The Saudi Religious Leader Who Condemns Anti
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Selected articles concerning Israel, published weekly by Suburban Orthodox Toras Chaim’s (Baltimore) Israel Action Committee Edited by Jerry Appelbaum ( [email protected] ) | Founding editor: Sheldon J. Berman Z”L Issue 8 4 6 Volume 20 , Number 2 5 Parshias Chukas - Balak July 4 , 20 20 The Saudi Religious Leader Who Condemns Anti - Semitism and Calls on Muslims to Learn about the Holocaust By Jeff Jacoby bostonglobe.com June 28 , 2020 Meet Mohammad al - Issa . murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in For years, Saudi Arabia worked tirelessly to export Istanbul shocke d the world. There have been real reforms Wahhabism, its home - grown strain of intolerant Islam, to in Saudi Arabia in recent years, but the country is still far Muslim communities worldwide. It poured many billions from anything resembling Al - Issa’s vision of openness. of dollars into funding mosques, schools, and cultur al Winston Churchill described Russia in 1939 as “a organizations that promoted Islamist e xtremism — an riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. ” But, extremism capable of turning murderous, as Americans Churchill added, “perhaps there is a key.” If the same is learned on Sept. 11, 2001, when 19 Al - Qaeda terrorists, 15 true today of Saudi Arabia, perhaps the key to its internal of them Saudi citizens, murdered thousands of people. contradi ctions is that Islamism is in retreat — not just in Given the link between Saudi Arabia ’s monarchy and Saudi society, but across much of the Muslim world. the rise of radical Isla m, Muhammad Al - Issa might not be Writing in the Glo be four years ago, Daniel Pipes, your idea of a typical Saudi cleric. president of the Middle East Forum, suggested that there The 55 - year - old secretary general of the Muslim World were two weaknesses that might bring about a n unraveling League, a graduate of Imam Muhammad bin Saud of the Islamist movement. One was internecine fighting University with a degree in comparative Islamic among Islamists themselves — the classic dynamic of on e - jurisprudence, has become a leading ex ponent of moderate time allies turning on each other as they compete for Islam. Al - Issa vigorously criticizes religious extremism and dominance. Of that there have been examples aplenty, vocally supports interfaith cooperation. He has been hailed such as the falling out i n Turkey between Recep Tayyip by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Catholic archbishop of Erdoğan and the religious leader Fethullah Gülen, or the New York, as the “most eloquent spokesperson in the bitter clash in Iran between Suprem e Leader Ali Khamenei Islamic wo rld for reconciliation and friendship among the and former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. religions” and extolled by the president of the Mormon But “the bigger peril for the movement,” Pipes wrote, church, Russell Nelson, as “a peacemaker [and] a bridge - was rising unpop ularity — “as populations experience builder.” Islamist rule firsthand, they reject it.” He pointed to the Especially notable has been Al - Issa’s insistence on widespread antipathy of ordinary Iranians to the theocratic condemning hate crimes against Jews, including the lethal regime in Tehran, and to the massive demonstrations in synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh and Poway, Calif. In Egypt against the Muslim Brotherhood governm ent of January he led a Muslim delegation to Ausch witz, then Mohamed Morsi in 2013. published a column calling Holocaust denial a “crime” that Today, there is a profusion of indications that should appall true Muslims . This month, speaking from Islamism is losing its grip. Mecca to an online conference on anti - Semitism, he said “Across the Arab world people are turning against he had made it his “mission to work with my brothers and religious political parties and the clerics who helped bring sisters of the Jewi sh faith” to advance inter - religious them to power,” the Economist reported in December. In harmony, and “to confront the extremists … falsely Iraq, Lebanon, and other Muslim - majority countries, the claiming inspiration from our religious texts.” Arab Barometer polling network finds a notable drop in Clearly it is significant that a Saudi religious leader and trust for Islamist political parties and a declining sha re of politician (Al - Issa was his country’s min ister of justice Arabs who think religious leaders should have influence from 2009 to 2015) is impassioned in defense of religious over gover nment. The Turkish analyst Mustafa Aykol tolerance and so strongly opposes “polit ical Islam,” or writes that there has been a backlash to Islamism in the Islamism — the supremacist doctrine that all societies form of “a new secular wave breeding in the Muslim must be ruled by uncompromising Islamic law. Al - Issa’s world.” Another Turkish scholar, so ciologist Mucahit moderation and open - mindedness are 180 degrees Bilici, concludes: “Today Islamism in Turkey is associ ated removed from the totalitarianism of the Taliban, ISIS, in the public mind with corruption and injustice.” Nigeria’s Boko Haram, or the hard - line regime in Iran. The 2019 Arab Youth Survey, a study of 3,300 men Yet Al - Issa’s views haven’t prevailed in his own land, and women between 18 and 24 in the Middle East and either. Saudi Arabia is among the most unf ree nations on North Africa, found that tw o - thirds believe “religion plays earth, particularly for religious minorities and dissenters. too big of a role in the Middle East” an d 79 percent Dissidents, reformers, and human - rights activists are believe that “the Arab world needs to reform its religious fr equently arrested, imprisoned, or brutalized. The grisly This may be what is unfolding, ever so gradually, in Saudi Focus o n Israel July 4, 2020 Page 2 Arabia: a halting sh ift to moderate Islam in what was the Arabia peddled a version of Islam that was repressive and world’s foremost exporter of radical Islam. There are no narrow - minded. Let us hope it now work s just as guarantees ; this may be only a lull between storms. But the assiduously to promote Al - Issa’s message of tolerance, rise of so outspoken a Saudi moderate as Muhammad Al - peace, and empathy, and thereby cultivate the very best in Issa offers reason for encouragement. For decade s, Saudi Muslim tradition. The U.S. Has the Legal Tools to Maintain the Arms Embargo on Iran — if It’s Willing to Use Them By Benny Avni nysun.com June 30, 2020 Snapback . of those, the removal of an arms embargo, is due to expire For the Trump presidency, the end is nigh. Or at least weeks before our presidential election. that’s what America’s “partners” believe as they consider Mr. Pompeo’s Tuesday speech was designed to the question of Iran. publicly launch negotiations on a proposed American On Tuesday , the United Nations Security Council resolution t hat would extend the arms embargo convened to contemplate that question, but rather than indefinitely. The proposed resolution, distributed to Iran it was America that they placed in the dock. At the council members last week, is widely expected to be U.N., it seems, America’s power quickly wanes. Diplomats vetoed by Russia or China, or both. That is why it would privately say they’d rather await a Democrat in t he White have been best had Mr. Pompeo explicitly spelled out House than fall behind the current president’s “America Americ a’s intention to, in that case, trigger snapback. first” agenda — especially when it comes to Iran. After all, in selling the Iran deal to the American Russia’s envoy here, Vasily Nebenzya, said in respect people, officials in President Obama’s administration of the 2015 nuclear deal, America’s “unilateral” actions promised that America could unilaterally reimpose all “remove any incentive for Iran to comply.” Mr. sanctions at any time it detected Iranian non - compliance. Nebenzya’s remarks Tuesday were so full of scorn that one As the UN top political official, Rosemary DiCarlo, told would be forgiven for wondering what ever happened to the Council Tuesday, Iran violated the arms embargo by the purported special relations his boss maintains with Mr. smuggling missiles in the region. Trump, which, once again, is all the rage in Washington. Iranian - made rockets were used by Yemeni allies to The most v isible guest at Tuesday’s virtual parley was attack Saudi Arabia, she noted. Earlier, the In ternational Secretary of State Pompeo, who showed up in the Zoom - Atomic Energy Agency additionally reported Iran failed to like session to urge council members to extend an Iran arm cooperate with its inspectors, which violates its obligations embargo, due to expire in October. “This Chamber has a as well. choice,” he said. “Stand for international p eace and Yet, Mr. Pompeo failed to even say the word security, as the UN’s founders intended, or let the arms “snapback.” Other council members certainly did. As embargo on the Islamic Republic of Iran expire, betraying Communist China’s a mbassador, Zhang Jun, put it, the U.N.’s mission and its finest ideals.” America “is no longer a participant and therefore cannot” A former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, trigger the snapback mechanism. Germany’s UN Mr. Pompeo detailed looming threats to the region and the ambassador, Christoph Heusgen, immediately volunteered globe if Iran were allowed to resume the legal purchase , “I would like to align myself with what China said.” and sale of sophisticated weapons. Yet, Mr. Pompeo failed Even Britain, America’s closest ally, joined the chorus. to add an “or else” to his plea. Whether he was Yes, acting ambassador Jonathan Allen said “the planned intimidated, or worse, tacitly acknowledged the lifting of arms restrictions on Iran in October would have administration is out o f gas, is anyone guess.