Latest / Infidels / Arafat Told Us Exactly What He'd Do. Why Did We Refuse to Listen? | Harold Rhode
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- Harold Rhode: Bismallah. Richard Landes: We're here today with Harold Rhode, who got his PhD thesis at Colombia in the period around which Edward Saeed published Orientalism. He studied in the Middle East, he is a master of many languages, Harold Rhode: Okay. Richard Landes: he was caught in Iran at the time of the revolution in 1400/slash nineteen seventy-nine. And Harold Rhode: Nineteen seventy Richard Landes: I'm sorry, what did you say? Harold Rhode: I fled in nineteen seventy eight in the middle of the the revolution is not one day. It's Richard Landes: I gotcha. Okay. But you missed you missed the you missed the full play. Anyway, so and for twenty-eight years was an advisor in the Department of Defense on Islamic Affairs. he is now at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, JCFA, where he's a fellow amongst many important and among many important fellows and well researched fellows. He He has just published a book, which I'm gonna let you tell us the title of Harold and please lay out the thesis. Harold Rhode: Just published a book through the JC FA in Jerusalem. It's Islamic warfare and the October 7th Massacre. An ancient doctrine marches on. Why is this interesting? Because if you really want to understand what happened on October 7th, it's nothing more than the latest battle of Islamic warfare. w warfare since the beginnings of Islam. And what they did, if you look at the what they did, the massacres, the massive rapes that they did, both of men and women and children, and forcing family members to have sexual relations as well, most of which they filmed And we have the videos of this. It is unbelievable. Classic Islamic warfare is basically anything goes, and it's pre-Arabian, pre- pre-Islamic Arabian culture, tribal culture. It's how they all dealt with each other. And that was that and Islam were grafted together. And that's unfortunately where. Islam is today and Muslims as a rule don't know the difference between desert Arabian culture and Islam and anything is basically permissible in capturing territory for Islam. And once the territory becomes Muslim, it must remain Muslim forever. Why is this important? I'm going to use the Spanish example first because we don't have emotional commitments to it. The Muslims captured Spain in 712 and they lost it in 1492. Now, from the Muslim perspective, once it's Muslim, it will remain Muslim forever. It's been opened up for Islam. Why do I say opened up for Islam? The Arabic word is fatah, which means to open. But it also means to conquer for Islam. Once the territory is in Islam, inside of Islam, it must meet remain Muslim forever. Now, why do I say this? We are in 2026 today, and if you look on the internet. Richard Landes: Fourteen fourteen forty eight. Harold Rhode: No, please, you'll see what I'm saying here, Richard. In Richard Landes: Okay. Yeah, yeah. Harold Rhode: if you look on the internet today, when they taught in Arabic, there are all these discussions of how they are going to retake Al-Andalus, which is whether the Arabic term for the Iberian Peninsula. And when they mention a name like the city of Madrid, they Often we'll write, may it be returned to the bosom of Islam speedily in our time. Now, why am I bringing up Spain? Because I think most people won't have a commitment emotional to that. Let's then look at what this means for Israel and the Muslims in the area. And when we're talking about Palestinians, we're not really talking about Christians. We're talking about overwhelmingly Muslims. It means that. The land, this land here, I'm we're in Jerusalem right now. The land had was conquered in 637, 638, CE, AD, whatever you prefer. The entire land, including what is Jordan and Syria and Lebanon of today, and what is the the land of Israel, what all these things were conquered by Islam, the entire lands back then. So that means. That it is Muslim. So therefore, we can't have a two-state solution from a Muslim point of view. My job is only to talk from a Muslim point of view. Why? Because it was conquered by Islam. And Islam, once it it enters Islam, it is Muslim forever. And if temporarily it is reconquered by non-Muslims, it is the job of the Muslims to do what is ever necessary to reconquer it. In Islam, there is no concept, the Western concept of peace. we could we say peace, shalom, salaam, and we're very happy with ourselves with this. Peace and shalom basically have the same meaning. What is that? It's that we we put the past behind us, bygones are bygones. You, Richard, give a little, I give a little, I'm the Muslim, you're the Jew in this case. And I and we c and we c what do we do? We compromise. We'll come Richard Landes: Land for peace. Harold Rhode: sorry? Richard Landes: Land for peace. Harold Rhode: Land for peace. But here's the problem. In Islam, the idea of compromise, you gave in a little, Richard. I gave in a little, and it has nothing to do with our personal honor. I have asked over the years, I'm 77, and I've been working on this since I'm 14, and I lived all over the place, lived in Muslim cultures. I once could pray better is a Muslim. Than as a Jew, and I'm a Jew, because I would go into their mosque, pray with them. I knew a lot of Quran by heart. It's in my recessive memory at the moment now, but I can do some off the top of my head. And then I would sit in tea houses and coffee houses and restaurants and discuss or sit in mosques and discuss Islam with them in their languages: Arabic, Turkish, and Persian. That's how I imbibed what they're thinking. And I, again, I I've lived most of my life in in the United States, and I we have this concept of compromise. Now I have asked Muslims, Arabs, Turks, and Persians, Iranians, who have lived in the West for many years and understand Western cultures. I Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: asked them the following question. Is there in your language a concept which somewhat is close to our concept of compromise? And I said, I don't want an answer now. I want you to think about it for two weeks. And you know, call me back when you if if you have an idea. I want to tell you, these are people who is very comfortable, Muslims are very comfortable in Western culture. What happened finally? One did call me back. Only one, and I did this for years. And he said, Harold, I know we're good friends for many years, but what I want to say is a a little shameful, a little odd. The closest concept that we have in Arabic, and this was an Arabic speaker, is tanazul. And I said, What? Richard Landes: It's balancing. Harold Rhode: Now it comes Arabic like Hebrew, it's based on three letter roots. No, n, Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: z, and l, nazr means to go down when you get off a camel. Andabidi, I want anzil, meaner jamal, I want to get off the camel, but it's going down. The Hebrew word for a colt is nazirit, the same root. N-n-z-L. And What is happens in a cold, the stuff comes out of you, goes down. Now, what is Tanazur? And this is where the little and let's be polite here and say it's not compromised as we know it, but it is to be compromised Richard Landes: Yes, yes. Harold Rhode: in the crudest sense of the word. No one Richard Landes: So we w we Westerners will talk about, allow to climb down from the tree as a way to solve an honor shame problem, but coming the very act of coming down is the Shanda. Yeah. Harold Rhode: Coming down is is shameful. And that is the way it is. I want to give another example. And we think. Richard Landes: Can you can you apply that to the Oslo peace process? Harold Rhode: Well, let's put it this way. The Israelis basically wrote the position papers of what we call today the Palestinians. Richard Landes: Uh-huh. Harold Rhode: A piece invented, you have your choice of nineteen sixty-four and nineteen sixty-nine. It doesn't matter. We're talking about it's new in history. And what I wanna before even the Oslo process I want to talk about the 1949 roads accords. Now, in Richard Landes: Okay. Harold Rhode: the Israeli war in 1948, all these Arab armies invaded. They told their the the Muslims living here, get out, get go to Jordan, go to Lebanon, go to Syria, just get out. We will come, Richard Landes: Go to Gaza. Harold Rhode: we will water. The Jews, we will destroy them, then you come back and you'll take your lens and you'll get others that used to belong to the Jews. That didn't work too well for them. And in 1949, on the island of Rhodes, and Harold Road is my name, and I have no relationship whatsoever with the Rhodes. And their DNA, the Jews of Rhodes, is completely different from mine. We've had everything tested. Anyway, so once the story. They go to Rhodes, and these are Rhodes agreements. Now there, the Arabs, and they were basically almost all Muslims from the different countries that were negotiating there, they insisted that the the territories which were to r were to go under, shall we say, the Jewish control, not be called borders. They were ceasefire lines. Richard Landes: Uh-huh. Harold Rhode: Why, if that they were borders, they would be shaming Islam. And the penalty Richard Landes: Yep. Yep. Harold Rhode: doing that, I don't know what you can see here, is death. And they didn't want that. Now, the Richard Landes: Surprising. Harold Rhode: go to your second example. By the way, that therefore means to there weren't two states. The Arabs didn't want an Arab state or a Muslim state. What they wanted was to control the territory of what Richard Landes: Right. Right. Harold Rhode: was not in Jewish control. The second thing on Oslo, it's all fine and Danin, if you remember Yazah Arafat, who told us over and over again what he wanted to do, and we chose not to listen. he wouldn't say peace, he wouldn't say this. He would say in the end. It was very simple. He signed whatever records at the White House, and everybody is happy with themselves. But two weeks later he was in South Africa speaking in a mosque. And when someone asked him, and it's all recorded, someone asked him at the mosque, How could you have done this? How could you have signed this? And with a Richard Landes: Right, right. Harold Rhode: huge smile Yaza Arafat said, I just did what our prophet did, that is the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. And we should not call him the Prophet Muhammad, because Jews and Christians don't accept him as a prophet. This is a way of Islam trying to get us to accept their narrative. And we can talk about what Obama did with that in Cairo. It's unbelievable. And if you Richard Landes: Okay, come back to it. Harold Rhode: Okay, on what does Arafat say? All I did is what our holy prophet Muhammad did in a place called Hodaibiya when he was trying to conquer Mecca and he failed. He made what appears to have been a ten year commitment, ceasefire, let's call it, not that that there will be true. Richard Landes: Cease fire lines. Harold Rhode: For 10 years. And the ten years, again, there's an argument in the Bible, the first day of creation, didn't have a sun and a moon, so how do we know how long a day was then? Well, ten years, we have the same problem in the Hodaibiah Agreement. That's the name of the place where it was signed. And the and and and what happens was after two years, Muhammad saw that he was strong enough. And so two years in our terms became became the ten years that he agreed to before, and he simply his enemy, which was his tribe actually, Quraysh, who ruled Mecca, he and his followers boom went into Mecca, conquered the place, and everybody didn't live happily ever after. And what happened? That's what Arafat said. All I did. I sign what I'm saying, we're weak now. But we are not giving up on the mission. And when the Arafat and Company was allowed in first to Gaza and Jericho, what does the guy do? He comes in with terrorists in his trunk of his car and all sorts of weapons, and we chose to look the other way. Now, on the recording of Yasser Arafat of the tape in I think it was Johannesburg. But it was in South Africa. a lot of the Oslo crowd said, no, we don't know if this is authentic. We're not sure. Well, then they did some analysis on it. And the the person speaking and saying this thing was none other than Yas Arafat. We chose to ignore this. Richard Landes: So much of your book is on the Western. I'm calling it an ability, you can characterize it as you want, but their lack of understanding of this approach. Here you are taking enormous risks to try a peace process, the leader of whom is sending you signals that he plans to betray you. And why did nobody listen? Harold Rhode: It's not that they weren't able to listen. Aurafund never lied. We refuse to listen because Richard Landes: Okay, why do we refuse to listen? Harold Rhode: Because Israel's side is a bunch of Jews, and we're in the peak. Let's all get along. Kumbaya. And I want to tell you that around that time I gave a lot of lectures, and I was giving a lecture once in Hebrew, quoting in Arabic, translating it into Hebrew, what they what the Arabs were saying about this. Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: comes up to me, it was in a leftist kibbutz that I was was lecturing at the time, not far from Jerusalem. And the woman says to me, You convinced me, but I'm not I'm I'm not willing to change my views, which was all leftists we're going to be able to live together. So I smiled and I said thank you for telling me that I convinced you but I'm I said, why are you not going to change your views? I'm only quoting Arabic things. I'm not saying what my view is. Let them Richard Landes: Right, right, right, right. Harold Rhode: talk to themselves. And the woman said, Because if I change my view, I will I will have to completely my three rethink my whole view of the world and what Richard Landes: And I'm not really. Harold Rhode: we are doing in this land. And I'm not prepared to do that. Now I want to tell you my experience with the I I didn't deal much with Israelis when I was in Washington. But the few that were coming through, or those who were involved in the Oslo process, I said to myself, You refuse to understand the other side. You're gonna pay big time. And their response was basically, I'm this is my interpretation response. We don't care. We're gonna enforce, we're gonna make them make peace with us. How can you make Someone make peace. Richard Landes: Well so all right, so but what happened when it blew up in our faces? Harold Rhode: What do you mean? Give me an example. Where? Richard Landes: Well Arafat says no in July August and there's an entifada at the end of September. So exactly what he said, the the the warriors come out of the Trojan horse, which people like you and I were warning the world about. People in in the peace camp said, you're a warmonger, shut up, you're against peace, etc. etc. Then exactly what we predicted and what Arafat said would happen happens and does the peace camp reconsider or there what happened? Harold Rhode: They refuse to reconsider. Do you remember Richard DeBray's? These are casualties or sacrifices for peace. What does Richard Landes: Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Harold Rhode: that mean? This is delusionary thinking. And it's like, Richard, I have a glass of water here, if I may hold it up. And Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: I think it's water. And you tell me He said, No, Harold, it's poison. I said, Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: Richard, it doesn't smell anything different. It doesn't it doesn't taste even a little bit different. It's water. And you're kidding me. Harold, don't do this. You're gonna die. And this you're Richard Landes: Okay. And you drink it and you die. Harold Rhode: And I died. This is called delusionary thinking. And that's also what happened with October the seventh. Let me give you, I can give you examples. I Richard Landes: Go ahead. Harold Rhode: w if you if you take Route 443, which is one of the ways of traveling from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. Now you go down this mountain, it's basically a descent. And it goes down. And right before there's a barrier where they check to see that you can go through back into what was pre-67 Israel. They there used to be a huge balloon there on the left-hand side if you're going down of the road. And I didn't know because I don't know these things. The balloon had to be listening to all sorts of communications, telephones, I don't know, email. Whatever it was. And all of a sudden, it disappeared. And I said to myself, this is nuts. Why did you know and then you have this phrase in Hebrew, Hamas Murta, or whatever, I can't think of the the guy who replaced the Mahmoud Abbas, who is by the way of Jewish origin. Mahmoud Abbas he is deterred. Well, that is like saying I won't the other that lady said to me years before, I won't change my opinions, even though you've convinced me, even though I know this is true, because if I do, I'm gonna have to change my whole approach to understanding and how to deal with the conflict. Senior military people here, senior intelligence people here in Israel refuse to do it. And they also tell Nikanya, the boss, about October. Richard Landes: Yep, yep. I've run across that. So but wait, wait, wait, wait. Harold, one second. A actually if we apply your analysis, which is that compromise is a sign of weakness, then the reaction of the peace camp that pushed Ehud Barak to go to Taba and make even more concessions after the violence broke out, which was we didn't give enough, actually registers on their Harold Rhode: Alright. Richard Landes: on their screen as concessions and weakness. Everything so that everything that we give, all these Corbanotes, all these sacrifices, are in fact fuel for war. Harold Rhode: They are deaf they are signs of weakness. And when in the Muslim world people sell smell weakness, they strike. We see them as signs of goodwill. There is no concept in Arabic, Turkish, or Persian of goodwill. I forget Don. Richard Landes: Of really. Harold Rhode: what dictionaries translate. They have no concept of goodwill. They think that is you're either giving it or receiving it, excuse me. And there's no halfway. It's like a half virgin. What is that? Richard Landes: Yeah, no. You have a good line in your book. There is no partial humiliation. Harold Rhode: That's much better. Richard Landes: all right, so there's so much to talk about. Let me just ask you, because this gets y you're actually bringing in something that Edward Saeed did his damnedest to banish from Middle Eastern studies, which is the dynamics of what anthropologists have called honor shame culture, or I call it shame honor culture because I think shame is much more fundamental. than honor is. but you're you're bringing in this stuff. Said did his best to mock people like Gliddin Harold Rhode: Us Richard Landes: and what? Harold Rhode: people like us. Richard Landes: Yeah. Right. So that anybody who said that for instance Arab culture is geared towards war was being a racist, and you ended up with a speech that was so politically correct that it couldn't describe reality. So I mean, how do you how how do people greet your honor shame analysis? 'Cause I know I'm I always run into the accusation of racism. Harold Rhode: Well, first of all, I don't care what they call me. it doesn't it doesn't affect me. Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: But here's the thing. When September eleventh happened and I was working in I was at the Pentagon, the White House, whatever, and they did their damnedest. How do we call this war? What are we fighting? Richard Landes: Yes, yes, yeah. Yeah, you talk about that, the global war on terror. Right. Harold Rhode: And I it's very clear. It is classical Islamic jihad. That's how they understand it. But we don't want to use the word jihad because that's an important element of Islam. And a lot of it is really about the personal jihad where I have to be a better person. Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: If you look at all the classical texts in Islam, they all have a chapter on this on it on jihad. And it's very clear, it's not about Richard Landes: It's a military. Harold Rhode: a human being, it's propagating and advancing Islam. No, well, but the shall we say, all the money which has been pumped into the Washington establishment in various ways, they and and they don't want, shall we say, how they the Muslims talk about this among themselves. They don't want we us to know this. And they Richard Landes: Right. Right. Harold Rhode: and when you you when you say something over and over and over again, people then say to themselves, I don't want to be called a racist. Well, let's wait okay. Zionism is racism. well in Judaism, if if your mother is a Jew. You're a Jew, whatever you say from a Jewish point of view. In Islam, if your father is a Muslim, you're a Muslim. And I'd like to get back to that with our former president Barack. Richard Landes: Obama. But b before you go there, I I just wanna ask you on on this particular aspect of the problem that you're talking about the way in which they perceive us. You've called it radical Islam, you've called it extremist, do you use the term Islamism? Harold Rhode: I don't like Richard Landes: Okay, y no i that can be a short answer. What I I wanna ask you about is Harold Rhode: I was prevented also by Westerners who didn't want to be accused of being anti-Islam. I Islam Richard Landes: Right. Right. Harold Rhode: if they want to pray, if it's if Islam is a religion, which I claim it's not, Islam is rather religion is part of Islam. I don't care Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: if they five times a day. Originally Muhammad was told, supposedly, in a dream which is attributed to him long after his death. That he went up to heaven and was told 500 prayers. I don't care what they do, their personal relationship with God is their business, and I have Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: to say but once it comes into politics, and Islam is a civilization which includes politics, which includes war. War, the word fatah in Arabic, that word means to open up a land for Islam and The goal of Islam is to conquer the world. There are only two worlds in Islam. There is the Dar al-Islam, which is the world of Islam, and the other world is Dar al-Hharb. Har in Arabic means war, the world of war. What does that mean? That Sun our job is to make sure that eventually the entire world is conquered for Islam. Now, how do you conquer that? Well, you can try to Interesting, but it's please, Richard. Richard Landes: Hold on what hold that thought for a second. Go ahead. Harold Rhode: The perfect example, and again, they're not lying to us, the Muslims. Look at this flag, the Saudi Arabian flag. It is a green, which is supposedly the color that their prophet loved the most, and there are cushions on which you lie in in paradise, which are green, according to a lot of traditions. And it says in white, in in white, it it's the shahadah, which is the let's call it in Hebrew the Shema, which is the basic tenets of faith. it's a one-liner. There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger. Now, that's fine. What do we care if they want to say that? But underneath this, there is a huge sword on the Saudi flag. Why is it there? Because because it's just there for for decoration? No. How do you conquer? You conquer is in it Muslims are to conquer by the sword. And Richard, I was listening to this morning to a podcast that you did with a I don't remember the gentleman's name, with a Hindu from India. I I mean he may live in America now. I know. He was Richard Landes: Rajiv Rajiv Malhochra. Harold Rhode: we we think you know, my god. We don't think about the the the Islamic war with is with against the Hindus. But that's just the same as the war, the unending war, because it's only gonna end when the whole world is Muslim, and frankly, when that happens, the Muslims fight among themselves because they don't even agree on what Islam is. I mean this is okay. Richard Landes: All right. We'll come back to that in a p in a moment. But let me ask you, let's go back to your presence in Washington at the point when 9-11 happens. Now, I'm on the outside, I'm looking at these statements. It's clear, you know, Bush gets up in front of the Islamic Center six days later and says Islam is a religion of peace. It's clear there's enormous pressure on the United States not to Associate Islam with the religion of the people who did 9-11 because it will create either Islamophobia, that is, that Americans will hate Muslims because of their religion, or I think the way Obama put it was if we say that Islam is the problem, then we are we are ratifying the Jihad narrative that the West is at war with Islam and we don't want to do that so we're not gonna talk about it. Now I mean i it's exactly what the Isla the the people who did the attack and cheered the attack wanted us to do is not talk about it. Harold Rhode: Yes. And the same thing now as after October the seventh. Ignore it. Here's the thing. The late and the greatest Islamic scholar of the Muslim world alive was Professor Bernard Lewis. He said, how did he put it? he was talking about cr the cr shall we say modern critique criticisms of of everything. We study, we want to look for facts. And he said that Islam is a again, I want to get this right. Islam enjoys an immunity To any critical thinking about history and whatever, that Christianity lost long ago and Judaism never had. You could always say things against Judaism. And Richard Landes: Interesting. Harold Rhode: in the past, Christians this was cause for war, it was blasphemy. But Islam enjoys this because of the money that the people like Qatar and a lot of people in Saudi Arabia. And other places, rich Muslims pumped into the American academic and political community. it's always done in a way that is inconf and conform it conforms with American law. Well, I'm not so sure that's true, but I'm not a lawyer, so who am I to know? All I can say is God forbid we should offend Islam, but it's okay to offend Christianity, and it's okay to Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: This is unexpected. Richard Landes: Right. Right. And Danny Burmawi's point is the real phobia at work here is Islam's phobia of being criticized, which comes back to your point about honor shame culture, in which criticism is insult. It's not Harold Rhode: Yes. Richard Landes: possible, just like you can't compromise, you can't hear public criticism without experiencing it as an insult that has to be revenged. Harold Rhode: Okay, let me tell you about an odd story. Many years ago, I had a a really good Muslim friend. I'm not even sure if he's alive today. He was at least ten years older than I. So that would make him 87 if he is. Real good guy. We know each other. We knew each other very well. He was of North African origin. And we were giving a lecture. about the future of Islam. I was on a panel with him and and I know his views, shall we say, were t far to the right of mine. Richard Landes: Uh-huh. What year was this? Harold Rhode: I wanna say the nineteen nineties of some I'm not ex Richard Landes: Okay, before two thousand. Harold Rhode: And I I gave basically the talk or or saying a lot of the things I'm saying right now, which Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: no he agreed to in spades, because he said if we don't solve this and allow ourselves to be critical, to open what are called the gates of independent thinking. Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: ijtihad is the Arabic for that. If we don't that, we're doomed, he says. Okay, so I speak, I say things which are much more moderate from what I knew he thought. And he got up afterwards and he spent his time instead of instead of talking about the the the topic on lambasting me and criticizing Richard Landes: Well Harold Rhode: me. And I was like, you know, I didn't know what's going on here. Richard Landes: Okay. Harold Rhode: He sat down, he sat next to me. And he said to me. I looked at him and I said his name. I'm gonna call him Muhammad because no one would know that could be anybody. He said Richard Landes: Right, right, right. Harold Rhode: Muhammad was not his name. I said, How could you have said all these things? You and I both know after we know each other for twenty odd years, we've had arguments, galore, we've screamed at each other, and that's when the truth comes out. And Richard Landes: Right. Right, right. Harold Rhode: I said, This isn't what you think. And he looked at me sheepishly. And said, Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: Harold, you're a Jew. They expect this to s they expect you to say these things. But if I say them, they're gonna label me as an a an apostate. And the punishment for apostasy is death, and they will kill me. And I looked at him with a big smile and I said, Muhammad, continue to say whatever you want, criticize me, Ghir. I want you alive, good friend. Richard Landes: Right. Yeah. Yeah, but but in fact Harold Rhode: This is it. Richard Landes: that really highlights the role of peer pressure. I remember there was I forget his name right now, but there was a allegedly moderate Palestinian who denounced suicide terror attacks at the beginning of the Antifada. and he was feted by among other things, the Jewish community in Boston where I was at the time, a moderate, etcetera. And then he gets on a panel on Al Jazeera TV and he's sitting next to the mother of a suicide a Shahid, and and you know, he praises her and says, I would never call into question your holiness. And you know, on some level we don't even know what he really thought, but it's a function of the audience that he's dealing with. And not a c sort of inner direction. Harold Rhode: Yes. You're right. Please, we we we do we lie to ourselves at our apparel. Look, America, for better or for worse, is the world's policeman. I say that because America doesn't want to be the world's policeman. But the world has a very, very, very bad disease right now. It's radical and fundamental it's radical and extreme. And they have the ability to do whatever they want. Now if you have God forbid cancer. Unlike t in stage one and you don't do anything about it. It goes to two, three, four. And then bye bye Richard Landes: So Harold Rhode: you're Richard Landes: right. So when you in your prognosis, what stage are we at? Harold Rhode: I I I don't know the answer to that. What I know is that two things matter. Do we have the ability and the will to do what is necessary with our money? Richard Landes: Yes to the first, no to the second. Harold Rhode: Our culture. Do and the stuff that Secretary of State Ma Rubio is saying now is just awesome because he's talking about Western civilization. And its origins and its roots. And I have nothing but the deepest respect for this because what he is in essence saying that we as America must be willing to do what is necessary to first protect and then make sure that those who want to hurt us are, I'm gonna use my word, not his. They must Richard Landes: Okay. Harold Rhode: be dealt with, they must be eliminated. If they're not eliminated, it's like, no, fine, the cancer. Well, you manage it with stage four and you've done all this radiation and God knows what else. It's genetic test and you've got it down to it's a stage three or two. I'm not a doctor, so I don't know what I'm talking about. But I okay, Richard Landes: Yeah, right, right. Yeah. Harold Rhode: I feel good. And then you leave it alone, boom, it comes back. That's the problem. If you don't eradicate the disease. And I want to tell you. In the Muslim world, we have allies in it. In the book, I quote two people. One is Sunni and one is Shiite. One that I I do not a person I don't know in the Sunni world, which is maybe 85, 88. We don't even know the percentage of Muslims in the world. And we are by the way, just as inside, there are a lot of people leaving Islam, but we're not permitted to talk about that. I guess you and I, I can say it and I'm saying it. But Richard Landes: Right. No, no, no. actually Infidel Awareness Month, one of its major purposes is to give voice to these people. Harold Rhode: Well, there are a lot of people who privately will tell you, I'm a theist, I believe in God, and I'm not a Muslim. And that's you to say that you're an ex Muslim is punishable by death. And if and this is extremely important. Salman Rushti, when he wrote his book, The Satanic Verses, there was he there was a a a fatwa, which in this case a religious decision, it's not a death warrant. But in this case, it was the Ayatollah, Grand Ayatollah Khomeini, before he died, issued a death warrant on this on on Salman Rushti, the author author. Now we in the West say, it's two years, three years, it's not, you know, people have forgotten about it. In the Middle East, people forget nothing. And 33 years later, he is giving a talk. I think was it Carnegie Hall in New York? It's some big place like that. Richard Landes: It was in New York, but I think it was upstate actually. Harold Rhode: Whatever, I wish you that I we can look those details up. Thank God for the internet. and he's up there talking, and out of nowhere, a Muslim comes up with a dagger. And he is why a dagger? Because that's how Muhammad did it, their prophet. They didn't have modern weapons and things like that. That's why you use the sword or a dagger and all that. No, please. the Foreign minister of the UAE of the Emirates is a remarkable man. I do not know him. But I want to tell you how I got to know who he was and what he thought. I'm watching a conference, a Zoom in Arabic. I didn't know where, and all I could see was in front of him the the little marquee where his name would be listed. All I could see in Arabic was Abdullah. I didn't know who Abdullah was, I did not recognize this man. And all of a sudden, a woman, a blonde haired blue eyed, from her accent British, gets up and wants to ask a question, basically saying, you know what it's trying to question the the thesis that which was if we have an infection here, if we don't cure it, we're all in trouble. And then Abdullah takes the microphone. It's a 45-second clip. That is all. And it's one of the links in my book, in which she says, I want to answer you in English. And she said, I have I have translation. She said, No, I want you to because I want you to get it right. And what he says, you in Richard Landes: I burned this from you. Harold Rhode: the West think you know the other. And the this and the that. And Islam better than we do. And that is nonsense. And if you continue, I'm using my American English and his English, his British English was simply magnificent. And he said, and you are encouraging basically the forces of extremism and fanaticism. And you are going to endanger not only us, but yourselves, you're going to bring this on them. Is what Israel did on October the eleventh. Excuse me, October the seventh. You're gonna bring down us and w look, we're a little country, the UAE. And afterwards I looked up who he was and I said, This guy is gold. And that's an understatement. He's much more than gold. He's absolutely Richard Landes: Mm-hmm. Harold Rhode: awesome. Anyway, that's it. Richard Landes: All right. Sounds like he and Rubio should get together. Harold Rhode: I'm sure that he and I know that he has a lot of good friends where we are here in Israel. And Richard Landes: huh. All right. So Right. So there are moderates or I don't know, I don't like the use of the word moderates actually excuse Harold Rhode: What bird? Richard Landes: me. Harold Rhode: That's a Western word. Here's what they have. Richard Landes: Yeah. Harold Rhode: There are those who say that Islam is in danger of being taken over by the most radical and fanatic forces possible. Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: If the Muslims don't do something about this, then they will awaken. I'm going to quote Yamamoto in Pearl Harbor. He said, I fear that if we attack Pearl Harbor, that we will awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible rage. And that is the thought that a lot of Muslims who understand that Islam is in deep trouble and they need to find a way to use their sources to reinterpret Islam to Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: so they can get along with the non-Muslims. Or else They are gonna awaken in us. In the us in this case, ahead of us is the United States of America. A terrible rage. And when you enrage America, God help you. And Yamamoto basically said, if I'm correct, we can produce something like six six thousand or sixty thousand tons of steel a year in and America can do six hundred thousand things, and we are doomed. And he lost. That's the way it is. Richard Landes: Alright, so right. Yeah, except that except that there are all sorts of one might call them cultural antidepressants and other meds that are keeping America from actually even registering the threat, much less being angry about it. Harold Rhode: No, it's Muslim money from Qatar and Richard Landes: it's not just Muslim money, it's more than that. But i in any case, let me let me ask you this. at one point you talk about the power of the Ummah, and y you're again it's part of the pre Islamic honor, shame, loyalty, etcetera. There's this notion of the Ummah and the the the solidarity. And yet the statistics show that of the victims of Jihad attacks since two thousand. Since nine eleven, the majority of the victims have been muslims. Harold Rhode: Yes. Now why? Richard Landes: So go ahead, explain. Harold Rhode: It's really simple. In I grew up in a what we today politely would call minority neighborhood, meaning a black neighborhood in Philadelphia, where just that there were three Richard Landes: Mm-hmm. Harold Rhode: white, that was it. And they all went to different churches. And I remember a friend of mine once saying, You don't go to the church that I go to, you're doing the work of the devil. And that's the that's the story here. It's like I know what Islam is. I Sir Harold, the Muslim. I hereby dub the you know, I decide what is Islam. I got power and we and and I will use it the way I want. I will determine who is a an infidel as or an apostate and I will kill them. And that is what is happening. That's what Muslims are doing to fellow Muslims. No let me give you what on the surface will appear. To me, the opposite view, but it's really not. The illustrious ruler of Turkey, Red Saib Ardu, he says very clearly in his speeches, Islam is one, there's only one, there's no moderate, there's no extremist. But I define what is Islam. And Richard Landes: Right, right, right. Harold Rhode: he and and and he's a huge supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood. And thank God it's being outlawed in all sorts of places, late, but never. Better late than Richard Landes: Never too late. Right. Harold Rhode: what he and he again he has not lied to us, Erdogan in Turkey, about what he Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: he hates the Turk, the founder of the Democratic Secular Oriented Republic of Turkey in the 1920s. He hates if you listen to what is he saying. He's for democracy. And what does that mean? It means he says, and we have this on YouTube. He said, democracy is like a train. You board it, and when you're Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: you get off. You don't have to listen Richard Landes: Yeah. Harold Rhode: to me. You can hear it on YouTube. And one other thing that YouTube, which is sorry. Richard Landes: One that that was Hitler's line, one vote, one man, one time. Harold Rhode: Sorry, I didn't get it, Richard. Richard Landes: One vote, one man, one time. That's the democracy of the despots. Harold Rhode: Well that's an listen, every Muslim country on the face of the earth is they're ruled by pr they call them presidents, they call them sultans, they call them they're all ruled by at the best, let's call them autocracies. The people on top make I wanna quote leaders in the UAE. You want you you want everybody to have a vote? If we do that What will happen is that they will vote for forces that want to not only destroy us, they want to destroy you, meaning us here in the West. So, I mean, it's like y if you remember that America insisted during the last Palestinian elections, which is what is it like 20 some odd years ago? I don't remember. Richard Landes: twenty, two thousand and five. Yes. Harold Rhode: run and Hamas in in certainly in many areas won and and somewhere around one o'clock in the morning in Middle Eastern time, the election results were known. And Connelisa Rice, the Secretary of the Federal at the time, is on a treadmill and one of her assistants comes in and said, Hamas has won the election. And she looks and says, Well, that's not the way it's supposed to be. In other words, we want elections with a predetermined outlook. What we want. That's it doesn't work that way. You have one man, one vote, or you have you have an autocracy which basically tells the people next level, next level, whatever how to do whatever they're gonna do. They keep Order in society. This is not something that we understand. Richard Landes: Yeah, I think four Harold Rhode: And I want to just along this one line. I was at the Abraham Accord signing at the White House. Richard Landes: Right. I think Fuera did Jami put it. Right. Harold Rhode: And when it came time for the foreign minister Richard Landes: Mm-hmm. Harold Rhode: of the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, to speak, he who I've just mentioned before, Abdullah, who speaks a beautiful English. He chose to speak with no translation in Arabic. That means that the audience wasn't the audience there. He made it very clear these we're for these agreements, we want them, but no one is going to take over the society. We will run it, and and you will be happy because you'll see the results. If we do it your way, we're first and you're going in the Richard Landes: Huh. We call that enlightened despotism. Right. Yeah, it's in the Enlightenment it was called enlightened despotism. You get the o authoritarian figure to do the right thing for the people. Harold Rhode: Yes. Richard Landes: so listen, let me ask you this because I've sort of come upon a dichotomy for Muslims, what I call Supremacists versus neighborly Muslims. And the supremacists are people who cannot abide not being visibly superior to everybody else. That's and if that's the case, if they're not visibly superior, they're actually rendered quite insecure about their religion. Their religion should be should dominate. and the neighborly ones are the ones who can say, We're ready to give up the supremacism in order to live in and some people are calling it a covenantal relationship with infidels, in which we recognize that, we've been around for fourteen hundred and fifty years, we've been fighting with you for fourteen hundred and fifty years. Maybe it's time we change gears. Harold Rhode: They will say that as a rule in private, but the moment like my friend Muhammad on this panel is talking about Richard Landes: Yes, yes, yes, exactly. Right. Harold Rhode: public, they gotta be careful. They don't want to be murdered. And they Richard Landes: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Harold Rhode: would be. That's the problem. I I can tell you again dealing for so many years. Richard Landes: So you're saying that the most vulnerable people, the most vulnerable people to supremacist Islam are Muslims. They're the first they're the first ones to get hit. Harold Rhode: Yes. Richard Landes: And often. Harold Rhode: Yes. Richard Landes: And we have essentially in the last twenty-five years been trying to please people who hate us and who will abuse and exploit whatever help we give them, and ignoring the people who represent the direction that for civil society to survive, Islam needs to become. Harold Rhode: Yes. Richard Landes: Okay. All right. So so what do you think of the term supremacism? Because I you know, as opposed to radical or extreme or whatever, it seems to me supremacism gets at the core of what the problem is. the problematic aspect of Islam the supremacist, supremacist Islam, which is the doctrine that Islam is such a perfect religion or faith that everybody should either become Muslim or bow down to Muslims. Harold Rhode: Mm-hmm. I I I'm not sure I'm not sure if the label what I would say is I I I I I've been poor listen, people were begging me, you know, when I worked at the Pentagon and all the White House people, we need to come up with a term for the war. Richard Landes: Right. Right. Harold Rhode: And and and my point is I'm not sure about the label. All I would say is I want to use the term. that the foreign minister of the UAE he's always fanatic or extremist Islam. I the Islamism means nothing to me. It's just you know it it it's a modern term invented by white people to try to understand to label something without saying what it really is. Richard Landes: Okay. Harold Rhode: The moment you put the ism on the end, you're in essence saying, Well it's not Islam, you would have just said Islam. Richard Landes: Right. Right. Harold Rhode: And w we have to avoid at all costs to use the word Islam. God forbid. Richard Landes: Right. Right. Right. So but what about supremacism, which does get at Harold Rhode: That's and that's it. Follow the lead of the people in the Gulf who understand they know how to get along. They've been doing this for years, for you know, for mu way more than a thousand years. Follow their lead. They know what to do. We may not like some of the things that they do, but they keep order in their societies. It's the only way to handle it. Richard Landes: Yeah, but that's policy. I'm asking about terminology. I I do think we need a term for this. certainly somebody like Dan Burmawi thinks that supremacist Islam is a tautology, that Islam is by its very nature supremacist. And certainly a good deal of Muslim thought, legal thought, historical thought, religious thought expresses this kind of supremacism. Harold Rhode: Yes. As long I'm I listen, we have to get along with this world or else a lot of very bad things are gonna happen. How do we do it? And that is why I'm saying my experience has been if you find people within Islam and and Maui who I I love what he writes, he's not within Islam anymore from his point of view. I I and Richard Landes: Right, right, right. Harold Rhode: I don't I want words and you and I know each other a million years, Richard. And I'm I have problem with with with with words. Supremacy may feel good, but radical or extremist Islam, we understand what those two words mean, radical and extremist. And that's what again Abdullah, the foreign minister of the UAE, says, and I think it's a marvelous turn. Everybody one among knows what a radical and extremist is. There are weirdos you can't deal with. That's why Richard Landes: All right. Yeah, I think that what's right, but I think that what supremacism does is not just tell them w what they're like, but how they're thinking about it. and supremacism Harold Rhode: I Richard Landes: is a term of you widespread use right now, even to accuse Jews of being white supremacists. So we all know it's a bad thing, and this is unquestionably a d supremacist doctrine. Harold Rhode: Richard, I agree with what you're saying. It is your definition of what it is. I I frankly because my goal is how do we sell it to the world, and that is why I insist on radical or extremist Islam. Richard Landes: Sorry. Harold Rhode: You Wanna call it supremism? That's fine. supremism. Richard Landes: Supremacism, yes. Okay. All right, look. Tried it out. what about neighborly Muslims? Harold Rhode: What about Sorry? Richard Landes: Neighborly Muslims. Harold Rhode: Whatever you want, Richard. I'm I'm not gonna get involved with Richard Landes: Yeah. Harold Rhode: these are terms that I don't think people will use or understand. people know damn well what that means. Richard Landes: All right, all right. So listen, I one last thing I wanted to ask you because y y there you have a line in your book that I particularly appreciated. You were talking about Islam's unwillingness to accept that there's another narrative, not theirs, that must be taken into consideration. And that was part of your discussion of this inability to compromise, but Harold Rhode: I quote Bernard Lewis again, it's in the book. Richard Landes: Go ahead. Harold Rhode: That attitude, I'm right, you're wrong, go to hell. The idea of you have a narrative which is different from mine Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: is wonderful in the West, but we don't kill each other over that. They Richard Landes: Right. Harold Rhode: don't have it. They're we're right. And what what I just said about Bernardson, I'm right, you're wrong, go to hell. Richard Landes: Ha ha ha. All right, all right. As my as my grandson says when I try and joke about you're right, I'm wrong, you should apologize. Yeah. Harold Rhode: I like that. Richard Landes: Anyway. All right, thank you, Harold. Harold Rhode: Thank you. March on, that's what we need to do. Richard Landes: All right.