The Clipboard: 'Evil Islam' and the Christian Right

From an article¹:

Mr. President, what frightens me most about all of this is that instead of all men being created equal, the attitude becomes we are better than they are. We are beginning to claim moral superiority, thinking it will give us the right to do whatever we wish. And that is the beginning of fascism. You have for too long been silent on this. I pray to the Creator of us all that you not remain so. (link)

It's disturbing how open many Zionists and Christian fundamentalists are in the their hatred of Islam.

---

Complete text of the article, "Evil Islam" and the Christian Right, by Patricia Koyce Wanniski

To: President George W. Bush
From: Patricia Koyce Wanniski
Re: Will You Please Speak Out?

Mr. President, my husband Jude saw how deeply troubled I have been in seeing attacks on Islam from the Christian Right and suggested I write your political advisor, Karl Rove, but I decided I had to do this directly and at least hope Mr. Rove will pass it on to you. I'm reminded that immediately after the attacks on September 11th, you urged caution and tolerance. You asked Americans not to paint all Muslims with the same black brush that taints, deservedly, Osama bin Laden and all the terrorists of the Al Qaeda network. Of late, however, some of your Republican compatriots have been most vocal in smearing that blackness over all Muslims. And you have been silent.

In his excellent Tuesday New York Times column, 'Bigotry in Islam - and Here,' Nicholas Kristof cites several appalling examples of leading conservatives railing against the inherent evil of Islam. Paul Weyrich and William Lind argue that Islam is 'a religion of war,' and is a threat to the U.S. in and of itself. Lind further suggests that American Muslims 'should be encouraged to leave [the U.S.]. They are a fifth column in this country.' There is so very little evidence for this that it reminds me of the shameful internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War. Even the Rev. Franklin Graham says he believes Islam to be 'very evil and wicked.' These critics, as Kristof points out, take quotes from the Koran out of context to make their arguments, much in the same way the noted lawyer, Nathan Lewin, has used the Bible to support his idea of executing the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Lewin, for goodness sakes, was almost appointed to the federal bench by President Clinton!

Taking Holy Scripture out of context has been done throughout the ages to justify foul deeds, to dirty religion. During the war on terrorism, we can't slip into those rationales. Not all Muslims are evil, just as not all Christians are good. Like Christianity and Judaism, the religion of Islam and its adherents must be seen as a whole if we are to live peacefully with Muslims when these conflicts are resolved. Yet the idea that we can ever live peacefully with Islam is anathema to some on the religious right. Ann Coulter writes,';we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.' Huh? As a Catholic, I did some evangelical work in college, and it was my experience that you can't shove Christianity, or any religion for that matter, down people's throats, even to save their souls. And as even a remote basis for policy, this is absurd. It smacks of those exceedingly bloody wars known as the Crusades. I am sure, Mr. President, you are too wise to do anything but consider Ms. Coulter's suggestion a joke. But it is worrisome you let this kind of slime slide by unchallenged by anyone in your administration. Perhaps you feel it is not worth a response, and it might not be, were she the lone voice leading in this direction.

The most dangerous of those making the argument that Islam is inferior at least, evil at most, is your father's former Secretary of Education, William Bennett, now with Empower America, a conservative Washington think tank. He is the most dangerous because he is the best known, the most eloquent, couching his arguments in soaring rhetoric and self-proclaimed moral superiority. Also because, given his former cabinet rank, he probably has your ear to some degree. In his latest literary effort, Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism, Bennett writes of 'the essential human kinship with Israel' as if it was 'you and me against the world.' Yes, Israel is our ally; we have many allies. But Bennett takes it a step further in arguing that this has been preordained by a Judeo-Christian Creator, calling this alliance, 'an understanding, almost religious in nature, that to our two nations above all others has been entrusted the fate of liberty in the world.'

This is wrong in several ways. Firstly, Israel is not a democracy, but a theocracy with democratic trappings. Arab Israelis are not accorded the same rights* as Jewish Israelis, much in the same way African-Americans in America were denied basic rights during America's history. And to consider any 'understanding' to be 'almost religious' is just plain frightening, as is any rhetoric that smacks of zealotry. Remember our first President George Washington's vigorous warnings against entrenched foreign entanglements. The world body politic is much bigger than the U.S. and Israel, as we see from the conduct of the war on terrorism thus far. Where would we be without the Pakistani alliance? Secretary Bennett conveniently skims this. He adds, 'I myself am one of the tens of millions of Americans who have seen in the founding and flourishing of the Jewish state the hand of the same beneficent God who attended our own founding and has guided our fortunes until now.' In other words, he seems to think that the war on terrorism is exclusively the province of the U.S. and Israel, which means it is a war against all Islam, a religious war in which our 'beneficent God' will 'guide our fortune.' This is just as racist as the radical Islam he confuses with all Islam. At the bottom line, Bennett is making the same suggestion as Ann Coulter; it just sounds better.

In the Sunday New York Times Book Review, reviewer Michael Lind notes 'Bennett's attempt to blur the distinction between the nonsectarian republicanism of America's founding fathers and the ethnoreligious nationalism of the Israeli right should not go unchallenged.' He cites 'a Defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the United States of America,' which influenced the authors of the Federalist Papers, and then quotes John Adams: 'It will never be pretended that any persons employed in the service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of Heaven...Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretense of miracle or mystery...are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.' Please try to keep this quote from one of our founding fathers when you address these ideas being spewed by the religious right. Unfortunately, these folks are egged on by your own desire to settle Saddam Hussein's hash. This, however, is a separate issue.

We fight the war on terrorism for 'the rights of mankind,' and that includes the rights of Muslims the world over to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I do not include the criminals of Al Qaeda; they commit atrocities, the U.S. brings them to justice. But historically, no one group has suffered more from terrorism than the Muslims themselves. And as you said yourself, soon after September 11th, that the world must be freed from the scourge of terrorism. I hope you mean it.

Mr. President, what frightens me most about all of this is that instead of all men being created equal, the attitude becomes we are better than they are. We are beginning to claim moral superiority, thinking it will give us the right to do whatever we wish. And that is the beginning of fascism. You have for too long been silent on this. I pray to the Creator of us all that you not remain so.

* In over 50 years of existence Israel has yet to develop a formal Constitution. Comprising approximately 20% of the population of Israel, Arab Israelis hold only 9 of the 120 seats in the Knesset. No political party is allowed to have anything in its platform that questions the Jewish character of the Israeli state. Members of the Knesset (MK) are explicitly protected under an act entitled the 'Law of Immunity of MKs, Their Rights and Their Duties'. That act states that it is the responsibility of a MK to exercise his/her freedom of speech and therefore to express his/her own political opinions. Arab members of the Knesset, however, are repeatedly attacked as agents of Palestinian terrorism, as enemies of the state, and traitors. These attacks come not just from anti-Arab Israeli MKs but from highly placed government officials such as Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau and Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein. Last year, the parliamentary immunity of MK Azmi Bishara was lifted so he could be put on trial for political reasons. When it comes to military service, Arab Israelis are second-class citizens, barred from such service. Israel almost always refuses to give building licenses to Arabs and has been demolishing their homes and expropriating their lands. In the Negev, for just one example, some 30,000 Arabs will be herded into 16 villages, while 14 new Israeli settlements are constructed on formerly Arab land. Although Israel's High Court of Justice finally, after years of legal struggle by Israeli Arabs, ruled that the latter have rights to live on a communal settlement located on state land, the government is backing legislation to annul the thrust of the court's ruling by empowering the Jewish Agency to allocate land "in accordance with its goals," that is, to establish exclusively Jewish communities.
-Peter Signorelli

reference=http://www.supplysideinvestor.com/showarticle.asp?articleid=2098