(NAMAW) National Association of Muslim American Women Founder and Chairwoman sues US government to remove Hamas from lists of terrorist organizations.

Press Release
For Immediate Release
August 11, 2010

On Monday, August 9, 2010, Founder and Chairwoman of (NAMAW), the National Association of Muslim American Women, Anisa Abd el Fattah, filed a lawsuit in a US District Court, suing the Office of the President, the US State Department and the US Treasury. The lawsuit alleges that these agencies violated Article 6 of the US Constitution, the 1st amendment to the US Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, when they designated Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement in Palestine, terrorists.

In the lawsuit, Abd el Fattah requests that the terrorist designation be removed from Hamas, and that Hamas’s name be removed from any and all government lists of foreign terrorist organizations, along with its members. She also requests that all public records be made to reflect the court’s order and the change in legal status.

The government has 60 days to respond to the allegations, at which time the court will decide whether the lawsuit should go forward, or be dismissed. Abd el Fattah has requested a jury trial for the Defendants.

-END-

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.

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.”

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.

Who do we talk to?

The ongoing debate over whether or not the US should negotiate with Iran, Syria and Hamas is not really a debate about US security. It is rather a debate about who is right, those who feel that the US should ride shot gun through the Middle East for Israel, staring down and blowing up everyone that Israel doesn’t like, or feels threatened by, or who disagrees with AIPAC or the other Jewish American organizations that are dictating US foreign and also our domestic policies, or those who feel that Israel as an ally has no greater meaning than any other country as a US ally, and that US interests, and not Israeli interests should be our first and only policy priorities.

Considering that most of us realize, probably during adolescence, that we must talk to one another, even when we dislike one another, it seems strange that the leaders of one of the world’s most powerful, and technologically advanced countries would be arguing about whether or not we should use diplomacy or be limited only to war as a means to settle disputes. God spoke to Satan, even after Satan had sinned, and misled Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. Jesus spoke to Satan even as his faith was being tested by God in the desert. Perhaps these metaphors symbolize the truth that words are a form of power when spoken as truth, which could be why God used words, such as revealed books, more often than lightening strikes, tornadoes and earthquakes to get his points across. For those who don’t believe in God, the metaphor might symbolize the idea that people, and not weapons are the true powers on earth, since God has subjected all things in the earth to His stewards, except other human beings. Human beings belong exclusively to God.

It’s too bad that we have not been allowed to understand what the human being really is, and our potential inherent power, which is the spirit of God manifest within each of us. If we did understand such things, there would be no arguments about talking to enemies rather than merely killing them. We would understand that the consequence of talking is far more powerful and empowering than the consequences of killing which is absolutely debilitating and destructive for all involved. Israel is learning this the hard way. No matter how many Palestinians they kill, they have not been able to successfully cleanse Palestine of Arabs and Muslims. What they have managed to become is one of the most hated and distrusted countries on earth, and even with the trillions of dollars and military weapons and aide they receive they have no equivalent achievements to boast of.

Of course it would be foolish to expect mere human beings to act like God. I only mention God and Jesus since they represent absolute Godly perfection, and the lesser human perfection. It seems strange that the neo-cons, who give the appearance that they are a God loving people, closely aligned with the religious right, who supposedly know, understand and live the Bible to a greater degree than any of us so-called infidels, goyim living in husks and sinners, have ignored these very basic but meaningful truths about God and Jesus, and their dialogues with their enemies Perhaps this is due the fact that there were no billions of dollars at stake for either Jesus or God, and no government appointments, political power, or an Israeli lobby to fear.



In my humble opinion, neither Barak Obama, nor Hillary Clinton have demonstrated that they understand the real meaning and power of diplomacy as a standard methodology, used those who desire righteousness in the ongoing battle of good versus evil. Neither will admit, even though US intelligence stated emphatically that Iran's nuclear program was destroyed, while Iran says that no program ever existed, that there is no Iranian nuclear weapons program. Neither have been able to say that Israel must abide by the laws, same as we expect of any country. neither can say that Israel must end its ethic cleansing and genocide in Palestine, and its illegal occupation. Why wont the presidential candidates or even our President and Secretray of State demand a mutual cease-fire between Israel and Palestine? Could it be because they believe that with time, Israel will simply kill off the Palestinians and no cease fire is needed?

Moses, who led the slaves to freedom from captivity in Egypt, spoke to Pharaoh and continued to call him to repentance, and God. He never spoke of killing Pharaoh, even though Pharaoh often spoke of killing of Moses. Knowledgeable and wise men and women understand that when we have reached a point where taking life is our only option that we have failed in some way and that we will be held accountable for the price of that spilled blood. We must remember that every human being belongs to God, and He is taking a toll, and also taking an account.

Hamas, Syria, Palestine, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Iran are all organizations and groups of people. They are not ideas. They have a different view of life than some other people, but they also have a view of life that is shared by billions of other people, people who have a right to exist and to hold a view different than the neo-con, and Israeli worldview. Ther lives, like all other life is sacred to God, and should also be sacred to us. Israeli and Jewish is not superior. The idea of superiority was introduced to the world by Satan, and it caused God not only to cast him out the Garden, but also to doom Satan to eternal damnation and destruction. Should we imitate him?

If change is to come, it will require more than mere political changes. We must open our hearts and ears to new and different ideas. Like God and Jesus, we must listen, and to ask questions, even when we feel we know the answer. Imagine the arrogance of one imperfect human, saying to another imperfect human that he or she cannot speak to them until they make certain adjustments in their thinking, or behavior. Let’s pray that on the Day of Judgment that God will not have adopted the neo-con non-engagement policy, because if He does, we will all be lost. In fact, we need not imagine that the day of Judgment fits John Hagge’s tormented description of Armageddon, where only he and Israeli Jews (only those who reject Judaism and accept Hagee’s Jesus) will be raptured. Every day is a Day of Judgment because the die is cast with each day’s passing, and God is judging us and punishing and rewarding us each day.

We cannot change the world without changing ourselves. Having humility and learning to hear and speak again to the rest of humanity might be a perfect place to start the process of chaging ourselves, since once we really hear what they have to say we might realize that when it comes to the bottom line, we are all saying the same thing, but perhaps in different ways.

Deja Vu in Palestine

In the mid-nineties after Hamas was established and was working as pretty much the sole provider of social and other services in Palestine, the US and Israel decided that to accomplish their final takeover of what remained of Palestine, they must stage a negotiations process. They did not want to culminate years of brutal occupation by adding an even more brutal genocide to the occupation saga. For their taste, the occupation should end through a negotiated land for peace process that would give Israel most of what it wanted, and the Palestinians just enough of what they could get, that no one would complain anymore that Israel had been less than fair with the people whose land they had illegally occupied for so many years. After all, if the Palestinians were willing to compromise, and it could be made to appear that Israel had also compromised, who could argue that anything unjust, or unfair had taken place.

It’s much like the land deals made between the US settlers and the Native Americans. How often were the Native Americans reminded that their leaders had sold much of the land for beads, guns and firewater, and entered into various agreements that ultimately led to the Native American fate, which was genocide and reservations? Who cared if it was absolutely absurd that negotiations between the white settlers and the Native American would even take place? Most Native Americans probably didn’t even understand English well enough to actually negotiate anything of substance, and there is no proof anywhere that a majority of Native Americans ever agreed to turn nearly all of their land and natural resources over to the settlers, and to voluntarily be placed on reservations. Why would they ever agree to such things? We could argue that they had no idea about the gold, the oil, and the value and importance of the natural resources they owned. We might also argue that rights to fish and hunt and to live undisturbed may have been more meaningful to them at the time, than undeveloped land. What we can’t argue, with any amount of logic or legal and moral thinking to support our argument, is that what ever took place was fair, or just.

The suffering of the Native Americans at the hands of their foreign occupiers is legendary. Billion dollars per year gambling casinos cannot compensate for the massacres, the lies, and the dirty tricks. How much would we have to pay or give back to compensate for the extermination of millions of Native Americans the fake negotiated agreements, and coerced and dishonest peace treaties, shady land exchanges and sales of priceless real estate for beads and booze that stain our US story.

The United States has recognized the evils of the European settlers of this land, their special Indian laws, and deals. We have attempted to wash the Native American blood from our hands with money and apologies that have gone a long way towards relieving our national conscience of the horrors, both real and imagined. Unfortunately there is nothing that we can do to heal the hearts and minds of the Native Americans, who are still struggling to regain their since of humanness and value in spite of our overbearing history, and nationalist pride.

The Oslo peace process was nothing more than an attempt to buy Palestinian land with beads and booze. The only differences between what took place in the US, and what was supposed to take place in Palestine are the geographic location and the race of the victims. Yasser Arafat and his Fatah and PLO were nothing more than drunken Indians, who were willing to give away Palestine in exchange for personal power and prestige, and wealth. Shortly after the US and Israel brought the PLO out of exile from Tunisia, it established a security force that was supposed to bring order to the West bank and Gaza. The first job of the security force was to round up and to arrest all Hamas members, since Israel and the US were planning an election for Yasser Arafat, and he was to have no competitors. Welcome to Palestinian democracy!

Following Arafat’s suspect victory at the Palestinian polls, the news media East and West declared him the legitimate representative for the Palestinian people. This charade took us all the way to Camp David where the big lie failed, resulting in a Palestinian uprising that left thousands of Palestinians dead and prospects for peace shattered by the stark realization that the US and Israel could not be trusted. The Palestinian people realized at that moment that it was not the Israelis that had lacked a peace partner, it was the Palestinians. It was also the Palestinians, and not the Israel’s who simultaneously realized that the PA was created to lend democracy to Israel, to be used as part of its political charade that was intended to lend legitimacy to a failed Camp David peace initiative that was intended to wrestle Jerusalem from Arafat, and to pen the Palestinians on refugee camps, dispersed strategically throughout what was historically Palestine. The reservations would have been called Palestine; its capital would have been Abu Dis. There would be no right of return for the Palestinians living in exile throughout the world, and there was no real solution offered for the millions of Palestinian refugees.

Today, God, history, or fate, whichever one we believe is a superior power, has returned us to the past. Again, the Palestinian leadership is separated between Hamas and Fatah, each on different territory. The US and Israel are making the same choices because they are the only choices available to the types of people who are scripting US and Israeli policies in respect to the Middle East. It doesn’t seem to matter that their very limited vision and dishonest and self-serving objectives are hurting an entire world of people in and outside of the Middle East. Biblical myths, the shameless exploitation of human tragedies, murder and mayhem can only get you so far. Israel, the US and now the EU, who has newly joined this gang of thieves in earnest with its publicly declared support of Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah, will one day get the message that reached Arafat at Camp David. That message is that Palestine is not merely a Palestinian issue. The Al-Aqsa mosque, Jerusalem, and the very nature of the gross injustices of this brutal and illegal occupation cause it to be much more than just another episode of European conquest and colonization.

It is the international and universal nature of this dispute, along with the moral questions it gives rise to, and the potential loss of any respect for law that lessen tremendously the likelihood of Israel’s and the Quartet’s success. As for the Arab governments who have played along, knowing what actually awaits the Palestinians should Israel and its supporters succeed, they should understand that their futures are tied to Palestine’s. If Palestine fails, they also fail, since as one tribe falls, so do they all, eventually. Déjà vu only lasts until we realize that we have seen this all before, and then it ends with a choice to change courses, or to continue down the familiar path.


The New York Times writer, Thomas Friedman wrote some days ago that oil had been discovered in Israel, and that this oil is ingenuity and professional; expertise and entrepreneurial zeal. Oil has also been found in Palestine, and it is symbolized as resistance to occupation, a will to live and survive, and a determination and resolve to be free, and to realize long sought after dreams of sovereignty and prosperity. Palestinian oil is fueling a paradigmatic change that can literally change the world, by ending a certain history, while beginning a new future for us all. Part of Palestine’s guiding vision appears to be an end to the era of European conquest and colonization that has drenched the world in innocent blood, and bad karma. It is symbolized as an end to Déjà vu in Palestine, a new path for the Palestinian people, and also the world.

AIPAC talks, Congress listens, the US sacrifices

An e-mail circulated the Internet today, February 13, 2007, saying that a Congressman named Ackerman, a Democrat, has organized a Congressional sub-committee hearing on US Middle East Policy. His list of witnesses is disheartening, it includes the regular AIPAC minion, Martin Indyk, Daniel Pipes, Washington Institute on Near East Peace, et al. In other words, AIPAC will again come before our US Congress to dictate US foreign policy in the Middle East, and particularly in respect to the Palestine/Israel conflict, and the US taxpayer, Israel's sacrificial lamb will foot the bill for the hearing, and also pay the price for the policy in blood and treasure.

Interestingly, today is also the day that the US House of Representatives began its debate on the Iraq war, and the President's escalation of the war with the insertion of 21 thousand additional combat troops, and perhaps another 20 thousand or so support troops, totaling approximately 41 thousand new troops to go to Iraq to do what? Oh, yeah. They are going to secure Baghdad, and some other more remote areas where insurgents have supposedly taken over and created bases of operation. No one has explained to us yet, how the military can distinguish between insurgents, sunni or shia death squads, or mere citizens of Iraq who might be opposing what they believe is an invading and occupying foreign military. That we are sending additional troops into this fiasco is proof that whoever is running US Middle East policy is stupid as hell. The only other explanation is that they just don't give a damn about the lives of US troops, the US taxpayer's money and opinion, or our supposedly democratic system of government. This is the more likely explanation. They argue that the President is commander in chief, which is true. He is the commander in chief of the military. The United States, lest they forget, is not ruled by the military, it is run by the American people, who elect a civilian government to administrate our affairs, and the Commander in Chief of the military, when it comes to the United States generally, is merely a public servant. So much for the Imperial presidency concocted by AIPAC. You don't have to be a lawyer or a Constitutional expert to know that the US can never be ruled by the military, and that our Presidency is not rolled neatly into a single bundle during war time that makes him a military commander ruling the US like Hitler ruled Germany. In respect to the military he becomes commander in chief, in respect to the American people, he is an elected official that is sworn to uphold and to protect our Constitution, and to administrate our, not his personal affairs, nor the affairs of his friends, and cronies, or AIPAC. In democracies the majority rules, and today, according to credible polls, 67% of the American people say it's time to bring our troops home, and our elected President, who is the commander in chief of the military, should listen to his countrymen and women, and abide by their will.

You might be asking now, what any of this has to do with Congressman Ackerman's Congressional sub-committee hearing featuring AIPAC as the only witness, disguised as several witnesses, most notably Daniel Pipes, and Martin Indyk. If you get woozy and sick at the stomach just thinking about how our government lied and tricked us into Iraq to appease Israel, and then had the audacity to send our President to call for more American human sacrifice to destroy Israel's challengers in the Middle East, after already killing more than 3000 American children, and maiming many more, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis we have killed, you will pewk when you imagine that Ackerman has convened this hearing to get the US further involved in the Palestine/Israel conflict. It's not enough that we have shredded our Constitution, by denying the basic civil rights of Muslims and Arabs in our country to support Palestine, Israel wants the US to put US boots on the ground in Israel, and billions of more US taxpayer dollars. Of course in return we get more promises of peace, that are as likely as their promises of victory in Iraq. Anyone who knows and understands Israel's goals in respect to the ME, recognizes this proposed sub-committee as the next step in a campaign to expand US involvement in the ME to include war with Iran and Syria, and US, rather than Israeli occupation and subjugation of Palestine. Ackerman, a Democrat is an example of how AIPAC has poisoned our Congress, and why our country cannot shake of its slavish posture in respect to Israel, so long as our Congress is AIPAC's mouthpiece and puppet.

Any American worth their salt should be outraged. We must end AIPAC's control over our government, and its dictation of US foreign policy in the Middle East. Ackerman makes ir clear that we cannot expect the help of our government in that respect. We should consider that our government is a captive that can't be freed by mere voting for either Democrats or Republicans. It is time for a third, AIPAC prohibited, independent party in the US, and it might also be time for the US judiciary to get involved in US policy making, determining what aspects of our policies are Constitutional, and what aspects clearly are not, before they are implemented. US complicity with Israel in its illegal occupation of Palestine, and its genocide in Palestine, clearly violates the Geneva Conventions, to which the US is a signor. It's very strange that the US and Israel are pressing the Palestinian Authority to recognize all past agreements between Israel and the PLO, when neither Israel or the US will recognize the Geneva Conventions, which is a body of international law that is recognized by, and was signed by almost every country in the world.

I hope that on the day of Ackerman's hearings, that Americans will be in the hallways of Congress protesting this travesty, and that the streets outside the Congress will be filled with the families of US soldiers and Marines who will say no more US human sacrifice for Israel,no more money for Israel, and peace in the Middle East. It is also my hope that we, the people will not wait until November of 2008 to make our voices heard as to who will lead our country. We must start now to construct a new government forum, a new third party of patriots that will stand up against the Democrats and the Republicans, an advocate American independence not only from Israel, but also from AIPAC, and anyone who puts a foreign government's interests over our Constitution, and the will, and rights of the American people.

Who will save the West from itself?

American collaboration with Israel and the rest of the Western powers in the ongoing genocide in Palestine is criminal and wrong. The only thing more disgraceful is that all of the Western powers, and also the UN, will convene here in the US to discuss a solution to the suppossed problem created when the Palestinians elected a Hamas dominated government. Is Hamas the cause of the problems that plague the Middle East? Why didn't these same powers convene to discuss what the world should do in response to the American people electing a Republican or Democrat government? Both have done little more than fleece the American taxpayer, kill our children in illegal wars, and give our daughters plenty of contraception,or abortion, and our old men Cialis. Well, actually they have done more. They have also created chaos in one of the most important regions of the world, while simultaneously killing millions of innocent civilians (many more than Hamas)and calling them, "collateral damage." This meeting is as ridiculous as the White House event, wherein the newly elected German Chancellor came to the US to call for Western unity in condemning Iran for saying that there are discrepancies in the holocaust history. While she was condemning Iran, some weirdo was waiting to be heard in an Italian court, where he planned to challenge the Church's claim that Jesus existed as a historical figure. Can you imagine, she wanted the Western world to unite against Iran for challenging holocaust exaggerations. She couldn't care less about a legal challenge to the existence of Jesus. Even though she leads one of the great Christian nations, she didn't call for Western unity in defense of Christ. She called for Western unity in defense of the holocaust story, and Jewish pride.

The media is reporting that the ultra Zionist Benjamin Netanyahu and his ilk are telling the Western nations that they must come together in defense of everything Israeli and Jewish since anti-Semitism is supposedly on the rise. They say anti-Semitism is threatening again as in World War II, to manifest as another holocaust. What garbage. What about the genocide being perpetrated by Israel and the Western powers against the Palestinian people? Who should unite in their defense? Perhaps Israel should ask "why" anti-Semitism is growing, and the US should perhaps ask why anti-Americanism is also growing, along with growing discontent right here in the states.

The US made a big mistake when it turned our intelligence gathering, and foreign policy making over to the Israeli government and their counterparts operating here in the US, including AIPAC. They have killed more than 3000 American children, and maimed and tormented many more, in a plot that is so ridiculously stupid that no one can even talk about it. Their war on terrorism, their war in Iraq, their pre-emptive strike doctrine, their torture, their lies, and their other crimes against humanity like the genocide in Palestine are an embarrassment to the Western world, or should be. They have perhaps squandered billions in US taxpayer money, and stolen billions more, skimming off of American pension funds, and have been stealing from reconstruction projects in Iraq. They have derailed the credibility of the US government, and destroyed American prestige and influence in the world. Now they want us to send 40 thousand more of our children into Iraq to die, and also to attack Iran either along with them, or in their defense. This all seems just fine with our so-called representative government that gets bigger, and less representative of American sentiment, and more representative everyday of the Jewish sentiment, which is morally skewed, self absorbed, violent and also self destructive.

So the big question today is, "who will save the West from itself?" Who will save us from the people who call themselves Western "leaders" yet they have forsaken their obligation to their own people, countries and children in order to appease a foreign power that has given us nothing but headaches. This foreign power, while demanding our money, our children's lives, and also our honor and our pride, has also sought to undermine our Constitution. Our "ally" has left us nothing, not even the illusion of independence and power. They have enslaved the American worker, who now works more hours per day for less money than almost any other worker in the industrialized world, yet can't get affordable health care, housing, or a pension. They have poisoned our people with drugs and pornography and sexual addictions and crime. They have broken up our families, and caused fear and suspicion to weaken our communities. These are the people who will convene in Washington to decide the fate of the Arab and Muslim world, beginning with Palestine. These are the people who will decide what to do about Hamas, as though Hamas is what is plaguing the world. Who will save Palestine from us, and who will save us from ourselves?

If we are lucky, the people of the United States will stop shopping, and start listening. If we are lucky we will stop eating, and try to understand what is happening to our country, and what is being done in the world in our names. Whereas our government is a joke, we, the people, can salvage the great American experiment simply by upholding our Constitution, and demanding that it be adhered to. We must save ourselves, from ourselves, by turning to the past and giving new life to our Constitution. It is an idea and a testament to independence, freedom and equal rights. It is the threads that stitched together the souls of these 50 states, and though often strained, had never been completely torn except once, resulting in a civil war. Will we wait for our country to become like Iraq or Palestine? Occupied, drained and stripped of its resources, its wealth, and power, and like the Palestinians, will we start killing one another to curry favor from enemies? Wake up America!