The American Muslim on Gaza

I hadn't realized that The American Muslim had already posted his own thoughts on Gaza last week. Excerpts here:

It’s not just the Israeli’s whom we Muslims should be focusing on. I have received email after email giving notice of planned protests, denunciations, etc. and quite frankly I have to admit I’m a little disappointed to put it mildly. Why is it that every time something happens in Gaza we Muslims can’t see the 800 pound Gorilla in the room?

Allah (swt) knows that I am not denying the brutal onslaught on the Palestinians committed by the Israeli government, but Allah (swt) also commands me to use my reason and to be patient before I react in pure unadultered emotion as some of us are.

Many innocent civilians have been killed in the latest flare up. Over 300 dead and over 1000 wounded Palestinians at this point, and I think at most 5 Israelis have been killed or injured. So of course the disproportionate nature of victims prove that this is a heavy handed response, but the keyword that we fail to acknowledge as we
condemn Israel is the word response.

What are the Israeli’s responding to? That is the question we Muslims never ask. We love to deal exclusively in the effects of a situation but rarely engage in the causes behind them.

We have to call Hamas to account here. They are not the victims. They refuse to deal in a manner in which is honorable, peaceful, and justified. They fired rockets in Israel, they broke the cease-fire, and the cowards purposefully ensure that they do so from civilian compounds so that when the Israelis respond the amount of civilians that are killed are maximized.

Let’s be realistic, if Israel had in mind that they wanted to kill Palestinians indiscriminately they would just do it. They obviously have the capability and the so-called Muslim world wouldn’t do anything about it. It’s all a game these countries play. No one actually cares about the Palestinians or Muslims around the world suffering until Israel does something big enough to give them a stage for political posturing.

If we really wanted to pontificate in a meaningful way we would reign in Hamas and
call them to account for the role they played in the deaths of all the innocents on both sides. These thugs who claim to represent a noble cause are anything but. If they were really warriors or Mujahadeen as they play on TV they would face the Israeli Army in battle directly and not involve civilians. The same goes for all the other so-called clerics and groups that have issues with the West and Israel. No true Muslim would purposefully target civilians and other non-combatants, but that’s not how these thugs act is it?

. . .

In war there will always be collateral damage and it is unfortunate, however we
have to critically look at this people, would the level of deaths be so high if Hamas didn’t use civilian dwellings as bases of operation? If you fire a rocket from an apartment building for example and are fired upon in return obviously everyone in the building is now in danger and at risk of dying too.

This is the major problem that we fail to acknowledge, protest against, and pontificate against. Hamas, Hezbollah, and all the other groups do this on purpose. We are all pawns in their game. They are the true murderers, they set our people up so they can be killed. They use Mosques, homes, schools, etc. to draw fire against the innocent and to them the blame for the dead should be placed.

I can’t stress this enough, Muslims wake up, wake up you sleeping giant! We will never advance any goal or ideal as long as we are blind to those who do us harm within our midst. It is perfectly normal, virtuous, and right to mourn the dead Palestinians and call Israel to account for their heavy handed response to the thugs called Hamas, but it is not normal, virtuous, or right to continue to be silent about the Israeli civilians who are killed and live in a state of fear also. It is not normal, virtuous, or right to continue to be silent about how Hamas set the Palestinians in Gaza up to be killed, these deaths were intentional on their part, and if we really cared about justice in the Middle East we would acknowledge their role in the bloodshed as well.

Rabbi Andy Bachman on the Gaza situation

Rabbi Andy Bachman posted his thoughts on the Gaza situation:

As Israel’s incursion into the Gaza Strip moves well into its second week, most of us watch from the sidelines or a distance with a heavy, heavy heart over the loss of innocent life. No one deserves to die who has not brought death on to him or herself, least of all an innocent child. So to be fundamentally clear: even those of us who support Israel’s efforts to break Hamas and seriously damage its ability to torment Israeli towns with terror mourn loss of every innocent life and grieve with those families. In addition, our hearts go out to those terrified by bombs dropping in homes,
on streets, in mosques.

But Israel’s war, I believe, is a just war.

When Israel pulled out of Gaza, tearing deeply at the fabric of its own society to uproot families there (a disengagement I strongly favored and still do) the entire world was able to see if it chose to look that Israel was willing to risk the unity of the
nation to take fundamental steps toward peace. The Hamas leadership took the
exact opposite steps, took no risk, brutally murdered its own in waging violent
and bloody civil war with the Palestinian Authority, and continued on its self-destructive path of trying to wage existential war against Israel. Never has it seriously addressed Israel’s justified existence; never has it accepted
Israel’s RIGHT to exist; and never has it seriously sought to make peace.
Rather, it has embarked on a hundred years plan, to wear down the psyche of the
Israeli population with terror, kidnapping, and the selling of a religio-fundamentalist viewpoint that completely de-legitimizes any Jewish claim to the land.

It’s truly depressing.

. . .

And, I’d point out to people willing to read the situation: the West Bank is relatively calm, not only because of security but because the PA was defeated by Hamas in
Gaza and the PA has given tacit approval to Israel’s operation. Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia–each of whom bear as much as or more responsibility for the continued statelessness of Palestinians by not working harder in partnership with Israel for peace (how did all those weapons get into Gaza?)–have given Israel tacit and at time explicit approval for these operations.

Israel will continue to be portrayed as illegitimate; blood-sucking; heartless; amoral; genocidal; racist–you name it. It’s a rhetoric that has lost most of its meaning, sadly, because for years and years people are more comfortable talking and pontificating than holding leadership accountable not only in Washington, DC or on the college campus but in Gaza City and Ramallah.

Remember Ehud Barak’s quote: If I were a Palestinian youth, I’d fight the occupation, too. That is the man who is leading Israel in this war. Despite war’s brutal reality, when Hamas wakes up from its delusional nightmare that Israel has no place in this world, it will in fact find an incredible capacity for making the necessary sacrifices as a nation to live in peace.

Read the entire text here.

Herod - Just in time for Christmas

Since tonight is Christmas Eve, I thought I might pass along this (sort of) Christmas-related National Geographic article about the King Herod from the Christian gospels.

The article centers around recent archeologist's excavations that have shed some new light on Herod as a person, his political career and his affect on life in Judea at the beginning of the Common Era:

An astute and generous ruler, a brilliant general, and one of the most imaginative and energetic builders of the ancient world, Herod guided his kingdom to new prosperity and power. Yet today he is best known as the sly and murderous monarch of Matthew's Gospel, who slaughtered every male infant in Bethlehem in an unsuccessful attempt to kill the newborn Jesus, the prophesied King of the Jews.

Apparently, even soon after his death and before the rise of Christianity, he was hated by a significant part of populace of Judea:

The condition of the sarcophagi fragments confirm that Herod remained vilified even in death: Hammer marks reveal that the sarcophagi were intentionally destroyed. The one made of pink limestone received particularly savage treatment, and was broken into hundreds of pieces. This damage apparently occurred about 70 years after Herod's death, when Jewish fighters occupied Herodium during two brief, ill-fated rebellions, called the First and Second Jewish Revolts, against the besieging Romans. "They viewed Herod as a Roman collaborator, a traitor to the faith and political independence of the Jews,"...."They weren't just looting. This was revenge."

Though, with final requests like the following, that's not all that surprising:

During his last illness he devised a scheme to plunge the entire kingdom into mourning when he died, ordering his army to imprison a crowd of leading Judaean citizens in the hippodrome in Jericho, and to massacre them when his death was announced.

Clearly, not someone you would want to sit down and have a beer with.

Shimon Peres: A Peaceful New Year

It's now 4:31am on the first day of 2008. I wish you all the best this year. May our strengths be made stronger and our weaknesses weaker. May our leaders answer the call for peace and may we be there to help.

Happy 2008!

I found this message for peace on Ynetnews.com:

Christian leaders attend reception at presidential residence

Aviram Zino

President Shimon Peres met Monday with the leaders of the Christian factions in Israel, in honor of the Christmas and the New Year celebrations.

"The Palestinians are not our enemy and neither is Islam," said Peres. "Terror, violence and the alliance between religious fanaticism and nuclear weapons are our – and the world's – enemies."

A merry Christmas and a happy new year (Photo: Reuters)

The religious leaders were Peres' guests for an official ceremony held at the presidential residence. "The human spirit declares science and religion to be noncontradictory, but one must separate between religion, faith and violence," added Peres.

"We all have one God, and enriched uranium wasn't one of his commandments," said the president.

Israel, promised Peres, would continue to ensure freedom of religion: "Israel will protect all its churches and will allow total freedom of religion.

"Let's make Israel the land from which a message of tolerance and love goes out to the world," added Peres. "I wish all of you a happy, peaceful, new year."