Fitzgerald: The OIC's rebranding game

“…the world's biggest Islamic body is seeking to rebrand itself this week as a forum for settling conflicts peacefully and for redistributing wealth to the world's poorest states." -- from this news article

"Rebrand itself"? Just the way the Lesser Jihad against Israel conducted, in various ways and with various degrees of sacrifice, by Arab and other Muslim states, was "rebranded" after the defeat in the Six-Day War. The first step was to "rebrand," or rather, rename, the local Arab shock troops of that Jihad as the "Palestinian people." The second step was to steadily, relentlessly, develop the theme of the "two peoples" sharing "the same land." And one of those "peoples" no longer consisted of Arabs, defined geographically as "Palestinian" Arabs, but rather as a people who apparently had always been there, though Arab leaders and diplomats had never, before 1967, ever used that phrase "Palestinian people" and had always referred -- accurately -- to the "Arabs of Palestine" (meaning Mandatory Palestine). A little historical back-dating was in order, as the "project" of the "construction of the 'Palestinian' identity gained steam.

And in that rebranding project, one of those peoples, "the Palestinians," of course had to have their "national rights recognized" and "a Palestinian state" set up on the very land that Israel had won in that war, with the promise of nothing but more demands to come. Those demands would be made to an Israel that would become ever more vulnerable, its population ever-more imperiled and under constant pressure that, the Arabs hoped, would become in time intolerable, and lead to the final victory, the destruction of Israel altogether. That has remained the unwavering goal, even if some Arabs differ on the matters of tactics and timing, just as those local Arabs, those "Palestinians," are divided between the Slow Jihadists of Fatah and the Fast Jihadists of Hamas -- a division that gets exaggerated attention, when what counts is that they share, and will always share, the same ultimate goal.

The O.I.C. is planning to do what? To "rebrand" itself as a cross between the World Court and the U.N., a place for "settling disputes peacefully"? Which disputes? The dozens, all over the world, which involve Muslims fighting or making impossible demands on non-Muslims of every kind? Are non-Muslims expected to show up at the O.I.C., expected to expect fair treatment, and to give the O.I.C. any conceivable jurisdiction, when the basis of Islam is the loyalty of Muslims only to each other, with no hint of a Golden Rule observed in the treatment of non-Muslims, with whom Muslims are expected to be in a state of permanent war, though not necessarily of open warfare, until such time as all obstacles, all over the world, to the spread, and dominance, of Islam, are removed?

And the other part of that is perhaps even more comical. So the O.I.C. sees itself as a forum "for redistributing wealth to the world's poorest states." From whom? I presume from the rich West, as it is still seen. But the richest countries, per capita, in the world are those small sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf, and next come Saudi Arabia, and Libya, and a few other Muslim oil states. And since those oil states have been the recipients of the largest transfer of wealth in human history, and since those Muslim oil states have received, since 1973 alone, more than ten trillion dollars, and continue to receive, currently, about a trillion dollars a year, and since the greatest economic weight, and drag, on the world's poorest countries is the price that those countries must pay for oil and gas, and the price rises, especially for oil, have done away with all the economic progress such countries have managed to make over many decades, it is obvious that Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait, and Qatar, and Libya, with relatively small populations and vast unearned wealth from an accident of geology, are the countries that ought to be transferring, by the hundreds of billions of dollars, some of that entirely unmerited wealth to the poorer countries.

Somehow I doubt that that is anything like what the O.I.C. had in mind, when it decided to seek -- if it did indeed decide to seek -- "to rebrand itself this week as a forum for...redistributing wealth to the world's poorest states."

Whenever there has been a natural disaster, it is the West that has rushed to help. After that earthquake in Istanbul years ago, Western aid, including aid from Israel, came promptly and was so important, while the Arabs did nothing. After the tsunami in Indonesia, Western aid, especially American aid, was critical, especially in Aceh, that most militantly Muslim of Indonesian islands. After the earthquake in Pakistan a few years ago, the only aid that meant anything came from the United States and a few other Western countries, and those American army hospitals remained in Pakistan to treat Pakistani Muslims -- a vocation of charity, like all those Catholic schools in Muslim countries, that are taken advantage of by Muslims. But for some reason so many are never grateful, never willing to abandon their inculcated hostility, no matter what benefits they receive from Infidel schools or hospitals, or emergency help in time of disasters, or of course, the hundreds of billions of dollars in aid that has, during the same period in which Muslim members of OPEC took in ten trillion dollars, flowed as disguised Jizyah from the Infidels of the West to the Muslims of Dar al-Islam, not to mention the Infidel-to-Muslim transfers that are equally large within the countries of Western Europe.

Yes, we'll see what the O.I.C. has in mind soon enough. It has nothing to do with fabulously rich Muslim states, many with populations of less than a million, actually sharing any of their wealth. And don't think for a minute that, even if they decided to share some of it with poorer Muslims, they would ever contemplate large-scale aid to any of the poor non-Muslims in this world -- not a chance, unless there were a firm promise to accept Islam, or to allow mosque-and-madrasa building, and Muslim campaigns of Da'wa, unhindered and on a large scale.

Posted by Hugh at March 15, 2008 11:51 AM
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