Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald takes up the vexed question of how to deal with our friends and allies the Saudis.
Saudi Arabia needs to be read the riot act by someone -– possibly John Bolton. And these are the things he should tell them. Here are 100 ways to bring Saudi Arabia (“Money can buy everything, except civilization,” as an Armenian who spent years in Saudi Arabia building military cities commented laconically) into the civilized world. First, the days of Prince Bandar having private audiences, or King Abdullah being invited to anyone's ranch, must be ended. Saudi Arabia should no longer be called an ally. It never was – not even at the time of Ibn Saud’s famous shipboard picture with Roosevelt. How could it be? How could a Muslim state, fanatical in the inculcation of hatred toward Infidels, conceivably ever be a real ally of an Infidel nation-state?Second, every effort should be made, public and private, to tell the truth about Saudi Arabia -- whatever propaganda campaign the Saudis pay for. The gouging-out of eyes that is in the headlines today, the treatment of Christians, the virtual slavery in which many from Thailand, India, the Philippines are held -- all the stories that have been suppressed should now get the full attention of the American government, and of journalists. It should not be hard to find people who worked in Saudi Arabia, were ill-treated in Saudi Arabia, and who even saw others killed in Saudi Arabia, who would be happy to tell about it.
Third, those who long ago took Saudi Arabia’s true measure, such as J. B. Kelly, should be given respectful attention. For example, the real role of Saudi Arabia as the bully of the peninsula – supporting the Dhofar rebellion in Oman, or attempting to push Zayid aroud in the Buraimi Oasis dispute with what became the the U.A.E., or in attempting to bully Yemen not least by periodic mass expulsions of Yemeni workers, and in meddling with internal Yemeni politics – all of this should have been constantly noted by the Western press, but never once was even mentioned.Fourth, American servicemen who felt the contempt of the Saudis who treated them as simply mercenaries whom they could order about, should be given full access to the service academies and the military press, as well as to the mainstream media.
Fifth, Saudi textbooks, the contents of the khutbas, or sermons, routinely delivered in Saudi Arabia, should be given exposure by every conceivable means – and there should be many journalists happy, at long last, to report the truth about Saudi Arabia.
Sixth, attention should be given to how the Saudis have spent their money since 1973. Why no art works? Why not a single Saudi scientist of note? How much was spent on arms? How much was spent on luxury goods? How much was spent – most importantly – on da’wa and jihad? Do any Saudis work, and if so, for how long each day? As for the Saudi penchant for “Western decadence” – a kind that will not go over very well in some circles in the Muslim East -- the C.I.A. could easily supply to various Internet sites all sorts of pictures of Saudi princelings. For example, they could supply the amateur videos taken from a certain café in Marbella that show the boatloads of Western call girls being taken out to the waiting yachts of Saudis, just after their wives and children had been offloaded to other boats. Oh, there are a thousand things that, in a war, one can do to demoralize the enemy, or to cause the collaboration of certain key elements in the enemy camp.
Seventh, all means should be used to help those who are suing the Saudis for their role in all terrorist attacks. For their money, and U.A.E. money, and Kuwaiti money, underlie all the mosques in the West – and madrasas, armaments, everything. And all that has only been possible since 1973 with the OPEC bonanza.
Eighth, Congressional committees should follow up on the 9/11 Commission and the hearings held (all too quietly) not too long ago on the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act. They should study the subject of how, in the capitals of the West, the Arabs, and especially the Saudis, have bought influence. There should be undertaken a systematic study of every American ambassador to Saudi Arabia or to other Muslim oil states, including study of their reports to the State Department and their attempts to inform – or deliberately misinform – the American government and the American public. Their actions both while in office and in their retirement as “international business consultants with a particular interest in the Middle East,” as so many of them are called, should be carefully scrutinized. James Akins, Eugene Bird, Andrew Kilgore, the ex-C.I.A. agent Raymond Close, and a host of others should be called before Congress. Find out who is funding the Committee for the National Interest. Who pays for certain lectures? Who has received what, from whom, when? And this should also be done perhaps in London (certain members of Parliament have already been exposed as being on the Arab take) or Paris (well, we all know about Chirac, so scarcely need bother with him – but what about the lower level, the Roland Dumas level?) or Rome (everyone knows about Andreotti, but it was not merely a connection, unproved in a court but common knowledge, to the malavita, but his curious interest in promoting, at every juncture, the Arabs that bears looking into). As for the EU bureaucracy – well, why not find out a bit more about that den of iniquity, as Europe transmogrifies, hideously, into Eurabia?
Nine, if the Saudis can charge $40 or $40 a barrel for oil that costs less than $1 to lift, is it beyond the wit of the oil-consuming nations that supply the educated manpower on which the Saudis completely rely, that is, the West whose medical care and educational system the Saudis also rely, to do the same to them? Turnabout is fair play. Suppose, for example, every time a Saudi wished to visit the United States for medical care (the Mass General, the Children’s Hospital, the Mayo Clinic), he were to be charged not only the regular medical fees, but a “surcharge” that would be pegged as the same multiple of those medical expenses as the price charged for a barrel of Saudi oil is a multiple of the real cost of lifting that barrel? A $5,000 medical fee would have a surcharge of 40 times that, or $200,000. Unfair? Unworkable? Are you sure? Why is it any fairer than the Saudis who manage to charge oligopolistic rents because they are the swing producer – and who charge 40 times the cost of production? Why should not all the advanced Western powers together agree that even visits by Saudis to the U.S., to England, to France, to Italy, will be a very severely limited commodity – and will have to be paid for very considerably? This “surcharge” might be seen as a way of paying for the real cost of security now made necessary by Muslim terrorists. And any other means to discourage Saudi visits to the West – and to make clear that the Saudis (and other financers not only of terrorism, but of mosques in the West) are now pariahs, and will be treated as such, locked into their own Muslim world which, like the propagandist Tariq Ramadan, of course they cannot really bear (as Ramadan cannot bear not to reside in the West, and so has concocted Da’wa for a future Islamized Eurabia).
Ten through One Hundred: Use your own imagination, reader.
is this a pie in sky wish, will any US president or any US party, or any Western nation actually do this? we can only keep pushing these points, perhaps send it editorials across the country! seeis they print it!
The Saudis have never been able to profit from the intellectual and scientific achievements of the nations they have entered in contact with after they became filthy rich with oil.
The Saudis have contracted the defects of those nations, but have shown themselves incapable of assimilating any of the good qualities of the US or Europe.
The reason is simple, Saudis are subject to a barbarous religious doctrine that does not expressly condemn the grosser forms of pleasure, nor most of the trespasses more civilized people would consider sin.
Anyone can check that, just ask any Arab about the Ten Commandments. Their face will go blank.
They just have the five pillars of islam, which are plain religious rituals unconcerned with morality.
Please stop being friendly with such scum. The earlier we will declare them our enemies, the less at risk we will be.
The Saudis and their ilk have insinuated themselves into the uppercrust of the West, including the highest levels of government and their advisors. All of these people should be investigated and their behavior labeled: treasonous -- the crime of betraying one's own country, and in this case, giving aid and comfort to the enemy for self-serving purposes.
terrible times
As I have heard here before...Beware of the wolf in sheeps clothing.
Great idea, doomed to fail. Saudi Arabia is the center of the problem which our press, schools, museums, politicians, diplomats, etc., won't touch. Almost everyone would rather take their money than think about long-term survival.
As a couple of the previous posters have noted, there is a 5th column element to the Saudi connection. This element must be addressed, perhaps through public exposure. There must be an Item 11 on the list to account for public exposure of Westerners who have sold out to Saudi money.
Here's number ten:
All lobbyists who currently or in the past accepted money on behalf the Kingdom must be identified as such when they appear or are quoted in the media. For instance, this would mean that when Brent Scowcroft appears on PBS, he must be identified as a lobbyist for the Kingdom as well as being identified as a former US governmental official. Same goes for James Baker and a host of other people ( George McGovern) who are routinely identified as, say, an ex-Ambassador to so an so place but never identified as a former or current lobbyist. The same must also accompany any quotes by these lobbyists in the print media including that voice of the former and current State Department, the New York Times.
In addition, ex-Presidents of the United States must also state if they or their libraries have received money from any individuals with close ties to the Saudis or from the Saudi government itself. Obviously, this would require that George H.W. Bush be identified as a member of the Carlyle group with close ties to Saudi lobbyist James Baker. Former President Clinton must also be identified as someone who has taken a great deal of money from the Saudis in order to build his Presidential library.
Finally, academics who receive money from the Saudis or from Saudi sponsored NGO's must also be identified as agents of the Saudis. For example,
John Esposito must be identified as someone with close ties to the Saudis as does Michael Hudson and other Saudi-influenced members of the Academy.
In other words, full and open disclosure!
the above proposed treatment of the saudis will never happen under the present neo-con gang that is for sure, this kind of thing requires honest upright people, with a vision for the world, not hypocrites looking to further their own interests
"is this a pie in sky wish, will any US president or any US party, or any Western nation actually do this?" ... from Lulu
We need to do what we can. For one, the sordid Bush-saudi connection is something that infuriates both the political "right" and "left", and it does seem the present administration can be hounded by the MSM and maybe embarassed enough to end those private audiences.
If the Enquirer is willing to pay hundreds of thousands for topless photos of Jennifer Aniston, how about offering same for photos of the al-saud pigs cavorting in their floating stys. Offer those western call girls ten thousand for their anonymous stories. Follow the pigs into the fur and jewelry stores, photograph the liquor bottles. Enquirin' minds want to know.
There are some strongly anti-saudi congressmen (Craig, Spector, Weiner,etc) who deserve our support. The saudi money and propaganda constantly working for their defeat should be exposed.
Excellent article, Hugh.
The average American knows for sure that the Saudis are the cause of virulent Islam being decimated in the US via their sponsored Mosques and propaganda via the likes of CAIR , but as long as people in power in our Government takes no action nothing will happen.
Its now up to the average citizens of the US to contact their elected representatives and demand that they identify the culprits and expose those who gain from this evil association with the Saudis.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1892780,00.html
Giant mosque for 40,000 may be built at London Olympics
Thanks for the link leom
here's an unusually rational article from the Times by David Aaronovitch
It's the latest disease: sensible people saying ridiculous things about Islam
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22369-1872150,00.html
"How could a Muslim state, fanatical in the inculcation of hatred toward Infidels, conceivably ever be a real ally of an Infidel nation-state?"
The Kissinger Doctrine would be the sensible context for such an alliance; but, of course, that Doctrine would only work to our advantage if we backed up our geopolitical and technological superiority with sociocultural strength. Under the dominance of PC that has increased exponentially in the West with each passing decade since the 60s, that strength is at an all-time deadly low.
With PC domination the way it is now in 2005, a prudent and rational Kissinger Doctrine in relation to Saudi Arabia becomes a suicide pact.
(For the sophomores here: PC domination is the reason why the West is currently myopic about the problem of Islam. Why the West has become enthralled by PC is a mystery of history yet to be fully explained; but it is a massively undeniable and exasperating fact.)
rumi, he's right that most Muslims are like us kufr. But the problem with Muslims is when the extremists among them take over, shoot and suppress populations into the 7th century, there is no resistance when the extremists justify this by saying Islam is in danger, or any resistance ist against Islam and Allah. So it's extremely dangerous to freedom to allow Muslims to live amongst us kufr because they WILL kill or convert us all in the end.
"Islam is not here to be equal to other faiths, it's here to be dominant" - some *-ullah-*, CAIR director whose name I prefer not to remember.
Islam is an ideology that's taken hold of a billion people, reducing them to mindless 5 times daily mindwashing reprogramming sessions till even the thought of critical analysis about what's in "the Book" is anathema for fear of the hellfire from Allah. We need to rescue humankind from Islam. I agree we need to be more insidious about it than just plain naked opposition which will make these ppl seek refuge in the mullahthink even further.
Long live Mankind in Freedom! May we be delivered from Islam, mad Mo's horrifying invention.
That article by David Aaronovitch was not "unusually" rational; it was expressed in the rationality of the commonplace Political Correctness that reigns supreme in the West. David Aaronovitch starts from a prejudicial Given: Islam cannot be the problem. No matter what else, we cannot abandon this Holy Given: Islam cannot be the problem.
In fact, it's worse than that. Behind this Given is another, very similar one: Not only is Islam not "the" problem -- Islam cannot be a problem at all. Only prefixed and suffixed splinters and small parts like "radical Islam" or "Islamists" that we surgically remove from Islam can begin to be acknowledged as problematic -- and then only very carefully and gingerly in order to avoid "Islamophobia" & "racism" and hurting multiculturalist feelings.
Therefore, this David Aaronovitch begins with this prejudicial Given, and anything that smells like it has challenged this Given is immediately categorized as wrong and "ridiculous".
"[David Aaronovitch is] right that most Muslims are like us kufr."
Even if that is true (and we have no evidence for that other than superficial evidence), our increasingly deadly problem we face is that we cannot tell the difference between:
1) the Muslims who will remain harmless
and
2) the Muslims who will explode,
since the outward, superficial behavioral signs are not sufficient to tell the difference.
Only after the mass-murderous explosions are we able to tell the difference -- and by then, each time it happens, it's tragically too late.
rumi
I think you must have misread the Aaronovitch article. It's a sneering put-down of people who think there's a muslim threat in Europe. Written by a man who goes on insisting that the French Intifada has nothing whatever to do with Islam. (Perhaps he didn't see the online footage of rampaging mobs screaming 'Djihad!' and 'Allahu Akbar!' as cars burst into flame. Then again, perhaps he did.)
The 'sensible people saying ridiculous things' are people like 'Spectator' editor Boris Johnson, journalist Rod Liddle and the esteemed Bat Ye'or. (I notice he didn't pick on Mark Steyn who had an on-target article in the same issue - Steyn could swat him like a midge, and he knows it.)
Unusually rational? Aaronovitch sounds like he's making a late pitch for the Dhimmi Internationale
Award! If it wasn't for his Jewish credentials, I'd wonder if he hadn't recently received a windfall from a Saudi auntie he never knew existed...
rumi, if "God" intended mankind to follow Islam, why did he let millions of them remain ignorant in their lives for generations, say in South America. If your one life is your only chance at salvation, why were only people in the Middle-EAst shown the light and others condemned to unbelief? Islam makes no sense to me.
But then again, unlike you, I don't rock back and forth trying to make my mind believe the unbelievable.
LOL rumi, that's a good one!
Some relevant excerpts:
"Where were the tapes of incitement in the banlieu mosques, with the local imams calling for cleansing fire to sweep the Kaffirs and their Citroëns out of the new Muslim lands? Nowhere."
This is a common fallacy. Muslim riots do not need an Imam to lead the charge. Ordinary Muslims can start a riot for any reason against the infidel, the only caution is to not do it when the ummah is too weak in land of the kuffar. And still, that's just a caution, it's not binding, there are always differences of opinion. Al-Qaeda doesn't need the support of this-or-that Imam to commit terrorism. Imams may disagree with Al-Qaeda's MO but they can't possibly say that Al-Qaeda are collaborators with the infidels, that they are apostates, or that they are hypocrites. They are untouchable and cannot be considered to be bad Muslims because they are good Muslims. Hence bin Laden's popularity in the Muslim world.
"But last Tuesday’s e-mail box saw the unwelcome victory of assertion over argument: most of those rioting were likely to be Muslims, therefore the problem was unassimilated Islam — a religion that, in any case, is resistant to modernity and inimical to democracy and human rights. In other words, as the correspondents saw it, the young French Muslims were The Enemy Within. Wake up! Sound the alarm!
Just as I was wondering around a station newsagent’s, thinking about how dangerous this pattern of thought can be..."
How dangerous indeed Mr. Aaronovitch! I mean, if true it would mean you cushy elites would actually have to THINK for once in your lives about how to solve this wondeful mess you got us into! Islam cannot be "assimilated" because it must be dominant and not dominated. It refuses to abide by the rule of man when the rule of Allah (sharia) is made available to the ummah. If sharia does not become the orthodoxy, then Muslims complain that they can't practice their religion FULLY. So they either try to secede land where Muslims are the majority (see France with the ridiculous suggestion that there be millets in the Muslim dominated parts) or introduce peacemeal sharia legislation into the dominant kuffar nation (see Canada and the failed sharia courts).
"Will London Burn Too? is the title given by the magazine to an essay by Patrick Sookhdeo, who tells readers that if an area has a Muslim majority it becomes, “a millet — a state within a state”. He goes on: “The concept of sacred space insists that any territory once held by Islam belongs to Islam forever. Any such space lost must be regained by whatever means necessary.”
So once Bradford becomes majority Muslim, say, then its inhabitants regard it as being as irreversibly Islamic as Riyadh. Pinch me again. "
LOL! Mr. Aaronovitch, instead of mocking these claims, can you refute them, O learned scholar of Islam? Can you refute the claim that a land that has a mosque built in it is considered to be Muslim? Can you refute the reality that many of the Muslim conflicts in the world ranging from Chechnya, Israel, Thailand, the Phillipines, and Kashmir are based on this very premise, that the Muslims must fight the infidels because infidels are occupying "Muslim land"? The case in Thailand is very recent actually, yet it's considered to be "just as Muslim" as Riyadh. What will make pockets of Britain any different?
"Pinch me a third time while we get to grips with “Eurabia”. This is a concept created by a writer called Bat Ye’or who, according to the publicity for her most recent book, “chronicles Arab determination to subdue Europe as a cultural appendage to the Muslim world — and Europe’s willingness to be so subjugated”. This, as students of conspiracy theories will recognise, is the addition of the Sad Dupes thesis to the Enemy Within idea."
Too bad Bat Ye'or isn't a neocon crank, Mr. Aaronovitch. She's a leading scholar in dhimmitude and specializes in Jewish and Christian dhimmitude in the Middle East. Dismiss her as a conspiracy theorist, I don't think she much cares. Look at the non-binding legislation she cites, look at the groups she focuses on, read about them, study them, and think. If she has made any error about this, then let her know. If her thesis is not plausible, she'd be delighted to hear it. Believe me, Bat Ye'or does not want Europe to become Eurabia, but based on the history of its elites and the legislation she has studied she feels that it is inevitable. She cited similar patterns in the formerly Christian Middle East. Prove her wrong Mr. Aaronovitch, she'd be glad if you could.
"The vast majority of Muslims are not Islamists. They aren’t militant and they aren’t zealots. They are not anything really, any more than the rest of us. And it is simply wrong to focus continually on the words of the Koran or of this or that preacher, in the expectation of finding something alien or alarming. There are people in the Jewish community who have argued that “marrying out” can be described as a “silent holocaust”. If we chose to understand world Judaism from such sentiments, we would find ourselves in the interesting company of today’s sophisticated anti-Semites."
Most Muslims are not Islamists? Well, pinch me, Mr. Aaronovitch. How can you explain the popularity of Zarqawi, of bin Laden, of Hamas? How can you explain that even the most non-practicing Muslims would like to see their adopted country become "more Muslim"? Have you polled them yourself? If you did, how do you know they are not lying? Afterall, taqiyya and kitman are ordained in the Koran and Sunnah. Focusing on the Koran may be alarming to you because you either haven't read it or clearly cannot understand it, Mr. Aaronovitch. Since you are ignorant of the fact that most Muslims do read the Koran literally unlike most Jews read the Torah allegorically, and that the Koran nixes out some of the more "tolerant" verses such as "There is no compulsion of religion" due to nask or abrogation, then really what is there more to say? Although "every religion has its extremists", the same is not true for Islam because it is more than a religion. It's an ideology and a vehicle for Arab imperialism. It is one of the few "religions" that has a strong political component and many of the laws regarding its political aspect are clear and not open to a different interpretation.
And Hugh had a good point there: If Mohamed is the ideal man and you should follow all his properties, then either you condone child marriages or you don't agree with that injunction. You can't excuse it as a feature of the times.
Excellent article Hugh, but I'm reading Robert Dreyfuss' The Devil's Game, and it puts flesh on the bones, when it comes to the question of why the U.S. formed an alliance with and promoted and sponsored the Islamists (hint: as a counterpoise to Arab Nationalism and leftist movements).
It also has some very interesting info on the history of the Muslim Brotherhood and it's real progenitor (not Hasan al Banna, but earlier).
Worth the read for the historical and informational value, if nothing else. Seems that our British friends started and kept the whole ball rolling in their ongoing attempt to hold together empire, creating and playing off one faction against the other, and now we have to live with the consequences of 150 years of medddling with the Arabs.
Let's support implementation of Hugh's policy toward Saudi Arabia. MJ is helpful too with the names of officials --elected and appointed-- that he supplies. I would like to add to the list the name of Jiminy Cricket, former president of the United States, whose national "security" advisor Zbig Brzezinski, helped Khomeini take over Iran, helped set up the fanatic Islamist movement in Afghanistan, pushed for the fake "Camp David peace deal", etc. Jiminy has his own "research center" --if you will-- called the Carter Center or the James Carter Center [they should have named it after Billy] in Atlanta. Anyhow, Jiminy accepted $10 billion from the BCCI bank --mainly owned by the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi, as far as I know-- for his Carter Center in Atlanta. I think the year was 1992. At any rate, I read about it in the LeMonde in 1992. The BCCI bank was super corrupt and it went bankrupt. It was notorious for money transfer to terrorists, etc.
Carter helped a rich gal named Menil send big money to one of those phoney "human rights"/"civil liberties" outfits in Israel --named B'Tselem-- which work to provide legal and propaganda cover for terrorists.
Until I read Igor's posting above, I had no idea how dangerously silly and ignorant Aronovitch is. Now I know.
ELIYAHU:
Please check your above post: "Jimmy acepted 10 billion..." that can't be right. But I think he got some 10 million (or more?) for his mausoleum...
Could someone be kind enough to spell out the various realistic options for change in Sa'udi Arabia? From the little I know, the choices seem to be either the House of Sa'ud or some band of equally zealous Wahabbis.
igor, excellent critique.
Send it to Mr. Aaronovitch, with love.
In Saudi Arabia, the best thing from the Infidel point of view is not to worry about whether the Al-Saud or some group opposed to their corruption and misrule, couching such opposition naturally in the language of Islam, and offering "Islam" as the "solution" to everything. The main thing is to diminish Saudi revenues, and to threaten to seize whatever wealth it has accumulated in assets, liquid and illiquid, abroad. For those revenues inevitably go to fund mosques, madrasas, propaganda, Da'wa, armies of hirelings. Saudi friendship is impossible; Saudi cooperation, forced cooperation, is possible. And there are so many things that could be done, could have been done from 1973 on, to diminish Saudi revenues, and the revenues of other Muslm oil states, that one becomes infuriated just thinking of all the obvious missed chances.
Igor's terrific post:
"...Mr. Aaronovitch, instead of mocking these claims, can you refute them, O learned scholar of Islam? Can you refute the claim that a land that has a mosque built in it is considered to be Muslim? Can you refute the reality that many of the Muslim conflicts in the world ranging from Chechnya, Israel, Thailand, the Phillipines, and Kashmir are based on this very premise, that the Muslims must fight the infidels because infidels are occupying "Muslim land"? The case in Thailand is very recent actually, yet it's considered to be "just as Muslim" as Riyadh. What will make pockets of Britain any different?"
How true is that!
In other words, this guy Aaronovitch is either totally deranged or he is just another whore on the Saudi payroll. No self-respecting Jew is that stupid.
Then, 'rumi' comes along and questions the concept of critical mass, like "how could 10% Mohammedans takeover, or become critical mass?'
Simple:
Most democracies have an - almost balanced-, number of socialists and often enough an equal number of s*#t for-brains conservatives.
Lets say you have a majority of 44% of conservatives and 39% socialists, the conservatives have declared that they will stop the spread of islamo-fascism and will stop immigration, and you have 10% of Islamo-block-voters who then vote for the lefty-looney whores who are willing to sell out just to f*#k up the conservatives, then you have 'critical mass'. 39 plus 10 makes 49%.
As a result you have more Islamic infiltration, more rape, robberies, more welfare, more suicide attacks, more money for Jihad, and at the same time life becomes very dangerous, unpleasant, expensive and unfree for the 'infidels'.
'nuff said.
Sheik,
10 billion does sound like a lot, even for a money guzzler like Jiminy. I would have to go back to the article in LeMonde, published in late September 1992, if I recall rightly. By the way, LeMonde has an index like the NYT which facilitates such checking. So it probably was 10 million. But nowadays, as you know, the unlikely often comes true.
Mr. Aaronovitch says:
"The vast majority of Muslims are not Islamists.."
Hmm....
I have studied the popular culture of Muslims for the past twenty seven years.
I lived in a totally islamic country for thirteen years among the common people and if one true thing can be said about Muslim society it is that all its members are a solid homogeneous block.
This word "islamism" that has recently been coined by apologists and by those who wish islam to be so good and tolerant (because it is good business for them here and now to believe so) doesn't reflect any ground reality in Islam.
So where does, for example, the battle of Badr, whose glories are sung every day by Muslim small children in their schools, fall in, according to the hackneyed classification "Islamic vs. Islamist"?
The difference between an Islamist and an "average Muslim" exists only insofar as the former are deemed to be more threatening for our society, but I repeat, there is no such difference within Islam.
In my dictionary, saying things that are baseless or scientifically and empirically not sound is tantamount to "saying stupid things".
Thus Mr. Aaronovitch is also "saying stupid things about Muslims," the very thing he accuses others of doing.
I despise the word "Islamist", almost as much as I dislike the word "Wahhabi" but I despise the word "Islamofascist" the most. Lay Westerners are at a loss when it comes to studying different cultures because we expect all of them to be "just like us". We take it for granted that every culture respects women, separates church from state, grants equality to all its minorities, and has a respect for the rule of law. Islam has none of these features. And by talking about the ideology of "Islamists" instead of the ideology of "Islam", one disregards the political component of Islam. Qutb did not present "Islamism" but "Islam" as a rival to democracy and communism. This has been a common trend in Islamic history, whenever an infidel power seems to be threatening the ummah, the automatic response is to make society more Islamic. Qutb was just another revivalist in the long line of others like him, nothing particularly special. The "ism" was added because he lived in a time of many "isms" like captialism, socialism, and communism; so naturally Islam needed an "ism" to distinguish the political from religious. However, most were unaware that before Ataturk's program that such a distinction was never made, and even now the distinction is rarely made at all. The others before Qutb were not called Islamists but revivalists with good reason because their "religion" provided their political ideology for them.
"Wahhabi" is problematic because it makes the lay infidel believe that if it wasn't for those darn Saudis, then Islam would be fine. No, no it wouldn't. How tolerant was the Ottoman empire without the Saudi influence? How tolerant was the Mughal empire without the Saudi influence? Even before al-Wahhab, when non-Arab Muslims went on hajj to learn more about Islam they still became fanatics. Indonesians would often go on hajj during their early history. Look into it, see what happened when they came back and what it meant for the infidels in their country. The problem wasn't the Saudis, who weren't on the scene yet, nor was it al-Wahhab. It was full Islam, true Islam, as taught to the non-Arab Muslims by the Arabs, the ones who understood it the best and who correctly recognized any form of syncretcism as biddah (innovation). Wahhabiism is part of the problem but even if it were eliminated, infidels would still be in trouble. There are many divisions in Islam but the differences lie in the personal practice of Islam, not the political structure. That is the one thing that is not compromised among different schools. It shouldn't concern us infidels if this type of Muslim lets his woman go outside of the house unescorted by a male relative (how progressive!), what should concern us is if this type of Muslim believes that infidels should live as dhimmis in a Muslim country, and they all do.
"Islamofascist" is the most absurd term I've heard in a long time, and I'm not surprised that it came from the pen of Christopher Hitchens. Afterall, he wouldn't want to offend his Precious Palestinians by calling them fascists, when in reality, that is what they are. It is impossible to separate Islam from fascism. It is a fascist ideology with a master people (the Muslims) and the inferior peoples (everyone else). Every minute action is documented and either approved of or forbidden, questioning the ideology and the founding book is forbidden and punishable by death, leaving the movement is punishable by death, and minorities and women are subjugated like in all fascist societies. Ibn Warraq does a splendid job of explaining this concept in his essay "Islam, Middle East, and Fascism". Perhaps Hitchens could give us an example of Islam, that is recognized by both the Sunni and Shia orthodox that does not have fascist tendencies. He won't because he can't. The best he could do would be to find some unrepresentative "secular" Muslims who are not praciticing, but that's just not good enough I'm afraid. "Islamofascist" is truly an Orwellian term and it's ironic that Christopher Hitchens coined it.
Excellent post Igor! Heck, I'm almost disapointed I can't find anything to quibble with you about :) Bat Yeor's scholarship is irrefutable and her book should be required reading for all politicians.
Haj Amin el-Husseini, British-appointed mufti of Jerusalem, the chief Arab-Nazi collaborator, actually said in a speech to the Bosnian Muslim SS Division, the Handschar, that there was much resemblance between National Socialism and Islam [see Joseph Schechtman, The Mufti and the Fuehrer].
So here we have it straight out of the horse's [or camel's] mouth.
As to the term Islamofascism, I believe I saw it or a similar term, "Islamic fascist," in Le Monde about ten years ago attributed to an Algerian woman intellectual who was being persecuted in Algeria for her feminism. So I don't think Christopher Hitchens coined the term.
As for Hitchens, it is a mistake to consider him an ally. This is an unscrupulous journalist who uses low tactics in his polemics, as recently when he insinuated that Oriana Fallaci was a racist and/or a holder of color prejudices, because she had said that a "woman of taste" would not get involved romantically with an Arab. But Fallaci did not attribute her belief to Arab skin color, and indeed, the Arabs present a range of skin colors, some of them are very pale, some are blonde and/or blue-eyed, etc. Moreover, she is aware that many of her fellow Italians are "swarthy" [the term used by Hitchens], as are many Greeks, whereas her lover for many years was a Greek. So Hitchens is not trustworthy and may even be a sleeper agent within the anti-jihad movement in the West.
By the way, the Nazi Husseini mentioned above had reddish hair and blue eyes.
Spot on, Eliyahu.
Haj Amin al-Husseini is such an important figure, but most of the required textbooks for Middle Eastern studies that I've looked at mention him only briefly, and very very few even mention the Hitler connection. And let's face it, if Hitler converted to Islam during the war, most Arab Muslims would have considered him to be the Mahdi or something along those lines. He had strength, he was going to get rid of all the Jews, and also some of the darker skinned Arabs which some of the lighter skinned Arabs don't care much for (similar attitudes are prevalent in Turkey as well). Islam would be Aryanized and the language of transmission would have been changed to German, but other than that most of its features would have remained unchanged. Middle Eastern Muslims have changed their identities before and I don't think al-Husseini would have minded much if he was referred to as an Aryan instead of an Arab for the rest of his life.
Hitchens coined the term to describe the ideology of al-Qaeda and journalists like Ron Rosenbaum have credited him for it. There have been times when certain Muslims, like Khomeini, were described as "Islamic fascists", but their ideology was not described in the same manner, it was "fundamentalism", not fascism.
Hitchens is just a hypocrite. He supports the war in Iraq and the "demoractization process" yet he supports the Palestinians to the hilt and the puke was on Democracy Now! trying to persuade his lefty listeners to vote Republican because Bush would be harder on Israel (he turned out to be right, lol). I think he wrote an article last year explaining how the Iraqis had no right to commit terrorism during the American occupation but the Palestinians were justified under the Israeli occupation. And let's not forget his involvement with David Irving or that "peace activist" and self-hating Jew, Israel Shahak, whom David Duke dedicated his "Jewish Supremacism" book to. I don't take his charges of racism seriously (especially against Orianna Falacci, who is harsh with her criticisms but not racist in any way) when this is a guy who has involved himself with Holocaust deniers, anti-Semites and who's personal hero (Orwell) was a notorious homophobe and anti-Semite. He's just a silly Brit enamored with the Other, and if he wasn't a staunch athiest, he'd have gone native and converted to Islam by now.
I agree with you, he should not be trusted at all. The fact that My Weekly Standard pimps his articles makes my stomache turn. The fact that the pro-war blogosphere relies on his arguments for justifying the war is pathetic. Find someone else to quote or formulate the damn arguments yourselves, don't rely on a unrepentant Marxist polemicist to do it for you. His polemics are childish, his pre-9/11 writing was nothing short of standard leftist boilerplate, and his post-9/11 writings are nothing short of standard neoconservative boilerplate with some added sympathies to some of his lefists causes that he wasn't able to shake off in the post-9/11 world. And to think, this is one of the guys who was voted in the top 10 for most influential intellectuals. It must be some kind of joke.
And thanks for the kind words Provoslavni, I had to get my Hitchens rant out of the way first. :P
Reading the article linked below, I found myself hoping that Bush is reading Hugh's posts . . .
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/2a05367a-6a7a-11da-ba41-0000779e2340.html
President George W. Bush’s administration is drawing up plans to carry out the biggest overhaul of the US foreign aid apparatus in more than 40 years in an attempt to assert more political control over international assistance, according to officials and aid experts.
The proposed reorganisation could lead to a takeover by the State Department of the independent US Agency for International Development. USAID was established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, managing aid programmes, disaster relief and post-war reconstruction totalling billions of dollars each year.
Critics in the aid community fear the reorganisation will lead to a politicisation of foreign assistance, where aid will become subordinated to the Bush administration’s drive to promote democracy.
-snip -
Igor,
"Islamofascist" would not be that bad a term if it would be applied to ALL muslims.
Igor,
Glad you've looked into the way Husseini is treated in the varsities. If you have the time, you could check out how he is treated in the Britannica [his name is spelled Husayni there, which is not an issue]. The EB does a cover up on him too. You could also check on how the Mufti is treated in the various political lexicons and dictionaries of the Middle East, including one for which Philip Mattar, a PLO hack was an associate or assistant editor. Almost everything in the "reference books" about him is a whitewash. I'm sure that Eddy Said whitewashed him too, if he even mentioned him.
As for Hitchens, I'm glad we agree about him. I consider hacks like him to be very dangerous, not only for his impact on politics, but for his debasement of public understanding of modern history. People have been so dumbed down in recent generations that many need help in seeing through his polemical tricks. That's something that kids ought to be taught in school, but it's probably seldom done. I don't think we should underestimate the impact of Hitchens, Chomsky, Ramsey Clark, and other phoneys and fakes.
Igor, one more thing. Israel Shahak was known to be a Communist here in Israel. The Judeophobia of the Commies and their various offshoots, so close to that of the franker antisemites, is another reason why the whole poltical spectrum notion [right-left] is ridiculous.
The American radio host Michael Savage (who in my estimation has rarely said anything wrong about the problem of Islam, even though he lacks the knowledge of a Robert Spencer) claims to be the coiner of "Islamofascism". From what I can tell, Savage does not use the term in order to separate out an "extremist minority" from Islam, but simply to characterize an overarching problem of Islam.
Hey Eliyahu,
Check this out:
"Although Haj Amin has been vilified by Zionists and glorified by certain Arab nationialists, his political behaviour was more moderate than either group acknowledges. He was too pragmatic a politician to allow his opposition to Zionism to decieve him into thinking that an Arab uprising could dislodge the British. He also recongized that his own continued tenure in office depended upon British goodwill. Therefore, until the outbreak of violence in 1936, the mufti urged restraint on his followers and demonstrated a willingness to cooperate with the British in seeking a negotiated solution to the question of Jewish immigration."
--from The History of the Middle East (2nd edition) by William L. Cleveland (pg 244)
I personally know the professor who suggested that text for her Middle Eastern Studies course and she is not an anti-Zionist and neither is she a fan of Edward Said yet she thinks this sort of information is accurate. In one of her lectures I recall her mentioning that the Mufti had a "spotty record" without going into greater detail, perhaps because half of the students in the course were either Arab or Muslim. I think there is only one professor that I know of that has mentioned the Mufti's Hitler connection and he was a left leaning Jewish Studies prof, yet he brushed over its signficance and how this Nazi coddling was received by the Palestinian Arabs. If this is the standard treatment the Mufti receives from non-Arabist professors in academia, imagine the type of treatment he receives from those who have swallowed the Palestinian narrative.
Thanks Igor,
Exactly the kind of whitewash I was talking about. Cleveland is an old time Arabist. Notice [as I am sure you did] how he says: "SOLUTION to the question of Jewish immigration." So Jews were a "question." Maybe Cleveland was too clever to use the word "problem." But "solution" is enough.
Not a hint of the Mufti's collaboration in the Holocaust!
If the truth be told, far from the British govt being "cross" with the Mufti, he enjoyed their toleration even after the Holocaust.
Check it out in the 2nd ed. of Majid Khadduri on Independent Iraq, Samuel Katz in Jabo, Jos. Schechtman in The Mufti and the Fuehrer