This unconscionable hit piece was published in the Huffington Post on Yom Kippur. Rabbi Marc Schneier will have to answer to a higher authority.
A Yom Kippur Reflection: The Conflict Between Coexistence and the Destruction of Human Life By Russell Simmons and Rabbi Marc Schneier Puff Ho September 25
On the eve of Yom Kippur, a day of prayer, fasting and self-examination, each of us needs to shatter our complacency and narrow the gap between our conscience and our conduct as it relates to American Muslims.
Fine. Are these smug, self-righteous, self-important leftist dhimmis able to shatter their own complacency? Do they have the integrity to look at the jihads raging around the world, the 19,660 jihad attacks since 9/11, the brutalization of Christians in Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, Indonesia, and elsewhere, the persecution of Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh, the plight of the Bahais in Iran, and all the other jihads against unbelievers around the world? Can they look honestly at the honor killings, child marriages, clitorectomies, and all the other mistreatment of women that is sanctioned in Islam? Can they look at these things squarely really come away thinking that I am the problem?
Does Russell Simmons not know that the Arabic word for "black" is abid -- slave? Is he not aware of the bloody history of the oppression and slaughter of blacks under Muslim rule? How they originated the black slave trade? Does he not know that millions of black Muslims in Darfur were killed by Arab Muslims because they didn't consider them Muslim enough, and because of the color of their skin? Does he know how many black Africans have been slaughtered in jihadi wars in Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Mali and elsewhere?
Is Rabbi Marc Schneier unaware of the total ethnic cleansing of the Jews from Muslim countries all over the world in 1948? Close to a million Jews were uprooted and forced out of their homes. Is he unaware of the daily calls in the Arab and Muslim media for genocide of the Jews, whom they term apes and pigs in accordance with the Koran (2:62-66; 5:59-60; 7:166)? Where is Schneier on that? Has he read Bat Ye'or on Islamic antisemitism, or Sir Martin Gilbert's history of the Jews in Muslim lands, In Ishmael's House? Has he ever heard of MEMRI or Palestinian Media Watch? Or about what is happening to the Jews of Europe, in Malmo, Belgium, Paris, and elsewhere?
Let us acknowledge that ever since the Ground Zero Mosque controversy of 2010 and continuing until today, it has been open season on Muslims in this country.
"Open season"? And they accuse me of hysterical, hateful rhetoric? "Open season"? Are Muslims being gunned down in the streets? Hauled into camps? Deported wholesale? And Simmons and Schneier expect us to take them seriously when they indulge in bombastic hyperbole like this? In reality, Muslims have it better and enjoy more freedoms here than they do in Muslim countries. "Open season"? Anti-Semitic hate crimes are far more common than anti-Muslim hate crimes, which are so scarce that Muslims have more than once resorted to faking them.
So Simmons and Schneier's entire premise is fallacious. They're parroting the Muslims-are-victims narrative of Hamas-CAIR, which is a cynical ploy to distract from jihad terrorism and keep the Muslim community from being scrutinized by law enforcement.
There is no conflict between Islam and the West. There is only conflict between those who embrace coexistence and those who seek to destroy human life. As we write, ads will be going up in New York City subway cars -- which, sadly enough, have been placed there by a Jewish woman named Pamela Geller with a fanatical hatred of Muslims, featuring the slogan; "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad."
No conflict between Islam and the West -- that will be news to the imams worldwide who preach just such a conflict. But Simmons and Schneier never said a word about them. And I have a "fanatical hatred of Muslims"? How does Rabbi Marc Schneier know what is in my heart -- what my motives are, what my thoughts are? His writing such a thing is a disgrace.
Let us be clear that if someone was to put up billboards on the subway referring to Jews or African-Americans or gay people as savages, there would be an enormous uproar. With all the talk about Ms. Geller's right to free expression, it is inconceivable to me that a judge would rule or that the MTA would accede to a ruling that it is OK to put up ads smearing Jews in such a way. Our community would simply not stand for it. Are we going to sit silently while another relatively defenseless community, is smeared in such a vile way?
Simmons and Schneier are assuming my ads refer to all Muslims, as that is the enemedia's fallacious narrative. But in fact "Islam" and "Muslim" don't appear in the ad. They are assuming that all Muslims support the violent jihad against innocent civilians in Israel. I don't believe that. The ad speaks about savages who are fighting against the civilized man in Israel. And the targeting of civilians is savage. The relentless 60-year campaign of terror against the Jewish people is savage. The torture of hostage Gilad Shalit was savage. The bloody hacking to death of the Fogel family was savage. The Munich Olympic massacre was savage. The unspeakable torture of Ehud Goldwasser was savage. The tens of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel (into schools, homes, etc.) are savage. The vicious Jew-hatred behind this genocide is savage. The endless demonization of the Jewish people in the Palestinian and Arab media is savage. The refusal to recognize the state of Israel as a Jewish state is savage. The list is endless. And it's not just Israel. There have been 19,644 deadly jihad attacks since 911. The beheadings, homicide bombings and targeting of innocent civilians is savage.
Yes, there is a serious problem with Islamist extremism and terrorism and we must be vigilant in fighting those who follow that twisted ideology. But as we have learned firsthand in our work building ties of communication and cooperation with the American Muslim community over the past six years, the vast majority of American Muslims are decent, loyal and law-abiding citizens who want the same things for themselves and their children that the Jews want; to be able to practice their faith freely while simultaneously being proud and productive Americans who contribute to the well-being of the larger society.
Those Muslims should be standing with me against jihad savagery. We're constantly admonished that the vast majority of Muslims oppose jihad terror, right? So why are they getting more upset about my ad than about the jihad savagery itself?
When anti-Semitism rears its ugly head, we expect non-Jews of good-will to speak out against it. On this day of reflection and introspection, are we really OK to turn our heads and look the other way when our Muslim brothers and sisters are held up for contempt in such a public way? We believe it is incumbent on each of us to speak out loudly and say it is morally unacceptable to falsely libel all American Muslims or any Muslim as savages and to hold a great religion in contempt.
It will be a lot easier not to hold Islam "in contempt" when we see large Muslim organizations fighting against the jihadis and working to expunge the Koran of its misogny, Jew-hatred, and passages exhorting violence against unbelievers. There are no such organizations. Everyone is still waiting, eleven years after 911, for this vast majority to rise up and do something. How long do we have to wait? Why can't we fight against the jihadis ourselves, even without this supposed vast majority of Muslims? And if they really oppose the jihad, why are they so upset with defenders of freedom?
In that light, we are proud that The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding is taking an active role in Shoulder to Shoulder, a coalition of 28 national Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups, who are standing up for American Muslims and upholding basic American values of tolerance, openness, fair play and celebration of diversity. Let us make it clear that the vast majority of Jews do not share Ms. Geller's bigotry, nor accept her equation that support for Israel means hatred of Muslims. The time to raise our voices is now.
Look how they describe my message: "Support for Israel means hatred of Muslims." So they're saying that if you stand up and say that the jihad butchery of the Fogel family was savage, you must hate all Muslims.
Where was The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding's condemnation of Islamic Jew-hatred after the cold-blooded slaughter at a Jewish day school in Toulouse, or the murder of the Fogel family at their home in Israel in the middle of the night?
Simmons and Schneier, theirs is an intellectual terrorism. And the Puff Ho prints this twaddle. Par for the course.
