Exiled Iranian dissident Amir Abbas Fakhravar warns Israelis that a drect attack on Iran would “be the worst scenario. It will be a gift from God for Ahmadinejad,” allowing the regime to “act as a victim, go around the world, and get support and legitimacy from other little countries”:
- Israeli Defense Minister Implies a Strike on Iran Nuclear Program Is Near (Christian Science Monitor)
“The decision to move forward with prosecutions comes just a day after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Egypt’s foreign minister that Egypt’s crackdown on NGOs could affect US aid to Egypt”:
- Americans Face Prosecution as Egypt Ignores Clinton, Congress (Christian Science Monitor)
Arrests of journalists “have tainted the reputation of a country that, on balance, has taken significant steps toward full democracy over the past decade” but its “successful capitalist growth is spearheaded by the ‘Islamic bourgeoisie’” and “its evolving democracy is spearheaded by unapologetically Muslim politicians”:
- Islam, Democracy and Prosperity: Turkey Scores in Mideast, but the Model Has Flaws (Washington Post with ForiegnPolicy)
For those who don’t find the Qur’anic warning that killing a single person (unless it is someone convicted of murder or widespread criminal activity) is like killing a whole people is not clear enough, 34 imams issue a fatwa (legal opinion) flatly stating that “there is no justification for honor killings, domestic violence and misogyny in Islam”:
The proposed law would eliminate abuses in divorce law and polygyny, but would cause other problems by banning marriage during the peak years of male sexuality, thus pressuring them to find extra-marital means of satisfying their desires:
- Muslim Scholars Seek Triple Talaq Ban, Tab on Polygamy (Times of India)
” The Arab Awakening will fundamentally alter the notion that Islam is incompatible with democratic capitalism” because the old constraints that economic policies and “foreign relations had to meet the test of Western approval, will be replaced by those that will work for the benefit of the citizenry”:
- Shahid Javed Burki: The Muslim World’s Reformation (Business Standard)
“I very strongly believed in integration…. Here I was at this Ivy League university. But he confounded me a little bit. I had never heard a black man in public speak as forcefully as Malcolm X did that night. It was cataclysmic†— Richard Nurse, one of the three black students in his Brown University class in when Malcom gaver the newly discovered speech:
- Rare 1961 Tape Shows How Malcolm X’s Views Evolved (Washington Post)
“A separate meeting that will bring together all other Palestinian factions will be held in Cairo on February 18” to “set the date for the parliamentary and presidential elections” …
- Abbas to Head Palestinian Unity Government (AlJazeera)
… but Netanyahu rejects any solution that means peace for all, saying, “It is either peace with Hamas or peace with Israel. You can’t have them both”:
- Israeli Prime Minister Says Palestinian Reconciliation Deal Abandons ‘Way of Peace’ (Washington Post with Foreign Policy)
