Muslims attack Taliban--and more.

Due to my many years of fighting radical Islam, I often find myself with those who are equally militant in the fight against Islamists, but who also believe that Islam itself is the problem.  I stand with Dr. Daniel Pipes in saying emphatically that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam is the solution.  Many of those who demonize Muslims ask why there is no real push back by Muslims against Islamists; that is, that they provide ideological cover for the worst sort of behavior.  And it did seem for a while that I kept going back to the Mumbai Muslim community refusing Muslim burial to the 26/11 terrorists.  But look at what is happening right now:

• In February, Pashtuns attacked a Taliban office, completely gutting it and seizing the terror group's fire arms.
• Recently, Sindhi Muslims marched in large numbers through the streets of Karachi.  On the banner they carried at the head of the march was a picture of an Israeli flag.
• In New Delhi, Sultan Shaheen, a practicing Muslim, leads an organization which has credentialed and respected Islamic scholars writing theological arguments against interpretations of the Quran that radicals use to justify their activities.

And the fact should not be lost that these people did and are doing these things at some considerable risk.  A few members of the Pakistani military, Taliban allies, were present when the Pashtuns attacked the Taliban; and just ten days later, a Taliban leader warned Pashtun elders not to do it again because "the [Pakistani] military is with us."  The Sindhi are unique inside Pakistan with their positive and public show of support for Israel.  And my friend, Sultan Shaheen works constantly under the threat of radical retaliation; yet, he has revealed his findings at UN venues and elsewhere.

My book, What is Moderate Islam, makes it clear that success in defeating Islamists to a large extent is dependent on our ability to avoid the deadly polar positions of demonizing all Muslims or rejecting any criticism of Islam; recognizing friends and foes and knowing how to tell the difference.

What is Moderate Islam

Most reaction on the Facebook page for my new book, "What is Moderate Islam," has been positive. As I mentioned when first approached about the book, people are hungry for good information and real-life insight.  Otherwise, they are left to make sense themselves of the frequent terrorism carried out in the name of Islam.  At the same time, there also has been a string of reactions essentially saying that there is no such thing as "moderate Islam"; that all Muslims are either waging jihad or waiting in the weeds for the right time to do so.  They are wrong both ethically and factually.  As the noted scholar and activist, Dr. Daniel Pipes, has told us, it is a mistake to confuse Islam the religion with Islamism the ideology.  Pipes is also a long time supporter of my work, and he contributed a chapter to What is Moderate Islam.  In that chapter, "Smoking out Islamists with Extreme Vetting," Dr. Pipes provides us with a set of insightful questions to get beneath any veneer of moderation to the essence of a radical's beliefs.  They also help us recognize that most Muslims are not open or closet jihadis.

Those who insist that all Muslims are jihadis are no different than those who insist that Jews control the banks, all Christians are crusaders, or all Hindus are passive and weak.

Beyond being wrong, that is a strategic cul de sac; it leads to nothing productive.  Where do you go from declaring a fourth of humanity your enemy?  Do you issue blanket rulings, taking actions that sweep up the innocent with the guilty?  What do you do about children?  Are Muslim children also "eventual" jihadis so subject to the same action? Do you reject allies simply because of their faith?  Do you tell Muslim leaders that their interests are the same as those of suicide bombers?  And do we force friends to become enemies? Perhaps the impossibility of taking action that is both moral and effective is a reason why many who insist on their position do nothing other than yell.

On the other hand, those of us who have been on the front lines in the fight against radical Islamist terror know that we fight alongside of Muslims no less so than others.  In my fight to save Bengali Hindus from Islamists, I often am accompanied by Muslims who have put their own lives in jeopardy standing up for Hindus.  Similarly, no one would ever consider Robert Spencer soft on radical Islam or an appeaser.  Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and an outspoken critic of those who take claims of moderation at face value.  In his review of What is Moderate Islam, he called the book "essential reading" for "befuddled" policy makers.  He is smart enough and knowledgeable enough to know that we defeat our real enemies only when we have identified them and those who give them ideological cover; and we have distinguished friend from foe.

And that is the rationale for What is Moderate Islam.  Radical Islamists are arguably the greatest source of international instability in the 21st century.  We must defeat them and their ideological supporters.  Too often, however, all people have to choose from are two extremes:  either all Muslims are really jihadis or it's racist even to discuss a link between Islam and terror.  They need more than empty fist shaking or fear of being labeled.  What is Moderate Islam contributes to that by recognizing that both extremes are dangerous; that there is something better.

The Congressional Israel Victory Caucus

The Congressional Israel Victory Caucus was launched only short time ago (April 27, 2017), and it already has generated a stream of commentary.  That's good.  Because for years, I have said that no matter where people stand on the Israel-Arab conflict, we all can agree that the current "peace process" (re-labeled by Middle East Forum founder and scholar Daniel Pipes as a "war process") has not brought us any closer to peace.  Three decades of endless negotiations make resolution of the conflict less likely, not more.

The Israel Victory Caucus intends to support US policy and legislation that furthers conflict resolution through an Israeli victory, and to work against policy and legislation that places artificial restraints on Israel that only prolong the conflict.

Co-chair, Congressman Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) noted that the current situation only creates uncertainty among all parties with regard to a possible and moral endgame, and that the US and others must send the Palestinians a strong and clear message to give up their goal of destroying Israel.  Congressman Ron DeSantis (R-Florida), the other co-chair noted that Israel is the only state in the Middle East with which the United States has shared values.  "Israel is not the problem in the Middle East.  Israel is the solution."

Some specific goals of the Caucus:  for the United States to move its embassy to Jerusalem to signal its support for an undivided Israeli capital there; cutting off US funds to the Palestinian Authority so long as it continues to provide financial support to families of suicide terrorists and continues its formal anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement through its leaders and institutions.

Perhaps Dr. Pipes put it most succinctly by saying that "When the Jews of Hebron have no more fear for their safety than the Arabs of Nazareth, the war will be over."

East Meets West in the land of Ignorance

Daniel Pipes, the great American scholar and expert on the Middle East, Islam, and more recently said in a Times of India interview that, “there’s a tendency in west Asia to blame western powers for whatever happens – be it as large as Islamic State or as small as a traffic jam.”  Having spent years in west Asia’s great cities and remote villages, I can confirm his observation.  Conspiracy theories abound.  They come from street vendors and auto drivers, educators and officials.  Take this exchange between an Urdu journalist (UJ) and me (RB) in Northern India:

   (UJ):  Every Muslim child knows that seven Jews control the entire world’s media.

   (RB):  Really?  I must have missed that meeting of the ‘world Jewish conspiracy.’  Who are they?

   (UJ):  Rupert Murdoch.

   (RB):  Not Jewish.  A good man; friend of Israel; but not Jewish.  [This is a well-established fact, challenged only by openly anti-Jewish sites like “Jewwatch.com.”  Murdoch attends church and holds an honor with the Catholic Church.]   Who else?

     (UJ):  Ted Turner.

    (RB):  Ted Turner?  I don’t think he even likes Jews!  [He is virulently and openly anti-Israel, has run afoul of the Jewish community many times, and in 1996 had to issue a public apology to the Jewish community for comparing Rupert Murdoch to Adolf Hitler, which is another fact making an alleged conspiracy involving the two of them nonsensical.]  It’s really shocking that you, a shaper of opinion and an educated person helps spread these blatant inaccuracies.  You’re supposed to inform your people, not feed them propaganda.

The level of ignorance about the United States especially, a nation that never colonized the region but has shed a lot of blood to save its people from terrorists, is astounding.  I once watched a rising star of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lecture a group of PhD students about how US policy was controlled by the Christian Church.  At a different university, I heard a renowned leftist professor suggest a US conspiracy against non-whites by saying that “ninety-percent” of African-Americans are in prison.  Neither even attempted to provide any objective evidence.

Our ignorance about you is equally shameful.  When I started working on human rights in Bangladesh, I was aghast at how few Americans knew where it was or even that it was a country.  At one point, many Americans at least associated it with former Beatle George Harrison; but even that has faded into history.  Then there was the college-educated American who heard I was working to save Hindus and who looked at me and very seriously asked:  “Hindus, aren’t they Muslim?”

Thus, the Pashtun who want Americans to understand their struggle so they can assess where their tax money goes, have to recognize this; the same goes for the Baloch and Sindhi.  For Americans, many of whom know little about Pakistan except the name, mere assertions of nationality are likely to fall on deaf ears.  If you want Americans to know your people and their dreams, you need to:

• Grab us on an emotional level, but not with rantings, wild accusations, and big theories. Let us see you, feel like we know you, so we can experience the same joys, sorrows, and aspirations as you.  This will take time and require a well thought out program of awareness.  As an American, I know what will do it and am anxious to help.  However, it must be done continuously, again and again without becoming boring or repetitious, and we must be proactive in addressing audiences.

• If you are going to allege any human rights abuses, incursions on your ancestral homeland, or other actions; you must make sure you have solid, objective evidence to support it. Through media and internet, we hear so many wild accusations and allegations of bad behavior that people are likely to dismiss them unless there is something else that resonates with them; and so often, the allegations turn out to be exaggerated or false.  More importantly, even if they are true, those who make them often fail to provide the convincing proof when they are inevitably challenged by those being accused.

If you do this, you will see as have so many other peoples, that Americans are the most generous people on the planet.  We have helped in disasters, used our geopolitical influence to stop human rights abuses, and even shed blood for good causes—whether it was stopping the atrocities against Muslims in Bosnia or funding the United Nations, even though it often takes positions against us and our allies.

It will not be easy or without its challenges.  However if it is done intelligently, in an organized fashion, and relentlessly, we will succeed.  You have a compelling story, and Americans are the right people to whom we should tell it.