Crossing the Crescent

Norman Finkelstein is one of the world’s most outspoken and tenacious scholars on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and a fierce critic of the way Israel’s supporters try to wield the memory of anti-Semitism as a baton to beat up on those who criticize the country’s well-documented atrocities.

Author of “Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse → Read More: Interview with Norman Finkelstein

A brief entry today:

A new anti-Muslim film called Obsession was distributed in swing states recently, bundled with copies of newspapers.

I have not seen the film, nor do I plan to, although I have read synopses of its contents.

The editor of The American Muslim has compiled some material that answers the → Read More: Obsession and “Obsession”

Nothing is of greater interest to me than the way in which words are wielded as bulldozers to carve out deep chasms between one tribe of humanity and another.

One such pairing of words is “honor killing.” Periodically we learn about an act in a remote rural corner of a Muslim country that involves the killing of a woman for → Read More: America’s Honor Killings

In the coming days, I should have two transcripts of phone interviews to present to readers.

One is with prominent and controversial American Jewish scholar Norman Finkelstein, who was canned at DePaul University for criticizing Israel and the way that Israeli supporters abuse the memory of the Holocaust to silence criticism of that country’s amply-documented atrocities. We → Read More: Coming Up…

The U.S. State Department lodged a sharp protest over ongoing Pakistani missile strikes and ground raids today, saying the Islamic Republic was violating American sovereignty.

“We will try to convince Pakistan…to respect [the] sovereignty of the United States – and God willing, we will convince,” State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. (1)

The controversy stems from the Pakistan Army’s recent decision, leaked → Read More: Pakistan Invades America – “Without Permission”

The essay below is about the “unique” questioning American Muslims face—sometimes overt, often subtle—in the political arena, and the poisonous and skewed assumptions that are loaded into the questions themselves. (Published in The American Muslim and CounterPunch)

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Stark images of spectral men – their appearance in bright jumpsuits belied by legal invisibility – have been seared → Read More: A Guantanomized Age: The Long Interrogation

Pakistani officials, from politicians to generals to corp commanders, are collectively up in arms over American plans to strike in Pakistani territory without permission.

These American strikes typically involve predator drone or missile strikes but have become more brazen and last week included a Special Forces raid.

It seems that every other day one or two → Read More: Pakistani Officialdom’s Bleating on ‘Sovereignty’

I was compelled to write the following piece after seeing the adulation heaped upon McCain’s V.P. pick — a member of a Christian fundamentalist sect whose extremism on some issues would make Iran’s ayatollahs blush. Her overtly expressed combination of arrogance and self-righteousness is a common marker of people who presume their policies to be guided by God, but never absorb → Read More: Sarah Palin: Vice Wrapped in Virtue

I awoke early this morning and sleepily shifted to the computer screen. Scanning the news, my eyes alighted upon a startling sight: “17-page document identifies Obama as a registered Muslim, Clinton supporter says.”

The first thought to zip through my mind: 17 pages? What kind of form does a Muslim need to fill out to make his religious preference clear? Is → Read More: America’s Registered Muslims

I have a couple new articles for your perusal today.

One is on May Alhassen, an Arab-American woman who contributes to an irreverent and witty joint blog called KabobFest, which she described to me as “grilling the absurd Arab-style.” Please go to WireTap to read the piece.

The other is on the festering developments along → Read More: Articles: Arab-American Blogger and the “Soft Surge”