malangbaba

The statement that the bootlicking alphabet soup Arab/Muslim organizations should have released...

2011-05-04T13:00:00.000-05:00

The statement House Arabs and House Muslims Never Released about OBL

We are US-based Arab and Muslim organizations. We feel a compelling obligation to explain to our fellow Americans the meaning of the US killing of Osama bin Laden.

We take this opportunity to revisit the inconvenient fact that Osama Bin Laden and the Mujahideen were funded and supported by the US to fight the USSR in Afghanistan in the eighties. We recall that Ronald Reagan had called the Mujahideen “freedom fighters” when their interests coincided with the US’s. We remind ourselves that “Between 1978 and 1992, the US government poured at least US$6 billion (some estimates range as high as $20 billion) worth of arms, training and funds to prop up the mujaheddin factions.”

We note that the Mujahideen aligned themselves with the US, convincing themselves of the “lesser of two evils” argument. We recall that Zbigniew Brzezinski said:

The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.

We learn an important lesson from this history and note that collaboration with the US is an immoral and counterproductive effort. Collaboration does not shield one from US persecution, neither is it a smart “strategy.” Aligning with powerful empires is foolish and self-defeating. The logic of House Muslims (or “House Negroes” as Malcolm X called the collaborators of his era) is short-sighted and idiotic.

We abhor the subtext of President Obamaand Secretary Clinton‘s remarks, implying that the lives of millions of Afghanis, Iraqis and Pakistanis were worth somehow sacrificing in order to locate one ex-”freedom fighter” (as per Reagan’s words). Indeed, the President and Secretary of State did not even pay lip service to the countless lives devastated, weddings bombarded, children orphaned, spouses widowed, natural resources stolen. We condemn the hypocrisy of Secretary Clinton, who feigned concern for “innocent people” who were killed by OBL but not the innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq for whose death she caused as Senator then as Secretary of State, or the innocent people in Palestine and Lebanon whose death by Israeli warplanes she supported. We cannot expect Obama and Clinton to apologize for the war crimes the US committed in pursuit of OBL, as it is not in empires’ nature to condemn themselves.

We are still haunted by the images of our sisters and brothers tortured in Abu Ghraib. The stench of scores of corpses from years of war, occupations and sanctions still fills the air. The emotional trauma of drones still terrorizes children. The dreary, bleak future facing millions of displaced Afghani and Iraqi refugees still shakes our conscience. White phosphorus and depleted uranium’s effects on public health and the environment will last for generations to come. That the US eliminated one of its ex-agents and claimed it was not waging war on Islam while war criminals continue to hold power in Washington and Tel Aviv offers us no relief.

We regret having spent the last decade begging for approval from the US mainstream, inviting US politicians to our conventions, having Ramadan iftars in the White House and embarrassing ourselves in a myriad of other ways. Now that OBL is finally dead, we look forward to freeing up the time we’d spent assuring everyone of our patriotism and swearing on the Qur’an that OBL did not represent us. We will no longer construct our discourse to sooth islamophobes’ racist anxieties. We will spend no more time emphasizing that OBL didn’t represent us than Christians assert that Obama, Clinton, Bush and Blair do not represent Christianity.

Instead, we will work on more urgent matters than pursuing the material comforts of the American dream, such as ending the occupation of Afghanistan, ending the occupation of Iraq, boycotting and dismantling “Israel,” closing Guantanamo, restoring civil liberties, ending US hegemony and racism.

Signed,

American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, Arab American Institute, American Task Force for Palestine, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Islamic Society of North America, Park51

How to gauge progress made in Ramadhan

2010-09-04T22:33:00.002-05:00

Lecture by Br. Afeef Khan on the Role of Imperialism and Capitalism in creating social injustices and economic inequities, and the purpose of the month of Ramadhan (and our individual and collective responsibilities) in guiding humanity to rectify such inequities.

O Friend of the forsaken

2010-09-03T01:48:00.002-05:00

"O Supporter of the unsupported
O Helper of the helpless
O Protector of the unprotected
O Shield for the defenseless
O Hearer of the unheard appeal
O Pride of those without pride
O Honor of the honorless
O Giver of Aid to the unaided
O Friend of the forsaken
O Shelter of the shelterless
Praise be to Thee, there is no god but Thee
Help! Help!
Protect us from the fire, O Lord"

- Dua Al-Jawshan Al-Kabeer (Section 28 of 100)

Khaled Mesh'al on Hamas' policy directions

2010-08-29T09:46:00.001-05:00

An excellent and through interview with Khalid Mesh'al, conducted by the Jordanian newspaper As-Sabeel (Original Arabic interview here in .doc file), and translated by South African based Afro-Middle East Centre. Mesh'al's statements should be noted for their honesty, critical self-reflection, humbleness, lack of empty sloganeering, and commitment to principles over rhetoric or "pragmatism." All these things, and many more should give insight into why such movements like Hamas and Hezbullah are so successful, disciplined, firmly rooted within an indigenous (Islamic) ideology and their peoples, mounting effective resistance, and (even by their own clear statements) bound to lose everything if they compromise on these principles.

Introduction

Since 1996, Khaled Mesh’al has been the Chairman of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) Political Bureau. After the assassination of Hamas leader Abdul ‘Aziz Rantisi in 2004 by Israeli forces, Mesh’al became the movement’s overall leader. He lives in exile in Damascus, from where he oversees the movement’s activities both within Palestine and outside.

The most recent interview with Mesh’al was conducted by the Jordanian Arabic-language Al-Sabeel newspaper in July 2010. In it, Mesh’al laid out the policy direction of Hamas on a number of critical issues: negotiations with Israel, recognition of Israel, resistance, Jews, Christians, women, among other issues. In the Arab world, the lengthy interview is being viewed as highly significant, and is regarded as a clear indication of positions that Hamas wants to pursue, especially with regard to its future attitude towards Israel. The Afro-Middle East Centre (AMEC) translated the interview into English and publishes it here to make it accessible to a wider audience, and to allow for greater understanding of the political and other perspectives of a movement which has become one of the most important role-players in the Middle East today. It is an important piece articulating, in its own words, the perspectives of Hamas’ leadership, and is critical reading for observers of the Middle East, and policy-makers for whom the Middle East is important.

On negotiations

Do you reject, in principle, negotiations with the enemy? If negotiations cannot be conducted with the enemy, is it possible to do so with a friend? Does Hamas reject the principle of negotiations outright, or do you reject its form, conduct and results?

This is definitely a thorny and sensitive issue. Many people prefer to avoid any discussion of it, and tend not to take any clear position on it for fear of negative reactions or misinterpretations. The sensitive and critical nature of this issue is compounded by the dark shadows that are cast as a result of the bitter experiences of Palestinian-Israeli and Arab-Israeli negotiations. People are influenced by these experiences, and are extremely sensitive towards the idea of “negotiations”, particularly with regard to the collective mind and mood of the nation. There is now, in many quarters, loathing for and aversion to the concept of negotiations. This is quite understandable and natural, but this does not preclude us tackling the issue thoroughly, and sorting through matters carefully, so as to set every detail into context, God willing.

It is indisputable that negotiating with the enemy is not rejected, either legally or rationally; indeed, there are some stages during a conflict among enemies when negotiations are required and become necessary. Both from a rational perspective and from legal logic, it is true that negotiations as a means and a tool may be acceptable and legitimate at certain points in time, and rejected and prohibited at other times; that is, it is not rejected in itself nor is it rejected all the time.

In Islamic history, in the era of the Prophet (peace be upon him), and in subsequent ages – at the time of Salahuddin [Saladin], for example – negotiation with the enemy was conducted, but within a clear framework and a specific philosophy, within a context, vision, rules and regulations governing this negotiation. This is in stark contrast to the wretched approach taken by those negotiation professionals who consider it a way of life, and regard it as the sole strategic option in the service of which all other options are ruled out.

If resistance itself, honourable and esteemed as it is, is a means and not an end, does it make sense to make negotiations an end, an only option and a constant approach, rather than being a means and a tactic to fall back on when necessary and when the context requires it?

The concept in the Qur’an is clear, when God Almighty says: “And if they incline to peace, incline (you also to peace), and trust in God.” This implies that negotiation is acceptable, reasonable and logical for us as advocates of a just cause when the enemy is forced to resort to it, when they come to us ready for negotiation and for paying the price, and to respond to our demands. However, if we seek it desperately and consider it our only option, then we will be the ones paying the price. Those who are forced to negotiate are those who usually pay the price. Hence God Almighty says in another verse: “Do not weaken and call for peace when you have the upper hand.”

We go back to the first verse: “And if they incline to peace, incline (you also to peace), and trust in God,” which is preceded by God Almighty’s saying: “Prepare for them what you can of power, including steeds of war to terrify the enemy of God and your enemy.” What does this mean? It means that possessing power and its means is what drives the enemy forcibly towards peace, and that the enemy’s inclination to peace and negotiation is a result of jihad, resistance and the possession of power. Those who consider negotiation without resistance and without any power cards are virtually heading for surrender.

In the science of strategy and conflict management, negotiation is an extension to war, and a form of war management. What you obtain by negotiating at the table is a product of your condition on the ground, and an outcome of the balance of power in the battlefield. If you are vanquished in the battlefield, you will certainly be defeated in the negotiations as well. Just as war requires a balance of power, negotiations and peace each require a balance of power, for peace cannot be made when one party is powerful and the other weak; otherwise, this will be surrender. The United States did not make peace with Japan and Germany after World War II, but, rather, imposed surrender and a pact of compliance and submission on them. In short, peace is made by the powerful and not the weak; negotiations may serve the powerful but not the weak.

The conflict with Israeli occupation is different, as this is a case of a body alien to the region, which came from outside and imposed itself on a land and a people, drove people away from their land, and replaced them with an immigrant diaspora from all over the world. This is, therefore, a complex situation which must be dealt with delicately.

When objective conditions and requirements for negotiation are available, especially the presence of sufficient balance and relative equilibrium; when there is proven need for it at the appropriate time – without hurry or delay – then it could be one of the options we resort to as a mechanism, means and tool, not as an objective or an end, not as a permanent condition or a strategic option. Negotiation is a tactical instrument, and just as war is not a permanent condition and has its requirements and conditions, so too does negotiation.

With this clear view of negotiations, and when it is exercised with great caution and under strict rules at the right time, it will be acceptable and useful in the context of conflict management; otherwise it will lead only to surrender and submission to the enemy’s hegemony and conditions, and will result in the neglect of rights and a continuous decline in the level of demands and political positions.

Unfortunately, the Arab and Palestinian condition regarding this issue is – mostly – very bad; it is a vulnerable position, with no bargaining chips, support, manoeuvre or margin for ambiguity. The Palestinian ranks are fully exposed, so they go to peace declaring it to be their only strategic option. When your enemy is aware that you have no option but to negotiate, and you talk of nothing but peace, and have no other option, what will force them to make concessions to you?

The Palestinian negotiators say: “Negotiation is the option, the course and the only plan.” They coordinate security with the enemy and implement the “Road Map” and its security requirements freely, with Israel offering nothing in return. What is there to force Olmert or Netanyahu to grant the Palestinians anything?

Negotiation in the Palestinian case is out of its objective context; it is, merely from the perspective of political logic, lacking resistance and not based on the necessary power balance. The Vietnamese – for instance – negotiated with the Americans as the latter were retreating. Thus, negotiations were useful for turning the last page on American occupation and aggression. You are successful in negotiations and in imposing your conditions on the enemy depending on the number of power cards you have on the ground.

Hence, for negotiations not to be a risky and onerous process, you need to make clear to the enemy – not only in words, but in deed as well – your message that you are open to all options. The negotiator cannot succeed without basing his position on the multiplicity of options, meaning that, inasmuch as you are ready for negotiations, you are also ready and able to go to war. If negotiations reach a deadlock, you must be prepared to go to war, attrition or resistance; otherwise negotiation will be useless. We must remember that negotiations during the wars of old were often conducted on the battlefield, and the negotiators would either reach a solution, or resume the war. Negotiation is a tool and a tactic in the service of a strategy and is not a strategy in itself; it is not a substitute for a strategy of resistance and confrontation with the occupation.

Negotiation needs to be based on unity at a national level. If one party sees benefit in a certain step towards negotiation, and pursues such a decision alone and without referring to the people, they will be placing themselves in a difficult situation and will grant the enemy an opportunity which it will certainly use against them. This could also cause the negotiators to make significant concessions for fear that they might later be forced to acknowledge the failure of their negotiation option. Thus they prioritise their own interest over the national one in order not to be exposed in front of their people and others.

Negotiation has its specific spaces and domains and is not an absolute option in all matters. There are issues – such as critical constants – that should not be negotiated. Negotiation is a mechanism and a tactic within specific margins and domains; no one in their right mind would negotiate on everything, especially not on the principles. In business, negotiation is often on profits and not on business assets.

Unfortunately, the current experience, especially of the Palestinian negotiations, is that all these rules have been abandoned.

In all honesty and courage I say: negotiation is not absolutely prohibited or forbidden, be it from a legal or political perspective, or in view of the experiences of the nation and humanity, or the practices of the resistance movements and revolutions throughout history. However, it must be subject to equations, regulations, calculations, circumstances, contexts and proper management, for without these it becomes a negative and destructive tool.

Regarding the Palestinian case, we say that negotiation with Israel today is the wrong choice. A proposal was put forward to Hamas directly to negotiate with Israel but we refused. Some from among the Hamas leadership received a proposal to meet with a number of Israeli leaders, some of them in power, such as [Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Shas Party leader] Eli Yishai, and others belonging to the peace camp. Hamas has rejected these offers.

Negotiations today – under the current balance of power – are in the service of the enemy, and do not serve the Palestinian side. The conflict on the ground has not developed in a manner that has forced the Zionist enemy to resort to negotiation; it refuses to this day to withdraw from the land, and does not recognise Palestinian rights. Thus negotiation in such conditions is a fruitless gamble.

In light of our weakness and the imbalance of power, Israel is using negotiations as a tool to improve its relations and polish its image before the international community, and using it to gain time so as to create new facts on the ground through settlement-building, expelling people, the Judaising of Jerusalem, and the demolition of its neighbourhoods. It also uses negotiations as a cover to distract attention from its crimes and to water down Palestinian demands. Israel is exploiting negotiations to normalise its relations with the Arab and Islamic world, to penetrate it, and to distort the nature of the conflict; Israel is the sole beneficiary of the negotiations as they stand.

Negotiation under the existing imbalance of power is a subjugation of the Palestinian side to the requirements, conditions and dictates of the Israeli occupation. This is not an equal process, for just as there is currently no parity in the field of confrontation, there is also no parity around the negotiating table.

On recognising Israel

The issue of recognising the Zionist entity raises much debate. There is also talk of legal recognition in contrast to realistic or pragmatic recognition. What is the position of Hamas on this issue?

Our position regarding the acknowledgement of the occupation’s legality is clear and settled, and we do not hide or conceal it. Recognising Israel has been laid down as a condition for the international community opening up to Hamas, and so this has become an obstacle in our way. But we did not care, and we showed determination to withstand this challenge. Recognition means legitimising the occupation and conferring legitimacy upon Israel’s aggression, settlement, Judaisation, murders, arrests and other crimes and atrocities against our people and our land. This is unacceptable according to international law and human values, not to mention our religion.

It is unacceptable to legitimise occupation and theft of land. Occupation is a crime, theft is a crime, and should not be legitimised under any circumstances. These are uncontroversial concepts in the common human understanding, and so is the conception of the Palestinian victim whose land was usurped. This is an issue tied to our human existence, and it contrasts with recognising the legitimacy of occupation and usurpation, not to mention the patriotic and religious feelings, cultural affiliation and historical presence, which all link us to this land.

Others have fallen into this trap due to their ineffectiveness and submission to external pressures, and they thought that bowing to these conditions and pressures may make it easier for them to advance in their political agenda. However, it was practically demonstrated that they have paid an exorbitant price for an illusion. They were wrong in their logic of interests, and wrong in their logic of principles.

We reject recognition in both legal and pragmatic senses. There is a difference between saying there is an enemy called “Israel” on the one hand, and acknowledging its legitimacy on the other; the former is not really recognition. In short, we refuse to recognise the legitimacy of Israel because we refuse to recognise the legitimacy of occupation and theft of land. For us, this principle is clear and definitive.

Are you not surprised at the Israeli and international insistence on your recognising Israel? Is this not, in some way, a sign of weakness, as Israel sounds like it is questioning its own existence, and demanding that others recognise the legitimacy of this existence?

Without a doubt, the enemy is concerned about the future of its entity, particularly in light of the latest developments. Its psychology is that of a thief and a criminal who ultimately feels like an outlaw lacking legitimacy, no matter how strong he may become. The demand for recognition is certainly a sign of weakness, an expression of an inferiority complex, lack of confidence in the future of this entity, a feeling that it is illegitimate and still rejected by the peoples of the region as alien, and that the mere presence of a steadfast Palestinian people is a practical expression of the rejection of the Zionist entity.

Yet, there is another dimension, which is the feeling of superiority. This is the logic by which Western nations deal with third world countries. The Zionists adopt the same logic based on military supremacy, and feel that they are the party that has the right to dictate terms to others, including dictating preconditions for any negotiations.

Some Palestinian and Arab parties have, unfortunately, responded to this logic. This is unacceptable imbalance. In our dialogues with foreign delegations, we hear them constantly talking about the conditions of the Quartet; some of them introduce revised conditions to make it easier for us to accept them. We refused all conditions on principle, and refused discussing them even in the context of seeking revised formulas. We reject the principle of conditions, for it suggests that there are two levels of human beings, and one party can dominate the other, one party having the upper hand and the other the lower. Our humanity, dignity and self-respect state that we are on par with others even if they are militarily stronger; hence we refuse to be dealt with through preconditions.

Unfortunately, one of the mistakes causing them to persist in this approach is that some people have accepted these conditions, including the issue of recognition. They then made another mistake by not exchanging the recognition of Israel for the recognition of Palestinian rights, but preferred, rather, to be recognised themselves. This is a significant flaw added to the original one, namely recognition! It is preposterous to recognise Israel in return for its recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organisation or another movement instead of recognising the Palestinian people or state or rights. This implies that you have swapped public interest for personal interests, and have swapped the grand national objective for a petty partisan one. As we say this, we emphasise our rejection of the issue of recognition, regardless of the price.

Therefore, in our conversations with those Western delegations [who ask us to recognise Israel], we tell them: “Although we are eager to communicate with you and open up to the world, we are not begging or looking for Western recognition of Hamas. This does not concern us. Our legitimacy stems from the Palestinian people; the ballot boxes; Palestinian democracy; the legitimacy of struggle, sacrifice and resistance; and our Arab and Islamic depth. We are not looking for legitimacy from abroad; what we are seeking to achieve and obtain is recognition of Palestinian rights and the right of our people to freedom, deliverance from the occupation, and the right to self-determination. This will not be in exchange for recognition, because recognition is ultimately an acknowledgement of the legitimacy of occupation, aggression and land theft.”

In your opinion, why do the international community and the Israelis reject the long-term truce proposed by Hamas?

This rejection by the Zionist entity, the US administration, and other international parties is due to several reasons.

The first reason: the logic of power, superiority and hegemony of these parties. They believe that their superior power allows them to impose what they want on us, and to consider us Arabs and Palestinians as the defeated party which has no choice but to sign the instrument of surrender in the same way as Germany and Japan did in the aftermath of World War II, and not to provide solutions and ideas such as the truce.

The second reason: they see Arab and Palestinian parties making more enticing offers. So how would they respond to a truce offer when others offer to recognise Israel in return for a solution based on the borders of 1967, with a willingness to negotiate on the details of that solution, namely: borders, Jerusalem and the right of return?

The third reason: the experience of the Americans, the Zionists and other parties in the region tempts them to conclude that further pressure will drive us into a state of desperation as happened previously; they tried the policy of pressure and extortion with others and it succeeded. This prompts them to say: “Let us try the same thing with Hamas, for it may submit like the others did.” Add to that the fact that some Arabs and Palestinians – regrettably – advise them: “Surround Hamas, financially and politically, and incite against them; do not open up to them directly, maintain your conditions, and do not hurry. Hamas will ultimately succumb!”

These reasons, and perhaps others, prompt them to reject the truce offer. In our conversations with Western delegations, we tell them: “Yes, the positions of others are easier, and ours is more difficult; yet our advantage is that, when we make an offer or take a position, we strive to ensure its applicability on the ground and its potential to win the confidence of the Palestinian people and the Arab and Islamic public, and it is so only when it does not run counter to the national constants, rights and interests of the people.” As to the positions of others in the Palestinian arena, they are easy but lack the approval of the majority of the Palestinian people, its national forces and intellectual elites. What is the practical value of these positions, and the value of reaching agreements and finding solutions with some leaderships that were rejected by the majority of the people? The Oslo Agreements were imposed in the past, and they failed because they were unfair and did not meet the aspirations of our people, and thus remained alien to the Palestinian and Arab reality.

So we are aware that they will be forced finally to deal with the vision of Hamas and the vision of forces and leaders committed to national constants. We tell them: “If you think that you are able to achieve success in the region through other schemes, try and you will reach a dead-end.”

It might be easy for the major powers to incline towards easy solutions with certain leaders and rulers, without considering the importance of these solutions being convincing and satisfactory to the people. These powers overlook the fact that reconciliation with the leaders and governments alone is temporary and short-lived, and does not create stability in the region – no matter the extent of pressure and oppression exercised against the people. However, the success of any enterprise is realised only when the people are convinced and believe it to be satisfactory and equitable, even if temporarily. Some in the West are beginning to realise the importance of this perspective and are, consequently, developing their positions – albeit slowly – in the direction of dealing with Hamas. There are still obstacles in the effort to translate this limited development into real and serious steps. We, in turn, are not in a hurry because what matters for us is not our role but our commitment to our people’s rights and interests.

Hamas’ Model of Resistance

What contribution did Hamas make vis-à-vis jihad and the struggle? What distinguishes its model of resistance?

It must first be emphasised that Hamas as a movement of resistance against the Zionist occupation is a natural and authentic part of the experience of the Palestinian struggle, an extension of it, and one of its circles that is continuing from a hundred years ago, starting with the first revolution and the first martyr and all its icons and leaderships and their great struggle – despite adverse circumstances in their time. These were people such as ‘Izzeddine al-Qassam, Haj Amin al-Husseini, Farhan al-Sa’adi, Abdul Qader al-Husseini, among others, up to the contemporary Palestinian revolution with all its factions, forces, leaderships and icons of struggle. The march of the Palestinian struggle continues today, thanks to God, and will continue until the goals of liberation, return and deliverance from Zionist occupation are realised.

This means that Hamas, as a resistance movement, is not separate from this struggle, nor does it exist without roots in a desert, but is rather a part of a whole. It is part of our people’s history of struggle and its jihadi march – full of sacrifices, challenges, creativity, patience, endurance, and determination to continue the march and overcome all obstacles, challenges and adverse and unfavourable circumstances until the ultimate goal is achieved, God willing.

This sense of belonging and extension has infused Hamas – as it has infused other forces of the Palestinian resistance – with the legacy of that history and its originality, spirit and distinctive identity, and made us grasp that long and rich experience and benefit from its various stages with all its successes and achievements, and some failure as well. For us and our people, these experiences are a rich and valuable reservoir. The choice of the name of Martyr ‘Izzeddine al-Qassam for our military wing and its brigades is but an expression of this affiliation and a manifestation of it.

Our asserting this fact here is necessary and very important in order for each of us to know our roots and factors of real power on the one hand, and also to know our real size and specific position in this long march. Just as belonging to such history and course gives people or movements the strength and self-confidence that are necessary, especially in difficult moments, it also gives them the necessary humility and respect for the roles of others. We and the others are part of this blessed course; we were not the first and will not necessarily be the last.

We and the others build on the experience of our forerunners and benefit from them, then we create our own experiences with their positives and negatives, and interact with our associates in the march. All this will be a legacy for future generations who will carry the flag and continue the struggle until victory and liberation are achieved, God willing. This is the goal which everyone will have contributed to – even if they do not witness the final outcome.

We have striven to form our model of resistance, which we established as a contribution to this great struggle, and we were keen to offer – through it – a notable addition to the march of the Palestinian struggle. We have ingrained in it a host of important and necessary concepts, policies and regulations, and given it much spirit, creativity, perseverance and determination.

Among the most prominent of these visions, concepts and policies are:

First: Resistance is our means to achieve the strategic objective, namely, the liberation and restoration of our rights and ending the Zionist occupation of our land and our holy sites. That is to say, resistance is a strategy of liberation, and is the main axis in our work as a resistance movement rather than being a mere choice we have made. It is the backbone of our project. Despite the importance of our programme and the other work that is done in the course of implementing the movement’s programme – such as the political, popular, social, charitable, and economic work, the true value and impact of these activities in serving the objectives rest on their position within the context of resistance as a key programme, and within a working system to which the resistance is the backbone. This is because we are a resistance movement facing a colonialist military occupation opposed to our existence, and so it is natural that armed and all-inclusive resistance be the basis and the decisive factor in this confrontation.

Second: For us, resistance is a means, and not an end, in the service of the aim and the objectives; it is not resistance for the sake of resistance. The elaboration of the resistance concept to make it an end in itself entails many errors in understanding, vision, and in the practical attitude and behaviour, as well as a flaw in decision-making and interest assessment. Yes, resistance is very important, and a primary axis to our project, but it is not the objective. It is the means and the way for achieving this goal, and a strategic tool for liberation.

Third: Hamas is not a military group, but an all-embracing national liberation movement, with resistance as its main axis, its strategic means to liberation and the realisation of the Palestinian national project. At the same time, the movement works in all fields and areas, and has its own aims and political vision. It is a grass-roots movement conscious of the concerns of its people at home and abroad, defending their interests, and seeking to serve them as much as possible in all aspects of daily life.

Fourth: We have limited our resistance to be in opposition to the Israeli occupation alone. Our resistance is against the enemy occupying our land and encroaching on our people and holy sites, and not against anyone else. We did not use resistance even against those who supported our enemies and provided them with all the means of force and the deadly weapons which kill our people. We also adopted the policy of confining the resistance to Palestine and not conducting it outside Palestine. This was done not out of powerlessness, but on account of an accurate estimation of interest, and a balancing of various considerations.

Fifth: We clearly adopt the policy of using weapons and force only in the face of the occupier and the external enemy attacking us; this is legitimate resistance. This means not using weapons and force either in domestic affairs, or in addressing political and intellectual disputes. Addressing disputes within national ranks must be through dialogue, consensus and arbitration by people, through democracy and the ballot box.

The tragic events in the Gaza Strip a few years ago are not a departure from this policy, as this is an entirely different case. There was a Palestinian party which rejected the election result and sought to overturn it, that is, to overturn Palestinian legitimacy, and, unfortunately, they collaborated with the Zionist enemy and the Americans and used weapons against us. It is our natural right to defend ourselves when forced to do so, particularly considering that we did this from the position of a legitimate government formed after fair democratic elections which were approved by the elected Legislative Council.

On the other hand, when we were out of power from 1994 until 2006, and although the Authority had arrested thousands of our members and severely tortured them, and pursued the resistance, its weapons and people, and coordinated (and continues to coordinate) security with the Zionist enemy, we did not respond at that time by using weapons or force against it, and we restricted our resistance to the Zionist enemy alone. We adopted a hands-off policy and restricted our opposition to the Authority, and the management of our dispute with it, to peaceful political and popular means.

Six: We have adopted a policy of not engaging in turf battles in the region, contrary to what others had done in the earlier stages. We never used force and weapons against any Arab state or party even if they harmed and besieged us, or arrested and tortured our brethren, or stabbed the resistance in the back, or incited against us. The Arabs are our brothers and family and they constitute our strategic depth; so we cannot wrong them even if they did so to us. We have committed ourselves to this policy over the past years, and will remain committed to it, God willing, because our battle is exclusively against the Zionist enemy.

Seven: In building the resistance, we took pains to focus on building the resistance activist religiously, educationally, psychologically, and intellectually, ensuring a high degree of organisational and behavioural discipline, commitment to religious and ethical rules of resistance, and developing the capacity for endurance and steadfastness in extreme circumstances, as well as building awareness and clarity of vision in the fighters, sincerity of purpose and intention, and the blending of the religious and national dimensions to develop a strong incentive in the course of jihad and the resistance. The fighter struggles against the occupying enemy in defence of his homeland and holy sites, his people and nation, and his family and honour.

As for the movement’s contribution to jihad and the struggle, it must be noted as a key and substantial point that Hamas succeeded, thanks to God, in building and strengthening its resistance even though it emerged at a difficult time, at a point when many factors and objective conditions for the success of revolutions and liberation movements were vanishing. The most notable of these is the end of the Cold War, the absence of an international ally, and the emergence of an international system based on the uni-polarity of the United States of America, the foremost ally of the Zionist entity, followed by the entry of the world into the “war on terror”, and the pinning of the charge on Islam and resistance movements.

Added to that, although this factor often has various outcomes and implications, is the fact that the resistance in Palestine has been undergoing a suffocating siege for some time, and is deprived of a friendly neighbourhood that can provide strategic and logistical depth, and of a secure rear base allowing for freedom of movement and manoeuvre. All this led to extreme difficulty in the continuance of the armed struggle as it was before, especially working from the outside [of Palestine] to the inside, and the difficulty of providing logistical support to the resistance at home and abroad.

In light of this great challenge, and in order to continue the project of resistance and to overcome obstacles and blockades, the movement focused on a strategy of broadening the participation of the Palestinian people at home, and broadening their involvement in the resistance and confrontation [with the enemy]: starting from stone-throwing, introducing creativity to the first and second intifada in which everyone took part (thus reflecting a new phase of the Palestinian struggle), and introducing new and innovative forms of resistance and open confrontation with the occupation.

Another strategy of movement-building at home was also adopted in terms of recruitment, training, arming and manoeuvre, while making every effort to collect financial and technical support and arms from abroad. When the blockade intensified further, the idea of manufacturing weapons inside, from available raw materials, emerged.

So we accepted the task with these enormous challenges, siege and persecution, and faced it bravely and resolutely through innovation, creativity, diversification, self-reliance, counting on God in all circumstances, and continuously seeking friends, allies and available support. We thought to ourselves that, even if we remained by ourselves in the field, and lost all support from others, we would persist in our resistance and we would not give it up or end it, and we will continue urging our nation to support us and take part in this honourable duty, quoting Allah Almighty’s statement to the Prophet (peace be upon him): “You shall fight in God’s cause; you are responsible only for your own self; and inspire the believers to do the same. It may be that God will neutralise the power of those who reject faith. God is much more powerful, and stronger in the ability to deter” (Surah 4, Verse 84). We used to quote this despite our conviction and confidence in our nation’s faithfulness and its commitment not to abandon its responsibilities towards the central issue of Palestine and of confronting the Zionist enterprise. Our nation clearly realises the essence of the Zionist enterprise and the danger it poses to the whole region and the world

Another addition by Hamas, in terms of jihad and the struggle, is innovation in resistance and its methods, tactics and tools, such as expanding martyrdom operations and developing them to become a lethal weapon against the enemy, and striking deep at its security. An innovation was the manufacture of weapons locally and transforming this into an actual and real project that could be relied on, even if temporarily, given the difficulty of obtaining weapons from outside. The most prominent example in this regard is the manufacture of weapons which were initially dealt with lightly on account of their simplicity and their limited range and effectiveness, but which have evolved to advanced stages and have become a real nuisance to the enemy, with growing impact on its security.

Another important example is the development of the resistance’s capacities in the face of Israeli incursions, and the success in defending Palestinian areas and towns following the distinctive model of Gaza and the heroic attempt in the Jenin camp, where all conventional methods were used and were complemented by the use of tunnels on a large scale to defend and challenge. This went even so far as to withstand a real war wherein the enemy was routed and its objectives thwarted – like in the Zionist enemy’s war on the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009, which actually was the largest war waged by Israel on Palestinian land.

A further addition is the improvement of resistance to being able to achieve and liberate part of the land. The Palestinian resistance, with its military wings and qualitative martyrdom operations, and with the significant impact of our people’s second uprising, was able to force the Zionist enemy to leave the Gaza Strip and dismantle its settlements for the first time in the history of the Zionist entity. This clearly means that the Palestinian revolution, through the development of capacity, momentum and tools, as well as innovation and diversification of methods and tactics, and through determination and patience, has become a real and reliable option whose ability to withstand, defend and achieve, even if step-by-step, can be trusted by the people despite the enormous difference in and the continuing imbalance of power compared to the enemy.

The resistance was also concerned with an important aspect in its experience as a resistance movement, namely, the alternation between escalation and abatement in line with the conditions and circumstances of our people, serving the public interest, and sound political judgement. The calm could be self-chosen or undeclared as was necessary, and as part of the resistance’s decision-making, or it could be announced publicly by agreement of the resistance forces, in return for specific demands such as discontinuation of Zionist aggression, lifting the siege, and so on.

We, along with other resistance factions, exercised this with all consciousness and courage and took responsibility for our people and their interests. But, in all cases, we exercised this on the basis of clinging to resistance and developing it further as our strategic option for liberation. In the battlefield and on the path of resistance and liberation, the movement offered – as did others from our people – a prominent galaxy of martyrs from its finest leaders, icons and cadres, led by Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, founder of the movement; Abdul Aziz al-Rantisi; Jamal Mansour; Jamal Salim; Ibrahim al-Makadmeh; Isma’il Abu Shanab; Salah Darwazeh; Yousef Sarakji; Saed Siam; Nizar Rayyan; and thousands of other noble martyrs.

The movement also offered illustrious figures in the history of Palestinian military activity, such as Imad Akel; Yahya Ayyash; Salah Shehadeh; Mahmoud Abu Hannoud; and dozens of other martyrs who cannot all be named here, though their names will remain in the Palestinian memory and history of struggle.

Another aspect, and a very important addition, is the introduction of the Islamic religious dimension to the battle alongside the national one, with all the significance of Islam in the life of the people and the nation, and the spirit, strength and vigour it endows the strugglers with, as well as enhancing motivation for resistance, the ability further to endure, persevere and withstand, and Islam’s ability to mobilise the masses and stir their feelings in the face of the occupiers.

Furthermore, this essential dimension has increased the rallying of the Arab and Islamic nation’s masses and their support for the Palestinian people and their resistance, especially during major events such as the war and blockade on Gaza, and all matters relating to Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque. Islamic sentiments are among the most important links between the masses of the nation and their elites and Palestine. Thus, the forceful entry of Hamas – with its clear Islamic identity – onto the battlefield was a decisive factor in raising the broad Arab and Islamic momentum, and invoking it for the cause and the Palestinian resistance.

How do you see the issue of laxity in shedding blood?

There are strict established conditions regarding blood and the lives of people, stressed by the Qur’an and the Sunnah [the Prophetic example]. The Prophet (peace be upon him) never stressed anything like he stressed this issue. He repeatedly emphasised it, particularly in his Farewell Sermon, and so it became central in the charter of the nation. There are also codes of ethics and national customs that people subscribe to so as to establish internal peace in their societies, and everyone should abide by these rules and not violate them.

We in the movement are keen to do this carefully, by instilling these constraints and legal, ethical and national rules, sensitising the members of the movement, educating them, compelling them to abide by these rules in their behaviour, and practising accountability for any infringements or violations.

Those who need emphasis on these issues are no doubt those in the military domain and the bearers of weapons, so that the weapons are used only in their natural domain against the occupying enemy. For those who carry weapons might be tempted by their feeling of self-power to use their weapons needlessly. The more intense the environment of domestic tension in a society becomes, the more likely will be indulgence and excess in the use of arms.

It should be noted here that the severity of the security experience with the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s, the poor performance of its security apparatus, corruption, harassment of people – especially the resistance movements, primarily Hamas, and the torture and insulting of its leaders, all created feelings of indignation and severe pain, and wounded souls that will never heal as a result of that harsh experience. This rendered the domestic environment in the Palestinian community unsound and unhealthy, tense and irascible, and increased narrow partisanship and partiality to the self and the faction at the expense of the overall national interest. These are defects we must all work to address; we must work together and take responsibility to get rid of them, because that would be in the interest of the country, the cause and all of us, and because the prolonging of such defects and phenomena is detrimental to all, and harmful to the cause and the national interest.

The possession of arms, the sense of power, and large forces often cast on their owners vanity and self-admiration, lure them into laxity in their use of weapons, and may cause them to make mistakes and abuse the rights of others. By nature, man exceeds proper bounds when he becomes rich or strong, as God Almighty says: “But man transgresses all bounds, in that he looks upon himself as self-sufficient” (Surah 96, Verses 6-7). Preventing such transgression requires discipline and control through religious, moral and patriotic commitment, and through the enactment of constraints, rules and penalties, and by being held answerable for abuses and irregularities.

We in the movement exercise this approach with its two parts: the religious, moral and patriotic deterrent; and checks, balances, accountability and penalty in the case of violation. These are issues related to religion, national interest and people’s rights. We are also keen on the integrity of intentions and purity of motives of the fighters, so that jihad, effort and behaviour are always purely for the sake of God, and for the homeland and its interest, away from the passion for revenge or personal motives. Despite all this, mistakes still occur; this is part of human nature.

Abuses and mistakes occur in the experiences of all nations and peoples, as with all armies of the world, and as in the case of the ugliness we see practised against the vulnerable and occupied peoples in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, as an Arab and Muslim nation, and by virtue of our religion’s principles, our morals and cultural heritage, we need always to commit to the highest standards of ethical and behavioural discipline, and firmness towards errors and abuses, for our morals are not to be practiced only among ourselves but are, rather, universal and human and should be practised with everyone, regardless of their religion or race.

Even at the time of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) there were excesses and errors, but dealing with them was firm and fast. The Holy Qur’an addressed one of these cases in the verse: “O you who believe! When you go abroad in the cause of God, investigate carefully, and say not to anyone who offers you a salutation: ‘You are not a believer!’ while you covet the perishable goods of this life. With Allah are profits and spoils abundant. You too were once in the same condition, till God conferred on you His favours. Therefore carefully investigate. For God is well aware of all that you do” (Surah 4, Verse 94).

The Prophet (peace be upon him) was firm in addressing these violations, few as they were, and the prophetic traditions in this regard are well-known, as partiality towards principles, values and morals is the basis of religion and the foundation of the nation.

From here, in compliance with Islamic rules and ethics, following the example of the Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah (because we consider commitment to them a religious obligation and a source of goodness and bliss) and in fulfilment of our people’s and nation’s national interest, our policy in the movement is based on the non-endorsement of errors and violations, and in not legitimising them no matter where they come from. We, rather, consider them to be at variance with the approach of the movement, its thinking and commitment, and we penalise the offenders and abusers firmly.

Hamas and International Relations

Are you satisfied with your achievements in international relations? What is the position of these relations in the thinking, programmes and priorities of Hamas?

International relations in the political thinking of Hamas has several dimensions.

The first dimension: conviction that the Palestine battle, in one of its aspects, is the battle of humanity against Israeli injustice and oppression, and against the racist Zionist scheme targeting the world and humanity as a whole and threatening the interests of peoples and nations, since its evil and dangers are not limited to Palestine and the Palestinians and the Arabs and Muslims.

The second dimension: the necessity of promoting our just cause and winning more friends who support our legitimate right to resist occupation and aggression. It has been shown that there is still good in the human conscience, and that it could be awakened and moved in our favour if we present our case well, and strive to reveal the truth of the Zionist entity. The case of breaking the Gaza blockade, and the success in winning a large number of sympathisers with this issue through the movement of ships to Gaza is an example of the importance of this dimension. We recall and emphasise that the confrontation with the Zionist entity – through the people and resistance, as was the case with the Gaza War, south Lebanon and the flotilla, is what exposes the ugly face of this entity, and not negotiations and meetings with it as these polish its image and cover up its reality and crimes.

The third dimension: just as Israel encircles and haunts us on the international stage, we too must follow it in all international forums, and not leave the stage to it. Unfortunately, the official Arab and Islamic side has fallen far short of this objective, and its true role has been absent. However, what mitigated this deficiency are the efforts of the Palestinian, Arab and Islamic communities who recently moved more effectively on the international arena and scored significant results and important breakthroughs. They helped win friends and supporters for the Palestinian cause and Arab and Islamic issues, and worked so as to expose the ugly and ruthless face of Israel, whose aggressive and brutal behaviour has shocked human conscience and sentiments because it runs counter to the ethical values of Western peoples and the peoples of the world. These communities have also contributed, through their activities, to the pursuit of Israel legally and judicially.

The fourth dimension: we are interested in forging a network of relations, strong and effective at all levels, international as well as Arab and Islamic. We have created in our group a special section for international relations because we consider it a factor of strength, opening up and winning international support for the cause and the movement.

The fifth dimension: the forging of international relations starts here, from within the region, for here is the plant, and the harvest is there in the West, while hard work is required in both. This means that the primary basis for achieving a breakthrough and success in international relations is strength on the ground, and being ingrained in it, united around our people and our nation, practising resistance and resoluteness. [With such a foundation], the world will respect us and realise that there will be no peace or stability in the region unless they deal with us and accord us the consideration we deserve, respect our interests, rights and legitimate demands, and retreat from their current policies of bias towards Israel and disregard for the Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims.

We have scored successes in this field, thanks to God. Yet the road is long and we have a long way ahead of us. We are relatively satisfied with the achievements, considering the scale of obstacles facing us and being thrown in our path. It should not be forgotten that the level of the relations and the yield achieved does not depend on us alone, but also on the other side. This is how political and human relations take place.

If we are to measure the yield from the efforts we exerted, compared to the degree of Zionist penetration and influence in the world, the gap will seem wide. Western policy – which views Israel as its natural extension and chooses to support it without limit, the weakness of Arab performance and diplomacy, and the incitement by certain Palestinian and Arab parties against the movement have, no doubt, impacted on the extent of success and achievement.

We currently have a host of official relations on the international level, such as the relations with Russia, some Latin American countries and Asian and African nations. We also have other official international relations (some are covert in view of the conditions of the other party) and indirect relations through former officials who communicate with us with the knowledge of the officials in their countries; this is the case with the United States of America and others. All of this is an important development, and it will not be long, God willing, until this develops into open and consistent official relations with the movement.

We are not talking here about international relations from the viewpoint of eagerness, desperation, urgency and a search for partisan glory. Rather, we are forging these relations and following up on them with poise and self-respect, with the purpose of reaping gains for the Palestinian cause rather than for narrow partisan ones.

Alignments and axes

In recent years, the Arab arena has witnessed a number of different axes and alignments. Hamas has been classified by some as being within the axis of rejection. How do you view this situation dominating the Arab political scene, where do you see yourself with regard to it, and do you believe it to be in the interests of the nation?

I will answer this from three angles.

First angle: There is a reprehensible gathering, and another gathering which is praiseworthy. The reprehensible gathering is an assembly, for example, on the basis of race or narrow national ideas in opposition to other people; it invokes categorisation and internal alignment on the basis of the country or the nation. But if people rally to do good, to support the Palestinian people, resist the Zionist enemy, challenge normalisation, resist the efforts of enemies to infiltrate the nation, confront American hegemony and the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and stand in the way of attempts to rob the nation’s wealth, all this constitutes a praiseworthy gathering, and cannot be equated with the other one.

Therefore, when we say that we are for resistance, adherence to Palestinian rights, the right of return, have a bias for Palestine, Jerusalem and the nation’s sacred places, and that we reject the Zionist occupation and refuse to succumb to the dictates of the enemy, then this is something we are proud of and do not hide. This is the duty of the nation. God Almighty says: “Help one another in righteousness and piety and do not cooperate in sin and aggression.” Hence, coming together for such cooperation is desired, and we should not be afraid of being accused of bias towards one of the axes in such a case.

Second angle: we do not consider our commitment to resistance and refusal to submit to the Quartet’s and the enemy’s conditions and the American-Israeli vision of the settlement and relinquishment of Palestinian rights to be undermining of Palestinian or Arab parties. Rather, [we consider it to be an undermining] of the Zionist enemy. As for those whose agenda intersects with the enemy’s, or who succumb to them and go along with them under pressure, and participate in besieging us or inciting against us, those are the ones who are placing themselves against the mission of the resistance. However, we do not antagonise anyone from our people and our nation, and we have not formed a Palestinian, Arab or Muslim axis against another Palestinian Arab one. We continue to reach out to all, and are keen to communicate with everyone and establish relationships with everyone. If there is a break or chill in relationships with someone, it is this person or group who chooses this break or chill and not us. Everyone is aware of this fact, because we reach out to all Arabs – some of them respond positively, and others do not.

Third angle: if it was acceptable to disagree in our politics and analysis of the political situation when the accord was being put to the test and when people were paying heavily for the resistance, is it acceptable to disagree today after the accord has been proven a failure with an obstructive political horizon and very heavy costs and consequences, much heavier than the costs of the resistance?

We call on all the nation’s states and forces to rally together with us in our natural environment as a nation. When the nation undergoes occupation, our natural environment and our priority should be the resistance. When we undergo aggression it is natural to unite in the face of aggression; and when the nation enters a stage of independence, then our natural environment and priority would be reconstruction, economic advancement and cultural renaissance in all its dimensions.

Today, the nation should respond to the current challenges and place itself in its natural environment. We hope that everyone would be in this environment, particularly considering that they have tried and failed and found out that betting on the Americans and others is futile. The Americans have been tried in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, and were tried before that by the Shah of Iran, and the results were dismal. We say to the Arab and Islamic regimes: “The shortest way to maintain your regimes and even your stay in power is by siding with your nation and the people’s choices.”

The official Arab leaderships allowed themselves the opportunity to be engaged in many experiments and attempts on the path of compromise and negotiations. The most recent of these was the Arab Peace Initiative, through which they sent a clear and generous message that the Arab states were willing to provide benefits in return for steps taken by the other party. Eight years have elapsed since this proposal was mooted, without any respect being given either by the Zionist enemy, the US administration, or the international community – except for a few complimentary phrases.

During our meetings with many Arab officials and leaders, we continue to tell them: “After this experience, and after reaching a dead-end, is it not worthwhile to stop and look for alternative options?” We used also to say to them that withdrawing from the settlement plan and the Arab Initiative did not mean entering into official wars – which are not possible today – with Israel. Another option is to support the resistance, and thus the nation can rally behind a realistic and pragmatic option which has proven able to withstand and able to score some achievements, an option that is bound significantly to develop in terms of its weight and influence in the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially if it finds support

If official wars with the enemy are impossible today because of the imbalance of power, it is difficult for the nation – as things currently stand – to engage on a programme of a regular Arab war against Israel. So let the realistic and practical option be resistance, which we have tried and which has succeeded in driving the occupiers out of southern Lebanon and Gaza, and whose effects are being seen clearly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hence, we believe that calling on the nation and its forces to line up in their natural environment is not an abstract or emotional theory but is, rather, based on a practical option that has been successfully tried. The nation is capable of using this option on the official and popular levels, particularly since the negotiation option has failed and in light of the contempt displayed by the enemy leaders towards us, as well as successive US administrations’ betrayal of the Arabs and the Muslims – even of their friends and associates.

Hamas and Jews

Is the resistance of Hamas directed against the Zionists as Jews or as occupiers?

We do not fight the Zionists because they are Jews; we fight them because they are occupiers. The reason behind our war with the Zionist entity and our resistance to it is the occupation, rather than differences in religion. Resistance and military confrontation with the Israelis was caused by occupation, aggression and crimes committed against the Palestinian people, and not because of the differences in religion and belief.

We are well aware that Israel invokes religion to advance on the battlefield. They also employ historical grudges, distorted texts, legends and myths, and religious sentiments in the battle against the Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims. Even the leaders of secular Zionism had used religion since the beginning of the Zionist movement and exploited it politically; and the Zionist entity was originally based on religion and racism. Despite all this, our religious differences with them is not what created a situation of war and resistance against them; we fight them because they are occupiers.

For us, religion is a cornerstone to our lives, belonging and identity, our culture and our daily actions; it is the energy that promotes patience and steadfastness, and gives rise to more sacrifice and generosity. This is a tremendous energy in the face of injustice, aggression and the powers seeking to harm our people and our nation. But we do not make of religion a force for engendering hatred, nor a cause or a pretext for harming and assaulting others, or grabbing what is not ours, or encroaching on the rights of others.

Hamas and Christians

What is the Hamas view of Christians and their role in the Palestinian cause?

Islam dealt with the Christians in a special manner compared to other religions, as in the [Qur’anic] verse: “You will surely find that, of all people, the most hostile to those who believe are the Jews and those who are polytheists; and you will certainly find that, of all people, the nearest in friendship to those who believe are those who say: ‘We are Christians’.” The historical relations between Christians and Muslims have had a special status since the conquest of Palestine, when the second caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab, received the keys to the city of Jerusalem. A special relationship between Muslims and Christians was formed thereafter.

What is more, Palestine enjoys an exceptional status, being the land of prophets and messengers, the birthplace of Jesus (peace be upon him), and the place of Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) night journey. Palestine is one of the foremost examples of coexistence and tolerance among all faiths. This is a legacy carried by the Palestinians – whether Muslims or Christians – and has resulted in the evolution of the historical relations we see.

In the past decades, since the 1930s when the late Haj Amin al-Husseini sponsored Christian and Muslim conferences, Muslims and Christians have had mutual concerns, and have cooperated to face mutual challenges. Palestinian Muslims and Christians were in the same boat against the Zionist occupation. This was reflected in the role of our Christian brothers in the contemporary Palestinian Revolution when all factions united as one people.

Since the formation of Hamas, the relationship with the Christian brothers has been normal and good, and there were no problems between us and them. This despite the fact that some Palestinian forces tried, unfortunately, to scare Christians with the idea of the new movement, reminding them that it is an Islamic movement in order that they might promote the notion of an allegedly inevitable contradiction between Hamas and Christians. However, these attempts at intimidation failed, and Christians found the movement to be close to them, dealing with everyone with tolerance, openness and respect. During the second Palestinian intifada, the movement took into consideration the specificities of Christian festivals, and was careful that strike days did not coincide with Christian festivals and events, just as it was also keen to protect Christian property. Not only this, but Hamas was also keen on an active Christian role in Palestinian political life. The movement’s leaders, at home and abroad, held several meetings with Christian national religious figures.

For these reasons, Hamas won broad support among Christians before and after the 2006 legislative elections. There were many Christians who voted for Hamas, and we supported them in the West Bank and Gaza, too. For example, Dr Husam al-Tawil – a Christian – won [a seat] in Gaza owing to votes from Hamas and its supporters. The number of Muslims who voted for him was several times the number of Christian votes – given that the number of Christians in the Gaza Strip is small.

I recall here, because of its symbolic significance, an incident that happened in an Arab airport. A certain person approached me, introduced himself as a Palestinian, said that he was a Christian from Beit Jala, and that he had voted for Hamas and still supported it. He was not obliged to say this, and nobody pushed him to say it; he did it on his own, and expressed his feelings. This is a model of the good relationship between the movement and the Christian brothers from among our people.

We are dealing with the Christians as a fundamental component of the people and homeland, and an active part in the struggle against the occupation, without the consideration that this is a Muslim and that a Christian. We are partners in the country, and everyone has rights and duties. When we recall religious figures prominent in the struggle of the people of Palestine, we recall, among Muslims, Sheikh Raed Salah, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, and [among Christians] Bishop Atallah Hanna, Bishop Capucci, and so on. We all share in defending Jerusalem and the cause.

Hamas may have surprised some liberals and secularists in the Palestinian arena who thought, or even promoted the idea, that, by virtue of its Islamic identity, it will isolate itself and that a tenuous relationship may develop between us and Christian Palestinians. They were surprised when their expectations did not materialise. This is because religion is not about isolation and detachment; on the contrary, faith motivates a person to be tolerant, to be respectful of others, and to recognise their rights.

Hamas and women

Islamic movements are commonly accused of contempt towards women and marginalisation of their role in political and social life. How do you view these charges in light of your experience in Hamas?

Unfortunately, there is a gap between the true concepts of Islam regarding woman, and their more recent practical application. There is an erroneous application and behaviour that results from backwardness and does not come from the texts and spirit of the Shari’ah.

Even at the present time, however, and despite the good level of progress in the Arab and Islamic countries, there are still errors in the application [of the Shari’ah] arising from many customs, traditions and concepts which emanate from certain situations and specific environments, and do not arise from the provisions of Islam itself.

Women in the texts of the Qur’an and hadith (prophetic traditions) are charged with duties just as men are, and when the Qur’an speaks about Shari’ah and its provisions, it mentions men and women together because everyone is charged with and has individual responsibilities. This is evident in God Almighty’s saying: “The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil,” and “Never will I suffer to be lost the work of any of you, be you male or female. You are members, one of another.” And, in the Prophet’s words: “Women are the twin halves of men.” There are also other such Qur’anic verses and hadith in this vein.

Women in the Islamic concept of thought, jurisprudence, mandate and role are – indeed – one half of society, and woman has been given her prestige and respect. However, there is a huge difference between respect and appreciation for woman and her rightful role [on the one hand], and abusing her and presenting her as a cheap commodity as is done in the Western civilisation [on the other]. There is a difference between preserving woman’s chastity and modesty and safeguarding her rights while according her a suitable role, and dealing with her as a commodity of lust and pleasure. These ethical regulations are not just Islamic; they are innate and human.

We in Hamas are keen, as regards women, to invoke Islamic concepts and their unadulterated application which are not marred by the ages of backwardness or the weight of social norms and traditions that stem from the environment rather than the religious text, especially since the environment of Palestine is not a closed one but a historically civilised one enjoying plurality and openness to all religions, civilisations and cultures.

With this pure and original conception, and as a part and an extension of the Palestinian experience and its legacy, Hamas assigned a distinctive role for women in its operations. The role of women was highlighted during the intifada, in the resistance and all forms of struggle efforts, not only as mother, wife and sister to the strugglers, but also as one herself, carrying out commando and martyrdom operations, supporting her brothers and martyrs, and providing logistical assistance. There are also sisters who drove fighters to the operation site, as happened in the Sbarro operation and others. In the Zionist jails, there are tens of captive sisters enduring the suffering in prison and paying the toll of jihad side-by-side with their brothers.

The role of women is significant in the Palestinian arena and in the movement, whether at work, jihad and struggle, in the field of social charity and educational work, or political and syndicalist work. The Palestinian woman is educated and cultured, and her activity in schools and universities is no less than that of a man.

Proceeding from our Islamic terms of reference, Arab cultural identity and the distinctive Palestinian environment, women in Hamas occupy an advanced position. In political action, and before the Legislative Council was created, women had significant activities in the Palestinian student movement and in various unions; and when Hamas took part in the legislative elections, women enjoyed a strong presence and a large share on our lists, as well as in the government formed by Hamas.

It is true that some Islamic movements and groups are criticised for neglecting the role of women, but we find, on the other hand, cases of depravity and misdemeanour – impinging on ethical concerns – with some secular parties and forces. Hamas was keen to develop a moderate vision which would grant woman her authentic role, without breaking from Islamic principles, values and ethics, and at the same time being free from isolation, seclusion and marginalisation. I believe we have succeeded in that, thanks to God. Women also have an important role on the organisational level in Hamas, which seeks better to develop their role and participation within the organisational structure of the movement.

Future of the Zionist project

Through your reading of the course of the Zionist project and its current reality, how do you see the future of this project? Is it moving towards realising “Greater Israel”, or is it in decline and regression?

Factual data reinforce the conviction that the Zionist project has no future in the region. There is a real decline in this enterprise, for which expansion was an important characteristic, and it is no longer able to continue in this way. The construction of the wall (while recognising its negative repercussions on the Palestinian people), and the withdrawal from southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip are but practical examples of this decline and regression.

Israel – which used to wage war on its neighbours and win easily – was able to take the fight to its enemy, and used to strike everywhere. Now, its heartland is a field of battle for the Palestinian resistance. This is a repetitive phenomenon. The so-called “Israeli home front” is now threatened in every war or confrontation and is paying the price for its leaders’ adventures. Moreover, the ruling class in Israel today – and on the level of many military, political and security leaders – no longer has the capacity of the first generation who built this entity, nor the will to fight that they had had, not to mention rampant corruption in the ruling class, a growing number of suicides, the evasion of military service, and the declining performance of its security institutions.

Israel has not won a real war since 1967, except for the invasion of Beirut in 1982. This is an important indicator of the decline of the Zionist project’s ability, and the fact that it has no future. In my estimation, the “Greater Israel” project has come to an end, simply because the Zionist enemy is no longer able to accomplish it, and because Israel continues on the same path as did apartheid South Africa. This is a growing conviction for many neutral politicians and observers.

After more than 60 years since the establishment of this entity, and when the question in the Israeli street is not only about the security of Israel, but also about its future and destiny, this is an important and serious development. When the Israeli community questions the basis of its existence and future, and the feasibility of its enterprise, then the countdown must have begun, God willing. Saying this is not enough, however; what is required is building on it. We are not calling for an underestimation of the Zionist entity’s strength and capabilities. It is the sensible who do not underestimate their enemy, and the Zionist entity still has many elements of power. Nevertheless, this realistic reading and vision, based on many facts and indicators, should prompt us not to succumb to Israeli threats or conditions for political settlement, and not to deal with the Zionist project as an inevitable destiny. The real option and alternative to the policy of submission and the state of helplessness, waiting and getting bogged down in negotiations, is resistance. The Palestinian people are able, God willing, to continue the resistance, but they need the backing and participation of the nation.

There is debate among many international groups as to whether Israel still constitutes a strategic asset for Western interests in the region. Do you think there is a chance that some international parties might reconsider the usefulness of continued unlimited support to the Zionist entity?

One of Israel’s strong points was its ability to promote itself in the West as part of Western civilization and as an extension of it, carrying its values, way of life and political system of democratic governance. It also used to present itself as a victim of Nazism in order to draw Western sympathy. Today, Israel is no longer so – especially after the “Goldstone Report”, its crimes in the war on Gaza and in Lebanon before that, and its crime against the Freedom Flotilla, as its aggressions have affected hundreds of nationals from dozens of countries, including Western ones. Today, Israel is living in a state of exposure, and a situation where the moral rationale it earlier used to claim and promote is being shaken. Israel is falling morally, and its true ugly face is being exposed. This is a very important development.

The Western embrace of Israel has suffered a big shock, especially among the peoples of the West and the elites, due to its heinous crimes and due to the Palestinian steadfastness which exposed it for what it is, and highlighted the just Palestinian cause and its human face. Negotiations will result in Israel polishing its image for public relations purposes. When Israel loses its international incubator, it inflicts upon itself a heavy loss, because it is not an authentic part of the region, but rather survives on the support of the international community, especially the West. The Western mind, on the other hand, glorifies force, adores it and bases its policies upon it. Today, the Zionist entity no longer appears to the West as being capable of imposing what it wants in the region, and this means that Western confidence in the ability of this entity forcibly to impose its desires in the region is eroding. This has undoubtedly changed the image of Israel and its functional role in the West from being a profitable investment to becoming an onerous burden; this will gradually impact on Western interaction with the Zionist project in the future.

All these factors demonstrate the premature ageing of this enterprise. Usually, when senescence appears early in any physical structure, it indicates a flaw in formation or immunity, as well as a surrounding rejecting environment which brought about this ageing. Without the slightest doubt, Palestinian steadfastness and resistance, and the steadfastness and support of the nation, as well as the continuing confrontations with the [Zionist] project and nonconformity with its will, is what exposed this enterprise and its flaws. Hence, the project aged early and is no longer able to carry out the same adventures and score the same successes as in the past. In short, the Zionist project, like all other enterprises of occupation, settler-colonialism and aggression throughout history, has no legitimacy because it is alien to our region and lacks the elements of survival. It will, thus, end up like all other similar projects.

Future of the Region

What is your vision of the region’s future in the next five years?

The region today is in the throes of labour, and the next five years are likely to witness a continuation and expansion of this labour. We hope it will ultimately result in positive changes and a promising fruit, God willing, even if difficult. We have confidence and hope that the future will be to the benefit of the nation and the Palestinian resistance and cause. No doubt the nation is today going through a stage of advancement, but it is – unavoidably – a difficult one that might be accompanied by a lot of pain, and so it requires more patience and determination, and the doubling of efforts on the one hand, and the escalation of resistance and confrontation with the occupying enemy on the other.

Some people believe that this reading of yours is optimistic and unfounded. On what basis do you construct your expectations?

Our reading is not fanciful, and is certainly not defeatist. Our reading is realistic and based on numerous facts, proofs and indicators. One of these is that the resistance endeavour in the region has evolved significantly, and has proven its presence and effectiveness. Not only this, but the resistance endeavor has endured and scored important successes, even though it is working under unfavourable conditions and is facing major challenges, the most important of which is the regional and international imbalance of power, and the state of weakness and division in the Arab and Islamic countries.

Those who view the reality of the resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan will realise that resistance has become the only real option on which the peoples of the region can depend to confront the forces of hegemony and for resisting occupation, defending the land and interests and safeguarding their independence, and to repel aggression from any nation in the world, even if it is as powerful and mighty as the United States of America.

Resistance in the region has not only held out and succeeded in accomplishing strides in liberation – as in Gaza and south Lebanon – and held out in the face of large wars, but it also entangled the invading forces – who seek directly to control the region – in such huge trouble and dilemmas that they are now forced to reconsider their calculations. The people and the resistance of the region have – thank God – forced these major powers and nations to accord some consideration to this nation, after being tempted by the Arab governments’ weak policies into more greed and underestimation and disregard for us when formulating their foreign policy and important decisions for the region.

The Zionist war on Gaza and the Freedom Flotilla incident have exposed something important in the course of the conflict, which is that the nation still sees Palestine as its first cause, and that the nation’s people, however frustrated, are still able to recover and mobilise significantly in record time, facing real issues and serious confrontations with the enemy. This inherent vitality in the nation, reflected in some of the junctures and hot spots, was one of the factors and causes – according to our information – which prompted Western countries to put pressure on Israel to accelerate the cessation of the recent war in Gaza, fearing the repercussions of sweeping Arab and Islamic anger and its effects vis-à-vis the current political reality in the region and Western interests therein.

There have also been important positive transformations in recent years in the positions of a number of Arab and Islamic countries which, together with the resistance forces, created a situation of increasing power and independence, bias for the resistance endeavour and the interests of the nation, and rejection of external conditions and pressures. There are also rejectionist countries allied to the resistance, and they have made remarkable progress in terms of their role in the region, along with other Arab states which developed their position and honestly and courageously expressed their support for the Palestinian resistance, the choice of the Palestinian people and the democratic choice demonstrated by the 2006 elections.

We recently saw the emergence of the Turkish regional role, on a positive course towards the independence of political decision-making and economic advancement, promotion of the democratic experience, openness to the Arab and Islamic nation, remarkable and effective engagement on the question of Palestine and other regional issues, and the adoption of strong and courageous positions, all of which indicate a transformation in the region and across the nation, strengthening the trend towards advancement and change for the better.

There is no doubt that there is a clear recognition by all, even those who stubbornly deny it, that the strategy of settlement and negotiations has failed miserably and has reached an impasse, after nearly 20 years of its adoption as the sole option for the overall Arab official policy based on so-called “moderation”. [There is also a recognition] that all successive US administrations, on which the Arab states counted for help in making this strategy successful, did nothing for them but embarrassed and let them down, giving them mere talk and promises, and changing time-lines, while still giving the Zionist entity political and practical support.

Although the advocates of this strategy are unwilling formally to admit failure, lest a vacuum should form resulting in the call for an alternative, the work in this region must definitely drive everyone to seek an alternate more serious and self-respecting strategy which will better be able to face the reality posed by Israel everyday on the ground in defiance of everyone – moderates and non-moderates. The policy of waiting, marking time, sticking to the current policy, testing failed options and reproducing them repeatedly is no longer feasible or possible.

In addition, the general Arab official policy seems, unfortunately, unable to keep pace with the changes in the region, the rise of new players and the growing roles of other players, and the resulting challenges facing the Arabs and their security, interests and regional roles – especially those of the major countries.

Although America continues to weigh influentially on several countries in the region, there is hidden resentment starting to grow towards it in these countries. This includes even those who are friends with the United States, simply because it lets them down and does not help with issues concerning the Arab nation – particularly with respect to the Arab-Israeli conflict – and indulges the Zionist entity and other regional countries at their expense, something which increases their embarrassment in front of their people, and weakens their ability to continue marketing and defending the political moderation strategy based on settlement and negotiations.

One of the proofs that strengthen our confidence that the future of the region is in our favour is the weakening position of the Zionist entity. It is true that it is still ahead militarily, and that the balance of power still works for it, but it is currently encountering many failures. Yes, it is capable of waging war, but it has long been unable to achieve victory.

All the facts mentioned above, and what they sometimes reflect of bitterness and sometimes of promising signs, with a growing awareness among the peoples of the region – especially the Arab people, with the open media space and the inability to hide the facts, with a growing return of the nation’s peoples to their authentic Arab-Islamic identity and cultural roots, and their increasing concern about the current situation of the Arab nation and its destiny and future, national security and regional and international roles and its major issues, at the forefront of which is the Arab-Zionist conflict... All this, in my opinion, stimulates the nation into real and significant change that has become inevitable. It is this which makes me (and those who think similarly to me) confident that the coming years will be, God willing, for the benefit of our nation, notwithstanding the current bitterness, pain and concerns. This view is reinforced by the fact that this region, as evidenced by the facts of history, had always eventually succeeded in regaining the initiative and defeating the forces of aggression.

We are a great nation, proud of ourselves, our religion, our land, our history, our culture and identity, with Palestine and Jerusalem as our beating heart and an indicator of our life and survival. Therefore, we will not tolerate the Zionist entity for long and we will defeat it just as we defeated the Crusades and the Mongol advance in the past. “For it is by turns that We apportion unto people such days (of fortune and misfortune)” (Surah 3, Verse 140).

Sartre on the European Left

2010-08-26T18:47:00.001-05:00

“The Left at home is embarrassed; they know the true situation of the natives, the merciless oppression they are submitted to; they do not condemn their revolt, knowing full well that we have done everything to provoke it. But, all the same, they think to themselves, there are limits; these guerrillas should be bent on showing that they are chivalrous; that would be the best way of showing they are men. Sometimes the Left scolds them … ‘you’re going too far; we won’t support you any more.’ The natives don’t give a damn about their support; for all the good it does them they might as well stuff it up their backsides. Once their war began, they saw this hard truth: that every single one of us has made his bit, has got something out of them; they don’t need to call anyone to witness; they’ll grant favoured treatment to no one.”

- Jean-Paul Sartre

The Love of Allah

2009-10-18T00:25:00.002-05:00

"One can either love Allah or love the world. But both the loves cannot be contained in one heart. Let us submit our hearts to test. Let us examine our hearts to see whether the love of Allah or the love of this world prevails over them. If the love of Allah prevails over our hearts, let us make it deeper. If, Allah forbid, the love of this world prevails, let us try to save ourselves from this dreadful malady.

Every love which occupies the center of the heart of a person is of either of the two kinds. We call the perfect love the double grade love and the love which is not so perfect, the single grade love. To begin with, (single grade) love becomes the basis of man's sentiments, feelings, emotions and desires. After attending to his job or immediate need, man soon returns to his object of love, because love occupies the center of his thoughts, feelings and sentiments.

In the case of double grade love, man's entire attention is drawn by the object of his love and nothing can divert his attention from it. He is never inattentive to the thought of his beloved.

Both these kinds of love are found in the case of the noble love of Allah. Single grade love appears in the hearts of the pious believers whose hearts are free from the impurities of the base affairs of this world. As soon as they are free from their immediate engagements, they return to the question which is the object of their love.

As for double grade love, it is found in the hearts of the Prophets and Imams. You all know Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (as), in the vicinity of whose tomb we live (Najaf). This great man has said "I never saw a thing but I saw Allah before it, after it and along with it". (Qablahu, wa ba'dahu wa ma'ahu).

In fact, this was because love of Allah occupied his great heart and conscience in such a way that it concealed everything else from him. Even when he saw human beings, he saw Allah. When he looked at Allah's bounties, he remembered Him. This bond with Allah was always present before his eyes, for it was Allah alone whom he truly loved and to whom his hopes and aspirations were directed. He never allowed anyone to divert his attention from Allah.

Love of the world also reaches the stage where man does not see anything but the world before it, after it and along with it. Whatever he does, he does it for some worldly gain. He cannot devote himself to pious deeds for more than a few days. This is double grade love of the world. Imam Sadiq (as) has said, "This world is like sea water. The more one drinks of it, the more one gets thirsty."

It was love of Allah that was the basis of Imam Ali's courage and bravery. His courage was not that of a ferocious beast. It was the courage produced by the faith and love of Allah. He was over 60 when he fought against the Khwarij and in a single engagement killed 4000 of them. He was also at the height of bravery in regard to being patient and not pressing his rightful claim. He kept quiet when he was required by Allah to overlook his right. At that time, he was in the prime of his life. His conscience was aflame with the fire of youth. But Islam had told him to keep quiet and be patient, despite the violation of his rights.

After all what is this world of ours? It is a collection of imaginary and fictional things. Harun-al-Rashid's world was very imposing. We curse him day and night. We say that we are better, more pious and more God-fearing than Harun was. Has the world of Harun-al-Rashid been offered to us and have we rejected it? If not, how can we claim to be more pious than him. The world offered to us is not that of Harun. It is much less limited and comparably insignificant. It is transient and shorter and not as vast and extensive as that of Harun. For the sake of this world, he imprisoned Imam Musa al-Kazim (as). Are we sure that if we get that world, we would not throw the Imam into prison? Have we tested ourselves and put this question to ourselves? Has the world of Harun ever been offered to us so that we know we are more pious?

In our world, there can be no truth except that of Allah's good pleasure. Had the Imam worked for worldly gains, he would have been the most miserable person. Yet when he worked for Allah, he said on his deathbed "By the God of the Ka'aba, I am a successful person". This world is not for the students of theology. A student looking for this world can get neither this world nor the next. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us, as students, to confine our efforts to seeking the next world for this world has no value to us.

We should think any moment as possible for our death. At the time of his death, my father was not as old as I was¹. My brother died at a younger age than I did. I have now completed the span of my lifetime².

We ask Allah to purify our hearts, and to brighten them with faith. May He turn our mind more towards seeking His pleasure and fill or hearts with His love, His fear and belief in Him. May he help us according to the teachings of his book, Ameen.
- Ayatullah Baqir Sadr

¹ Sayyid Sadr was 47 to 48 years old at the time of this statement
² Sayyid Sadr was executed, along with his sister Bint-al-Huda, a few months later

"promoting democracy in Iran"

2009-09-10T08:55:00.002-05:00

"The United States could play multiple roles in facilitating a revolution. By funding and helping organize domestic rivals of the regime, the United States could create an alternative leadership to seize power. As Raymond Tanter of the Iran Policy Committee argues, students and other groups “need covert backing for their demonstrations. They need fax machines. They need Internet access, funds to duplicate materials, and funds to keep vigilantes from beating them up.”52 Beyond this, U.S.-backed media outlets could highlight regime shortcomings and make otherwise obscure critics more prominent. The United States already supports Persian language satellite television (Voice of America Persian) and radio (Radio Farda) that bring unfiltered news to Iranians (in recent years, these have taken the lion’s share of overt U.S. funding for promoting democracy in Iran).53 U.S. economic pressure (and perhaps military pressure as well) can discredit the regime, making the population hungry for a rival leadership."
- WHICH PATH TO PERSIA? - Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran (p. 105) by Brookings Institute

On the Tauhid of Allah

2009-08-27T17:12:00.002-05:00

"Praise is due to Allah whose worth cannot be described by speakers, whose bounties cannot be counted by calculators and whose claim (to obedience) cannot be satisfied by those who attempt to do so, whom the height of intellectual courage cannot appreciate, and the divings of understanding cannot reach; He for whose description no limit has been laid down, no eulogy exists, no time is ordained and no duration is fixed. He brought forth creation through His Omnipotence, dispersed winds through His Compassion, and made firm the shaking earth with rocks.

The foremost in religion is the acknowledgment of Him, the perfection of acknowledging Him is to testify Him, the perfection of testifying Him is to believe in His Oneness, the perfection of believing in His Oneness is to regard Him Pure, and the perfection of His purity is to deny Him attributes, because every attribute is a proof that it is different from that to which it is attributed and everything to which something is attributed is different from the attribute. Thus, whoever attaches attributes to Allah recognizes His like, and who recognizes His like regards Him two; and who regards Him two recognizes parts for Him; and who recognizes parts for Him mistakes Him; and who mistakes Him points at Him; and who points at Him admits limitations for Him; and who admits limitations for Him numbers Him.

Whoever says in what is He, holds that He is contained; and whoever says on what He is held says He is not on something else. He is a Being but not through phenomenon of coming into being. He exists but not from non-existence. He is with everything but not in physical nearness. He is different from everything but not in physical separation. He acts but without connotation of movements and instruments. He sees even when there is none to be looked at from among His creation. He is only One, such that there is none with whom He may keep company or whom He may miss in his absence."

- Imam Ali ibn abi-Talib (as), Sermon 1, Nahj ul Balagha

More on the informant in the Newburgh 4 case

2009-07-08T17:00:00.004-05:00

"In both cases, Malik did not stumble upon active terror cells plotting to bring destruction on American soil. Instead, in both Newburgh and Albany, he needed long periods of time to recruit his Muslim contacts, spin elaborate tales about his terror contacts, and develop solid plans of action, all the while providing the defendants with large amounts of resources and cash incentives.

But in each case, the question remains: Would either set of defendants have done anything remotely like plant bombs or launder money for terrorists if not for the prodding and plotting and encouragement of Malik and the FBI?"

The Alarming Record of the F.B.I.'s Informant in the Bronx Bomb Plot

Of course, CAIR and the alphabet groups will remain silent and continue to gravel at the enforcement agencies feet until the next case pops up...then repeat cycle.

Ali Murtaza Zaidi Analysis on Iran Elections

2009-06-21T20:42:00.002-05:00

Votes cast abroad in Iranian elections

2009-06-16T00:10:00.003-05:00

The votes cast abroad are in, and reported at PressTV.

A total of 234,812 votes were cast outside Iran, out of which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won 78,300; Mehdi Karroubi won 4,647; Mohsen Rezaei won 3,635 and Mir-Hossein Moussavi won 111,792 votes. 304 polling stations were established in 130 countries outside Iran, including the United States, Turkey, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

The (counted) votes are in favor of Mousavi (56.3%), then Ahmedinejad (39.3%), Karroubi (2.3%), and lastly Rezai (1.8%). Based on the demographics of both the expatriate Iranian community, and some of the city-specific breakdowns, I would argue that the foreign votes give legitimacy to Ahmedinejad victory, and even the accuracy of the numbers.

(This is not claiming to be a scientific examination. Just some observations)

It is undisputable that the Iranians abroad include large numbers of Shah Royalists, and Iranian (Pseudo-)Leftists, and other exiles who were kicked out or left as a result of the Revolution. These groupings would all be major opposers of the Revolution and Ahmedinejad, some for religio-political interests, and other for economic interests, and were expected to have voted for the reformists, if at all. Given the extreme desire by this crowd to throw Ahmedinejad out, many of them who usually boycott Iranian elections were expected to turn out for this election.

If one examines the foreign city breakdowns closer, similar patterns emerge as in the national polling data. Here are the results taken from PressTV and sorted by Cities in Muslim countries, versus the different parts of the world. Yes, some of these divisions could be argued to be pretty arbitrary, but I think they make sense. (XLS File)

Iranian expatriates settled in Muslim countries favored Ahmedinejad (58%) to Mousavi (44%).

If we narrow this down to Iranians settled, and ostensibly studying or teaching, in religiously important cities (Mecca, Madina, Karbala, Damascus), then Ahmedinejads support is at 72% to Mousavi's 36%.

In the "West" (North America, Western Europe, New Zealand, and Australia), Mousavi holds a whopping 81% to Ahmedinejad's 12% vote.

Across the other regions (Africa, East & SE Asia, South Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America), the number are pretty consistent with around 75% for Mousavi, and ~19% for Ahmedinejad.

One could roughly make some guesses as to how the geographic locations chosen may reflect backgrounds. Both the Royalists and the (Pseudo-)Leftists, being largely uninterested or hostile to Islam, largely settled in the "West." Those in Muslim countries probably make up a mix of religious students/teachers, and business-owners. Those in the religious cities are lkely to be mostly religious students and teachers. Those settled in all the other regions are most likely merchants and business-owners.

Their economic affinity/background within Iran:
I would guess that the Royalists come from the most economicaly well-off.
The (Pseudo-)Leftists probably range working to upper-middle classes.
The business-owners probably range middle to upper-middle classes.
The religious teachers and students probably range from working to upper-middle classes.
I dont know much about expatriate Iranian working-class and migrant labor.

I think its harder to make much of the class origins of expatriates (since they likely dont benefit from Ahmedinejad's policies), but more can extrapolated about the cultural, religious, and social tendencies of these various groups.

If the Iranians settled in Muslim countries and religious cities are more representative, OVERALL, of Iranians at home, then the election results would make sense.

Also, the low number for Rezai and Karroubi also seem pretty consistently low, with Karroubi gaining a bit more (%5) in the "West."

Make your own correlations with what sections of the Iranian expatriates comport with which sections of Iranians at home.

The Islamic Revolution Lives - Peoples Victory in Iran

2009-06-15T01:25:00.012-05:00

The results, with provincial breakdowns (Excel file), are in and confirm the landslide victory of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. (Also available in map)

For the past few weeks, the Western media kept getting giddy as Iranian elections got closer, based on the upsurge of activity and support within the Mir-Hossein Mousavi campaign. They wrote about the Facebook pages, twittering, and blogs that were supporting Mousavi. They went to all the Mousavi rallies and took pictures of the "telegenic" crowds and heralded the coming of "change" in Iran. What they failed to do in the meantime was attend the rallies of Ahmedinejad, and thus failed to ascertain both the extent of his support, as well the composition.

But as the Western media needs to be reminded again and again, there is more to Iran than North Tehran and its wealthier residents. Just because they make you feel comfortable about yourself and reaffirm your own agendas, since they look and talk more like you, does not mean that they are representative of the masses of Iran. This problem becomes amplified when Western media send mainly journalists who do not speak the local languages, in this case Farsi, Azeri, Kurdi, Balouchi, and other regional languages within Iran. Since most of the journalists only speak English, they mostly speak to locals who speak English, which subsequently becomes a self-selecting population of those who can afford and have access to acquire such skills. Great emphasis is also laid on the youth vote, and the womens' vote, but it seems that it is only the youth and women of the privileged classes that matter or count. It was also said that the establishment itself was tired and fed up of Ahmedinejad and wanted to be rid of him, yet somehow this same establishment then collaborated to help him steal the vote.

At the same time, these same privileged classes within Iran also engage in navel-gazing and consider their views, lifestyles, and interests as either representative of the rest of Iran, or more often, as more important. After all, this was one of the causes of the Revolution in the first place. There is little doubt that these same classes look upon the rest of their fellow citizens as backward, stupid, and unable to "read." It is this same class of people (and their erstwhile companions in exile) who make up most of the Iranian presence on blogs, Facebook, and twitter. It is a campaign that represents such people that did not make as much of an effort to go out and campaign in the smaller cities, towns, and rural areas. It is their own narcissism, and the limited scope of coverage of the Western media, that combined to make it appear that Mousavi would be in a position to trounce Ahmedinejad.

It is to be noted that such condescending and dismissive attitudes towards the poorest members of society is also a common trend for the Western media within their own countries.

In the meantime, other Western organizations (with right-wing tendencies) conducted more randomly sampled, and thus more representative, telephone surveys, and rather accurately predicted the election in Ahmedinejad's favor even approximating the final vote rations.

Once the results came in, the Mousavi campaign and its self-absorbed supporters, as well as the Western media were shocked and unwilling to accept reality. However such was the conceit of all of the above, that they did not pause to reflect whether they had missed something, but instead ran out of their houses screaming bloody murder and alleging voter fraud, and AGAIN, the media followed right behind them. All of the post-coverage focused on these, so far at most couple of thousand, disgruntled and delirious Mousavi supporters as if it was a massive uprising. The protests and rioting were by and large limited to North and Central Tehran, and on the second day with some small protests in other big cities. The initial reports from twitter claimed that 50-100 people had been killed, and of course these numbers got bandied about, but never materialized. (They may however reach high as the protests and riots continue onto the third day).

The media again did not stop to ask itself whether these protestants were representative of the rest of the country. They again failed to provide decent coverage of Ahmedinejad's victory rally and the thousands upon thousands who turned out for it to compare numbers. When they did briefly report on this, the sore losers complained saying “It’s too bad CNN’s cameras are focused on the staged sham, while protesters being brutally beaten (and God knows what) elsewhere.”

The above quote taken from the NYTimes running blog, which was completely dedicated to presenting the views and reports of the protesters, had initially listed the actual coverage provided to the protesters with the number of reports from CNN, BBC, Sky TV, among others, and all numbered close to or over a hundred. That tally has been conveniently removed now. But for the sake of fun, one may conduct a brief and rough comparison of the coverage given to the protesters versus the victory rally on the websites of the following news outlets:
BBC - 1 for Victory Rally :: 12 for Protesters
CNN - 2 for Victory Rally :: 23 for Protesters
NYTimes - 0 for Victory Rally :: 11-13 for Protesters (including a very notable article dedicated to the protestation of unfair coverage by CNN of the protesters)
Washington Post - 1 for Victory Rally :: 8 for Protesters

Of course, in the morning the media will still be following behind the protests and repeating the mantra of voter fraud, with no mention or explanation of the massive numbers that turned out for the victory rally in Tehran (which Ahmedinejad still lost).

So what did happen to the vote?

CLASS VOTE - Everybody, from Western media/writers (whether of the right or left persuasion) to Iranian factions (Reformist, Conservative, Revolutionary) fully acknowledge that Ahmedinejad has made efforts in the last 4 years to redistribute income (and wealth, when permitted, through transfer of companies to public ownership through mechanisms such as the justice shares). Many of his critics in fact derided him for such actions and tried to pin it as "bribery," or call him the "potato government," but his efforts on spreading healthcare, education, and housing, etc to those that never had such access before are accepted by ALL parties.

ETHNIC VOTE - There was an ethnic dimension to this vote. It had already been predicted that the outer/non-Farsi provinces would go to the reformists, and West Azerbaijan and Sistan-Balochistan did that, with closer calls in Ardebil and Kordestan. Even those predictions on outer/non-Farsi provinces going to reformers was based on past voting trends (which reflected the historical neglect of those provinces by the centre), but the prediction and trend has been undercut in this election due to Ahmedinejad's policies of going and visiting those provinces and promoting development projects there (education, housing, industry, etc). It would be more interesting to compare Ahmedinejad's percentage of votes in 2005 from Sistan-Balochistan, West Azerbaijan, Kordestan, and Ardebil, to his percentage from 2009 to see how he has made inroads into those ethnic communities. But a cursory glance at rough maps shows the pattern (not percentage) is similar with Ahmedinejad having more solid support in the center both times, and having made some progress in the outer provinces by 2009.

RELIGIOUS VOTE - This is a pretty silly category to argue in Iran. The Reformist, Conservatives, and Revolutionary/Principalists ALL significantly draw from the clergy and identify as religious. Khatami and Karroubi are both (Reformist) clerics. Rafsanjani is also a cleric and in the Conservative camp (which by the way is socially MORE conservative than the others). The Principalists/Revolutionary trend is also equally religious but has a particular understanding of religion ground in the history, ideas, and intellectuals of the Islamic Revolution. All this indicates the complex, vibrant, and diverse discourse taking place on what religion is and what its purpose should be within Iran (and beyond).

But Westerners (and wannabe -Westerners like ones running around Tehran) are too blind to notice these complexities and find it easier for their own respective agendas (of left- or right-wing) to try to fit them into simplistic categories such as secular vs religious, or reformist vs fundamentalist. It is an attempt to classify religion in the same positions that existed and continue to do so in Judeo-Christian Europe, and its progeny, from the Middle Ages till now. If this isn't indicative of Euro-centrism, then I don't know what is.

Furthermore, since both Capitalist and Socialist/Left ideologies developed out of the same historical context, both of these establishment and left viewpoints end up being rooted in the same post-Enlightenment frameworks, which enshrine secularism, “modernity,” and the inevitable teleological narrative of social Darwinian “progress,” and then project these frameworks as universal and inscrutable unto the rest of the world as they have done so for at least the past 200 years. Such racist and prejudiced tactics are expected from those with capitalist and imperialist agendas, yet even Leftists exhibit the same analysis (and arguably the same Imperialist acts if they had the power) of Islamic movements.

It is based on these underlying premises that Secular Leftists see Iran as a reactionary and fascist state, and thus ignore or cannot explain the advances in male and female literacy, and rural literacy, women's access to contraceptives and family planning, expansion of public housing, expansion of health services, access to peer-led drug rehabilitation and needle-exchange programs, expansion of primary, secondary and technical schools, women making up a majority of students in higher education, community-based health clinics, AIDS prevention programs, reductions in infant mortality rates, redistribution of land to peasants, unprecedented availability of commodities to rural poor, opportunities for employment for women, etc.

However, these very same indicators that the Left uses to demonstrate the success of countries like Cuba, are completely ignored by the Left when it comes to Iran, essentially for no other reason that they have beards, wear hijab, and base these ideas and developments on understandings of the Quran and Hadith, rather than Marx, Engels, Lenin, or other white men.

And it is not just Iran, but similar models are successfully being used and developed by Islamic movements of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood within their communities. But here again, a convergence of the Left and the Imperialists sees these groups equally as fundamentalist reactionaries in the same category as Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Right-wing Christians in the US, etc.

If any of these accomplishment of Islamic movements are recognized by the Left, then either it is due to Islamists having learned from the Leftists, or that it is only a crude populism and only a means to sustain votes. None of these same critics of the Revolution have ever read any of the writings of the scholars that laid the foundations for the Revolution, such as Ayatullah Mutahhari, Ali Shariati, Ayatullah Khomeini, Ayatullah Baqir As-Sadr, Ayatullah Taleqani, to name a few. These same ideas form the basis upon which the Revolution is oriented to issues of economic justice.

For the reasons highlighted above, they are unable to grasp the root of the popularity among the masses of Iran for figures such as Ahmedinejad, and the disdain for the Conservatives and the Reformists (this only after having experiences Reformist economic privatizations under Khatami). It is for this reason, that Western predictions about what is going to happen in Iran prove wrong over and over again, and will continue to do so.

This is not to say there aren't any problems in Iran. There are still severe issues of social rights, womens' rights, worker rights, and especially issues of the police and prison apparatus, which has remained unchanged from how it was inherited from the Shah. There is also still a need to develop a coherent theory and praxis of Islamic economics, rather than a hodge-podge of capitalists, socialist, and Islamic measures. But it is a Revolution in progress, and has been challenged with immense opposition from its very inception with wars, sanctions, interference, and sabotage enforced upon it by imperial powers, neighbors, and internal opponents.

Here is one of the best articles published immediately after the voting results were announced - Wishful thinking from Tehran by Abbas Barzegar

Two articles posted while wrote this blog:
The New York Times and the Iranian election
The Iranian People Speak

Hamas turns to mud to fight Israel's economic blockade

2009-05-27T20:28:00.001-05:00

See pictures here

Read another article and pictures here

Hamas turns to mud to fight Israel's economic blockade

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — With Israel refusing to allow building materials across the border, the Hamas-led government in Gaza is pushing a new plan to replace thousands of homes destroyed by Israel's winter military offensive: mud-brick buildings.

To fix a degrading Gaza Strip sewage system, the Red Cross is using thousands of 25-foot cement slabs from the once-towering concrete walls along the Egyptian border that Hamas militants toppled last year.

It's been more than four months since Israeli soldiers left Gaza, but Israel is still blocking cement and other construction material, apparently as long as the Palestinian territory remains in the hands of the militant Islamic group, which doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist.

So Gazans are turning to scavenging to survive.

"We don't need cement," Abu Rami said as he knelt before a growing line of mud bricks for a house he's building on open land not far from the Egyptian border. "We have all the mud we need."

Abu Rami, a 52-year-old father of 12 who was reluctant to use his real name because of how he'd obtained his construction material, said he'd paid about $50 for a truckload of dirt excavated from the nearby smuggling tunnels to Egypt, rented a cement mixer and started building a new home.

Caked in mud as his sons shoveled dirt into the concrete mixer, Abu Rami said that Palestinians were going backward.

"My mother lived in a mud house for 40 years," he said. "Now we're living in mud, too."

The idea is catching on, and Hamas leaders in Gaza City have taken notice.

Sitting in his government office, one of the few that Israeli airstrikes haven't destroyed over the last three years, Ziad al Zaza, Gaza's deputy prime minister, pulled out drawings for a stylish three-story, multi-domed mud-brick building.

"I hope to break the siege by building this model," he said.

In the coming days, Zaza said, construction workers would break ground on the government's first officially sanctioned mud-brick building, which is for a children's charity. The construction site, he said, will double as a classroom for Palestinians who want to learn how to work with mud.

"After that, any Palestinian citizen whose house has been destroyed and wants to rebuild like this, they can," Zaza said.

Eventually, he said, the Israeli restrictions will become irrelevant because Gazans will find other ways to rebuild.

That may be wishful thinking, but Hamas leaders aren't the only ones who are interested in using the alternative building ideas in Gaza.

The United Nations Development Program has sought advice from Rashid Abdel Hamid, a noted Palestinian architect who designed Gaza's first contemporary mud-brick buildings more than a decade ago.

"There are people sitting on the ruins of their homes, so they have to find a solution," Abdel Hamid said.

One of Gaza's two Abdel Hamid mud creations is the signature Al Deira Hotel, an elegant, 22-room, seaside hotel that's long been a favorite of visiting journalists and diplomats.

The ban on sending construction materials into Gaza predates Israel's winter military offensive. Israel imposed it in June 2007, when Hamas militants routed Fatah rivals during a short civil war. Major international development projects have been on hold ever since.

So when Hamas militants toppled the iron and concrete Gaza-Egypt border walls last year, engineers from the International Red Cross, which is based in Geneva, seized the opportunity: They used 2,800 concrete slabs to build the shoreline for two much-needed sewage treatment ponds.

At first, Red Cross engineers said, Gaza government officials were skeptical. Then they saw the potential and started hauling away the slabs for their own use. After weeks of negotiations, the Hamas-led government returned the slabs to the Red Cross.

Last week, the Red Cross flooded the two football field-sized pools, creating surreal new sewage ponds bordered by hundreds of the concrete slabs.

"We are pioneers," said Marek Komarzynski, a Red Cross engineer who worked on the project.

The trailblazer in Gaza's modern-day mud-brick home movement is Jihad Shaer, a 36-year-old father of five, who now lives in a new two-bedroom house in Rafah.

Shaer said he'd seen mud-brick homes years ago in his travels as a salesman to Pakistan, Yemen and other parts of the region. Unable to afford the high-priced cement smuggled in from Egypt, Shaer decided to mix straw into the dirt, fashion sun-dried bricks and build the home.

He proudly took visitors on a tour of his house Wednesday afternoon as Israel's air force carried out airstrikes nearby on smuggling tunnels along the border.

The cracking walls keep the rooms cool, and Shaer said he was confident that they were thick enough not to dissolve in the winter rains.

During the tour, Shaer's friend came by to visit.

"I wish I had land to build a house like this," Mohammed Tawil said. "We were created out of mud; now we live in mud."

"Muslim" orgs - 1 week behind mainstream press

2009-05-27T19:47:00.005-05:00

Yesterday, CAIR and MPAC finally issued statements raising concerns about the use and role of informants in the Newburgh 4 "plot."

Apparently they are still "considering" suspending outreach relations with the FBI.

CAIR "questioned" (that'll scare em!) the FBI's tactics, and cited mainstream press articles from the past week. How is a national self-proclaimed civil rights organization one week behind MAINSTREAM press in speaking out about the bogus nature of this case? How does such an organization stay silent about such cases, then decides to speak out about use of informants and threatening to cut off relations on April 1, then applauds the FBI for busting a terror case on May 21, and then raises "questions" about the same case on May 26? How many times will this cycle be repeated over?

MPAC, on the other hand, decides to send a letter (gasp!), to the FBI (gasp!), about the FBI!

The above points raise two interesting questions:
1. How is it that mainstream press knows sooner and more (we'll leave aside the issue of backbone on speaking out) about the role of the informants that Muslim "civil rights" organizations? What does this indicate about the level of communication and presence of these orgs within grassroots communities? How is it that mainstream media interviewed the Imam and community members of the masjids, yet these orgs either did not contact them, or did not issue their statements on that basis?

2. How is it that these orgs are quick to speak out on issues of "hate crimes" or incident perpetrated by isolated civilians, and for the most part insignificant (in damage to the community), but stutter in speaking out about racist targeting perpetrated by the state and its apparatus? (see above link for backbone issue)

For the record, ISNA too issued a "condemnation" of the plot and "commend[ed] the FBI" for busting the plot on May 21.

CAIR's priorities

2009-05-23T21:55:00.004-05:00

In addition to the last few posts about the role and priorities of CAIR, there was a brief mention of CAIR preparing to send a delegation to Iran to persuade for the release of Roxana Saberi, Esha Momeni, and Robert Levinson.

this is at the same time that CAIR has refused to take up the cases or provide ongoing support to families of Muslims here who have been targeted by the US government - Matin Siraj, Fahad Hashmi, the Miami 7, Ehsanul Sadequee, Syed Haris Ahmed, and now the Newburgh 4, among many others. Many of these cases involved the use of informants, or have been based on flimsy evidence, had serious lack of government transparency, or the suspects have been kept in atrocious conditions. Yet, CAIR has not taken up their cases, in some instances outrightly refused to help the families, or taken the side of the government.

Aside from the issue of Robert Levinson being a former FBI agent, who was unlikely to have been in Iran for tourism, there is nothing wrong with CAIR participating in building bridges of goodwill and trying to get clemency for American citizens in Iran. However, the cases in Iran are not divorced from larger political agendas, to which CAIR ends up contributing by highlighting cases in Iran, while remaining silent about similar cases in the US.

These actions again raise the question of what the priorities are of these so-called Muslim civil rights organizations. Is it to defend the rights of Muslims? Or is it to ingratiate themselves to the US government and law enforcement agencies in order to have a place at the table with those in power? Increasingly, there remains little doubt...

READ:
Roxana Saberi's plight and American media propaganda

CAIR/MPAC: Spurned lover still professes love for the abuser

2009-05-23T21:32:00.004-05:00

So after some public displays of a spat a few months ago, CAIR has returned to kissing the boots of the continually abusive lover - the US government and law enforcement agencies. this confirms that the earlier protestations were in fact just ploys to appear "hard to get," and having failed, now returning to original tactics of begging to be loved. MPAC on the other hand, never really participated in the spat, and immediately expressed its undying loyalty.

So with this new case breaking, where even several mainstream media outlets are raising concerns about the use of informants, CAIR and MPAC did not hesitate to issue public statements applauding the FBI and NYPD for preventing the attacks. All of the sudden, the concerns they raised a few months ago are not enough significant to warrant waiting a bit to determine the genuineness of the case, or even a mention in the statements. CAIR issued its statement by 9AM the next morning, and MPAC also issued their statement sometime the day following the arrests. Both statements are recorded here for record-keeping, in case they try to take them off.

These actions again raise the question of what the priorities are of these so-called Muslim civil rights organizations. Is it to defend the rights of Muslims? Or is it to ingratiate themselves to the US government and law enforcement agencies in order to have a place at the table with those in power? There remains little doubt...

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CAIR's statement:
Posted 5/21/2009 9:17:00 AM

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 5/21/2009) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today applauded efforts by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies that apparently thwarted an alleged plot to attack Jewish institutions in New York.

Four men were arrested Wednesday for allegedly plotting to bomb a synagogue and a Jewish community center. The men also allegedly planned to shoot down military planes.

SEE: Synagogue Targeted in NY Plot, Four Charged (Reuters)

In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said:

“We applaud the FBI, the New York Police Department and the other law enforcement agencies that took part in the investigation for their efforts in helping to prevent any harm to either Jewish institutions or to our nation’s military.

"We repeat the American Muslim community’s repudiation of bias-motivated crimes and of anyone who would falsely claim religious justification for violent actions. Members of the American Muslim community should remain vigilant in reporting any activities that could harm the safety and security of our nation or its citizens.”

CAIR also requested that media outlets and public officials refrain from linking this case to mainstream Islam and to challenge those who will inevitably exploit this disturbing incident to promote anti-Muslim fear and stereotypes.

Along with innumerable condemnations of other terror incidents, 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 campaign of that same name and coordinated a “fatwa,” or Islamic religious ruling, against terrorism and religious extremism.

SEE: CAIR’s Anti-Terrorism Campaigns

[NOTE TO EDITORS: American Muslims are often accused of not speaking out forcefully against acts of terror committed in the name of Islam. This statement, along with the many other past anti-terror statements by mainstream Muslim groups, reaffirms the American Muslim community’s unequivocal condemnation of terrorism in all its forms.]

CAIR, America's largest Islamic civil liberties group, has 35 offices and chapters nationwide and in Canada. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

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MPAC's statement:

MPAC Outraged Over NYC Synagogue Plots
May 21, 2009

The Muslim Public Affairs Council is outraged over the alleged plan of four men to carry out attacks against Jewish houses of worship in New York City. The four men were arrested after planting what they thought were explosives near a synagogue and community center. MPAC applauds the FBI for foiling the group's plot to bomb New York City synagogues and use surface-to-air missiles to attack U.S. military planes.

SEE: "4 Accused of Bombing Plot at Bronx Synagogues" (New York Times)

Earlier this morning, MPAC Executive Director, Salam Al-Marayati, wrote to Rabbi Schneier, President and Founder of the New York based Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, and other Jewish leaders stating:

"I write to you today with shock and dismay over reports that four Muslims planned to bomb synagogues in the New York City area. This criminal attitude is reprehensible and wretched. On behalf of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, I want to demonstrate solidarity with you and all Jewish Americans against any attack motivated by anti-Semitism. We, Muslims and Jews, are all believers in the One God who wants justice in our society. We are all American citizens who band together to protect our country against any threat. We are all members of humanity who want to work for the betterment of society, in building bridges of understanding, against those who want to destroy those bridges. Thank you for all the work you do at the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. I hope to be with you in the near future by the will of God."

Islam considers the use of terrorism to be unacceptable for any purpose, and MPAC reaffirms the position of condemning acts of violence against any faith group in the name of Islam. Additionally, those seeking to carry out acts of violence should be swiftly brought to justice.

MPAC is calling upon members of the American Muslim community to be on alert and take pro-active measures to protect the security of our religious institutions, communities, and nation.

Another frame up plot

2009-05-23T20:25:00.003-05:00

It is amazing that the enforcement agencies are unable to even be creative in fabricating "terror" plots, and keep using the same modus operandi every single time. Now they allege that four Muslim men planned to attack two synagogues in the Bronx, and an Air National Guard base upstate NY. Here a review from some of the articles:

LENGTH OF INVESTIGATION
The supposed "investigation" has been in the works since June of 2008. However, the alleged suspects did not begin to plan anything until October of 2008, when they began to meet in a house in Newburgh to start planning. This raises the question of what exactly happened between June and October of 2008. This is usually the time that the informants use to radicalize and provoke the would-be suspects to get them to point of wanting to do something. It is at this point that the informant brought them to a house of his choosing which was fitted with audio and video recording equipment. Convenient.

ROLE OF INFORMANTS
From the very first reports, it was clear that the informants in this case played a clear role. The very first articles, from the morning after the arrests, indicate that the informant was the one to provide "weapons" for this plot. It is hard to imagine that the person providing such highly sophisticated weapons, stinger missiles and explosive devices, would have been playing a backseat role in the other parts of the formation of the plot. Without a doubt, the offer to provide weapons cannot occur without incitement or encouragement to conception and planning of such a plot. In fact, the informant claimed to be a member of Jaish-e-Mohammed. Now, which one of these person would be more likely to suggest, and be looked up to, to perpetrate a terror plot? The informant(s) who claims to be a member of Jaish-e-Mohammed, offers weapons and explosives for the plot, or the four men who lacked basic Islamic knowledge, and one of whom was smoked out and high on the night of the arrests, had long rap sheets, and possible psychological problems? (No offense intended to recent converts, potheads, people with rap sheets, people with mental issues, or dumb folk - just an indication of who the enforcement agencies go after).

Such must have been the role of the informant, that he was able to bring the suspects into a house of HIS choice, which was equipped with concealed audio and video recording devices. It is also telling that the FBI and NYPD were able to drive in and use an 18-wheeler to block the suspected vehicle, which is no minor feat on a Bronx street even on a Sunday night, and indicates the level of infiltration and coordination. The words of one of the law enforcement officers, "it was fully controlled at all times," take on more than one meaning.

The Imam of the masjid that the suspects and informants attended, indicated that there had been widespread suspicions about the informant. Many in the congregation suspected that he was a government informant and provocateur, who kept inviting people to their houses and tried to engage them in radical discussions, and even offered them money to engage in violent acts.

The owner of the restaurant that the group met at noticed when the informant joined the group at meals. He also noticed that the informant usually paid for the meals, and assumed that he was the "boss" of the group.

This article in the NYT indicates that the informant is in fact Shahed Hussain, the same informant who was used in in the setting up of an Albany Imam and pizzeria owner in 2004. There is demand for professional informants apparently and experience counts. This guy is reported to have tried to recruit young members of the masjid, particularly African Americans, to join his team. The informant, as in many other cases, started to work with federal authorities, to work off a fraud charge from 2002, and to avoid deportation.

The Imam of the masjid raises an important point - “How do you go to the government about the government?”

TIMING OF ATTACKS
It must be noted that these tactics instituted under the Bush administration continue under the Obama administration, despite many public grievances against such tactics by Muslim communities, Muslim organisations, and even mainstream media. As usual, the timing of such plots often seek to serve a function within larger political debates and decisions. The "Herald Square Plot" was seized upon days before the 2004 Republican national Convention in NYC. This plot was timed, at the behest of the informant no doubt, to result in arrests the day before Obama's speech on national security and on his strategy for Guantanamo Bay prison. The arrests also took place on the same day that Obama revealed intentions to use "preventative detention" in cases related to terrorism. Such tactics, however, have already been in practice with regards to the Muslim community, where suspects are immediately charged with terrorism, and slowly over time those charges peter out to minor charges like credit card fraud or identity theft, or in many cases outright dismissal of all charges.

CONTEXT
The would-be suspects in this case, and the comments of notorious anti-Muslim politician Peter King indicate the shift or expansion that Domestic War of Terror will take in the coming future, to assert that "there’s a real threat from homegrown terrorists and also from jailhouse converts.” This shift to extend this racist targeting to include African American Muslims and convert communities has been part of the planning of law enforcement agencies for quite a while, and also from the NYPD's report.

Additionally, this indicates the shifting of law enforcement involvement to earlier and earlier stages, as was indicated and suggested by the NYPD report, which suggested law enforcement involvement and intervention at or even before suspects become radicalized. This same notion was then unsuccessfully attempted to be enshrined into law with HR 1955. All of this is clearly indicated by the words of the mayor himself: “I’ve always thought of our police department’s primary job, not as first responders but as first preventers.”

The NYPD report also mentioned that NYPD was involved in training of police and enforcement agencies in other countries. Indeed the fruits of such training are bearing out in the use of the same tactics in other countries including the UK.

For additional context for the purpose behind such tactics, read at the end here.

Reads:
- Informer’s Role in Bombing Plot
- At N.Y. Mosque, Many Suspected an Informant Before 4 Were Arrested in Plot
- FBI ‘lured dimwits’ into terror plot
- How MI5 blackmails British Muslims: ‘Work for us or we will say you are a terrorist’
- NYPD's report on Muslims

Offer

2009-05-02T01:15:00.003-05:00

"For your brother, offer your blood and your wealth, for your enemy your justice and fairness, and for people in general your joy and your good favor."
- Imam Ali (as) (The Scale of Wisdom, Hadith #4254)

Enduring legacy of a leader

2009-04-12T00:12:00.002-05:00

Quotes taken from AhlulBayt Islamic Mission

How true Islamic leadership speaks:
“I know that these demands will cost me dearly, perhaps even my life, but these are not demands that could die out with a person’s death. They are the yearnings of an Ummah, the will of an Ummah, in whose psyche the spirit of Muhammad, Ali and the chosen descendants of Muhammad and his companions, and that will never die.”
Address to the Iraqi people, 20 Rajab 1399 HL (1978 CE)

“I confirm to those at the helm that the oppression directed against the Iraqi people, through the force of iron and fire, which deprived them of the simplest rights and freedoms to observe their religious rites, cannot continue. Not can it always be handled by force and repression. If force were a permanent and decisive remedy, the pharaohs and tyrants would have survived.”
Address to the Iraqi people, 20 Rajab 1399 HL (1978 CE)

“The duty of each one of you and of every individual whose good fortune leads him to be part of this pioneering Islamic experience is to spare no effort or means in the service of this experience; nor should he spare any effort while construction for the sake of Islam is underway. No limit should be imposed on efforts while the force of Islam hoists high the banner of the cause. This new constructive project is in need of the efforts of all individuals, no matter how small. It should also be clear that all should embrace, pay allegiance to and protect the interests of Sayyid Khomeini’s religious authority, which has embodied Islam’s hopes in today’s Iran, and should desire to become assimilated into its great existence for the sake of its great goal. The good religious authority is not a person, but a goal and path to it. Any religious authority that attains that goal is a good one, in which case it should be served with all devotion.”
Letter of Shaheed Al-Sadr to his students and followers

“O great Ummah! Today you are experiencing hard times at the hands of assassins and butchers, who are astounded by the wrath of the awakening masses, after they have chained them in irons and instilled fear and terror in their hearts. The bloodletting villains imagine that they have robbed the masses of their esteem and dignity, and stripped them of their great faith, the religion of Muhammad, so as to turn these brave, believing millions of proud Iraqi people into toys and tools to manipulate as they wish, into which they feed forcibly allegiance to Aflaq [the founder and theorist of the Ba’th party] and his like – agents of missionaries and imperialism – in place of allegiance to Muhammad and Ali. Yet the masses are always stronger than tyrants, no matter how harsh their tyranny becomes. Thus, the tyrants were surprised to discover that the Ummah still pulsates with life and retains the ability to speak its mind.”
Address to the Iraqi people, 10 Shaban 1399 HL (1979 CE)

“O my dear people of Iraq! O you great Ummah, in this difficult and turbulent moment and at this juncture of your jihad, I would like to address all groups and sects, Arabs and Kurds alike, Sunni and Shi’a alike, because the calamity that has been inflicted upon us knows no sectarian or ethnic divide; the calamity is universal.”
Address to the Iraqi people in his last appeal

“I have lived my existence for nothing other than Islam, which is the road to salvation and the goal of all. I am with you O my Sunni brother and son, just as much as I am with you, O my Shi’a brother and son! I am with you both in the same measure you are with Islam, and in just as much as you bear this great flame to salvage Iraq and rid it of the nightmare of oppression, subservience and persecution. The despite regime [taghut] and its followers try to suggest to our noble Sunni sons that it is a matter of Shi’a and Sunni, so as to separate Sunnis from their real struggle against the common enemy.”
Address to the Iraqi people in his last appeal

measure of life

2009-04-09T17:14:00.004-05:00

"I also ask Allah to accept our conviction in his way and to give us success in protecting the beliefs of this Ummah; for the life of any being is not measured except by how much he can give to his Ummah, by his presence, his life, his thought"
- Shaheed Baqir Al-Sadr

War against Islam? Debatable. War against Muslims? Certainly!

2009-04-09T00:16:00.003-05:00

Obama: "The United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam"

While that is debatable, the War against Muslims, at home and abroad, is still ongoing and in full-force...

Florida Student Arrested by Immigration Three Days After Acquittal on Bomb Charges
Immigration officials have arrested a twenty-three-year-old Florida student just three days after a jury acquitted him on federal explosives charges. Youssef Megahed was arrested in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store Monday, where he had gone shopping with his father. He had just begun a fast to celebrate his acquittal. Megahed’s attorneys say he now faces deportation proceedings, apparently on the same charges for which he was found not guilty.

When the first attempt to frame-up this young Muslim fails, Immigration moves in 3 days after his acquittal to arrest, detain, and ostensibly deport him on immigration charges, based on the same charges he was just acquitted from.

Immigration enforcement has long been used as tool to target the unwanted (read: people of color), the dissenting, those the state would like to silence, and against those who could not be targeted under the criminal system.

Of course, the subservient Muslim leadership and organizations are running are enthusiastically to welcome Obama's comments, lets wait and see any changes in actions. Here are some guiding words by Dr. Hatem Bazian:

"Equality of all mankind regardless of race, gender, nationality or religion."
"All are equal under the law, both domestic and international law. We have had a double standard in our application of international law."
Bazian insists Obama should distance himself from the policies of his wartime predecessor and embrace the principle that "war is not an option," but rather a "last resort".
"Military intervention can delay or shield us from the real problems. But it alone can't change the conditions on the ground.
"The Muslim world needs less militarism, less troops, no occupations, no more torture, less double standards, no more dictators, no kings and no despotic governments."

90 immigrants have died in US custody in last 5 1/2 years

2009-04-07T02:17:00.002-05:00

Revealed: 90 immigrants have died in US custody in last 5 1/2 years
by John Byrne

At least 90 immigrants have died while in US custody since October 2003, a document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed Friday. At least 32 deaths occurred at facilities run by private contractors.

The document -- which has received little to no attention -- also displays an apparent carelessness on the part of prison officials, whose records of the deaths change and omit inmate deaths over time.

Moreover, it shows that prison officials are now recording even fewer details about immigrants' deaths, possibly in response to periodic scrutiny of the list. A previous list that covered the period up until 2007 included the locations of deaths; the current list records either the location or the facility where the inmate was held, without any evident pattern.

The list also reveals that one private company, the Corrections Corporation of America, had at least 18 deaths under its watch, and that 32 of the 90 deaths occurred while immigrants were held in private prisons. 37 of the deaths occurred at regional facilities and 20 at federal centers.

"That breakdown differs from one provided at a March 3 House subcommittee hearing that cited only six deaths in private facilities," the New York Times, which printed the document, said. "That low figure was based on a classification supplied by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which reflected who owned the jail building and the type of government contract in effect, not the operator."

In addition, information about some deaths has been obscured.

"Some information has been changed without explanation," the Times added. "For example, the cause of death for Boubacar Bah, 52, who was held at the Corrections Corporation of America detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., previously was listed as 'brain hemorrhage, fractured skull' and now reads 'undetermined.'"

The full list is available here.

In an effort to collect more information surrounding the detainees' deaths, the New York Times has created a tipline: if you have any knowledge of the incidents, email the Times' Nina Bernstein (ninab@nytimes.com)

US Muslim organizations (grudgingly) coming to their senses or maybe playing hard to get (PT IV)

2009-04-07T02:05:00.003-05:00

Follow-up from: PT I & PT II & PT III

For a list of out and out sellout organizations claiming to be Muslims, and modern day Haman, read this article:

Some Muslims Support FBI's Stand Against CAIR
By Matt Coker in A Clockwork Orange, Main, OC Media

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has an office in Anaheim, has been in the news (and on this blog) a lot lately following official confirmation that the FBI has been spying on the Islamic Society of Irvine mosque.

CAIR and the Islamic Educational Center of Orange County were among several Muslim advocacy groups that signed on to a statement saying they are considering breaking ties with the feds over such snooping and the FBI's previous breaking of ties with CAIR. But not every Muslim group supports that stand. A different coalition of American Muslim groups has issued a statement of its own commending the FBI.

We, the undersigned American Muslims, have long known the true character of CAIR and its allies. Therefore:

We observe that they denounce "terrorism" in general terms but not the specific actions of Islamist groups like Hamas or Hezbollah. They denounce violence but not the ideologies behind it.
We observe their commitment to radical aims, their attempts to chill free speech by calling critics of radical Islam "Islamophobes," and their false, ugly accusations against moderate American Muslims who disagree with their agenda.
We reject any claim that CAIR and its supporters are legitimate civil liberties advocates or appropriate partners between the U.S. government and American Muslims.
We congratulate the FBI for adopting a firmer attitude toward CAIR, as a defense of Americans of all faiths from the menace of radical Islam, including Muslims of all backgrounds - Sunni, Shia, Sufi, secular, etc.
We call on the U.S. Department of Justice to affirm and continue this decision.
We call on the entire United States government to follow suit in rejecting relations with the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The statement is signed by Kemal Silay, president of the Center for Islamic Pluralism; Supna Zaidi, assistant director of Islamist Watch; M. Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy; Imaad Malik, fellow with the Center for Islamic Pluralism; Ahmed Subhy Mansour with the International Quranic Center; Khalim Massoud, whose email address is Reform Islam; Nawab Agha Mousvi of the American Muslim Congress; Kiran Sayyed of the Council for Democracy and Tolerance; Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism; a group called Shia Protest; and Jalal Zuberi, Southern U.S. director with the Center for Islamic Pluralism.

US Muslim organizations (grudgingly) coming to their senses or maybe playing hard to get (PT III)

2009-04-07T00:39:00.004-05:00

Follow-up from: PT I & PT II

From this article, if there were one statement that could encapsulate the crux of the issues of accountability, and whose interests the alphabet Muslim organizations really represent, it would be this:

“If a Muslim leader of any of our national groups supporting full maintenance of engagement is to be detained today, these groups would inevitably no longer stay on the table for continued so-called engagement. Therefore, the question is where do you draw the line? The line for grassroots movements is drawn when an average individual such as (Ahmad) Niazi is affected or in solidarity for all those families who have been harassed by recent intrusions but for others, the threshold may be much higher.”
- Faisal Qazi

On the other hand, these are the positions of Muslim organizations:

“We believe that we have to keep our place at the table in this discourse.”
- Salam Maryati, MPAC Director

“ISNA believes that communications with law enforcement agencies should remain open and it is not in favor of ending contacts with the FBI.”
- ISNA statement

The Islamic Shura Council of Southern California polled local Muslims in March, and these are the results they yielded:

In the poll, 78 percent of respondents said American Muslims should have “no relationship at all [with the FBI] until they stop unfairly targeting” Muslims or “end outreach relationship and limit communication to ‘as needed.’” The remaining 22 percent said Muslims should maintain an ongoing relationship with the FBI, “no matter what.”

Even, Agha Saeed, the chairman of the AMT, who spearheaded the statement threatening breaking off of ties with the FBI, still continues to insist that it is not an effort of disengagement, and suggests resumption of this abusive relationship:

“It is instead designed to truly engage top Justice Department officials on these critical issues. It is also designed to help restore respect and equal rights for American Muslims after eight years of being treated as suspects rather than partners.”

It is absolutely clear that there is a disconnect between the vast majority of the Muslim grassroots, and the variety of alphabet Muslim organizations which claim to represent Muslims. It indicates not only issues of accountability, but also issues of transparency and representation.

In what ways are the Muslim organizations accountable and responsive to the grassroots?

In what ways to they make clear to the Muslim communities the nature, extent and content of their relationship and interactions with law enforcement agencies and the government?

What is the relationship between the demographics (and interests) of the people in leadership positions in the Muslim organizations, and demographics (and interests) of the most of the individuals and families that have been targeted by enforcement agencies?

The CAIR representative makes this statement:

“The problem is that many in the Muslim community no longer feel confident that the FBI is pursuing an honest dialogue with the Muslim community,” Ayloush said. “This was the result of confirmed reports that, while the Muslim community engaged in honest partnership building and dialogue with the FBI for eight years, the FBI was paying convicted felons to ‘infiltrate’ mosques to radicalize Muslim youths and instigate talks about terrorism action. Integrity and honesty are the foundation of any relationship.”

Why is it only now that CAIR is arguing to cut off the relationship? There exist only three possibilities:

They are discovering the tactics that the FBI has been using
They feel there is more space to criticize the government and enforcement agencies under the new administration
They are bitter and upset about the FBI cutting off relations with them in late 2008

The first reason is clearly eliminated since these tactics used by the FBI and enforcement agencies have been quite apparent for many years, including immediately after 9/11 (and even before then). From local interactions and exchanges of information between individuals masjid members, and grassroots organizations such as DRUM, to very explicit mentions of these cases from prominent Muslims and activists, such as Dr. Hatem Bazian.

The second reason, while recognizing very real risks and hostile climate, undermines the very premise of such Muslim organizations. If the regional and national Muslim organizations are afraid to speak out on behalf of their communities, and against the government, then what good are they? How can they seek to protect the rights of Muslims if they are afraid to speak up? And finally, what kind of Islam do they represent if they are afraid to speak up?

The third reason is firmly affirmed, not only by logical deduction, but also by the very statements of CAIR and other Muslim organizations' statements. It is this gatekeeper role, which the Muslim organizations are seeking to hold on to, and resent being sidelined and not being invited to the table by those in power.

One last point in response to this in the article:

Muslim leaders observe that the fate of American Muslims mirrors that of other minorities who they say were intimidated by government forces and stripped of their humanity yet continued to stand up and eventually gained respect and their true place in society.

Really? Which communities of color have gained respect and their "true place" in society?

One needs only look at the historical role of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to know that it is a racist and anti-democratic organization which has repressed any and all communities of color, or dissenting communities, and in particular during times of Imperial wars abroad. In fact, the tactics being used by enforcement agencies against the Muslim communities, were practiced and perfected on the Black, Latino, Asian, Indigenous, labor-rights, and civil rights communities under the auspices of COINTELPRO in the 60s and 70s, not to mention the general racism and repression doled out from before and since then.

The only respect gained has been for the very similar gatekeeper and collaborationist organizations which have sold out the rights of their communities in exchange for having a "place at the table" with authorities.

At a time when the US government is waging war in multiple Muslim countries, directly, covertly, or by proxy, and acting like a modern-day pharaoh, is the duty, and moral obligation, of Muslims to be like Musa (as) or to be like Qarun?

The need for changes within the Muslim communities is long overdue, and this change can only come when Muslim community members, Imams, activists, and masajid start making it clear that not only do these Muslim organizations not represent us, but also that we seek our source of power and security from Allah, and in conjunction with other oppressed communities, like Musa (as) and not from those in power, like Qarun.

"And certainly We raised in every nation a messenger saying: 'Serve Allah and shun the oppressor.' So travel through the earth, and see what was the nature of the consequence for the deniers!"
- Quran 16:36

Apartheid and Occupation under International Law by John Dugard

2009-04-03T00:41:00.002-05:00

Read transcript here

Hisham B. Sharabi Memorial Lecture
“Apartheid and Occupation under International Law”

with

Professor John Dugard
Former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Visiting Distinguished Professor of Law, Duke University

26 March 2009

While the international community continues to posture and push for a settlement to the decades-long Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory, international legal institutions are positioned to offer insights based on developed international treaties and customs. They are underutilized to the detriment of peace. Drawing on his experience as the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Professor John Dugard, who returned from a fact-finding mission to Gaza early this month, will discuss how international law and the institutions charged with upholding it can enable a break in the Israel-Palestinian impasse.

Professor Dugard is a member of the Institut de Droit International. Since 1997, he has been a member of the U.N. International Law Commission and was, from 2000 to 2006, the Special Rapporteur on Diplomatic Protection to the Commission. From 2002 to 2008, he was a judge ad hoc in the International Court of Justice. From 2001 to 2008, Dugard served as Special Rapporteur to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. His present principal interests are international criminal law and diplomatic protection.

US Muslim organizations (grudgingly) coming to their senses or maybe playing hard to get (PT II)

2009-03-28T18:07:00.006-05:00

followup from PT I.

The fallout from the potential breakup of this abusive and dysfunctional relationship between Muslim leadership and the FBI (and other law enforcement agencies) continues...

In response to the serious criticism by the Muslim organizations (of lack of honesty and integrity by the FBI, the use of informants and agent-provocateurs, the FBI cutting of relations and accusing CAIR of being unindicted co-conspirators, and use of "McCarthy-era tactics"), a spokesperson from the FBI responded to none of the allegations and made this statement:

"Limiting honest dialogue, especially when complex issues are on the table, is generally not an effective advocacy strategy," spokesman John Miller said in a statement. "The FBI has continued our outreach efforts, across the board, with a number of concerned groups and where we agree -- or disagree -- most have concluded the best results are achieved through continued conversation. We believe that, too."

This should clearly be a sign to the Muslim organizations that the FBI and the government are not at all sincere in their intentions and efforts, and absolutely refuse to acknowledge ANY of their actions.

In today's article, "Muslim Americans at Odds Over FBI Contact," on the same issue in the Washington Post, the fault lines among the different Muslim organizations are starting to become more apparent. Some selections from the article:

"Disengagement does not enable mutual understanding. It does the exact opposite," said Aakif Ahmad, who is on the board of advisers for two Muslim American organizations. "Emotive terms like 'McCarthy-era tactics' undermine the hard work on the part of many people seeking to find common ground."

First, who is Aakif Ahmad, and what organizations he represents is not identified in the article. It appears that he is involved with Muslim Advocates, Search for Common Ground, Corporate Executive Board Company, U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project, and a contributor to the Democratic Party. Foremost, he represents no Muslim organizations that represent (or even claim to represent) US Muslims. Secondly, a quick glance at the disturbing personalities involved at the US-Muslim Engagement Project yields current and former State Department officials (Madeleine Albright), neo-cons and key figures in Bush administration (Richard Armitage), AIPAC officials (Thomas Dine), Arab and Muslim sellouts (Ziad Asali, Vali Nasr), Oil Industry (Red Cavaney), military officials (Daniel Christman), and an assortment of industrialists and capitalists with relationships to the Rockerfeller Foundation, World Economic Forum, EastWest Institute, Council on Foreign Relations, among others. A quick glance at the personalities on the various boards and funders of Search for Common Ground shows a lot of the very same, if not similar types of figures.

Secondly, two questions to be posed to Mr. Ahmad are:

What have been the concrete results and benefits of "engagement" over the past 8 years, asides from community fragmentation, trumped up cases, racial and religious profiling, informants, agent provocateurs, and creation of fear within the Muslim community?
By what standard is the use of "McCarthy-era tactics" an emotive, rather than very real and descriptive, term? (See above list and previous posts)

Carrying on...

But now, the coalition says it may halt that. It is aiming its ire at the FBI over two issues: the decision last fall by the FBI to cut off contact with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the nation's largest Muslim American advocacy organizations; and allegations that the FBI is sending informants into mosques to entrap members into making violent statements against the United States.

CAIR Director Ibrahim Hooper said the group used to organize town hall meetings between the FBI and Muslims and offer diversity training workshops for agents.

It was through these very same town hall meetings that the law enforcement agencies established most of the contacts and relationships which later blossomed into becoming informants. All of this resulted as the legitimacy provided to them by groups like CAIR within the community, and thus they should also hold themselves accountable for the havoc wrecked upon and within our communities.

FBI spokesman John Miller said that the FBI operates within appropriate guidelines. "The FBI does not investigate mosques, we investigate people, and we do that based on predicates that are defined by law and FBI guidelines," he said.

Again, if the Muslim organizations have any doubts remaining about the bold-faced lies of the FBI, then the statements by their spokespersons should clear them up.

But whether to stop cooperating with the FBI has been the subject of hot dispute among Muslim leaders. Some are critical of the agency's treatment of CAIR and use of informants but say they don't agree with the threat to cut off contact with it.

The Islamic Society of North America, a large umbrella group of American mosques, said in a statement that it has met with the FBI and urged it to open an investigation into the infiltration of the mosques. However, it said, it does not condone ending contact with the FBI.

Ah, ISNA seems to enjoy the abusive relationship. What will an "investigation" accomplish, when it is clearly apparent from the FBI's tactics, and their subsequent statements, which clearly indicate that these tactics were intentional and deliberate?

And Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said his organization would not suspend talks with the FBI.

"We think we need to intensify our dialogue on these very important issues that would advocate for the community's interests and, we believe, would help strengthen America's mechanisms for protecting our country," he said.

MPAC has to be the worst and most two-faced on all the Muslim organizations. It issues strong statements when people in the community are angry, and then is the first to reconcile and reassure the enforcement agencies of cooperation immediately afterwards.

In the past, MPAC accidentally did this reverse and then attempted to make up for it when the plans of the Los Angeles Police Department to do a "mapping" of all the Muslims in LA was exposed, and the complicity of certain Muslim organizations in that plan.

Not all Muslim groups in the area object to Mr. Downing’s idea.

“There has been a lot of discussion on the issue of ghettoization and counterghettoization,” said Salam al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, which is considering being the Police Department’s partner in the project. Mr. Marayati said his group supported anything that would help integration as long as it safeguarded civil liberties.

When people in the community were outraged, MPAC responded with the claim that they were opposed to the mapping project, and that the media mischaracterised their position. However, if the previous statement by Salam Al-Maryati to the NY Times was unclear, other statements by MPAC staff were more straight and to the point:

“While we think mapping is a good idea to understand the demographics of a community, law enforcement should not be looking at the problem of extremism only from an intelligence standpoint,” said Safiya Ghori, director of government relations at the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

...

In addition to mapping, Ghori said, there should be community dialogue because “establishing trust is not just about identifying risks. It’s about working to develop more dialogue and understanding between law enforcement and the Muslim-American community.”

Ghori said reading Downing’s written testimony about the mapping project made her a “little nervous.”

“This sort of study should look at characteristics and behaviors rather than ethnic and religious groups as a whole,” she said.

So MPAC only differed to how the mapping project was going to be carried out, but otherwise supported it? Right. Gotcha!

For a thorough history on the LAPD mapping project, check here.

MPAC has a pretty thorough history of wanting to be the favored Muslim lapdog of enforcement agencies in this country. There seems to be a repeating pattern which cannot be denied a statement here or a statement there.

Why the Islamic Republic Has Survived

2009-03-28T17:27:00.002-05:00

An good article by Ervand Abrahamian on Why the Islamic Republic Has Survived. One of the very (VERY) few articles by left-leaning sources that acknowledges the gains made by the Revolution. At the same time, the article still conveys a deep sense of Islamophobia which refuses to credit these gains to Revolutionary Islam, and tries to ascribe them to anything and everything else. An excellent analysis and deconstruction of the article at AlMusawwir.

Uncle Sam Goddamn - Brother Ali

2009-03-27T18:39:00.001-05:00

Uncle Sam Goddamn - Brother Ali

Watch the video here

be free

2009-03-25T23:31:00.001-05:00

"If you do not believe in any religion, and do not fear the Day of Resurrection, at least be free in this world."
- Imam Husayn (as)

Brotherhood of the Devils

2009-03-25T02:09:00.001-05:00

Brotherhood of the Devils
by Shaikh Saleem Bhimji

Buy one, get one free! No down payment and no payment for 90 days OAC! Buy today and pay no interest for one full year!

We are incessantly bombarded with such "promises" on TV, radio, Internet, billboards and any other medium which advertisers have in their arsenal in a concerted and carefully calculated ploy to get us to buy more "stuff" – regardless if we need it or not.

At the same time that consumerism is on the rise, people are discussing the need to safeguard our natural resources and protect the environment. Some speak about limiting our consumption of fossil fuels, reducing the number of "obsolete" products which make their way into the landfills, and looking for "greener" alternatives to power our vehicles and to heat and cool our homes. They also talk about the need for us to break our dependence on oil (especially from the Middle East) and to develop our own sources of energy and to seriously think about 21st century dangers such as global warming, green-house emissions, and other threats.

Through a careful reading of the Noble Qur'an, we see that over 1,400 years ago, like many other things, Islam warned us about these issues as they are interrelated – consumerism and the need to protect our environment and natural resources – and this has been taught to us through one initiative: MODERATION. In Surah Isra (17), we read, "And give to the near of kin his due and (to) the needy and the wayfarer, and do not squander wastefully. Surely the squanderers are the brothers of the Satans, and indeed Satan is ever ungrateful to his Lord." (v. 26-27)

Undeniably, one of the most essential values of Islam which we as Muslims need to explore, comprehend, execute, and educate others about is moderation – in all areas of life.

The dictionary defines moderation as, "the quality of being moderate; showing restraint; avoidance of extremes and excesses; temperance." Most often than not, when secular sources employ this word, they refer to "moderation" in expenditure and in the usage of natural resources. However, Islam and its wide-ranging outlook on life gives us a much more detailed insight on moderation, and we are told that any God-given gift is a type of wealth and trust from Allah, and thus we are not permitted to squander it! The Qur'an refers to decadence as a quality of the Devil and that one who indulges in this as being demonic – the only time that the Qur'an employs the term "Brothers of the Devils" (Ikhwanush Shayateen)!

How does Islam define immoderation - as the verse of the Qur'an states, "…and do not squander, wastefully"? There are numerous traditions which explain this idea; however, for our discussion, contemplate over the following maxims from the Infallibles (peace be upon them).

The Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (peace be upon him) has stated that this verse means, "Spending one's wealth in an inappropriate way is extravagance and immoderation."

Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq (peace be upon him) is even more direct in his wordings and has stated, "A person who spends anything in the way of disobedience of Allah is considered as going towards extravagance."

Through these two traditions, we come to the conclusion that wasting anything we have – whether it be wealth, time, knowledge, ability, etc. – is a sin and places us in the category of becoming "brothers of the devils", and that "wastage" refers to using these God-given gifts in other than His obedience.

Consumption and profligacy are not only related to our personal selves and the money we squander on our own "luxuries" and "things" we want such as the latest cell-phones, TVs, cars, clothing, etc. Just ponder upon the amount of money, food, and other things which are wasted during "community" events! It is not only birthdays and weddings where people squander thousands of dollars, but even something as solemn as a funeral have become events of reckless spending! In addition, programs to mark the birth and death anniversaries of the Infallibles and other noble personalities are also drowned in the usage of hundreds if not thousands of dollars in extravagance. Now, we are not saying that we should not celebrate and commemorate such events, but rather, we need to draw the line between "love of the Ahlul Bayt" and "extravagance in the name of the Ahlul Bayt".

Some may be thinking, "Well, I am very well-off and am able to spend thousands of dollars on a lavish wedding for my children or in marking the birth anniversary of one of the Infallibles or in the pursuit of the latest gadgets, so why shouldn't I?" The answer to this question is that the traditions tell us that even if a person has unlimited resources at his disposal, he still needs to be careful not to gravitate towards extravagance, immoderation, and wastage!

Consider the time when the Noble Prophet saw Sa'd, one of his companions, performing the ritual ablution (Wudhu) using an excess amount of water. The Prophet asked Sa'd what he was doing, and he replied he performing the Wudhu. The Prophet replied that even though he was performing the Wudhu, it was not a valid justification to waste water. The Prophet then made a powerful statement and told Sa'd that even if he was sitting at a running stream of water, he was still not allowed to waste water!

Today, step foot in almost any mosque in the North America and you'll see the level of wastage first-hand. Walk into the bathroom to make Wudhu, and sometimes you feel as if the person before you performed a full body Ghusl in the sink! Taps are kept on for the entire process of Wudhu, wasting liters of water, whereas in all actuality a believer should be able to perform Wudhu with a 12 oz cup of water!

Statistics show that the daily per capita use of water in North America is a staggering 350 liters of water, whereas in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is a mere 10 to 20 liters! Consider this that by going for a shower, you consume 7.56 liters of water per minute; to brush your teeth, you use 3.78 liters of water, and something as necessary as flushing a regular sized toilet uses up 11.34 liters of water! Add to this the performance of Wudhu a minimum of three times per day, and as Muslims, perhaps we go over 400 liters of water usage in one day! We won't even begin to discuss the amount of food that we as a society waste every year, but suffice it to say that statistics show that the average North American family throws away $580.00 worth of good food every year! How about the food that fast-food chains, coffee shops, restaurants, and other eating establishments throw away every day? Just imagine how many people die of hunger throughout the world every day while we throw away their next meal!

So what's the big deal, you ask? We have "unlimited" resources in North America, right? Our taps always flow with clean, sparkling water; we (almost) never have blackouts; there are no fuel shortages and we are living on opulence. So why not enjoy life?! Why should we be conscious of this issue when we have so many other things to worry about?

To answer these questions, let us reflect on the Qur'anic narrative of the people of Saba from Surah Saba (34), verses 15, 16 and 19, in which God has mentioned, "There was for Saba aforetime a sign in their homeland – two gardens to the right and to the left. Eat of the sustenance (provided) by your Lord, and be grateful to Him: a territory fair and happy, and a Lord Oft-Forgiving! But they turned away (from Allah), and We sent against them the flood (released) from the dams, and We converted their two garden (rows) into 'gardens' producing bitter fruit, and tamarisks, and some few (stunted) lote-tree… But they said: 'Our Lord! Place longer distances between our journey-stages': but they wronged themselves (therein). At length We made them as a tale (that is told), and We dispersed them all in scattered fragments. Verily in this are signs for every (soul that is) patiently constant and grateful."

The nation of Saba had a strong, vibrant economy, was looked upon with favor in the "international community", were custodians of a large pool of natural resources, and were producing their own food with a very minimal trade deficit – in summary, they were self-sufficient. However, due to their ungratefulness towards their Creator and wasting the bounties of the All-Merciful, they ended up being deluged by a flood and losing everything. What was their outcome? Well, back in those days, there was no IMF, World Bank, G8 or others to bail them out; thus, they were forced to go to neighboring cities to beg for their minimal requirements – what we refer to today as incurring a "national debt".

They say that "history repeats itself", and that "those who do not know the past are condemned to repeat it." Could we be in such a situation today with this "global financial meltdown"? Only He knows…

In closing, one thing which we as Muslims need to understand is that when it comes to "going green" and conserving water, electricity or other natural resources, we need to ensure that we do not do these things simply because they will cut down on our utility bills at the end of the month or because it is the "in" thing to do; rather, we need to do these things because they are religious commandments, and that we will be held accountable by God for such things.

Today, we have two options: we can either jump on the "Qur'anic bandwagon" of moderation and leading a simple life and thus earning His blessings and the continuation of the lifestyle we are accustomed to, or we can become brothers of the devils (Ikhwaanush Shayateen) and be ungrateful to our Lord for the countless bounties He showers upon us day and night and indulge in waste, immoderation, excessiveness, and the devilish trait of consumerism. It is up to us to decide.

Born Here

2009-03-24T02:13:00.002-05:00

DAM - Born Here

Conditional solidarity and dictating to the Resistance

2009-03-19T19:59:00.003-05:00

One of my favorite and most insightful quotes comes from Steve Biko, an important figure in the Black Consciousness and Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa. the significance of this quote lies in the fact that it is not directed at the apartheid state or to the (explicitly) racist whites, but rather to the liberal whites in the anti-apartheid movement, who sought to dictate how the resistance movements should think, exist, and act, and condition their solidarity on this the resistance movements toeing these dictated lines.

"Not only have the whites been guilty of being on the offensive, but by some skillful manoeuvres, they have managed to control the responses of the blacks to the provocation. Not only have they kicked the black, but they have also told him how to react to the kick. For a long time the black has been listening with patience to the advice he has been receiving on how best to respond to the kick. With painful slowness he is now beginning to show signs that it is his right and duty to respond to the kick in the way he sees fit."
- Steve Biko

Today, this same dynamic manifests in relation to the resistance movements in the Muslim world (and most acutely in Palestine and Lebanon) by both the Right and (sadly) the Left in this country (and Europe). While being a part of the Empire and thus enjoying its material benefits, and yet being mostly impotent at stopping imperialist aggression, the Left offers solidarity to the people of Palestine and Lebanon, but either ostracizes or remains silent about the very movements and parties that are the popular representatives of the Resistance, namely Hamas and Hezbullah. Of course this applies to all the forms of the the larger popular resistance in general as well. This also manifests in the dictates issued by western scholars, solidarity activists, and others visiting or working in the Middle East, including those raising doubts and concerns about the calls by the Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions movement.

See more:
comfort and arrogance of hindsight
The obligations of solidarity activists :: Islamophobia
Challenging Alleged "Strategic Solidarity"
Hamas' Liberation Theology

Ronnie Kasrils: Who Said Nearly 50 Years Ago that Israel was an Apartheid State?

2009-03-19T19:43:00.003-05:00

Ronnie Kasrils is South Africa’s Minister of Intelligence. The following is based on his address at ‘Israel Apartheid Week’, South Africa, delivered on Feb. 28, 2009. Kasrils will be in the UK this week and will be speaking at Strathclyde University, Glasgow on Friday night.

At the onset of international ‘Israel Apartheid Week’ in solidarity with the embattled Palestinian people, I want to start by quoting a South African who emphatically stated as far back as 1963 that “Israel is an apartheid state.” Those were not the words of Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Tutu or Joe Slovo, but were uttered by none other than the architect of apartheid itself, racist Prime Minister, Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd.

He was irked by the criticism of apartheid policy and Harold Macmillan’s “Winds of Change” speech, in contrast to the West’s unconditional support for Zionist Israel.

To be sure Verwoerd was correct. Both states preached and implemented a policy based on racial ethnicity; the sole claim of Jews in Israel and whites in South Africa to exclusive citizenship; monopolized rights in law regarding the ownership of land, property, business; superior access to education, health, social, sporting and cultural amenities, pensions and municipal services at the expense of the original indigenous population; the virtual monopoly membership of military and security forces, and privileged development along their own racial supremacist lines - even both countries marriage laws designed to safeguard racial “purity”.

The so-called “non-whites” in apartheid South Africa, indigenous Africans, others of mixed race or of Indian origin - like second or third class non-Jews in Israel - were consigned to a non-citizenship status of Kafkaesque existence, subject to bureaucratic whims and the laws prohibiting their free movement, access to work and trade, dictating where they could reside and so forth.

Verwoerd would have been well aware of Israel’s dispossession of indigenous Palestinian in 1948 - the year his apartheid party similarly came to power - of the unfolding destruction of their villages, the premeditated massacres and the systematic ethnic cleansing.

Within a few short years the apartheid regime was ruthlessly clearing South Africa’s cities and towns of so-called “black spots” - where the “non-whites” lived, socialized, studied and traded - bulldozing homes, loading families onto military trucks, and forcibly relocating them to distant settlements. Unlike the “native reserves” - soon to be reconstituted as Bantustans - not too far away from industrial areas because the economy thrived on a quota of cheap black labor.

Whilst he did not live to see the division of Palestinian territory after the Six Day War, and the subsequent creation of miniscule Bantustans in the West Bank and Gaza, he would have greatly admired and approved of the machinations that enclosed the Palestinians in their own ghettoized prisons. This after all was the Verwoerdian grand plan, and the reason why Jimmy Carter could so readily identify the Occupied Palestinian Territories as being akin to apartheid. In fact the Bantustans consisted of 13% of apartheid South Africa, uncannily comparable to the derisory, ever shrinking pieces of ground Israel is consigning to the Palestinians.

A further comment about the Bantustans. When I visited Yasser Arafat in his virtually demolished headquarters in Ramallah as part of a South African delegation in 2004, he pointed around him and said “See this is nothing but a Bantustan!” No, we responded, pointing out that no Bantustan, in fact not even our townships, had been bombed by warplanes, pulverized by tanks. To a wide-eyed Arafat we pointed out that Pretoria pumped in funds, constructed impressive administration buildings, even allowed for Bantustan airlines to service the Mickey Mouse capitals in order to impress the world that they were serious about so-called “separate development.”

What Verwoerd admired too was the impunity with which Israel exercised state violence and terror to get its way, without hindrance from its Western allies, increasingly key among them the USA. What Verwoerd and his ilk came to admire in Israel, and seek to emulate in the southern African region, was the way the Western powers permitted an imperialist Israel to use its unbridled military with impunity in expanding its territory and holding back the rising tide of Arab nationalism in its neighborhood.

After the Six Day War, Verwoerd’s successor John Vorster, infamously stated: “The Israelis have beaten the Arabs before lunchtime. We will eat the African states for breakfast.”

But it was not only the racial doctrine of Israel that excited apartheid’s leaders, it was the use of the biblical narrative as the ideological rationale to justify its vision, aims and methods.

The early Dutch pioneers, the Afrikaners, had used Bible and gun as colonizers elsewhere, to carve out their exclusive fortress bastion in South Africa’s hinterland. Like the biblical Israelites they claimed to be “God’s chosen people” with a mission to tame and civilize the wilderness; disregarding the productivity and industriousness of people who had tilled the soil and traded for centuries - claiming it was only they who would make the land flow with milk and honey. They invoked a covenant with God to deliver their enemies into their hands and to bless their deeds. Until the advent of South Africa’s democracy, the racial history books generally taught that the white man arrived in South Africa more or less as the so-called “Bantu tribes” from the north were wandering across the Limpopo - South Africa’s border with Zimbabwe - and that they the were pioneer settlers in a land without people.

Such a colonial racist mentality which rationalized the genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australasia, in Africa from Namibia to the Congo and elsewhere, most clearly has its parallels in Palestine.

What is so shameless about this anachronistic colonial barbarism is that Zionist Israel has been permitted by the West to aspire to such a goal even into the 21st Century.

It is by no means difficult to recognize from afar, as Verwoerd had been able to do, that Israel is indeed an apartheid state. Verwoerd’s successor, Balthazar John Vorster visited Israel after the 1973 October War, when Egypt in a rare victory regained the Suez Canal and Sinai from Israel. After that Israel and South Africa were virtually twinned as military allies for Pretoria helped supply Israel militarily in the immediacy of its 1973 setback and Israel came to support apartheid South Africa at the height of sanctions with weaponry and technology - from naval ships and the conversion of supersonic fighter planes to assistance in building six nuclear bombs and the creation of an arms industry.

For the liberation movements of southern Africa, Israel and apartheid South Africa represented a racist, colonial axis. It was noted that people like Vorster had been Nazi sympathizers, interned during World War II - yet feted as heroes in Israel and incidentally never again referred to by South African Zionists as an anti-Semite!. This did not surprise those that came to understand the true racist nature and character of Zionist Israel.

Time and space does not allow further elaboration, but it is instructive to add that in its conduct and methods of repression, Israel came to resemble more and more apartheid South Africa at its zenith - even surpassing its brutality, house demolitions, removal of communities, targeted assassinations, massacres, imprisonment and torture of its opponents, collective punishment and the aggression against neighboring states.

Certainly we South Africans can identify the pathological cause, fuelling the hate, of Israel’s political-military elite and public in general. Neither is this difficult for anyone acquainted with colonial history to understand the way in which deliberately cultivated race hate inculcates a justification for the most atrocious and inhumane actions against even defenseless civilians - women, children, the elderly amongst them. In fact was this not the pathological racist ideology that fuelled Hitler’s war lust and implementation of the Holocaust?

I will state clearly, without exaggeration, that any South African, whether involved in the freedom struggle, or motivated by basic human decency, who visits the Occupied Palestinian Territories are shocked to the core at the situation they encounter and agree with Archbishop Tutu’s comment that what the Palestinians are experiencing is far worse than what happened in South Africa, where the Sharpeville massacre of 69 civilians in 1960 became international symbol of apartheid cruelty.

I want to recall here the words of an Israeli Cabinet Minister, Aharon Cizling in 1948, after the savagery of the Deir Yassin massacre of 240 villagers became known. He said: “Now we too have behaved like the Nazis and my whole being is shaken.”

Recently the veteran British MP, Gerald Kaufman, long time friend of Israel, was reported as remarking that a spokeswoman of the Israeli Defence Force, talked like a Nazi, when she coldly dismissed the deaths of defenseless civilians in Gaza - many women and children amongst them.

It needs to be frankly raised that if the crimes of the Holocaust are at the top end of the scale of human barbarity in modern times, where do we place the human cost of what has so recently occurred in Gaza and against the Palestinians since 1948 in the ‘Nakba’ (catastrophe) they have endured?

How do we evaluate the inhumanity of dropping bombs and blazing white phosphorous on civilian populations, burning people alive, gassing them in a Gaza ghetto under relentless siege with no place to run or hide. For 22 days relentless bombardment whole families vaporized before the horrified eyes of a surviving parent or child.

Guernica, Lidice, the Warsaw Ghetto, Deir Yassin, Mai Lei, Sabra and Shatilla, Sharpeville are high on that scale - and the perpetrators of the slaughter in Gaza are the off-spring of holocaust victims yet again, in Cizling’s words, behaving like Nazis. This must not be allowed to go unpunished and the international community must demand they be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. For the lesson is that if apartheid Israel is not stopped in its tracks these crimes will get greater and spread not only to engulf the entire Middle East and Iran, but indeed anywhere that Israel is challenged . Like the apartheid security forces the hand of Mossad stretches very far indeed. And of course with Israel a key ally in the USA’s “War on Terror” and all the motives for that onslaught, oil resources included, there will be no end to this bloody saga - with the Palestinians targeted to go the way of the extinct peoples of the former colonial era.

But such a fate must not and will not happen, if together with the unconquerable Palestinian people we share the resolve and determination to halt this insidious Zionist project, and its Great Power backing and encouragement.

Once more, let me turn to our South African experience.

There, as with other struggles such as Vietnam, Algeria, the former Portuguese colonies, the just nature of the struggle was the assurance for success.

With that moral advantage, on the basis of a just liberation struggle, we learnt the secret of Vietnam’s victory and strategies according to what we termed our Four Pillars of Struggle:

Political mass struggle; reinforced by armed struggle; clandestine underground struggle; and international solidarity.

At times any one of these can become predominant and it is not for outsiders to direct those at the frontline of struggle what and how to choose but to modestly provide the lessons of our experience pointing out that the unity of the struggling people is as indispensable as the moral high-ground they occupy. For the Vietnamese the military element was generally primary but always resting on popular mass support.

In South Africa the mass struggle became the primary way, with sabotage actions and limited guerrilla operations inspiring our people. It all depends on the conditions and the situation.

But unquestioningly, what helped tip the balance, in Vietnam and South Africa, was the force and power of international solidarity action. It took some 30 years but the worldwide Anti-Apartheid Movements campaigns - launched in London in 1959 - for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions - not only provided international activists with a practical role, but became an incalculable factor in:

(a) isolating and weakening the apartheid regime
(b) inspiring the struggling people
(c) undermining the resolve of those states that supported and benefited from relations with apartheid South Africa
(d) generating a change of attitude amongst the South African white public generally, and political, business, professional, academic, religious and sporting associations in particular.

Boycott made them feel the pinch in their pocket and their polecat status everywhere - whether on the sporting fields, at academic or business conventions, in the world of theatre and the arts they were totally shunned like biblical lepers. There was literally no place to hide from universal condemnation backed by decisive and relentless action which in time became more and more creative.

To conclude: we must spare no effort in building a world-wide solidarity movement to emulate the success of the Anti-Apartheid Movement which played such a crucial role in toppling the apartheid regime in South Africa. Nelson Mandela stated after South Africa attained democratic rule that “we South Africans cannot feel free until the Palestinians are free.” A slogan of South Africa’s liberation struggle and our trade union movement is “An injury to one is an injury to all!” That goes for the whole of humanity. Every act of solidarity demonstrates to the Palestinians and those courageous Jews who stand by them in Israel - that they are not alone.

Israel has lost in Gaza. Whilst many Palestinians have lost their lives the Palestinians have not been conquered or cowed. Repression generates resistance and that will grow. Israeli aggression stands exposed. A turning point has been reached in humanity‘s perception of this issue. The time is ripe for us to drive home the advantage. When 150,000 Palestinians within Israel itself demonstrated against the carnage in Gaza; when Jewish women staged a sit-in in at the Israeli Consulate in Toronto; when Norwegian tram drivers stopped their transport in sympathy; when municipalities and colleges decide to divest like Hampshire college in the USA (the first that took this step against apartheid South Africa), when Durban dockworkers refused to unload a ship with Israeli cargo; joining with the countless thousands around the world, from Australia to Britain to Belgium to Canada to Cairo, Jordan, Indonesia and the USA we know the times are changing and Zionist hegemony is fast losing control. BDS represents three words that will help bring about the defeat of Zionist Israel and victory for Palestine. Like South Africa this can mean, must mean: freedom, peace, security, equality and justice for all - Muslim, Christian and Jew. That is well worth struggling for!

With thanks: Taken from PULSE

"whachya dough gon do fool?!?"

2009-03-19T00:02:00.010-05:00

The philosopher of Qawwali, Aziz Mian: na'daaN yeh paisa kya karey ga?

Aziz Mian - Ye paisa kya karega?
Incase audio doesnt show, try player at bottom of post

Open your eyes you fool
Dont speak with arrogance
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

Open your eyes you fool
Dont speak with arrogance
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

This world will come and go
Everything here is temporal
Then death will come to you
And your grave will be your bed
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

Those whom you profit from
Increasing the burdens of fathers
You consume from the rights of others
All this will turn to dust
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

What to do with all this wealth?
Remember that one day you will die
What you sow you will reap
So measure with justice
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

Open your eyes you fool
Dont speak with arrogance
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

When your breath starts to give
Even your luck will abandon you
When your home starts going broke
They will snatch all from your pockets
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

Dont make money your faith
Dont make status your identity
Prepare some provisions for the hereafter
Beloved, measure with faithfulness

Open your eyes you fool
Dont speak with arrogance
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

Everything will be left behind in this world
You will cry and regret then
In your chest will be embedded
The burdens of this wealth
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

When the day of reckoning comes
And you must appear before Allah
Then hell will be your abode
Your fraudulence will be revealed
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

Open your eyes you fool
Dont speak with arrogance
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

These relatives of yours
Are robbers of your wealth
In poverty they will be weapons against you
Will not support you in life
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

Open your eyes you fool
Dont speak with arrogance
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

All you care about money money
Why do you kill yourself
Every night and day you fill
The bowl of your greed
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

Dont love your wealth so much
Dont agonize yourself so much
Dont place your trust on every bit
This is no way to live
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

Open your eyes you fool
Dont speak with arrogance
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

Your youth will pass away
On the day of accounting
In front of you will be your torment
When you will be denied Paradise
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

Open your eyes you fool
Dont speak with arrogance
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

Nothing here belongs to you
Everything is just an illusion
If you want to please your Lord
The first you must become as such
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

When they place you in your grave
There bugs and worms will eat you
Your money will not be there to help you
And you will be screwed
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

Open your eyes you fool
Dont speak with arrogance
What will this money do?
What will this money do?

Treatment Of Imprisoned Muslims At Terre Haute's Communications Management Unit (CMU)

2009-03-18T17:52:00.004-05:00

The CMU at Terre Haute is where Matin Siraj is held, 800 miles away from his family. Given the distance, and the fact that all the familys' identification documents were seized by immigration, the family has been unable to travel and visit him for almost 2 years now. This facility had received some minor media coverage for instituting a policy of segregating Muslim and Arab prisoners into a special Communications Management Unit whereby the freedoms and communications of the prisoners in the unit are being severely restricted and closely monitored. These policies raise several civil rights, racial profiling, prisoner rights, and procedural issues, all within the context of increasing repressive measures by the previous and current government in its so-called "War on Terror."

Prior Articles:
Facility Holding Terrorism Inmates Limits Communication
Documents show new secretive US prison program isolating Muslim, Middle Eastern prisoners

Treatment Of Imprisoned Muslims At Terre Haute's Communications Management Unit (CMU)
by Stephen Lendman

In February 2007, it was learned that Washington had a secret new facility for so-called "high-security risk" Muslim and Middle Eastern prisoners in violation of federal law that prohibits severely limiting or cutting them off entirely from other inmates as well as outside contacts and communications. Segregating prisoners by race, national origin, or language violates the Supreme Court's February 2005 decision in Johnson v. California that affirmed 14th Amendment protection against racial discrimination. Specifically, the Court:

"rejected the notion that separate can ever be equal-or 'neutral' - 50 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education (this Court repudiated it and) refuses to resurrect it today."

US Prison Bureau regulations also stipulate that "staff shall not discriminate against inmates on the basis of race, religion, national origin, sex, disability, or political belief (including) administrative decisions (involving) access to work, housing and programs." Nonetheless, the Bush administration instituted these practices, and they continue under Barack Obama at the Terre Haute federal prison's Communications Management Unit (CMU). Perhaps at other federal and state facilities as well at a time Muslims are vilified and persecuted.

September 11, 2001 events unleashed a torrent of fear, repression, and a war on Islam, henceforth targeting innocent Muslims as terrorists, Islamofascists, and criminals for their faith, ethnicity, prominence, and/or charity.

Ever since, numerous innocent men and some women have suffered grievously. Besides "unlawful enemy combatants" in global "torture prisons," they've been unfairly harassed, arrested, prosecuted, and interned as political prisoners for being Muslims at the wrong time in America. Most end up in federal facilities like the CMU at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI), Terre Haute, Indiana, established to segregate and discriminate against Muslims and Middle Eastern internees.

Treatment thereafter has been demeaning, unpleasant, and in violation of US Prison Regulations covering normal day-to-day operations. For example, punishment may be ordered for any reason, or none at all. Communications by phone, mail, email, and visitations are monitored and must be in English. The latter, when allowed, are non-contact only. CMU prisoners get an "Institution Supplement" stating that "all contact" between inmates, "persons in the community," or anyone outside it, is restricted and only permissible "according to national policy."

It's so Muslims get fewer rights and privileges than others, including allowable communications. Also:

-- food quality, amount, and that conforms to a strict Muslim diet;

-- medical care; and

-- virtually everything else with prison authorities given much latitude to do as they please.

Early reports were that prison staff were struggling to understand the new rules and make sense of how to apply them. So at first, though segregated and denied privacy, Muslims were mostly treated like other inmates, including allowed free religious practice and a permissible diet.

Recently that changed, and below are some of the ways:

-- food quality has deteriorated; at times it's rotten and inedible; the amount has been reduced, and strict religious diet restrictions aren't being observed;

-- commissary prices have risen sharply, way above the allowed markup;

-- emergency medical care takes days to get; less urgent but needed care takes weeks or months, and inmates aren't informed of any problems;

-- mail is unduly delayed, denied, and like other communications the content may be censored;

-- the entire CMU is monitored with cameras and listening devices; privacy is impossible, even for the most personal and intimate things;

-- mistreatment and disrespect are increasing;

-- prisoner written complaints have risen from very few at first to many about virtually everything;

-- retaliation follows through harassment, intimidation, food rationing, the serving of forbidden-to-eat kinds, frequent "shake-downs" and removal or theft of personal possessions; rejection of simple requests; delay or denial of mail and other communications; and whatever else prison authorities decide ad hoc;

-- CMU tap water is inferior to the rest of the prison; it contains sediment, causing itching after showering, hair loss, and kidney stones in several prisoners;

-- except for poor quality salad and some fruit, all food is processed, never fresh; and

-- prisoner complaints are called obstructing justice and punished.

Given how conditions have deteriorated, prisoners have reason to worry. A new administration is in charge. It vowed to close Guantanamo and end torture. Yet CMU conditions are worse and unaddressed by an uncaring government, no different under Obama than George Bush. It's the wrong time to be Muslim in America.

The "war on terror" continues, yet who but family members, if they're lucky, know how their loved ones are treated - innocent men, some women, targeted for their faith, ethnicity, prominence and charity. This is how America treats the vulnerable - with contempt and disregard for the law. It's vital to denounce it at a time we're all equally at risk.

US Muslim organizations (grudgingly) coming to their senses or maybe playing hard to get

2009-03-18T03:15:00.005-05:00

It seems that after being kicked enough times in the teeth while trying to kiss the governments boots, US Muslim organizations are either coming to their senses or perhaps maybe just playing hard to get...

While the public airing of this threat (and it IS still only a threat) is to be noted, the parting words (noted in bold) are still disturbingly filled with an undertone of "no one will ever love as I did..."

Inshallah it is indicative (and the beginning) of more principled and dignified positions regarding the unjust tactics of the enforcement agencies...

NOTE: The above critique is aimed at MPAC, CAIR, ISNA, ICNA, and the AMT. I am not as aware of the positions of the other groups and will thus limit this to above groups.

U.S. Muslim Coalition Considers Suspending Relations with FBI
Move comes following incidents of FBI targeting mosques, Muslim groups

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 3/17/2009) – A coalition of major national Islamic organizations today announced that it is considering suspending outreach relations with the FBI, citing recent incidents in which American mosques and Muslim groups have been targeted.

In a statement, the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT), said:

Muslim communities throughout the United States have made significant advances in promoting and contributing to a fair, free and pluralistic society.

Through civil rights advocacy, civic and political engagement, and the promotion of dialogue with interfaith leaders and law enforcement agencies, Muslim Americans continue to be a positive and stabilizing force in keeping our nation safe and secure from acts of violence and foreign threats.

Despite fear-mongering by a vocal minority, Muslim Americans are natural allies of law enforcement agencies in ensuring the wellbeing of our nation. Muslims are law-abiding and productive citizens who uphold the democratic principles of freedom, equality and justice.

Yet recent incidents targeting American Muslims lead us to consider suspending ongoing outreach efforts with the FBI.

In California, the FBI sent a convicted criminal to pose as an agents provocateurs in several of that state’s mosques. An FBI agent allegedly told one of the mosque attendees that the agency would make his life a "living hell" if he did not become an informant.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) wrote in a recent statement, headlined “FBI Losing Partnership with American Muslim Community” - “Trust is the cornerstone of any partnership between law enforcement and communities. It can only be established and maintained through clear and open communication. Without this, trust is eroded and suspicions arise on all sides. This clearly does not serve anyone's interests…It is now up to the FBI and law enforcement agencies to re-engage with the Muslim American community, and re-build trust and respect.”

Early last fall, the FBI began a disengagement campaign in its relations with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest and most respected Muslim civil rights organization. The FBI suspended contacts with CAIR pending the resolution of unspecified “issues.”

In response, the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, an umbrella organization of many Muslim groups, suspended outreach to the FBI in February. The council’s letter to the FBI stated in part:

“Our commitment to ensuring the rights, interests, and prosperity of American Muslims and all Americans is unconditional. We hope the FBI will have the foresight to restore its relationship with such a vital link to the American Muslim community.”

We believe the FBI’s unjustified actions are based on the May 2007 designation of some 300 groups and individuals, including several major American Muslim groups such as CAIR, the Islamic society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), as “unindicted co-conspirators” (UCC) in conjunction with the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas, Texas.

Making this unjust designation public violates the Justice Department’s own guidelines and wrongly implies that those listed are somehow involved in criminal activity.

Bias and faulty premises dominated post-9/11 law enforcement analysis of the Muslim community and the threat assessment to national security. The waning days of the previous administration witnessed a flourishing of anti-Muslim activity.

There is even inter-agency information being disseminated that claims civil rights advocacy is part of a Muslim conspiracy to implement Shari’a law in order to destroy the United States. Recent government actions seemed to be based on this bizarre premise.

These McCarthy-era tactics are detrimental to a free society.

The credibility of all Muslim organizations who maintain ties to the FBI that do not react decisively is undermined in the eyes of the community. Our fear is that counter-intelligence programs are quelling lawful dissent. (ALHAMDULILLAH FOR THESE TWO VERY IMPORTANT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS!)

What is most frightening is that FBI abuses are no longer covert, and are slowly being integrated into the already expansive laws regulating law enforcement activity.

Internationally, in light of President Obama’s initiative of dialogue with the Muslim world, such actions negatively impact U.S. interests.

If the FBI does not accord fair and equitable treatment to every American Muslim organization, including CAIR, ISNA and NAIT, then Muslim organizations, mosques and individuals will have no choice but to consider suspending all outreach activities with FBI offices, agents and other personnel. This possible suspension, of course, would in no way affect our unshakable duty to report crimes or threats of violence to our nation.

We call on the FBI to reassess its positions on profiling and the use of informants as agents provocateurs within the Muslim communities. We further request objective evaluation of the sources of information and analysis utilized to formulate decisions.

Notwithstanding such requests, we call on Muslim organizations and individuals to petition their elected representatives to hold hearings to address these grave matters of concern to the Muslim community.

We fully expect that the President’s calls for inclusion will not be derailed by irresponsible elements in and outside of government fomenting anti-Muslim bias in this great nation.

Signatories to this statement include:

1. American Muslim Alliance (AMA)
2. American Muslims for Palestine (AMP)
3. Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
4. Islamic Educational Center of Orange County (IEC)
5. Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)
6. Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA)
7. MAS Freedom (MASF)
8. Muslim Student Association-National (MSA-N)
9. Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA)
10. United Muslims of America (UMA)

Another frame-up being exposed

2009-03-18T02:26:00.006-05:00

Another case of an "averted terror plot" is being exposed to having been instigated (read: created) by the FBI and their informant...

Two articles in the LA Times:
Man says he was informant for FBI in Orange County
OC Muslims say FBI surveillance has a chilling effect

Some highlights from the articles:

The claim by Craig Monteilh, a 46-year-old Irvine resident, that he had been sent by the FBI to infiltrate several Orange County mosques could affect the government's case against Ahmadullah Sais Niazi. His allegations highlight recurring issues about the use of informants by law enforcement agencies and have fanned long-held fears by some Muslim leaders about religious profiling.

The basic premise...

In June 2007, the Council on American-Islamic Relations reported Monteilh to the FBI as a possible terrorist, said Hussam Ayloush, the council's executive director in Anaheim.

...

Ayloush said he had received numerous complaints from Muslims in 2007 that Monteilh was aggressively promoting terrorist plots and trying to recruit others to join him. Citing such behavior and saying that it made members of the mosque feel threatened, the Islamic Center of Irvine won a temporary restraining order in June 2007 that barred Monteilh from the mosque.

What kind of activity and rhetoric must an FBI informant have been engaging in to be reported to the FBI by community members and organizations? A restraining order? Well, good on the masjid and organizations that reported him, but the questions remain of how should this person's continued presence and behavior should be interpreted even after being reported to the local courts and the FBI. What can we surmise about the intent and modus operandi of the FBI itself and their handling of their informants?

Ayloush said he was "100% sure" that Monteilh was the informant in question and expressed anger and disappointment that the FBI would infiltrate mosques. He accused officials of trying to entrap innocent Muslims, noting that Monteilh has been convicted of grand theft and forgery in the past. He said Muslims had worked hard to develop a partnership with the FBI -- and had been assured by J. Steven Tidwell, then assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles field office, at an Irvine forum in 2006 that their mosques were not being monitored. Now, Ayloush said, he has doubts about future relations with the FBI.

Muslim leadership should reflect on the worth of assurances proferred by Shaitan and the government...Werent these very same communities (their leaders) asking the same questions two years ago?

Monteilh filed a petition Wednesday to lift the restraining order, saying that he wanted to clear his name from any suspicion of terrorist activity. He had not contested the original order, he said, because he had been instructed by the FBI not to testify at the hearing. But he said he was speaking out now because the FBI had allegedly violated pledges to remove the restraining order, place him in a witness protection program, give him a final payment of $100,000 and grant other benefits in an exit package.

Aww, poor baby...

"Although the FBI has not fulfilled their promises, I am proud to have participated in the War on Terror," Monteilh said in the petition.

All of these informants seem to have a similar sense of pride in their accomplishments, even while drying having been dealt dirty by enforcement agencies...Compare to Osama ElDawoody

Over a year, Monteilh further related in an interview, the FBI paid him sums ranging from $2,500 a month to as high as $11,200.

The going rates...

Kenneth Piernick, a former FBI counter-terrorism official who is a consultant in Virginia, said parsing out what's true and what's not, even from someone deemed to be a reliable informant, can be challenging... He said informants can be egotistical, manipulative and dishonest. Those who are getting paid, he said, have been known to "exaggerate information, or even invent it" to keep the money flowing. Piernick said common reasons for discontinuing an informant include low-quality or unreliable information. "In other words, he's not worth the effort," Piernick said.

Yet these informants continue to be used and form the basis on such cases...

According to Muslim leaders, some people are avoiding mosques, preferring to pray at home. Others are reducing donations to avoid attracting government attention or paying in cash to avoid leaving records. And some mosques have asked speakers to refrain from political messages in their sermons, such as criticism of U.S. foreign policy, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Anaheim.

These are the very intended effects of this domestic front of the "War on Terror," which have been previously summarized here (at the end)

But Ayloush and other Muslim leaders said that FBI scrutiny of the Muslim community -- and efforts to recruit informants -- began years ago. The FBI declined to comment. Both Ayloush and Shakeel Syed of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, an umbrella organization of 68 area mosques, said numerous Muslims have reported to them attempts by the FBI to recruit them as informers. In virtually all cases, they said, the Muslims in question had immigration and other legal problems or were applying for green cards. "We will make your problems vanish if you cooperate," Syed said the FBI told Muslims.

So then why did you continue to "build relationships" with them, all the while putting our communities at risk? Who did you choose to believe: your community? or the FBI leadership who gave bold faced lies and assurances that there was no use of informants? Did you inform the community to be aware of the tactics of the enforcement agencies and to stay away from them? Why not?

There are serious issues of lack of responsible and transparent leadership within our communities which make us susceptible to such tactics by the enforcement agencies...Lets hope that some herd lessons are learned from these times and our models of leadership evolve to respond to internal needs, as well take a dignified and principled position vis-à-vis the government and other external activities.

Also, an interesting interview with the informant by the OC weekly

Free Shifa!

2009-03-16T23:04:00.002-05:00

While the term of the Bush Administration has ended, the cases launched under the auspices of the "War on Terror" continue to tear apart Arab, Muslim and South Asian families and communities. One of these cases that DRUM has been assisting on has been the case of Ehsanul (Shifa) Sadequee. Ehsanul, then 19-years old, was kidnapped from Bangladesh and brought to the US on alleged charges of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism. Since its inception, Ehsanul's case has been lacking in transparency with use of "secret evidence" and serious issues of lack of due process and basic fairness. Furthermore, Ehsanul has suffered from an assault, lask of medical care, prolonged solitary confinement (1000+ days), harassment and inhumane conditions of confinement.

We are asking for people to submit letters of concern to prison warden, the new Attorney General, and to the presiding Judge in the case.

Sample letters and further information available at: http://drumnyc.org/action%20alert/030409.html

For further questions about the case please check the Free Shifa Committee's website.

Also, in order to keep count, please email the Committee (freeshifa@gmail.com) to let them know you have submitted letters.

!حرية

Umeed-e-Sahar

2009-03-10T21:58:00.007-05:00

Umeed-e-Sahar by laal
Based on a poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Though the translation is a bit loose, (and excepting the politics of some members of this group) this is nicely done.

advice

2009-02-22T00:12:00.001-05:00

"My advice to you is to be conscious of Allah and steadfast in your religion. Do not yearn for the world, and do not be seduced by it. Do not resent anything you have missed in it. Proclaim the truth; work for the next world. Oppose the oppressor and support the oppressed."

- Imam Ali (as)

the devil always deals dirty

2009-02-03T16:05:00.006-05:00

You would think that Muslim alphabet organizations would learn and understand that working with and collaborating with US government agencies is NEVER about "building bridges," partnerships, or trust, sensitivity-trainings and other useless things. For the past 7 years, law enforcement agencies have utilised the alphabet orgs to make inroads into the community in order to create informants and infiltrators, and to give them the cover of legitimacy with the alphabet orgs rubber stamp. Now that they are no longer needed, or not suitable, they are kicked to the curb. As the bolded statement indicates, CAIR is still in denial and thinks the problem is only with the previous administration.

Of course, and as usual, in a few years from now, these same orgs will run to kiss and lick these same US government boots that just kicked them.

FBI Cuts Ties With CAIR Following Terror Financing Trial
The FBI severed its ties with all local branches of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country's largest Islamic advocacy group, an FBI official told FOX News.

The FBI is severing its once-close ties with the nation's largest Muslim advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, amid mounting evidence that it has links to a support network for Hamas.

All local chapters of CAIR have been shunned in the wake of a 15-year FBI investigation that culminated with the conviction in December of Hamas fundraisers at a trial where CAIR itself was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator.

The U.S. government has designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.

An official at the FBI's headquarters in Washington confirmed to FOX News that his office directed FBI field offices across the country to cut ties with local branches of CAIR.

In Oklahoma, FBI officials had worked with CAIR's local branch from its founding in 2007 and attended the fundraising banquet that launched the office. But just over a year later, the local FBI froze all its programs involving CAIR.

FOXNews.com has obtained an Oct. 8, 2008, letter sent by James E. Finch, special agent in charge of Oklahoma City, canceling a session with local Muslim organizations "as a result of the planned participation by the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)."

The new policy marks a major shift for the FBI, which has long been close to CAIR. The agency has previously invited CAIR to give training sessions for agents and used it as a liaison with the American Muslim community.

CAIR's executive director, Nihad Awad, attended a post-Sept. 11 meeting with then-FBI director Robert Mueller, and he met with other top brass as recently as 2006. But that was before Awad was shown to have participated in planning meetings with the Holy Land Foundation, five officials of which were convicted in December of funneling $12.4 million to Hamas.

Prosecutors identified CAIR's chairman emeritus, Omar Ahmad, as an unindicted co-conspirator in that trial, and Special Agent Lara Burns testified that CAIR was a front group for radical organizations operating in the U.S.

CAIR denies that it conspired in the case and has sued unsuccessfully to have its name removed from the list of co-conspirators. It also is protesting the FBI's decision to sever relations.

"This is an unfortunate legacy of the Bush administration's misguided and counterproductive efforts to marginalize mainstream American Muslim organizations," CAIR's national office said in a statement to FOXNews.com.

"It is not surprising that we would be singled out by those in the previous administration who sought to prevent us from defending the civil rights of American Muslims."

But not all CAIR branches have been told of the FBI's new policy.

"Locally we have not had any reports, we have no letters from the FBI to suggest that" ties were being severed, said Ahmed Rehab, a spokesman in CAIR's Chicago office. "It's a working relationship and that remains in place."

It remains unclear whether CAIR's national office is still in contact with the FBI, as a formal statement from the bureau seemed to hold out the possibility for renewed engagement.

"The FBI has had to limit its formal contact with CAIR field offices until certain issues are addressed by CAIR's national headquarters," said FBI spokesman John Miller. "CAIR's leadership is aware of this. Beyond that, we have no further comment."

CAIR keeps its headquarters in Washington and runs more than 30 offices in 19 states. But the national outreach programs that it once helped coordinate with the FBI may now be in doubt.

News of the split comes as President Obama has been reaching out to the Muslim community to build closer relations. Obama granted his first television interview as president to Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language news network based in Dubai, a move widely interpreted as extending an olive branch to Muslims at home and abroad.

CAIR told FOXNews.com that it was hoping for improved ties with the new president. "We look forward to better relations with the Obama administration," the organization's D.C. office said in its statement.

man

2009-01-15T14:54:00.000-05:00

"...leave this Europe where they never tire of talking of man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the corner of every one of their own streets, in all the corners of the globe."
- Frantz Fanon

Katrina's Hidden Race War

2008-12-19T19:28:00.002-05:00

Katrina's Untold Story
The Nation Editorial

More than three years later, Hurricane Katrina still stands as a symbol of our elected officials' brutal indifference to the lives of poor African-Americans. No evacuation plan was in place for the thousands who lacked transportation; as the floodwaters rose, the elderly and the infirm, parents and children, were abandoned to drown or starve as the Department of Homeland Security slumbered. Adding insult to injury, stranded African-Americans, left on their own to scavenge desperately for food, water and dry clothes, were tarred as looters. It was not only the likes of Fox's Sean Hannity going on about the "mayhem and looting and stealing"; the New York Times offered up purple prose about looters who "brazenly ripped open gates and ransacked stores for food, clothing, television sets, computers, jewelry and guns, often in full view of helpless law-enforcement officials." Then-Governor Kathleen Blanco postured that her troops "know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary." And Mayor Ray Nagin ordered 1,500 police to abandon search-and-rescue operations to target theft instead.

Our lead story in this issue, "Katrina's Hidden Race War," shows that this hysteria had grave unintended consequences. Reporter A.C. Thompson found that in the chaotic days after the storm, residents of one New Orleans community, claiming to combat "looters" and "outlaws," established a system of racist vigilante justice--and police turned a blind eye. As one vigilante said, "The police said, If they're breaking in your property do what you gotta do and leave them [the bodies] on the side of the road."

Over the course of a year and a half, Thompson walked the streets of Algiers Point, a tidy, predominantly white community on New Orleans's west bank, uncovering evidence of this violence. The accounts of the self-appointed protectors of the community and their victims converged around a stunning sequence of events. In the days after the storm, African-Americans traveling through Algiers Point on their way to a government evacuation area encountered armed patrols of white residents who menaced them at gunpoint, shouted racial epithets and ordered them to leave the neighborhood. Several were shot--the evidence collected here brings the tally to at least eleven--and some, according to the vigilantes themselves, were killed.

We believe that justice in this matter will never be served by the City of New Orleans. Thompson has been unable to ascertain that a single police investigation was opened into any of these shootings, despite efforts by some surviving victims, family members and witnesses to contact the police. His detailed queries to the New Orleans Police Department and District Attorney's office were ignored over a period of several months. The Orleans Parish coroner's office flouted local sunshine laws and refused to turn over key autopsy records until The Nation Institute's Investigative Fund filed suit.

It's not too late for accountability. Louisiana has gained a new governor since the storm, and we'll soon have a new president. Community groups should call upon Governor Bobby Jindal to lead a multiagency task force to get to the bottom of these crimes. In Congress, Representative John Conyers and Senator Patrick Leahy ought to make use of their subpoena power to get then-Police Chief Eddie Compass and then-District Attorney Eddie Jordan to explain their inaction; police officers posted in Algiers Point after the storm and the vigilantes themselves should face subpoenas, too. And it would be a fitting gesture if Eric Holder, once confirmed as attorney general, swiftly directed the Justice Department to open an investigation. If we as a nation are ever truly to transcend race, tolerance for racist violence in our midst must come to an end.

READ: "Katrina's Hidden Race War"

Eid ul Ghadeer Mubarak

2008-12-16T19:55:00.002-05:00

"Man Kunto Maulaho, Fa Haza Ali un Maula"
- Prophet Muhammad (sawaw)

A beautiful rendering by Abida Parveen

Man Kunto Maula - Abida Parveen

shoes shoes shoes

2008-12-16T19:50:00.000-05:00

so close...yet so far

2008-12-14T15:30:00.003-05:00

In Memorium: Black Political Prisoner Bashir Hameed (1940 – 2008)

2008-08-30T20:20:00.005-05:00

Inna lillahe wa inna elaihe rajeeon

Long time Black Liberation Political Prisoner Bashir Hameed died August 30, 2008 at the age 67, from complications of a triple bypass surgery at the New York prison system. Formerly James York, Hameed was born and raised in New Jersey. In 1982, Bashir and a former BPP comrade, Abdul Majid (formerly Anthony LaBorde), were charged and later convicted of the murder of two police officers, a case known as the Queens Two. In almost three decades of incarceration, Bashir, a devout Muslim, applied his religious and political principles to the struggle against injustice and racism behind the walls, gaining wide respect among prisoners.

ante up

2008-07-20T19:26:00.001-05:00

Ante Up - M.O.P.
(alternative video)

to know to act

2008-07-11T21:34:00.001-05:00

Jesus (‘a) said:
“I saw a stone upon which was written, ‘Turn me over,’
then I turned it over, and I saw written on it,
‘He who does not act according to what he knows will not be blessed in his search for what he does not know and what he knows will come back against him.’”

(Bihàr al-Anwar, 2, 32, 24)

another frame up withers away

2008-07-11T05:22:00.002-05:00

Alhamdulillah!

5 years of prison, and run through a gamut of made-up charges, Prof. Sami Al-Arian is going to be released back to his family, home, and community...(Well, until they deport him...)

5 years...

May Allah guide to the best of paths....

of human poverty

2008-07-10T15:01:00.001-05:00

One of the Imams (as) is reported to have said:
“It was said to Jesus the son of Mary (as):
‘How did you begin the morning, O Spirit of Allah?’

He said:
‘I began the morning with my Lord, the Blessed and Supreme, above me
and the fire (of hell) before me
and death in pursuit of me.
I have not obtained that for which I wished
and I cannot keep away the things I hate.
So who of the poor is more poor than I?’”
(Bihar al-anwar, lxxvi, 17)

no one on earth more wealthy than I

2008-07-09T18:10:00.000-05:00

“My servant is my hands and my mount is my feet; my bed is the earth and my pillow, a stone; my blanket in the winter is the east of the earth and my lamp in the night is the moon; my stew is hunger and my motto is fear; my clothing is wool and my fruit and my basil is what grows from the earth for the wild beasts and cattle. I sleep while I have nothing and I rise while I have nothing, and yet there is no one on earth more wealthy than I.”
- Jesus (as) ,(Bihàr ul Anwar)

Sami el-Hajj released

2008-05-02T00:13:00.001-05:00

Mabrouk for Sami el-Hajj…

Sami al-Hajj hits out at US captors

Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj has hit out at the US treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison where he was held for nearly six and a half years.

Saying that "rats are treated with more humanity", al-Hajj said inmates' "human dignity was violated".

Al-Hajj arrived in Sudan early on Friday, was carried off the US air force jet in a stretcher and immediately taken to hospital. Later, he was reuinted with his wife and son.

His brother, Asim al-Hajj, said he did not recognise the cameraman because he looked like a man in his 80s.

Still, al-Hajj said: "I was lucky because God allowed that I be released."

But his attention soon turned to the 275 inmates he left behind in the US military prison.

"I'm very happy to be in Sudan, but I'm very sad because of the situation of our brothers who remain in Guantanamo. Conditions in Guantanamo are very, very bad and they get worse by the day," he said from his hospital bed.

"Our human condition, our human dignity was violated, and the American administration went beyond all human values, all moral values, all religious values.

"In Guantanamo ... rats are treated with more humanity. But we have people from more than 50 countries that are completely deprived of all rights and privileges.

"And they will not give them the rights that they give animals," he said.

Al-Hajj complained that "for more than seven years, [inmates] did not get a chance to be brought before a civil court to defend their just case".

killa cops walk free

2008-04-27T18:30:00.003-05:00

NYPD officers, who shot 50 bullets at 3 unarmed men in a car, killing Sean Bell, and injuring his friends Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, were found not guilty on Friday...

Not surprising...business as usual...

"The length of black life is treated with short worth" - mos def

...industry will do what is necessary...

2008-04-22T17:08:00.002-05:00

"[C]ompanies that service the criminal justice system need sufficient quantities of raw materials to guarantee long-term growth...In the criminal justice field, the raw material is prisoners, and industry will do what is necessary to guarantee a steady supply. For the supply of prisoners to grow, criminal justice policies must ensure a sufficient number of incarcerated Americans regardless of whether crime is rising or the incarceration is necessary."
- Steven Donziger, The Real War on Crime: Report of the National Criminal Justice Commission

All problems stem from...

2008-04-21T15:18:00.002-05:00

Those who believe everything to be created by God see Hu in everything. They find comfort in regarding the Creator and not Hu's creation. All problems stem from the illusion that created things hold the ultimate power. Turn to Hu, therefore, if you seek deliverance.
-Al-Nuri, "The Kashf al-Mahjub"

Milad-un-Nabi Mubarak!

2008-03-25T11:33:00.004-05:00

Milad-un-Nabi Mubarak!
Greetings on the occasion of the Holy Prophet's (sawaw) birthday.

Ya Shams ud Doha
Ya Badr ud Doja
Ya Muhammad

O the Sun of brightness
O the moon of darkness
O the Ever Praised

A tribute to the Prophet (sawaw) by Ibn Mashish:

I take refuge in Allah from the accursed
Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim

O Allah, blessings and peace in all matters, revealed and concealed on him from whom are split open the secrets hidden in his sublime essence and stream forth the lights of the full moons enfolded in the heavens of his sublime attributes.

Magnified is the Prophet whose blossoming beauty beflowers the gardens of Mulk and Malakut, and the pools of the Jabarut overflow with the dazzling light of his secret bursting forth and there is no thing that is not linked to him and by his effulgent secret all things encompassed.

Send a blessing worthy of You, from You to him, that is an unceasingly and constantly renewed creation abundantly pouring out upon him and unimpaired peace which is this blessing in its flowing and its grace as befits him and on his holy successors in spirit.

O Allah, truly he is Your Secret encompassing all secrets
and Your Light encompassing all lights,
and Your Guide who guides to You by You
and the Leader of Caravan who rides Your worlds to You.

O Allah, connect me to his spiritual lineage, and ascertain me by his soaring degree and cause me to know him with real knowledge so that by it I witness his eternal pre-existence and I become his mirror by his love and his consent and so by his realizations I am saved from the welling up of the spring of ignorance and I drink without stint from the overflowing spring of Muhammadan reality.

Carry me on the swift noble mounts of Your Most Tender Mercy on the carriers of Your Deep Love and Your Affection and bring me on his Way of the Upright which is the Straight Path to his presence that is the link to Your Most Holy Presence clearly manifested by the shining of his human virtues, carried surrounded by the warriors of Your Victory, accompanied by the worlds of Your Divine family.

Oh Allah, make my absorption in him laudable and praiseworthy before You.
Oh Allah, make his Spirit the Secret of my truth in taste and in state.

Oh Allah, blessings and peace from us on him the most gracious of blessings and the most perfect peace for truly we can not grasp his exalted degree nor do we comprehend that which befits him of respect and magnification.

Benedictions of Allah the Most High and His Peace and His Greetings and His Mercy and His Grace on our master Muhammad, Your bondsman and Your prophet and Your messenger, the unlettered prophet and on his holy family and companions.

thanks to mysticsaint

Qasidah Burdah - Nizaal Khodabux

trust the Ever-living

2008-03-12T17:48:00.002-05:00

"And trust the Ever-living Who dies not, and celebrate Hu's praise; and Sufficient is Hu as being aware of the faults of Hu's servants"
- Quran 25:58

awaam ka sha'ir

2008-03-11T02:09:00.004-05:00

the peoples' poet - writing in simple urdu, speaking at rallies and public events, respectful and loving with the poor, and uncompromising with the rulers and privileged...

15 years later today and still his words resonate...in Pakistan, and in the Empire...

Habib Jalib - Poetry of Defiance
dastoor

deep jis ka mehalaat hi meiN jaley
chand logoN ki khushiyoN ko ley kar chaley
woh jo sa'iy meiN har maslahat ke paley
aisey dastoor ko, subhe-be-noor ko
meiN nahiN maanta, meiN nahiN jaanta

meiN bhi kha'if nahiN takhta-e-daar sey
meiN bhi Mansoor hooN keh do aghyaar sey
kyooN Darratey ho zindaaN ki deewar sey
zulm ki baat ko, dil ki raat ko
meiN nahiN manta, meiN nahiN janta

phool shakhooN pey khilney lagey, tum kaho
jaam rindoN ko milney lagey, tum kaho
chaak seenoN key silney lagey, tum kaho
is khulley jhooT ko, zehn ki looT ko
meiN nahiN manta, meiN nahiN janta

tum ney looTa hey sadiyooN humara sakoon
ab na hum per chaley ga tumhara qasoom
chaaragar dard-mandoN key bantey ho kyooN
tum nahiN chaaragar koi maney, magar...
meiN nahiN manta, meiN nahiN janta

the system

that lamp that only shines in palaces
and cares only for the joys of a chosen few
which breeds the protection of their gains
such a system, like a dawn bereft of light
i refuse to accept, i refuse to know

i am not afraid of the ones on thrones
i too am Mansoor (martyr), go tell the enemy
why do you try to scare me with prison walls?
this kind of oppression, like darkness of the heart
i refuse to accept, i refuse to know

flowers are blooming on the branches, so you say
every drinker's cup overflows, so you say
wounds within chests have healed themselves, so you say
these bare-faced lies, this insult to the mind
i refuse to accept, i refuse to know

for centuries you have robbed us of peace
no longer will your false promises fool us
why do you pretend to be the healer of those in pain?
you are no healer, even if some accept, but...
i refuse to accept, i refuse to know

some more poems here

Ya Gaza!

2008-03-04T09:25:00.002-05:00

today in Gaza Ashura! today Gaza is Karbala!

blakstone - Geezer Strip

ana Zainab

2008-03-02T21:00:00.005-05:00

Dasta-e-Imamia - ana Zainab
I tell the world that Husayn, son of Ali, is victorious

I will remove the masks off the face of the Yazidis

I am Zainab I am Zainab

Not your army, not your throne, nor your crown will save you if I raise these hands in prayer against you

I am Zainab I am Zainab

Since we follow the path of patience, we are patient (sabr), but do not ever think that we fear your strength

Even from within your palace we rise up against you, I will avenge for your obstruction of truth (haq) and your oppression (zulm)

I am Zainab I am Zainab

Ya Husayn Ya Husayn

2008-02-28T14:45:00.007-05:00

Ya Husayn Ya Husayn - Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Party

Shaheed-E-Karbala ki mominoN jab yaad aati hai
taRap jati hai dunya khoon ke aaNnso bahati hai
Ya Husayn! Ya Husayn!

shah ast Husayn baadshah ast Husayn
deen ast Husayn deen pana ast Husayn
sar dad na dad dast dar dast-e-Yazeed
Haq-a ke binae La Ila ast Husayn

deed ki agar talaash hai sir ko jhuka namaaz meiN
dil se khudi ko door ker khud ko miTTa namaaz meiN
aaye ga tujh ko tab nazar Ruh-e-Khuda namaaz meiN
pehle Husayn ki tarah sir ko kaTa namaaz meiN
aur keh Ya Husayn! Ya Husayn!

O Believers, when we remember the martyrs Of Karbala
The world yearns and sheds tears of blood
O Husayn! O Husayn!

Husayn is the master, Husayn is the king,
Husayn is faith, Husayn is refuge for the faith,
He gave his head but not his hand in Yazeed's hand,
Verily Husayn is the foundation of La'illah

If you truly seek vision, lower your head in prayer
Remove the self from your heart by erasing your self in prayer
Then you will see the spirit of God in prayer
First be like Husayn and sacrifice your head in prayer
And then say: O Husayn! O Husayn!

they shall turn back

2008-02-16T20:50:00.005-05:00

"Do you not see that they wander about bewildered in every valley? And that they say that which they do not do, Except those who believe and do good and remember Allah much, and defend themselves after they are oppressed; and they who act unjustly shall know to what final place of turning they shall turn back."
- Quran 2:225-227

victory

2008-02-15T00:09:00.007-05:00

inna lilahe wa inna elaihe rajeoon
"Among the Believers are those who have been true to their Covenant with Allah: of them some have completed their vow (to the extreme), and some (still) wait: but they have never changed (their determination) in the least."
- Quran 33:23

silent spectators

2008-02-14T23:22:00.001-05:00

"God has made it mandatory for the ulema that they should not remain silent spectators of injustice of the oppressor and the grief and helplessness of the oppressed person."
- Imam Ali (AS)

mischief-makers

2008-01-31T21:57:00.000-05:00

"And when it is said to them, "Do not make mischief in the land," they say: "But, we are peace-makers." Surely, they are the mischief-makers, but they realize it not."
- Quran 2:11-12

"Peace, peace" they say

2008-01-25T02:20:00.000-05:00

"They dress the wound of my people
as though it were not serious.
'Peace, peace,' they say,
when there is no peace."
- Jeremiah 6:14

Azzam Tamimi on Hamas

2008-01-25T01:01:00.002-05:00

but...but...but...but...but...

greater sacrifice

2007-12-25T00:16:00.001-05:00

"So We gave him the good news of a boy ready to forbear. And when he attained to working with him, he said: O my son! surely I have seen in a dream that I should sacrifice you; consider then what you see. He said: O my father! do what you are commanded; if Allah please, you will find me of the patient ones. So when they both submitted their wills, and he threw him down upon his forehead, We called unto him: O Ibrahim! Of course you have faithfully fulfilled the dream, you are of the truthful ones, but verily it is an open test, we have substituted it with a Greater Sacrifice (Dhibhin Azeem). We have transferred it to later generations."
- Quran 37:102-108

Both Eid ul-Adha and the pinnacle of Hajj is in commemoration of the testing of Ibrahim (as) and Ismail (as). Through a dream, Ibrahim (as) was asked to sacrifice the life of Ismail (as), his firstborn, for the sake of Allah. When a perplexed Ibrahim (as) consulted his son about the dream, Ismail (as) encouraged his father to obey the dream as it was from Allah. When the critical moment came, and Ibrahim (as) prepared to perform the deed, an intervention called out to Ibrahim (as) and informed him that it was a test.

So, what is this "Greater Sacrifice"?
Can it refer to the ram that replaced Ismail (as)? Is the life of a ram greater than the son of Ibrahim (as), and a Prophet himself?
What is it that is transferred to later generations, in addition to the salutations upon Ibrahim (as)?
Who among the later generations of of Ibrahim (as) and Ismail (as) is one ready to forbear, and offers a sacrifice?

Some answers:
A complete Eid ul-Adha
Prophecy and context of sacrifice

How does a Prophet (sawaw) encourage his Ummah to establish and celebrate a day when the burden is transferred upon his grandchild?
How does one carry that pain within them of what is to come, while encouraging others celebrate the Mercy of past?
The sparing of ancestors and the sacrifice of children...

Eid Mubarak and Hajj Mabroor

2007-12-25T00:02:00.000-05:00

quite belated, but...

Eid Mubarak to you, your families, communities, and the Ummah. May it be blessed with justice, peace, and light.

May Allah accept the Hajj and duas of the Hajjis.

real

2007-12-16T00:02:00.000-05:00

so which of these masks is real?
illusions cover up more illusions
obsession becomes and forms its own idols
truth stands alone and forever doubted

amerikkkan me

2007-12-09T16:58:00.000-05:00

Palante!

M-Team - Amerikkkan Me

declare glory unto Hu

2007-12-09T16:23:00.000-05:00

Imam Ali (as), after reciting the verse:

...therein declare glory unto Hu in the mornings and the evenings; People whom neither merchandise nor any sale can divert from the remembrance of Allah and constancy in prayer and paying the poor their dues; they fear the day when the hearts and eyes shall be transformed. (Qur'an, 24:36-37)

Certainly, Allah, the Glorified, the Sublime, has made Hu's remembrance the light for hearts which hear with its help despite deafness, see with its help despite blindness, and become submissive with its help despite unruliness.

In all the periods and times when there were no prophets, there have been persons with whom Allah, precious are Hu's bounties, whispered through their wits and spoke through their minds. With the help of the bright awakening of their ears, eyes and hearts they keep reminding others of the remembrance of the days of Allah and making others feel fear for Hu like guide-points in wildernesses. Whoever adopts the middle way, they praise his ways and give him the tidings of deliverance, but whoever goes right and left they vilify his ways and frighten him with ruin. In this way, they served as lamps in these depths of darkness and guide through these doubts.

There are some people devoted to the remembrance (of Allah) who have adopted it in place of worldly matters so that commerce or trade does not turn them away from it. They pass their life in it. They speak into the ears of neglectful persons warning against matters held unlawful by Allah, they order others to practice justice and themselves keep practicing it, and they refrain others from the unlawful and themselves refrain from it. It is as though they have finished the journey of this world towards the next world and have beheld what lies beyond it. Consequently, they have become acquainted with all that befell them in the interstice during their long stay therein, and the Day of Judgment fulfills its promises for them. Therefore, they removed the curtain from these things for the people of the world, till it was as though they were seeing what people did not see and were hearing what people did not hear.

If you picture them in your mind in their admirable positions and well-known sittings, when they have opened the records of their actions and are prepared to render an account of themselves in respect of the small as well as the big things they were ordered to do but they failed to do, or were ordered to refrain from but they indulged therein, and they realized the weight of their burden (of bad acts) on their backs, and they felt too weak to bear them, then they wept bitterly and spoke to each other while still crying and bewailing to Allah in repentance and acknowledgment (of their shortcomings), you would find them to be emblems of guidance and lamps in darkness, angels would be surrounding them, peace would be descending upon them, the doors of the sky would be opened for them and positions of honor would be assigned to them in the place of which Allah had informed them. Therefore, Hu has appreciated their actions and praised their position. They call Hu and breathe in the air of forgiveness, they are ever needy of Hu's bounty and remain humble before Hu's greatness, the length of their grief has pained their hearts, and the length of weeping their eves. They knock at every door of inclination towards Allah. They ask Hu Whom generosity does not make destitute and from Whom those who approach Hu do not get disappointed.

Therefore, take account of yourself for your own sake because the account of others will be taken by one other than you.

(Nahj-ul Balagha - Sermon 222)

Hu

2007-12-06T00:16:00.000-05:00

Dhi`lib al-Yamani asked Imam Ali(as) whether he had seen Allah, and he replied, "Do I worship one whom I have not seen?"
Then he enquired, "How have you seen Hu?" and Imam Ali (as) replied:

eyes do not see Hu face to face,
but hearts perceive Hu through the realities of belief.
Hu is near to things but not contiguous.
Hu is far from them but not separate.
Hu is a speaker, but not with reflection.
Hu intends, but not with preparation.
Hu moulds, but not with limbs.
Hu is subtle but cannot be attributed with being concealed.
Hu is great but cannot be attributed with haughtiness.
Hu sees but cannot be attributed with the sense of sight.
Hu is Merciful but cannot be attributed with weakness of heart.
faces feel low before Hu's greatness and hearts tremble out of fear of Hu.

(Nahj-ul Balagha - Sermon 179)

like a roaming physician

2007-12-05T02:46:00.000-05:00

"The Prophet was like a roaming physician who had set ready his ointments and heated his instruments. He used them wherever the need arose for curing blind hearts, deaf ears, and dumb tongues. He followed with his medicines the spots of negligence and places of perplexity. They (people) did not take light from the lights of his wisdom, nor did they produce flame from the flint of sparkling knowledge. So in this matter they are like grazing cattle and hard stones."
- Imam Ali (as), (Nahj-ul-Balagha - Sermon 108)

pollution and disorder

2007-12-04T00:45:00.000-05:00

Brooklyn Bedouin on pollution and disorder...

sick and tired

2007-12-02T19:41:00.000-05:00

nappy roots - sick and tired

White House Releases "Principles" for Permanent Iraqi Presence

2007-11-26T23:14:00.000-05:00

White House Releases "Principles" for Permanent Iraqi Presence
By Spencer Ackerman - November 26, 2007

So it begins. After years of obfuscation and denial on the length of the U.S.'s stay in Iraq, the White House and the Maliki government have released a joint declaration of "principles" for "friendship and cooperation." Apparently President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signed the declaration during a morning teleconference.

Naturally, the declaration is euphemistic, and doesn't refer explicitly to any U.S. military presence.

-- Iraq's leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America, and we seek an enduring relationship with a democratic Iraq. We are ready to build that relationship in a sustainable way that protects our mutual interests, promotes regional stability, and requires fewer Coalition forces.

-- In response, this Declaration is the first step in a three-step process that will normalize U.S.-Iraqi relations in a way which is consistent with Iraq's sovereignty and will help Iraq regain its rightful status in the international community – something both we and the Iraqis seek. The second step is the renewal of the Multinational Force-Iraq's Chapter VII United Nations mandate for a final year, followed by the third step, the negotiation of the detailed arrangements that will codify our bilateral relationship after the Chapter VII mandate expires.

A "democratic Iraq" here means the Shiite-led Iraqi government. The current political arrangement will receive U.S. military protection against coups or any other internal subversion. That's something the Iraqi government wants desperately: not only is it massively unpopular, even among Iraqi Shiites, but the increasing U.S.-Sunni security cooperation strikes the Shiite government -- with some justification -- as a recipe for a future coup.

Notice also the timetable. The U.S. and Iraq will negotiate another year-long United Nations mandate for foreign troops in Iraq, which will expire (I think) in late December 2008. According to today's declaration, following the forthcoming renewal at the U.N., "we will begin negotiation of a framework that will govern the future of our bilateral relationship." That means that during Bush's last year in office, the administration will work out the terms of the U.S.'s stay in Iraq in order to, at the very least, seriously constrain the next administration's options for ending the U.S. presence. Even if Bush doesn't take the audacious step of signing a so-called Status of Forces Agreement -- the basic document for garrisoning U.S. forces on foreign soil -- while he's a lame duck, the simple fact of negotiations will create a diplomatic expectation that his successor will find difficult to reverse.

The White House is also taking steps to argue that there's nothing unusual about what it intends for Iraq. Here's that fact sheet again:

The Declaration Sets The U.S. And Iraq On A Path Toward Negotiating Agreements That Are Common Throughout The World

The U.S. has security relationships with over 100 countries around the world, including recent agreements with nations such as Afghanistan and former Soviet bloc countries.

Not stated, of course, is that Iraq would represent a military commitment opposed by most of the American people. Nor that it would represent codifying an unpopular war into an unpopular, indefinite war. Nor even what that commitment would entail. Here's the "principle" behind future U.S.-Iraq security ties:

To support the Iraqi government in training, equipping, and arming the Iraqi Security Forces so they can provide security and stability to all Iraqis; support the Iraqi government in contributing to the international fight against terrorism by confronting terrorists such as Al-Qaeda, its affiliates, other terrorist groups, as well as all other outlaw groups, such as criminal remnants of the former regime; and to provide security assurances to the Iraqi Government to deter any external aggression and to ensure the integrity of Iraq's territory.

In other words, we're staying in Iraq to defend Nouri al-Maliki against all enemies, foreign and domestic. What will the presidential candidates say about this?

missing in Pakistan

2007-11-25T20:54:00.000-05:00

taken from almusawwir

"While the western media, and some of the liberals in Pakistan are just discovering the oppressive conduct of Busharraf, his regime has been engaged in brutalities (often with the implicit support of some of the same liberals who are now protesting) for sometime now - all in the name of “fighting” so-called “extremists.” This video is about how the writ of the Pakistani state has been used by Busharraf to disappear his opponents."

Missing in Pakistan by Filmmaker and Journalist Ziad Zafar

The beast that digs and forges and consumes...

2007-11-22T14:22:00.000-05:00

"The beast that digs and forges and consumes, blind to everything but its immediate needs, is then no longer the individual man....

In the past two hundred years the European has destroyed or corrupted a great number of ancient cultures which, if we have the courage and the honesty to look into the mirror they provide, show us all that we need to know of ourselves....

the most illuminating examples lie in the very heartland of the modern [western] world- in the encounter between the invading palefaced people and the Indians of North America...

What happened was not merely tragic, it was diabolical.....

The conscious, calculated, methodical, official, and by no means anonymous destruction of the "red" race, its traditions and cultures, in North America and in South America, far from being an unavoidable process....certainly remains one of the greatest crimes and most notable vandalisms of all human history.

Since the presence in their midst of people who find meaning in the world is intolerable to those who think themselves the victims of a meaningless universe, the basic structure of the Indian's spiritual life had to be destroyed...

These invaders differed from all others...they alone had achieved the capacity to look upon everything in creation as material for exploitation,

seeing a tree only as timber, a lamb only as meat, and a mountain only as the site for a quarry. This single-minded rapacity now taken for granted as natural to man was so strange to the Indians...that the invaders might as well have come from another planet....

the combination of greed and fraud and perfidy which they encountered in their dealings with the white man Nothing in their previous experience had forewarned them that men could be like that...

the invaders though to Indian eyes they appeared ignorant, physically dirty, mostly drunken and, in general, both Godless and lawless, carried dreadful weapons in their hands and enjoyed all the advantages which the unprincipled enjoy in their dealings with those for whom honour is paramount. The hordes spread out over a land of almost magical richness...and congratulated themselves upon pursuing so worthily their civilizing mission.

For the victims of this mission there could only be...sadness deeper than imagination can hold- sadness of men completely conscious, watching the universe being destroyed by a numberless and scorning foe...."

- Gai Eaton
King of the Castle: Choice and Responsibility in the Modern World, P.131, 133-134

wonder how a racially divided (half black, half white) highway would go over in US...

2007-11-22T04:25:00.000-05:00

actually...half for Indigenous peoples, and half for whites would be a more appropriate analogy...

"Is it possible that Israel is really planning to build a road on the border of Jerusalem that is half-Israeli and half-Palestinian, with a wall in the middle? No, it is not just planning to do so. The truth is that the highway with the wall in the middle is already in an advanced stage of construction. Last Friday, attorney Danny Seidman of the Ir Amim association took me to see the Defense Ministry's latest innovation: a binational highway with an ethnic divider."

"The barrier's concrete is designed in a style imitating Jerusalem stone, another aesthetic innovation. And this gives rise to the question of whether it is possible that nobody in the defense establishment understood that when something is planned like apartheid, constructed like apartheid and looks like apartheid - the entire world will conclude that it is apartheid."

More here...

to play and learn like other children

2007-11-22T03:05:00.000-05:00

Palestinian children protest against Israeli influence in the Gaza Strip, carrying placards demanding the right "to play and learn like other children". (BBC)

professionalization and complacency

2007-11-22T03:02:00.000-05:00

an article on comparing how Pakistani lawyers have responded to the suspension of Supreme Court justices, the Constitution, and subversion of law in Pakistan, versus how American lawyers have...well...done nothing as the government tries people under secret evidence, holds people in detention indefinitely, engages in secret wiretapping, uses torture, and other erosions of rights...

this kind of complacency is not an issue with American lawyers only, but rather with professionals as a whole in the US and applies across the spectrum of lawyers, journalists, health care providers, educators, government employees and even 'professional' activists and unions...and it is very much a reflection of the complacency created by the material comforts of advanced capitalism...throughout history, these material comforts are provided to those at the center of Empire...and all of this gets covered up under the rubric professionalism, standards of ethics, being "objective," and other such lame and convenient excuses...

this is not to say that these movements (lawyers in Pakistan) perfect or even great...the lawyers movement in Pakistan is limited to issues of "constitutional law" but divorced from larger issues of social justice, and there are also the silly looking penguin suits, a sad remnant and continuation of colonialism...but these sense of outrage, sincerity and willingness to take risk is commendable...

Lawyers:

Journalists:

(second half of article not very relevant)

Where are the Demonstrations?
Pakistani Lawyers vs. American Lawyers

By RALPH NADER

One of the most noticed photographs in the newspapers last week was that of a well-dressed Pakistani lawyer on the streets hurling back a tear gas canister toward the soldiers who were suppressing a demonstration by lawyers protesting the martial law (called "emergency rule") of Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Can anyone remember anywhere in all of modern history, large numbers of lawyers leading the resistance as they did on the streets of Pakistani cities way ahead of the workers, peasants and even the university students?

Pakistani police and troops rounded up the mass protests of lawyers and pushed hundreds of them into trucks on the way to the prison. Lawyers were willing to go to prison and endure beatings, while demanding the re-establishment of the rule of law and the independence of judges right up to the Supreme Court, a rare display of professional courage and duty.

What about lawyers in the United States standing up to the Bush regime's regular violation of our Constitution, the imprisonment of thousands of people without charges and without attorneys, the assault on due process, probable cause, habeas corpus, the spying on Americans without court approval and the defiant, illegal use of torture?

No demonstrations yet. No resolutions by bar associations saying that Bush and Cheney should resign or be impeached.

Except some dozens of active civil liberties' lawyers, law professors and the former head of the American Bar Association, Michael Greco, the 800,000 or more practicing lawyers have been pursuing business as usual. Given their canons of ethics and their status as officers of the court, this looking the other way is not very professional behavior.

Professional behavior also has been in short supply on Wall Street. Once again, the accountants, the corporate lawyers, and the Boards of Directors of such giant companies as Merrill Lynch and Citigroup either were paid to go to sleep on the job or cared less.

Both Merrill Lynch and Citigroup have announced that thus far they are writing off a total of $20 billion on subprime mortgage paper in the housing sector. At the same time, the bosses of these companies, Stanley O'Neal and Charles O. Prince, have been fired and awarded vast golden parachutes totaling $360 million for their mismanagement in taking on reckless levels of risk for short term premiums.

But where were the highly paid watchdogs for these companies in the accounting and legal professions? Professionals are supposed to prevent trouble, not just profit from it. This looks like a repeat of the previous busts during the savings and loan scandals and the dot com collapses.

Once again, see the bitter fruit of de-regulation or non-regulation by the federal and state governments. It will happen again and again to worker pensions, small investors and the workers, who are laid off, until there is regulatory law and order and the investors are given more dedicated legal authority over the corporations which they own.

This week, a new book titled Corpocracy (Wiley Pub.) by veteran corporate governance champion, Robert Monks, will be released to shine a bright light on this lack of shareholder rights and the passivity of large institutional shareholders (like pension funds, trusts and university endowments) toward meeting their fiduciary duties.

The gross greed, power and unfairness of this whole rigged system of non-accountability for the top bosses, who mess up big time but leave with the riches of Kings, were the subject of a remarkably forthright article in Sunday's Washington Post by William S. Lerach-until recently, a very successful litigator against corporate scan artists.

Lerach pleaded guilty last month in federal court to a conspiracy charge regarding payments made to investor-plaintiffs in lawsuits brought against corporations claiming fraud and other misdeeds. For this behavior he will have to pay $8 million in fines and go to prison for at least one year.

Who was damaged by Lerach's crime? The court was misled because it was not told that monetary incentives were given to ready-to-sign-on plaintiffs in the race to the courtroom to become the lead law firm in such class action lawsuits.

Compare this violation with the trillion dollars looted or drained from millions of workers, investors and pension-holders by the corporate crime wave of the past ten years. Lerach and his firm recovered billions of dollars for defrauded investors over that same time span.

Lerach can be forgiven for wondering why so many reckless bosses were rewarded at the expense of shareholders and company profits. Especially, since these big bosses of the huge losses through their rubberstamp, selected boards of directors, essentially decide what to pay themselves while they are in their suites and when they leave.

Top mismanagement of many U.S. companies-consider the domestic auto manufacturers, for example-is rife with rewards for bad jobs done. Big rewards. In any fair system of corporate governance and SEC regulation, these bosses at least would have had to give up their undeserved pay and cancel their golden parachutes.

Even though O'Neal and Prince have admitted to "mistakes" and "flawed risk models," O'Neal leaves Merrill Lynch with $160 million in addition to over $100 million he received in pay for the past two years.

Reports have Prince leaving with $100 million along with the $100 million he was paid as Citi's CEO. Both companies' stock value has fallen sharply in recent weeks.

In his article, Lerach mused about how the "legal system is a lot tougher on shareholder lawyers than it appears to be on Wall Street executives."

During his time in prison, maybe the determined Lerach can plan his next moves to bring corporate crime, fraud and abuse against all too trusting individuals, institutions and government purchasers to systemic accountability.

Maybe he'll take his strategies to a level far beyond the occasional class action suits that get through all the interference that indentured legislators and conservative judges put in their way.

For if we the people do not have a say, we will continue to pay and pay.

Today We Experienced America

2007-11-22T02:55:00.000-05:00

an excellent article highlighting how the issues of immigration is just as much an issue of indigenous peoples rights, and their ancestral rights to travel freely in their lands...

Today We Experienced America
Arresting Indigenous People on the Border

By BRENDA NORRELL

THE GATE, TOHONO O'ODHAM NATION (Arizona).

Indigenous delegates to the border on Tohono O'odham Nation land were outraged by the federal agents, hovering customs helicopter, profiteering contractors, federal spy tower, federal "cage" detention center and watching the arrest of a group of Indigenous Peoples, mostly women and children, by the US Border Patrol on an Indian Nation.

"We saw it all firsthand in America," said Bill Means, Lakota and cofounder of the International Indian Treaty Council on Nov. 8, when an Indigenous delegation went to the US/Mexico border here, south of Sells, to document human rights abuses for a report to the United Nations.

"Now we are going to take this wall down," Means said, after viewing the construction of a border vehicle barrier by contractors and National Guard on Tohono O'odham land.

Speaking a few hours later to the Indigenous Peoples Border Summit of the Americas II in San Xavier, Means called for solidarity of Indigenous Peoples throughout the world to halt the arrests of Indigenous Peoples who are walking north in search of a better life, and solidarity to bring down the US/Mexico border wall.

"One inch of intrusion into our land is not acceptable!" Mohawk Mark Maracle told the Border Summit. "I became very angry when I saw those guys rounding up our people.

"It is a violation of our Great Law to witness what we did today and do nothing about it."

The delegation included Mohawks, Oneida, Navajo, Acoma Pueblo, Hopi and O'odham.

Near the border, at the scene of the arrests of a group of Indigenous Peoples, Mohawks stood before US Border Patrol agents and held their fists high in solidarity, as the Border Patrol packed nearly a dozen Indigenous Peoples into one vehicle.

The delegation also viewed the federal spy tower next to Homeland Security's migrant detention center known as "the cage" on the Tohono O'odham Nation. The first stop, however, was the abomination of the new vehicle barrier wall being constructed on O'odham land.

Kahentinetha Horn of the Mohawk Women Title Holders said she saw the callousness of the Tohono O'odham district official standing before them and speaking in favor of the border barrier.

"This is completely illegal," Kahentinetha said, adding that it violates human rights legislation. Kahentinetha was outraged at the arrests of the group of Indigenous Peoples, who appeared to be Mayans from Oaxaca, Chiapas or Guatemala.

"We stood in front of the Border Patrol, we started yelling at them," Kahentinetha told the Indigenous Border Summit. She described how the Mohawks stood with fists held high in solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples being arrested earlier in the day.

"We were passing some of our strength on to them to fight."

The Indigenous delegation documenting the abuses planned to intervene in the arrests, but the Border Patrol crowded the group into a vehicle and left quickly.

"I came away feeling very frustrated and very discouraged," Kahentinetha said.

Mohawk warrior Rarahkwisere, among those heartbroken to see the arrest of fellow Indigenous Peoples on Indian land, said these brothers and sisters of the people were not drug runners or criminals, these were women and children walking in search of a better life.

Jay Johnson Castro of Del Rio Texas, leading protests against the imprisonment of migrant children at Hutto prison in Texas and the border wall in Texas, was in the delegation.

"I hear 'sovereign nation,' but I didn't see a sovereign nation."

Castro said the buildings near the border on the Tohono O'odham Nation are labeled with signs, "Homeland Security and Tohono O'odham Nation, like they are in partnership."

Maracle said the same atrocities that the United States government is now accusing migrants of doing, is what the invaders did when they arrived on Turtle Island: rape, robbery and murder.

"If you don't stop and grab hold of your destiny, there is not going to be one for your children." Maracle said all the nations need to come together and stop what is happening here. "I know from past experience with the Mohawk Warrior Society where our power lies, it is with the people. The power is in the people, don't ever forget that."

Chris George, Oneida from Canada, said, "When the Border Patrol came up, they thought we were the enemy," relaying how the Border Patrol asked the summit delegation who authorized this delegation to be at the border.

"No one authorizes us to do anything. It was the Creator who took us there.

"They were packing, we were packing, too, with a good mind and a good heart."

"All of the Indigenous Peoples need to come together. Don't let the United States government tell you who you are. We know who we are. We are Haudenosaunee, People of the Longhouse."

Lenny Foster, Dine' (Navajo) and advocate for Native ceremonial rights for inmates, said what he witnessed at the border was "brutal, vicious and evil."

Foster said Dine' know that all human beings all have five fingers, but what he witnessed within the district official and federal agents was no internal recognition of being five-fingered people.

"They were robots."

Referring to the Tohono O'odham district official who led the tour, Foster said she was defending the policies of genocide.

Foster asked who is setting these policies in the United States. "Who is running the government? It is the white man, it surely isn't the people of color."

Describing how the Indigenous Peoples were arrested and rushed into a small vehicle, Foster said, "It reminded me of Gallup, N.M., and how they round up our people, stack them up like stacks of wood."

Foster was at this same place, a dirt path leading to Mexico known as The Gate, years ago when the American Indian Movement protested the violation of human rights here. Foster pointed out that during this day, he viewed the heavy buildup of police and agents. There were police from the BIA, Tohono O'odham Nation, along with US Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs agents. The National Guard were also there, working with the contractor constructing the border vehicle barrier, while a white customs' helicopter hovered overhead.

At the same time, on the Mexico side, two men sat under a tree.

An attorney for the O'odham in Mexico was prevented from crossing into the United States on Tohono O'odham land by the US Border Patrol, even though he held a letter from Tohono O'odham Nation Chairman Ned Norris requesting him to come and meet with him today. In the letter, Chairman Norris stated that the attorney could enter the Nation for the meeting by way of The Gate here.

However, the Border Patrol officer at the scene refused to allow the attorney to enter, even with a letter from the chairman. Over-ruling Chairman Norris on Tohono O'odham land, the US Border Patrol agent said the attorney must have a US visa to enter, and not just a letter from Chairman Norris. The attorney waited there, with a Tarahumara accompanying him who held a US visa.

Foster pointed out that the Mexican federales or police, who arrived on the other side, could do anything with the two people left there. "They could even be torturing them now."

Means also pointed out that the delegation was "tailed" or followed from the tribal capitol of Sells. Means also said that the Berlin Wall had come down, but now there are other walls to divide the people, including the wall between Israel and Palestine.

At the border wall construction at The Gate, Means said one of the workers told them, "The Israelis are helping us put up the fence."

At the US/Mexico border, border wall contractor Boeing has hired a subcontractor Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense contractor, who participated in constructing security at the Apartheid Wall in Palestine.

Speaking of what is happening in the United States now, Means said the "gated communities" of the United States have now expanded into a "gated country." It is a country where the government welcomes the rich. The Indigenous Border Summit witnessed what the United States does to Indigenous Peoples.

Means quoted Black Hawk of the Sac and Fox Nation: "Why is it you Americans always take with a gun what you could have with love. We experienced America today."

why pakistan (2007) is not like Iran (1979)

2007-11-22T02:41:00.000-05:00

quite a few American commentators and politicians have tried to say that conditions in Pakistan right now are similar Iran before the Revolution...

however, this excellent post points out why the similarities are superficial...

untold stories

2007-11-21T01:38:00.000-05:00

a beautiful pattern

2007-11-14T19:11:00.000-05:00

"Certainly you have in the Messenger of Allah a beautiful pattern (of conduct) for any one whose hope is in Allah and the Final Day, and who engages much in the Praise of Allah."
- Quran 33:22

ILPS Statement on Pakistan

2007-11-07T19:09:00.000-05:00

ILPS Statement on Pakistan

By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee
International League of Peoples' Struggle
20 November 2007

The International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS) condemns the declaration of emergency rule by Pakistan's military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf and the further entrenchment of barefaced fascist dictatorship on the people of Pakistan. We support the just struggle of the people of Pakistan for national and social liberation against the Musharraf fascist regime and its US imperialist master.

Gen. Musharraf has faced strong opposition the past months with a broad array of forces ranged against him. He has been able to weather past challenges to his rule only because of his control over the military and because of US support. George W. Bush considers Musharraf a key ally in the US global "war on terror" and continues to praise him as his partner in spreading "freedom".

Pakistan's 610,000-member military is the eighth largest in the world. It has an annual expenditure of $2.435 billion, nearly 3% of Pakistan's GDP. In the three years after 9/11, US military aid to Pakistan soared to $4.2 billion, compared to $9.1 million in the three years before the attacks. The total value of all American aid, including military, economic, and development assistance, to Pakistan since 9/11 is
estimated at more than $10 billion. Pakistan now ranks third after Israel and Egypt among the biggest recipients of US aid.

The Bush-Musharraf tandem has meant the malicious use of the anti-terrorism slogan in order to justify the worst kinds of terrorism: the US-NATO war of aggression in Afghanistan and substantial parts of Pakistan and the state terrorism of the Musharraf regime against the Pakistani people.

Gen. Musharraf has allowed the U.S. to use Pakistan's bases in anti-terrorism operations and to attack Pakistani communities, shared intelligence, helped identify and arrest suspected terrorists, and tightened the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan by deploying up to 80,000 Pakistani troops.

Among the broad masses of the people, there is widespread sentiment against and opposition to Musharraf's puppetry to US imperialism particularly in connection with the US "war on terror". This has served to stimulate the rise of a broad range of opposition forces, including the Islamic, the bourgeois democratic and the revolutionary.

Since the 1999 coup that put him in power, Musharraf has ruled with an iron fist. He has constantly tormented the bourgeois opposition. He has put many of them behind bars without charges where they are maltreated and tortured. Journalists critical of the government have been harassed, threatened, arrested and detained. The government has banned and disrupted anti-government rallies and demonstrations since October 2000.

More than one-third of the Pakistani population of 160 million live below the poverty line —13 percent survive on less than $1 a day. Many people in the rural areas are impoverished peasants living in mud houses. Because of their dire economic situation and the political repression, the masses have grown very restive. The social unrest has emboldened the broad range of opposition to challenge his authoritarian rule.

In March 2007, Musharraf removed chief justice Iftakar Mohammed Chaudhry from office. He took punitive action against Chaudhry for deciding to hear cases involving disappearances of people detained by the notorious intelligence agencies, as well as constitutional challenges to Musharraf's rule. Street demonstrations protesting Chaudry's ouster led to Chaudhry's reinstatement in July.

Wishing to reverse the ever worsening internal political turmoil in the whole of Pakistan, coincident with the resurgence of the Taliban and the anti-imperialist forces in the Afghan-Pakistani border areas, the US has pushed the formula of keeping Musharraf as "civilian" president, making him resign from the position of chief of staff of the armed forces, holding parliamentary elections in January next year and making Benazir Bhutto his prime minister.

But like any puppet Musharraf has relative autonomy from his imperialist master and wants to secure his autocratic power against his actual and potential rivals and uses to his advantage the increasingly difficult position of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan and its desperate need for a brutal puppet like him. It is all a matter of hypocrisy for the US government to pretend being for a democratic Pakistan while in fact the US needs state terrorism in Pakistan to support the US war of aggression, especially in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan.

The declaration of emergency rule shows Musharraf's determination to keep his despotic power at all costs. The illusion of democracy that the US wishes to conjure in Pakistan is dispelled by continuing martial rule, the suspension of the constitution and the replacement of the Supreme Court by a set of Musharaff appointees.These aggravate the political oppression and economic exploitation of the broad masses of the people. But these also result in favorable conditions for the
people's struggle for national and social revolution and the rise of revolutionary forces against US imperialism and the local reactionary forces.

All freedom-loving peoples of the world must condemn the unbridled state terrorism and barefaced fascist dictatorship of Musharraf as well as the continuing policy of the US to prop up the widely detested Musharraf regime and condone all its fascist crimes in line with the overriding US policy of aggression and plunder in South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East.

The people of Pakistan deserve all possible moral and political support for their just revolutionary resistance for national liberation and democracy against US imperialism and the Musharraf fascist regime.

ni maiN jana jogi de naal

2007-11-06T01:04:00.000-05:00

paRh paRh alim faazal hoyaaN
kadi apney aap nu paRya ee naeeN
jaaN jaaN waRdaN mandir maseetaN
kadi aapney andar tooN waRya ee naeeN
aewaiN roz shaitan naal laRdaaN
kadi nafs apney naal laRya ee naeeN
Bulleh Shah asmani uRheeyan phaRda
jeyRaa ghar baiTha ohnu phaRyaa ee naeeN

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Party - Ni Main Jana Jogi De Naal

Immigration detainees are at record levels

2007-11-05T21:52:00.000-05:00

Immigration detainees are at record levels

To cope with the numbers, federal officials speed up deportations, transfer more people between facilities and use more private jails

By Anna Gorman

November 5, 2007

Aggressive immigration enforcement has led to record numbers of detainees in California and around the nation, prompting the federal government to speed up deportations and increasingly rely on transfers and contracts with local jails and private companies.

The detainee population jumped to nearly 27,900 nationwide in fiscal year 2007, up from about 19,700 the previous year, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In California, the population increased to more than 3,700, up from a little more than 3,200 last year.

Two weeks ago, the population surpassed 30,000 nationally and nearly reached 4,000 in California.

The main reason cited for the upward trend is the government's decision to end its practice of catching immigrants and immediately releasing them.

Detention is the only way to guarantee that people leave the country when their deportation is ordered, immigration officials said. Fewer than a third of people out of custody leave the country when ordered to do so, despite being under intensive supervision.

"If we have them detained and they are ordered removed, it's almost a virtual certainty that they will, in fact, be removed," said Gary Mead, assistant director of the immigration agency's Detention and Removal Operations.

"Everything short of detention is less effective to one degree or another."

The number of immigrants deported has risen to more than 261,000 in fiscal 2007, up from about 177,000 two years ago. The 2007 fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

Organizations opposing illegal immigration praise the government for locking up and deporting more immigrants.

"The administration has finally realized they needed to dramatically ramp up their detention capacity if immigration enforcement is ever to be credible," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies.

But immigrants and their advocates say the high numbers have led to crowded conditions and have limited some immigrants' access to medical care.

Detainees at the San Pedro Processing Center on Terminal Island often had to sleep on inflatable beds on the floor and had difficulty getting access to phones, immigrants and their attorneys said.

The detention center, opened in the 1930s, was temporarily shut down last month for maintenance.

"The overcrowding at San Pedro was crazy," said former detainee Eugene Peba, who was denied asylum from Nigeria and is awaiting a federal appellate court ruling. "They didn't have enough employees to take care of the detainees' day-to-day problems."

In July, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that populations at four facilities, including San Pedro and a center in San Diego, were over capacity. The report also noted "systemic" problems with telephones in detention centers and isolated problems with medical care and use-of-force policies.

"When the number of people in detention is increasing but the number of people assigned by the government to oversee that detention is not, problems are bound to increase and keep increasing," said Ranjana Natarajan, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

Immigration officials defended conditions and said there is no overcrowding. In fiscal 2007, they said, the facilities run by ICE were at 95% capacity and the contracted private centers were at 98% capacity. The phone situation has been fixed and the centers' telephones, along with speed-dial numbers for attorneys and consulates, are checked weekly to make sure they are working, they said.

The agency also has taken several steps in recent months to improve oversight, including working with a private company that provides full-time inspectors and placing outside "quality assurance" specialists at the 40 biggest facilities, authorities said. Previously, inspections were done once a year at each facility.

"When we find a deficiency, we correct it," Mead said. "I don't believe we have any systemic problems."

The immigration agency's budget for bed space skyrocketed to $945 million last year, up from $641 million in fiscal year 2005.

The majority of detainees, about 63%, are held at hundreds of city and county jails around the nation. The rest are housed at eight centers operated by the immigration agency and seven private facilities run by companies such as the Corrections Corp. of America and the GEO Group.

The agency releases some detainees on bond or electronic monitoring, depending on the risk of flight.

Because of the cost of maintaining aging facilities such as San Pedro, the immigration agency has no plans to build more of its own detention centers and is considering whether to transfer more facilities to private control. Contracting with private facilities provides two main benefits: flexibility in placing centers where they are needed and speed in getting them open, Mead said.

The agency is also contracting more with city and county jails, which accept immigrants when space is available.

Advocates and attorneys criticize the government's reliance on local jails, saying immigrants are being mixed with the regular criminal population. Many immigrant detainees have not committed any crime other than being in the U.S. illegally, they said.

"You have 300 jails running in 300 different ways, and it's hard for ICE to manage that," said Natarajan of the ACLU. "There is no training of local jail officials and guards on ICE detention standards."

But Krikorian said the use of city and county jails is an ideal way to increase detention space without building new centers. "It's not as if arsonists and bank robbers are being let go to make room for illegal immigrants," he said. "That is unused capacity."

Immigrant rights advocates also criticize the use of transfers because they separate families, can delay cases and make it hard for detainees to communicate with their attorneys.

"Attorneys are constantly complaining about literally losing their clients," said Alison Parker, a deputy director at Human Rights Watch, who has researched immigration detention.

Fernando Cabrera, a Salvadoran green card holder fighting to stay in the U.S. despite a criminal conviction, said he was transferred suddenly in December 2006 from California to Alabama. Some of his legal papers were lost in the transfer, he said. Cabrera was sent back to California and then to Texas after San Pedro shut its doors.

The immigration agency began transferring large numbers of detainees at the end of 2006, when it created a center to coordinate the movement of detainees. In 2007, the agency spent more than $10 million to transfer nearly 19,400 detainees.

The transfer system enables the agency to balance the population and plan enforcement operations. For example, when more than 1,300 fugitives and criminals were arrested in the Los Angeles area this fall, immigration agents prepared for the influx by locating open beds around the country.

To keep immigration court cases moving, the agency changes venues in some and relies on videoconferencing in others. Mead said that security concerns prevent advance notification of detainees or their attorneys but that the agency informs attorneys of record as soon as the transfer takes place.

Mead acknowledged that families are affected but said immigrants have access to telephones.

"That's just an unfortunate circumstance," he said. "But the reason they are in custody is because of an immigration violation, and that is going to present a hardship on their family regardless of where they are."

One of the areas of immigration detention that has drawn the most controversy is medical treatment. Since 2004, 66 people have died in custody, including a detainee at San Pedro with AIDS who advocates say died after being denied vital medical care.

"When there are too many people in a facility, medical personnel are overwhelmed and their ability to respond effectively completely breaks down," said Parker of Human Rights Watch.

Peba, the Nigerian immigrant, said it was very difficult to get medical attention at San Pedro and at a facility in Lancaster run by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department.

"It takes months even begging to see a doctor," said Peba, who said he has post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic wrist pain. "That's inhuman treatment."

Immigration officials defend the agency's medical treatment, saying it spent almost $100 million during fiscal 2007 to treat detainees for myriad physical and mental health issues, including cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Mead said the agency takes every death seriously but that more than 1 million immigrants have been in agency custody since 2004.

"Given the number of people that go through our custody and given the fact that many of them do not come from a history of exceptional healthcare and health habits, our mortality rate is extremely low," he said.

Pillars of Faith

2007-11-05T06:14:00.000-05:00

"Faith rests on four pillars: patience, certitude, justice, and struggle.

Patience, furthermore, is based on four disciplines:
yearning, apprehension, abstinence, and expectation.

So one who yearns for Paradise forgets desires,
and one who is on guard against Hellfire
turns aside from forbidden things.

One who is abstinent in this world
thinks lightly of misfortunes,
and one who expects death
hastens to good deeds.

Certitude is also based on four disciplines:
enlightenment of intelligence,
elucidation of wisdom,
spiritual counsel on what is important,
and following original norms.

Wisdom becomes clear
to whoever reflects on intelligence,
and whoever has wisdom become clear
knows what is important.
And whoever knows what is important
is in accord with original norms.

Justice is also based on four disciplines:
immersion in understanding,
penetration of knowledge,
brightness in judgment,
and firm establishment of thoughtfulness.

For one who understands
knows with penetrating knowledge,
and one who knows with penetrating knowledge
proceeds judiciously from the start.

And one who is thoughtful
has not been negligent of one's trust
and lives a benign life among the people.

Struggle is also based on four disciplines:
the imperative to do what is right,
prohibition of wrong,
speaking truth at the appropriate times and places,
and attacking the vicious and iniquitous.

For one who commands what is right
strengthens the back of the faithful,
and one who forbids what is wrong
defies scoffers and oppressors.
And one who speaks the truth
at the appropriate times and places
has carried out one's obligation,
and one who attacks the vicious and iniquitous
in defense of God
will be defended by God
and fulfilled by God
on the day of resurrection."

- Imam Ali (as)