In Israel vs. Iran Nuclear Matchup--Iran Loses

According to a report quoted in The Jerusalem Post:

If a nuclear war between Israel and Iran were to break out 16-20 million Iranians would lose their lives - as opposed to 200,000-800,000 Israelis, according to a report recently published by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which is headed by Anthony H. Cordesman, formerly an analyst for the US Department of Defense. The document, which is largely theoretical due to the lack of verified knowledge in some areas - specifically in terms of Israel's nuclear capability - paints various scenarios and attempts to predict the strategies of regional powers, as well as the US.

The report assesses that a nuclear war would last approximately three weeks and ultimately end with the annihilation of Iran, due to Israel's alleged possession of weapons with a far larger yield. Israel, according to the assessment, would have a larger chance of survival.

Based on an article Bernard Lewis wrote last year, reports like this are unlikely to matter to Iran:

The Western observer would immediately think of two possible deterrents. The first is that an attack that wipes out Israel would almost certainly wipe out the Palestinians too. The second is that such an attack would evoke a devastating reprisal from Israel against Iran, since one may surely assume that the Israelis have made the necessary arrangements for a counterstrike even after a nuclear holocaust in Israel.

The first of these possible deterrents might well be of concern to the Palestinians--but not apparently to their fanatical champions in the Iranian government. The second deterrent--the threat of direct retaliation on Iran--is, as noted, already weakened by the suicide or martyrdom complex that plagues parts of the Islamic world today, without parallel in other religions, or for that matter in the Islamic past. This complex has become even more important at the present day, because of this new apocalyptic vision.

The only options available seem to be preventing Iran from acquiring the capability to begin with--either through diplomatic channels or military force.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Iran and Bernard Lewis.

Bernard Lewis On The Coming Muslim Takeover of Europe

According to Bernard Lewis, Europe has given up the fight and Islam is now in the process of taking over the continent--which cannot be good for the Jewish communities there.

The Muslims "seem to be about to take over Europe," Lewis said at a special briefing with the editorial staff of The Jerusalem Post. Asked what this meant for the continent's Jews, he responded, "The outlook for the Jewish communities of Europe is dim." Soon, he warned, the only pertinent question regarding Europe's future would be, "Will it be an Islamized Europe or Europeanized Islam?" The growing sway of Islam in Europe was of particular concern given the rising support within the Islamic world for extremist and terrorist movements, said Lewis.

What is particularly disheartening is that the causes--or symptoms--Lewis describes sound too familiar.

"Europeans are losing their own loyalties and their own self-confidence," he said. "They have no respect for their own culture." Europeans had "surrendered" on every issue with regard to Islam in a mood of "self-abasement," "political correctness" and "multi-culturalism," said Lewis, who was born in London to middle-class Jewish parents but has long lived in the United States.

Of course there is alot of this lack of self-loyalty and self-confidence going around, but reading this description of what is going on in Europe does not sound all that different from what we hear going on in Israel.

Removing Olmert from office will surely help, but it is not a magic cure. A change in attitude is necessary, and that is going to require a real leader.

Any suggestions?

Technorati Tag: Israel and Bernard Lewis and Islam

Pay No Attention To That Ayatollah Behind The Curtain

"How can I help being a humbug," he said, "when all these people make me do things that everyone knows can't be done?"
The Wizard in The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Another author has a price on his head after allegedly ridiculing Islam--claiming that Christianity is superior to Islam and that Europe is superior to the Middle East.

One of Iran's most senior clergymen has issued a fatwa on an Azeri writer said to have insulted the Prophet Muhammad.

The call on Muslims to murder Rafiq Tagi, who writes for Azerbaijan's Senet newspaper, echoes the Iranian fatwa against Indian writer Salman Rushdie.

It was issued by the conservative Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Fazel Lankarani.

With a little bit of hindsight, it probably would not be all that difficult to have predicted the response of someone like Lankarani. The real question is whether Lankarani is actually following Islamic law in calling for Tagi's death.

According to Bernard Lewis--he is not.

In The Crisis of Islam, Lewis writes about the brand of Islamic extremism preached by Al Qaida, Saudi Arabia--and Iran.

All of these are, in a sense, Islamic in origin, but some of them have deviated very far from their origins.

All these different extremist groups sanctify their action through pious references to Islamic texts, notably the Qur'an and the traditions of the Prophet, and all three claim to represent a truer, purer, and more authentic Islam than that currently practiced by the vast majority of Muslims and endorsed by most though not all of the religious leadership. They are, however, highly selective in their choice and interpretation of sacred texts. (p. 138) [emphasis added]

To illustrate his point, Lewis examines Islamic law as it pertains to the treatment of someone like Salman Rushdie. Recall that at the time, the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, offering a bounty for the one who killed the author of the Satanic Verses--just as Lankarani has done.

On this issue, Bernard Lewis points out that contrary to the impression given by men like Khomeini and Lankarani, a fatwa is not the Islamic equivalent of 'putting out a contract'. Instead:

Fatwa is a technical term in Islamic jurisprudence for a legal opinion or ruling on a point of law...The Islamic jurisconsult who is authorized to issue a fatwa is called a mufti, an active participle from the same root. In using a fatwa to pronounce a death sentence and recruit an assassin, the ayatollah was deviating very considerably from standard Islamic practice. (p. 140) [emphasis added]

For Grand Ayatollah Lankarani to issue a fatwa calling for the death of Tagi--and of the person responsible for publishing his articles--or for another Iranian cleric to offer his house as a reward to anyone who killed the writer, is not normative practice.

'Insulting the Prophet' was the general charge brought against Rushdie--but that is punishable by flogging and imprisonment. This is not the impression you got from the signs at the riots which called for his death, beheading, and extermination. Flogging and imprisonment is also a far cry from what Lankarani and other clerics are sanctioning and encouraging.

In Rushdie's case, as a Moslem his supposed crime would be apostasy--which according to Islamic law requires a trial by judge. Lewis admits that a minority opinion states that when the crime is so great that a formal trial is not needed, but nevertheless some sort of procedure or authorization is required. Without such a procedure, the execution is itself considered murder--and punishable as such. There is another opinion according to which the immediate execution of the apostate is obligatory and one who does not carry out the sentence is himself committing an offense--but Lewis points out:

Even the most rigorous and extreme of the classical jurists only require a Muslim to kill anyone who insults the Prophet in his hearing and in his presence. They say nothing about a hired killing for a reported insult in a distant country. [emphasis added]

In Tagi's case, he was in fact tried in an Azerbaijani court. However the sentence he and his publisher received was two months in jail for an article which was illustrated by the same cartoons of the Muhammad which were originally published in Denmark.

There are those who would claim that Islam is undergoing a renaissance, a reawakening as it reclaims its place in the world.

Maybe not.

In an editorial about the case of the 6 Imams who were removed from a plane after acting suspiciously, the Investor's Business Daily notes the activities of other Imams:

Omar Abdul-Rahman, a blind sheikh, is serving a life term for plotting to blow up several New York landmarks. Imam Ali al-Timimi, a native Washingtonian, is also behind bars for soliciting local Muslims to kill fellow Americans. Imams in New York were recently busted for buying shoulder-fired missiles. Another in Lodi, Calif., planned an al-Qaida terror camp there.

MEMRI has videos of Islamic holy men who include in their sermons various derogatory comments about Israel and Jews in general.

There is something very wrong when Islamic holy men turn to murder--however they themselves may choose to label it--or feel they must inspire their flock by comparing Jews to apes. It is past time for the media to stop turning a blind eye to what is being ignored under the guise of free speech and what is being covered up under the guise of Moslem-bashing.

Whatever you call it, Islamist extremism is a danger that must be clearly and consistently called by its name if moderate Moslems are truly going to get the respect they are entitled to.

Update: Thanks to Memeorandum for the link.
Also check out Eteraz.org about emailing the Ayatollah who issued the fatwa.

Crossposted at Israpundit

Technorati Tag: Bernard Lewis and Salman Rushdie and Rafiq Tagi and Islamism.

Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time

That's not a cynical thought; it's the title of Karen Armstrong's new book (and a cynical thought). Efraim Karsh reviews Armstrong's book for the New York Sun.

He explains that Armstrong is one of those that claims that 'Jihad' is the quest for self-improvement as opposed to Holy War--that Islamist terrorist attacks are extremist reactions to arrogant US policy. As a result, according to Karsh:

"Muslims have never nurtured dreams of world conquest," wrote Karen Armstrong, a prominent representative of this view, shortly after September 11. "They had no designs on Europe, for example, even though Europeans imagined that they did. Once Muslim rule had been established in Spain, it was recognized that the empire could not expand indefinitely."

But the Moslem occupation of Spain, 2,000 miles from Arabia, was not the end of their imperialism--from there they invaded France, where they were defeated in 732 at the battle of Poitiers.

Bernard Lewis goes into even more detail. In What Went Wrong, Lewis describes century by century of Moslem expansionism:

In the course of the seventh century, Muslim armies advancing from Arabia conquered Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa, all until then part of Christendom, and most of the new recruits to Islam, west of Iran and Arabia, were indeed converts from Christianity. (p.4, emphasis added)

That, of course, was just the beginning. During the eighth century, Lewis describes how, using North Africa as their base, the Arab forces were joined by Berber converts as they went into Spain and Portugal and invaded France.

In the ninth century they conquered Sicily and sacked Rome--resulting in the Christian counter-attack known as the Crusades, hardly the offensive unprovoked attack that the Arab world condemns.

In the thirteenth century, the Tartars conquered Russia and later converted to Islam--meaning that Russia and much of Eastern Europe was subjected to Moslem rule till they freed themselves in the late 15th century.

During a third wave of attacks, the Ottoman Turks conquered Anatolia, captured Constantinople, invaded the Balkan peninsula and reached as far as Vienna.

Armstrong also writes that Mohammed himself was really a man of peace:

"whose aim was peace and practical compassion" and who "literally sweated with the effort to bring peace to war-torn Arabia"; an altruistic social reformer of modest political ambitions, whose life was "a tireless campaign against greed, injustice, and arrogance" and who founded "a religion and cultural tradition that was not based on the sword but whose name — ‘Islam' — signified peace and reconciliation."

Karsh counters that such a description is a whitewash, because in fact:

the Qur'anic revelations during Muhammad's Medina years abound with verses extolling the virtues of fighting "in the path of Allah," as do the countless sayings and traditions (hadith) attributed to the prophet. As he told his followers in his farewell address: "I was ordered to fight all men until they say ‘There is no god but Allah.'" Had it not been for his sudden death, Muhammad probably would have expanded his control well beyond the peninsula.

But Armstrong goes even further in painting her picture of Mohammed and Islam:

Ms. Armstrong glibly claims that "Later in the Islamic empires, Jews would enjoy full religious liberty and anti-Semitism would not become a Muslim vice until the Arab/Israeli conflict became acute in the mid-twentieth century." For one thing, such ahistorical analysis ignores the deep anti-Jewish bigotry dating to Islam's earliest days, which made it highly receptive to the worst precepts of Christian anti-Semitism, such as the "blood libel." For another thing, Armstrong overlooks Islam's pervasive mistreatment of its non-Muslim subjects, or Dhimmis as they are commonly known, who have been allowed to practice their religions in return for a distinctly inferior legal and institutional status, rife with social indignities and at times open persecution. [emphasis added]

Jews had "full religious liberty"? Jews were dhimmis and by definition had second class citizen status, with limits on any form of public religious expression that would annoy their Moslem rulers.

Wikipedia has a documented, if disputed, section on the limitations on the religious practice of dhimmis:

Although dhimmis were allowed to perform their religious rituals, they were obliged to do so in a manner not conspicuous to Muslims. Display of non-Muslim religious symbols, such as crosses or icons, was prohibited on buildings and on clothing (unless mandated as part of distinctive clothing). Loud prayers were forbidden, as was the ringing of church bells or the trumpeting of shofars. According to one hadith, Muhammad said: "The bell is the musical instrument of the Satan." (Sahih Muslim 24:5279). This hadith actually refers to music in general, this is not aimed at Church bells.

Dhimmis had the right to choose their own religious leaders: patriarchs for Christians, exilarchs and geonim for Jews. However, the choice of the community was subject to the approval of the Muslim authorities, who sometimes blocked candidates or took the side of the party that offered the larger bribe.

Dhimmis were prohibited from proselytizing on pain of death. Neither were they allowed to obstruct the spread of Islam in any manner. Other restrictions included a prohibition on publishing or sale of non-Muslim religious literature and a ban on teaching the Qur’an.

As required by the Pact of Umar, dhimmis had to bury their dead without loud lamentations and prayers. Incidents of harassment of dhimmi funeral processions by Muslims, involving pelting with stones, battery, spitting, or cursing, even by Muslim children, were common regardless of place and time. [go to their site for hyperlinks and footnotes]

But historically, Moslems resorted to more than just harrassment in their mistreatment of Jews. Mitchell Bard gives a summary:

At various times, Jews in Muslim lands were able to live in relative peace and thrive culturally and economically. The position of the Jews was never secure, however, and changes in the political or social climate would often lead to persecution, violence and death. Jews were generally viewed with contempt by their Muslim neighbors; peaceful coexistence between the two groups involved the subordination and degradation of the Jews.

When Jews were perceived as having achieved too comfortable a position in Islamic society, anti-Semitism would surface, often with devastating results: On December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. The riot was incited by Muslim preachers who had angrily objected to what they saw as inordinate Jewish political power.

Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in "an offensive manner." The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.

Other mass murders of Jews in Arab lands occurred in Morocco in the 8th century, where whole communities were wiped out by Muslim ruler Idris I; North Africa in the 12th century, where the Almohads either forcibly converted or decimated several communities; Libya in 1785, where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews; Algiers, where Jews were massacred in 1805, 1815 and 1830 and Marrakesh, Morocco, where more than 300 hundred Jews were murdered between 1864 and 1880.⁾

Decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted in Egypt and Syria (1014, 1293-4, 1301-2), Iraq (854-859, 1344) and Yemen (1676). Despite the Koran's prohibition, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in Yemen (1165 and 1678), Morocco (1275, 1465 and 1790-92) and Baghdad (1333 and 1344).

Karsh fittingly concludes his review of Armstrong's book:

"If we are to avoid catastrophe, the Muslim and Western worlds must learn not merely to tolerate but to appreciate one another," Ms. Armstrong emphatically concludes her book. I couldn't agree more. Provided of course this is done in good faith and without rewriting the historical truth, let alone violently suppressing critical minds and dissenting voices.

Armstrong's book will not bring us any closer to the goal which Armstrong claims to seek.

Crossposted at Israpundit

Technorati Tag: Efraim Karsh and Karen Armstrong and Mohammed and Dhimmis and Islam.

What Is It About Ahmadinejad and August 22?

Ahmadinejad has specified Tuesday, August 22 as the day he will give the US his answer about Iran's nuclear development.

The question is--why has Ahmadinejad picked that particular date?

A number of experts on Islam, such as Bernard Lewis and Robert Spencer have offered a possible answer. No one can know for sure, but thanks to Wikipedia, we can consider the full spectrum of possibilities. Here are some things that happened on August 22:

• 565 - St. Columba reported seeing a monster in Loch Ness, Scotland
• 1654 - Jacob Barsimson arrives in New Amsterdam. He is the first Jewish immigrant to what is later the United States
• 1775 - King George III declares the American colonies to be in open rebellion
• 1902 - Theodore Roosevelt became the first President of the United States to ride in an automobile
• 1942 - World War II: Brazil declares war on the Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan)
• 1969 - Elvis Presley begins performing live again in Las Vegas
• 1979 - Led Zeppelin released their album, In Through The Out Door.
• 1989 - Nolan Ryan strikes out Rickey Henderson to become the first Major League Baseball pitcher to record 5000 strikeouts.

Who can truly the pierce the unscrutable mind of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has made up its mind, and on the nuclear program and other issues it is up against it will continue powerfully on its path, putting its faith in God and with patience and perseverance, and it will obtain its sweet fruit".

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, state television, 21 August 2006

Update:Pajamas Media notes

The date is significant not only to Islam followers, but also to Crusading Christians: “On August 22, 725 AD, the Bishop of Nantes became the martyred St. Emilian while leading the French against the invading muslims.”

Since Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, it is doubtful he will own up to the history of Moslems as one of the great occupying armies of all time.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Ahmadinejad and August 22.

Were Jews Really Better Off Under Islam?

"...on the whole, Jews fared better under Muslim rule than Christians did"

Bernard Lewis, "The New Anti-Semitism."


Andrew Bostom does not see eye-to-eye with Bernard Lewis, although he has enormous respect for him. Bostom quotes Lewis from 1974 on the issue of Dhimmitude, which Lewis doesn't think was all that bad:

The dhimma on the whole worked well. The non-Muslims managed to thrive under Muslim rule, and even to make significant contributions to Islamic civilization. The restrictions were not onerous, and were usually less severe in practice than in theory. As long as the non-Muslim communities accepted and conformed to the status of tolerated subordination assigned to them, they were not troubled. The rare outbreaks of repression or violence directed against them are almost always the consequence of a feeling that they have failed to keep their place and honor their part of the covenant.

Bostom brings a number of sources to counter Lewis' assessment, including S. D. Goitein, who was a contemporary of Lewis. Goitein wrote:

Christians and Jews were not citizens of the state, not even second class citizens. They were outsiders under the protection of the Muslim state, a status characterized by the term dhimma, for which protection they had to pay a poll tax specific to them. They were also exposed to a great number of discriminatory and humiliating laws…As it lies in the very nature of such restrictions, soon additional humiliations were added, and before the second century of Islam was out, a complete body of legislation in this matter was in existence…In times and places in which they became too oppressive they lead to the dwindling or even complete extinction of the minorities.

Mitchell Bard has an online article, The Treatment of Jews in Arab/Islamic Countries, that gives the details.

There is also a talk that Bostom gave last month which covers how Jewish dhimmis were treated in historical Palestine--it can both be viewed and heard as audio at The Heritage Foundation web site.

One claim that is made in defending the treatment of Jews under Islam is that they suffered less in Moslem countries than in Christian ones.

I wonder if to the degree that this may be argued, it might be because whereas in Christian countries there were generally no laws differentiating between Jews and non-Jews (with the major exception of Nazi Germany), under Islam the inferior status of the Jew and the racist sentiment was institutionalized--hard-wired into Islamic law itself--and so the daily humiliation of the Jew took the edge off any Moslem desire for violence, at least until Jewish success put Jews in a more equal footing with Moslems, at which point Moslems were just as capable of the mass-murder of Jews as the Christians were.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Dhimmis and Islam and Bernard Lewis and Andrew Bostom.

"They Will Always Hate You"

Fouad Ajami--Director of the Middle East Studies Program at John Hopkins University--addresses the issue of the clash between Islam and the West:

I mean, in fact, the great question is, you know, the famous question, why do they hate us? And the Bernard Lewis answer is why worry about it? They will always hate you. What you should worry about is, why don't they fear us? Why don't they take us seriously? I mean, this is the question. [emphasis added]

Ajami is talking about the West in general and the US in particular--but how about Israel?

It really doesn't seem that the Moslem world takes Israel seriously either. It's all very well for Shimon Peres to say in a Reuters interview that the president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map, but how serious can the Moslems take Israel when there are headlines like: Peretz's First Mission as Defense Minister: Destroy Outposts

When I first saw the headline I thought they were talking about destroying the outposts Iran had set up in southern Lebanon to gather intelligence and identify targets in Israel. After all, what better mission for a Defense Minister to organize? Instead, it turns out that:

Only one day into the job, DM Peretz has already set one of his main priorities for the coming months: the destruction of Jewish outposts throughout Judea and Samaria that have been deemed illegal. [emphasis added]

As important as the issue of illegal settlements might be, there is also the issue of setting priorities, and what kind of message is conveyed by the way that Israel sets her priorities. As a result of these sorts of actions:

• Hamas sees no reason to deviate from its already successful strategy
• The West is only encouraged to cajole--and pressure--Israel into more concessions
• Israel's own morale only sinks further and tensions increase
  

Even the US gets it, that there is a psychological component to the war. The US military showed a video of al-Zarqawi wearing tennis shoes and fumbling with a machine gun. Of course, The New York Times--also known as the Haaretz of the US--goes so far as to actually defend al-Zarqawi:

The weapon in question is complicated to master, and American soldiers and marines undergo many days of training to achieve the most basic competence with it. Moreover, the weapon in Mr. Zarqawi's hands was an older variant, which makes its malfunctioning unsurprising. The veterans said Mr. Zarqawi, who had spent his years as a terrorist surrounded by simpler weapons of Soviet design, could hardly have been expected to know how to handle it.

Nebuch.

I suppose we should be thankful that at least The Times refrained from telling us about al-Zarqawi's difficult childhood.

Meanwhile, Olmert had his own problems:

The new ministers pledged their allegiance to the State of Israel one by one – preceded by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert was unable to sign with his pen, however, and was given another, which also didn't work. In all, the new prime minister went through four pens before he successfully affixed his name to the pledge to act in Israel's best interests as the head of its government. [emphasis added]

The point is that in the Middle East, image also counts; how Israel is perceived by the Arab world matters.

Has Israel lost focus on why she is hated by the Arab world?
According to Ajami, when dealing with radical Islam, the question boils down to 2 possibilities:

And so do they hate us for what we do? Or do they hate us for what we are?

Israel is locked into the first, forgetting Bernard Lewis' advice:

"Why worry about it? They will always hate you. What you should worry about is, why don't they fear us? Why don't they take us seriously?"

More to the point, why don't Olmert and Kadima take this seriously.

Crossposted at Israpundit

Technorati Tag: Israel and Fouad Ajami and al-Zarqawi and Olmert and Middle East and US and Bernard Lewis.

Nazi Germany And The Palestinian Arabs

Some things never change. According to documents from the British National Archive:

"If war were to break out, no trouble that the Jews could occasion us, in Palestine or elsewhere, could weigh for a moment against the importance of winning Muslim opinion to our side," Britain's Minister for Coordination of Defence, Lord Chatfield, told the British cabinet in 1939, shortly before Britain reversed its decision to partition its mandate, promising instead all of the land to the Palestinian Arabs.

Even back then--

• Moslems rioted
• The West caved
• Jews were betrayed

But according to the article, reports from the British archives show that the catalyst for events during the 1930's was Nazi Germany, which is documented as having attempted to send arms to the Palestinian Arabs.

But there is an irony in the plans both Nazi Germany and England had for Palestine--and in the way they executed them. On the one hand:

German records show that the Nazis viewed the establishment of a Jewish state with great concern. A 1937 report from German General Consulate in Palestine said: "The formation of a Jewish state… is not in Germany's interest because a (Jewish) Palestinian state would create additional national power bases for international Jewry such as for example the Vatican State for political Catholicism or Moscow for the Communists. Therefore, there is a German interest in strengthening the Arabs as a counter weight against such possible power growth of the Jews."

On the other hand, according to Bernard Lewis in The Crisis of Islam (p. 94), it was the Nazis who permitted and even encouraged Jewish migration to British controlled Palestine until the the outbreak of WWII--while the British unsuccessfully tried to gain Arab goodwill by imposing restrictions.

The other irony Lewis notes is that

the Palestinian leadership of the time, and many other Arab leaders, supported the Germans, who sent the Jews to Palestine, rather than the British, who tried to keep them out. (p. 94)

But with all the enduring influence Nazi Germany had in the region, and the success it had in the short term in frustrating the immigration of Jews into Palestine, in the end--it failed and was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing the restoration of the State of Israel just as it failed in its plan to wipe out the Jewsl.

Let Iran take note.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Nazi Germany and Palestinians and Palestine and Bernard Lewis.

Islamist Terror Is More Than Academic

Is Islamist terrorism the result of occupation?

As Islamist terrorism both in Israel and elsewhere continues, defining the enemy is becoming more than academic. Last year, Robert Pape came out with Dying to Win : The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. Labeled as "One of the world’s foremost authorities on the subject" of suicide terrorism, University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape's book is summarized by Amazon.com as follows:

FACT: Suicide terrorism is not primarily a product of Islamic fundamentalism.

FACT: The world’s leading practitioners of suicide terrorism are the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka–a secular, Marxist-Leninist group drawn from Hindu families.

FACT: Ninety-five percent of suicide terrorist attacks occur as part of coherent campaigns organized by large militant organizations with significant public support.

FACT: Every suicide terrorist campaign has had a clear goal that is secular and political: to compel a modern democracy to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland.

FACT: Al-Qaeda fits the above pattern. Although Saudi Arabia is not under American military occupation per se, one major objective of al-Qaeda is the expulsion of U.S. troops from the Persian Gulf region, and as a result there have been repeated attacks by terrorists loyal to Osama bin Laden against American troops in Saudi Arabia and the region as a whole.

FACT: Despite their rhetoric, democracies–including the United States–have routinely made concessions to suicide terrorists. Suicide terrorism is on the rise because terrorists have learned that it’s effective.

Pape's main point that is being widely quoted is that the current wave of terrorism is a response to occupation. Gateway Pundit writes about former Democratic Senator Jim Abourezk's reaction to the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv in CounterPunch:

I am realistic enough to know that, because the Congress is pretty much reliant on money from radical Zionists, stopping the flow of American taxpayers' money to Israel will not come soon. But the sooner it does end, the sooner the violence will stop...Racism against people of Arab descent is getting worse...Terrorism does not exist in a vacuum. It does not come from thin air. It is a result of people who believe that their lives cannot be improved by occupation and that there is nothing left for them to do except to commit acts of terrorism.

The attempt to blame the current wave of Islamist terrorism around the world on 'occupation' in general--an on Israel and the US in particular--does not hold water.

Some points to keep in mind:

o According to Religion of Peace, in 2005 alone, 6991 people were murdered and 12,382 people injured in Islamist attacks in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Chechnya, Dagestan, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, India, Indonesia, Ingushetia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kabardino-Balk., Kosovo, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine (Jebaliya and Gaza City), Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, UK, and Yemen--and the majority of those countries do not fit Pape's model of democracies occupying Moslem territory. (For numbers on Islamist attacks thus far this year see here)

o According to TigerHawk:

there have been a great many foreign occupations and counterinsurgencies in the world that were not resisted with suicide bombings. Other than Japanese kamikaze (who in any case confined themselves to military targets), why are Muslims the only people who resist occupation with suicide bombings if Islamic fundamentalism is not the main cause of suicide bombings? Is this because moderate Muslims become suicide bombers? What, precisely, is his point?

o Bernard Lewis, in The Crisis of Islam, notes the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late December 1979, which finally brought a watered-down condemnation from the UN General Assembly "strongly deploring the recent armed intervention in Afghanistan"--Syria and Algeria abstaind, South Yemen voted against, Libya was absent, and the PLO observer defended Russia. In the end:

it was left to the United States to organize, with some success , an Islamic counteratack to Soviet imperialism in Afghanistan. [p. 91-92]

Where was the resistance to foreign occupation--and the suicide bombers?

o Why is Pape forced to hedge? In an interview, Pape claims:

the facts are that since 1980, suicide terrorist attacks from around the world over half have been secular. What over 95 per cent of suicide attacks around the world [are about] is not religion, but a specific strategic purpose - to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland or prize greatly and this is in fact a centrepiece of Al Qaeda's strategic logic, which is to compel the United States and Western countries to abandon military commitments on the Arabian Peninsula. [emphasis added]

Besides insisting on limiting his model to modern democracies--letting Russia's invasion of Afghanistan off the hook--he applies his model to territory that is 'viewed' as homeland or 'prized'. Papes odd articulation avoids dealing with the history of 'Palestine' that was never a country of a Palestinian people. But it also allows any imagined right by Islamist terrorists as justification for murder. For example, the model would give legitimacy to the Moslem claim to the Taj Mahal. Another example: Dhimmi Watch quotes an article in the LA Times, commenting:

At least the article is honest enough to acknowledge the traditionalist basis of the jihadist claims to Spain:

Unfortunately for Spain's Muslims, the militants who swear loyalty to Osama bin Laden are history buffs too. In claiming responsibility for the March bombings, they cited the loss of "Al Andalus" as motivation.

"We will continue our jihad until martyrdom in the land of Tarik Ben Ziyad," they said in a communique issued after the massacre, alluding to the Moorish warrior and original Islamic conqueror of the Iberian peninsula.

o In A War On Jihadism -- Not 'Terror', Jonathan Rauch quotes Islamic Imperialism: A History by Efraim Karsh who writes that "The Islamic imperial dream of world domination has remained very much alive in the hearts and minds of many Muslims" and that "Declaring a holy war against the infidel has been a standard practice of countless imperial rulers and aspirants since the rise of Islam."

If Pape, Mearsheimer, and Walt are any indication, academics and supposed experts are ready to tell us 'provocative' and 'radical' explanations about who the real enemy is, who is really to blame, and what really needs to be done.

In the face of such academicians, it is more necessary than ever to have the facts.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Terrorism and Jihad and Islamist and Robert Pape.

Bernard Lewis: The New Anti-Semitism I--The Jewish Lobby

Judith Apter Klinghoffer at the History News Network has posted a lenghty article by Bernard Lewis on "The New Anti-Semitism."

Rather than dwell on how he traces the history and philosopy behind Anti-Semism, some of the actual examples he gives are worth taking a look at. One example of the manifestation of anti-Semitism is the issue of "The Jewish Lobby" that is brought up, which is especially relevant now with the investigation of AIPAC--and the claim that "The Jewish Lobby" owes its allegiance to a foreign power and is disloyal to the US. Lewis writes:

The Jewish lobby is, of course, not the only lobby of its kind. Consider three others: the Irish, Greek, and Armenian lobbies. The Irish lobby, which campaigned against the United Kingdom, America's closest ally, and the Greek and Armenian lobbies, which campaigned against Turkey when Turkey was a crucial NATO ally, were seen as pursuing their legitimate concerns. I don't recall accusations against any of them of disloyalty or even of divided loyalty.

While on the topic, it might be interesting to compare AIPAC with CAIR, especially in the context of CAIR being named as a defendant in a 9/11 terror class action lawsuit. It would be interesting to compare the media coverage of AIPAC and the FBI investigation on the one hand as opposed to the media coverage of the suit against CAIR.

Daniel Pipes has a long article--with lots of updates--on 5 employees and board members of CAIR:

July 7, 2004: To sum up the state of CAIR's legal play: two of its associates (Ghassan Elashi, Randall Royer) have been convicted on terrorism-related charges, one (Bassem Khafegi) convicted on fraud charges, two (Rabih Haddad, Bassem Khafegi) have been deported, and one (Siraj Wahhaj) remains at large.

He has an August 15, 2005 update that a 6th member of CAIR, Mohammad Nimer, has been named in the class action suit which claims that besides being director of CAIR's Research Center, he "also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the United Association for Studies and Research ('UASR'). The UASR is the strategic arm of Hamas in the United States."

See also:
o Bernard Lewis: The New Anti-Semitism II--Arab Humor
o Bernard Lewis: The New Anti-Semitism III--The UN

Technorati Tag: Israel and Jews and Anti-Semitism and CAIR and AIPAC.

Bernard Lewis: The New Anti-Semitism II--Arab Humor

On a different tack on Anti-Semitism, Lewis gives an example of the Jewish stereotype in the Arab world, in terms of folklore and humor:

An interesting difference in hostile stereotypes can be found in anecdotes, jokes, and the like. The main negative quality attributed to Jews in Turkish and Arab folklore was that they were cowardly and unmilitary—very contemptible qualities in a martial society. A late Ottoman joke may serve to illustrate this. The story is that in 1912, at the time of the Balkan war, when there was an acute threat to the Ottoman Empire in its final stages, the Jews, full of patriotic ardor, decided that they, too, wanted to serve in the defense of their country, so they asked permission to form a special volunteer brigade. Permission was given, and officers and ncos were sent to train and equip them. Once the Jewish volunteer brigade was armed, equipped, and trained, ready to leave for the front, they sent a message asking if they could have a police escort, because there were reports of bandits on the road.

In particular, Lewis uses this anecdote to explain the humiliation the Arab world felt in the aftermath of the War of Independence, and the subsequent wars it instigated and lost:

This is a very interesting human document. Is it hostile? Not really. It shows a sort of amused tolerance, at once good-humored and contemptuous, that may help us to understand the bewilderment and horror at the Israeli victories in 1948 and after. We have some vivid descriptions at the time of the expectations and reactions of 1948. Azzam Pasha, who was then the secretary-general of the Arab League, is quoted as having said: "This will be like the Mongol invasions. We will utterly destroy them. We will sweep them into the sea." The expectation was that it would be quick and easy. There would be no problem at all dealing with half a million Jews. It was then an appalling shock when five Arab armies were defeated by half a million Jews with very limited weaponry. It remains shameful, humiliating. This was mentioned at the time and has been ever since. One writer said: "It was bad enough to be conquered and occupied by the mighty empires of the West, the British Empire, the French Empire, but to suffer this fate at the hands of a few hundred thousand Jews was intolerable."

According to Lewis then, the humiliation that the Arab world felt was not due to the fact that Jews were for over a thousand years dhimmis--subjugated second class citizens--but because they were historically considered weak and cowardly. In this Lewis is consistent in his view of "Dhimmitude":

If we look at the considerable literature available about the position of Jews in the Islamic world, we find two well-established myths. One is the story of a golden age of equality, of mutual respect and cooperation, especially but not exclusively in Moorish Spain; the other is of “dhimmi”-tude, of subservience and persecution and ill treatment. Both are myths. Like many myths, both contain significant elements of truth, and the historic truth is in its usual place, somewhere in the middle between the extremes.

In contrast, Dr. Mitchell Bard, author of Myths and Facts, has an article on The Treatment of Jews in Arab/Islamic Countries where he details how Jewish communities in various Moslem communities in various periods of history were subject to the destruction of synagogues, living in ghettos, and the mass slaughter of Jews. Bard quotes G.E. Von Grunebaum, author of "Eastern Jewry Under Islam":

It would not be difficult to put together the names of a very sizeable number of Jewish subjects or citizens of the Islamic area who have attained to high rank, to power, to great financial influence, to significant and recognized intellectual attainment; and the same could be done for Christians. But it would again not be difficult to compile a lengthy list of persecutions, arbitrary confiscations, attempted forced conversions, or pogroms.

But unlike the issue of former dhimmitude, the Arab view of Jews as cowardly comes into play in the way that Israel conducts itself in dealing and negotiating with the Palestinian terrorists from Oslo on--in the constant talk of the need for concessions and seeming reluctance to see to it that the Palestinian Arabs keep their promises and obligations.

It is one thing for Arabs to tell stereotypical anecdotes about Jews--it is another for Israel to insist on playing the part.

See also:
o Bernard Lewis: The New Anti-Semitism I--The Jewish Lobby
o Bernard Lewis: The New Anti-Semitism III--The UN

Technorati Tag: Israel and Jews and Anti-Semitism and Dhimmis and Spain.

Bernard Lewis: The New Anti-Semitism III--The UN

Lastly, Lewis notes some of the disparities in the way the UN has handled the Middle East--going back to 1948.

1. Following the 1948 War of Independence, it was accepted without argument that Arabs could remain under Israeli rule, but no Jews could remain in those areas that ended up under Arab control.

2. Among Jews who could not stay in Arab controlled areas there were "not just settlers, but old, established groups, notably the ancient Jewish community in East Jerusalem, which was totally evicted and its monuments desecrated or destroyed." There was no outrcy from either the UN nor international public opinion. The Arab world took note.

3. The UN response to Arab refugees was to make very elaborate arrangements with extensive financing--as opposed to the UN response to Jews of equal number who either fled or were driven out from Arab lands, and as opposed to how other refugees from other countries were treated ("Hindus who fled or were driven from Pakistan into India, Muslims who fled or were driven from India into Pakistan...the millions of refugees in Central and Eastern Europe—Poles fleeing from the Eastern Polish areas annexed to the Soviet Union and Germans fleeing from the East German areas annexed to Poland").

4. Following the war in 1948, Arab countries went beyond just not recognizing Israel. They also refused to allow Israelis of any religion into their countries. Israeli Christians and Arabs were not allowed into East Jerusalem, though Israeli Christians could enter on Christmas Day for a few hours. At the time, Israeli Muslims were not allowed to go on their obligatory pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.

5. Virtually all Arab countries refused to give visas to Jews of any nationality--"Again, not a word of protest from anywhere. One can imagine the outrage if Israel had announced that it would not give visas to Muslims, still more if the United States were to do so. As directed against Jews, this ban was seen as perfectly natural and normal."

6. The Jordanian nationality law of February 4, 1954 accepts Palestinian natives and residents as citizens--with no objection by international public opinion.

7. A report was presented to UNESCO on April 4, 1969 on the anti-Semitic material found after the Six Day War in textbooks funded by UNESCO. The report was not published.

Consistently, these actions by the Arab countries were accepted as natural and normal, with no offical protest--a point that the Arab world noted.

Lewis concludes that:

For those who needed it, all this provided an up-to-date, intellectually and socially acceptable rationale for what ought to be called anti-Semitism but, since that word isn't acceptable, might be called Jew-baiting, Jew-hating, or generally being unpleasant to Jews.

See also:
o Bernard Lewis: The New Anti-Semitism I--The Jewish Lobby
o Bernard Lewis: The New Anti-Semitism II--Arab Humor

Technorati Tag: Israel and UN and Palestinians and UNESCO and Jordan and Arabs and Anti-Semitism.

The Obvious Question

In his article, Islam, Democracy & Assimilation, Andrew McCarthy tries his hand at addressing the issues raised by Francis Fukuyama in his article A Year of Living Dangerously. In his conclusion, McCarthy writes:

President Bush, while smoke was still billowing from Ground Zero, insisted that the answer to Islamic radicalism was somehow to be found outside Islam — that 19 terrorists had "hijacked a great religion." Just a week ago, during her "religion of love" encomium, Secretary Rice maintained: "We in America know the benevolence that is at the heart of Islam."

That all sounds very nice. But let's leave aside for the moment that if such things were as routinely proclaimed by high government officials about Christianity or Judaism the ACLU would be stampeding the federal courts with lawsuits decrying Establishment Clause violations. What's the evidence that what the administration claims is true?

At roughly the same time as last week's contrasting Ramadan speeches from Rice and Ahmadinejad, the imam of Mecca's Grand Mosque, Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, was in Dubai being honored by his fellow Muslims as the Islamic Personality of the Year Award. As Don Feder observes, it was not long ago that Al-Sudais was heard praying "that Allah would 'terminate' the Jews, who he benevolently called 'the scum of humanity, the rats of the world, prophet killers ... pigs and monkeys' (the latter comes from the Koran). On other occasions Al-Sudais referred to Jews as 'evil,' a 'continuum of deceit,' 'tyrannical' and 'treacherous.'"

In the Muslim ghettoes of democratic Europe, the likes of Al-Sudais are far more influential than Locke or Burke or Montesquieu. Nonetheless, in sorting out the militants from the moderates, we've made a taboo of the obvious question: Is there something about Islam?

McCarthy does not provide an answer--which is just as well, since the world is still not yet ready for the question, never mind the answer. Instead, we are subjected either to excuses or pat answers that do not begin to look beneath the surface. It was only recently that Bush reformulated the goal of the war, finally identifying Islamists as the enemy as opposed to just terrorism.

In his book, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror, Bernard Lewis writes that

most present-day terrorists are Muslims and proudly identify themselves as such...Usama bin Ladin and his Al-Qa'ida followers may not represent Islam, and many of their statements and their actions directly contradict basic Islamic principles and teachings, but they do arise from within Muslim civilization, just as Hitler and the Nazis arose from within Christendom, and they too must be seen in their own cultural, religious, and historical context. (p. 137-8)

We have a long way to go.

see Dealing With The Islamist Threat

Technorati Tag: Islam.

Israeli Occupation? Moslems are Just Being Modest

Like the rest of the world, the Palestinian Arabs and the Moslem world as a whole gives a geshrei about the Israeli 'occupation' along with cries of American 'occupation' of Iraq, imperialism, globalization, etc.

Moslem history is worth looking at in comparison.

In an article for The New Yorker back in 2001 entitled the The Revolt of Islam Bernard Lewis writes about the European counter-attack against Moslem invasion during the Middle Ages:

The Tatars were expelled from Russia, and the Moors from Spain. But in southeastern Europe, where the Ottoman sultan confronted first the Byzantine and then the Holy Roman Emperor, Muslim power prevailed, and these setbacks were seen as minor and peripheral. As late as the seventeenth century, Turkish pashas still ruled in Budapest and Belgrade, Turkish armies were besieging Vienna, and Barbary corsairs were raiding lands as distant as the British Isles and, on one occasion, in 1627, even Iceland. [emphasis added]

The material in the article appears also in Lewis' The Crisis of Islam (see page 51).

On page 34 of that book, he describes the beginning of Moslem Imperialism:

The then Christian provinces of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa were absorbed and in due course Islamized and Arabized, and they served as bases for the further invasion of Europe and the conquest of Spain and Portugal and much of southern Italy. By the early eighth century the conquering Arab armies were even advancing beyond the Pyrenees into France. [emphasis added]

Lewis describes the European attempt to end the Moslem occupation in contemporary terms:

By this time the jihad had become almost entirely defensive--resisting the Reconquest in Spain and Russia, resisting the movements for national self-liberation by the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire, and finally, as Muslims see it, defending the very heartlands of Islam against infidel attack. [emphasis added]

Lewis adds how Moslems describe this period of Christian self-liberation:

This phase has come to be known as imperialism.

Apparently Zionism is not the first nationalist movement to be labeled 'imperialist' by the Moslem world.

Technorati Tag: Middle East.