Not so fast, Christian soldiers

The Pentagon has a disturbing relationship with
private evangelical groups.
By Michael L. Weinstein and Reza Aslan


Maybe what the war in Iraq needs is not more troops but more religion. At least that's the message the Department of Defense seems to be sending.

Last week, after an investigation spurred by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering "freedom packages" to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended.

What were the packages to contain? Not body armor or home-baked cookies. Rather, they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which "soldiers for Christ" hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers.

The packages were put together by a fundamentalist Christian ministry called Operation Straight Up, or OSU. Headed by former kickboxer Jonathan Spinks, OSU is an official member of the Defense Department's "America Supports You" program. The group has staged a number of Christian-themed shows at military bases, featuring athletes, strongmen and actor-turned-evangelist Stephen Baldwin. But thanks in part to the support of the Pentagon, Operation Straight Up has now begun focusing on Iraq, where, according to its website (on pages taken down last week), it planned an entertainment tour called the "Military Crusade."

Apparently the wonks at the Pentagon forgot that Muslims tend to bristle at the word "crusade" and thought that what the Iraq war lacked was a dose of end-times theology.

In the end, the Defense Department realized the folly of participating in any Operation Straight Up crusade. But the episode is just another example of increasingly disturbing, and indeed unconstitutional, relationships being forged between the U.S. military and private evangelical groups.

Take, for instance, the recent scandal involving Christian Embassy, a group whose expressed purpose is to proselytize to military personnel, diplomats, Capitol Hill staffers and political appointees. In a shocking breach of security, Defense Department officials allowed a Christian Embassy film crew to roam the corridors of the Pentagon unescorted while making a promotional video featuring high-ranking officers and political appointees. (Christian Embassy, which holds prayer meetings weekly at the Pentagon, is so entrenched that Air Force Maj. Gen. John J. Catton Jr. said he'd assumed the organization was a "quasi-federal entity.")

The Pentagon's inspector general recently released a report recommending unspecified "corrective action" for those officers who appeared in the video for violating Defense Department regulations. But, in a telling gesture, the report avoided any discussion of how allowing an evangelical group to function within the Defense Department is an obvious violation of the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment.

The extent to which such relationships have damaged international goodwill toward the U.S. is beyond measure. As the inspector general noted, a leading Turkish newspaper, Sabah, published an article on Air Force Maj. Gen. Peter Sutton, who is the U.S. liaison to the Turkish military -- and who appeared in the Christian Embassy video. The article described Christian Embassy as a "radical fundamentalist sect," perhaps irreparably damaging Sutton's primary job objective of building closer ties to the Turkish General Staff, which has expressed alarm at the influence of fundamentalist Christian groups inside the U.S. military.

Our military personnel swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, not the Bible. Yet by turning a blind eye to OSU and Christian Embassy activities, the Pentagon is, in essence, endorsing their proselytizing. And sometimes it's more explicit than that.

That certainly was the case with Army Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin, deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence. The Pentagon put him in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in 2003. The same year, Boykin was found to be touring American churches, where he gave speeches -- in uniform -- casting the Iraq war in end-times terms. "We're in is a spiritual battle," he told one congregation in Oregon. "Satan wants to destroy this nation . . . and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army." The story wound up in newspapers, magazines and on "60 Minutes." And, of course, it was reported all over the Muslim world. The Pentagon reacted with a collective shrug.

American military and political officials must, at the very least, have the foresight not to promote crusade rhetoric in the midst of an already religion-tinged war. Many of our enemies in the Mideast already believe that the world is locked in a contest between Christianity and Islam. Why are our military officials validating this ludicrous claim with their own fiery religious rhetoric?

It's time to actively strip the so-called war on terror of its religious connotations, not add to them. Because religious wars are not just ugly, they are unwinnable. And despite what Operation Straight Up and its supporters in the Pentagon may think is taking place in Iraq, the Rapture is not a viable exit strategy.

[Michael L. Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, wrote "With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military." Reza Aslan, author of "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam," is on the MRFF advisory board.]

'I am both Muslim and Christian'

Muhammad Asad, born Leopold Weiss in Poland in 1900, in his interpretation of the Quran wrote: "When his contemporaries heard the words islam and muslim, they understood them as denoting man's 'self-surrender to God' and 'one who surrenders himself to God,' without limiting himself to any specific community or denominatione.g., in 3:67, where Abraham is spoken of as having 'surrendered himself unto God' (kana musliman), or in 3:52 where the disciples of Jesus say, 'Bear thou witness that we have surrendered ourselves unto God (bianna musliman).' In Arabic, this original meaning has remained unimpaired, and no Arab scholar has ever become oblivious of the wide connotation of these terms."


---
June 17, 2007
Seattle Times

'I am both Muslim and Christian'

Redding, who until recently was director of faith formation at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, has been a priest for more than 20 years. Now she's ready to tell people that, for the last 15 months, she's also been a Muslim -- drawn to the faith after an introduction to Islamic prayers left her profoundly moved.

By Janet I. Tu


Shortly after noon on Fridays, the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding ties on a black headscarf, preparing to pray with her Muslim group on First Hill.

On Sunday mornings, Redding puts on the white collar of an Episcopal priest.

She does both, she says, because she's Christian and Muslim.

Redding, who until recently was director of faith formation at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, has been a priest for more than 20 years. Now she's ready to tell people that, for the last 15 months, she's also been a Muslim drawn to the faith after an introduction to Islamic prayers left her profoundly moved.

Her announcement has provoked surprise and bewilderment in many, raising an obvious question: How can someone be both a Christian and a Muslim?

But it has drawn other reactions too. Friends generally say they support her, while religious scholars are mixed: Some say that, depending on how one interprets the tenets of the two faiths, it is, indeed, possible to be both. Others consider the two faiths mutually exclusive.

"There are tenets of the faiths that are very, very different," said Kurt Fredrickson, director of the doctor of ministry program at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. "The most basic would be: What do you do with Jesus?"

Christianity has historically regarded Jesus as the son of God and God incarnate, both fully human and fully divine. Muslims, though they regard Jesus as a great prophet, do not see him as divine and do not consider him the son of God.

"I don't think it's possible" to be both, Fredrickson said, just like "you can't be a Republican and a Democrat."

Redding, who will begin teaching the New Testament as a visiting assistant professor at Seattle University this fall, has a different analogy: "I am both Muslim and Christian, just like I'm both an American of African descent and a woman. I'm 100 percent both."

Redding doesn't feel she has to resolve all the contradictions. People within one religion can't even agree on all the details, she said. "So why would I spend time to try to reconcile all of Christian belief with all of Islam?

"At the most basic level, I understand the two religions to be compatible. That's all I need."

She says she felt an inexplicable call to become Muslim, and to surrender to God the meaning of the word "Islam."

"It wasn't about intellect," she said. "All I know is the calling of my heart to Islam was very much something about my identity and who I am supposed to be.

"I could not not be a Muslim."

Redding's situation is highly unusual. Officials at the national Episcopal Church headquarters said they are not aware of any other instance in which a priest has also been a believer in another faith. They said it's up to the local bishop to decide whether such a priest could continue in that role.

Redding's bishop, the Rt. Rev. Vincent Warner, says he accepts Redding as an Episcopal priest and a Muslim, and that he finds the interfaith possibilities exciting. Her announcement, first made through a story in her diocese's newspaper, hasn't caused much controversy yet, he said.

Some local Muslim leaders are perplexed.

Being both Muslim and Christian "I don't know how that works," said Hisham Farajallah, president of the Islamic Center of Washington.

But Redding has been embraced by leaders at the Al-Islam Center of Seattle, the Muslim group she prays with.

"Islam doesn't say if you're a Christian, you're not a Muslim," said programming director Ayesha Anderson. "Islam doesn't lay it out like that."

Redding believes telling her story can help ease religious tensions, and she hopes it can be a step toward her dream of creating an institute to study Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

"I think this thing that's happened to me can be a sign of hope," she said.

Finding a religion that fit

Redding is 55 and single, with deep brown eyes, dreadlocks and a voice that becomes easily impassioned when talking about faith. She's also a classically trained singer, and has sung at jazz nights at St. Mark's.

The oldest of three girls, Redding grew up in Pennsylvania in a high-achieving, intellectual family. Her father was one of the lawyers who argued the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case that desegregated the nation's public schools. Her mother was in the first class of Fulbright scholars.

Though her parents weren't particularly religious, they had her baptized and sent her to an Episcopal Sunday school. She has always sensed that God existed and God loved her, even when things got bleak which they did.

She experienced racism in schools, was sexually abused and, by the time she was a young adult, was struggling with alcohol addiction; she's been in recovery for 20 years.

Despite those difficulties, she graduated from Brown University, earned master's degrees from two seminaries and received her Ph.D. in New Testament from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She felt called to the priesthood and was ordained in 1984.

As much as she loves her church, she has always challenged it. She calls Christianity the "world religion of privilege." She has never believed in original sin. And for years she struggled with the nature of Jesus' divinity.

She found a good fit at St. Mark's, coming to the flagship of the Episcopal Church in Western Washington in 2001. She was in charge of programs to form and deepen people's faith until March this year when she was one of three employees laid off for budget reasons. The dean of the cathedral said Redding's exploration of Islam had nothing to do with her layoff.

Ironically, it was at St. Mark's that she first became drawn to Islam.

In fall 2005, a local Muslim leader gave a talk at the cathedral, then prayed before those attending. Redding was moved. As he dropped to his knees and stretched forward against the floor, it seemed to her that his whole body was involved in surrendering to God.

Then in the spring, at a St. Mark's interfaith class, another Muslim leader taught a chanted prayer and led a meditation on opening one's heart. The chanting appealed to the singer in Redding; the meditation spoke to her heart. She began saying the prayer daily.

Around that time, her mother died, and then "I was in a situation that I could not handle by any other means, other than a total surrender to God," she said.

She still doesn't know why that meant she had to become a Muslim. All she knows is "when God gives you an invitation, you don't turn it down."

In March 2006, she said her shahada the profession of faith testifying that there is only one God and that Mohammed is his messenger. She became a Muslim.

Before she took the shahada, she read a lot about Islam. Afterward, she learned from local Muslim leaders, including those in Islam's largest denomination Sunni and those in the Sufi mystical tradition of Islam. She began praying with the Al-Islam Center, a Sunni group that is predominantly African-American.

There were moments when practicing Islam seemed like coming home.

In Seattle's Episcopal circles, Redding had mixed largely with white people. "To walk into Al-Islam and be reminded that there are more people of color in the world than white people, that in itself is a relief," she said.

She found the discipline of praying five times a day one of the five pillars of Islam that all Muslims are supposed to follow gave her the deep sense of connection with God that she yearned for.

It came from "knowing at all times I'm in between prayers." She likens it to being in love, constantly looking forward to having "all these dates with God. ... Living a life where you're remembering God intentionally, consciously, just changes everything."

Friends who didn't know she was practicing Islam told her she glowed.

Aside from the established sets of prayers she recites in Arabic fives times each day, Redding says her prayers are neither uniquely Islamic nor Christian. They're simply her private talks with God or Allah she uses both names interchangeably. "It's the same person, praying to the same God."

In many ways, she says, "coming to Islam was like coming into a family with whom I'd been estranged. We have not only the same God, but the same ancestor with Abraham."

A shared beginning

Indeed, Islam, Christianity and Judaism trace their roots to Abraham, the patriarch of Judaism who is also considered the spiritual father of all three faiths. They share a common belief in one God, and there are certain similar stories in their holy texts.

But there are many significant differences, too.

Muslims regard the Quran as the unadulterated word of God, delivered through the angel Gabriel to Mohammed. While they believe the Torah and the Gospels include revelations from God, they believe those revelations have been misinterpreted or mishandled by humans.

Most significantly, Muslims and Christians disagree over the divinity of Jesus.

Muslims generally believe in Jesus' virgin birth, that he was a messenger of God, that he ascended to heaven alive and that he will come back at the end of time to destroy evil. They do not believe in the Trinity, in the divinity of Jesus or in his death and resurrection.

For Christians, belief in Jesus' divinity, and that he died on the cross and was resurrected, lie at the heart of the faith, as does the belief that there is one God who consists of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Redding's views, even before she embraced Islam, were more interpretive than literal.

She believes the Trinity is an idea about God and cannot be taken literally.

She does not believe Jesus and God are the same, but rather that God is more than Jesus.

She believes Jesus is the son of God insofar as all humans are the children of God, and that Jesus is divine, just as all humans are divine because God dwells in all humans.

What makes Jesus unique, she believes, is that out of all humans, he most embodied being filled with God and identifying completely with God's will.

She does believe that Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected, and acknowledges those beliefs conflict with the teachings of the Quran. "That's something I'll find a challenge the rest of my life," she said.

She considers Jesus her savior. At times of despair, because she knows Jesus suffered and overcame suffering, "he has connected me with God," she said.

That's not to say she couldn't develop as deep a relationship with Mohammed. "I'm still getting to know him," she said.

Matter of interpretation

Some religious scholars understand Redding's thinking.

While the popular Christian view is that Jesus is God and that he came to Earth and took on a human body, other Christians believe his divinity means that he embodied the spirit of God in his life and work, said Eugene Webb, professor emeritus of comparative religion at the University of Washington.

Webb says it's possible to be both Muslim and Christian: "It's a matter of interpretation. But a lot of people on both sides do not believe in interpretation. "

Ihsan Bagby, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky, agrees with Webb, and adds that Islam tends to be a little more flexible. Muslims can have faith in Jesus, he said, as long as they believe in Mohammed's message.

Other scholars are skeptical.

"The theological beliefs are irreconcilable," said Mahmoud Ayoub, professor of Islamic studies and comparative religion at Temple University in Philadelphia. Islam holds that God is one, unique, indivisible. "For Muslims to say Jesus is God would be blasphemy."

Frank Spina, an Episcopal priest and also a professor of Old Testament and biblical theology at Seattle Pacific University, puts it bluntly.

"I just do not think this sort of thing works," he said. "I think you have to give up what is essential to Christianity to make the moves that she has done.

"The essence of Christianity was not that Jesus was a great rabbi or even a great prophet, but that he is the very incarnation of the God that created the world.... Christianity stands or falls on who Jesus is."

Spina also says that as priests, he and Redding have taken vows of commitment to the doctrines of the church. "That means none of us get to work out what we think all by ourselves."

Redding knows there are many Christians and Muslims who will not accept her as both.

"I don't care," she says. "They can't take away my baptism." And as she understands it, once she's made her profession of faith to become a Muslim, no one can say she isn't that, either.

While she doesn't rule out that one day she may choose one or the other, it's more likely "that I'm going to be 100 percent Christian and 100 percent Muslim when I die."

Deepened spirituality

These days, Redding usually carries a headscarf with her wherever she goes so she can pray five times a day.

On Fridays, she prays with about 20 others at the Al-Islam Center. On Sundays, she prays in church, usually at St. Clement's of Rome in the Mount Baker neighborhood.

One thing she prays for every day: "I pray not to cause scandal or bring shame upon either of my traditions."

Being Muslim has given her insights into Christianity, she said. For instance, because Islam regards Jesus as human, not divine, it reinforces for her that "we can be like Jesus. There are no excuses."

Doug Thorpe, who served on St. Mark's faith-formation committee with Redding, said he's trying to understand all the dimensions of her faith choices. But he saw how it deepened her spirituality. And it spurred him to read the Quran and think more deeply about his own faith.

He believes Redding is being called. She is, "by her very presence, a bridge person," Thorpe said. "And we desperately need those bridge persons."

In Redding's car, she has hung up a cross she made of clear crystal beads. Next to it, she has dangled a heart-shaped leather object etched with the Arabic symbol for Allah.

"For me, that symbolizes who I am," Redding said. "I look through Jesus and I see Allah."


Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003751274_redding17m.html

"What Iraq Problem? We're Being Stabbed in the Back!"

Washington's Wars and Occupations:
Month in Review #27
July 30, 2007
By Max Elbaum, War Times/Tiempo de Guerras


"WHAT IRAQ PROBLEM? WE'RE BEING STABBED IN THE BACK!"

Even conservative Republican columnist George Will is disgusted with the demagogy
coming from Bush and the extreme right. Speaking to another pundit on TV July 15,
Will said:

"We are in danger of having a Weimar [Germany before the rise of Hitler] moment
in our politics. German politics was embittered disastrously by the belief that
they were on the cusp of victory in 1918 and were stabbed in the back by the civilian
leadership that didn't understand Germany's military prowess. There is a
constituency in this town that believes we're winning in Iraq, that we have
at last figured it out, that the indices of success are there. And if we pull out
and have disastrous consequences we're going to have those people saying 'We
had it won and threw it away.'"

Stab-in-the-back fear-mongering is one of the few remaining arguments available
to the "stay-in-Iraq-forever" crowd. They also are reduced to claims that
the occupation of Iraq is really a confrontation with Al-Qaeda: "if we leave
there, next week we'll have to fight them here."

IT'S FANTASYLAND

When a George Will won't go along with this nonsense you know it's far removed
from reality (not to mention morality). In the last ten days alone a host of news
reports (some front-page in the mainstream press) refute these big lies:

*Official Defense Department statistics show that insurgent attacks in June - despite
the "surge" - were higher than ever before, averaging 177.8 per day. Most
were attacks on U.S. troops, the second highest number were on Iraqi troops or police.
The smallest number was on Iraqi civilians, though these are often the most spectacular
and deadly. Further, only a small number of attacks (mostly on civilians) are by
al-Qaeda-linked groups. Only a tiny fraction of insurgents are affiliated with the
organization that Bush claims is doing most of the fighting.

*The latest National Intelligence Estimate punched a big hole in Bush's claims
that the war in Iraq is a plus in defeating global terrorism. A front-page New York
Times story (July 17) put it this way: "In many respects, the National Intelligence
Estimate suggests, the threat of terrorist violence against the U.S. is growing
worse, fueled by the Iraq war and spreading Islamic extremism... the stark declassified
summary contrasted sharply with the more positive emphasis of President Bush and
his top aides for years: that two-thirds of al-Qaeda's leadership had been killed
or captured; that the Iraq invasion would reduce the terrorist menace."

*The latest plan from General David Petraeus, U.S. commander in Iraq, tosses away
all earlier administration claims about a temporary "surge" of U.S. troops translating into victory. The so-called "Joint Campaign Plan" moves the goalposts further back than ever: at best it seeks "local security" in Iraq by summer 2008 and so-called "sustainable security" in summer 2009, while making no promises that U.S. troop levels would diminish. And this is the most optimistic scenario - from Bush's favorite general!

*A blockbuster report in The Nation, based on in-depth interviews with 50 Iraq combat
veterans, provided detailed confirmation of the horrors rarely covered by even the
most anti-Bush mainstream media: "disturbing patterns of behavior by U.S. troops...
Iraqi civilians, including children, dying from U.S. firepower... indiscriminate
killings... common, often unreported and almost always unpunished." The U.S.
military is not liberating or protecting Iraqis: like every colonial occupation
force in history, it is (with some honorable exceptions) brutalizing and terrorizing
the civilian population. For the full Nation piece go to http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/hedges

POPULAR DISONTENT

Bush & Company's stabbed-in-the-back bluster runs up against mass discontent
with the war as well. The latest polls show a majority think Bush has messed up
in Iraq and believe the invasion was mistaken in the first place. Of crucial importance,
opposition is rising steadily among military families and within the military itself:
of people who said they had served or had a close friend or relative who served
in Iraq, only 38% now approve of Bush's Iraq policy. Military Families Speak
Out (MFSO), the organization of military families opposed to the war, reports its
own surge in membership: almost 20 new families are joining EACH DAY.

Key Republicans are also blaming Bush, not his opponents, for the Iraq disaster.
On July 14 the Pittsburgh newspaper owned by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon
Scaife (who has financed vicious attacks on antiwar figures and Democrats in the
past) called plans to stay the course in Iraq a "prescription for American
suicide." The paper's editorial added: "Quite frankly, during last
Thursday's news conference, when George Bush started blathering about 'sometimes
the decisions you make and the consequences don't enable you to be loved,'
we had to question his mental stability."

Such factors indicate important positive shifts in the U.S. political climate in
the last year. They highlight the difficulties the right wing has in shifting blame
onto others for Washington's Iraq debacle.

RACISM AND "THE TORTURABLE CLASS"

Still, it would be dangerous to underestimate the potential clout of the right-wing
message. It taps into major components of both elite and popular anxieties.

For instance, most of the U.S. "establishment" - led by the Washington
insiders who authored "Baker-Hamilton" - now admits the Iraq war is lost.
They are desperately seeking some form of "damage control." But most remain
terrified of the long-term blow to imperial interests should the U.S. totally withdraw.
The "stab-in-the-back" charge only terrifies them further. And it contributes
to the pattern of cover-your-butt militarism coming even from those who have grudgingly
moved to a "we-have-to-leave-Iraq" position: hence the proliferation of
statements - especially from leading Democrats - that getting out of Iraq will help
the U.S. "get tough" with Iran.

Anti-Iraq war sentiments in the population at large have other vulnerabilities.
For large numbers, opposition to the war is based on the fact that the U.S. is losing,
not on the immoral nature of the invasion itself or understanding that Iraqis are
the war's main victims. It is useful here to note some differences between today
and the Vietnam War era. During the 1960s, left-led emancipatory movements held
great initiative across the globe and the Black freedom movement surged at home,
making radical perspectives a huge pole of attraction for anyone beginning to question
the Vietnam War or other U.S. actions. So as the anti-Vietnam War movement expanded,
there was a big pull on very large sections of people toward anti-racist, anti-imperialist,
and left perspectives.

The situation is much different today. The main forces squaring off against U.S.
intervention in the Middle East are not leftists with a progressive social-economic
program. Terrorism and ethnic/religious sectarianism are all too real, even if the
Bushies exaggerate and exploit them. Movements within the U.S. - the Black freedom
movement not least - are still reeling from 30 years right-wing rollback. All this
diminishes the attractive force of radical and anti-racist perspectives. As a result,
despite the hard work of antiwar and left activists, discontent with the war among
millions is less influenced by a general critique of U.S. foreign policy. So it
is harder to move large numbers from passivity into mass action, or to prevent vacillation
on the urgency of "U.S. Out Now."

The racism and racial blindspots that afflict large swaths of the U.S. population
also shape the current moment. Years of demonizing Arabs and Muslims have deeply
impacted public consciousness. The constant pundit and media that "they"
are out to get "us" (with their racially coded meanings of "them"
and "us") skew the entire national conversation not just about Iraq or
the "war on terror" but about immigration/immigrant rights, civil rights/arbitrary
executive power, and interrogation techniques/torture. Much of the public is willing
to accept elements of Bush's program (even if they are angry at administration
lies and incompetence) as long as the bodies on Iraq's battlefields or in Guantánamo
torture chambers are Arab or Muslim. For too many U.S. people Iraqis and enemy combatants
are "not like us" and instead part of "the torturable class"
(to borrow a phrase from Graham Greene's biting satire on Western spy agencies
and colonialism, "Our Man in Havana").

COMPLICATED MONTHS AHEAD

All this puts complicated challenges in front of the antiwar movement. The Iraq
occupation remains the empire's most vulnerable point. Amassing enough pressure
to force the U.S. out is the only way to give the Iraqi people a chance to create
a decent future out of the current horror. Defeating Washington in Iraq is of direct
benefit to people struggling for justice from Bolivia and Venezuela to New Orleans.
Though it will lead to even louder stab-in-the-back charges from the pro-warriors,
getting the U.S. out will be a major blow to the right's strength and self-confidence.

This means that building the broadest possible opposition to the Iraq occupation
stands at the pivot of antiwar efforts. Outreach into the mainstream, mobilization
of all who can be convinced to protest in any way, cooperation with groups and individuals
way beyond the existing left/progressive ranks - all these are indispensable. Important
initiatives for fall 2007 work in those directions are already underway: check out
the Iraq Moratorium - http://iraqmoratorium.org - and comprehensive plans for local
and regional protests initiated by United for Peace and Justice - http://unitedforpeace.org

At the same time, efforts to widen the base for anti-racist, anti-empire politics
are needed to strengthen the mix. Regarding the Middle East, this especially means
education around the Israel-Palestine conflict and the terrible U.S. role. For an
assessment of Bush's latest so-called peace plan, see Phyllis Bennis' new article at
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=13369

We are also mandated to weave anti-racist education and action into all arenas of
work. Racist structures and racist justifications are woven into Washington's
policies from war, threatening war (Iran) and backing illegal occupation (Israel/Palestine),
to "protecting our borders," "cutting back wasteful spending"
and "fighting crime and promoting family values." Those who believe that
"an injury to one is an injury to all," need to face this - and combat
it - head on.


War Times/Tiempo de Guerras is a fiscally sponsored project of the Center for Third
World Organizing. Donations to War Times are tax-deductible; you can donate on-line
at http://www.war-times.org or send a check to War Times/Tiempo de Guerras, c/o
P.O. Box 99096, Emeryville, CA 94662.

Israel's Embarrassing History

August 6, 2007
UPI

Israel's Embarrassing History
Arnaud De Borchgrave

The Palestinians call Israels 1948 war of independence their nakba, or catastrophic ethnic cleansing, or forced exile. The Israelis, for their part, have steadfastly rejected any suggestion of ethnic cleansing as calumny in all its anti-Semitic horror.

Historic revisionism is now under way. Without fanfare, just below the media radar screen, the Israeli Education Ministry has approved a textbook for Arab third-graders in Israel that concedes the war that gave birth to Israel was a nakba for the Palestinians. The textbook refers to the expulsion of some of the Palestinians and the confiscation of many Arab-owned lands.

Textbooks for Jewish Israelis in the same grade make no such verbal concession. But Israels new wave historians have been combing through fresh material now available from the British mandate period and Israeli archives that document the history of Israel before and after it became a state. Long-lasting myths are being debunked.

Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian and Haifa University lecturer, whose ninth book is titled The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, documents how Israel was born with lands forcibly seized from its Palestinian inhabitants who had lived there for hundreds of years.

During the British mandate (1920-1948), Zionist leaders concluded Palestinians, who owned 90 percent of the land (with 5.8 percent owned by Jews), would have to be forcibly expelled to make a Jewish state possible. Pappe quotes David Ben-Gurion, Israels first prime minister, addressing the Jewish Agency Executive in June 1938, as saying, I am for compulsory transfer. I do not see anything immoral in it.

Pappe outlines Plan D (Dalet in Hebrew), which followed earlier plans A, B and C, and included forcible expulsion of some 800,000 Palestinians from both urban and rural areas with the objective of creating by any means necessary an exclusive Jewish state without an Arab presence. The methods ranged from a campaign of disinformation -- get out immediately because the Jews are on their way to kill you -- to Jewish militia attacks to terrorize the Palestinians.

The first Jewish militia attacks, says Pappe, began before the May 1948 end of the British mandate. In December 1947 two villages in the central plain -- Deir Ayyub and Beit Affa -- were raided, and their panicked Palestinian inhabitants fled. Jewish leaders gave the order to drive out as many Palestinians as possible on March 10, 1948. The terror campaign ended six months later. Pappe writes 531 Palestinian villages were destroyed, and 11 urban neighborhoods in cities were emptied of their Palestinian inhabitants.

There is no doubt in Pappes mind that Plan D was a clear-cut case of an ethnic cleansing operation, regarded under international law today as a crime against humanity.

Plan Dalet began in the rural hills on the western slopes of the Jerusalem mountains halfway on the road to Tel Aviv, according to Pappe. It was called Operation Nachshon, and served as a model for massive expulsions using terror tactics. Pappe also details what he calls the urbicide of Palestine that included attacking and cleansing the major urban centers of Tiberias, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Safad and what he calls the Phantom City of Jerusalem once Jewish troops shelled, attacked and occupied its western Arab neighborhoods in April 1948. The British did not interfere.

Lobbied by the World Zionist Organization and its guiding spirit Chaim Weizmann, who became the first president of Israel (1949-52), the British decided in favor of a Jewish state in Palestine in the 1917 Balfour Declaration. This was a letter from the British Foreign Secretary to Lord Rothschild (Walter, 2nd Baron Rothschild), the leader of the British Jewish community, for relay to the Zionist Federation. The British also pledged indigenous Arab rights would be protected as they divvied up the Ottoman Empire.

The myth was then created of a land without people for a people without a land even though the empty land had a flourishing Palestinian Arab population. The U.N. partition plan of Nov. 29, 1947, gave the Jews 56 percent of Palestine, with one-third of the population, while making Jerusalem an international city. The Jewish part included the most fertile land and almost all urban areas.

When the British handed power to the Jews on May 15, 1948, including the influx of survivors from Hitlers concentration camps, two-thirds of the population was still Palestinian.

The first Arab-Israeli war quickly followed as the armies of Egypt, Transjordan (now Jordan), Syria, Lebanon and Iraq joined Palestinian and other Arab guerrillas who had been attacking Jewish forces since November 1947. The Arabs failed to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state and were defeated. The war ended with four U.N.-arranged armistice agreements between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Commenting on Pappes historical research, Rami Khouri, director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut and editor at large of the Beirut Daily Star, writes, Many Israelis will challenge Pappes account. Such a process should ideally spark an honest, comprehensive analysis that could lead us to an accurate narrative of what happened in 1947-48 -- accurate for both sides, if it is to have meaning for either side.

An Israeli official textbook for Palestinian third-graders, says Fares, that fleetingly acknowledges the Palestinian trauma of exile and occupation in 1948 is an intriguing sign of something that remains largely unclear. The something is worth exploring and reciprocating, if it indicates a capacity to move toward the elusive shared, accurate, truthful account of Israeli and Palestinian history that must anchor any progress toward a negotiated peace.

The consensus in Israel today, says Pappe, is for a state comprising 90 percent of Palestine surrounded by electric fences and visible and invisible walls with Palestinians given only worthless cantonized scrub lands of little value to the Jewish state. In 2006, Pappe sees that 1.4 million Palestinians live in Israel on 2 percent of the land allotted to them plus another 1 percent for agricultural use with 6 million Jews on most of the rest. Another 3.9 million live concentrated in Israels unwanted portions of the West Bank and concentrated in Gaza that has three times the population density of Manhattan, notes Pappe. Back from the Middle East last week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said prospects are good for a two-state solution. A viable and contiguous Palestinian state, pledged by the Bush administration, remains a pipe dream.

Learn from the fall of Rome, US warned

August 14, 2007
The Financial Times

Learn from the fall of Rome, US warned
By Jeremy Grant

The US government is on a burning platform of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the countrys top government inspector has warned.

David Walker, comptroller general of the US, issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his countrys future in a report that lays out what he called chilling long-term simulations.

These include dramatic tax rises, slashed government services and the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdings of US debt.

Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were striking similarities between Americas current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government.

Sound familiar? Mr Walker said. In my view, its time to learn from history and take steps to ensure the American Republic is the first to stand the test of time.

Mr Walkers views carry weight because he is a non-partisan figure in charge of the Government Accountability Office, often described as the investigative arm of the US Congress.

While most of its studies are commissioned by legislators, about 10 per cent such as the one containing his latest warnings are initiated by the comptroller general himself.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Walker said he had mentioned some of the issues before but now wanted to turn up the volume. Some of them were too sensitive for others in government to have their name associated with.

Im trying to sound an alarm and issue a wake-up call, he said. As comptroller general Ive got an ability to look longer-range and take on issues that others may be hesitant, and in many cases may not be in a position, to take on.

One of the concerns is obviously we are a great country but we face major sustainability challenges that we are not taking seriously enough, said Mr Walker, who was appointed during the Clinton administration to the post, which carries a 15-year term.

The fiscal imbalance meant the US was on a path toward an explosion of debt.

With the looming retirement of baby boomers, spiralling healthcare costs, plummeting savings rates and increasing reliance on foreign lenders, we face unprecedented fiscal risks, said Mr Walker, a former senior executive at PwC auditing firm.

Current US policy on education, energy, the environment, immigration and Iraq also was on an unsustainable path.

Our very prosperity is placing greater demands on our physical infrastructure. Billions of dollars will be needed to modernise everything from highways and airports to water and sewage systems. The recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis was a sobering wake-up call.

Mr Walker said he would offer to brief the would-be presidential candidates next spring.

They need to make fiscal responsibility and inter-generational equity one of their top priorities. If they do, I think we have a chance to turn this around but if they dont, I think the risk of a serious crisis rises considerably.