India Lifeline to Gaza – Campaign to End the Siege of Gaza

to read click below:

http://www.asiatogaza.net/index.html

Conversations With Fidel Castro: The Dangers Of A Nuclear War: By Fidel Castro Ruz & Michel Chossudovsky

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Conversations With Fidel Castro: The Dangers Of A Nuclear War
By Fidel Castro Ruz & Michel Chossudovsky:

to read click below:

http://www.countercurrents.org/castro151110.htm

"Jerusalem is not a settlement, it is the capital of Israel" Netanyahu - also call for attack on Iran!!

"Jerusalem is not a settlement, it is the capital of Israel" - NETANYAHU


DEAR ALL,


WE URGENTLY NEED TO STRATEGISE, PLAN & MOBILISE TO SAVE JERUSALEM.


AS THE WORLD WATCHES ON, ISRAEL CONTINUES WITH ITS RELENTLESS & UNCEASING PURSUIT OF THE SETTLEMENT PLANS WITH THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF ANOTHER 1345 HOUSING UNITS IN EAST JERUSALEM, WHICH NETANYAHU HAS AGAIN REFERRED TO AS THE CAPITAL OF ISRAEL.


ANOTHER TWO YEARS OF CONSTRUCTIONS & THERE WILL BE NO PALESTINE TO EVEN CREATE A "BANTUSTAN OF A TWO-STATE SOLUTION".

THIS IS ACCOMPANIED BY THE PLANNED DESTRUCTION OF MOSQUES & CHURCHES ACROSS THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES & THE JUDAIZATION OF JERUSALEM.


THEN THEY WILL GO ON TO THEN NEXT STAGE OF THE DESIGN FOR ERETZ ISRAEL, THE TOTAL ETHNIC CLEANSING OF ALL OF THE PALESTINIANS, FROM ALL OF HISTORIC PALESTINE.


IT IS CLEAR TO ALL THOSE WHO CAN SEE THAT ISRAEL HAS NO INTENTION OF ANY SOLUTION WHATSOEVER, APART FROM THE "FINAL SOLUTION".


NETANYAHU HAS ALSO CALLED FOR THE MILITARY OPTION ON IRAN.


THE NEXT TWO YEARS ARE EXTREMELY CRITICAL.


THUS THE INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT, NEEDS TO DISCUSS, DELIBERATE, PLAN & FINALISE A STRATEGY OF RESISTANCE & INTERNATIONAL MOBILIZATION FOR JERUSALEM. WE CARRY ON WITH THE MOVEMENT TO END THE SIEGE OF GAZA, BUT WE NEED TO NOW FORGE A NEW STRATEGY FOR JERUSALEM & THE WEST BANK AS WELL.


IT COULD BE SIMILAR, BUT LARGER IN SCALE TO WHAT THE ISM PLANNED & SUCCESSFULLY ACHIEVED DURING THE INTIFADA & BEGIN THE PROCESS OF MOBILISING & SENDING IN THOUSANDS & THOUSANDS OF INTERNATIONAL CIVIL RESISTERS INTO JERUSALEM.


THE PALESTINIAN LEADERSHIP NEEDS TO NOW TAKE THE INITIATIVE, UNITE & ANNOUNCE AN INDEPENDENT STATE OF PALESTINE, FOR ALL THE WORLD TO RECOGNISE. THIS IS THE TIME!! THIS WILL CREATE A MOMENTUM ACROSS THE WORLD & CREATE A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF PRESSURE ON BOTH THE USA & ISRAEL.


ALSO, THE MOMENT FOR THE THIRD INTIFADA IS RIPE. IT NEEDS TO BE COORDINATED FROM WITHIN PALESTINE & THE PALESTINE SOLIDARITY MOVEMENTS ACROSS THE WORLD.

READ ON BELOW . . .


IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE INTERNATIONAL INTIFADA!!


FREEDOM TO PALESTINE! BOYCOTT APARTHEID ISRAEL! END THE SIEGE OF GAZA!


FEROZE MITHIBORWALA, SURESH KHAIRNAR & KISHORE JAGTAP.


"
Netanyahu on building plans: 'Jerusalem isn't a settlement'
By TOVAH LAZAROFF
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=194631

Barak Obama Go Back: (protest outside Churchgate station, Mumbai, India)

Dear All,


Constituents of the LEFT Fronts - The CPI, CPI (M), CPI-ML, CPI-ML-Liberation, SUCI-Communist, Awami Bharat, Republican Panther, Vidyarthi Bharti, Phule-Ambedkar Vichar Manch as well as various other constituents of the Bharat Bachao Andolan and many other People's Organizations protested today against the visit of US president Barack Obama outside Churchgate station in South Mumbai.


Speaker, after speaker stated that basically Obama was merely the liberal face of US Imperialism, that now stood exposed even within America, especially after the debacle of the recent US elections. They again warned of the increasing strategic alliance between the Indian political & corporate elite & the US Imperial agenda.

Caste And Caste-Based Discrimination Among Indian Muslims - Part 2

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Caste And Caste-Based Discrimination
Among Indian Muslims - Part 2

Translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand

03 November, 2010
NewAgeIslam.com


(Part 2 of Masood Alam Falahi's Urdu book Hindustan Mai Zat-Pat Aur Musalman (‘Casteism Among Muslims in India’))



[Translator's Note: This is a translation of Dr. Faridi's Introduction to Masood Alam Falahi's Urdu book Hindustan Mai Zat-Pat Aur Musalman (‘Casteism Among Muslims in India’) [Ideal Foundation, Mumbai, 2009, pp. 32-35. For the sake of brevity, I have deleted some lines that I did not find directly relevant. I have sought to present the spirit of the text and, hence, have not made a literal translation throughout.-Yoginder Sikand, NewAgeIslam.com] ----------------

Preface

Indian Muslim Society In The Shadow of Casteism

By Dr. Fazlur Rahman Faridi

When I received the first instalment of a series of articles by my dear brother Masood Alam Falahi for publication in Zindagi-e Nau I had no idea that these articles would, in the future, take the form of a voluminous book. As successive instalments began being published in the journal, it dawned on me that this series represented an in-depth analysis of a painful and dark side of the history of the Muslims of India.

The basis of Islam is tauhid, the oneness of God, the very opposite of shirk or polytheism. Tauhid clearly suggests a direct relationship between human beings and God, with no role whatsoever for intermediaries. Tauhid liberates human beings from man-made religious beliefs and complicated, twisted philosophies. All along, efforts have been made, consciously and otherwise, by purohits, pundits, maulvis and so on, to erect high walls between human beings and their Creator and to dilute tauhid. However, with the grace of God, these efforts have all miserably failed.

Lamentably, however, another basic principle of Islam, which follows from the belief in tauhid—the fundamental oneness of all human beings—did not escape being cruelly trampled upon. And in this regard enemies played less of a role than the flag-bearers of Islam themselves. In India, the indigenous philosophical and religious systems that were based on caste and caste discrimination played havoc with the Islamic insistence on social equality. This assault took various forms, such as exaggerated respect for the Syeds (takrim-e sadat), which led to Muslim society being divided in the name of Islam itself between the self-styled ashraf and the so-called arzal. It appeared in the shape of distorted rules of kufu’ governing marriage that converted the Prophet’s purely practical instructions on the matter into what later came to be viewed as religious commandments. While at a certain stage of Muslim history it was considered, purely from a pragmatic point of view, that only members of the Quraish tribe could become Caliph, it came to be understood as a permanent Islamic injunction. And so on. The implications of these wrongful interpretations were so deep-rooted and widespread that the Muslim community in India soon came to be completely suffocated by the curse of caste. And that is how Muslim Sultans, ulema and ‘ordinary’ folk all audaciously agreed to sabotage and grossly violate this eternal instruction of the Quran:

Lo! the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct (49:13).

Everyone—Syeds, Shaikhs, Mughals, Pathans and Shudras—was complicit in completely distorting the image of the Muslim millat and in promoting division and strife within it. God has blessed our respected brother Masood Alam Falahi with an extraordinary capacity to research and analyse so as to lift the curtain that veils this terrible reality and to encourage Muslim society to consider urgently-needed reforms in this regard. We have all been silently witnessing these glaring and dangerous divisions of caste in our society but we lacked the courage to talk about this subject and even to indicate how completely opposed to Islam all of this is.

One tragic consequence of efforts to seek to wrongly legitimise the philosophy of caste division in Islam has been that when vast numbers of people who were oppressed by the Indian caste system embraced Islam, attracted by its teachings of equality and human unity, they had to face the same sort of filth and oppression here, too. After converting to Islam, they found that they still remained Bhangis, Chamars, Kunjaras, Qasais and Julahas, and were incorporated as the most ‘despicable’ classes of Muslim society. On conversion, their names changed but not the way in which they were treated by others. The Muslims were now solidly divided into ‘noble’ (sharif) and ‘despicable’ (razil). So sternly was this division maintained that it was given legitimacy even in Islamic schools. Fatwas about marriage and divorce came to be based on the caste of people and the related rules of kufu’ that were concocted. Brother Masood has provided us plenty of evidence that very well illustrates all of this. Many people may be angry with what he has written. They might castigate his writings as untimely and inappropriate. Some of them might even claim that caste-based division and discrimination are now vanishing among Muslims and that, therefore, there is thus no need to scratch old wounds.

I have no hesitation in saying that the power of caste is indeed declining today, particularly in the matter of selection of spouses. However, the real reason for this are modern communications and travel, which have been made possible by new technologies and material resources. Because of this, today’s youth are being freed from the hold of their homes and societies. They can now increasingly find spouses of their choice themselves. Higher education, especially of a professional sort, have reduced the salience and appeal of caste. All this may have much to commend it, but a painful aspect of this changing reality is that this decline of caste consciousness that should have come about through religious reform and inspiration is, instead, being caused by economic transformations. Transformations wrought by economic motives are, generally speaking, imbalanced, and there is no need to assume it will not be so in this case as well. Another tragic aspect of this is that these efforts to end caste-based division and discrimination in Muslim society are not a result of religious commitment and activism, but, on the contrary, of increasing irreligiousness and materialism that pose a grave threat to the very identity and character of the Muslim millat. At the same time, we must not forget that caste divisions still remain very strong among the vast majority of the Indian Muslims, and to ignore its consequences is nothing but foolishness.

The adoption of, or adaptation to, the inhuman and horrendously divisive caste system by the Muslims also continues to pose major hurdles in the path of dawah or inviting others to Islam. With what face can Muslims invite Dalits and other oppressed classes to Islam if the latter feel that Islam’s commitment to equality and justice is only theoretical, and when they see that, in some cases, arzal or so-called ‘low’ caste Muslims are forbidden from worshipping in mosques by their so-called ashraf or ‘high’ caste co-religionists, and when they see that Muslim society is such that if they convert to Islam they will have to face the same sort of demeaning insults as they have had to for centuries? This is why it is an urgent missionary duty to promote, not just through words but, more importantly, through practical social efforts, respect for all human beings based on God consciousness. At this point I want to add that for centuries the ulema and other guides of the Muslim millat have focussed almost all their efforts on the protection of the faith, giving very little attention at all to the fundamental duty of dawah.

The unity of the whole of humankind is the message of Islam. It is a gift presented to suffering humanity. Islam must be seen in this perspective. Social reform is not always an easy process. There is always the danger that it will not be liked or tolerated by some elements, who are bound to oppose criticism. All the same, this effort by Masood Alam Falahi deserves to be welcomed as constructive and as geared to promoting social reform and the cause of dawah. The bitter truths that he recounts must be patiently listened to. This book backs its claims with copious footnotes, references and reliable quotations. Hence, it would be wrong to say that the author is motivated by a desire for character assassination. He mentions harsh realities in order to express the tremendous pain that stirs his heart. I have examined and judged his text from the perspective of the dawah imperative, which should be of primary concern for us as Muslims. Those committed to dawah must be always ready to bandage wounds and to critique themselves and others where necessary, irrespective of the consequences, even if this means having to face insults and a torrent of fatwas. In this regard, I find this effort by Masood Alam Falahi inspiring and encouraging.

Where Masood Alam Falahi has indicated the weaknesses of present-day Muslim society, he has not forgotten to highlight the true teachings of Islam. Hence, the book is by no means a collection of accusations and criticisms, but, rather, a work that is presented in a very proper perspective.

[ The author Dr. Fazlur Rahman Faridi is Editor, monthly Zindagi-e Nau, member of the Consultative Commitee of the Jamaat-e Islami Hind, and founder-member of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board]

Caste And Caste-Based Discrimination Among Indian Muslims - Part 1

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Caste And Caste-Based Discrimination
Among Indian Muslims - Part 1

[Translator's Note: Very little has been written on the existence of caste and caste-based discrimination among the Indian Muslims. ‘Upper’ caste Muslims, who, although a very small minority among the Indian Muslims, generally deny the existence of caste and caste-based discrimination in the larger Muslim community by arguing that these have no sanction in Islam. However, although these do not have legitimacy in the Quran, their reality cannot be denied. Nor too can the legitimacy that these have sought to be given by numerous supposedly leading Indian Islamic scholars be ignored.

In 2007, Masood Alam Falahi, a graduate of a madrasa and then a 27 year-old M.Phil. student at Delhi University, wrote a voluminous, almost 600-page, Urdu book titled Hindustan Mai Zat-Pat Aur Musalman (‘Casteism Among Muslims in India’). Weaving together insights from fieldwork and key writings by influential Indian Muslim scholars, including Muslim clerics on the subject of caste, the book is a pioneering study of caste-based discrimination among the Indian Muslims and of the continued domination of ‘high’ caste Muslims that parallels, in remarkable ways, the Hindu case.

Realising the importance of this pioneering book, I have begun translating key portions of it, which I plan to send out as articles once every few days. Once the translation is complete I hope to publish it as a book.

This instalment is a translation of the first thirty pages of the book titled ‘Why I Have Written This Book’. -- Yoginder Sikand for NewAgeIslam.com]

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Why I Have Written This Book

By Masood Alam Falahi

02 November, 2010
NewAgeIslam.com

[Translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand for NewAgeIslam.com]

O humankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted (Quran 49: 13)

There are two things that, if they are found among people, take them to the level of infidelity: one is to consider others to be low-born [...] (Saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad contained in the Sahih Muslim)

In 1994, I was a student at a well-known madrasa, the Jamiat ul-Falah, in Bilariyaganj, in Azamgarh district in eastern Uttar Pradesh. I was then in the final year of the alimiyat course. It so happened that the Uttar Pradesh wing of the Jamaat-e Islami Hind had organised a week-long ‘Introducing the Quran’ programme across the state. Through various activities that formed part of this programme, activists of the Jamaat sought to reach out with Islam’s message of brotherhood and equality to Hindus, especially Dalits, trying to invite them to Islam. Accordingly, a Jamaat activist named Hakim Abdur Rauf visited a Dalit locality in Bilariyaganj and delivered a speech to the inhabitants declaring Islam to be the perfect antidote to untouchability, caste-based discrimination and social hierarchy. He told his Dalit listeners that if they became Muslims and entered the fold of Islam, they would be liberated from the terrible degradation that they had been subjected to for centuries, and that all the other Muslims would embrace them as brothers.

After he had finished speaking, a Dalit youth stood out from among the crowd and said, ‘Sir, it is true that there is no casteism in Islam. But is your Muslim society free from casteism? The Muslims of the town where you are presently in refuse to marry outside their own respective castes, and in this they are no less strict and particular than the Hindus. They refuse to give their daughters to prospective grooms from other Muslim castes, no matter how well-educated and decent such men may be. Instead, they insist that their daughters marry men from their own caste even if the latter are illiterate.’ ‘If we accept Islam’, the Dalit youth went on, ‘which Muslims will agree to inter-marry and inter-dine with us? Who will marry our daughters or give us their daughters to marry?’

It is instructive to note how this Dalit youth’s reaction was interpreted by Jamaat activists who heard about this incident. One of these, a member of the Jamaat, is considered to be an ‘alim, a learned scholar of Islam, and never tires of talking about promoting ‘Islamic revolution’ and establishing ‘Islamic government’ in India through missionary work among non-Muslim Indians. His response to the Dalit youth’s reaction was not to acknowledge the need to launch a movement to end the curse of casteism among the Muslims of the country. Instead, he cynically remarked, ‘Some people concoct lame excuses so as not to accept Islam because they know that if they embrace Islam they are bound to be confronted with problems.’

I am grateful to God that my own family is free from the cancer of casteism. Once, two ‘ulema friends of my brother came to meet him. One of these had married outside his caste, and the other maulvi teased him for this. My brother was very upset with the latter’s behaviour and told him, ‘You claim to be the leaders of the Muslims, but, despite knowing that caste prejudice and ethnic pride is sheer ignorance and un-Islamic, you are fanning it!’

My late mother was also very against caste and caste-based prejudice, knowing full well that these have no place in Islam. She received numerous proposals for my marriage but always insisted that all she wanted was a pious and well-educated daughter-in-law, whose caste did not matter. My late father was like my mother in this respect.

From a young age itself I lived in a city, along with my brother. The environment in cities is quite different from that in the countryside. In cities people are caught up with their own work and do not bother about other people’s affairs. That is why as a child I knew nothing about the horrors of casteism and the great damage that it has done to Indian Muslim society.

The Muslims of my ancestral village and the region surrounding it are followers of the rival Deobandi and the Barelvi schools of thought. When they need guidance in religious matters they consult texts written by Deobandi and Barelvi writers, such as the Bahishti Zevar, by Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi (a Faruqi Shaikh), the Fatawa-e Rizviya by Maulana Ahmad Riza Khan Barelvi (a Pathan), and the Bahar-e Shariat by Maulana Muhammad Amjad Ali (an Ansari), deeming these to be adequate even if the fatwas contained in these books are wholly wrong in the light of the teachings of the Quran and the Sunnah, the practice of the Prophet Muhammad.

Shortly after the incident that I described above, in which the Dalit youth confronted the activist of the Jamaat-e Islami with bitter truths about our caste-ridden Muslim society, I thought of consulting the Bahishti Zevar in the belief that Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi must certainly have bitterly condemned casteism, caste-based social hierarchy and conventional fiqh-based rules of kufu’ or social parity that must guide selection of marital partners in his magnum opus. However, I was completely aghast when I opened the book, to the fourth chapter that discusses in detail the rules of social parity that Maulana Thanvi insisted needed to be strictly followed in contracting marriages. It went completely against what I had expected. I am not exaggerating when I say that what I read sent shivers down my spine and tremors that rent my heart. Till then I had thought that caste, caste-based discrimination and conventional fiqh-derived notions of kufu’ or social parity that governed the choice of marital partners were all a social construct, a product of the influence of Hinduism and Hindu society on the Indian Muslims. However, what I discovered, to my utter horror, was that Maulana Thanvi had declared all of this to be an integral part of the Islamic shariah simply because these are legitimised in the traditional books of fiqh. To make matters worse, he did so without providing any legitimacy or proof from the Quran and the Sunnah. In this way, he legitimised the division of Muslims into what he considered ‘high’ (unch) and ‘low’ (neech), ‘noble’ (sharif) and ‘despicable’ (razil) groups on the basis of individuals’ birth in particular social or caste-like groups.

How, I asked myself in shock, could Muslims be at all branded in this fashion as ‘despicable’? God forbid! Is it not ridiculous? Maulvi Thanvi went further and even declared that newly-converted Muslims (nau musalman) were not the social equals of other Muslims, and that inter-marriage between the two was not advisable. And so we can very well say, ‘He whom we thought was a Messiah turned out to be a Hulagu Khan’.

Reading what Maulvi Thanvi had to say on the subject, my distress knew no bounds. I was appalled at how all this was being associated with Islam and being wrongly sought to be legitimised in its name. Did the ulema have no idea that this was giving Islam such a bad name? Did they not realise how it was posing an immense hurdle in the spread of Islam? Did they not feel the need to struggle against caste, a system and ideology that has no sanction whatsoever in Islam? I must here mention that I spoke to a number of ulema from various Muslim groups or jamaats about this. With the exception of a very few who admitted that the ulema of their respective schools of thought who had defended caste and caste-based hierarchies had made a grave blunder, they simply refused to acknowledge that these scholars had grievously erred. Instead of critiquing them, they tried to defend their views by resorting to all sorts of casuistry.

In the final year of the fazilat course at the Jamiat ul-Falah we had to do a course on Comparative Religions., which was taught by Maulana Anis Ahmad Falahi Madani, who belonged to the Shaikh caste. In his lectures the Maulana explained to us the theory and history of the varna system of the Hindus and their practice of untouchability. He told us that caste-discrimination, caste-based social hierarchy and the conventional fiqh rules of kufu’ were a product of the Hindu influence on the Indian Muslims. He also clearly indicated that all this was further supported and legitimised by the ulema and the fuqaha, scholars of fiqh, themselves, and by numerous influential fiqh texts. At the same time, he insisted that all this was diametrically opposed to the very spirit of Islam. The Maulana elaborated, in great detail, on the terrible damage that this had caused to Muslims and to the cause of Islam over the centuries. He also told us how political parties routinely used the existence of caste-based hierarchies among Muslims and Hindus for promoting their own interests. He insisted that we must struggle against all casteism for it had no sanction in Islam at all.

By this time I had numerous unanswered questions in my mind about caste-discrimination and social hierarchy among Muslims and the conventional fiqh rules about kufu’. I am indebted to Maulana Madani for convincingly answering many of them. I was greatly inspired by what he taught us. He convinced me that we needed to put an end to caste-based practices in Muslim society, and for this purpose I began reading all that I could on the subject.

I was curious to learn to what extent caste-based discrimination was actually practised among the Muslims. The best way to do so was, of course, to travel around and see things for myself. Once, during our vacations, I went to my grandmother’s village, Dardi, which is in Sitamarhi district in Bihar. There I met with Muhammad Abbas, a man from the Shaikh caste, who was known for his stern opposition to caste. He had arranged for his sons to marry a girl from the Ansari caste. In the course of our conversation, he related the following incident. Once, two Muslim men from a certain village in Sitamarhi district travelled to another village in the district for some work. There, they met a man from the Shaikh caste, who asked them their names and that of their village. When he learned where they were from he asked them, ‘Are there really any Muslims in that village at all? I have heard that only Julahas, Kabadis (Rain, Kunjeras) and Dhuniyas and so on live there.’

During that visit to my grandmother’s village I met another man who told me of a settlement near his village where three families belonging to a marginalised Muslim caste live under the constant and relentless oppression of Muslims of the Shaikh caste. The former sought to resist this oppression by migrating to a nearby town. Some members of their family even secured government jobs. This escalated their conflict with the Shaikhs, and one day the two groups came to blows. The ‘low’ caste Muslims, although less in number, managed to badly beat up a number of Shaikhs. The incensed Shaikhs then lodged a complaint at the police station claiming that, as they put it, ‘Low caste people had rioted against Muslims.’ They did not mention that these ‘low’ castes were also Muslims—Julahas, Dhuniyas, Kabadis and Qasais.

One day, while in the village, I saw a Muslim man of the Hajjam or barber caste, whom I knew rather well, hurling abuses at the men of the Shaikh community. When I asked him why he was so angry, he told me that a haikh man had mocked him by contemptuously referring to him as ‘Hajjma’, making fun of his caste. He said that his grandfather was a saint or buzurg and that his tomb is a mazar or Sufi shrine, but, yet, he complained, the Shaikhs refuse to recognise that he was a buzurg because they claimed that it was simply inconceivable for a Hajjam to become a buzurg, as if the two were mutually contradictory.

Incidents like these began to bring before me a true picture of the reality of caste and caste-based discrimination in Muslim society. Shortly after I returned to my madrasa from my vacation in my grandmother’s village, I learned of a man who is considered to be a leading Islamic scholar, and who presents himself as passionately committed to spreading Islam and to ‘establishing the faith’ (iqamat-e din). He is a member of the council of representatives of the Jamaat-e Islami. From very reliable sources I learned that this man insists that ‘low’ caste Muslims cannot, and should not, inter-marry with ‘high’ caste Muslims. Nor, he believes, can they be made the head of an army. Nor, too, he insists, can they be prayer-leaders or imams. On hearing about this, another Islamic scholar, who, unlike this other man, is genuinely committed to Islamic missionary work and to ‘establishing the faith’, bitterly critiqued him and condemned his views as un-Islamic.

Somewhat at the same time another incident took place. It so happened that the granddaughter of a member of the Jamaat-e Islami, a man of the Shaikh caste, who occupies an important post in the organisation, wanted to marry a man of the Ansari caste. Her family did not agree, and so she escaped from her house. In order to find her, the family even consulted astrologers and magicians. Finally, they located her and brought her back home. Her father and brother then relented somewhat and agreed to her marrying the Ansari boy, but her grandfather, who was wedded to caste prejudice, simply refused, saying, ‘If she marries a Julaha my nose will be cut off.’ Finally, that hapless girl was forcibly married off to a man from her own Shaikh caste.

It was not that the girl’s father and brother did not believe in caste. If they did not, things obviously would not have come to such a pass. I had a long and detailed conversation with her father, and it was apparent that he had strong biases against ‘low’ caste Muslims. When I told him that I had written against casteism, his reply was that this meant that I was under Satanic influence! His son, the girl’s brother, was even more caste conscious than him. Once, when I had to go somewhere on work, he said to me, ‘Brother Masood, why do you want to go there? Only low caste people live there.’ The people he was referring to were all Muslims—Julahas, Dhuniyas, Kabadis and Qasais.

From these and such like incidents and experiences I developed a new understanding of the extent of the problem of caste in Muslim society. I also realised that many Muslims who never tire of preaching the virtues of Islam and keep talking about the need to ‘establish the faith’ and even dream of establishing a Caliphate or ‘Islamic’ rule in India are so fanatically wedded to caste prejudice and to conventional fiqh rules about kufu’ that in this they are no different at all from caste conscious Hindus. If, suppose for a moment for argument’s sake, a Caliphate indeed comes to be established in India at the hands of such people, I realised that it would not be one structured on the model provided by the Prophet Muhammad. Rather, it would be a carbon copy of the model suggested by Manu, the putative author of the Manusmriti, that Bible of Brahminism.

As I began reading up on various aspects of caste and as the immensity of the caste problem among Muslims became clearer to me, I decided to write a full-length book on the subject, which is now in your hands. Some aspects of this book may be considered by some readers to be harsh and embarrassing, but, undeterred by this, I feel it my duty to abide by the commandments of God and His Prophet to stand by the truth. As the Holy Quran tells us:

No believing man or believing woman, if God and His messenger issue any command, has any choice regarding that command. Anyone who disobeys God and His messenger has gone far astray (33: 36).

In this book I have, among other issues, discussed the historical background, origins, and development of the institution and ideology of caste in India, and have tried to show how, in all periods of India’s history, forces of truth have valiantly struggled against caste and its upholders, the forces of falsehood. I have tried to relate caste with the historical process of the expansion of Islam in India and have also raised serious questions about the hurdles faced in this path, some of which relate to widespread caste prejudices among a sizeable section of the Indian Muslims. Readers of this book will, God willing, be convinced that the widespread caste-based discrimination and fiqh-based rules of kufu’ prevalent among the Indian Muslims resemble very closely the Hindu case and, in fact, correspond to the teachings of the Manusmriti. The book highlights the alarming fact that in certain respects, such as with regard to rules governing marriage and caste-based discrimination, there is absolutely no difference between the commandments of the Manusmriti and the rules laid down in the books of Muslim fiqh in the sections that discuss conventional rules and notions of kufu’.

I am grateful to Dr. Fazlur Rahman Faridi (a Faruqi Shaikh) who very kindly arranged for this book to be serialised in the monthly Urdu journal Zindagi-e Nau, published from New Delhi, spanning a long period, from August 2000 to May 2002 under the title Hindustan Mai Chhoot Chhat Aur Musalman (‘Untouchability and Muslims in India’) before it was published as a volume. These instalments of my book invoked considerable interest from readers, who sent in letters, both appreciative as well as critical. Of these letters 34 were published in Zindagi-e Nau between October 2000 and September 2002. These letters brought to the fore many new aspects about caste and caste-based discrimination among Muslims that I was not aware of.

In this book I have used terms such as ‘Brahminical’ and ‘Manuvadi’. These terms are not to be taken to refer to any particular caste, but, rather, to a particular mentality that underlies and sustains caste, caste-discrimination, caste-based hierarchies and untouchability. These terms also indicate that supporters of casteism are not restricted to any particular caste, but, rather, can belong to any caste, for that matter. In places where I have talked about certain individuals from particular castes who support casteism, my intention is to indicate only such individuals, and certainly not to make any generalisations about the caste they belong to. This is because, as I just mentioned, supporters of caste prejudice can be found in every case. It is wholly erroneous to make generalisations about all the members of a particular caste. It is not true to say, as some so-called ‘low’ caste people allege, that all so-called ‘upper’ people are prejudiced and casteist. Likewise, it is not true that, as some so-called ‘upper’ caste people claim, that all those who write or work against casteism are from the ‘low’ castes. That is why I have indicated, where possible, the caste of the individuals whom I have mentioned in this book, although whether their caste origins are really what they claim is another matter.

In my view, the criterion for superiority and status is definitely not caste, but, rather, what the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad lays down in this regard, which is taqwa, that is to say piety or God consciousness. I do not regard any caste as being ‘noble’ or ‘despicable’. I have tried not to hurt the sentiments of any caste with my words. Despite this, if any reader does feel slighted by my writing I would request her or him to contact me at once and point out where she or he feels I have not lived up to the demands of the truth and justice. If she or he has a genuine point, God willing I will rectify what I have written in the next edition of this book.

Numerous people have helped me in the preparation of this book and I heartily thank them all. The list of names is so long that to catalogue them all would require several pages. Among them are the numerous readers of my articles that were published in the columns of Zindagi-e Nau who sent me their comments or wrote letters to the editor of the journal expressing their views about what I had written. Some of them even took the trouble of coming to meet me.

It would be unjust of me not to mention specifically the names of some people who played a very important role in this book. Maulana Abdur Rahman Khalid Falahi provided me with considerable valuable material from the library of the Jamiat ul-Falah in Bilariyaganj. Maulana Muhammad Jasimuddin Qasmi, then a student at the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, and Abdul Hafiz Khan Salafi Balrampuri, then studying at the Aligarh Muslim University, proofread the entire manuscript. Maulana Abdul Hamid Numani, senior office-bearer of the Jamiat ul-Ulema-e Hind, Maulana Muhammad Tahir Madni (Shaikh), rector of the Jamiat ul-Falah, Maulana Abul Baqa Nadvi (Shaikh), former rector of the Jamiat ul-Falah, Professor Yasin Mazhar Siddiqui Nadvi, former Professor in the Departmetnt of Islamic Studies at the Aligarh Muslim University, Dr. Maulana Obaidullah Fahad Falahi (Pathan) of the Department of Islamic Studies, Aligarh Muslim University, Maulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani Qasmi (Syed), General-Secretary of the Islamic Fiqh Academy(India), Maulana Abdul Bar Asri Falahi (Shaikh), former lecturer in Arabic literature and Hadith at the Jamiat ul-Falah, and Dr. Maulana Muhammad Razi ul-Islam Nadvi (Pathan), Assistant Editor of Tahqiqat-e Islami, Aligarh and of the monthly Zindagi-e Nau, Delhi, were great sources of help and encouragement. In the preparation of the second edition of this book, the assistance of my very dear friends Shamshad Alam, Niyaz Ahmad Falahi, Maulana Fayyaz Ahmad Falahi, and Abdullah Mansur was indispensable.

It would be nothing short of tragic if I forgot to mention the debt of gratitude that I owe to Dr. Fazlur Rahman Faridi, editor of the monthly Zindagi-e Nau, member of the Advisory Council of the Jamaat-e Islami Hind, and founding-member of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board. It was he who very kindly arranged for the book to be first serialised in Zindagi-e Nau. Many readers of the journal praised these articles. However, others vehemently opposed their publication. Yet, Dr. Faridi did not cave in to their pressure. Many publishers approached me and offered to publish this book. Dr. Faridi was the first to do so, and he also informed me that some people wanted to translate the text into various other languages. It is, in large measure, because of the efforts and help of Dr. Faridi that this book has finally been published. I am grateful to him for writing a foreword to the book.

I must also profusely thank Dr. Muhammad Abdul Haq Ansari, former amir of the Jamaat-e Islami Hind, who also took an interest in this book, and who, on the suggestion of Dr. Faridi, gave his consent, verbally as well as in writing, to the publishing of this book by the Markazi Maktaba-e Islami, the official publishing wing of the Jamaat-e Islami. Accordingly, as per his orders, this book had reached the final stages before printing when a section of members of the Jamaat-e Islami who support casteism and want caste discrimination, which has no sanction whatsoever in Islam, to survive in order to further their own interests, placed immense pressure on Dr. Ansari and Dr. Faridi to stop the publication of the book. The manuscript had already been carefully examined by Dr. Faridi, and I had removed the sections that he had suggested be excised. However, when the supporters of caste in the Jamaat-e Islami succeeded in preventing the publication of my book from the Markazi Maktaba-e Islami, I included back in the text all this excised material and added some additional material.

After the manuscript was returned to me by the Markazi Maktaba-e Islami, I showed it to Dr. Syed Anwar Alam Pasha, who teaches Urdu at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and asked him to critically examine it and point out what he felt were its faults and limitations since my intention was to promote honest discussion on the subject of caste among Muslims and not to fan strife and dissension. I am grateful to him for acceding to my request. He read the manuscript carefully and, in a note to me, said he found nothing wrong or unacceptable in it and advised me to get it published as soon as possible. ‘The Jamaat-e Islami’, he wrote, ‘must seek forgiveness for halting the publication of such a good book.’

I am thankful to Mr. Inayatullah, senior advocate of the Supreme Court of India, who looked through the text from the legal perspective and made some important and necessary corrections. Many thanks, too, to Mr. Syed Qazi Shamsuddin of Al-Qazi Publications, New Delhi, for publishing the first Urdu edition of this book, and to the Ideal Foundation, Mumbai, for its second Urdu edition.

Masood Alam Falahi can be contacted on: masoodfalahi@gmail.com

Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion at the National Law School, Bangalore.

OBAMA GO BACK !!

Public Meeting:

OBAMA GO BACK !!

IMPERIALIST AMERICA QUIT ASIA!!.

MARATHI PATRAKAR, CST, MUMBAI,

2 NOV, 3-5pm.

WE WILL ALSO BE ANNOUNCING OUR PROGRAMME OF PROTESTS & DEMONSTRATIONS.

COM. MAHENDRA SINGH (CPI-M, MUMBAI SECRETARY,), COM. PRAKASH REDDY ( CPI, MUMBAI SECRETARY), COM. SANJAY SINGHVI (CPI-ML, CENTRAL COMMITTEE), FEROZE MITHIBORWALA (AWAMI BHARAT, NATIONAL PRESIDENT), KISHORE JAGTAP (PHULE-AMBEDKAR BAHISKRUT BHARAT ANDOLAN), BRIGADIER SUDHIR SAWANT (SHIV RAJYA PARTY, NATIONAL PRESIDENT), SUDHIR DHAWALE (REPUBLICAN PANTHER), COM. RAVI JOSHI (CPI-ML-ND), COM. RATHOD (CPI-ML-LIBERATION), COM. R.K. TYAGI (SUCI), VARSHA VV (SAMIP VICHAR MANCH),

:ORGANIZERS:

Com. Arun Velaskar, Dinu Randive, Aslam Ghazi, Sudhir Dhawale, S S Yadav, Jyoti Badekar, Yavar Ali Qazi, Uttam Gade, Varsha V V, Jagdish Nagarkar, Mulniwasi Mala, Shridhar Shirsagar, Reshma Jagtap, Madhav Wagh, Baba Dalvi, Shravan Devre, Amol Madame, Valji Bhai, Abid Zaidi, Arif kapadia, Lilesh Lokre, Chetna Birje, A. H. Faruqi, Aarti Bonkar, Pooja Badekar, Munawwar Azad, Ghaza Azad, Manohar Rajguru, Munawwar Khan, Farid Batatawala, Munawwar Khan, Mark Anthony, Tito Eapen, Harshavardhan Vartak, Rahul Gupta, Shadab Sheikh, Dr. Ashwin Bhosle, Farrouk Mapkar, Santosh Khangaonkar & Sainath Shinde & Shadab Sheikh

=================================================================================================

Awami Bharat , Trade Union Centre of India (TUCI), Indian Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM),

Safai Kaamgar Mazdoor Union, Republican Panther, Phule-Ambedkari Vichar Manch, Jamaat-i-Islami-i-Hind, Aapli Mumbai,

Marathi Bharati, All India Milli Council, National Minorities Federation, OBC Parishad, Republican People of India, Marathi Bharti,

NEEDS, Vidyarthi Bharti, Muslim Intellectual Forum, Gujarati Intellectual Forum, Hindu Vikasini, Christian Panther,

Christian Intellectual Forum, Yuva Sarkar, Ganai Sanskrutik Utthan.


Contact: 98208 97517 / 93245 14101


JAI HIND! JAI BHARAT!
FOR A SOUTH ASIAN UNION!
ONE ASIA - UNITED ASIA!

Responsible for....Terrorism in the world

Imperialist....Zionist Obama Go Back.....from India

The Headley Saga: What Are They Hiding?

By Feroze Mithiborwala


“The speculation gaining respectability in Delhi is that Washington knew in advance about the Mumbai attack & deliberately chose not to pass the details to Delhi .” That would he said, “Reveal the links between the CIA-ISI & LeT”. - MK Bhadrakumar (ex-Ambassador, GOI).

“Headley was a deep penetration agent of US Intelligence” - Bahukutumbi Raman (Former Counter-Terrorism Chief (RAW).

It has been apparent ever since the time that the Headley story began to appear in the Indian & global media that David Coleman Headley was basically a CIA-FBI agent. The recent revelations that have been brought forth by Sebastian Rotella in the ProPublica ( Oct 15, 2010 ), have reaffirmed our position ( http://www.countercurrents.org/mithiborwala181010.htm ).

Despite all the daily brouhaha by our Intelligence services over Headley's role in the 26/11 terror attacks, not even a FIR, leave alone a charge-sheet has been filed against the known central figure in planning & executing the dastardly terror attack on our country & all of South Asia.

Though Mr. Pillai (Home Secretary, Government of India) has now chosen to speak out & said that the “US has let us down” & that “we were disappointed that the na me of Headley was not provided, if not pre-26/11, at least post-26/11” . ( Hindustan Ti mes, 28/10/10 ).

It all see ms a bit like a well orchestrated charade on the part of the leadership.

Thus on a daily basis we hear of Headley's latest revelations, which target the ISI & LeT. Then on the very next day, we read of further US funding to the tune of billions of dollars for that very ISI.

Do the Indian ruling elite really believe that the people are astoundingly stupid? We certainly are not!

Clearly there is a quid-pro-quo between the Indian Intel & their counterparts in the US & subsequently in Pakistan & this is how it operates.

Headley is being used to protect & mislead the investigations into the Ishrat Jehan encounter killing to protect Modi & his ilk. Similarly the investigations into the Samjhauta Express as laid out by the charge-sheet filed by Hemant Karkare which clearly implicate Col. Purohit , are also being targeted by the NIA & the IB, to protect the Abhinav Bharat. And recently the investigation into the ghastly Chittisinghpora massacre , which was the handiwork of the undercover black-op cells within the Indian army, is again being misled under the guise of Headley's statements.

We are also aware that the US funds more than a third of the Pakistan military & ISI-intelligence budget. The Lashkar-i-Tayyaba is the sword arm of the ISI. The US has never attacked any Lashkar bases in Pakistan & the LeT does not attack US troops. The CIA has worked together with the LeT in Kosovo , Chechnya & Bosnia . Thus the US uses the ISI-LeT for furthering its strategic objectives in the region. ( http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/ramps-cia-infiltration-pakistan-report/ )

The US Intelligence is also deeply involved in supporting & funding narco-terror & weapons smuggling across the world. These are the connections that we will have to study, if we are to comprehend & unravel the complex world of intelligence agencies & terror networks that operate together. ( http://www.ciadrugs.com/ )

The US a mbassador Timothy Roemer ( http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=10875 ) maintains that they did warn ' India ' about the coming 26/11 attack.

So the questions that arise are the following:

1) The central & simple question is that, why did the CIA & FBI not warn their counterparts in Pakistan , within the government, the Military or the ISI. As we can discern from above, they have a very deep operational & material relationship, stretching across 6 decades.

It was always clear that an attack of the magnitude of 26/11 could even lead to a nuclear war in the region. Yet they refrained from informing & warning any of their counterparts in Pakistan .

Why? And moreover, why isn't anyone asking this obvious question?

2) Who did they inform in India ? We still do not have the specific name or names.

It surely could not have been the Indian security guard standing outside the gates of the US fortress of an embassy in New Delhi .

Did they inform MK Narayanan (the then NSA Chief) or the Mr. Shivraj Patil (ex-Home Minister) ? Who was complicit in the cover up? Why no names of the key people who were supposedly provided information by mid-September of the coming terror attack by Sea, where the Taj, Marriott & the Trident were mentioned as potential targets. ( http://www.countercurrents.org/mithiborwala140510.htm ).

Who will stand up & take the responsibility? None, only an eerie silence . . . a cover up .

The 26/11 attack could have been averted if the necessary information would have been provided on time & precautions taken.

Thus we now come back to Headley & his wives.

It was way back in 2005 when one of Headley's wives in New York , warned the FBI of Headley's links with terrorists. Due to a domestic squabble, Headley was even arrested by the police. The wife stated that Headley "was an active militant in the LeT terrorist group & had trained extensively in Pakistani camps, shopped for night-vision goggles & other equipment". She also said that “Headley used to brag about his working as a paid informant of the US , while he trained with terrorists in Pakistan ”.

Significantly, after 9/11, Headley told his associates “that he planned to train with Lashkar as part of a secret mission for the US government”.

He also stated that “the FBI & DEA have joined forces & I am going to work with them. I want to do something for my country”.

The point is which country, the USA or Israel ??

In 2008 April , Headley went to Chicago & told his accomplice of an evolving plan for a seaborne terror attack by gunmen who would land in front of the Ta j M ahal Hotel which he had scouted extensively.

These are the official statements as recorded by the FBI officials.

Though Headley was jailed for domestic violence, he was not prosecuted & the matter of his terror links not investigated.

Later again in 2007, only a year prior to the attack, his wife in Pakistan went to the US embassy in Islamabad & gave specific information of his terrorist links but she was driven away both the times & basically told to “Get Lost”, by the FBI-CIA officials.

The wives gave information & a detailed account of training with the LeT, provided audio tapes of conversations & emails as well as records of calls from Pakistan

And yet the CIA & FBI claim that the information provided by the wives "was not specific".

Thus let us assess this bizarre claim as well:

1) Firstly Headley was already known to the DEA-FBI & CIA since 1998, due to his drug smuggling activities, for which he was prosecuted & jailed & he later became an agent of the DEA to infiltrate drug rings in the US & Pakistan. After 9/11 he was taken in by the CIA & FBI as an asset & became their agent.

2) They should have taken the precautions after his wives gave specific information about his terror links & should have put him under surveillance. But then they did. All of Headley's & Rana's mobile conversations were being tapped & their whereabouts monitored. They had to further monitor his Bank transactions, credit cards & have him followed. These are all standard procedures & nothing beyond their scope of operations either in Pakistan or India , where we have an ever increasing presence of the US & Israeli Intel.

3) They should have again immediately checked with their counterparts in the ISI & their handlers in the LeT. But the CIA-FBI undertook none of these basic precautions, si mply because Headley was pursuing the mission of terror in exactly the way they had planned it.

4) Though he was on probation till 2004, he was discharged in 2001 & was allowed to go to Pakistan . Within 2 months he was training with the LeT, with the full knowledge of the US authorities.

Thus the intentions were very clear.

In our assessment, the CIA & FBI were clearly aware of the detailed plans for the attack on Mumbai.

HEADLEY A STRATEGIC & INVALUABLE ASSET: Undoubtedly the CIA-FBI have gone to preposterous levels to protect Headley & have repeatedly refused his extradition to India . Thus his limited & controlled access by Indian Intel is clearly a farce & of no consequence whatsoever, apart fro m the fact that is now being used to cover-up the crimes of the Intelligence Bureau, as well as that of the Police that indulge in encounter killings & the cover-up of the terror attack by the Brahmanical terrorists, within the Abhinav Bharat & the Sanatan Sanstha.

But then Headley is a unique asset. He is White, yet of a mixed Muslim-Jewish parentage. He knew English, Urdu, Farsi, Pashto & a smattering of Arabic.

And then he had very deep connections with the drug-underworld & the narco-terror networks.

Headley's father & his religion are often discussed, but when it co mes to his mother, there is a studied silence & it is only fair that this angle be delved into as well. In fact the Wikipedia insists that he acquired a “Christian sounding na me ”, even though his mother was Jewish.

David Coleman Headley was a child of a broken family & around the age of sixteen Serrill Headley (Jewish by faith), took him to away to the US . It was after 9/11, when Headley began to work for the CIA, that he changed his name from Daoud Gilani, to David Coleman Headley, which the Wikipedia wrongly refers to a Christian name. Clearly the Wikipedia is trying to mislead for a purpose.

The point is that clearly Gilani wanted a new identity after 9/11 & since he was now working for the CIA-FBI as an undercover agent, he could have taken on any identity, but yet he chose to take his mother's Jewish identity & the Coleman surname.

All the reports state that Headley traveled with a Jewish prayer book with him. Was it because he had abandoned the faith of his father & had taken the faith of his mother which is normally the case of children of divorced families? I believe that was precisely the case.

Again, Headley operated out of the key Zionist strongholds in the US , namely Chicago & New York & in India from Goa , Mumbai, Pushkar (Rajasthan) & Himachal Pradesh.

In Goa he was in regular touch with an American agent who was living there for nine years but has disappeared after 26/11 & our police could not locate him. Though, when it comes to arresting innocent Muslim youth they have proved to be efficient & ruthless as well.

In Pushkar, whilst Headley was staking out the targets, he stayed in a hotel where two other Israeli's were also present at that very time. So the role of Mossad agents in the 26/11 attack needs to be investigated as well. ( http://criminalstate.com/2009/08/how-israel-wages-game-theory-warfare/ )

Also another question is as to whether Headley was a Chabad Lubavitcher by sect. The Chabad Lubavitch is one of the most powerful of the Jewish sects & has interests across the world ( http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.com/2010/07/chabad-at-hubs-of-power-around-world.html ) . The Chabad Houses are known to be used by Mossad operatives as safe houses to conduct their nefarious activities, ranging from drug & weapon smuggling, to espionage, fomenting terror & assassinations.

Despite certain limited warnings in May, September & November 2008, that did emanate from the sections of the US & provided to Indians authorities, the identity of whom is yet not known.

Yet, Headley was left untouched as no information was provided. Headley had been provided a visa from the Indian consulate in Chicago with all waivers despite his record of drugs smuggling & his Pakistani origin. Thus Headley enjoyed patronage at the highest levels, even within sections of the Indian security & Intelligence. ( http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Headleys-visa-papers-vanish-from-consulate/articleshow/5345798.cms )

And after 26/11, the government & the corporate Media, barring a few exceptions, are satisfied with the Kasab story. The Plea bargain deal in the words of MK Bhadrakumar (ex-ambassador) “was a deal that enables the US government to hold back from formally producing any evidence against Headley in a Court of Law that might have included details of his links with US intelligence ”, which will now remain classified. He also said that the Obama administration was “behaving very strangely” & had something “explosive to hide”.

The former counter-terrorism chief (RAW) & security analyst, Bahukutumbi Raman was of the opinion that, “the mishandling by the US is due to it's anxiety to prevent public admission of the links of the US Intelligence community with Headley & protect Pakistan from the legal consequences of its role in the 26/11 terror attack. He further stated that “the FBI wants to avoid a formal trial & that “the feeling in India is that the US has not been transparent as it is almost certain that the CIA was aware of Headley & his movements across the sub-continent”.

The simple point is that all terrorists & suspects are listed on the main database of the US National Counter-Terrorism Centre , which is a facility used by the CIA & the myriad other agencies to track terror suspects as a matter of standard procedure.

When even the likes of Sharukh Khan (Bollywood Star), Praful Patel (Aviation minister) are not safe, surely David Headley's name would have cropped up at every computer monitor across every airport in the world.

Thus there are far too many questions & far too many facts that challenge the official version of the reality of the 26/11 terror attacks.

There is clearly an attempt even within our very own security agencies to collude & cover up the truth & thus we demand that a National Commission of Inquiry be created to investigate the truth about the 26/11 Terror attack.

Zionism And Peace Are Incompatible”

Zionism And Peace Are Incompatible”

By Alan Hart

Alanhart.net

At last somebody has said it in the most explicit way possible. The somebody also said: “The problem is Zionism and the solution is dismantling the Zionist framework and instituting a secular democracy that does not discriminate between Israelis and Palestinians.”

The somebody was Miko Peled, a Jewish peace activist who was born in Israel and lives in America.

He is the son of an Israeli war hero, Matti Peled, who was a young officer in the war of 1948 and a general in the war of 1967. After that war, General Peled signalled his own commitment to truth by rubbishing Zionism’s version of events. He did so with the statement that there was not a threat to Israel’s existence and that it was a war of Israeli choice (i.e. aggression not self-defense). General Peled was also one of a number of prominent Jews who called soon after the 1967 war for the immediate establishment of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

In his latest article from which my headline for this piece was extracted, Miko says that the two-state solution was clearly viable 40 years ago, but today…? He writes (my emphasis added):

“Now the West Bank is riddled with towns and malls and highways built on Palestinian land for Jews only and Israeli cabinet members openly discuss population transfers, or rather transfer of its non-Jewish population. The level of oppression and the intensity of the violence against Palestinians has reached new heights… Discussing the two-state solution now under these conditions shows an acute inability to accept reality… There is an illusion that a liberal, forward thinking government can rise in Israel and then everything will be just as liberal Zionists wish it to be. They will pick up where Rabin and Arafat left off and we will have the pie in sky Jewish democracy liberal Jews want so much to see in Israel. This illusion is shared by American Jews, liberal Zionists in Israel and around the world and in the West where guilt of two millennia of persecuting Jews still haunts the conscience of many. If only there were better leaders and if only this and if only that… But alas, reality continues to slap everyone in the face: Zionism and peace are incompatible. I will say it again, Zionism and peace are incompatible.”

Miko adds that serious study of the history of modern Israel shows that “the emergence of Netanyahu and Lieberman was perfectly predictable.”

I agree and offer this summary explanation of why.

Zionism is not only Jewish nationalism which created a state in the Arab heartland mainly by terrorism and ethnic cleansing. It is also a pathological mindset. In the deluded Zionist mind the world was always anti-Jew and always will be. It follows that Holocaust II (shorthand for another great turning against Jews) is inevitable. It follows that there can be no limits to what Zionism will do in order to preserve nuclear-armed Greater Israel as a refuge of last resort for all Jews everywhere when the world turns against them.

When I was reflecting on Miko’s main point, that Zionism and peace are incompatible, I found myself wondering why really it is that American presidents will not use the leverage they have to try to call the Zionist state to account for its crimes when doing so would clearly be in America’s own best interests.

I’m beginning to think that the awesome influence of the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress is not the complete answer. And the question I am asking myself is this: Could it be that all American presidents know there is nothing nuclear-armed Israeli leaders would not do if they were seriously pressed to make peace on terms which they believed in their own deluded minds would put Israel’s security at risk? Always in my own mind is what Prime Minister Golda Meir said to me in a BBC Panorama interview and from which I quote in my book – in a doomsday situation Israel “would be prepared to take the region and the whole world down with it.”

If it is the case that American presidents are frightened of provoking Israel, the conclusion would have to be that the Zionist state is a monster beyond control and that all efforts for peace are doomed to failure.

Is the situation really as bad as that?

My own answer is yes. But there are some observers who think that after the mid-term elections in America there might be one more opportunity for President Obama to bring enough Israelis to their senses in order to give peace its very last chance.

This new hope has been inspired, apparently, by reports of a forthcoming Palestinian (and presumably wider Arab) initiative to have the Security Council recognize Palestinian independence within the 1967 borders.

In Ha’aretz on 20 October, Aluf Benn wrote this:

“Israel’s diplomacy has reached a turning point. Instead of dealing with the failed direct talks, from this point Israel will be orchestrating a diplomatic holding action against the Palestinian initiative to have the UN Security Council recognize Palestinian independence within the 1967 borders. Such a decision would deem Israel an invader and occupier, paving the way for measures against Israel. Obama could scuttle the process by casting an American veto. Would he do it? And at what price?

“Barak is warning Netanyahu that Obama is determined to establish a Palestinian state, even if it requires political risks. The president doesn’t have to come out publicly against Israel, but can simply stand on the sidelines when the Security Council recognizes Palestine. The international movement to boycott Israel will gain massive encouragement when Europe, China and India turn their backs on Israel and erode the last remnants of its legitimacy. Gradually the Israeli public will also feel the diplomatic and economic stranglehold.

“It’s not certain that this will happen.”

We shall see.

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent. He is author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs at http://www.alanhart.net and tweets via http://twitter.com/alanauthor

Public Meeting: AYODHYA HIGH COURT VERDICT & ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR INDIAN DEMOCRACY & SECULARISM

BHARAT BACHAO ANDOLAN

PUBLIC MEETING

THE AYODHYA HIGH COURT VERDICT & THE CONSEQUENCES FOR INDIAN DEMOCRACY & SECULARISM

SPEAKER: PANDIT JUGAL KISHORE SHASTRI

HE IS THE PRIEST OF THE RAM-JANKI MANDIR IN AYODHYA & THE FOUNDER PRESIDENT OF "AYODHYA KI AWAAZ", OR THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE OF AYODHYA.

HE IS CURRENTLY TRAVELLING ACROSS THE COUNTRY FOR THE CAUSE OF RELIGIOUS HARMONY.

THEY PLAN TO CONSTRUCT A "SARVA DHARMIYA STHAL" OR A "PLACE OF WORSHIP FOR PEOPLE OF ALL FAITHS", WHEREIN THE SITE WILL INCLUDE A HINDU TEMPLE, MUSLIM MASJID, SIKH GURUDWARA, CHRISTIAN CHURCH, BUDDHIST VIHARA, JAIN TEMPLE, PARSEE AGIARY & A JEWISH SYNAGOGUE . . . & MAYBE MORE . . .

IT WILL EPITOMISE THE UNIQUENESS OF INDIAN CIVILIZATION & ITS CULTURE OF RESPECT & THE CO-EXISTENCE OF ALL FAITHS.

IT IS FERVENT & REVERENT CALL TO UNITE HUMANITY, AS OPPOSED TO THE POWERS & POLITICS THAT SEEK TO DIVIDE US ON THE BASIS OF RELIGION BY SPREADING HATRED, FEAR & INTOLERANCE OF THE OTHER.

VENUE: MARATHI PATRAKAR, AZAD MAIDAN, CST, MUMBAI.

DATE: 20 Oct, 2010. // Time: 5pm.

Brigadier Sudhir Sawant, Feroze Mithiborwala, Kishore Jagtap, Jagdish Nagarkar, Jyoti Badekar, Sayeed Khan, Zubair Azmi, Farid Khan, Mulniwasi Mala, Shyam Sonar, Sudhir Dhawale, Yawar Ali Qazi, Avinash Kamble, Arif Kapadia, Munawar Khan, Shadab Sheikh, Ghazala Azad, Munawar Azad, Winnie Thomas, Reshma Jagtap & Chetna Birje

PRESS CONFERENCE: 26/11 TRUTH: HEADLEY LINKS TO CIA-FBI CONFIRMED & EXPOSED.

BHARAT BACHAO ANDOLAN


PRESS CONFERENCE


26/11 TRUTH: HEADLEY'S CONNECTIONS TO CIA-FBI EXPOSED


VENUE: BOMBAY UNION OF JOURNALISTS, 2ND FL, ROOM NO. 23-25, PROSPECT CHAMBERS, ANNEXE, OPP. THOMAS COOK, DN RD., FORT.


DATE: 19 Oct, 2010. // Time: 3pm.

Speakers: Brigadier Sudhir Sawant, Feroze Mithiborwala, Kishore Jagtap & Jagdish Nagarkar


Yawar Ali Qazi, Avinash Kamble, Arif Kapadia, Winnie Thomas, Reshma Jagtap, Chetna Birje

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David Colemann Headley Is A CIA-FBI Agent

By Feroze Mithiborwala

18 October, 2010

Countercurrents.org

http://www.countercurrents.org/mithiborwala181010.htm

The Government should be ashamed at the treatment being meted out to India by the US. It is clear that Headley is a mass murderer & is being protected & shielded by the Obama Administration. Leave alone being extradited, now Attorney-General Eric Holder tells us that that our security agencies will have no direct access to Headley at all. This is very clear from the statements of Timothy J. Roemer (US Ambassador) who stated that “no decision on direct access for India to David Headley has been made.” Though now due to the anger of the Indian people, certain statements of granting access to Headley are being made. Not that interrogating Headley, while he remains ion US custody will help our cause.
Recent revelations confirm the fact that David Coleman Headley is a CIA-FBI operative whose task was to organize & expedite the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks. Thus the role of the CIA, FBI & Mossad in fomenting & planning the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks are proved beyond doubt & need to be investigated by the patriotic elements within the security apparatus & the media. Only the naive & corrupt can continue to deny this fact, more so to the detriment of our national sovereignty & security.
David Headley is a CIA asset & they have invested a lot of their precious resources in training him & therefore they are going to atrocious levels to protect him. The CIA always does. Thus under the cover of the American Judicial system, Headley will disappear into the prisons, soon acquire a new identity, new papers & documents, passports & Visas, Credit Cards & Bank Accounts . . . a new identity & will resurface, doing what he is best at, a terrorist-drug dealer-mercenary.
Undoubtedly, the CIA-FBI, which are the world’s leading mercenary agencies, whose forte is too engineer assassinations, terror & wars, has infiltrated sections of the Indian political leadership & our internal security, as it has the Pakistani ISI, Military & Political establishment.

Thus now the US intervention & occupation of the South Asian region is deepening by the day, as it keeps on increasing the tensions between India & Pakistan as well as China. It is an old imperial ploy of divide & rule along religious & sectarian lines as well as between nations.
The terror attack Mumbai 26/11, was directed at all of South Asia & this point must be understood by all those who are committed to the cause of South Asia.
The 26/11 terror attack has only aided the US/Israeli effort to create an atmosphere conducive to increasing its pervasive & corrupting influence in determining both our National & International policies. Very true indeed!!
Now the newspapers are clearly raising the issue of Headley being a CIA-FBI operative, a fact that we had stated initially as soon as the story appeared. The reports also state that the CIA was aware about the Headley-Rana linkage! Indian authorities had suspected that Headley was a CIA agent. There are taped conversations between Headley & Rana.
Moreover, the simple fact of the matter is that Headley is involved in the terror attack & should be immediately extradited to the Indian authorities for interrogation & should be tried & sentenced like Kasab (who is a mere foot-soldier & his trial is a contrived circus, despite all the media attention)

In the news report that appeared in the Indian Express (pg 5, 10/12/09), the hotel owner is openly blaming the police for having 'misplaced' Headley's 'C-form' & has filed a complaint on the matter. The hotel owner in his complaint to the Ajmer Superintendent of Police, has stated that he had also submitted the C-forms of two other Israelis along with that of Headley.
So why was Headley arrested by the FBI? The answer to that is that Indian Intel was hard on the heels of Headley & were about to arrest him. It was then that the FBI whisked away Headley to protect him. Now that he has been subjected to the laws of the US judicial system, he is beyond our reach. Leave alone a trial for Headley's central role in the 26/11 attacks, we do not even have the right to interrogate him.
In fact it is suspected that, it was Headley who was the CIA mole in the LeT, who was passing out information on the coming 26/11 terror attack. This was partly shared by the CIA with the Indian authorities & had specifically mentioned the Taj & that the attack would come by sea.
There are two significant points to note:
1) How much information did the CIA actually divulge to India - very very meagre it is clear.
2) More intriguingly with the Pakistani authorities & it's friends in the ISI & the Military with which the CIA has a very deep & intimate relationship, stretching over 6 decades - it supposedly shared none !!!
Any moron is full aware that a 26/11 style attack could lead to a war, in fact a nuclear war between India & Pakistan, then why did not the CIA warn it's friends on either side & thus prevent the attack ??
For the simple reason that it is in the strategic interests of the US & Israel to create a warlike situation across South Asia. The larger objective is for India to mobilise & deploy it's military into the war theatre in Afghanistan if required & later in the coming war on Iran, which is imminent. The tensions & warmongering has now fuelled an arms race & both the countries are amongst the top buyers of weapons, required to protect their half-starving masses.
Also do note that during the phase of the worst series of terror attacks between 2006-08, Headley was present in that period & was flying into India mainly from Pakistan. Yet our authorities did not once suspect or interrogate him?? Unfortunately the Indian People are not that naive. This clearly means that there are certain forces within the country that are allied to the US & Israel & working in tandem to foment terror attacks.
Do especially note the period between August 2007 & September 2008 as this was during which we passed through the worst national crisis over the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. The attacks coincide with Headleys' presence in India (Josy Joseph, 17/11/09, DNA ). The terror attacks in Hyderabad II (25/8/07), Bangalore (25/7/08), Ahmedabad & Surat (26/7/08) & Delhi (13/9/08). All these blasts made it easier for the pro-US elements to take the country into the American-Israeli strategic orbit in the name of fighting the global war on terror.
Again even the blasts that Shri Hemant Karkare has traced to the Abhinav Bharat, find a relation to Headley's footprints. Thus he is present during Malegaon (8/9/06), Samjhauta Express (19/2/07), Mecca Masjid, Hyderabad I (18/5/07).
Thus clearly Headley was also co-ordinating his attacks with the Abhinav Bharat & Sanatan Sanstha as well as with the Indian Mujahedeen (which is a creation of Intel services comprising criminals & informers from within the Muslim community).
We thus can infer the following from the latest revelation:
1) David Headley's trail as he traveled across the country to & identify the sites for terror attacks was & is being covered up by the police on the instructions of the pro-CIA/Mossad sections of the Intelligence Bureau.
2) This was the similar case in the city of Mumbai, where Headley's membership form at the 'Moksh Gymnasium' had both his photograph & signature 'missing'. The flat which he rented on Bridge Candy has no agreement papers & so is the case with his office in Tardeo.
3) The fact that the hotel owner also submitted two forms of Israeli's on that day, also could mean that Headley was also being guided by Mossad agents to identify Jewish targets, which they finally did & thus Nariman House.

4) Headley's very entry into the country has been managed with the connivance of the authorities at the highest levels. And thus even though Headley was a drug dealer having faced a jail sentence, Pakistani born, could still manage to get a clearance. Also do note that he was travelling directly via Pakistan into India. The clearance of his Visa from the Indian Consulate in Chicago actually requires criminal proceedings against the Indian Consul general, the Indian Ambassador & the Minister & the concerned officers in the Home Ministry in Delhi. That was the reason that the authorities panicked & said that Headley's papers at the Chicago Consulate had gone missing. They later found them. With changed signatures, we guess!

5) It is clear that after working for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Headley was later was recruited & trained by the CIA-FBI.

6) The CIA-FBI then used Headley in their plan to execute the 26/11 attack in Mumbai. Headley's task was to travel across the country, identify the targets & provide information to his CIA-FBI handlers. It was the CIA-FBI who then passed the information onto their ISI / LeT contacts in Pakistan.
7) Headley's role was also to draw in his LeT contacts to plan the 26/11 terror attacks.
8) The IB, that has been colluding with the CIA-FBI, instructed it's plants within the police force to cover Headley's trail, which they dutifully performed as is the case both in Mumbai & in Pushkar.

Thus as our inference on the Headley matter is the following:

a) It proves the fact that David Headley was a CIA-FBI agent sent to India to assist in the preparation & implementation of the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks.
b) The US intelligence, led by the CIA-FBI & the Israeli MOSSAD played a central role in co-ordinating the attack & America is complicit in the planning, financing & execution of the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks.

c) The CIA-FBI used their LeT / ISI agents in Pakistan to implement the same

d) Similarly the CIA-FBI along with certain elements within the Intelligence-Security apparatus & organizations within India were instrumental in fomenting the terror attack.
Undoubtedly the larger strategic objectives of the Imperial gameplan are being achieved, out of which one was to establish the CIA-FBI & Mossad as our allies & thus penetrate & undermine our external & internal security structures.
Just imagine, the CIA-FBI & Mossad are the sword arms of the Imperial project & not a whimper of protest from the secular-liberals or from the anti-Imperialist Left. Even the Obama Af-Pak surge has been barely opposed even though it deepens the US occupation of the South Asian region.
This only goes to prove as to how successful the Imperial strategy has been in creating an atmosphere for US meddling & intervention across South Asia & in neutralising the Left, Bahujans & the Muslim community by systematically promoting Islamophobia by deploying the weapon of terror.
But the Indian masses are far smarter & both the issues of the planned assassination of Shaheed Hemant Karakare & the Headley episode, have helped the People arrive at their own independent conclusions despite the disinformation campaigns unleashed by the pro-US/israeli elements within the Indian Government & the Corporate Media.

'अभिनव भारत के ख़िलाफ़ जाँच में सुस्ती'

मुंबई में 26/11 के हमलों में आतंकवाद विरोधी शाखा(एटीएस) प्रमुख हेमंत करकरे की मौत के बाद क्या अभिनव भारत और हिंदू चरमपंथियों के बारे में जाँच एजेंसियों की कार्रवाई में सुस्ती आई है?

to read full report click below: source BBC Hindi

http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/india/2010/10/101018_abhinavbharat_ia.shtml

The Ayodhya Verdict: Beyond The Liberal Brahmanic Framework

By Feroze Mithiborwala



The Ayodhya Verdict was a judicial demolition and justification of the destruction of the Babri Masjid. The verdict is basically a mockery and stands in utter contempt of the Indian constitution, as was the demolition. The verdict is an affront to the very vision of an India that is rooted in it's secular and plural values.

The judgment has set an unprecedented precedent by giving precedence to belief or aastha over law. A civil title suit was reduced to a theological verdict.

This is the process whereby the Brahmanic Manusmriti increasingly gains precedence over the Ambedkarite Constitution.

The verdict, far from ensuring a respectful closure, has opened up a Pandoras box, whereby every place of religious worship will be under threat from the RSS & it's myriad militant affiliates, who are proved their prowess at conducting pogroms & destruction of Masjid's in Gujarat.

Thus this verdict has actually created new grave problems, instead of solving the old.

Clearly the verdict is a political settlement sought by the Congress, RSS & the BJP & less of a legal pronouncement & this has only compounded the imbroglio.

What is also missing from the entire discourse is the fact that the mobilization & demolition of the Babri Masjid on the 6th of December, was the Brahmanical counter to the Punyatithi or Death anniversary celebration of Dr. Ambedkar, wherein lakhs of Dalits, OBC's & other oppressed masses go to the Chaitya Bhoomi to pay their respects.

This was the revenge of the RSS, as Dr. Ambedkar had converted to Buddhism with lakhs of his followers on the last day of Dussehra in 1956.

Also the fact is that Advani's Rath yatra was a counter to the announcement of the Mandal commission by VP Singh. Thus the focal point of the entire Ram Mandir movement has been to target the Muslim community & the co-option of the Dalit, OBC masses into the Brahmanic fold. Thus at the core lies the ideological struggle between the emancipatory, egalitarian & humanitarian principles as enunciated by Mahata Phule & Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar & Brahmanism on the other.

Thus the design is to build a grand or Bhavya Ram Temple as a counter to the Chaitya Bhoomi. Thus on the 6th of December, they hope that the Dalit's OBC's & other victims of Brahmanic oppression will be mobilised in Ayodhya & not in Bombay.

It is also a religio-cultural counter-revolution against the fast spreading Buddhism across all of North India, especially amongst certain sections of the empowered Dalits.

The most dangerous & offensive part of this judgment is the fact that it has justified the ravings & rantings of L. K. Advani, Uma Bharti, Vinay Katiyar, Kalyan Singh & their entire ilk. For the judgment to mention that Bhagwan Ram was born under the central dome of the Babri Masjid, is an incredible leap of aastha. Even the findings of the ASI report that could not be determined even by the best of historians & archeologists, was used as conclusive evidence.

Most incredible of this all is that one of the parties to the dispute is Ram Lalla Virajman himself. This is again unprecedented. A deity is a participant in a legal dispute, who is then granted a judicial status with a birth certificate.

Do we need the courts to go into this terrain of beliefs, where tomorrow the very status of God or Eshwar or Allah or Ahura Mazda will be decided?? Ridiculous & preposterous!!

Even though the Court agrees that the idols were placed there in 1949, it still does not find it a criminal act, even though an FIR had been lodged. So the entire criminal act, leading to the very demolition is then justified & the precedent thus set, that can be replicated with little cause for worry for the RSS & it’s fanatic hordes.

Though the Congress is shouting from the rooftops, that the Civil suite will have no bearings on the criminal case, the glaring delays over the Liberhans commission (extended 49 times!!) report is proof of the collusion between the Congress & the RSS-BJP. LK Advani has taken all precautions to differentiate between the leadership that stood at the frontline directing the crazed mobs & those of the thousands who were indulging in the violence & destruction.

Actually the matter could have been resolved in a different & far more sensible manner that would have given a respectful closure to all of Indian society.

All that the judges required to say was the following. That none of the disputants to the title suit can prove their possession. Since all the parties have been present, sharing & praying at the said site since 1855, the property has to be shared equitably.

That was all that was required, but instead the judgment has opened vistas in which the possibilities for stirring the communal cauldron are immense.

We are amongst the world's most ancient civilizations & if we start digging up, every little plot of land will throw up a religious dispute.

And even though there is no evidence that a Temple was destroyed to build a mosque, yet judge Sharma behaved like he was writing a pamphlet for the RSS. The very Ramcharitramanas of Tulsidas never mentioned even the possibility of this dispute, even though he was around 30 years old when the Babri mosque was built in 1528 & was functioning till 1949.

The Nirmohi Akhada were staking their claim to the property, but never raised the issue of Bhagwan Ram's birthplace.

The ASI report also mentions Buddhist & Jain remains, but very little public debate on this aspect, as clearly Ayodhya was & is an important centre for these two religions as well. The Buddhists called this town Saket & the fourth Tirthankara of the Jains was born here.

Thus a number of legal luminaries have been astonished at the judgement & have debunked it as a mere panchayati faisla.

This judgement actually proves that the judges had no aastha or faith in the Indian constitution & thus the Brahmanical sham.

Statement on the Judgement of the Allahabad High Court on the Ayodhya Dispute

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Statement on the Judgement of the Allahabad High Court on the Ayodhya Dispute

Released at the National Meeting called by Anhad

Ayodhya Verdict: Repercussions and Civil Society's Response

15 Oct 2010


A meeting of concerned citizens, academics, writers, lawyers, social workers and activists took place on 15 Oct 2010 in Delhi to discuss the issues arising out of the judgment on Ayodhya.
They were unanimous in their dismay over the judgement of the three judges of the Special Full Bench of the Allahabad High Court, who recently passed their final verdict in the 60 year old title suits over the bitterly contested property in Ayodhya. They were distressed with the grave implications of this judgement for Indian public life, and the principles of justice, secularism, democracy and rationality.
The judgments of Justice DV Sharma and Justice Sudhir Aggarwal are based on language and arguments which effectively and dramatically invert the principle of a secular state, which subordinate faith to law, by making the law subordinate to faith. The non-secular, nay, anti-secular idiom of the judgments of the two Judges is deeply disturbing.
The meeting was of the opinion that verdict constitutes a dangerous precedent, which can be used against other vulnerable groups in future, like dalits, tribals and women. For almost 500 years, Muslims had worshipped routinely in the Babri Mosque, while Hindus worshipped at the Ram Chabutra in the open area adjacent to the mosque, in a spirit of mutual communal goodwill. The disputed claim of Hindus to the land on which the mosque stood is based on naked aggression from 1949 to 1992. With this judgement, the movement which challenged India’s secular Constitution and took hundreds of lives, and fostered fear and hate has triumphed.
This movement demanding that a grand Ram Temple should be built on the site in Ayodhya where the Babri Masjid stood, is often understood to be a clash between Hindus and Muslims. The meeting affirmed that there is indeed no such clash, and there never has been. It has always been a dispute between two alternate visions of India; between Hindutva and secularism; between a minority of persons unreconciled to the secular democratic idea of India, and the majority of Indians of every faith who believe in and live this idea.
The judgement reopens again the question about the terms on which people of minority faiths would have to relate to cultural domination of the religious Hindu majority. In effect, it interrogates the guarantees of the Indian Constitution, which pledged equal rights and equal protection of all persons, regardless of their religious persuasion. Both in courts of law, but more importantly in the arenas of society and the polity, the meeting resolved to battle for the restoration of the values of the freedom struggle, and the Constitution which the people of India gave themselves.

Aban Raza, student
Amit Sengupta, journalist
Amrita, SANGAT
Anil Chaudhary, peace
Anupam Gupta, advocate, Chandigarh
Anuradha Marwah, AAEA,
Apoorvanand, Departemnt of Hindi,Delhi University.
Arjun Dev, educationist
Asad Zaidi, poet, writer
Avinash Kumar, Oxfam India
Bhasha Singh, journalist
Bibin Kuakose,J.N.U.
Dominic Emmanual, Information Bureau of Catholic Archdiocese.
Dr.Suresh Khairnar, All India Secular Forum, Nagpur, Maharashtra
Farah Naqvi, Independent Writer and Activist
Gauhar Raza, poet, doumentary filmmaker
Hakeem Irfan, journalist
Harsh Dobhal, Executive Director, Human Rights Law Network
Harsh Maneder, Aman Biradari
Humra Quraishi, Journalist.
Jeetendra, journalist
K.M.Shrimali, Department of History, Delhi University.
Karen Gabriel, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University
Kartini
M.Hilal, FFCL
Madan Lal Arora
Manoj Mitta, journalist
Mansi Sharma, social activist, Anhad
Mohan Kumawat, Anhad Media.
Mr. Ravindra
Mukul Manglik, academician
Nandini Sundar, academician
Naseeruddin.journalist
Navaid Hamid
Neelabh Mishra, journalist
P.K. Vijayan, Hindu College, Delhi University.
Padmini Mongia.
Priyanka Gautam, Anhad Media.
Prof. K.N. Panikkar.
R.K. Gupta.
Rajendran Prabhakar, PUCL- Karnataka.
Rakesh Bhardwaj, PEACE.
Ram Puniyani, All India Secular Forum.
Roop Rekha Verma, former Vice Chancellor, Lucknow University
Ruchira Gupta.
S.Irfan Habib, NUEPA
S.Venkateshan, Danchurch Aid.
S.M.A. Kazmi, Sr. Advocate.
Sania Hashmi, Anhad Media.
Vineet Tiwari,Sandarbh Kendra.
Satya Sivaraman.
Shabnam Hashmi.
Sheetla Singh, Editor Jan Morcha, Faizabad
Shesh Narain Singh.
Sukumar Murlidharan.
Sundaran.
Sunita Dhar.
Syeeda Hamid.
Tanveer Alam.
Uma Chakravaorty.
Usha Ramantnan.
Uttam Bhai Parmar.
Vrinda Grover.
Zafar A. Haqsav, FFCL
Zafar Agha.
Zoya Hasan.

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ANHAD
A-2/1205, Hillpark Towers,
Nr. Aggarwal Estate, Jogeshwari (W), Mumbai-400102
e-mail: anhad.mumbai1@gmail.com
Tel- (022) 26792833

think........

“Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.” -William James

Smothered by Settlements

Dear All,

This is an extremely important article by Dr. Mustafa Barghouti on the ongoing sham of a peace process.

Read it & circulate the same as widely as possible.

Regards,

Awami Bharat

Team

Smothered by Settlements

By MUSTAFA BARGHOUTHI

Negotiations between two unequal parties cannot succeed. Success in Palestinian-Israeli negotiations requires a reasonable balance of power, clear terms of reference and abstention of both sides from imposing unilateral facts on the ground. None of that existed in the talks that were re-initiated in September.

Much like previous rounds of talks, these negotiations were dominated on one side by an Israeli government that controls the land, roads, airspace, borders, water and electricity, as well as the trade and economy of the Palestinian side, while possessing a powerful military establishment (now the third military exporter in the world) and a robust gross domestic product, which has tripled in the last decade.

This same Israeli “partner” now also boasts a general public that has shifted dramatically to the right, and to which an apartheid system for Palestinians has become an acceptable norm.
On the other side is the Palestinian Authority — one that paradoxically holds little real authority, and exists as a sort of fiefdom within the Israeli matrix of control. Further debilitating the P.A. is a protracted internal Palestinian division, total dependence on foreign aid and a decline of democracy and human rights. Finally, the Palestinian Authority is constantly pressured to provide security for its occupier while failing to provide any protection whatsoever to its own people from that same occupier.

How did we get here? The answer, in large part, has to do with the continued and unabated construction of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 17 years since the Oslo agreement.
In this time, the number of settlers has increased by 300 percent and the number of settlements doubled. The settlements are only the front line of a complex and profitable system that includes checkpoints, road segregation, security zones, the “apartheid wall” and “natural reserves.”
This matrix has for years eaten up the land, water resources and the economic space of the independent Palestinian state supposedly being negotiated in this same period. About 60 percent of the West Bank and 80 percent of water resources have been consumed this way.
We have reached, and probably surpassed, that critical point at which any more settlements mean the death of the two-state solution.
The Israeli establishment knows this better than anybody. They also know that their hard-line positions on issues like Jerusalem and borders mean transforming the idea of Palestinian statehood into something much less: isolated clusters of land in a system of segregation.
The International Court of Justice and endless United Nations resolutions have ruled that settlements are illegal and should be removed. Even the Road Map issued by the so-called Quartet (the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia) in 2003 said that all settlement activities must stop. Yet neither the United States nor the Quartet as a whole has had the guts to exert serious pressure on Israel to stop settlements.
So what is left?

The only way to save the two-state solution is for the Palestinians to declare the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, including East Jerusalem, and to demand that the world community recognize it and its borders — as it did in the case of Kosovo.

That would also mean supporting the right of Palestinians to struggle nonviolently to end the occupation of their state. Any future negotiations, therefore, would not be about the right of the Palestinians to have their own sovereign independent state, but rather about how to apply and implement that right.

This would be the true test of the state-building strategy of the United States and the donor community. It would be the real instrument to finally demarcate the difference between support for free Palestinian institutions in a sovereign and viable state, or footing the bill of occupation and using E.U. and U.S. tax dollars to maintain under various guises what will never amount to anything but an apartheid system denying Palestinians their human and national rights.
If the world community turns its back on such a declaration of independence by using the well-worn and insulting argument that every step should first be verified with the Israeli government, then the message will be clear: Peace based on two states is no longer an option.

Mustafa Barghouthi is the founder of the Palestinian National Initiative and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.