I am a mother I want to cry for these children. If I were their mother I would strap them to my back and head for the Egyptian border.
Oppression is worse than death!! Are you suggesting that these people die before they leave the holy land. In the Quran it says when people are oppressed the earth is spacious. No, this is the ignorance of men and I am a woman and I am a mother. Paradise is at my foot and it is headed for the border. By any means necessary, I have carried the weight of my black men who have been oppressed in this country, and I will also carry my family in Palestine (inshaAllah).
We as Muslims have been given the black gold. Let us use it to support the 1.5 million refugees. Let them into Africa through Egypt. I want not their blood on my hands. I do not want to be cursed by Allah (SWAT) for not helping them. Let the rockets stop! Leave the land! Let them have it! It is like the throne of Solomon, after betraying his fitra and station. It is without blessing, without G-ds Light when it is stolen. If the Palestinian people refuse to leave the land, then that is their right too, but offer the first option and then work to protect the rights of those who stay understanding that his is a tough situation and that they will endure the brunt of the sacrifice.
The pen is mightier than the sword! I am an interdependent critical thinker and our policy should be to bring peace first and seek retribution second. I pray for the heart of Hamza. If I have said anything that has offended you, I pray that I did it with the right in tension and nia.
JAK! Thanks for reviewing.
THE PEACE AND JUSTICE FOUNDATION
11006 Veirs Mill Rd, STE L-15, PMB 298
Silver Spring, MD. 20902
A FEW FACTS:
Regarding the War On Gaza
Assalaamu Alaikum
(Greetings of Peace):
A few days ago, in response to one of our online postings on the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, a brother sent me the following e-mail:
As Salamu Alaikum,
My dear respected brother, may Allah bless you for the work your doing in the community. May Allah give comfort to the people of Gaza during this difficult time.
I am concerned that Hamas is placing the people of Gaza in harms way by firing rockets into Israel. The Hamas army is obviously not strong enough to fight the oppressive zionist regime. Aren’t there other means in which they could protest and work to change their condition rather than by inviting the carnage on innocent civilians that has just taken place?
During the time of the Prophet (Peace and blessings be upon him) when the Muslims were weak and oppressed and their numbers were low they migrated to Madina. Mashallah, the Muslims worked to perfect their deen and their numbers grew. When they finally went back to Mecca they didn’t even have to fight. If the Quran is our guide and has lessons for how we are to live in this present day, I believe there has to be a better way to deal with the situation in not only occupied Palestine but to Muslims all over the world who are suffering.
This is just my opinion brother. I would love to hear your feedback and that of the readers on your blog inshallah…
My Response to the brother’s inquiry was as follows:
Wa’alaikum Assalaam:
Hamas (and other Palestinian resistance groups based in Gaza) are firing rockets into Israel in defense of their lives, the lives of their families, and their homes and properties. Hamas did not instigate this very unfortunate ongoing conflict. Israeli Zionists did!
The events of fourteen hundred years ago were all part of a divine plan, under the direct ALLAH inspired leadership of the Prophet himself (saaw). We today are far removed that blessed revolutionary period. Consequently, while the nature of the enemy has not changed, the character of the Ummah has (despite the fact that we are far greater in number than we were then).
In Mecca, the Muslims were ordered (by divine command) to patiently endure the barbarous persecution hurled against them; but later in Medina they were ordered to fight back on the field of battle:
“To those against whom war is made, permission is given to fight because they are wronged; and verily ALLAH is Most Powerful for their aid. They are those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right, for no cause except that they say, ‘Our Lord is ALLAH.’ If ALLAH did not check one set of people by means of another, destruction would surely have come upon monasteries, churches, synagogues and masajid, in which the name of ALLAH is commemorated in abundant measure. ALLAH will certainly aid those who aid His cause – for verily ALLAH is full of strength, exalted in might, able to enforce His will.” (S. 22: 39-40)
With this in mind, dear brother, when the leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, openly declares (against the backdrop of Israel’s unprovoked aggression): “We will not leave our land, we will not raise white flags, and we will not kneel except before God,” we should celebrate such fortitude coming from a Muslim leader – and, at minimum, defend the Palestinian peoples’ right to resist!
I pray this has effectively answered your questions.
Your brother in the fold of Islam,
MS
What now follows is an excellent commentary just published in The Independent newspaper (of London). I invite the brother who sent me the question, and all others, to read and reflect deeply over what Johann Hari has to say about the origins of this latest crisis. FACTS DON’T LIE.
May ALLAH (The Almighty) bless those of us with a healthy conscience to respond accordingly.
El-Hajj Mauri’ Saalakhan
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December 29, 2008
Johann Hari: The true story behind this war is not the one Israel is telling
The world isn’t just watching the Israeli government commit a crime in Gaza; we are watching it self-harm. This morning, and tomorrow morning, and every morning until this punishment beating ends, the young people of the Gaza Strip are going to be more filled with hate, and more determined to fight back, with stones or suicide vests or rockets. Israeli leaders have convinced themselves that the harder you beat the Palestinians, the softer they will become. But when this is over, the rage against Israelis will have hardened, and the same old compromises will still be waiting by the roadside of history, untended and unmade.
To understand how frightening it is to be a Gazan this morning, you need to have stood in that small slab of concrete by the Mediterranean and smelled the claustrophobia. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave. They live out their lives on top of each other, jobless and hungry, in vast, sagging tower blocks. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean, and Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall – as they are doing now with more deadly force than at any time since 1967 – there is nowhere to hide.
There will now be a war over the story of this war. The Israeli government says, “We withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and in return we got Hamas and Qassam rockets being rained on our cities. Sixteen civilians have been murdered. How many more are we supposed to sacrifice?” It is a plausible narrative, and there are shards of truth in it, but it is also filled with holes. If we want to understand the reality and really stop the rockets, we need to rewind a few years and view the run-up to this war dispassionately.
The Israeli government did indeed withdraw from the Gaza Strip in 2005 – in order to be able to intensify control of the West Bank. Ariel Sharon’s senior adviser, Dov Weisglass, was unequivocal about this, explaining: “The disengagement [from Gaza] is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians… this whole package that is called the Palestinian state has been removed from our agenda indefinitely.”
Ordinary Palestinians were horrified by this, and by the fetid corruption of their own Fatah leaders, so they voted for Hamas. It certainly wouldn’t have been my choice – an Islamist party is antithetical to all my convictions – but we have to be honest. It was a free and democratic election, and it was not a rejection of a two-state solution. The most detailed polling of Palestinians, by the University of Maryland, found that 72 per cent want a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, while fewer than 20 per cent want to reclaim the whole of historic Palestine. So, partly in response to this pressure, Hamas offered Israel a long, long ceasefire and a de facto acceptance of two states, if only Israel would return to its legal borders.
Rather than seize this opportunity and test Hamas’s sincerity, the Israeli government reacted by punishing the entire civilian population. It announced that it was blockading the Gaza Strip in order to “pressure” its people to reverse the democratic process. The Israelis surrounded the Strip and refused to let anyone or anything out. They let in a small trickle of food, fuel and medicine – but not enough for survival. Weisglass quipped that the Gazans were being “put on a diet”. According to Oxfam, only 137 trucks of food were allowed into Gaza last month to feed 1.5 million people. The United Nations says poverty has reached an “unprecedented level.” When I was last in besieged Gaza, I saw hospitals turning away the sick because their machinery and medicine was running out. I met hungry children stumbling around the streets, scavenging for food.
It was in this context – under a collective punishment designed to topple a democracy – that some forces within Gaza did something immoral: they fired Qassam rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities. These rockets have killed 16 Israeli citizens. This is abhorrent: targeting civilians is always murder. But it is hypocritical for the Israeli government to claim now to speak out for the safety of civilians when it has been terrorising civilians as a matter of state policy.
The American and European governments are responding with a lop-sidedness that ignores these realities. They say that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate while under rocket fire, but they demand that the Palestinians do so under siege in Gaza and violent military occupation in the West Bank.
Before it falls down the memory hole, we should remember that last week, Hamas offered a ceasefire in return for basic and achievable compromises. Don’t take my word for it. According to the Israeli press, Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, “told the Israeli cabinet [on 23 December] that Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms.” Diskin explained that Hamas was requesting two things: an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank. The cabinet – high with election fever and eager to appear tough – rejected these terms.
The core of the situation has been starkly laid out by Ephraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad. He says that while Hamas militants – like much of the Israeli right-wing – dream of driving their opponents away, “they have recognised this ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future.” Instead, “they are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of 1967.” They are aware that this means they “will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original goals” – and towards a long-term peace based on compromise.
The rejectionists on both sides – from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Bibi Netanyahu of Israel – would then be marginalised. It is the only path that could yet end in peace but it is the Israeli government that refuses to choose it. Halevy explains: “Israel, for reasons of its own, did not want to turn the ceasefire into the start of a diplomatic process with Hamas.”
Why would Israel act this way? The Israeli government wants peace, but only one imposed on its own terms, based on the acceptance of defeat by the Palestinians. It means the Israelis can keep the slabs of the West Bank on “their” side of the wall. It means they keep the largest settlements and control the water supply. And it means a divided Palestine, with responsibility for Gaza hived off to Egypt, and the broken-up West Bank standing alone. Negotiations threaten this vision: they would require Israel to give up more than it wants to. But an imposed peace will be no peace at all: it will not stop the rockets or the rage. For real safety, Israel will have to talk to the people it is blockading and bombing today, and compromise with them.
The sound of Gaza burning should be drowned out by the words of the Israeli writer Larry Derfner. He says: “Israel’s war with Gaza has to be the most one-sided on earth… If the point is to end it, or at least begin to end it, the ball is not in Hamas’s court – it is in ours.”
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MOBILIZATION TODAY, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30TH @ 4:30 PM
Stop the Massacre of Palestinians!
Emergency Demonstration in Washington, D.C.
Meet at the State Department:
22nd St & C St NW
