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Jihad Against the Abuse of Jihad

by iqu Uncategorized

Jihad Against the Abuse of Jihad

Thursday 26 March 2009

by: Abukar Arman, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

photo
A Palestinian walks along a deserted road in the West Bank city of Ramallah. (Photo: Muhammed Muheisen / AP)

    In light of the rampant extremism and militarism around the world, nothing
proves more dangerous than the manipulation of truth for political ends. This
tactic facilitates the demonization process that blurs ideologies and beliefs
in both the West and the Islamic world. And, no concept is more abused by both
sides than the concept of Jihad.

    To Muslim extremists and their cronies, Jihad is a narrowly defined license
to fight their perceived enemies (including Muslims, as is the case in Somalia)
even if that leads to atrocities against civilians. And to Western extremists
and their cronies, Jihad is a religiously sanctioned, perpetual holy war led
by militant non-state actors sworn to destroy Western values and civilization.

    However, Jihad is a complex concept deeply embedded in Islam. It is a principle
that all Muslims who adhere to the teachings of their religion embrace. And,
contrary to prevalent post-9/11 perception, the concept does not connote senseless
violence against innocents or suicide bombings.

    While the concept carries different relevance for different people, the Arabic
word means to strive or struggle toward achieving a higher aim, which includes
the “struggle in the way of God.” It can also mean to defend oneself,
or to strive against injustices. Finally, Jihad means the attainment of the
ultimate goal of Tazkiyatul Nafs, or purification of the soul – morally, spiritually
and ethically. Indeed, it is this latter aspect, the Jihad with oneself as one
resists temptations and strives against his/her evil tendencies, which Prophet
Muhammad referred to as “the Greater Jihad.” The purification of the
soul, or simply self-purification, is an around-the-clock process of deep introspection.

    Despite great achievements in the fields of science and technology; in the
compilation and standardization of knowledge; and, yes, in the art of its dissemination,
humanity still remains in an embryonic, if not an imbecilic, stage when it comes
to morality and ethics.

    Human beings, though endowed by their Creator with a profound faculty that
renders them superior to other known creatures, they are given by that same
Creator the capacity or the free will to bring themselves to “the lowest
of the low.” This latter capacity inspires wickedness, extremism in all
its forms (social, economic, political and religious) and the ever-increasing
appetite to exploit others, to kill and destroy.

    The human being remains a profound enigma and a paradox of clashing potentialities.
As we surpass animals in the realm of intellect and wisdom, we surpass them
in savagery as well. There is no animal group that plays “war games”
and makes deliberate plans to oppress or annihilate others while they are belly-full
– all in the name of ideology, religion, economic exploitation, strategic opportunism
or simply racism.

    So when the Prophet was referring to a particular aspect of Jihad in such high
regard, he was not merely offering an opinion. Rather, he was pointing to what
the majority of Muslim scholars consider the peak of piety – to a process which,
according to the Qur’an, leads to the ultimate salvation.

    As He does throughout the Qur’an for emphasis, in the Chapter Al-shams (The
Sun), God swears multiple times; in fact, more than any other time: “(I
swear) By the sun and its glorious splendor; and by the moon as it follows it;
and by the day as it reveals it; and by the night as it conceals it; and by
the sky and what built it; and by the earth and what smoothes it out all over;
and by the soul and who gave it balance and order, and inspired it with the
capacity to turn to disobedience and the capacity to fear God; Verily, whosoever
purifies the soul attains the highest of success, and verily whosoever corrupts
it descends into utter failure!” And the engine that drives this process
is known as Taqwah (sincere fear and devotion to God). It is through Taqwah
that one attains the profound God-consciousness which cultivates one’s capacity
to self-police against all evil.

    So how could such a noble concept get so distorted? How come the robe-wearing
extremists of the East and the suit-wearing extremists of the West are the ones
who hold monopoly on the definition of Jihad?

    In the past eight years of global political discontent, one persistent warning
has been systematically ignored: When militant politics takes over the stage,
reason makes a run for the exit. This was a period when people were generally
herded toward one side of the argument or the other. Two nihilistic manifestos
dominated the political discourse and brought the world closer to a self-fulfilling
prophecy known as the “clash of civilizations”: the global war on
terror and the global Jihad.

    The former was based on an erroneous premise that “political Islam”
in all its manifestations is anti-democratic and anti-Western, and, as such,
should never be afforded a space in the marketplace of ideas. Proponents of
this view insisted that such movements were dangerous fronts for Muslim militants
with sinister “Jihadist ambition,” intent on destroying the West because
of its freedom and economic success. Therefore, they were to be met at their
incubation place: with “preemptive” force if they were based in foreign
lands and by draconian policies if they were stationed in the West.

    The proponents of this view work hard to conceal two particular facts that
dismantle their claim by default: the success of the Turkish political system
led by a democratically elected Islamist government, and the millions of Muslims
who live peacefully in the US and various parts of Europe in spite of ever-growing
Islamophobia.

    The concept of “global Jihad,” on the other hand, was based on an
opposite yet equally erroneous premise – that the West is collectively bent
on destroying Islam by occupying the Islamic world: exploiting its natural resources,
oppressing its peoples and Westernizing Islamic values. And as such Jihad against
them is not only right, but the moral thing to do.

    The proponents of this manifesto, such as Al Qaeda, selectively use the confrontational
rhetoric often used by their counterparts in the West – secularist and evangelical
Zionists – to lend credence to their claim. And they, too, work hard to conceal
two particular realities: that Muslims are afforded more rights in the West
than in most of the so-called Islamic countries when it comes to practicing
their religion freely and establishing Islamic institutions; and that the Obama
administration is adamant about its desire to improve relations with the Muslim
world.

    Back to the abused concept: Until Jihad is openly discussed in both the Islamic
and the Western worlds, and its true nature is unveiled, abuse of the concept
for self-serving political ends will continue – and so will its unjust violent
expression.

»

Abukar Arman is a writer who lives in Ohio. His articles and analyses
have appeared in the pages of various media groups.

Muslims have right to establish Shariah Courts: Govt. to Supreme Court

by iqu Uncategorized

Muslims have right to establish Shariah Courts: Govt. to Supreme Court | TwoCircles.net

Muslims have right to establish Shariah Courts: Govt. to Supreme Court
Submitted by mumtaz on 11 May 2009 – 11:07pm.

* Indian Muslim

By RINA,

New Delhi: Responding to public interest litigation (PIL), additional solicitor general Gopal Subramaniyam submitted before Supreme Court bench comprising Justice A. R. Laxamanan and Justice Altumash Kabir, “Muslims have the right to establish Shari’ah Panchayats under their personal law.” Next hearing has been postponed for 12 weeks.

Earlier, advocate Vishwa Lochan Madan had filed a PIL requesting the court to instruct people to refrain from establishing ‘parallel’ judicial system, namely Qazi system. Government attorney today rejected the plea and said, “Neither the Fatwas issued by Shari’ah courts clash with Indian judicial system nor these courts are deemed a parallel system of justice.”

In support of his PIL, advocate Madan had cited Imrana case in which her father-in-law had allegedly raped her but village Panchayat asked the lady to take him as her husband. Later, Darul Uloom Deoband ruled that presently she cannot live with her former husband and this was confirmed by All India Muslim Personal Law Board.

Advocate Madan requested the court to declare that Fatwas issued by various authorities cannot be put in practice and direct union and state governments to take immediate steps to dissolve all Darul Quzat (Sharia Court).

Referring to article 26 of Indian Constitution, the union government pleaded in it reply to the court that religious freedom has been guaranteed for all religions and all communities, under which they can establish and run their charitable institutions including Darul Quzat or Shariah system and manage their religious affairs on their own.

The union government submitted, ‘these institutions are not a parallel system. Moreover, Darul Quzat do not stop Muslims from going to civil courts. So, the people not satisfied with Darul Quzat verdict or do not want to solve their tangle through them are totally free to a court of law.’

Converting Islamic ideals to a hip-hop flow

by iqu Uncategorized

Converting Islamic ideals to a hip-hop flow

Converting Islamic ideals to a hip-hop flow

Caille Millner

Monday, May 11, 2009

To convert to Islam, a man or woman must pronounce the shahada, or testimony of faith, either in private or in public. The convert states that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his prophet; the reason, according to the Quran, is that followers need to understand that they may not worship anything but God. Many converts opt to shower either before or after their declaration, to symbolize the repenting of sins from their previous life. Nothing more is required.

Becoming a rapper is a bit more complicated. The sheer technical skill (learning rhythm and meter, building a vocabulary, adjusting one’s voice) often requires years of practice, and then there is the not-so-small matter of developing beats and musical production. The convert to rap must also prepare to adjust his lifestyle. The most successful rappers on the market focus their subject matter and their public appearances around a small list of topics: one’s previous experiences of poverty, drugs – especially the dealing thereof – guns and/or criminal records, fast money and loose women.

The twain shall meet, however, as I learned while watching “New Muslim Cool,” a new documentary about a Puerto Rican convert, Hamza Perez, who gave up drug-dealing in exchange for Islam, but couldn’t quit hip-hop. Perez’s new life is certainly rich with subject matter – the FBI raids his mosque without giving a reason; he teaches prisoners in the county jail until his security clearance is mysteriously revoked – but it’s a different kind of subject matter, and he’s operating under different constraints. His ideal audience isn’t the head of a major label – it’s the young men hanging out on the corner, to whom Perez offers his albums and a new way of life. He doesn’t consider there to be anything odd about this. He considers his music to be a form of da’wa, or religious outreach.

“New Muslim Cool” will be showing on PBS on June 23, but I couldn’t wait that long to find out more. Perez’s record label was originally based in the Bay Area – where there is, apparently, a thriving Islamic hip-hop scene.

“Oh, I love being a citizen of the Bay,” Tyson Amir-Mustafa told me. Amir-Mustafa is a 29-year-old San Jose native who’s released four Islamic-influenced rap albums. “Islam is still young here. The Muslim community is still shaping its identity here. And it’s very much a Muslim-American identity, with no question that the two things can go hand in hand.”

And the “American” portion of that identity would include hip-hop. Many local Islamic rappers have been rapping longer than they’ve been Muslim.

“I started writing poetry, winning poetry awards when I was 10 years old,” said Amir Abdul-Shakur, who’s 26 and originally from Oakland. “Then I started honing my rap skills in middle school.” Abdul-Shakur, who raps under the name Five Eighty, converted to Islam in 2000. There are no contradictions, he said, “but there are a lot of things I can’t talk about. There are a lot of things I just don’t do.”

Those things would include: drinking alcohol, using drugs, any kind of criminal behavior, casual sex. Both men are married. Neither wants to use his music to evangelize.

It would seem to be hard to create lyrics around these limitations until I realized that they both had a bigger topic than most mainstream rappers: their own personal journeys. After all, the rap marketplace is saturated with the same old, same old – who better to offer a different take on risk and reward than a converted Muslim rapper?

“You’re already different,” Amir-Mustafa told me. “People are already looking at you with all these associations, all these misperceptions. So why not take the opportunity to talk about things they’re not used to hearing in the music, things like integrity? Why not talk about why you decided to go a different way?”

Caille Millner is an editorial writer. E-mail: cmillner@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A – 10 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Mothers Day Heroine

by iqu Uncategorized

Rola Awwad
Town: Wayne
Children: Adam, 10; Amana, 7; Miriam, 3
Occupation: Stay-at-home mom; Arabic teacher

Rola
Awwad wasn’t angry at first. Her son Adam’s elementary school in Wayne
had denied requests for the Muslim fifth-grader to pray in a private
room during school, citing safety concerns.

But
then Awwad learned from chatting with a woman at her mosque that the
Constitution protected the right to practice religion and that children
in nearby public schools had been praying in school for decades without
incident.

“I
never knew he had the right to pray, as long as it’s not interfering
with education and others,” said Awwad, a Palestinian raised in Jordan.

Awwad
sprung into action, pressing the school district to allow her son to
perform the obligatory afternoon prayer in a quiet, private space, such
as the library or the principal’s office. The Council on American
Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group, intervened on Awwad’s
behalf and a compromise was reached in February. Adam was growing weary
of the public attention surrounding the case. Adam agreed to pray
during recess, while other children played nearby, either outdoors or
in the back of the classroom.

“This
was a lesson for my son not to give up on your rights. Be proud you are
a Muslim and to be proud you’re an American and born here,” she said on
a recent afternoon in her Wayne living room. Relenting on the issue for
now, she still worries about her son praying outside during recess when
it’s cold or rainy or when he enters middle school next year, when his
peers may be more apt to bully him.

Awwad
says she’s more outspoken than her husband, an engineering professor.
Her first foray into community activism was as a graduate student in
Jordan. She and a group of women built a social services center that
was controversial in the community. On a trip home, she brought her
kids to the site. “I wanted them to see it,” she said.

As
the clock struck 4, a recording of the afternoon call to prayer floated
from her kitchen while the children played in their rooms upstairs.
Awwad explained that she is intent on raising her kids with strong
Muslim values.

“I
want my kids to have a relationship with God,” said Awwad. “That will
protect them, and they will grow up to be good citizens,” she said.

ETHICAL INVESTMENT = SHARIAH COMPLIANCE

by iqu Uncategorized

ISLAM & FINANCE FROM MY PERSPECTIVE: ETHICAL INVESTMENT = SHARIAH COMPLIANCE

Friday, May 8, 2009
ETHICAL INVESTMENT = SHARIAH COMPLIANCE

The notion of ethical investing goes back at least to 1758, when the Quakers banned profiting from the slave trade. But the market for ethical investments has always remained a niche. The goals of maximizing profit and fulfilling a moral agenda conflict more often than they complement one another, and investors who want to put ethics first have turned out to be relatively few.

Finance that complies with Shariah, is still a niche within the ethical investing niche. In all, there are at least $500bn worth of Islamic finance assets worldwide and Islamic banking has expanded by more than 10% annually over the past decade, according to Standard & Poor’s. It’s grabbing the attention of some of the biggest banks in the world and changing how they do business.

So just what does Shariah-compliant banking entail? Some of it is simply prohibiting things seen as immoral. Investing in casinos, pornography and weapons of mass destruction is out.

The animating religious goal behind other restrictions is to achieve greater social justice by sharing risk and reward. Islamic finance bans people from selling what they don’t own, which rules out short selling, and from engaging in contracts deemed to have excessive uncertainty on either side. That rules out traditional insurance, so Islamic banks have instead developed takaful, in which a group of people pool risk.

The Shariah stipulation banning interest, though, is the one that poses the most problems for modern finance.

To be sure, from the Bible to Buddhism, most of the world’s faiths have issued warnings against usury, and theologians through the ages have debated the line between permissible and excessive interest rates. But ultimately, in the West, governments and religious authorities deemed some amount of interest permissible.

Not so in Islam, in which most scholars deem fixed-interest payments forbidden. So, for example, the sukuk issuer does not sell a debt, as a traditional bond issuer would, but rather sells a portion of an asset, on which the buyer is then entitled to receive rent. Likewise, rather than take out an interest-bearing loan, a business in need of financing might enter a musharaka, a partnership with profit-and-loss sharing.

Why the growth in Islamic finance now? After all, Islam’s rules have been around since the seventh century, and some Muslim countries have been rich since the discovery of oil.

One important factor has been the recent rise in religiosity in Muslim countries especially, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. With the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, there was a feeling in many countries that Islam was a religion under siege.

Some observers date the rise in religious observance back even further, to the 1980s, when guest workers in Saudi Arabia from across the Muslim world began returning to their own countries, re-importing with them the strict Wahhabi subsect of Islam for which the desert kingdom is known.

Whenever this burgeoning religious observance began there is now an increasing appetite for Shariah finance. In some cases, Middle Eastern governments have embraced Islamic banking to advertise their religious chops.

Some of the growth in Islamic finance has also been due to clever positioning by Malaysia. After September 11, US authorities froze the bank accounts of several prominent Saudis, which triggered other wealthy Arabs to withdraw their funds from the United States.

Ultimately, some $200bn left the US. Many of the investors were from tiny Gulf states whose economies were too small to absorb their funds, and so they looked to Malaysia, a Muslim country with a relatively sophisticated financial system. It issued the first sovereign sukuk in 2002, and made a point of appointing Shariah scholars from the Gulf to monitor compliance.

Today, Kuala Lumpur rivals traditional hubs like Dubai and Bahrain as a global centre of Islamic finance.

In the end, the maths behind the growth of Islamic banking may be pretty simple: There are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world – roughly a fifth of the world’s population. Some live in quickly developing economies, some sit on vast oil wealth and some are newly middle-class Americans and Europeans.

No one can say for sure how many will seek out banking that complies with Shariah, but even a small fraction of 1.3 billion is a market no one wants to ignore.

Posted by SWEET CHILD at 11:52 AM

” to Britain

by iqu Uncategorized

Poll: Brit Muslims more ‘loyal’ to Britain – UPI.com

Poll: Brit Muslims more ‘loyal’ to Britain
Published: May 8, 2009 at 7:57 PM

LONDON, May 8 (UPI) — A survey suggests 77 percent of British Muslims describe themselves as loyal to the country, compared to only 36 percent of the general public.

The survey, conducted by Gallup and the Coexist Foundation, suggests British Muslims are more likely than the general public to have high opinions of British elections, courts, media and financial bodies, The Times of London reported Friday.

“Since 9/11 and the terrorist attacks in Madrid and London, mistrust towards European Muslims has become palpable. Significant segments of European societies openly express doubt that Muslim fellow nationals are loyal citizens,” the report’s authors wrote. “The general construct of this premise rests on an oversimplified and erroneous understanding of Islam and terrorism.”

The poll involved 1,000 telephone interviews and 500 face-to-face interviews with Muslims living in areas with high Islamic populations.

UN blames Israel for Gaza attacks

by iqu Uncategorized
UN blames Israel for Gaza attacks

More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed in
Israel’s month-long assault on Gaza [EPA]

A United Nations inquiry into the war in Gaza has found that Israel was to blame for at least seven direct attacks on UN operations – including schools and medical centres.

The UN report, commissioned by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said the Israeli military intentionally fired at UN facilities and civilians hiding in them during the war and used disproportionate force.

Missiles, bombs and small arms were all used by Israel against the UN – leading to dozens of deaths.

The UN’s own fuel and aid depot in Gaza was hit with Israeli artillery shells causing widespread damage.

The attack continued for two hours after the UN asked the Israeli military for it to stop.

‘Negligence and recklessness’

Report reaction


 Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti
 Israeli spokesman Mark Regev
 UN rapporteur Richard Falk

The report’s summary accused the Israeli army of “varying degrees of negligence or recklessness with regard to United Nations premises and to the safety of UN staff and other civilians within those premises, with consequent deaths, injuries and extensive physical damage and loss of property.”

Ban said at a news conference on Tuesday that the aim of the report, which is not legally binding, was to establish “a clear record of the facts” surrounding incidents involving UN premises and personnel.

A total of 53 installations used by the United Nations Relief and Works agency (UNRWA) were damaged or destroyed during Israel’s Gaza campaign, including 37 schools – six of which were being used as emergency shelters – six health centres, and two warehouses, the UN agency said.

In video


 Ban denies downplaying Gaza report
 Revisiting Gaza attacks

Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey in New York said the UN secretary-general was still determining the UN’s course of action over the report’s 11 recommendations.

The report said the UN would seek reparations for damages from Israel and meet the Israeli government.

Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, told Al Jazeera that the report was “one-sided” and that he hoped Ban would take into account Israel’s response to it.

Israel’s army concluded its own report into the three-week war on Gaza in late April, finding that Israel followed international law and that while errors occurred they were “unavoidable”.

Notorious incident

The report found that in seven out of the nine incidents involving UN premises or operations that it investigated, “the death, injuries and damage involved were caused by military actions … by the IDF [Israeli army]”.

The UN has called for an impartial inquiry into alleged crimes during the war [AFP]

It also said one of the incidents, when a World Food Programme warehouse in the Karni industrial zone in Gaza was damaged, was largely caused by a rocket “most likely” fired by Hamas or another Palestinian faction and condemned those responsible for using such “indiscriminate weapons” to cause deaths and injuries.

The investigation included one of the most notorious incidents in the war, when up to 40 people are believed to have died at a UN school in Jabaliya after Israeli mortar shells struck the area.

The UN initially said the shells had hit the school but later retracted the claim, while Israel initially said its forces were responding to firing from within the school, but also later reportedly withdrew the statement, although the UN report noted the claim still appeared on the Israeli foreign ministry’s website as of Tuesday.

The report also recommended that because there had been “many incidents” during the war involving civilian victims, an impartial inquiry should be mandated “to investigate allegations of violations of international law in Gaza and southern Israel by the IDF [Israeli army] and by Ha
mas and other Palestinian militants”.

Israel’s 22-day war on Gaza left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, including around 400 children, Gaza health officials said, along with 13 Israelis.

Much of the coastal territory was also left in ruins.

Report ‘flawed’

In depth


Analysis and features from after the war

Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, told Al Jazeera that the report was “fundamentally flawed” and contained “methodological problems are so deep that everyone has to ask on what basis they make these criticisms”.

“Evidence shows one thing and the UN report clearly shows that they are not looking at reality.”

Israel has said the aim of its operations in Gaza was to cripple the Palestinian group Hamas’s ability to launch rockets into the south of Israel.

Earlier this month an Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed to Al Jazeera that it would not co-operate with a separate UN Human Rights Council investigation into alleged war crimes during the assault on the Gaza Strip.

International rights groups have accused both the Israeli military and Palestinian groups such as Hamas of violations throughout the conflict.

The UN secretary-general commissioned the report, written by a special committee led by Ian Martin, former head of Amnesty International, in January, shortly after fighting ended.
 Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Islam and democracy can – and do – coexist

by iqu Uncategorized

Islam and democracy can – and do – coexist

Just look at successes in Indonesia and Turkey.

By John Hughes

from the May 8, 2009 edition

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Provo, Utah – Over the years American presidents have preached the power of freedom to the un-free nations of the world.

In recent times, the focus has been on the Arab world, where democratic progress has been scant. President George W. Bush’s efforts – from candid speeches to Arab leaders to a costly war in Iraq – have yielded mixed results.

President Obama is pursuing a different course, using a blend of personal charm abroad and efforts at home to burnish America’s image as a democratic example.

Throughout all this, skeptics have argued that this is a lost cause, and that democracy and Islam are incompatible.

So it is heartening to see the integration of democracy and Islam taking place in three huge countries whose Muslim populations make up somewhere between a quarter and a third of the world’s entire Muslim populace.

Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population (205 million), is undergoing national elections that will strengthen its steady democratic progress. India, which has a minority population of some 150 million Muslims, is finishing up month-long elections for a nation of more than 1 billion people. Turkey, with a Muslim population of 77 million, is a working example of a secular democracy in a Muslim country.

These examples may not offer a blueprint for the mostly undemocratic Arab world. But their success does offer welcome evidence that Islam and democracy can coexist, maybe even integrate.

Indonesia’s emergence as a peaceful democracy is notable because its past has not always been free of violence or manipulation. When I worked as a correspondent in Indonesia in the 1960s, the Army put down a communist-triggered coup and wrought terrible vengeance across the Indonesian archipelago.

Estimates of the death toll rose as high as 1 million people. My own estimate was about 200,000. An investigating commission reporting to President Sukarno listed 78,000 people dead – a dreadfully inaccurate figure that was offered up, a source told me, because “We gave Sukarno the figures we thought he wanted to hear.”

Indonesia’s travail continued under the man who deposed him, General Suharto. Yet today, Indonesia has become a country of order and promise.

India is currently conducting its 15th national election since achieving independence in 1947. Indians proudly proclaim the process to be the “world’s biggest exercise in democracy.” Though India is predominantly Hindu, the Muslims who live there tend not to vote as a religious bloc, but spread their votes across a multiplicity of parties with differing policies.

Months ago, Mr. Obama said he wanted to make a major address in an Islamic capital early in his presidency. He hasn’t done that yet, but it is no surprise that he chose Turkey for his “the US is not at war with Islam” speech. Turkey has proved, as Steven Cook, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, once said, “that you can have a democracy in a Muslim-majority country.” In free elections, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has successfully maintained Turkey as a secular, free-market society since 2003.

There have been spats between Turkey and the US. Turkey barred US forces from using its territory as a launching pad for the war against Saddam Hussein. Its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been a blistering critic of Israel over Gaza. But Obama’s visit was well received, and the US considers Turkey a useful potential interlocutor in the various challenges of the Middle East – a role that Turkey appears ready to assume.

Though Indonesia, India, and Turkey, each in their different ways, present welcome examples of compatibility between Islam and democracy, it is often democracy molded to accommodate local cultures and customs. It is freedom, but not necessarily democracy as defined in Washington or the capitals of western Europe.

John Hughes, a former editor of the Monitor, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1967 for his coverage of Indonesia. He writes a biweekly column for the Monitor Weekly.

”

by iqu Uncategorized
‘Go back and die in Gaza’
 By Stephanie Doetzer

Short on supplies and facilities, Gaza’s hospitals cannot treated the most severe cases [GETTY]

Since Israel’s closure of the Gaza Strip in 2007, only severely sick Palestinians have been allowed to seek medical attention elsewhere provided they receive authorisation and security clearances from the Israeli authorities.

However, getting the special permit that allows patients to leave Gaza for medical treatment is a bureaucratic hassle and, many Gazans say,
comes with strings attached. 

According to the Israeli organisation Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Palestinian patients are increasingly being asked to make an impossible choice: Either to become collaborators with the Israeli intelligence apparatus – or to remain in Gaza without medical treatment. 

Al Jazeera spoke with Hadas Ziv, the director of PHR.

Al Jazeera: Your organisation has collected dozens of testimonies of patients who were pressured to collaborate with the Israeli General Security Services. How did you find out about this? A Palestinian will not easily admit he or she has been asked to become an informant. 

Ziv: True; it is not a subject people talk about easily and it happened gradually. Our organisation tries to support Gazan patients who were prevented by the Israeli authorities from treatment in Israel, or from crossing Israel on their way to hospitals in the West Bank.

Instead of clear rejection or admittance, the Israelis started saying: “permit pending interrogation”. The permit became conditional – not so much on individual health conditions, but on the outcome of the interrogation at the Erez Crossing. 

Then, many of the patients we were in touch with came back from interrogation and told us they did not get the permit: “They tried to extort me to collaborate and I wasn’t willing to give them information, so they sent me back to Gaza.”

When more and more people told us the same story, we understood that this was a new policy.

How do you know the testimonies are true?

The testimonies come from very different people, of different ages, different political opinions and from different towns in the Gaza strip. To believe that there is such a high degree of co-ordination among all the patients is pretty far-fetched. But more importantly, it needs a lot of courage to speak to us about this.

Some of the patients have a lot to lose if they talk.

You started collecting testimonies in the summer of 2007. But when do you think this practice started?

Very soon after the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. Since then Israel sees Gaza as an enemy entity, as something that has to be closely monitored and controlled.

And since then, it has become more difficult for the General Security Services (GSS) to gather intelligence from Gaza. They have little direct contact with Palestinians.

The only ones who are still allowed to cross Erez, even if they also have a lot of difficulties, are the patients. They are an easy prey for the GSS.  They are very vulnerable – for some, getting out of Gaza can be a question of life and death.

The GSS is using this situation to exert pressure.

Is there a standard procedure for these interrogations?

It varies. The newest development is that you have a specific appointment for interrogation and it’s not on the day of your treatment. But there are also cases where people think they have a permit and can go out, but then they are suddenly being taken to interrogation. Sometimes the patient has to wait in a room for several hours, without his family.

Then, they take him to another room for interrogation. They may ask just a couple of questions to find out if you know any Hamas members or they may suggest a deal for long term co-operation: “If you help us, we will help you. You need a treatment, we need information. We will give you a number, you call us once a week and give us information about your neighbours.”

If you refuse, they become more blunt: “Okay, go back and die in Gaza.”

What happens back in Gaza?

The patients are in a lose-lose situation. If they refuse to co-operate with the Israelis and are sent back, they may die because they can’t get appropriate treatment in Gaza.

If they do manage to get the permit, they will be branded as potential collaborators.

Whether you really did it or not is not so important. If people think you collaborated, your life may be at risk. In the end, everyone suspects everyone else. It’s like Orwell’s 1984.

And this is the objective – humiliation and fragmentation.

Isn’t the objective in the first place a more immediate one – simply gathering intelligence?

That’s just the surface.

I think the main goal is to break the cohesiveness and solidarity among Palestinians. This way, it’s much more difficult for them to unify and to struggle for a common cause.

What already happens between Fatah and Hamas then also happens between neighbours, between families … and this is good for the one who tries to control you.

But the Israeli government says it wants a partner for negotiations and thus a united Palestinian position.

What troubles me most as an Israeli citizen is that we suffer from a kind of collective psychosis.

We are governed by fear and manipulated by fear. Security is everything.

But what we are being offered is a very narrow definition of security. No one has the courage to say that long-term security is security for everyone, not just for us but also for Palestinians. But we are obstructed from seeing this, because we let fear govern our lives.

We constantly have something to fear. If one fear stops, another comes up. When Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, it was very convenient for the Israeli government to use this. Hamas is being presented to the Israeli public as an entity that you cannot talk to. But 20 years ago, we claimed Fatah could not be talked to. Every time, a situation is being created in which you claim you have no one to talk to.

How are your views received by other Israelis?

When I argue with people they tell me I should be grateful to the people who defend me. That the GSS may be saving my life through these interrogations. They say I’m naive, that I am not patriotic and things like that.

But I think my point of view has the same legitimacy as others.

In Israel, if you mention the word “security”, no further arguments are needed. They say patients may come to Israel to organise terror attacks. In this case, Israeli society does not demand further explanation.

The result is that even things that we wouldn’t think about doing with convicted criminals, these things are suddenly permissible when it comes to Palestinians. It is as if we had two diff
erent sets of values. And this is only possible because we constantly dehumanise the Palestinians. If we would consider them as normal human beings, it would not be possible.

Everything is conditioned according to us. To our needs and our security. I think this is not justifiable. Not just because the victims suffer. Of course, the victims’ suffering is unimaginable.

It is beyond what I can express. Imagine you are the mother of a 17-year-old girl who has cancer, needs urgent treatment and is being extorted by the GSS. You, as a mother, are in a different room and you don’t know what your daughter is going through. This is unimaginable to me.

But it is also unimaginable to me what future my society has if it continues to act like this. I’m afraid for my society as well. I think we are at a crossroads. We have to choose. If we want to remain human, we cannot continue like this.

In a written statement given to Al Jazeera, the Israeli defence ministry has denied all the allegations made by Ziv.

“These charges are false. The only considerations Israel has are humanitarian and security-related ones,” the statement says.

“There is no truth to the contention that other factors are involved. The reason why clarifications are conducted by our security personnel is to ensure that those granted medical entry permits are indeed in need of such permits, and to ensure that those planning on abusing these permits to foment terror in Israel cannot gain entry into Israel.”
 Source: Al Jazeera