avari | haroon moghul

Iran, Palestine and U.S. Foreign Policy: Richard Bulliet and Hatem Bazian at the Islamic Center at NYU

Panel Discussion : Iran, Palestine, & the U.S.: Re-Shaping Foreign Policy in the Middle East

When: This Monday, Mar 30th, 2009 
7:00pm - 10:00pm
Where: Eisner and Lubin Auditorium, the 4th Floor at 60 Washington Square South, Kimmel Center for Student Life, New York, NY 10012

Who:

Panelists:
Dr. Hatem Bazian
Dr. Richard Bulliet

What:

Do Middle Eastern leaders feel President Obama is a viable leader and ally in establishing diplomatic relations in the region, or will he carry on the status quo of US foreign policy from the previous presidency? Can President Obama effectively influence leaders to manage internal strife (Iraq, Israel and Palestine, etc.)?

The event will be held on Monday March 30, 2009, from 7PM to 9PM at the Kimmel Center of Student Life. Both speakers will have speak individually and then attendees will be able to ask questions in a Q&A session.

Co-sponsored by the United Muslims Association, The Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, Arab Students United and Shuruq 2009

The latest issue of Islamica Magazine is out

So procure for yourself a subscription, or buy the most recent issue, but either way, ask your local bookstore to stock the magazine.  I am honored to have the back-page column once more, fittingly talking on the topic of the Muslim Re-Run.

SHURUQ 2009: THE MANY FACES OF AMERICAN ISLAM | March 23rd - April 5th, 2009

(New York - 3/21/09) "For seven years now, Shuruq (Arabic for Sunrise) has been a celebration of Islam's rich diversity. Shuruq raises awareness of Islam and Muslims in an experiential way, through emphasis on lived realities and artistic expressions, working to build an attitude of harmony and mutual understanding within the New York City community. For two weeks every year, Shuruq puts together a series of increasingly popular events on NYU's campus to highlight the breadth of culture, music, literature, religion and politics throughout the Muslim world -- including America's millions of Muslims.

Shuruq 2009 kicks off on Monday, March 23rd, at the Kimmel Center, with "Cultural Passport: Explore the Taste of the Muslim Palate", an opening banquet featuring cuisine from across the Muslim world. Shuruq 2009 will host a number of events across campus, bringing to the University and to the City a chance to hear from, learn and engage with noted activists, academics, performers and American Muslims leaders. This represents for many New Yorkers an excellent opportunity to understand American Islam, where it has come from and where it is going.

"We started Shuruq in 2002," says Haroon Moghul (NYU CAS '02), the Islamic Center Director of Public Relations. "Islam is so many different places, languages and peoples. Islam was adopted by so many people, in so many places, that it is never just one thing. And we in America are building an Islam that inspires our reality and reflects our experience."

Shermeen Rahman, Chair of Shuruq 2009, says  "We hope that through this series of entertaining and educational events people will see that Islam manifests itself in many different ways. Shuruq's goal is to shed light on these facets of Islam that are often ignored in today's society and encourage a much lacking communication between American Muslims and the broader society we are part of." "American Muslims have to proactively engage the communities that we are connected to," says Imam Khalid Latif, Director and Chaplain of the Islamic Center at NYU. "We are working to engage our fellow New Yorkers, communicating through many different ways, through music and movies, food and festivals, teach-ins and workshops, that Islam is a big tent, and there is a lot of room in that tent for a lot of experiences."

For a complete listing of this year's events, please visit www.icnyu.org/shuruq

All events are free and open to the public. Members of the University and New York City residents are especially encouraged to attend.

The Islamic Center at NYU serves the Muslim population at New York University, a private institution of higher education and research located in lower Manhattan. The Islamic Center at NYU is overseen by the Office of the Muslim Chaplain, established in April 2007 to meet the needs of a growing Muslim community.

Inspired by the idea that America's Muslim community will best develop in a supportive environment, the Islamic Center has not only seen tremendous increase in membership but has motivated its student population to find new ways of harnessing their resources and expanding their relationships with the wider community.

Roger Cohen on Middle East Peace

Definitely worth reading:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton grabbed headlines with an invitation to Iran to attend a conference on Afghanistan, but the significant Middle Eastern news last week came from Britain. It has “reconsidered” its position on Hezbollah and will open a direct channel to the militant group in Lebanon.

Like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah has long been treated by the United States as a proscribed terrorist group. This narrow view has ignored the fact that both organizations are now entrenched political and social movements without whose involvement regional peace is impossible.

Britain aligned itself with the U.S. position on Hezbollah, but has now seen its error. Bill Marston, a Foreign Office spokesman, told Al Jazeera: “Hezbollah is a political phenomenon and part and parcel of the national fabric in Lebanon. We have to admit this.”

Hallelujah.

Precisely the same thing could be said of Hamas in Gaza. It is a political phenomenon, part of the national fabric there.

One difference is that Hezbollah is in the Lebanese national unity government, whereas Hamas won the free and fair January 2006 elections to the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority, only to discover Middle Eastern democracy is only democracy if it produces the right result.

The United States should follow the British example. It should initiate diplomatic contacts with the political wing of Hezbollah. The Obama administration should also look carefully at how to reach moderate Hamas elements and engineer a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation.

A rapprochement between the two wings of the Palestinian movement was briefly achieved at Mecca in 2007. The best form of payback from America’s expensive and authoritarian allies — Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan — would be help in reconciling Gaza Palestinians loyal to Hamas with West Bank Palestinians loyal to the more moderate Fatah of Mahmoud Abbas.

Resolve is not the most conspicuous characteristic of those three allies. But Obama must push them to help. As long as Palestinians are divided, peace efforts will flounder.

With respect to Hamas, the West has bound itself to three conditions for any contact: Hamas must recognize Israel, forswear terrorism and accept previous Palestinian commitments. This was reiterated by Clinton on her first Mideast swing.

The 1988 Hamas Charter is vile, but I think it’s wrong to get hung up on the prior recognition of Israel issue. Perhaps Hamas is sincere in its calls for Israel’s disappearance — although it has offered a decades-long truce — but then it’s also possible that Israel in reality has no desire to see a Palestinian state.

One view of Israel’s continued expansion of settlements, Gaza blockade, West Bank walling-in and wanton recourse to high-tech force would be that it’s designed precisely to bludgeon, undermine and humiliate the Palestinian people until their dreams of statehood and dignity evaporate.

The argument over recognition is in the end a form of evasion designed to perpetuate the conflict.

Israel, from the time of Ben Gurion, built its state by creating facts on the ground, not through semantics. Many of its leaders, including Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni, have been on wondrous political odysseys from absolutist rejection of division of the land to acceptance of a two-state solution. Yet they try to paint Hamas as irrevocably absolutist. Why should Arabs be any less pragmatic than Jews?

Of course it’s desirable that Hamas recognize Israel before negotiations. But is it essential? No. What is essential is that it renounces violence, in tandem with Israel, and the inculcation of hatred that feeds the violence.

Speaking of violence, it’s worth recalling what Israel did in Gaza in response to sporadic Hamas rockets. It killed upward of 1,300 people, many of them women and children; caused damage estimated at $1.9 billion; and destroyed thousands of Gaza homes. It continues a radicalizing blockade on 1.5 million people squeezed into a narrow strip of land.

At this vast human, material and moral price, Israel achieved almost nothing beyond damage to its image throughout the world. Israel has the right to hit back when attacked, but any response should be proportional and governed by sober political calculation. The Gaza war was a travesty; I have never previously felt so shamed by Israel’s actions.

No wonder Hamas and Hezbollah are seen throughout the Arab world as legitimate resistance movements.

It’s time to look at them again and adopt the new British view that contact can encourage Hezbollah “to move away from violence and play a constructive, democratic and peaceful role.”

The British step is a breakthrough. By contrast, Clinton’s invitation to Iran is of little significance.

There are two schools within the Obama administration on Iran: the incremental and the bold. The former favors little steps like inviting Iran to help with Afghanistan; the latter realizes that nothing will shift until Obama convinces Tehran that he’s changing strategy rather than tactics.

That requires Obama to tell Iran, as a start, that he does not seek regime change and recognizes the country’s critical role as a regional power. Carrots and sticks — the current approach — will lead to the same dead end as Hamas and Hezbollah denial.