Sexy-sounding Tariq Ramadan has made a concession: he would spare 'innocent' Israelis, aged 8

Tariq Ramadan, rated as the Muslim equivalent to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/misc/insearchofgod.shtml

featured on this morning's BBC Radio 4 Sunday Programme. It's the last item.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/sunday/index.shtml

It appears that Muslims in Cambridge want to have closer ties with the Jewish community. In order to achieve this, however, 'extremists' on both sides will have to be reined in, 'marginalised' and made to see reason.

Examples of the Jewish equivalents of beheaders and amputators were not given, unfortunately. But Tariq did soothe away the wrinkles with his gorgeous French-accented voice, letting us know that Islam is now prepared to make some concessions over Israel. He did concede that 8-year old Israelis might be considered 'innocent' and thus spared the suicide bombers.

I wonder how they can tell. No doubt all 7-year old Israelis will be able to rejoice up to a point, but as for 9-year olds ....

Well that means that yours truly, as well as her daughter are not to be spared. A pity really. We were both, in our different ways, getting on so well with our Arab neighbours. Just recently, the British Council Director in Nazareth was very keen that I should visit a Druze Arab school, where they desperately need English teachers. I turned up (it's just up the Carmel from where I live) and expected the normal type of disorganized Israeli school - only slightly more chaotic maybe. Wrong! What I found (and my friend from Manchester, who had never visited israel before, and is coming back later this year, she loved it so much, with her daughter-in-law) was a palatial edifice in exquisite grounds, more reminiscent of the best that Cordoba has to offer in medieval mosques and churches than the typical inner city Greater Manchester school, for instance. And how had this come about? Funding from the Israeli Ministry of Education and donations from a Jewish philanthropist. That's how.

So, will these kids in the Druze comprehensive school also be targetted? What about the cafes and restaurants dotted around Haifa, many of them owned, or co-owned by members of the Arab community? What about the head of the blood unit at the local medical centre, also an Arab? Or the many staff and students at Haifa University? Or my daughter's new boss. All Arabs. The list could go on and on.

But what will no doubt come across to the thousands who listen and who learn about religion largely from programmes like these is that Professor Tariq Ramadan has made a considerable concession to the 'apartheid' State of Israel and that now it is time for that State to reciprocate in kind.

Frankly, I can't see what Israel can do more than it's doing, seeing as it's threatened with death from every side. But within its own parameters it has created an oasis of co-existence that could be a paradigm for the rest of the world.

As for Tariq, it's strange that he came across so conciliatory, when only recently he was involved in this escapade at the Turin Book Fair:

http://hereticallibrarian.blogspot.com/2008/02/tariq-ramadan-censor.html

for Tariq Ramadan is the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, a little detail not mentioned by the Sunday Programme. The above blog speaks accurately of Tariq's 'rhetorical doublespeak'.

Yes, boycotting the Fair because of Israel's presence. Considering that Israelis read more books per head per week than practically any other group, as well as being involved in massive translation and editing jobs in and out of every language under the sun, it would surely have been a bit strange for it not to participate in this event. Especially, when you consider that Turin is the home of arguably the greatest Jewish writer of the 20th century, Primo Levi

http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,,-104,00.html

Oh, and Tariq has apparently also called for a boycott of the Paris Book Fair as well (March 14th-19th), and for similar reasons!

But, as stated above, it's the voice that does it. That voice could win over nearly everyone, especially on radio, where you can't see the person's eyes. As it says in the good book:

The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.

http://bible.cc/genesis/27-22.htm

No wonder, Judaism's greatest prophet, Moses, had a speech impediment. There's a great moral in that.

http://www.askmoses.com/article/241,297/Why-did-G-d-give-Moses-a-speech-impediment.html

For one thing you can definitely say about Moses - he was certainly not guilty of 'rhetorical doublespeak', and maybe that is part of the problem in today's media world.

Comments

[Denis MacEoin]

There is a new translation of Caroline Fourest's important French study of Ramadan, Brother Tariq: the Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan. I also know of another book that may soon be published, on the same subject, but I don't know the publication details. I've read it, though, and it is another eye-opener, like Fourest's book. Westerners have a lot of difficulty in understanding how so many Muslim leaders (like Ramadan, al-Qaradawi, the MCB) can be duplicitous, because we naively beleve that religious figures are driven by honesty. Islamists are driven by a dream of making Islam the dominent religion in the world, and so some form of taqiyya is seen as essential if it serves to advance the cause. Of course, all exponents of a great cause do this: Marxists, Stalinists, fascists, Baha'is, and many others. For the rest of us, it means being alert to double-speak. And I suppose it has to mean being less naive, more cynical, more aware of duplicity as a problem. You wouldn't buy a second-hand car from someone you didn't trust, yet we buy a narrative about Islam that only serves to advance Islamist aims.

[dumbledoresarmy]

Irene - Denis MacEoin is right. Compare this posting by 'Hugh' on Robert Spencer's jihadwatch blog, 22.12.2007 -
"And who will translate the "Open Letter to Tariq Ramadan" (Lettera aperta a Tariq Ramadan) by Magdi Allam, an Egyptian who is now an Italian citizen, a RAI commentator, and an editor at Corriere della Sera, who addresses him directly -- "I know you, Tariq Ramadan" -- because Magdi Allam was familiar with the Muslim Brotherhood founded by Hassan al-Banna, the grandfather of whom Tariq Ramadan is so proud, and whose activities, including whipping up Cairene crowds to attack shops owned by Copts and by Jews, and whom Ramadan refuses to condemn because "he was my grandfather." In other words, filial piety justifies this silence -- but tell that to the children of Nazis who have had no trouble denouncing their parents.
"Ramadan participates in the Jihad as its propagandist. He is not taking up arms, but he is doing everything he can, as Radio Berlin did, or TASS, to confuse and demoralize the Infidels in Europe, by promising them something he never bothers to define, because it doesn't exist: a "European Islam" that, despite having the same texts and tenets, will somehow be different from all the Islams, to date, over 1350 years, that have ever been experienced and endured by Infidels”.
Bp Patrick Sookhdeo concurs:
"Take, for example, Tariq Ramadan, whom the Government has appointed as an adviser because ministers think he is a 'community leader'. Ramadan sounds, in public, very moderate. But in reality, he has some very extreme views. He attacks liberal Muslims as 'Muslims without Islam'. He is affiliated to the violent and uncompromising Muslim Brotherhood.
"He calls the education in the state schools of the West 'aggression against the Islamic personality of the child'. He has said that 'the Muslim respects the laws of the country only if they do not contradict any Islamic principle'."

Ramadan is dangerous.

[Cynic]

"Sexy-sounding Tariq Ramadan has made a concession: he would spare 'innocent' Israelis, aged 8. "

What, to a life of dhimmitude?

I feel that it is now imperative that people start educating themselves about the contents of the Koran, Hadith and Sirra.
They should then get to grips on what Islamic leaders are teaching the masses to get a good feel of the difference between their "Holy" leaders and ours.
Taqyia is an important tenet of their faith: to lie in the furtherance of Islam. This behaviour is so prevalent nowadays that one cannot take anything they say at face value; not even in the work place.