محاضرة البروفيسور الأمريكى جون إسبوزيتو فى كلية الاقتصاد والعلوم السياسية

American Foreign Policy after 11^th of September:

Challenges to Islam and the West

  7/ 4/ 2002 ))

  * كلمة الأستاذ الدكتور حسن نافعة, رئيس قسم العلوم السياسية بكلية الاقتصاد والعلوم السياسية:

Before I give the floor to the dean of our school to welcome our guest, let me say that I think that I do not need to introduce Professor Esposito.

He is very, very well known. Many of you know him personally. All of you certainly heard of him.

He is a distinguished professor at Georgetown University.  His area of specialization includes Religion, International Affairs and Islamic Studies. He is also the founding director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. This center became one of the most vibrant and stimulating forums of discussion in the United States, especially in the last few months. Professor Esposito also served as a consultant for the State Department in the United Sates and also as a consultant for a number of governmental and nongovernmental organizations inside and outside the United States.

He has a very long list of publications. I do not think I have time to recite all of his publications. As you know he is the editor of the four volumes of the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World and the Oxford History of Islam. His twenty books include many well known to you. I will only mention “The Islamic threat, myth or reality”. This book has been translated into Arabic and I think it is this book in particular that made him fame here in Egypt and in the Arab World. He wrote a book that just came out a few weeks ago titled “Unholy War, terror in the name of Islam” and he has just dedicated a copy of this book to the library of the faculty and I thank him for this.

I would like to give the floor to Dr. Kamal Almenoufy to welcome our guest.

* كلمة الأستاذ الدكتور كمال المنوفى, عميد كلية الاقتصاد والعلوم السياسية:

 بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Professor John Esposito, my colleague Dr. Hassan Naffaa, dear guests, ladies and gentlemen,

It gives me a great pleasure and honor to welcome you at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science in this meeting which I think is very important for many reasons:

Firstly, our honorable guest speaker professor Esposito is a prominent scholar in Islamic Studies. He wrote a lot about Islam and Muslims in a scientific and objective way. I still recall his important publication called “Islam and Development” which I   read in the mid 80s.

Secondly, professor Esposito will be talking about American Foreign Policy after the events of the 11^th of September and their implications for Islam and the West. These events showed that Americans misunderstand Islam and have a distorted image of Muslims. We have to do our best in order to correct the misperception and improve the image, however, our efforts will not be productive and fruitful unless Americans are receptive and open to dialogue with Muslims.

Such a dialogue requires, first of all, giving up the Western tradition that claims Western superiority and divides the globe into the west and the rest.

Thirdly, the West Bank is witnessing an unprecedented Israeli aggression against the Palestinians with full American support.

Ironically enough, the American administration views Arafat and the Palestinian resistance organizations as terrorists. Yet, we view Palestinians as free fighters for legitimate rights. This conceptual gap proves that dialogue among civilizations is a must. In my view, this evening will be an exercise of dialogue among nations.  

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming and please join me in welcoming professor John Esposito.

* محاضرة البروفيسور جون إسبوزيتو:

Dr. John Esposito's Lecture

Thank you very much Dr. Kamal, Professor Hassan for hosting me.

I want to acknowledge the presence of Dr. Hassan Hanafi, one of the great scholars of our field and a member of my Doctor presentation committee. (So if you have a problem with what I say, you can blame him and not me for he allowed me to get a doctorate.)

Finally, I would like to thank Heba Raouf Ezzat who deserves is one of the wonders of the world. She is a wonderful example of a professional Muslim  woman. I actually value the fact that the gender that is in fact the strongest and most intelligent is finally being recognized.

     What I would like to do tonight is to give you my perspective. I hope that in the question and answer period we can talk about some of the issues brought about.

The way I am going to approach discussing American foreign policy after September the 11^th is first to “contextualize” it for you. You cannot understand where we are and where we are going as well as some issues about where we are and where we are going with regards to Islam and the Muslim World without keeping some things in mind with regard to America.

     First of all, and this may be the most difficult for some of you to understand, I feel it is necessary to emphasize that just as people in America and the West in general need to understand how Egyptians, Palestinians and Arabs in general see things, experience things, look at things, etc. so too it is important that you understand how Americans have experienced September the 11^th. Only if you understand that, can you understand why the American people continue, regardless of what President Bush has done, continue to support him in such an overwhelming number. These are not the numbers one will find for Mr. Ben Ali in Tunisia; these are real numbers that reflect independent votes.

     The major point I will make is that although from the perspective of many in this room -as bad as the tragedy may have been- the numbers of people killed will not seem to be all that great compared to the number of people killed in Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir in many situations, the fact is for the American people that this has been an extremely dramatic event. America has never fought a war on its own soil in its own country. America may have in the 20^th century built a very strong military, and some may argue militant, country but war was always fought over there. Americans never experienced war in a significant way at home. It was inconceivable to most Americans that the World Trade Center could come crashing down, that the Pentagon could be attacked. Think about what this says to Americans about security: if they can get the Pentagon, they can get the White House, etc. Many Americans, even though there were only some three thousand and some other people killed, experienced this event personally to a remarkable extent. I will not go into that but in my own situation my brother was only seven blocks away from the World Trade Center bombing, he works right near there. He was affected both psychologically as well as physically in terms of the fume, the smoke, etc. but literally he saw the towers come down. My editor had to evacuate and entirely did not know what it was with planes and helicopters flying overhead. These are experiences Americans do not have. They see them on television occurring to other people some place else.

So that is important to know because it is a concern for Americans today to see things that many of you were used to when you travel. For example, for Americans after the attacks to see tanks and jeeps and military in the streets of Georgetown, not just around the Pentagon, in the streets of Georgetown, to go to airports and see military people is something they feel concerned about. I travel all the time in the Arab and Muslim world, I am used to seeing security people and military people at the airports. I still stare when I go to an American airport and I go through security and I suddenly look and there is somebody with a rifle. I do not feel that way in another context but I do because it is not part of what we see or expect.

 But let us talk about US foreign policy.

I like to talk about it in terms of rhetoric, what is said, and its reality, what is done.

      Let us begin with a very simple observation but one that will help you to understand part of what Bush is dealing with. This is not to justify what Bush is doing. It is in fact to tell you why there is a problem, in a sense, with Mr. Bush. It will be a similar problem for any American president and that is that the basis for American foreign policy has been for many years a concern for the existence and the security of the state of Israel. That has been a basic policy. Just as, analogously, Egypt sees itself as a part of the Arab World and in a way that can never change because it is a part of its identity, in many ways for American foreign policy that is a given.

      The second thing is access to oil and therefore the stability in the Middle East, thus the alliances with Egypt and Saudi Arabia but also with Israel. Now some of my Egyptian friends would argue that if you look at recent years, you could almost argue that Israel is a source of instability and that the United States should recognize that, that rather than being a positive, it is a negative. Within America that is a given for any administration, whether it is republican, democrat, liberal or conservative. It is part of our political culture.

     Then come issues like self-determination, democracy and human rights but these tend to be subordinated to national interest. Now in the name of honesty this is what most nations do. Even countries in this region that may say that their primary commitment is to Islam, when it comes to critical points, you will often see that they are overriding national identity and interests will also become a significant fact.

     Another fact is that for Americans the separation of religion and politics is a given, it is obvious. And any mixing of religion in politics for many Americans is a problem, is incomprehensible.  So there is a kind of divide not just as many Americans say: for us it is one way for others it is another way, but it is a form of what I would call secular fundamentalism, i.e. not that I do have my view and you have yours, not that I may believe I am right, but in fact that my view is the only correct view so if you do not hold my view then there is something wrong with you, you cannot have a viable state, etc. It is that kind of mentality.

     Finally, let us talk a little bit about experience. America on the one hand has had strategic relationships, I did not say friendships, I did not say friendly relationships, I said strategic relationships with Egypt, with Turkey, with Saudi Arabia, with Indonesia but often these relationships that America has with many countries are based on national interests. I have often said to Saudis in Saudi Arabia be realistic, it is not that the Americans do not like you and an American ambassador may not know your religion and culture but primarily this relationship is our national interest. It is not because Americans say aha Islam, it is one of the religions of Abraham, it is not that Americans feel a need to know a lot about the culture of Saudi Arabia, it is national interest.

     On the other hand America’s experiences have not only been these strategic, friendly relationships but also of political Islam, or what in the States is also called Islamic Fundamentalism, Islamism. But this is important, when I decided to study Islam, and the role of Islam in politics and society, the reaction of my mother, my colleagues, my family was what is wrong with you, and you will never get a job. This says something about the United States in the late 60s, early 70s. Even though Islam was the second largest religion in the world, it was not visible, Muslims were not that visible in America and Islam in the universities and schools was not visible, and what you had was a set of stereotypes. In those days it was Arabs, deserts, Harems then it became Niqabs, Ayatollah Khomeni, etc. So the experience of Islam for many Americans came with the Iranian revolution, they experienced Islam as a threat. Their ally was overthrown in Iran, their ally in Egypt, president Sadat, was assassinated, a man enormously popular in America. Americans could not understand, that as popular as Sadat was, that in Egypt, as well as in other countries, there could be a divided opinion. Americans could not understand or accept this. (One of my hosts here in Egypt commented that he met an American flight attendant and she said to him that when she heard that Anwar Alsadat died she was driving on the road, she had to go off the road and she cried for almost half an hour.) So it is to suddenly see a Shah of Iran -with oil wealth, security and military forces, his allies were America, Britain and even Israel, the largest military in the Middle East, with the exception of Israel, he spoke English, dressed like us, talked like us- overthrown. They pictured next to him an old man with a long beard, never smiled, looking very old, living in a little suburb outside Paris. It would be like my taking of the United States president to a little town outside of Washington and showing him an old man dressed funny and telling him this man is going to overthrow this important government overseas and he will not be having a lot of people firing guns or a lot of ammunition. So a.) This was incomprehensible, a religious revolution in the name of Islam, b.) It was experienced as a direct threat to America and its allies. There were American hostages and then in Lebanon you had hostage taking, you had more than 240 marines killed. So the 1980s were dominated by this image of Islam and the Muslim world and it seriously affected US foreign policy. So president Reagan met along side the Evil Empire was Khomeni/Gaddafi, the green threat. Under president Bush, his vice president said that the threat to America, that the American military had to protect against, was that unlike the past where we were overwhelmed and surprised by the Nazis and the Communists, we could not be overwhelmed by Islamic Fundamentalism. That was the mentality and it affected the American foreign policy.

     So in the 1980s Islam became to be equated with Islamic Fundamentalism and Islamic Fundamentalism with extremism and terrorism. In the 1990s the situation changed. Those of you who read my book “The Islamic Threat” can go to sleep for a little while!!! In the 1990s and late 1980s with the end of the cold war there was the question where is the next global threat, will it be China, will it be an economic threat from Japan, the European Union or will it be Islam? I remember meeting with an assistant Secretary of state, at that time, who said to me Islam is not a threat, it is a challenge. That is ok, that is what I was saying, that Islam is not necessarily a threat. But then he said of course there were 1.2 billion Muslims in the world so it is the largest ideological challenge, and he kept saying to me when we talked about North Africa would Algeria become another Iraq. You know this whole notion, almost like the Cold War and the Dominos theory with regard to Vietnam, if one falls the next will fall.

It is important for you to realize that Arab and Muslim rulers, among others, reinforced this opinion. Many came to Washington and said we have a threat. All of our opposition are fundamentalists, not that some are, some are not, some are militant, some are not. The Turkish president, for example, came to Washington and said if they came in Turkey, fundamentalists will sweep Europe. Prime minister Shamir of Israel after the Cold War needed an excuse for Israel’s value to America, it became against Islamic Fundamentalism, later the Serbs said the same thing, the Indians and Chinese say it when they have a chance, etc.

So if you were the American president and you had not only the Israelis but also you had Muslim leaders saying this, this is what you will be thinking.

     And then what we see is that when some countries of the region had elections, and Islamic groups emerged as political opposition, this was incredible. Here they thought they had to fear an Islam that was revolutionary, that was going to win with bullets, and now it looked like it would win with ballots and that is why Algeria became a turning point.

And here I would like to introduce something to show you the problems that America had in its foreign policy towards Islam. In the Bush administration the assistant secretary of state came up with a policy towards Islam. America had never had a policy towards any religion. And in that policy he said America has no problem with Islam and it has no problem with Islamic movements. All should be allowed to participate within elections, whether secular or Islamic, but it has a problem with any group that will use democracy to come to power and then seize power. (Hello dear! My wife just arrived and I had to acknowledge her presence. The other day when someone needed to recognize me, he was telling me what he was dressing but I could easily say my wife has blond hair, he said aha no problem we will be able to recognize you. So there is a strategic interest in the fact that I am married!!!) But the reality is that a former assistant secretary of state (Edward Djerejian) made that statement but then Algeria came along and what did Americans do, they did not know what to do... So the Americans put a policy out there but they never thought about what they will do if an Islamic group came to power and that was an issue of the difference between what is said and what is done. And we will see that.

     After that passed, Mr. Pelletreau, the assistant secretary of Mr. Clinton, gave the same kind of statement but in the second Clinton term they did away with the statement. On the one hand they said the United States should not have any policy towards any religion, towards Islam and they articulated a policy based solely on national interest. What that allows for causes a problem. Most countries follow national interest but it sets up a conflict and this is a problem that America has. You say that you promote self determination, democracy and human rights but you say that national interest is of an overriding concern, then it means that you may in fact say we may go into Kosovo and say that we are defending self determination but in Chechnya we may do nothing. And this is a conflict that needs to be resolved in one way or another. Without resolving it, America will be always subject to people in the Muslim World and other places saying you have a double standard, you are being hypocritical in what you are saying and what you are doing.

      Let us look at the 11^th of September. In the lead up to the 11^th of September what do we see? On the one hand Mr. Clinton and then Mr. Bush identified terrorist states. Where are most of them? In the Middle East and some more around the edge. So we get a list that looked like Syria, Sudan, Iran, and Iraq. And then we have almost in the club Afghanistan and Pakistan. And the American administration passed legislation with regard to terrorism and among the prominent groups were Arab and Muslim groups, Hizbullah, Hamas, etc. And it passed the Secret Evidence Act; most of the people arrested under it were Arabs and Muslims. That is the background. At the same time you had Somalia, you had the attacks against the embassies in Africa, the embassies in Saudi Arabia and the association of many of these actions with Mr. Bin Laden. Whether believed that he did it, whether he said that he did not do it, he celebrated that it happened. And then you see again the emergence of this tension in terms of US policy. On the one hand Mr. Clinton, like Mr. Bush, acknowledges Islam nationally and there are many Muslim citizens and they mean it in a genuine way. And they had the Iftar at the White House, at the State Department but it is done in the same context in which there is attack against Sudan and Afghanistan. So you have the president, the secretary of state, the head of the national security counsel saying we respect Islam and Muslims, the attacks are not about that. That is fine as long as the attacks proved to be targeted and true and as long as there is a connection between what you say and what you do. When there is not a connection such as the attack in Sudan, there is a problem. This continues as I show you in terms of the current administration.

     So Bin Laden then is on the horizon and then along comes September 11^th. September 11^th sets the clearest signal that global terrorism is there. And that global terrorism right now, although it is global, is predominantly that of Muslim extremists. President Bush distinguishes immediately between Islam and global terrorism and he is very consistent about that. The president goes to a mosque; he is very consistent about that.

     (People like always to project whether or not one is connected with the American government, etc. First of all, my visit here is private, it is not sponsored by my government, although I am proud to be an American. Secondly, I have no major influence with Mr. Bush. There have been stories that I had influence with Mr. Clinton. They were exaggerated but they were good for my mother and my father with regards to my reputation. With regard to Mr. Bush I was asked for advice once on something very small and at the end of the day my advice was wrong and not followed. I received a phone call and they said: The White House needs your advice, the president will be giving a speech today, is it appropriate for him to recite the Quran? So I said well in general he can recite the Quran but I thought it will be a political speech and I thought this is very touchy. You recite the Quran in a political context! They did not tell me that he was going to a mosque; they said we couldn’t tell you where it will be or what he will say. So at the end of the day he went to the mosque and he quoted the Quran and all Muslims celebrated that he quoted the Quran. I think that discredited Esposito as any kind of perceptive adviser or observer although I have advised other branches such as the State department and the military, though in a very limited way.)

     So September 11^th comes and what do we see? The Bush administration puts out that it is not about Islam but then Mr. Bush slips and talks about crusades, but then he apologizes. The Pentagon talks about an “infinite justice” then they withdraw but two weeks ago when they raided Muslim institutions, the FBI calls it the “Green Front”, so how often can you make a mistake, unless you explain it like my father used to explain it when he got frustrated with me and my brother he would look at us and say the older you get, the stupider you get.

     But this slip is important in terms of rhetoric. The attorney general being interviewed made a very unhappy comparison between Christianity and Islam when he said Muslim fathers sent their children to die for Allah and in Christianity we believe that God sent his only son to die for human kind. He may not quite have meant that but the fact is you do not make those mistakes. You cannot afford them. If Mr. Mubarak makes a similar statement, it will be taken seriously. I do not think the administration meant it but it still shows great insensitivity to the implications.

     But the most important thing is what did we declare. The United States in reacting understandably, in my view as an American, to what happened slightly overreacted by talking about a global war on terrorism. The president declared it without having to go Congress, without there being a national debate. We are going after Bin Laden, we are going after al-Qaeda but then had a national discussion and debate about what this war would look like. Once you declare a global war, you have to define what that war is, if it is global how far, if you say al-Qaeda is in 50 countries and you are calling it a global war, does that mean you will go to war into all these countries? Also how do you measure your success in the war? Having gone after Bin Laden, because the Taliban would not give him up, the decision was then made that the Taliban had to be removed. Again there were many who said ok if it is a strategic focus, move. The bombing continued and continued and it raised questions about how long the bombing would last, what was the level of destruction, what will the implications be. But even that was somewhat contained, it was still dealing with Bin Laden and the Taliban. Then there was talk about extending the war and they also called for extending it that the president now had to be logical if this is a global war against terrorism, then we have to go against all these countries that we say are terrorist countries. That was advocated by the assistant secretary of defense and by a number of leading intellectuals who are partly current political advisers. Then there was talk about going into the Philippines, which was done, possibly Somalia. All this leads up to what we see in Israel and Palestine and how we contextualize and understand this action.

     The American approach is military, economic but also includes public diplomacy.

      Military as I said from al-Qaeda and Osama it expanded to Taliban and then expanded to terrorist states and terrorist groups wherever they are.

     Axis of Evil, Central Asia, an economic approach, we are going to cut the source of supply, if we can, and also a positive side, that there is going to be significant aid given to Afghanistan and other countries where economic conditions may contribute to the growth of terrorism. That package is still to be significantly announced, developed and implemented and I think that becomes important but not done.

     And then comes public diplomacy. Public diplomacy means explaining what America is about but it also has to be listening to the other. In other words it cannot simply be propaganda of whatever kind. Many countries engage in this. An initial attempt at public diplomacy was made by the Pentagon. The program, as you know, was ended within two weeks because there were problems that made it look as if it might become a propaganda approach. Part of the public diplomacy has to be to convince the world that the United States cares and listens which means reexamining United States foreign policy, looking at the root causes of terrorism, acknowledging that there are root causes of terrorism, not to justify Bin Laden or Elkaida but to say that there is a need for one to see what the causes of terrorism are and how to elevate them.

     You can go after terrorists with the military, they can kill and punish but a long-term work against terrorism has to be something that aims to contain a limit because we will never wipe it out. We have to limit the conditions that enable the Bin Ladens of the world to recur. That requires though the kind of critical reflection I am talking about and which is not seen in terms of the current “war” in Palestine and Israel and the current discussion of attacking Iraq without addressing seriously the Iraqi sanctions. I publicly advocated that if the United States tends to go after Saddam, the first thing it should do ahead of the time is to address the sanctions and demonstrate its responsibility towards the people and then at some point after that talk about Saddam but not to do that is a major problem. And certainly not to deal with Israel and Palestine in a balanced way instead of dealing with that poorly and at the same time saying by the way, as Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush are announcing, we also intend to go into Iraq. It is not only unjust but also counterproductive in terms of America’s national interest. So that is the public diplomacy side.

      Now what in terms of US policy are we talking about when it comes to root causes and how is that policy involved? Look at after September the 11th what was the first thing that happened. For many policy makers as well as many people who are no longer in government the first thing they were asking was why is this happening, why do they hate us, we do not know, there is nothing wrong with us, they envy us, they hate our freedom, our capitalism, our success. That is not to deny that some people envy success and power, etc. but it is a simplistic form to say that what America is about is democracy, human rights, free economy and they are all the opposite. It reduces the argument to the ridiculous. We are free because somehow we have inherent values and other people have Mukhabarat states or whatever, so it is something about their culture. And that is the danger. When it does that, it avoids looking at the political reasons, the causes for this effect. Then you have the argument: aha, it has nothing to do with Israel. You see it if you read Bernard Lewis’ piece in the “Atlantic Monthly,” you see it more recently by Fouad Ajami. You look at Reader’s Digest, one of the recent issues; he talks about Egypt and says why do Egyptians have a problem, why do they envy America in Egypt. It is simply envy.

      Then the argument proceeds and it says Israel is our only stable allies and how are you going to reinforce that? You are not going to talk only about terrorist states, but you will also criticize and attack Egypt and Saudi Arabia, your two strongest allies. I have to be honest with you, I have very strong positive feelings about Egypt and Saudi Arabia but also, if you read my writings, I am critical at some times. I want to make clear where I am coming from so that nobody would misunderstand.

     But when you look at the state of Israel you have to look not only at what it says but also at its policies and conclude whether its policies are democratic, just and fair, in line with America’s national interest and American values.

      How then can we explain the current situation? Look at one of the first things that happened for us. In addition to those arguments being put out there, by political and government analysts and major people in the media, you also have attacks against Middle East experts and academics. A book is published by Martin Kramer, a former director of the Dayan Center, Tel Aviv University, an American, born in Washington D.C. who received his PhD in Princeton and later immigrated to Israel, he published a book called “Ivory Towers in Sand” in which he basically attacks America’s Middle East academic establishment and he says that in fact we are responsible for why America was surprised, we did not take Bin Laden and terrorism seriously.  He said a.) American academics failed because academics failed the   governments. (Well in the American academia much as well as the European academia, most academics believe that there should be a separation but then he says there were some success stories. And I am one of the biggest, if you look at the index, it is one of the books where I do not read the whole thing, I just look in the back and say well here are my colleagues and my name occurs more often than theirs. But he says Esposito discredited this sort of activist academic entrepreneur and he had a disproportionate influence on the Clinton administration in the first four years, but thank God they did not follow his advice. In other words they followed him when they made policy but thank God when they went to do something they did not follow him and thank God in the second Clinton term these people do not have any influence. But why the director tends to discredit the experts, because he is saying to the Bush administration don’t listen to them and then two weeks later at the “Wall Street Journal” when the Middle East Studies Association was meeting, he wrote an open letter to the Congress and said in this crisis what does the government want to do, it feels it needs more experts, it wants to get more money to train more students, but do not do that for the American establishment because it has failed you, you are wasting your money so know what  you have, you have all these different fronts because the Middle East studies establishment although it has different opinions, is seen as being too pro Arab, pro Middle Eastern rather than being seen as simply being balanced.)

      In terms of the American foreign policy, we have a problem, we have two schools of thought among the experts that I have just laid out here but we have also the American president who on the one hand did something that no president has ever done in modern history, that is post the creation of the state of Israel, he appointed a cabinet without one American Jew in that cabinet. He is an American president who knew that he was not elected by a majority of American Jewish people, because they voted for Al Gore, and so many felt he might develop a more balanced position, not that the president would turn against Israel, would turn against the American Jewish community, that is not what America’s priorities are about, that is not what we in America are about. I believe that Israel has a right to exist, a right to peace and security; I also believe that Palestine  deserves exactly the same thing. But what many forgot is that America has a political culture where no matter who the president is, democrat or republican, conservative or liberal there is a tilt to Israel. No matter who the president is, historically look at the votes in the United Nations that is the best place to see the lack of balance until very recently. So you see the influence inthe conflict today emerge.  Increasingly after the 11^th of September when the situation gets worse in terms of Israel and Palestine, the argument that is put out by Mr. Sharon and the Israelis when they claim that this is their Afghanistan, Arafat is theirr Bin Laden. And the more frustrated the Palestinians are, the more humiliated, the more powerless and the more the suicide bombing, the more the Israelis say this is not violence and counter violence, this is terrorism and we are fighting terrorists.

The American president is caught in the middle. Mr. Bush, I believe is a well-meaning man who made serious mistakes. To me there are a number of reasons. Number one, his strength is not international affairs, well ok a lot of people do not have this strength but his strength is not international affairs. Number two he is leading a country in which most Senators and Congressmen are not strong in international affairs, particularly in the last ten years, where most Americans are more concerned with domestic policy. Our television covers international affairs much less than it used to years ago, there were fewer reporters out here for economic reasons, etc. You in the Arab World can watch daily on Aljazeera and in other forms of Middle East television, and in your press you can monitor, what is going on in the Arab and Muslim world, in America that coverage has not existed prior to September the 11th in any significant degree. Every now and then there is a crisis. So as I like to say in America: “they (people in the Arab and Muslim world) see more than we see.” They see everyday Palestinian casualties, they see the numbers, and they see American Apache Helicopters, F-16s being used against Palestinians on a grand scale. We Americans do not see that. And increasingly as you know in recent times, the American media, as indeed a good deal of the foreign media are kept out of the Palestinian areas and so it is foolish that what we see all the time are the Israelis who are killed through acts of terror but not at the same time the Palestinians who were killed because of acts of terror.

      The president has to rely on his advisers; on those around him and therefore you have a system of checks and balances. If you have good people then fine, if you do not then the problem is what is the check on those people. And I think Mr. Bush is a victim both of the political culture of America and of the kind of advice that he has gotten. And you see in recent days the recognition by the administration that there is a big problem . But what do you also see , the contradictions. On the one hand America twice does what it has not done in the past , it develops UN resolutions and votes for resolutions that tell Israel to stop and get out but on the same day the American president and the secretary of state publicly just blame Arafat, say that he has got to stop terrorism, that he is responsible for this terrorism and with regard to Mr. Sharon we find that even when he is told stop now, he is not told stop now immediately and that allows Mr. Sharon to say ok I will speed up with what I am doing, what it gives him is a window of opportunity, if it takes four or five days to stop him , he has got four days to complete his job. That puts us in a very conflictual situation. My son stabs your son or daughter and I say to you I am going to stop him and I told him to stop this kind of violent action as of next week and if I do not say as of next week, I say stop it immediately but I do not say when exactly and I allow him to do it for another week and then when he stops I say,“look my pressure got him to stop.” The problem is that if you are at the other end (the victim), you say yes but look at what he has been doing for the last week too.

The danger in this approach is that it again disconnects between cause and effect in term of anti-Americanism.

A further danger that I see in term of American foreign policy is that suppose the result of everything that happened and of American intervention and maybe Arab intervention in a multilateral approach, suppose the resolution comes, the danger to all this will be those who say see what it takes is tremendous violence to move the Palestinians and Arabs to negotiate and the danger will be that the American administration will see this as a win, an effective strategy and not realize that even having accomplished something, many will not forget what happened that their historical memories will still be and therefore anti-Americanism will still be alive.

 So let me bring this to a close. The challenge for  American foreign policy, for the Bush administration, is to move quickly and decisively to demonstrate that it is willing to say what the secretary of state was saying only a month and a half ago, that the United states is willing to reexamine its foreign policy, that the United States will say to both sides Israel and Palestine, India and Pakistan with regard to Kashmir: you are both part of the problem and you both have to be part of the solution. It means an equality of responsibility for what is happening as well as for its resolution. Now you may have your idea of where the scales should tilt forever; however, I am talking as a political realist. It means that if you are going to talk about one side engaging in violence well so will the other; if one side commits acts of terror  so will the other side.  suicide bombing against civilians like targeted assasinations results in killing civilians indiscriminately.

 The United states even more importantly has to work in a multilateral fashion with the Europeans or with its Arab and Muslim allies whether it is on Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq, Chechnya, you name it and unless the United States is indeed willing to act in a multilateral way and that multilateral does not mean look at what I am doing, you come along. (I recently said I always used to think of myself as functioning by Ijmaa when I ran certain groups but now I understand my theory of Ijmaa is I consult and then I decide, which sort of means I have decided ahead of time, I consult, I hope you agree but if you do not..) And that is much the kind of decision we hear about. When president Bush says this is what we are going to do, yes we are going to inform our allies, and we hope and expect that they will support us but if not,.. Or he uses that phrase you are either with us or against us which is the equivalent of you are either a Mu’min or a Kafer, Bin Laden’s worldview and rhetoric. So the US approach must be multilateral.

 And finally the most important thing is a proportionate approach as well as a multilateral approach to a global war on terrorism. Otherwise there is a danger that the United States will reinforce an image that it is a new imperial power and that it believes it has the right to redraw the map of the Middle East or the Muslim World not to work with its allies and colleagues to address their issues in a multilateral way but rather that it will define leadership as a unipolar leadership in a unipolar world.

  * التعقيبات والأسئلة:

 Dr. Hassan Naffaa:

Thank you very much professor Esposito for this very stimulating presentation.

First of all, I would like to welcome Mrs. Esposito, we are very glad to have you with us. I hope you enjoy your presence in Egypt.

Secondly, (talking to professor Esposito) I hope your mother does not regret it at all that you have been studying Islam, she is watching you through TVs all over the world now, so it seems you took a fantastic track.

 Well Sir, the audience here is a mixture of experts in foreign policy, public figures, journalists, and also students and, given what is going on in the Middle East, I expect that we will have a very heated and hot debate.

 After your presentation I still think we need further explanation whether there is a real change in the US foreign policy after the 11^th of September. Because some will argue that as a matter of fact the US foreign policy did not change after the 11^th of September and that you find much more elements of continuity than you find elements of change but if we agree that there is a lot of discontinuity, then we will have to identify where we can find this change. Is it in the agenda, in the priorities or in the making of the foreign policy of the United States and so on? Also we have to try to understand, if we acknowledge that there is some change, whether this change is permanent of temporary. But I believe many of the guests will be better off to formulate what they have.

 Please I do not know everybody here so everyone who likes to ask a question, Please send me your name. 

  Dr. Mohammed Elsayed Selim, the director of the Center of Asian studies and a professor of foreign policy at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science:

 Thank you very much professor Esposito for a quite illuminating presentation, I have no major disagreement with you over virtually most of what you have said and I see myself the same boat as you are, especially the kind of policy you advocated at the end of your lecture. But you know, as academics usually do, we have to debate the issues, we have to disagree and agree or else we would not be true academics.

 My impression Dr. Esposito is that your presentation tended to minimize the strategic element in America’s relationship with the Muslim world and to approach this relationship as if it was a one-way relationship. I have noticed that you did not say anything about America’s alliance with the Muslim movement during the Afghan war. This is a very important episode that you crossed over completely. It is true that in 1979 there was Ayatollah Khomeni but in the same year there was the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and America relied on the Muslim World to fight the Soviets. Since 1979 and until 1988 America’s relationship with the Muslim world was a relationship of a honeymoon. A few months ago the minister of interior in Pakistan said 1.5 million Moslems died in Afghanistan to make America the leader of the global system, i.e. to fight the Soviet Union, which collapsed partly because of the Afghan war. What was the effect of this on the American perception of the Muslim world? The fact that it was the Muslim world that helped the United States to destroy the Soviet Union and to fight the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, I like to see your assessment of this.

  Prof. Esposito:

 You are right, I was going to mention it, right here after Iraq I have Afghanistan, Jihad and then we walked away. But remember that American support for the mujahedeen was not because of an American understanding of Islam or its support for thejihad but a support for a group that was going to fight, overcome and take the Soviets down. So in other words it was not as if in the midst of experiencing Islam as a threat in Iran, Lebanon, etc. as if after Afghanistan it would say aha but then there is this strong positive side. And that is a part of the problem and that is why it continues historically because America continued to have problems with dealing with Islamic movements. It never said to itself well we learned that they are allies and they are affected and, therefore, we can deal with them. 

Dr. Selim:

But after the Soviets left Afghanistan what happened was that the Americans left Afghanistan, left Pakistan and then there were lots of arms to fight each other. I visited Pakistan several times and there were lots of grievances there about the Americans. The Americans gave them all these arms and then they just left the scene and let them fight each other. What role did the Americans play in the life of Taliban and other movements in order to achieve strategic interests in Central Asia, Afghanistan and the Caspian Sea? America had a project to transfer the Caspian Sea oil via Afghanistan, via Pakistan and I want your opinion whether it is true or not that it has played a role with Pakistan to support Taliban in 1995,1996 until a certain point where the Americans decided, we are no longer allies of Taliban. So what is the responsibility of the US for creating this situation?

That began in 1965 when the Americans supported Suhartu and the Islamist movements in Indonesia to crush the Communists in Indonesia pre to one million Indonesians were killed because of the American intervention in alliance with the Islamic movements so as to promote the American cause so I need you to take this dimension into consideration, i.e. America as an active actor in the relationship with the Muslim World starting from 1965 when it supported Suhartu quo d’état against the Indonesian Communist Party and until it supported Taliban in 1996. 

The other question relates to September the 11^th attack. I like to listen to your opinion, although I have no particular view on this, I like to raise this question because it seems to me that you began your analysis by assuming that the Arabs or the Muslims or Bin Laden was responsible for the attacks. Is it a debatable issue, I mean what do you think about that. We receive lots of reports from American groups, journalists and activists telling us that the story of September the 11^th is not exactly what the American establishment is telling you. As a matter of fact there is increasing evidence that we do not know exactly who did it but we for sure know that this story has many hidden aspects, especially that there is a deliberate movement in the United States to make Arabs and Muslims responsible for September the 11^th for generations to come as that will be a matter that will not be discussed in the future, exactly like the Holocaust.  You cannot debate the Holocaust in the United States or France or elsewhere. I tell you that in a few years the question of the 11^th of September will not be discussed because it will become one of the elements of the political culture in the United States. So what are your reflections on this?  

My final question: when you told us about the support for Israel as a political culture in the United States, this is a very important statement and I think I must think about it and the audience too must think about it. Because up until tonight we were being told that America is a pluralistic society and you have to engage in the decision making process, you have to go to congress, you have to talk to interest groups, you have to make yourself heard. But tonight you are telling us something serious indeed and I am frightened, what you are telling us is that there is nothing you can do to change American foreign policy in the Middle East because this is political culture. So should we go with the approach that says America is an open, democratic, tolerant society where we can influence the decision making process or should we give up and say this is political culture and we can do nothing about it.

Prof. Esposito: 

All right, let me take the questions backwards.

When I say political culture I mean this is a long-standing position the United States has taken and it is, therefore, part of the way many people think. To give you an example, many people in Europe would say look part of the political culture of the Arabs is to be anti-American, anti-western. So should we conclude that that couldn’t change, so why should America bother to change any of its foreign policy? And there are some who say that: don’t bother to deal with it, they have thought like that for years, it goes back early to the beginning of Islam, certainly into the modern era, all you have to do is to watch the demonstrations, etc. It seems to me that after September 11^th, and I want to say this very clearly because it is going to be like a wild west show, and I am leaving early tomorrow morning, so I am going to say exactly what I like because I am going to sneak away on a plane, it seems to me that after September the 11^th we, academics, governments, citizens, need to start to think and talk differently. If we only talk in terms of stereotypes, then my stereotypes are as good as yours. The problem with that is that some Americans would immediately start saying: Not only my stereotypes are as good as yours but I have a bigger government than yours. We have to move beyond that kind of mentality so I wish I were pretty clear about what I meant by political culture.  

Now let me start at the beginning. I have written all about this so it is not just that I am saying it tonight. One of the intended consequences is that after Afghanistan the United States turned to other parts of the world. We can look backwards and say that was a mistake, we all have a tendency to do that. The world is a big place, and the U.S. has its priorities. Everyone’s expectation –and please read your media- yhtroughout the world was that the mujahedeen were real Mujaheds.  That they will get themselves together and form an Islamic government but what did they do? Instead, they turned against each other in a civil war and brought their country back to the Stone Age. When the Taliban came, it wasn’t just the Americans but many of the Arab and Muslim governments. Nobody knew who the Taliban were and like the Afghans themselves, initially, they welcomed the Taliban. The Taliban came in, they disarmed, they restored order and there was sense that these people are not like the other groups who proved themselves to be a punch of chaotic tribes. So mistakes happen all the time but we have to be realistic. I go to Pakistan all the time. Some of my friends  would say, “look at what the Americans did to us.” But also take a look at the aid the Pakistanis got from America too. I mean the fact is everyone says it, but we need to be realistic. You who  hear me know that I have often been and continue to be very critical of  American foreign policy in the Arab and Muslim world, on the other hand let us be realistic. Where do many  people want to go for study? They want to go to America. Where do most of the Arabs and Muslims in America want to be? In America. Most of them would say that they are unhappy with the American foreign policy, but most of them –not all- would say that they are happy not to find one day the Mukhabarat at their door. If you are a professor you don’t worry that if you disagree with the president, you are going to end up in jail. At least we don’t have many of us that that has happened to.  We can slam American foreign policy when it is wrong but no country is perfect and I have to say on the whole it is not just my opinion but also that of the majority of my Arab and Muslim friends. I got into argument with Hizb al-Tahrir in particular and I said to a member, so if America is a Kuffar State, how about if I pay for your ticketto go back. Let us pick a country in the Muslim world that you want to go to and they just began to even get madder. So let us deal with realities. The challenge America faces is to realize what happened in Afghanistan. The challenge to America is to be responsible and I think that there are many in America and many in this administration whose credibility with regard to Afghanistan is based on whether or not the Americans can show that they can help in a significant way to reconstruct Afghanistan. But that is not going to be credible, if the Americans engage in a foreign policy in Palestine or with regard to Iraq that is not multilateral. That would simply discredit what America does with regard to who is involved.  

Again, we have much work to do and can not afford to live in denial. If we want to say that we don’t know all the facts, absolutely true, if we want to say that the U.S. government should be more aggressive  in pointing out the facts, it is true. But I spend time doing research. You go back and look at the material that has been published, the stories that have been done by journalists, and you will find enough confirmation that the people who did it (Sept. 11) have been Arabs and Muslims. They may have been extremists, but they were Arabs and Muslims and denial will get us nowhere and it will not get us to face the issues that we have to face in our communities. I have to be that blunt because I recently did a session on the Internet and 70% of the questions were all of these stories of denial.Recently, I was with somebody in a public meeting and he said to me I have proof, and I said here is my card send it to me. He said, “I will send it to you.” And he even sounded more credible than you might think. He said he was a marine for 8 years, a Caucasian born in America, a convert to Islam. However, I haven’t got that proof till this day. So all I am saying is: that there may be proof that we don’t have enough proof and we may not have  all we need to know but to simply think that there were no Arabs and Muslims involved, that all this is fabricated, that it is all done by Mossad, I mean look, we have to get real about this. America is not, and I hate to put it this bluntly, whatever its faults, it is not a banana republic and the American people are not that stupid and what we just cannot ignore is the world community. We have to be that realistic. It is not at all that I am saying that we don’t need more information out there; it is still a big issue. We don’t know much about Bin Laden, even his life. If you read books about Bin Laden, they contradict each other. But we know things about Bin Laden. We could argue whether he was one of 57 children or 53, but I think we want to keep our criticisms within a realistic realm.

Dr. Hassan Nafaa:

 I have a long list and if anybody wants to add to this list, he can. Dr. Muhammed Kamal, please.

Prof. Esposito:

 Most of the time I say: if you ask a question, I will give you an answer. If you give a speech, I will give a speech in return because it is my party.

 Dr. Muhammed Kamal:

 …and I really want to command you for everything you have done to explain Muslims and Islam to America. I have seen that up, close and personal, as they say, having lived in the United States for five years, especially in Washington. I feel unfortunate that I didn’t study with you at Georgetown but I studied with a friend of yours Jim Piscatori, a competing school and I also studied where two people you mentioned in your speech were prominent: Paul wilz???, he was the dean of my school and Fouad Ajami, he was also a prominent scholar at my school. This doesn’t mean I agree with what they say. Anyway, I am not really worried about the influence of people like Ajami on politics and decision-making, it is a conservative administration after all. But what I am worried about is their influence and the influence of Conservatism in general on American thinking. I read a book a long time ago named “ The Closing of the American Mind” and I feel that there is a closing of the mind of the Americans taking place now in the U.S., I don’t really feel that there is American opposition, even at the level of the American political system. If you look at the way the Congress passed the anti-terrorism laws, the resolution to go to war, you know it is overwhelming majority and my question is where are American Liberals, where are the Democrats, and then whether the campaign to intimidate people, like you said, succeeded. I didn’t see many articles, and thanks to the Internet I can follow the Washington Post and New York Times from here, responding to people like Bernard Louis or Charles Kraushammer or Burt Kristal or Fouad Ajjami so have they really succeeded? Do you feel intimidated and how do you see the future of Middle Eastern studies and scholarship on Islam after September 11^th.

 Prof. Esposito:

 These are pretty good questions and I will try to be as brief as I can.

 First of all, in this war atmosphere and in a way which in a war atmosphere the administration has learned to manage this war atmosphere, that is to continue to talk about the fact that there is a global threat, a domestic threat, etc. It has both kept the percentages (in polls) of support for the president up and it makes it very difficult for many Americans to criticize the Bush  government. It is a bit like the Iraqi people who may have a problem with Saddam but if you start bombing Iraq that is not the way to win over the Iraqi people. You know they will rally. It is a bad analogy but I am just trying to give you one. There are Democrats who have been critical but the fact is that people like Attorney General Ashcroft felt free to say that when the Congress began to question the president, it was somehow un-American because we are under siege. So that is part of it but I think as time goes on we will see increasing criticism, especially if the war is rotten, if Americans are killed and as people really begin to appreciate the impact on the economy. In terms of the media, in the first month and until six weeks after, my colleagues and I were doing sort of six hours media a day, a day, but you are right that in certain media we were not visible like we were in the Gulf War. So in some media we were more visible than we were in the Television, for example.

 Where will Middle Eastern studies and Islamic studies go? I honestly don’t know. I think that there is tremendous pressure. I think that I am free to speak out in America, and there are two schools of thought but there is no doubt about the fact that there is a lot of pressure which one realizes even if not speaking as academic. My brother is an economist and he is amazed when he reads pieces where he sees personal attacks against me like an article in the National Review with the title: “Exposing Esposito”. I didn’t even know it came up. So there is this kind of pressure. There is the hate mail, there is the pressure of not having the financial resources to be able to do the kinds of things you really wish to do but I am convinced that we will emerge from this as a profession strong. The fact is that the attacks against the Middle East studies establishment have simply rallied many of my colleagues so I don’t worry about that. You know when I go back I don’t worry about the administration creating problems for me but I do worry that when I go back, if the situation hasn’t changed in Palestine, I am going to be asked to do all kinds of interviews as I did with Netanyahu and others just before I came. The more I am out there, and the more you are saying certain things, the more you get under attack and you know nobody likes that, but what else to do.

  Dr. Hassan Hanafi:

 John, you are still eloquent and convincing, obviously you haven’t changed since how long now, maybe thirty years. I would agree completely on the conclusion: an even-handed policy in major issues of the world but maybe the premise has to change so that the conclusion can be deduced normally from that premise. Let me question some of your premises. As if it is really our mistake that America awaited the enemy from outside, from Russia, China, from the Star War but never expected that the attack may come from within although they have the Oklahoma experience, they have all the right wing military groups, etc. Cannot America share some of the responsibility? This is number one.

 Number two, America is supporting Israel as a part of the political culture, that is fine, but which Israel. Israel existing within its own borders or Israel occupying its neighbors? I think when Golda Meir asked Johnson to guarantee her borders, he asked which borders Madame do you like me to guarantee? So which borders does Israel like to have in order for us, the people of the Middle East, too to have some feeling of security?

 Religion and politics, I think this is a myth and even in America religion and politics are intertwined. But America was genius enough to transform religion into a civic religion and not an institutional religion. And this is what we teach in America in our classes, you and I. We don’t want to repeat the talk about the myth of Western secularism.

And finally imagine, the foreign policy of the superpower supporting the two most hateful leaders in the Middle East, the Shah and Sadat. America knew very well what the Shah was doing to the Iranian people. And if you compare Sadat’s funeral with Nasser’s funeral, you would know the status of each man. How can a big power policy be based on the two most hateful autocratic regimes? Where are the interest of the Iranian people and the interest of the Arab people?

 And finally until now America is holding the whip of Islamic Fundamentalism against any Arab regime that would not go along with the Americans. I believe Belletro had a huge experience when America wanted to get a league of Arab nationalism and to make a sort of coalition between Muslim Brothers and the Wafd for Muslim Brothers is for liberal economy as well as the Wafd which makes it a more viable alternative when compared to Arab nationalism, Nasserite party, etc.

 And can you tell us some about the reports of the harassment of the Americans of Arab origins concerned in the International Institute for Islamic Thinking, the Islamic Academy in Chicago, etc. We know that many of our colleagues have been harassed within the framework of American Liberalism.

 Prof. Esposito:

 Thank you Hassan, let me say that you are absolutely right in terms of the question which Israel and what borders. The difficulty I think that we face is that regrettably the two viable leaders are Netanyahu and Sharon and we all know where their ideal borders are, this is the issue. Also actually that in the U. S. the media rarely points out that the military option has been advocated by Sharon and Netanyahu for a decade in terms of stability and security. They say it is a war on terrorism although in the end their land has never been more insecure.   But there is another Israel and there are many inside Israel who do not want to see this kind of future. But the fact is that the Netanyahus and the Sharons are in fact the definers of those borders.

 You are right about the civic religion. The problem is often that even many of the Americans themselves don’t see or understand that. For example, in the United States there are many Americans who react to any form of religious right whether it is militant or not, they aggressively say no mixing of religion in politics without recognizing that America is about not  privileging any religion, no state religion, but not about totally  neutralizing or rejecting religion .

 In terms of the Shah and Sadat, in the end of the day it is a product of the cold war.

Both the Soviets and the Americans, because of the dictates of self- interest, were willing to support those regimes that would deliver what they needed.

 With regard to the issue of harassment, in fact it happened a few weeks ago that the FBI raided a number of institutions in Northern Virginia and Georgia. They seized their properties, their computers, their records, etc. In some cases they were there for as much as 12 hours. There was a certain amount of harassment but in particular the harassment I know, I am not an expert on this, are consisted of a couple of incidents so some involved the families of two of my students who are families associated with groups like the triple IT. It is that rather than the FBI itself had said that they did not think these people were terrorists, they thought that what they were facing were groups that may have laundered money at the end of the road that went to groups and that this could be Hizbullah, Hamas, etc. Having said that, the raids were conducted as if they were against terrorists, that is the homes were broken into, the door bell was not rung, in some cases people were shouted, in one  case there was a daughter and a mother handcuffed for five hours; the agents refused to let them their Hijab on, they eventually gave them some clothes and said o.k. you can cover your head with this in a kind of humiliating fashion. Sheik Taha Elwani was not home but apparently they broke into his house, got into his bedroom where his wife was asleep and surrounded the bed and reportedly when she woke up they had their weapons drawn at the time so they absolutely terrorized her. There has been an outcry against this both by Arabs & Muslims and by non-Muslims but I have to say that while the outcries occur in statements, American Arabs and Muslims had not learned what other groups have learned. They have not in the time that passed put 50000 people outside the White House, put 20000 people outside the FBI building. I mean in fact that is what groups do, African Americans, Hispanics, etc. If they start doing that, they will get the media coverage. If they start that, the media will notice the large crowd and it will be an embarrassment to the FBI and to the White House.

You may remember that there was an incident where Dr.Sami Elarian’s son was in a group that was visiting at the White House and he was pulled out by security. Well because the media picked that up, the next day the president of the United States personally apologized for that. But that is because the media glare was there.

 Dr. Said Sadek:

 They say that if you believe that everything has changed after the 11^th of September you are wrong, and if you believe nothing has changed you are also wrong. If we go back to before the 11^th of September, particularly after the collapse of Camp David negotiations, what seemed in the American media and among the intellectual circuits was that a regime change in the Middle East is needed and after the 11^th of September this same theme began to be emphasized. This is that many of the Middle East states have failed and there was a lot of talk about regime change in the Middle East even among the allies of the United States, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Now my question specifically is does the American administration have a long-range policy of replacing or reforming the regimes in the Middle East. Will the American interests be served if the regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia changed or not?

  Prof. Esposito:

 I do not have any insidetrack to the Bush administration. I do not even get invited to Iftar. But the fact is I do not believe that the American administration would prefer the idea of changing the regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. That doesn’t mean that the American administration happens to love everything about it. But I think that as with other American administrations,  they believe they can work with the current governments and they are very uncertain about who would come in next. I think there is a problem of perception here in the sense that if the United States is not careful about its rhetoric that it will move against certain states, then it will actually reinforce an image that it feels free to intervene unilaterally and change governments.

And it actually would oppose one of the elements that should guide American foreign policy, the principle of non intervention; non intervention refers here to directly toppling regimes in a unilateral movement. If the United States wants to go after Saddam Hussein and it can do it in a coalition with other governments, if that is what the coalition feels that is one thing but I do not think that is the administration’s desire.

 Mr. Gamal Shahin:

 …..Now we see America having military courts too. (An unclear question)

 Prof. Esposito:

 The last question is easy to answer. If you know exactly what I have criticized, you would know that I am a pretty consistent, brilliant, moral person!!! You know that I have tremendous problems with military courts in the U. S. I have also criticized, and been in a minimal way involved in speaking out and carrying, the Secret Evidence Act so I am against those kinds of actions, I do not think that they serve any purpose and I am worried that not only the civil liberties be eroded but that the United States could wake up five years from now and discover that the way it acts domestically and internationally is not what we thought we were all about.

 The first part of your question had to do with the Christian influence? Ah, with the Armageddon. I think there is certainly an influence of the Christian right over the American foreign policy and particularly of a Christian Zionist right….

 But I can say that this is not about religion, it is not about Christianity and Islam and I can say that with a fair degree of certainty. That may not rule out the fact that president Bush like any believer may believe that somehow God is guidding what he does but that is something that is a question all believers have to struggle with.

 Mr. Hazem Salem:

Actually I have learned a lot from your presentation especially about being realistic about how the Americans will deal with the situation now existing in the Middle East. But there has been a hypothesis which I am presenting on behalf of Mr. Hekel which says that the scenario to come is that the Americans will be lagging and letting things go until a certain point where all resistance and everything about the Palestinian authority is demolished and then they will be back to negotiations from that point they arrive at. Do you think the Americans are aware of that or is it just something suggested by the Israelis or is it just an anticipation by Arabs or could that happen?

 Prof. Esposito:

 No. I hinted at that during my talk but I do not think I stated it as clearly as I could. That would be my fear, I hope that is not what is going to happen but what I said earlier is that unless Mr. Bush makes it clearer that if Sharon continues this for the next few days and there is no clear end for it, unless Bush makes it clear that Sharon needs to pull back immediately to the world community, it will look like that he has given Sharon the opportunity. Just as the BBC said today Sharon would go to intensify in a few days what he thought he had weeks to do and if that happens, it seems to me, it will greatly affect the U.S. role in the region.

  Sara Sadek (a student):

 I would like to ask you how can the people, the Moslems and Arabs, not the leaders, how can they influence the American foreign policy.

 And I have another question not related to anything you have mentioned before but I think you know an answer for it: How do you predict the scenario of the American foreign policy towards Iraq will look like?

 With regards to Iraq I hope there will be enough time for the administration to reconsider what it is doing. I think if anything is going to happen in Iraq, it is going to take more than Tony Blair and George Bush, unless they can move with a support from their Arab and Muslim allies, from my point of view it will be a disaster.  But what that requires is that more Arab and Muslim leaders speak up with regards to Iraq. We have had king Abdullah and crown prince Abdullah speaking up. If not, what you will hear in the United States will be well look most of them (Arab leaders) have not said anything, what they say they don’t really mean it, they say it just because they are only about the Arab street.

 With regard to the first part of the question: I honestly think that one of the roles that Arabs and Muslims can play is that organizationally they can do the kind of demonstrations I talked about for otherwise they do not have the power in the U.S. to do what they want to do. In terms of what you all can do here I think it is more what you do with your governments and the kind of stance you take with regard to what your governments   and the Arab League take. I have great respect for Amr Mussa and certainly for the Arab League but I must tell you that the communiqué that came out yesterday was nice but just a communiqué. You don’t fight wars simply by issuing communiqués. There’s got to be more muscle, something beyond words. What is it that one is going to say, threaten, consider, boycotts, whatever. Even if it doesn’t come to pass, it is some real statement.

 Dr. Hassan Nafaa:(laughing)

Are you calling to threaten the American interests in the region?

 Prof. Esposito:

I still get Coca Cola!!!

  Mr. Salah:

 Agree or disagree, I have really enjoyed your lecture and your comments and we can discuss them for days and nights but let us be pragmatic. Do you think that these street demonstrations have affected Bush’s speech or is it a matter of anxiety for the American interests in the Middle East.

Secondly, we as intellectuals could we hold a an international popular trial for the criminals of war as has happened in Paris during the Vietnam war and I think that maybe if we try to do that by judges from America, Europe and the Middle East, Latin America, I think maybe it will minimize the destruction of the security taking place in the middle East now.

 Prof. Esposito:

 Frankly I think that the street demonstrations were noticed. Members of our family and friends, even when we assure them that everything is fine here, everyday I get calls. I think the American administration too noticed it. Also there is a wisdom in Washington and I think you know it but I will repeat it. It doesn’t matter what administration, democrat or republican, the wisdom is don’t worry about the Arab street. The leaders always say the Arab street will explode, people will get mad, etc. But when the thing is over, most people say, “ See, there really wasn’t any of that.” I am not calling for an explosion in the Arab street, what I am saying is that speaking out and demonstrations have a role but then it is how the demonstrations are conducted. If all that the people see is tens of thousands of people burning American flags, burning pictures of Bush but let me tell you, this might make them get the American attention but it might not exactly make them consider moving in a more constructive manner. But I think that there is no doubt about the fact that demonstrations capture attention.

 What academics can do?

Three things.

One thing is to talk about it and that is what you are doing.

The second thing is I think academics can be academic activists. Many of us go out of our way to write and position ourselves in writing to have an influence on policy makers and speaking out in the media and to have an influence in the next generation and that is my last point.

There is a lot of work to be done, not just in America but in the Arab and Muslim world too. I frankly am sick and tired of hearing people saying that the Americans don’t understand Islam, etc. and this may be true. But there are far more of us who study the Arab world, the Muslim world and Islam and there is not a comparable number in the Arab and Muslim worldwho are doing it in reverse and we are training in the next generation and we have an obligation to train them so that we can get to talk to each other. It is not that we will stop thinking in terms of national interest but that until we realize that the challenge of the 21^st century is pluralism and tolerance, we have to learn in a global world not that we must agree about everything, we have to see what we share in common and then be able to say, yes we differ but I understand and respect your right to differ even if I disagree with you. This is what tolerance really means in today’s world. The idea of tolerance in the past was, I am tolerant because I do not kill you, or persecute you. We must adopt a tolerance based upon mutual understanding and respect; we must all do that and do it in our writings for our communities. I do not need to tell you that there is an ideology or theology of hate that exists in Muslim and western societies, both a religious and secular discourse, that gets passed on to younger generations. And its biggest threat is not out there, it is within our societies, but it also affects our international relations and we have to address it.

  Ms…(unidentifiable foreign name):

 You pointed to the gap between rhetoric and reality and I would like to point to the gap between what the U.S. wants to achieve and the means it uses to achieve it, because if we assume that one interest of the U.S. foreign policy is security a.) For itself and b.) For Israel, there should be appropriate means to achieve them and I do not see these after September the 11^th.  Before September the 11^th the U.S. talked about huge security projects but then September the 11^th showed that these security measures are maybe less important than other security measures. And I do not see that there is a lot of talk about soft security or things like going for the causes of terrorism.

 My second question is related to this. I want to know your opinion about the possibility that the U.S. brings in the Europeans for example, i.e. the possibility of multilateralism.

 Prof. Esposito:

 I think with regard to the Europeans it is becoming more and more obvious to the president (President Bush) although they do not say it publicly. And regrettably I know that some Brits at least privately were hoping that Mr. Blair would communicate to the president that there is a great concern, not just in Europe, for that is known among the French and the Germans and many, but even within Britain. And you see the crack at times when issues are being raised with regard to the policy towards Iraq.

 With regards to your first question I think that part of the difficulty right now is the tremendous focus on terrorism. Let me tell you I could be involved in a committee or consultancy on terrorism almost every day of the week. There are all these commissions whether they are government agencies or NGOs, etc. This is a major issue but regrettably we are not funding enough the need for us to address the root causes of terrorism. And the finest proof for this is the way in which Israel-Palestine is being handled out. Unless that can be handled, even if one says we are going to address the roots of terrorism, one would look and say but how. So I think that is where the challenge is, that is the testing point, it seems to me at least, for the administration’s credibility within the region and within the world.

 Mr. Mansour Abou Elazm:

 Actually I had a chance to meet you and to listen to you and to talk to you in 1996 talking on Islamic tolerance and since then I have been following what you are writing but now after September the 11^th there is a lot of talk about democratizing the Arab and Islamic world. Do you think that the educational system in the Arab world needs to be reviewed?

 Prof. Esposito:

 One of the things I say is that post September the 11^th the administration will give green light to authoritarian regimes rather than pushing on democratization. When you are fighting a war, fighting terrorism, your priorities change and I think that some of the Central Asian governments see that and some of the governments in the Middle East see it exactly that way. So I would be concerned about that.

 The educational reform, absolutely. I am not saying that arrogantly or anything else. I mean I would be stunned if I have the majority of intellectuals in Arab and Muslim countries saying that they do not need educational reform, that they did not need more resources, that curriculum did not need revision. So I think that kind of reform is necessary but I see a much more basic reform needed. In many societies you still have a problem with freedom of thought then you have a problem of education and media because it is always then a question of how far one can go. And that is the real risk at the end of the day.

 Dr. Horeya Megahed:

 Thank you very much Mr. Esposito, I really enjoyed what you said, despite the fact that I disagree with many of your points.

 That is simply because in many respects you reflected Bush’s administration and the formal stance of the American government and I will just stress some points with which I disagree.

First of all, in the state after September the 11^th it is true that this is a catastrophe for you and for everybody, but since then you are having a kind of phobia and the reaction is not taking place rationally but rather in a racial discriminatory way. Nowadays you are turning humanity five centuries back. If we close our eyes we see ourselves being taken back to the slavery being taken to the New World and the people of Palestine being killed like dogs in the streets. And to tell you the truth I have my PhD from the States and we are suffering from the double standard of the American government especially these days. How can we justify western democracy, how can we talk about freedom while you are using your double standard? This is the first point.

 The second point is that you mentioned something true about the separation between the state and religion and I fully agree with you that this was in the past. But nowadays there is a considerable effect of the Christian fundamentalism, even as some of your colleagues wrote in his book “the God’s hand”. The book is dealing with this point why is it that the U.S. is sacrificing its interest for the sake of Israel on religious basis. I have been working on religions, on Islam and Christianity for the last 15 years and as you said rightly we need to know each other but to know objectively, not to know in order to annihilate each other.

 Another point is that ironically enough Mr. Bush is using words from the Bible and as you know that the Bible is far from what he is doing, which cannot be done in the name of religion, whatever the religion is.

 You said that there is a need for educational reform. This might be true but this is applied not just to our education but to your educational system too.

 My last point is: Having lived in the States it is not true that Israel has always been a part of the American political culture. In the States they hate the Jews, and this is a fact but they hate the Arabs more. They hate the immigrants. They hate the new comers. I am not against the Americans because we are part of that culture, we have to defend it but we have to know each other and we have to know ourselves. But part of what we are trying to get from you is this kind of individualism. We need to change our mind and to start with our students.

 Prof. Esposito:

To begin with your first point, there may be a communication problem but I thought that I stated it very clearly that I disagreed substantially with the Bush policy so if that did not come across, then I cannot make it any clearer.

 Then with regard to double standard, let me paraphrase George Bush: read my books. The fact is the phrase I use all the time is whether it is the Clinton administration or the current administration, that is one of the issues, the double standard with regards to freedom and democracy. I do not espouse that.

 With regard to the influence of the Christian right I mentioned earlier that there is an influence, however, the Christian right is a very strong lobby as are many other groups.

 With regards to educational reform, I was asked a question and I gave an answer. I will say flat out you cannot compare the level of educational reform in the U.S. to many parts of the Arab and Muslim world which I know like the back of my hand. We have lots of problems in America and we have problems in changing America and reforming America. But if you want to talk about studying other cultures, other languages, other religions, the level of sophistication, the level of publication, there is no similar comparison.

I have been in contact with many people who said it is fine that you know about Islam, etc but why aren’t there more Americans doing this, but the fact is that there are far more Americans who do it than often occurs in the reverse. Some of you are experts in religions, Hassan Hanafi and many others, but the fact is you cannot compare the numbers.

 And I am very strong about the idea of promoting democracy and freedom. But let us get really blunt about this. It is not just that some American policy makers are concerned about promoting them and so you have a double standard because they do not want to see regime change but let us face it: who are the people in the region who do not want to see it.  It is not that the Americans are saying we will stop all those governments from going democratic. And thank God, however much I make problems, I do not have to worry about the fact that if I speak out I will in fact look the way one of my colleagues here in Cairo whom I saw today in terms of his physical infirmities as a result of his speaking out.

One of the things I feel strongly about is that it is not an issue whether or not you agree with a particular professor. It is whether or not he or she has the right to say that. And I think all of those things are out there. And yes, Arabs and Muslims have been harassed but on the other hand read the Internet and see the number of Muslims and Arabs who talk about being stunned from the number of scholars, neighbors and professors who were concerned about this. And it is an issue and many people speak about it, many non-Muslims contribute to these causes, take out these causes and travel around the United States. But you cannot talk about a level of discrimination against people and persecution in America compared to many other parts of the world. And that is the reality. And I will end with a very simple story that is rather light-hearted than serious. 

My wife and I when we first lived in that part of the world it was in the early 70s. Here I studied Islam, I studied the Arab World, my professors were Muslims, and 90% of the students were Muslim. But I was in Lebanon and coming to Egypt. So one of my Lebanese friends said why go to Egypt, you are in Lebanon so why do you need to go to Egypt. So I came to Egypt and people said to me why did you decide to live in Lebanon, Egypt is the great country. So we all have our differences and we all have our similarities. All are out there and we have our nasty differences, we have our discrimination and we have our political differences. But all I am saying to you is that I spend a lot of my time on the other side of the ocean saying that we cannot deny the wrongs of the past and we cannot deny the wrongs of the present but our role is to address the future.

 After the 11^th of September is not like before the 11^th of September and for those of us, who think that they can continue to be reactive, wait for a crisis and react to it, let me tell you, 5 or 10 years from now you are going to regret that day. It is our role to be pro-active and pro-active means to denounce injustice in Palestine but we also talk about what needs to be done. And proactive means that we denounce terrorism in Palestine, but we denounce terrorism in Israel as well. Killing children and killing women is wrong whether they are Palestinians or Israelis. My problem in my country is that we too often do not look at the Palestinian side. My problem in some other countries is that we do not get that balance. That is not what Islam is about, that is not what Christianity is about. And one of the things that Bin Laden did and which made me say that his war is not a holy war is that he said you could kill not only any American regardless of whether it is a women or a child, but he ended up by saying that you can kill any Mu’men, any Muslim if he disagrees with you. And that is what I meant by a discourse of hate. We have that on both sides, we have Muslim extremists, Jewish extremists, Christian extremists, and Hindu extremists. And that is the kind of world we need to work together to change.

Thank you. I am exhausted.

 Dr. Hassan Nafaa:

 I am sorry but Heba Raouf has asked me for the floor and I cannot deny us this desert.

 Prof. Esposito:

 This is somebody I fear.

 Mrs. Heba Raouf:

 I won’t talk much and I know that you are exhausted and that you have been talking with different groups during the past two days. I want just to tell you that you came on the wrong time. I was sitting at the back and watching the reactions of the people and some of them were saying, ah American again, you know, and of course what would you expect from an American. Some of the colleagues did not want to attend and some of my professors went home and said we will not go to listen to another American. I was assuming that whatever you say, people would not be happy with it. So I think it is still quite courageous of you to still come and give the lecture, really.

 I do not agree with many of the things you have said because you said them as an American, and I cannot change that you are an American and you have your bottom line and I cannot expect you to become an Arab, you know. But I understand this.

 But I will disagree with you on one point. You said: your countries are more authoritarian than any place and if the States is so bad, in some of the examples you give about students or Hizbullah, why are you staying, why don’t you go back if this country is not suitable for you and that, at the end of the day, the standards of liberty in the States are much better than they are in many other places. We cannot deny that but I am telling you that things are changing and the professor you mentioned, the wife of Sheikh Taha Jaber Elwani, whose house is raided and they went into her bedroom, is Dr. Mona Abu Elfadl who is a member of our faculty. And I see things deteriorating because Sheikh Elwani is a community leader and he is a religious leader and he is the head of the Council of Fatwa in the States. And if they can raid his house, they can do much more. I mean they have no ceiling now. I was very disturbed. The IIIT was always an academic institution and they had a lot of merit, they are scholars. And if their houses are raided as any supposedly terrorist, activist, with links to whatever, I can tell you that this is serious and that this is going too far.

 And I know that you are concerned and I know that you are a friend of both families and you have students of their children but again I will tell you to do more effort on that because I know you have been working seven days of the week, eight hours apart from your work. But there is still a lot to be done.

 I will finish by saying that I called many Muslims and asked many organizations including CAIR and I mailed them and they answered me back, asking Muslims, after the raise of Virginia in the past three weeks, to go on a million Muslim march to Washington to the White House and I sent that suggestion to many organizations and posted that on the Internet in one of the major Islamic websites and they did nothing and they went back to me and said we are discussing it, we will see about it and those kinds of things. But this is the way you deal with the American media and the American people, if you want to have an influence, you go into the streets organizationally and democratically but stand in front of the White House and say this is too far, but they did not. Some people expect American scholars, doing their homework as scholars writing, advocating as much as they can as Americans, to do the homework that the Muslims are not doing and to learn that lessons are there, possibilities and potentials are there. I think that the people who did not go and march in front of the White House are the people who failed us and maybe too who failed you. It is not us or you who failed them. They had a potential to do and they are still disagreeing, diverse in their opinion, they cannot form a front seeking media attention, and I am as well critical of them.

 I am telling you we have still a lot to do but we encourage you to do more because you are a man of integrity and I know your history.

 Prof. Esposito:

 Let me say that I agree with almost everything that you have said, I agree certainly with everything you said at the end and I also agree with what you said at the beginning. I am an American. The idea of course is that what I love about coming here is that everybody says you speak as an American. Home sometimes I am told I speak as an Arab or Muslim and I am neither. The fact is that I speak as an American, other people speak in their own way.

 I never referred to Hizbullah. I said Hezb Eltahrir and to me there is a big distinction between the two. And I want to make it really clear that the comments I made, in terms of the comparison between America and authoritarian governments, they were made because of what was said to me from one of the audience. And the last thing I want to do is to have people quote me as saying that all I did is come here and bash America.

 I am very disappointed that some of your professors chose not to come in protest. I too was discouraged from coming here and many people said that I shouldn’t do it, but I decided to do it and I have been very happy that I did.

We like ideas and we like to condemn things with our students in classrooms but we need more of us to be out there, and I know that many of you do this. So I am not saying this to this audience. Otherwise it would be like when you say in a class and those of you who are absent, I am going to get you but as they are absent, you are talking to the people who are coming. But I find it regrettable that some colleagues would simply respond to me by saying I won’t go because he is just another American. That is not the way I believe we academics need to function, I have enough track record that I think people ought to be able to come not because it is me or my ego but because I would never treat anybody that way. And I think that that is an issue and it occurs too much. And finally I will end with an example that I gave to someone. A while ago I hosted Sheik Youssef Karadawi and at my center at that time we had a very prominent Arab super, super super, secularist. And as I said to him are you coming with us to the lecture, he said I do not need to go. I know exactly what he will say. I told him you know this is exactly what many of my colleagues say about the colloquium that you will hold next week. But many of us will still go anyway and see whether you have anything new or fresh to say. What I am saying is that we need to be careful. We say we are open-minded but then only as long as you stay within certain parameters.

Thank you very much for those who came and suffered along the long evening.

 Dr. Hassan Nafaa:

 Professor Esposito, as I have already mentioned at the beginning, most of the people here know you very well. They know you from your writings, even those who do not agree with you, they appreciate very much what you are doing in the United States. We were very happy to have you here. We learned more about the American foreign policy, although, of course, we do not agree on everything. I thank you again for coming. Thank you all very much.