Benedict XVI's Comments on Islam
Gush Shalom founder and frequent Israeli government critic Uri Avnery writes a convincing explication of the Pope's comments on Islam last week (see comment 1 on this post for full text of the Avnery article). In it, he sharply criticizes Joseph Ratzinger's decision to cite a Byzantine Emperor on the Moslems, but he finds it consistent with what he regards as a historically significant rapprochement between Rome and Washington. George Bush, Avnery writes, is to Pope Benedict XVI what certain Byzantine Emperors of old were to the Church: a very powerful ally in the global political and economic struggle between the West and its designated Others. Avnery energetically contests the Pope's implied accusation that Islam is religion of violence and irrationality. Christianity, Avnery reminds us, historically has much more frequently resorted to the sword when faced with perceived religious and political antagonists. Avnery's historical overview of Islam's relatively benevolent relation to its Others may be somewhat reductionistic, but on balance he is correct that the historical record supports the old adage about those who live in glass houses. More importantly, Avnery cuts through the Pope's apologists' obfuscations to point out that we must keep our eyes on vested interests here as elsewhere: clash-of-civilizations neoconservatism -- and its mystification of the non-West -- is not the sole province of the American right.