GZ Mosque Imam: For True Peace, Israel Must “become one more Arab country, with a Jewish minority”

The WSJ has uncovered two letters to the editor from the late seventies, written by GZ Mosque Imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf. The letters were written to the NYTs, yet it’s the WSJ publishing excerpts from them, today.

They offer yet another glimpse into this so-called “moderate” Imam’s mind, as he makes his way back home from his State-sponsored trip to to the Middle East:

Much has already been made of the imam’s comments on “60 Minutes” following 9/11, when he called America an “accessory to the crime” and announced that “Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.” He has also refused to call Hamas a terrorist organization. We’ve now come across two letters to the New York Times that reveal more about the imam’s worldview.

In a letter published on November 27, 1977, Mr. Rauf commented on Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s historic trip to Israel and encouraged his fellow Muslims to “give peace a chance.” That John Lennon lyric sounds good. But he added: “For my fellow Arabs I have the following special message: Learn from the example of the Prophet Mohammed, your greatest historical personality. After a state of war with the Meccan unbelievers that lasted for many years, he acceded, in the Treaty of Hudaybiyah, to demands that his closest companions considered utterly humiliating. Yet peace turned out to be a most effective weapon against the unbelievers.”

He’s referring to a treaty in the year 628 that established a 10-year truce between the Prophet Muhammad and Meccan leaders and was viewed by Muslims at the time as a defeat. But Muhammad used that period to consolidate his ranks and re-arm, eventually leading to his conquest of Mecca. Imam Rauf seems to be saying that Muslims should understand Sadat’s olive branch in the same way, as a short-term respite leading to ultimate conquest.

To drive that point home, he added in the same letter that “In a true peace it is impossible that a purely Jewish state of Palestine can endure. . . . In a true peace, Israel will, in our lifetimes, become one more Arab country, with a Jewish minority.”

So, while making the peace sign, he calls for the end  of  the Jewish State of Israel. Rauf has been playing this game for decades. He advocates for the most repellent things, but as long as he holds up that peace sign, he knows a certain percentage of useful idiots (in both parties) will swoon.

Two years later, the imam weighed in on the Iranian revolution. In a February 27, 1979 letter, in which he scores Americans for failing to apologize to Iran for past misdeeds, he wrote, “The revolution in Iran was inspired by the very principles of individual rights and freedom that Americans ardently believe in.”

The WSJ contacted Rauf for comment – here’s his sneering reply:

“It is amusing that journalists are combing through letters-to-the-editor that I wrote more than 30 years ago, when I was a young man, for clues to my evolution. As I re-read those letters now, I see that they express the same concerns-a desire for peaceful solutions in Israel, and for a humane understanding of Iran-that I have maintained, and worked hard on, in the years since those letters were published.”

In other words, he disavows none of it.

There’s nothing amusing about that.

John, of Verum Serum shares his thoughts: Imam Rauf: Peace as a Weapon Against Unbelievers

Hat tip: Weasel Zippers.

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