I recently visited Indonesia’s Aceh province, a devoutly Muslim territory. What is the situation five years after the devastating tsunami?
Showing all posts tagged Islam
The emergence of sex as a bullet of change in Iran
Understanding Iran’s so-called Green Revolution is largely ignored in the West. It’s often framed as Islamic dictatorship versus rampaging democrats. The picture is far more complex. Middle East Report has published a fascinating study about this: The hardliners in the Islamic Republic of Iran thought they had hit upon the perfect way to ruin Majid…
Christian Zionism is not the way of the Lord
The relationship between Zionist groups and Christian Zionists is a marriage of convenience. It’s therefore healthy to see some challenging this ideology: Christian leaders in the Middle East and the Al-Quds (occupied East Jerusalem) are on a holy mission to expose Christian Zionism as a pseudo-religious movement that twists Christianity for its own political purposes.…
Lieberman wants to smear all critics of Israel
Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman wants the world to know that anybody who challenges his country’s policies is a secret Jew hater: Speaking at the Foreign Ministry’s third annual Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, Lieberman said “classic anti-Semitism, along with Iranian funding and Islamic anti-Semitism, is being used to incite hatred against Jews, and to…
Hating Arabs is a full time business
Racism has become normalised in Israel. It’s a way of life, supported and endorsed by the Netanyahu government. A leading rabbi said this about Muslims on the weekend: Their religion is as ugly as they are.
Islam is not the enemy (even in Switzerland)
Defiance in the face of bigotry: A Swiss businessman appalled by his fellow countrymen’s decision to ban minarets has extended a chimney above his company building into a minaret in protest. “It was scandalous that the Swiss voted for the ban. Now we have the support of all the far-right parties across Europe. This is…
The Muslim world is not ours to occupy and destroy
Robert Fisk on an increasingly uncommon view: get all Western forces out of the Middle East:
Palestinian Christians want BDS
An important statement on behalf of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel: Senior Palestinian Christians from all the denominations in the Holy Land will call this week for economic sanctions and boycott of Israel to end its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, echoing a call by black South African theologians at…
Iran needs freedom from all of us
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kills dead the hopes of the Iranian democracy movement: “Iran is silencing all sources of information. Using the power of the Internet and of Twitter against the Iranian regime is a tremendous thing that the United States can do.” The prime minister added that the “deep hatred among part of…
Wow, Obama asked me to sit next to him, says reporter
The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman – he who can’t understand why Muslims aren’t more appreciative of being bombed to freedom – was recently invited to an exclusive audience with Barack Obama at the White House. Another present was the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder (a man who loves getting close to any official source he…