Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Egyptian scholar: "Our enemies weave many lies about us"
Our enemies weave many lies about us, which we are not necessarily aware of. For example: One day, we awoke to the crime of 9/11, which hit the tallest buildings in New York, the Empire State Building (sic). There is no doubt that not a single Arab or Muslim had anything to do with these events. The incident was fabricated as a pretext to attack Islam and Muslims. The plan was to take over the world's energy sources, and to achieve this control by force and not by agreement or negotiations, by interests, free trade, or anything like that. This is what they wanted.
So this incident was fabricated - and Allah knows that the Arabs and Muslims are innocent of it - in order to serve as a pretext to attack Islam and the Muslims.
All of a sudden, after we were used to consider America to be a rational and balanced country... All of a sudden, it violates international conventions, cancels treaties, ignores the U.N., acts on its own accord, attacks nations, kills innocent people, and claims it has the right to do so - and all this is based on lies. These were lies from beginning to end, and we were not used to lying - not in policy, not in our discourse, and not in the media. Imagine what crisis the Arab and Islam nation finds itself in, in the midst of these peculiar events, which we cannot explain or believe. All of a sudden, we were framed for an international crime, on the basis of lies.
I believe a dirty Zionist hand carried out this act. Zionism has taken the opportunity to escalate the war in Palestine, killing hundreds of thousands so far, while we watch from the sidelines in astonishment and ask: What's going on?
If any Westerner said such things, he would be denounced by the media around the world. But if an Arab breathes such unspeakble slander, nobody gives a damn. It isn't news, because the Western media simply refuses to hold Arabs to the same standards of behavior that it demands of Westerners.
As Charles Johnson points out, "Shahin is head of the Shari’a faculty at Al-Ahzar University, the most prestigious academy in Sunni Islam, and is a lecturer at Cairo University." His point being, of course, that Professor Shahin is not a fringe figure, but at the heart of the Muslim academic establishment.
Imagine if, say, the president of the Princeton Theological Seminary appeared on network television in the United States and declared that "the foul hand of Islam seeks to destroy Western civilization, subjugate women, ban free expression, murder homosexuals, and drive all the Jews from all lands ever occupied by Muslims." Would the reaction be different than the profound silence that has attended Professor Shahin's blood libel? Obviously, it would be. The interesting question is why the reaction would be different. As I have written many times before, I believe that the Western left and its handmaidens in the mainstream media have such profound contempt for Arabs that they simply will not hold them to the same standards that they hold Westerners, or even that other Middle Eastern tribe, the Jews. What other explanation could there be?
3 Comments:
By 
Solomon, at
Wed Aug 10, 02:29:00 PM:
The Arabs are the routinely infantilized "other" who we dare not judge. You would think they would be offended by being so patronized, and I'm sure a silent (smart) minority are.
Official PA organs routinely crank out the most obviously outrageous lies that if the Bush Administration (for instance) tried to get away with there would be heads rolling. Typical was this insane whopper that the Israelis have buried 80 tons of nuclear waste around Palestinian population centers:
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/005973.shtml
That's direct from the PA Minister of Health and it's typical. There simply is no accountability. Instead we're supposed to respect the other's narrative as a just as valid alternative to our own.
By cakreiz, at
Thu Aug 11, 07:05:00 AM:
Our media consistently ignores Arab and Islamic verbal excess and profanity, treating it as mere hyberole or puffing. This is particularly true of virulent anti-Semitism, which is NEVER taken at face value. Instead, it's ignored. I've never understood this need to apologize by overlooking.
By cakreiz, at
Fri Aug 12, 12:19:00 PM:
Victor Davis Hanson has a great article at NRO. Quoting Skeik Ibrahim Mudeiris from a televised address, "the stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew." VDH then notes "we have an understandable, if ethnocentric, habit of ignoring what our enemies actually say." This member of his Amen Choir says "Amen".
