Jan 14 2008
Words Worth Quoting
Bush’s ignorance about the true nature of Islam has put all of the West in harms way.
Sphere: Related ContentBush makes some very glib, naive (very Western) assumptions that are quite false: “I believe, deep in the soul of every man, woman, and child on the face of this Earth is the desire to live in a free society. And I also believe free societies yield peace. And, therefore, this notion of two states living side by side in peace is based upon the universality of freedom, and if given a chance, the Palestinian people will work for freedom.”
This very commonly held assumption ignores religion and ideology and their power. The Islamic vision is not one of freedom — which is, in a way, actually anathema to religious Muslims. Islam is about submission. (Islam in Arabic means surrender!) And radical Islam is about imposing that submission. Palestinians passionately committed to their Islam and the word of Muhammad are more concerned with driving out the Jews and controlling the land they believe is theirs than with instituting “freedoms.”
To establish policy without this essential understanding is to miss the boat entirely and to generate an unstable situation.
