Why are they afraid of Islam?

General Paper, a very interesting and intellectual subject taught in junior colleges, seeks to instill in students a balanced view of the world and its happenings, and also stimulate students to think in order to provide opinions on various wide-spanning world issues. Having taken the subject, I must say that GP has its parallels with Tasawwur Islam, ie Islamic Worldview, and that GP in one way or another, helps one in studying Tasawwur Islam. Many contemporary issues related to us by the media updates us only from a certain perspective, which may or may not be biased. It is like seeing through coloured spectacles, if one is wearing blue lenses, every white is blue, every yellow, green. Similarly, issues that cloud around muslims generally have not enjoyed being given the right coverage, it is often opinionated or slanted towards a certain perspective only, thus biased. The sad thing is, not many among the masses are able to smell this biasness, and hence are influenced by those slanted views.

The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a classic example. Often headlines such as these appear in papers all over the world, since most local papers take their materials from the same news agencies such as AP and Reuters:

“Palestinian terrorists kill Jews in Israeli Settlement”

The impression created can never be more solid: Palestinians are terrorists, violent butchers who go to the extent of bombing public facilities.

Most of the masses would not have known and won’t bother to ask or research about this Israeli Settlement. Truth is, a line was clearly drawn in the past depicting the borders, and the Israeli authorities have forcefully grabbed some areas from the Palestinians, literally bulldozing their way through plantations, houses and property belonging to Palestinians, at times killing even babies, and they call the newly stolen land “Israeli Settlement” after accommodation for Israelis have been built.

Should this simple piece of information be told, then the impression created would be vastly different.

The use of the word terrorist is also very loose, without even a strong, proper definition to it. It would seem rather obvious to the rational that the terrorist is usually the one who is capable of oppressing; and in this case, we are talking about a well-armed, high tech and formidable army as compared to civilians and even children whose weapon include stones, slingshots and at best homemade explosives and cheap ammunition.

Who are we to talk about the sufferings of the Palestinians? We say that the three years Malaya was under Japanese Occupation was terrible, yet we have never experienced occupation. These Palestinians have experienced occupation for over 60 years and continue to do so. So how do you differentiate terrorist from freedom fighter?

Today, any potential candidate for the US Presidency, be it a Democrat or Republican, is fully aware of the sensitivities of this issue; and that if he or she were to criticize the Zionist movement even in the slightest bit, he or she would lose significant votes and thus loses the chance at becoming the President. Such is how extremely powerful the small Israeli lobby is in the US.

It just doesn’t seem right to exert that throughout the past 60 years, all rights were the Zionists and all wrongs were the Palestinians, but the picture painted is as such, the good guys are the Zionists; the evil ones are the Palestinians.

Now I run a risk of being labeled anti-Semite, as do anyone who seeks to know the real picture and understand the plight of the oppressed Palestinians. I hereby proclaim that I am in no way an anti-Semite, and any hatred to a people just because of their biological race is unsupported and condemned by the Quran. I am a believer of the Quran as the Last and Final Testament of God who sent Joseph, Moses, Jesus, John and Muhammad, peace upon them all, and therefore I am obliged, by the authority of the Quran, to love all them all, a significant portion of whom are Jews. So how can a muslim hate Jews because of their “Jewishness”? That would otherwise be hypocritical.

Lately the Straits Times carried an article entitled, “Israel ‘bullying sick Palestinians into spying’”

Just wondering, how would a patriotic Singaporean feel, should a foreigner come to him and say “You Singaporeans are wicked sick, you people cruelly occupied Japan and made the Japanese people suffer three whole years!”

Doesn’t that sicken you??

This is not an academic article, and I admit I have not put in resources, but rest assured, sources are readily available. The reason why I don’t cite sources is that I would prefer people researching for themselves and be convinced for themselves, other than convenience of course ;)

But I am tempted, I cite you an excerpt of a review on the book “Lords of the Land: The War for Israel’s Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007” by Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar that appeared in The Economist October 13th 2007 issue:

“And thus it has always been. Never mind that Israel has flouted International Law by settling its citizens in occupied foreign territory; what is remarkable is how consistently the settlers have thwarted Israel’s own laws, in pursuit of what to them are biblical lands inhabited by Palestinian interlopers. The Bilin case was just a variation on a tried and tested method: seize land illegally, establish hard-to-reverse “facts on the ground” and then legalise the claim retroactively through the courts or government.”

May God let us see the real picture and the truth, amin.