Zahra Raja is reporting from Jerusalem for a Columbia University J School trip for a religion class and she attended prayers at Al-Aqsa in East Jerusalem last week and got a surprise. (Note that this is a J School trip that we blasted here a year back as ignoring the occupation; it has greatly improved).
In mosques all across the Muslim world, Friday sermons are concluded with fervent prayers for al-Aqsa, al-Quds and Filasteen, and its people and their liberation. They are met with the loudest ‘Ameen’ responses, some angry tears and at times, spontaneous chanting of slogans. It tops every list of prayer for the “oppressed brothers” in distant lands, followed closely by Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir, and others (as long as these causes stay in the supplications and out of the sermons).
Each Friday, congregants in the historic Qarawiyyin mosque in the Old City of Fez will gather in its courtyard at the end of the service to chant pro-Palestinian slogans; the imam will then emerge to hush the crowd and make a long, impassioned plea to God for the liberation of al-Aqsa, al-Quds, Filasteen and its people, and for a pilgrimage–just once–to the Holy Land.
Shaykh Ismail, as he is commonly known in Jerusalem, [the imam of al-Aqsa, Shaykh Ismail Nawahdeh] ended his sermon with the standard Arabic phrases of prayer, before carrying on to cover new prayer ground: the safety and success of the people of Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Libya and the whole Arab nation.
For decades, the Muslim world in general and the Arab world in particular has responded to every ache, pain and wound of Aqsa, Jerusalem, Palestine and its people with deep concern and words of prayers, at least.
This Friday, the circle of concern was inverted and the direction of prayers reversed. After all, the Arab world has been turned upside down.
Its not something to illuminate ones day.
The theme is ‘the land is only ours’, not ‘the land is shared’.
>> The theme is ‘the land is only ours’, not ‘the land is shared’.
I read the linked-to article and I didn’t see any statement in there asserting “the land is only ours”.
You must be thinking of the time when the Zio-supremacists looked at the land that was being shared, declared “The land is only ours!” and then undertook “necessary” ethnic cleansing to turn their supremacist dream into a reality.
“The theme is ‘the land is only ours’, not ‘the land is shared’.”
Didn’t the Palestinians once go around singing “This land is mine, God gave this land to me” ?
So, in the Islamic world, people favor the destruction of the Jewish state? Our prayer for Israel in synagogue is a prayer for peace, not a prayer for greater Israel.
What could be more natural for people to ask God to destroy the Jewish state?
“people favor the destruction of the Jewish state? ”
And why not? It is a moral abomination. To repeat myself* yet again:
Evil in conception.
Evil in creation.
Evil in conduct.
(*Hell, why not quote the best? Or the second best, after Mooser?)
Tell us more about Kal Nidre ,the advnace payment with assured delivery , for a future crime!
This may very well be an experiment.
All Phil did was post an article in which Muslims merely pray for Palestinians and hope for their liberation.
But, what do ORIENTALISTS and ignorant Zionists do (See the first two responses)?
They recoil in fear and disgust as though someone had just called for the invasion of Poland and the enslavement of its people.
It’s entertaining to see that some human beings can be conditioned to react to certain key words like a mouse reacting to a buzzer, leaping forward to find his cheese at the end of a maze, or a dog salivating every time a bell is rung.
Avi I think it’s interesting that even Ari Goldman’s class at Columbia J School, which I attacked last year for offering a pablum view of the conflict, is producing this sort of journalism. It just goes to show, when you take the blinders off, you hear some pretty strong views, and you can’t put em back on. As Nasrallah says, the revolutions are popular revolutions. And the people don’t like Israel. This democratic issue must be engaged by all our leaders, including the ones in Israel. It’s the only way forward…
What “democratic issue”? The fact that a majority of Arabs do not like Israel? That is a well known fact. What to do about it is very simple, keep the IDF strong.
Lebanon is an excellent example to understand this issue since it is publicly discussed. Most Lebanese hate Israel and are against peace with Israel, but that does not mean they are for war or hostilities with Israel or anybody using their land to fight Israel. They are for a ceasefire. I believe this is going to be the prevalent attitude in democratic Arab countries.
Not, you know, that Palestinians or Lebanese have ever been invaded by
the JudenreichIsrael in the past. Not, you know, that Israelis have ever literally killed civilians by the thousands in recent years.I just think it’s interesting to note the difference in approachs. I’d like to know whether this was the practice before 1948.
#4) Everybody sucks.
Predictable.
“liberation of Al Quds” is pretty clear language, no?
When you read, “liberation of Al-Quds” your brain probably registers that as, “Next stop, witty’s bedroom”.
No, it registers as “the land is ours, NOT yours’, and not ‘the land is shared’ even.
As I said earlier.
It is the praying for restoration or establishment of empire.
But the land isn’t shared because Israel refuses to share it. That’s why there is a call for liberation, and the chance to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land that they are denied.
When American blacks called for liberation, did “it register” with you that they were calling for a black empire with whites treated as lesser beings?
no one wants an empire. Stop fearmongering. In the age of empires everyone had one. The Jews are trying to make up for it now in Israel with a “greater Israel,” since they missed out on the past.
I keep saying that Witty is lying profusely about his role as a liberal during the Civil Rights movement. He’s a fraud. None of his ideology meshes with concepts of civil liberties.
I love it how Witty is wielding the same hate speech against minority Muslims that Hitler and his friends wielded against minority Jews.
Talk about full circle.
“I keep saying that Witty is lying profusely about his role as a liberal during the Civil Rights movement. He’s a fraud. None of his ideology meshes with concepts of civil liberties.”
Why would you say that, Chaos? I don’t think it was uncommon for Jews to support the Civil Rights movement while supporting Zionism at the same time. I get the impression that it was quite common. Why it was so common is the real issue.
It spelled political opportunism, not any genuine sense of social justice. Giving African Americans a vote weakened the WASP majority power bloc, didn’t it? And now that AIPAC runs the show the Black Caucus is only barely allowed to cling to power. There has only ever been exactly one black Senator at any time, while at its apex there were fifteen Jewish ones. Did Senator Russ Feingold speak up as the lone voice when a single Senator’s voice was needed to contest the 2000 election that Katherine Harris handed to Bush by disenfranchising African American voters wholesale? African American legislators who get out of line are targeted for neutralization, just like Cynthia McKinney or Jessie Jackson.
There is nothing sincere, just or honest about Zionist politics. It’s all “Jews first and Jews only.”
>> “liberation of Al Quds” is pretty clear language, no?
>> … it registers as “the land is ours, NOT yours’, and not ‘the land is shared’ even.
I’ve never seen anyone – or any dictionary – equate liberation with ownership. Must be a Zio-supremacist, “Jewish state” thing.
Back during the Civil Rights Era in the USA Witty didn’t register to the notion that black liberation was a call for a black empire at the expense of the whites because that register was operated by the KKK and affiliates, e.g. the Archie Bunker crowd. But now, since in his beloved land Jewish Israelis operate the same register it’s OK. Everything Witty says is motivated by his conclusion as to what’s good for the Jews at any time and place. Everything else is collateral damage at worst.
“It spelled political opportunism, not any genuine sense of social justice….”
I agree with your post for the most part. However, I’m not sure that Zionism is the driving force in the political opportunism that you mentioned. I think it’s fair to say that the Jewish establishment has justified itself with its involvement in Civil Rights.
The general theme is that the old establishment lost its legitimacy due to its wrong views on racial and ethnic equality, and that the Jewish establishment’s legitimacy rests on righting those wrongs. That’s fairly general, but I think it is a decent description. I also think it is fair to state that Zionism was very popular among American Jews at the height of Jewish involvement in the American Civil Rights movement, which makes the rhetoric of the Jewish establishment (and very many ordinary Jews) about racial equality completely hollow.
No matter how popular Zionism is or was, I don’t believe that it was Zionism which caused many Jews to grab at the brass ring in America at all costs, to support the murder and dispossession of Palestinians, and the waging of war against Israel’s neighbors, while supporting desegregation at home. It doesn’t ring true to me. I’d say that greed, misdirected revenge and lust for power had as much to do with either position for many. It sounds more plausible that the usual blather about the unfortunate blindness of the morally and intellectually superior. I’d also say that it is obvious that even among non-Zionist Jews, many are enjoying the fruits of ethnic cohesion. There’s nothing special in any of that.
The reasons that Jews and Palestinians don’t live together, and in peace, is from mutual animosities.
Muslims or solidarity that declare that in speaking of “the liberation of Al-Quds”, they are only speaking of the right to visit Islamic shrines in peace, and not to possess it and all, are misleading themselves and others.
EXACTLY the same logic is applied ‘we must possess it exclusively or we will be excluded’.
That was fact of the access to the Wailing Wall (holy only to Jews) under Jordanian rule, and is the fight over the Caves of Machpelah (holy to both Jews and Muslims – Abraham!!!!)
It might be possible to co-exist if the heat is turned down, and right now NOONE is doing that, not the left, not the right in either community.
Those that are urging for peace are ridiculed.
no, already poised under the bed and ready to pounce!
No reason for that.
link to presstv.ir
Go ahead, tell me again how Ahmadinnerjacket didn’t threaten to wipe Israel off the map.
This is dated September 2010. No shit Ahmedinejad is threatening Israel now. Israel is the one pulling the strings behind trying to get the US to invade Iran in spite of the interests of anyone involved, except Israel. Israeli politicians have threatened several times that they will invade Iran if we don’t sacrifice our troops doing so — and Israel even implied it would go nuclear to do it.
Israel is still standing while Israel is “wiping ” Palestine off the map and is still working to remove Iran off the map.
Oh for chrissakes witty, why is it so hard to grasp? “Liberation of Al-Quds” refers to FREEDOM for those who have been banned from their holy city! Freedom and liberation – POSITIVE forces for Arabs. Regaining access to one of their holiest sites in the world, from which Israel has excluded them. It hasn’t anything to do, really with ‘destroying’ Israel. Why on earth do you and so many other Zionists persist in this simplistic black and white thinking? Jews are either assimilated (ie, lost forever) or fully observant — it’s inconceivable for them to be integrated into a non-Jewish society AND observant Jews. The Palestinians must either accept a solution that is 100% on Israel’s terms or they are “terrorists” who “don’t want peace” and “not viable partners for peace.” And, in this instance, if Arabs long for something that is presently under Israel’s control, that automatically equates to their intent to destroy Israel (as opposed to THEIR human, emotional, religious attachment to a place).
Can you see that this type of thinking allows for no shades of gray? Arabs are either all good or all evil. And the only all good Arab is one who wants to accept Israel wholly on the terms it sets. As if the Arab, as a human being, is not present within the equation – a human with a history, attachments, emotions, desires….. separate and apart from what Israel wants.
Beautiful reply, bijou.
What is your point? Zionists seized it at gunpoint and now on a daily basis prevent Muslims from going there to pray. I’m not in the least surprised at their attitude nor am I in the least sympathetic to your whining about it. Ire directed against one is the least that one can expect when one robs people, Richard. What did you think they were going to think?
Richard is hiding again.
He took your advice, he’s depositing his blather at +972
omg, that’s hysterical. i can’t help it i just laughed. i wonder how they will respond to his strange phrasing and challenged logic( or lack of).