Excerpts: Islam divided on Chechan terrorism.French hostages in Iraq.
Divided blame for Chechen terrorism.5 Sept 2004
+++JORDAN TIMES 5 Sept.'04:
"Russia siege prompts horror, self-criticism in Arab world" By Susan
Sevareid The Associated Press
QUOTES FROM TEXT:
" 'Our terrorist sons are an product of our corrupted culture.'
" 'I have no doubt ... this is the work of Israelis who want to tarnish
the
image of Muslims and are working alongside Russians who have their own
agenda against the Muslims in Chechnya' "
"Some ... Islamic websites known for their extremist content praised the
separatists"
"Heads of state from around the region condemned the attack."
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EXCERPTS:
CAIRO - Images of dead, wounded and traumatised Russian children being
carried from the scene of a rebel school siege horrified Middle Eastern
Muslims, prompting forthright self-criticism Saturday and fresh concern
about an international backlash against Islam ... .
[IMRA: The count is not in.]
Arab leaders, Muslim clerics and ordinary parents across the Middle East
denounced the school siege that left more than 340 people dead, many of them
children, as unjustifiable.
Some warned such actions damage Islam's image more than all its enemies
could hope. Even some supporters of militancy condemned it, though at least
one insisted Muslims were not behind it.
"Holy warriors" from the Middle East long have supported fellow Muslims
fighting in Chechnya, and Russian officials said nine or 10 Arabs were among
militants killed when commandos stormed the Beslan school ...to end a siege
that began Wednesday by rebels demanding Chechen independence.
Middle East security officials,... said it was too early to know the
nationalities of the Arabs among the dead militants.
However, a prominent Arab journalist wrote that Muslims must acknowledge ...
that Muslims are the main perpetrators of terrorism.
"Our terrorist sons are an end-product of our corrupted culture,"
Abdulrahman Rashed, general manager of Arabiya television, wrote in his
daily column published in the pan-Arab Asharq Awsat newspaper.
. . .
"Most perpetrators of suicide operations in buses, schools and residential
buildings around the world for the past 10 years have been Muslims," he
wrote.
. . .
"The picture is humiliating, painful and harsh for all of us."
. . .
Ahmed Bahgat, an Egyptian Islamist and columnist for Egypt's leading
pro-government newspaper, Al Ahram, wrote that the images "showed Muslims as
monsters who are fed by the blood of children and the pain of their
families."
"If all the enemies of Islam united together and decided to harm it ... they
wouldn't have ruined and harmed its image as much as the sons of Islam have
done by their stupidity, miscalculations, and misunderstanding of the nature
of this age," Bahgat wrote.
Other Islamists were more cautious in their criticism.
Mohammad Mahdi Akef, leader of Egypt's largest Islamic group, the outlawed
Muslim Brotherhood, said the siege did not fit the Islamic concept of
"jihad," or holy war, but took care not to characterise it as terrorism.
"What happened ... is not jihad because our Islam obligates us to respect
the souls of human beings ...Real jihad should target occupiers of our lands
only like the Palestinian and Iraqi resistance." Ali Abdullah, an Islamic
scholar in Bahrain who follows the ultraconservative Salafi stream of Islam,
condemned the school attack as "un-Islamic," but insisted Muslims weren't
behind it.
"I have no doubt ...that this is the work of the Israelis who want to
tarnish the image of Muslims and are working alongside Russians who have
their own agenda against the Muslims in Chechnya," said Abdullah, reviving
an old conspiracy theory altered to fit any situation.
Salafism and its similarly conservative kin, Wahhabism, which is widely
observed in Saudi Arabia, are accused by critics of fostering extremism.
Some ... Islamic websites known for their extremist content praised the
separatists and predicted the Islamic fighters across Egypt would avenge the
killings of Muslims elsewhere.
Heads of state from around the region condemned the attack. It struck a
chord with parents, including His Majesty King Abdullah who denounced it on
state-run television.
"As a father, I can tell you that all the fathers and mothers in Jordan pray
humbly to God to stand by their counterparts in Russia in their grief," said
His Majesty King Abdullah.
Syria's foreign ministry described the school siege as "a terrorist,
cowardly action," which Damascus "condemns in the harshest terms," according
to the state-run SANA news agency. . . .
+++ JORDAN TIMES 5 Sept. '04:
"Weekly Digest" Arab media on France and the Arab world
Thamer Abu Baker
QUOTES FROM TEXT:
"the two French journalists were known for their objectivity in
covering the Middle East issues"
"kidnapping them would not serve the Arab issues"
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EXCERPTS . . .
The kidnapping of two French journalists is a criminal act that damages the
image of Islam and the Arabs not only in France but throughout the world,
said Randa Takeiuddin in the London-based daily Al Hayat. The writer pointed
out that the two French journalists were known for their objectivity in
covering the Middle East issues, communicating to the French people the root
cause of the Palestinian problem and the aggressive Israeli practices. She
said that this makes one wonder whether the kidnappers want to silence them
and deprive the world of the voice of truth.
Blackmailing a country like France is a cowardly act, because France was
against the war on Iraq and everybody knows its support for the Palestinian
people's rights, the dismantling of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank
and ending the Israeli occupation.
. . .
Regarding the banning of the veil in the French schools, the writer said
that France, as a secular republic, respects religious rituals but outside
government buildings. She called for the immediate release of the two
journalists, saying that kidnapping them would not serve the Arab issues.
. . .
+++JORDAN TIMES 5 Sept.'04:
"Editorial:Was there a better way?"
[IMRA: This puts focus on Russian responsibility because of how it
handled the crisis.]
QUOTES FROM TEXT:
"The storming of the school to free the children and adults ...meant the
senseless death of hundreds of innocent people."
"Liberation movements are as accountable for their methods of warfare as
nation states."
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FULL TEXT:
The cost in life, emotion and spirit of the horrific and tragic end to the
siege of the Russian school in Beslan is immeasurable.
The storming of the school to free the children and adults held hostage for
three days meant the senseless death of hundreds of innocent people. Was
there a better way to have dealt with the siege? In this case, where
extraordinary violence, threats and conditions spiralled into a chaotic and
hellish scene involving even toddlers, it is too difficult and painful to
determine.
There were moments when the world thought that a negotiated settlement was
possible. That the Chechen "rebels" would soften to the terrified faces
before them. But that hope was destroyed when gunfire and explosions
preempted all the efforts to safely and peacefully end the ordeal of the
hostages being held by Chechen terrorists. These terrorists held babies as
expendable collateral against their aspirations for independence and
statehood.
The Chechens may have a good and noble cause, but their calculated, vicious
and brutal methods to achieve their goals can only work to defeat them, as a
stunned world looks upon them with contempt and disgust.
Liberation movements are as accountable for their methods of warfare as
nation states.
[IMRA:But Palestinians and their supporters routinely insist there are no
limitations on what 'liberation movements' may do.]
The Beslan school atrocity adds to the criminal list of charges the world
logs against yet another group acting blasphemously in the name of Islam.
The crash of two civilian planes in Russia, suspected to be the work of
Chechen suicide bombers, and the recent suicide bombing outside a Moscow
subway station follow on the heels of similar indiscriminate attacks on
civilian targets including the siege of a theatre in Moscow in 2002, in
which more than a hundred innocent people were killed.
These are not the honourable ways of self-respecting liberation movements.
These are condemnable tactics that will only serve the opponents of the
Chechen cause.
Although Moscow will again steel itself against such actions, it will
eventually have to deal with the Chechen conflict by searching for a
reasonable political settlement of the crisis. The problem will never go
away by strictly military means. Both Russia and Chechnya need to negotiate
an honourable peace accord to end all the bloodletting and violence and move
towards reconciliation and peace.
Dr. Joseph Lerner, Co-Director IMRA
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