Unike Adlai, Hillary has a hole in her soul!

I caught a news blurb recently about candidate shoe wear. Unlike Adlai, Hillary has a hole in her soul.

After his comment about getting the assistance of "The Legal Aid Society" to help make decisions , Romney has a bigger one in his head.

Reid and Pelosi have cleverly and purposefully gone off the charts to stimulate the left while demonizing the right in hope of censoring free debate. Rush can handle himself and all of this may ultimately backfire. Nevertheless, political debate has sunk to new lows while the Dow rises to new highs. Could there be a correlation?

Abbas remains duplicitous and Olmert indifferent. (See 1 below.)

Netanyahu makes a sensible and realistic speech. It is one thing to talk the talk, can he walk the walk if ever given the opportunity? (See 2 below.)

Syria will not go to Annapolis. Would one have thought otherwise. Annapolis is the home of The Naval Academy and Syria and Assad have already sunk about as low as it can get. (See 3 below.)

Russia driven by own self-interest and Russian expert says Israel is unrealistic in thinking otherwise. Russia see's the decline in America's unipolar influence and Iran is far down the list of its concerns. (See 4 below.)

Former Clerk for Justice Thomas wonders out loud why so many in the media remain full of angst over him. (See 5 below.)

Long article asks the question: "Should Muslims Integrate in The West?" (See 6 below.)

Plan on driving around Outer Bank area in N.C. for next two weeks so no memos.

Dick

1)Undercover border police kill Palestinian Fatah suicide bomber on his way to central Israel from West Bank town of Jenin - 8th time in a month


Military sources report the bomber was Mustapha Mohammed Abu Srur, 21, of the Fatah al Aqsa Brigades. He was already driving in his accomplice’s car on their way to pick up his explosive bomb belt and continue to target, when they were surrounded by undercover Israeli troops. The bomber who was armed was shot dead and his partner captured and questioned.

At the Israeli cabinet session Sunday, Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin reported that seven Palestinian suicide missions inside Israel had been foiled in the past month. Eleven wanted terrorists were rounded up Wednesday night.

Sources reveal a worrying escalation. It signals the across-the-board determination of all the Palestinians groups, including Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah and his rival Hamas, Jihad Islami and the “Fronts,” to revive mass killings in Israel’s cities by West Bank suiciders. The approaching international conference in Annapolis has pushed the Palestinian terrorists into greater efforts to execute mass-casualty strikes in Israel to demonstrate “the armed conflict” continues undeterred by any peace talks.

Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas has responded by hardening the line he takes with him to the conference. As presented Wednesday, the new line is all or nothing: If the Palestinians cannot have every inch of the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem for their state, the “armed conflict” will continue.

This pattern is a replay of Yasser Arafat’s tactics in the years 2000-2004 – talking “peace” while ordering his terrorist bombers to redouble their suicide offensive to squeeze Israel. Abbas does not need to issue orders. Hamas and Jihad Islami are more than willing to derail the international conference in Maryland and step up their violence. However, no branch of the Palestinian government in Ramallah is lifting a preventative finger.

Jerusalem sources report Israel’s security and army chiefs have warned prime minister Ehud Olmert a dangerous situation is boiling up and called for his urgent attention. He responded now was not the time and he would get back to the problem in a few days.

They also gave him due notice of the hardening of Abbas’ approach to negotiations with Israel. It was indicated by the appointment of Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala), prime minister under Arafat and an old hand in beating Israel down by bazaar tactics, to lead the Palestinian negotiating team. Olmert was advised to ginger up the Israeli team which, aside from Maj. Gen (ret) Amos Gilead, consists of officials and lawyers who have no experience in the wiles of hard bargaining with Palestinians.

Whereas Abbas has assembled a top team for the conference, the Israeli side appears unready and short of firm positions, well-chosen arguments and effective rhetoric. Israel will find itself standing practically alone, with the scales weighted against its team by participants who are predominantly hostile and sympathetic to radical Palestinian positions. Palestinian propagandists are already pressing their international advantage with aggressive campaigns to prepare the ground for the hard crunch at Annapolis.

2) Netanyahu Speech - Opening Session Winter 2007

We want to forge a genuine peace - a peace that can be made only with a
genuine partner and which will be based on the following principles.
1. Defensible borders and not the indefensible 1967 lines - the Jordan River
will be Israel's eastern border.
2. A united Jerusalem, not a divided one.
3. Israeli sovereignty over the holy sites, safeguarding the freedom of
worship for all religions, and not the transfer of control over these sites
to Islamic extremists.
4. Cooperation with Jordan and Egypt over final status questions.
5. Complete dismantling of all terror infrastructure.
6. Resolution of the refugee issue by dismantling the refugee camps and
rehabilitating their inhabitants - and not by bringing even a single refugee
into Israel.

Attached and below is Mr. Netanyahu's speech given this past Mondayat the Knesset's opening session. Sent by Ari Harow, Senior Advisor Benjamin Netanyahu


Israel can suceed!

We can succeed in every field - in building a prosperous economy, in
developing advanced technology, in fostering excellence in education, in
creating a strong society, in combating crime and violence and in so much
more.

Some of these efforts are already underway. The free market reforms we
implemented filled the state coffers with billions of shekels that can now
be directed toward helping those who are truly needy.

With courageous leaders who can make tough decisions and implement
fundamental reforms, we can finish the job.

But first and foremost, we need a government that knows how to neutralize
the serious threats that confront us.

The primary objective for our national defense has been and remains to
prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

This is an objective that I reiterated at the start of the current Knesset's
session, and for many years my colleagues and I have emphasized in the
clearest terms its paramount importance.

But the countdown to a nuclear Iran continues and time is running out.

With what little time remains, we must redouble our efforts to influence
world leaders and international public opinion to act with determination
against Iran, including through much tougher and more painful economic
sanctions.

Of course, we must be prepared to practice what we preach. That is why I
intend, during this session, to bring for a second and third reading a bill
that will prevent any indirect Israeli investment in Iran - similar to the
bills that I have supported in leading American states.

We must use all means - economic and others - to ensure that an Iranian
nuclear threat does not materialize.

As I have said time and again, when it comes to this existential issue,
there is no opposition and no coalition. All of us are united in our desire
to thwart the Iranian threat.

That is why we have difficulty understanding why the government is using one
hand to repel the Iranian nuclear threat while using the other to bring the
Iranian terror threat closer.

On the one hand, the government wants to fight the nuclear tentacle of the
Iranian octopus; on the other hand its diplomatic plan opens the door to
other tentacles of that same octopus.

The hasty unilateral withdrawal from south Lebanon created the first Iranian
base in the north, from which the Iranian proxy Hezbollah threatens Haifa
and the Galilee.

The unilateral withdrawal from Gaza created a second Iranian base in the
south - Hamastan - from which Iranian financed terror groups attack Sderot,
Ashkelon and the Western Negev.

As time passes, it becomes increasingly clear that this threat is spreading
ever wider, reaching more and more parts of the country, including yesterday's
rocketing near Netivot.

And now the government plans a further withdrawal in Judea and Samaria
a move that will inevitably create in the center of the country a third
Iranian base that will threaten Jerusalem and the entire coastal plain.

These three tentacles of the Iranian Octopus will thus envelop Israel from
every side!

I would like to believe that the government is truly convinced that its plan
will bring peace, but in fact it will bring the opposite result.

According to the government's plan, Israel will withdraw to the 1967 lines,
hand over half of Jerusalem to the Palestinians and relinquish Israeli
control over the holy sites in the city.

Let there be no confusion - this is the plan. All attempts to disguise it
are futile.

If the plan sounds familiar, it should. This is the exact plan offered by
the Barak government at Camp David in 2000. As the saying goes, it's the
same lady and she didn't even bother to change her dress.

And what will be the results?

First: Israel leaves, Hamas enters.

Without an Israeli military presence, Hamas will again easily overcome the
Palestinian Authority, just as it did after the Gaza disengagement.

Second, handing over half of Jerusalem to Hamas will make life unbearable in
the city's other half.

How will people live in Jerusalem's Jewish neighborhoods - Neve Yaakov,
Pisgat Zeev, Ramot, the Jewish Quarter in the Old City - when Hamas controls
the houses across the street?

These communities will turn into Jewish enclaves in a Hamas sea.

Their inhabitants will abandon them, and the Old City's vital center will be
emptied of Jews once again.

Third, giving away Judea and Samaria will give Hamas and other Islamic
extremists control over the territories dominating the coastal plain.

From there, they will be able to fire missiles directly at Israel's dense
urban centers, Ben Gurion Airport, and Tel Aviv itself.

Just ask the residents of Sderot, Ashkelon, and as of yesterday, Netivot.
Ask the residents of Nahariyah, Haifa and the Galilee.

This is not how you make peace. This is how you strengthen terror and bring
it nearer.

Before the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, Mr. Olmert said:
"After the initial increase, there will be a significant reduction in
terror. there will be industrial parks." (Yediot Ahronot 12/05/03)

And Mr. Olmert continued:
"We will take the necessary steps to ensure that the Philadelphi Corridor
will not turn into a weapons smuggling pipeline that will endanger Israel."
(NRG 07/27/05)

On the day of the unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon, before three soldiers
were kidnapped on Har Dov and thousands of missles were fired on our towns
and cities, Mr. Barak said:
"Who would dare fire on our soldiers or communities? (Yediot Ahronot
05/25/2000)

Who will try to harm us after we leave Lebanon? They will have no
opportunity, reason, or excuse." (Ha'aretz 05/25/2000)

How many times is it possible to repeat the same blunder, to proceed with
the same blindness!

With the same blindness that led to a security collapse north and south, the
government is now preparing the next withdrawal that will bring about an
even greater collapse - and this time in the center of the country where
most of our citizens live.

The government concedes everything in advance. It erodes Israel's positions
in any future negotiation - and gets nothing in return.

This is not how you negotiate! This is not how you make peace!

But the government contends that by offering these far reaching concessions,
it is strengthening the moderates and weakening the extremists. The
opposite is true.

When the government agrees in advance to withdraw from all the
territories, the terrorists need only increase their pressure on us so that
we will leave sooner. In doing so, the government's policy strengthens
terror.

And what about the claim that relinquishing Israeli control over the holy
sites will bring about an end to the conflict?

On the contrary. This will increase the scope and intensity of conflict to
unprecedented levels.

As long as Israel remains sovereign over the holy sites, it maintains peace
and tranquility there and guarantees freedom of worship for the three
religions.

And how does Israel maintain this quiet? Every Friday during the Temple
Mount prayers, the peace is protected by Israel's police, army and security
services.

But if we remove our forces, terrorists from around the world, including
Al-Qaeda, will flock to Jerusalem.

We would be giving our greatest enemies the most explosive square mile in
the world: The Temple Mount which overlooks the Western Wall, the Church of
the Holy Sepulcher and the Al Aqsa Mosque.

It is not difficult to imagine what they could do after we leave, and the
chain reaction their actions could trigger.

Such a concession will not bring about an end to the conflict but its
perpetuation. And who knows where that could lead!

Instead of the government's blind policy, Israel needs a different policy,
one that is based on an accurate assessment of reality.

We want to forge a genuine peace - a peace that can be made only with a
genuine partner and which will be based on the following principles.
1. Defensible borders and not the indefensible 1967 lines - the Jordan River
will be Israel's eastern border.
2. A united Jerusalem, not a divided one.
3. Israeli sovereignty over the holy sites, safeguarding the freedom of
worship for all religions, and not the transfer of control over these sites
to Islamic extremists.
4. Cooperation with Jordan and Egypt over final status questions.
5. Complete dismantling of all terror infrastructure.
6. Resolution of the refugee issue by dismantling the refugee camps and
rehabilitating their inhabitants - and not by bringing even a single refugee
into Israel.

Real peace will come when a Palestinian leader arises who is ready and able
to lead his people to peace - just as Anwar Sadat did when he made peace
with Prime Minister Menachem Begin and King Hussein did when he made peace
with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Indeed, Prime Minister Olmert quoted Menachem Begin who made peace with
Sadat. But there is one problem. Abbas is no Sadat. Perhaps he is a
partner for talking, but he is no partner for doing.

There is no one in Israel who does not want peace. We have proved this time
and again. Likud led governments and all Israeli governments have sought
peace. But today the burden of proof is on the Palestinians, not on Israel.

Today we must insist on keeping our security in the IDF's hands. Our
destiny must remain in our hands and in our hands alone.

In the meantime, we can and should encourage Palestinian economic
development in Judea and Samaria -- and by that I mean economic development
for the Palestinian population and not for lining the pockets of a corrupt
Palestinian bureaucracy.

Most Israeli citizens know that this is the right way forward. Some of the
coalition members know this as well.

They heard the Vice-Premier say yesterday that in Annapolis, the division of
Jerusalem will be discussed.

I ask you, my friends in Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu: What are you doing
there? What are you doing in this government?

Do you really agree with a policy that would have Hamas rule over
neighborhoods in Jerusalem? Do you really agree with a policy that would
have them sitting on the hilltops overlooking Kfar Saba, Raanana and Tel
Aviv?

You are not preventing the danger by sitting in the government. On the
contrary, you are giving legitimacy to a dangerous initiative and allowing
it to happen.

No one has the moral right to frivolously and irresponsibly concede the most
precious assets of the Jewish nation.

"The shofar blows on the Temple Mount" For two thousand years generations of
Jews prayed for our return to this sacred site, and now they are going to
concede it?!

In an emotional moment 40 years ago, General Motta Gur said, "The Temple
Mount is in our hands." Well, it must stay in our hands, and so too must all
of Jerusalem!

After two thousand years, after the devastation of the Holocaust, we
returned and built our country, we liberated our ancient capital while
sacrificing the best of our sons.

Throughout this historic process, we drew great strength from a firm belief
in the justice of our cause.

If the government has stopped believing in the justice of our cause, if it
is weary of standing up to our enemies - it must do one thing: go to the
people and set a date for elections.

If you are tired, step aside. There are those who will carry the burden.
There are those who will restore faith and hope to the nation.

3) Syria refuses to participate in Middle East peace conference


Syrian President Bashar Assad announced on Thursday that his country would not participate in the Middle East peace conference in Annapolis next month, Army Radio reported.

Speaking to Tunisian media, Assad said the conference had no chance of achieving Syria's goals.

Regarding the IAF raid in Syria on September 6, Assad said that Israel's silence proved the failure of Israeli and US intelligence. He said the two were attempting to cover up their actions in a cloud of mystery.

Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have yet to confirm their participation in the conference, which is scheduled for November.

Last month, Arab diplomats based in Cairo told The Jerusalem Post that the majority of Arab leaders believe that the conference is just a "waste of time."

Meanwhile, Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that "any efforts to deal with core issues at the conference in Annapolis will bring about the dissolution of the government."

At a meeting with Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair, Lieberman said: "The solution must include Arab Israelis as the basis for an arrangement of land and population transfer."

He said that the international community must concentrate its efforts on improving security for Israel, and improving the economy for the Palestinians.

4) Expert: We missed opportunity to enlist Russians against Iran
By Roi Mandel

Russian expert says Israel was wrong in believing it could pressure Russia on Iran via US; 'Russia has its own interests'

The damage caused by a lack of direct dialogue with Russia regarding the Iranian nuclear issue is beyond repair, Yaakov Kidmi, former head of the Russian Jewry liaison office Nativ said Thursday.


His comments were made in response to Russian President Vladmir Putin's refusal to tighten sanctions on Iran because of a lack of evidence that the Middle Eastern state is developing nuclear weapons.


Kidmi explained some politicians in Israel wrongly believed it was possible to pressure Russia to toughen its stance on Iran through the US. "Apparently they did not understand that Russia has its own interests," Kidmi continued.


The Russian expert believes that Moscow does not feel very threatened by the prospect of a nuclear Iran. "Russia today has three strategic nuclear threats – the US, China and Europe, the Iranians are not at the top of this list," Kidmi explained.


According to the consultant, "the Russians are of the opinion that the era of the uni-polar world is coming to an end and the US will no longer be able to dictate policy to countries all over the world."



Russia worried of puppet government in Iran


At this point in time, it is not in Russia's interest to weaken Iran and encourage the prospect of an American-allied regime taking power there, the former Nativ head said. An American puppet government in Iran is a lot worse for the Russians than the symbolic US presence in Georgia, Kidmi continued.


According to Dr Baruch Gorvich, a Russian expert from the University of Haifa, this is the first time that Putin has said outright that he will not support tougher sanctions against Iran. "Putin is using the example of what occurred in Iraq when all the accusations of possession of unconventional weapons proved to be false," the expert said.


"It is in Russia's interest to continue its relationship with Iran and they are exploiting the lack of intelligence on Iran's nuclear program to their benefit," Gorvich said.

5) Why are the media so angry at Clarence Thomas?
By Helgi Walker

MEDIA REACTION to the release last week of "My Grandfather's Son" by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been noteworthy in two respects: First, while the general coverage across the country had been even-handed and fair, some journalists feel compelled to express their views of the book and the justice in terms that are so negative and personalized that they seem to belie a deep anger toward the man and what he stands for; second, others in the press are being chastised by their peers for not being critical enough of the book. The irony is that the man who some regrettably still feel the need to tear down 16 years after his confirmation is among the staunchest defenders on the Supreme Court of a fulsome understanding of the First Amendment - thus protecting their right to voice their opinions, however mean-spirited.

What are the principles expressed in the book that are so worthy of vitriol and cannot be acknowledged as legitimate? As a former law clerk to Thomas, I have heard these principles from him for many years: All people are created equal, with inherent worth and dignity; freedom includes freedom of thought; hard work and education are important elements of success; aim for self-reliance so that you can help not just yourself but others too; stand up for what you believe in; never give up in adversity, keep trying to put one foot in front of the other; and great things are possible in this nation. I have never understood what was so "dangerous" about these ideas. Indeed, most Americans would have little quarrel with these propositions.

It must not, then, be the ideas themselves that Thomas's critics find so objectionable. Perhaps it is that he dares to contradict their own notions of who he should be, what he should think, and what kind of life he should lead. Indeed, the coverage at issue is not composed of arguments against the ideas expressed in the book but of the classic argumentum ad hominen -- "arguments against the man." As the book shows, the thread that weaves through all of the diverse experiences in the justice's life - from Roman Catholic seminarian in the 1960s, to Black Student Union member in the 1970s, to chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the 1980s, and now to originalist jurist - is his insistence on independence. During all these times of his life, he refused to be controlled by the relevant establishment or indeed by any person.

Rather than attempting to psychoanalyze the justice - who in the book declares his own humanity with a grace and vulnerability that people of all walks of life can relate to, explaining that he has simply tried to do his best, step by sometimes-unsure step - these critics, including columnists from the New York Times, might well consider their own selves. When they call him "a justice with issues," as a Washington Post website columnist did last week, one might reasonably wonder what their issues are. What are they so angry about? That Justice Thomas won't kowtow to them? That he was confirmed to the Supreme Court despite their best efforts to stop him? That he, along with four other members of the Court, ruled that Florida violated the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection in the 2000 presidential election?

Meanwhile, the justice goes on with the work of the Court, as he has for the last 16 years. For those interested in his professional endeavors, his opinions are printed in the United States Report. These opinions are, as even legal scholars who do not share the justice's jurisprudential views have acknowledged, thorough, well-written, and soundly researched. They reflect Thomas's willingness to debate legal issues with his colleagues on the Court, as well as his unfailing courtesy toward those colleagues when they disagree.

Finally, these opinions lay out one of the most robust theories of the First Amendment in modern American jurisprudence. Justice Thomas protects our rights to form our own opinions, to hold them as part of who we are, and to express them in the marketplace of ideas. His theory of the First Amendment is premised on the principles that, in the end, the people will choose the ideas they consider to be the best ones, and that in a democracy the truth will will out from the fulcrum of vigorous substantive discussion.

Those who criticize the justice personally in such uncivil tones benefit from this just like the rest of us. But they are apparently not interested in the law or the justice's work on the Court, only (and sadly, still) in ad hominem politics.

6) Should Muslims Integrate into the West?
by Uriya Shavi

The veil has become the center of a European fight over how to balance expressions of Muslim identity with the Western idea of citizenship.[1] How can states achieve a balance between republicanism and minority rights? Can majorities in liberal, Western nation-states, force a dress code upon minorities? While Muslim societies have debated various garments and coverings for women through the twentieth century,[2] the issues are broader. Often, Muslim commentators in the West couch their arguments in the Western discourse of the balance between individual rights and public interest.[3] However, the personal freedom versus integration debate is only one context of the polemic; another is the dichotomy between two types of nationality and between two sources of legitimacy. Here, Muslim scholarship on migration sheds more light than Western political theory.
Immigration to Expand the Muslim Nation

Muslim jurists since the ninth century have considered Muslim residence in non-Muslim societies to be dangerous. Not only might residence abroad weaken faith and practice, they argued, but migration to non-Muslim areas might also strengthen non-Muslims in their wars against Islam. However, the pronouncement was not absolute. Some scholars legitimized living among the infidels so long as Muslims living outside Islamic lands had no alternative, were helpful to the Muslim cause, and were able to practice their religion. Here the Islamic concept of nationhood comes into play. While Muhammad established a nation with territorial dimensions, to belong to it, one only had to become Muslim in faith and practice. Thus, throughout the Middle Ages, Muslims who lived under Christian rule could still be considered part of the Muslim nation.[4]

Throughout the Ottoman period, contacts between Muslim societies and the West were largely limited to trade, diplomacy, and occasional pilgrimage. While migration from Islamic lands to Western countries became more common after the nineteenth century, it was only when the European demand for manual labor grew after World War II that the phenomenon grew in earnest.

Renewed migration led Muslim jurists to reexamine religious attitudes toward Muslims living in non-Muslim societies. For the past thirty years, some jurists have sought to define the identity and duties of these emigrants. Through new institutions dedicated to migration and, more recently, using the Internet and satellite television, they both publish literature dedicated to the subject and answer queries from Muslims in the West, a process that facilitates a center-periphery relationship. Most influential among them is Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Egyptian-born and Qatar-based Sunni jurist who heads the European Council for Fatwa and Research, a body established in London on March 29, 1997, to address in uniformity questions relating to Muslim migration.[5] He also hosts a weekly question-and-answer program on Al-Jazeera, watched by millions of Muslim immigrants, and heads the supervising committee of IslamOnline.net, one of the world's largest Muslim Internet portals, which claims to receive a million hits daily.[6]

Regardless of sect, legal school, nationality, or political status, Muslim jurists from Arab countries have reached similar conclusions as to the proper status and role of Muslim emigrants to the West. To ban or ignore mass Muslim migration to the West would only alienate immigrants, they found. Muslim jurists concentrated instead on constructing a legal-religious framework to maintain emigrants' Muslim identities while using the diaspora in the service of Islam.

Their judgment called upon Muslim immigrants in the West to place religious identity above national and ethnic identities and to promote the interests of a global Muslim nation. The jurists' consensus involved five points: First, a greater Islamic nation exists of which Muslims are members wherever they live. Second, while living in a non-Muslim society is undesirable, it might be legal on an individual basis if the immigrant acts as a model Muslim. Third, it is the duty of a Muslim in the West to reaffirm his religious identity and to distance himself from anything contrary to Islam. Hence, he should help establish and patronize mosques, Muslim schools, cultural centers, and shops. Fourth, Muslims in the West should champion the cause of the Muslim nation in the political as well as the religious sphere, for there should be no distinction between the two. Lastly, Muslims in the West should spread Islam in the declining, spiritual void of Western societies.

Such a consensus developed for several reasons. The political atmosphere proved fertile ground for renewed religiosity. The decline of pan-Arabism in the 1970s and the Islamic Revolution in Iran at the end of that decade suggested that political Islam rather than pan-Arabism could appeal not only to Muslims in the Middle East but also to Muslims in the West.

Fear of Westernization also catalyzed the process. In the early 1980s, scholars, especially in Saudi Arabia, developed a paradigm of "Western cultural attack." They believed that Europe and the United States sought to use textbooks and television, among other tools, to weaken Islam and Christianize Islamic countries. Some clerics suggested that Muslims should counterattack and recruit Muslim immigrants to undermine Western societies from within, using the same means that they believed Western societies employed to undermine Muslim societies.[7] Muslim immigrants, they believed, could be a powerful weapon in the struggle between the West and Islam.

Here, the political theories of Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood activist executed by the Egyptian government in 1966, had resonance. Qutb argued that contemporary Muslim societies were as misguided as their pre-Islamic predecessors and that a pioneering group of devout Muslims should immigrate to prepare from afar for the reinstitution of a true Islamic reign.[8] Qutb's ideas narrowed the distinction between contemporary Muslim and non-Muslim societies and legitimized residence outside majority Muslim countries. These ideas bestowed an honorable aura upon migration. Though few jurists followed his ideas to the letter, he influenced many.

Such theories also played well in contemporary Middle Eastern politics. Most Arab governments are despotic.[9] While authoritarian regimes worked to suppress the Islamist challenge at home, they did not hesitate to assist Islamists in the exportation of their ideas. This was particularly the case with Saudi Arabia, which dedicated billions of dollars to the establishment of Islamist educational institutions, cultural centers, mosques, and media.[10]

Why did some Muslims in the West seek—and eagerly adopt—a reaffirmation of their Muslim identity? In the early 1980s, many Muslims who had immigrated to the West as laborers in the years after World War II recognized that their residence was not as temporary as they had once intended. As their financial situation improved and their political consciousness developed, they began to ponder their identity and roots. When doing so, many of them noticed they were surrounded by large communities of other Muslims; while in absolute numbers Muslims consisted of only a small percentage of the Western societies they immigrated to, most resided in industrial areas, amplifying an illusion of mass.[11] This introspection coincided with the Western embrace of multiculturalism, which challenged nation states' traditional quest for homogeneity and unity.[12] However, at the very time when immigrants from Muslim societies were encouraged to explore their origins, the oil embargo and later the Islamic revolution, terrorism, and the Rushdie fatwa sparked increasing anti-Islamic sentiment in the West. Together, these factors led some Muslim immigrants to identify themselves by their religion, which they considered under attack, rather than by ethnic or linguistic affiliation.

Cultural factors also encouraged religious revival. Most Muslim immigrants, even those who did not regularly practice their faith, came from conservative backgrounds. They promoted the sanctity of the family and a distinction between gender roles, stipulated obedience to parents, did not tolerate premarital sex or homosexuality, and demanded modesty in the public sphere. As the second generation of these migrants matured, growing Western liberalism challenged these values. Muslims in the West encountered the feminist revolution, the sexual revolution, gay rights, and the collapse of parental authority. To settle their anxieties about the breakdown of authority and morals, some parents sought to reaffirm the Muslim identities of their families. Religion provided an appealing moral response that ethnic heritage could not. However, religiosity was not only imposed by parents. For some of the younger generation, the first-class status they enjoyed in Islam compared favorably to the marginalization many felt within European societies.[13]
Theorizing Muslim Immigrants' Roles and Identity

As Muslim Arabs established themselves in Europe, Islamic jurists developed a legal framework to accommodate them. However wary they might be of the temptations facing Muslims in the West,[14] jurists, aware that migrants are in the West to stay, have retroactively bestowed legitimacy upon all types of migration—whether its purpose is labor, commerce, political refuge or studies.[15] Even ‘Abd al-‘Aziz bin Baz, a strict Saudi scholar who from the 1980s until his death in 1999 was the highest religious authority in the kingdom, left the door for migration open because of its benefits for da'wa (proselytizing).[16] Still, legitimacy was not without commitment. Most theologians conditioned their consent strict demands for Muslims in the West to maintain their religiosity.

Many jurists believe Muslim migrants to the West have only two paths to follow: reaffirmation of Muslim identity or its complete abandonment. Such an understanding places a burden upon immigrants' shoulders: While religious leaders acknowledge migrants' membership in the Muslim nation, scholars insist emigrants should comprehend the gravity of their situation and work to amend it. To reside in the West, a Muslim must make sure his and his family's identity are strictly maintained and the Shari‘a remains the comprehensive source regulating all aspects of their lives.

Reaffirmation of Muslim identity involves three duties: First, it mandates unity among Muslims. In his book Islam Behind its Boundaries, Muhammad al-Ghazali, a renowned Egyptian jurist who was in charge of da'wa for Egypt's ministry of awkaf (religious endowments), wrote that "loyalty [should be] to Islam, not to race. The brotherhood of Muslims is the first connection, even if places and times have distanced."[17] Qaradawi agreed. He wrote:

With Muslims being a minority in those non-Muslim countries, they ought to unite together as one man. Referring to this the Prophet (Peace and Blessing be upon him) is reported to have said: "A believer to his fellow believing brother is like a building whose bricks cement each other." Hence, Muslims in those countries have to unite and reject any form of division that is capable of turning them an easy prey for others.[18]

Success in resisting temptation and seduction for himself, his spouse, and his offspring conditions the legality of any immigrant's residence in a non-Muslim society. Qaradawi continues, "I told brothers and sisters living in the West that if they find it extremely difficult to bring up their children as Muslims, they should return to their countries of origin."[19] To defend the family from assimilation does not mean seclusion from all that is Western but rather living according to Islamic jurisprudence. The process is ongoing. Parents newly settled in the West, for example, have sent queries to Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, one of the leading Shi‘i authorities in the Arab world, about the permissibility of allowing their children to watch Western television, to which he ruled that parents should forbid shows which might weaken their children's minds but encourage their children to watch anything on Western television that could strengthen them.[20]

Theologians have also reached a broad consensus that to be able to screen the negative influences of residing among non-Muslims or infidels, Muslim immigrants to the West should dedicate themselves to an Islamic texture of life. This requires participation in Muslim organizations and associations. According to Ghazali, the cornerstone for such efforts should be the establishment of Muslim schools that maintain immigrants' "relation to their heritage, traditions and rituals as if all that changed in their lives is their location." He also calls for the establishment of mosques and clubs to bring Muslims together in order to encourage Muslim men to marry Muslim women and not infidels.[21] The recommendations of Fadlallah are similar.[22]

Migration therefore is a privilege only for the strong in faith. For example, Fadlallah instructs an Iraqi who left his homeland for higher studies in a Western country fourteen years earlier and subsequently sought political asylum that if migration does not cause him to deviate from Islam, then he might stay abroad, but if he fears his religiosity might weaken, he must return to his homeland.[23] In response to another inquiry, Fadlallah offers the principal of comparison: The immigrant should examine whether his presence in a new location causes him to suffer more or less hardship in terms of practicing his faith.[24] A similar principal of comparison is invoked in a ruling of the European Council for Fatwa and Research in response to a query by a Muslim residing in Brussels.[25]

Most Muslim thinkers further advance the debate over migration with consideration of proselytizing. In his doctoral dissertation at Morocco's King Muhammad University, for example, Muhammad al-Qadi al-‘Umrani argues that when the criteria legalizing migration is met, it should be encouraged for da'wa (proselytizing).[26] Shi‘i scholars Yusuf Najib and Muhsin ‘Atawi also validate migration on these grounds.[27]

Rather than be a threat, migration under the right circumstances can be an opportunity to advance the divine plan for a world where there are no nations but the Muslim nation and no political parties but God's. Ghazali urges migrants to be "pioneers" in spreading religion,[28] and Qaradawi argues, "Muslims in the West should be sincere callers to their religion. They should keep up in mind that calling others to Islam is not only restricted to scholars and sheikhs, but it goes far to encompass every committed Muslim."[29] According to Khalid Muhammad al-Aswar, an Egyptian author, Muslim immigrants constitute the new frontier settlements of Islam, defending its values and its interests.[30] He compares the Muslim to the moon: When not shining in one land, it shines in another.[31] Here, Fadlallah also agrees. "We expect you [immigrants] over there to be the callers for Islam, so that new positions will open for us and so that you open for Islam new prospects,"[32] he instructs. Yusuf and ‘Atawi suggest it is the duty of Muslim immigrants to enlighten the world with Muhammad's prophecy.[33]

Here, the popular literature encourages proselytizing. Some Arabic newspapers report mass conversions of Christians to Islam. For example, Asharq al-Awsat related the story of a young woman named Debbie Rogers who converted with thirty of her friends.[34] A 1997 Egyptian book published stories of recent Western conversions to Islam and suggested mass migration is taking place in Europe despite the "Zionist-inspired" campaign against Islam.[35] And Islamway.com, one of the world's most popular Internet sites for Muslims, offers stories of new converts alongside guides for proselytizing.[36]
Dual Loyalty?

If Muslim jurists insist Muslim immigrants avoid assimilation and reserve loyalty to the Islamic nation, should Western governments regard Muslim immigrants as disloyal? Not according to the jurists. Both Fadlallah and Qaradawi, for example, emphasize obedience to laws of the receiving states and urge new immigrants to avoid acts that harm the security of those states.[37]

This is not a case of doublespeak. Islamist jurists do not view the Muslim nation and the West as equivalent structures. They interpret the secular, liberal nature of Western states as mere social mechanisms enabling Muslims to practice Islam to its fullness. ‘Umrani, for example, argues that if Muslims know how to hold on to their civilian and legal rights in societies that raise the "slogans of freedoms and rights for all people," then they should have no problem in adhering to the Islamic law.[38]

Yet, there is another, deeper aspect of Western society that allows Islamist jurists to regard immigrants' loyalty to Western nations as not damaging: They believe Western civilization to be marked by a moral and spiritual void and believe that Westerners will, therefore, gravitate toward Islam. ‘Umrani, for example, has no doubt that Westerners will sooner or later embrace Islam.[39] He sees the Western nation-state as a temporary entity while the Muslim nation is both eternal and universal.

However, dualism is only allowed because theologians do not consider it harmful to Islam. Islam and not the interests of the European nation-state remains the benchmark for any political action. Fadlallah, for example, argues that Muslims might serve in Western parliaments but only so long as they guard the interests of Muslims.[40] The European Council for Fatwa and Research evokes the same principle in response to a query about Muslims contending in municipal elections.[41] The role of the Muslim immigrant is to do his best to promote the interests of his nation—that is, the Muslim nation. Because Islam is blind to boundaries, jurists argue that promoting its cause is not limited to a specific community or country but to Muslims everywhere. Thus, Qaradawi argues, it is necessary to "adopt and champion the rights of the umma" be it in "Palestine, Kosovo, Chechnya," or any other place where Muslims fight for autonomy and statehood.[42]
Assimilationist Dissent

For mainstream Muslim jurists, Islam is not a culture, a religion, or a tradition, but rather an alternative type of nationality which claims jurisdiction over all aspects of human activities. A Muslim can also be a citizen of a Western nation state, yet the Western nation state is tolerated only because it is bound to dissolve and because its weaknesses may be of use to the Muslim cause.

Many Muslims do not accept such a view in practice, and some—within and outside the Muslim world—criticize it. Sa'id Lawindi, an Egyptian academic and journalist who resided in Paris for eighteen years, argues that Muslims in Europe should follow the model provided by European Jewry, acting Western in their relations with European society while living true to their religion at home.[43] ‘Amr Khalid, a Birmingham-based Egyptian television preacher who remains influential despite his lack of formal religious training, calls on Muslim immigrants to become an active and constructive part of their adopted non-Muslim societies. Though he sees Islam as the only solution for all aspects of life, the role he envisions for Muslim immigrants is that of improving the West's image of Islam rather than Islamizing Europe. He encourages integration and broad social initiative.[44]

Many European Muslims also reject or remain ignorant of the roles which jurists assign them. Even some practicing and devout Muslims, while believing in the concept of the Muslim nation and in Islam as the future for Europe, insist upon their independence from any particular contemporary religious authority and emphasize their duty towards the society in which they reside and not a larger Muslim nation. They may advocate coverings for women on one hand and yet seek integration on the other.[45]
Conclusions

Nevertheless, because Islamist jurists in the Arab world have considerable resources, they at times drown out or wear down more pro-assimilation voices. The collision between Western interpretations of personal freedom and some Islamist interpretations of Muslims' rights and duties is inevitable. For mainstream Muslim jurists, Islam trumps all aspects of human activities.

Herein lays the challenge. Many ethnic and religious minorities seek to establish an autonomous sphere within multicultural societies, but only Arab Muslim jurists consider such an autonomous sphere to constitute a substitute for the liberal state itself. Many ethnic and religious minorities attempt to speak for their countries of origin through the political systems of their adopted countries, but only Arab Muslim jurists regard their Muslim nation as overstretching the boundaries of all nation-states in its political demands.

How then should liberal nation-states, using the principals of liberalism and multiculturalism as their shield, deal with individuals who resist their very existence? How can Western societies distinguish between those Muslims who seek a place for their beliefs and traditions within a pluralistic framework and those who adhere to a school committed to the destruction of that framework? Perhaps a good point of departure would be to understand that it is not veils that matter, but the individuals and ideas that are behind them.

Uriya Shavit is currently a scholar of the Minerva Foundation, a subsidiary of the Max Planck Society, and author of the forthcoming Wars of Democracy: The West and the Arabs from the fall of Communism to the War in Iraq (Dayan Center, Tel Aviv). He thanks Ursula Apitzsch, Felicia Herrschaft, David Shavit, and Lance Weldy.

[1] John R. Bowen, Why the French Don't Like Headscarves: Islam, the State and Public Space (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 13-4; BBC.com, Oct. 5, 2006.
[2] Buthaina Sh'aban, "Mukadama," in Nazira Zin ad-Din, ed., Al-Sufur wal-Hijab [The unveiling and the veil], sec. ed. (Damascus: Al-Mada Publishing Company, 1998), pp. 7-33; Din, Al-Sufur wal-Hijab, pp. 154-86. The debate centers around Qur. 33:32, 53, and 59: 24:30.
[3] Muhammad as-Shaf'i, "Al Munqabat … wal Tawasul" [The fully veiled … and the progression], Asharq al-Awsat (London), Oct. 13, 2006; Fareena Alam, "Behind the Veil," Newsweek International, Nov. 27, 2006.
[4] Sami A. Aldeeb Abu Salieh, "The Islamic Conception of Migration," International Migration Review, Mar. 1996, pp. 37-57.
[5] Qararat wa-Fatawa al-Majlis al-Urubbi lil-Ifta wa al-Buhuth [Decisions and religious edicts of the European Council for Fatwa and Research] (Cairo: Dar al-Tawj'i wa al-Nashr al-Islamiya, 2002), pp. 5-10.
[6] Gary R. Bunt, Islam in the Digital Age: E-Jihad, Online Fatwas and Cyber Islamic Environment (London and Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press, 2003), pp. 147-60, 165.
[7] For an overview of the cultural attack debate, see Uriya Shavit, "Al-Qaeda's Saudi Origins," Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2006, pp. 3-13; Muhammad ‘Abd al-'Alim Marsi, Ath-Thakafa…wal-Ghazu ath-Thakafi fi Duwal al-Khalij al-'Arabia [The culture … and the cultural attack in the Arab gulf states] (Riyadh: Maktabat al-'Abikan, 1995), pp. 129-72.
[8] Sayyid Qutb, Ma'alim fi at-Tarik [Milestones], first ed. (Damascus: Dar Dismask, 1964), pp. 9-10, 21-3, 30-1; Muhammad Hafiz Diyab, Sayid Qutb: Al-Khitab wal-Idiolojiya [Sayid Qutb: The rhetoric and the ideology] (Beirut: Dar al-Tali'ah, 1988), pp. 90-8.
[9] Freedom in the World, 2006 (Washington, D.C.: Freedom House, 2007), p. 15.
[10] Khalid Muhammed al-Aswar, Al-Jaliyat al-Islamiya fi Uruba: Al-Manafidh, al-Mushkilat, al-Hulul [The Muslim diasporas: The origins, the problems, and the solutions] (Cairo: Dar al-I'tisam, 1998), p. 68; Hasan ‘Ali al-Ahdal, "Dawr Rabitat al-'Alam al-Islami fi Nashr at-thakafa al-Islamiya khrij al-'Alam al-Islami" [The role of the Muslim World League in spreading the Muslim culture outside the Muslim world], in Hawiyat al-Muslimun wa Thaqafatuhum fi Uruba (Rabat: Matba'at al-M'aarif al-Jadida, 1995), pp. 141-8.
[11] Muslims in the European Union: Discrimination and Islamophobia, The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, Vienna, 2006, p. 22; ‘Abd al-Majid Bakr, Al-Aqaliyat al-Muslima fi Uruba (Saudi Arabia: Hayat al-Ighatha al-Islamiya al-'Alamiya, 1992.)
[12] Rogers Brubaker, "The Return of Assimilation? Changing Perspectives on Immigration and Its Sequels in France, Germany, and the United States," in Christian Joppke and Ewa Morawska, eds., Towards Assimilation and Citizenship: Immigrants in Liberal Nation-states (New York: Palgrave, 2003), p. 39.
[13] Bowen, Why the French Don't Like Headscarves, pp. 66-8.
[14] Muhammad al-Kadi al-‘Umrani, Fiqh al-Usra al-Muslima fi al-Muhajar [The Religious law of the migrating Muslim family] (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiya, 2001), part I, pp. 53-65; Najib Yusuf and Muhsin ‘Atawi, Dalil al-Muslim fi Bilad al-Ghurba [Reference of the Muslim in foreign countries] (Beirut: Dar at-Ta'aruf lil-Matbu'at, 1990), pp. 21-31.
[15] ‘Umrani, Fiqh al-Usra al-Muslima fi al-Muhajar, p. 29-127; Yusuf and ‘Atawi, Dalil al-Muslim fi Bilad al-Ghurba, pp. 31-2.
[16] ‘Abd al-'Aziz bin ‘Abd-Allah bin Baz, "Hukm as-Safr kharij ad-Duwal al-Islamiya" [The rule of traveling outside Muslim lands], accessed Mar. 29, 2007; idem, "Hukm as-Safr ila al-Kharij lil-Dirasa wa Ghyriha" [The rule of traveling abroad for study and other purposes], accessed Mar. 29, 2007; idem, "As-Safr ila al-Kharij" [Travel abroad], accessed Mar. 29, 2007.
[17] Muhammad al-Ghazali, Mustaqbal al-Islam kharij Ardihi: Kayf Nufakir u fihi? (Amman: Orient Public Relations, Publishing and Translation, 1984), p. 138.
[18] Yusuf al-Qaradawi, "Duties of Muslims Living in the West," Islam Online.net, May 7, 2006.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, Tahaduyat al-Muhajir, bayna al-Asala wal Mu'asara [The challenges of the immigrant between rootedness and modernity] (Beirut: Dar al-Malak, 2000), p. 125.
[21] Ghazali, Mustaqbal al-Islam kharij Ardihi, pp. 155-7.
[22] Fadlallah, Tahaduyat al-Muhajir, bayna al-Asala wal Mu'asara, pp. 87-8, 92-5.
[23] Ibid., p. 89.
[24] Ibid., pp. 75-86.
[25] Qararat wa-Fatawa, p. 30.
[26] ‘Umrani, Fiqh al-Usra al-Muslima fi al-Muhajar, pp. 29-127.
[27] Yusuf and ‘Atawi, Dalil al-Muslim fi Bilad al-Ghurba, pp. 31-2.
[28] Ghazali, Mustaqbal al-Islam kharij Ardihi, p. 104.
[29] Qaradawi, "Duties of Muslims Living in the West."
[30] Aswar, Al-Jaliyat al-Islamiya fi Uruba, pp. 7-8.
[31] Ibid., p. 313.
[32] Fadlallah, Tahaduyat al-Muhajir, bayna al-Asala wal Mu'asara, p. 82.
[33] Yusuf and ‘Atawi, Dalil al-Muslim fi Bilad al-Ghurba, p. 32.
[34] Mar. 18, 2001.
[35] Yasir Hussein, Al-Islam Mustaqbal Uruba (Cairo: Dar al-'Amin, 1997).
[36] "Amazing Interview with a 14-years Old New Muslimah," Islam Way Radio, accessed Mar. 29, 2007.
[37] Qaradawi, "Duties of Muslims Living in the West"; Fadlallah, Tahaduyat al-Muhajir, bayna al-Asala wal Mu'asara, p. 88
[38] ‘Umrani, Fiqh al-Usra al-Muslima fi al-Muhajar, p. 4.
[39] Ibid., p. 51
[40] Fadallah, Tahaduyat al-Muhajir, bayna al-Asala wal Mu'asara, p. 334.
[41] Qarart wa Fatawa, p. 95.
[42] Qaradawi, "Duties of Muslims Living in the West."
[43] Sa'id Lawindi, Fubiya al-Islam fi al-Gharb [The Islamophobia in the West] (Cairo: Dar al-Akhbar, 2006), pp. 136-7.
[44] Amr Khalid, "Between Integration and Introversion," accessed Mar. 29, 2007.
[45] Author interviews with eighteen Muslims, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Nov. 2006-May 2007; author observations in mosques and centers.