How Many Extremists?

You know how there are some people that equate Muslim extremism with Jewish terrorism? I have only one thing to say to those people – please make a better equation. If you looked up all Jewish history, you could count the incidents of Jewish extremism on two hands. Let’s see, just to rattle off a few (without making judgement calls on them right now), and in no particular order, we have the Bar Kochba Revolt, the Maccabbees’ rededication of the Temple (Channukah), Matzada, Channah and her children, the ghetto uprisings, arguably some of the Jews that oppose disengagement (although I am generally with them), and the unfortunate events of Rabin’s assassination (zichrono le’bracha) and Baruch Goldstein's attack. It just so happens that the things happening today in Israel push some Jews to extremism, but EVERYTHING pushes Muslims to extremism. The numbers are not even comparable, and there have probably been more Islam-related terrorist attacks in the last century than there have been Judaism-related attacks in their entire history. That’s a pretty bleak figure for Muslims. I wonder if Palestinians ever stop to think to themselves if what they are doing is wrong; I know that many Jews have a keen sense of self-criticism, and personally, the Palestinians don’t seem worthy of it.