Essay on Events of the Middle East

Submitted By Tammylofgreen
Words: 372
Pages: 2

Events of the Middle East
During April of this year, a video was posted on the internet of a funeral in Lebanon. This procession was for a Hezbollah fighter, and mourners were carrying the coffin while chanting, “Death to America, death to Israel.” “They also professed their devotion to Hussein, a revered figure in the Shiite faith and grandson of the Prophet Muhammad…” (Stack, 2013, para. 1)
As an American, I take offense to the “death to America” portion of the chant, as I am sure many Israelis who are not a part of any war are offended by “death to Israel”. I do not have any issue with the devotion to the religious authority (Hussein), as that is their belief and I feel that they are entitled to it. However, I do tend to perceive this display as a somewhat radical version of the Muslim faith. Now that I understand the Muslim religion better, I can separate the traditional Muslims from the radicals. Any religion can have a fundamentalist or radical branch-off, and that does not mean that the actions of said radicals should be held against the traditional religion. For instance, I was once connected to the Mormon faith, and I quickly found that many people think that the fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) were representative of the regular LDS. This could not be further from the truth. So, what I have learned is to carefully analyze the actions for what they are, rather than attributing them to a certain religion. Not every Muslim is going to kill for “Allah”.
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