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Jewish World Review April 12, 2002 / Rosh Chodesh Iyar, 5762

Diana West

Diana West
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Consumer Reports

Egyptian clerics solicit martyrs for murder

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | While the headlines wrap themselves around Ariel Sharon and his refusal to oblige what one might call President Bush's "unhelpful" request to withdraw from the West Bank, they ignore a far more deleterious affront to the president's authority. After all, Sharon is attempting to demolish the Palestinian terror network, save Israel and uphold the Bush Doctrine; what's going on in Arab nations, however, despite Bush's stated requirements, is outright incitement.

Last week, Bush denounced the grotesque Iraqi practice of paying out a small fortune -- $25,000 -- to the families of what enemies of civilization call "successful" suicide bombers, and pronounced Iraq guilty of "soliciting murder of the worst kind." Secretary of State Colin Powell, during his rounds on the Sunday talk shows, grudgingly admitted that Saudi Arabia, another state paymaster for civilian-killer kin, was an accessory to this same kind of crime. But money isn't everything. It turns out that suicide bombers, assured that their loved ones will be rolling in dough by Palestinian standards, may now turn for religious approval to the government clerics of Egypt.

That's because the top imam of Al-Azhar University, the Cairo Islamic center constitutionally affiliated with the Egyptian government, has finally seen the spiritual light. Where Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi was once reluctant to sanction the targeting of civilians in suicide bombings, he now concludes that such bombings "against any Israeli" do indeed have the Islamic stamp of approval.

According to a report translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (http://www.memri.org), Sheikh Tantawi recently "demanded that the Palestinian people, of all factions, intensify the martyrdom operations against the Zionist enemy, and described the martyrdom operations as the highest form of Jihad operations." He further stated, the report continued, "that the young people executing them have sold Allah the most precious thing of all." All of which is marrow-chilling stuff.

The government cleric went on to emphasize that "every martyrdom operation against any Israeli, including children, women, and teen-agers, is a legitimate act according to (Islamic) religious law, and an Islamic commandment, until the people of Palestine regain their land and cause the cruel Israeli aggression to retreat." Only one of two things is possible: Either Islam doesn't mean "peace" exactly, or another hijacker just climbed on board the religion.

Make that two hijackers. Egypt's new mufti, Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, is also out there plugging suicide bombings. According to a MEMRI translation of the mufti's recent remarks, Al-Tayyeb has determined that "the solution to the Israeli terror (sic) lies in a proliferation of Fidai," or martyrdom (suicide attacks). Such attacks, the mufti continued, should "strike horror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah. The Islamic countries, peoples and rulers alike, must support these martyrdom attacks." Needless to say, such murderous preaching fails to mesh with what Bush had in mind last week when he called on Arab governments to "stop inciting violence in state-owned media" and "telling suicide bombers they are martyrs."

The American media, having asked many questions about the timing of the president's decision to send Powell to the Middle East, would do well to wonder about the timing of the decision by Egypt's government clerics to sanction suicide attacks. Why now? Maybe because they see that suicide attacks, far from isolating the Palestinians, are unexpectedly (and indirectly) bringing U.S. pressure to bear on the Israeli government. Meanwhile, what is Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak prepared to do about the hate-speak coming from the government mosque? Powell will be meeting with Mubarak this week. Let's just hope he asks.

JWR contributor Diana West is a columnist and editorial writer for the Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

Up


04/09/02: Defining terrorism down
04/05/02: The Wilder life
04/02/02: Acting, equality and the Academy
03/31/02: Speeding to conclusions
03/25/02: Hard to remove blood (libel) stains
03/21/02: The tale of Nixon's tapes --- again
03/19/02: The Big Lie lives on
03/15/02: The tunnel vision of '9/11'
03/13/02: The American Auschwitz?
03/08/02: Hating the indoctrination of hate
03/05/02: Clinton and Enron: Old friends
03/01/02: Pickering doesn't polarize, the process does
02/26/02: Destiny's prefabricated child
02/22/02: The White House heist
02/20/02: Making the grade
02/11/02: Studying student visas
02/06/02: Understanding arrogance
02/04/02: The professor's war
01/29/02: Disconnected dialogue
01/23/02: Anti-Indiscrimination
01/18/02: How much is enough?
01/15/02: Oh brothers, where art thou?
01/10/02: Air on the side of caution
01/04/02: Blacks seeing red at Harvard
01/02/02: Clinton's campaign continues
12/26/01: A tale of two exhibitions
12/24/01: Taliban Idyll
12/19/01: Right is right
12/17/01: Hillary strikes out
12/13/01: Lost files, lost presidency
12/10/01: Revolutionaries never grow up
12/05/01: Immigration reform talk is not just for 'haters' anymore
12/03/01: A new symbol of justice
11/30/01: Beyond morality
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11/19/01: Hollywood's other battle
11/14/01: What's the matter with Sara Jane?
11/09/01: A beef with bin Laden's Beef Noodles
11/07/01: Facing up to the FBI's past mistakes
11/02/01: A school that teaches patriots to shutup
10/30/01: The gap between Islam and peace
10/26/01: The ties that bind (and gag)
10/24/01: This war is more than Afghanistan
10/22/01: The fatuous fatwa
10/19/01: Left out
10/16/01: Whose definition of terrorism?
10/11/01: Post-stress disorder
10/08/01: How the West has won
10/01/01: Good, bad or ... diplomacy
09/28/01: Drawing a line in stone
09/21/01: Prejudice or prudence?
09/14/01: When our dead will finally rest in hallowed ground
09/07/01: We want our #$%^&*() audience back!
08/24/01: The transformation from Green Mountain State to Green Activist State is all but complete
08/17/01: Enlightenment at Yale
08/10/01: From oppressors to victims, a metamorphosis
08/03/01: Opening the dormitory door: College romance in the New Century
08/01/01: How-To Hackdom: The dubious art of writing books about writing books
07/20/01: Hemming about Hemmings
07/13/01: Justice has not been served in the Loiuma police brutality case
06/22/01: When PC parades are too 'mainstream'
06/22/01: When "viewpoint discrimination" in our schools was not nearly so gnarly a notion
06/15/01: Lieberman flaunts mantle of perpetual aggrievement
06/07/01: Is graciousness the culprit?
06/01/01: The bright side of the Jeffords defection
05/29/01: Campus liberals should be more careful
05/18/01: 'Honest Bill' Clinton and other Ratheresian Logic
05/11/01: Dodging balls, Bugs, and 'brilliance'
05/04/01: Foot in mouth disease and little lost Tories
04/20/01:The last classic Clinton cover-up
04/20/01: D-Day, Schmee-Day
04/06/01: For heaven's sake, a little decency!
03/30/01: The sweet sound of slamming doors and clucking feminists
03/23/01: America's magazines and the 'ick-factor'
03/09/01: Felony neglect
03/02/01: Who's sorry now?
02/23/01: 'Ecumenical niceness' and other latter-day American gifts to the world
02/16/01: Elton and Eminem: Royal dirge-icist meets violent fantasist
02/12/01: If only ...

© 2001, Diana West