Muslims and Christians and Jews, oh my!

Those who (like the vaginally-obsessed Benjamin Kerstein) who prefer to live in a fantasy world rather than reality are happy to post bollocks like this lovely piece of ad hominem nonsense. The connoisseur of Orwellian doublethink will enjoy seeing Mr "you called me anti-Muslim on no basis whatsoever" Kerstein not only implying (via heavy sarcasm) that the "real problems facing the world" are not, apparently, poverty, homelessness or lack of health care but "Islamic terror and the clash of civilisations". (Gosh, those millions of kids in Africa dying from water-borne diseases - to think it's all the fault of wicked Muslim terrorists and we never knew.) But for those of you who can bear to hack your way through the spittle-drenched expletives and the comparisons to Hitler (you must remember that anyone Ben disagrees with is ipso facto a Nazi) which take the place of any kind of argument, there is this gem to be had:

(Tony Kushner) lumps together "Muslim and Christian and Jewish fundamentalists" without the slightest understanding of the fact that Christian and Jewish fundamentalists haven't been flying planes into buildings anytime in the recent past.

Now let us leave the fetid swamp of right-wing Israeli extremism (you'll see why I waded into it in a moment) and turn to this interesting (and vastly better-written) post on a story (only covered here as far as I can tell in Britain) from the Huffington Post. I give you the tale of Mark David Uhl, America's very own Christian fundamentalist bomber:

Uhl was an a devout evangelical Christian who advocated religious violence in the name of American nationalism. Uhl's blog, featured on his Myspace page, offers a window into the political underpinnings of his bomb plot. In one post, Uhl implores Christians to die on the battlefield for "Uncle Sam." He justifies his call to arms by quoting several Biblical passages and reminding his readers that the "gift of God" is eternal life.

"Christians, we have been given life after death and we should help others receive it and not sit here in our big buildings and sing to ourselves so we can go home and feel good about ourselves," Uhl writes. "Christians, fear of death, fear of death. The fear of death shows you don't believe."

Uhl concludes, "God needs soldiers to fight so his children may live free. Are you afraid??? I'm not. SEND ME!!! "

What's the Christian for "Jihad"? Sudden Bibliolatrous Murder Syndrome, maybe?

The Christian right has warped religious doctrine to advance a Utopian political worldview that promises to purify the land of liberal decadence. Through one of its flagship universities, the Christian right produced a terrorist.

And if he turns out to be the only one, I'm Marie of Roumania.

So I'm inclined to go along with Tony Kushner on this one. Jewish, Christian and Muslim fundamentalists should all be treated with the same suspicion that they just might turn into deranged murderers. And of course ordinary Jews, Muslims and Christians should in no way be held guilty by association because of their crazed co-religionists.

Though what's the betting that Kerstein the seldom-relevant (but never, he keeps whining, anti-Muslim) will insist that only Muslim fundamentalists fly planes while benign Christian and Jewish ones use bombs and machine guns to carry out their murders (or attempted murders)?

P.S. For the sake of fairness and completeness, a few representative examples of Jewish fundamentalist terror:

Baruch Goldstein. And his fan club.

The King David Hotel murders (still celebrated and commemorated with an official plaque).

Some terrorists who hide behind IDF uniforms.

Some who hide as peace-loving "civilian" (but armed to the teeth) "settlers". (See p.2 of the AI report : Attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories.)

But, yes, Ben, I admit it: not a Boeing 757 anywhere in sight. Clearly a completely different class of fundamentalist murderer.