All I want for Christmas is a mosque

I’m sure the OIC will rush to embrace this idea, and by next Christmas, we’ll see foreign workers in Saudi Arabia holding Mass.

EU Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering called on Arab governments on Tuesday to allow Christian churches to be built in their countries in the same way that mosques can be built in Europe.

In Saudi Arabia, at the end of a tour of Gulf countries to boost cooperation between the two regions, Poettering said Arab governments need to be more tolerant of other religions.

“It is vital that we get a better understanding of the Islamic culture,” he said.

“But it’s a two-way road. We ask for tolerance for Christians … in the Arab world. It’s mutual.”

Actually, it’s not. Just ask our buddy Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who gave the “alternative” Christmas message in England. (And excuse me, but WTF is an “alternative” Christmas message, and why, exactly, is there one? Do you think I care that the Queen wishes her subjects a happy Christmas but doesn’t speak to me on Hanukkah? It’s not my religion. Go about your business and be happy, just leave me out of it, is my motto.)

On this difficult and challenging journey of man from dust to the divine, He did not leave humanity to its own devices. He chose from those He created the most excellent as His Prophets to guide humanity.

[…] We believe, Jesus Christ will return, together with one of the children of the revered Messenger of Islam and will lead the world to love, brotherhood and justice. The responsibility of all followers of Christ and Abrahamic faiths is to prepare the way for the fulfilment of this divine promise and the arrival of that joyful, shining and wonderful age. I hope that the collective will of nations will unite in the not too distant future and with the grace of the Almighty Lord, that shining age will come to rule the earth.

In spite of it looking like Mad Mahmoud is talking about Jesus in Christian terms, he is not. And please note that when he says “Abrahamic faiths,” he does not mean the people of Israel, or Jews that support them. Because in his address to the UN he quite plainly stated that Zionists have no religion. He is talking about it from the Islamic point of view, specifically, from his belief in the return of the Mahdi, in which Jesus is subordinate to him.

And there’s also this part of his speech, which, if I’m not mistaken, is telling me that I’m not part of the world community because I don’t accept the teachings of Jesus. And, gee, now that I think about it, there’s a whole country full of people who don’t accept the teachings of Jesus or that nameless other prophet that he keeps talking about in this speech. Of course, he could be talking about Buddhists and Hindus, but I suspect he’s not thinking about them when he says this:

Now as human society faces a myriad of problems and a succession of complex crises, the root causes can be found in humanity’s rejection of that message, in particular the indifference of some governments and powers towards the teachings of the divine Prophets, especially those of Jesus Christ.

If you did not already know, Muslims believe that Jews rejected the teachings of the prophets, and when they say that, they mean the Hebrew prophets that Islam has claimed for its own. If only those pesky Jews had converted to some other religion, we wouldn’t have the troubles of the world today. Where have I heard that before? Oh, that’s right. On the neo-Nazi sites. But he also slams any government that has not accepted the teachings of Mohammed, in a way that is subtle enough that the Juan Cole’s of the world will be able to call the Robert Spencers paranoid and disingenuous. As for me, I’ll put myself squarely in Spencer’s camp.

The other part of the speech that got wide play is this one:

If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly He would stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers.

Yeah, those “bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers”? They’re the U.S. and Israel. If Jesus were alive today, he’d be living in Israel, but not in Bethlehem or Nazareth. Jews aren’t allowed to live there. My guess is he’d be in Jerusalem, and a Likudnik, as he was a religious Jew. (Ill-tempered? Say what? Did he just call Americans and Israelis crabby?)

Overall, Mad Mahmoud scored yet another propaganda victory. His proponents will insist that I’m misreading his speech, that Robert Spencer is an Islamphobe and by quoting him I’m an Islamophobe, too, and that Ahmadinejad really doesn’t want the destruction of Israel and the conversion to the whole world of Islam.

They will be wrong.

As to the EU parliament president on a response from Islamic nations about building churches there? Not in your lifetime, pal. Or your children’s. Or your children’s children’s. In other words: Merry Christmas, infidel.