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Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Global Issues on October 5th, 2012
Pakistan’s foundation was laid 1400 years with the advent of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Well, you may say that does not make sense! Pakistan was actually founded in 1947, so how could its foundation be laid 1400 years ago. Pakistan was founded on the basis of Deen-i-Islam, as the faith of majority of people of the South Asian sub-continent. However, the division of the South Asian country was done by a British Christian Anglican colonial power, with a score to settle with the Islam. The British colonalists for the last 800-1000 years of their history were fed on a diet of Crusadomania. Randomly,picking any British history book since the introduction of printing in Britain, one finds frequent references to Knight Templars, Crusaders and
Since the time of Constantine, Christians had gone on pilgrimages to the Holy Land. Even though Moslems had ruled Jerusalem since 638, Christians were still allowed to visit the city. By the 11th century, however, the situation had changed. Just as the number and frequency of pilgrimages to Jerusalem was at new peaks, the Seljuk Turks took over control of Jerusalem and prevented pilgrimages.
Pope Urban II (1088-1099, see art below) was responsible for assisting Emperor Alexus I (1081-1118) of Constantinople in launching the first crusade. He made one of the most influential speeches in the Middle Ages, calling on Christian princes in Europe to go on a crusade to rescue the Holy Land from the Turks. In the speech given at the Council of Clermont in France, on November 27, 1095, he combined the ideas of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with that of waging a holy war against infidels.1
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“The noble race of Franks must come to the aid their fellow Christians in the East. The infidel Turks are advancing into the heart of Eastern Christendom; Christians are being oppressed and attacked; churches and holy places are being defiled. Jerusalem is groaning under the Saracen yoke. The Holy Sepulchre is in Moslem hands and has been turned into a mosque. Pilgrims are harassed and even prevented from access to the Holy Land. “The West must march to the defense of the East. All should go, rich and poor alike. The Franks must stop their internal wars and squabbles. Let them go instead against the infidel and fight a righteous war. “God himself will lead them, for they will be doing His work. There will be absolution and remission of sins for all who die in the service of Christ. Here they are poor and miserable sinners; there they will be rich and happy. Let none hesitate; they must march next summer. God wills it! |
“Deus vult! (God wills it) became the battle cry of the Crusader.
“The day after Urban’s speech, the Council formally granted all the privileges and protections Urban had promised. The red cross was taken as the official sign of the pilgrims, and Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy was chosen as papal legate and the spiritual leader of the expedition.”2
The First Crusade was the most successful from a military point of view. Accounts of this action are shocking. For example, historian Raymond of Agiles described the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders in 1099:
Some of our men cut off the heads of their enemies; others shot them with arrows, so that they fell from the towers; others tortured them longer by casting them into the flames. Piles of heads, hands and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one’s way over the bodies of men and horses. But these were small matters compared to what happened at the temple of Solomon, a place where religious services ware ordinarily chanted. What happened there? If I tell the truth, it will exceed your powers of belief. So let it suffice to say this much at least, that in the temple and portico of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins.
Some of the results of the first crusade were not expected. Alexus I thought that the Byzantine territories would be returned to him and the Eastern Empire, but instead the European conquerors established four independent Latin kingdoms. In addition, three military orders (Hospitallers, Templars, and Teutonic Knights) came into power. The stated purpose of these orders was to protect pilgrims and holy sites.
The Jerusalem or Crusader’s Cross was worn by Godfrey de Bouillon, the first ruler of the Jerusalem after it was taken from the Moslems. Usually the symbol has four small crosses between the arms. The five crosses symbolize the five wounds of the crucified Jesus. The Crusader’s Cross can also be a single cross, as is shown in the art of St. Louis below.
There were seven major Crusades. The era the Crusades the first began in 1095 with Pope Urban II’s famous speech and the ended in 1291 when Acre, the last of the Latin holdings in Palestine, was lost. The major Crusades were:
St. Louis (Louis IX of France), shown above wearing a version of the Crusader’s red cross, led the seventh crusade from 1248-50.
What was the legacy of the Crusades? Williston Walker et. al. observes:
Viewed in the light of their original purpose, the Crusades were failures. They made no permanent conquests of the Holy Land. They did not retard the advance of Islam. Far from aiding the Eastern Empire, they hastened its disintegration. They also revealed the continuing inability of Latin Christians to understand Greek Christians, and they hardened the schism between them. They fostered a harsh intolerance between Muslims and Christians, where before there had been a measure of mutual respect. They were marked, and marred, by a recrudescence of anti-Semitism….
The papacy gained the most from the Crusades. Its authority was greatly increased. The power of European kings also increased in that a number of barons who had given them trouble went to the East.4
The Fourth Crusade: The Sack of Constantinople (1204) The crusade was to be directed at Egypt, because the Crusaders believed that conquering it would be the key to regaining Jerusalem. The conquering of the great Christian city in 1204 ended the Fourth Crusade and had significant religious and political consequences.
1. Learn about The Middle Ages: 476-1453
2. Land Theft Crusades and the Book of Joshua During the Middle Ages, European Christians launched military campaigns to take the Holy Land from the Muslims.
3. Visit other web sites that explore the history and theology of the Crusades:
Crusades (The Catholic Encyclopedia) The Crusades were expeditions undertaken to deliver the Holy Places from Moslem control. The origin of the word may be traced to the cross made of cloth and worn as a badge on the outer garment of the crusaders.
The Crusades by Dr. E.L. Skip Knox, Boise State University. Lots of materials developed for a college course.
Female Heroes. Scroll down the page to Female Heroes from the Time of the Crusades: Shagrat (or Shajarat) al-Durr; Eleanor of Aquitaine; The Women Left Behind; Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem, and Anna Comnena, Byzantine Historian
History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea by William of Tyre (107K). William of Tyre was born in the Holy Land, born in the Holy Land and was, after a French education, appointed Archbishop of Tyre and Chancellor of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He wrote near the end of the twelfth century.
Islam’s Stake: Why Jerusalem Was Central to Muhammad by Karen Armstrong, Time, April 16, 2001. Jerusalem was central to the spiritual identity of Muslims from the very beginning of their faith.
Judaism’s Stake: The Mysteries of Solomon’s Temple by David Van Biema, Time, April 16, 2001. How did the place first become holy? The answer is lost in prehistory.
Pope Urban II calls for the 1st Crusade, Council of Clermont, France, November 27, 1095. This speech has been called the most influencial one in the Middle Ages. It calls on the Christian princes in Europe to go on a crusade to rescue the Holy Land from the Turks. The Medieval Sourcebook offers five versions of this speech.
The Reconciliation Walk. The purpose of the Walk was to bring Christians face-to-face with Muslims and Jews with a message of regret and confession about the Crusades. The Reconciliation Walk in Jerusalem on July 15, 1999, the 900th anniversary of the fall of the city to the Crusaders.
Taking Jerusalem: Climax of the First Crusade By J. Arthur McFall. “The Crusaders spent at least that night and the next day killing Muslims, including all of those in the al-Aqsa Mosque, where Tancred’s banner should have protected them. Not even women and children were spared. The city’s Jews sought refuge in their synagogue, only to be burned alive within it by the Crusaders. …. The Europeans also destroyed the monuments to Orthodox Christian saints and the tomb of Abraham.”
So, Crusadomania has over a thousand years history and continues unabated. There are several political, economic, and ecumenical causes for this Christian fanaticism. It is passed on for generations and there is no chance of it abating in the near and far future.
Crusadomania, wears many disguises. sometimes, it done to destroy the power of Turkish empire. Other times, it is used as an excuse to bring down Muslim dictators like Ghadaffi or Saddam Hussain.
Role of Jews-Duplicity for the sake of survival. Jews have over two thousand years history of survival. They cling to the most powerful nation on Earth in every century, but, due to their own greed, they make the people of the nation giving them sanctuary turn against the.
Muslims have always been kind to Jews. During, the worst of times, Muslim nations like Morocco, Turkey, Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Iran, and even Pakistan gave them shelter. Muslim Albanian saved hundreds of Jews during the pogroms. Muslim Scholars from South Asian sub-continent decried the victimization of Jews by the German Empire. But, the Jews right away turned on their benefactors, and carved out a land in the heartland of Muslim Palestine and named it Israel.
Here again history repeats itself, the Jews migrated in droves from Christian Europe and Russia to America, In America, they consolidated themselves in the organs of the state, economy, politics, and every sphere of life except the Armed Forces. They control all the media outlets. The US Television networks are dominated by Jews. Their corporate managements is replete with Jewish names, some of them have even been anglicized. Newspapers and Magazines like Time, Newsweek, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, and most other global newspapers have Jewish Publishers or Editors.
Israel-Jews Against Muslims
With the establishment of Israel, the Jews, turned their conniving towards the Muslims. They used their hold on media, publishing houses, newspapers, magazines, and all other sources of information to launch a tsunami of stealth propaganda against Islam, to portray it as the biggest enemy of Christendom. Today, the worst fears of Christians have been realized. Its the Muslims, who are their worst enemies. Christians and Muslims are fighting in Afghanistan. The War on Terror is a psudonym for a War on Islam. The Jews having a whale of a time. watching Christians and Muslims slaughter each other from Lebanon to Phillipines, from Chechnya to Afghanistan. The Jews are enjoying the front row seat at the Global Wars Coliseum, where two groups of gladiators, the Muslims and Christians fight to the finish. Christians carry the guilt of the German empire and Hitlers deeds, in doing so they foolishly ignore, the game being played by the Jews. Christians forget that it is the Jews, who crucified Jesus (PBUH) and subject Mary (PBUH) to intolerable torture and humiliations. Islam came later. Muslim did not torture Jesus (PBUH), even during the worst of Crusades, Muslim Khalifas or Kings, protected Christian Holy Places, like the Church of the Nativity, the Holy Sepulcre, and stations of the cross. In modern Israel, Christian Holy places are continually under threat from Jewish fanatics. The same kind who put on the Sign on the Cross of Jesus, when they crucified him, King of the Jews, in sheer sarcasm and mockery.
The latest attack of the Jews is against the most powerful Islamic nation Pakistan and its Nuclear Program. The Jews have deliberately targeted Pakistan’s nuclear program as being a security risk. Jewish and Hindu dominated Think Tanks like Rand Corporation, Heritage Foundation, the several Neocon PACS, including the AIPAC have unleashed a tsunami of propaganda against Pakistan, it Armed Forces, its People, and Its Nuclear Program. Although, Pakistan has no delivery vehicle to carry a Nuclear weapon to Tel Aviv, the anti-Muslim Jewish lobby follows, a skewed thinking, that Pakistan’s nuclear program is Israel focused. Another, red herring, the Jewish media keeps presenting to Christian politicians in America, through, the disproportionate numbers of Jews in US congress, that Pakistan nuclear program should be under US control or the “boogey man,” Taliban, Al Qaeda, or some other bunch of fanatics will “hijack,” Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. But, hypocritically, they are “MUM,” about Israel possessing anywhere from 200-400 nuclear weapons, and possibly, a fusion or H-Bomb. The American politicians a too stupid or mercenary to ask pointed questions about Israel’s nuclear program. American politicians, as the Jews say, have no “moxie,” to take on Israel’s Nuclear Program.
In light of this relative sense of security, Israel has found a willing ally in India, which goes to prove, that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But, as Pakistanis, we can trust the Jews, a People of the Book more than we can trust, a people who follow the Cult of Hinduism with its 115,000 gods, demi-gods, and goddesses, including, the Lingam or Penis, which is also an object oworship among Hindus. The cult of Hinduism also practices un-hygienic practices like drinking urine (US CBS program 60 minutes program, showed Mr.Lal Bahadur Shastri, the late Prime Minister of India extoling the virtues of drinking urine. Cow urine bathing is another religious event practiced in Hinduism. The Israeli Jews will find one day that Hindu India cannot be trusted. Hindus have a history of back-stabbing. Israel’s collaboration with Hindu India will come to bite Israel. Indians will buy, beg, or steal israel’s defence technology and sell it to countries like Iran. Israel’s own technology passed on to India, will end up killing Israels soldiers. Pakistanis have a 1000 years of historical experience in dealing with Hindus. They do not trust even one another, how can they be trusted by another nation like Israel.
Hindus and Jews are now forming an axis to create terrorism within Pakistan through the back door of Afghanistan. Afghans are know to prostitute their souls to the highest bidder, even if it is the devil. India’s RAW and Israel’s Mossad have joined hands to send in terrorist to attack specifically Pakistan’s security installation. An Indian Army Major General is surreptitiously present in Afghanistan, along with several Brigadiers, Colonels, Majors, and other ranks to train and send saboteurs into Pakistan. These saboteurs are trained first in Islamic Fiqh, taught by Indian Army officers, who had surreptitiously received training at Deoband India and Israel’s Intelligengence HQ near Accor, Israel. Ahmed Quereshi has exposed this operation in the following article:
First Step in Destroying a Nation, Destroy its Heritage of Values-Create Burger -Families
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Variation; Burger-Family A derogatory term for people or families in Pakistan (or India), or in Pakistani (Indian) communities abroad that are “culturally-challenged” in they barely get by in a local language and speak only English fluently and are a bit oblivious to native customs and norms surrounding food, music, clothing, celebrations etc.
ex. 1: I was going get a reservation at an Indian restaurant but wasn’t sure if you burgers would’ve been up for it.
ex. 2: She was citing one of the local authors and his eyes glazed over – he’s a total burger. ex. 3: The Khans can be amusing company, but they’re a bit of a burger-family if you ask me. Second Step: Promote Pornography to destroy any left over Islamic values in Pakistani youth
Pornography Create More Freedom In Pakistanhttp://bigthink.com/think-tank/pornography-thrives-in-the-hotbed-of-pakistani-fundamentalism
This scene, courtesy of Zofeen Ebrahim from Le Temps, was the description of an adult movie house in one of the most unlikely places in the world: Peshawar, the capital of the most conservative province in Pakistan. The men (and some women), she says, are “watching a porn film, right under the nose of the religious political parties, the Taliban and the government.” This is a place where cafes and music stores are regularly the target of bomb attacks by extremists and advertisements showing women are often taken down. Yet adult movie houses have managed to flourish, so much so that Lala Fida Mohammad Khan, a movie producer who use to make conventional films switched to producing adult films because “no one wanted to watch clean films, they don’t sell anymore.” Read the full story in English or French. What is the Significance? The Rainbow Center in Saddar was once a hub for pirated CDs and DVDs. Frequent raids and the increasing lack of pirated content online forced many of the stores to shutter or switch to selling garments and computer accessories. But since Internet pornography was banned in Pakistan last November, dealers at The Rainbow Center have seen a surge in DVD sales. “People no longer come here for Hollywood or Bollywood movies. They want porn,” Afaq told The Express Tribune. “If you ask me, almost 90% of our revenue comes from the sale of such content.” Thanks to the long arm of technology and people’s desire for pornographic material, no amount of censorship or religious virtue can entirely block its availability. This is apparently true in Pakistan and definitely true in America. Third Step:
Portray Islam as a “spent ” ideology. Push for secularism as the “in” thing.
Use Israeli trained Ahmediyya disguised as Imams to destroy Islam from grass roots level. At the same time spread terrorism through these surrogates, who infiltrate through the Afghanistan Pakistan border.
Once secularized, start evangelism, proselytyze to Muslim secularized youth.
Here is an actual example, how to use subtlety and stealth mode to preach the gospel to Muslim youth to convert them to Christianity. Offer financial incentives and “other goodies,” like foreign females:
PAKISTAN FELLOWSHIP OF EVANGELICAL STUDENTS PROPOSAL TO ACQUIRE PFES STUDENT CENTRE
Pakistan Fellowship of Evangelical Students exist to reach College and University students in Pakistan with Gospel of Jesus Christ and to send them into the world to bear witness to Christ and His teaching.
History. In 1956 a young man with a vision and sense of personal call, Gordon Olson, came to Pakistan to work among university students in Lahore with a view to establish an evangelical student’s fellowship. In 1964 Mr. Olson had to fly back home due to medical reasons. He recommended that young man who had been working with him be made the first full time national staff worker in the country. Thus he handed over this ministry to Mr. Maqbool Gill. He carried on this work till 1969, and by then there were indications all over the country that God had begun to prepare a number of people to join this ministry.
In August 1969 a few friends interested in the service and formation of such a Fellowship were invited to a meeting held at Marsden cottages, Murree. In this meting the newly emerging students’ movement was given the name of Pakistan Fellowship of Evangelical Students.
In 1970 Mr. B.U. Khokhar replaced Michael Nazir Ali, (now the Bishop Michael Nazir Ali) eventually becoming the first national General Secretary. With the help of expatriates and national workers local committees and cell groups were established in Karachi, Hyderabad and Lahore. The most prominent figure who laboured with Mr. Khokhar was Mrs. Tara James. Who served the Fellowship for nineteen years as staff and then Executive Secretary. At the close of seventies, PFES by God’s grace stood on firm grounds as an Evangelical and National Fellowship acknowledged by the Church in Pakistan.
In 1980 Mr. Irfan Jamil, then staff worker took over as General Secretary and served the Fellowship for seventeen years. The work was developed a great deal under his leadership. During this time the work was expanded to the main cities of the country. In 1997 Rev. Irfan Jamil left PFES and Rev. Silas Samuel joined as third General Secretary for three years term. Rev. Silas Samuel migrated to America in July 1999 and God provided Mr. James mall to lead the Fellowship as an Executive Secretary for two years.
In March 2001 Mr. Philip Chandi, then staff worker in Rawalpindi with additional responsibility of Training and Development Secretary elevated to the post of General Secretary. Now by God’s grace the Fellowship has staff in ten cities (Karachi, Hyderabad, Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Jhelum, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Peshawar) and works in six extension cities. The PFES now has sixteen staff workers, including the General Secretary.
In past many years God used the Fellowship to give quality leadership to the Church in Pakistan. The PFES Graduates are applying Gospel values in their work and in society. Few names who have served the Fellowship and are being used effectively in the Church for the extension of His Kingdom are Rev. Dr. Aslam Ziai (Vice Principal, Gujranwala Theological Seminary), Rev. Irfan Jamil (vicar St. Thomas Church, Islamabad and Advisor to the Bishop of Lahore for Evangelism), Mr. Samuel Lyall (International Director of Ministry Development for FEBA Communications), Mr. Joseph Robert (Engineer working in Saudi Arabia), Mr. Salamat Masih (Serving the Church in Finland), Rev. Dilshad Alam (Serving in USA), Dr. Christy Munir (Vice Principal, Forman Christian College), Mr. Zafar Iqbal (Chief accountant, Forman Christian College), Mr. Ifrahim Matthew (General Secretary, Potohar Evangelistic Outreach Fellowship), Rev. Silas Samuel (Serving in USA), Rev. Christopher Edgar (Serving in Kuwait) and many more.
What does PFES exist for?
How does PFES work? Pakistani Students and Graduates are invited to participate in
Student Centre Project. The Pakistan Fellowship of Evangelical Students has its National office and General Secretary’s residence at 45-F.C College, Lahore since 1971. We are paying license fee for this property to Christian Education Endowment Trust, the manager of this property. In September 2003 the Christian Education Endowment Trust served us a notice to vacate 45-F.C. College property within six weeks. It was not possible for us to vacate the property on such a short notice. After negotiation with the Christian Education Endowment Trust, we have made some adjustments with the Trust. They agreed to give us part of the property for office use and residence of General Secretary. That is a very small place and we are trying to adjust ourselves in this new situation. The recent development is that the Christian Education Endowment Trust, want the PFES to vacate the property (presently available for PFES) within months which is alarming for the Fellowship.
The PFES Administrative Board has planned to acquire its own property as soon as possible. We have seen a double story building at Kot Lakhpat, Peco Road, Lahore. The location of this property is ideal for the PFES ministry.
This student centre will be available for college and university students, graduates and PFES related organizations. The place will be used for following purposes. i. PFES National office. ii. Library for students, staff and friends. iii. Facilities for teaching sessions, seminars, get-togethers and special meetings. iv. Study room for students. v. Residence of General Secretary.
The property will cost us 6 million rupees (US$103,500). The bifurcation of the amount is as under. Rupees Purchase Price of the property 4,550,000/- Registration and Transfer 450,000/- Required Renovation and Furnishing 1,000,000/- Total 6,000,000/-
The initial amount of Rs.500,000/- has been paid and rest of the amount we have to pay within one year time.
We praise God for the response we are getting from friends and donors. Hilfe Fur Bruder’s, Germany who has given us Rs.263,000/- for this project and has committed to raise more funds for this project. We are also thankful to the J.W. Laing trust who has contributed 5000 Pounds for this project. We have received Rs11000/- from our other friends.
Our Lahore Graduates Fellowship has committed to give 200,000/- rupees. We hope that we will be able to raise 1000,000 rupees within the country from our graduates and friends
Now we are in need of 5,200,000/- rupees (US$ 89,700/-) to purchase this property. We will update you on monthly basis how God is helping us in this project.
We request you to prayerfully consider our request and help us to raise this amount to buy the property for the PFES Student Centre. Please make your cheque pay able to “Pakistan Fellowship of Evangelical Students” and send to the Treasurer, PFES, 45-F.C College, Lahore-54600, Pakistan. Our US$ account No. 111-0130-6 and PLS Saving A/c No. 100-1742-9 at United Bank Limited, Liberty Branch, Lahore.
For further information contact us on the address given below.
The Lord bless you and keep you.
Yours in Him,
Philip Chandi General Secretary PFES, 45-F.C. College Lahore-54600. Pakistan
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: +92-42-5758195 STEALTH INTRODUCTION OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS IN STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAM: Here is an example of Joshua T.White, who ostensibly came to study in Pakistan, but his mission was to do Christian Missionary Work and gather information on Pakistani cultures and mores, so evangelism could be promoted among Muslim youth. The ignorant Chief Minister of KPHK was too dumb to understand the duplicitious characters of these do-gooders. Here is this Christian Missionaries Report to his Church: Living with IslamistsA year in Pakistan gave me a glimpse of what Christian witness might look like today.
[ posted 3/30/2007 9:11AM ]
What must we learn, and unlearn, to be agents of God’s mission in the world? That is the Christian Vision Project’s big question for 2007. Evangelical Christians have been learners in mission for several hundred years: learning new languages and cultures, and learning about our own cultures along the way. In the past few decades, though, an increasing number of young evangelicals have pursued advanced training in international relations and apprenticed at the highest levels of diplomacy and statecraft. Joshua T. White, a 27-year-old graduate fellow at the Institute for Global Engagement and a student at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, embodies this new generation of mission-minded Christians. As Josh’s story shows, they bring with them a commitment to incarnational witness that transcends politics as usual. It was, by any measure, a rather large funeral. When I arrived on the morning of the third day, the weary-looking colonel at the gate told me that “about 125,000” people had already filed through the Durrani ancestral home to pay their respects. It was a staggering number for such a remote corner of northwest Pakistan, but I believed him. No one goes to Bannu just to visit. Yet when news spread that the uncle of the province’s chief minister—its top elected official, representing the MMA Islamist alliance—had been killed, people came. I had met the uncle once or twice. He was a soft-spoken man, quietly energetic; I remembered spending an afternoon sitting in his courtyard, trying to coax English phrases out of his shy young son. His death was a family tragedy, but beyond that it was a symbol of the instability that was slowly gathering in Bannu—just a stone’s throw from the restive North Waziristan tribal area that had become the heartland of the new Taliban and a hideout for Al Qaeda. |
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A few months later we did, amid the terrible October earthquake. While there, the chief minister signed an agreement with IGE to work together on religious freedom through interfaith and education projects. I was so taken with the history and hospitality of the frontier that I decided to stay for a year in the provincial capital of Peshawar, pursuing these programs. |
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By strange providence, That a 27-year-old American Christian was hanging out in Peshawar as the guest of an Islamist political party that four years earlier had come to power on a pro-Shari’ahand anti-American platform caused no end of wonder to the local diplomats and church community. To them, it seemed a bit crazy. For me, it was an extraordinary opportunity to glimpse Islamist political leadership from the inside; to get to know these people as people; to begin to tease apart rhetoric from reality, slogans from conviction; and to find myself, on a certain scorching May morning, the only Westerner making a trip down to Bannu. Germans are spreading venomous propaganda against our Deen. The website “answering Islam,” uses 11 proxy servers to send venomous hate messages against Islam. These people are same as the fanatical Taliban but in this case, they are CHRISTIAN TALIBAN. Here is their IP location information:
The hostname answering-islam.org resolves to the following IP address:
IPv4 address:
Reverse DNS:
RIR:
RIPENCC
Country:
Germany
 City:
Berlin
RBL Status:
Clear
Whois information on 78.47.104.146:
% This is the RIPE Database query service.
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% Note: this output has been filtered.
% To receive output for a database update, use the “-B” flag.
% Information related to ‘78.47.104.144 – 78.47.104.159’
Inetnum:
78.47.104.144 – 78.47.104.159
Netname:
HETZNER-ONLINE-AG-VIRTUALISIERUNG-POOL9
Descr:
Hetzner Online AG – Virtualisierung
Country:
DE
Admin-c:
HOAV1-RIPE
Tech-c:
HOAV1-RIPE
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ASSIGNED PA
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HOS-GUN
Source:
RIPE # Filtered
Person:
Hetzner Online AG – Virtualisierung
Address:
Hetzner Online AG – Virtualisierung
Address:
Stuttgarter Str. 1
Address:
91710 Gunzenhausen
Address:
GERMANY
Phone:
+499831610061
Fax-no:
+499831610062
Nic-hdl:
HOAV1-RIPE
Mnt-by:
HOS-GUN
Source:
RIPE # Filtered
% Information related to ‘78.46.0.0/15AS24940’
Route:
78.46.0.0/15
Descr:
HETZNER-RZ-NBG-BLK5
Origin:
AS24940
Org:
ORG-HOA1-RIPE
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HOS-GUN
Source:
RIPE # Filtered
Organisation:
ORG-HOA1-RIPE
Org-name:
Hetzner Online AG
Org-type:
LIR
Address:
Hetzner Online AG Attn. Martin Hetzner Stuttgarter Str. 1 91710 Gunzenhausen GERMANY
Phone:
+49 9831 610061
Fax-no:
+49 9831 610062
Mnt-ref:
HOS-GUN
Mnt-ref:
RIPE-NCC-HM-MNT
Mnt-by:
RIPE-NCC-HM-MNT
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SK2374-RIPE
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HOAC1-RIPE
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MH375-RIPE
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GM834-RIPE
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DM93-RIPE
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% This query was served by the RIPE Database Query Service version 1.19.9 (WHOIS1)
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Notes
1 A History of the Christian Church, 4th ed., edited by Williston Walker, Richard A. Norris, David W. Lotz, and Robert T. Handy (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1985), p. 284.
2 From The Crusades © Dr. E.L. Skip Knox, Boise State University, who says, “My intent is that others can use the information here for their own educational purposes, either personally or in a classroom. I especially hope this site will be a resource to other teachers. If you use any of my material I ask only that you credit me properly. If you intend to use the material for profit, you must ask my permission first.”
3 Compiled from a variety of sources.
4 A History of the Christian Church, p. 290.
Pope Urban II is a detail of art in An Outline of Christianity: The Story of Our Civilization, Vol. II (New York: Bethlehem Publishers, Inc., 1926), p. 347.
“St. Louis at Jerusalem” is a detail of a painting by Alexandre Cabanel, op. cit., p. 374.
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Global Issues on September 17th, 2012
After the 9/11 tragedy, American politics is obsessed with anti-Islamic hatred and Islamophobia has assumed to become an industry to be used by the neoconservatives and continued proponents of the war on terrorism. More recently, the documentary movie reportedly made by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula or Sam Bassile 52 years old real estate developer originally from Israel (as mentioned by the NYTimes) available on the You Tube and elsewhere on the internet allegedly portraying false images of Islam and Prophet Mohammad’s life is not rare or the end in itself. Islamophobia is an organized scheme of things – an industry – an anti-Islamic institutionalized hatred campaigns and fear-mongering across the US and Western Europe. It is business as usual by entrepreneurs and lobbyists of the Military-Industrial Complex warmongering establishment. Its ultimate aims are to keep the American and European people fearful of the growing Islamic presence in these parts of the world as if Muslims were the outcome of the eye of the storm to destroy the industrial progress or to halt the Zionist perpetuated fear of Islam. America and Muslims NEED to rethink about their perceptions and inborn attitudes toward each other. Perpetuated animosity and attacks on diplomatic missions will not solve any problems but create more and dangerous ones to be unsolvable. A crisis situation requires critical thinking, not hasty actions of jumping into fireballs, killing of diplomats, verbal outbursts and burning of others flags. None of these are the rational strategies to address the problem. America as a global power must realize its moral and political responsibility in an international context. Islamophobia is not the means to deal with morally and intellectual conscientious Muslim people. Stephen Lendman (“Islamophobia in Western Media”: 3/2011, Rense.com) elaborates the Islamophobia –the institutionalized scheme of things:
Islamophobia defined
The Runnymede Trust identifies eight components, characterizing Islam as:
— monolithic, static, and unresponsive to change;
— having differing values from other cultures and religions;
— being inferior to Western societies;
— barbaric, irrational, primitive, sexist, violent, aggressive, threatening, supporting terrorism, and clashing with Western civilization;
— an ideology used for political or military advantage;
— irrationally criticizing Western values;
— warranting discriminatory practices that exclude Muslims from mainstream society; and
— believing anti-Muslim hostility is natural and normal.
In early 90’s, Professor Samuel Huntington (the Clash of the Civilization scenarios), characterized the Muslim world as “Islam’s bloody borders.” In our communications, Dr. Huntington indicated that he had no specific knowledge of the Islamic civilization or first-hand observations shaping the Muslim moral and intellectual fabric. They call the politically active Arabs and Muslims as members of “al-Qaida” (the organization originally perceived, developed and managed by the CIA and American political leaders to fight the USSR-former Soviet Union occupation o Afghanistan. It is dead long time except its label is used when and if convenient to the warmongers. Richard Chamberlain observed: “Al Qaida” is a CIA fabricated enemy, created as an opponent for the CIA-created “neocon” supermen, intended to embed an invisible terror army amongst the people, in order to perpetually justify waging war upon the people.
Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence: “The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive the ‘TV watcher’ to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money.”
We come to realize that politics is a game of pretension and always remains problematic. Politicians NEED problems to get public attention and to argue being the deliverers. Most often, they are not except being treacherous, cynical and deceitful to their ideas and ideals and to the public interests they claim to serve. It is an election year in the US and both presidential candidates desperately need new issues and new exciting problems – local or international to move the public passion and opinions and gain in number games. Strange as is, Arabs and Muslims of the world are providing that food for thoughts to the US politicians. This is something a planned outcome of the Islamophobia movement in the US. Last year, Terry Jones wanted to burn the copies of the Qura’an- the Divine Book of Islam. It prompted action-reaction responses and people throughout the globe got attentive why such an extreme act of ignorance against Islam, when Muslims believe and respect Judaism and Christianity as part of their indivisible faith. A Danish journalist embarked on folly and carved up a cartoon of Prophet Mohammad. The world-over reaction by Muslims and others consumed enormous time, energies and thoughts but what was the end of it? Few months earlier, American troops burned the copies of the Qura’an in Kabul. Massive protest but nothing changed on the ground. Obama and his administration cited ignorance about the vitality of the Qura’an. Thomas Jefferson had copies of the Qura’an and used it to devise the moral and intellectual injunctions for the American Constitution. Were the educated American that ignorant? Islamophobia is well organized and flourishing across the Western cultural domains, again investing in “fear-mongering” of Islam and generating sense of insecurity to peace and global harmony. There is a problem with the Arabs and Muslims at large, they are emotional people, unimaginative and often shortsighted when it comes to rational THINKING and steadfastness in situations of volatile circumstances. The Western politicians want Muslims to act like immature actors and bodies on their script originating from the Islamophobia scheme of things. This could be justified to the coming dangers to plan more wars of terrorism or terrorism of wars against the innocent people in the Islamic world. Truth speaks its own language. Islamophobia is intricately linked to the US-Western policies and foreign relations with the Arab and other Muslim countries.
Despite having a knowledge-based culture, the Islamophobia organizations generate hatred and fear throughout the global news media. They envisage and project the Muslim people as of draconian age, violent and lacking reason, science, and intellectual foresight. On September 12, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI equated Catholicism with reason, saying violent Islam lacked it. This contradicts the European history where Islamic civilization flourished for eight hundred years in Spain (Al-Anduls) and contributed to knowledge, scientific developments and helped the Europeans to become civilized when they were species of the dark ages. Was Pope Benedict not expected to be knowledgeable of these pertinent facts of the European history?
Hillary Clinton called the current battling scenes as “disgusting and reprehensible.” President Obama claims, he has respect for Islam and understanding of the faith. These are just abstract words lacking meaning and purpose. What if the US administration would move to arrest Sam Basile – the media described filmmaker of the controversial documentary movie and charge him with insult and injuries to the American public interest. After all America is part of the global moral and intellectual hub of the mankind, it is not out from somewhere from another planet of subhuman beings. The move maker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula is reported as a fraudulent person who was convicted in California in 2010. Several members of the film cast and crew have disavowed the movie, saying Bassile/Nakoula duped them. Actress Cindy Lee Garcia said she thought she was in a film about ancient Egypt called Desert Warriors.
“It was going to be a film based on how things were 2,000 years ago,” she told the local newspaper “It wasn’t based on anything to do with religion, it was just on how things were run in Egypt. There wasn’t anything about Mohammed or Muslims or anything.
Professor Michel Chossudovsky (“America’s Holy Crusade against the Muslim” World, Global Research: 8/2010) offers the prevalent context:
Recent developments suggest a breaking point, a transition from “the war on terrorism” to the outright demonization of Muslims. While underscoring the freedom of religion, the Obama administration is “beating the drums” of a broader war against Islam…………. The rising tide of xenophobia, sparked by the proposed Ground Zero mosque and community center, has all the appearances of a PSYOP (Psychological Operation) which contributes to fomenting hatred against Muslims throughout the Western World.
After the 9/11 and incidentally on the anniversary of the 9/11 on that very day, American politicians are vengeful, paranoid and often appear to be victims of their own obsession and insanity – that all problems must be solved by power, by military interventions, killings and devastation of other nations and habitats- more so of the Arabs. The media reports that President Obama is sending warships to Libya because of the killing of its ambassador and three other diplomats. Is it not the same mindset as of George Bush to take military action in haste without rational thinking of the consequences on the US and others? Nobody has invincible armies and nobody can conquer the world on its own. Only people with monstrous mind can think that way. Not all problems require military actions but diligent and thoughtful moves to diffuse the crises. Perhaps, this is not part of the big American thinking after victimizing the mankind under the false flag of terrorism for over a decade. Likewise, the reactionary Muslim people are slipping into violent behavior on problems requiring serious thinking, attitudes and understanding to come up with peaceful and workable remedies. Muslims failed to recognize their moral precepts taught by Islam and political weaknesses and strengths within the global system of political affairs. Burning flags and denouncing the US-Israel would not solve any problems; it will enlarge the scope to more critical catastrophic incidents beyond human control. Arab rulers have no armies to defend Islam. They pump oil and enjoy living in palaces, not with people – the illusion of so called economic prosperity soon to be dismantled as is the case of change now in progress. Most Arabs are still living under the powerful shadows of authoritarian rulers who would not allow them to speak openly. People in Libya and Egypt are discovering their new freedom from the past captivity. They need to develop public institutions and encourage educated and intelligent leaders to assume the leadership role. If American policy makers were intelligent enough to envisage the contemporary priorities of global peace and relationships, they could have set-up an advisory body of Muslim scholars and American intellectuals to assist on sensitive US-Muslim relations and problem solving. America having been glued to the Zionist lobbyists lacks freedom of rational thoughts and actions to deal with the global citizens and more so with the Islamic world. Its captivity to one interest group is the real problem, not the changing landscape of the Islamic people. To Muslims, Islam teaches respect and co-existence with other religions and people of the Book. Many could be pretending as if they are doing any good for the cause of Islam or to protect the honor of Prophet Mohammad while they pursue their own ambitions of power. Prophet Mohammad life is a role model for peace and human coexistence. He was always open to communication and took initiatives to have direct communication with his worst foes in Makkah and Madinah. He was commanded by God to invite them to peace and to Islam. Have the people in all these Muslim lands reacting to the current Islamophobia conspiracies considered the teachings, morals and practices of Prophet Mohammad? Those rushing to hasty conclusions and jumping into fires and burning others national flags and symbols, when did you convey the message of Islam to your enemies? Are you rational beings and know the short-long terms consequences of your actions? What would you achieve out of this staged drama and acts of irrational behaviors and utter nuisance? Your enemies planned this way as the makers of the movie claim that Muslims will react in anger and violent behaviors and disrupt the normal life. They wanted to depict you as reactionary without THINKING as most have not seen the documentary film – a herd like move to drain out your thinking and positive energies and to make you dumb and dull in real life. You compete in shouting matches, expend your time and precious energies and simply go home to sleep. Simply, you have not encountered the real world issues and how to deal with them.
Do you remember the paradoxes of history? Do you recall what Sultan Salahudeen Ayoubi did to free Jerusalem and drive out the Crusaders from the Muslim lands? Do you remember how Sultan Salahudeen treated his enemies – King Richard and others even in the battlefield? Do you know that for ages the European feared Salahudeen – the Conqueror of Jerusalem – the Leader of the Muslim Ummah because Allah’s help was with him. Many of you pretend like actors and have no understanding of Islam and its primary values to deal with others. None of you are serious about your own intentions and beliefs. What if you were organized as morally and intellectually conscientious people and knew the complex nature of global politics and had intelligent leaders and freedom to THINK before you act and communicate with moral strength not weaknesses to the enemies of Islam, don’t you THINK, you would have accomplished something better, something durable in dealing with some of the emotionally charged issues? In the 21st century of New World of Hope and Optimism, Men who are universally hated and feared can be approached , communicated and can be imagined to be sitting in front of you on the table to discuss the on-going problems. That is, if you are organized as an Ummah, you are confident of your moral and intellectual strength and have responsible and intelligent leaders to represent your interests and priorities. By the same token, if American leaders were intelligent and responsible, they could have avoided these violent developments and opened communication channels with the Muslim world as President Obama had originally claimed to do so. But he rescinded his promises and deceived the mankind on the war of terrorism, closing of the Guantanmobay and normalization of relationships with the Islamic world. Like the European colonists, Obama had pride and false sense of superiority that he failed to stop the bogus wars against Muslims and bring back his troops from the war zones. John Adams must have anticipated such political developments and offered this context:
“The pride and vanity of that nation is a disease, it is a delirium, it has been flattered and inflamed so long by themselves and other that it perverts everything.”
Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking. Lambert Publishing Germany, May 2012
September 16, 2012 “Information Clearing House“
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Global Issues on September 16th, 2012
A bleak Ghazni Province seems to offer little, but a Pentagon study says it may have among the world’s largest deposits of lithium.
WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.
Notes from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and other areas of conflict in the post-9/11 era.
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.
An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.
The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.
While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.
“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”
The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.
“This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy,” said Jalil Jumriany, an adviser to the Afghan minister of mines.
American and Afghan officials agreed to discuss the mineral discoveries at a difficult moment in the war in Afghanistan. The American-led offensive in Marja in southern Afghanistan has achieved only limited gains. Meanwhile, charges of corruption and favoritism continue to plague the Karzai government, and Mr. Karzai seems increasingly embittered toward the White House.
So the Obama administration is hungry for some positive news to come out of Afghanistan. Yet the American officials also recognize that the mineral discoveries will almost certainly have a double-edged impact.
Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Talibanto battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country.
The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. The minister has since been replaced.
Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts. Afghanistan has a national mining law, written with the help of advisers from the World Bank, but it has never faced a serious challenge.
“No one has tested that law; no one knows how it will stand up in a fight between the central government and the provinces,” observed Paul A. Brinkley, deputy undersecretary of defense for business and leader of the Pentagon team that discovered the deposits.
At the same time, American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, which could upset the United States, given its heavy investment in the region. After winning the bid for its Aynak copper mine in Logar Province, China clearly wants more, American officials said.
Another complication is that because Afghanistan has never had much heavy industry before, it has little or no history of environmental protection either. “The big question is, can this be developed in a responsible way, in a way that is environmentally and socially responsible?” Mr. Brinkley said. “No one knows how this will work.”
With virtually no mining industry or infrastructure in place today, it will take decades for Afghanistan to exploit its mineral wealth fully. “This is a country that has no mining culture,” said Jack Medlin, a geologist in the United States Geological Survey’s international affairs program. “They’ve had some small artisanal mines, but now there could be some very, very large mines that will require more than just a gold pan.”
The mineral deposits are scattered throughout the country, including in the southern and eastern regions along the border with Pakistan that have had some of the most intense combat in the American-led war against the Taliban insurgency.
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Global Issues on September 14th, 2012
VENICE – Giving the audience a new look onto the 9/11 attacks from a Muslim perspective, a Hollywood movie at Venice Film Festival is telling the story of a bright Pakistani immigrant, who is radicalized by US lifestyle.
“It’s a human story of a young man from Pakistan who dreams of America, who loves it, who pursues the American dream and who has it all – Princeton, Wall Street – then suddenly the world changes and he is looked at as the ‘other’,” Mira Nair, director of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, told the BBC News Online.
“I think we’ve only seen it so far in South Asian films, but in terms of movies coming out of the USA it’s unique.
| 9/11 American Muslim Dilemma on Stage |
“Hopefully it’s quite a bold film, an original film and a timely one too in terms of contemporary events – both politically and personally.”
The film tells the story of Changez Khan, a bright Pakistani immigrant in the United States, who evaluates his identity in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
It shows Khan, a Pakistani professor played by British actor Riz Ahmed, spreading anti-American sentiments among his students in Lahore.
He is also being spied on by the CIA for suspicion of links to the abduction of an expatriate American academic in Pakistan.
As the story develops, audience figure out that Khan’s radicalization began during his work on Wall Street as an investment analyst.
The movie shows that the Pakistani immigrant has learned on Wall Street how to be ruthless and fanatical.
As an investment analyst, he travels the world showing businesses how to maximize profit – with cut-throat layoffs.
The biased treatment of immigrants that followed the attacks has left Khan growing more resentful at the United States.
“He has to make a decision for himself – what does he do, where does he go, where does he belong? And that seesaw is something I know well as someone who has lived half my life in New York and the other in India,” Nair said.
In all, the movie tells the audience that the nature of Khan’s radicalization has been dictated by America.
“You need to strike a delicate balance on how you treat such challenging material,” Kate Hudson, an actress in the movie, said.
“In this case, I definitely needed to meet up with Mira Nair first and have her explain her vision for the film before I signed up for anything.”
Striking
The movie is also praised for challenging the Western views of Pakistan as a hotbed of radicals and fundamentalists.
“I think of the book as a gift to me,” director Nair said.
“A few years ago, I went to Pakistan for the first time. Growing up in modern India, we didn’t go over the border readily and it proved to be a deeply moving experience.
“The city of Lahore was utterly unlike what Pakistan is often made out to be – a hotbed of drone attacks and corruption. Instead, I found the Venice of the east – a place of great refinement and beauty.
Nair, director of Monsoon Wedding and Salaam Bombay, also remembers the difficulties her family faced in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks and the US invasion of Afghanistan.
“After 9/11, many people like my family who regarded New York as home, people who looked like us, suddenly became the ‘other’. But what interested me about the story was the fact that we see all points of view,” she said.
“I think that what we show is that the world is complicated.
“I am as much steeped in the US as the Indian subcontinent and we portray the USA with a lot of intimacy, knowledge and a certain degree of love, so I hope there’s balance in it,” she said.
“You know, America is a vibrant place of more than 300 million people and not all of them will endorse the stance the USA has taken since 9/11.”
Yet, the director insisted that politics is not the driving force of her film.
“I have made a film that isn’t just about the US or Pakistan, it is about what it means to be a human being and the decisions we have to make,” she said.
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Global Issues on September 14th, 2012
There are at least 52 major American Jewish organizations actively engaged in promoting Israel’s foreign policy, economic and technological agenda in the US (see the appendix). The grassroots membership ranges from several hundred thousand militants in the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) to one hundred thousand wealthy contributors, activists and power brokers in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In addition scores of propaganda mills, dubbed think tanks, have been established by million dollar grants from billionaire Zionists including the Brookings Institute (Haim Saban) and the Hudson Institute among others. Scores of Zionist funded political action committees (PAC) have intervened in all national and regional elections, controlling nominations and influencing election outcomes. Publishing houses, including university presses have been literally taken over by Zionist zealots, the most egregious example being Yale University, which publishes the most unbalanced tracts parroting Zionist parodies of Jewish history.1 New heavily funded Zionist projects designed to capture young Jews and turn them into instruments of Israeli foreign policy includes “Taglit-Birthright” which has spent over $250 million dollars over the past decade sending over a quarter-million Jews (between 18-26) to Israel for 10 days of intense brainwashing.2 Jewish billionaires and the Israeli state foot the bill. The students are subject to a heavy dose of Israeli style militarism as they are accompanied by Israeli soldiers as part of their indoctrination; at no point do they visit the West Bank, Gaza or East Jerusalem.2 They are urged to become dual citizens and even encouraged to serve in the Israeli armed forces. In summary, the 52 member organizations of the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations which we discuss are only the tip of the iceberg of the Zionist Power Configuration: taken together with the PACs, the propaganda mills, the commercial and University presses and mass media we have a matrix of power for understanding the tremendous influence they have on US foreign and domestic policy as it affects Israel and US Zionism.
While all their activity is dedicated first and foremost in ensuring that US Middle East policy serves Israel’s colonial expansion in Palestine and war aims in the Middle East, what B’nai B’rth euphemistically calls a “focus on Israel and its place in the world”, many groups ‘specialize’ in different spheres of activity. For example, the “Friends of the Israel Defense Force” is primarily concerned in their own words “to look after the IDF”, in other words provide financial resources and promote US volunteers for a foreign army (an illegal activity except when it involves Israel). Hillel is the student arm of the Zionist power configuration claiming a presence in 500 colleges and universities, all affiliates defending each and every human rights abuse of the Israeli state and organizing all expenses paid junkets for Jewish student recruits to travel to Israel where they are heavily propagandized and encouraged to ‘migrate’ or become ‘dual citizens’.
Method: Studying Zionist Power:
There are several approaches for measuring the power of the combined Zionist organizations and influential occupants of strategic positions in government and the economy. These include (a) reputational approach (b) self claims (c) decision-making analysis (d) structural inferences. Most of these approaches provide some clues about Zionist potential power. For example, newspaper pundits and journalists frequently rely on Washington insiders, congressional staff and notables to conclude that AIPAC has the reputation for being one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. This approach points to the need to empirically examine the operations of AIPAC in influencing Congressional votes, nomination of candidates, defeating incumbents who do not unconditionally support the Israeli line. In other words analyzing the Congressional and Executive decision-making process is one key to measuring Zionist power. But it is not the only one. Zionist power is a product of a historical context, where media ownership and wealth concentration and other institutional levers of power come into play and shape the current decision-making framework. Cumulative power over time and across institutions creates a heavy bias in the political outcomes favorable to Israel’s organized agents in America. Once again the mere presence of Jews or Zionists in positions of economic, cultural and political power does not tell us how they will use their resources and whether they will have the desired effect. Structural analysis, the location of Zionists in the class structure, is necessary but not sufficient for understanding Zionist power. One has to proceed and analyze the content of decisions made and not made regarding the agenda of Israel’s backers operating in the USA. The 52 major Zionists organizations are very open about their claims to power, their pursuit of Israel’s agenda and their subservience to each and every Israeli regime.
Those who deny Zionist power over US Middle East foreign policy are left-Zionists. They never analyze the legislative process, executive decision-making, the structures and activity of the million member Zionist grassroots and the appointments and background of key policy makers deciding strategic policies in the Middle East. Instead they resort to superficial generalizations and political demagogy, imputing policy to “Big Oil” and the “military-industrial complex” or “US imperialism”. Categories devoid of empirical content and historical context about real existing policy making regarding the Middle East.
The Making of Zionist Power in the US Government
To understand US submission to Israeli war policies in the Middle East one has to look beyond the role of lobbies pressuring Congress and the role of political action committees and wealthy Zionist campaign contributions. A much neglected but absolutely essential building block of Zionist power over US foreign economic, diplomatic and military policy is the Zionist presence in key policy positions, including the Departments of Treasury and State, the Pentagon, the National Security Council and the White House.
Operating within the top policymaking positions, Zionist officials have consistently pursued policies in line with Israel’s militarist policies, aimed at undermining and eliminating any country critical of the Jewish States’ colonial occupation of Palestine, its regional nuclear monopoly, its expansion of Jews only settlements and above all its strident efforts to remain the dominant power in the Arab East. The Zionist policymakers in Government are in constant consultation with the Israeli state, ensuring coordination with the Israeli military (IDF) command, its Foreign Office and secret police (MOSSAD) and compliance with the Jewish State’s political line. Over the past 24 months not a single Zionist policymaker has voiced any criticism of Israel’s most heinous crimes, ranging from the savaging of Gaza to the massacre of the humanitarian flotilla and the expansion of new settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank. A record of loyalty to a foreign power which even exceeds the subservience of the Stalinist and Nazi fellow travelers in Washington during the 1930’s and 1940’s.
Zionist policymakers in strategic positions depend on the political backing and work closely with their counterparts in the “lobbies” (AIPAC) in Congress and in the national and local Jewish Zionist organizations. Many of the leading Zionist policymakers rose to power through a deliberate strategy of infiltrating the government to shape policy promoting Israel’s interest over and above the interests of the US populace. While a degree of cohesion resulting from a common allegiance to Tel Aviv can account for suspected nepotism and selection, it is also the case that the powerful Jewish lobbies can play a role in creating key positions in Government and ensuring that one of their own will occupy that position and pursue Israel’s agenda.
Stuart Levey: Israel’s Foremost Operative in the US Government
In 2004, AIPAC successfully pressured the Bush Administration to create the office of Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (UTFI) and to name its protégé Princeton graduate Stuart Levey to that position. Before, but especially after his appointment, Levey was in close collaboration with the Israeli state and was known as an over the top Zionist zealot with unbounded energy and blind worship of the Israeli state.
Within the confines of his Zionist ideological blinders, Levey applied his intelligence to the singular task of turning his office into the major foreign policy venue for setting US policy toward Iran. Levey more than any other appointed official in government or elected legislator, formulates and implements policies which profoundly influence US, European Union and UN economic relations with Iran. Levey elaborated the sanctions policies, which Washington imposed on the EU and the Security Council. Levey, organizes the entire staff under his control at Treasury to investigate trade and investment policies of all the world’s major manufacturing, banking, shipping, petroleum and trading corporations. He then criss-crosses the US and successfully pressures pension funds, investment houses, oil companies and economic institutions to disinvest from any companies dealing with Iran’s civilian economy. He has gone global, threatening sanctions and blackballing dissident companies in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America which refuse to surrender economic opportunities. They all understood Levey operated at the behest of Israel, services Levey has proudly performed.
Levey coordinates his campaign with Zionist leaders in Congress. He secures sanctions legislation in line with his campaigns. His policies clearly violate international law and national sovereignty, pressing the limits of extra territorial enforcement of his administrative fiats against a civilian economy. His violation of economic sovereignty parallels Obama’s announcement that US Special Forces would operate in violation of political sovereignty on four continents. For all intents and purposes, Levey makes US policy toward Iran. At each point he designs the escalation of sanctions, and then passes it on to the White House, which shoves it down the throats of the Security Council. Once new sanctions approved by Levey and staff are in place they are there to enforce them: identifying violators and implementing penalties. Treasury has become an outpost of Tel Aviv. Not a single leftist, liberal or social democratic publication highlights the role of Levey or even the terrible economic pain this Old Testament fanatic is inflicting on 75 million Iranian civilian workers and consumers. Indeed like Israel’s Judeo-fascist rabbis who preach a “final solution” for Israel’s enemies, Levey announces new and harsher “punishment” against the Iranian people.3Perhaps at the appropriate moment the Jewish State will name a major avenue through the West Bank for his extraordinary services to this most unholy racist state.
The Strategic Role of Local Power
The Israel Lobby Archive recently released declassified documents of the American Zionist Council (AZC) subpoenaed during a US Senate investigation between 1962-63. The documents reveal how the Israeli state through its American Jewish conduits – the mainstream Zionist organizations – penetrated the US mass media and propagated its political line, unbeknownst to the American public. Stories written by a host of Jewish Zionist journalists and academics were solicited and planted in national media such as The Readers Digest, The Atlantic Monthly, Washington Postamong others, including regional and local newspapers and radio stations.4 While the national Zionist organizations procured the journalists and academic writers and editors, it was the local affiliates who carried the message and implemented the line. The level of infiltration the Senate subpoenaed Zionist documents in the 1960’s reveal has multiplied a hundred fold over the past 50 years in terms of financing, paid functionaries and committed militants and above all in structural power and coercive capability.
While the national leaders in close consultation with Israeli officials receive instructions on which issues are of high priority, the implementation follows a vertical route to regional and local leaders, politicians, and notables who in turn target the local media and religious, academic and other opinion leaders. When national leaders ensure publication of pro Israeli propaganda, the locals reproduce and circulate it to local media and non-Zionist influentials on their “periphery”. Letter campaigns orchestrated at the top are implemented by thousands of militant Zionist doctors, lawyers and businesspeople. They praise pro-Israel scribes and attack critics; they pressure newspapers, publishing houses and magazines not to publish dissidents. The national and local leaders promote hostile reviews of books not promoting the Israeli line, influence library decisions to pack their shelves with pro Israeli books and censor and exclude more balanced or critical histories. Local militants in co-ordination with Israeli consuls saturate the public with thousands of public meetings and speakers targeting Christian churches, academic audiences and civic groups; at the same time local Zionist militants and, especially millionaire influentials, pressure local venues (university administrators, church authorities and civic associations) to disinvite any critic of Israel and their supporters from speaking. In the last resort, local Zionists demand that a pro-Israel propagandist be given equal time, something unheard of when an Israel apologist is scheduled to speak.
Local Zionist organizations make yeoman efforts to recruit mayors, governors, local celebrities, publishers, church people and promising young ethnic and minority leaders by offering them all expenses paid propaganda junkets to Israel and then to write or give interviews parroting what they were fed by Israeli officials. Local leaders mobilize thousands of militant activist Zionists to attack anti-Zionist Jews in public and private. They demand they be excluded from any media roundtables on the Middle East.
Local Zionist functionaries form rapid response committees to visit and threaten any local publisher and editorial staff publishing editorials or articles questioning the Israeli party line. Local leaders police (“monitor”) all local meetings, speaker invitations, as well as the speeches of public commentators, religious leaders and academics to detect any “anti-Zionist overtones’ (which they label “covert anti-Semitism”). Most of the major Jewish religious orders are lined up as the clerical backbone of local Israeli fundraising, including the financing of new “Jews only” settlements in the Palestinian West Bank.
Local functionaries are in the forefront of campaigns to deny independent Middle East specialists and public policy academics, appointments, tenure or promotion, independently of the quality of their scholarship. On the other hand, academic hacks who toe the pro-Israel line, by publishing books with blanket attacks on Israeli critics among Christians and Muslims and countries like Turkey, Iran or whoever is a target of Israeli policy, are promoted, lauded and put on the best seller list. Any book or writer critical of Zionist Power or Israel is put on a local and national ‘index’ and subject to an inquisition by slander from a stable of Jewish Torquemadas.
Conclusion
The power of Israel in the US does not reside only in the influence and leadership of powerful Washington based “pro-Israel lobbies”, like AIPAC. Without the hundreds of thousands of militant locally based dentists, podiatrists, stockbrokers, real estate brokers, professors and others, the “lobby” would be unable to sustain and implement its policy among hundreds of millions of Americans outside the major metropolises. As we have seen from the Senate declassified documents, over a half-century ago, local Zionist organizations began a systematic campaign of penetration, control and intimidation that has reached its pinnacle in the first decade of the 21st century. It is no accident or mere coincidence that University officials in Northern Minnesota or upstate New York are targeted to exclude speakers or fire faculty members critical of Israel. Local Zionists have computerized databanks operating with an index of prohibited speakers, as the Zionists themselves admit and flaunt in contrast to “liberal” Zionists who are prone to label as “anti-Semitic” or “conspiracy theorists” writers who cite official Zionist documents demonstrating their systematic perversion of our democratic freedoms.
Over the decades, the distinction between Zionist power exercised by a “lobby” outside the government and operatives “inside” the government has virtually vanished. As we have seen, in our case study, AIPAC secured the undersecretary position in Treasury, dictated the appointment of a key Zionist operative (Stuart Levey) and accompanies his global crusade to sanction Iran into starvation and destitution. The planting of operatives within key Middle East positions in government is not the simple result of individual career choices. The ascent of so many pro-Israel Zionist to government posts is part of their mission to serve Israel’s interest at least for a few years of their careers. Their presence in government precludes any Senate or Congressional investigations of Zionists organizations acting as agents of a foreign power as took place in the 1960’s.
As the major Zionist organizations and influentials have accumulated power and abused the exercise of power on behalf of an increasingly bloody racist state, which flaunts its dominance over US institutions, public opposition is growing. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign is gaining strength even in the US (see Harvard divestment in Israeli companies). US public support for Israel, by all measures, has dropped below 50%, while polls in Western Europe show a marked increase in hostility to Israel’s ultra-rightist regime. Anti-Zionist Jews are growing in influence especially among young Jews who are appalled by the Israeli slaughter in Gaza and assault on the humanitarian flotilla. Equally important the presence of anti-Zionist Jews on panels and forums has given courage to many otherwise intimidated non-Jews who heretofore were fearful of being labeled “anti-Semitic”.
The Zionist power configuration rests on a declining population base: most young Jews marry outside the confines of the ethno-religious Jewish-Israeli nexus and many of them are not likely to form the bases for rabid campaigns on behalf of a racist state. The Zionist leadership’s high intensity and heavily endowed effort to fence in young people of Jewish ancestry via private schools, subsidized “summer programs” in Israel etc. are as much out of fear and recognition of the drift away from clerical chauvinism as it is an attempt to recruit a new generation of Israel First militants.
The danger is that the US Zionist support for the ultra-rightist and racist regime in Israel is leading them to join forces with the far right in the US. Today Jewish and Christian Manhattan rednecks are fermenting mass Islamic hatred (the so called “Mosque controversy”) as a distraction from the economic crises and rising unemployment. Zionist promotion of mass Islamofobia, so near to Wall Street, where many of their fat cats who profit from plundering the assets of America operate, is a dangerous game. If the same enraged masses turn their eyes upward toward the wealthy and powerful instead of downward to blacks and Muslims, some unpleasant and unanticipated surprises might rebound against, not only Israel’s operatives, but all those wrongly identified as related to a misconstrued Jewish Motherland.
Appendix
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
Member Organizations
1. Ameinu
2. American Friends of Likud
3. American Gathering/Federation of Jewish Holocaust Survivors
4. America-Israel Friendship League
5. American Israel Public Affairs Committee
6. American Jewish Committee
7. American Jewish Congress
8. American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
9. American Sephardi Federation
10. American Zionist Movement
11. Americans for Peace Now
12. AMIT
13. Anti-Defamation League
14. Association of Reform Zionists of America
15. B’nai B’rith International
16. Bnai Zion
17. Central Conference of American Rabbis
18. Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
19. Development Corporation for Israel/State of Israel Bonds
20. Emunah of America
21. Friends of Israel Defense Forces
22. Hadassah, Women’s Zionist Organization of America
23. Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
24. Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life
25. Jewish Community Centers Association
26. Jewish Council for Public Affairs
27. The Jewish Federations of North America
28. Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
29. Jewish Labor Committee
30. Jewish National Fund
31. Jewish Reconstructionist Federation
32. Jewish War Veterans of the USA
33. Jewish Women International
34. MERCAZ USA, Zionist Organization of the Conservative Movement
35. NA’AMAT USA
36. MCSK” Advocates on behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia
37. National Council of Jewish Women
38. National Council of Young Israel
39. ORT America
40. Rabbinical Assembly
41. Rabbinical Council of America
42. Religious Zionists of America
43. Union for Reform Judaism
44. Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America
45. United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
46. WIZO
47. Women’s League for Conservative Judaism
48. Women of Reform Judaism
49. Workmen’s Circle
50. World ORT
51. World Zionist Executive, US
52. Zionist Organization of America
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