During Obama’s G20 World Tour (did you buy the t-shirt?) this week, we were witness to several disturbing actions and statements on the part of the President.  Two that come to mind are his bowing lowly before the King of Saudi Arabia (see the photo – ever see a US President do that?), and his speech before the Turkish parliament on Islam and United States.  Both are examples of dhimmitude.

What’s that, you ask?  Basically, it is a form of submission.  The word “dhimmitude” comes from “dhimmi”, an Arabic word meaning “protected”. Dhimmi was the name applied by the Arab-Muslim conquerors to indigenous non-Muslim populations who surrendered by a treaty (dhimma) to Muslim domination.  It is the status that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians.  Populations under conquering Islamic rule were basically given three choices:  submit to Islam, die, or becoming a Dhimmi.  To be a Dhimmi, one was in submission to Islam and Sharia law.  In order to survive, they had to accept a lesser status, quietly accept oppression and submit to Islamic authority, including the paying of the Jizya, a tax whose amount was arbitrarily set. 

One has to wonder what Obama was thinking (or was he) when he chose to bow before the King of Saudi Arabia.  This is the King of Mecca & Medina, muslim holy cities.  How do you think the Islamic world will interpret the act of a U.S. President kow-towing before a Wahhabist Muslim King and financial supporter of islamic terror?  Why would he do this?  At the very least, this is un-presidential and yet another severe breach of protocol & etiquette.  At the worst, he is submitting to, or sending a signal that he is willing to submit to Islam.

The other act of dhimmitude came during Obama’s speech before the Turkish Parliament when he made the following statement:  “We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world — including in my own country.”  What could Obama mean by this statement?

Robert Spencer makes the following remarks at Frontpage Magazine:

“…Were there Muslims along Paul Revere’s ride, or standing next to Patrick Henry when he proclaimed, “Give me liberty or give me death”? Were there Muslims among the framers or signers of the Declaration of Independence, which states that all men – not just Muslims, as Islamic law would have it – are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Were there Muslims among those who drafted the Constitution and vigorously debated its provisions, or among those who enumerated the Bill of Rights, which guarantees – again in contradiction to the tenets of Islamic law – that there should be no established national religion, and that the freedom of speech should not be infringed?   There were not. 

Did Muslims play a role in the great struggle over slavery that defined so much of our contemporary understandings of the nature of this republic and of the rights of the individual within it? They did not. Did the Islamic faith shape the way the United States responded to the titanic challenges of the two World Wars, the Great Depression, or the Cold War? It did not. Did the Islamic faith, with its legal apparatus that institutionalizes discrimination against non-Muslims, shape the civil rights movement in the United States? The Civil Rights Act of 1964 mandated equality of access to public facilities – a hard-won victory that came at a great cost, and one that Muslim groups have tried to roll back in the United States recently. One notable example of such attempts was the alcohol-in-cabs controversy at the Minneapolis-St. Paul international airport, when Muslim cabdrivers began to refuse service to customers who were carrying alcohol, on Islamic religious grounds. The core assumption underlying this initiative – that discrimination on the basis of religion is justified – cut right to the heart of the core principle of the American polity, that “all men are created equal,” that is, that they have a right to equal treatment in law and society…So in what way has the Islamic faith shaped Obama’s country? The most significant event connected to the Islamic faith that has shaped the character of the United States was the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Those attacks have shaped the nation in numerous ways: they’ve led to numerous innovations in airline security…”

Mr Spencer asks excellent questions.  Mr. Obama, through his actions and his speech on his world tour, is sending confusing messages to the Islamic world.  One can hope that the White House Office of Protocol will be utilized for his next trip.  Enough embarrassing mistakes have been made in this area:

• Mr. Obama’s ridiculous gift to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, after his gift to the Obamas of the desk made from the wood of the HMS Resolute.  Obama’s gift to Mr. Brown:  25 DVD’s in the wrong format
• Mr. Obama’s return of the bust of Winston Churchill to the UK government.  Why????
• MIchelle Obamas touchy-feely meeting with the Queen

Add a US President bowing in a perceived act of submission to an earthly king, and his confusing statements speaking before a foreign government, as well as his recent statement that the US is “arrogant”. 

If the Protocol Office has been engaged already, they should all be fired.