Raid Khoury – Christian Arabs remain the best situated to combat the demonization of Islam
By Guest Post • Feb 9th, 2010 at 7:54 • Category: Analysis, Culture and Heritage, Features, Israel, Newswire, Palestine, Religion, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Zionism
"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves…" Matthew 7:15.
According to Christian tradition the above quote is attributed to Jesus of Nazareth by Matthew as part of the famous Sermon on the Mount, a compilation of Jesus' sayings epitomizing his moral teachingindus. Speaking in the setting of his time, Jesus was understood to be discussing false prophets, but a more general and timeless understanding of this warning is vigilance against deception and false messages of all types.
Ameal Haddad, a local activist and supporter of the "Christian Zionist" movement, is a pastor in Southern California. He has been traveling to Arab countries promoting a sinister agenda and appearing in Arabic-language media outlets. The activities of this virtually unknown Muslim basher first came to light with an appearance on Al-Arabiya's popular weekly, socio-economic talk show "Idaat". In a one-hour interview with Turki Al-Dakheel, Haddad deliberately misrepresented his theological beliefs, views, and agenda as he set out to take advantage of a prominent platform to pursue his efforts at scavenging for a niche on the fringe of the Muslim bashing industry. Haddad remains a virtual unknown in the U.S. much as Wafa Sultan, another Southern California resident, was prior to her own infamous appearance on an Al Jazeera talk show where she publicly disintegrated with a hate-filled rant ensuring she will not be invited to participate in any public discussion and will no longer be taken seriously anywhere in the Arab world. Haddad seems to have learned from that vulgar appearance, dispensing with the invectives and opting for a more subdued approach. But for those of us who know Haddad the message remains the same. Islam is a terrorist religion and Muslims are backwards and terrorists.
Since 9-11, when Haddad and his fellow American Evangelical partner formed their misnamed outfit, the Arab and Muslim bashing industry has been thriving. An unrestrained virulent campaign against Islam and Arabs, along with the required propaganda in preparation for war on Afghanistan and Iraq, and the ongoing activities of a relentless pro-Israel lobby, has provided an opportunity for almost anyone to play a role in this effort and spew their venom. This cottage industry has enlisted a motley crew of pseudo-academics, "democracy" and "human rights" activists, and religious bigots, all united in a single, determined effort to spread a campaign of incitement, lies, and hate against Islam and Arabs.
Among the most vociferous and vile of these groups is a segment of evangelical Christians with a theology that elevates support for the Zionist project in Palestine to a religious duty. This group proved to be a critical and convenient base of support for a U.S. administration that decided to invade Iraq to achieve a set of objectives among which is the re-shaping of the security environment in favor of Israel. For an evangelical, political movement that espouses a worldview where the gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism, and militarism, a neo-colonial endeavor in the heart of the Arab world dovetailed nicely with the post-Cold War concept of a clash of civilizations. The politically inspired, academically flawed paradigm of Samuel Huntington provided a framework for a neo-conservative dominated administration by which to narrate their policies and rally the pre-disposed, political simpletons of the evangelical right to their cause. It is from this anachronistic world view that the ostensibly innocent alternative of a Christian-Muslim dialogue springs, as if military campaigns by the West and the resistance of occupied peoples is an inherent religious struggle unrelated to traditional geo-political imperialist designs and analysis.
A tactic favored by the evangelical movement is finding Christians from the Arab world who abandoned their traditional churches (usually as a result of previous proselytizing by Westerners from the English-speaking world) and adopted one form or another of Western Protestantism. They are assigned various tasks, such as playing the role of persecuted minority or offering "native insight" into the religion of Islam. These individuals are later paraded as indigenously credible sources affirming all the anti-Muslim lies and distortions promulgated by them. This is where people like Haddad can play a valuable role within the movement. An Arab who abandoned the earliest churches established, in both the history of Christianity and within the Arab world, and adopted the doctrines and agenda of this unusual and recent form of Protestant theology, is considered a prize among this group of American evangelicals.
In light of the current climate of hate and religious bigotry, Haddad's hitherto minor and local role in this campaign, and his recent travels and appearances in the Arab world, it is imperative the truth about this person and the agenda he represents be made known to the Southern California Arab and Muslim communities. It is particularly critical that such individuals, with their poisonous message of division and religious agitation, are not permitted to claim to represent the voice of Christian Arabs. In the past 20 years I have had numerous discussions with Haddad about Christianity, Islam, and theology. His primary objective has always been to convince me and anyone who will listen of the inherent evil and immorality of Islam. His consistent single minded determination to smear Islam, its history, and teachings constitute the very essence of his personal message and ideology. After his well publicized interview on Al-Arabiya, a major Arabic-language news channel, I would be surprised if he expected those of us who know him locally to remain silent in the face of a deceitful public performance diametrically opposed to all that he has stood for over the years.
In that interview Haddad made numerous and laughable references to peace, love, brotherhood, and mutual respect. Unless he has had a change of heart towards Islam and Muslims no less transformative than St Paul's experience on the road to Damascus, such proclamations are nothing more than a cynical attempt to advance a hidden agenda and promote the same message of hate Wafa Sultan was much more honest in conveying. The salient moment in the interview came when the very effective host pressed Haddad for his own view on the belief among many evangelicals that the creation of the Zionist state in Palestine in 1948 is a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. With a smile Wafa Sultan could never muster for her Arab audience, and one betraying a self-conscious deceit, Haddad adamantly refused to answer. However an answer to that question and an explanation for his refusal to answer it can be found in the doctrinal statement of the religious seminary where he received his evangelical training. That statement says "The nation of Israel, having been redeemed, will play a central role in bringing the blessings of salvation to all nations during the millennium in fulfillment of Biblical prophecies."
Let me be clear, I am not a religious person and would describe myself as a secular humanist. Yet my primary conflict with Haddad has always been my assertion that despite doctrinal differences, both Christianity and Islam share a common set of moral teachings and universal human values which include a message of peace and non-violence. I found Haddad immovable in his insistence that Islam is not only a false religion (presumably he has a monopoly on absolute truth), but that it also commands its adherents to commit acts of violence, a centuries old Western cliché to which many Evangelical Christians openly subscribe. Each time I pointed out to Haddad that Christians have also committed acts of violence he would respond by telling me "that is because they were not real Christians" and were not following the peaceful teachings of Jesus Christ. In other words, acts of violence by Muslims are carried out as part of their faithful adherence to a violent religion, but acts of violence carried out by Christians are committed because they did not faithfully pursue the peaceful, non-violent teaching of Christianity. While I immediately took notice of the fallacious nature of this circular argument, I could never really determine with certainty what motivated such ludicrous statements.
Over time it became clear his views are a product of something far more malevolent than simple ignorance. In the late 1990s Haddad invited better known Baptist Minister Anis Shorrosh to his church in the Los Angeles suburb of Bellflower. Shorrosh is the unabashed Muslim-basher who gained notoriety with a buffoonish performance in which he donned traditional Arab garb in a debate with the late Ahmad Deedat. Unlike Haddad, Shorrosh does not publicly deny his "Christian Zionist" beliefs. His hate-filled rants have been financed and printed in book form by evangelical organizations and he's been a frequent guest on Pat Robertson's 700 Club program. Shorrosh is the person peddling the "True Furqan" and claims Islam has a twenty-year plan to take over America. This writer interviewed two persons who attended Haddad's church and learned Shorrosh had been invited by Haddad to conduct a one-week workshop designed to train evangelicals in proselytizing among Muslims. His literature, videos, and audio recordings were made available free of charge to all who attended. Not content with two first-hand accounts I took advantage of my next encounter with Haddad and asked him if it's true this preacher of hate was invited to his church as a guest preacher. Haddad informed me directly that Shorrosh was indeed invited to his church to conduct a workshop, that he (Shorrosh) "specializes" in preaching to Muslims, and that he (Haddad) shares his views and was proud to call him a friend.
The target of this aberrant and fringe element of Christian Arabs and other American evangelicals of this variety has always been Islam. An example of this mindset can be found in this interview in which Haddad, while discussing the U.S. invasion of Iraq through the false prism of the official American narrative states, "It is encouraging that so many Muslims have signed the declaration, because it says that they are willing to stop the killing and sit down and talk…", and then goes on to add "only 10 to 15 percent of Muslims believe in violence. The rest are open to discussion." He continues by expressing his "hope" that Muslims "will end the violence and very soon…they have the most to gain." Apparently unaware of the condescending and racist nature of his own words, he may actually believe he was being generous. We can only wonder about the methodology employed by this American evangelical in reaching the conclusion only 10-15 percent of one and a half billion Muslims are violent, or how after one and a half Million Iraqis were killed in an immoral war launched by the U.S., of which his fellow evangelicals were the most enthusiastic supporters, he has the audacity and arrogance to lecture Muslims about non-violence.
Haddad's true message and agenda which he was visibly straining to hide in his Al-Arabiya interview has been remarkably consistent all along. It includes three main components: Islam is an evil religion and the root cause of violence in the world; Muslims must be converted and saved from their own teachings; and the creation of Israel in Palestine is a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. According to this twisted version of Western Protestantism, which inspires the activities of Haddad, Shorrosh, and others within this strand of the U.S. evangelical movement, Israel is locked in a divinely pre-ordained, existential struggle for survival against a hostile Arab and Islamic enemy which will herald the return of Jesus.
To that end these preachers of hate seek the "right" to proselytize in the Arab world among both Muslims and Christians. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion…" The Holy Qur'an recognized this same principle sixteen hundred years before the drafting of the UDHR in 1948 in the verse "let their be no compulsion in religion," (Al-Baqarah: 256). According to the UDHR itself, and consistent with Islamic teachings, such a right applies to individuals. Such a right does not extend to non-human entities such as organizations and institutions seeking to proselytize in the country of their choosing. This is where Haddad's propaganda brochure, which he referred to 15 times as a "document" (wathiqa in Arabic) during his interview, becomes very revealing. The poorly drafted, jumbled sections of Haddad's "wathiqa" is not as he described "a call for love and peace", but an attempt to claim a "right" for any organization to enter any country for the purpose of proselytizing and other endeavors of which we may not be aware. No such right exists. For those preachers who are genuinely interested in spreading a message of non-violence, peace, and love they would be well advised to spend their time and energy here in the U..S among their fellow evangelicals where such a message is desperately needed.
Arabs — both Muslims and Christians — have been the target of a ferocious propaganda campaign in this country. Responding to this onslaught is more than enough to keep them busy without having to contend with a contingent of self-hating Arabs and religious agitators in their midst. As an Arab who happened to be born into a Christian family, I cannot remain silent as individuals on the margins of the Arab American community are enlisted in this demonization campaign as representatives of Christian Arabs. For Christian Arabs their Christianity is an indigenous religion, and Islam is their indigenous civilization. Christian Arabs have lived for centuries in harmony with Muslim Arabs. They form an integral part of the Arab world and Islamic civilization. They share with their Muslim Arab blood-brothers a common Semitic Arab origin, language, culture, and history. Attacks on Islam also constitute an attack on the civilization, culture, and identity of Christian Arabs, whose continued presence in the Arab world is a living testament to the tolerant and peaceful history of Islam, belying the vicious distortions of this great religion and civilization, and making them ideally situated to set the record straight.
Raid Khoury is an Arab American activist in Los Angeles. He can be reached at raidkhoury@yahoo.com.
source: http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/index.php?mod=article&cat=Comment&article=2840
Guest Post is the author as indicated in the tagline. He/she (or the source that is indicated within the post) reserves the rights to the material published.
Email this author | All posts by Guest Post
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Scott Baldauf, Palestine Think Tank, ibnkafka, palestinian, Cyrille Lala and others. Cyrille Lala said: Raid Khoury, Palestine Think Tank: Christian Arabs remain the best situated to combat the demonization of Isla.. http://bit.ly/apxnqF [...]
This is a wonderful article thank you for sharing .
" Christian Arabs" has and will always remain a pillar in Arab societies and have been in the vanguard in Arab nationalism. Never understood why the media or politicians refer to them as "minorities" when in fact they are and should be full citizen no different from a "Muslim" citizen. It will do the Arab countries lot of good to delete once and for all any reference to "religion or faith" in citizenship documents, passports or even family statues. They are not " Ahl Thuma" they are citizens of the state and their rapid immigration is an indictment of how Arab societies evolved. There are more than 15 million Coptic Egyptian and they are not minority by any means but citizens of the state, and there should be NO laws that discriminate between citizens based on faith or religion. For Lebanon, the only way forward is to eliminate the "sectarian laws" that discriminate among citizens of the state and yes, eliminate the "special status" of "Christians" that has been the rock basis of a sectarian and failed Lebanese state. There should be no discriminatory laws nor special status laws for Muslims or Christians. Faith must not determine the rights of citizenship.
Sir,
This is an interesting and well-argued essay, but it may underestimate the problem. The example the author uses is just the tip of the iceberg here in the United States. Each of our major television networks — broadcast and cable — have a Middle East expert who is a Christian Arab. Each of these gentlemen adheres to the nonsense that America is being attacked by Islamist militants because of its freedom and liberty and not because of what its government does in the Islamic world. They especially play down U.S. support for Israel as a cause of conflct.
In my view, these experts from the region are detrimental to any American understanding of the nature of this conflict and, indeed, more often than not echo the Neoconservative/Israel-First position that ensures endless war between the United States and the Islamist militants.
Respectfully,
M.F. Scheuer
Falls Church, VA
Thanks for this enlightening article by Raid Khoury and thanks to the Palestine Thinktank for publishing it.
What Ameal Haddad had said hide a sinister and grotesque plan of fulfilling the prophecy of Armageddon.
His organisation support Israeli genocide by incessant supply of money and arms to Israel while in the mean time he plead with the Arab and Muslim to surrender to this nefarious action of Israel.
In order to implement their alleged divine prediction they are trying surreptitiously to help Israel by preventing the Arab from resisting the occupation of Israel. They are selling attractive names like peace, democracy and human rights to cover up their real reprehensible intention of war and conquest.
Had Ameal Haddad was genuine he should have gone to Israel to stop them killing Palestinians children and persuade the Israeli to live in peace with the non Jews. Or perhaps he could spend his effort in America to prevent the neo con and the Zionists from arming Israel with the most devastating arms that has been used to kill unarmed civilians. Or protest the creation of the biggest concentration camps in Gaza.
Why dose not he contact the peace activists in Israel who want to live in peace with Palestinians? or perhaps contact Gilad Atzmon or ilan Pappe and others
I always remember that time when these Christian Zionists had sent millions of email to George Bush to force him to allow Ariel Sharon to carry on killing the Palestinians and taking more of their lands at the second intifada.
These people are fascists, heartless, dangerously fanatics and real errorists.They are turning a fable to a monotonous reality. Their fable of Armageddon creates only blood and pain.
I wonder if Jesus were to come back will he thank them for this blood bath that they have generated.
Anyway how would they knew Jesus if he were to come back will he be from the Middle East or American will he show them more magic tricks or perhaps some witchcraft so they will believe him? will they crucify him again?. It is all bunkum.
(I saw the following on the web – Franz)
Pretrib Rapture Trivia
Who's the "Protector of the Principality of Pretribulatia"?
Edward Irving? John Darby? C. I. Scofield? Tim LaHaye? Someone else?
Media figure Joe Ortiz knows the answer. It's in his "End Times Passover" blog. The one dated Dec. 29, 2009.
If you're Calvinist, you're predestined to see his blog. If you're Arminian, you can choose to see it.
It will be too late to find out the answer to the above trivia question if the rapture happens!
"For Christian Arabs their Christianity is an indigenous religion, and Islam is their indigenous civilization.
Christian Arabs have lived for centuries in harmony with Muslim Arabs.
They form an integral part of the Arab world and Islamic civilization.
They share with their Muslim Arab blood-brothers a common Semitic Arab origin, language, culture, and history.
Attacks on Islam also constitute an attack on the civilization, culture, and identity of Christian Arabs, whose continued presence in the Arab world is a living testament to the tolerant and peaceful history of Islam, belying the vicious distortions of this great religion and civilization, and making them ideally situated to set the record straight."
What a remarkable testament! I simply had to restate it.
This article is a masterpiece!
I would just humbly offer tiny corrections for the purpose of accuracy, perhaps to fix in a future revision, as these needlessly appear as tiny blemishes on the otherwise excellent article. Inaccuracies in stellar works bother me, so here goes, FYI:
1) "… the post-Cold War concept of a clash of civilizations. The politically inspired, academically flawed paradigm of Samuel Huntington provided a framework for a neo-conservative dominated administration …"
The idea isn't Huntington's, although he did appropriate it for the title of his doctrinal book. See page 213 of the book where he correctly attributes the entire concept to Bernard Lewis. Clash of Civilization is entirely a Bernard Lewis Production which appeared in 1990 in CFR's Foreign Affairs magazine to seed, what Brzezinski brazenly later stated in his book The Grand Chessboard as necessary for "imperial mobilization":
"More generally, cultural change in America may also be uncongenial to the sustained exercise abroad of genuinely imperial power. That exercise requires a high degree of doctrinal motivation, intellectual commitment, and patriotic gratification."
Here is the relevant passage from Huntington, and you can immediately see that it is 110% pertinent to your analysis in relation to the rest of Huntington's book. In retrospective study and connecting the dots, I have come to realize that this book was a clever academic camoflage for only this one topic of Islamic Fundamentalism in preperation for "imperial mobilization", and this passage is the heart of the entire book:
"In 1990 Bernard Lewis, a leading Western scholar of Islam, analyzed 'The Roots of Muslim Rage,' and concluded: 'It should now be clear that we are facing a mood and a movement far transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash of civilizations – that perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both. It is crucially important that we on our side should not be provoked into an equally historic but also equally irrational reaction against our rival.' "
Therefore, please note that the "clash of civilization" is an imperial dogma, and is not only neo-conservative, but entirely serves "imperial mobilization" agenda in a fully bipartisan way. The invention of "militant Islam" is not a paradigm which is academically flawed. It is, in fact, a brilliant hegelian dialectic to raise the phoenix from the ashes of the controlled and orchestrated clash – just to give the devil its due credit for uber-sophisticated doctrinal warfare and psyops which fuels this lifetime of World War IV. To dismiss it as "academically flawed" is to not understand political science – and that is entirely an academic subject with a long history of service to empire! It is only as flawed as Machiavelli's the Prince, or the 2500 years old The Art of War.
2) "… both Christianity and Islam share a common set of moral teachings and universal human values which include a message of peace and non-violence. "
Just to accurately caveat the "non-violence" bit, Christianity's "turn the other cheek" does not exist in Islam (to my limited knowledge). The word "non violence" in Western Vernacular is very much Ghandian an entirely precludes violence, even in self-defence.
Engaging in self-defense is a rational duty explicitly taught in the Qur'an, which does sometimes entail extreme violence, i.e., killing people who have come to kill you, but also to not exceed the permissble bounds in retaliation in self-defence lest one became counted amongst the aggressors and themselves became the transgressors! To kill one innocent person is to have killed all humanity, and to have saved one innocent person from a tyrant's butchery is to have saved all humanity! All very explicit teachings of the Qu'ran. These lofty moral teachings, like the Ten Commandments, in their impracticableness, entirely rule out modern warfare which outright mainly kill innocent civilians. And this is a conundrum. One has to fight in self-defence, but not kill even one innocent soul!
In anycase, this moral empowerment to self-defense is the underpinning of Jihad, and Crusading Christianity later added the "Just War" concept to counter it. But the Biblical New Testament is entirely peaceable with 'love thy enemy'! It is in fact so peaceable that such love is extended to 'honor thy king' whether or not the king is a tyrant and deserves it. This is why, it was Jihad that was diabolically harnessed by Zbigniew Brzezinski as the doctrinal weapon system of choice to make patsies amongst the Muslims, first in Afghanistan with "god is on your side", and now by the empire fomenting 'militant Islam'.
Therefore, one can cry until the cows come home that Islam is "non-violent", but unless you caveat it with empowerment to self-defence, which at times is rather violent, your statement remains inaccurate. Better to just drop the phrase "non violence".
3) "The Holy Qur'an recognized this same principle sixteen hundred years before the drafting of the UDHR in 1948 …"
Off by approx. 250 years, give or take a decade. Replacing by fourteen hundred would be close enough.
Finally, thank you for all the pertinet information. I had previously never heard of this Haddad fellow. BTW, the quoted statement "only 10 to 15 percent of Muslims believe in violence" is evidently seeded in Daniel Pipes' teachings. I won't be surprised if this Haddad is a crypto Jew Zionist. He appears far too intelligent to be an indoctrinated Evangelical Christian Zionist.
Best wishes
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
Google "Copy of MacDonald's Handwritten 'Pretrib Revelation' is Found!" And Joe Ortiz's "End Times Passover" blog (3/9/10) is the first to air a facsimile copy of any part of it!
If you are looking for arguments used by pretrib rapture teachers, Google "Pretrib Rapture Secrecy."
[...] Raid Khoury – Christian Arabs remain the best situated to combat the demonization of Islam (8) [...]