About 20 years from now some of these girls will have escaped from the oppression and gone on to play their music in a free land–perhaps even the US, if liberty manages to survive the next decade in any recognizable form. And their harrowing story of suffering and struggle for the love of beautiful music, music that elevated their spirits above the hate and misery that rules their homeland, will be compelling stuff…

Of course, that would require a brave filmmaker who did not fear the backlash from violently “peaceful” quarters…

They “disinvited” William Ayers due to safety concerns — maybe they feared he’d blow something up. But people can still attend Israeli Apartheid Week, which spans two weeks and whose purpose is to “oppose several of Israel’s political actions and to show solidarity with the Palestinian people”. It’s needed because “while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has perpetually remained a topic of media and political attention, some argue that not all facets of the issue have been recognized or addressed.” Maybe they can have the “consensus” dude from NYU as a special guest.

Speaking as a Muslim, and after many talks with many people more knowledgeable than I, I was advised to use logic.

Islam allows marriage between the people of the book, i.e. Muslims, Christians and Jews. And the command to love one’s wife, deny her nothing and honor highly her parents and her extended family and community has no religious restriction.

The burden Islam places on Muslims as to the treatment of neighbors and other members of the community also has no religious restriction. Your Hindu and Jewish neighbor to your left is to be treated no different from your Muslim neighbor to your right, and the latter is to be treated with every kindness and consideration – therefore so is the former.

Arabs are unfortunately horrifically tribally minded people – that hasn’t changed unfortunately. They have this saying; “I and my neighbor against a stranger, I and my cousin against my neighbor, I and my brother against my cousin, etc.” If you think the Hatfields and McCoys knew how to bear grudges, you haven’t come across feuds between Arab tribes.

That’s the root of what’s behind the entire Middle East “crisis”. A feud – that had long been in existence before Islam, before Christianity.

Does not the Koran have provisions within it requiring that “People of the Book” be “subdued” by Muslims? 9:29 does not describe religious “tolerance” in any recognizable way. Not denying that the Old Testament doesn’t have ugly stuff in it, those provisions are not open ended invocations to violence, and I don’t hear about alot of people invoking Deuteronomy in attacking Hittites.

I don’t think it is correct to deny the role of fundamentalist theology on this topic, and the roots (perverted or not) that are found in well established scriptures. It appears to me that the violent Jihad types make all sorts of very specific citations in justifying their behavior, while the peaceful outstanding citizen folks such as yourself won’t cite the Koran, Hadith, or Sunnah in taking on the troublemakers.

I have a lot of respect for Muslims like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser because he acknowledges that the religious texts of Islam do contain troubling passages from the standpoint of westernized government. Addressing the specific language to confront those who are perverting Islam is far more helpful to us infidels (and presumably to the perverters themselves) than summarily dismissing any criticism.

CAIR issues similarly dismissals and we know that CAIR is NOT concerned about the security of this country. The OIC does similar things at the UN, and we know that the OIC is NOT concerned about Western-style individual rights.

We need to see more Muslims like you out there, and less of groups like CAIR. However, I think you are whitewashing things in a way that is not helpful. I realize that this places an unfair burden on you and others, but fairness is unfortunately not for this world.

Reading through that AP story, there are some alarming issues, both with the article, and with the parties involved.

Graph 8:

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians either fled or were expelled from their homes in the war that followed Israel’s creation – an event known by Palestinians as their Naqba, or catastrophe.

The AP doesn’t go into further detail, which makes the graph seem to state that Israel started a war against the Palestinians, instead of being attacked by a coalition of Arab nations.

Graph 15:

The event, held at the Holocaust Survivors Center in the central Israeli town, was part of Good Deeds Day, an annual event run by an organization connected to billionaire Shari Arison, Israel’s richest woman.

Seems really late in the story to reveal this information.

Final graph:

And the youths had no idea they were performing for people who lived through Nazi genocide – or even what the Holocaust was.

This isn’t surprising, but is very sad and should concern us all.

…by the actions of the parents of these Palestinian children. But I am even more appalled by the action of their educator.

These children were placed in this school, presumably with their parents’ consent. These parents, rightly or wrongly, trusted this educator to reflect their values and believed these were the same values the educator believed in and would respect those beliefs and pass them on to their children. When this was no longer the case, the educator should not have decided to play god and usurp the parents’ trust. If the educator thought it was the right thing to do, s/he should have gotten the children’s’ parents permission. If not, it was wrong of the educator to do what s/he did.