Informed Comment

Erik Rush and others who hastened to scapegoat Muslims for the Boston Marathon bombing are ignorant of the religion. I can’t understand why people who have never so much as read a book about a subject appoint themselves experts on it. (Try this book, e.g.). We don’t yet know who carried out the attack, but we know they either aren’t Muslims at all or they aren’t real Muslims, in the nature of the case.

For the TLDR crowd, here are the top ten ways that Islamic law and tradition forbid terrorism (some of these points are reworked from previous postings):

1. Terrorism is above all murder. Murder is strictly forbidden in the Qur’an. Qur’an 6:151 says, “and do not kill a soul that God has made sacrosanct, save lawfully.” (i.e. murder is forbidden but the death penalty imposed by the state for a crime is permitted). 5:53 says, “… whoso kills a soul, unless it be for murder or for wreaking corruption in the land, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind; and he who saves a life, it shall be as if he had given life to all mankind.”

2. If the motive for terrorism is religious, it is impermissible in Islamic law. It is forbidden to attempt to impose Islam on other people. The Qur’an says, “There is no compulsion in religion. The right way has become distinct from error.” (-The Cow, 2:256). Note that this verse was revealed in Medina in 622 AD or after and was never abrogated by any other verse of the Quran. Islam’s holy book forbids coercing people into adopting any religion. They have to willingly choose it.

3. Islamic law forbids aggressive warfare. The Quran says, “But if the enemies incline towards peace, do you also incline towards peace. And trust in God! For He is the one who hears and knows all things.” (8:61) The Quran chapter “The Cow,” 2:190, says, “Fight in the way of God against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! God loveth not aggressors.”

4. In the Islamic law of war, not just any civil engineer can declare or launch a war. It is the prerogative of the duly constituted leader of the Muslim community that engages in the war. Nowadays that would be the president or prime minister of the state, as advised by the mufti or national jurisconsult.

5. The killing of innocent non-combatants is forbidden. According to Sunni tradition, ‘Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, the first Caliph, gave these instructions to his armies: “I instruct you in ten matters: Do not kill women, children, the old, or the infirm; do not cut down fruit-bearing trees; do not destroy any town . . . ” (Malik’s Muwatta’, “Kitab al-Jihad.”)

6. Terrorism or hirabah is forbidden in Islamic law, which groups it with brigandage, highway robbery and extortion rackets– any illicit use of fear and coercion in public spaces for money or power. The principle of forbidding the spreading of terror in the land is based on the Qur’an (Surah al-Ma’ida 5:33–34). Prominent [pdf] Muslim legal scholar Sherman Jackson writes, “The Spanish Maliki jurist Ibn `Abd al-Barr (d. 464/ 1070)) defines the agent of hiraba as ‘Anyone who disturbs free passage in the streets and renders them unsafe to travel, striving to spread corruption in the land by taking money, killing people or violating what God has made it unlawful to violate is guilty of hirabah . . .”

7. Sneak attacks are forbidden. Muslim commanders must give the enemy fair warning that war is imminent. The Prophet Muhammad at one point gave 4 months notice.

8. The Prophet Muhammad counseled doing good to those who harm you and is said to have commanded, “Do not be people without minds of your own, saying that if others treat you well you will treat them well, and that if they do wrong you will do wrong to them. Instead, accustom yourselves to do good if people do good and not to do wrong (even) if they do evil.” (Al-Tirmidhi)

9. The Qur’an demands of believers that they exercise justice toward people even where they have reason to be angry with them: “And do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness.”[5:8]

10. The Qur’an assures Christians and Jews of paradise if they believe and do good works, and commends Christians as the best friends of Muslims. I wrote elsewhere, “Dangerous falsehoods are being promulgated to the American public. The Quran does not preach violence against Christians.

Quran 5:69 says (Arberry): “Surely they that believe, and those of Jewry, and the Christians, and those Sabeaans, whoso believes in God and the Last Day, and works righteousness–their wage waits them with their Lord, and no fear shall be on them, neither shall they sorrow.”

In other words, the Quran promises Christians and Jews along with Muslims that if they have faith and works, they need have no fear in the afterlife. It is not saying that non-Muslims go to hell– quite the opposite.

When speaking of the 7th-century situation in the Muslim city-state of Medina, which was at war with pagan Mecca, the Quran notes that the polytheists and some Arabian Jewish tribes were opposed to Islam, but then goes on to say:

5:82. ” . . . and you will find the nearest in love to the believers [Muslims] those who say: ‘We are Christians.’ That is because amongst them are priests and monks, and they are not proud.”

So the Quran not only does not urge Muslims to commit violence against Christians, it calls them “nearest in love” to the Muslims! The reason given is their piety, their ability to produce holy persons dedicated to God, and their lack of overweening pride.

(For a modernist, liberal interpretation, see this pdf file, “Jihad and the Islamic Law of War.”

The horrific bombings of the Boston Marathon produced inspiring images of a spirited, brave Boston refusing to be cowed. Some spectators surged forward toward the danger to apply tourniquets, offer first aid, share blankets, and later to give blood, for the victims.

President Obama followed the crisis from its first moments and came out promptly to caution against fruitless speculation as to the perpetrators as well as solemnly to vow that they will be held accountable. (He has a certain track record in that regard.)

The idea of three dead, several more critically wounded, and over a 100 injured, merely for running in a marathon (often running for charities or victims of other tragedies) is terrible to contemplate. Our hearts are broken for the victims and their family and friends, for the runners who will not run again.

There is negative energy implicit in such a violent event, and there is potential positive energy to be had from the way that we respond to it. To fight our contemporary pathologies, the tragedy has to be turned to empathy and universal compassion rather than to anger and racial profiling. Whatever sick mind dreamed up this act did not manifest the essence of any large group of people. Terrorists and supremacists represent only themselves, and always harm their own ethnic or religious group along with everyone else.

The negative energies were palpable. Fox News contributor Erik Rush tweeted, “Everybody do the National Security Ankle Grab! Let’s bring more Saudis in without screening them! C’mon!” When asked if he was already scapegoating Muslims, he replied, ““Yes, they’re evil. Let’s kill them all.” Challenged on that, he replied, “Sarcasm, idiot!” What would happen, I wonder, if someone sarcastically asked on Twitter why, whenever there is a bombing in the US, one of the suspects everyone has to consider is white people? I did, mischievously and with Mr. Rush in mind, and was told repeatedly that it wasn’t right to tar all members of a group with the brush of a few. They were so unselfconscious that they didn’t seem to realize that this was what was being done to Muslims!

It was easy for jingoists to find Chinese or Arabs on twitter gloating. But I saw much more of this kind of message:

#إنفجار_بوسطن Our religion doesn’t teach us to be happy on people’s’ miseries.

— Zaynab AlAlawi (@ZaynabDAlAlawi) April 16, 2013

or there was this:

#إنفجار_بوسطنTerrorism has no religion whether it is in Boston or in Syria

— Osama Alharthi (@osamahr) April 16, 2013

But there were positive energies as well. The Egyptian woman activist Asma’ Mahfouz, who was important in calling for the Tahrir demonstrations that kicked off the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, said that she admired the American sense of deep concern for the welfare of citizens, and the way authorities came out promptly to speak to the incident. She contrasted this situation to that in Egypt, where, she alleged, the authorities have less respect for the value of citizens’ lives. For a young Egyptian revolutionary, America is still an exemplary nation in some regards, and many in the world admire it even in the way it deals with adversity.

Similar sentiments were voiced by the journalist Fatima Naout, who said that when dozens of Egyptians died in a train accident, it took President Morsi 12 hours to come on television, and then he made only a brief statement of less than a minute. She also complained of innocents being arrested for sabotage and ultimately released, while what she called Muslim Brotherhood gangs attacked demonstrators with impunity. She said that the US is a nation of laws and upright judicial procedure, and Egypt still is not.

On the other side of the aisle in Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood members of the Senate (Majlis al-Shura) unhesitatingly condemned the bombings. MP Izz al-Din al-Kumi condemned all violence that harmed individuals of any nationality. He discounted a return to the ‘war on terror’ atmosphere of 9/11, saying that al-Qaeda had suffered too many blows any longer to be a viable organization. Dr. Farid al-Bayyad, another parliamentarian said, “Regardless of our differences with American policy, we roundly condemn these attacks.”

Some Syrians and Iraqis pointed out that many more people died from bombings and other violence in their countries on Monday than did Americans, and that they felt slighted because the major news networks in the West (which are actually global media) more or less ignored their carnage but gave wall to wall coverage of Boston.

Aljazeera English reported on the Iraq bombings, which killed some 46 in several cities, and were likely intended to disrupt next week’s provincial election.

Over the weekend, Syrian regime fighter jets bombed Syrian cities, killing two dozen people, including non-combatants:

What happened in Boston is undeniably important and newsworthy. But so is what happened in Iraq and Syria. It is not the American people’s fault that they have a capitalist news model, where news is often carried on television to sell advertising. The corporations have decided that for the most part, Iraq and Syria aren’t what will attract Nielsen viewers and therefore advertising dollars. Given the global dominance by US news corporations, this decision has an impact on coverage in much of the world.

Here is a video by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) on the dilemma of the over one million displaced Syrians, half of them children:

So I’d like to turn the complaint on its head. Having experienced the shock and grief of the Boston bombings, cannot we in the US empathize more with Iraqi victims and Syrian victims? Compassion for all is the only way to turn such tragedies toward positive energy.

Perhaps some Americans, in this moment of distress, will be willing to be also distressed over the dreadful conditions in which Syrian refugees are living, and will be willing to go to the aid of Oxfam’s Syria appeal. Some of those Syrians living in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey were also hit by shrapnel or lost limbs. Perhaps some of us will donate to them in the name of our own Boston Marathon victims of senseless violence.

Terrorism has no nation or religion. But likewise its victims are human beings, precious human beings, who must be the objects of compassion for us all.

Michael McShane writes in a guest column for Informed Comment

In a recent article published in the Wall Street Journal, Jay Solomon highlighted the disproportionate attention President Obama has paid to Iran’s nuclear program since coming to office compared to the diplomatic engagement the United States has pursued vis-à-vis North Korea’s own steadily growing nuclear weapons program.

Solomon writes:

“This gap between North Korea and Iran, which is widely recognized in Washington, is exposing what many Western diplomats and security analysts believe has been the U.S.’s muted response to Pyongyang’s nuclear advances in recent years, as compared with Iran’s.”

While the piece offers cursory explanations – “direct confrontation with North Korean ally China” and “Israel’s concerns” – for the uneven U.S. responses to the respective nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran, it simply provides general background information and a binary breakdown of the differing stages of each state’s nuclear progress, i.e., the overwhelming weaponization realities of North Korea’s program in contrast to the non-existent capabilities of a purported Iranian nuclear threat.

In 2003, Pyongyang withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. As Solomon details in his report, the North Koreans have managed to push forward with their nuclear program, conducting three nuclear tests since 2006; yet the U.S., until recently, has handled North Korean provocations with much less hostility – diplomatically and coercively – compared to Iran.

China has certainly been a major factor in U.S. decision-making. Nevertheless, Beijing is just as interested in a nuclear-free Korean peninsula as the U.S. The United States also provides security guarantees to two of its closest allies, South Korea and Japan, which are dangerously close to finding themselves within range of a North Korean nuclear payload; yet despite the dangers of nuclear proliferation and the de-stabilizing regional environment for its allies, there hasn’t been the same sense of urgency for the U.S. when it comes to dealing with North Korea.

Why has U.S. policy ultimately diverged with respect to North Korea and Iran? Quite simply, North Korea’s neighborhood – though quickly evolving into a much more important focal point (Asia “pivot”) for Washington – has not been nearly as strategically important to U.S. interests as the Middle East, wherein maintaining Israel’s regional military superiority and safeguarding Persian Gulf hydrocarbons remain critical national security interests.

The United States is required by law not only “to provide Israel the military capabilities necessary to deter and defend itself by itself against any threats” but also “to help Israel preserve its qualitative military edge amid rapid and uncertain regional political transformation.”

The U.S. asserts that a nuclear-armed Iran would represent:

“A development that would fundamentally threaten vital American interests, destabilize the region, encourage regional nuclear proliferation, further empower and embolden Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, and provide it the tools to threaten its neighbors, including Israel.”

Israeli officials have expressed concerns to their U.S. counterparts that a nuclear-armed Iran presents a threat to Israel’s military position within the region. While senior government officials and policymakers won’t openly discuss the fear of losing Israel’s regional nuclear monopoly, based on public statements, it’s apparent Israel’s primary concern is its diminished ability to act unilaterally – not an existential threat – if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons.

Former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak stated:

“From our point of view […] a nuclear state offers an entirely different kind of protection to its proxies. Imagine if we enter another military confrontation with Hezbollah, which has over 50,000 rockets that threaten the whole area of Israel, including several thousand that can reach Tel Aviv. A nuclear Iran announces that an attack on Hezbollah is tantamount to an attack on Iran. We would not necessarily give up on it, but it would definitely restrict our range of operations.”

The strategic importance of the Middle East and its stability arguably lies in the foundation and engine of U.S. strength and eventual global hegemony – oil. U.S. power and global dominance, past and present, increased through its industrial economic growth, which was driven by access to cheap oil. Once domestic oil supplies reached its peak in the 1970’s, the oil-rich Persian Gulf became an immensely important strategic interest for the U.S, an interest that would need to be protected to maintain U.S. power.

During the 1970’s, as a friendly ally and relatively powerful client of the U.S., the Shah of Iran helped secure the U.S.’s primary interest (oil), thus maintaining U.S. influence in the Middle East. In fact, at this time, Israel and Iran served to militarily check any challenges emanating from within the region. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the new Iranian regime proved to be virulently anti-American and had no intention of catering to U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf.

Israel has been a staunch ally of the U.S. for decades, helping to preserve U.S. interests within the Middle East. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro told an audience in 2011,“Israel is a vital ally and serves as a cornerstone of our regional security commitments.” He quoted former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, saying, “For Israel, there is no greater strategic threat than the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran.”

Israel’s nuclear weapons capability affords it an unmatched edge in military power within the region; and this historical and current regional balance of power serves and protects the interests of Israel’s closest ally and patron, the United States.

U.S. (and Israeli) fear of the potential shift in the balance of power due to a nuclear Iran threatens regional stability and thus the U.S.’s most important interest in the Persian Gulf – the secure flow of oil. Hence, for the past decade, Iran’s nuclear program –not North Korea’s – has garnered the lion’s share of U.S. attention.

—–

Michael McShane is an intern with the EastWest Institute’s China Program and a recent graduate of The Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy, where he earned his Masters in International Affairs.

Satire

Israel (in red) is welcomed into the Muslim Middle East in 2013

Zionism: The theory that because murderous Nazis hated Jews in the 1930s and 1940s, all Jews should now crowd into a narrow strip of land between the Mediterranean and 400 million angry Muslims.

Saturday Night Live satirizes the minimalism of the gun registration bill proposed by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)

The hatred for the late Margaret Thatcher, former British prime minister, among a broad segment of the British public has manifested itself in visible and undeniable ways in the week after her death, but these are not highlighted on American television. The status quo corporate media are afraid of admitting that policy-makers who favor the rich and punish the middle and working classes are deeply hated by the latter. Dead leaders have to be represented on television as being revered by the entirety of the public (an imaginary public for which the corporate anchors can serve as ventriloquists). That many Americans despise Ronald Reagan is likewise an unmentionable on the airwaves.

Demonstrators gathered Saturday at Trafalgar Square to denounce Thatcher’s Neoliberal policies, which enriched the wealthy and harmed the middle classes, holding what they called a “death party.” Middle and working class Britons well remember how they defeated her hated poll tax and hastened her from office.

Then, Britons have been commemorating Thatcher’s death by downloading “Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead,” in high volumes, pushing it to the top of the download charts. The British Broadcast Company was put in a difficult position, because it has a show that plays the top downloaded songs, and it didn’t want to be seen as endorsing this use of the tune. The BBC dealt with the problem by only playing an excerpt of the song, which satisfied no one.

British soccer fans for some time have been singing at the matches, “When Maggie Thatcher Dies, we’re going to have a party!” because of what they see as her dishonesty in the Hillsborough affair.

The man recognized by the Palestine government based in Ramallah as prime minister, Salam Fayyad, has tendered his resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas. The most immediate cause of the dispute between the two was that, under pressure from crowds and from the Fateh party, the minister of finance, Nabil Qassis, tendered his resignation. Fayyad rejected that resignation, but President Abbas accepted it, overruling his prime minister. The finance portfolio is so controversial because the Palestine government is broke.

Aljazeera English reports:

A respected economist, Fayyad was undone in part by punitive Israeli and American policies that cut off money to the Palestinian government because it sought observer state status at the United Nations. (Israel collects taxes and tariffs for Palestine and then turns the money over to Ramallah, but had declined to release the funds since November.) The money was released after President Obama’s recent visit to the region, but far too late to save Fayyad.

The US really only has itself to blame for the loss of Fayyad, with whom Washington liked to deal. If they liked him so well they shouldn’t have cut his government off from funding or allowed their Israeli clients to do so. As for the hard line ruling Likud Party in Israel, it is dedicated to keeping the Palestinians stateless and little more than slaves, whose property can be usurped at will. So no doubt Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his allies will greet the news of disarray in Palestine with great glee, whatever they say publicly.

Israel also undermined Fayyad by flooding Israeli settlers into the Palestinian West Bank and grabbing Palestinian resources such as water, making Fayyad look helpless and clueless as the territory over which he allegedly ruled looked more and more like Swiss cheese, settled by hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. The United States government sometimes timidly demurs from Israel’s policy of stealing Palestinian land, but de facto Washington is Israel’s enabler in this regard.

Fayyad had become extremely unpopular in the West Bank not only because of his helplessness and perceived good relations with Israel and the United States but also because of high inflation and widespread indebtedness. Many Palestinians are deeply indebted to banks. The Palestine government’s lack of funds, imposed by Washington and Tel Aviv, contributed mightily to the economic crisis.

Hamas in Gaza has its own prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh. The Hamas government was elected in January, 2006, but the Israelis and the Bush administration declined to recognize the elected government and connived at a coup against it. The coup succeeded in the West Bank, bringing the Palestine Liberation Organization back to power there. But it failed in Gaza, where Hamas retained power. Attempts by Israel in 2008-2009 and fall of 2012 to dislodge Hamas militarily from Gaza were miserable failures.

Some analysts think that President Abbas wants to move to a national unity government with Hamas, and that Hamas’s rejection of Fayyad as prime minister was an obstacle to that step. After that, Abbas is said to want to move to new elections. The Israeli right wing will squawk about Hamas, but then they should not have undermined Fayyad.

The USG Open Source Center translates an account from al-Sharq al-Awsat dated April 13, 2013, which appeared in the run-up to the final resignation:

“The Fatah Movement wants to get rid of Fayyad and made several attempts in this regard over several years through closed meetings and the media, and by inciting trade unions against him. It finally motivated the Palestinian street against his policies.

However, Abu-Mazin [Mahmoud Abbas], who was angry at Fayyad in the past months, has different calculations related to the continuation of the flow of funds. Also, he does not wish to engage in a clash with Western powers that support and want Fayyad. If Fayyad leaves his post, his move will affect the level of the Western aid to the Palestinian Authority and harm measures that were announced by US Secretary of State to consolidate growth in the West Bank.

Fayyad enjoys large US support. US President Barack Obama praised him several times when he visited Palestine and Israel last month. He also met privately with Fayyad in Ramallah. Kerry too did the same.

Abu-Mazin disagreed with Fayyad many times. But what Fayyad considered a challenge to him when Abu-Mazin accepted Finance minister Nabil Qassis’s resignation last month after he personally rejected it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Abu-Mazin may wait for an agreement with HAMAS in order to get rid of Fayyad. He received yesterday President of the Central Elections Commission Hanna Nasir who handed him a file on the results of the registration of voters. The voter list has been updated in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Nasir told the president that the central elections commission will be ready to hold elections when a presidential decree setting a date for the elections will be issued.

Before issuing two simultaneous decrees to form a government and set a date for elections, Abu-Mazin wants to agree with HAMAS on the formation of a unity government to be led by himself, so that elections may be held afterward in three months’ time.

However, many problems concerning the priority and importance of issues stand in the way at a time when HAMAS accuses Fatah of being selective and says that all issues, including the status of the PLO, must be resolved at the same time.

(Description of Source: London Al-Sharq al-Awsat (Internet Version-WWW) in Arabic — Influential Saudi-owned London daily providing independent coverage of Arab and international issues; editorials reflect official Saudi views on foreign policy)”

Comedian Jonathan Winters has died at 87. Winters was a pioneer in improvisational standup and the use of impressions in mini-skits within the monologue. He deeply influenced Robin Williams. Dana Carvey’s mix of impressions and irony seems to me also to stand in the Winters tradition. In many ways, our contemporary comedic sensibility owes a great deal to him.

Jonathan Winters on being nude in front of animals and his impression of classic horror films: