Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website

It encircled and sealed the camps of Sabra and Shatila, crowded with Palestinians who had fled the Israeli occupation long before- And during the invasion, dubbed "Operation Peace for Galilee," the Israeli occupation army used the Lebanese Christian militias to kill thousands of innocent people.

Sabra and Shatila massacre stirred the world’s outrage, but what was shocking at that time is that some of the protests came from Jews, even Israeli Jews. Professor Benjamin Cohen of Tel Aviv University issued a statement on June 6, 1982, saying:

“I am writing to you while listening to a transistor that has just announced that ’we’ are in the process of ’realizing our objectives’ in Lebanon: to insure ’peace’ for the residents of Galilee. These lies worthy of Goebbels make me mad. It is clear that this savage war, more barbaric than any of those preceding it, has nothing to do with the attempt in London or the security of Galilee ... Jews, sons of Abraham ... Jews, victims themselves of so much cruelty, how can they become so cruel? ... The greatest success of Zionism is the ’dejudaisation’ of the Jews”.

Cohen was not the only Jew to denounce Israel’s war crimes committed in Lebanon.

Several Jewish intellectuals at that time condemned the barbaric actions of the Israeli army which was following orders from Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Defence Minister at that time. Sharon was forced to resign his post after an Israeli commission of inquiry accused him of being indirectly responsibile for the deaths for "having disregarded the danger of acts of vengeance" by the militias.

Israel’s crimes were not restricted to the occupation of Lebanon. It’s agression against the Palestinians, insistence on occupying the Holy lands, and its links with the semi-fascist administrations in the former racist Apartheid regime in South Africa were also faced with similar condemnation; not just of Israel’s policies, but also of "Zionism", its official ideology.

This highlights a very important fact a lot may not be aware of, the fact that Israel’s brutal policy, represented by occupation and state terrorism from 1967 up to the present stems from the ideology of “Zionism”, rejected by many Jews all over the world.

Also, opposite to what’s being spread by the numerous biased Western and some Arab media outlets- it’s Zionism that Muslims criticize not Judaism or the Jewish nation- Muslims respect all God’s religions, Prophets and Messengers, with no exceptions, since all the prophets came from One God, and for the same purpose –guiding mankind and leading to God’s heaven.

A distinctive aspect of the Islamic religion is that it made belief in all the prophets of God an article of faith; so Muslims do not and cannot reject Jesus or Moses; they accept them as they accept all messengers of God who brought guidance to mankind.

"Say (O Muslims): we believe in Allah and that which is revealed to us and that which was revealed to Abraham and Ishmael, and Isaac and Jacob, and their children, and that which Moses and Jesus received and that the prophets received from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them and unto Him we have surrendered." Qur’an 2:136