A letter written over two decades ago by Osama bin Laden has been making the rounds on social media, especially TikTok, and being used as evidence for the Palestinian side of the Hamas/Israel war.
Attempts to appease Islamic Muslim radicals by discounting America’s Christian heritage has a long history. How do we reconcile the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, which “was negotiated under Washington, ratified by the Senate, and signed by President John Adams,” with the overwhelming evidence of America’s Christian heritage? Why put such a specific statement regarding the Christian religion in a treaty with a Muslim nation? Why is this the only treaty that includes this phrase? It’s easy to understand given the accommodating statements about Islam made by President George W. Bush and his cabinet in an attempt to accommodate Muslim nations. The United States is still attempting to pacify Muslim religious fears.
Like today, there was a poorly conceived diplomatic reason for the inclusion of the “Christian religion” phrase. The Treaty of Tripoli is nothing more than a pronouncement “that ‘the Christian religion’ as a formal institution was not a part of the American government in the same way that the religious structures of Islam are a part of Islamic governments. From many things that Adams and his contemporaries wrote it is clear that they did not use the word religion to exclude Christian ideas or principles as some do today. True, the founders did not make institutional religion a part of the government. But they never thought of excluding Christian principles.”
Even the late anti-theist Christopher Hitchens argued that “secularists like myself who like to cite this treaty must concede that its conciliatory language was part of America’s attempt to come to terms with Barbary demands.”
We must also consider that a Muslim country could not and would not make a treaty with what it considered to be an infidel (Christian) nation unless it was a one-way street. Thomas Jefferson, embroiled in a war with Islamic terrorists in his day, commented, “Too long, for the honor of nations, have those Barbarians been suffered [permitted] to trample on the sacred faith of treaties, on the rights and laws of human nature!”
Little has changed since the eighteenth century. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who took office in August 2005, stated that “Anyone who signs a treaty which recognizes the entity of Israel means he has signed the surrender of the Muslim world.” According to the Koran, the United States, like Israel today, is considered an infidel nation. Ahmadinejad described the current Islamic relationship between the United States as an “historic war between the oppressor and the world of Islam.” For Ahmadinejad, this “historic war . . . dates backs hundreds of years.”
America's 200-Year War with Islamic Terrorism
A studied examination of the history and context of the Treaty of Tripoli in light of the magnitude of evidence for the Christian history of the United States, Gary DeMar’s America’s 200-Year War With Islamic Terrorism: The Strange Case of the Treaty of Tripoli clears the air of the misconceptions and deceptions surrounding the treaty, and puts secular critics in their place.
Buy NowA letter written over two decades ago by Osama bin Laden has been making the rounds on social media, especially TikTok, and being used as evidence for the Palestinian side of the Hamas/Israel war. Gary reveals much more behind the letter and shows how Proverbs 18:17 applies: “The first to plead his case seems right until another comes and examines him.”