Habib Siddiqui

Voicing any fair criticism of Israel these days is hazardous. You are sure to be dumped as an anti-Semite. And this labeling is often so loosely used that it is unfair to all Arabs, and surely to some (so-called self-hating) Jews, who trace their bloodline to Abraham and Jacob, respectively. But who cares those facts? To many die-hard Zionists the single litmus test is: does the person support the state of Israel unquestioningly? Any slight criticism is not tolerated by these self-described guardians of the Jewish state, in spite of the fact that things are not that beautiful or glamorous under the dirty and rotten rug of Israel. Peter Beinart, an Associate Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York and a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, recently wrote an important article “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment” in The New York Review of Books. He deplored the fact that the leading institutions of American Jewry discourage ...

One of those killed on-board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was a 19-year old Furkan Dogan, a Turkish American. He was born in Troy, N.Y., and spent his first two years there. Then he moved to Turkey with his family. After the humanitarian aid for the stranded in Gaza, for the first time Furkan was planning to return to the U.S. this summer. But that wish never realized. He was killed by the IDF. Roger Cohen has recently written an excellent article on the Israeli killing of Furkan in his latest op/ed column in the New York Times. So far no FBI investigation has been initiated to learn the particular set of events that led to his death by the IDF on Turkish flotilla that tried to break the blockade of Gaza. He writes, "I also have little doubt that if the incident had been different — say a 19-year-old American student called Michael Sandler killed by a Palestinian gunman in the West Bank when caught in a cross-fire between Palestinians and Israelis — we would have been deluged in stor...

Commenting on my article on Friedman's letters from Turkey, "Friedman’s Disingenuous Letters Hide Israel’s Crimes", one reader wrote: Thank you Dr. Habib Siddiqui for your very insightful piece of history. It clears up a lot of knots the way things are unfolding in recent days. One question: secularism is not all about freedom of religion or is it all about a Godless society?" My briefly reply follows: Secularism today is a very misunderstood theme. At one extreme, it is understood that there is no place of religion in anything to do with life, which led to the ideologies like communism/socialism in places like China and the USSR. That extremism led to the experimentation with a Godless society there. In the USA, on the other hand, what we have is a benign model where the presidents take oath with Bible in the hand, and swear to trust in God. Religion is a personal matter, although religion influences laws and regulations of this country. In the Qur'an the very i...

New York City is home to millions of people of all races and religions. It is probably the most ethnically diverse metropolis on earth. It is, therefore, not surprising that one will find one’s place of worship, whether it be a church, synagogue, mosque, temple or whatever in this most populous city in America. I first visited New York City in July of 1980, almost 30 years ago, soon after defending my Masters thesis. In that summer my parents had come to visit North America. It was their first of many such visits to follow over the next three decades. After meeting me a few days before my defense they had left for Toronto and then New York City. I caught up with them in New York City (NYC). A senior friend of mine – Zafar bhai – came to the Greyhound bus terminal to take me to his apartment in Astoria in Queens, just a few miles from Manhattan, the heart of NYC. New York felt hot and humid, especially inside a fifth-floor apartment in Astoria that did not have air conditioner. I remem...

Last Thursday, the UN's highest court declared that Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 did not violate international law. That is, it was a legitimate declaration, and as such, Kosovo is a bona fide independent country, outside the control of Serbia. This news should come as a matter of good news to the millions of others who are still oppressed and live a life of third class citizen, or worse still, illegals, in their country of birth, e.g., the Rohingya Muslims of Arakan state of Burma (Myanmar). Kosovo, lived by Albanian Muslims, was an autonomous territory within Yugoslavia. Slobdan Milosevic, the former Serbian leader, revoked Kosovo’s autonomy in 1989 and fiercely repressed ethnic Albanians. The Serbian Orthodox Christian leadership forced them to live a life of unwanted citizens in a country that they lived for centuries. Serbian repression eventually forced armed rebellion by the Kosovars. Milosevic wanted to write the suicide note for ...

There was a time in my life when France loomed big in my radar screen of the countries that I needed to visit. In my teenage years, I occasionally met French tourists, mostly college going students. Most of them spoke very little English. And yet that language barrier did not hinder these young French tourists from visiting the new independent state of Bangladesh. They appeared inquisitive and fun-loving. Years later when I came for my graduate studies in North America, I had few classmates that had come from France. They were good students, not the kind you see amongst today’s French politicians. At the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, one of the externals for my Ph.D. dissertation committee was a French professor who taught instability phenomena in the aerospace engineering department. He was a brilliant man who later returned to France to care for his ailing mother. I also met many French-speaking North African students who had a love-hate relationship with everythin...

I must thank the editor of the Guardian , UK, for a very thoughtful editorial. The editor has correctly diagnosed the problem with the French bill that curtail Muslim women's choice or right to don the way they want. A simple question posed to any of those Muslim women by Sarkozy and his gang of secular fundamentalists, who are nothing but closet bigots, would have shown the stupidity of their false claims that Muslim women are oppressed to wear the niqab. No, they don't wear it for any such reason. While Islam does not require a full niqab, while advocating modesty for both sexes, some Muslim women put on niqab as a choice. The Qur'an is clear that what is mandated is a long garment that covers their body. As a sign of modesty, most young Muslim women therefore cover their hair and breast, while exposing the face and hands only. Anything beyond that is a matter of personal modesty. But that right to dress modestly cannot be threatened or annexed by a law that claims to pro...

Last week the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was in Washington D.C. He was invited to stay at the Blair House and have a working lunch at the White House with President Obama. In front of the cameras, the two leaders appeared smiling and shaking hands. Apparently they discussed the Palestine-Israel conflict. Netanyahu declared that he is committed to “peace” with Palestinians and President Obama asserted that the Israeli leader is “willing to take risks for peace.” However, Netanyahu did neither offer any specifics about what he would do to help move peace negotiations forward nor mention a two-state solution to the conflict. If there was any doubt about relationship between the two leaders, Obama reiterated, “If you look at every public statement that I’ve made over the last year and a half, it has been a constant reaffirmation of the special relationship between the United States and Israel, that our commitment to Israel’s security has been unwavering.” Yes, Obama is right. Look a...

Today I got a letter from one of my readers who wrote: Can you please enlighten us on the following facts: 1. How could it be called as United Nations when few of its members have Veto Powers. 2. Why is that USA helping Israel all out? 3. What should be the role of Muslim Countries around Palestine and others under the present situation? My response to him follows: 1. You are right. The UN cannot hide its dirty past or its history of actually serving the purpose of the few - the veto powers, no matter how it tries to present itself as an international organization. It needs democracy more than any other place on earth, and cannot behave like a world-Brahmin of the few. 2. Israeli lovers have been able to take control of the USA legislative body, the senate and the congress, for a number of years. No senator and congress person can dare to challenge the Israeli interest and still get elected, or reelected. That is what has happened to the USA. As such, we can't expect to see cha...

Book Review: Palestine Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter, Simon & Schuster, New York (2006) No American president has probably touched the lives of so many outside in a positive way than Jimmy Carter – the 39th president. For the past three decades, since leaving the White House, he has been a resolute voice for human rights and democracy. It was for such activism in the world arena that the Nobel Committee honored him as the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2002, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. To most of his admirers he genuinely deserved the award, something that cannot be said of President Obama, who earned the award in 2009. President Carter is very vocal about the Palestine-Israel conflict and believes that the USA has a strong role in any peace effort involving the Middle East. Is America ready to play its historic role for peace-making? Can it be trusted by all the parties to the dispute? President Carter’s book “Palestine...