Karen Armstrong on the Cordoba House Initiative
August 26th, 2010 § 1 Comment
Former Catholic nun, academic and religious expert Karen Armstrong comments on the manufactured controversy surrounding the Cordoba House Initiative. Armstrong is the author of A History of God and several other books on the world’s most practiced religions.
The ‘real agenda’ of the BBC’s Jane Corbin, who calls herself a ‘Journalist’
August 26th, 2010 § 6 Comments
Pro-Palestinian activists from Turkey, wearing life jackets, hold a news conference on board the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara as they sail in the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea. (Reuters)
by Abbas Al Lawati
On August 19, the Israeli consulate in New York tweeted: #BBC “Panorama” presents arguably the most complete & thorough account of the #Flotilla.
The documentary has not received much endorsement elsewhere. Instead there have been loud protests of bias, especially among those aboard the Mavi Marmara, the largest vessel in the Gaza-bound aid flotilla that Israeli commandos raided on May 31, killing nine activists.
Recently aired, the Panorama documentary, entitled Death in the Med, was produced by the BBC’s veteran documentary maker Jane Corbin. It claims to investigate the “real agenda” of “those who call themselves peace activists”.
A close analysis of the documentary reveals a troubling lack of objectivity in trying to paint the activists, headed by the Turkish relief organisation IHH, as radical Islamists bent on waging violent jihad.
Gideon Levy on Middle East peace
August 25th, 2010 § 2 Comments
Riz Khan speaks to the great Gideon Levy of Ha’aretz about the ‘peace talks’ that are set to resume between Israelis and Palestinians in Washington.
On why Liberal Defenders of the ‘Mosque’ Get it Wrong
August 24th, 2010 § 5 Comments
This article below is also published in Religion Dispatches. A version of it can also be found on AlterNet – Aisha Ghani
Let me begin by stating what this article will not be doing: it will not be addressing the racist – but also vapid and unimaginative – bigotry coming from far right circles in the ‘mosque’ debate. Rather than attempting to deconstruct that ultimately banal rhetoric, I will focus on an issue that remains largely unaddressed: the troublesome terms and conditions upon which “Park51” has emerged a ‘defensible’ endeavor within — not conservative — but ‘liberal’ discourse.
In the past weeks, we have seen how liberal defenders have responded to the ‘fear and trembling’ that the mere idea of a mosque induces, through a series of disavowals. Instead of challenging the racist assumptions that buttress such rhetoric, many liberals have decided to offer ‘clarifications’. Time and again, the public is being reminded of the fact that Park51 is not a mosque but an Islamic community center that promotes ‘inter-faith’ dialogue.
Daisy Khan and Imam Rauf, the leading figures behind the Park51 initiative, have not only repeated this mantra, but have in fact produced it. When liberal defenders have wittingly or unwittingly referred to Park51 as a mosque, the response from folks at the Cordoba Initiative has been gratitude in the form of this corrective: thank you for your support, but Park51 is not a mosque.
The annual Muslim debate in Italy
August 24th, 2010 § 2 Comments
Puglia, south Italy, where Muslims are under the impression that land without people is up for grabs by people without land. (Photo: Belén Fernández)
I cannot recall a visit to my friend’s home in Puglia, southern Italy, in which the Muslim invasion of Europe has not surfaced as a discussion topic. It often initiates when one or more of my friend’s relatives discovers that I have just been to Turkey or Lebanon, for example, and remarks on my good fortune as a female to have avoided being stoned to death.
This year’s discussion started out as an innocent rant by my friend’s cousin against the concomitant invasion of Italy by Romanian criminals, who were said to make Albanian immigrants look well-behaved and who along with the euro constituted proof of the heinous nature of the European Union. A comment on the need to backtrack on a Europe without borders then led to the cousin’s observation that fortified Italian frontiers would additionally prevent Muslims from faking qualifications for asylum in order to continue the quest to absorb Italy into an Islamic caliphate. As for faked qualifications, it was now decided that stoning was not overly oppressive.
On Vaïsse’s ‘Neoconservatism’ and Taboo
August 24th, 2010 § 3 Comments
Review of Justin Vaïsse, Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010), 366 p.
by Stephen J. Sniegoski
The mainstream media acclaim Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement as the best book on neoconservatism—the definitive account—and portray its author, Justin Vaïsse, a French specialist on American foreign policy and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, as a veritable Alexis de Tocqueville for his masterly insights. The mainstream’s high praise of this book, however, would seem to be due in large part to its minimization of two taboo issues—neoconservatism’s Jewish nature and its focus on Israel. Where the book breaks through what was heretofore largely blacked-out in the mainstream media is its discussion of the major role played by the neoconservatives in bringing about the war on Iraq.
The black-out had essentially placed the entire idea that the neoconservatives played a central role in bringing about the US attack on Iraq in 2003 beyond the pale of public discussion. In its most extreme form, this approach denied the very existence of neoconservatives. More moderate variants accepted the neocons’ existence but denied their influence on US policy. Instead the war on Iraq was alleged to have been essentially planned by President George W. Bush and/or Dick Cheney; or, for the anti-war Left, the war was brought on by the greedy oil interests or by unnamed nebulous corporatists (presumably gentile). Even to dwell on the neoconservatives could be taken as a sign of being “anti-Semitic.”
There are no heroes in illegal and immoral wars
August 24th, 2010 § 2 Comments
by Robert Jensen
"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."
When the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division rolled out of Iraq last week, the colonel commanding the brigade told a reporter that his soldiers were “leaving as heroes.”
While we can understand the pride of professional soldiers and the emotion behind that statement, it’s time for Americans — military and civilian — to face a difficult reality: In seven years of the deceptively named “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and nine years of “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan, no member of the U.S. has been a hero.
This is not an attack on soldiers, sailors, and Marines. Military personnel may act heroically in specific situations, showing courage and compassion, but for them to be heroes in the truest sense they must be engaged in a legal and morally justifiable conflict. That is not the case with the U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq or Afghanistan, and the social pressure on us to use the language of heroism — or risk being labeled callous or traitors — undermines our ability to evaluate the politics and ethics of wars in a historical framework.
US diverts floodwater on town to protect airbase in Pakistan, refuses use for relief operations
August 23rd, 2010 § Leave a Comment
by The Asian Human Rights Commission
PAKISTAN: Minister tasked with saving US airbase at the cost of the displacement of thousands
The presence of Pakistan army personnel speaks to the fact that the breach of Jamali bypass was intentional and ordered from above.
It has been reported earlier that the US Air Force has denied the relief agencies use of the Shahbaz airbase for the distribution of aid and assistance. Soldiers of the Pakistan army, a federal minister and the administration of Sindh province are blamed for the incident involving Shahbaz Airbase at Jacobabad district in Sindh province in which it has been reported that flood waters were diverted in order to save the airbase. The diversion of the floodwaters is blamed for inundating hundreds of houses and the displacement of 800,000 people. According to the media reports, the Federal Minister of Sports along with soldiers from the army and a contingent of officials from the Sindh provincial government breached the Jamali Bypass in Jafferabad district of Balochistan province during the night between August 13 and 14 to divert the water entering the airbase which has remained in US Air Force hands since the war on terror started in 2001.
Children of Migrant Workers Facing Deportation in Israel
August 23rd, 2010 § 2 Comments
Their crime? They’re not Jewish.
Cordoba House Advisers Include Liberal-Zionist Rabbis
August 23rd, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Sometimes there is so much misinformation spread about an issue that the relevant parts get missed — an intended consequence. For all the accusations about religious fundamentalism fueling the Cordoba House initiative — originating from Pamela Geller, her umbrella organizations, and supported by the likes of Anne Bayefsky who claims that it is part of an “Iranian plot” – it’s interesting to note that a Liberal-Zionist Rabbi is acting as an “adviser” to the project.
On Sunday ABC’s Christiane Amanpour interviewed Faisal Abdul Rauf’s wife, Daisy Khan, along with Rabbi Joy Levitt who heads a Jewish Community Center in New York. In 2008 Levitt co-authored an open letter addressed to Christian Friends of Israel (a Jerusalem-based Christian-Zionist organization dedicated to recruiting Eastern European Jews for “resettling” in Palestine/Israel) where she warned about the dangers of supporting Israel along evangelical Christian lines. In the letter Levitt exhibits common Liberal-Zionist positions (support for a two-state solution, opposition to further settlement building) along with other statements revealing more contentious positions.
