by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n Ever since 9\/11, when Osama bin Laden was thrust into the spotlight, he has made it a point to occasionally submit questions to Americans \u2014 questions which he apparently thinks are unanswerable.<\/p>\n In\u00a0his last message<\/a>\u00a0[1] \u201ccommemorating\u201d 9\/11, for instance, after rehashing the storyline that the jihad on America wholly revolves around U.S. support for Israel \u2014 former grievances cited throughout the years include America\u2019s \u201cexploitation\u201d of women and failure to sign the environmental Kyoto Protocol \u2014 bin Laden concluded with the following musing: \u201cYou should ask yourselves whether your security, your blood, your sons, your money, your jobs, your homes, your economy, and your reputation are more dear to you than the security and economy of the Israelis.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, bin Laden et al. have made it perfectly clear that should U.S. support for Israel cease, so too would Islamic terrorism cease. Hence, in this last communiqu\u00e9: \u201cLet me say that we have declared many times, over more than two and a half decades, that\u00a0the reason for our conflict with you is your support for your Israeli allies<\/em>, who are occupying our land of Palestine [emphasis added].\u201d<\/p>\n Fair enough. Yet before responding to Osama, it must be noted that, in and of themselves, his communiqu\u00e9s beg a simple, logical question \u2014 one that, as shall be seen, renders all his observations and questions moot.<\/p>\n Before articulating this question, let us first establish much-needed context: As clearly demonstrated by Islam\u2019s doctrines and history \u2014 the former regularly manifesting themselves in the course of the latter \u2014 it is a historic\u00a0fact<\/em>that Islamic hostility for and aggression against non-Muslims transcends any and all temporal \u201cgrievances.\u201d In short, Islam, according to the classical \u2014 not \u201cradical\u201d \u2014 schools of jurisprudence, is obligated to subjugate the world.<\/p>\n From a traditional Muslim point of view, this troubling assertion is as open to debate or interpretation as is the notion that Muslims are obligated to pray. This is also why prudent non-Muslims have for centuries been finding the question of achieving permanent peace with the Islamic world a vexatious problem. Professor of law James Lorimer (1818-90) succinctly stated the problem over a century ago:<\/p>\n So long as Islam endures, the reconciliation of its adherents, even with Jews and Christians, and still more with the rest of mankind, must continue to be an insoluble problem. \u2026 For an indefinite future, however reluctantly, we must confine our political recognition to the professors of those religions which \u2026 preach the doctrine of \u201clive and let live\u201d (The Institutes of the Law of Nations<\/a>\u00a0[2], p. 124).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In other words, political recognition \u2014 with all the attendant negotiations and diplomacy that come with it \u2014 should be granted to all major religions\/civilizations except Islam, which does not recognize the notion of \u201clive and let live,\u201d as evinced by, among other stipulations, the Koran\u2019s commands to its adherents to \u201cenjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong,\u201d (e.g., Koran 3:110), that is, enforce Sharia law upon the earth.<\/p>\n Now while most Muslims may not go around evoking Islam\u2019s dichotomized worldview which pits Islam against the rest of the world \u2014 many may not even be aware of it \u2014 bin Laden, the \u201cman of grievances,\u201d has. (This, of course, has long been an\u00a0al-Qaeda tactic<\/a>\u00a0[3]: convince the West, which is generally ignorant of Islam\u2019s bellicose doctrines, that jihad is a byproduct of foreign policy, while inciting Muslims to the jihad by stressing its obligatory nature.)<\/p>\n Back to bin Laden and his communiqu\u00e9s. For all his talk of Israel being the heart of the problem, he exposed his true position in the following excerpt, which he directed to fellow Arabic-speaking Muslims not long after the 9\/11 strikes:<\/p>\n Our talks with the infidel West and our conflict with themultimately<\/em>\u00a0revolve around one issue \u2014 one that demands our total support, with power and determination, with one voice \u2014 and it is: Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So much for bin Laden\u2019s insistence that Israel is the \u201creason for our conflict with you.\u201d Now we see that the conflict\u00a0ultimately<\/em>\u00a0revolves around whether Islam is obligated to dominate the world by force. Well, is it? Bin Laden continues:<\/p>\n Yes. There are only three choices in Islam: [1] either willing submission [conversion]; [2] or payment of the jizya, through physical, though not spiritual, submission to the authority of Islam; [3] or the sword \u2014 for it is not right to let him [an infidel] live. The matter is summed up for every person alive: Either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die. (The Al Qaeda Reader<\/a><\/em>[4], p. 42)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This threefold choice, then \u2014 conversion, subjugation, or the sword \u2014 is the ultimate source of problems. All Islamist talk of jihad being a product of U.S. foreign policy is, therefore, false. When bin Laden asserted in this last message that it is the \u201cneocons\u201d who \u201cimpose the wars upon you \u2014 not the\u00a0mujahideen<\/em>[i.e., jihadis],\u201d he lied. Islamic law, as he himself delineated, imposed war between Muslims and non-Muslims well over a millennium before the \u201cneocons\u201d \u2014 let alone the state of Israel \u2014 came into being.<\/p>\n Thus to all of bin Laden\u2019s grievances and questions, there is but one counter-question \u2014 one that, in the words of bin Laden, \u201cdemands our total support, with power and determination, with one voice\u201d \u2014 and it is: even if all your grievances against Israel and America\u2019s support for it were true, why come to us \u2014 your natural-born enemies, according to your own worldview \u2014 looking for any concessions?<\/p>\n To better appreciate this position, consider the following analogy: Say your weaker neighbor has a border dispute with you. At the same time, however, you know for a fact that he sees you as his \u201ceternal\u201d enemy for nothing less than your beliefs\/lifestyle, and nothing short of your total acquiescence to his beliefs\/lifestyle will change that. Finally, you know that the day he grows sufficiently strong, he will undoubtedly attack you in order to make you live according to his beliefs\/lifestyle.<\/p>\n Surely in this context, whether his border dispute with you is legitimate or not, making concessions to him while knowing his hostility for you will never subside \u2014 but rather become more emboldened and augmented with contempt \u2014 is sheer suicide. Yet this is precisely what happens whenever the U.S. makes any concessions to Islamists.<\/p>\n In sum, we, the \u201cinfidels\u201d \u2014 Americans and Israelis alike \u2014 are\u00a0de facto<\/em>enemies. It is in this context that the question of U.S. support for Israel should be examined. Being hated and deemed the enemy for temporal grievances of a political nature must be viewed as peripheral to being hated for fundamental differences of an existential nature.<\/p>\n When the latter, much more important issue is redressed, then \u2014 and only then \u2014 should the veracity of the former be open to debate or even consideration. In the meantime, all \u201cpolitical\u201d complaints must be seen as absolutely moot. It\u2019s a simple matter of priorities.<\/p>\n