Potential First Step Towards Decleration of Independence of Palestinian State

Muslim Observor
Palestinian leaders from President Mahmoud Abbas down have alarmed Israeli ministers by swinging their weight behind a planned effort to secure UN backing for a unilaterally declared independent state in the West Bank and Gaza.

In an innovative strategy which would not depend on the success of currently stalled negotiations with Israel, the leaders are preparing a push to secure formal UN Security Council support for a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders as a crucial first step towards the formation of a state.

Although there is no fixed timetable, Palestinian officials see the second half of 2011 as a plausible starting date for such a process. That is when the Palestinian Authority is due to fulfill Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s widely applauded two-year plan for completing work on all the institutions needed for a fully-fledged state.

One senior Palestinian official said here that the new plan was “the last resort of the peace camp in Palestine” given the current negotiating impasse left in the wake of the US failure to persuade Israel to agree a total freeze on Jewish settlement building in the West Bank as a preliminary to talks.

The moderate Palestinian leadership also sees the unilateral process as a viable – and, in internal political terms, significantly more credible – alternative to surrendering to intense US pressure to enter negotiations without the settlement freeze.

As the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to denounce the Palestinian plan in a speech last night, Israel’s President Shimon Peres declared in Brazil,

“A Palestinian state cannot be established without a peace agreement. It’s impossible and it will not work. It’s unacceptable that they change their minds every day. Bitterness is not a policy.”

But officials here are hoping that, without any progress towards “final status” negotiations on a future state, the US could be persuaded not to veto such a resolution. Explicit UN Security Council support for a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders would, the officials believe, dramatically intensify legal and moral pressure on Israel to lift the 42-year-old occupation.

Some officials are even drawing a direct comparison with the diplomatic process by which Israel itself was established as a state: a UN resolution endorsing it in November 1947, the Declaration of Independence by David Ben Gurion in May 1948 and the subsequent swift recognition by the US and Soviet Union.

The strategy is tied closely to – though not specified in – Mr Fayyad’s plan, “Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State”, and is thought to have originated with the Prime Minister, an independent who has recently publicly questioned the willingness of Mr Netanyahu’s government to grant more than a “mickey mouse” state in any negotiations. But it has since had strong backing from Mr Abbas, and other leading figures in his Fatah faction.

At a commemoration of his predecessor Yasser Arafat’s death, Mr Abbas declared last week,
“The Palestinian state is a fact which the world recognises”. Saying that more than 100 countries supported Palestinian aspirations for a state, he added: “Now we are fighting to get the world to recognise the borders of our nation.”

Mr Abbas, who reaffirmed his intention not to run again as President, has insisted that he will not return to negotiations without a settlement freeze and clear terms of reference specifying a state based on 1967 borders, East Jerusalem as the capital, and an agreed solution for refugees.

The leading Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat yesterday followed his Fatah colleague Mohammed Dahlan in strongly endorsing the plan. “We have taken an Arab foreign ministers’ decision to seek the help of the international community,” Mr Erekat told Reuters, adding that the US and other leading international players would be consulted before any UN move.
“If the Americans cannot get the Israelis to stop settlement activities, they should also not cover them when we decide to go to the Security Council,” he added.

Ghassan Khatib, head of the Palestinian government’s media centre, said that the international community should confront Israel with a choice of a clear negotiating path towards a state based on 1967 borders, or international recognition for a Palestinian state without an agreement. “They cannot block the negotiating approach to two states and at the same time refuse the alternative,” he added.

He said that progress by the current “peace camp” in charge in Ramallah was essential if it was not to “run out of ammunition” against the alternative offered by Hamas. “I honestly think there is no future for the peace camp in Palestine if this is not going to work,” he said, adding that it would be “political suicide” for the present leadership to enter negotiations on present terms. He said the international community had long been striving “for an agreed end to the conflict – a two-state solution as a result of an agreement. But we are saying it’s not working. Why not recognise a Palestinian state when it is ready, without necessarily relying on Israeli consent?”

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to reject the Palestinian proposal. Addressing a forum on the Middle East in Jerusalem, he said, “There is no substitute for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority…any unilateral path will only unravel the framework of agreements between us and will only bring unilateral steps from Israel’s side.”

Mr Khatib added that recognition for a unilaterally declared state would parallel Israel’s recognition as in 1948. “The other side was not [then] expected to accept. There was no consent by either the Palestinians or the Arab [states].” Such a strategy would be severely complicated by Gaza, if it were still controlled by Hamas at the time – but no more so than the negotiations which the US is currently trying to promote.

Independence: Getting past the roadblock

Q. Would a unilateral declaration of independence carry risks?

A. Even if it were underpinned by a UN endorsement of a Palestinian state based on the areas occupied in 1967, it would certainly be a lurch into uncharted diplomatic waters. But some Western diplomats believe it would remove any lingering doubts about the meaning of UN Resolution 242, on which Palestinian and international demands for an end to the occupation begun in 1967 are based.

Q. What might be the advantage for the Palestinians?

A. Israel technically regards the West Bank as a disputed territory the final status of which is a matter for negotiation. Palestinians hope that a process of obtaining UN Security Council support for independence, followed by major individual countries recognising the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza as a state, would greatly and immediately put Israel under pressure to withdraw its forces and civilian settlers from the occupied territories in the West Bank. At the most extreme interpretation, Israel would then be regarded as occupying a foreign country. The UN could also grant the new Palestine immediate and full membership, with voting and proposing rights, in major international bodies.

Q. What is Israel’s main problem with the proposal?

A. Israel argues that such a unilateral declaration would not only violate its right to reach an agreement on borders with the Palestinians, but also directly cuts across the 1995 Oslo-derived agreement that neither side should take unilateral steps affecting the status of the territories.

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Below is the Map that shows the Occupation of Palestine.

Muslim 500 – A Listing of the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World

An amazing book has been released entitled "The 500 Most Influential Muslims-2009." Its the first edition and chiefly edited by American Professor John Esposito and Professor Ibrahim Kalin along with other editors and scholars.

Its available online for free and soon it will be available in Print in the United States. A fascinating new book issued by The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center (in Jordan) in concert with Georgetown’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (Muslim Observor).

The book lists the 500 most influential people in the Muslim world, breaking the people into several distinct categories, scholarly, political, administrative, lineage, preachers, women, youth, philanthropy, development, science and technology, arts and culture, media, and radicals.

Before this breakdown begins however, the absolute most influential 50 people are listed, starting with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The top 50 fit into 6 broad categories as follows: 12 are political leaders (kings, generals, presidents), 4 are spiritual leaders (Sufi shaykhs), 14 are national or international religious authorities, 3 are “preachers,” 6 are high-level scholars, 11 are leaders of movements or organizations.

The 500 appear to have been chosen largely in terms of their overt influence, however the top 50 have been chosen and perhaps listed in a “politically correct” order designed not to cause offense. For example, the first person listed is the Sunni political leader of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah. The second person listed is the head of the largest Shi’a power, Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei. As these are not the two Muslim countries with the largest populations, and do not even represent the two countries with the most spiritual or religious relevance (Saudi Arabia yes, Iran no) therefore clearly the decision of spots one or two appears to have been motivated by a sense of political correctness.

There are in total 72 American Muslims in the 500 Most Influential Muslims.

The entire book is available online (here: http://www.rissc.jo/muslim500v-1L.pdf) and we hope that it will be available for sale soon inside the United States. Currently it is not available.

Beautiful Nasheed About Life and Death- Meshary Alarada - Farshy AlTurab

A very touching Arabic Nasheed by Meshary Alarada.

I am Thinking about Switching to WordPress from Blogger

I have been thinking that I should switch or "Export" my blog from this Google Product "Blogger" to WordPress.

WordPress for some reason get more audience, and people are more interactive. They leave comments. Moreover, WP gives you the statistics, which here at Blogger I have to rely on third party products.

Only two things are not good at WP. First, I won't be able to have my Facebook Fan page corner at WP like I have here. Second, here at Blogger I can schedule posts, but not at WP. This scheduling helped me during Ramadan with "Spreading Hadith One Post Per Day."

WP also lets the writer have Categories and provided unlimited Tags. Blogger on the other hand has a limit for Tags "Labels" and no Categories.

So I am in a little dilemma. If you have any suggestions let me know.

Allama Iqbal's Poetry on Sincerity- Masjid to banaadi shab bhar mein

Allama Iqbal:

Though the mosque was built overnight by the believers

Our heart is old sinner, for years devout it could not be

What a beautiful message did Sanësâ[1] give to King Faisal[2]

By descent you are Hijazi, but by heart Hijazi you could not be

Though eyes become wet, there is no pleasure in this weeping

If by mixture of affliction’s blood tears pink it could not be

Iqbal is a good advisor, fascinates the heart in moments

He did become hero in talk, but one in deeds he could not be

Footnotes:

[1.] Sanësâ - A member of the Sëfâ brotherhood founded in 1837 in North Africa by Muéammad Ibn ‘Alâ al-Sanësâ (d. 1859), an Algerian Muslim leader.

[2.] King Faisal I- He was the first king of Iraq (1921-33). As a part of the settlement of the Arab lands which seceded from the ‘Uthmaniya Khilafah at the end of World War I the British made him king of Iraq. ‘Allamah Iqbal refers to him in his Poem 147-29, alluding to his treason to the Khilafah.

Source: Iqbal, Allama. Bang-e-Dara. Iqbal Academy Pakistan-website for Urdu Text and Translation.

English Translation is here edited by me. This short Poem is the last poem in Bang-e-Dara in print. At online website it is under "Zarifana" or "Humorous Poems" (as translated by Iqbal Academy Pakistan).

Other post regarding Allama Iqbal at this blog.

American Muslim Veterans Celebrate and Pray in Detroit

With a backdrop of American flags and a picture of the Quran, local Muslims who served in the U.S. military gathered inside a Detroit mosque today to mark Veterans Day.

“We salute all the veterans today,” said Shelton Hasan, 54, of Detroit, to a crowd at Masjid Wali Muhammad in Detroit. “We honor you for serving.”

The gathering started with a singing of the U.S. national anthem followed by a silent prayer for the victims of the shooting in Fort Hood, Texas, last week. The shooting has brought attention to Muslims who serve in the U.S. military since the shooter was a Muslim. One conservative Christian group has called for a ban on Muslims serving in the U.S. military.

But those who attended today’s ceremony said what the shooter did has absolutely nothing to do with their faith.

Hasan served in the Army from 1975 to 1977. He said he gained a lot from the experience.

“They made a man out of me, and made me responsible,” he said.

Dawud Walid, a Navy veteran who is now head of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, attended the ceremony in a building that is the oldest mosque in Detroit with a predominantly African-American congregation.

Walid said he hopes people will not paint all Muslims with a broad-brush “based on the actions of one sick individual.”

“We honor all who have and continue to defend our nation through their service,” Walid said.

Detroit Free Press

Fort Hood Shooter No Hero said Islamic Scholars

WASHINGTON – Amid continued speculations about the motives behind the Fort Hood shooting rampage and media reports trying to link the shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, to radicals, prominent scholars insist the attack remains unjustified and un-Islamic regardless of the motives.

"What this Army Major did was against the laws of Islam, even though news accounts say he was an observant Muslim," Feisal Abdul Rauf, a New York imam and Chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, told IslamOnline.net.

Major Hasan, an army psychiatrist, is the sole suspect in last week’s shooting spree at Fort Hood army base in Texas, which killed 13 soldiers and wounded more than 30 others.

Investigators have so far failed to uncover the motives behind the shooting as some reports suggested a link between Hasan and Anwar Al-Awlaki, an American-born imam of Yemeni background said to have radical views.

Al-Awlaki preached in 2001 at the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., where Hasan used to pray. Two of the 9/11 attackers reportedly prayed at the same mosque.

Some reports suggested that the imam, who now lives in Yemen, praised what Hasan did and described him as a "hero."

But prominent scholars insist the killing spree is unjustified under Islam.

"We must remember that [Fort Hood] is a camp--this is not war. This is not an act in the middle of a war," explains Akbar Ahmed, a noted Islam scholar.

"Islam is very clear in the rules of war. Our first Caliph Abu Bakr laid down the rules of war--you cannot kill women, you cannot kill priests, you cannot kill or burn down vegetation."

For Imam Zaid Shakir, a prominent imam at the Zaytuna Institute in California, the issue is crystal-clear in the Qur’an.

"Killing innocent humans, the essence of terrorism, is equated with murdering all of humanity," he told IOL.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) repudiated any praise for the Fort Hood tragedy.

"To call the alleged killer a 'hero' makes a mockery of every Islamic principle of justice," CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement.

"The twisted and misguided views in al-Awlaki's posting are not those of American Muslims and do not reflect mainstream Islamic beliefs or sentiments."

"I am very concerned that this incident is igniting negative reaction from too many Americans against the Islamic faith and Muslim Americans," Imam Rauf told IOL.

Generalization

Ahmed, also the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, said the tragedy had to be seen as a human tragedy, something horrible an individual did because of immense pressure being placed on soldiers involved in a long, drawn-out conflict, and in the context of a suspicious, post 9/11 America.

"Everything these days is seen in terms of terrorism and plots and conspiracy," he told Islam Online.
"And in that light people are painting Maj. Hasan to be part of a larger conspiracy and part of homegrown terrorism, which is far from the truth."

Ahmed regrets that the American public and politicians are taking emerging details about Hasan and using them to unfairly paint sweeping red flags over the entire Muslim community, estimated at seven millions.

"Muslims by definition are compassionate people."

The FBI has asserted that the shooting spree was not part of a broader terrorist plot and that there was no evidence of any co-conspirators.

Officials said communications between Hasan and Al-Awlaki were investigated in December and found to be explainable by his research.

Imam Rauf, who has worked for years in multi-faith, bridge-building projects, said a rush to judgment against the larger American-Muslim community is not what the media and public should be engaging in right now.

"I am very concerned that this incident is igniting negative reaction from too many Americans against the Islamic faith and Muslim Americans. Our fellow Americans should understand that every major American Muslim organization has condemned it in no uncertain terms," Rauf recalled. Thousands of American Muslims serve in the US armed forces, and they are essential to the US goal of bringing peace, stability and democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan."

Islam Online

Solar Power Goes Rural- Power to the Poor

Discovery News

By day, the electronic devices that Frederik Krebs rolls off his printing presses could be mistaken for old plastic overhead-projector transparencies. Nightfall reveals their ingenious purpose: Snap the metal fasteners at the corners together and the sheets glow with reading-quality light. Krebs's sheets may prove to be much more than a curiosity, for the senior scientist at Denmark's Riso National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy has found a cheap way to integrate LEDs, photovoltaic (PV) cells, and ultrathin lithium batteries into a potentially life-saving lamp. He hopes to see them on sale next year, providing an affordable alternative to kerosene lighting for the more than 1.5 billion people in developing countries who lack access to electricity.

Success would also mark an important first step to commercialization for the lamp's cheap-to-produce yet anemically inefficient organic photovoltaic technology. Most organic PVs are composed of conducting polymers and carbon nanostructures, which in the right combinations mimic the p-n junction of silicon and other inorganic photovoltaics. Efficiency is significantly lower, however, because polymers are poor charge conductors.

"This is the lousiest of the solar technologies available," admits Krebs.

That's not for want of trying. Andrew W. Hannah, CEO of organic electronics materials developer Plextronics, says materials advances are bringing polymer PVs within reach of some niche applications. He says testing at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in Golden, Colo., is confirming that polymer PV materials can survive outdoors for years if they're effectively encapsulated from air and water. Efficiency is rising too. Hannah says that Plextronics, based in Pittsburgh, will release a new set of polymer "inks" in the first quarter of 2010 capable of delivering 6 to 6.5 percent efficiency in small cells -- a 1 percentage point improvement over Plextronics's prior best. These specs should, Hannah predicts, enable product development firms to begin using polymer PV materials in portable, low-energy applications such as battery charging and distributed sensing.

Solar Goes Rural

Large modules of organic photovoltaics like Krebs's, however, capture just 1 to 2 percent of the photon energy that hits them. And yet, Krebs says, even that measly return adds value in the price-sensitive context of rural lighting.

Access to sustainable lighting remains a tough nut for engineers to crack [see "Lighting Up the Andes," IEEE Spectrum, December 2004]. Off-grid villagers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America still rely on kerosene lamps and candles, with the average household spending US $40 to $80 annually for their dim, soot-belching light, according to Germany's development agency, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, or GTZ. A 2009 assessment by GTZ found that the cheapest solar-LED lighting solutions marketed today cost as much as a full year's worth of kerosene.

Krebs's lamps should crash through that cost barrier. He prints their polymer solar cells and circuitry onto rolls of 25-micrometer-thick flexible plastic film by the hundreds of square meters, using standard screen and slot-die presses. Next, a circuit of copper tape is printed onto the solar cells, and the components -- surface-mounted LEDs, flat batteries, and a diode -- are mounted using silver epoxy. The whole thing is then encapsulated in a second sheet of film.

The total cost of the prototypes produced in Krebs's Copenhagen-area lab is 18 ($27) per lamp. Krebs says that commercial partner Mekoprint Electronics, in Stovring, aims to produce an improved version this fall for 7. He estimates that cheaper labor in China could cut Mekoprint's cost in half.

Field Testing in Zambia

Mekoprint's version will benefit from the field testing of 196 prototypes in Zambia this summer. Danish business school students handed out the lamps to children attending the summer school the Danes run at a coffee farm outside of Lusaka, a grid-connected area plagued by daily blackouts. Excessive flexing of the 1-millimeter-thick sheets caused some to delaminate, a problem that Krebs and Mekoprint hope to fix by repositioning the solar cells within the plastic sheet. And the quality of the light was found to degrade after 10 to 20 minutes, inspiring the addition of circuitry to feed power to the LEDs at a constant current. Testing of a further 1000 to 2000 next-gen lamps in Mali and Malawi is anticipated after the fall rainy season.

Krebs expects the lamps to operate for at least a year, which he deems reasonable for a lamp that will cost less than one-quarter of the buyers' present annual lighting budget.

"This is an affordable lamp, and it's better than no lamp," he says.

Muslims Brace For Backlash after Fort Hood Shooting

As published at Local 12

It's a grim reality that whenever someone who's a member of an ethnic group does something horrendous, the decent, law abiding members of that same group must prepare for the fallout. And so it is in the wake of the Ft. Hood shootings... Muslims all across the country are being advised to be very careful. The local head of the Council on American Islamic Relations watched in horror as the grim realities of the Ft. Hood shootings was revealed.

Karen Dabdoub, CAIR Executive Director: "The first thing that goes through all of our minds is please God don't let it be a muslim."

But the shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan is indeed Muslim...and that puts Muslims across the country at risk from those of narrow minds who look for reasons to hate.

"It's really horrible what happened and, of course, our first thoughts are for the victims and their families and for a speedy recovery for those who have been injured, then after that our worries switch to backlash... And the very real chance of backlash against our community."

For Karen Dabdoub, that backlash began today with two hate filled emails, from people who clearly don't understand Islam.

"The Koran is very clear and says, if you kill or take the life of an innocent person God considers it as if you took the lives of all of humanity... All of humanity... So, if you want to talk about a really big sin it's taking an innocent life and it's no different in Christianity or Judaism."

But a ray of hope came in from a Christian friend leaving on vacation.

"She called and said, I just want you to know you're in our hearts and prayers and you have our support cause we know what's coming and it wasn't a half hour later I got another call from a Jewish friend saying the same thing...I really feel for you guys, know what you're going to be facing, but you have our support... So, yeah, there are some real nut cases out there, but there are some really good people, too."

The council on American Islamic Relations actually has a Muslim community safety kit that you can find online, and they've also launched an online anti-terror petition drive called "not in the name of Islam." They are urging that, for the time being, all Muslim families take appropriate precautions to protect themselves from possible misguided retaliation. CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization.

Other Interesting News Coverage:

A Muslim Soldier's View from Fort Hood- The Huffington Post.

Telegraph UK- "Nidal Malik Hasan 'was not a terrorist' Palestinian cousin says"

CNN Coverage of Fort Hood

CNN- "Army honors dead, searches for motive in Fort Hood shootings"

CAIR Press Statement