Israel, Jew-hate and Western sensiblilties

When you live in Israel, your experiences tend to be unique. That's the way it always is. What you experience in your home-place is different from what others experience at their home-place.

Israel's uniqueness is that it's both Western and non-Western. There's a strong Arab influence here. 

Part of that influence is Jew-hate. It seems built into Arab culture the way materialism is built into the American culture. 

To use a mundane analogy, Jews in Israel feel an Islamic-based Jew-hate in much the same way an American feels sports fever in a city that has a rival professional sports team. For example, a Jew in Israel might feel Jew-hate the same way a Pittsburgh Steelers' fan (wearing his team's colors) might feel sports-hate should he travel to a Cleveland Browns' stronghold.

But Islamic culture is different. It's hate is more serious. 

It's not just 'hate'. It's genocide--the desire to harm or kill an individual precisely because he belongs to a group, in this case, Jews.

In a way, it's worse than genocide. The Islamic culture seems to wrap its genocide in an Islamic blanket. It turns 'hate' into 'religion' in a way Westerners don't understand.

Islam is very different. It does the opposite of a Western-style religion would do. It makes the unacceptable, acceptable. It makes murder, moral.

To a Westerner, that's incredible. It's unbelievable. It's the reverse of what should be.

Islamic hate-as-religion is a one-of-a-kind. There's nothing like it in the West.

Here's a video. It's less than two minutes long. You'll see in this video just one example of how hate is wrapped into a religious blanket.

First. here are two semi-definitions for you, to understand the terms you'll hear. I call them 'semi-definitions' because I don't speak Arabic (I don't understand why the font has suddenly changed at this point in the essay; I can't seem to correct it):

-ribat is guarding. It refers to keeping watch; it's also used to refer to carrying out jihad against infidels (wikipedia). 

- a martyr is a person who willingly undergoes tribulations, even torture and death, for the sake of a dearly held principle (quora. com). For our video, perhaps it refers to one who sacrifices himself for Islam.

-a murabit is different, in a nuanced way that, apparently, makes sense to a Muslim. He is one who does ribat. He is a person garrisoned in an Islamic enclave, who dedicates himself to Jihad, holy war for Islam ("Passerby scolds Sheikh for teaching kids martyrdom", Arutz Sheva, July 29, 2015).

Here's the video:

Maybe you heard something different from what I heard. But I heard in this religious sermon an implicit validation of killing Jews--for a god. I heard a religious acceptance of killing Jews for a god. 

That's genocide-in-the-name-of- a religion. As a Westerner, that concept is completely foreign to me. As a Jew, it is extraordinarily offensive.

I also heard a religious glorification of death. That, too, is something a Jewish Westerner is unfamiliar with.

For this sermon, there is something uplifting about dying a violent death (martyrdom in this region is violent death; so is death-by-ribat). As a Westerner, I don't believe in the virtues of violent death. As a Jew, the concept is repulsive. 

Peace is not possible when religion promotes death-by-martyrdom or death-by-ribat. Peace won't 'happen' when Islam preaches that the spilling of blood brings a special  religious heavenly reward.

As a Westerner, you'll never bring peace here if you ignore this reality. Arab culture simply won't accept any plan that ignores the glory of ribat, jihad and martyrdom.