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Monotheism's Eternal Triangle

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Monotheism's Eternal Triangle VOLUME 1 No.12 DECEMBER 2001 Monotheism's eternal triangle ^i the three great monotheistic faiths - foreign intervention, showed how far is the key to the whole sorry saga - from Judaism, Christianity and Islam - tiie first that decline had gone. the rejection of partition plans to the 's undoubtedly tiie oldest and tiierefore, In Christian Europe, meanwhile, two spurning of Ehud Barak's olive branch however much tiiey may deny it, tiie divergent tendencies emerged. One was last year. "aspiration for the other two. It is also, secularisation, which allowed baptised, In Europe, meanwhile, white racists ^d has been for well over a millennium, or even unambiguous, Jews (Benjamin who target Muslims and Jews alike ^6 numerically smallest and thus the Disraeli, Adolphe Cremieux) to enter benefit from Muslim Judeophobia. In niostvuberable. governments. The opposite trend was France, the police chief Maurice Papon, f^rom the Destruction of the Temple to the increasing recourse to religious having deported Jews to the gas "le War of Israeli Independence, Jews dogma in Tsarist Russia and the appeal to chambers during the war, literally ^•"c not subjects, but near-passive racist gut feeling in Germany. drowned Algerian demonstrators in the "•ejects, of history. First Christianity tiien Seine in January 1961. But how could a ^lam swept triumphantly over case against Papon for Holocaust-related °ntinents, bringing vast swathes of the crimes ever be mounted if, according to Slobe under their dominion. (Today Muslim propaganda, the Holocaust is a 3tholicism and Islam number roughly 1 Zionist invention in support of a 'bogus' 'llion adherents each worldwide.) claim to a Jewish state in Palestine? ^ize matters, but it does not Another piece of hard-line Muslim ^cessarily confer commensurate power, propaganda is the depiction of Islam as a "ough backed by most of Europe, the faith transcending race and nationality. In •"Usades made little lasting difference to fact, Arabs fought the Turkish Sultan, ^s Middle East. Islam was predominant who, as Caliph, was Mohammed's Globally, and the Christian West successor in 1917-18. Bangladesh fought PPeared on the periphery. Pakistan in 1971 and Iraq fought Iran in Hie year 1492 marked a turning point tiie 1980s. ^ the history of aU three religions. In that What flows mevitably from the alleged I'ear the 'Catholic Majesties' re­ By the 1900s the secular United States, primacy of Islam over an individual conquered Andalusia from the Moors a polity in which church and state were Muslim's nationality is the problem of ^d expelled tiie Jews. Their dispatch of strictiy separated, had become an arbiter dual allegiance. Whereas Christians olumbus to America set in motion a of the world's, and Jewry's, fate. America glossed over the confradiction that their lain of events that half a millennium not only settied the outcome of the two priests blessed the arms of both sides in ^^r made tiie USA not only the world's world wars, but also served as a haven for the world wars, Islam allegedly admits of '^ superpower, but also the chief target 2 million impoverished, pogrom-haunted no such 'fudge'. British Muslims who festering Islamic resentment Russian Jews, whose grandchildren profess to see the War on Terror as an Jewish expellees from Spain found today constitute just under half of the anti-Muslim crusade are therefore ^ 'Uge in Muslim Turkey at a time when world's Jewish population. impaled on the horns of a sharp dilemma. R ^ice and Tudor England were Though Israel has rather fewer Jews It is poignant under the circumstances *>cially judenrein, and Germany still than the US, it is the endangered Jewish to recall that the 'dual allegiance' issue allowed in the aftermath of the heartiand. For all that some of the split British Jewry at the time of the ''fderous Crusades. In the subsequent dangers which beset it are undoubtedly Balfour Declaration (which Edwin "turies the Muslim Turks' initially 'home-made', the ultimate responsibility Montagu opposed - unsuccessfiilly - in ^•"ant attitude towards the Jews for the 50-year-old Middle East ciisis the Cabinet). For today's UK Jews, 'dual •^eriorated, while their empire went rests with the Palestinian leaders - from allegiance' has long ceased to be an issue. ij^*^ an irreversible decline. TTie 1840 tiie Mufti of Jerusalem to Arafat - and Britain and Israel, both being ^ascus Affair', triggered by ritual their Arab backers. Hannah Ashrawi's democracies, could not conceivably be "fder accusations and prompting phrase 'We are an all-or-nothing people' on opposing sides in a military conflict Facing Mecca London Holocaust Exhibition Richard Grunberger draws record number of visitors During the Second World War all Britons abhorred Nazism, but a The Holocaust Exhibition at the minority - dubbed Vansittartites after Imperial War Museum will have the head of the Foreign Office - received a total of half-a-million visitors abhorred all Germans. Islamophobia, by the end of the year, said Suzanne a contemporary mindset deemed Bardgett, the Exhibition's Director, important enough for the BBC to when she spoke to over 50 people at the devote half a dozen programmes to AJR-KT Luncheon Club. combating it, is roughly comparable Suzanne Bardgett described how she to Vansittartism. In saying this I am not and her young team had set about equating the Muslim world with the putting the Exhibition together. They Third Reich - although some Islamic had consulted the Central European fundamentalists are indeed as hate- Jewish community in this country via filled, anti-Western and fanatical as the AJR and other groups. the Nazis. The creation of the Exhibition had The analogy with Nazi Germany posed a number of challenges: how to does, however, hold good if one views convey the terror of the camps and the Suzanne Bardgett the recent BBC2 series Islam, Empire of evils of Nazism in a contemporary Faith as an attempt to fill in the exhibition; what artifacts could be found visitors. She emphasised that film was historical background to the present documenting the process of mass the medium for educating young people troubled East-West relations. On destruction; whether visitors would about the Holocaust, mentioning the screen, the medieval societies of stick with a narrative which had so little Steven Spielberg film Shindler's List- Cordova, Baghdad and Isfahan were 'light relief; and how the Exhibition Moreover, the Exhibition worked with portrayed as multicultural havens of would sit alongside the museum's other young people in the wider community- scholarship and the decorative arts - displays. Above all, it was essential to notably with the Southwark police in afl with due tribute paid to the Arabs as 'get the history right'. anti-racism campaign. transmitters of Europe's lost classical Early visitors to the Exhibition Suzanne Bardgett said the Exhibition heritage. They also added to it greatly included Cheri Blair and her children maintained links with institutions (though they were helped in this by and Jack Straw and Betty Boothroyd- worldwide, including Yad Vashem in the proximity of India and China). The Delegations had come from countries Jerusalem, the United States Holocaust baton of Muslim leadership eventually such as Lithuania and Belgiuin Memorial Museum in Washington, the passed to the Turks, at which point the where analogous exhibitions were Wiener Library, and the Centre for tone of the commentary changed: in being planned. contrast to the encomia on the Arabs' German-Jewish Studies at Sussex mastery of the arts of peace, the University. Suzanne Bardgett said she read Ap^ Journal regularly: it was an 'excellent commentators now lauded the Turks The Holocaust Exhibition was publication'. She was pleased to have for creating a 'perfect fighting receiving 1,000 visitors per day. The joined AJR's Project Development machine'. response to the Exhibition had been Committee, creating an exhibition 'overwhelmingly positive'. And then at a point where that planned for 2002 to mark the cultural perfect fighting machine failed to Suzanne Bardgett stressed the contribution to the UK of Jewisl' capture Vienna early in the sixteenth Exhibition's educational value: school immigrants from Central Europe. MJ century, the series abruptly stopped. children comprised 10 per cent of all The last half-millennium, during which Islam regressed to its present AJR Journal state - exemplified by censorship, Richard Grunberger Editor-in-Chief JACKMAN • religious frenzy, harsh intolerance, Ronald Channing Executive Editor Howard Spier Editorial and Production SILVERMAN martyrs' cemeteries, public executions, AJR Journal, 1 Hampstead Gate, COMMERCIAL PROPERTY CONSULTANTS schools for pre-teen suicide bombers la Frognal, London NW3 6AL and relegation of women - was simply Tel: 020 7431 6161 Fax: 020 7431 8454 e-mail: [email protected] glossed over It was as if, in the 1930s, 26 Conduit Street, London WIR 9TA www.ajr.org.uk BBC radio had broadcast a history Telephone: 020 7409 0771 Fax: 020 7493 801? series on Germany featuring Bach, Kant and Goethe, praising Frederick the Great and omitting Bismarck, the The AJR wishes all its members a happy Chanukah Kaiser and Ludendorff. •The Under Nelson's blind eye Trafalgar Square was recently the venue from his Afghan hideout. What militant NEWTONS for an 'interpenetration of opposites' not Islam envisages - one shudders to write Leading Hampstead Solicitors Equalled since Communists and Nazis it - is a Holocaust Mark Two, with five 22 Fitzjohn's Avenue, jointly engineered the Berlin transport million Israelis following the six million London NWS SNB strike of November 1932. European Jews. This is to be taken • All English legal work Seven decades on, the role of the literally: the Al-Muhajiroun group undertaken Communists was taken up by a CND- pasted 'Kill the Jews' leaflets around • Assistance given with German, wokered confederacy of pacifists, Green London and Birmingham last year.
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