RUTHFULLY YOURS

There is a widely held belief that in Spain, during the European Middle Ages, Islam, Christianity and Judaism co-existed peacefully and fruitfully under a tolerant and enlightened Islamic hegemony. Dario Fernandez-Morera, associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University in the US, with a PhD from Harvard, has written a stunning book that upends this myth.

The myth itself has been a comforting and even inspiring story that has underpinned the so-called Toledo Principles regarding religious tolerance in our time. It has buttressed the belief that Islam was a higher civilisation than that of medieval Europe in the eighth to 12th centuries and that the destruction of this enlightened and sophisticated Andalusia should be lamented.

The great Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, a century ago, saw it that way. US President Barack Obama and The Economist magazine have both very recently cited Muslim Andalusia as evidence that Islam has been a religion of peace and tolerance. In short, the myth of Andalusia has been a beacon of hope for working with Islam in today’s world with a common commitment to civilised norms.

This vision was spelled out in Maria Rosa Menocal’s The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (2002) and reinforced by David Levering Lewis’s God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 (2008). But it has deep roots. Edward Gibbon, in his famous 18th-century history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, wrote in glowing terms of the 10th-century Umayyad caliphate in Spain as a beacon of enlightenment, learning and urban living, at a time when Europe was plunged in bigotry, ignorance and poverty.

As someone who has long taken this vision for granted, it came as a considerable shock to me to discover that the conventional wisdom is quite unfounded. In The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise, Fernandez-Morera systematically refutes the beguiling fable. The picture he draws is starkly different from the conventional one, troubling in what it reveals and compelling in its arguments.

If we are to satisfactorily resolve current disputes about Islamophobia and the future of Islam as a world religion, this book is required reading. International reviewers have greeted it as a desperately needed corrective to delusion and propaganda. That will invite pushback from those who either remain committed to the myth or believe it is too important a beacon to allow it to be extinguished.

Israel has announced that it will be building 800 new housing units. Of these, 560 will be in Maale Adumim, a town of 40,000 located four miles east of Jerusalem, and 240 will be in three Jerusalem neighborhoods.

State Department spokesman John Kirby reacted with unusually strong language:

If it’s true, this … would be the latest step in what seems to be the systematic process of land seizures, settlement expansions, and legalization of outposts that is fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution. We oppose steps like these which we believe are counterproductive.

Kirby added that Washington was “deeply concerned”:

This action risks entrenching a one-state reality and raises serious questions about Israel’s intentions.

It should be added that Maale Adumim and the three “East Jerusalem” (actually eastern, northern, and southern Jerusalem) neighborhoods are located on land that was illegally occupied by Jordan from 1949 to 1967, and that Israel seized from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War after Jordan attacked Israel.

It should not, though, have to be added.

The notion that Israel, by building homes in such places, jeopardizes chances of resolving the Palestinian issue is fundamentally flawed, and the State Department — if it were not wedded to that notion — would be able to find out why by doing a little fact-checking.

As Evelyn Gordon illuminates, since Benjamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister in 2009 (he has been reelected twice), Israel has not been engaging in a “systematic process of land seizures” or anything of the kind. Actually, construction in “settlements” — a term now used even for Jerusalem neighborhoods — has slowed to a crawl:

As data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics unambiguously shows, since taking office … Netanyahu has built far fewer units in the settlements than any of his predecessors. True, he periodically announces grandiose building plans, as he did this week. But most are quietly frozen again immediately afterward; very few ever get built.

Gordon also reports on an investigation by Shaul Arieli — a leftist Israel who opposes Israeli construction in land previously occupied by Jordan — that finds:

In 2015, as in the preceding five years, almost 90 percent [of population increase in the “settlements” was] a result of natural population growth.

In other words — scandalous as some may find it — Israelis living in these communities have babies.

The Obama administration has announced that it will not cut the U.S. troop deployment in Afghanistan to 5,000 as planned, but will leave 8,400 soldiers to support the Afghan government in its fight against the Taliban. President Obama said, “Compared to the 100,000 troops we once had there, today, fewer than 10,000 remain.”

That is true, but why 8,400? Why not 50,000? Why not zero?

In making his announcement, President Obama said, “Even as we remain relentless against those who threaten us, we are no longer engaged in a major ground war in Afghanistan.” That’s interesting, but exactly who in Afghanistan threatens the United States? And how relentless can we be with 8,400 soldiers?

In 2010, Dr. Steven Metz of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College wrote that the Obama administration’s Afghan strategy (like that of the Bush administration before him) was based on three assumptions:

Al-Qaeda “needs state support or sanctuary.”
If the Taliban regains control of Afghanistan, “it will again provide bases and sanctuary to al Qaeda.”
If the Taliban “did, for some reason, provide support and sanctuary to al Qaeda, this would increase the threat to the United States and other NATO countries.”

Assuming that Metz is right about what the U.S. feared/fears emerging from Afghanistan, America clearly has not been successful in creating a secure Afghanistan able to defend itself from the Taliban and repel al-Qaeda. Broad Taliban military successes are the reason the president changed the number of troops he’s willing to leave there. Al-Qaeda remains a force, albeit less of one as ISIS has grown, but that may not be a permanent situation.

It’s not that we haven’t done things.

We tried ousting the Taliban ourselves and tried training Afghan forces to do it. We tried instituting Western-style elections and changing the role of women in society. We provided $110 billion in civilian and (mainly) military aid between 2002 and 2015. We tried more troops and fewer troops. We tried fighting on the ground and supporting Afghans from the air. We tried drones in Pakistan and supporting the Pakistani government to the tune of billions in military aid every year, including $25.91 billion between 2001 and 2013.

On Monday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon predictably assailed
Israel’s announced decision to build 800 new apartments in Ma’aleh
Adumim and eastern Jerusalem. He noted that just four days earlier,
the Middle East Quartet (i.e. the U.S., EU, UN and Russia) had issued
a report deeming settlement construction an obstacle to peace. What
Ban didn’t mention is that just a few days before that report came
out, a leading Israeli leftist expert on the settlements published a
comprehensive rebuttal of this claim, providing facts and figures
showing that the settlements effectively aren’t growing at all.

This juxtaposition begs an obvious question: If the world is going to
accuse Israel of “massive settlement construction” that “threatens the
two-state solution” when even leading leftists admit this is a lie,
why should Israel continue to pay the very real price exacted by
freezing settlement construction?

Shaul Arieli, who published the rebuttal in Haaretz last week, is
hardly an apologist for the settlements. Since retiring from the army
as a colonel in 2001, he has become a prominent peace activist. He

helped produce the Geneva Initiative, a nongovernmental template for
an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. He’s on the board of the
Council for Peace and Security, a group of former security officials
that advocates for a peace deal. He has been involved in numerous
legal cases challenging the West Bank security fence. He gives
lectures and tours on the feasibility of a peace agreement, and he’s
considered a leading expert on demarcating a future
Israeli-Palestinian border.

The long-term trends of US-Israel relations do not hinge solely/mostly on US presidents, as has been documented since Israel’s establishment in 1948, and especially since the early 1980s, when – in spite of systematic presidential pressure on Israel – bilateral industrial, commercial, scientific, technological, agricultural, homeland security and defense cooperation have surged beyond expectations.

For instance, President Truman pressured Prime Minister Ben Gurion to end the “occupation” of West Jerusalem and parts of the Negev and Galilee; President Johnson pressured Prime Minister Eshkol to refrain from preempting the concerted Arab attack, reuniting Jerusalem and building in “occupied areas”; President Nixon pressured Prime Minister Golda Meir to end “occupation” and refrain from building in East Jerusalem; President Carter pressured Prime Minister Begin to focus on withdrawal from Judea & Samaria, rather than on peace with Egypt; President Reagan pressured Prime Minister Begin to rescind the application of Israeli law to the Golan Heights and end the hot-pursuit of the PLO in Lebanon; President Bush pressured Prime Minister Shamir to recognize the PLO and refrain from construction in Judea & Samaria.

But, notwithstanding presidential pressure – which entailed arms-embargos, suspended deliveries of advanced military systems, denial of loan guarantees and brutal condemnations – Israel’s role as America’s Major Non-NATO Ally and the most effective and unconditional geo-strategic ally has catapulted to unprecedented levels.

The assumption that US-Israel relations are shaped from the top down, and determined by US presidents and “elites,” constitutes a slap in the face of the US democracy, which highlights the American constituent as its chief axis, emitting the thundering battle cry, which no elected official can afford to ignore: “we shall remember in November!” According to the annual February Gallup poll of country-favorability – despite the tension between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu and the ongoing criticism by the Department of State (since 1948!) and the “elite” US media and academia – Israel ranks systematically among the most favorable countries, enjoying the support of 71% of the US constituency, compared with the Palestinian Authority’s 19%.

Muslims, we are told, are shocked and appalled by the Jihadist terror attacks during Ramadan. Ramadan, we are incessantly lectured, is a time of fasting and prayer. Not a time for murder.

Islamic violence during Ramadan is as shocking as rain falling on Seattle.

The Religion of Peace’s current Ramadan Bombathon score is up to 1723. Last year it approached 3,000. In 2014, it didn’t even hit 2,400. In 2013, it was a mere 1,651. So Islamic violence during Ramadan has clearly gotten worse, but when you’re massacring over a thousand people, doubling the total doesn’t count as shocking. It’s certainly appalling, but not to Muslims who worship Mohammed’s legacy.

And Mohammed slaughtered non-Muslims during Ramadan.

The practice to avoid fighting during Ramadan actually dates back to the pre-Islamic Arabs whom Mohammed either slaughtered or forced to convert. This practice may have been Christian in origin. Ramadan is often viewed as a Muslim appropriation of Lent. The Truce and Peace of God was meant to restrain fighting during the season of Lent. While they postdate Mohammed, so does Islamic scripture.

Whatever the origin however, it was Muslims who exploited the sacred months of other religions to make war upon them. That is still how Ramadan continues to be practiced by Muslims.

Mohammed had a shortage of new ideas, but a great appetite for slaughter. The Battle of Badr began when a group of Mohammed’s caravan robbers attacked a non-Muslim caravan during the “sacred months” that his Muslim followers had appropriated.

By the time it ended, Ramadan had been covered in blood as, in much the same style as ISIS, Mohammed’s gang of Jihadists butchered and beheaded the men who fell into their hands.

Like most illiterates, Mohammed harbored a special hatred for poets and had one prisoner who had written poetry mocking him, beheaded. Typical scenes from the aftermath of the battle were of the same character that we have seen in ISIS videos.

“Then I cut off his head and brought it to the apostle saying, ‘This is the head of the enemy of Allah, Abu Jahl.’… I threw his head before the apostle and he gave thanks to Allah.”

The bodies of the dead killed during this “sacred” time were piled into a well and mocked by Mohammed. If massacring non-Muslims during Ramadan is radical or extremist behavior, then the founder of Islam was a radical extremist.

40-years have elapsed since the fateful day of July 4th, 1976, when Israeli commandos rescued over a hundred Israeli hostages in one of the most daring operations in recent history. On Monday, July 4th, 2016, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on an East African official tour, visited the Entebbe Airport in Uganda for a special ceremony to commemorate the event in which his older brother Jonathan (Yoni), the commander of the rescue operation, lost his life. PM Netanyahu, addressing his host, the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, said, “Right here, I am standing in the place where my brother, Yoni, was killed, when he led the commando soldiers to release the hostages.” Netanyahu added, “There are few like him in history, and Entebbe is always with me. It is deep in my heart.” In making the contrast between then and now, PM Netanyahu said, “Forty years ago, Israeli commandos landed here in the dark of night to fight against a cruel dictator who worked with terrorists,” referring to Idi Amin, “But today we came in the daylight, and we were welcomed by a leader who works to fight terrorism.”

For many Israelis, the experience of a week in captivity brought a flashback to the dark days of the Holocaust. An Air France flight 139 from Tel-Aviv to Paris, was high jacked during a stopover in Athens, then diverted to Entebbe (near the Ugandan capital of Kampala) by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the German Revolutionary Cells, a spin-off of the Baader-Meinhof gang, a German radical left-wing group. Before reaching Entebbe, the hijacked plane landed in Libya, receiving the blessing of its dictator, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, before heading further to Entebbe.

Once at the final destination, the terrorists released the non-Jewish passengers in a selection process conducted by the Germans, which was reminiscent of the Nazi selections during the Holocaust. To the Holocaust survivors among the Jewish passengers, it revisited the trauma they had tried hard to forget. For many Israelis without a Holocaust connection, it served to change their view of the Six Million Jewish martyrs who went to their death like supposed “sheep to the slaughter.” They recognized the reality that when a gun is pointed at your child’s head, it is hard to resist.

This reporter asked Benny Davidson, a 13-old at the time who was a passenger on this fateful Air France flight, about the feelings he had. He was with his family on what was supposed to be his Bar-Mitzvah gift, a tour of the U.S. “We tried to keep a regular daily routine” Davidson (53), a native of Tel Aviv said. “When the terrorists collected our documents, my dad made the critical decision to destroy his since he was an officer in the Israeli air-force.” He added, “Luckily it was made of paper and not plastic like today.” They stuck the shredded documents in a Coca- Cola can. When questioned about the “Nazi like selection” Davidson replied, “As a 13-year-old, it was clear that they were calling names and looking for Israelis and Jews. But at 13, it didn’t bring up thoughts of the Holocaust.”

As Barack Obama’s tenure comes to a close, political analysts are already drawing comparisons between the current administration and that of Jimmy Carter’s. Both proved to be exceedingly inept at dealing with emerging foreign crises, both were harshly and unfairly critical of Israel and both betrayed loyal allies, utilizing all methods available to undermine friends while propping up hostile foes. The personification of this doctrine is best illustrated by that manner in which both administrations empowered and emboldened the mullahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Islamic fundamentalist takeover of Iran in 1979 was a disastrous occurrence that was avoidable but made possible by the Carter administration. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, also known as the Shah of Iran, was a powerful and reliable U.S. ally in a volatile region plagued by the forces of extremism. His government served as a bulwark against Communist expansion and Islamic fundamentalism. He modernized Iran, improved infrastructure, increased living standards and wages, improved literacy, lowered infant mortality and tellingly, in a region where misogyny was pervasive, provided equal rights for women.

Nonetheless, the Shah’s human rights record proved to be inadequate for the Carter administration, which began a concerted campaign to undermine his government. Recently declassified government records reveal the shocking extent which Carter and his lackeys betrayed a long-time U.S. ally. But not only did Carter help depose the Shah, he facilitated the ascendancy of an Islamic fundamentalist regime that would give the United States headaches for the next 35 years and beyond.

Toward the latter part of 1978 and early 1979, Iran was wracked by violence and chaos. Demonstrations and clashes with the security forces were a daily occurrence and labor strikes ground business to a halt. But those seeking to overthrow the regime were not necessarily fundamentalist Islamists. Many were secular oriented and had no desire to see the monarchy replaced by an even more tyrannical theocracy.

Hudson Institute scholar Nibras Kazimi, a native-born Iraqi, gave an illuminating talk at the Westminster Institute on strategies to disarm Islamic history’s ideologically dangers. I critique.

“If the jihadists have weaponized history, we can counter by weaponizing historiography.”

Although Iraqi-born Hudson Institute jihadism expert Nibras Kazimi’s remarks at a Westminster Institute lecture in McLean, Va. (available in written form online) offered an intriguing thesis to undermine canonical Islamic historical narratives guiding various jihadists, the extent of the critical inquiry Islam can withstand still remains questionable.

Kazimi discussed the secular nationalist movements and regimes among Turks, Arabs, and Iranians under the Shah that had historically sought legitimacy. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, for example, rebuilt the ruins of Babylon south of Baghdad and, like the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar, had his name inscribed on the bricks. Hussein dubbed his 1980-1988 war with Iran the “Second Qadisiya,” an nod to the 636 Battle of Qadisiya in which Muslim Arab armies defeated the Persians, opening what is now Iran to Islamic conquest.

Yet, for jihadists, the “past is not a tool of mere inspiration or for marking enemies,” Kazimi said, arguing that “history books are recipe books” giving instructions on how to “reclaim that greatness of Islam.” Since its origins in 2006 Iraq, the Islamic State in particular saw itself emulating Islam’s founding followers from seventh-century Arabia under the prophet Muhammad, a community that ultimately conquered empires. The 2014 caliphate declaration of ISIS, a group perhaps even stronger than the initial followers of Islam’s prophet, reflected how Muhammad’s “calling compelled him to strike out boldly, against incredible odds.”

According to Kazimi, both Sunni and Shiite extremists often manage to exude an “aura of certainty” by wrapping themselves in the cloak of history, allowing them to withstand defeats like the 2007-2008 American surge campaign. He explained that these jihadists “can explain away setbacks. They can tell themselves that they got the recipe wrong somewhere, and all they need to do it to go back to the basics to try and try again until it gets going.” This cycle makes Islamic history the “springboard – the solid ground – used by the extremists to leap forward into their ambitious doctrinal ventures.”

The head of a Jerusalem-and Washington, DC-based research organization revealed specifics on Tuesday of the “significant sums” allocated by the Palestinian Authority to incarcerated and dead terrorists and their families.

Yigal Carmon, president and founder of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), revealed the shocking details during testimony he submitted to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. In his statement, Carmon demonstrated the ways in which the PA supports those deemed to be “martyrs.”

He also said that $137.8 million of the PA’s 2016 budget will be used for “underwriting the expenses of the prisoners and their families.” Some $173 million has been set aside to provide what the PA says is “a dignified life to the families of all those martyred and wounded as a result of being participants or bystanders in the revolution.”

According to Carmon, payments for imprisoned terrorists, and the families of suicide bombers are anchored in a set of laws in the Palestinian legal system.

“The prisoners are described as ‘a fighting sector and an integral part of the weave of Arab Palestinian society’ and it is stated that ‘the financial rights of the prisoner and his family’ must be assured. It is also stated that the PA will provide the allowance to ‘every prisoner, without discrimination,’” Carmon explained.