Warren Jeffs renounces leadership of FLDS

Polygamous sect leader Warren S. Jeffs renounced his role as prophet in January, telling family and select followers the Lord considered him a ''wicked man'' for immoral acts as a young man, according to a court document released Tuesday.

In a series of telephone calls, Jeffs said he had been immoral with a sister and a daughter and, since the age of 20, had not held the priesthood in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He made a similar statement a day later in a jailhouse visit with a brother.

Read more . . .

Words To Live By

The Radical Christian Right Is Built on Suburban Despair

By Chris Hedges, AlterNet. Posted January 19, 2007.

Millions of Americans live trapped in soulless exurbs which lack any kind of community, leaving them feeling isolated and vulnerable. Without alternatives for their social despair, they flock to demagogues promising revenge and a mythical utopia.

The engine that drives the radical Christian Right in the United States, the most dangerous mass movement in American history, is not religiosity, but despair. It is a movement built on the growing personal and economic despair of tens of millions of Americans, who watched helplessly as their communities were plunged into poverty by the flight of manufacturing jobs, their families and neighborhoods torn apart by neglect and indifference, and who eventually lost hope that America was a place where they had a future.

This despair crosses economic boundaries, of course, enveloping many in the middle class who live trapped in huge, soulless exurbs where, lacking any form of community rituals or centers, they also feel deeply isolated, vulnerable and lonely. Those in despair are the most easily manipulated by demagogues, who promise a fantastic utopia, whether it is a worker's paradise, fraternite-egalite-liberte, or the second coming of Jesus Christ. Those in despair search desperately for a solution, the warm embrace of a community to replace the one they lost, a sense of purpose and meaning in life, the assurance they are protected, loved and worthwhile.

read more . . .

Calls to pardon 'UK's last witch'

Helen Duncan was tried under the Witchcraft Act

The family of the last person in the UK to be prosecuted under the Witchcraft Act will mark the 50th anniversary of her death by calling for her pardon.

Medium Helen Duncan, who was born in Callander, Perthshire, was imprisoned using the law during World War II.

She was targeted by the government after revealing to a séance audience that a warship had sunk before the news had been released to the public.

Her grand-daughter is particularly angry at the accusations of treason.

Mary Martin, of Edinburgh, said Mrs Duncan had been accused of being a traitor.

Spiritualist churches

"When she first came back home after prison she was never the same.

"She always had a bit of a glow about her but she seemed to have lost that.

"Some people said it was treason. My grandmother had two sons and two son in laws in the forces ... and there is no way she would have given anybody information."

Mrs Duncan became one of the most famous mediums of her time, heading a network of spiritualist churches.

During the war she lived in Portsmouth, the home of the Royal Navy.

She has put us on the right side of the law by bringing in the 1952 act Mary Armour Medium

At a séance in 1943 it was claimed that the spirit of a sailor from the HMS Barham appeared.

The vessel was only officially declared lost several months later.

She was arrested in 1944 and sentenced to nine months in prison at the Old Bailey for crimes under the Witchcraft Act of 1735.

While in prison she was visited by Winston Churchill.

When he was re-elected in 1951 the Witchcraft Act was repealed and three years later spiritualism was officially recognised as a religion.

Campaigners to pardon Mrs Duncan have set up an online petition.

The campaign is backed by the British Society of Paranormal Studies.

Medium Mary Armour, who wrote her biography, said: "She has put us on the right side of the law by bringing in the 1952 act."

Christian Missionaries Lie and Break Law To Make Converts

"Evangelist inroads in Muslim Morocco"

Jerusalem, Israel - In the past few years, increasing numbers of Westerners have been converting to Islam. Agence France Presse recently reported annual figures in France alone of 30,000 to 50,000. But a new phenomenon – largely unreported in the Western media – is occurring: Muslims, especially in the Maghreb (north-west Africa) are becoming Christians.

The controversy over the conversions has been most acute in Morocco. Since the beginning of the year there have been numerous articles in newspapers such as Le Matin, La Gazette du Maroc, Le Journal Hebdomadaire, and even business magazine La Vie Economique and political weekly Telquel have written about this "greatest danger."

According to most reports, the culprits are American evangelical missionaries operating in major cities such as Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech and Fez to remote areas in the mountains or the countryside.

The statistics differ wildly: Missionaries are reported to number anywhere from 150, according to French weekly newsmagazine Le Nouvel Observateur, to the 800-plus figure most often used. Converts are said to number anywhere from 7,000 to 58,000. These discrepancies are easily explained by the fact that both missionaries and converts have to stay constantly below the radar.

Even though Morocco is a much more tolerant country than say Saudi Arabia regarding freedom of religion, it nonetheless imprisons anyone trying to convert a Muslim for up to three years.

Karen Thomas Smith, one of the four officially registered American pastors in the country explains that because of this missionaries have to pass for businessmen or officials from NGOs.

THE RECENT visit of the American televangelist Josh McDowell, invited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and received by King Mohammed VI, has sparked lots of conspiracy theories. In fact, Le Journal Hebdomadaire reported on January 8 that this evangelization campaign was part of US President George W. Bush's campaign in the current war. Unsurprisingly, the article pointed out that this was also the goal of the neocons and the Zionists.

Nationalist MP Abdelhamid Aouad went even further when he declared that the evangelists' ultimate goal was to convert 10 percent of the Moroccan population by 2020. He even raised this issue in the Moroccan Parliament and asked the minister of Islamic affairs what the government was doing about the massive evangelization underway. Despite the minister's assurance that there was nothing to worry about, in March the authorities deported on "immigration grounds," a South African church representative who had been in the kingdom since 1999.

Also, a March "confidential" report ordered by the government on the topic of conversion and cited by La Gazette du Maroc, confirmed that there were indeed around 800 foreign missionaries in the kingdom. Qualified as "top-notch proselytizers," they used all available means such as Web sites, radios, satellite TV, video and audio tapes and books to succeed in their mission. Indeed, plenty of bookstores in Morocco carry translations of the Bible printed in the US and in French. According to one pastor, some missionaries also openly distribute on the streets of Casablanca leaflets about Christianity mostly meant for young people and promising them "a better life."

CLEARLY, THE evangelists are focusing their energies on the young and the poor, but that's not the whole picture. Another target, according to Pastor Jean-Luc Blanc are the intellectuals and the privileged. However, there is no typical profile of a convert. On March 5, the French daily Le Monde published numerous interviews with converts in Morocco and Algeria.

Yacine, a 30-something Moroccan executive who is very happy about the recent publicity about converts, said: "The essential point is that one talks openly about Moroccan Christians. It is proof that it exists and that it is possible. No matter what they say about us. The taboo is lifted."

Another convert in his 30s, Abu Ghali, pointed out that most conversions are initiated by Moroccans themselves and added: "If Moroccans are given the opportunity to compare and choose, then you'll see lots of them going towards Christianity."

But by far the most striking testimony comes from a 45-year-old Algerian convert called Myriam. In 1985, she was a very pious Muslim and had just learned that her best friend had been hiding that she was a Christian. At first she decided that her friend was "impure" and that she would not talk to her ever again. Then she "decided to pray for her friend to come back to Islam" and, finally, in 1987 Myriam decided to read the Bible and converted. She has since received numerous death threats and had to eventually leave Algeria in 1994 for France where she studied theology. Today, Myriam is a pastor in the South of France.

The Arab press has been quick to accuse the US evangelists for the massive conversion numbers, therefore playing into the hands of the Islamists who advocate an end to the semi-freedom of religion in Morocco. But this assumption is wrong because as many observers emphasized, some Muslims are disillusioned by the crimes committed in the name of Islam, especially in Algeria by the Islamists and al-Qaida's terrorist acts and are looking for something else.

Source

Muslims Politicos Demand Special Treatment of Islamic Employees at Airline

Rabat, Morocco - A senior government official denied on Thursday Islamist charges that Morocco's flagship airline had trampled on employees' rights by banning them from praying at work and forcing pilots to eat during Ramadan.

The main legal opposition Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) this week stepped up its criticism of the moves by state-owned Royal Air Maroc (RAM), calling them an abuse of religious freedom.

"More than 50 Islamic states have airlines but we have not heard of such bans other than here," Mustapha Ramid, a leading figure in PJD, the third largest party in parliament, said in an interview.

Government officials accused PJD of stirring up the 4-month-old issue to try to influence parliamentary polls next year.

"Since July, Air Maroc has banned its workers from praying in their offices to enforce work discipline, but the airline workers are allowed to pray at two mosques nearby," said Bourara Khadija, top adviser to Transport Minister Karim Ghellab.

"It is a shame that the decision was branded as a crackdown on religious freedom," she told Reuters. "It is wrong to claim that RAM abuses the religious rights of its workers."

Khadija said RAM had to enforce discipline at work as it faced stiff competition from foreign airlines after Morocco signed an open sky agreement with the European Union.

Another senior government official, who declined to be named since he was not authorised to talk to the media, said the PJD was "stirring up the debate in parliament and in the press to try to embarrass the government ahead of 2007's elections."

Islamist parties are growing in popularity in Morocco, with the PJD poised do well in the elections, unsettling business and urban elites who fear Islamist politicians want to reduce women's liberties and other social freedoms in the north African kingdom. The Islamists deny the charge.

Khadija said RAM had banned its pilots from fasting while flying during the holy month of Ramadan because plane simulation tests showed possible security risks.

"Aviation authorities proved that a fasting pilot can not fully control a plane's gears and equipment after spending some hours flying," she said.

PJD deputy Noureddine Gherbal told reporters some female RAM employees had also complained to him in writing about being barred from wearing Islamic headscarves.

But Khadija said RAM had acted fairly.

"There is no veil issue here at all. Only two female workers were asked to move from a front desk to a RAM call centre if they wanted to wear veils and they obeyed the order," Khadija said.

Source

Controversial new Bible cuts out difficult gospel passages

A new Bible translation is causing controversy after it cut out difficult parts surrounding economic justice, possessions and money.

The new bible version, released by the Western Bible Foundation in the Netherlands, has created a storm by trying to make the Christian gospel more palatable.

According to Chairman Mr. De Rijke the foundation has reacted to a growing wish of many churches to be market-oriented and more attractive. "Jesus was very inspiring for our inner health, but we don't need to take his naïve remarks about money seriously. He didn't study economics, obviously."

According to De Rijke no serious Christian takes these texts literally. "What if all Christians stopped being anxious, for example, and started expecting everything from God? Or gave their possessions to the poor, for that matter. Our economy would be lost. The truth is quite the contrary: a strong economy and a healthy work ethic is a gift from God."

The foundation wanted to "boldly go where no one else has gone before" by cutting out the confusing texts.

“We don't use them anyway! There's no single Christian selling his possessions and giving them to the poor."

The Western Bible is published – in Dutch only so far – by the well-known Christian publisher Buijten & Schipperheijn. IN it, some of the most important passages of the Bible: the Ten Commandments, sections of Isaiah, Proverbs, and the Sermon on the Mount, contain holes where the original translation urged radical actions around money, justice or affluence.

Hundreds of Western Bibles have been sold in the first few weeks, whilst anxious Christians filled newspapers and web logs with their doubts.

Sometimes Christians seem to have more anger than humour, however. The names of the board, ‘De Rijke’ (meaning ‘the rich’) and ‘Fortuijn’ (meaning ‘fortune’), as well as the holes in the pages of the Western Bible hint to the truth: the Western Bible is a joke.

It is published by Time to Turn, a network of Christian students and young adults in the Netherlands "who want to choose a sustainable and just way of life, based on their faith in Jesus Christ."

They do not believe in a new legalism, or in a utopian state, but in a God who is willing to deliver the world from materialism and injustice. Time to Turn is linked to the international student movement Speak.

Frank Mulder, chairman of Time to Turn, is surprised by the commotion.

"Many Christians accept the Western lifestyle, including the degradation of creation and the injustice of our trade, and they only take the easy parts of the gospel. But it isn't until we publish this gospel with holes, that they get confused!"

Time to Turn are soon to publish a bible study about the holes.

India's Untouchables turn to Buddhism in protest at discrimination by Hindus

Across India this month, thousands of Hindus from the former Untouchable castes are converting to Buddhism in protest at the continuing discrimination they face. Mass conversion ceremonies are being held throughout the month, from Delhi in the north, to Hyderabad in the south. Organisers are claiming that more than 100,000 people have already converted.

Conversion is a highly charged political issue. Several states have passed laws this year making it harder to convert, and the mass ceremonies will infuriate Hindu nationalist parties that have been campaigning to stop lower caste Hindus changing their religion.

But for many Dalits, as Untouchables are now known, conversion is the only way to escape the oppression they still face in Hindu society. Untouchability has been illegal in India since independence, but it is still commonly practised. In many villages Dalits are not allowed to drink clean water from a well. In some areas, tea shops keep a different glass for Dalits to use, so higher-caste Hindus are not "polluted" by drinking from the same vessel, even after it has been washed. After the 2004 tsunami, Dalit survivors in Tamil Nadu were prevented from sharing water in relief camps.

Dalits are converting in large numbers this year because it is the 50th anniversary of the conversion of their most important leader of modern times, B R Ambedkar, who first called on Dalits to become Buddhists in order to escape discrimination.

When Mahatma Gandhi was leading non-violent protests against British rule, Ambedkar was using the same methods to demand equal rights for Untouchables. He was critical of Gandhi, and outspoken in his attacks on Hinduism.

"These people are converting as a protest," says Sakya Ponnu Durai, one of the organisers of the mass conversion ceremonies. But Mr Durai, a Dalit who himself converted two years ago, says he has wholeheartedly become a practising Buddhist. "After converting, I have much more satisfaction," he says.

Many of those converting are doing so to escape the menial jobs traditionally assigned to Dalits. Under the rigid rules of the caste system, it is difficult to change to a job reserved for a higher caste. Although this is no longer the case in the cities, in villages it is still practised. Many Dalits are forced to work as scavengers and latrine cleaners.

Mr Durai was more fortunate: his father was in the Indian military and was able to give him a good education in Chennai. But he says he still faced discrimination.

Even at university, Mr Durai says he was badly beaten by higher-caste students enraged that a Dalit had got better marks than them. Today, he is a federal government worker in Delhi. He is fully aware that conversions are a potentially explosive issue. Hindu nationalist parties are unhappy with the large numbers of lower-caste Hindus converting, not only to Buddhism but also Christianity.

This year several states, including Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, have introduced laws that anyone wishing to convert will have to obtain official permission first. Gujarat, home to some of the most hardline Hindu groups, has introduced a more controversial law under which Buddhism is considered part of Hinduism.

In a separate rally this weekend, not connected to the conversion ceremonies, thousands of Dalits plan to burn the new laws.

By a strange irony, as well as the 50th anniversary of Ambedkar's death, the conversions are taking place amid controversy over the funeral of the Dalits' most powerful political leader, Kanshi Ram. Ram had also converted to Buddhism, but some of his relatives objected when his cremation was carried out according to Buddhist rites.

Source: The Independent

SECRET OFFICIAL CHINESE DOCUMENTS REVEAL WIDESPREAD CAMPAIGN OF RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION

Christians,Falun Gong Targeted
New Freedom House Report Analyzes Seven Chinese Government Documents that Reveal Official Repression

WASHINGTON, DC, February 11, 2002 -- Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom today released a report analyzing seven never-before-seen, top-secret Chinese government documents detailing an official crackdown against large, unregistered Christian churches and other religious groups nationwide. The Center had the official documents authenticated by renowned expert and exiled former Chinese government journalist, Su Xiaokang.

The seven documents, issued between April 1999 and October 2001, detail the goals and actions of China's national, provincial and local security officials in repressing religion. They provide irrefutable evidence that China's government, at the highest levels, aims to repress religious expression outside its control, and is using more determined, systematic and harsher criminal penalties in this effort. Hu Jin-tao, designated as the successor of President Jiang Zemin (and regarded by many China observers as a member of a younger, more liberal generation of communist party leaders) is quoted in the document as endorsing the drive against the Real God church. The Minister of Public Security is quoted giving the order to" smash the cult quietly." (Document 4).

The documents and Freedom House analysis are available online at: www.freedomhouse.org/religion

"These documents provide irrefutable evidence that China remains determined to eradicate all religion it cannot control, using extreme tactics," said Center for Religious Freedom Director Nina Shea. "Normal religious activity is criminalized, and, as the December death sentences brought against South China church Pastor Gong Shengliang and several of his co-workers attest, the directives outlined in these documents are being carried out with ruthless determination," she said.

"President Bush, who has repeatedly voiced concern for religious oppression in China, must speak out forcefully and publicly in support of religious freedom during his state visit to China next week," said Ms. Shea.

On the eve of President Bush's first state visit to China, Ye Xiaowen, the head of China's Religious Affairs Bureau, wrote in January 2002 that repression is not working and suggested that a more nuanced approach is needed. In fact, the documents reveal that a brutal, but more clandestine approach, is being employed to crush unregistered churches and religious groups.

Several of the documents focus on measures to "smash" the Christian South China church and the Real God church, which, Chinese authorities state, rivals Falun Gong in its reach and dangerousness. Other documents mention Falun Gong, the Unification Church, and other banned religious groups. In all, 14 religious groups are listed in Document 1 as "evil cults."

Several of the documents indicate that Beijing is losing its battle to control religious expression. They note with palpable alarm that the Real God group is growing rapidly throughout 22 Chinese provinces. In Document 4, authorities reveal that "inner circles" of the communist party and government officials have secretly joined the banned Real God church, and instruct officials to find out who among them are members of the group.

The documents are notable for their crudeness in understanding the religions the government purports to control. Revealing a fundamental misunderstanding or deliberate misinterpretation of the New Testament, Document 1 uses a basic Christian doctrine that Christ is in every believer to accuse churches of "deifying" their leaders, a practice defined as "cult-like." China is an officially atheist state that arrogates to itself the authority to define orthodoxy, determine dogma and designate religious leaders.

Document 2 betrays deep paranoia on the part of Chinese officials. It raises particular concerns about public unrest over China's entry into the WTO; it ties this unrest to Western support of democracy movements ("Democratic Party of China"), and religious groupings, especially Falun Gong; it accuses the Vatican of "still waiting for any opportunity to… draw the patriotic religious believers up to them and incite them to rebel."

In Document 4, "Praying for world peace," ecumenical relations between churches, printing publications and developing a diocesan, parish and prayer group-like organizational structure, are all seen as dangerous.

Document 4 also views with alarm ecumenical relations between the Protestant house-church Real God and the underground Catholic Church. Real God is also found to have ties with Tianenmen Square student protest leaders.

Measures outlined to be taken against the banned religious groups include surveillance, the deployment of special undercover agents, the gathering of "criminal evidence," "complete demolition" of a group's organizational system, interrogation, and arrest, as well as the confiscation of church property. Document 2 repeatedly refers to the use of "secret agents" to infiltrate "cults," underground Catholics, businesses, joint ventures, people with 'complicated political backgrounds," prestigious colleges and universities and other organizations.

Copies of the documents, along with translations, were provided to Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom by Mr. Shixiong Li and Mr. Bob Fu of the New York based Committee for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China. A full translation, with explanatory notes, can be found on the Center's web page www.freedomhouse.org/religion, or can be emailed.

Gwenny's CotD for 10.6.06

Snagged From Another Blog

Why Small Towns Suck

Via South Knox Bubba and Smijer and Buck: I've lived in a lot of small towns, and to be honest, I tend to prefer them to large cities. I hate big-city traffic, media, crime, noise, and the general bullshit you get from living in a major metropolis, and I really do like most of the people you meet in small towns. Thanks to the Internet, you can get all the information you'd get in a big-city paper, and the lack of gigantic shopping malls is lessened when you can order what you need off the 'Net.

But small towns are boring, and when some people in small towns get bored, they start looking for someone they can destroy, like the local nightclub that runs an alternative/goth night.

Read more

9 Chickweed Lane

This strip contains some of the best humorous looks at religion I have ever seen.

Muslims express fury over pope's remarks

By SUZAN FRASER, Associated Press Writer 33 minutes ago

Muslims around the world expressed outrage Friday over Pope Benedict XVI's comments on Islam, with Turkey's ruling party accusing him of trying to revive the spirit of the Crusades and scores taking to the streets in protest.

Pakistan's parliament unanimously condemned the pope, and the Foreign Ministry summoned the Vatican's ambassador to express regret over the remarks.

The Vatican said the pope did not intend the remarks — made in Germany on Tuesday during an address at a university — to be offensive.

Benedict quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said. "He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'"

Benedict did not explicitly agree with the statement nor repudiate it.

The comments raised tensions ahead of his planned visit to Turkey in November — his first pilgrimage to a Muslim country.

Salih Kapusuz, a deputy leader of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party, said Benedict's remarks were either "the result of pitiful ignorance" about Islam and its prophet, or a deliberate distortion.

"He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world," Kapusuz was quoted as saying by the state-owned Anatolia news agency. "It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades."

"Benedict, the author of such unfortunate and insolent remarks, is going down in history for his words," he said. "He is going down in history in the same category as leaders such as (Adolf) Hitler and (Benito) Mussolini."

Turkey's staunchly secular opposition party also demanded that Benedict apologize to Muslims before his visit.

"The pope has thrown gasoline onto the fire ... in a world where the risk of a clash between religions is high," said Haluk Koc, deputy head of the Republican People's Party, as a small group of protesters left a black wreath in front of the Vatican's embassy in Ankara.

Lebanon's most senior Shiite Muslim cleric denounced the remarks and demanded the pope personally apologize.

"We do not accept the apology through Vatican channels ... and ask him (Benedict) to offer a personal apology — not through his officials — to Muslims for this false reading (of Islam)," Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah told worshippers.

After Benedict returned to Italy on Thursday, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said, "It certainly wasn't the intention of the pope to carry out a deep examination of jihad (holy war) and on Muslim thought on it, much less to offend the sensibility of Muslim believers."

Lombardi insisted the pope respects Islam. Benedict wants to "cultivate an attitude of respect and dialogue toward the other religions and cultures, obviously also toward Islam," he said.

Turkey's top Islamic cleric, Ali Bardakoglu, said Lombardi's comments were not enough. "The pope himself should stand at the dais and say 'I take it all back, I was misunderstood' and apologize in order to contribute to world peace," he said.

In another development, the pope appointed Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, a French prelate with experience in the Muslim world, as the Vatican's new foreign minister.

But anger still swept across the Muslim world, with Pakistan's parliament unanimously adopting a resolution condemning the pope for making what it called "derogatory" comments about Islam and the Foreign Ministry summoning the Vatican ambassador.

The pope's words were "deeply disturbing for Muslims all over the world, and had caused great hurt and anguish," the Foreign Ministry said.

The Vatican's envoy "regretted the hurt caused to Muslims and said that the media had totally misconstrued certain historical quotes that the Pope used in his lecture," the statement said.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, of the Islamic Hamas group, said the pontiff had offended Muslims everywhere and called on him to reconsider his statement. He said there would be organized protests later in the day "to express Palestinian anger."

In Iraq's Shiite Muslim-stronghold of Kufa, Sheik Salah al-Ubaidi criticized the pope during Friday prayers, saying his remarks were a second assault on Islam.

"Last year and in the same month the Danish cartoon assaulted Islam," he said, referring to a Danish newspaper's publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, which triggered outrage in the Muslim world.

Indonesia, which has more Muslims than any other in the world, had no immediate response to the pope's comments, but religious groups were quick to protest, condemning the words as insensitive and damaging.

"A respected religious leader like the pope should not say such things, especially as nations across the globe are struggling to find ways to bridge differences between faiths and build understanding," said Ma'ruf Amin, a member of Indonesia Council of Clerics, the country's highest Islamic body.

Din Syamsuddin, chairman of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia's second-largest Islamic organization, also expressed disappointment but urged calm.

The head of Britain's largest Muslim body said it was disturbed by the pope's use of a 14th century passage. The Muslim Council, which represents 400 groups in Britain, said the emperor's views were "ill-informed and frankly bigoted."

"One would expect a religious leader such as the pope to act and speak with responsibility and repudiate the Byzantine emperor's views in the interests of truth and harmonious relations between the followers of Islam and Catholicism," said Muhammad Abdul Bari, the council's secretary-general.

Elsewhere, Syria's top Sunni Muslim religious authority, Sheik Ahmad Badereddine Hassoun, sent a letter to the pope that he feared the comments would worsen interfaith relations.

Later, he delivered a scathing sermon in which he denounced the remarks. "We have heard about your extremism and hate for Arabs and Muslims. Now that you have dropped the mask from your face we see its ugliness and extremist nature," he said.

In Cairo, Egypt, about 100 demonstrators gathered in an anti-Vatican protest outside the al-Azhar mosque, chanting "Oh Crusaders, oh cowards! Down with the pope!"

Dozens of lawyers in Indian-controlled Kashmir also protested, while two separatist leaders were placed under house arrest as they were planning to lead demonstrations.

Benedict, who has made the fight against growing secularism in Western society a theme of his pontificate, is expected to visit Turkey in late November. He was invited by the staunchly secularist Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who said the invitation was part of an effort to strengthen dialogue between religions.

Source

Help defeat the Public Expression of Religion Act

The House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on a bill that makes a stealth attack on the First Amendment. The Public Expression of Religion Act [H.R. 2679], introduced by Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN) would prevent plaintiffs who sue over First Amendment Establishment Clause issues from recovering their litigation fees. This is brazenly designed to make it next to impossible for private citizens to sue to protect their First Amendment rights as federal court litigation and lawyers' fees are prohibitively expensive. Marci Hamilton at Findlaw writes:

"Obviously, the religion Hostettler and the other PERA supporters intend to establish is Christianity. Once again, a majority wants to water down disestablishment principles to squelch a minority. (As of 2001, about 80% of Americans identified as Christian, though that encompasses many denominations, while only a little more than 5% identified themselves as believers in other religions. About 15% identified themselves as atheist, agnostic, or having no religion.)

In other words, these Representatives want to cement the establishment of their own religion - already commanding the belief of a supermajority of Americans — as dominant via the force of the government, and the force of law. This is an old story, and it puts these representatives in a light that makes them look very much like the Puritans at the time of the Constitution's Framing who expelled dissenting religious believers (like Baptists and Quakers), because they did not believe what the established church required.

To be blunt, this is yet another bill pandering to the Christian religious right, who persistently but misguidedly insist that the separation of church and state is anti-Christian. That, of course, is historical revisionism at its worst. As I explained in a previous column, the disestablishment principles embodied in modern Establishment Clause cases were derived from the principles of a variety of Christian organizations. So to argue that the separation of church and state is hostile to Christianity is to say Christianity is hostile to itself - an argument ad absurdum, to say the least."

If you want your fellow Americans to be able to continue to vigorously defend their rights to practice the religion of their own choice, or to practice no religion at all, then write to your Congressional Representatives today. Our friends at the Council For Secular Humanism have made it easy to e-mail them, but I suggest you call as well. If you don't know who your Representative is, you can quickly find out by using this page at the U.S. House of Representatives website.

The Rape Victim Who Fought Back

By Chiade O'Shea in Islamabad

Mukhtar Mai decided to go public about the rape

When Mukhtar Mai was gang raped in Pakistan in February 2002, she lost her so-called "honour" and, along with it, her chance to lead a normal life in her village.

She comes over in most photographs as a fragile and frightened woman, but those who have met her speak of a strength and faith not visible on the surface.

Many expected Ms Mai, 33, to commit suicide, as is all too common after rape in Pakistan.

But she refused and started what has become a three-year legal battle against her alleged rapists.

She also built her village's first two schools with her compensation money and now campaigns internationally for women's rights.

'Living in danger'

Ms Mai's first test of courage was to survive her initial suicidal feelings. She recounted that "a passion grew in me to fight back" when more than 200 villagers offered their moral support.

This was a small minority of her community, but enough to convince her that there were some who wanted to change the status quo.

I won't leave Pakistan or my village - I will continue my work in the schools Mukhtar Mai Pakistani justice in the spotlight

Meerwala, in southern Punjab, is in many ways a typical Pakistani farming village. Women often work as hard as men in the fields and always far harder at home.

Government services such as education and basic health care are considered rich people's luxuries. Justice can be a scarcer commodity still.

Mukhtar Mai says she was gang raped on the orders of a tribal council, called to settle allegations that the influential Mastoi clan in the area had levelled against her brother, Shakoor.

The Mastois had alleged that they had seen the 12-year-old Shakoor in the company of a Mastoi woman. This, they said, had brought shame to the entire clan.

The council then allegedly ordered the rape of Mukhtar Mai to avenge the wrong that her brother had been accused of committing.

It was later found in a conventional court that the story against Shakoor had been fabricated to cover up a sexual attack against the boy himself. The three men who attacked him were imprisoned for sodomy. Their convictions still stand.

Four men were sentenced to death for raping Ms Mai and two others for participating in the decision. Five of these convictions have since been overturned and one man's death penalty commuted to life in prison. The Pakistani government has said it will appeal against the decisions.

Now Ms Mai must face the possibility that the men she accused of raping her will be free to return to their village. "There is a danger to my own life and also to my family," she said at a press conference in Islamabad.

Although she is visibly shaken by the prospect of the men's return, she refuses to flee her home. "I won't leave Pakistan or my village. I will continue my work in the schools."

Improving minds

Mukhtar Mai credits her strength and successes to God, but always reserves a mention for the children of the two schools she has founded.

Pupils at Mukhtar Mai's school in Punjab

"Because of the girls and the students, there are colours in my life," she says.

Although she had never seen a school before she built one, Ms Mai's expression of the value of education rivals most education ministries' spin.

"Education can change people through awareness of their rights and duties as well," she said. "We must improve the minds of both the boys and the girls if we're to improve women's rights."

Easily underestimated as an illiterate village woman, Mukhtar Mai's articulate, concise answers are the first clue to how media savvy she is.

In fact, she took a strategic decision after her attack to put herself in the public eye.

Although drawing attention to her rape went strongly against her culture, she judged that the media spotlight could help ensure her a fair trial and keep her safer from the threats she says she regularly receives against her life.

Fame

Ms Mai courts publicity in order to raise money for her charity work. She has worked with a number of NGOs, some of which have funded her campaigning trips abroad, and she has received many donations from the public.

After an article written about her in the New York Times, readers were so moved that they sent in $133,000 (£69,000) for her schools. This is a phenomenal sum in Pakistan where, at the last census, the average monthly income was a mere $65.

Her original schools were built with $9,400. The US aid organisation Mercy Corps has been drafted in to help manage the influx of cash.

In November, Mukhtar Mai was planning to install electricity in her school, but wasn't sure if she could afford the bills. This is no longer a worry as she plans to build schools for other villages and set up local medical services.

She recently set up www.mukhtarmai.com where her supporters around the world can make credit card donations online.

Mukhtar Mai has long been characterised by events beyond her control - as an illiterate village woman, the victim of gang rape and brutal tribal justice.

But her recent charity successes are testament to some of the underlying mettle that has been sustaining her for the past three years.

Source

Hawaiian Punch: School Prayer Isn’t So Great When It’s Someone Else’s Prayer

Many conservative Christians bemoan the lack of officially sanctioned prayers in public schools. Things have gone too far, they argue. The Supreme Court has even banned prayers over the loudspeaker before football games!

Advocates of church-state separation have patiently pointed out that even football games are school events where all students and their families should feel welcome. Pressuring people to stand and acknowledge a prayer outside their faith tradition just isn’t right.

Support for the separationist position came recently from an unusual place: a conservative Christian writing on the far-right Web site WorldNetDaily.

In a letter to the editor, Gary Christenot recalled his time in the Air Force stationed at a base on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The area was somewhat isolated and dominated by Buddhists and followers of the Shinto faith.

Christenot wrote about attending a high school football game there. The Baptist family was dismayed when a Buddhist priest was called upon to offer the invocation “to god-head figures that our tradition held to be pagan.”

Wrote Chistenot, “We were frozen in shock and incredulity! What to do? To continue to stand and observe this prayer would represent a betrayal of our own faith and imply the honoring of a pagan deity that was anathema to our beliefs. To sit would be an act of extreme rudeness and disrespect in the eyes of our Japanese hosts and neighbors, who value above all other things deference and respect in their social interactions.”

Christenot reports that he made some inquiries to find out if other clergy were ever invited. He learned that because the area was dominated by people of Japanese and Chinese descent, the prayers were always either Buddhist or Shinto.

The incident apparently caused Christenot no small amount of discomfort, as he felt he had betrayed his faith. But it was also a learning experience. Christenot came to understand how non-Christians might feel when they are compelled to sit through Christian rituals.

“We often advocate the practice of Judeo-Christian rituals in America’s public schools by hiding behind the excuse that they are voluntary and any student who doesn’t wish to participate can simply remained seated and silent,” wrote Christenot. “Oh that this were true. But if I, as a mature adult, would be so confounded and uncomfortable when faced with the decision of observing and standing on my own religious principles or run the risk of offending the majority crowd, I can only imagine what thoughts and confusion must run through the head of the typical child or teenager, for whom peer acceptance is one of the highest ideals.”

Amen to that! Christenot’s peers who have yet to see the light and who still agitate for a “majority-rules” prayer scheme in our public schools should spend some time living as the religious minority for a while. They might learn some surprising things.

--Rob Boston

Source

Noah's Ark Discovered ... Again and Again

By Benjamin Radford posted: 05 September 2006 10:53 am ET

In this world there are things that seem on the verge of being discovered every so often, yet never quite materialize. The "Lost City" of Atlantis, for example, has been "found" at least a half dozen times. One researcher is pretty sure it is in Bolivia; another says it is Antarctica; a third claims that Bimini beachrock may be from the lost civilization. So it is with Noah's Ark. The difference is, of course, that the implications of Noah's Ark actually being found extend far beyond archaeology. The weight of all the paired animals in the world is nothing compared to the religious freight that the Ark carries. The Ark story is scientifically implausible; there simply wouldn't be enough space on the boat to accommodate two of every living animal (including dinosaurs), along with the food and water necessary to keep them alive. Furthermore, constructing a vessel of that scale would take hundreds of workers months to complete. Still, Biblical literalists—those who believe that proof of the Bible's events remains to be found—have spent lives and fortunes trying to validate their beliefs. The search goes on Before discussing the recent claims regarding the whereabouts of Noah's vessel, a history of Ark "finds" is instructive. Violet M. Cummings is the author of several books on Noah's Ark, among them "Noah's Ark: Fable or Fact?" (1975), in which she claimed that Noah's Ark was found on Turkey's Mount Ararat. According to the 1976 book and film "In Search of Noah's Ark," "there is now actual photographic evidence that Noah's Ark really does exist.... Scientists have used satellites, computers, and powerful cameras to pinpoint the Ark's exact location on Mt. Ararat." This is a rather remarkable claim, for despite repeated trips to Mt. Ararat over the past thirty years, the Ark remains elusive. Undeterred by a lack of evidence, in 1982 Cummings issued a book titled, "Has Anybody Really Seen Noah's Ark?," published by Creation-Life Publishers. The subtitle, "An Affirmative Definitive Report," hints at Cummings's conclusion. Interest in Noah's Ark resurfaced in February 1993, when CBS aired a two-hour primetime special titled, "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark." (Little did CBS know that they were using incredible in its accurate, proper meaning: "not credible.") As Ken Feder describes in his book "Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries," the special "was a hodgepodge of unverifiable stories and misrepresentations of the paleontological, archaeological, and historical records." It included the riveting testimony of a George Jammal, who claimed not only to have personally seen the Ark on Ararat but recovered a piece of it. Jammal's story (and the chunk of wood he displayed) impressed both CBS producers and viewers. Yet he was later revealed as a paid actor who had never been to Turkey and whose piece of the Ark was not an unknown ancient timber (identified in the Bible as "gopher wood") but instead modern pine soaked in soy sauce and artificially aged in an oven. Red-faced CBS, which had done little fact-checking for their much-hyped special, said that the program was entertainment, not a documentary. Recent claims More claims surfaced periodically, including in March 2006, when a LiveScience writer reported on yet another incarnation of the Ararat claim. A team of researchers found a rock formation that might resemble a huge ark, nearly covered in glacial ice. Little came of that claim but a few months later, in June, a team of archaeologists from the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration (BASE) Institute, a Christian organization, found yet another rock formation that might be Noah's Ark. This time the Ark was "found" not on Ararat but at 13,000 feet in the Elburz mountains of Iran. "I can't imagine what it could be if it is not the Ark," said team member Arch Bonnema. They brought back pieces of stone they claim may be petrified wood beams, as well as video footage of the rocky cliffs. The team believes that, within the rock formation, they can see evidence of hundreds of massive hand-hewn wooden beams laid out in the presumed size and shape of the Ark. The Biblical archaeologists seem to have experienced pareidolia; seeing what they want to see in ambiguous patterns or images. Just as religious people will see images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary in toast, stains, or clouds, they may also see images of Noah's Ark in stone cliffs. (In New Mexico's Sandia National Forest there is a large rock formation called Battleship Rock, which—from a certain angle—does indeed look like a battleship. One wonders what the BASE team would make of that.) Other researchers remain certain that the Ark is in fact on Mt. Ararat. Noah's Ark enthusiasts are therefore in the somewhat awkward position of deciding which (if any) of several scientifically "definitive" Ark finds is the real one. The BASE claims, as with all previous reports of finding the Ark, have yet to be proven. Ultimately, it may not matter, because, as BASE president Bob Cornuke states, "I guess what my wife says my business is, we sell hope. Hope that it could be true, hope that there is a God." Yet the question is not about faith, hope, or God; the question is if Noah's Ark is real and has been found. Like Atlantis, the ever-elusive Ark will continue to be "found" by those looking for it—whether it exists or not. Benjamin Radford is Managing Editor of the Skeptical Inquirer magazine and is author of three books and hundreds of articles. His Web site is www.RadfordBooks.com. The Biggest Popular Myths Claimed Discovery of Atlantis Called 'Completely Bogus' Jesus Could Have Walked on Ice, Scientist Says Urban Legends Debunked

"Scientologist won't face trial in scuffle with critic"

by Robert Farley ("St. Petersburg Times," August 29, 2006)

Clearwater, USA - The State Attorney's Office has decided not to pursue charges against a Scientologist accused of assaulting a church critic who was shooting video of Scientologists downtown next to a sandwich board that read "Cult Watch."

Assistant State Attorney Kendall Davidson, after viewing a video of the confrontation captured by a Church of Scientology security camera on a nearby building, determined "it is just not going to be a prosecutable case."

The video, he said, shows "pretty much mutual aggression" between Scientologist Michael Fitzgerald of Clearwater and Shawn Lonsdale, who has been filming a documentary critical of Scientology.

"Mutual aggression my a--," Lonsdale said on Monday. "I don't know how they can come to that conclusion."

Clearwater police arrested Fitzgerald after the July 8 scuffle, and charged him with misdemeanor assault.

The altercation began when Fitzgerald walked out of the Starbucks and crossed the street toward Lonsdale, shouting that he was a bigot and shouldn't target Scientologists.

Lonsdale, 38, said he raised his handheld camera and began to film Fitzgerald, who objected to being videotaped and grabbed the camera. Lonsdale said Fitzgerald lunged at his camera twice and pushed it into his face, and that after the second time, a scuffle ensued until they were separated.

A police officer who was called to the scene looked at Lonsdale's tape and interviewed the men and other witnesses before deciding to arrest Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald and Scientology spokesman Ben Shaw said the church later delivered a security tape that showed the wrong person was arrested.

But Clearwater police Deputy Chief Dewey Williams later said he did view the Church of Scientology video and he concluded his officers made the right call, that Lonsdale appeared to be the victim.

Fitzgerald's attorney, Jan Andrew Press, sent a letter to the State Attorney's Office urging them to view the church security video and drop the charges. Press also included some Internet postings by Lonsdale in which Press contends Lonsdale appeared to be bragging about the run-in.

"When you look at the video, it appears to be pretty aggressive on both sides," Davidson said. And the Internet postings clearly show Lonsdale had animosity toward the Church of Scientology, he said.

"It makes it pretty much unprosecutable from our standpoint," Davidson said.

Fitzgerald, 52, a self-employed carpenter, could not be reached for comment on Monday, but his attorney, Press, said the "it's obviously the right decision,"

Lonsdale was "spoiling for a fight," Press said, while Fitzgerald was "merely confronting him verbally and calling him out as a religious bigot."

According to Press, Lonsdale put the camera right in Fitzgerald's face and Fitzgerald, holding a cup of Starbucks coffee, reached up toward the camera to block him from filming. Lonsdale reacted violently, Press contends, lunging for Fitzgerald's throat and pushing him backward into a large glass window.

Lonsdale's attorney, Luke Lirot, said he plans to view the videotape and determine whether a lawsuit against Fitzgerald is appropriate.

"It is another example of the State Attorney's Office's historical reluctance to tangle with Scientology," Lirot said.

Phelps clan protests Meade's rainbow flag

SUMMARY: The anti-gay Kansans picket not only straight ally J.R. Knight but also five churches they say didn't do enough to keep the gay flag out of town.

From the balcony off the honeymoon suite of his Lakeway Hotel bed and breakfast, J.R. Knight blared Starship's "Nothing's Going to Stop Us Now."

Nearby, in the Lakeway's parking lot, a car's bumper sticker read, "Kansas: As bigoted as you think," which is a play on the state's "As big as you think" motto.

And townspeople in tiny Meade, Kan., gathered Sunday morning on downtown corners with their video cameras to watch a protest by the notoriously anti-gay Rev. Fred Phelps and members of his Topeka-based church.

A 12-year-old boy's gift to his parents -- a brightly colored rainbow flag that he said reminded him of Kansas and "The Wizard of Oz" -- has spawned one of the biggest controversies to hit the tiny town in a long time.

Phelps's group picketed the hotel because of the flag and five local churches for not doing enough to keep it from flying in their town.

On Sunday, Meade Police Chief Loren Borger, his colleagues, and 16 troopers from the Kansas Highway Patrol kept an eye on protests over the rainbow banner that J.R. and Robin Knight decided to fly on the flagpole in front of their business, the Lakeway Hotel.

Robin Knight said she and her husband didn't put the flag up to make a political statement but rather because "it has pretty colors, it's bright, it's summery."

Soon after the flag went up, the local newspaper ran a picture of the banner on its front page, noting its significance in the gay community. Afterward, someone threw two bricks at the bed and breakfast, one of which broke through a window and destroyed two neon signs.

When someone cut the flag down, the Knights ordered two more and said they'll buy even more if they have to. Two local boys, force-marched by their father, later admitted to the deed and apologized to J.R. Knight.

On Sunday, as the daughter of Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps protested with 10 of her 11 children, three brothers, and two sisters, onlookers shook their heads at the spectacle.

"It's just not right," said Suzan Seybert, a 30-year resident of the southwest Kansas community, as she watched Shirley Phelps-Roper's children chanting about gays burning in hell. "I think it's despicable to start to teach your children at such a young age the word hate. It's just the worst thing you can do."

Mike Thompson, who teaches a class at Colby Community College on the sociology of discrimination, brought some of his students to see the protests. Among them was Kati Near, who grew up in Meade.

"I think a lot of people think we're all just a bunch of bigots," Near said, adding that she was embarrassed by what was going on in her hometown.

Robin Knight said this month that the anger spawned by the colorful flag has strengthened the family's resolve to keep the banner flying, noting that caving in to the pressure would send the wrong message to their son.

"It's our business," she said. "It shouldn't be dictated by other people." (AP)

Original Story at PlanetOut

The Country That Wouldn't Grow Up

By the age of 58 a country - like a man - should have achieved a certain maturity. After nearly six decades of existence we know, for good and for bad, who we are, what we have done and how we appear to others, warts and all. We acknowledge, however reluctantly and privately, our mistakes and our shortcomings. And though we still harbor the occasional illusion about ourselves and our prospects, we are wise enough to recognize that these are indeed for the most part just that: illusions. In short, we are adults. But the State of Israel remains curiously (and among Western-style democracies, uniquely) immature. The social transformations of the country - and its many economic achievements - have not brought the political wisdom that usually accompanies age. Seen from the outside, Israel still comports itself like an adolescent: consumed by a brittle confidence in its own uniqueness; certain that no one "understands" it and everyone is "against" it; full of wounded self-esteem, quick to take offense and quick to give it. Like many adolescents Israel is convinced - and makes a point of aggressively and repeatedly asserting - that it can do as it wishes, that its actions carry no consequences and that it is immortal. Appropriately enough, this country that has somehow failed to grow up was until very recently still in the hands of a generation of men who were prominent in its public affairs 40 years ago: an Israeli Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep in, say, 1967 would be surprised indeed to awake in 2006 and find Shimon Peres and General Ariel Sharon still hovering over the affairs of the country - the latter albeit only in spirit. But that, Israeli readers will tell me, is the prejudiced view of the outsider. What looks from abroad like a self-indulgent, wayward country - delinquent in its international obligations and resentfully indifferent to world opinion - is simply an independent little state doing what it has always done: looking after its own interests in an inhospitable part of the globe. Why should embattled Israel even acknowledge such foreign criticism, much less act upon it? They - gentiles, Muslims, leftists - have reasons of their own for disliking Israel. They - Europeans, Arabs, fascists - have always singled out Israel for special criticism. Their motives are timeless. They haven't changed. Why should Israel change?

But they have changed. And it is this change, which has passed largely unrecognized within Israel, to which I want to draw attention here. Before 1967 the State of Israel may have been tiny and embattled, but it was not typically hated: certainly not in the West. Official Soviet-bloc communism was anti-Zionist of course, but for just that reason Israel was rather well regarded by everyone else, including the non-communist left. The romantic image of the kibbutz and the kibbutznik had a broad foreign appeal in the first two decades of Israel's existence. Most admirers of Israel (Jews and non-Jews) knew little about the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948. They preferred to see in the Jewish state the last surviving incarnation of the 19th century idyll of agrarian socialism - or else a paragon of modernizing energy "making the desert bloom." I remember well, in the spring of 1967, how the balance of student opinion at Cambridge University was overwhelmingly pro-Israel in the weeks leading up to the Six-Day War - and how little attention anyone paid either to the condition of the Palestinians or to Israel's earlier collusion with France and Britain in the disastrous Suez adventure of 1956. In politics and in policy-making circles only old-fashioned conservative Arabists expressed any criticism of the Jewish state; even neo-Fascists rather favored Zionism, on traditional anti-Semitic grounds. For a while after the 1967 war these sentiments continued unaltered. The pro-Palestinian enthusiasms of post-1960s radical groups and nationalist movements, reflected in joint training camps and shared projects for terrorist attacks, were offset by the growing international acknowledgment of the Holocaust in education and the media: What Israel lost by its continuing occupation of Arab lands it gained through its close identification with the recovered memory of Europe's dead Jews. Even the inauguration of the illegal settlements and the disastrous invasion of Lebanon, while they strengthened the arguments of Israel's critics, did not yet shift the international balance of opinion. As recently as the early 1990s, most people in the world were only vaguely aware of the "West Bank" and what was happening there. Even those who pressed the Palestinians' case in international forums conceded that almost no one was listening. Israel could still do as it wished. The Israeli nakba But today everything is different. We can see, in retrospect, that the victory of Israel in June 1967 and its continuing occupation of the territories it conquered then have been the Jewish state's very own nakba: a moral and political catastrophe. Israel's actions in the West Bank and Gaza have magnified and publicized the country's shortcomings and displayed them to a watching world. Curfews, checkpoints, bulldozers, public humiliations, home destructions, land seizures, shootings, "targeted assassinations," the separation fence: All of these routines of occupation and repression were once familiar only to an informed minority of specialists and activists. Today they can be watched, in real time, by anyone with a computer or a satellite dish - which means that Israel's behavior is under daily scrutiny by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. The result has been a complete transformation in the international view of Israel. Until very recently the carefully burnished image of an ultra-modern society - built by survivors and pioneers and peopled by peace-loving democrats - still held sway over international opinion. But today? What is the universal shorthand symbol for Israel, reproduced worldwide in thousands of newspaper editorials and political cartoons? The Star of David emblazoned upon a tank. Today only a tiny minority of outsiders see Israelis as victims. The true victims, it is now widely accepted, are the Palestinians. Indeed, Palestinians have now displaced Jews as the emblematic persecuted minority: vulnerable, humiliated and stateless. This unsought distinction does little to advance the Palestinian case any more than it ever helped Jews, but it has redefined Israel forever. It has become commonplace to compare Israel at best to an occupying colonizer, at worst to the South Africa of race laws and Bantustans. In this capacity Israel elicits scant sympathy even when its own citizens suffer: Dead Israelis - like the occasional assassinated white South African in the apartheid era, or British colonists hacked to death by native insurgents - are typically perceived abroad not as the victims of terrorism but as the collateral damage of their own government's mistaken policies. Such comparisons are lethal to Israel's moral credibility. They strike at what was once its strongest suit: the claim of being a vulnerable island of democracy and decency in a sea of authoritarianism and cruelty; an oasis of rights and freedoms surrounded by a desert of repression. But democrats don't fence into Bantustans helpless people whose land they have conquered, and free men don't ignore international law and steal other men's homes. The contradictions of Israeli self-presentation - "we are very strong/we are very vulnerable"; "we are in control of our fate/we are the victims"; "we are a normal state/we demand special treatment" - are not new: they have been part of the country's peculiar identity almost from the outset. And Israel's insistent emphasis upon its isolation and uniqueness, its claim to be both victim and hero, were once part of its David versus Goliath appeal. Collective cognitive dysfunction But today the country's national narrative of macho victimhood appears to the rest of the world as simply bizarre: evidence of a sort of collective cognitive dysfunction that has gripped Israel's political culture. And the long cultivated persecution mania - "everyone's out to get us" - no longer elicits sympathy. Instead it attracts some very unappetizing comparisons: At a recent international meeting I heard one speaker, by analogy with Helmut Schmidt's famous dismissal of the Soviet Union as "Upper Volta with Missiles," describe Israel as "Serbia with nukes." Israel has stayed the same, but the world - as I noted above - has changed. Whatever purchase Israel's self-description still has upon the imagination of Israelis themselves, it no longer operates beyond the country's frontiers. Even the Holocaust can no longer be instrumentalized to excuse Israel's behavior. Thanks to the passage of time, most Western European states have now come to terms with their part in the Holocaust, something that was not true a quarter century ago. From Israel's point of view, this has had paradoxical consequences: Until the end of the Cold War Israeli governments could still play upon the guilt of Germans and other Europeans, exploiting their failure to acknowledge fully what was done to Jews on their territory. Today, now that the history of World War II is retreating from the public square into the classroom and from the classroom into the history books, a growing majority of voters in Europe and elsewhere (young voters above all) simply cannot understand how the horrors of the last European war can be invoked to license or condone unacceptable behavior in another time and place. In the eyes of a watching world, the fact that the great-grandmother of an Israeli soldier died in Treblinka is no excuse for his own abusive treatment of a Palestinian woman waiting to cross a checkpoint. "Remember Auschwitz" is not an acceptable response. In short: Israel, in the world's eyes, is a normal state, but one behaving in abnormal ways. It is in control of its fate, but the victims are someone else. It is strong, very strong, but its behavior is making everyone else vulnerable. And so, shorn of all other justifications for its behavior, Israel and its supporters today fall back with increasing shrillness upon the oldest claim of all: Israel is a Jewish state and that is why people criticize it. This - the charge that criticism of Israel is implicitly anti-Semitic - is regarded in Israel and the United States as Israel's trump card. If it has been played more insistently and aggressively in recent years, that is because it is now the only card left. The habit of tarring any foreign criticism with the brush of anti-Semitism is deeply engrained in Israeli political instincts: Ariel Sharon used it with characteristic excess but he was only the latest in a long line of Israeli leaders to exploit the claim. David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir did no different. But Jews outside of Israel pay a high price for this tactic. Not only does it inhibit their own criticisms of Israel for fear of appearing to associate with bad company, but it encourages others to look upon Jews everywhere as de facto collaborators in Israel's misbehavior. When Israel breaks international law in the occupied territories, when Israel publicly humiliates the subject populations whose land it has seized - but then responds to its critics with loud cries of "anti-Semitism" - it is in effect saying that these acts are not Israeli acts, they are Jewish acts: The occupation is not an Israeli occupation, it is a Jewish occupation, and if you don't like these things it is because you don't like Jews. In many parts of the world this is in danger of becoming a self-fulfilling assertion: Israel's reckless behavior and insistent identification of all criticism with anti-Semitism is now the leading source of anti-Jewish sentiment in Western Europe and much of Asia. But the traditional corollary - if anti-Jewish feeling is linked to dislike of Israel then right-thinking people should rush to Israel's defense - no longer applies. Instead, the ironies of the Zionist dream have come full circle: For tens of millions of people in the world today, Israel is indeed the state of all the Jews. And thus, reasonably enough, many observers believe that one way to take the sting out of rising anti-Semitism in the suburbs of Paris or the streets of Jakarta would be for Israel to give the Palestinians back their land. Israel's undoing If Israel's leaders have been able to ignore such developments it is in large measure because they have hitherto counted upon the unquestioning support of the United States - the one country in the world where the claim that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism is still echoed not only in the opinions of many Jews but also in the public pronouncements of mainstream politicians and the mass media. But this lazy, ingrained confidence in unconditional American approval - and the moral, military and financial support that accompanies it - may prove to be Israel's undoing. Something is changing in the United States. To be sure, it was only a few short years ago that prime minister Sharon's advisers could gleefully celebrate their success in dictating to U.S. President George W. Bush the terms of a public statement approving Israel's illegal settlements. No U.S. Congressman has yet proposed reducing or rescinding the $3 billion in aid Israel receives annually - 20 percent of the total U.S. foreign aid budget - which has helped sustain the Israeli defense budget and the cost of settlement construction in the West Bank. And Israel and the United States appear increasingly bound together in a symbiotic embrace whereby the actions of each party exacerbate their common unpopularity abroad - and thus their ever-closer association in the eyes of critics. But whereas Israel has no choice but to look to America - it has no other friends, at best only the conditional affection of the enemies of its enemies, such as India - the United States is a great power; and great powers have interests that sooner or later transcend the local obsessions of even the closest of their client states and satellites. It seems to me of no small significance that the recent essay on "The Israel Lobby" by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt has aroused so much public interest and debate. Mearsheimer and Walt are prominent senior academics of impeccable conservative credentials. It is true that - by their own account - they could still not have published their damning indictment of the influence of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy in a major U.S.-based journal (it appeared in the London Review of Books), but the point is that 10 years ago they would not - and probably could not - have published it at all. And while the debate that has ensued may generate more heat than light, it is of great significance: As Dr. Johnson said of female preachers, it is not well done but one is amazed to see it done at all. The fact is that the disastrous Iraq invasion and its aftermath are beginning to engineer a sea-change in foreign policy debate here in the U.S. It is becoming clear to prominent thinkers across the political spectrum - from erstwhile neo-conservative interventionists like Francis Fukuyama to hard-nosed realists like Mearsheimer - that in recent years the United States has suffered a catastrophic loss of international political influence and an unprecedented degradation of its moral image. The country's foreign undertakings have been self-defeating and even irrational. There is going to be a long job of repair ahead, above all in Washington's dealings with economically and strategically vital communities and regions from the Middle East to Southeast Asia. And this reconstruction of the country's foreign image and influence cannot hope to succeed while U.S. foreign policy is tied by an umbilical cord to the needs and interests (if that is what they are) of one small Middle Eastern country of very little relevance to America's long-term concerns - a country that is, in the words of the Mearsheimer/Walt essay, a strategic burden: "A liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states." That essay is thus a straw in the wind - an indication of the likely direction of future domestic debate here in the U.S. about the country's peculiar ties to Israel. Of course it has been met by a firestorm of criticism from the usual suspects - and, just as they anticipated, the authors have been charged with anti-Semitism (or with advancing the interests of anti-Semitism: "objective anti-Semitism," as it might be). But it is striking to me how few people with whom I have spoken take that accusation seriously, so predictable has it become. This is bad for Jews - since it means that genuine anti-Semitism may also in time cease to be taken seriously, thanks to the Israel lobby's abuse of the term. But it is worse for Israel. This new willingness to take one's distance from Israel is not confined to foreign policy specialists. As a teacher I have also been struck in recent years by a sea-change in the attitude of students. One example among many: Here at New York University I was teaching this past month a class on post-war Europe. I was trying to explain to young Americans the importance of the Spanish Civil War in the political memory of Europeans and why Franco's Spain has such a special place in our moral imagination: as a reminder of lost struggles, a symbol of oppression in an age of liberalism and freedom, and a land of shame that people boycotted for its crimes and repression. I cannot think, I told the students, of any country that occupies such a pejorative space in democratic public consciousness today. You are wrong, one young woman replied: What about Israel? To my great surprise most of the class - including many of the sizable Jewish contingent - nodded approval. The times they are indeed a-changing. That Israel can now stand in comparison with the Spain of General Franco in the eyes of young Americans ought to come as a shock and an eleventh-hour wake-up call to Israelis. Nothing lasts forever, and it seems likely to me that we shall look back upon the years 1973-2003 as an era of tragic illusion for Israel: years that the locust ate, consumed by the bizarre notion that, whatever it chose to do or demand, Israel could count indefinitely upon the unquestioning support of the United States and would never risk encountering a backlash. This blinkered arrogance is tragically summed up in an assertion by Shimon Peres on the very eve of the calamitous war that will in retrospect be seen, I believe, to have precipitated the onset of America's alienation from its Israeli ally: "The campaign against Saddam Hussein is a must." The future of Israel From one perspective Israel's future is bleak. Not for the first time, a Jewish state has found itself on the vulnerable periphery of someone else's empire: overconfident in its own righteousness, willfully blind to the danger that its indulgent excesses might ultimately provoke its imperial mentor to the point of irritation and beyond, and heedless of its own failure to make any other friends. To be sure, the modern Israeli state has big weapons - very big weapons. But can it do with them except make more enemies? However, modern Israel also has options. Precisely because the country is an object of such universal mistrust and resentment - because people expect so little from Israel today - a truly statesmanlike shift in its policies (dismantling of major settlements, opening unconditional negotiations with Palestinians, calling Hamas' bluff by offering the movement's leaders something serious in return for recognition of Israel and a cease-fire) could have disproportionately beneficial effects. But such a radical realignment of Israeli strategy would entail a difficult reappraisal of every cliche and illusion under which the country and its political elite have nestled for most of their life. It would entail acknowledging that Israel no longer has any special claim upon international sympathy or indulgence; that the United States won't always be there; that weapons and walls can no more preserve Israel forever than they preserved the German Democratic Republic or white South Africa; that colonies are always doomed unless you are willing to expel or exterminate the indigenous population. Other countries and their leaders have understood this and managed comparable realignments: Charles De Gaulle realized that France's settlement in Algeria, which was far older and better established than Israel's West Bank colonies, was a military and moral disaster for his country. In an exercise of outstanding political courage, he acted upon that insight and withdrew. But when De Gaulle came to that realization he was a mature statesman, nearly 70 years old. Israel cannot afford to wait that long. At the age of 58 the time has come for it to grow up. Tony Judt is a professor and the director of the Remarque Institute at New York University, and his book "Postwar: The History of Europe Since 1945" was published in 2005. From Haaretz