Rauf's 1970s letters: Make Israel 'another Arab state'

Politico ^ | Sept. 1, 2010 | Maggie Haberman

[Free ThinkerNY]

As Ground Zero-area mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf heads home a few days early from his State Department-sponsored trip to the Mideast, the Wall Street Journal quotes from two letters he wrote to the NY Times in the 1970s in which he is less-than-committed to preserving the Jewish State of Israel.

The interest has been peaked, in part, because of the comments he was quoted making on "60 Minutes" in which he called the U.S. an "accessory" to the 9/11 attacks in the days shortly after the carnage, and a separate interview recently in which he wouldn't denounce Hamas as a terrorist organization.

There is this letter from 1977 in reference to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's trip to Israel, in which Rauf urged giving "peace a chance," but, as the WSJ concludes, it may have been merely to the point that doing so would help establish a greater goal:

"In a true peace it is impossible that a purely Jewish state of Palestine can endure," Rauf wrote. "In a true peace, Israel will, in our lifetimes, become one more Arab country, with a Jewish minority."

It's worth noting that Rauf has received validating praise from supporters of the mosque project for his words at a 2003 memorial service for Daniel Pearl, the slain WSJ journalist, in which he declared "I am a Jew."

Rauf also weighed in on the Iranian revolution in a February 1979 letter to the paper, rapping Americans for not giving Iran apologies for "past misdeeds," as the WSJ put it, and writing, "The revolution in Iran was inspired by the very principles of individual rights and freedom that Americans ardently believe in."

[airedale]

Unfortunately with the demographics it may be true. The birth rate for Palestinians who are Israeli citizens is much higher than than the Jews. Israel has been able to keep the higher % of Jews to Palestinians because of the influx of Jews from other parts of the world. If the birth rate difference keeps up the Jews will eventually become a minority in their own country. The Palestinian citizens have full voting rights, etc. How long it will take before a tipping point is hit I don’t know, but my guess is less than 20-40 years. About the only way they could stop this demographic shift it to kick all the Palestinians out or some how deny citizenship to the offspring. Neither will fly. I really don’t know what they are going to do.

[fhayek]

Demographics is destiny. In the end, demographics will be the undoing of more than a few countries.

[SJackson]

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