When Prince Charles meets with President Bush during his upcoming tour of the United States he plans to take the Prez aside and give him a bit of a lesson in tolerance:
The Prince of Wales will try to persuade George W Bush and Americans of the merits of Islam this week because he thinks the United States has been too intolerant of the religion since September 11.
The Prince, who leaves on Tuesday for an eight-day tour of the US, has voiced private concerns over America’s “confrontational” approach to Muslim countries and its failure to appreciate Islam’s strengths.
So, George Bush: get ready for a royal lecture…
What’s puzzling here is this: Bush has come under fire in some conservative quarters for him insisting in his speeches that Islam is not the enemy but those who use Islam but the enemy is those who do things that are not reflective of Islam or the many people who practice it — little things like slicing the heads of screaming and bound captives while chanting religious slogans. Bush has (rightfully) insisted that is not indicative of most Muslims. MORE:
The Prince raised his concerns when he met senior Muslims in London in November 2001. The gathering took place just two months after the attacks on New York and Washington. “I find the language and rhetoric coming from America too confrontational,” the Prince said, according to one leader at the meeting.
It is understood that Prince Charles did not – and does not – believe that the actions of 19 hijackers should tarnish the reputation of hundreds of millions of law-abiding Muslims around the world.
No. On the other hand, when you look the backgrounds of the hijackers, you sure wouldn’t confuse them with a conclave that’s about to pick a new Pope, or with the invitation list at a Bar Mitzvah. So it is a FACT the hijackers were Muslim, belonging to a more extreme branch — and that was a justifiable aspect of the 911 story. Just as it is a FACT — as Bush has repeatedly stressed — that the hijackers don’t reflect all Muslims.
The Telegraph story also has this:
Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, was also at the meeting at St James’s Palace. “His criticism of America was a general one of the Americans not having the appreciation we have for Islam and its culture,” he said.
All of this suggests the Prince is responding to a sentiment held not just by him but by Muslims in his own country. But he’s basically going to tell Bush what Bush already knows.
And if Bush hates Muslims so much, then why was he photographed actually holding hands with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah? He hasn’t done THAT with the Pope or with Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon….
A FEW OTHER VOICES ON THIS STORY:
What is it about frustrated members of the British royal family who, when unable to garner the throne for themselves, decide to campaign on behalf of genocidal nutcases? After being forced to abdicate the throne in order to marry Wallis Simpson, Edward Windsor flirted with the Nazis to such an extent that the British thought they might have to forcibly remove him from Spain. Churchill had to order him to the Bahamas to separate the Duke from German agents.
Now we have Prince Charles, the man who would be King if his mother would just let him, deciding that George Bush just doesn’t understand how wonderful Islam truly is — and wants to travel to the United States to deliver a lecture on the Religion of Peace..
—Don Singleton: “Exactly the opposite is true; President Bush has gone overboard saying Islam is a Religion of Peace, and cowtowing to CAIR. Both the US and Britain need to clamp down on Islamoterrorists.”
Here’s a tip for you, Chuck, we know you get satellite TV with those ears, try tuning in some HBO instead of al Jazeera. While you’re telling us how to run our country and calling us intolerant the president of Iran is advocating the total destruction of Israel and any other nation allied with, trading with, or even having diplomatic relations with Israel. That would include the one you live in. When I see “mainstream� adherents to the Religion of Peace condemning President Ahmadinejad’s threats and pressuring Iran to give up its quest for nukes I’ll start to begin to think that possibly they don’t agree with and support him. Until then butt out.
Here’s where the unemployed gentleman from Windsor gets it wrong from the beginning. We are not at war against Islam, we are at war against Islamofacsism, an ideology that is as much political as it is religious and which is dedicated to violent confrontation with the Western world. Talk all you want about Western Civilization’s debt to Islam, we are not dealing with the Islam that preserved the works of Aristotle, we are dealing with people who would prefer to burn the works of Aristotle, and any other infidel philosopher they can get their hands on. Making peace with people such as this is impossible.
—The USS Neverdock’s detailed post simply MUST be read in full. Any quote we give you would wreck the context.
—Daimnation: “So here’s my question: during his frequent visits with Muslim leaders, does Charles ever chide them for their extremism or poisonous anti-Semitism? Or does he take their hands and tell them that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with their beliefs and culture, and that we Westerners aren’t enlightened enough to thank them? There’s nothing new about this, by the way. The Middle East Quarterly published an article about Charles’ pro-Islamic beliefs in 1997.”
—The Llama Butchers: “Inbreeding in the royal family hits an all-time new low.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.