Failure To Reform Religious Jurisprudence and Norms Allows Religious Militancy, Irrespective of Faith
By
Dr. James M. Dorsey for New Age Islam
23 May 2024
Extremist Rabbis, Ultranationalist And
Ultraconservative Israeli Politicians, Far-Right Evangelicals, Russian Orthodox
Church Leaders, And Hindu Nationalists Have Emerged As Equally Troublesome
Militant, Supremacist, And Racist Expressions Of Faith.
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For more
than two decades, jihadists took pride in place as symbols of extremism and
illustrations of the need for religious reform. They made Islam the focus of
post-9/11 calls for religious change and moderation.
Today,
Islam no longer stands alone. One of the world’s foremost faiths, Islam has
been joined by most major religions that have long flown under the radar.
Numerous
recent examples and incidents in an increasingly polarised world that allows
religion to become a clarion call for supremacy, racism, bigotry, and prejudice
highlight the urgency of expanding the post-9/11 clamour for ‘moderate’ Islam
to other major faiths, including Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism.
Extremist
rabbis, ultranationalist and ultraconservative Israeli politicians, far-right
Evangelicals, Russian Orthodox Church leaders, and Hindu nationalists have
emerged as equally troublesome militant, supremacist, and racist expressions of
faith.
Together,
they demonstrate that problematic tenets and practices of religion pose a
universal threat that transcends Islam.
Failure to
reform religious jurisprudence and norms allows religious militants,
irrespective of faith, to justify their militancy, supremacy, and violence in
theology and religious law.
Countering
those expressions in an increasingly polarised, us-or-them world, in which
religious militants’ impact or control the levers of power in countries like
Israel, Iran, and India or wield significant behind-the-scenes influence as in
Russia, is no mean fete.
“Stop
calling other people infidels. The fact that someone is not Muslim doesn’t make
them an infidel.” Meme created by NU followers. Source: Bayt ar-Rahmah
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For much of
the past decade, Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest and most
moderate Muslim civil society movement, has led the clarion call for religious
reform, albeit with mixed results.
Even so,
Nahdlatul Ulama, a conservative center-right movement, deserves credit for
leading by example, persistence, determination, and willingness to go where
others have not dared to tread or did not have the clout to do so.
A mass
movement with 90 million followers, a five-million-strong militia, thousands of
religious seminaries, hundreds of universities, and a religious authority of
its own, Nahdlatul Ulama is in a class of its own.
Islamic
history boasts numerous forward-looking reformists. However, in contrast to
Nahdlatul Ulama, they were primarily intellectuals and clerics, some with
significant followings, yet none with the infrastructural and organizational
backbone needed to boost their quest.
In recent
years, Nahdlatul Ulama’s religious scholars acted on the movement’s call for
reform of “obsolete” or “outdated” provisions of Islamic jurisprudence with
fatwas or religious opinions that replaced the notion of a kafir or infidel
with that of a citizen and called for the elimination of the concept of a
caliphate in favour of the nation-state.
The problem
is that fatwas are not binding. While most Nahdlatul Ulama followers may abide
by the opinions, other Indonesian Muslims may not.
Similarly,
Nahdlatul Ulama has set an example for the Muslim world. However, the fatwas
have yet to be emulated elsewhere.
If
anything, major status quo Muslim institutions, including Al Azhar, the more
than 1,000-year-old, Cairo-based citadel of Islamic learning, Saudi Arabia’s
government-controlled Muslim World League, and United Arab Emirates-sponsored
religious groups have sought to co-opt the Indonesian movement.
To its
credit, Nahdlatul Ulama has stood its ground, insisting on religious reform
that includes religious and political pluralism.
In doing
so, Nahdlatul Ulama challenges its major Muslim rivals’ view of moderation
which emphasises religious tolerance and interfaith relations, while upholding
the autocratic principle of absolute obedience to the ruler.
Credit:
DW
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Arab rulers
have used their concept of 'moderate' Islam to legitimize their iron fist rule
and crackdown on dissent religiously. Saudi Arabia has gone as far as defining
atheism as terrorism and has yet to allow non-Muslim houses of worship to
operate legally.
Autocrats
have exploited their definition of ‘moderation’ to project an image of
forward-looking societies that attract needed foreign investment and reap the
economic, social, and political benefits of religious and social tolerance.
“Harnessing
the benefits of religion – including the considerable economic gains available
– requires taming of the tendency for followers of one religion to exclude and
work against non-followers,’ said Bahraini analyst Omar Al-Ubaydli.
Religious
tolerance and interfaith dialogue constitute a step forward.
Even so,
the Gaza war, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Evangelical support for Israel,
rising anti-Semitism, Russia’s Orthodox Church-backed invasion of Ukraine, and
anti-Muslim Hindu nationalist agitation suggest that religious tolerance and
interfaith dialogue do not suffice.
To
structurally address a problem that feeds discrimination, racism, and
polarisation, religious tolerance and interfaith dialogue need to be embedded
in reforms that counter bigoted, supremacist, and prejudiced expressions of
faith and promote religious, social, and political pluralism and diversity.
The
consequences of failure to do so are omnipresent. They dominate newscasts and
online and social media with reporting from flashpoints like Ukraine and Gaza
and on the rise of the far right in Europe and the United States, as well as
the curbing of freedom of expression in the West when it comes to supporting
the Palestinians.
As a
result, Nahdlatul Ulama’s call for reform is not just valid for Islam and
Muslim autocracies. It applies equally to illiberal democracies that cloak
themselves in religious nationalism like Hungary and India, authoritarian
regimes like Russia, and partial democracies like Israel that uphold democratic
principles for Jews but limit Palestinian rights.
Binyamin Netanyahu addresses Christians United For Israel. Source Arab
Center Washington DC
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The urgency
of religious reform is spotlighted by leaders like Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu, who heads the most ultra-conservative and ultra-nationalist
government in Israel’s history and projects himself as the protector and
spokesperson of world Jewry but has no compunction about aligning himself with
Jewish supremacists who view their Jewish critics as traitors and non-Jewish
figures who flaunt their association with anti-Semitism.
Men like
Mr. Netanyahu’s Diaspora Affairs and Struggle Against Anti-Semitism minister,
Amichai Chikli, find common ground with often anti-Semitic ultra-conservatives
and far-right politicians in their opposition to ‘radical Islam’ which
translates into support for Israel’s effort to destroy Hamas.
Earlier
this month, Mr. Chikli spoke at a gathering of European far-right activists
hosted by Vox, Spain's ultra-right political party that Israel once shunned for
welcoming neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers into its ranks, including Pedro
Varela, an infamous Barcelona Nazi bookseller, who spent time in jail for
disseminating hate speech and nominated Holocaust denier Fernando Paz as a
congressional candidate in Spain’s 2019 election.
Several
other Netanyahu associates, including parliamentarians Amit Halevi and Simcha
Rothman, the architect of the prime minister’s controversial judicial reform,
and Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel, spoke earlier this year at
influential Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meetings in
Maryland and Hungary alongside Holocaust deniers, self-identified Nazis, and
Christian nationalists.
Speaking in
Maryland, far-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec greeted participants on
the first day of the gathering, saying, “Welcome to the end of democracy. We
are here to overthrow it completely…and replace it with this because all glory
is not to government, all glory to God” as he held up what appeared to be a
cross on a chain.
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik visits Israel at the invitation of Knesset
Speaker Amir Ohana. Source: Stefanik.house.gov
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Earlier
this month, Knesset speaker Amir Ohana, a member of Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud
Party, invited reformed New York Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanic on a
blitz visit to Israel.
Ms.
Stefanik profiled herself as a staunch opponent of anti-Semitism in the recent
Congressional grilling of university presidents and a supporter of Israel.
Mr. Ohana
overlooked Ms. Stefanic’s failure to account for her history of anti-Semitism,
including her propagation as recently as two years ago of the white supremacist
Great Replacement Theory. The theory asserts that America’s elite, at times
manipulated by Jews, aims to replace and disempower white Americans. The theory
sparked mass shootings in the United States.
A white man
with a history of antisemitic internet posts in 2018 gunned down 11 people in a
Pittsburgh synagogue.
A year
later, another white man, angry over what he called “the Hispanic invasion of
Texas,” opened fire on shoppers at an El Paso Walmart, leaving 23 people dead.
And in yet
another deadly mass shooting in 2022 in Buffalo, New York, a heavily armed
white man killed ten people in a supermarket on the city’s predominantly Black
east side.
“The State
of Israel and the Zionist movement has actually sought the support of
well-known anti-Semites as long as they are politically in their corner… People
who are bigoted, anti-Semitic, who hate Jews but are willing to support the
State of Israel, are welcomed by Netanyahu and his ilk,” said Jonathan Kuttab,
an international human rights lawyer, board member of the Bethlehem Bible
College, and president of the Holy Land Trust.
Jonathan Kuttab. Credit: jonathankuttab.org
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When Mr.
Kuttab recently asked the pastor of an Evangelical megachurch to pray for the
children of Gaza, the cleric refused.
“I don’t
want to create trouble because I believe in the Prophecy. All these Jews are
going to gather (in Israel),” Mr. Kuttab quoted the cleric as saying, adding
that “then, with a big smirk on his face, he said, ‘they’re all going to die
because (of) Armageddon, they’re all going to be destroyed except those who
accept Jesus Christ as the Saviour.’”
Mr.
Netanyahu, who has denounced pro-Palestinian protesters as “anti-Semitic mobs.”
shrouded himself in silence earlier this month as Christian prayer leader and
singer Sean Feucht led his far-right followers in a pro-Israel march against
pro-Palestinian demonstrators at a University of South California (USC) campus
to portray the Gaza war as a harbinger of the ‘End Times’ predicted in the
Bible.
Mr Feucht
was joined at the campus by Ché Ahn, the leader of Pasadena’s Harvest Rock
Church, who defines being pro-Israel as converting Jews to his brand of
Evangelical Christianity.
Sean Feucht leads a pro-Israel demonstration at the University of South
California. Source: Sean Feucht Facebook’s page
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Dressed in
a Jesus rocker-style black jean jacket, Mr. Feucht told Fox News, “We want
Americans to see that we are fed up with this rot of anti-Semitism on the
college campuses.”
Fox News
passed on the opportunity to question Mr. Feucht on his association with the
far-right Proud Boys, QAnon conspiracy theorists, the ReAwaken America Tour, a
conspiracy-laden road show, and Elijah Schaffer, a podcaster, all notorious for
their anti-Semitic tendencies.
“I do
interfaith dialogue for a living. These people are not doing interfaith
dialogue. They’re doing Christian supremacy, but they’re cloaking it in the
garb of interfaith solidarity,” said Matthew D. Taylor, a religious studies
scholar and expert in Christian nationalism.
A retired
historian warned in an email, “If the chain of apocalyptic events that the
Christian Zionist expounders of bogus ‘Bible prophecy’ have conditioned
millions of American Christians to believe that they are preordained by God,
including catastrophic war and a second Holocaust with the Palestinians as its
victims, is brought about and then Jesus does not return when their ‘prophecy’
predicts – and he will not – Christianity will become abhorrent in the eyes of
the world, seen by non-Christians as a genocidal doomsday cult. And it will
spark a global firestorm of anti-Semitism against all Jews.”
In the
spirit of Nahdlatul Ulama, Mr. Kuttab, the Palestinian lawyer, advocates
engagement with Evangelical Christians and believes that effecting change is
possible. Mr. Kuttab’s view implies that Evangelicals, unlike ultra-nationalist
and ultra-conservative Jews, Hindu nationalists, and militant Islamists, may be
low-hanging fruit, at least when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Christian Zionists at a Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem.
Credit: The Times of Israel
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“The appeal
for Christian Zionism is very broad, but it’s very thin… It’s not as
fundamental to their identity as issues like abortion, for example, or
homosexuality. For them, support for Israel is like a default position that
they haven’t thought much about because they were never asked or questioned or
challenged on it… They equate the Israel of the Bible with the modern state of
Israel… They sort of jump over 2,000 years of history, and they jump over most
of the New Testament,” Mr Kuttab said.
“So, when
you sit with them and quote the Bible to them, they are very liable to change
their positions, but you have to talk to them in Biblical terms. You have to
quote scripture to them… You have to talk to them about Christ love, Christ
compassion, Christ being the Prince of Peace, Christ being open to everybody,
to salvation for God loves the world, not just the Jewish tribe, that he gave
his only begotten son. So, whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have
everlasting life. When you talk to many Christian Zionists in that language,
they say,’ Hmm, we never thought about that. Maybe you are right.’… The problem
is that most people who talk to Christian Zionists don’t use that language,”
Mr. Kuttab added.
Earlier
this month, the United Methodist Church, a mainstream Protestant church with
some 5.4 million followers and 30,000 houses of worship in the United States
that has lost up to a quarter of its membership because of its increasing
tolerance of same-sex marriage, called on its investment managers to divest
from Israeli bonds as well as Turkish and Moroccan securities.
The church
cited as reasons for the disinvestment Israel’s occupation of Palestinian
territories conquered during the 1967 Middle East war, the continued presence
in Northern Cyprus of Turkish troops since Turkey invaded the Mediterranean
island in 1974, and the Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara since 1975.
The rise of
Israel’s far-right government shines a spotlight on problematic elements of
Jewish law reflected in Israel’s Gaza war conduct, its us-or-them approach to
Palestinians, and its policies on the West Bank.
Early in
the war, Mr. Netanyahu invoked the Biblical command to “attack the Amalekites”
and destroy all that belongs to them. “Do not spare them; put to death men and
women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys,” the command
says.
Although
challenged by numerous rabbinical scholars over the centuries, Israeli
politicians and military personnel fighting in Gaza echoed Mr. Netanyahu’s
invocation.
Ultraconservatives
view Amalek, the grandson of Esau and his descendants and anyone else who lived
in their Canaanite territory, as the archetype of evil symbolic of Israel and
the Jews’ nemeses.
Earlier
this month, far-right Rabbi Dov Lior, a proponent of killing and ethically
cleansing Palestinians, legitimised breaking the Sabbath to prevent
humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.
"We
should be happy that we have a population that cares about Israel and cares
about the Sabbath ... A war that takes place on the Sabbath makes it
permissible to violate the Sabbath," Mr. Lior decreed.
Rabbi
Eliyahu Mali speaking in a conference at his Shirat Moshe yeshiva. Source:
Twitter
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In March,
Rabbi Eliyahu Mali, whose government-subsidised religious seminary in Jaffa
aims to dispossess Palestinians still resident in what is today a southern
suburb of Tel Aviv that once was Palestine’s most populous city, issued what
can only be called an incitement to genocide.
A proponent
of permanent Israeli re-settlement of Gaza on religious grounds alongside other
ultra-conservative rabbis, including Tzvi Elimelekh Shabaf and David Fendel,
Mr. Mali received US$800,000 in government support in 2023.
“The basic
rule we have when fighting a holy war, in this case, Gaza, is the doctrine of
‘not sparing a soul.’ The logic of this is very clear. If you don’t kill them,
they will try to kill you. Today’s saboteurs are the children of the previous
war whom we kept alive,” Mr. Mali, citing scripture, said in a conference at
his Shirat Moshe Yeshiva.
Like
various forms of ultra-conservative Islam such as Wahhabism, jihadism in the
shape of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, and Hindu and Christian nationalism,
militant, supremacist expressions of Judaism represented by religious Zionism
in the way it is currently expressed demonstrate the risk of leaving unaltered
problematic tenets in religious law.
As the 9/11
attacks did with Islam, Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians shines a
spotlight on problematic Jewish religious legal precepts.
Common
wisdom says what is needed is pressure on Israel, particularly from the United
States and Europe. No doubt, pressure helps, but much like Nahdlatul Ulama has
taken the lead in tackling head-on legal, ideological, and religious issues
that make Islam part of the problem rather than the solution, Jews will have to
do the same for Judaism.
9/11 put
Islam’s problems on the front burner. Israel and Jews could face a similar
situation as circumstances in the occupied territories, including East
Jerusalem, as a result of Israeli policies spin out of control.
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Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow
at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent
World with James M. Dorsey.
Original
Headline: The
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