By Richard Falk

Richard Falk is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.

The media double standards in the West on the new and tragic Israeli escalation of violence directed at Gaza were epitomised by an absurdly partisan New York Times front page headline: “Rockets Target Jerusalem; Israel girds for Gaza Invasion” (NYT, Nov 16, 2012). Decoded somewhat, the message is this: Hamas is the aggressor, and Israel when and if it launches a ground attack on Gaza must expect itself to be further attacked by rockets. This is a stunningly Orwellian re-phrasing of reality.

The true situation is, of course, quite the opposite: Namely, that the defenseless population of Gaza can be assumed now to be acutely fearful of an all out imminent Israeli assault, while it is also true, without minimising the reality of a threat, that some rockets fired from Gaza fell harmlessly (although with admittedly menacing implications) on the outskirts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. There is such a gross disproportion in the capacity of the two sides to inflict damage and suffering due to Israeli total military dominance as to make perverse this reversal of concerns to what might befall Israeli society if the attack on Gaza further intensifies.

The reliance by Hamas and the various Gaza militias on indiscriminate, even if wildly inaccurate and generally harmless, rockets is a criminal violation of international humanitarian law, but the low number of casualties caused and the minor damage caused, needs to be assessed in the overall context of massive violence inflicted on the Palestinians. The widespread non-Western perception of the new cycle of violence involving Gaza is that it looks like a repetition of Israeli aggression against Gaza in late 2008, early 2009, that similarly fell between the end of American presidential elections and scheduled Israeli parliamentary elections.

Pointing fingers

There is the usual discussion over where to locate responsibility for the initial act in this renewed upsurge violence. Is it some shots fired from Gaza across the border and aimed at an armoured Israeli jeep or was it the targeted killing by an Israeli missile of Ahmed Jabari, leader of the military wing of Hamas, a few days later? Or some other act by one side or the other? Or is it the continuous violence against the people of Gaza arising from the blockade that has been imposed since mid-2007?

The assassination of Jabari came a few days after an informal truce that had been negotiated through the good offices of Egypt, and quite ironically agreed to by none other than Jabari acting on behalf of Hamas. Killing him was clearly intended as a major provocation, disrupting a carefully negotiated effort to avoid another tit-for-tat sequence of violence of the sort that has periodically taken place during the last several years.

An assassination of such a high profile Palestinian political figure as Jabari is not a spontaneous act. It is based on elaborate surveillance over a long period, and is obviously planned well in advance partly with the hope of avoiding collateral damage, and thus limiting unfavourable publicity. Such an extra-judicial killing, although also part and parcel of the new American ethos of drone warfare, remains an unlawful tactic of conflict, denying adversary political leaders separated from combat any opportunity to defend themselves against accusations, and implies a rejection of any disposition to seek a peaceful resolution of a political conflict. It amounts to the imposition of capital punishment without due process, a denial of elementary rights to confront an accuser.

Putting aside the niceties of law, the Israeli leadership knew exactly what it was doing when it broke the truce and assassinated such a prominent Hamas leader, someone generally thought to be second only to the Gaza prime minister, Ismail Haniya. There have been rumours, and veiled threats, for months that the Netanyahu government plans a major assault of Gaza, and the timing of the ongoing attacks seems to coincide with the dynamics of Israeli internal politics, especially the traditional Israeli practice of shoring up the image of toughness of the existing leadership in Tel Aviv as a way of inducing Israeli citizens to feel fearful, yet protected, before casting their ballots.

Under siege

Beneath the horrific violence, which exposes the utter vulnerability, of all those living as captives in Gaza, which is one of the most crowded and impoverished communities on the planet, is a frightful structure of human abuse that the international community continues to turn its back upon, while preaching elsewhere adherence to the norm of “responsibility to protect” whenever it suits NATO. More than half of the 1.6 million Gazans are refugees living in a total area of just over twice the size of the city of Washington, DC. The population has endured a punitive blockade since mid-2007 that makes daily life intolerable, and Gaza has been harshly occupied ever since 1967.

Israel has tried to fool the world by setting forth its narrative of a good faith withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, which was exploited by Palestinian militants at the time as an opportunity to launch deadly rocket attacks. The counter-narrative, accepted by most independent observers, is that the Israeli removal of troops and settlements was little more than a mere redeployment to the borders of Gaza, with absolute control over what goes in and what leaves, maintaining an open season of a license to kill at will, with no accountability and no adverse consequences, backed without question by the US government.

From an international law point of view, Israel’s purported “disengagement” from Gaza didn’t end its responsibility as an Occupying Power under the Geneva Conventions, and thus its master plan of subjecting the entire population of Gaza to severe forms of collective punishment amounts to a continuing crime against humanity, as well as a flagrant violation of Article 33 of Geneva IV. It is not surprising that so many who have observed the plight of Gaza at close range have described it as “the largest open air prison in the world”.

The Netanyahu government pursues a policy that is best understood from the perspective of settler colonialism. What distinguishes settler colonialism from other forms of colonialism is the resolve of the colonialists not only to exploit and dominate, but to make the land their own and superimpose their own culture on that of indigenous population. In this respect, Israel is well served by the Hamas/Fatah split, and seeks to induce the oppressed Palestinian to give up their identity along with their resistance struggle even to the extent of asking Palestinians in Israel to take an oath of loyalty to Israel as “a Jewish state”.
Actually, unlike the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel has no long-term territorial ambitions in Gaza. Israel’s short-term solution to its so-called “demographic problem” (that is, worries about the increase in the population of Palestinians relative to Jews) could be greatly eased if Egypt would absorb Gaza, or if Gaza would become a permanently separate entity, provided it could be reliably demilitarised. What makes Gaza presently useful to the Israelis is their capacity to manage the level of violence, both as a distraction from other concerns (eg backing down in relation to Iran; accelerated expansion of the settlements) and as a way of convincing their own people that dangerous enemies remain and must be dealt with by the iron fist of Israeli militarism.
No peace
In the background, but not very far removed from the understanding of observers, are two closely related developments. The first is the degree to which the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements has made it unrealistic to suppose that a viable Palestinian state will ever emerge from direct negotiations. The second, underscored by the recent merger of Netanyahu and Lieberman forces, is the extent to which the Israeli governing process has indirectly itself irreversibly embraced the vision of Greater Israel encompassing all of Jerusalem and most of the West Bank.

The fact that world leaders in the West keep repeating the mantra of peace through direct negotiations is either an expression of the grossest incompetence or totally bad faith. At minimum, Washington and the others calling for the resumption of direct negotiations owe it to all of us to explain how it will be possible to establish a Palestinian state within 1967 borders when it means the displacement of most of the 600,000 armed settlers now defended by the Israeli army, and spread throughout occupied Palestine. Such an explanation would also have to show why Israel is being allowed to quietly legalise the 100 or so “outposts”, settlements spread around the West Bank that had been previously unlawful even under Israeli law. Such moves toward legalisation deserve the urgent attention of all those who continue to proclaim their faith in a two-state solution, but instead are ignored.

This brings us back to Gaza and Hamas. The top Hamas leaders have made it abundantly clear over and over again that they are open to permanent peace with Israel if there is a total withdrawal to the 1967 borders (22 percent of historic Palestine) and the arrangement is supported by a referendum of all Palestinians living under occupation.

Israel, with the backing of Washington, takes the position that Hamas as “a terrorist organisation” that must be permanently excluded from the procedures of diplomacy, except of course when it serves Israel’s purposes to negotiate with Hamas. It did this in 2011 when it negotiated the prisoner exchange in which several hundred Palestinians were released from Israeli prisons in exchange for the release of the Israel soldier captive, Gilad Shalit, or when it seems convenient to take advantage of Egyptian mediation to establish temporary ceasefires.

As the celebrated Israeli peace activist and former Knesset member, Uri Avnery, reminds us a cease-fire in Arab culture, hudna in Arabic, is considered to be sanctified by Allah, has tended to be in use and faithfully observed ever since the time of the Crusades. Avnery also reports that up to the time he was assassinated, Jabari was in contact with Gershon Baskin of Israel, seeking to explore prospects for a long-term ceasefire that was reported to Israeli leaders, who unsurprisingly showed no interest.

Waiting for justice

There is a further feature of this renewal of conflict involving attacks on Gaza. Israel sometimes insists that since it is no longer, according to its claims, an occupying power, it is in a state of war with a Hamas governed Gaza. But if this were to be taken as the proper legal description of the relationship between the two sides, then Gaza would have the rights of a combatant, including the option to use proportionate force against Israeli military targets. As earlier argued, such a legal description of the relationship between Israel and Gaza is unacceptable. Gaza remains occupied and essentially helpless, and Israel as occupier has no legal or ethical right to engage in war against the people and government of Gaza, which incidentally was elected in internationally monitored free elections in early 2006.

On the contrary, its overriding obligation as Occupier is to protect the civilian population of Gaza. Even if casualty figures in the present violence are so far low as compared with Operation Cast Lead, the intensity of air and sea strikes against the helpless people of Gaza strikes terror in the hearts and minds of every person living in the Strip, a form of indiscriminate violence against the spirit and mental health of an entire people that cannot be measured in blood and flesh, but by reference to the traumatising fear that has been generated.

We hear many claims in the West as to a supposed decline in international warfare since the collapse of the Soviet Union twenty years ago. Such claims are to some extent a welcome development, but the people of the Middle East have yet to benefit from this trend, least of all the people of Occupied Palestine, and of these, the people of Gaza are suffering the most acutely. This spectacle of one-sided war in which Israel decides how much violence to unleash, and Gaza waits to be struck, firing off militarily meaningless salvos of rockets as a gesture of resistance, represents a shameful breakdown of civilisation values. These rockets do spread fear and cause trauma among Israeli civilians even when no targets are struck, and represent an unacceptable tactic. Yet such unacceptability must be weighed against the unacceptable tactics of an Israel that holds all the cards in the conflict.

It is truly alarming that now even the holiest of cities, Jerusalem, is threatened with attacks, but the continuation of oppressive conditions for the people of Gaza, inevitably leads to increasing levels of frustration, in effect, cries of help that world has ignored at its peril for decades. These are survival screams! To realise this is not to exaggerate! To gain perspective, it is only necessary to read a recent UN Report that concludes that the deterioration of services and conditions will make Gaza uninhabitable by 2020.

Completely aside from the merits of the grievances on the two sides, one side is militarily omnipotent and the other side crouches helplessly in fear. Such a grotesque reality passes under the radar screens of world conscience because of the geopolitical shield behind which Israel is given a free pass to do whatever it wishes. Such a circumstance is morally unendurable, and should be politically unacceptable. It needs to be actively opposed globally by every person, government, and institution of good will.

14-48

By Erika Solomon

IDLIB, Syria (Reuters) – Every morning, Amjad goes through two army checkpoints to attend a school run by the Syrian government. Every night, he sits by his father’s side to plot attacks to bring that government down.

Amjad doesn’t see the strangeness of his predicament – reciting chants of loyalty to President Bashar al-Assad in the army-controlled city where his school is, and going home to a village where everyone knows his father’s rebel unit just blew up an Assad tank convoy.

To the scrawny 16-year-old, living a double life has become the norm, as it has for many as the country’s 19-month-old uprising descends into civil war.

“Sometimes at the checkpoints when they see where I come from they ask me about certain rebels from my village, to test me, but I haven’t messed up yet. Or they make me say if I’m pro or anti, so I say I’m pro-Assad,” says Amjad.

His school is one of the few still functioning in the war-torn northern Idlib province, and he asked that his village not be named for fear of exposing his identity.
“It’s humiliating, but my dad insists I finish my studies, he doesn’t want my future destroyed because of the revolution.”

When Syria’s revolt began as a peaceful protest movement, many participants said it was a moment when hidden views were shared honestly for the first time. They described it as a time that brought fellow Syrians together.

But Assad’s crackdown has transformed their movement into a bloody armed revolt and the conflict, in which more than 32,000 people have died, is tearing the country apart, dividing friends and families and spinning a web of secrets between neighbors.

In the rebel-held northern town of Atareb, where daily air raids have reduced half the buildings to rubble, a woman stands on her doorstep singing blessings to the fighters who pass by. No one in the town but her family knows her son is a devoted Assad soldier.

“My son believes he’s doing the right thing. I love him so I accept that,” says the wrinkled, greying woman, as she and her children pick shrapnel out of the kitchen – remnants of rockets fired indiscriminately by the army her son is fighting for.

The woman, who asked not to be named, hasn’t seen her oldest son in a year, and she hardly speaks to her neighbors now. Her family keeps to itself for fear that too many questions may expose their secret. It is agonizing and lonely, she says, but she fears being driven from home if the truth was discovered.

“Everyone in the town thinks my son is working abroad, and I keep it that way. In a situation like this, people feel it’s ‘with us or against us’. I personally am with no one, I am against the whole thing. It’s killing our children.”

HIDING FROM THE NEIGHBOURS

With the lines of loyalties drawn, the cost of those classifications can be deadly for men like Ahmed, a Shi’ite Muslim fighting with the Sunni-led rebels. Syria’s conflict has increasingly been infused with sectarian overtones.

Assad is a member of Syria’s Alawite minority sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, and has been supported by Shi’ite power Iran. Syria’s majority Sunni population has been the driving force of the uprising, and rebels get most of their support from Iran’s Sunni Arab rivals in the Gulf.

“My family are opposition sympathizers but we’re from a Shi’ite town that supports Assad. If the neighbors knew I had defected to the rebels, my family would be targeted,” says the pale 20-year-old fighter, who walks with a slight limp.

Ahmed has not even spoken to his family since he fled, hoping the lack of contact will protect them. “They don’t even know I’ve been wounded twice fighting here on the border.”

Both times he was hurt, a comrade lent him his identity card, in case pro-Assad spies were lurking at the hospital in Turkey where he was being treated. Ahmed fears even calling his family could put them in danger.

“I don’t know if they’re all alive or not. But this is a normal part of war, I think. We don’t know each other anymore.”

Beyond the fear of spies and betrayal, there are plenty of mundane reasons to cover up one’s identity in Syria these days.

The battle lines may be set between Assad’s forces and the rebels, but most Syrians still navigate daily between areas controlled by each side in order to hang on to their jobs and homes, or simply to get to the local marketplace.

For Abu Obeid, a rebel fighting in the northern city of Aleppo, the choice to keep a secret life is pure economics.

Once a school teacher at a government-run elementary school, he now spends his days behind sandbags in a dark alleyway of Aleppo’s ancient Old City, trading fire with Assad’s snipers.

But every month, he goes to the education ministry to pick up his salary. His school, like most in the area, has been closed since Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, became one of the main battlegrounds of the conflict three months ago. Clashes erupt day and night and shelling and explosions are constant.

Despite the closures, the state has continued paying salaries to those it does not suspect of joining the opposition.

“I am keeping my work as a rebel secret because I need the money for my wife and children,” he says, winking. “You don’t get paid to be a rebel.”

(Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

14-47

By Parvez Fatteh, Founder of http://sportingummah.com, sports@muslimobserver.com

The National Football League’s Saint Louis Rams signed wide receiver Saalim Hakim to the team’s practice squad this week. Hakim is 5-foot-11, 188 pounds, from Tarleton State. He was recently a member of the Dallas Cowboys, signing with them this past spring as an undrafted free agent. Prior to that he spent a year with the Las Vegas Locomotives in the United Football League. He played wide receiver for the first time at Palomar Community College, where he totaled 31 catches in two seasons as a reserve, then transferred to Tarleton State for a season, where he caught 18 passes off the bench. After one season at Tarleton State, Hakim signed with the Las Vegas Locomotives of the United Football League, Former New York Giants head coach Jim Fassel is the head coach and general manager of the Locomotives. His son, John Fassel, happens to coach special teams with the Rams.

Fassel gave Hakim’s athleticism a big endorsement, “You don’t find guys like him walking around on the streets,” Fassel said. “He’s so strong — explosively strong. He’d jerk a guy, go around him, and once he got into a leverage position they couldn’t run with him. Once he gets going, he’s as fast as anyone I’ve ever seen on the football field.” According to sportswriter Rick Gosselin of the Dallas Morning News, the Rams tried to lure Hakim to join the team this spring, but the Cowboys did a better job, with owner Jerry Jones and head coaches Jason Garrett making personal pitches.

Hakim has been clocked as fast as 4.31seconds in the 40-yard dash. It’s a big reason why 18 NFL teams tried to sign him as a rookie free agent even though he’s never started at any level of football. In fact he didn’t even start playing football until his senior year of high school, preferring soccer as a kid. He is the younger brother of Az-Zahir Hakim, better known as the lightning-fast receiver and kick returner for the St. Louis Rams’ “Greatest Show on Turf” teams. The elder Hakim averaged 18.8 yards per catch for the Rams’ 2000 Super Bowl-winning team.

14-47

By Parvez Fatteh, Founder of http://sportingummah.com, sports@muslimobserver.com

Shabazz Muhammad, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Bruins’ highly-touted freshman from Las Vegas, was declared ineligible by the NCAA because of violations of amateurism rules. Just how many games Muhammad, who was considered the top high school basketball recruit in the country last year, will miss was not immediately announced, but people close to the situation who aren’t authorized to speak publicly said a decision is expected to be announced next week. UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero said the school would appeal the ruling. “We are extremely disappointed that the NCAA has made this determination,” he said. Later, Guerrero added, “I feel bad for the kid.”

The NCAA said in a statement that in addition to other pending issues, Muhammad accepted travel and lodging during three unofficial visits to two schools. The schools are Duke and North Carolina. The unofficial visits were paid for by North Carolina-based financial adviser Benjamin Lincoln, a person close to the situation said. Lincoln’s brother, Geoff, is an assistant coach at Las Vegas Bishop Gorman, where Muhammad went to high school.

Muhammad’s family has said that Lincoln is a friend — and the NCAA does allow for financial aid to be awarded to an athlete provided that it’s from someone with a preexisting relationship. But Guerrero said that the NCAA determined the Muhammad family’s relationship with Lincoln “would not have allowed the support to allow the family to receive the benefits that they got.”
The school and NCAA enforcement staff agreed on the facts on the case, and therefore it was determined by the NCAA that he couldn’t play Friday, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who spoke anonymously because the case is ongoing.

UCLA, even though it has accepted the facts of the case, could disagree that a violation occurred and appeal, as Guerrero said it plans to do. The case then would go to an NCAA appeals committee. If the committee sided with UCLA, Muhammad would probably become eligible immediately. But if the committee ruled that a violation did occur, the appeal would be denied and Muhammad would have to go through a reinstatement process to regain his eligibility.

The other option is that UCLA could accept that there was a violation and go immediately to reinstatement process. Both the appeals and reinstatement processes would be expedited, the person said, because the season is now underway.

After UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero released his statement, stating that the NCAA had “finally” come to a conclusion on Muhammad’s eligibility, the NCAA released another statement saying it had not received documents in a timely manner, pointing fingers at Muhammad’s family and UCLA. Muhammad’s family subsequently released a statement denouncing the NCAA’s release as being inaccurate. However, the NCAA released a follow-up statement that re-iterated its original statement. A more final ruling is expected with a week or two.

14-47

Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf receives interfaith award

Prominent interfaith leader Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf  was one of the three recipients of the Search for Common Ground Award for Interaith Diplomacy. Also honored alongside Imam Rauf were Rabbi David Rosen and Archbishop George Carey.

In its press release Common Ground said that these “three faith leaders have dedicated themselves to promoting awareness of and respect for religious diversity worldwide.  They have not shied away from openly discussing and engaging with difficult and controversial issues and have given themselves in service to dialogue and illuminating the issues and challenges we face in developing respect and understanding among diverse religions.”

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is the Founder of Cordoba Initiative, an independent, multi-faith, and multi-national project that works to improve Muslim-West relations.  Under Imam Feisal’s leadership, the Cordoba Initiative’s programs craft strategic avenues for approaching divisive Muslim-West tensions.  The programs include the Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow(MLT), which cultivates the next generation of Muslim leaders from all over the world, and the Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE), which empowers Muslim women globally.  

In 1997, he co-founded the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), the first Muslim organization committed to building bridges between Muslims and the American public by elevating the discourse on Islam through educational outreach, interfaith collaboration, culture, and the arts. Imam Feisal is a Trustee of the Islamic Center of New York and Vice Chair on the board of the Interfaith Center of New York.   Recipient of numerous awards, Imam Feisal was listed as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2010 by Foreign Policy magazine.   In April 2011, Time magazine named him among the 100 most influential people of the world.  Imam Feisal and his wife, Daisy Khan, Co-Founder and Executive Director of ASMA, received the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award.

No school closures on Eid day in Montgomery County

The Montgomery County School Board has declined a request to officially  close schools on one of the two eid days. The board states that it couldn’t simply add a holiday for a religious occasion. In instead asked that student and staff attendance be monitored closely on future Muslim holidays to see if such  a request is indeed warranted.

At the meeting several Muslim leaders called for fairness as they noted Montgomery’s lineup of Jewish and Christian school holidays, including Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Christmas and Good Friday.
Board member Michael A. Durso (District 5) weighed in as the board’s lone vote Tuesday against adopting next year’s school calendar with only the standard holidays. He said that for “a system that prides itself on its inclusiveness and diversity,” the message may be misconstrued. “It just bothers me, what do we say to our Muslim students and parents?”

Muslims, Mormons and Methodists work together for Sandy relief

NEW YORK,NY— In a times of crisis people come together. This was amply demonstrated last weekend in New York. The LDS Church officials in New York City canceled their regular Sunday worship services last Sunday so that members and missionaries could join the relief efforts to provide help to victims of Hurricane Sandy.

They were joined by volunteers from the Muslim Relief Services and the United Methodist Church.

14-47

By Adil James, TMO

Farmington–November 12, 2012–The United States State Department periodically brings visitors to the United States from around the world in order to show them the true nature of this country.

Farmington–November 12, 2012–The United States State Department periodically brings visitors to the United States from around the world in order to show them the true nature of this country.  Recently the State Department hosted two journalists from Thailand who focus on the south of Thailand–called the “deep south” in Thailand, from the three Muslim provinces that have recently been very restive.

Thailand’s three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiway have seen almost daily gun fights and bomb attacks since January 2004.

The two journalists’ visit was intended to study investigative journalism, as they are both involved in investigating the ongoing war in Thailand.

The two visitors arrived at The Muslim Observer on Monday afternoon and spent about two hours in a friendly discussion with TMO staffers and TMO publisher Dr. AS Nakadar.

The journalists described in detail the war that has plagued their region and described the history, ethnicity and language of the southern Thai provinces.  The deep south of Thailand is, according to Mr. Dueramae, comprised of ethnic Malay people but who speak the Thai language.  The Thai took over the region approximately 200 years ago, and thus the roots of the conflict lie more in a desire for political autonomy than in religious conflict. 

The culture of the armed insurrection is one in which one group rises, becomes strong, dies out and then another group of insurrectionists develops.

They explained that there is a range of opinions within the Muslim region, where some Muslims agree with the insurrectionists, others are opposed to the insurrection, and many are neutral.  However many in the region are opposed to some Thai policies, for example a past (now ended) policy outlawed hijab for Muslim girls in public school.

Thailand is 8% Muslim, comprising about 1.5 million out of about 19 million Thais, mainly in the south.

The journalists study the separatist movement by interviewing separatists and past separatists, who all usually remain anonymous and frequently deny their allegiance to the separatist movement; the journalists produced a seven part series on the conflict.

Ordinary people are actually caught in the middle of this conflict. Many die, many get maimed, or lose family members–they actually want a solution.

The Thai government also has come to understand the conflict better–where at first they assumed that every resident of the deep south was either complicit or involved in the movement, now they understand that there is a range of positions among the residents of Thailand’s deep south.

The Thai journalists had many questions for the Muslim Observer, and wanted to understand the climate for Muslims in the wake of 9/11, and the nature of TMO’s business model as well.
TMO was honored to have this visit.

14-47

Exit poll results and election night surveys of Jewish voters reveal that President Obama and Democrats continue to receive tremendous support from Jewish voters.

J Street Press Release

In addition to his 70-30 victory over Mitt Romney among Jews nationwide, Obama also won the Jewish vote in the key swing states of Ohio (69-30) and Florida (68-31) by comparable margins. After months of speculation about Obama’s standing among American Jews and an unprecedented multi-million dollar campaign by prominent Republicans to appeal to Jews, one thing remains clear regarding the 2012 Jewish vote: in an election where Obama enjoyed a narrow victory with the overall American electorate, he had an overwhelming victory with the Jewish electorate.

Just as the economy was the dominant issue for voters nationwide, Jews cited the economy as the issue that most in determining their vote (53 percent). The next most important issues for Jewish voters were health care (32 percent), Social Security and Medicare (23 percent), and the deficit and government spending (20 percent). While much has been written about the role that Israel would play in the Jewish vote, only 10 percent cited Israel as one of its two most important issues. Notably, the least important issue for Jewish voters was Iran (2 percent).

When it comes to the high profile (but lower priority) issue of Israel, the data clearly indicate that efforts to attack Obama on Israel fell short. Jewish voters in the 2012 election trust Barack Obama more than Mitt Romney on Israel by a margin of 53-31, and a large majority want U.S. leadership to help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict even if it means publicly disagreeing with Israelis and Arabs. And when it comes to dealing with Iran, Jews think Obama would do a better job than Romney (58-26). 

Ultimately, the Jewish vote was driven by a mixture of strong support for President Obama (67 percent job approval), a growing sense that he is turning things around for the country (55 percent right direction), positive feelings toward the Democratic Party (54 favorable / 33 unfavorable), and intense opposition to Mitt Romney (29 favorable / 62 unfavorable) and the Republican Party (26 favorable / 64 unfavorable).

GBA Strategies conducted 3 surveys on November 6, 2012: 1) national survey of 800 Jewish voters; 2) Florida statewide survey of 600 Jewish voters; 3) Ohio statewide survey of 600 Jewish voters.  The methodology for these surveys is detailed at the end of this memo.  The full survey results can be accessed at www.2012.jstreet.org.

Primary Takeaways – The Vote

Barack Obama’s 70 percent of the Jewish vote is in line with the 70 percent average received by Democratic candidates since exit polling began in 1972.

Compared to other base, swing, and religious constituencies, the Jewish vote exhibited similar shifts from the 2008 election.

In the national Jewish electorate and the key swing states of Florida and Ohio, Obama was seen as better than Romney on domestic and foreign policy issues. Obama biggest issue advantages over Romney include who will do a better job on Social Security and Medicare (+40), health care (+39), terrorism and national security (+33), and dealing with Iran (+31). Obama also enjoyed big margins on advancing Middle East peace (+28), the economy and jobs (+24), and Israel (+22). The President’s smallest advantage was on the deficit and government spending (+13). Obama’s fundamental strengths with the national Jewish electorate extended to Florida and Ohio as well.

•  Florida: 66 percent job approval, 66 percent favorability, and big margins over Romney on who will do a better job handling Social Security and Medicare (+37), Iran (+32), Israel (+27), and the economy (+27).

•  Ohio: 67 percent job approval and 68 percent favorability. (The Ohio survey did not ask the questions about whether Obama or Romney would do a better job on issues; instead, the comparison was made between Senate candidates Sherrod Brown and Josh Mandel. Brown’s margins ranged from +23 to +42, depending on the issue).

Obama ran essentially even with other Democrats. Nationally, the Democratic candidate for Congress received 69 percent (compared to 70 percent for Obama); in Florida, Senator Bill Nelson received 72 percent (compared to Obama’s 68 percent) and Senator Sherrod Brown received 71 percent (compared to Obama’s 69 percent). 

Mitt Romney failed to distinguish himself from a highly damaged Republican brand, and was strongly disliked by Jewish voters.  In addition to Romney’s dismal personal favorability with Jews noted earlier, his 60 percent unfavorable in both Florida and Ohio – and similar unfavorable numbers for the Republican Party in these two states – prevented Romney from gaining traction with Jewish voters.

Despite records amount of money targeted at undercutting President Obama’s Jewish support, the critiques of Obama did not resonate.

Nationally, large numbers of Jews (45 percent) reported seeing television ads or mail that criticized President Obama for his positions or actions toward Israel, but they also reported that these ads did not move them toward Romney. Among the 45 percent who said they saw the ads, 40 percent said the ads made no difference, 38 percent said the ads made them more likely to support Obama, and 23 percent said the ads made them more likely to support Romney.

•  In Florida, respondents were asked if they saw the ads with Prime Minister Netanyahu talking about Iran. Nearly half of Florida’s Jewish voters (45 percent) saw these ads, but again, the ads did not have the desired effect. Most Florida Jews (56 percent) said the Netanyahu Iran ads made no difference in their vote, 27 percent said the Netanyahu Iran ads made them more likely to support Obama, and 16 percent said the Netanyahu Iran ads made them more likely to support Romney.

•  In Ohio, the Netanyahu Iran ads did not run, so respondents were asked if they saw any television ads or mail criticizing Obama on Israel. A striking 73 percent said yes, but 63 percent of these voters said the ads made no difference in their vote, 22 percent said the ads made them more likely to support Obama, and 13 percent said the ads made them more likely to support Romney.

Jewish campaign contributions remained steady for both Obama and the Republican candidate from 2008 to 2012. The same number of Jews who donated in the 2008 campaign (26 percent) made a contribution to one of the 2012 Jewish Vote presidential campaigns in 2012. While the total participation was the same, so was the breakdown of recipients – Obama received a contribution from 21 percent of Jews in both 2008 and 2012, and Romney’s 7 percent of contributions this year equaled the same amount of contributions that John McCain received from Jews in 2008.

Primary Takeaways – U.S. Role in the Middle East

American Jews are a very progressive constituency when it comes to Israel and Middle East peace efforts. Overwhelming majorities support a two-state solution (79 to 82 percent, depending on the details), and 72 percent of Jewish voters support a comprehensive peace agreement that includes borders based on the 1967 lines with mutual land swaps, Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem becoming part of the new Palestinian state while Israel retains control of Jewish neighborhoods and the Western Wall, financial compensation for Palestinian refugees and limited return to Israel, and a demilitarized state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Jewish voters want the U.S. to play an active role to resolve the conflict. Even if it means “publicly stating its disagreements with both the Israelis and the Arabs, 69 percent of Jews support this type of U.S. role. Support rises to 76 percent when American Jews are asked how they feel about the U.S. putting forth a peace plan that proposes borders and security arrangements between Israelis and Palestinians.

American Jews welcome a renewed American-led effort to resolve the Arab-Israel conflict, and there is extraordinary support for such an effort to be led by Bill Clinton. The former President is very well-liked by American Jews (69 percent favorable / 23 percent unfavorable), and 84 percent of Jewish voters say they would support the appointment of Bill Clinton to serve as a special Middle East Peace Envoy who is charged with bringing Israelis and Palestinians together to negotiate a final status agreement.

When it comes to Iran, Jewish voters exhibit mixed feelings. A plurality (47 percent) think the U.S. needs to give diplomacy and sanctions time to work before setting red lines, compared to 35 percent who think diplomacy and sanctions have failed and it is now time to set red lines. Iran is not necessarily on American Jews’ radar (only 2 percent cited it as one of their top 2 issues determining their vote), and they do not want U.S. efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be sidetracked by a sole focus on Iran. In fact, 61 percent want the U.S. to address both Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the same priority.

GBA Strategies designed the questionnaire for these three surveys conducted November 6, 2010. The national survey of 800 self-identified Jewish voters in the 2012 election has a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percent. GBA Strategies contracted the research company Mountain West Research Center to administer the survey by email invitation to its web-based panel, which is regularly updated and consists of nearly 900,000 Americans.

The Florida and Ohio surveys of 600 self-identified Jewish voters each has a margin of error of +/- 4 percent and was conducted by landline and cell phone, calling a random sample of registered voters with Jewish names and people who self-identify as Jewish in consumer data that has been appended to the voter file.

In both the national and statewide surveys, respondents were re-screened at the beginning of the survey when they were first asked for their religion and then, if they did not identify themselves as Jewish by religion, they were asked again if they considered themselves Jewish.

The full survey results, including full question wording and crosstabs are available at www.2012.jstreet.org.

14-47

By Mehr Tarar

Kill a human being who does not share your faith and voila, as per your  religious gurus, you have earned the title of  ‘ghazi’

My  12-year-old son is a Muslim. He knows the Namaz, reads the Quran  with a teacher, and recites the Kalima before going to sleep. He  understands the basic concepts and has no problem lowering the of TV when one is saying prayers, or when asked to put the Quran in  a clean, protected space. Asked why he does all these things, his  answer would be simple: “My mom taught me to.” My 12-year-old is a  Muslim simply because I am a Muslim. His faith is not something he  was born with, and all he knows is imbibed through parental  influence. The only thing noteworthy is his perception about the  world: how unfair some things are, how people unleash cruelty on one  another. His unfaltering empathy, his profound concern for people  are things probably no one taught him. When I tell him about painful  events, there is no recoiling in unease; there is merely a rapid  fluttering of eyelashes, a telltale sign of an attempt to hide his  tears, this time about the 11-year-old Christian girl who is the  latest victim of Muslim ruthlessness.

Islam is a commodity  today. It is a commodity for those who practice it in mosques,  chanting what they learned as children without full comprehension of  what the Quran connotes. It is a commodity for those in madrassas  where hoards of pupils, hunched over their religious books, learn as  much from the text as their teachers see fit. It is a commodity for  those who, to monopolise a few weak souls, roar into their  microphones how one faith is better than the others — be it Sunni or  Shia. It is a commodity for those who pen reams of hate literature  without any consideration for the historical context of the events  open to them for distortion, thus providing more opportunities for  those who look for an excuse to unleash cruelty on fellow  beings.

It  is a commodity for those who have prime time slots on TV channels,  with a unilateral agenda to top the ratings game, with no thought  that their biased pronouncements become sacred to those in need of  props to strengthen their faith through tele-scholars. Religion is a  commodity for many enfeebled minds who have mastered a simple  principle: you can never go wrong if you have a beard, your shalwar  is above your ankles, you have a rosary wrapped around your wrist,  you can quote Quranic verses as and when required and you have an  epithet — mullah, maulvi, alim, maulana — attached to your name. Now  you are invincible. Who in his right mind would raise a finger at  you when your hands are humbly joined to pray to Allah? Whatever you  do is in the name of religion; which mere mortal has the right to  see you for what you truly are?

In no way this implies that  all religious people are identical. There are many who practice what  they preach and to them Islam is to be believed in and not imposed.  Unfortunately, they are the minority. Their messages of tolerance  and brotherhood are constantly overwhelmed by the incoherent  cacophony of the fanatic  hate-mongers, the bigoted, the  unforgiving. Mosques, the only entity to invade our houses through  microphones and loudspeakers, armed with sermons and rants about sin  and sinners, have become more than assembly places for prayer and  the transmission of Azaan.

Now, for some, these are the licensed areas to spew venom, incite violence and invoke vengeance for all those not walking the straight  line of Islam — their interpretation of Islam. Not the Islam  of  Mohammad (s), but the Islam that teaches one faith to persecute another, one faith to proclaim superiority over others,  one faith to decide who is a better Muslah, one faith to choose who  lives or dies, one faith to even decide who gets to be a Muslim. The  Islam of Mohammad  (s)— the only person I believe in other than what I read in the Quran — is not the distorted version full of  persecution, fanaticism and outright barbarism that some vigilantes  of Islam unleash on their own, leave alone on those who are of  different religions.

Convert a Hindu into a Muslim; you buy yourself a seat in heaven with 72 virgins. Kidnap a crying Hindu girl and marry her off forcibly to a grinning Muslim hick; you have marked yourself as a true follower of Mohammad (s). All  your sins are cleansed. Erase the word Allah from the grave of the only Nobel Laureate of Pakistan and you deserve a standing ovation.  Stop the Ahmedis from going to their places of worship and you have  fulfilled your religious obligation for the day. Demolish parts of  those buildings, thus making them indistinguishable as mosques, and  you houour Islam. Kill a human being who does not share your faith  and voila, as per your religious gurus, you have earned the title of  ‘ghazi’.

The number of Shias forced off buses en route to their families, identified and killed,  is something I cannot sum up in hundreds of words. Innocent Muslims killed by fellow Muslims who decided, on only God knows whose authority, that only their faith mattered. These inhuman acts cannot be encapsulated in a few words. The enormity of what happened in my country over the last few months is beyond my capacity to make sense  of, hence my inability to capture it in my text coherently. Here, as  a Sunni, I lower my head, offer a prayer, and apologise — with all  of me.

Hindus, victimised simply because they  are born as Hindus –just as my son was born a Muslim — are the ones  to whom we owe another apology. For the love of God, this is as much their country as it is ours. Any country that celebrates a National  Minorities Day validates the incongruity of its fundamental  principles. Hindu, Christian, Parsi, Sikh, Jew, anyone of any faith,  colour, creed, who has lived here for centuries, before we claimed  it as only ours, is as much a Pakistani as those who pray to Makkah.  Jinnah said it, our religion preaches it; when did we become the  arbiters of faith of which only Allah is the  arbiter?

For all who saluted the assassin of the former governor, Salmaan Taseer, the less said the better. Why waste words on those ignorant preachers of religion who killed the one man who had the moral courage to stand up for a  condemned-to-death-on-a-blasphemy-charge poor Christian woman, Aasia  Bibi? She does not matter. Why would the individual who spoke for  her matter? Government’s inability to expedite the court-ordered  punishment handed down to the assassin shows the level of fear our  rulers have when it comes to blasphemy laws that need a major  revision, if not a complete repeal.

The mentally disturbed man in Bahawalpur district, beaten to death and burnt by a mob that on the instigation of their local mosque speakers saw blood, is the person we owe an apology to. He was a ‘blasphemer’;  the verdict was given, but by whom? True Muslims? Faith apart, how do you kill a man without a trial and get away with it? Of course,  you can, if you are a self-appointed vigilante of Islam in the  Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Rest assured, you would never be  penalised.

The biggest slap on our tattered moral fibre comes in the shape of the arrest and jailing of the  11-year-old Rimsha Masih. A pre-teen non-Muslim girl playing near a garbage pile is a blasphemer? A girl who has no notion of the  sanctity of the holy text of another faith is a blasphemer? A girl who picked up pages of a discarded Arabic language lesson book (qaida), taught to pre-Quran-reading Muslim children is a blasphemer? Forget about her Down Syndrome for a bit. Which religion  allows this treatment of a child based on some deeply flawed  interpretation of religion? Islam? To me, the answer is simple. And  there is just one example to follow: Prophet Mohammad (s). Raise  your hand if you have read and believe the story of the man who threw garbage on the Prophet’s (s) door every day. How did he treat him? I rest my argument. Let us all think: who is the so-called blasphemer here? The 11-year-old  Christian girl who was playing with discarded pages or those who threw the pages there? What happened to the Quranic injunction of  aamal (actions) connected to neeyat (intent)? There is no answer. We are all just impostors, hypocrites, cowards, who hide behind the  name of Allah, when there is nothing left to our moral, social and  religious  discourses.

14-47

By Geoffrey Cook, TMO

Sacramento–Alison Weir A. Weir the executive director of If Americans Knew, a nonprofit organization – that is located in Vancouver (Wash. — across the Columbia River from Portland [Ore.]) after completing an independent investigation as a freelance journalist at the height of the second intifada in 2001, became acutely aware of what the sectarian-bias media was hiding from her country (U.S.’) brothers and sisters.

Weir was brought down from the Pacific Northwest by Sabeel, an English spelling for the Arabic word for “spring,” a Jerusalem-based Christian Palestinian (but the Movement itself has spread worldwide) people-of-faith organization, who are inclusive of not only Christians but Muslims and all Jews–  who, also, agree that the intolerable status of the mutual ground for the three religions of Abraham (PBUH) must be settled in a fair and equitable manner.

Six years ago the American Journalist was only superficially aware of the Arab-Israeli crisis.  (Now, after the current U.S. elections, the solution to all of us once again becomes the most pressing problem in the Middle East.) AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) is not the only problem in the Washington-Tel Aviv axis, but it so pervasive that that organization has a stranglehold upon American politics.  In actuality, they are a foreign agent  within the American Commonweal, but its employees are not required to register in Weir’s words!

They will lobby Congress not to create bills in the interests of the American hinterlands, but for the benefit of those within the miniature country in extreme West Asia.

Since the members of the American Congress and President are continually running for re-election, AIPAC is able to have American policy drafted in Israel’s favor by means of their “blackmailing” lucre.

The other side of the dynamic is that organization will turn against those Congress people who “buck” their organization.  Amongst their victims have been the Republican Representative Pete McClosky and the Democrat Cynthia McKenna in her Georgia purely Afro-American District at that! 

Small non-PACs (Political Action Committees) will give to AIPAC; then, AIPAC will literarily re-distribute those funds in a manner resembling a subtle “bribe” to those  American law-makers who  ensure the U.S.A.-Israeli relationship’s status quo.

Even Obama has had to communicate with AIPAC; therefore, to Weir, he is indebted to Zionism. 

Israel, as a political entity, started before the establishment of that nation.  Israel is politically a Jewish State – that makes it exclusive rather than inclusive; and, thereby, has been travelling ever further  from a sectarian-based State to a racist one. 

Curiously, the American State Department opposed the Zionist Movement for several decades before the 1948 Partition of the old British Mandate of Palestine, but in 1913 — even before the establishment of that very Mandate – a secret society was established to promote Zionism in America; before even the (British) Balfour Declaration of 1917 which promised a Zionist Jewish State within the old Medieval Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem’s territory. 

Zionism became a factor in the United States’ entry into the First World War.  Zionists pressured members of Woodrow Wilson’s Cabinet to enter as London’s ally if they could commit themselves to a Jewish State in the area of the, then, Ottoman Empire.  

The commitment from the Zionists was, if an agreement was reached for a Jewish State over Palestine, those Zionists promised to garner a worldwide support for the Allies.  Thus, the British came to embrace the American Zionists as “natural allies.” 

There was a worldwide Zionist delegation to the 1919 Versailles Conference from which the Treaty of Versailles emerged which, in effect, created the post-World War I geo-political landscape.

Curiously, the (U.S.) State Department, then, and the majority of American Christian leaders opposed the pseudo-Hebrews (Hebrew was a “dead” ritualistic language but was only revived for Nationalistic reasons along the lines of Irish) at that aforementioned French Conference — because the U.S. diplomatic corps perceived them as an anti-democratic force.

The precursor of AIPAC in America urged Christians and Jews to form an alliance.  (Much of the “mythological” structure of the Judeo-Christian tradition resided within the Jewish Old Testament (or, in Christian terms, the Old Covenant).

The ascendant edition of the Judeo-Christian Bible (the West’s basic religious text) in North America at that time was the Scofield Bible (first published in 1909) which Alison Weir judged to be a distorted (translation; and, thereby, interpretation) of the sacred words of two of the three of the Abrahamic traditions. 

Through it all, the media has perverted the history – often under AIPAC financing — of the raise of the initial Ashkenazim State in the Levant.  Ms. Weir pointed to the fact that individuals, such as the late Fundamentalist “Christian” Jerry Falwell, were fiscally influence by Israel; and, thus, are Zionist although not Jewish in any way.  (The reverse is true, too:  Most American Jews do not advocate Zionism as a moral alternative.)  Probably, merely, a half of one-percentage of American Jewry identify with the Zionistic faction within their tradition. 

At the same time, Washington gifts/enables the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) U.S. $8.2 million per day.  With the States seriously in debt, this would be a logical item to cut.

14-47