In the debate over the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” (which is actually a multi-cultural community center), you might have come across this illustration:
There are some who mistakenly believe all Muslims are terrorists. The illustration lays bare the absurdity of that belief. Islam boasts nearly 1.6 billion adherents; Al Qaeda, less than 10,000. Put another way, only .00063% of Muslims belong to Al Qaeda.
The majority of Muslims preach and practice peace. American Muslims are especially moderate. So I appreciate the illustration insofar as it disabuses people of the “all Muslims are terrorists” stereotype. However, I think the illustration is itself overly simplistic. It downplays the very real, dangerous, and widespread extremism in Muslim world.
Consider the following:
- Osama bin Laden has a 51% confidence rating in the Palestinian territories, and 54% in Nigeria.
- More than 90% of Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese and Palestinians express unfavorable views toward Jews.
- One third of British Muslim students say it’s acceptable to kill for Islam and advocate a global Islamic government based on sharia law.
- Most Pakistanis support gender segregation in the workplace (85%), stoning adulterers (82%), and the death penalty for apostasy from Islam (76%).
- Overwhelming majorities in several Middle Eastern Muslim countries justify attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the entire Persian Gulf region.
Muslim support for terrorism has declined in recent years, but these figures are still distressing.
I am not qualified to comment on whether the extremism evidenced above actually inheres in Islamic teachings. (Even if it does, remember that the Bible and the Book of Mormon have their own barbaric verses.) But Allah-approved or no, extremism does indeed exist in much of the Muslim world. It’s wrong to ignore that fact in the name of political correctness.
And precisely because I’m concerned about Islamic extremism, I support building the proposed Islamic center. Few things would inflame Islamic extremism more than Americans denying Muslims their constitutionally-guaranteed religious freedoms.
It’s no longer called Cordoba House. They changed the name a while ago because of the controversy it engendered. It’s now called Park 51 (its address).
I support it simply for the reason that they have the right to build whatever they please on land they own. I think that worse than inflaming Islamic extremism would be to set a precedent that we can abridge the civil rights of people whose opinions and beliefs we find unpopular. That is, in my opinion, far more dangerous.
“More than 90% of Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese and Palestinians express unfavorable views toward Jews.”
If you know anything about the history of the reason this is not surprising at all.
When you say “reason,” do you mean “region”? Otherwise, this sentence is hard to parse.
Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese, and Palestinians express unfavorable views towards Israel, which is of course distorted to mean Jews. There recently was a renovated synagogue in the city center of Beirut. That shows our tolerance towards Jews, along with Hezbollah’z speeches preaching acceptance of Jews, just not the state of Israel and it’s atrocities.
Whatever the polls, I doubt they are correct, mainly from experience and just because I take everything concerning polls with a grain of salt – the numbers are distorted.
Besides, to discuss what terrorism is would mean turning the tables around from muslim terrorism to Washington terrorism, but discussing the meaning and the history of all that jabber is a waste time – we have Noam Chomsky for that.
The fact remains that there is a lot of anti-Jewish sentiment throughout the Middle East. It’s far larger than just Hezbollah or Lebanon, and I don’t find the renovation of a synagogue in Beirut to be proof of an absence of anti-Jewish views.
I agree though that a major component of the problem is the state of Israel’s foreign policies, settlements, treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and rampant human rights abuses by the IDF, the fact that Israel is an apartheid state, and anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian sentiment which exists among some Jews, especially conservative politicians.
But neither of these issues have very much to do with the comparatively high rate of extreme and highly fundamentalist views held by a very large percentage of Muslims world-wide.
Craig, as a middle eastern, having lived in Lebanon, I can confidently tell you that the larger population does not have the Jews. Arab-Jews are just as welcome in the middle east as muslims or any other religion, and the anti-jewish sentiments we hear about here are distorted. Yes, there are anti-jewish views, and there are those who support them, but the population base of that is minimal. To also understand cultural context, many people in the middle east will mean the state of Israel when talking about jewish inhabitants, and the terms are used interchangeably.
There may be a substantial number of muslim fundamentalists, just as there is a substantial number of fundamentalists concerning any religion. Most views held by many middle eastern residents are that of wanting american policy and intervention out, and for the most part, they do not wish to be involved in violent attacks. This again all goes back to what we hear and read by the mainstream media, which more often than not, is tailored to their political needs.
Also, the renovation of a synagogue may not seem so important, but for a country that has been attacked over and over again by a state that is mainly Jewish, that is a big deal, especially that it also got no opposition by the people. This compared with the outrage of many Americans against the muslim cultural center for an underlying assumption that muslims are evil terrorists. To compare the rate of atrocities committed by Israel on Lebanon, and that of the middle east on the United States, that is unfathomable – it does not even come close, and yet there still has been acceptance of the religion in that part of the world.
I understand your point about the synagogue better. It is telling that (assuming your story is correct, and I’m not saying it’s not) there was no opposition, yet Americans are freaking about a building that’s not even a mosque here in the US. It is really sad and frustrating to see how racist, xenophobic, and plain stupid so many Americans are.
You won’t get any argument from me that the US needs to stop sticking its nose into everyone’s business, and certainly needs to stop invading countries on a whim.
The one point where I disagree is where you say that there aren’t any more Muslim fundamentalists than in any other religion. That isn’t true. There are extremists in just about every religion, but the fact is Islam has a far larger percentage than any other religion. Just taking Pakistan for example, the fact that such huge majorities support gender segregation and death for adultery or apostasy shows that overall, Muslims have far higher rates of extremism. That kind and that rate of fundamentalism hasn’t existed in either Christianity or Judaism for a long time. It may be that the degree of extremism isn’t any greater in Islam, but the amount certainly is, and it’s disingenuous to suggest otherwise.
The causes of that extremism is another matter entirely.
Moudi, I of course appreciate your unique perspective, given that you’ve lived in the Middle East. But your experiences are anecdotal relative to scientific surveys. The survey did not ask whether Muslims had a favorable view of Israel, but whether they had a favorable view of Jews. Now, they may have an unfavorable view of Jews in large part because of Israel. Fine. Again, I’m not saying that Islam has to be the source for the extremism revealed in the polls. Though it bears mentioning that there are anti-Semitic verses in the Quran (just as there are in the New Testament and to the Book of Mormon to an extent).
Most help articles on the web are incacutare or incoherent. Not this!
I just wanted to point out, there’s a difference between anti-judaism and anti-zionism.
Jon, once again, it is taken out of its cultural context, which plays a major role in the definition of a word or an action.
We all understand that prejudice always has cultural context. It still doesn’t make it ok.
Of course it does not make it ok, but have we stopped to ask ourselves why there are people out there trying to commit attacks on the United States? I personally do not blame them. Besides, I do believe that 9/11 was an inside job, which further explains my view of “islamic terrorism” and the reasons behind it. Islam is far from a cruel religion, just like any religion. As much as a non-believer I am, I do not think that religions are bad, evil, or wish to kill others. You can quote all the versus there are, but they can still be interpreted in many different ways, and so there is not right or wrong answer, especially to go far enough to say that this religion or that is evil and supports the killing of this or that tribe.
My personal view of this, or when arguing with any American nationalist, is that we may argue till dawn and beyond, but we cannot change each other views for two main reasons: first, we love our own countries that we cannot outwardly blame it for consequences it has faced for it’s own doings, and second, if we do, we then have to deal with who we are and where we came from in the absence of a society or country that we once felt we belonged to.
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