Danish Imam Preaches Against Interfaith Dialogue

Hajj Saeed, the Imam of the Al-Faruq Mosque in Copenhagen, Denmark preaches against interfaith dialogue- see video link below.

Translation and partial transcript courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).

‎“I will discuss a topic that is both old and new: interfaith dialogue... The Messenger of ‎Allah [Muhammad] lived near Jews in Medina. Did he call for closer relations, harmony ‎and dialogue with them, like the UN and its supporters, who seek to reconcile truth and ‎falsehood? Or did he call on them to worship the one and only Allah? When they [the ‎Jews] broke their treaties [with Muhammad], you know how he treated them. His ‎biography tells of his war against the Jews... According to their view [interfaith dialogue ‎supporters], Jihad has become ‘suicide,’ Jihad has become ‘barbarity,’ Martyrdom-‎seeking has become suicide, and taking [financial] interest is permitted... [Allah] has ‎made laws for us that regulate our relationship with them [Jews and Christians] when ‎we are in their countries. These laws do not include so-called interfaith dialogue. On ‎the contrary, [we must] preach and adhere to the ideological struggle to counter their ‎false arguments, refute their claims and present Islam as an alternative to their bogus ‎cultures, which have led them into the abyss of vileness and corruption, and caused ‎them to deteriorate from humans to beasts.”‎

Video here on YouTube.

They should deport his posterior back to wherever he came from.

PA Officials Call Youth Soccer Match With Israel "Crime Against Humanity"

The Peres Center for Peace sponsored an interfaith soccer match between young Palestinian and Israeli kids. Great, right?  However, the effort to promote coexistence on a kibbutz in southern Israel was met with anger by Palestinian Authority (PA) officials who called it "a crime against humanity."

And these are the folk who are supposed to be moderates.

Jibril Rajoub, the deputy secretary of the Fatah Central Committee and the head of the Palestinian Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs, said the match represented “an Israeli attempt to cover up their crimes against [Palestinian] athletes,” according to a Palestinian Media Watch report released Monday.

“Any activity of normalization in sports with the Zionist enemy is a crime against humanity,” Rajoub said in a September 6 Facebook post.

The match, the first of a planned series, was hosted by the Peres Center for Peace on September 1 as an effort to build bridges between Israeli and Palestinian youths after a fraught summer of war with Gaza and West Bank tensions.

Not only that, Abd al-Salam Haniyeh, who is a member of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, wants the Palestinians involved with the effort to help Palestinian and Israeli kids to get along punished.

“The [Palestinian] organizers of this match betrayed the blood of the children of Gaza and of the martyrs, which has yet to dry a week after the end of the barbaric Israeli aggression."

 “Immediately interrogate the organizers of the match, settle the account with them and prosecute them on charges of serious treason against the blood of the martyrs [who died in the Gaza conflict] and violating the decisions made by the Palestinian sports community’s leadership."

Over 600 Israeli and Palestinian kids are scheduled to take part in these interfaith soccer matches.

More than 600 children from Israel and the Palestinian territories will take part throughout the year in the Twinned Peace Soccer Schools events. The program creates “twinned” relationships between Israeli and Palestinian cities. Sderot and the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council, both down south close to the border with Gaza, are twinned with the Palestinian town of Yatta, which is located south of Hebron in the West Bank.

The tragic thing is that the children are open and willing.

“I love it when we play together like this. I hope that one day there will be peace between Arabs and Jews and that there will be no more wars and death,” a Palestinian boy told AFP after the first event.

They have their parents to thank for the lack of peace in that region.

Macedonian Ad To "Reintroduce Religious Tolerance" Wins Cannes Lions Award

Ten Meters Apart, a Macedonian ad encouraging inter-faith tolerance, has just won the Titanium Lion at the 2013 Cannes Lions- the Academy Awards of the advertising industry- and the first time a commercial from the Balkans has won the title.

In response to the Macedonian government's call "to try and reintroduce religious tolerance," and coexistence, the ad campaign was inspired by a small village in the middle of nowhere, where Muslims and Christians use the same temple to worship.

The ad (click here) shot on 10/18/2012 features Muslims and Christians praying together, the first time ever. People now want to make it an annual event: National Prayer Day. 

The joint prayer is led by Miftar Islami, an official representative of Macedonia's Islamic community, and Father Mihail, an official representative of the Macedonian Orthodox Church.

It highlights efforts by the Christian and Muslim communities in the war-torn region to come closer together.

Lovely idea, but I didn't see any women in the ad. I guess they don't see inclusiveness of all religions and genders as an integral part of tolerance.

There are still lingering problems in Macedonia after the short, albeit bloody and violent conflict in 2001 between ethnic (Muslim) Albanians and Macedonian forces. Apparently, the country has seen a rise in ethnic and religiously motivated hate crimes.

I suppose you have to start somewhere, and as it states at the end of the commercial:

Peace is a never ending process.