News and Analysis (7/18/14)

As Israel promises more carnage …

• Israel Steps Up Gaza Ground Offensive, Civilian Casualties Grow (Reuters)

… details emerge about the bizarre iftar at which President Obama defended Israel’s right to defend itself while ignoring Palestinian’s rights to defend themselves, demoralizing all the attendees except Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer who milled about isolated in the adjacent White House Green Room …

• Obama Humiliates Muslim Guests at White House Ramadan Event, Endorses Israel’s Gaza Assault and NSA Surveillance (Mondoweiss)

… while Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of attempting a “systematic genocide” on the Palestinians, condemning the Muslim world for remaining silent, and saying that “ humanity has been destroyed there, as well as the honor of Muslims” …

• Turkish PM Slams ‘Silence’ of Muslim States on Gaza  (Daily News)

… and photographs of a the father of one of the Palestinian boys who were killed by an Israeli air strike on the beach of Gaza, goes viral. Israel’s response was “the strike had been intended for Hamas militants,” calling the death of the children “a tragic outcome” …

• Heartbreaking Photograph Of One Father’s Grief Reveals The Real Cost Of Violence In Gaza  (The Huffington Post/ World Post)

… but NBC yanks the reporter who “owns” the story, refusing to explain, except for a vague comment about “security concerns (are they afraid Israel will attack Rockefeller Center in retaliation?) …

• NBC Pulls Ayman Mohyeldin From Gaza Despite Powerful Reporting (Huffington Post)

… and Parisian police will ban pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Paris, following  “accusations by Jewish community leaders that the demonstrations promote discrimination against France’s Jews,” despite the fact that many of the demonstrators are Jews …

• Parisian Police Mull Ban on Pro-Palestine Protests (Al- Jazeera)

… yet “European political expression on matters Israel-Palestine is vastly different in scope and content than here in the US, certainly compared to what one hears when listening to members of Congress or to American TV”:

• UK’s Talk on Gaza and Israel. Frank and Less Filtered? (Christian Science Monitor)

The wife of the targeted MB entrepreneur Khairat Al-Shater says he “is jailed in the Tora prison and has been denied the right to visits, denied access to external food and clothing, and deprived of everything … [but] [t]hey will not benefit from the injustice and oppression. Tomorrow is not far away….”:

• Egypt to Seize Another 66 Muslim Brotherhood-owned Companies (Middle East Monitor)

Here are seven points of religious symbolism from his sermon that resonated deeply among observant Muslims, but were missed by most outsiders who looked on aghast at Ibrahim al-Baghdadi’s triumphalism …

• How ‘Caliph’ Baghdadi Aimed His Sermon at the Muslim Devout (Telegraph)

… but ISIL’s demolition of religious sites of other faith is demolishing Islam’s image. A Pakistani scholar opines, “If ISIL members were true Muslims, they would respect different beliefs”:

• ISIL Denounced for Destroying Religious Sites (Central Asia Online)

The invasion of Iraq “continues to bedevil the [Obama] administration today, with the rise of the Sunni extremist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)” …

• US Invasion of Iraq Haunts Obama’s Policy in Syria (Voice of America)

… and in a rare convergence of opinions, Senators John McCain and Rand Paul both point at George W. Bush to explain the disaster in Iraq:

• Rand Paul, Blame Bush, Not Obama. (National Review Online)
• McCain: Iraq War Might Not Have Happened Had I Won In 2000 (Time)

Ameenah Rusul, a Muslim who taught her students that “women were guided to see themselves as leaders, entrepreneurs, educators, property owners, informed mothers and wives” passed away:

• Ameenah Rasul, Leader of Women in the Nation of Islam, Dies at 90 (Amsterdam News)

“Hamas desperately needed a way out of its increasing isolation. It had lost Syrian and (much of) Iranian support in 2011 when it sided with the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad” and more recently the new Egyptian junta “closed the tunnels … that had enabled Gaza’s survival:

• What Drove Hamas to Take on Israel? (BBC)

Lara, a Canadian born Scandinavian, became a Muslim after learning about Islam from “authentic Islamic book” saying that Islam “seems so right”:

• I Misunderstood Islam Due to Media Image  (Arab News)

A study shows that “Mosque attenders were no more likely to participate in anti-regime protests than were non-attenders…[but] Koran readers are significantly more likely to support democracy and to perceive unequal treatment from the government” :

• How Islam Mattered in the Arab Uprisings (The Washington Post)

Hanan Hameed