Tomorrow begins a major Seattle conference, Confronting Islamophobia: I am My Brother’s Keeper, to be held at St. Mark’s Cathedral and sponsored by a host of Christian, Muslim and Jewish groups.  The keynote speaker is Imam Faisal Rauf, founder of Cordoba House and the former religious leader of the Park51 mosque.

On Saturday afternoon, I will speak at a panel on Islamophobia as Attack on Core American Values: Religious Freedom and Free Speech. I hope you can join us.

May 6-7,  2011 St. Mark’s Cathedral ~ 1245 10th Ave. E ~ Seattle, WA How does one assure that “never again” can be a strategy as well as a goal?  To consider this question a coalition of Jewish, Christian and Muslim groups is hosting a conference on Islam and Islamophobia. When the poison of prejudice infects a society, it is as much at risk as the victims of intolerance.   Disdain for, and fear of Muslims exists among rich and poor, liberal and conservative. Islamophobia has increased in virulence and reminds many of the rise of antisemitism in Germany in the 1930s. The conference will include outstanding speakers, workshops, and an interfaith prayer service, ending with dinner at one of several mosques.  The keynote speaker, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf from New York, will open the conference on Friday evening May 6th.  Saturday will include speakers, workshops and lunch, ending with an interfaith service including the Muslim evening prayer and a re-commitment to international human rights.  The service will be led by Imam Fazal Hassen, Bishop Greg Rickel and Rabbi Jim Mirel. The evening will end with supper hosted by several local mosques including AbuBakr,Tukwila, Umar al Farooq Montlake, Terrace, MAPS, Redmond, ZIANAB Center Lynwood and others. With the time shared, we hope to learn more about Islam, identify prejudice and bias, and consider strategies for confronting Islamophobia in our own community.  Prejudice is personal, national, and international.  It shapes, and is shaped by our media.  This event will provide strategies and forums for continuing to confront Islamophobia. Keynote Speakers: What’s Right with Islam IS What’s Right with America - Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is an American Sufi imam, author, and activist whose goal is to improve relations between the Muslim world and the West. Since 1983, he has been Imam of Masjid al-Farah, a mosque in New York City.  In 2010, Imam Abdul received national attention for his plans to build The Cordoba Center/Park51, an Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan, two blocks away from Ground Zero, and has been in demand as a speaker globally. He is the author of What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America and What’s right with Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West. Getting to the Heart of Islam – Jamal Rahman is a Muslim Sufi minister originally from Bangladesh. He is co-founder and co-minister at Interfaith Community Church in Seattle, WA, co-host of Interfaith Talk Radio, and adjunct faculty at Seattle University. Sheik Jamal teaches classes, workshops, and retreats locally, nationally, and internationally. He is the author of The Fragrance of Faith: The Enlightened Heart of Islam Islam and the West: The Burden of the Past and the Challenge of the Future ~ Yvonne Haddad  is Professor of the History of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at George Washington University. Her fields of expertise include twentieth-century Islam, intellectual, social and political history in the Arab world, and Islam in North America and the West. Currently, Professor Haddad is conducting research on Muslims in the West and on Islamic Revolutionary Movements.  She is the author and editor of a number of books, including Muslim Christian Encounters and Islam, Gender, and Social Change. Workshops  include: The New Fault Line in Encounter Between Muslims and the West – Yvonne Haddad, Georgetown  University The Common Word – The Qur’an and the Bible – Andy Larsen, Evangelical Covenant Church, Renton Myths about Islam – panel moderated by Arsalan Burkari executive director of the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) Meeting The Other: the Heart of Interfaith – Sheik Jamal Rahman, author, minister Islamophobia as Attack on Core American Values: Religious Freedom and Free Speech  – Richard Silverstein, jounrnalist and author of blog, Tikun Olam Building Bridges Around Civil Liberties Across Faith Traditions - Arsalan Burkari and Marilyn Mayers, Eastside Unitarian Peace Ministry Team Islamophobia in US Middle East Policy – Kathleen Christison, CIA Middle East desk analyst, author of “Perceptions of Palestine”. Propaganda in the Digital Age - Abigail Stahl, CAIR Outreach What does it mean to be an American Muslim? - Jennifer Gist, CAIR Civil Rights Coordinator Jesus Christ and His Mother Mary: A Muslim View - Alaa Badr, Islamic educator and activist, Microsoft emerging markets Islam and the Environment: A Broad Overview of How Islam Approaches the Fragility of the Earth – Alaa Badr Sharia, Canon law, and the Constitution – Salah Dandon, lawyer and Sharia scholar, Jim Brooks, judge, The Tribunal, Archdiocese of Seattle Sponsors: The Diocese of Olympia, The Episcopal Church in Western Washington Mid East Focus Saint Mark’s Cathedral Episcopal Bishop’s Committee for Israel/Palestine Council on American-Islamic Relations, WA Jewish Voice for Peace American Muslims of Puget Sound Sabeel Puget Sound Palestine Concerns Task Force of the Church Council of Greater Seattle Middle East Peace Builders Trinity United Methodist Church of Seattle Voices of Palestine Palestine Solidarity Committee, Seattle and others. Registrations fees: Saturday 9:30 – 5:45  $45:00 Friday night 8:00 PM $10:00 Friday and Saturday $55:00 (Including lunch and dinner at a mosque) Tickets http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/158529 Facebook page  http://tinyurl.com/4ufnrqr email info@confrontingislamophobia.org

Seattle's anti-war bus ads

Like a good general, I have a rule I try to follow about blogging: I try to choose the terrain on which I will fight.  I like the terrain to favor me.  If my opponent chooses to fight on their terrain, I prefer not to engage unless I think it’s favorable to me.  That’s why I’ve declined to enter into the local fracas-become international cause celebre involving a series of Seattle Metro Bus ads which decry U.S. military aid to Israel and accuse it of committing war crimes during Operation Cast Lead.

Before entering this political swamp, let me make something clear: I have no problem with any of the issues raised in the ads, which is why I strongly attack King County executive Dow Constantine’s decision to pull the plug on them after an outcry from a local Israel lobby coalition.  I strongly support the right of the group which organized them to display them.  The issue of U.S. military aid to Israel is an important one as is the even more important issue of possible war crimes committed by the IDF in Gaza during the last war.

But I do have problem with both sides of this debate: both the advertisers and the pro-Israel baying chorus trying to take them down.  First, my problem with the ad.  If you want to make a political point AND influence people you make your argument coherent and plausible.  You don’t flaunt rhetoric.  You don’t score points.  You don’t shout when a calm voice will do.  There are thousands of different iterations of this ad which would’ve worked as effectively and made it harder for the pro-Israel crowd to get the ads taken down.

But the ad organizers went for the jugular.  They made their choice and undoubtedly are happy their ads were banned since it will play well to their constituency.  The other side will think it has won a victory and feel pleased with itself.  What it won’t realize is that any time you have to win a victory at the expense of fundamental constitutional principles of free speech and fairness, you’ve lost in the long run.  Meaning Israel has lost too.  And if your cause is Israel, then you’ve done your cause a disservice.

Now my much more serious problems with the smear campaign run by the local pro-Israel advocates including the Jewish federation, Aipac, American Jewish Committee and Stand With Us.  Here’s some of their rhetoric as mouthed by local King County Councilmember Jane Sprague, who’s dutifully repeating the Israel lobby talking points as all obedient U.S. politicians tend to do:

The ad reads “Israeli War Crimes Your tax dollars at work,” and has an image of a group of children staring at a destroyed building.  . Like many of you, I find the ad disturbing. Yesterday I sent a letter to the Executive and Metro officials demanding that they put a halt the ads…

We need to be mindful that inflammatory speech like this can affect many groups including our Jewish Community. I strongly believe in freedom of speech and our first amendment rights…Messages like these, that lack basic civility, can incite violence against minorities and various religious communities. We need to be able to protect those who can be hurt as a result.

What is “inflammatory” about this speech? That it accuses Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza? Major Israeli newspapers run stories virtually every day recounting stories of Israeli atrocities during the war and using terms like “war crimes” to describe them. Yes, I’d prefer to use terms like “alleged” or “possible” since the war crimes haven’t been proven in a court of law yet. But I find absolutely nothing wrong with putting forward a political argument in such ads claiming that Israel committed war crimes.

Now, as to whether U.S. taxpayers financed those atrocities with U.S. military aid: that seems incontrovertible. Israel’s military has used American weaponry liberally and even flagrantly in situations such as the mass firing of U.S. cluster bombs during the concluding hours of the 2006 Lebanon war, leaving Lebanese civilians to suffer the tragic consequences after the war ended as they unintentionally exploded the ordinance on their property and roads.

As to the ads “lacking basic civility,” well, excuse me but a cluster bomb in your backyard or an F-16 levelling your Gaza apartment building is a pretty uncivil message sent from the American people to Palestinians courtesy of the Israeli Air Force. Do the American people deserve the right to know about such things in bus ads? You bet.

But there is another deeply disturbing notion put forward by pro-Israel advocates in this message: that Israel=American Jews. That Americans somehow blame their fellow Jewish citizens for the acts of Israel. This is not only an offensive concept, it simply isn’t true.  America is not a place in which Jews will be blamed for Israel’s alleged crimes.  I reject this notion.

The anti-ad coalition views Israel and world Jewry as being inseparable, as being joined at the hip. But the vast majority of Jews in the world don’t accept this equation. I am a Jew, not an Israeli. Israel doesn’t speak for me, nor I for Israel. When Israel acts badly, I am not at fault nor do my fellow Americans see as such.

But it is convenient for Stand With Us and the rest of the Israel advocates to claim there is “no daylight” between Israel and us because then they can argue that hostility to Israeli policy=anti-Israelism and even anti=Semitism. Let me point out as clearly as I can: this notion is noxious. It is offensive. I utterly reject it as should all Americans and American Jews who care about Israel.

Israel doesn’t need all Jews to identify with it unconditionally. Israel need to become a normal nation in the Middle East. To do so, it needs to come to terms with its Arab neighbors. Having world Jewry’s identity confused with Israel’s will not help this process. It will indeed poison it. If you want to be a friend to Israel tell it to make peace with its neighbors and not presume all the Jews in the world think everything it does is honky dory.

King County’s executive has done a grave disservice to free speech in suspending these ads. Not only this, he has handed a victory to those sponsoring the ads.  He has given them the high ground. I hope they sue the county and get a judge to rule on this situation. It is really a contract dispute. The County signed a contract and then violated it. Grounds for reneging are specious. Metro approved those ads then took the Mideast Awareness Campaign’s $3,000.  After signing on the dotted line, they want to back out.  I’d love to see this tested in court.

Dow Constantine is a craven political coward.  Read the bullshit that he’s published under the name of the King County government:

“I have consulted with federal and local law enforcement authorities who have expressed concern, in the context of this international debate, that our public transportation system could be vulnerable to disruption.”

…Given the dramatic escalation of debate in the past few days over these proposed ads, and the submission of inflammatory response ads, there is now an unacceptable risk of harm to or disruption of service to our customers should these ads run.”

Yes, ads that are political speech and counter-speech will cause terrorism.  That’s what he’s essentially claiming.  Thank God, this is a view fully rejected by our nation’s Founders.  Speech is speech.  It is not an act and certainly not an illegal act.  What utter nonsense.  To retreat behind the skirts of a nameless federal bureaucrat who supposeldy told him to can an ad.  I want to know: which federal official did he consult and what did he say?  In fact, I’d like to file a Freedom of Information Act petition with Country government for every piece of internal information regarding this ad.  So, Dow Constantine, I’d be careful what you say and make sure it’s the truth.  You wouldn’t want to look awfully stupid if you mouthed nonsense like this, and were caught afterward doing so.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if David Horowitz’s counter ads were deliberately formulated in the most vitriolic terms possible, knowing that by doing so they would virtually force Metro to cancel the original ad, which was their real purpose.  Really, who cares what the counter ads would say as long as they didn’t explicitly advocate illegality or violence?  I’d like to see fools like Horowitz and his ilk voice anti-Muslim views on Seattle buses so the entire city can laugh them out of town.  What’s the cure to bad speech?  More speech.  Not no speech.  What Metro is doing is saying Seattleites are delicate flowers who can’t withstand the furor of political debate.  Somehow they must be protected from opinions that are too hot.  Otherwise, what?  What would happen?  Would the Seattle explode in WTO type riots merely because of a few bus ads?  C’mon.  Who’re they kidding.

You’ve heard conservatives deride the “Nanny State.”  Well, here in Seattle we have the “Nanny County” protecting residents from the bad, bad man saying bad, bad things.  I say let 1,000 flowers bloom.  So what if some are weeds?  A weed here or there won’t kill us.  It’s the garden of debate that is important.

Friends of Sabeel will host a conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict here in Seattle February 19-20th at St. Mark’s Cathedral.  Among the speakers will be Neve Gordon, professor at Ben Gurion University, whose Los Angeles Times op ed supporting the BDS movement was hailed and derided around the world, leading to denunciation by his own university president and an attempt to sack him.

I’ve organized the following media panel on Saturday, February 20th at 3:15 PM:

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the Media

Richard Silverstein, author of Tikun Olam, Israeli-Palestinian peace blog
Bruce Ramsey, Seattle Times editorial writer
Larry Johnson former foreign editor, Seattle Post Intelligencer and author, Looking for Trouble, foreign affairs blog

The panel will examine the nature and quality of reporting on the conflict in both the U.S.:

1. Getting more & better coverage into the media
2. Making coverage more accessible to the average American
3. the collapse of print media: how does it alter the landscape for coverage
4. Where do people get their coverage of the conflict?
5. Critique of media coverage of I-P conflict: why is so much, so bad?
6. Political issues that should be covered and aren’t?
7. Improving communications between Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. media and peace activists
8. Role of digital media, social networking in expanding access to news about the conflict

If you live in or near Seattle, I hope you can make it.

I recently did an interview with Bill Alford of Seattle’s Moral Politics community-access TV program. We spoke about the issues surrounding the Naveed Haq trial and his recent conviction for first degree murder in the 2006 attack on the Seattle Jewish federation, which left one employee dead and five seriously injured.

We grappled with whether Haq’s sentence was just in a moral and religious sense and the overall theme of Muslim-Jewish tension rooted in the intractable Israeli-Arab conflict.

I wanted to warn that I made an error during the interview in suggesting that in Haq’s first trial, which ended in a hung jury, he was charged with second degree murder. A local journalist reports to me that he was charged with first degree murder in both cases.

It’s a 30 minute interview. I hope you’ll watch it and suggest to others interested in Muslim-Jewish relations that they watch it too.

Prof Muhammad Sahimi, one of America’s most prominent Iran analysts, will keynote a Seattle conference, Iran-Israel-U.S.: Solving the Nuclear Impasse.  Below is the new flyer for the event. Sahimi is a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Southern California.  He maintains an extensive network of political activists in Iran with whom he is in close contact.  He blogs at Huffington Post and is a correspondent for PBS Frontline’s Teheran Bureau.  He has been interviewed by NPR and the N.Y. Times seeking his perspective on political developments in Iran:

Iran-Israel-U.S.: Resolving the Nuclear Impasse

Speakers:

* Dr. Muhammad Sahimi, University of Southern California

* Dr. Ian Lustick, political science professor, University of Pennsylvania

* Dr. Keith Weissman, former Aipac deputy director and Iran specialist

* Moderator: Dr. Ellis Goldberg, political science professor, University of Washington

December 16th at 7 PM

Town Hall, Seattle

Information: 206.632.0662 x 30

Tickets: $10 suggested donation

Brown Paper Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/89086

Community sponsors:

♦ Stroum Jewish Studies Program, University of Washington* ♦ Middle East Center, UW Jackson School of International Studies* ♦ American Friends Service Committee ♦ Peace Action of Washington ♦ Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility ♦ American Muslims of Puget Sound ♦ Jewish Voice for Peace ♦  Kadima Reconstructionist Community ♦ Network Promoting Peace with Iran ♦ United Nations Association of Greater Seattle

This community conference sponsored by local Jewish community groups and peace organizations will explore ways of resolving the Iranian nuclear crisis through negotiation, rather than force. Congress recently passed a draconian sanctions bill directed against Iran. Neocons in the U.S. and Israel suggest that if sanctions do not work eventually military force may be the only way to end or delay Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Many in the progressive community are deeply concerned that the U.S. and/or Israel may soon repeat interventionist mistakes made in Iraq and Afghanistan. This conference will present a comprehensive approach that could resolve major difference through diplomacy and open a new era in relations between these three current enemies. It will also discuss the best means of supporting the Iran reform movement in its efforts to encourage a government based on democracy and tolerance.

Among the issues to be discussed:

* What is the best way to approach the issue of Iran’s nuclear program that will secure a positive outcome for those nations opposed to it?

* What impact might “crippling sanctions” have on Iran and the overall conflict? Will they work?

* What repercussions might there be from an Israeli military attack on Iran and would such an attack attain its objectives?

* If a military attack is a bad idea, how do we work to prevent it?

* How should the west further the goals of the Iran reform movement?

* Voices within the Israeli military, intelligence and academic communities that embrace a more pragmatic approach

* Sponsorship by the UW’s Stroum Jewish Studies Program and Middle East Center of this program does not constitute an endorsement of the program’s content

Police surround ambulance containing Clemmons' body (Joshua Trujillo/Seattle PI)

Apparently, Maurice Clemmons was right about one thing he wrote in his petition to Gov. Mike Huckabee asking for commutation of his prison sentence.  He did have a close knit circle of family, friends (and fellow ex-cons) who would “support” him on his release.  The only problem is that this circle was also willing to act as accomplices in helping him evade capture which is why it took 48 hours before he was found and killed early this morning by a lone Seattle police officer during a routine traffic stop.

The policeman found a car idling on a South Seattle street and noted it had been stolen shortly earlier.  While filling out the paperwork, he noticed a man approaching from his side of the car.  The cop exited his car, immediately recognized Clemmons and told him to put his hands up.  When the suspected police killer backed away from him and reached in his waist the police officer shot him, hitting him twice and killing him.

None of this is particularly revelatory (though scenes like this are exceedingly rare in Seattle).  But what does disturb many here is that there was a network which aided and abetted Clemmons in eluding capture.  The Seattle Times reports that they provided him with getaway cars, money, cellphones and were arranging for him to escape the state when he was killed.  His sister attempted to treat his stomach wound.  Three people are in custody and will likely be charged with crimes and at least one or more others are being sought.  I also heard a report that some of these people deliberately lied to police about the convict’s whereabouts.

All night long we’ve been hearing helicopters buzzing overhead and believe me this is not typical of Seattle.  We wondered what was going on and it seemed clear that there must be something serious happening nearby.

Searching area of police killings this morning (Kevin Casey/NYT)

Independently, but almost at the same time, an astonishing series of events had taken place in western Washington today, practically in my own backyard.  Typical of this digital age I first learned about them in the online N.Y. Times, which revealed that four Lakewood (a town halfway between Tacoma and Olympia) police officers were gunned down in cold blood at a coffee shop this morning.  One of the officers got off a shot before he died, which apparently wounded the shooter.

The article revealed that police were looking for a suspect, Maurice Clemmons, who was alleged to have raped a 9 year old girl and assaulted a police officer.  Astonishingly, Clemmons had an earlier string of crimes when he lived in Arkansas where he was serving a 95-year sentence when then Gov. Mike Huckabee, offered him a clemency release.  Clemmons promptly relocated to Seattle where he went from being Huckabee and Arkansas’ problem to being our own.

Oh yeah, the first thing I thought of was how this is going to sink his next presidential campaign and we ought to keep his toes to the fire on this one.  Huckabee released this semi-obtuse statement:

“Should he be found responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington state,” Huckabee’s office said in a statement Sunday night.

What does that mean?  That Huckabee f(&#ed up or not?  Well, as CNN reports there is so much potential ineptitude revolving around this case that Huckabee may just be able to weasel out of it:

…Huckabee’s office said Clemmons’ commutation was based on the recommendation of the parole board that determined that he met the conditions for early release.

Huckabee cited Clemmons’ young age — 17 at the time of his sentencing — when he announced his decision to commute the sentence, according to newspaper articles.

“He was arrested later for parole violation and taken back to prison to serve his full term, but prosecutors dropped the charges that would have held him,” the statement said.

CNN could not immediately confirm the account. But the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper reported that soon after his release in 2001, Clemmons was arrested for aggravated robbery and theft.

He was taken back to prison for parole violation. But, said the paper, he was not served with the arrest warrants for the robbery and theft charges until he left prison three years later.

His attorney argued the charges should be dismissed because too much time had passed by then. And prosecutors dropped the charges.

You’re a better man than I Gunga Din if you can follow those last few sentences.  But if Huckabee can jumble the case up half as well as this, chances are this may not impact his future presidential bid as much as it should.

Huckabee can legitimately try to spread blame as far as Washington State as well.  Apparently, after his arrest for rape a judge ruled him ineligible for bond, but a second judge overruled the first and released him on $150,000 bail.  That was two weeks ago.  Ironically, one of the conditions was that he not use a firearm.

King County Bearcat tank at scene of Leschi standoff (@jseattle via Central District News)

According to a local TV newscast, Clemmons wife said he had been “talking crazy” lately and that he believed he was Jesus and that the world was coming to an end.  Little did she know what this would mean for these police officers, whose world would come to an end this morning.  They leave behind a total of nine children who have lost a father or mother.

This news struck even closer to home when my wife visited a hyperlocal news site which revealed that the helicopter overflights in our neighborhood (continuing as I write this) are due to the siege of a home only 10 blocks or so from my own, where the wounded Clemmons is believed holed up.  The Seattle Times reports that the home is that of his aunt.  There are SWAT teams and hundreds of police officers camped out at the scene.  Astonishing in this usually calm placid city, where big news is sometimes an old lady’s cat getting stuck in a tree and being rescued by the fire department.

Even more astonishing is that the scene of the siege, which is at 32nd Yesler is only three blocks from the scene of another brutal police murder which happened only four weeks ago (the incidents are not related).  I feel like I’m walking through an episode of the Twilight Zone.

Watch Stopping War with Iran in News  |  View More Free Videos Veoh.com

A few weeks ago, Bill Alford interviewed me about Iran for his Seattle community access cable interview show, Moral Politics. Our half hour show ranged over many topics including last month’s hawkish presentation on Iran hosted by the Seattle Jewish federation. I also critiqued Israel’s bellicose approach to Iran and the failure of U.S. policy toward Iran thus far. I advocated negotiation and engagement as the only true path to resolving the differences Israel and the U.S. have with Iran.

This is a good introduction to what we’ll be covering at next month’s Town Hall conference: Iran, Israel, U.S.: Resolving the Nuclear Impasse.