financeguy said:
Even though he despises Islamist terrorism as much as anyone on here, he will openly admit to me that he dislikes Jews having influence.
I would also mention in passing, that if you are an Israeli citizen, you cannot be admitted into Malaysia, a so-called 'moderate' Muslim country. That is fact.
there is some truth to this.
i think, at least in the States, we're pretty much sealed off from the anti-Semitism that's in most of the Muslim world, and even still in parts of Europe. in the US, where Jews are, in many ways, the most successful group that has ever immigrated (at least until recently, as it's now South Asian Indians ... yet, the two groups have a high rate of intermarriage and give birth to the cutest word i've heard of in a while Hin-Jews), and most anti-Semitic language is simply laughed at. we don't have much of a history of anti-Semitism, and whatever has existed, is mostly in right wing paranoia about communists and the fact that, well, Jews tend to be pretty successful. it's easy to hate those who are successful (and, interestingly, much of anti-semitism has parallels with homophobia ... but that's another thread).
however, it is astonishing the extent to which the Israeli/Palestinian crisis (for lack of a better word) has been turned into the defining paradigm for how a large part of the Muslim world understands geopolitics -- that the Jews (led by ... who? Steven Spielberg?) control America, who in turn funds and arms Israel, who then oppresses Muslims. it fuels conspiracy theories, and leads to precisely the kind of amazingly discriminitory policies like FG has pointed to.
point me to another country that has a similar law aimed at any one religion.
what this does show to me, again, is that 1) religion is a human institution, and 2) it contains more power than any other institution because it posits access to the divine and the infinite and the absolute, and can thus be wielded as a weapon of death on par with any WMD.