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Showing posts from June, 2010

Thomas Friedman's Disingenous letters from Istanbul

Thomas Friedman is an Op/Ed columnist for the New York Times. He writes on a variety of subjects, including the Muslim world. In a recent article “Letter From Istanbul,” he wrote about the much visited city in Turkey. In his June 15 column, he wrote, “I like the people, the culture, the food and, most of all, the idea of modern Turkey — the idea of a country at the hinge of Europe and the Middle East that manages to be at once modern, secular, Muslim, democratic, and has good relations with the Arabs, Israel and the West.” Yes, a Turkey that has looked westward, often discarding and ridiculing its rich past since the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire, should appear endearing to anyone who is insensitive and, worse still, hostile to Turkey’s Islamic heritage. Not to be forgotten in this context is the opposition of Sultan Abdul Hamid, the last of the Muslim Caliphs to rule this once great empire, to the very idea of Zionism. When the Zionists offered to give him 150 million pounds of gol...

The resignation of Helen Thomas – People’s Journalist

This past week was a sad week in American journalism. In the face of mounting pressure and criticism, Helen Thomas, the dean of the White House press corps, decided to resign. She was one of the bravest, no-nonsense, journalists of our time. For the past fifty years dating from the Kennedy era she has been dutifully performing her duty by asking tough questions that few journalists dared to ask the White House. Her career demise came with a simple politically incorrect answer to a sly question from a Jewish rabbi -- David Nesenoff of Long Island, New York, who was at the White House for a Jewish heritage celebration on May 27. He asked the Hearst Newspapers Op/Ed columnist Ms. Thomas, “Any comments on Israel?” Her response that Israeli Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to Germany, Poland and America – where they came from to occupy Palestine triggered a wave of denunciations that a narrowly worded apology did little to quell. As expected at the forefront of such...

The Flotilla Attack Proves Israel is a Pariah State

There is something absolutely rotten and hideous about the Government of Israel (GOI) and its supporters. On May 30 Israeli forces boarded an unarmed ship with an unarmed crew, carrying no munitions or weapons, 65 miles in the sea at 2 a.m. The Turkish ship Mavi Marmara was in the international water carrying only food, medicines and materials to build pre-fabricated homes for the blockaded people of Gaza when it was raided by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which can be best termed as the pirates of the Mediterranean Sea. The Israeli action was an act of piracy by any account. Lest we forget under article 3 of the Rome Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation of 1988, it is an international crime for any person to seize or exercise control over a ship by force, and also a crime to injure or kill any person in the process. Israel has violated the Article. In other words, the Israeli killers are no different, actually worse, than the Som...