Christopher Hitchens: Why America will come to regret the craven deal Obama is offering Netanyahu

Why America will come to regret the craven deal Obama is offering Netanyahu.
By Christopher Hitchens
Monday, Nov. 15, 2010
Slate.com

...Now we read that, in return for just 90 days of Israeli lenience on new settlement-building (this brief pause or "freeze" not to include the crucial precincts of East Jerusalem), Netanyahu is being enticed with "a package of security incentives and fighter jets worth $3 billion" and a promise that the United States government would veto any Palestinian counterproposal at the United Nations. Netanyahu, while graciously considering this offer, was initially reported as being unsure whether he "could win approval for the United States deal from his Cabinet." In other words, we must wait on the pleasure of Rabbi Yosef and Ministers Atias, Yishai, and Lieberman, who have the unusual ability to threaten Netanyahu from his right wing.

This is a national humiliation. Regardless of whether that bunch of clowns and thugs and racists "approve" of the Obama/Clinton grovel offer, there should be a unanimous demand that it be withdrawn...

The only mystery is this: Why does the United States acquiesce so wretchedly in its own disgrace at the hands of a virtual client state?

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Carrying the Legacy, Advancing with Confidence (Speech at CAIR-LA Banquet)

Hussam Ayloush's speech delivered at the 14th Annual Banquet of CAIR, Anaheim, Oct 30, 2010.

Click to watch video of speech

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Carrying the Legacy, Advancing with Confidence

Our country and our community are facing a major challenge; a challenge with two levels.

The first is to America and what it stands for – it is the challenge of those who are trying to take America in a direction that involves xenophobia, division, hatred, incivility, and intolerance.

The second level is to American Muslims – it is a challenge to our rights, identity, or even co-existence.

This challenge is not the result of a random happening. There is a multimillion dollar anti-Muslim industry, an industry of hate and fear that is determined to stir up mistrust and fear of Muslims.

I am pleased to share with you the good news that our National CAIR office has just launched, a few weeks ago, an Islamophobia Department, which will focus on tracking, exposing and challenging this destructive industry. We expect the first major report from this department in a couple of months, God willing.

Even as this industry is becoming exposed, it is important for us to realize that we American Muslims are not the only victims of this anti-Muslim industry.

The American public is its main victim – our fellow Americans are being misled, manipulated, and pushed to hate other people. And this is one of the worst forms of victimhood that a people can be subjected to. It’s important to keep in mind that in most cases, these are people we need to reach out to, not to fight with.

Although this anti-Muslim hysteria seems to possibly be the most serious challenge in the history of American Muslims, it is how we respond that will determine our place in history. Will we seize the opportunity to not only educate our fellow Americans about Islam, but to rise to the occasion and give back to our country by playing a role in protecting our nation and driving America to be true to its values?

Our best response and the only course we can proudly take as Americans and as Muslims is reflected in CAIR-LA’s banquet theme: “Carrying the Legacy, Advancing with Confidence.”

A legacy is “something handed down from the past, from a predecessor...”

It is something to be held, and revered, and built on - something that guides the work of future generations, who have the choice of whether or not to honor it.

And we are blessed with two legacies to celebrate. One is an American Muslim legacy. These Muslim pioneers sacrificed much of their time and the better part of their lives for a vision – a vision of an active, united, involved, integrated, and respected American Muslim community.

Without such people as Imam W. D. Mohammad, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X), Sr. Betty Shabazz, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, Dr. Hassan Hathout, Dr. Maher Hathout, Dr. Muzammil Siddiqui, Dr. Fathi Osman, Imam Haroon Abdallah, Imam Abdel Karim Hassan, Imam Saadiq Safir, Dr. Ahmad Sakr, Dr. Mustafa Kuko, and many, many others, we wouldn’t have a Muslim community. We wouldn’t have mosques, schools, organizations, or even a shared identity, had it not been for their vision and sacrifice.

The second legacy we are blessed with is the American civil rights legacy, which was built by individuals who sacrificed their own livelihood, time, and even lives to ensure that America remains true to its values of freedom and liberty and justice for all.

For instance, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X), Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, and many others unwaveringly challenged the status quo of injustice and discrimination. If it wasn’t for the change they catalyzed, none of us would enjoy today’s freedoms or be able to take part equally in American life. Granted, the road to a true democracy is a long one, and our country has taken many pit stops, but we’ve come a long way as a nation because of the legacy of those heroes.

But a legacy is only as good as it is carried. This means we learn about it, we respect it, we value it, we appreciate it, we build on it – but we don’t remain stagnant. If all we do is hand down to our children what our parents and grandparent struggled to achieve, then we’ve failed the next generation and ourselves.

The earlier generations built their legacy for us not just to enjoy and sustain, but rather to build on and achieve more. A community that just benefits from the work of others before it is not a community worthy of the sacrifices made on its behalf. Like those communities that sacrificed, we want to be a community that builds, that contributes to the rejuvenation of America’s founding principles. Others have left the footprints and continue to do so. We should now continue in their path until the next generation begins from where we stopped. And the progress continues.

That takes us to the second half of the theme: advancing with confidence.

A nation or a community that does not advance is indeed retreating. Darkness takes over in the absence of light, and evil flourishes in the absence of good. The Irish statesman Edmund Burke said: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Advancing with confidence requires courage, knowledge, pride, and self-respect. If we don’t respect ourselves and recognize that we’re equal human beings, equal citizens, with equal rights and responsibilities, how can we expect others to recognize that for us? How can we expect others to respect us? Let’s look, for example, at the Park51 community center in New York. If, when an ignorant or bigoted person says, “The location of your mosque offends me” – if the first thing we do in response is move it, then how can we expect others to stand by our right to worship anywhere in America like everyone else; to freely worship? If a government agency chooses to violate the rights of American Muslims and we, as a community, accept being treated as second class citizens, what are we teaching our children or even those same abusers about how we perceive ourselves? Advancing with confidence means we know who we are, what our rights are, and what our responsibilities are.

As American Muslims, we have the right to be treated with fairness and respect, to worship freely, to be judged by our character not by stereotypes, for our children to feel safe - to be free from harassment, and for our mosques not to be vandalized by haters or spied on by Big Brother as if we were criminals. We have the responsibility to be good citizens, to participate in the civic process, to contribute our talent and hard work, to uphold the law and protect the Constitution of the United States, to be good neighbors and help those in our society who need our help.

We have to leave our good work, our footprints, for the next generation, rising to the occasion like other communities rose to the occasion: African American, Latino, Jewish, and Japanese Americans and others.

It is so important that we as American Muslims defend our rights and speak against injustice – on all sides – because this is what Islam demands from us and this is what our country needs from us the most now. We have to make a commitment that we are here to defend every person in America, especially now that we know how it feels to be subjected to this growing anti-Muslim bigotry and unfair government abuses.

The other responsibility that we have – and it’s a very unique position for American Muslims – is protecting against those who are pushing our country into a manufactured clash with what is described as “the Muslim world.” We can play a role in steering America toward dialogue, peace, and just policies. Being citizens of the only superpower of the world today requires from us to be bridge-builders, to help fellow Muslims around the world and fellow Americans listen and talk to one another, rather than be driven by self-serving extremists on all sides.

To take this role, we must engage politically and socially in our country, to promote policies that bring peace, economic justice, political freedoms and human rights in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kashmir, and even here in America, toward immigrants, low wage workers, the poor, the uninsured, and every suffering person and community.

The challenges are big, the burden is equally big, but the vision is clear, and the legacy is here for us to carry it and advance it with confidence.

(Speech delivered at the 14th Annual Banquet of CAIR, Anaheim, Oct 30, 2010)

Another worker abuse case in the M.E.: Images of abused maid rattle Indonesia

SEE:

Protect the human rights of migrant workers in the Middle East

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Images of abused maid rattle Indonesia

Associated Press (AP)

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — She arrived in Saudi Arabia a high-spirited 23-year-old, eager to start work as a maid to help support her family back home. Four months later, Sumiati was Indonesia's poster child for migrant abuse, alone and staring vacantly from a hospital bed, her face sliced and battered.

But while public anger has forced President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's government to acknowledge the problem for the first time, few expect any firm action to be taken.

Gruesome images snapped of Sumiati, now recovering in the Saudi city of Medina, have been splashed on the front pages of local newspapers and led television newscasts for more than a week.

Her employer — who has been taken in for questioning by police — is accused of cutting off part of her lips with scissors, scalding her back with an iron, fracturing her middle finger, and beating her legs until she could hardly walk.

"It's hardly the first such case," said Wahyu Susilo, a policy analyst at Indonesia's advocacy group, Migrant Care. "Again and again we hear about slavery-like conditions, torture, sexual abuse and even death, but our government has chosen to ignore it. Why? Because migrant workers generate $7.5 billion of dollars in foreign exchange every year."

Workers from Asian countries dominate service industries in the Middle East and there have been many reports of abuse — including allegations in recent days that an employer in Kuwait drove 14 metal pins into the body of a Sri Lankan maid.

"The wanton brutality alleged in these cases is shocking," said Nisha Varia, senior women's rights researcher at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, which called on authorities to investigate claims promptly and bring those responsible to justice.

She and others called cases like that of Sumiati the "tip of the iceberg."

But countries that export labor have a responsibility as well, Nisha said.

Though Indonesia sends more than 6.5 million workers abroad every year, it has drawn much criticism for failing — despite repeated promises — to ratify a 1990 U.N. convention on the protection of migrant workers. It also has not signed a bilateral agreement with Saudi Arabia that would give workers a legal basis to challenge employers.

But Oon Kurniaputra, an adviser to Indonesia's Minister of Manpower and Transmigration, argued Tuesday that the problem is not the fault of governments.

It is with profit-hungry recruitment agencies that lure young men and women overseas without ensuring their safety when they get there, he said.

Sumiati's case prompted President Yudhoyono to call a Cabinet meeting late last week to discuss ways in which the government could — and would — do more.

It turned out to be a public relations disaster.

It emerged during the talks that another Indonesian maid, 36-year-old Kikim Komalasari, had allegedly been tortured to death by her Saudi employer, her body found in a trash bin on Nov. 11 in the town of Abha.

"It's shocking to hear this ... it's beyond inhumane," said Yudhoyono, as the government sent a team of diplomats to the scene to investigate. "I want the law to be upheld and to see an all-out diplomatic effort."

Some lawmakers suggested a moratorium on sending domestic workers to Saudi Arabia, something that is considered unlikely given the close economic and political ties between the predominantly Muslim countries.

It also comes at a sensitive time, with hundreds of thousands of Indonesians in Saudi Arabia performing in the annual hajj pilgrimage.

Yudhoyono, meanwhile, had a proposal of his own: Give all migrant workers cell phones so they can call family members or authorities if they need help.

"It just shows how little he understands the problems domestic workers abroad are facing," scoffed Rieke Dyah Pitaloka, an opposition lawmaker who is dealing with labor and domestic workers affairs.

"Their employers are locking them up and taking away their passports ... they aren't going to let them keep a phone."

Most people believe little will change until girls are better educated and prepared for better jobs in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelagic nation of 237 million people, where the average wage is less than $300 a month.

Sumiati, a recent high school graduate from a fishing village on Sumbawa island, was bouncing with enthusiasm when she left for Saudi Arabia on July 18 with the help of a local recruitment agency, according to family and friends.

She saw it as a chance to be able to help her three younger siblings through school.

When the family — together with the rest of the country — first saw the cell phone picture of their little girl on television, they "went crazy."

"Her mother ... started crying hysterically and lost consciousness," Sumiati's uncle, Zulkarnain, was quoted as saying in the English-language The Jakarta Globe.

When they got Sumiati on telephone in the hospital, she said in a voice almost unrecognizable: "Please come in the form of angels and take me back home to my village."

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

"Traveling with Jihad" - Exploring the shared history and common teachings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

When viewed through the lens of a shared history, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam provide differing perspectives on similar themes. Join Jihad Turk as he leads Charles Annenberg Weingarten through the common threads that tie the western faiths with that of Islam.

Islam in Japan - Road to Hajj from Japan

Islam in the Land of the Rising Sun  

Al Jazeera reports on Islam and Hajj efforts from Japan Part 1: Part 2:

Muneer Awad of CAIR -OK Discusses Okla. Shariah Ban with Rachel Maddow

Ayloush responds to UC Mark Yudof on the issue of UCI protests

UC president Yudof: Speech is protected
The Daily Pilot
By Tom Ragan, tom.ragan@latimes.com
November 6, 2010

NEWPORT BEACH — University of California President Mark Yudof spoke before an estimated 350 people at Temple Bat Yahm on Thursday night, telling the predominantly Jewish crowd that he doesn't condone the anti-Semitic statements occasionally made on UC campuses, not just at UC Irvine.

But the reality, Yudof said, is that there is nothing he can do about it because they are protected under the 1st Amendment, which allows for free speech and the right to assemble.

He said he receives hundreds of e-mails daily from angry people in the wake of such protests or activities, and that they all ask him the same thing: Why doesn't he come out and condemn the anti-Semitic remarks made among the more politically involved Muslim student groups on campus?

"Well, I have condemned the speeches," he said. "I do condemn all the anti-Israel speeches, I condemn all the anti-Semitic utterances. I've said that before, and I'm saying it now, and I'll say it in writing again."

But by law, Yudof said, he cannot censor the speeches, "no matter how horrific they are."

Nor, he added, can he "shut down" the activities that occur on campus. The long and short of it, said Yudof, who is an expert in the U.S. Constitution, is that everything is within the legal rights of students when they speak out against Israel and its policies toward the Palestinians.

Still, Yudof compared some of the anti-Semitic activities to the equivalent of the "Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan" coming to campus and giving speeches and holding rallies.

"It's plain vanilla bigotry," he said.

His remarks were also couched and tempered as a result of tension that's built up over the past few years between the Muslim Student Union and Jewish students at UCI.

In February, 11 students from the UCI MSU were arrested after they repeatedly interrupted a speech given by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, who had planned to talk about the state of U.S.-Israeli relations.

The students said they were merely exercising their free speech rights, but Yudof said that's no defense.

"There is no right to drown out a speaker," he said.

But as far as the MSU and Anaheim office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, are concerned, the students had every right to voice their opinions.

"The students voiced political views to shame the representative of a foreign government accused of war crimes by the United Nations and human rights organizations," said CAIR Executive Director Hussam Ayloush. "Delivering this message in a loud and shocking yet peaceful manner was meant to express the gravity of charges leveled against Israeli policies. It falls under the purview of protected speech."

He went on to say that "legitimate criticism of Israeli policies is not anti-Semitism."

CAIR has also been critical of the punishment levied against the Muslim Student Union at UCI, calling it "selective" and saying that their disruption of Oren's speech should have been "constitutionally protected."

The MSU's subsequent suspension, CAIR said, is nothing but "an attempt to repress legitimate student protests" and that, in the end, it will undermine the importance of free speech at the university level.

CAIR markets itself as one of the largest Islamic civil liberties group in the United States. Its mission is to promote a positive image of Islam and Muslims, according to Munira Syeda, CAIR communications manager.

She said there are roughly 170,000 Muslims who live in Orange County and an estimated 1 million in California.

"It's a big constituency," she said. "He [Yudof] should keep that in mind because he represents the UC system."

Yudof's speech was sponsored by the Rose Project, a Jewish Federation and Family Services. The group was created nearly two years ago and helps create bridges between UCI students and a better understanding of Israel and what it means to be Jewish. The proceeds of the event will go back into the Rose Project.

An Open Letter to President Obama: Sorry, Mr. President, this time I need progress to have hope!

Dear President Obama,

When you spoke from Turkey and then Egypt, in the first year of your presidency, I was filled with hope. I shared your speeches with everyone I know. We were all excited about the new prospects for peace, dialogue, and justice.

This time, I am not too excited about your speech from Indonesia. Don't get me wrong, I still support the promises and points you made in the speech (and I still have higher hopes for you than I ever did or will for Bush, Cheney or Palin).  However, until you deliver on your old promises, I will not engage in celebrating new promises. I do not want to be part of promoting false expectations.

Guantanamo is still up and running. Israel continues to build illegal settlements, occupy Palestinian territories, and humiliate and prevent Palestinian refugees from returning to their homes and towns. US drones continue to harm civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan. India, which you just visited, continues to occupy Kashmir and mistreat Kashmiris. American Muslims continue to be harassed and abused by the FBI and at airports in their own country.

This time, I am not impressed and I will not be a cheerleader. I need real progress to have real hope.

With best regards,
Hussam Ayloush
(An American Muslim who campaigned and voted for you)

I stand by my Iraqi Christian brothers and sisters. All Muslims do too.

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "A believer is one from whom the people's blood and wealth are safe."

He also said:  "One who cannot be trusted and felt secured with, has no faith"

He also said: "One is not a true believer until he (or she) loves for his brethren (human brethren) what he (or she) loves for himself (or herself).

How can anyone who claims to have faith target innocent worshipers in mosques and churches?

Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups have taken responsibility for today's murderous attack on a mosque in Pakistan and Sunday's attack on a church in Iraq. Both attacks killed dozens of innocent people.  Both attacks and all previous Al-Qaeda attacks are sickening.  There is no place in our world for such vicious and bloody ideology that justifies such heinous behavior.  Such behavior contradicts the most basic Islamic teachings and human decency.


Moreover, I am extremely disgusted by Al-Qaeda criminals issuing an ultimatum and threat to Iraqi Christians.

Those Al-Qaeda fanatics and idiots must have forgotten that those Iraqi Christians have been in Iraq much longer before we Muslims arrived to Iraq and for the most part, Muslims and Christians have lived as good brothers, sisters and neighbors to one another, until the Al-Qaeda fanatics showed up.  Al-Qaeda should pack up and go back to their caves and let Iraqis live in peace.

I, as a Muslim, have much more in common with those innocent Iraqi Christians than what I will ever have with Al-Qaeda terrorists who claim to be Muslim.

 
(My disgust with Al-Qaeda does not clear our political leaders (ie Bush, Cheney and the neo-con gang) from their moral and legal responsibility for destroying Iraq and creating the vacuum that invited and attracted the filth of Al-Qaeda. However, that is another story for another day)

I stand by my Iraqi Christian brothers and sisters. All Muslims do too.

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CAIR statement on this issue

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 11/5/10) -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned a recent threat against Iraq's Christian community and a deadly attack in which dozens of Iraqi Christians were killed in a Baghdad church on Sunday.

The group claiming responsibility for the attack, an umbrella group that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq, reportedly threatened "all Christian centers, organizations and institutions, leaders and followers" in an online statement.

SEE: Al-Qaeda group threatens Iraqi Christians


In a statement, CAIR said:

"We condemn this attack on a house of worship in the strongest possible terms and repudiate the groups that perpetrate such heinous crimes. The Christian community has a long and honored tradition in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. The lives and religious rights of members of that community must be protected. Threatening people, especially basing such threats on their religion, is immoral and contrary to Islamic principles and teachings about people of other faith traditions. The Prophet Muhammad said: 'A believer is one from whom the people's blood and wealth are safe.'"
 

Hussam Ayloush's Talk at CAIR-LA Banquet 2010 - "Advancing with confidence"

My talk at the CAIR-LA banquet, October 30, 2010
"Carrying the Legacy. Advancing with Confidence.