The PA Leadership and the Flat Earth

Dr. Michael Anbar

Listening the other day to Arab rhetoric about their rights to the land of Israel and the supremacy of Islam over all other religions and beliefs, I was reminded that people once believed that the Earth is flat.  Later, when they realized the Earth is a sphere, they believed it is in the center of the universe, with the sun and all the stars revolving around it.

There are still people around who believe that the Earth is flat. They bring as evidence their claim that wherever they look they see just a flat territory. They trust their myopic vision.  But already some twenty five hundred years ago ancient Greek scientists realized that the Earth is a sphere by looking at its spherical shadow on the moon during eclipses. Also ancient sea travelers observed that ships at the horizon do not diminish in size continually but disappear vertically – the hall disappearing first and the masts last as expected when floating on a curved surface. To reach these conclusion people had to look far away and beyond the confines of their flat backyard.  When the Greeks believed for a while that the Earth was the center of the universe, it took hundreds of years of astronomic observations, looking further and further into space, to realize that not even our sun is in the center.

For Yassir Arafat and his followers in the PA leadership the horizon of history is extremely close by like the horizon of the flat Earth advocates. History for Arafat seems to have started in 1948 or at most in 639 AD, with the Arab invasion and occupation of the Holy Land.  Anything that happened before that, including all that is written in the Bible and in Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman historical records, and all that has been unearthed by archeologists all over the Middle East, is a according to Arafat a “Zionist myth,” invented by those Jewish Zionists who are descendent of monkeys and pigs, according to the Qur’an (Sura 5, verse 60). At Camp David, Arafat blatantly told President Clinton that the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem never existed – it is just a “Zionist myth”.

It is amazing that none of Arafat’s entourage seemed to have realized the ridicule in that statement and advised him to change it. Another of Arafat’s repeated statements is that Jesus was a Palestinian and not a Jew. This absurd statement was endorsed by Dr. Hannan Ashrawi, the “court Christian” of the PLO; like Dr. Tarik Aziz in Saddam’s court, also Arafat has a token Christian in his inner circle, a Christian who is ready to go along with any of the Chairman’s follies. 

Arafat’s myopic and distorted historical perspective may not be just an expression of political expedience. As a Muslim he may truly believe in what he says. Following his parochial historical perspective he continues to think that the Earth is flat. This disregard for history seems to be intrinsic to Arab culture. Islam strongly depends on the Qur’an. Reading the Qur’an it follows that Jesus was the nephew of Moses because Miriam, the mother of Jesus is the daughter of Amram and the sister of Aaron the older brother of Moses (Sura 19, verses 27-35; Sura 66, verse 12). Muhammad seemed not to realize that two Maiums (Miriams) lived some 1500 years apart. King David was, according to the Qur’an a prophet like Jesus and both of them cursed the disbelieving Jews (Sura 5, verse 78). Jewish or Christian history, which is described in detail in the Bible (the “book” often referred to in the Qur’an, e.g., Sura 2, 53, 87), was of little concern to Muhammad. On the other hand, Arab Muslims seem to have perfect historical memory when Arab conquests are concerned; remember Osama Bin Laden’s Arab claim to Andalusia.

How could two cultures – Judaism, with its broad historical perspective, and Arab Islam with its flagrant disregard for history, live in harmony? The Torah prohibits plowing a field with an ox and a donkey – how could an ox and a donkey pull together a cart on the road to peace?  Does Collin Powell’s “Roadmap to Peace” take into account this conspicuous mismatch?

Drawing again an analogy from ancient science, Islam is conceptually “geocentric”, believing it is the center of the universe, disregarding, often with contempt, all other faiths and cultures.  The Qur’an is full with examples of this attitude. And this Islamic tradition is perpetuated not only in Saudi and “Palestinian” schools, but also among newly converted Muslims in the US. Remember Louis Farrakhan the leader of the American Nation of Islam calling Judaism a “gutter religion.” The Saudis have spent  billion of dollars to establish religious schools in the US disseminating the Qur’an and its hateful teachings about Jews and Christians. In the competition between American religious tolerance and Islamic lack thereof, well funded activists of fundamental Islam may be the winners.   Their arrogant attitude has not changed since the days of Muhammad, 1400 years ago. Judaism, on the other hand, has continually evolved over the ages, and in spite of its concept of “choseness” (Jews believe that they were chosen to worship God), it does not regard its religion to be superior to other beliefs and, unlike Islam, it does not aim at proselytizing. 

One must ask again: Can there be a political settlement between Arabs and Jews when the former deny the history and validity of the religious roots of the latter? The most important precondition for a political settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict is an Arab recognition of Jewish history and respect for Jewish culture and religion. This means that they must treat people of different cultures and religions as equals. The Muslims cannot expect the US, Israel, and the European nations to treat Arab Muslims as citizens of equal rights and at the same time exclude or subjugate non-Muslims in countries under Arab sovereignty. The latter condition is generic – it is much broader than the Arab-Israeli conflict.  And it is surprising that it has gotten so little attention so far. We must all live in the same universe – the Earth is not flat and nobody is in the center.