 a brief history of the Middle East. Lecture five. Okay, let's get rolling. Good morning, everybody. Now, just to remind you where we are. We've seen that the Muslim world is frustrated and mystified by the success of the West and their own failure. And they tried. After the Ottomans lose the Battle of Vienna, they tried for 300 years. They tried to figure out what went wrong. What is the problem? They start, as we said last time, by trying to buy effects without looking at causes. And for a long time, they're just trying to buy stuff from the West in an effort to somehow solve this problem, somehow advance themselves. And then when they finally figure out that it's not anything material that they can purchase and they start sending the young to study in the West what they get in the West are the ideas of Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche. And as a consequence, they have attracted to the ideas of fascism and nationalism. And what we're gonna talk about today is the consequence of that and where that ultimately leads. So if you remember last time, between World War I and World War II, these ideas of fascism really take hold within the Arab world. Now in post-World War II, the idea of nationalism is what motivates Arabs. They view now, they have found the solution. If only we become like the nation-states of Europe, we will advance like the Europeans. Michael Affleck, the leader theorist of Arab nationalism in the 1940s, thinks that nationalism will solve all the Arabs' problems. He expects Arabs to be able to be observant Muslims and progressive, free and happy in this new structure. Now remember, they are influenced by Hegel, Nietzsche, by German Romanticists. And so their nationalism takes on a certain character. It takes on the character of other countries that were influenced by Hegel and Nietzsche. It takes on a fascist, dramatic type character. After World War II, nationalism wins the day in the Arab world. In Egypt in 1952, Abdel Nasser, you know, a military coup takes control over Egypt. In Algeria, Ben Bala fights the French and kicks them out. In Tunisia, in Syria, in Yemen, in Iraq and in Libya. Young military officers in the name of nationalism get rid of the colonial powers and establish their own states. In Syria and Iraq, the Ba'ath party, which still rules those countries to this day, Arabic Ba'ath is Arabic for resurrection, is explicitly inspired by Mussolini and Hitler. And indeed, if you read the manifesto to the Ba'ath party, it looks like the fascist manifesto. In Syria and Iraq, they take over in the mid-50s. According to the new military leader in Syria, he says, give me five years and I will make Syria as prosperous and enlightened as Switzerland. Note that they have no concept of what Switzerland really is. That they have no concept of what really is going on in the West. And this is crucial to understanding, kind of the state of the Arab world today. It's this fact that they have no idea of what has caused the West to be prosperous. And they are struggling, they're kind of grabbing at anything that they can, but they never actually sit back and if, inspired by Dr. Peacock's course, never sit back and induce. Look at all these cases where prosperity has actually been achieved and come to the conclusion of what is it that's actually inspired this prosperity. Now colonialism comes to an end symbolically and in fact, really with the Suez Canal crisis of 1956. In 1956, up until 1956, the British and French control or own the Suez Canal. They built it and they own it. They get to generate the revenues. It's British and French companies. In 1956, NASA kicks the French and the British out and nationalizes the Suez Canal. As a consequence, the French and the British in league with the Israelis were upset at the Egyptians for supporting terrorist activities out of the Sinai Desert against Israel, launched an attack on Egypt. The French and the British paratroop into parts of the Suez Canal and take control of the northern entrance. The Israelis take over the Sinai, stopping a few kilometers from the Suez Canal as was agreed with the French and the British. Of course, the Eisenhower administration is really upset and within days puts immense pressure on the French and the British, forcing them, I think, within a few weeks to retreat. Ultimately, the Israelis retreat again. Of course, only to have to take over the Sinai again in 1967. Now, the only last kind of the last fight of between these nationalists and colonialism happens in Algeria and when the Algerians in the late 1950s and when the Algerians ultimately gained independence, one million Frenchmen are forced to go back to France. There's one million people who had settled in France and might have been second generation or third generation Frenchmen are kicked out and forced back to France. Now, during the 1950s, this notion of nationalism is, of course, combined under the Arabs with socialism. And the idea here is these Arab countries are enamored with the Soviet Union. Indeed, as late as 1964, a noted French sociologist wrote, quote, almost everyone professes adherence to socialism in the Middle East. Liberalism to him, liberalism and socialism are the same thing. Liberalism is deeply rooted in the urban life of the Arab East, end quote. But of course, to the Arabs, socialism is national socialism. It isn't the liberal type of socialism that the Europeans are familiar with. National socialism, i.e. Nazism. The rulers of the Arab world are some of the most oppressive, despotic rulers in the world. They inflict great harm on their own populations. There is no freedom of speech, no freedom of the press, no concept of private property. Nationalism for the Arabs was just a new term that served to legitimize a new form of one-man rule, a new form of despotic rule. And actually, these nationalists were a lot worse than the Ottomans ever were, than the colonizing powers ever were, than the Caliphs ever were. In 1982, Assad of Syria directed his artillery on his own people in the town of Hama in northern Syria. Now, in this town, there was a group of Muslim brotherhoods of Islamic fundamentalists, who he perceived as a threat to his regime. But he directed his artillery to the town and indiscriminately just bombarded the place, killing tens of thousands of people. This got very little press, as you can imagine, in the West. Now, we all know, because it's got more press in the West, what Saddam Hussein has done to his people, including using chemical weapons against his own citizens, and just massacring them in mass. But the most influential of all the nationalist leaders was Gamal Abdul Nasser, the leader of Egypt, who died in 1970. As I said, he came to power in 1952. He came to power as a leader of a coalition. And part of this coalition included both liberal elements and Islamist elements, Islamic fundamentalists. As soon as he came to power, he got rid of both. He cracked down on the Muslim brotherhood. He cracked down on the liberals, who had helped and supported him and established himself as the ruler of Egypt. Now, he was a very inspirational speaker. And he projected, or he spoke of a pan-Arabic solution to Arab frustration. His notion was not nationalism on the local basis, but an Arab nationalism, a unity of Egypt and Jordan and Syria and Iraq. And indeed, a number of deals were cut. At some point, there was a deal between Egypt and Syria to unite and form an Arab federation. It lasted two or three years. At some day, he tried to bring in Iraq to the same deal. But he had this very inspirational message to the Arabs. He was going to bring the Arab world into the 20th century. He was going to modernize. He built the Aswadam in an attempt to bring modernization to Egypt. He modernized the Egyptian military. But at the same time, he was extraordinarily oppressive. Nasser destroyed Cairo, which was before his reign the intellectual capital of the Arabs. Indeed, Beirut takes its place with the rise of Nasser because the intellectuals flee Cairo and go to Beirut. Yet, at the same time, and this is the contradiction, he is the darling of most intellectuals. The intellectuals sit in Beirut and say, oh, if only Nasser can do what he says he will do. If only he can unite the Arabs. If only he can, you know, this romantic dream of one Arab nation that will march into the 20th century. He snubs the West and allies with the Soviet Union, which of course made him a hero among the leftists both in the Arab world and in Europe. He makes the West out as the enemy. We talked about the Suez Canal. After the Suez Canal, he becomes even more of a hero because he stood up to the West. He fought the British and French and he got away with it. He won. The Suez Canal is now his. To a large extent, the nationalization of the Suez Canal served as inspiration for the rest of the Arab world to start nationalizing the oil fields. So after 1956, he becomes the undisputed leader of the Arab world. Egypt opens the door to communism. By 1965, about 100 Soviet professors are teaching in Cairo and Soviet newspapers are being circulated in Arabic in Egypt. Egypt, Syria and Iraq receive more than half the entire global military assistance provided by the Soviets. Yet, Nasser, which is not surprised to this audience, his combination of nationalism and socialism destroys whatever economy Egypt still has. He nationalizes almost everything in sight. That's completely destroying the economy. But he is still loved. It is amazing the support that he received in the Arab world in spite of his obvious failures. Now, nationalism as a dream. Nationalism as a solution. Nasser, as the deliverer of the Arab people, all of that crashes to an end in 1967 with the Six-Day War. In early 1967, Nasser marches his troops into the Sinai Peninsula. You can see the Sinai Peninsula here in green between Israel and Egypt. He kicks out the UN monitors who are there after 1956 to ensure that no terrorist activity will occur against Israel and separate the troops of the Israelis and the Egyptians. The Syrians amass troops along the Golan Heights overlooking Israel. And it is clear that the Syrians and the Egyptians are coordinating an attack. This troop amassing continues into the late spring. In June of 1967, the Israelis launch a pre-emptive attack. They destroy both the Syrian and Egyptian air forces on the ground. And in six days, in one of the most stunning, at least of the world, military victories, they completely annihilate the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian armies. They are taking over the Sinai, the Golan Heights and the West Bank. The Arabs are losers. They are losers again. Despite nationalism, despite independence, despite Nasser, they have lost and they have lost big. To the Arab world, the Six-Day War is almost as bad as the Battle of Vienna was to the Ottoman Empire. It was the war that shattered all illusions. It was the war that made it clear that there was no hope that they had not found a solution. And in this war, they could not blame the Europeans. After all, they were independent now. They were receiving massive support from the Soviet Union. They had the latest weapons that the Soviet Union could produce. Israel, by the way, up until 1967 had no American weapons. All the weapons Israel used in 1967 were French and British because the Americans up until 1967 refused to sell arms to Israel. Its entire arms supply was from Europe. So the Arabs now could not blame the Europeans anymore. They faced a new situation which required either new introspection, stepping back and saying, why is Israel this tiny little country with no natural resources? Why is it so successful? Why is this country with less than a tenth of Israel at the time had a population of about 3 million? The Arab world was about 150 million. It was this tiny fraction. How could it defeat us so completely? How come its economy is so much better than ours? They could have done that introspection. But instead they lashed out. Instead they were voted to their old methods. If Israel was winning, it couldn't be because there was a deficiency in the Arab world. It had to be because there was some conspiracy against it. The enemy, the cause of their oppression, the cause of their frustration was an Israeli and more likely American conspiracy against the Arab world. An Egyptian diplomat in 1985 basically blames all the Arabs' problems on the Arab-Israeli conflict. He writes, and I quote, the Arab-Israeli conflict has been the most important single factor in the shaping of history in the Middle East during the past four decades. Had it not been for that conflict, we would have been able to see in that area much more stable order, the orientation of which would have been liberal and rational. End quote. So the reason the Arab world is full of despotism and poverty is because Israel exists and there is an Israeli Arab conflict. No wars would exist in the Middle East if not for the Israeli-Palestinian-Israeli Arab conflict. Now of course this ignores just several small facts. Like the fact that Morocco and Algeria have been fighting directly and indirectly since they gained independence. That Libya has raided across Egyptian and Tunisian borders as well as interfered militarily in the Sudan. So these are wars far from Israel that have nothing to do with the existence of Israel. Syria has twice invaded Lebanon and clearly Syria has declared publicly that it would like a greater Syria which includes not only Lebanon but Palestine and Jordan as well. Israel and Jordan as well. And Syria has once, during the last five decades, threatened Iraq. Iraq indeed conquered Kuwait and Iraq fought one of the bloodiest and longest wars I'd say one of the longest wars of the century and one of the bloodiest wars in Middle East history with Iran. The Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s lasted eight years and well over a million people died as a consequence of that war. And that war had nothing to do with the Israeli Arab conflict. Civil wars in the meantime have occurred in Jordan, Yemen, and Oman. So violence in the Middle East is not a result of Israeli presence. Violence in the Middle East has always been there. It's an inherent type of regime that rule in the Middle East to the type of ambitions these rulers have to the type of ideas that motivate them. The lack of freedom of speech, the poverty, the lack of any freedoms in the Arab world has nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with their own deficiencies with their insistence on ignoring what the West really has to teach them and that is ignoring the idea of individualism and ignoring the idea of reason or the importance of reason. Now if Israel is not the enemy, if Israel is not the cause of all Arab problems then they must look elsewhere and of course the obvious target, at least since 1979, has been the great Satan, the United States. The United States, given its power, given its success, must be somehow, and they often have to stretch to figure out how, must be somehow behind the failure of the Arab Middle East. And as we'll see, the one issue that Arabs last on to, whether they're fundamentalists or whether they consider themselves liberal is the idea that it is America supporting all these evil regimes in the Middle East. It is America that supports the regime in Saudi Arabia, for example. And supposedly they hate us because we support the Egyptian regime and the Saudi regime that oppresses their own people. Of course when the Soviet Union supported all these regimes, they never supported the Saudis but the Egyptians and the Iraqis and the Syrians, some of the most brutal regimes in history, nobody hated or resented the Soviet Union. Hi, I'm the helpful Southern California Honda person and recently we've been doing Random Acts of Helpfulness like surprising a deserving dad with a brand new grill and helping give back to our veterans. And during the Honda Summer Spectacular event we can help you too, with a great deal on a reliable award winning Honda like the Accord, the 2018 North American Car of the Year. Click the dealer locator link to find a dealer near you and go to SoCalHondaDealers.com to suggest a Random Act of Helpfulness for someone you know. The secular Arabs who are typically leftists support the scapegoating of Israel and of the United States. Probably the most prominent Arab intellectual alive today is a... I think he's a Columbia professor. His name is Edward Said. He is a postmodernist. He is a hater of America. He is a hater of Israel. He has been a member of the Palestinian what do you call it, the Palestinian... He's a member of the PLO and he's a member of their leadership council. He has been filmed by American TV joining youths in the West Bank stoning Israeli soldiers. Yet he has a tenured, very, very highly respected professor at Columbia and has probably written the most influential book in Middle East studies of the last 30 years. There was a book he wrote in the early 80s called Orientalism which basically has brought postmodernism into the study of the Middle East and has basically destroyed that field as an academic field of study. For him, the West through its colonialism in the past and through its supportive death spots today is the cause of Arab poverty of Arab oppression. The West is imperialistic because imperialism doesn't mean anymore just what? Just military force. It means projecting your ideas trying to export your ideas trying to export your culture. And of course this culture is horribly dangerous for the Arabs from a postmodernist perspective. Edward Said claims that no European can speak or write about the Middle East because no European can understand the Middle East. To understand the Middle East one must be from the Middle East. That is, it's this complete ethnic perspective on history and on the social sciences. To write about blacks, you have to be black. To write about American Indians, to write about Arabs, you have to be an Arab. And the attempt to bring Western ideas into the East is horrific. Of course, he's a postmodernist which is an ideology invented in the West. So for them, Israel is hated because it is just an outpost of the West. It is an attempt to bring Western values where they do not belong. It is one feature of this Western imperialism. Now ultimately, all the explanations, all the attempts to explain Western dominance and Muslim and Arab decline have failed. There is a vacuum in explanations. They've tried it all and today the most popular explanations are conspiracy theories which all over the Middle East, the Egyptian television ran a 12-part miniseries on the protocols of the elders of Zion. I don't know if you know what those are, but those are the protocols that the Nazis brought out. The lengthy protocols are supposedly the Jewish bankers of the world in the end of the 19th century all got together and schemed about how to take over the world. Egyptian television controlled by the government took this, turned it into a miniseries presenting how the Jews have not only had these protocols, but look how they succeeded. They controlled the media in the U.S. Israel is the step into the Middle East. They really control America completely because look how America supports Israel. They control banking in Europe. So that's the best that they can offer these days. Except for one group. Because we know when there's a void when there's an intellectual void when there's a void in explanation somebody will step into that void. And that somebody has been Islamic fundamentalism. And we're going to spend the rest of today talking about Islamic fundamentalism. According to the Muslim fundamentalists, the Islamists, God, the reason the Muslims have declined, the reason the Arabs have declined is because God has decided to punish his people for the neglect of the Islam, for the neglect of their Quranic duties. The divine punishment consists of being militarily defeated and humiliated by the infidel. The infidel will be removed from their position of power over the Muslim world once Muslims return to Islam and its laws. To the fundamentalists, the golden age that we talked about was a golden age of religion. The Greeks are the ones that destroyed the golden age. So they see everything in reverse. Ghazali is their hero. Averones and avesen are other villains. They're the ones who corrupted Islamic culture. Now this idea is not new. It comes from the Old Testament. And it has ancient intellectual roots. I don't know if you remember the Karajits that we talked about in the first class, who were the dissenters who claimed that the Caliphs were not true to Islam and therefore they rebelled periodically against them. We talked about El Ghazali, who rejected reason. Faith was the only way to truth. And the one intellectual that is most inspired is modern Islamic fundamentalists was Iman Taimiyah. Remember the intellectual who devised a theology of jihad, a theology of war. No other Muslim authority is quoted more often and more extensively in modern fundamentalist writings. His main contribution was the idea that whoever does not live by God's law, by Islamic law, is an unbeliever and therefore excluded from the community of Muslims. This exclusion implies a death sentence and that the worst of all are the apostates, are those who were Muslims and who do not abide by God's law. Now, these ideologies were resurrected in the 19th century by two separate groups. One group which was pretty self-contained are the Wahhabis who lived in the Saudi desert. Now, Muhammad ibn Saud, who Saudi Arabia is named after, was the ruler of a small Oasis town in the late 18th century. In 1744, he entered into a sworn alliance with a religious preacher, Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab. Marriages occurred between the two families that cemented the ties between them. Now, Wahhab had published treaties advocating a more stricter practice of Islam, advocating a return to a pure form of Islamic law. His inspiration was ibn Taimir. He believed that both the religious and the political authorities of the time were corrupt. Thus, between 1774 and 1819, the Sauds and the Wahhabis united and through bloody conquest brought together most of the land that Muhammad had ruled and that in our century became known as Saudi Arabia. Now, in 1818, this first state was destroyed by the Egyptians at the urging of the Ottoman Empire. But then a second Saudi kingdom between 1824 and 1891 was also the result of the Saudi Wahhabi family union. It ended in civil war in the exile of a king and the modern Saudi Arabia is the result of King Abdulaziz, again the Saud family, reigniting that religious fervor in 1902, recapturing Riyadh when he was 20 years old, relying on Wahhabi preachers to mobilize the nomadic tribes on his behalf and by 1932 he controlled what today is Saudi Arabia. Of course, at which point, once he got control, he suppressed or suppressed what he considered the extremist within the Wahhabis and since then the Wahhabis and the Sauds have been in a constant battle on how strict the Saudi regime should be. And while we consider the Saudis incredible fundamentalists, the fundamentalists consider the Wahhabis the Saudis way too liberal. And indeed Bin Laden's, one of Bin Laden's goals is to get rid of the Saud family and to retake Saudi Arabia and reinstall what he believes is Islamic law, not this watered down version where they only beat people up in public every other week. A second line of influence comes out of a figure we talked about last time, al-Afghani, who is a more secular Muslim but also says, he's teaching in Paris, in London, he also decrees that the solution to the Arab's plight, the solution is Islam. The solution is the return to the Sharia, the return to Islamic law. His student, Muhammad Abdu, talks about the glory of Islam will only return when Muslim education is widespread and when Islam rules the land. Only a just dictator according to Abdu could achieve this and mobilize this Islamic state of the future. Now he was a pretty influential guy. He was an al-Afghani student and he was the grand mufti of Egypt. The authority under the British in Egypt. According to Abdu, Muslims know no nationality apart from their religion and their faith. A student of Abdu's, Muhammad Rashid Rida, who died in 1935, published a periodical, El-Manar, dedicated to this message to the Muslim world. He was the first one to attempt to use the modern media systematically as a vehicle for the progress of Islam. We see of course today the Islamic fundamentalists have lots of newspapers most of them by the way published out of London and funded by Saudi Arabia. They use the media, the Al-Jazeera network and other forms of mass media very effectively. This was the first attempt in the early part of the 20th century. He is the modern thinker at least along this line of Islamic fundamentalism who discovered Ibn Taymiyyah and whose works he edited in 1925. He turns him into the central figure in the debate. According to Rashid, inspired by Ibn Taymiyyah, certain political leaders are born as Muslims but ruled by their own laws. Such leaders have committed apostasy from Islam and have to be assassinated. So stock up now because you can't afford to run out of ink. Oh, so much here for a newborn. We need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit and oh, his birthday party. Sure, but um, how long are you planning to stay? If you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn nephew and stays until his first birthday party, switch to cricket wireless. Your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost. Smile, you're on cricket. Requires eligible plan. Minimum $55 per month. Data speed usage and other restrictions. Supply coverage not available everywhere. See store for details. Now during this period, in the late 1920s, early 1930s, the first real popular Islamic fundamentalist movement is founded. And that is the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood which later expands by the parts of the Middle East. Upon the death of Rita, El-Manad, the publication, is taken over by Juan Hasan El-Bana. It is with El-Bana that professional violence becomes part and parcel with the Islamic fundamentalist movement. In the late 1920s, he found the Muslim Brotherhood. Its original mission is the integration of Islam into the Egyptian educational system that had become more and more secular. During World War II, the Muslim Brotherhood cooperated with the Germans, primarily motivated by hatred of the British. In 1942-43, the Brotherhood set up a secret apparatus to carry out extra legal action, i.e. terrorist action against the existing regime and the British. They organized in cells. They'd learned their Marxism well. Cells that were limited to five members in each. Now, the Brotherhood was very popular in Egypt. Membership was probably as high as half a million by 1945. In 1948, they started their violent activities. A judge that sentenced one of El-Bana's followers to jail was assassinated, and then the Prime Minister of Egypt is assassinated. In 49, the authorities assassinate El-Bana. The Brotherhood starts a decline, but it's still a significant force until the 1950s when Nasser really clamps down on them with purges. In October 1954, an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Nasser is blamed on the Brotherhood, although some believe that this was all Egyptian intelligence doing in order to have an excuse to clamp down on the Brotherhood, and six leaders of the Brotherhood are assassinated, and hundreds are jailed and prosecuted. Many escaped Egypt and found refuge in Saudi Arabia. It's interesting that by 1960, most professors in the Kingdom's new Medina University were Egyptian Muslim brethren. Now, in 1955, one Saeed Qutb was sentenced to 15 years in prison by Nasser. Now, Qutb, his years in 1906 to 1966, is the main ideologue, the main modern ideologue of modern Islamic fundamentalism. His ideology provides a complete justification within Islamic law for the killings which fundamentalist groups have since committed. Now, he presented the whole context of Islamic fundamentalism as a jihad, a jihad which was the responsibility of every pious Muslim. A jihad against their own rulers, and ultimately a jihad against the West. He grounded all his arguments on the ideas of Ibn Taymiyyah and on the Quran itself. Now, what's interesting is he started with a secular background. He started as a literature major, specializing in Western literature. He indeed has no formal religious training. And in 1948, the Egyptian Education Ministry sends Qutb to America. And it is said that already on the boat trip over to America, he is converted to a more fundamentalist view of Islam. But it's two years in America completely convert him. He hates America. He is revolted by it. The permissiveness, the promiscuity, or his perception, the fact that women are treated equally. The fact he writes that he was shocked because he went to churches in which they were singing and dancing. He talked about how Christianity had been corrupted by Western civilization, how it had become secular. And as a consequence, he became a real hater of the West. He wrote a book about the struggle between Islam and capitalism, how they were completely inconsistent, and how a struggle between the two was inevitable. Now, during Nasser's revolt, the Free Officers' Revolution in 1952, after he returned from America, he supported Nasser and was actually a part of the inner circle of the group that put on the coup. However, once he realized Nasser's secular intentions, or once Nasser realized that he had power and didn't need the Muslim Brotherhood, Qutb was out. In 1954, he became the editor of the Brotherhood newsletter. And in 55, he was captured as part of Nasser's purge and was sentenced to 15 years in jail, where he did most of his writing. He was released in 1964, but in 1965 was arrested again. This time he was tried for treason. He was sentenced to death on August 21, 1966 and was executed eight days later. The Egyptians were in a hurry to get rid of this guy. Now, he spent his years in jail writing. His most influential book, Landmarks, was published in 1964. In the book, he accuses Muslim societies of not being Islamic, but being pagan. Thus, opening up the possibility of civil war. It implies the apostasy from Islam, not just of the leaders, but of the society in general. He writes commentaries on the Quran in 30 volumes. Now, this book is probably the most widely distributed and translated Islamic book of all time after the Quran. Qutb is the most well... More people read Qutb's books in the Middle East than any other author. Now, in all his writings, he emphasizes the importance of the return to the Sharia, the return to Islamic law. He condemns the West and the Arabs' attempts to copy it. He condemns individualism and capitalism. Now, he admits that science is useful as long as it does not lead one to stray from religion. He advises, for example, avoiding biology and astrophysics because you might discover something there that might lead to a conclusion that Quran is wrong. He completely rejects modernity. He wants science, but he views, like many Islamic fundamentalists, sciences having originated with Islam in the Golden Age. With no link, they see, of course, no link between that science and Greece. They see the link between that science and the Quran, which is a leap of cause and effect. He has anti-Pan-Arabism. He has anti-Nasa. But he is for an Islamic global state. His vision is for a world ruled by Islam. To quote him, Islam is the only identity worthy of man. Any other group identity is sinful. End quote. Now, inspired by Qutb, when the Muslim Brotherhood members in jail at the time were asked to volunteer to fight against Israel in 1967, they refused. They argued that Egypt was an infidel country and so was whoever supported it. Israel and Nasa were variations of the same thing, of the same tyranny, both in nemiculture Islam. They even argued that the liberation of the Sinai desert from the Israelis was not jihad because its aim was not to establish Muslim rule, but this rule of Nasa who was not considered a Muslim by them. As one leader of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood states, End quote. Only when we shall have finished purging our country of godlessness shall we turn against Israel. This is all inspired by Qutb. And indeed, Usama bin Laden, when he goes to school in Saudi Arabia, one of his professors is Said Qutb's brother. Now, what has happened since Qutb? What's interesting about militant Islam today is that most of its leaders, like Qutb, have relatively secular educations. Many of them are trained in the scientists. Many of them are doctors, medical doctors and engineers. Many Arab intellectuals, the spirit of the West, figuring out that Western ideas, supposedly Western ideas, have completely failed in the Arab lands, and they felt that their only solution is to return to Islam. They felt they have... Oh, so much here for a newborn. We need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit. And oh, his birthday party. Sure, but how long are you planning to stay? If you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn nephew and stays until his first birthday party, switch to cricket wireless. Use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost. Smile, you're on cricket. Requires eligible plan, minimum $55 per month. Data speed usage and other restrictions apply. Coverage not available everywhere. See store for details. Hi, I'm the helpful Southern California Honda person. And recently, we've been doing... Random acts of helpfulness, like surprising a deserving dad with a brand new grill, and helping give back to our veterans. And during the Honda Summer Spectacular event, we can help you too, with a great deal on a reliable award-winning Honda, like the Accord, the 2018 North American Car of the Year. Click the dealer locator link to find a dealer near you, and go to SoCalHondaDealers.com to suggest a random act of helpfulness for someone you know. I felt that the Arab world has abandoned itself to the West, had adopted the West with open hands, and that the West had betrayed them. The Islamic intelligentsia has taken shape over the last decades across campuses of the Muslim world, and in Western Europe. They've been financed from the start by the Saudis, who have attempted to shield themselves from fundamentalism by buying it out, by funding it. Fundamentalism offers a religious approach to political power. It wants power to coerce mankind into obeying God's commandments. It sentences apostates to death and executes the sentence, rather than leaving this to God, as many theologians would have required in the past. They see no separation between religion and state. Religion is this state. Now, while they agree on the essentials of Islam with your average Muslim, they place a strong emphasis and emphasis as one of the pillars of Islam on jihad, on waging war against the enemies of God. Most Muslims view jihad as this internal conflict between good and evil. The fundamentalists view it as an existential struggle, as a war. They do not recognize the fundamentalists, do not recognize the authorities of the established religious leaders who they think are just puppets of the existing regimes, of existing Arab despots. They want to return the Arab world to its golden age, but a golden age of Islam to the rightly guided caliphs. They promise the Muslims a world with a brilliant future, both economically and culturally. Now, what's interesting is Islamic fundamentalism became known as a phenomena to the West only in the 1970s. Indeed, the earliest report in the West of the rise of Islamic militancy appears in an article by Bernard Lewis in the fall of 1975, titled, quote, The Return of Islam, and published in Commentary Magazine. Few academics, or for that matter anyone else, took this seriously until what? Until the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 in Iran. In the modern Arab state, the Islamic fundamentalists are the only opposition the despots have left. The liberal, the Marxists, and most of the other opposition forces have been exterminated. The rulers fear the fundamentalists like they fear no other group, and that's why you saw the kind of barbaric oppression that we saw in Syria as a consequence of the fundamentalist threat. Now, while they come in a whole variety of groups, some moderates who believe that they can achieve the goal of an Islamic world through working within the system, taking over the educational system, for example, in Egypt, taking over the religious institutions and slowly working themselves through to the more violent, like Osama bin Laden. Now, of course, the Iranian revolution was their key success. The Iranian revolution is a revolution of Islamic fundamentalism. Shiite Islamic fundamentalism, slightly different than the Sunni variety. And indeed, Iran is the only country, the only significant Muslim country to be ruled by a fundamentalist Islamic regime. Iran, of course, funds, I think only second to Saudi Arabia, is the largest funder, particularly of the more violent type of Islamic fundamentalism. They are less interested in the more moderate because they are Sunnis, but they completely support the most more violent, the Hezbollah, the Hamas, the Islamic jihad, and al-Qaeda. Afghanistan served as a rallying call after the Iranian revolution for these Islamic militants. It was an opportunity for them to take arms and practice a jihad. Their success in kicking out the Soviets out of Afghanistan has provided them with a great sense of self-esteem, of power, of success, of the ability to bring down a superpower. Most of the jihadists who went to Afghanistan were from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries like Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. And as we all know, they succeeded in 1989 by kicking the Soviets out and then succeeded, if you will, on a small scale by having the Taliban, another Islamic fundamentalist regime, rule of Afghanistan. The only other success was in the Sudan when the Islamic fundamentalist regime came to power. In Egypt, probably the place, you know, the real prize, the country that they would most like to take control of. It is Islamic fundamentalists who were responsible for the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1982. Let me add that Sadat was not murdered because he signed a peace treaty with Israel. He was murdered because he was viewed as a westerner, as an apostate. He was viewed because he was modernizing Egypt. The ideological leader of the group that assassinated Sadat wrote, quote, it is true that the liberation of the Holy Land is legal precept, binding upon every Muslim. But let us emphasize that the fight against the enemy nearest to you has precedence over the fight against the enemy farthest away. In all Muslim countries, the enemy has the reins of power. Ay Sadat is the enemy, not Israel. Israel is a secondary enemy. It is the regime there. And indeed, when the assassin shot Sadat, he shouted out, I have killed the Pharaoh. I have killed the pagan ruler. The leader of the Islamic, of the Egyptian Islamic fundamentalists was Ayman El-Zohiri, who is today Usman bin Laden's number two guy. Now during the 1990s, terrorism, of course, has only increased primarily in Egypt and in Algeria. In Algeria, I think 100,000 people died during the 90s because of the struggle between the military and Islamic fundamentalism. Whole villages were massacred in shows of strength of one side over the other. And in Egypt during 1994 and 1995, there was a massive struggle between these fundamentalists and between the Egyptians. They have achieved very little political success in terms of taking over countries, but in Egypt, moderate Muslim brotherhood types entered the Egyptian parliament in 1985. Now moderate relative to Usman bin Laden, not moderate relative to even Egyptian society. The Egyptian constitution has been changed in recent years to say that Islamic law is the source of all legislation. This is Egypt, the most moderate of all Arab countries. And they have gained significant power within educational institutions in Egypt and are slowly taking over all of Egyptian education and religious institutions. So Egypt, the most powerful, the most secular of the Arab nations is now beginning an era of domination by these Islamic fundamentalists. At least until the current regime feels powerful enough to crack down on them, which at the rate their popularity is growing is not going to happen anytime soon. Now there's a lot more to say about Islamic fundamentalism. Let me just add that Islamic fundamentalism to a large extent would not have been possible. The extreme to which it's popular and to the extreme to which it has been successful would not have been possible without the West's own support. It is after all we who funded the jihad in Afghanistan and trained them. Indeed it is the Israelis who for many years funded Islamic, the Muslim Brotherhood within the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as an alternative to Yasser Arafat. And of course that Muslim Brotherhood has turned into the Hamas Organization. It is the Israelis that set them up as a dominant force within. It is Israeli pragmatism, just as it was American pragmatism that set up Bin Laden. So it appears that the Arabs today are faced with only three alternatives. The existing despotism, the Marxism and nihilism of modern Western inspired intellectuals like Edward Said and the third alternative is Islamic fundamentalism. But there is a fourth option. That option is represented by the West and the U.S. in particular. Millions of Muslims live in the West escaping the horrific conditions at home. Many students study in the West. Hopefully many of them not in the liberal arts departments. But most significantly the West exists. It functions. It succeeds. And that is an inspiration to some in the Middle East. The fourth option, this existence of the West the success of the West, the existence of the West is an option and the attractiveness of this option to Arabs in the Middle East today is why I believe Bin Laden has chosen to attack us. For him to succeed, for Islamic fundamentalism to succeed it must knock us down. It must show that this alternative this Western alternative is nothing but a façade it's just a myth that can be blown up that can be shredded. He must show the Arab world that we are not to be emulated because there is nothing there to emulate. Only then will he turn back to ridding himself of the Arab rulers of Egypt of Syria of Jordan of Saudi Arabia. So this is a change in tactics. Bin Laden has changed the tactics of Qutb. Qutb said go after these Islamic leaders first then we'll deal with Israel in the West. Bin Laden says no. In order to take over these Arab countries we must first show the citizens within these countries that the West is no longer an option. And to do that they attack us. Thank you all. All material in this program is protected by copyright and may not be reproduced in any form or manner nor played before a live audience without the express written permission of the producer the Iron Rand Institute. For further information or to order other products please visit estor.ironrand.org or call 1-800-729-6149 Oh so much hair for a newborn. We need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit and oh his birthday party. Sure but um how long are you planning to stay? If you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn nephew and stays until his first birthday party switch to Cricut Wireless. Use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost. Smile you're on Cricut. Requires eligible plan minimum $55 per month data speed usage and other restriction supply coverage not available everywhere see store for details. You can't print invoices without ink. You can't print status reports, spreadsheets or that report due in 12 minutes without ink. 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