Pure wishful thinking, Jon. I didn’t hear or see Muslims beheading anyone until after the war on Iraq started. But I guess beheadings are far more barbaric then dropping a megaton bombs on civilian neighborhoods like Uncle Sam usually does, right? The causality rates speak for themselves. Over 1000000 dead Iraqis vs. 4500 dead US troops.
Islam sanctions death for apostasy only for false converts who wish to join to undermine the faith through subterfuge and treachery as the hypocrites of Medina did. There are examples of Muslims who left the faith during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammed(s.a.w.) and were left alone to go about their business after it was determined that their apostasy was not tied to betrayal of the Islamic state.
Better read a history book.

Islam justifies war only defensively. Where have Muslims attacked those who weren’t attacking us? The WTC housed CIA offices and a few military recruiter offices as I understand it. That would make WTC a far more legitimate target than some of the Christian Farms in Northern Lebanon that Israel bombed whilst fighting Southern Lebanese Hezbollah. That would WTC a far more legitimate target than an aspirin factory that might be infringing on Western patents to provide pharmaceuticals for an impoverished people in Somalia. Far more legitimate than stripping land away from Palestinians for the suffering of Jews in Germany.

In my view, no one has or can have a “religious claim” to any land. All the Abrahamic religions are illusory — or perhaps I should say delusional — and therefore any claims they make based on theological grounds are, for me, without merit.

The Jews lost Palestine in the second century. The Arabs had been living there since the 7th century. That the Jews should expropriate the Arabs because they (the Jews) were persecuted by the Germans is a false notion. Any American who believes the Jews should have a Jewish state in Palestine needs to turn over his or her property to the nearest Indians, or else he or she is a hypocrite.

I was only trying (and gently, too) to make two points yesterday. First, appeals to authority do not prove an argument. Second, that I personally dislike the Abrahamic religions — or more accurately, the believers who feel that they can (and must!) foist their beliefs on the rest of us. What any individual believes personally is nothing to me. But when their beliefs threaten or interfere with me and mine — well then, to the Devil with them, and the quicker the better.

Muslims have no claim to that land. In fact, there is an Islamic end-times prophecy that when the Messiah returns there will be almost no Muslims in the area. The Palestinians are defending their own land.

I am bothered that religious fanaticism is claimed for one by those who are restoring a 3000 yr old tome. Hell the Romans removed the Jews from there, the Byzantine empire reigned there, followed by the Ottoman empire. Some Palestinians and a few Sephardic Jews lived there for centuries.

Finally Jon, why would you pick Judaism of the three? Islam is the most tolerant of the three and offers more civil rights by our modern sensibilities. Sorry, but I feel ignorance of Islam and our own faith traditions is a big part of the Antisemitism (Arab and Jew) and anti-Muslim claims.