Muslim Heretics Conference

Equating Muslims with Nazis is a hazard in the Middle East, and misfires as a smear on Obama

• 
• Anne Karpf

We live in McCarthyist times, or so it sometimes seems. An Indiana election official, it emerged last week, has distributed a blog that called Barack Obama a “young, black Adolf Hitler”, while elsewhere an email was sent to Jewish voters warning of a “second Holocaust” if the Democrat was elected. Meanwhile, campuses around America last week marked “Islamofascism Awareness Week” with events on jihad and Islamic totalitarianism.

“Islamofascism” slips easily from the mouth of war-on-terror ideologues but it has a deeper narrative, too, as it attempts to elide modern Islam with 1930s National Socialism, and equate Muslims and Nazis. Obama, by virtue of his Muslim father (whom he met once), earns a central place in this narrative, where (according to Colin Powell) calling someone a Muslim - accurately or not - constitutes a smear campaign. It follows, QED, that having studied the Qur’an makes you the antichrist.

It is, perhaps, understandable that Israel invoked the spectre of a Holocaust in the Middle East in the aftermath of the liberation of the concentration camps; but Israeli historians have documented the ways in which, as the country became the dominant military power in the region, successive Israeli prime ministers deployed it as an ideological tool, even as the state demonstrated indifference to real Holocaust survivors in its midst. No one collapsed the differences between the Nazi genocide and the Middle East conflict more unashamedly than Menachem Begin who, at the height of his country’s bombardment of Beirut, sent a telegram to Ronald Reagan declaring that he felt as though he was facing Berlin where Hitler and his henchmen were hiding in a bunker. To which the novelist Amos Oz responded tartly: “Mr Begin, Hitler died 37 years ago … Again and again … you reveal to the public eye a strange urge to resuscitate Hitler in order to kill him every day anew in the guise of terrorists.”

But the biggest weapon wielded by those intent on confusing Arabs or Muslims with Nazis is the person of Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Palestinian leader known as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. In a new book, Icons of Evil, two American academics rehash the charges against the Mufti - that he received funding from the Nazis, met Hitler, sat out much of the war in Berlin, and helped establish a Muslim-Balkan unit in the Waffen-SS. In their inflation of the importance of the Mufti (an inflation deliberately encouraged in Israel by the 1961 Eichmann trial), what such accounts fail to provide is evidence that the Mufti gained any power over Nazi policy. Conversely, plenty of evidence shows he lost almost all his influence over Palestinian Arabs in the period.

More recently, consanguinity is claimed between the Mufti and Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein - all of whom are brought in to retrospectively implicate the Palestinians in the Holocaust, as if this might somehow prove that they’re entitled to only a small portion of their own land. Since the Jewish genocide is used so shamelessly in legitimation of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, it’s hardly surprising if many Arabs and Muslims respond either with Holocaust denial or by trying to appropriate the Holocaust themselves. In a mirror-image of Arabs-are-Nazis, Zionism-is-Nazism: they accuse Israel of acting like Nazis even while they represent Jews in the crude and offensive stereotypes used by Nazi propaganda.

One consequence of using the Holocaust in this way is that it naturalises antisemitism, turning it into an endemic, unchangeable part of human nature. By refusing to see the differences between different kinds of antisemitism that might look similar but have different historical causes, antisemitism becomes paradoxically harder to challenge. It also encourages Jews to see themselves as permanent victims and live in perpetual fear: we can never escape Auschwitz. And it polemicises the Holocaust, devaluing the real event and traducing the memory of the millions who perished in it - genocide as metaphor.

Invoking the Holocaust won’t help solve the Middle East crisis, nor assuage the genuine anxiety felt by Jews who survived it. Nor, however it may chagrin some Republicans, has it succeeded in magicking away Barack Obama.

• This article is based on ideas in an essay in A Time to Speak Out: Independent Jewish Voices on Israel, Zionism and Jewish Identity; the volume developed from commentaries at guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/series/independentjewishvoices

Anne Karpf: Equating Muslims with Nazis is a hazard in the Middle East, and misfires as a smear on Obama | Comment is free | The Guardian

“If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be – a Christian.” ~ Mark Twain

John McCain may have lost the election, but some of his core beliefs are alive and well among the majority of conservative Christians. True, some of these Christians had their doubts about the genuineness of McCain’s pro-life position, his devotion to real conservative values, his faithfulness to the Constitution, and his commitment to reducing wasteful government spending, but there was one principle that they were sure of: McCain is a war hero who served his country in the military, supported the war in Iraq, and would make an ideal choice for a commander in chief to lead the U.S. military in the perpetual war against Islamofascism.

It is bad enough that McCain is an unrepentant war criminal, but it is even worse that he is an incorrigible militarist, imperialist, interventionist, and all-around warmonger who thinks that there is no job in the world too small for the U.S. military. This is the man who jokes about killing Persians with bombs and cigarettes. This is the man who told a reporter that U.S. troops “could be in Iraq for ‘a thousand years’ or ‘a million years,’ as far as he was concerned.” This is the man who wants to start another cold war with Russia. Yet, instead of rejecting McCain outright, many conservative Christians supported him until the bitter end.

But it is not just Christian support for McCain that signals the triumph of imperial Christianity. Every Republican presidential candidate, with the exception of Ron Paul, supported Bush’s wars and the aggressive, reckless, meddling, militaristic, and imperialistic evil that is U.S. foreign policy. Conservative Christians would have gotten behind any Republican who received the nomination now matter how much he supported war and militarism.

The election was certainly a repudiation George Bush and the Republican Party. However, it was generally not conservative Christians who did the repudiating. McCain, after all, still received 46 percent of the vote. Many of the 58 million people who voted for McCain had to be conservative Christians. They certainly didn’t vote for Obama. A small percentage probably voted for Baldwin. A smaller percentage probably voted for Barr. An even smaller percentage probably voted for no one since voting is generally considered a “sacred duty” and it was such a “historic” election.

But instead of rejecting war, empire, militarism, imperialism, an aggressive foreign policy, and the warfare state with its suppression of civil liberties and destruction of the economy, many Christians openly embraced these things in the person of John McCain. Now, not every Christian who voted for McCain openly embraces these things, and especially those who fought back a gag reflex and cast their vote for McCain because they thought, sincerely but sincerely wrong, that he was the lesser of two evils. The problem with this latter group, however, is that the war was not even an issue, even among those who voted for McCain for the sole reason that he was more pro-life than Obama.

The terrible truth is that the vast majority of conservative Christians who voted in the recent election were not the least bit concerned about just war theory, U.S. foreign policy, the morality of the war in Iraq, the conduct of American soldiers in Iraq, the wedding parties in Afghanistan destroyed by the U.S. Air Force, the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program, the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, the dead, maimed, homeless, and orphaned Iraqi children, the thousands of American troops that died for a lie, the number of devastated American military families, a trillion-dollar-a-year defense budget, the proper role of the U.S. military, domestic spying programs in the name of fighting terrorism, the loss of civil liberties in the name of national security, or the open-ended perpetual war on terror.

The election is historic all right. Even though McCain lost, the election still marks the triumph of imperial Christianity over biblical Christianity.

Imperial Christians have a warped view of what it means to be pro-life. I have had Christians tell me that they despise everything about McCain, including his warmongering, but that they voted for him anyway because he was more pro-life than Obama. But don’t adults and foreigners have the same right to life as unborn American babies? There should be no difference between being for abortion and for war. Both result in the death of innocents. Both are unnecessary. Both cause psychological harm to the one who signs a consent form or fires a weapon. Why is it that an American doctor in a white coat is considered a murderer if he kills an unborn baby, but an American soldier in a uniform is considered a hero if he kills an adult?

Imperial Christians have a warped view of the military. Although many of these Christians may criticize the government, they have nothing but praise for the military. They equate U.S. soldiers killing for the state in some foreign war that has nothing to do with defending the United States as defending our freedoms. They publicly honor veterans who bombed, maimed, and killed Vietnamese, Cambodians, Afghans, and Iraqis that were no threat to them, their families, or Americans (until the United States invaded their country), as war heroes, not only on every national holiday, but on special “military appreciation” days as well. Yet, aside from the ministry, they think there is no higher calling for a Christian young person than military service – even though the military spends more time securing the borders, guarding the shores, patrolling the coasts, and protecting the skies of other countries than it does in defense of the United States. Christian soldiers are expected to blindly follow their leaders when it comes to the latest country to bomb or invade. To question the morality of their orders is to question God.

Imperial Christians have a warped view of patriotism. McCain appealed to the militaristic, nationalistic impulses of the Republican base. This, to the everlasting shame of Christians, is the home of the Religious Right. To imperial Christians, patriotism is supporting militarism, imperialism, xenophobism, and especially, nationalism. Patriotism is love of country; nationalism is love of state. Patriotism results in love for the people of one’s country; nationalism results in unconditional allegiance to the government of one’s country. The patriot knows his country isn’t always right and seeks to change its policies; the nationalist thinks his country is always right and that those who seek a change in policy are traitors. Government tools of propaganda used to get young men to fight have always been the same: nationalism and religion. And what a deadly combination they are.

Imperial Christians have a warped view of Christianity. Aggression, violence, and bloodshed are contrary to the very nature of Christianity. And so is defending, making excuses for, condoning, encouraging, and supporting evil – even if it is committed by one’s government. Although God commanded the nation of Israel in the Old Testament to fight against heathen nations (Judges 6:16), the president of the United States is not God, America is not the nation of Israel, the U.S. military is not the Lord’s army, the Christian’s sword is the word of God, and the only warfare the New Testament encourages the Christian to wage is against the world, the flesh, and the devil. The Gospel of Luke alone records an exchange between our Lord and his disciples that is relevant to the conduct of some conservative Christians today:

And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,

And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him.

And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.

And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?

But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.

For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went to another village. (Luke 9:51–56)

Christians who call for U.S. air strikes on some uncooperative Iraqi or Afghan village know not what spirit they are of. It is certainly not the Holy Spirit. Christian pulpits all across this land are dripping with blood, and it is not the blood of Christ. We hear more from pulpits today justifying American military intervention in the Middle East than we do about the need for American missionaries to go there. Our churches have supplied more soldiers to the Middle East than missionaries. Can you imagine the Roman army in the days of the early church recruiting from Christian churches? It is sad that the unregenerate soldier kills on behalf of the state; it is tragic when one who professes the name of Christ does likewise.

I am not optimistic about reversing the triumph of imperial Christianity. Not when blind acceptance of government propaganda, willful ignorance of U.S. foreign policy, and childish devotion to the military is the norm among conservative Christians instead of the exception.

For further reading on the subject of imperial Christianity, see G. J. Heering, The Fall of Christianity: A Study of Christianity, the State, and War (Fellowship Publications, 1943); Anne C. Loveland, American Evangelicals and the U.S. Military 1942–1993 (Louisiana State University Press, 1996); and Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (Oxford, 2005).

November 17, 2008

Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] writes from Pensacola, FL. His latest book is a new and greatly expanded edition of Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State. Visit his website.

The Triumph of Imperial Christianity by Laurence M. Vance

SIO President on Critique of Radical Islamism and Islamophobia
by Bishruddin Sharqi- Interview with Yoginder Sikand

Bishruddin Sharqi is the President of the Students’ Islamic Organization (SIO) of India, the students’ wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. The SIO is the single largest Islamic students’ organization in India. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand, he talks about the issue of terrorism and the urgent need for improving inter-community relations in India.

Q: In the wake of a chain of deadly bomb blasts across India in recent months, the media is awash with stories of Muslim youths whom it accuses of being behind these attacks. How do you look at how the media has reported this issue?

A: It is clear that in many cases perfectly innocent Muslim youths have been picked up by the police and wrongly accused by them of being behind various blasts. I am not saying that not a single Muslim has been involved in any terrorist activities. It might be possible that, due to denied justice, a few Muslims might have engaged in some such acts. All terror attacks, no matter who their perpetrators may be, must be sternly condemned and those behind them must be punished according to the law. But my point is that in a vast number of cases, totally innocent Muslims have been wrongly accused of complicity. On the other hand, as is increasingly being shown, at least some of these blasts have been the handiwork of fiercely anti-Muslim Hindutva groups.

In a large number of cases of arrests of Muslims accused of being ‘terrorists,’ all we have are confessions given by the accused before the police, rather than statements given before magistrates, and this cannot be accepted as evidence in the courts because we know that very often such ‘confessions’ are forced after torture. But the media simply parrots the police version, without any proper investigation, to create the absolutely false spectre of Muslim youths being allegedly all set to detonate deadly bombs across the country. Things have become so bad that one can now even talk of ‘media terrorism’, with Islam and Muslims as the chosen target.

The SIO has also been a victim of this sort of vicious media propaganda, along with several other Muslim organizations that have nothing whatsoever to do with any sort of terrorism. To cite one instance, some months ago a leading TV channel claimed that an advertisement had appeared in an Urdu paper published from Malegaon appealing to Muslim youths to shift their allegiance from the banned SIMI to the SIO. Actually, that advertisement was a public appeal to register for a Quranic recitation programme. We’ve taken this TV channel to court and the noted lawyer and human rights activist N.D Pancholi is handling our case. This is just one instance of how very influential sections of the media are making a very concerted effort to manufacture the image of Indian Muslims as ‘terrorists’ and demonizing them without adducing any evidence.

Q: Why do you think this is happening?

A: Some sections of the media seem to be doing this knowingly and deliberately, and this has to do with a host of factors, including deep-rooted communal biases and prejudices. This probably also has to do with their desperate drive for profit, which they think they can hike by broadcasting sensational stories, even if these lack any veracity.

Q: How do you think this sort of what you call ‘media terrorism’ can be countered?

A: This is not an easy task, given the communal and economic interests that are involved. Perhaps we now need to think of evolving new and alternate media that are not driven by the lust for maximizing profit and that represent the interests, voices and concerns of the marginalizednot just Muslims alone but other such communities, such as Dalits and Adivasis, as well as peoples’ struggles for justice and justice-based peace that are emerging across the country today. Obviously, in this regard, the Muslim media is far behind. The Urdu media is now almost wholly a Muslim concern, and so it cannot reach out to other people to counter the demonization of Islam and Muslims. The very limited English-language media owned by Muslims also has very few non-Muslims among its readers or listeners. Muslim leaders and organizations need to give much more attention than they hitherto have to the issue of developing and using the media to voice their views and to get them across to a broader, including non-Muslim, audience. Only then can the sort of ‘media terrorism’ that I referred to be countered. Fortunately, this is increasingly being realised by some Muslims today.

Q: The now-banned SIMI had adopted a very hardliner position, claiming that Muslims in India and elsewhere must struggle for the establishment of what it called a Caliphate (Khilafah). How do you view this approach?

A: Raising the slogan for Khilafah is not itself a crime. Any ideological movement will naturally raise slogans closely related to its creed. Ramarajya of Gandhiji and the Marxist dream of a classless society are examples of this. But how you will articulate them is the important question. Resorting to violence or preaching hatred of other communities for this purpose cannot be allowed, and Islam also forbids this.

As far as Islam is concerned, I think the approach always should be productive and positive. Theoretically itself, Islam admits pluralism. In a multi-religious and multi-ethnic society like India, groups working to create religious awareness have to recognize and respect the existing religious and cultural pluralism. But this concept of pluralism does means that you should abandon your cultural identity and ideological stance.

I think the major task before Muslim groups should be to seek to communicate the message of their faith to people of other faiths peacefully. Rather than enter into controversies with them, we should seek to work together with them on issues of common concern. This is what the Qur’an instructs us to do. You have to work along with other communities, gaining their cooperation and goodwill, rather than antagonizing them.

I feel that globally Islamic movements are realizing this. They are now understanding that the confrontational and violent path is futile and, indeed, counter-productive. They are now appreciating how crucial it is to work with and for people of other faiths, in the process reflecting, through their deeds, rather than just through their words or through their literature, the social message of Islam. So, now in Egypt, for instance, the leading Islamist movement Ikhwan ul-Muslimoon even has Coptic Christian Members of Parliament, and in Lebanon, Hizbullah works closely with some important Christian groups.

Q: Is that sort of thing happening with Islamic movements in India, too?

A: In India we have some twenty-five thousand non-Muslim associates and sympathisers who participate in and cooperate with our programs. In Kerala, where I belong, the SIO now has many non-Muslim sympathisers. The Solidarity Youth Movement, the vibrant youth wing of Jamaat in Kerala, has more than 500 non-Muslim members. In several colleges under the MG University, Kottayam, the Kerala University, Trivandrum, and the Calicut and Kannur universities, all in Kerala, the SIO has near about 20 Christian and Hindu members in students’ union posts. We see ourselves not as a Muslim organization, but, rather, as an Islamic students’ movement, and we regard Islam as being for the whole of humankind, not just for those who call themselves Muslim. This is why our work is not restricted to Muslims alone.

I think we need to broaden our focus further so that we can associate more effectively with non-Muslim students as well. In recent years our policy and programs concentrates more on taking up issues of concern to all students, not confining ourselves to just Muslims. In this regard, Kerala is well in advance of other states, where not just the SIO but several other important Muslim organizations have for quite a while now been devoting their attention to build relations and working together with people of other faiths for common social causes, particularly for peace and communal harmony.

Q: So, do you see Kerala as an exception?

A: I think Muslim organizations in other parts of India have much to learn from the Kerala example. Unlike in much of the rest of the country, the Kerala Muslims are an integral part of the ‘mainstream’. They know the art of peaceful coexistence. They have been influenced not just by various Islamic reformist movements but also by the climate created by various reformist movements in other communities as well as by progressive social and political movements. In Kerala, unlike in much of the rest of India, Muslims play an active and important part in the decision-making process. What is most striking about Kerala, as I suggested, is its legacy of close relations and interaction between the different religious communities in the state, though, unfortunately, things are beginning to change there, too. The key question is of learning how to interact in a peaceful and friendly manner while still keeping one’s identity intact.

I think one very effective and meaningful way of doing this is for people of different faiths to work together for common social causesbe it against immorality or against imperialism or struggling together for social justice. Let me cite a small but very meaningful example. Two years ago, the Kerala unit of the SIO organized a conference for medical college students in Trichur on the theme ‘Not Medical Ethics but Life Ethics Itself’. Some 40% of the girls and boys who participated in the program were Christians and Hindus. All the boys, Muslims as well as others, stayed in the mosque, and while the Muslim boys prayed in the mosque we had arranged rooms for the Hindu and Christian boys to say their prayers also. This program was very successful, and for many of the participants it was their first experience of staying together with people of other faiths. If such experiments and efforts could be made at a larger level, they could have a significant impact in terms of promoting inter-community understanding and solidarity.

Q: So, what advice would you give Muslims to seek to counter the increasing demonization of the Muslims that is being encouraged by influential sections of the media?

A: My opinion is that rather than simply constantly repeating that they are not engaged in any sort of terrorism, Muslims must seek to give a social answer to this wrong allegation, and that is by engaging in constructive, peaceful and positive social work that benefits others as well. We need to develop and use positive energy rather than be forced to be constantly on the defensive.

For that, we need to have a positive agenda as an Ummah. The concept of “Ummah” stands for a society with a clear vision and strong and imaginative leadership that can lead according to this vision. In this way, by our actions, by making a positive contribution to society, we can show and make people feel what Islam, properly interpreted and really is. This would help counter the concerted efforts that are being made to portray Islam as allegedly synonymous with terrorism.

Ignorance of other communities is a major cause of communal prejudice, and so I am all for healthy and close interaction between Muslims and others. We need to communicate with each other, and religion is a grand discourse for such communication. Muslims need to come out of their ghetto complex. We must become more pro-active in promoting bridges between the different communities. We should abstain from emotionalism. Unfortunately, sometimes I feel that we react emotionally to issues when we should respond intellectually. Thus, for instance, as regards Tasleema Nasreen, I feel that the best way for us to respond is by answering her by writing, not by holding violent demonstrations. The same holds true for several other such challenges before us.

That’s how the Prophet spread his message by using his wisdom and intellect, not by charging up his companions emotionally. Take, for instance, the case of the Treaty of Hudaibiyah between the Prophet and his Meccan opponents of the Qureish clan. When the treaty was being signed, the Qureish insisted that the Prophet write his name simply as ‘Muhammad, son of Abdullah’, instead of ‘Muhammad, Prophet of Allah’. The Prophet agreed to this demand. He also agreed that if any Muslim from Medina, where the Prophet had his base, came to Mecca, which was then controlled by his opponents, the Meccans need not return him to Medina, and at the same time also agreed that any Meccan Qureish in Medina would be returned to Mecca. Several of the Prophet’s close companions were upset by the terms of the treaty, thinking that they was an insult to the Muslims. Yet, the Prophet agreed to these terms. The Quran described the treaty as a ‘Great Victory’, for the next year the Prophet entered Mecca along with his followers peacefully.

I think this single instance provides valuable lessons about how Muslims should respond to the challenges that they are faced with today.

Q: To come back to the issue of SIMI, what do you feel about the approach of radical Islamist groups, including SIMI, that condemn secularism and democracy outright as ‘anti-Islamic’? In this connection, what do you feel about the views of Syed Abul Ala Maududi, the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami, who had similar views?

A: The point is that Maududi Sahib, or any writer for that matter, needs to be studied and understood in his own social and temporal location and context. The sort of secularism that Maududi Sahib was confronted with when he fiercely opposed it was one that was vehemently opposed to religion, the sort that we can see in Turkey even now, but today there are other forms of secularism that are not so, that respect religion and religious freedom. Obviously, the way we view these forms of secularism must be different. The same is true for nationalism, which, in Maududi Sahib’s time, was often equated with national chauvinism or even the deification of the nation. But today, in the age of so-called ‘globalisation’, the very notion and meaning of the nation-state have changed and are vastly different, so obviously the fiercely antagonistic posture adopted with regard to it by certain radical groups is not appropriate or realistic.

Most of these so-called Maududian views and comments were formed when India was still under the British. Maulana Maududi himself revisited and changed some of his own ideas after that. His advice to the Indian Jamaat after Partition was also to work peacefully and lawfully in a multi-religious and multi-ethnic society.

As I said, today, at the global level, Islamic movements are increasingly coming to realize that they need to revise the ways they have traditionally looked at issues such as secularism, democracy, religious pluralism and politics. The Jamaat-e-Islami of India is no exception to this trend. No movement, if it wants to stay alive, can remain obsessed with its founding individual and refuse to change. That’s why, for instance, there are forms of neo-Marxism that have sought to move beyond Marx. Likewise, we need to re-define our approach. This the Jamaat-e Islami has itself been practically doing. So, while Maulana Maududi forbade voting for or participating in elections held under a secular Constitution, the Indian Jamaat shifted its position on this decade ago. It first allowed for its members to vote, and then for them to support certain parties. And now, in this age of neo-liberal economics, which is playing such havoc with the lives of the poor, we are taking an active role in working with non-Muslim human rights groups and popular movements. All of this naturally constitutes a major shift from the earlier approach of the Jamaat and Maududi himself.

Q: Has this global shift in the policies of various Islamic movements that you mentioned also impacted on the ways in which these movements conceive of what they call ‘Islamic politics’, particularly the notion of the ‘Islamic state’?

A: Actually, the concept of Islamic State is highly misunderstood. It does not indicate a dictatorship where no other opinions and expressions will be allowed. The focal point of Maulana Maududi’s views is the Qur’anic concept of Inil Hukmu illa lillah, that the real and ultimate source of power belongs to God, rather than to the state. When nation-states were the centres of power he talked about the state in connection with power. The need of the hour is to recognize the new non-state power centers of today and to realize Islamic ideas accordingly.

There is a growing feeling among various Islamic movements that what is of central importance now is to work at the social, economic and cultural planes, to provide services and solutions to people in these spheres, and that this sort of work might later help strengthen them politically. Because today no longer is the state as an institution that powerful, for power is increasingly shifting to other spheresto the economy, the media, knowledge and so on. And so it is in these arenas that constructive work needs to be done.

In this regard I would like to cite the leading Tunisian ‘Islamist’ ideologue, Rashid Ghanouchi, who now argues that Islamic groups must desist from militant confrontation with the state, and, instead, must seek to cultivate or acquire social acceptance by providing concrete services to people. If people then accept them and themselves choose to be governed by an Islamic state then can such a state come into being.

So, in other words, I see that, increasingly, several Islamic movements are beginning to become more attuned to social realities and possibilities, and are also now increasingly realizing the importance of promoting inter-community solidarity, which I consider as a major issue today the world over.

========================================

Bishruddin Sharqi can be contacted on sendbishru@gmail.com

[JUST] International Movement For A Just World

Many Indonesians are hoping for a greater understanding and better relationship between the United States and Muslims under an Obama presidency, writes AMY CHEW

BARACK Obama was 6 years old when he first arrived in Indonesia in 1967, yet his memory of the world’s most populous Muslim nation remains vivid in his mind.
In his book Dreams From My Father, he describes the country’s landscape, people and poverty with striking detail and sensitivity: “There was the empty look on the faces of farmers the year the rains never came… and their desperation the following year when the rains lasted for over a month, swelling the rivers and fields… as chunks of their huts washed away,” Obama wrote.
He counted the children of farmers, servants and low-level bureaucrats, many of them Muslims, among his best friends, as they ran through the streets morning and night.
Such memories of his have led many Indonesians to hope for a greater understanding and better relationship between the United States and Muslims under an Obama presidency.

“Obama has won acceptability from practically all mainstream Muslim leaders in Indonesia even though he is not Muslim,” says Prof Azyumardi Azra of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University.
“He has a very good chance of rehabilitating America’s dignity in the eyes of Muslims.”
Azyumardi, a noted Muslim scholar, believes Obama’s childhood in Indonesia is what has imbued him with a sensitivity to people of different religious and cultural backgrounds.
“(Obama) is in a very good position, personally and as president, to become a bridge between the West and the Muslim world,” he says.
Obama moved to Indonesia when his mother, Ann Dunham, married an Indonesian Muslim by the name of Lolo Soetoro.
Lolo, wrote Obama, treated him like his own son, taught him how to box and to cope with the harsh realities of life.
“Like many Indonesians, Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths,” he wrote.
“And his knowledge of the world seemed inexhaustible. He knew more elusive things, ways of managing the emotions I felt, ways to explain fate’s constant mysteries.”
Sentiment aside, however, analysts caution against having overly high expectations of an Obama administration attaching great importance to Indonesia. “We cannot expect Obama to treat Indonesia differently from any other country,” says Ayzumardi.
Indonesia, say some analysts, does not hold the same importance to the US as it did during the Cold War, when it was regarded as an important buffer against the spread of communism in the region.
“In the past, Indonesia was used as a buffer against communism in mainland Asia. When communism collapsed in 1989, Indonesia lost its importance,” says independent political commentator Hasyim Wahid.
Economically, Indonesia also lost some traction with the US when the country became a net oil importer for the first time in 2004. “Indonesia used to be an important oil exporter but now we have become a net oil importer,” says Wahid.
“The US today places great importance on the Middle East, which supplies much of its oil and gas needs. This is followed by China and then Africa because there is also oil in those regions.”
The US consumes 25 per cent of the world’s oil and gas resources. As oil prices started moving up two years ago, the need to secure oil and gas took on a greater urgency.
As the world’s most populous and moderate Muslim country, Indonesia is often viewed as a moderating force against Islamic extremism.
The moderate and tolerant Islam practised in Indonesia has made the country an important strategic partner for the US in its war against terror, particularly in the fight against the ideology of hatred and intolerance espoused by extremists.
“Indonesia is a strategic partner who can play a bridge between cultures, interfaith. We are positioned quite uniquely within the region itself as to how Islam is an asset,” says Teuku Faizasyah, spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Department.
“We are a beacon of democracy as a country with the largest Muslim population. We also show a real case where Islam and democracy can live side by side, peacefully. We want to project that Islam and democracy do not make strange bedfellows.”
But Wahid, the grandson of the founder of Nahdlatul Ulama, the country’s largest Muslim organisation, which claims 40 million followers, disagrees. “Moderate Islam in Indonesia has been eroded by the rise of syariah in parts of the country, terrorist bombings and attacks on minorities like Ahmadiyah by Muslim radicals,” he says.
“You cannot take moderate Islam for granted in Indonesia any more.”
In recent years, more than 30 regencies out of 440 throughout the country have passed by-laws based on syariah principles, such as requiring both Muslim and non-Muslim women to cover their heads, forbidding women to leave their homes after dark without being accompanied by a male relative and many others.
Such by-laws run counter to the constitution, which safeguards the country as a plural and secular state.
“What concerns the US about Indonesia are the former mujahidin who went to Afghanistan to fight against the Russian invasion and have now returned home,” says Wahid.
Regionally, a major concern for the US will be the security of the Straits of Malacca. More than 50,000 ships ply the 800km-long straits every year, transporting 30 per cent of the world’s trade in goods and 80 per cent of Japan’s oil needs.
“In terms of Southeast Asia,” Wahid says, “the US’ key interest is the Straits of Malacca, because it is a vital shipping route, and Singapore, because the island state is a long-time ally.

The New Straits Times Online……

LOS ANGELES (JTA)—There was nothing unusual about some 20 devout Muslims from the King Fahad Mosque bowing and prostrating themselves as they recited the Isha, or night prayer.

Only the site was Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, and the worshipers were outnumbered by about 80 Jews watching the unfamiliar ritual.

At the same time, in another room of the Reform temple, Jewish congregants were participating in the Ma’ariv evening prayer, watched respectfully by a group of Muslims.

The separate but interwoven prayer sessions on Monday represented the beginning of a “twinning” movement that this weekend will bring together 50 synagogues and 50 mosques across the United States and Canada.

The twinning weekend, under the theme “Confronting Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism Together,” is one indicator of earnest attempts by American Jews and Muslims to reach beyond the Middle East conflict to join hands in battling prejudices within and against their communities.

There are other signs as well.

In Los Angeles, a major university, a Jewish institution and an Islamic foundation jointly established a Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement.

And at the University of California, Irvine, usually pictured as a hotbed of Muslim-Jewish antagonism, student leaders of both faiths recently returned from a two-week trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Although past attempts at Jewish-Muslim dialogues generally have been short-lived in the face of Mideast flare-ups, Temple Emanuel Rabbi Laura Geller was optimistic that the twinning project would succeed because “for the first time, mosques and synagogues are giving their full backing.”

The twinning project was launched a year ago when the New York-based Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, led by Orthodox Rabbi Marc Schneier and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, invited 13 Jewish and 13 Muslim spiritual leaders to a meeting.

“Our goal was to enlist 25 synagogues and 25 mosques, but we ended up with double the number,” said Schneier, whose foundation has largely concentrated on Jewish-black relations.

“Both American Jews and Muslims are children of Abraham and citizens of the same country, and we share a common faith and destiny,” he said. “Of course, we cannot ignore the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s the elephant in the room, but I see the emergence of moderate, centrist Muslim voices, particularly in the United States, and we must do everything possible to encourage such voices.”

Urging Jews to reclaim some of the passion they invested in the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, Schneier said that a similar outreach to Muslims “can serve as a paradigm for Europe,” and perhaps even for the Middle East.

During the coming weekend, twinning sessions between mosques and synagogues, as well as between Muslim and Jewish student groups on campuses, will stretch from Seattle to Atlanta and from Mississauga, Ontario, to Carrollton, Texas.

At Temple Emanuel, the presidential election of Barack Obama was an implicit factor in the hopeful attitudes of several speakers.

After saying that “Together, Jews and Muslims can send a message to the purveyors of hate and bigotry,” Usman Madha, the director of the King Fahad Mosque, led some 300 attendees in a rousing “Yes, we can; yes, we can”—the Obama campaign’s mantra.

Worried that the weekend meetings, , which are being publicized nationally through public service announcements on CNN and a full-page ad in The New York Times, may become overly emotional, organizers issued a set of guidelines for discussion leaders. The guidelines encourage “all participants to listen to one another in a courteous and respectful fashion, without interrupting or shouting down those with whom they disagree.”

There appeared to be no such caveats needed for the Temple Emanuel audience.

At a post-meeting reception Adam Motiwala, 24, an information technology consultant whose parents emigrated from Pakistan, called the evening “awesome.”

At another table, Bobbe Salkowitz commented, “I think there is a feeling in this country that we can’t push problems under the rug anymore. We have to be honest, but reach out to each other at the same time.”

As the concept of the twinning project evolved, Schneier turned for expert advice to the newly formed Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement. The center is the first of its kind and was established through an agreement signed by the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and the education-oriented Omar Ibn Al Khattab Foundation.

The three partners, all in the same Los Angeles neighborhood, had been working together for some time and decided to formalize their collaboration, said Reuven Firestone, a professor of medieval Jewish and Islamic studies at HUC.

“There are some anti-Jewish attitudes in the Muslim world and some anti-Muslim attitudes in the Jewish world, but there is no inherent conflict between Judaism and Islam,” Firestone said. “We have much in common in our goals and aspirations.”

A respected author, Firestone has written books on “Introduction to Islam for Jews” and “Children of Abraham: Introduction to Judaism for Muslims.” Out this month is his latest publication, “Who Are the Chosen People? The Meaning of Chosenness in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.”

Firestone and Dafer Dakhil, the director of the Al Khattab Foundation, are the co-directors of the new center, with Hebah Farrag, a recent graduate of the American University in Cairo, as associate director.

The center’s first major project will be to compile a massive database on key Jewish and Muslim religious texts for the general public. For instance, someone searching for an authoritative definition of “kosher” also would be referred to the Islamic equivalent, “halal.”

On a more popular level, the center is planning a film series on Jewish and Muslim topics, Farrag said.

Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation has provided a $50,000 start-up grant to the center, but Firestone worries about future financing.

Noting that previous cooperative ventures between the two faiths have foundered on political and nationalistic differences, Firestone said, “We’re aware of these hurdles, but what would kill us is not trouble in the Middle East but lack of funding. There are not a lot of Jews or Muslims who want to invest in what we are doing.”

Bridging the Muslim-Jewish divide | JTA - Jewish & Israel News

Fighters with Afghanistan’s Taliban militia stand on a hillside at Maydan Shahr in Wardak Province, west of Kabul, in late September.

November 18, 2008

By Jeffrey Donovan, Abubakar Siddique

What would happen if the Taliban’s spiritual fathers denounced terrorism? That, in effect, is what has taken place in Deoband, the northern Indian hometown of the austere form of Sunni Islam followed by the Taliban.
In May, Darul Uloom Deoband Madrasah, located north of New Dehli, issued an unprecedented fatwa, or religious decree, against terrorism. Earlier this month, 4,000 senior Indian ulema and muftis — Muslim clerics with the authority to interpret Islamic law — backed the fatwa in a mass gathering in the city of Hyderabad.
Now, the Deobandi political leader in India has told RFE/RL that the next step is to gather Muslim leaders from across South Asia, including the Taliban, to discuss endorsing the antiterror decree.
It looks set to be a hot debate.
“The killing of innocents or atrocities against them is terrorism,” Maulana Mahmood Madani, general-secretary of Jamiat Ulama-i Hind (JUH), the conservative political party founded by Darul Uloom Deoband, told RFE/RL in explaining the May 31 fatwa. “That is how terrorism is defined.”
Strong Stand
The fatwa was issued in a strictly Indian context. In recent years, amid a series of terrorist attacks, India’s 150 million-strong Muslim community has come under strong criticism from majority Hindus. Stigmatized as terrorists, Indian Muslims have been seeking to take a strong stand to dissociate themselves from violence — and the fatwa is the latest, if perhaps the most vocal, contribution to that effort.

Maulana Mahmood Madani

But given Deobandi influence on Muslims across the subcontinent, the fatwa is seen as having a potentially significant regional impact.
Darul Uloom Deoband was formed about 150 years ago as a spiritual resistance movement to British rule. Over the years, its austere form of Sunni Islam, which harkens back to the early days of the faith, spread across northern India and what is now Pakistan. Thousands of madrasahs propagating its teachings cropped up across the region, including along the Afghan-Pakistan border. It is here that many Taliban, including leader Mullah Omar, received their schooling.
With their teachers now coming out against terrorism, will the Taliban in Pakistan or Afghanistan follow suit? Madani is unsure. But he wants senior clerics from the eight member states of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to come together to debate whether to endorse the Deobandi decree.
“I don’t know what [the Taliban and clerics who support them] will say,” Madani said. “But my intention is that this issue must be debated. I am trying to bring together the ulema and muftis from all SAARC countries in India. Then I will request them to endorse this decree.”
Critical Stage
The Deobandi efforts come at a critical stage of the Afghan conflict, which has spilled over into the bordering tribal regions of Pakistan with militants also striking targets in and around Islamabad. In October, Saudi King Abdullah hosted allies of the Taliban and Afghan government for a religious dinner in Mecca. That meeting fueled talk that Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants a peace deal with the Taliban — provided they accept the Afghan constitution and renounce ties to Al-Qaeda.
On November 16, Karzai offered to provide safe passage to Omar and other Taliban leaders to take part in any peace talks. Taliban sources said they were considering a response.
Late last month, Pakistani and Afghan politicians and tribal leaders met for two days of talks in Islamabad. Their so-called “mini jirga” reiterated the desire of both countries to combat extremism and terrorism, and extended an olive branch to militants willing to lay down their arms.
The jirga process, which is continuing, is a positive development, according to Maulana Syedul Aarifeen, who heads a major Deobandi Madrasah in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s restive Northwest Frontier Province.
In the 1980s, Aarifeen’s late father — Maulana Rahat Gul — was instrumental in bringing together ulema to issue a fatwa declaring the fight against Afghanistan’s Soviet occupiers as jihad. But Araifeen now wants an end to nearly three decades of war in the region. He tells RFE/RL the jirga between Pakistan and Afghanistan is the best forum to bring an end to the Taliban insurgencies in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“This jirga should be held among Muslims,” Aarifeen said, “because Allah and his Prophet [Muhammad] said that when two Muslims have differences among themselves, you should seek rapprochement among them though consultation. And this process is called jirga in Pashto [language]. Now we see that there are differences among Muslims, who were united before. Now, the jirga is a good forum for us to unite again.”
Parallel Track
Alongside the jirga process, the Deobandi effort amounts to a parallel track on the theological front.
Francesco Zannini, an Italian author and expert on South Asian Islam, says the Deobandi fatwa appears aimed at condemning Al-Qaeda-style tactics — atrocities against civilians — while clearly leaving intact the Koranic concept of jihad, which among other things legitimizes defending Muslims against aggression.
“I believe it’s a big step forward in the sense that the Deobands are now promoting in some way a movement that goes against what Al-Qaeda is doing. This is a positive point,” said Zannini, a professor at Rome’s Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies. “But, at the same time, I would say that it does not attack classic fundamentalism but rather only condemns its most extremist aspects. In my opinion, the Taliban could very well end up backing it.”
The Deobandi fatwa comes amid other recent developments in Muslim countries that have condemned terrorism and embraced tolerance.
Saudi King Abdullah has led ongoing efforts to promote interreligious peace and tolerance, including a United Nations meeting last week in New York. Earlier this month, Catholic leaders, including Pope Benedict XVI and representatives of Islam’s major schools of thought, signed a statement after three days of talks at the Vatican pledging to combat violence waged in the name of religion.
Zannini, who took part in the Vatican talks, says it all adds up to a trend: “I believe at this point we find ourselves faced with what is, essentially, the great Islamic middle class that has grown tired of this confrontation. As a result, it has begun to do something about it.”
Perhaps the most dramatic shift within radical Islam came last May, when Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, the Egyptian ideological father of Al-Qaeda, published a major condemnation of the tactics used by Osama bin Laden’s terror network.
“We are prohibited from committing aggression, even if the enemies of Islam do,” al-Fadl wrote.

[Taliban's Spiritual Fathers Denounce Terror. Could Taliban Be Next?] - [Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2008]

An Arab Christian woman and Middle East expert says she isn’t surprised at a recently released report that Barack Obama received 90-percent support from Muslim-American voters in the recent presidential election.

The American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, or AMT, is an umbrella organization that includes 11 other Islamic groups, including the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. Recently they gathered at the National Press Club to report on the electoral preferences of Muslim voters and their level of participation.
AMT commissioned a poll which revealed almost 90 percent of Muslims supported Barack Obama, while only two percent supported John McCain. Brigitte Gabriel is founder and president of ACT! for America and the author of They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It. She says Muslim voters overlooked key differences they had with Obama on social issues — like abortion and marriage.

“They are willing overlook where he stands on abortion, where he stands on gay marriage and the like because as far as Muslims in America are concerned, they want to advance the cause of Islam in the United States,” she contends. “They are not worried how long it’s going to take or who’s going to help them facilitate it.”
Muslim voters, adds Gabriel, also supported Obama for another reason. “They know that Obama is going to be softer on the War on Terror. After all, vice president-(elect) Biden doesn’t even believe we have a war on terror,” she concludes. “He believes this is all a concoction of the Bush administration to basically enforce our opinion on the Middle East. So this is why Muslims in America would want to support Obama.”
Gabriel says the reports of secret meetings between Obama officials and the terrorist group Hamas give her pause about what kind of foreign policy the president-elect might pursue when he takes office in January.

Muslim-Americans voted for Obama because… (OneNewsNow.com)

‘A+’ in Radicalism

By Reut Cohen
Pajamas Media | Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), a non-profit research organization founded by Steve Emerson, published a letter on the IPT website which was written by a Muslim Students Association (MSA) member. The letter urges Muslims not to vote in elections this November. While an overwhelming number of Muslim-Americans supported Barack Obama, the MSA student suggested that both candidates are “kafir” and “poisonous.”

Farhad Akbari, the San Diego student, writes:

Whether you vote for the white kafir or the half-black kafir, they will kill our brothers and sisters. They will subjugate our brothers and sisters. And they will certainly support Israel in killing our brothers and sisters. There is no “lesser of two evils” here. They are both greater evils. The lesser evil is avoiding the situation, as both are equally poisonous to the cause of Islam. … Brothers and sisters, I have one thing to say: DON’T VOTE.

IPT accurately points out that these radical views are not anomalies, and are pervasive among various MSA chapters.

The July 1999 issue of UCLA’s MSA magazine al-Talib features the faces of Ayatollah Khomeini, Osama bin Laden, and Malcolm X. The article in the magazine about Osama expresses a hope that Muslims will defend their “brother” when someone refers to him as a terrorist.

The Muslim Students Association of the United States and Canada maintains chapters on more than 600 college campuses, 150 of which are directly affiliated with the national organization. While chapters may sometimes vary since the relationship between individual chapters and the national level is not fixed, the MSA has gained notoriety for radicalism on North American college campuses.

The MSA was initially founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood and was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum as one of the Brotherhood’s like-minded “organizations of our friends” who shared the common goal of destroying America. These “friends” were described by the Brotherhood as groups that could help teach Muslims “that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ’sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands … so that … God’s religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions.”

While it would be silly to believe that MSA students are engaging in any kind of conspiracy, Muslims typically have no alternative to the MSA when they first arrive on college campuses and become involved with this extreme organization. As an undergraduate student I recall several students who could have easily been described as moderates — and whom I was friendly with — joining the MSA during their first year. These students, who were initially amicable and reasonable, grew increasingly radical as they became more immersed in MSA activities.
It is crucial to recognize that the MSA was initially financed by Saudi Arabia. A New York Times piece says that the organization’s leaders, in return for the financing, “pushed the kingdom’s puritan, Wahhabi strain of Islam.” In the 1960s and 70s, adds the Times piece, MSA chapters “advocated theological and political positions derived from radical Islamist organizations and would brook no criticism of Saudi Arabia.”

Recent controversy surrounding the MSA shows a relationship between this student organization and the Holy Land Foundation fiasco in which money was allegedly being allocated to a Hamas front group. The MSA had apparently fundraised for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, whose assets the U.S. government seized in December 2001 because that organization was giving financial support to the terrorist group Hamas.

The MSA has also become increasingly influential. MSA has published the MSA Starter’s Guide: A Guide on How to Run a Successful MSA, which states: “It should be the long-term goal of every MSA to Islamicize the politics of their respective university. … The politicization of the MSA means to make the MSA more of a force on internal campus politics. The MSA needs to be a more ‘in-your-face’ association. … For example, the student body must be convinced that there is such a thing as a Muslim-bloc.” The MSA Starter’s Guide further advises: “Aim to rise within the ranks of the Union [student government] and to get on selected executive committees. … I cannot stress this enough, the Union has vast powers that Muslims need to control.”

Though the MSA often presents itself as a fairly innocuous religious organization catering to Muslims on campus, the behavior of student leaders and members of the MSA has been anything but innocent:

• October 22, 2000, Ahmed Shama, then-president of the UCLA Muslim Students Association, led a crowd of demonstrators at the Israeli consulate in chants of “Death to Israel!” and “Death to the Jews!” One guest speaker at the event was Hamid Ayloush, a member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which co-sponsored the rally. In his speech, Ayloush solicited contributions for the aforementioned Holy Land Foundation.

• In recent years, MSA members at UCLA raised money for Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists at their annual “Anti-Zionist Week.” In March 2003, speaker Muammad Faheed told an MSA meeting at Queensborough Community College in New York, “The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it!”

• At its annual conference in 2003, the Iowa Muslim Student Association invited, as a guest speaker, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, who had told a college audience in 1994 that “I am a supporter of the Hamas movement.”

• The University of Southern California MSA invited Taliban ambassador Sayyid Hashimi to speak on campus six months before 9/11.

• The MSA chapter at California State University, Northridge, held a fundraiser for Islamic Relief Worldwide, an organization that received a $50,000 contribution from a pro-Osama bin Laden front group based in Canada.

• In 2002, James Madison University’s MSA sponsored a “jihad” panel that included Dr. Abdulrahman Hijazi, who had once extolled an Islamic suicide bomber as a “martyr” whose actions were animated by a hope of securing “the mercy of Allah” by means of “one of the greatest good deeds, which is jihad.”

• In 2003, University of Idaho MSA President Sami Omar Al-Hussayen was ordered deported because he worked for the Islamic Assembly of North America, which has ties to al-Qaeda. While on campus, Al-Hussayen had sought access to a chemical lab containing nuclear material.

• Alkalima, the newspaper of the Muslim Student Union (which is an MSA campus chapter) at the University of California, Irvine, once published a special report called “Zionism: The Forgotten Apartheid,” which glorified Hamas and Hezbollah as noble warriors fighting Israeli oppression. Alkalima’s June 2004 edition contained an opinion piece praising Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad. It also described Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin and former Hamas senior leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi as “martyrs.”

• At the seventh annual MSA West Conference held at the University of Southern California in January 2005, former MSA UCLA member Ahmed Shama said: “We want to restore Islam to the leadership of society. … The goal … is the reestablishment of the Islamic form of government.” Shama praised Hamas and Hezbollah for being “uncompromising” on their principles, and for refusing to “shake hands with the other side.” He lauded the terrorist leader Muqtada al-Sadr for “legitimately fighting against [U.S.] occupation” in Iraq. He identified Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood as part of the “mainstream Islamic movement.” He praised Hamas’ resolve that “the only solution to the current occupation is military resistance. Not shaking hands. Not dialogue.” And he declared, “We have an obligation to make sure that our MSAs are part of the global Islamic movement.”

• At the February 2006 MSA West Conference at Sacramento State University, guest speaker Abdel Malik-Ali praised the late Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin and rejoiced at Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s poor health.

• MSA co-founder Ahmad Totonji was a major figure in the Virginia-based, Muslim Brotherhood-dominated SAAR network, which, according to federal investigators, had financing ties to al-Qaeda, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hamas.

Perhaps the most notable and shocking case concerning an MSA member is that of former member Asan Akbar, an American Muslim extremist who attended the MSA-controlled student mosque at the University of California, Davis. After college, Akbar joined the U.S. Army and, in the early hours of March 23, 2003, he intentionally detonated a grenade amidst sleeping members of his 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division stationed in Kuwait — killing two and wounding fifteen.

Unfortunately, the MSA has refused to condemn terrorism and radical Islam. The group decided not to participate in or endorse a crucial rally on May 14, 2005, “Free Muslims March Against Terror,” an event with the purpose to “send a message to the terrorists and extremists that their days are numbered … [and to send] a message to the people of the Middle East, the Muslim world, and all people who seek freedom, democracy, and peaceful coexistence that we support them.”

Considering their other activities, the fact that MSA chapters refused to participate in or endorse a rally denouncing radical Islam suggests that their alliances are not innocent.

Despite the disturbing behavior that Muslim Students Associations have engaged in throughout North America, they are in good standing with universities across the United States. Various MSA chapters have brought anti-Semitic, anti-American, and even homophobic speakers to campus. While the MSA has the right to exercise their First Amendment rights, it is unwarranted that such a hateful organization abuses university resources and even solicits student government funding — paid for in part by tuition dollars — to engage in their vile behavior.

Related organizations include the Islamic Medical Association, the Muslim Arab Youth Association, the Association of Muslim Social Scientists, the Islamic Circle of North America, and the Islamic Society of North America. MSA also has strong ties to the World Assembly of Muslim Youth.

FrontPage Magazine

OTTAWA — A seminar at the National Prayer Breakfast in Ottawa was told several years ago that one of the major causes of violence in the Middle East was the widespread view there that Muslims and Jews do not worship the same God.

This misunderstanding, we were told, encourages members of both faiths to dehumanize and thus to demonize followers of the other. When added to other regional issues, the result is ongoing terrible murders, bloodshed and mayhem.

In reality, Muslims, Jews and Christians worship the same God albeit in different ways and with differing emphasis. Each of our great monotheistic faiths believes that life has profound value and meaning. But how many Christians, for example, know that the Koran makes numerous and favorable references to Jesus? This profound ignorance about each other is a major obstacle to mutual respect and building harmony. All of us must work harder in this new century to eliminate this knowledge deficit, as does groups like the Muslim-Christian Dialogue of Ottawa.

There is another important area of misunderstanding among all three religions: the large differences of viewpoints within each of them. No one has written about this issue more perceptively than Karen Armstrong in her book, “The Battle for God,” which examines reasons why fundamentalism has grown in all three faiths. The Arab-Israeli conflict is one example she cites. It began as a secularist dispute on both sides, but today it is seen through an almost exclusively faith prism by both Muslim and Jewish protagonists. By the late 1970s, each of these faiths saw fundamentalism among its followers take center stage.

The rise of Christian fundamentalism, says Armstrong, parallels that of the two other religions, although for time reasons, I’ll only mention a couple of features she cites of the American experience with it.

The 1787 Constitution of the Unites States does not mention God at all; the First Amendment formally separated religion from the state. By the middle of the 19th century, however, the country had become strongly Christian. I recall reading not so long ago that fully half of the U.S. population today belongs, not merely adheres, to a church.

The American Evangelicals, who seek a “righteous empire” based on Godly, not Enlightenment, concepts became increasingly influential in the early part of the 20th century.

As Armstrong puts it, fundamentalism in all three faiths “exists in a symbiotic relationship with an aggressive liberalism or secularism, and under attack, increasingly becomes more extreme, bitter and excessive.” During the 1960s and the 1970s in the United States, faced with such an ethos, Protestant fundamentalists there grew much more vocal.

One of their major concerns was that the First Amendment was to protect religion from the state, not vice versa.

“The Battle for God” notes that in the 16th century Muslims constituted approximately one-third of the world’s population. Three new Muslim empires were founded in that century alone: the Ottoman, the Safavid and the Moghul, with all three providing a cultural renewal for their nationals comparable to that provided by, say, the Italian Renaissance.

I fast-forward to the year 2000 because of my limited time. According to Armstrong and many other commentators, fundamentalist Muslims around the world are today deeply concerned about two features of Western society:

1. the separation of religion from government/politics;

2. they want their own communities to be governed by the laws of Islam (the Sharia).

It is interesting that the five essential practices of Islam, the pillars of Islam – praying five times daily, declaring faith in the unity of God and the prophethood of Mohammed, paying a tax to ensure the fair distribution of community resources, observing the fast of Ramadan as a reminder of the difficulties of the poor, and visiting Mecca, if circumstances allow - have some quite similar features in Christianity and Judaism.

Equally, some sacred events and other essences of these latter two faiths seem quite acceptable to Muslims generally. I’d argue that believers of all three religions, each holding that humankind is no mere molecular accident, should agree on a host of issues, including the growing inequality of world incomes, the need to protect the natural environment, human dignity everywhere, and the necessity for peace and harmony among all peoples and nations.

How many Canadians, I wonder, know that about 50,000 Jewish Spaniards were welcomed by the Muslim Ottoman Empire when they were expelled from Spain after 1492?

Yet centuries later, notes Armstrong, reform Judaism, especially in the United States after 1870, was progressive, liberal and disposed to privatize faith. Many believers in traditional Judaism felt themselves besieged and some even refused to participate in secular education or to participate in modern communities.

Many Zionists who led the movement to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine, she asserts, were in fact atheists, who lacked an understanding that the land they sought was occupied by 750,000 Palestinian Arabs, who would be expelled from their homes in 1948.

Religious Jews countered that secular nationalism in the Middle East or anywhere is usually a recipe for disaster. As we know, the past century is full of horrific acts, including genocides, committed by secular nationalists.

I’ve already gone on too long and provided only a sample of the points made in “The Battle for God.” The author’s conclusion is that fundamentalists in all three religions have succeeded in rescuing their respective faiths from attempts to privatize or to suppress each of them. Fundamentalism is now part of the modern world and, whether some like it or not, is here to stay.

Armstrong notes: “…the liberal myth that humanity is progressing to an ever more enlightened and tolerant state looks as fantastic as any of the other millennial myths we have considered in this book. Without the constraints of a higher mystical truth, reason can on occasion become demonic and count views that are as great, if not greater, than any of the atrocities perpetrated by fundamentalists.”

Armstrong wrote her book before the events of Sept. 11, 2001 but some of the related points she makes at the end of it still seem valid. First, liberals and fundamentalists in all three faiths must build bridges and attempt to avoid future confrontations. Each side must maybe try to understand what motivates the other. Fundamentalist must develop a more compassionate assessment of their opponents to be true to their religion’s traditions. Secularists, says Armstrong, “must be more faithful to the benevolence, tolerance and respect for humanity which characterizes modern culture at its best, and address themselves more emphatically to the fears, anxieties, and needs which so many of their fundamentalist neighbors experience and which no society can safely ignore.”

Who can disagree?

–

Hon. David Kilgour, J.D., is a former Canadian Secretary of State for Africa and Latin America (1997-2002) and Asia-Pacific (2002-2003). He can be reached at www.david-kilgour.com.

Building Harmony Among Christians, Muslims, Jews - Middle East Times

Islam is not the Enemy
By Dr. Elias Akleh

The Western power elite, especially American (military industries, security agencies, financial institutions, and oil corporations) always need a public enemy in order to maintain their grip on political and economical systems to manipulate nations and to generate huge profits. They always create new enemies by stressing differences between groups of people and inciting hatred among them.

With the collapse of communist Soviet Union, enemy number one for the last few generations, the power elite lost a lot of “businesses” in the forms of military manufacturing and security services. One example of this is the economy of the state of California, which suffered greatly because it is based mainly on military industry. A new enemy was needed to re-boost these industries. The attacks of 911 were orchestrated and Al-Qaeda was accused of the act. The needed new public enemy was thus created.

Al-Qaeda, the base in Arabic, was established, armed, and financed by Texan CIA operative Charlie Wilson to fight the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. After liberating Afghanistan the Talibans started destroying the opium crops and replacing them with wheat. Wall Street used to rake huge financial profits from Afghanistan’s opium money laundering. Taliban leaders were brought to Washington to be persuaded to halt the destruction of opium industry. But they rejected all Wall Street proposals making themselves an enemy of international bankers and financial institutions. After the invasion of Afghanistan, war lords were established and the opium industry was quadrupled.

To keep the military industry cranking there was a need to widen the conflict. The Western power elites and their mouthpiece media took the fact that Al-Qaeda leaders were mainly Islamic and associated the terror accusation to Islam. Thus Islamic terror and Islamic terrorist groups became new terminologies used to brainwash the populace. This relatively small Islamic Al-Qaeda group was inflated to become the new super global power, richer and more powerful than the rest of the global super powers. It was portrayed as a global threat used to justify any government’s oppression of dissenting groups, who could be labeled as terrorists. 

Political clergy joined in the act of demonizing Islam. Pastors of televangelist Zionist Christians and Christians United for Israel such as John Hagee, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Michael Savage and Rod Parsley routinely attack Islam and the Prophet Mohammad during their ceremonies. They describe Prophet Mohammad as a terrorist, a heathen, follower of Satan, and womanizer among others. Islam is described as a false religion, anti-Christ, terrorist, undemocratic, violent, suppressive, satanic, and culture of death. The term Islamofascism was created and equated with Communism and Fascism. The “mad Muslim Mullahs” have become the ghoul of the West. First there was Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini, then Libyan Moamar Ghaddafi, then Mohammad Adid of Somalia, then Osama Bin Laden, and then Iraqi Saddam Hussein. Lately we have Iranian Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Palestinian Hamas.   

Those American so-called Christian pastors are aggressively inciting hatred and enmity against Muslims with the attitude of “Our way is God’s way and if you don’t accept our beliefs then we will kill you in the name of God.” They are advocating the murder of all “heathen” Muslims, the destruction of their cities, the nuking of their holy places, and the “conversion of all Muslims to Christianity to become human beings” like what happened in Spain in 1492, after the 800 years of Reconquista wars, when defeated Muslims and Jews of Spain were ordered to convert to Christianity or face persecution.

Such pastors are poisoning the psyche of their naïve followers with warring themes such as “America as a bastion against Islam”, “America’s historical conflict with Islam”, “Cleansing the Holy Land from all Muslim heathens”, “Crusading holy wars”, and “Islam: the greatest religious enemy of our (American) civilization”. It seems that these pastors do not prescribe to a God of love and peace, but to a god of war and destruction. Apparently, theirs is a criminal god with a religion of death.

What makes them more dangerous is that many politicians in the American administration, and even the defeated presidential candidate John McCain supported by his Republican party, proclaim these pastors as “spiritual guides”, “great leaders of America”, and “moral compass of America”.

On top of all those, we see the Zionist Israeli terrorist state claiming that the most ruthless enemy of the world is Islam, calling the religion “enemy of civilization”, “ oppressor of women”, “hater of peace”, “opponent to democracy”, “terrorist Jihadis”, and “foe of humanity”. In an attempt to cover their terror and to justify ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs, the Israelis claim that they are the victims of global Islamic terror, and are the spearhead of morality and evolution, who are courageously fighting this Islamic ghoul to save the rest of the civilized world.

Unfortunately the average American person of the street in general, and even many who consider themselves educated and with critical thinking, who are panting heavily in their attempt to acquire the loaf of bread for their families, who worry about paying the bills; taxes, mortgages, insurance and many others, do not have the interest nor enough energy to seek the truth. The majority of them collapse on the couch at the end of the day, passively watching their TV sets, and taking in the meta-messages sent to their unconscious by puppet politicians and false clergy. Through repetition lies become realities.

Albert Einstein once said: “Condemnation without investigation is the highest ignorance.” So let us do a little investigation. Let us refer to the holy texts(1) themselves rather than just listen to the misleading, hate-evoking, warmongering and poisoning words of the political clergy, special interest politicians, and their media mouth piece.

Islam is a wide spread religion in many different cultures and traditions. Islam is a religion and not a culture. Almost one third of the world populations are Muslims. There are hundreds of thousands of volumes written about Islam. Reading some of these volumes we discover that the Islamic prophet was a humble and an ascetic man. He did not live in luxurious homes, rather in a very humble one like any other citizen. He did not own gold and silver rather he was poor. He did not wear silky and colorful clothes, but had only one rough garment. He did not stuff his stomach with fatty rich meals, but mostly rice and milk. Those, who accuse Prophet Muhammad of being a womanizer, should read the Old Testament to learn about womanizing prophets; Abraham and Moses had multiple wives, Jacob married two sisters Rachel and Leah and their maids Bilhah and Zilbah. Solomon had a hundred wives (that is a real womanizer).

Mohammad was not incestuous unlike Abraham, who married his sister, or Lot, who impregnated his two daughters, or Judah who slept with his daughter-in-law Tamar. He did not cause the death of a person to steal his wife like David, who, although having many wives, caused the death of Uriah the Hittite to steal his wife Bathsheba. One needs only to read the Old Testament to learn of more similar stories. It should be known that Mohammad’s wives were given to him in political marriages as a sign of tribal loyalty.  

Preaching monotheism and acknowledging all previous prophets starting from Adam down to Jesus, Mohammad attracted the attention of Jewish Arabs (many Arabs adopted Judaism) of the city of Yathrib in Hijaz (present day Saudi Arabia). After listening to his Islamic teachings the Jews of Yathrib considered Mohammad their awaiting Messiah. They invited him to live in their city and changed its name to Al Medina Al Munawwarah (the enlightened city). Losing political power and revenue the Jewish Pharisees plotted with Mohammad’s enemies against him, but were defeated. The treachery of the Jews was documented in Islamic literature, and has been falsely misinterpreted as Islamic hatred to Judaism rather than to its political Rabbis.

Islam, in its core, is a peaceful religion. The word “Islam” means total surrender to God’s will. Sufism, a life dedication to meditation and praying to recognize God, is the ultimate form of Islam. Muslims believe in all the prophets starting with Adam down to Noah, to Abraham, to Moses, and all the way to Jesus Christ and talk about all of them venerably unlike the Old Testament that describe many of these prophets as womanizers, incestuous, murderers, and warmongers. One needs only read the Qur’an to realize this fact. Every chapter (Surat) in the Qur’an talks about these prophets and some are dedicated to their names such as Surat Ibrahim, Surat Joseph, Surat Meriam, Surat Prophets and many others. Muslims consider Islamic creed as an extension of the creeds of all the previous pre-Islamic prophets. Islam recognizes the “People of the Book” and their scriptures (Surat Imran 3, Surat Al-Ma’idah 47-51, Surat An’am 154 and many others). Qur’an states that their God and our God is the same (Surat Spider 46).

Contrary to the claims of politicians and political clergy, Muslims do not strive to forcibly convert people to their religion. Islam respects, and calls all Muslims to respect, true Jews and Christians calling them “people of the book”. Islam states “no coercion in religion”. Only through dialogue religion can be spread (Surat Spider 46). Islam considers true Jewish God, Christian God and Muslim God as one and same God. On the other hand we read in Judaic Hilchoth Melachim, c.viii, 4 that Talmud commands the Jews to convert the heathens to Judaism by the power of the sword and to murder all who refuse and to take away their children. 

Unlike political Judaism that describes Virgin Mary as a whore (Sanhedrin 106a and Shabbath 104b) Islam reveres Jesus’ mother, Virgin Mary, and dedicates a long chapter in the Qur’an with her name; Surat Miriam. Unlike Judaic false Rabbis, who hate and insult Jesus Christ, Islam recognizes Him as a divine messenger (Surat Imran 45, Surat Women 170). Muslims venerate Jesus and call him “The Word of God”, “Logos”, “Messiah the prophet” and a “Messenger of God” (Surat Imran 35, Surat Al-Ma’idah 47,49 & 78, Surat Cow 87 among many others). False Rabbis, especially Orthodox Jewish Hasidic Lubavitch group, insult Christ and describe him as a sorcerer, sexually immoral, a dangerous prophet, and call for his murder according to their god’s commands. (www.noahide.com/yeshu.htm ).

In the Judaic Avodat Kochavim, Maimonides stated that “It is a mitzvah (religious duty) to murder Jesus and his followers, and all non-Jews”. Moses Maimonide, a rabbinic law codifier and philosopher in Jewish history, wrote the “Mishneh Torah”, considered the Second Torah, in which he taught that Christians and Muslims should be murdered when Talmudists are dominant over gentiles (Avodat Kochavim, chapter 10). Avodah Zarah 17a states that Christians are allied with hell, and Christianity is worse than incest. Going to prostitutes is the same as becoming a Christian. Shabbat 116a states “The books of Christians may not be saved from a fire, but must be burnt in their place”. The Israelis followed this commandment to the letter when they burned hundreds of Bibles in Occupied Palestine on March 23rd, 1980, and again on May 20th, 2008 (Assoc. Press 5/20/2008 & Israeli Maariv newspaper). Jewish Israeli hatred of Jesus is expressed in the Jewish anti-Gospel “Toledoth Eshu”, revived and reprinted by the biggest Israeli tabloid Yedioth Aharnoth in 2000. Jews referred to Jesus by the name of “Yeshu” meaning “Perish his name”.

The status of women under Islam is one of the most intentionally misrepresented and falsely exaggerated issues by Western politicians and their political clergy cronies. Islam had liberated women long before women’s liberation movements in the West even began. I had lived in Islamic, Israeli and American societies, and have found higher percentage of Israeli and American women being abused, enslaved and victimized under the flag of so called Western women liberation movements, freedom and democracy. Women prostitution slave-trade, in its many forms, is very common within these two societies. One needs only to watch televised news and reads local newspapers to recognize this fact. 

Islam respects and cherishes women as mothers, wives, daughters and sisters and grants them all human and legal rights. Mohammad’s wife was a very successful business woman. The Qur’an dedicates a long chapter for women (Surat Women). Islam stopped female infanticide, gives women the right to inherit parents, husband and siblings, assigns married women dowry and divorced women alimony and child support, forbids arranged marriages and gives women the right to refuse marriage (Surat Nur 23), and gives women freedom to become contributing members to society in every form. Muslim women in all Islamic countries, even the most economically impoverished, are involved in every aspect of life even though some of these countries barely provide such chances for men themselves. One needs to watch televised broadcasts and listen to radio stations of these Islamic countries to recognize the contributions of Muslim women to media, art, music, social services, politics, education, business, finance and industry.

The West points to the veil, a fashion of Muslim women’s head dress, as some kind of a proof of Islamic retardation. Unlike many Western women, who wear provocative clothing exposing their sexual body parts, Islam requires men and women to dress conservatively in respect for their bodies, and it happened that the veil was a common dress at the time. This dress requirement is common to the three religions, where we find fundamentalist Christian women and nuns covering all parts of their body, and fundamentalist Jewish women having to wear a hair piece to cover their hair (Shulchan Aruch 2:153:8 and Mishnah Berurah 75:13) . Although a gradually disappearing fashion, as we could tell by watching Muslim televised broadcasts, the veil is still a sign of religious practice. Unfortunately, to incite hatred, politicians use the media to show the exceptions to the rules that exist into every religion and not just in Islam. 

Women’s status in Islamic Qur’an is a whole lot better than theirs in non-Islamic holy books. Judaic “holy” texts consider women impure and filthy. There is a Judaic obsession with women’s menstrual blood and the shades of its color, and consider it very toxic. There are numerous strict rules that menstruating women have to observe, including segregation from community, or face divine punishment (see Halachos of Niddah – Laws of Menstruation in the Shulchan Aruch: Yoreh De’ah 14a). Since women are considered impure, it is forbidden to teach them the Law (BT Kiddushin 29b), and they are not allowed to write a Torah scroll or read the Torah because it is a disgrace to the congregation (Berakhot 24a and BT Gittin 45b). Because rabbinic sages regard Jewish women as “sacks of excrements” (Shabbat 152b), and “meat from a butcher shop” (Nedarim 20b) they are banned until today from Talmud study. 

Texts such as BT Sanhedrin 54b and 69b allow homosexuality, child molestation, incest and sodomy with a child under 9 years old. It is permissible to sexually molest a 3 years old girl as documented in “Classic Guide to Jewish Law” V.2, P 1023 (Metsudah Publication, 1996) and in BT Ketubot 11b. Maimonide agreed to this law. 

Hasidim women are considered the most oppressed women in the world. It is a common knowledge that arranged marriages are common practice among the ultra-Orthodox Jews. In the Hassidic village of New Square, NY the community’s top rabbinical court published, in July 2005, a document prohibiting their women from driving cars, and their girls from riding bicycles. It also states that men and women must always walk on different sides of the streets. 

Orthodox Judaic women are segregated in synagogues in what is known as “ezrat nashim” section, and on buses they have to sit in the back of the bus, much like the Negro women in the old segregated American South. On November 24th, 2006  Miriam Shear, an American Israeli woman, was kicked in the face and violently beaten by ultra-Orthodox (Haredi/Hasidic) men for refusing to move to the rear of an Israeli Egged bus in Jerusalem ( Haaretz Dec. 17, 2006). Similarly, Iris Yoffe, an Israeli student, although sitting in the women’s section of the bus, faces all kinds of abuse from ultra-Orthodox Jews because she wears trousers, June 15, 2008 (www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1417054320080115).

The claim that Islam is a terrorist religion of death is a great sin. The Qur’an states that war is the most hated act to God (Surat Imran 216), but since war is inevitable and is forced onto Muslims then they have to defend themselves (Surat Imran 195). Prophet Mohammad forbade Muslim soldiers from killing civilians; children, women, elderly, and non-combatant. He forbade them from torching homes, from cutting trees, from poisoning water wells and from burning crops. He ordered them to take good care of prisoners, and to release them if they could not care for them. The Islamic call for “Jihad” is greatly misunderstood and distorted concept. Jihad for God means exerting mental efforts against bodily desires through meditation and prayer (Sufism) in order to recognize God. One should realize that for at least the last 300 hundred years none of the Islamic countries had attacked any Western Christian country. The opposite is true. The Western Christian countries have been attacking and destroying the Islamic world. Under the guise of war against global terror, and the lies of spreading freedom and democracy the Western armies are daily massacring  Muslims in Africa (Somalia & Sudan), in the Middle East (Palestine, Lebanon & Iraq), and in Southeast Asia (Afghanistan & Pakistan)

Judaic prophets and Rabbis have done the exact opposite. According their god’s wish they ordered ancient Israelite, and present-day Israelis, to kill all their enemies including children, women, and elderly, to kill all their farm animals, to burn and demolish their homes, to poison their water-wells, to cut their fruit trees and to wipe off all their towns and villages. Samuel, the god’s chosen Israelite prophet, had ordered king Saul, upon god’s request, to attack Amalek, “… kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey” (Samuel I 15:2-9). The Old Testament is full of such incidents where Israelite prophets ordered their people to commit genocide. Even Moses, the giver of the Law “Thou shalt not kill” had ordered his people to annihilate Goyims and take their land.

Such terrorism and genocide is considered a religious duty in the Judaic texts. Moses Maimonide’s Mishnah Torah chapter 10 p.184 considers these atrocities a “Mitzvah” : a religious duty. He decreed that any non-Jewish nation “… not subject to our jurisdiction (tahat yadeinu) will be the target of Jewish Holy War” (Hilkhot Melakhim 8:9-10, 10:11. also see Gerald J. Blidstein, “Holy War in Maimonide’s Law”, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press 1991).  Rabbi Simon ben Yachai, highly revered by both Khazar and Sephardic Jews, encouraged such genocide in his Soferim 15, Rule 10 stating that “… even the best of the gentiles should all be killed”. Yosef Obadia, Israeli chief Rabbi, calls on Israeli army and all settlers to kill all Palestinians because they are just cockroaches. 

Such “Mitzvahs” are conducted daily by the terrorist Israeli army, whose snipers target innocent defenseless Palestinian children. The Israeli army and Israeli extremist settlers attack Palestinian civilians, demolishing and burning their cities and homes, poisoning their water-wells, burning their crops, cutting down thousands-years-old olive and fruit trees, killing their farm animals, razing their fertile soil, and imprisoning their whole communities within a high cement wall. The genocidal crimes (Mitzvahs) of the Israelis are numerous to count here.

The Palestinians, with its Muslim majority, backed by the neighboring Arab countries, also with their Muslim majority, sought peaceful solutions with Israel. They accepted the illegal existence of terrorist Israel on 78% of Palestine in order to establish a Palestinian state on the remaining 22%, and to live peacefully side by side with Israel. But the successive Israeli governments had ignored all Arab peace offers and continue with their holy genocidal plan driven by their Talmudic right and Halakhic duty to kill gentiles.

Zionist Israeli Rabbis, shamelessly, tour the Western World, advocating such genocide. In 1994 Baruch Goldstein murdered 40 Muslim Palestinian worshippers while kneeling in prayer in the Al-Ibrahimi Mosque. After his death Israelis built a shrine for him in the colony of Keryat Arba’ and called him a saint. Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsbergh went out on a lecture tour in Canada and US breaching such mass murder of Goyims as a “mystical technique” for the attainment of ecstasy and “personal experience of the divine”. 

These examples are just a drop of an ocean. It is not the Islamic holy Qur’an, but the Judaic “holy texts” that call for terrorism, genocide, oppression and destruction; a holy war against all non-Jews based on prejudiced god with divine racist ideology of “God’s chosen people in God’s promised land”. It is not the Islamic madrassas (schools) but the Judaic Yeshivas (Talmudic Academies) that teach racism, terrorism, genocide, and a religion of death to disillusioned Israeli students.

Michael Hoffman II, “Judaism’s Strange Gods” [Independent History & Research, Idaho, US, 200] 

Michael Hoffman II, “Judaism Discovered” [Independent History & Research, Idaho, US. 2008]

Elias Akleh a contributing editor to MWC, is an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent born in the town of Beit Jala. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the “Nakba” of 1948, then from Beit Jala after the “Nakseh” of 1967. He lives now in the US, and publishes his articles on the web in both English and Arabic.http://mwcnews.net/eliasakleh

MWC News - A Site Without Borders - - Islam is not the Enemy