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“Barack Obama is to pursue an ambitious peace plan in the Middle East involving the recognition of Israel by the Arab world in exchange for its withdrawal to pre-1967 borders, according to sources close to America’s president-elect.” – from this news article
This might work, if:
1. If Islam did not exist.
2. If the doctrines that are inculcated into the minds of Muslims were not so clear, so consistent, and so deeply imbedded.
3. If instead of being told that they had a duty to remove all obstacles to the spread and dominance of Islam all over the world, Muslims were told that they should accept unbelievers as equals and not try to subjugate them under Sharia.
4. If in the minds of Muslims the recapture of territory deemed to have once been part of Dar al-Islam were not at the top of the list. It is at the top of the list because Muslims may once have possessed that, no matter when, no matter how, no matter for how long or short a time. This is because land that had once become part of Dar al-Islam and is then repossessed by non-Muslims constitutes an even greater and permanent affront to Muslims than the fact that parts of the world have as yet never been conquered by Islam, when Believers know (for they are taught) that the whole world belongs to Allah, and to the Believers, the "best of peoples" (Qur’an 3.110).
5. If there were anything in the historical record to suggest that these deep beliefs were not taken permanently to heart. They explain not merely the uncompromising attitude (which can hide, or disguise, or make palatable to powerful non-Muslims whose aid is sought to pressure other non-Muslims) toward Israel, but a great many other attitudes. The notion that if Kashmir were yielded to Muslim rule, that the pressure on India from Muslims in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and within India, including acts of terror, would do more than most temporarily diminish, is also false.
6. If there were some evidence that in the past negotiations and "treaties," the Muslim Arabs had ever shown themselves willing to stick to such treaties and not, as Majid Khadduri notes, always and everywhere regard such treaties with Infidel states or peoples as made to be broken (on the model of Al-Hudaibiyya).
7. If the Israelis in particular had any evidence save for a few words that the difference between the Fast Jihadists of Hamas and the Slow Jihaidsts of Fatah were differences on ultimate goals and not merely on tactics and timing.
8. If the re-establishment of the Jewish commonwealth in modern Israel were not the incredible achievement it is. This commonwealth has been built in what was a dusty backwater of the Ottoman Empire. Despite every effort by the local Muslim Arabs to destroy it, Israel managed to be built and to thrive, and to offer an example. It is an example that remains unrecognized, but it is an example nonetheless that has had a civilizing effect. Israel is an example of an advanced polity in the midst of darkness, not least in its treatment of minorities. Compare the treatment of all non-Muslim and non-Arab minorities everywhere in Arab-dominated land, from Kurds and Berbers and Copts and Assyrians to black African Christians, pagans, and even Muslims).
9. If Israel did not have a perfect right to hold onto what was after 1948 the "West Bank." This is because of the express terms of the Mandate for Palestine. That Mandate was set up for the establishment of the Jewish National Home.
10. If that territory, seized by the Jordanians, had not then come into the possession of Israel by force of defensive arms in the Six-Day War, so that Israel's claim is reinforced by all the ordinary rules of territorial adjustment after a successful war of self-defense. See how the map of Europe was rewritten after each of the two last world wars. Start with Italy's claim to the Alto Adige, which was once the Sudtirol and 98% ethnic German. It was awarded to Italy, and quite rightly.
11. If Israel had the vast financial resources of the Muslim Arabs, who have received more than eleven trillion dollars since 1973 alone, because of an accident of geology.
12. If Israel did not need to hold onto the heights of Judea, the traditional invasion route.
13. If the history of the Jews had not been written in Judea and Samaria and the loss of that territory would not deal an incalculable blow to Israeli morale.
14. If the local Arabs really were this entirely factititous "Palestinian people" invented out of the local Arabs, for clear propagandistic reasons, only after the Six-Day War. See Zuhair Mohsein, see a thousand others.
15. If Israel did not depend on the aquifers under the "West Bank."
16. If the Arab leaders, and even the leaders of Fatah, did not make completely clear to their own people that what they were smilingly saying to the Americans and the rest of the West could not possibly change their real intentions. Those who had come to realize that an all-out immediate assault was not possible were pursuing the salami strategy.
17. If Mahmoud Abbas himself had not shown, like Arafat, but far more plausibly and cunningly, with a great show of no-one-here-but-us-mild-mannered accountants, those true intentions on so many occasions.
18. If the Arabs had any ability to grasp the very idea that smaller peoples too, the Jews but not only the Jews, had a right to their own states, states that existed not as rump states, essentially dhimmi-states that could be dispensed with if the non-Muslims managed not to show the proper dhimmi attitude. And how long would it take the Arabs to find that anything at all, including the "treatment" of Arabs in a state reduced to retreat behind what even Abba Eban once called "the lines of Auschwitz," could be used as a pretext to fight against that rebellious dhimmi-state.
19. If the Arabs gave any sign that they would now be satisfied not with 14 million square miles of territory, but with the addition of a territory so tiny to them, but that meant life-and-death to the Israelis.
20. If the Arabs were willing to start treating other non-Arab and non-Muslim peoples (those Berbers, those Kurds, those Assyrians, those Maronites, those black Africans in Darfur and the southern Sudan and everywhere that they have been enslaved, still, by Arabs), not only with semi-decency, but as if they too had a right to their own autonomy or states.
21. If there were not every reason for the well-informed to recognize that an insidious game was being played, one that could be played only because so many in power, in a display of "pensee unique," simply have not bothered to find out what it is they need to know in order to think carefully about the fate of Israel and about the entire Middle East, and North Africa. Indeed, they have not thought about the fate of the entire world, given that Islam now spreads its tentacles deep into Western Europe, where the understanding of the ideology of Islam has been slow, and given that the attempt to push Israel back can only lead to tears, and will use up all kinds of energy and capital that should be devoted to learning about and coming to grips with the problem of Islam. Instead, those who presume to lead and instruct us continue to perform salti-mortali so as to pretend that there is no permanent problem.
Given the worldview that Islam inculcates, and given the fact (spelled out by many scholars, but one might begin with Majid Khadduri's War and Peace in the Law of Islam) that no treaty signed by Muslims with Infidels should be permanently obeyed, but regarded as necessarily to be breached when the occasion presents itself -- given all this and so much more that one could set out here, it is madness and cruelty and wickedness, for those who presume to make policy in this area to continue to ignore the real history of the Middle East, and the history of the Jews, and the history of how all the non-Arab and non-Muslim peoples are treated by the Arabs, and have been treated over the past 1350 years.
Above all, it is madness for anyone to be kept on in a policy-making position who still has not bothered to study Islamic doctrine and its impact in Israel, or Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan, or in the countries of Western Europe and their own growing domestic distempers. Yet they still has not bothered to do so, so long now after the 9/11/2001 attack. That day should have led but did not lead those whose duty it is to instruct and to protect us to hit the books, that is, the texts of Islam -- the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira -- and the studies of Islam by the hundreds of great Western scholars who wrote in the age (roughly, 1870-1970) before the Great Inhibition set in.
Instead, these leaders have not known where to turn. They have been greatly impressed with the smiling diplomats or accommodating and gracious and so-generous Arab hosts -- from Prince Bandar with his well-practiced schtick, to the "plucky little king" Hussein of Jordan, now replaced by the same slightly less-attractive, but still plausible (Deerfield! a beautiful wife! perfect English! what else do you want?) son and his entourage. Then there are the assorted smoothies who have managed to persuade the Americans that if only, if only, that pesky little Israel were put out of its misery, and brought kicking and screaming to make the deal that -- as the James Bakers and Edward Djerijians and even the most exhausted, end-of-our-mental-tether Israelis seem to think might be possible -- "everyone knows the broad outlines of."
But those "everyones" are wrong. Those "everyones" do not know. They do not understand, the texts, tenets, attitudes, atmospherics of Islam. That is what they do not know, and that, I'm afraid, is just about everything that, in an intelligent and well-run polity, they would be required to know.
Posted by Hugh at November 16, 2008 8:13 PM
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A new administration a new peace process. A new administration a new peace process. A new administration a new peace process and so goes the marching band...while the Islamic Jihadis keep on killing and blaming all non Muslims for their pathetic state.
Posted by: savsiv![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 16, 2008 8:23 PM
A lot of the responsibility for the ignorance of the public about Islam lies with President Bush, because he failed to use his office as a bully pulpit to educate about the real nature of the challenges we face, probably because he and so many of those around him don't understand it in much depth.
Obama has shown no evidence of any insight into Islam, despite his claim that he would be more knowledgeable and better equipped to communicate with Muslims because of his upbringing. Anyway, that's nothing but a touchy-feely argument.
It's the blind leading the blind, electing more blind people to lead them. Expect more blind alleys for policy.
at November 16, 2008 8:45 PM
I think Husein knows what the aim of the saudi "peace" plan is, the destruction of the nation of Israel.
Ever since the state of Israel was founded america has been a staunch supporter, but remember BO has promised "change".
After people vote for change do not be surprised if it is not the change you were thinking of.
Posted by: stickman at November 16, 2008 8:45 PM
An excellent post, Hugh. I agree with all of your 21 reasons. Nice touch, too, with reason 15, the aquifers. It's a detail like this that separates Jihad Watch from the run of the mill.
N.B., I'd love it if reason 1 were really the case. What a far better world it would be were that the reality----and, as a bonus, you wouldn't have had to post the other 20 reasons.
Posted by: Wellington at November 16, 2008 8:53 PM
Hugh: Excellent post, and very readable!
Posted by: Karl2 at November 16, 2008 9:27 PM
Barack Obama is to pursue an ambitious peace plan in the Middle East involving the recognition of Israel by the Arab world in exchange for its withdrawal to pre-1967 borders...
......................
Yes, because everybody knows that Israel's Muslim neighbors fully accepted her existence before 1967--oh, wait...
What idiocy. Why these borders should now be seen as talismanic is beyond me. For all the problems of the "Palestinian territories", Israel is more secure with them. All one has to do is look to the clear (well, it should be clear, anyway) object lesson of Gaza.
Not only is Israel far less secure after her 2005 unilateral pull-out from Gaza, but the lives of Gaza Arabs are in general more impoverished and less secure, also, due to the activities of Jihadists in general, and the rise of Hamas in particular.
Bush actually was doing Israel a considerable favor for most of his two terms, when he largely put the Israel/"Palestinian" "peace process" on the back burner. It was only when he became concerned about his "legacy" in the last months of his presidency that he has begun pressuring Israel again to make more unilateral concessions in a quest for peace.
This just emboldens Israel's enemies, who take all such concessions as a sign of weakness, and a sign that Jihad terror works--and takes them one step closer to destroying that vibrant country altogether, and reclaiming it for "Dar-al-Islam".
Posted by: gravenimage at November 16, 2008 9:54 PM
Here's another plan that offers real change from the usual thinking: give the whole area back to the Turks, from whom it was stolen in WW1 -- Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and of course the whole Red Sea coast all the way down to Yemen, including Mecca and Medina. See how the Arabs like that!
Posted by: ebonystone at November 16, 2008 9:55 PM
Oops, shouldn't have included Egypt; the Ottomans had already lost that well before WW1.
Posted by: ebonystone at November 16, 2008 10:03 PM
::stamps and whistles::
This one's a keeper.
Copy. Save. Keep. Print out.
Give it to your friends. Share - especially with your political representative/s (or read and re-read it until you have understood all the points Mr Fitzgerald is making, so you can incorporate those points into future letters to politicians and newspapers). If you are Jewish or Christian, share it with your clergyperson. Leave a copy accidentally-on-purpose behind in that pile of magazines and newspapers in your favourite cafe. If you ride the bus or train, leave it behind, tucked into the newspaper you were also reading.
If you are a student on a university campus, print it out in poster form and tack it up on that unofficial noticeboard, the one that's overflowing with bits of paper advertising flats to rent and cars and guitars for sale and ads for amateur band performances, student plays and meetings of student religious and political societies. See how long it stays up...
Suggestion: this one needs translating into Hebrew, Russian, French, German, Spanish and Italian, ASAP.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at November 16, 2008 10:08 PM
Last week Gordon Brown reportedly groveled to the Saudis regarding the fallen economy. Now Livni is set to meet with the British foreign secretary while Obama is endorsing the Arabs’ anti-Semitic plan. About the same time on November, 13, the UN gathered at the request of Saudi Arabia's king to end "extremism" in religion. If that isn't the camel calling the gnat indigestible. This kind of statement from an Islamic leader merely means to stop telling the truth about Islam. Stop showing the turmoil and murder that is taking place around the globe in the name of Allah. Stop talking about the severe oppression of women in the name of Islam. Definitely stop talking about the hatred of Jews and Christians and all who refuse to "submit" to Islam. The king's initiated UN meeting is sending the erroneous message that Islam is peace and we dare not say otherwise even when the "otherwise" is killing and oppressing people worldwide. Several months ago Tony Blair piped up with the same message from his Faith Foundation. It makes you wonder how Saudi Arabia is so easily pulling western strings at the expense of our freedoms and at the expense of Israel.
Posted by: Dawneyr at November 16, 2008 10:58 PM
Sorry, ebonystone; I wasn't mocking you, I was agreeing that retrospective views don't yield justice to anyone's satisfaction. I was making a forced, lame attempt at humor; but I was in agreement that the logic behind "Palestinian" claims, employed to the extreme, yields bizarre and ridiculous conclusions.
Posted by: John C at November 16, 2008 11:02 PM
If Prophet President Elect Obama (PBUH) survives the six and growing number of lawsuits over his birth eligibility, we will see how he handles, the Saudi's, Hamas, and the rest of the pit of vipers...If he kisses any of them, look out.
He may kiss a Saudi, but will a Saudi kiss him back?
Posted by: duh_swami at November 16, 2008 11:16 PM
Yes, if he--albeit privately--again embraces his childhood faith.
Posted by: John C at November 16, 2008 11:24 PM
A lot of the responsibility for the ignorance of the public about Islam lies with President Bush, because he failed to use his office as a bully pulpit to educate about the real nature of the challenges we face, probably because he and so many of those around him don't understand it in much depth.
That's just not true! Bush was the first president to say he wanted a Palestinian state beside, not instead of Israel. That statement expressed a clearer understanding of any president to date of the ambitions of the Palestinians.
Furthermore, President Bush said he wanted Arafat to state in clear language that he accepted the right of the Jewish State to exist and he wanted him to say it in Arabic!
That was a diplomatic slap in the face: with it he called Arafat a liar by pointing out that he said one thing in English while continuing to call for the elimination of Israel in Arabic.
No president has yet been, as far as I know, clearer in his support of the State of Israel nor has one shown his understanding of the situation as explicitly.
Posted by: AbuNudnik at November 16, 2008 11:56 PM
Here's another plan that offers real change from the usual thinking: give the whole area back to the Turks, from whom it was stolen in WW1 -- Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and of course the whole Red Sea coast all the way down to Yemen, including Mecca and Medina. See how the Arabs like that!
Stolen? What do you mean stolen? If you fight a war and you lose, you lose territory, status, influence, access to markets, trade routes. If not, what's the disincentive to war?
Posted by: AbuNudnik at November 17, 2008 12:04 AM
Here is the beautiful glow of modern, vibrant Israel at night, compared to surrounding Dar-al-Islam, which is by and large benighted, in both the literal and figurative sense.
http://i.pbase.com/u25/tlv/upload/15208971.MiddleEastnight.jpg
Posted by: gravenimage at November 17, 2008 12:07 AM
AbuNudnick--"Stolen" according to the kind of "reasoning" that the "Palestinians" employ; farcical on its face, that is--right, ebonystone?
Posted by: John C at November 17, 2008 12:32 AM
What has BHO been toking? Must be some potent stuff. Before he embarks on this journey, may I suggest he read about a similar trip in 1938 by PM Chamberlain who proclaimed "peace in our time" upon his return from meeting with "Mr. Hitler". How did that turn out?
Posted by: JeromeFromLayton at November 17, 2008 12:43 AM
Why is it that politicians who concoct these “peace processes” which blow up not in their faces but in our faces, are never held accountable for their failures? Imagine if there were a law requiring that with every consecutive failure the fine would increase and the relevant author of the failed peace plan would be held personally accountable for the debacle. Let’s say that the first three attempts are considered reasonable and therefore exempt, but that for all subsequent ones the price of failure would be $100000 and rising linearly with each attempt. ( A geometric progression with the fine doubling every time is also an idea to be considered since it would wake up the peace dreamers much faster). For example, by now, after Oslo I, Oslo II, Taba, Wye, Tenet, Mitchell, Zinni, Sharm El-Sheikh, Roadmap, Annapolis, the price would be $800000. I have no doubts that with the fine hovering over their pockets politicians would either head for the libraries to educate themselves on why all previous attempts failed, or abandon experimenting with our lives altogether.
Posted by: Mladen at November 17, 2008 1:30 AM
Nah. The Dems owuld find a way to let Slick Willie off the hook for that one too. Since when has the law meant anything to our politicians?
Posted by: jdamn at November 17, 2008 2:04 AM
This is because land that had once become part of Dar al-Islam and is then repossessed by non-Muslims constitutes an even greater and permanent affront to Muslims than the fact that parts of the world have as yet never been conquered by Islam, when Believers know (for they are taught) that the whole world belongs to Allah, and to the Believers, the "best of peoples" (Qur’an 3.110).
Hugh, I often hear that "land once part of Islam must always remain part of Islam", but never see the references from the Quran or Hadith or Sira to back it up. Do you have the documentation for that statement?
Posted by: staringattheview.blogspot.com at November 17, 2008 2:19 AM
This is because land that had once become part of Dar al-Islam and is then repossessed by non-Muslims constitutes an even greater and permanent affront to Muslims than the fact that parts of the world have as yet never been conquered by Islam, when Believers know (for they are taught) that the whole world belongs to Allah, and to the Believers, the "best of peoples" (Qur’an 3.110).
Hugh, I often hear that "land once part of Islam must always remain part of Islam", but never see the references from the Quran or Hadith or Sira to back it up. Do you have the documentation for that statement?
Posted by: staringattheview.blogspot.com at November 17, 2008 2:20 AM
liberty 67: Your moral equivalency thinking is pathetic. For instance, to compare Nazi treatment of Jews, who posed zero threat and engaged in no terroristic actions against Germany with Israeli treatment of a people who have sought the total destruction of Israel from the outset and who have deliberately targeted civilians, is lame in the extreme. Besides, Palestinians, like Muslims everywhere, are actually in more danger form fellow Muslims than from kuffaars. As the old joke goes, if you're a Palestinian and hear a knock at your door at three in the morning, you hope it's the Israelis.
Posted by: Wellington at November 17, 2008 6:22 AM
AbuNudnik - You're correct about Bush supporting Israel, but I was referring to Islam and his lack of clarity on it.
Posted by: jewdog at November 17, 2008 6:45 AM
Who ever said that Jesus, Mr. Turn the Other Cheek, was a terrorist? Jews either love Jesus or believe that he committed treason by saying that Israel wasn't worth fighting for (thank God Christians have seen fit to fight for their land throughout history despite Jesus' suicidal teachings!). Either way, nobody ever called him a terrorist. ANd why would a Muslim project that onto Jews? Oh yeah, because Muslims can't denigrate Jesus enough in their scriptures and yet they see fit to contrive some sort of moral superiority to Jews over Jesus, who they can't even call by his own name and can't recognize that his dying on the cross, the single most provable incident from ancient history, actually happened. Newsflash, Muslims: you have no concept of morality and no ethical high ground to take. You deny the Golden Rule. That is the crux of immorality. That is why you never prosper honestly.
Why is Jihad Watch all infiltrated by trolls today? Is this what CAIR is up to these days? Pretty low budget. Pretty telling.
Posted by: jdamn at November 17, 2008 9:34 AM
Hugh,
A wonderful piece, even if President-Elect Obama does not buy the plan, which I hope is the case.
As you often do, you recommend Majid Khadduri's "War and Peace in the Law of Islam". May I point out that this book is dismayingly expensive and take the liberty of suggesting people read his "The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani's Siyar", which I have just ordered (uneen). It is quite inexpensive and I have ordered a copy.
From Amazon, I see that the Shaybani book has a 75 page introduction and, although much of this concerns the book translated, the first past would seem to serve as a summary of Khadduri's thought in his War and Peace book. The text itself is fairly short and would allow the reader to see what a presumably leading Muslim thinker had to say on questions which are of concern to all who frequent this site.
at November 17, 2008 11:40 AM
This is a conclusive and comprehensive argument. If I were not already sold on this point of view, this would clinch it.
One question remains: can anyone inform this monoglot mutt of the meaning of "salti-mortali"?
Youtube has a gymnastics video of the same name, is it something to do with verbal or mental contortions?
Posted by: StephenA55 at November 17, 2008 12:20 PM
It's an idiomatic expression that means "to jump through hoops" or "the act of jumping through hoops." It literally means "deadly leaps."
Posted by: jdamn at November 17, 2008 4:56 PM
Thanks for coming to the rescue, Jdamn.
Regards,
Steve
Posted by: StephenA55 at November 17, 2008 6:04 PM
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