News and Analysis (4/22/19)

He went to Afghanistan to fight Communism and left after it fell there, but years later he was sent to Guantanamo where Americans torture and threats to rape his mother induced him to invent lies against innocents:

• Guantánamo’s Darkest Secret (New Yorker)

“No one has claimed responsibility for what Sri Lankan officials have described as a terrorist attack by religious extremists”:

• 2 Muslim Groups Condemn Sri Lanka Attacks (Israel Hayom)

The news “deflates the illusion of normalcy, … [is] molded into permanent formulas – with only the date and location changing[,] … [and t]hey don’t even reach the people who should hear them – that is, Israeli Jews” …

• To Listen to Palestinian News Every Morning Is Torture (Haaretz)

… Case in point: Soldiers shot a boy while he was trying to escape–but he was bound and blindfolded at the time:

• Israeli Soldiers Shoot Bound, Blindfolded Palestinian Teen Trying to Flee (Haaretz)

Syria is courted by both pairs of competing allies …

• The New Proxy War in Syria: Iran and Turkey vs. Saudi Arabia and Russia (Al-Masdar News)

… while “looking to expand trade with both as it looks to rebuild itself, 16 years after the … US invasion plunged the country into civil war” Iraq spearheads an “initiative to bring Syria … back into the Arab League”:

• Iraq Summit Brings Together Rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran (Al-Jazeera)

Men “may be the face of Islam, but women are the neck.  The face won’t turn unless the neck makes it happen”:

• We Need to Listen to the Voices of Muslim Women (Staff)

The “High Court issues injunction against Tel Aviv municipality building a homeless shelter on top of an Ottoman-era cemetery”:

• Jaffa Islamic Council Wages Legal Battle Against ‘Desecration’ of Muslim Graves (Times of Israel)

“As the likes of Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris are quickly discovering, it is impossible to ignore the Palestinian issue on the campaign trail”:

• Don’t Mention the Palestinians: For 2020 Democrats, Israel Has Become a Political Minefield (Haaretz)

“This sends a critical message to our Muslim-American children that they belong here, that they’re important”:

• Detroit Schools to Close for Muslim Holiday Eid al-Fitr for First Time (Detroit Free Press)

“I grew up in a town where I watched my gay friends struggle to come out to the religious community. And now I live in LA, where I’m a religious person struggling to come out to the gay community”:

• ‘Ramy’ Is About One Millennial American Muslim — And Everyone’s Racist Uncles (NPR)