Sunday, December 13, 2009

About That "Negative" Ad...

Imam Dr. Zijad Delic, National Exective Director of the Canadian Islamic Congress, responds to that "inexcusably provocative" (to borrow another Congress's phrase) B'Nai Brith ad:
On November 9, 2009, Canada’s National Post newspaper published an outrageous, polarizing, and distasteful full-page fundraising advertisement by the prominent Jewish organization, B’nai Brith.

 The headline of this Islamophobic and offensive advertisement -- The Unholy Alliance - introduced an utterly false assertion that both Islam and Nazism share the following objectives: "Killing Canadian men and women on the battlefield, incitement of children through schools and media, annihilation of world Jewry, and subjugation of everyone else, [and] world domination."

The advertisement featured photos of both Adolph Hitler and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, clearly inferring (sic) that only Muslim leaders co-operated with Hitler and kept quiet while the Nazis killed Jews. (Many Christian leaders and leaders from other faith traditions, as testified by history, turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the plight of Jews during that horrible time and the Church has repeatedly acknowledged this tragic failure). Contrary to B’nai Brith’s position, many Muslims and their Imams were considered "righteous gentiles" by Jews for risking their own lives to save brothers and sisters of another faith - in this case Jews. The same honorific of "righteous gentile" was applied to Christians who defied Hitler in the same way. But here in Canada, in 2009, B’nai Brith singles out one Muslim Imam (from another continent, and little known among Muslims) and attempts to tar all Canadian Muslims with the same hateful brush, intentionally ignoring the good that countless Muslims and their Imams have done. The advertisement is a very sinister distortion of history, to say the least.

And worse, it leads B’nai Brith to the illogical conclusion that the Muslims of today are a threat. Therefore, as the ad suggests to readers: "We must wake up from our slumber - before it is too late." What a great theme for fundraising! Muslims, as witnessed during the last decade, are such an easy target; vulnerable and barely protected by the weak anti-hate laws in most Western countries...
Got that? We're the victims. We're vulnerable. Us, not the Zhooooos!

As I recall, the ad was meant to wake people from their slumber re Iran's getting set to nuke the Zionist entity off the map, thereby completing the job Hitler began all those decades ago. Not once did it say that all Muslims were a threat, nor "tar all Canadian Muslims with the same hateful brush." The imam has arrived at that illogical conclusion all on his own.

As for it being a " very sinister distortion of history": methinks not.

And the bit about Muslims numbering among "the Righteous Gentiles"? Well, yes, it did happen. Once. In Albania. Call it the Albanian aberation. It's a historical fact, though, that many, many, more of their co-religionists were rooting for the other side (and still are).

3 comments:

Gordon Underhill said...

The ad was a gift to the anti-Israel crowd. If I recall even Holocaust survivors were critical and I fully understand it. Islamist Extremism is for sure the scourge of the 21st century. It is hateful and ugly. It is not the holocaust. When groups like BB try to make this connection it diverts attention from the real issue, Islamic terrorism. We spend entirely too much time discussing BB's stupidity as opposed to the real issues out there.

Blazingcatfur said...

The ad worked period.

Unknown said...

Well Gordon, the ad was a 'gift' to Jews and non Jews alike who need to be reminded of what just can happen when you bury your head in the sand.