So far, so good. But then we get to the concluding graf:
"The battle will be uphill, the struggle difficult, the discomfort inevitable, but Muslim leaders have the opportunity to echo the historic declaration of the Vatican's Nostra Aetate," [Rabbi Marc] Schneier said, referring to the Catholic Church's official repudiation of the age-old accusation of deicide against the Jews.
Two problems. First, this implies that the only purpose of Judeo-Muslim dialogue is for Muslim leaders to see the light and issue a declaration recanting past anti-Semitism. There is no indication that Jews, too, will have to make any concessions or indeed, have anything to learn at all.
Second, if the point of this article was to break beyond the strictures of Jewish-Catholic discourse, this is a really foolish statement. Unlike Catholics, there is no centralized Islamic religious hierarchy which could issue a statement like the Nostra Aetate -- or for that matter, one which is promulgating the sort of anti-Semitic ideology that required that proclamation in the first place. The dialogue between Jews and Muslims is going to be more akin to Jewish-Protestant dialogue, which recognizes the factionalism and decentralization of the parties and doesn't expect some broad statement of consensus at the end. Jews and Protestants continue to talk even though some Protestants continue to harbor extreme anti-Semitic views. Jews and Muslims will have to proceed in dialogue the same way. The decision on which particular persons and groups we talk to and which we ignore is, of course, up for discussion -- but it's not going to be that similar to how Jews and Catholics worked this endeavor.
3 comments:
The Koran and Haditha are rife with anti-Semitism. The history of Islam is full of discrimination against Jews (and Christians), acts based on the Koran and the actions and sayings of Mohammed.
Asking them to renounce this anti-Semitism and acknowledge that Jews have the full rights of anyone including those of Moslems (and I'm not even including women or gays here) then and only then would we have the beginning of a true accommodation and the possibility of peace.
But to do this they would need to reinterpret the Koran which they refuse to do.
"Unlike Catholics, there is no centralized Islamic religious hierarchy which could issue a statement like the Nostra Aetate -- or for that matter, one which is promulgating the sort of anti-Semitic ideology that required that proclamation in the first place."
Who the hell are the "they" in your comment? Do we need a signed notarized statement from every Muslim on the planet?
The history of Protestant Christianity is equally bad vis-a-vis Jews (and women, and gays and lesbians), but even I don't demand that each individual Protestant sign a form denouncing anti-Semitism.
Second that one by DS. The problem that we have as Americans is that Bush had us demonize and entire religion. There is nothing wrong with Islam as a religion, only in those who pervert it to their wills.
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