Cherry picking from sacred texts will leave you bloodied

In the recent marches against Israel, one of the chants heard is "“Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Mohammed will return."

I'm in the middle of my Islam unit, and I know the context of this line from the Koran, and these protestors are ignorant and antisemitic.

The prophet Muhammed was cool with the Jews, except for a group that betrayed him. He was also cool with Arabs, except ones that betrayed him. It wasn't about their religion, it was about their betrayal.

The way you deal with betrayal in the 7th century, whether you were Christian, Muslim, or any religion, is to kill your betrayers. Religion had nothing to do with it.

It would be great if they tried chanting this: "Whoever does not judge by what God has sent down (including the Torah), they are indeed unbelievers" (Koran 5:44).

I guess it's not as catchy.

Prime Minister Netanyahu also did some bad cherry picking.

On October 28, he quoted "Remember what Amalek did to you" (Deuteronomy 25:17).

For those schooled in the the Hebrew Bible, Jews are commanded not to just fight Amalek, but to wipe out Amalek, which would mean to wipe out the Palestinians, not Hamas. You can say a lot of things about Netanyahu, but he's not stupid. He had to know the meaning of the quote and its significance. There are many, many better Biblical quotes that he could have used like:

“Don’t give me over to the desires of my enemies, because false witnesses and violent accusers have taken their stand against me” (Psalm 27:12) or "Be strong and of a good courage be not afraid neither be thou dismayed for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest" (Joshua 1:9).

During these difficult times, the words and images that are chosen by leaders, by media, and by protestors carry great weight.

This post is dedicated to Shani Louk, who just wanted to dance on October 7, 2023 May her memory be for a blessing.