mohammadalisalih.com Blog

NEWS AND VIEWS:

VIEWS: THANKS FOR 9/11, GWOT AND OBL

Thanks for 9/11 terrorist attacks, the so-called “war on terrorism” and Osama Bin Laden, Islam has come a long way in America. When I first came to America in early 1972, and for few years, many people told me I was the first Muslim they met and they had no idea what Islam was.

Last week, I saw an excellent HBO documentary about Muslims children who go to Cairo every year during Ramadan to compete in reciting the Koran.

(Read below).

The subject was new even to me; Muslim children who don’t speak Arabic compete in reciting the Koran.

When Bin Laden was killed, a “Washington Post” columnist wrote that, for better or for worst, Bin Laden made millions of Americans aware of Islam.

My plan for a memoir book includes a chapter about the Koran: when I learned, and recited it first; when I, after leaving the village, forgot the whole thing; and when, after former President George Bush’s so-called “war on terrorism,” I returned to the Koran.

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NEWS: HBO: MUSLIM CHILREN RECITE THE KORAN (HBO WEBSITE):

Beyond the sensationalistic headlines, the very recent Twitter trending of “#Muslims” and the Western world’s common misconceptions about Islam lies the reality that nearly 1.5 billion Muslims inhabit this earth.

Representing a fifth of the world’s population, the followers of Islam are an irrefutable force to be reckoned with. And the Koran is their Holy Book, driving at once their political, personal and religious choices.

Greg Barker’s thought-provoking documentary sheds light on some of the important facts many of us may never otherwise know (like that all followers of Islam learn the same Arabic version of the Koran, regardless of their native language).

Barker followed three amazing ten-year-olds — Rifdha, a girl from the Maldives, Nabiollah, a boy from Tajikistan and Djamil, a boy from Senegal — on their incredible journey navigating through Egypt’s International Holy Koran Competition. A prestigious yearly competition which is held in Cairo and brings together 110 young students from over 70 countries during the month of Ramadan.

In the competition, these young men and women are asked to recite random passages from the Koran, from memory, which is a daunting task considering most of the children do not speak Arabic in their home countries and the Koran is made up of 30 Sections, 114 Chapters and 6,236 verses!

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NEWS AND VIEWS:

VIEWS: SOUTH SUDAN CHRISTIANS AND RAMADAN

Last July 9, the Sudan was partitioned after a referendum in January overwhelmingly supported a new state, the Republic of South Sudan. That was the worst day in my life. I felt sad and angry, sad because my native country, the Sudan, was partitioned and angry because my adopted country, the US, played a major role in the partition process.

Few years after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, I was convinced that the so-called “war on terrorism” that was declared by former President George W. Bush has been but a subtle and indirect war on Muslims (if not on Islam).

As for Sudan, at the beginning, Bush played a positive role in mediating between the Northerners and Southerners to end a decades-long war and to sign a peace treaty in 2005. But, later, he, influenced mostly by Christian and Jewish lobbies and the Black Caucus in the Congress, and with the growing Islamophobia that seems to have engulfed America, sided with the mostly Christian Southerners (to protect them) and didn’t pressure the two sides not to partition the country.

A combination of Islamphobia fever and the “war on terrorism” seems to have been the main reason.

Today, I was impressed by a congratulation letter from the President of South Sudan to the President of Sudan because of the beginning of Ramadan. Here is a Southern Christian warmly congratulates his Muslim former countryman.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so sad and angry because of the partition, and should have had some hope that, despite the US role, the Muslims Northerners and Christian Southerners are still “brothers.”

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NEWS: SOUTH SUDAN’S PRESIDENT CONGRATULATES SUDAN MUSLIMS ON RAMADAN:

H.E. Field Marshal Omer Hassan Al-Bashir,

President of the Republic of the Sudan,

Khartoum,

SUDAN

Your Excellency,

On behalf of the people and Government of the Republic of South Sudan and on my own behalf, allow me to convey to you our profound Message of well wishes during this commencement of the one month long fasting by the Muslim faithful to you, your family, and all fellow brothers and sisters of the Republic of the Sudan. Ramadan kareem! Indeed this is the month where our devoted members of the Muslim Community will intimately journey with God through fasting and prayers as they meditate on the omnipotent wisdom and guidance of the Almighty God. It is a moment of communal sharing and the longing to share with the needy of the society.

Mr. President, it is my prayers that this moment of fasting during Ramadan may inspire us to reflect on God’s wisdom and generosity over humankind. May God also endow the members of the Muslim Community with tolerance and patience and guide them to embrace God even more. As leaders, this is the time to reexamine the way we make decisions and ask God’s abundant guidance while discharging our daily duties.

Please, my brother President Al-Bashir, I will be with you in spirit and prayers during this holy season of Ramadan fasting.

Yours sincerely,

Gen Salva Kiir Mayardit,

President of the Republic of South Sudan

JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN

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Message of Well Wishes to Republic of South Sudan Muslims

My dear brothers and sisters Muslim faithful, on behalf of the people and Government of the Republic of South Sudan and on my own behalf, allow me to convey to you our deep message of well wishes during this commencement of the one month long fasting. Ramadan kareem! This season is historical because it is the first fasting you will have in our newly independent nation. This is also the month where you as devoted members of the Muslim Community will intimately journey with God through fasting and prayers as well as meditate on the omnipotent wisdom and guidance of the Almighty God. It is indeed a moment of communal sharing and the longing to share with the needy of the society.

Therefore, it is my earnest prayer that this moment of fasting during Ramadan may inspire us all as a nation to reflect on God’s wisdom and generosity over humankind. May God also bequeath you our members of the Muslim Community with tolerance and patience and guide you to embrace God even more. As a new nation, this is the time to reexamine the way we behave and with faith solicit God’s abundant guidance in relations with one another.

Please, accept my very best wishes and I will be with you in spirit and prayers during this holy season of Ramadan fasting.

Yours sincerely,

Gen Salva Kiir Mayardit,

President of the Republic of South Sudan

JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN

NEWS AND VIEWS:

VIEWS: NORWAY’S BREIVIK IS NOT CHRISTIAN TERRORIST

This journalist, since 2008, occasionally stands in front of the White House holding a huge sign that says on one side:” WHAT IS TERRORISM?” and on the other side: “WHAT IS ISLAM?” And also says that I will continue doing this “UNTIL I DIE!”

So, I am very much tempted to ask the same question that AP’s journalist Jesse Washington asked, referring to Norway’s Anders BreIvik: “Christian terrorist?”

(Read below).

But, I don’t think that I will “fall in this trap” because:

First, I have come to believe that the so-called “war on terrorism” that was declared by former President George W. Bush in 2001 is put a subtle and indirect war on Muslims (if not on Islam).

Second, until this day, the UN has failed to define “terrorism,” and every country seems to have its own definition.

Therefore:

First, terrorism has been, actually and psychologically, connected to Muslims. And this, I am afraid, will continue for a long time. Thanks to the power of the US government, media and culture.

Second, because there is no specific definition of “terrorism,” it shouldn’t be applied to anyone, including Norway’s BreIvik.

So, it seems to me that fellow journalist Washington was a little inaccurate (he didn’t define “terrorism”). He asked the experts questions about “terrorism” and they seemed to have “fallen in the trap.” Or maybe not; their premises were that there were relations between “terrorism” and the Muslims. Which, in a way, confirms Washington’s opinion.

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NEWS: CHRISTIAN TERRORISM? JESSE WASHINGTON – AP (Exceprts):

When the “enemy” is different, an outsider, it’s easier to draw quick conclusions, to develop stereotypes. It’s simply human nature: There is “us,” and there is “them.” But what happens when the enemy looks like us — from the same tradition and belief system?

That is the conundrum in the case of Norway and Anders Behring Breivik, who is being called a “Christian extremist” or “Christian terrorist.”

As westerners wrestle with such characterizations of the Oslo mass murder suspect, the question arises: Nearly a decade after 9/11 created a widespread suspicion of Muslims based on the actions of a fanatical few, is this what it’s like to walk a mile in the shoes of stereotype?

“Absolutely,” said Mark Kelly Tyler, pastor of Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. “It clearly puts us in a position where we can’t simply say that extreme and violent behavior associated with a religious belief is somehow restricted to Muslim extremists”…

Psychologists say stereotypes come from a deeply human impulse to categorize other people, usually into groups of “us” and “them.”

“Our brains are wired that way,” said Cheryl Dickter, a psychology professor at the College of William & Mary who studies stereotypes and prejudice.

When Dickter examined brain waves, she found that people process information and pictures about their “us” group differently compared with information about “them” groups. People remembered information better when it reinforced their stereotypes of other groups, she said, and when information didn’t fit their stereotype, it was often explained or simply forgotten.

“That’s how stereotypes get maintained in the face of all this (contradictory) information,” Dickter said…

In a column for Salon.com, Alex Pareene said Breivik is not an American-style evangelical, but he listed other connections to Christianity. “All of this says ‘Christian terrorist,’” Pareene wrote…

Art Markman, a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said research shows that when people are asked to describe someone else’s behavior, they focus on personal characteristics — who that person is. But when asked to describe their own behavior, people focus on their individual situation.

“If you’re a Christian and you see this Norway murderer, you say, I have these teachings and I haven’t murdered anyone, so the teachings can’t be the problem,” Markman said. “But if you’re talking about the ‘other,’ it’s different. And if you don’t know what the actual Muslim teachings are, it seems like a plausible explanation”…

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NEWS AND VIEWS:

VIEWS: THE FEAR OF MUSLIMS LEADS TO THIS

This is a paragraph from the draft of my planned memoir book (suggested title: “Islam, the West and Me: From Madrassa to Monastery”):

“Since few years after the invasion of Iraq, I have come to believe that the so-called “war on terrorism” that was declared by former President George W. Bush has been but a subtle and indirect war on Muslims (if not on Islam). The US had invaded and occupied two Muslims countries (Afghanistan and Iraq), bombarded two Muslim countries (Somalia and Pakistan), threatened to bombard three Muslim countries (Iran, Syria and Sudan), and killed, injured, arrested, tortured, spied on, suspected, harassed and insulted many Muslims all over the world.

Here in the US, the fear of Islam and the Muslims (Islamophobia) seems to have settled for a long time to come, I am afraid.”

Please read the following news item to see the extent of “war on terrorism” and “Islamophobia.”

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NEWS: SECURITY FOR ENTERING THE US IS LAYER AFTER LAYER AFTER LAYER: “THE WASHINGTON POST” (Excerpts):

The multilayered, multifaceted and multinational security system that has been constructed to protect the United States from terrorists led to denial of visas to 2.2 million of 9 million foreign applicants last year…

1.An additional 2,600 individuals with outstanding visas for the United States were identified by the National Targeting Center run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as having new derogatory information developed about them. That information was passed on to airlines with a recommendation that these high-risk individuals not be permitted to board U.S.-bound aircraft… The CBP generates nearly 200 targets a day for its center, causing research to determine whether these individuals are indeed high risk…

2. A new State Department Internet platform, called the Consular Electronic Application Center …permits electronic submission of applications and photos, allowing review before applicants appear for required personal interviews.

The online forms are “smart” … which means “irregular” answers are flagged to ensure that officers address them in the interview. Each applicant has an electronic scan of the index finger of each hand, and should a person have a cut, blister or skin injury, a visa will not be issued until a fingerprint can be taken.

3. At the consular office, names are checked against the Consular Lookout and Support System, State’s database of 39 million cases that hold derogatory information about 27 million individuals…

4. An estimated 1 million names of known or suspected terrorists are in the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center…

5. The DHS’s United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) has biographic data based on prior arrival and departure information. It is also connected to the FBI’s criminal master file of some 69 million identities.

US-VISIT also has an automated storage and analytic system known at IDENT, which matches digital fingerprints and photographs with its own watchlist of 6.2 million known or suspected terrorists, as well as criminal and immigration violators.

6. The Defense Department’s Automated Biometric Identification System contains not just fingerprints of foreign combatants taken on the battlefields but also latent fingerprints retrieved from IED (improvised explosive device) fragments…

7. The State Department since 2009 has been using electronic facial recognition techniques on all visa applications. It now has 142 million images in its database. It is expanding the system with iris recognition technology…

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NEWS AND VIEWS:

VIEWS: THE CHRISTIAN WEST AND SUDAN

This time, “The New York Times” said it: “Sudan has been an obsession for the West for more than 100 years.”

(Read below).

Two weeks ago, I sent an opinion on South Sudan to major US newspapers; the only reply I received was from the op-ed editor of “The Washington Post”: “I do not think this column is right for our op-ed page, but it makes an interesting point about the media coverage.”

I wondered what “right” meant, but, being a journalist, I resigned to the decision and hoped for a better chance in the future.

Here are the first two paragraphs of my opinion:

“The debate about Sudan has been mainly about slavery, racial discrimination, ethnic cleansing, civil wars, military regimes, oil and terrorism, but not much about the most important – though subtle – factor: the centuries-old slow spread of Islam.

Where I was born, in a village on the River Nile, south of the borders with Egypt, I saw remnants of churches that were left from a dominant Christian kingdom, about a thousand year ago. When I moved about 300 miles south to Khartoum, capital of Sudan, I saw remnants of churches that were left from another dominant Christian kingdom, about 500 years ago. When I travelled about 700 miles to the south, to Juba, capital of South Sudan, I saw many mosques…”

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NEWS: “NEW YORK TIMES”: JEFFREY GETTLEMAN: SOUTH SUDAN SECURED (Excerpts):

JUBA, Sudan — on the desk in his office in Juba, the capital of the world’s newest country, R. Barrie Walkley, the American consul general, has a telling picture. It is of him and George Clooney shaking hands in a crowd during the independence referendum here in southern Sudan in January.

The photograph offers a unique window into what is happening now. American celebrities and religious groups teamed up with policy makers and helped a forlorn underdog region finally achieve what very few separatist movements achieve: independence…

Sudan has been an obsession for the West for more than 100 years, and it is an interesting question why, of all the world’s war zones and all the blood baths Africa has witnessed — Liberia, Somalia, Congo, to name a few — this place has grabbed so much attention…

John Voll, a professor of Islamic history at Georgetown University, said Sudan’s internal conflicts were easily reduced by outsiders to Manichaean absolutes of oppressed Africans, many of them Christians, getting crushed by Arabs, “with echoes of the Crusades.”

Sudan has an unusually clear fault line, reinforced by the British colonizers; … Western missionaries began to champion the southern Sudanese cause…

“Long before there was such a thing as secular human rights groups or a United Nations, missionaries rallied behind Sudan’s suffering,” said Eliza Griswold, author of “The Tenth Parallel,” a book on the line of latitude that roughly separates the Muslim and Christian worlds in Africa and Asia…

In 2001, Christian groups found a friend in the White House. The administration of George W. Bush pushed southern rebels, who had been fighting for self-determination for decades, and Sudan’s central government to sign a peace agreement in 2005, which guaranteed the southerners the right to secede…

During the South independence festivities, American religious groups were represented. The only non-government employee in President Obama’s official delegation to Juba besides Mr. Powell was Ken Hackett, president of Catholic Relief Services.

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NEWS AND VIEWS:

VIEWS: SOUTH SUDAN: MICHAEL GERSON’S CHRISTIANITY

Michael Gerson, the evangelical advisor to former President George W. Bush who was part of the Christian Right’s lobby to partition Sudan, is now a columnist with “The Washington Post”. He wrote today from South Sudan.

(Read below).

Yesterday, “The Washington Post” rejected an op-ed piece I had sent about my sadness and anger: sadness because of the partition of my native country, and anger because my adopted country encouraged the partition. My piece was “not right” for publication, I was told, but “it makes an interesting point about the media coverage” of events in Sudan.

What is “right”? What type of “media coverage”?

When I appealed the rejection of my piece – also rejected – I said that I had read within two weeks three pieces in the op-ed pages and all of them were critical of the North Sudan. This is what I meant by “media coverage.”

Of course, my sadness and anger increased because of the rejection of my piece because it was not “right” to be published.

But, many years ago, before the partition of Sudan was an issue, I learned that sadness and anger because of the US policies towards the Muslims and the Islamophobia that had engulfed the US, was not enough. And that was why I started my “Silent Jihad at the White House.”

The more sad and angry I became, the more determined – despite some questions in my mind, I confess – to continue my White House vigil “UNTIL I DIE!”

Back to Christian separationist Michael Gerson. He wrote: “South Sudan’s independence is also a bitter divorce”; “Southerners — black and Christian or animist — who had lived in the Muslim, Arabized north”; “The Sudanese paradox of deep hatreds and unavoidable ties”; and “The north may be hated, but it remains the south’s primary trading partner.”

Gerson and his Christian Right lobbied, as Islamophobia engulfed America, to partition Sudan to stop the spread of Islam in South Sudan (and in sub-Sahara Africa). Now, even before the official partition, he wrote about “bitter divorce” and “unavoidable ties.”

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NEWS: COLUMN: MICHAEL GERSON, FORM AWEIL, SOUTH SUDAN: “THE WASHINGTON POST”:

(Excerpts): “… But the train station near the center of Aweil provides a reminder that South Sudan’s independence is also a bitter divorce. A group of refugees sits beside the rails, surrounded by cooking pots and farm implements, their former lives carried in burlap bags. They are southerners — black and Christian or animist — who had lived in the Muslim, Arabized north…

An elderly man, Deng Deng Arop, tells me that their Arab neighbors had pressured them to leave. “They said, ‘You have to go to your own country. If you don’t go to the south, you will see what happens to you.’ ” Long lines of southerners waited to board trains. “They wanted to keep our sons by force,” says Deng…

And yet the ruler of northern Sudan, Omar al-Bashir — under indictment by the International Criminal Court — is scheduled to speak at South Sudan’s independence celebration. If he comes, it would show a boldness on Bashir’s part. It would also demonstrate the Sudanese paradox of deep hatreds and unavoidable ties…

By inviting Bashir to the independence celebration, South Sudan’s government is making its own calculation. The north may be hated, but it remains the south’s primary trading partner. Sixty percent of food consumed in South Sudan is either produced in or transported across the north. Though the south produces oil, it imports refined fuel from its northern neighbor…”

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NEWS AND VIEWS:

VIEWS: 225,000 MULIMS KILLED BY THE US IN 10 YEARS

In 2004, one year after the US invasions of Iraq and three years after the US invasion of Afghanistan, General Tommy Frank, commander of the US forces in the Middle East, said: “We don’t count the number of people we have killed because it is impossible to do so.”

Now, at the respected Brown University, more than 20 academicians spent years trying to count, and declared the number as 225,000 (divided as follows: 140,000 civilians, 6,000 US soldiers, 2,000 contractors with US soldiers, 10,000 Afghani soldiers, 10,000 Iraqi soldiers and 4,000 Pakistani soldiers)

But, the report said the real numbers are higher…

(Read below).

The US is responsible for the killing of quarter of a million Muslims during the last 10 years, in the so-called “war on terrorism.” And the killing is continuing, probably for a long time to come.

9/11 attacks killed about 3,000 people; so it is about 70 Muslims for everyone.

How many Christians and Jews killed in these wars? Probably a thousand Christians (mainly in sectarian conflicts in Iraq and Pakistan) and few Jews (including journalist Daniel Pearl who was seen in a video being slaughtered in Pakistan).

The report expected its estimate of $4.4 trillion bill to rise because of about $I trillion interest on government loans from banks to spend on the war. Probably another $1 trillion for taking care of the wounded (physically and mentally) American soldiers.

The report tried to estimate the long run cost. In another ten years, counting the continuous so-called “war on terrorism,” taking care of soldiers, paying interests and other items, the total cost might be $10 trillion.

(Total US debt is $14 trillion).

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NEWS: “AP”: $4.4 TRILLION COST OF WARS SINCE 9/11

The final bill for U.S. military involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan could be as high as $4.4 trillion, according to a comprehensive new report by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies.

The report calculates not only direct spending on the conflicts but also the long-term costs of caring for wounded veterans and projected war spending from 2012 to 2020.

At a minimum, say the authors of the study, the final cost for these military engagements will be $3.7 trillion. But the report also points out that their estimates do not include at least $1 trillion more in interest payments and other costs that cannot yet be quantified.

Indeed, the report criticized the U.S. Congress and the Pentagon for poor accounting.

Although the number of U.S. soldiers killed in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been made public, the report notes, it is not yet clear how many soldiers return to the United States with injuries and illnesses. New disability claims are being submitted on an ongoing basis

The report asserts that conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will continue through the decade, adding to both financial and human cost.

The report puts the number of civilian deaths to date at approximately 137,000, and the total number of deaths attributable to military conflict in these countries, in uniform or out of uniform, to around 225,000.

The study also suggests that the number of war refugees and displaced persons now number around 7.8 million.

“Costs of War,” as the study was titled, was a joint project that involved the work of over twenty academics, including economists, anthropologists, political scientists, legal experts and a physician.

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NEWS AND VIEWS:

VIEWS: AL-BALAWI: “TERRORIST” OR “MARTYR”?

“The Washington Post” published the last days of Humam Al-Balawi in a long piece in its “Style” section.

(Read below).

Why the “Style” section? I don’t know. Why the confessions of the Jordanian pediatrician who, in 2009, donated himself in a CIA base in Afghanistan and killed nine of its agents, seven of them Americans, in the “Style” section?

Before reading the piece, I knew it would be very emotional. I also knew I would be tortured between accepting Al-Balawi as a “terrorist,” as was described by the book, or as a “shaheed” (martyr) as he described himself in the videos and the diaries that the book quoted.

I kept the “Style” section and didn’t read the piece until three days later (when I sent a summary to my newspaper). Why? I think because I was scared of reading the piece.

What does the “shaheed”/”terrorist” think during his last days, hours and minutes before he explodes himself? It doesn’t matter if I accept Al-Balawi as a “shaheed” or “terrorist”; I just can’t imagine anyone would do that.

Upon reading the piece, I remembered what I have recently learned from the Koran and I understood very well what Al-Balawi believed in: He had moved upwards from one stage in his religion to another stage:

First, he had reached the highest level of being one of “Almoslimoon” (Muslims, those who submit to God), and, then, moved upwards to the level of being one of “Almominoon” (the Faithful, those who wholly put their faith in God).

Second, he had moved to the highest level of being one of “Almominoon” (the Faithful) by deciding to be one of “Almojahidoon” (the fighters, the Jihadists, for the sake of God, against injustice). Not “Alqa’idoon” (the Faithful who don’t want to fight).

But, in the eyes of the American journalist who wrote the book about him, Al-Balawi was nothing more than a “terrorist.”

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NEWS: “THE TRIPLE AGENT”: JOBY WARRICK, “THE WASHINGOTN POST”

The CIA believed he was a “golden source,” a top-secret informant who had penetrated al-Qaeda and brought the agency within striking distance of the terrorist group’s senior leadership. But Humam al-Balawi, a Jordanian pediatrician turned spy, was not what he seemed…

In late 2009, he killed himself and nine intelligence operatives, including seven Americans, at a CIA base in eastern Afghanistan. The strike was the deadliest blow in the CIA in a quarter-century…

“I have often wished to know what is going on in the head of a martyr before the martyrdom-seeking operation,” he had written in his diaries. “It is now my turn today to fulfill the wishes of others.” He acknowledged that one could “only do it once in your life,” and there was a real chance that he would fail and squander his life for nothing…

“Do you not fear to be cowardly at the last moment,” he asked himself, “and be unable to press the button?”…

Al-Balawi had many doubts his writings, had imagined the djinn — devil — and their whispered doubts. “Are you going to perform jihad and get yourself killed, and let your wife remarry and your children become orphans? “To whom are you leaving your pretty wife? Who will be dutiful to your frail mother? “How can you abandon your wonderful work?”…

But, at the end, he decided to be a “martyr”.

“It is said in the Hadith that he who says, ‘There is no God but God alone and praise be to Him,’ he is protected by God from Satan on that day,” Balawi had written. “On the day of the martyrdom-seeking operation, the enemy of God will not reach you.”

And that his martyr’s message should be in English, to ensure the widest audience if the video made its way to the Internet…

“We will get you, CIA team. Insha’Allah (God willing), we will bring you down,” he said. “Don’t think that just by pressing a button and killing mujaheddin, you are safe,” a reference to missile strikes from CIA drones. “Insha’Allah, we’ll come to you in an unexpected way”…

He added in the video:”This is my goal: to kill you, and to kill your Jordanian partner, and Insha’Allah, I will go to Al-Firdaws (paradise),” he said. “And you will be sent to hell.”

With the final phrase his voice cracked, as though he were straining to fight back tears. Balawi looked away, and the image went dark.

(When Balawi arrived at the CIA’s camp and walked to meet the agents), he mouthed the words softly in Arabic. “La ilaha illa Allah (There is no god but God).”

“La ilaha illa Allah!”…

Balawi closed his eyes. His finger made the slightest twitch.

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NEWS AND VIEWS:

VIEWS: JEWISH LOVE OF ISRAEL

Many times I wrote about Washington Jewish Leaders (WJL; my own description and initials) who I have come to believe, after the invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq and the continuous so-called “war on terrorism,” that they greatly influence US policies towards the Muslims.

But, I say “influence,” not “control” and, in a way, am impressed by their hard work. I don’t mind their support of Israel (most probably, I would have done the same if I were a Jew), but it is their support of Israel’s expansionist policy and its occupation of Muslim lands that I strongly object.

I consider Sen. Joe Lieberman as the most important among the WJL.

Last week, he announced what I call “Lieberman Declaration.” I strongly believe it is as historically important as the Belfour Declaration which refers to British Foreign Minister who, in 1917, promised to establish a Jewish state in Muslim (and Christian) lands. Lieberman promised that Israel would never retreat from the Muslim lands it occupied in 1967 war, an in-your-face challenge to the Muslims –and to the whole world.

My solace is the Koran which, repeatedly and clearly, condemns the Jews and predicts that every time they find glory but misbehave, they get destroyed.

It is sad that many American Jews not only support Israel’s expansionist policy, but have also abandoned the Jewish historical liberalism and embraced conservatism (they call it new-conservatism, but who are they kidding?).

During the recent few years, as I have become uncomfortable with the Jewish influence in the US media, I am listening more to the BBC, and reading more of “The Economist” and “The Financial Times.”

I doubt that the following piece could have been published in “The Washington Post.”

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NEWS: “THE FINANCAIL TIMES”: JOHN GAPPER: LUNCH WITH DAVID MAMET (HOLLYWOOD AND BROADWAY PRODUCER)

… We return to politics and I suggest that his intellectual journey from liberalism to neo-conservatism has been travelled before by Jews such as Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz.

He answered: “The speeches that Charles Lindbergh made and Oswald Mosley made in the 1930s are the same speeches that are being made today, only slightly more politely: ‘The Jews are bringing us to war. Perhaps we should give their state away.’ The liberals in my neighborhood wouldn’t give away Brentwood to the Palestinians but they want to give away Tel Aviv.”

But attitudes in Europe to the Middle East tend to be more skeptical about Israel than American ones, I interject.

Does he believe that anyone who disputes Israel’s land claims and believes in reallocation of territory to the Palestinians is anti-Semitic?

Uncharacteristically, Mamet hesitates slightly as he starts to answer and I wonder if he will back down, or at least hedge his answer. “Well, at some level … listen …” He throws his head back and looks briefly at the ceiling before emitting a grunt of relief as he abandons caution.

“Yes!” he exclaims. “Of course! I mean you Brits …”

He smiles ruefully. “I love the British. Whatever education I have comes from reading your writers and yet, time and time again, for example reading Trollope, there is the stock Jew. Even in George Eliot, God bless her. And the authors of today … I’m not going to mention names because of your horrendous libel laws but there are famous dramatists and novelists over there whose works are full of anti-Semitic filth”…

The elision of criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism strikes me as not only wrong but offensive, yet Mamet has delivered it almost amiably. He has a knack of combining character assassination with dry wit, as if only half-serious.

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NEWS AND VIEWS:

VIEWS: DÉJÀ VU: SAQIB ALI

I am working on a memoir book with the proposed title of “Islam, the West and Me: From “Madrassa” to Monastery.” I was born, and lived until I was 16, in a very conservative Sudanese village, on the Nile River, south of the borders with Egypt. In America for about 35 years, almost every year since 9/11 attacks, I spend a weekend at a Catholic monastery, near Washington, DC, and more than once I fasted Ramadan there.

I have divided the book according to the almost four decades I have been in America (1970′s, 1980′s, etc).

The last chapter will have some “déjà vu,” observations about Muslims who came to America after me, those I know or learned about.
According to the similarities of their experiences to mine, I grade them by years: 1970, 1980, up to 2010. I do the same for Muslims who were born in America, according to the experiences of my three children, now grown-up and left home.

Saqib Ali’s complains of Muslim imams who came from the Middle East, and the wide gap he had noticed between his way of thinking and theirs, seem similar to those of my children.

Ali complaints were published in a piece in “The Washington Post” about Muslims in America, written by its reporter Marc Fisher. (Read below).

Yesterday, I wrote a “News and Views” opinion that criticized Fisher and said that he was unfair to the Muslims in America because he showed them as: (a) unable to win the trust of “mainstream America” and (b) because of that, having doubts about themselves.

Ali seemed to have fallen in that trap; she complained about Middle Eastern imams—and she was correct – without giving them the credit of, at least, working hard to spread the word of Islam.

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NEWS: “WASHINGTON POST”: UNDER SUSPICION: AMRICAN MUSLIMS SEACH FOR IDENTITY TEN YEARS AFTER 9/11:

… “In my parents’ generation, there was more of a sense of clinging to a foreign country, and with that, more of a religious orthodoxy,” says Saqib Ali, 36, a software engineer and former Maryland state legislator…

“People of my generation are much more confident and more assertive of our rights. We’re not just thankful to be allowed in this country. Unfortunately, as younger Muslims fell away from that level of devotion, the people who retained power were the most orthodox.”

Charities preaching an ultraconservative brand of Islam remain important donors to many Muslim schools and mosques…

And most U.S. mosques are still led by imams trained overseas, often in the fundamentalist tradition, complicating efforts by the next generation to mold a distinctly American brand of Islam…

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