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Raymond Ibrahim: Trump Scraps Cherished “Israel Grievance” Myth

Dec 28, 2017 8:00 am By Raymond Ibrahim

President Trump’s new National Security strategy is not only notable for what it brings back to the paradigm — words such as “jihadi” and “sharia” — but in what it gets rid of, namely, the long held, much entrenched notion that Israel is the root source of all the turmoil plaguing the Middle East. According to the new strategy document,

For generations the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has been understood as the prime irritant preventing peace and prosperity in the region. Today, the threats from jihadist terrorist organizations and the threat from Iran are creating the realization that Israel is not the cause of the region’s problems. States have increasingly found common interests with Israel in confronting common threats.

That this is true cannot be overstated. For decades, the official establishment position championed by politicians, academics, and journalists of all stripes seeking to apologize for all the anger, violence, and jihad terror plaguing the region was the creation of Israel. Because the Jewish state is stronger than its Muslim neighbors, the latter were always presented as frustrated “underdogs” doing whatever they could to achieve “justice.” No matter how many rockets were shot into Tel Aviv by Hamas and Hezbollah, and no matter how anti-Israeli bloodlust was articulated in distinctly jihadi terms, that was always presented as ironclad proof that Palestinians under Israel are so oppressed that Muslims have no choice but to resort to terrorism.

Yet, as with all false narratives, the survival of this one relied on concealing the bigger, more complete picture, as captured by the following question: If Muslims get a free pass when their violence is directed against those stronger than them, how does one rationalize away their violence when it is directed against those weaker than them — for example, millions of indigenous Christians living in the Muslim world? According to reliable statistics published annually, some 40 of the 50 worst nations in which to be Christian are Muslim majority. Of the absolute worst 21 nations — 18 of which are Muslim — “100 percent of Christians experience persecution.”

The rationalizations used to minimize Muslim violence against Israel simply cannot work here, for now Muslims are the majority — and they are the ones violent and oppressive to their minorities, in ways that make Israeli treatment of Palestinians seem enviable. In other words, Christian persecution is perhaps the most obvious example of a phenomenon the mainstream media wants to ignore out of existence — Islamic supremacism, the true source of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Vastly outnumbered and politically marginalized Christians in the Islamic world simply wish to worship in peace, and yet they are still hounded and attacked; their churches are burned and destroyed; their women and children are kidnapped, raped, and enslaved. These Christians are often identical to their Muslim co-citizens in race, ethnicity, national identity, culture, and language; there is generally no political or property dispute on which the violence can be blamed. The only problem is that they are Christian — they are non-Muslims — the same category Israelis fall under.

From here one also understands why what has been described by some authorities as a “genocide” of Christians at the hands of Muslims in Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Somalia, Pakistan, and Egypt — Muslims who couldn’t care less about Israel and Palestinians — is one of the most dramatic but also least known stories of our times. The media simply cannot portray Muslim persecution of Christians — which in essence and form amounts to unprovoked pogroms — as a “land dispute” or a product of “grievance” (if anything, it is the ostracized and persecuted indigenous Christian minorities who should have grievances). And because the media cannot articulate such Islamic attacks on Christians through the “grievance” paradigm that works so well in explaining the Arab-Israeli conflict, their main recourse is not to report on them at all.

Such is the way for all apologists of Islam: to ignore or whitewash Muslim aggression — and then, in that vacuum, distort and present non-Muslim responses as the origins of the conflict. This is especially prevalent in the portrayal of history. Thus Georgetown University’s John Esposito claims that “Five centuries of peaceful coexistence [between Islam and Europe] elapsed before political events and an imperial-papal power play led to [a] centuries-long series of so-called holy wars [the Crusades] that pitted Europe against Islam and left an enduring legacy of misunderstanding and distrust.” In reality, these “five centuries of peaceful coexistence” saw Muslims terrorize and conquer more than three-fourths of Christendom, but this inconvenient fact is seldom mentioned, for knowledge of it ruins the “Muslim-grievance” narrative, just as knowledge of modern-day Muslim persecution of Christians ruins it.

Either way, it is refreshing to see that the sun is breaking through the darkness of deceit that has for too long clouded Middle Eastern realities, including by presenting victims as aggressors and aggressors as victims. Yet, as with Trump’s return of words such as “jihadi” to formal discourse, one doubts that the Establishment will follow suit, as the polarization of America continues unabated.

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Filed Under: Donald Trump, Islamic supremacism, Israel, Muslim persecution of Christians Tagged With: National Security strategy


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Comments

  1. Monty says

    Dec 28, 2017 at 8:25 am

    If the Arabs lay down there arms there will be no more violence. If the Jews lay down their arms, there will be no more Israel. I think Mr Netanyahu said that. At least Israel can defend herself. Christians in Muslim nations have no such power. The rest of the world should hang its collective head in shame for ignoring Islam’s atrocities.

    • mortimer says

      Dec 28, 2017 at 11:09 am

      Agree with Monty’s big ‘IF’. However, jihad goes in on-off cycles. Eventually, jihad revives and Muslims rediscover the duty of jihad. As long as the ideology of JIHADISM has credibility, there will be violence. If governments start counter-ideology (i.e. debunking Islam), jihadism will have no ground in which it can grow. We must make it unfashionable to support or encourage Islam… similar to encouraging the Nazi Party or KKK.

      • gravenimage says

        Dec 28, 2017 at 10:48 pm

        I wish Western nations would do this.

    • Cameron Tremblay says

      Dec 28, 2017 at 11:24 am

      Yup, we (NATO, Russia, China, and anyone wishing to join in) should be shooting for complete eradication of islam as it is currently practiced and force a reformation of islam to an actual ‘religion of peace’. And include rewriting the quran and all the other religious texts to remove all hate and violence against others. Nothing more effective than diplomacy with a whole lotta big guns! Speaking of NATO, we could start with Turkey!

      • Carol says

        Dec 29, 2017 at 10:43 am

        I hate to distract, but speaking of big birds – can it be true that the Angel Gibril came to Mohammed as a VULTURE?! Why do I get the visual image of a platter with a gutted vulture filled with stuffing? So unappealing and what a waste of time and industry!
        Perhaps the vulture was kind of like a Freudian slip by Mohammed?

    • CRUSADER says

      Dec 28, 2017 at 1:13 pm

      “If the Arabs lay down there arms there will be no more violence. —> (PEACE)
      If the Jews lay down their arms, there will be no more Israel.” —-> (PIECES)

      Yes! Dennis Prager mentions this phrase a lot.

      This brilliantly hits the nail on the head.

  2. IQ al Rassooli says

    Dec 28, 2017 at 9:49 am

    It should have been obvious that ALL UN resolutions since 1949 are legally INVALID for the simple reason that the Arabs who were given the chance for a TWO states solution in Mandated Palestine by UN Resolution 181 in 1947 decided to start a war of EXTERMINATION against the newly born state of Israel

    This was the FIRST ACT of WAR that the UN was created to avert, thus the Arabs ABROGATED (made Null and Void) the UN resolution and its terms and conditions allowing the creation of a Two States solution including all articles regarding Jerusalem

    The Arabs started the war and LOST and now they (like ALL Muslims) whine and pretend to be VICTIMS of aggression

    What Arabs call NAKBA / Catastrophe (their failure to exterminate Israelis) and the ‘refugees’ resulted because the Arabs acted in AGGRESSION against the State of Israel and lost; but of course from the WARPED and illogical minds of Arabs, this must be overlooked and they should absurdly be allowed to go back once again to UN resolution 181

    WHY no one is bringing these crystal clear FACTS to the fore front of these spurious and illegitimate ‘resolutions’ beggars belief especially by Israelis

    IQ al Ibn Q Rassooli
    Kafir & Proud!

    • Westman says

      Dec 28, 2017 at 10:32 am

      Yes, Rassooli,

      When one considers that the UN representatives of the various nations are perhaps some of the most nonproductive, soft-handed, elite humans alive today, there should be little surprise that resolutions center about populism and are incredibly unrealistic or impossible to implement.

      All these UN dreamers need to implement their hatred of Israel is a Time Machine! Perhaps these are the “dreamers” that need actual deportation.

    • mortimer says

      Dec 28, 2017 at 11:14 am

      IQ’s conclusions based on the 1947 rejection of ANY recognition of Israel are very clearly correct.

      We saw what the Arab side wanted when they had a chance. They did not create a separate ‘Palestinian’ state in the West Bank. The West Bank was annexed to Jordan and they all became Jordanian citizens studying in Jordanian schools, etc. The two-state solution is that Jordan is 76% of the original Mandate and Israel is 24% of it. Get on with your lives and STOP THE PSYCHODRAMA.

      • CRUSADER says

        Dec 28, 2017 at 2:29 pm

        Well researched.

        The Mandate included all of Palestina….

        So Israel represents a quarter while Jordan takes the cake.

        Indeed. Just get on with the future, and let Jordan be for Palestinians, they are there anyway in huge numbers….and historically Jordan has supported their subsistence. But will they support the royalty there in turn?

    • Robert_k says

      Dec 28, 2017 at 10:09 pm

      WHY no one is bringing these crystal clear FACTS to the fore front of these spurious and illegitimate ‘resolutions’ beggars belief especially by Israelis

      Because Israel has been plagued by the same Leftists that control groupthink in the US. They are in academia, Media and Government. I recommend two books that have been written on this phenomenon in Israel:
      The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege by Dr Kenneth Levin (Psychiatrist) and The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel’s Soul: by Yoram Hazony.

      Google them and see the synopses of them.

    • Robert_k says

      Dec 29, 2017 at 4:20 am

      WHY no one is bringing these crystal clear FACTS to the fore front of these spurious and illegitimate ‘resolutions’ beggars belief especially by Israelis.

      Because of apologists from the Israeli Leftists just as from liberal apologist in the US.

      Two informative books which explain how Israel what caused Israel to cave in and sign the 1992 Oslo Accords with the PLO and not assert its rights are:

      The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel’s Soul. by Yoram Hazony.
      In what may be the most controversial book on Zionism and Israel published in the last twenty years, Yoram Hazony graphically portrays the cultural and political revolt against Israel’s status as the Jewish state. Examining ideological trends in academia, literature, media, law, the armed forces, and the foreign policy establishment, Hazony contends that Israelis are preparing themselves for the final break with the Jewish past and the Jewish future. In a dramatic new reading of Israeli history, Hazony uncovers the story of how Martin Buber, Gershom Scholem, Hannah Arendt, and other German-Jewish intellectuals bitterly fought against the establishment of Israel, and later used the Hebrew University as a base for deposing David Ben-Gurion and discrediting Labor Zionism. The Jewish State is a must-read for anyone concerned with Israel’s present and future. and
      The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege a 2005 book by Kenneth Levin. The book applies psychiatric insights to the Arab-Israel conflict by arguing that Israel’s reaction to Arab hostility is a corollary of the Stockholm syndrome in which hostages come to identify and empathize with their captors.

  3. Charlie says

    Dec 28, 2017 at 10:33 am

    Many years ago the entire middle east was mostly Christian. The late Roman Empire moved its capital to Constantinople and the city became the center of Christianity for nearly a millennium. The grand cathedral of all Christianity was the Hagia Sophia, an architectural marvel. Centuries of relentless attacks, invasions and demographic replacement left the city alone without an empire. In 1453 the city fell to Islamic invaders and the inhabitants were killed, raped or sold into slavery. Today, the population of Turkey is 0.2% Christian. From Kazakhstan to Indonesia to Morocco to Sweden, Islam has a huge swath of territory where indigenous religions were either exterminated or are on the way to being replaced. Israel is a dot on that map. I find it hard to sympathise with the idea that this spec of land and the dot of people called Israel are “ethnically cleansing” the ocean of Islam.

    • mortimer says

      Dec 28, 2017 at 11:16 am

      A lot of Arabs live and prosper in Israel and their population far from being cleansed is growing.

  4. CRUSADER says

    Dec 28, 2017 at 1:21 pm

    >> “——Eventually, jihad revives and Muslims rediscover the duty of jihad. As long as the ideology of JIHADISM has credibility, there will be violence. If governments start counter-ideology (i.e. debunking Islam), jihadism will have no ground in which it can grow. We must make it unfashionable to support or encourage Islam… similar to encouraging the Nazi Party or KKK. —–”

    INDEED!

    This is what Sebastian Gorka has recommended:
    IDEOLOGICAL WARFARE….with the enemy defined ideologically and combatted accordingly.

    Certainly, propaganda effort to outwit and outdo the schemes Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood do.
    Islam reformists could have their stage as well, denouncing the ills of Islam and promoting changes.

    “De-Nazify” the Islamists and Salafis and Wahhabists….etc…. Out ISIS the ISIL ass-oles.

    Take out Turkey’s references which inflame Islamism if Turkey is to be part of the EU / West….
    ….as we did with Japan after World War Two. In effect, Re-Constituting their Constitutions.

    • WorkingClassPost says

      Dec 28, 2017 at 7:23 pm

      And the ideological ‘war’ only requires us to point out the falsities of islam, and the jealous ambitions of its Inventor. Hardly a difficult proposition, given that it’s simple Truth, and theoretically covered under the banner of Free Speech.

      Makes one wonder who is preventing us from engaging the enemy,, and why?

  5. Robert_k says

    Dec 28, 2017 at 9:14 pm

    Let’s see what the Establishment in the US says in the Media, for example, and the NY Times, Time, Newsweek CNN, and NPR – LOL. Then what the Establishment in Great Britain says, the BBC, and the Guardian -LOL.
    The groupthink is so predictable that reading and listening to their reports is a mind-numbing exercise in monotony – a form of brainwashing for useful idiots.

  6. Lydia Church says

    Dec 28, 2017 at 10:33 pm

    Because all the hotheads can’t acknowledge Israel’s right to the land.
    It’s just like all the schoolyard bullies coming after one nerd and they want to blame
    the nerd for the ‘turmoil’! Ridiculous.
    And it all goes back to Isaac and Ishmael.
    Don’t you sometimes just want to grab your hair and ask;
    “why, oh why, Abraham, did you get the idea that the promise would be fulfilled through Hagar?!?!”
    If you read the account, you see how he is always trying to help God out instead of waiting patiently in faith for God to do it, and he only gets into deeper trouble, it’s almost funny but at least we need to learn the lesson, no?

  7. gravenimage says

    Dec 28, 2017 at 10:39 pm

    Raymond Ibrahim: Trump Scraps Cherished “Israel Grievance” Myth
    ……………………

    Hear, hear, President Trump!

  8. Krishna says

    Dec 29, 2017 at 12:45 am

    As for the Christian world, it represents the largest religion only nowadays. In the Middle Ages and as late as the 16th century, Islam was the largest religion outside East Asia. And they took an extremely damaging toll on Christendom. The Crusades were totally unjustifiable and very violent, but in the context of its time, which many people tend to forget because Europe eventually became unbelievably powerful, the Christians were the weaker and more vulnerable part, not the Muslims. The Islamic armies had conquered and converted 50% of the former Christian-majority lands. Former Christian countries that became Muslim-dominated in the Middle Ages include: Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia and Iraq. Spain and Sicily had also been conquered and partially converted. Can you imagine such a disaster for any religion/culture now? It’d leave people with an irrational fear and anger at the other religion, no doubt about this.

    • LeftisruiningCanada says

      Dec 29, 2017 at 3:28 pm

      “The Crusades were totally unjustifiable and very violent”

      I’m not going to defend every single thing ever done in the name of the Crusades, but what you had to say after the above quote seems to be making the case that they were, on the whole, quite justified.

    • Carol says

      Dec 30, 2017 at 2:26 am

      Why would anyone suggest the Crusades were “totally unjustifiable”? It’s also most strange to hear an East Indian with a Hindu name imply that any fear or anger toward the other “religion” (particularly Islam) would be “IRRATIONAL”.
      Islam doesn’t have what it takes to convert free, decent, intelligent people. It works via death and coercion and then most unfortunately becomes a circumstance of birth.

      • Carol says

        Dec 30, 2017 at 2:33 am

        Dr Bill Warner The true nature of Islam

    • Carol says

      Dec 30, 2017 at 11:31 am

      Krishna…in regard to the “totally unjustifiable” Crusades. The actual historicaltruth of the matter is described from approximately 7:15 to 9:15:
      The Real History of The Crusades

  9. Ibrahim itace muhammed says

    Dec 29, 2017 at 10:54 am

    savage mad devil Trump can adopt any strategy he deems fit, but the fact remains that he cannot legitimise illegal occupation of palestinian land by fascist Zionist state of Israel. The voting at UN is a clear evidence that the evil United States has lost hegemonic control over international community to turn wrong to right.so, to conced or not conced that Muslims and Arabs have genuine grievance against evil Zionist state of Israel will not change the equation.
    Raymond Ibrahim, you lied by saying that Muslims are collectively singling Out indigenous Christians for persecutions. You know Isis and other terrorist groups do not represent the mindsets of Muslim population in the region.over 99% of victims of terrorist attacks by Isis are Muslims who do not accept their perverted views on Islam. Indigenous Christians and Jews have been living peacefully with Muslims in Iraq, Syria and Egypt for centuries until the advent of evil Isis and terrorist groups funded and armed by evil United States and evil Saudi Royal family and being coordinated by mossad of evil state of Israel. Raymond Ibrahim, being Arab christian must know this in Egypt.

    • LeftisruiningCanada says

      Dec 29, 2017 at 3:33 pm

      “cannot legitimise illegal occupation of palestinian land by fascist Zionist state of Israel”

      They aren’t fascists, and their being in the Land is not illegal.

      “over 99% of victims of terrorist attacks by Isis are Muslims who do not accept their perverted views on Islam”

      Please ibrahim, explain, at length and in detail, why the islam of isis is not the true islam.

      “Indigenous Christians and Jews have been living peacefully with Muslims in Iraq, Syria and Egypt for centuries until the advent of evil Isis and terrorist groups funded and armed by evil United States and evil Saudi Royal family and being coordinated by mossad of evil state of Israel. Raymond Ibrahim, being Arab christian must know this in Egypt.”

      Tell me about the Jews in Iraq Ibrahim.

      Please provide some evidence for your repeated claims about mossad being the evil mastermind behind Isis.

      And yes, Raymond Ibrahim likely does know what’s going on, since he lives there and you don’t.

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