RELIGION

The longing for truth can often lead one to a certain religious or spiritual path. Mohammed (PBUH), the Adnanite Arab of Qureish, was a prophet who meditated in the Hira Caves seeking truth. Jesus the Messiah spent Forty days in meditation. Socrates engaged in the elenchus or self-examination to attain truth about the Cosmos and so did his pupil Platon and the stoic philosopher Zeno the Canaanite of Cittium, Cyprus. Religion and spirituality entail a desire for truth beyond the material aspect of the world and seeking the nobility of the soul.  All religions spoke of trying to improve a people.

Monotheism is an ancient concept. The Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaton spoke of one God prior to the Patriarch Abraham. Abraham means friend of God from whence the name Al Khalil (Hebron) in Palestine. The Jebusite Canaanites who were established prior to the Jews or Christians, in Jerusalem, in the land of Canaan, believed in one God. The city of Jerusalem means the city of Shalem, the Canaanite king, or URU SHALEM and means the city of peace.

Islam is the religion of the majority. With its sects being

Sunni, Shi’a, Alawite, and Ismaili. Islam entails the submission to the idea of having one God rather than having the polytheism of Qureish. Qureish was involved in infanticide of females, alcoholism, gambling, fighting etc…. As Jesus came to revolutionize the people of the Palestine area, Mohammed (PBUH) came to lift the Arabs from their deprave state. He united them under the message of the merciful and kind God. God in Arabic is Allah and the name for it in Aramaic is Allaha and Elohim in Hebrew. All those who believe in one God and believe in the prophets prior to Mohammed are Muslims to a certain extent. For Islam does mean he who submits his face to the one Lord. Abraham, Jesus, Moses, and Zachariah are viewed as Muslims in Islam.  You can be a Muslim through the Quran Al Kareem, Torah, New Testament (Injeel/Evangile)

Christianity is the next religious group. It has several sects. This includes the Antiochian Orthodox Church, the Latin Catholic rite, Maronite Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, and the Anglicans…. A large percentage of Muslims descend from these Christians and share with them a common heritage. Where Muslims and Christians differ is regarding the deification of Jesus, but this should not be a cause for discord among brothers, since both Muslims and Christians share the love of one God.

Regardless of the private, spiritual beliefs of our brethren, they are the sons of our nation. Everyone has their own vision of the truth and their understanding of it. One’s religious identification is largely determined by birth. Thus religious racism parallels racial or ethnic racism.

Religious Racism

Zionism involves the misuse of religion to deprive others of egalitarian laws that produce harmony within a society. Though the U.N. no longer says Zionism is synonymous with racism, we do not accept this until we see that actions go along with the words.

Palestinians no matter what their faith, can not accept anything less than equality for all Palestinians. We are all branches from one olive tree. What matters is the gentility of the soul, a civic spirit, cooperation, familial recognition, and seeking an answer to the Palestinian question.

I address those who manipulate religious doctrines in ways that engender inequality for their brothers under the law. An example of this was the Jews who are putting the reform Jews under a second class status and even recently bombed one of their schools. They also harass Jewish converts to Christianity and claim to be a democracy. They also desecrated Christian areas of East Jerusalem. Some ultra Orthodox members forcefully would not let reform members pray together as men and women and threw on them garbage. They called them "Nazis, Christians, and whores". They go so far as to not accept the conversions done by their Rabbis. We do not like to see racism in our region from any religious group.

Members of the orthodox Jewish sect do this and Binyamin Netanyahu encourages it, although Israel is a signatory of the UN, which goes against religious discrimination of this kind. Often, the Zionists spoke of the intolerance of Islam and tried to use the religion argument, but we see how they have an appalling record when in terms of religious freedom. It is no surprise from Likud leader Netanyahu to advocate such discrimination, since he recently questioned the "Jewishness" of Leftist Jews. He must recall that David Ben Gurion was secular and religiously one could have questioned his Jewishness. Russia is engaging in discrimination, if it will allow by banning Catholicism.

In the Arabic countries of the Fertile Crescent we accept no laws that interfere with the path to democracy. There will be no subjugation of minorities in the East as this was part of the past just as it was part of England’s past to have certain laws against Catholics.

We emphasize that spirituality rather than ceremony is what we seek. We judge not on appearances of a person entering a mosque on a Friday or a Church on a Sunday to determine their worth. The spirit is what determines their worth. Works are not enough, if the sincerity is not there; that is only hypocricy. Should you give God your heart, do duty to your family, work hard, endeavour to be honest, than God should look upon that with favour, for we all agree that he is the most gracious and merciful and loving God. Also, if a man calls himself an atheist let God judge him; not you. Should he be a noble man and respects all beliefs, perhaps this character comes from God and he is more in touch with God than many a woman or man who says they believe.