Category: Uncategorized

First Person Account of Racism in liberal France


A Jewish Voice Against the Burqa Ban

Even as a Jew in New York, I know of what it is like to be Muslim in France.

While studying abroad in the French city of Strasbourg in 2007, I decided to grow a bushy beard. Little did I know that in France, only traditional Jewish and Muslim men don anything but the most finely trimmed mustache or goatee. Since I did not wear a yarmulke or other head covering, people who saw me on the street assumed that I was Muslim.

I felt that police officers and passersby treated me with suspicion, and even on the crowded rush hour bus, few chose to sit next to me if they could avoid it. On one occasion someone followed me home and tried to start a fight, only to find that I was a bewildered American, not a French Muslim.

Never before, and never since, have I experienced disdain of this sort. On a daily basis, I was made to feel badly because of my appearance — and what was presumed to be my corresponding religious affiliation. So when I read of the effort by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his supporters to criminalize the burqa (and other garments that fully cover a woman’s body, head, and face) in France, I understood it to be far more than a measure to protect women’s rights or preserve the concept of a secular society, on which the modern French state is built.

In my opinion, it is easy to see how the “burqa ban” might be misused as a part of a broader effort to stigmatize a religious population, one that already perceives itself to be on the margins of society.

Admittedly, I am fundamentally opposed to any garment or religious practice — including those found in my own Jewish tradition — that suggests that women hold a different or subservient position. But the burqa ban in France will not achieve the aim of gender equality. If anything, it will strengthen religious conservatives in France’s Muslim population by convincing members of the moderate majority of Muslims that the rest of French society will never accept them.

While there are said to be only 2,000 women who wear burqas in all of France today, the entire Muslim population, estimated to be around five to six million, will take umbrage at another measure that singles out their community.

If we assume that Sarkozy is genuinely motivated by the belief that the burqa “hurts the dignity of women and is unacceptable in French society,” according to an April 21 article in the New York Times, his best response would in fact be to enact measures welcoming Muslim citizens more fully into French society. Such affirmations would undercut efforts by the small minority of religiously conservative Muslims to gather a following among disaffected coreligionists who feel unable to overcome anti-Muslim prejudice.

The need for the French government to treat religious minorities with respect is bolstered by its own history. In 1781, the enlightened German thinker Christian Wilhelm von Dohm made what at the time was a revolutionary suggestion: “Certainly, the Jew will not be prevented by his religion from being a good citizen, if only the government will give him a citizen’s rights.” But it was the French who first put Dohm’s prophetic vision into action.

In 1806, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte emancipated French Jews by passing laws to improve their economic and social status. He invited them to live anywhere they pleased and recognized their religion, affirming its permanent place within the private sphere of French life. Though he did renege on several of his early commitments, Napoleon’s efforts ultimately enabled Jews to become a full part of French society.

Through these acts of profound tolerance over 200 years ago, France set an example for all of Europe and proved that its open-mindedness was more than rhetorical.

Modern France would do well to follow its own admirable example and truly treat Muslim citizens as equal participants in society. Foregoing the burqa ban would be a sensible first step.

Jerusalem Belongs to More than One Tribe


The battle for Jerusalem goes on but Miscellany101 wants to highlight some voices that too often get drowned out in the cacophony  that is designed to confuse and distort.  Before getting to the heart of the refutation that Jerusalem belongs only to Israel’s Jews, it’s necessary to excerpt the post that started it all.

For me,(Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor,  who took out full page ads in major American newspapers to express his views on the city of Jerusalem) the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture — and not a single time in the Koran. Its presence in Jewish history is overwhelming. There is no more moving prayer in Jewish history than the one expressing our yearning to return to Jerusalem. To many theologians, it IS Jewish history, to many poets, a source of inspiration. It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city, it is what binds one Jew to another in a way that remains hard to explain. When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is not the first time; it is a homecoming. The first song I heard was my mother’s lullaby about and for Jerusalem. Its sadness and its joy are part of our collective memory.

Since King David took Jerusalem as his capital, Jews have dwelled inside its walls with only two interruptions; when Roman invaders forbade them access to the city and again, when under Jordanian occupation, Jews, regardless of nationality, were refused entry into the old Jewish quarter to meditate and pray at the Wall, the last vestige of Solomon’s temple. It is important to remember: had Jordan not joined Egypt and Syria in the war against Israel, the old city of Jerusalem would still be Arab. Clearly, while Jews were ready to die for Jerusalem they would not kill for Jerusalem.

Today, for the first time in history, Jews, Christians and Muslims all may freely worship at their shrines. And, contrary to certain media reports, Jews, Christians and Muslims ARE allowed to build their homes anywhere in the city. The anguish over Jerusalem is not about real estate but about memory.

Jerusalem must remain the world’s Jewish spiritual capital, not a symbol of anguish and bitterness, but a symbol of trust and hope. As the Hasidic master Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav said, “Everything in this world has a heart; the heart itself has its own heart.”

Jerusalem is the heart of our heart, the soul of our soul.

There is so much wrong with Mr. Wiesel’s claim that Christians and Muslims are allowed to build anywhere in the city it’s laughable.  However, one Reverend Frank Julian Gelli took it seriously enough to write this scalding rebuttal to Wiesel’s soliloquy.

‘For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics’, you declare. As a priest, a messenger of peace, I could not agree more. But you add that Jerusalem ‘belongs to the Jewish people’. Astonishing. Because that is an exquisitely political statement. To belong to means to be the property of someone. Jerusalem belongs to, is the property of the state of Israel, you therefore must mean – unless some occult, cabbalistic meaning is intended. How can you then say that Jerusalem is above politics? You are contradicting yourself, methinks. Being illogical is not being unethical, no. Just a little intellectually inconsistent. Join the club – but, from a messenger to mankind I would expect a tad more rigour.

Jerusalem ‘is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture – and not a single time in the Koran’ you assert, inferring politics straight from theology. Puzzling contention. Because statistical and numerical arguments are tricky. Consider: Mecca, the holiest city of Islam, is named explicitly only twice in the whole Qur’an – a third time under the name of ‘Bakka’. Would you then conclude that Mecca is only of minor importance to Muslim? Absurd.

‘Jerusalem must remain the world’s Jewish spiritual capital’, you contend. Once again, I wholeheartedly agree. But two points. First, a spiritual capital is not the same as a political capital. Rome is the spiritual capital of Roman Catholics. It is not, however, their political capital. Canterbury is Anglicanism’s spiritual centre but Anglicans have no political allegiance to it. Orthodox Christians still regard Constantinople as their spiritual navel, but few would ask the Turks to give it back…..

Second, spiritual imperialism must have limits. Jerusalem is not sacred only to Jews. This is not a political claim. It is a straightforward factual, historical statement. In the New Testament – as you are fond of statistics – Jerusalem is named 159 times – a very high number, given also that the NT is much smaller than the OT. You might have heard a Jew called Jesus of Nazareth once preached, taught, suffered, was crucified and arose from the grave in the very city of David.

You know, my heart overflows with emotion and my eyes with tears when I think about my beloved Lord’s life, his ministry, his passion, his agony in Jerusalem. So you see, you are not the only one to be moved, anguished or rejoiced, by ancestral memories connected with the holy city. Christians are, too.  And amongst mankind, Christians – nominal or actual – number 2.1 billion. It is fair to conclude they too have at least as rightful and as strong a claim to the spiritual Jerusalem as 1.5 billion Muslims and 14 million Jews.

It’s sad that the apartheid state of Israel where nationality is a religious not a civil designation somehow or another enlists the support of a Nobel Peace prize, 1986 winner to wax eloquently about the importance of Jerusalem to Israeli Jews while the homes of Palestinian Christians and Muslims are being destroyed and their lives wantonly disregarded. A state that uses such internationally reknown mouthpieces to mask its death and destruction should not be the recipient of American largesse or respect.

Pornography and the Israeli Defense Force


Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.  It’s pretty strange to read how Israel is pimping its male soldiers but here it is in black and white.  As far as Israel is concerned, it seems sex sales.

Well I never. Another Holy Land surprise that’ll have you wondering what else you don’t know about Israel…oh yes, if you’re familiar with the amazing, historical sites to see in Israel, get yourself ready for the latest addition to that long, regal list of Holy Land attractions: the boys of the Israeli army!In yet another move that seems to confirm Israel’s (perhaps more accurately Tel Aviv’s) status as gay-friendly capital of the Middle East, if not Europe, tourists can now visit an army base where they can mingle with hot, rugged Israeli male soldiers, and even have their picture taken with them.

The company behind the idea, Lucas Entertainment, is actually a porn producer, but is adamant that the tourist angle is genuine. Apparently, a planned tour package for next month is already getting considerable interest (and bookings). And a hot date with sexy Israeli army guys is already in the works.

If you were wondering how the heck the Israeli army would allow tourists into an army base, and then photograph its soldiers, the man behind Lucas Entertainment, porn actor Michael Lucas, is a donor to Friends of the IDF and all donors are usually allowed to visit army bases.

Me, I’m all for advertising the Israeli army in a better light. They obviously don’t get the press in the world, and perhaps seeing a few rugged, soldiers smiling with a few tourists isn’t such a bad thing. Personally, I would say the girls of the Israeli army do a much better job of promoting all that is good about Israel. Nothing quite beats a cute 19 year old Israeli army girl, with long flowing hair and a Uzi strapped to her shoulder…

Bishop Desmond Tutu on Divestment


It shouldn’t come as a surprise, oppression is oppression and those who have suffered under its inhumane yolk are far quicker to recognize it for what it is and demand an end to it, that  Bishop Tutu would take such a principled stand against Israel’s apartheid.

Dear Student Leaders at the University of California – Berkeley

It was with great joy that I learned of your recent 16-4 vote in support of divesting your university’s money from companies that enable and profit from the injustice of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and violation of Palestinian human rights. Principled stands like this, supported by a fast growing number of US civil society organizations and people of conscience, including prominent Jewish groups, are essential for a better world in the making, and it is always an inspiration when young people lead the way and speak truth to power.

I am writing to tell you that, despite what detractors may allege, you are doing the right thing. You are doing the moral thing. You are doing that which is incumbent on you as humans who believe that all people have dignity and rights, and that all those being denied their dignity and rights deserve the solidarity of their fellow human beings.

I have been to the Ocupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid. I have witnessed the humiliation of Palestinian men, women, and children made to wait hours at Israeli military checkpoints routinely when trying to make the most basic of trips to visit relatives or attend school or college, and this humiliation is familiar to me and the many black South Africans who were corralled and regularly insulted by the security forces of the Apartheid government.

In South Africa, we could not have achieved our freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime. Students played a leading role in that struggle, and I write this letter with a special indebtedness to your school, Berkeley, for its pioneering role in advocating equality in South Africa and promoting corporate ethical and social responsibility to end complicity in Apartheid.I visited your campus in the 1980’s and was touched to find students sitting out in the baking sunshine to demonstrate for the University’s disvestment in companies supporting the South African regime.

The same issue of equality is what motivates the divestment movement of today, which tries to end Israel’s 43 year long occupation and the unequal treatment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government ruling over them. The abuses they face are real, and no person should be offended by principled, morally consistent, non-violent acts to oppose them. It is no more wrong to call out Israel in particular for its abuses than it was to call out the Apartheid regime in particular for its abuses.

To those who wrongly accuse you of unfairness or harm done to them by this call for divestment, I suggest, with humility, that the harm suffered from being confronted with opinions that challenge one’s own pales in comparison to the harm done by living a life under occupation and daily denial of basic rights and dignity. It is not with rancor that we criticize the Israeli government, but with hope, a hope that a better future can be made for both Israelis and Palestinians, a future in which both the violence of the occupier and the resulting violent resistance of the occupied come to an end, and where one people need not rule over another, engendering suffering, humiliation, and retaliation. True peace must be anchored in justice and an unwavering commitment to universal rights for all humans, regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender, national origin or any other identity attribute. You, students, are helping to pave that path to a just peace. I heartily endorse your divestment vote and encourage you to stand firm on the side of what is right,

God bless you richly,

+Desmond Tutu.
Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town.

Not Possible to be Innocent


It was very difficult to understand the Bush Administration’s irrational hatred and disregard for Muslims except that it was based on racism and fear.  So, the news that his administration kept imprisoned those people he knew were innocent should come as no surprise. Did politics have something to do with it as the article implies?  Bush/Cheney were riding high from the benefits of the 911 catastrophe and their false and misplaced sense of patriotism could have easily masked the release of people from Guantanamo Bay who were innocent but that’s an option they didn’t even appear to approach.  Rather they dug themselves deeper and deeper pursuing people the likes of Jose Padilla, et.al weaving scary scenarios of Muslim hordes roaming throughout the country to wreak havoc on an ill-prepared public all the while actively  ripping the US Constitution to shreds.  Indeed, one can say quite accurately the Bush Administration wanted to consolidate power for the conservative wing of the GOP with it’s Muslim scare tactics and make it possible for any future administration to only go down the road of fascism and government abrogation of citizen rights.  From the looks of things, in that we can say they succeeded!

War-A Slaughter of Innocents


The person who took the photograph of the carnage to the left became its victim at the hands of American forces who went to Iraq to liberate Iraqis from their tyrannical ruler but who became tyrants and murderers themselves.  The death of Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and his colleague Saeed Chmagh, a death vividly caught on tape is perhaps the most accurate depiction of what the Iraqi war brought to the shores of both Iraq and America.

To Iraqis such tragic events were normal occurrences in their interaction with American forces who all too often shot and killed first and rarely asked questions later if at all.  People on the ground in Iraq are too acquainted with the reality that the US military has very little regard for Iraqi lives where the total number of deaths number in the tens of thousands.  Having been besieged by all forces who claimed to act in their best interests, from the government of their own country, to their “liberators” who came to to offer them relief, Iraqis have been slaughtered over the past decade.  In many respects that slaughter has been analyzed and presented to the public to justify public policy in all instances, except those which applied to the US military, when Iraqi civilians ran up against US  forces at which point the public was met with a stone walling military complex and an indifferent media.

The very nature of war means the inevitability of what is presented on film linked above would occur on a basis as often as there is an occupying force in a foreign land interacting with the indigenous population.  The euphemisms employed by the Bush administration to make the invasion more palatable were just as meaningless as the excuses now being given for the action taken against unarmed civilians and children who in the course of their daily lives ran into a force far more willing to shoot them than to help them.  Shooting is the job of soldiers; liberation is the job of those who want to be liberated and sometimes they are convergent ideas and actions but in today’s meme of invasion and occupation they usually are not.  Therefore it is reasonable and necessary to say that what happened to the two Reuters employees is a normal everyday circumstance, no doubt one happening even today,  and if you find it so disturbing as I do, the only thing that will change that is the unconditional withdrawal of American forces from Iraq and nothing less.

This is not the time for back slapping and self-congratulations among those of us who opposed the war by saying this kind of incident was an inevitability of war.  Such arrogance doesn’t help the scores of families, almost every Iraqi one, who have been afflicted by this tragedy.  Nor will a revision of the rules of engagement offer any relief.  In fact as we have mentioned on the pages of Miscellany101 before, there are some who say that the rules of engagement should not spare civilians, and that military personnel should give no consideration to them at all.  Therefore, to abandon this massacre means by necessity abandoning the occupation of Iraq by the American military.  Does that mean murder and mayhem in Iraq will stop?  No it doesn’t, but its occurrence will diminish greatly and we will not be responsible for it, nor blamed for it when it does.  In order to be a society based on the rule of law, we must first apply that rule to ourselves before we try to make others accountable.  Illegal, discriminatory, unjust, murderous wars must be stopped at once before any other declarations of guilt can be raised.  If nothing else, let us hope that will be the outcome of a murder caught on tape.

UPDATE

“If you kill a civilian he becomes an insurgent because you retroactively make that person a threat.”

I mentioned above how the murder of the two Iraqi Reuters reporters was really a normal, everyday event that was brought on by the presence of an occupying force in Iraq.  To underscore that point comes this article where soldiers who served in Iraq make the same claim, matter of factly that ‘we were told to shoot people and the officers would take care of us’.  Military personnel were sent to Iraq to kill not to liberate or win the hearts of minds of the people there.  Listen to some of the testimonies:

Vincent Emanuele, a Marine rifleman who spent a year in the al-Qaim area of Iraq near the Syrian border, told of emptying magazines of bullets into the city without identifying targets, running over corpses with Humvees and stopping to take “trophy” photos of bodies….

Steve Casey served in Iraq for over a year starting in mid-2003.

“We were scheduled to go home in April 2004, but due to rising violence we stayed in with Operation Blackjack,” Casey said, “I watched soldiers firing into the radiators and windows of oncoming vehicles. Those who didn’t turn around were unfortunately neutralized one way or another – well over 20 times I personally witnessed this. There was a lot of collateral damage.”

Jason Hurd served in central Baghdad from November 2004 until November 2005. He told of how, after his unit took “stray rounds” from a nearby firefight, a machine gunner responded by firing over 200 rounds into a nearby building.

“We fired indiscriminately at this building,” he said. “Things like that happened every day in Iraq. We reacted out of fear for our lives, and we reacted with total destruction.”

Such was the atmosphere created by the US military in Iraq which literally forced military personnel to take part in the types of atrocities evident in the video tape above.

Now You Get Mad?


We had eight years of Bush and Cheney, now you get mad!

You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and
appointed a President. You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to
dictate energy policy. You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative got ousted.
You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed..

You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us. You didn’t get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war. You didn’t get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq . You didn’t get mad when you found out we were torturing people. You didn’t get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping
Americans. You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden. You didn’t get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.

You didn’t get mad when we let a major US city drown. You didn’t get mad when we gave a 900 billion tax break to the rich. You didn’t get mad when, using reconciliation; a trillion dollars of our tax dollars  were redirected to insurance companies for Medicare Advantage which cost over 20 percent more for basically the same services that Medicare provides. You didn’t get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark, and our debt hit the thirteen trillion dollar mark.

You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick. Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you, but helping other Americans… oh hell no.

The Face of a Terrorist


I am intrigued by the failure of media to call this woman who attended a meeting that decided her fate as a professor and ended with her shooting and killing three people anything less than a terrorist.  It doesn’t help to read that she had killed before, her own brother in fact, and was a suspect in the attempted bombing of a Harvard University professor.

This is not some academic who snapped under the pressure of her job, going postal is what it’s usually called today.  This terrorist was a cold, calculated killer who managed to hide from her spouse the fact that she owned a gun, sat in a meeting with the victims of her rage and then tried to hide the evidence later.

Am I over the top?  Well yes and no.  The problem with this “terrorist” label is it was always meant to be pejorative in nature.

….terrorism is a  pejorative term. It is a word with intrinsically negative connotations that is generally applied to one’s enemies and opponents, or to those with whom one disagrees and would otherwise prefer to ignore. (…) Hence the decision to call someone or label some organization ‘terrorist’ becomes almost unavoidably subjective,  depending largely on whether one sympathizes with or opposes the person/group/cause concerned. If one identifies with the victim of the violence, for example, then the act is terrorism. If, however, one identifies with the perpetrator, the violent act is regarded in a more sympathetic, if not positive (or, at the worst, an ambivalent) light; and it is not terrorism.

The last sentence almost always defines the reaction of the media to acts of violence by people who resemble, think, act, behave like other members who write the stories about terrorism, so that Bishop’s descent into destructive behavior that began with the shooting death of her brother and ended in Huntsville, Alabama almost always gets written up, portrayed as the act of a desperate person who somehow lost it, and not like the act of a conniving, ruthless person intent on seeking revenge for a wrong that happened to them.  That sounds alot like the bin ladins of the world, doesn’t it?  We have no compunction calling them terrorists despite the baggage inherent in the term.  We shouldn’t let Amy Bishop off the hook either.

The Feminist Hypocrisy


While faux pas French feminist criticize the candidacy of one of their own because of an article of clothing, America’s other allies, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates have figured out how to make the best use of all of their human resources, men and women, those who wear a scarf and those who don’t but still want to serve their country.  Why a country would want to deny participation of one half of its citizens because of a scarf or a religious belief, even while the very same people want to serve, participate, protect is a study in racism and a mindset that takes people backwards in time we decided was counterproductive or worse.  No forward thinking country should countenance such a philosophy neither should a country support one that does.  A new America would do well to cast its lot with the likes of  Pakistan and the UAE and shun the homophobia that is overtaking Europe, and countries like France and Denmark and clearly and emphatically make a statement that the religious rights of a citizen of a country and that’s citizen’s desire to serve his or her country are the basis of solid, long lasting relationships America will honor.   Anything less than that is contributing more to the problem than to the solution.

France’s Fascism Rears it’s Ugly Head Again!


Twenty-first century France  has  replaced 20th century  Nazi Germany as  the European hotbed of political fascism, climbing on the backs of its Muslim population to claim this distinction much like German socialism climbed on the graves and skeletons of the European Jewish minority in the 30s and 40s.  Nationalism and secularism are the reasons given for this decision on the part of French government  to curtail the rights of a vibrant Muslim minority,  making a mockery of the French motto of ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’ while inciting its citizens to turn against one another based on the clothes they wear and the religion they profess.  While the tombstones of French Muslims are desecrated,  French feminists, who claim advocacy of  a woman’s right to choose, bemoan and denounce the candidacy of a French women who supports contraception and abortion rights because she chooses to wear a scarf on her hair!  The hypocrisy of the French position, so steeped in bigotry and irrational hatred have led Ilham Moussaid to point out

It is with great sadness that I watch … my life reduced to my headscarf. It is with great sadness that I hear that my personal beliefs are a danger to others while I advocate friendship, respect, tolerance, solidarity and equality for all human beings.

It would appear based on what she says above, Moussaid is more French than any of her detractors.  Touche!

Could the Government be Complicit in the 12/25 Terror Attack?


Even this early after the event there are attributed news stories to say certain officials in government wanted Umar AdulMuttalib  to enter the US, even though they knew of his terrorist ties.  The rational was his presence would lead actionable intelligence, bigger fish during his visit in America.   If  intelligence knew of his connection to Awlaki who it’s said is in Yemen, who could be bigger than that on the shores of America?  Frankly, the answer is no one, but what AbdulMuttalib’s failed attempt did do for the government was to allow intelligence officers to go on record saying, under certain circumstances, they could  and would target  American citizens for assassination no matter where they were in the world and continuing the previous administration’s assault on the US Constitution .  Building on the Bush administration’s precedent of proclaiming a war on terror, something the neocons have claimed Obama is no longer prosecuting,  the present administration has taken the step of reinterpreting the 5th amendment’s proscription of violating one’s life, liberty or property without due process, and in the process established future  precedent which could allow for extra judicial killing of any American, any where in the world.  For a government that finds its purpose in massive military expenditures and the perpetuity of conflict, the risks to the general public  of allowing Muttalib into the country  were dwarfed by the benefits to the government of a citizenry motivated by fear to allow constitutional and fiscal excesses .

Opposition in Today’s America


From the people who brought you this

and this………

bring you this:

One of the opening speakers for the convention was former House Republican Representative Tom Tancredo.  Not surprisingly Tancredo bemoaned the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States.  What was a surprise was the explanation Tancredo gave for President Obama’s election.  Tancredo claimed that President Obama was elected became we “do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

Thus another attempt to de-legitimize Obama’s election as president is being carried out by the opposition party.

New Threat Source Identified at American Muslim Mosques


This alert dropped in my email box today and it’s worth getting out to the public in order to protect themselves from the next terror attack.
Latest news reports are that five terrorist cell groups have been operating in many of our masajid.  They have been identified as:  Bin Gossipin’, Bin Arguin’, Bin Fightin’, Bin Complainin’, and Bin Missin’.
Their leader, Shaitan Bin Iblis, trained these groups to destroy the muslim community. The plan is to enter the masjid disguised as Muslims and to work from within to discourage, disrupt, and destroy.
However, there have been reports of a sixth group. A tiny cell known by the name Bin Prayin’ is actually the only effective counter terrorism force in the masjid. Unlike other terrorist cells, the Bin Prayin’ team does not blend in with whoever and whatever comes along.

Bin Prayin’ does whatever is needed to uplift and encourage the muslim community.  We have noticed that the Bin Prayin’ cell group has different characteristics than the others. They have Bin Workin’, Bin Studyin’, Bin Fastin’, Bin Givin’ and Bin Patiently Perseverin’ in the cause of Allah!

NO MASJID IS EXEMPT!


Does NYT’s Top Israel Reporter Have a Son in the IDF?


I thinks that’s a fair question, and it was raised by several in the media.  The NYT doesn’t think it’s worth addressing.  Here’s the story

The New York Times refuses to confirm or deny a report that its Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, has a child who is an enlisted member of the Israeli Defense Force–even though such a relationship would pose a serious conflict of interest.

The Electronic Intifada website (1/25/10), following a tip, asked Bronner whether it was true that he had a son in the IDF. EI got a reply from Times foreign editor Susan Chira:

Ethan Bronner referred your query to me, the foreign editor. Here is my comment: Mr. Bronner’s son is a young adult who makes his own decisions. At the Times, we have found Mr. Bronner’s coverage to be scrupulously fair and we are confident that will continue to be the case.

The decisions of Bronner’s son, however, are not the issue. What the Times needs to ask itself is whether it expects that its bureau chief has the normal human feelings about matters of life or death concerning one’s child.

Might he feel hostility, for example, when interviewing members of organizations who were trying to kill his son? When the IDF goes into battle, might he be rooting for the side for which his son is risking his life? Certainly such issues would be taken very seriously if a Times reporter had a child who belonged to a military force that was engaged in hostilities with the IDF; indeed, there’s little doubt that a reporter in that position would not be allowed to continue to cover the Mideast conflict.

Having a conflict of interest, it should be stressed, is not the same thing as producing slanted journalism; rather, it means that a journalist has outside motivations that are strongly at odds with his or her journalistic responsibilities. That a journalist has been “scrupulously fair” in the past does not excuse an ongoing conflict of interest; journalists should not be placed in a position where they have to ignore the well-being of their family in order to do their job, nor should readers be expected to trust that they can do so.

That said, Bronner’s reporting has been repeatedly criticized by FAIR for what would appear to be a bias toward the Israeli government. For example, Extra! (3/09) questioned an article that Bronner (1/13/09) wrote on Israel’s 2009 invasion of Gaza that claimed that unspecified “polls have shown nearly 90 percent support for the war thus far”; FAIR’s magazine noted that this was “a statistical unlikelihood in a country that is 20 percent Palestinian.” The same piece by Bronner claimed that “the largest demonstration against the war so far, with some 6,000 participants, was organized by an Arab political party”; an article by Agence France-Presse (1/3/09) had reported that “tens of thousands” of Israeli Arabs had protested against the war in the Israeli town of Sakhnin. (See also Extra!, 1-2/08, 7/09; FAIR Blog, 2/4/09).

As Electronic Intifada pointed out, the New York Times’ own policies acknowledge that the activities of family members may pose a conflict of interest: “A brother or a daughter in a high-profile job on Wall Street might produce the appearance of conflict for a business reporter or editor,” and such conflicts may require a journalist “to withdraw from certain coverage.” Given this policy, it is unacceptable for the Times’ foreign editor to take the position that the military status of Bronner’s children is of no concern. The question posed by EI must be asked again: Does the New York Times’ Jerusalem bureau chief have a son in the Israeli military, and if so, why doesn’t this pose a conflict of interest?

Europe’s Bad Muslim Terrorism Problem


Statistically, if you’re an Islamophobe, it’s even worse than America’s militant, jihadist, Islamofascist problem which was documented by the federal government as being 6% of all terrorism related attacks on America and American interests over the last 20 years!  According to Europol, the European Law Enforcement Agency which aims at improving the effectiveness and co–operation of the competent authorities in the Member States in preventing and combating terrorism for the last three years, of the 1596 acts of terrorism committed on the shores of European countries only 5 were related to acts committed by Muslims or which could be considered Islamic.  5! Doing the math means .3% of all Europe’s terrorism was committed by Muslims.  .3%! Yet there are still people, many of whom, unlike Miscellany101, who make a lot of money telling you the threat is catastrophic and existential in nature  to Europe.

Interestingly enough, for the year 2008 Europol  reveals that 18% of all arrests on terrorism charges were of Muslims who then made up 50% of the convictions for terrorism related charges.  The disparity in both the numbers arrested and the actual acts of terrorism committed versus the number of convictions makes a good case for how well fear contributes to the running of countries and setting of policy.  The next time someone comes to you with images of Islamic bogeymen lurking around every corner….pinch yourself and wake up from your slumber.  It’s only a dream.  Hat-tip to loonwatch.com

Where do they find these people?


I saw JD Hayworth do an interview with Chris Mathews on Hardball the other night and one of his comments really struck me as being typical of the last eight years of nonsense, lies and deception.  No, it wasn’t his remark about Obama needing to produce his birth certificate to prove to the American people whether he is a real American or not, and in the process avoiding Mathews question whether he, Hayworth, was a conspiracy theorist birther.  It was Hayworth’s dodging the question of whether he supported torture as an implement for policy by American agencies.  He went on to say that waterboarding, i.e. torture was responsible for stopping several planned terror attacks because of actionable intelligence derived therefrom.

Anyone who knows anything about torture and its use during the last decade and all of the “actionable intelligence” that might have come about because of it would and should take such claims with a grain of salt.  Such claims of the importance of torture came from people like John Kiriakou, a former CIA operative who affirmed that waterboarding quickly unloosed the tongues of hard-core terrorists.  His accounts were picked up by main stream media and pundits and published as gospel in an attempt to legitimize an internationally recognized crime.  Of course it turns out all of Kiriakou’s stories were lies made up to extricate a criminal administration and its agencies from criminal behavior.

On the next-to-last page of a new memoir, The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA’s War on Terror (written with Michael Ruby), Kiriakou now rather off handedly admits that he basically made it all up.”What I told Brian Ross in late 2007 was wrong on a couple counts,” he writes. “I suggested that Abu Zubaydah had lasted only thirty or thirty-five seconds during his waterboarding before he begged his interrogators to stop; after that, I said he opened up and gave the agency actionable intelligence.”

“I wasn’t there when the interrogation took place; instead, I relied on what I’d heard and read inside the agency at the time.”

“Now we know,” Kiriakou goes on, “that Zubaydah was waterboarded eighty-three times in a single month, raising questions about how much useful information he actually supplied.”

Indeed. But after his one-paragraph confession, Kiriakou adds that he didn’t have any first hand knowledge of anything relating to CIA torture routines, and still doesn’t. And he claims that the disinformation he helped spread was a CIA dirty trick: “In retrospect, it was a valuable lesson in how the CIA uses the fine arts of deception even among its own.”


Yet again, another lie about the effectiveness of our war on terror, from the people who too many of us depend on to protect us! It would behoove Hayworth not to mention this proven lie too many times as he stumps for John McCain’s senate seat for the state of Arizona, or else he might have to explain to those who are conscientious to want to know how it’s all a lie!

A No Comment Post with a Comment


This is an “I told you so” moment.

With arms outstretched, the congregation at National Evangelical Baptist Church belted out a praise hymn backed up by drums, electric guitar and keyboard. In the corner, slide images of Jesus filled a large screen. A simple white cross of wood adorned the stage, and worshipers sprinkled the pastor’s Bible-based sermon with approving shouts of “Ameen!”National is Iraq’s first Baptist congregation and one of at least seven new Christian evangelical churches established in Baghdad in the past two years. Its Sunday afternoon service, in a building behind a house on a quiet street, draws a couple of hundred worshipers who like the lively music and focus on the Bible.

“I’m thirsty for this kind of church,” Suhaila Tawfik, a veterinarian who was raised Catholic, said at a recent service. “I want to go deep in understanding the Bible.”

Tawfik is not alone. The U.S.-led toppling of Saddam Hussein, who limited the establishment of new denominations, has altered the religious landscape of predominantly Muslim Iraq. A newly energized Christian evangelical activism here, supported by Western and other foreign evangelicals, is now challenging the dominance of Iraq’s long-established Christian denominations and drawing complaints from Muslim and Christian religious leaders about a threat to the status quo.

The evangelicals’ numbers are not large — perhaps a few thousand — in the context of Iraq’s estimated 800,000 Christians. But they are emerging at a time when the country’s traditional churches have lost their privileged Hussein-era status and have experienced massive depletions of their flocks because of decades-long emigration. Now, traditional church leaders see the new evangelical churches filling up, not so much with Muslim converts but with Christians like Tawfik seeking a new kind of worship experience.

“The way the preachers arrived here . . . with soldiers . . . was not a good thing,” said Baghdad’s Roman Catholic archbishop, Jean Sleiman. “I think they had the intention that they could convert Muslims, though Christians didn’t do it here for 2,000 years.”

“In the end,” Sleiman said, “they are seducing Christians from other churches.”

Iraq’s new churches are part of Christian evangelicalism’s growing presence in several Middle Eastern countries, experts say. In neighboring Jordan, for example, “the indigenous evangelical presence is growing and thriving,” said Todd M. Johnson, a scholar of global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts.

Nabeeh Abbassi, president of the Jordan Baptist Convention, said in an interview in Amman that there are about 10,000 evangelicals worshiping at 50 churches in Jordan. They include 20 Baptist churches with a combined regular Sunday attendance of 5,000, he added. The organization also operates the Baptist School of Amman, where 40 percent of the student body is Muslim.

While most evangelicals in Jordan come from traditional Christian denominations, Abbassi said, “we’re seeing more and more Muslim conversions, not less than 500 a year” over the past 10 years.

Iraq’s Christian population has been organized for centuries into denominations such as Chaldean Catholicism and Roman Catholicism. While Hussein’s secular regime allowed freedom of worship, it limited new denominations, particularly if backed by Western churches.

During the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, American evangelicals made no secret of their desire to follow the troops. Samaritan’s Purse, the global relief organization led by the Rev. Franklin Graham — who has called Islam an “evil and wicked” religion — and the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, were among those that mobilized missionaries and relief supplies.

Soon after Hussein’s fall, they entered the country, saying their prime task was to provide Iraqis with humanitarian aid. But their strong emphasis on sharing their faith raised concerns among Muslims and some Christians that they would openly proselytize.

Then the security environment deteriorated in Iraq — four Southern Baptist missionaries were killed, Westerners were kidnapped and at least 21 churches were bombed — forcing most foreign evangelicals to flee. But Iraqi evangelicals remain.

“For Christians, it’s now democratic,” said Nabil A. Sara, 60, the pastor at National Evangelical Baptist. “It’s not like before. There is freedom now. Nobody can say, ‘Why do you start a new church?’ ”

Some church leaders, however, are asking that very question.

“Evangelicals come here and I would like to ask: Why do you come here? For what reason?” said Patriarch Emmanuel Delly, head of the Eastern rite Chaldean Catholic Church, Iraq’s largest Christian community.

In interviews, Delly and Sleiman were torn between their belief in religious freedom and the threat they see from the new evangelicalism. They also expressed anger and resentment at what they perceive as the evangelicals’ assumption that members of old-line denominations are not true Christians.

“If we are not Christians, you should tell us so we will find the right path,” Delly said sarcastically. “I’m not against the evangelicals. If they go to an atheist country to promote Christ, we would help them ourselves.”

Sleiman charged that the new churches were sowing “a new division” among Christians because “churches here mean a big community with tradition, language and culture, not simply a building with some people worshiping. If you want to help Christians here, help through the churches [already] here.”

Still, the Roman Catholic prelate said he could not oppose the evangelicals because “we ask for freedom of conscience.” He also said he respected how they appear “ready to die” for their beliefs. “Sometimes I’m telling myself they are more zealous than me, and we can profit from this positive dimension of their mission.”

Some Iraqi Christians expressed fear that the evangelicals would undermine Christian-Muslim harmony here, which rests on a long-standing, tacit agreement not to proselytize each other. “There is an informal agreement that says we have nothing to do with your religion and faith,” said Yonadam Kanna, one of six Christians elected to Iraq’s parliament. “We are brothers but we don’t interfere in your religion.”

Delly said that “even if a Muslim comes to me and said, ‘I want to be Christian,’ I would not accept. I would tell him to go back and try to be a good Muslim and God will accept you.” Trying to convert Muslims to Christianity, he added, “is not acceptable.”

Sheik Fatih Kashif Ghitaa, a prominent Shiite Muslim leader in Baghdad, was among those who expressed alarm at the postwar influx of foreign missionaries. In a recent interview, he said he feared that Muslims misunderstand why many Christians talk about their faith.

“They have to talk about Jesus and what Jesus has done. This is one of the principles of believing in Christianity,” said Ghitaa. “But the problem is that the others don’t understand it, they think these people are coming to convert them.”

Robert Fetherlin, vice president for international ministries at Colorado-based Christian and Missionary Alliance, which supports one of the new Baghdad evangelical churches, defended his denomination’s overseas work.

“We’re not trying to coerce people to follow Christ,” he said. “But we want to at least communicate to people who He is. We feel very encouraged by the possibility for people in Iraq to have the freedom to make choices about what belief system they want to buy into.”

Sara said that if Muslims approach him with “questions about Jesus and about the Bible,” he responds. But the white-haired pastor said there was plenty of evangelizing to be done among Christians because, in his view, many do not really know Jesus. “They know [Him] just in name,” he said, adding that they need a better understanding of “why He died for them.”

His church appeals to dissatisfied Christians, he said, adding, “If you go to a Catholic church, for example, there is no Bible in the church, there is no preaching, and just a little singing.”

National congregant Zeena Woodman, 30, who was raised in the Syrian Orthodox Church, agreed. “Praising Jesus Christ in this church is not as traditional as other churches,” she said. “It’s much more interesting here.”

Sara, a former Presbyterian who started an underground evangelical church in his home after having a born-again experience, began working openly during the U.S. occupation. In January 2004, he was ordained pastor of his church in a ceremony attended by more than 20 Baptist pastors and deacons from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and the United States. Baptist communities in these countries financially support National Evangelical, Sara said.

The church’s name and a white cross are visible from the street. The pastor said that no one has threatened the church and that it has good relations with its Muslim neighbors.

In fact, said Sara, “Muslims across the street came and asked us to pray for their mother.”