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Dialogue with Islam and its Backlash

 On the eve of this Passover, 2009, we are faced with announcements from the British government, to the effect that it has ceased dealing with the major Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), and that  the Jewish organizations of France have discontinued their “dialogue” with French Muslims. In both instances, the reason cited is the same. It is the duplicitous game the Muslim groups have been playing: on the one hand seeking “dialogue” with their partners, as a means of coexistence and smoothing over difficulties in communication; but on the other hand supporting Hamas, which wants no dialogue with Israel. The non-Muslim parties in these “dialogues” have been late to wake up to the reality that Muslim culture understands “dialogue” not as a means to facilitate rapprochement and understanding through negotiation and clarification, but as a means to lend legitimacy to the monologue it wishes its partners to hear and to heed. Now, after years of empty encounters, the non-Muslim participants finally understand and they have withdrawn from that exercise in goodwill , realising that  the other party does not respond in kind.


Some naïve minds in the West have believed that dialogue and negotiation with Muslim radicals can and will alter attitudes and lead to coexistence between Muslims and their rivals. The problem is that the West has treated dialogue as if it were a real policy, whereas it is in fact a non-policy, designed only to fill an awkward vacuum and to make legislators and royals, such as Prince Charles, feel virtuous for “doing something.” But while Europeans have regularly entered a “dialogue” with Muslims in good faith, fully intending to find common ground with their often unruly Muslim interlocutors—for the Muslims, “dialogue” means something else entirely. For them, it signifies the submission of a lesser culture and religion to their own superior one, a culture they seek to impose on others. Muslims hope to inspire in Westerners and Israelis, conversion to an Islamic view of the world. Anything short of that is regarded by them as an abject “failure of dialogue,” and a signal to resort to threats of violence or acts of terrorism. They are well-practiced at both.  Apart from the U.S., most Western nations  believe nothing is worth fighting for, and they do not  have the stomach for a fight of unlimited duration. They would rather capitulate than investigate what tolerance, understanding, dialogue, and peace really means to the Islamists.


The problem today lies in the juxtaposition of a resurgent Islam on the one hand, and a self-deprecating West on the other, a West unsure of itself, its values, or even for what it stands.  Its people have made a virtue of instant gratification, and therefore they invest next to nothing in the future—hence their declining birth rates. Their preferred way of life amounts to a “credit card culture.” They want everything, and they want it now. Never mind that their governments no longer raise sufficient funds from taxation to cover exorbitant welfare entitlements, or that a bleak financial future awaits tomorrow’s pensioners. In short, the West today, has become a disgrace to its own heritage in a sharp reversal of its fortunes, whilst at the turn of the twentieth century the Muslim Ottoman Empire was considered the “sick man of Europe,” and no match for a confident West. Former U.S. Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was onto something, when he distinguished between “old” and “new” Europe— in their eagerness to grab some (necessarily short-term) economic benefits after emerging from Soviet control, the headlong rush of “new” Europe to join the EU, will inevitably contaminate them with the prevalent Western disease.

The constant Western resort to “dialogue” is dangerous because it has the effect of lulling Western populations into believing their governments are actually doing something constructive to avert violence, or threats of violence in the future. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. This non-policy simply serves to embolden and empower those Muslims whom Western governments have chosen to act as intermediaries with the wider Muslim community. Invariably, Western governments have elected these Muslims largely because they are activists, and therefore prominent in the community, while the governments comfort themselves with the mistaken belief that these figures represent “moderate” Islam. However, these Muslims have been living in Europe long enough to have learned to tailor their vocabulary precisely according to their audience. They speak the language of peace, reconciliation, and goodwill to Westerners, and reserve their true thoughts and beliefs for fellow Muslims. In other words, they have learned to “work the system” admirably.  In effect, these “moderate” Muslim leaders gradually extract one concession after another from Western policymakers, rendering “dialogue” a one-way street. They enter each session with the full intention of testing the limits of the concessions they can extract, and it is a rare government minister who would risk disappointing them—or else the headlines in the papers the following day would be sure to inflame the Muslim community.


Herein lies the value of the worldwide Muslim penchant for overreacting to every perceived slight, real or imagined, by demonstrating their “rage” loudly and violently. Temperament comes into play here too, for unlike other peoples who experience anger or humiliation, many Muslims are either unable or unwilling to contain those sentiments. Such uncontrolled behavior is unthinkable in the West, and not because of lack of provocation, particularly since September 11. Funerals  are manipulated to vent wrath and fury, emotion, general mayhem, and impromptu rifle-shooting.
The total and shameless lack of dignity at what should be a somber occasion, is jarring to western eyes. Bodies are held aloft and bounced along funeral routes in a manner that would be regarded as disrespectful to the deceased in most other cultures. Bodies have been known to fall off stretchers in the chaos, as was recorded for posterity during the funeral of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini. One has only to recall the Arafat-orchestrated “days ofrage” in the early days of the Intifadah against Israel, in order to understand that, in sharp contrast to Westerners, Muslims make a fetish of celebrating their anger.

 The explosion of the Cartoon Affair in Europe and the Middle East in 2006, was the cause of many deaths, boycotts, rage and world-wide demonstrations by Muslims.  Why? Because some obscure artist in an unknown journal dared to depict Muhammed in derogatory terms.  This not only points to the pathological sensitivities of Muslims, but also to their obtuse attitude to others in their “dialogues”. When the President of Iran vows to eliminate the Jewish people and to wipe Israel off the map, none of those dialoguing Muslim organizations raises a voice in protest; none also protested when Christian churches were torched, as a matter of course, throughout the Muslim world, or when the Tomb of Joseph and the Jericho synagogues were burned and destroyed by Palestinians during the Intifadah. Only hurting the reputation of Muhammed matters, and justifies the use of violence, whilst the very notion of respect for other religions, simply does not exist. Therefore, the purpose of dialogue is only to instill respect of Islam into western minds, to which the recently adopted resolution of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, plainly attests. As more and more western and Jewish organizations come to understand what the meaning of “dialogue” with their Muslim partners actually means, they may at last, also learn how to make it more egalitarian, reciprocal, and perhaps also effective.


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"...Muslims and their rivals" says it all

Posted by Danny on 2009-04-01 08:57:40 GMT


The Enlightenment wasn"t the beginning of our cultural decline, DavidRev! It was the wellspring of the greatness of the West -- rational debate, open inquiry, reasoned discourse, logic, rule of law, the worth of the individual, the idea of freedom from tyranny. Dealing with intransigence needs military power as well as mental toughness -- without the enlightenment discoveries that led to the West"s great scientific endeavours, we wouldn"t have the capabilities to deter the enemies of freedom. Islam is benighted and that is it"s problem. It needs an Enlightenment. The fact that its symbol is the moon, indicates the unconscious nature of this ideology.

Posted by Gabrielle on 2009-03-30 09:15:08 GMT


Hurray! At long last it has been realised by powers that be that "dialogue" as we understand it in the Western world IS indeed meaningless to the Muslim mind. Those of us who claim to have some understanding of Islam have grasped this idea long ago but no-one has listened to us.And "multiculturalism" too? Grand and visionary as it all sounds, our Western dreams of "togetherness" and mutual sharing and enjoyment of our different cultures are failing and will fail as well. The sheer inflexibility, arrogance and mindset of some of those who may mouth "multicultural", have not the slightest desire for anything but the central stage. World ... are you waking up?

Posted on 2009-03-30 09:12:29 GMT


Spot on!! RECIPROCITY is what we must demand ...Bibi knows that ...

Posted by Sandy on 2009-03-30 07:32:07 GMT


How refreshing to read an honest and realistic article. It expresses my sentiments exactly.

Posted on 2009-03-30 04:30:12 GMT


Discontinuing what passes for dialogue with Mohammedans is a late awakening, but it is meaningless unless it leads to both a boycott of Durban ll and a demand that Mohammedans in Western societies fit in or flit out. Appeasing their every concocted hurt only leads to more demands. Ironically Jews and Israel are at the forefront of appeasing Mohammedans and in yielding to international pressure to give in to their demands. The West believes that reason and dialogue will always succeed and that all societies are the same. They are wrong! Mohammedan society is driven by their politico-religion, their corruption, their delusions of superiority, their drive to dominate through demographics (and damn the environment), their lack of shame in lying - especially to non-Mohammedans - and their glorification of cruelty and blood-letting. Until we face up to these facts and compel Mohammedans to rise to the standards which they claim we in the West fall short of, and which they themselves trample upon, we will be letting down ourselves and the liberal forces in the "house of peace". We need to defend our humanistic standards and we must do away with the positive stereotyping whereby we befriend a truly worthy Muslim and generalise his qualities to his society.

Posted by paul2 on 2009-03-29 11:43:25 GMT


Gabrielle From what I have been reading for over 30 years now that todays financial meltdown was all PLANNED many years ago, along with all the worlds unrest that it is experiencing at the moment, it has been deliberately brought about to bring in the great opportunity for renewal that you talk about, but those who survive their cleansing will not like what they will bring upon us. A reduction of 80% of the population can only be brought about through deliberate means, so we should stop and see what those are, and war is only one of the means...

Posted by Gaye on 2009-03-28 22:53:22 GMT


Roberta, if the UK has gone that far to Islam that they wont allow a man in who is trying to warn them about the dangers if Islam and the Quran and they allow a radical Muslim in then we know that Islam has won in the UK. Muslims said that they would take England first and then go on from there, and so now it is our turn.. one has to wonder why when they were looking for refuge from their so called plight and problems didnt they go to one of their own Muslim countries who had the same thinking as them and thus they would fit in far better than going to a country where they would be totally alian...

Posted on 2009-03-28 22:15:22 GMT


Once again, Rafi Israeli has spoken the truth clearly and simply. Westerners are the dupes of Islam. As he says "the West has become a disgrace to its own heritage." Let"s reclaim the enLIGHTenment values and make sure these are promulgated in our educational systems. Today"s financial meltdown will ensure a big rethink in the West. This could be a great opportunity for renewal.

Posted by Gabrielle on 2009-03-28 21:31:45 GMT


Raphael Israeli enumerates very well the complications the West faces when dealing with Islam. My questions are these: When the dialogues were discontinued was this made public? Were the reasons made clear? If so, what was the response from the Islamic groups and from the public at large? Geert Wilders was denied entry to the UK - but a Muslim radical was welcomed. How many parts of the government support this new policy? Will Wilders be allowed in? And, as for the French Jewish organizations, it is long overdue. Trying to make friends with a mortal enemy is futile.

Posted by Roberta on 2009-03-28 19:41:46 GMT


Sounds like what they do to Israel all the time.. so what else can we expect here in France, plus England, Spane, Canada, Australia etc... it will just the the same old same old and then they will blame non Muslims for calling off the dialogue. Dialogue can sometimes help but only when their numbers are very few and they are waiting for their numbers to become large then watch out, no dialogue, all fight from then on..

Posted by Gaye on 2009-03-28 10:53:51 GMT