"MY NAME IS SHARI"

[tjohnson]

You would regard it as a delusion for the Israelis to think they are vastly "greater and powerful and influential" than the Moslem world? Seriously? Consider the accomplishments since 1948 of the two groups. Consider the forms of government both have. Consider...

OK, what has each group accomplished since 1948?

[Barbara Branden]

Michael, you wrote: "If you listen to the words of Ahmadinejad in his interview, or listen to almost any Mulsim, even a new American convert, you keep hearing one word repeated over and over: security."

If security were the issue, the Palestinians would long ago have accepted the many Israeli offers to recognize a separate Palestinian state; they would have ejected Hamas and demanded peace instead of increased terrorism after Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, etc., and after all the dozens of other peace offerings Israel has made to its enemies over the years. In fact, if security were the issue, there would have been no attack by the Arab nations when Israel became a state, How on earth could the tiny, rural state of Israel, populated by the exhausted remnants of European Jewry, be a threat to the security of the massed might of the millions in the Arab states? Yet this is when the Arabs began requiring -- as they require today -- that the Israelis be driven into the sea. If Israel is now armed to the teeth, which it is, one can only blame the Arab nations for making it an essential of Israeli survival.

Barbara

[Barbara Branden]

Michael, you speak of "the Muslims I have known." How many Muslim inhabitants of Gaza do you know? How many Muslim inhabitants of Syria, or Egypt? The ones one meets here -- or in Brazil -- are precisely the ones most likely to have left their native countries because they found life at home unbearable. Go to one of those countries, as I did in 1966, and you will understand what hatred means. What it means in a way not likely to be found in Israel, where I also visited in 1966. That was one of the years, in Israel, where from an adjoining Arab country, an inhabitant could -- and did -- fire a rifle whose bullets would travel from one Iraeli border all the way through the tiny country, and no Israeli was safe. That was one of the years -- I was on a Mediterranean cruise -- when our ship had to stop first in Egypt and only then in Israel. Had we attempted to come to Egypt from Israel, we would not have been allowed to dock in Alexandria or anywhere else in Egypt, even though our ship was British. And when many of the passengers travelled from Egypt to Syria, the other Jewish passengers and I could not join them; Jews were not allowed to emter Syria. There have been no such laws in Israel.

Barbara

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Speaking of Bernard Lewis, when I set up the Mideast section approximately one year ago, one of the first essays I posted was by him:

Freedom and Justice in Islam

I just reread that essay. In light of all I have learned since then, especially the Nazi influence, this essay is remarkable for its penetrating analysis of the impact of social events on Muslim thinking. In a short passage, Lewis explained how the Nazis managed to penetrate into that world. Napoleon Bonaparte had conquered the Middle East way back when and the French had many colonies in the Middle East ever since.

In the year 1940, the government of France surrendered to the Axis and formed a collaborationist government in a place called Vichy. The French colonial empire was, for the most part, beyond the reach of the Nazis, which meant that the governors of the French colonies had a free choice: To stay with Vichy or to join Charles de Gaulle, who had set up a Free French Committee in London. The overwhelming majority chose Vichy, which meant that Syria-Lebanon—a French-mandated territory in the heart of the Arab East—was now wide open to the Nazis. The governor and his high officials in the administration in Syria-Lebanon took their orders from Vichy, which in turn took orders from Berlin. The Nazis moved in, made a tremendous propaganda effort, and were even able to move from Syria eastwards into Iraq and for a while set up a pro-Nazi, fascist regime. It was in this period that political parties were formed that were the nucleus of what later became the Baath Party.

There is one part that jumped out at me and it is a perfect indicator that oversimplification with the Islamic world simply doesn't work. We have to learn about it.

It's interesting that pro-American feeling is strongest in countries with anti-American governments. I've been told repeatedly by Iranians that there is no country in the world where pro-American feeling is stronger, deeper and more widespread than Iran. I've heard this from so many different Iranians—including some still living in Iran—that I believe it. When the American planes were flying over Afghanistan, the story was that many Iranians put signs on their roofs in English reading, “This way, please.”

So there is a good deal of pro-Western and even specifically pro-American feeling. But the anti-American feeling is strongest in those countries that are ruled by what we are pleased to call “friendly governments.” And it is those, of course, that are the most tyrannical and the most resented by their own people.

Maybe some of this has been obvious to the history-inclined, but for me, who knew precious little about the history of the Middle East until last year when I started reading about it, these are important perspectives in trying to make sense out of modern events.

I highly recommend the essay I linked. Here is another very though-provoking essay by Bernard Lewis from 1990:

The Roots of Muslim Rage (September 1990) (See here and here for other links.)

A quote from that article makes much more sense to me in explaining the Islamist mentality than the current popular oversimplification in the Objectivist/conservative world that Islamists want world-domination in the same manner as a James Bond villain conceives of it.

What is truly evil and unacceptable is the domination of infidels over true believers. For true believers to rule misbelievers is proper and natural, since this provides for the maintenance of the holy law, and gives the misbelievers both the opportunity and the incentive to embrace the true faith. But for misbelievers to rule over true believers is blasphemous and unnatural, since it leads to the corruption of religion and morality in society, and to the flouting or even the abrogation of God's law.

(Actually, this even explains fundamentalist Objectivists! )

Also, Lewis made an observation I had not taken into account before. In trying to spread modernity to the Islamic world, the West also spread two World Wars. When seen from a Muslim's eyes over time, one group of modern Western civilizations was trying to destroy another group of modern Western civilizations. And both groups set up extensive propaganda efforts in the Muslim world denouncing each other. This has gone on for years.

A natural human reaction when observing bitter hatred between rivals is to reject both sides and look for something better. I often see this attitude currently in the Israeli/Palestinian mess (and am even partial to it). I find it amazing, but universal, that bitter rivals never see this result on people outside the conflict. They are simply blind to it and usually try to lump the onlooker with the enemy side if they cannot convert him. But this reaction of rejecting both sides provided a strong emotional ground for Islamic fundamentalists to attract followings by saying, "They are both crazy. The old ways are better."

Here is a transcript of an event hosted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in 2006 (which has sections that turned into parts of some of Lewis's articles) and a couple of articles from 2006 and 2007.

Islam and the West: A Conversation with Bernard Lewis (2006)

August 22 - Does Iran have something in store? (WSJ 2006)

Was Osama Right? - Islamists always believed the U.S. was weak. Recent political trends won't change their view. (WSJ 2007)

Walking into the world of this event and articles after mostly reading discussion forums and news stories was like taking a bath of rational sanity. This guy knows what he is talking about. I especially enjoyed the PEW event transcript. I can't recommend it enough for those interested in seeing fundamental issues regarding the Islamic culture.

He knows the difference between the Islamic world and Islam (like Christiandom and Christianity). He knows that the Danish cartoon debacle was a staged event prepared over time, as witnessed by the four-month lapse between their publication and the demonstrations against them and the sudden near-miraculous availability of abundant Danish flags "of suitable size and texture for trampling or burning" in remote parts of the world where demonstrations occurred, and not a spontaneous eruption of a bloodthirsty culture trying to impose censorship on the world. He knows that the end-of-the-world mentality in Iran's leaders make them dangerous with nuclear weapons in a manner that Russia never was, and that what worked with Russia will not work with Iran.

He knows that Muslims in the Middle Ease study history as a common-place activity and that, in the West, people forget events quickly. He knows that brutality works against one type of problem, as witnessed by the brutality of Soviet responses to kidnapping resulting in hardly any Islamist kidnappings of Soviets, but not another, as witnessed by the fact that Islamists bitterly fought the Soviets in Afghanistan and elsewhere. (This, btw, makes total hash of the Objectivist Lewis's contention that brutality of reaction as a guiding principle will cow the Islamic culture into non-action and acceptance of Western values. Getting tough is only one part of the solution.) He knows that the West sees the disintegration of the Soviet empire as a victory for the West, but Islamists view it as a victory for jihad.

I like what I read with Bernard Lewis.

Just as a curiosity, most people nowadays think Nazis were atheists or into Nordic myths, but apparently Hitler was a twisted Christian in his heart. This religious element would account partly for the ease with which Nazism was able to enter the Muslim world (introducing the modernity phase Bernard Lewis talked about). Here is a highly interesting compilation of religious quotes from Mein Kampf and other top Nazis made by one Zardoz9 from an Internet group called Freethinkers BBS.

Hitler's Religious Beliefs and Fanaticism: Selected quotes from Mein Kampf and Hitler's henchmen

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael, you wrote: "If you listen to the words of Ahmadinejad in his interview, or listen to almost any Mulsim, even a new American convert, you keep hearing one word repeated over and over: security."

If security were the issue, the Palestinians would long ago have accepted the many Israeli offers to recognize a separate Palestinian state; they would have ejected Hamas and demanded peace instead of increased terrorism after Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, etc., and after all the dozens of other peace offerings Israel has made to its enemies over the years. In fact, if security were the issue, there would have been no attack by the Arab nations when Israel became a state, How on earth could the tiny, rural state of Israel, populated by the exhausted remnants of European Jewry, be a threat to the security of the massed might of the millions in the Arab states? Yet this is when the Arabs began requiring -- as they require today -- that the Israelis be driven into the sea. If Israel is now armed to the teeth, which it is, one can only blame the Arab nations for making it an essential of Israeli survival.

Barbara,

National security, say of a country, is not the meaning of security I perceive in the Muslim use of the term. I perceive it used more in the sense having certain answers as a solution to spiritual anxiety instead of envy being the predominant element of Muslim spirituality. I am sorry I did not make that clear.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael, you speak of "the Muslims I have known." How many Muslim inhabitants of Gaza do you know? How many Muslim inhabitants of Syria, or Egypt?

Barbara,

I have not known any Muslim inhabitants of Gaza that I am aware of. As regards Muslim inhabitants of Syria and Egypt, I have known quite a few, albeit I never got too familiar with them since they were visitors to Brazil on vacation or business. Thus our contact was short-lived by nature. The same goes for Muslim inhabitants of Lebanon (who generally loathed the Syrian government.) Although not close, I did have many discussions with them and their friends in Brazil (and quite a few high-adrenaline discussions with some of them where I defended Jews). Naturally, my discussions were limited only to ones who spoke Portuguese or English, or had someone to translate nearby.

Michael

[AlexZello]

What do you think of Obadiah Shoher's views on the Middle East conflict? One can argue, of course, that Shoher is ultra-right, but his followers are far from being a marginal group. Also, he rejects Jewish moralistic reasoning - that's alone is highly unusual for the Israeli right. And he is very influential here in Israel. So what do you think? uh, here's the site in question: Middle East conflict

Edited February 22, 2008 by AlexZello

[Mike11]

What do you think of Obadiah Shoher's views on the Middle East conflict? One can argue, of course, that Shoher is ultra-right, but his followers are far from being a marginal group. Also, he rejects Jewish moralistic reasoning - that's alone is highly unusual for the Israeli right. And he is very influential here in Israel. So what do you think?

I read his blog entries, here. At least the Revisionists knew they did not hold the moral high ground, this guy is incredibly myopic.

Edited February 20, 2008 by Mike11

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Alex,

Welcome to OL!

I have downloaded Samson Blinded and skimmed it. I have not had time to read it carefully.

I get a bit frustrated with discussions about Israel because there is a great deal of entrenched hatred on all sides and the rhetoric ALWAYS clobbers any fact or analysis in these discussion. This usually happens right before the yelling starts. This has been my experience and it is irritating. I am one on the outside trying to make sense of the mess, but the more I discuss this with people, the more I see that tribalism is at the root and the only issue is which tribe you belong to. Nothing else matters.

The passionate parties on all sides always accuse you of belonging to the other tribe if you do not join theirs. The idea of being principled and not tribal is always the casuality in these discussions. And every resource of intimidation is brought to bear to get a rise out of the principled person so that he can be accused of being an enemy of the tribe if he does not join. Well, I like to look at principles, so if you ask me what I think of Obadiah Shoher, I will answer according to principle, not according to tribe.

Principle No. 1: The time of wars of expansion and conquest is over. Finished. Modern weaponery makes it too dangerous for all of mankind, since there is only one earth. Should a Muslim country wish to be annexed to Israel and so determine, that would be one thing and it would be correct. To annex any country to Israel by military conquest makes Israel the bad guys, no different than Nazi Germany conquering Europe.

Principle No. 2: What goes for one goes for all. If Muslim countries are prohibited to expand by military conquest (as in Iraq invading Kuwait), then Israel should be prohibited to expand by military conquest. If Israel is granted such a privilege and still remain the good guys, that privilege must be extended to all countries. Then all hell breaks loose—much worse than it is today.

If Mr. Shoher wants the extra land and to govern foreign people so badly, he has nonviolent persuasion freely at his disposal, just like everybody else does. Let him go to Saudi Arabia, for example, and make his case. (Heh!)

I am against his war of conquest, just as I am against all acts of violence by Muslims.

This being the case, it makes no difference to me what Mr. Shoher thinks of Jewish moralistic ideas.

Michael

[Mike11]

Well put.