Pope Francis of Arabia

by Hugh Fitzgerald

Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed and Pope Francis

Pope Francis has said many false things about Islam. He has said that “there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism” and that ‘“authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Quran are opposed to every form of violence.” He has, in turn, been praised by the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed al-Tayeb, who thanked him for his “defense of Islam against the accusation of violence and terrorism.”

He has even obliquely justified the murders of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists who had drawn Muhammad, saying that “it is true that you must not react violently, but although we are good friends if [an aide] says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch, it’s normal. You can’t make a toy out of the religions of others. These people provoke and then (something can happen).” So the murder of a dozen helpless cartoonists is compared to a punch. There is something out of whack in the Pope’s moral calculus.

The Pope seems to think that the more he defends Islam, the more likely it is that Muslims will reciprocate, will display more favorable attitudes toward Christianity. He doesn’t allow for the possibility that Muslims will gladly pocket his praise, but far from offering something meaningful in return, will continue relentlessly in their efforts to defend and spread Islam until it everywhere dominates.

Before he visited the United Arab Emirates on Feb. 3-5, Pope Francis delivered a video message to the people of the U.A.E.:

“I am happy that in a few days I will be able to visit your country, a land that strives to be a model of coexistence, human brotherhood and encounter among different civilizations and cultures, where many find a secure place to work and live freely in respect for diversity.”

What “model of coexistence” and “respect for diversity” is to be found in the U.A.E.? U.A.E. subjects constitute 20 percent of the population, while foreign workers and other expatriates account for the other 80 percent. At least one million of those foreign workers are Catholics. Fewer than two dozen churches have been allowed in the U.A.E., to serve between one and two  million Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians. There is one tiny temple for half-a-million Hindus. Is that “respect for diversity”? Non-Muslims are forbidden from trying to proselytize; Muslims, however, are free to try to convert non-Muslims. Non-Muslims must not pray, or make any other display of their faith, in public. Still, compared to Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. is an oasis of religious freedom. Non-Muslims have houses of worship, albeit very few, where they can conduct services undisturbed. In Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, a handful of Korean nurses softly singing Christmas carols in their shared living quarters, behind closed doors, led to their immediate expulsion from the Kingdom.

The U.A.E. is not, in Islamic terms, particularly unwelcoming to non-Muslims. It does not fully enforce the Sharia, as do Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Sudan. But neither is it, pace Pope Francis, a “model of coexistence” and “human brotherhood.” Millions of non-Muslims must make do with that at handful of churches, and one Hindu temple. Foreign workers, especially non-Muslims, are relentlessly exploited, though not quite as badly as in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Non-Muslims have to watch what they post, or say. A Christian singer made a video in which she  innocently pointed toward a mosque with her left hand, having no idea of the significance of the left hand in Arab culture; she was charged with disrespect for Islam. Others have been similarly hauled into court for derogatory remarks they supposedly made about Islam and Muhammad on Facebook; even getting into an argument about foreign policy can lead to such charges, and when it’s a non-Muslim’s word, against that of a Muslim, in a Muslim country, we know who wins.

There is one place in the Middle East where there is full freedom for adherents of all religions, a model of coexistence.” That country is Israel. Pope Francis visited there in May 2014. He was greeted warmly by the Israelis at Ben Gurion Airport, just before going off to visit — even before Israel proper — the “Palestinian” Authority. In between scheduled engagements, the Pope ordered his motorcade to make an unexpected stop in Bethlehem. He got out of his popemobile and made his way to a particular section of Israel’s security wall. This is an often-photographed section of the wall covered with graffiti that compare Palestinian Bethlehem to the Jewish Warsaw ghetto. Near a spot where someone had very recently sprayed “Free Palestine,” the Pope touched the wall and began to pray. Of course, a dozen video and still cameras were capturing that moment. He must have known that the videos and still photographs taken of him there would go all over the world, helping to promote the Palestinian cause.

Just a few days before making  his visit to the U.A.E., the Pope effusively described that country as “a model of coexistence, human brotherhood and encounter among different civilizations and cultures where many find a secure place to work and live freely in respect for diversity.” That’s a curious way to describe a country where fewer than 10% of the population, a pampered elite of Muslim Arabs, are waited on by the other 90%, made up of foreigners, whose working conditions are harrowing, whose job security is nonexistent, and whose religious observances are constrained by the paucity of churches and Hindu temples.

Next on the Pope’s travel plans is Morocco, another Muslim Arab despotism that he apparently finds appealing. Perhaps after that visit, the Pope will consider making a second visit to Israel, to see for himself, more informed this time, what the only real “model of coexistence” in the Middle East, where people live freely “in respect for diversity,” looks like. Let him see the Arabs in Israel who serve at every level, on the Supreme Court, in the Knesset, in the army (including at least one Druze general), in the civil service, in the diplomatic corps. Let him see the Arabs working side-by-side with Jews in Israel’s start-up and high-tech companies, where they receive training and job opportunities not available in any Arab country. And let the Pope not just see these things, but also mention what he has seen in remarks delivered urbi et orbi. The Pope owes at least that to the Israelis, after  having his photograph deliberately taken at the “Warsaw Ghetto…Free Palestine” wall in Bethlehem in May 2014.

And before he next decides to praise to the skies such people as Egyptian Sheik Ahmad el-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, whom he has met on several occasions, the last time during this February 3-5 visit to the U.A.E., let the Pope find out more about him. Calling El-Tayeb a “friend and dear brother,” Francis thanked the sheik for having “the courage and desire to affirm that faith in God unites and does not divide, draws together even in differences (and) moves away from hostility and aversion.” Francis needs to know how many terrorists have studied at Al-Azhar and were deeply affected by the Islamic education they received there. He also needs to know El-Tayeb’s own history of hair-raising antisemitic remarks, which hardly “moves away from hostility and evasion.” That should curb his enthusiasm for the Grand Imam. One wonders, for example, if the Pope knows of this brief exchange, on the subject of Jews, in an interview with El-Tayeb on Egyptian television in 2013:

Interviewer: They [the Jews] consider everybody else to be inferior to them…

Ahmad Al-Tayeb: Extremely inferior. They even have very peculiar laws. For instance, they are allowed to practice usury with non-Jews. Some things are not allowed among Jews, but are allowed between Jews and non-Jews. They practice a terrible hierarchy, and they are not ashamed to admit it, because it is written in the Torah – with regard to killing, enslavement, and so on [of non-Jews].

Therefore, they have generated a problem not only in their relations with the Muslims, but in their relations with all other people as well, and history has been clear on this.

Interviewer: There is even great enmity between them and the Christians.

Ahmad Al-Tayeb: Of course. These practices and beliefs have made people, even non-Muslims, hate them.

And he can find much more in that vein, simply by googling “Ahmed el-Tayeb” and “Jews.” What he discovers should make him reconsider his fulsome endorsements of El-Tayeb.

As for the U.A.E., if the Pope had kept his eyes wide open on his “historic” trip, he would have discovered that that country is not quite the “model of co-existence” and “diversity” that he has allowed himself to believe. Granted, it is  better than Saudi Arabia. Faint praise, alas. The “model of coexistence” he should be praising to the skies lies to the northwest of the U.A.E., as the nuclear-headed missile flies, and extends from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. It’s a very tiny state, scarcely visible on a world map, but with a very big civilizational footprint, in science, medicine, technology, literature, art, music, economic and political thought. It’s an important part of the advanced world, the world of mental freedom and human rights, the very world that Pope Francis ought always to be defending, instead of defending that world’s most implacable enemies..

The Pope’s heedlessness has done a lot of damage, but he still has time to recognize, and to express, what should be obvious truths about the menace of Islam for the West. We’ll see in his coming statements how much unpleasant reality this Pope will allow himself to bear.

First published in Jihad Watch.