Not quite, Mr. Brandstetter

Submitted by Kepha Hor (United States), Mar 23, 2013 at 16:03

I join those who think that the O's Islam is merely sentimental and gotten from the Black militants of 1970's America, not very well informed by doctrine or Qur'an. Young Barry Soetero found himself in a strange land where he was legally "Muslim" because of his putative Kenyan father, and tried to fit in as best he could. Even today, it seems that the O has scarcely a word of Bahasa Indonesia, so what he picked up of Islam is probably minimal.

The O's displeasure with Israel is probably informed most by the anti-colonialist narrative of the Western Left. He knows that Israel took in lots of survivors of the Shoah (and people who so treacherously betrayed the fundamentally benign, in Leftist eyes, Eastern Bloc by leaving); and probably cares not a fig that it has a slight Mizrahi majority. Add to this that Israel was friendly with an anti-Communist America during the Cold War, and even cooperated with South Africa against Soviet allies further taints it in his eyes. And let's not forget that when the angry African-American militants of the 1970's, with whom the O identifies, sought whites to wreak their vengeance on, they picked on the Jewish small shopkeepers and schoolteachers at hand in the inner cities (despite all that American Jews had put into the civil rights movement).

And, speaking as a fundamentalist Christian (albeit one who sees the Chosen People gathered around the Messiah Jesus rather than in a piece of Middle Eastern land), the creed I have always recited speaks of Jesus' suffering crucifixion under Pontius Pilate (a Roman). I and millions of people like me recognize that Jesus is a Jew, and the conflict of which we read in the New Testament was an intramural Jewish affair rather than the invention of Gentile Identity or something like it. And I bet I could round up hundreds or thousands of Bible-oriented Christians of all demographics, including African-America, who see the same. I'm not denying that there's Jew-baiting among conservative Christians, but I do not see either the Old or New Testament demanding it of me.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".