In the run-up to the Tunisian Constituent Assembly elections and the aftermath that saw a plurality of seats won by the al-Nahda (Renaissance) party, you may have noticed frequent references in the media to this political organization as a “moderate Islamist” party.
This is of course not the first time such terms have been used to denote Islamist political factions: recall, for example, how the ruling AKP party in Turkey is often called “mildly Islamist” (to borrow The Economist’s phrasing).
Unfortunately, however, such terminology can only be characterized as part of what Hussein Ibish, director of the American Task Force on Palestine, calls an “intellectually and politically indefensible rush” to portray Islamist parties as “more moderate or pluralistic than they actually are.” [The Jerusalem Post] Read more
