A Muslim/Jewish Coalition?

Is it possible to create a Muslim/Jewish coalition, in America?
I believe there is the potential IF we address two key questions.
But before that...

This question requires a definition of what is a Muslim, or Jew.

As I am Jewish, I can best address the definition of what it is to be a Jew. Of course even this definition could be challenged on many levels, be it as it may.

A Jew is the child of a Jewish mother, or has converted to Judaism following the orthodox process.
A Jew believes in one G-d, and that love of a fellow person is the most important factor governing human-human and human-God relationships.
A Jew believes in the veracity of the oral tradition.

Yet what is more important to a Jew, the sanctity of marriage, abortion, or Israel?

To crystallize this question. If a Muslim said "I will join your Jewish coalition defending traditional values, IF you withdraw your blind support from Israel" how would a Jew respond?

Probably by trying to compromise, or separate the two.
But in my case I would have to say no to that condition. Many Jews wouldn’t.

A Muslim -according to the prominent American-Muslim scholar of Law Abou El Fadl- believes in the five pillars of Islam. For those familiar with the Maimonides 13 principles of Jewish faith...

To be a Muslim one needs to follow these practices.
A Muslim believes that there is one G-d and his greatest and last prophet was Muhammad.
A Muslim believes that one needs to pray to G-d every day, as far as five times a day that seems to be the dominant practice but a minority disputes that.
A Muslim believes in caring for the needy (poor, widows, orphans).
A Muslim believes in purification through fasting.
A Muslim believes in the "Hajj" or pilgrimage to Mecca, if possible.

If a Jew approached a Muslim and said stop supporting the Palestinians blindly and we will join your coalition to uphold traditional values, how would the Muslim respond?

One of my Muslim friends tells me that he would join the coalition and avoid the issue. But is that the dominant Muslim response?

Yet please take a moment and review the above core beliefs. Then ask yourself this question.

Is it more important to Judaism for us to uphold society’s traditional values or for us to weaken that coalition by our
inability to find the common ground with Muslims/Jews? I don’t know but I think it is a legitimate question.
The point is that many of us put our superficial beliefs ahead of our core beliefs.

Why?

Another point, we often make the mistake of calling others hypocrites. In the sense that how can one person believe in something and then not carry it out? How can a Jew who was given the bible which states "love you neighbor like yourself" (Leviticus 19:18, [perhaps not incidentally 18 is the numerical equivalent in Hebrew of the letters chet and yud CHAI=life, i.e. life can only be achieved by following this principle]) support Israel which is ostensibly not loving its neighbors? OR if Muslims really believed in caring for the needy then how can they target children?

As if we never strike out or speak about others behind their backs!. Hypocrisy is by definition cynical; IF it is to carry the common social stigma attributed to it, but I digress.

The point here is that we should not use the argument that if one supports what we deem terrorism or if one supports what we deem an occupation that these people are not good people who we could work with on other levels. THIS IS NOT HYPOCRISY IT IS WELL INTENTIONED AND IF WE ARE TO ARGUE THAT INTENTIONS DON'T COUNT THEN WE ARE SUPPORTING THE GOLDSTONE REPORT (please see post on Goldstone)

Yet these two issues are often buried in the guise of self righteousness or even strong FEELINGS of right and wrong, but if we always relied on our feeling we wouldn’t need a Bible or a Koran, would we?

Finally there are already segments of the Jewish and Muslim community working on common issues, yet this post was written to those that are perhaps held back from appreciating the value of cooperation by faulty assumptions, some of which I point out above.

Either way one rung in the ladder towards global unity is to find a common space where Jews and Muslims can stand AND speak the same language. Perhaps it is the language of Abraham who believed in one G-d AND traditional social values. After all we have a tradition that both are the sons of Abraham. As to the variations in religious practice, when the Messiah/al-Mahdi comes we will know.