Open letter to Condoleeza Rice

An Open Letter to Condoleeza Rice
From Anisa Abd el Fattah

December 29, 2008

Dear Secretary. Rice,

Since there was no one to respond to your December 28th statement condemning Hamas for launching rockets into Israel, and blaming Hamas for the end of the cease fire with Israel, and Israel’s subsequent massacre in Gaza, it seems appropriate that I respond to you since I follow the Palestine/Israel conflict closely and I happen to know that neither the facts, or international law agree with your statement, and neither do most of the people of the world.

As an American woman, and also a woman of African American descent, I am shocked by your total disregard for the loss of innocent human life taking place in Gaza. Obviously the history of your own people has had little effect on your sense of justice, and even though you are Secretary of State, you also seem to have absolutely no knowledge of, or respect for international law.

According to the law, Israel is a belligerent and illegal military occupier of Palestine. This might not agree with your Zionist Christian view, but it is the view of those human beings who respect law and justice, and who realize that there can never be peace without these two essentials. Hamas is not bound by Talmudic or Biblical law, and neither are they bound by US law. They are only bound by international law which includes the Geneva Conventions, a treaty to which the US is a signor. We signed this treaty with the intention to serve all of humanity equitably, and not only Jewish people, or Israel.

Israel not only failed in its duty to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, which is only part of their Geneva Convention obligations, Israel went so far as to actually impose an illegal economic blockade upon the Gaza Strip that resulted in the deaths of 251 people. It did this with the approval of the Bush Administration, in violation of international law.

The US has continued to arm Israel and to provide military and security aid to Israel, even though Israel is clearly in violation of US law. The law prohibits the use of US manufactured armaments and monetary aid to carry out illegal acts of aggression, war crimes, or to violate human rights. Israel is guilty of all three of these prohibitions, yet the US has continued to turn its head to Israel’s crimes, and we continue to fund and supply Israel, and we also continue to block all attempts by the UN Security Council to bring Israel into compliance with international law.

As for the cease fire, the terms were clear. They included a cessation of Palestinian rocket fire in exchange for Israel ending the economic blockade. To impose an economic blockade, according to international law is an act of war. The Palestinians were within their right not only to launch rockets in an attempt to pressure Israel to lift the blockade, they also have a right to defend themselves, acting to deter Israeli violence which never abated even after the cease fire came into effect. Israel killed 50 Palestinians in one month, and Hamas held to the cease fire and asked other Palestinian resistance movements to do the same, hoping that the international community would convince Israel to abide by the cease fire agreement. It never happened.

Israel is not justified in its brutal attack upon Gaza that has so far taken more than 300 innocent lives, and injured 1000 others. Whether or not the US and Israel are able to understand this, the facts of these matters have been documented by numerous human rights organizations, including Israeli human rights organizations, and are available to any interested party. The fact is that Israel is carrying out one of its numerous acts of illegal military aggression, and war crimes in Gaza, and your administration has given Israel tacit approval, and possibly even made the US complicit in this act.

During your 4 year tenure as Secretary of State, the United States has suffered the greatest loss in credibility and international prestige in our country’s history. The US veto of the UNSC resolution calling for Israel to end its military aggression against Gaza is an example of why this loss occurred, and your statement blaming Hamas for Israel’s violence is another.

Ultimately, neither my opinion of the facts or yours will make much difference in respect to what will be the verdict of an international court, once any willing court takes up the case of Israel’s 50 year illegal occupation of Palestine, genocide, and the US role in that genocide

As international public opinion continues to mount against Israel and its continued violence and militarization and destabilization of the Muslim world, you should keep in mind that it is also mounting against the US. The US and Israel have been voted “the greatest threats to peace” in the world. This should make it easy for a judge or jury to reach the appropriate conclusion as to who violated the cease fire, and who has a right to self defense.

One can only imagine our country’s founders crying in their graves at the very thought that our country, once an independent and powerful beacon of light to the oppressed, and those longing for freedom, has become a quisling and sycophant of a brutal and lawless occupier, that is destroying the birthplace of Jesus Christ, which is in Palestine. That Israel chose to carry out this carnage only days after Christmas is very telling. Perhaps it is indicative of how much Israel appreciates the loyalty and support of America’s “new” Christian Zionist Jews and their American Zionist Jewish counterparts.

Everyday is Ashurah; Now Gaza is Karbala

The story of Imam Ali's son Hussein and his death at Karbala is a story that touches the heart of anyone who hears or reads it. It is the story of a man, who like his father and grandfather before him had immense love for God, and God's creation. Whereas Imam Hussein is the grandson of the prophet Muhammad (sa), and was born to the prophet's daughter Fatima, and his first cousin Ali, himself an Imam and successor to the leadership of the Islamic community, Imam Hussein was not a conceited, or spoiled and selfish man, as many might expect that a person of such esteemed lineage might be.

According to Islamic history, Imam Hussein lived a quiet and simple life of service in Medina, aware of the controversy surrounding his family, and the role they might play in the growth of Islam, and in the leadership of the Muslim community established under his grandfather's and father's tutelage and guidance, along with other faithful men.

Unfortunately the rift that had occurred in the Muslim leadership following the prophet Muhammad's transcension of this life had not healed itself, and the assassination of Imam Hussein's father Imam Ali, and his brother Hasan had only worsened the situation. For some, even though the Caliphate continued, the question of legitimate leadership over the Muslim community remained unanswered.

Many Muslims were complaining about the Caliph Yazid's corruption, ill treatment and oppression, and many were also dismayed by the lack of character and lack of respect for Islam demonstrated by Yazid who was known for public drunkenness and debauchery. It was the pleas of the Muslim ummah for relief, for justice, and for Islam that called Imam Hussein to Karbala.

For the sake of brevity we will say that Yazid as Caliph raised a myriad of important questions regarding the legitimate leadership of the Muslim community, particularly since it had been argued and accepted by the Muslim community following the prophet Muhammad's transcension, that succession in the Caliphate could not be based upon blood lineage, even though God's promise to the prophet Abraham was that the prophethood and leadership of the monotheist movement would be the right only of his descendants, which suggests blood lineage succession, qualified by the Islamic character and suitability of any contender for leadership of Muslims. Even if Yazid escaped rejection as a blood heir of the previous Caliph Muawiya, Yazid's public and well known violations of Islamic law, and his open disdain for Islam, and oppression of Muslim people, disqualified him from holding the position of guardianship and leadership of Muslims that was the Islamic Caliphate.

For days before their deaths, Imam Hussein and his family and followers, who had set up camp at Karbala, were surrounded by Yazid's army and prevented from leaving. They were denied food, and water until they grew weak from starvation and dehydration. When Yazid felt finally that they were too weak to fight, he unleashed his entire army against Imam Hussein's family and 72 of his followers and killed them.

The story of Karbala is the story of a power usurping Satanic system of corruption and evil, represented by Yazid Ibn Muawiya, that employed as a tactic to destroy the legitimate authority of God conscience and righteous men over God's community of Muslims, the restriction of their movement, the denial of food and water, and later the denial of care for the wounded, even among the children. These righteous people, the family and supporters of Imam Hussein, were rushed upon in a final assault by Yazid's army, and brutality murdered and left to die on that battlefield. Imam Hussein's surviving family members were paraded to Yazid's capital, where the Imam's sister Zainab was chained and stripped of her Islamic covering.

Contrary to what Yazid had hoped for, a celebrated day of victory and consolidation of his power, the people, when they saw Imam Hussein's flag, and family, and heard Zainab's condemnation of Yazid, and her condemnation of the apathy and cowardice of the Muslim people, and her brother's brutal murder, they wept, screamed and fainted at the realization that the Imam, grandson of the prophet Muhammad (sa), and a righteous man, had been martyred so brutally for their sake, and for the sake of Islam.

The political backdrop of Karbala has lost much of its relevance to today's generation of Muslims, many who live in non Muslim countries, or in Muslim nation/states that are ruled by elected governments and monarchs. The Islamic caliphate has ceased to exist. Yet, the humanitarian aspects of the story continue to haunt the souls of Muslims until today, as we ponder the meaning of Imam Hussein's death, and the humiliating treatment that he and his family and followers suffered before their deaths at Karbala.

As we reflect upon what happened at Karbala, we should also reflect upon what is happening to the contemporary Muslim community today, and ask ourselves “why?” We must look out at the Muslim world, and see if there are any patterns that might suggest that there is a Karbala taking place in our time, and like the Muslims during the time of Imam Hussein, perhaps we are ignoring or failing to respond to the call to stand and to fight against the enemies of Islam, as they attempt to remove any semblance of Islamic authority from this earth, and who routinely deny Muslims civil and human rights that are recognized as the inalienable rights of other people.

Today, there is a place where a legitimate Muslim government was elected. There is a place where that government and the people who voted for them have been isolated and trapped, and are being denied food and water, just like at Karbala. Just as during the time of the Karbala massacre, today the people of the Muslim world complain about the corruption of their governments, their greed, repression and the deprivation of human and civil rights, and their collaboration with the enemies of Islam. In response to the cries of their people against the “Yazid's” of our time, the Islamic movements have competed for the restoration of the right of the Muslim people to Islamic inspired government.

Today, Karbala is in Gaza. Several years ago, this same tragedy played itself out in Algeria. This same story is also playing itself out in Somalia, and anywhere that a legitimate Islamic government, or Islamic movement attempts to establish itself through legitimate elections as a righteous authority over Muslim people, and are met with violence.

As we can see clearly in respect to Israel, and the support it receives from the Arab governments in its persecution and genocide being carried out in Gaza, this is not a matter of conflicting races, or differences in religion. The issue today, is as it was at Karbala is who has the right to authority, leadership and guardianship over the Muslim ummah? Is it Israel? Is it the US, or the UN, or the corrupt Arab governments that have helped and supported the US and Israel as their patrons and who assist them in killing, torturing, and eliminating through slow genocide, the Muslim and Christian people of Gaza?

Today, Gaza is Karbala. Where are the supporters of Abraham's covenant, and the right of the Islamic movements to exist, and to bid for the leadership of the Muslim ummah? Where is the so called “democracy” of the US and Israel? Where is the loyalty and the commitment to Islam of the Arab leaders who are today calling for normalized relations with Israel, while Israel is killing through ethnic cleansing and genocide the people of Gaza? Do they have a right to lead us, to control our wealth, to sell our lives for money and acceptance by the US and Israel as friends and allies?

The time has come for the Muslim people to take the responsibility to end the illegal siege on Gaza. We must act to save the people of Gaza, and to break the siege not only upon Gaza, but upon Muslims everywhere who have been denied rights, persecuted, murdered, tortured and humiliated all for the sake of eliminating the Abrahamic covenant that is the basis of legitimacy for anyone who bids to lead, or to hold any authority over monotheist people, and its heirs.

Today, it is our turn to answer the call of Imam Hussein. Who will go to Karbala? Who will stand with the 1.5 million people of Gaza who are being killed today because they voted an Islamic movement into power? Who will stand for the Qur'an which says that we must oppose those who kill and deprive people of rights, and who would starve innocent people to death because they don't share their opinion or world view?

Today, just as during those days of Karbala, the question is being asked in heaven and earth, who will choose the leaders of the Muslim people? Who are the legitimate leaders of the Muslim people? Who will save the people of Karbala?

US/Israeli war on terrorism is a war against the US Constitution and citizen rights

The US/Israeli war on terrorism is a war on the US Constitution and citizen rights
Anisa Abd el Fattah


Zionist columnist, and seeming Islamophobe Diana West wrote an article published by the Washington Times earlier this month, implying that due to my previous association with a pro-Palestinian think tank named UASR, that I am an Hamas operative living and working in the US on behalf of Hamas. West claimed that UASR's former Executive director Ahmed Yousef fled the US, fearing indictment in the Fawaz Damra case, suggesting not only that Yousef is a criminal of some sort, but that my association with Yousef implies that I am too. Ahmed Yousef, a US educated PH.D, is a Palestinian who was born and raised in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza. He presently serves as Senior Advisor to the PA Foreign Minister.

West's article also mentioned Dr. Mousa Abu Marzook, a Palestinian, and a member of the Hamas politburo in Damascus. Marzook, was one of the founders of UASR four years prior to his association with Hamas. He did not begin his association with Hamas until after he had ended his relationship with UASR. After being detained in the US during the Clinton administration without charge, he was released from custody after Israel was unable, and unwilling to charge Marzook with any crime. Marzook was later deported from the US and released into the custody of Jordan. It was in respect to the Marzook case, which was heard in a New York district court under the jurisdiction of the present US Attorney General Michael Mukasey, that a US District court judge Kevin Duffy, wrote that it is the duty of the judiciary to act in concert with the foreign policy objectives of the Executive branch. This was the first neo-conservative challenge to the US Constitution's separation of powers doctrine, and also the first judicial attack on the idea of an independent judiciary, a hallmark of the Bush administration.

Fawaz Damra, who Diana West attempted to use as the the lynch pin, along with guilt by association to condemn Ahmed Yousef, is a Palestinian cleric who was detained, and later charged during Bush administration witch hunting, with lying on his immigration application. He was deported for checking a box on his immigration application, saying that he had never had any association with illegal, or terrorist organizations while in his native country. Damra had completed the application, and immigrated legally to the US prior to Clinton's illegal Executive order, classifying Hamas a terrorist organization. Clinton issued this order, even though the Geneva Conventions, in quite clear and unambiguous language protects the rights of people living under illegal military occupation to self defense, and resistance, even violent resistance. While the American Jewish community argued that the Geneva Conventions were created to protect Jewish life only, most scholars of international law agree that the Geneva Conventions aim to protect the lives, and property of all people, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or nationality.

The United States is a party to the Conventions, having both signed and ratified the Conventions, having done so with the protection of US military and civilians during periods of armed conflict in mind. Unfortunately, no legal challenge has ever been presented to the Clinton order, asking if it is possible for a sitting president to issue an Executive order that not only violates international law, but that also criminalizes, and at the least violates treaties that the US is party to. Note that the violation of treaties signed by previous US administrations was also a tactic employed by the Bush administration, and even more ironic, it is one of the conditions that the US placed upon Hamas, that it recognize all previous PLO signed agreements and treaties.

Bill Clinton's willingness to violate the Geneva Conventions in order to remove the rights of Palestinians to defend themselves against what was already a brutal and vicious Israeli genocide and attempted ethnic cleansing, was part of his policy of US “unconditional support” for Israel. His criminal executive order effectively criminalized Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups, making Israeli targeted assassinations legal, since it was deemed part of the strategy and one of the tactics employed by Israel in its fake war against terrorism. By issuing his illegal Executive order, Bill Clinton sought to remove the human and divine rights of the Palestinian people by not only making acts of resistance against the Israeli occupation criminal, but also membership in any organization that had ever sought to defend or to protect Palestinian life against illegal Israeli aggression, and war crimes that were being carried out almost daily in Palestine with impunity.

While the implications and effects of Clinton's Executive order criminalizing Hamas are well known in respect to the rights of Palestinians to organize to defend their lives, and to resist the genocide being carried out by Israel with unconditional US support, and financing, few understood how that Executive order would effect the lives of American citizens here in our own country, who oppose the current US policy towards Palestine, and US unconditional support for Israel.

After West's article was published, my life, and even perhaps the lives of my family have been in jeopardy. Helicopters routinely fly around my home, almost daily someone is at my door, using various tactics to learn who lives at my address and at what time we are home or not at home. We receive constant telephone calls where people hang up after hearing my voice, or where they ask for various family members by name, in an attempt to determine who is at home, and when. We receive veiled death threats in the mail almost daily. These include offers for cemetery plots, and funeral insurance, etc. My son was forced to leave college because of being robbed and threatened almost daily on his trips to and from campus. When we advised the University about the threats to his safety they refused to do anything to help, and so he withdrew.

My family and I have been followed, and we have had strange incidents take place where our personal property has been vandalized. Perhaps the most startling and troubling offenses have taken place over the past few weeks, where we have been very obviously followed, approached by strangers with requests to identify ourselves, and just this weekend our telephone was temporarily disconnected late at night for no apparent reason. When we left home to go out for dinner, a car that set suspiciously at the end of our street made it quite clear that whoever was in the car was watching, and also following us. My bank illegally over drafted my account by refusing to make funds available even though the funds were deposited, causing checks to bounce, and adding fees until the account could not be redeemed. When the Zionist in America said that no one who opposed them would be allowed to have a home, a job,or peace, they meant that they would use their operatives to torment and to harass any American citizen that would dare to criticize Israel, or to challenge Israel's authority over our government and rights.

Praise God that we are not a timid people, and we are not living in fear. We do not believe that these people have any power over life and death, and we have put our trust in God, and God is sufficient. My reason for mentioning these incidents is merely to allow readers to understand that our government, and not only the Bush administration has been involved in an illegal war on dissent and resistance that is not limited to Iraq, or Afghanistan, and that began long before 9/11. It has not been limited to foreigners and illegal immigrants. It is also to point out that the criminal conspiracy against rights in our country includes possibly journalists, and others who hold what appear to be the most non threatening positions in our society, including schools, universities, libraries, and post offices, as examples.

The Jewish Defense League, the Jewish Organization, the Kahane settlers movements, which are funded by synagogues and churches here in the US, even though they are also deemed terrorist organizations, but not by Executive order, operate freely and openly in the US. Their mission is to harass, intimidate and to gather information on Americans who are pro-Palestinian and who criticize Israel, and to use that information as secret evidence and to prompt law enforcement to assist them in their efforts to deprive citizens of rights and to harass. Articles have also been published recently, after the suspected murder of the pro-Palestinian activist Riad Hamad in Texas, that our government, as part of Clinton's doctrine of unconditional support for Israel, gave the Israeli Mossad the go ahead to carry out targeted assassinations in the US, of pro-Palestinian US citizens. The Bush administration has been accused of giving Israeli communications and intelligence officers the go ahead to illegally wiretap US homes, and to carry out illegal surveillance on citizens for these same purposes. Can anyone explain what the Israeli intelligence has to do with Iraq or Afghanistan, if indeed these are the theaters for the war on terrorism?

That part of the so-called war on terrorism that is being carried out here in the US, began before 9/11. It is part of the war on terror declared by Benjamin Netanyahu, prior to, yet possibly including 9/11, that sought to accelerate the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestine, using unconditional US support, and our government institutions on behalf of Israel. Our government was used to round up, detain, interrogate and torture Palestinian and other Arab and Muslim foreigners living in the US who were either politically active, or orthodox in their practice of Islam, seeking information about back home, and also to prevent them from letting Americans know the truth about what Israel does in Palestine. Its aim in the US, is also to shut down US citizen dissent and opposition to US unconditional support for Israel, and to criminalize all criticism of Israel as either anti-Antisemitism, or material support for terrorism, and to use secret evidence as a pretext for harassment, intimidation, illegal wiretapping, surveillance and even murder of US pro-Palestinian, anti-war and anti-Zionist activists. Most secret evidence by the way, has historically been provided by the media.

It should be president elect Barack Obama's first priority to end this travesty of justice and the betrayal of the public trust that it represents. In his determination to restore our Constitution and the rights and liberties of American citizens that have been trampled upon by previous administrations who have seemingly collaborated with a foreign government to undermine the US Constitution, president elect Obama must reconsider US “unconditional” support for Israel and what that means, especially in respect to the rights of US citizens.

This article's emphasis on the US aspect of the war on terrorism is not to belittle the importance of the human and civil rights of none citizens that have also been trampled upon even though they are guaranteed under separate but equally legitimate doctrines of law. Rather it is merely an attempt to bring attention to the impact that the war on terrorism is having on the lives of American citizens here in the US, who like other Americans in our country's past, suffered similar government abuses, and injustices in their struggle for equal rights, protection under the law, and who won.

When economy kills

Ma'an news agency reported from Palestine, that Mahmoud Abbas and other members of the Fatah party, entered Egypt this week through the Rafah Crossing to attend a preliminary Palestinian national dialogue meeting. Earlier in the week, it had been announced that Egypt would open the crossing for up to three days to allow Palestinians to come through the crossing, and receive medical care. It was not clear whether Abbas and company took advantage of the three day opening, or whether Egypt had made special arrangements for Fatah . Just months earlier, Egypt had denied a delegation of its own people the right to use the Rafah crossing to deliver much needed humanitarian aide to the Gaza Strip.

Looking at the picture of very well dressed, and well fed men, walking casually across the border from Palestine into Egypt, might cause readers to ask themselves “why” if it is so easy to open the crossing, and to allow people to move freely back and forth, are 1.5 million Palestinians being denied passage, and remain prisoners in the Gaza Strip, victims of an illegal US/Israeli/Egyptian economic siege? “Why” are food, medical supplies, and other items essential for normal life, being denied entry into Gaza through the Rafah crossing, yet Abbas and his Fatah colleagues are allowed unfettered passage?

The closure of Rafah crossing is only one of the many injustices presently being imposed upon the people of Gaza and the West bank by the US, Israel, Egypt and Fatah. Other countries, along with the EU have condemned the siege and have called for an end to the inhumane psychological and physical torture that results from deprivation of food and medicines. The siege was imposed originally to punish the Palestinians for electing Hamas to lead the Palestinian legislative council, and to pressure Hamas into abandoning the role it plays as the de facto government in the Gaza Strip. An Egyptian official admitted recently that Egypt's closure of Rafah crossing is also aimed at denying Hamas legitimacy. That is a fancy way of saying that Egypt is helping to starve and torture 1.5 million people because it wants to cancel the outcome of a democratic, legal and legitimate elections process.

To seal the Palestinians inside Gaza, and to deny them freedom of movement, and also food, and other life sustaining items is criminal. It is reminiscent of the illegal economic embargo that was placed upon Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion and subsequent war. Approximately 600,000 Iraqi children were allowed to die as a result of those sanctions, many from curable and treatable diseases. The Clinton administration oversaw that deliberate war crime, and when asked if the deaths of so many innocent children was worth the toppling of the Hussein government, then Secretary of State Madeline Albright answered that it was worth it. She said that regime change in Iraq was worth the lives of 600,000 Iraqi children. Today, the US, Israel and Egypt are telling us that the deaths of 255 Palestinians and the torture by deprivation of necessary food and medical supplies, and psychological distress of 1.5 million Palestinians is worth it, if it leads to Hamas being forced from power, and people being discouraged from supporting or electing Islamic movements. Is that a war on Islam?

Predictably, the US media does not mention the Gaza economic siege. The US media will not report on the 255 deaths in Gaza, caused by our government's despicable and criminal foreign policy, just as they would not report on the 600,000 Iraqi children killed by economic sanctions in Iraq, or the over 1 million innocent Iraqis that have been murdered in order to accomplish regime change and to destroy Iraq.

What is most disturbing about the use of economy to kill and to coerce political outcomes, is that it is an indiscriminate way to kill that is both unjust and immoral. It is a weapon of mass destruction. It is a way to kill, and to maim and to hurt and psychologically torture that bears no obvious expense, except life, and the cost that we pay when our moral compasses are broken by sin and shame, and our respect for the law is eroded by such a strong and demonic lust for power and control that we can kill innocents, hoping to make a political point. Keep in mind that no one is hurting us. No one is attacking us, and no one is threatening us. The illegal economic siege on Gaza is an economic war of choice and convenience. Something that we do, simply because we can.

It's ironic that the West is now experiencing an economic melt down of its own. The “crisis” as they call it was brought about by our own greed, and fraud. It may also be the result of our willingness to use economy to kill others. Was it worth it? Only time and history will tell.

Palestinian reconciliation should be guided by Palestinian basic Law

If anyone were to ask what has been the most complicating aspect of the Palestine/Israel conflict, most observers would perhaps say that the complete departure from international law as a context for all negotiations and agreements has kept this dispute alive for 60 years. It is the deliberate attempt to resolve issues that are as much legal as they are political, by negotiating the wants and desires of either side, agreements that in some cases actually violate international laws, that has made past agreements mostly meaningless, difficult to understand, unjust and never adhered to. Indeed many might argue that without a legal basis or context, most of the negotiated agreements such as the failed Oslo Accords were counter intuitive and could never have succeeded, since the entire premise of a negotiated settlement that would seek to rewrite or to undermine international law would at some point be rejected by a majority of people whose concept of justice has been shaped by centuries of legal philosophy, and no where is this more true than in the Arab/ Muslim world.

Whereas very few of the Arab or Muslim countries have adopted Shariah or Islamic law as their primary law, Muslims without doubt have internalized Islamic legal philosophy and our ideals of right and wrong, what is just and unjust, and what is good and bad are shaped by the Qur'an, the Seerah of the prophet Muhammad (sa) and also by hadith litertaure. The Islamic legal philosophy is so much a part of the Muslim and Arab culture, that when confronted with choices to be made between secular civil laws and Islamic laws, many will adopt the Islamic way with full conviction that the choice they have made is both right and just, in spite of the fact that the secular civil law might have given them some advantage. To atheists and those who do not believe that there is an overarching moral authority that sets laws for humanity, this idea may sound abstract, or even superstitious. Yet, when considered objectively, it becomes somewhat obvious that such faith in what are perceived as the laws of God are no more superstition ridden than belief in laws made by men who believe in God, or to abide by laws that have been inspired by religious or other sacred scriptures such as the Ten Commandments, Talmudic law, or even the legal philosophies of men like Thomas Aquinas. In other words, there is no escaping the fact that our modern ideas of law, and its objectives and ways are not necessarily modernized by a departure from our traditional beliefs. Modernization of law might be our acceptance of the idea that law and justice are not merely intellectual creations that lend themselves to utility and expediency. For our laws to have meaning for us, and to compel us, they must satisfy our sense of justice so that once defined, our laws become our way of life. When adhered to they become our guides, our inspiration, and also our guards against our passions and our imperfections.

It may not matter that groups of people have different laws, if we can agree that on some level, laws that are accepted by a majority of people as a legitimate law, and adopted by those people as their law, should be respected, and always taken into consideration. It seems that to do otherwise will cause us to continue to repeat the mistakes of the past that should have taught us by now, that no amount of imposition, whether it be through secular education, public censure and condemnation or isolation and criminalization, can remove the natural laws of justice from the heart of the human being, even if we are able to distort these laws with relativism, or to inject into the heart such dangerous poisons as racism, supremacism and Darwinism, which by definition is a fear of extinction due to imperfection.

When two groups that each have their own legal codes by which they live find themselves in a legal and political dispute, choosing a law to guide negotiations and to serve as a context for any subsequent agreements is necessary in my view. Both parties engaged in negotiations should first agree upon which law will be adopted as the guide for what is legal, not legal and legitimate or illegitimate in respect to identifying an authority, and the rights of that authority. This might be especially important when there are also political questions to be resolved. Since politics is primarily concerned with the distribution of power in relationships between people, we cannot escape the suggestion that any negotiations that involve politics must have a clearly defined and accepted legal dimension, and description of legitimate authority. The Palestine/Israel conflict is a prefect example of how we fail when we ignore the unique legal culture of groups, and their laws.

In respect to the Palestinian internal dispute between Hamas and Fatah, there is a need to recognize that Hamas is an Islamic organization. It has presented its ideals and activism to the international Muslim community through the prism of Islamic law and culture, and is accepted and loved by most Muslims, Arabs and others based upon this presentation. This means that Hamas is legitimized not only by the majority votes of the Palestinian people, who voted Hamas into political power. Hamas is also legitimized by popular international support of people of various religions, ethnicities and political affiliations, and it is accepted by these supporters as an Islamic organization, since it has never swayed in its claim of Islamic authenticism. It's demand that the world recognize the natural right of all people to resist genocide and to resist being ethnically cleansed from the land, and also to the right to exist is an appeal for legality, and not for merely political power.

Negotiations between Hamas and the secular Fatah movement, guided by the secular Egypt, that is already playing the role of Israeli facilitator in the illegal economic siege on Gaza imposed by Israel, will be complicated just as negotiations between the secular liberal Fatah and the Talmudic Judaic society that calls itself Israel have complicated and perplexed every opportunity for peace between Palestine and Israel.

In my humble opinion, Hamas and Fatah, before seeking to reach any substantive agreement on reconciliation, must assert the relevance and the legitimacy of their own Basic Law, and the tenets of that law, including the legal timing for the end of Abbas's term as President, without exception. The negotiations should not become a pretext for undermining the Basic Law, the very same Basic Law that confers legitimacy upon Hamas, not only as a political party, but also as an organized Palestinian resistance, organized for the purpose of liberating the Palestinian lands under illegal occupation, and defending those lands that are not, and most importantly the Palestinian people themselves. International law and the Palestinian Law, which does not violate in any way the Islamic law, nor insults the Islamic sensibilities and legal culture of the Muslim people, should be the guiding laws and context within which a Palestinian reconciliation is realized.

Just as over the years, Israel has used the arbitrary nature of negotiated settlements to stave off peace until it achieves the advantage in facts on the ground, and until it has beaten down its adversary's spirit for resistance and made opposition appear hopeless, negotiated agreements about power sharing and reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah have this same potential for abuse unless they are guided by the Palestinian Basic law, and Islamic legal culture. Any terms of reconciliation or power sharing that offends the moral and legal sensibilities of the Palestinian people and the international Muslim community are not likely to succeed.

The believing people must always keep in mind the promise found in the Qur'an in Chapter 24, verse 55, where God says,

“ God has promised to those among you who believe and work righteous deeds, that He (God) will of a surety, grant them in the land, inheritance as He granted it to those before them. That He (God) will establish in authority their religion, (law and culture) the one which He (God) has chosen for them. And that He (God) will change their state, after the fear in which they lived, to one of security and peace; “They will worship God alone, and not associate anything with God. If any do reject faith after this, they are rebellious and wicked.”

So establish regular prayer and give regularly in charity, and obey the prophet that you may receive mercy.

Never think that the unbelievers are going to frustrate God's plan on earth. Their abode is the fire, and it is indeed an evil refuge.”

Ending the War in Iraq

Without doubt, learning that we have sent hundreds of thousands of our children, husbands, wives, sisters, and daughters off to fight and die in a foreign land, on a suspect mission has caused our country’s mood to be a bit sour. The worst part of not finding WMD in Iraq is that there were US politicians who continue to be held in high esteem, who would not simply admit that something has gone terribly wrong, and that the price paid is too high. Instead, some of our most respected and senior officials sought to continue the charade, suggesting that perhaps a nuclear weapons program that supposedly was an imminent threat just months earlier, had been moved underground in Iraq.

Was it possible that the same sophisticated satellite system that had revealed the locations of underground bunkers that were being destroyed by bunker busting bombs could not reveal a massive hole being dug and an entire nuclear weapons project being buried underground. No one even attempted to explain why the US troops on the ground during the period between the invasion and the search for the nuclear weapons program did not see any digging, or burying of Iraq’s nuclear weapons project. If pressed on the issue, the answer was that such information; or rather explanations and excuses are classified.

Also important is the fact that no one, even as we were supposedly waiting for Saddam Hussein to prove that he had in fact disassembled his nuclear weapons program years earlier, thought to simply request that the UN submit its records to its own Security Council. UN inspection records proved that Iraq had in fact ended its nuclear weapons program and those UN inspectors had seen the evidence and were satisfied that Iraq had no nuclear weapons program that posed an imminent threat to anyone.

The Iraq war incident will go down in history as the greatest lie with the most horrible consequences, ever told. More than 4000 Americans dead, thousands of more brain damaged and disabled, and a record number killed by their own hands, a result of the evil racist pseudo religious fanaticism that was allowed to seep into the ways of war, transforming some of our soldiers from honorable men and women, into murderers, torturers and ideologues, killing and intimidating people and destroying their lives, simply because they are different. War might be hell, but our military is not intended to be the devil. Our mythology is heroic and honorable, and we have always believed that we send our soldiers into the battlefield as honorable and heroic men and women.

It has always been our country’s intention to serve the world as protectors of the weak. Until now, we have seen ourselves as not only an honorable people, but also as a virtuous people, bound together by a Constitution that conveys high ideas, and laws that stand as a guard between society and the misguided passions of extremist political factions, and especially those extremist factions that disguise themselves as the Church, the Synagogue, and/or the Mosque.

Iraq has demonstrated to us why it is so important that we protect the US Constitution and demand that it be adhered to, no matter under what circumstance. There is no doctrine that has proven its merit to any greater degree than our Constitutional doctrine of liberty that guided our country over 250 years of the greatest challenges and accomplishments in the history of modern mankind. The US Constitution is not merely a piece of paper, and it is not a theory. It is an idea that has yielded unmatched progress for a people bound by nothing more than belief in its simple, but powerful pronouncement of equality, liberty, and justice for all.

As our government continued to talk of victory in the Iraq war, it was becoming painfully apparent that victory has many meanings. To date, we have only been told that victory in Iraq means leaving Iraq stable, free of Al-Qadea and a friend to the US. Those who understand what stability means, know that Iraq will never stabilize so long as there are US troops on the ground in Iraq, and a war. Stability does not mean merely a cessation of violence. It means that the country has reached a point where its peace is sustainable without the use of military force. It is also common knowledge that Al Qadea fighters represent a small number of those who are fighting the US in Iraq. Most of the fighters are indigenous Iraqis who are fighting us because we invaded their country. They will not stop fighting us until the war is over. We can end this war through a treaty, or simply by declaration that our mission has been accomplished, the war is ended and we are mounting a diplomatic mission in Iraq that is aimed primarily at restoration.

As for Iraq being friends to the US and Israel…forget about that. Israel’s arming and military training of Iraq’s Kurds who were turned loose to carry out violence against other Iraqis in an attempt to carve out and create an area of Iraq, one with oil, that would serve the US and Israel has failed. That project is not likely to succeed because neither Turkey, nor Iran, nor Syria, nor Saudi Arabia, nor Jordan is likely to tolerate having an Israeli controlled Kurdish area of Iraq in their backyards, that is siphoning off Iraq’s oil to fuel Israel’s long hoped for period of development and industrialization, and its continued militarization of the region. Israel has sought to prevent the economic, political and social development of the Middle East countries by keeping the region impoverished, illiterate, politically paralyzed and at war. Ironically, as part of that region, Israel is doing the same to itself, and no amount of US money, or military might will be able to extricate Israel from its own self inflicted suffering.

It is time for the US to end the war in Iraq, and to bring our troops home. Our country cannot begin the much needed process of healing, so long as we are embroiled in a war. We cannot continue to worsen the wound, and expect to also heal. The Iraq war is nothing more than an attempt to recreate the Arab world in an ugly and unjust neo-conservative Zionist image. It is an image that the world, and most Americans reject, and rightly so.

Obama's passionate attachement to Israel contradicts his claim to good judgment

Barak Obama’s speech in Israel proves without doubt that the good judgment which he claims in respect to opposing the illegal US invasion of Iraq, fails him when it comes to the Palestine/Israel conflict. It is not clear whether Obama simply is not able to understand the importance of upholding international law in respect to the conflict, or whether he is so blinded by the myth of Jewish lobby absolute power and the prospect of winning the coveted US presidency, that when it comes to Israel, he simply cannot speak with the same courage and honesty that caused many to believe that he is in fact an agent of change.

A review of his speech given in Israel, and remarks that he wrote in a Holocaust museum guest book, indicates that not only does Obama lack the possession of an accurate history of the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine; he completely ignores the numerous relevant international treaties, conventions and UN resolutions that should regulate the US response and policy in respect to the illegal occupation.

As a private citizen, and perhaps even as a partisan Congressman, we might yield to a politician’s desire to follow his heart on such matters, particularly if his desire is based upon what he perceives as a popular position shared by a majority of his constituents. Yet, as President of these United States, he will be prohibited from formulating our foreign policy based upon his personal whims, passions, or desires, even if they are popular, since it is possible that popular sentiment can run counter to what is our national interest. Our President should be guided by law, and never by passion.

Obama’s decision to invoke passion, and to use his personal feelings as representative of a future US foreign policy, should he be elected President, was poor judgment in my view, and represents rather than change, more of the same. It showed that Obama has not grasped the extent to which the Palestine/Israel conflict impacts stability in the region, and how a balanced and dispassionate US policy is our greatest hope for peace.

Rather than to congratulate Israel and Hamas on the month long success of a cease fire agreement, or to mourn the continued and unnecessary loss of Palestinian life, taken by illegal Israeli settlers, and the Israeli army, Obama chose to invoke the Holocaust, thereby strengthening the false impression that it was Palestine, rather than Germany where the Holocaust took place. Palestine had nothing to do with the Holocaust, and the anti-Semitism that is blamed for the Holocaust was European anti-Semitism.

Good judgment if it is real, seldom fails. When it does, it is usually when we allow our good judgment to be overcome by bad advice. This is perhaps what has happened to Obama. It is also perhaps the same thing that happened to George W. Bush. If that is true, then his claim that McCain is more of the same will ring hollow as US voters begin to realize that so long as special interests are running our country, namely the Jewish Lobby, AIPAC and the Zionist Christian right, there will be no real change in US politics, only changes in Presidential names.

Israel must abide by ceasefire agreement and end illegal siege of Gaza

The Arab news is reporting that Hamas and Israeli diplomats met in Egypt this weekend to discuss the cease fire that came into effect approximately one month ago. It seems important to mention here that almost no one believed that the cease fire would last this long. Its success so far is due to the good graces of both the Palestinian resistance factions and Israel. Both sides have had to ignore some obvious violations of the cease fire agreement that was limited to Gaza and that does not include the West Bank.

In respect to Palestinian expectations and terms of the agreement, Israel’s refusal to end the year’s long economic siege of Gaza as agreed, poses the greatest threat to continued cooperation and calm. The Palestinian resistance factions made it clear during cease fire negotiations that their willingness to negotiate a cease fire did not result from anxiety over casualties caused by Israeli missiles or Israel’s routine and illegal military incursions. The Palestinian leadership in Gaza says it is compelled only by the desire to feed its people and to restore their human rights to have adequate food, water and health care. These are rights that are guaranteed under the Geneva Conventions and that are being illegally violated by Israel, aided by those countries who have with impunity denied the Palestinians these rights by cooperating with Israel to make the siege successful.

The siege is part of Israel’s grand strategy to ethnically cleanse Palestine. That alone should be sufficient cause for the countries of the world to stand against Israel, first in its application of the siege, and now in its violation of the cease fire agreement which states that the Rafah crossing, along with the other crossings into Gaza would be opened, thus ending the siege.

To those who would suggest that Israel’s other option is to carry out an all out military attack on the 1.5 million civilians who reside in Gaza, they should be advised that 1.5 billion Muslims will not allow it, and neither will millions of Arabs. If, as many pundits and analysts have detected, that the patience of Arabs and Muslims and other conscientious people, including many Jews, has worn thin in respect to continued Israeli violence against the Palestinians, there are no guarantees that Israeli military action will lessen demands to end the illegal Israeli siege. In fact it is likely that a return to violence will result in an even greater international outcry against Israel, the continued illegal occupation and the siege.

For their part, the resistance factions should perhaps continue to keep their end of the agreement and not return too quickly to missile attacks or other military acts of resistance in an effort to force Israel’s hand, or to punish Israel. As strange and counter intuitive as it may sound, the best approach for the Palestinians at this juncture might be to increase their appeal to the international community to call Israel to end its siege on Gaza, and to end the illegal occupation of Palestine. This will require increased diplomatic efforts in Africa, the Arab and Muslim world and Europe, and South America. These countries and peoples have leverage over the US that might outweigh the influence of American Jews and the Zionist Christians that have poisoned US foreign policy towards Palestine. Whereas it might be hard for any US policy maker to understand what benefit there might be in taking up the rights of Palestinians, they may be more sensitive to the moral appeal for justice, and human rights made by countries and peoples with whom the US desires trade and good relations.

Why oppression is worse than slaughter; Commentary on Qur'an, chapter 2, verse 217

God says in the Qur’an, in chapter 2, verse 217, the following:

“They ask thee concerning fighting in the prohibited month say: “Fighting therein is a grave offense. But graver it is in the sight of God to prevent access to the path of God, to deny Him (God) , to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, and to drive out its members. Tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter.

Nor will they cease to fight you until they turn you back from your faith if they can. If any of you turn back from their faith and die in unbelief their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the hereafter they will be companions of the fire and will abide therein.

The recent cease fire negotiated between Hamas and Israel is perhaps the most potentially important signed agreement between Israel and any group of Palestinians since the beginning of the Palestine/Israel conflict 60 years ago. Those who know the history of Israel’s founding know that Israel is an idea that took shape in blood. The Nakba or great catastrophe, along with the Dier Yasin massacre are examples of the brutal tactics that were employed against the Palestinian people from almost the first day of Israel’s so called independence. Whereas history has been revised to make it appear as though Israel came into being innocently and due to international altruism towards the Jewish people, the truth is that Israel, by necessity had as its original and founding intent, to displace the indigenous Palestinian people from Palestine by any means. It is apparent now that it was always the intent of the Western powers to assist Israel in that task.

It is not secret, nor is it difficult to understand why Israel has sought to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people from Palestine and to kill them. It was necessary to displace or to eliminate the Palestinian people because Israel was founded with dual objectives, both of which required ethnic cleansing in order to succeed. According to its ideological founder Theodore Hertzel, Israel was to be established as a safe haven for a Jewish people who for centuries had suffered from various types of humiliation and democide (murder by governments) in Europe. For the West, Israel’s founding represented another attempt at achieving Western hegemony over the Arab Muslim world, and control of its resources through colonization, a goal that was sought after long before the British mandate or the UN partition of historic Palestine. The occupation of South Africa by Dutch Boers was the template for occupation and displacement of Black and Arab peoples in Africa and the Middle East. The destruction of the Ottoman Caliphate and subsequent secularization and supposed democratization of Turkey, and some parts of the Arab Muslim world had already been accomplished before Israel’s founding, setting the stage for the implantation of European colonies in the Muslim world.

Of all of the attempts at establishing Western colonies in the Arab Muslim World and Africa, the South African project is eerily similar to project Israel, and more so than any other colonization of the Arab Muslim world, or other parts of Africa or Asia. Aside from the establishment of a Jewish state in the Muslim world, the aim of colonization generally seems to have been the secularization of the Arabs by removing Islam from power in the region through the destruction of the Ottoman Caliphate, and to seize control of the regions natural resources, all to be accomplished with the cooperation of the puppet Arab regimes and monarchies. This should put the Bush administration’s democratization project and New Middle East scheme into perspective for those not familiar with Europe’s century’s long history of migration and misadventures in the Arab Muslim world and Africa under the cover of democratization, secularization, and free markets. Theodore Hertzel who was a European Zionist, and a secular Jew, understood Europe’s appetite for the Middle East and Africa, and in his treatise on the Jewish State, he makes it clear that in exchange for Europe’s money and protection, the Jewish State would forever serve the West as a military outpost against the spread of Islam into Europe and the West. Hertzel said that Israel would accomplish through ethnic cleansing, what Europe had failed to accomplish in the Crusades. This should make it clear that Israel was created for the purpose of ethnic cleansing, and to symbolize Western Judeo/ Christian Zionist domination of the region, its people and natural resources, and ultimately the world.

Not surprisingly, neither Israel, nor South Africa represents the first destructive collaboration between the Zionist Church and the secular state resulting in another type of exploitation of African resources. The African slave trade which was a product of European religious dogma, racial supremacism and greed, was protected and facilitated by the same type of Zionist interpretation of the Old Testament of the Bible that is employed by people like John Hagee, Pat Robertson, Rod Parsley and other so called Evangelicals today. The literal and highly politicized ideas taught by the historic Zionist European Church included the idea that whites or Europeans were racially superior to non whites and that by virtue of Jesus’ shed blood, the European Christian had become the News Jews, chosen people and heirs to the throne of David, thereby the divinely decreed and rightful masters of the world. Africans were depicted as sub human, without souls, and cursed by God to forever serve the white master who had descended from Noah’s favored son, while Blacks were depicted as the descendants of Noah’s cursed son Cush. Cush was supposedly cursed to servitude, according to the Old Testament, because he had laughed at his drunken father’s nakedness. This is the very same type of false Biblical interpretation of non authenticate texts, namely the Old Testament, that provided moral cover for the apartheid regime established in South Africa by Dutch Boers who claimed to be Jews and heirs to a promised land, and the European Jews represented by Theodore Hertzel who made the same claim about Palestine, and who have established an apartheid regime in Palestine, and the historic American slave traders and owners of this country’s past.

The similarities between South Africa and Israel don’t end with this controversial claim of supremacism. The brutal ethnic cleansing, the apartheid system that aimed at separating the so called European Dutch Jews from the Africans, and the Bantustans that were created to form a new homeland for the displaced South Africans have been duplicated almost exactly by the Israeli’s in Palestine who also claim to be Jews. The Dutch Boer’s Promised Land was not surprisingly near the diamonds and minerals and other natural resources of Africa, while the promised land of the so called Israeli Jews is located in a region of the world that is rich in oil and natural gas.

These similarities and ironies might explain better than any historian could, that the Israel project had dual purposes and both required the ethnic cleansing of the coveted land. From the religious perspective Jewish Talmudic law prohibits the cohabitation of Jews and Gentiles, and prohibits equal rights or any type of equality between Jews and Gentiles since they consider themselves the chosen people of God, which is the basis of Jewish supremacism, which is what Jewish Zionism is. The Christian Zionist Church has adopted the Talmud as a legal authority over the Church, along with the Jewish Old Testament, since they believe that by virtue of the crucifixion, they are also Jews, or chosen people who are obliged to honor and obey the contemporary Pharisees of Judaism who preside over the 21st century synagogue with the laws of the Old Testament and also the guidance of the Talmud.

Western colonialism in the Arab Muslim world and Africa is a history of both oppression and slaughter, carried out for dual purposes that include the satisfaction of Judeo/Christian religious sensitivities, and the greed of the resource poor Western governments.

Hamas/Israeli cease fire as first step towards liberation of both Palestine and Israel

The Qur’an suggests to us in Chapter2, verse 217, that the oppression resulting from project Israel is worse than the slaughter. The present Israeli/Hamas cease fire addresses both the oppression, and the slaughter, yet has made the alleviation of the oppression a greater priority. This decade’s long oppression has reached its climax in the imposition of the siege on Gaza that has led to deaths from curable illness, starvation and also from Israeli military attacks. This oppression includes the psychological trauma, and mental illness that is being created in the populations of both peoples, through what is obviously collective punishment in Gaza, and worse, a form of mass torture being carried out against Palestinians with impunity right before the eyes of the UNSC, and also the international courts, and the supposedly civilized world, that has caused Israel to be among the most hated and distrusted places in the world, and its people most despised.

What is not so obvious is the fact that the occupation is also destroying Israel. Israel’s citizens, who include Arab Christians as well as Muslims, Africans, South Asians and others, separate from the militant European Jewish settler’s movement, are equally victims of the Judeo/Christian fanaticism and racism that is threatening the entire world. In a noted tradition that is accepted as authentic by many schools of Islamic jurisprudence, it is suggested that the Muslim believer must have as a goal, not only saving the innocent from wicked oppressors, but we must also seek to save the oppressor. The hadith explains this type of salvation as liberation from being an oppressor, saying we are to liberate oppressors from oppressing. The Qur’an seems to support this idea, saying in one verse that the believer must recognize, and oppose the serious danger of the oppression that inflicts suffering not only upon the innocent, but also on the oppressors and perpetrators of violence and crime.

What is at stake?


To understand this comparison between oppression and slaughter better we should examine closely God’s explanation in the Qur’an. The Qur’an says,” Graver” than slaughter is, “to prevent access to the path of God, to deny God, to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, and to drive out the people of the Mosque.” In all of these instances the oppressive power is denying access, and driving the people out of a place where they have a right to be. Also, we know from the hadith that the entire world can be considered a place of worship (honor of God) or mosque, including our homes and our homelands, but only when they are free of idols, secure, stable and freed from all types of gross impurity.

The noted verse says that to prevent access to the path of God is graver in the sight of God than slaughter. Such prevention of access can perhaps be explained as creating an environment that is not conducive to the study of religion, or the practice of faith. This could be something as simple as making it impossible for a person to survive without committing sins like stealing, selling drugs, or prostitution, etc. And /or it could be as complex as creating such material, psychological and spiritual hardships that a previously believing people begin to question God’s existence, His love for His creation, and His power to save and sustain us, which could be explained as tests beyond what the people can bear.

The verse 217 also makes it clear that the intent of the oppressor, whether obvious to any of the parties to the conflict, is to cause believers to abandon their belief in One God, in His sovereign right to govern what He created, and His unique ability to protect us when we are obedient and disobedient, and to guide us to salvation and liberation, and what is best in this life and the afterlife.

Even at a distance from Palestine, it is hard to read that everyday Israel is violating the cease fire with more killing, while refusing to abide by the other terms of the agreement that call for opening the crossings thereby ending the brutal and illegal economic siege that is being inflicted on Gaza. It seems that Israel is persistent in its killing and its oppression. Still, in my humble opinion, it is incumbent upon the Palestinian Christian, and Muslim believers to stick to the terms of the cease fire. The Qur’an says in such circumstances that we must put our trust in God, and that He is our witness, who stands as surety for our oaths, and who protects us from the cunning and violence of our adversaries if we are sincere in our intent and purpose.

May God help, protect and guide.

The calm after storms in Palestine

“Though tears may fall throughout the night, joy comes in the morning”
The Book of Psalms



Congratulations to Hamas, Israel and Egypt on the announcement of a six month cease fire agreement. According to the Palestine Information Center, (www.palestine-info.co.uk) the ceasefire is to begin Thursday morning at 6:00 am. The Information Center is also reporting that along with an end to Israeli attacks on Gaza and also an end to Palestinian retaliation against Israel, the ceasefire agreement includes an Egyptian and Palestinian commitment to get the Rafah crossing opened, essentially ending the brutal and illegal Israeli economic siege on the Gaza Strip, allowing delivery of much needed humanitarian aide and access to health care. Delegations from Hamas, the EU and Fatah are to meet and to finalize the plans for opening the crossings.

If this cease fire succeeds, it will end the incessant bloodletting that has been taking place in Palestine since the beginning of the illegal occupation and initial attempts by Zionist terrorist organizations to ethically cleanse Palestine. It was Israel’s illegal attempts at ethnic cleansing that resulted in the formation of the PLO and other Palestinian liberation and resistance organizations. In spite of the propaganda being disseminated by the pro-Israel disinformation mills disguised as US media; the world knows that there is no question about which came first, the Israeli chicken or the resistance egg. Israel’s illegal occupation gave birth to Palestinian resistance, and it was Israeli violence and its repeated military attacks on mostly unarmed Palestinians that led to Palestinian rocket attacks on Southern Israel. The cease fire ends this cycle of violence that has resulted in too many deaths on both sides.

Palestine, and Egypt working cooperatively on the development of the Palestinian shoreline to create a Port and natural gas industry that can attract private investment to that region has a better chance of changing the future of the region’s people, than the failed “New Middle East” strategy that was the premise of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Clean Break policy paper that served as the blueprint for the genocide in Gaza, US invasion and destruction of Iraq, and the planned attacks on Syria and Iran.

The cease fire creates a new hope, and opportunity, even for Israel. It is a hope that is based upon the possibility of a new reality that casts Israel, rather than as an enemy, and European colonial military outpost in the heart of the Muslim world, as an independent nation/ state, that is working in peace and cooperatively along with its neighbors to stabilize and develop the region for the benefit of Israel and its neighbors, who should be its natural trading partners. As the economies of the West stall and sputter, it is an excellent time for Israel to consider its true independence, and its future as part of a Middle East economic bonus that is possible if the oil rich countries now flush with cash can be convinced that the region is stable, that Israel is sincere and that it is capable of peace.

If Israel proves that it is able to stand up as an independent entity that is capable of acting in its own interest, working cooperatively and peacefully with its neighbors in the region, ending illegal settlement building, and withdrawing to its pre 67 borders, a new Middle East will come into being. If Israel does not want to withdraw to its 67 borders, it might consider a bi-national or one state arrangement instead. On the other hand, if Israel continues to invest its future in the likes of the warmongers John Hagee, Pat Robertson and the other racist Zionist Christians and Jews who have caused the wars that led to the deaths of too many innocent Palestinians, Israelis ad Americans in pursuit of a fantasy that has no basis in any Holy Scripture, there is no hope for peace, and even worse, there is every likelihood that there will be more war.

A tariff free trade zone in Gaza and a Port along with a natural gas industry spells “New” Middle East in words not spoken, nor understood by the likes of Netanyahu, Feith, Perle and the other Clean Break conspirators who invested Israel’s future in a demoralizing war of attrition and genocide in Gaza, and illegal invasions death and destruction in other Muslim countries at US expense. Israel should recognize that there is no greater or more meaningful type of recognition than inclusion, and peaceful cooperation towards shared goals. It can happen once its neighbors are sure that Israel is capable of being a good neighbor and it no longer poses a nuclear or military threat to its neighbors due to its pursuit of expansion through military conquest, while using the US military as its proxy, and the US taxpayer as its financiers.

The ceasefire, if it holds, will, God willing, be a win/win/win/win proposition that even benefits the US. The cease fire represents an opportunity for our own clean break from an infantile Israel that can grow up and take its place among the world’s nation/states as a free and independent entity, part of a region that will accept its presence, yet will never tolerate its return to violence, expansion, exclusivism and ethnic cleansing. Israel’s independence will allow us to lessen foreign and military aide to Israel which has its own weapons manufacturing industry, its own military, economy and its own government. If Israel is to be sovereign, it must be independent, and self sufficient. An independent Israel also lessens its appeal to religious fanatics who are willing to kill us all for the false hope of rapture that is presently threatening to push us into another world war. Our own independence will also be restored, which allows us to formulate a foreign policy that reflects, and is in the interest of the United States, and its sovereign people.

Congratulations world, there is a ceasefire between Hamas and` Israel that will, God willing begin Thursday morning at 6:00am, and that will last for six months, and perhaps more. It is an historic possibility and milestone whose potential should not be underestimated. The international Muslim and Arab community should send special thanks to former US President Jimmy Carter who broke the barriers of fear and hate that helped make this break through possible, and also to the North African Muslim countries, and their leaders who offered to break the siege and to provide Gaza with fuel, and scheduled brief openings of Rafah Crossing for health care and humanitarian purposes. The power of these gestures were themselves a breakthrough that without doubt, signaled the world that for all intent and purpose, the siege was at that moment, broken. We should also send our eternal love to Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah who stood steadfast on behalf of Gaza and all of Palestine, at great risk to their own interests, and security. Everyone knows that the desire for war with Iran, Syria and Hezbollah is directly related to their courageous stands for liberation, justice and peace for the Palestinian people.

To those who question whether Hamas acted out of weakness or strength as it pursued this period of calm and ceasefire, Hamas spokesman Abu Zuhri’s statement posted on the Palestine Information Center site says that Hamas sees the ceasefire as a fruit of resistance, and says that its strength played a part in attaining the calm, and will also play a part in preserving the calm. He said that Israel is expected to also live up to its obligations under the agreement.

May God help and guide His Ummat, forgive us all for our sins and grant us peace and prosperity in exchange for our constant prayers, our broken hearts, our many sacrifices and our tears. Ameen.

Washington cannot change without change in US policy towards Israel

Talks of US and or Israeli attacks on Iran, along with the Democrat’s presumptive nominee for the presidency, Barak Obama’s remarks at AIPAC, that Jerusalem will remain Israel’s undivided capitol, are signs that nothing much will change in Washington’s foreign policy, no matter who wins the presidency. That’s bad news for the United States. The rest of the world is already preparing for at least 4 more years of US self destruction for the benefit of Israel. It’s only the US taxpayer who will be shocked to learn that the US has lost its hard earned credibility and its prestige over the years to accommodate a ghoulish Israeli penchant for death and destruction as public policy. The American tax payer will also be shocked to learn that our country’s foreign policy is based upon the irreligious and heretical belief that we can force God’s symbolic hand and bring about Armageddon so that a certain click of religious fanatics who wrongly call themselves Christians, can be raptured while the rest of us go to hell. It’s no secret to anyone now, that the US has been taken captive by a Judeo/Christian movement that is pretty much dictating US foreign and domestic policies, and also our country’s march to international isolation, condemnation and Armageddon, which by the way, includes the complete annihilation of Israel, not by Iran, but rather by the Judeo/Christian god who ever that might be, excluding Jesus or Yahweh, a/k/a Allah, a/k/a Jehovah.

The Judeo/Christian lobby, which consists of AIPAC, and also John Hagee’s pro-Israel organization and most of the Jewish American organizations worked successfully to co-opt the US media, and our legislature, and have and continue to use them both to carry out a campaign of defamation and vilification of Islam, Muslims, and Palestinians that makes McCarthyism look like a stroll in the park. Their influence over the executive branch of our government is also well known, which explains how Elliot Abrams, Condoleezza Rice and others at the US Department of State, and NSA can get away with scripting policies that underwrite genocide in Gaza, and nothing is said or done to stop them. The media will not facilitate a debate on the Gaza siege or anything related to US Middle East policy except whether or not we should negotiate with Iran and Hamas, which makes little sense since as the debate is ongoing, so is the genocide in Palestine, and the very real threat that faces Iran. So what’s to talk about, when we will stop killing and threatening, or when they will stop letting us?

Al Ma’an News is reporting from Palestine that PA president Mahmoud Abbas has called for a dialogue with Hamas that should begin immediately and without pre-conditions. According to Al Ma’an, the dialogue is aimed at unifying Palestine, and ending the animosity between Fatah and Hamas. It’s a wonderful idea whose time nearly passed. On the other hand, Fatah negotiator Saed Erakat reportedly said that all pre-conditions for the Fatah/Hamas dialogue still exist and that Hamas has failed in its attempts to administrate affairs in Gaza.

While Abbas is signaling that the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have reached their natural and predictable conclusion, which is probably more war, Erakat says that Palestinian negotiations with Israel must continue, which explains his conflicting remarks about the tentative Hamas/Fatah reconciliation, which if taken seriously, could hold the reconciliation off until Israeli violence escalates further, which will be too late. Erakat says the negotiations are the way to peace, and that peace and a two state solution are the goals. He obviously has not heard the credible and legitimate voices, East and West, Jewish and Gentile, who have stated, based upon historic evidence, that as far as the US and Israel are concerned, negotiations are the goal…period. Maybe Erakat is posturing to take the place of Abbas who will surely be pushed aside by the Quartet, and disqualified from negotiating with Israel by his desire to unite Palestine, and to end the divide and conquer policy that has only led to more talk, more illegal Israeli settlements, no cease fire and increased Israeli attacks in the West Bank and Gaza. Only a united Palestine can face the future that will be created for them by a Judeo/Christian controlled Washington DC, that will not be changed unless we can find a president who is willing and able to stand up to these forces and demand US independence, and who will reassert the first amendment of the US Constitution that prohibits our country from formulating public policies based upon religious laws or doctrines.

Bush’s willingness to adopt the brutally racist and fatalistic Judeo/Christian ideology that led us into an unnecessary war in Iraq that has bloodied US hands with the lives of over 1 million innocent Iraqis and more than 4000 of our own soldiers and Marines was achieved by isolating the executive branch, and surrounding Bush with Judeo/Christian pastors disguised as Middle East experts and family friends. These same people bribed and bought our Congress through Abramoff, and co-opted the media through suspect FCC regulations that allowed for media monopolies and the corporatization, and corruption of US media. It’s hard to imagine that any US presidential candidate or even a newly elected president will be able to dismantle, or purge this rouge government and its various estates in four years.

Barak Obama, who has opened a can of foreign policy worms with his AIPAC rhetoric, should be advised that he cannot change Washington without changing US policies. He must understand that ending the Iraq war is not merely a matter of withdrawing US troops, but includes US independence from Israel and its Judeo/Christian movement that is dragging the US towards Armageddon at the speed of light. Only international unity, and the cooperation and will to defeat this force will pull the world back from the brinks of World War III. So far, Obama has cried “change,” yet he increasingly sounds more like John McCain, and more of the same, and that does not bode well for the US or the Middle East, or the world for that matter.

Michelle Malkin: Enemy of the people and US Constitutiion?

After reading several of the right wing blogs, and the comments left mostly by right wing supporters commenting on the Michelle Malkin, Rachel Ray scarf situation, I realized that Michelle Malkin, who poses as a mere conservative columnist and commentator is actually more likely an enemy of the people of this country, that is out to undo our Constitution. I know it sounds far fetched, but when you read the titles of this woman’s books, and her opinions on rights and freedoms, it becomes pretty clear that she is no patriot, and that she has not grasped the importance of individual liberties as essential elements of freedom and self governance, and has no respect for US law and traditions.

Either like, or along with the Judeo / Christian religious right who is almost daily taking actions aimed at limiting, depriving and violating the constitutional rights of US citizens through the use of public censure, and threats, Malkin is out to demonstrate how the Constitution can be forced into obsolescence simply with a flick of the pen, a few wicked and inflammatory lies, and threats. Whereas the law may not necessarily prohibit the right of any person to hold a view such as Malkin’s, such tactics might be criminal if carried out with others like racketeering, according to some readings of the RICOH Act.

When such tactics and views become the methodology of choice for a number of people and organizations, working in concert, and very obviously acting to overthrow the constitution of this country and to replace it with their unethical, racist and fascist Judeo/Christian ideology, America has a problem and it’s bigger than Dunkin Donuts.

Anyone who remembers the run up to the Iraq war is familiar with these tactics. They were used to shut down, or vilify and silence all voices that opposed the war, or who challenged the lies disguised as intelligence that became the cause for war. We now know that the primary advisors to the President during that time were not military men, or even lawyers and Constitutional experts. The presidential advisers that helped lead us into an unnecessary war based upon lies were the Judeo/Christian movement pastors and political operatives that took over our government after 9/11 through political appointments, or who were granted access through US Congress people who eat from, and are sustained by the garbage in the Judeo/Christian Zionist trough. They are not finished. Bush has until January in office, and they plan to use that time to further their agenda. Having succeeded in imposing their devilish vision of Judeo/Christian dominance over the world, brought about through the use of US military force and proselytizing in Iraq, they are acting now to lead us into another unnecessary war, this time with Iran. Malkin, who wrote a book, explaining why Muslims, Arabs and other Americans should be held in detention camps as they prosecute these illegal wars, is now at work insuring that everyone is put on notice that there will be no dissent allowed this time either, not even symbolic dissent.

Malkin’s most recent assault against the American people and our US Constitution is her attempt to use public censure as a means to deny us our constitutionally protected rights to hold a dissenting and unpopular view, and also to hold and express a political opinion, and to express that opinion in our dress, or any other way that we and not Malkin chooses. Malkin and the right wing fascists that support her are a danger to the United States, since they threaten to overturn by stealth, everything that our founders and the noble men and women who struggled for freedom from the British Empire fought for without due process. It seems that they plan to take over the country, and in fact the world, by force.

The people of this country have a constitutionally protected right to hold unpopular and dissenting political and even religious views without the threat of organized campaigns designed purely to deny or to deprive us of those rights. American citizens also have the right to express such views, whether it is through our choice of clothing, or speech, or our choice of whom to financially support through financial contributions, etc. The Supreme Court has consistently upheld these rights, and has never wavered in its interpretations. Malkin or others have no right to organize to deprive us of our rights, or to threaten and intimidate businesses, and other institutions in this country with harm should they act in deference to the US Constitution and citizen’s rights.

Since this most recent effort by the fanatical right to undermine the US Constitution is centered on a scarf and a donut maker’s advertisement for coffee, it may seem to be a trite and unimportant incident. When we consider what is at stake, if every business in the US, every school, or other institution falls in lockstep with Malkin and her fascist cohorts, what we will loose will be the very Constitution that our founders and subsequent generations of patriots have fought and died for. Our freedoms and our rights will be past history. We will all be forced to live by the rules of John Hagee, Rod Parsley, Pat Robertson, and Joe Lieberman. Our country will be a place where we must all dress the same, think the same and worship the same, sacrifice our lives and treasure for Israel, or be subjected to organized campaigns of defamation and scourging, and censure.

Perhaps as a former soldier who once took an oath to protect the US Constitution and my country, I am particularly sensitive to the ploys of people like Malkin, and her co-conspirators. They claim to be patriots, while they are actually more likely to be subversives who use their rights to deny others the freedoms that God bestowed upon us all equally, regardless of our races, religions, or political affiliations.

If we are smart, we will not let this recent attack on the constitution just go away, and wait quietly for the fascist’s next assault. It’s time that the people of this country wake up, and realize that whether we like it or not, we are involved in a cold war for the very soul of our country, and the Constitution that protects that soul in the same way that Holy Books protect and validate the practice of religion.

We must not surrender to Malkin and those who feel that the US Constitution can be forced into obsolescence or rendered irrelevant by the force of public censure and threats. The United States is a republic that is governed by law, not public opinion.

We, the people, must organize to fight this cold war in defense of our constitution, never failing to speak and to stand for the unbridled constitutional rights of every citizen in this country, and especially the right to hold dissenting views, and to express those views whether it be through our choice of dress, fashion, fundraising, protesting, marching, speaking, etc., etc., etc., that we choose.

In my opinion, Michelle Malkin has proven on more than one occasion that she is a person who has not understood the US Constitution, and its significance. Perhaps she feels that we are all like Dunkin Donuts and the other people and institutions that she has whipped with her fascist tongue and pen, and threatened into conformity. We should let her, and her cohorts know that they have underestimated the American people, and that we also have a pen, and a cause.

I pray that every decent American who loves their country will boycott Duncan Donuts until they restore the Rachel ray advertisement. I hope that everywhere Michelle Malkin shows up to spread and spew her hateful anti-American venom, crowds of freedom loving people will be there to shout her down. The luxury of apathy has ended. Malkin fired one of many salvos fired by the Judeo/Christian fascist, when she sought to make the case that American citizens should be denied the right to political freedom and public expression, and that those who refuse to conspire with her and her fellow stooges should be threatened into complicity and conformity. We must respond equally, if not more forcefully, without using the fascist tactics they employ.

Part of this response must be to put US businesses and other institutions on notice. If they think Malkin and her crew are to be feared, imagine a United States run by the likes of Malkin, and the other right wing fascist who have taken over the US airways and blogs in an effort to systematically undermine the US Constitution, and to deny and deprive us of our Constitutional rights. If you want to live by the laws of Hagee, Robertson, Parsley and Malkin, keep kowtowing. If we want to remain free, we must fight back.

Michelle Malkin: Enemy of the People and the US Constitution?

After reading several of the right wing blogs, and the comments left mostly by right wing supporters commenting on the Michelle Malkin, Rachel Ray scarf situation, I realized that Michelle Malkin, who poses as a mere conservative columnist and commentator is actually more likely an enemy of the people of this country, that is out to undo our Constitution. I know it sounds far fetched, but when you read the titles of this woman’s books, and her opinions on rights and freedoms, it becomes pretty clear that she is no patriot, and that she has not grasped the importance of individual liberties as essential elements of freedom and self governance, and has no respect for US law and traditions.

Either like, or along with the Judeo / Christian religious right who is almost daily taking actions aimed at limiting, depriving and violating the constitutional rights of US citizens through the use of public censure, and threats, Malkin is out to demonstrate how the Constitution can be forced into obsolescence simply with a flick of the pen, a few wicked and inflammatory lies, and threats. Whereas the law may not necessarily prohibit the right of any person to hold a view such as Malkin’s, such tactics might be criminal if carried out with others like racketeering, according to some readings of the RICOH Act.

When such tactics and views become the methodology of choice for a number of people and organizations, working in concert, and very obviously acting to overthrow the constitution of this country and to replace it with their unethical, racist and fascist Judeo/Christian ideology, America has a problem and it’s bigger than Dunkin Donuts.

Anyone who remembers the run up to the Iraq war is familiar with these tactics. They were used to shut down, or vilify and silence all voices that opposed the war, or who challenged the lies disguised as intelligence that became the cause for war. We now know that the primary advisors to the President during that time were not military men, or even lawyers and Constitutional experts. The presidential advisers that helped lead us into an unnecessary war based upon lies were the Judeo/Christian movement pastors and political operatives that took over our government after 9/11 through political appointments, or who were granted access through US Congress people who eat from, and are sustained by the garbage in the Judeo/Christian Zionist trough. They are not finished. Bush has until January in office, and they plan to use that time to further their agenda. Having succeeded in imposing their devilish vision of Judeo/Christian dominance over the world, brought about through the use of US military force and proselytizing in Iraq, they are acting now to lead us into another unnecessary war, this time with Iran. Malkin, who wrote a book, explaining why Muslims, Arabs and other Americans should be held in detention camps as they prosecute these illegal wars, is now at work insuring that everyone is put on notice that there will be no dissent allowed this time either, not even symbolic dissent.

Malkin’s most recent assault against the American people and our US Constitution is her attempt to use public censure as a means to deny us our constitutionally protected rights to hold a dissenting and unpopular view, and also to hold and express a political opinion, and to express that opinion in our dress, or any other way that we and not Malkin chooses. Malkin and the right wing fascists that support her are a danger to the United States, since they threaten to overturn by stealth, everything that our founders and the noble men and women who struggled for freedom from the British Empire fought for without due process. It seems that they plan to take over the country, and in fact the world, by force.

The people of this country have a constitutionally protected right to hold unpopular and dissenting political and even religious views without the threat of organized campaigns designed purely to deny or to deprive us of those rights. American citizens also have the right to express such views, whether it is through our choice of clothing, or speech, or our choice of whom to financially support through financial contributions, etc. The Supreme Court has consistently upheld these rights, and has never wavered in its interpretations. Malkin or others have no right to organize to deprive us of our rights, or to threaten and intimidate businesses, and other institutions in this country with harm should they act in deference to the US Constitution and citizen’s rights.

Since this most recent effort by the fanatical right to undermine the US Constitution is centered on a scarf and a donut maker’s advertisement for coffee, it may seem to be a trite and unimportant incident. When we consider what is at stake, if every business in the US, every school, or other institution falls in lockstep with Malkin and her fascist cohorts, what we will loose will be the very Constitution that our founders and subsequent generations of patriots have fought and died for. Our freedoms and our rights will be past history. We will all be forced to live by the rules of John Hagee, Rod Parsley, Pat Robertson, and Joe Lieberman. Our country will be a place where we must all dress the same, think the same and worship the same, sacrifice our lives and treasure for Israel, or be subjected to organized campaigns of defamation and scourging, and censure.

Perhaps as a former soldier who once took an oath to protect the US Constitution and my country, I am particularly sensitive to the ploys of people like Malkin, and her co-conspirators. They claim to be patriots, while they are actually more likely to be subversives who use their rights to deny others the freedoms that God bestowed upon us all equally, regardless of our races, religions, or political affiliations.

If we are smart, we will not let this recent attack on the constitution just go away, and wait quietly for the fascist’s next assault. It’s time that the people of this country wake up, and realize that whether we like it or not, we are involved in a cold war for the very soul of our country, and the Constitution that protects that soul in the same way that Holy Books protect and validate the practice of religion.

We must not surrender to Malkin and those who feel that the US Constitution can be forced into obsolescence or rendered irrelevant by the force of public censure and threats. The United States is a republic that is governed by law, not public opinion.

We, the people, must organize to fight this cold war in defense of our constitution, never failing to speak and to stand for the unbridled constitutional rights of every citizen in this country, and especially the right to hold dissenting views, and to express those views whether it be through our choice of dress, fashion, fundraising, protesting, marching, speaking, etc., etc., etc., that we choose.

In my opinion, Michelle Malkin has proven on more than one occasion that she is a person who has not understood the US Constitution, and its significance. Perhaps she feels that we are all like Dunkin Donuts and the other people and institutions that she has whipped with her fascist tongue and pen, and threatened into conformity. We should let her, and her cohorts know that they have underestimated the American people, and that we also have a pen, and a cause.

I pray that every decent American who loves their country will boycott Duncan Donuts until they restore the Rachel ray advertisement. I hope that everywhere Michelle Malkin shows up to spread and spew her hateful anti-American venom, crowds of freedom loving people will be there to shout her down. The luxury of apathy has ended. Malkin fired one of many salvos fired by the Judeo/Christian fascist, when she sought to make the case that American citizens should be denied the right to political freedom and public expression, and that those who refuse to conspire with her and her fellow stooges should be threatened into complicity and conformity. We must respond equally, if not more forcefully, without using the fascist tactics they employ.

Part of this response must be to put US businesses and other institutions on notice. If they think Malkin and her crew are to be feared, imagine a United States run by the likes of Malkin, and the other right wing fascist who have taken over the US airways and blogs in an effort to systematically undermine the US Constitution, and to deny and deprive us of our Constitutional rights. If you want to live by the laws of Hagee, Robertson, Parsley and Malkin, keep kowtowing. If we want to remain free, we must fight back.