Muslims are at it again — forcing the despised other, in this case, Jews, to kiss their feet.

On Dec. 1, 2022, two Palestinian teenagers accosted, threatened, and ordered a Jewish (Haredi) man to kiss their feet in Jerusalem's Old City.  They also videotaped and posted the incident on TikTok, to an Arabic rapper who, among other vulgarities, employs the notorious Arabic insult kuss umak ("your mama's vagina"), which was presumably directed at the Jew in question, as he kisses the hand and shoe of one of the Muslims. 

This is hardly the first incident of its kind in the modern era.  According to a Dec. 2 report devoted to this incident:

The phenomenon of Palestinians filming themselves assaulting or humiliating ultra-Orthodox residents sparked outrage and clashes last year, leading to several arrests. In one particularly viral video, a Palestinian was filmed pouring hot coffee on an Orthodox man, leading to a two-year prison sentence.

Nor is this despicable phenomenon limited to the Middle East.  According to a 2019 report from Australia:

A 12-year-old Jewish student was forced to kneel down and kiss the shoes of a Muslim classmate, while a five-year-old boy was allegedly called a "Jewish cockroach" and repeatedly hounded in the school toilets by his young classmates. ... The older boy's act of kissing another student's shoes, under threat of being swarmed by several other boys, was filmed, photographed and shared on social media [image above]. ... One of the boys who watched on was later suspended for five days for assaulting the Jewish student in the school locker room.

Nor is the ultimate source of Muslims forcing infidels to kiss their feet as well as other degrading measures a byproduct of Muslim "grievances" — in this case, the Arab-Israeli conflict.  After all, this form of abject obeisance is evident all throughout Islamic history. 

For example, in The Adventures of Thomas Pellow, an Englishman (d.1747) who wrote of his experiences as an abducted slave in Morocco, references to European slaves being compelled to kiss their Muslim master's feet are not uncommon.

Sultan Muley Ismail — who enforced sharia and regularly prayed — went one step farther, according to Pellow: slaves were required to "pull off their shoes, put on a particular habit they have to denote a slave, and when they approach him fall down and kiss the ground at his horse's feet."  Those not conforming to such abject behavior — the "lucky" ones — instantly lost their heads.  The rest were slowly tortured in ways that beggar belief.

This is the only "good news" to the recent foot-kissing incidents.  As vile as it may be, it reflects an important fact: few things are as reliably consistent as Muslim behavior — particularly the sort we are regularly assured has "nothing to do with Islam."  Otherwise, why does one find the same "disquieting" behavior in regions that widely differ in both time and space, such as Israel, Australia, and Morocco?

As another example, Pellow and other European slaves in Africa were regularly and consistently called "Christian dogs" — including before they were beheaded by scimitars.  This characterization of subhuman "infidels" as animals remains a fixture of today, and for the same reason.  Indeed, another persecuted Jewish pupil, age 5, at the same aforementioned Australian school, was called a "Jewish cockroach."

Such is the great irony: even in the minutest of details, and whether in word or deed, the negative behavior that Muslims exhibit today has a long and unwavering paper trail, one that crosses centuries and continents.  The only difference — the only discontinuity —  between now and then is how the West responds. 

In both the recent incident in Israel and the 2019 one from Australia, authorities would not even admit that an ideological factor motivated those Muslims who forced Jews to kiss their feet. 

The disconnect is evident in another, especially ignoble manner: whereas Muslims have long forced non-Muslims under their power to kiss their feet, both figuratively and literally, today, the man who holds an office that for centuries sponsored Europe's staunch resistance to Islam — the Catholic pope — willingly prostrates himself before and kisses Muslim feet.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

Image via Public Domain Pictures.