Strangely enough, the project of the distinguished thinker Khazal al-Majidi—especially his work on religions, grounded scientifically in history and archaeology—as well as the works of the late thinker Fadel al-Rubaie in comparative religion, and the works of Kamal Salibi and many others, did not, as they should have, stirred a necessary response to the claims of global Zionism. These claims have not been limited to Jewish Zionists, but include Arab and non-Arab Zionists as well.
It was the American journalist Tucker Carlson who ignited the issue in his conversation with the U.S. ambassador to “Israel.” The ambassador represents the U.S. administration’s stance as one of the schools of Christian Zionism that has supplanted original (Eastern) Christianity, subordinating all Arab regimes to its interests and narrative, and denying the existence of Palestine.
Although this journalist is a devout Christian and right-wing, he debated and embarrassed U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee regarding not only his denial of Palestine, but also his Torah-based position that some god granted a person named Abraham, leading some tribe, a land stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. All of this lacks historical or archaeological foundation, confining it to the realm of pure belief—and becoming dangerous when it transforms into a politicized-religious doctrine, as is particularly the case within the U.S. administration and its ruling Republican Party.
Perhaps Carlson did not intend to burst this bubble in parallel with the eruption of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and the exposure of the moral depravity of politicized-religious figures, especially child rape. How far removed such people are from any earthly or heavenly religion! What do they believe in—religion, or abusing and even torturing children?
If they torture children, how can they condemn genocide in Gaza? Perhaps the clearest expression of their stance was what the U.S. Secretary of State—of the Trump and Huckabee camp—said in Munich days ago: that his country had freed Israeli “hostages” from barbarians, without mentioning one hundred thousand Palestinian martyrs.
The significance of the American journalist’s position is that he was not logically convinced by Ambassador Huckabee’s responses and even embarrassed him—despite both being from Western Christianity and supporters of the Trump (MAGA) movement. What if this journalist had said:
“I am not convinced that these books descended from heaven—and even if they did, what assures us they were not altered or tampered with? Nor am I certain that a person named Abraham even existed.”
Or if he had said: “I am not a believer; I argue scientifically, and therefore I trust only history and archaeology.”
What the American journalist said should have been said long ago by Arab religious figures, intellectuals, and politicians. But, steeped in dependency and internalized defeat, they became entangled in a debate defined by the other side—confined to books claimed to be divine or unaltered.
The Occupied Arab Homeland
It is clear that the American journalist’s decision to interview his country’s ambassador stemmed from the genocidal war against the Gaza Strip. But the interview revealed something far more dangerous.
It revealed that all Arab regimes—and most Arab intellectuals—have fallen under U.S. control. In other words, it is not only Palestine that is occupied. Through this control, these regimes and intellectuals have not only assassinated the Arab identity of this nation, but have contributed to uprooting and devaluing Arab Islam in favor of politicized-religious forces that are thoroughly Zionist.
Anyone who watched the U.S. ambassador’s facial expressions would not dispute this claim. He appeared comfortable, calm, confident that no one in the Arab homeland would dare object to the insult he directed at Arabs and Islam. Huckabee’s composure wavered only when confronted by Carlson’s coherent logic.
Here I would like to add a note inseparable from the context of this article:
Netanyahu repeatedly claims that the entity is fighting on seven fronts against the Arabs. In truth, it is not the entity that is attacking, but American and Western weapons in its hands. It may not be an exaggeration to say that these assaults require no more than seven F-35 aircraft—striking here today and there tomorrow—confirming that Arab regimes harbor a strong desire for this aggression. And that the Arab countries not attacked are so submissive that they do not even deserve a slap on the back of the head. This degradation extends to the Arab people as well.
I reiterate what I have come to believe: invoking Arab history—whether in Mesopotamia, Pharaonic Egypt, the Arab-Islamic empire established by the Umayyads and Abbasids, or the Arab liberation movements from Abdel Nasser and the Baath, to the armed Algerian revolution and South Yemen against Britain and North Yemen today—does not negate that peoples can decline, as they have today. The claim that the people or the masses are always right contradicts the laws of dialectics and history, which move in a spiral, not a straight line—meaning they include change, regression, and progress.
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My Book on the Subject
I am not specialized in religions’ discourse, nor a politician in the formal sense. Most of my writings are in political economy and development, and I have addressed these issues in the greatly expanded second edition of my book in English.
Political Islam or Politicized Religion Palestinian Islamic Resistance Patriotic not Sectarian
The subject of this work is sensitive according to at least two reasons:
First: The western bourgeois academia, media, writers and intelligence services campaign accusing Islam as a terrorist religion falsely calling Islamic organizations “Political Islam”. In fact, politicizing religions is never limited to some Islamic organizations and regimes, it is in organizations and regimes of other religions as well. I found it more correct to use the term Politicizing Religion better than using Political Islam which was the title of my book published 1996.
Second: Islamic resistance organizations prove that Islam, especially while engaged into resistance has no link to terror.
To achieve the goal of the second edition of this book, I divide it into two parts:
First: An analytical introduction covers some of writings on religion and how human beings, especially in capitalist era, through politicizing religion use religion far from its content, in addition to an article I wrote explaining that Politicized Religion is a global phenomenon, i.e. the Zionist movement, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Christian-Zionists in the United State, and finally the ruling regime in India.
Second: I add to the book my first book titled, Political Islam as it was before when published 1996. The two parts of the book explain how I analyze the issue of religion from 1996 to 2025 and how I truly understand the structure of a Palestinian guerilla organization, Hamas, since 1996 differentiating between its traditional leadership abroad and its young field leadership in the occupied Palestine, especially in Gaza as radical, nationalist Muslims.
Thirty years have passed since the publication of the first edition of this book. Much has changed in a continuously changing world — and all the more so in a homeland shaken by turmoil, a field of struggle and resistance against globalized aggression, including the aggression of its own ruling regimes against their nation as a whole. Most of these regimes have either turned into, or been turned into, imperialist agents upon their own homeland, but always in the service of the bloody, murderous Western imperialism.
The second edition of this book contains the same text as the first edition; I have made no changes to it. However, as I already noted this edition includes a long introductory analysis of the transitional period between the first and second editions.
Thirty years passed between the first and second edition, it became necessary to revisit the subject of this book and add related discussions that were absent from the original text, for new, strange, and contradictory developments have emerged since then especially in the Arab Homeland, i.e., The collapse of Arab unity movement, and on the global level, The collapse of the Soviet Union as an Arab ally, which strengthen US domination especially on the Arab Homeland.The neoconservatives, a right-wing, Zionist, Politicized Religious movement, rose to dominance and create a new form of orientalism, the terrorist orientalism which composed of imperialist planning and Islamic terrorists oriented against Arab secular republics and supported by the Zionist Entity using the umbrella of Islam. This raises questions like, Humanity’s Relationship with Religion, is human being a religious animal? Or a political animal? a historical animal…etc.
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The opinions and views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Kana’an’s Editorial Board.
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