Saturday ~ September 2, 2006
Note:
Formatting, emphasis and hyperlinks are frequently added for context and
perspective. ~OW
Political
Commentary
Worsening Attacks Leave 300 Iraqis Dead Since Last
Sunday Since Sunday, more than 300 Iraqis have been
killed in bombings, murders and a deadly pipeline explosion that occurred
when security forces were diverted from their normal duties to fight Shiite
militiamen. The violence is generally believed to be the work of insurgents,
militias and criminal gangs embroiled in Sunni-Shiite sectarian strife. By
Edward Wong
New York Times 9.1.06
‘Stark’
Pentagon report on rise in Iraq violence undermines Bush PR campaign By Sheldon Alberts
CanWest News Service 9.2.06 WASHINGTON -- The
Pentagon on Friday delivered a stark assessment of deteriorating security
conditions in Iraq, describing a cesspool of sectarian violence that has
skyrocketed since the formation of the country's unity government. Warning of an
"acute and disturbing" trend toward execution-style killings by
Sunni and Shi'a death squads, the Pentagon reported a 51 per cent surge in
the number of Iraqi civilian deaths in the last three months. The quarterly Iraq
Progress Report, mandated by Congress, said "conditions that could lead
to civil war exist in Iraq" and detailed increasing pessimism among
ordinary Iraqis that security will improve. Moreover, the bombings,
kidnappings and executions that have lately devastated Baghdad are again on
the increase in major cities like Basra in southern Iraq, Kirkuk in the north
and in outlying provinces, the Pentagon said.
U.S. Domestic
Opposition to Iraq War at All-Time High In each of three most-recent major polls virtually
two-thirds of Americans say that they oppose the war, the highest totals
since pollsters starting asking Americans the ‘war question’ three years ago.
Sixty-percent also say terrorism is more likely in US because of Iraq. By
Tom Regan Christian
Science Monitor 9.2.06
The
Mayor of Salt Lake City, State Capitol of America’s “Reddest” State, Meets Presidential
Visit With A Massive Anti-Bush Rally And Unreserved Condemnation Of War
Video-MSNBC
Rosa Brooks:
Criticize Israel? You're an Anti-Semite! How can we have a real discussion
about Mideast peace if speaking honestly about Israel is out of bounds? EVER WONDER what it's like to be a
pariah? By Rosa Brooks Los Angeles Times 9.1.06
OK
George, “Bring It On”! Let’s
Talk Honestly About ‘Fascism’…
Islamo-Fascism or Judeo-Fascism? ..Can
fascism, then, be applied to Islam? The simple answer is that it cannot.
First and foremost, Islam recognizes no borders. The “state” cannot even be
defined. Nor can the individual be required to supplicate himself or herself
to any entity or person other than God. Islam means “submission” to God, not
to some petty dictator. Islam does not force individuals to convert to its
beliefs. And Islam does not condone the murder of innocents for any reason,
including for the good of the “state.” However,
upon closer analysis, President Bush would have discovered that there exists
in the world today one state where fascist elements combine with religious
fervor to dictate state policies: Israel. First, Israel is a self-declared
Jewish state. The acceptance of its existence and its Jewish identity is of
paramount importance in Israeli society. Non-Jews who live in Israel can
never hope to be full-fledged citizens because they are not Jewish. National
identity cards define not only citizenship but also nationality, of which
there are three: Jewish, Arab, and Druze. In a slap at its indigenous
(pre-1967 borders) Arab population (one million strong), the Jewish state
denies citizenship to the spouses of Israeli citizens who marry Arab residents
of the West Bank or Gaza. Citizenship also will be denied to their offspring.
And only those political parties which accept the “Zionist” character of the
state may present candidates for the Israeli Parliament. This forecloses
representation of a large percentage of the indigenous Arabs. Moreover,
fascism has deep historical roots in Israel’s formation and in certain of the
political parties presently represented in its Parliament, the Knesset.
Israel’s National Union Party is an admixture of the Molodet and Tkuma
parties, which were progeny of the 1940s Herut, Zeev Jabotinsky’s political
party that took its cues from fascism. Likewise, in 1940 Avraham Stern,
inspired by Jabotinsky, formed the Irgun Zvai Leumi-be-Yisrael (Lehi) terror
group dedicated to killing anyone standing in the way of a homeland for Jews.
Lehi even offered to team
up with the Nazis during World War II in return for support for a new
Jewish state to be administered along fascist lines. Perhaps
Albert Einstein and some other concerned Jewish leaders said
it best in 1948 when they wrote a letter to the New York Times commenting
upon the formation of the “Freedom Party” in Israel. The described the party
as “closely akin . . . to the Nazi and fascist parties.” The party had been
formed from the Irgun, described in the letter as a “right-wing, chauvinist
organization in Palestine.” Menachem Begin (a future prime minister of
Israel) was the party leader. Today,
the National Union and its soul mate, Yisrael Beytenu, advocate the forced
removal of Palestinian Arabs from Israel proper, from the Gaza Strip, and
from the occupied West Bank. Following the classic modus operandi of
lebensraum, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank would be annexed to form Greater
Israel, which would then be populated by waves of Jewish settlers. To these
contemporary Israeli political parties, the sanctity of the State of Israel,
the merit of blood sacrifice for its benefit, and the use of military might
in its expansion find Biblical justification in Exodus 17:14 and Numbers
14:45. On
a more practical level, since 1967 Israel’s military and security forces have
inflicted on the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank
collective punishment, torture, destruction of economic infrastructure, and
extrajudicial killings. Such actions are not unlike those practiced by the
Nazi occupiers of 1940s Europe. Obviously,
then, unlike “Islamo-fascism,” the term “Judeo-fascism” has both historical
and practical currency. However, the use of the term usually raises the hackles
of a myriad of Jewish organizations because as Holocaust victims and
survivors, Jews are not supposed to mimic the behavior of their own
tormentors. Yet that is precisely what they have done in the Gaza Strip and
the occupied West Bank. Thirty-nine years of occupation have brutalized the
occupiers and the occupied. Yet,
peace demands that the use of the term “Judeo-fascism” be minimized because
of the inflammatory effect it has on any discussion of the fundamental issues
that divide today’s Semitic peoples. The same is true of ersatz terms like
“Islamo-fascism.” It is time for dialogue, not sound bites. Only in that way
can both peoples revisit another Golden Age of mutual respect and
accomplishment. In helping to achieve this task, President Bush has to learn
to be a leader, not a follower. By
Randall B (Nadeem) Hamud, Esq. Arab
News 8.21.06 — Randall B. (Nadeem) Hamud is an attorney at law based in
San Diego, CA.E-mail to:rhamud@san.rr.com
And so it goes. Your
Pal,
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