Stopping the Torture Business in Our Hometowns

from this URL: here Council of Europe: Ireland, stop US torture flights

Reposting a condensed version of "An Interview With Christina Cowger of North Carolina Stop Torture" - from Dissident Voice dot org February 1, 2007 (Although this item is several years old - the progress in our states to end torture and torture renditions is as slow as a Soap Opera...Therefore - there's a lot of current relevance here although if you are a journalist you will of course benefit from updates.)

INTERVIEWER: ...As most readers know, this program involves kidnapping, detaining and transporting individuals considered the enemy to prisons around the world where they are then tortured and kept incommunicado for months and years...What follows is the transcript of an email interview with Raleigh, NC resident and long-time peace and justice activist Christina Cowger, who serves as the group's coordinator.

Q: ...How long have you been around?...

Christina Cowger: North Carolina Stop Torture Now (NC STN) began work in the fall of 2005. That was when activists from St. Louis brought the issue of extraordinary rendition to our attention...

Without Aero Contractors and similar CIA front companies, rendition literally wouldn't "get off the ground." Aero uses publicly funded airport facilities in North Carolina as a launching pad to help the CIA kidnap and torture people in various parts of the world. Once we realized this, we couldn't ignore it. NC STN is a grassroots coalition of educators, peace and human rights activists, people of faith, students, and working people. We're not particularly affiliated with any church or other group. Active in our ranks are people from the ACLU, Amnesty International, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, the Catholic Worker movement, CodePink, the Green Party, the North Carolina Council of Churches, Peace Action, Quaker House, Unitarian Universalist congregations, and various other faith groups.

We started in the Triangle area, and have built (many other)connections...

Q: What compelled your group to take on the issue of torture in Guantanamo and other prisons around the world set up for that purpose?

CC: The story of Khaled El-Masri...To paraphrase journalist Mark Danner, even if it could be shown that torture was effective, it's immoral...Further, CIA-sponsored torture fuels the hatred of people all over the world for the U.S. and its allies, which increases instability and makes everyone less safe. What's wrong with rendition is not just that most of the victims are tortured, although that's bad enough. Rendition means "disappearing" people and detaining them indefinitely, outside the rule of law.

Q: Can you provide the readers with an outline of how you understand the renditions process to work?

CC: Briefly, since 9/11 the rendition program was transformed into a large-scale campaign to detain and interrogate those targeted in the U.S. "war on terror" -- clandestinely and outside U.S. and international law. Stephen Grey's book Ghost Plane provides a meticulously documented account of rendition and its antecedents under Clinton.

A typical rendition begins with an...executive jet taking off from (an) Airport...serviced and piloted by a crew from Aero Contractors (or another contractor with) a long history with the CIA. The plane might stop near Washington, D.C., to take on a CIA "snatch" team. The next stop would be in Europe to refuel, and then on to a city in Europe or the Middle East, where the CIA team kidnaps the suspect directly, or accepts custody...from local police agents. Dressed and masked in black, the CIA team beats, strips, searches, and binds the prisoner, drugs him with an anal suppository, and then flies him with Aero Contractors' help to a foreign jail.

Many of these detainees have been thrown into notorious jails... where conditions are inhumane and torture is brutal....there is no due process, no habeas corpus, no communication with family for months and even years.

Q: To your knowledge, is the United States still involved in renditions and torture?

CC: President Bush claimed in his September 6, 2006, speech that the "black sites" had been emptied, and their inmates rendered to Guantanamo. As Stephen Grey points out, this begs the question of what happened to the hundreds of detainees who entered the rendition system and remain missing.

The Military Commissions Act, passed by a gutless Congress before the 2006 fall elections, gave Bush a significant victory. Under the MCA, if you are declared an enemy combatant, you lose your habeas corpus rights. This is true whether or not you are a U.S. citizen, although it will no doubt be applied mainly to non-citizens. Given this victory, we guess that Bush and the CIA feel emboldened to continue the extraordinary rendition program. Of course, it is difficult to confirm this directly. (this blogger's note - this is continuing as well under Obama.)

Q: What is the role of private business in this process? Who pays them? What role does the CIA play, if any? The reason I ask that is because this all reminds me of the Air America saga in Vietnam and Laos and Southern Air Transport in Nicaragua -- both front corporations for the CIA.

CC: In fact, Aero Contractors was founded by a former chief pilot of Air America, Jim Rhyne, in the late 1970s. According to Stephen Grey in Ghost Plane (p 125-126), Aero pilots have flown "both declared and undeclared missions for the drug war in Colombia, helped supply the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, and had taken weapons and food to the UNITA rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi, in Angola."

(CC mentions a much larger network which includes Premier Executive Transport Services in Dedham, MA; Devon Holding and Leasing; and a variety of other company names.)

...As Grey explains, the point of having these civilian fronts is "to have a 'cutout' -- a trail that would lead an investigator to a brass plate by a lawyer's office entrance, but no farther."

In Portland, Oregon, a retired political science professor named Michael Munk has challenged one of these fronts, Bayard Foreign Marketing. At his urging, the Oregon Bar Association is investigating...

I should mention that, in addition to shell companies, other better-known companies also profit from rendition. For example, Boeing has a subsidiary called Jeppesen International Trip Planning that plans the rendition flights for the CIA. Activists in San Jose, where Jeppesen is headquartered, have been protesting: Act Against Torture and South Bay Mobilization -- tel: (408)998-8504.

Q: What can you tell us about the attempt by some North Carolina state legislators to get that state's Bureau of Investigation to investigate...? What caused these legislators to take an interest in this issue?

CC: In addition to generating media coverage to help expose Aero and rendition, we went to North Carolina's Governor Mike Easley (D) early on. We met with his Chief of Staff and provided extensive background information. One of our main points was that North Carolina taxpayers are in essence hosting a "torture taxi." In addition to its corporate HQ at the Johnston County Airport, Aero is also a tenant at the Global TransPark (GTP) in Kinston, where it houses a Boeing 737 tied to many rendition flights. The GTP is a publicly supported economic development project.

Governor Easley put the matter to an old friend and legal advisor, Andy Vanore, who told us he advised the Governor to do exactly nothing. Mr. Vanore's reasoning was, literally, that President Bush and North Carolina's Republican Senators all said the U.S. does not torture. Sure enough, Governor Easley took Mr. Vanore's advice, and did nothing.

(left out large section here where CC carefully chronicles how other top officials "did nothing" as well.)

(CC continuing) We expect that more leaders of our state's political, religious, and legal communities will become concerned and speak out against North Carolina hosting a "torture taxi."

Q: What is (the contractor's) suspected role? How did people discover this role? What kind of charges can be brought against them should the investigation find anything?

CC: ...to maintain and equip the planes, and supply the pilots and flight crews for the rendition flights. Their role was uncovered by journalists using information from planespotters -- people who hang out near airports with binoculars, writing down planes' tail numbers, and then publish this information on the Web.

(CC here also lists how other information is found out.)

Steven Edelstein, an attorney familiar with the Aero case, has pointed out that, under North Carolina law, an agreement to commit an unlawful act is a conspiracy. If a person who is part of the agreement flies a plane or orders another to fly a plane within the jurisdiction of the State of North Carolina, then that person may be guilty of a conspiracy to commit a felony or a misdemeanor. It is not necessary that the unlawful act (e.g., the kidnapping) take place within the State of North Carolina.

The unlawful crimes are numerous. First-degree kidnapping, felonious restraint, and false imprisonment are a few of the substantive offenses. In addition, there are a myriad of assault violations.

North Carolina law also requires anyone in charge of a state agency, such as the Global TransPark where Aero maintains a hangar in Kinston, to report possible criminal violations to the State Bureau of Investigation.

Q: What do you hope to see as the outcome of this action against Aero?

CC: ... Aero(and other contractors are) only one piece of an extensive torture network that includes many private contractors and perhaps portions of our military apparatus. It's probably not an accident that Aero is located so close to Ft. Bragg in Fayetteville, NC. We are in the process of researching other Carolina torture connections, and plan to issue a report this year.

Our task is really to arouse widespread public opposition to extra-legal and abusive treatment of prisoners, including torture. We are just part of a broader national movement to rein in rendition. As a movement, we need to uproot the torture network, and build support for human rights at home and abroad.

Local efforts to expose and shut down the front companies...would be helped by hearings in the U.S. House and Senate... We need to ensure that such hearings occur, that they are extensive and public, and that the private contractor issue is fully aired. We encourage everyone to contact the Judiciary Committee office, phone 202-224-7703) and (concerned legislators.)...

CC: The web addresses for Bay Area anti-Jeppesen activists are given above. To support anti-Bayard efforts in the Portland, Oregon, area, email us at stoptortureflights@riseup.net and we can put you in touch. The Bill of Rights Defense Committee is a national organization, and their activists are also working specifically on the CIA front called Premier Executive Transport Services in Dedham, MA (See BORDC dot org)...

CC: North Carolina Stop Torture Now has a website. No matter where you live, you can add your voice to the call for North Carolina authorities to investigate.

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Planes which have allegedly been used for Torture Renditions here

500 balloons launched from Ramallah in honor of child prisoners

July 28, 2009 Electronic Intifada

500 balloons launched from Ramallah in honor of child prisoners

Ramallah – Ma’an – Balloons representing the nearly 350 minors being kept in Israeli prisons were released during a demonstration in Ramallah on Tuesday

Each carried the name of a current or former child prisoner detained by Israeli forces.

The 500 green, red, black and white balloons were released from the Al-Manara circle in the center of Ramallah in a protest organized by the families of prisoners.

Mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters of the detained minors held pictures of their loved ones. One mother, Um Muhammad, said she had not seen her son for more than two years because Israeli security refused her permission to travel and visit the detention facility.

Another mother, Umm Ibrahim, said she had been able to visit her son, but found the experience horrifying, “We are insulted and humiliated by Israeli soldiers and inspectors during visits to prison, and sometimes they deny us access arbitrarily,” she said.

Our truest poems and inner-visions show "The Way"

"...'Tis from the poet's Sinai that Beauty's beams arise...

Sea and land are hidden within the poet's water and clay


A hundred new worlds are concealed in the poet-heart.

Ere tulips blossomed in the poet-brain
there was heard no note of joy or grief.

...amidst who's darkness is the Fountain of Life:
All things that exist are made more living by the poet's tears...

The poet invites the whole world to this table...

Another poet's mirror who shows beauty as ugliness...
Who's kiss robs the rose of freshness,
Who takes from the nightingale the joy of flying...
Who's magic says that death is life...
Who plunges thee in a sea of thought...
Who's garden is a mirage...
Who's beauty has no dealings with truth...
Our fire was quenched by such breath...

Where is the love whose fire is extinct,
A love that was born in the Holy Place and died in the house of idols?
Oh if thou hast the coin of poesy in thy purse,
Rub it on the touchstone of Life!

Clear-seeing thought shows the way to action,
As the lightning-flash precedes the thunder...


Thou has gathered roses from the garden of Persia
And seen the springtide of India and Iran:


Now taste a little of the heat of the desert...

Build a nest on the high mountains,

A nest embosomed in lightning and thunder...
That thou mayst be fit for Life's battle,
That thy body and soul may burn in Life's fire!"

sunset of rakaposhi

Excerpted from -The Secrets of the Self- by Muhammad Iqbal on the true nature of poetry (some small liberty to lend gender and the poet universal)

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"...love (for the "other") is rooted in the 'deep river' of faith:

It may twist and turn, fall back on itself and start again, stumble over an infinite series of hindering rocks, but at last the river must answer the call to the sea."
Howard Thurman, American Mystic

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Another type of "poet" is the clear-seeker of the True Self's state:

"The first serving of any punishing wish or act towards another always goes to the one who dishes it out!"

From "The Secret Teaching of the Ages"

It is impossible to change the relationship that you have with the world around you without changing the relationship that you have in yourself, with yourself. Before you can become the kind of human being who never again hurts another -- either in thought or deed -- you must change the relationship you have with yourself.

This is the secret teaching of the ages. Inside of it, we learn about the necessity for a new kind of mind. We learn about the possibility of a world within ourselves that is presently guarded...we have yet to scale the depths of our own ignorance.


We refuse to understand the pain that our own ignorance causes. We refuse to recognize that it's impossible for us to have the pain we have with other people without ourselves being a participant in it...we refuse the beautiful lessons that life brings to us, and instead of going through the transformation they are intended to produce for us, we become individuals who simply wrap ourselves deeper and deeper in the same nature that is the source of our suffering.

The new mind begins to discover that the reason that it continues to be a prisoner is because it continues to live from a prisoner mentality...

There is freedom in realizing -- seeing the truth of the fact -- that whatever is holding you captive right now has no right to do so. None! The split second that you see you're a captive of your own mind, you have the freedom to challenge it with the new understanding that belongs to your new, true mind -- a mind that can't be made a prisoner of anything.

Refuse to carry forward with you one more day any thought that tells you there is someone to be punished for the way you feel...(including yourself! - added by Connie)

-- Guy Finley

Excerpted from Secrets of Being Unstoppable, "Freedom to Forgive: The Power to Put the Past Behind You"

Yusef Cha'ban: Palestinian prisoner released in Lebanon

Yusef Cha'ban following his release

© Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH)

Originally posted 15 July 2009
A Palestinian imprisoned for 15 years for a murder he has always denied committing was released on Monday after being granted a presidential pardon.

Yusef Cha'ban, a Palestinian refugee resident in Lebanon, was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Justice Council in 1994 after he was convicted in connection with the killing of a Jordanian diplomat, Na'ib Omran al-Ma'aita, in Beirut.

At his trial, he alleged that he was tortured in detention and protested his innocence. He remained in prison even after a Jordanian court concluded in 2002 that others were responsible and convicted them of the diplomat's murder.

Under Lebanese law, the verdicts of the Justice Council are not subject to appeal and cannot be revoked, with the result that miscarriages of justice cannot be readily rectified.

Yusuf Cha'ban was released after Lebanese President Michel Suleiman granted him a special pardon in recognition of the gross miscarriage of justice in his case.

It is not clear why President Suleiman's predecessors had failed to take such action. In June 2007, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared Yusuf Cha'aban's continuing detention to be arbitrary and called for the Lebanese authorities to remedy the matter.

Yusuf Cha'aban received a warm welcome when he returned to his home in Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp in south Beirut following his release. A crowd gathered to meet him, women threw rice and flowers in celebration and some men carried Yusuf Cha'ban on their shoulders.

"I will not leave him for a minute; he's my new friend," Hanin, his teenage daughter who grew up visiting her father behind bars, told reporters gathering to cover his release.

Amnesty International has greatly welcomed Yusuf Cha'ban's release. As long ago as December 2007, the organization urged the Lebanese authorities to carry out an urgent, independent review of his case.

Amnesty International also continues to call for reform or abolition of the Justice Council, which fails to satisfy international fair trial standards. It is widely perceived to be influenced by political considerations, its hearings are frequently subject to lengthy delays that undermine the right to fair trial, and there is no right of appeal against its verdicts, even in death penalty cases.

A former teacher in Pakistan - Afghanistan's bravest woman brings her message to UK

Feb.19, 2007

Joya addresses students in a girl's school in Farah. (photo above)
Found at Wikipedia

AFP/GETTY IMAGES - Malalai Joya talking to journalists in Kabul in photo below:


"Grief, the universal leveller, was something she has always understood."

A deeply compassionate individual, she is as ruthless in her condemnation of Western "whitewash" as she is of the unpunished "war criminals" who sit in the Afghan parliament. "It is a shame that so much of Afghanistan's reality has been kept veiled by a Western media consensus in support of the 'good war'," she says.

Five assassination attempts have failed to silence a woman determined to defend Afghans from warlords, drug lords, the Taliban and foreign interference including NATO

By Glyn Strong

UPDATE: Find article(s) published in The Independent recently and others here

Also see updates at Malalai Joya's website malalaijoya.com here

It is a year since I last saw Malalai Joya. She was at Stansted airport preparing to return to Afghanistan: a tiny figure clutching a large holdall and a gold-coloured trophy. It was the Anna Politkovskaya Award for human rights campaigning and Ms Joya was the second recipient. Some might say the trophy brings with it a curse. It was created in memory of the Russian journalist gunned down outside her Moscow apartment in 2006. The first recipient, Natalya Estimerova, was murdered last week in the Chechen capital. As Ms Estimerova passed on the trophy to her in 2008, her message was blunt: "Malalai, be brave."

Having survived five assassination attempts, if there is one thing the Afghan woman is, it is brave. Her story is inextricably linked to the recent history of her country. Through her own determination she has become part of its legend; first as a teacher in the refugee camps of Pakistan, then as an activist covertly running schools for girls in Herat during the Taliban years. Politicised beyond her years she was elected to the Afghan parliament in 2005 as its youngest member.

Today she lands in Britain. She has a new book to promote, Raising My Voice, but she is also here to deliver an unequivocal – and uncomfortable – message that Nato troops are not wanted in her country. "Afghans are more than just a handful of warlords, Taliban, drug lords and lackeys," she says. "I have a country full of people who know what I know and believe what I believe; that we Afghans can govern ourselves without foreign interference."

From her first controversial speech in the National Assembly in 2003, at the age of 23, to the day she was suspended from parliament for allegedly insulting other MPs, Ms Joya has never been one to mince her words. Her message is unlikely to be well received by Gordon Brown or Barack Obama.

When I first met her in Kabul two years ago, the rendezvous followed several changes of vehicle as well as body, camera and baggage searches. Her life had already been threatened so burqas and bodyguards were de rigeur for even the shortest journey.

We were together one day when news broke that three British soldiers had been killed in Helmand. Ms Joya didn't want Nato troops in her country, but she expressed sorrow for the parents and families who, like so many Afghans, had lost loved ones. Grief, the universal leveller, was something she has always understood. As the "Wootton Bassett effect" reminds Britons of how much the war in Afghanistan is costing in human terms, she says: "There can never be lasting peace if the lives of Afghans are not valued as much as the lives of Western soldiers. Every death is a tragedy, but too often the Afghan victims of this war are merely nameless 'collateral damage' reported in the media as having been killed by 'mistake'."

The Ministry of Defence publishes a rolling toll of service casualties – a grim reminder of the daily cost of the war. A man who has earned Ms Joya's heartfelt gratitude for trying to honour Afghanistan's anonymous dead in the same way is Professor Marc Herold who has established a memorial website for her countrymen. It makes sobering reading. "Civilian killings are entering into thousands whereas the Taliban death toll might not even reach hundreds,"Ms Joya says.

As the British media goes into overdrive about helicopter numbers, boots on the ground and exit strategies, she cuts to the quick. Her assessment of the past seven years is seen in purely human terms. "Along with the terror from the sky, there is terror in the ground. The fields and roadsides of Afghanistan are still riddled with unexploded landmines from as far back as the Soviet occupation – like the kind that cost my father his leg."

She kept diaries throughout her adolescence but she was initially resistant to the idea of writing a book. A quiet, self-effacing character, she dedicates her biography to women and children, the invisible casualties of conflict and oppression to whom she has given a voice in recent years: "The Bashiras, Rahellas, Bibi Guls, Pukhtanas and all my oppressed people whose sighs, tears and sorrows nobody sees."

Ms Joya is sceptical of the surge in the south of her country. "Helmand is not the whole of Afghanistan. Even if they annihilate Taliban there, they should not call it a success because Taliban are logistically and militarily stabilised in hundreds of other parts of Afghanistan ... and growing stronger as each day dawns."

She has often been accused of identifying problems but not offering solutions (the assumption being that if US and British troops pulled out, Afghanistan would descend into chaos, a bloody free-for-all). But she is unrelenting: "The current situation is already quite catastrophic, it cannot get any worse. The Taliban have taken over many districts and are nourished as each hour mounts."

"But it is the responsibility of our own people to fight for their rights, to achieve values like democracy and women's rights, human rights in our country. It's a prolonged struggle, it's a risky struggle full of hardships and challenges, but I trust in my people."

One of the most widely-cited advantages of Nato's intervention has been improved conditions for Afghan women. Ms Joya disagrees. "Just as the US air strikes have not brought security to Afghans, nor has the occupation brought security to Afghan women. The reality is quite the opposite. The now infamous 'Family Law' is but the tip of the iceberg of the women's rights catastrophe in our occupied country. The whole system, and especially the judiciary, is infected with the virus of fundamentalism and so, in Afghanistan, men who commit crimes against women do so with impunity."

Ms Joya is now 31 and married; she has the hopes and dreams of any young woman but her commitment to her cause is absolute. A deeply compassionate individual, she is as ruthless in her condemnation of Western "whitewash" as she is of the unpunished "war criminals" who sit in the Afghan parliament. "It is a shame that so much of Afghanistan's reality has been kept veiled by a Western media consensus in support of the 'good war'," she says.

Next month's elections offer little hope of change, she believes, and will be tainted by vote-rigging. "It is clear that the future president is already chosen in Washington. As in the proverb of our people 'Same donkey but with a new saddle!'"

So is she not tempted to return to politics, or even contest the presidency, as many have urged her to? Her answer is suitably gnomic. "I love my people and of course, if they wish, I will do that but let's see what's in the future."

In her own words: 'I'm not afraid of an early death'

"I am forced to live like a fugitive in my own country. A trusted uncle heads my detail of bodyguards and we move to different houses every night to stay a step ahead of my enemies. To hide my identity, I travel under the cover of the burqa, which to me is a symbol of oppression, like a shroud for the living. Even during the dark days of the Taliban, I could at least go outside under the burqa to teach girls in secret. But today I don't feel safe under it, even with armed guards to escort me. My visitors are searched for weapons and even the flowers at my wedding had to be checked for bombs... I know that because I refuse to compromise my opposition to the warlords and fundamentalists... then I may join... the long list of Afghans who have died for freedom. But you cannot compromise the truth. And I am not afraid of an early death if it advances the course of justice."

(This last part above is an extract from Malalai Joya's book Raising My Voice)

The Night Counter: If you only had 1,001 nights to live

by Alia Yunis here

This announcement just came on a regular Palestinian email I get...

Magic Carpet Ride - Book just out which helps to bridge cultures Meet ALIA YUNIS, author of the book just out: The Night Counter or read it anyway...

If you happen to see this in time and are in US Pasadena or LA area: Discussion and book signing, Sunday, July 19 1:00 p.m. Wild Girls Book Group. Books Inc. and 4 p.m., at Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 East Colorado Boulevard, between North El Molino and South Oak Knoll Avenues (626-449-5320 or vromansbookstore dot com) Pasadena (Better call either/both to be sure. July 19, 2009 1:00 p.m. Wild Girls Book Group. Location: Books Inc. ...

Little pigs and lost siblings make for decent bedtime story fodder.

But the life and times of Fatima Abdullah, the madcap matriarch of Alia Yunis’s charming debut, The Night Counter, is even better.

When the 82-year-old woman divorces her husband of more than 30 years, she leaves Detroit to live with her grandson, a struggling actor in L.A. Upon her arrival, fabled Arabian Nights immortal Scheherazade swoops in for the first of what turns out to be nightly visits, leading Fatima to believe she has 1,001 nights to live.

With nine days left, Fatima’s desperate to check the last things off her list: write her funeral instructions, marry off her grandson (P.S. he’s gay), and determine who from her dysfunctional (and disinterested) brood is worthy of her home in Lebanon.

As the four generations of stories and secrets magically unravel across America and the Middle East, you’ll be drawn deeper into the family’s touching, comical tale at every turn.

You can count on it.

Available online at amazon.com or at your local bookstore.

Also be sure to see Alia's other recommended books (she includes one of my top ten favorite writers and poets - Naomi Shihab Nye A Palestinian-American : here

New York Imam and Jewish Blogger Spread Good Will

Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place



The article I feature below while from January fits well with my recent them. The entire site Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place is refreshingly bold - holding dialogue with "the other" in such high esteem. I am so encouraged yet the full article referred to expresses that the writer's Jewish community at large is not at all of one mind on this effort of good will at their own loss.

See the interesting, moving and sometimes funny illustrations and the surprising books this blogger reads - which really help smash some stereotypes some Muslims may have of Jewish disregard. There are not oft heard viewpoints here which give me plenty of glad goosebumps and much hope for peace!

Also find recently here: BREAKING THE SILENCE: Gaza War Soldiers’ Testimonies (part 1 & 2) with VIDEOS just the last few days - You may want to click HOME to work back from current items) Tikun Olam: Make the World a Better Place - here
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N.Y. Imam Committed to Muslim-Jewish Dialogue

One of the constant themes repeated ad nauseum by right-wing Islamophobes like Daniel Pipes, Alan Dershowitz and their supporters is that Muslims are uniformly extremists filled with hate. There are no “Muslim moderates.” No imams denounce terror. They all support Al Qaeda, etc. etc.

Walter Ruby in Jewish Week brings yet further evidence of the utter falsity of such claims. He writes about the new interim Imam of New York City’s largest and most influential mosque, the Islamic Cultural Center, the Indonesian-born Mohammed Shamsi Ali. The interview with him is wide-ranging, candid and impressive:

[He] declared in a dialogue with Rabbi Schneier at the New York Synagogue earlier this month that it “cannot be accepted to deny the existence of Israel” or to deny the Holocaust. Appearing last week at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Imam Ali delivered a special sermon during Mincha services in which he urged Jews and Muslims to revisit “problematic” passages in the Koran and Torah. Those passages buttress bellicose stances against other religions by understanding them as having been written in earlier times, and not necessarily relevant to today’s world.

Imam Ali also urged his listeners to “look beyond what is presented in the media” about Jewish-Muslim relations in order to create “real connections” based on trust and affection. “Once you get to know Muslims,” he said, “you will ask them, ‘Are you really the people I see portrayed [negatively] on Fox News?’”

Key Muslim leaders in New York praise the Indonesian-born Ali as a charismatic and compassionate leader whose embrace of interfaith dialogue represents “mainstream” opinion within the Muslim community.

It is sad, but somehow reassuring that those in both the Muslim and Jewish communities who reach out to the other side are rebuffed by their respective extremist right fringes...

...Imam Ali believes that American Jews and Muslims should build a relationship “that is more influenced by religious commonalities than by political differences. We cannot deny the emotional impact of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, yet we need to ensure that our relationship is not determined only by that.” He added, “We also should remember that there have been bright times in our relationship as well, such as the cooperation between Muslims and Jews in Andalusia during the Middle Ages.”

I’m pleased that Jewish academic institutions like the Jewish Theological Seminary and HUC-JIR have hosted talks with him and are reaching out to him...

...the Jewish communal group is missing out on an important opportunity to engage local Muslims in dialogue and debate about issues that divide and link us. Events in the Middle East are too bloody and too catastrophic to miss such possibilities when they arise. To the Ruskays of the Jewish world I say (paraphrasing Hillel): if you will not be for peace, who will be for it? If you are only for yourself, what are you? If not now, when?

American Muslim praying at an American Mosque


SEE the full article and the equally interesting comments here

See the many and various blogs recommended by the Jewish blogger - including here

And watch the better Jewish Lobby in the US at work - here

And see some excelling recent Palestinian journalism from this former Professor - Daoud Kuttab's blog: here

And Abraham's Vision here

And I'm looking forward to the World Music offered here - maybe we'll meet at this site someday? Be sure to read and add to the comments.