The news that Yemeni cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki has called on American Muslims to join jihad against the U.S. reminds me of a warning I think I first heard from Rami Khouri: national conflict in the Middle East is in danger of becoming a religious one, and that's scary. As a Jew concerned with my tribe's responsibility in these issues, I'd point out that Israel/Zionism plays a role in this transformation. I'm not saying it's their doing, but they play a part. In that vein I'd compare Al-Awlaki's threats with an interesting moment in the life of Benjamin Netanyahu's father.
First, here's Al-Awlaki, transcribed by CNN:
"With the American invasion of Iraq and continued U.S. aggression against Muslims, I could not reconcile between living in the U.S. and being a Muslim, and I eventually came to the conclusion that jihad against America is binding upon myself just as it is binding on every other Muslim," he says in the recording that runs more than 12 minutes.
"To the Muslims in America, I have this to say: How can your conscience allow you to live in peaceful co-existence with a nation that is responsible for the tyranny and crimes committed against your own brother and sisters? How can you have your loyalty to a government that is leading the war against Islam and Muslims?"
In 1940, Benjamin Netanyahu's father, Benzion Netanyahu, a militant Zionist, worked in the United States to raise money for a Jewish army in Europe and Palestine. In his book Militant Zionism in America, Rafael Medoff says that many mainstream Jews and Zionists opposed the effort:
An additional concern of Dr. [Stephen] Wise and his colleagues was that the creation of an international Jewish army would provoke questions about whether Jews were loyal to the Jewish army or the armed forces of the United States. The proliferation of anti-Semitic "war-mongering" charges against the American Jewish community during the 1930s had Jewish leaders on edge. Congress Weekly, the organ of Wise's American Jewish Congress, openly worried that non-Jews would think "that the Jewish army is intended to be composed of Jewish citizens in America, thus raising questions which did not exist of loyalty of Jews to their country." The ZOA [Zionist Organization of America] journal New Palestine likewise feared that any hints of American Jews joining a Jewish army would be "mischievous in their effect on the status of American Jews." ... The British Foreign Office, hoping to exploit such American Jewish fears, at one point urged the British Embassy in Washington to circulate "the idea that the formation of a Jewish army might be contrary to American tradition."
...President Roosevelt made it clear to Wise that Washington would defer to the British on the army question since a Jewish army might anger the Arabs [whom the British depended upon for its WW2 campaign in N Africa]
Netanyahu didn't care about the opposition. He was a Jabotinsky-ite, an aide to Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the Revisionist Zionist who died that year in upstate New York. Netanyahu held fundraisers for the Jewish army in New York. And in 1944, Churchill agreed to the formation of a Jewish Brigade. It played a role in helping survivors of the Holocaust emigrate to Palestine, Medoff reports. And of course many of the brigade veterans went on to join the Haganah, the new Israeli army that repulsed the Arab armies and participated in the ethnic cleansing of historical Palestine on a religious basis in 1948. Militant American Zionists also contributed to that effort, with money and weapons, often breaking the law to do so.
Let's be clear: the appeal to American Jews to support a Jewish army was never a call on Americans to fight the United States, ala the jihadist. But many American Jews justly perceived a conflict between their national and religious identities in Netanyahu's appeal. That conflict continues today, when General Petraeus says that the special relationship with Israel is hurting our country across the Middle East, and fostering Islamic radicalism; and the Israel lobby, now firmly ensconced in the American discourse, says that this plain fact is a lie. (They said the same thing after 9/11.)
“My tribe”?
Phil, get the hell off the fence, besides, as I remember my apocryphal Haftorah, you lose the privilege of saying “my tribe” when you marry a Gentile girl, and drag Israel through the mud every day.
Of course, if you can take down the tribe’s chiefs, and replace them, you get to change the rules.
“To the Muslims in America, I have this to say: How can your conscience allow you to live in peaceful co-existence with a nation that is responsible for the tyranny and crimes committed against your own brother and sisters? How can you have your loyalty to a government that is leading the war against Islam and Muslims?”
I have started to realize that the Islamic tenets of Al Quida is the greatest enemy of Islam, and it has changed totally its character since 9/11. The rest – Bali bombing, ferry sinking, bombing of mosques in Egypt, Iraq, bombing and beheading in Pakistan the rest of the tragic confusion are only consequences in history…
NO !, forget this preceding idea…let them (Jihadists) continue what they’re thinking… that makes our path to our human destiny more defined, targeted, and stable…
Every time I see a Muslim trying to bring havoc too the American society, I am really saddened – poor guy!… But what embarasses me more is to see a black face…will a white muslim do the same thing? this is making me a racist! is black equated to such mental….
I mean if no white american muslim will not do the same terroristic thing, people in the entire world might believe that american blacks are statistically all idiots!
people in the entire world might believe that american blacks are statistically all idiots!
quit hyperventilating. the entire world is not this stupid.
You are right, Mooser. Phil now gets to say “American” when he speaks of himself.
Fer f*cks sake. Yet another American born ‘cleric’ calling for Jihad. And no doubt it will be learned that he was posting incendiary comments on the internet from his mother’s basement in New Jersey with the full knowledge of the FBI for the past ten years. These groups are as rotten with informants and provocateurs as the American Nazi Party. There should be a presumption that these telegenic jihadis are government agents until proven otherwise.
This jihadi business smells like a five-day-old tuna.
Muslim clerics dont operate like that within Islam. They dont mix government and religion. Look at Iran. The mullahs are in charge of the spiritual direction of the country and Ahmadinejad is in charge of the secular part.
It is a joke to assume that a Yemeni cleric could or would dictate anything to American muslims. Doesn’t make one ounce of sense.
I always find that hilarious as well.
Some random no name cleric in a hole in Yemen “urges” Muslims in America to make “Jihad” and its somehow a big deal.
Seriously, anyone can do what this guy did. I can convert to Islam and call for a Jihad on youtube right now, would it be credible?
I hope the news stops reporting these things and stops giving importance to these nobodies that no one else would have heard about had it not been for CNN and FOX blasting their views on the MSM.
Now, the day a top ranking cleric at Al Azhar like Tantawi makes such a statement may get me to raise my eyebrow, but even then I wouldn’t be worried, as most Muslim don’t even know who Tantawi is anyway =P
It is not my habit to post Youtube videos (much less lectures) on the comments section of blogs but this is relevant to the post and is just too good not to share. This informal lecture at Cambridge by British Muslim scholar Dr. Tim Winter (aka Abdal Hakim Murad) discusses the classical Islamic view in violence, warfare, and terrorism. Its unapologetic, nuanced and very much relevant to current events in International Relations. Probably the best talk on the subject that I have ever seen. Enjoy:
link to youtube.com
I’m not saying it’s their doing,
That’s debatable. The Zionist driven Islamophobia in the US certainly doesn’t help, before 9/11 Islamphobia and anti-Arab racism was prevalent in Hollywood movies as shown in the documentary Reel Bad Arabs. Post 9/11 such hatred took center stage and became prevalent in so-called news commentaries and literature.
From 1947-1949, Las Vegas businessman Hank Greenspun spent a couple of years buying up weapons and smuggling them to the Zionists. His arms played an important role in allowing the Zionists to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians. Greenspun later became the publisher of the Las Vegas Sun newspaper, which at one time was the largest newspaper in the state of Nevada. He was indicted twice for violating the Neutrality Act, with “his defense provided by Israeli interests”. Greenspun was acquitted of a first set of charges in 1949, but pleaded guilty to a second set in 1950. The judge pronounced that Greenspun’s crimes were serious
“because the arms were used to kill innocent people in a war,” and Greenspun blurted out “Innocent people? The Arabs??” He paid a fine, avoided jail, but was denied the right to vote. In 1961 Pres. Kennedy pardoned Greenspun.
Hank Greenspun is no longer living, but his son Brian Greenspun is still alive, heading up Greenspun Communications, and a big wheel in the local and national Democratic party politics.
Reference: The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America, 1947-2000, Sally Denton and Roger Morris, Knopf 2001.
RE: Las Vegas businessman Hank Greenspun
NYT : “…He was convicted in a Federal court on charges of gun running – a crime he later said he was very proud of -but was later pardoned by President John F. Kennedy. The pardon enabled Mr. Greenspun to run for office in Nevada, but he lost a bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 1962….”
NYT OBIT – link to nytimes.com