Juan Cole links to this article: Translation of Shirin Ebadi's Dearborn speech Detroit News 05/07/06. She is an Iranian won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her work for human rights and democratic in Iran and other countries.
She said in the speech which took place 05/06/06:
This is our duty as Muslims to show the world that Islam is a religion of kindness and forgiveness. ...
Unfortunately, after September 11, people looked suspiciously at Muslims. And the U.S. media has a role in that, too. If a Muslim committed something wrong or violated a law, they would write for instance, "Hassan, the Muslim, did that." But if some Christian had committed that crime or violated that law, they would never have written that, "George, the Christian, violated that law and committed that violation." ...
When mistakes that people make are personal, it has nothing to do with the religion they belong to. And we did not regard all Christians as responsible for mistakes that were done in Bosnia, because Christians follow Christ, who is a prophet of God, and who believes in forgiveness and in peace.
And what happens in Palestine should not be related to the religions of Judaism. Moses is a prophet of God as well, and he speaks of the rights of people, too. Therefore, my question to the world is: Why hold the religion of Islam responsible for the mistakes performed by a few Muslim people? (my emphasis)
These are sensible responses to the hardline rightwing attempts to demonize Islam as a religion. Of course, the jihadists are not acting out of purely "personal" motives. But the point is well taken. "Islam" is not responsible for the violent acts of radical Salafists.
She also talks about the expected Iranian response should the Bush administration decide to launch a preventive war against them:
Unfortunately, in the Middle East, what happened to Iraq demonstrates that over 100,000 civilians were killed. Iraq was destroyed. Also, American youth get killed in that war. The only beneficiaries of the war are people who sell arms. As a Muslim Iranian, I state here that I do criticize the government of Iran. But this does not mean that America has the right to invade Iran. And if America has not learned its lesson from Iraq and thinks of invading Iran, notwithstanding all of the criticisms we have of our government, we will defend our country to the last drop of our blood. And we will not let an alien soldier set foot on the land of Iran. If American speaks of globalization, this doesn't mean that the whole world is seen as one village and Bush is seen as the only sheriff of that village.
Amid growing tensions between the United States and Iran, leaders of the U.S. Jewish community are expressing concern over Pres. George W. Bush's recent statements that his main concern in any possible military action would be protecting Israel.
While persuaded that a nuclear Iran would indeed present an "existential threat" to Israel, they fear that any negative consequences arising from a U.S. attack could promote an anti-Semitic backlash that would also damage Washington's long-term support for the Jewish state.
In addition, citing Israel as justification for confronting Iran will make it far more difficult to rally other countries behind Washington's moves against Tehran, they say.
Those concerns surfaced dramatically last week at the centennial convention of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) when an AJC board member received a rousing ovation for asking Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman to "take a message" to Bush to stop linking U.S. actions against Iran with Israel's security.
Lobe's article reminds us that simplistic theories about why the Bush administration makes policy decisions should be evaluated carefully. Referring to critics of the Iraq War who try to blame Israel and American Jews for the decision to go to war - those critics being mostly Old Right isolationists, aka, "paleo-conservatives" - Lobe writes:
In fact, U.S. Jews were, if anything, somewhat less supportive of going to war in Iraq than the general population, according to public opinion polls, which have since found Jews to have been quicker than just about any other group to conclude that the invasion was a major mistake.
At the same time, however, top officials in Israel's Likud-led government clearly encouraged - albeit mostly discreetly - the administration on its course, while prominent neo-conservatives, for whom concern about Israel's security and a right-wing Zionist worldview have long been defining characteristics, took the lead in promoting the war, both inside and outside the administration. While most neo-conservatives are Jewish, most U.S. Jews, while very sympathetic to Israel, are not neo-conservatives. (my emphasis)
