Old School Wingnuttery

Stephen Schwartz (AKA The Seattle Jew) is not your average wingnut. He happens to be a regular at Seattle's Drinking Liberally. And he's the only blogger I know of who can follow up a post advocating that professional sports be controlled by the government with a post comparing Islam to the KKK. Last Friday's shooting at the Jewish Federation here gave him the motivation to explain himself further:

My response in words is this: MOHAMED KILLED JEWS.

I have been too quiet about Islam's evil side for too long. I read the Quran more than 30 years ago and have reread parts of it many, many times. The Quran shares much with the Book of Moroni, the Vedas, the Torah, the New Testament, and the Hymns of Zarathrustra... Before science, some guy comes to earth and spreads "truth." The truth has many good things .. often liberating people form oppressive priesthoods while combining moral lessons with cosmological nonsense. And all portray truths that lead to hate if not abetted. Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, have evolved since their revelations. The Hindus have their Bhagvad Gita and Ghandi, the Christians have Luther and Martin Luther King, We Jews have too many teahcers ot mention even a few. Even the Mormons, with their science fiction soap opera of a revelation, have evolved to accept Black folks as humans.

...

The teaching of the Quran is that WE betrayed Muhamed by allowing with his enemies to pass through Jewish territories. If only the Jews of Yatherib had joined the anti muslim forces, maybe Islam would have died then and there. Instead, HE KILLED THE JEWS.

Am I evil for reciting this part of the Quran? Do I not see beauty in Islam?

None of these views were unexpected. I became familiar with Schwartz's insano world at Drinking Liberally a few months back during a bizarre discussion that ended with theher being so creeped out that she hid in the ladies room of the Montlake (I eventually had to send Mollie in there to find her). Schwartz truly believes that throughout the Muslim world, people would otherwise be peaceful except for some 1000+ year old book that confuses people into believing that they need to kill Jews, and that's why there's violence against Israel. It has nothing to do with Israeli foreign policy or opportunistic Arab tyrants always using Jews as a bogeyman with which to deflect their own failures.

Having read Reza Aslan's recent book on Islam, Schwartz's understanding of what the Koran says regarding Jews is so foreign to what Aslan described it's hard to believe that they're talking about the same historical events. Considering that Aslan is a well-respected Islamic scholar and Schwartz is just some blowhard from Capital Hill, I'm betting on Aslan here. According to his book, Muhammad and his Ummah fled to the city of Yathrib after being evicted from Mecca and considered any monotheists in that city as equals. However, they eventually fought with some of the Jewish tribes of the region, in conflicts based on politics, rather than ideology. I'm sure there's debate in the community of Islamic studies over Aslan's views, but I have no doubt that Schwartz's explanation that Muhammad came to Yathrib looking to simply kill the Jews is complete bullshit. According to Aslan, the Jews of Yathrib were culturally more Arabic and followed hardly any traditions associated with real Judaism.

But after a Pakistani man walked into a Jewish Federation building in downtown Seattle and opened fine, good old Steve had it all figured out:

Islam is today an evil religion. The evil is not confined to primitive madrassa in Pakistan or the bizar goldened robed Wahabi congregations in modern Medina. It is endemic and will be until, one must hope, a new Islam .. a Quaker movement, a movement like Hassidism, or perhaps a return to the too brief teachings of Akbar the Magnificent rule of India.

Until then, I will believe that the term “good muslim” is akin to “good KKK.”

Not content to just share his racism online, Schwartz also called into Goldy's show on Sunday night. He explained how he was happy when all those Catholics he grew up around stopped being taught literal interpretations of the Bible where "Jews killed Jesus" and starting preaching tolerance. And he'd love for Muslims to do the same. But this completely contradicts everything he's saying. Literal readings of the Bible can certainly lead to a hatred of Jews. The Bible didn't have to change, just the teaching. It's the same with Islam, except that for some reason, Schwartz still believes it's the book that's the problem, and not the teaching.

No religion is the root cause of hatred, but any religion can become the vehicle used by sick, twisted, individuals to channel hatred against others. As we soon found out, the Seattle shooter converted to Christianity last year, so I guess it's back to the drawing board for Seattle's nuttiest leftist.