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Electronic Intifada: “Death to Arabs” Protest In Tel Aviv

By on April 22, 2016 in Loon-at-large

Death_to_Arabs_Tel_Aviv

via. Electronic Intifada

In Tel Aviv’s Yitzhak Rabin Square on Tuesday evening, thousands of Israelis rallied in support of Elor Azarya, the soldier filmed executing a gravely wounded Palestinian last month.

Rally-goers shouted anti-Arab slogans and attacked persons perceived as being leftists or journalists.

Hours earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a call for leniency for the soldier.

Times of Israel reporter Judah Ari Gross tweeted that an activist from B’Tselem, the human rights group that released the video of Azarya shooting and killing Abd al-Fattah al-Sharif, had to be escorted out of Rabin Square by police in order to “protect his life.”

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    • Awesome

      I think islam is bad because, according to the hadith, the punishment deemed appropriate for leaving islam is death.

      More accurately, the death penalty for apostasy is in accordance with medieval Islamic legal tradition that is derived from those ahadith. However, God in the Qur’an says that there is “no compulsion in religion” (Qur’an 2:256) as well as ordaining that “whosoever will, let him believe and whosoever will, let him disbelieve” (Qur’an 18:29) and while God mentions those who apostate from Islam in the Qur’an, God mentions nothing about any legal punishment for them, much less the death penalty in the Qur’an. In addition, there is no authentic account of Prophet Muhammad or any of his companions killing any apostates from Islam simply for apostasy, while there are authentic accounts of unpunished apostasy from Islam during that time.

      Rather, there is a controversial legal tradition developed by medieval Muslim scholars and jurists, after the time of Prophet Muhammad and his companions, in which apostasy from Islam is penalized with capital punishment by the state. This legal tradition is based on 2 somewhat-ambiguous statements in certain ahadith, (which have significant variations in their various transmissions) and there has always been a minority of Muslim scholars and jurists – since the inception of this legal tradition – that have opposed it. In these ahadith, it is alleged that Prophet Muhammad said that, “Whoever changes his religion, kill him” in one statement (Sahih Bukhari 52:260, 84:57, Sunan Abu Dawud 40:4337, Jami’ at-Tirmidhi 15:1458, Sunan an-Nasa’i 37:4064-4070, Muwatta Malik 36:1419) and that it is permissible (which does not necessarily mean obligatory) to shed the blood of a Muslim who “abandons his religion and separates from the community” in the other statement (Sahih Bukhari 83:17, Sahih Muslim 16:4152, 4154, Sunan Abu Dawud 40:4352, 4353, Sunan an-Nasa’i 37:4021, 4022, 4053).

      Obviously, one must preclude the other between the Qur’an and the ahadith on this matter. For most, it is generally understood that “no compulsion in religion” only applies to someone who has never been a Muslim. For others it is maintained that the death penalty was really a punishment for treason, which happened to go hand-in-hand with apostasy at the time.

      In the case of the latter viewpoint, both statements would be viewed as more specifically referring to those apostates who “wage war against God and His Messenger” – through threats, intrigue and armed attacks against the Muslim state – and thus became enemy combatants. This is in fact what (Sunan Abu Dawud 40:4353) and (Sunan an-Nasa’I 37:4053) say and is consistent with (Qur’an 5:33) and the fact that the apostates that were killed, were always guilty of it, while those apostates who were not guilty of it, were not killed.

      Like the jizya tax, the death penalty for apostasy originally only applied to those guilty of “waging war against God and His Messenger”, and was therefore originally about defense and security. Also, just as the jizya tax was generalized in Islamic legal tradition after the first generation for all non-Muslims (regardless of enemy status) so too did the death penalty for apostates become generalized for all apostates from Islam (regardless of enemy status).

      Historically, it is a pre-Islamic law that the Romans applied both before and after their conversion to Christianity, and which up until the 1700s-1800s CE, was legally applied by the Christian establishment with “burning at the stake”. This provides precedence and context for its inclusion in medieval Islamic legal tradition and today the death penalty for apostasy is only part of the legal system for a minority of Muslim-majority countries, as being burned at the stake is by certain Christian societies.

      However, regardless of what the case may be and even on the basis of this medieval Islamic legal tradition, what a person who was a Muslim actually believes in their heart is irrelevant because apostasy is legally judged based on words and/or actions and not on what is inside a person, which cannot really be accurately determined by legal means anyway. Ultimately, it is a matter pertaining to statehood in Islam and not to the religion of Islam itself. Any obligation with regards to its application is therefore only relevant to those in public office where it is legally applied. There is little-to-no obligation for anyone else in this regard, which makes it largely irrelevant.

    • Awesome

      Yes, the bible has stuff in it too, but I’m addressing Islam here. What is the relevance of any other religion here? And how can what I say about punishing apostates be refuted when what I wrote is a fact. According to trusted Muslim sources, Muhammad said that those who leave Islam should be killed, and I consider that a bad thing. If other religions have bad things in them, that doesn’t make islam less bad. It’s irrelevant.

      In comparing Islam to other religions, it is very relevant. While you say that other religions may have “bad things” in them, you only say that Islam itself is bad because of it. If the fact that these things exist in other religions is irrelevant, then it stands to reason, that the fact that it exists in Islamic legal tradition is also irrelevant.

      And what makes it all the more disquieting is the fact that these exhortations to kill apostates are still valid today and are enshrined in the laws of muslim countries. There are no Christian countries where blasphemy or apostasy are punishable by death, but this is the case in several muslim countries.

      Yes, there is a death penalty for those who openly apostate from Islam in several Muslim-majority countries. However, that should be kept in perspective, as it is only in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan and Mauritaria where apostasy from Islam is punishable with death, which is only 8 Muslim-majority countries out of 20 that have laws against it out of a total of 54 Muslim-majority countries worldwide. That means that there are 34 Muslim-majority countries (more than half of the total) that do not have any laws against apostasy and 46 Muslim-majority countries (approximately 6/7 of them) that have no death penalty for apostasy from Islam.

      Christianity has no political power today like it did centuries ago, so there is no penalization for apostasy and blasphemy in Christian-majority countries like there used to be. In addition, unlike Islam with its sacred texts, there are no laws or any legal tradition that Christianity can derive from its New Testament. Thus, when it gained statehood, its governance was subject to the whims of whoever happened to be in power.

      Since dealing with apostasy has always been a state matter, it follows that religious traditions with no statehood policies and with no statehood cannot properly factor into a comparison about apostasy with religious traditions that have statehood policies and a statehood. Controversial medieval legal policies that a small fraction of Muslim-majority countries still have in place today hardly seem relevant enough to be at the forefront of a discussion about the religion itself. There are more relevant aspects to Islam besides controversial legal codes and penalties.

    • Adam C

      OMG! Do you think that makes it okay? Why should someone have to keep their departure from islam private? To kill anyone because they change their religion is appallingly backward. Not in the Quran, but did Muhammad not say that “Whoever changes his Muslim religion, then kill him”? (Sahih Bukhari 9:57)

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