DAR AL ISLAM - QATAR: THE UNITED STATES IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ANIMOSITY MOSLEMS FEEL AGAINST HER

US To Blame For Muslim Antagonism, Says Supporter of Suicide Bombings
Patrick Goodenough
Managing Editor

(CNSNews.com) - The United States and its foreign policies have come under fire at a conference on relations between the U.S. and Islam, with figures like suicide bombing apologist Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi accusing America of responsibility for Muslims' animosity.

Qaradawi, a Qatar-based Sunni scholar regarded as the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, told the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha the U.S. had created the problem by searching for "an alternative enemy" in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse.

"The U.S. has initiated the animosity when the neoconservatives chose Islam as an alternative enemy," Gulf Times quoted him as telling the gathering, whose several hundred participants included high-level U.S. State Department officials. The three-day meeting ended on Monday.

Qaradawi said if the billions of dollars the U.S. spends on its efforts "to dominate the world" were instead channeled to needy Third World countries, Washington could easily have won over the hearts and minds of the people in those parts of the world.

"America will never be the master of the world. One day it will be replaced by new powers like India or China," he said. "America will never be able to win the world by force. Only justice and love can settle the problems. If America changed its policy, we would change our attitudes."

Qaradawi criticized the U.S.-led boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian government, saying Hamas was only described as a terrorist group because it remained committed to fighting against the Israeli occupation.

Hailed in the Muslim world as a leading and highly-influential scholar, the Egyptian-born cleric has come under fire for calling Palestinian suicide bombings against Israelis justifiable "martyrdom operations" and for encouraging Muslims to fight against U.S. forces in Iraq.

"Allah Almighty is just; through his infinite wisdom he has given the weak a weapon the strong do not have and that is their ability to turn their bodies into bombs as Palestinians do," Qaradawi told BBC television in 2004, adding during a press conference around the same time that suicide bombings are "weapons to which the weak resort in order to upset the balance because the powerful have all the weapons that the weak are denied."

Other Muslim participants at the weekend forum, which was organized by the Brookings Institution and Qatari foreign ministry, included Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa, who told the plenary session most Muslims do not hate the U.S. but oppose its double standards.

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Pertinent Links:

1) US To Blame For Muslim Antagonism, Says Supporter of Suicide Bombings