Redditch Unites as EDL March Ends Peacefully

Those who oppose fascism outnumber the hate-mongering EDL:

Redditch unites as EDL march ends peacefully

(Redditch Standard)

REDDITCH residents put on a show of unity and defiance as a march through the town from the EDL passed off peacefully.

More than 100 officers were drafted in from across the West Mercia force area as well as Warwickshire, West Midlands and British Transport Police to help control the event and tensions were high throuhgout the day as a large counter demonstration, made up of residents from all sections of Redditch’s community and members of United Against Facism, attemped to get near to the main EDL rally.

Between 100 and 150 members of the EDL from across the region turned out for Saturday’s rally which saw speeches made from the bandstand although police officially estimate the figure at about 40.

The event lasted for about half an hour during which members of the group urged people to ‘wake up to the facts’ about Islam and made a number of anti-islamic statements and chants.

Trouble flared when passers-by from the afro-caribbean community angered by some of the comments attempted to intervene with the rally and a lager can appeared to be thrown from the EDL side, but officers quickly intervened. In total there were three arrests – one for a breach of the peace and two on suspicion of assault – and police say they were all men and believed to have been attached to the counter EDL demonstration.

EDL member Ed Stevens said they were trying to raise awareness about the threat of Islamic grooming of young white girls.

“It’s an awareness campaign, more than anything particularly connected to Redditch. There have been one or two minor incidents around this town but the main thing is we are coming to town and cities everywhere to say take notice of what’s going on in your country.”

But after the group left about 3pm the larger counter demonstration, with an estimated 500 people involved and which had been held back for most of the day in Easemore Road, marched through the town down to the railway station and back again before holding a brief rally also at the bandstand.

There are now plans to set-up a Redditch Against Facism group.

Safder Hussain, one of the organisers of the counter-protest, said: “The message we have sent to day is straightforward, we do not want the EDL here, we are united and we are strong in that.

“Redditch is a mixed community, I have personally lived here for 40 years and I have never had race relation problems, 99 per cent of Redditch people are the friendlist, nicest people you could ever hope to meet. These people from outside Redditch are coming in to Redditch to spread their malicious, evil, garbage.”

Smallwood resident Charlotte Gallen added: “I have lived here all my life, we are proud of the diversity in our town and we always have been.”

Other faith groups across Redditch also lent their support to the counter-protest.

Read more: Redditch unites as EDL march ends peacefully | Redditch Standard

Nigerians Want to Transcend Sectarian and Ethnic Violence

There are those who look at violence between Muslims and Christians with glee, such as Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller. For them, when Muslims act criminally or hatefully it is more fodder to smear Islam, while dismissing the same logic for Christian attacks on Muslims.

What boggles their mind however is when Muslims and Christians come together and oppose sectarianism and actively seek peace and reconciliation.

This is the case in Nigeria, where many want to transcend sectarian and ethnic violence (h/t: SK).

Here for example are pictures of recent protests in Nigeria showing solidarity and unity between Nigerians and Muslims:

Muslim and Christian Nigerians holding up their respective symbols

An Imam and a Pastor in a show of unity

Christians protesters protecting praying Muslim protesters (something we also saw in Egypt):

Muslims are also protecting Christian centers of worship. This needs to become a movement within Nigeria (h/t: Thomas Miles):

Protest: Muslim Youths Guard Churches

Some youths, mainly Muslim faithful, organised themselves into groups yesterday to guard worshippers in some churches in parts of Minna, Niger State capital, as part of a solidarity gesture against the removal of oil subsidy.

LEADERSHIP observed in Kpakungu area of Minna that some of the youths earlier dispersed by the Police on Friday from protesting at the Polo Field, Minna, had regrouped to protect some of the churches.

It was observed that the youths mounted the gates of the churches as their Christian counterparts were worshipping, and conducted themselves peacefully in order not to cause any apprehensions.

The youths, under the umbrella of Concerned Minna Residents, were last Friday dispersed by the police for lack of identity, with the Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Mohammed Maishanu,  saying they could not be granted a permit to hold protest.

The leader of the group, Awaal Gata, told LEADERSHIP in an interview at St Mary’s Catholic Church, Kpakungu, said, “we are protecting our fellow Christian brothers and sisters to show the people that our leaders cannot use religion to divide us.

“In this struggle, we are determined to make sure that the removal of fuel subsidy will not stay; we want to send a signal – by coming here to protect our Christians friends and to show that we are one and our Christian brothers will do same on Friday,” he added.

Asked whether they got police permit to do what they were doing, he said: “We are peaceful; we are here to protect ourselves and to emphasize that security is not only in the hands of the police -  security is the responsibility of every citizen.”

These are the forces and the voices who should be promoted. Yet extremists on both sides want to see violence in a push for power.

Offers of Aid Pour in After Fire at Mosque

Fire Tears Down Mosque

When bigotry leads to the eventual outcome of violence, the response of the community is important. In this case the community has stepped up to the plate and offered to right a wrong by offering aid to a mosque that was burned down in Kansas.

This is the type of story that doesn’t get much coverage, and it is similar to Muslims rebuilding Churches that have been burnt down in Egypt but that is something the Islamophobes won’t ever tell you.

When the Rev. Jackie Carter learned of the fire that heavily damaged a mosque in west Wichita early Monday morning, she knew what she needed to do.

“They are welcome to use the worship space at our building,” said Carter, pastor of First Metropolitan Community Church at 156 S. Kansas. “We believe it’s important for everyone to have sacred space, and now they don’t.”

It’s just one of numerous offers of assistance for the mosque and those who pray there, said Hussam Madi, a spokesman for the Islamic Society of Wichita.

The society posted a letter of appreciation on its website today.

“On behalf of the Islamic Society of Wichita, we would like to thank the Wichita community for the outpouring of support we continue to receive in response to the fire at the Westside Islamic Center,” Jenaya McHenry, office manager for the Islamic Society of Wichita, stated in the letter.

“We have received numerous phone calls and e-mails from individuals and churches offering kind words, support, services and space to aid the Muslim community in Wichita. We are truly grateful to be part of such a giving community and for each and every person who has reached out to us.”

The cause of the fire at the mosque at 3406 W. Taft, southeast of Maple and West streets, remains under investigation.

“There are plans to rebuild,” Madi said. “It’s going to require some fundraisers.”

Preliminary cost estimates are in the $120,000 range, he said.

People wishing to send financial donations for the mosque can send them to the Islamic Society of Wichita, 6655 E. 34th St. North, 67226.

“We deeply appreciate the help and the offers from other peoples of faith in our city,” Madi said.

“That makes us feel that we are a part of this community, which we work hard to be a part of.”

Read more: http://www.kansas.com/2011/11/02/2087434/offers-of-aid-pour-in-after-fire.html#ixzz1ckj8RFAV

Rabbis Stand In Solidarity With Burned Mosque In Israel

(cross-posted from HuffPo)

By Josef Kuhn
Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS) More than a thousand rabbis from around the world have signed a statement denouncing the burning of an Israeli mosque as police arrested a suspect who is alleged to be a Jewish extremist.

“We condemn those in Israel who exacerbate conflict and strife, and who insist that only one people or religion belongs to this land,” said the statement, which organizers say was overwhelmingly signed by U.S. rabbis.

The statement was presented on Thursday (Oct. 6) by a delegation of dozens of rabbis and peace activists to the imam of Tuba-Zangria, the Galilean village where the mosque was torched.

The statement was initiated by the New Israel Fund (NIF), an organization that promotes human rights and religious pluralism in Israel.

David Rosenn, the chief operating officer of NIF and a Conservative rabbi, called the mosque arson “a flagrant challenge to Jewish history and values.”

The envoys to Tuba-Zangria were led by a coalition established in 2009 in response to a book that argued that, in times of war, Jewish law permits the pre-emptive killing of noninvolved gentiles, including children.

The arson has been condemned by Israel’s chief rabbis and a host of Jewish groups in the United States, including the Anti-Defamation League, which said the attack represented “the violence and hatred among fringe groups of Israeli Jewish extremists.”

Israeli officials have arrested a suspect in the arson, described by The Associated Press as an “18-year-old seminary student with ties to one of the most hardline Jewish settlements in the West Bank.”

Ron Paul’s Unforgivable Sin of Opposing America’s Sacred Wars, And Why Are Muslims So Warlike?

Image taken from kickapathy.com

As the GOP debates and subsequent presidential campaigns unfold, one very popular Republican candidate will get the cold shoulder from the mainstream media machine: the esteemable Congressman and good doctor Ron Paul. No matter how many straw polls the man wins, no matter how much money he raises from enthusiastic supporters, and no matter how many soldiers enlist in the Ron Paul Army, nothing will make him a Serious Candidate in the eyes of the mainstream media. He is Unserious–a Fringe Candidate who stands no chance of winning an election.

A self-fulfilling prophecy is put into effect: the MSM refuses to cover him “because he can never win an election;” because he receives no MSM coverage, he can never win an election.

As Glenn Greenwald puts it:

They are also vital in bolstering orthodoxies and narrowing the range of permitted views.  Few episodes demonstrate how that works better than the current disappearing of Ron Paul, all but an “unperson” in Orwellian terms.  He just finished a very close second to Michele Bachmann in the Ames poll, yet while she went on all five Sunday TV shows and dominated headlines, he was barely mentioned.  He has raised more money than any GOP candidate other than Romney, and routinely polls in the top 3 or 4 of GOP candidates in national polls, yet — as Jon Stewart and Politico‘s Roger Simon have both pointed out — the media have decided to steadfastly pretend he does not exist, leading to absurdities like this:

And this:

.

What has Ron Paul done to earn the wrath of the mainstream media and the Very Serious Establishment? Paul certainly has some strange views when it comes to the budget: strangulating medicare, medicaid, and welfare, as well as cutting funding for education and other vital public programs. Yet, it is unlikely that any of these political stances could ostracize him or make him Unserious, since some Very, Very Serious Republican candidates hold similar views on such issues.

What makes Dr. Paul stand out from the rest of the pack are his views with regard to the war and civil liberties–his complete rejection of the so-called War on Terror. He rejects the conventional wisdom that necessitates endless wars to Keep Us Safe against Terrorism. Paul refuses to cheerlead America’s Endless Wars, and is brave enough to point out the injustices in our foreign policy. Paul points out that if we point one finger at the Evil Muslim Enemy, four fingers point back at us.

For pointing out that the emperor wears no clothes, Ron Paul earns the contempt of Serious Journalists, who ensure that Paul is marginalized. He must be silenced and made irrelevant.  When he speaks about such topics in the press, people get antsy.  So the establishment desperately attempts to shut him up.

Greenwald says (emphasis added):

There are many reasons why the media is eager to disappear Ron Paul despite his being a viable candidate by every objective metric…

But what makes the media most eager to disappear Paul is that he destroys the easy, conventional narrative — for slothful media figures and for Democratic loyalists alike. Aside from the truly disappeared former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson (more on him in a moment), Ron Paul is far and away the most anti-war, anti-Surveillance-State, anti-crony-capitalism, and anti-drug-war presidential candidate in either party…That the similarly anti-war, pro-civil-liberties, anti-drug-war Gary Johnson not even allowed in media debates — despite being a twice-elected popular governor — highlights the same dynamic…

The steadfast ignoring of Ron Paul — and the truly bizarre un-personhood of Gary Johnson — has ensured that, yet again, those views will be excluded…

Paul and Johnson committed the unforgivable crime of opposing war (not just one war, but all of America’s wars), and for this they will be punished. For this, they will never be able to even dream of being considered a Serious presidential nominee, let alone President of the United States.  The media’s selection of who is Serious and who is Unserious is all a part of the manufactured consent that Noam Chomksy so eloquently wrote about many years ago.

Think about that for a minute: our country is so absolutely and steadfastly pro-war that there is no room for peaceniks. The Just War theory forbids war except in self-defense. None of America’s many wars fits this description: that’s quite easy to see when we note that our troops are deployed in far away, foreign lands. We’re not defending ourselves from an invader who occupies Southern California or who is stationed in Maine. Even the thought of another nation’s army marching into any U.S. state is completely unthinkable, almost as unrealistic as Martians landing on earth.  We have no need to engage in Just War since we are actually very, very safe and secure–our defense is virtually impregnable, such that there is no plausible scenario where our territory could be occupied or our capital advanced upon.

My point is: if a person believed in the Just War theory and rejected war except when it fulfilled those very narrow conditions, it would then be necessary to reject each of America’s wars. But doing so would mean departing from the acceptable parameters of national debate; it would mean becoming part of the Fringe and Unserious.

One simply simply cannot be taken Seriously unless one is a war-monger. Is it not strange that such a nation as this would somehow be absolutely mystified that another peoples, those living under the boots of their American or Israeli occupiers, would glorify jihad?

One simply must be a warmonger in America to be taken Seriously–as the current president himself is and all of the Serious presidential candidates are–yet somehow Those Warlike Moozlums Over There are so violent for glorifying jihad against the occupier.

Truly opposing the concept of wars of aggression (the supreme international crime)–to have a minimum commitment to peace by at least adhering to the Just War doctrine–does not mean simply opposing one of America’s wars and accepting another. Many of those on the Left somehow think they aren’t war-mongers even while they strongly supported (and some continue to support) the Afghanistan war.  After all, what can we think about a people who respond in such a brutal manner–devastating an entire country (and then another after that)–in retaliation for one terrorist attack (committed by a non-state actor no less) except that they are warlike? Even Ron Paul himself initially voted to invade Afghanistan, although he redeemed himself by becoming an outspoken critic of the war. Yet there continue to exist liberals who support the Afghanistan war, even while they think of themselves as “peaceful.”

War is so sacred in America that truly opposing war makes a presidential candidate Unserious and un-electable.  How truly grave a political sin this is can be gauged by the fact that Ron Paul is now Unserious, even while Michelle Bachman is slowly being considered a Serious candidate. Newt Gingrich is a Very Serious candidate, even though he has supported virulently anti-Muslim propaganda and the absolutely loony, fear-mongering idea of “stealth jihad” and “creeping sharia.” Those ideas aren’t Unserious enough to warrant exclusion from the mainstream media’s blessing, but opposing war is an automatic trip to the Unserious waste bin. Unabashed bigotry is acceptable whereas peacemaking is Unserious, Fringe, and unacceptable.

* * * * *

Would you consider voting for Ron Paul?  Why or why not? Let us know in the comments’ section below.

Daniel Barenboim: Peace Concert in Gaza

Peace through Music and justice.

Barenboim to conduct ‘peace concert’ in Gaza

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim will on Tuesday lead an orchestra of European musicians in a peace concert in Gaza, in the first-ever performance there by such a prestigious international ensemble.

The rare concert, which will take place at lunchtime at the Al-Mathaf Cultural House, was announced on Monday by the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process (UNSCO).

It will be the first time that Barenboim, an outspoken proponent of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, has visited the coastal territory, a spokeswoman for the chamber orchestra told AFP.

“It is the first time,” Judith Neuhoff confirmed, saying that the ensemble, which is made up of 25 musicians and known as the “Orchestra for Gaza,” had been put together especially for the visit.

In a statement released by UNSCO, Barenboim said he was “very happy” to be coming to Gaza. “We are playing this concert as a sign of our solidarity and friendship with the civil society of Gaza,” he said.

The musicians, who belong to five prestigious European orchestras, were expected to enter Gaza from Egypt on Tuesday, via the southern Rafah border crossing, a UNSCO spokesman said.

They will travel directly to the venue where they will play a programme of pieces by Mozart including Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and the G minor symphony to an audience of between 300 to 400 people, which will include music students and other members of Gaza’s civil society.

“The concert is to try and bring something to the people of Gaza,” he said. “It is not a political event in any sense.”

Ibrahim al-Najjar, director of Al-Qattan Music School, the only such establishment in Gaza, told AFP that he and a group of his students would greet the 68-year-old maestro and his delegation, which numbers around 50 people, at the Rafah border.

“This visit is very important to us for many reasons, both cultural and civil,” he told AFP.

Although a handful of musicians had visited Gaza in recent months to support the school and to teach classes, it was the first time such a large group of so many prestigious players was coming, he said.

The ensemble includes players from the Berlin Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, the Vienna Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris and the Orchestra of La Scala di Milano.

“We love culture, and music is a way of expressing peace and showing that we Palestinians are civilised,” Najjar said, adding that it was important that people had a chance to meet the orchestra and get to know different musical instruments.

“And from a political perspective, it is important to show that Gaza is a safe place,” he said.

Israelis are forbidden by law to venture into Palestinian territory. Barenboim has previously been refused entry to Gaza by the Israeli army — most recently in April 2010 — meaning the only way for him to enter the Hamas-run territory is via Rafah.

The legendary conductor, who lives in Berlin and holds Argentine, Israeli and Spanish citizenship, also accepted honorary Palestinian citizenship in 2008, saying he hoped the move would be an example of the “everlasting bond” between Israelis and Palestinians.

He has long used his fame as a conductor and pianist to promote the cause of peace between Israel and its neighbours, and in 1999 co-founded a “peace orchestra” with his friend Edward W. Said, a Palestinian-American scholar who died in 2003.

Known as the East-West Divan orchestra, it brings together Israeli, Arab and international musicians, and in 2005 it performed in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Barenboim performs regularly in the West Bank, but has never performed in Gaza, which has been subjected to a crippling Israeli blockade since 2006, which was eased somewhat last year following international pressure.

Jewish Voice for Peace Chief Threatened for Being “Pro-Palestinian”

No word from Spencer on this yet. Imagine if a Muslim had done this, there would be cries about the intolerance of Muslims and how inherently Islam cannot deal with dissension.

Jewish Voice for Peace chief threatened over pro-Palestinian campaign

(Haaretz)

The head of the pro-Palestinian organization Jewish Voice for Peace received a threatening poster at her Los Angeles area home this weekend for her involvement in the organization.

Estee Chandler, the organization leader on the West coast, said she found a poster on her front porch last week reading “WANTED for treason and incitement against Jews.”

According to Chandler, the poster displayed her picture, her workplace, other personal details and names of her relatives.

The poster charged her with using “her own presumed Jewishness as a weapon against the Jewish People and the Jewish State of Israel while conspiring with other well-known anti-Israel groups to assist in Israel’s destruction and to otherwise engender hatred and incite further violence against the Jewish People and the Jewish State of Israel.”

In a statement responding to the threat published on the organization’s website, Chandler said  “I was forewarned about extremists when I first decided to start a Jewish Voice for Peace chapter here in my hometown of Los Angeles. I went into it with my eyes open. While I didn’t think anything would happen this soon, i cant say it wasn’t something I didn’t anticipate. Ultimately I think these people really are cowards, and not really to be feared.”

“We are the silent majority of American Jews and its time for us to stop being silent. if we raise our voices a fraction of the level of these people- we will become the message, too many people who are with us are afraid. ultimately nonviolence is the only thing that has ever won out,” she added.

In October last year, the Anti-Defamation League named the Jewish Voice for Peace — which champions the rights of Palestinians and is considered an anti-Israel organization by many Americans, especially after calling to boycott companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza – among the top 10 anti-Israel groups in America.

The organization, however, maintains the stand that they are not fighting against Israel or challenging its right to exist, but rather questioning the Israeli government’s policies and actions in the Palestinian territories.

The distributors of the threatening poster have yet to be found, according to the JVP.

 

The Rally to Restore Sanity: No Need to Fear Muslims

Candidates for anti-Loons of the Year, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert held their combined Rallies to Restore Sanity and March to Keep Fear Alive on the Washington Mall, Saturday October, 30th. The event was held to promote a dialogue of reasonableness and restore rationality to the divided discourse that exists in America. Over 250,000 people showed up, more than Glenn Beck’s Rally to Restore Honor which garnered around 90,000.

Among the many messages, one was explicitly addressing the irrational fears Americans have of Muslims.

Jon Stewart on his intentions for the rally,

JON STEWART: I’m really happy you guys are here, even if none of us are really quite sure why. So, what exactly was this? I can’t control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are, and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.

But unfortunately, one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country’s twenty-four-hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen. Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.

There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the résumé. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams or Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people, but to the racists themselves, who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate—just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe, not more.

Stewart and Colbert also awarded Jacob Isom a medal for his contribution to restoring sanity,

JON STEWART: Our next honoree reacted quickly when he found himself face-to-face with a flammable situation.

JACOB ISOM: Snuck up behind him and took his Quran. He said something about burning the Quran. I was like, “Dude, you have no Quran,” and ran off.

JON STEWART: I like that. Can we hear that again, maybe with a dance remix?

JACOB ISOM: [remixed] You have no Quran. Snuck up behind him and took his Quran. Said something about burning the Quran. I was like, “Dude, you have no Quran. Dude, you have no Quran.”

JON STEWART: Thank you, YouTube. Now, obviously I don’t normally condone ripping things out of people’s hands, but I think in this situation it was the most reasonable thing to do. Ladies and gentleman, our final awardee, Jacob Isom. Sir? Come on up, brother. Oh, there you go.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Boo-ya! Dude, you have no medal! How’s that feel?

Finally, the pair of comedians had an exchange with Karim Abdul Jabbar to highlight the fact that Americans shouldn’t fear Islam and Muslims and those who are doing criminal actions are a very tiny minority:

STEPHEN COLBERT: What about Muslims?

JON STEWART: What? What about them?

STEPHEN COLBERT: They attacked us.

JON STEWART: Stephen, “they” did not. Some people who happen to be of Muslim faith attacked us. But there are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. Most of them—

STEPHEN COLBERT: Did not, is what you’re saying?

JON STEWART: That is correct.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Oh, Jon, oh, so you’re saying—you’re saying that there is no reason at all to be afraid of Osama bin Laden?

JON STEWART: No, Osama bin Laden is a specific person. He’s bad.

STEPHEN COLBERT: He is a specific bad Muslim person.

JON STEWART: Yeah, but that’s not—there are plenty of Muslim people that are not bad and that you would like, and that’s fine.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Oh, really? Who? Who would I like?

JON STEWART: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?

JON STEWART: Yes, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Kareem!

JON STEWART: That is someone that you would—

STEPHEN COLBERT: Watch your head. Kareem, my man! Hey, Kareem!

JON STEWART: You know, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is Muslim.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Well, that’s not fair, Jon. That’s not a fair example. Kareem is cool. We’re friends.

KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, we’re acquaintances. You know, a real friend understands that no matter what religious position someone plays, we’re all on the same team.

It was an amazing rally, and despite all the attempts to undercut it and underplay its significance by both the media and certain politicians it was a tremendous success! The message at the end of the day was that we can have disagreements in a reasonable manner and that what binds us as humans is stronger than what divides us. As cliche as it sounds, at the end of the day it was a call for peace and love.

I leave you with this duet between Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) and Ozzy Osbourne doing their respective Peace Train and Crazy Train:

 

Thanks to the Imam, My Little Son Got Serious About Synagogue

A very nicely written piece by Rabbi Marc Gopin.

Thanks to the Imam, My Little Son Got Serious About Synagogue

by Marc Gopin

It was three days before Rosh Hashanah, and I was predictably anxious about my identity, my life, about my family’s Jewish future. As a good and fractious Jew, I was somewhat ambivalent about which synagogue I would go to: The one I sometimes go to? The one I would never step foot in? The one that I really should create on my own, maybe?

This Rosh Hashanah was different for two reasons. My 87-year old mother, who lives alone 400 miles away in Boston, had pneumonia. So we were on our way to Boston, but I had to honor a commitment to my dear friend Yahya Hendi, who is an imam. He wanted the whole family, the whole world, it seems, but especially Jews and Christians, for an iftar, a very sacred celebration as a part of Ramadan. He wanted us all to share in every aspect of the evening, and so made his backyard into a center of prayer and his house into a feast.

My son Isaac is so attached to baseball that he brings his glove and ball everywhere, just in case: you never know when you might meet another seven-year-old in search of round objects to bat, pound, throw and kick. Sure enough, Imam Hendi’s young son was outside pounding a soccer ball, furiously, back and forth, by himself! Ah, a delicious sight for my son, all the right signals of a fellow juvenile madman in motion, a mark of the truly committed, those who play even by themselves!

So Isaac lunged toward the boy, but what is this? A soccer ball?! Where is the baseball? And so I witnessed a moment of cultural crisis, that great Atlantic Ocean divide between the obsession with soccer and the obsession with baseball. Not to worry, I turned away for just a few minutes, and they were tossing the baseball. Peace on earth, goodwill toward mankind, Arab/Jewish conflict resolved, game, set, match.

Then something strange happened to my son. The crowds parted on the grass, the Muslims came to the center and lined up precisely, and Imam Hendi called his boy to the front. The imam then gave an impassioned speech on the intense love he felt for everyone there, for all Jews and all Christians, and on how indeed there was no proper way to be a Muslim other than through love.

My boy was watching all these men and women gather. Then Yahya’s boy led the call to prayer, and my son’s face was aglow with his beautiful eyes full of wonder. I stared at Isaac staring at Yahya’s boy in reverence, and I, on the side, in the cool of the night, underneath brilliant stars, prayed that maybe we should just stay in that moment.

You see, Imam Hendi felt especially motivated to gather everyone because we were days away from the spectacle of an American Quran burning. He was on television, and I was being called for a television spot that night. So here we were, Yahya and a hundred guests, prayers and blessings, my girls and his girls, my boy and his boy, and also a world gone mad.

I noticed a change in Isaac after that night. He came to Synagogue with me, with the glove, as usual, but I caught him watching and listening intently to ceremony, mouthing many of the words he did not know yet. I saw him begin to explore his identity as a spiritual being.

I watched a second birth, the birth of a human being who seeks out what is beyond, at first through the worship practices of the fathers and the mothers, through the ceremonies of the ancients, through engaging what has come before.

For that second birth of my son, I have Imam Yahya Hendi to thank, a Palestinian who just buried his father back home in bad circumstances, who is fatherless now, just like me, trying to make the world safe for his beloved children. I see him there on the grass, hands raised, palms up, the stars blazing above, saying his ancient words, Allahu Akbar. I think to myself, yes, sometimes God is great, when we find the Divine Presence in the eyes of strangers, and in the loving words of long lost cousins. And I think that this year I inaugurated my Isaac on a good journey.

Rabbi Marc Gopin, author of To Make the Earth Whole, is the James Laue Professor and Director of CRDC, George Mason University, and a co-founder of MEJDI (www.mejdi.net), a Jewish/Arab social enterprise that offers educational peace tours in support of honest businesses and social change activists.

 

Rabbi Menachem Froman and 20 Settlers Replace Burned Qurans

Neighboring settlers disgusted by other settlers opposed to peace have replaced Qurans that were burnt when a mosque in the Bayt Fajar village was attacked.

Settlers Replace Korans Burnt in West Bank

Haaretz

Settlers on Tuesday gave new copies of the Koran to Palestinians in a West Bank village whose mosque was burned in an attack blamed by Palestinians on settlers.

Several copies of Islam’s holy book were scorched in the arson attack and threats in Hebrew were scrawled on the wall of the mosque of Beit Fajjar early on Monday.

The village sits on the edge of the Jewish settlement bloc of Gush Etzion.

Suspicion immediately fell on settlers opposed to a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, in which some settlements could be turned over to a Palestinian state.

“This visit is to say that although there are people who oppose peace, he who opposes peace is opposed to God,” said Rabbi Menachem Froman, a well-known peace activist and one of a handful of settlers who went to Beit Fajjar to show solidarity with their Muslim neighbors.

Froman and other Jews and Palestinians who advocate coexistence held a demonstration by a busy West Bank highway junction, displaying banners saying: “We all want to live in peace.” But fewer than 20 people turned out.

“I would like to see more people come to events like this,” said Aharon Frasier, a young American-born rabbi from a nearby settlement who wanted to express his “strong objections” to an attack that contradicts Jewish values.

“We can’t leave it to the politicians. We have to do what we believe in” to build peace and security, he said.

Stone-throwing youths

When Israeli security forces prevented Beit Fajjar Palestinians from joining what was supposed to be their joint demonstration, Palestinians youths began throwing stones at the
troops, who fired tear-gas in response.

No injuries were reported.

One ultra-Orthodox young Jewish bystander seemed baffled by the demonstration. “A demonstration against the burning of the mosque?” he asked reporters. “Have the settlers all turned left-wing?”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has called for calm while the Israeli and Palestinian leaders try to avert the collapse of U.S.-backed peace negotiations, condemned the mosque attack and urged police to track down the arsonists.

Any flare-up of violence in the West Bank poses a direct threat to peace talks that were launched just a month ago but suspended by the Palestinians last week when a 10-month Israeli moratorium on building new houses in West Bank Jewish settlements expired.

On the eve of a Washington summit to launch the direct negotiations on Sept 2, four Israelis were killed in a shooting attack near Hebron for which the militant Palestinian Islamist group Hamas claimed responsibility.

 

Robert Harush: Israeli Millionaire Helps Build Mosque in France

An interesting story about one Israeli who is working to bridge the divide of hate.

Israeli millionaire builds mosque in France

Ofer Petersburg

Published:

07.01.10, 07:59 / Israel Activism

An unlikely benefactor. An Ashkelon resident who made a fortune in the European real estate business has decided to pay for the construction of a mosque in France for the benefit of the local Muslim community.

Father of four Robert Harush, 58, grew up in Ashkelon and having completed his military service tried his luck in the real estate business in Europe. His success has won him many hotels and buildings and he is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of shekels.

Despite his success Harush did not forget his hometown and has returned to Ashkelon and invested in local building ventures. For the past 10 years he has been dividing his time between Israel and France. His four children all speak Hebrew.

The businessman even chose to stay in the southern city during Operation Cast Lead. He remained in Israel also after a Grad rocket landed near his house.

Surprisingly, he has not harbored any ill-feelings against the Arab side and is a strong supporter of co-existence. He was recently approached by the mayor of Montereau, a French city adjacent to Paris, who informed him of his difficulties in financing the renovation of a large mosque in the city.

“I told myself ‘here is an opportunity to bring the people together’ and decided to donate the money,” Harush said. “People were dumbfounded. What does a Jewish-Israeli man have do to with refurbishing a mosque? The answer is simple: I’m sick and tired of the hatred. A sane voice must emerge.”

Harush explained that he built the mosque in order to promote co-existence. “It wasn’t a cheap venture but I did with all my heart.”

Ashkelon projects

Leaders of the Montereau Muslim community have thanked Harush for the gesture and maintain a warm relationship with him.

The businessman, however, is not interested in supporting the Muslim community alone and has paid for the construction of one of the largest and most grandiose synagogues in Asheklon last year, which was named after his late father.

He is currently working on setting up a mikveh in the southern city to be dedicated to his late mother. “I myself am not a religious person but I feel that in the absence of upstanding politicians it falls on businessmen to bring together Jews and Arabs and seculars and the religious.

 

Breaking News: Dalai Lama converts to Islam

Tenzin Gyatso. Who!? The Dalai Lama. Oh ok!

Many Faiths, One Truth

WHEN I was a boy in Tibet, I felt that my own Buddhist religion must be the best — and that other faiths were somehow inferior. Now I see how naïve I was, and how dangerous the extremes of religious intolerance can be today.

Though intolerance may be as old as religion itself, we still see vigorous signs of its virulence. In Europe, there are intense debates about newcomers wearing veils or wanting to erect minarets and episodes of violence against Muslim immigrants. Radical atheists issue blanket condemnations of those who hold to religious beliefs. In the Middle East, the flames of war are fanned by hatred of those who adhere to a different faith.

Such tensions are likely to increase as the world becomes more interconnected and cultures, peoples and religions become ever more entwined. The pressure this creates tests more than our tolerance — it demands that we promote peaceful coexistence and understanding across boundaries.

Granted, every religion has a sense of exclusivity as part of its core identity. Even so, I believe there is genuine potential for mutual understanding. While preserving faith toward one’s own tradition, one can respect, admire and appreciate other traditions.

An early eye-opener for me was my meeting with the Trappist monk Thomas Merton in India shortly before his untimely death in 1968. Merton told me he could be perfectly faithful to Christianity, yet learn in depth from other religions like Buddhism. The same is true for me as an ardent Buddhist learning from the world’s other great religions.

A main point in my discussion with Merton was how central compassion was to the message of both Christianity and Buddhism. In my readings of the New Testament, I find myself inspired by Jesus’ acts of compassion. His miracle of the loaves and fishes, his healing and his teaching are all motivated by the desire to relieve suffering.

I’m a firm believer in the power of personal contact to bridge differences, so I’ve long been drawn to dialogues with people of other religious outlooks. The focus on compassion that Merton and I observed in our two religions strikes me as a strong unifying thread among all the major faiths. And these days we need to highlight what unifies us.

Take Judaism, for instance. I first visited a synagogue in Cochin, India, in 1965, and have met with many rabbis over the years. I remember vividly the rabbi in the Netherlands who told me about the Holocaust with such intensity that we were both in tears. And I’ve learned how the Talmud and the Bible repeat the theme of compassion, as in the passage in Leviticus that admonishes, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

In my many encounters with Hindu scholars in India, I’ve come to see the centrality of selfless compassion in Hinduism too — as expressed, for instance, in the Bhagavad Gita, which praises those who “delight in the welfare of all beings.” I’m moved by the ways this value has been expressed in the life of great beings like Mahatma Gandhi, or the lesser-known Baba Amte, who founded a leper colony not far from a Tibetan settlement in Maharashtra State in India. There he fed and sheltered lepers who were otherwise shunned. When I received my Nobel Peace Prize, I made a donation to his colony.

Compassion is equally important in Islam — and recognizing that has become crucial in the years since Sept. 11, especially in answering those who paint Islam as a militant faith. On the first anniversary of 9/11, I spoke at the National Cathedral in Washington, pleading that we not blindly follow the lead of some in the news media and let the violent acts of a few individuals define an entire religion.

Let me tell you about the Islam I know. Tibet has had an Islamic community for around 400 years, although my richest contacts with Islam have been in India, which has the world’s second-largest Muslim population. An imam in Ladakh once told me that a true Muslim should love and respect all of Allah’s creatures. And in my understanding, Islam enshrines compassion as a core spiritual principle, reflected in the very name of God, the “Compassionate and Merciful,” that appears at the beginning of virtually each chapter of the Koran.

Finding common ground among faiths can help us bridge needless divides at a time when unified action is more crucial than ever. As a species, we must embrace the oneness of humanity as we face global issues like pandemics, economic crises and ecological disaster. At that scale, our response must be as one.

Harmony among the major faiths has become an essential ingredient of peaceful coexistence in our world. From this perspective, mutual understanding among these traditions is not merely the business of religious believers — it matters for the welfare of humanity as a whole.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, is the author, most recently, of “Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World’s Religions Can Come Together.”

 

Marwan Bishara: Israeli Religious Forces on the March

Marwan Bishara is an interesting political analyst and host on AlJazeera. His program, Empire is a very insightful view into the modern political landscape and how the power brokers in that landscape are shaping the world. He has penned a penetrating piece on AlJazeera’s website about the rise in the IDF of Jewish religious-nationalists. A fact that will make the Israel-Palestine issue even harder to resolve, while also raising the spectre of an inevitable religious war. This piece was written at a favorable time considering our last piece on the ignorance of Bill Maher.

Israeli Religious Forces on the March by Marwan Bishara

As the Israeli Palestinian ‘peace process’ marches in place, religious-Zionism is marching into the leadership of the Israeli army, rendering an improbable peace mission impossible.

If as expected their number continues to increase at the same rate, no future Israeli leader will be able to evacuate Jewish settlements in the context of a peace agreement.

The radicalisation of Israeli society and polity is evident not only in the most right wing government in the country’s history, but also in the make up of its professional military.

Recent revelations in the Israeli media show how the Israeli military, which was once a bastion of ‘secular Zionism’, is slowly but surely falling under the influence of extreme religious Zionism with a wider role for radical rabbinical chiefs.

The disproportionately high numbers of religious-nationalists in elite units and the combat officer corps is transforming the Israeli military and its relationship to the occupation and illegal settlements.

Dramatic increase

In 1990, the year before the peace process started between Israel and its neighbours, two per cent of the cadets enrolled in the officers’ course for the infantry corps were religious; by 2007, that figure had shot up to 30 per cent.

Moreover, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz:

“This is how the intermediate generation of combat officers looks today: six out of seven lieutenant colonels in the Golani Brigade are religious and, beginning in the summer, the brigade commander will be as well. In the Kfir Brigade, three out of seven lieutenant colonels wear skullcaps, and in the Givati Brigade and the paratroopers, two out of six. In some of the infantry brigades, the number of religious company commanders has passed the 50 per cent mark – more than three times the percentage of the national religious community in the overall population.”

Worse still, according to the Israeli Peace Now organisation, the number of religious nationalists continues to grow at a worrying rate.

Its sources estimate that “more than 50 per cent of the elite combat units now are drawn from the religious nationalist sector of Israeli society”.

Professor Stuart Cohen of Bar Ilan University estimates that during the second intifada (2000-2002) the overall number of religious Zionist soldiers – as defined by those who wear knitted caps, or kippah seruga – in the infantry units may be roughly twice their proportion of the Jewish male population as a whole.

Many of these soldiers live in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Some live in so-called ‘illegal outposts’, which the International Quartet (the US, UN, EU and Russia) insists on dismantling and which Israel considers ‘unlawful’ according to its own narrow standards.

And increasing numbers live in the so-called “illegal outposts”, or those new Jewish settlements considered illegal by the International Quartet (the US, UN, EU and Russia) and according to Israel’s own narrow standards.

Despite Israel’s commitment under the 2003 ‘roadmap for peace’ to evacuate tens of these outposts, they remain standing and are even expanding.

A ‘higher authority’

Clearly, many of those who live in the settlements cannot be expected to help evacuate their own homes if such a time comes. And they are making it known.

Recently, soldiers in the infantry brigade waved placards with the slogan “we did not enlist in order to evacuate Jews” as they paraded in Jerusalem to mark the end of their training.

A number of rabbis have issued religious edicts against such evacuations.

Most of these religious Zionist settlers see settlement in the occupied West Bank (using their biblical names Judea and Samaria) or the overall “land of Israel”, which includes the territories occupied in 1967, as a religious duty.

Although Ariel Sharon, a former Israeli prime minister, succeeded in evacuating the marginal Gaza settlements in 2005, it is doubtful that any such evacuation from the tens of small scattered settlements in the West Bank is possible.

The nationalist religious camp is making it clear that the ‘word of God’ as they see it, takes precedence over the secular leadership.

Reportedly, the top military brass is quite fearful of such a scenario.

Soldiers and settlers

Lately, there have been reports about tensions between the Israeli military and some of the most violent settlers as the military tries to reign in some of their more extreme provocations.

In general, however, the military has been the settlers’ best friend and defender in the occupied territories.

And despite increased settler violence and vandalism against adjacent Palestinian towns and villages, the occupation army has been no less than complicit in the daily harassment of Palestinian residents and farmers.

Many settler-soldiers seem to deploy around their settlements, allowing them to man check points and harass and humiliate Palestinians at road blocks, turning the country’s military into their own private militias.

In the process, Palestinians find themselves held hostage by an Israeli government that has neither the will, nor increasingly the capacity, to deal with the settlement issue – the engine of violence and the terminator of the two state solution.

Eventually, they will march straight into a destructive religious war that is far harder to contain in or outside the ‘Holy Land’.