NOVANEWS
Nov 9, 2010 |
Hamas invites Ahamdinejad to Gaza
Hamas has invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad to visit the Gaza Strip on Monday. Ahmed Youssef, deputy Hamas foreign minister told Iranian news agency Fars that a visit from the Iranian president would lift the spirits of “the resistance front” as it did with Hezbollah in Lebanon last month.
“We are certain his visit would be very significant,” Youssef said in an interview with the news agency. Iran has yet to provide an official response to the invitation, however such a visit is unlikely to take place as Iranian officials do not usually visit the Gaza Strip, despite politically supporting Hamas.
Hamas sources confirmed that Ahmadinejad had been invited to Gaza as part of Palestinian efforts to break the blockade. They told Ynet that the Iranian president had a positive response to the invitation. Nevertheless, Gaza elements estimated the visit is not likely to occur in the near future.
Last month, Ahmadinejad held his first visit to Lebanon, during which he met with Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Tens of thousands of Lebanese rallied in his honor across the country including in Bint Jbeil and Kafr Kana.
Ahmadinejad’s visit was meant to send a message of support to Hezbollah and assist the Shiite group in its internal conflict ahead of an international report on the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
source–ynet
German FM visits Gaza, says blockade unacceptable
Germany’s foreign minister said Monday during a rare visit to Hamas-ruled Gaza that the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians living in the coastal strip is unacceptable and must end.
Guido Westerwelle also said after touring a U.N. school and a German-funded sewage treatment plant that the border closure is strengthening extremists at the expense of moderates.
Israel and Egypt closed Gaza’s borders after Hamas seized the territory more than three years ago. Westerwelle is one of just a few senior Western diplomats to have visited Gaza since 2007.
Israel eased the blockade over the summer, but still bans the import of crucial raw materials and virtually all exports.
Westerwelle said Germany has not forgotten Gaza.
“Some 1.5 million people live in Gaza, and this means of course that the blockade deprives them of opportunities,” he said. “This strengthens radicals and weakens moderates, and the opposite needs to be achieved.”
He also noted that Germany’s call for an end to the blockade is the view of the European Union. Germany is one of Israel’s staunchest supporters in the EU, and Westerwelle’s comments seemed unusually forceful, even though he did not mention Israel by name.
Westerwelle did not meet with Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
The EU, along with the U.S., has shunned the Islamic militants, saying they must recognize Israel and renounce violence if they want to end their isolation.
Westerwelle also demanded that Hamas release Sgt. Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas-allied militants in a cross-border raid in 2006.
Hamas wants Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Schalit, but years of negotiations, most recently mediated by Germany, have produced no tangible results.
“Let this young man go home after years of imprisonment,” Westerwelle told a Gaza news conference, appealing to Hamas.
Source: AP News
FATAH USING IRAN BOGEY TO JUSTIFY SURRENDER TO ISRAEL
by Khalid Amayreh
Trying to justify its manifest moral and political bankruptcy, the Fatah movement, under PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, is trying to use the so-called Iran bogey to justify its effective surrender to the Zionist regime.
Fatah, which is kept alive by American money and Israeli tolerance, thinks that by joining the international Zionist-led campaign against Iran, it will obtain a certificate of good conduct from Israel, the US as well as from the many American puppet regimes in the Arab world.
In recent weeks, the Fatah leadership even began currying favor with some anti-Iranian regional groups, suggesting that resisting the so-called Iranian expansionism was more important than resisting Israeli Nazism.
In fact, the bulk of some of Fatah’s propaganda activities has centered on “highlighting” the Iranian danger and only secondarily on saving Jerusalem and occupied Palestinian land from the claws of Zionist ghoul.
I have no doubts that Zionist money and intelligence are behind those who are trying to tell the Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims that their real enemy is Iran, not the Zionist regime whose nuclear warheads are being trained toward Muslim countries.
Listening to some of the Fatah propaganda of late, one would get the impression that it is the Iranians, not the Zionist regime, that is trying to demolish the Aqsa Mosque, destroy homes in Jerusalem, build more colonies in the West Bank and carry out more wars and massacres in the Gaza Strip.
This misplaced fixation on Iran surfaces and resurfaces every time Israel is facing a difficult situation at the international arena. Hence, it is probably no co-incidence that Israel’s Arab or “Muslim” agents hasten to help their ultimate master, the Venomous Zionist viper, every time it finds itself in a stressful situation.
Earlier this week, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas blamed Iran for undermining the Palestinian reconciliation efforts. He also said that Iran was preventing Hamas from getting involved in that failed “peace” process, which looks more like a game of make believe than a genuine peace-making process based on justice and ending the Nazi-like Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
To begin with, Abbas’s claim that Hamas is coming under Iranian influence has no sliver of truth or credibility. It is probably a kind of unconscious projection uttered inadvertently by Abbas, who is completely and absolutely at America’s beck and call, so much so that he is willing to accept anything imposed by the United States .
Well. What is anything imposed by the US supposed to mean? Doesn’t Abbas realize that the US is fully against the right of return for Palestinian refugees, which is the crux of the matter of the conflict? Doesn’t he realize that the American policy in this part of the world is more or less the Israeli policy? Doesn’t he realize that it is the US and US alone that enabled Israel to have its way in occupied Palestine, and build hundreds of Jewish colonies on occupied land, with impunity?
Besides, what is Hamas, the democratically-elected movement, supposed to do to prove to Abbas and his minions and hangers-on its good will and sincerity in seeking just peace for Palestinians.?
Must Hamas recognize Israel as a state for the Jews, by the Jews, and of the Jews, as Israel is constantly demanding, thus effectively acknowledging the legitimacy of Israel’s “right” to ethnically cleanse the estimated two million- strong Palestinians who are Israeli citizens?
Must Hamas give up on the right of return for the refugees for the sake of Hillary Clinton’s blue eyes? Must Hamas give its full consent and blessing to the daily criminal acts by Jewish settlers against Palestinians and their property? Must Hamas sing the ha’tekva, (the Israeli national anthem) in order to find acceptance in Ramallah and Tel Aviv and Washington?
The truth of the matter is that Hamas’s principled stance has very little or nothing to do with the Iranian policy. Moreover, it has nothing to do with any real or imagined Shiite “conspiracy” to overrun the Sunni Middle East whose various despotic, tyrannical and dynastic fiefdoms are more or less completely controlled by the United States which is itself controlled tightly by Israel.
In light, one is prompted to ask Abbas and the likes of Abbas if he thinks that one can’t and shouldn’t adopt patriotic and dignified positions vis-à-vis Israeli Nazism unless one is subservient to Iran?
In truth, there is a vast difference between the bribery money the US is giving to Abbas and his unelected Ramallah regime and whatever assistance given to Hamas by the Muslims of the world, governments and individuals.
America (and Europe) is giving the PA money in order to torment, savage and subjugate the Palestinian people on Israel’s behalf. America’s money is used to enable the PA to torture and even kill political detainees. Ultimately, America’s money is used to subdue and coerce the Palestinian people to sell out their inalienable rights such as the right of return.
On the other hand, the non-Political assistance coming from Muslim sources, including Iran, is used to enhance and enforce the Palestinians’ steadfastness and resilience in the face of Israel’s Nazi-like crimes, such as the enduring siege of Gaza and the murderous onslaught against the coastal enclave whose second anniversary occurs next month.
I think that in alienating Iran and jumping onto the American-Israeli bandwagon, Fatah is committing a huge historic blunder.
Sometime playing the opportunism card might work, but in this particular context, doing so, and by a movement that claims to be the leader of the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence, spells shortsightedness, indignity and political stupidity.
Moreover, Fatah should realize that Israel is very much like a vicious crocodile, the more meat you feed it, the more it demands.
Last week, Israel decided to bar two of the most arguably “moderate” Fatah leaders, Muhammed Dahlan and Ahemd Qrei’, from traveling to Jordan via the Allenby Bridge.
Israel had poured wholesome praise on the two, using grand epithets to describe them. But the moment one of them made a slip of the tongue about Israeli criminality, Israel showed him “the red eye,” telling him effectively that Israel’s friends must completely and absolutely surrender to “the chosen people” or “Master race.” Not a minute deviation from the script would be tolerated!!
Some of these “moderates” did huge services for Israel. At one point they were willing to flood Gaza with the blood of Hamas. They were willing to decapitate Hamas once and for all. Some of them distributed sweets and Kenafa when Israel was raining death on the Gaza children.
And what they promised to do in secret, on behalf of Israel and the US , may have been even more shocking.
Yet Israel is treating them like diseased dogs.
Such is the fate of those who don’t respect themselves and their people.
The Holy Quran says “And whomsoever God disgraces, none can honor him. Verily.”
Moreover, Zuheir, the pre-Islamic poet said, “he who doesn’t respect himself, shall not be respected.”
Source: Palestine Information Centre
Bookmark & ShareIf you liked this article, please consider making a donation to Intifada Palestine by clicking on the following PayPal link. Thank you!
SUPREME COURT BACKS JEWS-ONLY HOUSING IN JAFFA NEIGHBORHOODOne Response to “FATAH USING IRAN BOGEY TO JUSTIFY SURRENDER TO ISRAEL”
Fakhrul Ferdous 08. Nov, 2010 at 11:17 am It is not only ‘ Fatah’,the US also backed ‘Hamas” once to fight against Fatah.
If Fatah continue to act against Iran with
help from Zionist groups,they will be out of mainstream political arena and lose confidence of Palestinians what residue it remains up till now.
It would be a historical blunder and self destructive act — what really America wants from the puppet Fatah.
May ALLAH bless the Palestinians and all human beings on earth.
Lieberman warns against setting borders of Palestinian state
JERUSALEM: Israel’s hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned on Monday that negotiating the borders of a Palestinian state without security arrangements for Israel would be a “historic mistake.”
“It would be a dramatic mistake, a historic mistake and strategic mistake to talk about borders before we complete the security discussions,” Lieberman told Israel’s army radio.
Lieberman’s comments came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was holding talks in the United States about getting the stalled peace process back on track.
The Palestinians halted talks after Israel refused to renew a partial freeze on settlement construction that expired at the end of September, just weeks after the two sides embarked upon direct peace talks.
Diplomatic efforts to break the impasse have focused on several proposals, one of which suggested negotiators outline the borders of a future Palestinian state, thereby establishing areas where Israel could continue building.
The Palestinians want to build their future state on all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas which were captured by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, with minor territorial exchanges that would allow Israel to keep the larger blocs of settlements.
Lieberman, a fiery ultra-nationalist, frequently expresses his own views on the peace process that stand at odds with the official positions of Netanyahu.
US-led diplomatic efforts to unblock the process have been unfruitful, although the administration is expected to step up pressure on both sides in the wake of last week’s mid-term elections.
Netanyahu met on Sunday with Vice President Joe Biden in New Orleans where they are both attending a summit of Jewish organizations. On Monday, he was to travel to New York for a meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
In early October, Arab League foreign ministers said they would give Washington a month’s grace period to break the impasse, but last week extended that until the end of the month.
Open Season on Muslims in America
by Stephen Lendman, November 7, 2010
More than ever today, Muslims are public enemy number one. Post-9/11, they’ve been ruthlessly vilified and persecuted for their faith, ethnicity, prominence and activism. As a result, innocent men and women have been spuriously called terrorists, or charged with conspiracy to provide them material support.
No wonder as an earlier article explained. They’ve been unfairly portrayed as culturally inferior, dirty, lecherous, untrustworthy, religiously fanatical, violent, gun-toting terrorists. As a result, hundreds have been wrongfully arrested, charged, convicted and imprisoned, guilty only of being Muslims in America at the wrong time. Their treatment represents a clear indictment of US injustice, targeting innocent victims for political advantage.
A September 20 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report titled, “American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex Threat” explains more about America’s scheme, naming names, “plots,” and dates to highlight the “threat.” It begins saying:
“Between May 2009 and August 2010 (alone), arrests were made for 19 ‘homegrown,’ jihadist-inspired terrorist plots by American citizens or legal permanent residents of the United States.” They were Muslims “susceptible to ideologies supporting a violent form of jihad, a term willfully misused. CRS suggests that jihad = violence, “jihadists,”….illegally supporting, plotting, or directly engaging in violent terrorist activity.”
Post-9/11, CRS cited 40 homegrown “jihadist” plots, including attacks on America, likely reflecting Al Qaeda directed schemes, it said.
During America’s “war on terror,” terms like Al Qaeda, outside enemies, jihadists, and Islamic terrorists are interchangeably used to incite fear. Recruited by the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI, Al Qaeda or Mujahideen were defenders of Muslim lands against the 1980s Soviet Afghan occupation. At the time, Reagan officials called them a “necessary response” against imperial communism.
In 1998, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s National Security Advisor, confirmed it in an interview, saying:
“….CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan” in late December 1979. President Carter then “signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the President in which I explained to him that in my opinion, this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”
He explained further that America had “the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.”
Key is that Al Qaeda was Washington’s invention. Reagan called them freedom fighters. Today, under any name, they’re “terrorists,” innocent Americans wrongfully charged with supporting them, mostly through entrapment stings producing no evidence besides what paid FBI informants say. It’s their word against suspects, as well as illegally taped conversations, innocent comments from them made to sound incriminating.
“How Do People Become Violent Jihadists,” CRS asked? Charismatic “(i)ntermediaries, social networks, the Internet, and prisons” play key roles….”
Plots enumerated include:
(1) “Endgames,” involving individuals wanting to become foreign fighters in conflict zones;
(2) Suicide or Martyrdom” by violent jihad;
(3) “Success of Lone Wolves,” unconnected to others; and
(4) “Divergent Capabilities,” their experience ranging from little to considerable.
CRS also explained how to combat homegrown “jihad” through counterterrorism, laws like the USA Patriot Act, domestic intelligence, illegal surveillance not called that, and working jointly with state and local authorities, among other ways. It concluded with a national strategy called a “Whole of Government Approach,” coordinating across departments and agencies at all levels of government. An appendix then named names, dates, and “plots.”
What the report omits says more than it offered. It explained nothing about US imperial wars, state terrorism on a global scale, its toll in the many millions, besides targeted homeland victims – innocent men and women, wrongfully targeted and imprisoned, reports like CRS’ suggesting otherwise.
New Justice Department (DOJ) Targeted Victims
On November 2, a DOJ press release headlined “Three California Men Charged with Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to al Shabaab,” saying:
“San Diego residents Basaaly Saeed Moalin, Mohamed Mohamed Mahamud, aka Mohamed Khadar, and Issa Doreh were charged today with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, and related offenses….”
An unsealed October 22 indictment called Al-Shabaab “a violent and brutal militia group in Somalia.” More on them below, a group the State Department falsely designated a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) in February 2008.
Charges alleged that Moalin “was in direct telephone contact with Aden Hashi Ayrow,” a so-called “prominent (Al-Shabaab) military leader….Ayrow requested money from Moalin, who then coordinated the fundraising efforts and money transfers with Mohamud and Doreh.”
The indictment also alleged that Moalin provided a house in Somalia, “knowing (it) would be used in preparation for, and to carry out, a conspiracy to kill persons in a foreign country.”
He was arrested on October 31, Mohamud and Doreh on November 1. All pleaded not guilty. They’re being held without bail. Moalin’s lawyer, Marc Geller, said he’s seen no evidence that his client, a local cab driver with no prior record, had any involvement whatever.
About 50 local community members appeared in federal court to show support, believing the three men are innocent. One man, Ali Mohamed, said Moalin taught weekend classes on Islam at a local mosque and is considered a leader of the local Somali community. Apparently it led to his indictment.
“He would tell youngsters to stay away from drugs and gangs,” he said. “It’s shocking to hear this case against him (and the others). I don’t understand why there are people in the street who commit violence while the people who stay in the mosques and pray are being attacked.”
Edgar Hopida, of San Diego’s Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the arrests put the local Somali community on edge. His organization informs them of their rights, ones very much in jeopardy.
“The Somali community is very fearful that their community is under attack,” Hopida explained. “The Somalis who have come here are refugees from a war-torn country and the vast majority” oppose terrorism. In fact, a US-sponsored resettlement program arranged for most to come here, nearly all from the 87,000 community.
Last August, 14 Minnesota, California and Alabama Muslims were also indicted for allegedly supporting a “deadly pipeline,” sending money and fighters to Al- Shabaab. Seven from Minnesota were previously charged.
On November 3, another DOJ press release headlined, “Two Indicted in Missouri on Charges of Providing Material Support to a Terrorist Organization. A Third Defendant is Charged with Structuring Violations,” saying:
“St. Louis resident Mohamud Abdi Yusuf has been indicted and arrested on four charges of providing material support to a designated terrorist organization and one charge of conspiracy to structure financial transactions….Minneapolis resident Abdi Mahdi Hussein was also indicted and arrested on a charge of conspiracy to structure financial transactions.”
The unsealed October 21 indictment alleged that “from February 2009 through at least July 2009, Yusuf and a third defendant, Duwayne Mohamed Diriye, a resident of Kenya and Somalia, were involved in a conspiracy to provide funds to al Shabaab….”
Other allegations cited “using fictitious names and telephone numbers to conceal the nature of their activities. Yusuf is also charged with conspiring with Abdi Mahdi Hussein, an employee of a licensed money remitting business (Qaran Financial Express), to structure financial transactions to avoid record keeping requirements.”
Yusuf was arrested on November 1 in St. Louis, Hussein on November 2 in Minneapolis. Still at large, Diiriye is thought either to be in Kenya or Somalia. He’s charged with one felony count each of “conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.” These charges are commonly used when no evidence of any crime exists, likely the case this time, as well as for the San Diego suspects.
Charges against Yusuf and Hussein say they solicited funds within and outside the Eastern District of Missouri, then arranged for transfer to Al-Shabaab. Diriye is then alleged to have arranged their delivery.
Reporting on the case on November 3, AP writers Jim Suhr and Amy Forliti cited Kulane Darman, president of Qaran Financial Express (QFE), saying he doesn’t know Hussein, and the DOJ information is incorrect.
QFE is a remittance company for immigrants or migrants who wish to send money home to family members. It transmits funds mainly to Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Uganda through offices in seven states, including Minnesota, home to America’s largest Somali immigrant population, numbering over 32,000.
A Profile of Al-Shabaab
An earlier article explained that on the Horn of Africa, Somalia is strategically adjacent to the Red Sea, Suez Canal, and vital commercial waterways. In the north, it also abuts Sudan, a country rich in oil and gas reserves, coveted by America, China, India and other nations.
In December 2006, Washington-backed Ethiopian forces unseated the governing Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), installing a Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in its place. Thousands were killed. Over a million became refugees. Ever since, conflict continued, Al- Shabaab wanting it freed from foreign invaders, much like the Taliban struggle in Afghanistan.
In January 2009, Ethiopian forces withdrew, following an agreement between the TFG and Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) – a UIC coalition with other opposition forces. Fighting, however, continued, America backing the TRG/African Union Blue Helmets to keep Islamists from regaining power.
UIC members aren’t terrorists connected to Al Qaeda. They’re freedom fighters, struggling to liberate their country after years of US-instigated conflict, divisions and instability. Their ranks include moderate and radical Islamists as well as politicians and militants, united for a common cause.
Mogadishu traders initially established a UIC coalition with opposition elements to end clan divisions and bring order to the city’s instability. Years of civil war left no stable government in most parts of the country. Al- Shabaab and other opposition forces continue the struggle against the US-installed government, Ethiopian backers, and African Union force. They also call themselves the Mjuahideen Youth Movement (MYM).
According to the US National Counterterrorism Center:
“Since the end of 2006, (Al-Shabaab) led a violent insurgency, using guerrilla warfare and terror tactics against the continued Ethiopian presence in Somalia, the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, and (NGOs).”
As a result, on February 29, 2008, the US State Department designated it a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (as amended) and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Section 1(b) of George Bush’s September 23, 2001 Executive Order 13224 (as amended). It authorized ways to disrupt financial support for FTOs by blocking assets of individuals or groups alleged to commit, or pose risks to commit, terrorist acts.
Like US-funded and backed Afghan Mujaheddin in the 1980s, Al-Shabaab wants Somalia freed from the US-backed TFG government and African Union paramilitaries (AMISOM Blue Helmets). Washington calls them terrorists, Somali US refugees thus victimized.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
US “deeply disappointed” by Israel’s plans for 1,000 new Jewish homes beyond the Green Line in Jerusalem.
“We were deeply disappointed by the announcement of advance planning for new housing units in sensitive areas of East Jerusalem. It is counter-productive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties,” said U.S. State Department Spokesman Philip J. Crowley.
Israel’s announcement of its program which will allow some 1,300 new housing units to be built beyond the Green Line could prove to be an embarrassment to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently in the United States.
“We have long urged both parties to avoid actions which could undermine trust, including in Jerusalem, and will continue to work to resume direct negotiations to address this and other final-status issues,” Crowley said.
Ruth Yosef, who chairs the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee, published over the weekend details of a program that will allow 930 housing units to be built in the Har Homa C area, with another 48 units in Har Homa B. An additional 320 units are planned for Ramot, also beyond the Green Line.
The pro-Israel lobby J Street also issued a statement criticizing the new building permits, saying that “J Street is profoundly disappointed that the Israeli government has chosen this moment to announce yet another large round of construction in East Jerusalem.”
The American-Jewish lobby urged Israel to delay any further construction over the Green Line “until negotiations over the border have been finalized, in the interest of its long-term security and survival as a democracy and as the homeland of the Jewish people.”
source–Haaretz
Michael Oren urges U.S. Jews to defend Israel against aggressors
Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, urged America’s Jewry to stand up for Israel on Monday during a panel on Israeli-U.S. relations as part of the Jewish Federations General Assembly.
“I think it is fair for Israel to expect the American Jewish community to uphold our right to self-defense,” Oren said. “Israel expects American Jews to fight the Goldstone report which limits our ability to defend ourselves by branding us as war criminals, with the same zeal that you have fought boycotts, divestment and sanctions.”
Oren asked American Jews to respect the Israeli government’s decisions, even if they do not agree with them.
“We are asking that you respect the decisions made by the world’s most resilient democracy that survived despite the unrelenting warfare. Respect the will of the people who bear the greatest consequences of their government’s decisions -even if you disagree with us”.
He also urged Jewish voters to make Israel a priority and to ensure that Israel’s sovereignty remains a bipartisan goal.
“I want to say categorically that bipartisan political support for Israel is a national strategic interest for the Jewish state. We urge American Jews to ensure that preserving a secure sovereign Israel remains a bipartisan goal to which Americans of all political outlooks aspire”.
source–Haaretz
Robert Fisk: Only justice can bring peace to this benighted region
The speed with which the Baghdad church massacre by al-Qa’ida has frightened the peoples of the Middle East is a sign of just how fragile is the earth’s crust beneath their feet.
Unlike our Western television news, Al-Jazeera and Arabia show the full horror of such carnage. Arms, legs, beheaded torsos leave no doubt of what they mean. Every Christian in the region understood what this attack meant. Indeed, given the sectarian nature of the assaults on Shia Iraqis, I’m beginning to wonder whether al-Qa’ida itself – far from being the centre/kernel/font of “world terror” as we imagine – might be one of the most sectarian organisations ever invented. Nor, I suspect, is there just one al-Qa’ida but several, feeding off the injustices of the region, a blood transfusion which the West (and I’m including the Israelis here) feeds into its body.
In fact, I’m wondering if our governments don’t need this terror – to make us frightened, very frightened, to make us obey, to bring more security to our little lives. And I’m wondering whether those same governments will ever wake up to the fact that our actions in the Middle East are what is endangering our security. Lord Blair of Isfahan always denied this – even when the 7/7 suicide bomber carefully explained in his posthumous video that Iraq was one of the reasons he committed the slaughter in London – and Bush always denied it, and Sarkozy will deny it if al-Qa’ida fulfils its latest threat to attack France.
Now, for al-Qa’ida, it is “all Christians” in the Middle East who are to be the targets as well, scattering these threats like cluster bombs around the region. Up to two million of Egypt’s Christian Coptic community are having to be protected at their two-week Luxor religious festival, surrounded by hundreds of state security police after al-Qa’ida’s claim that two Muslim women are being held against their will by the Coptic church. That this may have originated with a decision by the women to divorce their husbands – and thus by conversion to end their marriages since the church in Egypt does not allow divorce – is merely incidental.
Now the contagion has spread to Lebanon where Shia-Sunni tensions have already been heightened by Hezbollah’s demand to reject the accusations of the UN tribunal into the murder of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri. What might have passed for an act of vandalism at any other time – the desecration of a Christian grave – now has statements of passionate, brotherly love from every clergyman in the country lest it is suggested that Muslims were responsible. In Jiyé, a rather pleasant coastal town south of Beirut, someone broke through five doors of the vault at St George’s Church and heaved the body of George Philip al-Kazzi – deceased of old age on 23 July 2002 – out of his grave, leaving it with a smashed skull. It turns out to have been the third attack of its kind in the town in 10 years.
Father Salim Namour of the Saint Charbel monastery – named after the long-dead Maronite priest who allegedly cries once a year – claimed that his town was a model of co-existence and uttered words which might be prayed in every church and mosque across the Middle East. “We cannot think this way,” he said. “We bury the dead of our fellow Muslims and they bury our dead.” The vice president of the higher Shia Islamic Council, Sheikh Abdel-Amir Qabalan, called it “barbaric”, an act which “relates to no religion or humanity and cannot be logically accepted.” The Lebanese Maronite bishops then condemned the Baghdad bombing as a “useless criminal act”.
The West is powerless to help those fearful Christians. The actions of “faith-based” politicians – the Christian faith, of course – has brought about a new Christian tragedy in the Middle East. (The fact that I met several Americans in California recently who thought Christianity was a “western” religion rather than an eastern one probably says more about America than Christianity.)
No one in their right mind would think that al-Qa’ida would burn its energies on such a petty – though revolting – act in Lebanon. But al-Qa’ida does exist in Lebanon. We have President Bashar al-Assad’s word on that. Indeed, it’s interesting to hear what Assad actually said on the subject last week – since his relationship with Shia Hezbollah and Shia Iran makes him no friend of bin Laden’s outfit. In an interview with Al-Hayat newspaper, he said “We talk about al-Qa’ida as if it exists as a well-structured, unified organisation.
This isn’t true. It acts more as a current of thought that calls itself al-Qa’ida. This organisation is the result (of a situation) and not the cause. It is a result of chaos, of weak development. It is a result of political errors and a kind of political direction.” To say that this organisation “exists everywhere, in Syria as in all Arab and Islamic countries, does not mean that it is widespread or popular”.
Yet Assad can’t absolve his own regime or those of the other Arab states whose security laws ban any political meetings – other than those approved by state officials – and thus long ago forced Muslims to discuss politics in the only institution they regularly visit: the mosque. And of course, the supreme irony this week has been to hear our lords and masters praising the helpfulness of the Wahhabi regime in Saudi Arabia for alerting the West to the aircraft package bombs when it was this same Saudi Arabia that nurtured Osama bin Laden and his merry men over many years.
Because the Middle East’s dictators also like to scare their populations. Egypt’s poor are disgusted by their ruling elite but that elite wants to ensure there are no Islamic revolutions in Cairo. And the West wants to ensure that there are no Islamic revolutions in Cairo, or Libya, or Algeria, or Syria, or Saudi Arabia. (You name the rest.)
The immediate problem is that al-Qa’ida is trying to undermine these regimes as well as the West. And so they lump Iraq itself – whether it is a democracy is a bit irrelevant when it doesn’t have a government and is too busy executing its old Baathist enemies to protect its own people – along with the country’s Christians and its Shias. And we are continuing to stage drone attacks on Pakistan and bomb the innocent in Afghanistan and tolerate the torture regimes of the Arab world and allow Israel to steal more land from the Palestinians. I’m afraid it’s the same old story. Justice will bring peace – not intelligence wars against “world terror”. But our leaders will still not admit this.
