in pursuit of their religious aspirations.

      According to the CIA there are approximately 30,000 Islamists who adhere to ISIS. Even if you add in another 10 or 20,000 supporting Al Qaeda and various affiliated groups that leaves 1.3 billion other Muslims who aren’t extremist. Those are better odds than if you included all Judean extremists willing to use violence against Israel’s ‘enemies’ and all the policitians, generals and intelligence agents who aid & abet, explicitly or tacitly, this ideology.

      1. @Richard “Even if you add in another 10 or 20,000 supporting Al Qaeda…” – The isn’t enough sand in the world for sticking a head so deep that you can’t look at what happening and understand reality.
        Young Muslims flock to join ISIS and other extremist groups from different countries and communities. And, while some are coming from poor background and their recruitment can be attributed to social factor, others are doctors etc’. They grew up somewhere and learnt from their imams and educators. Memri is banned and are clearly biased in the material they look for, so I won’t link them, but one cannot ignore the hard evidence they bring of some Islamic teachings of different imams in different communities.
        Those who buy an airplane ticket and go risk their life for Islam are few but they represent more then just themselves.

        This still represent a small fraction of a huge faith but com’on, whether you call it Milhemet Mitzva, Jihad or crusade, people go back to fundamentalism and all those 3 religions have a lot of blood in their history and heritage. For some reason Islam gets a free pass while a Jew who says Amalek is labeled as Genocidal Maniac.

    2. Focusing on IP for a moment: It is worthwhile to consider how people have died in recent years by virtue of a Jewish identity and how many by virtue of not being Jewish, as in Palestine? As always in IP, the ratios are shocking.

    1. @ Ariel: If you want to develop & apply editorial rules do it in your own blog. I neither need nor request your assistance in this. The next time you post a comment like this it will be deleted & you will be moderated.

  7. The explicit text of Israel’s raison d’etre document, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, addressed to Lord Rothschild reads as follows in excerpt:

    “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of the object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious’ rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country”.

    If you want to know what starts this all, it’s right in the warning from the British government, knowing exactly what the Zionists are capable of doing: anti-Gentile behavior. That’s what starts anti-Semitism.

    Because Zionists have morphed pro-Semitism into Anti-Gentilism.

    And Israel’s actions caused this in more than one way.

    1. @The Rahnameh “what the Zionists are capable of doing” – at that point in time, Zionists were made out of a bunch of politicians and many farmers who bought any land they were offered even if it was a swamp afflicted with Malaria.
      Ha’Hagana organization was formed in 1920.

  8. I agree with you about the insanity and futility….but the various extremists groups of the Middle East may have different agendas?…Al Qaeda under Bin Laden did make Palestine an issue—to what degree this is still an issue in other groups might be debatable?
    …as for Muslims in general—not sure if we have time to worry about Palestine—we are being targeted and/or killed by all sides…!!…Nevertheless, to strive for justice and against oppression is an obligation of all right-minded human beings.

    The Cartoon of the Prophet(pbuh) may be a free-speech issue to westerners—but it isn’t to (Global) Muslims—it is about honor/humiliation. Let me make this understandable in Western terms….When Fox news made false reports about no-go zones in Paris….Anne Hidalgo, the mayor, announced she was going to sue because “I don’t accept insults to our city and its inhabitants” and in previous comments she expressed “The image of Paris has been prejudiced, and the honor of Paris has been prejudiced.” —such sentiments are not that different from how (Global) Muslims feel when the Prophet is ridiculed. These insults are taking place in an environment in which the “West” is attacking some Muslim-majority countries and killing innocent civilians and where Western Islamophobia and anti-Muslim prejudice is sometimes used for political purposes. Under such circumstances, the vigorous defense of free-speech by the West when they so readily kill innocent human beings elsewhere seems ridiculous—human lives should matter more than speech.

    Clash of extremisms—One journalist posited that what we are seeing is a clash of extremisms and perhaps this analysis is more correct than the myth of religious motivations? Some religious language is used as justifications (Christina, Jewish and Muslim)—but what we are seeing today is a modern phenomenon that has come about in modern circumstances. One extremism that we also have to take into account is American military extremism/terrorism. Americans have killed many innocent civilians and even today continue to kill using Drones….as well as other means. Americans justify this by saying that “collateral damage” is inevitable in war….therefore, if killing civilians is justified in war—according to Western standards of warfare (Walzer and Rawls on justifying civilian casualties in war)—and the evidence is on the ground—then, can we condemn others for using the same tactics?—and if we do—as any decent and moral person must—then such tactics must be condemned universally—no matter who practices it…..
    (Madeline Albright famously said it was worth it when she hear about half a million children had died because of American sanctions…..there is something very wrong and/or missing in our values today)

    So, if the goal of these extremists is to incite war (clash of extremisms) then the tactics used by AQAP (Al Qaeda Yemen) may be seem effective.?…..because they in turn generate more extremism in the West (Islamophobia) which then is used as a recruiting tool and solidifies their “narrative” that the West is against/in war with “Islam”…. For example, after Charlie Hebdo—within 2 weeks there were about 200 incidents of assaults, damage, vandalism…etc against Muslims/Mosques…etc. in France….

    Extremism is insane and self-destructive…

  9. Folks. Richard posed some valid points. As a Muslim, it is heartbreaking for me to see people killing others…Muslims, Jews, Christians or anyone else…in the name of Islam. The fact that we will find violence in the name of any other faith as well, is small consolation because this is being done by “our side”.

    As Muslims, we look at the violence that is being perpetrated in the name of our faith with greater pain than any non-Muslim can imagine; there cannot be more than a handful of people who exult at the violence we see happening today because it is an unforgiveable crime in the ees of the God who made the Universe, this Earth and the people on it.

  10. Shit ! It turns out that Omar Abdel Hamid al-Hussein, 22 years old, born in Denmark, was of Palestinian origin. His parents came from Jordan before ha was born. I just read a honest portrait of him by a Danish journalist who had already met him in the past: intelligent, but ill-tempered, passionate about his homeland, according to a former class-mate ‘he hated Jews’, used to be a talented Thai-boxer (posing with the keffiyeh on some tournament-posters) before joining a gang and started smoking a lot of hash, just came out of prison two weeks ago after a two years prison sentence for attacking a random young man on a train, Islam didn’t seem to be his main occupation. I wonder how hasbara is going to use this…..

    1. @Deir

      “Islam didn’t seem to be his main occupation.”

      Perhaps.
      But did use murder to enforce Islam’s blasphemy laws. Didn’t he?

      1. Jack. Is your question meant to insinuate that Islam or Muslims should be called on the carpet for the Danish murders? If so, then you are running the risk of having EVERYBODY being held on trial for what any member of their group does…Jews, Christians, Hindus…nobody will walk away free of the slime that you wish to slap on Muslims with such a line of questioning.

      2. @Jaffar

        “Is your question meant to insinuate that Islam or Muslims should be called on the carpet for the Danish murders”

        I would ask Muslims to change, alter or repudiate Islam’s blasphemy laws.

        1. That is what I call classic bigotry! Whether it exists in your mind as conscious bigotry or unconscious, it does not matter.
          Can you even see your own question? You are “asking” all Muslims to step forward to your door (which is where you would see it) to apologise and repudiate whatever it is you want us to repudiate and unless we do this, Islam and Muslims are to be condemned as violent and “Anti-Semitic”.

          There is no such thing as a Quran-driven “blasphemy law”. The Quran is clear about it in 3:19, 15:9, 3:20, 88:21-22, 4;90 and more. The prophet Mohammed was himself cursed and had garbage thrown at him and when his followers offered to kill the offenders, he said No.
          Of course there rae some who use the Quran to justify their vilence, but are there no such people in other faiths? Israel’s Chief military Rabbi Rontzski (Sp?) declared in a general memo that EVERY living Palestinian must be killed, man, woman and child and those Jews who do not do so, will burn in Hell. He was never censured, nor was he fired and no, All Jews did not step forward to repudiate the Rabbis refernces to the Torah.

          Still, I get it; There are ways to condemn Islam and Muslims, that do not apply to others.

          This also betrays your own laziness and your giving in to your negative preconcepts about Islam and Muslims. All you and otyhers who share your line of thinking, have to do, is search different websites and you will see not one, but tens of thousands of Muslims condemning and rep0udiating the violence of the extremists. But of course, conducting a web-search on such matters is work and lazy bigots don’t like to do work that may endanger their notions of bigotry.

          Are you a Jew? if so, do you like it when all Jews are condemned by some as being “Jesus Killers”? that’s pretty much, the kind of accusation oyu are indulging in and that is how you are trying to hold all Muslims hostage to your own bigotry.

          Here, I’ll help you out just to start with:
          Go to “The American Muslim”. You will find all sorts of Muslim organizations listed, who condemn violence and actions done under cover of “Blasphemy laws”.
          Go to my website http://www.penjihad.com You will find MANY articles condemning the violent extremists and actions taken under the so-called “blasphemy laws”…and you will also find a number condeming Israeli violence against Palestinians but I am sure that will stick in your craw.

          1. @ Jackdaw: And you believe that if a secular Jewish Israeli equivalent of Fem bared their breasts before the bimah of Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue there wouldn’t be police, arrests, prosecution and jail time??? Or if a secular Israeli ate a pork sandwich in the sanctuary, there wouldn’t be a similar sense of outrage?

            But if, on the other hand, an Israel threw a pig’s head into the Haram al-Sharif there would be no such arrest or jail term. Because for Israelis there is only one blasphemy that matters, against Orthodox Judaism.

          2. Jafar, I have googled Avichai Rontzski, but have not been able to find any reference to a “general memo that EVERY living Palestinian must be killed, man, woman and child and those Jews who do not do so, will burn in Hell.” Could you please post some links to your sources.

          3. @ humanist: Good Readers: Whenever you see a comment using the following template, you will know that it’s a product of the IDC Hasbara boiler room and ignore it. Almost verbatim versions of this rejoinder populate the comment threads of this blog, showing either a bad case of hasbara group think, or training at the professional hasbara center:

            “XXX, I have Googled XXX XXXX, but have not been able to find any reference to XXXX XXXX XXXX. Could you please post some links to your sources.”

            Had you been reading Haaretz you would’ve read the article to which Jafar is referring which supports his claims about Rontzki’s “spiritual” counseling in favor of genocide/ethnic cleansing. You’d also know about Torat HaMelech, a learned tome which shares Rontzki’s cultured, humanistic views on these matters.

            Do NOT bother to ask people to provide sources if it’s you who’s too lazy, sloppy or inept to Google the issue yourself. The Rontzki story was all over Israeli media when it came out. No excuse for not finding it.

            As for calling yourself “humanist,” try ‘Rontzkist’ or ‘Judean’ or ‘settlerist.’ Those would be more apt portraits of you.

          4. @Richard

            “And you believe that if a secular Jewish Israeli equivalent of Fem bared their breasts before the bimah of Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue there wouldn’t be police..”

            Flashing your boobs in Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue will get you arrested and charged with Disorderly Conduct.
            Flashing your boobs in the the Lahore Great Mosque will get you arrested and charged with Disorderly Conduct AND Blasphemy.

            You do see the difference?

        2. @ Jack: When Orthodox Judaism renounces its own Biblically-prescribed punishments for equivalent acts, then we can talk. Till then, worry about reforming your religion before sticking your nose where no one invited it.

          1. @Richard I have no idea why you found it necessary to be so rude and insulting to a newish reader of your blog. I have indeed googled (as I clearly stated) Avichai Rontzki, but despite finding numerous references to him – which certainly showed extreme nationalist/racist/religious pronouncements – I could not find that he “declared in a general memo that EVERY living Palestinian must be killed, man, woman and child and those Jews who do not do so, will burn in Hell” None of the Ha’aretz articles I have found say that. I believe it is important to quote anyone and everyone accurately, which is why I innocently asked for the links, not for reasons of “hasbara” as you claimed. And as far as calling me ” ‘Rontzkist’ or ‘Judean’ or ‘settlerist.’ Those would be more apt portraits of you” (ie me) because I used the tag “humanist” (an accurate reflection of my world view) I am bewildered. I am not even remotely pro-settler or any of the other labels you had assigned me, so am at a loss as to how you can make this call on the basis of my asking for a link, because I am genuinely interested to read what Rontzki said and did. As I live in Australia, I do not read Ha’Aretz daily, and totally missed the debate in question, which took place some years ago. If Jafar would care to provide any relevant link notwithstanding your diatribe, I would be most grateful.

          2. Avichai Rontzki, when IDF chief rabbi, wrote religious directives delivered to the troops which told them that they had no obligation to protect Palestinan children or civilians and that all Palestinians must be seen as enemies, that is killed:

            The Israel Defense Forces’ chief rabbi told students in a pre-army yeshiva program last week that soldiers who “show mercy” toward the enemy in wartime will be “damned.”

            … Rontzki referred to Maimonides’ discourse on the laws of war. That text quotes a passage from the Book of Jeremiah stating: “Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord with a slack hand, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.”

            In Rontzki’s words, “In times of war, whoever doesn’t fight with all his heart and soul is damned – if he keeps his sword from bloodshed, if he shows mercy toward his enemy when no mercy should be shown.”

            And here again in Haaretz a quote from a IDF rabbinic pamphlet published under Rontzki’s auspices:

            “When you show mercy to a cruel enemy, you are being cruel to pure and honest soldiers. This is terribly immoral. These are not games at the amusement park where sportsmanship teaches one to make concessions. This is a war on murderers…We will show no mercy on the cruel.”

            … It calls on “soldiers of Israel to spare your lives and the lives of your friends and not to show concern for a population that surrounds us and harms us. We call on you … to function according to the law ‘kill the one who comes to kill you.’ As for the population, it is not innocent … We call on you to ignore any strange doctrines and orders that confuse the logical way of fighting the enemy.”

            And another Haaretz article:

            Rabbi Avihai Rontzki said in an interview to Arutz Sheva that IDF soldiers should no longer arrest terror suspects, instead urging them to “kill them in their beds.”

            “A lot of cases shouldn’t even reach court…”

            Rontzki is a religious extremist who detests Palestinians and believes the only good one is a dead one, to paraphrase a U.S. general speaking about Native Americans.

            Jafar’s response to you refers to another interesting comment from a Rabbi (not Rontzki, but certainly not far off from Rontzki’s views) who was a candidate for IDF chief rabbi. This fellow said it wasn’t just permitted, but REQUIRED for IDF soldiers to rape Palestinian women during wartime.

            I see no problem with the way Jafar characterized Rontzki’s views. If there is any slight exaggeration in his characterization it may be because Jafar may’ve conflated Rontzki with “Rav” Yitzhak Shapira, whose Torah HaMelech does advocate genocide against Palestinians, including children. I see little difference between these two sets of views. In fact, Rontzki, if anything has more impact in advocating killing Palestinians civilians than Shapria by dint of his former role as IDF chief rabbi.

            You are not a “humanist” if you are trying to paint Rontzki as anything less than a genocidaire. Not to mention this was all research you could & should have done on your own. I resent having to do it for you.

          3. Jackdaw, you are cawing up the wrong tree and you appear intent on holding Islam to blame in order to support your own fantasies against the faith.
            Of course there may be instances of “State-driven blasphemy laws”, states can be drivers for good and for evil and you can see in the Tate of Israel cases in point for both. But are you holding an entire religion and its people hostage to your fantasies?
            You should be ashamed, but I venture you won’t be.

          4. @Richard – First. thanks for the links you provided about Rontski. humanist request is not an Hasbara tactic but following your comment rules. Jafar made a big statement and didn’t bother to support it.

            As for the links you provided, they are far from Jafar’s original statement of ” EVERY living Palestinian must be killed, man, woman and child and those Jews”
            – “When you arrive to arrest terrorists like the murderers of the Fogel family, they should just be shot, exterminated. They were terrorists that murdered people and should be killed in their beds,” – a quick reminder, one of the victims was a 3 months old baby stabbed to death. That is a new level of sick.
            – “Troops who show mercy to enemy will be ‘damned” – one may argue that extends to all Palestinians but on such a sentence to say the above is ludicrous.
            – “We will show no mercy on the cruel” – even more ludicrous then the above. He doesn’t argue a Palestinian is cruel.

            It’s amazing how much context one needs to add to the original text to make it sounds fascist enough. He is by no means a liberal but there is nothing between him and the genocidal maniac that he was presented as.

          5. @Ariel: Your interpretation is fatuous & self-serving. Rontzki is a cold blooded rabbinic killer. He kills with words & benedictions instead of bullets. He is an endorser & promoter of genocide.

        1. Jack. There oyu go with your fantasies about Islam and Muslims!
          Flashing YOUR boobs (I assume you are a man) in the Lahore Mosque (there is no “Great Mosque” in Lahore), might simply get someone to ask you to leave. Flashing your boobs in any Mosques, if you are a woman will get you ejected, beaten and arrested, depending on where you are (even “The Great Mosque in Lahore”), but there will not be any BLASPHEMY charges, not even in Pakistan where blasphemy charges are as common as the cold in Winter.

          I seem to recall that Orthodox Jews in Israel routinely throw rocks at cars and buses on Shabbat and they do swear at, insult, threaten and manhandle women who walk to attend school without covering their heads.
          Do YOU see the difference? I don’t.

          1. Getting stoned by a minority of bigoted religious loonies, is not the same as being judicially murdered by the State for blasphemy or extra-judicially murdered by a minority of bigoted religious loonies for the same crime of blasphemy.

          2. Oh Jack! You are so desperately trying to draw the connection between mindless musrders and Islam/Muslims, why don’t you drop the facade and come out straight with your conviction that Islam and Muslims are murderous and must be “stopped” (as is the current euphemism for “The Final Solution”)?

            EVERYTHING the state of Israel does, is for Jews and Judaism, have oyu ever wondered why the non-Jewish world seems to harbor the same negative feelings towards Jews as they do towards Israel?
            Is that any less condemnable than people like you, holding illogical negative views about Islam and Muslims based on the violence of some groups?

            Have you ever asked the survivors of Israel’s DIME bombs or Snipers or, the i”D”F whether they think there is a lot of difference between a beheading and being killed by the aforesaid?
            At the risk of comparing the ridiculous, would you rather be beheaded or, would you rather be massively injured by an israeli DIME bomb?

            Yes, the murder of an infant or a child is a horrible, terrible act, but it should not matter if the murder was committed by a violent Muslim or, by a calculating Israeli sniper. But so many of you Blind Supporters of Israel, weep only for the Jew and appllaud the slaughter of the Muslim.

            As I said before, you should be ashamed, yet you jump to Israel’s defense. On the other hand I am always out there, condeming any act of viol.lence against anyone, Muslim or not, by Muslims..

          3. @Jaffar

            “At the risk of comparing the ridiculous, would you rather be beheaded or, would you rather be massively injured by an israeli DIME bomb?”

            I would much rather be suddenly DIME bombed, than to be trussed up like a sheep, forced to kneel before masked executioners, who crudely saw off my head so my family and friends can watch the macabre spectacle on YouTube.

            Don’t even bother asking me about being burned alive in a steel cage.

            Jaffar. ISIS, and it’s fellow travelers behead and crucify their enemies only because these means of executions are sanctioned under Sharia Law.

          4. @ Jack: You’re a complete idiot. You would rather be struck with a DIME weapon and have your innards burned to a crisp while remaining alive, only to die a slow agonized death?

            these means of executions are sanctioned under Sharia Law.

            You are not an expert on Sharia law. You are not an expert on Islam. You are a hasbara Jewish supremacist. Your views of Islam and Sharia are completely wrong and unacceptable here. You are now moderated. If you publish further Islamophobic statements here you will be banned. If your future comment adhere to the rules they will be published.

          5. Jack, you use terms such a s”Sharia Law” and I’ll bet dollars to a pinch of dirt, that you have no idea at all, what that means, but it sounds great and it furthers your fantasies, so why not use it?

            You are a disturbingly and irrationally, hate-filled man and I see there is no point in further discussion with you on this thread. Tempting as it may be, I will not be responding to your future ignorant and Islamophobic statements.

          6. @Jaffar

            Jaffar said: “Jack, you use terms such a s”Sharia Law” and I’ll bet dollars to a pinch of dirt, that you have no idea at all,”

            Jack replies: “Slavery, crucifixion, and beheadings are not something that freakish [jihadists] are cherry-picking from the medieval tradition,” Haykel said. Islamic State fighters “are smack in the middle of the medieval tradition and are bringing it wholesale into the present day.”

            http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

          7. @Jackdaw: Atlantic published 10,000 words of garbage trying to prove that ISIS is based in Islam. It was written by Graeme Wood, who is not an expert on Islam. It was published in a magazine that publishes Jeffrey Goldberg, Leon Wieseltier, and other Israel-promoters.

            It’s no more true that ISIS is representative of normative Islam than Meir Kahane is based in Judaism or the Crusades were based in Christianity. Of course on the surface these statements are true. But they tell us nothing. Because 99.99% of Christians, Jews and Muslims repudiate everything behind these movements and consider them abominations.

            And unlike ISIS, Kahanists actually own the Israeli government. ISIS has not yet taken over an entire country as Kahanism has.

            I will start moderating or banning commenters who make sweeping, overgeneralized false claims about ISIS or Islam. Consider yourself warned.

          8. @Richard “It’s no more true that ISIS is representative of normative Islam than Meir Kahane is based in Judaism or the Crusades were based in Christianity” – All those you mentioned do not ‘represent’ the religion but whether we like it or not, they came out of it.
            Does Shmual HaNavi not represent Judaism b/c he lectured Shaul about leaving Agag alive? Or Yehoshua who killed most of the inhabitants of Canaan? Abraham? Muhammad? Jesus is the one (as far as I recall) who didn’t participate in bloodshed but then crusades and Inquisition made up for it big time.

            To say ‘Islam = ISIS’ is islamophobic propaganda. But to say ISIS has nothing to do with Islam is nonsense especially when people join from all over.

          9. @Ariel: I never said any of these have “nothing to do” w their respective religions. But what I did say is that none of them are normative or mainstream or represent their religions in any substantive ways. They are the equivalent of evolutionary dead ends or deformities. For anyone whether the Atlantic or anyone else to claim that the religion as a whole is responsible for, or emblematic of these movements is objectionable.

  11. It must gall Elie Wiesel that his financial situation means that he has to prostitute his reputation in the service of Shmuley Boteach.

    I mean, really, Boteach…. who would shill for him if they have a choice in the matter?

  12. Humanist. You can’t be that naïve! I find typically, that when people ask me for links to things, they are simply looking to keep me tied up with something that to them, is pointless. It will not change any minds even if I present such links and to date, NONE of the people asking (challenging) me to find links, have had the courage or the character, to acknowledge even receiving the links, let alone admitting my statement was correct.

    I ran a simple web-check “idf rabbis memo to kill all Palestinians”. It took a while to look, but I found:
    Leading rabbi encourages idf soldiers to use Palestinians as human shields.

    Israeli colonel-rabbi implies rape is permitted in war

    Maariv article, “Complete guide to killing non-Jews” where it says even killing babies is permissible if you believe they will grow up to harm us (Jews).

    My own copied records on Israeli atrocities in the land show:

    Haaretz ajn26, 2009) Rabbi Rontzki distributed books by Rabbi Avinar , one of the pamphlets said, ‘As for the population, it is not innocent … We call on you to ignore any strange doctrines and orders that confuse the logical way of fighting the enemy.” ‘.
    Rontzki issued a memo to the isreal “defense” forces (now there’s a laugh!) that every man, woman and child must be killed in Cast Lead. No satisfied with this, he issued another memo a few days later saying those soldiers who fail to kill every Palestinian will burn in Hell.

    To find the actual reportage of the two memos will take me some time and I will not waste time for people who I don’t know and whose intentions for asking are highly suspect. I don’t care that you live in Australia, I doubt if there is an aware Jew…Left-wing or Right-wing or wingnut…who has not read about Rontzki’s memos.

    1. Jafar, nothing in what you submitted don’t even come close to “EVERY living Palestinian must be killed, man, woman and child”. Stop putting words into people mouths.

      1. Ariel & Humanist. I do hate it when people are too lazy to do their own research and when they attack statements that run contrary to their dreams by saying things like, “Stop putting words into people mouths.”.
        The only words I would like to put in Rontzkis mouth are those of coexistent and peace, but that would probably drive him insane…soory, he IS insane, that would probably kill him!

        For over a year, I have not been able to access Haaretz because every time I get on their site, my computer crashes. I am too much of a cyber-Neanderthall and too unmotivated, to do anything about this irritation. Still, the only link I can find in one of my saved documents from the past is: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/idf-chief-rabbi-troops-who-show-mercy-to-enemy-will-be-damned-1.4175
        I am guessing this will also have a reference to his earlier memo saying kill EVERY Palestinian the I “D” F comes across.

        I find it quite fascinating that people have become so singlye-mindedly focused on Rontzki and have by-passed the real issue of the powerful, genocidal hatred cultivated, promoted and under-writed by Israel and its Blind Supporters. The kind of violence and hatred that remains deliberately ignored is so horrific that if even a fraction of that hatred were promoted by a “civilized” Muslim group or country, the hypocritic world would be screaming for their blood. But this htared is BY Israel and Jews, not AGAINST them. Further, it is against Muslims!! that should say it all.

        Go to my website http://www.penjihad.com and click on the cloud-title “Israel”. Take the time to read some of my commentaries, which are based on facts around us that can be easily verified (I probably provide links). Then tell me which Muslim group in America or which Muslim-majority country actively, openly and loudly says similar things about Muslims.

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