Maybe a hypothetical example will help explain why I find these comments very offensive.

Suppose I attend a funeral for a group of children killed in a car crash involving a drunk driver. At the funeral I launch into a tirade about taking back the language of "moderate alcohol consumption," and even try to argue that drinking is a good thing because of the documented health benefits of moderate consumption.

How do you think the mourners would react? There's no disputing the substance of what I said, but the occasion and the context would make remarks like this extremely offensive. I'd be lucky to avoid a punch in the mouth.

I see Aziz's comments about jihad as very similar to this example. The mass murderer who slaughtered schoolchildren on a bus was following the dictates of jihad; this is indisputable. To invoke this word, the very cause of what happened on that day, as a positive thing, while the blood of children was still warm on the street -- well, the kindest thing I can say about it is that it's insensitive.

As for the Mohammed Al-Dura reference, that was even more offensive, because it's an attempt to draw an equivalence between the actions of the IDF, who were defending a guard post against a large group of Palestinian attackers that day, and the actions of a suicide bomber who boarded a bus with the intention of committing mass murder. And besides -- it has now been exhaustively shown that al-Dura could not have been killed by Israeli bullets, so the equivalence is dishonest on more than one level.

I hear you, Charles, and I do understand where you're coming from. The thing is, he's speaking to a different audience. And though I'm not a cultural relativist by any means, in this case it matters.

Let's start with Jihad. How could be possibly criticize what had just happened as a violation of Islamic principles without invoking the word used as a rationale for the act? I can't see how. Yes, it risks the reaction you had to it. But as you yourself point out, jihad is the given justification. Which means he can't talk to a Muslim audience effectively if he avoids it. The only way to deal with the issue on a religious level is to draw the distinction he draws: jihad vs. harabah. "Yes, Mohammed told us jihad would always succeed - but this isn't jihad." Sort of like "I served with Senator Kennedy - and you, sir, are no Kennedy."

Got to meet your audience on its own ground in order to persuade anyone. The same dynamic is at work, too, re: Al-Dura.

You and I believe Israeli bullets could not have killed the boy, based on the German journalists' report and other investigations from sources we're prepared to trust. I think that's where the evidence is. It's equally true, however, that Al-Dura has become a symbol of innocent victimhood in the Muslim world. Based on a lie? I believe so. Doesn't change the belief's existence.

In this context, Aziz is using Al-Dura as a recognized symbol. It's shorthand/allegory for "as bad as you think that was, this is the same." Formulated that way it's pretty uncontroversial, isn't it? Using the popular Islamic debating tactic of allegory and drawing on the audience's accepted beliefs and outrage is what gives Aziz' comparison its power, its cognitive judo to the people he's addressing. I remember reading that and going "whoa - that one's going to fry some readers' brain cells!"

Arguing with his audience about that detail gets him nowhere. And if he does believe it - many do, and not just in the Arab world. I think they're wrong, but it's a legitimately debatable issue. If Al-Jazeera had done the investigation and concluded the Israelis were guilty, would you say "oh, all right then?" Me neither. The problem in this situation is that it's sort of like "who shot JFK?" - and there's no investigative source trusted by both sides. The only way out would be an "unexpected" conclusion (Al-Jazeera says the PLO did it, or Israelis say yes we did it which would be unexpected in the Arab world). We didn't get that. Meanwhile, I know what I believe.

Like I said, I respect your position. And I have issues of my own with Aziz. But for the reasons above, this isn't one of them.

Joe, One of the reasons we have a huge conflict with the Muslims is their willingness, nay, eagerness, to believe dubious information sources that reinforce their hostility toward Israel and toward the West.

False and dubious beliefs that feed the hostility and their embrace of these beliefs are both things to take exception to. That they feel justifed in their hostility due to their false beliefs does not let them off the hook of moral responsibility for their hostility. The Arabs and Muslims systematically delude themselves with bizarre conspiracy theories and pseudo-facts. Charles does a great job of pointing out the falsehoods and delusions that characterize that part of the world and that even characterize many Muslim believers in the West.

As for the implication seeming to come from Aziz of there being some good form of Jihad: Come on already. Jihad is built into Islam because Islam was spread at the point of a sword. Jihad is about the use of force to maintain and spread a religious belief. I see nothing good about it.

Joe, your arse-kissing of Johnson is nauseating. His site is one long rant against all Muslims.

Charles Johnson is a colleague I respect. And most of the rants on his site come from Muslims - LGF just decides to publicize the hate coming from those quarters and make it an issue, rather than just rolling over and going back to sleep. Putting our heads in the sand won't make that hate go away; believe it or not, we've got a few serious enemies out there.

I'll also point out that Charles is quick to write about Muslims who share aspects of our values and put them into practice, from gas station attendants who save Jewish synagogues to today's bit about the editor of Pakistan Today.

That would tend NOT to make it "one long rant against all Muslims"... but I don't expect evidence to convince you.

Now, some of LGF's commenters ARE off the deep end, in all directions. He prefers to let other commenters handle them, rather than remove those postings. As liberal as my comments policy here is, his is more so... and I respect his guts for running it that way, because it comes with real costs as well as benefits.

"Klaatu": not to put too fine a point on it, but you are completely full of shit. Maybe you'd like to explain how these two LGF entries from the last few days fit into your little smear job:

Straight from Afghanistan.

The Anti-Militant Muslim View.

Randall, Aziz' "jihad" is better translated as "itjihad". We have a choice: [1] We can break jihad by breaking Islam, with all that entails; or [2] We can shift their understanding of jihad to the "itjihad" promoted by folks like Aziz, and contrast it with a keener understanding of "harabah" to give it the limits it needs.

Either success wins the long-term war. Only option #2 lets us avoid killing people by the hundreds of thousands.

Re: Who shot JFK,

So far we have got to the point in that investigation that it was a conspiracy and that there were "Mafia" types behind it.

This is now the "official" government view based on the last congressional investigation.

I personally think there were people behind the Mafia. i.e. that like Oswald the Mafia was a cut-out. Just one level removed from Oswald.

What this points out is that the cultural significance of an event changes over time. For the first ten or so years after Kennedy was shot any one believing in a "conspiracy" was part of the tinfoil hat brigade.

The same is true now re: Dura in the Arab world. In time they will come to a true appriciation of the event once the political hysteria dies down. The conquest of Iraq has gone a long way to bringing the Arab world into ratoinality. Iran will be an even bigger push.

This all points out that communicating with others that don't share your "reality" is very difficult. Communication depends so much on a shared world view. It is somewhat analogous to sending information between computers. If they do not use the same protocol no useful data gets across except the data that useful communication is not happening.

Joe, I understand the distinction you are trying to make between the words "jihad" and "harabah."

What I disagree with is that in the real world it makes much of a difference.

To a believing Muslim, we are infidels and will burn in hell everlasting.

Maybe the Sufis developed a way to dance around this, but in the long run, you can't deny that Islam is what is written in the Koran.

diana,

Mature religions learn to dance around the incovenient "truths" in their revealed texts. The Jews have done it with rabinicle Judaism. The Christians have done it by mostly removing the sword as a metod of advancing their belief.

To believe that Islam cannot learn to dance around immutable truth is to say that the war they fight must always be against the outsider instead of their internal demons. it also says that their humanity is somehow fundamentaly different than that of the West.

What will be required is that they go from "literal truth" to "allegory" in the understanding of the Koran. This is a very big deal of course. I think it can be done.

What I am not sure about is if it will be done.

What is needed is a switch from using allegory to explain every day facts with the Koran as the immutable linch pin to making the Koran allegorical and every day facts as the linch pin. In other words science brings the truth. Islam forms the culture but is not rigid. ( of course science is not so rigid either but that is another question )

M Simon: I agree with what you say about mature religions. The various versions of the Talmud began to be redacted around the 2nd century AD; Judaism was already a couple of thousand years old at that point. It doesn't seem as if Islam is even close to that point.

Regarding your charge that I am saying that Islamic "humanity is somehow fundamentally different from the West," that is a slight mischaracterization. Allow me to clarify.

There are different ways of expressing one's humanity, and Islam is certainly different from both Christianity and Judaism in its channeling of various biological urges and characteristics.

Take the issue of patriarchy and women's rights. Islam is fiercely patriarchal. All religions are, to an extent, which reflects a human predisposition to respect male authority. Read any anthropology text; patriarchy rules in every human society. It's sad, but it's a fact.

But none so much as Islam. The movement for women's rights will encounter violent resistance in ANY Islamic country. But that's the easy part.

Women's rights will encounter a thicket of scriptually-based objections, none of which can be overcome or fitted into Islam, unless it is reformed beyond recognition.

Regarding Jihad, there is no religion on earth that I know of whose central tenet is spreading the faith by the sword.

For those who say that this is a misunderstanding of Jihad, may I refer them to this link:

http://secularislam.org/articles/bostom.htm

which explains the intimate relationship between Jihad, dhimmitude and the jizya. (Jizya was a cruel poll tax levied on all non-Muslims in the realm of Islam, and led to widespread depopulation by non-Muslims and eventual povertization of the non-Muslims who remained.)

In short, M. Simon, Islam is a vigorous, macho, proselytizing faith whose core DNA does not allow for co-existence with other faiths. That hardly makes them un-human (on the contrary; they are all too human); but yes, it is a different expression of humanity than we Americans are accustomed to encountering.

It seems to me a bit... condescending to suggest that "what a convincing argument against Palestinian terrorism looks like" needn't acknowledge, you know, actual facts in (because of?) the "Islamic context". An argument containing an obvious Big Lie isn't convincing on this side of the cultural fence, and shouldn't cut it anywhere else either. We can and must expect better.

Now if Aziz had meant to allude to the fact that both al-Dura and the bombing victims were killed by Palestinian extremists, it would be an impressively sharp argument. Unlikely though.

No matter who killed the boy, I think we can all agree Al-Dura was an innocent victim. In which case, his use in Aziz' analogy is entirely proper. Follow me here:

Those who believe Al-Dura was killed by the Israelis hear the allegory one way (and it packs a real wallop), while those who believe (as I do) that the Palestinians killed him for the cameras can hear it in your "impressively sharp" form. Either way, it still makes sense. Al-Dura was an innocent victim, and he will be in heaven to meet those who are also innocent victims of wrongful violence, and that's true no matter who did it.

We can still argue with Aziz and others about who killed Al-Dura if we wish. But it's peripheral to the opinions he expresses in the post we're discussing, and the outcome of that argument doesn't change his post's propriety.

Unless you're a Muslim who believes Aziz is referring to Al-Dura as a victim of Palestinian terror. Then you'll be offended. Ditto someone on our side of the fence who sees it as blaming the Israelis. Just see the story in your own preferred context instead of your enemy's, and the problem vanishes like a magic trick. Which, in a way, it is.