Religious Violence Quotes
Some of the founding fathers were deeply religious men while others were not so. Some varied in their believes at different times of their lives, and a number were not very facorable towards orthodox religion. At the time, Roman Catholic and Protestant churches were persecuting other religions throughout Europe and people were still being killed for their heretical beliefs. Most important to some of them, kings and other monarchs whom they abhorred, all at the time claimed the Divine Right of Kings and the established churches were the most important support for monarchs. At the time most organized religions were opposed to freedom of conscience and certainly opponents of separation of church and state. American churches tended to take on American values but were never given the chance to dominate the American government they way many had in Europe and the rest of the world.
Muslim extremist terrorism was rampant, even before Israel was established. A few of the early Zionists took the Biblical view and responded in kind using the same terrorist tactics of the Arabs. Ben Gurion argued against that. The debate has continued in Israel ever since. With relatively few exceptions the Israelis have not engaged in terrorism although the Arabs and their supporters have defined terrorism against them as Israel using modern weapons of war within the international rules of war. Also, the Arab terrorists argue that this is the only weapon that they have available that can equalize the conflict and further if it is in “defense of Islam” terrorism or any other act is allowed by the Koran. Ben Gurion also was prescient in that the assassins of some key Israelis leaders over the years were Jews who advocated terrorism against the Arabs just as most of the victims of Islamic Terrorists have been Muslims.
Historically, this quotation shows that the negative relationship between the West and Islam and negative views of Islam was not a new phenomenon at the beginning of the 21st century. It existed long before, and as with the 21st century concerns, violence and war were the major concerns.
