Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

The Bush administration made a lot of bone-headed decisions regarding U.S. relations with the world Muslim community. The decision to bar Tariq Ramadan entry to the U.S. to teach a course of interfaith dialogue at Notre Dame, was one of the worst (though certainly not THE worst). So it comes as a great shock to read Aziz Poonawalla’s blog today in which he notes that the Obama administration seems willing to tread the same path continuing to argue Ramadan is a figure too dangerous for Americans to know.

In legal proceedings, the Justice Department argues that no court should overturn a consular decision like the one to deny Ramadan entry.  Why, for heaven’s sake, do Justice and State continue down the same barren road traveled by the Bushites?  Why not just dump the entire farce and say the man is welcome here to teach, preach, whatever??  What possible danger can he pose?

The Obama administration’s position came as a shock to many.

“It’s disappointing to come here and hear Obama administration lawyers argue the same sweeping executive power arguments,” Jameel Jaffer, lawyer and ACLU National Security Project director, said after the hearing.

He told the court that the government had failed to identify “legitimate and bona fide reasons for the exclusion.”

Civil rights groups had hoped for a reversal of Bush policy of excluding foreign scholars from on the basis of their political beliefs.

…”While the government has an interest in excluding people who present a threat to the country, it doesn’t have any legitimate interest in excluding foreign nationals simply because of their political views. The Bush administration was wrong to revive this Cold War practice, and the Obama administration should not defend it,” Jaffer insisted.

“There should be a clean break of the Bush administration national security policies.”

…“US citizens and US resident are harmed by…the exclusion of people based on the content of their speech.”

You’ll recall Bushites first argued Ramandan supported terror.  When that argument didn’t fly they argued he’s donated to charity which later was found to have supported Hamas, even though at the time of his donation neither Hamas nor the charity were on any federally proscribed list.

C’mon guys, let’s get out from under Bush’s inanities and do the right thing.  As Aziz points out, our president intends to travel to Egypt shortly and make a major address to the Muslim world about our nation’s willingness to reach out a hand in, if not friendship, at least tolerance of Arab and Muslim peoples.  Does he want this stain to tarnish the otherwise laudable goals of his address?

If the Iranians can release Roxanne Saberi from prison in order to further the possibility for dialogue with the U.S. can’t we do the same and give Tariq Ramadan and the American people the gift of being able to hear his ideas directly on our own soil?  If we are frightened of Ramadan then how can we look the world’s Muslims in the eye and say we aren’t frightened of them as well?

Hey, the Amerian Jewish Committee has a strong program dealing with interfaith dialogue.  If they believe in dialogue with Muslims as well you’d think they might make a statement even marginally supportive of Ramadan.  Silence is deafening.

Ian Buruma has written a profile of Tariq Ramadan for the New York Times Magazine. I would call it a useful essay which gives a broad overview of Ramadan’s ideas about integration of Muslims into western society. While Buruma lists the “charges” against Ramadan leveled by the neocon and anti-Jihadist intellectuals, he doesn’t seem to “buy” them in any serious way. In general, I’d say it was a conscientious effort to introduce Ramadan to a U.S. intellectual audience.

But one aspect of the essay really rankled. Ramadan talks to his interviewer about his uneasy relationship with both the Bush Administration and its Jewish allies. In this case, he refers to an encounter with Jack Rosen, the wealthy Bushite who has co-opted the American Jewish Congress for his own political agenda:

Ramadan himself says that it was because of his views on Israel and on U.S. policy in Iraq that he was deprived of his visa to teach in the U.S. He told me: “I was asked to take part in a dialogue in Paris with representatives of American Jewish organizations, including Jack Rosen, head of the American Jewish Congress. It turned out to be less of a dialogue than an interview about my opinions on the Palestinian conflict. Rosen promised to talk to President Bush. But after this interview, I knew I would never get a visa.”

This might sound like just the kind of conspiracy theory anti-Semites tend to indulge in.

Buruma clearly knows very little about how the American Jewish communal leadership operates. Nor does he know much about how Jack Rosen wields power. The idea that Rosen, in this supposed “dialogue,” intended all along to pummel Ramadan for information that could be used by the Bushites to deny him a visa is ENTIRELY believable.

And here is where Buruma really fell into an intellectual mud puddle:

But unlike some Islamic activists, Ramadan has never expressed any hostility to Jews in general. There is no question that he is ferociously anti-Zionist. He sees this as part of his resistance to colonialism. A glance at his Web site shows precisely where he stands. “The dignity of the Palestinians is to resist, ours is to denounce. … That means denouncing fears as much as the unjust and wretched policies which continue to kill an entire people in an occupied territory.”

“Ferociously anti-Zionist?” Really. Let’s go over the quotation he uses to buttress this claim. Why is “denouncing…the unjust and wretched policies which continue to kill an entire people in an occupied territory” anti-Zionist? This is truly feeble journalism and Buruma should be ashamed. He’s falling into the same arguments used by folk like David Harris and the AJCommittee, Abe Foxman at the ADL, and Alan Dershowitz: if you denounce the Occupation then you are anti-Zionist. Who says? I’m a progressive Zionist and I denounce the Occupation.

I’m not asking you accept my refutation because I said so. Here’s an interview with Foreign Policy Magazine:

FP: You’ve said that you believe that Israel has the right to exist. Do you hope that one day, Israel will become part of a broader Middle Eastern common market? Is that the solution?

TR: My point is that Israel is here. I hope beyond that. I want [Israel] to be an open society where there is equal citizenship for all people. This is what I am advocating, and in that way, of course, it will be part of an open market. It will be part of the reality of the region. But my hope is not just for Israel. I want Egypt, Jordan, and other countries to promote the same universal values…. In every country it shouldn’t be [that] if you are a Muslim or Jew, you have more rights than others. Let us be consistent. When I say there are second-class citizens in Israel, I can say exactly the same for Egypt…. And I’m saying it for Saudi Arabia, where there are not even citizens who are not Muslims…

What do I want for the future of Israel and the Muslims and the Arabs? It’s to live together. It’s to promote the society where we are equal citizens. Then we live together. What does it mean, this wall? It means that you are not me and this is just a symbol of two fears living together, not two people…. The best way to protect the Israelis is to understand that the Palestinians have rights and we have to respect them.…

Does wanting Israel to be a society in which Jews and Muslims have equal rights mean you are anti-Zionist? Does opposing the egregious discrimination and economic injustice suffered by Israel’s Arab minority mean you are anti-Zionist? Since when?

Really, Buruma–does a man who says “the best way to protect the Israelis is to understand the Palestinians have rights and we have to respect them” sound anti-Zionist? Not to me.

Thank God, the State Department has seen reason and decided that Tariq Ramadan, Europe’s foremost Muslim theologian and exponent, isn’t a terrorist. But he’s still apparently dangerous enough that State defines him as a U.S. ‘undesirable’ and refuses him entry into this country. What danger does he constitute and on what basis do they continue to deny him a visa? He donated to a French charity that supports needy Palestinians! This from the NY Times via Reuters:

A prominent Swiss Muslim intellectual said Monday that the United States government had dropped charges against him of supporting terrorism, but that it had refused to allow him to enter the country.

Tariq Ramadan, now an academic at Oxford University, said he had received an official letter effectively clearing him of charges that kept him from taking up a teaching position at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
However, the letter from the United States Embassy in Bern, Switzerland, explained the continued ban by saying he had contributed about $770 to a Palestinian support group, he said.

“This is an ideological exclusion,” he said by telephone from London. “This is the only way they can justify their decision after two years of investigation.”

The State Department confirmed that it had denied Mr. Ramadan a visa, but said it had nothing to do with his views.

“A U.S. consular officer has denied Dr. Tariq Ramadan’s visa application,’’ said a State Department spokesman, Kurtis Cooper, “for providing material support to a terrorist organization.

“The consular officer concluded that Dr. Ramadan was inadmissible based solely on his actions, which constitutedproviding material support to a terrorist organization.”

It had “nothing to do with his views.” That’s probably some sort of legalspeak mumbo-jumbo that’s apparently supposed to persuade us of something. Of course, it has EVERYTHING to do with his views. He’s an uppity Muslim. One who refuses to be an Uncle Tom ‘good Muslim’ (as defined by the Cheneys of the world). The truth is they couldn’t find anything he’d written or said that warranted an ideological exclusion, so they based it on his alleged actions.

I’m guessing there’s some slight legal basis for abandoning the “views” approach and adopting an “actions” approach. Possibly, the government believes it’s easier to bar someone based on their actions. But let’s examine what the actions were:

Mr. Ramadan said his contributions to the French-based Committee for Charity and Aid to Palestinians were apparently seen as support for the Palestinian movement Hamas, which the United States government considers a terrorist organization.

However, he said he had sent the funds in 2000, long before Hamas was declared a terrorist group. He said that the aid group was legal in France, and that the French city of Lille had cooperated with it for several years.

Did you know that U.S. laws and statutes can now be applied retroactively? Sure, it’s illegal to support Hamas in 2006 but it wasn’t in 2000. So somehow, Ramadan would’ve needed to clairvoyantly predict that the charity would be deemed treif six years later. C’mon guys (& gals), this won’t stand up to the most elementary judicial review.

The grounds under which he was denied are called ‘material support.’ Even this legal standard is under attack:

The groups further criticized the government’s use of the material support law as a “six degrees of separation” approach to block Ramadan and others from entering the United States.

“We are deeply disappointed that in light of Judge Crotty’s ruling the government sought the narrowest procedural opening to deny Professor Ramadan a visa…,” said Larry Siems, Director of Freedom to Write and International Programs at PEN American Center. “An overly broad ‘material support’ law should not be used as a back-door route for ideological exclusion.”

The ACLU has challenged the constitutionality of material support laws in numerous other cases. In a recent California case, a federal judge struck down part of the statute as unconstitutionally vague. The government appealed the decision to the United States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit. In a friend-of-the-court brief, the ACLU and a coalition of human rights groups argued that the statute unconstitutionally interferes with efforts to provide humanitarian aid to civilian populations in war zones.

This is an example of government oversight gone berserk. I can’t believe the ACLU said merely that it would consider appealing the latest decision:

The Civil Liberties Union said it was considering an appeal of the decision denying the visa.

An appeal should be a no brainer.