Dr. Emrani writes in the Jewish Journal:
4- The vast majority of Muslims are no different than the vast majority of Jews or Christians. People are people when you get to know them.
5- The extremism that exists in Islam is currently harsher than any other, but, world’s history has witnessed extremism from Christians (Crusades) as well as from secular ideologies such as Marxism or Hitler’s genetic cleansing.
6- The average Muslim wants what we all want: life, love, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
7- Most Muslims are ashamed of terrorists and terrorism and extremism, and wish as do the rest of us to rid themselves of a connection with this hideous ideology. In fact, they have more to lose by the slanders of their holy book and prophets than the rest of us.
8- Ultimately, decent people will use an ideology or a religion to help others, while indecent people will abuse the ideology or the religion to hurt others.
9- When you don’t see Muslims speak up for you or against extremists, engage them, talk to them, but don’t attack them and build walls to lock out your potentially most important allies.
10- How you react to Islam and Muslims, in the end, will say more about you than about the religion.
Rather than posting insults to Prophet Muhammad and pointing out problems to get a few likes on social media and high fives from non-Muslim friends, your efforts would do more good if you reached out and built bridges toward and befriended the decent Muslims who so much want your love. As the wise Sufi teaching goes: Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve the silence?”
Comments at JJ:
* Where is the outspoken protest against Islamic violence from the greater Muslim community? Where are their rallies on campus? Where is their outrage and vigorous defense of those mainstream Muslim values you speak of? I don’t see it. We don’t see it. And this is the root of anti-Muslim sentiment in this country, not simply racism or religous intolerance.
Muslim complacency in the face of Islamic extremist violence, which confronts and attacks the very values we hold dear as Americans — life, love, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — arouses deep suspicion. And rightly so.
Time and again, American values such as democracy and religious and civil freedom come under fire and are severely tested. You, Dr. Emrani, didn’t grow up here, so you didn’t spend weeks, months and semesters in school studying U.S. history. Perhaps you don’t fully appreciate that fighting against injustice is an American right, and a value in and of itself. When the South tried to succeed from the Union in order to preserve slavery, over 600,000 soldiers from the North paid for freedom for African-Americans with their bodies and their blood. This is what Americans do. We fight against tyranny, whether abroad or here.
The majority of Muslims here also came to this country, rather than a Muslim country, to enjoy lives of freedom and opportunity that America provides. Just as your family did. But you and they are enjoying the fruits of others’ labor. Your freedom was paid for with the blood, sweat and tears of those who came before. Neither you nor the Muslim community seems to understand that.
As long as the Muslim community refuses to stand up and speak out against their own in vigorous defense of the values you say they hold as dearly as we do, they are not ACTING according to American values. As long as they don’t rail against atrocities in the name of Islam, they will continue to distance themselves from mainstream America and arouse suspicion and distrust. And that is not our fault. It’s their fault. So we don’t need a lesson in love and healing. The Muslim community needs a lesson in the importance of defending freedom.
With this article, Dr. Emrani, you have defined yourself as yet another bleeding-heart liberal (pun intended), who blindly enjoys the American life of liberty and opportunity without recognizing that it doesn’t exist by itself, and never has. It was created, fought for and defended from the beginning, and this process can never stop.
You seem to be living in a dream world, Dr. Emrani. No one here is entitled. Everyone has to fight to defend American freedom and our precious way of life when it’s threatened — as it is now. Your Muslim neighbors aren’t doing this, and neither are you. This is what we, who have lived here for generations, see and understand.
As Jews, we accuse those around the world who stood by silently as Nazi Germany committed genocide. And rightly so. Do you not think the Muslim community should speak up against their own who suppress human rights and commit atrocities? And worse, it is done in the name of Islam.
Yes, my reaction to violent suppression of human rights, whether Islamic or otherwise, defines who I am — and I’m proud of it. I’m both an American and a Jew, and we know that we have to fight for our freedom. And we know that all Americans, regardless of race, ethnicity or religion, must do the same.
* Call your local Imam and ask him… to join me on a radio or T.V. program or even produce a you tube condemning Isis. It will not happen. They say one thing in English and then ask for the destruction of Israel in their own language. How many more innocent civilians must die. This is America and we are all Americans. Obama you are a fool for allowing immigrants from Syria into America. They will murder our families.. Declare war, Mr. President.
