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Muslims: The New Jews

by Critical Thinker Tuesday, Sep. 05, 2006 at 7:14 AM

As the war on terror heads into its sixth year, a new racial stereotype is emerging in America. Brown-skinned men with beards and women with head scarves are seen as "Muslims" -- regardless of their actual faith or nationality.

As the war on terror heads into its sixth year, a new racial stereotype is emerging in America. Brown-skinned men with beards and women with head scarves are seen as "Muslims" -- regardless of their actual faith or nationality.

Law enforcement measures, politicians, religious leaders and the media have contributed to stereotyping Muslims as a race -- echoing the painful history of another faith.

"Muslims are the new Jews," said Paul Silverstein, an anthropology professor at Reed College in Oregon who studies the intersection of race, immigration and Islam. "They're the object of a series of stereotypes, caricatures and fears which are not based in a reality and are independent of a person's experience with Muslims."

The Muslim caricature has ensnared Hindus, Mexicans and others across the country with violence, suspicion and slurs. And it has given new form to this country's age-old dance around racial identity.

With fair skin, green eyes and brown hair, Dailyah Patt is white. But when she puts on a head scarf, Patt has discovered, people see her as something altogether different.

The Modesto-born convert to Islam has had people categorize her as Palestinian, and she's been told: "Go back to your own country." So Patt removes the hijab, as the head scarf is commonly referred to, when she goes to job interviews or has to fly.

"I can pass as Christian," said Patt, 27, a Palo Alto resident, who was frustrated by repeated airport security interrogations until she stopped wearing a scarf. She feels "oppressed" for feeling forced into shedding a required article of the faith.

Nida Khalil, on the other hand, is Palestinian, spent many of her teenage years in the West Bank city of Ramallah, and deeply identifies with Palestinian politics. A nonpracticing Muslim, she doesn't wear a head scarf. People tell her they think she is Latino.

She can't think of a single instance in the past five years when she's felt harassed for looking like someone from the Middle East.

"I feel really badly for women who have to live in the U.S. that do wear hijab," said Khalil, 26, a San Mateo resident. "I can't even imagine all the snickers or stares ... or the disrespect they get from Western fanatics."

Patt and Khalil's experiences show how race works, say scholars who study the phenomenon: People often project their assumptions onto others based on physical characteristics, even ignoring their own experiences.

Caricaturing a faith as a race poses particular problems because there is no set of shared physical characteristics. For example:

-- Most Arabs in the United States, such as Ralph Nader, are not Muslims.

-- Many Palestinians are Christian.

-- Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim country, but its residents don't resemble the stereotype.

-- African Americans make up more than a quarter of the U.S. Muslim population, more than any other ethnicity. Complicating matters, Muslims who are black often are confused with Black Muslims, Nation of Islam followers, who abide different beliefs.

"You can't define what a Muslim looks like," said Saifulloh Amath, 23, a San Jose resident who is Cham, an ethnic group native to Vietnam and Cambodia.

His family has been Muslim as long as it can trace. But he is taken for a "devout Buddhist."

"You can't stereotype all of humanity under one dress code," Amath said. "In the middle of the Vietnamese jungle, you have people who speak Arabic," the language of the Quran.

For women, the stereotype revolves around wearing a scarf, which complies with a religious requirement to cover their hair.

For men, the caricature has almost nothing to do with faith because there's no physical attribute unique to Muslim men. The male stereotype involves beards and skin, eye and hair color, and names.

"Sam" Hachem usually doesn't introduce himself by his real first name. With sandy-brown hair and gray-green eyes, the clean-shaven Hachem said people often guess after hearing his accent that he is "Eastern European."

But once he gets comfortable with someone, Hachem usually tells them his first name is Hussein and that he's a Lebanese immigrant.

At that point, people react. They immediately move to subjects around terrorism.

Once when he revealed his name at a bar, someone joked and asked him if he was going to blow up the place. Hachem retorted, laughing, "No, there's not enough people."

"When they hear the name, I'm a totally different person," said Hachem, 29, a nonpracticing Muslim. "They automatically think of trouble."

The Oakland resident believes he could easily use his real name full time in the Bay Area, which he thinks is accepting of difference. It's just easier to start off with Sam.
The idea of mass violence in the name of religion is a millennia-old theme in many faiths. But the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks gave Americans their most dramatic and direct experience with violence under the banner of Islam. The act of 19 hijackers has been assumed to represent the beliefs of the estimated 6 million Muslims in America, regardless that few share their beliefs.

That narrow prism has been exaggerated by many factors, such as antagonism toward Islam among some evangelical Christians, who have described Islam as "evil" and have viewed the war in Iraq as an opportunity for conversions.

But beliefs are hard to spot on the street, said Professor Howard Winant, a sociologist of race at UC Santa Barbara and co-author of "Racial Formation in the United States." And stigma demands a physical image.

"We have to get racial, because it's got to work through appearance in some way," Winant said.

Intensified law enforcement scrutiny, especially at airports, has played a large part in creating this new racial identity, say Winant and other academics who have studied the "racialization" of Muslims.

Immediately after Sept. 11, across the United States more than 1,000 men from Muslim countries were detained, mostly on immigration charges. The majority were deported.

The U.S. Department of Justice acknowledged that many of the accusations of terrorism that resulted in immigration arrests have been generated solely by race-based perceptions. In one instance -- out of many cases revealed in 2003 by the department's inspector general -- a tipster called the FBI about a grocery store that he said was run by "Middle Eastern men" and seemed to have "too many people to run a small store." One man was arrested.

Then, in 2002 and again in 2003, men and boys living in the United States from roughly 20 Muslim countries who didn't have permanent residency were required to register with immigration officials or face deportation.

Politicians and military leaders have characterized Islam as evil. Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin, an evangelical Christian, has told church groups that the U.S. war on terrorism has a religious foundation. "Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army," he said in 2003.

And President Bush has been inconsistent in his characterizations of Islam. In 2003, making good on a campaign promise, he issued guidelines that banned racial profiling by federal law enforcement. But there was one exception: national security, including immigration.

Days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he denounced bigotry toward Muslims and declared from a Washington, D.C., mosque that "Islam is peace." But this summer, after an alleged plan to blow up planes headed from London to the United States was thwarted, Bush said Aug. 10 that the United States "is at war with Islamic fascists."

"The United States has always had this tendency to racialize its international conflicts domestically, to view international conflicts as domestic threats," said Winant, the UC Santa Barbara professor. "As a nation of immigrants, it's the easiest place in the world to internalize its external conflicts."

During World War II, Germans, Italians and, in particular, Japanese were viewed as suspicious on national security grounds. Similarly, the rise of communism in the Soviet Union was paralleled by Red Scares at home in the 1920s and again in the 1950s.

Winant said the Arab-Israeli conflict has helped frame stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims.

"The U.S. is so heavily allied with Israel that the kind of day-in, day-out demonization of Arabs that is associated with that conflict comes home with a vengeance to the United States," he said.
News and entertainment media also play a role in cultivating this new racial image, consciously or not.

The image of Muslims is closely associated with conflict -- the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel, or the Emmy Award-winning Fox show "24," which has dramatized terrorism.

The news cycle's barrage of images, from Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to Iraq and Afghanistan, "gets transformed into an archetypal image of a terrorist," said Professor Jess Ghannam, chief of medical psychology at UCSF. "That gets internalized very quickly into the 'Muslim/Arab' stereotype."

This happens regardless of whether people know or meet individual Muslims, said Ghannam, affirming assertions made by several other scholars.

The media image has had a particularly devastating effect on men who are Sikh, a 500-year-old monotheistic faith indigenous to India.

Sikhs don't cut their hair, so Sikh men have beards. They also wear turbans in public, which is very rare for an American Muslim man, particularly outside of a religious context. But Taliban members and al Qaeda leaders, whom few Americans have encountered, wear them. Sikhs have been repeatedly attacked and several killed as a result.

On July 30, a Santa Clara man stabbed a Sikh grandfather because, as a prosecutor said upon filing charges, the assailant "wanted to seek revenge for Sept. 11 and attack a member of the Taliban."
Stereotyping Muslims has had other profound effects, with 60 percent of respondents to a national poll released Aug. 29 telling researchers with the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in Connecticut that authorities should single out people who look "Middle Eastern" for security screening at locations such as airports and train stations.

Another national study released last month, by economics researchers at the University of Illinois, found that the earnings of Muslim and ethnically Arab men working in the United States dropped about 10 percent in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Ghannam, the UCSF professor, said it has also resulted in an increased number of Muslims suffering from anxiety, depression and traumatic stress.

"It's a psychological assault on one's identity," he said.

Nonetheless, for many, the racialization of Muslims has become something to embrace.

Omair Ali was stunned by the perception that the religion of Islam would have anything to do with the terrorist attacks. Mirroring the story of many others in the Bay Area, the San Jose resident became more religious after the attacks. He started wearing a skullcap and grew a beard, only the latter of which is required by stricter observers of the faith.

Ali wants people to see his good acts in daily life as a testament to the faith. The physical image helps remind him to be righteous, he said.

"When you become a visible Muslim, people are watching you," said Ali, 29. "If you do anything bad -- if you cuss, or spit or cut someone off on the road -- it goes directly back to the faith. It makes you more conscious."
Racial stereotyping is also present within the Muslim community. Muslims were among the slaves imported from Africa at least as early as the 1600s. And African Americans later established mosques around the nation. Yet, African American Muslims have long complained that Arab Muslims don't treat them as full members of the faith.

"When you're an African American Muslim, you're dealing with two kinds of bigotry: the bigotry of white America and also with Arab bigotry," said Adisa Banjoko, 36, of Fremont.

Banjoko said that he's had days where he's been followed in a department store by security, believing his blackness gives him a propensity toward crime. Later, he'll go to a store run by an Arab Muslim and greet the owner with the Arabic "Salaam alaikum," a Muslim greeting that means "Peace be upon you," but the store owner won't return "the salaams."

"Immigrants very quickly understand how racial categories in the U.S. work, the pecking order and the desire to whiten oneself," said Michigan State Professor Salah Hassan, who has written about the post-Sept. 11 racialization of Muslims. "You definitely have that kind of bigotry."

Silverstein, the Reed College anthropology professor, believes there is a potentially dangerous endgame to the racialization of Muslims, just as in France, where French-born Muslim youths reject French identity and conflicted with authorities last year.

By contrast, American Muslims have long been vigorously campaigning that there's little dissonance between being Muslim and American.

But if through law enforcement and political measures "people are signaled long enough that they're not American," Silverstein said, "then America is going to stand in Muslim American minds as a bad thing, as something they would resist."

E-mail Matthai Chakko Kuruvila at mkuruvila@ sfchronicle.com.

Page A - 1
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/03/MNG4FKUMR71.DTL
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Good article

by Manny Tuesday, Sep. 05, 2006 at 7:31 AM

So true. I like it when every once in awhile, the mainstream media doesn't parrot the right wing pro-war pro-israel line...
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this says everything, friends

by Sheepdog Tuesday, Sep. 05, 2006 at 8:58 AM

this says everything...
anti-semitism_muslim_larmee.jpgmid.jpgrkqm8p.jpg, image/jpeg, 437x600

and it says it w/love
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sad

by ;l Tuesday, Sep. 05, 2006 at 10:54 AM

-Add that one to "we buy paradise with Jewish blood" and "we knock on
heaven's door with the skulls of Jews".....and you see why I believe that M.
B. Zuckerman's "From Bad to Worse" (Editorial, U.S. News and World Report,
7.24.06) is right on target: -

so this bit of 'honesty' from our zionists.

Is this 'quote' you offer us -
"we buy paradise with Jewish blood" and "we knock on heaven's door with the skulls of Jews"-
-actually come from anywhere except the voices in your fevered head?
this petty BS never ceases to amaze me.
Please go on, also.
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Give credit to the REAL author

by Becky Johnson Tuesday, Sep. 05, 2006 at 11:33 AM
Santa Cruz, CA.

1. Why is OKAY for people to post under other people's names?
The lead article in this thread is from the SF Chronicle. The REAL author, Matthai Chakko Kuruvila, should be named prominently. And since this is not the type of article CRITICAL THINKER would post, it means someone is posting fraudelently as well.
2. Here is an example of LA.IMC monitor GABE's hypocrisy. This is obviously a mainstream article. GABE claims he can censor posts that anyone can read about in the MSM. But obviously that excuse for censorship is a sham---and ALL MSM articles are not censored---only those that disagree with GABE! Actually, GABE expands this censorship beyond MSM articles. He censors posts that contain IDEAS which can be found in the MSM.

3. The American-born Muslim convert "feels" oppressed when she chooses to remove her head scarf to simplify her passage through security checks at airports. That is not oppression. IF she was required to wear the scarf (as all Muslim contries that practice Sharia do) then THAT would be oppression.

4. While the authors mention Timothy McVeigh and a few other examples of terrorist acts that weren't committed by Muslim sects, they give no overview. Why is that?
Could it be that if we look ONLY at terrorist acts committed since 2000, we find the VAST MAJORITY of incidents, events, and deaths were caused by Muslim extremists?

5. What OTHER religion claims that killing an infidel (none-believer) is a matter of religious duty?

I support Arab speakers such as Nonie Darwish and Walid Shoebat who speak out against the use of terrorism, the lack of freedom, and the violence in the Islamic world. Not every Arab wants to kill Jews, or supports the politics of Jihad. However, those with murderous intent can be very intimidating to ordinary law-abiding people. It takes great courage to speak up against them.



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Hey, Becky, you're sounding more and more like right wing nut Lee Kaplan every day

by Hey Becky, how's your associate Lee? Tuesday, Sep. 05, 2006 at 1:27 PM

Hey, Becky, you're sounding more and more like right wing nut Lee Kaplan every day.
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never answered my question

by look at this Wednesday, Sep. 06, 2006 at 3:59 AM

and I repeat.
Is this 'quote' you offer us -
"we buy paradise with Jewish blood" and "we knock on heaven's door with the skulls of Jews"-
-actually come from anywhere except the voices in your fevered head?

Sympathetic and understanding minds want to know. :>)
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sorry, I dogpiled it

by Sheepdog Wednesday, Sep. 06, 2006 at 4:38 AM

and all your references came from israeli sites and Frontpage ragazine

Goggle 'this'.
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"FBI statistics"

by skeptic Wednesday, Sep. 06, 2006 at 5:09 AM

The FBI, and the US government in general, has told us far too many lies for anyone but a complete fool to ever to take their word for anything again.
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So you have a more credible source?

by Becky Johnson Wednesday, Sep. 06, 2006 at 5:39 AM
Santa Cruz, CA.

okay skeptic. Do you care to submit alternate statistics on hate crimes in the USA against Jews and Muslims from a more credible source?

Or are you just blowing smoke here?

I am not a huge fan of the FBI either. But I DO expect them to
document hate crimes and keep track of them.

My point, of course, was to prove that the Muslims in the USA have a long way to go to become "the New Jews" as the title article suggests.

Jew-bashing in the USA is a much bigger problem than Muslim-bashing both before and since 9-11.

If you have any alternate data, please share it with readers.
Are you suggesting that there WEREN'T more hate crimes committed against Jews than Muslims in the USA in the years 2000 - 2004 (the last year statistics are available)?
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Jew bashing and anti-zionism

by v Wednesday, Sep. 06, 2006 at 5:55 AM

yes, I'd like to see some breakdown on this.
are the cases of anti-judac reports different from anti-zionist reports?
We've seen how the zionist conflate the two.
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How do you define Hate?

by eye of the beholder? Wednesday, Sep. 06, 2006 at 1:05 PM



The targeting of the Seattle Jewish Community Center by a M
uslim man was not classified as a hate crime because the man was considered mentlly ill. The Muslim man that ran over pedestrians in front of the San Francisco Jewish Community center was also considered mentally ill, and that was also not classified as a hate crime.

One can only speculate what would happen if the situation were reversed. How would Indymedia have reacted?
Wendy Campbell for one, still publishes articles calling Columbine a hate crime, because it was perpetrated by Jews ( Bafflingly enough, by Luthern Jews, but Jews none the less, according to Wendy) Baruch Goldberg is brought up time and time again. Hell, Deir Yassin was 60 years ago, and its still treated like current events.
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Even more so if you could

by read the deleted postd Wednesday, Sep. 06, 2006 at 1:46 PM

anti-Jewish and anti-Islamic hate crimes
by Becky Johnson • Tuesday, Sep. 05, 2006 at 1:05 AM
Santa Cruz, CA.



from: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2004/section1.htm

"In 2004, law enforcement agencies reported that there were 1,586 victims of crimes motivated by a religious bias (single-bias incidents only). Most (67.8 percent) were victimized because of an anti-Jewish bias. An anti-Islamic bias motivated offenses against 12.7 percent of the victims, and an anti-Catholic bias provoked crimes against 4.3 percent of the victims." --- FBI Hate Crime Statistics 2004

Thats 1,075 Jewish victims of hate crimes compared to 201 anti-Islamic victims.

The FBI data DOES show a large increase in anti-Islamic hate crimes in a post 9-11 environment. In 2000, only 28 hate crimes against Muslims were recorded while 1,109 anti-Jewish hate crimes were reported.

In 2003, 947 anti-Jewish hate crimes were reported vs 149 anti-Islamic hate crimes.

September 11th did promote anti-Islamic fear or hatred in America. The FBI statistics substantiate this. But anti-Jewish sentiment in America has been a much bigger problem, disproportionately affecting Jewish people before and since 9-11.
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What CAIR does w/ their 50 million a year

by Thomas Lifson Wednesday, Sep. 06, 2006 at 1:55 PM

CAIR launches rebranding effort

The Council on Islamic American Relations (CAIR) apparently thinks it is need of a better image, so it announces a “new brand identity” on its website this month. The rebranding also includes a new logo. Hmm, sounds like they’ve been talking to expensive marketing consultants.

Here’s what they say about it.

“The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today announced the launch of a new brand identity and logo. The new identity focuses on openness, professionalism and the pursuit of mutual understanding and justice.“CAIR made its announcement at the convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in Chicago, North America’s largest annual gathering of Muslims.”

Because observant Muslims do not imbibe alcohol, I wonder if they toasted the move with a non-alcoholic beverage. My suggestion would have been New Coke, of course.

The organization’s head elaborates.

CAIR Board Chairman Parvez Ahmed stated: “After 12 years of dedicated service to the community, we are reaffirming our core values and recommitting ourselves to three central aspects of CAIR’s mission – enhancing understanding of Islam, protecting civil liberties and empowering American Muslims.”

He also wrote about the need to transform CAIR in ways that better reflect the group’s core commitment to justice, education, diversity, and dialogue.

Ahmed concluded his letter by stating: “CAIR is your organization and it is our privilege and honor to serve you and to promote a better America.”

Would that better America be ruled by Sharia law? CAIR’s leadership’s views on the matter are the subject of hot dispute. However, it appears that there seems to be no dispute over the fact that former CAIR employees and officials have been involved in terror.

There is only so much that you can do with a new brand when the underlying product has problems. There’s an old saw about putting lipstick on a certain barnyard animal, but given Muslim sensitivities to this creature, and not wanting to be accused of hate speech, I will refrain from mentioning it.

If CAIR really wants to improve its image, it could start by denouncing the forced conversion of Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig, at gunpopint. I have searched the CAIR website and found none. If I have missed it, I would be grateful to learn of CAIR’s rejection, and its proclamation that these men have been victimized and are under no obligation to be Muslims.

Strangely enough, the page on the CAIR website linked to the “Not in the name of Islam campaign” (put your cursor on “Challenging Hate” on the home page) shows no content via the Firefox browser.
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Perspectives on Israeli terror

by Shime on Ben Kosiba Wednesday, Sep. 06, 2006 at 4:53 PM

Will Robert Fisk tell us the whole story?
Jonathan Cook, Electronic Lebanon, 5 September 2006

Journalist Robert Fisk
More than a little uncomfortably, I find myself with a bone to pick with one of our finest champions of humanitarian values and opponents of war. During Israel's attack on Lebanon this summer, the distinguished British journalist Robert Fisk did sterling work -- as might have been expected -- debunking some of the main myths that littered the battlefield almost as dangerously as the tens of thousands of US-made cluster bombs that Israel dropped in the last days of the fighting.

He documented the violations of international law by Israel in Lebanon, offering a personal record of the nature and scale of war crimes as more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians died in Israel's aerial bombardment of the country, hundreds of thousands more were made refugees, and most of the country's infrastructure -- its roads, bridges, power stations, oil refineries and factories -- went up in flames. For this he deserves our thanks and praise.

But possibly in an attempt at even-handedness, Fisk has also muddied the picture in relation to the actions of Hizbullah and thereby contributed towards the very mythical narratives he seeks to undermine.

This was done -- in a predictable hiatus in each of his stories that over time developed into a writer's tic -- by repeatedly accusing the Shiite militia of both provoking the war with Israel and intending Lebanon's destruction. Uncharacteristically, Fisk failed to offer us the evidence on which these conclusions were based.

I take this failing -- maybe small compared to the far grosser distortions presented by other mainstream commentators -- seriously because of Fisk's past achievements in countering the distortions in almost all Western reporting on the Middle East and the "war on terror".

Hizbullah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, deserve the fairest hearing we can give them, especially as their voices are systematically excluded from a Western press that identifies with Israel.

I am in no position to challenge Fisk's expertise and familiarity with Lebanese society and politics. If the Independent's reporter tells us Hizbullah is no simple puppet of Tehran while noting that its weapons are supplied by Iran (and observing that Israel's are supplied by the US) I assume he is right. I also accept his reports that on occasion he saw Hizbullah fighters taking shelter behind buildings in south Lebanon's towns and villages, and his parallel observations that Israeli soldiers did the same as they struggled to invade the border areas.
Fisk repeatedly adds a series of further insinuations: that Hizbullah wanted Israel to attack, that it planned the war (not just that it planned for the war), that it knew precisely the scale of destruction Israel would unleash, that it was following Syria's orders, and that by implication Syria -- and possibly Hizbullah -- wanted Lebanon's destruction

The problem is in his constantly aired statement that "Hizbollah provoked this war by capturing two Israeli soldiers and killing three others on 12 July" (16 Aug 2006). Left as a simple statement of fact, it could be allowed to pass without comment. But Fisk repeatedly adds a series of further insinuations: that Hizbullah wanted Israel to attack, that it planned the war (not just that it planned for the war), that it knew precisely the scale of destruction Israel would unleash, that it was following Syria's orders, and that by implication Syria -- and possibly Hizbullah -- wanted Lebanon's destruction.

Here is a small selection of these regular interjections in his stories:

# "No, let us not forget that the Hizbollah broke international law, crossed the Israeli border, killed three Israeli soldiers, captured two others and dragged them back through the border fence. It was an act of calculated ruthlessness that should never allow Hizbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to grin so broadly at his press conference. It has brought unparalleled tragedy to countless innocents in Lebanon ... So Syria -- which Israel rightly believes to be behind Wednesday's Hizbollah attack -- is not going to be bombed. It is Lebanon which must be punished" (July 15, 2006).

# "It now appears clear that the Hizbollah leadership -- Nasrallah used to be the organisation's military commander in southern Lebanon -- thought carefully through the effects of their border crossing, relying on the cruelty of Israel's response to quell any criticism of their action within Lebanon. They were right in their planning. The Israeli retaliation was even crueller than some Hizbollah leaders imagined, and the Lebanese quickly silenced all criticism of the guerrilla movement ... Then came [Hizbullah's] Haifa missiles and the attack on the [Israeli] gunboat. It is now clear that this successful military operation -- so contemptuous of their enemy were the Israelis that although their warship was equipped with cannon and a Vulcan machine gun, they didn't even provide the vessel with an anti-missile capability -- was also planned months ago" (July 16, 2006).

# "Now to the Department of Home Truths. Mr Siniora [Lebanon's prime minister] did not mention the Hizbollah. He did not say he had been powerless to stop its reckless attack on Israel last week. He didn't want to criticise this powerful guerrilla army in his midst which had proved that Syria still controls events in this beautiful, damaged country" (July 21, 2006).

# "Of course, the Hizbollah have brought catastrophe to their coreligionists" (July 26, 2006).

# "The Hizbollah has been waiting and training and dreaming of this new war for years, however ruthless we may regard the actions" (July 27, 2006).

# "So fierce has been Hizbollah's resistance -- and so determined its attacks on Israeli ground troops in Lebanon -- that many people here no longer recall that it was Hizbollah which provoked this latest war by crossing the border on 12 July, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others ... And do the Israelis realise that they are legitimising Hizbollah, that a rag-tag army of guerrillas is winning its spurs against an Israeli army" (Aug 5, 2006).

# "The Hizbollah have, for years, prayed and longed and waited for the moment when they could attack the Israeli army on the ground (Aug 14, 2006).

# "It was Nasrallah's men who crossed the Israeli border on 12 July, captured two Israeli soldiers, killed three others and thus unleashed the entirely predictable savagery of the Israeli air force and army against the largely civilian population of Lebanon" (Sept 2, 2006).

The implications of these comments are serious, and deserve to be set out clearly and transparently by a reporter who consistently makes them. And yet Fisk has not produced any evidence, let alone reasoned argument, to suggest that Syria, through Hizbullah, planned a war that would offer Israel the chance to destroy Lebanon. I am not saying Fisk is wrong, but I would like to know the basis for his grave claims.

What makes his comments all the more strange is that Fisk seems to be at least aware that, quite unrelated to the capture of the two Israeli soldiers, Israel had planned its assault on Lebanon for some time:

# "Israel itself, according to reports from Washington and New York, had long planned its current campaign against Lebanon -- provoked by Hizbollah's crossing of the Israeli frontier, its killing of three soldiers and seizure of two others on 12 July" (Aug 14, 2006).

# "According to Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, Israel's attack had also been carefully planned -- and given the 'green light' by the Bush administration as part of its campaign to humble Iran. I think Hersh is right" ( Sept 2, 2006).

So who then is really to blame for "starting" this war?

So who then is really to blame for "starting" this war?

After hearing an address by Nasrallah on Lebanese TV, Fisk is particularly incensed by Nasrallah's "hypocritical" comments that he would never have launched his operation to capture the Israeli soldiers had he predicted Israel's brutal reponse. Fisk's outrage seems overstated -- and stands in opposition to his observation (cited above) that Israel's attack "was even crueller than some Hizbollah leaders imagined".

The reason for Nasrallah's comments are not difficult to divine. After the destruction inflicted by Israel, doubtless he feels under pressure to distance himself from the catastrophe that has befallen his nation. Isn't that what politicians -- everywhere and at all times -- do?

But Fisk is equally enraged by Nasrallah's other, more serious (and partially inconsistent) claim about the war: that Hizbullah knew Israel and the US were looking for an excuse to attack Lebanon and believed it was better to catch them off guard so that Hizbullah could fight at a time of its own choosing.

Even though, as we saw above, Fisk appears to agree with this interpretation of events, he again lambasts the Hizbullah leader for hypocrisy: "I think both sides planned this, and a hint came in another part of Nasrallah's breathtakingly hypocritical address. 'In any case,' he said, 'Israel was going to launch a war at the start of this autumn and the degree of destruction then would have been even greater.' Well, thanks for telling me, Hassan" (Sept 2, 2006).

Surely, after the apparent inconsistencies in Fisk's own commentaries over more than a month of reporting, his readers deserve a profounder summation of his views than this. How and why did two hostile sides -- Syria, and Israel and the US -- both plan a war, much at the same time, whose outcome was the certain destruction of Lebanon?

We can speculate about Israel's interests in doing this. It may have hoped to provoke a civil war in Lebanon, much as it is trying to do in Gaza, to weaken its neighbor. It may have believed that by terrifying the general Lebanese population from the south, it could permanently reoccupy the area. It may also have hoped that, if it were winning such a war, it could drag in Syria and Iran.

But why would Syria want Lebanon destroyed? A fit of pique at being expelled from Lebanon last year according to US designs for a Cedar Revolution? Is that Fisk's conclusion?

Is Fisk telling us that Hizbullah is the simple puppet of Syria -- much as pro-war commentators say Hizbullah is controlled by Iran?

And how does Hizbullah fit into this picture? Is Fisk telling us that Hizbullah is the simple puppet of Syria -- much as pro-war commentators say Hizbullah is controlled by Iran? Did Hizbullah will the destruction of Lebanon too?

Most noticeable is that, in constantly castigating Hizbullah for "starting" the war, Fisk entirely ignores the background to the confrontation: that Israeli war planes and spy drones were almost daily violating Lebanese air space and sovereignty, as well, of course, as the issues of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails, Israel's refusal to hand over the maps of the minefields it laid during its two-decade occupation, and its continuing refusal to negotiate over the land corridor known as the Shebaa Farms.

These central issues -- taken together with the persuasive accounts that Israel and the Pentagon had been planning an attack on Lebanon for at least a year -- make Fisk's implied claims that Syria and Hizbullah started the war to provoke Israel into destroying Lebanon look misleading at best.

A separate factor may help to explain how Fisk's judgment may have been clouded. He often mentions in passing his close relations with the family of the late Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, who was killed by a car bomb more than a year ago that was widely blamed on Syria. Hariri, a millionaire Sunni businessman, was responsible for much of the private investment in Lebanon that led to its reconstruction and which Israel has now destroyed.

Fisk, rightly, lays the main blame for the damage to Lebanon's national infrastructure -- and the deaths of more than 1,000 civilians -- at Israel's door. But he owes it to his readers to be much clearer about how and why he thinks Syria and Hizbullah conspired to offer Israel the chance to wreak such destruction. It's time for Fisk to tell us the whole story.


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don't memtion the Muslim Roundups

by no Saturday, Sep. 09, 2006 at 6:36 AM

Because it would 'bias' the stats about 'hate crimes'.
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really?

by tell us more Saturday, Sep. 09, 2006 at 6:59 AM

-Manzanar where all the Moslems have been placed after being "rounded up"?-

Oh really? You have access to the list?
Fascinating.
Links?
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Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

by really? Saturday, Sep. 09, 2006 at 7:36 AM

no links about all the Muslims rounded up, huh?

Let's talk about the incidence of Israeli spies and the New Zealand Reports.
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that's the ticket

by Huh? Saturday, Sep. 09, 2006 at 7:54 AM

1st you tell me they are being held at Manzanar and now you wonder what I'm talking about.
This is what I'm talking about.
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/17078prs20021219.html
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oh, that's so different

by and... Saturday, Sep. 09, 2006 at 8:03 AM

locking them up and disappearing them * isn't* a round up.
Thank you for this clarification.
As always.
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more...

by Because you brought it up Saturday, Sep. 09, 2006 at 8:17 AM

Another link
http://www.soundvision.com/info/muslims/internment.asp
-By Abdul Malik Mujahid

On January 28, 2002, Dr. Raman Aziz al-Abi, a university professor, went to work. He was teaching a class to some 100 students when, suddenly, a group of men burst into the lecture hall, shackled the professor and whisked him away. Professor al-Abi's students said he pleaded with the men to let him speak to an attorney but they physically dragged him off. The men who took him away refused to answer any questions and Professor al-Abi disappeared. This isn't an abduction story from some distant land run by a tin pot dictator or a scene from a Hollywood thriller. This event took place right here in the United States. Professor al-Abi was a teacher at the University of Northwest Central Texas at South Pantego. He had lived in the United States for 27 years and had been accepted for citizenship just a week before. His naturalization ceremony was two weeks later.

Professor al-Abi was arrested and no one knew where he was, local police denied having any information of his arrest. His friends and family hired a lawyer and started making inquiries: the US Attorney General's office, the US Department of Justice, and the Office of Homeland Security. There was no response. The case went to court. It turned out that Professor al-Abi had been transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for interrogation and possible trial by military commission. Part of the evidence against him was that the he had an 18 year-old half-brother who was allegedly a member of a terrorist organization. The brother was being held in an undisclosed location as well. Professor al-Abi was, therefore, a terrorist because he associated with terrorists.

Professor al-Abi's case came before the Federal Court of Appeals which decided in his favor. The court essentially said his fundamental rights had been violated and, while he was to remain in jail, he should be brought back to the US and detained in a prison close to his home. Professor al-Abi was one of the few lucky ones. He had the means to acquire an attorney, people who were able to help him from the outside, and he was arrested in public with scores of people willing to give their testimony as to how he was treated. This hasn't been the case for thousands more who were arrested in secret and detained without any access to counsel and no one working for them on the outside. Literally thousands of people have opted for voluntary deportation despite their innocence because they were not in a position to fight and certainly did not desire languishing in anonymity for an indefinite period of time.-
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thank you

by since you asked Saturday, Sep. 09, 2006 at 8:48 AM

-Since the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., Attorney General John Ashcroft’s Justice Department has carried out a mostly silent and secret war against thousands of people who seem to fit its "profile" of a terrorist. The "profile" is young men of Arab descent--legal residents, foreign nationals, undocumented immigrants or something in between.

Nobody knows exactly how many people have been taken into custody in this racist witch-hunt, or how many remain in jail. That’s because the Justice Department stopped releasing figures in November.-
http://www.socialistworker.org/2002-1/399/399_06_ImmigrantDetainees.shtml
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of course it is.

by 'k Saturday, Sep. 09, 2006 at 9:00 AM

"Its STILL hyperbole and exageration."
And it is because *you* say so.
Too bad anyone can scroll up and read for themselves the little dance you've been doing here.

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la la la la

by Sheepdog Saturday, Sep. 09, 2006 at 1:41 PM

Where are these Muslim detainees? How many are there?
Does anybody know? Mr. Spamfestyid & Co.shoot off their 'mouth' and can't come up with any numbers. We simply don't know how many.

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All About cultural differences

by Emory Saturday, Sep. 09, 2006 at 2:21 PM

Saudi Arabia's religious police, normally tasked with chiding women to cover themselves and ensuring men attend mosque prayers, are turning to a new target: cats and dogs.

The police have issued a decree banning the sale of the pets, seen as a sign of Western influence.

The prohibition on dogs may be less of a surprise, since conservative Muslims despise dogs as unclean. But the cat ban befuddled many, since Islamic tradition holds that the Prophet Muhammad loved cats, even in one instance letting a cat drink from his ablutions water before washing himself for prayers.

The decree _ which applies to the Red Sea port city of Jiddah and the holy city of Mecca, bans the sale of cats and dogs because "some youths have been buying them and parading them in public," according to a memo from the Municipal Affairs Ministry to Jiddah's city government.

"One bad habit spreading among our youths is the acquisition of dogs and showing them off in the streets and malls," wrote Aleetha al-Jihani in a letter to Al-Madina newspaper. "There's no doubt that such a matter makes one shudder."

"Then what's the point of dragging a dog behind you?" he added. "This is blind emulation of the infidels."
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More on Israeli terror

by Proud Jew Saturday, Sep. 09, 2006 at 2:40 PM

'Quiet transfer' in East Jerusalem nears completion
Elodie Guego, Forced Migration Review, 6 September 2006

Israel is close to implementing a long-term plan to transform the demographic structure of annexed East Jerusalem. Policies to revoke the residency permits of Palestinian Jerusalemites and to Judaise the city have been described as ethnic cleansing.

After victory in the 1967 Six Day war, Israel annexed East Jerusalem - that part of the city that had been under Jordanian rule since the end of the British Mandate in 1948 - together with an additional 64 square kilometres which had been part of the West Bank. Jerusalem thus became Israel's largest city and was declared to be its 'united and eternal capital'. The international community, led by the UN, has continuously denounced this act of unilateral annexation, arguing it is a violation of the fundamental principle in international law prohibiting the forcible acquisition of territory. The international community has consistently considered East Jerusalem to be an occupied territory, thus akin to the West Bank and Gaza.

Their support of the Palestinian claim to East Jerusalem was bolstered by the fact that at the time of occupation Palestinians constituted the majority of residents in this sector of the city. Israel has engaged in a demographic battle to secure Israeli sovereignty over the whole city. For almost four decades successive governments have implemented policies designed to transform the city's population structure and ensure the numeric superiority of Jews. Until the construction of the Wall in and around East Jerusalem, these objectives were pursued through a series of discriminatory regulations to reduce the Palestinian population by rendering their lives increasingly intolerable and encouraging the growth of Israeli settlements in Palestinian neighbourhoods. Today the approximately 230,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites represent around 30% of Jerusalem's total population.

Under the post-1967 plan designed by Israeli military commanders, heavily populated Palestinian areas were not included, but land belonging to several Palestinian villages was incorporated into Jerusalem

Under the post-1967 plan designed by Israeli military commanders, heavily populated Palestinian areas were not included, but land belonging to several Palestinian villages was incorporated into Jerusalem. Those who were left outside the new municipal boundaries, or who happened to be outside Jerusalem in 1967, remained residents of the West Bank and, as such, subject to military rule. The Israeli government conducted a census of the Palestinian population living within the city's new administrative boundaries and granted permanent residency status to the Palestinians residents of the annexed areas. They were entitled to become Israeli citizens provided they agreed to swear allegiance to the State of Israel. Mass refusal to recognise Israeli sovereignty over occupied Jerusalem meant that only 2.3% of Palestinian Jerusalemites became Israeli citizens. The others became permanent residents of Israel subject to Israeli law and jurisdiction, just as foreigners who voluntarily settle in Israel.

Jerusalem permanent residency status differs significantly from citizenship. Permanent residents of Israel are entitled to live and work in Israel without special permits, to receive social benefits from the National Insurance Institute and to vote in local elections. Permanent residency is not automatically granted to the holders' children or spouses, however, and permanent residents, unlike Israeli citizens, do not enjoy the right to return to Israel at any time.

Between 1967 and 1994 Israel confiscated 24.8 square kilometres of land in East Jerusalem, 80% of it belonging to Palestinians. Land expropriation is continuing. Today a mere 7% of the area of East Jerusalem remains available to Palestinians. Confiscated land has mostly been used for the construction of Jewish settlements and settlers' bypass roads, in violation of international humanitarian law prohibiting an occupying power from transferring part of its own population into territory it has occupied. The Jerusalem Municipality has expediently used zoning restrictions to establish 'green areas', supposedly set aside for environmental and recreational purposes, but actually deployed as a tactic to remove the land from Palestinian use and create a reserve for Jewish housing.

The Town Planing Scheme (TPS), another key instrument of 'quiet transfer', restricts building permits in already built-up areas, the only areas available for Palestinian use. TPS has been used to restrict the development of Palestinian neighbourhoods. Palestinians are only permitted to build one- or two-storey buildings while adjacent Israeli housing units may have up to eight floors. Palestinians must go through a complex and time-consuming administrative process to obtain a building permit. These cost around $25,000 - a considerable obstacle as Palestinian incomes are significantly below those of Israelis. Palestinians obtain a disproportionately small percentage of the building permits issued every year by the Jerusalem Municipality. Only 7.5% of the homes legally built during the period 1990-1997 belong to Palestinians.

Centre of life

In 1995 the Israeli Interior Ministry introduced a new regulation requiring Palestinian residents to prove they had continuously lived and worked in Jerusalem during the preceding seven years. The standard of proof demanded is so rigorous that even persons who have never left Jerusalem have difficulties in meeting it. Palestinians who fail to prove that their 'centre of life' is Jerusalem risk having their residency status revoked and their requests for family reunification and child registration rejected. The number of Jerusalem residency ID cards confiscated after promulgation of the 'centre of life' policy rose by over 600%. Suburbs on Jerusalem's outskirts, to which many East Jerusalemites had moved as a result of earlier discriminatory policies, were declared to be outside Jerusalem, thus removing the residency rights of over 50,000 people. In order to defend their claims to residency and the social rights which go with it, some 20,000 Palestinians returned to live within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries.

Israel's 'centre of life' policy seriously affects Palestinians' entitlement to health and social benefits, to family reunification, child registration and membership of the Israeli national insurance scheme. The 'centre of life' is verified for each annual renewal of spouses' residence permits. Thousands of Palestinian children born in Jerusalem of parents who do not both hold a Jerusalem ID have been denied registration and are unable to exercise their basic rights, including their right to education. While the 'centre of life' policy had been officially discontinued, the outbreak of the Al Aqsa intifada in September 2000 led to its reactivation. Since May 2002, Israel has refused to accept applications for family unification and refused to register the children of permanent residents who were born in the OPT.

The Wall consolidates the objectives of the 'centre of life' policy. It not only isolates East Jerusalem from the West Bank and effectively incorporates it to Israel but also divides Palestinian neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem

The Wall consolidates the objectives of the 'centre of life' policy. It not only isolates East Jerusalem from the West Bank and effectively incorporates it to Israel but also divides Palestinian neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem. The Wall is being erected to the west of neighbourhoods previously part of the municipality of Jerusalem (the Shu'afat refugee camp and West Anata with a population of 55,000), most of whose inhabitants hold Jerusalem IDs. It also separates from Jerusalem neighbourhoods which are entirely dependent on the city for their survival and the approximately 50,000 Palestinian permanent residents forced to relocate due to the discriminatory tax regime and the building permits' restrictions imposed by Israeli authorities.

Palestinians holding Israeli permanent residency permits who now find themselves on the West Bank side of the Wall, particularly those living outside Jerusalem's boundaries, are set to lose their residency status under the 'centre of life' policy. The Wall makes many unable to reach their places of work and basic services inside Jerusalem which they must do to retain Israeli residency status. Family members who do not hold permanent residency cards will now be unable to circumvent Israeli regulations on residency and their spouses holding an Israeli ID will have to choose between living on a different side of the Wall or losing their jobs and residency rights in Jerusalem. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human rights in the OPT, "Israel hopes to further reduce the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem by compelling spouses to move to the West Bank side of the wall."

The housing crisis and the level of overcrowding of Palestinian neighbourhoods are such that Palestinians have been forced outside the city's municipal boundaries or compelled to build homes in violation of Israeli laws. By building illegally they expose themselves to high fines and the threat of house demolition. In recent years, the number of houses demolished for lack of building permits has grown significantly According to the Israeli human rights organisation, B'tselem, between 1999 and 2003 in East Jerusalem 229 houses and other structures were demolished while in 2004 and 2005 alone 198 houses were demolished, displacing 594 people. This acceleration coincides with new land expropriations and plans for the development of new Jewish settlements in the heart of Palestinian neighbourhoods such as in Ras-al-amud or the Mount of Olives.

The construction of the Wall along and inside Jerusalem's municipal borders will definitively prevent the return of Palestinians expelled from Jerusalem by land confiscations, house demolitions or pressure from extremist settlers' groups. They will lose their rights to permanent residency in Jerusalem under the 'centre of life' policy and will no longer be able to enter the city without special permits. The properties that they have abandoned in Jerusalem risk being seized under Israeli's Absentee Property Law.

This eight-metre high Wall has given Israel a pretext to achieve long-established goals under the guise of security. Jerusalem is at the heart of all the antagonisms in the Middle East. International silence and failure to speak out against Israeli's transfer strategy is likely to have irreversible consequences and destroy regional prospects for peace. The transfer of Palestinians will soon be an undisputed reality but should not remain 'quiet'.


Elodie Guego, a lawyer specialised in human rights law, worked as a volunteer in the OPT in 2005 and is currently Assistant Country Analyst at the Norwegian Refugee Council's Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Geneva. This article was originally published in the August 2006 edition of Forced Migration Review, which poses, Palestinian displacement: A case apart?, and is reprinted with permission. Forced Migration Review, published in English, Arabic, Spanish and French, provides a practice-oriented forum for debate on issues facing refugees and internally displaced people in order to improve policy and practice and to involve refugees and IDPs in programme design and implementation.
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refresh

by load Saturday, Sep. 09, 2006 at 3:18 PM

Blue Triangle for support of the Disappeared
The ones who had contacts and that are known at this time.
http://oldweb.uwp.edu/academic/criminal.justice/disappeared01.htm

-Given the murky waters in which we find ourselves in this devastating reality of disappearances and denials, I have granted validity to the list of names published on the site of La Resistencia. The United States claims that secrecy is essential to the "war against terrorism." But the United States understands the dangers of such secrecy to legitimacy and the risk of victimization. To that end, read Ronald Dworkin's The Threat to Patriotism

Should you wish to wear a Blue Triangle in solidarity with our Arab and Muslim Brothers and Sisters, this list from La Resistencia offers you some possibilities..

Mustafa Abu Jdai, Palestinian
Abdou Tageldin, Egyptian
Hasnian Javed, Pakistani
Issam Sadak, Moroccan
Mujahid Abdulqaadir
Abdoul Achou, Syrian
Abdul Wahid, Afghanistan
Nacer Mustafa, Palestinian
Mohamed Omar, Egyptian
Mohammad Aslam, Pervez Pakistani
Nabil Al-Marabh, Kuwaiti
Adelal-Oteibi, Saudi Arabian
Anser Mehmood
Omer Bakarbashat, Yemeni
Mohammed A . Khan, Pakistani
Obaid Usmani, Pakistani
Duraid Sulaiman, Iraqi
Essam al-Habei, Saudi Arabian
Osama Elfar, Egyptian
Mohammed Jaweed, Azmath Indian
Mohammed Abdi, Somalian
Osama Awadallah, Jordanian
Faizul Jabar, Guyanan
Fathi Mustafa, Palestinian
Rafiq Butt, Pakistani
Mohammed Maddy, Egyptian
Mohammed Suliman, Egyptian
Rabih Haddad, Lebanese
Gazi Ibrahi Abu Mezer, Palestinian
Ghassan Dahduli, Palestinian
Shakir Ali Baloch, Canadian
Mohdar Abdallah, Yemeni
Monir Gondal, Pakistani
Ramez Noaman, Yemeni
Hady Omar Jr., Egyptian
Sheik Dib Aneef Shihadeh, Jordanian
Youssef Hmimssa, Moroccan
Uzi Bohadana, Israelli
Tarek Albasti, Egyptian
Yazeed Al-Salmi, Saudi Arabian
Syed Gul Mohammed Shah, Indian
http://oldweb.uwp.edu/academic/criminal.justice/disappeared01.htm

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anti-Jewish and anti-Islamic hate crimes

by Becky Johnson Sunday, Sep. 10, 2006 at 6:38 AM

from: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2004/section1.htm

"In 2004, law enforcement agencies reported that there were 1,586 victims of crimes motivated by a religious bias (single-bias incidents only). Most (67.8 percent) were victimized because of an anti-Jewish bias. An anti-Islamic bias motivated offenses against 12.7 percent of the victims, and an anti-Catholic bias provoked crimes against 4.3 percent of the victims." --- FBI Hate Crime Statistics 2004

Thats 1,075 Jewish victims of hate crimes compared to 201 anti-Islamic victims.

The FBI data DOES show a large increase in anti-Islamic hate crimes in a post 9-11 environment. In 2000, only 28 hate crimes against Muslims were recorded while 1,109 anti-Jewish hate crimes were reported.

In 2003, 947 anti-Jewish hate crimes were reported vs 149 anti-Islamic hate crimes.

September 11th did promote anti-Islamic fear or hatred in America. The FBI statistics substantiate this. But anti-Jewish sentiment in America has been a much bigger problem, disproportionately affecting Jewish people before and since 9-11.
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-anti-Jewish sentiment in America has been a much bigger problem'

by yup Sunday, Sep. 10, 2006 at 9:21 AM

I wish they would stop playing Sienfield re runs.
And rounding up APAC members
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just proves my point

by Sheepdog Sunday, Sep. 10, 2006 at 11:45 AM

I'm sure that the deliberate constructed conflation as per the constant warping of 'Jewishness' around the vicious policies of the israeli terror state brings bitter fruit. Shame on you.
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Struggling to repair after Israeli terror

by CM Sunday, Sep. 10, 2006 at 2:06 PM

Lebanese struggle to repair far wider damage than destroyed houses
Reem Alsalem, UNHCR, 9 September 2006

UNHCR staff discuss needs with municipality staff in the Marjayoun area. (UNHCR/C.Oxenboll)
MARJAYOUN - From a distance, the lack of obvious destruction lends a deceptive look of normality to towns like Marjayoun. Look closer and you discover that interiors of houses have been wrecked, services like electricity are non-existent, rotting rubbish lies uncollected and the fields cannot be entered because of unexploded munitions.

"What we had here was a tsunami. That is the only way to explain it," said the mayor of Marjayoun, Fouad Hamra. A convoy of 3,000 fleeing inhabitants came under air attack as they tried to leave on August 11. "The problem is that since there are few destroyed houses, people think that we have not been that much affected by the war."

Convoys of the UN refugee agency have distributed emergency assistance - mattresses, blankets and other items - in Marjayoun and the surrounding district that uses the same name, but the images seen in most of the world have been of other Lebanese areas where villages were almost entirely destroyed.

"If they were to go inside the houses here they would realise the level of damage that was done," said Hamra, describing the interiors of 120 houses as a mass of smashed glass and furniture by the time Israeli forces withdrew.
"The needs are tremendous," said the mayor, who was one of the officials consulted by UNHCR about the needs of the region. "Marjayoun town delivers electricity and water to 10 surrounding villages. It is unable to do so anymore. We now dream about electricity."

Marjayoun, the largest Lebanese town of the south Beqaa valley, literally means "Plain of the Springs" - a reference to the abundant water sources and springs dotting the fertile land. Only eight kilometres from the border, the market centre has traditionally been a garrison town. It is also known for the mausoleum of the prophet Ezekiel, a shrine three kilometres away, and faces the Crusader castle of Beaufort, built nearly 900 years ago.

The town usually has a population of 3,000, but during the war the population swelled to 30,000 with people who came from other villages and were housed with local families or in public schools. Some 350 displaced Lebanese are still in the town as they cannot return to their own homes. As for the original inhabitants, about half have returned.

"There are a number of agencies and NGOs that have come to us. They need, however, to take the time to understand our needs," said Ilyas Hamad, another local official in Marjayoun. "Let me give you an example: in this town we do not need food at the moment. We need to clean our farmlands as a matter of priority. We need to do the repairs in the houses before winter to be able to move in."

UNHCR assessment missions to other municipalities in the area found the full range of problems: the lack of water, sanitation, electricity, the presence of unexploded ordnance and spoiled crops. UNHCR has been able to quickly satisfy some needs - such as requests for blankets, mattresses, tents and kitchen sets - but requirements are far broader and in some cases will take longer to meet.

Fortunately, the Lebanese communities are not passively waiting for outside assistance. While the villagers need help with some problems and want the tools to start rebuilding, they are a resilient group who are helping themselves.
"We may have a huge environmental problem," the mayor of the nearby town of Klayaa, Bassam El Hasbani told UNHCR. During the conflict, the village was unable to dispose of garbage that piled up - not to mention the dead animals lying around.

"We can solve this in a couple of weeks, if we had the resources to buy the pesticide. That is all that is needed, and the cleaning up we will do," he said. "Someone has to help us to help ourselves."
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The real struggle

by 1 2 3 and counting Saturday, Sep. 23, 2006 at 8:35 AM

Browbeaten and Fatigued
The Next Palestinian Struggle
By RAMZY BAROUD

London.

An expert in international law and an old friend of the Palestinian people wrote me with utter distress a few days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh were reported to have reached an agreement Sept. 11 to form a national unity government. The content of his message was alarming, especially coming from an objective American academic who was involved in the drafting of past Palestinian national documents. "The Palestinian people were being set up," was the underlying meaning of his message. To know why, here is a bit of context.

The Palestinian declaration of independence of 1988 in Algeria was structured in a way that would allow the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee to devise foreign policy, thus representing the Palestinian people in any future settlements with Israel. The signing of the Oslo Accords in September 1993 and onward demoted the function of the Executive Committee and eventually undermined the import of the PLO altogether, concentrated the power in the hands of a few at the helm of the Palestinian Authority (PA): the late President Yasser Arafat and a clique of business contractors and ex-revolutionaries turned wartime profiteers.

That combination destroyed the achievements of the first Palestinian uprising of 1987-1993 in ways that Israel could only dream of: It cemented a faintly existing class society, destroyed the impressive national unity achieved by the Palestine-based leadership of various parties, hijacked the people's struggle, reducing it to mere slogans, and damaged Palestinian credibility regionally and internationally. Israel, of course, enjoyed the spectacle, as Palestinians bickered endlessly and as the PA's security carried out daily onslaughts against those who opposed the autocratic methods of the government, desperately trying to demonstrate its worthiness to Israel and the United States.

The PA, itself a political construct of various Fatah blocs, had its own share of squabbling, which culminated at times in street fights and assassinations. Abbas, then, was of the opinion that if Arafat refused to share power, the Fatah dispute would exasperate and could lead to a failed government. Both the U.S. and Israel backed Abbas, hardly for his democratic posture, but with the hope that Abbas would hand over the little remaining political "concessions" that Arafat wouldn't, a sin that cost Arafat his freedom in his later years.

But events in the Middle East often yield the exact opposite of what the U.S. and Israel push for. Though Abbas was elected president a few months after Arafat's passing in November 2004, he needed some political legitimacy to negotiate or renegotiate Palestinian rights with Israel. That hope was dashed by the Parliamentary elections of January 2006, which brought in a Hamas-led government two months later. The U.S., Europe and Canada responded with a most inhumane economic siege, and a promise to punish anyone daring enough to aid the Palestinian economy in any way. Succumbing to pressure, even Arab neighbors helped ensure the tightness of the siege. Some in Fatah seemed also determined to ensure the collapse of the government even if at the expense of ordinary Palestinians. The so-called liberated Gaza, once hoped to be the cornerstone of Palestinian independence, was deliberately turned into a hub of lawlessness and violence, where hired guns ruled the streets, threatening the safety of an already crushed people.

Palestinian morgues mounted with bodies when Israel unleashed its tactlessly termed Summer Rain, an intensive military onslaught that killed 291 Palestinians in the months of July and August alone. The atrocious one-sided war was justified to the Israeli public as a humanitarian endeavor to save the life of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured in June by Palestinian militants wishing to exert pressure on Israel to ease its deadly economic siege.

Palestinians, though browbeaten and fatigued -- denied salaries, physically besieged, politically isolated -- were desperately trying to shield their democratic choice. The issue by then had transcended to that of Hamas, Fatah and their ideological differences, to that of a nation denied the right to make its own choices, to choose its representatives and hold them to account.

But Hamas, too, was learning the harsh reality of being in the position of leadership. Unlike Arafat, Hamas wanted to seek support from its Arab and Muslim milieu, the devastatingly unexplored strategic alliances undermined by the PA's reliance on the West. But even Hamas itself seemed unaware of the extent of weakness and political deficiency of the Arabs and Muslims, who could barely assert their own rights, much less that of the Palestinians. Hamas learned, the hard way, that the U.S.' rapport with Israel would hardly weaken even if an entire nation must go hungry and hospitals run out of badly needed medicine. That hard lesson in real politic is what the Palestinian government is now scrambling to learn, amid dismay and confusion.

It was within this context that Abbas and Haniyeh convened in intense discussions to form a coalition government. Abbas -- and mainstream Fatah behind him -- must have realized that the harder Hamas is hit, the stronger its popular support grows, thus undermining Fatah's own chances of political recovery. Although Hamas has called for a national unity government from the start, it did so from a position of strength, and with a hint of arrogance. Now a national unity government is its only outlet to the world: without it, neither its survival, as a relevant political movement, nor achieving any of its declared objectives are as secured as it may have seemed in the heat of victory. Moreover, a generation of already malnourished children are facing a formidable humanitarian crisis; something had to be done.

But amid the rush to form a government, key questions won't be laid to rest: Who will speak on behalf of the Palestinian people internationally? Who will formulate their foreign-policy agenda? And who will be entrusted with the task of defending or redefining their national constants -- the refugees' right of return, the end to the Israeli occupation, preserving their water rights, removal of all settlements, borders, etc? Will it be Abbas, chairman of the PLO, or the elected legislative council and government?

This quandary was the cause of despair for my friend, and should be for anyone who wishes to see a real and lasting peace. If any peace settlement fails to adhere to the democratic concept, according to which Palestinians wish to govern themselves, then Palestinians should ready themselves for another Oslo-style agreement, imposed from the top and rubber stamped by the PLO's Executive Committee, long-devoid of its democratic principles and dominated by the elitist few.

I, too, am worried. The Palestinian democratic experience should not be squandered again.

Ramzy Baroud teaches mass communication at Curtin University of Technology and is the author of forthcoming The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle. He is also the editor-in-chief of PalestineChronicle.com. He can be contacted at: editor@palestinechronicle.com
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Yom Teru`ah same'ah! (happy Day of Shouting)

by Tishrei 1st, different perspective Saturday, Sep. 23, 2006 at 9:11 AM

Indeed, may the period following Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) be filled with health, happiness, laughter, success, joy, and kindness and eventually even peace and security to the House of Israel both in the Land of Israel and the Jewish communities in the Diaspora.

******************************

Yom Teru`ah is a holiday YHWH directs us to celebrate on the 1st day of the Seventh month aka Tishrei. This holiday is best explained as a means to jumpstart our spiritual introspection leading up to Yom Kippur.

Following the triumph of the Pharisaic current in Judaism after the Second Temple's destruction, this holiday was renamed New Years (Rosh Hashanna) when really it is a Day of Shouting (Teru`ah) in prayer to God.

On the 1st day of the Seventh month (Tishrei) the Torah commands us to observe a "Day of Shouting" (Lev 23,23-25; Nu 29,1-6) on which work is forbidden. This holiday is widely known today as "Rosh Hashanna". The Jewsih Bible never calls this holiday Rosh Hashanna but instead variously calls it Yom Teru`ah (Day of Shouting) and Zikhron Teru`ah (Remembrance Shouting). The Rabbis (heirs of the original Pharisees) renamed the holiday Rosh Hashanna (New Years) claiming that the Jewish year actually begins in Tishrei. The illogic of this claim is immediately apparent since the Bible refers to this holiday as falling out in the Seventh month (Tishrei is a later name never used in the Torah). How could New Years fall out in the Seventh month!

The actual beginning of the year is described in Ex 12,2 which states "This month will be for you the beginning of months; It is first of the months of the year". After this explicit statement the Torah proceeds to describe the ceremony of the Passover sacrifice which is to take place in this First month. Similarly, Lev 23 and Nu 28 list the holidays and both passages describe Passover in the First month and Yom Teru`ah in the Seventh month. Thus there can be no question that the "beginning of months" mentioned in Ex 12,2 refers to the first of Nissan (in which Passover is celebrated) and not to Yom Teru`ah which takes place in the Seventh month.

The Rabbis claim that later in the Tanakh aka Jewish Bible Yom Teru`ah is referred to as Rosh Hashanna. Indeed, the expression Rosh Hashanna does appear in Ez 40,1 which reads "In the beginning of the year (Rosh Hashanna) on the tenth of the month". The fact that Ez 40,1 refers to the tenth day of "Rosh Hashanna" makes it clear that the reference here is to the entire First month and not to the first day of the year. Even if Ezekiel is referring to the 1st day of the 1st month there is no justification to say he is referring to anything other than the 1st day of Nissan (First month).

Undoubtedly the Rabbis felt a need to associate Yom Teru`ah with New Years because they felt uncomfortable that the Jewish Bible does not give us a reason for celebrating this holiday as it does for all of the other Biblical holidays (such as the Exodus for Hag HaMatzot and Harvest for Shavu`ot). However, the true nature of Yom Teru`ah can be adduced from its name. In the Bible "Teru`ah" means to make a loud noise either by blowing a horn (e.g. Shofar Lev 25,9; Silver Trumpets Nu 10,5-6) or by shouting in prayer (Ps 100,1). The purpose of Yom Teru`ah then was probably to shout to YHWH in prayer similar to the idea commonly expressed in the Psalms such as "Shout unto God with a singing voice!" (Ps 47,2) which uses the same verbal root as "Teru`ah". The Rabbis claim that this noise making can only be done with a Shofar (ram's horn). There is no Biblical evidence for this assertion and on the contrary as has been shown the word "Teru`ah" can indicate various methods of noise making from shouting in prayer to blowing on the Silver Trumpets (Nu 10) all of which the Bible describes as acts of worshipping YHWH (see also Psalm 150).


Biblical verses which mention Yom Teru`ah:

Lev 23,23-25 "And YHWH spoke unto Moses saying, Speak to the Children of Israel saying, In the Seventh month on the first of the month will be a day of rest (Shabbaton) for you, a Remembrance Shouting, a holy convocation. You shall do no work and you will bring a fire-sacrifice to YHWH."

Nu 29,1-6 "And in the Seventh month on the first of the month will be a holy convocation for you; you shall do no work, it will be a Day of Shouting for you. [List of Sacrifices for Yom Teru`ah]."

Amos 8,4-5 "Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, that make the poor of the land to fail, Saying, When will New Moon Day pass that we may sell our grain, and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the sheqel great, and falsifying with deceitful balances?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
According to crescent New Moon sightings, the first of Tishrei and hence Yom Teru`ah will fall on Sep 25.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yom Teru`ah same'ah!
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The real struggle

by The real struggle Saturday, Sep. 23, 2006 at 2:53 PM

Browbeaten and Fatigued
The Next Palestinian Struggle
By RAMZY BAROUD

London.

An expert in international law and an old friend of the Palestinian people wrote me with utter distress a few days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh were reported to have reached an agreement Sept. 11 to form a national unity government. The content of his message was alarming, especially coming from an objective American academic who was involved in the drafting of past Palestinian national documents. "The Palestinian people were being set up," was the underlying meaning of his message. To know why, here is a bit of context.

The Palestinian declaration of independence of 1988 in Algeria was structured in a way that would allow the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee to devise foreign policy, thus representing the Palestinian people in any future settlements with Israel. The signing of the Oslo Accords in September 1993 and onward demoted the function of the Executive Committee and eventually undermined the import of the PLO altogether, concentrated the power in the hands of a few at the helm of the Palestinian Authority (PA): the late President Yasser Arafat and a clique of business contractors and ex-revolutionaries turned wartime profiteers.

That combination destroyed the achievements of the first Palestinian uprising of 1987-1993 in ways that Israel could only dream of: It cemented a faintly existing class society, destroyed the impressive national unity achieved by the Palestine-based leadership of various parties, hijacked the people's struggle, reducing it to mere slogans, and damaged Palestinian credibility regionally and internationally. Israel, of course, enjoyed the spectacle, as Palestinians bickered endlessly and as the PA's security carried out daily onslaughts against those who opposed the autocratic methods of the government, desperately trying to demonstrate its worthiness to Israel and the United States.

The PA, itself a political construct of various Fatah blocs, had its own share of squabbling, which culminated at times in street fights and assassinations. Abbas, then, was of the opinion that if Arafat refused to share power, the Fatah dispute would exasperate and could lead to a failed government. Both the U.S. and Israel backed Abbas, hardly for his democratic posture, but with the hope that Abbas would hand over the little remaining political "concessions" that Arafat wouldn't, a sin that cost Arafat his freedom in his later years.

But events in the Middle East often yield the exact opposite of what the U.S. and Israel push for. Though Abbas was elected president a few months after Arafat's passing in November 2004, he needed some political legitimacy to negotiate or renegotiate Palestinian rights with Israel. That hope was dashed by the Parliamentary elections of January 2006, which brought in a Hamas-led government two months later. The U.S., Europe and Canada responded with a most inhumane economic siege, and a promise to punish anyone daring enough to aid the Palestinian economy in any way. Succumbing to pressure, even Arab neighbors helped ensure the tightness of the siege. Some in Fatah seemed also determined to ensure the collapse of the government even if at the expense of ordinary Palestinians. The so-called liberated Gaza, once hoped to be the cornerstone of Palestinian independence, was deliberately turned into a hub of lawlessness and violence, where hired guns ruled the streets, threatening the safety of an already crushed people.

Palestinian morgues mounted with bodies when Israel unleashed its tactlessly termed Summer Rain, an intensive military onslaught that killed 291 Palestinians in the months of July and August alone. The atrocious one-sided war was justified to the Israeli public as a humanitarian endeavor to save the life of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured in June by Palestinian militants wishing to exert pressure on Israel to ease its deadly economic siege.

Palestinians, though browbeaten and fatigued -- denied salaries, physically besieged, politically isolated -- were desperately trying to shield their democratic choice. The issue by then had transcended to that of Hamas, Fatah and their ideological differences, to that of a nation denied the right to make its own choices, to choose its representatives and hold them to account.

But Hamas, too, was learning the harsh reality of being in the position of leadership. Unlike Arafat, Hamas wanted to seek support from its Arab and Muslim milieu, the devastatingly unexplored strategic alliances undermined by the PA's reliance on the West. But even Hamas itself seemed unaware of the extent of weakness and political deficiency of the Arabs and Muslims, who could barely assert their own rights, much less that of the Palestinians. Hamas learned, the hard way, that the U.S.' rapport with Israel would hardly weaken even if an entire nation must go hungry and hospitals run out of badly needed medicine. That hard lesson in real politic is what the Palestinian government is now scrambling to learn, amid dismay and confusion.

It was within this context that Abbas and Haniyeh convened in intense discussions to form a coalition government. Abbas -- and mainstream Fatah behind him -- must have realized that the harder Hamas is hit, the stronger its popular support grows, thus undermining Fatah's own chances of political recovery. Although Hamas has called for a national unity government from the start, it did so from a position of strength, and with a hint of arrogance. Now a national unity government is its only outlet to the world: without it, neither its survival, as a relevant political movement, nor achieving any of its declared objectives are as secured as it may have seemed in the heat of victory. Moreover, a generation of already malnourished children are facing a formidable humanitarian crisis; something had to be done.

But amid the rush to form a government, key questions won't be laid to rest: Who will speak on behalf of the Palestinian people internationally? Who will formulate their foreign-policy agenda? And who will be entrusted with the task of defending or redefining their national constants -- the refugees' right of return, the end to the Israeli occupation, preserving their water rights, removal of all settlements, borders, etc? Will it be Abbas, chairman of the PLO, or the elected legislative council and government?

This quandary was the cause of despair for my friend, and should be for anyone who wishes to see a real and lasting peace. If any peace settlement fails to adhere to the democratic concept, according to which Palestinians wish to govern themselves, then Palestinians should ready themselves for another Oslo-style agreement, imposed from the top and rubber stamped by the PLO's Executive Committee, long-devoid of its democratic principles and dominated by the elitist few.

I, too, am worried. The Palestinian democratic experience should not be squandered again.

Ramzy Baroud teaches mass communication at Curtin University of Technology and is the author of forthcoming The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle. He is also the editor-in-chief of PalestineChronicle.com. He can be contacted at: editor@palestinechronicle.com

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Good Clean Segregated Fun

by Joe Kaufman Saturday, Sep. 23, 2006 at 8:08 PM

Minarets tower over two of the tallest roller coasters in the world, on the flyer announcing today’s big event at Six Flags’ Great Adventure & Wild Safari. On this day, the park will be “transformed,” as thousands of Islamists from across the northeast come together in Jackson, New Jersey for "The Great Muslim Adventure Day." Regrettably, Muslims will be the only ones having fun, as non-Muslims have been told that they are not welcome.

The event, which also goes by the name "Muslim Youth Day," is being sponsored by the New Jersey chapter of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), a militant organization tethered to the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami. "Muslim Youth Day" has been celebrated since September of 2000, when the first one took place. At the time, it was heralded a huge success. As one paper put it, “More than 8,000 Muslims, both orthodox and non-practicing, jammed into the amusement park…”


Speaking at the 2000 event were officials from numerous radical Islamist organizations. This included Yusuf Islahi, a high-ranking Jamaat-e-Islami leader. During his speech, he stated to the crowd, “The owner of the Six Flags Great Adventure never imagined even in his wildest dreams that a mere recreation area of this kind would be filled with Allah's praise; that speeches on the subject of Islam would be delivered; Dawah towards Islam be given; Allah would be remembered; the cries of Allahu Akbar would be heard everywhere.”



The next "Muslim Youth Day," held on September 8, 2001, faired even better than the first, with 10,000 people attending. The momentum was soon to stop, though, as the organizer for the events, Tariq Amanullah, perished only three days later during the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. This was ironic, because just prior to the assault, he had been working on an ICNA website that was soliciting its viewers to give “material support” to Al-Qaeda, through one of the terror group’s main financing and recruiting sites, Jihad in Chechnya (http://www.qoqaz.net).

Another "Muslim Youth Day" wasn’t to occur until three years later, in September of 2004. The flyer put out by ICNA for this event caused a lot of controversy. The upper right-hand corner read, “ENTIRE PARK ALL DAY, FOR MUSLIMS ONLY!” Another part of the flyer stated, “All rides FREE! NO long lines! 100’s of rides & shows! Muslims only!!” And sandwiched between the two statements was the Six Flags logo. It seemed to many that Great Adventure had become a bigoted park. People were outraged. And to make matters worse, the organization it was allowing into its gates was tied to radical activity overseas.



Appearing on Fox News’ ‘Heartland with John Kasich’ was the Investigative Project’s Lorenzo Vidino. When asked about the 2004 event, Vidino stated the following: “The Islamic Circle is related to a radical Islamic party out of Pakistan that wants to overthrow the Musharraf government and [bring about] the creation of an Islamic state in Pakistan with Islamic law, and basically a radical Islamic theocracy. Members and leaders of ICNA have endorsed suicide bombings in Israel. They have said that the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 was a Zionist conspiracy and that Muslims were not behind it. They have endorsed jihad in Chechnya, even though they claim the word jihad might have a double meaning. They clearly say they want jihad (holy war) in Chechnya and Palestine and claim that suicide bombers in Israel and Palestine are not murderers.”



Speaking at ‘Muslim Youth Day’ 2004 was Imam Zaid Shakir, a teacher at the Zaytuna Institute located in Hayward, California. At a speech Shakir had given at Northwestern University in Chicago, entitled ‘Jihad: A Just Struggle or Unjust Violence,’ he stated, “We’re not a people who believe in perpetual revolution. We’re a people who believe in perpetual peace, if that’s possible… But if that isn’t possible, then there are circumstances where we are justified to fight.” Also speaking at the event was Ingrid Mattson, the President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). In September of 2002, in an article about the effect of 9/11 on Muslims, Mattson is quoted as saying that it was “logical,” albeit wrong, for terrorists to attack the World Trade Center, since “Israel has attacked and oppressed Palestinians for decades, and Israel gets $3 billion a year in military assistance from the U.S. government.”



Today’s event will be no different. The park will be implementing the same exclusionary policy as before. This was confirmed by “Park Information” at Great Adventure. When asked if non-Muslims were allowed to attend, a park representative stated, “The public will be prohibited from entering.” The rep said it was “a special day.”



The park will also be offering the same type of radical lecturers. Sheikh Yasir Qadhi, an instructor at Al-Maghrib Institute, is the featured speaker today. In a talk he gave in 2001 about how to deal with Jews, Qadhi stated that the Holocaust was a hoax and that “Hitler never intended to mass destroy the Jews.” He said that the vast majority of the world’s Jews are not really Jews. He stated, “As for 80 to 90 percent of the Jews in our times, they are Ashkenazi, i.e. Khazars, i.e. Russians, Turko-Russians. Look at them – white, crooked nose, blonde hairs – This is not the descendants of Yakub (Jacob)! These are not a Semitic people. Look at them! They don’t look like Semites, and they are not Semites.” He said that information concerning this conspiracy was being hidden from the world by Jews (“Yahud”) and Christians. One has to wonder if he will be mentioning any of this at the park.



The latest roller coasters, a drive-thru Wild Safari, tiger and dolphin shows, Bugs Bunny, fireworks – Six Flags’ Great Adventure contains everything to make a child’s day a day to remember. But when one is dealing with the Islamic Circle of North America, a militant Islamist organization connected to radicals overseas who wish the world would convert to their beliefs, one can expect something else as well – something sinister. And no one else will be there to see, because they’re not being let in.


According to ICNA, today, Great Adventure will be “transformed” into the Great Muslim Adventure Day. 15,000 people are expected to attend. The question is: Is ICNA using Six Flags’ facilities or is it the other way around? Or is that the near future? Why are we allowing this to happen?
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oh great

by reader Saturday, Sep. 23, 2006 at 10:36 PM

another Frontpage scree from the home of 'truth and justice'.
And this was dredged up from September 8, 2001.

Amazing.

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Let's not make this a forum for zio-bigots

by THe real struggle Sunday, Sep. 24, 2006 at 5:42 AM

Browbeaten and Fatigued
The Next Palestinian Struggle
By RAMZY BAROUD

London.

An expert in international law and an old friend of the Palestinian people wrote me with utter distress a few days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh were reported to have reached an agreement Sept. 11 to form a national unity government. The content of his message was alarming, especially coming from an objective American academic who was involved in the drafting of past Palestinian national documents. "The Palestinian people were being set up," was the underlying meaning of his message. To know why, here is a bit of context.

The Palestinian declaration of independence of 1988 in Algeria was structured in a way that would allow the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee to devise foreign policy, thus representing the Palestinian people in any future settlements with Israel. The signing of the Oslo Accords in September 1993 and onward demoted the function of the Executive Committee and eventually undermined the import of the PLO altogether, concentrated the power in the hands of a few at the helm of the Palestinian Authority (PA): the late President Yasser Arafat and a clique of business contractors and ex-revolutionaries turned wartime profiteers.

That combination destroyed the achievements of the first Palestinian uprising of 1987-1993 in ways that Israel could only dream of: It cemented a faintly existing class society, destroyed the impressive national unity achieved by the Palestine-based leadership of various parties, hijacked the people's struggle, reducing it to mere slogans, and damaged Palestinian credibility regionally and internationally. Israel, of course, enjoyed the spectacle, as Palestinians bickered endlessly and as the PA's security carried out daily onslaughts against those who opposed the autocratic methods of the government, desperately trying to demonstrate its worthiness to Israel and the United States.

The PA, itself a political construct of various Fatah blocs, had its own share of squabbling, which culminated at times in street fights and assassinations. Abbas, then, was of the opinion that if Arafat refused to share power, the Fatah dispute would exasperate and could lead to a failed government. Both the U.S. and Israel backed Abbas, hardly for his democratic posture, but with the hope that Abbas would hand over the little remaining political "concessions" that Arafat wouldn't, a sin that cost Arafat his freedom in his later years.

But events in the Middle East often yield the exact opposite of what the U.S. and Israel push for. Though Abbas was elected president a few months after Arafat's passing in November 2004, he needed some political legitimacy to negotiate or renegotiate Palestinian rights with Israel. That hope was dashed by the Parliamentary elections of January 2006, which brought in a Hamas-led government two months later. The U.S., Europe and Canada responded with a most inhumane economic siege, and a promise to punish anyone daring enough to aid the Palestinian economy in any way. Succumbing to pressure, even Arab neighbors helped ensure the tightness of the siege. Some in Fatah seemed also determined to ensure the collapse of the government even if at the expense of ordinary Palestinians. The so-called liberated Gaza, once hoped to be the cornerstone of Palestinian independence, was deliberately turned into a hub of lawlessness and violence, where hired guns ruled the streets, threatening the safety of an already crushed people.

Palestinian morgues mounted with bodies when Israel unleashed its tactlessly termed Summer Rain, an intensive military onslaught that killed 291 Palestinians in the months of July and August alone. The atrocious one-sided war was justified to the Israeli public as a humanitarian endeavor to save the life of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured in June by Palestinian militants wishing to exert pressure on Israel to ease its deadly economic siege.

Palestinians, though browbeaten and fatigued -- denied salaries, physically besieged, politically isolated -- were desperately trying to shield their democratic choice. The issue by then had transcended to that of Hamas, Fatah and their ideological differences, to that of a nation denied the right to make its own choices, to choose its representatives and hold them to account.

But Hamas, too, was learning the harsh reality of being in the position of leadership. Unlike Arafat, Hamas wanted to seek support from its Arab and Muslim milieu, the devastatingly unexplored strategic alliances undermined by the PA's reliance on the West. But even Hamas itself seemed unaware of the extent of weakness and political deficiency of the Arabs and Muslims, who could barely assert their own rights, much less that of the Palestinians. Hamas learned, the hard way, that the U.S.' rapport with Israel would hardly weaken even if an entire nation must go hungry and hospitals run out of badly needed medicine. That hard lesson in real politic is what the Palestinian government is now scrambling to learn, amid dismay and confusion.

It was within this context that Abbas and Haniyeh convened in intense discussions to form a coalition government. Abbas -- and mainstream Fatah behind him -- must have realized that the harder Hamas is hit, the stronger its popular support grows, thus undermining Fatah's own chances of political recovery. Although Hamas has called for a national unity government from the start, it did so from a position of strength, and with a hint of arrogance. Now a national unity government is its only outlet to the world: without it, neither its survival, as a relevant political movement, nor achieving any of its declared objectives are as secured as it may have seemed in the heat of victory. Moreover, a generation of already malnourished children are facing a formidable humanitarian crisis; something had to be done.

But amid the rush to form a government, key questions won't be laid to rest: Who will speak on behalf of the Palestinian people internationally? Who will formulate their foreign-policy agenda? And who will be entrusted with the task of defending or redefining their national constants -- the refugees' right of return, the end to the Israeli occupation, preserving their water rights, removal of all settlements, borders, etc? Will it be Abbas, chairman of the PLO, or the elected legislative council and government?

This quandary was the cause of despair for my friend, and should be for anyone who wishes to see a real and lasting peace. If any peace settlement fails to adhere to the democratic concept, according to which Palestinians wish to govern themselves, then Palestinians should ready themselves for another Oslo-style agreement, imposed from the top and rubber stamped by the PLO's Executive Committee, long-devoid of its democratic principles and dominated by the elitist few.

I, too, am worried. The Palestinian democratic experience should not be squandered again.

Ramzy Baroud teaches mass communication at Curtin University of Technology and is the author of forthcoming The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle. He is also the editor-in-chief of PalestineChronicle.com. He can be contacted at: editor@palestinechronicle.com
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Wrong

by current events Sunday, Sep. 24, 2006 at 5:54 AM

Muslim fun day was Sept 15 2006. Days ago.

If this was a whites's only event would it be offensive?
Would it even be legal?


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