Wednesday, March 1, 2017

US Muslims: No More Apologies | NFL Star Shines for Justice | Liberal Embrace of Trump | Apartheid Week | MP Gerald Kaufman Dies | More ..

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EDITORIAL

American Muslims, No Apology Necessary

By Ramzy Baroud

I have recently been asked to give a talk about "Being an American Muslim in the United States". Although wary of the uses and abuses of the term, I obliged.

Islam is a religion propelled by values, not race nor, theoretically, by blind tribal allegiances, I explained.

The "American Muslim" identity which has been under constant investigation in US media, politics and society is completely different from what American Muslims associate themselves with.

The media's "American Muslim" is a suspect, a fifth column, potentially dangerous and more receptive to violence than every other collective identity in the US. While this contrasts sharply with real Islam, facts hardly matter in the age of American nationalism, predicated on cultural and religious identification and "alternative facts".

Caught within this brutal, baseless logic, some American Muslims no longer define themselves around their own political priorities, nor do they mobilise themselves alongside their natural allies - those who come from historically oppressed communities. Instead, they have taken to apologising for their "Muslim-ness", rather than demand an apology, justice and equality.

Many Muslims find themselves, as a collective, being forced to demonstrate their humanity, defend their religion and distance themselves from every act of violence, even if only allegedly committed by a Muslim anywhere in the world.

Long before the Trump administration's "Muslim Ban" - banning citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US for 90 days - Muslims in the US have always, to varied degrees, been embattled, collectively demonised, racially profiled by government agencies and targeted in numerous hate crimes by fellow Americans.

In reality, hatred of Muslims goes back even before 9/11, and the US war in Iraq in 1990-91 - a hatred based solely on media fear-mongering and Hollywood stereotyping.

There is also an odd "discovery" by various liberal groups that American Muslims are mistreated in their own country.

In truth, the cause of the "defenceless Muslim" is used as a political tool, with Democrats and others attempting to undermine the actions of their Republican rivals.

The administrations of Democratic presidents, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, both had horrific legacies of violence and discrimination against Muslim countries.

In a landmark study released in March 2015, the Washington-based group, Physicians for Social Responsibly, showed that the US self-styled "War on Terror" had killed anywhere between 1.3 million to two million Muslims in the first ten years since the September 11 attacks.

Award-winning investigative journalist, Nafeez Ahmed, concluded that at least four million Muslims have been killed by the US since 1990.

This excludes killings that have taken place in the last two years, or the countless civilians who perished during the US-sanctions on Iraq, starting 1991, which were enforced throughout the Clinton administrations.

Yet, all this is meant to be ignored and seen merely as the issue of an obnoxious president and that the pinnacle of the American violence against Muslims can be reduced to a 90-day travel ban on selected countries.

Subscribing to this mischaracterisation reflects both ignorance and also complete disregard for the millions of innocent lives that have been lost, in order for the US to preserve its vastly dwindling empire.

At the Democratic Party National Convention (DNC) last July, former President Bill Clinton took to the stage to articulate a retort to the Republican party convention's hate-fest of Muslims, Blacks, Latinos and everyone else who did not subscribe to their skewed view of the world.

But Clinton's words were a mere liberal spin on the same chauvinistic, racist and exclusionist culture that often drives the political discourse of the right.

"If you're a Muslim and you love America and freedom and you hate terror, stay here and help us win and make a future together, we want you," Clinton said before a large audience, which roared in applause.

For Muslims, feeling that their inclusion, citizenship and humanity are conditioned by a set of condescending rules, articulated by a White, Christian elite, is utterly dehumanising.

What Clinton has wished to forget is that an estimated third of the slaves who built his country were, in fact, Muslims - shackled and dragged against their will to assemble the United States, field by field and brick by brick. It is the slaves that mainly brought Islam to America, and it is Islam that armed them with the virtue of patience and strength of character in order to survive one of the most ghastly genocides in human history.

Precisely for this reason, the identity of the American Muslim is, at its heart, a political one, concerned with human rights, justice and equality, with Black Muslims playing a tremendous role in confronting, challenging and clashing with the ruling White elitist order that controlled the US from the beginning.

It is the Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X-type movements - backed by millions of Black people throughout the country - that helped define the modern character of the Black American. They led the Civil Rights Movement, exacting basic human rights at a heavy price and against terrible odds.

It is important that American Muslim youth understand this well, and that their fight for equality and human rights in their country is not a manifestation of some Democratic party's political game.

Those aspiring to be the "good Muslim", the Uncle Tom, the "not all Muslims are terrorists" type, can only hope for a second-class status. But those who aspire for true equality and justice ought to remember the words of American revolutionary, Assata Shakur: "Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of people who were oppressing them."

The oppressors constantly try to redefine the nature of the struggle of those whom they oppress. For Bill Clinton, the issue is solely Islamic terrorism, never the terror inflicted upon Muslim nations by his and other administrations through a series of unjust wars and sanctions, killing millions.

The coloniser, oppressor, invader is always blind to his crimes. He sees only the violent reaction - however minuscule - of the people whom he subjugates.

According to the New America Foundation, alleged "Jihadists" killed 94 people in the US from 2005-2015, during which time the US also killed nearly two million Muslims in their own countries.

Yet, the government media-driven, fear-mongering, anti-Muslim and anti-Islam discourse (for which both liberals and conservatives are equally responsible) has made terrorism the leading fear among Americans, according to a major national survey in 2016.

In his book, "Wretched of the Earth", one of the 20th century's most powerful revolutionary voices, Frantz Fanon, wrote: "Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity."

For this generation of American Muslims, this is their moment - to discover and fulfill their mission, to define and assert who they are as the descendants of slaves, immigrants and refugees - the three main building blocs of America.

- Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include "Searching Jenin", "The Second Palestinian Intifada" and his latest "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story". His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.

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COMMENTARY

The NFL Star Who Refused to Shine For Israel

By James M. Wall

When I learned of the courageous decision made recently by Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett, I remembered my 1973 trip to Israel.

Bennett made headlines when he pulled out of an Israeli government-sponsored trip to Israel designed for NFL players.

He refused to be a part of Israel's hasbara campaign.

Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, interviewed Bennett after he had written an open letter in which he said:

"One of my heroes has always been Muhammad Ali. I know that Ali always stood strongly with the Palestinian people, visiting refugee camps, going to rallies, and always willing to be a 'voice for the voiceless.' I want to be a 'voice for the voiceless' and I cannot do that by going on this kind of trip to Israel.""

I made a similar trip just after the 1973 war, a trip arranged, but not paid for, by the American Jewish Committee. It was a journey with a surprise ending.

It was on that trip that I had the epiphany that opened me to the incredibly one-sided Israeli version of events that had led to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, and to the occupation of Palestinian territory since the 1967 war.

On that trip, I was guided by an American Jewish Committee (AJC) staffer. One day on the trip, I had three experiences my AJC host did not want me to have.

Through these three experiences I had a consciousness-raising, life-changing epiphany.

First, I saw my first Israeli settlement planted illegally on Palestinian land. That settlement is now Ma'ale Adumim, which became a "Jewish City" in 1991. Its 2015 population was 37,525.

Second, I had a long discussion with a Palestinian farmer whose water supply had been stolen by Israeli industrial farms in the Jordan Valley. He showed me his almost-empty well down the hill from a modern Israeli well.

Third, I met the Bir Zeit College President and his latest faculty member. More on them below.

I have written elsewhere of my epiphany, and the young Mennonite minister who took me on my journey along the Jericho Road and up the Jordan Valley, to the Golan Heights and down to the campus of Bir Zeit College.

That longer story is available on line at Link magazine, published by Americans for Middle East Understanding (AMEU).

My epiphany in 1973 was different from that of Bennett's. It was a different time. Bennett had a mentor like Ali, who had identified with the occupied Palestinians. I had no mentors in the U.S. like Ali.

What we share, Bennett and I, is the desire to share a truth we have encountered. Bennett's decision was to make a risky moral decision to stand with Palestine. He shared that truth with other NFL players who were invited on the same "ambassadorial" trip.

In the end, only five out of the original 13 players accepted Israel's one-sided trip to Israel. Bennett's witness had struck a chord with them.

Bennett was blessed with a mentor named Muhammad Ali. I had to travel to Palestine to find my mentor.

When I became editor and publisher of The Christian Century magazine in 1972, one of the first calls I received was from a staff member of the American Jewish Committee. I was soon invited to lunch with the Chicago Israeli Consul.

At that time, and still today, Israel has an active hasbara campaign which targets American pastors with tempting invitations to "come and walk where Jesus walked". The pastors ae told to bring members of their parish on their trip, and the pastor's expenses are covered.

The same good-will trips are offered and accepted by politicians, police chiefs, NFL players, preachers, public officials, journalists, and anyone else with influence on others who are susceptible to a one-sided journey to "the Holy Land".

In 1973, I was not a pastor, but a clergyman editor of an ecumenical national publication. Israel's strategy to recruit pastors and other public leaders was, by 1973, already a huge success. They had less success, though, with this religious journalist.

When I was being courted by the Israels in my early months as editor, I was new to what western governments then called "the Palestinian problem". My understanding of the issue, I am ashamed to admit, was largely shaped by the Leon Uris book, Exodus, and the movie that followed, featuring Paul Newman as Israeli military leader Ari Ben Cannan.

My experience and abject ignorance were shared by generations of seminary graduates who entered parish ministries. Seminaries were no help in introducing us to this immoral, highly significant criminal social justice issue. What little we knew about "The Holy Land," was shaped by a pro-Israel secular media and our devotion to the scriptures, a devotion Israel has always been eager to exploit.

In that "Holy Land". this criminal violation of the Palestinian people remains a daily occurrence.

A current news story in the Palestinian publication Ma'an, is but the latest example of the brutal, illegal occupation. It was circulated by the IMEMC (International Middle East Media Center) in Jerusalem:

"Israeli soldiers abducted, Tuesday [February 28], five students of Birzeit University, including three females, in the Ramallah and al-Biereh District, while protesting near the Ofer Israeli prison, and violently assaulted them.
"The students were participating in a massive nonviolent procession held in solidarity with Palestinian detainees holding hunger strikes in Israeli prisons, including the former head of the Students' Council in the University, journalist Mohammad al-Qeeq, and Jamal Abu al-Leil.
"The abducted students have been identified as Ahmad Khader, Hassan Daraghma, Miran Barghouthi, Zeinab Barghouthi and Bayan Safi.

In Israeli parlance, "abduct" is a euphemism for "arrested". What the story does not add is that Palestinians who are arrested by soldiers of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), are not allowed to contact family members, nor lawyers.

This is not the conduct of a democracy; it is the method of dictatorial control by a nation funded by U.S. tax-payers.

In 1973, that dictatorial control was already in full military mode. I saw it then and have continued to see my American government cajole, suggest, tolerate and fund, successive Israeli governments who are free to arrest and imprison protesting students.

Forty-four years ago, I had not the slightest awareness of the evil of occupation, which is why I eagerly accepted the American Jewish Committee's invitation to visit Israel, a few weeks after the 1973 war.

It was a good and quiet time to be there. The war had frightened away tourists.The American Colony Hotel was eager to have me occupy one of their many empty guest rooms.

Early in my visit, while sitting with my AJC host in an almost-empty Jerusalem restaurant, the mayor of Jerusalem came by our table to welcome me to Israel. He was looking for American friends.

I had made one stipulation for my trip. I would accept arrangement assistance for travel and hotel arrangements, but as a journalist, I insisted on paying for that travel and hotel.

That made it easier for me to escape the AJC schedule near the end of my trip and agree to visit Palestinian territory under the watchful eye of a Mennonite I met. I would not have had my epiphany with my AJC host.

When my Mennonite friend, Leroy Friesen, and I visited the Bir Zeit campus, we had a long discussion with the college president, Hanna Nasir, who would later bring Bir Zeit into university status. In retirement he now serves as the chairman of the Palestinian Authority election system.

Nasir introduced us to a new professor just back from graduate school in Virginia. She was a Palestinian, Hanan Ashrawi, who had earned her Ph.D. in Medieval and Comparative Literature from the University of Virginia.

Dr. Ashrawi became the first woman elected to the Palestinian National Council. Over the years she has been active in Palestinian government affairs. She became a familiar figure on western television news programs as spokesperson for President Yasir Arafat.

Michael Bennett drew national attention to the injustice suffered by Palestinians when he refused to take a hasbara trip to promote Israel. He then influencing eight of his fellow NFL players to withdraw from the trip with him.

Leroy Friesen was my personal Michael Bennett. He introduced me to the reality of the Palestinian Occupation.

I should say how Leroy and I met. It was at a clergy meeting at the Holy Land Institute, in Jerusalem, which I described in my Link article, as "an institution of a more evangelical persuasion than that of the Christian Century, which is known in church circles as a liberal magazine."

During a coffee break he quietly spoke to me and said, "you are not getting the full story on this trip".

He offered to take me on a drive the next day through the occupied Palestinian West Bank. I cancelled my AJC schedule for the day. Early the next morning, we headed down the Jericho Road on a journey on which I was blessed with my epiphany.

In 1973, there were few Americans interested in hearing the Nakba story. There were few Americas who cared to understood the horror and brutality of a military occupation. Israel had successfully captured the hearts and minds of the American people through its intensive campaign to co-opt opinion-makers.

Today, 44 years later, a growing number of opinion-makers know and understand the ugly truth about Israel's creation and its illegal occupation of Palestine.

One of those opinion-makers is a prominent professional athlete with a large personal following, Seattle Seahawks defensive end, Michael Bennett. At great personal risk to his career, Michael Bennett has taken a stand for Palestinian justice.

Bennett needs others to stand with him. He needs American politicians, police chiefs, NFL players, preachers, journalists, and anyone else offered a one-sided journey to "the Holy Land", to follow his lead. Spread the word, Michael Bennett's got your back.

- To read more articles by James Wall visit: http://wallwritings.me.

COMMENTARY

Behind the Liberal Embrace of Trump's Speech

By Sam Husseini

I can't say I'm surprised by the liberal turn on Trump. I said a couple of weeks ago that Trump and the establishment media were like George and Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

What I meant was that they are a deranged, destructive couple who argue like mad, but ultimately collude to destroy others. So, anger and hate give way to insidious bond and admiration in how they each fulfill their roles in the larger manipulative project.

So, Van Jones is admiring of Trump now really "becoming the President" because of Trump's emotional manipulation in the person of Carryn Owens. Jones did this because he's a triangulator himself and because he is very much part of the continuing imperial project.

Some of this rather reminds me of how the media used Jessica Lynch to pretended she was in danger to continue selling the invasion of Iraq at a critical moment in 2003. The actual scandals are pushed aside: The criminal invasion of Iraq then; the US-backed Saudi destruction of Yemen now.

Disinformation and emotional manipulation for the privileged "race" of USians is the order of the day. Feminism and femininity are weaponized as all emotion is focused on one person to the exclusion of the suffering of others.

I imagine it's how The Passion Plays were used to fuel hatred of Jews; it's how Israel uses the Nazi Holocaust to excuse all its criminality.

The other major such manipulation last night was highlighting African American "victims" of public schools and "illegal immigrants". This allows Trump to ridiculously pose as an anti-racist xenophobe. As Martin Luther King warned in his final days: "We're integrating into a burning house."

- Sam Husseini is communications director for the Institute for Public Accuracy. He also founded the website votepact.org, which encourages principled progressives to work with conscientious conservatives. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

FEATURE/VIDEO

Call from Gaza: Get Involved in Israeli Apartheid Week This Year (VIDEO)

PSCABI is the Palestinian Students Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel.

We are writing to you, students of the world, as students from the besieged Gaza Strip whose entire educational system has been crippled as a result of Israel's ten-year long and ongoing blockade. We call on you to get involved in Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) this year and grow the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on your campuses.

We gain hope from ongoing campaigning for justice in Palestine on UK campuses such as the magnificent BDS victory and show of support from the University of Manchester students union and the Divest for Palestine campaign calling on universities to divest from companies complicit in crimes against the Palestinian people.

IAW call from Palestinian Students - Gaza

If corrupt governments and official bodies have turned their back on us, we expect support from our peers and conscientious people such as yourselves. Our demands are only to have the same rights as any other student, any other woman, man or child. We want to have our basic rights guaranteed under international law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights!

This year it is in your hands to see that the tide finally turns across campuses in Europe, the US and around the world. Go further to make this year's Israeli Apartheid Week as strong and well attended as you possibly can, and use it as a platform for building the BDS movement. No matter what you face, take courage from us and we will take hope from you. You, more than anyone are in a position to act, so let the truth of justice roar across your campus and beyond.

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