LGF has a post up about a research “expert” at the Army War College, Sherifa Zuhur, who claims that Hamas is misunderstood because of biased media depictions of the Islamist Jihadi terror network.
a new publication by Army War College research professor Sherifa Zuhur on Hamas and Israel that informs readers that Hamas has been misunderstood due to the misreporting by “Israeli and Western sources that villainize the group.”
That got me curious about her background so I did a little digging and found this video clip of Sherifa performing linguistic back flips calling Hamas an Islamist jihad organization that has democratic impulses.
I did a little more digging and found this report she produced for the US military, in which she glosses over Jihad as something completely peaceful in Islam.
Initial disclaimers that Islam is the enemy may precede references to the Caliphate, an idealized historical form of rule for all Muslims, as in President Bush’s comments that:
They (the terrorists) hope to establish a violent political utopia across the Middle East, which they call a “Caliphate”—where all would be ruled according to their hateful ideology. Osama bin Laden has called the 9/11 attacks—in his words—“a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the Righteous . . . [Caliphate].”
This Caliphate would be a totalitarian Islamic empire encompassing all current and former Muslim lands, stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
This statement correctly quotes bin Laden, but primarily informs Americans that the “Caliphate” is an evil goal of extremists, and does not mention the historical role of the Caliphate in Muslim history, weltanshauung, or imaginaire. If President Bush wants to reassure Muslims that they are not the enemy and they are not totalitarians, it would be better to attack the alleged totalitarianism of bin Ladin’s promised state, rather than imply that its form (as Caliphate) would necessarily be totalitarian.
Alleged???! Sharia law is allegedly totalitarian?
Our media analysis of actual attacks may begin by excusing ordinary Muslims, but immediately describe radicals as those “who are loyal to the ummah,”12 the name for the Muslim community. Muslims then understand that the initial disclaimer that Islam “is a great world religion, and Muslims are U.S. allies in the GWOT”—is just rhetoric. They cannot help reacting this way when they hear condemnations of “bad” Muslims who are totalitarians, or Islamofascists who believe in the Caliphate, the ummah, or the principles of jihad or tawhid (the concept of oneness, or strict monotheism).
Her point is that America alienates moderate muslims by vilifying Jihad (Muslim holy war against the Kufir (or) all non-muslims, with the specific goal of Fatah (or) expansion of sharia ruled Dar al Islam (or) the world of Islam). Funny how when mentioning the Caliphate and Jihad, Sherifa forgets to mention the Muslim concept of Fatah (not the Jihad terror group in Israel, rather the etymological Fatah which means Islamic expansion).
Walid Phares describes in great detail in his latest book, Future Jihad, how the Wahabbi Lobby and Salafist Jihadis have been training Jihad apologists on American campuses for decades, with the explicit goal of obscuring the truth about Jihad by graduating these Jihad apologists into the positions of influence in our military and wider social institutions.
Is Sherifa Zuhur living proof of Walid Phares’ claims? Kinda looks that way.
Dr. Zuhur holds B.A. degrees in Political Science and Arabic and Arabic Literature, a Master’s in Islamic Studies, and a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern History, all from UCLA. She also completed the Master’s level coursework in political science at the American University in Cairo.
And now this apologist for Jihad, Sharia, and Hamas, is a paid researcher for the US military.
Hmmm, moderate muslims, huh? Does she mean all those muslim protesters we see in the streets of cities around the world denouncing the use of civilians as shields by Hamas? Denouncing the firing of rockets from Gazan schools? Decrying the beheadings of innocent civilians?
Oh, yeah, all those moderates.
You have your own form of “pc” on this site. So if you want to trash me without understanding anything I wrote, and taking Walid Phares (not Pharis) statements out of context, fine. Degrees from UCLA prove what? I was accepted at Princeton, but lacked the money to attend there. So would that institution (where Patreaus graduated) have been highlighted? Jihad is a principle that all Muslims believe in. Most Muslims decry its misuse to target civilians, etc. “Jihadist” is an American (not a Muslim) term that accurately describes how Hamas differs from its predecessor. If you want to understand contemporary events suggest you broaden your perspective a little. The US cannot defeat all Muslims in the world so let us focus on the real problem — how to solve disputes, and prevent more killing (of anyone) and I am not a “jihadist on the payroll” – that is slanderous, but also silly.