Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Lau, Observing shmita sensibly - Haaretz, September 10, 2007

The seventh year, the shmita (sabbatical) year, is approaching. The country’s major merchants are preparing: Here is a golden opportunity for organizing the mass sale of produce untouched by Jewish hands and “free of any fear of the violation of the laws governing the shmita year.” Ultra-Orthodox bodies specializing in supervision of kashrut (Jewish dietary laws) are mobilizing to encourage Israeli consumers to purchase agricultural produce only from non-Jews.

Voici la version intégrale de la vidéo de Ben Laden, le Figaro, le 10 septembre, 2007

Al-Qaida commander criticizes Hamas for abandoning Jihad - Haaretz, September 10, 2007

An al-Qaida commander who escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan criticized Hamas in a new videotape Sunday and other Islamic groups that he said prioritized nationalism and electoral politics over Jihad, or holy war.

Hamas is largely focused on the creation of an independent Palestinian state rather than al-Qaida’s vision of a worldwide Muslim community ruled by Islamic law.

Like Al-Qaida, the Palestinian movement advocates violence to achieve its goal, but has also participated in elections.

“Patriotism, nationalism, shared unity, the supreme interest and other slogans … none of these have any space in the religion of Allah the Glorious and the Great,” he said, criticizing groups like Hamas for abandoning Jihad and jumping into the ballot boxes.

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 09/09/2007 | Security in Iraq still elusive

Baghdad has become more segregated. Sunni Muslims in the capital now live in ghettos encircled by concrete blast walls to stop militia attacks and car bombs. Shiite militias continue to push to control the city’s last mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods in the southwest, by murdering and intimidating Sunni residents and, sometimes, their Shiite neighbors. Services havent improved across most of the capital — the international aid group Oxfam reported in July that only 30 percent of Iraqis have access to clean water, compared with 50 percent in 2003 — and tens of thousands of Iraqis are fleeing their homes each month in search of safety.

Iraqi security forces remain heavily infiltrated by militias, and political leaders continue to intervene in their activities.

Civilian deaths haven’t decreased in any significant way across the country, according to statistics from the Iraqi Interior Ministry, and numbers gathered by McClatchy Newspapers show no consistent downward trend even in Baghdad, despite military assertions to the contrary. The military has provided no hard numbers to back the claim.

The only sign of progress is in the homogenous Sunni Arab province of Anbar, where tribes have turned on al Qaida in Iraq and established relative security in a once violent area. But that success has little to do with the 4,000 U.S. troops who were sent to Anbar as part of the surge of 30,000 additional troops to Iraq. Instead, it began more than four months earlier, with the formation last September of the Anbar Salvation Council to fight the escalating terror of Sunni extremists. Officials agree that the anti-Islamist coalition in Anbar has yet to ally itself with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad, and a recent National Intelligence Estimate warned that it might even threaten it.