Understanding Al-Qaradawi

Yesterday evening I happened to sit down and watch BBC's Newsnight- and the subject was the visit of a controversial Islamic preacher, Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, to the UK. Today there was an accompanying BBConline article- and listening to the NewsNight item alongside the article you notice a change has taken place between what the translator reports of him in the NewsNight version and the quotes ascribed to Al-Qaradawi in the written version. It's basically only one word and an alteration from the plural to the singular, but it happens to be at the crux of the controversy surrounding his visit- his support for suicide bombing in Israel.

In the written account Al-Qaradawi is quoted defending his views by saying:

'"an Israeli woman is not like women in our societies, because she is a soldier." '

Whereas, in the recorded interview the translator says

'Israeli women are not like women in our society, because Israeli women are militarised'

I notice that the BBConline writer is an Arab affairs analyst, so, to be charitable, perhaps the alteration is to get a more perfect translation of what the preacher said, but certainly the original translator's version is much more comprehensible. In the BBConline version it comes across as a clumsy way of saying that Israeli women take part in the IDF- it's a fact that conscription applies to both men and women in Israel, although many women gain exemptions- and so the point is about Israel's militarism. This is the standard western defence of suicide bombers: what else can they do when Israel is so militarily domineering?

In the translator's version, by contrast, it could, and probably should, be understood following from the notion that Israeli women are part of a military 'occupation', and therefore the women are 'militarised' in the way that occupiers-by-force are militarised- that is if it's in order to justify the killing of what we would call civilians in suicide bombings, which Al-Qaradawi was certainly trying to do, rather than members of the IDF.

The question that springs from that is whether Al-Qaradawi sees suicide bombings as a response for the occupation of the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, or whether he views them a response to a Jewish state occupying a place in the Middle East.

Here you would need to bring in another of Al-Qaradawi's points from the interview with BBC's NewsNight- that he did not support the suicide bombers in Iraq. The reason he gave for that was that he supported Islamic suicide bombers (he called them martyrs) where there was no other way to confront their enemies (presumably the enemies of Islam)- the implication being that Iraqis had a way to confront their 'enemies' in Iraq without the need for suicide bombings; presumably through the Iraqi government.

Ok; but what about the openended offer of negotiations following an end to violence that has been the Israeli stance in perpetuity- where is this different from the coalition's willingness to concede to democratic demands from Iraqis?

The answer is surely simple and demonstrates Al-Qaradawi's beliefs: the coalition are temporary guests in Iraq; the Israelis (in their own view) are in Israel forever. Hence there is a non-negotiable issue over which muslims in that region cannot confront the Israelis apart from terrorist acts: the existence of Israel itself.

That is surely the viewpoint of the man that Ken Livingstone has welcomed to London, and it is surely true that the BBC are doing their best to protect our government (for their own good, you understand) from having to bar him or expel him- as other countries have done- by muddying the implications of his statements.

To support my view: some statements of Al-Qaradawi- one of which tells you what he thinks of Palestinian negotiations with Israel. Also, here's the Herald quoting him using the form of words from the BBCNewsnight interview rather than the BBConline version. Finally, here's the BBC covering the controversy they've preferred to soften.