Tim Walz’s Skewed Vision, and His ‘Master Teacher’

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as if the Israeli leader were the obstacle to peace. Though much-maligned for being obstinate, Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to extend the initial ceasefire — “a full and complete ceasefire”— to six weeks. During that time, of course, Hamas operatives, no longer under attack, would attempt to regroup and resupply themselves with arms and new recruits. Netanyahu has also dropped his earlier insistence on keeping military control of the Netzarim Corridor that divides northern from southern Gaza, a major concession. The only point on which he would not yield was that the IDF must continue to control the Philadelphi Corridor that runs along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, for it is across that border that Hamas has been smuggling Iranian-supplied weapons for years, the weapons that were used by Hamas on October 7. That weapons lifeline has to be cut off.

And if Walz’ vision of a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, were to come to pass, Hamas would be able to present itself to the Arab world as still standing despite the IDF’s efforts to totally dismantle it.. And this would be presented, and believed by many, as Hamas having won a “victory” over the Zionist entity.

Then, in Walz’ naive vision, Hamas will agree – but why should it? — to what it has aways opposed: that “two-state solution” mindlessly invoked so many. Hamas means it when it says its future state of Palestine will include all the territory “between the river and the sea,” with the Zionist entity wiped out and replaced by a twenty-third Arab state. Hamas may, as a temporary measure, agree first to seeing Israel squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines, from which the Arabs, with Hamas and Hezbollah in the lead, will again renew their assault on the Jewish state in the hope this time of destroying it.

I doubt if Tim Walz has ever heard of the Mandate for Palestine, which assigned all of the land “from the river to the sea” to the future Jewish state. He apparently does not know of Israel’s legal claim to that territory. And I doubt, too, if he knows that the Israelis have been trying to make peace with the Palestinian Arabs for decades, most recently in 2000 and 2008, only to be brusquely turned down. Yet here he was in Michigan, cheerfully praising those anti-Israel protesters who were and are spewing hate, as “speaking out for all the right reasons.” Is calling for the destruction of the Jewish state one of those “right reasons”?

Walz has yet to explain how it was that he used to appear at public events with a Muslim cleric, Imam Asad Zaman, who had praised a neo-Nazi movie glorifying Hitler, and had publicly praised Zaman as “a master teacher”: “Over the time we’ve spent together [Asad Zaman and I], one of the things I’ve had the privilege of [sic] is seeing the things in life through the eye of a master teacher to try and get the understanding, listening today to the stories and what it means.” Walz went on to say that “’I have pushed back through my whole career on the demonization of Islam, on the demonization of immigrants,” he continued. “In this space, Imam Zaman is right on this, there is Islamophobia, there is a hatred that is being stirred.”

Is it really “Islamophobia”— that is, an “irrational fear” of Islam — to be alarmed at those who believe in the texts and teachings of that religion? Why shouldn’t non-Muslims be rationally fearful of those who believe that Muslims are the “best of peoples” and non-Muslims “the most vile of created beings”? Why shouldn’t they be alarmed at people who believe that Muhammad was the “Perfect Man” and “Model of Conduct,” when they know that Muhammad said that “I have been made victorious through terror”? Why shouldn’t non-Muslims be “rationally fearful” of Muslims, given such Qur’anic instructions as this: “So when you encounter the unbelievers, strike at their necks.” (47:4) I’d like to hear Tim Walz define “Islamophobia,” and whether he would be willing to concede that it is not bigoted, but rational, for non-Muslims to “fear and dislike” Muslims.

And let’s hope voters are paying attention to the Tim Walz, who in the past has befriended and praised as a “master teacher” an imam, Asad Zaman, who enthused over a pro-Hitler movie and refuses to condemn the October 7 attack. Walz still is unwilling to admit that his praise of Zaman as a “master teacher” was wrong. And remember, he thinks those virulently anti-Israel and antisemitic protesters in Michigan, calling for the destruction of the Jewish state, “are speaking out for all the right reasons.” He may win Arab and Muslim support in Michigan for the Democratic ticket, but many more voters, and not just Jewish ones, will be repelled by his views.