Tuesday, September 9, 2008
This is just a quick link to follow -- an "aside." These are links to interesting things that, for one reason or another, I didn't place into a full posting. Click the link to visit the full article. Go to the blog index for a regular listing of posts.
Foreign Policy: Seven Questions: Bernard Lewis on the Two Biggest Myths About Islam - 'He is one of the world’s foremost scholars of Islam and the Middle East. Bernard Lewis shares his thoughts on Iraq, "Islamofascism," the roots of terrorism, and the two biggest misperceptions about the Muslim faith...'
Bernard Lewis seems very reasonable in his opinions, not dismissing the terrorist threat but not demonizing all of Islam either. His is not a world of black and whites but of grays, and that makes sense. I cannot believe that Edward Said once called Lewis "third rate."
I have great respect for Bernard Lewis and he has done very important work over the years.
However, I find him too optimistic regarding Islam. Islam exhorts its followers to jihad. I don't see how even a modest, rule of law, nonviolent democracy will be the outcome in Iraq or elsewhere in the Arab-Muslim world.
Islamic values are different from Judeo-Christian values. Having devoted his life to studying Islam, perhaps Lewis doesn't want to face up to the reality of 1350 years of Islamic history, the Koran, Hadith and Sira. Islam, not some perversion of it, is responsible for the political, economic and moral failings of the Arab-Muslim countries.
FYI, here are two links to YouTube videos of David Horowitz of FrontPageMag.org debating Hussein Ibish on English Al-Jazeera.
http://www.youtube.com/v/RiFTItewlNI&hl=en&fs=1
http://www.youtube.com/v/pBr6jD72DnE&hl=en&fs=1
They are worth watching.
Ibish has been losing weight!