Mam3oo6

Cold, hard facts.

Cold, hard facts...

What A Billion Muslims Really Think

A very interesting post:

Following the 9/11 attacks, President Bush claimed that Muslims hate America for its freedoms. Since then, 50,000 Muslims in 35 countries were surveyed by Gallup, the largest poll of Muslims ever. The results represent over 6 years of study and are outlined in a new book by Dalia Mogahed and John L. Esposito entitled “Who Speaks For Islam? What A Billion Muslims Really Think”. The survey was based on face-to-face, hour-long interviews. I’m really looking forward to reading it, especially having read a great deal of Esposito’s literature, but here are some of the preliminary findings I found interesting, as outlined in an op-ed and a BBC article:

- It showed that Muslims and Americans are equally likely to reject attacks on civilians as morally unjustifiable.

- Those who do choose violence and extremism are driven by politics, not poverty or piety.

- Of the 7 percent of respondents who did believe that 9/11 was justified, none of them hated our freedom; they want our freedom. But they believe that America — and the western world in general — operate with a double standard and stand in the way of Muslims determining their own future.

- The vast majority of young Muslims aren’t dreaming of going to war; they are dreaming of finding work. When asked about their hopes for the future, Muslims of all ages said they want better jobs and security, not conflict and violence.

- Muslims want self-determination, but not an American-imposed and defined democracy. They don’t want secularism or theocracy.

- What the majority wants is democracy with religious values.

- The radicals are better educated, have better jobs, and are more hopeful with regard to the future than mainstream Muslims. But they’re more cynical about whether they’ll ever get it.

- 9 out of 10 Muslims are moderates

- Muslims say the most important thing Westerners can do to improve relations with their societies is to change their negative views toward Muslims, respect Islam and re-evaluate their foreign policies.

More About Ghaza...

The Palestinian president has accused Israel of "international terrorism", saying its assault on Gaza constitutes "more than a holocaust".

Mahmoud Abbas's comments on Saturday came as more Israeli air raids brought the total death toll over four days to 88 people, at least a third of which have been children, according to medical sources.

Fifty-four people were killed during Saturday's raids alone.

"It's very regrettable that what is happening is more than a holocaust," Abbas told reporters in Ramallah.

"Children who are barely five-months old are being bombed by the Israeli army."


"We tell the world to see with its own eyes and judge for itself what is happening and who is carrying out international terrorism."

Khaled Meshaal, the exiled Hamas leader living in Syria, also denounced the Israeli attacks against Gaza's civilians as "the real holocaust".

Abbas later requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip, a spokesman for the Palestinian leader said.

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, said that "at best" Abbas could hope to get a Security Council resolution condemning the Israeli action.

"And as we know, Israel has ignored tens of UN Security Council resolutions over the last 40 years and hundreds of UN assembly resolutions - so this is going to be more talk and probably not much will come out of it in the end," he said.
Children killed

Rana el-Hindi from Save the Children, speaking from inside the Gaza Strip, told Al Jazeera that children were suffering greatly from the Israeli bombardment.

"In the last three days at least 19 children have been killed ... it's a real concern for all organisations here," she said.

"Most of the time, when we go into the field and talk to the children about their fears and concerns, they are always afraid of a new [Israeli] invasion to the Gaza Strip - and obviously the current situation is just ... what they fear."

She said the number of children being hospitalised was increasing "day after day".

Eissam Younis, director of the Al Mizan Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that the Israeli army was "intentionally and systematically targeting civilians" and criticised world powers for their muted response.

"Israel puts itself above the law because the international community is always silent," he said.

READ THE REST HERE

Ghaza...

From The Black Iris :

“The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves,” - Israel’s deputy defence minister, Matan Vilnai, refering to the current military operation in Gaza, stating that Palestinians would bring on themselves a “bigger shoah,” using the Hebrew word usually reserved only for the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews. His spokesman later tried to play down the force of his language, saying he meant only “disaster”. “He did not mean to make any allusion to the genocide,” the spokesman said. [source]

Talk about calling a spade a spade.

More than 70 Palestinians have been killed in the past four days.

Some of the dead include a six-month old boy, two 15 and 16-year-old siblings and a mother who was preparing breakfast for her kids.*


From And Far Away :


When words fail you. When you can’t have a decent discussion while visiting family because your eyes keep wandering to images of a flaming Ghaza on the muted television. When you feel guilty of posting a random post because you feel like you should be doing something more solid and more productive- something of value to those poor souls. When you can’t think of anything but that these people are your people, with only religion and barriers keeping you apart. When you spend the whole month thinking of what a horrible, unjust world this is, and how tiny and worthless you really are, sitting in the comfort of your living room, trying to avoid news channels, discussing the weather.

Tomorrow, you will get up, put your clothes on, drive to work, have your morning cup of coffee, and have the same day you have had for a while.

The world is an ironic place. You can give up once you realize that everything is futile, sit back, and decide to put all your faith in god, who will “solve everything eventually”. You can give up once you realize that everything is futile, sit back, and decide to spend your life working for your own needs and desires, building a happy future for you and your immediate family, all the while becoming a selfish, self-centered, quite futile person in the process. Or you can talk, discuss, and analyze the matters of the world for 50 years, spending your time arguing with labour parties and NGOs, then look back in your old age and realize that all those pointless years wasted on philosophizing have been as futile as really doing nothing at all.

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Those two just said it all.

I can't put my feelings in words, words fail to express what i want to say, but i want to update the numbers and say that until now, since the beginning of Today, 60 have been killed, and 150 injured, most of them are in a critical condition.