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Surprisingly, it goes quite deep, and somewhat confuses westerners, because they are unfamiliar with what could be called the “Asian way”.

In the west, the individual is the paramount figure, going back to the warriors of the Germanic tribes whose practices evolved into Common Law. But in Asia, the individual is relatively unimportant, or less important behind their family, their village, their extended family, etc., in a hierarchy up to the ‘great leader’, whoever it was. But even the ‘great leader’ had to obey the eastern philosophies, to which he was subordinate.

And Islam is one such philosophy. So in practice, it is not the effort of an individual to save their soul with faith, but a collective effort to obey “the system”.

In practice, for example, in feudal Japan, if an individual offended the emperor, it was seen as proper for the emperor to order his entire village destroyed, along with its people.

In modern times, a good example is “Russian humanitarianism” in Afghanistan. They had used a technique employed by America since the Indian wars, of taking women and children who supported fighters, and putting them in protective custody in camps, where they would have food and shelter, but could no longer support their men.

But the Russians did not have enough soldiers to guard such a restive group, so they proposed digging a slit trench, lining it with plastic, then putting water and weakened blister agent in it.

Then all the camp occupants would have to walk the length of the trench, resulting in the skin peeling from their feet, and their no longer being able to walk for some months. “This is a humanitarian act, because our only other alternative would be to kill them,” stated the Russians.

As you might imagine, most everybody else thought that this would be unacceptable, for some reason. But the west was horrified. In Asia the *concept* was at least understood, if not approved of.

But going back to Islam... Mohammed may some blunders when crafting his idea. The worst of these was that while he truly tried to make Islam more civilized and modern than the tribalism of the period, even demanding the adoption of the most advanced technology of the period, he did not suggest that Islam, or technology, should continue to evolve.

Nor did he make any distinction other than “might makes right”, for what is the substance of good government or leadership. Thus if a benevolent and popular leader was usurped by a vicious and stupid one, it was because the latter was favored by Allah.

As far as the Muslim on the street goes, however, following the “pillars” of Islam just means an ‘average’ grade in the religion. The only way to demonstrate that a Muslim is better than average is to obtain more land for Islam.

That’s it. He can be cruddy to his family, hateful, cruel, and downright evil, but if he puts more land “under the flag of Islam”, he is called “good”.

In past, at least one Muslim leader is alleged to have destroyed tens of thousands of Christian churches, either slaughtering or forcibly converting the Christians to Islam. He is lauded as one of the greatest Muslims of all time.

So, the bottom line is that when dealing with Asians raised in the “Asian way”, they have different ground rules and respond to different stimuli. And while this doesn’t mean you have to be an utter brutalitarian, if you use persuasion and coercion that they understand, you will have much greater success.

And this is why I proposed that the solution to the Palestinian problem, from the Israeli point of view, is not to offer them good things in exchange for peace; or to offer to return things taken away, *especially* land, at *any* time.

But, when they attack, to take away some of their land, and when they protest, say to them “stop attacking us, or we will take more of your land.”

Then, as can be expected, when they offer peace (lying of course), in exchange for getting their taken land back, the Israelis need to be rock solid firm. “No. Peace first, or we take more land. And once gone, it will never, ever, ever be returned. It will no longer, ever, be Muslim land again.”

And they will lose their marbles, because losing Muslim land to infidels is the worst possible thing a Muslim can do. All other Muslims will despise them, and they will have failed their god.