Palestine Updates: Speaking frankly about Israel and Palestine
by Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter says his recent book is drawing knee-jerk accusations of anti-Israel bias.

By Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States. His newest book is “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” published last month. He is scheduled to sign books Monday at Vroman’s in Pasadena.
December 8, 2006

I signed a contract with Simon & Schuster two years ago to write a book about the Middle East, based on my personal observations as the Carter Center monitored three elections in Palestine and on my consultations with Israeli political leaders and peace activists.

We covered every Palestinian community in 1996, 2005 and 2006, when Yasser Arafat and later Mahmoud Abbas were elected president and members of parliament were chosen. The elections were almost flawless, and turnout was very high — except in East Jerusalem, where, under severe Israeli restraints, only about 2% of registered voters managed to cast ballots.

The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among Israelis and throughout other nations — but not in the United States. For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices.

It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. Very few would ever deign to visit the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City or even Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents. What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed quite forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land.

With some degree of reluctance and some uncertainty about the reception my book would receive, I used maps, text and documents to describe the situation accurately and to analyze the only possible path to peace: Israelis and Palestinians living side by side within their own internationally recognized boundaries. These options are consistent with key U.N. resolutions supported by the U.S. and Israel, official American policy since 1967, agreements consummated by Israeli leaders and their governments in 1978 and 1993 (for which they earned Nobel Peace Prizes), the Arab League’s offer to recognize Israel in 2002 and the International Quartet’s “Roadmap for Peace,” which has been accepted by the PLO and largely rejected by Israel.

The book is devoted to circumstances and events in Palestine and not in Israel, where democracy prevails and citizens live together and are legally guaranteed equal status.

Although I have spent only a week or so on a book tour so far, it is already possible to judge public and media reaction. Sales are brisk, and I have had interesting interviews on TV, including “Larry King Live,” “Hardball,” “Meet the Press,” “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer,” the “Charlie Rose” show, C-SPAN and others. But I have seen few news stories in major newspapers about what I have written.

Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written mostly by representatives of Jewish organizations who would be unlikely to visit the occupied territories, and their primary criticism is that the book is anti-Israel. Two members of Congress have been publicly critical. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for instance, issued a statement (before the book was published) saying that “he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel.” Some reviews posted on Amazon.com call me “anti-Semitic,” and others accuse the book of “lies” and “distortions.” A former Carter Center fellow has taken issue with it, and Alan Dershowitz called the book’s title “indecent.”

Out in the real world, however, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve signed books in five stores, with more than 1,000 buyers at each site. I’ve had one negative remark — that I should be tried for treason — and one caller on C-SPAN said that I was an anti-Semite. My most troubling experience has been the rejection of my offers to speak, for free, about the book on university campuses with high Jewish enrollment and to answer questions from students and professors. I have been most encouraged by prominent Jewish citizens and members of Congress who have thanked me privately for presenting the facts and some new ideas.

The book describes the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine’s citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank. An enormous imprisonment wall is now under construction, snaking through what is left of Palestine to encompass more and more land for Israeli settlers. In many ways, this is more oppressive than what blacks lived under in South Africa during apartheid. I have made it clear that the motivation is not racism but the desire of a minority of Israelis to confiscate and colonize choice sites in Palestine, and then to forcefully suppress any objections from the displaced citizens. Obviously, I condemn any acts of terrorism or violence against innocent civilians, and I present information about the terrible casualties on both sides.

The ultimate purpose of my book is to present facts about the Middle East that are largely unknown in America, to precipitate discussion and to help restart peace talks (now absent for six years) that can lead to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors. Another hope is that Jews and other Americans who share this same goal might be motivated to express their views, even publicly, and perhaps in concert. I would be glad to help with that effort

Choice a cornerstone of Islam
by Jacqueline Ann Surin

Source : The Sun

Islam grants freedom to its adherents because submission to God – which is what “Islam” means in Arabic – cannot take place through force or compulsion, a noted scholar said.

The director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London, Dr Azzam Tamimi, said freedom of expression and freedom of choice were the cornerstones of Islam.

He noted that in the early days of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad’s freedom of expression was crucial in ensuring that God’s message was shared with the people.

At the same time, freedom of choice was essential for the people to choose Islam over existing traditions, he added.

“Submitting to Allah also means not accepting the authority of any human being without questioning,” Azzam said on Monday (Nov 20, 2006) at a talk titled “The Concept of Freedom in Islam” at Universiti Malaya’s Asia Europe Institute.

“The early part of Islam was about freeing the minds of people so that they would not follow the traditions of their forefathers blindly,” he said, noting that after the Prophet Muhammad, all persons are considered fallible.

Azzam was in Malaysia at the invitation of the Muslim Professional Forum to launch his book Hamas, the Unwritten Chapters.

He said because there was no compulsion in Islam, some scholars have argued that it was not right for a Muslim to invite his or her non-Muslim spouse to convert lest it be seen as compulsion.

He added that it was also wrong for someone to convert just to marry a Muslim, adding: “Conversion should be because one believes that Islam is better than other religions, not because one loves someone.”

Azzam, the author of several books and a commentator on Al-Jazeera and the BBC, also said Muslims should not make such a big deal of those who chose to leave the religion.

“If submission to Allah involves free choice, then the same principle must apply if one wants to leave the faith,” he said.

He noted that the Quran did not stipulate any punishment for apostates at all, and the punishments spelt out by the hadiths had to be contextualised.

“In Islam’s formative years, going in and out of Islam was used to sabotage the community, and hence was viewed as treason.

“But if one leaves the religion out of free choice, let them become what they want.”

He said Muslims should be more confident. “Nothing will happen to Islam if people leave the religion.”

Text rumour tests religious ties
by Claudia Theophilus

A widely circulated text message is being blamed for stoking religious tensions in Malaysia.

The SMS sent this month led to hundreds of Muslim protesters gathering outside a Roman Catholic church in the northern town of Ipoh to try to stop a rumoured conversion of 600 Muslim students to Christianity.

The incident on November 5 outside the Our Lady of Lourdes church is being investigated under Malaysia’s sedition act.

Police have said they intend to question Harussani Zakaria, the mufti of the northern state of Perak, and Azhar Mansor, a locally famous sailor, who were both named in the message.

Officials said they were trying to find out whether the allegations – that Azhar would be leading 600 Muslim students through baptism – originated from a talk Harussani gave at a mosque programme this month.

Neither man could be contacted. However, Harussani has since identified a woman in her 40s as the source of the SMS, which he said he sent to representatives of Muslim groups out of concern.

But, speaking to reporters this week, he said he had cautioned against any protest without evidence.

Verbal threats

Bernard Paul, a parish priest in Ipoh, said that about 100 children were in his church when he saw between 200 and 300 protesters approaching.

“We heard chanting of anti-apostasy slogans,” he said. “Police were trying to seal off the roads around the church but that attracted more curious onlookers. The protesters ignored warnings to disperse until about noon.

“Senior officers assured us that everything was under control but the crowd kept swelling. There were verbal threats of burning down the church and someone threw firecrackers into the compound.

“That night, a motorcycle gang rode past the church chanting and hurling rocks. A lady was hit on the thigh and later lodged a police report. We made similar report earlier over the disruption of a religious service.”

Paul said that police had asked him about conversion procedures and the presence of Malays in the church about three weeks ago.

“But if police already knew about the allegations, why didn’t they do anything to verify the facts’ They could have informed the church and we could have easily cleared the air in a statement to diffuse the tension,” he said.

Recent years have seen a series of anti-apostasy protests by Muslim groups claiming that Islam is being undermined by liberal Muslims and Malaysians who demand that their right to religious freedom under the constitution be upheld.

Just over 60 per cent of Malaysia’s population of 27 million are ethnic Malay-Muslims.

According to the Malaysian constitution a Malay is defined, among others things, as being a Muslim.

Hermen Shastri, the general-secretary of the Council of Churches, Malaysia, described the reaction to the SMS rumour as “very worrying”.

“There definitely needs to be a defined policy on SMS messages,” he said. “This is not the first time such a message has been circulated.”

He said he had frequently received circulated SMS relating to the case of Lina Joy, a Malay woman who is trying to remove the word Islam from her national identity card.

The landmark case is currently awaiting a decision from the country’s highest court.

‘Intimidation tactic’

Hermen blamed “people with malicious and ill-intent” for circulating the SMS and trying to agitate more Muslims into taking to the streets stoke inter-religious tensions.

“The government has to come up with rules,” he said.

“If there are any grievances, people should lodge a police report. This is an intimidation tactic to instill fear. The rule should be that no one should go to places of worship of other faiths and interfere in their worship.”

Musa Mohd Nordin, founding member of the Muslim Professionals Forum ‘ a body which aims to increase understanding of Islam in the English-speaking world – condemned the reaction.

“No ethnic or racial group should be acting on hearsay,” he said. “If the group of Muslims had congregated at the church based on an SMS and not evidence, I think that is very unfortunate and unbecoming for a Muslim group.

“A particularly inflammatory issue like this must be based on clear evidence. Even if the allegations were true, it was uncalled for them to demonstrate. A negotiation or meeting with the church would have been a better way to handle the situation.”

He also warned liberal Muslims against linking Sunday’s “isolated” incident with other anti-apostasy protests and said it was dangerous to use words such as “hate ideology”.

‘Despicable act’

Zaitun Kasim of women’s rights group Sisters In Islam apologised for what she said was the “fear and anxiety” caused by the “actions of a small, ill-informed group of Muslims”.

“The despicable act of writing and forwarding the SMS itself was designed to sow hatred and ill-will,” she said.

“Islam, as with other religions, does not in any way condone any form of violence.”

She said she was “gravely disappointed that the actions of some Muslims have not only brought the religion into disrepute but have caused harm to other Malaysians”.

Citing a recent spate of incidents, Zaitun said that the Ipoh case pointed to “a regressive and damaging trend where individuals and groups have deliberately used religion to drive a wedge between the different ethnic groups”.

Source: Al Jazeera

Interesting Read: Al-Jazeera launch
by Michael Binyon

Ten years after it began broadcasting, al-Jazeera launched its first English-language news channel at noon today. Michael Binyon of The Times tuned in to watch the channel’s explosive start, which he says, could attract a loyal following around the world

It made its name with dramatic pictures of conflict and exclusive scoops: the war against the Taleban, Bin Laden’s tapes, the bombings and US-led attack on Baghdad, the war in Lebanon, the rising anger in the Middle East. Al-Jazeera quickly became the voice of the Arab street, a must-watch station for Arabs and for newsmen around the world – assuming they could follow the Arabic.

Today everyone can watch. After much hype, slick publicity and a long delay, al-Jazeera’s English-language world service was lauched from its headquarters in Qatar. It began with a bang, focusing, naturally, on what had made its name: hard-hitting news from the world’s trouble spots.

First came the inevitable preview, with flashy images of earlier scoops during the broadcaster’s 10 year existence. Then there was a news summary – usual format of two presenters, man and woman, sharp, smart and standing up in the studio – and a preview of the features, interviews and exclusives for the next hour.

Luckily, al-Jazeera had a ready-made moving story, literally. A tsunami had been generated by a Pacific earthquake, and was expected to hit Japan – in five minutes. Talk about breaking news! More on that later.

Then it was back to the main report. It was the misery in Gaza. Well, al-Jazeera is an Arab station, and Gaza is, as Tony Blair and many have said, the core grievance in the Middle East. And the report was as grim as the pictures: the reality of “life under sanctions, siege and shellings”. We saw pathetic scenes of children in hospitals, mothers weepers, smashed houses and the latest disaster – malnutrition caused by the international sanctions on Hamas.

There was little to quarrel with politically – though David Chater, the commentator did talk about “so-called terror organisations” which might raise an eyebrow in Jerusalem or Washington.

For balance we then went straight to Jerusalem, and Jackie Rowland – yet another ex-BBC frontline reporter wooed over to the new channel – to hear how Israeli public opinion reacted to shelling from Gaza. She was, like the mood there, blunt and uncompromising: Israeli military doctrine was to attack whenever people felt threatened.

Then back to Gaza for an exclusive interview with Khaled Meshaal, a Hamas political leader, who said he had offered Israel a ceasefire which it had scorned. Then on to another Middle Eastern tragedy, Darfur. There was no siding with Sudan on this one: the reporter, Andrew Simmons, was as hard-hitting as the pictures of the refugees and the squalor, which seems far more telling than those seen on Western channels. He also had a good scoop – an interview with the rebel leader of the refugees.

At last, a break with an update on the tsunami. I’d been wondering what had happened. The answer, according to the quick switch to the Kuala Lumpur studio, was nothing. No waves yet.

And now came one of the stars – Rageh Omaar, the “scud stud” of the Iraq war, lured at reportedly great expense from the BBC. He was in Tehran to look at the impact of Tony Blair’s recent speech. There didn’t seem to be any. No one cared. But he found an excited professor to excoriate the West’s impudence for demanding Iranian help while maintaining sanctions and pressure.

So far it had been a rather depressing diet. All were hard-hitting stories. All were the stuff that generates anger and turmoil in the world. And in a masterstroke, al-Jazeera also had its own man in Zimbabwe, where the BBC is banned, and broadcast a damning indictment of “policies that are destroying Zimbabwe”. It may find its correspondent doesn’t last there long.

I had no political quarrel with the coverage. Yes, it gave plenty of time to issues from and about the Middle East. That’s natural. It was pretty careful not to distort or to use loaded language. It was slick, fast-paced and thoroughly professional.

Earlier, in a puff for its own coverage in the first 10 years, it showed Donald Rumsfeld’s denunciation of the station as “vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable”. Well, he’s gone now. Al-Jazeera is still there. And I think, judging by its launch, it will find a loyal market in the wider world.

Zainah Anwar’s Hate Ideology: Desecularization or DeIslamization, or Both?
by Marzuki Mohamad

In a blow by blow narration of supposedly Islamist’s face-off with religious pluralism and modern liberalism, Zainah Anwar eloquently advances her -hate ideology- thesis. Her narrative is simple, and yet pretty convincing. She begins by highlighting the symptoms of what she believes as Malaysian Muslim’s growing intolerance toward religious pluralism and modern liberalism. The symptoms enlisted in her article, -Hate Ideology a Threat to National Unity-, appeared in her Friday column in the New Straits Times (20/10/2006), are death threats to a lawyer who champions Muslim’s right to convert, a fatwa by ulama’ advising Muslims against participating in kongsi raya celebrations, Muslims’ fierce reaction toward Article 11 initiative for freedom of, in and from religion, and a directive by Takaful’s head of Shari’ah department prohibiting the insurance company’s staff from sending out Deepavali greetings.

Assuming that such intolerant attitudes were absent in the past, she blames a host of Islamist organizations for their role in overly asserting Muslim’s religious identity, and in that process, disseminate what she calls a hate ideology. This, which she aptly argues, is a serious threat to national unity. She singles out these organizations as Badan Anti-IFC (Anti-IFC Organization, BADAI), Pertubuhan-Pertubuhan Pembela Islam (Organizations of Defenders of Islam, PEMBELA), Peguam Pembela Islam (Lawyers Defending Islam, PPI), Muslim Professionals Forum (MPF), Allied Coordination Council of Islamic NGOs (ACCIN), Front Bertindak Anti-Murtad (Action Front Against Apostasy, FORKAD) and Mothers Against Apostasy. These Islamist organizations, Zainah believes, are out to create a new Shari’ah-based social contract, replacing the existing secular one, upon which the distinct cultural and religious groups within Malaysia’s plural society lay the basis for national unity. The crux of her argument is that the existing social, legal and political order is essentially secular; national unity is based on continued existence of such secular order; and the Islamist’s crusade against such an order is a serious threat to national unity.

Clive Kessler’s recent posting in Asian Analysis, an online newsletter jointly published by the Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University and the Asean Focus Group (http://www.aseanfocus.com/asiananalysis/latest.cfm?#a989), seems to lend credence to Zainah’s argument. Professor Kessler argues in his short article, The Long March Towards Desecularisation, that Malaysia’s progressivist political phase has now come to an end. In its place now is a new Islamist political force, which -has not merely come of age but moves towards and is now capturing the centre of Malaysian political life-. Like Zainah, Kessler also argues that the existing social, political and legal order is essentially secular, and the new Islamist force is out to desecularize it. He traces the seeds of such movement for desecularization up to the days of contentious Malay politics in the post-independence era, during which -Islamist policy auction- between the Islamist party PAS and the ruling Malay nationalist party UMNO had driven the state to instituting an overarching Islamization policy. Ever since, there has been escalating contest for Islamic legitimacy between the two parties and, in that process, reversed -the implicit secularisation of Malaysian life and the state that the 1957 constitution set in train and intended implicitly to promote-.

While Kessler finally predicts -the return, at the head of the ‘new generation Islamist forces’, of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to the centre of Malaysian politics-, however incongruent it might be, Zainah on the other hand offers a stereotype understanding of Islam and Islamist organization as heavily orthodox in orientation and totally anti-modern and anti-secular in practice. Unfortunately, by lumping Islamist organizations of all persuasions together, Zainah misses the finer points of Islamist engagement in civil society and acceptance of modern constitutionalism in her picture of the Islamists. The Islamist’s struggle for political, social and economic reform; incessant call for repeal of repressive laws and restoration of judicial independence; involvement in charity and humanitarian relief work; respect for the rights of the non-Muslims to practice their religion in peace and harmony; and acceptance of the Federal Constitution, which is neither completely secular nor fully Islamic, as the supreme law of the land are all missing in Zainah’s depiction of the Islamists.

Zainah also disregards the fact that the more moderate and progressive elements among the Islamists she demonizes have been working very closely with secular civil society actors in a number of significant civil society initiatives such as the anti-ISA movement, campaign for electoral reform, crusade against the University and University Colleges Act, and more recently, protest against the unfair terms of the proposed Free Trade Agreement with the United States. By accusing those opposing Article 11 coalition of rejecting the supremacy of the Federal Constitution, she obviously fails to direct her mind to PEMBELA’s latest memorandum to the Council of Rulers and the Prime Minister on the special position of Islam, which states very clearly the Islamists’ commitment to the supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law, while reaffirming the cultural terms of the 1957 constitutional contract which guarantees special constitutional position for Islam. Failure to consider these salient facts about Islamist’s engagement in civil society and respect for modern constitutionalism cast serious doubt to the validity of the whole of Zainah’s argument.

What Zainah’s -hate ideology- seems to be suggesting is, by highlighting the most extreme elements within the Muslim society, as well as some fringe perspectives which do not in any way reflect the mainstream views, that Malaysian Muslims are growing intolerant and extreme in their approach to religious pluralism and modern liberalism. If numbers do not fail us, recent survey by the Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research shows that this assumption erred. 97 percent of Muslims surveyed say that living alongside people of other religions is acceptable, though 70 percent identify themselves as Muslim first rather than Malay or Malaysian first. While 98 percent believe that apostasy is wrong, 64 percent want the Shari’ah laws to remain as it is under the modern Constitution. 73 percent think that Malaysia is an Islamic state, but 74 percent reject the Iranian model of theocracy. This shows that although majority of Malaysian Muslims are assertive about their religious identity, they are at the same time tolerant to multiculturalism and modern constitutionalism.

Yet there is another mind boggling conjecture that Zainah believes is the root cause of religious extremism among Malaysian Muslims. Obviously, according to Zainah, it is Islamist organizations’ recent campaign against the so-called Liberal Islam that contributes to alarming religious extremism among Muslims as indicated by the Deepavali greetings saga. But Zainah misses one salient point that the Islamist’s campaign itself is a response to a larger socio political transformation that Zainah herself knows very well.

This socio-political transformation relates to the development in the economic and political spheres. After decades of rapid economic development, massive urbanization, upward social mobility across ethnic groups, and expanding multiracial middle classes, there has been greater valorization of the virtues of democracy and human rights among the multiracial and multi-religious Malaysian public. Up to the 1990s, it is not uncommon to find conventional secular human rights groups to form alliances with Islamic groups in their struggle for greater democratic space, repeal of repressive laws, independence of judiciary, sustainable development, etc. Both Islamic and secular human rights groups find commonality in their goal to dismantle state authoritarianism and promote social justice.

But of late, a new variant of human rights struggle has emerged. Rather than targeting state authoritarianism, this new struggle debunks a particular social construct which its proponents view as unliberating. This includes social practices and mores that lay emphasis on patriarchal traditional values, moral vigilantanism and religious strictures. It seems that this new variant of human rights struggle, perhaps, find affinity with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual (LGBT) libertarian struggle in the West, rather than the anti-apartheid movement for liberation in South Africa. Not surprisingly, the main targets of the new variant of human rights activists have been Islamic religious strictures and its moral code. Campaigns against Islamic and municipal moral laws, Muslim polygamous marriage, state clampdown on deviant teachings, and until recently, prohibition against Muslims to convert are manifestations of this new variant of human rights struggle.

At the heart of this new struggle is a particular notion that the Muslim society needs to be transformed into a fully secular society along the same trajectory that the Christian West had experienced in the past. They need to be able to divorce their religious and moral worldviews from public life. They must also accept the primacy of individuals over the family, the community and the state when it comes to matters of personal faith. What should be the (dis)order of the day is a complete freedom of, in and from religion. In other words, the Muslims must undergo a thorough de-Islamization process before a complete secular life can be set in motion. What appears to be a conventional human rights struggle for individual freedom is indeed a larger cause for complete -Secularization of Islamic Society-. So far, there have been alignment and realignment of positions and alliances between and among the new human rights groups, state sections, international foundations and broader civil society actors in this larger pursuit of secularization.

Looking from this angle, Kessler’s -The Long March Towards Desecularization-, on which Zainah heavily relies in advancing her -hate ideology- thesis, does not tell the complete story of the contest for moral, legal and political authority in Malaysia. It is a story half told. Alongside the long march toward desecularization, there has also been a similar march toward de-Islamization, to which various sections within the Islamist forces are now responding, some are quite moderate and some others are even more extreme in their reactions. The more extreme the de-Islamization forces attempt to bulldoze its secular worldview into the religious fabric of the assertive Muslim society, the more extreme the reaction is from within the Islamist forces. In short, the de-Islamization forces have also had an equal share in triggering religious extremism within the Muslim society.

Given the contest between the two forces has become more acute lately, and the significant impact it bears on Muslim’s as well as non-Muslim’s perspective about politics and society, the government has so far been juggling between the two poles of Islamic conservatism and modern liberalism in making policy pronouncements. While it shot down the liberals’ proposal to form an interfaith commission, the government also reprimanded the conservative Federal Territory Islamic Religious Department for setting up a group of moral vigilantes which was tasked to hunt down moral criminals. It seems that the UMNO and PAS’s contest for Malay votes is no longer the sole determinant of the depth and breadth of government’s Islamization policies. The need to respond to the new de-Islamization forces, the attendant non-Muslim’s sentiments and the international exposes compels the government to be more cautious in dealing with its official policy on Islam. So far, the pattern of government’s responses to the contest has been like a pendulum swing – sometimes to the right (Islamic conservatism) and sometimes to the left (modern liberalism) and then back again, rather than a constant movement in any one direction.

While the divisive tendency of the current Islamic debate continues to gaining steam, it is worth the while of the actors of the debate to sit back and do some sort of soul searching. It is true that both sides of the political spectrum have moved to the far end of each side, widening the gap between the two, and leaving the middle ground seemingly out of everyone’s reach. But as we live in a deeply multi-religious society, where the divisive tendency, once unleashed, can be highly uncontrolled and potentially devastating, it is not too late for everyone to move back to the middle and try to reach out to each other again. It is high time for everyone to once again champion the middle ground.

MARZUKI MOHAMAD (marzuki.mohamad@anu.edu.au) is a Research Scholar of Political Science at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra. He is also a member of Central Executive Committee of Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM).

Interesting Read: Al-Jazeera, a media revolution
by Azzam Tamimi

October 25, 2006 06:18 PM

Source Link

As al-Jazeera International, which will be predominantly in English, prepares for its launch this coming November, its older Arabic service al-Jazeera celebrates its 10th anniversary. The first of November 1996 witnessed a media revolution not just in the Arab world but across the globe. Al-Jazeera, which was born out of the abortion of a joint venture between the BBC and Saudi Arabia, soon attracted the attention of Arab viewers worldwide to an exciting style in broadcasting never ever before adopted by an Arab sponsored media outlet.

A year or so earlier, the Saudi Orbit Satellite bouquet sought to provide Arab satellite viewers with a reasonably “respectable” Arabic TV news service by means of contracting the news and current affairs segment to the BBC, well-respected in the Arab world for its Arabic radio service that is listened to by millions from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Peninsula.

For several months London-based Arab experts and commentators were hosted by the service in its BBC TV Centre studios at White City. At times guests would be warned not to be too harsh on Saudi Arabia if the news they were commenting on or the issues they were discussing had anything to do with it or its royals. A mild indirect critique of Arab governments was acceptable but not a direct blunt criticism of the Gulf states. Yet, the BBC kept receiving complaints from the Saudis objecting to the appearance of certain guests or to the way in which certain issues were addressed. They were particularly annoyed at the appearance on the news bulletins or the talk shows of members of the Saudi opposition. Riyadh authorities preferred to pretend they never existed. Guest commentators could not help but perceive the growing tension that eventually ended in an abrupt divorce between the BBC and Orbit.

Certain influential players within the ruling family in Saudi Arabia’s much smaller neighbour Qatar had apparently been following the deterioration of the BBC-ORBIT marriage upon whose collapse they moved in, contracted the bulk of the BBC Arabic TV service staff and flew them to Doha. The Qataris, who suffered no shortage of money, seized the opportunity to acquire an entire team of highly professional and experienced TV producers and presenters. Anyone looking to launch a near perfect satellite service would not have been luckier. To guarantee the success of the project, the Qataris added to the professionalism of the team and the generous budget they allocated for the operation another essential element: editorial freedom.

Unlike the Saudis, the Qataris did not suffer internal problems that might be considered threatening or even news worthy. With a small population sitting on an ocean of oil and natural gas, governor-governed relations have been at their best since the current Amir seized power from his father. Since then, poverty in Qatar has been, literally, nonexistent and political dissent is considered an internal family affair that is usually resolved in a traditional fatherly fashion that leaves all those concerned happy and content. Each Qatari citizen is guaranteed a job and a minimum standard of living – including all essential services such as housing, health, education and even recreation – that is well above anything a western liberal society may dream of. In a nutshell, Qatari citizens have little to complain from.

One of the earliest decisions taken by the current Amir upon coming to power was to cancel the Information ministry and end all forms of government control over the media. It was in this climate that al-Jazeera was born with the declared objective of giving platform to “the opinion and the other opinion”. Indeed, all kinds of ideas and personalities from the extreme right to the extreme left and from among the Islamists and the secular nationalists have regularly been debating issues on al-Jazeera. Hundreds of Arab activists and thinkers, whose own national media would never give them platform, rose to fame because al-Jazeera hosted them. In many instances, other media outlets, who otherwise would not have been bothered, were soon forced to pay attention to these rising stars.

The liberal west initially welcomed al-Jazeera seeing it as a tool of greatly needed and long-aspired-for liberalisation of the Arab region. Indeed, the channel’s news bulletins and talk shows seemed to leave no stone unturned in the Arab political and social terrain. However, Arab regimes that are usually identified as close friends and strategic allies of the leading power in the west, the USA, could not conceal their anger and frustration at what Qatar’s al-Jazeera was doing to them. The suppressed voices of political activists, opposition leaders and spokespersons for NGOs – particularly in the field of human rights and civil liberties – struggling for reform across the Arab region found in al-Jazeera a powerful agency to communicate their ideas, concerns and hopes to the millions of viewers who had free uncontrolled access to the channel via the satellite dish. The al-Jazeera TV debates about some of the most taboo issues in Arab politics encouraged members of the public to think loud and discuss freely. News and current affairs programs produced by national television stations, which were tightly controlled and severely censored, became deserted. Pressure was building within these institutions in order to ease the restrictions so that viewers could be won back.

Technology, money and political will combined together to provide al-Jazeera with an edge that was almost impossible to surpass. The United Arab Emirates tried to pull the rug from underneath al-Jazeera by liberalising its Abu Dhabi satellite channel. Initially, Abu Dhabi seemed to compete well; some of al-Jazeera’s staff were lured by extremely generous packages that were, at times, more than double the salary they had been earning. With such irresistible offers some of them resigned their jobs at al-Jazeera and joined Abu Dhabi. However, soon most of them regretted the decision; some of them jumped re-applied to al-Jazeera and asked for their jobs to be given back to them. The authorities in the UAE could not maintain the open platform for long; their channel could compete in many ways except in the ability to maintain such a wide margin of freedom; only al-Jazeera was prepared to guarantee its staff and viewers alike such freedom.

In another bid to outdo al-Jazeera the Saudis opened their al-Arabiya satellite channel and the Americans their al-Hurra. The Saudi owned al-Arabiya did quite well in the beginning and managed to take away a chunk of viewers from al-Jazeera but that too was short-lived. It became clear soon that the purpose of al-Arabiya was not to compete with al-Jazeera but rather to settle scores with the critics of the Saudi Royal family. It is widely believed the US created al-Hurra Arabic satellite TV channel for the purpose of providing Arab viewers with the US side of the story in contrast to what al-Jazeera offers. The project has anything but succeeded.

The US contentment with al-Jazeera started fading away soon after 9/11 with the launch of the war on terrorism that started with the invasion of Afghanistan followed by the invasion of Iraq. Al-Jazeera’s coverage of events in both arenas annoyed the US and prompted several US senior officials in the George W. Bush administration to openly criticise the channel. Sensing the US unease with al-Jazeera, an Arab leader, who al-Jazeera had also apparently annoyed, was reported to have suggested during the US invasion of Afghanistan that the US president should spare one of his Tomahawk missiles for al-Jazeera headquarters in Doha. Several Arab governments, including Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia had at different occasions expressed anger that at times manifested itself in the closure of al-Jazeera offices or the brief detention of its correspondents and at times took the form of calling back their own ambassadors in Doha.

Soon, the US frustration with al-Jazeera manifested itself in more than verbal condemnation of the channel; its offices in Kabul and then in Baghdad were shelled by US occupation troops. In the latter instance al-Jazeera correspondent in Baghdad Tariq Ayoub was killed. Two of al-Jazeera’s staff members have been accused of terrorism as a result of their coverage of events in Afghanistan: correspondent Taysir Allouni, who was arrested, charged, tried and imprisoned in Spain for interviewing Osama bin Laden; and cameraman Sami Al-Hajj, who was kidnapped while still in Afghanistan and has been held in Guantanamo Bay detention centre for the past five years.

The US administration considered further drastic action. Citing a Downing Street memo marked top secret, the British Daily Mirror reported in November 2005, that the US President, George Bush, planned to bomb al-Jazeera operation in Doha. According to a five-page transcript of a conversation between Bush and the British prime minister, Tony Blair, during Blair’s 16 April 2004 visit to Washington, Blair talked Bush out of launching a military strike on the station.

Now we know this was not just an American concern. In an interview for Channel 4’s Dispatches the former British home secretary, David Blunkett, indicated that he thought the bombing of al-Jazeera’s Baghdad TV transmitter was, in his opinion, justified. When I visited al-Jazeera in Doha for a talk show in 1997, it occupied a very small compound consisting of a few administrative offices, a newsroom and a studio. Today al-Jazeera is an empire with a huge operation in Doha and scores of offices around the world. Ten years on, al-Jazeera is the undisputed voice of the free in an Arab world that remains in shackles.

Interesting Read: Suddenly, I’m an ‘Islamic Fascist’
by Jonathan Cook

“One does not need to be a psychologist to understand that those with no legitimate way to vent their rage, even to have it recognized as valid, become consumed by it instead. They seek explanations and purifying ideologies. They need heroes and strategies. And in the end they crave revenge. If their voice is not heard, they will speak without words.

So I find myself standing with Bush’s “Islamic fascists” in the hope that – just possibly – my solidarity and that of others may dissipate the rage, may give it meaning and offer it another, better route to victory.”

It occurred to me as I watched the story unfolding on my TV of a suspected plot by a group of at least 20 British Muslims to blow up planes between the UK and America that the course of my life and that of the alleged “terrorists” may have run in parallel in more ways than one.

Like a number of them, I am originally from High Wycombe, one of the nondescript commuter towns that ring London. As aerial shots wheeled above the tiled roof of a semi-detached house there, I briefly thought I was looking at my mother’s home.

But doubtless my and their lives have diverged in numerous ways. According to news reports, the suspects are probably Pakistani, a large “immigrant” community that has settled in many corners of Britain, including High Wycombe and Birmingham, a gray metropolis in the country’s center where at least some of the arrested men are believed to have been born.

Britain’s complacent satisfaction with its multiculturalism and tolerance ignores the facts that Pakistanis and other ethnic minorities mostly live in their own segregated spaces on the margins of British life. “Native” Britons like me – the white ones – generally assume that is out of choice: “They stick to their own kind.” Many of us rarely come into contact with a Pakistani unless he is serving us what we call “Indian food” or selling us a packet of cigarettes in a corner shop.

So, even though we may have been neighbors of a sort in High Wycombe, my life and theirs probably had few points of contact.

But paradoxically, that changed, I think, five years ago when I left Britain. I moved to Nazareth in Israel, an Arab – Muslim and Christian – community on the very margins of the self-declared Jewish state. In the ghetto of Nazareth, I rarely meet Israeli Jews unless I venture out for work or I find myself sitting next to them in a local restaurant as they order hummus from an Arab waiter, just as I once asked for a madras curry in High Wycombe. When Israeli Jews briefly visit the ghetto, I suddenly realize how much, by living here, I have become an Arab by default.

Living on the margins of any society is an alienating experience that few who are rooted in the heartland of the consensus can ever hope to understand. Such alienation can easily deepen into something less passive, far more destructive, when you find yourself not only marginalized but your loyalty, rationality, even your sanity, called into question.

As we approach the fifth official anniversary of the “war on terror,” the foiled UK “terror plot” has neatly provided George W. Bush, the “leader of the free world,” with a chance to remind us of our fight against the “Islamic fascists.” But what if the war on terror is not really about separating the good guys from the bad guys, but about deciding what a good guy can be allowed to say and think?

What if the “Islamic fascism” President Bush warns us of is not just the terrorism associated with Osama bin Laden and his elusive al-Qaeda network but a set of views that many Arabs, Muslims, and Pakistanis – even the odd humanist – consider normal, even enlightened? What if the war on “Islamic fascism” is less about fighting terrorism and more about silencing those who dissent from the West’s endless wars against the Middle East?

At some point, I suspect, I joined the Islamic fascists without my even noticing. Were my name different, my skin color different, my religion different, I might feel a lot more threatened by that realization.

How would Homeland Security judge me if I stepped off a plane in the U.S. tomorrow and told officials not only that I am appalled by the humanitarian crises in Lebanon and Gaza but also that I do not believe the war on terror should be directed against either the Lebanese or the Palestinians? How would they respond if, further, I described as nonsense the idea that Hezbollah or the political leaders of Hamas are “terrorists”?

I have my reasons, good ones I think, but would anyone take them seriously? What would the officials make of my argument that, before Israel’s war on Lebanon, no one could point to a single terrorist incident Hezbollah had been responsible for in at least a decade? Would the authorities appreciate my comment that a terrorist organization that doesn’t do terrorism is a chimera, a figment of the president’s imagination?

Equally, what would they make of my belief that Hezbollah does not want to wipe Israel off the map? Would they find me convincing if I told them that Israel, not Hezbollah, is the aggressor in the conflict: that following Israel’s supposed withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, Lebanon experienced barely a day of peace from the terrifying sonic booms of Israeli war planes violating the country’s airspace?

Would they understand as I explained that Hezbollah had acted with restraint for those six years, stockpiling its weapons for the day it knew was coming when Israel would no longer be satisfied with overflights and its appetite for conquest and subjugation would return? Would the officials doubt their own assumptions as I told them that during this war Hezbollah’s rockets have been a response to Israeli provocations, that they are fired in return for Israel’s devastating and indiscriminate bombardment of Lebanon?

And what would they say if I claimed that this war is not really about Lebanon, or even Hezbollah, but part of a wider U.S. and Israeli campaign to isolate and preemptively attack Iran?

Thank God, my skin is fair, my name is unmistakenly English, and I know how to spell the word “atheist.” Chances are when Homeland Security comes looking for suspects, no one will search for me or be interested – not yet, at least – in my views on Hassan Nasrallah or the democratic election of a Hamas government for the Palestinians.

My friends in Nazareth, and those Pakistani neighbors I never knew in High Wycombe, are less fortunate. They must keep their views hidden and swallow their anger as they see (because their media, unlike ours, show the reality) what U.S.-made weapons fired by American and Israeli soldiers can do to the fragile human body, how quickly skin burns in an explosion, how easily a child’s skull is crushed under rubble, how fast the body drains of blood from a severed limb.

Sitting in London or New York, the news that Gaza lost 151 souls, most of them civilians, last month to Israeli bombs and bullets passes us by. It is after all just a number, even if a high one. At best, a number like that from a place we don’t know, suffered by a people whose names we can’t pronounce, makes us pause, even sigh with regret. But it cannot move us to anger.

And anyway, our news bulletins are too busy to concentrate on more than one atrocity at a time. This month it is Lebanon. Next month it will probably be Iran. Then maybe it will be back to Baghdad or the Palestinians. The horror stories sound so much less significant, the need for action so less pressing, when each is unrelated to the next. Were we to watch the Arab channels, where all the blood and suffering blends into a single terrible Middle Eastern epic, we might start to make connections, and maybe suspect that none of this happens by accident.

But my Arab friends and High Wycombe’s Pakistanis have longer memories. Their attention span lasts longer than a single atrocity. They understand that those numbers – 151 killed in Gaza, and in a single incident 33 blown up in a market in Najaf, Iraq, and at least 28 crushed by rubble from an Israeli attack on Qana in Lebanon – are people, flesh and blood just like them. They can make out, in all the pain and death currently being inflicted on Arabs and Muslims, the echoes of events stretching back years and decades. They see patterns, they make connections, and maybe discern a plan. Unlike us, they do not sigh, they burn with fury.

This is something President Bush and his obedient serf in Britain, Tony Blair, need to learn. But of course, they do not want to understand because they, and their predecessors, are responsible for creating those patterns and for writing that epic tale in blood. Bush and Blair and their advisers know that the plan is far more important than the rage, the “red” alert levels at airports, or even planes crashing into buildings and plunging out of the sky.

And to protect that plan – to preserve the Middle East as a giant oil pump, cheaply feeding our industries and our privileged lifestyles – those who care about the suffering, the deaths, and the wars must be silenced. Their voices must not be heard, their loyalty must be questioned, their reason must be put in doubt. They must be dismissed as “Islamic fascists.”

One does not need to be a psychologist to understand that those with no legitimate way to vent their rage, even to have it recognized as valid, become consumed by it instead. They seek explanations and purifying ideologies. They need heroes and strategies. And in the end they crave revenge. If their voice is not heard, they will speak without words.

So I find myself standing with Bush’s “Islamic fascists” in the hope that – just possibly – my solidarity and that of others may dissipate the rage, may give it meaning and offer it another, better route to victory.