The Death of Maliki’s (Our Iraqi Ally’s) “Religious Guide Until the Last Days of His [Fadlallah’s] Life”

Death of his (taller guy on the right next to Ahmadinejad)

“Religious Guide” (turbaned pacific cleric amongst other Religion of Peace, Shiite division, votaries in hoary days of yore)

As the AP report, “Lebanon’s top Shi’ite cleric Fadlallah dies at 75” notes, prominently:

“Among his followers are many of Iraq’s Shiite leaders, including al-Maliki. In Iraq, a prominent leader in al-Maliki’s Dawa Party, Ali al-Adeeb, said Fadlallah’s death was a major loss to the Islamic world and that it “will be hard to replace him.”

But even this typically bowdlerized AP report observes the following:

• He supported the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979
• Fadlallah, known for his staunch anti-American stance, helped in the rise of Lebanon’s Shiite community in the past decades.
• He was one of the founders of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s governing Dawa Party and was believed to be its religious guide until the last days of his life. (Fadlallah was born in Iraq in 1935 and lived in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, where he was considered among the top clergymen, until the age of 30.)
• He was described in the 1980s as a spiritual leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah
• During Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war, he was linked to Iranian-backed Shiite militants who kidnapped Americans and other Westerners, and bombed the U.S. Embassy and Marine base in Lebanon, killing more than 260 Americans.
• Because of the his ties to the militants, then-President Bill Clinton in Jan. 1995 froze Fadlallah’s assets in America, along with those of 17 other people as part of an anti-terror campaign.
• Fadlallah long advocated boycotting American and Israeli products.
• He issued an edict saying the Baghdad government has no right to “legitimize” the presence of foreign troops but should call for an imminent and unconditional withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

Finally, here are some “ecumenical” comments about Jews made by “spiritual” leader Fadlallah, from my book The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism pp. 144-145:

“We find in the Qur’ran that the Jews are the most aggressive towards the Muslims…because of their aggressive resistance to the unity of the faith.” Fadlallah repeatedly refers to anti-Jewish archetypes in the Qur’an, hadith, and sira: the corrupt, treacherous and aggressive nature of the Jews; their reputation as killers of prophets, who spread corruption on earth; and the notion that the Jews engaged in conspiratorial efforts against the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Fadlallah argues, ultimately, “Either we destroy Israel or Israel destroys us.”