Slamming Islam

"We're not attacking Islam, but Islam has attacked us...and I believe it is a very evil and wicked religion."
"But true Islam cannot be practiced in this country. You can't beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they have committed adultery.....its a very violent religion."
Rev. Franklin Graham

"Given the heinously hurtful, bigoted statements of Mr Graham against ...Islam, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation Foundation (MRFF) demands that the Pentagon Chaplain Office immediately rescind the invitation to Mr Graham (to speak at National Prayer Day observance)"
Letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, signed by Michael L Weinstein on behalf of MRFF,
(upon request of several Muslim Defense Department employees)

As noted in our April 16 posting, the US District Court for Western Wisconsin has declared the law that directs the President to declare a National Prayer Day unconstitutional. But the ruling does not bar the President from doing so on his own volition, and he intends to sign the proclamation designating May 6 for that purpose. I consider any government sponsorship of religious activities, such as the Pentagon ceremony in which Rev. Graham is to speak, inappropriate.

The MRFF is dedicated to fighting the efforts of some military officers to subject thei soldiers to Christian evangelizing on base. On this point, I totally agree with Mr Weinstein and his group. The letter, quoted in part above, also objects to the participation of a Christian ministry led by Mr Graham in planning and conducting the Pentagon National Prayer Day observance. But I would like to focus on the claim that Graham's bashing of Islam is sufficient reason to rescind the invitation for him to speak there.

I am not defending all the statements quoted above; I do not believe that Islam mandates beating wives or killing children, and anyone can certainly practice "true Islam" legally in the US and elsewhere. Crimes of this type have been committed by Muslims, some even "in the name of Islam", but Islam does not command, or even condone, violence against family.

Yet the nexus between political terrorism in the world today and fervent Islam cannot be denied. Noted Israeli scholar Benny Morris wrote, " ...almost all the world's terrorism emanates from Muslim societies and is directed against non-Muslims (in the Philippines,Thailand, Nigeria, Sudan, Chechnya, India, London, Spain, the United States and Israel) or against other Muslims seen as collaborators with the infidels (in Pakistan, Gaza, Afghanistan and Indonesia." (1) Would Mr Weinstein object to Mr Morris speaking at the Pentagon, too?

Since the perpetrators of all the terrorism noted by Benny Morris have nothing in common but their Islam, there must be an aspect of that faith that impels some of its most fanatical adherents to strap-0n explosives and kill themselves and others after crying out "Allah hu akhbar!"(2) I find the common thread in these actions to be the Muslim concept of "jihad", the struggle between the forces of Islam and the enemies of Islam, which can be just about everybody else. Islamic literature and culture glorify those who give their lives for their faith ("shaheedin"). One Muslim prophecy even says that someday rocks and trees will call out to Muslims to kill the Jews hiding behind them.

Perhaps great world religions go through phases of development like people do. When Christianity was the age that Islam is now, that is the Fourteenth Century, Christian firebrands went about killing and burning Jews, Muslims and even allegedly errant Christians in the name of Christ. ( Maybe if we only wait about six hundred years, Islam will have mellowed so much that the top ayatollahs will sound like Pope John XXIII. ) But right now, Islam is in a phase of self-righteous intolerance, and even of those who do not commit violence in its name, many will cheer it on from the sidelines.

So, when Franklin Graham says that "Islam has attacked us" there is a big grain of truth in that pithy remark. All our major enemies today in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran are fanatical Muslims. So are Hamas and Hezbollah, who threaten Israel. The Pentagon is one place in this nation where this truth should trump political correctness, and pointing this out merely acknowledges reality.

But when you introduce religion into a venue that is dedicated to national security, you bring religious antagonisms into the discussion. That is why the whole idea of a National Prayer Day ceremony at the Pentagon is bad, whether the speaker is Franklin Graham, Shmuely Boteach or Louis Farrakhan.
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(1) The New Republic, April 29, 2010, page 42.

(2) Arabic for "God is Supreme!"

Admit It, Already!

"An Iranian-hosted ...conference ...demanded that Israel join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to ensure a nuclear-weapons free Middle East."
Nasser Karimi of the Associated Press, April 19, 2010.

The NPT, which became effective on March 5, 1970, recognized five countries as "Nuclear Weapons States" : the United States, the Soviet Union (now Russia), Britain, France and China. Another 184 nations signed-on as "Non-Nuclear Weapons States" (NNWS). The treaty requires that the states having these weapons will not provide them to any NNWS, and the latter group agrees not to acquire them. Moreover, the NNWS signatories also agree to inspection of their nuclear facilities by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to verify that they are not diverting nuclear materials to weapons production.

Three nations declined to sign the NPT: Israel, India and Pakistan. Although the NPT was signed under the authority of the Shah of Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran (established in 1979) claims to adhere to the NPT, but has refused to allow IAEA inspections of some reactors. North Korea signed the NPT, but withdrew in 2003 after admitting that it had built atomic weapons and openly testing them.

India and Pakistan have also tested nuclear weapons, and show no signs of giving them up. Israel has neither admitted nor denied having "nukes", but a 1991 book entitled "The Samson Option" by Seymour Hersh (1) disclosed that Israel has been a nuclear power since late 1966, years before the NPT was even enacted. Since the book was published, former President Jimmy Carter has confirmed that Israel had nuclear weapons during his presidency (1977-1981); unlike Mr Hersh, Carter had access to CIA intelligence at the time. In 2008, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, a Texas congressman, estimated that Israel had about 200 atomic bombs.

In light of all this evidence, it is absurd for the Israeli government to continue the pretense that it may not be a nuclear power. Instead, I contend that Israel should offer to sign the NPT as a Nuclear Weapons State, if the treaty can be amended to permit the addition of new ones. Signing on this basis would encourage India and Pakistan to also sign-on as nuclear powers, which would subject them to the obligation not to transfer atomic weapons technology or materials to any NNWS.

Of course, if new nations were added to the five recognized nuclear powers of the NPT, that would be an admission that the NPT had failed in its core mission of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. But, since none of the three (India, Israel and Pakistan) had ever agreed to be bound by the NPT at all, bringing them in as nuclear powers would actually increase the jurisdiction, as so the binding force, of the treaty. It would also acknowledge reality, which is always an improvement over illusion.

Of course the Iranians will ask, "If its OK for Israel to have the Bomb, why not Iran?" (But that is equivalent to asking. "If its OK for China, why not Israel?" Israel's strategic position is a lot more perilous than China's, and so it has a greater need for the ultimate "Equalizer" weapon.) A facile answer is that Iran agreed to be bound by the NPT, but Israel did not, which is why the UN has sanctioned Iran for refusing IAEA inspections but never sanctioned Israel ( or India or Pakistan, for that matter. ) But a more realistic answer is that Israel has had the Bomb for more than forty years and never used it, despite repeated threats and missile attacks. Israel does not threaten to destroy any other country, even those that have threatened its very existence. Iran, on the other hand, is led by a man who has repeatedly threatened to destroy Israel. Such a nation cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons, but Israel can. This reasoning will not sit well in Tehran.

In today's world, power is respected more than any other attribute of a nation. Even rogue North Korea, a very small nuclear power widely reviled in the civilized world, is apparently to be spared the kind of "regime change" that was inflicted upon NNWS Afghanistan and Iraq. With Israel as an acknowledged nuclear nation, those leaders who threaten it will have to face down their own countrymen who would rather not be incinerated in return.

In his book The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli concluded that it was better to be feared than loved. Since Israel is certainly not loved in this crazy world, I ask only that it be feared.

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(1) Published by Random House, New York.