Author Archives: Arab America

Reem Fadda, an associate curator, says that while there are institutions that honor Arab and Middle Eastern art, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will place the work of Arab artists side by side with that of their international counterparts.

Source: www.nytimes.com

During a recent parliament session in which senators questioned the government, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced a review of “Islam of France,” saying he will “put all the issues on the table”.

Valls went on to unveil a round of consultations on the issue, which will be conducted by Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve, a review believed to be a result of the January attacks on the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices.

“I know that our fellow Muslim citizens are subjected to high stresses and are worried about the outbreak of violence against them, they feel they have to justify themselves of an act to which they are foreign,” Valls said last week. “The Republic owes them protection.”

In the French prime minister’s sights are issues including: imams training, foreign funding of places of worship and the prevention of radicalisation. Such topics have already been addressed in the past but are much more complicated than it seems.

A determined government

“The fact that the state does not recognise any worship, does not mean ignoring them,” Valls stressed cautiously during his announcement.

A balance will have to be struck within the framework of the 1905 law that “guarantees the freedom of worship,” prevents the authorities from interfering in religious communities’ worshiping practices and affairs and also stops the state from funding any places of worship.

Valls is hoping to navigate the lines with the help of the Muslim community.

“There is work to be done in cooperation with the intelligence services, but also an intellectual, philosophical and theological work that the state should support,” Valls urged.

“This brainstorming on worship organisation belongs to the Muslims of France, to the religious leaders and the intellectuals who are never sufficiently involved in this work, and to civil society actors”.

The result is that Cazeneuve should in the coming weeks be receiving philosophers, imams and Muslim civil society actors in order to identify a plan of action that aims to reform the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), resolves imams’ training issues, and curbs foreign funding of French mosques.

Hauts-de-Seine Socialist Party deputy Alexis Bachelay says he approves of the aims.

“I am on the ground and I know that we cannot go on saying everything is just fine,” he told MEE.

“The state has a role to play in assisting Muslims to organise, while respecting secularism.”

But the real intentions seem to go beyond this mere organisational aspect.

According to Valls: “There is the need to reshape Muslim theology” – a seeming echoing of remarks made by Tareq Oubrou, a Muslim intellectual and imam of Bordeaux’s mosque, who advocates a liberal form of Islam and in the wake of the Paris attacks criticized erroneous interpretations of Islam in his sermons.

Despite this, Bachelay said he found Valls’ remark surprising.

“If he really said that, I think there is a problem in the interpretation of the 1905 law,” he said, while explaining that this went beyond the merely organizational aspect of worship.

Which Islam of France?

The first hurdle in any reform will be finding a single Muslim authority or community to negotiate with as the Muslim community in France is heterogeneous and still affiliated to foreign countries such as Algeria, Morocco or Turkey.

The creation of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) in 2003 is an example of this division. The structure of the CFCM which Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of Interior, was spearheading, has never really gathered support among French Muslims.

Plagued by rivalries between federations’ allegiances to foreign countries, the CFCM – designed to act as an official discussion platform between the state and France’s Muslim Community – has never managed to impose itself as a reliable and credible institution to France’s four million Muslims.

The electoral temptation

The second problem is that despite what Valls has said, the issue of Islam in France remains a highly electoral one and will therefore risk being viewed as political opportunism, rather than a genuine desire to reform.

“When a French politician wants to mark history, he leans on Islam!” said Samia Hathroubi, head of the Europe department of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding (FFEU) and Professor of History.  

Hathroubi, an expert on Islam in France struggled to hide her skepticism: “He [Valls] might have a point regarding the reform of the imam issue, except that France continues signing agreements with North African countries and Turkey to bring imams [to France].”

As late as December, Cazeneuve and the Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal signed an agreement in Algiers to ensure that imams sent to France would be trained “in harmony with the French Republic’s standards”. There was no mention of ending the influence/dominance of foreign countries over France’s Islam, a request that is made by many of the faithful.

Although Valls addressed the issue of imam training in France by saying that France “must encourage the coming closer of the academic rules and standards with higher education institutions,” he did not address the underlying issues, Hathroubi argued.

“We are swamped in total populism and demagoguery,” she said. “Everyone knows that in Alsace, where the Concordat is still effective, it would be quite possible to create courses in cooperation with the universities to train imams.”

Hathroubi believes that the 1801 Concordat – which aimed to heal rifts between the Catholic Church and France after the revolution and allows the state to organise the Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed and Jewish worships and therefore to remunerate their ministers – could be extended to Muslim worship and should be considered as a possible option.

“I confirm this, except that nobody wants to do it,” Hathroubi said. “Alsace could very well be used as a laboratory to train imams in France, but in the absence of political will and therefore of funds, how can we move forward?”

Anouar Sassi, member of the national office of the Union of Democrats and Independents (IDU), points to Valls’s electoral strategy: “It is classic. Whenever the Socialist Party feels threatened, it resorts to the populism card in order to make the National Front rise [at the expense of Sarkozy’s right-wing party].”

“The issue of mosques’ foreign funding is stirred like a scarecrow. If this was true during the 70s and 80s, today’s field reports contradict Valls’s words,” Sassi added.

While the issue of foreign funding has been at the centre stage with Valls wanting to work out why “Islam of France receives foreign funding” the reality is that of the two hundred mosques currently under construction in France, the vast majority are being funded by the faithful in France themselves, with only a portion of funds coming from abroad. The result is that many of the faithful struggle to raise enough funds to build places of worship worthy of the name.

“If some [mosques] are being funded abundantly from abroad, many others are likely to take years to raise the needed amounts,” said Farid, a local activist. “If we do not have the resources to build places of worship, we cannot allow ourselves to live above our means.”

The backdrop to this is the war of influence reportedly being waged between mosques.

“You know, everyone knows there are mosques affiliated to organisations close to foreign countries. They receive funds directly in suitcases!” said M’hammed Henniche, Secretary General of the Union of Muslim Associations of Seine-Saint-Denis.

Such facts, however, remain hard to verify and do not match the perception of the majority of the faithful. Furthermore reducing foreign countries’ financial involvement is a shortcut that, in the post-Charlie atmosphere, could prove risky and may stigmatise French Muslims trying to find funds to build mosques.

Valls also took aim at some religious organisations affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

“We cannot make agreements with organisations that do not respect the values of the Republic”, he said in apparent reference to the Union of Islamic Organisations of France (UOIF).

Twenty years of ‘Islam of France’

Historically speaking, similar state policies of religious interference have proven tricky as French Muslims have shown skepticism toward state-designed religious structures.

The CFCM experience is a glaring illustration. According to Henniche: “This instance was created by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2003 in view of the 2007 presidential elections in order to seduce the Muslim electorate, traditionally known for voting for the left, by taking credit for the paternity of this new and very symbolic institution.”

But Sarkozy was only the latest politician to try their hand at this. Back in 1990, Pierre Joxe, then Minister of Interior of President Francois Mitterrand, created the CORIF, Council of reflection on Islam in France – a project that ultimately failed largely due to the divisions within French Muslim society.

Before him, Charles Pasqua, then Minister of the Interior of Edouard Balladur’s coalition government in the late 1980s, creates a Representative Council of Muslims in France. The Paris Mosque, affiliated to Algeria, headed this new structure, but not to the liking of other Muslim organisations. Again this venture, was just another failure.

Jean-Pierre Chevènement, under the Lionel Jospin government, reactivated the project and in 1999, initiated talks which he hoped would lay the foundations of an organisation based on regional delegates elected by proportional representation. The initiative eventually gave birth to the famous CFCM.

While Valls, may insist that he is “very determined,” to open up a new phase of consultation, many of the issues that doomed his predecessors have not disappeared, and neither have Muslim concerns that the state has less than pure intentions at heart.

“I’m afraid this approach is more about controlling Islam in France,” Farid, the activist, said.

Source: www.middleeasteye.net

Advertisements calling attention to Israel’s brutal 51-day military assault on Gaza last summer, as well as its continuing illegal occupation and confiscation of Palestinian land, went on display on San Francisco municipal buses Feb. 2.

Israel’s military assault on Gaza from July 7 to August 16, 2014 killed 2,131 Palestinians, including 1,473 civilians—501 of them children; wounded 11,000; and left at least 110,000 people homeless.

The ads, reading “ISRAEL’S WAR CRIMES, YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK,” were a joint project of the Free Palestine Movement and Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign (SeaMAC). The Free Palestine Movement has been organizing and participating in public advertising of this kind for more than two years, placing ads on buses and Bay Area Rapid Transit trains in San Francisco, a billboard in Sacramento, and buses in Denver.

These ads counter hateful anti-Muslim advertisements purchased by right-wing blogger Pamela Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative, which ran on the same buses in January. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, District Attorney George Gascón and other city leaders condemned Geller’s advertisements, calling them racist and Islamophobic, but acknowledged they were protected free speech.

The website notaxdollarstoisrael.com was created to accompany the advertisements and bring attention to—and condemn—the more than $3 billion in American taxpayer dollars the U.S. gives to Israel every year. News and information about this use of U.S. taxpayer money and efforts to end the funding, including tax exemptions for projects in Israel that support human rights abuses, can be found on the site.

The Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign, seamac.org, utilizes direct education through public forums, church and school presentations, and other face-to-face events to point out how U.S. support for Israel enables Israel’s continued oppression and subjugation of the Palestinian people.

Source: www.wrmea.org

He winced at the mere mention of his son’s name, visibly overcome by an unceasing thought that he struggled to articulate. He looked down to hide the tears in his eyes.

“You have to understand, I am in pain,” said Yaken Aly, choking on the words: “My son is gone.”

Mr. Aly raised his son, Islam Yaken, in Heliopolis, a middle-class Cairo neighborhood with tended gardens and trendy coffee shops, and sent him to a private school, where he studied in French. As a young man, Mr. Yaken wanted to be a fitness instructor. He trained relentlessly, hoping that his effort would bring him success, girlfriends and wealth. But his goals never materialized. He left that life and found religion, extremism and, ultimately, his way into a photograph where he knelt beside a decapitated corpse on the killing fields of Syria, smiling.

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“Surely, the holiday won’t be complete without a picture with one of the dogs’ corpses,” Mr. Yaken, now 22 and fighting for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, wrote in a Twitter post in July, during Ramadan.

Continue reading the main story

Graphic: Where the Foreign Fighters in Iraq and Syria Are Coming From
The West is struggling to confront the rise of Islamic extremism and the brutality committed in the name of religion. But it is not alone in trying to understand how this has happened — why young men raised in homes that would never condone violence, let alone coldblooded murder, are joining the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. It is a phenomenon that is as much a threat to Muslim nations as to the West, if not more so, as thousands of young men volunteer as foot soldiers, ready to kill and willing to die.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Since the war in Iraq, the American people have shied away from major commitments of ground troops in global hot spots, and they have been lukewarm at best about the level of spending needed to sustain our military forces.

Two surveys released today suggest the public sentiment is shifting in ways that could affect both future policy decisions and the 2016 presidential campaign.

The guiding principle of the Obama administration’s policy may be summed up simply: No boots on the ground. Advisors and Special Forces as needed, but no large and long-term deployments of ground forces. That principle has shaped the administration’s response to events in Libya and, more recently, to the rise of ISIS.

But according to today’s CBS Poll, the American people have shifted away from their former caution and favor the use of American ground forces to combat ISIS. As recently as last September, only 39% favored that course, while 55% were opposed. Today, 57% favor ground forces; only 39% remain opposed.

This change takes on added significance against the backdrop of what has not changed. Last fall, fully 64% of the people already believed that ground troops would be necessary to remove the threat of ISIS. (A statistically identical 65% think so today.) But now, far fewer Americans are content with a strategy and they don’t think will get the job done. ISIS’ horrible torture and execution of innocent civilians in full view of the world has increased Americans’ sense of urgency about confronting this threat.

Will we have the means to combat ISIS and meet other security challenges around the world, including an increasingly aggressive Russia? A Gallup survey released today indicates rising public concern that we won’t. As recently as 2012, 54% of Americans were confident that the strength of our national defense was about right, compared to 32% who worried that it wasn’t strong enough. But today, 44% believe that our defense isn’t strong enough, versus 42% who continue to think that it is.

This shifting assessment has direct consequences for policy. Today, 34% of the people say that we are spending too little on national defense—the highest since 2001. The increase in support for higher defense spending is broad-based—up 14 points among Republicans since 2012, 11 points among Independents, and 7 points among Democrats.

Still, polarization continues. 56% of Republicans think we need to spend more on defense; only 17% of Democrats agree.

Nonetheless, the widespread sense that chaos is overcoming order around the world in ways that directly threaten the American people appears to be reshaping public sentiment in the direction of a more muscular foreign and defense policy than the Obama administration has pursued up to now. Republicans are already positioned to respond. For her part, former Secretary of State and likely Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton will have to decide how she can reconcile shifting public sentiments and the ardent convictions of the Democratic base with each other and with her own views.

Source: www.brookings.edu

Under the slogan of “Educate, Empower, Engage,” the Hariri Foundation launched Friday an academy from the very place where late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri received his primary school education.

The Outreach and Leadership Academy, established in partnership with the Lebanese American University, will organize various workshops on subjects such as engagement in civil society and the importance of emotional intelligence. Joint programs between the Hariri Foundation for Sustainable Human Development and LAU Network are also in the works.

OLA will train both teachers and students on the newest theories in different fields such as economy, finance, diplomacy, human rights, environmental science, health and public affairs.

The launch ceremony took place at OLA’s headquarters, situated in an Ottoman-era house in Sidon’s old downtown, and brought the city’s rival politicians together. Aside from MP Bahia Hariri, the late prime minister’s sister, and former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, former MP Osama Saad was also present.

Giving a speech to the attendees, Hariri revealed that the building where OLA is now housed has a special place in the nation’s history.

“This is where the first days of Rafik Hariri were, here is where he learned the alphabet [and] here is where he learned honesty and regularity before the academy closed its doors six decades ago,” she said. The project, she said, was made possible by Hariri’s son, Bahaa Rafik Hariri, “who wanted to rehabilitate the first school from which his father, martyr Rafik Hariri, took off.”

The opening ceremony was attended by Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh, French Ambassador to Lebanon Patrice Paoli and a host of other officials. “We are happy to see attendees from all the categories of society,” LAU’s president Dr. Joseph Jabra said.

“This is being done to build a new society, which is very important not only for Sidon but for the whole society, because change come from the youth’s thoughts and capacities.”

Hariri and Jabra signed a cooperation agreement between the HFSHD and LAU.

The agreement is “about enhancing citizenships through social development,” said LAU’s Assistant Vice President for Outreach and Civic Engagement Elie Samia.

“The academy brings together all the different people and movements in order to establish the culture of civil integration and social awareness, as well as to hone leadership skills,” he said.

Samia highlighted the institute’s emphasis on both leadership and civic engagement.

“We have an important strategy at the academy which is teaching young students how to become leaders and including this in our educational curricula,” he said. “We are a tool of communication.”

Sidon’s Mayor Mohammad Saudi spoke at the end, thanking Hariri and Jabra for their help and care while stressing the basic importance of the academy. “Through these sessions the students’ leadership talents get discovered,” he said. “Talents exist, they just need a place to grow and get refined.”

Aside from being the site of Rafik Hariri’s earliest scholarship, the academy’s building has a long history. The building which now has 14 rooms, one main office and a backyard, is located at the entrance of al-Shakiriya street in Sidon. It was built by Ali Hammoud in the early 1730s. It was used at first as a residence for the Hammoud family, then as a school in the second half of the 19th century. In 1997, the al-Makassed al-Islamiyya organization and the HFSHD signed an agreement that gave the foundation permission to rehabilitate the building.

Other notable attendees at the ceremony included former Minister Raymond Audi, the Muftis of Sidon and Tyre, Sidon’s Greek Catholic Bishop Elie Haddad and Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya’s political representative in south Lebanon Bassam Hammoud.

Delegations representing ministers, deputies and other political, religious and business officials were also present.

Source: www.dailystar.com.lb

Deah Shaddy Barakat Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha With the Feb. 10 shooting in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that left them dead, they joined a long list of people who have been injured or killed by violence and appear to have been targeted for their faith, national origin or race. There are many others … Continued

On Saturday, Waters, Floyd’s “pimply bass player,” by his own estimation, published two letters he had written “the tall engineer” to his Facebook page, explaining that the first was his plea to Parsons to cancel the show while the second was his reply to a private letter Parsons had written him. Angered that Waters refused to comply with his request to keep the matter altogether private, Parsons published his reply to his own Facebook page.

In Waters’ original note, he asked Parsons to reconsider the February 10th show. “I know you to be a talented and thoughtful man, so I assume you know of the plight of the Palestinians,” he wrote. After explaining a nonviolent Palestinian movement, he attempted to appeal to Parsons’ artistic sensibilities. “While I know you don’t want to disappoint your fans by canceling this gig, you would be sending a powerful message to them and the world by doing so,” he wrote. “As with [the 1985 boycott of shows at the South African resort] Sun City, more and more artists are standing up to say they will not perform in Israel until such time as their occupation ends and equal rights are extended to Palestinians.”

Parsons, who identified himself as Waters’ colleague, politely declined the Wall singer’s request. “I appreciate your note and your passion,” he wrote. “However, this is a political matter and I am simply an artist. I create music; that is my raison d’être. Everyone – no matter where they reside, what religion they follow or what ideology they aspire to – deserves to hear it if they so choose. Music knows no borders, and neither do I.”

Waters replied by saying he wished to continue the dialogue. “By ignoring the boycott, you are turning your back on a beleaguered people who are desperately in need of your support,” he wrote. “Even at this late hour, please reconsider.”

In Parsons’ explanation for sharing his side of the story, he said, “Thank all our Israeli fans in advance for their loyalty, support and for attending our show in Tel Aviv.”

In March 2013, Waters called for a boycott of Israel. “They are running riot,” he said of the country’s government, “and it seems unlikely that running over there and playing the violin will have any lasting effect.”

Last summer, Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder seemed to echo Waters’ sentiments in a speech he gave at a concert in England. “[Some people are] looking for a reason to go across borders and take over land that doesn’t belong to them,” he said. “They should get the fuck out and mind their own fucking business.” Although he never mentioned any specific countries in his remarks, the Israeli media took them as an affront. Vedder later clarified that his comments were meant to be taken as simply “anti-war.” “I’d rather be naïve, heartfelt and hopeful than resigned to say nothing for fear of misinterpretation and retribution,” he wrote on his band’s website.

Former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic voiced his support of Vedder, though he specifically addressed the Israel-Palestine conflict. “The people of Palestine and Israel deserve peace and prosperity,” he wrote in a statement. “It is time to stop repeating the same old arguments, dogma and hate speech. It is the knuckleheads on both sides that should be criticized and not the singer from a rock band. In addition, both sides need to make hard decisions about finding a settlement to the catastrophe that is Israel/Palestine.”

Source: www.rollingstone.com

We missed this, but it’s important. Ten days ago the Alan Parsons Project played Israel despite an appeal from Roger Waters, the legendary activist and Pink Floyd bassist, to stand up for Palestinian human rights by boycotting the country as artists had boycotted South Africa under apartheid.

The story was picked up by Rolling Stone, which described the musicians’ exchange as a “war of words.” And indeed, if you read the exchange below, it ends with an “ad hominem attack” by Parsons on Waters. It was also picked up by this rightwing site, which featured an interview arranged by the anti-boycott group Creative Community for Peace, in which Parsons said he was under a lot of pressure but that art has nothing to do with politics– and besides, his bassist is an Israeli:

Parsons: “Guy would have killed me [if I had decided to boycott]”

[Bassist Guy] Erez: If he doesn’t come and visit my country, we have a problem.

The story is important for Roger Waters’s passionate, forthright and respectful appeals despite the invective. He has become the ambassador of BDS for a reason. Below are excerpts from the postings on his Facebook page. Followed by statements from Alan Parsons.

Waters announced the dialogue in this manner:

I’ve been in email exchange with Alan Parsons, an English musician and recording artist, who was, coincidentally, an engineer at EMI when Pink Floyd made Dark Side of The Moon.  Alan has plans for The Alan Parsons Project to play a gig in Tel Aviv on February 10, 2015. I am an active supporter of BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), a non-violent global organization that seeks to promote a just solution to the disastrous Israel/Palestine impasse. I wrote to try to persuade Alan to stand with me and Nick Mason and Brian Eno and Elvis Costello and Massive Attack and Stephen Hawking and thousands of other artists world-wide who support a cultural and academic boycott of Israel to support all those brave Israelis and Palestinians who are resisting the Israeli occupation and anti-Palestinian discrimination.

Waters published his first letter to Parsons, in January. Excerpts:

Dear Alan,

It’s been 40 years since we worked on Dark Side of the Moon together. If you recall, I was the pimply bass player, you were the tall engineer. Congratulations on your many successes since then.

The reason for my letter today is that I see you have plans to do a gig in Tel Aviv in February. I am writing to ask you to reconsider those plans. I know you to be a talented and thoughtful man, so I assume you know of the plight of the Palestinians and that there is a growing nonviolent Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement protesting against the abusive policies of the Israeli government…

While I know you don’t want to disappoint your fans by canceling this gig, you would be sending a powerful message to them and the world by doing so.  As with Sun City, more and more artists are standing up to say they will not perform in Israel until such time as their occupation ends and equal rights are extended to Palestinians.

I ask that you consider joining me, and hundreds of thousands of others, by lending your voice to a conversation that rejects violence, embraces international law, and helps the global community pursue a just peace for all the people of the Holy Land.

Advancing a better future for Palestinians and Israelis is a matter of fundamental importance to us all. As John Lennon observed, “Life is very short and there’s no time for fussing and fighting my friend”. I would be happy to discuss all this with you further. More food for thought, here is the public statement Nick Mason and I issued last May referencing the similarities of this campaign to the Sun City boycott in South Africa.

Your colleague,

Roger Waters

Parsons replied, but asked Waters not to publish his reply. Waters then sent a second letter, which he also published:

Dear Alan,

I will honor your request not to publish your response to my letter, but note that your argument is similar to that of the few other musicians who have crossed the picket line to play in Israel.

Al Kilani family foto included in Waters’s letter to Parsons

I regret that you have decided, for now at least, to stand with the minority of artists and academics who support the policies of the current Israeli government.But, by all means, let us continue our dialogue.

I, for my part, will be open and clear. My own decision to join BDS was formed by my experience in front of the Apartheid Wall that this and previous Israeli governments have built, and continue to build. Hopefully, should you visit the occupied territories, you will have a similar moment of insight.

I see from your bio that you played in Israel in 2010, a year after Operation Cast Lead, when you might have been forgiven for not knowing any better. Now, it is a year after Operation Protective Edge, when the al-Kilani family (see photograph accompanying this post) were killed. If we didn’t know before, we do now. If you go through with your visit maybe you will be as shaken as I was back in 2006/7.

By ignoring the boycott, you are turning your back on a beleaguered people who are desperately in need of your support. Even at this late hour, please reconsider.

Your colleague,

Roger Waters

After that letter, Parsons responded on Facebook:

Roger Waters honoured my request not to publish my reply to his first letter to me, but he failed to comply with my clearly stated desire that the whole matter of his ‘problem’ with my concert in Israel should remain private between the two of us. He has now pressed his case in two open letters on his Facebook page without any published defence from me. So in the circumstances, I have decided to make my (originally personal) reply to him public – see below. I will be making no further comment on this matter and thank all our Israeli fans in advance for their loyalty, support, and for attending our show in Tel Aviv.

Here is Parsons’s letter to Waters:

Dear Roger,

I appreciate your note and your passion.

However, this is a political matter and I am simply an artist. I create music, that is my raison d’être. Everyone – no matter where they reside, what religion they follow, or what ideology they aspire to – deserves to hear it if they so choose.

Music knows no borders, and neither do I.

Your colleague,

Alan

Parsons then posted a blogpost from an Israeli saying that Waters was projecting his “hatred” of Israel on to Parsons. Waters responded on Facebook:

It was with profound disappointment that I saw you posted this link on your Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/alanparsons/posts/10153127029387958

It is painful to see an important debate lowered to this level of unhelpful mudslinging. To be clear, despite this blogger’s claim, I do not hate Israel – or Israelis or Jews. Along with my many Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish, and Arab colleagues, I seek ways to make sense of the current deadly debacle and to encourage a solution that gives equal rights to all the peoples of these troubled lands. The end of the occupation, a primary aim of BDS, is generally acknowledged in the wider debate as a pre-requisite to any peaceful, just, and lasting solution.

Your resorting to posting ad hominem attacks against me from an obscure extremist website informs the conversation not at all and serves only to muddy the already muddy waters. I continue to hope that while in Israel you took the time to take a look at the Separation Wall – from both sides and to educate yourself further on the injustices Palestinians are routinely subjected to by Israeli military forces. I refer often to a just and lawful resolution of this conflict to the benefit of all the people of the“Holy Land” to provide an environment where all their children, regardless of race or religion, could prosper, equal under the law. I know you have stated that your last words were your final words on these subjects. So be it.  Those of us who still dare to dream of peace will continue the conversation without you. For us, “Not to talk is not an option”.

Source: mondoweiss.net

LAST WEEK, in Chapel Hill, N.C., a 46-year old white man named Craig Hicks murdered three of his neighbors.

It’s quite likely that you heard about this story. Because from the moment it occurred, questions were raised, particularly on social media, about the amount of attention (or lack thereof) being paid to it.

Since the victims were Muslim, the media was allegedly ignoring the story; if the killer was a Muslim man and the victims were white, journalists would have been falling over themselves to cover the story as a possible terrorist attack — or so the arguments went. The fact that Hicks was apparently a devotee of the so-called “new atheists” movement, which is disdainful of organized religion and, in particular, Islam, raised concerns about a possible hate crime. Think pieces were drafted excoriating new atheist thinkers like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. The Department of Justice and FBI initiated an investigation into whether this was a bias attack. Even President Obama weighed in, declaring, “No one in the United States of America should ever be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, or how they worship.”

Source: www.bostonglobe.com

North Carolina State University has established a scholarship fund in honor of three Muslim students fatally shot in Chapel Hill last week. 

Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23; his wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21; and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, were found dead on Feb. 10 at the newlywed couple’s home. A neighbor, Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder.

Police said the shootings appear to be the result of a long-running dispute over parking spaces at the condominium complex where Hicks and the victims lived, but relatives of the victims have called for an investigation of their deaths as a hate crime.

Barakat graduated with honors from N.C. State in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He was attending dentistry school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His wife graduated from N.C. State last fall with a bachelor’s in biological sciences. She had recently been accepted into the UNC dentistry program. Razan Abu-Salha was a sophomore in N.C. State’s College of Design, majoring in architecture.

The “Our Three Winners” scholarship endowment will provide annual support to students in N.C. State’s Poole College of Management, College of Sciences and College of Design, the university announced Friday. 

The university is contributing funds to launch the program and is seeking donations from alumni and the community. 

“Deah, Yusor and Razan exemplified the best of N.C. State and will forever serve as role models for our student body,” Chancellor Randy Woodson said Friday. “Each was not only an outstanding student, but individually and as a family lived their lives bringing joy to others, helping those in need and making the world a better place.”

Scholarship recipients will be selected based on their demonstration of leadership, service and creativity.

“This is the first blessing and the first happy day after the tragedy, and it means a lot to us,” said the sisters’ father, Mohammad Abu-Salha. “Nothing is more awesome than supporting scholars on an annual basis to come here and study if they couldn’t afford it and just exemplify the same things that these children lived.”

“Out of this horrendous tragedy, these incredible scholarships will continue to provide education for so many people for so much time to come,” said Barakat’s sister, Suzanne Barakat. “You have made his dream come true.”

Woodson cited the “tremendous difference” the students made in the community and across the globe. The three raised money to help Syrian refugees in Turkey, were helping build an Interfaith Habitat for Humanity home in Wake County and, just a week prior to their deaths, helped feed the homeless in downtown Durham. 

Gifts to the “Our Three Winners” Scholarship Fund can be made through the university’s website

Source: www.wral.com