The Saudi king ought to stop killing non-Muslims first. By Raymond Ibrahim
According to the
Associated Press, Saudi King Abdullah, in an unprecedented move last week, “made an impassioned plea for dialogue among Muslims, Christians, and Jews” — going so far as to refer to the latter two as “our brothers.” The Jerusalem Post
states that such talks would be geared to developing “respect among religions.”
More tellingly, days before the king’s call for dialogue, prominent Saudi Sheikh Abdul Rahman Barack issued a death-fatwa against two Saudi writers. Their crime? They wrote articles in the Saudi paper Al-Riyadh questioning the Muslim position that holds all non-Muslims — whom the Saudi king would otherwise call “brothers” — as infidels. According to the
Arab News, Barack said: “Anyone who claims this [that non-Muslims are not infidels] has refuted Islam and should be tried so that he can take it back. If not, he should be killed as an apostate from the religion of Islam.”
In Saudi Arabia, the facts remain: native citizens who dare convert to Christianity must be slain; absolutely no churches or any other “symbol” of non-Muslim worship (e.g., crosses, rosaries, Bibles) is permitted on the peninsula; non-Muslims are barred from entering Mecca or Medina.
In the United States, for example, Muslim minorities have the exact same rights — to build places of worship (mosques), publicly carry their scriptures (Korans), to worship and proselytize, and, simply, to be Muslim — as do Christians and others. That is proof that the West is prepared for dialogue over ancillary matters: it has already visibly demonstrated that it firmly believes all humans are guaranteed basic rights.
Countries like Saudi Arabia evince no respect for basic human rights and freedoms. The contrast is amply demonstrated by the
recent comments of one high ranking Saudi who said that “It would be possible to launch official negotiations to construct a church [note the singular] in Saudi Arabia only after the Pope and all the Christian churches recognize the prophet Muhammad” — which of course would make all Christians Muslim. How would Muslims react to a requirement that, to build mosques in the U.S., they must first publicly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?
The complete article from the National Review...Raymond Ibrahim is editor of
The Al Qaeda Reader. 
