Saturday, July 3, 2010
[The following, by Charles Jacobs, appears in The Jewish Advocate.]
The recent kerfuffle - or is it a firestorm? - within the community here over how to deal with a radicalized Muslim leadership is a reflection of serious tensions within the global Jewish community. Sadly, the Middle East conflict is morphing into a religious and ideological conflict. With the Islamist government of Turkey betraying its historic relationship with Israel and America, the Muslim world is becoming more fully aligned against Israel.
Most Jews can see this, even though they also see some Islamic governments are maintaining relationships with the Jewish state. Jews also see an ideological Left in solidarity with the Muslim world. This Muslim/Left alliance, after all, organized the Gaza flotilla and is causing havoc to Jews in various European cities. Jews are leaving Malmo, Sweden, and Antwerp, Belgium, and continue to be the target of "youths" (code word for Muslim thugs) in France and Germany.
Closer to home, President Barack Obama has decided that we need to manipulate language to deal with the threat of radical Islam. It was Obama's Cairo speech to the Muslim world that set the stage for his administration's semiotic approach. He declared in Cairo that he would not allow Islam to be defamed. He did not say he would protect America from that blight - America, which in much of the Islamic world is charged with everything from bombing its own World Trade Center to helping Israel steal Islamic land and torture Muslim people.
Some are happy with this approach. According to Rashad Hussain, Obama has become America's "Educator-in-Chief on Islam." Hussain is America's special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Saudi-based body formed in 1969. In a speech to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Hussain revealed that the United States would support the OIC in the latter's United Nations effort to criminalize "defamation of religion" - widely perceived, as Daniel Pipes notes, "as a measure to suppress criticism of Muslim practices that violate human rights."
Moving that policy forward, the Obama administration now mandates official terminology that obfuscates reality. Other than shaking their heads at Janet Napoletano's "man-caused disasters" or official descriptions of war as an "overseas contingency operation," most Americans are not aware of the extent of the linguistic effort to dissociate Islam from the global conflict or to downplay the threat of Islamic radicals.
On his Web site, Pipes says that the Department of Homeland Security sends language instructions to government agencies that include: "Don't invoke Islam." "Avoid the term 'caliphate.'" "Never use the terms 'jihadist' or 'mujahedeen' to describe the terrorists." "In Arabic," officials are instructed, "jihad means 'striving in the path of Gd' and is used in many contexts beyond warfare." Got that?
The administration leaders in this effort include Attorney General Eric Holder and John Brennan, assistant to the president on security and counter-terrorism. On youtube there's a wonderful video showing how this new policy can make a highly educated lawyer look silly. In the video, Holder refuses to name the obvious common denominator in several terrorist attacks. It becomes clear that he cannot speak honestly while adhering to the Orwellian policies of his boss. The same is true for John Brenner, who repeats Islamist talking points when describing jihad as the inner struggle for "self betterment."
Is this denial, obfuscation, language manipulation, pandering, appeasement ... or is it something more sinister?
Rabbi Richard Rubenstein, prominent scholar of Holocaust theology and author of the widely read "After Auschwitz," suggests the latter. Jews will be shocked to see this placid, sober man in this just-released interview, which can be viewed at www.redcounty.com [Here, full version here. I have also embedded the video below. -MS]. Rubenstein says, "Obama is ... trying to transform America's political and economic systems and its relation to the world. He is a man who knows what he is doing ... and despite the fact that he has attracted many liberal, wealthy Jews, his intention is to correct the historical mistake of the creation of the state of Israel." Rubenstein suggests Obama has been swayed by Muslims on his father's side of his family. "His decisions and his symbolic actions made clear where his sympathies are," Rubenstein said. "I have no doubt that he would not be unhappy to see the destruction of the state of Israel."
I myself was shocked to see this mild mannered, world respected scholar of Jewish history tell us with such an authoritative calm, that we seem to have elected as president a person who has strong sympathies and identity to the Muslim/ Left alliance that has targeted Israel and Jews.
Charles Jacobs, president of Americans for Peace and Tolerance, continues his discussion of how Jewish leaders should treat Boston's Muslim American Society - and each other - on his blog at www.peaceandtolerance.org.
The following letter appears in this week's paper as well. The following is as it was forwarded to me and may vary from the printed version (The paper also includes the letter from members of the Russian Jewish Community, though without the complete list of signatories):
Reconciling with Islamic Supremacists by Michael Segal
The controversy about the Islamic Society of Boston is a local one, but it touches on an issue that is both global and ancient. This is illustrated by a verse of Psalms that is part of the Ashrei prayer. The verse is translated in a Conservative prayer book as "destroy all wickedness" and by the Orthodox as destroy the "wicked". There is a big difference.
The difference is between battle and engagement. This dichotomy was very much in evidence at the meeting attended by 300 people on June 24th at Newton's Beth El synagogue. The meeting was called by Charles Jacobs' Americans for Peace and Tolerance. It presented the evidence that many leaders of the ISB have associations with Islamic supremacist groups. The theme of the evening was that Islamic institutions should be engaged only after they convincingly rid themselves of such associations. As one might predict from the different translations in prayer books, the rabbis in attendance were almost exclusively Orthodox. The opposing view, championed by many Reform and Conservative rabbis, is that Jews should engage with Islamic leaders and use persuasion to advance tolerance.
The Orthodox are right about the translation in the Ashrei of the phrase from Psalm 145:20 "et kol hareshaim yashmid". However, Conservatives can cite Psalm 104:35, which uses the formulation they grafted into their Ashrei translation. Furthermore, that formulation was the one invoked by the sage Bruriah in Talmudic times to convince her husband, Rabbi Meir, to engage with troublemakers rather than pray for their death.
In modern times, the same issue is at the crux of our foreign policy. General David Petraeus, who wrote the book on counterinsurgency, divides insurgents into "reconcilables" and "irreconcilables". His approach straddles the Orthodox-Conservative divide, making reconcilables part of the solution and dealing with irreconcilables by killing, capturing or driving them out.
The hard part is deciding who is reconcilable. During the civil rights struggle in the 1960s, the entire Jewish community shunned white supremacists as irreconcilables. Today, we face similar decisions about Islamic supremacists. We need the wisdom to decide which Islamic leaders are best shunned, and which should be engaged. The first step towards such wisdom is to move beyond meetings and petitions of opposing camps of Jews. Within our community we need engagement, not shunning. Before we can have agreement on opinions, we need to start by assembling the facts, and discussing them together.
Quote: "Sadly, the Middle East conflict is morphing into a religious and ideological conflict."
Please.....this conflict has never been about anything else, and to make a statement such as this confirms not only a bias (we all have 'em).....but also more than just a little ignorance.