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02/12/2004

Clinton on U.S.-Islamic Relations

[Note: Back 2/26]

William Jefferson Clinton gave a speech at the U.S.-Islamic
World Forum in Doha, Qatar on January 12, 2004 that even
conservatives, such as the Weekly Standard and Ralph Peters,
praised. [The Weekly Standard''s article by Marc Ginsberg was
titled "AWOL in the Battle of Ideas: Why didn''t the Bush
administration show up in Doha?"] Here are a few excerpts.

---

The defining feature of the modern world is not terror, nor is it
trade nor technology, although terror, trade, and technology are
manifestations of the defining feature of the modern world,
which is its interdependence – a word I far prefer to
“globalization,” the more common word, because for most
people globalization has a largely economic meaning.
“Interdependence” is a broader word. It simply means we cannot
escape each other. And our relationships go far beyond
economics.

The main point I would like to make about the interdependent
world that applies to the relationships between the United States
and the Islamic world is that the interdependence we enjoy has
been of great benefit to some of us, but it is unequal, unstable,
and unsustainable.

For example, if you take economic interdependence, in the last
20 years global trade has lifted more people out of poverty than
in any comparable period in all of human history. But that
progress has not kept up with population growth or been
manifest in countries that are either poorly run or otherwise
deficient in indigenous economic growth. So that half the people
in the world today are living on less than $2 a day, a billion
people living on less than $1 a day, a sobering thought here in
this country that will soon have the highest per capita income in
the world.

---

Islam is the fastest-growing religion in America. We now have 6
million-plus Muslims in the United States. This tapestry of ours
is growing richer, and it makes us more interesting. But it is
ironic that at a time when we have tried to accommodate more
diversity, and you are a symbol of the reconciliation of Islam
with the modern world and with people of different backgrounds
around the world that you have brought here to educate your
young people with you, that the world is absolutely beset still by
conflicts rooted in hatred of those of difference, whether by
religion, race, tribe, or ethnic group.

So this is a paradoxical world we live in. We cannot understand
U.S.-Islamic relationships unless we understand the sweeping
scope of the interdependent world, its enormous benefits and its
persistent inequalities and instabilities. Because it isn’t fair to
say that every single element of our relationship, good and bad,
is just a function of who happens to be in power or what the
political issue of the day is. You have to see it against the large
backdrop of this moment in history .

We need to do more to understand how the two major players
here understand each other.

We need, secondly, to improve our capacity for self-criticism.

Third, we need to identify our common interests.

And, fourth, we need to build the habits of mind and heart
necessary to end the habit of demonizing those who are different
from us.

---

Those in the West who tend to see Islam only through the specter
of terror and to identify a faith with a history this rich only with
the darkest moments of its recent past would be well served by
knowing more of the whole history.

I thought the best thing President Bush did in the immediate
aftermath of September the 11th was to go to a mosque and meet
with American Muslim leaders and say to the world, “Our fight
is not and never has been with Islam. It is with terror.”

I would say one other thing, however I think it is important that
the Muslim world try to understand the United States.
Sometimes I feel that our country here is judged by many
Muslims based on how they think the Middle East peace process
is going and whether they think we’re doing enough to try to
give the Palestinians a state and a decent future. I myself don’t
mind being judged by that standard because I worked for it for
eight years

America’s support for Israel is not rooted in hostility to the
legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians. Our support for Israel
is rooted in several things. Yes, partly what happened in the
Holocaust, partly by the presence of so many Jewish Americans
in our country, but also let us not forget, as we always cite UN
Resolutions 242 and 338, Israel was also created by an act of the
UN.

I never thought my support for Israel’s existence and right to live
in peace with its neighbors was inconsistent with my support for
a Palestinian state and decent treatment from the Palestinians,
whom I believe have been abused by just about everybody who
had a chance to abuse them for a long time, including their own
leaders and a lot of their neighbors besides Israel. They have
provided a convenient football. I will say more about that in a
moment.

The only point I want to make today is: People in the Islamic
world should not look at America solely through the prism of the
current state of the Middle East peace talks. It’s okay, if you
don’t think we’re doing the right things, for you to criticize us.
But if we’re failing, it doesn’t mean that we’re hostile to the
legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians. President Bush has
said he wants a Palestinian state.

---

The first thing we have to do is to see each other without
distortion. Once you do that, it becomes a little easier to stop
blaming someone else for every problem and to engage in
constructive self-criticism.

Crown Prince Abdullah told a meeting of Gulf leaders after
September the 11th, and I quote, “Catastrophes are, in fact,
opportunities that make it incumbent upon us to conduct self-
scrutiny, review our attitudes, and repair errors. The real and
deadly risk is to face crises with hands folded and to blame
others instead of confronting the crises and taking responsibility
for our role.”

Terrorism, indeed all political extremism in all countries, never
accepts any responsibility for any problem. They always blame
the others. It’s always their fault. Blaming outsiders, as all of us
who have been in office knows, can be very good politics in the
short run. It’s always nice to convince your people that you can
demonize someone else. The problem is in the long run.
Blaming outsiders is a path to powerlessness. By contrast,
assuming responsibility to build a different future is
empowering

We in America would like the Islamic world to ask themselves,
even as we ask ourselves, exactly what inspired their hatred of
our country and what can we do together to defuse it, to prevent
more September the 11ths, not only in the West but in the
Islamic world, for we have learned in recent months that no
nation is safe from the fire of terrorism.

I think what stunned us in America on September the 11th more
than the method of the attack was the depth of hatred and cold
calculation behind it.

---

Everybody knows I think that it was mistake for the Palestinians
not to take the deal I put on the table at Taba. But they didn’t
and we are where we are. I also think that it’s been a mistake to
have three years without a resolution. The interesting thing about
this Geneva Accord is not so much the details. It is that it
proves that people of good will on both sides can make an
honorable settlement that is mutually beneficial

Now, here’s what I want to say about this, and this is where I
think you can hold my country accountable. We can’t impose a
settlement on the parties. But we know when we’re involved,
fewer people die. What we have now is ever since 2000, we’ve
known within three or four degrees one way or the other what the
final settlement was going to be. And we can go on the way it is
for five years, ten years, or a hundred years, but the facts are not
going to change, except the Palestinians will get more numerous,
younger, poorer, and angrier. And we’ll help the Israelis to
survive because we must, but it’ll be more expensive, and they’ll
have to have more weapons, and it’ll be a more miserable life for
them, too.

---

Why does the Koran say, “Allah put different people on the
Earth not that they might despise one another but that they might
come to know one another and love one another”? Why does the
Torah say, “He who turns aside a stranger might as well turn
aside from the most high God”? Why does the Christian Bible
say, “Love your neighbor as yourself”? This is the crux of this
whole thing.

Now, you know I’m a Christian. The most important Christian
theologian was St. Paul, who wrote an interesting commentary
on paradise. And since Muslims believe in paradise, I think I
will give you the commentary, and the conclusion of the
commentary about what our values should be.

St. Paul was talking about life today and life in paradise, and this
is what he said: “For now, I see through a glass darkly, but then,
face to face. Now I know in part, but then, I shall know even as I
am known, by God,” parenthesis. “And now abideth faith, hope,
and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.”

How in the world could love be greater than faith? Because I see
through a glass darkly and I know in part. Oh, I know we’ve got
all the television in the world. We’ve got instantaneous
communications. We’ve got science. We’ve sequenced the
human genome. And we’ve got all these smart politicians. I’m
telling you, in the end it all comes down to that. As long as
you’re prepared to admit you don’t have the whole truth and
somebody else might know something you need to know, we’re
going to do just fine. We just need to work at it.

---

Hott Spotts will return 2/26.

Brian Trumbore


AddThis Feed Button

 

-02/12/2004-      
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Hot Spots

02/12/2004

Clinton on U.S.-Islamic Relations

[Note: Back 2/26]

William Jefferson Clinton gave a speech at the U.S.-Islamic
World Forum in Doha, Qatar on January 12, 2004 that even
conservatives, such as the Weekly Standard and Ralph Peters,
praised. [The Weekly Standard''s article by Marc Ginsberg was
titled "AWOL in the Battle of Ideas: Why didn''t the Bush
administration show up in Doha?"] Here are a few excerpts.

---

The defining feature of the modern world is not terror, nor is it
trade nor technology, although terror, trade, and technology are
manifestations of the defining feature of the modern world,
which is its interdependence – a word I far prefer to
“globalization,” the more common word, because for most
people globalization has a largely economic meaning.
“Interdependence” is a broader word. It simply means we cannot
escape each other. And our relationships go far beyond
economics.

The main point I would like to make about the interdependent
world that applies to the relationships between the United States
and the Islamic world is that the interdependence we enjoy has
been of great benefit to some of us, but it is unequal, unstable,
and unsustainable.

For example, if you take economic interdependence, in the last
20 years global trade has lifted more people out of poverty than
in any comparable period in all of human history. But that
progress has not kept up with population growth or been
manifest in countries that are either poorly run or otherwise
deficient in indigenous economic growth. So that half the people
in the world today are living on less than $2 a day, a billion
people living on less than $1 a day, a sobering thought here in
this country that will soon have the highest per capita income in
the world.

---

Islam is the fastest-growing religion in America. We now have 6
million-plus Muslims in the United States. This tapestry of ours
is growing richer, and it makes us more interesting. But it is
ironic that at a time when we have tried to accommodate more
diversity, and you are a symbol of the reconciliation of Islam
with the modern world and with people of different backgrounds
around the world that you have brought here to educate your
young people with you, that the world is absolutely beset still by
conflicts rooted in hatred of those of difference, whether by
religion, race, tribe, or ethnic group.

So this is a paradoxical world we live in. We cannot understand
U.S.-Islamic relationships unless we understand the sweeping
scope of the interdependent world, its enormous benefits and its
persistent inequalities and instabilities. Because it isn’t fair to
say that every single element of our relationship, good and bad,
is just a function of who happens to be in power or what the
political issue of the day is. You have to see it against the large
backdrop of this moment in history .

We need to do more to understand how the two major players
here understand each other.

We need, secondly, to improve our capacity for self-criticism.

Third, we need to identify our common interests.

And, fourth, we need to build the habits of mind and heart
necessary to end the habit of demonizing those who are different
from us.

---

Those in the West who tend to see Islam only through the specter
of terror and to identify a faith with a history this rich only with
the darkest moments of its recent past would be well served by
knowing more of the whole history.

I thought the best thing President Bush did in the immediate
aftermath of September the 11th was to go to a mosque and meet
with American Muslim leaders and say to the world, “Our fight
is not and never has been with Islam. It is with terror.”

I would say one other thing, however I think it is important that
the Muslim world try to understand the United States.
Sometimes I feel that our country here is judged by many
Muslims based on how they think the Middle East peace process
is going and whether they think we’re doing enough to try to
give the Palestinians a state and a decent future. I myself don’t
mind being judged by that standard because I worked for it for
eight years

America’s support for Israel is not rooted in hostility to the
legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians. Our support for Israel
is rooted in several things. Yes, partly what happened in the
Holocaust, partly by the presence of so many Jewish Americans
in our country, but also let us not forget, as we always cite UN
Resolutions 242 and 338, Israel was also created by an act of the
UN.

I never thought my support for Israel’s existence and right to live
in peace with its neighbors was inconsistent with my support for
a Palestinian state and decent treatment from the Palestinians,
whom I believe have been abused by just about everybody who
had a chance to abuse them for a long time, including their own
leaders and a lot of their neighbors besides Israel. They have
provided a convenient football. I will say more about that in a
moment.

The only point I want to make today is: People in the Islamic
world should not look at America solely through the prism of the
current state of the Middle East peace talks. It’s okay, if you
don’t think we’re doing the right things, for you to criticize us.
But if we’re failing, it doesn’t mean that we’re hostile to the
legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians. President Bush has
said he wants a Palestinian state.

---

The first thing we have to do is to see each other without
distortion. Once you do that, it becomes a little easier to stop
blaming someone else for every problem and to engage in
constructive self-criticism.

Crown Prince Abdullah told a meeting of Gulf leaders after
September the 11th, and I quote, “Catastrophes are, in fact,
opportunities that make it incumbent upon us to conduct self-
scrutiny, review our attitudes, and repair errors. The real and
deadly risk is to face crises with hands folded and to blame
others instead of confronting the crises and taking responsibility
for our role.”

Terrorism, indeed all political extremism in all countries, never
accepts any responsibility for any problem. They always blame
the others. It’s always their fault. Blaming outsiders, as all of us
who have been in office knows, can be very good politics in the
short run. It’s always nice to convince your people that you can
demonize someone else. The problem is in the long run.
Blaming outsiders is a path to powerlessness. By contrast,
assuming responsibility to build a different future is
empowering

We in America would like the Islamic world to ask themselves,
even as we ask ourselves, exactly what inspired their hatred of
our country and what can we do together to defuse it, to prevent
more September the 11ths, not only in the West but in the
Islamic world, for we have learned in recent months that no
nation is safe from the fire of terrorism.

I think what stunned us in America on September the 11th more
than the method of the attack was the depth of hatred and cold
calculation behind it.

---

Everybody knows I think that it was mistake for the Palestinians
not to take the deal I put on the table at Taba. But they didn’t
and we are where we are. I also think that it’s been a mistake to
have three years without a resolution. The interesting thing about
this Geneva Accord is not so much the details. It is that it
proves that people of good will on both sides can make an
honorable settlement that is mutually beneficial

Now, here’s what I want to say about this, and this is where I
think you can hold my country accountable. We can’t impose a
settlement on the parties. But we know when we’re involved,
fewer people die. What we have now is ever since 2000, we’ve
known within three or four degrees one way or the other what the
final settlement was going to be. And we can go on the way it is
for five years, ten years, or a hundred years, but the facts are not
going to change, except the Palestinians will get more numerous,
younger, poorer, and angrier. And we’ll help the Israelis to
survive because we must, but it’ll be more expensive, and they’ll
have to have more weapons, and it’ll be a more miserable life for
them, too.

---

Why does the Koran say, “Allah put different people on the
Earth not that they might despise one another but that they might
come to know one another and love one another”? Why does the
Torah say, “He who turns aside a stranger might as well turn
aside from the most high God”? Why does the Christian Bible
say, “Love your neighbor as yourself”? This is the crux of this
whole thing.

Now, you know I’m a Christian. The most important Christian
theologian was St. Paul, who wrote an interesting commentary
on paradise. And since Muslims believe in paradise, I think I
will give you the commentary, and the conclusion of the
commentary about what our values should be.

St. Paul was talking about life today and life in paradise, and this
is what he said: “For now, I see through a glass darkly, but then,
face to face. Now I know in part, but then, I shall know even as I
am known, by God,” parenthesis. “And now abideth faith, hope,
and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.”

How in the world could love be greater than faith? Because I see
through a glass darkly and I know in part. Oh, I know we’ve got
all the television in the world. We’ve got instantaneous
communications. We’ve got science. We’ve sequenced the
human genome. And we’ve got all these smart politicians. I’m
telling you, in the end it all comes down to that. As long as
you’re prepared to admit you don’t have the whole truth and
somebody else might know something you need to know, we’re
going to do just fine. We just need to work at it.

---

Hott Spotts will return 2/26.

Brian Trumbore