Islam does not hate christianity

JazznsPlease understand that there are many who will help try to counter attitudes such as we encounter from the more fanatical factions of Christianity, Islam or Judaism.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This's a very well thought out point, Faith, and soundly refutes the bogus argument that Allah is not the proper name of the Muslim God.You've certainly done a masterful job of setting the record straight in this thread, imo. Keep up the good work and when this thread's finished, I hope to see more of your good stuff elsewhere. Your effort here is much appreciated!! This message has been edited by buzsaw, 02-27-2005 23:45 AM

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In Jehovah God's Universe; time, energy and boundless space had no beginning and will have no ending. The universe, by and through him, is, has always been and forever will be intelligently designed, changed and managed by his providence. buzsaw

Am I? I don't think so. You do, after all, fly off the handle at the slightest suggestion that Israel is culpable for some pretty bad deeds. Like in this post, for instance. The slightest hint that Israel might have done something bad and off you go. He wasn't brought to justice, though. They let him go. They cleared him of all charges. No steps were taken to bring him to justice by Israel. I'm sorry, but no, it's not. It's a verifiable and indeed conservative description of your behavior. You have consistently refused to accept any source that contradicts you; and you've used that contradiction as rationale for refusing to accept them. In other words when we try to show you sources that show that you're wrong, you claim that our sources are in error because they don't agree with you. Who on Earth has made that argument here? You would do far better to stick to addressing the arguments we've actually made, not thes ludicrious strawmen of your own invention. As I said, you Israel partisans see enemies at every turn. It's that side of the story I've repeatedly asked for, but which you won't provide. What's the Israel side of the Iman Al-Hams story? What was the oh-so-reasonable security interest that meant a 13-year-old girl had to be shot 15 times?

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I'm sure they HAVE gone too far in some circumstances. All I'm doing is answering the absurd TOTAL smear campaign against them that says they never do anything right, they are nothing but evil murderers without any redeeming moral qualities, there are no just reasons for one single thing they ever do. Their side is NOT heard in the media or from any of you except in the briefest and most unsympathetic way, while the Palestinian side is played up with discussions of the pathetic circumstances of each of the victims, all the while ASSUMING perfidious Israeli behavior without the slightest interest in the Israeli side of the story.

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Thats complete nonsense - studies show precisely the opposite occurs:

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THE SAN FRANCISCO Chronicle is 20 times more likely to report on the deaths of Israeli children killed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than it is to cover Palestinian children's deaths, a new study shows.

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If Americans Knew, a fledgling Berkeley outfit dedicated to disseminating underreported information on Israel and the occupied territories, analyzed the Chronicle's coverage of the region during the first months of the current intifada — a time period the study's researchers chose "because of its significance in forming the context within which all subsequent reporting on the conflict is viewed."

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Four Israelis under the age of 18 died as a result of clashes that took place from Sept. 29, 2000, the first day of the uprising, through March 31, 2001, according to the report, the preliminary results of which were released May 21 to both the Chronicle and the Bay Guardian. During that period, it found, the Chronicle reported on those incidences in a headline or a first paragraph five times. The deaths of Palestinian minors received such attention only six times, although 93 were killed in that same time frame.

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And...

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... recent research from Glasgow University shows a frightening lack of public awareness of basic facts relating to the conflict. In a sample of 300 young people, 71% did not know that it was the Israelis who were occupying the territories. Only 9% knew that it was the Israelis, and that the settlers were Israeli. There were actually more people (11%) who believed that the Palestinians were occupying the territories and that the settlers were Palestinian.

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And...

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04 August 2001

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In a major surrender to Israeli diplomatic pressure, BBC officials in London have banned their staff in Britain and the Middle East from referring to Israel's policy of murdering its guerrilla opponents as "assassination". BBC reporters have been told that in future they are to use Israel's own euphemism for the murders, calling them "targeted killings".

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And...

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The Guardian
Middle East coverage is 'dangerous'

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Reporting the conflict as Palestinian 'attacks' and Israeli 'responses' is sloppy journalism, says Brian Whitaker

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(April 9) A familiar tale from the Middle East: "Palestinians launched three bombs overnight against the Eile Sinai settlement in the far north of the Gaza Strip. Israeli troops responded with tank shells, destroying a Palestinian border post and hitting two houses."

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This report, which happens to have come from the BBC, is familiar not only for the events it describes but also for the way it describes them: the Palestinians attack and the Israelis "respond". Military actions by the Israelis are always a "response" to something, even when they strike first. If they haven't actually been attacked, it's a "response" to a security threat.

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Thirdly, while Israeli actions are reported as a self-justifying "response", actions by the Palestinians are rarely allowed either a proper context or an understandable motive. Obviously there is a limit to what can be said in a news story of 300-400 words, and some journalists will argue that their main job is to report the day's events, not to explain the background. But I am not suggesting they should turn it into a history lecture; merely that they should at least hint at a broader picture and acknowledge that the Palestinians might have some genuine grievances.

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To do this is neither difficult nor unduly word-consuming. Some news agency reports, for instance, routinely work into their stories a five-word reference to the "Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation". The Israeli occupation lies at the root of the conflict - and yet, more often than not, journalists fail to remind their readers of it. The Guardian's electronic newspaper archive contains all the British national dailies, plus the London Evening Standard. A search of this reveals 1,669 stories published during the last 12 months that mentioned the West Bank.

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Of these, 49 contained the phrase "occupied West Bank". A further 513 included the word "occupied" or "occupation" elsewhere in the text. That leaves 1,107 stories - 66% of the total - which managed to talk about the West Bank without mentioning one of the key facts. Some journalists - particularly Americans - seem reluctant to treat occupation as an established fact and instead treat it as an opinion which should be attributed to someone. Last October, for example, CCN's Jerusalem bureau chief told viewers that Palestinians were angry at "what they regard as the Israeli occupation". Others resort to euphemisms: the West Bank is "disputed" or "administrated by Israel". Some adopt the practice of Israeli officials by shortening "the Occupied Territories" to "the Territories".

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Journalists are also rather timid on the question of Jewish settlers, usually portraying them as a target of violence but more rarely as one of the major causes (which they plainly are). Some of the recent stories about the killing of a 10-month-old Jewish baby, Shalhevet Pass, in Hebron made clear that the settlers there are a tiny and particularly fanatical bunch - though many did not. One report described Hebron as a "divided city", when in fact 99.8% of the inhabitants are Arabs. (Jerusalem, on the other hand - with two-thirds of the population Jewish and one-third Arab - is constantly described by Israelis as "undivided".)

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Over the last 12 months, 394 stories in the archive mentioned Jewish settlers. Of these, seven included the phrase "extremist settler" and eight "extremist Jewish settler". The word "extremist" did occur in 44 of the stories, though not necessarily applied to settlers. Some stories juxtaposed settlers characterised simply as "Jewish" with Palestinians characterised as "extremist". The illegality of the settlements under international law also often escapes mention. The phrase "illegal settlement", used in an Israeli-Palestinian context, appeared only eight times during the last 12 months - and three of those were in readers' letters to the editor.

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During the early stages of the intifada newspapers were accused of "dehumanising" Palestinians by publishing numbers but not names of those killed. This was contrasted with the wealth of personal information, helpfully provided by the Israeli authorities, about Jewish casualties. The lack of Palestinian names was certainly not due to a conscious policy on the part of journalists and, although there are sometimes difficulties in getting the names, efforts have been made to remedy it. However, last week's search of the archive highlighted another practice which has a similar effect: Jews mainly live in "communities" but Palestinians live in "areas". Palestinian "areas" scored 109 mentions over the last 12 months; "neighbourhoods" scored 15 and "communities" only three (one each in the Guardian, Observer and Independent). In the case of Jews, the positions were reversed: "communities" scored 87, "neighbourhoods" 30 and "areas" 21.

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There is a systematic media bias in favour of the terrorist state of Israel; to facetiously pretend that the only basis anyone has for defending Palestinians, and criticising Israel, as a non-existant media bias the other way is wholly absurd. It's a conspiracy theory.

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Can you trust your own eyes?

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Didn't you read my post?No, I can't always trust my own eyes.

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See how you make this into a battle of emotion? You tell us "no reason" but you don't know that. Would you execute a person for a crime on the basis of an emotional witness' accusation? Be careful, that's how miscarriages of justice occur all the time.

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Hold it, hold it.Aren't you the same poster who just wrote this?: It seems that you have an ENORMOUS double standard here.

Faith, I'd really like an answer to the following questions:Are there any information sources which are critical of Israel that you accept as reliable? If so, what are they?Are there any information sources supportive of Islam or the Palestinians that you accept as reliable? If so, what are they?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 02-28-2005 08:50 AM

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You do, after all, fly off the handle at the slightest suggestion that Israel is culpable for some pretty bad deeds. Like in this post, for instance. The slightest hint that Israel might have done something bad and off you go.

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Slightest hint? No, lists of heinous crimes given without any regard to the other side.

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A single soldier's misbehavior is not the fault of all Israel, especially when steps were taken to bring him to justice.

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He wasn't brought to justice, though. They let him go. They cleared him of all charges. No steps were taken to bring him to justice by Israel.

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Yes, well I understand that you are judge and jury here and disagree with his being cleared but he was cleared by a legal process and that's justice whether you like it or not. They found the witness to be lying. That's grounds for clearing him whether you like it or not.

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It's that side of the story I've repeatedly asked for, but which you won't provide. What's the Israel side of the Iman Al-Hams story? What was the oh-so-reasonable security interest that meant a 13-year-old girl had to be shot 15 times?

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It was apparently one Israeli soldier who went nuts, had nothing to do with Israeli policy, as I already said.

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Faith, I'd really like an answer to the following questions:
Are there any information sources which are critical of Israel that you accept as reliable? If so, what are they?

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Are there any information sources supportive of Islam or the Palestinians that you accept as reliable? If so, what are they?

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I don't have such a rule. I deal with each point as I see it.

Re: No more discussion of Palestine from me
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hardly. Apples and oranges. Many witnesses are always better than one, but if they're all on one side of an issue that's unjust. You always have to hear both sides of a story. In this case we're being asked to condemn the Israelis without considering their side of the story at all. We're asked to take the (one in this case) witness' word for it that there was "no reason" for their action. In fact it is DEMANDED that we take the witness' word for this. The testimony is highly emotional and prejudiced and if we don't agree with the single testimony from this one side we are casting a foul light on the witness' family and so on and so forth. This is classical lynch mob thinking. THIS IS WHY WE HAVE COURTS OF LAW. You CANNOT just hear one side of a story and judge people on that basis.

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I don't have such a rule.

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Who said anything about any rules?You have mentioned that thare are many news media outlets that you mistrust, and you have given a list of those that you do trust, and all of them seem to be pretty pro-Israel or anti-Islam/Palestinian.I am asking for examples of information sources that you trust which are critical of Israel or supportive of Islam and the Palestinians.This way, I can be reassured that you are attempting to look at all sides of the issue, which you have admonished others to do in this thread.

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I deal with each point as I see it.

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Yes, but do you seek out information which would disprove what you want to be true?We already know that you trust the pro-Israel sites you list.Are there any information sources which are critical of Israel which you would consider legitimate?If so, what are they?If not, why should we consider your posts anything other than completely biased apologetics for the radical Zionist Iraelis?

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Many witnesses are always better than one, but if they're all on one side of an issue that's unjust. You always have to hear both sides of a story.

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I agree.What information sources critical if Israel do you consider reliable?What information sources supportive of Israel do you reject as unreliable?Please be specific.

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In this case we're being asked to condemn the Israelis without considering their side of the story at all.

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No, not at all.We are considering their side of the story.

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We're asked to take the (one in this case) witness' word for it that there was "no reason" for their action. In fact it is DEMANDED that we take the witness' word for this.

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What would be a good reason for the Israeli army to burn a family's crops and bulldoze their olive trees?Go on, this is your chance, we are listening for the reason for the Israeli's actions.

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The testimony is highly emotional and prejudiced and if we don't agree with the single testimony from this one side we are casting a foul light on the witness' family and so on and so forth.

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Go on, tell us the reason for those actions. We are listening. Tell us, we are begging you, tell us.

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This is classical lynch mob thinking. THIS IS WHY WE HAVE COURTS OF LAW. You CANNOT just hear one side of a story and judge people on that basis.

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I COMPLETELY AGREE!Tell us what reason the Israeli army would have to torch a family's crops and bulldoze their olive trees.Please tell us. Please, please, please.

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So let me get this straight.
As a Christian, you believe that violence against innocents in response to violence of related individuals is justified?

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Straw man. Misrepresentation.

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You think that destroying the homes of more people is going to make already pissed off people stop being pissed off?

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I haven't judged the wisdom of Israel's tactics at all. There may be better ways of stopping the terrorism, I don't know, but that is their aim, to stop the terrorism and that's a reasonable objective. Actually, there is probably not a better way as the terrorism is ideologically generated, is ultimately not about the political situation. Israel has apparently taken the position that force is the only thing that will deal with the terrorism and they may be right, that's a judgment call. There does seem to be an attitude among Muslims that if the opponent doesn't respond with force they're weak and fair game, and that provokes MORE terrorism, not less.

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Here is a great idea! In order to make people not want to blow us up, lets attack their women and children! In fact, lets make it a policy! Surely they will see the light of peace! Homelessness IS the path to enlightenment after all!

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Straw man. Total misrepresentation. Total disregard for the Israeli side of the story and complete misrepresentation of what I've said here.Again, as I say above, there is good reason to think that force works better -- not perfectly but better -- in this situation despite all this kind of rhetoric. The peace efforts have accomplished nothing. In fact the terrorism has often escalated at just those times. This is an ideologically driven war.

My point has been that the ISRAELI side of the story is not heard. ASK THEM for heaven's sake, don't ask me!

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On this forum we speak English, in which language the generic word for God is "God." For an English-speaking Muslim to call God "Allah" instead of "God" is to use a name for God, NOT the generic as is so often claimed.

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This's a very well thought out point, Faith, and soundly refutes the bogus argument that Allah is not the proper name of the Muslim God.

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You've certainly done a masterful job of setting the record straight in this thread, imo. Keep up the good work and when this thread's finished, I hope to see more of your good stuff elsewhere. Your effort here is much appreciated!!

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Thanks Buz. I'm glad you're here for encouragement as nobody else is going to acknowledge any good points I make.