Islamic terrorism is well-known in Israel, but sometimes the terrorists are not always Muslim. In a recent story, two Jewish terrorists with a history of racist violence attacked and vandalized a Church in Israel, blaspheming Christ and calling for the genocide of non-Jews were acquitted by the courts and to the dismay and frustration of the Christians according to a report:
A Christian representative in Jerusalem has denounced the acquittal of two Jewish youths suspected of vandalizing a famous monastery.
Wadie Abunassar, an adviser to church leaders in the Holy Land, said on Tuesday that an Israeli court’s decision to acquit those suspected of sprawling anti-Christian graffiti on the Dormition Abbey several years ago is “unacceptable.”
He said the outcome is that those who carried out the attack weren’t “brought to justice” and Israeli authorities must find and punish them to deter others.
Israeli prosecutors announced Monday that they would be dropping their case against the two Jewish far-right activists they had indicted on a series of crimes, including membership in a terror organization and vandalizing the monastery.
The prosecution informed the Lod District Court that it did not have enough evidence to prosecute Yinon Reuveni, 23, and a second suspect, 21, whose name has been barred from publication as he was a minor at the time of the incidents for which he had been charged.
In February 2015, officials at the Dormition Abbey found parts of the seminary burned along with Hebrew hate slogans graffitied on the walls. Messages included “death to Christians,” “death to Arabs,” and “Jesus is a monkey.”
The Dormition Abbey, which is located next to the Cenacle — a compound that Jews revere as the site of King David’s Tomb, and Christians as the room of the Last Supper — outside the Old City’s Zion Gate, has been the site of numerous graffiti attacks over the last decade. In 2014, hours after Pope Francis celebrated mass at the Benedictine abbey, where Christians believe the Virgin Mary died, arsonists set fire to the compound, causing minor damage.
It is a popular site for pilgrims and tourists.
The attack came amid a spate of vandalism on Christian targets in recent years by suspected Jewish extremists and terrorists. It was widely condemned by Israeli leaders and others.
Reuveni and the younger suspect were originally arrested in January 2016 as part of the Shin Bet’s broader crackdown against the “terrorist infrastructure” behind the deadly July 2015 firebombing of the Dawabsha family home in the Palestinian village of Duma.
The minor whose confession was thrown out was arrested for the vandalism along with two other suspects: Reuveni, who has since been sentenced to five and a half years in jail for the July 2015 arson attack at the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes in northern Israel; and another unnamed minor who was indicted as an accomplice in the Duma terror attack in 2016. (source, source)
Terrorism is also no stranger to any religious or political group. What makes Islamic terrorism so fascinating is that it comes not from an individual man acting in the capacity of personal choice, but is a theological part of Islam that is inseparable from the practice of the religion itself. If that is not amazing enough, it is even more fascinating to consider the observations of the acclaimed Jewish scholar and Rabbi Abraham Geiger, who points out in his groundbreaking study Judaism and Islam that Islamic theology and practice was for the most part derived entirely from Talmudic sources, and he provided copious references to support his position.
In the years leading up to the coming of Mohammed, there was an Arabian Jewish leader named Dhu Nawas who waged a horrific war on Christianity in Arabia. Were it not for the military intervention from the Ethiopians, it is possible that he would have completely wiped out all of the Christians in Arabia in what would have been a genocide in the ancient world. Instead, he was defeated and committed suicide.
It is important not to hate men because of their ethnicity, for such is wrong and evil. Indeed, one should oppose another man based on principles of truth, particularly over matters of right and wrong, because it is the knowledge of truth that brings a man to a relationship with the Lord and from that it brings salvation.
The term “Christian terrorism” is an oxymoron because while it is obviously clear and well-documented that such individuals exist, there is no serious theology to back up this position. The closest examples would be groups such as the Mormons, who are not Christian at all but are pagan sects with a Christian presentation. Islamic terrorism does not even need to be explained further as it explains itself.
But perhaps noting the works of Rabbi Geiger on the ontological relationship between Islam and Judaism and to that, a careful study of the Talmud, that one may want to reconsider the relationship between terrorism and Judaism in a theological-historical context and as a primary source of potential inspiration and further reference material for Mohammed’s elevation of terrorism to the place of it being a theological and moral duty.
Perhaps attacks such as these and the many other well-known cases are not the work of radical elements, but rather a manifestation of deeply-held theological beliefs which while practiced by very few still remain in force and manifest on the occasion when a man bound by a personal duty to following religious convictions chooses to enforce them.