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The
Shifting Paradigm Within Islam
by
Rabbi David Zaslow
December, 2003
1.
God Has a Plan
If
you accept the idea of Divine Providence then bear with my
thesis for a moment even if you disagree with some of my conclusions.
G-d spread the Jewish people out throughout Europe during
the Middle Ages on a special mission. After the folly of the
Crusades Jews witnessed how the Protestant Reformation created
diversity and some degree of “people power” that
was not being given by the Roman Catholic Church. And we witnessed
how the Catholic Church benefited from the Reformation as
well.
And
then we witnessed a flowering of consciousness in the 16th
Century which ultimately led to the great secular antithesis
of religion called the Enlightenment. People got the idea
that humans could take care of their own problems without
the intervention of a divine power. And so, secular humanism
was born; the Enlightenment arose; and the Industrial age
began.
We
Jews didn't intend to be in the middle of all that social
upheaval. We Jews didn't mean to be influenced by the Reformation
or the Enlightenment, but we were. Just as we were influenced
by the genius of the outside world during the Babylonian exile
twenty-six hundred years ago, so we were influenced by European
social evolution in our own time. As a result of both these
social upheavals (the Reformation and the Enlightenment) we
have today, thank G-d, our own Reform, Conservative, Renewal,
and Reconstructionist movements. The 16th. Century kabbalistic
revival and the 18th. century Hasidic revolution arose from
these European social paradigm shifts as well.
So
what did the Ribbono Shel Olam have in mind after the Shoah?
Maybe to send Jews back to the Middle East in order to plant
the seeds of Reformation and Enlightenment. What the Muslim
world has not gone through YET is a process that ultimately
led to what is best in the West: pluralism, egalitarianism,
and democracy. In the 20th century alone America had a woman's
suffrage movement, union movement, civil rights movement,
woman's movement, gay rights movement, and ecological movement.
Six major civil rights struggles and our Constitution was
flexible to accommodate them all. Lots of lawsuits, but a
judicial system that was eventually able to come to the proper
conclusions.
Certainly
school desegregation was 100 years late, but our culture survived
because p'shat (simple) readings of Constitution were challengable
at higher levels. So "all men are created equal"
eventually became "all black and white men" and
then finally "all men and women," and soon "all
men, women, gay, or straight."
2.
Hatred of Jews Today
Jews
are hated in Israel not for anything Israel has done. This
foolish Israeli policy or that foolish policy are up for critique.
But these policies are not the cause of the current intafada.
Arab anti-Semitism today is based on a filtered and flawed
view of reality. The Jews have come to the Middle East with
the seeds of pluralism and democracy. Hamas knows it. Islamic
Jihad knows it. Osama knows it. They are afraid that the union
movement, and feminism, and gay rights movements are coming
their way. And they are correct.
B'ezrat
Hashem (with G-d’s help) these civil rights movements
are coming to Saudi Arabia, and Syria, and Libya, and everywhere
else. Fear of globalism is a cover for what's happening under
the surface. Sure folks blame McDonalds and Office Depot,
but the abuse of corporate power was NOT the cause of the
destruction of the World Trade Center. That was the excuse.
The
cause that Osama stands for is anti-pluralism. And who is
bringing pluralism into the Middle East? Jews and Americans,
of course Osama may say that Zionism is a form of colonialism,
but this is just an expression of the primitive way his mind
is scanning the shifting paradigm.
Scapegoating
the Jews is ancient. And it's happening before our eyes. The
desperation within the Arab world is really hatred against
their own outdated paradigms of hierarchical, patriarchal,
and dictatorial systems of governance. When this kind of hatred
of your own "father" (i.e.. your own leaders) goes
unconscious the Shadow comes alive. "It's the fault of
the Jews" they cried in Germany as their own economy
faltered due to the punishing treaty they were forced to sign
after World War I.
"It's
the fault of the Jews" some Arabs are screaming now due
to the punishing effects of post colonial regimes established
by the British and the French, and the punishing regimes maintained
by their own leaders after the colonialists left. But their
rage at the primary, core, energetic level is against their
own fathers. Like all good unconscious behavior (seen in racists
and bigots throughout history) the sick mind ingeniously finds
someone else to blame it on. In Palestine and Israel its the
Jews who are being blamed for the failure of the Palestinian
fathers.
Look
at some numbers for a moment. In 1993 about fifty-percent
of the Palestinians were willing to finally share the land
in the two-state solution that they rejected in 1948. Twenty-percent
were uncertain. And between ten to twenty-percent outright
rejected any kind of peace or two state-solution. Who were
these ten to twenty-percent? Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Aksa
Bridgade, Hezbollah, and the other various terrorist organizations.
These
groups represent Islamic fundamentalism that CANNOT ever have
Jews owning a nation in the Middle East. It's impossible because
on a p'shat level the Koran says so. ALL of Palestine is Dar
el Islam. Jews were and are to the fundamentalist in the realm
of Dar el-Harb, the House of War.
When
I met with the spiritual leader of Hamas in 1998, Sheikh Ahmed
Yassin, he was not a duplicitious character like Arafat. He
was clear, honest, and straight-forward: ISRAEL CANNOT REMAIN
A NATION. Who's doing the suicide bombings? Not the fifty-percent
of Palestinians who want a peaceful, two-state solution! Not
the twenty-percent who are uncertain! But this huge minority
of 10-20% represented by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah.
Just
think of America. We have a one-half of one-percent fringe
between our extreme Left and Right. This tiny minority represents
Ruby Ridge, Waco, the folks who bomb abortion clinics, the
eco-terrorists who spike trees and burn the homes of rich
people, animal rights terrorists who set fires in research
labs, etc.
One-half
of one-percent and America can barely keep track of them.
Imagine if America's fringe represented fifteen-percent. With
this kind of huge minority it would probably be impossible
for us to keep the peace. Even if a Palestinian moderate wanted
to keep the peace, I think it would be nearly impossible at
this stage in their social evolution. Socially they are at
the level of Europe during the Crusades: pre-Reformation,
pre-Enlightenment, pre-democratic, and pre-pluralistic.
The
real martyrs among the Palestinians will be those willing
to give their lives for peace by COMING OUT WITH THE TRUTH
in public: that the murder of civilians by terrorists is a
crime against Allah; that Palestinians are destined to live
side-by-side with Israel; and that democratic and pluralistic
institutions are the road to freedom for the Arab peoples.
Arafat has already quietly killed hundreds of so-called collaborators
since 1993 as an appeasement to Hamas in order for him to
stay in power. Just before Passover he killed eight more “collaborators,”
and who really knows what they were doing?
I
DO JUST A LITTLE. I know a Sheikh from the West Bank. He came
to the United States recently and offered prayers and teachings
in several synagogues. When he returned to Israel he was warned
that he couldn't go home to his West Bank village. Why? Because
Fatah had him on the collaborator list. You can read all about
this courageous Sheikh in Yossi Klein Halevi's book "At
the Entrance to the Garden of Eden." Halevi was forced
to change the name of the Sheikh in the book to Ibrahim in
order to protect his anonymity. Today, baruch Hashem, he is
being protected in an Israeli city by Orthodox rabbis. What
an irony, but I think G-d's fingerprints are all over this.
3.
The Religious Factor
Rabbi
Menachem Froman works from the premise that beneath the politics
this is essentially a religious war, a battle between two
fundementalisms: the Jewish notion of eretz Yisrael, that
all the land is ours. The other is that of Dar el-Islam, the
Islamic notion that all the land is Muslim. The solution according
to the rebbe? To lock fundamentalist Jews and Muslims in a
room until they come to a solution based on Koran and Torah.
Rabbi
Froman suggests that the problems with Oslo stem from the
fact the religious factor was disregarded. The fundamentalists
on both sides were not brought to the table. The result has
been treaties made by secular pragmatists like Arafat and
Rabin. But the solution, according to Froman, must include
the idealists—the fundamentalist. Afterall, the ones
doing the terrorism are not the pragmatists, but the religious
idealists who CANNOT have a two-state solution.
I,
personally, have come to believe that their is merit in his
argument. The religious extremists might drive you crazy at
the bargaining table with their rigid readings of Torah and
Koran on land issues. But they are the ones that destroy the
peace treaties when one is signed without their consent. Bring
them to the table! Let us support Rabbi Froman’s yeshiva
that he has been collecting funds for - one where the idealistic
eretz Yisrael kids and the idealistic Dar el-Islam kids can
fight it out over texts.
4.
The Hope
As
hopeless as things seem when hearing the horrific reports
of suicide bombings every day, I am very hopeful for the long-term
future. I get my comfort for the words of our prophets. Isaiah
19:21 reads, “In that day there shall be a highway from
Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come to Egypt, and
the Egyptian to Assyria, and the Egyptians shall worship with
the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with
Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land;
Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, ‘Blessed
be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and
Israel my inheritance.’”
Blessed
be Egypt? Egyptians are G-d’s people? Blessed be Syria?
Syria, the work of G-d’s hands? These are radical words,
and profoundly reshapes the notion of the ultimate relationships
that are being forged in fire today in the Middle East. It
is not easy to recognize the blessing within a curse, but
we have no other choice. We are Jews, and that’s part
of our job.
On
a practical level I will continue to call for the democratization
of the nations that surround Israel. I will help in any way
I can to encourage free elections, the right to dissent, the
right of a free and critical press, the rights of workers
to unionize, and the rights of women to organize in Arab nations.
I humbly submit that only with democracy will the citizens
of these nations be allowed to make a lasting peace with Israel
and have economic prosperity for themselves.
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