Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Olmert: Israel must quit East Jerusalem and Golan - Haaretz, September 29, 2008
By Haaretz Service

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in remarks published Monday that Israel would have to withdraw from East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights if it was serious about making peace with the Palestinians and Syria.

In an interview with the Yedioth Aharonoth daily, Olmert said that as a hard-line politician for decades he had not been prepared to look at reality in all of its depth.

“Ariel Sharon spoke about painful costs and refused to elaborate,” Olmert told the daily. “I say, we have no choice but to elaborate. In the end of the day, we will have to withdraw from the most decisive areas of the territories. In exchange for the same territories left in our hands, we will have to give compensation in the form of territories within the State of Israel.”

“I think we are very close to an agreement,” Olmert added.

These comments were the clearest sign to date of Olmerts willingness to meet key Palestinian demands in peace talks.

With regard to the Syria track, Olmert added that a future peace agreement required a pullout from the Golan Heights, an area under Israeli control since the 1967 Six-Day War.

“First and foremost, we must make a decision. Id like to see if there is one serious person in the State of Israel who believes it is possible to make peace with the Syrians without eventually giving up the Golan Heights.”

“It is true that an agreement with Syria comes with danger,” he said. “Those who want to act with zero danger should move to Switzerland.”

Yedioth Aharonoth noted that in this “legacy interview,” published on the eve of the Jewish New Year, Olmert went further in making offers for peace than he ever did publicly when he was in active office and had greater power to see them carried out.

Prof. Sternhell: Supporters of occupation are not Zionist - Haaretz, September 29, 2008
By Akiva Eldar

Professor Zeev Sternhell’s house on Jerusalem’s Agnon Street is easily located by the iron gate with the broken glass. Sternhell says the bombing could have ended with him having to have both legs amputated.

Fortunately, last Thursday night he and his wife Ziva had returned from abroad and their suitcases, left in the narrow hallway, separated him and the pipe bomb that had been attached to the door.

The living room is filled with flowers and the telephone doesn’t stop ringing. The news is quoting ministers’ statements from the cabinet meeting.

Sternhell, while still in the hospital, drew a direct line between the state’s surrender to the extreme right rampaging in the territories and the terrorist or organization that tried to kill him.

“What are those ministers talking about,” he asks, when Vice Premier Haim Ramon blasts the government on the television news for fearing “those hooligans,” as Ramon called them.

Sternhell: “Who has to deal with the outposts? Me? You? Who’s to blame for the semi-autonomous state in the territories? Groups of settlers do whatever they feel like. Police officers and reserve soldiers go home with broken arms. How did they let things deteriorate to this lack of control in the West Bank? I told my students that not intervening for a weak child who needs help against a strong child is intervening for the strong child. Whoever fails to enforce the law and protect the Palestinians from the settlers who attack them is cooperating with the hooligans and lawbreakers.”

Carlo Strenger, I accuse, Haaretz, September 28, 2008
I accuse
By Carlo Strenger

On the night between September 24 and 25, it happened again. Prof. Zeev Sternhell, an internationally acclaimed political scientist and historian, recipient of this year’s Israel Prize for political science, was wounded by explosives put at his doorstep. As yet, we do not know who the perpetrators were, but whoever they will turn out to be, there are those who should wonder what is their part of the responsibility for this despicable act.

I accuse those Jews, inside Israel and outside, who run websites that track “dangerous left-wing intellectuals” in Israel. They call people like Zeev Sternhell “anti-Semitic,” “self-hating Jews” and “enemies of Israel.”

I accuse those in the Israeli right who turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to those among them who say that the law does not apply to them; to the settlers who break Israeli and international law and moral values on a daily basis, who harass Palestinians, beat them and sometimes murder them. The right-wing establishment is forgiving toward them. “Aren’t they idealists? Don’t they do what they do because of lofty ideals, because of the holiness of the Land of Israel?”

I accuse not only those who performed religious rituals condemning Yitzhak Rabin to death; not only those who carried posters of Rabin clad in SS uniform at demonstrations. I also accuse those who created the atmosphere that allowed for it, continued to speak at the demonstrations, and after Rabin was killed said they hadn’t seen the posters.

I accuse those who claim that they - and they alone - represent Israel, its true interests and the Jewish-Israeli soul; who claim that anybody who has a different view of what is good for Israel are enemies who endanger Israel. To them applies the verse from Deuteronomy 33:9: “Who said of his father, and of his mother: ‘I have not seen him;’ neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew he his own children; for they have observed Thy word, and keep Thy covenant.”

This verse attacks the fanaticism of the tribe of Levi, that like its mythical forefather, thought it could kill in the name of ideals that it had given absolute validity.

I accuse those who implicitly condone the acts of extremists by not saying that they are out of the question. They create the atmosphere that leads people like Yona Avrushmi and Yigal Amir to their murderous acts, and the perpetrators of last week’s terror act to attack Zeev Sternhell.

Israel is a young democracy torn apart by conflicting values, by conflicting views about religion, a country that has yet to find its identity. Trenchant disputes, searching discussion and hard criticism of those on the opposing side are part and parcel of a liberal democracy.

Hate-speech that legitimizes blood-feud and rituals that condemn to death those who think differently are neither part of legitimate democratic discourse, nor part of a civilization that we want to belong to (never mind whether the prime minister or an academic who voices his views).

Let us not forget that Israel, rightly, demands of the Palestinians to stop its schools from inculcating hatred for Israel. The West, rightly, demands that Islamic authorities condemn the hate speeches of Imams who call for the extinction of Israel and conquest of the infidel world. We demand this, because we know that words create reality; injunctions to violence in the end find their ways into the hearts of fanatics who will put these words into practice.

So why should we apply a different standard to Jews who do the same thing? Why should we accept that Jews who call for violence, Jews who in the name of their ideals allow for the blood of their ideological opponents to be shed?

For too long the Israeli Right has taken a forgiving attitude toward its ‘wild weeds.’ For too long it has used extremists to present its own views as acceptable mainstream.

Who is Zeev Sternhell? He is a holocaust survivor who called himself a ’super-Zionist’ in a recent interview; an IDF officer who fought in three of Israel’s wars. Yes, he thinks that the occupation is a cancer that eats the soul of Israel; yes, he said that Palestinians should only attack Israelis who live in the West Bank and not inside the Green Line. He has said, time and again, that he is afraid Israel will not survive because of the occupation, and that he is worried for his children and grandchildren, because he wants them to be able to live in Israel. And he expressed empathy for the Palestinian struggle. That’s why he was attacked.

It has happened again; I wish Professor Sternhell quick recovery and a happy New Year. But I may not be able to express such wishes to the next victim.

I accuse!

Prof. Carlo Strenger, a philosopher and psychoanalyst, teaches at the psychology department of Tel Aviv University and is a member of the Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism of the World Federation of Scientists.

Media Matters - Minneapolis radio host Baker repeatedly called Obama “Nicolae Carpathia,” the Antichrist character in the Left Behind series, Media Matters, September 24, 2008

Summary: Radio host Chris Baker repeatedly referred to Sen. Barack Obama as “Nicolae Carpathia,” the Antichrist character in the Left Behind book series, including one instance in which he stated: “I’m getting really sick of being told that if I disagree with Barack Obammy, the Nicolae Carpathia candidate, that I’m a racist.”

On the September 23 broadcast of his Minneapolis radio show, Chris Baker repeatedly referred to Sen. Barack Obama as “Nicolae Carpathia,” the Antichrist character in the Left Behind series, as well as “Barack Obammy” and “the political Jesus.”

During the broadcast, Baker stated: “I’m getting really sick of being told that if I disagree with Barack Obammy, the Nicolae Carpathia candidate, that I’m a racist.” He later quoted Obama urging supporters to get in the “faces” of friends and neighbors and said: “So, we have the in-your-face hotline here, that number for Barack Obammy supporters, the Nicolae Carpathia of this election … For all you Barack Obammy supporters, this is how you can get in people’s face, like Nicolae Carpathia wants you to do, OK, because I am man of diversity and tolerance, and so therefore we provide that just for you.” Baker added: “Now, here’s what I want to talk about, OK? One, people who don’t like Barack Obammy, the Nicolae Carpathia political Jesus, I want to know why it is. And if it’s race, I want you to be honest enough to tell me so”

After one caller said that it “drives me absolutely nuts when you call him ‘Barack Obammy,’ ” Baker asked, “How about Nicolae Carpathia?” After the caller replied, “No,” Baker asked, “How about the political Jesus?” Later, Baker stated: “Man, that’s just part of the big show. That’s all sarcasm and me just being a smart aleck.”

Left Behind is a best-selling series of 16 novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins that tell the story of the Rapture and ensuing events according to a Christian interpretation of the end times. The Left Behind franchise also includes graphic novels, a Left Behind series for teens, and three films based on the books. A computer game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces, was released in 2006.

Dichter: Prof attack takes us back to days of Rabin assassination - Haaretz, September 26, 2008

By Shahar Ilan and Roni Singer-Heruti, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service

Public Security Minister Avi Dichter joined senior political officials on Thursday in condemning a pipe bomb attack on the home of left-wing activist and Haaretz columnist Professor Ze’ev Sternhell, saying that the incident called to mind the days of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Dichter described the event, which left Sternhell lightly wounded, an “assassination attempt” and a “nationalistic terror attack perpetrated, in all likelihood, by Jews, which pushes our society many years backward.”

Speaking at a police ceremony in Netanya, Dichter added that “the pipe bomb that was planted yesterday should be viewed as a bomb meant to kill. The law enforcement authorities will not rest until the terrorists are put where they belong ? [sic] in prison.”

Police suspect Jewish extremists of having carried out the pipe bomb attack earlier in the day. Sternhell walked out of his home in a quiet Jerusalem neighborhood shortly after midnight to shut a courtyard gate when the bomb went off, lightly wounding him in one of his legs, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.

“We believe the background is ideological,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Sternhell, an internationally renowned expert on the history of fascism, was awarded the country’s highest honor, the Israel Prize, earlier this year. The award drew fire from West Bank settlers and their supporters, who unsuccessfully petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to try to block it.

BBC NEWS, Orissa tense after church attack, BBC, September 25, 2008

Orissa has seen weeks of violence

Hindu mobs have vandalised a church and dozens of houses in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, police say.

The overnight attacks took place in the Tikabali and Daringbadi areas of Kandhamal district, police said.

The area has witnessed a fresh bout of violence since Tuesday when police shot dead a protester in the town of Raikia.

Orissa has seen anti-Christian violence for several weeks. At least 20 people, mostly Christians, were killed after a Hindu religious leader was shot dead.

Hindus groups have long accused Christian priests of bribing poor tribes and low-caste Hindus to convert to Christianity.

Christians say lower-caste Hindus convert willingly to escape the Hindu caste system.

Blocked roads

About 20 houses were attacked in the Shankarakhol area and at least three churches were burnt in Simanbadi on Wednesday, senior police officer in Kandhamal, Praveen Kumar, told the BBC.

Police said mobs burnt or damaged at least 40 houses in overnight attacks.

Shooting from the hip doesn’t help - Haaretz editorial, September 24, 2008

The circumstances of Monday night’s incident in Jerusalem have yet to be fully ascertained. Statements from witnesses and police - which indicate that it was a deliberate attack by a terrorist who found himself a convenient target and simple means of execution - contrast with the family’s version of events, according to which this was a car accident involving an inexperienced youth who failed his driving test. If it turns out to have been a terrorist attack, it joins the string of recent attacks in which the perpetrators used their vehicles as weapons.

These attacks, which are attributed to individuals rather than organizations and thus become more difficult to pinpoint in advance, are a reminder of the explosive situation in which Jerusalem in particular and Israel in general find themselves. A series of meetings between the prime minister and the Palestinian leadership created a sense of progress on the diplomatic front. The gradual success of the Palestinian leadership in taking upon itself the responsibility for security in Jenin and other parts of the West Bank and the calm along the southern border create the impression that the era of violence is fading: If there still are Palestinian civilians willing to carry out terrorist attacks, they have become isolated, and thus tolerable, cases. Even if the Shin Bet security service struggles to see them coming, harsh and immediate punitive measures, including the destruction of the terrorists homes, would surely put an end to them.

This is an illusion. The diplomatic discussions between Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas, and Tzipi Livni and Ahmed Qureia, have not advanced a diplomatic solution. The Israeli promise to improve living conditions in the territories translated into the removal of a few roadblocks and the release of some 200 Palestinian prisoners, but most parts of the West Bank are still subject to stringent restrictions on movement, unemployment is skyrocketing, and economic growth is virtually nonexistent. The calm in Gaza is hanging by a thread, be it because Israel is not fulfilling its obligations, as charged by Hamas, or due to the inner-Palestinian strife in the territories. This is a temporary and fragile lull that is not backed by a strategic and political plan, all the more so since Israel is busy with its own political backyard and a presidential campaign is underway in Washington.

In the meantime, the harm done to the Palestinian populace is felt in every home where the main wage earner cannot get to work, a pregnant mother in labor cannot get to a hospital, or a student is not granted a permit to travel abroad for studies. The motivation to carry out terrorist attacks is increasing. In such conditions, thwarting individual hostile acts is an uphill battle. The defense ministers hasty reaction, blaming the legal system for harming the states ability to respond immediately, seems particularly bizarre. Has razing the homes of terrorists families prevented terror attacks in the past? Has collective punishment quelled the outbreak of the intifada? Even the security services eventually understood that harsh punishments are no cure. At most, they can provide a sense of revenge.

This dangerous and fragile situation does not call for shoot-from-the-hip statements or a political shrug of the shoulders. Even a caretaker government is authorized to make practical decisions that affect the daily life of civilians in the territories and create an atmosphere that will lead to a more positive direction. This way, the government can aid the Palestinian security services in their ongoing efforts against terrorism and perhaps weaken, if not dissolve, the population’s support for those lone terrorists ready to carry out attacks.

Gideon Levy, Twilight Zone / Dead on arrival, Haaretz, September 19, 2008

Nothing helped. Not the pleas, not the cries of the woman in labor, not the father’s explanations in excellent Hebrew, nor the blood that flowed in the car. The commander of the checkpoint, a fine Israeli who had completed an officers’ course, heard the cries, saw the women writhing in pain in the back seat of the car, listened to the father’s heartrending pleas and was unmoved. The heart of the Israeli officer was indifferent and cruel. For over an hour, he would not let the car with the young woman in labor pass through the Hawara checkpoint on the way to the hospital in Nablus. Not to Tel Aviv; but to Nablus; not for shopping, not for work; but to get to the hospital in an emergency. Nothing helped.

Nahil Abu-Rada is not the first woman to lose her baby this way because of the occupation, and she won’t be the last. At least a half-dozen checkpoint births that ended in death have been documented here over the years, and nothing has changed. No punishments, no lessons, not even a request for forgiveness from parents who lose their children because of the coldheartedness of soldiers.

The occupation kills - never has this slogan sounded so true as on that night, two weeks ago, at the Hawara checkpoint south of Nablus. No convoluted excuse or explanation from the Israel Defense Forces spokesman (military sources were quoted the day after the incident, making this outrageous comment: “This baby would have died anyway”) can erase the simple, chilling fact that for officers and soldiers in the occupation army we have established, human feeling has become alien, at least when it comes to Palestinians. Or the fact that there are still officers and soldiers in the IDF who behave with such lack of feeling toward a woman in labor who is about to lose her child.

What went through the mind of the officer who refused to let Nahil pass? He saw her in agony, he heard her husband’s desperate pleas, and he surely knows how children come into this world and how they can leave it just as easily, without lifesaving medical treatment.

Shlomo Ben-Ami, A War to Start All Wars, Foreign Affairs, September-October 2008

A War to Start All Wars
Will Israel Ever Seal the Victory of 1948? (A Review Article)

1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. Benny Morris. Yale University Press, 2008, 544 pp. $32.50.

Summary: Israel should pull back settlements and give up its ‘67 gains in order to secure its ‘48 victory.

Shlomo Ben-Ami was Israel’s Foreign Minister in 2000-2001. He is Vice President of the Toledo International Center for Peace, in Spain, and the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy.

For 60 years, both the Israelis and the Palestinians have used the past to illuminate the present and confer legitimacy on their nations’ respective founding myths. Of course, Zionists and Palestinian nationalists were not the first to embellish the stories of their nations’ births or make excuses for their tragedies. Throughout history, nations have been born in blood and frequently in sin. This is why, as the French philosopher Ernest Renan wrote, they tend to lie about their pasts.

The birth of the state of Israel in 1948 has long been the subject of self-congratulatory historiography by the victorious side and grievance-filled accounts by disinherited Palestinians. To the Israelis, the 1948 war was a desperate fight for survival that was settled by an almost miraculous victory. In the Arab world, accounts of the war tend to advance conspiracy theories and attempt to shift the blame for the Arabs’ defeat. In both cases, the writing of history has been part of an uncritical nationalist quest for legitimacy.

Refusing to admit that the noble Jewish dream of statehood was stained by the sins of Israel’s birth and eager to deny the centrality of the Palestinian problem to the wider conflict in the Middle East, the Israelis have preferred to dwell on their struggle for independence against the supposedly superior invading Arab armies. But the war between the indigenous Palestinian population and the Yishuv, the organized Jewish community of Palestine, was arguably the fiercest phase of the conflict. It was during this period — between November 30, 1947, and May 15, 1948 — that the fate of the nascent Jewish state really seemed to hang by a thread. Nevertheless, the popular notion cultivated since then has repressed the memory of this fighting and focused instead on the heroic stand of the tiny Yishuv against the invading Arab armies during the second phase of the war, from May 15, 1948, to the spring of 1949. When the war was over, the Palestinian problem practically disappeared from Israeli public debate, or it was conveniently defined as one of “refugees” or “infiltrators.” It was as if there were no Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Palestinian people. As Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir famously put it in 1969, “They did not exist.”

Frederick Clarkson, More on Sarah Palin’s Attempted Book Banning, Talk To Action, Sept 12, 2008

As Banned Books Week looms on the horizon, the issue of then-Wasilla mayor Sarah Palin’s attempted book banning is heating up.

While Palin did not ask for specific books to be removed, there is a back story emerging thanks to ABC News, among others — there were specific books at issue in the community and at her church in particular.

The Nation has the relevant section of the transcript of the ABC News report by Brian Ross: and the video of the entire report:

ROSS: Around the time Palin became mayor, [Palin’s] church and other conservative Christians began to focus on certain books available in local stores and in the town library, including one called “Go Ask Alice,” and another one written by a local pastor, Howard Bess, called “Pastor, I am Gay.”

BESS: This whole thing of controlling, you know, information, censorship, yeah. That’s a part of the scene.

ROSS: Not long after taking office, Palin raised the issue at a city council meeting of how books might be banned according to news accounts and a local resident, a Democrat, who was there.

ANNE KILKENNY: Mayor Palin asked the librarian, what is your response if I ask you to remove some books from the collection of the Wasilla Public Library?

ROSS: The Wasilla librarian, Mary Ellen Edmonds, the then president of the Alaska Library Association, responded with only a short hesitation.

KILKENNY: The librarian took a deep breath and said, the books in the collection were purchased in accordance with national standards and professional guidelines, and I would absolutely not allow you to remove any books from the collection.

“A few weeks after the council meeting, the mayor fired the librarian, although she was reinstated after a community uproar,” Ross reported. “The Wasilla librarian, Mary Ellen Edmonds, left two years later, and according to friends, because it was just too hard working for Sarah Palin.”

The Associated Press features the McCain campaign’s efforts to downplay the episode, but includees the corroborating details first exposed by ABC. The McCain camaign acknowledges that Palin raised the issue of book banning not once, but three times with the head librarian. As ABC makes clear, she was fired and then reinstated due to popular support, meanwhile the entire staff was in fear for their own jobs.

Saudi judge condemns ‘immoral TV’, BBC, September 12, 2008

The most senior judge in Saudi Arabia has said it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV channels which broadcast immoral programmes.

Sheikh Salih Ibn al-Luhaydan said some “evil” entertainment programmes aired by the channels promoted debauchery.

Dozens of satellite television channels broadcast across the Middle East, where they are watched by millions of Arabs every day.

The judge made the comments on a state radio programme.

He was speaking in response to a listener who asked his opinion on the airing of programmes featuring scantily-dressed women during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

“There is no doubt that these programmes are a great evil, and the owners of these channels are as guilty as those who watch them,” said the sheikh.

“It is legitimate to kill those who call for corruption if their evil can not be stopped by other penalties.”

Worshiping the Indispensable Nation - by Andrew Bacevich, TomDispatch, September 10, 2008
9/11 Plus Seven

by Andrew J. Bacevich

The events of the past seven years have yielded a definitive judgment on the strategy that the Bush administration conceived in the wake of 9/11 to wage its so-called Global War on Terror. That strategy has failed, massively and irrevocably. To acknowledge that failure is to confront an urgent national priority: to scrap the Bush approach in favor of a new national security strategy that is realistic and sustainable – a task that, alas, neither of the presidential candidates seems able to recognize or willing to take up.

On Sept. 30, 2001, President Bush received from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld a memorandum outlining U.S. objectives in the War on Terror. Drafted by Rumsfeld’s chief strategist Douglas Feith, the memo declared expansively: “If the war does not significantly change the world’s political map, the U.S. will not achieve its aim.” That aim, as Feith explained in a subsequent missive to his boss, was to “transform the Middle East and the broader world of Islam generally.”

Rumsfeld and Feith were co-religionists: Along with other senior Bush administration officials, they worshipped in the Church of the Indispensable Nation, a small but intensely devout Washington-based sect formed in the immediate wake of the Cold War. Members of this church shared an exalted appreciation for the efficacy of American power, especially hard power. The strategy of transformation emerged as a direct expression of their faith.

The members of this church were also united by an equally exalted estimation of their own abilities. Lucky the nation to be blessed with such savvy and sophisticated public servants in its hour of need!

The goal of transforming the Islamic world was nothing if not bold. It implied far-reaching political, economic, social, and even cultural adjustments. At a press conference on Sept. 18, 2001, Rumsfeld spoke bluntly of the need to “change the way that they live.” Rumsfeld didn’t specify who “they” were. He didn’t have to. His listeners understood without being told: “They” were Muslims inhabiting a vast arc of territory that stretched from Morocco in the west all the way to the Moro territories of the Southern Philippines in the east.

Yet boldly conceived action, if successfully executed, offered the prospect of solving a host of problems. Once pacified (or “liberated”), the Middle East would cease to breed or harbor anti-American terrorists. Post-9/11 fears about weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of evildoers could abate. Local regimes, notorious for being venal, oppressive, and inept, might finally get serious about cleaning up their acts. Liberal values, including rights for women, would flourish. A part of the world perpetually dogged by violence would enjoy a measure of stability, with stability promising not so incidentally to facilitate exploitation of the region’s oil reserves. There was even the possibility of enhancing the security of Israel. Like a powerful antibiotic, the Bush administration’s strategy of transformation promised to clean out not simply a single infection but several; or to switch metaphors, a strategy of transformation meant running the table.

FT.com / World / Middle East - Gaza students learn harsh lesson, September 5 2008
By Vita Bekker

Time is running out for Azhar al Boraey.

Ms Boraey, a 24-year-old from the Gaza Strip, last year lost her scholarship for a master’s degree in architecture at a Chinese university because of travel restrictions imposed by Israel and Egypt on the coastal enclave. After being accepted by Germany’s Martin Luther University for this academic year, Ms Boraey packed two suitcases, obtained a visa and hoped Gaza’s gates would open by her programme’s September 30 deadline.

Last weekend, she had her big – and possibly, last – chance to leave. When Egypt opened its border with Gaza for the first time since May, Ms Boraey and thousands of other Gazans rushed to a football stadium from where they were transported to the crossing. Fifteen hours later, four of which she was stuck on a crowded bus with no air-conditioning, she reached the Egyptian side with an exit stamp on her passport.

But when Egypt refused to let Ms Boraey and 20 other students desperate to get to their universities abroad through, they sat on the ground in protest. The group finally agreed to return to Gaza after baton-wielding officials tossed their bags back on the bus, shouted at them and threatened to use force.

“It was the worst day of my life,” said Ms Boraey. Speaking of herself and the other students, she adds: “We are physically tired and spiritually broken.”

Ms Boraey and hundreds of other students in Gaza who have been accepted by foreign universities are pawns in a larger conflict between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas, which violently seized the territory of 1.5m residents in June 2007.

In spite of a ceasefire with Hamas three months ago, Israel still mostly bans Gazans from leaving through its crossings except for urgent medical care.

Until mid-2006, most of the more than 1,000 Gazans studying abroad left unrestricted through Rafah. But the closure in the past two years has meant that for the second consecutive summer – the period during which the students usually travel to their universities – many were trapped.

Palin: Iraq War ‘Task from God’ | Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place, Sept. 3rd, 2008 by Richard Silverstein

Praise the Lord and pass the ballot box.

Sarah Palin may be “right with God.” But is she “right with America?” Talk about separation of church and state…I was just watching the accompanying video with my wife and she–both of us having been born and raised in New York–said: “Can you imagine a governor of New York saying these things?” Frankly, I can’t imagine a governor of any state saying such things, at least not as a sitting governor.

Things are different in Alaska perhaps because politically there is less at stake. But now that Palin seeks to move onto a national stage, it is precisely videos like this that will allow a national audience to determine whether she is fit to be elected.

Here are some of the choice quotations from the video that jumped out at me. In his introduction, controversial Pastor Ed Kalnins notes that when he first met Palin, she was the mayor of Wasilla:

When I got the chance to meet our mayor, I said: “This person loves Jesus. That’s the bottom line. She loves Jesus with everything she has. She’s a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ before she’s a mayor.”

After boasting that her 19 year-old son Track had enlisted in the military and was about to be deployed to Iraq, Palin preached:

“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God,” she exhorted the congregants. “That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.

Subsequently, she makes another boast about a $30 billion natural gas pipeline which she’s seeking to build from Alaska through Canada to the lower 48:

” I can work really, really hard to get a natural gas pipeline, a $30 billion project that’s going to create a lot of new jobs for Alaskans and will have a lot of energy flowing through here. And pray about that also. I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.

She then lists the tasks she can do as governor to make the state a decent place to live. But she adds:

None of that is gonna do any good if the people’s heart isn’t right with God. We can work together to make sure that God’s will be done here in Alaska.

Jacob Ignatius, India’s Christians: politics of violence in Orissa | open Democracy, September 2, 2008

A wave of Hindu nationalist attacks on Christians in eastern India is rooted in local issues of caste and conversion but also part of a larger political strategy, says Jacob Ignatius.

A catastrophic flood across the northeast Indian state of Bihar has displaced tens of thousands of people and caused untold damage to the meagre property and livelihoods of some of India’s poorest citizens. The challenges of delivering aid and protecting the health of those affected by this emergency - which is spreading to the state of Assam and across the border to Bangladesh - are immense. But alongside this natural and humanitarian disaster, another less visible crisis has been unfolding: attacks on India’s Christians in parts of the impoverished eastern state of Orissa.

Jacob Ignatius is an Indian who works in Britain as a software engineer.

On 29 August 2008, 45,000 Christian schools were closed across India to protest against the anti-Christian violence that had affected mainly the Kandhamal district of Orissa in the previous week. This was unprecedented in the history of independent India, for never before have Christians felt so compelled to stand publicly and unitedly against the forces of communalism in India. Moreover, the impact of this response is heightened by the fact that Christian schools - which provide education to both Christian and non-Christian children - form a significant part of Indias education system.

The unrest in the state of Orissa started on 23 August 2008 after the murder of a 90-year-old rightwing Hindu nationalist leader called Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati; four of his associates were also killed in the attack. Although the police suspected Maoist guerrillas for the murder, members of the radical Hindu group Vishwa Hindu Parishad VHP blamed Christians and went on the rampage - killing several people, and destroying a Christian missionary-school, house-churches and other buildings. The Asian Centre for Human Rights ACHR estimates that fifty people most of them Christians have been killed. Thousands of Christians have fled their homes to seek shelter in the forests or government camps. The murder of the Hindu leader is clearly reprehensible, but this is a matter for the judicial authorities and - even were the culprit found to be a Christian - would not justify what effectively became an assault against an entire local Christian community.