US must change its policy on the Middle East for a safer world

AMERICANS present in Europe today will be struck by the ambiguity of many people towards their homeland, as September 11 is being commemorated.

Even as newspapers, TV and radio stations recall the dreadful scenes of 9/11, and sympathy towards Americans is expressed, there will be much criticism of George W Bush's war on terror.

Concern abounds about the suspension of human rights as terrorist suspects are detained; there is annoyance at America's willingness to go it alone if necessary, in the war against Iraq; and there is fear that Bush's unconditional support for Israel's tough Palestinian policy is making a bad international situation worse.

The anti-Americanism of so many European sophisticates will come as no surprise to US ex-pats here. But they must be shocked to come under fire from the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, even before the first anniversary of September 11 has passed. In an interview with Associated Press, Mrs Robinson criticised the Bush administration for disregarding international conventions in its treatment of prisoners held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay. "Many politicians are using the T-word and it's very blunt and does erode standards of civil rights and civil liberties," she said. "The world needs leadership in human rights and the US could give great leadership. It's not giving it at the moment, unfortunately."

It is a good thing that we can sympathise with the victims of September 11 without abandoning our critical faculties. America needs pressure from its European allies to change its policies on the Middle East if the world is to be a safer place.

The perception among Middle Eastern Muslims is that America backs Israel in everything it does, and this political support comes courtesy of the strong influence of the Jewish lobby in American life. But there is also evidence of an alliance between supporters of Israel and fundamentalist Christians in the Republican Party. For some of these, a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations requires the re-establishment of the Temple in Jerusalem before the Messiah can return. Their site would be the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, scene of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's infamous visit at the outset of the intifada, currently the site of the Al Aqsa mosque.

America can't afford to allow its policy on the Middle East to be dictated by fundamentalist Christians or the Jewish lobby. While it should insist on the permanence of the state of Israel, it must also realise that the emergence of a viable and prosperous Palestinian homeland is vital to any accommodation between Islam and the West.

Future instability in America and Europe will not come from outside but from within. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States, and it has millions of adherents in Europe - 4.2m in France, 3.2m in Germany and 1.3m in Britain.

Islam itself isn't the problem, although its leaders may be. The pawns of Osama bin Laden were not good Muslims, any more than IRA terrorists were good Catholics or loyalist killers good Protestants. In each case, their activities involved a perversion of a religious faith which preaches peace, love and gentleness. And there is considerable evidence that the most irreligious of Muslims are among the biggest supporters of terrorism.

Nevertheless, Islam has been hijacked for political purposes by Islamic terrorists, just as Christianity was hijacked in the North. In Europe, many Muslim mosques have become breeding grounds for terrorism due to the influx of extremist imams, trained in the Middle East. Inflammatory sermons are preached in the Finsbury Park Mosque in London by Abu Hamza al-Masri, while the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan was found by Italian police to be harbouring a terrorist cell. Leading imams in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague have also been inciting their congregations to violence.

Europe's imams are usually sent and paid for by the governments of Muslim countries, so much so that the grand mufti of Marseilles, Soheib Bencheikh, recently said: "Muslims must become immunised against outside radicalisation." Thus, one challenge for European governments must ensure that Muslim leaders are trained in the West, even if this means that legislative bars against funding religious activities, such as exist in France, have to be overturned.

The second task for western governments is to undo the ghettoisation of their Muslim communities. In Britain, for example, Muslim immigrants share the problems of other immigrant communities poor English, employment problems and clannish practices such as arranged and forced marriages which , in the words of a report into last year's Oldham riots, establish them as a "parallel societies". The problem is replicated in France where Pierre Bédier, a government minister, complained that many Muslim women in France were cut off from the sorts of activities that might bring them into contact with their non-Muslim neighbours. Instead, he claimed, they were watching television beamed in from the Middle East or North Africa which dwelt on the problems of the Palestinians and the "victimhood" of Arabs in general.

European demographics suggest that the problem of integrating Muslims will be even greater in the future. Between 1995 and 2000, the average number of children being born in Europe per woman during her reproductive years was only 1.41. If this fertility level remains unchanged, Europe's population of 727 million will plunge to 556 million by the year 2050.

This means large numbers of immigrants will be needed more than 3 million a year for the next 50 years if the population is not to decline, and the most likely source will be from Islamic countries. This will profoundly transform a continent that was once almost exclusively Christian.

A Europe replete with nuclear arms, and composed of a large percentage of Muslims hostile to America, will present a major problem. Which suggests that the West must develop a clear Christian identity which is not hostile to Islam but presents immigrant Muslims with a host civilisation that they can respect.

An advantage for Europe is that it is not seen as having the same selfish, strategic interest in the Middle East as America has. And while the collective memory of the Crusades may fill Muslims with suspicion, the revenge mentality so prevalent in American thinking at the moment is now largely absent from European Christianity.

But Europe's secular individualism and its very public tolerance of abortion, pornography and other forms of immorality is seen by some Muslim as a sign that Christianity is in decline and that the future is theirs.

Italian Franciscan Archbishop Giuseppe Bernardini of Smyrna, Turkey, who has lived in the Islamic world for 42 years, told the European Synod of Bishops of the words of one important Muslim figure who, during an Islamic-Christian meeting said: "Thanks to your democratic laws, we shall invade you; and thanks to our religious laws, we shall dominate you."

During a bilateral summit, another Muslim leader said: "You have nothing to teach us, and we have nothing to learn."

It's not just about promoting Christian faith in Europe. Terms such as dialogue, justice, reciprocity, human rights and democracy can have a completely different meaning for Muslims than they do for people of Christian heritage. If we want to preserve the values of Christian democratic culture including the full participation of women in public life and freedom of religious expression then we need a strong Christian identity with which to welcome our immigrant friends to the West.