BS: Small hope?

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope?
From: Amos
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 11:22 PM

It's not pronounced PHUCKit, Susan -- it's more like PooKET.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 08:41 PM

from http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/eboo_patel/

On Muslim Antisemitism

Muslim antisemitism exists and it is ugly and it is vile. I have heard it from the minbars of mosques, and I have heard it from the mouths of Muslim teenagers. I believe it is a violation of the ethos of Islam and of what it means to be fully human.

There is never justification for transforming an entire people into an object of ridicule and hate.

But there are more and more Muslim voices at every level who are loudly condemning antisemitism.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, perhaps the most prominent Muslim scholar in the West, said in a National Public Radio piece in 2006 that Muslims have to drive antisemitism from their mosques and living rooms. "I say that with utter conviction...I don't want to be a part of it," Shaykh Hamza said, and then compared antisemitism in the Muslim community to an infection. He spoke in front of a crowd that numbered in the tens of thousands, and his comments on antisemitism were met with thunderous applause.

I wasn't there that night, but I know exactly how those Muslims clapping felt: "Thank God a Muslim leader is saying what I have felt for a long time – that anti-Jewish statements blacken the heart of anyone who says or thinks or feels them, and I want my religious community to have nothing to do with those sick attitudes."


In a piece published in Tikkun Magazine, Shaykh Hamza wrote that denying the Holocaust undermines Islam, and characterized the Holocaust-denial conference that took place in Iran as "tragic". In the article's closing paragraph, he observes: "In our inherent contradictions as humans, and in order to validate our own pain, we deny the pain of others. But it is in acknowledging the pain of others that we achieve fully our humanity."

In February 2006, a synagogue in Chicago was vandalized, and one of the first organizations to exhort people to attend the rally against hate was the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago. In his Open Letter, Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid challenged his fellow Muslims in Chicago with the same logic that Shaykh Hamza used in his Tikkun article:

Whenever a hate crime is committed it is time for us to reflect on our collective and individual humanity. We need to ask ourselves whether we have risen to the high ideals of our faith, which inspires us to open our hearts to all of humanity, not just our own ethnic or religious group. Do we truly represent the message of our beloved Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, who did not differentiate between Muslim and a non-Muslim when it came to the rights of neighbors. Can we feel for the "other?" Are we willing to do for a synagogue what we would do for a mosque?
The voices of people like Shaykh Hamza and Imam Malik are having an increasing influence within the American Muslim community for a very simple reason – they reflect the attitude of the majority of American Muslims, who have felt both sickened and silenced by the minority of Muslims who speak of antisemitism as if it were a core tenet of Islam.

There are Muslim and non-Muslim voices who want to drown out people like Shaykh Hamza and Imam Malik.

There are Muslims who for their own twisted purposes or petty power games have something to gain by further poisoning their own community with antisemitism.

And there are non-Muslims – people who shout loudly 'Where are the moderate Muslim voices?' and then shout louder when those voices speak to make sure they are not heard. They seem invested in Muslims being antisemitic, of Islam being interpreted as an intolerant tradition.

As far as I'm concerned, the Muslim anti-Semites and those who want them to win are on the same side of the faith divide.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 11:49 PM

I can't help it-- too many black-humor events in our own lives-- but this happened near PHUKET. Dontcha know the helpers in that area have got to be wandering around, murmuring "PHUKET..." to themselves by now, stunod from the shock of it all...

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope?
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 10:18 PM

It is said that Alexander the Great sought out Diogenes and found him looking through a pile of human bones. When asked what he was doing, the philosopher replied, "I'm looking for the bones of your father, but I cannot tell them from the bones of a slave."

It is only in our own minds that we become Bearers Of The Only Truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 08:42 PM

Its a shame that people with different beliefs can only work together after a disaster like this plane crash .

Subject: BS: Small hope?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 05:36 PM

PHUKET, Thailand - Officials from Israel and Iran put aside political animosity Tuesday to work together in using Israeli forensics expertise to identify their dead from the crash of a jetliner on this Thai resort island.

...

Six Israelis and 18 Iranians were among the 89 people killed when the One-Two-Go Airlines jet crashed and burned while trying to land in heavy rain and wind carrying 130 passengers and crew.

Relations are minimal and tense between the Jewish state and the Islamic Republic — whose president once denied the Holocaust — but diplomats from both nations shrugged off any suggestion the antagonism would hinder efforts to help grieving families.

"It's human nature to help in solving this problem as soon as possible," Safdar Shafiee from the Iranian Embassy in Bangkok said after shaking hands with Yaki Oved, head representative of Israeli police in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

"In situations like this you forget the division," Oved said. "The main thing is to help. You don't think about the politics."

Shafiee said 15 of the dead Iranians had been identified, but fingerprints or DNA samples to be sent from relatives in Iran would be needed to try to identify the remaining three.

"He told our delegation how they were worried about their missing. I told him we can help him," Oved said, referring to an Israeli forensics team that came to Thailand.

The team, from an emergency rescue service, has long experience in dealing with victims of traumatic injuries from the decades of Arab-Israeli conflict. It will try to match bodies with dental records, fingerprints, DNA and distinguishing features described by relatives.

"We always are willing to help people in need, and it includes, I guess, the Iranians also," said Lior Weintraub, spokesman for the Israeli government delegation in Phuket.

Shafiee, the Iranian official, said it was natural for people to work together after a humanitarian disaster. "I think there is no difference between the humans. All of them are humans and every nation can give any help that they can," he said.
...