A Mosque Burns - Or Did It?

A rather large story in the Middle East concerns a mosque that was vandalized in the village of Yasuf, south of Nablus.

Apparently there was Hebrew graffiti scribbled on the mosque designed to point the finger at nearby Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria...namely Jews in the nearby community of Tapuah.

As you can imagine, this turned into a major Islamo-seethe fest, with widespread condemnations and threats. The Organization of Islamic Conference(OIC) called for 'international intervention' to protect the poor peaceful Palestinians from those wicked Joos. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas and their sympathizers in the West, who constantly sob about Israeli retaliations for terrorist attacks on Israel's civilians as 'collective punishment' called on the UN to punish Israel for what Mahmoud Abbas called 'a disgraceful crime'. And Islamic organizations and clergy went predictably berserk.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and most of the rest of the Israeli leadership fell right in line and also condemned the mosque attack. The Israeli government instructed the authorities to act swiftly in order to catch the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

And a number of Rabbis donated Qu'rans, met with the village elders of Yasuf and pledged to help rebuild the burned mosque...although their reception was somewhat less than cordial, which says a great deal. In fact, the whole tone of the villagers to this peaceful gesture was to reiterate how they need all the Jews - AKA "settlers"- gone and out of the way. So much for living peacefully together.

While I understand the Israeli's reaction, I think they were a little bit too quick to buy into the Arab narrative - and not for the first time.

Any factual proof that it was Jews that did this and that it’s not just another in a long line of Pallywood Productions?

Uh..no.

And it's also highly suspicious that there are no leads at all four days later, that the building itself was merely vandalized just enough to garner publicity and was easily restored to use, that the only things damaged were Qu'rans and prayer rugs and that the Palestinian Authority moved in almost as soon as the all important pictures were taken to clean things up. And incidentally, destroy any evidence that might have been found by Israel's Shin Bet.

Those silly Jews! They can't even do a mosque destruction properly and are in serious need of lessons in desecrating religious shrines from people who know what they're doing..like the Palestinians.

This mosque incident may be a mystery, but we know very well beyond a shadow of a doubt who burnt the synagogues in Gaza to the ground after the Jews left,who destroyed 28 historic Synagogues in Jerusalem and used the tombstones of the historic Jewish cometary as pavement during the Jordanian Arab occupation, who desecrated the tomb of Joshua, Rachel's tomb and Joseph's tomb, the Yeshiva in Homesh and the Cave of the Patriarchs.

For that matter, we know who invaded and trashed the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and is disinterring Christian bodies wholesale in Gaza too.

Some things are better left to experts.

Ever see the OIC, the PA or any other Arab/ Muslim group say anything about these little items, let alone try to investigate to see who did it and bring them to justice as Israel is? Absolutely not.

And this is hardly unique to the Palestinians. Violence towards non-Muslims and the destruction and desecration of their religious books and shrines is characteristic of virtually every area controlled by Islam or situated on Islam's aptly named 'bloody borders.' From Mumbai to Beslan, from Nigeria to Pakistan to Indonesia, non-Muslims, their religious edifices, their relics and their Holy books are a target.

For all the constant Muslim whining about intolerance and Islamophobia, it is overwhelmingly Islam and many of its adherents that are the major culprits when it comes to religious bigotry and violence..because for the most part, Islam simply doesn't play well with others. And based on their responses to these atrocities, most organized Muslim groups and religious leaders apparently couldn't care less.

I don't know who did this and I don't advocate torching mosques or any other religious shrines. But given the Palestinian track record on such matters, I'm reserving judgment until I see proof this wasn't done by the Arabs themselves. It's exactly the sort of scam they've pulled in the past.

I think there's a very good chance this is what amounts to politically motivated arson. But even if it wasn't, It's difficult for me to get too worked up about an empty mosque getting vandalized, although I don't condone it in the least. Since a significant number of Palestinians appear to glory in violence and have no respect for other people's religions or holy places, I don't think they have much of a claim on anyone's sympathy if they were on the receiving end for a change instead doing it to others.

There's a useful lesson to be learned here. Tolerance is as tolerance does, after all.