The West and Political Islam (1)

With the current developments in the Arab political scene there is a growing need to enhance opportunities for strengthening the relationship between the Islamic world and the West in general and with the United States in particular.

Initiatives supporting US-Islamic Dialogue should try to have a positive impact on these relations, especially in light of new challenges facing the two parties.

No doubt that America’s relation with the Muslim world relations are old and advancing while going through many crisis and challenges. There are many key issues concerning the Muslim world in which they expect a positive role to be played by the United States, first and foremost, the Palestinian cause.

The United States has significant interest in the Muslim world that it wants to maintain, and with the great change that is happening in the Muslim world and democratization, in particular in the Arab region, the two parties should consider new shape for these relations.

With the rise of the so-called “Islamists” to the political forefront in the countries of “Arab spring”; this poses a challenge in the relations between the Islamic world and the United States in particular and the The West in general, especially in light of the continuing campaigns that are sending fears from Islam and Muslims and the political Islam.

This is becoming a very important issue, but at the same time very complex, animosity to Islam is not a new phenomenon, but is old and is renewed taking new and different aspects over years.

Now after the rise of Islamic political movements, or that are considered to be Muslim, there is no doubt that in light of some of the errors committed by those movements, they pour oil on the fire, so all of us whether we are on this side or the other have to look at this issue objectively, and to differentiate between what is Islam and the reality of it as a religion and a civilization, and between the political movements that take the slogans of Islam to support their personal interests. We must distinguish between these two things completely.

The phenomenon of so-called “Islamophobia” or hostility to Islam is currently on the rise in the world, especially in the European continent. With the rise of the right extremists through the elections boxes in some European countries, this throws a greater burden on the Muslim countries and Muslims in various parts of the world is to correct misconceptions about Islam.

The phenomenon of Islamophobia has already entered the third phase of hostility after more than two phases, the first was the use of the freedom of expression to insult to Islam, as in cartoons and some films, and the second was through the spread of anti-Muslim environment, as was done in a referendum which was witnessed in Switzerland and resulted in the decision to ban construction of minarets.

The relationship between the west and Muslims is already suffering from extremism on both sides, pointing out that some of the extremists in the Muslim world offer unfortunately a false image of Islam, and that extremism on the other side is reflected in the denial of the tolerant values of Islam, with a focus on features provided by the militants from the Muslim side.

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