Minaret of Freedom Weblog

PA leader Abbas sends condolence letter to president George W. Bush, whose late father pushed for major Israeli-Palestinian peace conference and attempted to “link $10b loan guarantees to cessation of settlement activities”:

• Palestinians Hail Bush as ‘the Only US President to Stand Up to Israel’ (Times of Israel)

“Her planned trip is a swift rebuke of a decades-old tradition for newly elected members: a junket to Israel sponsored by the education arm of … AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby group”:

• Rejecting Israel Lobby’s Influence Over Congress, Rashida Tlaib Plans to Lead Delegation to Palestine (The Intercept)

Meeting resistance from within their party, Republicans who consider any mosque-going Muslim must be be anti-Constitution and associated with terrorism invite local leaders to listen to a conspiracy peddler, a move that might exacerbate a blue turn in the conservative county:

• Tarrant Republicans Invited to Train with Anti-Islam ex-FBI Agent Before Vote on Muslim (Star-Telegram)

“Given the confidentiality of the proceedings and the security nature of the case, I cannot disclose details about the court’s verdict” — Shahidi’s lawyer Mostafa Turk Hamedani:

• Iran Sentences Journalist to 12 Years in Prison (RFE / Radio Liberty)

“Although Indonesia is largely secular, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation continues to imprison those deemed to denigrate or practise unorthodox versions of the country’s six officially recognised religions of Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism”:

• Another Ahok? Chinese Christian Faces Blasphemy Rap in Muslim Indonesia (South China Morning Post)

Are Rand Paul’s “libertarian instincts, which make him skeptical of foreign aid” strong enough to stand up to the Israeli lobby which demands American tax money for its costly battle against the arc of history in support of  apartheid?

• Rand Paul Under Fire for Blocking Israel Bills (Politico)

“Israel has long been accused of pressuring sick Palestinians or their relatives into collaborating in exchange for a permit to leave Gaza for treatment, as well as blackmailing closeted LGBTQ Palestinians into spying on their neighbours”:

• Six Palestinians Sentenced to Death in Gaza Strip over Spying for Israel (Middle East Eye)

The murderer “raped her while she lay unconscious and dumped her body in a pond” but the “County Commonwealth’s Attorney … agreed to take the death penalty off the table” because potential confirmation of “severe intellectual disability” may have prevented it anyway …

• Man Pleads Guilty to Rape and Murder in Killing of Muslim Teen Attacked Near Mosque (CNN)

… and in another case, “Dawud Walid, executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations Michigan, [asks] why, if the man is insane, he wasn’t given mental health treatment instead of a light jail sentence”:

• Man Who Attacked Muslim Woman in Hospital Was Released on Time Served (Detroit Metro News)

“These concentration camps … where Uighur Muslims are remade into atheist Chinese subjects” are part of program that extends to children who are separated from parents to be placed into orphanages “disguised as schools” for indoctrination “into loyal subjects who embrace atheism and Han customs”:

• For China, Islam Is a ‘Mental Illness’ that Needs to Be ‘Cured’ (Al-Jazeera)

The county’s “Republican Party chairman … “emailed a letter to Tarrant County Chair Darl Easton asking him to ‘reject a bigoted effort launched by at least one of your precinct chairs to remove a Muslim individual from your leadership and remove another precinct chair who is married to a Muslim'”: