Ahmed Rehab: Islam Not to Blame for Bronx Terror Plot
Posted using ShareThis
Say what you will about the recently exposed Bronx Terror Plot, but please, do not insult our intelligence (and your own) by weaving fantasy scenarios of how Islam is somehow to blame for criminalizing the terror suspects who were already career criminals long before their conversions -- and who displayed only a rudimentary understanding of Islam thereafter.
At first glance, media headlines gave the impression of a contiguous homegrown "Islamic" terrorist threat, a local outgrowth of the ominous global "Jihadi" network, secretly thriving in our midst but foiled by the FBI at the last minute. It had Islam written all over it, once again implicating American Muslims and spiking fears and suspicion that ours is a problem community, part of a foreign civilization ever at odds with the West, that wants to destroy the United States from within.
Many reports put the blame on Prison Islamic conversions despite the fact that most inmates who properly convert to Islam -- including African-Americans -- change for the better and emerge to lead crime-free lives. The usual excitable figures like NY Rep Peter King jumped on the case, warning that it "demonstrates the real threat from homegrown terrorists." Career Islamophobes like the people at the shadowy organization, the Clarion Fund (producers of the controversial hate films, Obsession, and The Third Jihad) were quick to pounce as well, declaring that the Bronx case was part of a "sophisticated" homegrown Jihad (their word, not mine).
But as more facts have begun to emerge, it turns out that the suspects, one of whom is a crack addict and the other with a history of mental illness, once again, are troubled oddballs operating well outside the mainstream of the American Muslim community and its institutions, with no ties and no support from Mosques, Imams, community leaders, members at large, or even real terrorist threats like Al-Qaeda. Once again, however, it turns out that the radicalization "tipping factor", if you will, was none other than a paid government agent-provocateur.
The Facts:
1. The suspects are petty career criminals with lengthy criminal records (one of them was arrested 27 times); most of their crimes were committed before they converted to Islam in jail. They had a history of violence, drugs, and other criminal activity and are said to be troubled men by family, friends, and neighbors.
2. The suspects appear to be gullible and naive -- hardly the breed of ruthless masterminds that the global terrorist networks like Al Qaeda tend to recruit and deploy. The New York Post called them "a bunch of terror dummies" while the AP describes them as "down-and-out ex-convicts living on the margins in a faded industrial city." Relatives describe them as "struggling" men. The uncle of one of the men, Onta Williams, describes his nephew as "weak and easy to manipulate." The sister of another one of the men, James Cromitie, called him "the stupidest man on the planet." The lawyer of a third man, Laguerre Payen, described his client as "intellectually challenged" stating that he had "a very low borderline IQ." Indeed, Payen, who was on medication for schizophrenia, was deemed too insane to be deported after a previous assault conviction.
3. The suspects appear to have a weak -- even perverse -- understanding of Islam. Salahuddin Muhammad, the Imam of the mosque that one of the men visited, publicly challenged him on his incorrect understanding of Islam stating that the man had "a fundamental lack of knowledge of Islam." The Imam stressed that the man struck him as strange but not violent and that none of the men were regular attendees. Neighbors said that the men routinely barbecued and boozed it up even though devout Muslims shun alcohol and pork. The FBI admits that the men acted alone with no support or knowledge from the mosque or the local Muslim community.
4. American Muslim groups, led by CAIR, strongly condemned the plot against area Synagogues and an Air Force base. Many Muslim activists -- including myself on the Alan Colmes radio show -- came out clearly delineating Islam's condemnation of terrorism and reaffirming Islam's respect for the sanctity of human life.
Radicalized by a Government Agent?
But members of the local Mosque, Masjid al-Ikhlas, said the FBI informant, identified by sources as Shahed Hussain, 52, had long been trying to recruit worshippers there for jihad.
"Everyone knew to stay away from him. We even tried to tell James [Cromitie, one of the suspects] to stay away from him, but he didn't listen," said Abdul Wali, 29, mosque attendee, reports the New York Post.
"It's easy to influence someone with the dollar," said Imam Muhammed, a longtime member of the mosque. "Especially these guys coming out of prison."
Media reports reveal that the informant is a man who has had his own troubles with the law and had been coaxed into working as an informant in order to avoid deportation. He would drive up in his expensive car to the Mosque and offer community members free dinners, cash, or jobs to try to lure them into his fictional Pakistani terrorist connections.
Mosque members seemed to suspect that he was a possible agent-provocateur and were creeped out by his aberrant ways and views. But why was he not reported? Imam Muhammad said he wondered whether he should have done anything differently once he had suspicions about the informant who went by "Maqsood."
"How do you go to the government about the government?" he asked.
The Big Question
A lot has been said about the Bronx terror case since it broke in the media. But an important question that has yet to be publicly debated by all those genuinely concerned about the national security of this nation is this: how should street criminals and psychologically challenged oddballs who are identified by the government as being susceptible to terror fantasies -- but have no connection to global terrorist networks -- be handled by our government?
Should they be tipped over the edge by government agent-provocateurs so as to be caught red-handed, or should they be subjected to a correctional procedure? If it is the latter, whose responsibility would it be to correct those identified as potential threats? Should it be the community's responsibility, government's, society's? It would admittedly not be the role of law enforcement to do so, but is there merit for the creation of a new initiative -- perhaps involving local communities -- to intercept and counter radicalization before it becomes actionable?
The Times Online (UK) reports in an article headlined, "FBI 'lured dimwits' into terror plot," that:
The other question that US security experts were debating was how much had been achieved by assigning more than 100 agents to a year-long investigation of three petty criminals and a mentally ill Haitian immigrant, none of whom had any connection with any known terrorist group. "They were all unsophisticated dimwits," said [defense attorney, Terrance] Kindlon.
In the final analysis, I cannot absolve the Bronx four from personal responsibility, despite the legitimate concerns out there regarding possible entrapment. At the end of the day, at least one of them harbored virulently anti-Semitic and anti-American views, and their actions show demonstrable willingness to engage in bias-motivated violent acts.
But this debate is not so much about the Bronx four, their fates are for the courts to decide. It is, in the end, about understanding the nature of the real terrorist threat against us and raising responsible objections against self-deluding initiatives that seem to seek terror-case quotas by entrapping "intellectually challenged" outcasts and then deceptively marketing their isolated cases as evidence of an imminent and contiguous global threat with homegrown components.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
U.S. Border Screening Under Fire
U.S. Border Screening Under Fire
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 20, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/19/AR2009041902276.html
[ To see Muslim Advocates Report go to http://www.muslimadvocates.org/documents/Unreasoneable_Intrusions_2009.pdf ]
Civil liberties groups are renewing calls for the Obama administration to change screening at border posts by limiting questions about Americans' political beliefs and religious practices and establishing a process for U.S. citizens and residents who are mistakenly included on terrorist watch lists to clear their names.
In a report to be released today, the Asian Law Caucus of San Francisco cited more than 40 complaints from U.S. citizens and immigrants that it has received since 2007 as evidence of "a much wider pattern of profiling and discrimination at U.S. borders."
"Many people in America's Muslim, South Asian and Middle Eastern communities have come to expect harassment and discriminatory treatment at our nation's doorstep" when returning home, the report said.
Separately, Muslim Advocates, the advocacy arm of the National Association of Muslim Lawyers, issued a report saying that citizens should not be threatened with detention for not answering questions that go beyond establishing their legal status to enter the United States or whether they are carrying contraband.
The actions come as civil liberties groups press for a swifter response by the new Democratic president and Congress to long-standing complaints that security measures adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have subjected innocent travelers to unwarranted delays and scrutiny.
Over the years, watch-list mismatches have entangled countless individuals whose names are similar to those on the government's master database of terrorism suspects, which includes more than 1 million names and aliases used by 400,000 people.
"People think watch lists have been fixed and the problem has gone away. They haven't gone away, they've been institutionalized, and it's going to take affirmative action by the Obama administration to fix this stuff," said Christopher Calabrese, counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program.
A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, Amy Kudwa, declined to comment, saying that the department had not seen the reports. Kudwa added that Secretary Janet Napolitano had ordered "a wide-ranging review of all of our border security immigration policies and procedures," which is ongoing.
The Asian Law Caucus said the agency responsible for border inspections, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, should inform travelers who have concerns that they can submit complaints immediately on-site to a redress program. It also said the government should publicize an appeals process and establish a neutral board to review cases of people who think they are improperly listed.
Both reports urged the DHS to prohibit profiling based on race, ethnicity, religion and national origin in border inspections.
The DHS has received more than 54,500 requests for redress since February 2007 and closed 31,000 of them, according to the Transportation Security Administration. Critics say the program does not inform travelers whether their names are listed, whether any change has been made or how to get off the watch list and avoid being relisted.
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 20, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/19/AR2009041902276.html
[ To see Muslim Advocates Report go to http://www.muslimadvocates.org/documents/Unreasoneable_Intrusions_2009.pdf ]
Civil liberties groups are renewing calls for the Obama administration to change screening at border posts by limiting questions about Americans' political beliefs and religious practices and establishing a process for U.S. citizens and residents who are mistakenly included on terrorist watch lists to clear their names.
In a report to be released today, the Asian Law Caucus of San Francisco cited more than 40 complaints from U.S. citizens and immigrants that it has received since 2007 as evidence of "a much wider pattern of profiling and discrimination at U.S. borders."
"Many people in America's Muslim, South Asian and Middle Eastern communities have come to expect harassment and discriminatory treatment at our nation's doorstep" when returning home, the report said.
Separately, Muslim Advocates, the advocacy arm of the National Association of Muslim Lawyers, issued a report saying that citizens should not be threatened with detention for not answering questions that go beyond establishing their legal status to enter the United States or whether they are carrying contraband.
The actions come as civil liberties groups press for a swifter response by the new Democratic president and Congress to long-standing complaints that security measures adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have subjected innocent travelers to unwarranted delays and scrutiny.
Over the years, watch-list mismatches have entangled countless individuals whose names are similar to those on the government's master database of terrorism suspects, which includes more than 1 million names and aliases used by 400,000 people.
"People think watch lists have been fixed and the problem has gone away. They haven't gone away, they've been institutionalized, and it's going to take affirmative action by the Obama administration to fix this stuff," said Christopher Calabrese, counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program.
A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, Amy Kudwa, declined to comment, saying that the department had not seen the reports. Kudwa added that Secretary Janet Napolitano had ordered "a wide-ranging review of all of our border security immigration policies and procedures," which is ongoing.
The Asian Law Caucus said the agency responsible for border inspections, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, should inform travelers who have concerns that they can submit complaints immediately on-site to a redress program. It also said the government should publicize an appeals process and establish a neutral board to review cases of people who think they are improperly listed.
Both reports urged the DHS to prohibit profiling based on race, ethnicity, religion and national origin in border inspections.
The DHS has received more than 54,500 requests for redress since February 2007 and closed 31,000 of them, according to the Transportation Security Administration. Critics say the program does not inform travelers whether their names are listed, whether any change has been made or how to get off the watch list and avoid being relisted.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Bringing it all back home: Obama's efforts to repair relations with Muslims abroad are admirable. But what about those living in the US
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/apr/09/barack-obama-islam-muslims-us
By Wajahat Ali (Guardian UK April 9, 2009)
While visiting Turkey this week, President Barack Hussain Obama, the multicultural Superman for the globalised world, proclaimed: "The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans," despite a recent ABC/Washington Post poll showing 48% of Americans hold an unfavourable opinion of Islam, the highest unfavourablity rating since 2001.
With his inaugural world tour, President Obama's rhetoric hopes to repair and rebuild diplomatic bridges with Muslim countries recklessly abandoned by George Bush's aggressive, Yosemite Sam foreign policy – one which resulted in heightened animosity, mutual mistrust, and civilian causalities written off as collateral damage. However, perhaps the frayed relationship with Muslim citizens at home in the US should also be considered.
After avoiding Muslim American organizations, mosques and high profile leaders like the plague during his campaign, Obama now embraces them under his United Colours of Benetton tent by stating: "Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country. I know, because I am one of them."
Ironically, the traditional "Sick Man of Europe" – the disparaging nickname attributed to Turkey since the 19th century – blossoms like a passionately coveted maiden wooed by the new "Sick Man of the World," the US. Because it has Nato's second largest army, a moderate disposition towards Israel, a respect for secular democracy, and a valuable border with Iraq, Turkey emerges as a "critical ally" for the United States and an ideal training ground for Obama's foreign diplomacy.
The president's attempt to persuade "the Muslim world" that "the United States is not and will never be at war with Islam" is encouraging and honourable but perhaps naively idealistic. One cannot blame Muslims for feeling a little skeptical when confronted with the eight-year reality of the Bush administration's unilateral invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, belligerent rhetoric towards Muslim countries, and the continued scapegoating and profiling of many Muslim Americans as Manchurian candidates and potential undercover jihadists.
In light of these hysterical and terrifying times, Obama earns respect for his rhetoric reflecting confidence, humility and conciliation as he encouraged a "partnership with the Muslim world." Although Muslims and Europeans alike rapturously applauded his words, the reality remains that 53% of Americans "don't personally know a Muslim" and 55% concede "they lack a good basic understanding of Islam." Due to Muslims, Islam and the Middle East appearing ubiquitously in the mainstream media over the past eight years, it is of no surprise that "29% express the belief that mainstream Islam' encourages violence against non-Muslims." When the oft-repeated, stereotypical depictions of a richly diverse and multicultural population of 1.5 billion is limited to sensational acts of extremism, violence and fanaticism exhibited by a fractional minority can there be any other result?
If partnership with Muslims is truly our intention, then the hand must first be extended to Muslims at home. Sadly, this was not the case when the FBI recently admitted to planting an informant at a California mosque, whose mission was to pose as a Muslim and actively "recruit terrorists." This revelation follows in the footsteps of the FBI's myopic decision last fall to cut off relations with the largest American Muslim civil rights organization, Council on American Islamic Relations (Cair) - undoubtedly a move influenced by certain powerful lobby groups. Deceptive, disrespectful and disingenuous methods like these continue to erode the FBI's dwindling currency with a patriotic Muslim American population eager to assist the government in its anti-terrorism efforts. However, they must first be treated as partners and not suspects.
Undoubtedly, this paranoid view of Muslim Americans as potential ticking time bombs corrupts the national mindset. Recently, the airline AirTran kicked a Muslim American family off the plane due to "suspicious behavior" and refused to rebook them despite requests from FBI agents, who had escorted the family off the plane, performed a detailed background check, and cleared them of any wrongdoing. Moreover, not too long ago nearly 13% of registered voters were convinced Obama was secretly a Muslim.
However, despite the fear-mongering shamefully hawked by an ignorant minority – such as Republican Senator Jon Kyl, who recently hosted the unabashedly xenophobic Geert Wilders and his Islamophobic movie in the Capitol – Obama should be commended for reaching out to civic-minded Americans, who also happen to be Muslims. Obama tapped Rashad Hussain, a talented and dynamic American Muslim, as his deputy associate counsel. Obama's faith advisory council now includes Dalia Mogahed, the head of the Gallup Centre for Muslim Studies, and Eboo Patel, the founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core.
Both Mogahed and Patel were invited to speak by Senator John Kerry in front of the Senate foreign relations committee at an event entitled, "Engaging with Muslim communities around the world," coincidentally hosted on the same day as Senator Kyl's screening of the inflammatory movie. The actions of Kyl and Kerry illuminate two paths: one that continues to fuel hatred, prejudice and fear by perpetuating virulent stereotypes, and another that seeks mutual understanding and partnership through active dialogue and engagement.
One hopes Obama's respectful tone and words of friendship in a domestic and international arena can eventually transform pretty rhetoric into an enlightened policy that gradually dissolves the poisonous suspicions - and delivers a much-needed catharsis for all.
Wajahat Ali is a Muslim American of Pakistani descent. He is a writer and attorney, whose work, The Domestic Crusaders is the first major play about Muslims living in a post 9/11 America. He is the Associate Editor of Altmuslim.com.
By Wajahat Ali (Guardian UK April 9, 2009)
While visiting Turkey this week, President Barack Hussain Obama, the multicultural Superman for the globalised world, proclaimed: "The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans," despite a recent ABC/Washington Post poll showing 48% of Americans hold an unfavourable opinion of Islam, the highest unfavourablity rating since 2001.
With his inaugural world tour, President Obama's rhetoric hopes to repair and rebuild diplomatic bridges with Muslim countries recklessly abandoned by George Bush's aggressive, Yosemite Sam foreign policy – one which resulted in heightened animosity, mutual mistrust, and civilian causalities written off as collateral damage. However, perhaps the frayed relationship with Muslim citizens at home in the US should also be considered.
After avoiding Muslim American organizations, mosques and high profile leaders like the plague during his campaign, Obama now embraces them under his United Colours of Benetton tent by stating: "Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country. I know, because I am one of them."
Ironically, the traditional "Sick Man of Europe" – the disparaging nickname attributed to Turkey since the 19th century – blossoms like a passionately coveted maiden wooed by the new "Sick Man of the World," the US. Because it has Nato's second largest army, a moderate disposition towards Israel, a respect for secular democracy, and a valuable border with Iraq, Turkey emerges as a "critical ally" for the United States and an ideal training ground for Obama's foreign diplomacy.
The president's attempt to persuade "the Muslim world" that "the United States is not and will never be at war with Islam" is encouraging and honourable but perhaps naively idealistic. One cannot blame Muslims for feeling a little skeptical when confronted with the eight-year reality of the Bush administration's unilateral invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, belligerent rhetoric towards Muslim countries, and the continued scapegoating and profiling of many Muslim Americans as Manchurian candidates and potential undercover jihadists.
In light of these hysterical and terrifying times, Obama earns respect for his rhetoric reflecting confidence, humility and conciliation as he encouraged a "partnership with the Muslim world." Although Muslims and Europeans alike rapturously applauded his words, the reality remains that 53% of Americans "don't personally know a Muslim" and 55% concede "they lack a good basic understanding of Islam." Due to Muslims, Islam and the Middle East appearing ubiquitously in the mainstream media over the past eight years, it is of no surprise that "29% express the belief that mainstream Islam' encourages violence against non-Muslims." When the oft-repeated, stereotypical depictions of a richly diverse and multicultural population of 1.5 billion is limited to sensational acts of extremism, violence and fanaticism exhibited by a fractional minority can there be any other result?
If partnership with Muslims is truly our intention, then the hand must first be extended to Muslims at home. Sadly, this was not the case when the FBI recently admitted to planting an informant at a California mosque, whose mission was to pose as a Muslim and actively "recruit terrorists." This revelation follows in the footsteps of the FBI's myopic decision last fall to cut off relations with the largest American Muslim civil rights organization, Council on American Islamic Relations (Cair) - undoubtedly a move influenced by certain powerful lobby groups. Deceptive, disrespectful and disingenuous methods like these continue to erode the FBI's dwindling currency with a patriotic Muslim American population eager to assist the government in its anti-terrorism efforts. However, they must first be treated as partners and not suspects.
Undoubtedly, this paranoid view of Muslim Americans as potential ticking time bombs corrupts the national mindset. Recently, the airline AirTran kicked a Muslim American family off the plane due to "suspicious behavior" and refused to rebook them despite requests from FBI agents, who had escorted the family off the plane, performed a detailed background check, and cleared them of any wrongdoing. Moreover, not too long ago nearly 13% of registered voters were convinced Obama was secretly a Muslim.
However, despite the fear-mongering shamefully hawked by an ignorant minority – such as Republican Senator Jon Kyl, who recently hosted the unabashedly xenophobic Geert Wilders and his Islamophobic movie in the Capitol – Obama should be commended for reaching out to civic-minded Americans, who also happen to be Muslims. Obama tapped Rashad Hussain, a talented and dynamic American Muslim, as his deputy associate counsel. Obama's faith advisory council now includes Dalia Mogahed, the head of the Gallup Centre for Muslim Studies, and Eboo Patel, the founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core.
Both Mogahed and Patel were invited to speak by Senator John Kerry in front of the Senate foreign relations committee at an event entitled, "Engaging with Muslim communities around the world," coincidentally hosted on the same day as Senator Kyl's screening of the inflammatory movie. The actions of Kyl and Kerry illuminate two paths: one that continues to fuel hatred, prejudice and fear by perpetuating virulent stereotypes, and another that seeks mutual understanding and partnership through active dialogue and engagement.
One hopes Obama's respectful tone and words of friendship in a domestic and international arena can eventually transform pretty rhetoric into an enlightened policy that gradually dissolves the poisonous suspicions - and delivers a much-needed catharsis for all.
Wajahat Ali is a Muslim American of Pakistani descent. He is a writer and attorney, whose work, The Domestic Crusaders is the first major play about Muslims living in a post 9/11 America. He is the Associate Editor of Altmuslim.com.
Monday, April 6, 2009
FBI Muslim outreach harmed by abusive tactics
By Dr. Agha Saeed, Special to IFN
http://www.infocusnews.net/content/view/33139/1029/
A recent statement by a coalition of major national Islamic organizations cited a number of incidents in which the government unfairly targeted American mosques and Muslim groups and said concern over those abuses could result in the suspension of long-standing community outreach initiatives with the FBI.
That statement, issued by the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, is at its heart really a call for increased engagement and dialogue based on mutual respect and the preservation of constitutionally-protected civil and religious rights, not just on photo opportunities.
The essence of civic engagement, as practiced by Dr. Martin Luther King, is to create public awareness of unjust policies and tactics and to make it impossible for an oppressive status quo to be sustained.
American Muslim concerns are centered on four main factors: infiltration of mosques and systematic intimidation of religious leaders (Imams); use of agents provocateurs; use of the questionable category of unindicted co-conspirators to undermine major Muslim organizations, and denial of the First Amendment right to petition the government for a redress of grievances for organizations articulating a Muslim point of view on peace with justice in Palestine and elsewhere.
In its statement, AMT noted that "the FBI sent a convicted criminal to pose as an agent provocateur in several [California] mosques." Muslims find these FBI-induced false conversions a profoundly hurtful violation of their religious freedoms. AMT also cited the FBI’s disengagement from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest and most respected Muslim civil rights organization, and the "unjustified" designation of some 300 groups and individuals as "unindicted co-conspirators" in conjunction with the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas, Texas.
As demonstrated by the AMT statement, American Muslims are very concerned about the negative impact these and other incidents have on ordinary American Muslims and on productive relations with law enforcement officials.
Because the FBI has been monitoring mosques and Islamic organizations and questioning individuals without credible evidence of illegal activity, Muslims are increasingly afraid to go to their houses of worship, to speak openly or to become involved in Islamic organizations and events.
These intimidating government actions are apparently permitted under new Justice Department guidelines that have been strongly criticized by civil liberties groups. Those guidelines, which took effect in December of last year, lowered the threshold for beginning FBI investigations and allowed race and ethnicity to be factors in opening a probe.
Even legal public advocacy efforts by American Muslims are being targeted. Texas law enforcement "fusion center" recently issued an alert stating that it is "imperative for law enforcement officers to report" the legal activities of Muslim lobbying and civil rights groups in their areas.
In Minnesota, Somali Muslims have expressed concerns about FBI tactics that they say amount to religious profiling. Some 50 to 100 individuals say they’ve been stopped by FBI agents in recent months.
When investigations do result in an arrest, the charges often fall under immigration or document fraud, tax evasion, and lying to federal officers, though the cases are touted as victories against "terrorism." In at least one recent case, such charges were viewed as payback for an individual’s refusal to act as an informant. The person targeted alleges that an FBI agent threatened to make his life a "living hell" if he refused to be an informant.
Following these reports, and after largely unsuccessful attempts to engage the FBI on these issues, American Muslim groups came to the conclusion that a dramatic action like considering the suspension of outreach relations would was unavoidable.
Muslims are not considering severing all ties with law enforcement agencies, but would only suspend participation in public relations efforts such as town hall meetings, diversity training and participation in FBI citizens’ academies that came to be viewed as public relations cover for behind-the-scenes abuses. Reporting of suspected criminal activities or of anti-Muslim hate crimes would continue.
This effort is not a campaign of disengagement, but is instead designed to truly engage top Justice Department officials on these critical issues. It is also designed to help restore respect and equal rights for American Muslims after eight years of being treated as suspects rather than partners.
The AMT statement clearly indicates that American Muslims support President Obama’s efforts to help end the marginalization of their institutions carried out under the Bush administration.
American Muslims are sending a clear message that they refuse to be treated as second class citizens and that law enforcement agencies should work with the Muslim community based the "mutual respect" that President Obama championed in his inaugural address.
In a recent congressional hearing, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) asked FBI Director Robert Mueller about AMT’s statement and about the new investigative guidelines. Sen. Feingold asked Mueller:
"Do you think that the new attorney general guidelines are helping or hurting the FBI’s relationship with the U.S. Muslim community? In light of this task force statement, how do you plan to improve that relationship?" Mueller responded by saying the Muslim community "has been tremendously supportive and worked very closely with [the FBI] in a number of instances around the country."
The entire reason for AMT’s existence is to promote positive civic engagement by the American Muslim community. But that engagement, particularly with law enforcement agencies, must be based on fair treatment and the protection of constitutional rights, including the right to practice our religion without interference, harassment, manipulation or vilification.
Dr. Agha Saeed heads the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, a coalition of major national Islamic organizations.
http://www.infocusnews.net/content/view/33139/1029/
A recent statement by a coalition of major national Islamic organizations cited a number of incidents in which the government unfairly targeted American mosques and Muslim groups and said concern over those abuses could result in the suspension of long-standing community outreach initiatives with the FBI.
That statement, issued by the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, is at its heart really a call for increased engagement and dialogue based on mutual respect and the preservation of constitutionally-protected civil and religious rights, not just on photo opportunities.
The essence of civic engagement, as practiced by Dr. Martin Luther King, is to create public awareness of unjust policies and tactics and to make it impossible for an oppressive status quo to be sustained.
American Muslim concerns are centered on four main factors: infiltration of mosques and systematic intimidation of religious leaders (Imams); use of agents provocateurs; use of the questionable category of unindicted co-conspirators to undermine major Muslim organizations, and denial of the First Amendment right to petition the government for a redress of grievances for organizations articulating a Muslim point of view on peace with justice in Palestine and elsewhere.
In its statement, AMT noted that "the FBI sent a convicted criminal to pose as an agent provocateur in several [California] mosques." Muslims find these FBI-induced false conversions a profoundly hurtful violation of their religious freedoms. AMT also cited the FBI’s disengagement from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest and most respected Muslim civil rights organization, and the "unjustified" designation of some 300 groups and individuals as "unindicted co-conspirators" in conjunction with the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas, Texas.
As demonstrated by the AMT statement, American Muslims are very concerned about the negative impact these and other incidents have on ordinary American Muslims and on productive relations with law enforcement officials.
Because the FBI has been monitoring mosques and Islamic organizations and questioning individuals without credible evidence of illegal activity, Muslims are increasingly afraid to go to their houses of worship, to speak openly or to become involved in Islamic organizations and events.
These intimidating government actions are apparently permitted under new Justice Department guidelines that have been strongly criticized by civil liberties groups. Those guidelines, which took effect in December of last year, lowered the threshold for beginning FBI investigations and allowed race and ethnicity to be factors in opening a probe.
Even legal public advocacy efforts by American Muslims are being targeted. Texas law enforcement "fusion center" recently issued an alert stating that it is "imperative for law enforcement officers to report" the legal activities of Muslim lobbying and civil rights groups in their areas.
In Minnesota, Somali Muslims have expressed concerns about FBI tactics that they say amount to religious profiling. Some 50 to 100 individuals say they’ve been stopped by FBI agents in recent months.
When investigations do result in an arrest, the charges often fall under immigration or document fraud, tax evasion, and lying to federal officers, though the cases are touted as victories against "terrorism." In at least one recent case, such charges were viewed as payback for an individual’s refusal to act as an informant. The person targeted alleges that an FBI agent threatened to make his life a "living hell" if he refused to be an informant.
Following these reports, and after largely unsuccessful attempts to engage the FBI on these issues, American Muslim groups came to the conclusion that a dramatic action like considering the suspension of outreach relations would was unavoidable.
Muslims are not considering severing all ties with law enforcement agencies, but would only suspend participation in public relations efforts such as town hall meetings, diversity training and participation in FBI citizens’ academies that came to be viewed as public relations cover for behind-the-scenes abuses. Reporting of suspected criminal activities or of anti-Muslim hate crimes would continue.
This effort is not a campaign of disengagement, but is instead designed to truly engage top Justice Department officials on these critical issues. It is also designed to help restore respect and equal rights for American Muslims after eight years of being treated as suspects rather than partners.
The AMT statement clearly indicates that American Muslims support President Obama’s efforts to help end the marginalization of their institutions carried out under the Bush administration.
American Muslims are sending a clear message that they refuse to be treated as second class citizens and that law enforcement agencies should work with the Muslim community based the "mutual respect" that President Obama championed in his inaugural address.
In a recent congressional hearing, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) asked FBI Director Robert Mueller about AMT’s statement and about the new investigative guidelines. Sen. Feingold asked Mueller:
"Do you think that the new attorney general guidelines are helping or hurting the FBI’s relationship with the U.S. Muslim community? In light of this task force statement, how do you plan to improve that relationship?" Mueller responded by saying the Muslim community "has been tremendously supportive and worked very closely with [the FBI] in a number of instances around the country."
The entire reason for AMT’s existence is to promote positive civic engagement by the American Muslim community. But that engagement, particularly with law enforcement agencies, must be based on fair treatment and the protection of constitutional rights, including the right to practice our religion without interference, harassment, manipulation or vilification.
Dr. Agha Saeed heads the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, a coalition of major national Islamic organizations.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
FBI director questioned about Muslim relations
http://www.infocusnews.net/content/view/33149/135/
By Southern California In Focus News Staff
ANAHEIM, Calif. – The controversy over reports of an FBI informant infiltrating southern California mosques and the FBI’s overall conduct toward American Muslims were subjects of a Senate hearing last month, generating vague answers from FBI Director Robert Mueller and generating even more concern in a community already feeling fearful and unfairly targeted in a post-9/11 era. In the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing held on Capitol Hill, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) was tough on Mueller.
“Can you determine and report to this committee whether mosques have been entered by FBI agents or informants without disclosing their identities under the authority of the attorney general guidelines and, if so, how many?” Feingold asked.
“I will say that we do not focus on institutions, we focus on individuals. And I will say generally if there is evidence or information as to individual or individuals undertaking illegal activities in religious institutions, with appropriate high-level approval, we would undertake investigative activities, regardless of the religion,” Mueller responded in part.
Mueller, in regurgitating the domestic intelligence and investigative agency’s standard line, in fact contradicted claims of Craig Monteilh, an Orange County man who has publicly revealed how he was trained to “infiltrate” area mosques – from West Covina to Mission Viejo – to spy on unsuspecting worshippers, for almost a year.
Monteilh’s accounts prompted Muslim community leaders and groups to question the true intention behind the FBI’s partnership with U.S. Muslims.
A highlight of the Senate testimony was a reference to the American Muslim Taskforce statement, released March 17. That statement was part of a nationally-coordinated campaign by Muslims to decisively respond to the FBI’s aggressive tactics.
In the statement, the coalition of national Muslim organizations said they are considering severing outreach ties and public relations work with the FBI unless the agency revamps its “McCarthy-era tactics” that unfairly target the Muslim community, its mosques and institutions.
The AMT statement led Sen. Feingold to ask Mueller if he thought the new attorney general guidelines (implemented Dec. 1, 2008) are helping or hurting the FBI’s relationship with the U.S. Muslim community and in light of the AMT statement, how he planned to improve that relationship.
To that, Mueller responded: “Expectation is that our relationships are as good now as before the guidelines…”
Last December, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, under the auspices of the Bush Administration, approved guidelines for the FBI that lower the threshold for conducting investigations, allow for informants to spy on people without probable cause, and further permit the FBI to take into account a person’s religion and ethnic background as factors to open an investigation – essentially making lawful racial and religious profiling.
The extensive AMT statement describes the contributions of the American Muslim community and outlines how the FBI’s sending in agent provocateurs to incite worshippers undermined relations between the agency and Muslims.
“Through civil rights advocacy, civic and political engagement, and the promotion of dialogue with interfaith leaders and law enforcement agencies, Muslim Americans continue to be a positive and stabilizing force in keeping our nation safe and secure from acts of violence and foreign threats … Yet recent incidents targeting American Muslims lead us to consider suspending ongoing outreach efforts with the FBI … Bias and faulty premises dominated post-9/11 law enforcement analysis of the Muslim community and the threat assessment to national security. The waning days of the previous administration witnessed a flourishing of anti-Muslim activity … These McCarthy-era tactics are detrimental to a free society.”
Major Muslim organizations – the American Muslim Alliance, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Muslim American Society - Freedom, Islamic Circle of North America, Muslim Student Association-National, MSA West, more than 30 other mosques and Muslim groups – have endorsed the AMT statement.
Additionally, more than 50 activists and well-respected academics – including John Esposito, Ali Mazrui, and Hatem Bazian – have signed on to the AMT statement.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Islamic Society of North America, which did not sign on to AMT’s statement, have nonetheless called for accountability of the FBI’s actions while maintaining open lines of communication.
“Federal law enforcement cannot establish trust with American Muslim communities through meetings and townhall forums, while at the same time sending paid informants who instigate violent rhetoric in mosques. This mere act stigmatizes American mosques and casts a shadow of doubt and distrust between American Muslims and their neighbors,” a Feb. 25 MPAC statement said.
MPAC Executive Director Salam Al-Marayati later stated about MPAC‘s continued outreach ties to the FBI: “We believe that we have to keep our place at the table in this discourse.”
ISNA, in a news release, stated: “ISNA believes that communications with law enforcement agencies should remain open and it is not in favor of ending contacts with the FBI.”
AMT Chairman Agha Saeed, however, said the AMT’s effort is not a campaign of disengagement.
“It is instead designed to truly engage top Justice Department officials on these critical issues,” Saeed said. “It is also designed to help restore respect and equal rights for American Muslims after eight years of being treated as suspects rather than partners.”
The two distinct and, to an extent, conflicting approaches as to whether to continue outreach with the FBI have led some in the Muslim community to question whether a less than united stance will impact Muslims’ ability to hold the agency responsible and therefore, force it to correct its wrongdoings against a community constantly viewed as suspect.
Faisal Qazi, a neurologist and longtime activist in southern California, wrote an open letter to Muslim leaders.
“If a Muslim leader of any of our national groups supporting full maintenance of engagement is to be detained today, these groups would inevitably no longer stay on the table for continued so-called engagement,” wrote Qazi. “Therefore, the question is where do you draw the line? The line for grassroots movements is drawn when an average individual such as (Ahmad) Niazi is affected or in solidarity for all those families who have been harassed by recent intrusions but for others, the threshold may be much higher.”
On the subject of engagement with the FBI, the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California – an umbrella organization of more than 70 mosques and Islamic centers – polled Muslims in March.
In the poll, 78 percent of respondents said American Muslims should have “no relationship at all [with the FBI] until they stop unfairly targeting” Muslims or “end outreach relationship and limit communication to ‘as needed.’” The remaining 22 percent said Muslims should maintain an ongoing relationship with the FBI, “no matter what.” In February, the ISCSC and many other southern California Muslim groups suspended their outreach work with FBI’s Los Angeles office.
For the past two months, the issue of FBI informants at mosques has captured national and international media spotlight, prompted by the FBI’s Feb. 20 arrest of Niazi, a 34-year-old U.S. citizen, on charges of immigration fraud.
Niazi, in 2007, was one of the first worshippers at the Islamic Center of Irvine to report Monteilh, who had made violent statements against America and intimated to worshippers that he had access to explosives.
Monteilh was promptly reported to the Irvine Police Department and the Los Angeles FBI office at that time. In 2008, Niazi further reported to CAIR-Los Angeles Area that he was asked by an FBI agent to become an informant, otherwise his life would be made “a living hell.” It was later confirmed that Monteilh was a convicted felon who was recruited and paid by the FBI to infiltrate mosques and spy on worshippers.
The Orange County Register wrote a biting editorial on Monteilh’s “fishing expeditions.”
“Everyone understands the need for legitimate undercover activities in response to credible evidence. But we cannot fathom the justification for fishing expeditions and entrapment. Nationwide, some of the supposed terrorist ‘plots’ the FBI has claimed to have foiled have simply been cases of entrapment involving Muslims without the intent or wherewithal or to pull off any attacks. Infiltrating mosques without evidence of crime is an affront to the First Amendment.”
Both Mueller and FBI spokesman John Miller say the agency values its partnership with Muslims.
“Limiting honest dialogue, especially when complex issues are on the table, is generally not an effective advocacy strategy,” Miller said in a written release.
However, Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR-LA and an AMT member, disagrees.
“The problem is that many in the Muslim community no longer feel confident that the FBI is pursuing an honest dialogue with the Muslim community,” Ayloush said. “This was the result of confirmed reports that, while the Muslim community engaged in honest partnership building and dialogue with the FBI for eight years, the FBI was paying convicted felons to ‘infiltrate’ mosques to radicalize Muslim youths and instigate talks about terrorism action. Integrity and honesty are the foundation of any relationship.”
Last year, the FBI privately ended formal relations with the offices of CAIR, the largest Muslim civil rights group in the country. FBI officials never informed CAIR representatives of the reasons behind their decision but recently said, in writing, that they want to limit “any formally constructed partnerships between CAIR and the FBI” based on concerns relating “to a number of distinct narrow issues specific to CAIR and its national leadership.”
The AMT statement points to the “unindicted co-conspirator” designation given to 300 Muslim individuals and groups, including CAIR, in the trial of Holy Land Foundation charity as a possible reason. The move was illegal and seen as politically-oriented and criminalizing the Muslim community.
CAIR has called the FBI allegations a “campaign of smears and misinformation.”
“It is not surprising that we would be targeted in a purely political move by those in the previous administration who sought to prevent us from defending the civil rights of American Muslims,” said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, in a statement.
CAIR officials also said the organization has regularly advocated engagement, based on mutual respect, with law enforcement and the FBI, sponsoring diversity trainings, joint workshops and town halls with FBI agents, and assisting with investigations.
American Muslims and the FBI now walk a rocky course while seeking a balance between national security and the protection of civil liberties. Muslims will continue to report any suspicious activity or threats to law enforcement, the AMT statement says.
Muslim leaders observe that the fate of American Muslims mirrors that of other minorities who they say were intimidated by government forces and stripped of their humanity yet continued to stand up and eventually gained respect and their true place in society.
Said the OC Register editorial: “The FBI’s activities have led a consortium of Muslim groups to ‘consider suspending ongoing outreach efforts with the FBI.’ We can hardly blame them. Perhaps the Obama administration will rethink this counterproductive and un-American strategy.”
By Southern California In Focus News Staff
ANAHEIM, Calif. – The controversy over reports of an FBI informant infiltrating southern California mosques and the FBI’s overall conduct toward American Muslims were subjects of a Senate hearing last month, generating vague answers from FBI Director Robert Mueller and generating even more concern in a community already feeling fearful and unfairly targeted in a post-9/11 era. In the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing held on Capitol Hill, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) was tough on Mueller.
“Can you determine and report to this committee whether mosques have been entered by FBI agents or informants without disclosing their identities under the authority of the attorney general guidelines and, if so, how many?” Feingold asked.
“I will say that we do not focus on institutions, we focus on individuals. And I will say generally if there is evidence or information as to individual or individuals undertaking illegal activities in religious institutions, with appropriate high-level approval, we would undertake investigative activities, regardless of the religion,” Mueller responded in part.
Mueller, in regurgitating the domestic intelligence and investigative agency’s standard line, in fact contradicted claims of Craig Monteilh, an Orange County man who has publicly revealed how he was trained to “infiltrate” area mosques – from West Covina to Mission Viejo – to spy on unsuspecting worshippers, for almost a year.
Monteilh’s accounts prompted Muslim community leaders and groups to question the true intention behind the FBI’s partnership with U.S. Muslims.
A highlight of the Senate testimony was a reference to the American Muslim Taskforce statement, released March 17. That statement was part of a nationally-coordinated campaign by Muslims to decisively respond to the FBI’s aggressive tactics.
In the statement, the coalition of national Muslim organizations said they are considering severing outreach ties and public relations work with the FBI unless the agency revamps its “McCarthy-era tactics” that unfairly target the Muslim community, its mosques and institutions.
The AMT statement led Sen. Feingold to ask Mueller if he thought the new attorney general guidelines (implemented Dec. 1, 2008) are helping or hurting the FBI’s relationship with the U.S. Muslim community and in light of the AMT statement, how he planned to improve that relationship.
To that, Mueller responded: “Expectation is that our relationships are as good now as before the guidelines…”
Last December, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, under the auspices of the Bush Administration, approved guidelines for the FBI that lower the threshold for conducting investigations, allow for informants to spy on people without probable cause, and further permit the FBI to take into account a person’s religion and ethnic background as factors to open an investigation – essentially making lawful racial and religious profiling.
The extensive AMT statement describes the contributions of the American Muslim community and outlines how the FBI’s sending in agent provocateurs to incite worshippers undermined relations between the agency and Muslims.
“Through civil rights advocacy, civic and political engagement, and the promotion of dialogue with interfaith leaders and law enforcement agencies, Muslim Americans continue to be a positive and stabilizing force in keeping our nation safe and secure from acts of violence and foreign threats … Yet recent incidents targeting American Muslims lead us to consider suspending ongoing outreach efforts with the FBI … Bias and faulty premises dominated post-9/11 law enforcement analysis of the Muslim community and the threat assessment to national security. The waning days of the previous administration witnessed a flourishing of anti-Muslim activity … These McCarthy-era tactics are detrimental to a free society.”
Major Muslim organizations – the American Muslim Alliance, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Muslim American Society - Freedom, Islamic Circle of North America, Muslim Student Association-National, MSA West, more than 30 other mosques and Muslim groups – have endorsed the AMT statement.
Additionally, more than 50 activists and well-respected academics – including John Esposito, Ali Mazrui, and Hatem Bazian – have signed on to the AMT statement.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Islamic Society of North America, which did not sign on to AMT’s statement, have nonetheless called for accountability of the FBI’s actions while maintaining open lines of communication.
“Federal law enforcement cannot establish trust with American Muslim communities through meetings and townhall forums, while at the same time sending paid informants who instigate violent rhetoric in mosques. This mere act stigmatizes American mosques and casts a shadow of doubt and distrust between American Muslims and their neighbors,” a Feb. 25 MPAC statement said.
MPAC Executive Director Salam Al-Marayati later stated about MPAC‘s continued outreach ties to the FBI: “We believe that we have to keep our place at the table in this discourse.”
ISNA, in a news release, stated: “ISNA believes that communications with law enforcement agencies should remain open and it is not in favor of ending contacts with the FBI.”
AMT Chairman Agha Saeed, however, said the AMT’s effort is not a campaign of disengagement.
“It is instead designed to truly engage top Justice Department officials on these critical issues,” Saeed said. “It is also designed to help restore respect and equal rights for American Muslims after eight years of being treated as suspects rather than partners.”
The two distinct and, to an extent, conflicting approaches as to whether to continue outreach with the FBI have led some in the Muslim community to question whether a less than united stance will impact Muslims’ ability to hold the agency responsible and therefore, force it to correct its wrongdoings against a community constantly viewed as suspect.
Faisal Qazi, a neurologist and longtime activist in southern California, wrote an open letter to Muslim leaders.
“If a Muslim leader of any of our national groups supporting full maintenance of engagement is to be detained today, these groups would inevitably no longer stay on the table for continued so-called engagement,” wrote Qazi. “Therefore, the question is where do you draw the line? The line for grassroots movements is drawn when an average individual such as (Ahmad) Niazi is affected or in solidarity for all those families who have been harassed by recent intrusions but for others, the threshold may be much higher.”
On the subject of engagement with the FBI, the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California – an umbrella organization of more than 70 mosques and Islamic centers – polled Muslims in March.
In the poll, 78 percent of respondents said American Muslims should have “no relationship at all [with the FBI] until they stop unfairly targeting” Muslims or “end outreach relationship and limit communication to ‘as needed.’” The remaining 22 percent said Muslims should maintain an ongoing relationship with the FBI, “no matter what.” In February, the ISCSC and many other southern California Muslim groups suspended their outreach work with FBI’s Los Angeles office.
For the past two months, the issue of FBI informants at mosques has captured national and international media spotlight, prompted by the FBI’s Feb. 20 arrest of Niazi, a 34-year-old U.S. citizen, on charges of immigration fraud.
Niazi, in 2007, was one of the first worshippers at the Islamic Center of Irvine to report Monteilh, who had made violent statements against America and intimated to worshippers that he had access to explosives.
Monteilh was promptly reported to the Irvine Police Department and the Los Angeles FBI office at that time. In 2008, Niazi further reported to CAIR-Los Angeles Area that he was asked by an FBI agent to become an informant, otherwise his life would be made “a living hell.” It was later confirmed that Monteilh was a convicted felon who was recruited and paid by the FBI to infiltrate mosques and spy on worshippers.
The Orange County Register wrote a biting editorial on Monteilh’s “fishing expeditions.”
“Everyone understands the need for legitimate undercover activities in response to credible evidence. But we cannot fathom the justification for fishing expeditions and entrapment. Nationwide, some of the supposed terrorist ‘plots’ the FBI has claimed to have foiled have simply been cases of entrapment involving Muslims without the intent or wherewithal or to pull off any attacks. Infiltrating mosques without evidence of crime is an affront to the First Amendment.”
Both Mueller and FBI spokesman John Miller say the agency values its partnership with Muslims.
“Limiting honest dialogue, especially when complex issues are on the table, is generally not an effective advocacy strategy,” Miller said in a written release.
However, Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR-LA and an AMT member, disagrees.
“The problem is that many in the Muslim community no longer feel confident that the FBI is pursuing an honest dialogue with the Muslim community,” Ayloush said. “This was the result of confirmed reports that, while the Muslim community engaged in honest partnership building and dialogue with the FBI for eight years, the FBI was paying convicted felons to ‘infiltrate’ mosques to radicalize Muslim youths and instigate talks about terrorism action. Integrity and honesty are the foundation of any relationship.”
Last year, the FBI privately ended formal relations with the offices of CAIR, the largest Muslim civil rights group in the country. FBI officials never informed CAIR representatives of the reasons behind their decision but recently said, in writing, that they want to limit “any formally constructed partnerships between CAIR and the FBI” based on concerns relating “to a number of distinct narrow issues specific to CAIR and its national leadership.”
The AMT statement points to the “unindicted co-conspirator” designation given to 300 Muslim individuals and groups, including CAIR, in the trial of Holy Land Foundation charity as a possible reason. The move was illegal and seen as politically-oriented and criminalizing the Muslim community.
CAIR has called the FBI allegations a “campaign of smears and misinformation.”
“It is not surprising that we would be targeted in a purely political move by those in the previous administration who sought to prevent us from defending the civil rights of American Muslims,” said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, in a statement.
CAIR officials also said the organization has regularly advocated engagement, based on mutual respect, with law enforcement and the FBI, sponsoring diversity trainings, joint workshops and town halls with FBI agents, and assisting with investigations.
American Muslims and the FBI now walk a rocky course while seeking a balance between national security and the protection of civil liberties. Muslims will continue to report any suspicious activity or threats to law enforcement, the AMT statement says.
Muslim leaders observe that the fate of American Muslims mirrors that of other minorities who they say were intimidated by government forces and stripped of their humanity yet continued to stand up and eventually gained respect and their true place in society.
Said the OC Register editorial: “The FBI’s activities have led a consortium of Muslim groups to ‘consider suspending ongoing outreach efforts with the FBI.’ We can hardly blame them. Perhaps the Obama administration will rethink this counterproductive and un-American strategy.”
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
FBI and American Muslims at odds
An informant at a California mosque has hampered efforts to find home-grown terrorists.
By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the March 25, 2009 edition
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0325/p02s01-ussc.html
Law enforcement efforts to root out home-grown terrorists are jeopardized by deteriorating relations between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Muslim and Arab-American communities.
The situation began last fall when the FBI quietly withdrew formal relations with all local chapters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), one of the largest Muslim American civil rights organizations. The FBI cited "a number of distinct narrow issues" that it has refused to make public.
The situation worsened in February, when it became public that the FBI had planted an informant at a California mosque who, a coalition of more than a dozen Muslim American groups charges, actively tried to recruit terrorists.
Last week, the coalition accused the FBI of engaging in "McCarthy-era tactics" and announced it was considering suspending all ties with the FBI unless it made public its concerns with CAIR and "reassessed its use of agent provocateurs in Muslim communities."
The FBI would not comment, except to issue a statement saying: "Limiting honest dialogue, especially when complex issues are on the table, is generally not an effective advocacy strategy."
That has not satisfied many in the Muslim and Arab-American communities, including some who have not joined the coalition threatening to terminate FBI ties.
"We believe that we have to keep our place at the table in this discourse. We believe it's too important for our community's interest and America's interest to leave the table," says Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles. "But the damage was done [when the FBI planted the agent].... The way the FBI handled the case stigmatized the whole mosque community, and the disengagement from CAIR field offices was a mistake because people don't understand it – there's no explanation."
In the aftermath of 9/11, the FBI made an aggressive effort to reach out to Muslim and Arab-American organizations throughout the country. In general, the effort was viewed as a success by all parties.
Relations had been good
On its website, CAIR lists dozens of laudatory quotes from FBI officials they cooperated with since the attacks. FBI officials regularly attended their banquets, mosques and community outreach efforts.
CAIR officials said the FBI's decision to sever formal ties with its 30 field offices in 19 states came as a shock.
"Historically, we've had very good relations with the FBI at the local, state, and federal levels," says CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper.
The FBI declined to say what "distinct narrow issues" had prompted it to suddenly sever ties with CAIR. But in a statement, FBI spokesman John Miller said, "We have made CAIR's national leadership aware of these issues."
CAIR's Mr. Hooper says that is not the case.
"They have not communicated specific issues to us, and when we ask, they say, 'Well, let's have some future conversation about it'," says Hooper. "And we say, 'No, we'd like to know now.'"
CAIR believes the decision goes back to May 2007, when it was named along with 300 other Muslim American groups and individuals as an "unindicted coconspirator" in the controversial terrorist funding trial of the Holy Land Foundation, which was once the largest Muslim charity in the United States.
After a mistrial in 2007, the charity and some of its officials were found guilty in 2008 for ties to Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization.
In a letter to the FBI, CAIR argues that the "unindicted coconspirator" designation should never have been made or made public.
"Making this unjust designation public violates the Justice Department's own guidelines and wrongly implies that those listed are somehow involved in criminal activity," the CAIR letter states.
A source within the FBI confirmed that the alleged ties to the Holy Land Foundation were the basis for the FBI's actions. He also said, that as a result of the final conviction in the Holy Land case, "there was a public policy problem with us going forward" in formal relations with CAIR.
Muslim and Arab American groups are also upset with the FBI's decision to allegedly place an ex-convict as an informant in the Muslim American Community in Orange County, California.
The informant posed as a new convert to Islam and reportedly espoused terrorist ideology to several members of the Islamic Center of Irvine. That prompted two members of the mosque, including a man named Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, to report the informant's inflammatory statements to the FBI and ask for a restraining order against him.
FBI officials then began investigating Mr. Niazi and asked him to become an informant, according to the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, which has formally filed a complaint with the FBI. When Niazi refused, an agent told him he'd make his life "a living hell." Niazi has since been arrested and charged with making false statements to gain his citizenship and failing to disclose that his sister is married to an Al Qaeda operative, according to court documents.
At his bail hearing, an FBI Agent also said Niazi had allegedly been recorded discussing terrorist ideology, jihad and plans to blow up abandoned buildings. Niazi pleaded innocent."
An 'agent provocateur?'
Members of the Muslim American community say they're incensed by the FBI's use of what they call an "agent provocateur" within its community.
"It's pretty devastating, it came as a shock," says Kareem Shora – executive director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
"What this has done is undermine what was a 10-year relationship of trust, or what we thought was trust," says Mr. Shora.
The FBI insists it is not targeting mosques or the community, but individuals.
"We do not target places, we don't investigate mosques. We identify individuals who merit investigation under a set of laws and guidelines," says the FBI's Mr. Miller.
"In the course of those investigations sometimes those people will take us to the places they go," Miller said.
But the FBI informant, a man named Craig Monteilh, told reporters last week that he was sent to several mosques and that he had alerted the FBI about Niazi's alleged terrorist sympathies.
By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the March 25, 2009 edition
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0325/p02s01-ussc.html
Law enforcement efforts to root out home-grown terrorists are jeopardized by deteriorating relations between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Muslim and Arab-American communities.
The situation began last fall when the FBI quietly withdrew formal relations with all local chapters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), one of the largest Muslim American civil rights organizations. The FBI cited "a number of distinct narrow issues" that it has refused to make public.
The situation worsened in February, when it became public that the FBI had planted an informant at a California mosque who, a coalition of more than a dozen Muslim American groups charges, actively tried to recruit terrorists.
Last week, the coalition accused the FBI of engaging in "McCarthy-era tactics" and announced it was considering suspending all ties with the FBI unless it made public its concerns with CAIR and "reassessed its use of agent provocateurs in Muslim communities."
The FBI would not comment, except to issue a statement saying: "Limiting honest dialogue, especially when complex issues are on the table, is generally not an effective advocacy strategy."
That has not satisfied many in the Muslim and Arab-American communities, including some who have not joined the coalition threatening to terminate FBI ties.
"We believe that we have to keep our place at the table in this discourse. We believe it's too important for our community's interest and America's interest to leave the table," says Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles. "But the damage was done [when the FBI planted the agent].... The way the FBI handled the case stigmatized the whole mosque community, and the disengagement from CAIR field offices was a mistake because people don't understand it – there's no explanation."
In the aftermath of 9/11, the FBI made an aggressive effort to reach out to Muslim and Arab-American organizations throughout the country. In general, the effort was viewed as a success by all parties.
Relations had been good
On its website, CAIR lists dozens of laudatory quotes from FBI officials they cooperated with since the attacks. FBI officials regularly attended their banquets, mosques and community outreach efforts.
CAIR officials said the FBI's decision to sever formal ties with its 30 field offices in 19 states came as a shock.
"Historically, we've had very good relations with the FBI at the local, state, and federal levels," says CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper.
The FBI declined to say what "distinct narrow issues" had prompted it to suddenly sever ties with CAIR. But in a statement, FBI spokesman John Miller said, "We have made CAIR's national leadership aware of these issues."
CAIR's Mr. Hooper says that is not the case.
"They have not communicated specific issues to us, and when we ask, they say, 'Well, let's have some future conversation about it'," says Hooper. "And we say, 'No, we'd like to know now.'"
CAIR believes the decision goes back to May 2007, when it was named along with 300 other Muslim American groups and individuals as an "unindicted coconspirator" in the controversial terrorist funding trial of the Holy Land Foundation, which was once the largest Muslim charity in the United States.
After a mistrial in 2007, the charity and some of its officials were found guilty in 2008 for ties to Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization.
In a letter to the FBI, CAIR argues that the "unindicted coconspirator" designation should never have been made or made public.
"Making this unjust designation public violates the Justice Department's own guidelines and wrongly implies that those listed are somehow involved in criminal activity," the CAIR letter states.
A source within the FBI confirmed that the alleged ties to the Holy Land Foundation were the basis for the FBI's actions. He also said, that as a result of the final conviction in the Holy Land case, "there was a public policy problem with us going forward" in formal relations with CAIR.
Muslim and Arab American groups are also upset with the FBI's decision to allegedly place an ex-convict as an informant in the Muslim American Community in Orange County, California.
The informant posed as a new convert to Islam and reportedly espoused terrorist ideology to several members of the Islamic Center of Irvine. That prompted two members of the mosque, including a man named Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, to report the informant's inflammatory statements to the FBI and ask for a restraining order against him.
FBI officials then began investigating Mr. Niazi and asked him to become an informant, according to the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, which has formally filed a complaint with the FBI. When Niazi refused, an agent told him he'd make his life "a living hell." Niazi has since been arrested and charged with making false statements to gain his citizenship and failing to disclose that his sister is married to an Al Qaeda operative, according to court documents.
At his bail hearing, an FBI Agent also said Niazi had allegedly been recorded discussing terrorist ideology, jihad and plans to blow up abandoned buildings. Niazi pleaded innocent."
An 'agent provocateur?'
Members of the Muslim American community say they're incensed by the FBI's use of what they call an "agent provocateur" within its community.
"It's pretty devastating, it came as a shock," says Kareem Shora – executive director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
"What this has done is undermine what was a 10-year relationship of trust, or what we thought was trust," says Mr. Shora.
The FBI insists it is not targeting mosques or the community, but individuals.
"We do not target places, we don't investigate mosques. We identify individuals who merit investigation under a set of laws and guidelines," says the FBI's Mr. Miller.
"In the course of those investigations sometimes those people will take us to the places they go," Miller said.
But the FBI informant, a man named Craig Monteilh, told reporters last week that he was sent to several mosques and that he had alerted the FBI about Niazi's alleged terrorist sympathies.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
FBI creates climate of fear (O.C. Register Editorial)
http://headlines.ocregister.com/articles/fbi_18893___article.html/mosques_fear.html
Supporters of the Patriot Act and other expansive efforts to fight the “war on terror” often mock claims by civil libertarians that aggressive federal spying powers within the United States undermines civil liberties. We've often heard conservatives ask critics to name anyone who has lost any freedoms because of the government's post-9/11 powers.
Yet such dismissive attitudes toward government snooping are easily rebutted by recent events in Orange County. A convicted con artist named Craig Monteilh admitted last month that he infiltrated local mosques on behalf of the FBI and recorded conversations about the possibility of blowing up buildings. Although the FBI won't confirm Mr. Monteilh's identity, the agency acknowledges that one suspect had been secretly recorded by an informant, according to a Register report.
Local Muslims say that Mr. Monteilh, who went by Farouk al-Aziz, tried to bait them into discussing radical politics. Hussam Ayloush, head of the greater Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Anaheim, told us that Mr. Monteilh went from one young Muslim to another and engaged in radical discourse that promoted terrorism. Some people, he said, stopped going to mosque to avoid these discussions. Some mosque-goers contacted the FBI to report the incident but were referred to the Irvine Police Department, he said. Mr. Ayloush said those men who called the authorities then became the subject of FBI interrogations.
We've heard reports that Muslims are afraid to talk about politics or civil liberties issues within their mosques or even among their friends because of fear that it will draw attention from undercover agents. We agree with Mr. Ayloush, that “there should not be a presumption of guilt among an entire community.” This could backfire, he explained, as the FBI should supposedly work with American Muslims in the event of a terrorist threat, not treat them as adversaries by creating fear of surveillance within mosques.
Everyone understands the need for legitimate undercover activities in response to credible evidence. But we cannot fathom the justification for fishing expeditions and entrapment. Nationwide, some of the supposed terrorist “plots” the FBI has claimed to have foiled have simply been cases of entrapment involving Muslims without the intent or wherewithal or to pull off any attacks.
Infiltrating mosques without evidence of crime is an affront to the First Amendment. We know the retort from the law-and-order crowd: If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear. That is the motto of a police state. Law-abiding, honest, terrorism-hating Americans have every legitimate reason to watch their words in front of a federal agent. No one wants to face trouble with powerful government agencies. So the natural tendency is to stay quiet or avoid places the government might be monitoring. That's what people always have done in totalitarian and authoritarian nations.
The FBI's activities have led a consortium of Muslim groups to “consider suspending ongoing outreach efforts with the FBI.” We can hardly blame them. Perhaps the Obama administration will rethink this counterproductive and un-American strategy.
Supporters of the Patriot Act and other expansive efforts to fight the “war on terror” often mock claims by civil libertarians that aggressive federal spying powers within the United States undermines civil liberties. We've often heard conservatives ask critics to name anyone who has lost any freedoms because of the government's post-9/11 powers.
Yet such dismissive attitudes toward government snooping are easily rebutted by recent events in Orange County. A convicted con artist named Craig Monteilh admitted last month that he infiltrated local mosques on behalf of the FBI and recorded conversations about the possibility of blowing up buildings. Although the FBI won't confirm Mr. Monteilh's identity, the agency acknowledges that one suspect had been secretly recorded by an informant, according to a Register report.
Local Muslims say that Mr. Monteilh, who went by Farouk al-Aziz, tried to bait them into discussing radical politics. Hussam Ayloush, head of the greater Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Anaheim, told us that Mr. Monteilh went from one young Muslim to another and engaged in radical discourse that promoted terrorism. Some people, he said, stopped going to mosque to avoid these discussions. Some mosque-goers contacted the FBI to report the incident but were referred to the Irvine Police Department, he said. Mr. Ayloush said those men who called the authorities then became the subject of FBI interrogations.
We've heard reports that Muslims are afraid to talk about politics or civil liberties issues within their mosques or even among their friends because of fear that it will draw attention from undercover agents. We agree with Mr. Ayloush, that “there should not be a presumption of guilt among an entire community.” This could backfire, he explained, as the FBI should supposedly work with American Muslims in the event of a terrorist threat, not treat them as adversaries by creating fear of surveillance within mosques.
Everyone understands the need for legitimate undercover activities in response to credible evidence. But we cannot fathom the justification for fishing expeditions and entrapment. Nationwide, some of the supposed terrorist “plots” the FBI has claimed to have foiled have simply been cases of entrapment involving Muslims without the intent or wherewithal or to pull off any attacks.
Infiltrating mosques without evidence of crime is an affront to the First Amendment. We know the retort from the law-and-order crowd: If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear. That is the motto of a police state. Law-abiding, honest, terrorism-hating Americans have every legitimate reason to watch their words in front of a federal agent. No one wants to face trouble with powerful government agencies. So the natural tendency is to stay quiet or avoid places the government might be monitoring. That's what people always have done in totalitarian and authoritarian nations.
The FBI's activities have led a consortium of Muslim groups to “consider suspending ongoing outreach efforts with the FBI.” We can hardly blame them. Perhaps the Obama administration will rethink this counterproductive and un-American strategy.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Stirling's Obsession with Islam and CAIR
By Edgar Hopida
[This short letter to the editor was published in San Diego Daily Transcript's February 13, 2009 print edition (appeared online on Feb 12th http://www.sddt.com/Search/article.cfm?SourceCode=20090212tzb). For background to the response, I recommend all of you to read my previous post, then read Larry Stirling's response http://www.sddt.com/Commentary/article.cfm?Commentary_ID=141&SourceCode=20090204tzc ]
With an impressive resume combination of military, politics, and law, we would think that Mr. Stirling would issue out a more notable response to the issues I raised in my letter to the editor. Unfortunately, he has resorted to ad hominem attacks out of desperation and frustration, refusing to acknowledge that his understanding of Islam and issues relating to it lack real credibility when compared to the factual record.
What is supposed to be a discussion on Gaza and the Israel/Palestine conflict, Stirling has turned it into a personal vendetta against CAIR. Notice that he did not once refute any of the points I brought out in my letter to the editor. If one thinks about it, he couldn’t anyway. Trying to refute the reports put out by mainstream human rights organizations, the United Nations, and specialists on the Israel/Palestine conflict is a truly daunting if not impossible task to achieve.
Larry Stirling has gone deep into the gutter to recycle already refuted allegations made about the Council on American-Islamic Relations in a pitiful attempt to discredit the largest mainstream American Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in North America. The claims made by Stirling in his newest opinion editorial were penned by political pundits, Islamophobic investigative reporters, and others who have milked the 9/11 tragedy to enrich themselves and to become self-proclaimed “experts” on Islam and the Muslim world. In the mainstream, these “experts” are taken seriously as one would take the celebrity tabloids at the local supermarket.
Mr. Stirling likes to portray himself as the victim, “that dare to tell the truth about Islamist conduct or comment on CAIR and its methods and objectives.” The problem is none of what he says in his opinion editorials represents the truth when it comes to Islam and CAIR. Since the summer of 2005, he has repeatedly made factual errors on Islam. These errors were so numerous and disturbing that we have an over 27 page document listing all his factual errors along with refutations that can easily be found and supported in the scholarly literature.
As a person who works closely with many interfaith, ethnic, and civil rights organizations, I am glad that Mr. Stirling’s warped view of the world is not the mainstream. People like Larry Stirling are relegated to the extreme fringe, where myths become facts, and facts become myths. Fortunately for most people in San Diego, we haven’t gone down that road of obsessive paranoia.
Edgar Hopida is the Public Relations Director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-San Diego).
[This short letter to the editor was published in San Diego Daily Transcript's February 13, 2009 print edition (appeared online on Feb 12th http://www.sddt.com/Search/article.cfm?SourceCode=20090212tzb). For background to the response, I recommend all of you to read my previous post, then read Larry Stirling's response http://www.sddt.com/Commentary/article.cfm?Commentary_ID=141&SourceCode=20090204tzc ]
With an impressive resume combination of military, politics, and law, we would think that Mr. Stirling would issue out a more notable response to the issues I raised in my letter to the editor. Unfortunately, he has resorted to ad hominem attacks out of desperation and frustration, refusing to acknowledge that his understanding of Islam and issues relating to it lack real credibility when compared to the factual record.
What is supposed to be a discussion on Gaza and the Israel/Palestine conflict, Stirling has turned it into a personal vendetta against CAIR. Notice that he did not once refute any of the points I brought out in my letter to the editor. If one thinks about it, he couldn’t anyway. Trying to refute the reports put out by mainstream human rights organizations, the United Nations, and specialists on the Israel/Palestine conflict is a truly daunting if not impossible task to achieve.
Larry Stirling has gone deep into the gutter to recycle already refuted allegations made about the Council on American-Islamic Relations in a pitiful attempt to discredit the largest mainstream American Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in North America. The claims made by Stirling in his newest opinion editorial were penned by political pundits, Islamophobic investigative reporters, and others who have milked the 9/11 tragedy to enrich themselves and to become self-proclaimed “experts” on Islam and the Muslim world. In the mainstream, these “experts” are taken seriously as one would take the celebrity tabloids at the local supermarket.
Mr. Stirling likes to portray himself as the victim, “that dare to tell the truth about Islamist conduct or comment on CAIR and its methods and objectives.” The problem is none of what he says in his opinion editorials represents the truth when it comes to Islam and CAIR. Since the summer of 2005, he has repeatedly made factual errors on Islam. These errors were so numerous and disturbing that we have an over 27 page document listing all his factual errors along with refutations that can easily be found and supported in the scholarly literature.
As a person who works closely with many interfaith, ethnic, and civil rights organizations, I am glad that Mr. Stirling’s warped view of the world is not the mainstream. People like Larry Stirling are relegated to the extreme fringe, where myths become facts, and facts become myths. Fortunately for most people in San Diego, we haven’t gone down that road of obsessive paranoia.
Edgar Hopida is the Public Relations Director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-San Diego).
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Gaza was not a cosmic battle between Islam and the West
By Edgar Hopida
[This letter to the editor was published in the January 27, 2009 issue of San Diego Daily Transcript. For background on Larry Stirling's opinion editorial,go to http://www.sddt.com/Commentary/article.cfm?Commentary_ID=141&SourceCode=20090107tza]
*NOTE: My response is also found on the official San Diego Daily Transcript website http://www.sddt.com/Search/article.cfm?SourceCode=20090126tza
Larry Stirling seems to have an obsession with the whole thesis of perpetual war between Islam and the “West.” He continues his repeated factual errors on Islam by stating, “They have been conquering nations for Islam for the last 1,600 years.” Muslims around the world last month celebrated the Islamic new year of 1430.
In his January 7th editorial, he mistakenly placed the recent crisis in Gaza as some sort of cosmic religious war between Islam and the rest of the world with Israel being its current target. While it sounds good for the next summer block buster movie, his analysis is way off the mark.
It has been proven in the documentary record that the whole issue of the Israel-Palestine conflict has always been that of occupation and injustice. It had never to do with anti-Semitism or tensions between the religious traditions. Moreover, while Stirling has absolved Israel of its actions in the recent conflict, the rest of the international community is calling upon charges of war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law.
Mainstream human rights organizations like B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, have accused Israel of its unlawful use of white phosphorous and depleted uranium on the civilian population of Gaza in addition to UN buildings. Nine Israeli human rights organizations are calling for the investigation of possible war crimes against Prime Minister Olmert, Foreign Minister Livni, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The UN Human Rights Council also passed a motion condemning Israel of “grave violations of human rights.”
Muslims around the world including locally contrary to Stirling’s assertions, were speaking out against the violence in Gaza and were calling for a ceasefire between both parties. This was echoed by the UN Security Council that passed Resolution 1860 with a vote of 14-0 with our government abstaining. Out of defiance and contempt for international law and its institutions, Israel ignored the resolution opting to make its own unilateral ceasefire over a week later. Meanwhile according to B’Tselem more innocent Palestinians in Gaza were killed and injured with the total count being over 1300 killed, almost half of them women and children, and over 5,000 thousand injured. On the Israeli side there were a total of 13 killed, 3 of them were civilian and over 84 civilians injured.
Stirling focused his opinion editorial on the Israeli town of Sderot which had been plagued by rockets fired by militants in Gaza. This action is equally condemnable according to international law and has been documented by mainstream human rights organizations. He recounts his visit to Sderot a year ago seeing “first-hand” what the “locals were enduring.” Larry Stirling however, seems oblivious to the situation in Gaza.
Dr. Sara Roy a Harvard Senior Research Scholar and expert on Gaza, studied the socio-economic and political decline of the Palestinians in Gaza for over three decades. Roy concluded that the Israeli occupation of Gaza had caused a “de-development” of Gaza’s economy. “De-development” as coined by Roy, “precludes, over a long term, the possibility of any kind of development process, even a disarticulated one, by destroying the economy’s capacity to produce.” The so-called Israeli “disengagement” of Gaza in 2005 according to Roy, made the situation even worse by its continuance of control over the airspace, borders, and sea surrounding Gaza. The late prominent Hebrew University sociologist Baruch Kimmerling had described Gaza as "the largest concentration camp ever to exist."
This analysis is further corroborated by B’Tselem’s over 80 page report on Gaza called, “One Big Prison,” which concluded, “Israel has severely restricted freedom of movement to and from the Gaza Strip. These restrictions strangled Gaza, essentially turning the area into one big prison.” B’Tselem’s report also stated, “The restrictions on the movement of goods and laborers has created a deep recession, the loss of work, and a dramatic deterioration in living conditions.”
While Larry Stirling has dismissed CAIR San Diego who has been advocating on behalf of the people of Gaza as a “propaganda arm,” our conclusions are based on what mainstream human rights organizations, Dr Sara Roy’s research on Gaza, the United Nations, as well as what Israeli media have reported on the crisis. When the factual record goes against his view, the only thing he can resort to is call it propaganda.
Edgar D. Hopida is the Director of Public Relations for the San Diego Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-San Diego).
[This letter to the editor was published in the January 27, 2009 issue of San Diego Daily Transcript. For background on Larry Stirling's opinion editorial,go to http://www.sddt.com/Commentary/article.cfm?Commentary_ID=141&SourceCode=20090107tza]
*NOTE: My response is also found on the official San Diego Daily Transcript website http://www.sddt.com/Search/article.cfm?SourceCode=20090126tza
Larry Stirling seems to have an obsession with the whole thesis of perpetual war between Islam and the “West.” He continues his repeated factual errors on Islam by stating, “They have been conquering nations for Islam for the last 1,600 years.” Muslims around the world last month celebrated the Islamic new year of 1430.
In his January 7th editorial, he mistakenly placed the recent crisis in Gaza as some sort of cosmic religious war between Islam and the rest of the world with Israel being its current target. While it sounds good for the next summer block buster movie, his analysis is way off the mark.
It has been proven in the documentary record that the whole issue of the Israel-Palestine conflict has always been that of occupation and injustice. It had never to do with anti-Semitism or tensions between the religious traditions. Moreover, while Stirling has absolved Israel of its actions in the recent conflict, the rest of the international community is calling upon charges of war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law.
Mainstream human rights organizations like B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, have accused Israel of its unlawful use of white phosphorous and depleted uranium on the civilian population of Gaza in addition to UN buildings. Nine Israeli human rights organizations are calling for the investigation of possible war crimes against Prime Minister Olmert, Foreign Minister Livni, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The UN Human Rights Council also passed a motion condemning Israel of “grave violations of human rights.”
Muslims around the world including locally contrary to Stirling’s assertions, were speaking out against the violence in Gaza and were calling for a ceasefire between both parties. This was echoed by the UN Security Council that passed Resolution 1860 with a vote of 14-0 with our government abstaining. Out of defiance and contempt for international law and its institutions, Israel ignored the resolution opting to make its own unilateral ceasefire over a week later. Meanwhile according to B’Tselem more innocent Palestinians in Gaza were killed and injured with the total count being over 1300 killed, almost half of them women and children, and over 5,000 thousand injured. On the Israeli side there were a total of 13 killed, 3 of them were civilian and over 84 civilians injured.
Stirling focused his opinion editorial on the Israeli town of Sderot which had been plagued by rockets fired by militants in Gaza. This action is equally condemnable according to international law and has been documented by mainstream human rights organizations. He recounts his visit to Sderot a year ago seeing “first-hand” what the “locals were enduring.” Larry Stirling however, seems oblivious to the situation in Gaza.
Dr. Sara Roy a Harvard Senior Research Scholar and expert on Gaza, studied the socio-economic and political decline of the Palestinians in Gaza for over three decades. Roy concluded that the Israeli occupation of Gaza had caused a “de-development” of Gaza’s economy. “De-development” as coined by Roy, “precludes, over a long term, the possibility of any kind of development process, even a disarticulated one, by destroying the economy’s capacity to produce.” The so-called Israeli “disengagement” of Gaza in 2005 according to Roy, made the situation even worse by its continuance of control over the airspace, borders, and sea surrounding Gaza. The late prominent Hebrew University sociologist Baruch Kimmerling had described Gaza as "the largest concentration camp ever to exist."
This analysis is further corroborated by B’Tselem’s over 80 page report on Gaza called, “One Big Prison,” which concluded, “Israel has severely restricted freedom of movement to and from the Gaza Strip. These restrictions strangled Gaza, essentially turning the area into one big prison.” B’Tselem’s report also stated, “The restrictions on the movement of goods and laborers has created a deep recession, the loss of work, and a dramatic deterioration in living conditions.”
While Larry Stirling has dismissed CAIR San Diego who has been advocating on behalf of the people of Gaza as a “propaganda arm,” our conclusions are based on what mainstream human rights organizations, Dr Sara Roy’s research on Gaza, the United Nations, as well as what Israeli media have reported on the crisis. When the factual record goes against his view, the only thing he can resort to is call it propaganda.
Edgar D. Hopida is the Director of Public Relations for the San Diego Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-San Diego).
Monday, January 26, 2009
CAIR Action Alert #566 Thank CBS 60 Minutes for 'Powerful' Report on Mistreatment of Palestinians Segment
CAIR Action Alert #566
Thank CBS for ‘Powerful’ Report on Mistreatment of Palestinians Segment shows expanding settlements, evictions, humiliating checkpoints, ‘Apartheid’ roads and wall, families imprisoned in their own homes
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 1/26/2009) - CAIR today asked American Muslims and other people who seek peace with justice in the Middle East to thank CBS for last night’s “60 Minutes” program that outlined in detail the injustices suffered by the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israelis.
The 13-minute report by journalist Bob Simon showed the damage to the cause of peace caused by the ever-expanding and illegal Israeli settlements, the evictions of Palestinians from their homes, the humiliation they experience at Israeli checkpoints, the “Apartheid” roads and wall built by Israel, and the bizarre experience of Palestinian families imprisoned in their own homes by Israeli soldiers.
You can watch the video of the report here http://crm.cair.com/site/R?i=2hYqkDArbSZ1zCUrmW_p8A
or read the transcript here http://crm.cair.com/site/R?i=XPDvJcSxwFD2_HLZlzahGg
“We thank CBS and the producers of ’60 Minutes’ for having the courage to show the American people the truth about the injustices that are at the core of the Middle East conflict,” said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad. “This powerful report shows clearly that the only way to resolve the conflict and bring peace and stability to the region is to address the fundamental issues of justice that have been ignored by the world community for far too long.”
Awad said Muslims should thank CBS because the media are often criticized for not showing the full picture of the suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israelis.
IMMEDIATE ACTIONS REQUESTED:
1. CONTACT “60 Minutes” - They are getting a lot of “heat” from the vocal minority who support Israel’s brutal and counterproductive actions. It is important that those who value peace with justice in the region make the effort to support balanced media coverage.
Tel: 212-975-2006
Fax: 212-975-2019
E-Mail: 60m@cbsnews.com, kev@cbsnews.com
Copy to: info@cair.com
Mail:
60 Minutes
555 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019
2. COMMENT ONLINE about the segment. (Always be polite and respectful.) Hundreds of people have already made their views known. Add your comments here or here.
3. SHARE this important alert with your colleagues, friends and family. Post to personal blogs.
4. CONTACT YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES to ask that they view the CBS report.
Contact Your Congressional Representatives: U.S. Senators and House of Representatives
- PLEASE ANNOUNCE, POST AND DISTRIBUTE -
Thank CBS for ‘Powerful’ Report on Mistreatment of Palestinians Segment shows expanding settlements, evictions, humiliating checkpoints, ‘Apartheid’ roads and wall, families imprisoned in their own homes
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 1/26/2009) - CAIR today asked American Muslims and other people who seek peace with justice in the Middle East to thank CBS for last night’s “60 Minutes” program that outlined in detail the injustices suffered by the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israelis.
The 13-minute report by journalist Bob Simon showed the damage to the cause of peace caused by the ever-expanding and illegal Israeli settlements, the evictions of Palestinians from their homes, the humiliation they experience at Israeli checkpoints, the “Apartheid” roads and wall built by Israel, and the bizarre experience of Palestinian families imprisoned in their own homes by Israeli soldiers.
You can watch the video of the report here http://crm.cair.com/site/R?i=2hYqkDArbSZ1zCUrmW_p8A
or read the transcript here http://crm.cair.com/site/R?i=XPDvJcSxwFD2_HLZlzahGg
“We thank CBS and the producers of ’60 Minutes’ for having the courage to show the American people the truth about the injustices that are at the core of the Middle East conflict,” said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad. “This powerful report shows clearly that the only way to resolve the conflict and bring peace and stability to the region is to address the fundamental issues of justice that have been ignored by the world community for far too long.”
Awad said Muslims should thank CBS because the media are often criticized for not showing the full picture of the suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israelis.
IMMEDIATE ACTIONS REQUESTED:
1. CONTACT “60 Minutes” - They are getting a lot of “heat” from the vocal minority who support Israel’s brutal and counterproductive actions. It is important that those who value peace with justice in the region make the effort to support balanced media coverage.
Tel: 212-975-2006
Fax: 212-975-2019
E-Mail: 60m@cbsnews.com, kev@cbsnews.com
Copy to: info@cair.com
Mail:
60 Minutes
555 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019
2. COMMENT ONLINE about the segment. (Always be polite and respectful.) Hundreds of people have already made their views known. Add your comments here or here.
3. SHARE this important alert with your colleagues, friends and family. Post to personal blogs.
4. CONTACT YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES to ask that they view the CBS report.
Contact Your Congressional Representatives: U.S. Senators and House of Representatives
- PLEASE ANNOUNCE, POST AND DISTRIBUTE -
CBS 60 Minutes segment " Is Peace Out of Reach?"
60 Minutes: Growing Number Of Israelis, Palestinians Say Two-State Solution Is No Longer Possible
Watch CBS Videos Online
Time Running Out For A Two-State Solution?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/23/60minutes/main4749723.shtml
Full Transcript Below
Jan. 25, 2009
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(CBS) Getting a peace deal in the Middle East is such a priority to President Obama that his first foreign calls on his first day in office were to Arab and Israeli leaders. And on day two, the president made former Senator George Mitchell his special envoy for Middle East peace. Mr. Obama wants to shore up the ceasefire in Gaza, but a lasting peace really depends on the West Bank where Palestinians had hoped to create their state. The problem is, even before Israel invaded Gaza, a growing number of Israelis and Palestinians had concluded that peace between them was no longer possible, that history had passed it by. For peace to have a chance, Israel would have to withdraw from the West Bank, which would then become the Palestinian state.
It’s known as the "two-state" solution. But, while negotiations have been going on for 15 years, hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers have moved in to occupy the West Bank. Palestinians say they can't have a state with Israeli settlers all over it, which the settlers say is precisely the idea.
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Daniella Weiss moved from Israel to the West Bank 33 years ago. She has been the mayor of a large settlement.
"I think that settlements prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state in the land of Israel. This is the goal. And this is the reality," Weiss told 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon.
Though settlers and Palestinians don't agree on anything, most do agree now that a peace deal has been overtaken by events.
"While my heart still wants to believe that the two-state solution is possible, my brain keeps telling me the opposite because of what I see in terms of the building of settlements. So, these settlers are destroying the potential peace for both people that would have been created if we had a two-state solution," Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, once a former candidate for Palestinian president, told Simon.
And he told 60 Minutes Israel's invasion of Gaza - all the death and destruction - convinces him that Israel does not want a two-state solution. "My heart is deeply broken, and I am very worried that what Israel has done has furthered us much further from the possibility of [a] two-state solution."
Palestinians had hoped to establish their state on the West Bank, an area the size of Delaware. But Israelis have split it up with scores of settlements, and hundreds of miles of new highways that only settlers can use. Palestinians have to drive - or ride - on the older roads.
When they want to travel from one town to another, they have to submit to humiliating delays at checkpoints and roadblocks. There are more than 600 of them on the West Bank.
Asked why there are so many checkpoints, Dr. Barghouti said, "I think the main goal is to fragment the West Bank. Maybe a little bit of them can be justified because they say it's for security. But I think the vast majority of them are basically to block the movement of people from one place to another."
Here's how they block Barghouti: he was born in Jerusalem, grew up in Jerusalem and worked in a hospital there for 14 years. Four years ago he moved to a town just 10 miles away, but now, because he no longer lives in Jerusalem, he can't get back in - ever.
He says he can't get a permit to go. "I asked for a permit to go to Jerusalem during the last year, the last years about 16 times. And 16 times they were rejected. Like most Palestinians, I don't have a permit to go to the city I was born in, to the city I used to work in, to the city where my sister lives."
What he's up against are scores of Israeli settlements dominating the lowlands like crusader fortresses. Many are little cities, and none of them existed 40 years ago. The Israelis always take the high ground, sometimes the hills, and sometimes the homes. And sometimes Arabs are occupied inside their own homes.
One house for example is the highest house on the highest hill overlooking the town of Nablus. 60 Minutes learned that Israeli soldiers often corral the four families who live there and take over the house to monitor movement down below.
Simon and the 60 Minutes team went to an apartment owned by a Mr. Nassif. That morning, Israeli soldiers had apparently entered the apartment, without notice, and remained there when Simon knocked on the door.
"We cannot speak with you, there are soldiers," Nassif told Simon. "We are in prison here."
Asked what was happening, Nassif says, "They are keeping us here and the soldiers are upstairs, we cannot move. We cannot speak with you."
Nassif said he couldn't leave the house and didn't know how long he'd have to stay in place. Asked if they were paying him any money, he told Simon, "You are kidding?"
Abdul Nassif, a bank manager said he had to get to his bank to open the safe, but one of the soldiers wouldn't let him go. He told 60 Minutes whenever the soldiers come they wake everybody up, and herd them into a kitchen for hours while soldiers sleep in their beds. They can't leave or use the phone, or let 60 Minutes in.
He sent 60 Minutes downstairs to see if his brother would open the door so we could ask the soldiers why they keep taking over this house. But the brother told Simon, "The soldiers close the door from the key. They take the key."
So Simon and the crew left, and that night, so did the soldiers. But when 60 Minutes returned two days later, the soldiers were back for more surveillance. This time they kept the women under house arrest, but let the men go to work and the children go to school. When the children returned, we caught a glimpse of two armed soldiers at the top of the stairs.
Then more children came home, but the soldiers wouldn't open the door again.
A commander told Simon that he and the crew would have to go back behind a wall in order for the children to be let in.
The commander declined to talk to 60 Minutes. "But we are talking to you now," Simon pointed out, standing outside. "Why don't you tell us what you are doing here? Have you lost your voice? Well they've closed the door now, they've closed the window so I guess if the children are going to get home now we have to leave, so that is what we will do."
An army spokesperson told us the army uses the Nassifs' house for important surveillance operations. The Nassifs told 60 Minutes that soldiers usually stay for a day or two, always coming and going in the middle of the night. When they do go, the Nassifs never know when they will be occupied again. It could be tomorrow, next week, or next month. The only certainty, they say, is that the soldiers will be back.
Another crippling reality on the West Bank is high unemployment, now about 20 percent. So some Palestinians can only find jobs building Israeli settlements. They're so ashamed to work on the construction sites that they asked 60 Minutes not to show their faces.
The settlers now number 280,000, and as they keep moving in, their population keeps growing about five percent every year. But the 2.5 million Arabs have their strategy too: they're growing bigger families.
Demographers predict that within ten years Arabs will outnumber Jews in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Without a separate Palestinian state the Israelis would have three options, none of them good. They could try ethnic cleansing, drive the Palestinians out of the West Bank, or they could give the Palestinians the vote. That would be the democratic option but it would mean the end of the Jewish state. Or they could try apartheid - have the minority Israelis rule the majority Palestinians, but apartheid regimes don't have a very long life.
"Unfortunately, and I have to say to you that apartheid is already in place," Dr. Barghouti argued.
Apartheid? Israel is building what it calls a security wall between the West Bank and Israel. The Palestinians are furious because it appropriates eight percent of the West Bank. Not only that. It weaves its way through Palestinian farms, separating farmers from their land. They have to wait at gates for soldiers to let them in. Settlers get a lot more water than Palestinians, which is why settlements are green and Arab areas are not.
Moderate Israelis who deplore the occupation used to believe passionately in a two-state solution. That is no longer the case.
Meron Benvenisti used to be deputy mayor of Jerusalem. He told Simon the prospects of the two-state solution becoming a reality are "nil."
"The geopolitical condition that’s been created in '67 is irreversible. Cannot be changed. You cannot unscramble that egg," he explained.
Asked if this means the settlers have won, Benvenisti told Simon, "Yes."
"And the settlers will remain forever and ever?" Simon asked.
"I don't know forever and ever, but they will remain and will flourish," Benvenisti said.
"The settlers, the attitude that I present here, this is the heart. This is the pulse. This is the past, present, and future of the Jewish state," Daniella Weiss told Simon.
She says the she and the settlers are immovable. "We will stay here forever."
But one very important Israeli says she intends to move them out. She's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a candidate to become prime minister in elections next month. She's also Israel’s chief negotiator with the Palestinians, and she told 60 Minutes peace is unthinkable with the settlers where they are.
"Can you really imagine evacuating the tens of thousands of settlers who say they will not leave?" Simon asked.
"It's not going to be easy. But this is the only solution," she replied.
"But you know that there are settlers who say, 'We will fight. We will not leave. We will fight,'" Simon asked.
"So this is the responsibility of the government and police to stop them. As simple as that. Israel is a state of law and order," Livni said.
It's also a state of law and disorder. When the army evicted just nine families from a West Bank settlement called Amona three years ago, it was chaos. It was the first time since the creation of the state that Jews were in pitched battles against Jews. To Israelis of all stripes, it was not a pretty picture. And it made the government loath to try again.
Officials fear that more battles to empty settlements could rip Israel apart. They're afraid that religious officers in the army - and there are an increasing number of them - would disobey any order to evict settlers.
The army is evicting Arabs from their homes in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians hoped to make their capital. Outraged, Arabs tried to save their homes, but the Israelis have the guns. Israel demolished more than 100 Arab homes in the past year, ruling they had been illegally built. Arabs say this is just another tactic to drive them out. But officials say they also knock down unauthorized Jewish buildings on the West Bank. They're put up by youngsters, the next generation’s campaign to populate the land.
Daniella Weiss told 60 Minutes they will not be stopped.
Despite the army tearing down a structure, the settlers began rebuilding it on the same day. "We will have the upper hand," Weiss vowed.
"But the army will tear it down again," Simon pointed out.
"And we will rebuild it," Weiss said. "The experience shows that the world belongs to those who are stubborn, and we are very stubborn."
Stubborn, she says, because they were ordered to populate this land by no less an authority than God. "This is the mission of our generation and I want to emphasis the most important point is to this," Weiss said, picking up some soil, "to hold strong to the soil of the Holy Land."
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Time Running Out For A Two-State Solution?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/23/60minutes/main4749723.shtml
Full Transcript Below
Jan. 25, 2009
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(CBS) Getting a peace deal in the Middle East is such a priority to President Obama that his first foreign calls on his first day in office were to Arab and Israeli leaders. And on day two, the president made former Senator George Mitchell his special envoy for Middle East peace. Mr. Obama wants to shore up the ceasefire in Gaza, but a lasting peace really depends on the West Bank where Palestinians had hoped to create their state. The problem is, even before Israel invaded Gaza, a growing number of Israelis and Palestinians had concluded that peace between them was no longer possible, that history had passed it by. For peace to have a chance, Israel would have to withdraw from the West Bank, which would then become the Palestinian state.
It’s known as the "two-state" solution. But, while negotiations have been going on for 15 years, hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers have moved in to occupy the West Bank. Palestinians say they can't have a state with Israeli settlers all over it, which the settlers say is precisely the idea.
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Daniella Weiss moved from Israel to the West Bank 33 years ago. She has been the mayor of a large settlement.
"I think that settlements prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state in the land of Israel. This is the goal. And this is the reality," Weiss told 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon.
Though settlers and Palestinians don't agree on anything, most do agree now that a peace deal has been overtaken by events.
"While my heart still wants to believe that the two-state solution is possible, my brain keeps telling me the opposite because of what I see in terms of the building of settlements. So, these settlers are destroying the potential peace for both people that would have been created if we had a two-state solution," Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, once a former candidate for Palestinian president, told Simon.
And he told 60 Minutes Israel's invasion of Gaza - all the death and destruction - convinces him that Israel does not want a two-state solution. "My heart is deeply broken, and I am very worried that what Israel has done has furthered us much further from the possibility of [a] two-state solution."
Palestinians had hoped to establish their state on the West Bank, an area the size of Delaware. But Israelis have split it up with scores of settlements, and hundreds of miles of new highways that only settlers can use. Palestinians have to drive - or ride - on the older roads.
When they want to travel from one town to another, they have to submit to humiliating delays at checkpoints and roadblocks. There are more than 600 of them on the West Bank.
Asked why there are so many checkpoints, Dr. Barghouti said, "I think the main goal is to fragment the West Bank. Maybe a little bit of them can be justified because they say it's for security. But I think the vast majority of them are basically to block the movement of people from one place to another."
Here's how they block Barghouti: he was born in Jerusalem, grew up in Jerusalem and worked in a hospital there for 14 years. Four years ago he moved to a town just 10 miles away, but now, because he no longer lives in Jerusalem, he can't get back in - ever.
He says he can't get a permit to go. "I asked for a permit to go to Jerusalem during the last year, the last years about 16 times. And 16 times they were rejected. Like most Palestinians, I don't have a permit to go to the city I was born in, to the city I used to work in, to the city where my sister lives."
What he's up against are scores of Israeli settlements dominating the lowlands like crusader fortresses. Many are little cities, and none of them existed 40 years ago. The Israelis always take the high ground, sometimes the hills, and sometimes the homes. And sometimes Arabs are occupied inside their own homes.
One house for example is the highest house on the highest hill overlooking the town of Nablus. 60 Minutes learned that Israeli soldiers often corral the four families who live there and take over the house to monitor movement down below.
Simon and the 60 Minutes team went to an apartment owned by a Mr. Nassif. That morning, Israeli soldiers had apparently entered the apartment, without notice, and remained there when Simon knocked on the door.
"We cannot speak with you, there are soldiers," Nassif told Simon. "We are in prison here."
Asked what was happening, Nassif says, "They are keeping us here and the soldiers are upstairs, we cannot move. We cannot speak with you."
Nassif said he couldn't leave the house and didn't know how long he'd have to stay in place. Asked if they were paying him any money, he told Simon, "You are kidding?"
Abdul Nassif, a bank manager said he had to get to his bank to open the safe, but one of the soldiers wouldn't let him go. He told 60 Minutes whenever the soldiers come they wake everybody up, and herd them into a kitchen for hours while soldiers sleep in their beds. They can't leave or use the phone, or let 60 Minutes in.
He sent 60 Minutes downstairs to see if his brother would open the door so we could ask the soldiers why they keep taking over this house. But the brother told Simon, "The soldiers close the door from the key. They take the key."
So Simon and the crew left, and that night, so did the soldiers. But when 60 Minutes returned two days later, the soldiers were back for more surveillance. This time they kept the women under house arrest, but let the men go to work and the children go to school. When the children returned, we caught a glimpse of two armed soldiers at the top of the stairs.
Then more children came home, but the soldiers wouldn't open the door again.
A commander told Simon that he and the crew would have to go back behind a wall in order for the children to be let in.
The commander declined to talk to 60 Minutes. "But we are talking to you now," Simon pointed out, standing outside. "Why don't you tell us what you are doing here? Have you lost your voice? Well they've closed the door now, they've closed the window so I guess if the children are going to get home now we have to leave, so that is what we will do."
An army spokesperson told us the army uses the Nassifs' house for important surveillance operations. The Nassifs told 60 Minutes that soldiers usually stay for a day or two, always coming and going in the middle of the night. When they do go, the Nassifs never know when they will be occupied again. It could be tomorrow, next week, or next month. The only certainty, they say, is that the soldiers will be back.
Another crippling reality on the West Bank is high unemployment, now about 20 percent. So some Palestinians can only find jobs building Israeli settlements. They're so ashamed to work on the construction sites that they asked 60 Minutes not to show their faces.
The settlers now number 280,000, and as they keep moving in, their population keeps growing about five percent every year. But the 2.5 million Arabs have their strategy too: they're growing bigger families.
Demographers predict that within ten years Arabs will outnumber Jews in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Without a separate Palestinian state the Israelis would have three options, none of them good. They could try ethnic cleansing, drive the Palestinians out of the West Bank, or they could give the Palestinians the vote. That would be the democratic option but it would mean the end of the Jewish state. Or they could try apartheid - have the minority Israelis rule the majority Palestinians, but apartheid regimes don't have a very long life.
"Unfortunately, and I have to say to you that apartheid is already in place," Dr. Barghouti argued.
Apartheid? Israel is building what it calls a security wall between the West Bank and Israel. The Palestinians are furious because it appropriates eight percent of the West Bank. Not only that. It weaves its way through Palestinian farms, separating farmers from their land. They have to wait at gates for soldiers to let them in. Settlers get a lot more water than Palestinians, which is why settlements are green and Arab areas are not.
Moderate Israelis who deplore the occupation used to believe passionately in a two-state solution. That is no longer the case.
Meron Benvenisti used to be deputy mayor of Jerusalem. He told Simon the prospects of the two-state solution becoming a reality are "nil."
"The geopolitical condition that’s been created in '67 is irreversible. Cannot be changed. You cannot unscramble that egg," he explained.
Asked if this means the settlers have won, Benvenisti told Simon, "Yes."
"And the settlers will remain forever and ever?" Simon asked.
"I don't know forever and ever, but they will remain and will flourish," Benvenisti said.
"The settlers, the attitude that I present here, this is the heart. This is the pulse. This is the past, present, and future of the Jewish state," Daniella Weiss told Simon.
She says the she and the settlers are immovable. "We will stay here forever."
But one very important Israeli says she intends to move them out. She's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a candidate to become prime minister in elections next month. She's also Israel’s chief negotiator with the Palestinians, and she told 60 Minutes peace is unthinkable with the settlers where they are.
"Can you really imagine evacuating the tens of thousands of settlers who say they will not leave?" Simon asked.
"It's not going to be easy. But this is the only solution," she replied.
"But you know that there are settlers who say, 'We will fight. We will not leave. We will fight,'" Simon asked.
"So this is the responsibility of the government and police to stop them. As simple as that. Israel is a state of law and order," Livni said.
It's also a state of law and disorder. When the army evicted just nine families from a West Bank settlement called Amona three years ago, it was chaos. It was the first time since the creation of the state that Jews were in pitched battles against Jews. To Israelis of all stripes, it was not a pretty picture. And it made the government loath to try again.
Officials fear that more battles to empty settlements could rip Israel apart. They're afraid that religious officers in the army - and there are an increasing number of them - would disobey any order to evict settlers.
The army is evicting Arabs from their homes in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians hoped to make their capital. Outraged, Arabs tried to save their homes, but the Israelis have the guns. Israel demolished more than 100 Arab homes in the past year, ruling they had been illegally built. Arabs say this is just another tactic to drive them out. But officials say they also knock down unauthorized Jewish buildings on the West Bank. They're put up by youngsters, the next generation’s campaign to populate the land.
Daniella Weiss told 60 Minutes they will not be stopped.
Despite the army tearing down a structure, the settlers began rebuilding it on the same day. "We will have the upper hand," Weiss vowed.
"But the army will tear it down again," Simon pointed out.
"And we will rebuild it," Weiss said. "The experience shows that the world belongs to those who are stubborn, and we are very stubborn."
Stubborn, she says, because they were ordered to populate this land by no less an authority than God. "This is the mission of our generation and I want to emphasis the most important point is to this," Weiss said, picking up some soil, "to hold strong to the soil of the Holy Land."
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