Peter King is bigoted and ineffective

Peter King's Islamic radicalization hearings against Muslims is meaningless and ineffective. He leaves out discussion of the United States long history of collaborating with Jihadis, propping up dictators and toppling democratic regimes (like in Iran in 1953). Robert Dreyfuss, author of Devils Game, discusses history of US and Middle East.

Dreyfuss' book is just the tip of the iceberg. How many people are aware that the United States spent millions of dollars on violent, extremist textbooks that were given to Afghan Children? See From U.S., the ABC's of Jihad in The Washington Post (Saturday, March 23, 2002; Page A01)
The United States funded and supported Islamic extremists during the Afghan-Russian War in order to give the Soviet Union its "Vietnam." The US could have supported pro-democracy Afghan groups, but instead chose the most brutal extremists from around the world to create death and destruction in Afghanistan.

While people accuses CAIR of supporting Hamas, people forget how Israel allowed Hamas to flourish as a rival to the secular Palestinian Nationalist movement. See "How Israel and the United States Helped to Bolster Hamas" from the Democracy Now program for more about this issue.

So basically, while the United States preaches human rights and democracy, it supports kings, dictators and extremists who do its bidding. And just so that we can live comfortably, Muslims are supposed to accept and be happy about being oppressed and killed by their leaders (that we armed and supported).

I'd like to see people put their money where their mouth is and demand USA stop accepting billions of dollars in investment money from the Saudis.

There are 9/11 victims families that are demanding a reopening of the 9/11 investigation. But Peter King is ignoring them http://rememberbuilding7.org/ King chooses to place all the blame on voiceless and powerless Muslims because it is the easy and cowardly thing to do.

Peter King thinks that it was OK to support Irish terrorists because the terrorist acts did not occur in the United States. How does that look to the world that our elected politicians have double standards. What does Britain, an ally on the war on terror, think of our government supporting people who commit terrorists in their country. Peter King should be made to step down as head of House Homeland Security Committee.

9/11-Israeli connection

This information has been on the internet since after 9/11. While people will bring up the cheering Palestinians on 9/11, people are in denial (even those on the political left) of the Israelis' action, in New Jersey, on 9/11



You won't be seeing our "brave" Peter King, Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, investigating this.

Here is a report from Fox News, a source you'd least expect to discuss this issue, on the 9/11-Israeli connection

Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror

Review of Mahmood Mamdani book by Howard French

from The New York Times, March 29. 2009
Source http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/books/30fren.html

Clearly, the African disaster most in view today is Sudan, or more specifically the dirty war that has raged since 2003 in that country’s western region,Darfur.

Rare among African conflicts, it exerts a strong claim on our conscience. By instructive contrast, more than five million people have died as a result of war in Congo since 1998, the rough equivalent at its height of a 2004 Asian tsunami striking every six months, without stirring our diplomats to urgency or generating much civic response.

More interestingly, the author maintains that much of what we see today as a racial divide in Sudan has its roots in colonial history, when Britain “broke up native society into different ethnicities, and ‘tribalized’ each ethnicity by bringing it under the absolute authority of one or more British-sanctioned ‘native authorities,’ ” balancing “the whole by playing one off against the others.”

Mr. Mamdani calls this British tactic of administratively reinforcing distinctions among colonial subjects “re-identify and rule” and says that it was copied by European powers across the continent, with deadly consequences — as in Rwanda, where Belgium’s intervention hardened distinctions between Hutu and Tutsi.

In Sudan the result was to create a durable sense of land rights rooted in tribal identity that favored the sedentary at the expense of the nomad, or, in the crude shorthand of today, African and Arab.

Other roots of the Darfur crisis lie in catastrophic desertification in the Sahel region, where the cold war left the area awash in cheap weapons at the very moment that pastoralists could no longer survive in their traditional homelands, obliging many to push southward into areas controlled by sedentary farmers.

He also blames regional strife, the violent legacy of proxy warfare by France, Libya and the United States and, most recently, the global extension of the war on terror.

This important book reveals much on all of these themes, yet still may be judged by some as not saying enough about recent violence in Darfur.

Mr. Mamdani’s constant refrain is that the virtuous indignation he thinks he detects in those who shout loudest about Darfur is no substitute for greater understanding, without which outsiders have little hope of achieving real good in Africa’s shattered lands.

Here's an article by Keith Harmon Snow with more information about Darfur that is not discussed in the mainstream media http://www.allthingspass.com/uploads/html-264THE%20WINTER%20OF%20BASHIRS%20DISCONTENT.htm

From the U.S., the ABC of Jihad

It seems its okay to teach children hate and violence when it serves the United States interest.

From the U.S., the ABC of Jihad
By Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 23, 2002; Page A01
From http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5339-2002Mar22?language=printer

In the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.
The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code.
As Afghan schools reopen today, the United States is back in the business of providing schoolbooks. But now it is wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism. What seemed like a good idea in the context of the Cold War is being criticized by humanitarian workers as a crude tool that steeped a generation in violence.
Last month, a U.S. foreign aid official said, workers launched a "scrubbing" operation in neighboring Pakistan to purge from the books all references to rifles and killing. Many of the 4 million texts being trucked into Afghanistan, and millions more on the way, still feature Koranic verses and teach Muslim tenets.

Look at this hilarious part of the article where it says,

A 1991 federal appeals court ruling against AID's former director established that taxpayers' funds may not pay for religious instruction overseas, said Herman Schwartz, a constitutional law expert at American University, who litigated the case for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Ayesha Khan, legal director of the nonprofit Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the White House has "not a legal leg to stand on" in distributing the books.
"Taxpayer dollars cannot be used to supply materials that are religious," she said.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State were concerned about money being spent on religious books but they were not too concerned about the millions of Afghans killed or disabled by a war that was instigated by the U.S. so that the Soviet Union would get its “Vietnam.” This is why the mainstream political left is no better than the political right. Neither is conscience enough to recognize the great suffering of others. The United States recruited and trained Muslim extremists to fight its proxy war against the Russians. (See http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html ) With the defeat of the Russians came the collapse of the Soviet Union, making the United States the number one superpower in the world, but the U.S. did nothing to help reconstruct Afghanistan

Ray Hanania Can’t Take Constructive Criticism.

I am putting up this post because I was censored on a website in which Hanania posts his commentary..

It all started when I commented on this blog (comment #2 and 6) about a review, written by Sousan Hammad, of a comedy show that included Ray Hanania.
http://philistine.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/arabs-and-autophobia-ii/

You notice Ray Hanania was free to respond on the blog (see comment #s 3, 4, and 7)

On the website mideastyouth.com Ray responded to Sousam Hammad’s review and he chose to insert me into it, not making any good points, but just getting back at me.
http://www.mideastyouth.com/2008/04/05/criticism-and-then-there-is-criticism/
He writes “By the way, Randal Jones reared his ugly head on another board claiming that I ‘only’ criticize Muslims in my comedy, but off course, never once watched any of my online comedy performances.” He puts a link to video of one of his comedy performances, which only confirms what I have said.

Hanania had written “I am an outspoken critic of the Israeli occupation AND I am an outspoken critic of Hamas terrorism and a foe of suicide bombings.”

I put a comment, that was published, that the Israeli government had allowed Hamas to flourish as arrival to the secular Yasser Arafat.

Ray Hanania responded with this comment:

Hey Randall … I wrote the first analysis of how Israel’s LIKUD/HERUT party helped midwife the birth of Hamas … they didn’t found it, as Arabs argue falsely. But they did give Sheikh Yassin the support to raise money and set up a network called the Islamic Association in the 1970s in the Gaza Strip … that he later used during the outbreak of th efirst Intifada to launch Hamas … Sharon and Shamir did not expect that, but they did hope Yassin would become an Arafat rival.
Go to CounterPunch and look it up yourself … it’s there in detail …
And Tim, the Electronic Intifada argues there should only be one state, a secular state where Jews, Christians and Muslims can live in peace. They haven’t lived in peace in Palestine since before 1897 … the idea of one state is a great dream, but an unrealistic goal that only results in two things:
continued conflict; the perpetuation of the Palestinian refugees living in refugee camps.
The ONLY solution is Two States … and by the way, the founder of the Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimeh, spent his life opposing and criticizing and assaulting the Oslo Accords and the Two State plan, and now that it is dying, he dances on it by saying, “See, I told you it wouldn’t work. Now let’s live together as equals.”
I’d rather live under Israeli occupation than under Hamas and Palestinian fanatic occupation because as far as I am concerned, they are both bad but at least under the Israelis are under international scrutiny … the Islamicists and extremist secular nuts would be far worse and would quickly turn the “One State” into an Islamic State. That’s their goal. Not a Secular Islamic STate, but a fanatic religious state that bastardizes Islam and distoerts its meaning to give them the kind of power they enjoy in such sterling democracies as Yemen and in Al-Qaedi-stan.

I attempted to put this response several times, but it was not published on the website:

Who are the Arabs you are talking about where you write “…they[Israel] didn’t found it [Hamas], as Arabs argue falsely.” What’s the point of making this claim? This doesn’t mitigate the role of Israel in fueling the violence in Palestine, between Israelis and Palestinians, and also amongst the Palestinians.

Ray,you wrote “I’d rather live under Israeli occupation than under Hamas and Palestinian fanatic occupation because as far as I am concerned, they are both bad but at least under the Israelis are under international scrutiny … the Islamicists and extremist secular nuts would be far worse and would quickly turn the “One State” into an Islamic State.”

You just proved Sousan Hammad's and other critics' point; you want Palestinians to be occupied (but of course your not living under the occupation) because you believe Palestinians are incapable of developing a government. If a foreign power did to Israel what Israel is doing to Palestinians, I don't think you would want to be living under this situation. You are not living in occupied Palestine, so it is not for you to decide the type of government the Palestinians should have. The international scrutiny means nothing because Israel controls how the news comes out of that region. Israel has no interest in settling this conflict; its main concern is to perpetuate the violence to justify its occupation, while taking more of the Palestinians’ lands. Israel fuels the violence in Palestine by arming militants to oppose whoever gains popularity amongst the people.

You really got a lot of nerve to talk about “Al-Qaedi-stan,” the matter of fact is that the United States had recruited and trained Muslim extremists to destabilize the Afghan government, just so that the United States could give the Soviet Union its “Vietnam.” Millions of Afghans had been killed; the country's infrastructure had been destroyed. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. became the number one super power in the world, but did nothing to help reconstruct Afghanistan.

As for Yemen, there are Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and secular countries in the Third World that have similar kinds of problems,

At the beginning of the United States’ history there was persecution of religious and racial minorities, women were treated as property, and there was slavery. It eventually changed on its own, not by having some foreign power occupying it

My comment, that you only make Muslim jokes, is based on your radio interviews, which are a reflection of your shows. Anyway, I recently saw your performance on Google video at a dinner banquet honoring Osama Siblani and the Arab American News newspaper in Dearborn Michigan, November 2004. This also confirms what I said.

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

I suggested to Hanania some Christian related topics he could make jokes about:

• Do you know Sirhan Sirhan, the man convicted of assassinating Rober F. Kennedy was a Palestinian Christian? Some people believe he did not act alone; if that’s true then Sirhan is the first Arab patsy in America’s war on terror.

• How about the Pope expressing concern about violence by Muslims? Are you aware that the region with the most number of killings and rapes is in the Congo, more than 4 million dead, its Christians killing Christians, Christians raping Christians.

• Did you know a Muslim, Wajeeh Nuseibeh, holds the key to Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, this is to keep the different sects of Christianity from fighting each other. There are Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Ethiopians and Copts. Its a good thing Wajeeh Nuseibeh doesn’t think like the U.S. governmnet, otherwise you would have a civil war that would make Iraq look like a picnic.

• You’ve brought up being a Vietnam veteran. Are you proud of the 3 to 5 million Buddhists killed when the United States bombed Vietnam and Cambodia?

Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth

*** Update: I've added three youtube videos to this post *** 4/8/2008

Some blogs and forums have made a comparison between how the media reports on the violence of the peoples in Tibet and Palestine. There is not only a difference in the media coverage of the violence, but also on the reporting of negative aspects of each society. Zionists will often report on the most negative historical and "cultural" aspects of Palestinian society, as if though this justifies the oppression and violence that Israel inflicts upon them. There is hardly, if any reporting about the negative historical and cultural aspects of Tibetan society. Here is an article by Michael Parenti that discusses Tibet before China. http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeated rape, beginning at age nine. 14 The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.

In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. 15 The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care, They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord's land--or the monastery’s land--without pay, to repair the lord's houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand.16 Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location. 17

As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.

One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf, reports: “Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished”; they “were just slaves without rights.”18 Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture those who tried to flee. One 24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention as a “liberation.” He testified that under serfdom he was subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold. After his third failed escape, he was merciless beaten by the landlord’s men until blood poured from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed.19

The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for religious festivals and for public dancing and drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery.20

The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.

The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation--including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation--were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs. Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.”21 Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet. 22

In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master’s cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who was raped and then had her nose sliced away.

Here is a video by Chris Nebe about the history of Buddhism in Tibet.



Here is a viewpoint about the Tibet riots that says both Western and Chinese media is not telling the complete truth. You be the Judge!



Here is the same guy giving an "Unbiased history of Tibet."

The US is arming competing militias in Iraq

This is discussed in an interview with Iraqi-American Professor Ayad Al-Qazzaz, done by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now!

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Your thoughts, as we enter the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq?

AYAD AL-QAZZAZ: I am very, very devastated about what is happening to Iraq. You see, I immigrated to this country in 1963, and I adopted this country as my own new country. But I feel very, very much torn about what’s happening in my country of origin, devastated, that country, on all levels—economic, educational, health. And the infrastructure has been destroyed. The families have been displaced. More than four-and-a-half million Iraqis have left the country, and on and on and on. So I feel terrible about what’s really going on.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And when you hear President Bush and other supporters of the administration’s policies talking about how the surge is working, how the US is now winning the war in Iraq, what is your response?

AYAD AL-QAZZAZ: You know, one of the most devastating things is to hear the President keep lying and lying about really what’s going on in Iraq. He lied about the causes of the war, he lied about what’s going on right now in Iraq, and he’s lying about the surge.
Let’s talk about the surge. The success is nothing but a camouflage, nothing but a mirage. Baghdad, for example, was a mixed city, where Shia Muslim, Sunni Muslim and Kurdish, they lived together. And I give you an example of that. My family, I come from a family, my mother was Kurdish, my ex-wife happened to be a Christian Catholic from Baghdad, my brother married to a Shia Muslim, my sister married to a Shia Muslim. And right now, the ethnic cleansing is completely—has been completed in Iraq as a result of the surge in this year. Today, if you go and visit Baghdad, you see a few Sunni communities surrounded by walls or concrete blocks or many, many checks. They try to protect themselves from the other communities in that city. Baghdad, before the invasion, was 65 percent Sunni Muslim. Today, they are 75 [percent] Muslim Shia in Baghdad.

The second point about the surge—I already told you about four-and-a-half million Iraqis have been displaced—two-and-a-half million left the country, and two [million] others are displaced within their own country. And the only reason why no more people are leaving the country, because both Syria and Jordan practically closed their border to the Iraqi refugees.

And the third thing is that the US established a Sunni militia in the Anbar area and other places, and the purpose of that militia is basically to protect the American Army from the resistance movement. So, in a sense, they are doing the dirty work for the Americans in that neighborhood. The US, when they invaded Iraq, they had many, many objectives to achieve, and one of that objective is to divide the country into semi- three independent states, and these three semi-independent states will fight with each other about resources, about territory, and then they will ask the Americans to establish bases in their own respective territories.

Read rest of interview here http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/20/iraqi_american_reflects_on_five_years

America's Media Darling: Osama bin Laden

By Jalal Ghazi, Posted September 13, 2007 at http://www.alternet.org/story/62416/

If I asked you which station devoted more attention to Osama bin Laden's latest videotape, your answer would most likely be Al Jazeera. Well, I have news for you. It was FOX News.

FOX dedicated one hour and seven minutes to continuous coverage of Bin Laden's video, only interrupted by commercials. News anchor Shepard Smith read a script of Bin Laden's speech and then interviewed analysts on air for 30 minutes. This was followed by the business news show Your World with host Neil Cavuto, who discussed the effects of Bin Laden's speech on the stock market. Cavuto interviewed analysts for another 30 minutes. Talk show host John Gibson extended the coverage of the Bin Laden story for an additional seven minutes before moving onto other news.
Brigitte Gabriel, author of "Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America" and one of the guests interviewed by Neil Cavuto, told FOX, "He (Bin Laden) knows that it is going to get great publicity right now in the Arabic world. As I'm speaking to you, Arabic television -- Egyptian, Syrian, and Lebanese -- are playing this live."

As I was listening to her, I glanced at the more than two dozen Arab television sets playing in my office. These included four Lebanese television stations (New TV, LBC, NBN and Future), one Egyptian (Al Masriya), the Syrian Arab Republic Television, as well as other Arab satellite channels from Jordan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, and the United Arab Emirates. I was only able to find one 10-minute news segment about Bin Laden on Al Jazeera and another one, less than two minutes long, on Sudan Television.

The role of the United States and other countries in fueling the violence in Darfur

Keith Harmon Snow writes,

Conflict in Darfur escalated in 2003 after in parallel with negotiations “ending” the south Sudan war. The U.S.-backed insurgency by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the guerilla force that fought the northern Khartoum government for 20 years, shifted to Darfur, even as the G.W. Bush government allied with Khartoum in the U.S. led “war on terror.” The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA)—one of some 27 rebel factions mushrooming in Darfur—is allied with the SPLA and supported from Uganda. Andrew Natsios, former USAID chief and now US envoy to Sudan, said on October 6, 2007 that the atmosphere between the governments of north and south Sudan “had become poisonous.” This is no surprise given the magnitude of the resource war in Sudan and the involvement of international interests.

Israel reportedly provides military training to Darfur rebels from bases in Eritrea, and has strengthened ties with the regime in Chad, from which more weapons and troops penetrate Darfur. The refugee camps have become increasingly militarized. There are reports that Israeli military intelligence operates from within the camps, as does U.S intelligence. Eritrea is about to explode into yet another war with Ethiopia.

See complete article at http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=447&Itemid=1

Here are additional articles on Darfur

• http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7311

• http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Oil_in_Africa/oil_in_africa.html

• http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=453&Itemid=1

Arabic School Ex-Principal Fights to Get Job Back

Those who do not live in New York Cit,y may not be aware of the new Khalil Gibran International Academy, a public school where the Arabic language and culture are included in the curriculum.. The principal was going to be Debbie Almontaser (women in photo, on the left), a Yemeni immigrant. At the start of the school year She was replaced by Danielle Salzberg, a Zionist who does not speak Arabic.

Almost from the time the Education Department announced plans for the school in February, it faced opposition from parents at public schools that were to share their space with the Arabic-culture school, as well as from conservative columnists, who said the school would promote radical Islam.

The controversy that ultimately lead to Ms. Almontaser’s resignation began in early August, when she faced questioning from The New York Post over the phrase “Intifada NYC,” which was printed on T-shirts sold by Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media, a Brooklyn-based organization. The shirts had no relation to the school. She said that the word “intifada,” — which is commonly used to refer to the Palestinian uprising against Israel — literally meant “shaking off” and did not only suggest violence.

Yesterday, Ms. Almontaser said that Education Department officials had forced her to speak to the reporter and then, not satisfied with her answer, demanded that she write an apology

. See complete story by Jennifer Medina in the New York Times (October 17, 2007) at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/education/17principal.html

While New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, and Teachers Union President Randi Weingarten condemned Ms. Almontaser for defending the phrase "Intfida New York," they had nothing to say about the article at the website of the newspaper of the NYC United Federation of Teachers ( http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/around/irish_duo/ ) were it refers to the terrorists of Hagannah as freedom fighters.

He later became a stakeholder for the Hagannah, a defense lawyer for Jewish gun-runners and had his brother, Mayor William O'Dwyer, call off a police detail from the docks so guns could be sent to Israel.
... [caption of photo] Manhattan attorney Brian O’Dwyer (left), who told a vignette about his father defending Israeli freedom fighters caught with guns in Manhattan; with Joel Shiller (center), chair of the UFT Jewish Heritage Committee, and Callaghan.

Here is some of what the Hagannah did to the Palestinians

http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2002-05/16/article23.shtml

Not only did they terrorize the Palestinians, they also terrorized Jews. There is a book by Naeim Giladi called Ben Gurion's Scandals: How the Haganah & the Mossad Eliminated Jews. Read about it here http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/ameu_iraqjews.htm

Update: Here is a blog that gives updates about Debbie Almontaser and the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA) http://kgia.wordpress.com

Mass Murder in the Horn of Africa

By a US ally, of course …

Why is the U.S. subsidizing and supporting murder, rape, and systematic ethnic cleansing in the Horn of Africa? The reason: it's all part of our strategy for "victory" in the "war on terrorism."

The village of Kamuda – a remote outpost in the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, where the majority are Muslims and ethnically Somali – had some unexpected visitors last June, when a platoon of Ethiopian soldiers showed up, announcing their arrival by shooting their rifles into the air – and demanding to know why the villagers had been providing food and safe haven to rebels from the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). With no satisfactory answer forthcoming, the soldiers took action: they picked out seven young ladies, between the ages of 15 and 18, and dragged them off into the bush.

Three were later found hanging from trees, beaten to death. The rest simply disappeared.
(Complete article by Justin Raimondo at http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11778 )

Pope in 'freedom' blast at Islam

A poll earlier this year of more than 1,000 young adult British Muslims found that 36 per cent believe those who convert to another faith should be punished by death.

Pope Benedict is particularly concerned about the persecution of Christians in Iraq since the invasion of 2003.

Before then, there were about 1.2million Christians in the country. But the number has dropped to below 600,000.

complete article at (Click here for the complete article)

Did it bother the Pope when the United States helped bring Saddam Hussein into power? The U.S. and other Western countries supported Saddam, strategically and financially when he was committing his worst atrocities?. Is he concerned about the millions of innocent women, men and children that were killed by bombings in two invasions, the use of chemical weapons by the United States and the sanctions that were placed against the people of Iraq? What about the millions of Iraqis that have fled their homes into the surrounding countries?

While tolerance of others must be addressed by Muslims, it would help if the Pope set the example by speaking up against how Western countries, while preaching human rights and democracy, go around engaging in regime change and supporting brutal kings and dictators who do their bidding? He won't be doing this anytime soon because these mass murders and violations of human rights are what gives him and those living in the West their comfortable lifestyles.

I don't expect he will be addressing the region in which the most killings and rapes are occurring, the predominantly Christian Congo. It is because the United States, Israel, and Europe benefit from the diamonds, other natural resources, and sale of weapons that deaths and suffering of the Congolese does not matter.

Jimmy Carter: a liar or a puppet president?

In this interview with former President Jimmy Carter, on amazon.com( Click here and scroll down to see interview ) about his book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, his answer to this question

Q: What has been the importance of your own faith in your continued interest in peace in the Middle East?

is

A: As a Christian, I worship the Prince of Peace. One of my preeminent commitments has been to bring peace to the people who live in the Holy Land. I made my best efforts as president and still have this as a high priority.

But here is an interview with (National Security Advisor to President Carter) Zbigniew Brzezinski at http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html (from Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998 )

Brzezinski says

According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

and

That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? 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. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

In this article about the women of Afghanistan it says
from http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Women/RevolAfghanWomen.html

The USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and occupied the country throughout the 1980s. The CIA hired the Mujaheddin (soldiers of God) to expunge the Communists from Afghanistan. The Mujaheddin were trained by Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence Directorate, and funded and armed by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Egypt, France, Britain, Israel, Iran, Japan, and China. The U.S. spent $5 billion to support the rebels during the 1980s, and used Osama bin Laden, then an ally of the U. S ., to help recruit non-Afghan Muslims to the Mujaheddin.

RAWA has pointed out that there were several democratic-minded groups the U.S. and other countries could have supported if they had wanted to drive out the Communists and help restore independence to Afghanistan. Why did these countries instead back the fundamentalist Mujaheddin? RAWA member Sajeda told Said lt magazine in August that pro-democracy groups would have refused to act as "puppets" for other countries, and would have made it difficult for those countries to "maintain their economic and political interests in Afghanistan."

When the Soviet Union withdrew its army in 1989, the Mujaheddin, under the command of the despotic Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and still funded by the U.S., began shelling Afghanistan's cities, killing thousands of civilians. After the Soviet's puppet regime collapsed in 1992, the country was seized by civil war. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed in rocket attacks. The Mujaheddin stopped women from working and attending health courses sponsored by non-government organizations (NGOs). Amnesty International reported that armed groups beat, raped, and murdered women in their homes. Young women were kidnapped as wives for commanders or sold into prostitution. Some committed suicide to avoid this fate, like one young woman who threw herself off a balcony in her house when soldiers came to kidnap her. In March 1994, a 15-year-old girl was repeatedly raped after soldiers killed her father for allowing her to go to school. Many people were victimized for belonging to a certain religious or ethnic group.

The US has Returned Fundamentalism to Afghanistan

Here http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/12/468/ is a transcript of the speech given by Malalai Joya, member of the Afghan Parliament, at the University of Los Angeles on Tuesday April, 10th.

Here are two quotes from her speech.

Respected friends, over five years passed since the US-led attack on Afghanistan. Probably many of you are not well aware of the current conditions of my country and expect me to
list the positive outcomes of the past years since the US invasion. But I am sorry to tell you that Afghanistan is still chained in the fetters of the fundamentalist warlords and
is like an unconscious body taking its last breath.

The US government removed the ultra-reactionary and brutal regime of Taliban, but instead of relying on Afghan people, pushed us from the frying pan into the fire and selected its
friends from among the most dirty and infamous criminals of the “Northern Alliance”, which is made up of the sworn enemies of democracy and human rights, and are as dark-minded, evil, and cruel as the Taliban.

The Western media talks about democracy and the liberation
of Afghanistan, but the US and its allies are engaged in the warlordization, criminalization and drug-lordization of our
wounded land.

————————————————————————————–

The gang-rape of young girls and women by warlords belonging to the “Northern Alliance” still continues especially in the northern provinces of Afghanistan. People have staged mass protests a number of times but no one cares about their sorrow and tears. Only a few of the rape cases find their way into the media. One shocking case was that of 11 year old Sanobar, the only daughter of an unfortunate widow who was abducted, raped and then exchanged for a dog by a warlord. In a land where human dignity has no price, the vicious rapist of a poor girl still acts as district chief.

The only protests in Afghanistan the mainstream media reports on are the ones involving the abuse of the Quran or those Muhammed cartoons. Much of the mainstream media does not care to portray Muslims as human beings, who have the same concerns as everyone else. How much attention has Malalai Joya gotten in the mainstream media or from Western feminists? It is because she criticizes both U.S. military actions and the Taliban that she is not well known.

Iranian Holocaust Cartoon Contest

I still see websites/blogs ( http://samsonblinded.org/blog/a-cartoon-for-a-cartoon.htm ) that claim the Iranian Holocaust Cartoon Contest was about making fun of the victims of the Holocaust. But as you can see here, it was about making fun of how the Holocaust is used to justify war crimes.

This is the cartoon of the first place winner, Morracon Derkaoui Abdellah. To see the other winners go to http://www.irancartoon.com/120/holocaust/index.htm


The Holocaust is not the only time a large number of people have died, 3 to 5 million died when the U.S. bombed Vietnam and Cambodia. Millions have died in the Congo and the surrounding countries. The Western media likes to portray it just as tribal and ethnic war fare and they leave out the role of the United States and Israel in fueling the war through political interventions and selling weapons to both sides of the conflicts. In the meanwhile, they exploit the diamonds, minerals and natural resources of the region. Will we ever find out the true number of Iraqis killed as a result of the two invasions and sanctions? The Iraqis are scapegoats for U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. helped Saddam Hussein into power and supported him, financially and strategically, when he was committing his worst atrocities.

Regarding the cartoon controversy, one of the commentators and the web administrator at http://samsonblinded.org/blog/a-cartoon-for-a-cartoon.htm discuss that to get back at Muslims they should make cartoons that show the prophet of Islam as a pedophile. I tried to post a comment that shows the cartoons of the winner of the Iranian contest and I also mentioned a book that discusses Jewish scriptures that makes it acceptable to perform sexual acts on three year olds and younger. But the administrator did not allow my comment to be posted. The name of the book is called Judaism’s Strange Gods by Michael Hoffman. I will quote part of it here. On page 51 it says

Sexual Intercourse with Little Girls is Permissible
Ketubot lIb: "If a grown-up man has intercourse with a little girl, it is nothing, for having intercourse with a girl less than three years old is like putting a finger in the eye."
Though the Talmud's permission for the heinous crime of child molestation is virtually unknown among the public and is never mentioned in the establishment media, among Talmud researchers it is notorious.
This portion of tractate Ketubot concerns Halakhic definitions of sexual intercourse. In this particular ruling it is stated that copulation with girls below the age of three cannot be considered sexual activity because, although penetration ruptures her hymen, such intercourse is merely "like putting a finger in the eye," since the hymen at this age will eventually regenerate (just as a finger stuck in an eye will cause the eye to water, yet the eye will heal and return to its former state, so the hymen of a girl under three will rupture during intercourse but will heal later).
Once her hymen grows back, the little girl is regarded as lawfully still a virgin. Hence the Talmud recognizes no sexual intercourse as having occurred and therefore exacts no penalty for coitus with a female child of less than three years of age.

Women in Iran: Repression and resistance

While Westerners often pretend to be concerned for human rights in Muslim countries, they hardly if ever give recognition to the struggles of the women who are fighting for their rights. Here is an article about Iranian women’s struggles.

"Iranians are the first to know how easy it is for a whole nation to be reduced to the rants of a senseless politician, or for images of a handful of shroud-wearing crazies burning the American flag in Tehran to reach the western media's front-pages. But how easy is it for thousands of Iranian teachers protesting outside the Iranian majlis (parliament) - as they did on Saturday 3 March 2007 - to merit any attention?"

See http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?itemid=12278

Somalia: Victim of the "War on Terror"

This is a Somali politician (Asha Hagi Elmi) giving her views on the U.S. and Ethiopian invasion of Somalia

Australian Muftis, Usama Ben Laden, and the FBI

Last year there was uproar over an Australian Mufti’s comments. Sheik Taj el-Din al-Hilali compared women to uncovered meat, being temptation to a cat. It was portrayed as a clash of civilizations, as if though blaming a rape victim for the way she dressed was unheard of in Western countries. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6086374.stm

Ironically, while this indignant uproar was going on, a group of 12 young Australian men attacked a girl. They urinated on her, set her hair on fire and sexually assaulted her. The attack was filmed and put on the YouTube website. DVDs of the incident were sold for $5 in secondary schools. “...two parents of the two boys that made this laughed it off and said it was just a bit of fun.” http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/boys-sell-film-of-girls-humiliation/2006/10/24/1161455723952.html

After this incident “Victorian Education Minister Lynne Kosky ... cancelled a planned visit to a Werribee school at the centre of a community backlash over a DVD of a girl being sexually abused.”

What happened to speaking up when something goes wrong? That’s what the West preaches to the Muslim world. This visit was important for the sake of the girl that had been assaulted. It would have also helped the rest of the students as well as the staff because “...students in uniform had been spat on and abused and staff were dealing with harassing phone calls in the wake of the scandal” http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Vic-school-suffering-after-DVD-scandal/2006/10/27/1161749297998.html


Sheik Taj el-Din al-Hilali has been replaced by Sheik Fehmi Naji el-Imam. Controversy is surrounding him because he says he does not know if Osama Ben Laden is responsible for 9/11. See http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21891258-5006009,00.html

Well, the FBI also is not sure if Osama Ben Laden is responsible for 9/11.
Look at the FBI’s webpage on Osama Ben Laden http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm
Under the word “Caution” it says
“Usama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. These attacks killed over 200 people. In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world.”

Why wouldn’t an attack which killed 3,000 people be specifically mentioned?
On Ed Haas’ website, he investigates this

On June 5, 2006, the Muckraker Report contacted the FBI Headquarters, (202) 324-3000, to learn why Bin Laden’s Most Wanted poster did not indicate that Usama was also wanted in connection with 9/11. The Muckraker Report spoke with Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI. When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden’s Most Wanted web page, Tomb said, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.” See complete article at

http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html

Laila Lalami on Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji

Here is an article writtten by a Muslim women that gives constructive criticism of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji . I was suprised this appeared in the Nation magazine because in general, the political right and left have similar attitudes about Muslim women.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060619/lalami

Here are just a few excerpts from the article

This lumping together of various Islams--the geographical region, the Abrahamic religion, the historical civilization and the many individual cultures--is symptomatic of the entire book, and makes it particularly difficult to engage with Hirsi Ali in a useful way. Her discussion of female genital mutilation (FGM) is a case in point. In at least six of the seventeen essays, she cites the horrendous practice of FGM, which involves excising, in whole or in part, young girls' inner or outer labia, and in severe cases even their clitorises. Hirsi Ali is aware that the practice predates Islam, but, she maintains, "these existing local practices were spread by Islam." According to the United Nations Population Fund, FGM is practiced in sub-Saharan Africa by Animists, Christians and Muslims alike, as well as by Ethiopian Jews, sometimes in collusion with individual representatives of the faiths. For instance, the US State Department report on FGM reveals that some Coptic Christian priests "refuse to baptize girls who have not undergone one of the procedures." And yet Hirsi Ali does not blame Animism, Christianity or Judaism for FGM, or accuse these belief systems of spreading it. With Islam, however, such accusations are acceptable. A few years ago, Hirsi Ali proposed a bill in the Dutch Parliament that would require young girls from immigrant communities to undergo a vaginal exam once a year as a way to insure that the parents do not practice FGM. The suggestion is all the more interesting when one considers that the vast majority of Muslim immigrants to the Netherlands are from Turkey and Morocco, where FGM is unheard of. But there is a personal reason for this passionate stance: When Hirsi Ali was 5 years old, her grandmother had the procedure performed on her, without her father's knowledge or approval. The experience marked Hirsi Ali profoundly, and the fervor and determination she brings to the fight against this horrifying practice are utterly laudable. By making inaccurate statements like the one quoted above, however, she muddies the issues and alienates the very people who would have the religious standing in the community to make this practice disappear.

.............................................................................

So now what? Where does this leave feminists of all stripes who genuinely care about the civil rights of their Muslim sisters? A good first step would be to stop treating Muslim women as a silent, helpless mass of undifferentiated beings who think alike and face identical problems, and instead to recognize that each country and each society has its own unique issues. A second would be to question and critically assess the well-intentioned but factually inaccurate books that often serve as the very basis for discussion. We need more dialogue and less polemic. A third would be to acknowledge that women--and men--in Muslim societies face problems of underdevelopment (chief among them illiteracy and poverty) and that tackling them would go a long way toward reducing inequities. As the colonial experience of the past century has proved, aligning with an agenda of war and domination will not result in the advancement of women's rights. On the contrary, such a top-down approach is bound to create a nationalist counterreaction that, as we have witnessed with Islamist parties, can be downright catastrophic. Rather, a bottom-up approach, where the many local, homegrown women's organizations are fully empowered stands a better chance in the long run. After all, isn't this how Western feminists made their own gains toward equality?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali vs Waris Dirie

I wonder which name is more well known around the world? My guess is Ayaan Hirsi Ali is more well known. They are both Somali and have experienced FGM and both ran away from home when their fathers tried to arrange marriages for them to older men. They both are activists who want to stop the practice of FGM and improve women's rights.

How they differ is that Ali became a Dutch member of parliament, while Dirie became a fashion model. Dirie is a Muslim, while Ali is no longer a Muslim. They also differ in that while Dirie only talks about FGM and women's rights, Ali talks politics and often voices biased and misinformed arguments concerning the West and the Muslim world. In other words, when discussing politics, Ali says what Westerners want to hear, not an honest and balanced criticisms of boths sides of the issues.

Since Waris Dirie is not as popular, in the media as Ali, here is something about her life http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/~pine/Phil110/waris-dirie.html

She was a UN goodwill ambassador in the fight against FGM. I don't know if she is still working with the UN, since I have not seen her in any media reports recently. She has a foundation that campaigns against FGM. see here http://www.waris-dirie-foundation.com/web/e_index.htm