Daniel Pearl HY"D was an Islamic terror victim not a Holocaust victim
Several years ago here in Israel there was a big argument about expanding the Memorial Day for fallen soldiers to include terror victims. The context that brought the issue to a head was the crash of two transport helicopters on February 4, 1997 on the Lebanese border in which 73 IDF soldiers were killed. Were they soldiers who died in action? Would they be honored on Memorial Day? Clearly they were combat soldiers and clearly they were on their way to combat, but they didn't die in combat - both helicopters were Israeli.This got people to thinking that the distinction among the victims of Israel's conflicts who die on the battlefield, the victims of Israel's conflicts who die in uniform off the battlefield, and the victims of Israel's conflicts who die in civilian clothes off the battlefield is an artificial one. In a sense, this entire country is a battlefield and all of us are soldiers whether we are in or out of uniform. Maybe those out of uniform don't have the same level of risk as soldiers in action with combat units, but we all take risks daily by riding buses, going to crowded downtown areas, etc. It can and has happened here R"L (God forbid). And so it was decided that Memorial Day, which is next Monday this year - the day before Independence Day - would honor all those killed in "Israel's wars."
Today, as I noted yesterday, is Holocaust Memorial Day. It is the day that the Knesset chose in 1953 (as amended this year so that the ceremonies would not begin immediately after the Sabbath) to honor the memories of the six million victims of the Nazi genocide. YNet is reporting this morning from al-AP that the name of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was murdered by al-Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan in 2002, has been engraved on the wall of the Holocaust Memorial in Miami, Florida:
But journalist Daniel Pearl died for the same reasons that 6 million Jews were killed, his father Judea Pearl said.And with all due respect to Judea Pearl, whose pain God forbid I don't know and never hope to know, I think he has chosen the wrong place to honor his son's memory.
"The forces of barbarity and evil are still active in our world. The Holocaust didn't finish in 1945," Judea Pearl told a crowd of hundreds as his son's name was unveiled as the first non-Holocaust victim to be remembered at the wall in Miami Beach.
...
Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal's South Asia bureau chief, was abducted Jan. 23, 2002, while working on a story about Islamic militants in Karachi, Pakistan.
Four days later, the Journal and other media outlets received pictures of Pearl with a pistol to his head. A group calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and demanded that suspected Taliban and al-Qaida fighters be released from US custody.
Daniel Pearl was a victim of Arab terror. Many people fool themselves by claiming that Arab anti-Semitism and Muslims murdering Jews is not "anti-Semitism" but "just anti-Israel." But if it were "just anti-Israel" then why was Daniel Pearl - an American Jew in Pakistan - murdered? And why did his murderers force him to identify himself as a Jew before they murdered him? The Muslims aren't Nazis seeking lebensraun - they are classic anti-Semites. Islamic 'ideology' has nothing in common with Nazism except that they both hate Jews. And Israel, from which most of the Jews murdered by Islamic terrorists have come, should honor the memory of other Jews, like Daniel Pearl, who was murdered - like every Jewish victim of 'Palestinian' terror - because he was a Jew:
Daniel Pearl's last words, "I am Jewish," are the title of a book his parents wrote in 2004. A movie starring Angelina Jolie based on the memoirs of Pearl's widow, Mariane, is scheduled to be released this year.Mr. Pearl is right that they share a common thread. But that thread isn't just hatred - it's hatred of Jews. It's a hatred that is shared by Islamists the world over. While they share an ideology of Jew-hatred with the Nazis, pretending that the Islamists are Nazis is pretending that their threat is in the past, because the Nazis were defeated in World War II more than sixty years ago.
...
Although his son's death and the Holocaust were many years apart and "executed by people of different faith, different language and different agendas" they share a common thread of hatred, Judea Pearl said.
"We have a unique weapon -- the legacy of a person that earned respect on the east, west divide so we feel compelled to use that legacy as much as we can."
"Daniel Pearl died for the crime of being Jewish, which is the same reason the 30,000 other names on the wall also died and the six million who died in the Holocaust," said Norman Braman, chair of the Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial Committee.That's true. But the Jewish victims of Israel's wars - the children who were blown up on buses here in Jerusalem and elsewhere in this country - also died because they were Jews and not just because they were Israelis. By grouping his son with the victims of his parents' generation rather than with the victims of his son's generation, Judea Pearl is implying that the Islamists 'only' hate Israel and not Jews. And that's a dangerous delusion for all of us.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:47 AM
5 Comments:
Good point. There is just one part I disagree with. You wrote:
"The Muslims aren't Nazis seeking lebensraun - they are classic anti-Semites. Islamic 'ideology' has nothing in common with Nazism except that they both hate Jews."
While it is true that there are significant differences between islam and nazism(such as that the latter worships race and nation while the former is religious and universal) the two are more similar then you think.
Islam is seeking lebensraum and it is the whole world! From the Hadith:
Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24; Narrated Ibn Umar: Allah's Apostle said: "I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle, and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform that, then they save their lives and property from me except for Islamic laws and then their reckoning (accounts) will be done by Allah."
Islam, like nazism, is intolerant of any other religion or ideology and demands that they be eradicated or subjugated. From the Koran:
9:33 He it is who hath sent His messenger with the guidance and the Religion of Truth, that He may cause it to prevail over all religion, however much the idolaters may be averse.
61:9 He it is who hath sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it conqueror of all religion however much idolaters may be averse.
9:5 Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
9:29 Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the religion of truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.
blogsearch,
I was not aware of that. Thank you.
Witch-king,
I think the difference between Islamism and Nazism is that the Nazis wanted to rid the world of anything non-Aryan, particularly Jews. You couldn't convert and become Aryan - the Nazis even murdered those with just one Jewish grandparent.
Islam wants everyone to convert to Islam. So long as you are a Muslim, they will spare your life. But the Jews and the Christians stubbornly refuse to convert and that is why they want to murder us.
The Nazis wanted more space for themselves. Islam wants to force everyone else to be like them.
Both seek to persecute Jews. Pretending that Islam is any less hostile Jews who wish to remain Jews than Nazism was is practicing self-deception. And unfortunately I'm afraid that Judea Pearl and many others are deceiving themselves.
Note your own quote from the Hadith: "until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle." And from your last two Koran quotes: But if they repent and establish worship; until they pay the tribute readily .
You are right, Carl. That is the principal difference between islam and nazism. I just wanted to point out that besides hatred for Jews the two are similar in other ways as well. Both are totalitarian, imperialist and bellicose worldviews.
The saddest part is having to debate the best way to honor a child who was murdered.
I don't think you can really call Daniel Pearl a "child", Jack. In fact, I think choosing to characterize him as such actually dishonours him in a way.
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