Category: Insights

Insightful Articles on Hot Issues

In 2009, Egyptian entrepreneur Ahmed Abu Haiba launched the world’s first-ever Islamic music channel. Based in Cairo, 4Shbab branded itself as “Islam’s Own MTV”. In its first few months on air, the channel shocked thousands of viewers and enthralled thousands more.

Pop goes Islam can be seen from Wednesday, April 13, at the following times GMT: Wednesday: 2000; Thursday: 1200; Friday: 0100; Saturday: 0600; Sunday: 2000; Monday: 1200; Tuesday: 0100; Wednesday: 0600

Protests which rocked the Arab world in recent months are now hitting Syria – a country ruled with an iron grip on security.

Emergency laws, in place since 1963, ban all forms of demonstrations.

But the protesters are not backing down.

Bashar al Assad, whose family has ruled the country for 40 years, is facing challenges like never before.

So what sparked the protests in Syria and why did they start off in Daraa?

Inside Story presenter Laura Kyle is joined by guests: Ghias Al-jundi, a Syrian author and human rights activist, Samir Ai-ta, Chief Editor of the Arab edition of Le Monde Diplomatique and Jawad Al An-ani, a political analyst for the Jordanian based think-tank Al-baseera.

Stability in Syria has become a cause for concern for local authorities, as anti-government protests spread to the country’s second largest city Aleppo.

Meanwhile in the capital itself, several hundred students protested for a second day, against the government at Damascus University.

Inside Story, with presenter Ghida Fakhry, discusses with guests: Iyas Maleh from the Haitham Maleh Foundation for the defense of human rights defenders in Syria; Ousama Monajed, a Syrian political activist; and George Jabbour, a former member of the Syrian Parliament.

ZAKHO, Iraq — A Turkey as resurgent as at any time since its Ottoman glory is projecting influence through a turbulent Iraq, from the boomtowns of the north to the oil fields near southernmost Basra, in a show of power that illustrates its growing heft across an Arab world long suspicious of it.

Multimedia Slide Show Turkey’s Soft Power in Iraq . Related After a Court Ruling, Turkey Frees 23 Suspected Militants (January 5, 2011)

Enlarge This Image Ayman Oghanna for The New York Times Construction at Basra’s Sport City in Iraq. Turkish diplomats say that businesspeople from their country face little competition there. More Photos »

Its ascent here, in an arena contested by the United States and Iran, may prove its greatest success so far, as it emerges from the shadow of its alliance with the West to chart an often assertive and independent foreign policy.

Turkey’s influence is greater in northern Iraq and broader, though not deeper, than Iran’s in the rest of the country. While the United States invaded and occupied Iraq, losing more than 4,400 troops there, Turkey now exerts what may prove a more lasting legacy — so-called soft power, the assertion of influence through culture, education and business.

“This is the trick — we are very much welcome here,” said Ali Riza Ozcoskun, who heads Turkey’s consulate in Basra, one of four diplomatic posts it has in Iraq.

More from NY Times Article…

Article from UPI.com
TEL AVIV, Israel, Sept. 28 (UPI) — The United States has agreed to help Israel develop a new defense system known as David’s Sling to protect the Jewish state against large-scale missile attack.

Few details of the arrangement have been disclosed, although the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, said it emphasized “the continued commitment of the United States to the defense of Israel.”

Over the last decade, the Pentagon has provided large amounts of funding for the high-altitude Arrow anti-ballistic missile system and the recently deployed Iron Dome system designed to shoot down short-range rockets used by Hezbollah and Hamas.

However, the agreement regarding David’s Sling, which is being developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and the U.S. Raytheon Corp., follows a string of major deals with the Pentagon that provide Israel with advanced fighters, massive amounts of fuel and defense funding.

Washington provides Israeli with some $3 billion in military aid annually and there’s always some project in the pipeline.

But the deals unveiled in recent weeks indicate they could be linked either to rewarding Israeli for its acquiescence in not opposing an unprecedented $60 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, ostensibly to counter Iran, or to prod the Jewish state into making concessions to the Palestinians under President Barack Obama’s new Middle East peace initiative.

To get the planned sale of advanced combat aircraft and helicopter gunships for Riyadh through the U.S. Congress, where the Israeli lobby has thwarted such ground-breaking arms sales to Arab states in the past, Obama’s administration had to pledge not to provide the Saudis with long-range precision weapons that Israel complains could threaten it.

The United States has never committed to such an expensive arms buildup for an Arab ally before.

But the huge arms deal reflects a significant change in U.S. strategy in the region by confronting Iran through allies and proxies rather than deploying American forces already stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The fear is, of course, that far from persuading Iran to back off its alleged quest for nuclear weapons, these deals will only make it feel less secure and reinforce its effort to become a nuclear power.

Whatever, Israel has benefited considerably. These deals will ensure that it retains its traditional technological military edge over its adversaries, despite the festering rift between Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu over settlements expansion.

In recent weeks the U.S. administration has approved the sale of 20 F-35 stealth fighters, the world’s most advanced combat jet, to Israel with the $2.75 billion bill being covered by the Pentagon in the form of military aid.

That means the Israelis essentially get the fifth-generation fighters for nothing, plus contracts worth up to $1.5 billion going to Israel’s high-tech defense industry to provide components for the F-35.

It also means the Israelis get to maintain their air superiority over their adversaries since the F-35, even in such limited numbers, is a generation ahead of anything the Americans sell the Persian Gulf states.

The Israelis eventually want 75 of these radar-evading jets.

In July, the Pentagon forked out $422.7 million to fund a dozen batteries of the Iron Dome system, built by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, as well as to expand production of ISI’s long-range Arrow-3 system, designed to shield Israel from Iran’s ballistic missiles.

The development of the Arrow has cost around $3 billion over the last decade, the bulk of the funding came from the United States.

On Aug. 6, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency informed Congress it planned to sell Israel a vast amount of fuel for an estimated $2 billion.

The sale comprises 60 million gallons of unleaded gasoline and 100 million gallons of diesel fuel for Israel’s ground forces and 284 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel “to enable Israel to maintain the operational capability of its aircraft inventory.”

The threat of a nuclear-armed Iran has changed many of the realities in the Middle East and its volatile environs. Saudi Arabia and Israel have found themselves linked by their deep fears of a nuclear-armed Iran.

This hardly makes allies out of these longtime foes. But, in a changing world, the Israelis appreciate the more able Saudi Arabia and its gulf partners are to stand up to Iran and support U.S. forces in the region, the better they will all be.

Video: Arabs face discrimination in Israel

Ahmadinejad speech 2010 at UN

‘Islamophobia’ in America

Article from NYTimes.com

City Tries to Disown Pastor Who Planned to Burn Koran

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Stephanie George used to see members of the Dove World Outreach Center at her neighborhood grocery store, wearing T-shirts that said “Islam is of the devil.” But on Friday, she and her friend Lynda Dillon showed up early at Dragonfly Graphics to order a dozen shirts with a different message: “Love, not Dove.”

The design itself, complete with a lyric made famous by Elvis Costello (“What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding”), takes direct aim at the pastor Terry Jones, his church and his threat — now suspended — to burn copies of the Koran on Saturday, Sept. 11.

But Ms. George and others who have lined up for the shirts from Dragonfly frown and sigh with exasperation that such a public stand is even necessary.

“He’s a lunatic, and yet I still feel like I need to get the message out that we’re not lunatics with him,” said Ms. George, 46. “I don’t want this to represent my neighborhood.”

Mr. Jones has become a reviled figure around the world. But the people of this youthful city in central Florida are taking his actions personally, with anger and heartbreak, as one of their neighbors drags their hometown into nearly nonstop news coverage and infamy.

Gainesville, after all, is a university town that until a few months ago was best known for producing college football champions, Gatorade and rockers like Tom Petty.

Educated and progressive, with a gay mayor and a City Commission made up entirely of Democrats, Gainesville is a sprawling metropolis of 115,000 people where smoothie shops seem to outnumber gun shops.

Fanatics can come from anywhere, Gainesvillians will tell you, but why did this one have to come from here?

“He doesn’t represent the community,” said Larry Wilcox, 78, reading the newspaper at a local Panera restaurant. “This guy is obviously a publicity hound and a weirdo.”

On Friday, Mr. Jones once again turned the lawn at Dove into a spectacle, featuring dozens of photographers and newly arrived supporters, including a former Marine in full camouflage holding an American flag and demanding an apology from Muslims for the Marine barracks bombing in 1983 that killed 241 service members in Beirut.

“It’s frustrating,” said the Rev. Larry Reimer, pastor of the United Church of Gainesville. It was just before noon and he was standing at the door of Dove in a pressed sport coat, with a pile of 8,048 signatures and comments from 97 countries, all demanding that Mr. Jones unequivocally call off his plan to burn the Koran. The thick document was carefully tied in a white ribbon.

Mr. Reimer said people from all over the world had called him and sent e-mail messages offering to help Gainesville counter Mr. Jones. Mayor Craig Lowe said he, too, had been inundated with suggestions.

One local resident said he might sue the city or Mr. Jones so the community would be forced to go to court and talk through what happened. Someone from out of town suggested using the National Guard to stop Mr. Jones from setting the holy texts ablaze.

“The amount of e-mail that we’ve gotten is just massive,” Mayor Lowe said in an interview. “It’s almost one a second.”

The challenge for many seems to be managing their anger, and figuring out how to keep Mr. Jones in perspective. Some are looking to direct confrontation; Jose Soto, a leader with Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Florida, stood across the street from Dove on Friday afternoon with a group of students shouting, “Hey ho, hey ho, Dove Outreach has got to go.”

He said that even after this weekend, his group was thinking of following Dove’s leaders when they wore their “Islam is of the devil” T-shirts and surrounding them with signs that identified them as hate-mongers.

“Ignoring them hasn’t worked,” he said. “They just escalate.”

John L. Esposito, a scholar of religion and international affairs at Georgetown who has acted as a consultant to the State Department, offered a different option. Politicians, the news media, all of Gainesville, he said, should stop pleading or arguing against the Koran burning and shift their energy toward all that Mr. Jones is not.

“What we have to start doing is delivering the positive side of our message of who we are, and then that will set an example for others in our society who are maybe on the fence,” he said.

That seemed to be exactly the goal of Dragonfly. For 24 years, the tiny four-person company (with part-time help from the owner’s mother) has been printing T-shirts for companies, students, events and churches.

Joy Revels, the owner, said she even used to print generic polo shirts for Dove before last year, when Mr. Jones put a sign outside his church saying, “Islam is of the devil.”

“He called me for the T-shirts” with that slogan, she said, T-shirts that young members of the church wore to school last year and that led to standard uniforms this year. But she refused.

On Tuesday, after seeing the firestorm Mr. Jones created, she decided to act. She said “Love, not Dove” sounded like a good motto, and her graphic artist — Josh Huey, 24, thin, scruffy and lip-pierced — turned out a tattoo-like image of a dove in distress.

Because that seemed a little harsh, Ms. Revels returned to a favorite Costello song (written by Nick Lowe), which sets peace, love and understanding against an opening of “As I walk through this wicked world searchin’ for light in the darkness of insanity.”

Perfect, she thought. She printed 200 shirts to test demand, asking only for donations. As of Friday evening, more than 1,000 shirts had flown out the door.

By nightfall on Friday, Ms. Revels, looking younger than her 50 years, with spiky hair and long plaid shorts, was in the back working the presses with Mr. Huey. Strangers and friends streamed in asking for shirts. One gone. Six more. Then a dozen.

“Whatever Mr. Jones does, it’s still the same in our community,” Ms. Revel said.

She struggled to explain conflicting emotions. “This isn’t ‘We hate you, Terry Jones,’ ” she finally said.

“It’s ‘This is who we are, Gainesville.’ We’re not going to stoop to his level.”

Koran burning on hold for 9/11 as US sees boom in Islam conversion