History: Bibi, Osama bin Laden and Muslim hatred of the West

Click above for the video

Benjamin Netanyahu (then "Ben Nitay") discusses the PLO, the West Bank, 

a Palestinian State and human rights. In this video, Netenyahu is 28 years old.

In his autobio “Bibi: My Story”, Benjamin Netanyahu talks of his time in the United States in the mid 1970’s, during which he took part in a TV program called “The Advocates” (above), at the time going by the name of “Ben Nitay”. 

“Ben Nitay”?. Bibi explains in his autobiography (which is very readable), that it was the name his father had used when in the United States, as he thought that the locals could pronounce it better. This is thoughtful, and along the lines of what I said the other day about racism in Australia. Which was...

… that I chose a Chinese name when I went to China because it’s easier for the Chinese. Similarly, when you go to Australia, and you have a name you think might be difficult for locals, and you’re planning on living there, go ahead and change your name to something easier for the locals to pronounce. There’s no shame in that! Study from Bibi, from his dad and from me!

Back in the US, in the 70s, Bibi came to a realisation that’s as true today as it was then. This was when he was studying at MIT and Harvard, ducked off to fight in the 1973 Yom Kippur war, and still finished both courses in double-quick time. Whatever you think of the man -- I happen to be a fan -- you can’t doubt his intelligence. 

His realisation:

"What was clear was that the Arab radicals didn’t hate the West because of Israel, they hated Israel because of the West. Israel represented the kind of open and liberal Western society they detested.

"In those days these conclusions were downright heretical. Many Western intellectuals and diplomats believed that the Arab and Muslim world’s hostility toward the US and Europe was solely rooted in American support for Israel. Once that support ceased, or Israel ceased to be, the anti-Western hostility would disappear.

"Yossi [Riemer] and I did our modest part to help debunk this false proposition by coming up with a simple chart. We listed numerous violent attacks reported in various conflicts within the Arab world in a single month. None had anything to do with Israel. How then could Israel be the cause?

"And anyway, why was the Middle East “conflict” always in the singular and not in the plural? The region suffered from a surfeit of conflicts: Arabs against Arabs, Arabs against non-Arabs, Shiites against Sunnis, Islamic radicals against moderates, and nearly everyone against the West.”

-- p.100 of 724 in Kindle (13%)

This is as true today as it was then. 

I’ve often quoted Osama bin Laden (OBL) on this blog. Especially his writings collected in The Al-Qaeda Reader by Raymond Ibrahim. 

Osama bin Laden had two clear and different messages, one for the West and and one for the Muslim world:

(1) OBL message or the West: We hate you because of your support for Zionist occupation of Palestinian lands. Fix that and we’re good. 

(2) OBL message to the Muslim world: The reason we fight the West, the reason we attack the West, is because they are unbelievers. They are kaffirs. 

They must be offered the three choices of Islam: 

(1) Convert to Islam 

(2) Pay the Jizya tax 

(3) We kill them

To repeat, says OBL: we hate the West because they are unbelievers. We hate them because of their freedoms. Convert, tax or kill. 

OBL goes on (to his Muslim audience): of course we tell the West that we care about the Middle East, about fighting Zionism, about settling the Palestinian question. Of course we do that, partly because we do care; and partly because it wrong-foots the west. Keeps them unbalanced. And helps us with our overall goal of conquering them. 

But our primary goal has always been, and must remain for all time: the spread of Islam throughout the whole world. That is what Allah has commanded us to do, through the words of his prophet, Peace Be Upon Him.  

I post this yet again because most people in the West simply do not understand this. Or they are unwilling to believe it. Even knowledgeable people like Glenn Greenwald, otherwise widely read, and wisely read, do not accept this. They mock people who believe that radical Islam hates the West for its freedoms, and instead stress that it’s all about “grievances”, the key one being Palestine. They simply will not accept the reality of deeply embedded beliefs at the core of Islam. 

Which is: we hate the West because of its freedoms. And we hate Israel because we hate the West. (And also... we hate them because they’re Jews. Who mocked and made fun of our Prophet when he came to bring the Glory of Islam to them in Medina. Curse them for all time!) 

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To be clear this is not talking about all Arabs or even most. Many live blameless and happy lives peacefully next to Jewish neighbours. Many in Israel. It’s talking about, quite specifically, “Arab radicals”. But, as everywhere, radicals drive the narrative. Think Bolsheviks, Paris Revolutionaries, Maoists.