Let us start with the difficult truths. To many Americans and many Jews, Islam by its very nature demands violence against infidels. According to this view, Islam can never come to terms with Israel: Once brought into the Islamic world by conquest in 637 CE, Palestine can never revert to Dar al-Harb, the House of War.
These views of Islamic doctrine have been swimming in the collective political unconscious of the Western world for centuries. They draw on selected Islamic texts and examples that suggest a militant Islam bent on conquering the world for Allah. This is a false narrative, one that misses the variegated mixture of ideas, doctrines and historical experiences that exist in Islam—as in every major religion. In particular, it ignores the innumerable positive developments large and small, grassroots and doctrinal, that in our time are leading to a more tolerant Islam.
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