We need a mosque to serve our needs, just like the church and synagogue serves the needs of Jews and Christians.

I have to admit, that I was always envious of our Jewish and Christian friends and neighbors as I see them get in their cars with their families, wife and children included and head to the church or the synagogue.
My twin daughters, Laila and Diala always raised me the questions as to why the Muslim mosque does not take a role similar to that of the church and synagogue. I always struggled with an answer and I too ask my self time and time why the mosques does not serve and provide the same support a church or a synagogue its members, not only fulfill the members spiritual needs but social needs and economic connections.
To reach a conclusion for this posting, I had to travel back in time to the time I arrived in the US as a young boy of 16 to the City of Gary, Indiana on a snowy March 1962. Believe it or not, Gary, Indiana of all places had a thriving Muslim community of several hundred families, Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrian, Turkish, Yugoslav, with Indians and Pakistanis coming in on Sunday from Chicago. Though it was a small community, it built a small mosque on West 11th street. The mosques were small compared to the surrounding churches and synagogue. My late father, who was back home in Palestine a mason, helped build the mosque together with many other participants who worked on the weekend to make sure the mosque, was ready for occupancy in less than two years.
During those days before more radical Muslims where able to take over the mosques all over the US and force their own brand of Islam, we used to go the mosque as a family. My late mother would cook and take food like other families so that after prayer and lesson we all would sit down at the tables and enjoy a meal together. In addition to my late mother and father, sisters and brothers will also join. Indeed the mosque in those days took us in and we participated in its affairs as an entire family and not male dominated institutions with no rooms for the family to be together.
Since those days when Islam was a more enlightened and much more enriching and supportive of the families and their needs, the mosques have changed quite a bit.
New Imams who for the most part do not speak good English and do not know much about the US let alone the city or the community they are, they took over the mosques and transformed the mosques in their own image and as they have back at home, where the mosques was not an institution oriented toward the families, but a place where men meet to pray, listen to some mediocre Imam tells them all the things they are doing, living in the land of non-believers. Of course and for the most part these new Imam have a very strict order of Islam, where women and children are not to be seen let alone heard. The mosque since those days in Gary, Indiana lost its unique place as both a spiritual and a social place, where families, made up of men and women, of children boys and girls would go and attend the prayers together, in the same room with a thin curtain erected during prayer, and once that is done, the entire family would rejoin each other and listen to the lecture and then go down stair and every one join together for a meal and family get together.
Unlike the mosques of these days, the churches and synagogue serve such an important community service to its members who also decide on the priest or the rabbi who lead their community and who also provide lots of social and spiritual advice. The members have a say so on all issues and policies with an executive board elected with real power and real authority unlike our mosques where small group of person appoint themselves as the guardian of our soul and sins and our mosques. In the church as well as in the synagogue, there is a real since of community, men and women, grandparents and children all are members of the community body and soul. The church and the synagogue plays a major role in helping introducing new families to the community, even help with business and commercial relation and of course support the families other social and families needs. There is sense of community that is totally messing in our mosques.
Yes, I want to sit together with my wife and children, listen to the lecture and the discussion. Yes I do accept the need to separate, men and women at prayer time, but not to banish them to the basement, but to give them a special section not to far from their families, and yes, I want us as family to get together with other families and not to be separate from my wife and children after the prayer time. This is time for the entire families to meet other families, husband and wife, and children. This is time for the entire family to meet another entire family. These days, at least away from the Muslim world there is major and urgent need to redefine the role of the mosques as a religious and social venue and not place where we hear retarded Imam tell us that Allah will roast us in hell rather than tell us that Allah loves us and care for us. We need to transform the mosque into a fee based membership organization where the members can make the decision as to who, yes, who will join our community, making sure that there is no room for the “takfeerieen” those who look at any one that does not obey them as a “kafer” a non believer. We need a mosque where the community makes the decision on employment and qualification and where members can question him/her as to where they stand on certain theological and social issues. Yes, we do need mosques where the Imams not only speak and understand the language of the country very well, but someone who also understand the culture and values of the country. We need Imams who also able and willing to build bridged within the community we live in and who are able to reach out to all members of the community, Christians and Jews and Hindus and others. Imams who knows and understand both the Jewish and Christian faiths and who also read the Torah and the Holy Bible. We need mosques that can take their rightful place within the Muslim community, taking us in as an entire family. Yes, I do look forward to the days when I can go together with the entire members of the family and share with them what Islam is all about. We need a mosques of the future not one of the past and not one of the Taliban type. We need enlightened Imam who sees us as members of the community, not living in the margins. After all we are part of this much larger community. Do not expect us to live in isolation from our neighbors and friends. Yes, there is nothing wrong and nothing in Islam that prevents a woman to lead prayer or for women to be active board members. Islam is not made up of men, only; it is made up of families.

the Jewish Settlers of Hebron, the Jewish Talmudic Brown Shirts

On Monday, in the Palestinian city of Hebron over 100 armed Jewish settlers, no doubt believers in the Talmud teaching, decided under the watchful and protective eye of the Israeli army to take over and occupy a Palestinian house with the intended purpose of making it a memorial to Jewish soldiers who died killing Arabs.
Of course the news should not be news since Hebron’s Jewish settlers, for the most parts Jewish misfits from Brooklyn and Jersey, with no purposeful employment, have a habit of taking over and claiming Palestinian property as their own using the Talmud and Torah as their real estate guide in taking over stolen Palestinian property.
Of course these unemployed settlers, who also happened to be student of the Torah and Talmud (there is so much similarity with the young Talibans in the Madras in Pakistan), have hundreds of thousands perhaps millions of US dollars, in generous funding from the American Jewish community to go out and commit grand larceny of stealing Arab homes and buildings. These criminal settlers they claim according to the spokesman of the Hebron Jewish community, that the house belonging to the Palestinian Mohammed Al-Baradei was “bought for over $700,000 through a complex transaction” in Jordan and that these Jewish settlers have the deed for the house. No doubt the deed was issued in heaven by G-d Himself though the house belong to El-Baradei who have the deed in his possession and made copies available to the Jewish Army and Police who of course promised to “investigate”
One has to wonder if stealing and robbing homes is a Jewish value, or a Talmudic value or a Zionist value of simply a criminal act of trespassing and larceny. How could any religion, even a Jewish religion could ever justify the theft of property and land.
It is so interesting that in the Palestinian City of Hebron with some 500 Jewish settlers have made life a living hell for the Palestinians in the city. The Israeli Army well known for its racism and hate of Arabs, made sure they put over 100,000 under permanent curfew to make the streets safe for the 500 Jewish settlers.
More interesting about these Jewish settlers is the fact that they are all over the place in the West Bank, stealing and robbing and committing acts of larceny even they steal olive crops and have poisoned score of sheep. Of course all the while protected by the IDF and funded by some very rich American Jews who happens to make their millions of dollars out of very poor American playing Bingo.
While Israel is building hundreds of thousand of housing units on stolen Palestinians properties there are over 20,000 demolition orders in the process of execution against Arabs who happens to build an additional room to accommodate an additional member of the family, or have waited for years for a permission from the Israeli army to build a house. This is of course at the same time where a Jew can simply walk over to Palestinian house, point a gun and take over the house. It is that simple and it seems this is part of the Jewish and Talmudic values of modern day Israel.
One has to see these settlers on the very well known PBS program Frontline and one can see what danger these people are to Israel and the Palestinians.
One of the very many reader’s posts in today’s Haaretz tell the story. The reader posts the questions and asks how many ways can an Israeli enter and Arab home? And he answers with “ bulldozers, with an Arab-child as a human shield and of course with a deed from G-d”.
I always wanted to understand what makes these people who happened to read and study the Torah and the Talmud to do what they do and I could never find an answer. Perhaps they find the answer in the Torah and the Talmud.
I am sure these people could not get away with it in George Bush’s country. I am sure that will shoot them with a double barrel shot gun will plast them to pieces making a paste out of them on doors and walls, whether they have a deed from G-d or not.
The question is when Israel and behind it the Jewish community at large will put an end to such criminal trespassing and simply thuggery and simple criminal behavior? Not soon since the money to do these things keep flowing from the US Jewish community, all in the name of populating God country with his people as if the Palestinians are simply a mistake and with no God of their own. I am sure that true Jewish values and tradition is far, far from what these people are committing in crimes. The Jewish Settlers are the Brown Shirts of Zionism.

Was the War on Iraq an Israeli Proxy War? it looks that way

The Cheney-Bush War on Iraq is not going as planned and is not going like all those who planned it, organized it, managed said it will go. The Cheney-Bush administration will no doubt go down in America and world history as the worst, the most incompetent administration in the history of the US.
I was one of the very Arabs and Muslims who spoke out loudly and clearly against Saddam Hussein and his Ba’athist regime, way before it became popular in some circles. I spoke out against Saddam, because he was a CIA agent when he came to Iraq to run the country to thee ground. I was against Saddam when the Arab and Muslim world was silent about his war against Iran, which was nothing more than a proxy war on behalf of Ronald Reagan, and paid for by Egypt and the Arab Gulf countries wasting tens of billions of their people money on a thug and criminal like Saddam.
I was against Saddam and his Ba’athis party when they were killing and murdering hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and committing war crimes against the Muslim Kurds and Shiites. I was against Saddam when he invaded Kuwait committing murder and destroying the country and I saw soon after the liberation of Kuwait what his “brave army” did and I visit the very site near Kuwait Airport where hundred of burned out tanks and APC with petrified bodies of Iraqi soldiers. And I was against Saddam until the day he was hanged, and rightly so.
However I could never find Cheney-Bush lies and fraud of weapons of mass destructions and all the talks of collusions between the Ba’athist Saddam and Al-Qaeda very convincing. The entire war on Iraq was nothing but a crime and a fraud committed against America and the American people.
In my mind the War on Iraq did not originate in Washington, but in Tel-Aviv and did not originate with the intentions to protect the US and the American people, but to protect Israel and the people of Israel, from a big fraud called Saddam.
The list of those original promoters and planners for the War on Iraq include whose who in American Zionism. People like Paul Wolfowitz who was investigated in the 70s of providing classified information to Israel of certain weapon systems sold to an Arab country. Douglas Feith who was removed from the National Security Council as Middle East analyst because he came under suspicion by the FBI of providing classified information to Israel. The War on Iraq was promoted by someone like Richard Perl who again was accused and suspected of passing classified information to Israel and its agents in the US. The War on Iraq was also sponsored by die hard Zionist the likes of William Kristol, Abram Shulsky, Michael Leden, Kenneth Adelman, Elliot Abram and Michael Rubin just to name a few. All of them find the right ear in George Bush and Dick Cheney who also happens to be Zionist-Christians who believed supporting Israel and the Zionist as part of the messianic mission, and who held secrete Middle East policy planning in the White House as part of their redemptions. Here the War on Iraq was the meeting point of Zealous Zionists and Born Again Christian-Zionist, and the victims where both the US and Iraq.
One would say, well if the war on Iraq was to bring freedom to the Iraqis, one can find a very easy justifications for the war. But the war was never for the benefits and freedoms of the Iraqis. Where were American and all those Zealous Zionists when Saddam was killing and murdering hundreds of thousands of his people? They send him of all people, Donald Rumsfeld only few days after it was discovered that Saddam just killed tens of thousands of Kurds in Halabaja. If these people want to free Iraq from Saddam why they stopped the war in 92 when Saddam regime was on the verge of collapse, and why they did not support the popular uprising in 92 when the entire south rose against Saddam, instead the US let every one down and allowed Saddam to use his choppers to kill and murder again tens of thousands of Iraqis.
However all those responsible for the war made sure they also mismanaged the war causing the most damage to American and to Iraq, with tens of billions lost to corruptions and fraud and where hundreds of billions are wasted on a war that was lost before it was started. These people never thought of the costs in lives to the thousands of brave American service men and women who will lose their lives fighting a war for and on behalf of Israel. They did nothing of the costs it takes to rehabilitate and take care of some 25,000 injured soldiers who have to be taken care for the rest of their lives. And of course they never thought of nor gave a damn about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who will lose their lives as a direct result of poor decisions made by very incompetent and corrupt US administrators and managers. The only thing that counted to those who planned the war is that their boy Saddam was out. They simply forgot that Saddam was their boy all along from 68 on. Of course the Iraqis also proved they are simply unfit to manage their own affairs after the fall of Saddam and they revert to the sectarian killing that is nothing but a continuation of what Saddam was doing. Except this time around, it is Sunni Muslims against Muslim Shiites and with other countries like Syrian and Iran joining the fight. Too bad for the Iraq and Iraqis that both Cheney-Bush administration is too incompetent to manage any thing, let alone a war and the Iraqis did not rise to the lever of responsibility to stop the inter-fighting and acts of terrorism committed on a daily basis. All the murders taking place in Iraq today is nothing but acts of terrorism committed against innocent people. The Iraqi leadership will render Iraq, with such human and natural resources another Afghanistan under Talibans. Are the Iraqis unfit and not yet ready for prime time freedoms, too bad it looks that way? In the end the War on Iraq was and is an Israeli proxy war to secure the borders of Israel, the Nile and the Euphrates.

IDF, Army of Shame

Before there was the Israel Defense Forces “IDF” there were the Jewish terrorist groups in Mandated Palestine. Before there was state terrorism committed by an army of the state, IDF, there was Jewish terrorism and terrorists committing crimes and murder against Arabs, British and even Jews.
Before the State of Israel became an independent state, Jewish terrorist organizations carried out a number of operations not so much different from those committed by Palestinian “terrorists”. Moshe Sneh, the chief of Hagnah wrote a letter to Menachem Begin, head of the Irgun to carry out the bombing of the King David Hotel which took place on July 1946, killing 28 British, 41 Arabs, 17 Jews and 5 others. The terrorist walked in disguised as Arabs and unloaded 225 Kg of high explosive.
Of course the terrorist bombing of the King David Hotel was to set the pace for things to come. Between April 9-11, 1948 members of the Jewish terrorists organization, the Irgun killed and massacred between 100-120 villagers in the village of Deir Yassin. Similar Jewish terrorist crimes where to become standard of practice where in some cases, Arabs were rounded in mosques and killed in cold blood.
This tradition of cold blooded murder continued with the IDF where in the man dubbed by George Bush as “man of peace” Ariel Sharon commanded unit 101 of the IDF in October, 1953 raided the West Bank village of Qibya, crossing the armistice lines killing and murdering over 60 villagers in their homes. Even the US State Department on October 18, 1953 demanded those responsible “brought to account”. Of course the US State Department no longer has the courage to demand such things any more.
While the world Jewish community takes such a great pride in its army “IDF”, and reminding us of the great feats of its members such as the raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor, the heroic stories of the “War of Independence” as seen in the great movie “Exodus”, there is almost total silent on the actions and acts of the IDF and its behavior in war and as a occupational force. Recent news and documentary of the cold blooded murder of more than 250 Egyptian war prisoners during 1967 War with their hands tied behind their backs, to the deliberate bombing of the Egyptian school at Dir Albaqar killing several hundreds of innocent students.
Targeting civilians is nothing new from the days of the “War of Independence “ until today. The IDF continue to use the same tactics committing cold-blooded murder like the case of killing over 100 Lebanese civilians in Qana shelled by the IDF as they sought refuge in a UN compound. There was another Qana massacre in August 2006 where scores of young Lebanese children were targeted and shelled while they sought refuge in the basement of a building. Not to mention the targeting of the infrastructure and the dumping of over 1,000,000 cluster bombs gift from George Bush and Candy Rice to the Lebanese people.
Throughout the almost 40 years of Occupation, the IDF have carried out systematic plans to kill, murder and destroy any thing and every thing that is Palestinians including the very brave use of Palestinians as “human shields” as the IDF moved in to commit the massacres in Jenin in April 2002.
With the numbers of cold blooded murder reaching more than 3,000 the IDF did not only target Palestinians, young and old but also targeted foreign nationals the likes of the American Rachel Corrie, the British journalist James Miller, the British volunteer Tom Hurndall, the killing of 10 years old Nourhan Eid by tank fires, the killing of 3 years old Rahma AbuShams and of course the much televised murder of young Mohammed Al-Dura as he tried to hid in his father arms. The IDF being the perfect shot they are of course killed the father and the son, total innocence, just mean spirited murder.
The IDF also was the first army to ever introduce the Caterpillar Bulldozers to tear down and destroy tens of thousands of homes and farm, in a way unseen and unmatched by any armies in the World. The Israeli Defense Forces continue to maintain over 270 “security” check points where Palestinians civilians have to wait for hours to go through from one town to town, even from one neighborhood to another, where many pregnant women lost their lives and their new born babies while waiting for a young immigrant soldiers to let them go through. And where Palestinians have to wait for hours while young Israeli soldiers force a young Palestinians to play fiddle while they lounged around smoking their cigarettes, looking at the young and old, women and children as they suffer.
We all have seen what the IDF did as they moved into Bethlehem deliberately using their tanks to destroy and run over parked cars, destroy light poles and sidewalks. Every thing and every mean was used to simply destroy and cause maximum property damage.
The IDF is also the first army to ever down a civilian airliner killing all on board, the first to ever carry out a raid and destroy over 13 jetliners sitting at Beirut Airport, the first army to ever hijack a civilian airlines and bring it down to check its passengers and the first to target and kill innocent and simple fishermen and destroy an entire neighborhood to secure the Apartheid Wall Israel’s is building and the first Army to protect Jewish Settlers as they harass, intimidate and even murder Palestinian civilians in Hebron, and protect the Jewish Settlers as they destroy, steal property, land and olive crops and the first to build “Jewish Road” for Jews only.
With the exceptions of the German Nazi Army and the Japanese Occupation Forces during WW II, all armies have a code of conduct that prohibit the killing and murder of civilians and the use of civilians as human shields and the prohibit deliberate destruction of private property, the Israel Defense Forces have their own code of conduct. Kill, murder, destroy any thing and every thing in your way and don’t give a damn about what Arabs and Gentiles say. If officers and members of the IDF were in the armies of the US, Germany, France, Italy even England, half of the members will be in the “brigs” while the other half will waiting for court martial. It is the only army in the world where officers and soldiers simply get away with murder.
Of course one need to recognize the very courageous Israeli soldiers who refused to go on missions that targeted civilians and members of infantry, tanks and even air force who simply refuse to participate in offensive war targeting civilians and within the Occupied Territories. To those soldiers and the entire Israeli and Jewish group that support such proud and honorable soldiers, we salute their courage and they are models of what soldiers should be. We thank you. Shalom, Peace, Salam.
Special Note: soon to come a website www.idfarmyofshame.com that will document the IDF in action and why it deserve the name, the army of shame.

Yes, I do admit I was a coward

In the March 3rd edition of the Arabic Magazine “Al-majalla” I read with much enjoyment the last page, which is the domain page of the very well known, and much accomplished Sudanese writer and novelist Altayb Saleh.
Mr. Altayeb Saleh wrote about a certain Dr. Freeman Dyson who was during WW II a researcher in the physics department of the British Royal Air force planning the daily bombardment of German towns and cities.
The allies waged an aerial war unmatched for years to come with the exception of the attack on Iraq during the first gulf war and then during the War on Iraq waged by George Bush and Dick Cheney knowing the majority of casualties are civilians.
During the war, hundreds of thousands of civilians where burned to death, defined as collateral damage to the war against the Nazi war machine. Total cities and towns where completely wiped off the ground. Cities like Frankfurt, Hamburg and Dresden where totally destroyed. So much for war efficiency and Western morality.
Altayeb Saleh narrates the story of this Dr. Freeman Dyson who in 1984 decided to come out and say what he wanted to say during the war. Dr. Dyson was sick to his stomach from the daily and high numbers of victims killed by the allies during day and night bombing of Germany to the point where he just wanted to take his clothes off, go out to the streets and simply scream and vent his anger. However, he was too coward to do that and did his best to do his shares in keeping the number of causality to an acceptable low.
Being a coward reminds me of myself, when back in 1989 during a business visit to Tangier, Morocco I read with much dismay and anger an editorial written by one of the dean of Moroccan journalist, Abdul-Kareem Ghallab, a well-known Arab nationalist was the chief editor of Al Alam daily newspaper. On that day he came out with a scathing attack against French newspapers and politicians for raising questions about and protesting the massacre of 300 protestors by Algerian police the day before in Algiers. Mr. Ghallab was too angry at French newspapers and journalist, for “intervening in the internal affairs” of Algeria. Of course NO Arab paper and no Arab politicians and NO Arab intellectual spoke out against such massacres. It is seems it is a well-established tradition within the Arab World for all to remain silent when Arabs kill Arabs, and when government commit mass murder. Very brave tradition among Arab intellectuals and journalists.
I could not help but sit down in my hotel room at El-Minzah Hotel and write Mr. Ghallab a long letter, challenging him and other Arab journalists and intellectuals on the issue of when (killing and murdering citizen becomes a matter of “internal affairs” of a country.) Did the killing and murdering of 6 millions Jews is a matter of internal affairs for Nazi Germany? Is the killing and murder of thousands of Palestinians by the Israeli Army an internal affair of the State of Israel and no have a right to say something about? Is the murder of over 500,000 Rwandans is an internal affairs of Rwanda and no one has a right to protest? Is the killing and murder of tens of thousand of Iraqis by Saddam is an internal affair of Iraq? Or when the killing and cold-blooded murder of over 25,000 Syrians in City of Hamah becomes internal affairs of the state? I put to Mr. Ghallab, a very straight question. When does the killing by security forces does not become a matter of internal affairs? Of course I never got an answer back, since I signed the letter under the name “coward” and I was coward at the time, since I did not dare to reveal my real name, certainly not in 1989.
Two years ago and before his retirement, I did send Mr. Ghallab a copy of the same letter I sent him some years ago, and gave him my name and address. As expected I never did get a response. It is not in the style of Arab editors to write back.
Altayb Saleh story of Dr. Dyson just reminded me that at one time or another we are cowards and for one reason or another do not wish to come out and say what we should say. say or speak out on something we know is dead wrong.
However major changes took place in the Arab World since then, and especially in Morocco where newspapers and editors enjoy freedoms not available in most Arab countries, and things has changed where young editors and journalist never been on the payroll of government agencies either as employees or as informers. Times have changed for the most part where investigative journalism now fill the airways, where even Arab heads of states are not a taboo subjects. Yes, I was at one time a coward.

When airport security is not just security, but an exercise in humiliation

As someone who travels through Tel-Aviv and have seen young, disrespectful, cocky and racist security officers in actions. The article by Musa Budeiri is most interesting and enjoyable to read.Please enjoy.
Sami Jamil Jadallah

Musa Budeiri wrote
Mac Books, Zaa'tar & the Everlasting State of ExceptionTraveling from Jerusalem to Lod airport I am reflecting that come summer, it will be forty years since the conquest of those parts of mandated Palestine (now termed the West Bank & Gaza Strip) which had escaped Israeli control in 1948, in addition to the Syrian Heights. I calculate that if I have traveled an average four times a year from Lod and back that would make one hundred and sixty times that I have been through the various security regimes instituted by the Shin Bit at the airport. And I am still a threat.Arriving early there is only a couple of people in the line ahead of me waiting to go through the security check. I can not help overhearing the conversation taking place right in front of me between a fellow passenger who is holding a European community passport, and who, like me, is obviously a "non ethnic" European, and the young woman whose job it is to usher people to the bulky X-ray machine through which everybody has to have their luggage examined. Trying to ascertain the passenger's ethnic origins, the "usherette" is fielding the usual indirect questions which presumably are designed to avoid giving offence to "innocent" travelers. This of course requires some measure of cooperation on the part of the traveler being questioned. In this case, my fellow passenger is either oblivious of this rite, or is not in a mood to cooperate. The conversation is taking place in English, and suddenly the "usherette" asks what language the passenger speaks at home. The reply is English. Unable to accept this as it does not fit the stereotype she has already established for the person being questioned, she offers a list of languages and asks if she perhaps speaks "Indian" or some such language. The passenger seems to catch on. She makes it clear that she does not speak "Indian", but that she does speak Gujarati. This seems to mystify the questioner. So she tries a different tack. She asks what religious festivals the passenger celebrates at home. But it appears her world view is restricted to the three monotheistic creeds, because when the woman replies "Divali", there is a vacant look on her face. She then excuses herself and is replaced by another, presumably "more experienced" questioner. This is entertaining, but being an experienced "answerer" I do not anticipate much trouble navigating my way into the X-ray machine and further along the "safe to fly" process. I usually immediately confess my national/ethnic origins and point out that the European community passport I travel on is merely that, a travel document. Increasingly since September 11, I also make a declaration of a non existent religious affiliation. I always feel that perhaps coming clean, like admitting that one is an ex murderer, a past inmate of a lunatic asylum, or a reformed habitual sexual offender, would put the questioners at ease. Additionally, I am only carrying a small shoulder bag with next to nothing in it and my brand new ten days old Mac book.Not having to pretend that I celebrate Divali, or that I am in the habit of having a Hanukah Bush in my home at some date in December, I soon find myself waiting for my two items to return to my safe keeping after having journeyed through the all knowing and all seeing large X ray contraption, a rite of passage which is supposed to make me feel that air travel is safe and secure, even from myself. Once I have retrieved my luggage I proceed to the search area and two pleasant and seemingly user friendly girls begin to shower me with the VIP treatment. Not having much to examine does not stop them from doing their job thoroughly, methodically and painstakingly slowly. I am carrying one pair of trousers, one pair of pants, training shorts, digital camera, cellular, heart monitor watch & accompanying exercise strap, a bag of thyme, a book on mizrahi Jews by S‡mi Shetrit, all sorts of medical reports, and the usual assortment of pills which constitute my daily intake for a couple of weeks. Obviously, now that I think about it in retrospect, not very "convincing" luggage for a seemingly innocent passenger who already fits a suspicious "profile". Once this process is well under way, I am informed that I will not be allowed to travel with the Mac book. I am further told that it will not be possible for the Mac book to travel on the same flight. When I ask the reason for this, I am referred to another person, who abruptly tells me that she cannot divulge the reason, but that as a result of the security procedure in operation, the Mac book is not allowed to travel on the same flight as me. I ask for a written statement to this effect, and for her name. She declines both, but informs me that I can of course lodge a complaint if I so desire, and to address it to the airport authority. I ask for a receipt, but she again says she cannot give me one. I ask how the Mac book will be delivered to me when she does not know my address or even where I am traveling to. She replies that it is not her job to arrange delivery. She directs me to approach the lost and found at Heathrow airport in London and to inquire about my laptop there. When I try to protest further, she tells me that she cannot waste any more time and leaves while I am in mid sentence. I address the two women who are still leisurely entertaining themselves with the empty shoulder bag that I want to talk to the person in charge, and they inform me that I have just talked to their supervisor. By now I am getting angrier and my voice is getting louder, probably slightly hysterical, whereupon one of the women tells me not to shout at her as it is not her decision and that she is only doing her job. Then the other one volunteers that there is another supervisor and she will call him for me, which she does. A man appears and mid way through my protests to him, the woman supervisor makes another appearance, and this time they both leave together after telling me that I have a choice. Either I don't fly, or I can leave the laptop behind! They further tell me that I cannot fly with the computer cable, the thyme, and the heart monitor band in my shoulder bag, and that these will be put in a box and stored in the hold of the plane but that I can retrieve them when the plane arrives at Heathrow. They also think that the pills I am carrying are suspicious though they do not think it necessary to ask me what they are for or why I am carrying them. Shortly, two boxes appear. One with red markings and one with blue. They are both entitled Israel Airports Authority - Ben Gurion International Airport...Security. The Mac book goes into the box with red markings, the monitor strap, cable and thyme go into the blue marked box. They are then taken away by a non uniformed person who presumably is a security officer. There is still the body search of course. I am escorted by a young man to another room who while doing a thorough body search, keeps telling me that he is very sorry he has to do this and that he understands my objections (not that I am making any. By then I have entered the resignation phase). My half hearted attempt to illicit some follow up to his apologies only elicits the response that he is doing his job. I am escorted to the checking-in desk and later taken straight through to the police cubicles to have my passport stamped for exit. For about five minutes the policewoman stares in silence at her computer and at my passport, then she asks me for my ID card. I dutifully present it, whereupon she asks me for my father's name. I point out that it is written in my passport, in my ID card and presumably on the computer screen. She insists that she wants me to tell her, so I do. By then I have no more fight, having already failed to save the Mac book. I reflect how one defeat makes it easier to succumb to succeeding defeats. It is already two hours since I have joined the queue behind the Divali celebrating traveler. After some reflection she asks for my grandfather's name. After more staring at the monitor, she calls a colleague in another booth. Another uniformed policewoman joins her and now they are both staring at the monitor screen. After a few minutes and the exchange of a few comments the guest policewoman goes back to her booth. We are now back into staring at the screen, then she picks up the phone and speaks to somebody. I decide that I have been patient enough and that it is time I am a bit more interventionist. After all I keep hearing and reading that I have "agency". So I ask what the problem is. She ignores me. I am simply not there, and obviously not relevant. A non uniformed person appears. They confer; the new arrival collects my passport, ID card, ticket and boarding pass and commands me to follow her. I do. We approach another larger cubicle with a uniformed officer inside. She motions for me to sit down outside the cubicle, hands in my documents and leaves. I sit. Fifteen minutes later, a middle aged police woman comes out of the cubicle. I feel relief. It must be the age. She hands me back my documents. Inside my passport she has found my latest ECG test. She asks me what that is. For my part I half heartedly inquire what the problem is. She informs me that it is to do with a "similar" name. She tells me that she has penned a note that I am/was not the "other" person! I wonder how she knows? Two and half hours after arriving at the airport, I enter the departure lounge. I wish I was still a smoker. I arrive at Heathrow and wait at the baggage carousel. Eventually I notice the blue marked box, not at the main carousel but at a small conveyer belt to the side. I explain to the attendant that this is mine and after examining my ticket he allows me to take it. Success. I now have the cable, the thyme and the exercise belt. I allow myself a delusion. Perhaps "they" placed the Mac Book on the same flight! I approach the British Airways desk and tell them I am looking for the "lost and found". They want to know why. I explain. They cannot grasp the story. They tell me that BA will not carry unaccompanied luggage. So perhaps the Mac Book will be put on al EL AL flight. They direct me to an office outside the arrival hall. It is the left luggage office and it deals with lost property. I talk to the attendant and he confirms that lost luggage eventually finds its way there. He is of course rather incredulous, and thinks that if the box is eventually sent from Lod airport, it will arrive at the luggage carousel, and of course will not be collected, so it will go round and round and round. Eventually it will be taken of the carousel and dispatched to his counter, as by then it will be classified as lost or abandoned property. But he has no idea if and when it will arrive. British Airways have two daily flights from Lod to Heathrow, and then of course there is El AL. As far as he is concerned there is no procedure for what I have narrated. My Mac Book will just be another piece of lost luggage. For the next couple of days I harass the left luggage counter at Heathrow with constant phone calls. It is a different attendant every time; some find the story hard to comprehend, others do not even bother. I start thinking that there must be tens of thousands of lost pieces of luggage floating around the airports of the world, and that mine is just a matter of financial loss, no different from the loss of people who have actually "lost" their luggage. But this is not satisfactory. I feel my many sojourns at the airport are the price I have paid and continue to pay for the Mac Book. I reason with myself that I need to make one last effort, which is to go to the airport and do an "on the spot "search. If this fails I can resign myself to the fact, and if my attorney is agreeable launch a complaint and perhaps demand financial compensation. But this has to await my return to Jerusalem. I choose a Sunday, as the traffic will not be so bad. I do the hour and a half drive to the airport in an hour. Already I am feeling buoyed. I approach the lost and found. No success. I ask to be allowed into the arrival hall. Not seriously of course. Perhaps the box with the red markings is lying around along with other hundreds of unclaimed pieces of luggage. I do not think that I will be allowed to of course. I am given a number and directed to a free phone. I find myself talking to an airport authority official. I explain, as well as I could. By now I have explained the story so many times I am no longer sure of the facts. He directs me to a small door which will lead me to the arrival hall. I go through a door, take of my shoes, undergo a security check, put my belongings through the x-ray machine, and eventually find myself with the arriving passengers and the carousels doing their merry go rounds. To my astonishment I find myself talking to a BA clerk who actually understands the story. He has been to Tel Aviv and knows how things are done there. After a few minutes searching through the computer, he directs me to a lost and found office inside the arrival hall. I make my way there with no expectations. At the last minute I had decided to bring the box with blue markings with me. I thought this would make it easier to explain what I am looking for. I approach the desk and place the box on the counter. I explain to the attendant that I am looking for a similar box but with red markings instead of blue. I can see part of the store room behind him through the open door. Racks and racks of "lost" luggage, Suddenly I see a similar box. I point it out. He goes to retrieve it. Yes it has red markings. Yes it has Ben Gurion airport on it, and yes it has my name. Success. What a feeling. The attendant is more experienced at this sort of thing. He asks me to open it and to check and see that the computer is there and that it is in working order. I do as he instructs.In a couple of days, I will be taking a British Airways flight to Lod. I tell myself that I am racking up "security miles" in preparation for the 40th anniversary of the June 1967 occupation, and the 59th anniversary for the establishment of the state. There is little consolation in the fact that we are all living in "a state of exception".

If not a two state solution, what about one state solution?

Dear Readers. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict could have been solved some years ago, if there wasa will power and there was no abstacle to peace from the Jewish Lobby in the US and from members of Congress whose bloodline to re-election comes through Tel-Aviv and the Jewish lobby. Too bad the majority of the American Jewish community do not support a two state solution, preferring to keep the conflict going for their own "mental being". Every one in the world knows that the solution lies in a two state solution with Jerusalem at the shared capital, and with a proper and fair solution to the hundreds of thousands and now millions of Palestinians exiled by Israel in 48. Of course the ideal solution that makes lots of sense is a one state solution where Jews and Arabs can live side by side, equal in rights and equal to commitments to the state. Enjoy the following article.
Sami Jamil Jadallah


From time to time, the Palestine Center distributes articles it believes will enhance understanding of the Palestinian political reality. The article below by Leila Farsakh appeared in the Le Monde Diplomatique on 15 March 2007. To view this article online please go to: http://mondediplo.com/2007/03/07binational.
"Time for a bi-national state"By Leila FarsakhView This Report Online
Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas may have affirmed that they want a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, but it may be more promising to return to a much older idea.
There is talk once again of a one-state bi-national solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Oslo peace process failed to bring Palestinians their independence and the withdrawal from Gaza has not created a basis for a democratic Palestinian state as President George Bush had imagined: the Palestinians are watching their territory being fragmented into South African-style bantustans with poverty levels of over 75 percent. The area is heading to the abyss of an apartheid state system rather than to a viable two-state solution, let alone peace (1).
There have been a number of recent publications proposing a one-state solution as the only alternative to the current impasse. Three years ago Meron Benvenisti, Jerusalem’s deputy mayor in the 1970s, wrote that the question is “no longer whether there is to be a bi-national state in Palestine-Israel, but which model to choose” (2). Respected intellectuals on all sides, including the late Edward Said; the Arab Israeli member of the Knesset, Azmi Bishara; the Israeli historian Illan Pape; scholars Tanya Reinhart and Virginia Tilley; and journalists Amira Haas and Ali Abunimeh, have all stressed the inevitability of such a solution.
The idea of a single, bi-national state is not new. Its appeal lies in its attempt to provide an equitable and inclusive solution to the struggle of two peoples for the same piece of land. It was first suggested in the 1920s by Zionist leftwing intellectuals led by philosopher Martin Buber, Judah Magnes (the first rector of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Haïm Kalvarisky (a member of Brit-Shalom and later of the National Union). The group followed in the footsteps of Ahad Ha’am (Asher Hirsch Ginsberg, one of the great pre-state Zionist thinkers).
Underlying their Zionism was a quest for a Jewish renaissance, both cultural and spiritual, with a determination to avoid injustice in its achievement. It was essential to found a new nation, although not necessarily a separate Jewish state and certainly not at the expense of the existing population. Magnes argued that the Jewish people did not “need a Jewish state to maintain its very existence” (3).
No to partition
Although supporters of the bi-national state remained a marginal group in Zionist politics under the British mandate, they made sure they were heard both in official Zionist circles and the international arena. They also pleaded before the 1947 United Nations special committee on Palestine. When the commission finally recommended partition, they strongly opposed it, calling for a bi-national state in Palestine, forming part of an Arab federation. They campaigned for a federal state that would respect the rights of all citizens, while guaranteeing the national aspirations of the Jewish people to cultural and linguistic autonomy. They proposed, in line with the British, the creation of a legislative council based on proportional representation, safeguarding the rights of its nationals but also assuring equal political rights for all citizens of the state.
But with the UN’s partition plan and the Arab-Israeli war that broke out in 1948, a one-state solution was shelved. It came to light again in 1969 with the call by Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement for the creation of a “secular and democratic state” in Palestine. The new state was based on the right of return — while accepting a Jewish presence in Palestine — and it was to end the injustices stemming from the creation of Israel and the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinian villagers. Although it called for the destruction of Israel as a colonial entity, it upheld the principle of a single state for all, Muslim, Christian or Jew. This was the first official attempt by the Palestinians to address the relationship between national and individual rights of citizenry. The idea met with no enthusiasm in Israel, and none internationally, and again lost momentum.
The failure of the one-state option has often been attributed to the idealism of its cause and its failure to come to terms with local realities. Nevertheless, as Magnes pointed out, the option offered significant advantages in demographic and territorial terms in 1947 to the Jewish cause (4).
In fact, the idea failed because the political actors of the time rejected it: the Zionist organisations were not interested, the British were unsupportive and the Arabs too suspicious. Between 1948 and 1993 the only significant change in these positions came from the Arabs, who finally came to terms with the existence of Israel.
Despite the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s calls for a secular, democratic state, Arafat prepared Palestinians for partition as the only available option. The PLO’s national council accepted the position in 1974, and confirmed it with its declaration of Palestinian independence in 1988 and the acceptance of the UN partition plan. A separate, independent Palestinian state was the best hope, even if it had to be on only 22 percent of the territory. The long Palestinian struggle for statehood culminated in 1993 with the Oslo accords.
From dream to nightmare
The tragedy of Oslo is that it turned the dream of two states into the nightmare of a single new state of apartheid. Israel’s prime minister Yitzhak Rabin declared that the great success of the accords, perhaps their only success, was to recognise that Israelis and Palestinians were “destined to live together, on the same soil in the same land” (5).
Since 1994 the Palestinians have not been liberated; they have been imprisoned by the Israeli system of permits and the installation of 50 permanent checkpoints and terminals fragmenting the territory into eight bantustans (6). Since 2002 the Palestinian Authority has seen its territory further eroded by the 700km-long wall being built with the aim of severing the West Bank from the remaining 46 percent of the territory.
What is the attraction of a bi-national state in these circumstances? For a start, a two-state plan appears to be less of a solution to the nationalist aspirations of either Zionists or Palestinians. Before 1947 partition had not been tried; since then it has taken root in circumstances of total Israeli domination. Despite the historic compromise of 1993, the Palestinians have not obtained the independent, viable state they sought. Palestinian nationalism has also met its limits: its leaders have failed to guide their people to independence and are now reduced to tearing themselves apart.
But partition has also failed to give Jews the security the state of Israel promised. About 400 Israelis were killed in suicide attacks in the 1990s, and 1,000 more have died since the second intifada of 2000. Antisemitic feelings are worsening around the world.
Demographic changes will continue to undermine any plans for partition. In 2005 there were 5.2 million Israelis living between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river, and 5.6 million Palestinians. Despite Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and its plans to demarcate the West Bank frontier, a separate Israeli state will have to deal with the much more rapid demographic growth of the Palestinian population within its own frontiers. This will have not only economic but political consequences, given the Palestinian population’s current lack of basic rights.
There is another factor that argues against a two-state solution: the idea of citizenship founded on justice and equality. History has shown that, in this region as elsewhere, partition cannot be achieved without the expulsion and transfer of populations. This raises ethnic issues. There can be no peace, from a moral point of view, without an equitable solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, based on the right of return or compensation, as required as early as 1948 by resolution 194 of the UN General Assembly.
But this right of return, and the expansion of the Palestinian population, endangers Israel’s Jewish identity. This has always been a major problem for Israelis.
Essential anachronism
According to historian Tony Judt, this is where Israel reaches its limits. No state can claim democratic credentials whilst practising ethnic exclusion; not after the crimes of the last century (7). Virginia Tilley says that partition, and the very existence of Israel, are “flawed from the start, resting on the discredited idea, on which political Zionism stakes all its moral authority, that any ethnic group can legitimately claim permanent formal dominion over a territorial state” (8).
The establishment of a bi-national state would redefine the identity of the state; it would favour democracy over nationalism. For Ali Abunimeh it would allow “all the people to live in and enjoy the entire country while preserving their distinctive communities and addressing their particular needs. It offers the potential to deterritorialise the conflict and neutralise demography and ethnicity as a source of political power and legitimacy” (9). At the heart of this conflict there remains a persistent territorial issue. Ethnicity (and, even more, religion) continues to be the main source of legitimacy and the quest for power.
Those arguing for a single democratic state now detect growing popular support for this solution, inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement. Boycott campaigns are being organised in Europe and the United States against what is often now called Israeli apartheid (10).
Groups in Israel and in Palestine are working together against the construction of the separation wall and are inventing new forms of resistance. The struggle has been redirected, against Israel’s policies rather than its people, and for rights for all rather than separate states for each.
True, the three political protagonists seem far from convinced. Israel’s politicians and the majority of its population insist on separation, as their wholehearted support for the wall seems to prove. The international community seems intent on a two-state solution, but does little to bring it about or influence progress. The Palestinian leadership is at a loss for a strategy, and the differences between Hamas and Fatah continue to generate conflict. But the present deadlock has created new conditions. Perhaps the time is ripe for original ideas and untried solutions.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund. This article may be used without permission but with proper attribution to the author.
(1) Leila Farsakh “Israel: an apartheid state?”, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, November 2003.(2) Meron Benvenisti, “Which Kind of Bi-national State?”, Haaretz, Tel Aviv, 20 November 2003.(3) See www.one-democratic-state.org(4) Judah Magnes, Like All Nations, Weiss, Jerusalem, 1930.(5) Yitzhak Rabin’s statement at the signing of the Declaration of Principles, Washington, 13 September 1993.(6) www.btselem.org/english/statis tics/. See Dominique Vidal, “Jerusalem’s apartheid tramway”, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, February 2007.(7) Toni Judt, “Israel: the Alternative”, New York Review of Books, 23 October 2003.(8) Virginia Tilley, The One-State Solution, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2005.(9) Ali Abunimah, One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, Henry Holt, New York, 2006.(10) See the calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions against http://www.bds-palestine.net/

Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense, an exception in a rotten administration

Perhaps the new secretary of defense Robert Gates will be an exception to this Chaney –Bush administration that is rotten to the core.
Firing the Secretary of the Army should be the first step in cleaning house. No one could believe that our wounded soldiers have to live through all of this neglect and humiliation when they are only few miles from both the White House and the Pentagon. No one could believe that the president and his vice-president and senior administration officials both at the White House and at the Pentagon did not know what was going on, never bothered to see how the wounded are treated and how they live, given the very poor records of all veteran administration hospitals. Walter Reed was the place to be for the wounded, if this is the case at Walter Reed, one has to imagine what the other army hospitals look like.
Shortly after my honorable discharge from the US Army back in 68, I had the opportunity to visit couple of the veteran hospitals in both Chicago and in Tampa. Frankly there was nothing to write home about, with scenes like from Jack Nicholson movie, “ Birds who flew over the cuckoo’s nest” absolutely appalling and disgusting with wounded treated like hell.
It seems that nothing has changed in the treatment of wounded and injured soldiers from the days of the Vietnam War. It seems that for this administration, like Democratic and Republican administrations before ,the wounded soldiers are like scrap metal from the battlefield, to be discarded like rotten meat. They are no longer useful and are easily dispenses with.
What is not so surprising is the absolute and total silence of the representative of veterans’ organizations who should have been the first to expose the scandal and not leaving it to the Washington Post (thank you) to tell the true story and expose the incompetence, negligence and corruption at our veteran hospitals. Perhaps it is time for these organization to get out of bed with the administration and go out and do what they supposed to do in the first place, represent the membership and speak out on behalf of those who have no voice in this administration, the wounded, injured and active soldiers.
With all due respect to Joe Davis, the spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, his organization should have been in the forefront on this issue and should have been closely monitoring the conditions at Walter Reed hospital, After all the wars has been going on for over 5 years now with tens of thousands wounded. How could someone like vice-president Dick Chaney who declared at one time that he “has better things to do” than join the US military during the Vietnam War, can give an explanation to what has been going on, when both he and president George Bush did not think of or bother to see what was going on at Walter Reed which is only few miles away.
It seems that organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars that are in bed with this administration are more interested in politics and advancing the cause of the war than taking care of and being guardians of the interests of those who made the sacrifice for the nation. When such organizations are in bed with such an administration it is difficult to believe they have the independence to speak out for an on behalf of the tens of thousands of wounded soldiers. One has to agree with the assessment of both Congressman Jim Moran and Congressman John Murtha when they stated that this was going on for 6 years now and those responsible should have been aware of it.
Never understand what a White House commission will and can do. It is only a make over, a way to cover up the mildew and rotten wood that covers this administration.
Thank you Secretary Gates, perhaps you can set the pace for this administration for accountability and transparency. Perhaps you should take your courage and transparency further and make all of the defense contractors accountable for their robbery and fleecing of the nation and taxpayers. It is so great to have someone like Secretary Robert Gates in charge of the Pentagon. Perhaps we can see a difference since George Bush and Dick Chaney came to town. Perhaps the message of accountability can also be heard all over 270, 66, 495 and Dulles Toll Road. It is too bad that this administration, which is asking all of us to make the ultimate sacrifice, does not give a damn about all those who pay the high price of fighting their stupid war, and treat them with such neglect. But then for someone like Dick Chaney, they are dispensing cartages. Throw the bastards in the dump. They are alive and are costing us lots of money. It is cheaper to give them a small blot at Arlington National Cemetery. We need the money to give to our friends the defense and security contractors who are generous with their lobbying money.

The ruling and the indictment from The Hague were big disappointment. Both did not go far enough

After a long wait, two news announcements came out of The Hague. The first was the decision of the International Court of Justice (perhaps injustice), which exonerated Serbia of the responsibility for genocide arising out of the cold-blooded murder of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in the city of Srebrenica. Of course we also need to remember that the city of Srebrenica was declared by the UN as “safe heaven) left under the protection of the Dutch contingent of UN peace keeper, all of whom simply left ahead of the advancing Serbs knowing full well that the massacre will take place, yet they walked away. I learned not too long ago, that this Dutch contingent was awarded medals for the honorable work it did in walking away and for handing over the Bosnian Muslims to the Serb.
Bosnia-Herzegovina filed the law suit against Serbia, not only seeking damages for Serbia’s role in the killing and murder of over 200,000 Muslims, but also to make sure that countries that allows and over looks crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing, by their citizens, must he held liable for such a crime.
The International Court of Justice, while exonerating Serbia, it also ruled that Serbia failed to prevent the 1995 genocidal slaughter of Muslims at Srebrenica. More interesting is the fact that the Court President Judge Roslyn Higgins rejected claims for monetary damages while calling on Serbia to hand over Ratko Mladic, the Serb who was the military leader directly responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands. This man remains in hiding and dodging arrest, of course with the support of Serbia and the Serbs. The court did not mention the need to arrest and bring to trial the other war criminal Radovan Karadzic who also remains in hiding in Serbia.
While the court ruled that the Bosnian killings were genocidal, it's ruling simply emptied the verdict of any meaning, by not holding Serbia responsible and opening the way for other countries to commit the same and get away with it. One could never understand such ruling and how could the court simply ignore the cold-blooded murder not only of the 8,000 in Srebrenica but all over Bosnia. If there was a crime, then someone must be responsible for it and someone must pay for the crime. It is simple justice, but then the Hague is not knownfor handling such simple cases of international crimes. It is unbelievable that a country that provided full logistical support and manpower that allowed such crimes to take place is not held responsible and is not called upon to compensate all of the tens of thousands killed. That what makes the western justice system so interesting? I never understand why the International Court of Justice did not follow the precedent of the Nuremberg trial which was the basis for so many Nazi Germans to go to jail and death sentence and set pace for Germany to pay Israel billions of dollars in restitutions and compensation. I know that Bosnian Muslims are not Jews, but international criminal law must be “faith blind” and must not make any distinctions if the victims are Jewish, Muslims, Catholic or Orthodox Christians. So much of the ICJ.
The other news, which was long awaited and welcome news, is the announcement by Prosecutor Luis Moreno O’Campo of the indictment of some Sudanese officials for all of the crimes committed in Darfur. The Sudanese officials are Ahmed Mohammed Harun, who is a junior minister responsible for humanitarian aid, of all things, and the leader of the Janjaweeds Ali Mohammed Ali Abd-al-Rahman better know as Ali Kushayb.
Similar to the ruling of the ICJ, the indictment did not go further and indict Sudan as a county and its leadership for the terrible crimes it allowed its officer and agents to commit in Darfur resulting in the cold blooded murder of some 300,000 innocent people. When countries like Sudan, Serbia, Israel allow their agents and officers to commit murder and provide them with all of the logistical support and weapons to carry on with such crimes, then these countries must be held responsible for such crime. How could any one again, specially victims of crimes, trust and believe that nations that allows its officers and agents to commit genocide and international war crimes or ethnic cleansing, could ever pay for such crimes,if such international tribunal rule as it did in the Hague last week. The ICJ and the international indictment did not go far enough and put a check on leadership and nations making sure that such terrible crimes as those committed by Serbia in Bosnia, crimes as those committed by Sudan in Darfur and crimes committed by Israel in the Occupied Territories could NEVER happens again. Both the ICJ ruling and the indictment were big disappointment to the millions of victims of these crimes. Only severe criminal punishment and very expensive damages could ever put an end to such crimes. Leaderships and citizens must know they must pay for any crimes committed. No one and no country should get away with murder. The ICJ by its ruling is giving the wrong message to nations and to leaderships, even to citizens. But then what do we expect?

Let us not confuse between terrorism and fight for liberation

After the tragic events in Amman and the murder of innocent people it is difficult to drop the subject of terrorism and the excuses it finds among Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East, not only among people in the streets but among intellectuals as well. Fighting terrorism must start with every house, with every family, with every street and with every journalist and with every satellite channel, and of course with every mosque and with every imam in every mosque. The sad events in Amman is a reminder that all of us, Arabs and non- Arabs, must stand united in fighting this scrooge that is out to kill and maim for the hell of it. These terrorist are worst that any creatures on earth. There must never be an excuse for killing people. The Arab streets in Amman, in Riyadh, in Casablanca, in Sann'a, in Ramallah and Gaza must stand up against terrorism loud and clear and must condemn this new culture of death that is but a cancer among nations. I was in Casablanca when terrorist attached several locations and killed scores of innocent people and I was very impressed with the hundreds of thousands of Moroccan as they took to the streets to condemn such terrorist attached and I did not see any single Moroccan who went to give condolences to the families of those who committed such murder. What I have seen in Casablanca I would like to see in Cairo, in Damascus, in Beirut, in Ramallah, in Gaza and in Riyadh and Baghdad. We need to make sure the terrorists know that they have no support what so ever in the Arab streets, they must know that they do not represent any one and certainly they are not Islam. These terrorists are nothing but misfits and killers and murderers who should pay a very high price for the murder they committed. I am also calling on Palestinians to openly and publicly reject suicide bombing and must give a clear message to those who plan suicide bombing their pictures and posters will not adorn walls and streets and people will not visit and give condolences to their families and that no one, no one in Palestine will ever celebrate the death of a suicide bomber. Yes, there are many grievances the Arabs and Muslims have against their own governments and against the West in General and the US in particular. Certainly against Israel and its racist and murderous policies, but there must never be any excuses for committing murder against innocent people; Jews and gentiles, Muslim and Arabs. Such a culture of terrorism is not an Arab and Muslim culture. Before Muslim and Arabs started to commit these acts of terror and suicide bombing, many nations, people and culture did engage in such criminal and uncivilized activities. I reject claims by so called experts on terrorism like Steve Emerson and members of Congress and their staff who always try to make it a point that terrorism is nothing but an Arab and Muslim intrinsic trait. Individuals like Steve Emerson and members of Congress have their own agenda and it is not an American agenda. The US should understand and accept the right of people to reject and fight foreign occupation and Iraq and Occupied Palestine must not be an exception to the rule and that not all resistance to occupation are acts of terror. The US as the leader of the so-called “Free World” should take the lead in pushing for a world conference on terrorism and liberation making a distinction between the two. At the same time there should be no distinction between acts of terrorism committed by groups and individuals and acts of terrorism committed by a state in pursuit of its policies. Let us not confuse acts of terrorism and acts of liberation

Fighting terrorism must be house to house, mind to mind and heart to heart.

Fighting terrorism must be house to house, heart to heart, not by F-16s and tanks only. The tragic events of Amman and the daily events taking place in Iraq calls on all of us to be part of the fight against terrorism, and to enlist every one of us in the war against terrorism. The fight against terrorism, must not be left to George Bush’s “Neocons”, it must be our fight. The fight against terrorism must not be defined by war criminals like Ariel Sharon, but must be our fight too. The fight against terrorism must not be left to dictators like Musharraf, but must be our own fight. To start with we must all of us, Muslims and Arabs before any one else in the world must not ever define and call suicide bombing a “martyr operation” we must call suicide bombing for what it is a criminal act and murder and we must never accept any excuse for such operation and must never accept any justification for such a cold blooded murder. We Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians must never celebrate the lives of those who commit such cold-blooded murder and must never give recognition or value for these cowards and criminals and must never even attend or visit the families of such suicide bombers. We must never, ever give any recognition or contribution of suicide bombers to the cause of freedom and liberty. We also must admit and give recognition to the fact that such suicide and terrorist acts do not take place in complete silence and in complete secrecy. Some must know, and no suicide -bombing takes place in complete isolation of the community. Suicide bombing in Palestine does not take place in complete vacuum of families and friends knowing about it. The daily acts of terrors taking place in Iraq does not take place in complete vacuum and without the knowledge of at least few people, who are as guilty as the terrorist and suicide bombers. We all know that it committing suicide bombing and terrorist acts does not take place without the support of a number of people. To commit such acts of mass murder and killing takes more than one person. There are those who secure the explosive, who secure the cars, who secure and make available the detonators, who recruits these killers and murderers. It is an enterprise and every one in this enterprise is part of this murder incorporated. Let us not ever accept and hear from Arab journalist who tries to give excuses and put forward justification for such murder. Terrorism taking place in Amman, in Baghdad, in Casablanca, in Riyadh has nothing to do with the American occupation of Iraq. We must never accept proposition of leaders of certain organization that put forward justification for suicide bombers and terrorism. That is why I am convinced that fighting terrorism and suicide bombers must and should and will take place within every house, within every school, within every mosque. The killing that takes place finds no justification and we should never accept any excuses for terrorism and suicide bombing, even the Israeli and American occupation must never be used by any of us as an excuses. We must make sure that these killers and murderers must never find safe haven among us and among our people and among our mosques. Next time a terrorist or a suicide bomber commit acts of terrorism and murder we must make sure that no one, ever go and visit the families of these killers and murders and give the standard condolences. If any thing, we all must condemn terrorist and suicide bombing for what it is, killers and murderers. The fight against terrorism, is our fight and we must declare was on these terrorist.

Mr. President, Islamic Radicalism will be defeated by Muslim democracies, not your NeoCons. Part III

35 years while he killed and robbed the country. Well, Mr. President, I do not call this support of Muslims. Disaster relief yes, political relief no. I don’t think any one in the Arab and Muslim world deny the sense of decency, integrity and generosity of the American people. In my mind, the American people are much more honorable, decent and honest than I can say about our government, and about our Congress and all administrations. Please keep in mind, that racial discrimination was alive and well in the US until recently, and only when Blacks where willing to put their lives on the line did our government and administration moved to do something about it. Well, I am sure by now, you would think that I am unfair to you and to our country. Well that is not true because I do agree with you that Islamic radicalism is the scrooge of the 21st century, but I do disagree with the causes and the way to fight terrorism. These criminal elements, the remnant of your “ Mujahideen” once the Soviet where defeated came back and took on the fight and started committing heinous acts of terrorism in countries like Egypt, Jordan, Turkey among others and now in Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Some of these criminals found heaven in Europe and the US. In my mind, Mr. President, if these criminal misfits who “declared war on humanity” (my words as stated in the Washington Post) where the pioneering Muslims of times past, Islam would not have spread beyond Mecca and we would never see the likes of Al-Hamra, Taj Mahal, cities like Samarkand, Asfahan, Cairo, Damascus, Fez, Seville or Granada. These people Mr. President, know nothing about life. They only know about killing and what they are doing in Iraq; killing innocent people is a proof of that. People who believe that the shortest way to heaven is to kill and commit suicide are not only crazy; they are real sick people with deformed minds and hearts and could never, ever create and establish an “Islamic” State. If I know Allah they will never see heaven. How could such illiterate criminal ever get to heaven I would never know? Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda and the Talibans and Azzarqawi and Al-Dhawaheri could never capture the hearts and mind of people in the Arab and Muslim world. People who kill to go to heaven could never lead Islam to a “Renaissance” which is badly needed. Criminal and religious illiterate, who know nothing of the world, have hijacked Islam for a long time. Mr. President, these creeps and terrorist could never rise to level of Muslim scholars of old times, when knowledge and learning earned people respect and a place in history. These are the people who make Islam spread and widely accepted in the world. What Islam needs more than ever is a “renewal” similar to the renaissance that took place in Europe and helped propel Europe out of the Dark Ages? We need that kind of Islam now more than ever, not only for the US but also for the billions of Muslims around the world. The hope for Islam is right here in the US, with so many intelligent and intellectuals scholars and I am sure if these people are free to debate and with the right forum can make a big difference for the entire Muslim world. We, within the Muslim community need a reform movement that will also propel Islam into the modern time and the 21st century. However, Mr. President, you need to end the Israeli occupation and stop giving excuses for an occupation that made Muslims around the world see the hypocrisy of our democracy. How could you promote democracy in the Middle East while supporting the Israeli Occupation of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing taking place in Jerusalem and other cities? We do love America, but America is on the wrong side of Muslims Islamic radicalism will be defeated by Muslims democracies, not by your Neocons.

Mr. President, Radical Islam will be defeated by Muslim Democracies, not your NeoCons. Part II

US used the same tactics of appointing “political officers” similar to that of the Soviet and the Nazi Army. Well, Mr. Bush, your Mujahideen are coming back to haunt all of us. There misfits Mr. President where given all the supports denied to other legitimate groups fighting for independence and freedom, such as in Iran, Iraq and Occupied Palestine. Afghanistan was important and was crucial to the US interest, only because the Soviets where there. You did not support Muslims; you got somebody to fight the Russian. Yes, Mr. President, the US packed its bags and left Afghanistan once the Soviet were defeated, leaving tens of thousands of these “Islamic” misfit in charge of the country, converting Kabul Stadium into a torturer field where heads, arms, legs where chopped while thousands cheered. Schools, nurseries, hospitals all where closed by the remnants of the Mujahideen. These illiterate stupid allies know nothing about Islam or democracy. I am sure Mr. President, you know who recruited Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Dhawaheri. It was the US as the sponsor of Mujahideen that recruited Osama Bin Laden arranging that he takes with him some $20 million to establish his presence among starving Mujahideen. Well, these US recruits came back to haunt the US having been convinced that they can defeat Communists and of course if they could defeat Communists, they can defeat democracy and the US. Mr. President, the US made these Mujahideen invincible and gave them weapons like the “Stinger Missiles” denied to your best ally in the Middle East, which Saudi Arabia. The US did not care about Saudi Arabia and its security when denying the Stinger Missiles; it was only concerned with the safety of Israel, afraid that in the event of an attack by Israel, the Saudis will be able to defend themselves against the Middle East most powerful air force. So please Mr. President, don’t tell us about US fight for freedom and democracy and about how the US cared for Arabs and Muslims. US supported dictatorial regimes all over the world. The US contrary to what you claim never supported freedom and liberty, not in Africa, not in Latin and Central America, not the Far East, certainly not the Arab Middle East. Yes in Europe only against Russia. In fact the US always supported killer regimes. The US never supported the people quest for freedom and democracy. In your speech, you claimed that the US has supported Muslims throughout the world and were great contributor to disaster relief. Well, on that, my answer is yes and no. In Bosnia, the US and the European West sat in silent, without ever raising a finger as the criminal Serbs went about the ethnic cleansing of “ Muslims’ in Bosnia. Mr. President over 250,000 Muslims were butchered in Bosnia in full view of the UN, the US and EC and NATO and off course the Organizations of Islamic States that sat on its hands, useless and unable to do any thing. Even when the US and the West authorized the UN to go in Bosnian over 10,000 Muslims died as the Dutch contingency in Bosnia watched without making any efforts to stop the killing. The US and the European all watched in silence as the “Christian” Serbs slaughtered the “Muslims” of Bosnia. Thanks to the strong intervention of a woman, a Jewish woman at that, Secretary Albright who lobbied the White House and finally convinced President Clinton that the killing of Muslims must stopped. After what? After 250,000 innocent ethnic European Bosnians “ Muslims” got killed in Western Europe. How could you explain that! Perhaps the only thing that I can agree with you on is the role the US and its humanitarian support and assistance given after natural disasters in Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey and Iran. Well Mr., President, please keep in mind the US supported dictator Suharto for over

Mr. President, Radical Islam will be defeated by us Muslims, not by your NeoCons. Part I

Dear President Bush I heard the speech you gave today in Norfolk, Virginia and your declaration that Islamic radicalism is the scrooge of the 21st century. Well Mr. President, here is my opinion. With all due respect to the office you hold, your speech and statements are half-truth, and you only selected what suites you best and what suites your justification for the war on Iraq. The war on Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Mr. President, the problem and danger of Muslim radicalism are much older than you. While I agree with its danger I do not agree with its history of causes. It is too bad you failed to mention how this scrooge that threatens America and the world came about and what role did the US play I all of this? How did this cancer started and what was the contributing role the US and the West have in this great danger that engulf us all. I know that you are only partial and selective in your history, a history made up and written by those who have ideological hostility and political fight with Islam and Muslims, way before there was Islamic terrorism. Listen to your evangelical friends. For one thing Mr. Bush, the US and the great West always supported Islamic radicalism whenever it suited the US and its allies in the Middle East. The US supported Islamic radicalism, Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb Al-Taheer and other Islamic organizations to fight and to chip away at Arab Nationalism and Nasser. The US and the West saw Arab Nationalism as a great danger to its interests in the Middle East and as the greatest danger to Israel. The US support for Islamic organizations is legendary in the Middle East. The US and beyond it the West have always fought national liberation movements and have always supported some of the ruthless dictatorships in the Middle East such as the support given to the Shah of Iran as he went ahead instituting one of the most ruthless country, run and managed by Savak; the Iranian secret police with substantial and material assistance from the CIA and Israel’s Mossad. The US also played a material role in undermining Nasser nationalism, even when the US knew that Nasser’s management team was doomed to fail. The US and the West also sat silent and did not do a damn thing about the Israeli occupation of Palestine and not only did the US failed to challenge one of the most oppressive occupation, in fact it supported the occupation with hundred of billions of dollars and with material and political support by Washington and at the UN. The US always made sure that Israel can do whatever it wants, even when in violation of international law and gets away with it. The US is a partner in the crime. The US also supported secular regimes like the Shah and Saddam when the US knew these regimes were killing and murdering hundreds of thousands of their citizens, and the list goes on and on. Just ask the CIA and you will be able to get lots of information. If you want to talk about Islamic radicalism and who nurtured it and who sponsor it, then Mr. Bush you need to go the files of the Reagan Administration and see how the US in order to defeat Communism, recruited and organized Islamic misfits from all of the Arab and Muslim world, sent them to Afghanistan and with the help of another dictatorship, Pakistan, made Jihad a very vogue name. Well, Mr. Bush the CIA inverted the word Mujahideen and made and invented an “Islamic’ fighting force out of Afghanistan’s tribes. The US with the support of Pakistan, recruited “Muslim Clergy” to be the political officers of these “Mujahideen” the like of Sheik Azzam, Sheik Abdul-Rahman among others. These men became the ideology leaders of illiterate tribes in Afghanistan.

Time for an Islamic Renaissance

The case of the “top” Islamic cleric in Australia. Sheik Taj el-Dene Elhilaly and his assumption that unveiled women invite rape and a similar retarded “fatwa” from Sheik Mohamed Kamal Mustafa, the former imam of the Spanish southern town of Fuengirola who published a book called” Women in Islam” in which he finds justifications if not promotion of “wife beating” as a way to solve marital problems and we need to add to that the likes of Syed Ikram Jilani of Oslo among others, raises serious problems and issues about how low can these “Islamic” clerics takes Islam. Perhaps unlike other religions with a well defined hierarchy of “priest hood” and rabbinic hierarchy, there are no such hierarchies in Islam, and any Islamic hierarchy of “imams” is an invention of modern states but not of the Holy Quran. The Holy Quran has more faith and trust in the judgment of individuals that did trust in these new “inventions”. These days, every Mohamed, Ali and Mahmoud or Taj eldin who failed at other professions becomes expert on Islam and takes over a mosques, such as the case in England, USA, Australia, among others, where mentally retarded and semi-illiterates becomes imams and start giving fatwas left and right and start to be the ugly, illiterate and retarded face of Islam. As a testimony of how low these mentally retarded and illiterate imams came to be we are not surprise that some of these think that the mentally retarded and murderers Taliblans are the “perfect” caliphates putting forward the Taliban state as a model of an Islamic state. There must be something very wrong with these people. Simply mentally sick. If Islam and early Muslims who opened the world to Islam where of such mentality and attitude, for sure Islam would not have left Mecca and would have been a religion that died before it started. These people and so many like them forget that Islam is a religion and faith of knowledge, of science, of education, of travel and most of all of social justice, with very strict and high standards of criminal accusation and convictions. With so many of these illiterate and retarded imams, who not only hijacked our mosques, but also hijacked our faith, perhaps it is time for us Muslim and for Islam to have another renaissance, similar to that of Europe in the Middle Ages. Perhaps what we need now more than ever is a “reformation movement” that will redefine again Islam as the way it was intended for “all ages”. Enough with today’s imams going back to thousands of years to find true and intelligent answers to days issue and concerns of Muslims. We all know that the “door” of “Ijtihad” or prudence was closed some centuries ago, as if modern day scholars are unable to reach for the truth except to going back in time. If Islam is the faith for all times, then we need scholars for the future and not only for the past and yes, why not for a new ‘reformation” movement that can take Islam to the future instead of keeping it in the past. Perhaps it is time for Muslims and those attending mosques to get more educated and more enlightened “imam:” than the retards we are getting these days to lead us in prayers. When I go to mosques I want to hear an intelligent and enlightened sermon, not to hear some imbecile who happens to recite few suras and never read another book in any language to give and share his ignorance with the believers. I am sure there are enough Islamic scholars in the US to take charge and lead us forward and liberate Muslims from retarded imams such as Sheik Taj el-Dene Elhilaly or Sheik Mohamed Kamal Mustafa or someone like Abu-Hamza Al-Masry. It is time to throw out these retards out of the mosques and reclaims our mosques again. Who said that Al-Azhar have to be the only “religious” reference for Muslims. There are enough intelligent and smart scholars in the US and Europe to lead the way to an Islamic Renaissance and redefine Islam as it was intended to be a religion, faith and way of life for all times and all ages. Not one defined by defined by terrorist leaders like the Bin Laden, Ayman Dhawahiri, Abu-Hamza Almasri, Abu-Qutada and all of these criminal terrorists. We need an Islam that is a religion of peace, of love, of reconciliation that bridges the gabs between people and culture. We want an Islam for all times.
Note: for some reasons, this posting does not appear all the times. Perhaps there are some organizations out there not too happy with what I post.

Congress, Democrats before Republicans should apologize to the nation

Many discussions are going in the halls of Congress over the War on Iraq, and most of the talk will not go anywhere, leaving the situation created by the Chaney-Bush administration where it is for the last 5 years.
No one in the US Senate and US House of Representative so far take full responsibility for being duped, and for voting to go to war, based on lies and fraudulent evidence that a secondary school kid could see.
Of course Republicans are daring and blackmailing the Democrats to vote against the war and will claim that the vote will putour troops in harm way by cutting off the funding. Supporting the troops is one thing, supporting the war is another thing, and Democrats should know that simple point.
So many US senators who now speak out against the war, have voted for it, and when they voted for it, did not bother to ask the right questions and raise doubts on the credibility of the evidence given the fact that the Chaney-Bush administration is prone to lies and have a propensity to never tell the truth. These senators did not have the courage to stand up for America and have failed us and failed our troops at all levels, and dare not to stand up for what is and what was right. They voted for the stupid, useless war, because they did not have the courage to face the voters and tell them the truth that Dick Chaney and George Bush were liars.
So far, over 3000 of our finest troops are dead, over 30,000 are in run down hospitals( while defense contractors are making billions), without proper care with varying degrees of permanent injuries, and of course with over 65,000 dead Iraqis, with the country facing a vicious civil war. Of course while the war in Iraq, originally billed as against Saddam and his Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), the war, failing at all front, was re-billed by the spin masters at the White House as the part of the global war on terror. Every one, except the smart and semi-intelligent people at the White House and the major conservative think tank, tell us we are winning the war on terror. With over a 1000 x ($1000,000,000), and 5 years with some 300,000 of our finest troops in the battle field, and of course with the most powerful missiles, airplanes, smart bombs, aircraft carries, any nation could muster, we could not so far put an end to these criminal Talibans, who destroyed their country and are trying to destroy ours. No one can convince me, with all of the firepower and, the best-equipped army in the world we are unable to defeat the Talibans that raged tag army. Now we are even told to expect more poweful attacks by the Talibans.
Nothing short of a formal public apology from the US Senate and the House of Representative will do. Democrats before Republican should apologies to the nation, the families of all those who died fighting a war based on lies, and apology to all the tax payers who saw their hard earned money going to thieves and robbers pretending to be defense contractors. An apology should go the people of Iraq for failing them, in their quest for freedom from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. The only good thing that came out of this stupid war was the hanging of Saddam and the possible hanging of members of his revolutionary cabinet. Too bad the Iraqis proved they are unfit for democracy and freedom.
While not a military expert, though I did serve in the US Army, I never understood how can commanders, graduates from military academies could think that by destroying few tanks they could defeat an army? I could never understand how these commanders in the Pentagon and in the field did not think of the millions of small arms weapons, of rocket launchers, of land mines that the 400,000 strong Iraqi army took home with them when the army simply disappeared and George Bush declared victory from the deck of the aircraft carriers. Didn’t Donald Rumsfeld, the cocky former defense secretary asks what about all those weapons and what potential danger do they pose to our troops?
Not only there was a total failure on the military front, there was an absolute disaster on the civilian side as well. With Paul Bremer awarded the highest civilian medal, one has to wonder where did the billions of dollars disappeared under his watch? And why so many defense contractors made a killing and were allowed to rob and fleece the country.
Yes, Harry Reid, Hilary Clinton, Barak Obama, Carl Levin, John Kerry Nancy Pelosi all should take the lead and gather the rest of members of congress and should without delay apologies to the nation for failing to their job of representing our best interest as people and as nation.