“Moderate Muslims”, the “handful of extremists” and Shari'a
"The average Muslim can be visibly Muslim and demonstrate the beauty of Islam. That is the biggest victory for Islam and the ummah. Do not trivialise your role. If you can influence your immediate circle to understand our religion is a positive force for society, that’s all we need you to do."
My latest Op-ed in Arutz Sheva - Israel National News, substantially expanded
Forceful expression is required to correct the pernicious erosion the English language has been subjected to of late, in an onslaught of linguistic vandalism, all in the service of rendering language a “safe space” in which lies may be dressed up as truth and truth vilified as lies, victims may be presented as perpetrators and perpetrators may masquerade as victims. The impact of this vandalism on the English language is far-reaching.
Consider the word extremism, for instance: “The holding of extreme political or religious views; fanaticism.” No problem there, except when it is distortedly applied to Muslims. On a spectrum of the world’s religions, Islam is as extreme as it gets, making anyone who adheres to Islam an adherent of an extreme religion, regardless of which parts they practise and which parts they ignore. There is no getting around this. The important point about a “moderate Mafioso” is not that he is moderate, but what service he renders to the “extremist Mafiosi” that they continue to tolerate him in the Mafia. By the corrupted meaning of extremism, only those Muslims who commit terrorism, mass murder, take sex-slaves or toss living babies into ovens, are extremists.
Muslims who merely beat their wives are not extremists. Muslims who merely cut off the daughters’ clitorises and sew up their labia are not extremists. Muslims who merely marry off their underage daughters to adult strangers are not extremists. Muslims who merely want to impose a barbaric system of law are not extremists. Muslims who merely refuse to shake hands with members of the opposite sex are not extremists. Muslims who would merely want to see apostates killed and homosexuals thrown to their deaths off high buildings are not extremists. Muslims who merely believe a Muslim’s life is worth more than a kafir’s are not extremists. Muslims who merely feel they have nothing to explain when one of their own beheads a teacher in the street or an old lady praying in a church are not extremists. Muslims who merely have God on their mind for the entirety of their waking hours are not extremists. Muslims who merely send their young children for indoctrination are not extremists. Muslims who merely teach the Qur’an are not extremists. Muslim parents who merely pressure their traumatised daughters to return to their violent abusive husbands are not extremists. Muslims who murder their daughters for being “too Western” are not extremists. Muslims who insist, “I do not have to respect the laws of the land,” are not extremists. All these lovely moderate Muslims are highly sensitive and we must take great care never to offend them lest we “drive them into the hands of the extremists”.
Thus have we been co-opted, through corruption of our language, to the cause of Allah. Of course, Western feminists were never going to condemn Hamas for all the barbaric rapes, mutilations and murders they had perpetrated on Jewish women and girls on October 7 and thereafter. They know that “not all Muslims, etc.,” and in any case, they are still mulling whether Muslim wife-beating, paedophilia, infanticide (almost always daughters), clitoridectomy, instant divorce, reconciliation by pimping (nikah halala), automatic paternal child custody, etc., are really iniquities.
The impact of pressing the word extremist into service for sinister political ends corrupts our measure of ethics well beyond the cynical expediency of supporting “our moderate Muslim allies,” against “the extremists,” and further, facilitates the spread of Shari’a through da’wah, jihad of the tongue. Thus, for example, Western observers and commentators, especially law-enforcement officers and judges, are perplexed that Muslims who murder their wives and daughters “to restore their honour,” do so in front of their little children, if they can, and rarely go on the run. On the contrary, such honour-restoring murderers go to relatives, friends, and even the police, covered in blood, murder weapon in hand, and calmly declare their deeds.
Understand this, dear reader, please, in their mind they have done nothing wrong, indeed, they have done a virtuous deed that, fortunately, their little children could learn from. It is responsible and thoughtful for a father to kill a mother in front of her children.
In the meantime, those Australians who, in order to show their disapproval of those “extremists” who shouted “Death to Jews” and attacked a bishop, send their daughters for brainwashing to snake-oil salesmen in mosques, make the same mistake as so many well-meaning but misguided people in Europe and North America. Those innocent daughters you send to mosques so as to “do the right thing” will become the very instruments by which much worse things are done to your society later.
Note two things, especially Americans and Australians, every piece of land you sell to Muslims, for whatever ostensible purpose, is on its way out of your jurisdiction, and after that, out of your sovereignty. They start by practising only Shari’a there, i.e., the laws of the land are no longer observed, and end up imposing no-go zones, where the authorities may no longer enter, i.e., the law of the land can no longer be enforced, hence becoming de facto Islamic micro-states. If you want to see your future, look at France, Sweden, and the UK.
In Australia, Muslims are at the stage of buying up large tracts of land outside of cities. This process has just entered that second stage in East Plano, Texas, where Sheikh Dr Yasir Qadhi’s “moderate Muslims” are expanding and transforming their EPIC masjid into an EPIC Islamic micro-state, called EPIC City. Other Sunni mosques and Islamic centres around Texas, and there are many, will effectively become exclaves of this micro-state. The northern end of this jihad pincer is Ontario-Michigan-Minnesota. Thankfully, the authorities in Texas are finally waking up to the seditious activities of Sheikh Qadhi and his fellow “moderate” subversives at the East Plano Islamic Center. Pakistani Muslims, with the feel-good endorsement of gullible or self-serving Texas legislators, just threw a red herring into the EPIC City controversy by having a Pakistan Day officially declared, thereby plunging the good burghers of Texas into open da’wah war against themselves. This is how Texas becomes Minnesota.
Yasir Qadhi, in an exchange with the rapist, Professor Tariq Ramadan, revealed some of the modus operandi of da’wah:
You’re saying we have to respect the law of the land—I don’t like this terminology. We have to be careful here. Let’s make sure that is clear to our viewers as well, because I don’t have to respect the law. I do have to abide by it. I have the right as well to challenge within the mechanisms, I have the right to work to change it. I speak in the American context. I have the right to criticise the law.
I don’t know about the European context, but in the American context—in my case, the example that I found works very well with those that are sympathetic to the far-Right, is the issue of abortion, ...because over 35 percent of Americans strongly disapprove of abortion, and yet it is the law of the land, and the Supreme Court has passed it. And most of those who are against abortion are also a little bit Islamophobic, okay. So you ask them point blank: “You are following your Christian Shari’a against the law of the land. You are prioritising the Christian Shari’a and thinking that your Law of God is more correct than the law of the land. Does that make you any less American?
Dr Qadhi is no regular da’i. He does not come with rote-learned stock answers that impress only simpletons and troubled souls. By equating Shari’a with Christian ethics, he achieves several things: creates the impression that Muslims are people of high moral standards; plants in Christians the seed that Muslims are on their side; creates the impression that Shari’a is as harmless as Christianity; splits opposition to what Muslims are up to in Texas; pretends he is more American than he is Muslim; but more ambitiously, is constructing an axiom – today they come for us, tomorrow they’ll come for you. His fellow da’i, Prof. Ramadan, makes this point thus:
My last responsibility as a Muslim—we are a mercy to the world,… we have to make our presence a gift to the society and to make it clear: if today you are targeting the Muslims, at the end, all this will come back to you, because you cannot only target this segment of the society. This is important, because if the far-Right parties are taking over, we are not the only victims; it’s the whole society. We have to universalise our discourse as Muslims and as citizens, to make it clear that if we are the first target, the whole society is the second.
Muslims really, truly believe that they are a mercy to the world, a gift to society. This is not a mind amenable to reason. Of course, Muslims are not trying to change a law here and there; Shari’a takes all. They piggy-back on any non-Muslim effort that brings them closer to this target. In his exchange with Tariq Ramadan, Yasir Qadhi asserted:
All of this is protected by our Constitution. So we have to explain to the other [the gullible non-Muslims, AP] why we have the right to do exactly what they are doing. I do not have to respect the laws of the land. I have to abide, agreed. But I can criticise it, I can hate it, I can try to change it. All of this is something I will do as a Muslim. (My emphasis)
This exchange took place on the da’wah YouTube channel Islam 21c. Participants were Dr Salman Butt, Dr Qadhi and Professor Tariq Ramadan, grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood founder, Hassan al-Banna. All three are Muslims with the highest academic credentials. Between the three of them, they are associated with at least seven countries on three continents. These are not illiterate illegal “extremist Muslim” migrants. These, even the violent serial rapist Ramadan, are “respectable” Muslim immigrants (or their descendants) to different Western countries originating from different Muslim societies. Yet they are all engaged on the same project: to subjugate the entire world to Shari’a.
The West, however, recognises only international terrorism, and only patchily at best, obfuscating and denying it at every turn. On top of that, they are completely oblivious to da’wah. Who, of all the good Texans now up in arms over Dr Qadhi’s EPIC City, will join the dots when they see this post that appeared on X yesterday:
Muslim leaders in America talking about their agenda:
“Today we have 43 state delegates in the United States who are Muslim — We may end up with about 50 members of Congress in the next 6 years.”
“Use the legal system, the law. In order to change the law — Implement Sharia law through political power. Start at local government. They don't start at the top.”
“That’s really the essence of dismantling the system of injustice is to replace it with the people who represent the prophet,” who represent Islam
“Use the legal system, the law, in order to what? In order to change the law. In order to establish the deen of Allah. Allah commands us to change and replace this system. Islam is jihad. Islam is a social system. Islam is a political system.”
“if you're not with them, you're against them. And if you're against them, you know the rest”
This is horrifying. (My emphasis)
The “system of injustice” is any system that is not Shari’a. That includes the United States Constitution that Yasir Qadhi refers to as “our Constitution”. How many Americans are not proud of the number of Muslims holding public office in their country? Every such Muslim makes them proud of their Muslims and they pat themselves on the back for how welcoming they’ve been, the proof being the successful integration they see around them, perhaps even feeling a bit smug that they succeeded where Europe has failed. That they are but at a different stage of the same take-over process eludes them.
On a visit to the UK as the one-year anniversary of the October 7 massacre approached, Sheikh Dr Yasir Qadhi, in an interview with Dr Butt and Umer Suleman of Islam 21c, berated European “moderate Muslims” for their tardiness in getting Shari’a imposed across Europe, and reminded them of a moderate Muslim’s duty under Shari’a. Some detail is warranted here:
My main personal concern is that we need to understand this moment [one year of war in Gaza, AP] as a wakeup and a call to action….We need to take ownership without feeling any guilt. This is our land. I find it shameful that you in this country—we [Muslims in the US] are less than 1%. 10% of London is Muslim. At least 7-8% of the country is Muslim. I find it shameful that that is not manifested at the cultural level, at the socio-political level, at the economic level. Why not? ...Stop feeling guilty about wanting to make this country a better, more ethical country. You say, I don’t want my country sending bombs and aid to this apartheid regime [Israel]. It’s as simple as that.
There’s this fear from your side to just take ownership of this. What is the attack? You’re being quintessentially British by wanting to vote. Sure, you want to make it identity politics, I’m making it about children dying [the Hamas claims of genocide, AP]. Just flip the script on them. Take ownership and push back. It’s really quite simple.
And you [in Europe] have what we [in the US] do not have. You have percentages, the power of numbers, concentration. It is possible within a few years, 25% of France is going to be Muslim. One out of four people, but ...that they are of the most apolitical European Muslims on the planet. It’s not a surprise then, that Marine Le Pen is going to be potentially the next Prime Minister, ...don’t be surprised when the next Nazi party comes in and starts deporting [Muslims]…. What blatant racism! And you’re just sitting there debating…
This is what I'm frustrated about with European Muslims. The leadership of the European Muslim community really needs to get its act together. We [Muslims in the US] actually have an excuse. We are less than 1% of the country. Canada is 7%. Australia is almost 7%. UK, 8% 7-8%, 6%. In the major cities, you are definitely represented... Your percentages are off the charts in London, in Manchester, in Birmingham, in Leeds, in Leicester—Leicester is unbelievable [Leicester is where Muslims attempted a pogrom against Hindus in 2022, AP].
[...]
Once you take ownership and you start speaking in a different manner, this is your land. You are British; own it....It doesn’t go against [enmity and disavowal – the Islamic doctrine of hatred towards everything non-Muslim]. Once you understand you have ownership [of this country], then you understand it is your duty to make this country a better country, a more moral country.
In other words, “moderate Muslims” should not be allowed to impede “the extremists” from turning the Western country in which they live into “a better country, a more moral country… a more ethical country.” The “extremists” have their role, and so do the “moderates,” whose role is da’wah:
What can the average Muslim do? The average Muslim can be visibly Muslim and demonstrate the beauty of Islam to their peers, their colleagues, their co-workers, their neighbours. That is the biggest victory for Islam and the ummah. Do not trivialise your role. If you can influence your immediate circle to understand our religion is a positive force for society, that’s all we need you to do (if you can go one level above this and get into the reality of what's happening in Gaza and Falastin, you’ll need to know some knowledge, but even that’s not necessary, but if you’re able to, fine [code: you don’t have to remain a “moderate”]). You do the best you can and you’ve won in this world and in the Ahira [Afterlife], insha-Allah.
This is straight-up Shari’a. A common assumption amongst non-Muslims is that Shari’a stands to religion, as Western law stands to religion: as non-overlapping magesteria. Regardless of what a particular religion stipulates, anyone is free to not practise or practise any religion and to do so to any extent and in any legal way they wish. This is not the case with Islam. Everyone knows that Shari’a stipulates that anyone who leaves Islam must be killed. This alone makes Islam a crime. Not appreciated is that Shari’a also stipulates the minimum requirement to remain a Muslim:
Scholars mention that there are three spiritual stations a servant [of Allah, i.e., a Muslim] may have in his worship:
(1) to worship in a way that fulfils its obligations, by observing all its conditions and integrals;
(2) to do this while immersed in the sea of gnostic inspiration until it is as if the worshipper actually beholds Allah Most High, this being the station of contemplative spiritual vision;
(3) and to worship as mentioned above, though mainly aware that Allah sees one, this being the station of vigilance.
All three of these are of the perfection of faith, but the perfection required for the validity of worship is only the first, while perfection in the latter senses is the mark of the elect [i.e., scholars], and not possible for many [i.e., lay Muslims]. (Reliance of the Traveller, Book U4.2) (My emphasis)
In other words, to be a “moderate Muslim,”one must be seen to be practising Islam. When the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, insists, “To be clear, Shari’a law is not allowed in Texas, nor are Shari’a cities,” this is encouraging, but he fails to understand that the very presence of even “moderate Muslims” on Texas soil means you already have Shari’a. When Muslims demand Shari'a, they mean they want all of it, amputations, beheadings, stoning, paedophilia, slavery, the lot. There is no Muslim, “moderate” or “extremist”, who would oppose Shari’a, even if they personally find most of it repulsive, because Shari’a defines who each is relative to the other. The “moderates” might even emigrate to escape Shari’a, they might obfuscate it, they might even delude themselves about it, but they will never criticise it. Since “moderate Muslims” are closer to losing their status as Muslims, they are the ones who will defend Shari’a with greater fervour, lying, dissimulating and misleading as if their lives depend on it, because it does.
And now to my beloved Israel. Some are dismayed at the level of crime and lawlessness in the “Arab sector”. They put this down to criminal networks and reluctance on the part of the police to go in and clean it up, making the Muslim Arab towns and villages effectively micro-states. This is true, but it is not the whole truth. Overlooked is the shocking fact that Shari’a is permitted in Israel. Even “a remnant” of Shari’a is all the green light Muslims need to impose themselves. Shari’a stipulates that:
Areas where Muslims reside and there is a remnant of Islam’s rules, even if this is limited to marriages and what pertains to them, are considered Muslim lands. A Muslim land does not become an enemy land except under three conditions: …that not a single one of Islam’s rules remains therein. [This] effectively means that none of the lands that Islam has spread to and in which something of it remains can be considered an enemy land. As for other countries, enemy lands (Dar al-harb, “abode of war”) consist of those with whom the Muslim countries (Dar al-Islam) are in a state of war, in light of which, it is clear that there is virtually no country on the face of the earth where a Muslim has an excuse to behave differently than he would in an Islamic country. (Reliance of the Traveller, Appendix W43.5.c) (My emphasis)
As far as Muslims are concerned, if the Jews claim Israel as their ancestral homeland and at the same time allow Muslims to practise Islam in the very homeland they claim, then they are not serious about claiming it. Both the Islamic Movement, and the criminal gangs in the Arab sector, are enabled by Israel indulging the Arab Muslims with Shari’a. But worse, by boasting about Arabs in the Knesset and an Arab judge putting a Prime Minister in jail, Jews dig their own graves. They are sending the message that the land belongs to Muslims, you know, the people religiously obligated to kill all Jews. Such catastrophic virtue signalling, together with Shari’a, confirm “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” It is only a matter of time. Sabr.
The biggest mistake on the part of those either too ignorant or too timid to ban Shari’a, is that they convince themselves that Shari’a is for Muslims only, and in any case, applicable only to family matters. Yasir Qadhi played on this ignorance when he campaigned state by state to get a Shari’a foot in the US door. In the UK, it was interfaith Christians who threw that door wide open.
The cowardly, the deluded and the dishonest all advance the same argument – we have freedom of religion –without looking at what “freedom of religion” has led to, where it is bestowed on Muslims, for whom freedom of religion means freedom of sedition. Where only “a remnant of Islam’s rules obtain,” such as where Muslims are permitted to practise any bit of Islam at all, they are obligated to undermine and take over that society, because that one remnant, be it one tiny prayer room, one halal food outlet or a single hijab, makes your country theirs. The rest is a mopping-up operation. Think of how far you are from dealing with this, if you are still losing sleep over “moderate Muslims,” and you continue to indulge Muslims with “interfaith dialogue”.
There is hope, even in Shari’a itself, if you know how to use it against Muslims. In a country where it becomes impossible for Muslims to practise “a single one of Islam’s rules therein,” Shari’a obligates them to leave that country:
Rather, a Muslim in such a case should emigrate from his country, if he can find a better one, fleeing with his religion, which is obligatory if he is prevented in his home country from openly performing acts of worship. (Reliance of the Traveller, Book O25.3.a)
To clear Gaza of Muslims, Donald Trump is not required. Simply seize the whole territory, make sure that no Muslims holds any public office, make it impossible to practise anything of Islam and Shari’a will take care of the rest.
In non-Muslim lands, Muslims tolerate other religions only because they have no choice, but will work tirelessly to undermine those religions, some by terror, others by indoctrinating children in mosques and schools, and other by sharing pastries. In Muslim lands, they dispense with such niceties. If the end result is the same, does it matter that some kill, while others make pastries? Whether killers or pastry-makers, Muslims are obligated to:
Fight those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His messenger have forbidden, who do not practice the religion of truth [Islam], being of those who have been given the Book [Jews and Christians] until they pay the poll tax [jizya] out of hand and are feel themselves subdued. (Qur’an 9:29)
And in the execution of this noble duty, “Muslims may not seek help from non-Muslims allies, unless the Muslims are considerably outnumbered and the allies are of goodwill towards the Muslims.” (Reliance of the Traveller, Book O9.7) When those Muslims are no longer outnumbered, this Shari’a exemption falls away, and those non-Muslim allies of such goodwill will be the first to be slaughtered, because they are the closest and completely trusting of the Muslims, as occurred on October 7 in the Gaza envelope of Israel.
Picture credits:
Screenshot from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE0SJiuSpbQ
Peter Anton von Arnim - https://m.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.265585800208679.44760.167297203370873&type=3, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=141378672
Robert on Flickr - This file has been extracted from another file, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17340779
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=468352
Comments:
On 8 April 2025 at 18:33, Nathaniel Wyckoff wrote:
Hello Anjuli,
I’m commenting on your article titled, “The ‘moderate Muslims’ and the ‘handful of extremists’” from Arutz Sheva, April 6, 2025.
In Israel, the heart of the matter is this key statement in your article: “As far as Muslims are concerned, if the Jews claim Israel as their ancestral homeland and at the same time allow Muslims to practise Islam in the very homeland they claim, then they are not serious.”
That non-seriousness is a very deep topic that cuts at the heart of what it means to have a Jewish country in the first place. Of course they’re not serious. The political echelon, the elitist snobs running the country, still have a deeply entrenched hostility towards religious Judaism and Jewish self-assertiveness. It’s a hostility that goes back to the 19th century. Even Jabotinsky, whom you often quote, basically viewed religion as an irrelevancy. Although there were about six different definitions of “Zionism” in the early 20th century, most of them viewed the Torah and Jewish practice as things of the past.
No doubt, you are familiar with the history, and I’m not teaching you anything new.
So, given that the founders of modern Israel had a mainly secular, even atheistic, outlook, it’s no surprise that many who run the country today view all religions as equally false and dumb. If they’re all equally false and dumb, then what’s the point of having a “Jewish homeland?” A “state of all its ciitizens” will be just fine, and the Arabs are citizens, too. Since the Arabs are citizens, too, then let them have their little “Muslim-town” with their own cute, little rules that they follow. As long as I can spend Shabbat lying on my couch, watching a soccer game and eating Doritos, who cares what some religious fools do ten miles away, in their own funky neighborhood?
An Israeli newspaper mocked Rabbi Uri Zohar after his passing, claiming that he actually died back in 1978, when he embraced belief in G-d and Jewish practice.
I’ve met and known Israelis who are deeply connected to their Jewish roots and others who have no use for those roots at all. Among the latter group, I’ve heard comments like, “Religious people! They’re so stupid!”
The 19th century saw immigration from Europe, mainly of socialistic, irreligious Jews who needed an escape from pogroms and being called “Jew-boy”, as well as immigration from North Africa of deeply committed Jews who wanted to fulfill the Torah in the Jewish homeland. The clash between those competing philosophies has yet to be fully resolved. The predominance of the secular mindset, which emphasizes fitting in with the rest of the “enlightened” and “progressive” world, has enabled the Muslim problem to persist.
On 9 April 2025 at 07:00, Anjuli Pandavar wrote:
Dear Nathaniel,
Thank you for your kind words and thoughtful comment. I think this is possibly the best response I've had in all my years of writing.
Every time I think I'm getting to the bottom of the problem between religious and secular Israelis, I learn of something else that I missed. As I currently understand it, the religious might hold strong feelings about the secular, but that is all that it is, strong feelings (I am aware of the gate-keeping of the Rabbinate and the harm that does). The secular, on the other hand, display an attitude towards the religious that seems to lie somewhere between the infantile and the pathological. A religious "fanatic" seems to be fanatically religious, rather than fanatically anti-secular, whereas a secular "fanatic" appears to be fanatically anti-religious, rather than fanatically secular. Both fanaticisms are unhealthy, but that of the secular is clearly sick.
It is sick in a number of ways, the most obvious being an inability to listen to anything a religious person says, which sometimes manifests as blind hatred. But there are at least two other ways, as I see it, in which the anti-religious attitude becomes self-harming: firstly, what appears to me a terror of contemplating, even for a second, anything that is not explicitly anti-religious. Such secular Israelis seem terrified that if they were to as much as acknowledge, in the most neutral way, anything remotely connected with religious, someone might think they are religious, a fate worse than death. This is the only way I can make sense of a secular person, when having to say anything touching on religion, finding it necessary to first make it absolutely clear that his or her audience is in no doubt whatsoever that they hold religion to be untrue, even though the point at issue has nothing to do with their views on religion. In other words, they shackle their own thoughts for fear of thinking religious thoughts. This is infantile insecurity.
Secondly, secular fanatics can become so wrapped up in their hatred of the religious that they will destroy their own country and themselves along with it, purely to maintain their hatred of the religious. As far as I know, only the Shi'a suffer a similar nihilism. In other words, such secular Israelis are more religious than most religious Israelis, and I mean that in a bad way.
I take your point about Jabotinsky. Thank you. In fact, I realised this when I read his 1917 book, Turkey and the War. Jabotinsky displayed the same presumptuous and idealistic ignorance about Islam that many in the West do today. Yet, his secularism bore no resemblance to the destructive secularism plaguing Israel, a country that he, quite literally, worked himself to death to create. The Israelis who today hold such terrible hatred towards the religious would hold that same hatred towards Jabotinsky, for Jabotinsky strived for a Jewish homeland. A “state of all its citizens” is a complete negation of The Iron Wall, Jabotinsky vision for protecting that homeland.
Having said all that, there is a similarity between the fanatically anti-religious and Ze'ev Jabotinsky: they both project their own mindsets onto the Arabs. Jabotinsky thought they wanted national self-determination, as the Jews wanted national self-determination; and today's anti-religious fanatics think only as far as their "fellow citizens" minding their own business, just as they would. Both, for different reasons, make the mistake of ignoring Islam as the driving force behind Arab opposition to a Jewish state.
Of course, one has to be careful not to take this similarity too far. Jabotinsky was concerned enough about the Arabs to want to keep them as far from the Jews as possible (what the Left disparages as "maximalism", i.e., not prepared to share with the Arabs) with a strong army to keep them away, and would certainly not have said, "As long as I can spend Shabbat lying on my couch, watching a soccer game and eating Doritos, who cares what some religious fools do ten miles away, in their own funky neighborhood?" —I appreciate how you mean it, though.
The clash between those competing philosophies has yet to be fully resolved. The predominance of the secular mindset, which emphasizes fitting in with the rest of the “enlightened” and “progressive” world, has enabled the Muslim problem to persist.
I share this view, although I am not as sanguine about it as you. I do not see the problem as "yet to be fully resolved." The fightback has only just begun, which gives cause for optimism, but it's going to have to get a whole lot uglier before we see any light at the end of the tunnel. These people are ready to destroy the country. What are we prepared to do to prevent that? My worry is whether those who have Israel's best interests at heart have the heart to see this whole this through to a resolution, and I am not confident of that being the case.
With best regards,
Anjuli
On 9 April 2025 at 12:34, Ben Dor A. wrote:
Dear Anjuli Pandavar
Thank you 😊 shared.
Happy Passover 🙏
Best Regards
Ben Dor A.