On Palestinian Sermons

Imagine if you will the following fictional scenario. The governor of Arkansas is unhappy about criticism aimed at him from the pastors in the pastures; he’s distressed about the hollers he’s hearing from the hollers; so he assigns one of him minions, his Minister of Ministers, to write mandatory Sunday sermons to be read in all churches. ACLU anyone?

It could never happen, you think; it’s a flight of journalistic fantasy, but, it turns out, it’s not so fictional. The bailiwick may not be the Ozarks, but according to the Washington Post (December 15) exactly that situation is playing itself on the West Bank where anxious to court Israeli and American favor, and hating Hamas almost as much as the Israelis do, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, is conducting exactly such a campaign.

Each week, Mahmoud Habbash, the Palestinian Authority's Minister for Religious Affairs, E-mails Friday’s script for sermons each imam is required to deliver. According to the Post, the campaign has been effective and Hamas support is down. How this could be eludes me. I fully expected to read the opposite, that in reaction to this heavy-handed imposition of the state on the teachings of the mosque that riots would erupt. Maybe they will, but apparently, not yet.

Already though, there is opposition. Sheikh Hamid Bitawi of Nablus whose fiery sermons the Palestinian Authority banned three months ago estimates that dozens of other imams have been prevented from preaching. “I’m sure,” he argues, that “the popularity of …the Palestinian Authority is going down. They will be punished for their behavior.” (Insert here a chill down Abbas’ spine.) More moderately Nasser Abed El-Al, who runs a kebab restaurant, hasn't liked the changes either. “They're choosing imams that speak the way they do,” he said. “This regime is not popular with the people here.”

Defending the practice, Habbash argues that “We're convinced this is in our national interest. What we have seen is when mosques are under the control of other parties, it causes division within our people.” (Insert squirm of your liberal reporter as he reads this.) “My main message, Habbash contends” is that “we need to liberate Islam from … extremism and wrong understanding of Islam. Islam does not incite to hate.”

So, do we Jews, we advocates for peace within secure borders for Israel, we advocates of western liberal ideas we’ve read in the writing of Locke and John Stuart Mill have a horse in this race? Yes, we do, but to be safe (which is frequently to live dangerously) we’ve divided our wagers and now watch hopelessly as the animals on the track, those magnificent steeds upon which we’ve based our hopes are running not in a straight line but helter skelter all over the course. Observing from the stands it’s difficult to say what we want the outcome to be. But surely not this.

Maybe after centuries of patriarchal clan loyalties Arabs in the area (as opposed to Arabs who have come to live here) cannot be expected to conform to the norms of first amendment expectations. But can we liberal Americans, even though the censorship is being undertaken to promote causes we believe in (recognizing the legitimacy of Israel) tolerate this blatant disregard for free thought and speech? Or is it time for us to say (insert southern drawl here) “Well, these boys aren’t really ready for advancements our forefathers fought for fiercely, so let ’em play the game by their rules, not ours and we come out on top.” But the problem with that argument is that Arabs aren’t a stupid people and they already see through the heavy-handed control of what their imams are allowed to say.

I see the situation as further evidence of the failure of the idea of the Two-State solution daily touted by its advocates. Look at the map. There’s the West Bank here and Gaza there, Israel in the middle. Look at the political realities. In the West Bank Mahmoud Abbas imposes his views on the mosques; in Gaza the mosques impose Hamas’ opposite views with equal or greater vehemence. One group is willing to work with Israel and the United States but does so by using methods abhorrent to American and Israeli social and political theory; the other group wants only to destroy Israel. There is not a single Palestinian land mass or a single Palestinian perspective on Islam.

Find another solution; one that will work, not this cobbled together pipe dream.