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Authors: Nonie Darwish

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BOOK: The Devil We Don't Know
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Even if a war is not waged on Israel first, it is not unreasonable to predict bloody civil unrest arising in several Muslim countries if things get worse and not better after the revolutions. Arab rulers have always dealt with internal civil unrest by redirecting people's anger away from their government and toward Israel. Over and over, Arab governments have found that attacking Israel is an easy way to end internal conflict in their own countries, to avoid responsibility, and to deflect people's attention away from Arab rulers.

Nothing unifies the Arab world more than collective hatred for Israel, and nothing better takes the world's attention off an Arab leader's failure to get his own house in order. During the 2011 Syrian uprising against him, President Assad, right in the heat of the uprising, encouraged a large number of citizens to march to Israel's borders, knowing well in advance that Israel would naturally shoot at those assaulting its territory. It is insane, but Muslim leaders keep subjecting their citizens to certain death merely to win a few internal battles, such as, in this case, distracting citizens from internal uprisings. Yet in this instance, with the march on Israel's borders, Assad did not achieve his intended goal of ending protests against his regime.

Shooting at Israel has always been the way that Arabs solve their internal conflicts. Here is how it is done: First, Arabs must find an excuse to fire at Israel, and if they can't, they must create a reason. Stories about the latter are many, but a famous one concerned a shooting staged with the help of the media. The scene was supposed to be cross-fire between Israelis and Palestinians, without any actual fighting on the Israeli side. A Palestinian father named Al-Dura and his son were supposedly caught in the cross-fire, and the boy was seemingly killed on camera. The video does not show any blood on either person, and the little boy began moving after he was pronounced dead. French media analyst Philippe Karsenty did a heroic job of uncovering this as a hoax and embarrassed the media that promoted this video.

If staging lies does not work, then perhaps kidnapping an Israeli soldier, shooting a few missiles, or sailing a Freedom flotilla boat to Gaza will do the trick. The key strategy is to provoke Israel into shooting back. In the bloody civil unrest between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza in 2006, with the help of Hezbollah in Lebanon, both groups kidnapped Israeli soldiers and shot missiles into Israel, which led to the 2006 Israel/Lebanon war.

Arabs have mentally trained themselves to play this game without thinking, and it has often served their goals. It is unfortunate that the Western world does not seem to understand how Arabs threaten Israel's safety and security in a convoluted scheme to solve internal conflicts and manipulate world opinion so that Arabs are seen as victims of Israel.

With this strategy of provoking Israel to defend itself by shooting back at the “poor unarmed Palestinians,” Arabs often kill two birds with one stone: they end the internal civil conflict, while at the same time cause Israel to be condemned by Western media and the UN. In all likelihood, future Arab civil unrest will still be stifled in the same pathological way. The manipulators do not care at all about the loss of life on either side, however much they may shed crocodile tears in front of CNN's cameras.

Egypt has the largest army in the Arab world, and some people jokingly say it is an army with a country, rather than a country with an army. It is doubtful that an Egyptian leader will actually break the peace treaty with Israel in response to pressure from his people. No one can predict the future, but if Egypt joins the hostilities against Israel, it will not be after Egypt “officially” breaks the treaty. Egyptians do not usually operate this way. It will more likely be the result of their smuggling weapons into Gaza, or perhaps Egypt will claim that Israel was the aggressor, saying that Israelis broke the treaty when they were provoked to fire back. With new blood coming into the conflict from Iran, Turkey, and Lebanon, all indications suggest that a confrontation is brewing against Israel. Then Israel will once again find itself surrounded by enemies on all sides. This would be reminiscent of the awful days under President Gamal Nasser in the 1950s and the 1960s, when Egypt's existence revolved around the destruction of Israel. I lost my father to that struggle, and thousands of Egyptian soldiers unnecessarily lost their lives.

Israel has defied all odds, survived, and thrived, while suffering through repeated terror attacks from all directions by nations that have a pathological obsession to destroy it. Most nations would crumble under such pressure, but Israel is a truly unique country. What Israel has on its side is the truth and its conviction and faith in itself, its survival, and its purpose. The Islamic cause is a deceptive and convoluted goal that must hide its true intent, which is to eliminate an entire group of people, the Jews, for no reason other than that they are Jews.

This situation is unparalleled in human history, in its complexity and dysfunction. The true innocent victim in this drama is Israel, which represents the Jewish people in the eyes of Muslims, and which is dragged unwillingly into the Islamist web of unreasonable conflicts. At the center of all of this is Islam's deep existential fear that goes back to the prophet Mohammed and keeps repeating itself to this day.

Islam's obsession with the Jews reaches back to its origins and is part of a huge cover-up of deep shame and guilt over Mohammed's behavior toward the Jews of Medina. All of the atrocities and the violations that Mohammed committed against the people of Arabia were covered up and erased from their memory when they converted to Islam, except for one group that never accepted Islam, even by the sword. That group consisted of the Jewish tribes of Medina, who chose expulsion and decapitation over abandoning their faith to Islam. What Mohammed did to the Jews of Medina has become the unspeakable cover-up of Islam, actions that no prophet—or human being, for that matter—should commit even against his worst enemy. No prophet documented in the history of man, except Mohammed, has ever committed mass genocide.

In chapter 3, I explained how Islam burdens Muslims with the duty of protecting Mohammed's honor, an unusual demand of its followers by a religion. Mohammed's honor was stained, not by the Jews, but by Mohammed's own behavior toward them. That memory of Mohammed's shame survived in Mohammed's mind until he died, and it continues to live in the minds of Muslims as long as there are Jewish people.

One of the last things that Mohammed addressed on his deathbed was what he cared about the most. His last words were about his success in making Arabia free of Jews, Christians, and any religion other than Islam. Yet Mohammed's deathbed words did not end there and were followed by this well-documented hadith (“saying”): “The Hour [Resurrection] will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews, and kill them. And the Jews will hide behind the rock and tree, and the rock and tree will say: oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, this is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!” (Sahih Muslim 41:6985; Sahih Bukhari 4:52:177).

With these final words, Mohammed commanded Muslims to pursue the Jews wherever they went in order to kill them. This hadith declared the existence of an entire group of people illegal under Islam. It was a fatwa of death (a death warrant) against Jews. This hadith did not originate in recent times; it was not documented by Muslims only after Israel became a state in 1948. Instead, it was stated as a commandment by the prophet of Islam in the seventh century.

Anti-Semitism originated with Islam. This religion has launched waves of hatred against Jews in many other areas of the world.

Muslims today are still fighting the unfinished business of Mohammed. That is why the Arab-Israeli conflict should be more accurately called an Islamic-Jewish conflict, because non-Arab Muslim countries such as Iran have now openly made this conflict their own. If we look at a map of Israel in comparison to a map of the Muslim world, from Morocco to Indonesia, no sane person will believe that this is simply a Palestinian problem about land.

These are not only my words, but the words of many Islamic leaders and Islamic scriptures that state that the Jewish problem is not a problem over land. Listen to the words of two top Muslim scholars. Qatari cleric Sheik Muhammad Al-Muraikhi said, “We do not treat the Jews as our enemies just because they occupied Palestine, or because they occupied a precious part of our Arab and Islamic world. We will treat the Jews as our enemies even if they return Palestine to us, because they are infidels. They rejected Allah and His messengers.”
7
Egyptian cleric Muhammad Hussein Ya'qoub said, “The Jews are the enemies of Muslims regardless of the occupation of Palestine. You must believe that we will fight, defeat and annihilate them, until not a single Jew remains on the face of the earth.”
8

Why is that? Have Muslims ever questioned why their prophet demanded them to kill Jews wherever they find them? Why do their religious leaders say they must annihilate the Jews? What could ever drive a prophet and the holy men of Allah to promote such a vendetta? A truthful analysis and answer to these questions will expose an existential dilemma at the heart of Islam. If it is fully exposed to Muslims, then I have no doubt that Islam will cease to exist.

When Mohammed embarked on his mission to spread Islam, his objective was to create a uniquely Arabian religion, one created by an Arab prophet, which reflected the Arabian culture. Yet to obtain legitimacy, he linked it to the two previous Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity. He expected the Jewish tribes who lived in Arabia to declare him their Messiah and thereby bring him more legitimacy with Arabs, especially with his own tribe in Mecca, the Quraish. Because his own tribe had rejected and ridiculed him, Mohammed needed the approval of the Jews and their conversion to Islam to prove to Meccans that they had made a mistake by rejecting him. He then migrated to Medina, a town that had predominantly been settled by Jewish tribes and a few Arabs. The Jews allowed Mohammed to move in.

At the beginning, the Koran of Mecca was full of appeals to the Jews, who were then described as “guidance and light” (5:44) and a “righteous” people (6:153–154), who “excelled the nations” (45:16). Mohammed expected that the Jews would be eager to believe in him and his new religion, but the Jews refused to convert to Islam and abandon their religion. Mohammed was alarmed, and the tone of the Koran toward the Jews changed from appreciation to warning: “I have come to you with a Sign from your Lord. So fear Allah, and obey me” (Koran 3:5). Still, the Jews refused to take Mohammed as their Messiah and pointed to his lack of knowledge and mistakes in his understanding of the Bible. Mohammed was devastated and could not control his anger, envy, and wish to punish them for humiliating him. He felt their refusal to be a great blow to his credibility and his hope of getting the respect he yearned for from his own Mecca tribe. The rejection of the Jews reinforced his tribe's belief that he was a fraud.

Mohammed then escalated his threats toward the Jews, especially after he began to feel empowered by winning battles against other Arab tribes. When his threats did not work, he described Jews as subhuman apes and beasts: “For the worst of beasts in the sight of Allah are those who reject Him: They will not believe” (Koran 8:55).

Rejection by the Jews became an intolerable obsession with Mohammed. Not only did the Jews reject him, but their prosperity made him extremely envious. The Jewish tribes were successful businessmen who earned their living legitimately, through agriculture, trade, and tool making. On the other hand, Mohammed earned his living and wealth through warfare, by attacking Arab tribes and trade caravans and seizing their wealth and property. That did not look good for a man who claimed to be a prophet.

Mohammed also had his eyes on the wealth, the homes, and the women of the Jews and wanted them for himself and his warriors. Because the Jews were the ones who welcomed him to live among them in Medina when in desperation he needed to leave his tribe, Mohammed had to find a reason to justify his attack against them. Mohammed accused the Jews of having broken a treaty, and Allah himself agreed with Mohammed in a verse of the Koran: “They are those with whom thou didst make a covenant, but they break their covenant every time, and they have not the fear [of Allah]” (Koran 8:56). There was never any proof of the Jews having signed a treaty, but still Mohammed's anger kept building up. “And let not those who disbelieve suppose that they can outstrip [Allah's purpose]. Lo! they cannot escape” (Koran 8:59). And escape from Mohammed's violence, the Jews could not.

One Jewish tribe after another was subjected to siege, execution, and confiscation of property. Mohammed's soldiers were put under incredible pressure to fight against the Jews, among whom they lived as fellow Medina citizens. The Koran documented that some wanted to flee from the bloody battles against the Jews. Fighters who wanted to avoid killing the Jews were cursed, shamed, and called hypocrites in the Koran: “That Allah may reward the men of truth for their truth, and punish the hypocrites” (Koran 33:24). “And those of the people of the Scripture who backed them [the Jewish tribe], Allah brought them down from their forts and cast terror into their hearts, a group you killed, and a group you made captives” (33:26). The Koran here referred to the killing of the male Jews and capturing the women and the children. It is important to note that the Koran referred to Allah as the cause of the terror in the hearts of the Jews. As the Koran stated, Allah was actually the one responsible and not Mohammed. As to the property that Mohammed seized, the Koran legitimized it in Surah 33:27: “And He caused you to inherit their lands, and their houses, and their riches, and a land which you had not trodden.” The Koran comforted Muslims after they seized the property and the homes of the Jews they had just beheaded, saying these were a legitimate inheritance given to them by Allah.

Islamic books that document the life of Mohammed, written by the well-known Ibn Ishaq and Tabari, detailed what happened to the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza, which lived in Medina, at the hands of Mohammed and his followers. Even the angel Gabriel allegedly encouraged Mohammed not to abandon fighting and actually joined him in the fight:

BOOK: The Devil We Don't Know
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