Ambassador Edward Walker, President of the Middle-East Institute and former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and Ambassador to Israel, says in Haaretz (thanks to France) that it is "important for any government or people who are targeted by terrorism...to understand the enemy."
That is certainly true. That is what I have been trying to get across for the last few years.
But he also says: "So when you speak of Jihad or attitudes toward non-believers and apostates, you have to define which version you are talking about. Not many in the Muslim world accept the definitions laid down by al-Qaida, for example."
Fair enough. Perhaps Ambassador Walker would now be good enough to produce evidence of a school of jurisprudence within Islam, or an orthodox Sunni or Shi'ite sect, that actually does not teach that it is the responsibility of the Muslim community to wage war against unbelievers in order ultimately to establish the Islamic social order throughout the world. Perhaps also he could produce a school or sect that does not teach that male apostates from Islam should be killed.
It doesn't have to be Ambassador Walker. If anyone reading this has such evidence of such a school or sect, please send it to me here at director@jihadwatch.org. But note that I am asking for a school or sect. I know that there are individual reformers, and I applaud them. But Walker, like so many others, is suggesting that there are whole traditions within Islam that reject violent jihad and death for apostasy. I don't know of any such traditions.
Dear Mr. AmbassadorWould you not say that the Islamic concepts of jihad, Islam's attitudes towards the infidel, and Islam's attitudes towards its own apostates (a case in point is Abdul Rahman in Afghanistan) have a lot to do with the way Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah and al-Qaida relate to Israel? Why were these questions not discussed during the Israeli election campaign and how can the new Israeli government effectively counter the threats from organizations that follow these Islamic tenets when their prime motivation has never been taken into account?
Sincerely,
Mladen Andrijasevic
Be'er Sheva
Israel
Dear Mladen Andrijasevic,Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, is a big tent that incorporates many different versions, some formally such as the Shiia, Sunnis, Ibadis, Suffis [sic], Salafis, and others and various versions within each of these sects depending on the interpretation of the individual and of diverse religious scholars. So when you speak of Jihad or attitudes toward non-believers and apostates, you have to define which version you are talking about. Not many in the Muslim world accept the definitions laid down by al-Qaida, for example. As for Hamas and Hezbollah, they come from different roots and while they have broader appeal in the Islamic world than al-Qaida, they are still minorities. You don't mention the Muslim Brotherhood, which has strength in Egypt, Syria and Jordan and is a parent of Hamas.
Certainly, it is in our interest to examine the basis for the extreme views of some organizations and the motivation that leads people to embrace these views with the hope that we can find antidotes and prevent new adherents. But this is not a task that is unique to Israel. It is just as important for any government or people who are targeted by terrorism, including the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Algeria and virtually every civilized country in the world, to understand the enemy. Having said that, I am not convinced an election campaign is the best place for a serious investigation of these issues. I am sure such a serious question would not profit from being reviewed during a U.S. political campaign.
Not many in the Muslim world accept the definitions laid down by al-Qaida, for example.
Ambassador know-it-all, could you please give an example?
Cuz I just went back and read Osama's 1998 fatwa and it adhered very closely to the Koran. That would be the same Koran in which the majority of Moslems so fervently believe. As in a 100% majority.
Which version my ass. Then a Unicorn is a version of a horse, eh?
MO MO-ISMS MO OUTREACH TO ISLAM MO COCKAMAMIE SELF-DELUSION MO MO
What a pathetic and extremely dangerious little man you are, Ambassador Walker.
If you're ignorant on a subject, shut the hell up. But, what?, then you'd be out of work now wouldn't you?
http://www.amberpawlik.com/IslamonTrial.html
I'm over the whole routine we get from politicians and "experts" tip-toeing around the Koran, pretending it says different things to different groups.
This may have already been posted on JW, but it applies perfectly to the ambassadors response.
___
It is revealing that those who discuss Islam always refer to human understanding of the Koran as a mere “interpretation.” By identifying human understanding of the Koran as an “interpretation,” it automatically establishes the text as fluid, subjective and moldable - as an incomprehensible text that anyone can take any different way.
There may perhaps be parts of the Koran that are confusing and contradictory and indeed need an interpreter. But if so, one must point out what text is confusing or contradictory and what the different “interpretations” thereof might be, especially, given their claims, as it pertains to terrorism. This would open the debate up to human reason. But those who defend Islam do not do this: instead they typically make a broad, generic statement that people make the “wrong interpretation” of the Koran. Broad statements such as this are not indicative of a confusing or contradictory text but of an assault on objectivity itself.
Notice this author’s defense of not being able to understand a “true Islam.” This is an article entitled, “What is Real Islam?” by M.A.Hussain from a website called humiliateamerica.com
It is in the Quran, and the hadiths for all to read. There is no abrogation,there is no compunction, and there is no radical interpretations put forth towards, and beyond the tenants of the Islamic religion.
Osama Bin laden knew exactly what he was doing as he worked harder and harder to draw America and our western counterparts into a war with Islamic countries. He tried to get our attention from the numerous attacks like the Khobar towers, to the USS Cole, and finally the attack on 9-11. He was determined to develop provocations in the Islamic world because he knew that the tenants of the quran would then call out for a jihad against the infidels and of course he has succeeded quite well.
Notice how Ambassador Edward Walker tip toed carefully around another and more fundamental sect of Islam (Waahabism) which produced most of the 9-11 killers and then proceeded to give the appearance that Saudia Arabia had its own problems with terrorists, mostly the Saudi family has the problem.
I think there is the usual soft sell and PC in the ambassadors letter, another words don't ruffle to many feathers in the Islamic world.
Oh really. That's not what independent non-Islamic surveys conclude. Additionally, if only 20% (very conservatively) are radical, then isn't 260 million Western-hating radicals a problem? Surveys: (please open in a new window)
Islamic Extremism
American distrust of Muslim world
40% of Muslims want sharia law
Pew Global
Adherents.com
It's not the "perception" of Islam that's the problem - it's the actions of Islam that are the problem. With all the deception, we can be sure the numbers are higher than what the "surveys" are actually showing. It's also important to note that in the past 20 years, there really hasn't been any survey that actually and truly exposes the hateful, bigoted, biased, westernophobic, jihadist aggression toward all things non-Islamic.
Walker eagerly accepted the assignment as Ambassador to Israel for the same reason that the "MIddle East Institute" ostentatiously announces on its website that it encourages the study of Hebrew -- to provide cover for him, and for the Institute, as apologists for, and promoters of, those who fund the Middle East Institute. To wit: certain well-known and very rich Middle Eastern states, institutions, and individuals, and businesses with deals afoot in the Middle East. And of course, another contributor is that well-known sap ("our staunch ally Saudi Arabia" being that sap's mantra for the past 40 years), the government of the United States.
His preposterous description of Islam would come as a surprise to any of the great Western scholars of Islam. But then, Edward Walker and his ilk don't have to worry about being confronted by Joseph Schacht or Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje. No -- they only need be concerned about such profound students of Islam as Tom Friedman, and Khaled Abou el Fadl, and Condoleeza Rice, and George Bush.
Possibly the most absurd phrase in his farrago of absurdities was this:
"Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, is a big tent that incorporates many different versions, some formally such as the Shiia, Sunnis, Ibadis, Suffis [sic], Salafis, and others and various versions..."
"Big tent" is it? Just like the Republican Party, or the Democratic Party, with their "big tents" where all are welcome? Well, in the first place, that demure phrase "various versions" hides the fact that for 1300 years the Sunni have oppressed, and more than oppressed, the Shi'a -- mass murder is a bit more than mere oppression -- and the doctrine of taqiyya, or religiously-sanctioned dissimulation about both the contents of Islam and one's own beliefs, originates in Shi'a Islam as a defense, not against the wicked Americans or Israelis back in 700 A.D., but against the Sunnis.
And the other point that Walker elides, or deliberately omits because he would prefer we not dwell on it, is that whatever their differences about the succession to Muhammad (Sunni and Shi'a), whatever their diffrences as to the role of the clergy or the most effective way of immediate and direct contact with Allah (as with the Sufi mystics, including those famously whirling mevlevis), there is NO difference on the only issue that matters to Infidels.
And that is the hostility, the hatred, the desire either to do away with, or to subjugate, as is only natural in the belief-system of Islam, all Infidels. There is no detectigable difference in attitudes toward Infidels as held by Sunnis and the Shi'a (though some of the former may denounce the latter as "Rafidite dogs" and the worst kind of Infidels). There is no difference, though naive college freshman, clutching their well-thumbed copies of Rumi's poetry, may assume there is (besides, half of them are under the impression that that campus favorite of the recent past, Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha." is all about some Muslim mystic) in the view of Infidels, and in the necessity for Jihad, as preached and accepted by those "mystics." The most famous Muslim theologian, Al-Ghazali, was a Sufi, and he just like all the others preached the necessity of Jihad -- see Andrew Bostom's "The Legacy of Jihad" where, for the first time, the relevant passage is translated from the Arabic. It must have come as quite a shock to a number of people -- say, Eric Ormsby, did it come to a shock to you?)
So this business of the varied sects, the vast variousness and diverse diversity of Islam, is meaningless when it comes to the essential worldview that is contained in the immutable text of the Qur'an, the most authoritative recensions of the Hadith (those of Bukhari and Muslim) and the Sira of Muhammad, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil, is all nonsense. That view of the world, or of the universe, uncompromisingly views that world as one of polarity, opposition, division. And that division is between Believer and Infidel. And on that matter, all the schools and sects and "versions" (as Walker puts it) agree. And that is the only thing, that for Infidels, should matter -- and what they could keep their eyes squarely on.
Quaere whether or not Edward Walker knows this, and is sinister, or does not know it, and is merely ignorant and silly. Perhaps he is a bit of both -- silly-sinister, or sinister-silly. Take your pick.
Edward Walker is James-Akins-Raymond-Close-Andrew-Kilgore light, or lite. More plausible, more deniability from that stint as ambassador to Israel. Essentially, the same apologetics. As would have to be -- what do you expect from the well-fed director of the Middle East Institute?
What a crock: to hear from apologists, appeasers and deceivers.
Why are these idiots afraid to say the truth and define the enemy.
Dont tolerate these idiots.
"Why are these...afraid.."
-- from a posting above
Not always timidity. Wrong esdrujula.
Often cupidity.
To wit:
Moolah, bread, bucks or baksy, green stuff or greens or griny (when referring to dollars), dindi, fric.
Greasing palms since 1973 (no, actually even well before that) in all the capitals in all the Lands of the Infidels. One waits for some political figures in the West to staunch that flow through strict legislation, and through the investigation and subsequent public humiliation of all those willing hirelings of the Arabs, especially of the Saudis, hirelings who receive money directly and indirectly, and so it hardly matters what you call those "recycled petrodollars" -- whether moolah, or bread, or bucks, or greens, or dindi, or fric. bucks, that dindi, that fric.
"Having said that, I am not convinced an election campaign is the best place for a serious investigation of these issues."
Where would this man have been during the election right before the American Civil War?
Why did Bush make him Ambassador to Israel?
Actually, in point of fact, it is far more important for someone whose enemy is literally at his throat day in and day out to understand the enemy than for someone whose enemy is far away, occasional, or contained. The reason being that there is that much less margin for error in the former case. Walker's argument is essentially the same argument that the French police gave to the family of Ilan Halimi. It's a crock. Who foisted this guy on the Israelis?
Quaere whether or not Edward Walker knows this, and is sinister, or does not know it, and is merely ignorant and silly. Perhaps he is a bit of both -- silly-sinister, or sinister-silly. Take your pick.
Yep, those creepy sinister-silly infidel/dhimmis in politics and the MSM worry me more than the jihadis who want me dead.
Hugh
Now that is the difference with a man of wit and some little old redneck like me I would have just said MONEY??
But with your wit and pen you can explane to the little mineons about the trade and the money and how polis changed things in the early part of the 20th century all about the flow of oil and the MONEY the bribs or as we now see the jizzi tax?
Part of the American Tribe