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Bar-Ilan University professor and Israeli Arab expert Dr. Mordechai Kedar spoke at Congregation Ohav Emeth Feb. 15 at a joint Ohav Emeth-Young Israel of East Brunswick event on why radical Islam hates the West.

Kedar began his talk by demonstrating the presence of anti-American rhetoric in the Islamic world. He "Googled" the phrase "death to America" in a common Arab dialect; the search produced 41,500 pages of results.

"This is only one of the ways to write 'death to America'," Kedar said, referring to the other dialects of Arabic that did not appear in the search. "Where is 'death to America' in Persian, in Urdu, and in all the other languages that are out there in the Islamic world?"

Although he acknowledged that U.S. support for Israel is a factor in radical Islam's war against the West, Kedar was quick to dismiss it as a major reason.

"If you ask some politicians they will say it's because America is a supporter of Israel," Kedar said. "I'm not denying that it has influence. But do Pakistanis really care about Palestinians? I'm not so sure. They have their own problems, and their awareness of what goes on in Palestine may be restricted to those politicians who rarely look outside the problems of Pakistan itself."

Inciting violence in the mosques

Kedar identified one major problem facing the West, which is hatred that turns quickly into actions. He explained that imams who preach violence stir up the emotions of a crowd by reading a poem or other religious material, and then manipulate the crowd's heightened emotions with messages of radical Islam.

"After he inflames them in such a way, [the crowd] will do anything because they are so into this," Kedar said. "It's hard to believe what those people could do."

Kedar played a sample of a sermon from an Egyptian imam who was arrested by Egyptian authorities for implementing these techniques in his mosque.

"This preacher spent most of his life behind the bars only because of these sermons, because the Egyptian government knew exactly what the danger of this man was," Kedar said. "If you combine the message 'death to America' with the methods which are implemented by those preachers, the danger is very clear because people are recruited by these imams."

Kedar estimates that messages of radical Islam reach one of every 1,000 Muslims, or approximately 1.3 million Muslims.

"Just imagine how many actions can be carried out by 1.3 million," Kedar said. "The potential for problems is still out there."

After identifying the potential for violence, Kedar proceeded to rule out other reasons why radical Islam hates America.

It isn't poverty

"There are those who would say America, as the representative of the West... exploits our economy, our oil, and our manpower, because the West lets us come in large numbers to work in everything in which Westerners don't want to work," Kedar said.

However, Kedar said that this could not be the core reason because the first generations of Muslims is thankful for the opportunity they are given in the West and Europeans face the same accusations of mistreatment that America does.

"The first generation usually is thankful of the hosting country," Kedar said. "They gave [Muslims] decent food, a decent roof above their heads, and decent jobs to work after what they witnessed in their homelands."

The problems Muslims faced in their home countries, including poverty, unemployment, neglect, and disease, helped the first generation of Muslim immigrants into America and Europe appreciate the new opportunities given to them in these countries, Kedar explained. However, the second generation is the one that harbors resentment against their host countries.

"Muslims, particularly in Europe, are blue collar workers," Kedar said. "They are not the lawyers or the accountants, and they remain to clean the streets and do other humiliating jobs."

Kedar cited the London tube bombings from July 7, 2005, which were carried out by English born and educated Pakistanis.

"They were educated that every person was created equal, yet, when they faced the society, especially as people in their early 20s, they suffered from discrimination, and it has nothing to do with Israel or Palestine," Kedar said. "It's only because [of] what they witnessed in their second homeland where they were born."

The clash of civilizations

Kedar then elaborated on what he says is the reason for anti-American tendencies across the Muslim world: the clash between traditional Islam and modernization that America stands for.

"What's happened to the last generation is Islam as a whole became vulnerable," Kedar said. "There was an influx of messages that came through the media into the Islamic home, which was a place of tradition for generations, where the father knew exactly who comes in, what newspapers came into the walls, what books are being introduced into the family, what the boys are exposed to, and especially what the girls are exposed to."

For a traditional Muslim family, Kedar said that inventions like cell phones and the Internet were undermining the morals and ethics that the family holds. The women and girls of Islamic society, who Kedar calls the "weak link in the chain of Islamic tradition," can do things that their parents or husbands cannot control with technology like cell phones and the Internet.

"Cell phones aren't devices to talk to each other," Kedar said. "They are the worst things to happen to the Islamic world because this device gives autonomy to girls and teenagers to talk with whoever they like without the supervision of their parents who can listen from the other extension at home."

Where Western society comes in, Kedar said, is in the realm of women's rights and individualism. Kedar said that a society that is based entirely on individualism and women's rights, especially when it comes to relations between men and women, loosens the grip that a patriarchal society has on its women.

"In Islam, a woman can be married at the age of six," Kedar said. "This was the precedent by Muhammad. If he married his last wife when she was six, who can say anything against it? All these organizations, which usually operate from America... say to wait with your girls until they are 17, 18."

Kedar said that the Muslim world does not just have a problem with the age restrictions on marriage, but on the restriction of the number of wives and Western laws on the treatment of women as well.

"The United Nations doesn't allow polygamy in order to reduce population growth in the third world," Kedar said. "But Allah gave Muslims permission to marry up to four wives. 'Who are they, the wine drinkers, who will tell us, the believers, not to have four wives? Why should we listen to them? The Quran permits the husband to hit his wife... who are those people, women usually, who tell us to stop domestic violence because it's what? Not nice? Allah said that it's OK! So who are they to tell us not to do this?'"

Kedar pointed out that what appears to enrage the Muslim community the most is Western attempts to influence predominately Muslim countries.

For example, as reward for making peace with Israel, the U.S. offered to give Egypt weapons. When Egypt reassessed its needs and requested civil aid instead of military aid, the U.S. complied, as long as one percent of the money given was allotted to promote "the industry." By introducing Hollywood to Egyptians, the U.S. hoped that ideas of democracy and equality would begin to take root. Instead, Kedar said, it angered the Muslim population even more.

"Show me one American movie which doesn't have, somehow, some scene which is not according to the Islamic views of how men and women should behave," Kedar said.

The move angered preachers and led them to believe that the U.S. required this allotment of money to the industry specifically to anger Muslims and undermine their moral stability, Kedar said.

However, the spread of Western ideas was not limited to movies. With the introduction of satellite television, some Muslims began to use satellite dishes, sometimes run by a generator in their cars in the desert, to access some 600 channels from Europe and watch everything from news to fashion.

"There's no refrigeration for the women, no dishwasher, no washer for the clothes, nothing," Kedar said. "She's enslaved to work in the kitchen and wash everything by hand, but the man sits in the living tent and watches the wonders of the world, and they curse the West because of what they're watching."

Even though some of these technologies may have been made in other countries, Kedar concluded, its worldwide spread is primarily caused by the U.S.

"So these things, which were made in Sweden or Japan or Korea, are blamed on America," Kedar said. "It comes to their communities and people in order to undermine the stability of the home, which originally was based in traditionalism. Now, it is open to this influx of filth which comes through the media."