Tag: Israel

Admist the talk of whether the Palestinians will ever recognise Israel, we should also ask whether Israel will ever recognise the Palestinians.

Doesn't look like it.

What happens when religiosity goes too far, and becomes extremism? Not that it's very easy to define extremism. For a secular person, the Muslim insistence on conformity to a religious dress code might sound excessive - whereas to the Muslim, this is commonsensical.

In a bit of news you will probably not hear otherwise, the incidents of extremist harassment, monopolization and vandalization are rising. In Israel. A state founded as homeland for the world's Jews is challenged by excessive, Jewish zeal. Isn't that stunning? Surprising?

The segregation of city buses and the creation of "morality squads" that patrol Jerusalem's orthodox streets to root out "immodest behavior" are part of a new and controversial campaign launched recently by local leaders of the Haredi community, which follows a very strict interpretation of Judaism.  

If you sign this petition and it gets to 25,000 signatures, Avaaz.Org will run advertisements in major Israeli and Pali papers with list of all the names and the following message:

To Israeli, Palestinian & international leaders:

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is at the heart of a global clash threatening to divide us all. People from every corner of the world want a just and lasting peace in the Middle East - and the international community can and must help bring all sides to the table. Start Real Middle East Talks Now, and remain at the negotiating table until we have peace. 

So far, 3000 people have signed. 22,000 more to go.

When you sign it, mention eteraz.org in the personalized message box. 

I'm almost back. Hopefully I'll really be back on Monday. In the meantime, we should all be paying attention to the Saudi-sponsored Mecca talks between Fatah, Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The agreement to form a unity government which the factions signed on Thursday could, if properly implemented, be a significant step forward for a people increasingly divided by sectarian infighting. The cynics will call it another piece of paper, but the swiftness with which the agreement was reached, along with the unusually pro-active role of the Saudi government in fostering it, suggests to me that this thing has legs. 

Let us hope it does, and that it will become tangible proof to the too-long stifled people of the Territories that diplomacy can translate into positive real-world action. Proving this will be key to putting a stopper in the civilian-on-civilian violence that plagues the region. 

Someone sent this to me. It is from Pipes. I think it is really disturbing:

Ironically, Israeli success in crushing the Palestinian Arab war morale would be the best thing that ever happened to the Palestinian Arabs. It would mean their finally giving up their foul dream of eliminating their neighbor and would offer a chance instead to focus on their own polity, economy, society, and culture. To become a normal people, one whose parents do not encourage their children to become suicide terrorists, Palestinian Arabs need to undergo the crucible of defeat. 

In other words: the n*ggers won't learn till you kick their ass a little. 

If Pipes says stuff like this, I must be a heartless bastard for finding the UC Irvine protest immature.

Yet, that is precisely the point: humans (not just Muslims) ought to be able to take the worst that life has to offer (and sometimes that is quotes like the one above) and not do stupid things in retaliation.

The best protest is the one that affirms your dignity.

Learn from my mistakes. 

This is very disappointing behavior by the Muslim students at UC Irvine during a lecture by Daniel Pipes organized by Hillel on Januar 31, 2007. If you want to see how it started, watch this video (skip ahead to 5:40). Here's some more footage.

You simply do not heckle people like that. Hillel is another religious organization and they are free to hold events without having to worry about a bunch of nuts of any religion coming in and screaming at their speakers.

I have never, ever, ever, in all the times I've seen and read about Norman Finklestein or other critics of Zionism, go to universities sponsored by Muslim groups, ever be heckled by pro-Israel groups on a massive scale. Ever. The worst has been when certain pro-Israel groups stood outside the lecture and led some kind of protest. I've been to lectures where pro-Israel groups stood outside and chanted. Even when I once saw an orthodox Jewish law student at NYU screaming at Norman Finklestein, it was in the Q&A period.

Going in, and then collectively screaming in the middle of the lecture, is low. These Muslims should be ashamed. What's next? They are going to go Irshad Manji lectures and do this? Then what? Will they do it to Shi'a lecturers? Will they do it Sufi lecturers (it's already the case that some MSA's do not invite Sufi speakers).

I wouldn't have cared if they simply got up in the middle of the lecture, and quietly walked out. That's fine, and is an effective protest strategy. But screaming? Grow up. Not sure who was telling me but recently at Columbia a lot of people used this strategy -- walk out quietly -- at a Walid Shoebat lecture. I don't recall that they screamed chants and slogans; that's not just rude; but it is against Islamic Ethics.

Not only that, but I don't think "anti-Israel" is an effective chant at all. What exactly are you anti about Israel? About its existence? It's policies?

In this video, Pipes somehow gets a hold of what was said outside by the protestors once they left ("wipe Israel off the map"). While there is no way to verify if they actually said these things, the "type" of speech it is -- with the metaphor about using one's tongue to speak out against oppression, the transcript sounds legitimate to me. That analogy comes from the famous hadith and since hadith hurling is what's popular among Muslim students today, I'm almost wont to believe Pipes' transcript.

Finally, there is the question of whether you advance your "cause" a single bit by doing stupid stuff like this. You made Islam look bad (Muslims are a bunch of hecklers); you got yourself investigated by the FBI (that'll help with the law school apps); and you set a precedent for other student groups to do that to us.

Well done UC Irvine.

Its kind of ironic that the most recent edition of the Muslim Student Union's publication -- Al Kalima -- is about puryifying your soul (these guys really showed that off) and contains a spread about Amr Khaled (the Egyptian preacher who, after the cartoon fiasco in Denmark, rather than asking for apologies, offered to go to Denmark to make friends).

Go see Mathew Yglesias on Wesley Clark.

Wesley Clark raises the role of wealthy right-wing Jews in pushing toward a military confrontation with Iran and get smeared as an anti-semite. 

Ezra Klein has some follow up.

Note how the discussion revolves around right wing Jews. I gotta say that even until the mid 90's the idea of a right wing Jew was alien to me.

Thankfully, Phill Weiss investigates why lefty Jews aren't leading the antiwar movement.

We have assimilated, we are the American success story. Morally and emotionally, Jewish kids tend to identify with blue-state powers-that-be. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions that prove the rule: as a body we have little class interest in challenging the assumptions of the (corrupt!) ruling class that got us into this disastrous war.

Well there is Soros, who is a lefty jew, and anti-war. 

From Christian Science Monitor:

JERUSALEM - Flanked by two bodyguards courtesy of the Israeli secret service, Raleb Majadele cruised through the corridors of Israel's parliament, the Knesset, as admirers and adversaries stopped to wish the country's first Arab Muslim minister well on his first day on the job.

"Mabruk," congratulated a parliamentary security guard in Arabic. "Mister Minister," began Effie Eitam, a far-right lawmaker and Jewish settler, as he shook Mr. Majadele's hand. "Good luck."
In the Monitor

Even if decades overdue for a country that touts itself the lone democracy in the Middle East, the appointment of the Labor Party lawmaker to the cabinet was celebrated as a symbolic abolition of a barrier to full equality for the country's one-fifth minority. Majadele is awaiting word on what ministerial portfolio he will be assigned.

But with Jewish-Arab relations polarized over the November appointment of Cabinet Minister Avigdor Lieberman – a nationalist politician who wants to redraw Israel's borders to exclude hundreds of thousands of Arab citizens – it remains to be seen whether the political integrationist can ease the yawning socioeconomic gaps and dismantle the institutionalized discrimination that embitters his constituency.

"The question is does this really represent a turning point in the question of inclusion or exclusion?" says Elie Rekhess, an expert on Arab Israelis at Tel Aviv University and the director of the Adenauer Program for Jewish Arab cooperation. "What does he have to offer?"

Since the appointment of Salim Joubran as the first Arab Muslim to sit on Israel's Supreme Court in 2003, Majadele's entrance to the cabinet is the most dramatic example of integration for a largely segregated minority community.