Hi Folks,
I thought you might enjoy the letter below. Yochi Dreazen is a reporter
for the Wall Street Journal who has done a few stints in Iraq. He sends
periodic notes to his wife (Anat) about life there. Below is his report
on Rosh Hashanah in Baghdad.
Allen
From Yochi in Baghdad.....
For obvious reasons, I had absolutely no idea what to expect when I
made plans to travel to a military base on the outskirts of Baghdad
for Rosh Hashanah. I didn't know if there would be a minyan, if there
would be Orthodox prayer services or a shorter Reform variant, or if
there would be Kosher food. You can imagine my shock - the best kind
of shock, the type that comes from being pleasantly surprised - when I
found that Rosh Hashanah at Forward Operating Base Striker included
all of those things, and a few more besides.
The services were held in a small meeting room in the base chapel
building, with signs outside listing that week's services, which
ranged from Spanish-language Pentecostal to Latin Mass Catholic to
Muslim jumma prayers. The back of the chapel faces onto a small
yard, which is now almost entirely filled up by a newly constructed
wooden succah. The succah was built by a non-Jewish amateur carpenter
from the Arkansas National Guard, who told me he built it in his spare
time and was glad to have been able to help. In fact, the military,
from the top level on down, went out of its way to help Jewish
soldiers make it to the base for services. The Army issued a pair of
FRAGOs - formal orders - ordering commanders to make arrangements for
their Jewish soldiers to travel to the base f or the services and
giving Jewish soldiers permission to not shower or shave during the
holiday (soldiers usually have to shave every day, and can be punished
if they forget). Of the 40-odd soldiers who ultimately took part in
the Rosh Hashanah services - plus a few civilians, including a
self-described "Jewish grandmother from New York" who is in Iraq,
incongruously, to help interrogate high-value terrorism suspects -
more than half flew in from other bases.
The services were arranged by a jovial chaplain with the wondrous name
of Andrew Shulman, who had lived in Israel for a few years - studying
at Aish Hatorah, in the Old City - and then gone to work for a
synagogue in Massachusetts before volunteering to join the army and
come to Iraq as a military chaplain. He is the only Jewish chaplain
in Iraq full-time, though others occasionally come in from Kuwait and
other bases around the High Holidays. When I email ed him a few weeks
ago to say that I would be coming and would be glad to help lead the
prayers or read the Torah, he said I was a lifesaver and that he would
be glad to put me to work. He kept his word: I ended up leading the
long Mussaf services both days of the holiday, reading both days'
Torah portions (out of a Machzor, because there was no actual Torah
scroll, but still), and doing both days' Haftorah portions. With the
exception of cutting out some of the optional poems in Mussaf, we did
the entire Orthodox liturgy, and even found a young tzizzit-wearing
soldier from Milwaukee named Rafi Karran who was able to blow the
shofar, so we had shofar-blowing, as well.
The people who came to the services were an eclectic bunch. There was
a full-bird colonel named Abramowitz, a bunch of young lieutenants
with names like Frank and Hode, a command sergeant major (the highest
position you can have as an enlisted soldier) named Soriano, and a
sergeant with the "Coming to America"-esque name of Kurt Love. Some
of the soldiers were converts - Soriano, who gave his name as Ami, was
once named Jorge Octavio - and others had a Jewish mother and didn't
discover they were Jewish till they were adults. Virtually all knew
some Hebrew, though, and were as thrilled as I was to be able to take
part in a full, real service. The most fascinating soldier there, in
my opinion, was a female sergeant named McCann, who grew up hunting
and skinning animals in Montana and found out that her mom was Jewish
right after she enlisted at 19. Before leaving for Iraq, she got
herself trained as a shochet, and now buys chickens while out on
mission and ritually slaughters the chickens back at the base so
she can have some kosher meat. She has gotten so religious that she
won't shake hands with male soldiers and instead patiently tells them
that she is "shomeret negiah." To top it off, this blond-haired,
blue-eyed farm girl is planning to marry an older Israeli soldier as
soon as she finishes her tour in Iraq later this year.
No Jewish event, civilian or military, would be complete without food,
and Rosh Hashanah in Baghdad was no exception. Rabbi Shulman had had
an absolutely astounding amount of food sent in for the holiday, and
the group of soldiers did an impressive job of plowing through it. He
had kosher wine for kiddush (alcohol is strictly forbidden in the
military, so for many soldiers this was the first taste of alcohol
they had drunk in more than a year), pomegranates and prickly pears as
the new fruit of the season, honey for the apples, gefilte fish (some
of which splashed on me, which was as disgusting an experience as I
have ever had in my life), hummos and tahini, Israeli olives and
pickles, and fresh Zomick's challah and rolls that had been sent in a
short time earlier. For the main courses, he would prepare couscous,
rice and pasta, and then top the grains with steak, chicken and
beef kosher Meals Ready to Eat. For desert, there was fruit, trail
mix, and honey cakes that his wife, Lori, had sent from the U.S. Of
the many reasons I feel deeply indebted to Rabbi Shulman, the mound of
kosher food he managed to obtain for the holiday is near the top of
the list.
I have talked a lot about the logistics of the holiday, but I want to
take a moment to talk about the feel of the holiday, as well. In
more than four years of living in, covering and visiting Iraq, this is
the first time I have ever done anything Jewish here. When I lived in
Baghdad, I had nothing with me that could identify me as Jewish and
had scrubbed by Palm Pilot and laptop of any file that mentioned
Israel or anything Jewish. When an Iraqi asked me my religion, I
would always lie and say Catholic. It burned me deeply to have to lie
like that; I am proud of being Jewish, and always have been. It was
even more painful to lie about my identity while living in a place
like Iraq, which had for millennia been the absolute pinnacle of the
Diaspora Jewish world, a place that still uses city names - like Ur,
in northern Iraq - that are mentioned in the Torah. But there was no
choice, until now. This holiday was the first time in all of my
years in Iraq that I was able to identify myself as a Jew and live
accordingly.
A final thought: The Iraqi Jewish community is down to barely six
people, the last remnants of the once-proud, vibrant Iraqi Jewish
world (there is a style of architecture in Baghdad that is even now
called "Jewish style"). The final few elderly Jews are largely
waiting to die, so they can be buried in the land of their ancestors.
When they die, the Jewish community of Iraq - once so robust and
important that the Talmud itself was written here - will for all
intents and purposes cease to exist. For a few days, though, Hebrew
was again heard in Iraq, as Jews sat down to eat, pray and celebrate
in a country now populated mainly of Jewish ghosts. For a few days,
there was again a Jewish community of Baghdad.
I hope that this next year is one of peace, joy, and health for each
of you - and for the Jewish soldiers of the U.S. military, with whom I
had the distinct honor of sharing Rosh Hashanah in Baghdad.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Polish 97-year old woman who saved 2,500 children in WW2.
Poland puts 97-year-old forward for Nobel prize
· Social worker smuggled Jews out of Warsaw
Kate Connolly in Berlin
Thursday March 15, 2007
The Guardian
Irena Sendlerowa was named a national hero by Poland yesterday for her secret work in the Warsaw ghetto. She smuggled children out through sewers and in suitcases and boxes. Photograph: Stach Antkowiak/AFP
A Polish social worker who saved 2,500 Jewish babies and children from the Nazi death camps was yesterday honoured as a national hero by the Polish parliament.
Irena Sendlerowa, 97, who has been nominated for this year's Nobel peace prize, changed the identity of the children she rescued from the Warsaw ghetto in 1942 and 1943 and placed them with Polish families.
As a member of Zegota, a secret organisation set up by the Polish government in exile in London in the second world war to rescue Polish Jews, she organised a small group of social workers to smuggle the children to safety. She worked in the Warsaw health department and had permission to enter the ghetto, which had been set up in November 1940 to segregate the city's 380,000 Jews.
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She and her team smuggled the children out by variously hiding them in ambulances, taking them through the sewer pipes or other underground passageways, wheeling them out on a trolley in suitcases or boxes or taking them out through the old courtyard which led to the non-Jewish areas.
She noted the names of the children on cigarette papers, twice for security, and sealed them in two glass bottles, which she buried in a colleague's garden.
After the war the bottles were dug up and the lists handed to Jewish representatives. Attempts were made to reunite the children with their families but most of them had perished in concentration camps.
Unlike the German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who saved more than 1,000 Jews by employing them at his Krakow factory and is widely recognised thanks to an award-winning book and film, Mrs Sendlerowa's story remains relatively unknown. A few years ago it was picked up in America by a group of Kansas school children who wrote a play about it, Life in a Jar.
Yesterday at a special session in Poland's upper house of parliament, members unanimously approved the resolution to honour Mrs Sendlerowa for rescuing "the most defenceless victims of the Nazi ideology - the Jewish children". President Lech Kaczynski said she was a "great hero who can be justly named for the Nobel peace prize".
He added: "She deserves great respect from our whole nation."
But Mrs Sendlerowa, who is in a Warsaw nursing home, insisted she did nothing special.
In an interview she said: "I was brought up to believe that a person must be rescued when drowning, regardless of religion and nationality."
"The term 'hero' irritates me greatly. The opposite is true. I continue to have pangs of conscience that I did so little."
She was arrested in October 1943 and taken to Gestapo headquarters where she was beaten. Her legs and feet were broken and she was then driven away to be executed. But a rucksack of dollars paid by Zegota secured her release. She was knocked unconscious and left by the roadside. She still has to use crutches today as a result of her injuries.
One of the "names in a jar" was Michal Glowinski, now a professor of literature. "I think about her the way you think of someone you owe your life to," he said.
Elzbieta Ficowska was smuggled out of the ghetto by Mrs Sendlerowa in a toolbox on a lorry when she was just five months old.
"In the face of today's indifference, the example of Irena Sendlerowa is very important. Irena Sendlerowa is like a third mother to me and many rescued children," she said, referring also to her real mother and her Polish foster mother.
Due to the Communist regime's suppression of history and its encouragement of anti-semitism, few Poles were aware of Zegota's work until a marble plaque dedicated to the organisation was unveiled near the former Warsaw Ghetto in 1995.
· Social worker smuggled Jews out of Warsaw
Kate Connolly in Berlin
Thursday March 15, 2007
The Guardian
Irena Sendlerowa was named a national hero by Poland yesterday for her secret work in the Warsaw ghetto. She smuggled children out through sewers and in suitcases and boxes. Photograph: Stach Antkowiak/AFP
A Polish social worker who saved 2,500 Jewish babies and children from the Nazi death camps was yesterday honoured as a national hero by the Polish parliament.
Irena Sendlerowa, 97, who has been nominated for this year's Nobel peace prize, changed the identity of the children she rescued from the Warsaw ghetto in 1942 and 1943 and placed them with Polish families.
As a member of Zegota, a secret organisation set up by the Polish government in exile in London in the second world war to rescue Polish Jews, she organised a small group of social workers to smuggle the children to safety. She worked in the Warsaw health department and had permission to enter the ghetto, which had been set up in November 1940 to segregate the city's 380,000 Jews.
Article continues
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She and her team smuggled the children out by variously hiding them in ambulances, taking them through the sewer pipes or other underground passageways, wheeling them out on a trolley in suitcases or boxes or taking them out through the old courtyard which led to the non-Jewish areas.
She noted the names of the children on cigarette papers, twice for security, and sealed them in two glass bottles, which she buried in a colleague's garden.
After the war the bottles were dug up and the lists handed to Jewish representatives. Attempts were made to reunite the children with their families but most of them had perished in concentration camps.
Unlike the German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who saved more than 1,000 Jews by employing them at his Krakow factory and is widely recognised thanks to an award-winning book and film, Mrs Sendlerowa's story remains relatively unknown. A few years ago it was picked up in America by a group of Kansas school children who wrote a play about it, Life in a Jar.
Yesterday at a special session in Poland's upper house of parliament, members unanimously approved the resolution to honour Mrs Sendlerowa for rescuing "the most defenceless victims of the Nazi ideology - the Jewish children". President Lech Kaczynski said she was a "great hero who can be justly named for the Nobel peace prize".
He added: "She deserves great respect from our whole nation."
But Mrs Sendlerowa, who is in a Warsaw nursing home, insisted she did nothing special.
In an interview she said: "I was brought up to believe that a person must be rescued when drowning, regardless of religion and nationality."
"The term 'hero' irritates me greatly. The opposite is true. I continue to have pangs of conscience that I did so little."
She was arrested in October 1943 and taken to Gestapo headquarters where she was beaten. Her legs and feet were broken and she was then driven away to be executed. But a rucksack of dollars paid by Zegota secured her release. She was knocked unconscious and left by the roadside. She still has to use crutches today as a result of her injuries.
One of the "names in a jar" was Michal Glowinski, now a professor of literature. "I think about her the way you think of someone you owe your life to," he said.
Elzbieta Ficowska was smuggled out of the ghetto by Mrs Sendlerowa in a toolbox on a lorry when she was just five months old.
"In the face of today's indifference, the example of Irena Sendlerowa is very important. Irena Sendlerowa is like a third mother to me and many rescued children," she said, referring also to her real mother and her Polish foster mother.
Due to the Communist regime's suppression of history and its encouragement of anti-semitism, few Poles were aware of Zegota's work until a marble plaque dedicated to the organisation was unveiled near the former Warsaw Ghetto in 1995.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
THE WORK ETHIC? Or the play ethic?
Priorities
In 1923,
Who Was:
1. President of the largest steel company?
2. President of the largest gas company?
3. President of the New York Stock Exchange?
4. Greatest wheat speculator?
5. President of the Bank of International Settlement?
6. Great Bear of Wall Street?
These men
were considered
some of the worlds most successful
of their days.
Now,
80 years later,
the history book asks us,
if we know
what ultimately became of them.
The Answers:
1. The president of the largest steel company.
Charles Schwab,
died a pauper.
2. The president of the largest gas
company,
Edward Hopson,
went insane.
3. The president of the NYSE,
Richard Whitney,
was released from prison
to die at home.
4. The greatest wheat speculator,
Arthur Cooger,
died abroad, penniless.
5. The president
of
the Bank of International Settlement,
shot himself.
6. The Great Bear of Wall Street,
Cosabee Livermore,
also committed suicide.
However:
in that same year,1923,
the PGA Champion and the winner of themost important golf tournament,
the US Open,was Gene Sarazen.What became of him?
He played golf until he was 92,
died in 1999 at the age of 95.
He was financially secure at the time of his death.
The Moral:
Screw work.
Play golf.
In 1923,
Who Was:
1. President of the largest steel company?
2. President of the largest gas company?
3. President of the New York Stock Exchange?
4. Greatest wheat speculator?
5. President of the Bank of International Settlement?
6. Great Bear of Wall Street?
These men
were considered
some of the worlds most successful
of their days.
Now,
80 years later,
the history book asks us,
if we know
what ultimately became of them.
The Answers:
1. The president of the largest steel company.
Charles Schwab,
died a pauper.
2. The president of the largest gas
company,
Edward Hopson,
went insane.
3. The president of the NYSE,
Richard Whitney,
was released from prison
to die at home.
4. The greatest wheat speculator,
Arthur Cooger,
died abroad, penniless.
5. The president
of
the Bank of International Settlement,
shot himself.
6. The Great Bear of Wall Street,
Cosabee Livermore,
also committed suicide.
However:
in that same year,1923,
the PGA Champion and the winner of themost important golf tournament,
the US Open,was Gene Sarazen.What became of him?
He played golf until he was 92,
died in 1999 at the age of 95.
He was financially secure at the time of his death.
The Moral:
Screw work.
Play golf.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
United Nations and Jerusalem.
MYTHS AND FACTS.
The United Nations and JerusalemOctober 22, 2007 | Eli E. Hertz
Both the General Assembly and the Security Council have limited influence on the future of Jerusalem.
Judge, Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, a former judge ad hoc on the bench of the International Court of Justice and a renowned and respected scholar of international law at Cambridge University, explained in 1968:
"The General Assembly has no power of disposition over Jerusalem and no right to lay down regulations for the Holy Places. The Security Council, of course, retains its powers under Chapter VII of the Charter in relation to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression, but these powers do not extend to the adoption of any general position regarding the future of Jerusalem and the Holy Places."
Originally, internationalization of Jerusalem was part of a much broader proposal that the Arab states rejected - both at the UN and 'on the ground,' by:
"a rejection underlined by armed invasion of Palestine by the forces of Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia ... aimed at destroying Israel."
The outcome of consistent Arab aggression was best described by Professor, Judge Schwebel, past President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
"As between Israel, acting defensively in 1948 and 1967, on the one hand, and her Arab neighbors, acting aggressively in 1948 and 1967, on the other, Israel has better title in the territory of what was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem." [italics by author]
Arab leaders point to UN Resolution 242 as a basis for their claim to Jerusalem. Resolution 242 was adopted after the 1967 War, when Israel captured territory from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, after they attacked Israel. However, the resolution never mentions Jerusalem, nor does UN Resolution 242 call for a full withdrawal from territory captured but merely a withdrawal to "secure and recognized boundaries" that are to be negotiated by the parties concerned. Arab Palestinians were not a party to the resolution.
Arthur Goldberg, the former U.S. Ambassador to the UN (in 1967) who helped draft the resolution, testified in regard to the omission of Jerusalem from Resolution 242:
"I never described Jerusalem as occupied territory. Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem and this omission was deliberate."
In conclusion of the role the UN and international law may play in determining the future of Jerusalem, one may again quote Judge Lauterpacht:
"(i) Israel's governmental measures in relation to Jerusalem - both New and Old - are lawful and valid [E.H. Unifying the City of Peace]
"(ii) The future regulation of the Holy Places is a matter to be determined quite separately from the political administration of Jerusalem. Territorial internationalization of Jerusalem is dead - but the possibility of functional internationalization is not. The latter means, in effect, the recognition of the universal interest in the Holy Places situated in Jerusalem and the adoption of links between Israel and the world community to give formal expression to that interest."
Read the entire chapter and notes for Jerusalem in MythsandFacts.com
Copyright 2007 Myths and Facts, Inc. and Eli E. Hertz
.
__,_._,___
The United Nations and JerusalemOctober 22, 2007 | Eli E. Hertz
Both the General Assembly and the Security Council have limited influence on the future of Jerusalem.
Judge, Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, a former judge ad hoc on the bench of the International Court of Justice and a renowned and respected scholar of international law at Cambridge University, explained in 1968:
"The General Assembly has no power of disposition over Jerusalem and no right to lay down regulations for the Holy Places. The Security Council, of course, retains its powers under Chapter VII of the Charter in relation to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression, but these powers do not extend to the adoption of any general position regarding the future of Jerusalem and the Holy Places."
Originally, internationalization of Jerusalem was part of a much broader proposal that the Arab states rejected - both at the UN and 'on the ground,' by:
"a rejection underlined by armed invasion of Palestine by the forces of Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia ... aimed at destroying Israel."
The outcome of consistent Arab aggression was best described by Professor, Judge Schwebel, past President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
"As between Israel, acting defensively in 1948 and 1967, on the one hand, and her Arab neighbors, acting aggressively in 1948 and 1967, on the other, Israel has better title in the territory of what was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem." [italics by author]
Arab leaders point to UN Resolution 242 as a basis for their claim to Jerusalem. Resolution 242 was adopted after the 1967 War, when Israel captured territory from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, after they attacked Israel. However, the resolution never mentions Jerusalem, nor does UN Resolution 242 call for a full withdrawal from territory captured but merely a withdrawal to "secure and recognized boundaries" that are to be negotiated by the parties concerned. Arab Palestinians were not a party to the resolution.
Arthur Goldberg, the former U.S. Ambassador to the UN (in 1967) who helped draft the resolution, testified in regard to the omission of Jerusalem from Resolution 242:
"I never described Jerusalem as occupied territory. Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem and this omission was deliberate."
In conclusion of the role the UN and international law may play in determining the future of Jerusalem, one may again quote Judge Lauterpacht:
"(i) Israel's governmental measures in relation to Jerusalem - both New and Old - are lawful and valid [E.H. Unifying the City of Peace]
"(ii) The future regulation of the Holy Places is a matter to be determined quite separately from the political administration of Jerusalem. Territorial internationalization of Jerusalem is dead - but the possibility of functional internationalization is not. The latter means, in effect, the recognition of the universal interest in the Holy Places situated in Jerusalem and the adoption of links between Israel and the world community to give formal expression to that interest."
Read the entire chapter and notes for Jerusalem in MythsandFacts.com
Copyright 2007 Myths and Facts, Inc. and Eli E. Hertz
.
__,_._,___
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
A personal experience for a Sudanese refuigee in Israel.
Together with my son, Avi, and a friend visiting from Los Angeles, I drive up north to visit two Sudanese refugees recently released from Israeli jail, just as the Darfur story is starting to become headline news here. By the time we make it to the moshav where they’re living, working as day laborers on a farm, it’s getting a bit dark. We sit outside the converted shipping container in which they’re living (it’s only a metal shipping container, but I notice that it has an air conditioner and a satellite dish on the “roof”), and they begin to tell us their story.
One, whose English is a bit better (and whom we’ll call Ibrahim for our purposes), does most of the talking. He’d had four-hundred head of cattle in Sudan, which I assume made him a wealthy man. He’d also been a teacher, and had a library of some consequence in his home. He didn’t tell his story in anything resembling a chronological account, but we cobbled it together. He was one of eleven siblings, from a respected family. But his wealth and his position did him no good. The Junjaweed attacked his village, killing most of his siblings, forcing him to flee into the wilds with his father. His father eventually died, and he himself was later captured.
His captors, he told us, would burn one or two of the captives alive each night in front of the others, allegedly to get them to reveal “information.” On the eve of the night when he was to be burned alive, his captors ran out of wood. So the captives, under the watchful eyes of their armed guards, were dispatched into the thickets to bring back more wood. Ibrahim knew what would happen if he returned to camp. So he and another man, working in the shoulder-high brush, plotted their escape. The details are complex, but suffice it to say that they evaded their captors, and walked for three days with leg chains until they could find someone to help them saw the chains off.
Eventually, “Ibrahim” made his way to Egypt. There, he met and married another Darfur refugee. A few months later, she was pregnant, and they applied for refugee status from the United Nations. In December 2005, though, they attended a large rally outside the UN headquarters in Cairo, pressing the UN to process them more quickly. But the Egyptian army broke up the demonstration using water canons with ice cold water (in December). In the confusion, Ibrahim was separated from his wife, and as he was pushed onto a bus, he saw her being shoved into a police car.
After several days in an Egyptian prison cell with sixty other inmates (the space was only large enough for thirty to sleep at any one time, so thirty would sleep on the cement floor for a few hours, while the rest stood and then they would switch), Ibrahim was released from prison, and went looking for his wife. At first, there was no sign of her. Eventually, after searching all over the city, he found her name on a list of the dead, affixed to a Church door.
Now, Ibrahim could barely speak. Neither could we, of course. For it was a story we’d heard before, only before, it had been about us. Families, secure and respected, suddenly torn asunder and murdered. Husbands separated from wives. Cruelty that defies description. Entire communities scattered and murdered.
Ibrahim continued. “I knew I must go to Israel. I have read in the Bible that the Jews are good to strangers. Israel will take care of me, I know.”
He paused, and suddenly, I was unable to look at my son I wished that I hadn’t brought him. Because I knew what was coming. Ibrahim was going to tell us that the Bible says that the Jews are good to strangers, but look what we actually do. We throw them in jail, don’t we? I found myself gripping the arms of the plastic chair on which I was sitting, listening to Ibrahim, but staring straight into the ground.
He described how he and another refugee (the quiet man now sitting next to him) had slowly made their way across the Sinai desert, without flashlights or candles. In the day they would sleep and stay still so as not to be detected, and at night they would inch their way forward, trying not to head too far west (and end up in Gaza) or too far east and thus (in their understanding of the geography) end up in Jordan. Eventually, after weeks of wandering at night, they came to a barbed wire fence. They knew it was a border, but they weren’t sure which border it was. They crawled through it with no trouble, he said, and stood up, surveying the new country in which they’d arrived.
Within seconds, Ibrahim told us, army jeeps streamed towards them, spotlights flooding the area with glaring white. Soldiers jumped out, their guns at the ready. It must have been terrifying, I imagined. But Ibrahim said, calmly, pointing at the spot on his shirt above his breast pocket, “I see on the soldiers writing I do not recognize. And I know this is Israel. I know I am OK.”
I almost laughed. He sees Hebrew, so he thinks he’s safe. But I knew that Ibrahim had been arrested, and I just knew that there was going to be a nasty story about these soldiers. I glanced at Avi, and his eye caught mine. Just having graduated high school, he’s not far from getting drafted himself, and I felt for him. They were going to tell us about the army he’s soon to join, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Ibrahim continued. The soldiers, having no idea what to do with these men (this was before the flood of refugees began), put them in their jeep, and took them to base. There, they told Ibrahim and his friend, “We’ll figure this out in the morning.” In the meantime, they gave them dinner, made them some beds, and let them go to sleep.
Now, that wasn’t what I’d expected to hear.
The rest of the story is complicated. Because he’d entered the country illegally (and as a Sudanese citizen, he’s a citizen of a country formally at war with Israel), Ibrahim was eventually arrested. When our friend from Los Angles asked him how it was in Israeli prison, he smiled and said, “Yes, very good.” “No,” our friend said, assuming he hadn’t understood the question. “In prison. How was it in prison?” “Yes,” Ibrahim insisted. “Good. They give us food. The guards are kind.” At last, I allowed myself a brief glance at Avi.
Eventually, a judge let him out of prison, and he was permitted to work on this moshav, which had taken in a number of refugees. In a few weeks, he told us, there would be no limits on his freedom. He would head to Tel Aviv, he said, to try to find a job, and to start his life anew.
“Do you think you’ll be allowed to stay in Israel?” my friend asked him. Ibrahim’s smile disappeared. “I must,” he said. “This is wonderful country. People here are very kind. I rather die in Israel than go back to Egypt or Sudan. They will kill me there.” He’s seen them do it, we should recall.
We took some pictures, exchanged cell phone numbers. Ibrahim had forgotten my son’s name, and asked him what it was. “Avi,” Avi said. Ibrahim looked at his friend, and they smiled. He turned to us and said, “Avi was the name of a guard in prison. He was very nice man.”
Driving home along the coast, we talked about what we’d heard. How do some Israelis not see that we simply have to let the Darfur refugees in? Does the story about crossing the desert from Egypt to a promised land not speak to us any longer? Why don’t we get the UN to beef up its forces at the border with experts who can tell the real refugees from genocide from those simply seeking a better life (the latter being probably too numerous for Israel to accommodate)? Why doesn’t the Foreign Ministry get stories like this into the press, instead of succumbing to using absurdly scantily-clad women to allegedly improve Israel’s image abroad?
But something else was bothering me. It wasn’t the government’s pathetic non-policy regarding these refugees, or even the Foreign Ministry’s desperation. It was me. Why had I been so certain that Ibrahim was going to tell us how misanthropic Israelis were, how abusive the soldiers had been? Why did I assume the soldiers had done something wrong, when in fact, they’d been extraordinarily kind? Why was I so positive that here, too, Israel had failed? The Israel that Ibrahim knows is a kind, decent place. If he was so certain, why was I so unsure?
Cynicism is a dangerous disease, a cancer of the soul. Often, we don’t know we have it, until it’s too late, until part of us has died. It’s also contagious. And this country has stage-three cynicism. By cynicism, I don’t mean the occasional snide joke at a cocktail party. I mean a low-grade but constant self-loathing among many of the people I know at the elite of Israel’s intellectual and academic circles, for whom discussion of the Jewish State is more than passé it’s absurd. If you say something about the values inherent in Zionism, you sound odd. If you insist that the Jews have something unique to say and that having a State is our platform on which we can begin to articulate that “something,” they look at you as if you’re “cute.” As if you’d referred to a young dating couple as “courting,” or as if you’d just called a pair of jeans “dungarees.” You’re an anachronism, and no one “in the know” will take you, or your ideas, very seriously.
This self-loathing manifests itself in a relentless discussion of the occupation, with no reference to why the occupation began or to the fact that Israel doesn’t exactly have many sane choices that might end it. You see it when people insist Israel should “just sign a peace agreement already,” with no consideration of what’s unfolding in Gaza, in complete denial of the obvious fact that there’s no way that Abu Mazen can deliver on anything he promises before or during Annapolis. It’s the culture in which post-nationalism is taken as an obvious truth, with no recognition of the fact that it’s only when discussing the state of the Jews that people insist that the nation-state should be dismantled. It’s the conversational style in which every mention of an Israeli soldier has to be followed by an account of some act of barbarity, lest you appear overly nationalistic.
You see it here, too: in the past few years, more than one colleague has told me, with a wink and a smile, about his/her able-bodied son who figured out a way out of military service. “It’s not for him,” they say. He wants to work on his music, his art, his athletic prowess. Because it’s not as if defending the first homeland that the Jews have had in two thousand years is actually a value, is it? But the saxophone? Now, there’s a value.
They’ve gotten to me, I realized as we turned inland from the Mediterranean and started the long climb up to Jerusalem. That night, listening to Ibrahim, I just knew that we’d wronged him –even when we hadn’t. Of course I was appalled by those draft-evasion stories, and yes, I knew which friends and colleagues to avoid after a bombing so I could spare myself the comments about how “the evils of the occupation” justify blowing women and children to smithereens in a café. But other than avoiding those people, I asked myself, what was I doing about it? Nothing.
In the quiet of the car, I wondered about this country, and how you cure a society that no longer engages in any serious discourse about why its existence matters. And I thought about that treadmill, and about Levi’s question – “Isn’t building something the reason you’re here?”
And then, unbelievably, the phone rang (more truthfully, an e-mail made its way into my inbox). It was the Shalem Center (www.shalem.org.il), a Jerusalem-based research and education institute that engages in research, education, and publications on Jewish moral and political thought, Zionist history and ideas, democratic theory and practice, strategic studies, and more. “How about coming over for a visit?” they suggested. Having read their journals and books with great admiration for years, I hastened to accept. (To get the Shalem Center’s e-Newsletter, go to http://www.shalem.org.il/about/?did=47.)
One, whose English is a bit better (and whom we’ll call Ibrahim for our purposes), does most of the talking. He’d had four-hundred head of cattle in Sudan, which I assume made him a wealthy man. He’d also been a teacher, and had a library of some consequence in his home. He didn’t tell his story in anything resembling a chronological account, but we cobbled it together. He was one of eleven siblings, from a respected family. But his wealth and his position did him no good. The Junjaweed attacked his village, killing most of his siblings, forcing him to flee into the wilds with his father. His father eventually died, and he himself was later captured.
His captors, he told us, would burn one or two of the captives alive each night in front of the others, allegedly to get them to reveal “information.” On the eve of the night when he was to be burned alive, his captors ran out of wood. So the captives, under the watchful eyes of their armed guards, were dispatched into the thickets to bring back more wood. Ibrahim knew what would happen if he returned to camp. So he and another man, working in the shoulder-high brush, plotted their escape. The details are complex, but suffice it to say that they evaded their captors, and walked for three days with leg chains until they could find someone to help them saw the chains off.
Eventually, “Ibrahim” made his way to Egypt. There, he met and married another Darfur refugee. A few months later, she was pregnant, and they applied for refugee status from the United Nations. In December 2005, though, they attended a large rally outside the UN headquarters in Cairo, pressing the UN to process them more quickly. But the Egyptian army broke up the demonstration using water canons with ice cold water (in December). In the confusion, Ibrahim was separated from his wife, and as he was pushed onto a bus, he saw her being shoved into a police car.
After several days in an Egyptian prison cell with sixty other inmates (the space was only large enough for thirty to sleep at any one time, so thirty would sleep on the cement floor for a few hours, while the rest stood and then they would switch), Ibrahim was released from prison, and went looking for his wife. At first, there was no sign of her. Eventually, after searching all over the city, he found her name on a list of the dead, affixed to a Church door.
Now, Ibrahim could barely speak. Neither could we, of course. For it was a story we’d heard before, only before, it had been about us. Families, secure and respected, suddenly torn asunder and murdered. Husbands separated from wives. Cruelty that defies description. Entire communities scattered and murdered.
Ibrahim continued. “I knew I must go to Israel. I have read in the Bible that the Jews are good to strangers. Israel will take care of me, I know.”
He paused, and suddenly, I was unable to look at my son I wished that I hadn’t brought him. Because I knew what was coming. Ibrahim was going to tell us that the Bible says that the Jews are good to strangers, but look what we actually do. We throw them in jail, don’t we? I found myself gripping the arms of the plastic chair on which I was sitting, listening to Ibrahim, but staring straight into the ground.
He described how he and another refugee (the quiet man now sitting next to him) had slowly made their way across the Sinai desert, without flashlights or candles. In the day they would sleep and stay still so as not to be detected, and at night they would inch their way forward, trying not to head too far west (and end up in Gaza) or too far east and thus (in their understanding of the geography) end up in Jordan. Eventually, after weeks of wandering at night, they came to a barbed wire fence. They knew it was a border, but they weren’t sure which border it was. They crawled through it with no trouble, he said, and stood up, surveying the new country in which they’d arrived.
Within seconds, Ibrahim told us, army jeeps streamed towards them, spotlights flooding the area with glaring white. Soldiers jumped out, their guns at the ready. It must have been terrifying, I imagined. But Ibrahim said, calmly, pointing at the spot on his shirt above his breast pocket, “I see on the soldiers writing I do not recognize. And I know this is Israel. I know I am OK.”
I almost laughed. He sees Hebrew, so he thinks he’s safe. But I knew that Ibrahim had been arrested, and I just knew that there was going to be a nasty story about these soldiers. I glanced at Avi, and his eye caught mine. Just having graduated high school, he’s not far from getting drafted himself, and I felt for him. They were going to tell us about the army he’s soon to join, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Ibrahim continued. The soldiers, having no idea what to do with these men (this was before the flood of refugees began), put them in their jeep, and took them to base. There, they told Ibrahim and his friend, “We’ll figure this out in the morning.” In the meantime, they gave them dinner, made them some beds, and let them go to sleep.
Now, that wasn’t what I’d expected to hear.
The rest of the story is complicated. Because he’d entered the country illegally (and as a Sudanese citizen, he’s a citizen of a country formally at war with Israel), Ibrahim was eventually arrested. When our friend from Los Angles asked him how it was in Israeli prison, he smiled and said, “Yes, very good.” “No,” our friend said, assuming he hadn’t understood the question. “In prison. How was it in prison?” “Yes,” Ibrahim insisted. “Good. They give us food. The guards are kind.” At last, I allowed myself a brief glance at Avi.
Eventually, a judge let him out of prison, and he was permitted to work on this moshav, which had taken in a number of refugees. In a few weeks, he told us, there would be no limits on his freedom. He would head to Tel Aviv, he said, to try to find a job, and to start his life anew.
“Do you think you’ll be allowed to stay in Israel?” my friend asked him. Ibrahim’s smile disappeared. “I must,” he said. “This is wonderful country. People here are very kind. I rather die in Israel than go back to Egypt or Sudan. They will kill me there.” He’s seen them do it, we should recall.
We took some pictures, exchanged cell phone numbers. Ibrahim had forgotten my son’s name, and asked him what it was. “Avi,” Avi said. Ibrahim looked at his friend, and they smiled. He turned to us and said, “Avi was the name of a guard in prison. He was very nice man.”
Driving home along the coast, we talked about what we’d heard. How do some Israelis not see that we simply have to let the Darfur refugees in? Does the story about crossing the desert from Egypt to a promised land not speak to us any longer? Why don’t we get the UN to beef up its forces at the border with experts who can tell the real refugees from genocide from those simply seeking a better life (the latter being probably too numerous for Israel to accommodate)? Why doesn’t the Foreign Ministry get stories like this into the press, instead of succumbing to using absurdly scantily-clad women to allegedly improve Israel’s image abroad?
But something else was bothering me. It wasn’t the government’s pathetic non-policy regarding these refugees, or even the Foreign Ministry’s desperation. It was me. Why had I been so certain that Ibrahim was going to tell us how misanthropic Israelis were, how abusive the soldiers had been? Why did I assume the soldiers had done something wrong, when in fact, they’d been extraordinarily kind? Why was I so positive that here, too, Israel had failed? The Israel that Ibrahim knows is a kind, decent place. If he was so certain, why was I so unsure?
Cynicism is a dangerous disease, a cancer of the soul. Often, we don’t know we have it, until it’s too late, until part of us has died. It’s also contagious. And this country has stage-three cynicism. By cynicism, I don’t mean the occasional snide joke at a cocktail party. I mean a low-grade but constant self-loathing among many of the people I know at the elite of Israel’s intellectual and academic circles, for whom discussion of the Jewish State is more than passé it’s absurd. If you say something about the values inherent in Zionism, you sound odd. If you insist that the Jews have something unique to say and that having a State is our platform on which we can begin to articulate that “something,” they look at you as if you’re “cute.” As if you’d referred to a young dating couple as “courting,” or as if you’d just called a pair of jeans “dungarees.” You’re an anachronism, and no one “in the know” will take you, or your ideas, very seriously.
This self-loathing manifests itself in a relentless discussion of the occupation, with no reference to why the occupation began or to the fact that Israel doesn’t exactly have many sane choices that might end it. You see it when people insist Israel should “just sign a peace agreement already,” with no consideration of what’s unfolding in Gaza, in complete denial of the obvious fact that there’s no way that Abu Mazen can deliver on anything he promises before or during Annapolis. It’s the culture in which post-nationalism is taken as an obvious truth, with no recognition of the fact that it’s only when discussing the state of the Jews that people insist that the nation-state should be dismantled. It’s the conversational style in which every mention of an Israeli soldier has to be followed by an account of some act of barbarity, lest you appear overly nationalistic.
You see it here, too: in the past few years, more than one colleague has told me, with a wink and a smile, about his/her able-bodied son who figured out a way out of military service. “It’s not for him,” they say. He wants to work on his music, his art, his athletic prowess. Because it’s not as if defending the first homeland that the Jews have had in two thousand years is actually a value, is it? But the saxophone? Now, there’s a value.
They’ve gotten to me, I realized as we turned inland from the Mediterranean and started the long climb up to Jerusalem. That night, listening to Ibrahim, I just knew that we’d wronged him –even when we hadn’t. Of course I was appalled by those draft-evasion stories, and yes, I knew which friends and colleagues to avoid after a bombing so I could spare myself the comments about how “the evils of the occupation” justify blowing women and children to smithereens in a café. But other than avoiding those people, I asked myself, what was I doing about it? Nothing.
In the quiet of the car, I wondered about this country, and how you cure a society that no longer engages in any serious discourse about why its existence matters. And I thought about that treadmill, and about Levi’s question – “Isn’t building something the reason you’re here?”
And then, unbelievably, the phone rang (more truthfully, an e-mail made its way into my inbox). It was the Shalem Center (www.shalem.org.il), a Jerusalem-based research and education institute that engages in research, education, and publications on Jewish moral and political thought, Zionist history and ideas, democratic theory and practice, strategic studies, and more. “How about coming over for a visit?” they suggested. Having read their journals and books with great admiration for years, I hastened to accept. (To get the Shalem Center’s e-Newsletter, go to http://www.shalem.org.il/about/?did=47.)
Monday, October 08, 2007
New Fascists or Islamo-Fascists?
Terrorism Awareness week October 22-26, 2007.
Neo-Nazi Activity Spreading Around the World
by Hana Levi Julian
(IsraelNN.com) Neo-Nazi activity is rising around the world, matching a similar trend in the Jewish State. Incidents in the Hebrew month of Tishrei were reported in Europe, Southeast Asia and the U.S.
The holiday-laden Hebrew month of Tishrei, corresponding to the secular month of September and early October, saw an upswing in neo-Nazi activity around the globe, matching a similar trend in the State of Israel.United States, an epidemic of neo-Nazi vandalism is beginning to surface on the eastern seaboard.
New York
Anti-Semites erected a four-foot high swastika at a Long Island, New York school this week in the latest of a rash of anti-Semitic incidents. Swastikas were also sprayed at another school and hate mail was sent to at least seven Jewish homes.
A bus outside a Brooklyn yeshiva was found marked up with swastikas and anti-Jewish slurs on Friday, Erev Yom Kippur, police and school officials said. According to the September 23rd report, vandals used soap or lotion to mark up the mirrors and inside of the bus that was parked outside the Bnei Shimon Yisroel yeshiva in Williamsburg, a primarily Chassidic section of the borough.
Police said they would investigate the incident, but a school official quoted in local papers said local educators didn't expect results anytime soon.
“You see people doing all kinds of graffiti in this neighborhood,” said the school official, who asked not to be identified. Even if there had been witnesses, he added, they would probably not have paid attention to the incident.
Pennsylvania
In a rural area near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this week, a 60-foot wide swastika was carved in a cornfield. The farmer destroyed it by harvesting the crop.
A similar, but more extreme incident occurred in the same area last month, when a huge 600-foot wide swastika was found carved in another cornfield.
In Southeast Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, an upswing in anti-Semitism is increasingly being expressed with neo-Nazi incidents as well, some quite creative.
India
A bed linen dealer in India named a new bedspread collection NAZI, which he claimed stands for “New Arrival Zone of India.” The claim was suspect, however, due to the Nazi symbol of a hooked cross that forms part of the logo as well as the dealer’s lack of concern about the furor the design has caused.
“It really does not matter to me who feels bad about it,” said the dealer, Kapilkumar Todi, according to a report last week in the Times of India. The Jewish Council of India said it was exploring the possibility of legal action against the dealer, and Chairman Jonathan Solomon of the India Jewish Federation said his community would lodge a protest as well.
Eventually, the company backed down and withdrew the collection.
Portugal
Jews in Lisbon, Portugal were shocked by the first-ever desecration of a Jewish cemetery in the country's capital this week. Police have arrested two youths accused of vandalizing 20 gravestones and painting Nazi swastikas.
Jewish community leader Esther Mucznik said the government would be informed of the "pure act of racism and anti-Semitism," according to the European Jewish Press. Approximately 1,000 Jews live in Portugal.
Germany
In northern Germany, a news anchorwoman for the region’s public television channel was fired Sunday after she praised the way the Nazi regime treated women and the family unit.
The presenter, Eva Herman, said that the Nazi regime included "many very bad things, Adolf Hitler for example, but it included some good things, like the appreciation of women."
Austria
Austria’s Defense Ministry issued a statement early last month announcing that four soldiers had been suspended from service for creating neo-Nazi propaganda.
The four were found guilty of preparing two videos in which they were seen using the Nazi salute while in uniform on an army base. One of the soldiers exposed a tattoo of a swastika.
Austrian authorities began investigating the matter after discovering the videos on the popular website YouTube. Defense Minister Norbert Darabos said the soldiers could face charges.
Austria will not tolerate Nazi propaganda, said the Defense Minister, adding, “There will be no compromise on this matter.”
Czech Republic
Prague officials over the weekend banned a march by the neo-Nazi Young National Democrats who planned to parade through the city's Jewish quarter the day after the anniversary of Kristallnacht, when Nazis terrorized Jews and burned down synagogues 69 years ago.
City officials responding to pleas by Jews to cancel the event stated that the planned march would lead to incitement and further hatred of Jews.
Prague leaders originally said that they could not stop the march because a court overturned a ban on a similar march last year.
Poland
Polish vandals desecrated a Jewish cemetery in the central city of Kalisz in the first week of September in the latest of several desecrations in the same cemetery over the past several months.
According to the European Jewish Press, the vandals also destroyed a memorial plaque dedicated to the Jews of Kalisz, where some 20,000 to 30,000 Jews lived before the Nazi invasion.
Hungary
Hungarian government officials are also on edge after a large neo-Nazi cell marched in the capital in the first week of September.
Fifty-six Magyar Garda [Hungarian Guard] members marched in polished combat boots and black uniforms to Budapest's presidential palace and raised their right hands in a salute to defend the country from "bloodsuckers."
The neo-Nazi marchers took an oath of allegiance in a ceremony that evoked "images of the Hungarian fascists who flew the same banner in the 1930s," Bloomberg News reported.
Hungary's Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany vowed in response to make inciting racial hatred a crime. The Anti-Defamation League has stated that prejudice against Jews in Hungary is more widespread than in any other European country. The Magyar Garda denies being anti-Semitic
ISLAMIST LEADER WANTS REVOLUTION. The Australian
(Is this Islamophobia or reflecting reality? MM)
Islamist 'leader' wants revolution
By Natalie O'Brien
September 26, 2007 12:15am
Call for overthrow of non-Muslim governments
Sheik is 'leader' of mysterious Hizb ut-Tahrir
Group banned in Europe, China and Saudi Arabia
THE mysterious sheik behind the Australian chapter of Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir has revealed the organisation's support for military coups and revolutions to overthrow non-Muslim governments worldwide.
Ismail Al Wahwah, who was little known until last month when he was banned from a Hizb ut-Tahrir conference in Indonesia, spoke out on an Arabic radio program that revealed him as the "active member" of the group in Australia.
In an interview on SBS radio last month, he attacked the West's lack of values and backed the use of suicide bombings in Iraq and Palestine, even if they killed Australians.
"I say any occupied people have the responsibility to defend their country," he told SBS's Arabic radio program. "The victim should not be asked how he is defending himself."
Sheik Wahwah is understood to be the unofficial leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Australia. The Australian has obtained the first pictures of the man widely known in the Muslim community as Abu Anas.
Hizb ut-Tahrir's media spokesman, Wassim Doureihi, denied the sheik was the group's leader in Australia, saying Sheik Wahwah was a senior member and that his brother, Ashraf, a civil engineer at North Sydney Council, was the official leader.
But Sheik Wahwah is sent to address senior members of the Islamic community in Sydney on behalf of Hizb ut-Tahrir, and he was Australia's representative for the Indonesian conference.
On the radio program, he was introduced as the "active member" of the party - a statement he did not correct.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is a secretive organisation known as the Party of Islamic Liberation, which advocates the destruction of Western civilisation and the overthrow of governments and their replacement by Islamic rule.
The group is banned in Europe, China and Saudi Arabia, but remains legal in Britain and Australia, actively pushing the idea of a Muslim rule.
It has been investigated by ASIO but there is not enough evidence to proscribe it as a terrorist organisation. Five years ago, most Western observers did not consider Hizb ut-Tahrir a serious threat, but its influence has grown and it now has a presence in about 45 countries.
Sheik Wahwah has refused to speak to the mainstream media in Australia.
In his radio interview, he said the allegations that the failed London bomb plotters were linked to Hizb ut-Tahrir was another example of the clash of civilisations and the West's dropping of one of its most basic values - the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Sheik Wahwah expressed support for violent means to overthrow governments to achieve the group's aim of a caliphate.
He said if nations did not respond to the wishes of their people, the people should use all the powers they had, including the army, to usurp the rulers.
"It is up to the Ummah (community) to sort out its own matter with these rulers and remove their ruler in a public manner," he said.
"It could be such as a public revolution, public disobedience or a military coup.
"We are in the front line with the Ummah. We don't engage in militant activities. Our case is to make the case of Islam the case of the Ummah."
It is statements such as this that have prompted experts, including those at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, to label Hizb ut-Tahrir as a conveyer belt for terrorism.
Islamist 'leader' wants revolution
By Natalie O'Brien
September 26, 2007 12:15am
Call for overthrow of non-Muslim governments
Sheik is 'leader' of mysterious Hizb ut-Tahrir
Group banned in Europe, China and Saudi Arabia
THE mysterious sheik behind the Australian chapter of Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir has revealed the organisation's support for military coups and revolutions to overthrow non-Muslim governments worldwide.
Ismail Al Wahwah, who was little known until last month when he was banned from a Hizb ut-Tahrir conference in Indonesia, spoke out on an Arabic radio program that revealed him as the "active member" of the group in Australia.
In an interview on SBS radio last month, he attacked the West's lack of values and backed the use of suicide bombings in Iraq and Palestine, even if they killed Australians.
"I say any occupied people have the responsibility to defend their country," he told SBS's Arabic radio program. "The victim should not be asked how he is defending himself."
Sheik Wahwah is understood to be the unofficial leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Australia. The Australian has obtained the first pictures of the man widely known in the Muslim community as Abu Anas.
Hizb ut-Tahrir's media spokesman, Wassim Doureihi, denied the sheik was the group's leader in Australia, saying Sheik Wahwah was a senior member and that his brother, Ashraf, a civil engineer at North Sydney Council, was the official leader.
But Sheik Wahwah is sent to address senior members of the Islamic community in Sydney on behalf of Hizb ut-Tahrir, and he was Australia's representative for the Indonesian conference.
On the radio program, he was introduced as the "active member" of the party - a statement he did not correct.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is a secretive organisation known as the Party of Islamic Liberation, which advocates the destruction of Western civilisation and the overthrow of governments and their replacement by Islamic rule.
The group is banned in Europe, China and Saudi Arabia, but remains legal in Britain and Australia, actively pushing the idea of a Muslim rule.
It has been investigated by ASIO but there is not enough evidence to proscribe it as a terrorist organisation. Five years ago, most Western observers did not consider Hizb ut-Tahrir a serious threat, but its influence has grown and it now has a presence in about 45 countries.
Sheik Wahwah has refused to speak to the mainstream media in Australia.
In his radio interview, he said the allegations that the failed London bomb plotters were linked to Hizb ut-Tahrir was another example of the clash of civilisations and the West's dropping of one of its most basic values - the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Sheik Wahwah expressed support for violent means to overthrow governments to achieve the group's aim of a caliphate.
He said if nations did not respond to the wishes of their people, the people should use all the powers they had, including the army, to usurp the rulers.
"It is up to the Ummah (community) to sort out its own matter with these rulers and remove their ruler in a public manner," he said.
"It could be such as a public revolution, public disobedience or a military coup.
"We are in the front line with the Ummah. We don't engage in militant activities. Our case is to make the case of Islam the case of the Ummah."
It is statements such as this that have prompted experts, including those at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, to label Hizb ut-Tahrir as a conveyer belt for terrorism.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
ME Politics. The effect of IAF's incursion over Syria.
YOU DON'T SEE THIS IN THE PAPERS OR ON TV. Not yet anyway. This is a personal analysis and possibly a valid one re the Israeli incursion into Syria and its relevance to the ME situation vs. Iran as well as,Syria, and Nth. Korea and Russia!
MM
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
Wednesday, 19 September 2007
To The Point News - http://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/1117/90/
One of India's top ranking generals assigned to liaise with the Iranian
military recently returned to New Delhi from several days in Tehran - in
a state of complete amazement.
"Everyone in the government and military can only talk of one thing," he
reports. "No matter who I talked to, all they could do was ask me, over
and over again, 'Do you think the Americans will attack us?' 'When will
the Americans attack us?' 'Will the Americans attack us in a joint
operation with the Israelis?' How massive will the attack be?' on and
on, endlessly. The Iranians are in a state of total panic."
And that was before September 6. Since then, it's panic-squared in
Tehran. The mullahs are freaking out in fear. Why? Because of the
silence in Syria.
On September 6, Israeli Air Force F-15 and F-16s conducted a devastating
attack on targets deep inside Syria near the city of Dayr az-Zawr.
Israel's military censors have muzzled the Israeli media, enforcing an
extraordinary silence about the identity of the targets. Massive
speculation in the world press has followed, such as Brett Stephens'
Osirak II? in yesterday's (9/18) Wall St. Journal.
Stephens and most everyone else have missed the real story. It is not
Israel's silence that "speaks volumes" as he claims, but Syria's. Why
would the Syrian government be so tight-lipped about an act of war
perpetrated on their soil?
The first half of the answer lies in this story that appeared in the
Israeli media last month (8/13): Syria's Antiaircraft System Most
Advanced In World. Syria has gone on a profligate buying spree, spending
vast sums on Russian systems, "considered the cutting edge in aircraft
interception technology."
Syria now "possesses the most crowded antiaircraft system in the world,"
with "more than 200 antiaircraft batteries of different types," some of
which are so new that they have been installed in Syria "before being
introduced into Russian operation service."
While you're digesting that, take a look at the map of Syria:
Notice how far away Dayr az-Zawr is from Israel. An F15/16 attack there
is not a tiptoe across the border, but a deep, deep penetration of
Syrian airspace. And guess what happened with the Russian
super-hyper-sophisticated cutting edge antiaircraft missile batteries
when that penetration took place on September 6th.
Nothing.
El blanko. Silence. The systems didn't even light up, gave no indication
whatever of any detection of enemy aircraft invading Syrian airspace,
zip, zero, nada. The Israelis (with a little techie assistance from us)
blinded the Russkie antiaircraft systems so completely the Syrians
didn't even know they were blinded.
Now you see why the Syrians have been scared speechless. They thought
they were protected - at enormous expense - only to discover they are
defenseless. As in naked.
Thus the Great Iranian Freak-Out - for this means Iran is just as
nakedly defenseless as Syria. I can tell you that there are a lot of
folks in the Kirya (IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv) and the Pentagon right
now who are really enjoying the mullahs' predicament. Let's face it:
scaring the terror masters in Tehran out of their wits is fun.
It's so much fun, in fact, that an attack destroying Iran's nuclear
facilities and the Revolutionary Guard command/control centers has been
delayed, so that France (under new management) can get in on the fun too.
On Sunday (9/16), Sarkozy's foreign minister Bernard Kouchner announced
that "France should prepare for the possibility of war over Iran's
nuclear program."
All of this has caused Tehran to respond with maniacal threats. On
Monday (9/17), a government website proclaimed that "600 Shihab-3
missiles" will be fired at targets in Israel in response to an attack
upon Iran by the US/Israel. This was followed by Iranian deputy air
force chief Gen. Mohammad Alavi announcing today (9/19) that "we will
attack their (Israeli) territory with our fighter bombers as a response
to any attack."
A sure sign of panic is to make a threat that everyone knows is a bluff.
So our and Tel Aviv's response to Iranian bluster is a
thank-you-for-sharing yawn and a laugh. Few things rattle the mullahs'
cages more than a yawn and a laugh.
Yet no matter how much fun this sport with the mullahs is, it is also
deadly serious. The pressure build-up on Iran is getting enormous.
Something is going to blow and soon. The hope is that the blow-up will
be internal, that the regime will implode from within.
But make no mistake: an all-out full regime take-out air assault upon
Iran is coming if that hope doesn't materialize within the next 60 to 90
days. The Sept. 6 attack on Syria was the shot across Iran's bow.
So - what was attacked near Dayr az-Zawr? It's possible it was North
Korean "nuclear material" recently shipped to Syria, i.e., stuff to make
radioactively "dirty" warheads, but nothing to make a real nuke with as
the Norks don't have real nukes (see Why North Korea's Nuke Test Is Such
Good News, October 2006).
Another possibility is it was to take out a stockpile of long-range
Zilzal surface-to-surface missiles recently shipped from Iran for an
attack on Israel.
A third is it was a hit on the stockpile of Saddam's chemical/bio
weapons snuck out of Iraq and into Syria for safekeeping before the US
invasion of April 2003.
But the identity of the target is not the story - for the primary point
of the attack was not to destroy that target. It was to shut down
Syria's Russian air defense system during the attack. Doing so made the
attack an incredible success.
Syria is shamed and silent. Iran is freaking out in panic. Defenseless
enemies are fun.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MM
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
Wednesday, 19 September 2007
To The Point News - http://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/1117/90/
One of India's top ranking generals assigned to liaise with the Iranian
military recently returned to New Delhi from several days in Tehran - in
a state of complete amazement.
"Everyone in the government and military can only talk of one thing," he
reports. "No matter who I talked to, all they could do was ask me, over
and over again, 'Do you think the Americans will attack us?' 'When will
the Americans attack us?' 'Will the Americans attack us in a joint
operation with the Israelis?' How massive will the attack be?' on and
on, endlessly. The Iranians are in a state of total panic."
And that was before September 6. Since then, it's panic-squared in
Tehran. The mullahs are freaking out in fear. Why? Because of the
silence in Syria.
On September 6, Israeli Air Force F-15 and F-16s conducted a devastating
attack on targets deep inside Syria near the city of Dayr az-Zawr.
Israel's military censors have muzzled the Israeli media, enforcing an
extraordinary silence about the identity of the targets. Massive
speculation in the world press has followed, such as Brett Stephens'
Osirak II? in yesterday's (9/18) Wall St. Journal.
Stephens and most everyone else have missed the real story. It is not
Israel's silence that "speaks volumes" as he claims, but Syria's. Why
would the Syrian government be so tight-lipped about an act of war
perpetrated on their soil?
The first half of the answer lies in this story that appeared in the
Israeli media last month (8/13): Syria's Antiaircraft System Most
Advanced In World. Syria has gone on a profligate buying spree, spending
vast sums on Russian systems, "considered the cutting edge in aircraft
interception technology."
Syria now "possesses the most crowded antiaircraft system in the world,"
with "more than 200 antiaircraft batteries of different types," some of
which are so new that they have been installed in Syria "before being
introduced into Russian operation service."
While you're digesting that, take a look at the map of Syria:
Notice how far away Dayr az-Zawr is from Israel. An F15/16 attack there
is not a tiptoe across the border, but a deep, deep penetration of
Syrian airspace. And guess what happened with the Russian
super-hyper-sophisticated cutting edge antiaircraft missile batteries
when that penetration took place on September 6th.
Nothing.
El blanko. Silence. The systems didn't even light up, gave no indication
whatever of any detection of enemy aircraft invading Syrian airspace,
zip, zero, nada. The Israelis (with a little techie assistance from us)
blinded the Russkie antiaircraft systems so completely the Syrians
didn't even know they were blinded.
Now you see why the Syrians have been scared speechless. They thought
they were protected - at enormous expense - only to discover they are
defenseless. As in naked.
Thus the Great Iranian Freak-Out - for this means Iran is just as
nakedly defenseless as Syria. I can tell you that there are a lot of
folks in the Kirya (IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv) and the Pentagon right
now who are really enjoying the mullahs' predicament. Let's face it:
scaring the terror masters in Tehran out of their wits is fun.
It's so much fun, in fact, that an attack destroying Iran's nuclear
facilities and the Revolutionary Guard command/control centers has been
delayed, so that France (under new management) can get in on the fun too.
On Sunday (9/16), Sarkozy's foreign minister Bernard Kouchner announced
that "France should prepare for the possibility of war over Iran's
nuclear program."
All of this has caused Tehran to respond with maniacal threats. On
Monday (9/17), a government website proclaimed that "600 Shihab-3
missiles" will be fired at targets in Israel in response to an attack
upon Iran by the US/Israel. This was followed by Iranian deputy air
force chief Gen. Mohammad Alavi announcing today (9/19) that "we will
attack their (Israeli) territory with our fighter bombers as a response
to any attack."
A sure sign of panic is to make a threat that everyone knows is a bluff.
So our and Tel Aviv's response to Iranian bluster is a
thank-you-for-sharing yawn and a laugh. Few things rattle the mullahs'
cages more than a yawn and a laugh.
Yet no matter how much fun this sport with the mullahs is, it is also
deadly serious. The pressure build-up on Iran is getting enormous.
Something is going to blow and soon. The hope is that the blow-up will
be internal, that the regime will implode from within.
But make no mistake: an all-out full regime take-out air assault upon
Iran is coming if that hope doesn't materialize within the next 60 to 90
days. The Sept. 6 attack on Syria was the shot across Iran's bow.
So - what was attacked near Dayr az-Zawr? It's possible it was North
Korean "nuclear material" recently shipped to Syria, i.e., stuff to make
radioactively "dirty" warheads, but nothing to make a real nuke with as
the Norks don't have real nukes (see Why North Korea's Nuke Test Is Such
Good News, October 2006).
Another possibility is it was to take out a stockpile of long-range
Zilzal surface-to-surface missiles recently shipped from Iran for an
attack on Israel.
A third is it was a hit on the stockpile of Saddam's chemical/bio
weapons snuck out of Iraq and into Syria for safekeeping before the US
invasion of April 2003.
But the identity of the target is not the story - for the primary point
of the attack was not to destroy that target. It was to shut down
Syria's Russian air defense system during the attack. Doing so made the
attack an incredible success.
Syria is shamed and silent. Iran is freaking out in panic. Defenseless
enemies are fun.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday, October 01, 2007
"Prejudice is not a joke" by Irfan Yusuf, THE AGE.
THE AUTHOR ARGUES THAT THE MOSLEMS OF TODAY SUFFER THE SAME AS THE JEWS IN EUROPE DID PRE-WW2. Therefore he concludes:
"More unfortunate is the fact that prominent Jewish voices can be found among the chorus of Muslimphobes. Today's targets should be the last to deny the suffering of yesterday's victims. And the survivors of yesterday's crimes should be the last to join in today's lynch mobs."
This may be so from this author's point of view from his moderate Australian experiences. Unfortunately, given the pronouncements of and actions of Islamists the world over, targeting the Jews first and foremost in the most vicious way, it is somewhat disingenious to expect much public sympathy from our Jewish side.
it is a credit to this writer that he does admonish those like Ahmadinejad who attack the Jews.The atrocities in the former Yugoslavia against the Moslems were denounced by all the Jews the world over and quite a few found refuge in Israel among the Jewish population. Similarly the Sudanese refugees who are escaping from Darfur, all the way to refuge in Israel.
But there are Moslems and there Islamists in Arab lands. When the latter will be denounced more frequently by the 'normal' Moslems in the West, than Jews and others will be more inclined to protest Moslemophobia.
Miriam M.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Prejudice is not a joke
Irfan Yusuf
October 1, 2007
Comedy can have a serious purpose. It reminds us of the dangers of forgetting history.
NONE of us can honestly claim to be without prejudice. It's much easier to see people as being defined only by their race, religion or sexual preference, whether actual or presumed. It's much harder to understand people as complex individuals with numerous, often conflicting, layers of identity.
When it comes to exposing and challenging prejudice, humour is often far more effective a tool than passionate opinion articles. Three young Australian Muslims — Mohammed El-Leissy, Nazeem Hussain and Aamer Rahman — are performing Islam-101: Don't Believe The Hype at this year's Melbourne Fringe Festival. They are following the example of Arab and Muslim comics in North America who have performed shows under such titles as Allah Made Me Funny and The Axis of Evil.
On the ABC each week The Chaser's War on Everything lampoons popular perceptions of terrorism and security. In one skit, a Chaser chap dresses up as an American tourist taking video shots of the Sydney Harbour Bridge without any security present. He then dresses as a stereotypical Arab, with long beard and chequered kuffiyeh headdress. Security was onto him within minutes.
But not all skits elicit laughter. A recent episode showed their man in the US, Charles Firth, interviewing a sample of everyday Americans. All agreed Muslims should be forced to carry ID cards and even wear special identification badges. Most suggested Muslims should be incarcerated in internment camps. Comedy can be a potent vehicle for exposing uncomfortable truths.
During his recent visit to Australia, Bosnia's mufti charmed Australian audiences with wisecracks about Bosnian villagers and about his experiences of being bossed around by his wife and daughter. But Dr Mustafa Ceric also has a serious message for Westerners of all faiths.
He reminded us that Muslimphobia is reaching such endemic proportions in Europe that he fears a second Holocaust. He compared popular perceptions of Muslims in the West with popular perceptions of Jews in parts of Western Europe in the decades leading up to World War II.
Ceric used the experience of his own people to illustrate his point — more than half a million Bosnian civilians massacred and more than 20,000 women gang-raped, including girls as young as six and women as old as 80. Many atrocities were committed by people against their neighbours, teachers, students and others with whom they otherwise had daily interaction.
What kind of thinking leads to such atrocities? One Bosnian victim, a red-headed 25-year-old married woman, told a Canadian newspaper why she was raped by 15 soldiers: "Because I am a Muslim. Their aim was to humiliate me, to make me lose my honour."
Hence, one can only wonder at the sanity of those Muslims who, like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, believe that defending their own necessarily involves denying the historical suffering of others. In yet another year when Ramadan and Yom Kippur coincide, what possible benefit could be gained for Jews or Muslims from Ahmadinejad's remarks?
As American Imam Hamza Yusuf Hanson writes in the US Jewish magazine Tikkun: "Muslims, of all people, should be conscious of this as their religion is predicated on the same epistemological premises as many major events in history, such as the Holocaust. To deny such things is to undermine Islam as an historical event."
Instead of denying the Holocaust, Muslims — and indeed peoples of all faiths and no faith in particular — should study its causes and consequences, especially the rhetorical devices used by political leaders, columnists and commentators in the decades leading up to it.
No two faith traditions are more similar than Islam and Judaism. Both worship a strictly Unitarian God. Both have sacred laws with strict dietary codes and detailed rules governing gender relations. Both insist on their texts being learned and taught in their original languages. Both refuse to deny their Middle Eastern roots.
The reasons used by many Muslimphobes to generate hatred against those deemed Muslim are almost identical to those used to generate hatred against Jews in the decades leading up to the Holocaust. Muslimphobic columnists and bloggers poke fun at Muslim dietary laws and cast aspersions on Muslims by citing out of context verses from the Koran discussing wars.
Eighty years ago, their ideological forebears cast similar aspersions on Jews. Even a cursory study of pre-Holocaust attitudes towards Jews in Europe and the West will show that yesterday's bloodsucking Jewish lenders have been replaced by today's bloodthirsty Islamic terrorists.
In New Matilda last week, Joanna Mendelssohn reminded readers that as recently as 1940, two prominent Sydney newspapers were quite happy to publish the opinions of a notable art critic who claimed modern art was a conspiracy of "the Jew dealers" whose aim was to "corrupt criticism, originate propaganda … and undermine accepted standards so that there should be ample merchandise to handle".
As Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland wrote of the British media last year: "I try to imagine how I would feel if this rainstorm of headlines substituted the word 'Jew' for 'Muslim': Jews creating apartheid, Jews whose strange customs and costume should be banned. I wouldn't just feel frightened. I would be looking for my passport."
Perhaps Freedland is exaggerating. Perhaps Muslimphobia is nowhere near as endemic as anti-Semitism was in the West before World War II. Yet the parallels between the rhetoric and attitudes of yesterday's anti-Semitism and today's Muslimphobia are striking. More unfortunate is the fact that prominent Jewish voices can be found among the chorus of Muslimphobes. Today's targets should be the last to deny the suffering of yesterday's victims. And the survivors of yesterday's crimes should be the last to join in today's lynch mobs.
Irfan Yusuf is an associate editor of AltMuslim.com.
This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/09/30/1191090938861.html
"More unfortunate is the fact that prominent Jewish voices can be found among the chorus of Muslimphobes. Today's targets should be the last to deny the suffering of yesterday's victims. And the survivors of yesterday's crimes should be the last to join in today's lynch mobs."
This may be so from this author's point of view from his moderate Australian experiences. Unfortunately, given the pronouncements of and actions of Islamists the world over, targeting the Jews first and foremost in the most vicious way, it is somewhat disingenious to expect much public sympathy from our Jewish side.
it is a credit to this writer that he does admonish those like Ahmadinejad who attack the Jews.The atrocities in the former Yugoslavia against the Moslems were denounced by all the Jews the world over and quite a few found refuge in Israel among the Jewish population. Similarly the Sudanese refugees who are escaping from Darfur, all the way to refuge in Israel.
But there are Moslems and there Islamists in Arab lands. When the latter will be denounced more frequently by the 'normal' Moslems in the West, than Jews and others will be more inclined to protest Moslemophobia.
Miriam M.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Prejudice is not a joke
Irfan Yusuf
October 1, 2007
Comedy can have a serious purpose. It reminds us of the dangers of forgetting history.
NONE of us can honestly claim to be without prejudice. It's much easier to see people as being defined only by their race, religion or sexual preference, whether actual or presumed. It's much harder to understand people as complex individuals with numerous, often conflicting, layers of identity.
When it comes to exposing and challenging prejudice, humour is often far more effective a tool than passionate opinion articles. Three young Australian Muslims — Mohammed El-Leissy, Nazeem Hussain and Aamer Rahman — are performing Islam-101: Don't Believe The Hype at this year's Melbourne Fringe Festival. They are following the example of Arab and Muslim comics in North America who have performed shows under such titles as Allah Made Me Funny and The Axis of Evil.
On the ABC each week The Chaser's War on Everything lampoons popular perceptions of terrorism and security. In one skit, a Chaser chap dresses up as an American tourist taking video shots of the Sydney Harbour Bridge without any security present. He then dresses as a stereotypical Arab, with long beard and chequered kuffiyeh headdress. Security was onto him within minutes.
But not all skits elicit laughter. A recent episode showed their man in the US, Charles Firth, interviewing a sample of everyday Americans. All agreed Muslims should be forced to carry ID cards and even wear special identification badges. Most suggested Muslims should be incarcerated in internment camps. Comedy can be a potent vehicle for exposing uncomfortable truths.
During his recent visit to Australia, Bosnia's mufti charmed Australian audiences with wisecracks about Bosnian villagers and about his experiences of being bossed around by his wife and daughter. But Dr Mustafa Ceric also has a serious message for Westerners of all faiths.
He reminded us that Muslimphobia is reaching such endemic proportions in Europe that he fears a second Holocaust. He compared popular perceptions of Muslims in the West with popular perceptions of Jews in parts of Western Europe in the decades leading up to World War II.
Ceric used the experience of his own people to illustrate his point — more than half a million Bosnian civilians massacred and more than 20,000 women gang-raped, including girls as young as six and women as old as 80. Many atrocities were committed by people against their neighbours, teachers, students and others with whom they otherwise had daily interaction.
What kind of thinking leads to such atrocities? One Bosnian victim, a red-headed 25-year-old married woman, told a Canadian newspaper why she was raped by 15 soldiers: "Because I am a Muslim. Their aim was to humiliate me, to make me lose my honour."
Hence, one can only wonder at the sanity of those Muslims who, like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, believe that defending their own necessarily involves denying the historical suffering of others. In yet another year when Ramadan and Yom Kippur coincide, what possible benefit could be gained for Jews or Muslims from Ahmadinejad's remarks?
As American Imam Hamza Yusuf Hanson writes in the US Jewish magazine Tikkun: "Muslims, of all people, should be conscious of this as their religion is predicated on the same epistemological premises as many major events in history, such as the Holocaust. To deny such things is to undermine Islam as an historical event."
Instead of denying the Holocaust, Muslims — and indeed peoples of all faiths and no faith in particular — should study its causes and consequences, especially the rhetorical devices used by political leaders, columnists and commentators in the decades leading up to it.
No two faith traditions are more similar than Islam and Judaism. Both worship a strictly Unitarian God. Both have sacred laws with strict dietary codes and detailed rules governing gender relations. Both insist on their texts being learned and taught in their original languages. Both refuse to deny their Middle Eastern roots.
The reasons used by many Muslimphobes to generate hatred against those deemed Muslim are almost identical to those used to generate hatred against Jews in the decades leading up to the Holocaust. Muslimphobic columnists and bloggers poke fun at Muslim dietary laws and cast aspersions on Muslims by citing out of context verses from the Koran discussing wars.
Eighty years ago, their ideological forebears cast similar aspersions on Jews. Even a cursory study of pre-Holocaust attitudes towards Jews in Europe and the West will show that yesterday's bloodsucking Jewish lenders have been replaced by today's bloodthirsty Islamic terrorists.
In New Matilda last week, Joanna Mendelssohn reminded readers that as recently as 1940, two prominent Sydney newspapers were quite happy to publish the opinions of a notable art critic who claimed modern art was a conspiracy of "the Jew dealers" whose aim was to "corrupt criticism, originate propaganda … and undermine accepted standards so that there should be ample merchandise to handle".
As Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland wrote of the British media last year: "I try to imagine how I would feel if this rainstorm of headlines substituted the word 'Jew' for 'Muslim': Jews creating apartheid, Jews whose strange customs and costume should be banned. I wouldn't just feel frightened. I would be looking for my passport."
Perhaps Freedland is exaggerating. Perhaps Muslimphobia is nowhere near as endemic as anti-Semitism was in the West before World War II. Yet the parallels between the rhetoric and attitudes of yesterday's anti-Semitism and today's Muslimphobia are striking. More unfortunate is the fact that prominent Jewish voices can be found among the chorus of Muslimphobes. Today's targets should be the last to deny the suffering of yesterday's victims. And the survivors of yesterday's crimes should be the last to join in today's lynch mobs.
Irfan Yusuf is an associate editor of AltMuslim.com.
This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/09/30/1191090938861.html
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