Introduction
Since September 11, an “Axis of
Evil” is said to threaten mankind. It has been given various names: “Islamic
fundamentalism”, “Islamism”, “militant Islam”, “Wahhabism”, etc. Each of these
appellations is said to be an extreme form of Islam. The issue is of strategic
significance. It is one thing to confront what may only be a fringe element of
Islam; it is quite another if this element lurks in the hearts of Muslims
everywhere and can everywhere explode into fanatical fury. Moreover, the
United States may have the wherewithal to win a war against a supposedly
marginal aspect of Islam. But that America possesses the wisdom and
perseverance to win a war against Islam per se and then transform
various Islamic regimes into democracies is rather dubious.
Be this as it may, no war can
be wisely conducted and won unless the enemy is clearly defined. We need to
know whether “Islamic fundamentalism” is authentic Islam. Let us first consult
the doyen of Islamic history, Professor Bernard Lewis. In The Multiple
Identities of the Middle East (1998), Lewis writes:
A basic,
distinguishing feature of Islam is the all-embracing character of religion
in the perception of Muslims. The Prophet, unlike earlier founders of
religions, founded and governed a polity. As ruler, he promulgated laws,
dispensed justice, commanded armies, made war, made peace, collected taxes,
and did all the other things that a ruler does. This is reflected in the
Qur`an itself, in the biography of the Prophet, and in the traditions
concerning his life and work. The distinctive quality of Islam is most
vividly illustrated in the injunction which occurs not once but several
times in the Qur`an (3:104, 110; 7:157; 22:41, etc.), by which
Muslims are instructed as to their basic duty, which is “to command good and
forbid evil” – not just to do good and avoid evil, a personal duty imposed
by all religions, but to command good and forbid evil, that is to say, to
exercise authority to that end. Under the Prophet’s immediate successors, in
the formative period of Islamic doctrine and law, his state became an empire
in which Muslims conquered and subjugated non-Muslims.1
From its very inception,
classical Islam fused religion and government, faith and power – with power
concentrated in Muhammad and his successors, the caliphs. Within 100 years of
its founding, Islam conquered much of the civilized world, spreading
throughout Southwest Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. These
were regions of ancient, advanced, and deep-rooted civilizations. They were
totally obliterated and replaced by Islam.
Professor Lewis’ description of
classical Islam conforms to what he calls “The current wave of religious
militancy”, and which he says is “one of many in Islamic history...”2
In a most important conference held on October 3, 2002 at the American
Enterprise Institute (AEI, on which, more later), Lewis declared that Islamic
fundamentalism is “Islamism revived”.3 Yossef
Bodansky puts it more vividly:
Throughout the
Muslim world, from the Philippines to Morocco and in numerous Muslim émigré
communities from Western Europe to the United States, Islamist terrorist and
subversive cells are getting ready to strike out. As of late 1998, with the
confrontation escalating between the United States and the Islamist
international terrorist system as represented in the person of Osama
bin-Laden, the terrorists have become increasingly ready with redundant and
resilient networks, weapons of mass destruction, and powerful bombs, as well
as zeal and readiness for martyrdom – all for what they perceive to be the
noble cause of bringing the United States suffering and pain.4
A 1998 fatwa proclaimed,
“one billion Muslims are capable of turning their bodies into bombs which are
equal in force to all the weapons of...mass destruction possessed by the
Americans.”5 Having suffered scores of
suicide bombers, people in Israel take such fatwas seriously. Former
Knesset Member Moshe Shamir warns: “the Arab-Islamic world sees itself as the
only legitimate part of humanity and has placed Islamization of the world as
its highest aim.”6 He fears, however, that
despite September 11, America lacks the moral resources to honestly define and
confront mankind’s greatest enemy, which, he says, bears a striking
resemblance to Nazism. He fears that because of its economic interests in the
Middle East, America may sacrifice Israel on the altar of Islam. Hence this
essay.
Part I: Defining the Enemy and Ourselves
No less than Winston Churchill
referred to Mein Kampf as “the new Qur`an of faith and war...”7
Apologists, nonetheless, select passages from the Qur`an that prescribe
Islam’s “pleasant and peaceful ways”, while ignoring those that inspire
Islam’s hate-filled and murderous fanaticism (2:190; 22:39-41). In a mosque
sermon in Qatar on June 7, 2002, the imam prayed to Allah “to humiliate
the infidels...destroy the Jews, the Christians, and their supporters...make
their wives widows, make their children orphans, and make them a prey for
Muslims.” Islam is anything but a religion of love.
One simple fact dispels
academic obscurantism and “political correctness”: Islam’s most distinguishing
and historically dynamic principle is jihad (holy war), and all four
schools of Islamic law (Hanafi, Hanbali, Shafi`i, Maliki) refer to
jihad as a commandment to wage offensive war against infidels for the sake
of Allah. Consistent therewith, Muslims have plundered, butchered, subjugated,
and degraded countless Christian and Jewish communities from the time of
Muhammad to the present day.8 That they exult
in this history of savagery in the name of Allah – we saw them rejoice
throughout Islamdom in the destruction of the Twin Towers – is all the more
reason why certain Arab and Islamic regimes must be conquered, just as Nazi
Germany had to be conquered before it was democratized.
America’s war against
international terrorism is in truth a war against Arab-Islamic civilization.
This war dwarfs all others. Muslim-Arabs, who have no regard for the sanctity
of human life, are accumulating weapons of mass murder. Muslims commit
atrocities around the globe. The recent bombing of a nightclub in Indonesia,
in which at least 187 people were killed – Australians and other foreigners –
is a lurid case in point. Throughout its vast domain, Islam nurtures and
provides havens for thousands of highly skilled terrorists committed to the
destruction of Western civilization in general and of Israel in particular.
Many of their leaders have been educated in the West and are familiar with
biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. They are motivated not by a
righteous desire to alleviate the poverty of the Muslim world, but by a
satanic hatred of the non-Muslim world. As Lewis has warned, the suicide
bomber may become the metaphor of the Middle East. Never has mankind been so
menaced.9
Islam has already invaded
Europe. Its goal is nothing less than conquest. And Europe, rotting in
nihilism, hedonism, and anti-Semitism, is allied with its gravediggers.
The one country that stands in
the way of Islam is the United States. Needless to say, the US cannot wage war
simultaneously against some fifty Islamic regimes. Accordingly, intrepid
commentators like Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute would
have America proceed incrementally, beginning with the elimination of Iraqi
tyrant Saddam Hussein. Baghdad would be first, followed by Iran, Syria, and
Saudi Arabia.10 From the demise of these and
perhaps one or two other Islamic tyrannies (Libya and the Sudan), a chain
reaction will supposedly follow and transform Islamdom. These commentators
urge an American crusade to democratize the Islamic world. Predictably, they
conceive of this crusade in purely secular terms. They ignore not only the
fanatical devotion of the Muslim masses to Islam, but the unappealing aspects
of the secular democratic world which, as eminent western scholars admit, is
steeped in moral decay. Democratizing Islamic states might not be an unmixed
blessing for the 1.2 billion Muslims that inhabit this planet.
If the war against Islam is to
be won, the partisans of contemporary democracy will require a deeper
understanding of what makes democracies preferable to Islamic (and other)
tyrannies. These partisans invariably emphasize the freedom and equality
enjoyed in democracies but absent in Islam. They overlook the fact that,
unlike in former times, democratic freedom and equality lack ethical and
rational constraints. Moral relativism infects the democratic mind and saps
the will to overcome the absolutism of the Islamic mind. Lovers of democracy
need to ask: What is there about democratic freedom that would prompt a person
to restrain his passions, to be kind, honest, just? What is there about
democratic equality that would prompt him to defer to wisdom or to show
respect for teachers or parents? Are such qualities conspicuous in the secular
democratic state?
The partisans of the secular
democratic state need to recognize that the freedom and equality they exalt
are pure potentialities – neither good nor evil – hence morally neutral. In
the war against Islamic barbarism, democrats need to see that the sanctity of
human life and the decency and civility still visible in contemporary
democracy have nothing to do with democracy itself. They are rooted in the
Bible of Israel and in Greek political philosophy. Waving the flag of freedom
and equality American style will not purge Islam whose believers are willing
to die for Allah. If, however, freedom and equality are derived from the
Jewish conception of man’s creation in the image of God – which alone can
provide democracy with an ethical and rational foundation – and if democracy,
so conceived and so proclaimed, rallies a hundred million Christians in
America, so many of whom look to Israel for light, then it may be possible to
illuminate and transform the Islamic world. But this means that America needs
Israel in the war against Islam.
Unfortunately, the government
of Israel is not equal to the task. Its ruling elites have embraced
contemporary democracy as their religion, despite its moral failings. The
egotistical pluralism of democratic politics has fragmented the nation and
made Israel another secular democratic state. Such a state, devoid of Jewish
wisdom and vision, cannot possibly inspire America in the war against Islam.
Israel’s pedestrian leaders can speak of nothing more than “peace and
security”, for which they are willing to sacrifice Judea and Samaria, the
heartland of the Jewish people. This not only diminishes American respect for
Israel. It also arouses the contempt of Muslims, a contempt magnified by their
awareness that Israel has the military power to conquer the land occupied by
Arabs but refrains from doing so.
Unlike Muslims, whose sense of
cultural superiority is unequaled, Israel’s political leaders are devoid of
Jewish cultural pride. Consider their foreign policy, their pronouncements
about the Arab-Israel conflict. Not a sign of joyful confidence in the justice
of Israel’s cause. In the midst of war with Arab terrorists and suicide
bombers, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon obtusely informed his countrymen that he
had learned not to think in “black and white” terms!11
September 11 was not enough to dispel the moral flabbiness of Israel’s foreign
policy and prompt the Sharon Government to eradicate the terrorist network in
Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. To the contrary, as may be seen in his Jerusalem
Post interview of September 26, 2002, Mr. Sharon rejects a policy of
zero-tolerance toward Arab terrorism:
Our policy is to
prevent an escalation of terrorism and in fact to reduce it... I have
always acted to prevent escalation of the situation...[meaning
escalation on Israel’s part as well as on the part of the terrorists]...
[G]oing in and destroying terrorism [as advocated by some Israeli
politicians] is a wrong approach. (Emphasis added.)
Clearly, Sharon’s
military objective is not to eliminate Arab terrorism but to prevent it from
escalating beyond a “tolerable” level. More than 500 Jews have been killed and
thousands wounded and maimed under Sharon’s policy, and there is no end in
sight.
But even if Israel’s government
were headed by a wiser and more dauntless leader, how can a cabinet composed
of ten rival and ridiculous parties pursue a consistent and resolute national
strategy – I mean a strategy whose initial objective is to eradicate the
existential threat facing the Jewish state? On the other hand, what positive,
what noble, what distinctively Jewish goal can inspire this state when
cultural egalitarianism takes precedence over Judaism in the mentality of
Israel’s political and judicial elites?
Thus, to say that America needs
Israel in the war against Islam can only mean an Israel very different from
the present one. I have in mind a New Israel, one with a Jewish structure of
government that inspires respect, and whose immediate goal vis-à-vis
Israel’s enemies is not peace but conquest.12
Only such an Israel, working with the United States, can bring about a
structural transformation of Islam.
Part II: How to Democratize Islam
The year before he wrote his
celebrated essay “The Clash of Civilizations?” in 1993, Samuel P. Huntington
published an article titled, “How Countries Democratize”. Between 1974 and
1990, more than thirty countries in Europe, Latin America, and East Asia
shifted from authoritarian to democratic systems of government. The regimes
that moved to or toward democracy, says Huntington, fall into three groups:
“one party systems, military regimes, and personal dictatorships”.13
Conspicuously absent from this study is any reference to the Arab-Islamic
world, whose 22 regimes, unlike those mentioned by Huntington, may be
classified as “theopolitical” despotisms.
Clearly, Islamdom is less
susceptible to democratization than those studied by Huntington, which
included the former Soviet Union. Unlike Soviet Communism, Islam is not a
political ideology but a civilization animated by a religion that has imbued
countless Muslims with aggressive pride. As indicated above, Muhammad and his
successors established the most extensive empire in history. Islam’s past
greatness is more real in the consciousness of the Muslim masses than Islam’s
present backwardness. Western educated terrorists, who typically come from the
middle class, disdain the blandishments of democracy. Beneath the veneer of
Westernization, these Muslims have preserved their cultural identity in which
they have been weaned. Not only do they dream of Islam’s past glory, but their
reveries inspire their hatred and contempt for Islam’s usurpers and drive them
to suicidal murder.
Muslim intellectuals, including
those educated at Harvard and Oxford, despise the moral and cultural
relativism that permeates the mentality of the West. I mention this because it
would never occur to a relativist to refute Islam, which refutation may, in
the last analysis, be necessary to break Islam’s hold on the Muslim masses.
Who indeed, in this age of theological egalitarianism, will question Islam’s
deity, say by discrediting its prophet, Muhammad? It was by destroying Zeus
and Jupiter that Greek and Roman civilization were destroyed. And then there
was Hirohito, the god of Japan, whose demise preceded the democratization of
Japanese civilization.
Bearing the conquest and
American occupation of Japan in mind, only if certain Islamic regimes are
conquered and occupied, only if an entire generation of Muslim children is
re-educated, only if political power is decentralized and political
accountability replaces Muhammadan top-down leadership, can one speak sensibly
of democratizing Islam. Merely to eliminate Muslim despots and institute
democratic elections will accomplish nothing enduring.
* * *
Turning to particulars, it
should be noted that contrary to the conventional view, ethnic and religious
diversity is widespread in the Middle East. In the 21 Arab-defined countries –
this excludes Iran – there are approximately 250 million people, some 40
million of whom are non-Arabs ethnically or nationally, or non-Muslims
religiously. These 40 million inhabitants of Arab countries are not nationally
or religiously affiliated with them. This substantial minority includes about
10 million Christians, particularly the Copts in Egypt, and large ethnic
groups such as the Kurds and Berbers.14
The Iraqi Kurds are Muslims but
not Arabs. Like Iraq’s ruling Sunni Arab majority, they are citizens of the
state. Nevertheless, the Kurds’ ethnic loyalty is far more meaningful and
stronger than their political loyalty. Also, their ethnic loyalty is stronger
than their religious identity, which is why they have been inclined to seek
separate statehood vis-à-vis the Arab Muslims of Iraq. Much the same
may be said of the Druzes in Lebanon and Syria, the Baluch of Pakistan, and
the Berbers of Morocco and Algeria. In contrast, the so-called Palestinians,
far from being an oppressed minority, are part of the Sunni-Arab-Muslim
majority which has ever aimed to smother the non-Muslim minorities of the
Middle East.15
In addition to ethnic
and religious diversity, there is also political diversity. Although Arab
regimes have always been authoritarian, they divide into two basic types:
military tyrannies and hereditary monarchies in which the military sustains
the regime. Nevertheless, while some Muslim governments are conservative,
others are revolutionary. Some practice capitalism while others practice
various kinds of socialism. Some are friends or enemies of the United States,
while others are more or less neutral. And of course, there are enormous
differences in the per capita income and in the education level of these
various Arab and Muslim countries.
Hence the type of democracy
best suited for one state will not be equally suited for another.
Doctrinairism must be avoided. A constitutional monarchy may be more
appropriate in one country than a constitutional democracy. Similarly, in some
countries, a presidential system of government may be preferable to a
parliamentary one. And wherever significant ethnic and religious diversity
exists in a particular country as large as Iraq, a federal, rather than a
unitary system of government may be in order. In such cases, a bicameral
legislature may be desirable, where one branch represents territorial
divisions. (See further on.) Most importantly, the legal distribution of power
assigned to the various branches of government must take account of the
factual distribution of power in a particular country. Indeed, it will be
necessary to radically change the factual distribution of power of Islamic
regimes if any type of democracy is to endure, and the changes must be
institutionalized and supervised over a significant period of time.
Finally, there inevitably
arises the relationship between religion and state. If Turkey is the model,
separation of religion and state appears to follow. But Turkey is contiguous
with and closely linked to Europe, and it may not be an appropriate model for
all regimes in the far-flung Islamic world. Also, let us be candid and admit
that the separation of religion and state or public law in the West has not
been an unmixed blessing. Separation surely was conducive to personal freedom
and a more tolerant daily life. But over the course of the last two centuries,
as personal freedom and daily life became more and more removed from religion,
or, conversely, the more religion became a Sunday or fringe affair, freedom
became separated from morality. The moral corruption now rampant in the West
is a direct consequence of the separation of church and state. I hasten to
add, however, that this separation was not unrelated to the church’s own
corruption. Hence we must avoid both secular and religious dogmatism when
addressing the problem of democratizing Islam.
To illustrate the problem,
recall Algeria’s experiment with multiparty national elections in December
1991. In the first round of voting, the Islamic Salvation Front did well
enough to prompt the military junta in power to cancel the second round and
outlaw this populist party of unadulterated Muslims.16
The capitals of the democratic world breathed a sigh of relief at this failure
of “democracy”! But meanwhile, Islamic terrorism continues to bloody Algeria.
Another illustration: Democracy
means popular sovereignty, which translates into the rule of the majority. But
the rule of the majority in most Muslim countries would result in the
suppression of many rights associated with democracy. Bernard Lewis put it
this way at the AEI conference mentioned above:
...in the Western
world, we are accustomed to regard women’s rights as part of the liberal
program. In the Middle East, it doesn’t work that way. The liberal program
is giving people what they want and what the people want [in Arab-Islamic
countries] is suppressing women, so that you find that women’s rights [in
the Middle East] fair better under autocratic than [they would] under
democratic regimes.
This is one reason why Lewis
believes that constitutional monarchy, which would be more compatible with
Islamic culture, may also be preferable to unqualified democracy.
The above illustrations suggest
that, given the religiosity of the Muslim masses, successful democratization
of many Islamic regimes will have to be non-secular and moderately
hierarchical. Consistent therewith, Islamic law embodies certain
concepts which may serve the cause of democratization, if these concepts are
newly interpreted, taught in schools, and used to restructure the governments
of Islamic regimes. I have in mind four concepts which Muslim apologists refer
to as having democratic significance, but which skeptics reject as
illusionary. Here is how political scientist David Bukay of Haifa University
defines and dismisses these concepts:
An immense
literature has been published under the rubric, “Democracy in Islam”. It has
several aspects: first, shurah, consultation, as if it functioned as
in the Western system of parliamentary power; second, ijma`, the
consensus of the community, as if there were social and political pluralism
with decisions based on a majority; third, ijtihad, innovative
interpretation, as if there were readiness to absorb opposing values and
positions into the functioning of the Muslim political system; and fourth,
hakmiyah, [as if it means popular] sovereignty...
Even in the
conceptions of Islamic thinkers, shurah does not mean participation
in political processes or political bargaining, including representation of
pressure and interest groups... What they were referring to was an advisory
council of experts in the moral field. Further, ijma` does not
express consensus of the community. Rather it is an accepted tribal
framework made of the tribal leaders or the heads of the community, or a
“council of wise men”. Consensus was never a basis for general public
expression. The same applies to ijtihad...there is no readiness to
absorb the basic values of democracy, such as freedom of assembly and
participation or individual rights. These were the prerogatives of the
ruling elites alone. The people were never sovereign and were never asked
its opinion on political issues. Sovereignty [of the people]...cannot exist
in an all-embracing religion like Islam.17
Dr. Bukay’s skepticism
regarding these concepts loses validity if key Islamic regimes are conquered
and transformed (something he does not contemplate, perhaps because he does
not identify “Islamic fundamentalism” with Islam). Moreover, the
characteristics he attributes to democracy apply primarily to contemporary
democracy, which is secular and devoid of substantive ethical norms. The
present author rejects contemporary or normless democracy, and
proposes, for Islam – indeed, for the West as a whole – a normative or
classical conception of democracy, which can be assimilated to Judaism and
Christianity. Bukay errs when he says, “any religion is opposed to democratic
values in its conceptions and basic principles.”18
As I have elsewhere shown,19 Judaism provides
a solid rational foundation and ethical content for freedom and equality.
Muslims will more readily embrace these principles if they are derived from
man’s creation in the image of God, and not from secular humanism, which, let
us never forget, did not prevent Europe from collaborating in the Nazi
Holocaust. Even now, Europe, the home of humanism, has succumbed to
anti-Semitic support for Arab barbarism.
Returning to the four Islamic
concepts in question, no doubt Professor Lewis had these concepts in mind when
he said, “there are these older traditions, I will not say of democratic
government but of government under law, government by consent, and government
by contract in the Islamic world... And this I think holds possibilities for
the future.”20 Let us see how this can be
done from a theoretical perspective.
Abstracted from the oligarchic
power structure that dominated Islam in the past, “consultation”, “consensus”,
“innovative interpretation”, and “sovereignty” may be construed
to justify a classical, democratic system of institutional checks and
balances. “Consultation” and “consensus” can prescribe and describe the
functional relationship between the executive and legislative branches of
government. The executive obviously consults the legislature when submitting
bills to that body. Whether unicameral or bicameral, the legislature, which in
the West represents the diverse interests and opinions of civil society,
deliberates and reaches an agreement (or consensus) to approve or reject, or
propose amendments to the bills in question. The concept “innovative
interpretation” may be assimilated to the function of a Supreme Court that can
narrow or broaden the application of a law which citizens, in society at
large, may challenge as violating a higher law, a constitution. The principles
of this constitution must not clash with Islamic law as qualified by the first
three aforementioned concepts (and others to be mentioned further on). As for
the fourth concept, “sovereignty”, it must be limited to the majority of the
people as represented in one branch of the Legislature if the latter is
bicameral, as may be desirable in many Islamic regimes. (I shall deal with
minorities later.)
Suggested here is a
constitutional and somewhat hierarchic system of government based on religious
principles. The constitution would prescribe, in addition to Islamic courts,
an independent, unitary executive having the power to propose legislation, but
which legislation would require the approval of a popularly elected assembly.
This assembly need not have the power to initiate legislation. In fact, it was
not until the 17th and 18th centuries that
representative assemblies acquired that function. One can even go back to
classical antiquity and find examples of popular assemblies whose function was
not to make laws but to approve or reject proposed legislation submitted by
magistrates. (John Stuart Mill has said, a “numerous assembly is as little
fitted for the direct business of legislation as for that of administration.”
The primary work of legislation must be done, and increasingly is being done,
by the executive departments and administrative agencies.) We want to
interpenetrate democratic and Islamic values.
There are groups in Muslim
states that would welcome such reform.21
Israel could indirectly encourage them by adopting for itself a constitution
based on Jewish principles, such as that proposed by the present writer in
Jewish Statesmanship: Lest Israel Fall.22
Not only Islam but modern Israel lacks a system of institutional checks and
balances, such as that prescribed in the Torah. Suffice to mention the
division of powers between the King and the Great Sanhedrin or Supreme Court,
whose laws were not valid unless acceptable to the majority of the public.
(See Babylonian Talmud, Avoda Zara, 36a.) Also necessary in Arab states
(as well as in Israel) is decentralization of political power. In large Arab
states, as previously indicated, decentralization of power can be accomplished
by federalism. Again the Torah provides a model: each of Israel’s ancient
tribal or territorial regions had its own governor and its own autonomous
Sanhedrin, whose members were drawn from the region in which they resided.
(This is far more democratic than Israel’s existing system in which the
Knesset, though popularly elected, is subservient to the government, whose
ministers, as a result of fixed party lists and the absence of regional
elections, can ignore public opinion with impunity.)
* * *
Here a brief digression is in
order. It needs to be emphasized that the democratic transformation of Islam
will not come about merely by economic and technological progress in the
Middle East, the crypto-Marxist panacea of Shimon Peres. Islamic despots are
not interested in alleviating the poverty of their people, but in maintaining
Islam’s political-religious power structure. Meanwhile, the cosmopolitan
Internet, far from liberating the Muslim masses, has facilitated the
transmission of anti-Semitism and the global communications of terrorists. It
was not only economic motives but imperialistic ambitions that prompted Nazi
Germany and Japan to launch World War II, and it is only because those
dictatorships were conquered, occupied, and democratized that peace now
prevails between them and the United States. Israel’s political and
intellectual elites should emphasize these facts at home and abroad.
It so happens, however, that
the Jewish state, craving recognition, exaggerates the importance of
establishing diplomatic relations with Islamic regimes, which relations cannot
but dignify these tyrannies. Contrast the US, which did not recognize the
Soviet Union until the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt – 16 years
after the Bolshevik Revolution. Four American presidents, including Woodrow
Wilson, refused to recognize Communist Russia on the grounds that it was
animated by a militant ideology and ruled by men whose signatures to
international agreements were worthless.23
Nor did recognition of the Soviet Union diminish its hostile designs on
democratic America. We see the same hostile attitude in Egypt toward Israel
despite their 1979 peace treaty.
* * *
No peace agreement but only
the tangible democratization of Islam rooted in ethical-religious principles
can provide a basis for peace in the religious Middle East. Such principles
will be found not only in the Torah, but, strange as it may seem, in a joint
resolution of the United States Congress. For in 1991, Congress explicitly
incorporated the Seven Noahide Laws of Universal Morality in Public Law
102-14, which established March 26 as “Education Day”! The Seven Noahide Laws
were recognized by Hugo Grotius, the 17th
century jurisprudent, as the basis of peaceful international relations. They
can provide the moral content for America’s “Operation: Enduring Tradition”
against international terrorism. President George W. Bush, a devout Christian,
is qualified to make the Seven Noahide Laws the ultimate justification of
America’s war against Islamic civilization.
The Noahide Laws, though
violated by all Islamic regimes that breed or harbor terrorists, are
nonetheless laws which Muslim countries profess and should be required to
abide by. Six prohibit idolatry, cursing God, murder, robbery, adultery, and
eating the flesh of a live animal, while the seventh requires the
establishment of courts of justice. Such courts are obviously essential to any
society based on the primacy of reason or persuasion rather than passion or
intimidation.
The Noahide Laws (together with
their particular branches) comprise what may be termed a “genial orthodoxy”.
This genial orthodoxy transcends whatever social or economic distinctions
exist among men: it holds all men equal before the law. By so doing, it places
constraints on governors and governments alike and thereby habituates men to
the rule of law. Moreover, this ancient Hebraic orthodoxy can moderate and
subordinate the differences of various ethnic groups found in various
Arab-Islamic countries and thus facilitate their cooperation and mutual
enrichment. If all nations complied with the Noahide Laws of Universal
Morality, then war, instead of being the norm of international relations,
would be a thing of the past.
Muslim youth need to be taught
that the Noahide Laws come from the Torah, that they unite Jews and
Christians, that Islam would never have come into existence had not Muhammad
learned from Jewish and Christian teachers. Qur`anic verses that
degrade Jews and Christians must be neutralized by juxtaposing contradictory
verses and by commentaries that render such degradation obsolete. Youth should
be taught that it is sinful for Muslims to wage jihad against Jews and
Christians (as well as Hindus). They must be taught that Muslims who murder
women, men, and children in the name of Allah desecrate God’s name. They
should also learn that the concept of jihad contradicts the United
Nations Charter as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which
prescribes “tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial, or religious
groups”. The word jihad should be stricken from Islamic law. Public
renunciation of jihad should be the litmus test of whether a Muslim
regime, consistent with the Seven Noahide Laws, is sincerely committed to
peace. Jihad should mean nothing more than striving for
self-perfection.
President Bush’s “Axis of Evil”
speech following September 11 brands as wicked any Muslim state that provides
a haven for terrorists. This definition applies to almost all Islamic regimes
and thus calls for regime change. Regime change involves not only
WHO
rules and HOW they rule (hence political institutions), but also the ENDS for
which they rule, which ends must have ethical-religious content. From these
three basic factors of regime change, a civic ethos must develop, reinforced
by appropriate educational and social institutions.24
The non-secular democratization of Islam should be a declaratory
principle of American and Israeli foreign policy.
A crucial aspect of
Islam’s democratization is the introduction of a market economy. Such an
economy would decentralize the corporate power of Arab regimes, raise the
living standards of their poverty-stricken people, and hasten the development
of civil society, meaning private and social institutions to counterbalance
the power of government. Israel can hasten Islam’s democratization not only by
adopting the Jewish democratic constitution mentioned above, but also by
privatizing its own economy. But much more needs to be done.
* * *
To facilitate the
democratization of Islam, it will be necessary to curtail the influence of
Arabic in the Muslim but non-Arab world. Let me explain.
Arabic is an official language
of more than twenty states in North Africa and the Middle East (including
Israel). Like any language, Arabic provides people with a sense of identity
and of shared values which, in many instances, transcends national, ethnic,
and even religious differences. Bernard Lewis writes:
Within a
remarkably short time of the Arab conquests in the seventh century, Arabic,
previously limited to the Arabian peninsula and the desert borderlands of
the Fertile Crescent, became the dominant and in time the major language of
most of the Middle East and North Africa. The Qur`an made it the
language of Scripture; the Shari`ah the language of law. The Arab
empire made it the language of government... Even those who retained their
Christian and Jewish faith in time adopted Arabic, not only of necessity, as
the language of communication and commerce, but even as the language of much
of their own religious literatures.25
In short, Arabic, which
supplanted Latin, Greek, and other languages, made the Arab-Islamic empire
possible. It not only endowed Arabs with their sense of superiority, but it
also heightened their aggressive and imperialistic ambitions vis-à-vis
non-Muslim nations. Bearing this in mind, let us turn to Turkey.
Some 80 years ago, Kemel
Ataturk revolutionized Turkey, a non-Arab but Muslim regime, once the heart of
the Ottoman Empire. Ataturk removed Arabic from public life in Turkey,
especially from public law and public education. Turkish became the only
official language of the state. This had two basic consequences. First, it
served to undermine among Turkish citizens any identity with the Arab world.
Second, it facilitated the separation of religion and state, the effect of
which was to make Turkey the only democratic state whose population is
overwhelmingly Muslim.
Accordingly, any Muslim country
today whose population, like Turkey’s, is non-Arab, should be induced to
remove Arabic from its public law and public education and make its own native
language the only official language of the state. This will simultaneously
counteract pan-Arab and pan-Islamic movements as well as international
terrorism. It will also facilitate democratization of Muslim countries.26
If there is a single principle
that could democratize Arab-Islamic states with politically significant ethnic
and religious diversity, that principle is federalism. Iraq is a case
in point. Here allow me to quote from, as well as paraphrase, various passages
from a paper delivered by Kanan Makiya, a scholar-in-residence at the Center
for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.
Addressing the AEI Conference
mentioned above, Professor Makiya pointed out that federalism would “break the
mold of Arab politics”. There is no literature in Arabic on federalism and no
experience in federalism. Yet, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the Kurdish
Parliament in northern Iraq, and most other Iraqi organizations that oppose
Saddam Hussein’s regime, advocate one interpretation of federalism or another.
For Makiya, federalism is the cornerstone of a future Iraqi democracy.
Federalism involves two related
ideas: a division of power in the central government, as well as a transfer of
power from the center toward semi-autonomous territorial regions.
“Unfortunately,” says Makiya, “neither the Kurdish Parliament nor the INC has
as yet developed in detail what they mean by this new idea.” Establishing
federalism in Iraq (or elsewhere) raises profound issues, such as power
sharing and resource distribution.
Although the Kurds have
sometimes expressed the desire for independent statehood, federalism has
become a condition sine qua non for their staying inside a new Iraq.
Without a federal
system of government, in which real power is devolved toward the regions,
the currently autonomous predominantly Kurdish north will sooner or later
opt for separation, and rightly so. After all that has been done to the
Kurds in the name of Arabism, no Iraqi should expect otherwise, and
certainly no one who calls him or herself a democrat.
As Makiya views Iraq’s future,
...the project as
big as restructuring the state of Iraq on a federal basis should be
undertaken not on utilitarian grounds but in terms of some fundamental
democratic principle, namely that: “the rights of the part or the
minority should never be sacrificed to the will of the majority.”
Whether the part is
defined as a single individual or a collectivity of individuals who speak
another language and have their own culture, the rights of these parts are
inviolable by the state. Federalism, therefore, concerns the rights of those
collective parts of the mosaic that is Iraqi society.
Here the question arises: How
should the different parts of the new Iraqi federation be defined? Should it
be on the basis of ethnicity or on the basis of territoriality? If ethnicity
is the basis of federalism, Iraq would then be composed of two regions, the
first Arab, the second Kurdish. The Kurds are the driving force behind this
definition. According to Makiya, most non-Kurdish Iraqis oppose ethnicity as
the basis of an Iraqi federation, and for three reasons:
-
First, it will cause
ethnicity to become the basis for making territorial claims and
counterclaims especially with regards to high profit resources located in
one region and not another. The fight over Kirkuk, for instance, is already
moving in this direction with Arab, Kurdish and Turkoman claims fighting
with one another over this oil-rich city.
-
The second objection is that
when a federation is defined as being about two ethnic groups, then clearly
all the other ethnic groups who do not have a share in the federation are
being to some degree or another discriminated against. Why should an
Armenian or a Chaldean or a Turkoman citizen of Iraq have any less rights as
an individual than an Arab or a Kurd in a post-Saddam Iraq? Such
discrimination in favor of the two largest ethnic groups in Iraq is
inherently undemocratic.
-
The third objection is that
we simply cannot map out on the ground a federation that included all the
different ethnic and religious groups in Iraq. These groupings are not all
territorially concentrated. There are Kurds in Baghdad and Arabs in
Sulaymaniyya, and there are Turkomans, Armenians and Chaldeans mixed in with
Arabs and Kurds everywhere in many locations.
“Therefore,” Makiya concludes,
“a federation of many ethnic groups would be no improvement on a federation
made up of only two large groups.” Accordingly, the basis of an Iraqi
federation should be
territoriality in
which each separate region receives its share of national resources, for
instance, oil revenues, according to the relative size of its population...
The point becomes not to dilute or diminish the Kurdishness of a Kurd or the
Arabness of an Arab. It is to put a premium on the equality of citizenship
for all. (As will be seen in a moment, this will require a bicameral
legislature.)
As Makiya points out, what is
most striking about an Iraqi federation based on territoriality is that
this new Iraq could no longer be thought of, in any politically meaningful
sense of the word, as an Arab state! This novel idea would revolutionize
the Middle East. After all, whereas Arabism sees Iraq as part of the Arab
world, Islamism sees Iraq as part of the Islamic world. Federalism would not
only serve to democratize Islam, it would fragment it even more effectively
than nationalism!
One further principle of
democratization must be emphasized. As previously indicated, federalism
logically entails a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism may also be
appropriate in Arab or Muslim countries which do not have large ethnic and
religious minorities. Given a bicameral legislature, the lower branch can be
designed in such a way as to protect these minorities, which in the past have
been degraded as dhimmis. “Dhimmitude” (as well as slavery) must
be eliminated from Islam, and of course the status of women must be elevated
without encouraging the West’s family-destructive feminism.
Given a pluralistic system of
government in any Middle East country, a constitution is obviously necessary
to define the powers of the various branches of government and to foster the
rule of law. But now a most delicate and difficult question arises: Who will
protect this constitution against a reactionary Islamic coup? In Turkey, the
constitution, hence democracy, is protected by the military!27
What does this portend for the democratization, say, of Iraq?
First of all, the United States
and its coalition partners will have to maintain a fairly large military force
in Iraq for perhaps two or three decades (during which time this force should
become more and more inconspicuous). This military force will protect Iraq’s
constitutional democracy. But it should also cultivate a domestic military
force that will have a vested interest in protecting this democratic
constitution (as in Turkey).
Second, American commercial
relations with Iraq must be designed to foster the development of a large
middle class, a precondition of regime stability and a natural barrier to
Islamic extremism, provided this middle class has been educated along lines
indicated in this paper.
The United States must be very
watchful of the Islamic country’s education curriculum. Pan-Arabism and
pan-Islamism as well as anti-Semitism must not be permitted. At the same time,
it will be necessary to expose the evil consequences of the doctrine of moral
and cultural relativism that permeates Western education. Otherwise, this
doctrine will undermine conviction in the justice of America’s cause as well
as the sacrifice and perseverance required to maintain US troops in the Middle
East to oversee the democratization of Islam. Relativism would make nonsense
of any proposal to have Arab teachers receive any post-graduate education in
the West or to promote faculty exchange programs. How can one logically
emphasize the blessings of constitutional democracy when American university
professors propagate the corrosive doctrine of relativism? Constitutional
democracy in the Middle East is a necessary precondition of peace in this
region. Another is a Jewish foreign policy, to which I now turn.
Part III: Some Principles of a Jewish Foreign
Policy
-
Israel, the teacher of
ethical monotheism is supposed to set an example to mankind. Accordingly,
Israel will not establish diplomatic relations with any tyrannical regime.
To do so is to dignify tyrants and perpetuate their unjust rule over their
people. Courting tyrannies demeans Israel and lowers the moral standards of
the Jewish people. The Torah makes distinctions between good and bad
regimes, and warns against seeking relations with those which are wicked.
(See Numbers 25:1-3, 17-18; Jeremiah 10:23.) Even before the assassination
of Anwar Sadat, the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and
Egypt, a military dictatorship, was followed by an increase of anti-Semitism
in Egypt’s state-controlled media. Much the same may be said of Jordan,
where to sell property to Jews remains a capital offense. Until Islam
undergoes basic structural transformation, for Israel to court recognition
of Arab states only magnifies their contempt. Also, by not seeking
relations with hostile Arab regimes, Israel will cease to be diplomatically
dependent on the United States.
-
Consistent with the
preceding, Israel should either resign from the United Nations or call it to
account. “Praiseworthy is the man who walked not in the counsel of the
wicked, and stood not in the path of the sinful, and sat not in the session
of scorners.” (Psalms 1:1) Tens of millions
of Americans have participated in a movement – “Get US out of the UN!”
They perceive the UN as anti-American. Surely Israel can have no higher
opinion of this anti-Semitic organization.
Caroline Glick excoriates the UN’s record against Israel:
Over the past year alone, the UN has passed resolution
after resolution, in the Security Council, in the General Assembly, in its
Human Rights Commission, and even in its Commission on Aging that deny
Israel its legal right, under Article 51 of the UN Charter, to defend
itself against aggression.
In one month, between March and April [2002], the UN
Security Council held 32 separate debates on Israel. The UN Conference on
Racism last September effectively reinstated the General Assembly’s
definition of Zionism as racism and thus denied that Israel has the legal
right to exist under international law. In April, the UN Human Rights
Commission passed a resolution endorsing Palestinian terrorism against
Israel.
For the past 54 years, the UN has followed a consistent and
coherent policy regarding only one issue:
anti-Semitism. Its policy has been to advance anti-Semitism by
systematically and illegally discriminating against the Jewish state all
the time and everywhere. In so doing, the UN has lost even the semblance
of legitimacy as a world government. It cannot be regarded as a body
responsible for enforcing international law, because in its systematic
discrimination against Israel, it stands in breach of international law as
embodied in its own charter’s determination that all member states are to
be treated equally.28
Dr. Bukay has this to say of the UN:
This is an organization that has never advanced peace and
never prevented war; this is an organization that works for its own sake
alone, and strives against the values for which it was set up. This is an
organization that surrendered to the dictates of the Arab and Islamic
states, against the social-economic interests of the Third World
countries.29
Fred
Fleitz, senior adviser to Under Secretary of State John Bolton, exposes UN
waste and corruption and the resulting human costs. His book, Peacekeeping
Fiascoes of the 1990s: Causes, Solutions, and US Interests,
provides a comprehensive and highly critical assessment of the UN. Among other
debacles, he shows
how the failed UN mission in
Bosnia led to unmitigated atrocities; how the UN debacle in Somalia emboldened
terrorists the world over; how the UN operation in Cambodia enabled a ruthless
dictator, Hun Sen, to consolidate and retain power in that country; how the UN
peacekeeping operation in Haiti collapsed, with the billions of dollars
squandered on it, principally benefiting Haitian President Jean-Bertrande
Artistide. To all this, add the UN sponsored Durban Conference, which became a
vicious instrument of anti-Semitism and Israel-bashing.
The
very reason why Israel (belatedly) refused to become a member of the recently
formed International Criminal Court (ICC) is the same reason
why Israel should seriously consider whether it should remain a member of the
UN. The ICC is a
supranational tribunal designed to supersede concepts of national sovereignty.
The US has not signed on to the ICC because Americans are concerned that the
ICC will be influenced by people with anti-American or indeed anti-Western
agendas. Its officials may launch frivolous prosecutions against American
soldiers or diplomats to further their own political ideas and ambitions. What
applies to the US applies doubly to Israel. The UN’s unfriendly
Security Council can instruct the ICC
to try Jewish settlers, soldiers, and statesmen as “war criminals”!
The
vast majority of the countries represented in the UN are dictatorships which
should never have been admitted to, or allowed to remain in, the UN, since
they violate Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which
declares, “Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his
country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.” If Israel does
not resign from the UN it should introduce resolutions calling for the
democratization or expulsion of any member that violates the UN Charter.
The UN
is not only a sinkhole of corruption and ineptitude. It is intended by
globalists to metamorphose into a secularized world government. Such a
government (like a theocratic one under Islam) would constitute the greatest
tyranny in human history. A world government would have a monopoly of military
power with agents everywhere to prevent any country from developing its own
arms. Such a government would impose a stultifying uniformity on all nations,
contrary to the Torah. God creates nations, which have a right to develop
their own cultural identity, limited only by the Seven Noahide Laws of
Universal Morality.
Israel’s having a forum at the UN is of dubious value. If the UN cannot be
reformed, better that Israel remains true to its biblical reputation as a
nation that stands apart, at least from that pernicious organization.
-
Consistent with Jewish law,
Israel will not export arms to any foreign nation except under extreme
circumstances. Generally speaking, international arms sales promote war,
sustain tyrannies, and impoverish people.
-
Given weapons of mass
destruction, no nation – certainly not minuscule Israel – can afford to wait
to be attacked before it retaliates. Accordingly, Israel will pursue a
pre-emptive war strategy.
-
After uprooting every vestige
of terrorism in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, Israel will enact a law that
explicitly incorporates this Jewish land into the State. Such a law will
merely confirm Amendment 11B of the Law and Administrative Ordinance of
1967, which authorizes the government to apply Israeli law to any area of
the Land of Israel that had come under the control of the IDF and which was
not previously included within the jurisdiction of the State. By a simple
order, the government can thus bring Judea, Samaria, and Gaza within the
jurisdiction of the State (as was done in eastern Jerusalem and the Golan
Heights).
-
The government will speak
with one voice only. Any elected official that criticizes any act of
Israel’s Government while that official is abroad will be dismissed.
-
Israel’s government will
comport itself in such a way as to uphold the dignity of the Jewish heritage
and sanctify the Name of God.
Conclusion
Israel, faithful to the Jewish
heritage, is the connecting link between East and West. By virtue of its
unique synthesis of particularism and universalism, Judaism can simultaneously
justify ethnicity and emphasize the one doctrine that can prevent ethnic
conflict and bloodshed: the Seven Noahide Laws of Universal Morality, i.e.,
ethical monotheism. Moreover, because of its long-established affinity to
science, Judaism can endow science – which has served despots as well as
democrats – with ethical constraints lacking in the West and urgently needed
in the East whose stockpiling of weapons of mass murder is not for purposes of
deterrence. But for Israel to set an example to mankind, it will need to
pursue a distinctively Jewish foreign policy.
Only such a policy can inspire
Israel’s friend, the United States. These two nations are the most natural
allies. America was founded by men educated in universities whose presidents
and curriculums were very Hebraic. Indeed, the American Constitution owes very
much to Jewish principles and values. (If only Israel had a similar
constitution!) Recently, 98 out of 100 senators, and 412 out of 435
representatives passed a resolution supportive of Israel. If Israel had a
presidential form of government headed by a man of Jewish pride and
conviction, allied with the Christian pride and conviction of his American
counterpart, America and Israel would together save mankind from a religion
that has become a cult of death.
Endnotes
1 |
New York: Schocken Books, 1998, pp. 27-28. |
2 |
Ibid., p. 141. |
3 |
See <http://www.aei.org/past_event/conf021003a.htm#kry>. |
4 |
Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America,
New York: Random House, 2001, p. 306, emphasis in the original. |
5 |
Ibid., pp. 297-297. |
6 |
Jerusalem Post, September 11,
2002, p. 3. |
7 |
The Gathering Storm, Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1948, p. 55. |
8 |
Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide,
Fairleigh Dickenson University Press, 2002. |
9 |
See David Bukay, Total Terrorism in the Name of Allah, ACPR
Publications, 2002. |
10 |
“The War on Terror Won’t End in Baghdad”, Wall Street Journal, in
Jerusalem Post, September 5, 2002, p. 15. See also Mark Steyn,
“First We Take Baghdad”, Jerusalem Post, August 25, 2002, p. 9. |
11 |
Interview in Ha’aretz Magazine, April 13, 2001. |
12 |
See Paul Eidelberg, Jewish Statesmanship: Lest Israel Fall, ACPR
2000, 2001, English and Hebrew, ch. 10. Published in Russian by the
Foundation for Constitutional Democracy, Jerusalem, 2001. The English
edition has been republished by the University Press of America, Lanham,
MD, 2002. |
13 |
See Samuel P. Huntington, “How Countries Democratize”, Political
Science Quarterly, Winter, 1991-92, Vol. 106, No. 4, pp. 91-92. |
14 |
See Mordechai Nisan, Minorities in the Middle East, Jefferson,
NC: McFarland, 1991, p. 2. |
15 |
Ibid., pp. 7-11. |
16 |
See Bukay, op. cit., p. 60, for some details. |
17 |
Ibid., p. 136. |
18 |
Ibid., p. 135. |
19 |
See Paul Eidelberg, Judaic Man: Toward a Reconstruction of Western
Civilization, Middletown, NJ: Caslon, 1996, pp. 131-143. |
20 |
Statement at the AEI Conference. |
21 |
See “The Democracy Agenda in the Arab World”, Middle East Journal,
Vol. 46, No. 1, Winter 1992, p. 3; As`ad Abu Khahil, “A New Arab
Strategy?: The Arab Rejuvenation of Arab Nationalism”, p. 31. |
22 |
Op. cit., Jewish Statesmanship, ch. 10. |
23 |
See Paul Eidelberg, Beyond Détente: Toward an American Foreign Policy,
LaSalle, IL: Sherwood Sugden, 1977, ch. 5, which shows how moral
relativism facilitated US recognition of the “Evil Empire”. |
24 |
Here I am indebted to Professor Will Morrisey for reminding me of what
we both learned from Aristotle’s teachings. |
25 |
Op. cit., Lewis, p. 50. |
26 |
I
am gratefully indebted to Professor Israel Hanukoglu for this proposal
and its exemplification in Turkey. |
27 |
Op. cit., Bukay, p. 62. |
28 |
Jerusalem Post, October 4,
2002, p. 1. |
29 |
Op. cit., Bukay, p. 161, n. 75. |