Preaching Violence

Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball have a piece on Qaradawi in the new Newsweek. While the title "Preaching Violence" is unfortunate, the article itself isn't the hatchet job that most pieces on Qaradawi have been lately. The Newsweek piece correctly places Qaradawi's more radical outlook in recent times in the context of Bush's foreign policy, the deterioration in Iraq and in Palestine, and the increasingly angry and despairing general Arab opinion.

The article begins with this: "In a further sign of the dramatic erosion of U.S. support in the Arab world, a prominent Islamic cleric who once forcefully condemned the September 11 attacks is now openly counseling his followers to resist the U.S. military in Iraq and to provide weapons and funds to the insurgents." The authors carefully note the controversies over the alleged fatwa on killing American civilians: "In a speech before the Egyptian Press Club in Cairo on Aug. 31, Qaradawi was reported in a number of press accounts to have sanctioned the murder of American civilians in Iraq. But in a subsequent interview reported on the Al-Jazeera Web site, he insisted that his words were taken out of context and that he was not calling for attacks on civilians. In his comments on Al-Jazeera last week, Qaradawi also appeared to condemn kidnapping of civilians in Iraq, saying that “resistance, as defined by Islam … is not without controls.”" (you'd almost think that somehow the aardvark's criticisms somehow got through, somehow!)

But their piece isn't about defending Qaradawi - they also point out correctly that Qaradawi has not made such distinctions with regard to Israel - it's about showing the political shift of an important and influential moderate voice which has in the past been supportive of key parts of a liberal agenda but has now urged resistance to American occupation forces in ever stronger language.

These two paragraphs get to the heart of what's at stake here: "Qaradawi’s comments are especially noteworthy because he is, in the view of many analysts, one of the most influential voices in the Muslim world—a cleric whose public pronouncements are carefully monitored by governments around the globe. Based in Qatar, a strong U.S. ally where he has close relations with the ruling royal family, Qaradawi is a frequent guest on Al-Jazeera. In those appearances, he issues religious judgments on world events in tones that U.S. officials in the past have praised as moderate and constructive. In the days after September 11, for example, Qaradawi denounced the murders of innocent civilians and encouraged Muslims to donate blood to the victims. “Our hearts bleed” for those who died in the attacks, Qaradawi said at the time. But in recent months, Qaradawi has become one of a growing number of Muslim clerics outside Iraq who have sided ever more forcefully with resistance fighters the Bush administration has presented as indistinguishable from the terrorists of Al Qaeda."

I think that this very effectively captures the alienation of Arab and Islamic moderates by Bush's foreign policy which has long been one of my main preoccupations. It isn't that Qaradawi is "really" a radical extremist, it's that he - like so many other Arab and Muslim moderates - has found little to sustain moderation. The Bush administration has, in almost every possible way, worked to undermine the position of Arab and Islamic moderates, rejecting dialogue with them and showing absolute contempt for their views. What you're hearing from Qaradawi now should be seen as the fruits of Bush's vigorous efforts to crush Islamic and Arab moderation - one area, at least, where he can honestly claim to have done better than Kerry could possibly hope to do.