COMMENTARY: Religions Share the Blame for Middle East Strife

c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) In the search for root causes of the Middle East’s misery, one shouldn’t overlook the role of religious fundamentalism _ Christian, Jewish and Muslim. It’s not a popular line of inquiry. Anyone who points the finger of blame at organized religion is sure to catch hell from its more […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) In the search for root causes of the Middle East’s misery, one shouldn’t overlook the role of religious fundamentalism _ Christian, Jewish and Muslim.

It’s not a popular line of inquiry. Anyone who points the finger of blame at organized religion is sure to catch hell from its more overwrought adherents. Thus, pundits who regularly call on political leaders and policy makers to look more deeply into the reasons for unrest in the Middle East _ its roots _ never finger the great religions or their leaders as part of the problem and a necessary part of any solution, if one is possible.


But they are. For no lasting peace is possible in the Middle East until the great religions clustered there put historic hatreds behind them.

Religious hatred in the Middle East functions as an exercise in ancient and unforgiving memories. Thus, Islamists like al-Qaida invoke the history of the Christian Crusades to inflame modern Muslims against the West. Muslims of old had a legitimate beef with the Christian invaders, who were the fundamentalists of their day. But that was a thousand years ago. Time to get over it.

Within Islam itself, a lethal fundamentalist animosity divides Sunnis and Shiites, who separated centuries ago over the issue of who was the legitimate heir of the Prophet Muhammad. Its modern manifestation is the savage sectarian slayings in the streets of Baghdad _ all in the name of God and at the urging of some of their own clergy.

The violence between Jews and Muslims may have begun in ancient ethnic animosities and competition for land. But in its modern form it is deeply religious as well. Since both claim descent from Abraham, it’s a kind of a biblical family falling out, always the worst kind.

The Israel that came into being in 1948 was the product of secular, socialist Zionists rather than ultra-religious Jews. But the spread of Israel into the West Bank, the particular flash point for Palestinian Muslims today, was driven principally by ultra-orthodox Jews determined to re-create the Israel of biblical times. Jewish religious leadership is diverse; Judaism has many expressions (Conservative, Orthodox and Reform). Not all of Israel’s clerics favored such expansion into the West Bank, the biblical Judea and Samaria. But some rabbis were among the most fervent leaders of the settlement movement there and remain among the fiercest opponents of surrendering the land. They’re Israel’s fundamentalists.

Religious fundamentalism is by no means confined to the murderous Middle East. We’ve got our own brand in this country in the more extreme elements of the Christian Coalition, with their intolerance of any moral creed but their own. They are, in a sense, our very own Taliban.

Through the centuries, fundamentalism or authoritarianism has always been the great temptation of most organized religions, East or West, Christian, Muslim or Jewish. It should be no surprise. They all are, or claim to be, the voice of God in this life. They’re doing His work. And it’s a small step from that claim to the belief that those who disagree _ the non-believers or “infidels” _ are deserving of disrespect. Or even death.


What makes religious fundamentalism especially dangerous today is its merger with politics. In this country, religious fundamentalism has become a prop for a president who believes he has a moral mission to spread democracy to the Middle East, by the sword if necessary. In the Middle East, it has become a moral rationale for the mistreatment, even murder, of those of a different faith.

How is the Middle East’s misery to end? Probably not by military means. Even the Bush administration understands that its vainglorious belief that an undermanned military force could bring order to Iraq has failed. Some kind of political or diplomatic solution is needed. Likewise, it seems now that Israel cannot destroy Hezbollah without risking its soldiers in an all-out ground war, which it’s unwilling to do.

Any solution probably will have to come by diplomatic means, which are likely to leave Hezbollah still alive and kicking and religious friction still a fierce force.

Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to the first President Bush, suggests it’s a job for the Quartet (the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations). Trouble is, Europe and the U.N. are viewed, deservedly, as anti-Israel, while the United States is Israel’s guardian angel and Russia is busy killing Muslim insurgents in Chechnya. No one in the Quartet brings any moral weight to peace talks.

In the end, only the leaders of the great religions of the Middle East _ Christianity, Islam, Judaism _ can bring any moral authority to bear on the outcome. Their silence is deafening. And a mystery, too. For it is, after all, their Holy Land.

(John Farmer is national political correspondent for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.)

KRE/PH END FARMER

Editors: A version of this column is also being transmitted by Newhouse News Service.

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