The Arab majority may not stay silent

[barb162]

The Arab majority may not stay silent

By Youssef M. Ibrahim
The New York Sun
Published July 19, 2006


Yes, world, there is a silent Arab majority that believes that 7th Century Islam is not fit for 21st Century challenges.

That women do not have to look like walking black tents. That men do not have to wear beards and robes, act like lunatics and run around blowing themselves up in order to enjoy 72 virgins in paradise. And that secular laws, not Islamic Shariah, should rule our day-to-day lives.

snip
Rarely have I seen such an uprising, indeed an intifada, against those little turbaned, bearded men across the Muslim landscape as the one that took place last week. The leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, received a resounding "no" to pulling 350 million Arabs into a war with Israel on his clerical coattails.

The collective "nyet" was spoken by presidents, emirs and kings at the highest level of government in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, Morocco and at the Arab League's meeting of 22 foreign ministers in Cairo on Saturday. But it was even louder from pundits and ordinary people.
snip



http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0607190149jul19,1,7273183.story?coll=chi-opinionfront-hed

[tocqueville]

1. the stupidity of the statement above is blatant (if not a conscious lie)

The FIRST representant of shariah and of "men who wear beards and robes, act like lunatics and run around blowing themselves up in order to enjoy 72 virgins in paradise", that is to say SAUDI ARABIA among other emirates etc....
hasn't suddenly turned into a representant of 21 century Islam....

They are against the Hezbollah because they are SHIITES and backed by other SHIITES and what Saudi Arabia wants least is an Iran dominated shhite "crescent" throwing out the US out of Iraq...

The Arab masses are cheering, the Egyptian opposition want to denounce peace treties with Israel etc... even the Christians in Lebanon don't turn to the Israeli side as previously...

Youssef Ibrahim should take a trip to the mideast, before uttering insanities

[barb162]

3. Oh come on! Don't you think the writer can express himself

as he sees fit? After all, he has been in the newspaper business a while, hasn't he? And I don't mean Podunk, USA newspapers.

[tocqueville]

8. The Sunnis don't like the Hezbollah for religious reasons

and are probably not eager to get directly involved in a war against Israel, but not for reasons of "modernity".
Specially the representants from some of the named countries. Al Quaeda hates the Hezbollah too, they are "apostates".

[barb162]

11. good point

[cracksquirrel]

5. I kinda sorta have to agree...

I'm really not that surprised that the Sunni governments are denouncing Hezbollah; groups like Hamas and Hezbollah would love to see the heads of the House of Saud on pikes as much as they would like Israel to disappear in a puff of martyrdom, so needless to say the Saudis and Egyptians don't want further instability. It's not the Arab governments that I'm worried about anymore, it's what their iron heels are holding down.
The tragic irony and screeching cognitive dissonance of this situation is just absolutely soul-stifling. Here I am, a lefty wacko who wants more power for the common people and openness in MY government, yet I fear what would come about should the same liberties be afforded to certain other peoples. Democracy in Palestine has brought Hamas, and democracy in Iraq will bring a Sharia/Law and Order Mullahdom in Iraq. These are disheartening realities, and I have absolutely no idea how to resolve them in the world or within myself.

[tocqueville]

9. check AT (Pepe Escobar) analysis : Israel getting opposite effect

A certified effect of the Israeli bombing barrage will be to draw newer, thicker waves of moderate Muslims toward political - and radical - Islam. The perception in the Arab street - as well as for most of the world's 1.4 billion Muslims - has been reinforced: the US/Israel axis seems to hold a license to kill Arabs with impunity.
For its part, Israel's Leviathan-run-amok tactic of trying to turn the Lebanese as a whole against Hezbollah seems to be doomed to failure. This is especially because compounding Israel's trademark collective-punishment techniques - bombing bridges and an international airport, killing scores of civilians indiscriminately, turning Beirut into Gaza - shines President George W Bush's imperial indifference, not to mention the international community's. Just as in 1982 - when president Ronald Reagan said it was all right for Ariel Sharon to invade Lebanon - now Bush says it's all right for Israel to bomb Lebanese civilians.

Israel does not listen to anybody - be it the toothless United Nations or the even more cowardly European Union. Beirut is in panic. According to Hanady Salman, a journalist at As-Safir newspaper, the population widely expects that "as soon as the evacuation of foreigners will be completed, the Israelis will have a freer hand". Not by accident, all the areas bombed by Israel - and most of the civilians killed - are among the poorest in Lebanon.

Hezbollah is convinced it got its overall strategy right - factoring all the angles of the Leviathan-run-amok response; so there's no way the Lebanese people as a whole may blame Hezbollah for the escalation. Moreover, Hezbollah is a key force in fractured Lebanon. The majority of Lebanon's population is Shi'ite: at least 45% (in south Beirut, this correspondent was repeatedly told they may be from 55% to 60%). Christians are no more than 30%. The majority of Shi'ites - mostly poor, with very extended families, and a great deal of them basically peasants - support Hezbollah. Symbolically, fiercely independent Hezbollah represents the revenge of the oppressed - not only against the well off Sunni and Christians but against the Israeli invaders.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HG19Ak02.html

[cracksquirrel]

12. I agree with you here too

What Israel's doing will probably swell the ranks of Hezbollah. The Lebanese won't turn against Hezbollah, the Israeli planners aren't that stupid. The plan here is to destroy Hezbullah's rocket and artillery capabilites and cut off their supply lines. If that doesn't work, then the tanks and the infantry roll in and kill as many of them as possible. Let's hope that doesn't happen. But I don't see that Israel has any choice, and if they can create a military buffer zone in southern Lebanon, so be it. Israel has never been too worried about pleasing the Arabs or the rest of the West, the don't need to start now.

[pelsar]

14. crack...wacky world isnt it....

Here I am, a lefty wacko who wants more power for the common people and openness in MY government, yet I fear what would come about should the same liberties be afforded to certain other peoples. Democracy in Palestine has brought Hamas, and democracy in Iraq will bring a Sharia/Law and Order Mullahdom in Iraq

tough being a pragmatic liberal/left

[cracksquirrel]

15. Yeah...

Sometimes you just wanna take a powerdrill to your temple...
I know this is a righty wacko (sort of) site, but this is what you have to deal with from your Komrades (haha) in arms here in the Bay Area: Zombietime
My grandpa keeps sending me stuff about Israel from the Israeli perspective, and it's sad to see that so much of it is on places like Worldnet or other wingnut websites. I can't go near indymedia or other "progressive" news sites anymore...

On edit: DU excepted, of course ^ ^

[Finder]

2. According to christian/neocon news ...

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200607/INT20060719b.html


Saudis Blame Israel
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
July 19, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - Amid a campaign for Arabs' hearts and minds over the fighting in Lebanon and Israel, the government of Saudi Arabia has made it clear that it holds Israel responsible for the conflict.

Earlier Saudi criticism of Hizballah's "adventurism" -- a position viewed by U.S. officials as highly significant -- appears to have given way to the customary Arab stance of blaming Israel and accusing the international community of abandoning the Arabs.

At a weekly meeting chaired by King Abdullah in Jeddah, the kingdom's cabinet declared that the war was an extension of Israel's "occupation policies and hegemony in the region."

"The cabinet affirmed that the international reactions to the all-out war launched by Israel demonstrate the extent of the world community's laxity and disregard for crimes committed by Israel," it said in a statement released afterwards.

.....more at link

[barb162]

4. hmmm, I'll have to crosscheck if that shows up in

the more mainstream press.

[Finder]

7. I am sure Ms Benador is working on it. n/t

[barb162]

10. Who is that? What's the first name of the person you reference?

Thanks in advance

[Finder]

13. Eleana Benador....Neocon central.lol

There would be no Iraq War or PNAC support if not for her agency.IMO

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benador_Associates

http://www.benadorassociates.com/

[barb162]

16. Thanks. Never heard of her, and I only blame Bush for it.

He's the only one who had the power to get it going.

[Igel]

6. I don't believe him.

He might be right; I've certainly been wrong. But I don't believe him.

The leaders that dissed Hezbollah and Hamas did so for the usual wrong reasons. As Arafat denounced suicide bombings after it was clear it yielded bad PR, the 'we regret the loss of life because it makes us look bad' kind of self-centered woe-is-us apology, with it reported as 'we regret the loss of life', so these leaders' words are being spun to make everybody look good.

Hezbollah and Hamas are bad because they didn't coordinate with the other countries--i.e., they coordinated either with nobody, and didn't respect their elders, or they coordinated with Iran or Syria or both. Iran doesn't count, it's an outside meddler that only Syria thinks is good--after all, Syria and Iran signed their mutual defense to provide a common front against Israel--and Syria's not necessarily a good guy. Hezbollah and Hamas aren't bad because they attacked Israel; they just did it incorrectly, and might further somebody else's interests while making "moderates" like the Sa'udis look bad.

More people support the clerics or tradition--the two are often indistinguishable--than people want to admit, IMHO (opinion only, alas), and the rest just want to be left alone. Uprising? Fellow travellers don't "uprise". They get along to get along.