The Fanonite

For too long I have been indiscriminate in my criticism of Muslim Uncle Toms: I have not distinguished the monkeys from the rats. Rats are of a more passive disposition, they scurry around and ensure their well-being through a judicious use of available resources, while blending in unobtrusively with the inhabited terrain. They avoid being stepped on by shrewdly placing themselves in spaces where no one is likely to tread. Monkeys on the other hand are more ambitious; their interest is not in mere survival and passive wellbeing, but in personal advancement. For this, they willingly don frocks or knickers of any colour, in accordance with the master’s wish and present the audience with an endearing spectacle of behavioural aspiration. The ethnomorophism is duly rewarded with plaudits, and if the dance is elaborate enough, the platform only gets bigger.

To illustrate these traits, let us look at some samples.

Exhibit A: Magdi Allam

Meet Magdi Allam, an egyptian Muslim by the name of who has recently written a book entitled, “Long Live Israel - From the Ideology of Death to the Civilization of Life: My Story”. So here we have an article in Ha’aretz entitled, “Muslim, Italian and Zionist“, which tells us,

In “Long Live Israel” (”Viva Israele” in Italian), Allam directly links the denial of Israel’s right to exist to the death cult being nurtured in fundamentalist Islamic circles, and refers to “the ethical erosion that has led to even the denial of the supreme value of the sanctity of life.” Allam sees Israel as “an ethical parameter that separates between lovers of civilization and those who preach the ideology of death.” The sanctity of life, he writes, “applies to everyone, or to no one.”…’Viva Israele’ is a song of praise to Israel’s life and to everyone’s life. My book opens with the words: ‘What you are about to read is a declaration of faith in the sanctity of life, ‘the sanctity of life of every human being.’”

That is such a fine statement, one almost wishes facts wouldn’t intervene. But they do — and ruin everything. Facts like the known balance of violence for instance. According to B’Tselem, Palestinians have killed 1023 Israelis, including 319 occupation soldiers since September 2000. Terrible loss — except, in the same period of time Israel killed 4160 Palestinians including 836 children.

Since a monkey would be expected to play to the crowd, the more pertinent question would be: to what extent statements like the one above are taken seriously?

But that isn’t even the worst of it. The article continues,

“The Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and Gaza demonstrates that the problem is not the need to withdraw from territories occupied in preemptive wars, but rather the Arabs’ lack of desire to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Israel erred in 1967 when it accepted the formula of territory for peace, and thus placed its very existence up for public auction. Experience teaches that the right to life cannot and should not be a subject for negotiation and bargaining. No negotiations should be held with extremists and terrorists who deny Israel’s right to exist.” …

“Israel has to prevent the Nazi-Islamic government of [Ali] Khamenei and [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad from acquiring nuclear weapons. I don’t place my faith in the United Nations and I have no illusions about the Bush administration, which now wants only to leave Iraq without losing face. And of course I don’t count on a weak, cowardly and divided Europe. I believe Israel is the last bastion in Islamic terror’s war against all of human civilization. Therefore I hope Israel will have a strong national unity government, determined to confront the most serious threat to world security since World War II.”

Exhibit B: Sheikh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi a.k.a Fruitcake

The best introduction to the Sheikh perhaps comes from a Zionist blogger, who calls him her ‘favorite Zionist’. She writes,

I love this guy. He says all the things that so desparately need to be said by Muslims about Islamists, hatred and terror, and he’s a very strong supporter of Israel. What more could we ask for?

So the Sheikh visits Hebron, a city where 400 extremist settlers on most days hold a population of more than a hundred thousand hostage, and where children are only able to go to school because of the Christian Peacemakers team who serve as body shields against the rocks thrown at the kids by the settlers, and issues the following statement:

While in Israel, Palazzi also took the time to travel to Hebron to visit the Jewish community. “I am particularly sensitive to Hebron,” he claims. “This is a place that clearly reflects historical discrimination against Jews. If there is one place about which no one can question the right of Jews to live - even more so than Jerusalem - it is Hebron. To suggest that Jews should not live in Hebron is defiling Jewish heritage. Yet the world seems to ignore this… I went to visit the Jewish community to tell them that they are living in the land where Jews have more right to be than anywhere else.”

With statements such as these, Palazzi tried to court Zionist big-wigs like Daniel Pipes, but for all his troubles, Daniel Pipes reponded by labelling him a ‘fruitcake’ for a small departure from the Zionist orthodoxy. Sheikh Fruitcake is clearly a man of great self-esteem since shortly afterwards he reappeared on Daniel Pipes’s website, lending support to Pipes’s exegesis of the Qur’an. 

Returning to the Zionist blogger, she has more interesting information on Palazzi.

Well, maybe a little better background checking. If you snoop around enough, you can find plenty of questions about Palazzi’s credentials and background. I do notice that three of his more questionable credentials (”Secretary General of the Italian Muslim Association,” “Resident Professor of Middle East Studies, Research Institute for Anthropological Sciences, Rome” and “lecturer in the Department of the History of Religion at the University of Velletri in Rome”) no longer seem to be included in his resume. Good for him, because the first group disavows any connection with him (though it’s clear he was there up until August, 2003, when new leadership took over) and the latter two institutions don’t appear to exist…As for the organization that he clearly is affiliated with (the Islam-Israel Fellowship of The Root and Branch Association, Ltd.), it appears to be only a shadow its former self, but take a look anyway. It used to have quite a lavish website with a rather impressive international board of directors. Not any more.And yet, Palazzi has been defended by a number of distinguished people, among them Irshad Manji, Nonie Darwish and even Jeff Jacoby. I’d put more stock in such supportive statements if they reflected any personal knowledge of the man or his background.And in that vein, I see the Post also saw fit to publish this strange piece of self-promotion by Palazzi’s buddy Barry Chamish, a raving conspiracy-theorist who is perhaps best known for his claim that Yigal Amir didn’t assassinate Yitzhak Rabin (Shimon Peres did it). Palazzi’s Root & Branch Association organized and sponsored a conference promoting that claim* back in 2000.