Islam and the Existential Threat to Israel and the Jews

Understanding Jihad and the Teachings of Muhammad

At dawn on Saturday, October 7, 2023, Israeli time, according to the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), more than 2,200 modern rockets were launched from the Palestinian Gaza strip along the Mediterranean Sea targeting civilian and military targets in Israel. This was followed by over 2,500 Hamas infantry infiltrating into nearby civilian areas and slaughtering men, women, and children on the streets, at public events, and in their homes. They also took an estimated 251 hostages. Eight hostages are known to have died during Hamas captivity. Approximately 219 were released by stages in a cease-fire prisoner exchange, and 24 known hostages are still to be released. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, however, believes Hamas is still holding 35 dead hostages, which would make the hostage total 286 to begin with.

An Associated Press release January 15, 2025, cited IDF records indicating military dead since the war began at 840. Israeli opposition leaders claimed the number was 890, so we can be comfortable that the IDF numbers are fairly accurate.  This would also confirm that the approximate IDF estimate of 5,000 wounded was roughly accurate.  The IDF claimed that it has killed over 17,000 Hamas militants. The  Hamas governed Gaza Health Ministry estimated total  Palestinian deaths to be about 48,000, of which over half were allegedly women and children.

However, the IDF policy is not to target civilians. The IDF also claims Hamas uses civilians as a protective shield against IDF forces—a common characteristic of radicals and terrorists. Radical populations are also thoroughly indoctrinated beginning early in life, so that almost any indoctrinated  Palestinian could be a threat. Surveys indicate Palestinians are the most radical of any Muslim people. A December 2023 Palestinian poll (PCPSR) indicated 72 percent of Palestinians supported the October 7 attack, and only 22 disapproved.

The IDF, which includes army, navy, and air force components, have  active forces numbering at least 170,000 and can call up 400,000 reserves if necessary.

The AP release estimated 90 percent of Gaza’s 1.9 million people had been displaced, and that the IDF had occupied at various periods 90 percent of Gaza. The release also estimated 69 percent of structures and homes had been damaged or destroyed, but there was no breakdown of the terms damaged and destroyed. $18.5 billion in damage was done in the first three months, about the same as Gaza’ s GDP.

The war goes on and has spread to Lebanon in the north and Yemen in the south, where radical Houthi Muslim forces supplied by Iran have been able to block much of the shipping entering the Red Sea.  

Israel has been under continuous criticism by the United Nations, and there have been accusations of genocide of Palestinians by Israel. However, of 198 nation-members of the United Nations, 56 are also nation-members of the 57-member Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Of this 56,  at least 48, have a Muslim majority.  The OIC has always been anti-Israel and openly promotes international compliance of all nations to recognize Islamic Law and doctrines. Their campaign to outlaw any criticism of Islam and subject that criticism to legal penalty has effectively disarmed many European countries from any ability to resist the spread of Islam or expose its radical doctrines of Islamic Supremacy and Jihad.

Jihad is Holy War against all non-Muslims, but it has been especially directed at Jews, Christians, and Hindus.  

Islam is defined by the words of Allah in the Quran and the words and actions of Muhammad in the Hadiths and the Sira. The Hadiths are collections of brief sayings, actions, and traditions of Muhammad. They are usually only about a paragraph long. The Sira is the historical narrative of Muhammad’s life. The trilogy of the Quran, Hadiths, and the Sira defines Islam and is the basis of Sharia Law. Bill Warner with the Center for the Study of Political Islam (CSPI) gives a statistical comparison of the three texts by the number of words in each: the Quran, 14 percent; the Hadiths, 60 percent; and the Sira, 26 percent.

The most important thing to realize about Islam and its foundational texts—and unless you get this, you can never understand the real Islam—is that it is all centered on and about Muhammad. It is Muhammad who reveals the nature and will of Allah in the Quran, and the Hadiths and Sira are, of course, all about Muhammad and his struggle against unbelievers (Kafirs). In the 19^th and 20^th centuries, it was common to speak of Islam as Muhammadism.  Ninety-one verses throughout the Quran say that Muhammad is the perfect Muslim. The Hadiths and the Sira call Muhammad the most perfect Muslim in all his words and acts. Being a good Muslim is to imitate Muhammad in every word and deed.

The violent actions and coercive style of Jihad is deeply embedded in its founding doctrinal texts: the Quran, the Hadiths, and the Sira. These are essentially the alleged revelations to Muhammad of Allah’s words in the Quran and of Muhammad’s words and example recorded by his closest companions in the Hadiths and Sira. Sharia Law is also based on this textual trilogy. The only way to judge the true nature of Islam is through the Quran and the words and example of its Prophet, Muhammad. It will not do to call Islam a religion of peace, when 9 percent of the Quan and 31 percent of Islam’s doctrinal trilogy is about Holy War on all non-Muslims.

Moreover, according to analysis by Warner, 9.3 percent of the text of the Islamic doctrinal trilogy is directed at hating Jews. This compares to only 7 percent in Hitler’s Mein Kampf. A whopping 17 percent of Muhammad’s Quranic verses as a War Lord in Medina, dealing with three Jewish tribes, promotes Jew hatred.

Here is one of the Hadiths that justify the Islamic Doctrine of Supremacy and its global objective for the Islamization of every nation:

Sahih Muslim Hadith (001,0031) Muhammad: “I have been ordered to wage war against mankind until they accept that there is no god but Allah and that they believe I am His prophet and accept all revelations through me.”

“Allah” is the Arabic word for “God,” but Allah as defined by Muhammad is much different from Jehovah God, or the Lord God,  defined in both Old and New Testament Scripture. Beyond being all-powerful, their character and nature diverge considerably. It is a serious theological error to consider them the same. One of the most shocking incidents of Muhammad’s early leadership is the beheading of 800 Jewish prisoners of war in Medina, because they would not accept the Muslim faith. This history is taught approvingly by Muslim scholars and leaders.

Not all Muslims adhere to the teachings of Islamic Supremacy, Jihad, and Islamic Law (Sharia). There are moderate Muslims and moderate Muslim leaders, which we can be thankful for and deal with, but they are considered heretical by the  fundamentalist mainstream of Islam, which we call “Radical Islam.” But the fundamentalist mainstream is following Muhammad, the doctrinal standards of the Quran and Sunna (Hadiths and Sira), and most Islamic scholarship.

The real conflict in Syria was that Bashar al-Assad was one of the most moderate Muslim leaders in the Islamic world and not the demonized fictional tyrant that the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood painted.  The Muslim Brotherhood wanted him out, and President Barack Obama listened to and identified with their positions during the Arab Spring of 2011. The US and UK wound up fighting on the side of al-Qaeda against moderate Muslims and Christians in Syria. Several alleged poison gas incidents blamed on Assad were actually British MI6 false flags to turn the world against Assad. Our present Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, was one the first to see through this deception as a Member of Congress in early 2017.

The existential threat to Israel is that Hamas is fundamentalist, radical, and fanatical, and leaders of their ally, Iran, are also radical.  Here are a few sample verses from the Quran:

9:29 Fight such of those to whom the Scriptures were given and believe neither in Allah nor the Last Day, who do not forbid what Allah and His apostle have forbidden, and do not embrace the true Faith, until they pay the tribute by hand with abject submission.

9:73 Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate.

9:123 Believers, make war on the infidels [unbelievers] who dwell around you. Deal firmly with then. Know that Allah is with the righteous

4:76 The true believers fight for the cause of Allah, but the infidels fight for the devil.  Fight then against the friends of Satan. Satan’s cunning is weak indeed.

8:12 Allah revealed His will to the angels, saying: I shall be with you. Give courage to the believers. I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the very tips of their fingers.

Here is a hadith about Islamic End Times:

Sahih al-Bukhari 2926: Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah’s Messenger said, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding says, ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.”

Note that Muhammad requires all Muslims to participate in Jihad in some way:

2:216 Fighting is obligatory to you, much as you dislike it. But you may hate a thing although it is good for you, and love a thing although it is bad for you. Allah knows, but you know not.

As Alan Dershowitz has pointed out in his recent 2024 book, The Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies, the Palestinians have never agreed to a two-state settlement. They insist on only one Palestine with all the Jews gone, and by gone they do not mean forced to leave,  they mean exterminated or annihilated. Such is the demonstrated nature of Jihad.

Dr. Rudolph Rummel has estimated that the Ottoman Empire and later Turkish regimes from 1900 to 1923 killed 3.5 to 4.3 million Armenian, Greek, Assyrian, and other Christians in a religiously motivated series of genocides. Jewish fears that they might be subjected to a similar genocide under Muslim dominance or continuous attack cannot be tossed off as unrealistic.

Israel is fighting for its very existence and the lives and safety of the Jewish people there.

Let us pray that the security of Israel and the Jewish people can be protected without starting a wider Middle Eastern War or World War III.