There is a she camel in Palestine

In the Qur’an there is a very interesting and telling account about a she-camel and a prophet named Salih who God sent to warn a certain people about a coming punishment that would result from their continued injustices unless they stopped committing their crimes, repented and reformed. The leaders of that town of course laughed at, and mocked that prophet, since he was someone they knew, and could hardly imagine being a prophet. They knew his family, his background, and whereas they respected his family, they had no real regard for him. He was simply a man, like other men in their eyes. He was not distinguished in any way that makes him notable among other men who were not prophets. He worked no miracles, and as far as we know, he had no book of signs to share, just a simple warning that went ignored. Of course this prophet did not merely deliver the message and take cover, or leave town. He preached and taught in the city for years prior to the impending j! udgment of which he warned. Yet, the leaders of the town not only ignored his warnings, they mocked his prophecies, calling them "tall tales." They even defied God by carrying out the very act that had been specifically prohibited by God, through His prophet, which was the killing of the she-camel. God had inspired the prophet Salih to advise the leaders of the town that this one special camel should be treated in a certain way. In reading the story, one immediately recognizes that the instructions regarding this camel were not unique, or extraordinary. There was no burden being placed upon the people to provide for the she-camel as God had commanded. God had instructed the prophet to simply advise the people that the she-camel was a sign from God, and should be granted her rights. "How?" The people wondered, could such an animal be a sign from God? What message is communicated through a pregnant female camel, a lowly beast of burden, who is distinguished from the others onl! y by her physical qualities, her color, or race, since she cannot work or benefit anyone in the same way that other camels earn their keep. God’s command was that she not be burdened, that she be allowed to graze undisturbed, and that she receive her turn for watering, and care as did the other camels, since she is destined to give birth, new life, and along with it new hope. Immediately upon receiving the message about the she-camel, the people of Salih hamstrung the she-camel in defiance. The prophet Salih recognized at that point that no more preaching was necessary, so he left the town, and soon after his departure, God’s punishment came to bear upon the Thamud.

The story begins in the Qur’an, in Chapter 7, verse 73, where it says: " To the Thamud people (We sent) Salih, one of their own brethren. He said "Oh you people worship God, you have no other God but him. Now has come unto you a clear sign from your Lord. This she-camel of God is a sign to you, so leave her to graze in God’s earth, and let her come to no harm, or you shall be seized with a grievous punishment."

"And remember how He made you inheritors after the Ad people and gave you habitations in the land. You build for yourselves palaces and castles in open plains, and carve out homes in mountains, so bring to remembrance the benefits of God, and refrain from evil and mischief on the earth.

The leaders of the arrogant party among the people said to those who were reckoned powerless-those among them who believed: "Know you indeed that Salih is a prophet from his Lord? They said, "we do indeed believe in the revelation that has been sent through him."

The arrogant party said: "For our part we reject what you believe in. Then they hamstrung the she-camel, and insolently defied the order of their Lord, saying: "Oh Salih, bring about your threats, if you are a prophet of God."

So the earthquake took them unaware, and they lay prostrate in their homes in the morning. So Salih left them, saying: "Oh my people, I did indeed convey to you the message for which I was sent by my Lord. I gave you good counsel, but you love not good counselors."

The Qur’an explains the symbolism of the She-camel for us saying: " We sent the she-camel to the Thamud to open their eyes, but they treated her wrongfully. We only send the signs by way of fear, and warning from evil " (17:59). Qur’anic scholar Abdullah Yusef Ali explains this for us saying, "signs, miracles, and portents are sent by God as warning, to strike fear into the hearts of evil doers and reclaim them to the right path."

We might ask ourselves what exact crimes the Thamud were committing that led to the she-camel being sent to them as a warning sign, with God’s commandments to treat her justly. Abdullah Yusef Ali believed that the she-camel challenged the Thamud in their areas of weakness, which included greed, and arrogance, and disrespect for the rights of the poor, and those whom they believed had no value or worth equal to their own assumed value. Yusef Ali writes: " The story of this wonderful she-camel is variously told in tradition. What we are told in the Qur’an is that 1. The she-camel was a sign or symbol, which the prophet Salih used for warning to the haughty oppressors of the poor 2. There was scarcity of water, and the arrogant or privileged classes tried to prevent the access of the poor or their cattle to the springs, while Salih intervened on their behalf 3. Like water, pasture was considered a free gift, in this spacious earth of God, but the arrogant ones ! tried to monopolize the pasture 4. This particular she-camel was made a test case to see if the arrogant ones would come to reason 5. The arrogant ones, instead of yielding to the reasonable rights of the people, hamstrung the poor she-camel and slew her, probably secretly. The cup of iniquities was full, and the Thamud people were destroyed by a dreadful earthquake, which threw them prone on the ground and buried them and their houses and fine buildings."

To better understand the character of the Thamud, we need only read the narrative in the Qur’an, which chronicles their conversation and actions. In Chapter 26, verses 142-159 we read," Behold their brother Salih said to them, "Will you not fear God? I am to you an apostle worthy of all trust. So fear God and obey me. No reward do I ask of you for it; my reward is only from the Lord of the worlds. Will you be left secure in the enjoyment of all that you have here? Gardens and springs and cornfields and date palms with branches near breaking with the weight of fruit? And you carve houses out of rocky mountains with great skill. But fear God and obey me, and follow not the bidding of those who are extravagant and who make mischief in the land and mend not their ways. They (the Thamud) said: " Thou art only one bewitched! Thou art no more than a mortal like us. Bring us a sign if you are telling the truth. He (Salih) said: " Here is a she-camel, she has a right! of watering, and you have a right of watering, severally on a day appointed. Touch her not with harm, lest the penalty of a great day seize you. But they hamstrung her, then did they become full of regrets. But the penalty seized them. Verily in this is a sign, but most of them do not believe. And verily thy Lord is He the exalted in Might, Most Merciful."

There is a she-camel in Palestine. She is a Palestinian people who are being denied their rights. She is a people being hamstrung, and slaughtered by an arrogant and defiant entity that refuses to recognize the rights of all human beings, regardless of their race or religion to basic human rights, which include the right to life, dignity and sustenance, food and water, and medical care. There is a she-camel in Palestine, and she is being slaughtered while the world turns up its nose at her and asks what value she has upon which to base her claim that she has a right to live. What right can she have to share the resources, or to enjoy the rights conferred upon the chosen, by the owner of the land, who is God, since she has no identity, no definition, no government, no allies, no treasury, no fine homes, no inheritance, no oil. We cannot recognize her. Still, she is there and she is being hamstrung. She is pregnant with potential, and promise of a future, but ! we cannot see what rests in her belly, and there is no one to claim ownership, or to love her pending birth. There is a she-camel in Palestine, "And verily thy Lord is He, the exalted in Might, most Merciful."

It is time to end Israel's criminal assault on Gaza

As the war rages in Gaza so called “moderate” Muslims and their Arab government counterparts are working feverishly to figure out how to reward Israel for its two weeks of carnage in Gaza. The idea that they should focus on ending Israel’s criminal onslaught is lost on these perhaps well intended, but misguided souls. All they can see is an opportunity for Israel to win, and for Hamas to be defeated. In their confused minds and amoral judgment, Israel may not have been justified in killing so many Gazans; still Hamas had no right to fight back. In fact, as far as many of them are concerned, Hamas has no right to even exist. Keep in mind that there is no record of these same people having ever called for a security force to protect the Palestinians. They have never made an effort to insure that the people of Palestine ever had a defender or a security force dedicated to protecting Palestinian rights and life. Now we know why.

Even if you attempt to bring to their attention the fact that negotiating behind the scenes with Israeli intelligence, and operatives while Palestinian children are being burned to death with white phosphorus, and Israel’s Lieberman is calling for an all out nuclear attack on Gaza, is wrong, they argue that the Palestinians cannot possibly win and so the only solution is to give Israel what it wants with a few concessions for Gaza, like an international pro-Israel peacekeeping force. To mention that Israel should not be rewarded for what it has done and should be stopped makes one an “extremist” in their lopsided view. Their objective is to end the war on Gaza by figuring out what it is that Israel wants, and seeing that Israel gets what it wants, in spite of the fact that what Israel is doing is a monumental crime that demands an international military response, similar to the NATO attack on Serbia that allowed the Bosnians relief from a similar onslaught, carried out against them for similar reasons by the late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

The only way to end Israel’s violence is for an international force to engage Israel militarily and force Israel to end its attacks on the people of Gaza. This should happen unless the Arab governments want to be faced with riots and revolutions the likes of which have never been seen in the Arab and Muslim world. As for the rest of the world, it seems reasonable to expect that as we stand by and do nothing while Israel continues to slaughter Palestinians that this will eventually result in all out attacks on Jews outside of Israel. This happened after Ariel Sharon’s massacres in the second intifada, and there is no reason to expect that the killing of Palestine will continue without there being some type of similar response.

There have been suggestions that Israel, fully expecting that at some point the international community, or that Muslims will act, has been threatening a repeat of the Masada. This is perhaps what has moderate Muslim and Arab governments working so hard to give Israel what it wants. It does not matter to them that Palestinians are also human beings with equal rights, and that it is wrong to sacrifice Palestinian life to save the lives of Israelis who are threatening to kill themselves unless the world stands by idly while they are allowed to kill Gaza.

Everyone already knows what happened to the Arab governments and the so called moderate Muslims who legitimize their treason and give them moral and intellectual sanction. We understand why they serve Israel. They have been tamed by the war on terror, which is what Israel and their neoconservative movement predicted. But what happened to the US? We have become an unrecognizable place where racial hatred has taken on new proportions, as has religious extremism and hatred. I guess we can thank the likes of John Hagee, Rod Parsley and Pat Robertson for our country’s flirtation with the dark side. Gone are our days as a beacon of light and hope for underdogs and the teeming masses yearning to be free. Those so called men of God are in fact prophets of hatred and death that have led the US and Israel to this juncture in history. They claim that they are espousing God’s prophecy when they call for nuking Palestine and death to all Palestinians, when in fact they are the mouthpieces for the Satan that has possessed them and driven them, and all of those who follow them, Jews and non Jews to absolute evil and madness.

It is time for the US and Europe to decide what they will do about the Holocaust taking place in Gaza.. The choice is not whether to allow Israel to continue, or to stop Israel’s criminal invasion and war on the people of Gaza. The choice is whether they want to stop it, or if they want the war to expand. The situation we are all in is that simple, and also that tragic.

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.