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June 18, 2008

A Slice of Life in Israel Today – U.S. Election Fear

Ron Marlar

"So who is going to win the U.S. election this year?"

This is the way Juran opened the serious part of our conversation after I met him in Eliat, Israel.

Juran is a retired El Al Airline pilot from Germany and a divemaster at one of the many dive centers in Eliat on the Gulf of Aqaba. The southernmost point of Modern Israel, Eliat is on the west side of the Gulf from Aqaba, Jordan, and within a short drive to the border with Egypt.

I was in Eliat for a couple of days of rest, relaxation and pleasure diving. After two dives from shore on the only reef structure bordering Israel, according to our Israeli national park pre-dives briefer, I hung out at the dive center meeting and chatting with locals.

Juran's question changed the day. I answered him that my personal belief is that our only hope was John McCain, as he seemed to understand the defining challenge of our time: the threat from fundamentalist Islam. He replied McCain was indeed the only hope for the U.S. and the world. He said that since the U.S. is the world leader presently, if Barack Obama is elected, the U.S. and the whole world would be in danger.

Juran and I commiserated our concern that Obama is composed of elements that simply are too radical and that fact, on its face, should disqualify him from ever attaining our nation's highest position. The truth is that he has been for decades too greatly steeped in, and influenced by, racists, separatists, shady characters, underground players - indeed even criminals - people who are openly Communist-influenced and more. Talk about audacity!

But also, he is dogged by the Muslim question. Another online news and opinion service reported recently that 1 in 10 potential U.S. voters believe Obama is a Muslim. I believe he is a Muslim because the Muslims I speak to believe he is, as he was born to a Muslim father and raised in Indonesia by a Muslim stepfather during his formative years - age 6-10.

As he has written himself in his books, Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope, he describes his history as an "exotic background" in the latter book (p. 120). Writing of immigration in the U.S. - in the context of the internment of Japanese and 9/11/2001 - he says he will side with Muslims if the political situation gets tough (p. 161). This in itself should not necessarily disqualify him from seeking the presidential office, although it might, but being less than candid about his background as a Muslim certainly does. When he says, "I have never been a Muslim" and "I have always been a Christian", the words "never" and "always" carry much weight. These statements need to be vetted entirely before we make any final judgments. In my opinion, they have not yet.

While 9 of 10 Americans do not believe Obama is a Muslim, Juran, Muslims I meet in the Middle East, every Israeli I have met and I not only believe, but know, Obama is a Muslim as Muslims understand Islam. You would know it too if you knew Islam as Juran and others in Israel do from having lived with Muslims most of their lives, as Muslims do, and as I do from having studied Islam for 40-plus years so far.

Dan Pipes described it well:

"I've always been a Christian," said Obama, focusing on his own personal lack of practice of Islam as a child to deny any connection to Islam. But Muslims do not see practice as key. For them, that he was born to a line of Muslim males makes him born a Muslim. Further, all children born with an Arabic name based on the H-S-N trilateral root (Hussein, Hassan, and others) can be assumed to be Muslim, so they will understand Obama's full name, Barack Hussein Obama, to proclaim him a born Muslim.

Further, family and friends considered him as a child to be Muslim. In "Obama Debunks Claim About Islamic School," Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press wrote on January 24, 2007, that

"Obama's mother, divorced from Obama's father, married a man from Indonesia named Lolo Soetoro, and the family relocated to the country from 1967-71. At first, Obama attended the Catholic school, Fransiskus Assisis, where documents showed he enrolled as a Muslim, the religion of his stepfather. The document required that each student choose one of five state-sanctioned religions when registering - Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic or Protestant."

Pipes further states:

The Times looked into the matter further and learned more about his Indonesian interlude:

"His former Roman Catholic and Muslim teachers, along with two people who were identified by Obama's grade-school teacher as childhood friends, say Obama was registered by his family as a Muslim at both schools he attended. That registration meant that during the third and fourth grades, Obama learned about Islam for two hours each week in religion class."

The childhood friends say Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at the local mosque. "We prayed but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque," Zulfin Adi said. "But as kids, we loved to meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played." ... Obama's younger sister, Maya Soetoro, said in a statement released by the campaign that the family attended the mosque only "for big communal events," not every Friday.

Recalling Obama's time in Indonesia, the Times account contains quotes that Obama "went to the mosque," and that he "was Muslim."

Summarized, available evidence suggests Obama was born a Muslim to a non-practicing Muslim father and for some years had a reasonably Muslim upbringing under the auspices of his Indonesian step-father. At some point, he converted to Christianity. It appears false to state, as Obama does, "I've always been a Christian" and "I've never practiced Islam." The campaign appears to be either ignorant or fabricating when it states that "Obama never prayed in a mosque."

And last, Pipes states:

Paul Watson of the Los Angeles Times (available online in a Baltimore Sun reprint) reported that the Obama campaign had retreated from that absolute statement and instead issued a more nuanced one: "Obama has never been a practicing Muslim."

But the problem is not Obama's faith as a Muslim, or a Christian, or any other religion per se. Rather it is America's ignorance of the fundamentalist elements of Islam - which gravely threaten our national security - that is the problem. Juran, a no-nonsense, hard-nosed guy who has been responsible for the lives of thousands of El Al passengers and is still responsible for the same as a divemaster leading scuba divers, said "I am scared, more scared than I have ever been in my life."

Why? Because Juran judges U.S. voters as "stupid and willfully ignorant."

His belief is that until U.S. voters understand Islam as Islam is meant to be understood, not as poseurs want us to understand it, we will be very far away from addressing it as it needs to be addressed. Further, he believes we are still unprepared to choose and vote into office any candidate - presidential or otherwise - who is best qualified to address Islam correctly with the wisdom, knowledge and unequivocal pro-American position necessary to do so.

The fact that there is any confusion among Americans (and there is much) about what constitutes a Muslim, and indeed if Obama left the Muslim faith, what constitutes an apostate or a murtadd, is an indication of just how far off the mark Americans are.

Ron Marlar is a retired Air Force officer, college professor and seminary graduate who travels frequently to the Middle East to meet with and research both Muslims and non-Muslims living there. Feedback: editorialdirector@familysecuritymatters.org.

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