I couldn’t believe my eyes while reading the Haaretz article, “Muslim nations vow to combat extremist religion, rein in terror.” The 50 nations referred to include Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. They met in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. Together, the members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) issued a manifesto declaring:

“The Islamic nation is in a crisis. This crisis does not reflect on the present alone, but also on its future and the future of humanity at large,” the summit’s final statement, dubbed the Mecca Declaration, said.

“We need decisive action to fight deviant ideas because they are the justification of terrorism,” it said. “We are determined to fight terrorism in all its forms.”

In the declaration, the countries promised to “change national laws to criminalize financing and incitement” as well as correct school curriculums to purge extremist ideas.

“Islam is the religion of moderation. It rejects extremism and isolation. There is a need to confront deviant ideology where it appears, including in school curriculums. Islam is the religion of diversity and tolerance,” it said.

It should be noted what kind of statements have been produced by previous OIC summits. In their 2003 gathering, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir said:

The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.

We are up against a people who think. They survived 2000 years of pogroms not by hitting back but by thinking. They invented Socialism, Communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so that they can enjoy equal rights with others.

With these they have now gained control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have become a world power.

1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews. There must be a way.

Add to the OIC’s track record the fact that Iranian President Ahmadinejad attended the conference. He just publicly denied that the Holocaust ever occurred, called for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel, and in October demanded that Israel “be wiped off the map.”

What has changed since the 2003 OIC conference?

Some 26,000 Iraqi civilians, mostly Shiite, have been murdered by Islamist terrorists. Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf has survived at least 2 assassination attempts by Muslim radicals. Saudi Arabia has suffered a slew of terror attacks — smack-dab in the heart of Islam. And, course, there was al-Qaeda’s attack against a Muslim wedding.

The list goes on and on and on and on… The victims of Islamic terror are mostly Muslims.

What else has changed? Afghanistan’s Taliban and Iraq’s Butcher of Baghdad have been knocked over, creating a strong wind blowing against the Middle East’s dictators. The United Arab Emirates just announced plans for its first elections. Millions of Afghans have voted twice, millions of Iraqis have voted twice, Lebanon is free of Syrian occupation (and has held elections), Kuwait has granted women the right to vote, and Saudi Arabia has held municipal elections — and the Saudis allowed women to vote and stand as candidates in an election held last week.

Maybe Middle Eastern populations are starting to look for some accountability from their “leaders” – e.g., protection from terrorists, free will (Gee — ya’ think?). As Michael Rubin puts it:

Long home to farfetched conspiracy theories and a political culture of victimization, the Arab world is now being swept by a new emphasis on accountability. While commentators and pundits debate the merits, drawbacks and sincerity of the Bush administration’s drive for democracy, events across the Middle East suggest that the relationship between rulers and the governed has been significantly transformed.

But talk is cheap, and action in the Arab/Muslim world rarely follows suit. After all this senseless murder, one would hope that at least a modicum of a desire for self-preservation would crop up. Sadly, many Arab/Muslim regimes have fueled the terror they now suffer from — to keep their citizens preoccupied with hatred, instead of the oppressive regimes they suffer under. Let us hope that’s changing a little.

I like the words, but eagerly await the action.

Addendum: The Washington Post reported:

Saudis fumed Friday that Iran’s hard-line president marred a summit dedicated to showing Islam’s moderate face by calling for Israel to be moved to Europe, and the chief U.N. nuclear inspector said he was losing patience with the Tehran regime.

Even some of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s conservative allies in Iran were growing disillusioned, fearing he has hurt the country with his wild rhetoric. Iranian moderates also called on the ruling clerics to reel him in.

See also here.

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Related: Islam

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