Ex-Pentagon official Rhode: Muslim world must undergo ‘thought revolution’

“There can only be final peace when the Muslims recognize Israel as a Jewish state and declare an end to the conflict."
There can be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians until there is a “thought revolution” in the Muslim world, former longtime Pentagon official Harold Rhode told The Jerusalem Post Monday. Rhode cited the doctrine in Islam in which land conquered by Muslims must remain under Muslim rule forever.

This includes present-day Israel, which the Muslims conquered in 637 CE.

“There can only be final peace when the Muslims recognize Israel as a Jewish state and declare an end to the conflict,” he said. “Until then, peace as we understand it is impossible.”

Rhode, currently a senior fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute, made the point that independent thinking and personal responsibility were generally lacking in the region.

While it had been shown through testing that some Palestinians have DNA similar to that of Jews, which indicates that, biologically, they are just as capable as Jews, it is Islamic culture, he said, that stifles them.

“Could you imagine a lecture ends and the audience does not ask questions? There are always questions, but rarely in the Middle East,” he continued.

Instead, if someone from the audience asks a question of the lecturer, the speaker will often shame the questioner in front of everyone. That stifles future questions.

“Personal honor is more important than truth,” he explained.

Why is it that Japan and South Korea, which were devastated by World War II, recovered quickly into world-leading economies while the Muslim world has lagged far behind, Rhode asked rhetorically.

“The difference is that one has a Muslim culture and the other does not,” he argued.

Rhode, who has traveled widely in the Middle East during his career, said one of the root causes of the crisis in Middle Eastern civilization is the lack of independent and critical thinking, which he blames on Sunni culture.

The gates of independent and critical thinking (ijtihad) to determine matters of Islamic law were closed around 1,000 years ago by the Sunni leadership, he explained. This threatened the political leadership, which put an end to the practice in the 10th century, arguing that all questions had been addressed in the previous years since the advent of Islam.

“All that was left was ‘analogy,’ meaning that if a new problem arose, the Sunnis had to find a similar situation in the past and apply that decision to the new problem,” he said.

In practice, continued Rhode, “that meant the abandonment of science and non-Sunni sources of knowledge.” This, he said, is what has prevented them from progressing.

“Blame is avoided at all costs in Muslim culture,” he said, adding: “Why is it no Palestinian leader ever admits making any mistakes? They can’t. Sunni Arab leaders need to say: ‘Our approach has failed and we must try another way.’ But culturally, they cannot do this.”

The Japanese did this, but no Sunni society has been able to undergo self-criticism, he said. This is because pride and honor are paramount values.

Asked why he specifically named Sunni culture as suffering from this kind of critical thinking, Rhode responded that Shi’ites observed taqlid, or imitation, which means they need to find and follow a grand ayatollah who is encouraged to engage in critical thinking.



http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Ex-Pentagon-official-Rhode-Muslim-world-must-undergo-thought-revolution-443554

Herold Rhode wrote:There can be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians until there is a “thought revolution” in the Muslim world...

If Pluto is a dog...and Goofy is a dog...how come only one of them can talk?

A 'thought revolution'?  I have been trying to apply the same concept to conservatives for ages.  Alas...they are still around and causing trouble.

NOBODY has really assessed the danger to world peace the muzzyi is.

The Israel's are never going to quietly fade away, any one with any sense must realise that. There is only one answer, The Arabs must learn to live with it.

The Israele's must do all they can to convince the Arabs they want peace.

nicko wrote:The Israel's are never going to quietly fade away,   any one with any sense must realise that.    There is only one answer,   The Arabs must learn to live with it.

The Israele's must do all they can to convince the Arabs they want peace.

I tell you something Nicko and it shows in the many times they have been attacked by the Arabs, that they will take out as many as possible if again it seemed they would be wiped out., People clearly have no comprehension for what it must be like for the Jews through over 2,500 years of persecution, their mass murder many times in history, to being not welcomed in so many places around the world. You are pushing a group of people into a decision where if they did, they will take out as many as they can of the enemy. They would no doubt level the whole of the Middle east into one giant nuclear wasteland.
The Arabs need to learn to live with them, but they have always thought, even in the so called golden areas that they are above all others through their religion and why those non-Muslim even in the golden times, were treated to inequality with a secondary citizen status. This is why there has never been peace and its complete bull about claims to the settlements, occupation, because the Arabs have been killing them since before the creation of Israel, then even after when the Palestinians were occupied by the Jordanians and Egyptians. They were not committing terrorism to those nations but still Israel, claiming all Israel as occupied. It has always been about a belief the lands have been given to them through conquest by their deity and why religion is so utterly stupid and dangereosu

nicko wrote:The Israel's are never going to quietly fade away,   any one with any sense must realise that.    There is only one answer,   The Arabs must learn to live with it.

The Israele's must do all they can to convince the Arabs they want peace.

Correct, it would be a huge Smashing Crash within a short time of withdrawal of western support 

the is another answer
the west steps out of the middle east fully, including it's propping up of Israel. and let the chips fall where they may

We could keep out of it, really keep out and punish any of our Corporation that try and drag us back in,
lets face it we only have news about issue in the middle east because they affect our corporation's profits and they want to use western might to enforce the economic domaniance. there is every bit as much suffering in parts of Africa, it isn't in the paper every day though because they dont live on top of oil.