CRY OUT FOR LIBRERTY: AN VIEW ON TODAY'S ISLAM

[Dave Hunt, The Berean Call, P.O. Box 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, www.thebereancall.org, Feb 2003]:

"God promised that the Messiah, who would redeem mankind from Satan’s power and sin’s penalty, would be a virgin-born Jew (Gn 3:15; 12:3; Is 7:14; 9:6, etc.) who would reign forever on King David’s throne in Jerusalem. To defeat God, Satan must inspire the annihilation of the Jews. Anti-Semitism, the satanically inspired persecution and slaughter of Jews like no other people all through history, was foretold in the Bible (Dt 28:37, Jer 29:17-19, etc.).

Rome’s destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 (1.2 million killed) was followed in A.D. 135 with 985 towns wiped out and 580,000 slain. The situation eased under some Caesars, worsened under others. Constantine (280-337) briefly granted Judaism equal status with other religions -- but after becoming a "Christian," he oppressed the Jews. Succeeding Roman emperors continued the persecution.

The popes, successors to the Roman emperors, continued the oppression. Inspired by Pope Urban II (1096), Crusaders murdered Jews all along their route and in taking the Holy Land. Church Councils such as Vienna (1311), Zamora (1313) and Basel (1431-33) strengthened anti-Semitism as official Roman Catholic doctrine. More than 100 anti-Semitic Church documents were published between the sixth and twentieth centuries.

During the Church-dominated Middle Ages, Jews were driven out of nearly every European nation including England. Where could they go with no country of their own? Somehow, they clung to life, confined to ghettos.

Islam’s founder, Muhammad (570-632), killed every Jew in Arabia except for the few who escaped. In North African and Middle Eastern countries, following the Muslim conquest in the seventh century, there was endless brutalization, pillaging and massacre of Jews.

As the Romans had done with Jerusalem in A.D. 135, any city designated a "holy city of Islam," such as Kairouan in Tunisia in the thirteenth century, was made Jew-free.1 What Islam modeled was repeated in Nazi Germany as one village or city after another was declared Judenfrei.

In the German elections of May 1928, the Nazi party, aided by Vatican funds given to Hitler by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (who later became Pope Pius XII), gained its first twelve seats in the Reichstag. From that time a reign of terror spread across Germany that would enslave Europe. On January 1, 1930, Hitler’s Stormtrooper terrorists killed eight Jews, the first victims of the Nazi era. "Jews were molested in public places, and synagogue services were constantly interrupted...."2 In the 1930 elections, with Hitler’s "Brownshirts" intimidating voters, the Nazi seats rose from 12 to 107.

On January 30, 1933, a political com-promise made Hitler, then 43, Germany’s Chancellor. He swiftly established a Nazi dictatorship with no dissent allowed. Mein Kampf had promised an end to the Jews, who were now beaten in the streets, their stores looted, then boycotted.

The reaction outside Germany was brief and muted. Mass rallies were held in New York’s Madison Square Garden, Paris’s Trocadero and London’s Queen Hall to protest Germany’s growing anti-Jewish pogroms. But an uncaring world turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, which still haunts all who have a conscience.

By 1934 the campaign to create "Jew-free" villages was spreading. Jews were driven out of all professions and education. In the growing terrorism, Stormtroopers would enter a village, smash and loot Jewish shops, trample the Torah in the synagogue, and assault and kill Jews in the streets. Frightened and bewildered Jews fled to neighboring towns, only to be expelled again -- and eventually taken to extermination camps.

For centuries, Jews had been fleeing Europe to return to their ancient land. There, in the 1920s and ’30s, funded by the Nazis3 and aided by the British "peace-keepers," anti-Jewish riots were led by Haj Amin al-Husseini,4 Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, terrorist, friend and admirer of Hitler and Himmler -- Arafat’s great uncle, mentor and model. The Mufti, to whom Hitler on Nov. 21, 1941, promised "a solution for the Jewish problem"5 similar to what he was pursuing in Germany, was "personally responsible for the concentration camp slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Jews...."6

During World War II, Haj Amin fled to Berlin, from which place he broadcast, "Arabs rise as one man and slaughter the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases Allah...." Jews fought on the side of the Allies; the Arabs joined Hitler. As a reward he promised to exterminate the Jews in their countries as he was doing in Europe. But in February 1945, when Allied victory was certain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Lebanon declared war on Germany -- an act required before March 1, 1945, by any country that desired to join the newly organized United Nations.

On Nov. 29, 1947, after 6 million Jews had perished, a briefly conscience-stricken UN, in Res. 181, gave them 18 percent of the ancient land of Israel, misnamed "Palestine," all of which the League of Nations, recognizing its "historical connection [to] the Jewish people," had allotted for their national homeland. The Mandate for Palestine, July 24, 1922, 7 was to be administered by Britain under the Balfour Declaration.

Unhappy with being given 82 percent of what the world had admitted belonged to the Jews (and demanding it all), "employing outside forces and arms from Arab states as distant as Iraq,"8 Arabs rioted, plundered and murdered Jews, encouraged by the British, who were hoping for an excuse to abandon their mandate to establish the Jewish homeland.9 Britain’s betrayal of the Jews, beginning in the 1920s in favor of the oil-rich Arabs, brought about the end of its empire on which the sun "never sank" -- another fulfillment of God’s warning, "I will curse him that curseth thee" (Gn 12:3).

Something worse than Nazism was rising -- an Arab religion called Islam, which centuries before had forcefully conquered most of the world. This time its monopoly of oil was its major weapon. When Israel declared its independence in May 1948, it was instantly attacked by the regular armies of six Muslim nations, whose leaders publicly vowed to annihilate every Jew. Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, promised, "This will be a war of extermination...."10 "Palestine," like Arabia, was to be made Jew-free.

Muslim leaders, both political and religious, more openly than Hitler, repeatedly call for the extermination of all Jews (see Q&A, May 2002). Islam requires the death of all Jews before its "Last Day" judgment can occur. On November 23, 1937, Saudi Arabia’s King Ibn Saud said, "for a Muslim to kill a Jew...ensures him an immediate entry into Heaven...." 11 PLO leader Farouk Kaddoumi vowed, "This Zionist ghetto of Israel must be destroyed."12 Palestinians marching in support of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait chanted, "Saddam, you hero, attack Israel with chemical weapons."13

An Arabic translation of Mein Kampf is a bestseller today in Palestinian Authority territory. 14 Textbooks in Syria lead pupils to the "inevitable conclusion...that all Jews must be annihilated." 15 Calls for annihilation of Jews still resound throughout the Muslim world, such as the Friday sermon in Gaza’s Zayed bin Sultan Aal Nahyan mosque, October 14, 2000, by Ahmad AbuHalabia: "The Jews...must be butchered....Have no mercy...kill them...and those Americans who...established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world...."16 Sheikh Ibrahim Mahdi vowed in a sermon on Palestinian television June 8, 2001, "Allah willing...Israel will be erased...the United States will be erased...Britain will be erased....Blessings to whoever put a belt of explosives on his body or on his sons’ and plunged into the midst of the Jews...."

Incredibly, Zionism (the belief that Jews have a right to their national homeland) was condemned as racism by UN General Assembly Res. 3379 on November 10, 1975. Sixteen long years later (12/16/91) that vote was reversed over Muslim protests. Yet Zionism is still a capital crime in Iraq.

Few, whether Jews or their enemies, acknowledge that the Middle East conflict involves the "last days" reestablishment of God’s chosen people in the land He promised to them. Today’s events were foretold in biblical prophecies that validate the Bible beyond dispute as God’s Word. As prophesied, Israel has become what President Eisenhower called "the most strategically important area in the world."

When it became a nation once again, about 800,000 Jews (nearly double the number of original "Palestinian" refugees) fled to Israel from the horror they had long endured in Muslim countries. Here is the tally of Jews in various countries in 1948 and today: Algeria 140,000/75; Egypt 75,000/200; Iraq 150,000/100; Lebanon 20,000/50; Libya 38,000/none; Morocco 265,000/5,800; Syria 30,000/150; Tunisia 105,000/1,500; Yemen and Aden 63,000/150, etc. Following the Six-day War (1967), the UN Security Council determined to investigate the treatment of Jews in Arab countries. Syria, Iraq and Egypt, however, refused to allow entrance of the investigative commission. 17

We now look back with disbelief and shame upon the Nazi era and the barbaric determination to exterminate a race. In contrast, the Islamic world looks back with approval. Their only regret today is that Hitler didn’t finish his intended annihilation of all Jews. As Egyptian newspaper columnist Ahmad Ragab wrote, "Thanks to Hitler, blessed memory....Although we do have a complaint...his revenge on [the Jews] was not enough."18

At the same time, much of the Muslim world denies the Holocaust. As University of Gaza history lecturer Dr. Issam Sissalem declared: "...they are all lies...no Dachau, no Auschwitz!...the holocaust was against our people...."19

"God created man in his own image" (Gn 1:26,27) with the capacity to choose whether to love and obey God or to rebel against Him. God desires our willing obedience in love; but love cannot be forced. Liberty to choose is essential for love. Seeking to win man’s heart, God pleads, "Come now, and let us reason together" (Is 1:18).

In contrast, Satan enslaved man with lies. "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin" (Jn 8:34). Tyrants enslave their fellows. The worst offense of the Caesars, the popes, the Muhammads and Hitlers and all who still follow their example is not the enslavement of flesh and blood but the tyrannical attempt to conquer the human soul and spirit. There is no reasoning with tyrants.

There is not one Muslim country today where basic God-given liberties are enjoyed. Saudi Arabia abstained from the International Declaration of Human Rights adopted 12/10/48 by the UN. An Islamic Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by Muslim nations on 9/19/81. The "rights" it offers are all according to Shari’a (Islamic Law exactly as the Taliban practiced it) and the Sunnah (the example and way of life of the Prophet...). 20

Saudi Arabia, Islam’s Holy Land, has accomplished what Nazi Germany aimed for: a Jew-free country. In obedience to Islam’s founding prophet, Muhammad, no Jew is allowed in Saudi Arabia and only Muslims can be citizens. This is Nazism resurrected! There should be an international cry of outrage! Yet there is silence.

Any question as to whether the hijackers, the Taliban and suicide bombers are fanatics or real Muslims is easily dispelled -- as is the delusion spread by President Bush and other political and religious leaders that Islam "is peace and tolerance." One need only look at Saudi Arabia. There stands Islam’s holiest site, the Kaaba in Mecca, to which each Muslim must make a pilgrimage (hajj) once in his lifetime. There Islam began, is headquartered and demonstrated.

In Saudi Arabia one may see what daily life would be like in America and Europe if Islam could fulfill its goal of taking over the world. A woman cannot drive a car or even leave her house without her husband’s permission and a male relative to escort her. No non-Muslim place of worship or any public expression that does not agree with Islam is allowed. To question Islam is a crime, and for a Muslim to convert to any other religion carries the death penalty.

This is not "fanaticism." It is Islam. Muhammad said, "Whoever relinquishes his faith, kill him." Upon Muhammad’s death, thousands of Arabs attempted to abandon Islam, into which they had been forced by the sword. In the "Wars of Apostasy" tens of thousands of former Muslims, all Arabs, were killed in bringing Arabia back under Islam.

All Muslims ought to be ashamed! The leadership of Saudi Arabia ought to be ashamed! How can Muslim countries sit in the United Nations and talk of freedom when they won’t allow it? How can Muslims take advantage of the liberties in the free world to build their mosques and worship freely, to speak out against any who disagree with them, while knowing in their hearts that the religion they promote would suppress those very liberties if it took over?! This is hypocrisy of the highest order!

For years there has been an ongoing holocaust in Muslim countries. More than 2 million non-Muslims, mostly Christians, have been killed in Indonesia, Nigeria, Sudan, and elsewhere, with hundreds of churches destroyed. Must we wait until this Islamic holocaust reaches 6 million? There ought to be an immediate international cry of outrage and revulsion!

We are including names and addresses of political, media and religious leaders. We ask every reader to make copies of this article and/or insert, and send it, with a cover letter of protest, to as many of these leaders as possible. Let us act before any more are slaughtered."