From Annapolis To Islamabad

What a week we're having! Kevin Rudd sweeps to power as prime minister with a landslide victory over John Howard in Australia. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agree to resume long-stalled peace talks. President Pervez Musharraf steps down as Pakistan's chief of army staff and Turkish President Abdullah Gul accepts his invitation to hold talks next month in Pakistan. All these geo-political developments taking place against the domestic backdrop of Labour's latest funding scandal and the transfiguration of Brown from "a safe pair of hands" to slippery fingers, from "great clunking fist" to over-rated flunking fiddler — or, as the LibDem's acting leader Vince Cable so memorably put it in today's PMQs, from Stalin to Mr Bean, "creating chaos out of order rather than order out of chaos."

Whatever next? Keep your eyes on Russia, China and Iran...

Middle East Optimism

While convinced that Mr Abbas needs a clear "political horizon", Mr Blair is said to accept Israel's position that it will not move to concrete final status negotiations until it is confident that such a state is coherent enough not to pose a threat to Israel's security.

In his view therefore a programme of Palestinian "capacity building"; the measures Mr Abbas needs to ease the restrictions on Palestinian economy - and boost it in areas like the Jordan valley, which Mr Blair toured this week; and the central diplomatic process, are all interdependent.

Part of this conviction stems from his experience in Northern Ireland, where he faced continuous objections from the Army to "demilitarisation" plans. But when the Army saw their objections might be blamed for holding back a political process, they were more reluctant to press them.

I was about to comment on The Independent's optimistic review of Tony Blair's Middle East mission, but notice that His Grace has already done so with his usual eloquence: He’s not the Messiah – he’s a very naughty boy. I am inclined to agree with his verdict:

Will he do it? Well, Cranmer has a hunch that he will. He achieved in Northern Ireland what had been deemed a religio-political impossibility, and today The Rt Hon Ian RK Paisley is governing the Province with an unrepentant terrorist at his side. It would be churlish not to put this down in very large part to the conviction, sincerity and charisma of Mr Blair.

British Hate Crimes Surge

European governments have been "burying their heads in the sand for more than a decade" according to a new survey showing that the number of hate crimes has increased dramatically since the 1990s. The 2007 Hate Crime Survey, produced by US-based Human Rights First, reports:

In the United Kingdom, a dramatic surge of racist and religiously-motivated violence followed the July bombings of the London Underground and a city bus. The spike of violence diminished within weeks, but a high level of violence preceded the incidents and continues.

Contrary to what you might think, this increase in hate crimes was not only directed against Muslim or Asian communities. For instance, the report also notes that anti-semitic attacks rose by 31% to unprecedented levels in 2006, with attacks against individual Jews (as opposed to Jewish property) increasing by 37%, in part owing to a surge in anti-semitic incidents coinciding with the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Among its recommendations, Human Rights First is urging European governments to undertake parliamentary or other special inquiries into the problem of hate crimes to investigate ways of responding better to hate crimes and to seek creative ways of dealing with the roots of intolerance through education. That would be in line with today's report from the Conservative's Democracy Task Force (as commented on by Power to the People) calling for greater Parliamentary scrutiny. However, given the excessive proliferation of legislation we've suffered over the last decade and the Government's defeat over its controversial Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, I suspect Labour will be more inclined to latch onto the recommendation to enact new laws that expressly address and provide enhanced penalties for hate crimes.

A Question Of Viability

In further response to the reader who thought I ought to say more about the struggle for peace in the Middle East, in addition to my post yesterday exploring the effects of the 1967 Six Day War on the rise of political Islam, may I commend to you the Christian Aid report launched at Chatham House yesterday?

Israel and Palestine: a question of viability

Failure to secure a lasting solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is causing poverty to deepen, and allowing violence and despair to persist. Poverty in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) has increased more than threefold since the Oslo peace process began in 1993, while violence on both sides has escalated. Combined with the regional and global implications of this conflict, there is an urgent need to address the situation as a whole – and without delay – if further human misery is to be avoided, and before the rapidly changing facts on the ground preclude any lasting solution.

The international Quartet comprising the United Nations, European Union, USA and Russia, has repeatedly voiced its commitment to a viable Palestinian state but has yet to define what this means. Meanwhile, Israel is imposing de facto changes that erode the very foundations of a viable Palestinian state.

Christian Aid believes the way forward requires a long-term, just and peaceful solution that brings an end to occupation and guarantees viability for both Palestinians and Israelis. This requires a radical shift from the current political stalemate to a position where Palestinians, Israelis and the international community create the political will to take the bold steps necessary to implement such a viable solution.

Christian Aid has consulted with its Palestinian and Israeli partners, as well as other experts from the region and from Europe and the US, to consider what viability means for Palestinians and Israelis. In this document we explore the elements of and process towards a viable solution and bring it to the political debate. We demonstrate how viability is the defining characteristic of a lasting solution to the conflict, and provide a checklist against which any solution can be analysed to answer the question: is it viable?

Checklist for viability

Essential elements for viability are:

• an end to occupation: the bedrock of viability
• self-determination and sovereignty: exercise free political will and be free from external control
• effective governance: a coherent political system and government control over the collection and use of financial resources
• protection of rights: for Palestinians and Israelis
• security for all: the security of Israelis is indivisible from that of Palestinians
• freedom of movement: between and within the West Bank and Gaza Strip
• control over natural resources: land, water, minerals, sea – for the benefit of the whole population
• economic growth and prosperity: an end to aid dependency.

The process towards viability must be:

• guided by international law
• impartial
• and must hold both sides to account, bringing an end to impunity.

From 1967 To Post-9/11

The publication of Ataullah Siddiqui's Department of Education and Skills report is no doubt correct in its claim that the teaching of Islam in English universities is based on "out-of-date and irrelevant issues," being overly focussed on the Middle East and ignorant of the realities of modern Islam in multi-cultural Britain. However, if we do not understand where our post-9/11 and 7/7 world came from, then we will fail to make any progress either domestically or on the international stage. Therefore, in all that will be said and written over the coming days about the 1967 Arab-Israeli Six Day War, with its inevitable focus on the struggle for peace in the Middle East, I hope the media will also explore the contribution made by the war to the development of political Islam.

Speaking ten days before Israel launched its pre-emptive strike against the Egyptian Air Force on 5th June 1967, Egypt's President Nasser declared, "If Israel embarks on an aggression against Syria or Egypt, the battle against Israel will be a general one and not confined to one spot on the Syrian or Egyptian borders. The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel." The trouble was, the Arabs believed him. Their resounding defeat quickly led to the belief that Israel launched the war with the support of Britain and the United States. As one Israeli historian has noted, this now deep-rooted conviction "established a direct link between the 1967 war and former imperialist attempts to control the Arab world, thus portraying Israel as an imperialist stooge."

The failure of Arab nationalism in 1967 thus opened the way for mosques to provide answers to questions that the secular leaders had been unable to deliver and bred a distrust of democracy, which was seen as the heritage of Western imperialism. The political Islamists that emerged were unable to accept the notion of sovereignty in the people for they maintain that sovereignty is only to be found in God—not in people, who are servants of God. Equally, they reject the idea that laws are made by the people, for they hold that laws are God-given in sharia—the divine, immutable Islamic law. With every attempt to "bring freedom and democracy" to the region—and with every failure to deliver on such promises—we have strengthened the hand of political Islam. So it is that just as Israel's victory in 1967 was the beginning of the end of pan-Arabism as an ideology to unite the region and define its people, Israel's defeat in last year's war in Lebanon has given added momentum to the new religious nationalism provided by the Islamist movement.

Contrary to popular myth, 9/11 did not change the world. It merely opened the eyes of many in the West to a struggle that has been brewing for decades. 1967 arguably did change the world. The "realities of modern Islam in multi-cultural Britain" have some of their roots in those defining six days and have been cultivated by our continued frequent mistakes in the region ever since. The proper study of history, not just Islam, is also a "strategic subject" if education is to have a real role "in preventing extremism."

Israeli Time Bomb

A reader has written to ask why I have not mentioned the kidnap of BBC journalist Alan Johnston, who disappeared in the Gaza Strip on 12 March. In part I have not done so because others, such as Charles Moore in today's Telegraph, have done so far more effectively than I could do — In the spirit of which, I point you in the direction of an item that I suspect most readers in Britain will otherwise miss out on, "Israel’s “sadistic torture” of Palestinians" at AlJazeera. It begins:

In Israel, there is “no effective barrier – not legal and certainly not ethical – that stands in the way of using torture,” concluded a recent report by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI).

The report slammed the Israeli High Court’s approval of the use of tough tactics to interrogate Palestinians classified as “ticking bombs”, saying that the ruling was interpreted by Israel’s internal intelligence service, the Shin Bet, as a green light to torture almost every Palestinian detainee. Moreover, PCATI said that prison wardens, policemen and even doctors took part in torturing Palestinian detainees, as well as lawyers, military judges and senior officials in the Justice Ministry.

In the report, titled “A Time Bomb”, PCATI detailed accounts of nine Palestinian detainees who have been subjected to physical, sexual and psychological abuse at the hands of their Israeli interrogators over the past year.

Cox on British Islamism

"Islamist groups are using our institutions to recruit young people, and preventing any critical analysis of Islam. We need to wake up, draw a line in the sand, and say enough is enough - Britain's cultural and spiritual heritage are under threat."

Thanks go to Cranmer for pointing out an Ynetnews report of these comments by the indomitable Baroness Cox, co-author of The West, Islam and Islamism. Speaking about radicalised British Muslims, the threat to Israel, and the 70,000 capacity mega-mosque in east London, Baroness Cox also quoted a senior British bishop as saying that "most of our educational institutions have been infiltrated." That this is even a problem—let alone one as great as that posed by Communists in our universities throughout much of the last century—seems to have gone unnoticed by the vast majority of our elected politicians. Labour, seemingly oblivious, continues to bend over backwards to appease the Muslim Council of Britain while the leader of the opposition recently suggested that it is a "lazy use of language" to describe the threat from radical, militantly ideological versions of Islam as "Islamist."

Lest any of us need reminding that this ideological struggle is not merely an intellectual debate but also poses a threat to national security, Cox cites the case of Salah Idris, a shareholder in two high-tech security firms that provide security for the British parliament, the Royal Courts of Justice, UK military bases, and eleven nuclear installations—also the owner of a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory destroyed by America in 1998 after it was linked with al-Qaeda activity. Yet Cox claims, "When we brought this matter to the attention of the authorities, we were told there was no cause for concern."

As I wrote a couple of months ago in The Rise Of Islam, "We all need to understand Islam and the differences between moderate Islam and fundamentalist Islam, or Islamism" and it is therefore crucial that the media becomes a positive force for change in inter-religious relations and starts giving a prominent platform to experts such as Baroness Cox who actually understand the threats that we all face in twenty-first century Britain.

Discover What We Share

      
Last week I highlighted the need for us all to draw upon and learn from our shared heritage and positive cultural experiences. You will therefore not want to miss the British Library's "Sacred: discover what we share" exhibition, billed as the world's greatest collection of Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy books. Items on display include:

• A Dead Sea Scroll fragment from AD 50,
• The Syraic Pentateuch, the earliest known dated Biblical manuscript, written in Turkey in AD 463,
• The Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest surviving complete copy of the New Testament in Greek, dating from the fourth century AD, and
• The Ma'il Qur'an, from the first century of the Muslim Hijri calendar (early eighth century AD).

Running until 23rd September, associated events include a free afternoon next Monday with a food and crafts market, art workshops, and performances by the London Jewish Male Choir, IDMC Gospel Choir, the Ameer Khan Qawwali Group, and the whirling Dervish dancer Zia Azazi.

Dialogue of Civilisations

• What is the role of the Middle East conflict in Jewish-Muslim conversation?
• Is the media a positive force for change in inter-religious relations?
• How can local communities be successfully engaged together?

I made reference a couple of days ago to the dialogue of civilisations. The concept of a dialogue among civilisations was originally introduced by the former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami in response to an increasing emphasis on and belief that there exists a "Clash of Civilisations." Khatami's ideas were also the basis for the United Nations naming 2001 as the Year of Dialogue among Civilisations.

This civilisational dialogue is usually thought of in the context of Muslim-Christian and Muslim-Western secular relations. However, another often forgotten but crucial dimension is Jewish-Muslim relations. In a new development, Jewish and Muslim organisations met together last week in Brussels and discussed questions such as those listed at the beginning at this post. They also compiled information on partnerships, initiatives and best practice in the field of Jewish-Muslim dialogue in Europe.

Initiatives such as these are crucial in helping to remove mutual prejudices and misunderstandings. Here in the UK, there was a recent conference of rabbis and imams in Manchester, but to date the Government's favoured body for interacting with the Muslim community, the Muslim Council of Britain, has not even recognised Holocaust Memorial Day.

The fact remains that Jews, Christians and Muslims both here in Britain and worldwide have a common history dating back thousands of years. Now, more than ever, it is time for us all to draw upon and learn from our shared heritage and positive cultural experiences.

Baghdad's Berlin Wall

First came the Berlin Wall - a symbol of the Cold War, of separation and tyranny.

Next we had the construction of the 370-mile-long barrier dividing the city of Jerusalem and the Palestinian-populated West Bank region. The American reaction to this was a threat to withhold part of a $9 billion Israeli aid package.

Now, despite their criticism of Israel, American military commanders in Baghdad are building a 12-foot-high, three-mile-long wall separating a historic Sunni enclave from Shi'ite neighbourhoods in an attempt to quell the widening sectarian violence.

If Israel's checkpoints were wrong both for isolating and entrapping Palestinians, how is Baghdad's new "Berlin Wall" any different?  Moreover, how is it going to prevent any violence?  Surely it is just going to increase sectarian tensions and make the US and Iraqi checkpoint guards another symbol of occupation to be targeted by insurgents?

UN Champions Islam

Further to my Tuesday post on proceedings of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which have now concluded, UN Watch has expressed its disappointment over the Council's failure to address the vast majority of human rights abuses occurring around the world.

Sharing the disbelief expressed on this blog two weeks ago, the Geneva-based non-governmental organisation is particularly appalled by the Council's rejection of the Williams report into Sudan's "large-scale international crimes in Darfur," noting that in its nine months of existence, the Council, which is dominated by Sudan's allies in the African and Islamic groups, has condemned only one country in the entire world for human rights violations: Israel. At this session, the Council passed yet another resolution—its ninth—against the Jewish state.

Furthermore, despite the objections and abstentions of nearly half of its members, the Council also adopted an Islamic Group-sponsored resolution against "defamation of religions." As UN Watch notes, this is "an attempt to suppress perceived offenses against Islam and even to justify violent reactions thereto. Not only does the resolution refer to Islam alone among the world's religions, it is inconsistent with free speech protections and with the fundamental principle that international human rights law is about protecting individuals, not religions."