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Dr Kaukab Siddique | Editor-in-Chief Rabi' al-Thani 16,1435/February 16, 2014 # 7


Hijab in USA. Two aspects. Unusual article from Chicago. Scroll to end please.


Historic Pakistani top religious unity gathering calls for Peace: End to Army-Pak Taliban conflict demanded.
See report at end below.


Pak Talibs countering MQM and ANP in Karachi:. Large areas under Talib control. See map below.


New Book
World War II could have been stopped: The peacemaker spent 46 years in British-allied prison.

Rudolf Hess: His betrayal and Murder by Abdallah Melaouhi, 2013, The Barnes Review, P.O. Box 15877, Washington, DC 20003. For phone orders by card, 1-877-773-9077.
Most scholars of the war know that Hitler's top deputy Rudolf Hess flew to England in an astonishing peace making attempt. He was "detained" by the Brits because Churchill and his Jewish advisers wanted the war to continue.

What is not known is that during his last frail years, Hess was tended in the inhumane highly sanitized Spandau prison in Germany by a MUSLIM doctor. Hess knew Arabic. The writer witnessed the murder of Hess in prison and has tried for years to bring out what happened.. The old man refused to die and constantly smuggled out his messages from the maximum security prison. Finally when he was 93, he was killed.

It is an astonishing book and should alert our readers to the lies they have heard about the war.


Sanitized prisons? Think of Imam Jamil, Shaikh Omar, Ahmed Abdel Sattar [ AhmedAbdelSattar.org ] , Massoud Khan [ FreeMasoudKhan.net ] , Shifa El-Sadequi and others in sound proof cells. No one can hear them even if they scream.


Two sides to hijab: From a Chicago Muslimah's blog by a local "Patch" [non-Muslim] writer. Scroll to end please.


Are we good or what!
New Trend's Web Site. Thanks to Br. Rich in Nebraska.
There were 51,141 hits in January in spite of winter woes. There were 12,251 visitors in this one month.


Yahoo groups:
In February 2014 till now New Trend has been posted on 33 yahoogroups. Thanks to Jamaat al-Muslimeen- Washington, DC.


Breaking News: Syria

On February 15, the Geneva talks between the Assad regime and the pro-western opposition broke down. Meanwhile Assad's regime continues to drop barrel bombs on civilians in Aleppo, forcing thousands to flee towards Turkey. It's a massacre with more than 800 killed by barrel bombs in 3 weeks in Aleppo alone. More than 9 million people of Syria are now refugees. Assad is denuding the population support base of the Islamic opposition.

Also on February 15, Assad's Alawite elite troops prepared to attack the town of Yabroud near Lebanon border with mass support from Hizbush shaitan. Artillery shelling has forced 3,000 people to flee the town. In the southern village of Yadouda, Shi'ite agents blew up a mosque after juma prayers killing 32 including 10 children.

Mujahideen in the Damascus suburbs led by al-Nusra beat back Assad attempts to advance. The mujahideen in Aleppo frontlines [ISIL, Ahrar, Tawheed] are also holding firm.
For report from Homs and analysis of non-Muslim and Shi'ite support for Assad, Also Syria and Saudis: see article by Kaukab Siddique below.


Congratulations to Iran on the February 11 anniversary of the revolution. Iran moved from being an Islamic state to a nationalist state to a Shi'ite state. Its support for Syria's Assad has totally isolated Iran from the Muslim world. Zionist propaganda against Iran is misleading and false. American intellectual Mark Weber points out that Iran is NO THREAT to the US. Please scroll to end for Weber's article.


Our America #1
Dr. Anthony Monteiro, Advocate for Mumia Abu-Jamal, Dismissed
[Info sent by Nadrat Siddique]

Associate Professor of African American Studies, Dr. Anthony Monteiro, Ph.D., a long-time advocate for Mumia Abu-Jamal, distinguished W. E. B. Du Bois scholar and community activist, has been dismissed from his position in Temple University's African-American Studies Department. It is clearly a case of a "retaliation firing," even though Temple administrators deem it simply "end of term" for Dr. Monteiro. For one report on the firing see this story at The Philadelphia Tribune. The National Call contests the dismissal, protests the retaliatory firing and seeks Dr. Monteiro's reinstatement.

If you are an educator and wish to sign this Call, send your name to johanna.fernandez@baruch.cuny.edu AND mark.taylor@ptsem.edu , subject heading: "Signature Monteiro." Please give your name as you would like it listed and your institutional affiliation (which will be shown for identification purposes only).


A Call for the Reinstatement of Temple University's Dr. Anthony Monteiro

WE UNITE with Philadelphia faculty members, labor, community and student organizations to call for the immediate reinstatement of Professor Anthony Monteiro as Associate Professor in African-American Studies. After Dr. Monteiro's 10 years of distinguished service in Temple University's historic Department, the first to offer a doctorate in African-American Studies, he has been informed that his contract will not be renewed, in a letter of Jan 6, 2014 from Dean Teresa Soufas of Temple's Liberal Arts College. No reason was given for dismissal of so highly respected a scholar, particularly for his Du Bois scholarship, but also in African American Studies, generally.


Our America #2
Any Lesson from the recurring snow storms and extremely cold weather?

The main lesson is that there are great disparities between the rich and the poor. The weather hurts the poor and the homeless to an extreme degree. Many of the homeless go to shelters. Others who are unable to, sleep on the grates of magnificent buildings, absorbing the vapors of the heat which keeps the rich wearing summer clothing inside their homes.
The poor and the old cannot easily go to hotels when the electricity fails [20,00o in Philadelphia alone]]. They shiver and are traumatized by the sudden removal of basic facilities. Everything is based on electricity.
Injustice is apparent. This is the richest country in the world and keeps an entire country funded in the Middle East. "israel" [occupied Palestine] thrives while millions shiver in America.


Our America:#3
Crimes Against Women are Commonplace in America: Here is one from the Chicago area.

Romeoville, Illinois: February 13: A woman 33 year old and her daughter 15 year old, sitting in their car, in front of their house, were shot by a man who fled. They are barely alive after being airlifted to one of the great hospitals in the area. [Source: Romeoville Patch.] Police are looking for the shooter.


Our America: #4
New York's Inside Story: De Blasio like Jefferson? How?
Vice President Biden Likens La Guardia Airport to a 3rd World Country


by Sis. Aisha [Jamaat al-Muslimeen New York City] [2 items]
New York City - According to February 6th reports, Vice President Joseph Biden insulted the New York City administrations by likening La Guardia Airport to a Third World Country. he made the comments at an event in Philadelphia about America's infrastructure. La Guardia Airport is grimey compared to JFK Airport. That is not news. However, I noticed that V.P. Biden did not make such insulting comparisons while Mayor Bloomberg, a staunch Zionist Jew was in office. He waited until Mayor Bill De Blasio (a.k.a Thomas Jefferson, I will explain, later) took office.

New Mayor Bill De Blasio has been compared to Thomas Jefferson for a number of reasons by Black Activists, of late. First, he is married to a Black Woman, Chirlane McCray ( a former lesbian), and has two children of African-descent. It has been stated that just because a White Man is married to a Black woman does not mean that he is anymore fair or just. Many White men have enjoyed the company of Black women and still upheld White supremacist ideology just as Thomas Jefferson and modern day segregationist Strom Thurmond did.

Proof of these suspicions about De Blasio became cemented when he brought back William Bratton to become New York City's police commissioner, AGAIN! Bratton served under tyrannical Mayor Giulianni. He is also responsible for creating the very stop-and-frisk programs that human rights activists have been trying to abolish altogether. Were it not for Dante De Blasio's anti-stop-and-frisk campaign commercials for his dad, Mayor De Blasio would have never been elected. There was a protest a few days ago against Commissioner Bratton's selection outside of City Hall. Sounds like a Thomas Jefferson to me.


Yeshiva Student Arrested for Anti-Jewish Graffiti

On February 6, Cedarhurst Yeshiva student, Jonathan Schuster, 18, was arrested for defacing area property with anti-Jewish messages. His messages were expressly against Orthodox Jews.

The Jews are very good at victimizing themselves and crying wolf.


Brief war news: Syria

February 13: Assad's jet fighters bombed the small town of Yabroud 13 times killing scores of civilians. Hizbullash from Lebanon and Assad elite troops are trying to capture the town because it lies on the route to the Alawite enclave on the coast and the Hizbullsah forces which are helping Assad.

Meanwhile Assad's air force continued to bomb Islamic populations across the country. The death toll from barrel bombs is heavy. The Human Rights Observatory which documents each death notes that 4959 people have been killed in three weeks, one third of them civilians, including 515 women and children.

Mujahideen forces are trying to advance against Assad strongholdsfrom north to south but are unable to break the tank forces supported from the air. The losses are heavy on both sides.

The Assad forces have retaken the large prison the mujahideen broke in Aleppo on February 6. However 300 of the 4000 prisoners who came out made good their escape. These were strong Islamic supporters.

One correction: The martyrdom operator who broke through the prison gate was British, not Chechen. He has been identified as Abdul Waheed Majid from the British town of Crawley. The Muslim immigrants living in Crawley are shocked. British authorities say several hundred British Muslims have secretly moved to Syria to support the mujahideen. The number is estimated at 400.

Homs being used for propaganda by Iran. Assad's forces encircling the civilians opposing him in Homs have allowed nearly 1000 civilians to leave. They were near death by starvation. Many needed immediate medical attention. Iranian propagandists are using this tragic situation to paint Assad as a humanitarian!

Understanding Syria. Who is who? The Saudi Issue explained.
Analysis by Kaukab Siddique

Who in the West is supporting Assad through propaganda? Non-Muslim activist writers like Cartalucci, Chodavussky, Fisk, Lamb, and others feel threatened by chances of an Islamic victory in Syria. They are either repeating Assad's propaganda or are churning out their own far fetched conspiracy theories. They are strongly supported by Iran's Press TV, the Shi'ite al-Manar TV of Lebanon, Iranian media, Russian media and Zionist media in the West. Some of the points they make are:
  1. Assad is fighting terrorists. The 100,000 plus Muslims killed by Assad were terrorists and deserved to be killed. One fighter angrily chewed up the liver of an Assad soldier. This was broadcast wordwide. Even Putin harped on it.

  2. Assad is part of the "resistance" against Israel. Hizbullah {more correctly hizbush-shaitan] include Assad in the "resistance" although the Syrian border with "Israel" has not seen even border incidents in 30 years.

  3. Saudi Arabia is fomenting the conflict in Syria. The Cartaluccis of the world know thst Saudi Arabia is very unpopular in America, so to link the mujahideen with the Saudis would smear the Islamic fighters.

This Saudi issue is important. The Saudis support the tiny westernized secular segment of Assad's opponents. The reason is that if this segment gains power, the jihad groups will be defeated and Saudi Arabia will be safe from the attacks Osama bin Laden initiated on the Saudis.

When Assad launched chemical attacks on the suburbs of Damascus which are under al-Nusra's control and killed 1500 civilians including hundreds of children, America threatened military action. When the action did not happen, the Saudis were deeply disappointed. American intervention would have convinced the Syrian people that America wants to save them from Assad's clutches. The jihad groups who are extremely anti-American would have lost support and the westernized "coalition" would have gained support which it sorely lacks.

Obama was apparently advised by his Zionist counsellors that bombing Assad would make the jihad groups dominant and the westernized "coalition" has very little support on the ground.

The Saudis have since then not only shown reservations about their relations with USA but have clamped down on Saudis going voluntarily to join the fighting in Syria.

None of the Jihad groups are supported with weaponry or funds by Saudi Arabia. Even Cartalucci, Lamb etc have not been able to provide any such evidence, Turkey allowed small arms to go through but recently has clamped down on this and even bombed a convoy of the Islamic State of Iraq. Qatar and the Saudis help refugees who are flooding out of Syria owing to Assad's mass slaughter of civilians. Why Cartalucci, Lamb, Fisk etc should object to the Saudis helping refugees is not clear other than as anti-Muslim bigotry.

Twelve of the 14 jihad groups in Syria, who now control more than half of Syria, are 100% Syrian. Of the other two, al-Nusra is mostly Syrian and is led by a Syrian but has received volunteers from Muslim communities around the world. Its moral guide and philosopher is the Al-Qaida leader Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri who worked for many years with Shaykh Osama bin Laden but whose current whereabouts are unknown. Al-Nusra is in control of six suburba of Damascus and numerous points in Aleppo and across Syria.

The other major group is Islamic State in Iraq & the Levant [ISIL], led by an Iraqi, al-Baghdadi, mostly Iraqi and some Syrian but attracting many volunteers from Muslim communities globally. They are very hostile to Saudi Arabia and very harsh against any Muslims who show any weaknesses.

Should Muslims support the Mujahideen or should they support Assad, Iran, Russia and hizbush? The answer should be very clear to anyone who has read te Qur'an.


Brief War News: Pakistan.

February 13: A Pak Taliban attack hit a bus packed with police officers in the city of Karachi. Thirteen officers were killed and 43 wounded. Pak Taliban issued a statement claiming that the attack was in revenge for assassinations of Islamic activists by the government in Swabi, Peshawar and other areas supporting the Pak Taliban.

Earlier on February 12 a cinema theatre showing porno movies in Peshawar was blown up. Reportedly 14 people were killed.

Meanwhile, Pakistanis led by Imran khan and Munawar Hasan are urging talks with the Pak Taliban to end the internal fighting. Talks are opposed by pro-American secular elites who want the Taliban to be wiped out. On the Taliban side's representatives, Maulana Abdul Aziz, the surviving leader of the Red Mosque, is saying that the real issue is the implementation of Sharia [Islamic Law and not just cease fire.

The Pak Taliban themselves have not joined the talks because they suspect the Paki military is preparing to attack while using the peace talks as a cover.

In a counter to secularist & pro-West groups MQM and ANP, Pak Taliban have gained support in the poorest and downtrodden areas of Karachi. See map researched by the Wall Street Journal via Dawn. The secularists are now urging the army to attack the Pak Taliban areas.
 Map of approximate areas of Pakistan Taliban control



Brief War News: Iraq

February 13: Heavy fighting is reported from Anbar province where US-installed Maliki Shi'ite regime is using weaponry from America to re-capture the cities of Fallujah [completely in Islamic hands] and Ramadi [partly under Islamic control].

As the fighting goes on 300,000 people have left their homes to avoid the al-Maliki Shi'ite army's assault.


Keeping Religion Pure
Shias are claimimg that Ali, r.a., could commit no Wrong and was superior to all Sahaba, r.a.
We Muslims take ONLY Muhammad, pbuh, as Example. Not Ali, r.a. Here is one reason.

by Kaukab Siddique, PhD

Ali, r.a., was a great Muslim as were other sahaba, r.a. They were all humans and with their greatness they had imperfections. Only angels have no faults.

For Ali, r.a., it is well known that he did not treat Fatima, r.a., well. He even wanted to bring an enemy of Islam, Abu Jahal's daughter, into the community of Islam as his wife. That would have been a disaster for the community.

Fatima, r.a. complained to the Prophet, pbuh. Coming from such a gentle woman, those were harsh words she used for Ali, r.a. . She called him "This Ali...."

Here is the reprimand of Ali by the Prophet, pbuh.. I will select only one narrative. A scholar can surely find others:

" The Prophet, pbuh, said from the mimbar of the masjid:: "The People of Hisham ibn Mughira have asked my permission to marry their daughter to Ali ibn Abi Talib. I DO NOT PERMIT IT. AGAIN, I DO NOT PERMIT IT. and AGAIN I DO NOT PERMIT IT. Of course, if Ali divorces my daughter and marries their daughter, he has the right. My daughter is part of myself. Whoever harms her, harms me. Whatever hurts her hurts me." [Sahih Bukhari, kitab-un-nikah]

Thus Ali, r.a., was reprimanded THREE TIMES, in one speech by the Prophet, pbuh, and that too from the mimbar of the mosque. He did not reprimand any other sahabi like that.

So, I say to Ismailis and Ghali Shias: Remember, we are followers of ALLAH, not of Ali.

Our leader is MUHAMMAD, pbuh, not Ali.

Keep Ali, r.a. within his human limits and we will respect him as he should be.



Bangladesh

Elderly Bengali leader of Jamaate Islami dies in police custody under pro-India Regime
[Courtesy Shah Abdul Hannan.] [Monday, February 10, 2014.]

[The regime in Dhaka is picking on non-violent, middle class, peace loving spiritually oriented leaders of Jamaate Islami. Abul Kalam Muhammad Yusuf was one of them. He wrote this testament for his family in May 2013. He passed away on February 9, 2014 after being treated like a common criminal in pro-Hindu regime's prison. Read the testament carefully. Not a word about fighting back or taking revenge. This is the weakness of Jamaate Islami Bangladesh. He was a very decent person but the regime unloaded on him claims of huge crimes which are unverifiable and totally absurd.

May Allah punish this Hinduized "Muslim" regime of Awami League and Hasina Wajed... Editor New Trend.]

Address to my family and well-wishers

I am now 87 years of age. Most friends and colleagues among my contemporaries have already left this world for the hereafter. Today, despite my age and many health complications, God has still preserved me. Of my eight children and twenty-four grandchildren, most are now living abroad in different countries (USA, Canada and UAE).

Given my frail age and the various illnesses that afflict me, God may call me to the other side at anytime now. In light of this, my children and grandchildren had made a request that I write a little something about my life so they could publish it somewhere. Upon their encouragement and their request, I am addressing the following words to them and also to all of my countless well-wishers. I hope that you all may accept as an advice (wasiyat) these sincere words that I offer from the depths of my heart.

I am but a minor, insignificant servant and a slave of the Most Merciful Allah. The abundant overflow of blessings that Almighty Allah Rabb al-?Alamin, has continued to bestow upon me and my progeny has far exceeded what I could have asked for, and for which I am incapable of being thankful enough to God. In my lifework, I have not been able to get anywhere near God's most favored and beloved servants. But it is my strong faith in Allah that has urged me to follow the way of His Messenger (PBUH), and so I have always tried to remain on that path all my life. Even though, along the way, there may have been faults and blames intentional or otherwise, and for that I remain forever a seeker of God's forgiveness and a beggar of His mercy. Allah SWT Himself has declared: "Despair not of the Mercy of Allah: for Allah forgives all sins: for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful." (Surah al-Zumar, Verse 53).

To my family and well-wishers, I wish to say that just as I have always tried to be mindful of and committed to fulfilling the rights of my parents, my wife, my children and my relatives, in the light of the guidance from Allah and His Messenger, so have I tried to be mindful of the rights of my neighbors, my community and society, and the people of my country. With whatever limited capacity and effort, I have also tried my level best to stand alongside all those who work for the benefit of the country and the Muslim ummah at large.

To my children and my grandchildren, my advice: just as you must attend to the rights of and your responsibility towards your parents, your spouses, your children and your relatives, so must you stay mindful of the rights of your neighbors as well as the poor, needy and helpless around you. The Muslim ummah and its well-being should also be in your thoughts.

It was the blessing of Almighty Allah upon me, that I have had the opportunity to work with several national and international charity organizations and gracious individuals, so that I was able to do some work towards humanitarian projects (Sadaqa Jariyah) in all areas throughout my motherland. To the extent that your own resources and capabilities permit, you should also work for Sadaqa Jariyah. For it is the blessings and rewards of such endeavors that continue to accrue even after death.

To my dearest children and grandchildren, my last advice to you all is that no matter what, you must remain steadfast on the path of Allah and never neglect to observe all the fard (obligatory) worship ordained by Allah-prayers, fasting, charity and pilgrimage. Do not even approach or go near that which is sinful and wrong, and always strive to attain a moral character of the highest order.

These above words of advice that I am leaving behind for my sons and daughters and my grandchildren, this same advice remains for all of my friends and my colleagues in the movement, young and old.

- Abul Kalam Muhammad Yusuf
May 4, 2013


With thanks to New Trend's Christian friend Ms. Carolyn in Florida
Washington's Military Aid to Israel
By Chase Madar

We Americans have funny notions about foreign aid. Recent polls show that, on average, we believe 28% of the federal budget is eaten up by it, and that, in a time of austerity, this gigantic bite of the budget should be cut back to 10%. In actual fact, barely 1% of the federal budget goes to foreign aid of any kind.

In this case, however, truth is at least as strange as fiction. Consider that the top recipient of U.S. foreign aid over the past three decades isn't some impoverished land filled with starving kids, but a wealthy nation with a per-head gross domestic product on par with the European Union average, and higher than that of Italy, Spain, or South Korea.

Consider also that this top recipient of such aid -- nearly all of it military since 2008 -- has been busily engaged in what looks like a nineteenth-century-style colonization project. In the late 1940s, our beneficiary expelled some 700,000 indigenous people from the land it was claiming. In 1967, our client seized some contiguous pieces of real estate and ever since has been colonizing these territories with nearly 650,000 of its own people. It has divided the conquered lands with myriad checkpoints and roads accessible only to the colonizers and is building a 440-mile wall around (and cutting into) the conquered territory, creating a geography of control that violates international law.

"Ethnic cleansing" is a harsh term, but apt for a situation in which people are driven out of their homes and lands because they are not of the right tribe. Though many will balk at leveling this charge against Israel -- for that country is, of course, the top recipient of American aid and especially military largesse -- who would hesitate to use the term if, in a mirror-image world, all of this were being inflicted on Israeli Jews?

Military Aid to Israel

Arming and bankrolling a wealthy nation acting in this way may, on its face, seem like terrible policy. Yet American aid has been flowing to Israel in ever greater quantities. Over the past 60 years, in fact, Israel has absorbed close to a quarter-trillion dollars in such aid. Last year alone, Washington sent some $3.1 billion in military aid, supplemented by allocations for collaborative military research and joint training exercises.

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Overall, the United States covers nearly one quarter of Israel's defense budget -- from tear gas canisters to F-16 fighter jets. In their 2008-2009 assault on Gaza, the Israeli Defense Forces made use of M-92 and M-84 "dumb bombs," Paveway II and JDAM guided "smart bombs," AH-64 Apache attack helicopters equipped with AGM-114 Hellfire guided missiles, M141 "bunker defeat" munitions, and special weapons like M825A1 155mm white phosphorous munitions -- all supplied as American foreign aid. (Uniquely among Washington's aid recipients, Israel is also permitted to spend 25% of the military funding from Washington on weapons made by its own weapons industry.)

Why is Washington doing this? The most common answer is the simplest: Israel is Washington's "ally." But the United States has dozens of allies around the world, none of which are subsidized in anything like this fashion by American taxpayer dollars. As there is no formal treaty alliance between the two nations and given the lopsided nature of the costs and benefits of this relationship, a far more accurate term for Israel's tie to Washington might be "client state."

And not a particularly loyal client either. If massive military aid is supposed to give Washington leverage over Israel (as it normally does in client-state relationships), it is difficult to detect. In case you hadn't noticed, rare is the American diplomatic visit to Israel that is not greeted with an in-your-face announcement of intensified colonization of Palestinian territory, euphemistically called "settlement expansion."

Washington also provides aid to Palestine totaling, on average, $875 million annually in Obama's first term (more than double what George W. Bush gave in his second term). That's a little more than a quarter of what Israel gets. Much of it goes to projects of dubious net value like the development of irrigation networks at a moment when the Israelis are destroying Palestinian cisterns and wells elsewhere in the West Bank. Another significant part of that funding goes toward training the Palestinian security forces. Known as "Dayton forces" (after the American general, Keith Dayton, who led their training from 2005 to 2010), these troops have a grim human rights record that includes acts of torture, as Dayton himself has admitted. One former Dayton deputy, an American colonel, described these security forces to al-Jazeera as an outsourced "third Israeli security arm." According to Josh Ruebner, national advocacy director for the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation and author of Shattered Hopes: Obama's Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace, American aid to Palestine serves mainly to entrench the Israeli occupation.

A Dishonest Broker

Nothing is equal when it comes to Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip -- and the numbers say it all. To offer just one example, the death toll from Operation Cast Lead, Israel's 2008-2009 assault on the Gaza Strip, was 1,385 Palestinians (the majority of them civilians) and 13 Israelis, three of them civilians.

And yet mainstream opinion in the U.S. insists on seeing the two parties as essentially equal. Harold Koh, former dean of the Yale Law School and until recently the top lawyer at the State Department, has been typical in comparing Washington's role to "adult supervision" of "a playground populated by warring switchblade gangs." It was a particularly odd choice of metaphors, given that one side is equipped with small arms and rockets of varying sophistication, the other with nuclear weapons and a state-of-the-art modern military subsidized by the world's only superpower.

Washington's active role in all of this is not lost on anyone on the world stage -- except Americans, who have declared themselves to be the even-handed arbiters of a conflict involving endless failed efforts at brokering a "peace process." Globally, fewer and fewer observers believe in this fiction of Washington as a benevolent bystander rather than a participant heavily implicated in a humanitarian crisis. In 2012, the widely respected International Crisis Group described the "peace process" as "a collective addiction that serves all manner of needs, reaching an agreement no longer being the main one."

The contradiction between military and diplomatic support for one party in the conflict and the pretense of neutrality cannot be explained away. "Looked at objectively, it can be argued that American diplomatic efforts in the Middle East have, if anything, made achieving peace between Palestinians and Israelis more difficult," writes Rashid Khalidi, a historian at Columbia University, and author of Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East.

Evasive Silence

American policy elites are unable or unwilling to talk about Washington's destructive role in this situation. There is plenty of discussion about a one-state versus a two-state solution, constant disapproval of Palestinian violence, occasional mild criticism ("not helpful") of the Israeli settlements, and lately, a lively debate about the global boycott, divestment, and sanction movement (BDS) led by Palestinian civil society to pressure Israel into a "just and lasting" peace. But when it comes to what Americans are most responsible for -- all that lavish military aid and diplomatic cover for one side only -- what you get is either euphemism or an evasive silence.

In general, the American media tends to treat our arming of Israel as part of the natural order of the universe, as beyond question as the force of gravity. Even the "quality" media shies away from any discussion of Washington's real role in fueling the Israel-Palestine conflict. Last month, for instance, the New York Times ran an article about a prospective "post-American" Middle East without any mention of Washington's aid to Israel, or for that matter to Egypt, or the Fifth Fleet parked in Bahrain.

You might think that the progressive hosts of MSNBC's news programs would be all over the story of what American taxpayers are subsidizing, but the topic barely flickers across the chat shows of Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, and others. Given this across-the-board selective reticence, American coverage of Israel and Palestine, and particularly of American military aid to Israel, resembles the Agatha Christie novel in which the first-person narrator, observing and commenting on the action in calm semi-detachment, turns out to be the murderer.

Strategic Self-Interest and Unconditional Military Aid

On the activist front, American military patronage of Israel is not much discussed either, in large part because the aid package is so deeply entrenched that no attempt to cut it back could succeed in the near future. Hence, the global BDS campaign has focused on smaller, more achievable targets, though as Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the Jerusalem Fund, an advocacy group, told me, the BDS movement does envision an end to Washington's military transfers in the long term. This makes tactical sense, and both the Jerusalem Fund and the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation are engaged in ongoing campaigns to inform the public about American military aid to Israel.

Less understandable are the lobbying groups that advertise themselves as "pro-peace," champions of "dialogue" and "conversation," but share the same bottom line on military aid for Israel as their overtly hawkish counterparts. For instance, J Street ("pro-Israel and pro-peace"), a Washington-based nonprofit which bills itself as a moderate alternative to the powerhouse lobbying outfit, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), supports both "robust" military aid and any supplemental disbursements on offer from Washington to the Israeli Defense Forces. Americans for Peace Now similarly takes the position that Washington should provide "robust assistance" to ensure Israel's "qualitative military edge." At the risk of sounding literal-minded, any group plumping for enormous military aid packages to a country acting as Israel has is emphatically not "pro-peace." It's almost as if the Central America solidarity groups from the 1980s had demanded peace, while lobbying Washington to keep funding the Contras and the Salvadoran military.

Outside the various factions of the Israel lobby, the landscape is just as flat. The Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank close to the Democratic Party, regularly issues pious statements about new hopes for the "peace process" -- with never a mention of how our unconditional flow of advanced weaponry might be a disincentive to any just resolution of the situation.

There is, by the way, a similar dynamic at work when it comes to Washington's second biggest recipient of foreign aid, Egypt. Washington's expenditure of more than $60 billion over the past 30 years ensured both peace with Israel and Cold War loyalty, while propping up an authoritarian government with a ghastly human rights record. As the post-Mubarak military restores its grip on Egypt, official Washington is currently at work finding ways to keep the military aid flowing despite a congressional ban on arming regimes that overthrow elected governments. There is, however, at least some mainstream public debate in the U.S. about ending aid to the Egyptian generals who have violently reclaimed power. Investigative journalism nonprofit ProPublica has even drafted a handy "explainer" about U.S. military aid to Egypt -- though they have not tried to explain aid to Israel.

Silence about U.S.-Israel relations is, to a large degree, hardwired into Beltway culture. As George Perkovich, director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told the Washington Post, "It's like all things having to do with Israel and the United States. If you want to get ahead, you don't talk about it; you don't criticize Israel, you protect Israel."

This is regrettable, as Washington's politically invisible military aid to Israel is not just an impediment to lasting peace, but also a strategic and security liability. As General David Petraeus, then head of U.S. Central Command, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2010, the failure to reach a lasting resolution to the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians makes Washington's other foreign policy objectives in the region more difficult to achieve. It also, he pointed out, foments anti-American hatred and fuels al-Qaeda and other violent groups. Petraeus's successor at CENTCOM, General James Mattis, echoed this list of liabilities in a public dialogue with Wolf Blitzer last July:

"I paid a military security price every day as a commander of CENTCOM because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel, and that [alienates] all the moderate Arabs who want to be with us because they can't come out publicly in support of people who don't show respect for the Arab Palestinians."

Don't believe the generals? Ask a terrorist. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks now imprisoned at Guantanamo, told interrogators that he was motivated to attack the United States in large part because of Washington's leading role in assisting Israel's repeated invasions of Lebanon and the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians.

The Israel lobby wheels out a battery of arguments in favor of arming and funding Israel, including the assertion that a step back from such aid for Israel would signify a "retreat" into "isolationism." But would the United States, a global hegemon busily engaged in nearly every aspect world affairs, be "isolated" if it ceased giving lavish military aid to Israel? Was the United States "isolated" before 1967 when it expanded that aid in a major way? These questions answer themselves.

Sometimes the mere act of pointing out the degree of U.S. aid to Israel provokes accusations of having a special antipathy for Israel. This may work as emotional blackmail, but if someone proposed that Washington start shipping Armenia $3.1 billion worth of armaments annually so that it could begin the conquest of its ancestral province of Nagorno-Karabakh in neighboring Azerbaijan, the plan would be considered ludicrous -- and not because of a visceral dislike for Armenians. Yet somehow the assumption that Washington is required to generously arm the Israeli military has become deeply institutionalized in this country.

Fake Peace Process, Real War Process

Today, Secretary of State John Kerry is leading a push for a renewed round of the interminable American-led peace process in the region that has been underway since the mid-1970s. It's hardly a bold prediction to suggest that this round, too, will fail. The Israeli minister of defense, Moshe Ya'alon, has already publicly mocked Kerry in his quest for peace as "obsessive and messianic" and added that the newly proposed framework for this round of negotiations is "not worth the paper it's printed on." Other Israeli high officials blasted Kerry for his mere mention of the potential negative consequences to Israel of a global boycott if peace is not achieved.

But why shouldn't Ya'alon and other Israeli officials tee off on the hapless Kerry? After all, the defense minister knows that Washington will wield no stick and that bushels of carrots are in the offing, whether Israel rolls back or redoubles its land seizures and colonization efforts. President Obama has boasted that the U.S. has never given so much military aid to Israel as under his presidency. On January 29th, the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted unanimously to upgrade Israel's status to "major strategic partner." With Congress and the president guaranteeing that unprecedented levels of military aid will continue to flow, Israel has no real incentive to change its behavior.

Usually such diplomatic impasses are blamed on the Palestinians, but given how little is left to squeeze out of them, doing so this time will test the creativity of official Washington. Whatever happens, in the post-mortems to come there will be no discussion in Washington about the role its own policies played in undermining a just and lasting agreement.

How much longer will this silence last? The arming and bankrolling of a wealthy nation committing ethnic cleansing has something to offend conservatives, progressives, and just about every other political grouping in America. After all, how often in foreign policy does strategic self-interest align so neatly with human rights and common decency?

Intelligent people can and do disagree about a one-state versus a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. People of goodwill disagree about the global BDS campaign. But it is hard to imagine what kind of progress can ever be made toward a just and lasting settlement between Israel and Palestine until Washington quits arming one side to the teeth.

"If it weren't for U.S. support for Israel, this conflict would have been resolved a long time ago," says Josh Ruebner. Will we Americans ever acknowledge our government's active role in destroying the chances for a just and lasting peace between Palestine and Israel?

See Tom Engelhardt's response here.

This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/washington-s-military-aid-isral-1392043212. All rights are reserved.

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs


Our America : Chicago
Trending: Muslim Woman Discovers Friendly New World When a Winter Scarf Covers Her Hijab
 Leena Suleiman | Source: leenamielus.blogspot.com
Leena Suleiman | Source: leenamielus.blogspot.com

By Dennis Robaugh

Oak Lawn, Ill. - A woman who hid her hijab beneath a fluffy knit hat and scarf found an entirely different world around her when others couldn't see the traditional Muslim garb.

"I didn't understand what was happening at first. People started talking to me more. Women would speak to me like I knew them since forever. Men looked at me like I was actually approachable," Leena Suleiman wrote of her experience on her blog, Facetruth. "And I was made to feel like I was actually from this planet."

But with the hijab hidden, Suleiman also learned the familiar place she inhabited comfortably for so many years, the world of American Muslims, no longer was warm and friendly.

"The Muslim taxi drivers who would almost always say "Assalamu Alaikum," ask me where I'm from or if I'm single, or not allow me to pay for the fare became cold and dry. I would simply give the address, and the only dialog thereafter was at time of payment. It was puzzling," she wrote.

But the wrap around her head made all the difference. And so she decided to conduct her own social experiment, much like skinny people who don fat suits or white people who darken their skin to see how others react to their new "body."

"I started paying more attention to the difference in the way people treated me. It was fun feeling like everyone around me believed I belonged in their culture by default, and not as part of the begrudgingly adopted diversity piece of the pie. It was a good feeling. I secretly started looking forward to venturing out into the cold to further explore what it meant to be 'normal.'

"I became even more confident walking in my city. My city. All the stares were not racially related anymore. I was addressed as 'lady' and 'little lady,' something I had never heard before. Men would hold doors for me. Women would crack jokes with me. I became respectable, lovable, and accepted."

Suleiman, a 25-year-old architectural designer in Chicago who graduated from Illinois Institute of Technology, was born in Oak Lawn and lives in Chicago Ridge. A large population of Muslims, many with roots in Palestine, is concentrated in the south suburbs.

Her blog, posted on Feb. 7 and titled "I Took Off My Hijab," has more than 200 comments as of Feb. 13. Suleiman goes on to write that the realization, only made possible by this winter's record-setting cold temperatures and windchill in Chicago, saddened her.

"I immediately began to despise the inequality, and it dawned on me that I acted like someone who was bullied for years, and finally was accepted by the mean girls ..."

Commenters on her blog found the experiment thought-provoking, however.

"Sounds quite adventurous! Perhaps the fact that the 'hijabis' ignored you because you were not visibly Muslim may indicate both sides of the problem .Too often insularity is what keeps people from being treated as 'normal,'" said one.

Adds another: "Honestly, I think many non-Muslims in America aren't quite sure how to approach someone in a hijab. It's not that you're Muslim. It's that you simply dress in a way that is different and it's a bit intimidating."


Behind the Campaign For War Against Iran
Mark Weber - Institute for Historical Review
http://www.ihr.org/other/behindwarcampaign

In recent years prominent American politicians and other influential public figures have spoken repeatedly of the alleged danger of Iran's nuclear program, and have again and again threatened war against this Middle East nation of 75 million ... How real is this "threat"? How dangerous is Iran? What's behind the campaign for war? And what does all this mean for Americans? In fact, the so-called Iran "crisis" is artificial ... Often ignored amid the clamor for war are the sober warnings of informed scholars, historians, specialists, analysts, and military leaders, who point out some basic, key facts: Iran is not building nuclear weapons, Iran is not a threat to the US ... War is not the answer. What's needed instead is a bold new reality-based approach toward Iran.


Pakistan
Historic Call for Peace in Pakistan: Call to army & Pak Talibs to stop fighting.
by Anwar Niazi

LAHORE, Feb. 15; Ameer, Jamaat e Islami, Pakistan, Syed Munawar Hasan, has said that dialogue was the only way out from the terrorism and lawlessness confronting the country and all patriotic forces must unite and stand on one page for the success of the talks.

Addressing the Ulema convention organized by the JUI(S) headed by Maulana Sami ul Haq in the city on Saturday, he said that undoubtedly, by opting for talks process, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had foiled all conspiracies to plunge the country into the mire of lawlessness and chaos. He said the Ulema stood completely united for the success of the talks for the restoration of peace.

Representatives from 32 religious parties including some party heads attended the convention held at a local hotel. Those who addressed included Maulana Samiul Haq, Allama Awais Noorani, Maulana Tahir Ashrafi, Allama Sher Ali, Liaqat Baloch, Prof. Ibrahim Khan and Maulana Yousuf Shah.

The convention announced all out support to the government- Taliban talks and assured every possible help for the talks success.

Syed Munawar Hasan said there should be immediate ceasefire from both the sides. He said that Pakistan had bitter experiences of military operations and instead of repeating those, the path of dialogue must be adopted for peace. He remarked that if democratic system failed, no one would invite dictatorship. Therefore, the same approach would be adopted for peace.

The JI chief said that the American lobby had been dreaming of military operation which would ruin all prospects of peace, and said this lobby had been deeply hurt over Prime Minister's announcement for talks while the government and the Taliban had behaved most prudently in a complicated situation. He urged the nation to lend full support to Maulana Samiul Haq's commendable efforts to resolve the issue.

Syed Munawar Hasan said that Pakistan could lead the Muslim Ummah only if was strong and peaceful within, and that was why the anti Islam forces wanted to perpetuate instability and disruption here. The patriotic forces should foil their evil designs through supporting the peace process, he added.

2014-02-16 Sun 09:28:05 cst
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