Let's consider a recent column describing Islamically sanctioned, and indeed encouraged, infanticide:
(excerpted)
The act of infanticide, the practice of intentionally causing the death of an infant, is rarely practiced today. Yet in the Middle East, it has taken on a new form. Under the direction of some leading Muslim religious figures, some parents in the region are encouraging their children to commit suicide as a religious act — then celebrating it...
...Sheik Nasrallah's 18 year-old son became a "martyr" after battling Israeli forces. The Hezbollah leader appeared on Al-Manar TV and thanked Allah for his son's "martyrdom," saying it brought him "the greatest feeling of joy that a father can know."
Many Lebanese Shiites were inspired by his words and to this day they want the same for their children. Sanaa Younes told the San Jose Mercury News on August 3, "He gave his son to Islam. … It's what every parent would want."
"It's what every parent would want"?????!!!!
Call me crazy, but this does not sound like an individual who yearns for a long and lasting peace, nor for a coexistence with anything considered to be 'other', meaning of course the West and those who ascribe to western values. And what is sad is that there seems to be a not-so-silent majority of Arabs and Muslims who echo this sentiment.
Consider this recent piece by Barry Rubin:
Barry Rubin
August 15, 2006
Speaking to a journalists' association and in several other recent talks or interviews, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has claimed victory over Israel as well as America, whose plan for a "new Middle East," he says, has been defeated by Hizballah's success in fighting Israel. In the U.S. view--and that of Arab reformers--the American plan was for democracy, human rights, peace, an end to terrorism, and economic progress. Assad claims it meant that America and Israel would dominate the Arab world to destroy Arabism and Islam. More Arabs, to their own detriment, believe Bashar's view.
Speaking to a journalists' association, Bashar said the region had changed due to Hizballah's achievements. He's right, though trends were already clear in the failure of the 1990s' peace process, Hamas' election, violence in Iraq, the Arab regimes' defeat of reform movements, advances by Hizballah and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in elections, and other developments.
One feature of this new era is the death of any hope for Arab-Israeli peace. The conflict will likely continue many years, producing politically useful Palestinian suffering. For these developments mean that since most Arabs believe Israel is totally evil and can be destroyed by armed struggle, they see no reason or need for a diplomatic compromise solution.
The question, though, is whether this change is good or bad for the Arabs. Thanks to such victories they can continue living under the same rulers, with lots of violence and corruption accompanied by low levels in living standards and rights.
Also visible through the meeting is the style that has so long characterized Arab politics and has been fully renovated for a new generation. This kind of stuff is both orchestrated and yet takes on a life of its own.
During the speech, members of the audience who claimed to be Lebanese--and apparently hired for the purpose since the security people let them do it--stood to thank Bashar loudly for all the things he has done for their country. With no sense of the irony of the performance, one woman screamed, "Without the support of our sister country Syria, we would not be able to achieve what we have achieved." Given the country's wreckage, refugees, economic setbacks, ethnic strife, and the return of Syrian hegemony, it is hard to figure out what any positive achievements might be.
The audience then broke into applause, shouting, "With our blood, with our soul, we redeem you, Oh Bashar!" They needn't worry. Bashar and his allies will make sure they have plenty of opportunities to spill their blood and sell their souls.
The world would do well to read Bashar's speech carefully and take it seriously. Syria is not a country that can be negotiated with or bought off. It is not taking a militant role because it is aggrieved or bargaining toughly, but because war, unrest, and extremism really do suit the regime's interests. A CIA report from exactly forty years ago is startlingly timely in explaining this pattern: "The question in regard to Syria's future then is not whether it will be moderate or radical, but what will be the kind and intensity of its radicalism."
Examples such as the two above abound, I need not recount them all here. For more, please visit some of the links I provide on these pages. I assure you your mouse won't even break a sweat.
~JDS
UPDATE August 18, 2006: Explain to me how a nation at war is full of citizens who desperately want peace? Furthermore, Israel does not have laws on the books prohibiting contact between Israelis and Lebanese - and yet Lebanon does. How is this the posture of a nation seeking peace and stability? Lebanon refuses to this day to recognize Israel. Consider the following article another prime example.
Lebanese general arrested for drinking tea with IDF
Associated Press,
THE JERUSALEM POST
Aug. 16, 2006
A Lebanese general was ordered arrested Wednesday for appearing in a videotape drinking tea with IDF soldiers who had occupied his south Lebanon barracks during their incursion of the country.
Adnan Daoud was summoned and ordered held for questioning, Interior Minister Ahmed Fatfat said in a statement. Daoud is commanding officer of the 1,000-strong joint police-army force that had positions in southern Lebanon and was based in Marjayoun.
IDF troops seized the barracks there last week and held him and 350 soldiers for a day before allowing them to leave the occupied zone. The Lebanese garrison, which is lightly armed, did not resist the Israeli force which moved in armor into the base.
In the videotape, aired on Israeli television and carried by a Lebanese TV station Wednesday, Daoud was shown having tea with smiling Israeli soldiers and walking with them in the base courtyard.
"He was very polite with me," Daoud said of his first encounter with an Israeli colonel in this conflict or any other. It most likely will be the last.
Daoud commands a joint police-army force of about 1,000 men, based in Marjayoun, a Christian town about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Israeli border. Israeli troops, part of an armored column that punctured deep into Lebanon last week, ended up on Daoud's doorstep and took over his base last Thursday - 4 days before a cease-fire took hold.
"They came peacefully up to our gate, asking to speak with me by name," he said.
Daoud described the encounter on the eve of his and other Lebanese forces and others taking up a peacekeeping role in the south of the country. He said his experience with the Israelis was pleasant and professional meeting and even touched on the possibility of future Israeli-Lebanese military relations in the south.
"For four hours, I took him on a tour of our base," Daoud said of an Israeli official who introduced himself as Col. Ashaya. "It's the name of someone who guided the Jews in the Bible."
"He was probably on an intelligence mission, and wanted to see if we had any Hezbollah in here," Daoud added.
After their meeting, Ashaya left, Daoud said. An hour later, the bombs started falling.
Four Israeli tanks rolled up to the entrance of the Lebanese barracks, Daoud said, blowing holes in a steel gate and shattering glass in guard houses. Lebanese soldiers did not fire back, and no one was hurt, he said.
Daoud said he wasn't sure whether his counterpart's friendliness was a ruse, or whether the Israelis got their signals crossed and opened fire not knowing Ashaya had been there.
Israeli troops seized the barracks and held Daoud and 350 soldiers for a day before allowing them to leave the occupied zone. Israeli warplanes fired missiles at their convoy as it headed north, killing 7 people. Israel said it was investigating as an accident.
Israel left the base on Tuesday, part of a withdrawal from positions taken in a month of heavy ground fighting.
Daoud's said his forces were only lightly armed, and surrendered their weapons when the Israelis demanded. Israeli troops locked the weapons in a room and later blew it up, Daoud said, pointing to the gaping hole and pile of concrete wreckage that used to be a wing of the military base.
"They said, `We are an occupying army and now you are occupied,"' Daoud recalled another Israeli commander telling him, once he was taken captive and separated from lower-ranking soldiers. "I tried to refuse because they were Israelis and I am Lebanese and they are supposed to be the enemy."
Lebanon considers itself in a state of war with Israel although it signed an armistice in 1949. To this day, Lebanon does not recognize the State of Israel.
Lebanese law forbids any dealings with Israel. A Lebanese citizen faces arrest and prosecution. In 2000, after Israel withdrew its army from southern Lebanon, those who worked for the Israelis were arrested tried and given jail terms ranging from a few months to several years. Those civilians who fled to Israel and later returned were also arrested and given prison terms.
To this day, Lebanon refuses entry to any foreigner who has an Israeli entry or exit stamp on his passport.
This article can also be read here.
UPDATE August 18, 2006(afternoon): Although I said I would not list all the examples of Arab or Muslim peoples cheering and promoting violence, I am compelled to provide some of the more poignant examples as I come across them. This latest features Iranian school books which, to no one's surprise, promote violence against the West in general, and America in particular. I provide an excerpt below, the full text of this article can be found here.
Infanticide - Mullah Style
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 17, 2006
A new study of 115 Iranian school textbooks concludes that Iran is preparing its children for war, and is willing to risk massive casualties for the opportunity to defeat America in a world-wide cataclysmic confrontation.
"Iran's is a war curriculum," the study said. "Iran prepares its school children to fight the West – America in particular – as an indispensable complementary phase of the Islamic Revolution."
From the Fifth grade on, Iran's revolutionary regime portrays itself in government textbooks "as the champion of all non-Western nations, Muslim and non-Muslim, in a fateful struggle against Western hegemony in the world," the study concluded.
In the vision of Iran's leaders that is indoctrinated into young Iranians from an early age, "the Muslims, and the world oppressed nations in general, should wage a global war against the infidel oppressors, especially America," the study reports, using language drawn directly from the Iranian textbooks.
UPDATE October 10, 2006: Yet another example of this trend from the indispensable MEMRI is below.
Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abd Al-'Aziz: We Will Cut Off Tongues of Those Who Try to Distort Islam With Reform and Progress - They Are Serving the West
Prince Nayef bin Abd Al-'Aziz: "Brothers, we are not alone in this world. We are not living on a planet of our own. We are living in the center of this world, with all its good and evil. I say clearly that the evil of this generation is far worse than that of other generations. Everybody should know that our country - because it is the country of Islam, and because it is a country that implements the Koran and the Sunna - is the primary target for the things that are happening in the world."
[...]
"We are being targeted from many directions. I say, with the utmost pain and sorrow, that we are being targeted by those who claim to be Muslims. These people have become preachers, instruments, and implementers of the will of the enemies of Islam, whether knowingly or unknowingly."
[...]
"Jihad is here. We must wage jihad against the enemies of Allah here. The enemies of Allah are in our midst. They claim to be Muslims, although they are as far as can be from Islam. They call themselves 'reformists' or 'preachers,' and say that we support the West. They are hostile to us on these grounds. Yet at the same time, the Westerners and others claim that we are the birthplace of these people. Where are we? Why don't we tell these people who we are? Why don't we argue with them, discuss things with them? Why don't we respond to everything they say? Why don't we restrict the ignorant among us, or even those who think they are Islamic scholars?"
[...]
"The enemies of the Muslims have used Muslims and Arabs to corrupt Islam and the Arabs. I don't think any of you present denies this fact."
[...]
"Is it not an insult to Islam in general that someone so plain and worthless like Osama bin Laden is considered important? Does anyone accept this? Not only is he worthless, but he is an agent. He was an agent of foreign intelligence agencies, and he still is - him and those who support him. Who established Al-Qaeda?"
[...]
"Al-Qaeda has taken advantage of bin Laden's money, and they put him in the forefront, because he is affiliated with the Saudi kingdom. Even though he is from another country, he received Saudi citizenship. Who is Al-Zawahiri? We must ask ourselves, Who is Abdallah 'Azzam, the spiritual father of these people?"
[...]
"My brothers, the danger is even greater. Even those people have become tools in the hands of the enemies. Unless we face reality with truth, courage, and evidence, and if we do not stop all the transgressors who are trying to distort Islam with their claims of reform and their corrupt progress - this will be dangerous. These people have been tempted by the West, and have been employed in its service. We are familiar with their relations with foreign elements. We are fighting them and will continue to fight them, and we will cut off their tongues."
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