Religion:
Are Jews "Pigs and Monkeys"?

Palestinians who are favorable toward suicide bombers massacring Israeli civilians, etc., sometimes cite the Koran as calling Jews "pigs and monkeys." What the Koran actually says is:

"They whom God has cursed and with whom He has been angry, some of them has He changed into apes and swine"

This refers to another passage:

'But when they [some Jews, but not all] proudly persisted in that which was forbidden, we [God] said to them, "Become scouted apes."'

There's a big difference between some Jews having been turned into apes and all Jews being pigs and monkeys. In fact, if God really turned some obstinate Jews into apes, then the ones that are left must be descended from righteous Jews.

Furthermore, this is what the Koran instructs the Muslim to say to Jews (and Christians):

"God is your Lord and our Lord: we have our works and you have your works: between us and you let there be no strife. God will make us all one, and to Him shall we return."

Anti-Semitism among Muslims, especially conspiracy theory, is a major impediment to peace in the Mideast as well as prosperous co-existence between the Western world and the Muslim world.

—JoT
September 2001

PS: In 2004, Sheik Younus Kathrada, of Vancouver’s Dar al-Madinah Islamic Society, said that his calling Jews the “brothers of monkeys and swine” doesn’t make him anti-Semitic. He was referring only to the bad Jews, not to all Jews. Of course, if the bad Jews are “brothers of monkeys and swine,” then so are the good Jews.

Text of the Koran courtesy of Project Gutenberg