I happen to believe that in some cases and in some circumstances, interfaith work can help humanity walk along what is called in Hebrew, the Derech Ha Shalom or path of peace. Groups like the British Council of Christians and Jews for example have done marvellous work in reducing the suspicion and in some cases mutual enmity between these two Abrahamic faiths.

However, for interfaith to truly work it is my belief that two conditions need to be met. The first condition is that there is a willingness on both sides of a particular religious divide to honestly and genuinely want peace and for each of these parties to be mercilessly honest about the shortcomings or perceived shortcomings of their own side as well as that of the other side.

The second condition that needs to be met is that both faiths need to be committed to peace. Not just peace as in an absence of war, or a fake ‘peace’ where you say nice things to your opposite number’s face whilst slagging them off behind their back, but a genuine, whole hearted honest desire for peace even if the process of getting there is uncomfortable.

It is because Islam and those who represent Islam in interfaith discussions cannot be trusted to be either honest or genuinely interested in peace that I refuse to take part in any interfaith activity with Muslims. If my synagogue says can you go and talk to a Christian or Sikh or Hindu group about Judaism then I’ll say ‘sure, just tell me what time and for the hosts not to serve me a bacon sandwich’. On the other hand if I’m asked to do the same for a Muslim group I’m more likely to say ‘no’ to that suggestion. In fact I’d be no more likely to do interfaith work with Muslims than I would be to stick my hand in my pocket and donate to an organisation supporting German SS veterans. This is because I cannot even begin to bring myself to trust those who have not only failed to erase or reinterpret the massive amounts of Jew hatred in Islamic scripture but also refuse to put down the sword that they are pointing at me and mine. I have come to the conclusion that for Jews to engage in interfaith work with Muslims is not just pointless and ultimately doomed to failure, but is also dangerous.

Support for my view on this matter has come from the United States of America. In the last three months alone there has been not one but three different murderous plots by Muslims, acting on the incitement to hatred in the Koran and the Hadith, busted by American police and investigations agencies.

Frontpage Magazine, a conservative leaning publication, has detailed these plots that have occurred in different parts of the USA, involve different suspects from different backgrounds but which all have one thing in common, they were all plots that were put together by Muslims. Daniel Greenfield of Frontpage has compiled a list of these plots and they make for shocking and sobering reading.

Mr Greenfield said:

On Wednesday, April 3, FBI agents converged on a Bozeman shooting range and took Fabjan Alameti into custody.

Alemati, an Albanian Muslim, had traveled from New York to Montana. “When the time will come for us to hunt them down, I will stand over them while I piece their bodies with hollow tips,” the Islamic terrorist had boasted in February. “Inshallah, we take as many kuffars (non-Muslims) with us.”

He had told a government informant back in January that his potential targets included military and government targets, as well as a “Jewish temple”.

Alameti’s terror plot back in January was the second such Islamic terror plot that month.

On December 14, 2018, Hasher Jallal Taheb was discussing some of the targets he had scouted in Washington D.C. They included the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and a specific synagogue.

In the middle of January, Taheb was arrested over in Georgia.

Taheb and Alemati had a number of similarities. Both men were twenty-one years old. Their terror plots were violent but scattershot. The range began with government building and ended with a synagogue.

Theirs were the second and third Islamic terror plots targeting Jewish synagogues in three months.

The trend began with Damon Joseph, a Muslim convert, who was arrested in December for a number of plots including one targeting a synagogue. Joseph’s inspiration was the Tree of Life Shooting.

“I admire what the guy did with the shooting, actually,” Joseph said, according to the FBI. “I can see myself carrying out this type of operations inshallah.”

“We would pick a synagogue or place Jews gather, scope it out, find all exits and entrances,” the Ohio terrorist said of his plans.

What we have here is three murder plots in three different states by three different alleged offenders but who are all Muslim. There is nothing at all linking these plotters apart from an adherence to an ideology that has had Jew hatred baked into it from the beginning. It is not ISIS or Al Qaida or any other twisted terror group that has inspired these nutcases to want to murder Jews, it is Islam and Islam alone.

As I said earlier I think it is both pointless and dangerous for Jews to engage in interfaith work with Islamic groups and it sends me to the border of despair when I see naive British Jews working with Muslim groups and mistakenly thinking that they are working for peace by doing so. These Jews will not get peace out of these encounters, they will just get honeyed words with very little substance behind them. In effect they will have been conned. It is people like the Rabbi who stupidly supported an Imam who later turned out to be an extremist, who do our community a great disservice and what’s worse, encourage people to drop their guard when it comes to Islam. Also doing a similar disservice are those who believe that ‘social justice’ can be achieved by working with Islamic groups. By doing this they are not bringing about any sort of justice whatsoever, they are merely opening the door to let the ravening wolf of Islam into the house. Just as we would quite rightly not believe that someone who had Hitler’s Mein Kampf as their guiding scripture had peace in their hearts so also should we treat those who hold the Koran and the Hadith in an especial place as a guide for life.

Every one of these thwarted attacks could have resulted in the deaths of dozens of people and the world is very lucky that the American police and the FBI managed to stop them before they came to fruition. It’s now long past time for Jews, especially British Jews, to wake up and smell the coffee when it comes to Islam. As much as we may wish otherwise and despite the existence of individual Muslims who genuinely want peace, the Jew hatred in Islamic scripture and pushed by Islamic clerics is so all pervasive and difficult to ignore that it may now the the right time to say ‘no’ to future interfaith work with Muslims and Islamic groups. If there was one lesson that can be learned from the Holocaust, it is that when someone openly says ‘I want you dead’ then it is a damn good idea to take them seriously and take steps to defend yourself from such a person. Jews need to defend themselves and our countries from and ideology that has plainly, clearly and unambiguously told the world that it wants us dead and it wants our non Jewish neighbours dead as well. I’d like to see more Jews follow my line of saying ‘no’ to interfaith work with Islamic groups. Few of them can be properly trusted and the ideology that these groups are based around is almost completely poisonous.