Anathema
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Sunday, May 11th, 2008
| Time |
Event |
| 3:56a |
| | 10:59p |
From Dove to HawkA prominent Israeli historian explains why, after decades of research about the Jewish state, he now holds out little hope for reconciliation between Jews and Palestinians.If the documents I studied 20 years ago painted Palestinians tragically, as the underdog, this record did the opposite. It has become clear to me that from its start the struggle against the Zionist enterprise wasn't merely a national conflict between two peoples over a piece of territory but also a religious crusade against an infidel usurper. As early as Dec. 2, 1947, four days after the passage of the partition resolution, the scholars of Al Azhar University proclaimed a "worldwide jihad in defense of Arab Palestine" and declared that it was the duty of every Muslim to take part.
This history has deepened and reinforced my pessimism, itself bred by the failure of Oslo. Those currently riding high in the region—figures like Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshaal, Hizbullah's Hassan Nasrallah and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—are true believers who are convinced it is Allah's command and every Muslim's duty to extirpate the "Zionist entity" from the sacred soil of the Middle East. For all its economic, political, scientific and cultural achievements and military prowess, Israel, at 60, remains profoundly insecure—for there can be no real security for the Jewish state, surrounded by a surging sea of Muslims, in the absence of peace. | | 11:25p |
Scholar lifts veil on shariaWhen clerics, ministers and businessmen gathered at a forum in Riyadh in April to discuss women in the workplace, there were no women in sight. Typically for Saudi Arabia, the women who took part were seated in a separate room so the men could only hear them.
Such things are part and parcel of the complex system of social control maintained by clerics of Saudi Arabia's austere version of Sunni Islamic law, often termed Wahhabism. It is a system called into question by scholar Hatoon al-Fassi. In her study, Women In Pre-Islamic Arabia, the outspoken rights advocate argues women in the pre-Islamic period enjoyed considerable rights in the Nabataean state, an urban Arabian kingdom centred in modern Jordan, south Syria and north-west Saudi Arabia during the Roman empire. | | 11:29p |
What it reminds me of are bullies, insecure people who feel inadequate or put down by something bigger than they are, so they lash out at the people who are even more put down than them. Like kids on the playground who are mistreated at home so they lash out at kids who are weaker than they are. They take out their own insecurities on the people who can't fight back. Cowards who beat up people weaker than them. Young Saudis ask, 'Where is the love?'Suddenly, the young men stopped focusing on their food. A woman had entered the restaurant, alone. She was completely draped in a black abaya, her face covered by a black veil, her hair and ears covered by a black cloth pulled tight.
Enad pretended to toss his burning cigarette at the woman, who by now had been seated at a table. The glaring young men unnerved her, as though her parents had caught her doing something wrong. "She is alone, without a man," Enad said, explaining why they were disgusted, not just with her, but with her male relatives, too, wherever they were.
"Thank God our women are at home," Enad said. ( full text ) | | 11:51p |
well, ain't that just a kick in the pants? Boat carrying aid for Myanmar cyclone victims sinksJust a question for people who regularly surf article to article on Yahoo. Do you occasionally click on one news story only to find yourself on a different one? Probably one that is related in some way, but definitely isn't the headline you clicked? When I first saw this article, I clicked on the link only to be taken to an article about America's aid reading Myanmar. I had to click on the bottom links again to get the boat article. This isn't the first time it's happened, so I'm starting to think maybe it's not me clicking too fast late at night. |
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