January 7: Muslim attitudes

The common denominator in all these attacks is a Muslim who has been taught a seditious set of beliefs promoted by the Koran and imams.

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters (photo credit: REUTERS)
Letters
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Muslim attitudes
I support all the measures Isi Leibler endorses (“Outof- the-box thinking needed to combat terrorism,” Candidly Speaking, January 6), but his measures will not prevent future generations from having to confront the same terror we are now experiencing.
Apologists here and abroad explain Palestinian terror as being due to fears of a change in status at the Aksa Mosque, the occupation or the lack of a Palestinian state. But they do not explain why, in countries around the world with no mosques threatened or occupations, at least 1,000 infidels are killed and 1,500 seriously wounded every month by jihadists seeking to please Mohammad and Allah.
The common denominator in all these attacks is a Muslim who has been taught a seditious set of beliefs promoted by the Koran and imams. There will never be peace until Islam reforms its teachings and teaches tolerance instead of a creed of war.
If a cult were to arise today with such seditious beliefs, its members would be imprisoned and banned from most countries.
Countries wishing to live in peace with Islam must insist that Muslims alter their religious books to promote tolerance. If they do this and raise their children to be as tolerant as most members of other religions do, they can live among us.
If they do not, they should be assisted in moving to Muslim countries that follow current Islamic teachings and where we can assume they will be happy.
PHILIP BRIEFF, Jerusalem
The best literary depiction of the extreme Muslim mentality is the short novel Hadji Murat by Leo Tolstoy, about the life and career of a Chechen leader of that name during the Russian conquest of the Caucasus in the 1840s.
It shows Murat going over to the Russians in a “peace process” in order that they install him as ruler of all the Muslims in the region, and attempting to leave on deciding that he was not being treated with sufficient respect. He and his companions were pursued by the Russian army lest he renew war against them, and all were shot dead.
This does not relate solely to the Chechens, but to the whole Middle East, of which Chechnya can be regarded as the northernmost extension.
YIRMEYAHU BINDMAN, Jerusalem
Human radar
In the current climate, where everyone is a potential victim, it is essential to develop a system of survival when out and about.
A terrorist will automatically be drawn to someone who is strolling along, deep in thought or, worse still, using earphones or speaking on a mobile. In order to be way down on his list of potential targets, it is better to always use your eyes and ears as your “radar,” concentrating totally on your surroundings.
DAVID S. ADDLEMAN, Mevaseret Zion
Learned voice
Praising conductor Daniel Oren, who “missed no opportunity to increase dramatic tension and followed the singers’ intentions with flexible sensitivity,” critic Uri Eppstein (Il Trovatore, Arts & Entertainment, January 5) also – to my puzzlement – says: “The final chilling surprise effect of [Azucena’s] revealing Manrico as the Count’s brother could well have been the opera’s shattering climax... had it not been diluted by the orchestral din.”
Taken together with Eppstein’s tedious repetition of the age-old claim that the opera “may well qualify as one of the most complicated, confused and confusing opera plots,” this is completely and utterly contradicted by the opening act’s cabaletta of Ferrando, who explains to his sleepy guards the entire story, simply and directly.
I sang the part of Ferrando in London’s Holland Park Opera in the early 1990s, so I know of what I speak.
STANLEY COHEN, Jerusalem