This has always seemed unlikely to me. Many hardline Jews believe that the Al-Aksa Mosque is built where the Temple of Solomon needs to be rebuilt to usher in the Messiah. The Muslims don't take kindly to Jews demanding the demolition of one of their three holiest sites (Mohammed supposedly ascended to heaven on the Temple Mount).

The is a long history of UN peacekeeping in Jerusalem. The 1967 attack by the Jordanians that went right through the UN peacekeepers compound is an example of how effective it has been. . . .

And one kind of wonders how eager the people supplying the firepower are to get into the city trading business. Nuking the 3rd holiest place in Islam and getting London, Paris, Frankfurt, DC, Tokyo, NYC, Zürich, and New Delhi obliterated in return, before the billion enraged jihad's show up, seems a bit costly.

Very funny.

That's the Koran and the hadiths according to George Bush and CAIR, right?

Jihad can be used and is used to mean an armed struggle, but it doesn't only mean that. It also means other types of struggle, such as trying to do good by putting your wealth to good purpose, speaking or writing good things and most importantly, the struggle within oneself to be a good person. Maybe consider the term to mean "dedication to good" in various ways. Also, you might get different answers if you ask a Sunni or a Shia.

It is a little culturally insensitive to use the term in the way that you did because you're distorting the meaning of an important religious term. It's not necessarily insulting to have done so, but when provided with the correct meaning of the term, you should understand how to use it (or not use it) in future.

-K.

Cool, thanks. I'll have to try to pick up Shadows of Asia then.

Funniest thing I've heard all week! Karma point to you, my friend! Thank you so much!

Which is why that famed collection of Islamic charity groups calls themselves Islamic Jihad, right? Lets look them up and see what they are famous for.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Harakat al-Jihad al-Islami, curretly based in Damascus. A terrorists organization.
Egyptian Islamic Jihad, typically [I]al-Jihad[/], currently part of Al-Qaeda, a terrorists organization.
Islamic Jihad Organization is a front for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards terror operations.

How could that be? Islamic groups, based widely across the Arab world, who use the word Jihad as part of the name of their terrorist organization? And don't seem to be persecuted for this usage. Hmm, maybe there are not as many "true Moslem's" as you think? Or perhaps Arabic speaking Moslem's consider Jihad to be be primarily about killing infidels?

..you mean like the secular Muslims should declare Jihad on the fanatic ones for reasons of faith and stone them to death? Now let's talk about becoming what you oppose...

@KZT if with all your "cherry picking" you could only find 3 examples.....

It is word, that many meanings to many beliefs/ideologies.

It does not mean that every time it is used, that user/organization is a "terrorist" person/organization.

It is kind of like the word Christian, it has many meanings/definitions to those that use it, like if the White Supremest say they are Christians, their point of view of Christianity is not the Total point of view of the rest of Christianity.

The Muslin Extremists like the Christian Extremists are a very small fraction of the World's Muslim/Christian believer population.

WMS

Okay. You want to tell me what 'Jihad' means, do you? If you don't believe me then buy an Arabic-English dictionary and look it up. Better, try reading a little more widely. It means a utmost struggle. In fact, "to strive" would probably be a better translation. It's not an uncommon word and it has religious meaning so it's not surprising that you find it in the names of those three organisations. Do you want to know how silly you sound?

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers)
Revolutionary People's Liberation Party
Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO)

Oh no! "Liberation" means terrorist. Not to mention the US "liberation" of Iraq. Yep - that's definitely what the word means. I'm being silly, you think? Actually, no - what you just did is pretty much the exact equivalent of this. Jihad is widely used in the muslim world to mean other than a holy war. You will find it everywhere in religious discussion. In fact, the way you mean it as "holy war" isn't really accurate anyway. It just means armed struggle, defending your community against persecution. Or at least normally. Some people interpret it as more aggressive. Shia (which I am not) call this a lesser Jihad. The greater jihad is the struggle with the self.

Please, check your facts before you spread this sort of misunderstanding to others. The last thing this world needs is more miscommunication. I'm sorry if I've come across as a little harsh here, but these things matter and you could cause some people a fair bit of offence if you use someone else's language without understanding what you're saying.

I guess in the dytopian world of SR it doesn't make sense to me that two cultures that have been at each other's throats for most of recorded history will suddenly decide to abandon extremism and play nice together. It doesn't make sense to me that while the rest of the planet is going to hell in a hand basket the Jews and the Muslims will suddenly decide to get along.

I think hyzmarca's take is much more plausible. Any other intervention by the UN would probably be considered western imperialism (a new Crusade) by most arabs, who already distrust the UN (who created Israel) and are already upset with western influence in the Middle East as it is (but lets not get into current politics...please ).

ON Ds we're usually wary of discussion of religions or races simply because generalizations often crop up and can make things turn nasty. I for one usually enjoy discussions about politics, religion, etc, but this is the sort of thing we usually try to be mindful of avoiding.

This is a rather long winded way of saying please avoid insulting someone else's beliefs through generalizations.

..wait a second. Half-Horror?

I just felt compelled to point out that there have been long historical periods in which arabs and jews have got along very well. When arabs took over Jerusalem from the Christians, they immediately allowed Jews back into the city for the first time in centuries. And this lasted for about three-hundred years with jews and arabs living fairly peaceably side by side and the jews permitted to build synagogues by arabs that then had undisputed power. It wasn't until around the time of the Crusades that things all got a bit unstable. Jews have probably had more trouble with Christians for most of history than they have with muslim, Though as Fistandantilus has just emphasized, we should be wary of generalisations. The most insidious one around at the moment (insidious because it is deliberate) is the attempt to make "Israeli Government" synonymous with "Jewish People." It isn't and it's a distinction that many jews desparately try to preserve. Just as many arabs now find themselves having to emphasize that no, being arabic does not make one a member of Al Quaeda.

Not to mess with you cause I disagree with you cause I don't. KZT is being xenophobic racist christofacist.
I do disagree with you about your example, because in the case of the US, and Britian for that matter in their dealing with Iraq are being terrorists, and war criminals to boot.
Rumsfeld is wanted for war crimes in Germany, and the rest of the Bush administration will be too as soon as they leave office.
That doesn't even include the US bombing of that once nice domed mosque that was so sacred in order to start off the sectarian violence in the first place.
Or the British agents that got arrested dressed as muslims driving around and shooting civilians in Basra. The Iraqi security forces insisted on pressing charges so the British drove tanks into the jail to spring them.
Good old OIL (Operation Iraqi Liberation)
The war was never about liberating the people of Iraq. It was the military backing up of American economic hegemony.
In 2000 Saddam traded the US dollars that Iraq had in reserve in the UN oil for food program for euros. He also started demanding payment for oil in euros. Both sensible economic decisions for Iraq, increasing profit by 10-20% due to the increasing value of euros and the decreasing value of the US dollar.
However, being one of a small group of countries that had the balls to switch their reserve currency from the US dollar to euros (Iraq, Iran, North Korea), the US decided to make an example of what it would do to countries that threatened the US dollar's place as reserve currency of the world. Can you say Axis of Evil.
Not to mention how much better US oil companies profit. If you shut down Iraqs oil output it lowers the supply, driving up prices, increasing the profit margin that the US companies make on the oil they produce. At the same time they also get a better deal for buying from Iraq when the oil is flowing. Good old puppet governments. You know the US puppet in Afghanistan is an ex UnoCal employee.
But yeah, the US strategy is the break up Iraq into three parts, and to keep permanent military bases there forever. It's part of the geostrategical goals of limiting China's oil options and surrounding China and Russia militarily.
Three cheers for merciless capitalistic imperialism.

That's what I remember from SoA.