The third holiest mosque in Islam, Al Aqsa, is located in East Jerusalem
Barak Ravid, Haaretz
A classified report drafted by European consuls in East Jerusalem and Ramallah slams Israeli policy in East Jerusalem and recommends that the European Union take steps to strengthen the Palestinian Authority’s status in the city. It also advises taking various measures to protest Israeli policy in the city, as well as sanctions against people and groups involved in “settlement activity” in and around it.
The report, a copy of which was obtained by Haaretz, is updated annually by EU representatives to the PA. This year’s report was completed on November 23 and presented to EU institutions in Brussels a few days ago.
The Dome of the Rock is located in East Jerusalem
(Note: above picture is by Steffen, and is from the Travel blog website)
Due to the sensitivity of the document, the EU has never before published it, and in previous years Israel pressed the EU hard not to do so, for fear the publication would further undermine the European public’s already negative view of Israel.
Senior Foreign Ministry officials said this year’s report “left a harsh impression” in Brussels and helped Sweden promote its plan to have the EU formally recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.
The report accused both the Israeli government and the Jerusalem municipality of working deliberately to alter the city’s demographic balance and sever East Jerusalem from the West Bank. It said that both bodies assist right-wing organizations, such as Ateret Cohanim and Elad, in their efforts to implement this “strategic vision,” especially around the Holy Basin area. These organizations buy houses in Arab neighborhoods, and make “attempts to implant further Jewish settlements into the heart of the Muslim Quarter.” [more]
“[The ban] raises concerns as to whether fundamental rights of individuals, protected by international treaties, should be subject to popular votes.” , Thorbjorn Jagland, secretary-general of Council of Europe.
Al Jazeera
Switzerland is facing international criticism and charges of intolerance following a shock referendum vote backing a constitutional ban on the construction of new minarets.
The Vatican joined the expressions of dismay after Sunday’s vote saying that it oppressed religious freedom, as the Swiss government moved to assure Muslims it was not a rejection of their religion.
The imam of Switzerland’s biggest mosque, in Geneva, meanwhile called on the Muslim world to “respect, without accepting” the outcome and to avoid cutting off ties with Switzerland.
Youssef Ibram in an interview with AFP sharply criticised Swiss authorities for not intervening more forcefully in defence of religious freedom before the referendum got off the ground.
Muslims account for about five per cent of Switzerland’s population of 7.5 million people, and form the third-largest religious group after the dominant Roman Catholic and Protestant communities.
Freedom of worship is one of the cornerstones of Switzerland’s founding constitution.
Condemnation
Religious leaders in Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country, condemned the vote as a manifestation of religious “hatred” but urged a restrained response. [more]
Amazing: Swiss Banks Eager To Attract Muslim Investors
Islamic Banking is well on it’s way to becoming the world’s fastest growing financial sector.
The Islamic banking sector is now thought to be worth up to 800 billion dollars and it’s growing by around 20 percent each year on the back of soaring oil prices.
While many Swiss banks offer products that are Sharia compliant — they are not creating the financial packages being demanded by their clients.
Britain has been at the forefront of breaking down barriers for Islamic banking. It is now ahead of Switzerland in the funds that it handles.
But as Alan Fisher reports, the rest of the world’s banking industry is only just waking up to its potential.
Islamophobia in Action: Anti-Minaret Ads in Switzerland
Tariq Ramadan, the Guardian
It wasn’t meant to go this way. For months we had been told that the efforts to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland were doomed. The last surveys suggested around 34% of the Swiss population would vote for this shocking initiative. Last Friday, in a meeting organised in Lausanne, more than 800 students, professors and citizens were in no doubt that the referendum would see the motion rejected, and instead were focused on how to turn this silly initiative into a more positive future.
Today that confidence was shattered, as 57% of the Swiss population did as the Union Démocratique du Centre (UDC) had urged them to – a worrying sign that this populist party may be closest to the people’s fears and expectations. For the first time since 1893 an initiative that singles out one community, with a clear discriminatory essence, has been approved in Switzerland. One can hope that the ban will be rejected at the European level, but that makes the result no less alarming. What is happening in Switzerland, the land of my birth?
There are only four minarets in Switzerland, so why is it that it is there that this initiative has been launched? My country, like many in Europe, is facing a national reaction to the new visibility of European Muslims. The minarets are but a pretext – the UDC wanted first to launch a campaign against the traditional Islamic methods of slaughtering animals but were afraid of testing the sensitivity of Swiss Jews, and instead turned their sights on the minaret as a suitable symbol.
Every European country has its specific symbols or topics through which European Muslims are targeted. In France it is the headscarf or burka; in Germany, mosques; in Britain, violence; cartoons in Denmark; homosexuality in the Netherlands – and so on. It is important to look beyond these symbols and understand what is really happening in Europe in general and in Switzerland in particular: while European countries and citizens are going through a real and deep identity crisis, the new visibility of Muslims is problematic – and it is scary.
At the very moment Europeans find themselves asking, in a globalising, migratory world, “What are our roots?”, “Who are we?”, “What will our future look like?”, they see around them new citizens, new skin colours, new symbols to which they are unaccustomed.[...]
The campaign against the minarets was fuelled by just these anxieties and allegations. Voters were drawn to the cause by a manipulative appeal to popular fears and emotions. Posters featured a woman wearing a burka with the minarets drawn as weapons on a colonised Swiss flag. The claim was made that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Swiss values. (The UDC has in the past demanded my citizenship be revoked because I was defending Islamic values too openly.) Its media strategy was simple but effective. Provoke controversy wherever it can be inflamed. [Please click here to read more].
Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, is professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University. His most recent book is What I Believe
Swiss Ban On Minarets Draws Widespread Condemnation
Ian Traynot, The Guardian
Muslim leaders from around the world, senior church figures, European politicians and human rights experts have deplored Switzerland’s decision to ban the building of minarets.
The polarising verdict in a Swiss referendum held yesterday raised fundamental questions about discrimination and freedom of religion, with the Swiss government itself doubtful over whether the popular vote could be translated into national law, as required by the country’s system of direct democracy.
“Scandalous,” said the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, while Babacar Ba, a senior official of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, warned of an “upsurge in Islamophobia” in Europe. [...]
The surprisingly high vote of 57% for the minaret ban put the Swiss government and establishment on the defensive, engaged in damage limitation. In Brussels, the Swiss justice minister, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, who opposed a ban, argued that the vote was neither against the Muslim community nor against Islam. She sought to explain the decision to EU interior ministers, some of whom were highly critical.
The Vatican denounced the ban as an infringement of religious freedom.
Roman Catholic bishops in Swizerland issued a statement regretting the ban, accusing the rightwing Swiss People’s party, which spearheaded the prohibition campaign, of caricaturing and exaggerating the alleged threat posed by Muslims,[...]
[more]
Journalists Pascale Bourgaux and Mercedes Gallego in their trips to Iraq as war correspondents were stunned to hear from military women in Iraq that they should be very careful working in military units due to sexual assault and rape.
When they left Iraq they decided to investigate the issue of rape in the U.S. military. In 2007, they filmed the stories of four military women who had been raped and made a documentary, “Rape in the Ranks: The Enemy Within.” The documentary was shown for the first time in the United States on October 26 at the New York Independent Film Festival.
Tina Priest was raped in Iraq and then found dead of a gunshot in her dormitory room. The U.S. Army claims Tina committed suicide 11 days after she was raped. The mother and sister of Tina Priest don’t believe Tina committed suicide. The documentary captures remarkable interactions with them and military officers from Fort Hood who arrive at their doorstep. Tina’s rapist was never prosecuted.
Jessica Kenyon was raped twice during her one year career in the US Army, once in basic training and once in Korea. She is now a counselor (http://www.militarysexualtrauma.org) for other veterans who have been raped—women and men. Jessica’s rapists were never prosecuted.
Suzanne Swift was raped repeatedly by her squad leader while they were in Iraq. She was court-martialed for refusing to go back to Iraq with the unit in which the rapist still served. The rapist was never prosecuted, returned to Iraq as a private security contractor and later fired from a position with a law enforcement agency in the Seattle area. Suzanne is now out of the military and in college.
Stephanie (last name not disclosed), was raped at Fort Lewis, Washington. Like the majority of women who have been raped in the military, she never reported it as she thought no one would believe her as the rapist was a senior officer. Stephanie and her husband both served in Iraq. Her husband committed suicide after his return from Iraq. Stephanie speaks frequently on the issue of military suicides. [more]
Unfortunately, this mind-set is consistent with the Pentagon’s very poor record of prosecuting sexual assault and rape within the ranks while at the same time disregarding and further victimizing those who report these heinous crimes. To put these cases in perspective, there were 2,947 reports of sexual assaults in the military in 2006, an increase in reports of 24% over 2005. However, very few of these cases tend to be prosecuted. A Pentagon report [PDF] in March 2007 found that more than half of the investigations dating back to 2004 resulted in no action. When action was taken, only one third of the cases resulted in courts-martial.
Indeed, in many cases, the military seems more intent on intimidating and harassing the victims than investigating and prosecuting the charges. In 2004, after Lt. Jennifer Dyer reported being raped by a fellow officer at Camp Shelby, Miss., she said she was held in seclusion for three days, read her Miranda rights and threatened with criminal prosecution for filing a false report. After finally being given two weeks leave, she was threatened with prosecution for being AWOL when she would not report for duty to the same location where the man she had accused — who was later acquitted on assault charges — was still posted.
Lance Cpl. Sally Griffiths was also accused of lying after she reported being raped by a fellow Marine while stationed in Okinawa, Japan. It wasn’t until she got access to her case file and found a statement by the Marine that confirmed her story that she was able to obtain the discharge she sought. The Marine she accused was never prosecuted. He continued to serve in the military and was promoted several times.
After Army Spc. Suzanne Swift went AWOL instead of staying in the same unit as the soldiers who she accused of sexually harassing her, the Army court-martialed her when she refused a deal that would have forced her to remain in the military and sign a statement saying she had not been raped.
More recently, there have been the well-publicized cases of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, who was murdered after accusing another Marine of rape, and Jamie Leigh Jones, who says that she was gang-raped while working for Halliburton/KBR in Iraq. Jones claims that after she reported her rape, the company put her in a shipping container and warned her that she would lose her job if she left Iraq for medical treatment. The rape kit collected by military medical personnel was lost after it was turned over to Halliburton/KBR. The Pentagon has refused to investigate or to testify before Congress. Please click here to read the remainder of this story.
Recruiter Sex Scandal: Military Recruiters raping Potential Teen Enlistees
Amy S. Clark, CBS News
CBS/AP) More than 100 young women who expressed interest in joining the military in the past year were preyed upon sexually by their recruiters. Women were raped on recruiting office couches, assaulted in government cars and groped en route to entrance exams.
A six-month Associated Press investigation found that more than 80 military recruiters were disciplined last year for sexual misconduct with potential enlistees. The cases occurred across all branches of the military and in all regions of the country.
“This should never be allowed to happen,” said one 18-year-old victim. “The recruiter had all the power. He had the uniform. He had my future. I trusted him.”
Barry Vogel represents a young woman who wanted to become a Marine, CBS News correspondent Bianca Solorzano reports. But now she’s suing the Marines.
“He said to her, outright, if you want to join the Marines, you have to have sex with me,” Vogel said. “She was a virgin. She was 17 years old.”
The ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services panel has responded to the investigation, saying “outrageous” misconduct by military recruiters needs tougher penalties.
At least 35 Army recruiters, 18 Marine Corps recruiters, 18 Navy recruiters and 12 Air Force recruiters were disciplined for sexual misconduct or other inappropriate behavior with potential enlistees in 2005, according to records obtained by the AP under dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests. That’s significantly more than the handful of cases disclosed in the past decade.
The AP also found:
•The Army, which accounts for almost half of the military, has had 722 recruiters accused of rape and sexual misconduct since 1996.
•Most recruiters found guilty of sexual misconduct are disciplined administratively, facing a reduction in rank or forfeiture of pay; military and civilian prosecutions are rare.
•The increase in sexual misconduct incidents is consistent with overall recruiter wrongdoing, which has increased from just over 400 cases in 2004 to 630 cases in 2005, according to a General Accounting Office report released this week. [more]
Recruiter accused of sexual assaults against six women
James A. Gillaspy and Dan McFeely, Indianapolis Star
[NOBLESVILLE, Ind.] – Investigators say he picked out teens and young women with backgrounds that made them vulnerable to authority. As a military recruiter, he had access to personal information, making the quest easier.
Indiana National Guard Sgt. Eric P. Vetesy, 36, Westfield, was jailed Monday, accused of sexually assaulting six female recruits – most of them Noblesville High School students – he met during his 18 months as a full-time recruiter. Hamilton County investigators said Monday he is accused of raping at least one recruit.
Nationwide, military recruiters reportedly have been linked to at least a half-dozen sexual assault during the past few years, since the creation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. This broad education law requires, among other things, that high schools give military recruiters greater access to students.
The 31-count indictment filed in Hamilton Superior Court implicates Vetesy in a pattern of sexual misconduct during a period from May 2002 to November 2003. Authorities said the incidents occurred after his assignment as a recruiter in August 2001.
The six women identified in the indictment as his victims ranged in age from 17 to 21 at the time of the alleged assaults. The Star generally does not identify victims of sexual abuse.
“These were very young women who are being recruited out of high school classes,” said Hamilton County Prosecutor Sonia Leerkamp. [more]
Israeli news Web sites in English contribute in part to the waning love between American Jews and Israel, a prominent U.S. historian asserted this week, adding that Anglos in Israel can help counter the trend. Since the advent of the Internet and exposure to more critical coverage of Israel, the once-utopian view of Israel Americans held has eroded, according to Jonathan Sarna, who teaches American Jewish history at Brandeis University and is currently on sabbatical in Jerusalem.
In an article appearing in today’s Forward and released this week on the paper’s Web site and on Haaretz.com, Sarna quotes sociologist Steven M. Cohen, who recently warned of “a growing distancing from Israel of American Jews.” Sarna, 54, argues that while this trend is worrisome, another sociologist, Ted Sasson, believes American-Jewish love for Israel is not vanishing but transforming.
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“Sasson maintains that what we have today is not as much tension between American Jewry and Israel, but American Jews reflecting some of the same opposition [to Israeli policies] that you find in Israel. Indeed, many of them are reading Israeli Web sites and are influenced by them,” Sarna told Anglo File Tuesday in his Jerusalem apartment. He referred specifically to Haaretz.com, which he says often publishes articles critical of Israeli policies.
“The Internet has made it possible for multiple voices to be heard,” Sarna said. He says that in the days when their sole source of news was the local Jewish paper, the “Jews of America spoke with one voice, mainly [belonging to] the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish organizations – which basically followed the Israeli government’s line.” Aware today of the full range of views expressed in Israel, he says American Jews no longer buy into the notion that “in Israel we’re critical but out of Israel we’re supportive.”
Until recently, American Jews grew up with a utopian notion of Israel, Sarna says. “Everybody [in Israel] was happy, people were building a new state, people were in some ways more equal and egalitarian,” he recalled of his own education. “Israel was going to be that Little America in the Middle East, a country that shared the same values, a true commonwealth. Israel was like America, only better.”
Yet over time, American Jews discovered their idealized perception of Israel was at odds with reality, seeing, for example, the lack of a true separation of church and state and the plight of minorities. “Gradually the utopian vision that had so exited the community was transformed into a more realistic Israel,” Sarna said. [more]
UN meets homeless victims of American property dream From New York to LA:
UN human rights expert tours US hearing from subprime crisis victims
By Chris McGreal
The Guardian
Nov. 12/09
There were not many people packed in to the Los Angeles “town hall” meeting who had heard of the foreign woman with the unfamiliar title who had come to listen to their tales of plight. But many took it as a good sign that she had worried the last American government enough for it to keep her out of the country.
Deanne Weakly was among the first to the microphone. The 51-year-old estate agent told how a couple of years ago she was pulling in $80,000 (£48,000) a year from commissions selling homes in LA’s booming property market.
When the bottom fell out of the business with the foreclosure crisis, she lost her own house and ended up living on the streets in a city with more homeless than any other in America. She was sexually assaulted, harassed by the police and in despair.
She turned to the city and California state governments for help. “No one wanted to listen. They blame you for being homeless in the first place,” she said.
Others followed, recounting in English or Spanish, sometimes Korean, their personal crises. Some shouted their anger, others laboriously recounted details of losing homes, families forced into overcrowded shelters, life on the streets.
The United Nations special rapporteur, Raquel Rolnik, listened to it all patiently, occasionally taking notes, nodding encouragement.
Rolnik had waited more than a year to tour cities across the US to prepare a report for the UN’s human rights council on America’s deepening housing crisis following the subprime mortgage debacle.
UN special rapporteurs are more often found investigating human rights in Sudan and Burundi or abuses of the Israeli occupation than exposing the underbelly of the American dream. George Bush’s administration blocked her visit, finding itself in the company of Cuba, Burma and North Korea in blocking a special rapporteur.
“I was asking for almost a year before I as allowed in,” Rolnik said.
When Barack Obama came to power she was welcomed to range across America talking to those who have lived on the streets for years and the newly homeless forced out by the foreclosure crisis.
Rolnik, a Brazilian urban planner and architect, said administration officials were genuinely interested in what she might find, if not embracing of her raison d’etre that everyone is entitled to a decent home.
“One of the first meetings I had at the state department they clearly told me: here, adequate housing is not a human right,” she said.
“I was shocked when I realised that the US, and countries in Europe – England – as well, had a solid housing policy for many years that worked pretty well. That was dismantled and the situation became worse throughout the nineties. Then we had this financial crisis and a real crisis in housing. It’s all tied together,” she said.
How many times have you heard the following: “Islam has nothing to do with democracy,” “Muslims are violent,” “They oppress women?” In partnership with Unity Productions Foundation, the makers of a new PBS documentary “Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think,” Link TV broadcasts this prescient and important new film that reveals the thoughts and desires of everyday Muslims as surveyed in the worlds largest public opinion poll ever conducted. The premiere of this ground breaking film is on Thursday, November 26th at 10PM Pacific and 1AM Eastern. Please check out http://www.linktv.org/programs/inside-islam for additional airtimes.
We encourage you to watch the broadcast and share it with friends, but we have an even more important opportunity for you to make a difference. Through its 20,000 Dialogues project, UPF has created an easy and accessible way to bring people together, building a better understanding of Muslims and Islam using award-winning documentary films. To start a dialogue, sign up to host a dialogue event on the website. In one week, the film will be mailed to you, with instructions to download discussion guides to help you facilitate and evaluate your dialogue.
If you are interested in hosting a screening of Inside Islam, please contact the UPF program manager Daniel Tutt at Daniel@upf.tv. To take advantage of these resources and to promote diversity and better facilitate your dialogue, please learn more about our resources here: http://20000dialogues.org/resources.aspx
Background on the Outreach with Inside Islam
The world premiere on June 3rd, 2009 featured Dr. Madeleine Albright, who endorsed the film, as the keynote speaker before 700 attendees, including participation from numerous government offices, contractors, think tanks and lobbying groups.
Following its highly successful Prince Among Slaves Premiere’s model, UPF, in partnership with local organizations is conducting over 20 film premieres of Inside Islam in cities around the U.S. These premieres bring civic leaders, political leaders, and civic organizations together. More information and a listing of each city can be found at the UPF website.
About the Film
Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think, (www.insideislam.tv) a new documentary film from Unity Productions Foundation, explores the opinions of Muslims around the globe as revealed in the world’s first major opinion poll, conducted by Gallup, the preeminent polling organization.
Focusing on the issues of Gender Justice, Terrorism, and Democracy – the film presents remarkable data, challenging the generalizations that Muslims hate democracy, are against the West, are committed to violence, believe women should not have any role in public life and other prevailing notions that shape the discourse of U.S. – Muslim relations. Like the research, the film highlights a shared relationship that is based on facts – not fear.
Experts features include Dalia Mogahed, Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies; John Esposito, University Professor at Georgetown University; Rami Khoury, Editor of the Daily Star (Beirut); and Kenneth Pollack, Director of Research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute.
KARACHI, Pakistan – No one is exactly sure how old Taimur Muslim is.
A soft-spoken, lanky lad with a chipped front tooth and eyes undecided between green and gray, Taimur told me that school is his favorite part of the day, that he hates having to watch over his younger siblings at home, and that he wants to join the Army when he’s older.
“I’m not very good in classes,” he said through a shy smile. “But I don’t want to be a loafer. Teacher says we musn’t be loafers.”
Taimur told me he was 10 years old. But on that point, his voice was a little unsure. It’s an estimate – based on the fact that he began to work for a tailor full-time when he was 7 years old. He worked there for about three years, but stopped because of back problems. That’s when he came here and started kindergarten, just two months ago
Taimur is a student at a private school in Machar Colony, a slum housing 700,000 residents on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan’s most populous city. The school is tucked away in the narrow, trash-lined, labyrinthine streets and sits behind high walls and a guarded entrance gate. It was built and continues to be run by a Pakistani charity organization called the Citizens Foundation.
Afshan Tabassum, the school’s principal, said Taimur’s story is typical for children in the area. Parents were wary of the school at first; they were skeptical of a system that kept their children from working for part of the day and contributing to the family’s income.
But within a few months, Tabassum said, the idea caught on. Parents were lining up to enroll their children, eager to give them the education they themselves never had. Most of the students, she said, work during the half-day they don’t attend classes, and few have any idea how old they really are. The taller ones claim to be ten – mainly because that’s the age they think they should be.
“These kids have a very tough life,” explained Tabassum. “When I first arrived at this school, I tried to visit every child’s home to meet their family, to learn about their problems. I learned just how difficult these children’s lives are. Not only do they all work, they are also trying to go to school.”
In Taimur’s kindergarten classroom, he stands almost a head taller than most of the other students. His classmates, however, are a motley crew—some are literally half the height of others, ranging in age from 5-year-olds up to 10-year-olds. Baggy school uniforms are cinched tightly around too-slim waists. Pant cuffs are rolled up several times over to achieve the right length. During a math lesson, simple arithmetic problems on the chalk board are quickly and easily finished by some. And others are wholly incapable of completing basic addition. [...]
Filling a need The Federal Education Ministry published a national study in November 2008 showing that literacy rates across the country hover around 50 percent, and dip as low as 22 percent for women in underserved areas like Baluchistan. More than a third of all students who actually enroll in the public school system end up dropping out before they ever reach the sixth grade. And those statistics mark an improvement over ten years ago, when more than 50 percent of students dropped out by the same age.
The goal for Ateed Riaz, one of the founder-directors of The Citizens Foundation, is to maintain that trend of improvement.
Riaz said the government simply did not have the capacity to run the education system it nationalized in the 1970s and that the bureaucratic red-tape and political interference that now run the system have driven it into the ground. Though there have been over a dozen high-level commissions on how to fix the system, few, if any, of the recommendations have ever been implemented. Private charities and non-governmental organizations have stepped in to fill the void.
The Citizens Foundation is one such charity that raises money, mostly from expatriate Pakistanis, to build and run private schools across the country. They build schools in hard-to-reach rural or under-served urban areas and train handpicked teachers to educate as many children as they can with the standard, national curriculum.
Since its inception in 1995, the Citizens Foundation has built over 600 schools across Pakistan and enrolled 80,000 students.
CNN’s Rick Sanchez: NASA Scientist Stewart Nozette Charged With Attempting To Sell Secrets To Israel – 10/20/09
2. Yosef Yagur, Ilan Ravid & US Relations
Source: Haaretz, Yossi Melman
The new U.S.-Israel espionage affair revealed Tuesday is in fact an old story. Nothing in this fact, however, can reduce the gravity of damage it will cause Israel, nor lead to expectations that suspect Ben-Ami Kadish’s punishment will be eased – if he is indeed to be convicted in a court of law.
A number of conclusions can be drawn from the case, which points to a pattern that has characterized Israel’s security and intelligence establishments for many years. First, the American judicial memory is very long, and the long arm of justice there does not withdraw, even after a quarter-century or more.
Colonel (res.) Aviam Sela, who was involved in recruiting American Jonathan Pollard to spy for Israel, and Jackob Nimrodi, who was involved in Irangate, the sale of Israeli arms to Iran, with U.S. cooperation, both know this well. Since the 1980s, both have avoided the U.S. for fear of being arrested upon their arrival.
One could also conclude that Israel’s claims that the Pollard affair was an exception has once again been disproved. Nevertheless, it is clear that in its wake Israel stopped its espionage activities in the U.S., including the technological espionage that had been one of the hallmarks of Israel’s illegal activities on U.S. soil in the 1970s and ’80s.
Kadish had a hand in this, too. During this period a number of Israelis and others were arrested and investigated on suspicion of attempting to steal U.S. secrets and to smuggle technology, equipment and information from the U.S. to Israel.
A major brouhaha erupted, for example, surrounding Milco International, the company of Arnon Milchan, now a major Hollywood film producer. Company director Richard Smyth was arrested by the F.B.I. in the mid-1980s on suspicion of smuggling into Israel, without an export license, electronic triggers called Krytrons that the U.S. claimed was for Israel’s nuclear program. [more]
3. Ben-Ami Kadish
4. Jonathan Pollard
NOVA
[...] In 1984 Pollard was promoted to a position as an analyst in the Naval Criminal Investigation Service (NIS), and his security clearances were reinstated. He was placed in a new, high-priority unit, the Anti-Terrorism Alert Center, where he gained access to satellite photographs and CIA reports. At least three of Pollard’s acquaintances recall that within months of his assuming his new post he mailed them unsolicited collections of classified information for no apparent reason.
Shortly after he began working at the NIS Pollard met an Israeli intelligence officer in New York named Avi Sella, who was posing as a graduate student at New York University. Sella requested classified information from Pollard—any information he could deliver—and told him that he would be paid for whatever he could provide.
A few days later, Sella and Pollard met in Washington. Pollard provided detailed information on chemical warfare manufacturing plants in Iraq. For this initial transaction Pollard was given a $10,000 diamond and sapphire ring for his fiancée, Anne Henderson, and paid over $10,000 in cash. Sella also agreed to pay Pollard $1,500 a month for his espionage activities as long as they continued.
For about a year after the time Pollard met Avi Sella, he gathered computer printouts, satellite photographs, and classified documents from his department three times a week and brought them to various Washington apartments. There, they were copied and returned to Pollard, who restored them to the Navy the following day. In exchange for his services Pollard received, in addition to the agreed salary, a lavish collection of gifts for himself and his wife, including a honeymoon in a private compartment aboard the Orient Express.
By his own estimates Pollard passed to his Israeli handlers more than 800 classified publications and more than 1,000 cables, probably the largest cache of materials ever passed through espionage. At one point, when Pollard’s new wife was hoping to clinch a job interview at an international public relations firm with branches in China, he brought home five secret studies on China. Her presentation was assessed as brilliant.
Pollard was eventually captured on November 18, 1985, rather unceremoniously, walking out of his office with 60 top-secret documents in his briefcase. His supervisors had become suspicious of his voracious consumption of materials. Commenting not as much on the massive loss of classified documents to Israel and elsewhere but more on the extraordinary lack of security surrounding Pollard’s carefree espionage activities, then Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger said, “It is difficult for me…to conceive of greater harm done to national security.”
Pollard pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to prison for life. [more]
The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) table shows a country’s ranking and score, the number of surveys used to determine the score, and the confidence range of the scoring.
The rank shows how one country compares to others included in the index. The CPI score indicates the perceived level of public-sector corruption in a country/territory.
The CPI is based on 13 independent surveys. However, not all surveys include all countries. The surveys used column indicates how many surveys were relied upon to determine the score for that country.
The confidence range indicates the reliability of the CPI scores and tells us that allowing for a margin of error, we can be 90% confident that the true score for this country lies within this range.
Note from Rafik Beekun: In spite of Islam’s continuous emphasis on ethical behavior in business and other walks of life (see my book on Islamic Business Ethicsfor example) Muslims are not living up to what Islam asks of them. For the sake of comparison, I have included those countries whch are NOT muslim-majority countries, but are among the least corrupt on earth (e.g. New Zealand, Denmark, etc.) as well a couple of countries with sizeable Muslim minorities (e.g. India) . I have also included Israel as a reference point.
According to Transparency International, Bangladesh rates as the one of the most corrupt country on earth
The Dhaka Medical College Hospital in Bangladesh treats more than two million patients a year.
It claims to offer free medical treatment to the poor, but using a hidden camera, Al Jazeera has discovered that some patients have to pay bribes to receive any care at all.
On October 29, 2001, while the Taliban’s rule over Afghanistan was under assault, the regime’s ambassador in Islamabad gave a chaotic press conference in front of several dozen reporters sitting on the grass. On the Taliban diplomat’s right sat his interpreter, Ahmad Rateb Popal, a man with an imposing presence. Like the ambassador, Popal wore a black turban, and he had a huge bushy beard. He had a black patch over his right eye socket, a prosthetic left arm and a deformed right hand, the result of injuries from an explosives mishap during an old operation against the Soviets in Kabul.
But Popal was more than just a former mujahedeen. In 1988, a year before the Soviets fled Afghanistan, Popal had been charged in the United States with conspiring to import more than a kilo of heroin. Court records show he was released from prison in 1997.
Flash forward to 2009, and Afghanistan is ruled by Popal’s cousin President Hamid Karzai. Popal has cut his huge beard down to a neatly trimmed one and has become an immensely wealthy businessman, along with his brother Rashid Popal, who in a separate case pleaded guilty to a heroin charge in 1996 in Brooklyn. The Popal brothers control the huge Watan Group in Afghanistan, a consortium engaged in telecommunications, logistics and, most important, security. Watan Risk Management, the Popals’ private military arm, is one of the few dozen private security companies in Afghanistan. One of Watan’s enterprises, key to the war effort, is protecting convoys of Afghan trucks heading from Kabul to Kandahar, carrying American supplies.
Welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan. It is a virtual carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA officials and ex-military officers joining hands with former Taliban and mujahedeen to collect US government funds in the name of the war effort.
In this grotesque carnival, the US military’s contractors are forced to pay suspected insurgents to protect American supply routes. It is an accepted fact of the military logistics operation in Afghanistan that the US government funds the very forces American troops are fighting. And it is a deadly irony, because these funds add up to a huge amount of money for the Taliban. “It’s a big part of their income,” one of the top Afghan government security officials told The Nation in an interview. In fact, US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10 percent of the Pentagon’s logistics contracts–hundreds of millions of dollars–consists of payments to insurgents.
Understanding how this situation came to pass requires untangling two threads. The first is the insider dealing that determines who wins and who loses in Afghan business, and the second is the troubling mechanism by which “private security” ensures that the US supply convoys traveling these ancient trade routes aren’t ambushed by insurgents.
A good place to pick up the first thread is with a small firm awarded a US military logistics contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars: NCL Holdings. Like the Popals’ Watan Risk, NCL is a licensed security company in Afghanistan. [...]
As a military official in Kabul explained contracting in Afghanistan overall, “We understand that across the board 10 percent to 20 percent goes to the insurgents. My intel guy would say it is closer to 10 percent. Generally it is happening in logistics.” [more]
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
November 16, 2009
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — President Asif Ali Zardari, who entered office 14 months ago on a wave of post-dictatorship goodwill and sympathy for his slain wife, Benazir Bhutto, now faces growing public anger and disillusionment over his remote presidency. Some critics are urging him to step down, and others predict he will be forced from office within months.
In interviews, opinion articles and talk shows, a diverse range of people are denouncing Zardari as a corrupt and indifferent ruler. They accuse him of living in posh isolation while his country battles Islamist extremists, energy and food shortages, and a host of other problems.
Army officials, although considered unlikely to stage a coup, have made no secret of their unhappiness over Zardari’s compliant relationship with Washington. The United States is allied with Pakistan in the war against extremists, but army leaders here remain wary of U.S. ties with India, and they were infuriated by the controls on military spending included in a recent American aid package for Pakistan.
Poor and working-class Pakistanis, meanwhile, blame the government for protracted shortages of gas, electricity and staple foods. They also feel increasingly unprotected, as suicide bombings have killed more than 350 people in two months.
“There is a sense that the government is adrift and rudderless at a time the nation needs strong leadership,” said S. Rifaat Hussain, a professor at Quaid-i-Azam University, adding that Zardari is widely seen as using his power for personal benefit. “He has alienated the best people and filled his cabinet with those who sit around waiting for orders. There is huge disillusionment.”
Zardari’s deepening unpopularity has put Washington in a bind because of its avowed commitment to bolstering democratic politics in Pakistan after a decade of military rule. If he is forced from power, either on old corruption charges or through a collapse of the ruling coalition, analysts said, Washington might have to deal with new leaders who are less friendly and no better able to solve Pakistan’s problems.
Zardari rarely gives long interviews or unscripted speeches, but aides insist he is not the man his critics portray. They describe him as hardworking, tough-minded and bursting with ideas for improving the economy. They say he is not corrupt, and attribute such accusations to a mix of political rivalry and the country’s sensationalistic TV talk-show culture.
“The president lives in a glass house, and he knows his responsibilities to the country. I can assure you there is no wheeling and dealing going on,” said Fauzia Wahab, a legislator and spokeswoman for the ruling Pakistan People’s Party. “People keep bringing up old cases, but it is just to humiliate and ridicule him. To be negative is fashionable.”
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said in an interview Saturday that Zardari is the victim of certain political groups, including right-wing religious parties, “conspiring against democracy.” Malik added: “The president is progressive and determined to pursue the war on terror. Some groups don’t like that.”
Legally, the issue most likely to bring Zardari down is corruption. A businessman known as “Mr. Ten Percent” when his late wife was prime minister in the 1990s, he was accused of orchestrating kickback schemes and spent nearly eight years in prison on various charges, although he was never convicted of a crime.
Last week, charges resurfaced from a 1994 case in which Pakistani naval officials allegedly took huge commissions in the sale of three French submarines. A French newspaper reported that Zardari was also paid more than $3 million and may have been complicit in the killings of 11 French maritime engineers in Karachi in 2002. Pakistani officials denied the charges, noting that he was in prison at the time.
For the moment at least, Zardari cannot be prosecuted on any past charges — an immunity he gained under a provisional constitutional change decreed by his predecessor, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, before leaving office. But parliament unexpectedly did not give the decree final approval last month, and it is due to expire Nov. 28.
After that date, the Supreme Court, led by the iconoclastic chief justice whose reinstatement Zardari fought to prevent, could declare his election illegal and reopen cases against him and some of his aides. Even though he will probably not be sent back to prison, the specter of prosecution could deal Zardari a fatal political blow, leaving leaders scrambling to form a new government in the middle of a war against terrorism.
“It is clear the cases will be reopened eventually, but corruption is not the real issue,” said Athar Minallah, a lawyer and former aide to Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry. “The president should never be removed illegally, but if we are to build a stable Pakistan, we need to reestablish the rule of law and the constitution.”
The other major strike against Zardari is the public perception that he is too close to the United States. [more]
Tunku Varadarajan, a clinical professor (akin to a lecturer hired because of professional, not academic experience) at NYU’s Stern Business School and a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, is executive editor for opinions at Forbes. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree. He writes a weekly column for Forbes
Forbes.com
Tunku Varadarajan, 11.09.09, 12:00 AM ET
”Going postal” is a piquant American phrase that describes the phenomenon of violent rage in which a worker–archetypically a postal worker–”snaps” and guns down his colleagues.
As the enormity of the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan sinks in, we must ask whether we are confronting a new phenomenon of violent rage, one we might dub–disconcertingly–”Going Muslim.” This phrase would describe the turn of events where a seemingly integrated Muslim-American–a friendly donut vendor in New York, say, or an officer in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood–discards his apparent integration into American society and elects to vindicate his religion in an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans. This would appear to be what happened in the case of Maj. Hasan. [...]
This being America, we will insist on going a long way to preserve the appearance of equality, and that is no bad thing in terms of moral principle. But like all values, the appearance of equality is not infinite in its appeal–especially if it flies in the face of common sense and self-preservation. A short time after the shootings at Fort Hood, President Obama asked us not to jump to conclusions. To many Americans, this was a grating request, of a piece with the political correctness that was responsible–it has emerged–for the hands-off treatment by the Army of Maj. Hasan. How else could he have been left in the position of treating U.S. troops, given the stories we’ve now heard about his incendiary statements and apparent incompetence? [...]
This is part of a larger–and too-hot-to-touch–American problem, which is the privileging of religion, and its frequent exemption from rules of normal discourse. Muslims may be more extreme because their religion is founded on bellicose conquest, a contempt for infidels and an obligation for piety that is more extensive than in other schemes. President Obama was as craven as a community college diversity vice-president when he said that no one should jump to conclusions. Everyone did, and he lost credibility with people who cannot stand civic piety in the face of the murderous kind.
Muslims are the most difficult “incomers” in the ongoing integration challenge, which America has always handled with pride–and a kind of swagger. [more]
“It is the proper role of national religious and political leaders to challenge those who promote hatred and intolerance,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. “Extremists who seek to exploit the Fort Hood tragedy are doing a disservice to our nation and to the values of justice and inclusion on which it is based.”
Awad cited a number of statements by anti-Muslim extremists seeking to exploit the Fort Hood attack to generate hostility to Islam and to marginalize American Muslims.
Tunku Varadarajan, a professor at NYU’s Stern Business School suggested that the term “going postal” be changed to “going Muslim.”
SEE: ‘Going Muslim’ (Forbes)
Television evangelist Pat Robertson said Muslims should be treated as communists or fascists. Robertson told his “700 Club” audience: “Islam is a violent — I was going to say religion — but it’s not a religion. It’s a political system. It’s a violent political system bent on the overthrow of governments of the world and world domination…I think you should treat it as such and treat its adherents as such. As we would members of the Communist party and members of some Fascist group.”
SEE: Robertson on Islam (Washington Post)
Dave Gaubatz, author of a Muslim-bashing book, called for a “backlash” against American Muslims. Gaubatz wrote on a right-wing Web site: “Now is the time for a professional and legal backlash against the Muslim community and their leaders.”
SEE: Call for Backlash Against Muslims Embarrasses Even Right-Wing Think Tank
Widely-syndicated conservative columnist Cal Thomas said the Fort Hood shooter’s “preference for Muslim clothing” should have alerted authorities “that he might be a time bomb waiting to go off.”
SEE: Thomas: Jihadists in the Military
The American Family Association has called for a ban on Muslims in the military. In an article titled “No More Muslims in the U.S. Military,” the group’s Director of Issues Analysis Bryan Fischer wrote: “It is time, I suggest, to stop the practice of allowing Muslims to serve in the U.S. military. The reason is simple: the more devout a Muslim is, the more of a threat he is to national security.”
SEE: Conservative Christian Group Calls for Ban on Muslims in Military
Oklahoma writer Timothy Rollins echoed the call to exclude all Muslims from the military. He wrote: “What [the Fort Hood] attack does is further strengthen the case for the honorable discharge of all Muslims from the United States Armed Forces, regardless of the degree to which they may adhere to their faith.”
SEE: Oklahoma Writer Calls For Ban of Muslims in Military
The First Officers to Respond to the Shooting – Sgts. Kimberly Munley and Mark Todd – are interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. Were it not for these brave heroes, the massacre at Fort Hood would have been much worse. Thank you.
Part 1 of 2:
Part 2 of 2:
Heroes were at every turn during Fort Hood shootings
By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News
choppe@dallasnews.com
FORT HOOD, Texas – From the first frantic 911 call that a shooter was rampaging through the Soldier Readiness Center on this sprawling Army base, it took police officer Kimberly Munley just four minutes to get there.
Munley heard shots and saw a rush of scared people, some wounded by gunfire, scrambling to get away.
Figuring that the shooter must be between buildings for medical and psychiatric services, she rounded the corner and saw him chasing after an already-wounded soldier. She fired twice.
“He turned to her and charged, firing rapidly. She returned fire and fell to the ground to help protect herself,” said Chuck Medley, director of Fort Hood’s emergency services.
Munley and the gunman hit each other simultaneously; she took shots in both legs and the wrist. Altogether, she fired four shots into his torso with her Beretta 9mm, dropping him to the ground and ending the worst mass shooting a U.S. military base has ever seen.
“She eliminated the threat. She did what she was trained to do,” Medley said. “She, in my mind, saved countless lives.”
Later, a military official said a second civilian officer, Mark Todd, also engaged the gunman.
Medley, who talked with Munley early Friday as she recovered, rightly identified the civilian officer as a hero. [more]
Note from Rafik Beekun: Please send a note of thanks to the 36 U.S. House Representatives who bravely rejected our country’s rejection of the Goldstone Report. This report found Israel to have performed the majority of the war crimes on civilians during its invasion of Gaza at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009. It is unfortunate that both President Obama and Secretary Clinton have also opposed the Goldstone report.
ADC Thanks 36 House Representatives who Opposed H.RES 867
Washington, D.C. | November 4, 2009 | Yesterday, the US House of Representatives voted 344-36 in support of the remarkably biased H. Res. 867 which called on the President and the Secretary of State to unequivocally oppose any endorsement of the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. During the debate on the House floor, it became increasingly clear that the Members of Congress who voted for H. Res. 867 had not read the report, and instead were relying on inaccuracies and deeply flawed arguments made around the Report. By passing this resolution, Congress sent a message yesterday that it does not stand for the accountability of war crimes committed in Gaza, the protection of civilians, and/or the restoration for peace.
Though the vote was very one-sided, 36 Members of Congress – 33 Democrats and 3 Republicans- courageously voted to oppose H. Res. 867, and correctly pointed out that the opportunity of holding a hearing on the Report did not even exist, and that such resolution does nothing to promote peace and accountability. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) urges you to recognize and thank these 36 US House Representatives for exhibiting real leadership by contacting them TODAY. Please see below for the list.
Arizona: AZ-4: Edward Pastor (D), AZ-7: Raul Grijalva (D)
Arkansas: AR-2: Victor Snyder (D)
California: CA-6: Lynn Woolsey (D), CA-7: George Miller (D), CA-9: Lee Barbara (D), CA-13: Fortney Stark (D), CA-23: Lois Capps (D), CA-35: Maxine Waters (D), CA-51 Bob Filner (D)
Indiana: IN-7: Andre Carson (D)
Kentucky: KY-4: Davis Geoff (R)
Louisiana: LA-7: Charles Boustany (R)
Maryland: MD-4: Donna Edwards (D)
Massachusetts: MA-1: John Olver (D), MA-3: James McGovern (D), MA-9: Lynch Stephen (D)
Michigan: MI-13: Carolyn Kilpatrick (D), MI-15: John Dingell (D)
Minnesota: MN-4: Betty McCollum (D), MN-5: Keith Ellison (D)
Missouri: MO-1: William Clay (D)
New York: NY-11: Yvette Clarke (D), NY-22: Maurice Hinchey (D)
North Carolina: NC-4: David Price (D), NC-12 Melvin Watt (D)
Ohio: OH-10: Dennis Kucinich (D)
Oregon: OR-3 Earl Blumenauer (D)
Texas: TX-14: Ronald Paul (R), TX-25 Lloyd Doggett (D), TX-30 Eddie Johnson (D)
Virginia: VA-8: James Moran
Washington: WA-3: Brian Baird (D), WA-7: James McDermott (D)
October 29, 2009 “New American” — The National Security Agency is building huge new storage facilities to store the unconstitutionally gained data on the American people’s telephone calls and Internet traffic permanently, including new buildings in suburban Salt Lake City, Utah, and San Antonio, Texas.
The NSA has been keeping permanent records of all American’s telephone call habits and Internet traffic since shortly after September 11, 2001, according to major news reports, without the constitutionally required warrants from a court.
No longer able to store all the intercepted phone calls and e-mail in its Ft. Meade, Maryland, headquarters, the NSA is engaging in its own housing boom. How much data will these giant, multibillion dollar new facilities hold? According to James Bamford of the New York Review of Books, the facility in Utah alone could hold data that will be measured in Yottabytes. Never heard of Yottabytes? You’re not alone. Most computers sold at stores still measure their storage at gigabytes, or billions of bits of data. A few store a terrabyte of information, or one trillion bits of information. That’s 1,000,000,000,000 pieces of information. Yottabytes is the highest number that has yet been named in computer information. The number is septillions of billions of bits of data, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits of data.
In his review of Matthew M. Aid’s new book on the NSA, The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency, Bamford noted that the NSA assault on the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment has taken place without public opposition or even public debate. “Unlike the British government, which, to its great credit, allowed public debate on the idea of a central data bank,” Bamford wrote, “the NSA obtained the full cooperation of much of the American telecom industry in utmost secrecy after September 11.” And when the British government held that debate, the people rose up against such a “big brother”-style plan:
When the plans were released by the UK government, there was an immediate outcry from both the press and the public, leading to the scrapping of the “big brother database,” as it was called. In its place, however, the government came up with a new plan. Instead of one vast, centralized database, the telecom companies and Internet service providers would be required to maintain records of all details about people’s phone, e-mail, and Web-browsing habits for a year and to permit the government access to them when asked. That has led again to public anger and to a protest by the London Internet Exchange, which represents more than 330 telecommunications firms.
Not so in America, where economically challenged communities are welcoming the multibillion dollar construction work to create the facilities. Freedom can be traded for temporary prosperity, according to local officials in Utah, as reported by a news segment on KSL, Salt Lake City’s NBC affiliate. [Please click here to read the remainder of the whole article]
When a group of key officials gathered in the spring of 2008 for their monthly meeting in a Bethesda, Md., office, one of the leading — and most perplexing — items on their agenda was: What should we do about Hasan?
Hasan had been a trouble spot on officials’ radar since he started training at Walter Reed, six years earlier. Several officials confirm that supervisors had repeatedly given him poor evaluations and warned him that he was doing substandard work.
Both fellow students and faculty were deeply troubled by Hasan’s behavior — which they variously called disconnected, aloof, paranoid, belligerent, and schizoid. The officials say he antagonized some students and faculty by espousing what they perceived to be extremist Islamic views. His supervisors at Walter Reed had even reprimanded him for telling at least one patient that “Islam can save your soul.”
Participants in the spring meeting and in subsequent conversations about Hasan reportedly included John Bradley, chief of psychiatry at Walter Reed; Robert Ursano, chairman of the Psychiatry Department at USUHS; Charles Engel, assistant chair of the Psychiatry Department and director of Hasan’s psychiatry fellowship; Dr. David Benedek, another assistant chairman of psychiatry at USUHS; psychiatrist Carroll J. Diebold; and Scott Moran, director of the psychiatric residency program at Walter Reed, according to colleagues and other sources who monitor the meetings.
NPR tried to contact all these officials and the public affairs officers at the institutions. They either didn’t return phone calls or said they could not comment.
But psychiatrists and officials who are familiar with the conversations, which continued into the spring of 2009, say they took a remarkable turn: Is it possible, some mused, that Hasan was mentally unstable and unfit to be an Army psychiatrist? [more].
Oklahoma Muslims Condemn Unequivocally Fort Hood Attack
Fort Hood (Texas) Muslims Condemn The Deadly Rampage
Rachel Maddow says Right-Wing Wrong on Fort Hood Attack
Muslims Condemn Shootings, Urge Calm and Unity
Cair Rep Discusses Fort Hood Attack on PBS ‘Newshour’
South Florida Muslims Pray Fr Peace
Muslims Worry About Backlash
N. Texas Muslims Fear Fort Hood Shooting Backlash
Connecticut Muslims Denounce Violence at Fort Hood
Austin Texas Muslims Reject Fort Hood Violence
Please disregard the comments inserted in red on this video. These were inserted by the person who posted this video, but the video clip speaks for itself
Muslims in many parts of Switzerland have invited the public into mosques – three weeks before a vote on whether to ban the construction of minarets.
Muslim organisations say they hope their open day will counter what they say are fears and prejudices.
The conservative group that initiated the vote – the largest party in the Swiss parliament – says minarets are a symbol of Muslim political power.
Opinion polls suggest the proposed ban will be rejected by voters. [...]
The open day was held on Saturday in 12 cantons, including Geneva, Vaud and Freiburg. [...] The BBC’s Imogen Foulkes, who visited a mosque in Zurich, says the many non-Muslims who came enjoyed themselves.
[more[
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — Assistant Sub Inspector Anwar Ali starts his day with a prayer. He needs all the help he can get.
Anwar is a police officer — part of Pakistan’s increasingly vulnerable “thin blue line.” Pakistan’s men in blue are a police force under siege.
When he sets out for work on a small motorcycle, his family watches from the terrace of his small, three-bedroom apartment, praying he will come back in one piece.
“My family doesn’t go to sleep until I return home from being on duty,” Anwar says.
Militants have attacked the Pakistani police with car bombs and suicide bombs more than 300 times in the past three years, said Sajid Kiani, superintendent of police in Islamabad. The Islamabad police have been particularly hard hit.
“During the last two and a half years we had around 41 martyrs who laid [down] their lives in different attacks and more than 40 were injured,” Kiani said, listing the casualty statistics for Islamabad’s police force.
Anwar knows the risks all too well.
Last summer he almost died when a suicide bomb was detonated in Islamabad’s Rescue 15 police station, the compound where police units deploy on emergency calls coming from the public.
“I was taking off my uniform to unwind because my shift had just ended,” Anwar recalls. “Suddenly there was a blast. Two of my comrades died and I was wounded and taken to the hospital. I woke up three days later in the intensive care ward.”
NEWS TIP: MUSLIM-AMERICAN VALUES NOT REFLECTED IN FORT HOOD SHOOTING, DUKE EXPERT SAYS
Note to editors: Jen’nan Read can be reached for additional comment until 7 p.m. Friday at (949) 266-4249.
Thursday’s deadly shooting at Fort Hood in Texas “should not be viewed as reflective of the Muslim-American population, nor do these actions represent Muslim-American values,” says a Duke University sociologist who studies the political integration and activity of U.S. Muslims.
The accused gunman has been identified as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim American from the Washington, D.C., area. Jen’nan Read, an associate professor of sociology and global health at Duke, says she cannot speculate what led the gunman to open fire on Thursday.
“But I am not surprised that leaders of the Muslim-American community are horrified and saddened by what happened. That’s because Muslim-Americans have similar values and beliefs as other Americans,” said Read, the author of “Culture, Class and Work Among Arab-American Women” (LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2004).
A Carnegie scholar studying the economic, political and cultural integration of Muslim and Arab Americans, Read says Muslims Americans are highly diverse and politically integrated, and in step with the rest of the American public on today’s most divisive political issues.
Read finds the majority of both Muslim Americans and the general public oppose gay marriage and favor increased federal funding for the needy. According to her research, Muslim Americans are slightly more conservative than the American public with regard to abortion and are generally “diverse, well-integrated, and largely mainstream in their attitudes, values and behaviors.”
Read says Muslim Americans are not uniformly religious and devout. Like Christians, Jews and members of other faith groups, Muslims represent widely varying levels of religious devotion, mosque attendance and frequency of regular prayer.
On average, Muslim Americans tend to be highly educated, politically conscious and fluent in English. On average, this group shares similar socio-economic characteristics with the general U.S. population in terms of education, income and employment: one-fourth has a bachelor’s degree or higher; one-fourth lives in households of $75,000 or more; the majority are employed.
Yet, despite the similarities between Muslim Americans and the general public, “we can’t deny that the Muslim-American experience, particularly since 9/11, has been ‘exceptional’ in a country marked by a declining salience of religious boundaries and increasing acceptance of religious difference,” Read said. “Muslim Americans have been largely excluded from this ecumenical trend.”
_ _ _ _
Note to broadcast editors: Duke provides an on-campus satellite uplink facility for live or pre-recorded television interviews. We are also equipped with ISDN connectivity for radio interviews. Broadcast reporters should contact Scott Wells at (919) 660-1741 or James Todd at (919) 681-8061 to arrange an interview before 7 p.m. Friday. Previous video of Read can be viewed at http://news.duke.edu/2009/09/read.html
Washington (CNN) — Ibrahim Hooper knows the drill.
When news first broke Thursday that a shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, killed and injured U.S. soldiers, the national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations wrote a statement of condemnation.
He only sent it out later, when reports emerged that the alleged shooter’s name was Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.
“As soon as we saw what appeared to be a Muslim name, we issued our statement,” Hooper said. “Until that time, we were praying that no Muslim would be involved.”
That’s the reality of crisis management for the Muslim-American community, said Hooper, who handles communications for the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group.
Even without confirmation that the alleged gunman was Muslim — there was no immediate determination of any religious affiliation for Hasan — the mere reporting of a possible Muslim name required an immediate comment, he said.
“That’s unfortunately the world we live in nowadays,” Hooper said. “So often, Muslims are accused of not condemning these kind of acts.”
The CAIR statement said: “No political or religious ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence. The attack was particularly heinous in that it targeted the all-volunteer Army that protects our nation. American Muslims stand with our fellow citizens in offering both prayers for the victims and sincere condolences to the families of those killed or injured.”
In a separate statement, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, based in Los Angeles, California, condemned what it called the “heinous incident.”
“We are in contact with law enforcement and U.S. federal government officials to gain more facts from this tragic incident and work together in dealing with its aftermath,” the group said. [more]
U.S. Muslims Condemn Attack at Fort Hood
CAIR
Posted 11/5/2009 6:15:00 PM
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 11/5/09) – A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy group tonight condemned an attack on Fort Hood military base in Texas that left at least 12 people dead.
In a statement, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said:
“We condemn this cowardly attack in the strongest terms possible and ask that the perpetrators be punished to the full extent of the law. No religious or political ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence. The attack was particularly heinous in that it targeted the all-volunteer army that protects our nation. American Muslims stand with our fellow citizens in offering both prayers for the victims and sincere condolences to the families of those killed or injured.”
Along with innumerable condemnations of terror, CAIR has in the past launched an online anti-terror petition drive called “Not in the Name of Islam,” initiated a television public service announcement (PSA) campaign against religious extremism and coordinated a “fatwa,” or Islamic religious ruling, against terrorism and extremism.
(Washington, DC, Nov. 5, 2009) The Islamic Society of North America condemns in the strongest terms the attack on soldiers at Fort Hood, resulting in the murder of at least a dozen soldiers and the wounding of many others. We express our deepest condolences to the victims and their families.
Although many details of the shooting are unknown at this time, it appears that the attack was led by a career soldier, Major Nidal Malik Hasan. The soldier who led this attack was either mentally unstable, or was motivated by a perverted ideology for which there can be no justification.
ISNA is proud of the many Muslim men and women who serve loyally in the United States military. We are grateful for the sacrifices made by all US soldiers, who represent the religious, racial and ethnic diversity of America, to defend the Constitution and our national security. ISNA, a faith endorser of US Muslim military chaplains, is proud of the service they provide, offering comfort and support to people of all faiths and beliefs. Just today, ISNA’s chaplain endorser, Dr. Louay Safi, conducted a workshop at the US army base in Fort Bliss, Texas.
ISNA will be holding a press conference with national Muslim leaders to address this incident tomorrow morning. Time and location will be announced later tonight.
For more information, please contact
Imam Mohamed Hagmagid Ali, Vice President of ISNA at: 571-437-4734 or 571-437-9566 or,
Dr. Louay Safi, ISNA’s Director of Communications and Leadership Development and chaplain endorser at: 317-679-6350.
MSA Condemns Tragic Shooting at Fort Hood
Nov. 6, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MSA NATIONAL VEHEMENTLY CONDEMNS TRAGIC SHOOTING AT FORT HOOD, TX
November 6, 2009 – Washington, DC- Yesterday, a tragic act of violence at Fort Hood, Texas, left nearly a dozen men and women dead, and dozens more wounded. MSA National vehemently condemns this senseless act, and extends its deepest sympathies to the families and friends of those who have lost their lives or were wounded.
Whether this tragedy is the result of mental instability, or a wanton act of violence, remains unknown. Regardless, the need for open dialogue within all American communities is imminent. Just as many Muslim Student Associations across the United States have engaged in forward-thinking, positive, and productive “Peace…not Prejudice” campaigns this month, we encourage all universities to take the time to host two-part “Campus Conversations”, starting with frank and open discussions, in which participants will express their deepest and most sincere thoughts regarding this and other tragedies worldwide. These dialogues should then be followed by solution-based conversations that shall seek to establish reasonable steps toward respect and understanding, tragedy prevention, and a lasting peace within all American communities, that can emanate worldwide.
We also urge our university communities, as well as America’s Muslim communities in general, to dedicate next week’s traditional Friday prayer to the condemnation of this wanton violence within the teachings of Islam.
While nothing will bring back the lives of those who have been lost, we recognize that a peaceful national dialogue will serve as a blockade to any individual who wishes to do harm unto others, as well as a sincere teaching moment for all.
-END-CONTACT: Ms. Asma Rehman, MSA National Political Action task Force Chair, 703-820-7900 Email:patfchair@msanational.org
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The Muslims Students Association (MSA) National is the largest Muslim Students group in the United States and Canada. Its mission is to serve the individual Muslim student as well as the chapter through sponsorship of educational programs, through offering students chances to learn, network and grow at zonal and annual conferences, as well as through management training programs. As a broad platform for students from all backgrounds, MSA National works with all organizations whose agenda includes a special focus on students and issues of concern to them during their college career.
MANA Condemns Fort Hood Shooting
Lexington, KY (11/06/09) – The Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA) is saddened by the Fort Hood incident in which 13 people were killed and others injured. We extend our condolences to the families who were impacted by this tragedy and we join other Muslim groups to condemn the unconscionable violence that took place.
The act committed at Fort Hood was a criminal act and should not be associated with the religion of Islam, nor should it serve as another excuse for the castigation or demonization of Islam and Muslims. Islam does not condone such killings. We pray for justice. It is disheartening and perplexing that a psychiatrist who was trained to provide counseling to troubled soldiers was himself very troubled. Perhaps this is yet another indication of the far-reaching tragedy of war and the horrific toll it takes on the lives of all who are affected by it.
In a recent statement, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, “the protracted military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq – and the repeated deployments of much of America’s ground forces – have brought a new focus to the signature wounds of these wars and on the psychological health of the force and their families.”
For the Fort Hood families, we mourn their losses and the loss of many innocent lives lost at home and abroad.
The US House of Representatives has rejected as “irredeemably biased” the findings of a UN-sponsored report which says Israel committed war crimes during its military assault on the Gaza Strip.
The house on Tuesday voted 344 to 36 in favour of a non-binding resolution calling on Barack Obama, the US president, to maintain his opposition to the report, which was written by a panel led by Richard Goldstone, a South African judge.
The report accused Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group, which has de facto control of Gaza, of war crimes during the 22-day conflict in December and January.
But most of its criticism was directed towards Israel’s conduct during the offensive, in which human rights organisations say about 1,400 Palestinians – many of them women and children – were killed.
Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were also killed over the course of the war, Israel has said.
Steny Hoyer, the Democrat House majority leader, said it was important to adopt an official resolution against the Goldstone report as it “paints a distorted picture”.
It “epitomizes the practice of singling Israel out from all other nations for condemnation,” he said on Tuesday.
UN assembly pressure
The US house vote came a day before the United Nations General Assembly is expected to debate its own resolution endorsing the findings of the Goldstone report.
Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey, reporting from the UN in New York, said that while the majority of the assembly’s member nations were expected to vote in favour of the resolution, the US vote on Tuesday, although non-binding, was likely to dampen its impact
Some of the most influential Muslim scholars in India have passed a resolution condemning all forms of violence in the name of Islam.
The Deoband is an influential Islamic school inspiring tens of thousands of religious study centres across the world, which some say has even inspired the Taliban’s ideology in Afghanistan.
Prerna Suri reports on the weight of the school’s declaration.
To those who critically analyze world news coverage, it is clear that the mainstream media often reports just one side of world issues. The Palestine-Israel conflict is no exception, as footage of attacks on innocent Israelis is shown repeatedly, yet the coverage of attacks on Palestinian civilians often misses the news. Anna Baltzer, a Jewish American woman, presents a first-hand look at the true condition of Palestine, and provides key insight into daily life under occupation from her own experiences in the territory.
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Anna Baltzer is a 29-year-old Jewish American Columbia graduate, Fulbright scholar and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. She is a three-time volunteer with the International Womens Peace Service, where she documented human rights abuses in the West Bank and supported the nonviolent movement against the Occupation. She has spent most of the past few years in Palestine or on tour with her book, Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories, and her acclaimed presentation, Life in Occupied Palestine: Eyewitness Stories & Photos
"That which is on earth We have made but as a glittering show for the earth, in order that We may test them--as to which of them are best in conduct." (The Qur'an, Al Kahf, 18: 7)
"O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily the
most honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things)." (The Qur'an, Al Hujurat, 49: 13)
"Those who believe (in the Qur'an) and those who follow the Jewish (Scriptures) and the Christians and the Sabians and who believe in Allah and the last day and work righteousness shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear nor shall they grieve." (The Qur'an, Al Baqarah, 2: 62)
"[If] anyone slays a human being-unless it be [in punishment] for murder or for spreading corruption on earth-it shall be as though he had slain all mankind; whereas, if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind. [...] (The Qur'an, Al-Ma'idah, 5: 32)
"Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah hears and knows all things."The Qur'an, Al-Baqara, 2: 256)
Do you think you shall enter Paradise without suffering such (trials) as came to those who passed away before you? They encountered suffering and adversity and were so shaken in spirit that even the Apostle and those of faith who were with him cried: "When (will come) the help of God?" Ah! Verily the help of God is (always) near! The Quran, Al Baqara, 2:214
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