MESSAGE FROM DR. RICHARD L. BENKIN

Statement to the Islamic Democratic Party of Bangladesh
From Dr. Richard L. Benkin; Chicago, USA

My dear brothers, please accept my heartfelt congratulations on your forming a non-communal party of Believers. Too often in our world people conclude that those who are strong in one faith must be intolerant of those strong in other faiths. We know that this is not correct. In fact, all of us who look to our own Holy Books for guidance on this matter will find that none of them direct us to be intolerant of others. It is true that people can pick a few lines out of the many in the Quran or the Torah, for instance, that seem to sanction intolerance; but they ignore the greater message of our holy teachings.

Yet, even if this is an obvious truth to us, it is not so for many people—Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and others; those in the West and those in the East. There are several and varied reasons for that, but I will leave it to scholars who have the time to consider them. It is far more important to recognize that, ultimately, people judge these matters not by what our holy books say, but by what we do. Islam, in particular, is faced with the charge of intolerance because those people who prominently claim to represent the Religion of the Prophet act in an intolerant even murderous fashion. Every time a terrorist bomber kills innocent people and says it is in the name of Islam; he does serious damage to the image of that faith in the world. When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad says that Israel must be wiped off the map and says he and the Iranian mullahs speak for Islam; they do serious damage to the image of that faith in the world. Every time he and others who say they represent Islam claim (falsely!) that the Holocaust never happened, they not only sully the memory of six million Jewish martyrs, including members of my own family; but they also do serious damage to the image of Islam in the world. Worse still, when Muslim leaders—whether religious or secular—refuse to condemn such actions in unconditional terms and even support them; when they refuse to preach their condemnation every Friday; when they call other faiths “gutter religions”; when they call people like me a “son of apes and pigs,” especially from the mosque; they do serious damage to the image of Islam in the world.

I am an unyielding opponent of terrorism—which is no less evil because someone claims to carry it out in the name of Islam or any other faith. I am proud to loudly proclaim myself a Zionist—which means I support a Jewish state on our ancestral homeland in the Middle East. I have stood tall in the refugee camps in West Bengal and proclaimed my defense of the Bangladeshi Hindus who have been brutalized; who have been forced to flee to those squalid places. And I am proud of my Jewish faith, my Jewish heritage, and my Jewish history. But, as many people know, I also have been a staunch defender of Islam, even to the point of having a very loud and public debate with the head of a major Jewish organization.

Why do people find that a contradiction? It is because they find it difficult to get past what they see and hear from those whose real faith is power, whose real worship is propaganda not prayer. It is because there are people who seek to divide us along lines of religion, who are the apostles of communalism and eternal strife.

You, my brothers, of the Islamic Democratic Party are offering the rest of us a chance to see the path that will get us out of our current state of world conflict. For you reject communalism, reject the terrorism of those who would destroy my people and call it holy, reject ethnic cleansing—and most importantly, you do so while proclaiming your pride in and abiding faith in Islam. I remind people that it was my religious Muslim brothers from Bangladesh who first proposed to me an alliance among Believers; who recognize that our faiths unite us and it is people who divide us.

Today, you are taking a giant step toward realizing that goal, and I am honored to be with you on that journey. I look forward to the day when we again can embrace in Dhaka and spread our message of faith; a message that rejects hatred among Believers and rejects the communalism that has caused so much death and destruction for our peoples and especially in South Asia.

If the events of January 2007 taught us anything, it is that Bangladesh can never return to the corruption and communalism of the past; can never return to the rule of the Begums; can never be whole if it is run by those who would divide its people. The Islamic Democratic Party offers Bangladesh an alternative to that sad state of affairs. It offers Believers a path by which they can remain strong in their own beliefs while respecting the beliefs of others. Let us one day sit down together in Dhaka and together lead the world in this mission. I offer special prayers to my Muslim brothers, Mualana Sheikh Abdus Salam, Kazi Azizul Huq, and Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury. In the words of my people:

L’chaim, To life!
AND
Shalom Aleichem, Peace be with you!