by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

April 9, 2009

Hailed as heroes by Christian and Jewish scholars at Seton Hall University, eight moderate Muslim leaders from Iraq said they were optimistic about the Obama administration and their own nation’s future after the United States withdraws its troops.

The eight men, a mix of Sunni Muslim clerics, college professors, and mayors from the Anbar Province in western Iraq, spent April 1 on the South Orange campus as part of a two-week American tour sponsored by the Department of State.

Some spoke of death threats made by terrorists against their families and themselves. For security reasons, their names were withheld from the students, faculty members, and journalists who filled the Chancellor’s Suite at the University Center.

“The whole point of their visit was to make connections with people who do interfaith work,” said Rabbi Alan Brill, the Cooperman/Ross Endowed Professor at the university’s Department of Jewish-Christian Studies.

Brill spoke with NJ Jewish News after meeting with the Iraqis in public and private sessions.

“The two mayors in the group expressed more of a ‘Let’s go forward, let’s work together in America’ attitude than the others,” said the rabbi. “The two professors wanted to talk about the Golden Age in Baghdad in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, when Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived together peacefully.

“However, some of the imams said, ‘We are here. We are going to get what we can, but we are not looking to make friends.’ So we got a sense of who we are going to be working with.”

In two public sessions, the Iraqis appeared united in their anger against American occupation of their country, as well as the destabilizing force of their next-door neighbors in Iran.

Two interpreters from the State Department rendered prompt translation of the visitors’ Arabic.

“Those who are outsiders try to undermine our society. Our beloved city of Baghdad, our capital, has been occupied over 70 times. However, we are very determined to rebuild it,” vowed a law professor.

Speaking of the Al Qaida attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, he said, “We were extremely saddened and we are very sympathetic toward these victims. However, when President Bush declared a ‘crusade,’ this created an anti-U.S. sentiment. We have an extremely negative association with the Crusades. A lot of people lost their lives as a consequence of the Crusades. And we suffered a great deal under the regime of Saddam Hussein and other authoritarian regimes of the past.”

The professor said the American invasion in 2003 opened his country’s borders to infiltration by Al Qaida and other terrorist groups that did not exist in Iraq in prior years.

“There are regional competitions from Iran,” said another member of the delegation. “Those competitions are about all means of life — economic, social — and they are what the Arab citizens of Iraq worry about.”

‘Forces of darkness’

In an afternoon session, Newark Mayor Cory Booker asked the Iraqis to describe the dangers they experience.

The mayor of one Anbar city replied, “All of us live with threats and danger…, intellectuals and doctors as well as administrative officials. The forces of darkness label me as an infidel. I get letters threatening my life and the lives of my family as well. My kids did not go to school for an entire year.

“However,” he continued, “I have a profound belief that justice and peace should be established. I confronted the forces that are backed by Al Qaida extremists backed by neighboring countries. I fought them in the desert and on the sea.”

With an emotional tone that transcended the language barrier, another Iraqi said it was “inconceivable” for others to understand that “my people must stay inside their homes. When we go outside we see decapitated bodies splattered all over the streets, and we cannot bury the dead. Under these harsh circumstances you can understand how hard it is to operate as a mayor. As mayors we are totally isolated from our own families. Our own families are living behind closed doors like prisons to protect them.”

Another Iraqi had harsh words for the former president.

“The Bush administration had a very negative impact. We want the United States to have a more positive impact,” he said.

“At this point they’ve got more grievances against the United States than with the Israel-Palestine issue,” said Brill. “Israel wasn’t a major concern. They said, ‘Israel and Palestine will work it out. They’ve got less problems than Iraq has.’

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‘All Iraqi leaders are united’

PARTICIPATING IN last week’s interfaith event at Seton Hall University, an Iraqi law professor sought to play down what the Western media often describe as the unbridgeable divide between Iraq’s Shia majority and its Sunni minority.

In an interview before the visiting Muslims headed to midday prayers, one of the law professors told NJJN, “There is no rift between Sunnis and Shi’ites in Iraq. There is intermarriage between Sunnis and Shi’ites. However, the predicament we face today is the Iranian agenda to undermine the entire Iraqi society. Iran supports death squads and fosters Al Qaida as well.”

He said his government, headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shi’ite, “is confronting the death squads backed by Iran. Iran is supporting Al Qaida in the Sunni regions as well as the Shia regions. All of the Iraqi leaders are united in the fact of having a government of unity and also peace.”

But, he added, prior to the withdrawal of American troops, “we want the Iraqi forces to be well trained and capable of dealing with all security challenges.”

A post-occupation government, he said, “would have the tendency toward a more open society and a dialogue with all religious factions. What we hope to achieve very soon in our parliamentary election is that the candidates will be based on their sense of nationalism, not based on their religious affiliation.”

When it comes to relations with Israel, he said, “We don’t have diplomatic ties with Israel. In regard to our position toward the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, we will leave that to the Palestinians to determine themselves. We are advocating peace in the whole entire region, because in wars, all of us will be the victims.”

— ROBERT WIENER

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