Moving on from the discussion HERE:
… The problem though, as I see it, is an enormous missunderstanding in the West as to what “moderate” means in the context of Islam. Hardly a commentator or pundit takes the time to determine the meaning of “moderate Islam”, yet casually tosses the term about willy-nilly.
Let me suggest therefore, a definition for moderate Muslim based in Western values … a definition that just may challenge our understanding. After all, we constantly read about and hear the term, “moderate Muslim majority” , as if it is a fact. I don’t at all intend to censure or judge the basic “goodness” of any man or woman, but do want to demonstrate that casual use of the term “moderate Muslim” may be ill-conceived.
keep reading …
An Interview to Think By:
Well, cjunk, I’ll accept, with hesitation, all of your definitions on ‘moderate Muslim’ except the first one, where ‘a moderate Muslim believes that Israel has a right to exist’.
I don’t think that this, a political opinion, has any place whatsoever in a religious opinion.
I happen to accept that Israel has a right to exist. I also happen to reject Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, its settlements, its refusal to compensate, its treatment of Palestinians, including its refusal to accept that Palestine has a ‘right to exist’, its rejection of the very possibility of a Palestinian people..and so on. Since I’m an atheist, then, these beliefs are not based in any religion – and I think you are completely wrong to tie the view of Israel into a religion.
Is it a definition of the Christian religion that ‘Israel has a right to exist’? Hindu? Buddhist? etc?
The reason that I say that I’ll accept your definitions ‘with hesitation’ is because they have little to do with the religion but instead, are social and political beliefs. Now, as I’ve frequently said, Islam is primarily a social and political mode, justified as a religion, but, in order to modernize it, you must focus on the religious axioms.
To me, a moderate Muslim would be one who acknowledged that the religious texts and rules of Islam were open to human interpretation and thus, amenable to change. That’s the most important. You’ve left this out.
It’s important because it puts the power of the identity of the religion back into the hands of the people rather than into a metaphysical force. And it’s important because it focuses on the rightful use of reason rather than the current Islamic rejection of reason.
I refer you to an interesting journal issue of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, on Debating Modern Islam. Vol 22, Summer 2005, No. 3. Really some excellent articles by Muslims, on modernizing their religion and opening its texts to interpretation.
Then, socially and politically, a moderate Muslim would indeed, as you point out, insist on a separation of church and state, accept the civic nature of modern governance, accept the industrial mode of the equivalence of men and women, and accept the global reality of differences of belief. These are not religious dictums but sociopolitical beliefs.
Islam has been an isolate sociopolitical entity until WWII and it simply hasn’t modernized itself; that’s why there is such conflict in the ME – between a 7th century tribal sociopolitical mode and the necessity to modernize to fit into the global industrial world.
A first step has to be to open its ideological base (which happens to be defined as a religion) up to ‘interpretation’ rather than passive acceptance. That – is what is important.
you will notice that although this interview is dated, the western MSM have yet to run with the story or give this lady and folks who think like her any air time. not unlike the Danish MP in excile in the US. She can’t even get protection.
That’s a very interesting definition of moderation, and the interview is indeed fascinating. I would have to quibble with one point:
“- believes that terrorism is NOT justified; ever”
I abhor terrorism as much as anyone, but I do believe it is justifiable in the most extreme circumstances. It is simply that Palestinian or Mohammedan “grievances” come nowhere close to justifying 911, suicide bombings, intifadas, Black Septembrist hijackings or any of their other atrocities.
The interviewee’s point regarding the political ideology of Islam is well taken. The exploitation of Islam for political or expansionist military purposes has a long and bloody history. See Peter Hopkirk, Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire, for a detailed examination of the German and Turkish attempts to use jihad in the conquest of British India and Tsarist Transcaspia in World War I. The same events form the background to the novel Greenmantle, by John Buchan (a.k.a. Lord Tweedsmuir, the bloke who signed our declaration of war on Nazi Germany).
Ahmadinejad is in the news again for using an “Islamic” celebration to again call for the destruction of Israel, or at least its reconstitution in Europe or Alaska:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1191257230393&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
If it’s good enough for the goose:
Manama wants to expel foreign workers after six years
Manama (AsiaNews) – Gulf States might end up expelling foreigner workers after six years if a proposal being put forwards by Bahrain is accepted. The Bahrain Labour Minister Majeed al-Alawi has denied however that he intends to present it to the next Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) meeting scheduled for Doha (Qatar) in December. If implemented it would affect an estimated 13 million expatriate workers living in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
“The majority of foreign manpower in the region comes from different cultural and social backgrounds that cannot assimilate or adapt to the local cultures,” al-Alawi told the Gulf Daily News in an interview. “In some areas of the Gulf, you can’t tell whether you are in an Arab Muslim country or in an Asian district. We can’t call this diversity and no nation on earth could accept the erosion of its culture on its own land,” he said.
Has any Islamophobitard in the history of the internet ever made a FACT BASED argument against Islam?
Because I and others have posted data which clearly shows that they are doing pretty well in Canada, better than white people I would argue.
Anyway, if you don’t have data you’re just wanking with opinions. Let’s see some science. Here, I’ll get the ball rolling:
-Muslims have the highest birthrate in Canada by religion. By Darwinian standards they are “winning” and we are “losing”. I can’t see how they are inferior to us when we are aborting ourselves out of existence.
-A higher percentage of Canadian Muslims have Master’s degrees than Canadian Catholics.
-30 percent of males aged 20-30 who immigrate to Canada leave Canada within 5 years.
I agree with CJunk – Islam will have moderated when it has accepted the right of Jews to sovereign in their state. Israel did not “steal the land” and neither is it a “brutal occupier”. Islam must get over its problem with Jews – then it will have moderated (if you check out the Koran tho, it might not be Islam anymore)
from today’s Jerusalem Post:
“Millions of Iranians attended nationwide rallies Friday in support of the Palestinians, while the country’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel’s continued existence was an “insult to human dignity.”
“The creation, continued existence and unlimited (Western) support for this regime is an insult to human dignity,” Ahmadinejad said. “The occupation of Palestine is not limited to one land. The Zionist issue is now a global issue.”
Ahmadinejad’s remarks came as millions of Iranians held rallies across Iran to protest Israel’s continued control of Jerusalem.
The demonstrations for “Al-Quds Day” – Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem – also spilled over into anti-American protests because of US support for Israel.
In the capital Teheran, hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets as they chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” Some protesters also burned American and Israeli flags.”
Andrew: “better than white people I would argue”
What do “white people” have to do with this? We are talking religion and socio/political modes of being and thinking.
I happen to accept that Israel has a right to exist. I also happen to reject Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, its settlements, its refusal to compensate, its treatment of Palestinians, including its refusal to accept that Palestine has a ‘right to exist’, its rejection of the very possibility of a Palestinian people..and so on.
ET, your assertions are incorrect. Israel is not occupying “palestinian lands.” Israel bought the lands from the effendi and Turks, this is indisputable. Also you have spoils of war form 1967. The lands that were sold to the Jews were desolate malaria infested swamplands and other blights. This is well documented and there are many pictures of Jews draining the swamps.
When the UN offered the partition of Israel the Jews accepted it and the Arabs refused and vowed to “push the Jews into the sea”, which led to the Israelis destroying half a dozen Arab armies that amassed on her border ready to invade. It is not the Jews that have not accepted the palestinians right to exist, it is the other way around as you should well know. Arabs are treated better by Jews than by their own brethren. Arabs can vote in Israel but not in Arab nations. Arabs have more rights in Israel than any other Arab land.
As far as the term “palestinian”, all Jews, Arabs, Druze and others were referred to as “palestinians.” The Jerusalem Post used to be called the Palestinian Post.
“Then in 70 C.E. (nearly 2000 years ago), it was the Roman Empire’s turn to march through ancient Israel and destroy the SECOND Jewish Temple, slaughtering or driving out much of its Jewish population. Many Jews left on their own because conditions for life were made unbearable in many respects… yet thousands upon thousands stayed and rebelled on for centuries in order to once again rebuild a Jewish Nation in this Holy Land.
Over 3250 years, various Peoples, Religions and Empires marched through Jerusalem, Israel’s ancient capital. The region was successively ruled by the Hebrews [Jews], Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Maccabeans, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Egyptians, the Crusaders, Mamelukes, the Turks (who indifferently governed the backward, neglected territory from the 16th century until the British drove them out during World War I) and then once again by the Jews in 1948. None bothered, nor were they in the least bit inclined, to build a Nation of their own… EXCEPT the Jews!”
For those interested in the truth……
http://www.masada2000.org/
Has any Islamophobitard in the history of the internet ever made a FACT BASED argument against Islam?
Take a look at the backward Muslim nations you moron. Women are stoned to death for showing a little ankle, girls have their throats cut for bringing “shame” upon a family, homosexuals and dissidents are executed, school children are decapitaed, etc. What contributions have Muslims made to the world other than barbarity and perfecting the homicide belt?
Muslims have committed more than 8,000 terrorist attacks since 9/11/01. I’m sure you’ll write that off as just cultural differences.
“The Muslim Ummah, or the Islamic world, he [Musharraf] said was presently living in darkness.
“Today we are the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most un-enlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race,” he told the delegates.
President Musharraf then made a comparison of the economic growth in Islamic countries with some developed countries.
While the collective Gross National Product of the all Muslim countries stands at $1,200bn, that of Germany alone is $2,500bn and that of Japan $5,500bn.
He said one of the main reasons for this disparity was that none of the Muslim countries had ever paid any attention to educational and scientific development.
He asked the countries participating in the conference to concentrate on scientific and technological development in order to compete with the developed world.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1824455.stm
“Islam is Not a Religion of Pacifists”, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, 1942
“Islam’s jihad is a struggle against idolatry, sexual deviation, plunder, repression, and cruelty. The war waged by [non-Islamic] conquerors, however, aims at promoting lust and animal pleasures. They care not if whole countries are wiped out and many families left homeless. But those who study jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. All the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked for everlasting salvation. For they shall live under [God’s law]…..”
“Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does that mean that Muslim should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill the [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender [to the enemy]? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to paradise, which can be opened only for holy warriors!”
“There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and hadiths [sayings of the prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.”
Plain as day, from the head of the snake. Now, look at the events of recent times and of today. The Islamic mission is being accelerated with full knowledge the “witless” will not see or hear or believe this evil agenda. The events and facts in just the last 2 weeks alone bears this out, where leaders and government in the UK are not only, NOT acknowledging the enemy, but are proposing one should not use the word Islam or muslim when discussing jihad or terror, and there are those smart people running around, shamelessly, trying to figure out what the connection is between Islam and terror. And these are educated people who hold the public trust. Even Bush, leader of the most powerful nation on earth, thinks Islam is a religion of peace.
This witless, self denial will kill civilization as we know it, if we let it. Khomeini was un-ambigous on this and we missed it and are still missing it, bowed in shamless apology, grovelling, of all things to a bunch of fanatics and even worse, grovelling to, and appeasing the fanatics with a hidden, undetectable, loathing, hatred of the west. Someone, I forget who, said these muslims amoungst you, would smile brightly at you with a hate filled heart.
We must convince our fellow citizens and leaders, ISLAM is the problem and it’s not a crime, nor hateful, nor bigotry, nor racism when self preservation is required from those who would subdue or kill you, to speak out, vehemently! It is none of these things to call evil, evil no matter what the lefty dhimmis think. Someday they WILL admit they were wrong.
Islam has been around for a long time. Lately though, something seemed to trigger the fanatics into action.
Was it the most powerful man in the world being seduced in the oval office by an everyday girl ?
A women, who some fundamentalists think should not even go to school, should remained covered up until her “boss” says it is ok, should not be in public with a none relative male.
Let alone have the American President wrapped around her little finger.
Is this what really drove al Queda and Islam nuts ? They both came to a head about the same time 🙂
As promised, undeniable proof that the Quran was solely conceived by Mohammad, for his benefit alone, and that allah is a complete fabrication:
islamreview.com/articles/PROPHETS_BIOGRAPHY_FROM_QURANIC_AYAS.shtml
well, apollyon, I’ve been through these arguments before – and I’ll maintain my points.
i reject every one of your points. Israel did not purchase the land from Turkey; the land wasn’t state or public land but private property owned by individuals. Your claim is not ‘indisputable’. I equally reject your ‘spoils of war’ argument; after all, this was not done by the Allies in Europe or elsewhere.
I also reject your opinion that the land was all swampland – which it wasn’t. This is equivalent to what I consider other mythic beliefs, such as the Myth of the Empty Land (no-one was living there); the Myth of Incompetence (the people weren’t farming it properly); the Myth of First Footprint (whoever was there first 1,000 years ago claims it forever and ever…and so on.
I’ve been through this argument many times on this blog – and, I have yet to be convinced by any counter arguments. I maintain my point; Israel’s occupation of Palestinian farms and lands, their refusal to compensate, their rejection of the right of these people to the lands which they had bought and paid taxes on; their post 1948 rejection that the Palestinians owned the land unless they farmed the land (and this had to be visible from the air); and their refusal to allow that farmer to return to do so…on and on…
By the way, your statement that only if you establish a ‘nation’ to you ‘own the land’ is invalid. The concept of a ‘nation’ only emerges in human society when the population reaches a certain size. Nations emerged in the West, for example, in the 9th, 10th etc centuries, moving beyond the previous ‘feudal fiefdoms’ and amalgamating into large political entities. That requires a larger population and a market economy. Before that – there’s no such thing as a nation.
But – this argument is not germane to this thread. The key point is that I’m saying that ‘recognition of Israel’ has no valid inclusion in a religion. It is a political not religious statement.
And, my point about the ‘moderate Muslim’ is exactly as Wafa Sultan points out- he/she has to accept that the axioms can be ‘interpreted’ or changed. That is, indeed, a transformation.
ET, how can you say Israel does not refuse to accept Palestinian right to statehood. Where have you been the last 20 years. Arafat was given everything he asked for, except the “right of return” of Palestinians in Israel, thus overhwhelming Jewish state of Israel – do you think they have this right to dictate to Israel who emigrates there? At Camp David, Arafat walked out, went back home and started the Intafadah. C’mon get real ET, get the binders off. Israel is not perfect by any means, and yes have made mistakes, but they’ve had a gun pointed at their head ever since they became a country.
The Palestinian question demonstrates the contradiction within Islam – we hear lots of talk about two state solution, but frankly Muslim leaders in ME want to keep this issue alive, to have a “grievance” against Israel.
Whenever this subject comes up, Arab apologists launch immediately into their grievances against Israel, as if everybody else is innocent – they are not. Here’s a thought, accept Israel, don’t attack them, then there can be peace – not before. Why is the onus on Israel alone?
Frankly, the same goes for Islamist attacks on West. They tell us how much they hate the infidel Americans, how they oppress them, are too powerful, then they attack!
ET, I’m surprised by your poor judgement on this issue. You need to rethink what you are saying. Whether or not these views are based on religion is wholly irrelevant, there is no separation of Church and State in the ME.
“Has any Islamophobitard in the history of the internet ever made a FACT BASED argument against Islam?”
The moonbat poseur reveals himself.
Fjordman: Islam, the Greeks and the Scientific Revolution, part 1,2 & 3
jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/018190.php
Taht’s a remarkable interview with Wafa Sultan. She’s exactly right. The Muslim people have been isolated for 1400 years. The post WWII era opened up those lands and people to the western world.
But, a people living within a 7th c tribalism, a peasant economy, within an ideology developed by a pastoral nomadic economy as a reaction to the spread of agricultural settlements in the 3rd, 4th and 5th centuries – are in no position to adapt to the modern world.
Their reactive ideology to preserve their pastoral nomadism was militant against others, and totalitarian in control over their own people – to prevent both assimilation, emigration and loss of land and people. Their ‘religious’ definition of this ideology meant that it was beyond change.
And, the Islamic rejection of reason – as pointed out – meant that science, the individual as intellectual agent, etc – had no place in the Islamic world. Therefore, Islam has set itself up as illequipped to adapt, change, modernize.
Wafa Sultan is right; they have isolated themselves from questions.
The same situation happened in the West in the 11th c. I won’t go into the fight to open up the ideology of christianity and the sociopolitical mores to questions and individual doubt – but, it took time, effort, and more time and effort.
The same thing has to be done in Islam. As Sultan pointed out – it needs the West to ‘crack open’ its isolation and cemented-laden axioms.
That’s why the West has to confront their beliefs, reject them, insist that the West won’t adapt, ie, won’t give up the use of reason, questions, the separation of church and state and so on.
Irwin Daisy: good stuff as usual.
Apollyon: I’m adding you to my “pay attention to what this guy writes” list.
Pay no attention to ET – she’s off her rocker on this issue. Always has been, always will be. Her views are very “Palestinian” – facts can’t persuade her.
Apollyon, the Masada 2000 website looks like an excellent resource. I for one was not aware of it.
Another very useful reference tool on Israel and the Arabs is Myths and Facts Online:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mftoc.html
“-A higher percentage of Canadian Muslims have Master’s degrees than Canadian Catholics.”
Only if you ignor the fact that a fair percentage of Canadian muslims immigrated to Canader and as such would probably have higher education levels where as most Caltholic Canadians probably grew up in the bushes outside of Chicoutimi, Quebec or Bugtussle, Saskatchewan where a higher (formal) level of education is not a requirement. Nice try Andrew but it don’t float.
(Don’t let my name fool you!) Srirituality deals with believing in the “unknown.” AKA forming an image of what you concieve as “Spirit,” and hoping to form a relationship with that form of “your” conception of a Higher Power.
If at a later date you are intelligent enough to record your “spiritual experience,” and sell your idea to an audience, you’ve got yourself a religious movement. The more demons and angels you’ve got, the more your story will sell!! Hard to fathom?? Not really
I would be curious if by this definition there are ANY moderate Muslims (even in Canada), and if so, what percentage? Certainly not a majority
no, shamrock, the Oslo accord was not ‘statehood’ or ‘nationhood’; it was municipal govt. The boundaries, resources, airspace, foreign affairs etc, all remained in the control of Israel. Again, municipal govt is not national govt.
Israel has the right to define its ‘immigrants’, you say. I agree; but the people who were living that land base in homes and farms that they had legal title to, could hardly be defined as ’emigrating to Israel’.
Yes, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been lifted and abused by the Islamic fascist conflict. The islamic fascists have used this as a ‘reason’ for their violence against the West. This externalization of violence is in lieu of violence WITHIN the Muslim world – between those forces that wish to remain primitive and tribal, and the necessity to modernize. The violence and fighting must take place within the Muslim world; they have to deal with this internal conflict. As Sultan pointed out.
And most Arab states don’t give a damn about Palestinians.
I don’t agree with you that the only reason Israel attacks Palestinians is because they attack Israel. That’s a bit too mechanical. You are ignoring the need for land and resources of Israel; they want the land of the West Bank, its waters and resources (water, by the way, which they forbid the Palestinians to use for irrigation; the Pal. can only use water for personal use, while the settlements can irrigate the fields). you are also ignoring the treatment by Israel of the Palestinians – the bulldozing of homes, the forbidden access to farms, etc. If you push a people against the wall, they’ll fight back. Then, to claim that they are ‘evil’ because they fight back and are filled with hate – that’s ridiculous.
shamrock – I don’t get your point about separation of church and state in the ME; I’m aware of the power of the orthodox in Israel, and Islam most certainly combines the two – but this has nothing to do with the Israel-Palestinian situation.
Have you ever heard of the 1948, 49 Law of Acquisition of Absentee Property? The 1949 Emergency REgulations for Uncultivated Lands? The definition of uncultivated? The inability of the refugee from returning to cultivate that land?
So, I’ll stand by all my facts on this conflict.
ET, you can reject the facts of the matter if you wish but that doesn’t make your view true, or even remotely close to the truth. The effendi sold Jews swamplands [this is not to imply solely swamplands], which is irrefutable. The Jews drained these swamp lands and built kibbutz’s, this is indisputable. In 1878 the Jews bought the Hullah marshes, they bought the Hadera swamp, from the Turks who owned much land. This land was not sold to Jews out of good nature, it was sold because the Arabs/Turks believed the Jews could do nothing with the land and thought they were taking advantage of them. It is the Jews that got agriculture to grow in a wasteland, it is Jews who toiled the soil and it is Jews that have built the nation of Israel into what it is today. In 1867 the Ottomans gave the Jews even more access in purchasing lands. The British issued White Paper for two reasons, 1) to stop Jewish migration back home and 2) to stop all Jewish purchasing of lands. The British issued this decree to appease the Arabs and the rabid Jew hating Mufti who was Hitler’s puppet and organized many pogroms.
ET, I must say you are incredibly misinformed on the history of Israel and the region. You like to claim that Palestinians had their land stolen, do you have any such concerns for Jews who had their lands stolen all throughout the ME and were expelled as well? Are you aware that Israel took in hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian and Iraqi Jews? What have the palestinians muslim brethren ever done for them other than exploit them as a mechanism to bash Israel?
By the way, your statement that only if you establish a ‘nation’ to you ‘own the land’ is invalid. The concept of a ‘nation’ only emerges in human society when the population reaches a certain size.
And what is that size and who determines it? Are you aware the Dead Sea Scrolls are written in Hebrew and are two thousand years old? Jews have occupied the land of Israel since time immemorial; if anyone has tried to steal lands it is the Arabs and the countless marauders that came through the region over millennia. Are you aware that Syria and Egypt were Christian nations at one time? How did they become Islamic nations? By the sword, that’s how, yet you expect everyone to believe it was the Evil Jooos™ that took the lands from the peaceful muslims.
And most Arab states don’t give a damn about Palestinians.
Here we agree.
I don’t agree with you that the only reason Israel attacks Palestinians is because they attack Israel. That’s a bit too mechanical.
You must be joking. Yeah, the Jews are the aggressors. Really, do you believe this nonsense? Of all the conflicts around the globe they are almost without exception muslims that cannot get along with their neighbors or host countries. But somehow the palestinians are immune to this islamic behavior; when these palestinians walk into pizzerias and on busses and blow themselves up killing Jewish women and children how do you rationalize this in your mind, by blaming Jews?
OK, ET, let the war continue, along with international terrorism. There is no solution in your approach. Israel is not going to cede sovereignty or land, or anything else, to its enemies, fixated on her destruction. Period. No international law niceties will change that. You don’t get my point about separation of church and state in ME – these states are theocracies, where religious leaders are also political leaders.
BTW, Israel has offered to put in infrastructure in “refugee camps” time and time again, and been refused.
Maybe when you and others stop whining about big, bad Israel, and finally accept the dire threat against their homeland. They have been attacked time and time again, but oh its about Israel not willing to step aside in West Bank, to make itself completely vulnerable to attack. Israel has used doctrine of unilateral withdrawal, and all we get is nitpicking, and more attacks.
Do you want peace in that region? Islamism not relevant to Palestinian conflict with Israel (hint: Hamas and Hezbollah use exactly same tactics as Taliban, Iraqui insurgents)
When I hear opinions like I’ve heard from thoughtful people like you, I am sure there is no hope for peace in Israel/Palestine. Anyway, just my opinion, Israel will defeat all comers anyway – it is foretold, as many say.
Hirsi Ali, a recent interview::
Hirsi Ali: …There is no moderate Islam. There are Muslims who are passive, who don’t all follow the rules of Islam, but there’s really only one Islam, defined as submission to the will of God. There’s nothing moderate about it.
Exactly.
Later in the interview, the Reason interviewer points out that she’s in favor of civil liberties, but would appear to deny them fully to Muslims in the West. She responds by saying that to save civil liberties, you have to restrict them on those who would take them away from everyone. She even goes so far as to say that all Muslims schools should be closed down in the US. She says that the Western constitutions that allow freedom of religion are products of the Enlightenment, and were written at a time when no one could have conceived of the jihadi threat. She says passing constitutional restrictions on Muslims is going to happen because the problem of Islamic extremism is not going to go away, and in fact is going to get worse — though sensibly, she acknowledges at length that there are some pretty strong reasons why America doesn’t have the same problem as Europe (e.g., Muslim immigrants to America want to assimilate, there’s not a welfare system for them to grow dependent on, white guilt is different in the US, etc.).
She concludes that the West’s arrogance is its own worst enemy “because in the West there’s this notion that we are invincible and that everyone will modernize anyway.” And, she says, this mistaken notion that if we “indulge and appease and condone,” everything will work out in the end.
“The problem is not going to go away. Confront it, or it’s only going to get bigger.”
—————————
Given some comments here, this needs repeating:
“because in the West there’s this notion that we are invincible and that everyone will modernize anyway.”
“The problem is not going to go away. Confront it, or it’s only going to get bigger.”
Are you listening ET?
——————————–
And,
Fear of fanatical Islamists prompted Ayaan Hirsi Ali to leave the Netherlands, her adopted home, and now she has been forced to return. Paying for her bodyguards in the United States is too expensive for the Dutch government — what a disgrace.
There are exactly five people that the Dutch government has to protect against death threats from radical Islamists.
This sort of protection is expensive. Society bears the costs because freedom of opinion, a cornerstone of our culture, is on the line. The extremists, for their part, are prepared to risk their own lives to kill those under government protection.
The costs of protection are completely disproportionate to the outcome: the continued existence of our values and norms.
Sorry for the large cut-and-paste, but I think it rounds out one of Apollyon’s points:
————–
In discussions about refugees in the Middle East, a major piece of the narrative is routinely omitted, and my life is part of the tapestry of what’s missing. I am a Jew, and I, too, am a refugee. Some of my childhood was spent in a refugee camp in Israel (yes, Israel). And I am far from being alone.
This experience is shared by hundreds of thousands of other indigenous Jewish Middle Easterners who share a similar background to my own. However, unlike the Palestinian Arabs, our narrative is largely ignored by the world because our story — that of some 900,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries dispossessed by Arab governments — is an inconvenience for those who seek to blame Israel for all the problems in the Middle East.
Our lives in the Israel of the 1950s were difficult. We had no money, no property; there were food shortages, few employment prospects. Israel was a new and poor country with very limited resources. It absorbed not only hundreds of thousands of us, but also an equal number of survivors of Hitler’s genocide. We lived in dusty tents in “transit camps,” their official name because these were to be temporary, not permanent.
Housing was eventually built for us, we became Israeli citizens, and we ceased being refugees. The refugee camps in Israel that I knew as a child were phased out, and no trace of them remains. Israel did this without receiving a single cent from the international community, relying instead on the resourcefulness of its citizens and donations from Diaspora Jewish communities. Today, many of Israel’s top leaders are from families that were forced to flee Arab countries, and we make up more than half of Israel’s Jewish population.
I was born in Baghdad, and like most other Iraqis, my mother tongue is Arabic. My family’s cuisine, our mannerisms, our outlook, are all strongly influenced by our synthesized Judeo-Arabic culture.
There once was a vibrant presence of nearly 1 million Jews residing in 10 Arab countries. Our Middle Eastern Jewish culture existed long before the Arab world dominated and rewrote the history of the Middle East. Today, however, fewer than 12,000 Jews remain in these lands — almost none in Iraq.
What happened to us, the indigenous Jews of the Arab world? Why were 150, 000 Iraqi Jews — my family included — forced out of Iraq? Why were an additional 800,000 Jews from nine other Arab countries also compelled to leave after 1948?
When the world of the 1930s and ’40s was divided between the democratic Allies and the Fascist Axis, Arab nationalists in Iraq and Palestine chose to form an alliance with Nazi Germany. The father of Palestinian nationalism and the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, began his close collaboration with Nazi Germany in the mid-1930s.
The British put out an arrest warrant for the pro-Nazi Palestinian leader, but he escaped when war broke out in Europe in the spring of 1939. Later that year, he arrived in Baghdad and linked up with pro-Nazi Iraqi nationalist Rashid Ali al-Gaylani. In 1941 al-Husseini and al-Gaylani engineered a pro- German coup against the pro-British Iraqi government, which brought a reign of terror to Iraq’s Jews. This culminated in what we remember as the Farhud, an Arabic word akin to “pogrom.”
In a two-day period Arab mobs went on a rampage in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, murdering, raping and pillaging these cities’ Jewish communities. Nearly 200 Jews were killed, more than 2,000 injured; some 900 Jewish homes were destroyed and looted, as were hundreds of Jewish-owned shops. My father was a survivor of the carnage. He hid in a hole dug in the ground to save his life. He saw Iraqi soldiers pull small children away from their parents and rip the arms off young girls to steal their bracelets. He saw pregnant women being raped and their stomachs cut open.
Britain eventually regained control, but al-Husseini and other Palestinian nationalists had already fled to Berlin where they became honored guests of the Nazi state. Hitler told a grateful al-Husseini that “Germany’s only remaining objective in the [Middle East] would be limited to the annihilation of the Jews living under British protection in Arab lands.”
Later, in a speech over Radio Berlin’s Arabic Service, al-Husseini voiced support for the Nazis’ “Final Solution” and became the first Arab leader to call openly for the expulsion of Jews from Arab lands — some eight years before there was a single Palestinian refugee.
Even though Hitler lost the war, al-Husseini’s call was heeded. In 1948, Iraq rounded up and imprisoned hundreds of Jews. Others were removed from their jobs in the civil service, business licenses of Jews were revoked, and quotas were placed on Jewish high school and college students. Later, discriminatory restrictions were imposed on Jewish travel abroad and the buying or selling of property. Thus, even if Jews wanted to escape Iraq, they could not do so legally, and they could not liquidate their assets.
In 1950, the Iraqi parliament passed a law called Ordinance for the Cancellation of Iraqi Nationality for Jews, Law No. 1 that stripped Iraqi Jews of their citizenship. In 1951, the Iraqi parliament passed another law, confiscating all Jewish property. Within a year, most of Iraq’s ancient Jewish population, my family included, fled to Israel.
Elsewhere in the Arab world, Jews faced similar circumstances. In Libya in 1945, nearly 100 Jews were massacred. In 1948, the Jewish communities of Aden and Algeria were rocked by a series of attacks that left hundreds dead and many more injured. Discriminatory laws against Jews were passed in other Arab countries. Within a decade, the exodus of Jews from Arab countries was almost complete, with most going to Israel.
All of this was conducted under the guise of law by Arab governments. This forced Jews to flee lands where we had lived for thousands of years before the Arab-Islamic conquests.
Since 1949, the United Nations has passed more than 100 resolutions on Palestinian refugees. Yet, for Jewish refugees from Arab countries not a single U.N. resolution has been introduced recognizing our mistreatment or calling for justice for the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees forced out of our homes. This imbalance of the world’s concern is itself an injustice.
Arab governments instituted policies that led to nearly 900,000 Middle Eastern Jews becoming stateless refugees. Those same governments forced about 750,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants to remain in impoverished refugee camps, refusing them citizenship and denying them hope.
Peace between Israel and the Arab world requires a solution that recognizes that there were two refugee populations. Acknowledging and redressing the legitimate rights of Jewish refugees from Arab countries will promote the cause of justice, peace and a true reconciliation.
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Semha Alwaya is an attorney in the Bay Area and a founding member of Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (www.jimena-justice.org). E-mail us at insight@sfchronicle.com.
ET, what did the palestinians do once they were given Gaza? They ransacked it and started shooting rockets into Israel from there, some landing into schools. I know this doesn’t concern you, you’ll chalk it up as myth being the truth seeker you are.
Thank you Mississauga Matt, that’s an excellent article. I have several books to recommend on the subject if anyone is interested.
Please, this has been a good discussion for the most part, part I and part II. We need to stay away from the Israel issue, as it detracts from the main concern.
We need a rational and defensible strategy for protecting our society from the primitivism and violence of Islam. This is not a race issue and not a nation issue, other than for the nation of Canada.
It is an issue of ideology. 30 years ago we were comfortable stating, in public and as a matter of public policy that the ideology of communism was flawed and that we were at war with it. We had communists here, but did not put them in camps, did not execute them, but neither did we shelter them and support them. They had their little marches, and their rooms in the university, but the papers and society at large saw through the foolishness of this ideology.
If a group of people had been to come to Canada with the stated intent of overthrowing our democracy and replacing it wiht Soviet Communism, they would have been shown the door.
We won that war, although its seeds are still partially poisoning us. Many of those we fought against are now using the Islam thing to try to get payback.
However, IMHO the “ideology” discussion is the pathway to success here. We need to label the Islamic ideology of theocratic rule, sexual discrimination, violent struggle, and contempt for non-muslm, as unacceptable to this society. We need to make it clear that these ideas are rejected, and those who espouse them are going to be ejected. Crap like the stuff in that Somali mosque web site should not be tolerated. We need to make people who come to Canada sign an oath that they will live by these rules, and those who break them will be deported.
We also need to allow much longer periods of time between entry to Canada and granting of citizenship and the right to bring over family members. Family unification has been a one way road to welfare in Europe.
Lori: Agreed … let’s nix the Israel debate, and stick to the topic.
Who … what … is a moderate … and does it matter anyway?
Honestly, to me it doesn’t matter about moderate or not. I’d keep them all out, and it’s up to Islam to demonstrate that its adherents is worthy to enter our land. I’d keep them all out until they demonstrate this by deed and by word.
But politically, this is not a position that would survive in the current social climate. People are still of stupid idealistic notions that have become exploited by those who wish to do us harm.
So, I am willing to compromise, since anything is better than the current suicidal policies.
We need to find a way to frame and have the debate in a way that is acceptable to a significant number of Canadians. Right now the media and lefties are having little or no trouble blocking a serious discussion on this issue by simply pointing to the ravings of a few individuals and using them to discredit any serious discussion.
Let’s look at a couple of facts. 1) Israel was a child of the UN that fought to exist against all odds. 2) Egypt and Jordan governed Palestine before Israel was created. 3) Arafat was an Egyptian and not a Palestinian and was a communist first and a Muslim by necessity. 4) Palestinian issue was not a problem before Al Qaida; before that Israel was the problem, so the Palestinian issue is a red herring. From this we can also conclude that here is a pecking order amongst Arabs and at the bottom are the Palestinians. That’s why the other Arab countries don’t want Palestinian refugees. Egypt having a massive wall between itself and the Gaza Strip further evidences this.
What this lady is saying is true. Muslims have been feuding for centuries among themselves and much of it revolves around the role of the clerics. Christianity went through that over the centuries and we evolved to the power of the clerics over our everyday life being severely deminished. Most of it was as a result of the science and new technologies and discoveries. All of which happened as Europe opened up its eyes to the world and learned of other faiths and what they can offer Christianity.
apollyon – the structure of ‘nation’ is linked to population size, which is linked to economic mode and didn’t appear until the 10th or so century. Before, you had ‘cities’ and territories but not a ‘nation’.
I also don’t accept ‘First Footprint’ as a legitimate definer of ownership. If that were the case, then Canada, US, Australia etc, couldn’t exist as such but would by rights belong to the indigeneous peoples.
You are merging the fight between Israel-Palestine and Islamic fascism. I think that’s a serious error; they are two absolutely different things. Hamas and Hezbollah are Islamic fascist fronts, funded by Iran – and are an example of this merger. They functionally act to refocus the Islamic world on the vital changes the Muslims have to make within their own ideology and mode of life – into a West-Vs-Muslims agenda.
irwin daisy – I’ve been saying all along that the West must reject multiculturalism, must reject Islamic demands that we behave like them. I’ve also been saying all along that Islamic fascism has nothing to do with Israel-Palestine. So, since I have been saying both these things as long as you’ve been reading this blog – what’s your point?
I don’t accept your view that because the Arabs expelled the Jews, then, the Israeli expelling of the Palestinians is OK.
I also find it puzzling that the state of Israel, its policies, its history, its agenda, are almost a religious axiom, immune to dissent and critique. That is the problem with Islam – its refusal to allow its axioms to be questioned.
lori- I fully agree with your points. What has prevented Canadians from criticizing and rejecting Islamic demands is Trudeau’s Charter and its multiculturalism. This is a policy that legally sets up group rights as privileged over individual rights. The groups, moreover, are defined by hereditary classification – ethnicity, religious, linguistic.
This law of multiculturalism effectively shut up Canadians. And, particularly, in Ontario – the centre of immigration for Canada. The fact that Islam is essentially a social and political mode, protected from questions and change, by defining this behaviour as a religion – means that when we critique any beliefs or behaviour, we are rapidly accused of ‘racism’, bigotry and the like.
We have to keep voicing our objections, however, and insist that our civic rule is non-negotiable and that if they wish to immigrate to our country, they must accept our basic rules. This is being done elsewhere in the West – but it’s going to have to be, as Sultan pointed out, repeated and repeated and repeated. The Muslim world has to, itself, change itself. But, as she said – we have to keep pounding on their cement walls and insisting that they do so.
Lori: I’d settle for limited Muslim immigration from a variety of countries. As long the cultural groups are diverse and small, enclaves won’t form … and it’s enclaves based not only on Islam, but on regional similarity, that I’m concerned about. I don’t want’ “little” Syria or “little” Indonesia in my back yard … not until there’s been a transformation in Islam.
Case in point. A woman I know who is an executive; is very outgoing, is very talented, is very educated; is about to get married into an arranged marriage. Her new husband will come to Canada as a result, and she is going to put on the hijab … which she’s never worn, and is going to embrace the more conservative ways of her husband. It’s as if she’s lost her brains … yet she’s going to do it because she believes in Islam. She’s been here since she was a small child … go figure.
A rare case you say … look to Europe then decide.
“Crap like the stuff in that Somali mosque web site should not be tolerated.”
Encouraged, I guess, by Kathy’s posts on the subject, I am finding khalidmosque.com to be infinitely fascinating. It’s a must read to see the unbelievable kookiness we’re up against.
Examples:
– I lose my wudoo’ when I am praying and when reading Qur’aan, by breaking wind either with a noise or with just a smell.
– I have a question about sleeping on your belly….why is it haraam sleeping on your belly?
– I hope that you can provide me with a scientific answer – if such knowledge is available – about the saheeh hadeeth about drinking camel’s urine.
– In Islam, what is Ruling on joking?
– Is it allowed for me to uncover my hand only in front of my brother-in-law?
– Are there airports and airplanes in Paradise?
– What is Meaning of the word Pokemon ?
– Can i get married to my cousin who is 1 and a half year younger than me? She is my mom’s brother’s daughter. i really love her.
ET says:
“I’ve been saying all along that the West must reject multiculturalism, must reject Islamic demands that we behave like them.”
Why should Israel accept Islamic demands that Jews live as dhimmis?
Israel is fighting the same battle as the rest of the West.
Until the West recognizes this, and tells the Islamic world that they must get over their obsession/fixation with Jews, Islam will never moderate.
no, ex-liberal, the ME is not asking Jews to live as ‘dhimmis’ and the Israel-Palestinian conflict has nothing to do with the basic infrastructural problem within Islam.
Islam, as I’ve said many times, is a sociopolitical mode, sealed against change by defining it as a religion – that emerged within the 6th-7th c as an obvious economic reaction to the takeover of its pastoral land requirements by Christian agricultural settlements. A pastoral economy requires a large land base, with a lot of left fallow for regeneration. The Islamic axioms are obviously those of a pastoral economy – and one whose land base is under siege.
The remarkable thing is – a 7th c. economy and ideology ‘froze’. I can’t think of a comparison. Not even the peasant economy in China set itself up as immune to reason, to doubt, to questions. It’s quite a remarkable act – to freeze the mind of a people. So, it has been effectively trapped and unable to free itself.
Christianity, as an ideology, began as an economic perspective of ‘everyone who is different can still get along and work with each other as neighbours’. It was an open religion, but was taken over by a political authority, the church, for centuries.
This authority rejected the right of reason for the peasants, and channelled the right to reason of its priestly class within certain non-disputable political axioms (peasants can’t read, can’t reason outside of peasant concerns), but, left man with his reason…eg..the great works of the scholastics. However, the economy required innovation – and also had to get the economy off the local farm – so, the reformation enabled that.
But Islam has, remarkably, remained frozen. Until after WWII and the discovery, by the West, of oil. Islam, however, has no science, no technology and has had to rely on the west to extract and manufacture its oil. And frankly, every other technology it uses. But, Islamic countries can’t afford for their populations to remain frozen; they must modernize.
What is happening – is that the ME is going through cataclysmic changes – fighting these changes – but going through them. And the Muslims moving to the West are finding that they can remain intellectually frozen. They can get jobs in the West, can get education, can get welfare if they want – and – can remain intellectually and morally frozen.
That’s because of our multiculturalism.
As Sultan says – we can’t allow it; we have to pound on their cement walls, and refuse to allow them to change us.
I also don’t accept ‘First Footprint’ as a legitimate definer of ownership. If that were the case, then Canada, US, Australia etc, couldn’t exist as such but would by rights belong to the indigeneous peoples.
I know we’ve taken the thread on a tangent but it is relevant to the subject.
ET, you seem like a decent person and I enjoyed your comments on other threads. I am extremely surprised someone of your intelligence holds the false views you do on the subject at hand. Jews have a claim to the land on many levels. Jews were there long before the Arabs came and Judaism predated Islam by many centuries. Jesus, a Jew, was born in Israel. We have been there since the very beginning and have fought off the heathens for millenia, only recently with great success.
Based on your quote do you view Canadians and Americans as occupiers?
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/909901.html
A teeny step in the right direction? France wants immigrants bringing in “family” members to prove that they are really relatives using DNA tests.
Not a single data point to counter my claim that Muslims are more successful than white people in Canada?
Show me a 15 year old white girl and a 15 year old Muslim girl and the Muslim girl will make more money, have more children, have a better marriage and a better family, have better manners and attitude, and overall live a better and more productive life than the typical 15 year old white Canadian girl. Same goes for boys too.
In light of the fact that the Muslims are beating the pants off us *on our own turf at our own game* it is simply absurd to criticize Islam and its followers. We need to get our act together and the people who ignore this fact and hide this fact are causing more damage to western civilization than the 9-11 hijackers ever did.
Yup ET you have it all figured out – Jews living in the “democratic state of Palestine” would have equal rights before the law, and surely wouldn’t be expected to live as dhimmis. I’m sure they would be safe and sound and allowed to vote – oh I forgot, the “Palestinians” and their supporters think that it is reasonable to insist that Judea and Samaria be Judenrein – free of Jews.
Appolyon and Miss. Matt, thanks for your posts. I have been perplexed by ET’s position on Israel for a couple of years now. She usually just dismisses me. Her analysis is very Marxist – based on economics and materialism.
I still agree with CJunk – number one order of business for Islam to moderate is for Muslims to get over their sick obsession with Jews. Islam will moderate when it takes down the Dome of the Rock as recognition that they just built it there because that is the site of the two Jewish Temples.
andrew, the reason there is no data claim that Muslims are ‘more successful than white people’ in Canada is because your variables are invalid.
Muslim is a religion, not a skin colour. You can be a Muslim and have a black, brown or white skin colour. Equally, you can be a Christian and have a black, brown or white skin colour. Or a Jew – can be black, brown or white in skin colour.
To try to set up a correlation – and are you even going so far as to make the invalid claim that correlation implies causality?–to try to set up a correlation with such invalid variables means that is is, right from the start, unanswerable.
Lori- yes, I saw that French rule; I think they are absolutely right to do that.
apollyon – Judaism predated Christianity as well. So what? My point is that ‘First Footprint’, as I term it, doesn’t legitimize eternal ownership. Human beings have wandered over, settled, and moved away from, multiple land bases since they moved out of Africa. Does that mean that if a group were in one area and moved away for whatever reasons, that their descendants, no matter whether ‘direct’ or vastly indirect – have the right to claim ownership of that land for all time? I absolutely don’t accept that.
Therefore, since I don’t accept that, then, I don’t claim that Canada and America are occupying N. America.
But,if I were to use your argument, you would have to define the true owners of this N. American land, as the indigeneous peoples – just as you claim that the true owners of Israel are, now, the Jewish people because they were there, like the indigeneous peoples, a ‘long time ago’.
When I am referring to Israeli occupation, I refer to the lands of the West Bank and Gaza.
As far as Israel was concerned, it ought to have paid valid and full compensation for the lands and homes of the Palestinians. I refer you to the 1949 Knesset act ‘Emergency Regulations relative to property of absentees’, the 1949, ‘law of acquisition of absentee property; the definition of refugees as ‘absent’; the impossibility of a refugee from returning to his land; the acts of the Custodian..etc, etc. I’m sure you are aware of all of this – which effectively rejected any compensation and simply acted as land grabs.
A teeny step in the right direction? France wants immigrants bringing in “family” members to prove that they are really relatives using DNA tests.
Lori, France is not looking good, despite their half hearted measures. They seem destined to be a nation of burqas and mosques. This time it will be the islamists marching down the Champs Elysées.
The fact of the matter is the more muslims we allow into the country the more backward they all become.
Their purpose is to achieve critical mass in order to take over an area and then a country from within, like parasites. Take Dearborn, for example. Pamphlets were recently placed on cars in a parking lot commanding the death of Christians and Jews and all who don’t accept allah and his messenger.
As they grow in numbers they become bolder, the false ‘peace’ pretense is dropped and they revert to their normal savage mode.
“Show me a 15 year old white girl and a 15 year old Muslim girl and the Muslim girl will make more money, have more children, have a better marriage and a better family, have better manners and attitude, and overall live a better and more productive life than the typical 15 year old white Canadian girl. Same goes for boys too.”
Moonbats like the idiot who made the above statement are slowing down the inevetable process towards an immigration ban and laws being changed to reduce the Islamic threat. BTW, if muslim immigration continues, that 15 year old muslim girl won’t have a future. Instead, perhaps an early death.
You know who worries me as much as crazy Muslims? You guys. You all have a lot in common. You should get together… you’d probably like each other
Did the idiot bell go off in the idiot cave? Who invited ‘John’ to comment?
The simple fact of the matter is that there are a number of quarters in the ME that have wholus bolus adopted the policy of ‘VERNICHTUNG’ or extermination. Al Qaeda would be among the more virulent proponents of this policy.
Hence the frequent cries of “Death to Israel” or “Death to the USA” and the recurrent themes of “Zionism”.
This is just a recasting of the old policy of ‘lebensraum’. If only Israel is destroyed, or as Dr. Ahmadinejad put it, ‘wiped off the map’; then there will be peace. Thus we have the policy of “Judenrein” or Jewish free being reinvoked as they should now all move to Europe or Alaska (during the NS period they floated the idea Jews should all be deported to Madagascar)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan
Recall if you will the lebensraum policies of the Anschluss of Austria, Sudetenland of Czechslovakia, invasion of Poland, etc. then Germany will finally take its rightful place in the world. This has its analogues in the previous wars with Iraq though they were largely unsuccessful with much blood shed on both sides.
In short, peace will only occur once all other enemies have been liquidated. This is simply the secular playbook adopted from Adolf and recast in a religious wrapper. In a word, it is the twisting of religious expression to fascism. You will be put to the sword because you are not like me, come what may. Become like us or die.
Hence the offers of Dr. Ahadinejad to the USA to ‘reject Satan’ and convert to Islam.
The rest is simply buying time until they are ready to pursue, not the internal jihad of self-improvement, but rather the external jihad when a ‘pure Islam’ will rule over all.
To cut and parry through all the anthropological and historical discussions this, is like “Deutschland” or rather “(Islam)Uber Alles”.
Western politicians can dither and doddle all they want, it won’t make a whit of difference to those who are buying into the “My version of Islam is purer, than yours.”
The fratricidal disputes between various subsets of Islamic fascism are akin to Adolf’s secular version of the “Night of the Long Knives” or “my version of National Socialism is purer than yours.”
The proponents of Islamic fascism need a new playbook. This has all been attempted before and it was a decidedly ugly affair.
What Dr. Ahmadinejad has failed to explain is why is the ‘success’ of Iran is dependent on ‘wiping Israel off the map’.
Recall his statements that this was a sixty year old ‘problem’, ie 1948 formation of Israel.
This might be described as a severe case of “schadenfreude”. (Joy at other’s misfortune.)
If indeed Dr. Ahmadinejad is sincere in his desire to avoid a new Holocaust one might employ a new speech writer as the current one is somewhat ‘thinly veiled’.
Cheers
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