Saturday, April 11, 2009

Why Arabs are Backing Sudan's Bashir

10 April 2009
Khaleej Times


Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir, despite being indicted on March 4, 2009 on seven counts of war crimes by the International Criminal Court, was given a “hero’s welcome” by the Arab League Summit hosted by Qatar last week. The 22 nations warmly supported Al Bashir with a resolution opposing the dubious ICC arrest warrant.

Bashir called the ICC an “undemocratic institution that ... applied double standards, targeted the weak and gave a blind eye to the criminals.”

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, also present at the summit, likewise objected to the ICC. “Why do they not order the capture of Bush? Why not order the arrest of the president of Israel?”

“If anything happened to Omar Al Bashir and Sudan ended up in chaos, the whole of Africa will sink into chaos,” warned Shaikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Amir of Qatar.

Amr Moussa, the Arab League Secretary-General, said that the arrest warrant was aimed “at undermining the unity and stability of Sudan.”

In response to the arrest warrant, which was issued at behest of “Save Darfur,” an activist coalition mobilised by pro-Israel organisations committed to pressuring the US administration to treat Sudan like Iraq, Al Bashir evicted 13 western NGOs from his country.

Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report comments, “Any government in the world that believes it has been targeted for regime change by the United States and its allies would be foolish to allow western-based nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) to operate freely in its territory.”

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Almost the entire Arab and African world supports Sudan against the ICC, arguing it is a biased and political 
tool that only targets Africans and infringes sovereignty.”

“The allegations at the ICC have nothing to do with reality, and we will use our friends in the United Nations to stop them,” says Abdel Malik Al Naiem, spokesman for the Sudanese Embassy in Cairo.

“In one year we will Sudanise all the aid on the ground and we can fill the gap in food distribution within one year because the Sudanese Red Crescent already distributes 45 per cent of the food in Darfur,” Al Bashir promised during a recent visit to Saudi Arabia.

China and Russia back the central government in Khartoum and support local peace agreements between Sudan’s warring tribes while the US, Britain, Israel and France materially support insurgent militias and promote increased foreign intervention with massive, internationally coordinated propaganda. Michel Massih, Al Bashir’s leading attorney points out, “I have never heard in my legal career of a chief prosecutor that launches media campaigns against a defendant, regardless of the nature of the charges.”

Columbia Professor Mahmood Mamdani, whose new book ‘Saviours and Survivors’ just came out, says he began to look at the issue of Darfur in 2003. He was struck by the rapid globalisation and the fact-indifference of the Save Darfur movement, which consistently misrepresented the facts 
in a media blitz.

Mamdani points out in a recent IslamOnline interview with Ismail Ikashkash: “The Save Darfur movement does not educate the people… about what issues drive the conflict. So they know nothing about the politics of Darfur, the history of Darfur, the history of the conflict. All they know is that … Darfur is a place where ‘evil lives.’”

In his book, Professor Mamdani describes in detail how the Save Darfur Coalition presented itself primarily as an inter-religious coalition promoting Islamophobia by implicitly creating a division of responsibility among faiths:

“The Christian faith packets were the most explicit: They spoke of ‘divine empowerment’ and ‘the burden to save’…The Jewish faith packets emphasized the special moral responsibility of Jews as ‘quintessential victims’ to identify genocide whenever it occurs…Muslims were asked to fight oppressors in their midst.”

Save Darfur board chairwoman Gloria White-Hammond, an African-American Christian minister in Boston who has been groomed to promote Zionist politics by Israel advocacy group “The David Project,” met with President Obama and his Sudan envoy General Scott Gration, before their recent trip to Sudan. She and Save Darfur president Jerry Fowler pressured Obama to revive Sudan’s internal conflicts and to threaten Khartoum with further international isolation.

America imposed economic sanctions on Sudan in 1997, but peace in Sudan requires foreign investment and political reform. Sudan has the largest underground freshwater lake in all of Africa. With some technology, Sudan could become the Breadbasket of Africa. Bush made it illegal for American-allied businesses to invest in life-saving infrastructure, and even threatened a delegation of African-American businesspeople with criminal prosecution for discussing investment ideas with President Al Bashir.

President Obama will have to choose between continuing Bush’s policies, which leave millions of Sudanese civilians in mortal jeopardy, and which have earned America international scorn, and reconciling with an international community whose support for the people of Africa is destined to grow.


Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based 
writer on the Middle Eastern affairs

3 comments:

Maju said...

While I agree on the criticsims of Bashir bashing (sorry couldn't avoid the wordplay) by the ICC, the Zionists and NATO, the issue is much more complex and thorny and certainly affects directly the lives of many many people in Darfur and in general in Sudan.

From my position in favor of true democracy, human rights and self-determination of the peoples, I have found myself more than once trapped between the presumpt pro-Zionist and pro-Arabist dialectics. I support Berber self-determination, Kurdish, Darfuri... and of course Palestinian and Saharawi similar fights for their own freedom. For some people though being in favor of Berber rights is being against Palestinian rights (because they are "Arabs" and Arabs are the opressors of Berbers, so they, stupidly IMO, look for an alliance with the Zionists). Others being deeply anti-Zionist (with good reason) take the wrong stand of supporting anyone who challenges Israel somewhat, like the religious freaks of Iran or, as is this case Bashir and his genocidal policies.

This is the typical case or black and white vision of the world, that in this case is like pro-Arab (no matter what) or anti-Arab (even if one has to ally with the Zionazis). Obviously the so-called Middle East is full of totalitarian regimes, from Tel Aviv to Oman, from Iran to Morocco, from Algeria to Sudan and none of them deserves but total rejection. Additionally many Arab totalitarian regimes, like Egypt and Saudia are as comitted with Zionism as are the USA.

So the whole region's political and social situation just sucks. And there are many opressed ethicities who have legitimate claims to self-determination or at least autonomous self-rule. Some are Arab, like Palestinians or Saharawis, and others are not, like Berbers, Darfuri or Kurds. Similarly in some places Arab identity is used for opression and in other places the opressors have a non-Arab racist ideology (Jewish that I can think of).

So guess that probably Bashir may deserve to be brought to trial but there is a lot of hypocrisy because so many others should be too and are not. Who's judging the dictators of Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Saudia or Israel? Who will bring to court the Turkish generals? Or, moving out of the region just a bit, who will judge the Spanish torturers or the Russian war criminals of the Chechnya war?

Most probably nobody. So yes, Chávez is right: there are huge double-standards at play here. But that doesn't mean Bashir is any saint, not at all.

Anonymous said...

THE ARABS KNOW WHO ARE THE REAL TERRORIST,THE KHAZARS JEWS,USA AND UK.JESUS WAS NOT A Jew

Benjamin H. Freedman, Jewish Historian - Researcher - Scholar.
From "Common Sense", p. 2-1-53 and 5-1-59

"Christians have been duped by the unholiest hoax in all history, by so-called Jews. This is considered their most effective weapon."

"This 'big lie' technique is brainwashing United States Christians into believing that Jesus Christ was "King of the Jews", in the sense that so-called 'Jews' today call themselves 'Jews'. This reference was first made in English translations of the Old and New Testaments, centuries before the so-called Jews highjacked the word 'Jew' in the 18th century A.D. to palm themselves off on the Christian world as having a kinship with Jesus Christ. This alleged kinship comes from the myth of their common ancestry with the so-called 'Jews' of the Holy Land in the Old Testament history, a fiction based on fable."

"American Christians little suspect they are being brainwashed twenty-four hours of every day over television and radio, by newspapers and magazines, by motion pictures and plays, by books, by political leaders in office and seeking office, by religious leaders in their pulpits and outside their churches, by leaders in the field of education inside and outside their curricular activities, and by all leaders in business, professions and finance, whose economic security demands that they curry the favor of so-called "Jews" of historic Khazar ancestry. Unsuspecting Christians are subjected to this barrage from sources they have little reason to suspect. Incontestable facts supply the unchallengeable proof of the historic accuracy that so-called "Jews" throughout the world today of eastern European origin are unquestionably the historic descendants of the Khazars, a pagan Turko-Finn ancient Mongoloid nation deep in the heart of Asia, according to history, who battled their way in bloody wars about the 1st century B.C. into eastern Europe where they set up their Khazar kingdom. For some mysterious reason the history of the Khazar kingdom is conspicuous by its absence from history courses in the schools and colleges.

"The historic existence of the Khazar kingdom of so-called "Jews", their rise and fall, the permanent disappearance of the Khazar kingdom as a nation from the map of Europe, and how King Bulan and the Khazar nation in about 740 A.D. became so-called "Jews" by conversion, were concealed from American Christians by censorship imposed by so-called "Jews", of historic Khazar ancestry, upon all U.S.A. media of mass communications directed by them. Then in 1945 this author gave nation-wide publicity to his many years intensive research into the "facts of life" concerning Khazars. The disclosures were sensational and very effective but apparently angered so-called "Jews" who have continued to vent their spleen upon this author since then solely for that reason. Since 1946 they have conducted a vicious smear campaign against him, seeking thus to further conceal these facts, for obvious reasons. What have they to fear from the truth?

"In an original 1903 edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia in New York's Public Library, and in the Library of Congress, Volume IV, pages 1 to 5 inclusive, appears a most comprehensive history of the Khazars. Also in the New York Public Library are 327 books by the world's greatest historians and other sources of reference, in addition to the Jewish Encyclopedia, dealing with Khazar history, and written between the 3rd A.D. and 20th centuries by contemporaries of the Khazars and by modern historians on that subject."

Jesus was a 'Judean', not a Jew.

During His lifetime, no persons were described as "Jews" anywhere. That fact is supported by theology, history and science. When Jesus was in Judea, it was not the "homeland" of the ancestors of those who today style themselves "Jews". Their ancestors never set a foot in Judea. They existed at that time in Asia, their "homeland", and were known as Khazars. In none of the manuscripts of the original Old or New Testament was Jesus described or referred to as a "Jew". The term originated in the late eighteenth century as an abbreviation of the term Judean and refers to a resident of Judea without regard to race or religion, just as the term "Texan" signifies a person living in Texas.

In spite of the powerful propaganda effort of the so-called "Jews", they have been unable to prove in recorded history that there is one record, prior to that period, of a race religion or nationality, referred to as "Jew". The religious sect in Judea, in the time of Jesus, to which self-styled "Jews" today refer to as "Jews", were known as "Pharisees". "Judaism" today and "Pharisaism" in the time of Jesus are the same.

Jesus abhorred and denounced "Pharisaism"; hence the words, "Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites, Ye Serpents, Ye Generation of Vipers".

Anonymous said...

Who was the First Jew?
John Standring

We know that Saul was the first king of Israel and that John was the first man called Baptist, but who was the first Jew? Neither Adam, Seth or Noah are called Jew. Nor were Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. Moses was not called a Jew and neither were Saul, David or Solomon called Jew. In fact you will not find the word Jew in the first eleven books of the Bible. The first time Jews are mentioned in the Bible, is in II Kings 16:6 (and then only in translations revised in the eighteenth century) where we find Israel was at war with the Jews and drave the Jews from Elath. Isn't it interesting that we can read over five hundred pages of the Bible before we find a Jew anywhere, yet those who call themselves Jew today claim the first five books of the bible and call it their Torah. Do you not find it rather strange that those who claim to have written the first five books of the Bible and call themselves Jew, can't find the word Jew written anywhere in the book they call their own bible, and claim to have written? Jesus Christ tells John in Revelation 2:9 "I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN". We know that God changed the name of Abram to Abraham in Genesis 17:5, and that He changed the name of Jacob to Israel in Genesis 32:28, but nowhere in the Bible do we find where God changed the name of Israel to Jew! There is therefore no authority by which those who say they are Jews can claim to be Israel!

By the time of Jesus the word Edom or Edomite had been translated by Greek and Latin into Ioudaios and Iudaeus meaning a Judean or person living in Judea. The original King James version of the Bible, 1611, translated Idumaean-Judean into Iewes. It wasn't until the revised editions of the King James Bible, that the word Jew appeared. The word Jew does not mean Israel or Israelite! We must conclude therefore that the first "Jews" were Canaanite-Edomite-Hittite. It is certain, according to the Bible, that Jews are not Israel. jesusjew.htm