Comments by "Sandy Tatham" (@sandytatham3592) on "Israeli settlers storm al-Aqsa compound on Purim" video.
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@solemnstar4424 : I'm glad you said 'story' because I think that's all the Mi'raj is. It is a 'story' that was written and/or modified later, in order to suit a specific political agenda. Can you provide a link to the 'research' which you say has evidence of a mosque on Temple Mount in 621? Saying that something is in the Qur'an so it must be real, is just silly. No-one knows where the Qur'an actually came from. No-one knows how much of the early Islamic traditions can even be believed.
I'm glad you said that the Palestinians were 'displaced'. So why haven't they been resettled (or 'reallocated') in another suitable country by now? Millions of other displaced peoples in the last 100 years now live as secure citizens in their new countries. The biggest example of 'displaced' peoples are the 13 million South Asians who had to flee their homes in the Partition of India in 1947 when the Islamic country of Pakistan was created. Another example is the 850 thousand Jews who were displaced (or 'exiled') from their ancestral homes in Arab Muslim countries. And thousands of Greeks were kicked out of Turkey when it became a sovereign nation after the collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate. Do we hear about their problems today, or are they just getting on with life like everyone else? Why are the so-called Palestinians STILL being held as pawns in the game of Arab vs Jew more than 70 years later? Why do they STILL get so much publicity and funding from UNRWA and others?
Israel is not 'stolen'. It is a legitimate state born out of the collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate, which LOST its offensive war against the Allies in 1918. Going to war against others has consequences. Those on the losing side don't get to call the shots. The ancient land of Israel was confirmed to be the ancestral home of the indigenous Jewish people, and allocated to them by the League of Nations, the world body at the time which had the job of administering transfer of power after the major conflict of WWI. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was given 77% of the Ottoman region of Palestine, and the Jews should by now have complete sovereignty over the remaining 23%. Arabs today rule over 99% of that surrendered Middle East land of the defeated Ottoman Empire, ie. in Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Israel comprises less than 1% of that surrendered land, and yet we see that some Arab Muslims are still today trying to obliterate the Jews from their homeland.
I agree with Ben Gurion that many Palestinian Muslims would previously have been ethnic Jews who had to convert to Islam when the Islamic Caliphates began their invading and conquering after the rise of Islam. To survive as a 'dhimmi' in an Islamic Caliphate was very difficult. Accepting Islam was often necessary in order to survive. I heard recently of a Kuwait Muslim man finding out that his grandmother had to flee Palestine as a refugee. She had kept her Jewish ethnicity hidden as she had married a Muslim and had to convert. He now lives as a Jew in Jerusalem.
Israel needs to have superior military power to Syria, Jordan and Lebanon in order to provide security for its own citizens. Some Muslims have even told me that Israel wants to expand beyond its ancestral homeland but, if there's any truth in that, why did the Israeli leaders give back the Sinai Peninsula (where I am living) to Egypt in order to make a peace deal? Why did they give the Gaza Strip to the Arabs to make a peace deal? I know people in Gaza today who would far prefer to be citizens of Israel than live under Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement, where they are hardly surviving.
As for the Ukraine-Russian conflict, Israel is the counterpart of Ukraine. It is a sovereign democratic country which lives under the constant threat of invasion by surrounding hostile nations. Israel also faces threats from within by hostile Arabs. The majority of the western nations stand with Israel, just as they do with Ukraine.
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@lightfulcore : Thanks for the explanation about hiding your identity. I don't believe anyone should hide, unless they are in physical danger, eg. an ex-Muslim who is not safe to come out to their family or community. We are all learning, and I would always forgive someone for being less wise or less knowledgeable at times.
I agree that in a perfect world no-one would have to leave their home to make way for others to come in. But the reality is that borders shift, and wars, separatist movements, and revolutions happen. People also suffer genocide or they are exiled, as happened to the 850K Jews who used to live in Arab countries. Millions of people have been displaced for the creation of new nation states in the last 100 years, the largest group being the 13 million who fled when the Muslim state of Pakistan was created, but most accept citizenship in their new country and get on with their lives. It's only the so-called Palestinians who are still 'refugees' 70 years after the creation of Israel and when there was an invasion by the Arab nations. It's important to remember that around 21% of Israeli citizens are Arabs. All governments have the right to enact citizenship laws which protect their stated values and which ensure the safety of their citizens.
I am well aware that 'sharia' is not a book, and it is implemented according to the wisdom of the ruler. There are few Islamic governments which implement sharia fully today, probably due to external pressures. There is nothing in the Qur'an or in the Islamic traditions that ensures equality of Jews and Christians with Muslims. Muslim women are not even equal to Muslim men. So I don't know what you are trying to say here.
The security situation in Israel is grim. I've been there a few times, and I live close by in Sinai at the moment. If one group is given more protection than another, there would be a good reason. Discrimination due to a perceived security risk is a normal consequence of a highly volatile situation. It's not 'racism' or 'apartheid'. And if you want to talk about indoctrination of children, please remember that Muslim children are also indoctrinated against Jews and that money is paid to families of those who kill Jews.
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@solemnstar4424 : Firstly, why do you hide behind an anonymous name?
My definition of ‘story’ is that it is something that cannot be proved by any hard evidence, and some details could easily have been embellished to suit an agenda. There is no hard evidence of a Qur’an existing around the time of M_hmd. The Qur’an also evolved over 23 or more years, so it seems that it was never an eternal message from a 'god'. My understanding from the trusted Islamic sources is that M_hmd only gained a large following after he received ‘revelations’ which promised war booty and sex slaves. Before that, he was preaching a peaceful message like Jesus but he only had less than 175 followers in 13 years. And those peaceful messages were then abrogated by the later ones. So it’s quite clear that Islam grew into an ideology of invasion and conquering and intolerance towards unbelievers.
According to the traditional Islamic sources, there were many people who were instrumental in putting the so-called ‘revelations’ into a book form (or book forms, due to the 30+ number of Qur’ans in existence today). Today they would probably be called sub-editors or collaborators. I don’t see where I actually said “authors”.
As for Palestine, it’s not about your idea of “ownership of the land”. As I said quite clearly before, it’s about international law prevailing after the collapse and dismemberment of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1918. The Ottoman Empire joined Germany in an OFFENSIVE war against the Allies and they lost. Going to war against a country has consequences. Through various agreements and international laws, the Jews were acknowledged as the ancestral people of Palestine and they were granted a return to their historic homeland. The small portion of land west of the Jordan river is less than 1% of that collapsed Ottoman Middle East empire. Arabs of Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon today have self-determination over 99% of that land, yet you still complain?
It’s only where the Jews are involved that people still support the ‘displaced’ Palestinians as pawns in their game of anti-Semitism. And 20% of Israeli citizens ARE Arab Muslims, whose families chose to accept the legitimacy of Israel in 1948. Today the vast majority of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem say they prefer living under Israeli rule to that of the Palestinian Authority. The Abraham Accords is also increasing the normalisation of the #legitimacy of the Jewish State of Israel.
By far the better solution for all displaced peoples is to give them refuge and/or citizenship within a culture which most closely resembles their own. So please stop all the nonsense about equating Ukrainian women and children refugees with Arab Muslim refugees, who today are mostly healthy young male economic migrants who prefer to leave their own failed countries to live in successful Judeo-Christian ones.
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@solemnstar4424 : The Messenger didn’t need to know how to read or write because he lived in an oral society. He was listening to the voices in his head for the revelations and it was easy to repeat those phrases to a scribe to note down, or for people to remember and recite. Nothing special about this. But I hope you realise that Islamic scholars do not agree on the actual word meanings of around 20% of the texts? And that some ayats were lost? So far, the earliest written sources are from decades after the death of the Messenger.
“The revelations never… promoted violence”. So what do you think the words about killing in Surah 9:111 mean? “Allah has indeed purchased from the believers their lives and wealth in exchange for Paradise. They fight in the cause of Allah and kill or are killed.” This is a commonly quoted verse by Islamic terrorists who believe that to in order to achieve certain martyrdom they must kill kaffirs. There are plenty of other violent verses in the Quran too.
“You can find that Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived peacefully in Palestine”. Jews and Christians have NEVER lived peacefully in an Islamic state, or even in a Muslim-majority country. They are always persecuted and the Quran ensures that they are categorised as lower-class citizens who must pay the “head tax” and be subjugated or humiliated [Quran 9:29].
“When Israel was formed, discriminates against Muslims and Christians”. Around two million of Israel’s citizens are Arab Muslims, Druze, Christian, and a few other sects. They have equal rights to the Israeli Jews, they sit in parliament, work in security, education, medical, tech industries, etc. so I don’t know what you are talking about here.
“Why does Islam, Christianity, and Judaism share same the beliefs?” Historians are now finding that Islam seems to have emerged gradually from a non-trinitarian Christian sect, and it includes a lot of pre-Islamic Pagan practices. The word Muslim or Islam is not anywhere in the early historic documents. It’s also quite likely that the word Mohammed, which means ‘praised one’ referred to Jesus. And everyone now knows that Mecca was not even on a map of the Hijaz at the time of the Messenger’s life, so that is a fiction too.
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@solemnstar4424 : “The majority of Jews lived in Palestine and wanted to "establish" a home in Palestine. International treatment was passed and was rejected”.
What rejection? Israel is a legitimate nation-state, just like Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. They were all new nation-states which were founded after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. The Jews were acknowledged under International Law in 1920 San Remo Agreement as the indigenous people of the Holy Land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Here's a great 5 min video explaining the legal situation: PragerU "Does Israel Occupy the West Bank?".
Those Arabs who ‘accepted’ to live under the rule of Jews in 1948 make up 20% of Israeli citizens today and the vast majority are very happy with this decision according to recent surveys. Those Arabs who fled when the hostile Arab countries attacked Israel are ‘displaced peoples’ and should by now have been resettled in those Arab countries, but you know that the Arab League passed laws to keep them in limbo. 850,000 Jews were ‘displaced’ (ethnically cleansed) from all of the Arab countries. Do you care about them, or the fact that they had to leave their ancestral property and wealth behind? If you don’t care, then I would have to wonder if you are #Anti-Semitic. A special refugee organisation was set up for the so-called Palestinian refugees yet 74 years later they still haven’t resettled these refugees anywhere. What’s going on? What happens to all the millions of dollars paid to UNWRA for this task? I recommend anyone to watch another PragerU 5 min video called "Why Are There Still Palestinian Refugees?" which explains the complex refugee situation that occurred after the founding of Israel in 1948.
Al-Aqsa Mosque is being used as a terror headquarters. Israeli security has as enormous job to contain the Islamic terrorism inside Israel these days, especially during Ramadan and Jewish national days. It’s horrible for ALL people, including Israeli Arab Muslims, simply because a small number of Muslims persist with terror attacks, mostly sponsored by Hamas and Iran.
There is no comparison between a war in Europe, which hasn’t seen war for over 70 years, to an Islamic country where we’ve seen constant civil wars and terror attacks. They are held to different standards for a clear reason.
Back to criticising ideas, especially ideas about religion, fascism, socialism and communism. It’s extremely important for cultures to be free to criticise ALL such ideas. That’s how we have evolved, and we've seen religions grow and then collapse over time. In those countries that prevent freedom of expression, for example the Islamic states, we can see how terrible the rights are for citizens compared with those who live in the free world countries.
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@solemnstar4424 : You say "The Quran has ONE book, nothing has been changed". This idea of the Qur'an being unchanged is now being challenged. And you can't understand the Qur'an without context. You have to refer to The Sira, Hadiths, and Tafsirs, so it's much more nuanced than just following ONE 'eternal' book.
Yes I am aware of the idea that Islam came to 'correct' both Christianity and Judaism, but the concept of God in Islam is very different to that of the Jews and Christians so are Muslims even following the same god? I believe that Jesus came to fulfil the covenants of the Old Testament, not because anything had been 'altered'. It was due to the evolution in human consciousness that Jesus came to Earth at that time.
Islam has taken this 'evolution' backwards in the way it treats women and girls. It concerns me how Muslim men can use the Qur'an to treat women as second-class citizens who have few rights. I also don't like that Islam is not just a personal religion but contains a political and legal system. I can't accept that people can even be killed for leaving Islam, or speaking critically about it, or that people are not treated equally under the law in Islam.
If it can be shown that the Qur'an did not arrive in its complete form in the way that the Islamic narrative says it has, then its foundation is shaky. And as Islam interacts more and more with the modern world, there is a dilemma. Should Muslims hold onto the unchanged 7th century traditions of Muhammed? Or, as we are seeing in many parts of the Arab world today, should they move into modernity and ignore some of those 7th century traditions and laws?
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