News around the world

ARABS BECOMING POLITICAL FAITHFUL - TOP
JEFF KAROUB, Associated Press, 8/22/08


Faced with a choice of White House hopefuls they fear are not entirely sympathetic to their issues, American Muslims are stepping up their activism to unprecedented levels in hopes they can influence the upcoming administration in its infancy.

The efforts stem in part from difficulties many Muslim- and Arab-Americans say they have experienced since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, where they have found themselves on the defensive and struggling to convince at times skeptical fellow citizens that they can be both Muslims and loyal U.S. citizens.

"I've never seen the level of activism I now see," said Shibley Telhami, a Mideast scholar at University of Maryland and fellow at the Brookings Institution.

"The number of people who have become more active and visible on the national political front has increased dramatically because people have suddenly sensed that they have to be more active in order to ... defend themselves as Americans, defend themselves as Arabs and Muslims," he said…

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said neither candidate has officially met with Muslims in Michigan, an important swing state with one of the nation's largest Muslim populations.

Walid said that may lead Muslim voters past the "lesser of two evils," to a third-party candidate or no candidate at all. In broader terms, it also raises concerns about both candidates' foreign policy skills, he said.

"If the candidates cannot engage the American Muslim community in a healthy way, which is the world's most educated Muslim community, then how can they strengthen economic ties or have a meaningful successful diplomacy in the Muslim world?" he said. (MORE)

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VIDEO: MUSLIM PILOT ON WATCH LIST - TOP
CNN, 8/21/08

A pilot who converted to Islam may be jobless now that he is on the terrorist watch list. CNN's Jeanne Meserve reports.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/08/21/meserve.muslim.pilot.cnn
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IVINS BELIEVED JEWS WERE GOD'S CHOSEN - TOP
JTA, 8/4/08

The government scientist who killed himself as he faced arrest for the 2001 anthrax attacks was an evangelical who believed Jews were God's chosen people.

The Frederick (Md.) News Post republished letters from Bruce Ivins in the wake of his suicide last week. Ivins was an anthrax researcher at the government's biological weapons research lab in Fort Detrick, Md.

In one letter he praises a rabbi for refusing to engage in dialogue with a controversial local Muslim cleric.

"By blood and faith, Jews are God's chosen, and have no need for 'dialogue' with any gentile," Ivins wrote in 2006.

Earlier letters suggest that he saw President Bush's re-election as a victory for evangelicals.

"You can get on board or get left behind, because that Christian Nation Express is pulling out of the station!" he wrote after the election.

Ivins killed himself as the U.S. Justice Department prepared to arrest him. Ivins' beliefs are significant because the 2001 attacker in notes appeared to be a radical Islamist, writing "Death to America, Death to Israel, Allah is Great." (MORE)

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I DIDN'T KILL 'THE JEWEL OF MEDINA' - TOP
Wall Street Journal, 8/9/08

Asra Q. Nomani's "You Still Can't Write About Muhammad" (op-ed, Aug. 6) falsely asserts that I am the "instigator" of the Random House Press decision not to publish a novel about the Prophet's wife titled, "The Jewel of Medina." I never had this power, nor did I single-handedly stop the book's publication. Random House made its final decision based on the advice of other scholars, conveniently not named in the article, and based ultimately on its determination of corporate interests.

As a historian invited to "comment" on the book by its Random House editor at the author's express request, I objected strenuously to the claim that "The Jewel of Medina" was "extensively researched," as stated on the book jacket. As an expert on Aisha's life, I felt it was my professional responsibility to counter this novel's fallacious representation of a very real woman's life. The author and the press brought me into a process, and I used my scholarly expertise to assess the novel. It was in that same professional capacity that I felt it my duty to warn the press of the novel's potential to provoke anger among some Muslims.

There is a long history of anti-Islamic polemic that uses sex and violence to attack the Prophet and his faith. This novel follows in that oft-trodden path, one first pioneered in medieval Christian writings. The novel provides no new reading of Aisha's life, but actually expands upon provocative themes regarding Muhammad's wives first found in an earlier novel by Salman Rushdie, "The Satanic Verses," which I teach. I do not espouse censorship of any kind, but I do value my right to critique those who abuse the past without regard for its richness or resonance in the present.

The combination of sex and violence sells novels. When combined with falsification of the Islamic past, it exploits Americans who know nothing about Aisha or her seventh-century world and counts on stirring up controversy to increase sales. If Ms. Nomani and readers of the Journal wish to allow literature to "move civilization forward," then they should read a novel that gets history right.

Denise A. Spellberg
Assoc. Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies
University of Texas at Austin

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121824366910026293.html
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U.S.-LED FORCES KILL 76 AFGHAN CIVILIANS - MINISTRY - TOP
Sharafuddin Sharafyar, Reuters, 8/22/08

HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S.-led coalition forces killed 76 Afghan civilians in western Afghanistan on Friday, most of them children, the Interior Ministry said.

The coalition denied killing civilians. Civilian deaths in military operations have become an emotive issue among Afghans, many of whom feel international forces take too little care when launching air strikes, undermining support for their presence.

"Seventy-six civilians, most of them women and children, were martyred today in a coalition forces operation in Herat province," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Coalition forces bombarded the Azizabad area of Shindand district in Herat province on Friday afternoon, the ministry said. Nineteen of the victims were women, seven of them men and the rest children under the age of 15, it said. (MORE)

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/22/asia/afghan.php