Reuters photo of U.S. Consulate burning in Benghazi, Libya
Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012 was a gorgeous sunny and crisp late-summer day in New York, just like that notorious Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, which had touched me directly; the smell of burnt plastic and other debris wafted by my Manhattan apartment at the end of a day that changed our world forever. This past Tuesday was the first 9/11 anniversary since I began blogging over six years ago that I chose not to post anything about it. But the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi pulled me back.
This is an evolving story, but after some confusion, it appears that the film that ostensibly sparked the violence now widespread in the Muslim world was made by a Coptic-Christian resident of California, originally from Egypt, who claimed initially to be a Jew from Israel. It was promoted by a Christian anti-Muslim activist and radio personality named Steve Klein. Regardless, the 13-minute trailer went viral via YouTube after being dubbed into Arabic.
Time cover, Sept. 24, 2012 issue (photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh /Reuters)
This is how the film is described in the Israeli daily, Ha’aretz:
…. The film claims [the Prophet] Muhammad was a fraud. An English-language 13-minute trailer on YouTube shows an amateur cast performing a wooden dialogue of insults disguised as revelations about Muhammad, whose obedient followers are presented as a cadre of goons.
It depicts Muhammad as a feckless philanderer who approved of child sexual abuse, among other overtly insulting claims that have caused outrage. …
Obviously, Muslims have good reason to feel outrage. Yet most people in the Middle East have no concept that the United States government does not control the film industry or what is posted on the Internet. As hateful as this film is, it would almost certainly violate the First Amendment for the government to shut it down; YouTube itself would have to remove this offensive video.
But what can we say about the behavior of violent demonstrators, let alone Jihadists who may have used this as an excuse to launch a premeditated attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi? What should we say about people who express their indignation by violence against people and property? To raise such questions is to answer them.
Tragically, it is too easy within the Muslim world to rally people with a sense of grievance; however justified this may be at times, it is often outrage at events that are more complex than, or at odds with, what they view as the facts. As United Nations development reports on the Arab world have noted, most of these countries–to which we may add the impoverished Muslim countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, where most people are illiterate–are in dire need of development and education. These places could benefit from the Global Marshal Plan that Tikkun advocates—although this is not likely to happen without a substantial economic recovery in Europe and the U.S.
Jews fight for Muslim ruler at Higueruela, 1431
There needs to be a return to the great tolerant model for Islamic society represented by Al-Andalus, the Muslim-ruled domain of Spain where for much of its history (but not all) Muslims, Jews and Christians found a way to live together in peace and harmony. Mind you, a modern society needs to go beyond the protected but unequal status of dhimmitude provided to Jews and Christians in Muslim countries in those days, but such changes cannot be imposed from the outside. And it will not come via hatred and ridicule.
On balance, although one can certainly find plenty to argue with, U.S. foreign policy was more pro-Muslim than not: the U.S. helped the Afghans fight off the Soviet Union in the 1980s, liberated Kuwait and protected Saudi Arabia in 1991, intervened on behalf of Muslims in Somalia (where George H. W. Bush ordered troops to provide famine relief), President Clinton (belatedly) helped end the civil war in Bosnia and liberated Kosovo from Serbian domination, and Clinton (and to some extent W. Bush as well) attempted to meditate an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The late Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was a much-respected presence in Libya, who had acted as a liaison on the ground for NATO’s air campaign that saved Benghazi from the massacre threatened by Qaddafi and went on to facilitate the overthrow of his odious regime.
Islamic-period garden in Granada
After being attacked in so massive and bloody a fashion as we were on Sept. 11, 2001, I fully supported the U.S. military role in helping the Afghan Northern Alliance to overthrow al Qaeda’s hosts and allies, the Taliban regime. I saw this as a just, limited and highly skilled application of force.
Tragically, the Bush administration was so intent on using the 9/11 terror attacks as cover for its plan to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq, that it did not pursue Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda (the actual perpetrators of 9/11) to their just end. And while the Bushies messed things up royally in Iraq, the neglected effort in Afghanistan gradually descended into an unwelcome occupation, as the Taliban began clawing their way back. What’s more, the Jihadi cause has metastasized into dangerous al Qaeda “franchises” in Yemen, Somalia, Mali and elsewhere, including even in northern Nigeria today—not to mention a nuclear-armed and increasingly unstable Pakistan at knife’s edge due to an internal Taliban insurgency.
An economic strategy such as the GMP may help, but we also need to acknowledge that hardline Jihadists are arch-reactionaries who actually oppose economic development and modern education (especially for women). Hence, during the Algerian civil war in the 1990s, Islamist rebels murdered Western aid workers, as powerfully depicted in the French movie I reviewed last year, “Of Gods and Men.”
My sense of President Obama is that he now regrets having doubled down (twice) to reinforce U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan. The announced 2014 exit goal for the U.S. and NATO forces appears agonizingly too far off, but it’s hard to conceive any President of the United States admitting failure by withdrawing immediately. Yes, although it’s a much smaller war by comparison, Obama’s Afghan strategy feels increasingly like “the decent interval” for the U.S. exit from Vietnam that Henry Kissinger negotiated in 1973; Saigon was overrun by North Vietnamese tanks two years later. I wish I had a happier sense of what’s in store for us, as we still live within the shadow of that fateful day, eleven years ago.
When the Muslim world erupts in violence against American embassies around the world as a result of a bigoted film, it shows a few things.
1. The films is the work of one bigoted individual and does n9t represent the spirit or values of the US.
By and large there is a level of tolerance in the US that is matched by few nations on hearth
2. Other religions have been the target of ridicule in the US and elsewhere, and violence has not been the end result. Jesus was mocked in “The Life of Brian”, Sure, shouts of pretests were heard, but no embassy was burned and no one was attacked as a result
3. Anti Semitic myths still exist in the Muslim world. The old Czarist document, the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” has been translated into Arabic and was even staged in Cairo as a play.In fact, even though it was a Coptic Christian who created this offensive film, Jews are still being blamed for it. Israeli flags are being burned along side an American flags all over the Muslim world. Jews continue to be demonized in the Muslim world. No embassy has been burned nor has anyone been killed as a result. There is such thing as peaceful protest.
4. The Muslim world apparently does not understand the concept of the freedom of speech. No matter how vile the speech, an individual in the US has the freedom to express it. Much of the Muslim works has not yet grasped freedom of speech. When it is grasped, Democracy may take hold
Finally, the author mentioned a ” Global Marshal Plan. Rabbi Lerner stated that it should originate form I=the West and Israel. Well I she a bot of news. Both are broke and swimming in debt.. Wealth is now centered in China and the Persian Gulf. With all that oil revenue, the persona Gulf states can now carry use weight and responsibility in the world community. It is time to grow up. The West can not carry the financial weight of the world
1. the film is the work of a bigoted individual who does not represent the U.S. The few Muslims who protested violently however, represent all 1.7 billion muslims. So, the U.S., at 320 million or so, are a higher percentage of people that are bigoted. hmmm
2. Jesus was not mocked in The Life of Brian. The intelligence of Monty Python would indicate it was more of a … what if… in an alternate reality.
3. Anti Semitic myths do not exist in the Muslim world. It is anti Muslim to suggest that. The Palestinian condition would prove that. Jews are not being blamed for the film. That is the entire point of this post. Israeli flags are burned because of the Ashkenazi Bolshevik Likud party policies, just as their policies are protested in tent cities in Jerusalem. There is indeed peaceful protest, that is often returned with violence. Peaceful protestors continue, such as Rabbis for Human Rights, Jews sans Frontiers, and a myriad of spiritually driven Jews in Israel as in the world.
4. Free speech does not include hate speech. This applies in Canada, Israel, and the United States. Democracy… where? NGO’s cannot be given money from international organizations in Israel. Bibi has a political party that runs toward fascism.
Finally, the west could handle internal problems if it did not have military bases around the world. It is indeed time to grow up. To grow up to the layers of fact that belie oversimplification of reality to suit ideology.
Jesyl
1. . This were not few who rioted. Te riots took place world wide, with calls for beheading Americans. I don’t recall Jews, Christians or Buddhists burning embassies. Do you?
2. I have news for you. Free speech includes the rights to disparage others. I suggest you re-watch the “Life of Brian” and see how Jesus is mocked, And that is not the only instance where it has been done. If indeed this film maker knowingly incited violence, he will be prosecuted. But that is part of sue process. But he was not the mouthpiece of Americans, as is perceived by the Muslim world.
3. Are you trying to suggest that anti Semitism does not exist in the Muslim world. heck, its i still widely believed that Jews were behind the attack on 911. It is also believed that Jews control the banks and the US.And please read your own writing: “Ashkenazi Bolshevik Likud party policies”. Where do you come up with this precious combination. I have to admit, I have never see Bolshevik and Likud matched together. You have a very god sense of humor. I would work in that narrative. it smells terrible.
4. Before al this violence broke out, Palestinians were beginning to blame their own leadership on the “Palestinian condition” . That said, life is pretty good in the West Bank. Gaza is a noter story. to bad Hamas is holding the strip hostage.
You seem to be like a an apologist for violence i the Muslim world. Would Mohammed cal for violence against others? If he was indeed a hand of peace, he would condemn it. I am yet toy hear a Muslim cleric condemn the violence of cal for forgiveness of the infidel.
There’s more behind these protests than, at the moment, I think we understand. At this moment in history, with regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya having been toppled, and fighting raging in Syria, is it possible that some regimes afraid of revolution (including emerging regimes in Egypt and Libya) are turning angry populist attention towards the US instead of inward?
That has been the modus operandi of that part of the world for ever. And BTW, anger was directed at Israel as well. There is no better way blame misery on someone else. Jews have been the target of that kind of anger forever.