Terrorism Nothing Islamic about it at all!

24 April 2019 

The Easter Sunday bombings that killed nearly 300 innocent people, mostly worshippers celebrating Easter, came as a rude shock to the Muslim community. Muslim families watched in disbelief as the events unfolded and the finger was pointed at ‘Islamic extremists.’ They could not believe that such a crime would be perpetrated in the name of a faith that has stood for peace for over a thousand years, a faith that has had as a basic teaching the tolerance of other faiths and a faith that values all life as inviolable.

But hold on. Why combine the word ‘Islamic’ with ‘extremist’? Does Islam teach us to be extremists? To answer this, we cannot look at some misguided people bearing Muslim names who are so arrogant in their views that they don’t even bother looking at what the Islamic faith really teaches.

Had they done so, they would realise that they are the very antithesis of being a Muslim. Nay, they are even worse than animals, because even animals kill for a reason -- these criminals kill for nothing except to satisfy their blood-lust at the expense of life, limb and the unspeakable suffering bereaved families have to go through an entire lifetime mourning their loved ones.

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• Easter Sunday incidents show evidence of the work of  zealots of the worst ilk 
• Muslims watched in disbelief as the events unfolded and the finger was pointed at ‘Islamic extremists’ 
• Islam has always stood for winning the hearts of people, not converting by means of the sword
• Why combine the word ‘Islamic’ with ‘extremist’? 
• Islam embeds tolerance as part of its basic teachings 
• History bears testimony to the tolerance extended to those of other faiths by the early Muslims

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Rather, we have to go to the foundations of the faith, and these are two, the Qur’an, which we hold to be the Word of God, and the Sunnah or the way of life of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) including his sayings and doings. There are no less than seven verses in the Qur’an that speak of tolerating people of other faiths, far more than stressed in the scriptures of other faiths. Killing is especially condemned and killing even one human being is likened to the killing of all humanity.

Mercy the hallmark of a Muslim 

As for the prophet’s way of life, as Muslims we all know the mercy and compassion he had not merely for his followers, but also for others to the extent that even the Christian communities who lived at that time loved, respected and protected him and his followers and he in turn returned this love and affection with many kind acts including giving them a covenant known as the Covenant of Najran, in which he guaranteed their right to practise their religion freely for all time, an obligation cast upon all his followers who are bound to protect the followers of Christianity till the end of days. Nay, the prophet was even concerned about the rights of animals and I will cite just one instance of his overpowering compassion for all creatures.

This happened in the days when the prophet with his 10,000-strong army was marching towards Mecca for the final conquest of his hometown, which would be a bloodless one due to the sheer numbers of his followers and the immunity he granted every one of its citizens including a man named Abu Sufyan who had throughout opposed his mission and his wife Hind who had killed his uncle and devoured his liver. So on the way to Mecca, he spotted a female dog by the roadside with a litter of newly-born puppies she was feeding. He promptly ordered that the creatures were not to be disturbed by the passing army and even posted a sentry, Ju’ayl of Damar, to ensure his orders were carried out. So one could ask, if the prophet were so concerned about the life of a single dog, how much more he would be about the life of a human being, believing as we do that we are all one and the children of Adam and Eve.

The prophet not only prohibited the killing of innocents, but even went on to address acts of terrorism, strictly prohibiting his followers from scorched earth policies that involved harming trees or livestock even in the worst times of war. Nay, he even addressed the roots of terrorism, which is extremism in very telling terms; “Beware of extremism in religion because the only thing that destroyed those before you was extremism in religion” (Ibn Majah). Here, he is clearly telling us that it was religious extremism that destroyed the people before Islam which may well refer to the likes of the Jewish zealots who took their lives and that of their families in the aftermath of the Masada rebellion against the Romans, and he clearly warned us not to take that disastrous path.

This begs the question, why are some so-called Muslims becoming extremists and then evolving into terrorists just like the zealots of yore did? The Easter Sunday incidents show evidence not of the work of good Muslims but zealots of the worst ilk who took the lives not only of countless innocent others but even their own families as we saw in Dematagoda when a woman took her life and those of her two little children by detonating an explosive device when the police closed in. And to think our prophet, on whom we peace, warned us about it a long time ago.

Religious tolerance in Islam

Islam has always stood for winning the hearts of people, not converting by means of the sword. There are no less than seven verses in the Holy Qur’an which command Islam is not to be compelled on people and that they are to adopt it of their free will:

Invite (all) to the Way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious. For thy Lord knoweth best who have strayed from His Path and who receive guidance(Al-Nahl: Verse 125)

Let there be no compulsion in religion. Truth stands out clear from error. Whoever rejects evil and believes in God hath grasped the most trustworthy handhold that never breaks (Al Baqarah: Verse 256)

If it had been the Lord’s Will, they would all have believed- All who are on earth! Wilt thou then compel mankind, against their will, to believe? (Surah Yunus: Verse 99)

This tolerance was also exemplified in the prophet’s life, like when he entered into a treaty with the Christians of Najran in Southern  Arabia. When the delegation arrived at Medina, the prophet let them lodge and even pray in his mosque and gave them the following accord:

The people of Najran and their dependants shall remain under the protection of God, and Muhammad the Prophet, the Messenger of God. Their persons, their religion, their lands, their possessions and their churches shall remain safe. This treaty holds good for all people of Najran, whether present or not. No bishop shall be removed from his bishopric, no monk from his monasticism and no devotee from his devotions (Tabaqat Al Kubra of Ibn Sa’d) 

The same instance of tolerance was shown by his father-in- law, the caliph Umar who entered into the following covenant with the Christians of Jerusalem following the capitulation of the city in 637 AD:
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. This is the security which Umar, the servant of God, the commander of the faithful, grants to the people of Aelia (Jerusalem). He grants to all, whether sick or sound, security for their lives, their possessions, their churches and their crosses, and all that concerns their religion. Their churches shall not be changed into dwelling places, nor destroyed. Neither shall they or their appurtenances be in any way diminished.

When Umar visited the Christian holy sites, the patriarch Sophronius accompanied him to the Church of the Resurrection and as it was the appointed time for prayer, he bade the caliph offer his prayers there. Umar thoughtfully refused and disclosed his honourable motive: “Had I yielded to your request” said the Caliph “the Muslims of a future age would have infringed the treaty under the colour of imitating my example” (Tarikh of Tabari). We find the same kind of tolerance being extended to those of other faiths by Umar’s successor, caliph Uthman. A lady who accepted Islam, Umm Al-Muhājir says: I was captured with some girls from Byzantium. Uthman offered us Islam, but only myself and one other girl accepted Islam. Uthman said: “Go and circumcise them” (Al-Adab Al-Mufrad of Bukhari).

What history says 

History bears ample testimony to the tolerance extended to those of other faiths by the early Muslims. For instance, when the Muslim army reached the JordanValley in the conflict with the Byzantines, its Christian inhabitants are known to have preferred to submit to Islamic rule in preference to that of the older empire. They even wrote a letter to the Arabs stating: “O Muslims, we prefer you to the Byzantines, though they are of our own faith, because you keep better faith with us and are more merciful to us and refrain from doing us injustice and your rule over us is better than theirs, for they have robbed us of our goods and homes.” The people of Emessa went further, closing the gates of their city against Heraclius army and telling the Muslims they preferred their rule and justice to the oppression and injustice of the Byzantines. So it was that many other cities in Syria and elsewhere entered into treaties with the Muslim army, agreeing to submit to their rule while at the same time preserving their religious freedoms.

When Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453 after nearly a thousand years of withstanding Islamic forces, Ottoman emperor Muhammad II saw to it that he secured the allegiance of the Christians. He proclaimed himself the protector of the Greek Church and strictly forbade the persecution of Christians. He even granted a decree to the newly-elected patriarch Gennadios, securing to him and his successors and the bishops under him, the enjoyment of former privileges under the Byzantine rule. The patriarch received from the hands of the Sultan himself the pastoral staff, the symbol of his office, together with a purse of a thousand gold ducats and a horse with gorgeous trappings, on which he was privileged to ride with his train through the city.

Thus, it is evident that Islam is a tolerant faith that has embedded tolerance as part of its basic teachings and that all those who go against this principle of tolerance are in fact going against Islam itself.

The writer is the Vice President of Outreach, Centre for Islamic Studies, Sri Lanka

Police release list of wanted people

 06:59 PM APR 25 2019

The Police has sought public assistance to locate suspects connected to the Easter Sunday attacks.

If you have any information regarding the suspects, you are requested to call on:

071-8591771

011-2422176

011-2395605

Suspects' names:

Mohamad Iwuhaim Saadik Abdulhaq

Faathima Latheefa

Mohamad Iwuhaim Shaheed Abdulhaq

Pulustheen Rajendran alias Sarah

Mohamad Cassim Mohamad Rilvan
------------------------------------------------------------
Mohamad Iwuhaim Saadik Abdulhaq

Faathima Latheefa

Mohamad Iwuhaim Shaheed Abdulhaq


Pulustheen Rajendran alias Sarah

Mohamad Cassim Mohamad Rilvan

Sri Lanka: Massacre Of The Innocents: Whereto From Here

by Tisaranee Gunasekara-2019-04-23

 

“Unmindful are the walking dead

The known way is an impasse.”

Heraclitus (The Fragments)

 

We have been here before. This blooded precipice is familiar, this looming abyss.

 

What is unfamiliar, what renders the Easter Sunday massacre most vile and truly nightmarish is the total absence of any knowable rationality. There is no context to this horror, no back-story; it cannot be framed, politically or historically. Other massacres were presaged; this one fell on an unsuspecting people, a killer-bolt on a clear Sunday morning.

 

It is the most heinous and the most incomprehensible act of violence in our violence-ridden history.

 

Every massacre of innocents leaves behind a heap of questions. The larger why, the philosophical, existential why might be unanswerable, but the smaller whys almost always are. Whether it was Black July, the Anuradhapura massacre, or any of the civilian bloodletting that came afterwards, there was a discernible path to the outrage paved with a history of real or imagined wrongs.

 

Not so this massacre of innocents.

 

That the massacre is the work of an Islamic terror group is now certain, a conclusion made inescapable by the involvement of several suicide bombers. The attacks on the hotels are barbaric, but part of a comprehensible, global pattern. You want to hurt an economy dependent on tourism; you attack places where tourists congregate, from beaches and ancient ruins to hotels.

 

Not so the targeting of Catholic churches in Sri Lanka. That is where the utter incomprehension stems from. In Sri Lanka, there has been no history of violent animosity between Muslims and Christians/Catholics. Both communities have been targeted by Sinhala-Buddhists on multiple occasions. They were both victims of majoritarian violence, but never responded in kind.

 

Had the suicide bombers targeted state institutions, places of entertainment, Buddhist temples or even Hindu kovils, it would have made sense in terms of vengeance for a real or imagined wrong.

 

Why churches? Why only Catholic churches?

 

Churches have been targeted by Islamic terrorists elsewhere in the world, including Asia; the Surabaya bombings in Indonesia and the Jolo church attacks in the Philippines are cases in point. But every one of those attacks could be placed within a national politico-historical context. There is no such context here in Sri Lanka. Attacks by a lone gunman or a lone bomber might have been comprehensible, the work of a clinically deranged man. But an operation of this complexity and magnitude, involving the willing and knowing cooperation of hundreds of people, is unfathomable.

 

The killers, the human bombs, are believed to be Lankan Muslim men. For any terror organisation, suicide killers would be a valuable possession, something you don’t expend in vain. A suicide killer must be trained and groomed right up to the moment of murder, handled with meticulous care, kept on the pre-prepared path, shielded from every human emotion. Why use such valuable and not easily replaceable weapons on targeting a community that had not done you or your local co-religionists any harm?

 

Were the churches targets of opportunity? In Sri Lanka, churches (along with mosques and kovils) are relatively unprotected and vulnerable. But so are many other institutions and structures, both secular and religious. Was it to gain maximum publicity - bombing churches on Easter Sunday? That would have been a credible explanation had the authors rushed to claim responsibility. But so far, no organisation has claimed responsibility, another unusual occurrence. Generally, after a successful operation, the claim to own it is a race. Terrorists love publicity. That is how they gain new recruits and new resources.

 

So here we are, in a hell both familiar and unfamiliar. How not to plunge from this to a worse hell is the hardest challenge ahead, much harder than identifying, apprehending and punishing the guilty.

 

An Unforgivable Failure

There is one haunting truth about the Easter Sunday massacre - with a little more vigilance, it might have been prevented.

 

A section of the security establishment seems to have known that an Islamic terror group was planning to target Catholic churches. According to reports, they even knew the names and other details of some of the attackers, possibly ten days ahead. The speed with which the first arrests were made gives credence to these reports. Such speed by our police can be explained only by prior-knowledge. Greater the speed, greater the prior-knowledge. And the speed was great, unprecedentedly so.

That begs two critical questions.

Who knew?

 

Why did those in the know do nothing with their knowledge?

 

If the known attackers had been arrested, the massacre wouldn’t have happened. And it could have been done under normal law. The Defence Secretary is lying if he claims that the information was vague and the absence of emergency regulations was a handicap.

 

If the churches were informed about their peril, they could have taken some precautions. That certainly didn’t require emergency regulations.

 

With either of those two measures, three hundred innocent lives could have been saved.

 

We, as a nation, need to know why those lives were wantonly sacrificed.

 

The SLPP had predictably accused the government of not supporting the intelligence agencies, of persecuting and discouraging them. That is incorrect. The intelligence agencies are not the victims of this story. They received the information, and opted not to do anything with it. That was a severe dereliction of duty.

 

President Maithripala Sirisena must shoulder much of the blame. As the Minister of Defence, protecting the people was his responsibility. He failed abysmally. And he has not apologised for that failure.

 

That doesn’t mean the UNP can exculpate itself from all responsibility, all blame. The ‘we were not told’ excuse cannot hold water since one of the letters warning about impending terror attacks seems to have been circulating in the social media for days. If Minister Harin Fernando’s father knew about the danger, then the Minister, his cabinet and non-cabinet colleagues and his prime minister cannot plead ignorance.

 

The government’s failure to stop the massacre fits into a general pattern of indifference towards all forms of extremism. One week before the Easter Sunday massacre, on Palm Sunday, a Methodist church in Anuradhapura was attacked, reportedly by a Sinhala-Buddhist mob. The police refused either to apprehend the attackers or to protect the victims. The government didn’t condemn the attack, didn’t order the police to catch the culprits. All it did was to promise the church protection for Easter. The promise reportedly came from the Prime Minister. There was not a hum from the President. Political leaders on all sides of the divide, including the minister in charge of Christian Affairs, acted blind, deaf, and mute.

 

Perhaps this blasé attitude of the political class percolated to the intelligence establishment. Perhaps those in the know thought that there was no need to act if the intended target was a church, or some other minority religious establishment. After all, thirteen months have passed since the anti-Muslim riots of Digana. Time enough for the main suspects to be tried in a court of law. Yet no one has been formally charged and every suspect is out on bail.

 

Had the government honoured its promise to end impunity and ensure justice, had it honoured the promise to combat extremism and promote moderation, the Easter Sunday massacre might have been avoided. This government did not promote extremism, like its predecessor. But it didn’t resist extremism either. It turned itself into a bystander.

Three hundred innocent people paid for that cowardice, that indifference, with their lives.

 

The next vicious spiral

 

A new faultline has been created in Sri Lanka’s already seriously compromised societal fabric. A new enmity has been birthed. This is not the moment for anodyne slogans about unity and peace. The peril cannot be resisted, if its existence is unacknowledged.

 

Sri Lanka’s blood-soaked history provides us with ample warning of the dangers ahead.

 

Will the targeting of Catholics by Islamic terrorists create an endless blood feud between Lankan Catholics and Lankan Muslims? Will the wronged Catholics themselves do wrong by targeting innocent Muslims?

 

The fear that the Easter Sunday massacre will lead to a round of attacks on Muslim properties and religious establishments has so far not materialised. For this, the government, especially the UNP, deserves the credit. When the first attack on a mosque was reported, immediate action was taken, including the imposition of a curfew. That probably saved the country from another round of bloodletting. But the danger will not be over in a day, or even a year. Only constant vigilance can prevent another tragedy.

 

Terrorists of all kinds have two targets – one the purported enemy; the other, one’s own community. The authors of the Easter Sunday’s massacre of innocents would have known that they were placing their own innocent coreligionists in peril. They would have known that retaliatory attacks could happen, if not in the immediate aftermath, then someday.

 

And they wouldn’t have cared. That is a function of extremism. They not only hate their enemies. They don’t care about their own community.

 

The cancer of extremism that is affecting Lankan religions must be combated, perhaps primarily from within. The first step is to start criticising one’s own extremists. It is only by taking an unequivocal stand against extremists of our own community do we earn the moral right to criticise extremists of other communities.

 

Sinhalese and Tamils failed to take a stand against their own extremists; each community raged against the other’s tribalism while justifying one’s own. That failure caused both communities incalculable harm, and incalculable self-harm. Black July turned a marginal insurgency into a full scale war. The LTTE’s countless atrocities eventually contributed to its own shameful defeat.

 

When Sinhala-Buddhists attacked Muslims in Digana in the name of Buddhism, the absolute majority of Buddhist leaders remained mute. The Muslim leaders will hopefully set a different example, not just in the immediate aftermath, but continuously. The task would be long and hard. Though Lankan Muslims have been the victims of both Sinhala-Buddhist and LTTE violence, the atrocities committed by Muslims elsewhere in the world have rebounded on them unjustly, enveloping them in a miasma of fear and suspicion. Easter Sunday’s massacre will worsen their plight. There is a danger of Muslims being considered as enemies by all other communities. Extremists within the Sinhala-Buddhist fold will work towards such an outcome. One can almost hear the likes of Galagoda-Atte Gnanasara crowing. Forgotten will be the role played by anti-Muslim violence in fostering Muslim extremism.

 

But that too would be in accordance with the intent of the attackers. As Moroccan editor Ahmed Benchemsi opined, “…..spreading hate is the terrorists’ job. Hating you is not enough; they also need you to hate them, so the struggle goes unchallenged” (Newsweek – 20.11.2008). Terrorists revel in hate, and they want that hate to be extended to their racial/religious community as well. They want their crime to become the crime of their entire community, falling even unto unborn children. When such hatred seeps into a national bloodstream, the terrorists achieve their final victory. That happened between Sinhalese and Tamils. It mustn’t happen between Lankan Catholics and Lankan Muslims.

 

Sadly hate is easy to cultivate. It can flourish anywhere. All it needs is an inch, a second, a thought, a glance, one unguarded moment. And a destructive atom can always survive, waiting with endless patience until the next time.

 

So we stand on a familiar precipice, staring at a familiar abyss. This time, the task of guiding us away from it, towards the plains of moderation and stability belongs to Muslims and Catholics. This is their moment to be what Sinhalese and Tamils were not at comparable moments in their histories. This is their moment to place their humanity above every other consideration, in a way we, Sinhalese and Tamils, failed to. And it is for us, especially Sinhala-Buddhists, to prevent our own extremists from intervening to sow hate, to prevent healing, to peddle vengeance in the guise of justice.

 

As Aristotle said, “For the things we have to learn before we do them, we learn by doing them... We become just by just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts...” (Necomachean Ethics). In this moment, grand gestures are necessary; but every little act of ordinary decency and kindness counts. If our leaders, elected and self-appointed, fail to stand against extremism, fail to build an alliance of moderates, perhaps we, the people, who are outraged by Easter Sunday’s massacre of innocents can.

Explosions in Sri Lanka – in pictures

Multiple attacks in churches and luxury hotels as worshippers attended Easter services have killed more at least 290 people

APRIL 21, 2019

• Sri Lanka bombings: stay up to date on our live blog
• At a glance: what we know so far

Read More

Terrorism, violence, and incompetent political leadership

The question is, how did this outfit manage to procure and amass these military grade explosives? They do not have the wherewithal or resources or the necessary means or the permission or accessibility to import them. So it must have been provided locally by those who have had the means, permission and ability to import and have stored them for military purposes and/or supplied by some foreign embassy, who may have brought these materials under cover of their diplomatic bags – Pic by Chamila Karunarathna 

 Friday, 26 April 2019

Incompetent people, the researchers found, are not only poor performers, they are also unable to accurately assess and recognise the quality of their own work. These low performers are also unable to recognise the skill and competence levels of other people, which is part of the reason why they consistently view themselves as better, more capable, and more knowledgeable than others.

“In many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious.” Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge. The very trouble with ignorance is that it can feel just like expertise, they overestimate their own knowledge and ability.

Let’s take a good hard look at our elected politicians as a group with an eye as to what might be wrong with them and our political system. It must be borne in mind, honesty and candour in politicians are central to the proper functioning of a democracy. Politicians are entrusted with a great, noble and the most significant jobs in the country. They have the power and the privilege that transcends their native gifts. Yet the number of dreary, desolate and glum performers in political office suggests that the acceptable standard must be extremely low.

Politicians today enjoy countless privileges – for example – their words spoken in Parliament cannot be used against them in legal proceedings of any sort, allowing them to vilify people or defame them without the inconvenience of being sued for defamation. Moreover, their misuse of power is such that they are not liable if they mislead or deceive the public, whose interests they are supposed to serve. The usual response to this is that the way to discipline politicians whose standards fall below what is acceptable is to vote them out.

Considering what is happening today is the understanding that power as authentic leadership is governed by legitimate authority, and violence as a sign of a breakdown of power, leadership, and legitimacy. When there is a breakdown in political leadership, authentic leadership is more likely to formulate other choices to violence and its attendant terror. There can be no question that terrorism and violence and the state’s reaction to them play an overwhelming role in politics today – in terms of who gets elected, on what platform, and how that is driven currently by terrorism and the actions of contenders and using terrorists and terrorist oriented organisations to grab power by ‘hook or by crook’.

An examination of political and criminal violence leads to questions about deliberate and purposeful violence, indirect and structural violence that has political consequences, and their relationship to terrorism. This, in turn, also means politicising other forms of violence, such as capital punishment, and their indirect and structural forms – which we have seen happening in the sudden introduction of capital punishment for drug offenders.

When a group resorts to terror against its own citizens with the support and backing of power hungry politicians, it shows that whoever manipulates to achieve their aim, does not have power or strength to challenge the legitimacy of the state other than degenerate horrendous means causing fear, dread and terror.

The recent bifurcated attacks on churches and luxury hotels, targeting the tourist industry, creating ethnic conflicts and ethnic disharmony accompanied by heinous gross human rights violations, such as genocide and crimes against humanity and causing severe economic decline is clearly understood by all, to have a vicious political hand or hands behind it.

And these aggressive power-hungry politicians are suspected of having made use of a radical local outfit identified as the National Thowheed Jamath which is responsible for the deadly blasts and explosions that killed over 300 people and wounded over 500 others in the worst terror attack in the country’s history.

The sudden incursion and eruption of attacks and the deadly blasts of such magnitude which caused unprecedented devastation including high-intensity back-pack bombs and vehicle bombs, show the use of military grade high-explosives.

The question is, how did this outfit manage to procure and amass these military grade explosives? They do not have the wherewithal or resources or the necessary means or the permission or accessibility to import them. So it must have been provided locally by those who have had the means, permission and ability to import and have stored them for military purposes and/or supplied by some foreign embassy, who may have brought these materials under cover of their diplomatic bags. Organised crime, terrorism and democracy work according to guiding principles that are in direct conflict with one another. A democratic State upholds the sovereignty of the nation and ensures the protection of the rights of all individuals, regardless of wealth, social status, age or gender. Organised crime as traditionally defined, on the other hand, is built around patron-age, carrying on a tradition of feudalism, does not hesitate to commit human rights abuses.

How do we tackle a situation when heinous and deplorable, reprehensible and criminal acts flourish under the cover of a political system? Let us see how the unfortunate and heartbreaking, tragic, traumatic, agonising, harrowing event of Easter Sunday was tackled by those who are supposed to protect the people:

Chronologically, this fiasco begins from the 26 October 2018 conspiracy of President Maithripala Sirisena:

1. He had never called the Prime Minister or the deputy defence minister to any of the Security Council meetings, whereas he had summoned good-for-nothing opposition Members of Parliament – Thilanga Sumathipala, Mahinda Amaraweera and Lasantha Alagiyawanna to the meeting. Worthless, useless undesirables who do not even know how to spell ‘Security’.

And the Prime Minister on the other hand had remained silent all the while, which does not augur well for his political future.

2. On 4 April State Intelligence Service (SIS) had given a report to the President and a copy of the same report to the IGP on the impending attack on Catholic churches and the Indian High Commission, by the Leader of the National Thowheed Jamath. This was doubly confirmed by the warning letter, by DIG Priyalal Dissanayake, mentioning this intelligence report. It should be noted that the head of the National Intelligence Service (SIS) is legally obliged to report intelligence not to anyone, but only to the President. This is urging towards disaster.

3. Then comes the slimy Attorney General who always comes to the aid of the President, stating that the letter was fake but DIG Priyalal Dassanayake subsequently, confirmed the authenticity of the letter removing all doubts.

4. India had issued an alert to Sri Lanka in early April on possible bomb attacks at different spots in the island. This further corroborates that President Maithripala was fully aware about the imminent suicide attack.

What did the head of state do? – He took the opportunity and got out of the country without convening the Security Council and discuss about the impendent calamity. He secured himself and his family and visited Thiruppathy in India and surreptitiously went to Singapore, without following any protocols and without officially handing over the responsibilities to the defence ministry or to the deputy defence minister. This resulted in the Government facing unprecedented crises when having to take emergency decisions following the explosions.

5. Immediately following the series of explosions when Prime Minister Ranil and Deputy Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardana summoned a meeting of the Security Council at the temple trees, it is indeed distressing to note that the heads of the armed forces and the defence minister did not attend the meeting. They informed that the President had called the heads of the command forces and asserted not to participate in Security Council meetings convened by the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

6. In addition it has come to light that Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa had also received information on the attack and neither he nor his wife attended Easter Mass.

7. Minister Harin Fernando also tweeted that his father who had been hospitalised for a while knew of the attack and requested him not to attend church.

8. And finally, a statement by Minister Rajitha Senaratne that the International Intelligence has brought this to the notice of the Defence Ministry 10 minutes before the explosion. Cutting it too fine to take any preventive action, of course.

And so many unconfirmed sources having had prior knowledge of this approaching imminent disaster, failed to communicate this valuable information to the Head of the Catholic Church Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith. This is a very serious lapse on all those who were and are responsible – unforgiveable lapses of judgment by politicians and security personnel.

If somebody, who had some feelings, would have communicated this to him, this senseless loss of lives, needless violence and havoc could have been avoided. The Catholic Church has a reasonable communication network and they would have taken sufficient precautions to protect their congregations.

In the wake of these attacks, I give you some points for reflection and severe action wherever there is credible evidence of anyone having a false notion that they are the law into:

1. We hear that Thowheed Jamath operating under three different names – National Tawhid Jama’at, All-Ceylon Tawhid Jama’at, Jama’at al Tawhid Al-Wattania and God knows what else.

The Government should take action to ban all the Thowheed movements – they may be operating in circles – one to stage military attacks, another one to humiliate and use verbal abuse, and the other one steps in to deny all these are the work of others and not theirs. Be alert and ban all of them.

2. With regard to the banning of the burka – face cover, the Government is planning to discuss with the mosque authorities. There is no necessity to discuss with ACJU or consult any mosque authority, as this face cover (mask) has nothing to do with religion, it is some rotten tribal rubbish. Ban this without any hesitation. All Sri Lankan Muslims will support this. The security of the country is more important than this rotten stinking innovation of covering one’s face.

3. Approval was given by the Rajapaksa Government for a Shariah University in the Eastern Province. We are not aware whether this is a separate entity or merged with any of the existing Eastern universities. Ask any rational Muslim and they will ask “Why on earth do we need one?” Whatever it is, if it is functioning it has to be discontinued with immediate effect.

4. There are hundreds of mushroom unregistered study classes under the guise of ‘madrasas’. All these should be shut down without any delay. This is the place where the innocent young minds are abused. However, there are a few traditional valuable respectable and decent madrasas in Sri Lanka, they are more than sufficient for a community like ours.

Winding up with a few words of wisdom:

“What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we’ve never met” ― David Levithan in ‘Love Is the Higher Law’.

Taking Responsibility

By Farweez Imamudeen –APRIL 25, 2019

Farweez Imamudeen

On the 21st of Sunday a few men bearing Muslim names strolled into churches and hotels carrying heavy backpacks. While men, women and children were celebrating the resurrection of the Christ, immersed in prayer and divine contemplation, the suicide bombers shattered their peace and bodies with a savage blast; while unsuspecting guests walked in with their families and friends into the hotel cafeteria for breakfast the suicide bombers served them with a deadly scoop of death. To describe this horrendous act as barbaric is an understatement, for human beings cannot comprehend such acts of insane cruelty. The butchers did all this under the guise of Islam.

The world now asks me to take responsibility as a fellow Muslim for the horrible attacks. 

But here’s why I can’t take responsibility as a Muslim.

1. The terrorist follows the religion of terrorism. Thus he belongs to the community of terrorists. If anyone needs to apologize for this inhumane onslaught it is the terrorist.  

2. The bloody barbaric assault was not only on my Christian brethren or my other fellow brethren in humanity, but on the whole mankind. Therefore, I shall not indulge the terrorist and exclude myself from humanity and stay beyond the dividing line of race, religion and nationalism, apologizing as an outsider. But I shall stand within the circle of humanity, in solidarity with the victims and their loved ones and grieve, feel and mourn together with them; and I shall fight too, together with them to kill this ruthless monster of terrorism.

3. Radical fundamentalism is not a religion; it is a mindset. A radical fundamentalist views the world through a binary lens where the righteous are they and everyone else is misguided. Radical fundamentalists are intolerant ignoramuses who believe in a pre-defined truth and refuse to question it. As a result they do not believe in democratic means like freedom of thought; freedom of choice; and freedom of expression but oppressive means like imposition, coercion and violence. 

I’m neither a terrorist nor a radical fundamentalist; therefore I cannot take responsibility as a Muslim.

Here’s why I take responsibility as a Muslim

1. The terrorist exploits the mass ignorance about Islam and history, and uses populist and simplistic means to persuade the world of his Muslimness. Hence he grows a beard, or adorns a turban, or wears a pathan or jubba suit, or shouts Arabic slogans from the Qur’an like ‘Allahu Akbar’ and ‘Jihad’, or bears an Arabic name, or merely calls himself a Muslim; the world too now calls him a Muslim based on what is visible on the surface. The burden therefore, is on me to unveil the truth hidden beyond the surface.

2. The terrorist claims to follow the teachings of my religion, while blatantly refuting them in practice; but since the world is prone to judge an entire society by the actions of a few individuals the terrorists win the day. But please let me show you what you might not know: 

The terrorist attacks and demolishes a church, yet the Qur’an denounces this violence:

“And were it not that God checks the people, some by means of others, there would have been demolished monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques in which the name of God is much mentioned.” (Sura Hajj – 22: 40)

The terrorist kills more than 300 unarmed and unsuspecting innocent men, women and children, yet the Qur’an calls this a crime against humanity:

“Whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.” (Sura Maida – 5:32)

“Kill not the life which God hath made sacred, except by legal right” (Sura Al-An’am 6:151)

The terrorist wants to annihilate the disbelievers while the Qur’an lays out the principle of universal brotherhood and human interaction:

“O mankind! Lo! We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. Lo! the noblest of you, in the sight of God, is the best in conduct” (Sura Al-Hujurat- 49:13)

The terrorist resorts to barbarism and violence while the Qur’an promotes freedom of choice:

“There is absolutely no compulsion in religion” (Sura Baqara 2:256)

I believe in love, mercy and compassion; I believe in diversity, equality and humanity; I believe in brotherhood, democracy and freedom; I believe in Islam.

I take responsibility for letting the terrorist twist the truth and delude the world.

But I take responsibility as a human too. 

While I was debating about who would win the IPL finals, what would happen in the next Avengers movie, and how fabulous Priyanka Chopra looked in her wedding dress; the terrorist was grooming.

While I was determined to be the first to get my hands on the next i phone, to have a bigger and more glamorous wedding than my friend’s, to spend my next salary on upscaling my expensive car; the terrorist was growing.

Read More

Bombings place our democracy under duress, and strain our commitment to rights

25 April 2019 

Violence is designed to challenge our democratic values, which were formed and endorsed in saner times. When bombs are set off they bring out some of our natural instincts for safety and, in the process, weaken our connections to our values and erode our freedoms. When we allow that to happen, we become like the bombers who then win. 

The picture here states that customers in burqa have no entry to the grocery shop. It challenges the freedoms our citizens enjoy to choose their dress, as we interpret their religion for them, telling them (as some of us are doing) that Islam does not demand full-body covering. In the end, the erosion of Muslims’ fundamental rights will be an erosion of our own as we get used to this erosion. 


To get terminology right, the ‘burqa’ is a full-body covering that includes a mesh over the face. The niqab is a full-face veil that leaves an opening only for the eyes. The hijab covers the hair and neck but not the face. The chador covers the body but not the face. 

Arguments are advanced that we may impose these restrictions in a time of national crisis. No! The right to religion, in a decent society, is always non-derogable. 

Many officials under us want the ban at every Election Office. They say they are fearful that a woman coming in burqa or niqab might be having a bomb

Religious symbols in public  

Wearing the burqa is, in a way, announcing your religion. Prohibiting it can make those in minority in that setting feel alone. There has been much legal opinion on this. Taking from my book Ethics for Professionals (Cognella Press, San Diego, CA, 2018):

1. Christian women wearing the crucifix at work: 

Nadia Eweida in the UK was asked in 2006 to remove or cover a Christian symbol, a crucifix, from her neck and when she refused she was put on leave without pay. She lost in the British courts but prevailed in the European Court of Human Rights in 2013. The ruling said everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this right includes freedom to change religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others, and in public or private, to manifest ones religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. That distinguished court ruled that she suffered discrimination at work over her Christian beliefs. 

2. The Sikhs’ Kesh (uncut hair) and the Kirpan (knife):

Sikhism requires among other things the Kesh and the Kirpan to be considered a Sikh. Although the turban is not explicitly specified it goes as an accoutrement of the uncut hair. Exemption from uniforms with the Buckingham Palace Guard allows the turban. To date, the Sikhs have no dispensation from carrying their knives, such as when boarding aircraft and must check them in for the hold with their luggage. A 2014 Ontario, Canada law refused exemptions from a crash-helmet law to Canadians, ruling that Ontario’s law does not infringe on the “Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the Ontario Human Rights Code.” However, Alberta, Canada exempts Sikhs from wearing a crash helmet. 

3. Muslim clothing: 

The US on this front is advancing in strides with a June 2015 Supreme Court ruling that Abercombie & Fitch could be “sued for discrimination for not hiring a woman because she wore a hijab that went against its ‘look policy’.” The court declared, “Religious practice is one of the protected characteristics that cannot be accorded disparate treatment and must be accommodated.” This ‘look policy’ banned caps and black clothing. The litigant Samantha Elauf’s dress for the interview in 2008 – a T-shirt and jeans was all right but her headscarf as a Muslim woman was deemed not to fit the policy, which does not allow caps, terming them ‘too informal for the image we project.’ 

Thus, bans are allowed only on grounds of safety and must be necessary for public safety. And they need laws to back the bans. Have we reached that point to ban Muslim clothing and hurt their sensibilities? I think not. 

GA Colombo and the Election Commission  

These religious restrictions on women are no longer by odd fellows playing the hero to save their race and country. A law on the ban is in the works in Parliament. Even before that GA and District Secretary for Colombo, Mr. Sunil Kannangara, has jumped the gun and entered the debate, issuing a notice that women wearing a face covering are prohibited entry to the Colombo District Secretariat. What Mr. Kannangara has banned are the burqa and the niqab. Sensible provisions have not been made, as in civilised airports, to have a woman official take a look at the face of women donning religious face-coverings. 

GA Colombo, by virtue of his office, is usually the Chief Returning Officer put in charge by the Election Commission (EC). His actions reflect on us. Worse, the EC has some 24 district offices and the Colombo District Office building was recently shifted in part from Rajagiriya to the District Secretariat. In effect, the ban applies to the EC Offices when the EC’s object is to spread and uphold the values of democracy. Now a Colombo Muslim woman in burqa cannot come to us to sort out issues with her voting rights. 

The spillover to Sri Lankan democracy is clear. The EC has been pro-democracy. A young executive who comes to work in a hijab was absolutely fearful of coming to work, given what is going on in Colombo. The EC gave her special leave. That is what we were. 

And now? Many officials under us want the ban at every Election Office. They say they are fearful that a woman coming in burqa or niqab might be having a bomb. Metal detecting machines are sold out and not quickly available, I argued for closing the offices till sanity returned but was warned that we may be surcharged for the salaries. I am not convinced, because then we should also be surcharged for giving special leave to that young woman discouraged from expressing her religion. And how does looking at a woman’s face prevent a bomb under her clothes? Are we to ban ministers from EC offices because a bomb might be hidden under their sarong? 

I have argued that it is a violation of such a woman’s religious right and we cannot comply with the GA’s ban. We are an independent Commission and cannot be subject to the vagaries of GA/Colombo. 

The French Example  

It was argued at the EC that France is a democratic country and, if it is OK for France to ban the burqa, it should be OK for us. But it is well to recall that a survey published by France’s Le Figaro last October, found 33 percent of French citizens wanting a greater role in French politics for far-right leader Marine Le Pen, matching former Prime Minister Francois Fillon and IMF Director Christine Lagarde, while President Francois Hollande, got a mere 23 percent. 

Europe is being inundated with racism as people of colour, especially from Turkey soon, move in through previous liberal policies, leading in part to Brexit. As right-wingers gain in popularity, moderates in a gross error of judgment adopt misbegotten racist policies. This is what we see in Sri Lanka. Other countries’ racism is never our example to emulate. 

France is a particularly bad example to follow at this point. A 2004 law in France bans the wearing or displaying of overt religious symbols in schools, including the wearing of headscarves by schoolgirls, while the French Council of State that advises the government warned that the ban could be incompatible with international human rights laws and the country’s own constitution. The crucifix case from Britain proves the point. We surely do not want to traverse that path, but are inexorably being pushed in that direction by the bombings. Will we ban scarves too as France has? 

The EC’s Jaffna Office is in the Jaffna Kachcheri but I think GA/Jaffna has a rational head on his shoulders forged by his war-time experience as a Tamil. Tamils will not forget – must not forget – how during the war we were ordered out of Colombo by a madman for similarly flimsy reasons as the burqa ban on security grounds and only the courts saved us. Then there are other EC District Offices in separate buildings. For now, we have decided to go on as we are till 3 May when the third member of the EC returns after his study tour of Indian elections when we will have a proper quorum for an EC meeting. In the meantime, the Colombo Kachcheri will compromise our image and even our status as an independent Commission having to follow a Government Agent. 

In the meantime, we must be strong – strong not to beat up people under suspicion but to fight our own devils in our heads, to not allow the bombers to win by transforming us into monsters like them, trampling on other people’s rights.  

Stabbed in the heart

Walid al-Shawa sits atop the rubble of his former home.Mohammed Al-Hajjar

Amjad Ayman Yaghi - 23 April 2019

Walid al-Shawa dreamed of a bright future when he was younger. Yet adult life has been cruel despite years of planning.

Starting as a child, Walid spent 10 years moving from one job to another. A permanent job was beyond reach in his besieged Gaza community, which suffered the closure of industrial and commercial institutions.

His future became decidedly more bleak when Israeli forces destroyed his home in March – just three weeks before he was due to get married.

On 25 March, he was spending a pleasant evening with his fiancée, Naela al-Jalis, in her house in the al-Shujaiyeh neighborhood of Gaza City. As they prepared to sit down to dinner, his mother called, spoiling the moment.

She asked Walid to return home to his al-Rimal neighborhood in the city. The whole neighborhood was being evacuated following an Israeli threat to shell a nearby building used by the Gaza authorities.

Walid quickly drove home, reaching the neighborhood in four minutes. He found himself looking at his small apartment that he then shared with his sister Hiba and her four children. Distraught, he imagined how it might be destroyed before his eyes and how he and Naela would not be able to move in after their wedding.

At that moment, he felt his life prospects to be in turmoil.

Ten minutes after his arrival, the “warning” missiles started falling. The vicinity was repeatedly bombarded. The building was hit by eight missiles, according to Al Mezan, a human rights group.
Eventually the four floors and eight apartment units of the Hassouna residential building came crashing down.

In the devastating aftermath, Walid said: “I feel demoralized. I don’t know what to do. I lost my future. When I look at my destroyed house, it feels like I’m being stabbed in the heart.”

Walid al-Shawa walks on top of the rubble of eight apartment units, including his home, leveled by the Israeli military on 25 March 2019.Mohammed Al-Hajjar

Fatherless at age 12

Walid, now 26, lost his father as a 12-year-old child. His father had long been in poor health, having survived a heart attack just a year after Walid’s birth.

Confronted with such a profound loss at an early age, Walid worked hard as an adolescent to feed his family. He finished the first year of secondary school and then started work to help his family financially.

“I worked in different jobs: a worker in a restaurant, as a greengrocer, in a clothes shop and in the furniture polishing business. Now I work as a taxi driver. Since I was 22, I have been setting up my life and planning for marriage, stability and establishing a family to overcome being fatherless during part of my childhood.”

His planning was thrown off course by forces out of his control.

“The occupation aircraft don’t pay attention to whether I want to marry or not. My crime is living in Gaza. Wherever I go, I am subjected to danger.”

Inheritance

The most significant item Walid inherited from his father was the apartment. For six months, he furnished it in anticipation of his wedding.

Days before the devastation, his fiancée brought her possessions, including clothes and jewelry, to start her anticipated married life. Walid spent some $2,800 on wedding expenses. “All of this was demolished and is now under the rubble. I didn’t find anything.”

Setback is not new to Walid. His father, who had heart disease for 13 years, worked as an employee of the Palestinian Authority. When he died, his wife Hanan, now 55, was paid $150 monthly of her deceased husband’s salary. The money is insufficient.

Hanan told The Electronic Intifada that the family is a humble one and without many acquaintances or networks.

“When Walid got engaged, he didn’t tell our extended family,” she said. “But shortly before the date, he told our relatives and acquaintances to prepare themselves for the wedding. They could scarcely believe him. Now, however, his dreams are destroyed. The occupation was cruel to him.”
Walid’s planned 17 April wedding date has now come and gone.

Hanan doesn’t know if Walid and Naela will marry after the shock of the destruction.

For his part, Walid is trying to remain steadfast, hoping to push back the wedding date only two months.

But doubt does creep in. He is left wondering whether his dreams still can come true following so much hard work, sacrifice and the setback of being left homeless by the attack – with his sister fleeing for the night with her terrified children to the relative safety of al-Shifa hospital.

All of them – Walid, sister Hiba and her four children – are now together in a temporary rental apartment.

Circles of pain

His sister Hiba tries to console him. Her children are suffering too following the destruction of the apartment.

“I look at my four children crying about their lost toys while my brother looks at them from his own shock,” she said. “I don’t know how the Israeli army thinks. When their army targets us, they’re shelling our dreams. It’s as if they don’t want us to breathe.”

Walid al-Shawa searches the flattened remains of his apartment complex.
 Mohammed Al-Hajjar

They are not alone. Al Mezan has noted that 41 people from nine families were displaced in the attack on the residential building, including 25 children. Israeli occupation forces launched more than 23 airstrikes during the bombardment on 25 March and early the following day, with some 72 missiles fired into the densely populated territory.

The latest loss brought back memories for Walid and his family of the wider destruction in Gaza in 2014 when Israel’s aggression caused widespread devastation.

At the height of the fighting in 2014, nearly 485,000 people in Gaza, 28 percent of the population, were displaced from their homes. More than 19,000 homes were destroyed or made unfit to live in and about 100,000 people were left homeless for at least 12 months.

The losses this year were on a much smaller scale. But for Walid and his family the personal setbacks are enormous and raise profound questions about their future.

Amjad Ayman Yaghi is a journalist based in Gaza.

Israel to name new illegal settlement after Trump in occupied Golan Heights

Netanyahu's move seeks to applaud Trump for recent recognition of Israeli rule over Golan Heights

 Israel has illegally occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967 (Reuters)

By MEE and agencies-23 April 2019

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he would be putting forward a resolution to name a new illegal settlement in the occupied Golan Heights after US President Donald Trump. 

Netanyahu said the move comes in recognition of Trump's last month decision to support Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

The move was an unprecedented change to long-standing US policy. 

"All Israelis were deeply moved when President Trump made his historic decision," Netanyahu said in a video statement on the Golan Heights. 

"After the Passover holiday I intend to bring to the government a resolution calling for a new community on the Golan Heights named after President Donald J. Trump," he continued. 

Trump's move in the Golan Heights followed his decision in December 2017 to recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, breaking with decades of foreign policy over the status of a divided city contested by the Palestinians. 

Israel has said separately that, in appreciation of the US president, it intends to name a proposed train station near Jerusalem's Western Wall after him.

The Golan Heights was taken from Syria in 1967 and annexed by Israel, in a move that was not recognised internationally. 

Mexico sends home more migrants as Trump ramps up pressure

FILE PHOTO: A stroller abandoned by Central American migrants is seen after an immigration raid in their journey towards the United States, in Pijijiapan, Mexico April 22, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas/File Photo

Anthony Esposito-APRIL 23, 2019 

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico has returned 15,000 migrants in the past 30 days, a senior government official said on Tuesday, pointing to an uptick in deportations in the face of pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to stem the flow of people north.

Speaking at a news conference, Tonatiuh Guillen, head of the National Migration Institute, did not say where those people were returned to, but the majority of migrants moving through Mexico are from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Guillen said that 11,800 people had been returned in the first 22 days of April. That compares with 9,650 for all of April last year.

A third of all migrants currently arriving in Mexico are minors and there are also now more than 1,000 Cuban migrants in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas and another 2,000 in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Guillen told reporters.

Cubans are increasingly travelling to Mexico to reach the U.S. border to request asylum, many of them citing political repression and bleak economic prospects on the Communist-ruled island as their motivation.

Speaking alongside Guillen, Interior Minister Olga Sanchez said Mexico was not to blame for an “unprecedented” increase in the number of Central American migrants entering the country.

In fact, most Central American migrants say they are running away from the rampant gang violence and lack of opportunities stemming from entrenched poverty and corruption back home.

Sanchez noted Mexico had an obligation to control its southern border with Guatemala and that people entering the country must respect Mexican laws and register with authorities, after a recent clash between border agents and migrants.

Following a surge in apprehensions of Central Americans trying to enter the United States, Trump last month threatened to close the U.S.-Mexico border if the Mexican government did not stop illegal immigration right away.

More than 100,000 people were apprehended or presented themselves to U.S. authorities in March, according to the White House, calling it the highest number in a decade.

The administration of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has stepped up migrant detentions and tightened access to humanitarian visas, slowing the flow of caravans north and leaving hundreds of people stuck in the south.

Did publishing giant influence Israel studies post in British university?

The University of Sussex is among five British colleges to offer courses in Israel studies. (Wikimedia Commons)

Hilary Aked The Electronic Intifada 22 April 2019

What is the real agenda behind the teaching of Israel studies in Western universities?

While its leading advocates profess a commitment to “rigorous academic scholarship,” the subject cannot be considered politically neutral. The idea for these studies was conceived because of a perception among Israel’s supporters that some US-based professors were too sympathetic towards Palestinians.

An association promoting Israel studies was formed in 1985 but the subject did not really gain a foothold in universities until the early years of this century. It has grown since then. Today, courses in Israel studies are available on both sides of the Atlantic.

These courses are heavily reliant on pro-Israel donors. And documents obtained under Britain’s freedom of information law illustrate how college administrators can go to considerable lengths in trying to keep such donors happy.

“Your kind suggestion”

The University of Sussex – headquartered near the English coastal city of Brighton – was particularly eager to receive financial support from George Weidenfeld, a publishing magnate.

Weidenfeld had been an adviser to Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first president, in 1949, later joining the House of Lords, an unelected chamber in the British parliament.

After Weidenfeld offered to help finance an Israel studies program, he received a letter from Michael Farthing, then the vice-chancellor at Sussex University, in October 2010.

Farthing indicated he would be grateful if Weidenfeld would transfer money pledged to the university by the following summer. Approximately $1.5 million was required, Farthing wrote, to “endow” a chair of Israel studies over a 10-year period.

Weidenfeld headed a group of donors, which had promised more than half that sum. But the value of the group’s donation could be increased through a “matched funding scheme” run by the British government, provided that the payment was received ahead of a July 2011 deadline.

Other donors included Len Blavatnik, a major figure in the entertainment industry who was subsequently named Britain’s richest person, the property tycoon Gerald Ronson and the venture capitalist Ronald Cohen.

George Weidenfeld also sought to influence the choice of chair for the Israel studies program – the position which the donors were funding. In a June 2011 letter, Weidenfeld gave Farthing a list of potential candidates for that post.

Weidenfeld’s letter begins by informing Farthing that the list of candidates was supplied at “your kind suggestion.”

That contradicts a comment subsequently made by Farthing. Responding to a query about the Israel studies program, Farthing claimed the University of Sussex had a policy that “it will not accept donations that in any way compromise the academic freedom” of the institution.

He added that “donors will have no influence on the outcome of the research funded or the selection process” for the post they were financing.

Fair selection?

As Weidenfeld’s letter has been redacted by the University of Sussex, it is not known who precisely he recommended for the Israel studies chair. The post was ultimately awarded to David Tal, an Israeli historian.

After receiving Weidenfeld’s letter, Farthing chaired an eight-person committee to decide who should be appointed chair of Israel studies. That raises questions about whether the selection process was fair.

The university also offered the Pears Foundation the opportunity to suggest names for a position on the appointment committee that was intended for someone outside the university. Nominally dedicated to “good causes,” the foundation is a leading funder of Israel studies programs in Britain.

The offer made to the Pears Foundation directly contradicts assurances made by the university’s administration.

Chris Marlin, then another senior figure in the university, stated at the time that “those providing the funding for this chair have had no influence over the appointment process, including the composition of the appointing committee.” Marlin has died since then.

David Tal’s title in Sussex University is the Yossi Harel chair of Israel studies. Yossi Harel – originally Joseph Hamburger – was part of the Special Night Squads led by Orde Wingate, a British soldier with a reputation for extreme cruelty, in the 1930s.

The historian Anita Shapira has documented how Harel was directly responsible for killing Palestinians.

“Profit over people”

Weidenfeld died at the age of 96 in 2016. During the last few years of his life, he emphasized that he regarded Israel studies as explicitly political.

Teaching the subject, he said, was “very important” in universities “with an anti-Israel or anti-Semitic presence.” Weidenfeld’s comments indicate that he conflated criticism of Israel as a state with bigotry against Jews.

Weidenfeld was known to be exercised by the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. As Oxford, another British university, prepared to appoint its first Israel studies professor, Weidenfeld argued in 2011 that “nothing is more conducive to fighting the boycott.”

Farthing did not reply to a request for comment, instead referring it to the University of Sussex, where he ceased working in 2016.

A spokesperson for the university claimed the choice of the Israel studies chair was “entirely an academic decision” that “followed a publicly advertised, global search and went through our standard, rigorous recruitment process for professorial appointments.”

Farthing’s tenure as vice-chancellor in Sussex proved controversial. He oversaw the privatization of services on the university campus.

Farthing was accused of curbing free speech, when five students were suspended for protesting against the privatization measures. Efforts to discipline the students collapsed, after a lawyer representing them challenged the basis of the suspension.

Despite that controversy, Farthing received a payment worth a few hundred thousand dollars when he left his Sussex post.

Alia Al Ghussain, a British-Palestinian activist who graduated from Sussex, said that Farthing’s legacy at the university was “the prioritization of profit over people in many areas.”

The documents from the University of Sussex are published below. Al Ghussain said these documents “make it clear that there were attempts by private donors with strong pro-Israel political agendas to improperly influence” an appointment.

At least five British universities now run courses in Israel studies. The experience at Sussex demonstrates why the purpose of these programs needs to be carefully examined.

Hilary Aked is a London-based writer, researcher and activist.