An Example of a film NOT for World Peace: The notion that a one minute video could encapsulate the complexities of the Middle East and be used as evidence of anything is beyond naive. Posing as something that could inspire intellectual curiosity, the true appeal of this video is (intentionally) emotional not logical. This is a ‘branding video’ introducing the concept of “Holy Denial” (sounds like a Man-made phrase and men don’t make Holy). It is designed for people not to think or seek Truth. It aims to stir up emotions with logical fallacies that fail the test of “could this line of thinking apply to other situation if I am not biased”. The end of the video claims that the Jewish people are the indigenous people of the land. I will go out on a limb here, but the hypocrisy of the “indigenous argument” in this video was probably created by a group that does not press the United States on its own violations of indigenous people and exposes a bias which ultimately discredits that line of argument. However, let’s play along. Let’s say the Jewish people are the indigenous people of the land of Canaan. Were they the only people there? No. They were “AN” indigenous people, not “THE” indigenous people. The fact that Abraham was the father of Arabs and Jews should put that exclusivity argument to rest. The land was not uninhabited when some Jews showed up. Who were the Canaanites, then? Who were the Samaritans? If you say Arabs didn’t come until after 600 AD, are you claiming that nobody else lived in the land before then? Its not Arabs that came in 600 AD, it is Islam–A new way of thinking that was embraced by the majority of the people inhabiting the land including many many Jews and Christians. You will probably now try to use the argument that Islam spread by the sword in an effort to really say that people were forced to convert…OK, again, lets play along…what people were forced to convert? …many of the indigenous people of the land. If all the Jews in Israel today suddenly converted to Islam, could you then turn around and say that they are not the indigenous people anymore? No. In the end, we can neither say that foreign people from Mecca invaded and occupied the land in 600AD nor can we say that the people who embraced Islam were not among the indigenous people of the land. What we can agree on, however, is that one people are trying to erase the history of the other… but who? If you are in an uproar over people erasing the history of another, then you may want to direct your uproar at the United States and Israel for(among other things) trying to convince the world that Middle Eastern Muslims, Jews and Christians did not coexist in peace for centuries. You may also want to research Ashkanazi Jews before you assume that all Jews come from the same root. The simple fact that in the West we use the phrase “Judeo-Christian” heritage is a clue of who is being excluded from history in the West when we would not even be having this conversation if there was not a shared “Judeo-Christian-Muslim” heritage in languages, culture, prophets and land. And for the true intellectually curious, maybe a real question to ask is why did the Muslims build something on the Temple Mount? Why is that site important to Muslims, too? Why was Moses rejected by some Monotheists? Why was Jesus rejected by some Monotheists? Why was Mohammed rejected by some Monotheists? What brought all three to look towards Jerusalem? Could we all have more in common than we think? Is there only one “Chosen People” in the world? Or as the Quran says, are we all “People of the Book”? Which idea excludes and which idea includes?
What do you think? Does this video get a pass for World Peace or do you see it as an attempt to manipulate the uninformed through an emotional appeal? Please share your thoughts.