In a lecture delivered in Beirut, Alastair Crooke of Conflicts Forum explores the language employed in waging the "war on terrorism" and finds it bordering dangerously close on old imperial rhetoric. When Ehud Barak described Israel as a "villa in the jungle", he was raising a barrier against the Muslim world. Like the notion of the "villa in the jungle", the western rhetorical attack on Islamists casts the latter as beyond the pale of rationality, motivated by obscure passions and brutal hysteria.
Crooke argues that such language is continued proof of the "petrified thinking the west needs to step beyond". The Islamist viewpoint is certainly not irrational, nor should the critique of the west offered by Islamist thinking be dismissed. For instance, Crooke suggests that the obvious link between "individualism" and "freedom" is, in truth, not so obvious, and perhaps even false when considered closely. "Only by the west stepping beyond the limits of its present thinking will real dialogue become possible," Crooke says, "because only then will it be possible to hear some of the things which are being said; and understand how they relate to all of us, both in the west and in the Muslim world."
The toD verdict: Through serious and deep engagement with political Islam, Conflicts Forum aims to "open a new relationship between the west and the Islamic world". A brief scan of their recent events and publications shows that this is a noble and worthwhile initiative. Keep up to date with the latest developments and sharpest perspectives in a world of strife and struggle.
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toD agrees with Crooke on many points of his speech. One of the most forgotten victims of the "war on terrorism" is language. The quest for "moral clarity" has ironically drained meaning from the terms in play by effacing the complexities and contradictions of history and geopolitics. So too is Crooke right, in principle, to call for a reconsideration of both the western narrative and the Islamist narrative.
However, one cannot help but cringe a little bit at the amount of respect that Crooke affords political Islam. It is almost as if he seeks to bridge two great tectonic plates - the political west and the political Islam - which are otherwise bound in unthinking friction. This is not the case. The various "Islamisms" - admittedly, something of a general term - of west Asia are not totally representative of the region's people, nor necessarily of its broader intellectual and political history.
Islamists should definitely be engaged with, but they shouldn't be privileged or inflated.
"Collateral damage" in the Philippines
Eight civilians - including two children - on Jolo Island in the south of the Philippines have been killed in army operations against Abu Sayyaf militants. Local authorities have expressed outrage at the incident, while reports claim that many of the dead were shot in the head, suggesting that the killings were far from accidental.
The strangulation of Gaza
In The Nation, Saree Makdisi hails the recent "break-out" from Gaza into Egypt that allowed many Gazans to bring back much needed supplies to their besieged and cut-off territory. Israel blocked the transmission of aid supplies to Gaza on 18 January, and UNRWA's own emergency stocks are running perilously thin. The blockade has already had disastrous effects on public health standards. With the blessings of Hamas, the ostracised party nominally in charge in Gaza, thousands of Palestinians streamed into Egypt to relieve the growing crisis. If Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority doesn't stand up for its people, Makdisi says, then it will only confirm that it is serving the interests of the Israelis.
Khalil Shikaki of the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research claims that Hamas' popularity in Gaza was on the wane through much of last year. Israel's tightening of restrictions in and blockades of Gaza have bolstered Hamas' public standing.
Hamas' armed wing Izzadin Kassam was linked with the suicide bombing in the Israeli town of Dimona which killed one woman and left forty people injured. Hammas, however, has denied any link to the attack.
Satellite feuds
Iran has lodged an official complaint with New Delhi over its commercial launch of an Israeli satellite earlier this year. It is broadly thought that the satellite will allow Israel to better monitor and spy on Iran.
Meanwhile, Iran has signalled its intent to join the elite group of nations in space by testing a rocket today capable of launching a satellite into orbit. Though the White House predictably accused Iran of furthering isolating itself by playing with "ballistic missiles", Tehran's extraterrestrial ambitions are understandable when nearby Indian, China and Israel all have a presence in space.
