An Israeli scholar of Islamic civilization, Raphael Israeli, disagrees with the assessments of British Prime Minister David Cameron and President Barack Obama that the actions of the Islamic State (ISIS) are not indicative of the religious values of Islam.
"Every day in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Darfur, Iraq or Yemen, they kill hundreds," Israeli said. "Nowhere is there such disregard for human life, like in Islam. For the Sunnis, Shiites are worse than the Jews,"
Israel National News reported.
In condemning the beheading of aid worker David Haines, Cameron said the murder was an "an act of pure evil" and referring to ISIS, declared, "They are not Muslims, they are monsters," according to
NPR.
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In his September 10th address to the nation, Obama said the group "is not 'Islamic.' No religion condones the killing of innocents."
The Association of British Muslims has demanded that the British government and media stop referring to the group by its name.
"We are sure that most British Muslims would agree that 'UnIslamic State' is a considerably more fitting label for this poisonous group — and hope that our fellow citizens will join us in that,"
The Observer reported.
After the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush had argued in his Sept. 20, 2001, speech to Congress: "The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics; a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam," according to
The Washington Post.
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To make the point that the group was "not Islamic," Obama noted that most of the casualties and victims of ISIS have been fellow Muslims.
Writing in the
National Review, Jonah Goldberg challenged the president's reasoning: "Lenin and Stalin killed thousands of Communists and socialists; that doesn't mean Lenin and Stalin weren't Communists and socialists. If such terrorists who kill Muslims aren't Muslims, why do we give them Korans when we imprison them?"
Israeli, a professor emeritus at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has argued that cruelty "is an everyday occurrence" in Islamic civilization and that life is not necessarily sacred.
He attributed this violent sentiment to a sense of inadequacy and insecurity in Islamic society, according to Israel National News.
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