There is no peace in Palestine

Word is that Washington and the other Western and European powers are happy that former PA president Mahmoud Abbas will be involved in what they are calling indirect talks with Israel. What a sham. Mahmoud Abbas is no longer president of the PA and is barely holding onto power in Fatah, where he was threatened with ouster just months ago. Abbas is a Palestinian leader who has the unique distinction of being drenched in the blood of his own people, on whose behalf he will pretend to negotiate. In fact, one might suspect that his being drenched in Palestinian blood makes him the perfect peace partner for Benjamin Netanyahu, who we all know is also drenched in Palestinian blood. That blood includes the fresh blood of Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Mabhouh, who was assassinated in January by an Israeli hit team in Dubai. This has obviously upset Abbas so much, that his participation in indirect talks will supposedly begin this week, rather than after Dubai’s police chief issues the arrest warrant he has pledged to issue for Netanyahu’s arrest in relationship to the Dubai murder.

The fact that the two peace partners are not men who care the least bit about Palestine and who could care even less about the Palestinian people is not the biggest problem with the so called indirect negotiations. The biggest problem is that they are again claiming to be negotiating peace, when everyone knows there is no peace to negotiate in Palestine. Israel, knowing that Abbas was chomping at the negotiations bit, even though he pretended to hold out for an Israeli halt to illegal settlement building which everyone knew was not going to happen, has been very busy preparing for the talks by grabbing up more Palestinian land, even laying claim to Christian and Muslim holy sites under the false claim that the sites are part of the Jewish heritage of Israel. Netanyahu knows what Abbas ignores, and that is that whatever he takes prior to negotiations is non negotiable, and Israel’s European and US patrons will never force or pressure Israel to give up anything of the land that it claims as its Biblical right, even if that land is under the religious sites of other faiths, whose existence dates back centuries ago.

With Netanyahu doing everything in his power to confiscate as much land as he can prior to the so called indirect talks, Abbas’s role is already limited. What will he negotiate? It’s obvious that these talks are not about Palestinian land, or even a state, all things that Israel has either already taken or already refused. So what is the point of these indirect negotiations? The purpose of these indirect talks is to decide how to complete the continued ethnic and religious cleansing of the West Bank and Jerusalem through a negotiated agreement with Mahmoud Abbas, and his Fatah movement whose membership now includes two Zionist Israeli Jews who have inroads into the Israel government.

Netanyahu has said that he wants Jordan to be involved in all subsequent talks which means that he is ready to introduce John Hagee’s and the other Christian Zionist’s proposed solution to the crisis in Palestine, which is to further ignore the Geneva Conventions and to transfer the Palestinians from the West Bank and Jerusalem to Jordan. Funny don’t you think how Jordan keeps popping up in these final solutions proposed by Israel for their land grabbing schemes? First Palestine, then Iraq, and now back to Palestine. Makes one wonder why Israel thinks Jordan is willing or even interested in becoming an Israeli proxy authority over Palestinians and Iraqis displaced by Israel’s maneuvers to reconstruct what it deems Greater Israel.

It’s also important to note that the Palestinian people themselves are not interested in either direct or indirect talks with Israel. Most, if not all of the other Palestinian factions, who represent two or three times the number of Palestinians represented by Fatah, and who feel that they are not represented adequately by the PLO, are opposed to any negotiations with Israel. The people who make up and support these factions remember that every round of negotiations with Israel ends with a massacre as punishment for refusing Israel’s demands. They already know that regardless of the lies Abbas will tell, or what promises he makes, knowing that he cannot deliver anything, the Palestinian people must prepare to fight, and to survive more crippling and devastating pressure, resulting from the schemes Israel and the traitorous Arab governments will employ to deny Palestinians statehood, the right of return, and anything of meaning, and only transfer.

This also explains why Israel is desperate for the US to impose crippling sanctions on Iran, going so far as to request that the US attempt to blockade Iran to prevent Iran from being able to move its ships outside the Persian Gulf, should Iran decide to come to the rescue of the Palestinians. Israel realizes that the only thing that can foil its wicked plan is the Islamic movement and it is working desperately to do what it can to prevent any of the countries or groups that have taken an Islamic position on the crisis in Palestine from coming to Palestine’s assistance. With the approval of the Arab League for Israel’s final solution, communicated slyly as its “approval” of indirect talks between Abbas and Israel, Israel feels that its future as a Jewish only state that has captured all of historic Palestine is finally within sight. If it can either neutralize or defeat Syria, Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Hamas and the other resistance groups in Palestine, its dream of complete capture and control of historic Palestine, and normalized relations with its traitorous Arab neighbors will have come true. If this scenario plays out as Israel hopes, all of the murder, torture, lies and violations of the law will have paid off and perhaps forgiven or ignored by a world that is weary of this problem and perhaps willing to take whatever solution it can get, even at the expense of Palestinian life, rights, hopes and homeland.

There is no peace in Palestine and none will be found until Abbas resigns, the PA is dissolved and the people of Palestine allowed to elect their own representatives and to present to the world, their own demands for freedom for Israel’s brutal and illegal occupation. No amount of fake negotiations will lead to peace, in fact everything that is now being put in place by the US, EU, Israel and the traitor Arab states will be a cause for war. It will be war because Israel and the traitor Arab states will never again be left to torture and torment the Palestinian people as the world looks on and does nothing. Neither will they be allowed to transfer the Palestinians to Jordan. Israel and its lackeys east and west, have miscalculated the strength of those who are determined that Israel will not succeed, and that the blood, hopes, lives, homes and the rights of the Palestinian people, will not be a casualty of Israel’s sick and demented fantasy of greater Israel and a Jewish only state, nor a casualty of the religious fanaticism of the Christian wrong who are attempting to force the world into Armageddon, or their cowardly sycophants in the governments of the EU and the US.

Who speaks for Muslims in the US; and who should?

In the 80s and early 90s prior to the establishment of the now defunct American Muslim Council (AMC), many mainstream Muslims were discussing how desperately we needed a Muslim organization that could compete with AIPAC. Others wanted a political organization that would unite Muslim Americans around social rather than political issues, and there were still others who wanted to organize and establish a national human rights organization. Whatever the particular point of view, or cause to be adopted, it was clear to many of us then, that Muslims lacked a representative voice that was not only able, but also willing to step into the ugly and sometimes very intimidating world of public policy in the US, hoping to speak truth to power from an Islamic perspective. The mission to organize and participate was seen less as a mission to garner Muslim power or influence, and was seen more as a mission to fulfill what appeared to many as a duty to help our country formulate moral policies that not only served the interest of Muslims, but also our country.

The objective of Muslim American Muslims to organize, though met with its share of suspicion by both Muslims and non Muslims, was sincerely intended by most, to be a first step in the presentation of a type of non traditional dawah or Islamic teaching that would allow our government and fellow citizens to recognize the important role that Muslims could and would play, providing sometimes missing facts, and unique perspectives, particularly in respect to US foreign policy, and humanitarianism. Contrary to what people like Steven Emerson would have our government believe, the first major foreign policy issue to galvanize US Muslims was not Palestine. It was apartheid in South Africa.

Muslim Americans of all races and ethnicities joined millions of other Americans who were calling for US divestment from the South African apartheid state. Under the tutelage of Muslim brothers and sisters, mostly African Americans who had served as activists in the civil rights movement, Muslim Americans united behind the call to end apartheid in South Africa, and joined coalitions led by non Muslim African American civil rights organizations and personalities. There was very little activism or interest in the issue of Palestine, or the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine as was feared by outsiders, and there were no prominent Palestinians at the forefront of Muslim American political activism.

It wasn’t until the mid nineties, and after the release of the deceitful shockumentary Jihad in America, that Muslim interest in organized political and even humanitarian activism was publicly mischaracterized as conspiracies to commit terrorism, or support for terrorism. Steven Emerson, who produced the propaganda piece, suggested in his production, that all Muslims are either terrorists or potential terrorists, and that US mosques had been radicalized by Afghani Mujahedeen and Palestinian activists, and turned against the US. Nothing was further from the truth. What was happening was that Palestinian Muslims and other Muslims had began to attend one another’s mosque and lectures, and to fellowship with one another outside the mosque. This became an opportunity for many to learn the truth about the negative impact of our country’s foreign policies on the lives of fellow Muslims in other countries. Whereas this new awareness seemed harmless to Muslims, it was very threatening to US Jews who already knew and were perpetuating the horrors that we now know as an illegal and brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine, as well as a myriad of other injustices against Muslims in other countries, all mostly associated with the illegal occupation.

The Jewish American solution to what they feared would become a serious challenge to their monopoly over political influence, that was denied to minority groups in the US, religious and racial minorities, was to create such mistrust of US Muslims that our government and also our fellow citizens would not only come to fear us, but also to hate us. Other anti-Muslim and anti-Islam activists soon joined Emerson the Jewish American Goebbels, in his campaign to create hatred of Muslims, just as the Third Reich had created enough hatred of Jews in Germany to substantiate a Holocaust.

Muslims in the US did not experience a Holocaust, perhaps only because there is a US Constitution that protects rights, and a respect for rule of law that lingers in the hearts of US citizens, preventing us from too easily accepting that we should deconstruct 250 years of successful republicanism to accommodate the fear of exposure, and competition being suffered by American Jews. It appears that the Jewish American leadership, rather than to reach out to US Muslims in an effort to find ways to achieve peace in the Holy Land, decided they would rather employ a campaign of defamation, intimidation and psychological terrorism in the US, all as mentioned earlier, in an attempt to create fear and hatred of Muslims in the US.

At the inception of this insidious campaign, very few US Muslims had access to the media, or enough knowledge of US foreign policy and the situation in Palestine to respond to the myriad of terrifying accusations being made by the Jewish and Israeli operatives employed to undermine Muslim political activism and to poison relations between Muslims and the US government. A new organization, founded by a Palestinian and an American who was a former news reporter, an organization named CAIR, Council on American Islamic Relations, took the challenge presented by Emerson and others, and moved to the forefront of organized US Muslim activism. CAIR became the heroes of the US Muslim community, a community that had experienced only the first of a series of unexpected and vicious attacks to be launched at us by the Zionists in this country. This position was hard for CAIR to hold onto, since other Muslim organizations formed, many relocating from smaller towns to Washington DC, most hoping to earn their share of heroism, donations, and community support as CAIR had.

Following 9/11 and the inception of a horrendously evil and hateful campaign mounted by Christian Zionist and Zionist Jews in the US who had hoped to place the final nail in the coffin of Islam in America; Muslim Americans, sensing almost immediately that there was a lack of leadership, began to reach out to our government and people of other faiths, sometimes on their own, and in an unprecedented way. They were hoping to initiate dialogues with our government and law enforcement officials, and other citizens to ensure them that Muslim Americans are not a threat to our country, and that we are not a threat to Jews or Christians in the US as had been falsely charged.

Interfaith groups, and encounter groups were formed in almost every mosque, community center, Islamic center and even by Muslims generally who felt the urgency to speak out in an attempt to rebut the false accusations and slander against Islam that had become a backlash against US Muslims that included mosque burnings, violent attacks against women in hijab, and the detention of Muslims who were being entrapped in government stings for voicing anger, or making meaningless threats.

Shamefully, this was also a period in time where many Muslims turned against one another, and used the backlash against other Muslims. Sometimes this was done to seek revenge against other Muslims for all types of reasons including professional and romantic jealousy, professional competition and sometimes simply because Muslims adhered to a different school of Islamic thought than another Muslim. Not due to any fault of their own, US law enforcement became confused, and began to wonder who to believe and what to do to protect innocent Muslims from the wrath of other Muslims, as well as from what was eventually recognized as a campaign undertaken by some Christians and Jews to also defame and to levy false accusations against more vocal, and prominent Muslims and activists.

This, along with hundreds, if not thousands of interfaith dialogues where so many different renditions of Islam have been presented, has caused our government and others outside the US Muslim community to ask “who really speaks for Muslims in the US?” Even some Muslims are beginning to feel that it is necessary to reign in some of these non representative spokespersons, and to issue the call for organized and united activism that is represented by a single Muslim personality and voice, meaning that as a community we have come full circle since the founding of the first national Muslim organization. Now rather than looking for an organization, we are longing for a leader who will be given the mission to carry the Muslim political and humanitarian voice into the US market place of ideas.

There is no simple answer to the question, “Who speaks for US Muslims?” while there is a very simple answer to the question “who should?” The Qur’an and the teachings of the beloved prophet Muhammad (sa) give us a tremendous amount of guidance in respect to this question, and his Sunnah provides us with a perfect model for Islamic community and leadership. Some might ask if this is so, why we find ourselves in a situation where we lack a representative voice for our national community that is able to articulate our concerns and to protect our interests without sacrificing our rights, while simultaneously educating us and also guiding us into the mainstream market place of ideas, without frightening and intimidating our fellow citizens with our powerful message.

Before we look critically at those who are obviously vying for the positions of spokespersons for, and leaders of the US Muslim community, we must first look at ourselves and ask ourselves the question asked by a prophet who was sent to people who had been forced from their homes and who suffered from oppression at the hands of a tyrannical people. The story and the question is found in the Holy Qur’an, in Surah Al Baqarah, Chapter 2, verse 247. It says,

They said to a prophet among them, “Appoint for us a king that we might struggle in the cause of God.” He said, “Is it possible if you were commanded to struggle hard that you would not?” They said, “How could we refuse to struggle in the cause of God seeing that we were turned out of our homes and out of our families?” But when they were commanded to struggle, they turned back, except a small group of them. “Their prophet said to them “God has appointed Talut as king over you. “ They said; “How can he exercise authority over us when we are better fitted than he to exercise authority, and he is not gifted with wealth in abundance?”


The Qur’an also says, “and when they gave up hope in everything except God, God sent them leaders…”

In the Sura Nur, or “Light,” God gives us another example of a people who would not be rightly guided, not because of the deficiencies of their leaders, but because of their own lack of faith, and the diseases of their own hearts. Chapter 2, verses 46-57 say;

We have indeed sent down signs that make things manifest; And God guides whom He wills to a way that is straight. They say “We believe in God and in the apostle, and we obey” but even after that, some of them turn away, they are not really Believers. When they are summoned to God and His apostle, in order that he may judge between them, behold some decline to come. But if the right is on their side, they come to him in all submission. Is it a disease in their hearts, or do they doubt, or are they in fear that God and His apostle will deal unjustly with them? No, it is they themselves who do wrong.

The answer of the Believers when summoned to God and His apostle, in order that He may judge between them, is no other than this; they say, “We hear and we obey.” It is such as these that will attain felicity. It is such as obey God and his apostle and fear God and do right that will win. They swear their strongest oaths by God, if only God would command them, they would leave their homes, say; “Swear you not, obedience is more reasonable; verily God is well aware of what you do.


The mantle of leadership in Islam is conferred by God, and good leaders are given to communities who are ready to be guided. We must give up hope in all false gods including people, power and money and place our hope and faith in God only. God has promised us that He will send us leadership that will guide us to our desired victories when we are humble enough to be an obedient people, who fear none other than him, who have faith in His signs, or scriptures, and who are ready to take up the struggle in God’s cause, which is the struggle not only for inner purity and enlightenment, but also the outer struggle against tyranny and injustice and oppression. This is our challenge today, to become these people to whom God has promised to “change their state after the fear in which they lived, to one of security and peace” ( 24:55).

May Allah guide us to that end, and make us worthy and ready to receive the righteous leader of His choosing. And may God open the eyes of our hearts that we might recognize our leader when that time arrives.