The Root of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Classic Islamic View of Jews, Part II

Hagai Mazuz
Hudson New York
01 September '10

In showing that the Arab-Israeli conflict is religious -- and not territorial -- based on texts from the book Kitāb al-Maghāzī ["The Book of Holy Raids"], which documents how the Muslim raids against the Jews in Medina and Khaybar in ancient Arabia were the source of inspiration for the Islamic terrorist organizations, questions arose as to whether we can generalize about Islam by examining just one book.

Kitāb al-Maghāzī, however, is just one of the many religious Islamic source books which contains anti-Jewish material. The most well known Muslim book is the Quran, which itself is filled with vehemently anti-Jewish material. Muslim sources explain that the Quran is a collection of revelations that Allah gave to Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel. When Muhammad encountered difficulties, Allah told him how to solve these problems via revelations; Uthman, the 3rd Caliph, collected all of them, and that is how the Quran was created.

The Quran is filled with a large amount of material regarding the Jews, most of which labels them as cold-hearted and evil. From this we learn that Muhammad had a lot of dealings with Jews, as Allah "provided" Muhammed with many verses which deal with them. There are also many verses which deal with biblical stories and the history of the Children of Israel (called Isrā'īlīyāt).

There is also a type of Islamic literature called "The Circumstances of Revelation" (in Arabic: Asbāb al-Nuzūl), that details the circumstances in which Allah revealed each and every verse in the Quran to Muhammad. It is clear from this literature that even in many of the verses in which the Jews and Christians are not mentioned, the Quranic scholars, in their explanation of these verses, tell us that this or that verse was "revealed" because of something the Jews or Christians did.

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The Root of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Classic Islamic View of Jews

Hagai Mazuz
Hudson New York
28 July '10

From the day Israel was established, the Muslim world has been hostile towards the State of Israel. This has been increasing over the years, despite the efforts of so many to settle the conflict. Although Israel signed Peace Agreements with Egypt and Jordan, nevertheless, many leaders in the Arab world, including Egyptian and Jordanian officials, make anti-Zionist and even anti-Semitic statements, and oppose normalization with Israel. When asked why, they answer that this peace is between governments, and not between the people of their countries.

Trying to find solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict, politicians and statesmen have spent endless hours with experts on Islam to understand the roots of the conflict. They have usually heard two answers: "The root of the problem is territorial," and "The root of the problem is religious; it stems from the classic Islamic view of Jews as evil."

Muslims often accuse Jews of harassing and plotting against Muhammad, Islam's founder and prophet, a charge abundantly clear since the start of classic Islamic writings, which are filled with anti-Jewish imagery.

In our "post-modern" age, most Western scholars, who are secular, find it difficult to accept the idea that medieval texts can dictate the lives of, or even inspire, people today. They criticize those who see the conflict as religious, arguing that scholars who see the conflict as religious, place too much emphasis on these ancient texts, as both the times and circumstances have changed. For them, these texts are outdated. In short, secular scholars find it difficult to believe that people even still regard religious ideas as relevant.

In talking with the common people in the Arab and Muslim world, however, it becomes clear that for them, these classical texts are as relevant today as when they were written. For the overwhelmingly majority of Muslims, these texts indicate that the conflict is indeed religious, not territorial.



As Muslims view the world, Muhammad was the ideal Muslim. How he acted is how all Muslims should act. So how Muhammad acted towards the Jews in Medina and Khaybar is how Muslims should act towards Jews.

How, then, did Muhammad act?

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It’s only a paper moon

Sarah Honig
Another Tack
16 July '10
Posted before Shabbat

You just gotta feel for poor Barack Obama, so misunderstood, so misquoted, so taken out of context. And it so keeps on happening. Over and over. It almost smacks of a malicious design to misrepresent. Take the latest instance, for instance.

There was Obama’s own hand-picked (first African- American) NASA administrator, Charles Bolden, telling Al Jazeera that Obama himself stressed to him that henceforth NASA’s principal goals are to encourage children to learn math and science, expand international relationships and “foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science… and math and engineering.”

Here we ought to remind ourselves that NASA is the acronym for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, lumbered with such mundane uninspiring chores as space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research. Obama is evidently out to alter emphases. But when Bolden spelled it out, White House and NASA spokespersons rushed to explain that nothing is exactly what it seems. Improving relations with Muslim countries, they averred, is NASA’s mission, though it needn’t be counted as its “foremost responsibility.” Appearances plainly supersede substance. No fault is found with the fact that “outreach to Muslims” at all features on NASA’s to-do list, as long as it’s not perceived as the top item on said list.

Often, as in this case, Obama gets away with skewing the agenda of the world’s sole superpower. His fervent fans acclaim any oddball initiative as sophisticated pluralism and moral-relativist broad-mindedness. For regular folks, the preposterousness Obama promotes is so egregious they cannot imagine any of it is for real.

The reasonable inclination is to brush off assorted Obama administration absurdities as meaningless chatter, overblown nonsense or tendentious reporting. NASA’s outreach to Muslims is readily dismissed as a one-off bit of trivial blandishment meant to make nice and soothe the savage by pretending he’s really a savant.

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If we throw Israel under the bus, would you like us then?

Soccer Dad
18 June '10
Posted before Shabbat

Former Mayor Ed Koch on his buyer's remorse:

Senator Obama received 78 percent of the votes of the Jewish community nationwide. The only group giving him a higher percentage was the African-American community. Many Jewish leaders, myself included, have concluded that President Obama has reneged on his support for the security of Israel - a major priority for most American Jews and many Christians - and is shifting American foreign policy to favor the Muslim, and in particular, the Palestinian cause. It should come as no surprise that in response to a poll taken by Quinnipiac University asking, "Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling the situation between Israel and the Palestinians?" 67 percent of Jews disapproved and 28 percent approved. That same poll showed support by Democrats for Israel was 46 percent and among Republicans, 70 percent. Did this shock me and many others? You bet.

So in order to get closer to the Muslim world, President Obama has clearly distanced himself from Israel. But has it helped him?

Actually, not much.

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“The Palestine Peace Distraction,” "The False Religion of Middle East Peace,” And Other Significant Recantations

Marty Peretz
The New Republic
27 April '10

Barack Obama came into office with one messianic mission. It was to bring statehood to the Palestinians. Of course, even he understood that he couldn’t quite put it that way. But statehood for the Palestinians necessarily also meant Palestinian peace with Israel, an aim worthy enough for any American administration. So that became his primary foreign policy mission. Still, the fact is that he saw the shadings of the conflict only through the eyes of the “disinherited.” And they really had nothing much to give in any transaction. Ipso facto, it was from the Jewish state that all the concessions were to be had.

However committed he was to this formula, the president required another rationale to make his pitch sound like a genuine argument. He found it in the security interests of the United States. As it happens, having put the Muslim world at the very center of the American universe through signs and secret signs, he was able to make Israel bear the burdens of our troubles or, rather, to make it responsible for our failures in diplomacy and our casualties on the battlefield. Indeed, Obama may actually believe that this Islamic atrocity or that (or, for that matter, all of them) can be attributable to Zionism, about which he has never, never said a good word.

There is a long (pseudo)realist tradition in American foreign policy that puts the Jews at odds with our national interest. Eisenhower’s foreign policy tutor, John Foster Dulles, thought he could lure Gamal Abdel Nasser away from his Third World revolutionary fantasies if only Israel would not stand in the way. James Baker, who found ample common cause with Saddam Hussein, found the Israelis awfully incompatible. Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, about whom I’ve written several times, are the shoddy intellectual heirs to this morally corrupt tradition.

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Prospects for Peace with the Palestinians

Max Singer
BESA
Perspectives 105
12 April '10

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: It is useful to think of the Palestinians as engaged in an internal debate between those who favor keeping the goal of eliminating Israel and those who favor giving up that goal to gain peace and prosperity. Peace can be achieved only when the second group is dominant. The debate depends on two issues. Is there any realistic hope that Israel can really be defeated? Would it be honorable to make peace with Israel? The international movement to delegitimize Israel provides Palestinians the hope of eventually destroying Israel, and Palestinian leadership denial of the existence of a Jewish People with an ancient connection to the Land of Israel contradicts the basis of an honorable peace with Israel. If peace is to have a chance, Western leaders need to disabuse the Palestinians of both fallacies.

A useful way to think about the possibility for peace between Israel and the Palestinians is to consider the Palestinians as being in a long-term internal debate. This complicated debate can be conceptualized as being between those who think they should continue the effort to eliminate the state of Israel, and those who think that the fight to destroy Israel has gone on long enough and that it is time for the Palestinians to pursue their own interests in peace and prosperity by making peace with Israel.

These two groups have constantly shifting memberships, all of whom have particular organizational and political interests which complicate their choice. To some extent many individuals are divided in their own minds, so that the general debate is replicated within individuals.

It is important to note that the debate usually takes place in an environment where public, and even private, discussion is far from free. Providing certain information or expressing some views can be a risk for Palestinians.

Peace depends on the Palestinians who are ready for peace winning their internal debate. When the Palestinians who prefer to keep fighting are on top there is no chance for a negotiated settlement. Serious negotiations can only begin when the predominant view is that it is necessary to give up the effort to destroy Israel.

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American Neutrality Toward Israel Invites Violence

When Israel is alone, its opportunistic enemies pile on.


Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
22 April '10

American relations with our once-staunch ally Israel are at their lowest ebb in the last 50 years.

The Obama administration seems as angry at the building of Jewish apartments in Jerusalem as it is intent on reaching out to Iran and Syria, Israel’s mortal enemies. President Obama himself, according to reports, has serially snubbed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A new narrative abounds in Washington that Israel’s intransigence with its Arab neighbors now even endangers U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East. Obama is pushing Netanyahu’s Likud government to make concessions on several fronts, from supplying power and food to Gaza to hasten Israel’s departure from the West Bank.

These tensions follow the Obama administration’s new outreach to the Muslim world. Obama gave his first interview as president to the Middle East newspaper Al Arabiya, in which he politely chided past U.S. policy on the Middle East.

In his June 2009 Cairo address, the president again sought to placate the Islamic world — in part by wrongly claiming that Islamic learning had sparked the European Renaissance and Enlightenment.

Lost in all this reset-button diplomacy is introspection on why past American presidents sought to support Israel in the first place. We seem to forget why no-nonsense Harry Truman, against worldwide opposition, ensured the original creation of the Jewish state — or why more than 60 percent of Americans in most polls continue to side with Israel in its struggle to survive.

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David Petreaus and Israel

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
09 April '10

One of my pet peeves with the US military, that I raise every time I find myself speaking to US military officers, is that they bowed to Arab pressure and wiped Israel off the Middle East map. This they did a number of years ago, when they decided that Israel would be attached to the US military's European Command while every single Arab state is located in Central Command.

This articifial removal of Israel from the purview of Central Command has bred generations of US military commanders who due to the inherent distortion of their organization, almost necessarily emerge as hostile to Israel after they serve for any significant length of time in Central Command.

In my mind, one of Israel's top priorities should be to demand that the US military place Israel back in Central Command to end this vile, unfair situation that works to the detriment of the strategic coherence of the US military and of course to the detriment of Israel.

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I Guess He Didn't Get the Memo that Petraeus Didn't Really Mean It

Andy McCarthy
National Review Online
10 April '10

(For those who have been following this, there was an audible sigh of relief from many, when Gen. Petraeus addressed the issue recently. However, the desire to hear something more soothing, may have eclipsed actually seeing what the bottom line was. Y.)

General David Petraeus's most ardent fans continue to believe their honey rather than their lyin' ears. Yet, as I detailed in Thursday's column, leftists and Islamists have no difficulty grasping that (a) he quite clearly blamed what he portrayed as Israel's intransigence for America's woes in the Muslim world, and (b) he has not "set the record straight" in a way that comes close to retracting or debunking his statements. What's more, they are basing their interpretation on what the general actually said, not the purported "spin" on it that Petraeus — while not retracting — has ascribed to "bloggers."

The latest is Palestinian journalist and activist Daoud Kuttab [h/t Ruthfully Yours], who writes:

The taboo was finally broken and the genie is out of the bottle, despite some attempts to force it back. America's military leaders have had enough and decided to speak out about the liability that a hardline Israel causes to America's national interest. Popular American General David Petraeus finally said the words that many have been saying behind closed doors for decades. The statement of the star-studded general puts American blind support for Israel in direct opposition to the country's most sacred institution, the military.... Petraeus has made a courageous statement that could play a key role in weakening the pro-Israel lobby and allow for a much more balanced US approach to the Middle East conflict....

This glowing tribute, it is worth noting, comes two weeks after claims that Gen. Petraeus had walked back his assertion that it is principally the lack of "progress" in resolving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that strengthens Iran, weakens "moderate" Arab regimes, and drives al Qaeda recruitment.

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Israel's Crisis and Opportunity

Steven M. Goldberg
American Thinker
31 March '10

(Perhaps a bit more on the dire side than my taste, but some interesting points)

Rahm Emanuel famously proclaimed, "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." Ironically, although the President's Chief of Staff has proven to be a false friend of Israel, the leadership of the Jewish State would do well to heed his advice.

That Israel is in peril is obvious. Israel's enemies sense the opportunity to destroy it through a perfect storm, a confluence of events that seem to leave Israel reeling and vulnerable. First and foremost is the unmistakable betrayal by the President of the United States, who has loudly broadcast his eagerness to sacrifice the security of the Jewish State to appease the Muslim world. Israel is under enormous duress to surrender vital territory to allow for the creation of a Palestinian state within its borders. That such a development would be catastrophic for Israel is apparent to anyone who knows history. As former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin stated, "The Palestinian state can only emerge on the ruins of Israel."

In addition, Iran is hell-bent on developing nuclear weapons, and it is clear that the international community will do nothing to stop it. President Obama appears to be pressuring Israel to refrain from military action to stop the Iranian threat. Hezb'allah and Hamas have restocked their arsenals of rockets and missiles, which now threaten to reach the center of Israel, including Tel Aviv. The European Union is championing the Fayed Plan, pursuant to which the Palestinian Authority would unilaterally announce the establishment of the Palestinian state, which would shortly thereafter be recognized by the United Nations Security Council. In view of President Obama's indifference and even antipathy to Israel, the United States cannot be counted on to exercise its veto.

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Lady Gaga Versus Mideast Peace

Bret Stephens
Wall Street Journal
29 March '10

Pop quiz—What does more to galvanize radical anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world: (a) Israeli settlements on the West Bank; or (b) a Lady Gaga music video?

If your answer is (b) it means you probably have a grasp of the historical roots of modern jihadism. If, however, you answered (a), then congratulations: You are perfectly in synch with the new Beltway conventional wisdom, now jointly defined by Pat Buchanan and his strange bedfellows within the Obama administration.

What is that wisdom? In a March 26 column in Human Events, Mr. Buchanan put the case with his usual subtlety:

"Each new report of settlement expansion," he wrote, "each new seizure of Palestinian property, each new West Bank clash between Palestinians and Israeli troops inflames the Arab street, humiliates our Arab allies, exposes America as a weakling that cannot stand up to Israel, and imperils our troops and their mission in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Mr. Buchanan was playing off a story in the Israeli press that Vice President Joe Biden had warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "what you're doing here [in the West Bank] undermines the security of our troops." Also in the mix was a story that Centcom commander David Petraeus had cited Arab-Israeli tensions as the key impediment to wider progress in the region. Both reports were later denied—in Mr. Biden's case, via Rahm Emanuel; in Gen. Petraeus's case, personally and forcefully—but the important point is how eagerly they were believed. If you're of the view that Israel is the root cause of everything that ails the Middle East—think of it as global warming in Hebrew form—then nothing so powerfully makes the case against the Jewish state as a flag-draped American coffin.

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How to please the Arab League

Petra Marquardt-Bigman
The Warped Mirror/JPost
14 March '10

Right from the beginning of his administration, President Obama made it a priority to win over the Arab and Muslim world. So here's a thought: while you struggle to keep up with the flood of commentary about the "new low" in US-Israeli relations, it's perhaps worthwhile to keep in mind that the next Arab League summit is scheduled for the end of March.

The summit will be held in Tripoli, Libya's capital, where the Arab League representatives will be hosted by Muammar Gaddafi, who just last month called for a "jihad" against Switzerland - well, actually, not just Switzerland, because he reportedly added: "Let us fight against Switzerland, Zionism and foreign aggression."

A quip about this call for "jihad" from a State Department spokesman required an official apology that apparently seemed warranted after the head of Libya's state oil company summoned executives from US energy companies Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Occidental, Hess and Marathon and warned them that "the dispute could hurt US businesses in Libya."

Arab commentators don't seem to expect much from the meeting in Tripoli: "Another lame summit" was the dismissive headline in a recent issue of Al-Ahram. Nevertheless, the related article offered a lot of advice on how to overcome the "lameness", and unsurprisingly, Israel was an important issue in this context. One piece of advice was that the Arab League should consider revoking any support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; instead, the Arab League was urged to endorse the so-called "one-state solution" resulting in "a single state covering the whole of historic Palestine in which all inhabitants would be guaranteed full and equal rights as citizens, regardless of ethnic or religious affiliation." Another piece of advice was that the Arabs should realize that with regard to the tensions with Iran, "Israel is the chief instigator."

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Fitzgerald: When it comes to Islam, please stop this "problem" and "solution" nonsense

Hugh Fitzgerald
Jihad Watch
16 January '10

Many continue to believe that if we argue that Islam itself is the problem, this will leave the West with no solutions.

The word "solution" leapt out at me. I have written about it many times before, in regards to those who speak of a "two-state solution" to the Arab Muslim Jihad against Israel. I have written many times about what a foolish idea it is to believe that further Israeli surrenders, of claims, legal and moral and historic, and of tangible assets, especially the supreme asset, as it is viewed in the Muslim world, of land, would somehow change the immutable and uncreated words of the Qur'an, or somehow change the Hadith -- that is, change either the contents, or the rank of "authenticity," assigned to the Hadith (the written records of the words and deeds of Muhammad) more than a millennium ago by the most authoritative Muhaddithin.

I noted that Americans, unlike Europeans, are used to identifying situations that are troublesome or difficult or unpleasant as "problems," and, as problems, they are assumed to be susceptible of solution and therefore can be "solved." In some ways it is an attractive attitude. It testifies to a certain strain in the national character, a belief that may come from the encounter in this country with Nature, that the settlers in order to survive had to learn to subdue. And they felt, in a different way (a way we find not quite so unobjectionable today) it was felt necessary to subdue the indigenous Indians. Nature could be overcome, other men could be overcome. And when there was a need for something to be invented, born of necessity that invention would emerge. Yankee know-how and stick-to-it-iveness, the attitude that there is "no problem in the world that cannot be solved" if we just put our minds to solve it, may seem to some comically naïve, but for many it reflects an attitude that will not disappear, and of which many of us apparently cannot be disabused.

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It's Not Al-Qaida the Obama Administration Doesn't Understand, It's Everything Else

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
10 January '10

A friend sent me an article written, in his usually witty style, by Mark Steyn in the conservative magazine, National Review, entitled "But We’re Still Gonna Kill You." Steyn writes:

"Barack Obama has spent the last year doing bigtime Islamoschmoozing, from his announcement of Gitmo’s closure and his investigation of Bush officials to his bow before the Saudi King and a speech in Cairo to `the Muslim world' with far too many rhetorical concessions and equivocations. And at the end of it, the jihad sent America a thank-you note by way of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s underwear: Hey, thanks for all the outreach! But we’re still gonna kill you."

But Mr. Steyn, who goes on to talk about various al-Qaida and individual attacks by revolutionary Islamists misses the main point (and I don't say this in any antagonistic sense as I often admire his writings). Of course al-Qaida is attacking America, that's why Obama says the United States is at war with al-Qaida.

The point that both Steyn and Obama are leaving out is this:

Despite all of Obama's policy and rhetorical efforts no one in the Muslim-majority world--no major cleric, government, or group--is going to HELP the United States no matter what it does. They may attack, they may cheer, they may do nothing, but no amount of concessions or flattery is going to get them actively to help the United States achieve its policy goals or even defend its people and institutions.

After all, Saudi money and youth are going into Iraq through Syria to kill Americans. Egypt's media promotes anti-Americanism. The Palestinian Authority won't even talk to Israel no matter how hard this U.S. government tries to give it a state and prove that it doesn't love Israel. Pakistan is most willing to fight the Taliban trying to overthrow the Pakistani government but helps the Afghani Taliban trying to kill Americans and overthrow the Afghan government.

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A world of walls?

Shiraz Maher
Standpoint Magazine
09 November 09

Israel has one - but have you heard about the others?

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. During that time scores of other barriers and walls have gone up around the world as documented in a fascinating report by the BBC.

Of course, the one we've all heard about is the Israeli security fence which attracted fierce criticism after its construction in 2003. Built in response to the Palestinian intifada which claimed more than 900 lives since September 2000, the fence has dramatically halted the number of terrorist attacks inside the country.

Excuse the pun - but from the wall-to-wall coverage it received - you could be mistaken for thinking that Israel's decision to defend itself in this way was unprecedented. Yet, not only is this wrong but, ironically, a lot of the physical barriers currently in place are located in the ‘Muslim world'.

The Saudi-Yemeni border is just one place where a physical barrier is used by a Muslim regime to defend itself against ‘smuggling' and ‘terrorism'. The head of Saudi Arabia's border control, Talal Anqawi, has described it as

a sort of screen ... which aims to prevent infiltration and smuggling

Saudi Arabia's border with Yemen has always been problematic, providing a trafficking route for weapons smuggling. Indeed, the explosives used in the 2003 Riyadh bombings which targeted compounds housing western expatriates were blamed on Yemeni smugglers. It was not the first time Saudi Arabia blamed the Yemenis for not doing enough to stop terrorism. Yemeni smugglers are also believed to have helped facilitate the bombing campaign against US military bases in the mid-1990s.

Once the Saudi government lost confidence in Yemen's ability to curb domestic terrorism, they decided to build a physical barrier. Much of it runs through contested territory. According to the 2000 Jeddah border treaty between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, a demilitarised ‘buffer zone' should exist between both countries, protecting the rights of nomadic Bedouin tribes which live in the cross-border area.

Yet, parts of the Saudi barrier stand inside the demilitarised zone, violating the 2000 agreement and infuriating Yemen. The Foreign Minister, Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi, made official representations to the Saudi government in 2003 arguing

This area is supposed to be for pasturing. That was part of the agreement. The tribesmen have been allowed to cross over from one side to another for pasturing. That is a traditional way of life for tribesmen in that area.

Not anymore. A prominent leader of the Wayilah tribe which occupies the disputed area explains

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