Moderate Islam? According to Some, Not Really

[jbg]

I know, I know, I recently posted a thread (link) on the possibility that Islam can be moderate. Maybe it's an impossible dream or maybe it's "only in America". Recently, the article, excerpted below, a conversation wtih the daughter of a slain Egyptian intelligence officer (link to article), killed by Israelis no less, casts doubt on whether Islam can ever be truly moderate. I am not sure I subscribe to this view, but would like thoughts.

Excerpts below:

Don't Be Deceived - a conversation with Nonie Darwish (link)

The daughter of a high-ranking Egyptian officer assassinated by Israeli intelligence exposes the lies Muslim children are taught about Jews, reveals that even moderate Arabs tacitly support the radical Muslim line—and calls on all Arabs to support Israel.

Nonie Darwish is author of Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror (Sentinel, 2006) and the founder of Arabs for Israel, an organization that opposes radical Islam and calls on Arabs to make peace with Israel. She was interviewed by Reform Judaism editor Aron Hirt-Manheimer and managing editor Joy Weinberg.

Your father was assassinated by the Israelis in 1956. Can you tell us about that time in your life?

My father, Colonel Mustafa Hafez, was a high-ranking intelligence officer in the Egyptian army who had fought against the new State of Israel in the War of 1948. I was five years old when President Gamal Abdel Nasser assigned him to Gaza, and our family moved there.

Nasser’s overriding passion was to destroy Israel and throw her Jewish population into the sea, thereby restoring Arab dignity. Gaza, situated between Egypt and the State of Israel, was the perfect staging ground for accomplishing this goal. That is why he sent my father, one of his most trusted officers, to this place.

When, on January 16, 1956, Nasser vowed a renewed offensive to destroy Israel, my father was asked to organize and train fedayeen for terrorist operations against Israel. Often he was gone for days at a time. One night Israel sent its commandos to our home. They found only my mother, two maids, and five small children, so they left us unharmed.

Yet everything changed on July 11, 1956. After dropping my sisters and me off at the movie theater, my father went with my four-year-old brother to his office. There he received a parcel from a Palestinian courier. It contained a bomb. The bomb exploded and killed my father. My younger brother was slightly wounded.

In Egypt my father was hailed a shahid, a martyr. It is the highest honor bestowed on a Muslim and absolutely guarantees entrance to heaven.

President Nasser arrived at our home to extend his condolences to my mother before attending the elaborate military funeral ceremony for my father, who had been adored by the Palestinians of Gaza. Large crowds of people were weeping, wailing, chanting his name, and vowing revenge.

******

As a child growing up in the Gaza strip, what were you taught about Israel?

In elementary school we were taught that Israel was an evil occupying foreign force. Jews were portrayed as devils and pigs. With tears running down their cheeks, older girls whom I admired would stand in front of the class and recite stirring poems pledging jihad, declaring their willingness to give up their lives to recapture Arab lands in Jewish hands, and promising to kill the Jewish enemies of God. We were all required to recite anti-Jewish poetry daily. After reciting the poetry, some said, “May God bless us with shahada [martyrdom].”

*******

You left Egypt for America in 1978, while Sadat was still president. Why?

Even though Egypt had become more open and peaceful under Sadat’s leadership, radical Islam was on the rise in the country. Women started covering themselves in burkas and men were growing beards. My choices in Egypt were limited—socially, economically, religiously—really, in every aspect of life. There wasn’t a way to live independently without the social and religious controls of Muslim society. I wanted to live in a country where individual freedom and human rights were respected.

Was adjusting to American society difficult for you?

Not at all. I think most immigrants have little difficulty adjusting to life in America, especially if they come from a culture that treats women and religious minorities as second-class citizens, as is the case in Muslim lands under sharia law. The first thing an immigrant sees here is the range of choices: in religion, affiliations, lifestyle.

Some of my first American friends were Jewish. Through these friendships I began to realize that the fear and hatred of Jews I’d been taught as a child were based on a big lie. From there I started questioning the Arab propaganda I’d been fed all my life—that Judeo-Christian culture is devoid of morals or values, that Western women are essentially whores, that American men don’t care about their women’s faithfulness, and that Jews are evil. I began to realize how deeply Arab indoctrination had influenced my thinking, as it had everyone I knew in Egypt.

In your book you describe Arab reactions to the 9/11 attacks as a turning point in your life.

Yes. After watching Arabs on television openly cheering in the streets for the nineteen criminals, I called friends and family in Egypt to get their reactions, and I was shocked by what I heard.

My sister said, “I doubt that Arabs from the caves of Afghanistan did this action.” She made this statement even though the names and faces of all the terrorists and the video of Mohamed Atta going through airport security were everywhere being broadcast on television.

A very moderate cousin of mine remarked that her sister, who wears a burka by choice, was happy this happened to America. “As for me,” she said, “I am perplexed, but don’t you think this is an Israeli conspiracy?”

A childhood girlfriend told me quite harshly, “Shame on you for dishonoring Egypt by claiming that Muslims did that.” Then she contradicted herself by saying, “You have to stand by Islam whether right or wrong. Let America experience the terrorism that is widespread in the Arab world! Why should only we suffer from terrorism?”

The man who was like a father to me, whom I had considered educated and wise, told me, “I cannot believe that a good Muslim like you, who is the daughter of a great shahid, can be so blind to the fact that 9/11 was an Israeli conspiracy. How can you blame Muslims for that?”

These were all some of the nicest, kindest people you could ever meet. Without exception, every one was supposedly a moderate Muslim, and most were non-practicing. Yet they tacitly supported the radical Muslim line.

What was the Muslim response in America?

The response was defensive, dishonest, and two-faced. The Muslim establishment engineered a massive public campaign in which Islamic scholars, distinguished clerics, and Arab intellectuals attempted to calm Western fears by painting a picture of Islam as totally benign. When asked about the roots of Islamic terrorism, they denied it had anything to do with the Koran. And when quoting from the Koran, they conven­iently ignored passages that encourage holy war against infidels.

Also after 9/11 many Muslims in the West reinterpreted the meaning of jihad as an inner struggle for self-improvement. Yet this “inner struggle” business is hogwash, a PR ploy for Western consumption only. In the Arab world there is only one meaning for jihad—religious war against infidels. Ask anyone in the Arab street what “jihad for the sake of Allah” means and he will say it means dying as a shahid for the sake of spreading Islam. In the thirty years I lived in the Middle East, I never once heard any discussion of jihad as an inner struggle for self-improvement.

The notion that Islam teaches only peace and tolerance is ridiculous. If you heard, as I have, the anti-American and anti-Jewish hate that is being preached in many mosques and on Arab TV, you’d think you were in Nazi Germany, except that the commands are coming from Allah instead of Hitler. And look at how Islamic countries treat their minorities. Even in the new, supposedly “democratic” Afghanistan, in the spring of 2005 a Muslim who converted to Christianity was sentenced to death, a punishment mandated by sharia law. His life was spared only after Western governments pressured Afghan authorities, and the “offender” was secretly spirited away to Italy. So-called moderate Muslim leaders did nothing to protect or defend him.

*********

[gc1765]

I know, I know, I recently posted a thread (link) on the possibility that Islam can be moderate. Maybe it's an impossible dream or maybe it's "only in America". Recently, the article, excerpted below, a conversation wtih the daughter of a slain Egyptian intelligence officer (link to article), killed by Israelis no less, casts doubt on whether Islam can ever be truly moderate. I am not sure I subscribe to this view, but would like thoughts.

Sometimes I wish you had a few Muslims working in your law office...

[jbg]

Sometimes I wish you had a few Muslims working in your law office...

I represent some, and the part of the article you cited to was a positive link.

Why?

[AngusThermopyle]

I have the movie with the interview in it. It's called "Obsession", a documentary. It's very good, it also explains the Hitler/Nazi Germany connection with Islam very well.

The footage of the schools is shocking, little kids shouting Jihadist poetry whilst overcome by emotion. Yelling that they want to put on the bombers vest and die for Allah. That to me is the worst form of child abuse.

It also shows "moderate Mullahs" talking publicly about peace. Then it shows the same Mullahs on hidden camera saying the exact opposite and inciting Jihad. The kill all infidels Jihad, not the kinder gentler version.

It's certainly worth watching.

[jbg]

It also shows "moderate Mullahs" talking publicly about peace. Then it shows the same Mullahs on hidden camera saying the exact opposite and inciting Jihad. The kill all infidels Jihad, not the kinder gentler version.

Did they say one thing in English, the opposit in Arabic?

[AngusThermopyle]

Yes, in some cases they did, in others it was obvious that the audience was Islamic. Why do you ask?

[jbg]

Yes, in some cases they did, in others it was obvious that the audience was Islamic. Why do you ask?

Both Yasir Arafat and recent billboards in Windsor speak peacefully in English, and for jihad in Arabic.

[AngusThermopyle]

I'd forgotten that, you're right.

That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone though, when you consider that the Quran specifically mentions any lie is fair game when dealing with the Infidels. Really, more people should read the thing if they want to understand the basis for these present problems we have.

It doesn't really have much to do with bombs and the like, maybe a little, but not much, history has shown that time and again in respect to Islam.

[gc1765]

I represent some, and the part of the article you cited to was a positive link.

Why?

The reason I ask is this:

I'm getting a bit tired of the rank and disgusting bigotry here. One of my law partners is a Jamaican female lawyer and she is one of the finest lawyers, parents and human beings that I know anywhere, of any race or nationality. So are the Jamaicans she associates with. She does associate with many non-Jamaicans since we are not cursed with racial segregation multiculturalism.

I asked her why she came to our country, and she did say it was to get away from the obstacles to progress such as violence. These immigrants are people, by and large, that come to Canada and the US to make a better life for themselves and, in so doing, make our countries better places. Please cut the bigotry.

Thanks.

If only you could substitute "Muslim" for "Jamaican"...

[sharkman]

Oh please...