Paradigmatic Priorities:  Justice, Order, and Freedom  

by Dr. Robert D. Crane

  Policy is the product of paradigms and especially of the choice among justice, order, and freedom as a primary cause of the other two. 

  A classic example of a false choice was the Israeli torture in June, 2008, of a young Palestinian from Gaza, Mohammed Omer, upon his return from London where he received the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism.  His citation reads, “Every day, he reports from a war zone, where he is also a prisoner.  His homeland, Gaza, is surrounded, starved, attacked, forgotten.  He is a profoundly humane witness to one of the great injustices of our time.  He is a voice of the voiceless.”  And he is a voice for both Muslims and Jews who oppose violence as the first choice in defense of justice because justice is the mother of peace. 

  The eldest of eight, Mohammed has seen most of his brothers and sisters killed or wounded or maimed.  An Israeli bulldozer crushed his home, seriously injuring his mother.  Yet his reaction has been to seek peace with Israel as the only long-run solution for a just peace that would secure the rights of Jews and Arabs to live as equals wherever they want in the Holy Land. 

  On June 26th, with a Dutch embassy escort, he was met at the Allenby Bridge crossing from Jordan and seized by the Shin Bet.  His cell phone was seized so that he could not contact his diplomatic escort.  Eventually he was released, but only after he was sent to the hospital unconscious from the torture that is now routine in Israel.  After he gained consciousness, he described the procedure.  “A man called Avi ordered me to take off my clothes.  I had already been through an x-ray machine.  I stripped down to my underwear and was told to take off everything.  When I refused, Avi put his hand on his gun.  I began to cry, ‘Why are you treating me this way? I am a human being.’  He answered, ‘This is nothing compared with what you will see now.’  He took his gun out, pressing it to my head and with his full body weight pinning me on my side, he forcibly removed my underwear.  He then made me do a concocted sort of dance.’ 

  Then the physical torture began.  “I had now been without food and water and the toilet for 12 hours,” he recounted, “and having been made to stand, my legs buckled.  I vomited and passed out.  All I remember is one of them gouging, scraping, and clawing with his nails around my eyes.  He dug his fingers into my ears to attack the auditory nerves.  Another one of the eight men in the torture team had his combat boot on my neck, pressing into the hard floor.  They penetrated all my body orifices.  This continued for an hour.  The room became a menagerie of pain, sound, and terror.”

  Israeli human rights groups are the most courageous opponents of their own government’s crimes.  They report that the victims of the Shin Bet emerge as mere shadows of their former selves, and that some never return.

  The Dutch government has lodged a formal protest, but this has been rejected.  The former Dutch ambassador to Israel, Jan Wijenberg, said, “This is by no means an isolated incident, but part of a long-term strategy to demolish Palestinian social, economic, and cultural life. ... I am aware of the possibility that Mohammed Omer might be murdered by Israeli snipers or bomb attack in the near future.”

  This report on the dark side of media manipulation is significant not because it happens in Israel but because it reflects the type of the so-called “democracy” and “justice” found in most of the countries that are considered to be allies of America in the Middle East and North Africa.  The governments there violate human rights because of paranoia, and with good reason, but their very paranoia is part of a vicious cycle of cause and effect seemingly without end. 

  Recognition of this fact no doubt is why a sea-change is underway now within the U.S. government to reconsider past policies of support and recognize that the future of the Middle East belongs to what is now the opposition.  The only question in Muslim countries is whether the “opposition” may be worse than the governments it will eventually replace.  Continued U.S. support of the repressive elements in current governments will guarantee the inevitability of the scenarios that the current elites most fear.  When superficial stability is the ultimate goal, the necessary sacrifice of justice will guarantee chaos. 

  Stability will result simply as a bonus when compassionate justice provides the paradigm for action.  The future of freedom and prosperity, indeed of all civilization, depends on which comes first, order or justice.  Perhaps a future American president can lead real change by reversing the suicidal priorities of the past.

  Truly paradigmatic change can start with practical new initiatives, such as the following representative ones discussed over the years as articles in http://www.theamericanmuslim.org and accessible through its internal search engine under Crane:

“Peace through Faith-Based Justice in the Holy Land,” 2/28/08

“A Grand Strategy for Peace through Justice in Iraq,” 10/20/07

“The Vision of Communitarian Pluralism,” 03/04/06

“Taproot to Terrorism,” 6/19/05

“New Frontiers in Conflict Management: A Grand Strategy to Wage Jihad Against Terrorist Muslims,” 9/24/04

“Shaping a Common Vision for America: Challenge and Response,” 07/02/03

“Economic Justice: A Cure for Terrorism,” 9/29/02

  Book length discussions of paradigmatic priorities include the following:

Islam and Global Dialogue: Religious Pluralism and the Pursuit of Peace, edited by Roger Boase, with a Foreword by HRH Prince Hassan bin Talal (of Jordan), Ashgate, 2005, 310 pages;

Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition: Essays by Western Muslim Scholars, edited by Joseph E. B. Lumbard, with a Foreword by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, World Wisdom, 2004, 324 pages; and

Shaping the Future: Challenge and Response, Robert Dickson Crane, 1997, 159 pages.