While I can understand your concern about a relation between Hamas and CAIR (which is dubious, at best), what I cannot understand and which keeps Americans from a real debate on foreign policy is the paranoia and propaganda that influences “facts.”

We can keep going like we are, and wait until a complete genocide has taken place and the Palestinians have been wiped from existence. We can use guns and bombs and hate to build a future free of Palestinians. But the problem is that the paranoid and misinformed will not be happy to end it there. The war will continue and expand, until the Muslim religion ceases to exist.

At which point, then who do the paranoid and xenophobic turn their attention to? Given the biblical prophecy, it’s a good bet many fundamentalists Christians will turn on the Jews, since the Christians need 1/3 of them to convert to Christianity before the rapture/end of times, at which point Jesus will supposedly wipe out the other 2/3.

In the Israeli-Palestinian debate, there are two sets of facts. There are the “facts” that BOTH sides use to justify their actions. BOTH sides mold facts into propaganda and attempt to put the blame on the “other.”

And there are real facts. They are out there, but buried deep in a sea of mainstream media that only cares to publish what it feels coincides with their own world view. This means delving beyond the propaganda perpetrated as “facts” by Palestinian extremists and the propaganda deemed as “fact” by the Israeli/American extremists.

I believe in a future of peace. I cannot have a discussion with someone who has already made up their mind who should and who shouldn’t be killed in the race to the rapture. Closed-mindedness and paranoia are not the solid foundation for a progressive discussion on world politics. Paranoia, fear, and xenophobia are the safety net of the hateful. When hateful acts perpetrated by racist and xenophobic white Americans (McVeigh) cannot be dealt with because the public believes there has to be some Islamic connection, it is evident that substantive debate has ended.

These are NOT the things that the prophet Jesus taught. (additionally, from the prophet Mohammad, but to understand this one needs an open perspective that is untainted by “talking points,” “color-coded threat levels,” and a war for oil and religion disguised as a “war on terror”.) To read and understand these teachings one has to look past the violent fringe minority sect that has captured the West’s attention.

This means looking past the “Islamic extremists” that are the subject of so many Americans’ nightmares, and looking past the “Christian extremists” that make government policy and vote based on hatred of the “other.”

A few months ago, I sat in a cold, concrete room in Kabul among a council of Mullahs who issue Fatwas in Afghanistan. I sat and talked for more than 90 minutes with the Head of the Dar-al-fatwa about many things. We talked of hope, cooperation, God, Mohammad, Jesus, terrorism, and love. This Mufti, who has spent his whole life living in a Kabul warzone and devoted it to following, studying, and interpreting the teachings of the Quran, is a member of the Afghanistan Elimination of Violence Against Women’s council. He risks his life to speak out for women’s rights, and teaches that these rights are guaranteed in Sharia law. He hopes for a day when the West no longer sees every Afghan or every Muslim as a terrorist.

We ended this conversation with a discussion about Abraham, father to Issac and Ishmael. We talked about Abraham being a father to all people of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish faiths.

He took my hand, wished peace upon me, and told me with a smile “we are all children of Abraham.”

He is not an exception; he is the majority. We have to be able to look past the violent fringe that wishes to taint our vision of a peaceful future. We have to look deep into ourselves and our own religion to understand what the meaning of love is.

To do this we have to understand the “other” - not create a false frame of reality around them.

We have to separate “fact” from “fear.”

I believe the OKC bombing has always been classified, wrongly, as a “criminal act,” and the official line is that McVeigh was not aligned with Islam or any terrorism other than “domestic”. There is much that about the OKC bombing that is ignored.

You visited my place yesterday and left a comment about Hamas and CAIR. I’m asking you to come back and read the post that generated the Hillary piece. I think you’ll understand my point, which was: In this case Hamas and CAIR are connected at the heart through Marzook.

The Meat: Jeremiah Wright Publishes CAIR Founder’s Manifesto.

I usually do not leave a link when I comment, but lest you not come back for my answer, I felt it apt that you know that my information holds up.

Thanks for the visit.

Maggie
Maggie’s Notebook