Peace through rhetoric?

Aberdeen American News ^ | June 14, 2009 | Art Marmorstein

[ancientart]

In his Cairo speech President Obama tried to convince Muslims that conflict with America was unnecessary. We can all get along, argued Obama, because, despite historical conflicts, the Islamic world and the West share core values: We just need to understand each other better. “Partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't.”

But what exactly is Islam? Obama assures us it is a religion of peace, a religion that would never justify terrorist atrocities. “The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind,” he said.

Those familiar with Oskar and Emilie Schindler will recognize the basic sentiment. “Whoever saves one life saves the whole world,” says Emilie's tombstone.

So what is a quote from the Quran doing on the tombstone of a great champion of the Jews? If Obama's speech writers had been more careful, they would have noticed that the original quote isn't Muslim: It's from the Talmud.

Muhammad quotes the line but not as an exhortation to mercy, quite the reverse. Muhammad cites the line as a command, not for his followers, but for the Jews. He then claims that, by persecuting Allah's messengers, Jews have broken God's standard - and merit the most extreme treatment imaginable. In the very next verse (Sura 5:36) he adds :

“The punishment of those who wage war against God and his Apostle [Muhammad], and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the hereafter.”

Curious that Obama's speech writers cite a line that justifies extreme anti-Semitism and religious violence. Couldn't they have found something in the Quran that (in context) more legitimately supports the idea of Islam as a peaceful religion?

Apparently they couldn't. Obama's speech concludes with exhortations to peace: The Talmud's admonition that peace is the goal of the law and Jesus' words about the blessedness of peacemakers. From the Quran? Only a line that says God made the various tribes and nations, a line that says nothing about peace. Actually, Sura 49 (which Obama quotes here) does talk about eventual peace. But it says first to fight those that “transgress” (i.e., those who disagree with Muhammad) until they comply with the command of God.

This is a message repeated over and over in the Quran. There will ultimately be peace but only after the world submits to Islam.

Obama's speech assured Muslims that America will do everything possible to assure an end to conflict. But what does one have to do to be at peace with a religion that, at its core, teaches no possibility of compromise with an unbelieving world?

[WayneS]

I thought the proper phrase was “Peace through SUPERIOR rhetoric”.

;^)

[givemELL]

Yes, that “Cairo” speech. Who do Muslims believe? Muhammad or Obama? Obama has issued a personal challenge of sorts as well as definite appeasement in a factually incompetent and disinformational speech fully reviewed as such by multiple sources already. Islam will respond identically to Obama the way it has responded for 1400 years to challenges or appeasement entreaties. Muslims must become apostate to go along with Obama. Where are the floods of apostates overwhelmed by the O message? O says he is Christian, but his nation is one of the largest Muslim nations. Note that the Egyptians are genociding the Coptic Christians who predate Islam with renewed energy right now. Obama, in Cairo did not mention it.

[Paladin2]

War is Peace.

[Wil H]

Conquest and subjugation bring peace...