by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n
Hudson New York Times<\/em><\/p>\n Sometime back,\u00a0I noted<\/a>\u00a0that Muslims have been projecting the worst aspects of Islam(ism) onto the Copts, Egypt’s Christian minority. This raised more questions: Is Islamist projection onto the Copts a unique phenomenon? Do Muslims project against other non-Muslims? Is there a trend?<\/p>\n To answer this question, it seemed logical to begin with how Islamists approach their archenemy: Israel and the Jews. Thinking this may be difficult to prove \u2014 it is one thing to hate your enemy per se, another to project unconsciously your worst traits onto them \u2014 I expected this might require some research. I went to\u00a0MEMRI<\/a>\u00a0and, lo and behold, in mere minutes, came across three blatant examples. Consider the following excerpts, especially the italicized portions:<\/p>\n On September 7, Egyptian cleric\u00a0Abdallah Samak<\/a>\u00a0made the following remarks on Al Rahma TV: “The Jews are known for their merciless, murderous, and bloodthirsty nature\u2026 The number one characteristic of the Jews \u2014 which appears in the Bible \u2014 is that they are always prepared for combat.\u00a0They believe that it is their fate and destiny to be in a state of perpetual war. This is not what we want. We are seekers of peace and security. We seek to spread love.<\/em>\u00a0But we are dealing with a people, a society, that believes that its destiny is linked to war. The number one characteristic of the Jews is that they are a people that believes that its destiny is linked to war. They cannot live without war. They can only live if they attack others. They can only live through annihilation, revenge, and mercilessness.”<\/p>\n In fact, the notion of “perpetual war” is straight out of Muslim doctrine and history \u2014 best recognized by the word “jihad” \u2014 and has no corollary in Judaism or any other religion. Even temporary truces are permissible only when Muslims are weak and incapable of going on the offensive: according to sharia, once Muslims are strong enough and have proper leadership (e.g., a caliph), they are obligated to expand the realm of Islam through\u00a0offensive jihad<\/a>until, in the words of the Koran, “all religion belongs to Allah” (8:39). History unequivocally attests to this approach. Moreover, while the Old Testament certainly contains many allusions to violence, these are of a historical, as opposed to doctrinal, nature. Conversely, Koranic verses dealing with violence have been codified in sharia and thus have a juridical and perpetual quality (note the word “until” in the most violent passages of the Koran, e.g., 9:5 and 9:29; see\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0for more on the differences between Judeo-Christian and Muslim violence). Finally, by quickly adding that Muslims “do not want” perpetual war, but instead seek “to spread love,” Samak reveals that, immediately after evoking “perpetual war,” Muslims naturally came to his mind, betraying a rather telling train of thought.<\/p>\n On October 8, Palestinian journalist\u00a0Khaled Amayreh<\/a>\u00a0made the following remarks on Press TV: “The Israelis are trying to divert the attention of the world from the Nazi-like crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,\u00a0by inventing an imaginary threat called Islamism. The people who are trying to take over the world, including superpowers… you know… are Zionism, not Muslims<\/em>. \u2026 The only people who are taking over Europe and the United States \u2014\u00a0they do that by lying and by mendacity\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 are the Zionist Jews… [The notion that God promised the land of Israel to the Jews attempts] to\u00a0legitimize land theft in the name of God<\/em>, just like those colonizers in North America, who killed millions of Native Americans, and they called it ‘Manifest Destiny,’ and they celebrated genocide on a day called Thanksgiving. So this man [co-debater] is\u00a0trying to justify land theft, ethnic cleansing, and genocide by attributing all of this to the Almighty<\/em>.<\/p>\n Again, aspects that are part and parcel of Islam are projected onto the Jews. After bemoaning that the Jews have “invented an imaginary threat called Islamism,” he himself evokes fairy tales of Jews taking over the world. Next, he ascribes “lying and mendacity” to the Jews when, in fact,\u00a0deception<\/a>\u00a0is a well codified aspect of sharia law, and\u00a0permeates<\/a>\u00a0Islamist society. Finally, he accuses Jews and Americans of appealing to God “to justify land theft, ethnic cleansing, and genocide,” when, truth be told, the history of Islam is riddled with conquests, land theft, and ethnic cleansing \u2014 all in the name of God. The overwhelming majority of what is today called the “Muslim world” was taken from non-Muslims by violence and bloodshed. Even the Arab-Israeli conflict is a byproduct of the fact that Muslims took, by conquest (circa 638), a piece of land that, centuries earlier, belonged to the Jews. As for ethnic cleansing, history has forgotten the many peoples and languages that were either cleansed or absorbed by the early onslaught of Islam. Modern examples include Turkey’s genocide of Christian Armenians and Khartoum’s current “cleansing” of Sudan’s infidels (polytheists and Christians).<\/p>\n On October 10, Egyptian cleric\u00a0Galal Al-Khatib<\/a>, while comparing the Shi’as to the Jews, made the following comments on Al-Rahma TV: “Jews accuse all their enemies of being infidels<\/em>\u2026 The Jews believe that all non-Jews will end up in the Hellfire for all eternity\u2026 Both the Jews and the Shiites sanction the killing of those who disagree with them. Like the Jews, the Shiites\u00a0employ treachery and deception to kill those who disagree with them<\/em>. They use the same methods to get rid of their opponents.\u00a0The Jews allow the plundering of their opponents’ property<\/em>\u2026”<\/p>\n First, few religions are as keen on dividing the world between believers and infidels as is Islam, which divides the world into the Abode of Islam (where sharia is enforced) and the Abode of War (where it is not), holding that the armies of the former must war upon the latter \u2014 as we have seen, whenever they can. Moreover, through the doctrine of “loyalty and enmity<\/a>,” Muslims are commanded to disassociate themselves from non-Muslims. As for the Jews “employ[ing] treachery and deception to kill those who disagree with them,” as mentioned, this is straight out of Muslim doctrine. Indeed, Muhammad himself ordered the assassination of several poets for simply offending him; more to the point, he permitted the assassins to lie to their victims, in order to win their trust, and get close enough to them to murder them. Finally, Islamunequivocally legitimizes<\/a>\u00a0plundering the infidel \u2014 a longtime source of motivation for the soldiers of Islam.<\/p>\n According to\u00a0one academic article<\/a>\u00a0devoted to projection and violence, “Projection allows the killer to project his (unacceptable) desire to kill (torture, rape, steal, dominate, etc.) onto some target group or person. This demonizes his target, making it even more acceptable to kill.” Little wonder, then, that Israel and the Jews \u2014 the number one targets of Islamists \u2014 are daily being portrayed by their antagonists as no better than the Islamists themselves.<\/p>\n Raymond Ibrahim<\/a>\u00a0is associate director of the Middle East Forum, author of\u00a0The Al Qaeda Reader<\/em><\/a>, and guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Israel and the Jews routinely attack in their press. by Raymond Ibrahim Hudson New York Times Sometime back,\u00a0I noted\u00a0that Muslims have been projecting the worst aspects of Islam(ism) onto the Copts, Egypt’s Christian minority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[227,504],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-i1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6796,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/muslim-jesus-demands-sharia-law-and-jizya-tribute\/","url_meta":{"origin":1117,"position":0},"title":"‘Muslim’ Jesus Demands Sharia Law and Jizya Tribute","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 26, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 Time and again, Muslims, especially those in Egypt,\u00a0project Islamic thinking onto Christians: thus the Coptic church has been\u00a0accused\u00a0of smuggling and storing weapons in its churches to take over the nation (when in fact mosques are regularly exposed housing illegal weapons for the jihad); of kidnapping and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1132,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/christians-behaving-like-islamists\/","url_meta":{"origin":1117,"position":1},"title":"Christians Behaving Like Islamists?","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Egyptian Islamists project their own means and methods. by Raymond Ibrahim Hudson New York \u00a0 The\u00a0persecution of Egypt's Coptic minority\u00a0is taking an ironic, and dangerous, turn: Islamist leaders are now projecting the worst traits of radical Islam onto Egypt's Christians. A psychological phenomenon first described by Sigmund Freud, \"projection\" is\u00a0defined\u00a0as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1331,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/collective-punishment-wherever-you-can-reach-them\/","url_meta":{"origin":1117,"position":2},"title":"Collective Punishment: “Wherever You Can Reach Them”","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Hudson New York During a recent altercation in Egypt, a Christian inadvertently killed a Muslim. This incident, according to an\u00a0AINA report, \"turned into collective punishment of all Copts in the majority Christian village.\" Two Christians \"not party to the altercation\" were killed; others were stabbed and critically\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3412,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/no-revolution-for-egypts-christians\/","url_meta":{"origin":1117,"position":3},"title":"No ‘Revolution’ for Egypt’s Christians","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim FrontPageMagazine.com On March 5, Muslims attacked, plundered, and set ablaze\u00a0an ancient Coptic church\u00a0in Sool, a village near Cairo, Egypt. Afterwards, throngs of Muslims gathered around the scorched building and pounded its walls down with sledge hammers \u2014 to cries of \"Allahu Akbar!\" Adding insult to injury, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3379,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/land-dispute-or-jihad\/","url_meta":{"origin":1117,"position":4},"title":"Land Dispute or Jihad?","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Coptic\u00a0monastery\u00a0raid revisited by Raymond Ibrahim Jihad Watch Even though Dhimmi Watch admirably\u00a0noted\u00a0the recent attack on the Abu Fana Coptic monastery in Egypt, after just watching a graphic video detailing the affair on the Arabic satellite program\u00a0Hiwar al-Haq\u00a0\u2014 which makes clear that the raid (ghazwa) was far from being motivated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1987,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/running-for-their-lives\/","url_meta":{"origin":1117,"position":5},"title":"Running for Their Lives","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Jihad Watch Historically, non-Muslims whose lands were seized by the jihad had three choices: conversion, dhimmitude, or death. Today, however, they have a fourth option largely unavailable to their forbears: quit their lands of origin \u2014 emigrate \u2014 the latest testimony to the nature of Islam. 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