U.S. prez says Islam 'fanatic and fraudulent'

Not that president. But give me a second to mention this week's paper first.

I like The Jewish Journal's cover for Israel@60 because it shows some of the diversity of Israeli society. Inside is the thickest issue we've published since at least High Holy Days, and quite a few notable bylines -- Avraham Burg, Yossi Klein Halevi and, my favorite, Tom Tugend.

There also is an article titled, "Israeli Heart, Jewish Soul," written by Michael Oren,, author of the bestseller "Six Days of War." Oren's most recent book is "Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to Present," and I've been working through it for the past month and marked up countless pages to blog about. Here's one nugget, surprising for what it reveals about Americans' early view of Muslims, and for who's saying it.

John Quincy Adams ... believed that Islam was a "fanatic and fraudulent" religion, one that was founded on "the natural hatred of Mussulmen towards the infidel" and the subjugation of others by the sword."

Actually, those words don't sound so unfamiliar. Americans may no longer use the term "Mussulmen," but too many still look cockeyed at all Muslims.

Sitting down with NY's most influential Muslim

Reuters religion editor and FaithWorld administrator, Tom Heneghan, recently interviewed Mohammad Shamsi Ali, New York's "most influential Islamic leader" and the Muslim emissary to local police and the mayor's. Here's what Ali had to say about being Muslim in America and dealing with radical Islamists:

“We feel at home here. To be honest with you, those people who are really sincere with their religion and understand the religion properly, they see many things Islamic in America, more Islamic than in many Muslim countries. First of all, freedom and Islam are like fish and water. Islam cannot live without freedom … Here in America we have freedom. You can express yourself freely. It is guaranteed by the Constitution. Then you have justice for all, equality. We have to say there are some interruptions because of the security. But it doesn’t at all change the real nature of America. For those Muslims who understand the teaching, this will make them feel that America really belongs to them and they belong to America.”

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“Some Muslims like the Islamic Thinkers Society are against Jews and against non-Muslims. I consider them ignorant and in need of an education. I feel a deep responsibility to bring them back to the right track. It makes me worry when I see what Imam Shamsi Ali, 23 April 2008/Tom Heneghanhappened in Britain, in London with Hizb ut Tahrir and Al Muhajiroun. They are very much fundamentalist radicals. I don’t think these will give any benefit to our community, nothing at all. Among the Jewish community there are also fairly radical people. It is the responsibility of us in the middle to strengthen our unity and come together and try to find solutions to problems that surround our communities. I say to non-Muslims: let us do the job but have confidence in us … In a meeting with the NYPD, I told them we acknowledge the presence of radicals in the Muslim community — but it doesn’t mean we support them. In fact, the radicals are marginalised in many ways right now … So I don’t feel we need aggressiveness. I feel we need to reach out … We need confidence in us (from non-Muslims) and we need support. Don’t put suspicions over us. We are not confident enough to do the job. All good Muslims must have good intentions for America because this is the country where we live and we consider this our own country. The opposite is true too — if you’re not good Muslims, you’re not good Americans.”

American Jews and Israelis: brothers from different mothers

Kvetching in PresenTense about being a "single, twenty-something Jewish coquette" expected to marry a nice Jewish boy, my friend Rachel Axelbank explains why she finds herself much more attracted to Israelis. As a point of reference, she mentions the guards who issued our security clearance before we met last summer with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert -- they apparently shot her glances that I, fortunately, didn't receive -- and quotes Jon Stewart on the differences between our Jews and theirs:

“You have American Jews, who are the ‘let me help you with your tax return’ Jews,” he said. “And you have Israeli Jews, who are the ‘hold my machine gun while I take a leak’ Jews.”

Anyone want to argue with that wisdom?

How do American Jews love Israel?

My boss, Rob Eshman, contributed a commentary to KPCC yesterday on Israel's 60th anniversary. His argument was that most American Jews love Israel like little girls love Hannah Montana:

But the problem with crushes is that the instant our crush disappoints us, we become disillusioned. The problem with crushes is we overlook faults until they turn dangerous and tragic.

Israel at 60 is a wonderful achievement. But it also faces monumental problems that cannot be overlooked: it desperately needs to improve the quality of its democracy. It needs to narrow the gaps between rich and poor, between secular and religious, between Arab and Jewish Israelis. It needs to pursue agreements with its enemies. It needs to reject the ideologies that have mired it in the folly of settlements for the past 40 years.

And we who love Israel have to learn to scold it, to correct it, to not stay away out of disillusionment or keep quiet out of deference. The father of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, once said, "Nothing happens as one hopes, nor as one fears." A real state in the real world doesn't demand reverence, it demands we raise our voices and get involved.

Crushes are fine when we're young. But Israel is turning 60; it's time we grew up too.

Also on this topic, Shmuel Rosner wrote a piece Wednesday for Slate.com that recommends dropping the phrase "pro-Israel" because it is so widely used, it's lost any meaning.

Changing the National Day of Prayer

Every year it seems certain religious organizations, namely those who feel excluded, ask that the National Day of Prayer be a more ecumenical event. (I've written this story at least once.) Two thousand eight is no different, as this report from the DMN religion blog notes:

We mentioned days ago a Jewish group's complaint that the National Day of Prayer had been "hijacked" by the Christian right.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has joined with that group, Jews on First, to call for inclusive celebrations on Thursday, the day of prayer.

Here's a news release from CAIR. It urges all people of faith "to contact governors and other elected officials nationwide to ask that any government-sponsored 'National Day of Prayer' observances on May 1st be representative of our nation's religious diversity."

A closer look at Islamophobia

Andrea Elliott won a Pulitzer last year for her amazing series "Imam in America." In today's New York Times, she tells another powerful story about American Muslims. Her subject is Debbie Almontaser, who last year started an academy that would teach Arabic to its students, Arab American and those of other ethnicities.

Weeks before classes even began, though, Almontaser resigned as its founding principal. Here's why:

Ms. Almontaser, a teacher by training and an activist who had carefully built ties with Christians and Jews, said she was forced to resign by the mayor’s office following a campaign that pitted her against a chorus of critics who claimed she had a militant Islamic agenda.

In newspaper articles and Internet postings, on television and talk radio, Ms. Almontaser was branded a “radical,” a “jihadist” and a “9/11 denier.” She stood accused of harboring unpatriotic leanings and of secretly planning to proselytize her students. Despite Ms. Almontaser’s longstanding reputation as a Muslim moderate, her critics quickly succeeded in recasting her image.

The conflict tapped into a well of post-9/11 anxieties. But Ms. Almontaser’s downfall was not merely the result of a spontaneous outcry by concerned parents and neighborhood activists. It was also the work of a growing and organized movement to stop Muslim citizens who are seeking an expanded role in American public life. The fight against the school, participants in the effort say, was only an early skirmish in a broader, national struggle.

“It’s a battle that’s really just begun,” said Daniel Pipes, who directs a conservative research group, the Middle East Forum, and helped lead the charge against Ms. Almontaser and the school.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, critics of radical Islam focused largely on terrorism, scrutinizing Muslim-American charities or asserting links between Muslim organizations and violent groups like Hamas. But as the authorities have stepped up the war on terror, those critics have shifted their gaze to a new frontier, what they describe as law-abiding Muslim-Americans who are imposing their religious values in the public domain.

Mr. Pipes and others reel off a list of examples: Muslim cabdrivers in Minneapolis who have refused to take passengers carrying liquor; municipal pools and a gym at Harvard that have adopted female-only hours to accommodate Muslim women; candidates for office who are suspected of supporting political Islam; and banks that are offering financial products compliant with sharia, the Islamic code of law.

The danger, Mr. Pipes says, is that the United States stands to become another England or France, a place where Muslims are balkanized and ultimately threaten to impose sharia.

“It is hard to see how violence, how terrorism will lead to the implementation of sharia,” Mr. Pipes said. “It is much easier to see how, working through the system — the school system, the media, the religious organizations, the government, businesses and the like — you can promote radical Islam.”

Mr. Pipes refers to this new enemy as the “lawful Islamists.”

They are carrying out a “soft jihad,” said Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a trustee of the City University of New York and a vocal opponent of the Khalil Gibran school.

This is ridiculous. Pipes has a point when Pew contains details like this or a protest at UC Irvine carries messages like this. But not when it comes to preventing American Muslims from enjoying the religious freedom most of us have in this country.

How easily Pipes and Wiesenfeld overlook that wherever Jews have lived (and, of course, this is before they were expelled or worse) they have taken their unique cultural observances, like not working or handling money on the Sabbath. And what about Christian doctors who refuse to perform abortions? How are these examples different than using a bank compliant with sharia, or having a footbath at NYU or not transporting a passenger carrying alcohol?

These politically motivated attacks fall into the category of Islamophobia. I first wrote about this fear of everything Islam last spring, and I received a ton of hate mail for it. This post should turn up some gems.

The Israel lobby for doves

“They’re trying to be the un-Aipac."

They is J Street, a new pro-Israel lobby organization that won't be quite so "reflexive" in its support. I saw something about J Street a few days ago, but today's New York Times picks up on the new outfit.

The executive director of the new venture, Jeremy Ben-Ami, said in an interview that “a large number of American Jews and their friends have dropped out of the discussion about how to bring peace to Israel and its neighbors because they don’t have a home politically.” He argued that there was a need for an alternative to the traditional groups who say, “to oppose any Israeli policy is to be anti-Israel.”

The Book of Pelosi

Fun from the Bible Belt Blogger:

Maybe House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is quoting from the Howard Dean Version of the Holy Bible. You know, the one that has the book of Job in the New Testament. Or perhaps she’s picked up some new-fangled, biodegradable, Australian Earth Bible, with the words of Al Gore in red. Or perhaps, as congressmen sometimes do, she’s simply decided to “revise and extend”

Here’s what Pelosi said in an Earth Day press release this week: “The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, ‘To minister to the needs of God’s creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.’ On this Earth Day, and every day, let us pledge to our children, and our children’s children, that they will have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the opportunity to experience the wonders of nature.” the book.

Turns out, there’s no such passage in the Bible — New Testament or Old, several Christian Right activists are pointing out.

Pope Benedict wins

Before he arrived in the United States last week, many American Catholics held old notions of Pope Benedict XVI as "God's Rottweiler," as completely unlike his pastoral predecessor. My how quickly the current can change.

The vanishing American Catholic

The changing landscape of American Catholicism -- the fact that 1.3 million Latino Catholics have joined Pentecostal churches since immigrating -- is considered the elephant in the room for the future of the church. Still, it's story that has been told before, and in light of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States this week, and maybe in order to fill all that copy dedicated to his trip, it's being told again here.

“I feel whole here,” Mrs. Calazans, 42, said one recent Sunday in the Astoria sanctuary, the Portuguese Language Pentecostal Missionary Church, as she swayed to the pop-rock beat of a live gospel band. “This church is not a place we visit once a week. This church is where we hang around and we share our problems and we celebrate our successes, like we were family.”

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For if Latinos are feeding the population of the church, many have also turned to Pentecostalism, a form of evangelical Christianity that stresses a personal, even visceral, connection with God.

Today, it has more Latino followers in the United States than any other denomination except Catholicism; they are drawn, they say, by the faith’s joyous worship, its use of Latino culture and the enveloping sense of community it offers to newcomers. As the Pew survey revealed, half of all Latinos who have joined Pentecostal denominations were raised as Catholics.

They are part of a global shift. Pentecostalism, the world’s fastest-growing branch of Christianity, has made such sharp inroads in Latin America, particularly in Brazil, that in an address to bishops there last year, Pope Benedict listed its ardent proselytizing as one of the major forces the Catholic Church must contend with in the region.

Benedict's visit concludes today with a packed Mass at Yankees Stadium.

Americans think highest of Methodists and Jews

I know it's not all roses for Jews around the world right now. But in the United States, well, Jews are thought of more highly than any other religious group, save for Methodists.

And according to a new Gallup poll, only 4 percent of Americans have a "total negative" view of Jews, compared with 25 percent for fundamentalist Christians, 26 percent for Mormons, 34 percent for Muslims and 45 percent for atheists.

(Hat tip: Bible Belt Blog)

Pope Benedict's White House address

Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States has been getting seemingly wall-to-wall coverage on religion blogs and has supplanted religion coverage at major papers. Here is Reuters' report on his speech at the White House this morning:

Saying he had come as a friend of the United States, Pope Benedict urged Americans and their leaders on Wednesday to base their political and social decisions on moral principles and create a more just society.

In an address to President George W. Bush at the White House on the first full day of his U.S. visit, the pope also called for "patient efforts of international diplomacy to resolve conflicts" and promote progress around the world.

"I come as a friend, a preacher of the Gospel and one with great respect for this vast pluralistic society," Benedict said in a speech after Bush welcomed him to the White House at a ceremony that included 21-gun salute.

Bush cited the role of faith in U.S. life, which the pope had praised in remarks to journalists traveling with him as he crossed the Atlantic.

"Here in America, you'll find a nation that welcomes the role of religion in the public square," Bush said.

"In a world where some evoke the name of God to justify acts of terror and murder and hate, we need your message that God is love. And embracing this love is the surest way to save man from falling prey to the teaching of fanaticism and terrorism," he said.

The pope, marking his 81st birthday, was full of praise for American society, sprinkling his speech with references to the founding fathers -- citing the Declaration of Independence and the first president, George Washington.

But he made no specific references to issues such as abortion and the war in Iraq, appearing at pains to avoid saying anything that could be seen as taking sides in the presidential campaign apart from saying that freedom called for "reasoned public debate."

Benedict and Bush both oppose abortion and embryonic stem cell research, but differ on questions such as the Iraq war and capital punishment.

Instead, the pope concentrated on America's religious roots, which he said were a driving force in a process that "forged the soul of the nation" and won the admiration of the world.

(Photo: New York Times)

The best rabbis in all the land

In a scoop reserved for the Jewish Journal's often-irreverent Up Front feature, Amy Klein got an advanced copy of this year's list of America's top rabbis, which followed last year's inaugural expedition in ranking the rabbinate.

Last year, when Newsweek published its inaugural list of America's 50 most influential rabbis, Jay Sanderson, one of the list's creators, said he was surprised by how much buzz it generated.

"We had hoped it would be provocative and it would open up conversation about religious leaders in America today," Sanderson said.

But he was shocked at how many newspapers and bloggers -- more than 100 -- picked up the story. Even the Aryan Nation Web site used the list to show how the Jews run Hollywood, he said.

Jews around the country -- including many rabbis -- were talking about who made the list, who didn't make the list, who shouldn't have made the list and what would be a better list.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance, again topped the list of influentials. A new category was added this year, though, that ranked top pulpit rabbis, and it too was headlined by an Angeleno: Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple, who at this time seven years ago gave one of the more memorable Passover sermons in a long, long time.

Sanderson collaborated on the list with News Corp EVP Gary Ginsberg and Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton, whose Jewish journey I profiled last fall. Newsweek's got the list up now.

The president need not be a Christian

Because of all those stories about the role of religion in the 2008 presidential campaign, Christianity Today has started an ongoing series of articles exploring how Christians should behave in a secular society. The first perspective is offered by Uwe Siemon-Netto:

The religious aspect of the 2008 election leaves this confessional Lutheran once again mystified. First there was the kerfuffle over whether Christians could elect a Mormon to the White House, a dispute making no sense to followers of Martin Luther, who said, "The emperor need not be a Christian so long as he possesses reason." Meanwhile, the amiable Mike Huckabee mused inexplicably about an alleged need to conform the Constitution more to the Bible. Then John McCain got in hot water for accepting the endorsement of Texas pastor John Hagee, a vituperative critic of the Roman Catholic Church.

The latest uproar is over the church Sen. Barack Obama has affiliated himself with, and whether he should have fled Jeremiah Wright after the pastor offered such hideous political pronouncements as "God damn America."

All this makes a staunch Lutheran groan in desperation. Did not Christ tell Pilate: "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36)? Which of these seven words is so hard to understand?

Preach on, brother. I couldn't agree more. As I commented on this post at GetReligion:

It has been quite nauseating listening to politicians pander their religious beliefs. The person I vote for does not have to share my religious beliefs, so long as they share my values.

Christians fleeing Iraq; few entering U.S.

There have been long histories of discrimination in the United States against gays and Jews and other non-heterosexual WASPs, and I don't think it is too difficult for Americans to imagine gays in Iraq and Jews in Baghdad living under the hammer. But Christians?

Just like in the Palestinian territories, Christians in Iraq continue to see their situation get worse. The LA Times touches on their plight in a Column One about Robert DeKelaita, an Iraqi-born attorney handling asylum cases in American immigration court.

Repressed under Saddam Hussein, Iraq's Christian population has been decimated since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Muslim extremists have murdered priests and burned churches and Christian-owned shops and homes. Priests in Iraq estimate that fewer than 500,000 Christians remain, about a third of the number as before 2003.

On March 13, the body of the archbishop of Mosul, Paulos Faraj Rahho, was recovered, two weeks after he was kidnapped while leaving Mass. The slaying prompted Iraqi Christians to consider worshiping in secret; church services have also been attacked. Christian leaders say some Christians have been abducted and killed after refusing to convert to Islam.

"No group was happier than Christians when Saddam fell," DeKelaita said. "But no group is more disappointed with the way things played out."

Anguished over mistreatment of Iraqi Christian family members and strangers, DeKelaita long ago decided to dedicate his law practice to defending them. He is among a handful of immigration lawyers nationwide who specialize in representing Iraqi Christians, though he represents other clients.

"I know their pain; I feel it," he said of Iraqi Christians. "These are my people. I don't even have to ask them what they've been through."

Each Christian released from federal custody is a blessing, he said. But for the most part, "I deal in misery, unfortunately."

Frankly, I've never understood why we don't take more Iraqi refugees in. I mean, we unleashed this hornet's nest when we deposed that despot Saddam. Seems like we should take care of those endangered by the aftermath, whether it's because they are ethnic minorities or they work for the U.S. military or contractors. An assistant secretary of State gave this explanation to USA Today:

The United States has been unable to accept more Iraqis in part because of the time needed for background checks, which have become more stringent since 9/11.

To me it seems like a moral imperative that 10 years from now we will look back on critically, just like our response to Saddam while he was cleansing the Kurds.

Last fall, I put the question of what the U.S. should do to Bruce Einhorn, a recently retired immigration judge who is the "house Bolshevik" at Pepperdine, handled the L.A. 8 case and wrote an article about the refugees called "Freed to Flee."

"I find it appalling that having perhaps inadvertantly caused the refugee crisis in Iraq we have essentially pretended it doesn't exist. Clearly we overthrew a vicious, genocidal brute in Saddam Hussein. On the other hand, our occupation of Iraq after his overthrow has been a complete fiasco. Whatever terrorist organizations that didn't exist in Iraq do now, largely in resistance to us. And ordinary citizens are running for their lives," Einhorn told me.

"If the United States intervenes in a nation's affairs, ostensibly to restore or create human rights for the population, then it seems to me our government has assumed the burden of protecting those who become the targets of persecution as an inadvertent result of our involvement."

'The Gaza Bombshell'

Americans are, by now, well aware of the foreign-policy failings of President George W. Bush. But now he's getting ready to leave office and finally he seems awake to Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He wants to leave a legacy, we've been told about his impetus for the Annapolis conference and his interest in seeing peace achieved in the next 10 months. (There hasn't been peace regarding Jerusalem in 2,000 years and he's going to fix it in a year?)

Well, Vanity Fair's David Rose reports that there is a more layered context to Bush's interest in the conflict and, believe it or not, his previous diddling only made the situation worse.

In recent months, President Bush has repeatedly stated that the last great ambition of his presidency is to broker a deal that would create a viable Palestinian state and bring peace to the Holy Land. “People say, ‘Do you think it’s possible, during your presidency?’ ” he told an audience in Jerusalem on January 9. “And the answer is: I’m very hopeful.”

The next day, in the West Bank capital of Ramallah, Bush acknowledged that there was a rather large obstacle standing in the way of this goal: Hamas’s complete control of Gaza, home to some 1.5 million Palestinians, where it seized power in a bloody coup d’état in June 2007. Almost every day, militants fire rockets from Gaza into neighboring Israeli towns, and President Abbas is powerless to stop them. His authority is limited to the West Bank.

It’s “a tough situation,” Bush admitted. “I don’t know whether you can solve it in a year or not.” What Bush neglected to mention was his own role in creating this mess.

According to [Fatah strongman Muhammad] Dahlan, it was Bush who had pushed legislative elections in the Palestinian territories in January 2006, despite warnings that Fatah was not ready. After Hamas—whose 1988 charter committed it to the goal of driving Israel into the sea—won control of the parliament, Bush made another, deadlier miscalculation.

Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)

But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza.

Some sources call the scheme “Iran-contra 2.0,” recalling that Abrams was convicted (and later pardoned) for withholding information from Congress during the original Iran-contra scandal under President Reagan. There are echoes of other past misadventures as well: the C.I.A.’s 1953 ouster of an elected prime minister in Iran, which set the stage for the 1979 Islamic revolution there; the aborted 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which gave Fidel Castro an excuse to solidify his hold on Cuba; and the contemporary tragedy in Iraq.

Within the Bush administration, the Palestinian policy set off a furious debate. One of its critics is David Wurmser, the avowed neoconservative, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief Middle East adviser in July 2007, a month after the Gaza coup.

Wurmser accuses the Bush administration of “engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Abbas] with victory.” He believes that Hamas had no intention of taking Gaza until Fatah forced its hand. “It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen,” Wurmser says.

The botched plan has rendered the dream of Middle East peace more remote than ever, but what really galls neocons such as Wurmser is the hypocrisy it exposed. “There is a stunning disconnect between the president’s call for Middle East democracy and this policy,” he says. “It directly contradicts it.”

'A man called Lemkin'

Well, Samantha Power flamed out last week when she was asked to resign as an adviser to Barack Obama. Turned out her views of Hillary Clinton were similar to the worst held by some evangelicals. That wasn't the problem; the problem was that she was a bit too candid in sharing it.

Still, I'm enjoying the Pulitzer Prize-winning book she wrote a few years back, "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide." A central character of this story is Raphael Lemkin, the Jewish lawyer who fled Poland for the United States, losing most his family in the process, and dedicated his life to fighting "genocide," a word that he created.

History has remembered Lemkin well, even if his contemporaries found him an obsessive annoyance. But of the Lemkin remembrances, I like Abe Rosenthal's best.

The story in the paper reported that after 40 years of consideration the U.S. Senate voted last Friday to make it a Federal offense to commit genocide. That is the crime of acting with intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

The story did not mention a man called Lemkin.

Raphael Lemkin pokes his head into a newspaper office in the headquarters of the United Nations in the village of Lake Success on Long Island.

''Here is that pest, that Lemkin,'' he says. ''I have a genocide story for you.''

Everybody groans; Oh, Lemkin again? He makes a funny face, folds his hands in begging gestures. The reporters gather around for a few minutes. He gets his little story about the genocide convention, usually tucked away in the paper on a Sunday.

Raphael Lemkin was a Polish professor of law, a distinguished academician who spoke nine languages. He was a Jew. During the Holocaust the Germans murdered 49 members of his family; see how few words it takes to tell the whole story.

He escaped to Sweden, reached the United States, found good positions at Duke and Yale. He left them and gave himself over to his life's work.

His work was to convince the nations of the world that they must make it a crime to plan or carry out another Holocaust of any people. He coined ''genocide'' from the Greek word for race and the Latin for killing. He wrote a convention, a treaty for the nations to sign.

Then he walked the corridors of the U.N. He stopped journalists, took junior delegates by the arm and hung on until they listened, at least a moment. To see an ambassador, he would plan and plot for weeks and sit for days in reception rooms.

He had no money, no office, no assistants. He had no U.N. status or papers, but the guards always let him pass. He carried a black briefcase stuffed with documents and his daily sandwich.

He knew that when he opened the door people would say: What, Lemkin, you here again? Sometimes it was said affectionately, sometimes with distaste. Then he would pretend he did not care. But there were many days when he sat slumped in the cafeteria over a cup of coffee, barely able to lift it for the weariness in him and the rebuff.

But if he had to wheedle and plead he did. If he met an arrogant delegate who had influence, he made himself small and fawned. Then he would turn away and make the small smacking noises of a man trying to get a bad taste out of his mouth.

He would bluff a little sometimes about pulling political levers, but he had none. All he had was himself, his briefcase and the conviction burning in him. We would say to him: Lemkin, what good will it do to write mass murder down as a crime; will a piece of paper stop a new Hitler or Stalin?

Then he put aside cajolery and his face stiffened.

''Only man has law. Law must be built, do you understand me? You must build the law!''

He walked the halls every day from the spring of 1946 until Dec. 9, 1948, when the General Assembly, in Paris, adopted a resolution approving his convention. That day reporters went looking for him to rejoice in his triumph. But we could not find him until, hours later, we thought to look into the darkened Assembly hall. He sat there weeping as if his heart would break. He asked please to be left in solitude. Then this Lemkin came back to the corridors for years, pleading with delegation after delegation to follow through on the U.N. resolution by getting their countries to sign the treaty. There was a time when he was considered for the Nobel Peace Prize; Winston Churchill backed him.

But he died alone on Aug. 28, 1959, without medals or prizes, in a hotel in New York. There were seven people at the graveside when Raphael Lemkin was buried.

The tale of three former terrorists

InFocus is a relatively new monthly newspaper for the Muslim community in Southern California that circulates 25,000 copies to Muslim businesses and mosques. In the same way that one would expect Jewish publications to be pro-Israel, it is clearly pro-Palestinian and uses the dateline "Occupied Jerusalem."

In the current issue, InFocus' senior writer -- like a Muslim me, though I don't think he's Christian -- has a story that questions the authenticity of three speakers on the ex-terrorist circuit. Well, it doesn't so much question their story as it does indict them for being fallacious Islamophobes.

For self-proclaimed "former terrorists" Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani, all with a history of alleged blood and murder, nothing even close to legal action has ever been taken against them. On the contrary, the trio has, for the past few years, actively been appearing on TV shows across the nation, speaking at conferences and fund-raisers in churches and synagogues and openly proclaiming their so-called bloody past to anyone who is willing to listen.

As recently as last month, the three, whose stories are riddled with lies and inconsistencies according to critics, were invited by the prestigious United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, which held its annual conference on terrorism, to speak about the dangers of "Islamic terrorism." The appearance of these individuals drew the ire of Muslims and religious freedom organizations alike. The former were incensed by the fact that the speakers were notorious Islamophobes cashing in on the post-9/11 Islam-bashing industry, and the latter worried by the increasing presence of evangelicals in the armed forces.

"It’s a puzzle as to why the Air Force would invite these three Muslim bashers," said Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "We see a history, unfortunately, of proselytizing for particular faith groups and this seems to have been part of that whole effort."

Maj. Brett Ashworth, a spokesman for the academy, told the New York Times that the three would be paid a total of $13,000 for their appearance, some of it from private donors. Ashworth justified the invitation saying "they offered a unique perspective from inside terrorism." The findings of the conference will be compiled into a report on methods to combat terrorism that will be sent to the Pentagon, members of Congress and other influential officials, he added.

A group that calls itself the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is suing the federal government for what it calls "creeping evangelism in the armed forces." The group accused the Air Force Academy of constantly inviting born-again Christians, rather than experts, to address cadets on terrorism.

"This stuff going on at the academy today is part of the endemic evangelical infiltration that continues," David Antoon, a 1970 academy graduate and a foundation member, told the Times.

On his own web site, (www.shoebat.com) Shoebat claims to have belonged to the Palestinian Liberation Organization early in his life and to have committed "acts of violence and terrorism against Israel." In his bio, Anani, who now resides in Canada, claimed to have joined a militant group in Beirut, Lebanon, when he was a teenager and boasted to have killed 223 people at a tender age, most of them with a dagger. Saleem claims to have been recruited by the Muslim Brotherhood when he was just 7 years old, and then later as a teenager to have joined the PLO.

However, to most, the trio’s stories seem more fiction than fact.

"You have three people who are openly claiming to be former terrorists," said Hooper. "I don’t think that in any other case, law enforcement officials would look at the word ‘former’ and excuse people. If these three people are indeed former terrorists, why aren’t they in jail or at the very least deported?"

Not to dismiss the possibility that some opportunists are using the religious speaking circuit to make a buck -- it has happened, oh, a few times before -- but the speculative "evidence" here feels pretty weak.

Atheist soldier sues Army

"There are no atheists in foxholes." That's how the saying goes. But last week a U.S. soldier again sued the Army for allegedly violating his right to be an atheist. No, not because they wouldn't let him into their foxhole during a firefight, but because, he claims, he was denied the ability to hold a meeting in Iraq to discuss his godlessness.

The suit was filed in September but dropped last month so the new allegations could be included. Among the defendants are Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Hall alleges he was denied his constitutional right to hold a meeting to discuss atheism while he was deployed in Iraq with his military police unit. He says in the new complaint that his promotion was blocked after the commander of the 1st Infantry Division and Fort Riley sent an e-mail post-wide saying Hall had sued.

Fort Riley spokeswoman Alison Kohler said the post "can't comment on ongoing legal matters" and offered no further statement.

According to the lawsuit, Hall was counseled by his platoon sergeant after being informed that his promotion was blocked. He says the sergeant explained that Hall would be "unable to put aside his personal convictions and pray with his troops" and would have trouble bonding with them if promoted to a leadership position.

Hall responded that religion is not a requirement of leadership, even though the sergeant wondered how he had rights if atheism wasn't a religion. Hall said atheism is protected under the Army's chaplain's manual.

"It shouldn't matter if one is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or atheist," said Pedro Irigonegaray, an attorney whose firm filed the lawsuit. "In the military, all are equal and to be considered equal."

The AP article also quotes Mikey Weinstein, the firebrand crusader who sued the Air Force for proselytizing and now runs the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which joined Hall in the suit. Weinstein calls the Army's actions are "beyond despicable, indeed wholly awful," which sounds like the kind of language and hyperbole that accompanies a lawsuit that probably will be settled quietly and for a handsome sum.

The real question, though, is whether Hall was discriminated against because his "religious beliefs" were out of line with the "established religion" of the military. (Just to be clear: The military has no established religion, though the chaplaincy program certainly favors Christians.) But, to be fair to Hall, does dogmatic opposition to religion count as its own form of religion? To answer that, I'd like to revisit an old post on a church of Christians and Jews that used marijuana to communicate with God.

"You have to give people a feeling or a sense of the sacred and then you have to bond them in community," Robert C. Fuller, a religion professor at Bradley University in Illinois and author of Stairways to Heaven: Drugs in American Religious History, told me. "The fact of the matter is anything that helps with those two function has religious values."

Now, Fuller isn't a constitutional lawyer, and certainly not a member of the U.S. Supreme Court, but based on his explanation, for atheists to be recognized as a religious group they would have to give fellow believers a "sense of sacred."

(Hat tip: GetReligion)

Mainline churches at odds with Israel

Tensions are re-emerging between Jewish organizations and some mainline Protestant churches in the wake of a renewed drive for churches to divest from companies doing business with Israel.

The United Methodist Church opened discussions last Friday on a resolution calling for divestment from Caterpillar, the tractor manufacturer, because the company supplies Israel with bulldozers used in building the separation barrier and in demolishing Palestinian homes. The divestment resolution comes only months after the publication of a church-sponsored report referring to the creation of the State of Israel as the "original sin."

Relations with the Presbyterian Church (USA) are also strained, following remarks by church officials criticizing Israel because of the Gaza closure. A recent study by an affiliate of the Presbyterian Church called on American Jews to "get a life" instead of focusing on defending Israeli policies.

"This reflects a very disturbing trend in these churches," said Ethan Felson, assistant executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. "These developments are a result of work of several very wicked forces that play in the church."

This report is from The Forward. I don't know what these "wicked forces" are, but if Christians are going to use insincere metaphors like comparing Zionism to the Fall of Man, I guess Jews are afforded similarly inflammatory language. Though I'm not sure what good dissolving this disagreement into a diatribe would do.

Most Jews have assumed the drive by mainline denominations to divest from Israel was over. But from what I understand, it's just picking up again and a divestment resolution will be discussed at the United Methodist Church's general conference next month. Such a move might encourage the PCUSA to reconsider the resolution it passed two years ago but then set aside.

For years, the chasm between mainline Protestants and their evangelical and Pentecostal counterparts has been growing in terms of their relationship to Israel. Not every evangelical is the gentile Maccabi John Hagee, who coincidentally gives much of the Jewish community the creeps, but during the past year I've encountered a number of Christian groups that have a more profound love for, and unconditional defense of, the Holy Land than many American Jews.

Last summer, the same week that Walt and Mearsheimer's "The Israel Lobby" was published, Christianity Today explained why Christians should love not only God's promised land but his chosen people too.

The key complaint offered against dispensationalists is that they talk as though God had separate plans for saving Israel and the church. And contemporary Reformed Christians are accused of having a "replacement theology" in which the church takes the place of Israel, inheriting all of God's promises with no remainder for the Jewish people. The one view tends to find no fault with Israeli government decisions as long as they do not compromise dispensational theology. The other view tends to consider the continued existence of the Jewish people a historical anomaly with little theological significance.

But we cannot read the New Testament without seeing that the Jews continue to have a place in God's economy. Gentile Christians do not replace the Jews, but are joint heirs and wild branches grafted onto the Jewish olive tree. God's ultimate purpose in saving Gentile Christians is to save the Jews (Rom. 11).

The evangelical mainstream needs to do some rigorous theological work on its relationship to Judaism, to the Jewish people, and to the state of Israel. The concerns we must address include:

The need to learn how Judaism and the Jewish people understand themselves. ...

The fundamentally Jewish character of God's revelation in Jesus. ...

What justice means for a Jewish state and its neighbors. ...

What kind of theological and ethical significance evangelicals can give the state of Israel before the return of Messiah Jesus. ...

Optimism for a negotiated solution to Israeli-Palestinian tensions fluctuates with the news. But Christians must hope in God's covenant faithfulness. Meanwhile, we should keep reminding those involved in direct negotiations that we long for a solution that provides a secure Jewish homeland and self-determination and prosperity for Palestinians. In God's eyes, the peace of Jerusalem is to bless all peoples.