Hazem Shuman
On April 17, I posted an article about France banning broadcasts from an Egyptian TV channel due to anti-Semitic messages being sent (Al Rahma TV). At particular issue was a certain Muslim cleric, one Hazem Shuman. I also posted a video of one of his sermons plus the transcript of another, in both of which he attacked Jews. In the same article, I posted examples of cartoons published in mainstream Middle Eastern news sources that featured clearly anti-Jewish caricatures. I compared these words and these images to those of the Nazis.
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2010/04/france-bans-egyptian-al-rahma-channel.html
The same day, I posted this essay to another blog to which I had been invited to contribute articles. Let us just say that the blog has turned out to be somewhat left of center judging by the reactions I get to my articles. (I choose not to mention the blog by name.) Basically, I was taken to task for using the Nazi comparison. Here is a sampling of the comments I received for this latest posting.
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"I don't think either side has hauled 6 million off to death camps yet, so Nazi is probably not a helpful comparison. I haven’t looked recently to see how they have been faring in killing each other off. Any idea who is ahead in body counts?"
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"Query: would you favor a similar policy of censorship by the United States?"
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"Any chance of putting this guy Shuman in charge of reforming the banking system? Maybe also he can do something about the 300 Representatives and 76 Senators who swore allegiance to Israel.
Interesting. What do you knock down from Campus Watch, BTW?"
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"The Muslims have been writing this kind of stuff since the, at least, 60s (think Arafat and the PLO). They have made it very clear that they do not like Jews or Israel. I still have not seen them kill 6 million in death camps, hence I think the Nazi comparison not especially helpful or apt, just emotionally appealing. The radical Islamists may be a despicable group, but they do not have the power or means to accomplish what the Germans did.
No, I wondered if Jews had killed more Muslims than Muslims had killed Jews. I read a bit of Middle East history and am well aware that Muslims have killed a lot more Muslims. I don’t think that qualifies them as Nazis either.
This is partially a peeve of mine. I think it better to deal with the enemy you face rather than try to just call them Nazis and make them into the ultimate evil. Such name calling also has a habit of working its way into describing all members of a group. So, the Israelis are not Nazis. Neither are the Muslims."
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"As is usual in human history, everybody is taking the immediate conflicts of the day, and imputing them upon some carefully selected event of the past which had entirely different motives, context, and consequences. IF Moshe Dayan said “This is our revenge for Khaybar,” he was a fool, as is this loud-mouthed TV personality, as are the idiots in North America who prate about “our Anglo-Celtic heritage.”
Anglos and Celts have spent most of their histories as distinct peoples burying axes in each other’s skulls. I ought to know, I have ancestors of both varieties. If we can get along and inter-marry, then we can all get along with and inter-marry with people of African descent, especially since most of them in America are already part Anglo, part Celtic, or both.
Jews from Jerusalem to Iberia were key allies of the Muslim conquest, and treated with great respect as a result. The Muslim caliphates were a great refuge for Jews from Christian persecution. Of course the later Fatimid and Almohade dominions found obscure dogmatic reasons to persecute Jews, but the Ottoman Empire welcomed many of them.
What’s your preferred paradigm? Khaybar? Cordoba? Istanbul? Those who pretend that race or ethnicity has had a single, unbroken, consistent significance over even five centuries, let along fifteen, are either ignorant or deliberately mendacious.
Incidentally, one hundred years ago, people who think as our good friend Mr. Fouse appears to express himself wouldn’t let Jews into their clubs or professions, albeit there was no formal legal barrier. Israel was a project of socialists, fellow-travellers, and liberals until circa 1970.
The best reference to Hitler would be the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem’s stay in Berlin during WW II. That doesn’t make all Arabs or all Muslims cohorts of Hitler, but it was a factor in the 1948 war. By 1956, the corrupt monarchies that went to war against Israel had all been overthrown. Many opportunities were missed to set the whole conflict aside, but neither Israeli nor Arab nationalists were interested. They all found reasons to continue it."
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"I think you got my point quite well. You support Israel, your own father didn’t like Jews. It was a class thing, a social thing, and a “pure American” thing, in general. Naturally, I don’t know the details of what motivated your father individually. Even in groupthink, each person has their own specific motives. Funny how the “conservatives” used to be aligned with the Arabs, and now they are aligned with Israel.
Hitler is popular in the middle east for the oldest of erroneous reasons: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Few who recite his name, or even read his books, have the slightest idea what he stood for. How could they? They live in a totally different context. The appropriate the name, to flaunt in the face of their immediate adversary. Sad, but typical human behavior, not unlike the way Germans were characterized by the British propaganda ministries during WW I. I think John is right — if this guy becomes dangerous, Israel will kill him."
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"I can’t speak for the others, but here’s my take on it.
For as long as I’ve been alive, some Arabs have been hostile to the Jews and calling for the destruction of Israel. For me, it is nothing new and just part of the world background noise.
And every time an Arab state has attacked Israel, that state has gotten the crap pounded out of them. Also, whenever an individual or small group of Arabs have become an important problem for Israel, they have been assassinated.
I’ve only got so much outrage to go around, and getting outraged about this guy would, for me, be like getting outraged about a bad thunderstorm.
I’ve seen guys like this before. I’ll probably see more. Like I said earlier, if he becomes a real problem, Israel will kill him."
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As I read some of these responses, occasionally, my blood would boil. At other times, visions of Glenn Beck danced in my head doing his now-famous Joe Klein imitation, pipe in mouth ruminating on the issues of the day.
So let me try to break it down in basic terms. I use the example of Julius Streicher, the so-called "Jew-baiter of Nuremberg". Streicher was the local Nazi leader of Franconia and editor of the infamous newspaper, Der Stuermer, which specialized in anti-Jewish hysteria. After the war, Streicher was hanged at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity-essentially, that his campaign against Jews was a factor in their eventual slaughter-even though Streicher was in forced retirement during the war. Below is a video of a Streicher speech (with English sub-titles).
Here are just a few samples of the "artwork" in Streicher's paper, Der Stuermer.
Now back to Mr Shuman. Here is a transcript from one of Shuman's "sermons" (courtesy of MEMRI TV):
Hazem Shuman:
"Tonight’s lecture is one of the most important lectures of this series. Tonight, we will talk about the Battle of Khaybar, about the Prophet Muhammad’s greatest battle [with the Jews], in which the Prophet eradicated the Jewish presence in Al-Madina.
On June 5, 1967, when the Jews occupied Palestine and Jerusalem and were celebrating their victory, Moshe Dayan cried: “This is our revenge for Khaybar.” How come Khaybar remained seared in their hearts for 1,400 years? After 1,400 years, their hearts are still burning because of Khaybar. The first thing that the Prophet Muhammad did after his victory in the Hudaybiyya Treaty, after he stabilized the Muslim state, and neutralized the Quraysh front, the first mission of the Prophet Muhammad, his first campaign, was against the Jews of Khaybar.
Your turn has come at last, you offspring of apes and pigs, you most accursed creatures created by Allah, you people who have harmed the Prophet again and again.
Only 20 days after the Hudaybiyya Treaty, the Prophet Muhammad decided to take the army of Islam to Khaybar. Why the Jews of all people? It has been proven that the Jews are like a cancer – if they are not removed from the body of the nation, they will kill the entire nation. Unless the Jews were dealt with, they would have brought the Persians and the Byzantines to the Arabian Peninsula. the Jews are dangerous to the whole world. They threatened the stability of the Arabian Peninsula.
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Jews are always the same. We are still tormented by the sights of their massacres of the Muslims, when they went into Sabra and Shatila. Sharon chopped off the limbs of children, and used them to make a necklace, so that he could boast that he dismembered the bodies of Muslim children. When the Jews entered Sabra and Shatila, a Jewish soldier took a pregnant woman and emptied a submachine gun into her neck. When she was dead, he cut open her belly, took out her nine-month-old fetus, and slaughtered it in front of the Muslims.
They took 30 Muslim men and women, including a newly-wed couple, and shot them all in Sabra and Shatila. They chased a six-year-old boy, whose mother was hugging him and calling for help. They stabbed him with knives and killed him in his mother’s lap. In the end, she went mad, because of what had happened. They shot dead an entire family, except for a baby, who screamed at the sight of the bloodbath. The moment they saw he was crying, they shot him with a machine-gun as well. At Sabra and Shatila, they raped a Muslim woman, and then killed her children in front of her. They tore off women’s ears, by pulling their earrings.
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The Jews of Khaybar in the 7th year of the hijra are a replica of the state of Israel in 2009, in terms of the terrifying economy that sucked the blood of the Arabs, the military armaments and superiority over the entire region, the settlements that form the state, the fortifications, like the separation fence that they are building today.
When the army of the Muslims arrived, the Jews removed their women and children from the fortifications at the front, and left only their fighters at the front... The army of the Prophet Muhammad was very poor. The Muslims had nothing to eat. The first time they ate was after the conquest of Khaybar.
One of the Prophet Muhammad’s companions had a debt to a Jew. The Jew told him he had to pay his debt before he left, but the Muslim did not have even 5 dirham, so he sold his clothes so he could pay his debt and leave. The Prophet’s companions sold their clothes in order to fight the Jews, and take revenge upon them.
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Finally, [in the battle of Khaybar], Allah gave the Muslims strength, and they launched a martyrdom-seeking attack on the fortifications. All their lives long, they were martyrdom-seekers and heroes, who sacrificed their blood for Islam. They stormed the fortress and took the Jews captive, for the first time. All the other Jews fled.
When the Muslims entered the fortress, they were astounded. What is this? Never in their lives had they seen so much food – enough to last years. They were astounded by the weapons too. There was a weapon called a tank. It was a house made of tin, like today’s tanks. Soldiers sat in it and drove it towards the fortifications. When they were pelted with arrows, it did not have any effect on them. There were catapults, which fired bombs of fire, which penetrated the walls and smashed the fortifications. Why did the Jews amass all these weapons? They were planning to use them against the Muslims. They were preparing for the day when they would fight the Muslims – otherwise, why would they have amassed all those weapons? The [Muslims] also found large quantities of wine, which they poured out on the floor.
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The [Muslim fighters] reached the final fortification, the final battle. All the Jews, including women and children, were here. The walls were enormous. The number of arrows fired from its towers was indescribable. Its gates were well fortified, and no one could escape from there. This was the first time that the Prophet Muhammad used catapults. The [Muslims] shot catapults at the walls until there were gaping holes in them. All the Muslim army charged into the final fortress, with hatred burning in their hearts for the Jews, with a strong desire to take revenge upon the offspring of apes and pigs.
All the Muslims – men and women – charged with a strong desire to annihilate the Jews. They entered the fortress, and a terrible battle took place, a violent battle in the last fortress, until all the Jewish soldiers were arrested and all the Jewish women captured. Khaybar trembled with the sound of the cries of “Allah Akbar,” and the entire Arabian Peninsula shook with the victorious cries of “Allah Akbar.”
1,400 soldiers defeated 10,000 Jews. The Jews were defeated, and the reputation of the invincible army was shattered. After a month-long siege and terrible fighting, the Jews were defeated. The Arabian Peninsula shook with the cries of “Allah Akbar,” and the Jews collapsed.
Soon the cries of “Allah Akbar” will be sounded at the gates of Jerusalem, and at the gates of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Soon, cries of “Allah Akbar” will be heard on the day of vengeance against the Jews.
The Jews were defeated. The Prophet Muhammad and everybody was very surprised that only 96 Jews were killed, along with 16 Muslims. 96 people? The Prophet could have massacred the Jews, down to the last one. Why did the Prophet Muhammad let them be? Because the Prophet Muhammad does not fight for the sake of war or bloodshed. He fights for the sake of peace. this proves to what extent he is the prophet of peace.
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I have a message for every Jew on the face of the earth. The army of Muhammad will return. Oh offspring of apes and pigs, the day of vengeance is nearing. Oh most accursed creatures created by Allah, those who swore before the Prophet Muhammad to die are returning. Wait for us and you will see, you most accursed creatures.
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Oh nation of Muhammad, do not be afraid to wage war against the Jews. If you do not fight for the sake of Palestine, Allah will fight you. Decide what you are more afraid of – a war with the Jews, or a war with Allah. Can you fight God? If you abandon Palestine, you will be fighting God."
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Here below are examples of the caricatures of Jews from mainstream Middle East news outlets. I think you will recognize the style.
So what do YOU, my loyal readers think? Am I not getting my message across? Now let me point out for the 1,000th time that I am not accusing ALL Muslims of subscribing to this mentality and Jew-hatred. Nevertheless, it is out there. Shuman is not an isolated voice. There are many others-including clerics-who agree with him. This is an issue that decent Muslims need to ponder, especially in this day and age when hatred seems to be enveloping the world. There is a lot of terrible rhetoric going on out there. We cannot ignore it.
As for that other blog, maybe I need to post one of Hitler's old speeches for their "in-depth analysis".
1 comment:
Luis,
Thanks for your comment. It sounds like you have some experience in the Middle East.
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