Islamic Peace Versus Western Peace
Los Angeles
p
resident Bush's push for Middle
East peace in 2008 highlights the
huge gap in understanding of the
Islamic world on every level in the West,
from the man on the street, to Jewish and
Christian religious
leaders, to our
elected officials.
Only by gaining
an appreciation of
Islam's worldview,
through its theology
and historic trials,
can Israel and the
West begin to deal
with the real issues
and challenges.
From the incep-
tion of Islam, the Christian West has
had difficulty understanding Islam as
a different religious phenomenon than
Christianity. When Muslims conquered
the Iberian Peninsula in the eighth cen-
tury, Christians referred to Muslims arriv-
ing from North Africa as "Moors."
Over the centuries, Spaniards continued
to refer to Muslims as Moors, even if they
were from India or Indonesia. In the rest
of Europe, Muslims were referred to as
"Turks," after the group of central Asian
nomadic invaders who converted to Islam
and governed the Islamic Empire in the
Middle Ages. In Asia Minor, Christians
referred to Muslims as "Tartars," an ethnic
name.
.
When Europeans finally understood
that Islam was not an ethnic group, they
mistakenly perceived it in terms of a
Western religious group. In the early
1900s, Europeans began referring to Islam
as "Muhammadanism," and Muslims as
"Muhammadans," incorrectly assuming
the Prophet Muhammad had the same
role in Islam that Jesus did in Christianity.
To this day, misunderstandings con-
tinue: Westerners describe the mosque
as a "Muslim church;' equate the Muslim
Friday to the Christian Sunday, refer to
the Koran as the "Muslim Bible" and
believe sheiks to be "Muslim priests."
Also, Westerners mistakenly resort to
their own worldview by grouping Muslim
leaders as left and right wing, "moderate
"conservative" and "radical."
So different are Western and Muslim
worldviews that identical words can have
two different meanings. In the West,
"freedom" is the ability of individuals
to participate in the formation, conduct
and lawful removal of governments from
power — the basis of constitutionalism
While President George Bush and Israel's Shimon
Peres stress that "peace" is at hand between Israel
and "moderates," the reality is complete consensus
across all schools of thought in the Islamic world
that Israel's existence is an injustice and must be
eliminated on the path to successful Islamic revival.
and parliamentary government. For the
Islamic world ruled by foreign powers in
modern times, "freedom" means national
independence from foreign rule, which
they equate with "tyranny:' In the West,
the opposite of tyranny is "freedom." In
Islam, the opposite of tyranny is "justice."
For Muslim thinkers, justice is the ideal
and justice distinguishes good rulers
from bad rulers.
As for the word "peace Westerners
have liberal and romantic notions of
harmony between nations. In Arabic, the
modern definition of salam simply means
an absence of conflict, more like the word
"truce" in English. The Arabic word sul-
ha, defined as "reconciliation:' is much
closer to the Western definition of "peace."
For example, the Arab-Israeli conflict
was in a state of salam between 1956 and
1967, from a Muslim point of view, yet
there was no "peace" from a Western point
of view.
Pursuit Of Peace
Beginning with Egyptian President Anwar
Sadat's unprecedented visit to Israel in
1977, Israel has been at a disadvantage
negotiating "peace" with Muslim coun-
tries. Muslims have 1,400 years of experi-
ence in dealing with Jews and a set of reli-
gious principles and historic precedents
to rely on that regulate the status of Jews
under the leadership of Islamic society.
However, on the Israeli side there was
and is no explicit ideology of how to coex-
ist with Muslims since Judaic scriptures
and codes of law predate Islam. Hence,
Israeli political parties and Jews world-
wide have largely misunderstood the
negotiating positions of Islamic countries
and the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) toward Israel, supporting the "land
for peace" concept, believing it means
"peace" in Western terms.
Israelis and Western observers viewed
Sadat's 1977 mission to Israel as a fun-
damental ideological breakthrough.
However, Sadat did not really break with
the past. A devout Muslim, Sadat did
not give any legitimacy to Israel. Sadat
simply chose a different path to achieve
the Islamization of Palestine by exercis-
ing a preexisting diplomatic strategy that
would, through several diplomatic stages,
eliminate Jewish statehood.
In 1947, Jordan's King Abdullah had
proposed acceptance of Israel on U.N.
terms because Muslims would retain a
huge geographical advantage, allowing
them to ultimately defeat the Jews at
a later time. Abdullah was correct, the
pursuit of a "military only" solution since
Israel's inception in 1948 resulted in the
Jews gaining much more territory in each
war.
Parameters Of Peace
After the 1967 military defeat to Israel,
Cecil Hourani, an adviser to Tunisia's
president, presented three objectives that
were later wholly adopted by Egypt:
• Containment of Israel, territorially and
demographically, as a basis for
• Weakening and "de-Zionising" Israel, as
preparation for
• The final transformation of Israel from
a sovereign Jewish state into a Muslim
state.
In Sadat's 1977 Knesset speech, he
stated:
In the name of God, I decided to come to
you so that we might establish permanent
peace based on justice ... Complete with-
drawal from the Arab territories occupied
after 1967 is a logical and undisputed fact
... It is no use to refrain from recognizing
the Palestinian people and their right to
statehood as their right of return.
In return for "peace Israel relinquished
to Egypt the Sinai Peninsula, all the
military airfields, oil wells and civilian
settlements it had built there and agreed
to a system of "autonomy" for Palestinian
Arabs in the West Bank. To Israel and
the West, the Camp David agreement
and diplomatic exchanges with Egypt
implied recognition of Jewish statehood
while Egypt saw it as only an insignificant
formality. For each stage of withdrawal
Israel completed, Egypt would grant
another degree of "normalization" on the
road to returning sovereignty to Islam. If
Israel acted differently, degrees of "nor-
malization" would be withdrawn. And
Sadat never called for "peace" nor sul-ha
(reconciliation) with the Jews. He only
proclaimed, "No more wary'
The demands of "The Diplomatic
Strategy Against Israel" have never
changed since Sadat's mission to Israel:
total Israeli withdrawal to 1967 borders
and return of Palestinian refugees into
Israel proper — which would transform
Israel into a Muslim state. Despite this,
Israel agreed to give the PLO land, ter-
ritory, international status, arms and
money, which the PLO accepted, without
changing its demands.
Israel's unelected Prime Minister,
Ehud Olmert, is now satisfied simply to
establish a Palestinian state and divide
Jerusalem based on his latest idea that
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,
who was defeated in Palestinian elections
by Hamas, in fact does recognize Israel
"in his subconscious."
In order to prosper in the world, the
United States needs countries sympathet-
ic to Western democracy; and U.S. secu-
rity requires a global environment that
includes a friendly and secure Western
Europe, Japan, Israel and Australia. For
decades, Israel has been a strong, demo-
cratic Western ally in the Middle East that
has enhanced Western security. However,
after territorial withdrawals and conces-
sions to the PLO, Israel is no longer a
strategic asset for the United States, but
instead a security burden.
While President GeorgeW. Bush and
Israel's Shimon Peres stress that "peace" is
at hand between Israel and "moderates,"
the reality is complete consensus across
all schools of thought in the Islamic world
that Israel's existence is an injustice and
must be eliminated on the path to suc-
cessful Islamic revival. Misunderstanding
of the realities of the Islamic worldview
by the United States and Israel is usher-
ing in a coming war for survival by Israel
and explosive consequences for Western
security. El
Joel Gilbert is director, writer and producer
of the new film "Farewell Israel: Bush, Iran
and the Revolt of Islam." He is a graduate of
the University of London's School or Oriental
and African Studies and is one of the few
Western scholars of historic Islamic-Jewish
relations. He has lived, studied and traveled
in the Middle East, including Egypt, Israel,
Morocco and Pakistan.
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July 31 • 2008
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