Levitt Letter Extra News

Lockheed F-22 Raptors

By Yaakov Katz, www.JPost.com

Israel is increasingly concerned that the United States will allow the sale of fifth-generation, stealth-enabled Joint Strike Fighter jets – aka the F-35 Lightning II – to Saudi Arabia.

But while this could pose a major challenge for the IDF, defense officials said it also presented Israel with a unique opportunity to ask the Americans for new advanced technology that would not be sold to the Saudis, to enable Israel to retain its qualitative edge in the region.

A month ago, the head of the Defense Ministry’s Diplomatic-Military Bureau, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, met with Pentagon officials in Washington and reached understandings concerning certain arms purchases. A week earlier, Defense Ministry director-general Pinhas Buchris was at the Pentagon for similar talks.

Defense officials said recently that the two visits had been used to present the Americans with a “shopping list” that Israel hoped would be finalized in the coming months. Leading the American side of the talks was Beth McCormick, the acting deputy undersecretary of defense for technology security policy and national disclosure policy.

Last June, Gilad met with McCormick to present Israel’s objections to a proposed U.S. sale of state-of-the-art weaponry, including Boeing’s Joint Direct Attack Munition smart bombs, or JDAMs, to Saudi Arabia. Officials said recently that those concerns had increased following reports that Saudi Arabia planned to ask the U.S. to sell it the Joint Strike Fighter now under development by Lockheed Martin.

“The Saudis want the plane,” one senior official said. “They always look for top-of-the-line technology, and the Americans will have difficulty saying no.”

In light of this possibility, Israel has asked the Americans for a number of new military platforms that have yet to be sold outside the U.S.

One request centers on the F-22 Raptor – a stealth fighter currently operational in the U.S. – which came up during Buchris’s talks in Washington. Israel has asked to be allowed to acquire the jet – foreign sales are currently under congressional ban – in the face of alleged Iranian efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. The F-22 can avoid radar detection and is the world’s most advanced fighter jet to date.

The defense officials also spoke with their U.S. counterparts about receiving two new advanced models of the JDAM to preserve Israel’s qualitative edge over the Saudis, who would receive the standard smart-bomb kit.

One of the models Israel is interested in has a laser-guided system, and the other is protected from electronic-warfare systems and jamming. Both are manufactured by Boeing Co. in the U.S.

Buchris also tried to interest the Americans in investing in the development and production of the Iron Dome, the anti-missile system Israel is developing against Kassam rockets. Officials said an American engineering team was scheduled to visit Israel in the coming weeks to continue talks on the issue.

Buchris also discussed with the Americans the possibility of integrating Israeli defense industries into the production of the Joint Strike Fighter, which the IDF has announced will be the IAF’s next fighter jet. Buchris and Gilad also discussed with the Americans the possibility of moving up the delivery of the plane to Israel from 2014 to 2012, or at the latest, 2013.

Eight countries – including Britain, Turkey, and Australia – are members of the Joint Strike Fighter project. Israel is a Security Cooperation Participant after paying $20 million in 2003 for access to information accumulated during the development of the jet, which will be priced at between $50m. and $60m.

Officials said Israel had convinced the Americans to allow the IAF to install its own technology in the aircraft – a major point of contention between the Defense Ministry and the Pentagon until now.

Defense officials said that the Americans had now agreed, in principle, to allow Israel to integrate its own technology into the plane, as it has done with other fighter jets it has bought in the past from the US, including the F-15 Eagle and the F-16 Fighting Falcon.

“We have closed up the JSF issue, including getting the info on the plane and integrating technology,” an official said. “The Americans know that we will safeguard and protect their interests.”

By Jesse Petrilla, www.FrontPageMagazine.com

I recently returned to the United States from Egypt where I was on a fact-finding mission to see what life is like for non-Muslims who live under Islam. What I saw was a dire situation of oppression and discrimination that many in America and the West have all but ignored.

I went to Egypt because I wanted to learn what life would be like if our enemies and their allies succeeded in getting their way. What I saw was an example of the harsh life in store for future American generations in Islamic-dominated regions of the U.S. if we do not work to bring attention to Islamic oppression now at this critical time in history.

My journey began on an EgyptAir flight out of JFK. I was a bit surprised, to say the least, when the in-flight video came on prior to departure and instead of the usual safety video, a picture of a mosque flickered on and a deep-toned recorded voice came on reciting Islamic prayers out of the Koran. I’ve flown on Israeli airline El Al a number of times as well as hundreds of other global and U.S. airline companies, and I have never experienced a Christian prayer or a Jewish prayer on a flight, and could only imagine the reaction of Americans if an airline carrier were to try. Regardless of the policies and logic of other airlines, apparently a Muslim-owned airline feels it fit to assume that all its passengers desire to hear a Muslim prayer, regardless of their faith. The safety video followed and my journey had begun. I was on my way to Cairo and Alexandria to get a feeling of what life was like there for non-Muslims.

The first day, I visited old Cairo. Walking through the alleyways, I visited the many ancient churches there. As I rounded a corner I came upon an old synagogue. Excited to find and learn the experiences of Jews who live there, I entered only to be greatly disappointed and utterly disgusted when I saw the synagogue was filled with hijab-clad Muslim women selling trinkets and postcards inside. It’s a museum that I can only assume the government uses to show its “tolerance.” I overheard the tour guides speaking of how there “were once Jews here,” and I was told that there is only one other synagogue in the city. It makes you wonder if someday there will be regions of America with a museum of the last or second to last synagogue or church. Irritatingly, the Egyptian police refuse to allow anyone to take any photos or video at all of the synagogue either inside or out, and they threatened to take my camera if I questioned their rule.

As I continued through the streets, the afternoon call to prayer began to broadcast from a local mosque, then another mosque, then a third, until the deafening sound of thousands of loudspeakers from mosques all over the city pierced through the air with the call of Allah akbar followed by Koranic verses.

I recalled how in several American cities including Dearborn, Michigan, sound ordinances have begun to be overturned to allow this to occur in America. I made my way to meet with a friend who is an activist for human rights in Egypt. He showed me the Egyptian constitution which in article II states that sharia (Islamic) law shall be “the principal source of legislation.” This clause goes for everyone in the nation regardless of faith. My friend told me the stories and showed me photos of young Christian girls who had been kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam, and threatened with death, and their families threatened if they ever convert back. After several days in Cairo, my journey continued to Alexandria where I would visit several churches which had been attacked in recent years.

On the train to Alexandria, we passed through rural villages where I noticed vast amounts of hay on the roofs of many village homes. Our guide told us that the livestock sleep in the house with the people at night. Jokingly I asked if the women sleep out in the stable, but I didn’t receive a definitive answer on that one. It was about this time that I realized the majority of the men everywhere I went had a small round bruise on their forehead reminiscent of something out of the book of Revelation. My guide told me that it was from hitting their head on the floor when praying. He also told me that in Egypt specifically, and perhaps elsewhere, some men heat up a metal spoon in a fire and stick it on their forehead to accentuate the bruise. It seems you aren’t cool unless you have the mark.

As we stepped off the train in Alexandria, a police officer approached and told my Egyptian Coptic friend that he did not have a license to be my guide, desiring a bribe before he would leave us alone. This had not been the first time in the trip that a cop came up looking for money. It seemed every time I took out my camera, a police officer would show up to tell me I couldn’t take any pictures and I would have to pay him a nominal fine. Usually the officer would not be looking for a bribe of more than ten or twenty dollars, and thankfully our guide was able to talk officers out of it the majority of the time.

We went to a local hotel where I turned on the television to see the Statue of Liberty in flames. I changed the channel only to see a video clip of a small child crying with her arms in the air, spliced in with images of U.S. soldiers. The video cut to a bleeding boy lying on the ground — an obvious piece of anti-American propaganda. Interestingly enough, to the right of the boy in the video you could see a U.S. medic helping the injured child, no doubt hurt by Jihadist terrorists, but you certainly wouldn’t know that from the theme of the video.

Our first stop in Alexandria was the Church of St. George, the site of a brutal attack in 2005 where a Muslim in his early 20s entered as a prayer service was finishing. He shouted Allah akbar and stabbed a nun in the chest with a knife. Several days after the stabbing, an angry Muslim mob also attacked the church, brandishing sticks and throwing rocks at the Christians. Numerous cars and Christian-owned businesses in the area were torched, and in the end, three people were dead from the violence, all of it being sparked by unsubstantiated reports about a theatrical production that occurred at the church which was rumored to have offended Islam.

I attended a prayer service there, and every 15 seconds over loudspeakers aimed at the church from the mosque next door, the Muslims were yelling at the Christians. Allah akbar! Allah akbar! they would yell among other things in an attempt to disrupt the prayer. This was entirely outside of the five daily calls to prayer which come over the same loudspeaker. It was intimidation designed entirely to disrupt Christian prayer, and stopped as soon as everyone left after the service was over. I took a short video of the incident, and posted it on YouTube.

My next stop was the Church of All Saints. When I arrived, I saw a large mosque directly across the street and another on the other block. This was the same case with the previous church I had visited, and my guide explained that as soon as they built the church, mosques went up all around it. Yet today it has become nearly impossible to get a permit in the country to construct a new church anywhere. The Church of All Saints was another site of an attack which occurred in 2006 where a Jihadist entered and began stabbing churchgoers while yelling the familiar phrase Allah akbar. In all, he attacked three churches that day, critically wounding many and killing a 78-year-old man. Yet the government dismissed him as only an isolated mentally ill madman.

I met with many people during my trip, and I learned a great deal about what it is like to live as a minority under Islam. I spoke with a priest who told me how he can see the younger generation of Christians there becoming more and more Islamized. I spoke with a man who told me how his young Christian children are taught in public schools there that they are going to hell if they do not become Muslims. I saw brutal intimidation and oppression, and a life dictated by Islamic law that many Americans don’t realize but are slowly beginning to see. Before we left, our guide showed us his ID card which had a glaring number 2 in the corner. He told me that Christians are required to have that number on their IDs. I asked if Muslims were required to have a number as well. “Yes,” he responded. “Number 1.”

In my visit to Egypt I saw a place rampant with police brutality and corruption, where non-Muslims are second-class citizens at best, who are brutally victimized on a daily basis. All this in a nation which is a popular U.S. tourist spot, and has been the recipient of American aid in excess of $28 billion in the last three decades.

Jesse Petrilla is the founder of The United American Committee (UAC), a federation of concerned Americans promoting awareness of threats to Homeland Security, primarily focusing on Islamic extremism in America.

By Sam Ser, www.JPost.com Apr. 17, 2008

It doesn’t look like much, this thing lying dormant in the grassy driveway of Shmuel Ovadia’s exceedingly modest offices in south Tel Aviv. Still, Ovadia insists, this bunch of plywood and rusting engines, bolted together in an old shipping crate, could save the planet.

The box of parts, and the large metal arm lying on top of it, is meant to be stationed a few kilometers away, just off the coast. There, in the surf that endlessly laps at the shore, a set of Ovadia’s buoys would exploit one of the world’s most reliable – and most potent – sources of energy.

The idea is fairly simple: Every wave on the ocean represents a significant amount of force; if even some of that tremendous energy could be harnessed, it could be turned into electricity.

“They say that just 1 percent of the energy in the oceans could power the entire world,” Ovadia says, with a raise of the eyebrows and a nod of the head, as if to stave off any “no way” reaction. It is, he assures, a viable goal.

The tricky part of realizing such potential is finding a way to capture as much of that energy as possible and turn it into electricity in a safe and cost-efficient manner. Until now, the dozens of contraptions that have been tried – although tantalizing and inspiring – have proven unable to meet that challenge.

Part of the problem lies in the sheer brute force of the sea. One apparatus, a 750-metric-ton device, was torn to shreds off the coast of Scotland as it was being put in place. And that was in relatively shallow water. Attempts to harvest the even more powerful currents farther out to sea and deeper down require complicated feats of engineering that make such efforts impractical in the near future.

The beauty of Ovadia’s system, he says, lies in its simplicity. Rather than try to channel the ocean’s power, Ovadia wants to go along for the ride. His buoys lie atop the water, at or just off the beach. As waves raise the buoys, attached hydraulic arms, contract – turning an alternator, creating electricity. The entire process is fully automatic, and requires not a drop of fuel.

“I don’t need smoke-belching towers, I don’t need turbines, I don’t need anything polluting,” Ovadia says. What’s more, he adds, his company’s zero-emissions, quiet power plants could produce commercial amounts of electricity while taking up just a 10th of the space required by coal-burning or natural gas-burning power plants. The lower infrastructure costs, combined with lower per-kilowatt production costs, mean that the original investment in an ocean wave power plant manufactured by his firm SDE would be repaid in five years – a fourth of the time that most conventional power plants need to “earn their keep.”

With all these advantages, you’d think potential clients would be busting down Ovadia’s door. According to him, they are – and they are hailing from some unusual places. In addition to some general interest from companies and governments in Chile, Argentina, Spain, Cyprus, Monaco and other countries, SDE is in very serious negotiations with the government of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim state.

“We are very interested in this technology,” Dr. Faizul Ishom of the State Ministry for Development of Disadvantaged Areas told The Jerusalem Post. “We are an island country with a lot of beaches, so it could be very good for us, and for our environment too. We want to apply this. I have already talked with power companies about it.”

Ishom and other Indonesian officials have visited SDE’s offices here, and they hope to return soon to finalize a deal. Initially, Ishom said, his country is looking to buy an ocean wave power plant capable of producing 100 MW, at a cost of $650 million. If that plant is successful, Indonesia would be interested in another one on the scale of 500 MW.

Pakistan – the world’s only nuclear-armed Muslim state and, like Indonesia, a nation that has no formal diplomatic ties with Israel – is also eager to have Ovadia’s company build a power plant for its citizens, an official confirmed to the Post. Count India and Sri Lanka among the countries in talks with SDE, as well.

Ovadia is focusing on Africa as a potential market, too. The general manager of the Zanzibar Electricity Corporation confirmed talks over a power plant between 10 MW and 100 MW in capacity. Tanzania, whose severely unstable electricity supply has crippled its already fragile economy, is eager to see a 500 MW plant constructed as soon as possible. Gambia, in a similar situation, paid for Ovadia to make a presentation in the capital.

“One of our country’s biggest challenges is that we have no reliable source of energy,” Ebrima Camara, of the Office of the President, told The Post. “If we had, we could increase our potential to attract investors for industry and manufacturing. We really want to be able to give our people the ability to be self-reliant and productive, so if we can get a technology like this, which would make electricity cheaply and reliably, it would mean a lot for Gambia.”

Following what Camara described as “a very fruitful meeting,” Gambia and SDE are negotiating over a 70 MW power plant in a deal that would be worth millions of dollars.

For all this attention from the rest of the world, though, Ovadia lacks recognition here at home.

“I used to get research grants from the Industry and Trade Ministry,” Ovadia says, noting that his funding was cut in 2000, following a severe leg injury that kept him out of work for two years and prevented him from meeting deadlines that would have qualified him for further support. “Now,” he says bitterly, “I’m just a pest to the government.”

What Ovadia wants, he says, is not money, but recognition.

“Israel has maybe 10,000 meters of breakwaters along its shores. Those breakwaters could produce 10% of the country’s electricity needs. If we could put our buoys on the breakwaters, they would not only produce electricity, but also act as a kind of shock absorber and lengthen the life of the breakwaters,” he says, getting excited.

“I can build a plant here, for example, that will produce 100 MW of electricity. This is not meant to answer all the country’s needs, but it can definitely provide a good chunk. And with oil selling for more than $100 per barrel, it’s definitely worth considering.”

That there is very little consideration of the potential in SDE’s system vexes Ovadia. The Israel Electric Corporation “pretends to be interested in my technology,” he says, “but in reality it sees us as a threat.”

IEC did not respond to that claim, but acknowledged it had no interest in SDE or ocean wave energy. A spokesman for the Office of the Chief Scientist of the Industry and Trade Ministry said the body was continuing to invest in local research and development of alternative energy options, but had no particular interest in Ovadia’s ideas at this time.

Ovadia claims he is doomed by bureaucrats swayed by lobbyists for conventional energy firms offering kickbacks, payoffs and the promise of cushy “adviser” jobs in the power industry upon leaving office.

“It’s no wonder that, when you ask officials about my ideas, they come up with excuses like, ‘This isn’t the time for this sort of thing,’ or ‘It isn’t convincing enough,’ or ‘The technology isn’t ready yet.’ They prefer to protect the interests of those who sell coal or who operate coal-powered plants,” Ovadia says. “Why? Those are deals worth billions. You think someone would risk losing that by supporting my little buoys?”

Ovadia doesn’t name names. Is he paranoid? Making excuses for his failure to inspire his countrymen? Either is possible, or both. Or, it may just be that he is exhausted from the efforts of trying to infect bureaucrats with the exuberance of a dreamer.

At 56, with his hair dyed black and agitation exaggerating the lines that middle age and frustration have carved into his face, it is clear that it hasn’t been easy for Ovadia, being told over and over again for decades that his idea wouldn’t work.

It was as a soldier on leave, waiting outside the old Yaron Cinema in South Tel Aviv, that he first considered the potential of ocean waves. Sitting on the railing as waves rolled toward his feet, Ovadia was mesmerized. There must be a way, he figured, to turn that hypnotic motion into something useful.

It took Ovadia, who pulls out forms detailing his 17 different patents, more than a decade to develop his foggy notion into concrete reality. After completing his service in the Engineering Corps, he worked in a plant manufacturing motors, learning about pneumatics, hydraulics and electricity. Eventually he struck upon the idea of a way to put the waves’ own energy to use.

The theory behind wave energy exploitation goes back ages; bringing theory to practice often takes ages. As he brought SDE to life, Ovadia built and tested eight different models of his system, starting with one so small that it fit in his bathtub. He made each of the models larger, until they required a shipping container full of water, and eventually tested his current system in the Jaffa Port.

Along the way there have been numerous disappointments, including what he calls obstruction from the Israeli establishment and what he vaguely refers to as “some troubles with unscrupulous partners.”

Then there are the nagging questions – about whether the relatively gentle waves licking at the country’s Mediterranean coast are strong enough to make this technology worthwhile; about the ability of SDE’s buoys to survive and operate in the brutal environment of seawater, and about the environmental damage that could result from installing a power plant of this type on the shore.

Ovadia has heard these complaints, it seems, a thousand times before. Yet he patiently addresses each issue.

No matter where an ocean wave power plant is, Ovadia explains, it would produce different levels of energy during different times of the year, as waves are higher during certain periods and lower during others. Likewise, waves are higher and more powerful in some parts of the world (coastal areas on the North Sea, for example) than others (such as the calmer beaches of the eastern Mediterranean, to our disadvantage).

True, he notes, the potential benefit in relation to other methods of producing electricity would not be as great here as in Britain or Spain, but it would still be significant. And his power plants would be economical to run even in areas where weaker waves predominate.

“But I’ll tell you something,” he says. “Even in the Kinneret, I can make energy.”

An SDE power plant, Ovadia continues, “can produce electricity at a fraction of the cost of coal, a fraction of the cost of solar and a fraction the cost of wind. Run one six months to eight months per year, and you still come out ahead.”

Further, he says, “When are waves the highest? In the summer and in the winter. And when is the demand for electricity highest? In the summer and in the winter. It’s a perfect match.”

What about reliability? Compared to the other wave energy systems being developed around the world, Ovadia’s invention seems downright flimsy.

What his design has going for it, he says, is that the buoys actually see less exposure to seawater than the other systems. There is a built-in self-correcting mechanism whereby, should a large wave overwhelm the buoy, it would flip over and then “wait” for lower tide to flip back. Unlike other systems deployed far out to sea, the moving parts in his power plants are easily replaceable. Also, the plants can be maintained easily, and they can be run automatically. One person, he says, could run five plants at a time, if necessary.

Lastly, what of the environmental impact?

“Strictly speaking, the beach would be damaged slightly if we installed these,” Ovadia says. “But on the other hand, people die from the pollution caused by power plants burning fossil fuels. Which would you prefer?”

Besides, with such little interest here, he notes wryly, “It isn’t as if we’re going to take over Frishman Beach tomorrow.”

Fortunately, Ovadia says, beaches needn’t be marred. In his preferred scenario, a breakwater would be built first, and the buoys attached to it. A place like the Ashdod Port, where a 3,350 meter-long main breakwater and a sea wall 800 meters long already exist, would be an ideal location for SDE to prove its technology.

Just in the past few weeks – after years of fruitless lobbying all over the country – Ovadia has won over the Ashdod Municipality to the merits of such a plan.

“The mayor and the city engineer have looked over this idea thoroughly, and it seems quite worthwhile to us,” said David Hartum, deputy director-general of the Ashdod Municipality. “We are suggesting building on the breakwater in the port. We like the fact that it’s ecological, as ocean waves do the job instead of oil, and that it involves a one-time cost to produce electricity. We are definitely interested.”

The only thing standing in the way of the country’s first ocean wave power plant, then, is the Israel Ports Authority, whose approval for the project is required. A spokeswoman for Shlomo Breiman, director-general of the Israel Ports Authority, said he was looking into the idea, but would have to review thorough studies on the potential environmental impact on the port basin – and any potential impact on the port’s operations, especially – before giving the project a green light.

Should SDE win a contract to build a power plant in Ashdod, it would certainly mean vindication for Ovadia – proof that, where other concepts have failed, his, like his buoys, has stayed afloat. But for the most part he is looking to other markets, focusing on underdeveloped and energy-poor countries in Africa and Asia. It is there that he expects to see his first power plant built – he estimates – within two or three years.

“When I was in Gambia,” he recalls, “we went to visit a little village. At one point our meeting was interrupted by afternoon prayers… There I was, this Israeli Jew, surrounded by Muslims praying intensely.

“These people,” Ovadia says, leaning forward as if to reveal a secret, “are in desperate need of energy in order to improve their lives. Well,” he says, leaning back in his chair again, “I will be their messiah. I will save them.”

The following two articles address the question “Is Islam Compatible with Democracy?” from two different perspectives. The authors reach the same conclusion, though their attitudes about the meaning of that conclusion vary greatly.

By Daniel Pipes, www.FrontPageMagazine.com

There’s an impression that Muslims suffer disproportionately from the rule of dictators, tyrants, unelected presidents, kings, emirs, and various other strongmen – and it’s accurate. A careful analysis by Frederic L. Pryor of Swarthmore College in the Middle East Quarterly (“Are Muslim Countries Less Democratic?”) concludes that “In all but the poorest countries, Islam is associated with fewer political rights.”

The fact that majority-Muslim countries are less democratic makes it tempting to conclude that the religion of Islam, their common factor, is itself incompatible with democracy.

I disagree with that conclusion. Today’s Muslim predicament, rather, reflects historical circumstances more than innate features of Islam. Put differently, Islam, like all pre-modern religions is undemocratic in spirit. No less than the others, however, it has the potential to evolve in a democratic direction.

Such evolution is not easy for any religion. In the Christian case, the battle to limit the Catholic Church’s political role lasted painfully long. If the transition began when Marsiglio of Padua published Defensor pacis in the year 1324, it took another six centuries for the Church fully to reconcile itself to democracy. Why should Islam’s transition be smoother or easier?

To render Islam consistent with democratic ways will require profound changes in its interpretation. For example, the anti-democratic law of Islam, the Shari‘a, lies at the core of the problem. Developed over a millennium ago, it presumes autocratic rulers and submissive subjects, emphasizes God’s will over popular sovereignty, and encourages violent jihad to expand Islam’s borders. Further, it anti-democratically privileges Muslims over non-Muslims, males over females, and free persons over slaves.

For Muslims to build fully functioning democracies, they basically must reject the Shari‘a’s public aspects. Atatürk frontally did just that in Turkey, but others have offered more subtle approaches. Mahmud Muhammad Taha, a Sudanese thinker, dispatched the public Islamic laws by fundamentally reinterpreting the Koran.

Atatürk’s efforts and Taha’s ideas imply that Islam is ever-evolving, and that to see it as unchanging is a grave mistake. Or, in the lively metaphor of Hassan Hanafi, professor of philosophy at the University of Cairo, the Koran “is a supermarket, where one takes what one wants and leaves what one doesn’t want.”

Islam’s problem is less its being anti-modern than that its process of modernization has hardly begun. Muslims can modernize their religion, but that requires major changes: Out go waging jihad to impose Muslim rule, second-class citizenship for non-Muslims, and death sentences for blasphemy or apostasy. In come individual freedoms, civil rights, political participation, popular sovereignty, equality before the law, and representative elections.

Two obstacles stand in the way of these changes, however. In the Middle East especially, tribal affiliations remain of paramount importance. As explained by Philip Carl Salzman in his recent book, Culture and Conflict in the Middle East, these ties create a complex pattern of tribal autonomy and tyrannical centralism that obstructs the development of constitutionalism, the rule of law, citizenship, gender equality, and the other prerequisites of a democratic state. Not until this archaic social system based on the family is dispatched can democracy make real headway in the Middle East.

Globally, the compelling and powerful Islamist movement obstructs democracy. It seeks the opposite of reform and modernization – namely, the reassertion of the Shari‘a in its entirety. A jihadist like Osama bin Laden may spell out this goal more explicitly than an establishment politician like Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but both seek to create a thoroughly anti-democratic, if not totalitarian, order.

Islamists respond two ways to democracy. First, they denounce it as un-Islamic. Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna considered democracy a betrayal of Islamic values. Brotherhood theoretician Sayyid Qutb rejected popular sovereignty, as did Abu al-A‘la al-Mawdudi, founder of Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami political party. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Al-Jazeera television’s imam, argues that elections are heretical.

Despite this scorn, Islamists are eager to use elections to attain power, and have proven themselves to be agile vote-getters; even a terrorist organization (Hamas) has won an election. This record does not render the Islamists democratic but indicates their tactical flexibility and their determination to gain power. As Erdogan has revealingly explained, “Democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off.”

Hard work can one day make Islam democratic. In the meanwhile, Islamism represents the world’s leading anti-democratic force.

And for a different perspective on the same question…

By Amir Taheri
www.BenadorAssociates.com

I am glad that this debate takes place in English.

Because, were it to be conducted in any of the languages of our part of the world, we would not have possessed the vocabulary needed.

To understand a civilization it is important to understand its vocabulary.

If it was not on their tongues it is likely that it was not on their minds either.

There was no word in any of the Muslim languages for democracy until the 1890s. Even then the Greek word democracy entered Muslim languages with little change: democrasi in Persian, dimokraytiyah in Arabic, demokratio in Turkish.

Democracy as the proverbial schoolboy would know is based on one fundamental principle: equality.

The Greek word for equal isos is used in more than 200 compound nouns; including isoteos (equality) and Isologia (equal or free speech) and isonomia (equal treatment).

But again we find no equivalent in any of the Muslim languages. The words we have such as barabari in Persian and sawiyah in Arabic mean juxtaposition or leveling.

Nor do we have a word for politics.

The word siassah, now used as a synonym for politics, initially meant whipping stray camels into line. (Sa’es al-kheil is a person who brings back lost camels to the caravan.) The closest translation may be: regimentation.

Nor is there mention of such words as government and the state in the Koran.

It is no accident that early Muslims translated numerous ancient Greek texts but never those related to political matters. The great Avicenna himself translated Aristotle’s Poetics. But there was no translation of Aristotle’s Politics in Persian until 1963.

Lest us return to the issue of equality.

The idea is unacceptable to Islam.

For the non-believer cannot be the equal of the believer.

Even among the believers only those who subscribe to the three so-called Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Ahl el-Kitab) are regarded as fully human.

Here is the hierarchy of human worth in Islam:

At the summit are free male Muslims

Next come Muslim male slaves

Then come free Muslim women

Next come Muslim slave women.

Then come free Jewish and /or Christian men

Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian men

Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian women.

Each category has rights that must be respected.

The People of the Book have always been protected and relatively well treated by Muslim rulers, but often in the context of a form of apartheid known as dhimmitude.

The status of the rest of humanity, those whose faiths are not recognized by Islam or who have no faith at all, has never been spelled out although wherever Muslim rulers faced such communities they often treated them with a certain measure of tolerance and respect ( As in the case of Hindus under the Muslim dynasties of India.)

Non-Muslims can be, and have often been, treated with decency, but never as equals.

(There is a hierarchy even for animals and plants. Seven animals and seven plants will assuredly go to heaven while seven others of each will end up in Hell.)

Democracy means the rule of the demos, the common people, or what is now known as popular or national sovereignty.

In Islam, however, power belongs only to God: al-hukm l’illah. The man who exercises that power on earth is known as Khalifat al-Allah, the regent of God.

But even then the Khalifah or Caliph cannot act as legislator. The law has already been spelled out and fixed forever by God.

The only task that remains is its discovery, interpretation and application.

That, of course, allows for a substantial space in which different styles of rule could develop.

But the bottom line is that no Islamic government can be democratic in the sense of allowing the common people equal shares in legislation.

Islam divides human activities into five categories from the permitted to the sinful, leaving little room for human interpretation, let alone ethical innovations.

What we must understand is that Islam has its own vision of the world and man’s place in it.

To say that Islam is incompatible with democracy should not be seen as a disparagement of Islam.

On the contrary, many Muslims would see it as a compliment because they sincerely believe that their idea of rule by God is superior to that of rule by men which is democracy.

In Muslim literature and philosophy being forsaken by God is the worst that can happen to man.

The great Persian poet Rumi pleads thus:

Oh, God, do not leave our affairs to us

For, if You do, woe be to us.

Rumi mocks those who claim that men can rule themselves.

He says:

You are not reign even over your beard,

That grows without your permission.

How can you pretend, therefore,

To rule about right and wrong?

The expression “abandoned by God” sends shivers down Muslim spines. For it spells the doom not only of individuals but of entire civilizations.

The Koran tells the stories of tribes, nations and civilizations that perished when God left them to their devices.

The great Persian poet Attar says:

I have learned of Divine Rule in Yathirb (i.e. Medinah, the city of the Prophet)

What need do I have of the wisdom of the Greeks?

Hafez, another great Persian poet, blamed man’s “hobut” or fall on the use of his own judgment against that of God:

I was an angel and my abode was the eternal paradise

Adam (i.e. man) brought me to this place of desolation

Islamic tradition holds that God has always intervened in the affairs of men, notably by dispatching 124,000 prophets or emissaries to inform the mortals of His wishes and warnings.

Many Islamist thinkers regard democracy with horror.

The late Ayatollah Khomeini called democracy “a form of prostitution” because he who gets the most votes wins the power that belongs only to God.

Sayyed Qutub, the Egyptian who has emerged as the ideological mentor of Safalists, spent a year in the United States in the 1950s.

He found “a nation that has forgotten God and been forsaken by Him; an arrogant nation that wants to rule itself.”

Last year Yussuf al-Ayyeri, one of the leading theoreticians of today’s Islamist movement, published a book (available on the Internet) in which he warned that the real danger to Islam did not come from American tanks and helicopter gunships in Iraq but from the idea of democracy and rule by the people.

Maudoodi, another of the Islamist theoreticians now fashionable, dreamed of a political system in which human beings would act as automatons in accordance with rules set by God.

He said that God has arranged man’s biological functions in such a way that their operation is beyond human control. For our non-biological functions, notably our politics, God has set rules that we have to discover and apply once and for all so that our societies can be on autopilot so to speak.

The late Saudi theologian, Sheikh Muhammad bin Ibrahim al-Jubair, a man I respected though seldom agreed with, sincerely believed that the root cause of all of our contemporary ills was the spread of democracy.

“Only one ambition is worthy of Islam,” he liked to say,” the ambition to save the world from the curse of democracy: to teach men that they cannot rule themselves on the basis of manmade laws. Mankind has strayed from the path of God; we must return to that path or face certain annihilation.”

Thus those who claim that Islam is compatible with democracy should know that they are not flattering Muslims.

In fact, most Muslims would feel insulted by such assertions.

How could a manmade form of government, invented by the heathen Greeks, be compared with Islam which is God’s final word to man, the only true faith, they would ask.

In the past 14 centuries Muslims have, on occasions, succeeded in creating successful societies without democracy.

And there is no guarantee that democracy never produces disastrous results. (After all Hitler was democratically elected.)

The fact that almost all Muslim states today can be rated as failures or, at least, underachievers, is not because they are Islamic but because they are ruled by corrupt and despotic elites that, even when they proclaim an Islamist ideology, are, in fact, secular dictators.

Let us recall the founding myth of democracy as related by Protagoras in Plato.

Protagoras’s claim that the rule of the people, democracy, is the best, is ridiculed by Socrates who points out that men always call on experts to deal with specific tasks but when it comes to the more important matters concerning the city, i.e. the community, they allow every Tom , Dick and Harry an equal say.

Protagoras says that when man was created he lived a solitary existence and was unable to protect himself and his kin against more powerful beasts.

Consequently men came together to secure their lives by founding cities. But the cities were torn by strife because inhabitants did wrong to one another.

Zeus, watching the proceedings, realized that the reason that things were going badly was that men did not have the art of managing the city (politike techne).

Without that art man was heading for destruction.

So, Zeus called in his messenger, Hermes and asked him to deliver two gifts to mankind: aidos and dike.

Aidos is a sense of shame and a concern for the good opinion of others.

Dike here means respect for the right of others and implies a sense of justice that seeks civil peace through adjudication.

Before setting off Hermes asks a decisive question: Should I deliver this new art to a select few, as was the case in all other arts, or to all?

Zeus replies with no hesitation: To all. Let all have their share.

Protagoras concludes his reply to Socrates’ criticism of democracy thus:” Hence it comes about, Socrates, that people in the cities, and especially in Athens, listen only to experts in matters of expertise but when they meet for consultation on the political art, i.e. of the general question of government, everybody participates.”

Traditional Islamic political thought is closer to Socrates than to Protagoras.

The common folk, al-awwam, are regarded as “animals” (al-awwam kal anaam!)

The interpretation of the Divine Law is reserved only for the experts.

In Iran there is even a body called The Assembly of Experts.

Political power, like many other domains, including philosophy, is reserved for the khawas who, in some Sufi traditions, are even exempt from the ritual rules of the faith.

The “common folk”, however, must do as they are told either by the text and tradition or by fatwas issued by the experts. Khomeini coined the word mustazafeen” (the feeble ones) to describe the common folk.

In the Greek tradition once Zeus has taught men the art of politics he does not try to rule them.

To be sure he and other Gods do intervene in earthly matters but always episodically and mostly in pursuit of their illicit pleasures.

Polytheism is by its pluralistic nature is tolerant, open to new gods, and new views of old gods. Its mythology personifies natural forces that could be adapted, by allegory, to metaphysical concepts.

One could in the same city and at the same time mock Zeus as a promiscuous old rake, henpecked and cuckolded by Juno, or worship him as justice defied.

This is not possible in monotheism especially Islam, the only truly monotheistic of the three Abrahamic faiths.

In monotheism for the One to be stable in its One-ness it is imperative that the many be stabilized in their many-ness.

The God of monotheism does not discuss or negotiate matters with mortals.

He dictates, be it the 10 Commandments or the Koran which was already composed and completed before Allah sent his Hermes, Archangel Gabriel, to dictate it to Muhammad:

Read, the Koran starts with the command; In the name of Thy God The Most High!

Islam’s incompatibility with democracy is not unique. It is shared by other religions. For faith is about certainty while democracy is about doubt. There is no changing of one’s mind in faith, while democracy is about changing minds and sides.

If we were to use a more technical terminology faith creates a nexus and democracy a series.

Democracy is like people waiting for a bus.

They are of different backgrounds and have different interests. We don’t care what their religion is or how they vote. All they have in common is their desire to get on that bus. And they get off at whatever stop they wish.

Faith, however, is internalized. Turned into a nexus it controls man’s every thought and move even in his deepest privacy.

Democracy, of course, is compatible with Islam because democracy is serial and polytheistic. People are free to believe whatever they like to believe and perform whatever religious rituals they wish, provided they do not infringe on other’s freedoms in the public domain.

The other way round, however, it does not work.

Islam cannot allow people to do as they please, even in the privacy of their bedrooms, because God is always present, everywhere, all-hearing and all-seeing.

There is consultation in Islam: Wa shawerhum fil amr. (And consult them in matters)

But the consultation thus recommended is about specifics only, never about the overall design of society.

In democracy there is a constitution that can be changed or at least amended.

The Koran, however, is the immutable word of God, beyond change or amendment.

This debate is not easy.

For Islam has become an issue of political controversy in the West.

On the one hand we have Islamophobia, a particular affliction of those who blame Islam for all the ills of our world.

The more thin-skinned Muslims have ended up on regarding every criticism of Islam as Islamophobia.

On the other hand we have Islamoflattery that claims that everything good under the sun came from Islam. (According to a recent PBS serial on Islam, even cinema was invented by a lens-maker in Baghdad, named Abu-Hufus!)

This is often practiced by a new generation of the Turques de profession, Westerners who are prepared to apply the rules of critical analysis to everything under the sun except Islam.

They think they are doing Islam a favor.

The opposite is true.

Depriving Islam of critical scrutiny is bad for Islam and Muslims, and ultimately dangerous for the whole world.

The debate is about how to organize the global public space that is shared by the whole humanity. That space must be religion-neutral and free of ideology, which means organized on the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

There are 57 nations in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

Not one is yet a democracy.

The more Islamic the regime in place the less democratic it is.

Democracy is the rule of mortal common men.

Islam is the rule of immortal God.

Politics is the art of the possible and democracy a method of dealing with the problems of real life.

Islam, on the other hand, is about the unattainable ideal.

We should not allow the everything-is-equal-to-everything-else fashion of postmodernist multiculturalism and political correctness to prevent us from acknowledging differences and, yes, incompatibilities, in the name of a soggy consensus.

If we are all the same how can we have a dialogue of civilizations, unless we elevate cultural schizophrenia into an existential imperative?

Muslims should not be duped into believing that they can have their cake and eat it. Muslims can build democratic society provided they treat Islam as a matter of personal, private belief and not as a political ideology that seeks to monopolize the public space and regulate every aspect of individual and community life.

Ladies and gentlemen: Islam is incompatible with democracy.

I commend the motion.