In the age of new media and high-powered communications, the small story of a tiny Church protesting with the symbolic burning of Korans sparked off an international crisis. The president, the secretary of State, the top general in our military, secretary of defense, every left and right wing media outlet world wide weighed in with their views concerning this great insult to Islam.

The Pastor who decided to do this is not a person who follows the teachings he espouses, however the world or to be more accurate the “free” world are just as guilty of foolishness! Why do you ask? This Pastor does not deserve any attention, as he is irrelevant. He represents only 50 people in a country of 300 million plus people. He does not represent the views of the 99.99% of this country, so why bother giving him the attention that he does not deserve. Maybe the left wish to slam Christianity, maybe the right wish to improve their ratings, whatever the reason we are where we are at on this issue today. What is important is now is that this story has got massive coverage, the result of the controversy shows that we are in a no win situation with the Muslim world.

The Pastor was a fool for proposing to burn the Koran, because as most normal people of faith this is not how one directs your anger but now that he has made this story what it is, the consequences for not following through with his threat are actually potentially greater than his backing down. Many, both conservative and liberals breathed a sigh of relief that the Koran will not be burnt. It must be noted that not burning the Koran could have even larger consequences even though I disagree with the original proposal. The reason is that you must understand the mindset of the Muslim world. They maybe offended by the burning, however if the pastor backs off they view this as a victory for Allah as their threat of violence and intimidation worked and Allah’s will was done. They do not think like people of the Judea Christian culture where compromise is looked upon as a positive strength not a weakness. The backing off by the Pastor in effect will cause more violence and more protests
not
less, the threat of violent Jihad terror will intensify because of this political victory which as achieved because of the threat of violence, so in effect violence i.e. terror works.

The second reason is that the Islamic world needs to prove to us that if one of their religious symbols are burnt or desecrated that they as a “religion of peace” need to show to us that this is the case i.e. that words of condemnation, restraint as well as prayers for peace, instead of riots, violence and killing when someone from another faith insults Islam; needs to be witnessed from the West. This will prove to us that tolerance in Islam exists. The West has witnessed much provocation, desecrating of churches, burning of bibles, persecution of Christians in the Muslim world yet we do not witness reciprocal violence form mobs or riots in our Western countries against Muslims. The current policies and political correctness of our government long term will actually exasperate violence against Muslims when today we are unwilling to deal with the true intention of fundamentalist Muslims.

The Imam who is building the ground zero mosque is unwilling to compromise on his positions yet the USA non Muslim community are expected to compromise for his faith. On CNN Imam suggests that violence might occur if the mosque is moved. While he did not threaten to use violence he suggested that many of his coreligionists might do so if he would compromise. The imam is brilliant at using language that instills fear but at the same time obfuscates him from blame for causing that fear. Imam Rauf is a slippery snake, who we have already have exposed as a supporter of terror in his writings in Arabic in the Middle East media. He will never compromise if you understand Islamic law like we do. The Imam cannot move the mosque, as once land is purchased for a mosque, it can never be sold or disposed of; it belongs to the Umma forever. The only way to stop the mosque is through local legislation or violence (we condemn violence).

We have the perfect litmus test in front of us? The President should say that he disagrees vehemently with the burning of the Koran, but Pastor Terry Jones has the right to do it under the freedoms of the USA constitution, and if he does do it, this is a chance for the Muslim world to react in a way that proves they are a peaceful religion.

Unfortunately hell will freeze over first before the current President would have the wisdom to utter such words.

Written by
Keith Davies
Executive Director Walid Shoebat Foundation