Crusade 2.0 : A Book Review

Lola Duffort — 2012-07-01T22:24:00Z

There is little extensive Western journalism or academic work done on Islamophobia, and certainly no authoritative text on the matter, which is perhaps why John Feffer's project in Crusade 2.0 : The West's Resurgent War on Islam is such an ambitious one.

Feffer attempts, in under two hundred pages, to cover nearly a thousand years of antipathy between Europe and the Middle East, the geopolitical reasons for and the consequences of Islamophobia in both Europe and the United States today, and, finally, to outline concrete solutions. While Crusade may try to do too much in too little space, it nonetheless provides readers with more than a few invaluable insights into the implications of Islamophobia, particularly in the United States, but also in Europe.

Feffer's treatment of election-year Islamophobia in the United States is his most complete narrative, as it offers readers an understanding of why and how Islamophobia has been carefully cultivated in an anxious American public toward specific policy goals. On Feffer's account, Islamophobia has recently served two primary political purposes in the United States. First, George W. Bush warned of the threat of “Islamofascism”—a term coined in the 90s, and reintroduced into the public discourse by Bush in 2005—to the American way of life, giving the Bush administration a renewed justification for a war with dwindling domestic support. With “Saddam Hussein gone and the 9/11 attacks retreating into memory”, Feffer argues that the Bush administration attempted to develop a political climate which distracted Americans from the “soldiers lost, money spent, civil liberties abridged, and critical issues […] ignored”.

Second, Islamophobia has allowed the political right in America to channel racist anxieties about Obama's election as the first black American president into the “politically correct” fear that Obama is a Muslim, or, at the very least, has Islamist sympathies. In a recent survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, more than one in six Americans believe that Obama is Muslim, while only one in four believe that Obama is Protestant (Obama was officially baptized in the United Church of Christ). These false beliefs are perpetuated by a misinformation campaign spearheaded by organizations such as the Clarion Fund, a pro-Israeli organization connected to John McCain's presidential campaign, which “decided to distribute the DVD [Obsession : Radical Islam's War with the West] in swing states prior to the 2008 election”. This video implies that politicians like Obama would please Osama bin Laden and other members of Al Qaeda. Ironically, Obama would oversee the assassination of Osama bin Laden three years later.

Feffer proposes three remedies to Crusade 2.0. First, he discusses how the term ‘Judeo-Christian'—which emerged “from the theological debates in the late nineteenth century as a way of incorporating and belittling through hyphenation the Jewish contributions to Christian civilization”—suggests that so-called ‘Judeo-Christian values' are not shared by Muslims. Feffer suggests abandoning this ‘Judeo-Christian' construct altogether, or developing a new term to refer to the Abrahamic religions (i.e., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) that does not misleadingly exclude the latter. The second remedy to Islamophobia that Feffer recommends is ending Israel's practice of settling occupied Palestinian territories, since he believes that true reconciliation between the West and the Islamic world can only occur if Israel participates. Finally, Feffer proposes that the European Union accepts Turkey's application for membership, which will help Europe come to terms with the fact that it is not a unitary culture, but rather a multicultural center of many religions and ways of life.

However, Feffer's last two recommendations seem unlikely remedies to Islamophobia, since both the Palestinian occupation and Europe's insistence that it is a unitary culture are a direct result of the West's distrust of Islam. Only once this distrust subsides will the West be prepared to embrace the world's second-largest religion ; as such, it seems necessary for comprehensive solutions to Crusade 2.0 not to presume that Islamophobia is on the decline.

Hunger Striking Prisoners in Palestine Win Concessions from Israel

Lola Duffort — 2012-06-02T02:21:00Z

Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners ended a weeks-long hunger strike on May 14 when the Israeli government conceded to improve prisoner conditions, and to limit their use of administrative detention.

Administrative detention is a policy by which Israel detains suspected militants without formal charge indefinitely. Israeli sources put the number of hunger strikers at roughly 1,600; Palestinian sources at 2,500. Two participants, Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh, refused food for seventy-seven days, making this the longest and largest Palestinian hunger strike to date.

According to a statement made by Palestinian minister of detainees, Issa Qaraqe at a press conference held that evening in a protest tent in the Central West Bank city of Ramallah, the agreement stipulates that administrative detainees will have their files examined by legal committees, and that their detentions will not be renewed unless new evidence is submitted.

Activists are calling this a victory both for Palestine and for the use of non-violent protest tactics. Palestine Liberation Organization official Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement that “The hunger strikers' courage is magnificently inspiring, and their selflessness deeply humbling. They have truly demonstrated that non-violent resistance is an essential tool in our struggle for freedom.”

Bruce Katz, co-founder of Montreal-based human rights organization Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU), says that while “this is an important political victory for Palestinians,” that “this process of arbitrary arrest for political ends, for the purposes of intimidating the Palestinian population, is nowhere near over.”

Addameer, an NGO dedicated to supporting Palestinian political prisoners, has alleged in a statement released on May 24 that, in direct violation of the May 14 agreement, multiple extensions to administrative detentions have already been issued by the Israeli Prison Service.

According to Qaraqe, Israel has also agreed to end its solitary confinement policies within three days of the May 14 agreement, to allow for family visits for detainees from the Gaza strip, and to handing over the remains of one hundred Palestinians buried at the Numbers Graveyard. Family visits to prisoners from the Gaza strip were barred in 2006 when militants linked to Hamas captured and held Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for five years.

Addameer has also alleged that one of the hunger strike's first participants, Diab, has already been denied a family visit.

Since the first Intifada in 1989, according to Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, Israel has held thousands of administrative detainees for prolonged periods of time; often, for several years. Of the 308 current administrative detainees, more than a third have been held for over a year.

Israel has continued to defend administrative detention as a necessary security measure in a state of emergency. McGill political science professor and Israeli politics expert Harold Waller puts it this way: “Well of course nobody wants to use administrative detention. But Israel has retained its use because it faces unusually hostile circumstances.”

Neither administrative detainees nor their legal counsel are informed of charges laid or any evidence put forward, a fact which a 2003 United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee found undermined Israel's appeal to article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in order to justify its use of administrative detention. Article 4 declares that states may infringe on a person's right to a trial in the event of arrest “[i]n a time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation.”

The UN Committee also expressed concern about the frequency with which administrative detention is used.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon released a statement six days before the strike ended urging that “those detained must be charged and face trial with judicial guarantees, or released without delay.”

The strike sparked sympathy protests and demonstrations across the Occupied Territories, unsurprising among a population in which most families have had a direct experience with imprisonment. Katz points out that since 1967, nearly twenty percent of the Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories has been imprisoned at least once. “Just to put that in perspective – if those numbers were applied to Canada, that would mean that about 7 million Canadians alive now would have been in prison at least once in their lives,” Katz told Alternatives. “Nearly half of all Palestinian men over 18 have been arrested at least once.”

Addameer director Sahar Francis told Mondoweiss that Israeli jails currently hold nearly 4,700 Palestinians; 220 of which are minors, and 27 of which are members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Alternatives International

Crusade 2.0 : A Book Review

Hunger Striking Prisoners in Palestine Win Concessions from Israel