• Why Jihad Watch?
  • About Robert Spencer and Staff Writers
  • FAQ
  • Books
  • Muhammad
  • Islam 101
  • Privacy

Jihad Watch

Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Fitzgerald: The chimera of Mahmoud Abbas’ moderation

Feb 7, 2005 10:56 am By Hugh Fitzgerald

The Vice President of the Jihad Watch Board of Advisors, Hugh Fitzgerald, comments on the new moderate face Mahmoud Abbas is showing to the world:

Abbas’ good behavior will last just as long as he needs to get the Israelis to retreat from their perfectly justified — legally, morally, historically — presence in Gaza. Sharon, an obstinate and foolish man, has been made much of as a warrior but has never had the leisure to think clearly about the nature of the opposition to Israel. One wonders if he, or those who support him, have even begun to understand that the deepest wellsprings of Arab hatred for Israel are clear: they come out of Islam, out of the absolute refusal to contemplate a permanent non-Muslim sovereignty within dar al-Islam.

Abbas’s feigned sweet reason at this point is utterly transparent — or should be to those who understand what the Middle East, and Arab Muslims, are all about. Imagine not Abbas, but someone still more plausible and soothing in manner — say, Sari Nusseibeh. And imagine a visit by Nusseibeh to Yad Vashem (god, how the supposed “supporters” of Israel in the West, many of them simply too lazy to learn about Islam, would eat that up), and all sorts of cosmetic gestures.

The grim fact remains: Israel is dealing not with a moral question (morally, historically, legally, Israel has a perfect right to hold onto all of the territories it captured in the 1967 war of defense, given the numbers of wars it has had to fight, given the terms of the Palestine Mandate itself, given the mistreatment of Jews who were first exiled, and then maltreated wherever they lived, and not only in Europe, but — which keeps being overlooked — throughout the Muslim lands, where they endured lives of humiliation, degradation, and insecurity, despite all the propaganda about the “convivencia” in Spain, and the wonders of Haroun al-Raschid, and the sanitized view of the Ottoman treatment of the dhimmi).

No, it is a military question. Gaza sits astride the traditional invasion route into Israel. Furthermore, any Israeli withdrawal — whatever interpretation is given to this withdrawal in Jerusalem or Washingotn — will be interpreted throughout the Muslim world as a triumph, born of clever negotiation. Israel has a long record of complete failure in its negotations. Again and again it has traded tangible assets for mere promises — in 1949, in 1956, in 1967, in 1973, in 1979, in 1994, and in the years throughout.

It cannot be otherwise. The only thing that Condoleeza Rice, and everyone else involved, should be raising — expressly raising and not hiding from public view — is the Treaty of al-Hudaibiyya. Everyone involved in “peace negotiations” in the MIddle East needs to read at least Majid Khadduri’s Law of War and Peace in the Law of Islam, for a start, and to memorize the previous treaties between Muslims and Infidels. These would include, of course, the treaties that John Quincy Adams discussed in his own record of the American dealings with the Barbary states (a record of constant chicanery and breaching of solemn agreements), the Ottoman record of “reform” (i.e. better treatment of non-Muslim subjects) promised to the European powers, a record constantly broken throughout the nineteeenth century, and only observed when military force was brought to bear, the long record of Arab treaty-breaking with Israel.

Forget about negotiations and treaties. Figure out how to make sure that Israel can ensure its own military superiority, and in such a way that the Arabs and other Muslims are convinced that the results of further attack will be so harmful to them, that they will have to refrain. It may not work, given the fanaticism to which Islam, unconstrained, always tends, but it is far better than the madness of pushing Israel back — or allowing it to do it to itself.

Sharon should be restrained from his own foolishness, and cooler heads, informed about Islam, in Washington stay his hand.

Abbas is trivial. So is Nusseibeh. So is any temporary Arab “Palestinian” leader. What counts is what is permanent (as the secularist opposition to the Shah found out to their sorrow, and as secularist beneficiares of Kemalism will soon find out in Turkey) in the Islamic world: Islam itself.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice should be given Majid Khadduri’s book, and a summary of the Muslim law concerning treaties with Infidels. And please, let it NOT be given by the sinister likes of David Satterfield, the man who at Taif sat there smiling, as the Saudis forced into the Lebanese Constitution a clause that required Lebanon to recognize its “Arab identity” for the first time, something that the Maronites had fiercely rejected for generations. Satterfield, and many of his colleagues, have never studied or understood Islam. And it is too late for them now.

Others must be trained — a knowledge of Arabic is not essential. A knowledge of Islam is.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Follow me on Facebook

Filed Under: Uncategorized


Learn more about RevenueStripe...

FacebookYoutubeTwitterLog in

Subscribe to the Jihad Watch Daily Digest

You will receive a daily mailing containing links to the stories posted at Jihad Watch in the last 24 hours.
Enter your email address to subscribe.

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!
If you are forwarding to a friend, please remove the unsubscribe buttons first, as they my accidentally click it.

Subscribe to all Jihad Watch posts

You will receive immediate notification.
Enter your email address to subscribe.
Note: This may be up to 15 emails a day.

Donate to JihadWatch
FrontPage Mag

Search Site

Translate

The Team

Robert Spencer in FrontPageMag
Robert Spencer in PJ Media

Articles at Jihad Watch by
Robert Spencer
Hugh Fitzgerald
Christine Douglass-Williams
Andrew Harrod
Jamie Glazov
Daniel Greenfield

Contact Us

Terror Attacks Since 9/11

Archives

  • 2020
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2019
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2018
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2017
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2016
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2015
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2014
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2013
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2012
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2011
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2010
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2009
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2008
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2007
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2006
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2005
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2004
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2003
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • March

All Categories

You Might Like

Learn more about RevenueStripe...

Recent Comments

  • Crusades Were Right on Canadian Mental Health Association studies Muslim women’s mental health due to ‘discrimination’ and ‘hate crimes’
  • Crusades Were Right on Muslim cleric: ‘We welcomed the takeover of ISIS because they wanted to implement the Sharia’
  • curious george on Israel At A Crossroads?
  • Crusades Were Right on Muslim cleric: ‘We welcomed the takeover of ISIS because they wanted to implement the Sharia’
  • William Garrison on The Fantasy Islam of Rice University’s Craig Considine (Part 3)

Popular Categories

dhimmitude Sharia Jihad in the U.S ISIS / Islamic State / ISIL Iran Free Speech

Robert Spencer FaceBook Page

Robert Spencer Twitter

Robert Spencer twitter

Robert Spencer YouTube Channel

Books by Robert Spencer

Jihad Watch® is a registered trademark of Robert Spencer in the United States and/or other countries - Site Developed and Managed by Free Speech Defense

Content copyright Jihad Watch, Jihad Watch claims no credit for any images posted on this site unless otherwise noted. Images on this blog are copyright to their respective owners. If there is an image appearing on this blog that belongs to you and you do not wish for it appear on this site, please E-mail with a link to said image and it will be promptly removed.

Our mailing address is: David Horowitz Freedom Center, P.O. Box 55089, Sherman Oaks, CA 91499-1964

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.