Here’s What Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer Had to Say About ‘Militant Islam’

At an elegant gala in New York City, our friends at the Center for Security Policy conferred upon Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer their 2016 Freedom Flame award. At the same dinner, Zionist Organization of America Communities President Morton Klein received the 2016 Keeper of the Flame award.

Both men gave important remarks that are worth reading and dissecting, and we will start with Ambassador Dermer’s discussion of what he called “militant Islam.”

Now, there are many militant individuals in groups. Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski can be described as militants. Terror groups like the FARC and the Tamil Tigers, who are responsible for the murder of tens and thousands of people, are militant organizations. But while these individuals and groups are extremely dangerous, they are not part of a global movement; “militant Islam” is. 

The forces of “militant Islam” have struck in New York, in Orlando, London and Paris, Bali and Bangkok, Sydney and Buenos Aires and dozens of other places across the world. In the Middle East and North Africa they have struck in every country between the Straits of Gibraltar and the Khyber Pass. 

Ambassador Dermer proceeded to explain that “militant Islam” is not monolithic, there are Sunni branches, such as ISIS, al Qaeda, Boko Haram in Nigeria, al Shabaab in Somalia and Hamas in Gaza. There are Shia branches such as the Ayatollah regime in Iran, the various Shia militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

These branches have different theologies, explained Dermer: the militant Sunnis are fixated on the early seventh century; the militant Shiites are fixated on the middle of the tenth century. Perhaps one day they’ll compromise and take us back to sometime in the eighth century. 

Ambassador Dermer further stated:

And while these militant Islamists, they fight Christians and Jews, Yazidis and Kurds and other non-Muslims, they also ferociously fight each other in their battle to determine who will be the king of the militant Islamic hill. But for all their differences, all the branches and sub branches of “militant Islam” are rooted in a similar radical ideology, and they are fired by the same fanaticism. They all seek to reverse history, the rise of the West, and to restore Islam to its former glory.

For all of these groups, said Dermer, the answer to their problems is Islam in one radical form or another. That is why the forces of “militant Islam” are in fact part of the same global threat, and that is why they must be countered as part of a global strategy.

However, Ambassador Dermer was hopeful that “militant Islam” was not the only future available to the world’s 1.7 billion Muslims:

But, ladies and gentlemen, just as the enemy we face is not mere militancy, the enemy we face is also not Islam. Islam is a faith with some 1.7 billion adherents throughout the world, and faiths, including the faith of Islam, are malleable things … So too the relevantly tolerant Islam practiced in 12th century Spain, and practiced for some thirteen centuries in Persia before 1979, is not the Islam of ISIS or the Islam of today’s Ayatollah regime. Admittedly it is troubling, it is troubling that to find a more tolerant Christianity, one only need look at the present, whereas to find a more tolerant Islam, one must look largely to the past. But my point, ladies and gentlemen, is Islam, like other faiths, has evolved. I see no reason why it cannot or will not evolve again, so do not assume that the forces ascendant in the Muslim world today will be the same forces ascendant in the future.

The most dangerous lies that Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have tried to sell to the American people are that “Islam is a religion of peace” and that “They [the leaders of ISIS, al Qaeda, etc.] are not religious leaders—they’re terrorists. And we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”

Contrary to what President Obama said, the most violent terrorists in today’s world are Islamic. Moreover, as Breitbart’s John Sexton documented two years ago, while the truly violent jihadists make up a tiny percentage of Muslim’s worldwide; a significant percentage of Muslims around the world, numbering well over 100 million, believe practices like mutilation, stoning and the death penalty are appropriate for non-violent offenses.

Pew did do a worldwide poll of Muslims which included their attitudes toward Sharia law. What the poll found was that 74 percent of Egyptian Muslims favored making Sharia the law of the land and, among those, 86 percent believed the death penalty was appropriate in cases of apostasy. If you multiply it out, calculated Sexton, you get 64.5 percent of Egyptians who believe in killing apostates.

Another question Pew asked was about support for stoning women caught in adultery. The response to that question was similar or higher in some cases to the apostasy question, notes Sexton. In Indonesia (the most populous Muslim nation) support was 48 percent of the 72 percent who support Sharia. That works out to 34.5 percent of the population as a whole, or about 70 million Muslims.

Sexton also noted that Muslims who support Sharia were asked if they also support the corporal punishment Sharia entails, i.e. whipping and amputating the hands of thieves. In Egypt support was at 70 percent, in Bangladesh at 50 percent and in Indonesia at 45 percent. Those are not majorities, but they are large pluralities equal to tens of millions of people in these countries.

Obama, in another lie, said, “Al Qaeda and ISIL do draw, selectively, from the Islamic texts. They do depend upon the mis-perception around the world that they speak in some fashion for people of the Muslim faith, that Islam is somehow inherently violent, that there is some sort of clash of civilizations.”

The Qur’an contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called “hypocrites” and warned that Allah will send them to hell if they do not join the slaughter.

Qur’an (2:191-193): “And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than killing … but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone.”

Qur’an (2:216): “Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not.”

Qur’an (8:12): “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore, strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.”

Likewise, with regard to women the Qur’an in Sura 4:24 says slave women are sexual property for their male owners: “And forbidden to you are wedded wives of other people except those who have fallen in your hands [as prisoners of war].” (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 319). See also Suras 4:3; 23:5—6; 33:50; 70:22—30, all of which permit male slave owners to have sex with their female slaves. Suras 23:5—6 and 70:22—230 also allow men to have sex with their slaves.

The lie in the Obama-Clinton narrative about the global jihad movement’s alleged “selective” use of religious texts to justify its actions is that sexual slavery, terrorism and everything that goes with them are not inventions of ISIS, or “violent extremists,” they are right there in the Qur’an—and in graphic terms that cannot be misunderstood or taken out of context.

As our friend, Clare Lopez, Vice President for Research and Analysis Center for Security Policy and a former operations officer for the CIA, has observed on numerous occasions, we are not fighting a war on “terrorism,” we are fighting to live free of the oppression of Sharia and the ideas expressed in the Qur’an.

This war is not just with the radical Islamists of ISIS and Al Qaeda but with concepts deeply embedded in Muslim culture and the Qur’an.

We understand Ambassador Dermer’s wish for a future for Muslims that is tolerant and peaceful—it is a view we once shared after traveling extensively in the Islamic world and living among secular Muslims, but it is a dream that is, in our view, fast disappearing. And it is disappearing because the forces of “militant Islam” are not perverting Islam as some have suggested; rather, they are following its tenets to the letter. {eoa}

George Rasley is editor of ConservativeHQ, a member of American MENSA and a veteran of over 300 political campaigns, including every Republican presidential campaign from 1976 to 2008. He served as lead advance representative for Governor Sarah Palin in 2008 and has served as a staff member, consultant or advance representative for some of America’s most recognized conservative Republican political figures, including President Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp. He served in policy and communications positions on the House and Senate staff, and during the George H.W. Bush administration he served on the White House staff of Vice President Dan Quayle.

This article was originally published at ConservativeHQ.com. Used with permission.