Hunting in Troubled Waters

I am not authorized, nor do I have the complete information, to defend Dr. Arahil al-Gharaibeh or Nabil al-Koufahi from the WikiLeaks attacks targeted by some individuals. The attacks described their meeting with U.S. diplomats — according to what I understand of the translation — as very revealing.

Mahir Abu Tair, a fellow writer who specializes in symbolically attacking the Islamic movement, didn’t hesitate to denounce the events of a leaked meeting that he tailored prior to his criticism. He extracted content in a biased manner in order to satisfy his objective of directly undermining the Islamists.

Personally, I have read both the leaked document on WikiLeaks in the original language and the translation that was circulated, and I didn’t find a thing that condemns al-Gharaibeh or Koufahi. On the contrary, the leaked document of the meeting that was described and quoted proves that the Islamists didn’t address political issues with the Americans, didn’t demand they take certain positions and didn’t ask them about internal Palestinian issues.

ّWhat was said at the meeting did not come out of a talk show host touching on the issues of culture and civilization and then stopped when getting to politics. The meeting was not official dialogue and cannot be condemned for that reason.

I do not think that Arahil al-Gharaibeh will respond to these leaks because nothing in its content should be condemned at all. On the contrary, the leaks strongly and clearly represented Dr. al-Gharaibeh’s initial position.

But a problem remains for those who are waiting for an opportunity to hunt the Islamists in troubled waters. After they play with words as they want and direct attention to them, these people believe they have persuaded others of their meaning. Personally, I wish that WikiLeaks never leaked this meeting, but I also hope there isn’t a time when I read the details of a meeting that brings shame to Islamists.

I told my colleague Maher Abu Tair that one is not entitled to demand the Islamists aren’t political, and one is not entitled to pick and choose what you want from meetings and take words out of context to achieve your goal of condemnation.

The Islamists are clear, and maybe it is the clarity in their Islamic ideology that dictates their positions. Maybe it wouldn’t harm a civilized and non-political culture if the Americans were here and we had a fair and two-sided discussion not subject to misrepresentation. And here we say, fear God in his understanding of events.