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Israeli Rights Groups Detail Allegations of Army Abuse in Gaza

by iqu Gaza

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HADITH OF THE DAY: GOD BRINGS GRIEVING PARENTS TO PARADISE – TOP

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: “No pair of Muslims will lose three (of their children) by death without God bringing them into Paradise by His great mercy.” He was asked if that applied if they lost two children, and he said it did. He was also asked if it applied if they lost one child, and he said it did. Then the Prophet said: “By Him in Whose hand my soul (resides), (even) the (aborted fetus) draws his mother to Paradise by his umbilical cord when she seeks her reward for him from God.”

Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 552

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AUDIO: ISRAELI SOLDIERS SHOT PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS IN COLD BLOOD – TOP
Quil Lawrence, The World, PRI, 1/21/09

Two weeks ago Khaled Abed Drabo was trapped inside his house several days into the Israeli ground offensive. Artillery shells hammered his neighborhood east of the Jabaliya refugee camp. Three tanks parked outside his front door, and loudspeakers announced that civilians should leave the area.

Khaled says that’s when his wife, mother and three daughters stepped outside the front door waving white flags. They stood on the front steps for five minutes waiting for instructions from the Israeli soldiers only 10 yards away. But instead, Khaled says, a soldier appeared on one of the tank turrets, raised his rifle and began shooting. All three of the girls fell.

Khaled’s mother was shot in the upper left arm and abdomen. Recovering at her brother’s house, she tells the same story. “The soldier shot us slowly aiming at each one.” The women fled back into the house dragging the bleeding little girls. Suad, 7 years old, died immediately from bullets to her chest. 2-year-old Amal survied a few moments longer. “She was asking her mother for candy and chips. Then her mother asked her: ‘Do you love me?’ She said: ‘Yes.’ Then she died.” (MORE)

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ISRAEL ACCUSED OF EXECUTING PARENTS IN FRONT OF CHILDREN IN GAZA – TOP
Israel has refuted allegations of war atrocities in Gaza after Palestinian children described how their parents had been “executed” by Israeli troops.
Murray Wardrop, Telegraph, 1/21/09

One nine-year-old boy said his father had been shot dead in front of him despite surrendering to Israeli soldiers with his hands in the air.

Another youngster described witnessing the deaths of his mother, three brothers and uncle after the house they were in was shelled.

He said his mother and one of his siblings had been killed instantly, while the others bled to death over a period of days.

A psychiatrist treating children in the village of Zeitoun on the outskirts of Gaza City, where the alleged incidents took place, described the deaths as a “massacre”.

Rawya Borno, a Jordanian doctor, said civilians, including children, were rounded up and killed by Israeli troops. . .

A boy named Ahmed said he was trapped for days in the wreckage of the shelled Samouni family’s house.

He said: “My mother was dead beside me, she was clutching my brother Nasser and they were dead. My brother Itzaq was bleeding for two days and then he died. My brother Izmael bled to death in one day. My uncle Talal was bleeding for two hours and he died. God bless them.”

Dr Borno said: “It’s a massacre. They collected them from their houses. They knew that they were civilians. They were children.” (MORE)

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PART II: PALESTINIAN US COLLEGE GRAD LOSES 2 BROTHERS IN ISRAELI SHOOTING; FATHER WATCHED SON BLEED TO DEATH AFTER ISRAELI TROOPS BLOCKED AMBULANCES – TOP
Democracy Now, 1/22/09

We return to the heart-wrenching tale of Amer Shurrab, who lost two of his brothers on the same day in an Israeli attack in Gaza. Amer is a Palestinian from Khan Yunis living in the United States. He recently graduated from Middlebury College. On Friday, his father and two brothers were fleeing their village when their vehicle came under Israeli fire. Twenty-eight-year-old Kassab died in a hail of bullets trying to flee the vehicle. Eighteen-year-old Ibrahim survived the initial attack, but Israeli troops refused to allow an ambulance to reach them until twenty hours later.

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ISRAELI RIGHTS GROUPS DETAIL ALLEGATIONS OF ARMY ABUSE IN GAZA – TOP
Attacks on Medical Workers, Hospitals Charged; IDF Cites Acts To Shield Civilians, Blames Hamas
Nathan Jeffay, Forward, 1/15/09

On January 14, Israeli human rights groups issued a detailed report alleging serious human rights violations by Israel’s military in its three-week campaign in Gaza against Hamas. But Israel rejected the allegations and continued to notch up its effort to lay the blame on Hamas for the harm suffered by civilians during its military effort.

The coalition of nine human rights organizations, which included Physicians for Human Rights, the Israeli section of Amnesty International and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, charged that Israel’s conduct “constitutes a blatant violation of the laws of warfare and raises the suspicion, which we ask be investigated, of the commission of war crimes.” (MORE)

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FINAL TOLL OF GAZA WAR: 1,330 DEAD, 5,450 WOUNDED – TOP
Agence France Presse, 1/22/09

Israel’s war on Gaza killed 1,330 people, at least half of them civilians, and wounded 5,450 others, Palestinian medics said on Thursday in a final toll of the offensive.

Among the dead were 437 children under 16, 110 women, 123 elderly men, 14 medics and four journalists, according to Muawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza medical services. (MORE)

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GIDEON LEVY: GAZA WAR ENDED IN UTTER FAILURE FOR ISRAEL – TOP
Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 1/22/09

On the morrow of the return of the last Israeli soldier from Gaza, we can determine with certainty that they had all gone out there in vain. This war ended in utter failure for Israel.

This goes beyond the profound moral failure, which is a grave matter in itself, but pertains to its inability to reach its stated goals. In other words, the grief is not complemented by failure. We have gained nothing in this war save hundreds of graves, some of them very small, thousands of maimed people, much destruction and the besmirching of Israel’s image.

What seemed like a predestined loss to only a handful of people at the onset of the war will gradually emerge as such to many others, once the victorious trumpeting subsides. (MORE)

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WAR CRIMES CONVICTIONS AFTER GAZA? – TOP
Anita Rice, Al Jazeera English, 1/22/09

As the UN and human rights groups demand independent investigations into the conduct of Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip, the world’s attention is focusing on whether Israeli or Hamas officials could face prosecution for war crimes.

Al Jazeera spoke to experts in international law to find out how and if officials could be tried for breaching international armed conflict laws during Israel’s war on Gaza.

There is a world of difference between establishing that war crimes have been committed, and then holding those responsible to account, says Mark S Ellis, the executive director of the International Bar Association (IBA).

“Often, people view these as the same, but they are not under international law. There is a gap … regarding the issue of accountability,” Ellis said.

Even if independent inquiries do establish that gross violations of the laws of armed conflict have taken place during the war in Gaza, the mechanisms to ensure those responsible on either side are brought to justice “simply don’t exist”, he said.

Four options

There are four main options open to states, groups or individuals seeking to launch legal proceedings against suspects should investigators find war crimes have been committed during the 22-day assault on the Strip, Ellis says. (MORE)

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GAZA DEVASTATION – TOP
CNN, 1/22/09

CNN’s Ben Wedeman reports on the devastation left in Gaza after three weeks of bombing.

Click here to watch the video.

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CAIR: LOCAL MUSLIMS OPTIMISTIC ABOUT OBAMA IMPROVING CULTURAL RELATIONS – TOP
Ross Farrow, Lodi News-Sentinel, 1/22/09

Members of the local Muslim community said they are delighted with Tuesday’s inauguration of President Barack Obama and his pledge to reach out to other cultures.

“This is a victory of humanity,” said Ahmed Hashimi, imam of the Lodi Muslim Mosque. “I think Obama has a very radiant personality. He can be a bridge between East and West.”

Mosque President Mohammed Shoaib said that Obama’s speech inspired everybody. He said Obama’s diplomatic approach will be better than the government’s style in the past eight years. . .

The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ New York chapter and other Muslim organizations sent a letter to Obama on Wednesday, asking him to adopt an even-handed policy to ensure sustainable peace in the Middle East.

“As American citizens, we are deeply concerned that our nation’s one-sided approach to the Middle East crisis compromises America’s ability to act as a fair negotiator,” read the letter. (MORE)

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FREED GITMO PRISONER SUES U.S. FOR UNLAWFUL DETENTION – TOP
Ed Henry and Barbara Starr, CNN, 1/22/09

Saad Muhammad Iqbal is a free man after serving more than six years at the U.S. military’s detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — without any charge.

Now, Iqbal is suing the U.S. government for unlawful detention.

“I am angry in my heart,” Iqbal said in a recent interview. “It’s easy for the U.S. government to say, ‘There are no charges found and he’s free.’

“But who will be responsible for seven years of my life?”

His attorney in Washington, D.C., is suing the U.S. government, on behalf of Iqbal, through the federal court system.

It is not the first lawsuit brought against the U.S. government by a former Guantanamo detainee. But it comes as President Barack Obama takes office, promising to shut down the detention facility, possibly within a year.

That could lead to an increase in the number of lawsuits brought by former detainees who — like Iqbal — say they were held for no reason. (MORE)

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CT: SENSITIVITY TRAINING AT BRADLEY FOCUSES ON MUSLIMS, SIKHS – TOP
Shawn R. Beals, Hartford Courant, 1/22/09

Seeking to bridge barriers and avoid unnecessary alarm, federal security officials at Bradley International Airport hosted sensitivity training focused on Muslim and Sikh cultures Wednesday.

“By informing our officers of some of the cultural aspects of diversity, we can avoid being distracted unnecessarily by some of those differences,” said Peter Boynton, Bradley’s federal security director.

“The training helps us understand the differences so we can focus on what we’re really looking for, which is an indication of a risk. We’re not looking for turbans.”

The group of speakers, working under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Justice, held two sessions for security and law enforcement personnel and others to educate them on cultural practices they may encounter at the airport.

The federal Transportation Security Administration, state police and airlines were represented at the training session in the Sheraton Hotel at Bradley.

The importance of the training was underscored by an incident in a Washington, D.C., airport Jan. 1. Nine Muslims were taken off an airplane after passengers overheard a conversation that was misconstrued as a threat. The airline subsequently apologized.

TSA was not involved in that incident, but Boynton said the airline’s action reinforces the fact that risk assessment cannot be based on cultural differences.

Noting the worldwide population of approximately 1 billion Muslims, presenter Elizabeth Dann instructed the group Wednesday about Muslim customs and clothing. Dann, herself a Muslim, said she speaks to groups in the security and education fields to raise awareness of Muslim culture, trying to eliminate stereotypes and cultural conflicts.

She also said she tries to make TSA officers aware that Muslims going through security checkpoints are just as worried as other travelers about passing through quickly to catch their flights.

“We’re probably more scared of you than you are of us,” Dann told the officers. (MORE)

SEE ALSO:

CANADIANS DETAINED AT BORDER FOR 7 HOURS – TOP
Debra Black, Toronto Star, 1/21/09

A group of young black Canadians on their way to see Barack Obama sworn into office say they were detained for seven hours at the U.S. border on Monday because of religious and racial stereotyping as their passports were checked and rechecked.

They eventually made it to Washington yesterday to see the inauguration of the 44th president.

Tyrone Edwards, organizer of the three-bus trip to Washington for black youth involved in the Toronto-based Remix Project, a cultural non-profit group, said 168 people from local non-profit groups made the 800-kilometre trek.

The buses left Toronto on Monday morning but were stopped at the Peace Bridge just outside Buffalo at around 1 p.m.

Speaking to the Star by phone, Edwards, the 27-year-old head of Remix, said the first bus cleared customs, as did the second bus, where he was seated. But the third bus was boarded by U.S. customs officers who asked about 14 young girls, all wearing hijabs, for their passports. Because Edwards was the organizer of the trip, he kept the second bus waiting until the third cleared customs. Initially he thought it would just be a short delay. (MORE)

How to TackleTerrorism

by iqu Uncategorized

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan (tr. Yoginder Sikand)

Posted Dec 20, 2008      • Permalink • Printer-Friendly Version

How to TackleTerrorism

By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan (tr. Yoginder Sikand)

Terrorism is an international menace. Everyone condemns it but the question is: How to cope with terrorism?

I would like to give the answer to this question in brief.

First of all, we have to define what is terrorism. In Islam, only one kind of war is permissible, that is defensive war. This holds true only when the war becomes a necessity. In Islam, war is justified only by the law of necessity and not under normal laws.When there is an armed aggression from outside, the state is allowed to go to war in its defense – that too with some conditions. As far as non-government agencies are concerned, they are not allowed to go to war. No excuse whatsoever is permissible in this regard.

It does not mean that non-governmental individuals or organizations have no contribution to make. They have a lot of work to do in the fields other than the political field. But they will strictly have to adhere to peaceful means. For example, they can educate people, in both formal and informal aspects. They can inculcate the spirit of harmonious living among people. They can inculcate the spirit of constructive work etc.

The Genesis of Violence

Violence begins from the mind. So is the case of terrorism. Terrorism begins from the mind. Terrorism is nothing but the culmination of negative thinking. Hence, any effort to remove terrorism must begin from the minds of people. We have to re-engineer people’s minds on positive lines. We have to make them understand that peaceful action is far more effective than violent action.

Turning Negativity into Positivity

Our society is based on the principle of free competition – it is this competitive state of affairs that creates what are called problems. There are clashes of interest between different segments of society. But this situation is not an unwanted situation. This situation is good for society provided people learn the art of management of differences, rather than the art of eliminating differences. Failure of people management of differences leads to violence and war. Instead of this, when people are able to successfully manage differences; it results in peace in the society.

It is this formula that is given in the Quran in these words:  ‘Peace is the best’. (4:128)

It means that in the face of differences, the conciliatory approach is better than the confrontational approach. Muslim Sufis have adopted this formula, which they call: Sulh-e-kul. It means ‘Peace with all’. This is the only successful formula for establishing a better society.

No Extremism

There is a verse in the Quran: ‘Don’t be extremist in your religion’. (4: 171) The Prophet of Islam has said: ‘Refrain yourself from extremism, it is highly disastrous for you’.  Extremism leads to negative thinking, negative thinking leads to violence and violence leads to armed confrontation.

So-Called ‘Islamization’ of Terrorism

Some Muslim extremists justify their violent actions by saying that ‘Yes, we are involved in terrorism but we terrorize unjust people, just like the police. The police terrorizes criminals and we terrorize those people who are enemies of truth’.
These kinds of statements are nothing but so-called ‘Islamization’ of terrorism by uttering some seemingly beautiful words. This argument is based on a fallacy, that is, a wrong comparison. The police are an authorized body of a state. What the police are doing it is doing by legal authority. But these extremists or their self-styled organizations are not an authoritative body in this sense. As a matter of principle, these elements have no right to use arms; no excuse whatsoever gives them the justification to terrorize people. They have only one option: that is to persuade people by peaceful means, without using any arms or causing anyone harm.

Terror Attacks at Mumbai

The terror attack at Mumbai on November 26, 2008 should serve as an eye-opener for us all. It is a general belief that such terror attacks by Muslim youths are directly inspired by the teachings of the Quran. But the Muslim terrorist, who was captured alive at the time of the Mumbai attacks, had a different story to tell. He told in detail how they were prepared for that task. He explained to the interrogators that they were trained in some special camps for a long period of time. During this training period, apart from being trained on the use of arms, they were given ideological lessons constantly. They never said that they were advised to study the Quran. Instead, he told the interrogators that they were shown video films. In these films, they were made to watch bloody communal riots and to hear the speeches of some extremist Hindu leaders. What were these films? These films were based on selective news items or some exceptional items. In these films, the makers tried to generalize the exception. These youths underwent a brainwashing process by these sensitive video films.

For example, they were shown the demolition of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. This single incident greatly provoked their sentiments. But the fact is that apart from the Babri Mosque, there are numerous other mosques that are fully under Muslim control in India. According to one estimate, there are more than half a million mosques in India. Approximately the same number of Islamic, madrassas – big and small – also exist throughout the country. But these mosques and madrassas were not included in the video films that were shown to those Muslims terrorists. If these Muslim youths were also shown these functional mosques and madrasas, then certainly they would have had a different mindset. This kind of training was quite against the spirit of Islam.

The tragedy of the Babri Mosque and the communal riots shown to them was not a one-sided act. It was the result of an action and reaction process and Hindus and Muslims were both involved in this unwanted process. The blame for these bloody incidents goes to both the communities — Muslims and Non-Muslims. These video films showed only one side of the story and not the complete picture of the incident.

Unaware of Quranic Teachings

If these Muslim youths were asked to read the Quran at the time of their training, then surely they would have found this verse of the Quran which forbids killings of innocent people. This Quranic verse says that: ‘Whoever killed one single innocent human being should be looked upon as though he had killed all mankind (5:32).  If these Muslim youths were aware of these Quranic teachings, it would not have been possible for them to kill innocent men and women in terror attacks.

Then there is a very relevant tradition of the Prophet of Islam. He said:  God grants to rifq (peace) what he does not grant to unf (violence).  (Abu Dawud, Sunan, 4/255) This Prophetic teaching tells us that the better way to achieve all objectives is the peaceful method and not the violent method.  If these Muslim youths would have been aware of this Prophetic teaching, they would certainly have adopted this peaceful method instead of the violent gun-culture to achieve their objective.

The Target of these Muslim Terrorists

Recently it was disclosed in an article written by the Pakistani ambassador to the USA, Mr. Hussain Haqqani, that Muslim terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba have a dangerous political plan in mind. Their thinking is that all the areas on the globe that were once under the Muslim rule, like the Ottoman empire or the Mughal empire or the Moorish empire, are Muslims by right. According to them, Non-Muslim nations have unjustly captured these areas. They are usurpers. It is now their right to re-capture all these Muslim areas and establish Muslim rule over these lands once again.

According to them, the recent terrorism is a justified war, aimed at achieving what they regard as their rightful objectives.

This kind of ideology is very dangerous. It is a permanent threat to world peace. Simply condemnation or counter-attack is not enough to eliminate this ideology. It requires a counter-ideology. We have to convince these people that political rule is not a hereditary right of any community or nation. Moreover, now we are living in the age of democracy. Democracy means a power-sharing system. Now every group has the right to share power in a democratic way. The hereditary concept mentioned above is nothing but a kind of anachronism, which is not tenable at all. Now we are living under the United Nations Organizations. All the nations of the world are members of this International body. Only that kind of political norm is acceptable that is just according to the United Nations’ Charter and the above kind of hereditary concept is certainly quite against the UNO’s accepted principles.

What Can be Done?

Now the question is what can be done in such an alarming situation? What is the practical solution to the present state of affairs? I think that there are two parts to this solution. In every country, there are stern laws to curb violence and terrorism. Governmental agencies must enforce all these laws. They must punish all those elements who are involved in such heinous acts. But another part of the solution pertains to the re-engineering of peoples’ minds. This task must be undertaken by the agencies that are non-governmental in their operations. It is completely a peaceful task. Re-engineering of people’s minds can be achieved only through education and positive training. This includes what I call as counter-ideology. The required peaceful result can be achieved only through the combined efforts of these two agencies — Governments and social reformers and activists.
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Maulana Wahiduddin Khan is a Delhi-based Islamic scholar.  For more details, see http://www.cpsglobal.org

Ahead of Iraq Deployment, 37 Korean Troops Convert to Islam

by iqu Islam
“I became a Muslim because I felt Islam was more humanistic and peaceful than other religions. And if you can religiously connect with the locals, I think it could be a big help in carrying out our peace reconstruction mission.” So said on Friday those Korean soldiers who converted to Islam ahead of their late July deployment to the Kurdish city of Irbil in northern Iraq.At noon Friday, 37 members of the Iraq-bound “Zaitun Unit,” including Lieutenant Son Hyeon-ju of the Special Forces 11th Brigade, made their way to a mosque in Hannam-dong, Seoul and held a conversion ceremony. 

Captain Son Jin-gu from Zaitoon Unit recites an oath at ceremony to mark his conversion to Islam at a mosque in Hannam-dong, Seoul on Friday. /Yonhap

The soldiers, who cleansed their entire bodies in accordance with Islamic tradition, made their conversion during the Friday group prayers at the mosque, with the assistance of the “imam,” or prayer leader. 

With the exception of the imam, all the Muslims and the Korean soldiers stood in a straight line to symbolize how all are equal before God and took a profession on faith.

They had memorized the Arabic confession, ” Ashadu an La ilaha il Allah, Muhammad-ur-Rasool-Allah,” which means, “I testify that there is no god but God (Arabic: Allah), and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” 

Soldiers from Zaitoon Unit pray after conversion ceremony at a mosque in Hannam-dong, Seoul on Friday./Yonhap

Moreover, as the faithful face the “Kaaba,” the Islamic holy place in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, all Muslims confirm that they are brothers. 

For those Korean soldiers who entered the Islamic faith, recent chances provided by the Zaitun Unit to come into contact with Islam proved decisive.

Taking into consideration the fact that most of the inhabitants of Irbil are Muslims, the unit sent its unreligious members to the Hannam-dong mosque so that they could come to understand Islam. Some of those who participated in the program were entranced by Islam and decided to convert.

A unit official said the soldiers were inspired by how important religious homogeneity was considered in the Muslim World; if you share religion, you are treated not as a foreigner, but as a local, and Muslims do not attack Muslim women even in war.

Zaitun Unit Corporal Paek Seong-uk (22) of the Army’s 11th Division said, “I majored in Arabic in college and upon coming across the Quran, I had much interest in Islam, and I made up my mind to become a Muslim during this religious experience period [provided by the Zaitun Unit].”

He expressed his aspirations. “If we are sent to Iraq, I want to participate in religious ceremonies with the locals so that they can feel brotherly love and convince them that the Korean troops are not an army of occupation but a force deployed to provide humanitarian support.”

(englishnews@chosun.com ) 

Israelis are living high on US expense account

by iqu Palestine
By Michael Backman
The Age
January 17, 2009

THERE’S a memorable scene in the Stephen Spielberg film ‘Munich’. After the 1972 Munich Olympic Games killings of Israeli athletes, prime 
minister Golda Meir tells confidants she wants to show the plotters that killing Jews “is expensive”. She then organises for the assassination 
of each of the plotters.

Today, it is Israel itself that has become expensive. Most directly, it is very expensive to the US, which subsidises and arms it.

But Israel’s utter inability to transform the Palestinians from enemies into friends has imposed big costs on us all. We have paid for Israel’s 
failure with bombs on London public transport, bombs in bars in Bali, and even the loss of the World Trade Centre towers in New York.

It is not true that these outrages have occurred because certain Islamic fundamentalists don’t like Western lifestyles and so plant bombs in 
response. Rather, it is Israel — or more correctly the treatment of the Palestinians — that is at the nub of these events.

The world’s Muslims have no head: no overarching caliph or pope equivalent exists — no single power source with whom to negotiate. 
Instead, Islam is remarkably decentralised. So, how extraordinary that Israel and the West have managed to unite this headless, diverse, 
dispersed grouping without any institutional framework, around just one issue — anger at the treatment of the Palestinians.

Otherwise dispersed groups of Muslims do seem to feel for one another in a way that Christians and others do not.

In this respect, the international Islamic community is like a body: kick it in the leg and the rest of the body feels it. Kick it hard enough and 
the entire body will be energised to defend itself. Pictures of distraught Gazan mothers beside the mutilated bodies of their children are 
circulating right now among Muslim communities worldwide. It is pictures like these that make them want to do something.

Consider Malaysia. Every citizen of this outpost of Islam has printed in his or her passport that the passport is not valid for Israel. And given 
that Malaysians are not allowed to hold dual citizenship, this essentially means that every Malaysian citizen, including the 40% who are not 
Muslims, are banned from visiting Israel.

“When will Malaysia recognise Israel?” I once asked the then finance minister. “Once Israel treats the Palestinians better,” was his reply. 
How would he determine that? “When the Palestinians tell us,” he said. It is not Israel’s right to exist that is at issue.

The enmity many Muslims now feel for Israel has nothing to do with religion. The historical persecutors of the Jews have been Christians — 
their punishment for the death of Jesus. Jews and Muslims have lived in peace for hundreds of years in many parts of the Islamic world. 
When Catholic Spain and Portugal expelled its Jews, the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul invited them in. It is the Palestinian issue that has 
ruined all this.

Of course, today Israel must defend itself. If the residents of Bendigo started firing rockets into Melbourne you would expect Melbourne to 
retaliate. But what must Melbourne have done to Bendigo to make them do such a thing? Constantly slapping an opponent in the face, 
kicking it down to its knees, and watching it struggle in the dirt will not teach the opponent to love or respect you. It teaches only hatred.

Persecuting people does not weaken them. Israel should know that. The Jews have been persecuted for centuries. It didn’t destroy them 
but gave them the impetus to survive.

One characteristic that is common among persecuted groups is a strong investment in education — when people’s physical wealth is in 
danger of destruction from war and persecution one store of wealth that stays with individuals even when they must flee as refugees is 
education. It explains why such groups often insist on their own schools — education is too important to be entrusted to others.

Hamas did not enjoy the support of all the people of Gaza. It does now. Why does Israel keep getting it wrong?

Trekking in Nepal is fashionable among young Israelis. So much so that many shops in Kathmandu and Pokhara have signs in Hebrew. But 
once you get on the trekking circuit and speak with local Nepalese guides and guesthouse operators you soon discover how disliked the 
Israelis are. Many guesthouses in this poor country will even tell Israeli trekking groups that they are full rather than accept them. This has 
nothing to do with religion or politics: Nepalese people are some of the warmest, most hospitable in the world. Rather, they say that the 
young Israelis are rude, arrogant, and argue over trifling amounts of money even though they clearly have means.

Israel needs to change. The Parsees of India might provide a model. The Parsees are a very tiny, very rich ethnic and religious minority. 
They own perhaps most of the land in central Mumbai as well as the country’s largest conglomerate. And yet ordinary Indians admire and 
respect them. Violence against them is unthinkable.

How have they achieved this? They are not flashy or arrogant. Their overriding characteristic is a deep interest in the welfare of others. 
They have established hospitals, libraries, schools, museums and many other institutions and, most importantly, not for the Parsee 
community exclusively but for everyone. So the Parsees have peace and the Israelis do not.

Left: Images purportedly from Gaza such as this example have 
been circulated by e-mail in Malaysia and Indonesia in recent 
weeks, accompanied by text in Malay which translates in part as: “I 
cry because I’m a muslim, and my brothers are being killed!” And 
so Muslims worldwide are being energised and drawn into a conflict 
which otherwise has no direct bearing on them.

Disputed Territory: War in Gaza Provokes Protest (And Conversation) In Second Life Israel

by iqu Gaza

Israel_protestProtesters continue convening in SL Israel today

In Second Life there is a new Israel, appropriately called SL Israel, which recreates in virtual form aspects of the country, from religious landmarks of Jerusalem such as the Temple Mount, to tourist sites of Tel Aviv.  Last week when Israel began launching guided missiles at Hamas targets in Palestine, however, SL Israel became a flashpoint of another kind.  As the airstrikes pounded Gaza, so did protesters, teleporting into SL Israel, waving flags.

Israel_protesters

“Lots of people yelling,” Beth Odets tells me. “They were going on and on with slurring obscenities about murderous Israeli forces, etc.”  She gives me a screenshot taken during the incursion, festooned with anti-war or pro-Palestinian signs, some depicting dead Arab children.

Ms. Odets helped create SL Israel, so she maintains land permissions to the region.  She began ejecting the most obstreperous protesters. “I had to be careful not to boot people who didn’t actually do anything wrong,” as she puts it.  But the protesters kept coming, and eventually she felt forced to close all of SL Israel to outsiders.  “Just shut it down for a little while.  Just to make it stop. ‘Cause people weren’t wanting to be logical, or talk.”

The protesters keep arriving, however.  On a brief visit to SL Israel late last night, for example, I found a half-dozen members of something called “Second Life International Socialists”, brandishing placards and chattering in front of a lone avatar wearing a yarmaluke.

In SL Israel, this was not the full extent of the reaction to the ongoing war in Gaza, however.  “Later came people who were wanting to really talk,” Beth adds, “like the ones here.”  She teleports me over, so I can see for myself. 

Which is how I found myself on the shoreline of SL Israel, amid an impromptu colloquium between a pro-Palestinian Muslim in a kaffiyeh, and avatar dressed as an IDF soldier, three Jewish women, and, of course, a talking rabbit.

Sl_israel_gathering

Along with the Arab headscarf, Clip Chau wears a “Free Palestine” T-Shirt, and when I arrive, he is talking on the boardwalk with a brunette named TamaraEden Zinnemann.

“… and I was the only Muslim in the class and she was the only Jew so whenever Israel and Palestine came up, you know what happened,” Chau tells her. “She was a great teacher.  Never biased, and she understood Palestinian pain.  I think she was a huge reason behind me starting to even consider talking to Jewish people.  Before that it was a no go area for me, it was a birth hatred, I guess.”

Tamaraeden_zinnemann_and_clip_chauAs it turns out,  Ms. Zinnemann is also a teacher in real life:

“I am very cautious when my kids ask me ‘Jewish’ or Political questions,” she tells Chau. “I like to tell them when they want my opinion that my job, as their teacher, is to help them make up their own minds.”

I mostly listen from the sidelines, but TamaraEden Zinnemann looks up.

“Hamlet, please write that I’m an American Jew. Clip is a Canadian Muslim, and we are having a great time sharing our commonalities. I’m serious.”

Shmoo_snookI tell her that I will.  Someone small at our feet pipes up.

“Write that I’m a bunny, OK?” Shmoo Snook demands.   I assent to that as well. 

“And cute, too!”  he adds. 

That duly noted, the bunny proceeds to talk about the photos he saw of IDF rescuing Palestinians from a collapsed tunnel, and complain about the Bush Adminstration.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009 inRead World in SL, Social Structures, Social Upheaval |

Amnesty International accuses Israel of war crimes in Gaza

by iqu Gaza

By Middle East correspondent Ben Knight and wires

Posted Tue Jan 20, 2009 7:06am AEDT 
Updated Tue Jan 20, 2009 9:56am AEDT

Indiscriminate use of any weapon in densely populated areas can be the basis of war crimes charges.

Indiscriminate use of any weapon in densely populated areas can be the basis of war crimes charges. (AFP: Patrick Baz, file photo)

Human rights group Amnesty International has accused Israel of war crimes, saying its use of white phosphorus in Gaza was indiscriminate and illegal.

White phosphorous is frequently used to produce smoke screens, but can also be used as a weapon as it causes extreme burns if it makes contact with skin.

The use of the substance is not illegal under international law, but the indiscriminate use of any weapon in densely populated areas can be the basis of war crimes charges.

Israel has said it will carry out an internal investigation into the use of white phosphorous following similar claims by other rights groups.

Medics in Gaza say over 1,300 Palestinians were killed during the offensive.

Four thousand homes have been reduced to ruins and tens of thousands of people are homeless.

A UN official says 500,000 people have been without water since the bombardment began on December 27 and huge numbers are without power.

A continuing ceasefire in Gaza has allowed more Israeli forces to leave the Gaza Strip and Palestinians to return to their damaged homes.

Israeli political sources say most troops will be out of the territory by about midday (AEDT).

Bulldozers are beginning to clear rubble from streets and Palestinians have started returning to what is left of their homes to salvage clothes and food.

Police are back on the streets directing traffic; shopkeepers are frying felafels. But Gaza’s return to life is slow as people come to terms with the scale of the destruction after three weeks of war.

Homes and farms have been destroyed, and thousands remain injured. The head of the World Health Organisation is now warning that Gaza is exposed to outbreaks of disease.

Aid agencies are beginning to assess the immediate needs of the territory, as well as what it will take to rebuild it; but until the terms of a permanent ceasefire are agreed, any reconstruction will be on hold.

Hamas has vowed to replenish its weapons arsenal and increase its capabilities but Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev has dismissed the threats.

“Over the last few weeks, Israel has hit and hit hard the Hamas military machine, causing the substantial disintegration of their military capabilities,” he said.

“Despite the bravado one is hearing from Hamas leaders, it’s clear that they will think twice and three times. They’ll think very carefully before launching again rockets, into Israeli cities trying to kill our people.”

– ABC/BBC

Tags: world-politics, unrest-conflict-and-war, israel, palestinian-territories

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe

by iqu Gaza, Islam, Palestine

Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state’s legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions

A wounded Palestinian policeman gestures

A wounded Palestinian policeman gestures while lying on the ground outside Hamas police headquarters following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

The only way to make sense of Israel’s senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders”. I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel’s vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration’s complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.

I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war had very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism. The aim was to establish Greater Israel through permanent political, economic and military control over the Palestinian territories. And the result has been one of the most prolonged and brutal military occupations of modern times.

Four decades of Israeli control did incalculable damage to the economy of the Gaza Strip. With a large population of 1948 refugees crammed into a tiny strip of land, with no infrastructure or natural resources, Gaza’s prospects were never bright. Gaza, however, is not simply a case of economic under-development but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate de-development. To use the Biblical phrase, Israel turned the people of Gaza into the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, into a source of cheap labour and a captive market for Israeli goods. The development of local industry was actively impeded so as to make it impossible for the Palestinians to end their subordination to Israel and to establish the economic underpinnings essential for real political independence.

Gaza is a classic case of colonial exploitation in the post-colonial era. Jewish settlements in occupied territories are immoral, illegal and an insurmountable obstacle to peace. They are at once the instrument of exploitation and the symbol of the hated occupation. In Gaza, the Jewish settlers numbered only 8,000 in 2005 compared with 1.4 million local residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25% of the territory, 40% of the arable land and the lion’s share of the scarce water resources. Cheek by jowl with these foreign intruders, the majority of the local population lived in abject poverty and unimaginable misery. Eighty per cent of them still subsist on less than $2 a day. The living conditions in the strip remain an affront to civilised values, a powerful precipitant to resistance and a fertile breeding ground for political extremism.

In August 2005 a Likud government headed by Ariel Sharon staged a unilateral Israeli pullout from Gaza, withdrawing all 8,000 settlers and destroying the houses and farms they had left behind. Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement, conducted an effective campaign to drive the Israelis out of Gaza. The withdrawal was a humiliation for the Israeli Defence Forces. To the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But in the year after, another 12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further reducing the scope for an independent Palestinian state. Land-grabbing and peace-making are simply incompatible. Israel had a choice and it chose land over peace.

The real purpose behind the move was to redraw unilaterally the borders of Greater Israel by incorporating the main settlement blocs on the West Bank to the state of Israel. Withdrawal from Gaza was thus not a prelude to a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority but a prelude to further Zionist expansion on the West Bank. It was a unilateral Israeli move undertaken in what was seen, mistakenly in my view, as an Israeli national interest. Anchored in a fundamental rejection of the Palestinian national identity, the withdrawal from Gaza was part of a long-term effort to deny the Palestinian people any independent political existence on their land.

Israel’s settlers were withdrawn but Israeli soldiers continued to control all access to the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air. Gaza was converted overnight into an open-air prison. From this point on, the Israeli air force enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs, to make sonic booms by flying low and breaking the sound barrier, and to terrorise the hapless inhabitants of this prison.

Israel likes to portray itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. Yet Israel has never in its entire history done anything to promote democracy on the Arab side and has done a great deal to undermine it. Israel has a long history of secret collaboration with reactionary Arab regimes to suppress Palestinian nationalism. Despite all the handicaps, the Palestinian people succeeded in building the only genuine democracy in the Arab world with the possible exception of Lebanon. In January 2006, free and fair elections for the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority brought to power a Hamas-led government. Israel, however, refused to recognise the democratically elected government, claiming that Hamas is purely and simply a terrorist organisation.

America and the EU shamelessly joined Israel in ostracising and demonising the Hamas government and in trying to bring it down by withholding tax revenues and foreign aid. A surreal situation thus developed with a significant part of the international community imposing economic sanctions not against the occupier but against the occupied, not against the oppressor but against the oppressed.

As so often in the tragic history of Palestine, the victims were blamed for their own misfortunes. Israel’s propaganda machine persistently purveyed the notion that the Palestinians are terrorists, that they reject coexistence with the Jewish state, that their nationalism is little more than antisemitism, that Hamas is just a bunch of religious fanatics and that Islam is incompatible with democracy. But the simple truth is that the Palestinian people are a normal people with normal aspirations. They are no better but they are no worse than any other national group. What they aspire to, above all, is a piece of land to call their own on which to live in freedom and dignity.

Like other radical movements, Hamas began to moderate its political programme following its rise to power. From the ideological rejectionism of its charter, it began to move towards pragmatic accommodation of a two-state solution. In March 2007, Hamas and Fatah formed a national unity government that was ready to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with Israel. Israel, however, refused to negotiate with a government that included Hamas.

It continued to play the old game of divide and rule between rival Palestinian factions. In the late 1980s, Israel had supported the nascent Hamas in order to weaken Fatah, the secular nationalist movement led by Yasser Arafat. Now Israel began to encourage the corrupt and pliant Fatah leaders to overthrow their religious political rivals and recapture power. Aggressive American neoconservatives participated in the sinister plot to instigate a Palestinian civil war. Their meddling was a major factor in the collapse of the national unity government and in driving Hamas to seize power in Gaza in June 2007 to pre-empt a Fatah coup.

The war unleashed by Israel on Gaza on 27 December was the culmination of a series of clashes and confrontations with the Hamas government. In a broader sense, however, it is a war between Israel and the Palestinian people, because the people had elected the party to power. The declared aim of the war is to weaken Hamas and to intensify the pressure until its leaders agree to a new ceasefire on Israel’s terms. The undeclared aim is to ensure that the Palestinians in Gaza are seen by the world simply as a humanitarian problem and thus to derail their struggle for independence and statehood.

The timing of the war was determined by political expediency. A general election is scheduled for 10 February and, in the lead-up to the election, all the main contenders are looking for an opportunity to prove their toughness. The army top brass had been champing at the bit to deliver a crushing blow to Hamas in order to remove the stain left on their reputation by the failure of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in July 2006. Israel’s cynical leaders could also count on apathy and impotence of the pro-western Arab regimes and on blind support from President Bush in the twilight of his term in the White House. Bush readily obliged by putting all the blame for the crisis on Hamas, vetoing proposals at the UN Security Council for an immediate ceasefire and issuing Israel with a free pass to mount a ground invasion of Gaza.

As always, mighty Israel claims to be the victim of Palestinian aggression but the sheer asymmetry of power between the two sides leaves little room for doubt as to who is the real victim. This is indeed a conflict between David and Goliath but the Biblical image has been inverted – a small and defenceless Palestinian David faces a heavily armed, merciless and overbearing Israeli Goliath. The resort to brute military force is accompanied, as always, by the shrill rhetoric of victimhood and a farrago of self-pity overlaid with self-righteousness. In Hebrew this is known as the syndrome of bokhim ve-yorim, “crying and shooting”.

To be sure, Hamas is not an entirely innocent party in this conflict. Denied the fruit of its electoral victory and confronted with an unscrupulous adversary, it has resorted to the weapon of the weak – terror. Militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad kept launching Qassam rocket attacks against Israeli settlements near the border with Gaza until Egypt brokered a six-month ceasefire last June. The damage caused by these primitive rockets is minimal but the psychological impact is immense, prompting the public to demand protection from its government. Under the circumstances, Israel had the right to act in self-defence but its response to the pinpricks of rocket attacks was totally disproportionate. The figures speak for themselves. In the three years after the withdrawal from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. On the other hand, in 2005-7 alone, the IDF killed 1,290 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children.

Whatever the numbers, killing civilians is wrong. This rule applies to Israel as much as it does to Hamas, but Israel’s entire record is one of unbridled and unremitting brutality towards the inhabitants of Gaza. Israel also maintained the blockade of Gaza after the ceasefire came into force which, in the view of the Hamas leaders, amounted to a violation of the agreement. During the ceasefire, Israel prevented any exports from leaving the strip in clear violation of a 2005 accord, leading to a sharp drop in employment opportunities. Officially, 49.1% of the population is unemployed. At the same time, Israel restricted drastically the number of trucks carrying food, fuel, cooking-gas canisters, spare parts for water and sanitation plants, and medical supplies to Gaza. It is difficult to see how starving and freezing the civilians of Gaza could protect the people on the Israeli side of the border. But even if it did, it would still be immoral, a form of collective punishment that is strictly forbidden by international humanitarian law.

The brutality of Israel’s soldiers is fully matched by the mendacity of its spokesmen. Eight months before launching the current war on Gaza, Israel established a National Information Directorate. The core messages of this directorate to the media are that Hamas broke the ceasefire agreements; that Israel’s objective is the defence of its population; and that Israel’s forces are taking the utmost care not to hurt innocent civilians. Israel’s spin doctors have been remarkably successful in getting this message across. But, in essence, their propaganda is a pack of lies.

A wide gap separates the reality of Israel’s actions from the rhetoric of its spokesmen. It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire. It di d so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November that killed six Hamas men. Israel’s objective is not just the defence of its population but the eventual overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza by turning the people against their rulers. And far from taking care to spare civilians, Israel is guilty of indiscriminate bombing and of a three-year-old blockade that has brought the inhabitants of Gaza, now 1.5 million, to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.

The Biblical injunction of an eye for an eye is savage enough. But Israel’s insane offensive against Gaza seems to follow the logic of an eye for an eyelash. After eight days of bombing, with a death toll of more than 400 Palestinians and four Israelis, the gung-ho cabinet ordered a land invasion of Gaza the consequences of which are incalculable.

No amount of military escalation can buy Israel immunity from rocket attacks from the military wing of Hamas. Despite all the death and destruction that Israel has inflicted on them, they kept up their resistance and they kept firing their rockets. This is a movement that glorifies victimhood and martyrdom. There is simply no military solution to the conflict between the two communities. The problem with Israel’s concept of security is that it denies even the most elementary security to the other community. The only way for Israel to achieve security is not through shooting but through talks with Hamas, which has repeatedly declared its readiness to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with the Jewish state within its pre-1967 borders for 20, 30, or even 50 years. Israel has rejected this offer for the same reason it spurned the Arab League peace plan of 2002, which is still on the table: it involves concessions and compromises.

This brief review of Israel’s record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders”. A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practises terrorism – the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel’s real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination. It keeps compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones. Politicians, like everyone else, are of course free to repeat the lies and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.

• Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at the University of Oxford and the author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World and of Lion of Jordan: King Hussein’s Life in War and Peace.

Gaza Strip resembles a concentration camp, says top Vatican official

by iqu Gaza

VATICAN-GAZA (UPDATED) Jan-9-2009 (810 words) With photos posted Jan. 8. xxxi

Gaza Strip resembles a concentration camp, says top Vatican official

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Gaza Strip increasingly is looking like “a big concentration camp” while egoism, hatred, poverty and injustice are fueling the continual slaughter in the Holy Land, said a top Vatican official.

“We are seeing a continual massacre in the Holy Land where the overwhelming majority has nothing to do with the conflict, but it is paying for the hatred of a few with their lives,” said Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

“Let’s look at the conditions in Gaza: It’s looking more and more like a big concentration camp,” he said in an interview published Jan. 7 in the Italian online newspaper IlSussidiario.

Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican, Mordechay Lewy, criticized the cardinal’s comments saying they were “way out of line.”

However, the remarks have not negatively affected Vatican-Israeli relations which are still “good as before,” said the ambassador, according to the Italian news agency ANSA Jan. 8.

That the cardinal would make the comparison “shows he has never visited a concentration camp,” he added.

Meanwhile, Israel’s foreign ministry spokesman, Yigal Palmor, said Cardinal Martino’s comments “seem to have come directly from Hamas propaganda” and did nothing “to help bring people closer to the truth and peace.”

By saying the Gaza Strip resembled a concentration camp, the cardinal was ignoring “the unspeakable crimes” committed by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, he said in a Jan. 7 interview with Agence France-Presse.

Palmor said Hamas “has derailed the peace process and has turned the Gaza Strip into a giant human shield.”

In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica Jan. 8, Cardinal Martino defended his description of the Gaza Strip, saying those who criticized his remarks “can say what they want. The situation in Gaza is horrible.”

“I say, look at the conditions of the people who live there. Surrounded by a wall that is difficult to cross — in conditions (that are) contrary to human dignity. What has been happening recently there is horrifying,” he said.

He said there was nothing in his comments “that may be interpreted as anti-Israeli” and he condemned Hamas’ use of violence against Israel.

But he lamented the deaths of so many Palestinian civilians and children and the destruction of nonmilitary targets by Israel, suggesting such losses could have been avoided given that Israeli forces have sophisticated surveillance “technology that can let them identify an ant on the ground.”

Both Israeli and Palestinian leaders have done reproachable things, he said, but “Israel has the right to live in peace, (and) the Palestinians have the right to have their own state.”

“Israel certainly has the right to defend itself and Hamas must keep that in mind,” he added.

“I am not defending Hamas: If they want a home, if they want a Palestinian state, they have to understand that the path they have set out upon is wrong,” said the cardinal.

He said both Israelis and Palestinians are at fault for not doing enough to stop the fighting and start peace talks.

In the Jan. 7 interview with IlSussidiario, Cardinal Martino said: “If they are unable to come to an agreement then someone else had better feel an obligation to do it for them. The world cannot sit and watch and do nothing.”

He called for an “international intervention force” to stop the fighting.

The reason Palestinians and Israelis have so far not been able to end the conflict and begin dialogue is because there is an acute lack of respect for human dignity, he said.

“No one recognizes the interests of the other but only one’s own. However, the consequences of egoism are hatred toward others, poverty and injustice, and the defenseless are always the ones who pay,” he added.

About 760 Palestinians, half of them civilians, have been killed since Israel began its attacks on Gaza Dec. 27 to root out Hamas.

The fighting has made access to basic needs even more difficult as food, medicine and other relief items already were lacking due to an 18-monthlong Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, said a Jan. 5 press release by Caritas Internationalis, an umbrella group of Catholic aid agencies.

Meanwhile, in his annual address to diplomats Jan. 8, Pope Benedict XVI appealed for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and the resumption of negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis, with the support of the international community.

“Once again I would repeat that military options are no solution and that violence, wherever it comes from and whatever form it takes, must be firmly condemned,” he said.

He said a cease-fire is “an indispensable condition for restoring acceptable living conditions to the population.”

He urged both sides to resume negotiations and agree to “the rejection of hatred, acts of provocation and the use of arms.”

END

Copyright (c) 2009 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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Qatar: Future Muslim leaders seek fresh path

by iqu Islam
Tomorrow’s leaders? Maha al-Khalifa and Aalaa Abuzaakook, of Qatar, and Musa Syeed, of New York, met at the leadership gathering.
CARYLE MURPHY

‘No better time’ for change, say activists at this past weekend’s youth conference in Doha, Qatar.

By Caryle Murphy | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the January 20, 2009 edition

DOHA, QATAR – The question put to the young Muslims gathered here from around the world went to the heart of today’s perceived clash between Islam and the West: “Do Muslims and non-Muslims share equal responsibility in taking steps to reduce Muslim extremism?”

The answer, delivered instantly through wireless voting pads, was crystal clear: Seventy-five percent replied “Yes.”

The verdict is worth heeding because of where it happened: At a conference of 300 progressive Muslim activists from 75 countries.

The “Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow Conference,” was meant to be a catalyst for social change in the Islamic world by inspiring the activists and giving them opportunities to network.

“We’re living in challenging times, and the plot for Muslims has been written by others,” said Daisy Khan, of the New York-based American Society for Muslim Advancement, which worked with the Cordoba Initiative and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations to organize the event. “The time has come for Muslims to write their own plot, and to define themselves around the core values they believe in: pluralism, freedom, justice, creativity, and intellectual development.”

Participants included a Saudi businesswoman, a New York filmmaker, an Indian teacher, an Italian imam, a Dutch lawyer, an Egyptian writer, and Osama Saeed Butta, who informed his peers in a fine Scottish brogue that he will be running for a seat in Britain’s Parliament come the next election.

While some activists hold more conservative views than others, all are committed to pluralism as an Islamic value, Ms. Khan said.

Some were in a hurry to exert their influence. “I came because I wanted to know why it’s ‘Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow’ and not ‘Today,'” said Maha al-Khalifa, a student from Qatar.

The discussion sessions, which included the instant polling, tackled some of the thorniest questions facing Muslim intellectuals today, including: “Is there a crisis of religious authority in Islam?” Eighty-six percent said “Yes.” And “are there Islamic values that are in conflict with Western values?” Sixty-one percent said “Yes.”

Panelist Madiha Younas, of Pakistan’s International Islamic University, said she often encounters anxiety over clashing values. “Our people are worried about what will happen if our youth will start to live like the West.”

She added, to general approval from the floor, that “it’s not an Islamic value to have absolute freedom. Islam puts boundaries on you.”

Saudi-born attorney and Harvard University graduate Malik Dahlan led the conversation to a more theoretical level, stating: “It’s freedom that is the absolute value in Islam…. It is freedom not to submit [to God’s will] that gives value to submission itself.”

In smaller discussion groups, participants covered such topics as why Europe has more Islamist radicalism than the United States, Islam’s position on homosexuality, and the meaning of secularism.

When discussing who has responsibility for fighting Muslim extremism, the panelists steered clear of the polarization this subject normally provokes. Instead, they argued that both extremist interpretations of Islam and foreign policies of Western countries contribute to the radicalization of Muslim youth.

In fact, the impact of US policies in the Middle East was evident at the conference, where many participants were deeply upset, at times in tears, over the civilian death toll from Israel’s three-week military siege of Gaza.

“I get a sense of helplessness with this latest crisis,” said conference attendee Shaukat Warraich, director of London-based Right Start Foundation International, a community development nonprofit.

ASMA’s Khan said that after 9/11, Americans wanted to know why Muslims’ denunciations of the terrorist attacks were so muted. Although hundreds of Islamic religious leaders did condemn the attacks, they were not heard clearly because Islam has no central leadership, like Roman Catholicism’s Vatican.

Khan, then an architectural designer, gave up her career to promote a new generation of Muslim leadership, holding the first conference in New York in 2004 with 125 participants from North America. The second conference, held in Copenhagen in 2006, included Europeans. Doha, the third one, was global.

Participants had to be between 20 and 45 years old, committed to pluralism, and involved in some type of community advancement work, Khan said.

At its conclusion, the conference issued “An Open Letter to the World Leaders of Today From the Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow.” Noting that “with Barack Obama as the new US president, there is no better time for … positive change,” the letter demanded that leaders start implementing policies that promote development and human rights rather than war.

For now, the Muslim leaders who will receive copies of the Open Letter do not know much about Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow (MLT), as the project is known. The conference drew little international or regional media attention. But organizers said they are committed to building a global network of progressive activists in the Muslim world, an effort they say will take time.

Over 1000 Muslim Migrants from burma to thai tortured and drowned by Thai Govt

by iqu Islam
Photo 1 of 3
Thai army Colonel Manat Khongpan (L, with cap) during the processing of a group of refugees

3 hours ago

BANGKOK (AFP) — Thailand’s premier insisted Tuesday that his country had respected the rights of boat people from Myanmar, saying reports that the migrants were mistreated and abandoned at sea were “exaggerated”.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva also said that foreign tourists who reportedly witnessed the incidents may have misunderstood what the Thai army and navy were trying to do with the immigrants.

Survivors and a human rights group have accused the Thai military of detaining and beating up to 1,000 members of the Rohingya minority from Myanmar late last year, before towing them out to sea with little food and water.

“The government will take action against illegal immigrants. If too many of them come, it will affect the country’s security. However, the actions will not violate human rights,” Abhisit told reporters.

He said the issue of human trafficking networks should be addressed with neighbouring countries, and blamed the migrants for getting into distress on purpose as a tactic to get into third countries.

“Sometimes they sail on boats without engines or sink their ships so that authorities help them to get onshore,” Abhisit said.

“Sometimes the information is exaggerated. Reports said (military actions) were witnessed by tourists — it may be a misunderstanding by tourists.”

Witnesses have reportedly said that some of the detainees were beaten within metres of foreign tourists on a remote Thai island off the coast, while photos have shown scores of migrants tied up on a beach.

Nearly 650 of the Muslim Rohingya have been rescued in waters off India and Indonesia. Some of them told officials that they were beaten in Thailand before being set adrift in barges with no engines or navigational equipment.

A local human rights organisation that monitors the treatment of Rohingya says that up to 550 of the migrants are still missing at sea, while Indian officials have said they too fear for hundreds who remain unaccounted for.

Thailand’s power army chief General Anupong Paojinda earlier denied the reports of abuse.

“The army chief said the army has followed the request by the prime minister and is investigating the Rohingya case,” said Colonel Thanatip Sawangsaeng, a spokesman for a state security body.

“He said the army has followed the international standards and adhered to humanitarian principles,” Thanatip told AFP.

Rights groups say the Rohingya are stateless and face persecution from Myanmar’s military regime, forcing thousands into rickety boats each year to try to escape poverty and oppression and head to Muslim-majority Malaysia.

Thailand has for the past few years taken a harsh stance on Rohingya landing on its shores, in part to discourage further migration through Thailand.

Human rights groups and the UN refugee agency have called on the government to ensure that any Rohingya arriving in Thailand are screened to determine if they would face persecution if returned home.