Sunnis and Shiites Weighed on Their Stance Toward Israel

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Let me state at the outset that I am simply a Muslim — not Sunni, not Shiite, not Alawite, not Zaydi, not Qadari, not Jabari, not Druze, nor any label other than Muslim: one who believes in the Noble Qur’an and in whatever Sunnah is consistent with it, who believes in the unity of the Arabs and Muslims, and who rejects everything that would stir up conflict or offend Muslims and Arabs in general. What is regrettable is that certain sanctimonious and corrupt religious groups have persisted in sowing discord among Muslims, until they pushed many people into speaking in sectarian terms. It would never have occurred to me to use words like “Sunni” and “Shiite,” but the misguided groups that claim Islam have created an atmosphere of strife that has forced these divisive terms into people’s lives against their will.

The Islamic sects have not served Islam; they have played a negative role on the Islamic scene, and their very emergence was, from the start, a path toward tearing the Islamic nation apart. I also note that most of the fatwas of excommunication (takfir), and most of the abuse and cursing that appear in the media and on electronic networks, come from Sunnis, and that the overwhelming majority of the bombings and criminal acts taking place across the Arab and Islamic world are the work of Sunnis. Among the Shiites there are those who are misguided and who mislead others, but their proportion is, on the whole, small, and Shiite leaderships are very cautious and consistently focus on Muslim unity. Naturally, the people of abuse, cursing, and bombings believe that they alone will go to Paradise, that the wide-eyed maidens (houris) tremble in eager anticipation of these pure, purified men whose hearts have been blinded by error, while Hell has been created for everyone else — never mind that whoever deprives others of God’s mercy does not himself enter Paradise.

In this article, I focus on a single point that may be one of the important criteria for determining who belongs to Hell and who belongs to Paradise: namely, one’s stance on Israel and on Arab-Islamic resistance.

Recognizing Israel and Normalizing With It

By this measure, Egypt and Jordan are two Sunni states that recognize Israel and maintain diplomatic, commercial, and economic relations with it, and so on. The Gulf states are Sunni states, and they maintain good relations with Israel, cooperating with it in security and commercial fields.

Morocco is a Sunni state that preserves distinguished relations with Israel. Sunni Tunisia pleased Israel by expelling Sheikh Hassan Ezzedine, and by refusing to grant an entry visa to Sheikh Abu Imad al-Rifai, the representative of Islamic Jihad. Turkey is a Sunni state that maintains relations with Israel and has an embassy there, and it is also a member of the NATO alliance, which is considered Israel’s strong backer.

Lebanon’s 14 March forces are, in their majority, Sunni, and are on good terms with Israel, as are other Sunni forces that claim Islam, such as the group of Ahmad al-Assir, which is continually preoccupied with striking Hezbollah. The Palestinian forces of 13 September — the people of Oslo — are Sunni, and they work with all their strength to preserve Israeli security; the President of the Palestinian Authority stands on Zionist television boasting that the primary preoccupation of his security services is protecting Israeli security.

Only the Palestinian resistance in Gaza — a Sunni resistance — stands in confrontation with Israel. It is Hamas, the Islamic Jihad Movement, and the Popular Resistance Committees.

On the other side, there is Shiite Iran, which does not recognize Israel, refuses to recognize it, and does everything possible to weaken Israel and to strengthen its adversaries. There are also Shiite party forces, foremost among them Hezbollah, which raises the banner of resistance against Israel. And there are Shiite forces in Iraq, Bahrain, and Yemen that stand against Israel.

The Stance on Resistance

[…against Hezbollah] — and so did Lebanon’s 14 March forces, and the 13 September Palestinian forces. Nor did matters differ regarding Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip in 2008/2009. And now Egypt, too, has come to stand against the resistance in Gaza, particularly against Hamas, and is working to turn a political disagreement into a struggle against the Palestinian resistance. And there are several Sunni takfiri groups that excommunicate Hezbollah, threaten it, work to weaken it, and target it with bombings and car bombs.

By contrast, Hezbollah could not have held out were it not for the support of Shiite Iran in its confrontation with Israel, and the Sunni Palestinian resistance in Gaza could not have held out and gained strength were it not for the support of Shiite Iran and Shiite Hezbollah. Hezbollah lost more than a hundred martyrs in the Red Sea and Sudan while smuggling weapons to the Sunni resistance, at the very time that Sunni Egypt was pursuing Hezbollah’s members and throwing them in prison.

(If) Shiite Iran were to decide tomorrow to recognize Israel and to stop supporting the resistance in Lebanon and Palestine, all these corrupt Sunni forces would stop their hostility toward it and would turn to friendship with it, forgetting all the sectarian elements they use to stir up strife across the Arab-Islamic scene. The same applies to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Resistance Committees. If these movements, committees, and parties decided to halt their resistance, the friends of the Jews among those I have named would breathe a sigh of relief, would end their hostility, would come together again in defense of Israel and its aggression, and money would flow into Gaza.

Paradise and Hellfire — for Whom?

In light of the objective facts standing before us on the ground, whoever supports Israel and maintains relations with it earns grave sins, because he is supporting the aggressor, supporting the enemy of God and the enemy of Islam and the Muslims — the one who occupies sacred Islamic land and occupies Islamic holy sites, foremost among them the first of the two qiblahs. Whoever recognizes Israel, allies with it, or maintains relations with it does not enter Paradise, even as he hides behind the practice of excommunicating others while claiming to be pure of filth and impurity.

The question is: how great is the sin entailed by recognizing Israel and normalizing with it? And how many good deeds does a person need in order to atone for so grave a sin? Would God, glorified and exalted, accept any expiation for so monstrous an act? Or must the legal penalty (hadd) be carried out upon the offender as expiation? And what is the hadd for recognizing Israel and cooperating with it? The hadd is execution, because whoever recognizes Israel, maintains relations with it, and defends its security is an active, principal partner in killing Muslims, with premeditation and forethought. And the penalty for killing, in Islam, is killing. So if an Arab dog who recognizes Israel dies a death outside the bounds of this hadd, he dies bearing grave sins — the killing of Muslims, Lebanese and Palestinian alike — and nothing can prevent his fall into Hellfire except God’s mercy alone. Will God, glorified be He, forgive this enormous abomination?

The meaning of all this is: we hope that no Arab dog who recognizes Israel will lecture us about Paradise and Hellfire, or about the proper way to enter Paradise and marry the houris. He must first set himself right, and offer up his own neck for retribution — only then might he be entitled to address us. In the end I say: if Paradise is going to contain these corrupt men, then we do not want to enter it, and the houris will surely flee from it. God is exalted far above all that, and Paradise has been prepared for the God-fearing, for those who believe and do righteous deeds. Paradise is not for spies, for the fallen, for conspirators, or for the brokers of homelands and honor.

If anyone wishes to prove that his point of view is the correct one, he must do good and offer what is beautiful within him — not ally himself with the enemies in pursuit of preserving his own power and privileges. I am fully aware that alliance with Israel brings a great deal of wealth and benefit, but it is nothing more than a fleeting enjoyment whose only effect is to tear the nation apart, weaken it, and turn it into a mount ridden by invaders and the greedy.

For this reason, let no one use sectarianism to profit. Whoever wishes to profit must first prove the cleanliness and purity of his national and religious conduct. He must not remain someone who cruises around in car bombs, killing this person and that indiscriminately, making no distinction between a child, a woman, and an old man. Muslims who plant car bombs have brought Islam into disrepute; they turn people away from the path of God, and there is a world of difference between one who turns people away from the path of God and one who struggles in the path of God against Israel and its helpers among the Arabs and the Franks. Paradise has been prepared for those who struggle in God’s path, and Hellfire for the traitors and the spies.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “السنة والشيعة في ميزان الموقف من إسرائيل” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.