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

Sarah Palin says on twitter:

Mr. President, why are they so set on marking an area w/ mosque steps from what you described, in agreement with many, as “hallowed ground”?

Will Obama express US lingering pain& ask Muslims for tolerance by discouraging 9/11 mosque while he celebrates Islamic holy month tonight?

Mr. President, should they or shouldn’t they build a Muslim mosque steps away from where radical Islamists killed 3000 people?Your position?

American Response:

@SarahPalinUSA Don’t equate All Muslims with those 9/11 terrorist, you are doing their work by opposing the freedom of religion.
Muslims are also victims of terrorism and they have lost their lives on 9/11 as well. Please read this article:
http://islam.about.com/blvictims.htm

Palestinian nonviolence relies on global non-silence

The world cannot expect Palestinians to abandon violence while remaining silent on Israel’s repression of nonviolent activists

Yousef Munayyer
guardian.co.uk

When will there be a Palestinian Gandhi? I’m often asked this question by people who sympathise with Palestinian suffering but are uncomfortable associating themselves with resistance movements that they see as violent or terrorist.

The reality of course is that Palestinian nonviolent resisters are not only active today but have a long and storied history in the Palestinian struggle. The real question is: why haven’t we heard about them?

Like many resisting oppression, Palestinian Gandhis are likely to be found in prisons after being repressed by Israeli soldiers or police or in the hospital after being brutally beaten or worse.

In recent years, the Israeli repression of Palestinian nonviolent dissent has increased significantly and Israel is showing signs of transforming into a fully-fledged police state. Even Israeli citizens, both Palestinian such as Ameer Makhoul and Jewish, have faced intimidation in one form or another for being critical of Israel’s policies. Surely, Israel has realised that its ongoing occupation, continued colonisation of Palestinian land, and its bombardment of civilian-packed Gaza have significantly and negatively impacted on its image abroad. The images of nonviolent Palestinian protests against the Israeli occupation aren’t helping Israel’s reputation either.

Perhaps that is why recently many nonviolent activists and initiatives have been shut down and repressed. Jamal Juma, Muhammad Othman and Abdallah Abu Rahman may not be household names like Gandhi or Mandela but they have been just as consistent in resisting Israel’s illegal segregation wall in the West Bank by organising nonviolent demonstrations for years. And, like Gandhi and Mandela they have paid a price by being arrested on multiple occasions.

The Israeli repression efforts extend far beyond the arrests of nonviolent demonstrators against the wall. Last month, Palestinian and international activists sat in front of Israeli bulldozers about to confiscate more Palestinian land for the expansion of a settlement. Soldiers quickly dispersed the crowd and thoroughly pummelled and pepper-sprayed an organiser at point-blank range.

Most recently, several leaders of human rights organisations advocating Palestinian rights have been arrested and thrown into jail for allegedly posing security risks to the state. One of them, Izzet Shahin, is a Turkish national whose crime was organising boat shipments of humanitarian aid to the besieged people of Gaza. During past attempts to bring supplies to the blockaded strip, the boats were commandeered by the Israeli navy and the nonviolent activists were arrested before being deported even though they had never entered Israeli waters.

The list goes on, and despite the increase in Israeli repression, Palestinian nonviolent resistance is nothing new. While some have adopted an Israeli narrative that identifies nonviolent Palestinian dissent as something new, the reality is that Palestinians have consistently chosen nonviolent resistance before arms – from the general strikes of 1936, to the consistent appeals to international legal bodies, to the weekly demonstrations against the wall. It has been the continued dispossession at the hands of Israel, and the silence of the international community despite these nonviolent efforts, that has led some Palestinians to view violence as the only option.

Alas, it is often the major explosions that make headlines and not the nonviolent demonstrations or their violent repression by Israel’s secret police or its military occupation. That’s why some still wait for a Palestinian Gandhi despite the fact that they have taken many a beating and seen the inside of many a jail cell.

When an Iranian protester – Neda – was shot and killed last year, the world knew her name – so did President Obama. But most would be hard-pressed to name one of the many nonviolent protestors in Palestine who have been arrested, beaten, shot or even bulldozed to death.

The international community has an obligation to Palestinian nonviolent activists. Leaders cannot simply call on Palestinians to abandon violence in the face of Israeli occupation and remain silent when the nonviolent activists are politically repressed. This only reinforces the idea that the use of force reigns supreme and that Palestinians have no choice but to accept hardships at the hands of their Israeli lords.

Sadly, the same leaders who call on Palestinians to abandon violence have been silent in the face of Israeli repression. By condemning violent Palestinian resistance while remaining silent in the face of Israeli crackdowns and political arrests, they are simply endorsing violence against civilians by one side instead of the other.

The United States should take the lead in condemning Israeli repression of nonviolent dissent, just as they would in Iran, Burma or apartheid South Africa, because nonviolent dissent is not only a critical part of the Palestinian struggle but it is an American value as well.

GOC Central Command tells Kfir Brigade soldiers the IDF does not know of any Palestinian plans for response, but to prepare for possibility.

	GOC Central Command Avi Mizrachi

Extremist settler activity could set the West Bank ablaze, GOC Central Command Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrahi warned on Monday at a brigade-wide training exercise at the Tze’elim military base in the Negev.

The Kfir Brigade exercise focused on urban warfare – including the capture of a simulated Arab city – and pitted Israeli troops against Palestinian security forces.

Senior officers present at the exercise, the most extensive session the infantry brigade has undergone since it was founded just over four years ago, said Monday there were no indications that Israel would have to fight the security forces.

However, the army said it needs to be prepared for all eventualities.

Mizrahi said he doesn’t expect tensions to rise in the West Bank in the near future.

“I don’t think something will happen anytime soon, unless there’s a very serious incident on the Temple Mount or in the Cave of the Patriarchs,” he said. However, he said he was “very anxious” about an escalation being set off by settler violence.

“Most of the settlement movement is fine, very normal, but a mosque set on fire and another mosque set on fire adds up,” Mizrahi said.

Defense officials are concerned over a series of mosque burnings in the past six months, including a fire that destroyed books and prayer rugs in a mosque near Nablus that firefighters said earlier this month was caused by arson.

Mizrahi said that while the council that officially represents settlers is willing to listen to defense officials, the army is worried about what some of the more radical settlers might do.

“The Yesha Council is sane. Even if they might have become more militant, they understand what’s going on and we can talk to them,” Mizrahi said. “But in Yitzhar, in Maon and in Havat Gilad, they don’t believe in us at all as a state. They want something else, and when someone doesn’t know the limits anymore you don’t know where it will end up.”

Mizrahi said the army and the Palestinian security forces, trained in Jordan by Keith Dayton, an American general, have been cooperating, but that Israeli soldiers still need to know how to fight them if the need should arise.

“This is a trained, equipped, American-educated force,” Mizrahi said. “This means that at the beginning of a battle, we’ll pay a higher price. A force like that can shut down an urban area with four snipers. It’s not the Jenin militants anymore ¬ it’s a proper infantry force facing us and we need to take that into account. They have attack capabilities and we don’t expect them to give up so easily.”

In the training exercise, three battalions went from house to house, where they faced Israel Defense Forces soldiers posing as members of the regular Palestinian security forces, Palestinian civilians or reporters.

Until now, soldiers serving in the brigade have been serving only in the West Bank, but Armored Corps commander Brig. Gen. Agai Yehezkel said the exercises would enable the brigade to fight on the Gaza and Lebanon fronts as well as in the West Bank, if necessary. He said Kfir battalions would be deployed for operational duty within the Green Line as early as next year.

The Kfir Brigade, which was created in December 2005, consists of six battalions whose soldiers man 30 percent of the roadblocks in the West Bank and are responsible for 60 percent of arrests. They have succeeded in decreasing the number of terrorist attacks in the West Bank.

Much of the brigade’s responsibilities have diminished recently, due to the increased activities of the Palestinian security forces.

It should be noted that the main perpetrators of crimes against Palestinians belong to the Kfir Brigade, according to statistics on Military Police investigations, which the Israel Defense Forces provided to the human rights organization Yesh Din.

In 2007 the Military Police opened 351 probes for crimes in the territories, compared to 152 cases in 2006. The Military Police managed to tie the complaints to specific IDF units in only 55 percent of the cases, compared to 78 percent in the previous year.

Sixty-six of the investigations opened in 2007 were against Kfir soldiers, compared to 35 in 2006; 52 were against the paratroopers brigade (19 in 2006); 14 against Nahal (only one in 2006); 10 against Givati (one in 2006); six against the tank corps (none in 2006); and five each against Golani and the West Bank division.

The Kfir brigade is posted in the West Bank permanently, which means it spends several more months a year there than any other brigade. It also has more regiments than other infantry brigades.

The Military Police is investigating a variety of crimes in the territories, from the killing of Palestinians and the illegal use of firearms to abuse and plunder.

a haaretz.com article

Charlie Rose – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Islamic Republic of Iran | May 3, 2010

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said Thursday that he would rather accept Palestinians as Israeli citizens than divide Israel and the West Bank in a future two-state peace solution.

Speaking during a meeting with Greece’s ambassador to Israel Kyriakos Loukakis, Rivlin said that he did not see any point of Israel signing a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority as he did not believe PA President Mahmoud Abbas “could deliver the goods.”

Referring to the possibility that such an agreement could be reached, Rivlin said: “I would rather Palestinians as citizens of this country over dividing the land up.”
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Late last year, Rivlin said in a Jerusalem address that Israel’s Arab population was “an inseparable part of this country. It is a group with a highly defined shared national identity, and which will forever be, as a collective, an important and integral part of Israeli society.”

In a speech given in the president’s residence, the Knesset speaker called for a fundamental change in relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel, urging the foundation of a “true partnership” between the two sectors, based on mutual respect, absolute equality and the addressing of “the special needs and unique character of each of the sides.”

Rivlin also said that “the establishment of Israel was accompanied by much pain and suffering and a real trauma for the Palestinians,” adding that “many of Israel’s Arabs, which see themselves as part of the Palestinian population, feel the pain of their brothers across the green line – a pain they feel the state of Israel is responsible for.”

“Many of them,” Rivlin says, “encounter racism and arrogance from Israel’s Jews; the inequality in the allocation of state funds also does not contribute to any extra love.”

To read more, click here
Haaretz.com Article

President Obama Opens Summit of entrepreneurs from Muslim World

A key meeting aimed at tackling Iran’s suspected nuclear arms programme has ended in failure after a low-level Chinese delegate blocked a new round of sanctions against the Islamic republic.

Political directors from the foreign offices of Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the United States met in New York on Saturday, with China sending only a junior diplomat from its UN mission.

The six-power group, known as the E3+3, agreed that Iran had given an inadequate response to its overtures by the year-end deadline set by President Obama. The UN has so far imposed three rounds of limited sanctions on Iran — in December 2006, March 2007 and March 2008 — to force it to stop enriching uranium in its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The Western powers want to proceed with a fourth round.

Article from :
www.timesonline.co.uk