He was only following in Mohammed's footsteps.
Rabbis: No Need to Aid Ex-Jew Who Has Joined Enemy
by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) It was announced in Lebanon over the weekend that an Israeli-German Moslem named Danny Sharon had been arrested by local police in connection with a local murder. The man was reportedly transferred to the Lebanese Intelligence agency for interrogation - and Israel's Foreign Ministry is "following" the case.
Sharon was born in Germany, grew up in Israel, and converted to Islam several years ago. He was arrested in Beirut on Thursday after his passport was found at the scene of the murder. One of the main suspects had claimed as his alibi that at the time of the murder, he was with a German friend - none other than Sharon, whose Israeli passport was then found at the scene of the crime in the Lebanese capital.
Sharon allegedly denied being on an espionage mission, saying he was merely on a tourism visit in Lebanon. This version is supported by the very fact that he travels with his Israeli passport.
Sharon's fate at present is unknown. From his father's home in Shavei Tzion, just 15 kilometers south of the Israel-Lebanon border and close to Nahariya, came this message: "The Foreign Ministry and German consulate are dealing with this matter. We know nothing more than that, and we of course do not want to hurt the chances of ending this story as quickly as possible." Foreign Ministry sources said they are following the story.
Who is Danny Sharon?
Danny Sharon provided a glimpse at his life when he spoke with the Yediot Acharonot newspaper 11 years ago. He said he was in Lebanon during Israel's anti-terrorism operation Grapes of Wrath, in April 1996, and he saw how a Lebanese rocket missed hitting its Israeli aircraft target. "Together with all the others there," he recounted, "I said with disappointment, 'Oops, the rocket missed.'"
Sharon explained in the interview that when he first arrived in Jordan after being released from the IDF - he was found "unsuitable for service" - "I felt at home from the first minute... I like the Arab culture very much, and I like Arabs very much, so why [should I] not live among them?" He later decided to become a Moslem after trying out Judaism and reading about Christianity and Buddhism. "In 1992," he said, "I bought a Koran and started reading it. It seemed simple and understandable... In Islam, the point of departure is that all people are equal; I liked that very much. Everything there seemed logical and right. I took two men as witnesses, I said the Shehada three times - that there is no God but Allah and his prophet - and I became a Moslem... In some ways, I feel that I have no connection with Judaism; I am a Moslem."
Sharon said that after the incident with the rocket targeting the Israeli plane, "I wasn't worried about my father's house in Nahariya, because I knew that we had never been hit."
Joining the Enemy
Rabbis Dov Lior and Zalman Baruch Melamed, contacted by Arutz-7 on this issue, both agreed that Israel's Foreign Ministry need not help Sharon. "Someone who joins our enemy shows that he has left the Jewish People," they both said. Rabbi Melamed added that Sharon had doubly sinned by both leaving the Jewish faith and by joining and giving encouragement to the enemy.