One World, Many Peaces

Conscientious Objector in Israeli Military Imprisoned at Age 19

Omer Shoshan, age 19, from the town of Yehud near Tel Aviv, was sentenced to 20 days of imprisonment for refusing to carry out orders against Palestinians he considers immoral, called conscientious objecting. Below is personal statement of refusal. He enlisted in the Israeli military eight months ago, but after becoming a soldier he realized he could not continue his military service under the current Israeli apartheid regime.

Shoshan is held in a secret detention centre, rather than in a military prison, so his prison address is unknown. However, letters of support and encouragement can still be sent to him via e-mail at messages2prison@newprofile.org, and they will be printed out and delivered during visits.

Omar Shoshan's Statement of Conscientious Objection

I refuse to be part of the Israel Defence Forces, an army that occupies and oppresses a Palestinian population on a daily basis, which undermines the chances to achieve peace, and thus also Israel’s security, and which corrupts the moral and democratic character of the state.

For more than 40 years the IDF has been daily oppressing the Palestinians in the occupied territories and denying them their most basic rights to live normally. This includes hampering their freedom of movement, undermining their economy, hurting their bodies, illegally arresting them and committing many other severe crimes that usually fail to make it to the mainstream media. The very fact that any simple soldier serving beyond the Green Line has power over the lives of local residents and can force them to do as he pleases is illegal and undemocratic, and obtains the exact opposite of what it is supposed to – it produces more terrorists, increases hatred towards us and undermines any realistic chances for peace. So what purpose does this oppression really serve? Only one – perpetuating the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are illegal in their own right and which are the obstacle to reaching a compromise between the two peoples.

Even before enlisting I had my doubts about whether or not to join the army, whether to support the army that represents my country or to refuse. I eventually decided to enlist, because I felt that I could refuse from within, to do things otherwise, to effect change. Today I understand that the army’s actions in the occupied territories themselves, its very presence there, are what constitutes the occupation, and no action I could make, not even if I offer a more positive treatment to Palestinian civilians, could make any difference.

I believe that in a country that claims to be a democracy, it is good and even necessary for each of us to voice criticism and indignation when the country is wrong. The IDF is an organisation that fights for interests that I don’t believe in, performs anti-democratic and immoral actions and seriously undermines the chances to achieve piece. I am no longer willing to be part of it.

The Power of Apology as a Step Towards Peace: Japan to Asia

"I'm sorry" may just be the most powerful words in the world,  not just in inter-personal relationships but also in inter-national ones. No exaggeration, apologizing is proving to be the first and a potent step towards reconciliation and peace, as the stunning recent case of Japan towards its former Asian colonies is making clear. And there's a lot we can from the unprecedented actions of the Japanese Premier for our personal and political lives.
 
Over the weekend, and for the first time, Japan's new Prime Minister Naoto Kan shunned a visit to a shrine that has outraged Asian neighbors for honoring war criminals, breaking from past governments' tradition and instead apologizing Sunday for the suffering World War II caused, according to the Associated Press. Previously, Japanese leaders made a point of visiting the shrine to commemorate Japanese imperialism of the early 20th century, and members of the opposition party continued this tradition even if the Prime Minister and his cabinet did not.

"We caused great damage and suffering to many nations during the war, especially to the people of Asia," Kan told a crowd of about 6,000 at an annual memorial service for the war dead at Budokan hall in Tokyo. "We feel a deep regret, and we offer our sincere feelings of condolence to those who suffered and their families," he said. "We renew our promise to never wage war, and we promise to do our utmost to achieve eternal world peace and to never repeat again the mistake of war," pointedly away from Yasukuni Shrine of Shinto in Tokyo, where the war commemorations were previously held.
 
In so saying, Kan opened a new chapter in Asian international relations, which his successors of any party will have a difficult time not continuing. Last week, he apologized to South Korea for Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule. Imperialist Japan committed atrocities in Asia killing millions, which some claim was as bad or worse as what the Nazis did in Europe, including forcing women to work in in slave-labor conditions and serve as prostitutes in military-run brothels.
 
In Seoul, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, speaking Sunday before a crowd packing a plaza near the former royal palace, said history should not be forgotten but urged Japan and his nation to work together for a new future. "I have taken note of Japan's effort, which represents one step forward," Lee said of Kan's apology. If only more leaders worldwide would do likewise, not to mention us in our everyday lives.

First, Do No Harm: Lessons from the BP Gulf Oil Spill Ecocatastrophe

By Robert Koehler

As Planet Earth continues to hemorrhage crude oil from its wound — with a worst-case estimate of as much as 100,000 barrels a day — we grope, beyond our anger and guilt, simply to imagine what damage we have done in the pursuit of human empowerment.

This is bigger than BP, blameworthy though the company may be. This is bigger than any sort of “us vs. them” scenario we can think of. It’s a crisis of civilization, which means all of us.

If we drive, use energy, buy products wrapped in absurd, throwaway plastic — if we live at all — it cuts across our lives. The roots of this disaster, and, God help us, the ones to come, are political and corporate and governmental, and they are also intensely personal. We all collude in society’s “addiction” to oil, or what I would call its sense of entitlement: This is our planet. We’re the boss.

What we’re truly addicted to, or at least inextricably caught up in, is what my friend Jim Oberg calls “doomsday capitalism” and its need for reckless, unlimited economic growth. With this system operative, we trend toward war, empire and exploitation.

Maybe, as we look at the graphics of this disaster — pelicans, for instance, covered in black goo — we begin to grasp our immaturity as a species. Let’s say we do survive ourselves and create a sustainable, eco-harmonious way to live and prosper: What we’re presently churning up in our clumsiness and techno-entitlement is a warning to the future of how not to be. We’re scaring up a whole new mythology, and new definitions of sacrilege.

I know nowhere to start except here. And I know of nothing less to reach for than . . . salvation.

I use this language not to promote existing religions, which far too often collude in the problem, but to reach deep into the human core, into the raw material of existence, to find new commonality with one another and to discover new — or perhaps I mean to rediscover ancient, uncompromised and uncorrupted — principles to live by.

The rebuilding of human society cannot be superficial. It must begin with a realization that those in power mostly have no idea what they’re doing; they operate with crippling short-sightedness, in a context of eerily limited self-interest. (“History, we don't know,” George Bush said to Bob Woodward, regarding future assessments of the Iraq war. “We’ll all be dead.”) We’re, like, on our own here.

Knowledge that this is the case leads either to despair and cynicism or translates into a deeper, more profound sense of personal responsibility. I opt for the latter, understanding that present-day U.S. democracy is comfortable with a spectator citizenry: entertained, isolated and disengaged. We don’t pursue the sort of awareness that would propel us into troubled discontent, and we’re not supposed to. But it’s our only choice. And while this sort of awareness doesn’t translate into easy or obvious action, maybe that’s OK.

First, do no harm.

What if that phrase, which is the byword of many professions, became a sort of operating principle with which to proceed, individually and collectively, into the future? Even if it’s an impossible standard, wouldn’t we be far better off attempting to live by its implications, or at least reflecting on them and debating them, than by mockingly dismissing them?

Our most destructive enterprises all depend on moral relativism and a suspension of this value, allegedly in service to a greater good, which generally fails to materialize. I submit that the “greater good” argument is a convenient scam, pulled out of a hat time and again by those intent on gaming the system for limited, self-serving ends.

Yet it springs eternal — certainly as the ultimate argument for war, but also for anything that might generate a profit.

Harvey Wasserman, for instance, writing about the resurgence of the nuclear power industry and its backing by the Obama administration, notes that, “Like BP, their builders would enjoy financial liability limits dwarfed by damage they could do.”

Nuclear power has been able to recast itself as a green alternative to coal and oil only by minimizing or dismissing the problem of radioactive waste and the dangers of meltdown. “If the White House has a reliable plan for deploying and funding a credible response to a disaster at a reactor that’s superior to the one we’ve seen at the Deepwater Horizon, we’d sure like to see it,” Wasserman writes.

As I read this, my thought is that the forces that ultimately determine the future of this industry will be responding to something more short-sighted and “pragmatic” than my proposed operating principle: First, do no harm.

The United States is both an aggressive empire and a throwaway society. We wage open-ended wars that are mostly for the sake of resource control, and we package our groceries in “disposable” plastic bags, given away by the billions, which are made from the primary resource we seek to control.

The crisis is upon us. Our paradoxes have come home to roost, and they’re covered with oil.

Photo Credit: The National Guard

India and Pakistan Open Breakthrough Peace Talks

Something unimaginable just a couple of months ago is quickly becoming actuality: the leaders of India and Pakistan have opened direct talks to resolve their many outstanding issues, several of which have triggered wars in the past. Top on the list of items in the breakthrough preliminary discussions are addressing the growing terrorist threat within and between the two countries, and the rise of China as their mutual neighboring superpower to the East. Only a few weeks ago, another armed conflict seemed likely between the three countries over their respective interests in the Kashmir region.

Meeting in Bhutan for the first time in close to a year, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani, to work out ways to restore trust and confidence in the two states' troubled and storied relationship, "thus paving the way for a substantive dialogue on all issues of mutual concern", Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao told reporters. Since the deadly Mumbai attacks in 2008, India has purposefully distanced itself from Pakistan, a move which now seems to its leaders as being counterproductive when it comes to fighting terrorism.

The last time the two premiers sat down together was at the Non-Aligned Movement's summit in Egypt last July, and both parties seemed genuinely relieved and encouraged by the overtures, although it is too soon to tell what (if anything) will result. Bonding over the wounds of terrorist attacks and an imposing common neighbor may not be the ideal conditions for reconciliation, but they certainly are proving pragmatic, especially as both countries have nuclear arsenals of questionable security.  "I don't think either side was expecting such a positive turn in dialogue," Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Quresh told reporters. "It was a step in the right direction and it was in the right spirit."

When India seceded from the British Empire in 1947, the subcontinent was further partitioned by its leaders and an all-to-willing exiting empire into Pakistan as a Muslim country. Gandhi, who struggled for Indian autonomy, and then independence when these efforts were thwarted, considered the partition the greatest regret of his life. For years earlier, he had tried to reconcile Hindu and Muslims in the region through marches, fasts and town-hall style meeting, but to no avail. Given that the premiers of the two countries agreed to meet in person again soon, this current event is one that Gandhi may not have wanted, but would have welcomed as creating a more peaceful future for Asia and the world.

The Oprah of India: Swami Ramdev from Yoga Guru to Neoconservative Populist Politician

His name is Swami Ramdev, and he captivates more people than Oprah, like her urging self-improvement in personal revolutions, if from within different traditions. He has been credited with reintroducing yoga to the middle and lower classes of India, and by so doing has become one of the country's most sought-after gurus. He is in the process of transforming his yoga empire into a political machine that is hyper-ethnocentric, xenophobic but also impressively empowering. And it's working.

Swamis Ramdev's TV program, "Om Yog Sadhana," and the campus of his Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust organization have brought in millions of people and dollars, regardless of his vow of poverty. The Trust's website welcomes visitors with a cult-like message blending ancient philosophy with contemporary trends in what would be decidedly New Age had it been proposed in the "New World." But because it hasn't, Ramdev is perceived as a visionary along Gandhian lines to some, and simply a wacko to others.

Here are a few of the principles detailed on the Trust's website, which form the basis of his strange but apparently effective combination of spirituality and politicking:

The Five Vows: 1. God has choosen me for self redemption and for welfare of the world; 2. Life has got before it a very sublime goal of service to the nation and service of mankind; 3. I will never assess myself disparagingly; 4. I will maintain a perennial flow of noble sentiments in my life; 5. I will live as a cautious and vigilant representative of my Guru, God and nation.

The Five Targets: 1. 100% voting; 2. 100% nationalistic thinking; 3. 100% total boycott of foreign companies, and complete support to swadeshi; 4. 100% organization of patriots; 5. To make a healthy, prosperous and cultured Bharat by developing a 100% yoga - practicing Bharat.

The Seven Norms of Good Conduct: 1. Vegitarianism; 2. Addiction-free; 3. Healthy; 4. Competent; 5. Dedicated; 6. Non-political life; 7. Commitment to devote at least two hours daily to yoga and national interest.

The Seven Norms of Nationalism: 1. Nationalism; 2. Enterprise; 3. Transparency; 4. Foresight; 5. Humanitarianism; 6. Spiritualism; 7. Humility.
 
The radical if curious neoconservatism, steeped in populism and ultra-nationalism, Ramdev is in the midst of proposing as a quick fix malaise solution to India's rapid modernization in recent years is appealing mostly to the lower and middle classes, although he is not without upper class support as well.

Ramdev calls his spiritual-political movement Bharat Swabhiman, and intends to eradicate corruption, crime and poverty from India with an aim to transform it into a World Power. The Oprah of India is thus just as much a current event creating the future as the Oprah of America.

Troubling Terms: Muslim, Islamist, Arab... All the Same, Right? Wrong

Few words are used more often with less scrutiny than those referring to the followers of Mohammed's Qur'an, and this in an age when what's left of political correctness (quantitatively and qualitatively) is just enough to prohibit progressives from speaking at ease and conservatives the sick joy of contraventions. What one of the latter, the leader of the British National Party (BNP), said in a live radio session that was also televised really went out his way to make the terminology political… and politically incorrect (depending on your views).

In response to a caller accusing him of anti-Muslim sentiment, ultra-conservative (a nice way to say racist bigot) BNP leader Nick Griffin politely stated he had read the Koran and believed it to be 'not a religious book, but a manual for conquering other people's countries', which it decidedly is not. He is not anti-Muslim, he started off by saying, but he is anti-Islam. The facetious point he was making is that there is a difference between being against a religion and being against people who belong to that religion. Splitting hairs, maybe, but here are some of the terms being used and abused:

Islamist: Usually used in reference to actively fighting soldiers, guerillas, insurgents or resistance fighters (and not necessarily terrorist, see below) who adhere to Islam and who may or may not be fighting in its name, which gives the peaceful a bad one.
 
Muslim: By far the most widely used word referring to adherents of Islam, and generally considered the most neutral term; the literal translation of the word aslama is "one who submits or surrenders," i.e. to Allah's/God's will as expressed in the Qur'an.

Mohammedan: Rarely used today, this term can still be found in works of literature, news and Western government reports that date from about 1400s to the 1930s; among the other historical and more derogatory or ambiguous terms are Turk, barbarian and heathen.

Black Muslim: Although Muslims who have black or dark brown skin live throughout Africa and the world, the term is usually used with specific reference to African-American Muslims who belong to the Nation of Islam, like Malcolm X.

Arab: Although the majority of those the West here about outside of Pakistan and India are of this racial origin (which perhaps ironically has the same antecedents as Semitics, or "racially Jewish"), it only has to do with Islam insofar as implied or explicit associations are made, and no more.

Fundamentalist: Contrary to popular belief based on media portrayals, not all Muslims are fundamentalists, any more so than Christians are; the term tends to be used in reference to people who live in places where religion is all they can cling to, from poverty or abundance.

Terrorist: Again contrary to popular belief based on media portrayals, only a tiny fraction of the Muslim population worldwide is involved with terrorism, and even fewer commit terrorist acts, which are in any case not limited to this religion but have been done in the name of all.

The point here is not to be politically correct when you refer to adherents of Islam, but to be accurate and assured that the words you use are a current event creating a world in which words hurt less and help more.

Photo credit: Bird Eye

Who Gives a Billion Muslims Worldwide a Voice? Meet Dalia Mogahed

Dalia Mogahed is Senior Analyst and Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, and leads the analysis of Gallup's unprecedented survey representing the views and opinions of more than 1 billion Muslims worldwide, including Muslims in the West. On behalf of One World, Many Peaces, Antony Adolf held an exclusive intereview with Ms. Mogahed. 
 
In addition to her work with Gallup, Ms. Mogahed directs the Muslim-West Facts Initiative. Through this initiative, Gallup, in collaboration with the Coexist Foundation, disseminates the findings of the Gallup World Poll to key opinion leaders in the Muslim World and the West.

Ms. Mogahed is also involved with important international organizations that address issues of Muslim communities. She is a member of Women in International Security, serves on the leadership group of the Project on U.S. Engagement with the Global Muslim Community, and is a member of the Crisis in the Middle East Task Force of the Brookings Institution.

Antony Adolf: In what ways do you see personal relations and information-sharing (or their absence) among Muslims and non-Muslims influencing what Muslims think? And vice versa? How do you think this situation can be improved?

Dalia Mogahed: Information and personal relations is key. For example, Americans who know a Muslim are half as likely to have extreme prejudice toward the faith community.  However, the key is not information, but accurate information. 

Our research actually finds that those who know nothing about Islam and cannot even tell us the name of the Prophet are more likely to say they have no prejudice.  Prejudice in America is learned, not inherently a function of knowing nothing about a group.  Media content analysis shows that Islam is the most negatively portrayed religion in the world as well as the most reported on ideology.  People may think they are well informed but unfortunately, the information is inaccurate. 

Surprisingly, educated people are more likely to have negative views of the other both in America and in the Muslim world.  This might be that less educated people do not have the level of engagement in global affairs to have a strong opinion. 

Antony Adolf: Being in the position in which you are, can you tell us about how (or how not) your professional and biographical backgrounds have influenced one another and do so in the projects you carry out? What would you say to Muslim youths in these regards?

Dalia Mogahed: I believe that all of us bring our life experiences in to inform and enrich our work.  I am no different.  My training is in the hard sciences:  Chemical Engineering to be specific.  I bring the empirical rigor and the scientific method of inquiry of this training to the work I do today.  I also had graduate and professional training in market research, and this approach of crafting solutions based on the views and needs of people is one I utilize in my profession. 

I also spent several years in the field of inter-cultural education, and the communication skills I developed in this work come in very handy when I present our research.  Gallup’s training and commitment to accuracy, integrity and objectivity guide my analysis perhaps more than anything else.  In addition, my own background as a devout Muslim and a proud American, a living contradiction to the Clash of Civilization theory, also enriches my work.

Antony Adolf: Can you situate how your projects on Muslim communities worldwide fit within Gallup’s work as a whole, as well as in relation to key academic and/or policy formation fields you contribute to?

Dalia Mogahed: Gallup’s core business is giving people a voice.  We do this in our Enterprise work by measuring employee and customer engagement.  We do this in our Polling work, but conducting global public opinion research in 150 countries covering 95% of the world’s population.  Within this massive research area we have different areas of focus, one of which is Muslim Studies.  The Center for Muslim Studies draws on this global research and focuses on Muslim communities around the world, both as majorities as well as significant minorities. 

This empirical research helps to inform policy discussions and academic research around the world.  This occurs through direct briefings to these centers of influence, our involvement in advisory committees and commissions, or through our reports which are publically available on our website. 

Antony Adolf: Your book with Professor John Esposito, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, provides fascinating accounts about public and personal opinions among the world’s Muslims. Can you let us in to some of the methodologies you used and surprising findings that resulted?

Dalia Mogahed: Our book is the result of years of research and tens of thousands of face to face interviews.  We drew a representative sample of residents in more than 30 countries and conducted hour long interviews with each in their homes.  Our sample includes young and old, educated and illiterate, men and women and urban as well as rural populations. 

Our most important finding was that the conflict between Muslims and the West is not inevitable.  Muslims admire much of what the West holds dear.  They don’t hate our freedom, they respect us for it.  In fact, the problem is not what they think of us, but what they think we think of them.  Muslims around the world believe that the West disrespects them and that this disrespect and racism is reflected in our policies as well as our prose.

Antony Adolf: What about dissenting voices, or ones that are usually kept silent, even within Muslim communities? In other words, how is it possible (or not) to actually speak for or represent all Muslims, is not a lot always lost in efforts to find out what can be gained?

Dalia Mogahed: You are right and this is why it is very important to be representative in the sample that is chosen.  The real issue however is that the media, especially the Western media, has been over representing minority voices, and in fact the majority has been silenced.  The fringe, both extremists of religious or secular ideologies, have monopolies the conversation for too long. 

Many have been lead to believe that there are only two possible voices on Islam:  Osama bin Laden or Ayan Hersi Ali.  Neither are representative,  both only speak for a miniscule minority, but unfortunately both get a lot of air time.  Our research opens the lenses and gives us a window into the lives of ordinary people who do not have access to the airwaves.

Antony Adolf: What does (or doesn't) your research show about what Muslims think about peace within themselves (i.e., denominationally), with others currently hostile forces (i.e., NATO and US-llied forces), and within other cultures (i.e., in Europe and North America)?

Dalia Mogahed: We found that Muslims, both Sunni and Shiites, believe that the most important thing Muslims should do to help themselves is to be more united.  We heard a great deal about the lack of unity, sectarian division, that Muslims feel is their greatest problem as a community.  On the surface, there are good intentions and Iraqis for example say they have positive views of both Sunnis and Shiites regardless of their own identities.  But despite this, publics see these division as major problems.

***

Along with her involvement with these organizations, Ms. Mogahed co-authored, with Professor John Esposito, the book Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think. Her analysis also has appeared in such prestigious publications as The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy Magazine, the Harvard International Review, the Middle East Policy Journal, and many other academic and popular journals.
 
Ms. Mogahed has spoken at events and for organizations worldwide. Her audiences include the High-Level Group of the United Nations the Alliance of Civilizations, the Community of West and Islam Dialogue (C-100) group of the World Economic Forum, the Brookings Institution’s U.S.-Islamic World Forum, British parliamentarians, American senators, and religious leaders from every faith. She has discussed Gallup findings with a wide range of opinion leaders, including Madeleine Albright, Deepak Chopra, Stephen R., Covey, Quincy Jones, Jeffrey Sachs, Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, evangelical leader Richard Land, bestselling author Karen Armstrong, U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel, Muslim activist and teacher Amr Khaled, Sheikh Habib Ali al-Jifri, Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, Her Majesty Queen Rania al Abdullah of Jordan, as well as two of the highest authorities of Sunni Islam - the Grand Muftis of Egypt and Bosnia and their Excellencies Dr. Ali Gomaa and Dr. Mustafa Ceric.
 
Ms. Mogahed earned her master's degree in business administration with an emphasis in strategy from the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. She received her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering. Upon graduation, Ms. Mogahed joined Procter & Gamble as a marketing products researcher.

What American Muslim Terrorists Attacking Abroad Means

You’ve heard the news: five American Muslims have been charged with terrorism in Pakistan. But what does this momentous event mean, especially in light of the several others like it recently? Mainstream media has avoided commentary, analysis and even reporting as if the story were infected with the plague. Maybe it is in a way: we wouldn’t want more of them, would we? So what are some of the implications and possible cover-ups taking place?

First and foremost: Think there are just five of them? Think again. An American man from New Jersey was arrested for terrorism in Yemen last month. And, just recently, a woman from Colorado was arrested in Ireland on the same grounds. Also keep in mind that the CIA has been operating in Pakistan for decades, with people, information and resources flowing both ways, if asymmetrically. This, aside from the overt, routine exchanges unrelated to the military, from educational to commercial enterprises of individuals and organizations.

The Pakistani five, friends from the Washington area, are Ramy Zamzam, a dental student of Egyptian descent at Howard University; Ahmed Abdullah Minni, a native of Eritrea; Aman Hassan Yemer, originally from Ethiopia; and Umer Farooq and Waqar Khan, who are of Pakistani background. Disregarding the possibility that they may be American agents abroad who got caught and are being tried for treason not against the US but against Islam, North American media is convinced this is about the radicalization of Muslims in the US. While this is no doubt a legitimate fear, the fear mongering it supports draws attention away from many other similar cases worldwide. There is much more to the story.

Although few details have yet been released, if these are the agents (whether terrorist or American aligned) that are either dumb enough or (un)important enough to get prosecuted, count on dozens if not hundred more who are not. The logic of experts is that the pressures Muslims in America have felt since September 2001 have pushed them to these extremites. But why, then, would or have they not conspired to attacks within the US? Have they not been pushed “that far”? Or, are they the sheep that get left behind for the wolves so that the flock can survive, as were American operatives in Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam war?

The excellent film Traitor, starring Don Cheadle, both dramatizes and critiques counterterrorism and terrorism in ways that productively problematize the problem of American Muslim terrorists at home and abroad, which the media does not yet know how to cover and the government how to solve. This solution-less situation is a current event creating a future in which these problems get worse.

New Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem Triggers its Opposites, Calling Notion's Validity into Question

Construction of the new Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem hasn’t even started yet, but already people are protesting because its site lies on an 11th-century cemetery turned parking lot. Prominent Muslim professors and professionals from around the world and Palestinian families whose ancestors lie there have formally protested against the building to the United Nation. The Israeli state and the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish rights organization, plan to go ahead with the Museum despite the serious setbacks it has suffered so far.

World-renowned architect Frank Gehry recently withdrew from the project, citing over-commitments rather than politics as motive, the New York Times reports. Among the foremost supporters of the project are Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the Israeli government. Among its high-profile protestors are Adnan Husseini, the Palestinian Authority governor of Jerusalem, Israeli peace activist Ahmad Natour and Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University.
 
Conflict resolution scholars like Mark Howard Ross have not been shy to point out the abuses of historical sites and artifacts by the Israeli government and its foreign supporters, used to justify Jewish primacy over locations. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Museum of Tolerance is intended to confront issues like “global anti-Semitism, extremism, hate, human dignity and responsibility, and promoting unity and respect among Jews and people of all faiths.” No mention is made of the Palestinian population in and around Israel, oppressed let alone tolerated by the state.
 
Ironically, the Museum has a dual name of Center for Human Dignity, which must mean only for peoples of certain descent and not those of the deceased of the Mamilla Cemetery (Ma’man Allah in Arabic), making the building itself betray what it stands for. In the end, the controversy calls into question the validity of the principle of tolerance as the basis of policy because it does not require understanding, acceptance nor accommodations of others, but merely distanced if benign acknowledgment. You can tolerate a pest, someone unwanted, but toleration's underlying indifference paves the way for externmination once pests become threats preceisely because they were just tolerated. Creating the future with a museum that is a current event for such reasons is a perilous enterprise despite, or because of, the critical engagement it interpolates. 

‘Pay-for-Peace’ Fund of $500 Million Created by Western Powers and Afghanistan, Another Peacemaking Move Ignored by US Media

In yet another surprising yet ignored turn in the Afghan shift from war to peacemaking, Western powers beyond NATO and the Afghan government have agreed to establish a $500 million fund to incentivize Taliban disarmament and reintegration. The agreement was reached and the announcement made at the London conference of 70-nations but has received almost no coverage in the US and piecemeal elsewhere. This blatant failure of the news media, whether pressured to do so by government or based on its own war bias, comes at a pivotal moment that could decide the fate of US soldiers there and natives alike.

Incongruously, the fund comes in the wake of the ‘troop surge’ urged by NATO commander General McChrystal and agreed to by President Obama. While McChrysta has spoken in favor of seeking peace with the Taliban (as previously reported on One World, Many Peaces), President Obama and chief diplomat Hillary Clinton have yet to make a pronouncement on the peacemaking efforts, including during Obama’s State of the Union address last week. We wonder what NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen had in mind in saying: “Much attention is on the new reconciliation and reintegration effort initiated by the Afghan government. Questions were raised if we are bribing the Taliban just to get peace.”

The strongest supporter of the pay-for-peace fund is US-ally Saudi Arabia, which has a special relationship with the Taliban since it was one of the few countries to recognize its regime in Afghanistan before it was ousted in 2001. The purpose of the fund is to try to convince rank-and-file Taliban members to give up the fight in exchange for cash and land in quantities the Taliban cannot guarantee. However, as Georgetown University's Christine Fair, who has analyzed Taliban suicide attacks in Afghanistan for the U.N., notes: “You also need political incentives to bring them into the picture,” not a current event in sight, especially in the future the US media is creating.