Boston-Area Activist Faces Prison

In January 2011, 39 year-old drywall taper Michael Williams of Bedford, Massachusetts attended a demonstration in New York commemorating the two year anniversary of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead. After the rally, he noticed a drunken white man shouting, “Go back to your country, you [expletive] terrorists!” at some teenage girls wearing hijab in front of a pizzeria. Williams and a friend intervened to defend the girls, who had also just attended the rally, and then led them in an impromptu chant of “Free, Free Palestine!”

The drunk then hit Williams in the face, whereupon Williams punched him back and a fight ensued, for which both men were arrested.

Curiously, the District Attorney let the drunk man go free but charged Williams with first degree felony assault and endangerment of a child, crimes he did not commit – in fact Williams and the Muslim girls were the victims of a racist assault!

In June 2012, the case went to trial. Despite having six eyewitnesses and clear photographic evidence that the other guy hit him first, the jury after three days of deliberation found Williams guilty of second degree assault, a sentence which carries up to 7 years. He was released on a $7500 bail so that he could return to Massachusetts to coach his son’s baseball game. Williams’ sentencing is to scheduled for August 10, 2012. He will appeal. Anyone wishing to donate money to his legal fund this Ramadan may contact al-Awda New York.
Michael Williams, in an exclusive telephone interview with TMO, mentioned some dark details of his court ordeal. The Muslim girl who filmed the assault and served as a witness was asked to whom she showed the film and what organization she was serving. After the soft-spoken girl broke down in tears, the prosecutor stated: “The reason you are here today is because you want him to become a martyr.”

This changed the whole mood of the trial. Afterwards, another eyewitness was grilled regarding his affiliation with the Green Party and was asked if the party’s belief in self-defense included killing innocent people?

Al-Awda New York circulated a notice entitled, “Dire Verdict for Michael Williams in Self-Defense Against Anti-Muslim Bigot,” which states:

“Michael’s conviction – despite unchallenged evidence of self-defense – reflects the prosecution’s orchestrated campaign to punish and intimidate those who dare stand up for Palestinian rights and against racist attack. Over the repeated objection of attorney Lamis Deek, the prosecution was permitted to introduce grossly prejudicial anti-Muslim rhetoric against defense witnesses, one of whom was even questioned about his opposition to a US war with Iran. During deliberations, the court refused to answer juror’s questions about the law of self-defense. Thus, Michael and the young girls he defended have been double victimized in this case; First by a racist attack on January 11, 2011, and then by an unfair and politically motivated witch-hunt in the courts. The resulting conviction is a dire threat not only to Michael, but to all Muslims, communities of color, and social justice activists.”

Williams expressed to TMO his total confusion as to how and why this was happening to him. Of Irish and Italian descent, married with two children, Williams speaks with a thick Boston accent. He is not the kind of person one normally expects to find as a defendant in such a highly biased trial. He is better known to his community as an activist with the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades than for his views on the Middle East. Like most ordinary Americans, he remains largely unaware of pro-Palestine activist campaigns whether local or international. At that moment when he hit the man back, who had just swiped him in the face, he was acting as an American, doing what any other self-assured American man would be expected to do in the same situation. He kept on asking me, “What did I do? What have I done that was so wrong?”

Perhaps the most dangerous thing of all to the powers that be is when ordinary working class people start asking questions like those of Michael Williams: “What’s wrong with giving money to schools? Why can’t Gaza have a baseball field? How come I can buy an ice cream for my children but I can’t buy an ice cream for a Palestinian child? How is our system throwing innocent people in jail, labeling them as terrorists? The DA and the judge lied about me. They broke the law.

How could this happen? Why couldn’t my lawyer defend my innocence when everything was on film? How could the jury believe such obviously fabricated charges? This is an injustice!”

“I should have the right to an opinion,” Williams continued. “If you sat down and talked to me, you wouldn’t find any violence or hate in me. I believe everyone should have food and water. I love Jewish people. I love Palestinian people. I’m content with my life. I enjoy life. I believe that the capitalist system should allow Palestinian people to work and do business. I don’t hate people. I love people.

God don’t need you to fight for Him. Capitalism and Socialism go in cycles. In the end, it all boils down to economics. Israel will have to negotiate labor. The world is not coming to an end.”

About two years ago Williams called into Michael Graham’s radio talk show and mentioned that in Israel, it is illegal for Jews to rent or sell property to non-Jews. “Do you think that’s right?” he simply asked. Later that month, the FBI came to his house and arrested him in front of his children for “threatening to commit a crime” and “harassing” the talk show host. After making him go to court ten times, where they accused him of hating homosexuals and wanting to establish an Islamic caliphate, they finally dropped the charges. Due to the current zealousness of the prosecution to tie Williams to some unnamed terrorist organization based on bizarre and unsubstantiated insinuations, some wonder if the drunk man might have been an undercover agent.

“In the end, everything will come out. Nobody can conspire against God. The truth will come out of darkness and into the light,” Williams philosophized, admitting that he feels very alone right now. He feels like his life is in limbo and that he has no control over his fate.

His family will be destroyed if he goes to jail. He feels that he is being used as a pawn, but he doesn’t know what the game is.

Congress Hears Testimony on Islamism

On June 16, the US House of Representatives held another panel on Radicalism in the Muslim-American community, sparking outrage that the probe is a witch hunt akin to the 1950s anti-Communist campaign. It is unfortunate that any Muslims at all participated in such a demeaning event. No Muslim representative should or could ever explain to some authority what Islam means to me, or to anyone else. Especially when the judges in this particular tribunal are guilty of mass murdering Muslims in various countries via unprovoked war and war funding.

The Congressional discussions were premised on the obnoxious assumption that al Qaeda committed 9/11, and that al Qaeda is stepping up its efforts to recruit Americans for jihad using prison chaplains and the internet. My guess is that the 5% of Muslims said to hold positive views of al Qaeda are referring to their role in helping the US defeat the USSR, and do not believe that al Qaeda had anything to do with 9/11, like many Americans. During the Reagan era, the Afghans were referred to–by non-Muslims–as “freedom fighters,” not “terrorists.”

What American officials don’t understand, is that when Muslim-Americans talk about extremists in our mosques, we are talking about people who have narrow-minded viewpoints on things. For example, when I tried to publish an article questioning the farming background of Islamically slaughtered livestock in my local mosque’s newsletter, several local business owners intervened to prevent the publication of my article. So yes, every community organization has people who behave in a controlling way. They don’t like people who criticize or disagree with them. They don’t even like people who agree with them too loudly.

This is not the same thing as being guilty of terrorism.

“The greatest threat (to America) … is actually a theopolitical ideology that is hijacking my faith: … Islamism,” Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy told the House Homeland Security Committee hearing chaired by Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican. Mainstream American Muslim groups are “in denial” about extremism, “claiming victimization,” Jasser said.

I am in total agreement that Islamism is the worship of Islam, while true Islam is the worship of God. What Muslim-Americans don’t seem to understand, though, is that when the US Congress asks you whether or not you are an “extremist,” they mean: Do you accept Israel as a Jewish State?

Zuhdi Jasser, who served as the primary expert witness for this panel, and has connections with famous Islamophobes such as Robert Spencer, has made a career of trying to force pro-Israel and pro-war viewpoints on the Muslim-American public. According to Wikipedia, “Jasser is an outspoken supporter of Israel, and believes that Muslim organizations and leaders need to be held to a litmus test to see whether they recognize Israel as a state, specifically condemn groups such as Hamas and al Qaeda, and governments such as the Saudi and Syrian dictatorships. ‘If they don’t … then you have to wonder where their allegiances are,’ said Jasser.”

Jasser is a Syrian-American. So basically, it sounds like he is saying, if you are from an Arab country, and you are not working with the US to overthrow your former government, then you don’t belong here. Given the intimidation of Muslim intellectuals regarding the pro-Israel litmus test, a Muslim-American activist or politician can’t be considered “moderate” unless they accept Israel as a Jewish State.

Jasser and the US government are actually creating a boundary between Muslim-Americans and their fellow Americans, preventing meaningful political interaction. They talk about “democracy,” but what they really fear is that Muslim-Americans will join their neighbors in political activism. Because no American wants to pay taxes to Israel.

It doesn’t matter if they are left wing or right wing. We all have bills to pay, we hate to see dead children, and giving money to Israel simply makes no sense.

As usual, the Muslims avoided the elephant in the room and debated between accusations of militancy and pleading innocence. Not a single person raised the issue of why Jewish-Americans are regularly sent to Israeli Army summer camp to help enforce a murderous racial apartheid no American would tolerate at home.

Opposing Israel makes perfect sense, if you’re an American. It has nothing to do with being Muslim. A future two-state solution is unlikely to happen, and even if so, it would involve the ethnic cleansing of the entire region and would probably be worse than anything we have ever seen before in Palestine. Remember, when India and Pakistan separated on religious grounds at the same time when Israel was created, 6 million people died as they were forced out of their homes to relocate in the religiously appropriate location.

Still, India has almost the largest Muslim population in the world, so the ethnic cleansing was entirely useless. It really makes no financial or moral sense to separate Jews and Muslims into separate governments.

The most American option, which would probably go over well with the majority of Americans, is an equal rights solution like eventually happened in the US and South Africa. This argument is so persuasive that there is really no rational counter-argument. This is why pro-Israel lobbyists are working very hard to tell Muslim-Americans that they should join the pro-Israel camp against the American people, by giving them the false story that they need to accept Zionism in order to be a socially acceptable member of society. Yes, friends.

It’s all about Israel. We Americans already know you are innocent of 9/11.

Israel Releases Player, Protests Continue

Palestinian soccer player Mahmoud Al-Sarsak (L) is greeted upon his arrival in Gaza City July 10, 2012. Israel released the Gaza soccer player on Tuesday in a deal to end his intermittent four-month hunger strike after he spent three years behind bars without being put on trial, officials said.


“I thank God and all the athletes in the world,” Mahmoud Sarsak told a Ma’an reporter as he was transferred to Shifa hospital in Gaza City for medical attention after being released in a “rapturous welcome” to relatives who were gathered in great celebration at the Palestinian side of the Israeli Erez crossing in northern Gaza on Tuesday. ESPN reports that “Islamic militants” fired rifles in the air in a rousing homecoming for a beloved member of the Palestinian national soccer team who was released by Israel after being held for three years in prison without charge, trial, or contact with his family.

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, American author Alice Walker and others had chimed in to support his release. Sarsak, the jailed Gazan soccer star, freed on July 10, 2012 due to massive international attention, had been detained on his way to a national team match on the West Bank in 2009. While participating in a hunger strike by 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, Sarkar lost almost half of his body weight.

Shuaib Ahmed commented in the Morning Bark that “the world remains, as it always has been – hesitatingly observant.”

The Palestinian plight was brought to world attention by the campaign to free Sarsak. Palestinian National Team players are often blocked at checkpoints, jailed, or even killed. Sarkar’s arrest was part of a broader effort to degrade his “national team without a nation.”

British comedian Mark Steel joked in the UK’s Independent that the Palestinians “were employing that old terrorist tactic of becoming the national football team, then qualifying for the World Cup finals from where it’s a simple step to start an insurrection.”

Energetic protesters in the stands in Scotland added to the 8-0 humiliation of the Israeli national women’s team in a European championship match on June 17. The Israeli national anthem was also booed before kick-off. In Wales, Israel lost 5-0, and in France, protesters actually invaded the pitch to pressure Israel regarding Sarkar’s life.

An Israeli Embassy functionary responded that Sarsak was a terrorist and that calling him a “young Palestinian footballer” was “insulting to footballers.”

FIFPro, the international federation of professional footballers, stated that no other Palestinian footballers should have to go through what Sarsak has experienced. Yet there are two other Palestinian football stars held in indefinite detention, prevented from playing for Palestine.

President of the Palestinian Football Association, Jabril Rajoub, asked UEFA president Michel Platini to remember Olympic squad goalkeeper Omar Abu Rois and Ramallah player Mohammed Nimr, detained without charge by Israel.

“For athletes in Palestine, there is no real freedom of movement and the risks of being detained or even killed are always looming before their eyes.” Since Israel is in “direct violation of FIFA regulations and the International Olympic Charter,” Rajoub implored, “we ask Your Excellency to not give Israel the honour to host the next UEFA Under-21 Championship 2013.”

A similar plea was sent by 42 Palestinian football clubs based in Gaza, home to many of the world’s best football players.
Platini continues to ignore requests from concerned citizens, stating, “We cannot hold the Israeli Football Association responsible for the political situation in the region or for legal procedures in place in its country.”

What I want to understand is, if you knew that your country imprisoned a fellow athlete, how could you play for your country? I mean, given the obviousness of the treachery your playing would imply. How could any Israeli footballer, in good conscience, agree to play under these circumstances? And if you were an Israeli that chose to play, how should we look at you? Should we applaud your gains and cry for your losses, knowing that you didn’t care about simple obvious human rights issues regarding fellow players living close to you? Why are the Israeli teams not refusing to play another game? I would, if I were them.

For an explanation, let us look at the recent past.

In June, 2012, 12 year old Gazan Mamoun Hassouna was killed while playing football.

In 2011 Palestinian players flying in from a game in Thailand were prevented entry into the West Bank. Mohammed Samara and right back Majed Abusidu therefore missed the return game at home five days later.

In 2010, Gaza and West Bank winners had to postpone their cup final because the Gazan team was refused permission to travel. Also that year, Israel refused to allow six members of the Palestinian national team to travel from Gaza to Jordan for a match against Mauritania.

Ahmed Keshkesh was prevented from returning home for months.

During Operation Cast Lead in winter 2008-9, Israel was responsible for leveling much of Gaza including the Rafah National Stadium, and killing football players Ayman Alkurd, Shadi Sbakhe and Wajeh Moshate, as well as over 1400 other citizens.

In May 2008, the national team was not able to attend the AFC Challenge Cup, denying them qualification for the 2011 Asia Cup.

In 2006, Israeli missiles destroyed Gaza’s only football stadium.

Palestine had reached the top of their group in the qualifying rounds for the 2006 World Cup. They failed to qualify after the Israeli authorities refused permission for five key players to travel to a match against Uzbekistan in Qatar on September 7, 2005.

In 2005, while playing football, Ashraf Samir Ahmad Mussa and Khaled Fuad Sahker Ghanam, and Hassan Ahmad Khalil Abu Zeid, were shot dead by Israeli soldiers.

There are countless other such incidents. None of that is really news, just banality of evil. What is news is that international pressure freed one Palestinian prisoner. Dave Zirin reports in the Nation: “Not only does Sarsak live but the movement lives as well. It’s been strengthened by Sarsak’s survival and the revelation for many that the thankless, frustrating and often devastating work of international solidarity with political prisoners can actually work.”

Growth and Decay in Michigan’s Memory Lane

This summer, I packed my four kids into my Corolla and headed for the highway going south from Boston towards Michigan, where I was born and spent my first 28 years. Returning home was a very moving experience, both uplifting and disturbing.

Our first stop was Oak Tree Road in Iselin, New Jersey, where we bought cheap Indian trinkets and feasted on chickpeas, yogurt and fried bread. My daughter Iman and I knocked on the door of the tiny apartment where she was born at home in Piscataway eleven years ago and a kind Pakistani lady and her daughter let us come inside for a moment to look at the place. As we left, I burst into tears thinking of the years of our lives that seem to have vanished without a trace.

Not a lot had changed, but there was no one to visit, no familiar faces; just the ever-tender painful memories of a difficult yet sincere interracial marriage that ended in great loss nine years ago.

I told my children I would take them to the mosque if they wanted because we’d probably run into some of their relatives there, but they said no because they couldn’t even remember them. After learning that their favorite ice cream and candy store no longer existed, we agreed that there was no further reason to stop in New Jersey ever again.

When we arrived in Ann Arbor, Michigan the next day, I showed my children the Georgetown neighborhood where I grew up. While the cement structures I used to climb on as a toddler were still there, the shopping center where there used to be a Krogers, a drug store, a Hallmark gift shop, and a Chinese restaurant was all boarded up. The bank where I opened my first savings account as a child was empty and abandoned. I was not expecting Ann Arbor to look like Detroit! But the most remarkable change was the trees. When I was a kid I used to be able to see my best friend’s house from my porch. But now the pine trees are so huge that you cannot see across the street. While it is indisputably marvelous to see nature towering over one’s old home, it does create a troubling sense of the sheer irrelevance of America’s or perhaps humanity’s continued existence. Ann Arbor’s downtown still seemed to be thriving, and many of my old haunts like Orchid Lane, the Michigan Theater, and Jerusalem Garden were still there. I was startled to discover that there were two halal restaurants, one Indian and one Arab, located at the main intersection of State and Liberty Streets!

Then we took a trip to Detroit, where we stayed at the Duck and Roll Inn, a lovely three bedroom guest house with a duck farm in the backyard on the East Side on a street with many abandoned homes. The weather was scorching hot from a prolonged drought. As we visited in the garden with old friends from my old Wayne State University days, a brush fire across the street turned into a fifteen foot tall bonfire, and we watched lazily as the Detroit Fire Department eventually came and doused it with water. I felt a deep sense of time moving much more slowly than it does in Boston. It was a great relief to feel myself becoming myself again. It was so wonderful to be back among friends, who were practically competing for us to stay with them, even people I hadn’t seen in over 25 years.

Probably the most harrowing but important part of our journey was our visit to the Woodmere Cemetery in Detroit, where my first baby was buried 14 years ago. The Muslim section of the graveyard was almost entirely grown over. Thankfully, we found about four letters of my son’s name still visible beneath the brown, crispy grass. I knew the grave would need some cleanup but I was not expecting this level of neglect. My children and I ripped out grass for two hours, uncovering the stone. We poured the last of our drinking water over the gravestone and used twigs to clean out the mud from my son’s name and the dates of his short life. We worked until we were sick from heat exhaustion and completely filthy from the cemetery dirt. We planted a few wildflower seeds around his grave and prayed for rain, which actually did fall a couple days later. Oddly enough, I did not cry, but felt a deep sense of peace and satisfaction at having rescued my son’s grave from being overtaken by time. He is the only member of my family thus far to be buried in America, and the fact that his bones lay there in that terrible neighborhood with its burnt out buildings and vast expanses of desolation that was once a booming industry, provides me with a sense of permanency that does not exist on any other level in my life.

My family has all moved away from Michigan. All that remains are memories. It was incredibly healing to return to Ann Arbor to attend my high school reunion and to hug every single person that looked even vaguely familiar. For one weekend, I felt normal again. I went back to a time in the past when I knew who I was, and so did everybody else.

People in the Midwest are so polite and nice. All you have to do is look at them and they smile at you. My children wished we could stay there forever among friends, feeding the ducks in the pond, but I have no job there.

Back in Boston, for the past two days, I have experimented with trying to make eye contact and smile at people on the street without much success. They look right through me like I’m not there. Here in Boston, the weather is much milder and the health insurance is free, but people just make you feel so alone. Unless they perceive you as belonging to their socio-economic-political-racial status, they only talk to you if they are scolding you for something like if your bag accidentally brushed against them. When I lived in Michigan, I used to greet everybody and they were happy to greet me. These nine years I have lived in Boston, I have been deeply miserable. My summer vacation has taught me that it’s not my fault. I’m just a Michigan girl that somehow got lost like a leaf blowing in the wind.

Was Israel Premeditated?

“You get punished for Holocaust denial, even if you are just revising; yet if you are a Nakba denier, your Israeli organization gets rewarded with German and American tax money. In fact, the Nakba was far more of a deliberate genocide than the Holocaust, in how carefully and openly it was premeditated.”

I posted this on Facebook the other day and as expected, I was rewarded with heaps of abuse from the under-informed. Note that I neither denied the Holocaust nor tried to quantify who has suffered more.

My post was related to a recent article in Haaretz on the proposed ‘Nakba Bill,’ which aims to withhold state funding from academic institutions that commemorate the Palestinian Nakba. Commemorating the Palestinian Catastrophe or celebrating the Israeli Independence Day as a Day of Mourning is viewed as an activity that “opposes the existence of Israel as Jewish-democratic state.” This is interesting, since in the US, Thanksgiving has been commemorated as a Day of Mourning for decades by many Native Americans and others, but nobody even blinks.

The point I was making however is that it is curious how competing historical narratives are legislated. “The victor writes the history.”

If a competing historian happens to be German or Austrian, they can expect to die in prison simply for writing a book.

From what I can gather from my now un-friends, it is taboo to compare or relate the Holocaust with any other human tragedy. Even many of those who claim sympathy for the Palestinians feel a need to reserve a special place for the Holocaust, despite the political use of the concept of “unique suffering” to give Jews special rights, including the right to commit genocide during our lifetime without comment. An Israeli Facebook friend and alleged peace activist posted:

“Palestinian people suffering does not amount to the whole sale industrial attempt to physically kill an entire people which was close to being totally successful in Europe.”

While nobody denies that millions of Jews perished in World War II, along with tens of millions of Christians and others, the number of 6 million has been reduced to 3 million in recent times by mainstream historians. Death inside German concentration camps was widespread, but in most cases, prisoners died of disease and malnutrition.

However, people tend to fixate on the belief that 6 million Jews were gassed to death in a systematic method by the German government with the same amount of passion that Christians hold for the Crucifixion.

In truth, there is no evidence that Hitler ever ordered all Jews to be killed. These beliefs are based on the Hollywood movie, the Holocaust.

The historical Hitler actually worked hand in hand with the Zionists, helping Jews emigrate to Palestine. There was even a Zionist (Jewish) faction of the Nazi party. Edwin Black’s book, The Transfer Agreement, the standard text on Nazi-Zionist collaboration, makes clear that the transfer of funds from Nazi Germany under this agreement made the Jewish State possible.

As WWII progressed, the German government had to deal with the problem of Jewish sympathy for the USSR, and with traitors giving away government secrets to Stalin with the same shamelessness with which US government secrets are leaked to Israel today, and Jewish organizations rallying to the cause of the traitor. Most people agree that this problematic situation in Germany was handled poorly.

What is almost never discussed is the context. The USSR, whose party leaders were largely Jewish or else influenced by secular Jewish philosophers such as Karl Marx, was an imperialist government that started annexing land in the 1920s, mass murdering tens of millions of Christians and burning churches. Millions of people were brutally tortured and died in Soviet prisons. It is safe to say that during the 20th century, Russia killed more people than Germany did. The US was also guilty of incinerating entire German cities as well as torturing prisoners. All in all, war is an ugly and cruel enterprise. World War II reduced the European population by 25 to 30%.

The idea that Nazi Germany is uniquely evil and that Jews in particular have suffered uniquely is a cornerstone of the creation of the State of Israel. For this reason, the State of Israel and several other countries actually mandate by law that no one can ever question the Holocaust, even if just to reduce the number to 5 million. If popularly accepted Jewish history were to be revised in the way that all other people’s histories have been revised in the light of researched evidence, the entire basis of Israel’s existence would come into question.

Yet even if we were to accept that 6 million Jews were gassed to death by Germany, it still doesn’t make any sense why Palestine should be wiped out order to create Israel. In 1934 Arab leaders offered asylum to European Jews fleeing the Nazis and presented a plan for legal Jewish immigration to Arab countries. Israeli Founding Father David Ben-Gurion refused the offer. “One cow in Palestine is worth more than all the Jews in Poland,” stated Zionist leader Izaak Greenbaum.

While the imprisonment of Jews and political dissidents in Germany can be attributed to wartime hysteria, Hitler did not run his election on an anti-Jew platform (unlike today’s politicians running on anti-Muslim platforms). By contrast, Zionist genocidal goals were openly discussed as early as 1897, at the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, where they discussed how to physically remove Palestinians from Palestine in order to create a Jewish State. Today in 2012, we are still experiencing debates on whether the existence of Palestinians can even be mentioned in public.

Palestinian Soccer Player Nears Death

While President Obama awarded Israeli president Shimon Perez with a medal last week, world outrage about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians has escalated exponentially as professional footballer Mahmoud al Sarsak nears death from his hunger strike of over 90 days in protest of his illegal incarceration. Thousands of other Palestinian prisoners, including 20 children, have joined his hunger strike. Despite a media blackout, the word has been spreading globally through Facebook and Twitter.

With Sarsak, Akram Al-Rikhawi, a prisoner for 8 years on his 57th day of hunger strike, wrote in a letter to the world: “This is an urgent and final distress call from captivity, slow and programmed death inside the cells of so-called Ramle Prison hospital, that you know that your sons and brothers are still struggling against death and you pay no attention to them and do not remember their cause…You are the ones able to support us for victory in our battle.”

Sarsak, a 25 year old from Rafah, in Gaza, was arrested at a checkpoint while on his way to the West Bank to play with the Palestinian national team in 2009. Since then, he has been detained without charge or trial, and has not been allowed to see his family.

He is being held under the Unlawful Combatant Law, which allows Israel to detain Palestinians from Gaza indefinitely without charge or criminal proceedings being brought to court. As with every other Palestinian prisoner held by Israel, Mahmoud was transferred to a prison outside of the Occupied Territories. This is illegal under Articles 49 and 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the transfer of prisoners from an occupied territory to that of the occupying state. 2,000 prisoners, according to Palestinian prisoners’ rights group Addameer, are held as administrative detainees without a chance of trial.

UN Special Envoy to the Occupied Territories, Richard Falk, has called for the 25 year old’s release, saying that ‘he has suffered immensely.’ Sarkar has lost 33 percent of his body weight. After three months without food, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel issued a warning that he could die at any moment.

There are huge demonstrations expected in Scotland on Saturday, where Israel’s women’s soccer team is to play against Scotland. Mick Napier, chairman of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC), explains: “There should be no business as usual for Israel’s national teams while Israel denies Palestinians the same privileges.”

Meanwhile, dozens of professional athletes have been rallying to Sarsak’s cause, sending out twitters to fans. “In the name of sporting solidarity, justice and human rights, we declare our support for Palestinian footballer Mahmoud Sarsak. As European sportsmen, we believe that every person has the right to a fair and independent trial,” wrote Marcelo del Pozo, an Argentinian player for Spain.

Seville striker Frédéric Kanouté posted on his website: “In the name of civil liberties, justice, and basic human rights, we call for the release of Mahmoud Sarsak.” Kanouté gained international fame when he lifted his team jersey to reveal a shirt with the word “Palestine”after scoring a goal during a league match at the height of Israel’s January 2009 attack on Gaza, an action for which he was fined $4,000.

Other supporters include Nicolas Anelka, former player for Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea and Real Madrid, and French sailor Jo Le Guen. Prominent figures such as former France and Manchester United midfielder Eric Cantona, film director Ken Loach and American philosopher and activist Noam Chomsky have urged Israeli authorities to release Sarsak. Protests under the banner “Let Sarsak Live” took place in London’s Trafalgar Square last week to raise awareness of his ordeal. In a letter to The Guardian, former UK Member of Parliament John Austin called on the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to “reconsider its decision to hold its under-21 championship in Israel in 2013.”

Amnesty International also proclaimed that Sarsak, “who is at risk of death after more than 90 days on hunger strike in protest against his detention by Israel should immediately be admitted to a civilian hospital or released so that he can receive life-saving medical care.”

Philippe Piat, vice-president of FIFPro, the global organization which represents professional footballers said, “freedom of movement is a fundamental right of every citizen. It is also written down in the FIFA Regulations that players must be allowed to play for the national team of their country. But actually for some footballers it is impossible to defend the colors of their country. They cannot cross the border. They cannot visit their family. They are locked up. This is an injustice.’

As the Israeli Asaf Harofe Hospital announced that Sarkar’s death could come within hours, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) became heavily involved in pressing the Israelis for Sarsak’s release. On June 20, Mahmoud Sarsak rejected an offer from negotiators and lawyers to be released to Norway or Sweden.

Mahmoud wants to be free to go to his home in the Gaza Strip only.

Gaza TV News reported on June 21: “After 91 days on Hunger Strike, Mahmoud Sarsak is to be released on July 17th. We will post further news as it reaches us.” This report has not yet been confirmed, so it is vital that the public continue writing letters and making phone calls of support.

Protect Yourself from Cyber Stalkers

Stalking preceded the 1980 murder of John Lennon, and John Hinckley Jr.’s assassination attempt on President Reagan in 1981. Such high-profile cases raised the public’s awareness of this crime. While stalking can be committed by both genders against both genders, the majority of stalking victims are ordinary women, who are being pursued, monitored or threatened by someone with whom they have had a prior relationship. Often, the stalking begins when the victim attempts to break off an intimate relationship. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that approximately 3.4 million U.S. adults were victims of stalking in 2006. Individuals who are divorced or separated are at the greatest risk for stalking. Many victims of stalking suffer financial difficulties due to missed work, having to move, or court costs.

In recent times, online stalking has become a frequent occurrence. Thus, many cyber stalking cases include elements of both computer crime and domestic violence.

Many stalkers are motivated by a desire to intimidate and exert control over their victims and engage in more than one types of behavior to accomplish this end. A cyber stalker might post offensive statements on public websites encouraging others to harass the victim, divulge sensitive information about the victim with the intention of humiliating or endangering her, or falsely claim to be married or intimate with the victim. A cyber stalker may also send manipulative, threatening, lewd or harassing emails from an assortment of email accounts. Cyber stalking is often committed in a psychological state of obsessive rage or lust, and can cause serious emotional distress to the victim who will usually feel deeply violated. Stalking can lead to an assault or even murder. 

Stalkers may also commit identity theft against victims – including taking money from bank accounts, charging purchases to a victim’s credit card, and hijacking email accounts. This can be very easy to do to a spouse, when passwords and account numbers have been shared in the past, but computer hacking or sabotage by an estranged spouse is also becoming a frequent occurrence, motivated by revenge, a desire to discover evidence of an affair, or to prevent a domestic abuse victim from getting help or support from the community. Electronic Privacy expert Frederick Lane says that about 45 percent of divorce cases involve some snooping — and gathering — of email, Facebook and other online material. For this reason it is important to change or secure all personal accounts before announcing a divorce or separation or even earlier, when domestic abuse or neglect becomes apparent.

Once a stalker has accessed your email account, he will have access to all your personal emails, past and future. He will also have access to any other accounts that are linked to that account such as Facebook, dating sites, yahoogroups and PayPal. He can send out emails or post on websites impersonating you, subscribe or unsubscribe you from mailing lists, or erase your contacts. One stalker even set up a firewall preventing his estranged wife from accessing the internet service she had paid for! A stalker may not change your password right away, in order to continue to monitor your personal life without your knowledge. But once he has changed your password, it will be nearly impossible for you to gain access to your own account unless you use a paid email service.

However, there are things you can do ahead of time to protect your privacy. Never ask anyone else to check your email for you. Install spyware software. Don’t use cyber cafes. Keep your passwords secret and change them often. Check your recovery information diligently, since this could be used to regain access to your password after you have changed it. Change the answers to your secret questions. Leo Notenboom suggests in an online advice column that the answers that you choose don’t have to match the questions (you might say your mother’s maiden name is “Microsoft”, for example). All that matters is that the answers that you give match the answers that you set here if you ever need to recover your account.

In 2011, a Michigan woman, Clara Walker brought felony charges against her ex-husband, Leon Walker for hacking into her private emails during their marriage, but in most cases cyber stalking is not treated as a criminal offense unless it includes threats of violence or sexual coercion, or is in violation of a previously existing restraining order.

Because of the difficulty of protecting citizens from stalking, police detectives strongly encourage spouses to seek a restraining order at the first sign of alarming behavior rather than waiting to see if things will calm down. However, divorce lawyers often advise otherwise, since resentment over restraining orders can get in the way of profitable negotiations and parental visits. It is often hard to predict how low someone would go to harass you and how long it will continue. 11% of victims are stalked for 5 years or more, according to US Bureau of Justice Statistics. However, the longer a victim waits after the first credible threat the harder it is to demonstrate immediate danger in order get a restraining order.

If harassment continues after you have asked the person to stop, contact the harasser’s Internet Service Provider (ISP). Most ISP’s have clear policies prohibiting the use of their services to abuse another person. Often, an ISP can try to stop the conduct by closing their account. If you receive abusive e-mails, identify the domain (after the “@” sign) and contact that ISP. Most ISP’s have an e-mail address such as abuse@(domain name) or postmaster@(domain name) that can be used for complaints.

Should We Boycott Israeli Art?

Sarah Gillespie started an interesting debate on deliberation.info with her article, “The BDS Cultural Boycott and Integrity.” BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. She opposes the call by the BDS to sabotage or ban any mode of expression delivered by state-enforced Israeli artists, musicians and thinkers because “art has the capacity to transcend the binary world of ‘placard politics’ (‘for’ this or ‘against’ that) and deliver the transforming might of pathos, spirit, sadness and beauty… We should boycott Israeli products, not art, spirit and ideas.”

While I share her reservations about why only Israeli-born Zionists are being boycotted, the inevitable ethical inconsistencies that arise in trying to avoid supporting any type of organized violence, especially when that would include boycotting one’s own country, and the funding by George Soros of the BDS movement, I disagree with her that “Art” is something that should never be boycotted.

Art is a luxury product. Jewish gift stores give a lot of legitimacy to Israel’s folk narrative by selling Israeli made handicrafts and clothes. People who shop there are usually buying those products in order to help support the financial existence of illegal settlers in Occupied Palestine.

Likewise, the Israeli government purposely promotes Israeli artists and musicians, considering them ambassadors for the legitimization of the Zionist State of Israel. The Shakespeare play shown in London, which Gillespie opposed boycotting, was not only funded by the State of Israel but was rewritten in order to generate more sympathy for the Jewish character, transforming it into a standard work of propaganda.

Boycotters make exceptions for those Jewish Israelis who are openly opposing Zionism, yet it would be ridiculous not to assume that all Israelis who are selling us products whether art or plastic storage boxes are participating in Zionism. In any case, they are paying taxes to the Israeli government and are at the very least in that way participating in genocide.

If we apply the same morals to Jews as we do to others, all Jews as a group, if they do not consciously defect from the Zionist racist movement, are guilty of participating in Zionist aggression, preventing public comment, or letting racist violence happen without comment.

It is quite standard to revile an artist or academic if he has ever been a member of any other racist organization.

For example, mainstream media consistently refers to former Congressman David Duke without his Doctor title as a way of belittling him, even though he has claimed that the KKK in his town was nothing more than a neighborhood organization. Nobody starts jumping up and down fuming at the mouth when someone condemns or boycotts a former member of the KKK, insisting, “But not all KKK members are violent!” Most people simply accept that the KKK is a purveyor of racist violence and try to avoid supporting it, even indirectly.

Yet we are asked to distinguish carefully between a non-violent Zionist and Zionism as a movement, even though all Israelis are required to serve in the Israeli military and are thus guilty of participating in organized crime.

The question of whether or not boycotting a theater production would ever end the Israeli state needs to be looked at in context of the American Jewish lobby. Any Palestinian poet who tried to book a show in New Jersey would automatically find himself canceled and playing outside the cafe in the street due to a deluge of angry phone calls from Zionist Jews, even if his poster had a picture of a dove on it.

It would probably be wise for more Americans to become similarly aggressive about getting Zionist performances cancelled. That way, the theater will learn to either avoid all controversial performances OR they will be forced to adopt a more balanced approach (for example showing both Palestinian and Israeli art productions). What happens when only Jews protest, the Jews get what they want while others just stew.

It is impossible to boycott entirely a country in which you live, but you can still make wisest choices about how to spend your money. I would only encourage a foreigner to spend money on American artists if I knew for sure that this artist’s world view supported something that person could morally accept. Paintings are a dime a dozen. If all you want is a pretty picture, frame a calendar photo. You should buy a painting because you are supporting a revolutionary movement – you want to give money to a particular artist because you want them to continue in their struggle for truth and beauty.

There are Israeli musicians and writers I support because they are outspoken anti-Zionists. But if some random Israeli musician was playing at my children’s elementary school I would oppose it, because that would be giving a public message that Israelis are cute and cuddly, that we should bond with them emotionally and give them our tax dollars and feel sorry for them because they are such good musicians.

The main idea behind a boycott is to delegitimize the fake Zionist narrative. There were a couple kids in my elementary school whose parents forbade them to participate in Israeli folk dances and it made long lasting impressions on their fellow students. At first we did not understand why these students opposed Israel, but eventually we figured it out.

One can only imagine with trepidation a world where no one ever spoke truth in the face of power and privilege.

Boston’s School Bussing Policy Unsustainable

Growing up in Ann Arbor, Michigan I often felt like I had a hard time making and keeping friendships. My immigrant parents who worked more than full time had no close community ties and were not particularly social, so I was basically on my own when it came to finding a group of peers to “hang out” with. However, due to the relatively small size of the town and neighborhood school placement, by Junior High, even without much parental supervision I was quite familiar to the neighborhood kids and had developed relationships that, thanks to Facebook, continue to this day.

My children growing up in Boston, Massachusetts are having a very different childhood.

I try to make an effort to get to know the parents of any child my children take a shine to, but keeping up the relationship however requires driving the children to and from play-dates, because the way Boston Public Schools are set up, students are chosen from remote neighborhoods to attend school. I have at times found myself in despair because even after four children, I have hardly any personal contact with neighborhood parents, while my children do not know anyone from school within walking distance to play with, despite the large number of children living in our area.

Personal alienation is a profound side effect of Boston’s historical bussing program that was instituted as a result of the Civil Rights movement. Instead of automatically going to a nearby school, all students regardless of family income are entered in a lottery to try for their “top choice” schools. Failing that, students are assigned almost randomly to schools throughout the city. While students within walking distance of a school receive some priority status there is no guarantee. I cannot even imagine the waste in gasoline costs. Not only are poor kids getting bussed into wealthier areas for school but wealthier kids are being bussed into poorer neighborhoods. There are even programs such as METCO, where children are bussed out into the suburbs in the interest of diversity.

In a Dorchester Reporter article entitled “School policy casts our children adrift,” Gintautas Dumcius describes a recent Committee on Education hearing at Boston City Hall. It included several families disgruntled with the current system. They all live within blocks of each other, but their children go to different schools. “I don’t, frankly, know many of them,” said Michael Harrington, a Dorchester parent of two, with a tinge of sadness. Parents reported that they must take their children each morning to several different bus stops to be brought to various schools many miles away. The situation is so intensely irritating that parents who can afford it have been moving to the suburbs or putting their children in private schools.

Karen Johnson, who relocated her family from Pittsburgh to Boston, said if she had a chance to do it all over again, she would probably not have moved into the city. “I’m unhappy with the structure of the system and that children have to move [between schools] so often.”

“I think all of this testimony spoke to the need for massive reform,”

City Councillor At-Large John Connolly said after the five hour hearing. “…The current system leaves parents greatly frustrated and the Dorchester panel also spoke to the fact that it leaves neighbors not knowing each other or not able to bond together the way they’d like to.”

Mayor Thomas Menino has pledged to launch a “radically different” school placement system, with students being able to go to schools in their neighborhood, by next year.

There is a task force assigned to the duty of overhauling the school assignment policies.

My own personal experience with Boston Public Schools has actually been quite positive. Placement in Kindergarten for my youngest can be expected to take up to three years in Boston due to not enough available seats for willing students, but one wonderful new development, part of the School Readiness program, is the parent-child Playgroups opportunity for parents and children 1 and up. Another great thing for my family is the expansion of my children’s elementary school into a middle school, thus enabling my children to keep their friendships through eighth grade.

But the best policy of all for my children so far has been the Exam School policy of Boston Public Schools. Students on the Honor Roll in third and fourth grade are put into the “Advanced Work Program,” special class assignments likely to result in placement at one of three prestigious public prep schools. Boston Latin School, where my son now attends seventh grade, is actually the oldest public school in America, and was attended by the likes of Benjamin Franklin and other founders of the United States.

So, although the general state of Boston Public Schools remains perhaps not much more than a government-funded daycare center for working parents, for those students who want to learn, and are willing to work, there are very real opportunities, and I am deeply grateful for that.

Neighborhood organizations like “Thrive in 5” combine the efforts of several government and donor sponsored organizations to help unite isolated parents with available aid, but ultimately I think the best way to introduce families to one another is to re-institute neighborhood school assignments so that parents can organize themselves to get the funding they need for whatever they want to see happen locally.

People’s Lawyer Goes to Jail

by TMO 

By Karin Friedemann, TMO

File:  Attorney Barry Wilson.

Boston–“The fiery attorney who represented former Boston city councilor Chuck Turner in his bribery trial is now headed to jail himself,” the Boston Globe reports.

Superior Court Judge Patrick Brady sentenced famed “people’s lawyer” Barry Wilson to 90 days in the South Bay House of Correction in Boston for contempt of court for being “loud, abusive, insulting and disruptive.”

On May 15, 2012, Wilson was escorted off to jail in front of a courthouse crowded with his supporters.

Attorney Wilson was attempting to ensure that his client, a 22-year-old African-American man on trial for his life, had a jury of his peers in a first degree murder trial. Wilson protested when the prosecutor struck off all young people and people of African-American descent from serving on the jury. Wilson then “went ballistic” after the judge then empaneled a white man who had worked many years for Homeland Security. David Boeri of WBUR reports that Wilson’s “pyrotechnics” went on for six minutes.

“You’re going to sit him. Lock me up now. Just lock me up, lock me up and declare a mistrial,” Wilson ranted. “That’s ridiculous. Fifteen years a federal agent and he’s going to be unbiased — are you kidding me?”

As Wilson strongly objected, the judge found him in contempt. The Judge then stayed the sentence until completion of the trial and ordered Attorney Wilson to proceed. As a result, Wilson said he was under the sword during the whole trial and therefore distracted from defending his client fully.

Two days after the jury found the defendant guilty of first degree murder, Judge Brady sentenced Attorney Wilson to ninety days in jail.

Barry Wilson has a 36 year long history of defending political activists, labor organizers, immigrants and minorities. He was lead counsel in the Plymouth 25, Marcus Jean and Amer Jubran cases, the first lawyer for the Boston School Bus Drivers, Steelworkers Local 8751 in the 1970s, and counsel for framed African-American City Councilor Chuck Turner. Wilson served six months in federal prison in 1985 for refusing to violate attorney-client privilege.

According to Wilson’s lawyer, Judge Brady had dropped “a nuclear bomb” without warning, “chilling the advocacy” of defense attorneys.

Associate Appeals Court Justice David Mills, in reviewing Wilson’s alleged misconduct, considered it a clear breach of decorum. “He screamed at the judge and made a scene,” Mills said.

“All I’m trying to do is stand up for my clients’ rights,” Wilson said. “You got to be in those pits to understand what you have to do.

You’re standing between your client and a jail cell. And you have an ethical, professional obligation to be a zealous advocate.”

On Thursday May 3, 2012, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied Attorney Wilson’s motion for further appellate review, thus upholding the Court of Appeal’s March 20, 2012 decision denying Attorney Wilson’s appeal. The Appeals Court called Wilson’s conduct “without parallel” in a 21-page rebuke.

During the contempt hearing, Wilson was defiant.

“Mr. Wilson, your behavior before me two weeks ago was atrocious,” said Suffolk Superior Court Judge Patrick Brady, calling Wilson’s conduct “the worst I’ve seen in 20 years on the bench.”

“I don’t think my conduct was egregious or out of line in terms of what occurred in court,” the criminal defense attorney replied to the judge in his well-known booming voice. “In 2011 an African-American man cannot get a fair trial.”

“Wilson has a right to his own opinions but he has no right to interrupt the proceedings and turn the courtroom into a platform from which to hurl disrespectful words at the judge and the criminal justice system because he did not agree with the judge’s ruling,” the Appeals Court concluded.

“This flagrantly reactionary repression — which comes from the same poisoned well that jailed people’s lawyer Lynne Stewart (who represented the blind Shaykh Omar Rahman) — is designed to send a threatening message to the progressive movement and to all defense lawyers who stand with it,” comments Kirshbaum in Workers World.

Larry Pinkney writes on BlackCommentator.com, “On February 10th, 2005, attorney Lynne Portia Stewart, after having been targeted for many years by the US Government for her vigorous defense of the rights of Black and other people of color, found herself convicted of a despicably and conspicuously bogus ‘conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism’ charge.”

This was “an obvious attempt by the U.S. government to silence dissent, curtail vigorous defense lawyers, and install fear in those who would fight against the U.S. government’s racism,” state her supporters.

Prior to sentencing, Stewart wrote a letter to the judge pleading for mercy: “What might have been legitimately tolerated in 2000-2001, was after 9/11, interpreted differently and considered criminal… The government disparages the idea of zealous advocacy because it has never practiced criminal defense law as I did, with heartfelt concern for my clients. I tested the limits of what the courts and law would allow for my clients because I believed I was, as criminal defense lawyers often say, “liberty’s last champion.”

Unfortunately the rules of ethics have moved away from excusing zealous or intemperate behavior and language. 90 days in the county jail for Wilson still seems quite extraordinary, when the customary penalty for an attorney’s contempt of court is normally a fine, but jail time for zealous attorneys seems to be occurring more frequently, especially in political cases.

Michigan criminal defense attorney Scott Milliard found himself in jail for four days after being held in contempt by District Court Judge Kenneth Post because he told a client at arraignment not to answer the judge’s questions about personal drug use because the client might incriminate himself.

Kentucky attorney Amelia Adams got 6 months in jail after she refused to disclose to District Judge Karem the name of her 17 year old client who had sought permission from the court to have an abortion without her parent’s consent.

Wilson told his supporters, “I’ll go do my 90 days, I’ll smile through the whole 90 days. I’ll go out the way I came in… No I don’t regret anything. I did what I was supposed to do.”
Wilson plans to retire after he does his time. “I’m gone,” Wilson says. “I don’t want any more part of this. Why would I want to do this job any more and be surrounded by judges who are idiots? I legitimized a bankrupt system, and I was very good at it. I achieved everything I ever wanted.”

2012 Olympics the Year of Muslim Women

 TMO 

By Karin Friedemann, TMO

The 2012 Olympics promises to be an exciting year for Muslim women athletes as well as anyone and  everyone who enjoys debating women’s rights issues. There is controversy, there are lovely ladies, and an observant public. We will probably be hearing a lot more from the media in the coming weeks.

Muslim women athletes are in many ways stuck between a rock and a hard place: between a religious orthodoxy that generally frowns upon young women being seen in the public eye and the West, which frowns upon the covering of women.

The pressure is on, as Human Rights Watch has suggested that if Saudi Arabia will not support the participation of women in the Olympics, the Olympics should not support the participation of Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabian newscaster Reema Abdullah has been chosen as one of the torch-bearers at the 2012 London Games.

The big fuss over Muslim women’s participation in the Olympics invites the question of why more Muslim women do not participate in sports.

Farah Jassat reports in the Guardian, UK: Cultural barriers to participation were recently highlighted in Saudi Arabia, when the country refused to allow Saudi women to compete in the Olympics. The institutional barrier, by contrast, can be seen in International Federation of Association Football ban on women wearing hijab. The Iranian women’s football team could not complete their 2012 Olympic second-round qualifying match against Jordan because they refused to remove their headscarves.

Muslim Women’s Sport Foundation, based in the UK, strongly believes that faith and sport for both genders are entirely compatible and that the culture of sport is an essential part of Islamic history. Since its establishment in 2001 MWSF has been at the forefront of encouraging physical activity amongst women from British ethnic-minority communities. Offering female only athletic sessions has helped to address cultural sensitivities and provide opportunities where more Muslim women feel comfortable in enjoying sport. MWSF even allows mothers to bring their kids along to training sessions.

This leads us to an important point: Participation of women of any age in physical fitness, regardless of religion, is often curtailed by childcare responsibilities. This is most unfortunate, since the only way for women to “reclaim” their bodies after childbirth is through regular physical exercise. American researchers report that the main obstacle to female exercise is sheer exhaustion from raising children and keeping house, in addition to earning income. There is no way for a mother to attend an aerobics class, run a few blocks, or even go into a private room to do some stretches unless at least one family member is willing to step up to take care of the children for some time to support the desire of the mother to get some exercise. Even those families who cite their total dependence on the mother as their reason for her lack of privacy should be aware that she is likely to be around a lot longer if she has access to some free time to work out.

Salma Bi, a cricketer and umpire believes “the main challenge is the support of the family.”

“It is much harder to excel in anything if your loved ones don’t understand why it’s important to you,” notes Jassat.

MWSF’s International Sportswoman of the Year, Ibtihaj Muhammad is an American sabre fencer who has made the last two US World Championship teams and ranked second in the US. She hopes to be the first Muslim woman representing the US in the Olympics in any sport whilst wearing hijab. Although she has said it is “extremely difficult being different in the sports world – be it for religion or race…” she also concludes, “I would never fence if it compromised who I am and my religion – I love that the two work together.”

Another bright shining star hopeful is the Malaysian rifle shooter Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi, who will be well into her pregnancy at the time of her Olympic competition. She will be the fourth woman to compete in the Olympics while pregnant. The first was Swedish figure skater Magda Julin in 1920, the second was German skeleton racer Diane Sartor in 2006 and the third was Kristie Moore, a Canadian curler in 2010.

Suryani told Reuters, “I feel I am strong and my husband says ‘as long as you feel like that, energized to do that, it seems like that is your baby talking to you so you go.’” Malaysia’s best shooter will however not be competing in the 50m competition, even though she achieved the qualifying marks. “Yeah, I cannot do a prone position with this big stomach,” she said.

The accomplishments of Muslim women athletes are guaranteed to be a source of inspiration for the wider community, states David Bernstein, President of Level Playing Field and Chair of the Centre for Access to Football in Europe.

The world is watching, regardless of anyone’s opinion on the matter.

The best we can hope for is that our sisters will make us proud with their excellent performances at the 2012 Olympics, because no matter how they rank in their sport, they are showing us what is possible in this decade of history.

Methodists Vote on Israel-Palestine Question

On May 2, 2012, the United Methodist Church held their annual General Assembly in Tampa, Florida, where they voted on the issue of divestment from the State of Israel for its treatment of Palestinians by boycotting companies such as Caterpillar, Hewlett Packard, and Motorola, who profit from the Israeli Occupation. The New York Times reported that:

“After an afternoon of impassioned debate and several votes, the delegates overwhelmingly passed a more neutral resolution calling for ‘positive’ investment to encourage economic development ‘in Palestine.’

“However, the Methodists also passed a strongly worded resolution denouncing the Israeli occupation and the settlements, and calling for ‘all nations to prohibit the import of products made by companies in Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.’”

Susanne Hoder, a Methodist from Rhode Island and a spokeswoman for a group for divestment, the United Methodist Kairos Response said that even though at the General Assembly,  divestment was defeated by a 2-to-1 ratio in two separate votes, four geographic regions of the Methodist Church — Northern Illinois, California Pacific, New York and West Ohio — had already voted to pull out their own investments. “We expect that more United Methodist conferences will do this,” she said.

The Presbyterian Church USA will also hold a similar vote at their upcoming conference in June. In 2004, the Presbyterians voted for divestment but voted against it at their next general assembly two years later.

Many are disappointed and frustrated by such wishy-washy positions and watering down of perfectly reasonable, non-violent approaches to defeating injustice, resulting in statements of support without any meaningful action towards supporting justice.

Sadly and predictably, 2 out of 3 Methodists succumbed to the twisted logic of 1,200 rabbis accusing them of “singling out” Israel for criticism, warning that supporting divestment would “damage the relationship between Jews and Christians.” This overused lobbying tactic nearly always triggers instant shame and self-questioning in White Christians, for cultural reasons that have long passed their time of relevancy.

Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was a leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa responded strongly to the pro-Israel rabbis’ tainting of the divestment efforts in an article published in the Tampa Bay Times:

“While they are no doubt well-meaning, I believe that the rabbis and other opponents of divestment are sadly misguided. My voice will always be raised in support of Christian-Jewish ties and against the anti-Semitism that all sensible people fear and detest. But this cannot be an excuse for doing nothing and for standing aside as successive Israeli governments colonize the West Bank and advance racist laws.

“I recall well the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail in which he confesses to his “Christian and Jewish brothers” that he has been “gravely disappointed with the white moderate … who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action;’ who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom. …”

On a brighter note, the resolution that passed voiced support to “end all military aid to the region.”

Jewish Voices For Peace was unsurprisingly the most active group pushing for divestment, along with the interfaith group Fellowship of Reconciliation. While they failed to convince the Methodists that “divestment from the Israeli occupation is neither anti-Semitic nor anti-Jewish,” important lessons were learned by the outreach experience.

One thing that became clear to activists was that the targeted companies are fully aware and unrepentant of their role in aiding Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. Thus, they can move forward now with clear certainty that there is no point in further negotiating with these corporations.

JVP reported that the General Secretary of the General Board of Church and Society of the UMC, Jim Winkler, recently stated:

“As someone who has been involved in the discussions by UM agencies and ecumenical partners with Caterpillar for six years, I would like to share critical issues we have repeatedly raised with the company.

Regrettably, in all of these meetings, including one last week, Caterpillar has told us it has no intention to change any of its business practices relating to the occupied Palestinian territories.”

Another important development in the struggle for justice is that what was once considered “unthinkable” is now being spoken. Tutu writes:

“If we do not achieve two states in the near future, then the day will certainly arrive when Palestinians move away from seeking a separate state of their own and insist on the right to vote for the government that controls their lives, the Israeli government, in a single, democratic state.”

There are still those who would recoil from the idea of Palestinian and Israeli sharing a land in equality as “antisemitism,” but within the American political context this is a pretty uncomfortable position to maintain. For this reason, opponents of equality have worked hard to stifle debate by reframing the issues using emotional language and veiled threats.

White churches have a lot to lose by upsetting the status quo, while Black churches usually have more pressing local concerns. Church involvement in the divestment movement, even if totally supportive, would be more symbolic than effective for major change. However, it is vital to continue to bring the debate into the general American public in these and various other ways.

Decisive Muslim Voting in France

The Muslim Observer

President Sarkozy Voted out, 93% of Muslims vote for Hollande

By Karin Friedemann, TMO

Outgoing French President Nicolas Sarkozy (R) and newly-elected President Francois Hollande attend a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe to commemorate the end of World War II in Paris May 8, 2012. REUTERS/Lionel Bonaventure/Pool

France: Via La Vie:According to a poll by Opinion Way and Fiducial for Le Figaro, 93% of Muslims voted for Hollande.  7% voted for Sarkozy.

The poll was conducted May 6th among 1000 voters. According to the polling agency, there are about 2 million Muslim voters. 59% of Muslims voted for Hollande in the first round.  23% voted for  Jean-Luc Melenchon (Left Front) and 7% voted for François Bayrou (Democratic Movement).  Sarkozy got 4% of the Muslim vote in the first round.

Socialist challenger Francois Hollande defeated incumbent Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy by a relatively narrow margin on Sunday, May 6 to become the next French president for a five-year term. It was the first election where French Muslims, who comprise over 5% of the population, were called out to vote. Therefore, it is assumed that Sarkozy’s anti-Muslim rhetoric cost him the election. Hollande got 51.8 percent of votes compared with 48.2 percent for Sarkozy. Hollande’s election campaign bears similarities to the Obama election campaign in the US, where the winning candidate shrugged off Muslim support while antagonists painted him with sinister accusations of being in league with Muslims.

Tareq Ramadan, an imam in Geneva, Switzerland, became a topic of debate for his opinion on the French elections, and was accused of influencing the Muslim vote. Ramadan replied: “When I attack Nicolas Sarkozy, I’m taking on the government, the establishment. As for the Socialist Party, I also regret that it has abandoned its ideals. I hold both the mainstream French political parties responsible for the rise of the National Front.

”Canada’s Globe and Mail reports: “Imams and Islamic associations are calling on Muslims to do their duty as citizens and go to the polls.

And while they’re not officially endorsing anyone, the call itself is a bold move in a country where statistics on religious affiliation are formally banned and where secularism is enshrined in the constitution.

Experts say that Muslims in poor neighborhoods and Muslim youth tend to vote for the left. But the Muslim vote is diverse, and Muslims have tended in the past to avoid politics. Kamel Kabtane, the rector of the Lyon mosque, who was among a group of imams at some 30 mosques in southeast France pressing Muslims to vote, said, “By this initiative, we want to show that Muslims aren’t citizens of the second zone … They can vote for whom they want but be present in the voting booth.”

“I want to condemn the conniving and irresponsible attitude of the Socialist Party and its candidate after religious leaders belonging to a network of 700 mosques called on followers to vote for Francois Hollande,” Eric Ciotti, lawmaker of Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party, said in a press release cited by The National newspaper on Sunday, April 29. In the first round of elections, the most extreme right-wing candidate, the National Front’s Marine Le Pen, won over 25% of the vote, “sending shock-waves around France.” The National Front platform is comparable to the American Tea Party, with its platform against globalism, immigrants, and government social services. Incumbent President Nicholas Sarkozy adopted these right-wing attitudes in an effort to win NF votes for his re-election but was perceived as hypocritical by the truly conservative. Therefore Sarkozy won neither the left nor right, but he did win the hearts of the Israelis. 92.8% of French Jews in Israel with dual citizenship voted for Sarkozy.

The whole concept of Muslims voting as a block was so inflammatory that the head of the Grand Mosque of Paris, Dalil Boubakeur said such calls to vote are dangerous because they risk dragging a religion into politics, and “I refuse it.” However, other Paris imams encouraged Muslims to vote, including Mohamed Saleh Hamza who heads the northern Paris mosque where, until last fall, the faithful spilled into the street to pray because crowds had grown too big to fit inside. Muslims “have a tendency not to vote. Now, we’re telling them that they are full citizens,” Mr. Hamza said.“ They’re not organized yet, but that will come.”The election was highly contentious and often bitter, but the newSocialist president is expected to take office May 15. Hollande says he will make the rich pay more tax and will improve the lot for workers and the less well-off. He also says he will take initiatives on a number of social issues, but it is still unclear how far he can go and how these will be financed. The new president has also vowed to withdraw French troops from Afghanistan before the end of 2012.

Policy in the Middle East is unlikely to change radically with Hollande, as this is an area where there are no major disagreements between right and left. Like the Conservatives, the Socialists have close ties with Israel and these are likely to be unaffected by the new regime. By American standards, Hollande is unlikely to be perceived as minority-friendly. He says he would not allow separate menus in public cafeterias or separate hours in swimming pools for men and women to satisfy demands of the Muslim community. Hollande had said that if he is elected president, “I will apply the law” on face veils. In a country where horse pate is standard fair in supermarkets, the French indignation against halal meat may seem extreme to the casual observer.

Americans may take note of the drama and decide for themselves, but in general,  American norms of civil rights and religious freedom far exceed the existing situation for Muslims in France.

Iraq’s Radiation: Not Going Away

By Karin Friedemann, The Muslim Observer

A depleted Uranium shell

According to Al Jazeera, the Pentagon used more than 300 tons of depleted uranium in Iraq in 1991. In 2003, the US military used more than 1,000 tons. In 2010, depleted uranium contamination was reported to be the highest on record, yet by 2012 continuing documentation has still not resulted in any action by the US or any other responsible party towards environmental clean-up.

An April 13, 2012 article by Karlos Zurutuza published by Global Research quotes hospital spokesman Nadim al-Hadidi saying:

“At Fallujah hospital they cannot offer any statistics on children born with birth defects – there are just too many. Parents don’t want to talk. Families bury their newborn babies after they die without telling anyone. It’s all too shameful for them.”

Relief organizations such as LIFE for Relief and Development escorted several US Congressmen on a tour of Iraqi hospitals in 2002, which often had no electricity nor sterile equipment, where women too weak from hunger to give birth had to receive C-sections by candlelight without anesthetic on beds without sheets. The horror show often reached its climax when the baby was born looking grotesque. When the sympathetic Congresspeople spoke up, the US government arrested relief workers and peace activists from several organizations for the crime of breaking US sanctions.

Back then, there was already documentation of Iraqi babies being born with bizarre deformations such as hands growing out of shoulders without arms, which were also found to occur in the offspring of US veterans who had served in Iraq. None of this came as a surprise to the US Army.

In a report published in 1990, before Operation Desert Storm, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) reported that:

“Short-term effects of high doses can result in death, while long-term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer,” and

“Aerosol DU exposures to soldiers on the battlefield could be significant with potential radiological and toxicological effects.”

None of this is new information, but a recent photo circulated on Facebook shows infant deformations in Iraq that are so horrific that I was asked to stop “traumatizing” my friends after I posted the photo.

Many babies born dead in Iraq today do not even resemble a human being. My Facebook friend told me she doesn’t want to see it and doesn’t want to think about it ever again. This was the first time she had ever heard of this problem.

My outrage, if fully expressed, would be a howling scream filling every corner of the earth. How dare anyone do this to women? Or refuse to care? How come, after over 20 years, no one is working to fix this problem? I have lost so many friends over the years, trying to educate them, and yet our popular culture continues to condemn Nazi Germans as the worst people who ever lived, because they went about their normal lives, oblivious to the atrocities of their government. The Nazis are accused of having performed scientific experiments on humans. Yet when I spoke up in college German history class, saying, “You ask, ‘How could they?’ How could you?” I just received a roomful of blank stares.

After WWII, the victorious party (America) took responsibility for rebuilding the defeated party (Germany). This was considered vital for preserving the world economy. Projected temperature for Wednesday in Baghdad is 103 degrees. Before we discuss universal health care for Americans, we need to discuss the clean-up of Iraq.

The radioactivity situation in Iraq is much worse than in Japan after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Each atomic bomb created a huge blast that killed over 100,000 people within eight weeks, one third of them dying within one day. Infants conceived within that eight week period were found with birth defects but no genetic damage was discovered after the blasts.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings, an exhaustive Japanese study, published in English in 1981 claims that most of the radioactive debris was carried off in the mushroom cloud and not embedded in the earth. By contrast, the relatively low-level radiation caused by the use of depleted uranium artillery and tanks has become part of the air, rain and dust, sickening the Iraqi people without killing them immediately. Because the victims die one at a time, there are no headline news stories. Yet even in the early 1990’s there were reports of farmers’ fields strewn with bullets where nothing would grow, and children dying after playing with bullet casings. Relief organizations’ concerns were casually dismissed by Hillary Clinton at a meeting during her husband’s presidency. Like Madeleine Albright, she felt that the deaths of Iraqi children were “worth it.”

The way the US treats Iraqi people is worse than they treated the Black slaves, who at least were considered useful. The US has intentionally destroyed the future of more than one country. This is why getting our government to make the reparations necessary for a true peace will be difficult. The good news is that we now have Facebook, Twitter, and alternative news websites to bring the horrible news to people’s bedrooms and living rooms. In the 1990’s, political activists had to rely on subscription-only email lists and photocopied flyers. We now have the technology to go beyond preaching to the choir.

Many of us are exhausted from the relentlessness of international news reports of evil in the world. After subjecting ourselves to twenty or more years of sleepless nights, some of us are ready to say, “I tried,” and hand the heavy responsibility of knowledge to the next generation. Yet, our children cannot save the world without our guidance.

The problem of radioactive contamination is not going to go away by itself. Those who are interested in scientific experiments should embrace the very real challenge of cleaning up Iraq’s depleted uranium. It’s something no human generation has ever had to do before, and will require some very smart thinking individuals to come up with a plan.