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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Mordechai Nisan</title>
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		<title>Arab Culture &amp; the Arab-Israeli Conflict</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/mordechai-nisan/arab-culture-the-arab-israeli-conflict/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=arab-culture-the-arab-israeli-conflict</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 10 Dec 2014 05:04:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mordechai Nisan]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arab culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[deception]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Oslo]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247118</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A look at one culture's masterful command of deception.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/ac.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247122" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/ac-450x337.jpg" alt="ac" width="312" height="234" /></a>The multi-faceted essence of the Arab-Israeli conflict and Israeli-Palestinian war is <em>territorial</em>, <em>political</em>, <em>ideological</em>, and <em>religious &#8211; </em>a convulsive confrontation between the mutually exclusive claims of Judaism and Islam.</p>
<p>But a fifth dimension of the conflict is <em>culture</em> &#8211; popular culture – embodied in a code of identity that differentiates one human community from another.</p>
<p>Culture is not negotiable or alterable: it is the texture of the life people live, and the local rhythm of things they know from their earliest memories. It is an inbred code of behavior and, as for all peoples, precedes and precludes morality, thought, and judgment.</p>
<p>The reason why the cultural component of the conflict is ignored stems from the fact that in order to appreciate a culture, you basically have to know it from the inside; and outsiders, non-Arabs, are ignorant of Arab culture, and haughtily assume that it has no value.</p>
<p>Add to this obstacle the fact that a native always behaves differently when he is with a foreigner than with a fellow-native. Surface-like conversations between people from different cultures can reveal very little. To call the Arabs rhetorically flexible is a kind way to infer their masterful command of deception.</p>
<p>It is Arab culture in particular, atavistic and organic, encased in the old binding from its historical origin, which must be addressed in order to better explore the intractability of the long Arab-Israeli rivalry</p>
<p>1</p>
<p>Arab culture is a family-clan-national social reality. An Arab owes absolute and blind loyalty to the group of his birth. He belongs to family and village, as a Bedouin belongs to his tribe. You can&#8217;t change your tribe, and you don’t change your family; and no other social framework demands more adhesion than blood relations. It follows from this premise that the Arab mistrusts outsiders. For the Arabs, the Israelis are the &#8216;others&#8217;, suspected of manipulation and treachery, and a permanent adversary and enemy, as taught in the Arabic Koran.</p>
<p>2</p>
<p>For the Arabs, language reflects culture in a way that prevents it being a vehicle for direct and clear communication. Words are used to impress, deflect intentions, disarm interlocutors, confuse listeners, and offer promises never to be fulfilled. The cultural subtext in discussions and negotiations with Arabs is often garnished in polite commitments and even written agreements. But there is little conviction to adhere to the summary accord because the culture code calls for gingerly saying what the other wants to hear; then agreeing to an appointment never to be kept, or promising a phone call that will never come. The Israelis were enthused that the Palestinians moved toward peace in the Oslo Accord, but it was followed by blood and murder, not reconciliation and brotherhood.</p>
<p>3</p>
<p>For the Arabs, the past defines the present because history is the anchor for all aspects of identity and aspirations. There is a mythological fascination with ancestors – as for the contemporary <em>Salifiyya</em> movement &#8211; combined with an axiomatic belief that sees the future as necessarily emerging from and even repeating the glorious Arab past. This contributes to an iron-will and patience until victory is assured. For the Arabs &#8212; Israel beware &#8212; never forget any perceived ill act against them. The early Islamic days of conquest and caliphate will be renewed, even if the shift in power takes forever.</p>
<p>4</p>
<p>Arab self-consciousness, spared any identity crisis, provides a psychological foundation for imposing the collective will upon others. To be a Muslim and an Arab, as Allah’s chosen people, launches the Arab on a path of self-justification, whose flip-side is to blame the non-Arabs for all Arab misfortunes and failures. Israel is always excoriated for crimes of aggression and violence. The composed Arab never doubts that justice is on his side: he can do no wrong. Thus, all the Arab-Israeli wars since 1948 are blamed on Israel. Considering that self-criticism is an ancient Jewish practice, Arab self-justification creates an imbalanced ethical equation that demoralizes the Jews while radicalizing the Arabs. In short, the Arabs seek victory, not peace.</p>
<p>5</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Islamic truth claims, as in Koranic deviations from Biblical narratives, do not require proof or evidence, or even common sense validity. The Arabs are not perturbed by the lack of facts; their discourse is internal and self-enclosed, as reality is in their mind and not in the external objective world. The Arab mind-set inhabits a world of entrenched fantasy or diabolical conspiracy theories. Note the revelatory comment by Anwar Sadat that ‘all life is play-acting’. He was one to know. In 1993 Arafat demonstrated his theatrical adeptness at the Oslo signing ceremony at the White House.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">*</p>
<p>It is essential to unlock the Arab culture code, and cease viewing the Middle East through a Western prism that leads only to delusion, disdain, and a host of ill-consequences and dashed hopes.</p>
<p><strong>Dr. Mordechai Nisan writes and lectures on Israel and the Middle East. His most recent book <em>Only Israel West of the River</em> is available at amazon.com and createspace.com.</strong></p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Don&#8217;t miss <strong>Nonie Darwish</strong> on <strong>The Glazov Gang</strong> discuss <strong>How Arabic Stifles Freedom</strong>:</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/IYogCKcU4iM" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Understanding Dhimmitude</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mordechai-nisan/understanding-dhimmitude/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=understanding-dhimmitude</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Jul 2013 04:46:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mordechai Nisan]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arabs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bat Ye’or]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dhimmitude]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic rule]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=197222</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Bat Ye’or's new book on the position of non-Muslims in Islamic societies.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ud.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-197224" alt="ud" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ud-233x350.jpg" width="233" height="350" /></a>The books and articles by Bat Ye’or on Islam and jihad, dhimmitude and the collapse of Oriental Christianity, Eurabia and the Muslim-Christian anti-Zionist alliance, compose an <i>oeuvre</i> of historic proportions and scholarly significance. In a period of some thirty years she wrote five major works that substantiated with massive evidence the historic persecution of Jews and Christians (<i>dhimmis</i>) under Islamic rule and the contemporary Arab project for the Islamization of Europe and the West.</p>
<p>A young refugee from Egypt who migrated to England, “a small woman, fragile, shy” as she writes in the preface of her latest book, <a href="http://www.rvppress.com/books/18">Understanding Dhimmitude,</a> Bat Ye’or has invested extraordinary energy (with the assistance and encouragement of her late husband David Littman) in the education of a generation about hidden histories, malevolent schemes, insidious incremental long-term processes, treacherous elites, and human sufferings, which are markedly unknown to public awareness.</p>
<p>Bat Ye’or has now offered the reading public a condensation of &#8220;twenty-one lectures and talks on the position of non-Muslims in Islamic Societies&#8221; under the title of <i>Understanding Dhimmitude</i>. This book resonates with heart-pounding anxiety, yet buoyed by human empathy for the oppressed and humiliated dhimmis, denied dignity and rights, crushed under what the Quran calls &#8220;Allah’s religion.&#8221;</p>
<p>Unlike her other works that detail the scope and horror of Muslim subjugation and contempt for demeaned <i>infidel</i> non-Muslims in the distant past and until today, offering a broad canvas from Pakistan to Morocco, and the awful spoliation of Copts in Egypt and Armenians in Turkey, Assyrians in Iraq and Christians in southern Sudan, this most recent book provides the reader with rigorous conceptual clarity of the historic global Islamic jihad and its universal caliphal ambitions for mankind. The <i>only</i> legitimate religion, as always, is Islam alone. And its divine mandate, as she explained in a talk at St. Paul’s Church in London in 2003, is nothing less than to rule the world and implement Quranic law.</p>
<p>With her five major books in hand, and a growing reputation as a woman of courage and truth, with a call for justice for the defenseless dhimmi victims of Islam, Bat Ye’or lectured in a variety of forums in Europe, America, Canada, and Israel. She was consistently forthright  and precise, teaching and warning. The major themes that Bat Ye’or expresses and explains in her lectures can be summarized as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li>Islam in its religious doctrine and civilizational aspirations demands a superior status in replacing and superseding Judaism and Christianity, its ancient forerunners;</li>
<li>Islam has from its origins constructed a “regime of dhimmitude [over the inferior and tolerated non-Muslims], the laws of dhimmitude…the mentality of dhimmitude” (p. 118) that has imposed insecurity and oppression on the native peoples of the Orient/Middle East;</li>
<li>Islam succeeded to bring about a situation such that “the whole of Oriental Christendom was destroyed” (p. 40), a kind of &#8220;religious cleansing&#8221; rolling on to this very day;</li>
<li>There is no validity to “the myth of a marvelous Muslim-Christian symbiosis” or a “Middle East Golden Age” (p. 161), not in the past nor to its present formulations and offshoots, like the Euro-Arab Dialogue and the Alliance of Civilizations, which are deceptive plots for Muslim conquest;</li>
<li>The Islamic jihad mentality of conquest overwhelmed Eastern Christianity and now targets “the Christian West” (p. 83) – with the goal “to force us all to live in the shadow of dhimmitude in Europe” (p. 52).</li>
<li> In the face of Islamic jihad, “Israel represents the national liberation of a dhimmi people” (p.55), as the Jews have risen up in rebellion against the forces of Muslim repression and degradation to secure their political independence in their ancient homeland.</li>
</ol>
<p>While historian Georges Bensoussan refers to a history of &#8220;conviviality and contempt&#8221; to describe the fantasy and reality of Muslim relations with non-Muslims over 14 centuries, Bat Ye’or shows a canny insight into the intricacies and interconnections touching this complex subject. Her prescience identifies Christian collaboration with Islam, designed to harm the Jews, which ends up ironically strengthening the common Muslim adversary of both Christians and Jews; she understands that Western/Christian anti-Semitism is a theological and historical foundation for the West’s collapse in the face of the Muslim invasion of Europe, as the European Union joins forces with the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to plummet Israel into submission and disarray; she uncovers the devious Palestinian ruse of calling Jesus a Palestinian (when he was a Jew from Judea) to bond Muslims with Christians against the Jews; she exposes Europe’s accommodation with Palestinian terrorism as the moral bankruptcy of a civilization already weary and tattered from a 20th century marred and mired in wars and totalitarianism; she explains the Muslim war to destroy the nations of Europe and rejects moralizing multiculturalism, which is promoting Europe’s suicide by turning cities and neighborhoods into conquered Muslim territory; and, lastly, she has challenged the historical presentation of Islam as tolerant and its civilizational ambiance as pluralistic by mobilizing mountains of historical data that show Islam was discriminatory and denigrating towards all non-Muslims, especially the Jews and the Christians.</p>
<p>Nietzsche understood that &#8220;the knowledge of the past is desired only for the service of the future and the present,&#8221; in order to make history and not glibly remember it. Bat Ye’or made the argument that it is imperative to know history, especially when the <i>history is now</i>; when its ideas and rhythms continue to flow into the present era. Islam is ordained “to fight against the people [non-Muslims] until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is his Apostle,” as narrated in the compilation of traditions <i>Salih al-Bukhari</i>, and this article of faith is hewn in stone in the hearts of the <i>believers</i> (as the Muslims consider themselves alone to be). This must be understood in order for the non-Muslims – Europeans, Americans, Israelis – to respond in a forthright and resolute fashion to the predatory religion of Islam.</p>
<p>In an address to the Third Christian Zionist Congress in Jerusalem in 1996, Bat Ye’or pointed out that she introduced the word<i> dhimmitude</i> in 1983 to describe the common destiny of suffering and discrimination endured by Jews and Christians under <i>shariah</i> law. The Christians of Iraq and Syria, Iran and Pakistan, Lebanon and Egypt, Sudan and Nigeria, have all been victims of Muslim massacres and terrorism. Meanwhile, the Jewish presence across the Middle East and North Africa dwindled under the scourge of Islam. Islam, resplendent with arrogant pride and absolute faith, considers its Islamization and dhimmization of non-Muslim peoples and countries as an act of Divine Law, legitimate and obligatory. The Muslim <i>Ummah</i> (nation) will push relentlessly until victory, and after the Muslim assault historically gobbled up the Middle East and beyond, it aspires now to turn Christian Europe into the Home of Islam. With Europe losing confidence in its identity and philosophy of life, the demands of Islam and the mass Muslim immigration there are transforming the continent that may no longer breathe the free air of Rousseau, Goethe, and Mill.</p>
<p>There was a time in history, before the bane of being &#8220;politically correct&#8221; struck us like thunder, when you could say things as they are, tell the truth, express an opinion, offer an explanation without qualification. You might criticize Islam and not be cursed as blasphemous. But things have changed as the scepter of Islam and its menacing shadow begin to cover the pathways of America and Europe. Bat Ye’or through her writings and lectures may not have saved the Christians of the East or of the West, but she has done the great service of voicing the gravity of their destiny. With empathy and clarity she has brought the truth to the doorstep of mankind; and mankind’s leadership should do now whatever is politically necessary to assure that her prophetic warnings do not become a death writ.</p>
<p>Bernard Lewis wrote in 1995 that “it may be that Western culture will indeed go: the lack of conviction of many of those who should be its defenders and the passionate intensity of its accusers may well join to complete its destruction.” Of this horrific prognosis, and its historical depth and contemporary trajectory, we can learn much from Bat Ye’or, as in her most recent book <i>Understanding Dhimmitude</i>.</p>
<p><em>Dr. Mordechai Nisan taught Middle East Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.</em></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>A Paradigm Shift on the Palestinian Question</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/mordechai-nisan/a-paradigm-shift-on-the-palestinian-question/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-paradigm-shift-on-the-palestinian-question</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 15 Sep 2011 04:02:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mordechai Nisan]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=105293</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Jordan: the problem and the solution.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/jordan.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-105302" title="jordan" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/jordan.gif" alt="" width="380" height="338" /></a></p>
<p>The Palestinian initiative to declare an independent state through United Nations authorization is a prescription for crisis, and opportunity. Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, having set in motion a political campaign whose fate is hazardous, decided that diplomatic confrontation with Israel is a more effective method than political negotiations to advance Palestinian interests.</p>
<p>The Palestinians never really understood, and could never agree, why they should have to engage in protracted talks in order to get what they believe to be theirs by national right. That Israel should withdraw from all of the post-1967 territories was always an absolute tenet of conviction, and not just a policy demand. It was humiliating for the Palestinians to banter and barter for liberation and statehood, which Israel tenaciously blocked by military force and political resolve.</p>
<p>The present political course pursued by the Palestinian Authority leadership is symptomatic of an ingrained attitude of avoiding reality, while preferring drama and pathos in the global theatre. Arafat is gone but his artful legacy lives on. Those who thought Abbas and Fayyad had chosen institutional development and a responsible repertoire of politics will be disabused by the upcoming post-Arafatian antics at the UN General Assembly.</p>
<p>It is not the Israeli reality in Judea and Samaria which will come crashing down in late September, but rather the Palestinian myth. This is not because America will not favor or finance the statehood ‘leap of faith’, but essentially because Israeli withdrawal is not in the political cards. Withdraw to where?</p>
<p>It behooves those with map in hand to appreciate the claustrophobic pre-67 Israeli borders, the proximity of Kfar Saba to Kalkilya, the short distances from Shuafat to Ramat Shlomo in Jerusalem, and the spread of Jewish settlements that entrench Israel’s presence in most of Judea and Samaria, and East Jerusalem.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The Israeli-Palestinian crisis of September will exacerbate the political deadlock and cause the situation on the ground to rapidly deteriorate into clashes and violence. The Oslo process since 1993, exuding enthusiasm and fanfare, Noble prizes and grand summitry, has been a failure. There is little trust on the popular level and even less political maneuverability for a resolution on the official level. Unbridgeable policy gaps have confounded agreement on the outstanding, unresolved, and permanent status issues – Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, and borders &#8211; without which peace cannot be consummated.</p>
<p>It is high-time to draw conclusions and change political course. Oslo is dead and the Palestinians are intent on burying it.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>A paradigm shift requires an intellectual release from the mental tyranny of Oslo, in order to think ‘out of the box’. Israel will be the only state west of the river, the Jewish national entity the sole collective ideological enterprise, and the Israeli Army the singular military force assuring order and stability for all. There is no room for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, beyond the fact that one virtually was installed in the Gaza Strip in 2007.</p>
<p>The years since 1993 have demonstrated, what logic posited as common sense, that Israel’s safety demands a permanent military presence in the territories, to combat and contend with terrorism and assure that weapons’ smuggling and other pernicious security ills do not evolve from an Israeli pullback from the river. In our precarious political environment, with players ranging from Hizbullah and Iran to Al-Qaeda and Hamas, Israel’s military alertness and security preparedness are intertwined with maintaining the geographic resources in her possession today.</p>
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