What is the meaning of “is”? Or “eradication”?

A libel lawsuit by a Muslim sheikh in Canada may hinge on that very question, as journalist Rachel Ehrenfeld reports at American Thinker.

Sheikh Shafiq Hudda accuses several organizations and individuals of defaming him because they misquoted him as wishing for the “eradication” of all 8.2 million Israelis. In fact, he claims, he was praying for the “eradication” of only 6 million Israeli Zionists.

According to Hudda’s lawyer, who posted his notice on a Facebook BDS group, his horrible client’s words were taken out of context. ”My clients have been accused of preaching hate and calling for genocide when a clear and honest look at the words spoken show a call for an end to unjust empires the world over.”

Hudda had prayed for “The eradication of the unjust powers such as the American empire, such as the Israeli Zionists.” The American empire would be a political entity. (Though its eradication would presumably involve the deaths of potentially hundreds of millions of Americans.) But the Israeli Zionists are people.

As Rachel Ehrenfeld notes.

The defamation argument, in this case, revolves around the meaning of “eradication” and the object of it. According to his lawyer, Sheikh Shafiq Hudda said: “We pray to the creator and to the almighty, a day will come when we see justice throughout the world. The eradication of the unjust powers such as the American empire, such as the Israeli Zionists.“ Indeed, Sheikh Shafiq Hudda’s lawyers claim he wished the eradication of only ”the Israeli Zionists” and not all Israelis, as alleged by the accused.

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics’ report in April 2018, the population of Israel was 8,248,000, including 6,985,000 Jews and 1,948,000 Arabs. The number of “Israeli Zionists,” Jews and non-Jews who believe that the Jewish people have a religious, historical, national right to settle in Eretz Israel/Palestine, is estimated at 6 million.

But why argue about the meaning of eradication? If this case comes to court, Sheikh Hudda should be asked whether he believes in the famous Hadith of the eradication of the Jews.

“Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.”

Sahih Muslim Book 41 Hadith 6985

Or perhaps Sheikh Hudda will want to discuss what the meaning of “kill them” is.