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Great idea Leauki, i wish you the best in your admirable effort.

As for Pr. Mohammad's relations with the Jewish community around him in Madina and later throughout the Arabian peninsula it was a  fascinating relation.

It was a Jewish Rabi who counseled him when he started receiving the message and told him "what you see is the same Namoos who visited Moses (referring to Archangel Gabriel)"

It was the Jewish Rabis who kept testing him with questions and inspection of physical personal signs (like the seal on his shoulder) to confirm his Prophethood ....

and when they were convinced ... they became angry ( a natural response since they believed that the expected prophet would be from among them and not from the Arabs.

Then, they started going to him to judge between them whenever they had a religious dispute about some jewish rule... God even chastised them for going to Pr. mohammad and at the same time not converting ... still God told the pr. resolve their disputes As Per their Torah ... and be just with them ....

isnt that really fascinating?!!!

When he died, he told people around him to make sure to return all the trusts that was kept in his house for the Jewish people ... they trusted him with their trusts and valuable possessions ...

he did the same when he left macca to Madina under cover escaping his tribe's plan to kill him.

and his guide on that trip was a jew ... and he asked the pr. to give him the persian King's crown .. . the pr. asked that guide, how would i get that, the man aswered ... you will, just promise that to me. and the pr. did.

when Muslims defeated the persians under Omar's more than 10 yrs after the pr. death.... Omar fulfilled the promise given by the pr. and gave that same man the King's crown.

that relationship with the Jews and Christians never was other than respect and recognition that it is all One religion ... just different prophets .... but people who have different agendas, mainly political ones, try to create problems ...

I hope you succeed in making it better for all.

I didn't know the story of the Persian crown, but I am glad that Muhammed's followers recognise the importance the crown has for Jews and Judaism. I wonder what happened to it.

It is always the message that gets twisted in translation - either between langauges, or through history.  But each one that comes forward to state the message is one more voice for reason and sanity.  And perhaps in time, they will drown out the hate.

I think any right minded person already knows that what the terrorists practice is NOT ISLAM but some bastardized version of it that preaches hate and death to any and all that are not Islamic.

It would be nice to see a fresh perspective for a change -good luck with the project.

Yes. But I figured I had to write something about the Mumbay bombings. And then it occured to me that the best way to handle it would be to isolate the terrorists.

Instead of recognising the effort of the terrorists I'll recognise the efforts of those who promote peace.

And I am not talking liberal feel-good idealism here. This is not about compromise and understanding the other side. I don't care what the terrorists want. And I don't promote compromise.

An Israeli embassy in Khartoum and diplomatic relations between Sudan and Israel would be good for Sudan and good for Israel. It's a positive message. And that's important.

I will try to post more examples of positive messages, more examples of what the terrorists do not want people to know about.

This is a much needed undertaking. Good luck.

Islam is a Religion. As such it is no one's "enemy". Like any Religion, people pick and choose what they feel most comfortable with and also, some use it to gain secular power. People use religion to unite or divide, to include and exclude. That is true for all peoples. Religion is also a uniting force inside a society.

Perhaps, Leauki you might ask ThinkAloud to expound on the concept of 'Oomah'. Why do the Arab states begrudge Israel? A country the size of New Jersey. Why do they make life a hell on Jews living in their countries? Perhaps ask him the meaning of the word 'Farhood', or 'Udroob el-Yahood'.

Since Zionists began emigrating to Israel as a result of Pogroms and close to 1,000 years of anti-Judaism in Russia and Europe at the end of the 19th Century, and buying lands from the Ottomans, the unified Religious-Secular Arab-Muslim states of the Middle East have resisted such settlement. Even the Holocaust didn't soften the Arab stand. In fact, to this day Holocaust denial is a feature of Friday sermons by some Imams (especially those in Arab countries).

Despite coming into existence as a result of WWI and the Sykes-Picot Agreement, these Muslim states have waged endless war against Israel, only Egypt making peace in 1973. Anwar Sadat paid for that with his life.

Let's be honest about it all...if it weren't for oil, would the USA give a tinker's damn about the Middle East? I'd like to think it would, but my gut tells me no.

They profess allegiance to the cause of the indigenous Arab population, yet do not allow them to become citizens in their countries (Muslim countries) to keep the homeless and angry and a potential weapon.

This leads me to the end of my piece: Who is motivated to cause all this? The answer is simple. The Arab leadership. They are the most reactionary regimes on the planet. The only way to preserve their power is to keep their masses ignorant, unhealthy and with an enemy to unite them (Israel and the Jews) and divert them from overthrowing the British appointed "Kings". They use the deeply religious, traditional society structure to maintain male dominance over females as well.

Look, if you don't know this by this point, what can I say?

أيار / مايو للسلام وسلام الله عليكم ، أطفالك وأطفالك الأطفال

I really didn't know that the crown had any significant value to the Jews. I am not sure that many muslims do either. and i dont think the Pr. or even Omar had any idea of that. The man just asked for it and the Pr. , as it is obvious from his first response, had no idea either. As you might know, the pr. did not study anything and was not able to read or write till the end of his life. All his correspondences, some of them still in Egypt's and other Musuems, were written by others and he used a seal to sign them.

It would like to know what is the significance of that crown. ... and may be some of the Jewish Rabis in the middle east know what happened to it.

that should read "..... dictated by him and written by others"

"Oomah" or "Umah" , means "Nation" in Arabic.

There are two of them. i dont know which one you meant.

The Islamic concept refers to the "Muslim Nation" .. and that is a concept established by God in Qura'an when He says "and your Nation is is One nation ... and I am your Lord ... Worship Me"

with that order All Muslims belong to One Nation regardless of their location, skin color, ethnic origin or previous alliances or religion. That should not be understood as undermining the "national borders" of any country or state ... these are recognized as administrative necessities and existed even during the Pr. life and throughtout Islamic history. But the obligations of muslims toward each other does not stop at those administrative borders ... if some muslims are in trouble ... all muslims are in trouble and they must help those in trouble. 

However, Muslims are required by Islam to follow the rules of international laws in providing the help needed to other Muslims.

The second meaning of the "Nation" concept is referring to the "Arab Nation" sometimes called the "Arab World".

this is a geographical area where all people (muslims, christians or jews) speak Arabic, have the same historical background, have the same culture, suffer the same problems, and they used to be REALLY one "Nation" for almost 1300 yrs now. that area was divided at the end of WWI by the allies and between themselves as occupiers ... the people there (not their occupiers-appointed rulers) never ever acknowledged that division ... the occupiers (mainly Great Britain and france) even created new entities like Kuwait, Jordon, Lebanon, and most of the small Gulf States. (Kuwait was part of Iraq, Lebanon was part of Syria, Jordon was part of Palastine and the Gulf States were part of the "Arab Peninsula") ...

The people of that "Arab Nation" feel and act naturally as One nation regardless of what the world (or their rulers) say. as you can imagine a 100 yrs of forced-division can not erase 1300 yrs of history.

Let me make something very clear here: As far as Muslims or the Arabs are concerned ... the Jews are one thing ... Israel is a totally different matter.

what you see between the arabs and Isreal would have been the same regardless of the religion of the people there. even if they were Muslims, the same conflict would have existed ... (actually you see it now between Lebanon and Syria, and in fact between the Palastinians and Jordon, and of course between Iraq and Kuwait see above for the reason)

Having established that, then i think you yourself can figure out the reason ... considering the concept of the "Arab Nation".

it was not enough that Britain and France divided that Nation, they promised people in europe to create a new country in the middle of that "nation" for them ... to the arabs, it didnt matter what was the religion of those people or the reason for that promise ... the fact remains that an occupier took a part of their land and gave it to other people from another continent ...

these are the facts ... this is the root of the problem ...

solving that problem now is the key to restore relative peace to that region. and I say relative peace because those people will never rest and be at peace with the west (since the west is the one who divided them in the first place) till they have ALL their "Arab Nation" back. we here can laugh at them .... but that is us .... it is not our land and it is not our nation ... but it is their land and their nation.

I am telling you what i know about the vast majority of them ... their rulers are against that, most of the world is against it .... their answer to that ... we will endure as we endured before ...

they jokingly say we will wait the second Saladin (the one who unified them after the Crusades)

how to solve that problem is the issue for the world to figure out.

but as you can see, the two are political problems, it has nothing to do with the three religions. of course it is obvious that some fanatics use religion to attract support from the masses who are desperately looking for anyone to get rid of their rulers as well as their occupiers. that is the button of weakness that the terrorists push and they know they will get some to support their ways. but most of the masses there know that is the wrong way and they dont support it ...

in fact, the first acts of terror (in 1980's and early 1990's) were aginst those masses themselves in Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Jordon and turkey. then they escaped the heavy-handed rulers there to europ, Afghanistan, pakistan, and some to us here  (Umar AbdelRuhman of 1993 WTC first attack)

hope that gives you an idea about the complexity of these two problems.

And may God's Peace, Mercy and blessings be upon you and your family too.

quote]

Farhood, means a very nimble person

[/quote]

This is what he is referring to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud

"Farhud (translation from Arabic: "pogrom", "violent dispossession") was a violent pogrom against the Jews of Baghdad, Iraq on June 1-2, 1941. It took place when the city was without a political leadership after Rashid Ali al-Kaylani had fled but before British and Transjordanian forces had arrived."

"Antisemite propaganda was broadcast routinely by the local radio and radio berlin in Arabic. various anti-Jewish slogans were written on walls on the way to school, such as "Hitler was killing the Jewish germs". shops owned by muslims had 'muslim' written on them, so they will not be damaged in the case of anti-Jewish riots."

Yeah, I don't believe that. There are today maybe a grand total of 5000 Jews left in the Arab world, most of them in Morocco. 25 in Bahrain. The vast majority fled between the 1930s and 1960s. Israel is not a "totally different matter", Israel is the Jews that are "one thing"; that's where they are.

You see, that's the major problem. For you and yours, the conflict started in 1948, when the Jews fought back. That's part of why Islam has a reputation of violence. It's like the 2006 Lebanon war that didn't start five years earlier when Hizbullah started shelling Israeli towns, it "started" when Israel reacted for the first time in six years.

For me and mine the conflict started a long time before 1948. It was already on-going when Arab Palestinian (then self-proclaimed Syrian) leaders allied with Hitler and called for the extermination of the Jews. It was already on-going when Jews fled Iraq in the 1930s and when Iraq allied with Germany in 1940. It was already on-going when Nasser tried to take power in Egypt in 1941 and to ally Egypt with Germany.

The conflict was already on-going when Arabs attacked Jewish villages in "Palestine". The conflict was already on-going when Michel Aflaq was in Vichy France and had the idea to start the Arab nationalist Baath party.

Perhaps the conflict really started when European nationalism began to impress Arabs and they tried to emulate it.

Or perhaps it started when some (mostly non-Palestinian) Arabs thought it would be a good idea to tell Palestinian Arabs to fight Jewish immigrants and Jewish communities that have existed for thousands of years.

It was definitely on-going in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s when all Arab Jews fled Arab countries. A Peshmerga lieutenant in Kurdistan told me that to his knowledge I was the first Jew in the region since the 1930s!

I don't know when the conflict started.

But it absolutely and definitely didn't start in 1948.

That was only the date when the Jews fought back.

Israel (the people) didn't fight back when the Germans came for them. But after events in Warsaw the world could have been damn sure that Israel would fight back when Germany's allies came for them.

The Arabs never expected the Jews to fight back. Jews had a reputation for cowardice (because dhimmis were not allowed to fight in Muslim armies). 1948 was a shock for Arabs. And they should have learned from it. And within just a few decades the Arabs went from "We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood" to "The Israelis are opressing us", from proud threats to constant whining.

And that's a good thing.

Every time I read about Israeli "oppression" of Arabs I am happy because it means we are far from the "soil saturated in blood" promises we used to face. Every time I read about Israeli "injustices" I feel safe because it means Israel is perceived not as the weak Jews that can easily be exterminated but as a power to contend with. And it seems that Israel's enemies know only death threats and whining because those are the two reactions Israel is getting from them. Which one do you think Israel should try to promote?

The conflict ended and the Arabs lost and Israel is alive.

When will the whining end? That's not something Israel can facilitate. Israel gave up Gaza and southern Lebanon and received rocket attacks in return. (AFTER that the blockade of Gaza started, so don't try to blame the blockade for the rockets.)

There is a song in Israel played on the radio after every major attack. We sang it in the University of Haifa in 2006. The refrain goes "Ani od chai, 3am Yisrael chai." ("[Tell them] I am still alive, the people of Israel are alive.").

 

So this is all I can tell you about the conflict. It didn't start in 1948. And the people of Israel are still alive.

And so are the Kurds and the Massalith and many other minorities Arab nationalists have been and are trying to exterminate.

I'll leave you with the words of the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Yasser Arafat's uncle and mentor and "Palestinian" hero still, spoken in 1944 on Radio Berlin:

"Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you."

You and I probably agree that he wasn't a faithful Muslim when he said those words. But this is what the Jews got from the Arabs and this is why Israel fights and will continue to fight.

It seems to me that many Arabs and Muslims hate Israel because they have absolutely no idea why it exists. It's a safe haven for all the Jews of the ARAB WORLD. And something similar would have been needed for other minorities.

I am a proud son of pigs and monkeys and and I am proud that my enemies hide behind children and shoot from residential buildings. I am proud that my enemies have reason to believe that a shield of children is a protection against those that defend my life against their attacks.

(I said most of this before, but it was in a reply to somebody else's blog who deleted the thread.)

Middle-eastern Jews are NOT from "another continent". More than half of the population of Israel is from the middle east and fled their home lands.

Israel is NOT an "occupier". Jews and Arabs both live in the land of Israel and if it had been up to the Zionists and Jews, both would have lived in peace with equal rights.

Israel was NOT "given" to the Jews. Israel was always Jewish land. The fact that Arabs/Turks/British invaded it at certain times doesn't mean that Jess gave up their claim. It also doesn't mean that of all the invasions and occupations, including the Jewish one, only the Arab invasion was legal and hence constitutes official ownership. The Zionists have at least as much right to the land as any other group invading and occupying it.

Before the Zionists came Israel had a very small (Jewish and Arab) population. It was nearly empty land with enough room for Jews and Arabs.

But in contrast to the Arabs the Jews had nowhere else to go. European Jews had just been exterminated. Jews in the Arab world were fleeing to France and Israel.

You have this weird idea that Israel is some sort of European or American colony./

To us it is the last place middle-eastern Jews can live in peace. If Israel falls, the middle east will be Jew-free.

And there will be no compromise. The compromise between six million dead and noone dead is three million dead. That's not good enough. We have seen that "death to the Jews" can lead to death to the Jews. Israel does not trust Hitler's allies.

The (Iranian) crown as such does not. But the kingship it represents does.

Jews believe that G-d gives and takes away the Land of Israel depending on how close Jews stick to His commandments. When Jews stray, G-d sends an army to invade and destroy the Land of Israel; but after that happened He will send a true servant who will restore Israel.

Cyrus, King of Iran, was such a servant. The Tanakh refers to him as a messiah. The Quran also mentions him. You might remember the test Jews had for Muhammed where the rabbis said that if he were indeed a prophet he would be told of him. The Quran calls him the "Two-Horned One". Some people think that described Alexander, but Jews have no special reverence for the pagan king but do adore Cyrus who prayed to the same god as the Jews. (The two horns were a symbol of the Iranian kingdom.)

Cyrus and Darius, one of his descandants, ended the first exile, returned to Jews to Israel and permitted and financed the rebuilding of the Temple. Cyrus is the single most important non-Jewish individual in Judaism.

Caliph Umar was also seen as such a servant of G-d by the Jews. He did call on Jews to return home but he did not rebuild the Temple (Jews also don't believe that this will be done before the Messiah arrives). Umar's descandants then built a mosque on the Temple Mount.

Jews believe that if Jews stray again, a new army of Babylonians will come and destroy Israel again. And then Jews hope for a new servant of G-d to restore the country. What amuses Israel is that now as then there is a huge number of people who want to be the Babylonians.

Note that Cyrus was a "Muslim" as per Quranic definition: he believed in one god, in the end of time, and in the prophets of Islam. And the Children of Israel were Muslims too.

I hope that also explains why Jews and Israelis make such a distinction between Islam (a faith Israel has always understood as a friend and ally) and Israel's enemies (foreign nationalists, be they Babylonian, Roman, German, or Arab).

As simple as it sounds, I ask Arabs to simply accept that Israel exists and find ways to work with her toward making the Middle East a better place to live. But, apparently it is not that simple.  Too bad.

All parties need to come to terms with the fact that no party is going to just go away. And clearly interminable warfare is no answer. 

I would like to see a Palistinian State and Israel work with her toward a positive, healthy future.

Be well.