Chevy Chase, Md. — The U.S. government and news media have engaged in an unprecedented misinformation campaign to convince Americans that Islam is a peaceful religion and Muslims have no quarrel with us.
From the propaganda you’d think that the entire war on terrorism has been provoked by one nutty guy living in a cave in Afghanistan with a misguided understanding of the Koran. To be blunt, we are being force-fed a bunch of baloney.
The followers of Mohammed, the founder of Islam, marched out of Arabia in the seventh century and proceeded to conquer the Middle East and North Africa. They would have liked to conquer the world, but were stopped after they’d made it as far into Europe as Spain.
They did not spread peace, but war. They also created one of the greatest empires the world has ever known, which lasted more than 1,300 years until the British dismantled the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
The truth is that many Muslims hate the West because it destroyed their empire, and they long for the day when that empire will be restored. (Incidentally, has anyone else noticed the Saudi flag has a sword on it below the profession of faith?)
Islam is now being portrayed as a tolerant religion. History says otherwise.
Though there were periods of relative tolerance, minorities have always been persecuted under Islam. Peoples of non-monotheistic religions subjected to Muslim rule usually had to choose between death and conversion.
Jews and Christians were allowed as dhimmis (protected persons) to practice their faith. This “protection” did little, however, to ensure that Jews and Christians were treated well by Muslims.
On the contrary, an integral aspect of being dhimmis was that, being infidels, they had to openly acknowledge the superiority of the true believers — the Muslims.
Jews especially have been persecuted throughout Muslim history. Did you know, for example, that the requirement that Jews wear badges was not Hitler’s idea? It was actually Baghdad’s Caliph al-Mutawakkil who first designated a yellow badge for Jews in the ninth century.
Taliban aren’t unique
The Taliban movement in Afghanistan has been demonized for its strict interpretation of Islam and abuses of human rights, particularly women’s rights. Virtually everything negative that has been said about the Taliban, however, can be said about every other Islamic state, including coalition partners such as Saudi Arabia.
Just take a look at the State Department human rights report. You’ll see that in most Arab countries, the Shari’a, or Islamic law, defines the rules of traditional social behavior. Under the law, women are accorded a role inferior to that of men and are therefore discriminated against with regard to personal rights and freedoms.
And has anyone else noticed a gap in the logic of our solicitous attitude toward the Arab states? The Bush administration says we have to be careful not to offend Muslims and to keep Israel out of the coalition because it would create problems for Arab leaders who can’t afford to upset the “Arab street.”
If the Arab street consists of peaceful Muslims who share our desire to root out terrorism and the handful of fanatics who have perverted Islam, what’s the problem?
Islam divides the world into believers and non-believers. If the latter do not submit to Islam, then a holy war must be mounted against them.
And keep in mind that Christians (not to mention Baha’is and other religions) are also non-believers. There is a saying in the Middle East, “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.”
Many Muslims are tolerant and do not believe a jihad means a fighting war; but in the Middle East, they are probably a minority. The majority, like the thousands of Palestinians who demonstrated in the Palestinian Authority, share Osama bin Laden’s world view.
The “Arab street” yearns for the glory days of the empire and believes that the Jews and Americans and all the profane Western influences are cancers that must be excised from the Muslim body.
These Muslims also have a sense of history and know that it took centuries to expel the Crusaders. So they are prepared to wage a long fight, confident they will win in the end.
If we buy the sanitized version of Islam presented by the Cable News Network and the State Department, U.S. Middle East policy will continue to be marked by failure and our interests at home and abroad will remain in danger.
Mitchell G. Bard is a foreign policy analyst in Maryland. His most recent book is “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Middle East Conflict,” which pro-Palestinian activists are campaigning to have removed from bookstores, according to a JTA newsbrief.
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