Beheading of James Foley
Why Beheading of James Foley is worse than Killing 500 Gaza Children
Jalal Abualrub
James Foley was beheaded: How many times did you hear about this incident? Where did you hear about it? What was the headline? How big was the headline? Have you seen the videos and or the pictures, and how widely available these were?
Gaza Children: According to the United Nations’ UNICEF, Israel’s last war on Gaza, in 2014, led to the killing of 469 of Gaza’s children. Palestinian ministry of health counts 560 dead Gaza children. How many times did you hear about these numbers? Where did you hear about them? What was the headline? How big was the headline? Have you seen the videos and or the pictures, and how often was this news circulated?
Which of the two violent incidents captured the imagination of the world, especially the West? Which of the two violent incidents became more vividly and passionately described as being terrorism, barbaric, vitriolic, horrific, abhorrent, the dark side of faith, and so forth?
The children who died are already dead and cannot be helped from this side of life, but we can contemplate their fate. Their presence on this planet was brief, with no time to dream about what they wanted to do in the future. How many among them were decapitated (beheaded)? How many among them lost their limbs, were mutilated, disfigured, cut to pieces? How many among them died instantly, and how many agonized and cried out for help, or in pain, before they died? Did anyone have time to explain to them, before they died, why they were killed? Was any of them made to understand how, when rockets and bombs were falling on their UN safe havens where they were hiding, herds of Israeli settlers were standing on the other side of Gaza watching, eating popcorn, inviting news reporters to ‘popcorn’ with them? Did any of the dead Gaza children understand how ‘civilized countries’ condemned Israeli bombing of their safe havens and schools where they were hiding, then went ahead and said to Israel, “By the way, here is $225 million worth of more bombs and ammunition; we were afraid you might run out of bombs, rockets, and bullets”?
Yet, the beheading of James Foley was worse than the killing of 500 Gaza children: he was a westerner. However, this is why the killing of 500 Gaza children should be 499 times worse than the beheading of James Foley: Foley’s life, taken unjustly, is only worth the life of one Gaza child, whose life was also taken unjustly. That leaves at least 499 young lives, all taken unjustly; lives that received less shock or media coverage than the killing of one western man.
Has hypocrisy reached new highs, or more accurately, new lows? Has the very essence of human decency become so degraded and downgraded that the death of 500 children is treated less humanely and less news-worthy than the beheading of an American journalist? What about the death of countless Muslim children in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Mali, Burma, Yemen, and other areas? Are they just numbers, faceless casualties, collateral damage that have become part of the endless lists of death and destruction which, indirectly or directly, were brought on them using western weapons, western armies, western advisors, western drones? What about the Russian elimination of one quarter of the population of Chechnya and the massive death and destruction Russia rained on Syrian civilians, are these crimes less horrific than for Russia to send trucks carrying aid to the rebellious Russian armed gangs fighting in eastern Ukraine? What about the Muslim children of Burma, are they less worthy of respect and praise than the Burmese de-facto leader and peace prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, who said absolutely nothing to condemn their killing? What happened to the countless Muslim children who died in recent conflicts, and how much are their collective lives worth in today’s world?
Gaza children did not have the chance to understand these issues. Even if they did, they would never agree that their ‘case’ is treated with less news-worthy enthusiasm than the unjust killing of one western man. They can never understand how close to 3000 Gaza civilians are killed in supposed retaliation for the killing of 3 Jewish settlers, at a rate of 1000 to 1
I was never, and still I am not, impressed by Hamas, its leaders, ideas, practices or what they do or do not do. When I see lines of young children taken from this life so early and so violently, I feel that Hamas, Israel, the Arabs, and the West, have all become irrelevant.
Beheading American journalist James Foley in the name of the Islamic State, carried out by a British executioner, is by no means a legitimate act carried by an Islamic state or its legitimate representative. What does Islam have to do with herds of western men, who were either horrible Christians, awful atheists, or ignorant non-practicing Muslims, who go through an amazing transformation into, or back to, Islam, only to become horrible Muslims with no sense of what Islam is truly about, let alone severely lacking wisdom and the eagerness to benefit humankind? Allah sent His Messenger, Muhammad, for this mission: {O Prophet! Verily, We have sent you as a Shahidan (as a witness), wa-Mubash-shiran (and as a bearer of glad tidings), wa-Nadhira (and as a warner); And as one who invites to Allâh [to worship none but Allâh (Alone)] by His Leave, and as a Sirajan Munira (as a lamp spreading light, through the Qur’ân and his Sunnah traditions)} [33:45-6]. Meanwhile, these people tarnish the very image, and deviate from the very true practices of Islam. To call their group, ‘The Islamic State,’ is appalling enough. What they, and their fellow Islamic-Staters, who instruct them in the religion, commit in the name of Islam, is decidedly worse.
I cannot understand how people who discover Islam and its wonderful creed, after having lived in depression under the tyranny of unjust and false creeds, enter Islam full of rage against other Muslims who do not agree with their deviant view of Islam. Had they had mercy in their hearts, they would have come into or back to this religion full of compassion and with the realization that they should give others the same opportunity they have had, that being, to teach them Islam so they may feel eager to embrace its creed. Instead, they have unexplained rage against everyone else, including Muslims who do not share their ‘take’ on Islam. However, I should say, most of the new comers to Islam are different. So many of them come to Islam with dedication, passion, and mercy, knowing that they should learn this religion and practice it correctly, then teach it to others who do not know its wonderful creed and practices.
What do rappers, singers, dancers, addicts, drunks, secularists, or atheists know about Islam before they suddenly become Muslim? When did they have the time to learn Islam after they became Muslim to make them judges, executioners, scholars, and establishers of the Islamic State? One does not become a scholar in any religion by merely embracing or re-embracing its creed. How can a young British man who used to rap as a way of life, literally and overnight, become an agent for upholding the law of the Islamic State, supposedly including beheading a journalist? Where, when, and how did such people acquire such knowledge? Does this make any sense? Who gave these people permission to act on behalf of Islam and Muslims? Who gave them permission to fight the entire world in the name of Islam and Muslims?
James Foley may have had compassion for the plight of Syrians before he was captured and kept as a prisoner for two years, then beheaded. But, why are these westerners so intent on traveling to areas of conflict, acting as if they are collecting news, and then when they are captured, they issue passionate pleas to their governments to do all they can to have them released?
As for Gaza, no matter what we say here, we cannot possibly imagine the suffering they have been going through, seemingly without end. The only relief their dead children have, is that they are now with the Most Merciful, Who is more merciful with them than they are with their own selves. They will complain to Him about what happened to them, who did what and who did nothing. With Him, they no longer are just a number lost in the midst of invoices of free shipments of weapons and ammunition to gangs of armed Jews who think that Allah created this entire universe to serve them. Each of these dead children will be treated by Allah as a separate, independent entity; a life worth respecting; having complaints worthy of being listened to and addressed. Their complaints will be heard, and judgment will be issued and passed by the All-Mighty, the All-Wise, the Just in all of His decisions.
Gaza’s children are simply in the way of the current generations of Jews who are struggling to keep land they think they have recaptured, but which was never theirs to begin with. They are using other people’s tax money to buy or acquire instruments of death, also manufactured by others. They have decided that to reach their goal, Gaza’s children will have to be removed out of their way, so that the master plan of ‘God’s favorite (i.e., only favorite) children’ can be fulfilled. A large number of the Gaza’s children have been efficiently removed. Only 200,000 Gaza children remain alive. How many 250 million-dollar shipments of ammunition and rockets would that make?
I demand nothing here from the UN, NATO, Russia, China, the West, or the East. They have proved to be, at least, useless, if not blatantly and actively against Islam and Muslims. Their history in this regard and their actions are dreadful; their inaction is far worse than dreadful.
However, I demand this from Muslims: is it not time for you to wake up from your long sleep? While you slept, you also became divided and weak; you lost any advantage you may have had in areas of science, economy, politics, and military power. Too many of your children have been brutally killed, some even hours old, some not even yet born. While you slept, much of the world became advanced, united around their-own interests and worldly benefits; they created united political, economic, and military blocs. They united against you and against your religion. Wake up; it has been a ridiculously long sleep!
October 2015