Comparing Palestinians To Nazi's

ThinkProgress reports that Ben Shapiro on Townhall.Com recently said of the Palestinians:

"The problem runs deeper than a few figureheads. The Palestinian Arab population is rotten to the core."

Orthodox Jew and radically Conservative Shapiro also claimed :

"They are as responsible for their government’s longstanding evil as the Germans were for the Nazis’."

Why doesn't Shapiro just come out and say what he means? Shapiro obviously despises all Palestinian people. It is Shapiro who sounds "rotten to the core." This guy gives me the chills.

By this very same misguided logic every American citizen is also guilty of the torture and sexual violation of inmates in Abu Ghraib. By this logic every American citizen is responsible for the all the atrocities our government ever carried out.

I've heard this logic before.... where was it? Oh yeah, it was Osama bin Laden when he said it was OK to kill American civilians because we elect our leaders so we are responsible for what they do.

Shapiro's animosity and hatred towards all Palestinians is not justified, I don't understand his viciousness. Is this simple transference?

The Germans had contempt for all Jews and hated everything about them, just like Shapiro has contempt for all Palestinians and hates everything about them. So to my ears Shapiro is the one who sounds like the fascist.

Why compare the Palestinians to the Nazi's?

The Nazi's had concentration camps, gas chambers, and modern weaponry.

The Palestinians live in walled cities which they are not allowed to leave from without the permission of the Israeli's. The weapons of the bad guys? Malfunctioning AK-47's and homemade "rockets".

There are so many fundamental differences between the Nazi's and the Palestinians it isn't even funny.

For one, there are not hundreds of thousands of armed Palestinians with tanks and airplanes making line invasions into a neighboring country and throwing a particular ethnic group into ovens.

More importantly, it is the Palestinians who are living in strife and oppression. I see a holocaust of sorts, but it isn't happening to the Jews. I see a destruction of a society, a destruction being pushed from the outside and aided from the inside. I see injustice, which leads to widespread anger and eventual violence.

The German Nazi's invaded neighboring countries in a quest for world domination, the Palestinians want their own country and there has to be a way to work on that, but as long as their are pretentious self serving racist around like Shapiro it will be an uphill battle.

This archetype of people only feed into the militants hostility and anger and only make it easier for them to find recruits.

What do they need propaganda video's for when all they really need is a few articles written by Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager translated into Arabic? Then the militants can say "See how much they hate you? They don't want peace, peace is a lie."

Comparing the Palestinians to the Nazi's is to compare apples and oranges and I think this Shapiro character must have a hideous mind.

Christian, Muslim or Jew - An Extremist Is An Extremist

Security think tank EastWest Institute has issued a report that according to the AP shows :

"Violent Muslim, Christian and Jewish extremists invoke the same rhetoric of "good" and "evil" and the best way to fight them is to tackle the problems that drive people to extremism,"

and

"extremists from each of the three faiths often have tangible grievances -- but they invoke religion to recruit followers and to justify breaking the law, including killing civilians and members of their own faith."

While this report shows many of us something we have already suspected for years - it helps shed light on the fact that Islam is not the only religion that can be radicalized, all religion can be radicalized in the wrong hands.

We should always be aware of extremism in our backyard, it doesn't matter if a person is willing to kill in the name of Jesus, Mohammad or Moses - if they are willing to kill and have their unruly conviction in God behind them, then they are in fact dangerous.

This post is not intended to be demeaning or condescending towards people of faith, it is intended to highlight the fact that all religion can be radicalized, Christianity and Judaism is not somehow immune and Islam is not the only religion that can be hijacked and used for violent and political purposes that are actually in contradiction with many of the core religious teachings.

We have to understand and identify extremist in our own mist to ensure our own people are not using faith and religion to guide our country into it's own form of extremism.

Side note : And yes, I know I am not telling many of you anything you don't already know... But now you have a think tank report to add to your evidence arsenal against the radical religious right.