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Politics : America Under Siege: The End of Innocence -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lorne who wrote (18574)	9/13/2002 5:00:27 PM
From: David in Ontario	Respond to of 27718

Hi lorne: a good model for the Muslim world in the Middle East is Turkey. Benjamin Netanyahu in a 3/4 page interview in yesterday's Ottawa Citizen (page A15) "Netanyahu's plan for peace: Reconciliation won't occur without Arab democratization" said in response to the question: "Is there something in Islam that is inherently antidemocratic and prone to violence." His response, "We have democracy in Islam, for example, Turkey. If you give me the option of seeing in Iraq or in the Palestinian areas a Turkish-style democracy, it is infinitely preferable, in my mind, to Iranian-style theocracy. Is there something in Islam? Certainly not in the vast numbers of Muslims who want to live peaceably throughout the world, including those in western countries. Bernard Lewis has said the problem with Islamic radicalism is that it takes the roots of the Islam and twists them in a particular direction. He says, that whereas neither Jesus nor Moses were political leaders - they were, first of all, religious teachers in the main - Mohammed was both a religious teacher and temple leader and political and military leader." Aside from the occasional military coup in Turkey, they have moved toward democracy in an Islamic state (97% are Muslims, mostly Sunni's). So it can be done, but it will take a lot of effort to overcome the entrenched power of the ruling elite and the clerics. David.