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Islam, a religion, cannot be turned into a handmaiden of politics; when this occurs, Islam is turned into Islamism. Its defining characteristic is its intolerance of others, including Muslims, and glorification of violence against all who disagree. The conflict inside the Muslim world might be characterized as one between tyranny and freedom, even if that tyranny is packaged in God’s name. The strategically right thing to do is provide moral and material assistance to Muslims struggling against Islamists.

Since 9/11 the West has been confounded with the question whether Islam and Islamism are one and same, or if there is a critical distinction to be drawn between the two. How this question is answered has profound implications for understanding and explaining the immense convulsion seizing the Muslim world, and on how best to frame a proper response without undermining or eroding the secular and liberal democratic culture of the West.

Islamism is — from the perspective of someone born and raised within the mainstream majority Sunni Islam — an ideology fascistic and totalitarian in impulse and action, masquerading as religion. The proponents, advocates, activists and apologists of Islamism, irrespective of whatever guise these Islamists assume in public, are engaged in the sort of radical politics the West became acquainted with in the early decades of the twentieth century with the rise of Communism, Fascism and Nazism.

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Nasir Khan,  November 17, 2013

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“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

—Voltaire (1694 – 1778)

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The  wise words of Voltaire can be applied to a number of situations. Those who have political, economic, social and religious power over others make them believe as true which in many cases are absurd lies and misleading garbage. Accordingly, such misled people will be ready to commit all sorts of atrocities when asked to do so without any guilt or remorse. Those who have global political and military power and aggressive designs on other countries hush up the cult of patriotism and push their armies to do the patriotic duties by unleashing destructive wars in other countries while the populations at home applaud the glorious and heroic services rendered by their ‘men and women in uniform’!

The preachers and clerics in a violence-ridden country like Pakistan use their rhetoric against other religious sects and minorities by calling them infidels (kafirs) and succeed to inflame the feelings of their congregations. Consequently, the brainwashed and misled followers of such religious preachers kill their fellow countrymen in the name of Allah, Islam and the Holy Prophet. It is obvious that ignorance produces more ignorance and in such an atmosphere of perpetual frenzy of hatred and barbarism the Shia Muslims and other religious minorities are targeted and killed.

Exclusive: As the Obama administration scrambles to salvage a deal with Iran on its nuclear program, the new Saudi-Israeli alliance shows off its muscles in bending politicians and policies to its will, Robert Parry reports.

By Robert Parry

What makes the potential of the Saudi-Israeli alliance so intimidating is that Saudi Arabia and its oil-rich Arab friends have the petrodollars that can turn the heads of some leaders and even countries, while Israel can snap the whip on other politicians, especially in the U.S. Congress, through its skillful lobbying and propaganda.

We are now getting a look at exactly how this international money-and-politics game plays out as Saudi Arabia and Israel maneuver to defeat an interim agreement with Iran on freezing much of its nuclear program in exchange for some modest relief on economic sanctions.

Secretary of State John Kerry addresses reporters in Geneva on Nov. 8, 2013, after arriving for what turned out to be failed talks aimed at reaching an interim agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. (Photo credit: State Department)

Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf neighbors lavished contracts and other financial favors on the economically hard-pressed French – and lo and behold, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius showed up at the last minute in Geneva and blew up the nuclear deal. (Last summer, the French were in lock-step with the Saudis in their eagerness to see the U.S. military start bombing Syria, an Iranian ally.)

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Time Magazine (1925), November 12, 2013

Editor’s Note: In 1968, Time Magazine made available all issues of the previous years as Time Capsule. The following text was published in 1925 in Time Magazine that dealt with the question of Palestine after the Balfour Declaration (1917). The narrative of Time Magazine is of much historical interest that many observers and political analysts may find of value. There is also a lot of vital information about Lord Balfour’s political plans for Jews and Arabs in Palestine as evidenced by his contemporary journalists. I thank David Wildsmith for sending me the text as a PDF file.

Nasir Khan, Editor

Palestine

In an effort to control the unrest which had existed between
Arab and Zionist communities ever since World War I, the
League of Nations made Palestine a mandate of Great Britain
in 1922. The mandate lasted until 1948.
——————-
HOSTILE ARABS: Hale and hearty at the age of 76, Arthur
James Balfour, Earl of that name, descended from his bedroom
one bright foggy morning into his electrically lit study
in his electrically lit house in Carlton Gardens, London. He
sank agedly into a chair before his writing desk, opened a cablegram from Palestine sent by the Arab Executive, political
agency of the Arabs, read:

“Realizing that the Balfour Declaration contains a policy
that is fatal to Palestine, the Arab Executive has passed the
following resolution:

” ‘Inhabitants who are victims of the aforesaid policy will
withhold the reception otherwise due to Lord Balfour. On
the day of his arrival, meetings will be held in places of worship
for protest and prayer. Representatives of Arab bodies
will refrain from meeting him publicly or privately. The authorities
responsible for the Holy Places and national institutions
will withhold leave of access to them. Arabic papers will appear with black borders and brief comments in English on the Balfour Declaration. Political authorities in Arab countries will associate themselves with the said protests and prayers. The Palestine Government is notified that it will be responsible for consequences resulting from Jewish demonstrations, public or private, authorized or unauthorized.’”
Why this hostility? The Balfour Declaration of 1917 had
declared that “His Majesty’s Government view with favor
the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish
people,” but specifically stipulated that “nothing shall
be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights
of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”

The letter and the spirit of this agreement have been carried
out, according to British and Jewish sources. But the fact remains that the British Government has tacitly undertaken to reconcile what are essentially irreconcilable peoples and policies. Within Palestine, which is about the same size as the state of New Hampshire, there are about 757,182 people, of whom 77% are Moslems (most of them Arabs), I l % Jews, 9 % Christians, and 3% other religions.

The Moslems view with considerable alarm the infiltration
of the thrifty Jews, and since Britain tries ineffectually to
side with both, a further issue between Arab and Britisher
is created.

The Arab, as he has been in possession of the country for
centuries, regards himself as a national of Palestine and consequently 
is opposed to the Jews coming into the country and considering themselves equally Palestine nationals. This resentment is heightened by the fact that the Arabs, although owning most of the land, are poor; while the Jews seemingly have unlimited wealth behind them, which comes in from the  Zionist organization.

The Arab is opposed, as he always has been, to change;
and the one thing that the Jews are doing is changing the
whole aspect of the land. The Jews, for the most part, settle
on the swamps and the dry sand belts. The swamps they
drain and the sand patches they fertilize and irrigate. In
these things the Arab finds good material for a constant
stream of propaganda against the Jews, whom he charges
with pursuing a policy calculated to drive the Arab from
the country. Therefore, so long as the Balfour Declaration remains in force, all good Arabs must refuse to cooperate with the British Administration.

MANHATTAN TO HAIFA: It was a historic occasion marked by the
 presence of 5,000 excited Jews, for the president Arthur
was inaugurating a new steamship line with a sailing for
Haifa, the port of Jerusalem, and carrying the flag of Judea
(six-pointed star of David) on the high seas for the first
time in 2,000 years. Men and women wept from emotion
and when they were not weeping they were singing Hatikvah,
Zionist anthem, or The Star-Spangled Banner.


Considerable difficulty was experienced in getting visitors
off the boat, and as a result it was nearly an hour late in sailing.
Finally, an official of the Line pleaded that, if the boat
did not catch the tide, the company would lose $15,000.
Soon after this, the President Arthur weighed anchor.

lN THE PROMTSED LAND: Last week, nearly seven and a half
years after the Earl of Balfour had issued his declaration favoring the establishment of Palestine as a national home for the Jewish people, he entered a special railway car provided by the Palestine Government and was whisked off across the Suez Canal from Cairo to the holy land of two religions: Judaism, Christianity.

Lord Balfour went to Jerusalem. On a spur of the Mount
of Olives, known as Mt. Scopus, stands the Hebrew University
which he had come to open-which all Zionist Jewry
considers of the utmost importance in the growth of what
may be called modern Israel. He was met enthusiastically
by the Jewish communities and by the Arabs with a parade
of mourning and the silence of grief, a protest against the Balfour Declaration.
Before the opening ceremony took place, he visited Jaffa,
motored to its suburb Tel-Aviv, a purely Jewish town where,
it is said, everybody lives by doing someone else’s washing’
Everywhere the veteran Earl was received in manifest goodwill.
The great day came. Hawkers sold “Balfour biscuits”‘
“Balfour keftas” (rissoles), “Balfour chocolate,” which was
not strange in a land which has a model village named Balfouria. Dr. Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organization, declared the University open’ Then Lord Balfour arose and the ovation was such that the walls of the amphitheatre were endangered. At length – silence.

Lord Balfour spoke in his best Eton and Cambridge manner,
dwelt upon the significance of the event which had
brought people from all the earth’s cubbyholes’ The speech
ended on a Balfourian note: a graceful, tactful, courageous
plea for Arab goodwill and cooperation. 

LAST LAP: The last lap of Lord Balfour’s visit to the Holy
Land proved more exciting than the first and ended with regrettable suddenness. The Earl and his party had proceeded
from Jerusalem to Nazareth and Haifa in a sort of triumphal
tour. A tall points, he was met by enthusiastic Jewish colonists;
Arabs appeared to inform him that they lived peacefully
with their Jewish neighbors. 

Over the border in Syria (French mandate), things were different. At Damascus, a furious mob twice attacked his
hotel. The second onslaught, which started in “The Street
That Is Called Straight,” almost ended in a disaster, for when
the gendarmes had nearly been overpowered French troops
appeared and spanked off, with the flats of their swords’
the seething crowd, which was yelling “Down with Balfour!,”

An hour or so after the second attack, Lord Balfour was
spirited from the spot in a high-powered automobile and
only reappeared at Beirut, where he boarded a ship bound
for Alexandria, Egypt.

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Saed Bannoura, International Middle East Media Center, No. 10, 2013

It was a day like this day, 96 years ago, on November 2, 1917, when Britain decided to shift away its “problem”, and promise the Jews a homeland in Palestine. The Arab land that was under cruel and violent British occupation. Britain was not trying to be good to the Jews, but surely managed to look good doing it. Back then, the Jews have been facing some of the ugliest forms of cruelty, racism and hatred, in Europe, especially in the Britain that calls itself the Great. Britain decided to grant the Jews a homeland in Palestine, a homeland that Britain did not own, a land that Britain ruled by force, by military might, and by massacres and crimes.   Continues >>

November 3, 2013 by occupiedpalestine

richard falk

Al Ray Agencies | Nov 3, 2013

An independent United Nations human rights expert on Wednesday held a press conference and warned that developments in the Middle East region, “particularly in Egypt, have made the situation in Gaza one that is a point of near catastrophe.”

Addressing journalists at UN Headquarters, the Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Richard Falk noted that because of the situation in Egypt, Palestinians now face increased isolation, lack of access to healthcare and other services, and are facing an uncertain future.

In his second main point of his report to the General Assembly’s Third Committee, the Special Rapporteur reiterated that the settlements are unlawful according to the Fourth Geneva Convention and pointed out that financial institutions and real estate companies involved with housing settlements in occupied Palestinian territory may be held criminally accountable.

He told reporters that “it was appropriate and essential to implement the unlawfulness by encouraging corporations to withdraw their profit-making activities from the settlements.”

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By Nasir Khan,  October 29, 2013,

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“A non-objective being is a non-being.”

—Karl Marx (1818 – 1883)

In one pithy sentence in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Karl Marx said something of unique philosophical importance that had occupied the minds of so many learned people for thousands of years and it still does. Among such people have been philosophers, mystics, theologians and visionaries who discussed the questions relating to supernatural beings for thousands of years. Their ideas and views have captivated countless generations of human beings and have filled millions of books. We see every year many thousand more volumes are added to the same old question. But Marx like a flash of lightening saw the reality of the fiction and put all that matter to rest. Any possible thing that is non-objective is non-being.

By Nasir Khan, October 29, 2013

Kemal Ataturk was the first Muslim ruler who understood that religion and State have to be separated in the interest of the people. He had seen the decadent Ottoman Caliphate and the abysmal stagnation of the State and society under its Sultans and Caliphs. For a long time the decaying Turkey was regarded as the ‘Sick Man of Europe’ by the European powers. They simply didn’t know what to do with this lifeless giant!

After abolishing the Caliphate, Kemal introduced far reaching reforms in the Turkish Republic. He didn’t force anyone to give up Islam; to follow and practise a religion, Islam in this case, was a personal matter; the State had nothing to do with it. The State was to be secular, which means the State had no religion and it did not interfere with the religion/ religions of the Turkish people in any way.

If the rest of the Muslim countries who gained independence from the colonial powers had followed the example set by Kemal then we would have seen a different world map. But instead the manipulators of Islam and reactionary ideologues of Islamism (Abul Al Maududi, Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, etc. etc.) used Islam to push vast populations into ignorance and darkness. That’s where at present stand the vast majorities of the Islamic counties of the Middle East, Iran, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, etc. etc.