Archives March 2009

Islamic law protects Muslims from downturn – MarketWatch

Islamic law protects Muslims from downturn

Last update: 7:43 p.m. EDT March 30, 2009
SACRAMENTO, Mar 30, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) — The U.S. economic downturn is taking less out of American Muslims who follow an Islamic law against paying or charging interest, observers note.
The Sacramento Bee reported Monday that as a group Muslims also have been somewhat protected because they are barred from investing in banks and mortgages, which have experienced a big hit in the marketplace.
“If everybody was Shariah-compliant, there would be no recession,” said Farouk Fakira, who moderated a discussion on Islamic finance at Sacramento’s Masjid Annur last week.
Shariah prohibits usury, which often took advantage of desperate people who needed to feed or protect their families, said Imam Muhammed Abdul Azeez of Sacramento Area League of Associated Muslims. “There’s an element of exploitation here.”
About one-fifth of the Sacramento area’s 50,000 American Muslims follow Islamic rules of finance, said Irfan Haq, an economist and president of the Council of Sacramento Valley Islamic Organizations.
“Muslims in general have been much less affected by the recession because they’re very cautious and conservative in matters of finance and take a longer-term view of life,” Haq was quoted as saying. “They want to invest their funds in a way that pleases God so they can sleep peacefully — they care about the afterlife.”

www.upi.com

Copyright 2009 by United Press International End of Story

Al Jazeera English – News

Poor Afghans fail to benefit from funding

Years of war and violent conflict has left many families in Afghanistan deeply disturbed by the reality of life in their country.

With security deteriorating and a massive loss of life, displacement and destruction have become the norm for many Afghans.

Al Jazeera’s Todd Baer has more from the capital, Kabul.

More from: AljazeeraEnglish

alJazeera Magazine – Israel’s hidden plans to take over Jerusalem

Israel’s hidden plans to take over Jerusalem
30/05/2007 06:12:00 PM GMT Comments (15) Add a comment Print E-mail to friend

By Amina Anderson

For 40 years, Israel has been trying to tighten its grip on Jerusalem and its holy sites. But using weapons only couldn’t help this plan. That’s why the Israelis decided to use concrete to achieve their target.

Since 1967, East Jerusalem has been occupied by the Israelis, who started building lives for themselves until today. As soon as the area was captured, the Israeli government devised plans to build neighborhoods to connect the Israeli enclave of Mount Scopus, which holds the Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital, with Jewish populated west Jerusalem.

From the mid 1970’s until the 1980’s, Israel has been mainly concerned with building the Jewish neighborhoods of Neve Yaakov, Gilo and Ramot Allon in East Jerusalem. Israel also expanded the boundaries of East Jerusalem from two square miles to 27 square miles.

“The plan was very simple: to get hold of the area and to consolidate control over the area, creating urban facts,” said Meron Benvenisti, the deputy mayor of Jerusalem in the 1970s. “It was exactly like a military strategic plan to take hold of the high ground, empty land and build there.”

At the Jerusalem Institute Think Tank, Kimhi, the head researcher also said: “All those areas were looking over Jerusalem … all of them were army positions, so it was quite easy for the government to enter the shoes of the Jordanians that left and expropriate it”.

Israel expansion episodes continued. In the 1980s, the government started building a string of West Bank settlements just outside the Jerusalem, including the vast hilltop enclave of Maaleh Adumim, which created a ring around East Jerusalem.

Along the way, Israel refused to take any complaints regarding the violation of the international law, claiming that it’s working on an unoccupied land. Moreover, the Israelis were making sure that the original Arabs are allowed no building permits, which drove them out of the city.

As a final episode, Israel now resumes the journey they started 40 years ago. Settlement construction began again; extensions are being developed in Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and only the finishing touches remain for a police station in an area known as E1.

Apartments in the Muslim and Christian quarters of the old city are now being sold and major projects are being planned in other Arab areas.

“If you have Jewish life east of the Old City, obviously it’s going to make it harder to divide the city,” said Daniel Luria, a spokesman for the Ateret HaCohanim group, which settled 1200 Jews near East Jerusalem holy sites.

Even though Arabs face major difficulties in obtaining authorization for construction, “View of Zion” complex easily issued all the required papers. Now this complex is expected to hold 395 apartments, a hotel, shopping center and a sports club, where sales are already conducted to mostly Jews residing in the United States.

The project forced Arabs to build illegally risking evacuation and legal penalties every minute.

Despite the fact that many Israeli are claiming that this new complex would improve the neighborhood and that it is only intended for the overall wellbeing, Arab residents are concerned over another Israeli project that further disrupts their lives.

The Palestinians are being isolated by Israel’s towering concrete wall along the West Bank, which cut off tens of thousands of Jerusalem’s Arab residents. While the Israeli government is claiming that the Arabs are drawing the wrong conclusions, Palestinians remain skeptical about where they will end up if the Jewish community continues to grow in East Jerusalem.

Therefore, Palestinians remain helpless while the Jewish settlers take more steps to cement their control over the occupied territories.

“You get angry. But what can we do?” Mervat Zayeha, a Palestinian who resides in East Jerusalem, asked, looking at the construction. “It is not in our hands.”

Source: AJP

alJazeera Magazine – American Christians keeping the fast of Ramadan

American Christians keeping the fast of Ramadan
14/09/2007 12:05:00 AM GMT Comments (125) Add a comment Print E-mail to friend

To our Muslim brothers and sisters everywhere:

All praise and thanks be to the one God whom we all worship, who has called you to worship Him after the manner of al-Islam, and us to worship Him according to the gospel of Jesus, whom both faith traditions hail as the Messiah: it is our deep wish that God strengthen you in your devotion to God, your love of God, and your trust in God during this month of Ramadan, and that everything that you do for His sake may be pleasing to Him.

We have joined you in keeping the fast of Ramadan this year, as a freewill offering to God accompanying our prayer for peace, justice, and a spirit of love to grow among the peoples of the Abrahamic religions.

It is our desire that all over the world, if God so wills, Muslim, Jew and Christian can learn to stand together in brotherhood in the sight of their Creator, and encourage one another in faithfulness and good deeds. But we are mourning many of the deeds of our government and our people, as they continue to involve themselves in the affairs of Islamic peoples, and the lives of Muslim detainees held at United States facilities, without sufficiently caring or understanding what they are doing to the people whose lives they affect.

To our sorrow, we see many American Christians trusting, supporting, and following policy-makers whose guiding principle seems to be “let us do evil, that good may come of it,” as if they did not know that our own scripture explicitly condemns it (Romans 3:8). In repenting our own complicity in this, we hope to lead our brother and sister Christians into repentance.

Our power to make the world’s leaders humble themselves, question their own behavior, and let their hearts be turned, seems very small. And yet we draw hope from our certainty that we are listened to by the true Ruler of this world, the Turner of Hearts, who sees everything and holds all power.

This month we curb our natural appetites during daylight hours to be more mindful of the One to whom we must return, the Highest, our Helper.

We perceive, sadly, that many American Christians lack understanding of what it means to be a Muslim. How better to change that than for some of us to join the Muslim world in its Ramadan fast?

We also hope that such self-restraint as we gain from the fast might help restore a spirit of self-restraint to the worldly culture of the industrialized nations, in however small a way, for on our learning self-restraint now seems to depend the saving of the world from ruin.

Advised by Jesus himself to fast privately and without open display (Matthew 6:16-18), we make ourselves available for responses to this communication but without identifying ourselves individually by name. May God comfort you, sustain you in hope, and bestow on you every blessing.

Ramadan Fasters of Christ
christsfasters@aol.com

alJazeera Magazine – Israel’s persecution of Christians

Israel’s persecution of Christians
11/05/2008 10:44:00 AM GMT Comments (41) Add a comment Print E-mail to friend
Instead of Christian worshippers, armed Israeli soldiers crowded the entrance to the Church.

By Dr. Elias Akleh
Instead of Christian worshippers, armed Israeli soldiers crowded the entrance to the Church.

Greek Orthodox Christian celebrations of Saturday’s Holy Fire and Sunday’s Easter in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem late April were violated and spoiled by aggressive interruptions of Israeli army and police.

Instead of Christian worshippers, armed Israeli soldiers crowded the entrance to the Church. Instead of lighted candles, police batons were raised. Instead of musical bands playing their instruments, Israeli soldiers brandished their automatic weapons, and instead of celebrating, Palestinian Christians were confronted by Israeli police, were beaten, and many were arrested.

Since the early hours of the day hundreds of armed Israeli forces descended on the old city of Jerusalem, erected steel barriers closing its gates, established checkpoints within the city’s narrow streets leading to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and installed closed captioned video cameras to monitor worshippers.

The Old City was, again, under occupation by Israeli military and police. Palestinian Christian worshippers from West Bank, from Gaza Strip, from 1948 occupied Palestinian cities, and even local Jerusalemite Palestinian Christians were denied access to the church of the Holy Sepulcher and to the St. Jacob Church to celebrate Easter.

They were told that they had to obtain a military permit in order pray in the church. Many Christian worshippers, who insisted on performing their religious rights free from any military restrictions as they had done throughout the many past generations, tried to force their way through the Israeli barriers, but were met with savage beating, with tear gassing, and with arrest.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate denounced the Israeli measures denying Christian
worshippers access to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Official spokesman to the
Patriarchate father Issa Misleh said the Patriarchate denounces the measures taken by the
Israeli security forces against Christian worshippers during Holy Saturday celebrations.

Father Misleh said, “The manner in which the Israeli police officers dealt with worshippers heading to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Greek Orthodox Monastery to perform religious duties has gone beyond limits. Thousands of worshippers where forbidden to walk in the streets of the old city and many of them, including women and elderly civilians, were physically assaulted.”

The Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III, himself, criticized the Israeli suppressive measures stating: “I refuse such actions against my congregation. The Greek Orthodox Church will cooperate with the rest of the Churches in joint action to put a stop to what happened today and to guarantee the Religious freedom for the people”.

Church officials explained that praying is the right of all the people and no one has the right to prevent worshippers from conducting their ritual and religious duties especially in the City of Jerusalem.

The following press release was issued by different local Christian organizations criticizing the measures taken by the Israeli forces during the religious celebration, where Christians were harassed, singled out and prevented from worshipping freely in violation of the “Status Quo Law” that has existed for hundreds of years to regulate the different religious celebrations

“The Laity Committee in the Holy Land/East Jerusalem

26 April 2008

Christians Harassed in Jerusalem during Orthodox Easter Celebrations

During the Orthodox Easter celebrations, Palestinian Christians were denied their right to worship freely in Jerusalem; they were not allowed to arrive to the Orthodox Patriarchate where celebrations normally take place, and they were not allowed to reach the St. Jacob Cathedral near the Christian Quarter of the Old City.

Since the early hours of the day, the Israeli police had set up barricades at the Gates of the Old City, and when Christian worshipers arrived the Israeli police started shouting at them and pushing them, and there was an incident when the police threw tear gas and beat the Christian worshipers with clubs.

It was obvious that Christians were singled out, compared to Jewish worshipers who arrive in hundreds of thousands to celebrate Pesach in Jerusalem.The number of Palestinian Christians who arrive to the Old City for Easter does not exceed two thousand persons, and this is a manageable number that can be accommodated.

Moreover, there is no need for the police to interfere anyway, because the celebrations have been going on smoothly throughout the years, and there has never been an incident of violence or damage that warrants the closure.

The worshipers were stunned to see that a statement had been circulated by the police and posted on the wall of the Patriarchate, saying that whomever wants to worship in St. Jacob Cathedral must have a permit. This is indeed a flagrant violation of the rights of Christians to worship freely, and what makes the violation more dramatic is that it took place in Jerusalem on a holy day.

The presence of Christians in Jerusalem’s Old City, and the celebration procedures, are part of a Law that has been in place since 300 years. That law, known as the Status Quo Agreement, regulates the celebrations, and according to that Law, Christians have the right to access the Patriarchate and St. Jacob Cathedral. Preventing worshipers from entering is a violation of the Status Quo Agreement.

Such violations by the police should stop. The steps taken against Christians are illegal. We call upon the Consulates, Embassies, Christian organizations, and human rights organizations, to intervene immediately, so the harassment of Christians in Jerusalem will stop.”

Religious freedom has been restricted by the Israeli military since its illegal occupation of the city. Jerusalem, a holy city for the three major religions has been off limit to the local Muslim as well as Christian Palestinians but not to Jewish Israelis.

Pictures of Muslim worshippers kneeling in prayer behind the Israeli military checkpoints have been widespread in media resources all over the globe. Christian worshippers have no better luck, unfortunately media does not capture their hardships except in the major Christian celebrations such as Easter and Christmas.

Christian Palestinian Jerusalemites suffer the most because Israel is adopting a silent policy of evacuating Jerusalem from its Christian citizens to make it a Jewish-only city.

While Muslim and Christian religious freedom is severely restricted by the Israeli government, Jewish Israelis are given the ultimate religious freedom to the point of intoxication.

Jewish Israeli worshippers are given free access to the narrow streets of the Old City. They rush through the streets chanting and dancing loudly without any respect to the feelings of the local citizens. They smash the goods of any open Palestinian shops. Palestinians learnt to close their shops and stick to their homes during such extravagant Jewish celebration. Israeli worshippers spend most of the day and night dancing and drinking alcohol and blatantly provoking Palestinian residents of the city.

Armed Israeli soldiers can also been seen during these Jewish religious celebrations. Yet their presence is
not to secure order and peace, but to protect the tumultuous and mostly drunken extremist Jewish Israeli worshippers from any Palestinian reaction to their provocations and disturbances of peace.

Palestinian Jerusalemites had barely forgotten the insulting provocations of the religiously extremist Jewish Israelis and the harassment of Israeli forces a week before the Jewish celebration of their Passover. In contrast, Christian Palestinians are denied access to their holy places during one of their holiest day of the year.

The presence of hundreds of Israeli armed soldiers and police forces in the city is clear evidence that Jerusalem is an occupied Palestinian city. The Israeli claim of securing religious freedom to worship and to have easy access to the holy places for the followers of the three religions in the city of Jerusalem is a mere propaganda.

The suppressive measures of the Israeli forces against peaceful Christian worshippers during Easter are clear contradictions to this claim. These suppressive measures indicate a deliberate form of religious persecution that stems from the extremist religious ideology of God’s chosen people and the rejection of all others (Goyims).
Source: AJP

alJazeera Magazine – Holy Land lost

Holy Land lost
10/07/2008 02:02:00 PM GMT Comments (27) Add a comment Print E-mail to friend
As Israeli settlements grew, the Palestinians lost freedom of movement

By Dr. James Zogby

As Israeli settlements grew, the Palestinians lost freedom of movement

The very words “The Holy Land” evoke powerful images. But the pictures that come to mind are rapidly disappearing from the landscape.

The occupation of the West Bank, once a military and political reality that dominated the lives of Palestinians, has become concretized: with massive housing projects connected by ribbons of highways; a wall and barbed wire barrier wending its way from North to South, cutting through villages, encapsulating others; and hundreds of checkpoints – all overtaking and transforming the once open terrain.

Raja Shehadeh has described all this in vivid detail in his most recent book, “Palestinian Walks: Forays Into a Vanishing Landscape.” A hiker from a young age, Shehadeh tells his story in a novel way.

Detailing six walks he has taken in and around his home in Ramallah during the last 30 years, he invites his readers to witness the transformations that have occurred, that increasingly circumscribed his movements, and marred his beloved land.

In his early years, Shehadeh set out roaming the hillsides to discover the life his parents and grandparents lived. The hills of the West Bank, once described by Western travelers as desolate and barren, come to life in Shehadeh’s narrative.

Dry one season, yes, but in the spring they were covered with flowers and new life. Conforming to this rough environment, generations of Palestinian farmers adapted their lives to the seasons and mastered these hills, naming every spring, wadi and cliff, and cultivating olives, grapes and family plots.

It was the world they knew and the land they loved.

As they defined the land, it, too, defined them, shaping Palestinian culture and social relations for generations.

This is what Shehadeh saw, in the beginning. The cycle of life, at one with its environment, that had existed for millennia. It was the Holy Land we know from picture postcards, lithographs and biblical stories.

But it is being lost, and this is a tragedy – not only for the Palestinians, but especially for them.

“The biography of these hills is in many ways my own, the victories and failures of the struggle to save this land also mine. But the persistent pain at the failure of that struggle would in time be shared by Arabs, Jews, and lovers of nature anywhere in the world. All would grieve, as I have, at the continuing destruction of an exquisitely beautiful place.”

As the book progresses, the landscape changes, because of the ever-increasing intrusions of the occupation. Walks became more difficult and, in some cases, fraught with danger.

“The other day I had to plead with a soldier to be allowed to return home. I told him that I really did not know a curfew had been imposed on Ramallah. I was away all day and hadn’t listened to the news. ‘I’m tired,’ I said, ‘please let me through.’ Oh, the humiliation of pleading with a stranger for something so basic.”

“How unaware many trekkers around the world are of what a luxury it is to be able to walk in the land they love without anger, fear or insecurity, just to be able to walk without political arguments…without the fear of losing what they’ve come to love, without the anxiety that they will be deprived of the right to enjoy it.”

As settlements grew (there are now almost a half million Israelis living in settlements in these occupied lands), not only did Palestinians lose ancestral lands and agricultural areas, they also lost freedom of movement, their way of life, and their hope for the future.

“The [settlement] master plan viewed our presence here as a constraint and was aimed at preventing ‘undesirable development.’ By creating new human settlements where none existed, connecting them with roads and isolating existing ones, it would not only strangle our communities but also destroy this beautiful land, and in a matter of a few years change what had been preserved for centuries.”

Jerusalem, too, was impacted. At first, cut off from the rest of the West Bank by a ring of settlements and a maze of highways, and now by a meandering and oppressive wall, the heart has been excised from the rest Palestine. Both the city, itself, and its once surrounding communities have suffered. The impact has been economic, social, cultural, and psychological.

“As we descended toward East Jerusalem…I realized that the beautiful Dome of the Rock was no longer visible. It was concealed by new construction. This was by design. Not only had Israeli city planners obstructed the view of this familiar landmark – they had also constructed a wide highway along the periphery of Arab East Jerusalem, restricting its growth and separating it from the rest of the city. Highways are more effective barriers than walls in keeping neighborhoods apart. Walls can always be demolished. But once built, roads become a cruel reality that is more difficult to change…

“No visitor would now sigh, let alone fall on his knees as many a conqueror and pilgrim in the past had done, upon beholding the Old City nestled in the hills. Now contorted, full of obstructions, walls and ugly blocks, it is a tortured city that has lost its soul.”

There is much more to “Palestinian Walks.” Woven through the narrative are stories of the author’s family, and accounts of legal challenges to land confiscations (Shehadeh is a famed human rights lawyer.) This is not an explicitly political book, filled with diatribes and prescriptions. Nor it is a hopeful book.

“As our Palestinian world shrinks, that of the Israelis expands, with more settlements being built, destroying forever the wadis and cliffs, flattening hills, and transforming the precious land that many Palestinians will never know.”

But it is real, and it is disturbing, and deserves to be read by everyone who calls that land Holy.

— Dr. James Zogby is president of the Arab American Institute. For comments or information, contact James Zogby.

Source: Middle East Online

alJazeera Magazine – Wake up, Christians, or lose the Holy Land

Wake up, Christians, or lose the Holy Land
30/03/2009 05:00:00 PM GMT Comments (51) Add a comment Print E-mail to friend
(smith.edu) Western Christendom doesn’t really give a damn about the Holy Land and its people.

By Stuart Littlewood

A British man recently applied to the Church of England to have his baptism into the Christian faith cancelled. Five months, he argued, was too young to decide his religious fate. Now 56, he’s against the indoctrination of children in any religion.

In Spain, I read that the mayor of El Borge has written to the local bishop asking for his baptism to be deleted and his name removed from Church records. He too considers baptism to be a dubious practice because of the age at which it is carried out. Other Spaniards are reported to want out of the Christian faith.

Logging off from the Church has crossed my mind also, but for different reasons. For me it’s the realisation that western Christendom doesn’t really give a damn about the Holy Land and its people, and couldn’t care less that it is being stolen by Zionists who are unwilling to live there in harmony with other faiths. These violent intruders want the entire place for themselves – exclusively – and they are willing to murder, pillage, destroy, ethnically cleanse, and stoop to all manner of inhuman crimes to snatch it, in the name of worldwide Jewry.

Most people in the West, including Christians in their leafy suburbs, turn a blind eye. They are possibly ignorant, but more likely they are misinformed by those who have a twisted view of the scriptures and now swell the ranks of Zionist sympathisers while still posing as devout Christians. The hang out in groups like Christian Friends of Israel and Anglican Friends of Israel, which are part of the wider Friends of Israel network that has its stooges embedded at all levels in our political, business, religious and social fabric.

The Holy Land is at the very centre of the Christian Church’s teachings. It is Christianity’s raison d’être. The Catholic Church at least keeps a considerable presence there, serving Christian and Muslim alike, and resists as best it can Israel’s continual encroachments on its freedom. The dozen or so patriarchs and heads of Christian churches in Jerusalem also speak out strongly from time to time.

But few people in the West seem to realise how seriously Israel’s notorious ‘administrative’ controls disrupt the life and work of the Church. How many are aware that no Muslim or Palestinian Christian living outside Jerusalem is allowed to visit the Holy Places in the Old City? This goes for priests, too, although the Israeli military may, when it suits their mood, grant permits restricted to certain entry points and limiting the duration of stay. These bully-boy tactics make pastoral work a nightmare and participation at major religious occasions well-nigh impossible.

The freedom of the Church was set out in the Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel in 1993 (but never ratified by the Knesset, I’m told). Buried deep within this document is the clause: The State of Israel recognizes the right of the Catholic Church to carry out its religious, moral, educational and charitable functions, and to have its own institutions, and to train, appoint and deploy its own personnel in the said institutions or for the said functions to these ends.

It turns out to be another worthless promise from a regime that ignores countless UN resolutions, disregards International Court of Justice rulings, is contemptuous of human rights and Geneva Conventions, yet claims to be a western-style liberal democracy sharing our values.

Last week the Israeli authorities deployed police reinforcements to prevent the Palestinians from holding cultural events in East Jerusalem to mark the city’s designation as the 2009 “capital of Arab culture”. East Jerusalem, as everyone knows, is officially Palestinian territory and includes the Old City. Palestinians naturally regard it as the capital of their future state; but the Israelis – unlawfully – claim it is their “eternal and undivided capital”. They intend to make their cruel grip on it permanent.

Criticise Israel in the US and you’ll lose your job. Criticise Israel in the UK and the Jewish establishment and their quasi-Christian friends hurl accusations of anti-semitism. Dare to support the victims of Israeli aggression and you’ll get banned by the freaky Canadian government and vilified, like George Galloway.

The Israelis’ game is clearly to hinder and paralyse Christianity in the Holy Land. It is a process that has been going on for a very long time. When Palestine was under British mandate, Christians accounted for 20 per cent of the population. Sixty-one years of hostilities, dispossession, interference and economic ruination have whittled their numbers down to less than 2 per cent. At this rate there will soon be no Christians left in the land where Christianity was born.

And what is the head of our Anglican Church doing? Last November, while Israel was meticulously planning its blitzkrieg against Gaza’s civilians (including the Christian community) and their democratically elected government, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, joined the Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, in a visit to the former Nazi camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland to demonstrate their joint solidarity against the extremes of hostility and genocide.

“This is a pilgrimage not to a holy place but to a place of utter profanity – a place where the name of God was profaned because the image of God in human beings was abused and disfigured,” said the Archbishop. “How shall we be able to read the signs of the times, the indications that evil is gathering force once again and societies are slipping towards the same collective corruption and moral sickness that made the Shoah possible?”

The signs are there to plainly see, Dr Williams. Evil has indeed gathered its forces again and, as you surely noticed, certain societies have already slipped into the moral cesspit. Look no further than the hell-hole that the Holy Land has been turned into by the Israeli occupation.

So when can we expect a pilgrimage by the Archbishop and the Chief Rabbi to sniff the stench of profanity in the Gaza Strip? And what do they have to say about the relentless theft and judaisation of Jerusalem, I wonder?

Back in the days of the Crusades the Archbishops of Canterbury included Christian men of action like Baldwin and Hubert Walter, who donned armour and took up their sword to fight the good fight (as they saw it) for their belief in the Holy City and what it stood for. Times are different now, but unless the Western Church shows firmer leadership and more grit it will lose the Holy Land and more of its followers will renounce their baptism.

— Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation.
Source: Middle East Online

alJazeera Magazine – Obama and the empire

Obama and the empire
31/03/2009 11:59:00 AM GMT Comments (12) Add a comment Print E-mail to friend
(AFP) Obama has by now clearly shown that he does not want to be the American leader who loses the American empire.

By Bill Christison

Various people have asked recently, “What are the implications of the global economic crisis for U.S. policies in the Middle East, and will Middle East countries lean more or less toward the U.S. as they suffer their own economic crises?” Not simple questions, but here, presented very briefly, are our first shots at them.

Let’s start by discussing what U.S. policies affecting the Middle East may emerge in coming months. A preliminary point that is necessary to make is that present policies inherited from the Bush administration are a mess. Practically everyone of every nationality who lives in the Middle East — and elsewhere for that matter — believes that the economic crises now moving in on the world were largely caused by the U.S.’s own extreme version of capitalism with its massive emphasis on privatization and on elimination of regulations that might have provided some protections for ordinary people.

At the minimum, there are widespread feelings of Shadenfreude over the pain the U.S. is now suffering, and at a political level there is intense dislike of the U.S. for policies that are seen, correctly, as arising from U.S. and Israeli colonialism and empire-building and that are blamed for the economic woes and inequalities now affecting nations everywhere.

There are two major scenarios of how U.S. Middle East policies may develop in the next year or so. Even now, no one knows enough about President Obama to know which scenario or variation on it might be likely. Increasingly, though, it appears that in foreign affairs, he is not going to change very much. We hope this is wrong. At least on the central issue of Palestine-Israel, Obama made it clear from the start of his campaign, well before the election, that he will support the right-wing elements of the Israel lobby led by AIPAC. But there still is the question of how strong his support will be.

The first scenario is that Obama will just bumble along, changing as little as he can get away with from Bush’s policies, except for clearing away some of the roughest edges of Bush policies on torture. Obama is expanding the war in Afghanistan and continuing the war in Iraq longer than he said he would. Under this scenario, he will try to keep talking as long as possible over Iran and try to avoid fighting. He will try to keep supporting a civilian government in Pakistan, but would not really oppose a return to military dictatorship in that country, if Pakistan would continue supporting his Afghanistan and Iran policies.

That’s the first scenario. Although its support for empire and colonialism makes it an undesirable scenario, at least Obama would be trying to avoid a major war.

The second, much more militaristic scenario is far worse, possibly involving more wars, but it describes what Obama’s policies in the Middle East may well turn into as the remaining months of 2009 pass by.

Right now Obama is faced with domestic economic difficulties greater than he would have thought, during most of his campaign, could conceivably happen as rapidly as they did. But he is also faced with a military-industrial complex that is now pushing for ever larger military expenditures and more aggressive foreign policies, among other things as a way to help solve U.S. economic difficulties. In addition to this, Obama is faced with the prospect of an Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu that is even more right-wing than the present one, supported by that portion of the Israel lobby led by AIPAC.

This part of the lobby is probably the strongest ally of the military-industrial complex in supporting more wars and more aggressiveness in U.S. Middle East policies. Obama showed his support for the lobby throughout his campaign and, most recently, did nothing to oppose the lobby’s successful trashing of Charles Freeman, a fine candidate for a senior intelligence position whom the lobby charged with being anti-Israel. Since a majority of U.S. voters generally support Israel without thinking much about it, the disorganized justice and peace movement in the United States is not very effective in opposing either the military-industrial complex or the right-wing Israel lobby.

Obama has by now clearly shown that he does not want to be the American leader who loses the American empire. In general, most European governments, most of the Arab governments, and the Japanese government as well, will not oppose him. Public opinion in these countries, in contrast to the governments, will be somewhat stronger in opposing U.S. policies of empire, but it is doubtful that the publics in these countries will be able to accomplish very much.

So the conclusion that one comes to if this second scenario turns out to be true is that we are facing a very dangerous period in world history. There are indeed forces in both the United States and Israel that want a clash of civilizations and are definitely not against further wars, and these forces are powerful. Obviously, the first nation to be affected by implementation of this scenario would be Iran. At this point it is impossible to know whether Obama will want to, or be able to, prevent these forces from dominating future U.S. policies throughout the Middle East.

— Bill Christison was a senior official of the CIA. He served as a National Intelligence officer and as director of the CIA’s Office of Regional and Political Analysis. Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession. This article appeared in CounterPunch.org.

Violence by Sabarmati Jail authorities against Muslim inmates | TwoCircles.net

Violence by Sabarmati Jail authorities against Muslim inmates
Submitted by admin on 30 March 2009 – 9:38pm.

* Crime/Terrorism
* Indian Muslim

By TwoCircles.net staff reporter

New Delhi: Following complaints of torture and ill-treatment a PIL was filed on March 23rd in Gujarat High Court for the removal of the Jail Superintendent of Sabarmati Central Jail, V. Chandrashekar. Sabarmati Jail houses many of the accused under POTA and for serial blasts case. Their situation got only worse after the filing of Public Interest Litigation (PIL).

On March 24th, Chandrashekar went on leave and instead of his deputy taking the change, government appoints R.J. Pargi in his place. On the same day, Pargi takes charge of the jail and according to the inmates stated that he is there to teach them a lesson.

Chronology of events:

March 25, 2009

At around 10 in the Morning:

A PIL was filed in The High Court of Gujarat regarding immediate transfer of jail superintendent V. Chandrashekar and appointment of a court commission to inquire the allegations of atrocities committed by him.

At around same time:

Trouble erupted when an inmate Yunus Sareswala was not allowed to meet his ailing mother. There were some skirmish between Sareswala plus 3-4 people and jailor incharge and the other guards. Cross complaints had been filed against each other.

Later in the noon:

The POTA accused went on hunger strike demanding immediate removal of the Superintendent. They also wanted that the jail be governed as per the Jail Manual.

In Evening:

Convicted prisoners and undertrial prisoners in serial blasts joined the hunger strike along with POTA accused.

March 26, 2009

The POTA court upon immediate representation by various lawyers against the atrocities sent the public prosecutor, 3 medical doctors, and a defense lawyer inside the jail to do the panchnama. The order on the panchnama is pending till date.

Yunus Sareswala and Saiyed Mohmmad Juned and some other prisoner were severely beaten up by the police inside jail premises.

Hunger strike joined by almost whole jail (more than 70%). Police personnel from different part of the city were called upon and 100s of prisoners were beaten up for going on hunger strike.

March 27, 2009

Hunger strike entered the third day.

Mohmmad Juned taken out from the jail for medical treatment. In the Civil Hospital, he files an F.I.R. against 3 jailors alleging torture.

Relatives were not allowed to meet with the accused (jail visit).

Meanwhile Haji Faruk usman Gani give application to designated POTA court vide Outward No. 1112 stating fear that they will be targeted and killed by/ through police by some or other reason

In the Afternoon:

A “whistle-blowing” episode happened in Central Jail at around 5 in the evening when they are performing “Asr Namaz”. Many prisoners were beaten up severely especially the accused in serial blasts case. They were pinpointed and trashed. Several POTA accused were also beaten up like Shanawaz Gandhi, Yunus Sareswala, Mohmmad Juned, Javed Siddiqui, Zahid Khan, Haji Faruk, Usman Gani, etc.

No medical treatment was given to the injured. Some doctors from Civil Hospital were called but that was too little and too late. Also the Sabarmati Jail lacks medical facilities.

Late evening:

“10 number Kholi” – the place were most of the POTA accused were living was vacated. All the prisoner of that place were shifted in other barracks. They were not allowed to carry any of their belongings.

All the prisoners who were on the hunger strike were beaten up again. This time the beating was done by crime branch officials and other police personnel. Main victims were the accused in the serial blasts case and POTA

March 28, 2009

Prisoners are still on the hunger strike.

Family member had tendered an application as they were not allowed to meet concern undertrial prisoners.

On Saturday Jail authorities and prison IG rejected the application stating the reason that on Saturdays only advocate are allow for interview with the accused.

Advocates tendered an application at 3:45 pm to have legal interview with so called accused (POTA & undertrial prisoners). Request was granted for some i.e. they allowed interview with POTA accused from 5:30 to 6:00 and rest were rejected stating reason that they are on hunger strike. At around 6:00 pm advocates on records make oral submission in respect to rejected application to meet the Jail Superintendent. But one reason or another, they lingered till 6:30 pm and at last they said that Jail Superintendent is busy doing rounds for inspection and hence could not meet them.

Advocate who meet the POTA accused, get information that the incident that took place is the part of conspiracy by the Jail authorities & others and right now they are under great fear that some of them might be killed or ill-treatment (especially bomb blasts case accused).

It was suggested by the advocates here that there are other accused in 9 other states who are also accused in the serial blast case. It should be taken care of that they are not brought here and the accused here should be transferred to some other better jail where there safety and security can be taken care of.

March 29, 2009
No one is allowed to meet the inmates.

March 30, 2009
Situation is not much different. According to local civil rights activists, inmates are still not allowed to meet there family members and advocates.

Kodnani arrest: A ray of hope for justice in Gujarat | TwoCircles.net

Kodnani arrest: A ray of hope for justice in Gujarat
Submitted by admin4 on 30 March 2009 – 8:16pm.

* Indian Muslim

Arrest of Kodnani shows wheels of justice have started moving in right direction in Gujarat; may act as a deterrence to prevent repeat of 2002; say activists.

By TwoCircles.net special correspondent,

Ahmedabad: With the arrest of Maya Kodnani, a former minister in Narendra Modi’s cabinet and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Jaydeep Patel following cancellation of their anticipatory bail by the Gujarat High Court on March 27, human rights groups, political activists and legal luminaries feel that the wheels of justice have now started moving in the right direction in the state.

Former physics professor and well-known human rights activist J S Bandukwala talking to TwoCircles.net on this issue said that Indian society has to recognize that there is no difference between Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab involved in November 2008 Mumbai killings and Kodnani as well as Patel accused of mass carnage of Muslims in Naroda Gam and Naroda Patiya cases on the outskirts of Ahmedabad during anti-Muslim communal riots in February-March 2002.

“But the sad point is that Kodnani and Patel escaped justice for seven years because of protection from the Sangh Parivar and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the state”, he says.

While Kodnani is reported to be close to BJP’s prime ministerial candidate L K Advani as both happen to be Sindhi migrants from Pakistan, Patel is known for his proximity to Modi. Like Patel, 53-year-old Kodnani has deep RSS roots as she was actively associated with Rashtriya Sevika Samiti, women’s wing of the RSS, since the time she joined the Baroda Medical College from where she did her MBBS and Diploma in Gynaecology and Obstetrics.

“The only way to prevent the repeat of 2002 is to punish the principal figures involved in those riots as we can see currently in UP Varun Gandhi is being deliberately built up by BJP to polarize society to gather votes’’, opined Bandukwala saying they are totally unconcerned about damage Varun’s hate speech can cause to the society.

“Our difficulty is that in the last 60 years we have not taken action against political leaders who preach hatred against a community or caste”, he pointed out. And this, according to Bandukwala, has encouraged the likes of Bal Thackeray and his family in Maharashtra and people like Narendra Modi in Gujarat and Varun Gandhi in UP to continue with their hate-mongering.

“As Modi’s political stature shot up after he engineered 2002 mass carnage and also went scotfree, Varun Gandhi wants to repeat it in UP for rise in UP as well as in national politics”, he pointed out.

“But once the law takes a firm stand and Kodnani is sentenced to death, it will completely discourage future rabble rousers”, Bandukwala hoped.

Welcoming the high court order, Vadodara-based Munir Khairuwala of Gujarat unit of All India Milli Council told TwoCircles.net that the arrest of Jaydeep Patel, a former state unit secretary of VHP had established the involvement of VHP and Sangh Parivar in 2002 riots.

“After the SIT declared Kodnani absconder, she should have been dropped from the cabinet by Modi but the latter allowed her to continue in violation of all democratic norms and conventions”, said Khairuwala. Kodnani and Patel were declared absconder on February 2 after they did not go to SIT for giving their statements despite summons issued to them. On February 5, they procured anticipatory bail from Additional Sessions Court in Ahmedabad. Gujarat High Court on March 27th canceled the sessions court order. Kodnani resigned before surrendering to the SIT set up by the Supreme Court.

Stating that the high court order would strengthen the faith of people in rule of law and judiciary, former Director General of Police R B Sreekumar, who was punished by Modi for speaking against him as chief of state intelligence bureau, hoped the SIT would bring out the larger conspiracy behind mass killings in other riot cases as well like Kidiyad, Gulberg Society and Ode and bring to book the real conspirators who designed and perpetrated genocidal crimes.

Stating that the arrest of only Kodnani from the ruling party would have limited effect, Sreekumar said that the arrest of real planners of the riots along with the collaborators in bureaucracy and police was a must for a long term solution to genocidal crimes in the country. His views were supported by senior Congress leader Arjun Modhjwadia who said that 2002 carnage was orchestrated by Narendra Modi and his colleagues and monitored by officials in Chief Minister’s office.

“So what SIT has done so far is just a tip of the iceberg and it still has a lot to do to detect the politically more influential accused and bring them to justice”, remarked Modhwadia.

Senior advocate and Jan Sangharsh Manch representative Mukul Snha, commenting on the development, said the high court ruling had only vindicated their seven year old allegation that post-Godhra violence was not a spontaneous reaction but an organized killing. In fact, the high court order has equated the Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gam killings with terrorism.

Sinha said that the judgment has opened up possibility of further investigation into larger conspiracy as to who organized and executed statewide violence.

“The buck should not stop at Kodnani or Jaydeep Patel but it must go deeper”, he demanded.

The high court order, he said, also proved that Nanavati commission appointed by the state government had not told the truth and hence, it must be disbanded immediately.

Mumbai-based activist Teesta Setalvad of Citizens for Justice and Peace, who played the chief role in getting SIT appointed by moving the apex court, sees a ray of hope for justice for Gujarat victims of 2002 carnage in the arrest of Kodnani.

“I hope the SIT probe will go further and deeper, nail more politicians and ministers who were involved in 2002 mass killings of Muslims”, she says.

She said that the Gujarat government had removed the name of powerful accused from the complaints and also influenced the judiciary in the state.

“The Best Bakery and Bilqisbano cases show that if trial is conducted independently result will be different”, she said, adding that the accused in the two cases were punished after their trial in Mumbai.

The judiciary in Gujarat had acquitted all the accused in the Best Bakery case in which 14 people had been burnt alive.

However, the government spokesperson and a minister in Modi’s cabinet Jay Narayan Vyas said that the high court order could not be seen as court holding Kodnani guilty. He said that high court’s decision was a mere legal procedure.

[Photo: The Hindu]