Summary Luai Ahmed: 'I'm a Muslim and I support Israel' (Youtube) www.youtube.com
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n/a The effects of this war have also been seen in European capitals with is pro Islamist groups and radical new migrants marching in the streets oftentimes in the hundreds of thousands against Israel and bring the Middle East conflict to the streets of the Western world. Even as moderate Muslims say that these movements cannot necessarily be negotiated with and will pose a major threat to the west moving forward. We are joined now by Llui Ahmed, a columnist as well as influencer at the and presenter at the Builder of the Middle East. Thank you very much, Loi, for being with Us, I'm glad we have a good working connection this time. I want to address the religious angle of this conflict first.
n/a Can this truly be said to be a conflict only on religious grounds?
Luai Ahmed I don't think you can paint it all as a religious Conflict because it is also a political conflict, but religion is at the forefront of this conflict. Because what many people in the west Don't understand is that Islam is the system. It is life. It is the into the system that indoctrinates And Presenter every single understanding of life in the Middle East. So when I studied, when I went to school in Yemen, for example, The vast majority of what I learned in school was about, Muhammad prophet Muhammad, how Islam teaches us to live, what what how Life in every single way should be dictated by Islamic and Koranic thought, and there is no, room for any secular thought.
Luai Ahmed There is no room for adapting to or evolving into the modern, civilization that we live in in the west. So it is primarily a religious conflict, and religion is at the forefront of every single line in the Middle East. And this is also a part of the life that that many Muslims and people who had migrated to the west believe in. So 30 out of 31, mosques in in in, in Sweden believe that you should not be able to criticize slam whatsoever. It should be banned to criticize Islam.
Luai Ahmed And that just comes to show that of the people majority of Muslims who move to the west do not adhere to the values and the belief systems of the west. In fact, they want to change the west. They want the the west to become more like the Middle East, to become more Islamic. Many Muslims say that they are not happy in the west, and they want the west to become more like The, the Middle East. And that is a problem that Muslims themselves and Arabs and immigrants have to fight back against because many of the People who flee these countries do not understand that the Islamic system is 1 of the reasons that the Middle East looks The way it is.
Luai Ahmed It is why we run away from the Middle East, so to speak. So it is why moderate Muslims, secular Muslims, ex Muslims, and Muslims Who are tired of the destruction and the terrorism in the Middle East, run away from it. And they cannot come to the west and have to face The same kind of Islamic dogma in the west. So it is something that the west has to start fighting against because I believe that There there is no really major awakening of the threat that lies, at the hands of Islamists. We see how Islamists in London, in Stockholm, in Vienna go out on the screen on the streets and scream to to to eradicate Jews.
Luai Ahmed And The fight that the Jews are fighting is not just about the Jews. It's about homosexuals. It's about women. It's about the women in Iran Who gets killed for removing their hijab. It's about the secular journalists in the Middle East who gets killed for voicing criticism towards regimes.
Luai Ahmed It's about people who oppose Islamism in the Middle East and the West and get eradicated for just voicing their opposition. So people think that Israel is only trying to eradicate Hamas, but what I do believe is that Israel is Israel is is fighting against an Islamism that affects Every single country in the world that that deals with with Islamic migration or is populated by Muslims, there is not a single Muslim country in the world Where there is freedom of speech, rights for gay people, equality for the sexes, and that is because Islam dictates all of these Laws, and we cannot live in societies where religion is what dictates the law. Islam has managed to continue dominating the The the the political narrative. People talk about politics. There is no such thing as politics in Yemen and Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Luai Ahmed There's only there's only religion, and politics only, like, comes after religion. Religion is the politics, And this is why a lot of people are not integrating in in the west, and they refuse to integrate because they believe that Islam is the key of living. There is not there is no politics. There are no laws that are above Islam. And it it is sad To see that Westerners are succumbing to this out of fear, and I'm happy to see that Israel is not succumbing to this.
Luai Ahmed And the fact that many Western countries Want Israel to succumb to to Islamic terrorism is just disgusting because they're not the ones who have to live in fear. They're not the ones who who who have Neighbors whose main goal is to eradicate every single 1 of them. Well, the west does now have many, terrorists and Islamists who want to eradicate the west, but they're not organized. And they're not they're not living in a victimhood, A bubble that is protected by by by politics. Not yet anyway.
n/a Leroy, we we can definitely note that Hamas is certainly an Islamist group, and most of Israel's enemies today fit the exact same descriptor. But, historically, much of the Palestinian terrorism has been motivated strictly by nationalism. Yasser Arafat, the offshoot of the Pan Arabist movement, which was a secular nationalist movement that was still just as dedicated to the total destruction of Israel and all the Jews within. Even if we discount the Islamism, it certainly seems like the region as a whole will be just as destructive and just as violent towards the Jewish state?
Luai Ahmed Well, of course, Islam is not, or the Islamic extremism is not the only problem in the Middle East. Islamic extremism has just taken over the narrative because there's no there's a vacuum because the Middle East and Muslim countries, Arab countries, have Still not learn the language of democracy and human rights and freedom of speech and freedom of press. So these are languages that have to be learned through An era of enlightenment, an era of critical thinking, an era of sign scientific advancements, and the Middle East and Muslim and Arab countries are still not, there. They're they're not learning these languages because they're still at the phase of fighting the Jews, of killing the gays, Blaming the gays for the destruction of society, blaming the Jews and the west for for for for the wars in Saudi in Yemen and and And Sudan and Somalia, they're not ready to look in the mirror and say that we have to work on our issues by ourselves. That no matter even if the west and and the Jews hate us, for example, we still have to make sure that we live in prosperous and loving and accepting societies that accept Freedom of speech, accept diversity, allow people who don't believe in Islam to exist.
Luai Ahmed I think what's what's happened in the past 30, 40 years is a resurgence of Wahhabism, and that's, like, the the most vile and conservative interpretation of Islam. So, yes, Nationalist movements can be as aggressive as as Islamic movements with trying to eradicate the Jews and kill the gays and oppress the women Because the region as a whole has still not evolved into believing in in freedom of speech and human rights. So whether it's Islam I mean, if Islam Islam is not in the Middle East. You would still probably have another religion or another ideology that that's adapt into the the regressive ideas in the Middle East. And the problem here lies at the fact that our leaders refuse to teach and educate our masses With the modern ethical norms that the west has learned throughout the past 100, 200 years.
Luai Ahmed I mean, the west was not as progressive as it as it is right now, and it had to go through Ages of enlightenment, ages of acceptance, but they also had to go through the dark ages and wars and bloodshed. And sadly, the Middle East is Still in that phase of bloodshed and war and conservatism, killing atheists, killing gays, killing people who do I mean, the Middle East is literally growing through the dark ages of the Christians. And I do believe that there there is a light of hope in the Middle East because you have movements in Iran of brave women speaking out, removing the the hijab, risking their lives just to fight for basic human rights and freedom of speech. And that is what we need to amplify. We need to amplify the voices of the women in Iran who are Fighting against this.
Luai Ahmed We need to, expose the dangers that the the Iranian government and the Saudi government and and the Progressive Islamic co governments continue to to to to push for unwaveringly. I mean, in in the Middle East, We do not understand that our main issue is our policies and our mosque and our schools and and what we teach our children and kids. I mean, I grew up in this society, and my entire life has just been about Islam and prophet Muhammad. I wish that I learned the guitar or learned more science or more maths and, you know, were was able to evolve in a way that could Make me grow as a human being, but the vast majority of my life has just been indoctrinated by prophet Muhammad Middle Islam, and we cannot ignore the fact that Islam has in such a huge seat in the Middle East, and that is detrimental and needs to be fought back. So like I said, we need to amplify the voices of the Muslims, The ex Muslims, the secular Muslims who are fighting against this atrocious culture because in the west, people just say, oh, well, this is their culture, and we have To accept it.
Luai Ahmed Absolutely not. We cannot accept a culture that is dominated by homophobia, misogyny, antisemitism. There is no way a culture that is Presenter with such aggressive dogmatic beliefs are going to thrive, are going to leave away war, and arrive at peace. The only way that Europe was able to let go of war and dogma and bloodshed is by adapting these humanitarian concepts. And Gaza, the West Bank, the Middle East, Muslim countries, Arab countries will have to adapt to these modern values.
Luai Ahmed There there is no Question about that. If they do not, if the Arabs and the Muslims continue to say, well, prophet Mohammed and the Quran are more important than anything else, Then they will continue to live in bloodshed. They will continue to face wars. They will continue to have revolutions of of dismay and anger, And this is a realization that needs to come from within. That's why Muslims and ex Muslims who leave the Middle East, They've they voiced their voices, and they say that this needs to stop.
Luai Ahmed And, of course, they risk getting killed. In Sweden, Lars who was a Swedish, a Swedish artist, he just drew prophet Muhammad, and he had to live under protection for the rest of his life Because Muslims cannot accept people drawing prophet Muhammad. This is an atrocious reality that exists in the Middle East, and we need to change it.
n/a Lewa, in many ways, you're echoing what many geopolitical thinkers have called the clash of civilizations. The idea that radical Islam is on a collision course with Western during liberalism and that we're going to see this clash play out in the streets of Western nations in the most catastrophic ways imaginable. Do you believe such a clash Israel something that can still be averted.
Luai Ahmed Ariel, when, Rasmus Paladan burned the Quran. When Salomon Murawski burned the Quran in Sweden, We had hundreds, if not thousands, of Muslims going out and turning Sweden upside down, burning hundreds of cars, burning neighborhoods, Trying to kill more than 500 police officers because they do not want people to burn the book of the of of, of Islam. And that is a major clash because in Sweden, you have to have freedom of expression. Freedom of expression and freedom of speech are the main, building blocks of Western civilization and Swedish civilization. In Sweden, you can say anything.
Luai Ahmed You can Criticize any idea. You can scrutinize religion. You can examine all historical concepts. You can anything can happen in the in In Sweden regarding that, and that is the way that it has been for a very long time. After the Islamic migration happened, that has changed now.
Luai Ahmed The Swedish society, the Swedish police, Swedish politics, Swedish politicians are in panic mode because They did not know or they did not realize that the vast majority of the people who have moved to the west are not going to change just by Setting their foots in Sweden. They're going to continue believing in the same ideologies and the same concepts in the Middle East, in Syria, and Arab. So the clash of civilizations is very detrimental to the west, to Sweden, to the Netherlands, to the UK, And we will not be able to avoid this if we do not have an honest and open discussion about the threat that comes from Islamic migration. If we do not talk about how the integration courses and the integration projects that Sweden and other European countries have had had been completely unsuccessful, That there needs to be another alternative in in the west to to to countering this. And in my belief, nationalism is great.
Luai Ahmed We need more nationalism in Sweden and in the west and in Europe. Because what we're facing, we're not facing Teletubbies who are just trying to make us Change our values. We're facing people who want to slit our throats if we criticize their ideology, if we criticize their profit. These are not Teletubbies. These are people who literally want to kill us for basic human rights, for basic understandings of Freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
Luai Ahmed So I do believe nationalism is very important in the west because we have to know that we're white, what we're fighting for in Sweden, in in Bulletin, in America are things that Westerners have fought for for Generations and for centuries, and we cannot just let them, you know, crawl back and take a back seat just because there are people here who do not set them. If the people who do not accept these values come to the west, they need to get out. They cannot continue to live and try to change The mindsets and the politics and the laws of the countries that they move to, just like if a bunch of Swedes moved to Yemen or Saudi Arabia and started, You know, and started gay clubs and just tried to to to sell bacon. The the governments there are not going to accept them. They're going to well, I would hope That they would just deport them, but I believe worse things would happen.
Luai Ahmed And I I don't believe in violent policies. I don't believe in in Regressive policies. But I do believe that just like Sweden now is trying to raise awareness in in Sweden and try to tell immigrants that These are our values, and this is what we believe in. And if you do not believe in these values, you can go back home. And And
n/a that's gonna be a huge challenge facing not just Sweden, but the entire rest of the western world moving forward. Louay, thank you very much for breaking down exactly the clash of civilizations that we find ourselves