The American Muslim today features an article from Dr. Abdul Cader Asmal which states, basically, that Jewish-Muslim coexistence is no longer simply a good idea, but rather an imperative.

In his article, Dr. Asmal states:

The time to ratchet down hostilities is now.

The coming together of typecast foes may not be easy. On the other hand allowing fascists to chart the future of humanity is not a viable option. Rapprochement is the only answer to Israel’s survival and Islam’s renaissance. There is nothing incompatible between Islam and Judaism that prevents Muslims and Jews from living together again. They have a moral imperative to do so, resting on the Muslim belief of a divinely-assigned stewardship of God’s creation, and the Jewish belief of ‘Tikkun’ or healing of God’s creation. With these credentials Muslims and Jews should not only be able to coexist but respond to the call, ‘peace on earth and goodwill to all men’, a timeless message with a universal appeal, we can all live with.

While my non-Orthodox co-religionists do, in general, consider tikkun to be a cornerstone of Judaism, those of us who, to quote Ha'aretz, "speak the language of Torah and (Divine Law)", usually require more Scripturally hard-coded evidence before calling something a "moral imperative."

(I'm assuming that everyone knows, already, the Talmudic quote from the Mishnah in Sanhedrin 4:5, which states that "for the sake of peace, no man may say my father was better than your father". Not being prejudiced against Muslims, and by extension, combatting Islamophobia and all bigotry, is not only a "moral imperative" but a law.)

So then, how about this: it is a well-known fact in Jewish Law that one is not allowed to do things which would cause anti-Semitism ("hatred" for Jews, or eivah). R' Moshe Feinstein, perhaps one of the greatest codifiers of Jewish Law in the 20th century, said in his work Igros Moshe (1:184) that Eivah can mean two things: 1) Such ill will that the non-Jew will want to take revenge against the Jew; or 2) where the Jew did not do anything that warrants revenge, but the non-Jew develops feelings of hatred. We see from the Code of Jewish Law (Volume Orach Chaim, opinion of the Rem"a to 148:12 and 291:2) that (mainly the second type) of eivah can override a rabbinical prohibition, if one has sufficient reason to believe that by doing the rabbinically prohibited thing he will decrease/prevent eivah, he can do so.

And if we have sufficient reason to believe that the anti-Semitism could lead to life-threatening violence, one may even be allowed to violate even a Scriptural commandment (as it is saving a life).

How much more so if we are not talking about transgressing anything. How much more so if we're talking about unity and "baseless kindness", the two things which we know will bring the coming of the Messiah (he should come quickly). Even if you would say, somehow, that it is forbidden to show love and kindness and unity to Muslims, we see, that since by doing so, anti-Jewish hatred would be decreased, the whole point is moot and it would be permitted anyway.

So at least from a Jewish standpoint, there's no reason not to work toward coexistence and unity.

A moral imperative? It's way past that.