Islam And The West

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As the world looks on to the unfolding news story that has become Israel’s operation “lead cast” many Christians in the west approve of the attack on Gaza. Ostensibly they do this in support of Israel and her the anti-terror effort but in actuality this support is only a smoke screen to be able to justify the killing of Muslims.

Not much is mentioned in the numerous news reports from the regions about the plight of Arab Christians in Gaza.

It may come as a shock to you but not all Arabs are Muslims in fact there is a sizable Christian population to be found throughout the Levant.

If the anti-Islam bigots are to be believed then these Christians should actually be extinct as according to them Islam calls for the conversion or murder of all non-Muslims.

Anyway getting back to Gaza. Professor Manuel Hassasian, is a former vice-rector of the Vatican-sponsored Bethlehem University and is now a Palestinian General Delegate to London. He spoke to “The Universe” about the Christian community in Gaza:

“The situation today in Gaza is catastrophic – people have been under siege for so long now and lack food, medicine and basic necessities.”

Speaking about the fate of the small Catholic community in Gaza, Professor Hassasian said many Christians there had suffered exactly the same plight as Muslims.

“The planes that were bombarding were doing so indiscriminately against all the people who are living there,” he said.

The diplomat stressed that, in his opinion, people could not say that Israel was hitting Hamas as the group represented only a portion of the Palestinian people.

“Hamas basically controls Gaza militarily but not everyone there who is fighting the Israelis is Hamas,” he said. “The 1.5 million Palestinians are not all Hamas.

“They are just killing innocent civilians including many women and children. The toll of death for children is about 25 per cent of all those who have died. Forty-four per cent of those injured were women and children.

“We are calling the international community to stop this aggression, stop the blockade and open all border crossings to give the opportunity to all those who have been injured, particularly the difficult cases, to be hospitalised in Arab countries as well as in Europe.” (Source: Total Catholic)

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One of the overriding feelings that I get from Israel supports who visit this blog, leave comments or send me mail is that I desperately deny the right of the state of Israel to exist. This is not true. No matter how many times I state it in emphatic terms most Israel supporters at best take it with a pinch of salt or at worst view it with skeptical cynicism.

As you must be aware unless your are completely ignorant, blind, deaf and dumb that there are Muslims in this world who want to uproot and destroy the state of Israel. This should come as no surprise to anyone. In fact there are also a small number of Jews who view the modern state of Israel as a satanic entity that must be uprooted. Known as anti-Zionists these Jews have a variety of movements and vary in their abhorrence of the Israeli state.

One of the main accusations made against those that want to see the dismantling of the Zionist state is that they wish to see another Holocaust perpetrated. A Holocaust in which millions of Jews will be killed much like the Nazi inspired Holocaust in Europe during the 1940′s. This is especially true when reports from the President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are produced and commented upon in the western media. However not greatly reported whether deliberately or just by coincide is the fact that anti-Zionist Rabbis too want to see the dismantling of the Zionist state although without the shedding of a drop of Jewish blood. They use the example of apartheid South Africa which dismantled its racist regime without widespread violence as a road map to dismantling the Zionist state.

Having informed you of the fact that there are people both Jewish and non-Jewish who wish to see the end of the Israeli state I now want you to read what my views are about the topic.

I hope that by reading this post you are already aware of the fact that the state of Israel declared independence from British mandate Palestine in 1948. This came after a prolonged period of instability between rival communities of Jews and Arabs trying to impose their will upon the British controlled territory at times through the use of violence. This situation ended with the declaration of Israeli independence in 1948 and the subsequent declaration of war by the surrounding Arab states.

The world community through the auspices of the United Nations accepted the Jewish claim to the land that was known as Palestine. This claim dates back to Biblical times through the patriarch Abraham. According the Bible God promised to Abraham and his descendants all the land from the Nile to the Euphrates:

“In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” (Source: Genesis 15:18)

At this point we can have a rather heated debated as to who are and who are not the seed of Abraham. Suffice to say that in the 1947 the United Nations accepted the claim of the Jewish people to land in British Mandate Palestine. Thus calling for the partition of the territory into two states one Jewish and the other Arab.

Herein lies the problem, in essence the claim of the Jewish people to land in the Middle East is connected to the Bible. According to the Bible the land covenanted to Abraham and his seed includes all the land from the Nile to the Euphrates. That means if the United Nations accepted the right of the Jewish people to create a Jewish state in British Mandate Palestine then the same right extends to all of the land from the Nile to the Euphrates. By not creating a state of Israel whose boarders comprise of the Nile in the east and the Euphrates in the west the United Nations upheld only part of the right and as such is flawed.

Purely from a logical point of view if the United Nations accepted the creation of a Jewish state in Mandate Palestine because of the Bible then it must also accept the boarders of that state must be delineated according the basis of the Bible. Which is this case means that the state of Israel extends from the Nile to Euphrates.

Having helped create the state of Israel the international community not only did a great disservice to the Jewish people by not extending its boarders from the Nile to the Euphrates but also committed a grave sin against the Arabs who surround her. Let me explain how.

If one is to look around the countries that comprise Israel’s neighbours we see that they constitute some of the most despotic and tyrannical societies in the world. Illiteracy is rife, corruption is the order of the day and the majority live a hand-to-mouth existence. All of this could have been avoided if only those who created and helped create the state of Israel had chosen the boarders of the state as described in the Bible. Millions of Arabs would have been given the chance to live in a democracy. Israeli and Arab could have worked hand in to be a light unto the nations of the worlds.

In summation it was the will of the international community as expressed by the United Nations that Israel came into existence. The only mistake that was made in 1948 was to prematurely limit Israel in its boarders. Considering that the Bible was the basis of the claim of the Jewish people to the land then it should have been the Bible that delineated its boarders. Many of the Arabs that could have lived in a Greater Israel if it was created would benefit from living in the Middle East’s only democracy and may in the future even come to love it and support it.

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The investigative journalist Robert Parry examines in the following article the failures of the neocon agenda after 2 full terms of the George W. Bush presidency.

Parry breaks down his analysis into 5 main areas and they are titled as follows pretty rhetoric, media megaphone, another front,turning points and gray areas.

Image source: Phxpma

He examines the role of the media in helping the neocon agenda to invade Iraq. Under the pretext of spreading democracy and human rights to the Arab world.

Parry finishes with a suggestion that we should all feel pity for the neocon movement as their dreams of Middle East conquest lay in the ruins of the history:

“…a bitterly disappointing end for seven-plus years of neoconservative dominion over U.S. foreign policy, a period that was supposed to conclude with the dismantling of Israel’s Muslim enemies in the region.

Contrary to those neocon plans, George W. Bush is limping toward a historical judgment as possibly “the worst President ever”…

..In 2001, especially after 9/11, the neocon dreams were so much more ambitious. The neocons planned to achieve “regime change” in all Middle Eastern countries that were perceived as threats to Israel and replace them with compliant, pro-Western leaders.

First on the list was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which was a center for Arab nationalism and an advocate for resisting Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Since Iraq was too strong – and too far from the effective reach of the Israeli military – U.S. forces would be needed to conquer Iraq.

After that, Iraq was supposed to become the staging area for projecting American power across the region, with the governments of Iran and Syria the next targets.

A favorite neocon joke in 2003 was whether after capturing Baghdad, U.S. forces should go east or west, to either Damascus or Tehran, with the punch line: “Real men go to Tehran.” Of course, unlike American soldiers, the neocons weren’t really going anywhere, except to the next AEI conference or a Georgetown cocktail party….

… Throughout this ambitious process, the neocons wrapped their plans in pretty or high-blown rhetoric.

There was talk about spreading “democracy” to the region (even though the neocons have never had much use for real democracy….

….Besides “democracy promotion” in the Middle East, the neocons talked about advancing “human rights,” even as their policies rained death and destruction upon countless thousands of defenseless Arabs…

…So there were plenty of pleasant rationales to justify the brutal strategies, so many that thoughtful analysts to this day express uncertainty over what the Bush administration’s real motivation was for invading Iraq…..

…By the 1990s, with the emergence of right-wing talk radio and Fox News, the neocons consolidated their power in the national news media…..

…in 2002 and early 2003, the neocons in the news media worked hand in glove with the Bush administration to rally public support behind the Iraq War….

.. As 2006 wore on, things went from bad to worse for the neocons. Their dreams of a “permanent Republican majority” – with them in charge of U.S. foreign policy – collapsed on Nov. 7, 2006, when American voters turned both houses of Congress over to the Democrats.

Two years later, the Republicans (and the neocons) fared even worse, also losing the White House to Barack Obama, despite a GOP and neocon smear campaign that featured Obama’s middle name “Hussein” and called him a secret Muslim.

Also disheartening was Bush’s capitulation in accepting a timetable for U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq…

…In Washington, the neocons now are scrambling to find themselves new places of influence. Some neocon-lites are hoping to decamp inside Hillary Clinton’s State Department…..

…the neocons feel little or no remorse for the butchery in Iraq where hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died and many more have been horribly maimed as a result of the U.S. invasion that the neocons demanded and rationalized. Indeed, it is difficult not to judge the neocons to be racist in their nonchalance toward the killing of Muslims, though the neocons would bristle at the assessment.

In many civilized societies, the intellectual and political authors of a crime against humanity as egregious as the Iraq War would be dragged from their offices in handcuffs and put on trial. In modern Washington, however, they don’t even lose their privileged spot on the Washington Post’s op-ed page.

But perhaps we all should feel some pity for the neocons. Their grand dreams of Middle East conquest – with them as modern-day Alexanders – have been reduced to them cheering as Israeli bombs smash apart the crowded neighborhoods of Gaza.” (Source: Consortium News)

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In an interview with the pan-Arab television news station Al-Jazeera Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni blamed Arab terrorists in Gaza for the current round of violence. Livni in the same interview sarcastically critised the Arab new station for being biased, provocative and anti-peace:

“Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni gave an interview Monday to Arab television network al-Jazeera in which she harshly criticized Hamas, saying the organization was to blame for the civilian casualties in Gaza….

…Livni said that prior to the air raids Israel informed all the residents living in those areas of the planned strikes and urged them to leave.

Israel wants to live in peace – it had left the Strip and has no intention to return there, Livni added, “But Israel is nevertheless obligated to protect its citizens.” She also called upon the Arab world to denounce Hamas, “whose sole objective is to deepen the hatred.”

The foreign minister also criticized al-Jazeera itself, and sarcastically noted during the interview that “when you show one-sided images from Gaza you’re not helping peace. I understand that pictures which create provocation lead to anger and hostility among the citizens, but we want a better future for this region,” she declared.” (Source: Ynet News)

To watch the interview click on the image above. Its in Arabic so non-Arabic speaking viewers may encounter a little difficulty with translation.

For more videos from Al-Jazeera and about Al-Jazeera click on the following links:

• Iraqis Demonstrate Over Bush “Shoe Attacker”
• Al-Jazeera English And The US
• Israeli Academic “Sticks It” To The Muslims Of Al-Jazeera
• Al-Jazeera On George W. Bush In “Palestine”
• Al-Jazeera On The Death Of The U.S. Dollar
• Former U.S. Marine Josh Rushing On The Art Of Selling War
• Al-Jazeera, Sex And Egypt
• Inside Al-Jazeera

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Image source: Al-Jazeera

Finally after years of having crude home made rockets falling upon Israel and terrorising its citizens earlier today the Israeli Air Force responded with an air assault on Gaza.

This is how Al-Jazeera has described the events so far:

نفذت طائرات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي مجزرة بشرية في قطاع غزة عبر سلسلة من الغارات في أنحاء مختلفة….

فلسطينيا، دان العديد من المسؤولين العدوان واعتبروه محرقة تنفذها الحكومة الإسرائيلي بحق قطاع غزة…. متهمين الأنظمة العربية بالصمت عما يتعرض له الشعب الفسلطيني

“Israeli occupation aircraft carried out a human massacre in the Gaza Strip through a series of raids in different parts……

…Many Palestinian officials denounced the aggression as a Holocaust carried out by the Israeli government against the besieged Gaza Strip…..while accusing the Arab regimes of remaining silent on what the Palestinian people are being exposed to.” (Source: Al-Jazeera)

The aim of operation “Cast Lead” named after a phrase taken from a well known Chanukah song is three fold as Israeli Defence Minister Batrak Ehud outlined:

“Defense Minister Ehud Barak convened a news conference in which he said that the operation has three goals: “to hit Hamas hard, to change the situation radically and to prevent the continuation of rocket fire at Israeli civilians.” He said that the operation would not be a short one.” (Arutz Sheva)

On 2nd of June 2007 I wrote a post regarding the issue of Arab rocket attacks on Israel . In that post we looked at the religious verdict of the former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel MordechaiEliyahu who advocated the carpet bombing of Gaza while justifying such a measure from scared Jewish law:

“Due to these constant attacks upon the Israeli population the former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel Mordechai Eliyahu has called for the carpet bombing of the Gaza Strip. The former Chief Rabbi believes that this action is sanctioned by sacred Jewish law and that all the residents of Gaza have the blood of Israeli citizens on their hands :

“All civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.

The letter, published in Olam Katan [Small World], a weekly pamphlet to be distributed in synagogues nationwide this Friday, cited the biblical story of the Shechem massacre (Genesis 34) and Maimonides’ commentary (Laws of Kings 9, 14) on the story as proof texts for his legal decision.

According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets.” (Source: Islam And The West)

At the time I note that I said that the likelihood of Gaza being carpet bombed is small. It seems that events have proved me wrong to some extent. While Gaza might not be carpet bombed in the classical sense there is no doubt that we are in for an increased round of blood letting on both sides.

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