To the Editor:

It is with great concern that I refer to a piece [about the summer 2006 war between Israel and Hizballah] entitled “The Arab Temptation,” by Joshua Muravchik, which appears in the October 2006 issue of Commentary. While I disagree with the tone and much of the content of the article, and believe that it is irresponsible and damaging to the cause of dialogue at a difficult time, my purpose in writing is to correct a mistaken and unjust attribution that Mr. Muravchik has made to me.

We are all aware of the dangers of misquoting and misattributing comment in the current climate. The quote Mr. Muravchik singles out is taken from a structured opinion piece which appeared in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on August 14. The quote was not mine but was quoted by me from a statement in the British House of Commons, issued in 1946 after the King David Hotel bombing. Not only has Mr. Muravchik incorrectly ascribed this phrase, but he has taken it completely out of context. This is both upsetting and negligent.

The title of my piece, “Let the Voice of Moderation Speak,” is indicative of the content. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to begin with the following quote, which accurately represents the tone and thrust of my argument: “Moderation will continue to battle for the hearts of those millions for whom this war on terror is an offense to their existential realities.” I was very pleased to follow this with a quote from Boaz Ganor, the prominent Israeli thinker, who addressed the question of terrorism and demanded that there be “no prohibition without definition.”

As my article highlights, I believe that moderates in the West and around the world will not shy away from backing Mr. Ganor’s statement that terrorism must be defined objectively based upon accepted international laws and principles regarding what behavior is permitted in conventional wars between nations. Surely this is the only way to protect civilian populations and to create a template for conduct that frees us all from a spiral of hate and retribution.

In this regard, it might also be helpful to highlight my concern for those caught on both sides of this terrible and unnecessary war, and my fears for the future. As I wrote, “No one can ignore the pain and suffering of the Israeli people in recent weeks, but the policies of disproportionate reprisal and abuse of humanitarian norms can only beget further violence.”

It seems that the populations of the Middle East have become a middle ground between polar fanaticisms. My fear is that the theory of a clash of civilizations has morphed into a self-fulfilling prophecy. In this regard, my call as a moderate is clear: The Arab street is not filled with anger and hatred but with disillusionment and despair. Continued injustices committed by governments, armies, and militias can only push people closer to extremist groups. As I have long maintained, the key to disempowering the extremists and to building a framework for peaceful coexistence is respect for international law and humanitarian norms.

It is shocking that in our new century, the civilian residents of northern Israel were mortally threatened by Hizballah rockets. However, a reprisal that brings about some 1,200 deaths, the vast majority of them civilian, does not help the cause of moderates in our region. Can we expect that many hundreds of families who have lost their homes and many hundreds of thousands who were forced to flee will listen to moderates in their midst when such disproportionate reprisal seems to have the stamp of regional and global superpowers?

At best, Mr. Muravchik’s use of my name lacks journalistic or ethical integrity. At worst, it distorts a message that calls on readers to respect the place and opinion of moderates in our fracturing region. I would appreciate a retraction of the offending paragraph, along with an apology and a clarification.

In the company of many fine individuals from across the Middle East and beyond, I have worked for almost four decades for peace, tolerance, and the promotion of a humanitarian agenda. I will not be misused or misquoted to promote an agenda I have neither pursued nor rejected.

I await your response.

His Royal Highness El Hassan bin Talal
Amman, Jordan

Joshua Muravchik writes:

I respect Prince Hassan, not for his title but for his abilities. Once in Amman, I heard him deliver a talk that, as I told him afterward, I doubted any American politician could match for erudition. I also applaud his liberalism and his efforts for peace. This is why I was shocked to read his shrill, intemperate essay in Haaretz during this summer’s war in Lebanon.

Apparently, now that the guns have fallen silent, Prince Hassan, too, is shocked to read his own words quoted back by me. The appropriate reaction would have been to say that he was sorry he had said what he said. Instead, he accuses me of “misquoting,” “misattributing,” quoting “completely out of context,” and lacking “journalistic or ethical integrity.”

Were there any validity to Prince Hassan’s complaint, he would show precisely what was different between what he said and what I said he said. But this is conspicuously absent from his diatribe. So let me do it for him.

I wrote:

Prince Hassan of Jordan, veteran of a thousand peace meetings with Israelis, consciously evoked the British condemnation of the 1946 Zionist bombing of the King David Hotel in calling the Israeli attack on Lebanon “one of the most dastardly and cowardly crimes in recorded history.”

Prince Hassan says that the phrase I put in quotation marks came from the House of Commons; ergo, I “misattribut[ed]” it to him. But he invoked the House of Commons quote in his essay in order to assert that Israel was now acting in the same vicious way again. Here is what he wrote:

A statement in the British House of Commons at the time [1946] described the attack [by Zionists on the King David Hotel], in which 92 people were murdered, as “one of the most dastardly and cowardly crimes in recorded history.” The Lebanese have been damned to repeat this phrase to describe attacks on their country. . . .

The traumatic effects of the collective punishment of civilian populations will be felt for generations to come. The Israeli Defense Forces who occupy have made terror a daily reality for the civilian populations of Palestine and Lebanon, populations who have lived and continue to live through illegal occupation.

The plain meaning of these words is that the quoted judgment of the Commons on the King David attack applies equally to Israel’s recent acts in Lebanon. If that was not what Prince Hassan was saying, then what was he saying?

As for taking Prince Hassan’s words out of context, it is not I who does this but he himself. True, his Haaretz essay contained one subordinate clause about the suffering of Israelis, but its entire thrust was to rage against Israel and the U.S. True, the word “moderation” was in the title, but the point was not to offer a voice of moderation; it was rather to argue that Israel was so blameworthy that even Arab moderates had become enraged. “The moderates are now shouting also,” he wrote.

Although in his letter Prince Hassan has resumed a less bellicose posture (toward everyone but me), it is dismaying that he repeats the point, made in his essay, that terrorism cannot be prohibited until it is “defined objectively based upon accepted international laws and principles.” This sophistry, propounded by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, has blocked any international outlawing of terrorism. There is no difficulty or mystery in “defining” terrorism; Kofi Annan and other international authorities have done it. However, the Muslim states hold that no act, no matter how barbaric, constitutes “terrorism” if it is undertaken in the name of “resistance” to occupation. Thus, they have vetoed a universal agreement against terrorism unless all acts against Israelis are exempted, by “definition.”

By lending his imprimatur to this semantic game and by writing the angry, unbalanced essay that I quoted fairly and accurately, Prince Hassan demonstrates the larger point I was making in my article: namely, that Arab moderates too often fall prey to the extremists.

Covering all bases, Prince Hassan requests “a retraction . . . , an apology, and a clarification.” For my part, I request that he return to being the thoughtful figure whose words and actions I have often admired.