Peter Oborne | The Independent

Three years ago, four young suicide bombers caused carnage in London. Their aim was not just to kill and maim. There was also a long-term strategic purpose: To sow suspicion and divide Britain between Muslims and the rest. They are succeeding.

In Britain today, there is a deepening distrust between mainstream society and ever more isolated Muslim communities. A culture of contempt and violence is emerging on our streets.

Channel 4’s Dispatches program discovered many violent episodes and attacks on Muslims, with very few reported; those that do get almost no publicity.

Last week, Martyn Gilleard, a Nazi sympathizer in East Yorkshire, was jailed for 16 years. Police found four nail bombs, bullets, swords, axes and knives in his flat. Gilleard had been preparing for a war against Muslims. The Gilleard case went all but unreported. Had a Muslim been found with an arsenal of weapons and planning violent assaults, it would have been a far bigger story.

There is a reason for this blindness in the media. The systematic demonization of Muslims has become an important part of the central narrative of the British political and media class; it is so entrenched, so much part of normal discussion, that almost nobody notices. Protests go unheard and unnoticed.

Why? Britain’s Muslim immigrants are mainly poor, isolated and alienated from mainstream society. Surveys show Muslims have the highest rate of unemployment, the poorest health, the most disability and fewest educational qualifications of any faith group in the country. This means they are vulnerable, rendering them open to ignorant and hostile commentary from mainstream figures.

Islamophobia — an unfounded dread and dislike of Muslims — can be encountered in the best circles: Among our most famous novelists, among newspaper columnists, and in the Church of England.

Its appeal is wide-ranging. “I am an Islamophobe,” the Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee wrote in The Independent nearly 10 years ago. “Islamophobia?” the Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle asks rhetorically in the title of a recent speech, “Count me in”. Imagine Liddle declaring: “Anti-Semitism? Count me in”, or Toynbee claiming she was “an anti-Semite and proud of it”.

Anti-Semitism is recognized as an evil, noxious creed, and its adherents are barred from mainstream society and respectable organs of opinion. Not so Islamophobia.

“There is a definite urge; don’t you have it?”, the author Martin Amis told Ginny Dougary of The Times: “The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. Not letting them travel. Deportation; further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or Pakistan. Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children.”

Here, Amis is doing much more than insulting Muslims. He is using the foul and barbarous language of fascism.

All over Europe, parties of the far right have been dropping their traditional hostility to minorities such as Jews and homosexuals; in Britain, the BNP has come to realize that anti-Semitism and anti-black campaigning won’t work if they are serious about electoral success. To move to mainstream respectability, they need an issue that allows them to exploit people’s fears about immigrants and Britain’s ethnic minority communities without being branded racist extremists. They have found it. Since 9/11, and particularly 7/7, the BNP has gone all out to tap a rich vein of anti-Muslim sentiment. The party’s leader, Nick Griffin, has described Islam as a “wicked, vicious faith” and has tried to distance himself and the party from its anti-Semitic past. Party members are now rebuked for discussing the Holocaust and told to focus on terrorism, the evils of Islam, and scare stories of Britain becoming an Islamic state. Griffin’s strategy has been inspired by the press.

Many categories of immigrants and foreigners have been singled out for hatred and opprobrium by mainstream society because they were felt to be threats to British identity. At times, these despised categories have included Catholics, Jews, French and Germans and blacks. Now this outcast role has fallen to Muslims. We should all feel ashamed about the way we treat Muslims, in the media, in our politics, and on our streets. We do not treat Muslims with the tolerance, decency and fairness that we often like to boast is the British way. We urgently need to change our public culture.

— Peter Oborne’s Dispatches film, “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Muslim”, will be screened on Channel 4 at 8 p.m. on Monday

By Ramzy Baroud

Whether Barack Obama is or, at one point, was a Muslim should be a trivial matter in any society governed by secular, democratic dictates that apply to all, on equal footage, regardless of race, gender or religion. But in a society that is taking a turn toward the right, the matter is anything but inconsequential.

According to estimates, there are anywhere between 1.2 billion to 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide, 8 million of whom are Americans. But Muslims feel threatened, and for good reason. After the tragic events of September 11, 2001, Muslim communities have been shamelessly branded as the “enemy” to the point that in mainstream media today, the term “patriot” is juxtaposed with “Muslim” as if the two terms are irreconcilable.

The events of 9/11 have indeed politicized faith like no other past event — in a country where faith is already a powerful player in political affairs. Chris Hedges writes: “Dominionism, born out of a theology known as Christian reconstructionism, seeks to politicize faith. It has, like all fascist movements, a belief in magic along with leadership adoration and a strident call for moral and physical supremacy of a master race, in this case American Christians.”

Under these unfortunate circumstances, Obama’s faith matters greatly. The presumptive presidential candidate of the Democratic Party is vilified on the question of his faith, often accused of being a “closet Muslim” — thus, supposedly, bearing wicked plans to destroy this country from “within.” His detractors accentuate the claim, knowing fully that they have an audience, large enough to cause the energetic candidate some trouble along the way.

“Summarized, available evidence suggests Obama was born a Muslim to a nonpracticing Muslim father and for some years had a reasonably Muslim upbringing under the auspices of his Indonesian stepfather. At some point, he converted to Christianity,” concludes rightwing columnist Daniel Pipes, known for his ardent anti-Muslim views.

Such commentators seem entirely oblivious to the fact that by digging up the “dirt” of Obama’s past, as a third grader in Indonesia, to “prove” that at one point in his life he was raised a Muslim — thus should be disowned as a candidate of “change” in America — they compromise on the very nature of tolerance that America should be standing for.

They, although indirectly, envision their alternative view of the future of America, as one ruled by a religious fundamentalist intolerant group that would fight anyone who fails to adhere to their skewed ideology and preferred physical appearance. Also, considering how race and vote were intrinsically linked in individual party contests, one can conclude that being black, and a Muslim, are the antithesis of what these narrow-minded bunch stand for.

Obama, of course, is violating the very principles that he tirelessly preaches, by responding to “accusations” of his Muslim heritage as if he was warding off an incurable disease. Such claims are being deemed “smears” and “lies,” and according to a debate on MSNBC, Obama declared that he had been “victimized” by such claims. He has been so tireless and fervent in disproving these “smears” that his very own religious intolerance and racism has been shamelessly disregarded.

“I’ve been to the same church — the same Christian church — for almost 20 years,” he told a cheering audience last January. “I was sworn in with my hand on the family Bible.” One of the many pieces of literature distributed by his campaign in past months featured photos of Obama praying with the words “COMMITTED CHRISTIAN” in large letters across the middle.

It says Obama will be a president “guided by his Christian faith” and includes a quote from him saying, “I believe in the power of prayer,” according to an Associated Press report.

Speaking in a Florida synagogue, Obama tried to assure his Jewish audience that his name “Barack” has the same Semitic roots as the Hebrew name “Baruch.” His supporters contend that the origins of the name are African, not Arabic. Even the clearly Arabic roots of Obama’s name are now explained based on “African” and — as of late — “Semitic” roots. Obama was responding to a member of the audience who exclaimed that he would be more comfortable voting for someone named Barry, not Barack. Instead of lashing out at the man’s bigotry, Obama once again, “fought off rumors” this time reinterpreting his own name.

As for being a Muslim, Obama has spent much time, energy and resources fending off the accusations, even starting FighttheSmears.com to prove — among other things — that he is not a Muslim.

Then on June 16, two Muslim women who attended an Obama event in Detroit were told they couldn’t stand behind the candidate. One was told her head covering was an issue, and another was told that for political reasons they didn’t want Muslims appearing with him on TV, reported National Public Radio.

Of course, this is anything but an identity crisis for the savvy Harvard-educated politician of “change.” Obama must have comprehended, and early on, the implicit limits of tolerance in his country, and has decided to concede to the harbingers of racism and bigotry. Obama should have unapologetically responded to the speculation on his religion in a respectful manner, for example like this:

I would have been honored to be affiliated with the religion of Islam, one that is adhered to by one-fourth of humanity, and is the religion of my ancestors and millions of Americans.

But I am equally honored to be a member of a church, to be a Christian, a religion — like all great religions — that has taught me tolerance, peace and equality, principles that I will continue to cherish as long as I live.

P.K. Abdul Ghafour | Arab News

An Australian convert who embraced Islam in 1981 has been using his television channel — Voice of Islam (VOI) — not only to spread information about Islam but to also promote a better understanding of the faith and its adherents in New Zealand.

In a wide-ranging interview with Arab News, Muhammad Thompson, who recently visited the Kingdom with his family to perform Umrah, gave insights into the challenges facing Muslim minorities in the developed world and emphasized Muslims’ responsibility in presenting the faith in an upright fashion.

“It pains me a lot when I see our Muslim brethren neglect their compulsory prayers, do business without following Islamic teachings and engage in un-Islamic activities without fearing Allah,” said Thompson, who lives and broadcasts VOI in New Zealand.

“Hold fast the rope of Islam and don’t give it up. If you leave it, you are gone and will end up in hellfire. We have to hold on to it in order to enter Paradise,” he said, adding that Muslims are being persecuted for not practicing their religion. “If we practice, we will surely receive the support of Allah, the Almighty.”

Thompson said Muslims should be honest in their dealings. “We have to keep our promises. When we say that we’ll be there, we should be there on time without fail and even while driving on the road, we have to be the best examples.”

Asked why Westerners are reluctant to welcome Islam, he said, “People are frightened of what they don’t know. So, if Muslims become friendly and communicate with others, it would change the situation. We should also open our mosques to non-Muslims so that they can see what is going on there and that there is nothing to be afraid of.”

Thompson expressed his delight over the fast growth of Islam all over the world, especially in the West. However, he expressed his disappointment over the lukewarm approach of many Muslims toward their religion. “The majority of Muslims take their religion for granted. They don’t know the beauty and sweetness of the religion, and consider it as a part-time religion,” he added.

He said 9/11 had encouraged thousands of Americans and other Westerners to study about Islam by reading the translation of the Holy Qur’an and other related books. “This helped them understand that Islam does not preach terrorism and that Muslim women are not oppressed but rather enjoy equal rights. These studies have helped remove misconceptions and enhance knowledge about Islam.”

Speaking about VOI, the chairman said the program has had a huge impact on New Zealand. “Many people have been attracted to Islam through our programs.” VOI programs appear on Triangle TV in Auckland and Wellington, CTV in Christchurch and Channel 9 in Dunedin SKY TV CH 89 and Freeview CH 21.

The TV programs are produced and supplied by a nonprofit charitable trust, formed in April 2004. The trust has plans to expand VOI’s programs to Fiji. “We started the TV to propagate Islam in Auckland and today it covers four main cities in New Zealand. We are now working on a website to enable people all over the world to watch our programs on the Internet,” he said.

The one-hour program, which is aired on Saturdays and Sundays after purchasing airtime on commercial channels, includes recitation from the Qur’an with English translation, lectures on Islam, explanation of the basic pillars of Islam, and Harun Yahya’s Islamic documentaries on the creation of universe and animal life. He commended Yahya’s quality programs saying they are equal to those produced by the BBC.

The TV telecasts Islamic lectures of leading converts such as Yousuf Estes, Bilal Philips, Abdul Hakeem Quick and Abdul Raheem Green. “They present Islam in a convincing manner as they know both sides,” he said.

VOI keeps away from politics, focusing more on general topics such as Islam and terrorism, human rights in Islam, Islam and global warming, the rights of women in Islam and family issues. “I am optimistic about the future of Islam, especially when I see the tremendous response to our TV programs,” Thompson said.

He opposed the emotionally charged outrage that Muslims expressed against the Danish cartoons, which involved the destroying of flags and the attacking of embassies. “This is not the proper way. This is overreaction. We have to deal with such issues in a proactive manner. The boycott of products has been found effective. But this will not solve the problem. Holding dialogue with our opponents in an intelligent manner would be more effective and useful.”

Thompson commended Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah’s call for interfaith dialogue, saying it would give Muslims a chance to present their views. “We can also hear what others have to say. People of different faiths, including Judaism and Christianity, can find a lot of commonalities,” he pointed out.

There are more than 40,000 Muslims in New Zealand with 12 mosques and Islamic centers in Auckland City alone. “Muslims are not rich, as a large number of them are refugees from different countries, including Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq and Pakistan,” he said.

A born Australian, Thomson moved to New Zealand in 1996 for a change. He embraced Islam in 1981 and met his wife Wafa, a born-Muslim from Egypt, in Australia. They have two children: Aysha and Ahmed.

New Zealand is a very fertile land for Islamic propagation as its people are open to learning new things and eager to know the truth, Thompson said. “When we speak to them about Islam, they are very understanding. Prime Minister Helen Clark has visited our mosque many times,” he adds.

He also spoke about New Zealand’s principled stand on many world issues. It refused to join the US-led Western occupation forces in Iraq. “Even though it is a small country, it is not afraid of saying ‘No’ to America. We don’t support injustice,” he added.

A former Roman Catholic, Thompson explained the circumstances that led him to Islam. “I used to question many things in Catholicism. I could not agree with the idea of a person telling his sins to the priest in order to cleanse himself from sins. I wondered how a priest, who is a human being like us, can cleanse our sins, especially when we see him as a sinful person,” he pointed out.

He continued his search for truth by joining a group for positive thinking in Australia and began pondering about the creation of God. He later read a translation of the Qur’an and came to understand that Islam is a complete way of life while Christianity has many things missing.

“For me, it was easy to become a Muslim because we believe in the same prophets. I found Islam a continuation of what was taught by Jesus and Abraham,” he said, adding that he accepted Islam while in Australia during Ramadan.

Thompson said he had tried to convince his parents to become Muslims by sending books and Islamic TV programs to them. He hopes God will provide them with the ability to understand the truth. “Both of them are in Australia and we enjoy a very good relationship,” he said.

Abdus Sattar Ghazali, asghazali@gamil.com

Six years and eight months after the 9/11 tragic attacks, Muslims in America remain at the receiving end with the reconfiguration of American laws, policies and priorities to target them. The latest assault on the Muslim community comes in the form of a simulated attack on a fake “mosque” by the law enforcement authorities in Illinois.

On May 1, over 120 officials from almost 30 government agencies participated in the drill in Irving, Illinois, targeting a community facility that had been re-named the “Irving Mosque” for the purposes of the exercise. There were participants from local law enforcement, fire departments and ambulances. In the exercise, officers from the Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System (ILEAS) stormed the “mosque” using an armored car. One “hostage” was hooked up to an explosive device and the “suspects” in the “mosque” released nerve gas.

For the purpose of the emergency exercise drill, the Continuing Recovery Center in Irving, Ill., had become Irving Mosque, the home base for a radical, heavily armed group with suspected terrorist ties. There were explosions outside and inside the building.

Not surprisingly, a preview of the May 1 training was highlighted by the media with such sensational headlines as: “Pennsylvania’s police prepare for radical Islam,” and “Radical Islam: A Law Enforcement Primer.”

What message that exercise conveys to the American masses who are already conditioned by the anti-Islam and anti-Muslim rhetoric by some radio hosts, electronic and print media as well as some political and Christian right leaders in the post-9/11 America?

Surely, it reinforces the anti-Islam and anti-Muslim image among the masses. According to a March 2008 Gallup survey, a substantial number of Americans have a negative perception of Muslims. The poll shows that only 17 percent have positive perception while 23 have negative. 48 percents were found neutral which are surely not positive. Two polls by CAIR and Washington Post in March 2006 indicated that almost half of Americans have a negative perception of Islam and that one in four of those surveyed have extreme anti-Muslim views. The troubling results of these polls are not surprising in an atmosphere of fear and hatred against the Muslim community created in the name of national security.

There cannot be two opinions that the “Irving Mosque” exercise creates a negative image of mosques and Islamic centers. It is disrespect to the Muslim places of worship and sends a “wrong message” that all Islamic houses of worship may be potential security threats.

To borrow, Khalid Saeed, president of the American Muslim Voice, (AMV), this outrage should be offensive to the sensibilities of all civilized Americans and it should be condemned in strongest possible way as it sends wrong message about a large peaceful segment of American society and great religion of Islam. “There are about eight million American Muslims who are proud and patriotic citizens of this great nation of ours, and are making a positive contribution to this great and diverse nation.”

“The use of a fake ‘mosque’ in this type of drill sends the wrong message to law enforcement officials who may now view mainstream institutions, such as Islamic houses of worship, as potential security threats,” according to Ahmed Rehab, executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations-Chicago. “Officials must be trained in dealing with hostage-taking and responding to chemical, biological or bomb attacks. We are only questioning the wisdom of linking the American Muslim community and its institutions to such incidents.”

Taking a leaf from New York Police Department’s controversial study “Radicalization in the West and the Homegrown Threat,” Municipal Police Officers Education & Training Commission (MPOETC) has prepared a Mandatory In-Service Training (MIST) Program and Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System (ILEAS) officials are required to undergo a three-hour class called “Radical Islam: A Law Enforcement Primer.”

The fake mosque attack was part of that training course and aims at “providing an overview of the factors and issues related to a radical view of Islam.”

The MPOETC has its own sweeping definition of “radical Islam’: Radical Islam assumes the authority to “nullify, abolish, or do away with” previously established religions and systems of government, establishing Islamic rule based on the Qur’an and the “example of Muhammad.”

Muslim civil rights groups have expressed concern over this program. In a letter to the MPOETC Training Director Rudy M. Grubesky, CAIR-PA Civil Rights Director Justin Peyton wrote:

“We are concerned that this course may provide inaccurate, incomplete or stereotypical information about Islam to state law enforcement officers and could serve to reinforce negative stereotypes of Muslims and Islam. The promotion of such stereotypes could negatively impact the daily interactions of law enforcement officers with members of the Pennsylvania Muslim community.”

“While CAIR applauds MPOETC’s effort to educate police officers about the potential threats posed to American society by extremist individuals and groups, we would like to emphasize that the violent ideologies those individuals falsely attribute to Islam are not characteristic of the American Muslim experience.”

In short, such drills as a mock attack on the fake mosque in the name of national security will only alienate and marginalize the American Muslims who remain a victim of guilt by association in the post-9/11 era.

Mosque is a symbol of worship just like church, synagogue or temple and not a symbol of radicalism as portrayed by this simulated attack on the fake mosque.

- Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the executive editor of the online magazine American Muslim Perspective:

Jonathan Power, jonatpower@aol.com

LONDON, 12 May 2008 — Once again the CIA and MI6 are publishing dire warnings of the vitality of Al-Qaeda. Once again the Islamic world as a whole is being tarnished by association.

US presidential contender John McCain is saying that America needs a leadership to confront the transcendent challenge of our time: The threat of radical Islamic terrorism.

And the words still ring in our ears from Samuel Huntington’s treatise, “The Clash of Civilizations”, the book that in many ways triggered this paranoia that infects the politicians, the press and the public discourse. “The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism, it is Islam”, he wrote.

Few, if any, in the Western leadership seem to make the point that Al-Qaeda is a deviant phenomenon within the Islamic world, just as Hitler was a deviant phenomenon within the Christian world (commentators seems to overlook Hitler’s early speeches calling on Catholic principles). But Islam has a much better record over the ages of dealing with its deviants who take violence to excess. Islamic culture has never been tolerant of Nazism, fascism or communism. Christianity has spawned all three. Buddhism failed to resist Japanese militarism and Confucianism provided hospitable to Maoism. Yes, there was Saddam Hussein but he was an atheistic brute without an ideology.

Of course, there have been many incidents in the long history of Islam when there have been large-scale losses of life. The massacres and starvation of the Armenians in 1915 still stirs the waters of contemporary debate. But Islam has never spawned anything comparable with Hitler’s systematic genocide of the Jews — indeed throughout its history Islam has been protective of the Jews, regarding them as “people of the book” to whom it had a special responsibility. Nor has it settled other parts of the world and systematically obliterated other civilizations as did Christian Spain with the Aztecs and Incas. Nor have Islamic societies created anything equivalent to South Africa’s apartheid or the racist culture of the old American South. Unlike many Christian churches, the mosque has never separated people by race. Even today Americans confess that nowhere is there more segregation in their society than at the Sunday noon hour.

Western memories are highly selective. When at Easter time the Greek peasants of the Peloponnese began to kill all the Muslims in the land there was silence. But fifty years later when there were mass killings of Christians in Bulgaria there was a great outpouring of moral outrage. Delacroix immortalized the massacre in his painting, “Massacre of Chaos”, with Christian women pursued by Turkish lancers and Gladstone wrote a best-selling pamphlet in which he described the Ottomans as leaving “a broad line of blood marking the track behind them, and as far as their domination reached civilization vanished from view”.

Almost forgotten today is that it was the Ottomans who gave refuge to the Jews when they were expelled from Iberia, as were fleeing German, French and Czech Protestants, but every cultivated Westerner knows Voltaire’s “Fanaticism or Muhammad the Prophet” or Dante’s portrayal of Muhammad in hell.

Christianity has always been led or dominated by people of European descent. But the leadership of the Muslim world has been much more fragmented — between AD 661 and 750 it was the Arab Umayyad dynasty. Between 750 and 1258 it was the multiethnic Abbasid dynasty. And from 1453 to 1922, the Turkish-dominated Ottoman Empire. In India there was the separate Moguls and in Persia the Safavids. In sub-Saharan Africa there were the Muslim empires of Mali and Songhai.

Despite their relative poverty today, with great teaming cities like Cairo, Dakha and Jakarta, criminal violence is much, much lower than in Christian-influenced societies.

Muslim countries, according to the UN’s annual Human Development report, have the world’s lowest murder and rape rates. In Tehran, the capital of Iran, and according to the CIA the most important single source of terrorism today, you can go out at 11 or 12 p.m. at night and find families with children picnicing in city parks. When my daughters’ friends ask me where can they safely travel alone in an interesting Third World city I say Cairo. Certainly not Catholic Rio or Protestant Cape Town. Not only are murders and muggings comparatively rarer, there is much less prostitution and hard drug use. Neither is there that much AIDS.

The Western debate about Islam is frankly infantile. Even Barack Obama, with his own personal experience to go off, either is ignorant or just scared of going into battle on these issues. I have not read one speech by one Western politician who seriously attempts to educate public opinion. We live in a slough of ignorance.

By Dr. Elias Akleh

Greek Orthodox Christian celebrations of Saturday’s Holy Fire and Sunday’s Easter in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem late April were violated and spoiled by aggressive interruptions of Israeli army and police. Instead of Christian worshippers, armed Israeli soldiers crowded the entrance to the Church. Instead of lighted candles, police batons were raised. Instead of musical bands playing their instruments, Israeli soldiers brandished their automatic weapons, and instead of celebrating, Palestinian Christians were confronted by Israeli police thugs, were beaten, and many were arrested.

Since the early hours of the day hundreds of armed Israeli forces descended on the old city of Jerusalem, erected steel barriers closing its gates, established checkpoints within the city’s narrow streets leading to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and installed closed captioned video cameras to monitor worshippers. The Old City was, again, under occupation by Israeli military and police. Palestinian Christian worshippers from West Bank, from Gaza Strip, from 1948 occupied Palestinian cities, and even local Jerusalemite Palestinian Christians were denied access to the church of the Holy Sepulcher and to the St. Jacob Church to celebrate Easter. They were told that they had to obtain a military permit in order pray in the church. Many Christian worshippers, who insisted on performing their religious rights free from any military restrictions as they had done throughout the many past generations, tried to force their way through the Israeli barriers, but were met with savage beating, with tear gassing, and with arrest.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate denounced the Israeli measures denying Christian worshippers access to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Official spokesman to the Patriarchate father Issa Misleh said the Patriarchate denounces the measures taken by the Israeli security forces against Christian worshippers during Holy Saturday celebrations. Father Misleh said, “The manner in which the Israeli police officers dealt with worshippers heading to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Greek Orthodox Monastery to perform religious duties has gone beyond limits. Thousands of worshippers where forbidden to walk in the streets of the old city and many of them, including women and elderly civilians, were physically assaulted.”

The Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III, himself, criticized the Israeli suppressive measures stating: “I refuse such actions against my congregation. The Greek Orthodox Church will cooperate with the rest of the Churches in joint action to put a stop to what happened today and to guarantee the Religious freedom for the people”. Church officials explained that praying is the right of all the people and no one has the right to prevent worshippers from conducting their ritual and religious duties especially in the City of Jerusalem.

The following press release was issued by different local Christian organizations criticizing the measures taken by the Israeli forces during the religious celebration, where Christians were harassed, singled out and prevented from worshipping freely in violation of the “Status Quo Law” that has existed for hundreds of years to regulate the different religious celebrations:

“The Laity Committee in the Holy Land/East Jerusalem - 26 April 2008

Christians Harassed in Jerusalem during Orthodox Easter Celebrations

During the Orthodox Easter celebrations, Palestinian Christians were denied their right to worship freely in Jerusalem; they were not allowed to arrive to the Orthodox Patriarchate where celebrations normally take place, and they were not allowed to reach the St. Jacob Cathedral near the Christian Quarter of the Old City. Since the early hours of the day, the Israeli police had set up barricades at the Gates of the Old City, and when Christian worshipers arrived the Israeli police started shouting at them and pushing them, and there was an incident when the police threw tear gas and beat the Christian worshipers with clubs.

It was obvious that Christians were singled out, compared to Jewish worshipers who arrive in hundreds of thousands to celebrate Pesach in Jerusalem. The number of Palestinian Christians who arrive to the Old City for Easter does not exceed two thousand persons, and this is a manageable number that can be accommodated. Moreover, there is no need for the police to interfere anyway, because the celebrations have been going on smoothly throughout the years, and there has never been an incident of violence or damage that warrants the closure.

The worshipers were stunned to see that a statement had been circulated by the police and posted on the wall of the Patriarchate, saying that whomever wants to worship in St. Jacob Cathedral must have a permit. This is indeed a flagrant violation of the rights of Christians to worship freely, and what makes the violation more dramatic is that it took place in Jerusalem on a holy day.

The presence of Christians in Jerusalem’s Old City, and the celebration procedures, are part of a Law that has been in place since 300 years. That law, known as the Status Quo Agreement, regulates the celebrations, and according to that Law, Christians have the right to access the Patriarchate and St. Jacob Cathedral. Preventing worshipers from entering is a violation of the Status Quo Agreement.

Such violations by the police should stop. The steps taken against Christians are illegal. We call upon the Consulates, Embassies, Christian organizations, and human rights organizations, to intervene immediately, so the harassment of Christians in Jerusalem will stop.”

Religious freedom has been restricted by the Israeli military since its illegal occupation of the city. Jerusalem, a holy city for the three major religions has been off limit to the local Muslim as well as Christian Palestinians but not to Jewish Israelis. Pictures of Muslim worshippers kneeling in prayer behind the Israeli military checkpoints have been widespread in media resources all over the globe. Christian worshippers have no better luck, unfortunately media does not capture their hardships except in the major Christian celebrations such as Easter and Christmas. Christian Palestinian Jerusalemites suffer the most because Israel is adopting a silent policy of evacuating Jerusalem from its Christian citizens to make it a Jewish-only city.

While Muslim and Christian religious freedom is severely restricted by the Israeli government, Jewish Israelis are given the ultimate religious freedom to the point of intoxication. Jewish Israeli worshippers are given free access to the narrow streets of the Old City. They rush through the streets chanting and dancing loudly without any respect to the feelings of the local citizens. They smash the goods of any open Palestinian shops. Palestinians learnt to close their shops and stick to their homes during such extravagant Jewish celebration. Israeli worshippers spend most of the day and night dancing and drinking alcohol and blatantly provoking Palestinian residents of the city.

Armed Israeli soldiers can also been seen during these Jewish religious celebrations. Yet their presence is not to secure order and peace, but to protect the extremist Jewish Israeli worshippers from any Palestinian reaction to their provocations and disturbances of peace. Palestinian Jerusalemites had barely forgotten the insulting provocations of the religiously extremist Jewish Israelis and the harassment of Israeli forces a week before during the Jewish celebration of their Passover. In contrast, Christian Palestinians are denied access to their holy places during one of their holiest day of the year.

The presence of hundreds of Israeli armed soldiers and police forces in the city is clear evidence that Jerusalem is an occupied Palestinian city. The Israeli claim of securing religious freedom to worship and to have easy access to the holy places for the followers of the three religions in the city of Jerusalem is a mere propaganda. The suppressive measures of the Israeli forces against peaceful Christian worshippers during Easter are clear contradictions to this claim. These suppressive measures indicate a deliberate form of religious persecution that stems from the extremist religious ideology of God’s chosen people and the rejection of all others (Goyims).

-Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer of Palestinian descent, born in the town of Beit-Jala. Currently he lives in the US. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

By Uri Avnery
From Media Monitors

Since the days when Roman Emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.

Constantine the Great, who became Emperor in the year 306 – exactly 1700 years ago – encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine. Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the Emperor accept his superiority.

The struggle between the Emperors and the Popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some Emperors dismissed or expelled a Pope, some Popes dismissed or excommunicated an Emperor. One of the Emperors, Henry IV, ‘walked to Canossa’, standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope’s castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.

But there were times when Emperors and Popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present Emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week’s speech by the Pope, which aroused a world-wide storm, went well with Bush’s crusade against ‘Islamofascism’, in the context of the ‘Clash of Civilizations’.

In his lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God’s actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.

As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this ‘war of civilizations’.

In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?

To support his case, the Pope quoted – of all people – a Byzantine Emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had – or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt) – with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:

‘Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached’.

These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?

When Manuel II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.

At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube. They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece, and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire. On May 29, 1453, only a few years after Manuel’s death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul) fell to the Turks, putting an end to the Empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.

During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.

In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim ‘Axis of Evil’. Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe, this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.

Is there any truth in Manuel’s argument?

The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur’an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant verse 257) which says: ‘There must be no coercion in matters of faith’.

How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur’an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes – Christian, Jewish and others – in Arabia, when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.

Jesus said: ‘You will recognize them by their fruits.’ The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to ‘spread the faith by the sword’?

Well, they just did not.

For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.

True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith – and they were the forefathers of most of today’s Palestinians.

There is no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the ‘spreading of the faith by the sword’?

What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi (‘Spanish’) Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.

Why? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the ‘peoples of the book’.[1] In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll-tax, but were exempted from military service – a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion – because it entailed the loss of taxes.[2]

Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times ‘by the sword’ to get them to abandon their faith.

The story about ‘spreading the faith by the sword’ is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims – the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?

There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of ‘Islamofascism’ and the ‘Global War on Terrorism’ – when ‘terrorism’ has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush’s handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world’s oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers’ expedition becomes a Crusade.

The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?

Uri Avnery is an Israeli journalist, peace activist, former member of the Knesset, and leader of Gush Shalom.

NOTES

[1] Not only “Peoples of the Book”, but oppression of all others as well.

[2] The author is mistaken in this statement, as the tax imposed upon non-Muslims was insubstantial to other means of generating public income. Rather, all Muslims encouraged and will continue to encourage others to enter its fold .