Just imagine Ehud Olmert (the under-fire Israeli Prime Minister) needs to appoint an ambassador to the US; a country to which it owes its very existence. You can’t really get a more strategically important post in Israeli politics.
Continue imagining and visualise Olmert in front of the cameras, who announces: “I have appointed Fatima Ansari as the ambassador to the US.” Jaws drop to the ground, even the sounds of thuds are heard as people faint one after another and heads hit the ground. You know the kind of scene you see in cartoons - Tom and Gerry and the likes.
Fatima Ansari, is she not a Muslim? Yes she is and no, none of us can imagine that ever happening. Not that it’s a great bastion of democracy in the Middle East.
Now look at Bahrain, a small Muslim country which was one of the first to discover oil. Bahrain’s King has appointed Houda Nonoo, a Jewish woman as its US ambassador. Now look at that, an Arab country appointing a woman, and Jewish at that, to its most strategically important post. So much for Arab anti-Semitism, the fact is racism of any kind is detested in Islam. Muslims don’t hate the Jews as a race. What they hate is usurpers of their lands, and they can be Martians for that matter.
Hate is a strong word to use in any situation. I do feel for the Palestinian people, but if they begin to hate their oppressors, then they in time when the situation changes will become just as oppressive.
Many of my Muslim colleagues have expressed dismay at the appointment of a Jewish woman by Bahrain. I wonder what the majority of the Muslim community feels about this appointment? My guess is not happy at all.