Principle dictates that civil rights advocates be concerned about the rights of political prisoners on principle, not on creed. Yet, progressive media and organizations concern for civil liberties seems wholly absent in the cases of "high profile" Muslim prisoners. Perturbed, I wrote to Democracy Now's Amy Goodman.
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Subject: Why No DN Coverage of Ahmed Abdel Sattar Case?
Date: Thu, October 19, 2006 4:58 am
To: mail@democracynow.org
Dear Amy,
In this time of corporate media and embeds, I have long regarded your show as one of the last bastions of independent journalism, and you, as personally restoring dignity to the word “journalist.” While I appreciate and agree with your pointed analyses and views on most issues, I am very disappointed by your failure to cover the railroadings of most high profile Muslim political prisoners, previously Imam Jamil El-Amin and the Virginia Seven, and now notably, Ahmed Abdel Sattar.
All proceedings in Ahmed’s case were held in New York, where his wife and children also live. You are based out of New York, yet you did not bother to interview any of them.
You might consider that a government which lies about WMDs, spies on its own citizens, and engages in McCarthy-style labeling, blacklisting, and jailing of opponents just might have lied, labeled, and blacklisted--in order to jail--in this case as well. The government spent tens of thousands of dollars to railroad Ahmed, and held him for 4.5 years, while creatively building a case against him. Sadly, Democracy Now!’s excellent coverage of Lyn Stewart was sorely juxtaposed by its corporate media-style blackout of the railroading of Ahmed Abdel Sattar.
You might also consider that defense lawyers are not the only ones whom this trial was meant to terrorize. The Egyptian dissident community is ever more terrified of speaking out against the considerable abuses of Hosni Mubarak, after observing the jailing of yet another outspoken and courageous Egyptian patriot. Democracy Now! missed a prime opportunity to educate its listeners on the U.S. government’s silencing of foreign dissidents on U.S. soil.
Ahmed is not so different from the Filipino dissidents, assassinated on U.S. soil during the Marcos reign; or Orlando Letelier, murdered at Sheridan Circle in Washington, DC; or Alex Odeh, blown up as he worked in his own office. They are/were all courageous dissidents who fought to wrest their countries from imperialist domination, whether under Mubarak, Marcos, Pinochet, or Israeli apartheid—and paid for it with lives or, in this case, liberty.
I am hopeful that you will investigate this case independently, and not simply swallow the U.S. government’s characteristic unsavory labels (“Islamic fundamentalist,” etc) and fear mongering, used to ensure the conviction of this and other innocent Muslims, regardless of evidence.
Sincerely,
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Monday, August 7, 2006
Mark Steiner Show: A Discussion on Lebanon
I listen quite regularly to the Mark Steiner show on NPR (WJHU in Baltimore). Steiner's show, in my view, is generally far more balanced than other programming on NPR, which is so littered with double-speak and official apologia that it makes one's stomach turn.
Today Mark had Mayssam Zaaroura on. She is the Lebanon editor for the Daily Star, and was speaking to him from there. Mark's other guest, an Israeli Professor named Menachem Kellner, was speaking to him from Haifa. The topic was the current situation in the Middle East.
Mayssam gave a heartfelt account of how it felt to suddenly and unexpectedly be under siege, with no escape route—totally trapped, with one’s life on the line. Kellner, although he did not proclaim affiliation with the Israeli government or military, echoed the official Israeli line on how Israel really didn't want to be in Lebanon, and that it was forced to be there as a result of Hezbollah’s action.
Mayssam said the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah did not start with the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier, and that she totally disagreed with Kellner's statements. Prefacing her remarks with the standard disavowal of support for Hizbollah, she said that the organization had been created as a result of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. She said Hizbollah was the only entity providing order to the situation at the time, that the organization set up schools, hospitals, infrastructure, that it fed the Lebanese people. Remarkably similar, I thought, to the Black Panther Party in 1960s AmeriKKKa. So Maysaam continued, unknown to many Americans, there was much more to Hizbollah than just its military wing.
To his credit, Mark Steiner let her continue on at length: Lebanon had 82 bridges, she said, and Israel did not have to knock out all eighty two bridges--but it did. She said that Israel was deliberately targeting civilian areas, where there were no Hizb. Who in their right mind would not evacuate after leaflets issuing an ultimatum to do so were dropped on their village, she asked. Mainly poor people, with no transport, no money, nowhere to go.
Steiner asked the Israeli Prof to respond. In a condescending tone usually reserved for rebuking school children, he said he was very disappointed in the level of discourse, and that he did not expect to hear a propagandist on the program. He refused to refute Maysaam’s multitude of very specific and hard hitting points. Bizarrely, he accused her (and Lebanese in general) of being more interested in bridges than people, and declared that he (and Israelis in general) were more concerned about the suffering of the people than anything else. And Big Brother is right, I thought to myself. Big Brother is always right.
Mark Steiner did not seem impressed by the Israeli Prof’s attempt to label Mayssam a “propagandist.” He intervened, saying that one person’s truth might be another’s propaganda, and that this could be applied to both sides.
Prof Kellner continued that Hizbollah used civilians as a human shield. Was it Israel’s fault if Hizbollah deliberately and willfully situated their rockets on people’s front lawns or basements? Couldn’t we see, he said, what a difficult situation Israel was in, when Hizbollah did this?
Mayssam countered his argument with a first hand account of her own relatives, who were living in a village targeted for Israeli bombing. Hizbollah came to them, she said, and told them what was about to happen, begging them to evacuate. In general, she said, Hizbollah, tried their best to evacuate people from areas expected to come under Israeli bombardment. Again the Prof had no answer for her argument.
The Prof’s strategy was the classic Zionist/Neocon one, which Muslims and others of conscience should well recognize: 1) Refusal to answer your opponents specific points, and feigning of superiority; 2) Branding of the opponent as propagandist/terrorist/anti-Semite, to support one’s lack of response (or inability to respond); 3) A Big Brother style role switch, painting the aggressors as victims (eg, the Israelis are the main ones who have suffered injury, and who really never wanted to fight anyway).
The one point of consensus reached by Prof Kellner, Mayssam, and the host (Mark) was that Hizbollah should be disarmed. I found this idea—that one side, which has light arms, should be disarmed, and the other, which has cruise missiles and thermonuclear weapons, should be allowed to carry on--very troubling. Since the show accepts emailed comments, I borrowed a point from a recent New Trend edition, and emailed this in the hopes that it would be read on the air:
"I'd be very curious to know why Mr. Kellner thinks that one side in the conflict has a right to defend itself, and the other does not. If Hizbollah should be disarmed, then why not disarm Israel as well? I don't understand why both the U.S. and Israeli militaries seem to want to disarm their enemies before they fight them--quite a pusillanimous stance, totally contrary to the old days, when one would fight an equally well-armed opponent."
Unfortunately, it was the last few minutes of the show and my comment was not aired.
Today Mark had Mayssam Zaaroura on. She is the Lebanon editor for the Daily Star, and was speaking to him from there. Mark's other guest, an Israeli Professor named Menachem Kellner, was speaking to him from Haifa. The topic was the current situation in the Middle East.
Mayssam gave a heartfelt account of how it felt to suddenly and unexpectedly be under siege, with no escape route—totally trapped, with one’s life on the line. Kellner, although he did not proclaim affiliation with the Israeli government or military, echoed the official Israeli line on how Israel really didn't want to be in Lebanon, and that it was forced to be there as a result of Hezbollah’s action.
Mayssam said the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah did not start with the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier, and that she totally disagreed with Kellner's statements. Prefacing her remarks with the standard disavowal of support for Hizbollah, she said that the organization had been created as a result of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. She said Hizbollah was the only entity providing order to the situation at the time, that the organization set up schools, hospitals, infrastructure, that it fed the Lebanese people. Remarkably similar, I thought, to the Black Panther Party in 1960s AmeriKKKa. So Maysaam continued, unknown to many Americans, there was much more to Hizbollah than just its military wing.
To his credit, Mark Steiner let her continue on at length: Lebanon had 82 bridges, she said, and Israel did not have to knock out all eighty two bridges--but it did. She said that Israel was deliberately targeting civilian areas, where there were no Hizb. Who in their right mind would not evacuate after leaflets issuing an ultimatum to do so were dropped on their village, she asked. Mainly poor people, with no transport, no money, nowhere to go.
Steiner asked the Israeli Prof to respond. In a condescending tone usually reserved for rebuking school children, he said he was very disappointed in the level of discourse, and that he did not expect to hear a propagandist on the program. He refused to refute Maysaam’s multitude of very specific and hard hitting points. Bizarrely, he accused her (and Lebanese in general) of being more interested in bridges than people, and declared that he (and Israelis in general) were more concerned about the suffering of the people than anything else. And Big Brother is right, I thought to myself. Big Brother is always right.
Mark Steiner did not seem impressed by the Israeli Prof’s attempt to label Mayssam a “propagandist.” He intervened, saying that one person’s truth might be another’s propaganda, and that this could be applied to both sides.
Prof Kellner continued that Hizbollah used civilians as a human shield. Was it Israel’s fault if Hizbollah deliberately and willfully situated their rockets on people’s front lawns or basements? Couldn’t we see, he said, what a difficult situation Israel was in, when Hizbollah did this?
Mayssam countered his argument with a first hand account of her own relatives, who were living in a village targeted for Israeli bombing. Hizbollah came to them, she said, and told them what was about to happen, begging them to evacuate. In general, she said, Hizbollah, tried their best to evacuate people from areas expected to come under Israeli bombardment. Again the Prof had no answer for her argument.
The Prof’s strategy was the classic Zionist/Neocon one, which Muslims and others of conscience should well recognize: 1) Refusal to answer your opponents specific points, and feigning of superiority; 2) Branding of the opponent as propagandist/terrorist/anti-Semite, to support one’s lack of response (or inability to respond); 3) A Big Brother style role switch, painting the aggressors as victims (eg, the Israelis are the main ones who have suffered injury, and who really never wanted to fight anyway).
The one point of consensus reached by Prof Kellner, Mayssam, and the host (Mark) was that Hizbollah should be disarmed. I found this idea—that one side, which has light arms, should be disarmed, and the other, which has cruise missiles and thermonuclear weapons, should be allowed to carry on--very troubling. Since the show accepts emailed comments, I borrowed a point from a recent New Trend edition, and emailed this in the hopes that it would be read on the air:
"I'd be very curious to know why Mr. Kellner thinks that one side in the conflict has a right to defend itself, and the other does not. If Hizbollah should be disarmed, then why not disarm Israel as well? I don't understand why both the U.S. and Israeli militaries seem to want to disarm their enemies before they fight them--quite a pusillanimous stance, totally contrary to the old days, when one would fight an equally well-armed opponent."
Unfortunately, it was the last few minutes of the show and my comment was not aired.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Abeer Al-Janabi and the Case for Burka
Like the abuses at Abu Ghraib, the rape-murder of fourteen year-old Abeer al-Janabi by U.S. soldiers was labeled an aberration, excused under the now stale label of "work of a misguided few," by the military and their corporate media apologists. The obvious question is: How many "bad apples" can there possibly be?
Rumsfeld is the Secretary of Defense. Rumsfeld (and other U.S. military leaders) opined that torture is okay. Rape is one type of torture. So, the syllogism holds that rape is okay. Why then is it surprising that that U.S. troops, under Rumsfeld's chain of command, might engage in rape-murders?
Military atrocities are almost always underreported. I would bet my car (one of my few assets) that hundreds if not thousands of similar attacks on Iraqi women have occurred. In my view, the attack was not an aberration, but wholly congruous with the savage way in which the war has targeted Iraqi civilians from start to finish. Time and again, U.S. soldiers themselves have attested to attacks on civilians.
Another angle to the perfidy visited on Abeer: Since this was not just a random attack, the soldiers had to see her before going after her specifically. So, she was not wearing a burka.
Burkas were rare in both Iraq and Afghanistan prior to imperialist invasion. In Bagdad under Saddam, next to nobody wore the burka. Now burkas are pervasive in Afghanistan, though not as common yet in Iraq.
In light of the U.S.-style liberation of Abeer Al-Janabi, the rants of how Islam/burka-wearing oppresses Muslim women rings hollow. Why wouldn't the Islamists want the women to wear the burka, given the circumstance of occupation by a party which abides by no international law, does not recognize the ICC (or any other body which would hold it accountable for anything), and insists on immunity for its troops? What nation in good conscience wouldn't want to protect the weakest segment of its population against war-time rape, rampant in just about every conflict? To me, what's odd is not that the Islamists want the women to wear the burka, but rather that many, even in the (Eurocentric) anti-war camp, with which I align myself, want Iraqi Muslim women to shed the hijab so they can look more like Barbie--never mind the unrestrained dogs running around their country.
The occupying power, which—under international law—bears responsibility for the welfare of Iraqi women, has shown itself incapable of guaranteeing their safety. And Bosnia should have taught women like Abeer not to wait around for Muslim men to defend them. Muslim women under occupation would do well to wear the burka, as well as to learn self-protection.
Rumsfeld is the Secretary of Defense. Rumsfeld (and other U.S. military leaders) opined that torture is okay. Rape is one type of torture. So, the syllogism holds that rape is okay. Why then is it surprising that that U.S. troops, under Rumsfeld's chain of command, might engage in rape-murders?
Military atrocities are almost always underreported. I would bet my car (one of my few assets) that hundreds if not thousands of similar attacks on Iraqi women have occurred. In my view, the attack was not an aberration, but wholly congruous with the savage way in which the war has targeted Iraqi civilians from start to finish. Time and again, U.S. soldiers themselves have attested to attacks on civilians.
Another angle to the perfidy visited on Abeer: Since this was not just a random attack, the soldiers had to see her before going after her specifically. So, she was not wearing a burka.
Burkas were rare in both Iraq and Afghanistan prior to imperialist invasion. In Bagdad under Saddam, next to nobody wore the burka. Now burkas are pervasive in Afghanistan, though not as common yet in Iraq.
In light of the U.S.-style liberation of Abeer Al-Janabi, the rants of how Islam/burka-wearing oppresses Muslim women rings hollow. Why wouldn't the Islamists want the women to wear the burka, given the circumstance of occupation by a party which abides by no international law, does not recognize the ICC (or any other body which would hold it accountable for anything), and insists on immunity for its troops? What nation in good conscience wouldn't want to protect the weakest segment of its population against war-time rape, rampant in just about every conflict? To me, what's odd is not that the Islamists want the women to wear the burka, but rather that many, even in the (Eurocentric) anti-war camp, with which I align myself, want Iraqi Muslim women to shed the hijab so they can look more like Barbie--never mind the unrestrained dogs running around their country.
The occupying power, which—under international law—bears responsibility for the welfare of Iraqi women, has shown itself incapable of guaranteeing their safety. And Bosnia should have taught women like Abeer not to wait around for Muslim men to defend them. Muslim women under occupation would do well to wear the burka, as well as to learn self-protection.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Lebanon Invasion: the Question of U.S. Leverage
The U.S. response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon and the corporate media reporting on it are a textbook study in Zionist propaganda. Every propaganda technique--from obfuscation and prevarication to transference, name calling, and direct censorship--is represented. Here I write to NPR's "All Things Considered" on the obfuscation of very direct leverage which the U.S. could exercise in reigning in Israel--if it so chose.
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To: All Things Considered
Date: July 15, 2006
I am writing in response to Michele Norris' July 14 interview with Edward Djerejian. When Norris asked the former U.S. ambassador to Israel (and Syria) what steps the U.S. should take to address the current situation, the ambassador blithely came up with a mouthful of diplomatic-sounding niceties, like a U.S. call for cessation of hostilities by all parties, getting the opposing sides to talk, and possible prisoner exchange.
He did not mention--and Norris did not dare ask about--the most obvious leverage the U.S. has in the conflict--the six billion dollars plus, which the U.S. doles out to Israel every year. Does that mountain of U.S. tax payers' money come with no accountability whatsoever?
It would seem that attempting to unseat a duly elected government (Hamas), bombing the Beirut Airport, and destroying vast civilian infrastructure in Gaza are violations of international law, whatever excuses Israel makes for these actions. If an Arab state engaged in such violations--for any reason--it would be under international sanctions or other forms of economic strangulation, like yesterday. A perfect example is the U.S. rush to block previously promised aid to Hamas, in the absence of any provocative acts by the latter, subsequent to the PA election.
It is high time to hold Israel to basic standards of International Law, or stop sending them our tax dollars.
Sincerely,
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To: All Things Considered
Date: July 15, 2006
I am writing in response to Michele Norris' July 14 interview with Edward Djerejian. When Norris asked the former U.S. ambassador to Israel (and Syria) what steps the U.S. should take to address the current situation, the ambassador blithely came up with a mouthful of diplomatic-sounding niceties, like a U.S. call for cessation of hostilities by all parties, getting the opposing sides to talk, and possible prisoner exchange.
He did not mention--and Norris did not dare ask about--the most obvious leverage the U.S. has in the conflict--the six billion dollars plus, which the U.S. doles out to Israel every year. Does that mountain of U.S. tax payers' money come with no accountability whatsoever?
It would seem that attempting to unseat a duly elected government (Hamas), bombing the Beirut Airport, and destroying vast civilian infrastructure in Gaza are violations of international law, whatever excuses Israel makes for these actions. If an Arab state engaged in such violations--for any reason--it would be under international sanctions or other forms of economic strangulation, like yesterday. A perfect example is the U.S. rush to block previously promised aid to Hamas, in the absence of any provocative acts by the latter, subsequent to the PA election.
It is high time to hold Israel to basic standards of International Law, or stop sending them our tax dollars.
Sincerely,
Thursday, June 15, 2006
U.S. Military Man Responds to "Taliban Country" Film Review
Evidently my review of Carmela Baranowska's film Taliban Country, posted on Indymedia, was noticed by other than the usual Lefty suspects. I received this email from one David Tate:
I have read your comments... especially this one:
"An audience member (at the U. of MD screening), who said she and her husband worked for an aid organization in Kandahar, tried to convince the predominantly student audience that the film was an unfair treatment of the U.S. military, and that a tiny minority of U.S. troops engaged in this sort of behavior. I wondered, "Do you think your aid would be needed over there, if the U.S. hadn't gone in and destroyed that country in the first instance?" I politely remarked to her that wartime atrocities by occupying troops are statistically underreported, not over reported, and that the numbers were probably much higher. The bar on war crimes was set early on in the Afghan War, with the U.S. refusal to prosecute members of the Dostum militia who massacred prisoners in Mazar-e-Sharif; and the U.S. troops who murdered Taliban by suffocation in metal boxes. I commended Baranowska for her courage and integrity in reporting the reality of the situation in Afghanistan. U.S. presence in
Afghanistan violates the sovereignty of that country, and U.S. troops there, as in Iraq, are occupiers. Hence their behavior is not surprising."
You should have listened to these people. Not only was Carmela NOT the only journo in S. Oruzgan, but she wasn't even first. I, myself, got Carmela her embed... long after me. I left long after her and can tell you that her report is VERY one-sided. If you want to learn more, maybe I could come and present my film that shows a MUCH more complete picture regarding this issue.
Regards,
David Tate
http://battlefieldtourist.com
I checked with Baranowski, who was in E. Timor on a subsequent assignment, and she confirmed that Tate was U.S. military--a fact he'd conveniently omitted in his mail. So much for his "complete picture"....
I have read your comments... especially this one:
"An audience member (at the U. of MD screening), who said she and her husband worked for an aid organization in Kandahar, tried to convince the predominantly student audience that the film was an unfair treatment of the U.S. military, and that a tiny minority of U.S. troops engaged in this sort of behavior. I wondered, "Do you think your aid would be needed over there, if the U.S. hadn't gone in and destroyed that country in the first instance?" I politely remarked to her that wartime atrocities by occupying troops are statistically underreported, not over reported, and that the numbers were probably much higher. The bar on war crimes was set early on in the Afghan War, with the U.S. refusal to prosecute members of the Dostum militia who massacred prisoners in Mazar-e-Sharif; and the U.S. troops who murdered Taliban by suffocation in metal boxes. I commended Baranowska for her courage and integrity in reporting the reality of the situation in Afghanistan. U.S. presence in
Afghanistan violates the sovereignty of that country, and U.S. troops there, as in Iraq, are occupiers. Hence their behavior is not surprising."
You should have listened to these people. Not only was Carmela NOT the only journo in S. Oruzgan, but she wasn't even first. I, myself, got Carmela her embed... long after me. I left long after her and can tell you that her report is VERY one-sided. If you want to learn more, maybe I could come and present my film that shows a MUCH more complete picture regarding this issue.
Regards,
David Tate
http://battlefieldtourist.com
I checked with Baranowski, who was in E. Timor on a subsequent assignment, and she confirmed that Tate was U.S. military--a fact he'd conveniently omitted in his mail. So much for his "complete picture"....
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Destruction of Islamic Art—Another Aspect of the Iraq War
Recently, a friend of mine, who is a docent at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, and is both an art afficionado and a friend of the Iraqi people (she is very anti-war) sent me the following:
“AAM/IPAM Iraq Program: Terry Weisser gave an update about the Walters’ plans to participate in the AAM International Partnership Among Museums (IPAM) Iraq program. Two museum professionals from the Iraq National Museum system in Baghdad will arrive at the Walters at the end of April for an intensive 4-week training and mentoring program in our conservation lab. A translator will be provided. Other participating museums include: The Field Museum in Chicago, the California Science Center and Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, the Chicago Historical Society, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.”
This is what I wrote to her:
"On a personal level, the Iraqi government representatives coming over for training with the Walters are probably good people. The mothers of Iraqi torture victims and Iraqi dead planned to come to the U.S. for the Women's Day solidarity action, but the U.S. government denied visas to many of them, so that their stories might not be told. So, it is important to realize that the folks coming over for training at the Walters would not be given U.S. visas if they were not okay with the U.S. occupying force.
Imam Abu Hanifa's mosque (one of the oldest in Islam) was attacked by U.S. artillery. The personal Qur’an of the Caliph Ali (RA) was destroyed by U.S. forces. Keep in mind that Ali (RA) was a contemporary of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW), making his Qur’an nearly 1400 years old. More than a dozen mosques--some of them very old--were leveled, during the destruction of Fallujah. Since Iraq was a center for Islamic learning, numerous centuries old Qur'ans (roughly 500 - 1100 years old), similar to those in the Freer and Sackler Galleries, were destroyed by occupying troops. The occupation and destruction has not ceased, and although these actions may not be directly attributable to the Iraqi government representatives who will be visiting the Walters, you might understand why such a visit at this time might be construed as hypocrisy. There is great angst not just amongst Iraqis, but also in the Muslim community at large about the destruction of ancient Islamic sites as a result of this war.
So, it is the height of cynicism that U.S. authorities--which allowed the Bagdad Museum to be looted, and who are clearly implicated in the destruction of Islamic antiquities--are now feigning interest (through their proxy government) in "conservation" of artifacts."
“AAM/IPAM Iraq Program: Terry Weisser gave an update about the Walters’ plans to participate in the AAM International Partnership Among Museums (IPAM) Iraq program. Two museum professionals from the Iraq National Museum system in Baghdad will arrive at the Walters at the end of April for an intensive 4-week training and mentoring program in our conservation lab. A translator will be provided. Other participating museums include: The Field Museum in Chicago, the California Science Center and Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, the Chicago Historical Society, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.”
This is what I wrote to her:
"On a personal level, the Iraqi government representatives coming over for training with the Walters are probably good people. The mothers of Iraqi torture victims and Iraqi dead planned to come to the U.S. for the Women's Day solidarity action, but the U.S. government denied visas to many of them, so that their stories might not be told. So, it is important to realize that the folks coming over for training at the Walters would not be given U.S. visas if they were not okay with the U.S. occupying force.
Imam Abu Hanifa's mosque (one of the oldest in Islam) was attacked by U.S. artillery. The personal Qur’an of the Caliph Ali (RA) was destroyed by U.S. forces. Keep in mind that Ali (RA) was a contemporary of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW), making his Qur’an nearly 1400 years old. More than a dozen mosques--some of them very old--were leveled, during the destruction of Fallujah. Since Iraq was a center for Islamic learning, numerous centuries old Qur'ans (roughly 500 - 1100 years old), similar to those in the Freer and Sackler Galleries, were destroyed by occupying troops. The occupation and destruction has not ceased, and although these actions may not be directly attributable to the Iraqi government representatives who will be visiting the Walters, you might understand why such a visit at this time might be construed as hypocrisy. There is great angst not just amongst Iraqis, but also in the Muslim community at large about the destruction of ancient Islamic sites as a result of this war.
So, it is the height of cynicism that U.S. authorities--which allowed the Bagdad Museum to be looted, and who are clearly implicated in the destruction of Islamic antiquities--are now feigning interest (through their proxy government) in "conservation" of artifacts."
Sunday, April 2, 2006
My Reply to Dennis Prager
Dennis Prager, a conservative talk show host on KRLA-AM (870) in Los Angeles, evidently wants Muslims to answer five burning questions he thinks non-Muslims would like answered. I'm not sure which non-Muslims he means, but regardless, I attempted to answer. Not sure this was worth my time...
(PRAGER): The rioting in France by primarily Muslim youths and the hotel bombings in Jordan are the latest events to prompt sincere questions that law-abiding Muslims need to answer for Islam's sake, as well as for the sake of worried non-Muslims.
Here are five of them:
Why are you so quiet?
Since the first Israelis were targeted for death by Muslim terrorists blowing themselves up in the name of your religion and Palestinian nationalism, I have been praying to see Muslim demonstrations against these atrocities. Last week's protests in Jordan against the bombings, while welcome, were a rarity. What I have seen more often is mainstream Muslim spokesmen implicitly defending this terror on the grounds that Israel occupies Palestinian lands. We see torture and murder in the name of Allah, but we see no anti-torture and anti-murder demonstrations in the name of Allah.
There are a billion Muslims in the world. How is it possible that essentially none have demonstrated against evils perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam? This is true even of the millions of Muslims living in free Western societies. What are non-Muslims of goodwill supposed to conclude? When the Israeli government did not stop a Lebanese massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, great crowds of Israeli Jews gathered to protest their country's moral failing. Why has there been no comparable public demonstration by Palestinians or other Muslims to morally condemn Palestinian or other Muslim-committed terror?
(ME): The first issue here is how one defines terrorism and evil. Suppose a crazed criminal breaks into Dennis Prager's house, and forces Dennis Prager out. If Dennis Prager resists, is he wrong for doing so? Can he rightly be designated as a terrorist?
According to international law, it is the right and indeed the duty of an occupied people to respond, with arms if necessary, to end their occupation. The attempt to paint the Palestinians as the violent party in the conflict is perhaps the most masterful propaganda of the century. It is a classic colonial strategy, as practiced by the British in Kenya or the French in Algeria: Occupy a country; crush or disarm the resistance; label those who still resist as "terrorists;" then jail, torture, or kill them out right.
It may be that Muslims don't demonstrate because they're rooting for the Palestinians to win their land back after 58 years of occupation. It is natural to feel empathy for the underdog--certainly the Palestinians in this case. Israel has received $84,854,827,200 of U.S. taxpayers money since its inception (source: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs), and yet has been unable to crush the Palestinians. It is clear that the Palestinian resistance is a popular movement which represents the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of Palestinians. So, should we start demonstrating in protest because David has finally scored a hit against Goliath?
Recall the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, who engaged in violent acts against the Nazi occupiers. Were they too, terrorists, or somehow wrong in fighting back? Would it have been appropriate for other Jews to be out in the streets demonstrating to condemn the Warsaw ghetto Jews for fighting back against the Nazis?
The second issue is of collective guilt. Suppose that the acts popularly labeled "terrorism" might by some stretch of the imagination be considered as such under international law. Why should each and every Muslim feel responsible for demonstrating against, or otherwise repudiating these acts, when neither they, nor their elected representatives have committed them? Do Americans (with the exception of a tiny conscientious minority) go out and demonstrate against their government's actions each time a Palestinian child is killed by Israeli Defense Forces..a near daily occurrence--with weaponry purchased with their tax dollars? In our democracy, did we stop our elected representatives from killing in excess of 100,000 Iraqi men women, and children? We were too cowardly even to impeach Bush, when he clearly lied to the nation about the existence of WMDs, and continued to let him kill in our name. We don't even accept responsibility for acts committed by someone whom we put in office twice. Why then should Muslims feel guilty for acts committed by people who are not their elected reps, and in doing so, accept responsibility for the acts committed by others?
It is laudable if masses of Israeli Jews demonstrated against Sabra-Chatilla. Did they demonstrate against Deir Yassin, Kafr Kassim, and all the other massacres of Palestinian peasants perpetrated by Menachem Begin's terrorist Irgun gang, clearing the way for the "birth" of Israel? Did they continue to demonstrate against the Jenin massacre and other recent massacres and near daily killings of Palestinians?
Did the Israeli Jews demonstrating against Sabra-Chatilla take note that the overseer of that massacre, Ariel Sharon, was rewarded for his atrocities with the post of Prime Minister? Imagine how 9-11 victims might feel if Osama Bin Laden (or whomever one imagines responsible for that attack) was appointed governor of New York. Then imagine how Palestinians who lost family members in Sabra-Chatilla might feel at Sharon's Prime Ministership.
(PRAGER): Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?
If Israeli occupation is the reason for Muslim terror in Israel, why do no Christian Palestinians engage in terror? They are just as nationalistic and just as occupied as Muslim Palestinians.
(ME): In a Doublespeak-free world, this question would be: "Why do some Palestinians defend themselves with arms, and others do not?"
Because a victim does not respond violently, does not mean he or she is not victimized. Different people respond to injustice in different ways.
One reason for the absence of Palestinian Christians from the armed resistance may be: Palestinian Christians are far fewer in number than Palestinian Muslims. If the total number of Palestinian Christians is smaller (than Palestinian Muslims), then so is the number of Palestinian Christians who are part of the Resistance. If there are not as many of them in the Resistance, then it follows that there is a smaller number of them to resist with arms.
Another reason for the difference of response may be: Muslims are not allowed to accept oppression, racism, colonization, or other forms of subjugation. The Qur'an commands Muslims to fight back when attacked or occupied. Off course such a command would be anathema to Israeli settlers bulldozing Palestinian homes and destroying Palestinian crops. Hence the labeling of Qur'anically mandated Palestinian Muslim armed resistance with terrorism.
When Palestinians--both Muslim and Christian--and their supporters choose to oppose occupation by non-violent means, they are mowed down, like Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall. The decades long racist policy of excluding the Palestinians from "Peace Talks" ended, only to be replaced by talks in which true representatives of the Palestinians were barred. Even in these bogus talks, the agreements made were repeatedly violated by the Israelis. Today the Palestinians are disenfranchised from most Israeli decision-making bodies and processes, much as Black people were disenfranchised in the U.S. under Jim Crow. The recent PA election showed that when Palestinians attempt to forge a government of their choosing through suffrage, the U.S. and Israel do all they can to choke it out of existence. So after excluding the Palestinians from all democratic alternatives, is it really a surprise that some of them, who don't wish to remain colonial-settler subjects the rest of their lives, resort to the only avenue for change left open to them..violent resistance.
(PRAGER): Why is only one of the 47 Muslim-majority countries a free country?
According to Freedom House, a Washington-based group that promotes democracy, of the world's 47 Muslim countries, only Mali is free. Sixty percent are not free, and 38% are partly free. Muslim-majority states account for a majority of the world's "not free" states. And of the 10 "worst of the worst," seven are Islamic states. Why is this?
(ME): The question is a complicated one. The answer lies in part in the U.S. foreign aid budget. For example, in 2005, U.S. aid to Muslim countries included:
Afghanistan $980,460,000
Algeria $850,000
Bahrain $19,498,000
Egypt $1,821,520,000
Indonesia $147,820,000
Jordan $456,212,000
Lebanon $38,220,000
Morocco $45,835,000
Nigeria $130,099,000
Oman $21,340,000
Pakistan $537,550,000
Saudi Arabia $25,000
Sudan $305,219,000
Tunisia $11,795,000
Turkey $38,328,000
Uzbekistan $48,717,000
(Numbers are FY 2005 Estimates. Source: Federation of American Scientists, Arms Sales Monitoring Project.)
Many U.S. aid beneficiaries are military dictatorships, heavily criticized by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. So, the absence of democracy may be attributable at least in part to U.S. aid to these dictatorships. It's like paying a gangster who terrorizes people on a street corner, and then wondering why the people are terrorized. American taxpayers are unwittingly financing torture and murder in not just Afghanistan, Iraq, or Gitmo, but across the globe.
The second major obstacle to "freedom" in Muslim countries is the legacy of colonial rule, which many Muslim countries endured. Just as a few decades of affirmative action could not erase the legacy of 500 years of slavery in the Americas, a few decades of independence from overt colonialism did not end many deleterious colonial practices, which continued in the more subtle form of neo-colonialism. Colonialism nurtures a class of elites to serve the interests of the colonizing power. That elite survived the transition to independence; in the Muslim world it acts as neo-colonial agent of Western powers. Alienated from the masses, it squanders the wealth of the country, often through trade practices which harm the country. These actions often occur with the encouragement or support of the U.S. and other Western powers, and earns the elite the wrath of the masses. The ruling elite must then purchase massive weaponry, often through arms deals with the U.S. (placing the U.S. in the position of interested party maintaining these dictators) to subjugate the restless natives and maintain power.
On the other side of the coin, many countries popularly deemed "free" or democratic are today experiencing monumental challenges to freedom. In Austria, for example, a man was recently convicted for making politically incorrect statements about the Holocaust. Ditto for another man in Germany. Hark the Era of the Thought Crime! In London, imams can only preach what they are told, or risk jail sentences (very similar to Cairo or Riyadh), and police can shoot immigrants and "darkies" on suspicion and ask questions later.
Here in the U.S., special interest groups buy votes at every juncture, third party candidates are excluded from debates and have next to nil chance of election, and candidates are selected for high office under highly irregular circumstances, using Diebold machines with no paper trails. Political dissidents are subjected to officially sanctioned spying, thousands of people are rounded up and jailed and/or deported because they are the wrong race/religion, and American citizens are held for years without trial or charge. In New York, protestors, exercising their Freedom of Assembly in a permitted anti-war march, were harassed, photographed (for intimidation), and--in many cases--arrested by police. Closer to home, in Baltimore, Black residents are arrested for congregating on their own doorsteps, in violation of their elementary right to Freedom of Assembly, under the pretext that they may be selling drugs (although such harassment does not occur in predominantly white neighborhoods). This is the "democracy" we want to export to other countries?
(PRAGER): Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam?
Young girls in Indonesia were recently beheaded by Muslim murderers. Last year, Muslims - in the name of Islam - murdered hundreds of schoolchildren in Russia. While reciting Muslim prayers, Islamic terrorists take foreigners working to make Iraq free and slaughter them. Muslim daughters are murdered by their own families in the thousands in "honor killings." And the Muslim government in Iran has publicly called for the extermination of Israel.
(ME): I don't know--because Muslims are inherently violent and criminal? (If I didn't know any better, I would think Dennis Prager is trying to paint an egregiously stereotyped picture of all Muslims as violent.)
Beheadings and church burnings don't occur in the U.S.? Rapes, assaults, prostitutions, or beatings to death by boyfriends, husbands, fathers, and uncles of the predominantly female victims don't occur in the U.S.? Poor Black people..unable to acquire adequate legal counsel--weren't legally lynched by the President of the United States? In many of these cases, the perpetrators are self-proclaimed Christians or Jews. The only difference is that Muslims don't have the media savvy (or deviousness perhaps) to label the perpetrators of these crimes as Christian, Jew, etc.
As far as the "foreigners working to make Iraq free": under international law, workers employed by an occupying force are considered agents of the occupying force, and thus may be dealt with in the same way as the occupying force.
As far as Muslims murdering Russian schoolchildren in the name of Islam: Independent investigations after the fact showed that the hostage-takers did not murder the children; rather Russian forces, which cut off negotiations with the hostage-takers, and prematurely stormed the school, caused the death of the children. In fact, a furor arose in Russia when the premature storming became public knowledge (reported in all the major Russian newspapers). Further, the event followed the destruction of an entire Muslim city, Grozny, including its main orphanage. One major reason cited by the guerrillas for the hostage-taking was Grozny. Even then, the mainstream Chechen Muslim Resistance repudiated the hostage-taking. It is telling that Western media quickly forgot about the aerial bombardment of Grozny, which killed 100,000 Chechen Muslims (reported by BBC), in their efforts to make it appear as if Chechen hostage-taking had occurred in a vacuum.
In terms of sheer numbers, U.S. forces, and previously the U.S. acting through the U.N. Security Council, killed more people in the last two decades than any Muslim country. One hundred thousand (100,000) Iraqi people have been killed during the course of the current U.S. occupation of Iraq. A half million (500,000) Iraqi children died as a result of U.S.-spearheaded U.N. sanctions. These innocent lives were taken by U.S. forces, or the U.S. acting through the Security Council, not by Muslims. The question "Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam?" might only be asked by someone with complete and utter tunnel vision to world events in the last several decades.
(PRAGER): Why do countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions?
No church or synagogue is allowed in Saudi Arabia. The Taliban destroyed some of the greatest sculptures of the ancient world because they were Buddhist. Sudan's Islamic regime has murdered great numbers of Christians.
Instead of confronting these problems, too many of you deny them. Muslims call my radio show to tell me that even speaking of Muslim or Islamic terrorists is wrong. After all, they argue, Timothy McVeigh is never labeled a "Christian terrorist." As if McVeigh committed his terror as a churchgoing Christian and in the name of Christ, and as if there were Christian-based terror groups around the world.
(ME): Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt, Bahrain, and Pakistan, among others are monarchies or dictatorships. Islam, by definition, prohibits kingship and dictatorship, so the categorization of these countries as "Islamic" (or governed by religious Muslims) is itself incorrect. Additionally, for reasons elucidated in Q3 above, few, if any, truly Islamic states have emerged in modern times.
On the prohibition of churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia: Islam itself has no prohibition against the building of churches or synagogues, so this question is better directed at the U.S.-supported Saudi monarchy.
On the destruction of the Buddhas: According to the Taliban's public statements, they were destroyed as a protest to the international community's apathy to millions of starving Afghan children. Recall after the Soviet withdrawal, and the years of internecine conflict which followed, the Taliban government brought peace to Afghanistan for the first time in decades. They also eliminated opium-trafficking. Yet they were rewarded by a near total cut in international aid. At the same time, U.N. agencies were moving to spend millions of dollars to refurbish the Buddha statues. The Taliban, infuriated at the world's concern for statues over Afghan children, destroyed the statues. The incident was cleverly manipulated by corporate media, and the original reasons for the Taliban protest were forgotten.
On Sudan's Islamic regime murdering Christians: Sudan's Christians live primarily in the south of the country. Until recent years, they lived in peace with Muslims. To understand how the conflict between the Christian SPLA and Muslim Sudanese arose, one needs simply to examine the case of the Nicaraguan Contras, and their funding by the Reagan Administration in furtherance of the overthrow of the Sandinista government. So, it's not quite as simple as the Sudanese government waking up one day with blood in their eyes and targeting poor innocent Christians. If an armed rebellion arose within the mainland U.S., the U.S. government would similarly squelch it.
In Pakistan, Christians and Muslims have historically lived in peace. Recent incidents, in which churches were attacked occurred under highly suspicious circumstances, and are thought to be the work of provocateurs.
In Palestine, Muslims, Christians, and Jews, peacefully coexisted, prior to 1917, when immigration of Zionist settlers was artificially accelerated..by the Zionist Founding Fathers..to the very high rates required to fulfill their political agenda. Historically, Muslims, Christians, and Jews have co-existed peacefully throughout the Arab world.
Notably, no Muslim country has bombed the U.S. or another Western country on Christmas or Easter. Yet the U.S. bombed Afghanistan during Ramadan, the holiest time of year for Muslims. Numerous mosques in Afghanistan and Iraq have been bombed by U.S. forces, many at prayer time. In Palestine, Arabs are stopped at checkpoints and prevented from reaching mosque services, if they happen to be on the wrong side of the Wall. In Jerusalem, Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli Jew entered a mosque full of worshippers and opened fire on them with an automatic weapon. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo, the Holy Qur'an was thrown on the ground, in the toilet, urinated on, and otherwise desecrated by U.S. occupying troops.
In light of all this, the claim that "countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions" is indeed a bizarre one. Persecution of non-Muslims probably does exist to some small extent in some Muslim countries (as does the persecution of anyone who is different in most places). But Muslims generally don't come to non-Muslim countries and bomb and desecrate the Holy places of non-Muslims, and try to murder them on their Holy Days.
Muslims in many Western countries face varying levels of persecution. For example, in France, Muslim girls are forbidden by law from wearing hijab (Islamic head cover) to school. In the U.S., Islamic rituals not attacked at an official level; rather hostility and misunderstanding..where it occurs--seems more the result of public susceptibility to Zionist anti-Muslim propaganda, and to a xenophobic foreign policy. Many U.S. Muslims are harassed and intimidated from wearing headscarf or saying the obligatory five Muslim prayers in public for fear of physical assault. Many U.S. mosques are wiretapped or infiltrated by agents provocateurs. U.S. intelligence agencies set up booths at Muslim conventions. Muslim students at universities and colleges are harassed and tracked by DHS. Muslim professors are threatened with termination by Zionist interest groups if they question U.S.'s one-sided Middle East policies.
(PRAGER): As a member of the media for nearly 25 years, I have a long record of reaching out to Muslims. Muslim leaders have invited me to speak at major mosques. In addition, I have studied Arabic and Islam, have visited most Arab and many other Muslim countries and conducted interfaith dialogues with Muslims in the United Arab Emirates as well as in the U.S. Politically, I have supported creation of a Palestinian state and supported (mistakenly, I now believe) the Oslo accords.
Hundreds of millions of non-Muslims want honest answers to these questions, even if the only answer you offer is, "Yes, we have real problems in Islam." Such an acknowledgment is infinitely better - for you and for the world - than dismissing us as anti-Muslim.
We await your response.
(ME): I hope this answers it.
Dennis Prager's nationally syndicated radio show is heard daily in Los Angeles on KRLA-AM (870).
(PRAGER): The rioting in France by primarily Muslim youths and the hotel bombings in Jordan are the latest events to prompt sincere questions that law-abiding Muslims need to answer for Islam's sake, as well as for the sake of worried non-Muslims.
Here are five of them:
Why are you so quiet?
Since the first Israelis were targeted for death by Muslim terrorists blowing themselves up in the name of your religion and Palestinian nationalism, I have been praying to see Muslim demonstrations against these atrocities. Last week's protests in Jordan against the bombings, while welcome, were a rarity. What I have seen more often is mainstream Muslim spokesmen implicitly defending this terror on the grounds that Israel occupies Palestinian lands. We see torture and murder in the name of Allah, but we see no anti-torture and anti-murder demonstrations in the name of Allah.
There are a billion Muslims in the world. How is it possible that essentially none have demonstrated against evils perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam? This is true even of the millions of Muslims living in free Western societies. What are non-Muslims of goodwill supposed to conclude? When the Israeli government did not stop a Lebanese massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, great crowds of Israeli Jews gathered to protest their country's moral failing. Why has there been no comparable public demonstration by Palestinians or other Muslims to morally condemn Palestinian or other Muslim-committed terror?
(ME): The first issue here is how one defines terrorism and evil. Suppose a crazed criminal breaks into Dennis Prager's house, and forces Dennis Prager out. If Dennis Prager resists, is he wrong for doing so? Can he rightly be designated as a terrorist?
According to international law, it is the right and indeed the duty of an occupied people to respond, with arms if necessary, to end their occupation. The attempt to paint the Palestinians as the violent party in the conflict is perhaps the most masterful propaganda of the century. It is a classic colonial strategy, as practiced by the British in Kenya or the French in Algeria: Occupy a country; crush or disarm the resistance; label those who still resist as "terrorists;" then jail, torture, or kill them out right.
It may be that Muslims don't demonstrate because they're rooting for the Palestinians to win their land back after 58 years of occupation. It is natural to feel empathy for the underdog--certainly the Palestinians in this case. Israel has received $84,854,827,200 of U.S. taxpayers money since its inception (source: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs), and yet has been unable to crush the Palestinians. It is clear that the Palestinian resistance is a popular movement which represents the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of Palestinians. So, should we start demonstrating in protest because David has finally scored a hit against Goliath?
Recall the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, who engaged in violent acts against the Nazi occupiers. Were they too, terrorists, or somehow wrong in fighting back? Would it have been appropriate for other Jews to be out in the streets demonstrating to condemn the Warsaw ghetto Jews for fighting back against the Nazis?
The second issue is of collective guilt. Suppose that the acts popularly labeled "terrorism" might by some stretch of the imagination be considered as such under international law. Why should each and every Muslim feel responsible for demonstrating against, or otherwise repudiating these acts, when neither they, nor their elected representatives have committed them? Do Americans (with the exception of a tiny conscientious minority) go out and demonstrate against their government's actions each time a Palestinian child is killed by Israeli Defense Forces..a near daily occurrence--with weaponry purchased with their tax dollars? In our democracy, did we stop our elected representatives from killing in excess of 100,000 Iraqi men women, and children? We were too cowardly even to impeach Bush, when he clearly lied to the nation about the existence of WMDs, and continued to let him kill in our name. We don't even accept responsibility for acts committed by someone whom we put in office twice. Why then should Muslims feel guilty for acts committed by people who are not their elected reps, and in doing so, accept responsibility for the acts committed by others?
It is laudable if masses of Israeli Jews demonstrated against Sabra-Chatilla. Did they demonstrate against Deir Yassin, Kafr Kassim, and all the other massacres of Palestinian peasants perpetrated by Menachem Begin's terrorist Irgun gang, clearing the way for the "birth" of Israel? Did they continue to demonstrate against the Jenin massacre and other recent massacres and near daily killings of Palestinians?
Did the Israeli Jews demonstrating against Sabra-Chatilla take note that the overseer of that massacre, Ariel Sharon, was rewarded for his atrocities with the post of Prime Minister? Imagine how 9-11 victims might feel if Osama Bin Laden (or whomever one imagines responsible for that attack) was appointed governor of New York. Then imagine how Palestinians who lost family members in Sabra-Chatilla might feel at Sharon's Prime Ministership.
(PRAGER): Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?
If Israeli occupation is the reason for Muslim terror in Israel, why do no Christian Palestinians engage in terror? They are just as nationalistic and just as occupied as Muslim Palestinians.
(ME): In a Doublespeak-free world, this question would be: "Why do some Palestinians defend themselves with arms, and others do not?"
Because a victim does not respond violently, does not mean he or she is not victimized. Different people respond to injustice in different ways.
One reason for the absence of Palestinian Christians from the armed resistance may be: Palestinian Christians are far fewer in number than Palestinian Muslims. If the total number of Palestinian Christians is smaller (than Palestinian Muslims), then so is the number of Palestinian Christians who are part of the Resistance. If there are not as many of them in the Resistance, then it follows that there is a smaller number of them to resist with arms.
Another reason for the difference of response may be: Muslims are not allowed to accept oppression, racism, colonization, or other forms of subjugation. The Qur'an commands Muslims to fight back when attacked or occupied. Off course such a command would be anathema to Israeli settlers bulldozing Palestinian homes and destroying Palestinian crops. Hence the labeling of Qur'anically mandated Palestinian Muslim armed resistance with terrorism.
When Palestinians--both Muslim and Christian--and their supporters choose to oppose occupation by non-violent means, they are mowed down, like Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall. The decades long racist policy of excluding the Palestinians from "Peace Talks" ended, only to be replaced by talks in which true representatives of the Palestinians were barred. Even in these bogus talks, the agreements made were repeatedly violated by the Israelis. Today the Palestinians are disenfranchised from most Israeli decision-making bodies and processes, much as Black people were disenfranchised in the U.S. under Jim Crow. The recent PA election showed that when Palestinians attempt to forge a government of their choosing through suffrage, the U.S. and Israel do all they can to choke it out of existence. So after excluding the Palestinians from all democratic alternatives, is it really a surprise that some of them, who don't wish to remain colonial-settler subjects the rest of their lives, resort to the only avenue for change left open to them..violent resistance.
(PRAGER): Why is only one of the 47 Muslim-majority countries a free country?
According to Freedom House, a Washington-based group that promotes democracy, of the world's 47 Muslim countries, only Mali is free. Sixty percent are not free, and 38% are partly free. Muslim-majority states account for a majority of the world's "not free" states. And of the 10 "worst of the worst," seven are Islamic states. Why is this?
(ME): The question is a complicated one. The answer lies in part in the U.S. foreign aid budget. For example, in 2005, U.S. aid to Muslim countries included:
Afghanistan $980,460,000
Algeria $850,000
Bahrain $19,498,000
Egypt $1,821,520,000
Indonesia $147,820,000
Jordan $456,212,000
Lebanon $38,220,000
Morocco $45,835,000
Nigeria $130,099,000
Oman $21,340,000
Pakistan $537,550,000
Saudi Arabia $25,000
Sudan $305,219,000
Tunisia $11,795,000
Turkey $38,328,000
Uzbekistan $48,717,000
(Numbers are FY 2005 Estimates. Source: Federation of American Scientists, Arms Sales Monitoring Project.)
Many U.S. aid beneficiaries are military dictatorships, heavily criticized by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. So, the absence of democracy may be attributable at least in part to U.S. aid to these dictatorships. It's like paying a gangster who terrorizes people on a street corner, and then wondering why the people are terrorized. American taxpayers are unwittingly financing torture and murder in not just Afghanistan, Iraq, or Gitmo, but across the globe.
The second major obstacle to "freedom" in Muslim countries is the legacy of colonial rule, which many Muslim countries endured. Just as a few decades of affirmative action could not erase the legacy of 500 years of slavery in the Americas, a few decades of independence from overt colonialism did not end many deleterious colonial practices, which continued in the more subtle form of neo-colonialism. Colonialism nurtures a class of elites to serve the interests of the colonizing power. That elite survived the transition to independence; in the Muslim world it acts as neo-colonial agent of Western powers. Alienated from the masses, it squanders the wealth of the country, often through trade practices which harm the country. These actions often occur with the encouragement or support of the U.S. and other Western powers, and earns the elite the wrath of the masses. The ruling elite must then purchase massive weaponry, often through arms deals with the U.S. (placing the U.S. in the position of interested party maintaining these dictators) to subjugate the restless natives and maintain power.
On the other side of the coin, many countries popularly deemed "free" or democratic are today experiencing monumental challenges to freedom. In Austria, for example, a man was recently convicted for making politically incorrect statements about the Holocaust. Ditto for another man in Germany. Hark the Era of the Thought Crime! In London, imams can only preach what they are told, or risk jail sentences (very similar to Cairo or Riyadh), and police can shoot immigrants and "darkies" on suspicion and ask questions later.
Here in the U.S., special interest groups buy votes at every juncture, third party candidates are excluded from debates and have next to nil chance of election, and candidates are selected for high office under highly irregular circumstances, using Diebold machines with no paper trails. Political dissidents are subjected to officially sanctioned spying, thousands of people are rounded up and jailed and/or deported because they are the wrong race/religion, and American citizens are held for years without trial or charge. In New York, protestors, exercising their Freedom of Assembly in a permitted anti-war march, were harassed, photographed (for intimidation), and--in many cases--arrested by police. Closer to home, in Baltimore, Black residents are arrested for congregating on their own doorsteps, in violation of their elementary right to Freedom of Assembly, under the pretext that they may be selling drugs (although such harassment does not occur in predominantly white neighborhoods). This is the "democracy" we want to export to other countries?
(PRAGER): Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam?
Young girls in Indonesia were recently beheaded by Muslim murderers. Last year, Muslims - in the name of Islam - murdered hundreds of schoolchildren in Russia. While reciting Muslim prayers, Islamic terrorists take foreigners working to make Iraq free and slaughter them. Muslim daughters are murdered by their own families in the thousands in "honor killings." And the Muslim government in Iran has publicly called for the extermination of Israel.
(ME): I don't know--because Muslims are inherently violent and criminal? (If I didn't know any better, I would think Dennis Prager is trying to paint an egregiously stereotyped picture of all Muslims as violent.)
Beheadings and church burnings don't occur in the U.S.? Rapes, assaults, prostitutions, or beatings to death by boyfriends, husbands, fathers, and uncles of the predominantly female victims don't occur in the U.S.? Poor Black people..unable to acquire adequate legal counsel--weren't legally lynched by the President of the United States? In many of these cases, the perpetrators are self-proclaimed Christians or Jews. The only difference is that Muslims don't have the media savvy (or deviousness perhaps) to label the perpetrators of these crimes as Christian, Jew, etc.
As far as the "foreigners working to make Iraq free": under international law, workers employed by an occupying force are considered agents of the occupying force, and thus may be dealt with in the same way as the occupying force.
As far as Muslims murdering Russian schoolchildren in the name of Islam: Independent investigations after the fact showed that the hostage-takers did not murder the children; rather Russian forces, which cut off negotiations with the hostage-takers, and prematurely stormed the school, caused the death of the children. In fact, a furor arose in Russia when the premature storming became public knowledge (reported in all the major Russian newspapers). Further, the event followed the destruction of an entire Muslim city, Grozny, including its main orphanage. One major reason cited by the guerrillas for the hostage-taking was Grozny. Even then, the mainstream Chechen Muslim Resistance repudiated the hostage-taking. It is telling that Western media quickly forgot about the aerial bombardment of Grozny, which killed 100,000 Chechen Muslims (reported by BBC), in their efforts to make it appear as if Chechen hostage-taking had occurred in a vacuum.
In terms of sheer numbers, U.S. forces, and previously the U.S. acting through the U.N. Security Council, killed more people in the last two decades than any Muslim country. One hundred thousand (100,000) Iraqi people have been killed during the course of the current U.S. occupation of Iraq. A half million (500,000) Iraqi children died as a result of U.S.-spearheaded U.N. sanctions. These innocent lives were taken by U.S. forces, or the U.S. acting through the Security Council, not by Muslims. The question "Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam?" might only be asked by someone with complete and utter tunnel vision to world events in the last several decades.
(PRAGER): Why do countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions?
No church or synagogue is allowed in Saudi Arabia. The Taliban destroyed some of the greatest sculptures of the ancient world because they were Buddhist. Sudan's Islamic regime has murdered great numbers of Christians.
Instead of confronting these problems, too many of you deny them. Muslims call my radio show to tell me that even speaking of Muslim or Islamic terrorists is wrong. After all, they argue, Timothy McVeigh is never labeled a "Christian terrorist." As if McVeigh committed his terror as a churchgoing Christian and in the name of Christ, and as if there were Christian-based terror groups around the world.
(ME): Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt, Bahrain, and Pakistan, among others are monarchies or dictatorships. Islam, by definition, prohibits kingship and dictatorship, so the categorization of these countries as "Islamic" (or governed by religious Muslims) is itself incorrect. Additionally, for reasons elucidated in Q3 above, few, if any, truly Islamic states have emerged in modern times.
On the prohibition of churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia: Islam itself has no prohibition against the building of churches or synagogues, so this question is better directed at the U.S.-supported Saudi monarchy.
On the destruction of the Buddhas: According to the Taliban's public statements, they were destroyed as a protest to the international community's apathy to millions of starving Afghan children. Recall after the Soviet withdrawal, and the years of internecine conflict which followed, the Taliban government brought peace to Afghanistan for the first time in decades. They also eliminated opium-trafficking. Yet they were rewarded by a near total cut in international aid. At the same time, U.N. agencies were moving to spend millions of dollars to refurbish the Buddha statues. The Taliban, infuriated at the world's concern for statues over Afghan children, destroyed the statues. The incident was cleverly manipulated by corporate media, and the original reasons for the Taliban protest were forgotten.
On Sudan's Islamic regime murdering Christians: Sudan's Christians live primarily in the south of the country. Until recent years, they lived in peace with Muslims. To understand how the conflict between the Christian SPLA and Muslim Sudanese arose, one needs simply to examine the case of the Nicaraguan Contras, and their funding by the Reagan Administration in furtherance of the overthrow of the Sandinista government. So, it's not quite as simple as the Sudanese government waking up one day with blood in their eyes and targeting poor innocent Christians. If an armed rebellion arose within the mainland U.S., the U.S. government would similarly squelch it.
In Pakistan, Christians and Muslims have historically lived in peace. Recent incidents, in which churches were attacked occurred under highly suspicious circumstances, and are thought to be the work of provocateurs.
In Palestine, Muslims, Christians, and Jews, peacefully coexisted, prior to 1917, when immigration of Zionist settlers was artificially accelerated..by the Zionist Founding Fathers..to the very high rates required to fulfill their political agenda. Historically, Muslims, Christians, and Jews have co-existed peacefully throughout the Arab world.
Notably, no Muslim country has bombed the U.S. or another Western country on Christmas or Easter. Yet the U.S. bombed Afghanistan during Ramadan, the holiest time of year for Muslims. Numerous mosques in Afghanistan and Iraq have been bombed by U.S. forces, many at prayer time. In Palestine, Arabs are stopped at checkpoints and prevented from reaching mosque services, if they happen to be on the wrong side of the Wall. In Jerusalem, Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli Jew entered a mosque full of worshippers and opened fire on them with an automatic weapon. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo, the Holy Qur'an was thrown on the ground, in the toilet, urinated on, and otherwise desecrated by U.S. occupying troops.
In light of all this, the claim that "countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions" is indeed a bizarre one. Persecution of non-Muslims probably does exist to some small extent in some Muslim countries (as does the persecution of anyone who is different in most places). But Muslims generally don't come to non-Muslim countries and bomb and desecrate the Holy places of non-Muslims, and try to murder them on their Holy Days.
Muslims in many Western countries face varying levels of persecution. For example, in France, Muslim girls are forbidden by law from wearing hijab (Islamic head cover) to school. In the U.S., Islamic rituals not attacked at an official level; rather hostility and misunderstanding..where it occurs--seems more the result of public susceptibility to Zionist anti-Muslim propaganda, and to a xenophobic foreign policy. Many U.S. Muslims are harassed and intimidated from wearing headscarf or saying the obligatory five Muslim prayers in public for fear of physical assault. Many U.S. mosques are wiretapped or infiltrated by agents provocateurs. U.S. intelligence agencies set up booths at Muslim conventions. Muslim students at universities and colleges are harassed and tracked by DHS. Muslim professors are threatened with termination by Zionist interest groups if they question U.S.'s one-sided Middle East policies.
(PRAGER): As a member of the media for nearly 25 years, I have a long record of reaching out to Muslims. Muslim leaders have invited me to speak at major mosques. In addition, I have studied Arabic and Islam, have visited most Arab and many other Muslim countries and conducted interfaith dialogues with Muslims in the United Arab Emirates as well as in the U.S. Politically, I have supported creation of a Palestinian state and supported (mistakenly, I now believe) the Oslo accords.
Hundreds of millions of non-Muslims want honest answers to these questions, even if the only answer you offer is, "Yes, we have real problems in Islam." Such an acknowledgment is infinitely better - for you and for the world - than dismissing us as anti-Muslim.
We await your response.
(ME): I hope this answers it.
Dennis Prager's nationally syndicated radio show is heard daily in Los Angeles on KRLA-AM (870).
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Las Vegas--A Muslim View
As an internationalist with a deep interest in history, there are a vast number of places I would like to visit in my lifetime. Las Vegas is not one of them. For some odd reason, my little brother and his fiancee decided to get married in Vegas, and that too, during Spring Break, never mind that the bride was in school herself (imagine returning to midterm exams a few days after getting married!) Initiallly, I balked at lil' brother's invitation, since I loathe Vegas and all that it stands for. It was quite a conundrum, since I am close to my brother emotionally, though not politically and spiritually. It seemed he really wanted me there, even buying my plane ticket and hotel, and finally, I spinelessly capitulated. And so, I found myself in Sin City during Spring Break 2006.
My Abba (father) and I had travelled separately to Vegas for the wedding. On our first morning there, we decided to meet over breakfast. While waiting for him, I went on-line. The anniversary of the Iraq War was the next day, and I needed to check the United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) website for the rundown on University of Nevada (UNLV) protests marking the anniversary of the Iraq War. The protest was scheduled for Monday--Wedding Day. Sighhh, what a tough choice.
Since our hotel, Treasure Island, was huge and getting lost would have required little effort, my father and I met, well, in the casino. It is, unfortunately, the first thing one sets upon emerging from the hotel's elevators. The casino is huge, and one literally cannot exit the hotel without traversing it. And, since it is a casino, patrons smoke (indoors) without qualm. It was a bizarre sight for me, coming from the East Coast, where the penalty for smoking indoors is often immediate expulsion.
The other bizarre thing was the presence of waitresses in mini-mini-mini (I mean mini) skirts a la Hooters and torturously high stilleto heels. They were serving casino-goers. So, this is the land of women’s lib, I thought, and all the poor burka-clad women in Muslim countries are terribly oppressed. Phew!
Walk Down the Vegas Strip
So, Abba and I had breakfast, then left Treasure Island, and walked toward the main throughway, Las Vegas Boulevard, about a block away. We could see the Wynn, the newest and grandest of the hotels—correction, resorts—on the Strip, where my brother, his fiancee, and her father were staying. All the major hotels on the Strip, including ours, insisted on referring to themselves as resorts; they were no mere hotels. No sooner had we turned the corner from our “resort,” we saw some beautiful fountains. My stepmother had asked Abba to bring her some pictures of Vegas, and so I volunteered to take one there.
Then we were at Caesar’s Palace. It was huge, bigger than Grand Central Station. Everywhere there were nude statues, and people being photographed with nude statues. I joked with Abba, whose nom de plume is butshikan, that the buts better look out, here comes butshikan. Call me culturally deprived, but I am thankful for the Islamic prohibition on depiction of the human figure.
“Caesar’s Palace is famous; maybe you should take a picture of its main facade with the laurels (minus the human statues) for Stepmom,” I told Abba.
He refused, in what was perhaps a symbolic gesture. Butshikan does not glorify Caesar, either through photography or other means.
Caesar’s Palace continued on for what seemed like blocks. One of its most prominent statues was—what else--Caesar himself. Abba went off on a discourse about Caesar’s most famous speech, recalling much of it verbatim. You might think I am just a chamcha of my Abba, but I marveled, for the umpteenth time, at his knowledge and wisdom of even those things that were anathema to him. My Christian friends have told me on many occasions that Abba seemed to know more about Christianity than most Christians.
A bit further down the strip, we encountered the Statue of Liberty replica. This time, Abba agreed to be photographed next to it (am I surprised?). I tried to take the picture, but it was virtually impossible to photograph the gargantuan statue without completely crossing the street--and then the picture would be terribly obstructed by the substantial passersby and traffic--or using a wide angle lens, and I eventually gave up.
The Luxor Hotel
Near the end of the Strip, we found a resort called the Luxor Hotel, modeled after the infamous original in Egypt, complete with gambling, liberated waitresses, and free flow of toxins (liquor). I felt disgusted that this was the only representation of Luxor presented to Vegas visitors thirsting for knowledge (well, there had to be some who were thirsting). It was representative neither of the greatness of Ancient KMT, with its mathematics, physics, and engineering genius, nor of the more recent Islamic Egypt.
Abba and I realized roughly simultaneously that the Luxor Hotel, like all the major Vegas resort-hotels, were modeled after existing structures, and that this one had to be modeled after a center for drinking, gambling, and prostitution, in modern day Luxor--thrust under the noses of Egypt’s Muslim majority. I could imagine why Egyptian Islamists were so angry. But Luxor in Vegas wasn’t all bad: Like dissolves like, as they teach us in biochemistry, and here at least, jahiliyyah fit in perfectly with jahiliyyah.
We were nearing the end of the Strip, and with it, the end of Vegas’ glamour. A few yards on, young Latino immigrants were handing out glossy postcard size circulars. They handed one to my father, who looked at it briefly, and then dropped it on the ground. It was a completely nude picture of a woman, probably with the offer of sex (neither he nor I looked at the circular long enough to scrutinize it for details).
The Porn Distributors were nearly all Latino, some of them very young, and some of them women. There was an art to dissemination of porn. The worker shuffled the stack of nude pictures making an attention-catching smack! Then, attention captured, he handed it to a potential patron. I was not exempted from this depravity: one youth, eager to get rid of his stack as soon as possible, even gave me one. My father and I were shocked and saddened to see Latino immigrants in such a state. As we walked, we discussed what causes a people to stoop to such a level. Latino immigrants, if such a generalization can be made, were overall very dedicated to family and to the church. It seemed that just as wealth could grossly change a person, eliciting behaviors previously alien to them, poverty sometimes induced horrible and desperate responses in people.
By this time, we were more than two miles from our hotel, and decided we’d better make our way back, in order to have enough time to prepare for the evening’s wedding-related events. Walking back, we saw MGM, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and Hooters.
“That’s great,” I remarked to Abba, “All my favorite things in one place. I think I’ll need therapy when I get back home.”
Heading in the direction of our hotel, we encountered the Paris Las Vegas Hotel, with its Eiffel Tower replica (built half scale to the original). I went inside to use the restroom, and Abba waited for me in a relatively quiet corner of the resort’s casino (since it was virtually impossible to be on the main floor of any of these resorts without being in a casino). When I returned, I found Abba sitting at a slot machine—an odd site indeed. But, it was the first available seat he found. I pointed out to him that all the signs, including those for the bathroom, were in French! See, who says Vegas doesn’t have couture?
The Mosque-Casino
Then we saw something that really blew our minds: a mosque with a casino on the first floor. Really. The architecture was not just Middle Eastern-looking, but precisely that of a mosque, down to the mimbar. This was Aladdin Resort and Casino. Here are a couple links, showing how it looked:
http://govegas.about.com/od/downtownvegas/l/bllongwalk8.htm
http://www.lasvegas.com/shopping/desertpassage.html
Adjoining it was the Desert Passage Shopping Mall. We did not go inside, but I later learned that inside the shopping mall was Starbucks, the Nestle Toll House Cafe, and other attractions. (Starbucks and Nestle are both closely linked to Israel, and as such are part of the boycott Israel movement. Their placement inside a shopping mall with a very clearly Islamic appearance is indicative, at best, of a gross lack of awareness of Muslim sensibilities.) Immediately adjacent to the Aladdin Resort-cum-mosque was Krave, a gay bar. I shuddered. Nothing but nothing was sacred to these “people.” Abba and I were both very disturbed by the Mosque-Casino. We wondered if some of the other patrons realized the significance of such a presentation. Almost like Rushdie all over again. I jotted down names and details, so that I could register my objections upon returning home.
Along the route, we’d been looking for a tee shirt for my stepmother—a souvenir she’d requested. If mental septicemia were a true to life condition, I would say that it overtook us after the Aladdin Resort, and we stopped looking for the tee.
Finally we were back at our hotel. After what we’d seen that day, Treasure Island suddenly seemed very wholesome. I’d completed my first (and hopefully last) traipse along the Strip. I felt strange being there, where the people seemed so oblivious to EVERYTHING going on around the globe. They appeared egocentric and corpulent in carriage; self-absorbed and brainwashed in outlook; glutinous and sybaritic in habit.
My Abba (father) and I had travelled separately to Vegas for the wedding. On our first morning there, we decided to meet over breakfast. While waiting for him, I went on-line. The anniversary of the Iraq War was the next day, and I needed to check the United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) website for the rundown on University of Nevada (UNLV) protests marking the anniversary of the Iraq War. The protest was scheduled for Monday--Wedding Day. Sighhh, what a tough choice.
Since our hotel, Treasure Island, was huge and getting lost would have required little effort, my father and I met, well, in the casino. It is, unfortunately, the first thing one sets upon emerging from the hotel's elevators. The casino is huge, and one literally cannot exit the hotel without traversing it. And, since it is a casino, patrons smoke (indoors) without qualm. It was a bizarre sight for me, coming from the East Coast, where the penalty for smoking indoors is often immediate expulsion.
The other bizarre thing was the presence of waitresses in mini-mini-mini (I mean mini) skirts a la Hooters and torturously high stilleto heels. They were serving casino-goers. So, this is the land of women’s lib, I thought, and all the poor burka-clad women in Muslim countries are terribly oppressed. Phew!
Walk Down the Vegas Strip
So, Abba and I had breakfast, then left Treasure Island, and walked toward the main throughway, Las Vegas Boulevard, about a block away. We could see the Wynn, the newest and grandest of the hotels—correction, resorts—on the Strip, where my brother, his fiancee, and her father were staying. All the major hotels on the Strip, including ours, insisted on referring to themselves as resorts; they were no mere hotels. No sooner had we turned the corner from our “resort,” we saw some beautiful fountains. My stepmother had asked Abba to bring her some pictures of Vegas, and so I volunteered to take one there.
Then we were at Caesar’s Palace. It was huge, bigger than Grand Central Station. Everywhere there were nude statues, and people being photographed with nude statues. I joked with Abba, whose nom de plume is butshikan, that the buts better look out, here comes butshikan. Call me culturally deprived, but I am thankful for the Islamic prohibition on depiction of the human figure.
“Caesar’s Palace is famous; maybe you should take a picture of its main facade with the laurels (minus the human statues) for Stepmom,” I told Abba.
He refused, in what was perhaps a symbolic gesture. Butshikan does not glorify Caesar, either through photography or other means.
Caesar’s Palace continued on for what seemed like blocks. One of its most prominent statues was—what else--Caesar himself. Abba went off on a discourse about Caesar’s most famous speech, recalling much of it verbatim. You might think I am just a chamcha of my Abba, but I marveled, for the umpteenth time, at his knowledge and wisdom of even those things that were anathema to him. My Christian friends have told me on many occasions that Abba seemed to know more about Christianity than most Christians.
A bit further down the strip, we encountered the Statue of Liberty replica. This time, Abba agreed to be photographed next to it (am I surprised?). I tried to take the picture, but it was virtually impossible to photograph the gargantuan statue without completely crossing the street--and then the picture would be terribly obstructed by the substantial passersby and traffic--or using a wide angle lens, and I eventually gave up.
The Luxor Hotel
Near the end of the Strip, we found a resort called the Luxor Hotel, modeled after the infamous original in Egypt, complete with gambling, liberated waitresses, and free flow of toxins (liquor). I felt disgusted that this was the only representation of Luxor presented to Vegas visitors thirsting for knowledge (well, there had to be some who were thirsting). It was representative neither of the greatness of Ancient KMT, with its mathematics, physics, and engineering genius, nor of the more recent Islamic Egypt.
Abba and I realized roughly simultaneously that the Luxor Hotel, like all the major Vegas resort-hotels, were modeled after existing structures, and that this one had to be modeled after a center for drinking, gambling, and prostitution, in modern day Luxor--thrust under the noses of Egypt’s Muslim majority. I could imagine why Egyptian Islamists were so angry. But Luxor in Vegas wasn’t all bad: Like dissolves like, as they teach us in biochemistry, and here at least, jahiliyyah fit in perfectly with jahiliyyah.
We were nearing the end of the Strip, and with it, the end of Vegas’ glamour. A few yards on, young Latino immigrants were handing out glossy postcard size circulars. They handed one to my father, who looked at it briefly, and then dropped it on the ground. It was a completely nude picture of a woman, probably with the offer of sex (neither he nor I looked at the circular long enough to scrutinize it for details).
The Porn Distributors were nearly all Latino, some of them very young, and some of them women. There was an art to dissemination of porn. The worker shuffled the stack of nude pictures making an attention-catching smack! Then, attention captured, he handed it to a potential patron. I was not exempted from this depravity: one youth, eager to get rid of his stack as soon as possible, even gave me one. My father and I were shocked and saddened to see Latino immigrants in such a state. As we walked, we discussed what causes a people to stoop to such a level. Latino immigrants, if such a generalization can be made, were overall very dedicated to family and to the church. It seemed that just as wealth could grossly change a person, eliciting behaviors previously alien to them, poverty sometimes induced horrible and desperate responses in people.
By this time, we were more than two miles from our hotel, and decided we’d better make our way back, in order to have enough time to prepare for the evening’s wedding-related events. Walking back, we saw MGM, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and Hooters.
“That’s great,” I remarked to Abba, “All my favorite things in one place. I think I’ll need therapy when I get back home.”
Heading in the direction of our hotel, we encountered the Paris Las Vegas Hotel, with its Eiffel Tower replica (built half scale to the original). I went inside to use the restroom, and Abba waited for me in a relatively quiet corner of the resort’s casino (since it was virtually impossible to be on the main floor of any of these resorts without being in a casino). When I returned, I found Abba sitting at a slot machine—an odd site indeed. But, it was the first available seat he found. I pointed out to him that all the signs, including those for the bathroom, were in French! See, who says Vegas doesn’t have couture?
The Mosque-Casino
Then we saw something that really blew our minds: a mosque with a casino on the first floor. Really. The architecture was not just Middle Eastern-looking, but precisely that of a mosque, down to the mimbar. This was Aladdin Resort and Casino. Here are a couple links, showing how it looked:
http://govegas.about.com/od/downtownvegas/l/bllongwalk8.htm
http://www.lasvegas.com/shopping/desertpassage.html
Adjoining it was the Desert Passage Shopping Mall. We did not go inside, but I later learned that inside the shopping mall was Starbucks, the Nestle Toll House Cafe, and other attractions. (Starbucks and Nestle are both closely linked to Israel, and as such are part of the boycott Israel movement. Their placement inside a shopping mall with a very clearly Islamic appearance is indicative, at best, of a gross lack of awareness of Muslim sensibilities.) Immediately adjacent to the Aladdin Resort-cum-mosque was Krave, a gay bar. I shuddered. Nothing but nothing was sacred to these “people.” Abba and I were both very disturbed by the Mosque-Casino. We wondered if some of the other patrons realized the significance of such a presentation. Almost like Rushdie all over again. I jotted down names and details, so that I could register my objections upon returning home.
Along the route, we’d been looking for a tee shirt for my stepmother—a souvenir she’d requested. If mental septicemia were a true to life condition, I would say that it overtook us after the Aladdin Resort, and we stopped looking for the tee.
Finally we were back at our hotel. After what we’d seen that day, Treasure Island suddenly seemed very wholesome. I’d completed my first (and hopefully last) traipse along the Strip. I felt strange being there, where the people seemed so oblivious to EVERYTHING going on around the globe. They appeared egocentric and corpulent in carriage; self-absorbed and brainwashed in outlook; glutinous and sybaritic in habit.
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