The edge of the abyss: battle not with monsters

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This is a response to a very interesting comment by Marilyn L

the problem is that scapgoating of Jews is a litmus test of violence to come. If you can get people to hate Jews, it’s easier to get them to hate in general.

Hitler scapegoated Jews to unify Germany in his vision of German supremacy. Radical Islam is now using Jews in exactly the same way.

If people miss the signals that are being openly stated by radical Islam worldwide we risk a world war again, this time for Islamic supremacy.

When I first read this quickly last night, there was something disturbing about it, even though much of what’s said is reasonable.

Scapegoating Jews has historically been a way of raising the level of fear and racist thinking in society; something which can then be used for war and atrocity. This is absolutely right.

Radical Islam seems to me a response to a physical and cultural colonisation of the middle east. It has reacted against all the perceived impositions on the social and cultural “purity” and autonomy of the people. So it’s as much against MacDonalds and Hollywood as it is against Israel — and I believe it is more anti-Zionist than anti-Jewish in the beginning at any rate.

There has been a deliberate policy by Jordan and Syria in particular to keep the sore open – for example by keeping the Palestinian refugees in camps for generations. At the same time, as Guido points out, the Zionist settlement policy and the confrontational policies of Israel toward it’s neighbours (eg: Lebanon 1982) and to the Palestinian leadership, and it’s derailment of two-state peace process over a period of time. All this makes anti-semitism a convenient scapegoat and emotional trigger throughout the region – and there’s no doubt it’s been cynically used. But the “great Satan” USA hasn’t been absent from rhetoric either.

If you look at the way Bin Laden changed his rhetoric as time went on, he began more anti-US and ended including anti-Jewish as well; they’re a convenient target. The more the US has demonised Islam the more jihadist Islam has been able to characterise it as a religious war — Christian and Jewish versus Islam.

—> So what I’m disagreeing with is the conclusion: the third statement. By buying into the “anti-semitic Islamic supremacy” headspace we fall into the same trap Israel has shown us for the last 20 or 30 years at least.

Hamas, Hezbollah and to a lesser extent Al Quaeda have been able to capture the hearts and minds of the Islamic world because they have been able to portray the situation as a Christian/Jewish/Colonial conspiracy against Islam and the Islamic people. If we buy into that (as Israel has done for some time) then we lock ourselves in to a cultural fight to the death. A world war of civilisations. George Bush’s crusade… (that’s a red hot word to Islam, and it encapsulates the way Hamas Hezbollah etc have been able to gain power by portraying things that way).

The alternative is to reject this headspace.

I want to give a rather childish example to begin the explanation. My daughter, when she was in grade 4, made an enemy of the “alpha-female” girl in her class. This girl (R.) tried getting everyone else on side against my daughter (M.), but because M. never treated it as a feud R. wasn’t able to create the confrontation she wanted. In the end there was a scene which meant little to M. (in fact I heard about it from the mother of another girl), but ended R.’s attempts at warfare. R cornered M and screamed

“I hate you M.”

to which M replied

“But I don’t hate you, R., you’re my friend.”

R burst into tears and ran off.

On a larger scale, I think we must distinguish between the rhetoric of the leadership and the fears and needs of the people. The palestinian people need security, livelihood, and a realistic promise of a future. It’s the responsibility of Israel and it’s sponsor the US to find a way to achieve this – something which is going to require the help of Islamic middlemen, given the state of mistrust currently operating. Demonising the Palestinian leadership without moving toward this is an exercise in futility; one we’ve seen over and over again.

The same goes for Lebanon, of course, but even for Iran. I believe Iran does want the bomb, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s not because it wants to annihilate the state of Israel. Look at a map, and Iran is surrounded by US client states – Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, much of Central Asia. Add to this the history of CIA backed coups, and the last thing we need is a confrontational approach coupled with psy-ops like the yellow patches lies.

The simple and dangerous approach is to say the Iranian President is an anti-semite, he’s said he wants to wipe Israel off the map. He’s a madman who wants nukes. We have to stop him by force if necessary.

This is dealing with the symptom not the problem, so it’s only going to be a temporary, costly, solution. By engaging in a way which creates security and builds cooperation, the anti-semitism as well as the anti-western feeling, becomes much less of an issue just because there’s no longer a place for it as a political football.

It’s true there was, in the end, no solution to Hitler but war – but I don’t think we’re in 1939 at the moment. It’s more like 1933 and we still have time to step back from the brink.

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