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By Nile Bowie

At the opening of China’s annual parliamentary meeting last week, Premier Li Keqiang laid out Beijing’s policy agenda for the year, speaking frankly about the formidable challenges to growth facing the Chinese economy. Li referred to a myriad of systemic, institutional, and structural problems as ‘tigers in the road,’ responsible for holding up development.

Beijing subsequently unveiled this year’s GDP target at about 7 per cent, the lowest target in over 15 years. After three decades of rapid expansion, Li has referred the current period of slower, sustained economic growth as the ‘new normal’. Though the revised performance target remains robust by global comparison, the Chinese leadership is now taking measures to offset further downward pressure on the economy.

Deflationary Risks

The slowdown in the world’s second largest economy is driven primarily by high debts (estimated at more than 280 per cent of GDP), an unintended consequence of the central government’s massive credit stimulus following the global financial crisis of 2008 to 2009. Following the crash, investments in property and infrastructure were financed primarily by credit to compensate for lower consumer demand for Chinese exports.

Declining commodity and oil prices, lower international and domestic demand, and falling industrial production have converged, placing an increasingly heavy debt burden on provincial governments and industrial firms. China is currently experiencing a property downturn and low consumer inflation, while three consecutive years of contracting industrial output has spurred on deflationary risks.

China’s central bank has recently announced the reduction of interest rates for the second time in three months, reducing lending and deposit rates by a quarter percentage point. Beijing has been skeptical of monetary easing policies that would further reckless borrowing and increase the debt burden. The Chinese leadership are now easing borrowing costs, albeit very cautiously and by conservative margins.

Interest rate reductions are being made primarily to manage corporate debt levels, easing financing costs with the ultimate aim of preventing the build up of non-performing loans, which could trigger a hard landing for the Chinese economy that would have severe global reverberations. Lower borrowing costs are also intended to aid exporters and home buyers.

Changing the Business Model

China’s development strategy of export-led growth supported by low-cost manufactured exports, undervalued exchange rates and investment in heavy industry is increasingly viewed as being unsustainable in the face of huge environmental challenges, industrial overcapacity, rising labor costs, and high provincial government debt.

Beijing’s long-term reform objectives involve restructuring the economy around domestic consumption, tackling overcapacity issues, promoting services, and encouraging technological innovation to move manufacturing up the global value chain. During his parliamentary address, Li highlighted the government’s ambition to “upgrade China from a manufacturer of quantity to one of quality.”

The Chinese government has set job creation as a key objective, aiming to create 10 million new jobs this year, while pursuing measures to further reduce administrative interference to make it easier to start businesses. 7.49 million university graduates are set to enter the workforce this year, as the government has pledged to actively support business start-ups for new industries.

Leaders of China’s largest tech firms – Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Lenovo and Xiaomi – were present at the annual parliamentary session. Beijing laid out plans for promoting e-commerce development and the international expansion of Chinese internet companies and tech firms, pledging greater state investment in the internet sector and emerging technologies.

Domestic tech firms and internet-based start-ups are viewed as one of the future engines of economic growth, capable of creating tens of millions of jobs while Beijing scales back severe pollutant industries, such as coal mining. China boasts over 780 million broadband internet users, more than the populations in the euro-zone and US combined, which makes the internet sector a powerful driver in promoting the kind of consumption-led growth that Chinese leaders have been calling for.

Consumption-Led Growth

China’s economic slowdown presents various obstacles, but also opportunities for the firm implementation of changes that will place emphasis on more equal income distribution to stimulate demand and less damaging forms of development. The main economic challenges ahead consist of maintaining healthy growth targets without resorting to a credit-fuelled surge in borrowing.

Moreover, the gradual appreciation of the renminbi is key to promoting consumption, although the deflationary pressure on the economy has suppressed the currency. Beijing plans to allow more private investment in state-owned enterprises while it liberalizes the financial sector to compensate for decreasing investment and industrial activity.

Shanghai’s 28 square kilometer free-trade zone has been the policy-testing ground for Beijing to experiment with open capital markets in the interest of internationalizing the renminbi, which China has – very cautiously – begun steering toward becoming a globally dominant, fully-convertible currency.

A liberalized capital market is seen by Chinese leaders as a means of accelerating rebalancing reforms, increasing consumption, and forcing low-end domestic exporters to move up the value chain. Integration into global capital markets demands that the renminbi move toward a more freely floating exchange rate as it is utilized as an international trade settlement currency.

In more human terms, the biggest obstacle of consumption taking over as a growth driver is income inequality and the weak position of labor in society. China’s Gini co-efficient figure, which measures the income inequality within an economy, rose to 0.73 last year, representing severe income inequality. Areport by Peking University also found that while poverty has decreased substantially, the poorest quarter of Chinese citizens owned only 1 per cent of the country’s wealth.

Beijing recently unveiled plans to lift government spending to 17.15 trillion yuan ($2.74 trillion) in 2015, a 10.6 percent increase from 2014 levels. The budget deficit for 2015 represents 2.3 per cent of GDP, but there are indications that the real figure may be higher than declared, effectively putting this year’s spending at 2.7 percent of GDP, on par with the 2009 stimulus package.

To drive consumption forward, more resources should be directed toward pensions, healthcare, unemployment and support for a national minimum wage standard. Additionally, tax cuts on low-income earners and small and medium sized enterprises should be implemented to relieve the burden on households and boost spending on consumption.

If the 2015 budget is effectively on par with the post-crisis stimulus budget, the focus this time around should proportionately place emphasis on debt management and spurring demand through consumption, rather than further credit-fuelled investments that would add to the debt burden.

Nile Bowie is an independent journalist and political analyst based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is a research assistant with the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), a Malaysian NGO promoting social justice and anti-hegemony politics.

14 Mrch 2015

By Eric Zuesse

The Obama Administration, which in 2009 provided the crucial assistance that enabled the progressive democratic President of Honduras to be overthrown and a junta of oligarchs to replace him; and which in 2014 perpetrated a bloody coup that replaced the corrupt but democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, replaced by a rabidly anti-Russian equally corrupt Government, and thus sparked Ukraine’s civil war against the area of Ukraine that had voted 90% for Yanukovych; is now again trying to overthrow Venezuela’s democratically elected President, Nicolas Maduro.

Reuters on Monday March 9th headlined “U.S. Declares Venezuela a National Security Threat, Sanctions Top Officials,” and their report gives its closing word to an opposition politician, whom Obama supports and who says: “It’s not a problem with Venezuela or with Venezuelans; it’s a problem for the corrupt ones” (i.e., Maduro and his Government).

In other words, yet again, the idea Obama is pushing is: we’re just trying to replace a ‘corrupt’ elected head-of-state.

The White House explains its Executive Order on March 9th by saying: “President Obama today issued a new Executive Order (E.O.) declaring a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela. … Specifically, the E.O. targets those determined by the Department of the Treasury, in consultation with the Department of State, to be involved in … actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions.”

The Executive Order itself declares that the existing Government of Venezuela limits rights and is corrupt, which “constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.”

On 14 February 2015, President Maduro had thwarted a coup-attempt against him by the Governments of Canada and the UK. This followed almost exactly a year after he had already thwarted such an attempt by the U.S. Government. In December 2013, the Maduro Government presented detailed evidence that the U.S. was planning a coup against him.

On 15 January 2015, Maduro met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. The Obama Administration is, of course, especially trying to bring down President Putin.

President Obama is also trying to bring down Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. In 2011, he had bombed away the regime of Libya’s President Muammar Gaddafi. Both Assad and Gaddafi also are/were allies of Russia, as is Iran. The Obama Administration is now assisting ISIS in its war against Assad, even while bombing ISIS.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

10 March, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Countercurrents.org

The US has declared Venezuela is a national security threat. US President Barack Obama issued an executive order on March 9, 2015 slapping Venezuela with new sanctions and declaring the Bolivarian nation an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security”. President Nicolas Maduro a few days ago revealed new evidence on the coup plot against his administration revealing that much of it was planned in the US.

Reports by international news agencies including AFP, AP, Reuters and TeleSUR English said:

Barack Obama issued the executive order, which senior administration officials said did not target Venezuela’s energy sector or broader economy. But the move stokes tensions between the two countries just as US relations with Cuba, a longtime US foe in Latin America and key ally to Venezuela, are set to be normalized.

“Venezuelan officials past and present who violate the human rights of Venezuelan citizens and engage in acts of public corruption will not be welcome here, and we now have the tools to block their assets and their use of US financial systems,” announced White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

A Caracas, March 9, 2015 datelined report by Lucas Koerner said:

The sanctions target seven individuals accused by the White House of alleged human rights violations and “public corruption”, freezing their assets and barring entry into the US.

The figures include Justo Jose Noguera Pietri, President of the state entity, the Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana (CVG) and Katherine Nayarith Haringhton Padron, a national level prosecutor currently taking the lead in the trials of several Venezuelan political opposition leaders, including Leopoldo Lopez.

The report said:

The executive order is the latest in a series of US sanctions imposed on Venezuela over the past few months. On February 3, the Obama administration expanded the list of Venezuelan officials barred from entering the US, which now includes the Chief Prosecutor Luis Ortega Diaz.

The US has failed thus far to disclose evidence that might bolster its claims of human rights violations, leading Venezuelan and other regional leaders to condemn what they regard as the arbitrary and political character of US sanctions.

While regional bodies such as the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) have called for dialogue, Washington has so far refused to support negotiations or to recognize the organization’s stance.

The order goes on to call for the release of all “political prisoners” allegedly held by the Venezuelan government, including “dozens of students”.

The Venezuelan government, for its part, maintains that all of those arrested are in the process of facing trial for criminal offences linked to violent destabilization efforts spearheaded by the opposition.

Former Caracas Metropolitan Mayor Antonio Ledezma was arrested last month on charges of conspiracy and sedition related to the February 12 thwarted “Blue Coup” attempt. A Venezuelan judge found sufficient evidence linking the opposition figure to air force officials involved in the coup as well as to rightwing terrorist leaders such as Lorent Saleh, who was extradited by Colombian authorities to face charges last year.

The other high profile Venezuelan opposition leader currently facing trial is Leopoldo López, who was indicted for his role in leading several months of violent opposition protests last year with the aim of effecting the “exit”, or ouster, of the constitutional government. Known as the “guarimbas”, these violent protests and street barricades caused the death of 43 people, the majority of whom were security personnel or Chavistas.

Ledezma and López, together with far right leader Maria Corina Machado, were active in the 2002 coup against then president Hugo Chávez, which succeeded in temporarily ousting the Venezuelan leader until he was restored by a popular uprising.

All three opposition leaders also signed a “National Transition Agreement” released on the day prior to February’s “Blue Coup” attempt, describing the government of Nicolas Maduro as in its “terminal phase” and declaring the need to “name new authorities” without mentioning elections or other constitutional mechanisms. Many political commentators interpreted the document as an open call for a coup against the president.

The report added:

The Venezuelan government has charged the US government with hypocrisy on the issue of human rights, and in particular the mass repression and incarceration of Afrodescendent communities in the US.

On February 28, President Maduro announced new measures imposing a reciprocal travel visa requirements on U.S. citizens seeking to enter Venezuela as well as mandating a reduction in U.S. embassy staff to levels that match the number of Venezuelan personnel in Washington.

Maduro also announced the creation of an “anti-terrorist list” of individuals barred from entering Venezuela, which will include former US officials such as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who have reportedly “committed human rights violations.”

The Reuters report said:

Declaring any country a threat to national security is the first step in starting a US sanctions program. The same process has been followed with countries such as Iran and Syria, U.S. officials said.

The two countries have not had full diplomatic representation since 2008, when late socialist leader Hugo Chavez expelled then-US Ambassador Patrick Duddy. Washington at the time responded by expelling Venezuelan envoy Bernardo Alvarez.

The report said:

Commercial ties between Venezuela and the United States have largely been unaffected by diplomatic flare-ups, which were common during the 14-year-rule of Chavez.

The US is Venezuela’s top trading partner, and the OPEC member in 2014 remained the fourth-largest supplier of crude to the United States at an average of 733,000 barrels per day – despite a decade-long effort by Caracas to diversify its oil shipments to China and India.

A Caracas datelined report said:

President Maduro lashed out at the US for imposing sanctions on top Venezuelan officials accused of human rights violations, saying he would ask his country’s Congress to grant him additional powers to “fight imperialism.”

In a fiery speech broadcast on state television on March 9, 2015, the socialist leader appeared alongside the sanctioned officials, promoting one and congratulating each for the “imperial honor” bestowed by Washington.

“President Barack Obama, in the name of the US imperialist elite, has decided to personally take on the task of defeating my government, intervening in Venezuela, and controlling it from the US,” Maduro said. “Obama today took the most aggressive, unjust and poisonous step that the U.S. has ever taken against Venezuela.”

One of targeted individuals, Major Gen. Gustavo Gonzalez, director general of Venezuela’s intelligence service, was promoted to Interior Minister, a key post responsible for keeping the peace.

Maduro also announced that he would ask the ruling-party controlled Congress to grant him new powers so that he could defend the country against all aggressions and threats to its sovereignty. But he didn’t specify the powers or how he’d apply them.

The TeleSUR English report said:

During his weekly televised show last week, Maduro played the audio of a conversation held between Carlos Manuel Osuna Saraco, a former Venezuelan politician living in New York, and a soldier, in which Osuna dictates the statement that the rebel soldiers should read out during the coup.

The Venezuelan leader informed viewers that he would soon call upon the United States to extradite the suspect Osuna for trial in his home country.

Maduro also noted that in addition to the call from Osuna’s base in New York, there was a second phone call from Miami.

Ledezma was in constant coordination with Osuna in New York via telephone.

“There is a lot of hatred in certain minorities [in Venezuela],” Maduro said. “Minorities with economic power that are being encouraged from the US.”

“This plot has a tag which reads ‘made in the USA,’” he asserted, adding that a member of the United States Embassy in Venezuela also met with opposition leaders, giving them documents to help in the preparation stage.

He urged Barack Obama to abandon his government’s attempts to oust him.

“You, Mr. Obama, must decide … if you want to go down in history as George W. Bush, who failed in attempting to oust President Chavez,” said Maduro.

According to information the government had previously released, the coup plotters had a four-stage plan to oust the president, which would begin with economic warfare and finish with a violent military uprising.

Maduro said preliminary information given by detained officers – not yet confirmed – points at CNN and Televen as two of the media outlets through which the coup plotters’ message would be aired.

Maduro also showed a copy of a new “100-day Plan for Transition”, designed by the coup plotters and the opposition, which stipulated a series of measures which would be implemented by the planned governing junta.

The plan would take effect immediately after the coup, calling for early elections and the privatization of all public services.

The transitional government would request all of the current Venezuelan officials to turn themselves into the police within a period of 180 days. It also requested every Cuban worker within the government to turn themselves in unarmed to their local police station.

The plan also contemplated a role for the IMF, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank to intervene in the Venezuelan economy.

Maduro announced further revelations will be made in the following weeks, and said he will bring that evidence to present at the Summit of the Americas, to be held in April in Panama.

“We have only revealed less than one percent of all of the information which the detained generals have given us,” said Maduro.

The Venezuelan president ended the broadcast by urging opposition leaders to stay away from an armed struggle and to respect the Constitution.

 

10 March 2015

Countercurrents.org

 

By Sandy English

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has reportedly used heavy equipment to demolish the site of the ancient Assyrian capital of Nimrud, 18 miles south of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. Reports describe ISIS militiamen trucking away statues and tablets from the site and the demolition of the area since last Thursday. The fundamentalist group considers pre-Islamic artifacts to be idolatrous and worthy of destruction.

Nimrud, built over 3,000 years ago, was the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire after 883 BC. The Neo-Assyrian Empire, whose rulers spoke a language distantly related to Arabic and Hebrew, ruled Mesopotamia, the ancient name for Iraq and parts of Syria, from about 900 BC to 600 BC.

The site along the Tigris River contained monumental statues, frescos, temples, private dwellings and a ziggurat, the stepped pyramid characteristic of Mesopotamian civilizations. Nimrud boasted some of the most extensive carvings in ivory of any site in the world, most of which had been removed and placed in museums in Iraq and Britain.

A week earlier, the Islamic State released video showing men smashing statues with sledgehammers in the Nineveh Museum, about 20 miles from the site of Nimrud. Nineveh was the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire after 705 BC.

In recent weeks, ISIS has also set off incendiary devices around Mosul Central Library. Estimates of the books and manuscripts destroyed range from 8,000 to 10,000. Bookshops on the central Al-Nujaifi Street have been burned, and ancient Christian monasteries have been vandalized.

Over the weekend, the Associated Press reported that residents near Hatra, 68 miles southwest of Mosul, saw ISIS fighters removing artifacts form the 2,000-year-old city. Hatra was built during the Seleucid Empire in the second or third century BC and changed hands over the next several hundred years, belonging in turn to the Parthians, the Romans and Araba, one of the first pre-Islamic Arab kingdoms.

Next to the tremendous loss of life, the destruction of the past is one of the most grievous products of the conflict that was initiated by the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. A whole people is being cut off from its historical roots and the study of the Mesopotamian past by historians has suffered a serious blow.
The plunder of Iraq began on April 10, 2003, when American occupation forces in Baghdad, in spite of warnings by archaeologists, allowed the National Museum to be looted of tens of thousands of historical artifacts of great artistic and scientific value. Only about half the artifacts have been recovered. The American military, in violation of cultural heritage regulations, fired on the museum.

In that first month of the occupation, dozens of other museums and libraries were burned or looted, including the Mosul Museum, where the 2,000-year-old statue of Parthian King Saqnatroq II was stolen.

In 2003-2004, American troops occupied the site of ancient Babylon, where they dug ditches across excavated areas, filling sandbags with ancient bricks labeled with cuneiform writing of the Mesopotamian civilization. The occupation forces built a heliport, and vibrations from American aircraft caused the bases of temples to collapse.

“The damage to Babylon is both extensive and irreparable,” Columbia University archeologist Zainab Bahrani said in 2007. “The occupation has resulted in a tremendous destruction of history, well beyond the museums and libraries that were looted and destroyed at the fall of Baghdad. At least seven historical sites have [like Babylon] been used by US and coalition forces since 2003, one of them being in the historical heart of Samarra, where the Askari shrine built by Nasr al Din Shah was bombed in 2006.”

The destruction and looting of Iraqi archaeological sites has been going on nonstop ever since. Iraq’s archeological sites and tells—unexcavated mounds of earth that cover formerly inhabited areas—have been dug up with earth-moving equipment and the spoils have been sold on the antiquities market for private gain.

In 2010, the New York Times noted the collusion of the police with antiquities thieves in southern Iraq, areas controlled by Shia sectarian militias. One of the great cultural crimes brought on by the American occupation of Iraq was the bombing of al-Mutinabbi Street, Baghdad’s historic street of booksellers, on March 5, 2007.

Both Nimrud and Nineveh were plundered several times during the American occupation. Before ISIS’s destruction last week, the advanced state of decay of the Nimrud site was causing archaeologists great concern.

The American and European media have expressed “shock” and “outrage” over ISIS’s cultural destruction. Irina Bokova, director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESO) said, “We cannot remain silent. The deliberate destruction of cultural heritage constitutes a war crime.”

The Iraqi government, somewhat more forthrightly, has used the ISIS vandalism to call for stepped-up intervention by the American and coalition air forces in Iraq.

But the corporate-controlled media, UNESCO, and the miserable servants of the US in the Iraq government conceal the essential causes and nature of this barbarism, and omit even naming the force that is chiefly responsible for the destruction of the past: American imperialism.

This exercise in unbridled hypocrisy assumes that the people of the world have forgotten the destruction of Iraqi, and now Syrian, heritage sites, museums and libraries as the result of 12 years of almost continuous imperialist military intervention in the region.

Over a million Iraqis have died as a result of the American invasion and occupation, and the sectarian fighting stoked up by US imperialism. Tens of millions remain internally displaced and mired in poverty. The utilities infrastructure and the Iraqi health care system have been destroyed and have yet to recover. The World Socialist Web Site has accurately defined this process as “sociocide,” “the deliberate and systematic murder of an entire society.”

The same is true for the devastation wrought by right-wing political movements such as ISIS, and the destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage. Just as there was no presence of Al Qaeda in Iraq before the American invasion, there was no plunder of the country’s archaeology or cultural institutions.

Those above all responsible for the destruction of Nimrud, Nineveh and Hatra bear the names of Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell. One must add to this list Barack Obama, who continued the occupation for nearly three years and has now launched a new war in Iraq and Syria that can only lead to the further destruction of the region’s historical and cultural legacy, in addition to more civilian deaths and an increase in the number of refugees.

In a more direct sense, the vandalism of ISIS is an American production. In its eagerness to implement regime-change in Syria, the CIA, working with American allies among the Gulf monarchies, as well as Turkey and Jordan, armed the Islamists fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The American-stoked civil war in Syria led to the widespread destruction of antiquities.

Last year, the UN found that 24 archaeological sites have been completely destroyed, 189 severely or moderately damaged, and a further 77 possibly damaged. All six of Syria’s World Heritage sites have been damaged.

09 March, 2015
WSWS.org

 

By Mazin Qumsiyeh

Today is International Women’s Day . The mainstream media misses the point intentionally. They highlight certain women (some who make the lives of women everywhere difficult people like Hilary Clinton, Condoleeza Rice, Angela Markel etc) and they fail to give credit to those who change things or to even explain to us the origin of this day. Having an anual dedicated day for women (action) was proposed by Clara Zetkin of Germany to attendees at the International Conference of Working Women in 1910. Inspired by women socialist movements for fair working conditions in the USA in 1908 and 1909, movements grew of women demanding their rights (until then they did not even have a right to vote). The first women’s day on 8 March 1911 launched demonstration and marches for women workers’ rights (right to vote, right to fair work condition, right to live free from oppression, right to life, against wars etc). After a long struggle and many lives lost along the way, the UN finally recognized 8 March as an “International” (I prefer global) women’s day in 1977, 66 years after it was launched by brave socialist women. Thus women’s day is about actions against injustice not about Hilary Clinton!

The First Arab Women’s Congress of Palestine gathered about 200 women and was held on 26 October 1929 in Jerusalem. The demands were rights of women and against the Balfour Declaration, against the racist idea of Zionism, for self-determination, and for full equality (gender, religion etc). They elected a 14 member Executive Committee headed by Matiel E. T. Mogannam. Mogannam wrote a book titled “The Arab Women and the Palestinian Problem” published 1937. Moghannam explained how Palestinian women in the 1920s were innovative in many ways: lobbying the colonial power, writing in newspapers, and holding the first demonstration in human history that used automobiles with 120 cars in 1928 (gathered from all over Palestine to drive in the streets of Jerusalem). See my book on “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of hope and empowerment”
(http://qumsiyeh.org/popularresistanceinpalestine/) The struggle of women here continues unabated. Many people like me believe sincerely that had women been in charge here, we would have had a free Palestine by now. My mother who is 82 years old showed us by example what giving and self-sacrifice and love of people and land means. My wife and three sisters are likewise examples of what we all should aspire to do: kind, dedicated, and hard-working human beings. Like millions before them and millions contemporary with them, these women make life livable while many men (and a few women) engage in hurting others and pushing for conflicts and war. Words are too mediocre and inadequate to express our feelings but I simply want to say to all the women working for peace and justice: thank you and to pledge that we will work with you for more progressive change in our societies.

Donate to the Palestine Museum of Natural History and our institute of biodiversity and sustainability. New campaign launched through Indiegogo
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/palestine-museum-of-natural-history/x/10068075
More at http://palestinenature.org

Palestine Remix http://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/PalestineRemix

Thank 60 members of Congress for skipping the Netanyahu speech
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/641/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=17304

Mazin Butros Qumsiyeh is a Palestinian scientist and author and the director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History.
9 March 2015

By Ali Abunimah

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his much trailed and politically divisive speech to the US Congress today, forcefully denouncing a possible international agreement that would place Iran’s civilian nuclear energy program under strict supervision.

Immediately afterwards, I spoke to The Real News Network’s Paul Jay to analyze the speech, including Netanyahu’s appeal to Biblical myths and Islamophobia in his attempt to derail US diplomacy.

Netanyahu’s speech came as US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, were in Switzerland to close the deal at high stakes negotiations backed by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany.

President Barack Obama dismissed Netanyahu’s speech as offering nothing new and said the Israeli leader offered no alternatives to his efforts to reach a diplomatic agreement.

Approximately fifty Democratic members of Congress skipped Netanyahu’s speech, some after intense lobbying efforts by Palestinian rights advocates.

Ali Abunimah is Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

04 March, 2014
Electronicintifada.net

By Rabbi Michael Lerner

Netanyahu’s speech to Congress was brilliantly deceitful because it played to the fantasies that Israeli propaganda and right wing militarists in the US have been popularizing for the past thirty years.

* The biggest fantasy: that we can coerce others through power over them to do what we consider in the best interests of the U.S. or Israel. This is what I call “The Strategy of Domination.” A more effective path is “The Strategy of Generosity”–showing others that we care about them and recognize their needs as being equally legitimate to our own. This second approach is the view that made trade between tribes, and eventually between nations possible in the past, and it remains the view that makes it possible for most countries of the world to live in peace with their neighbors. They hate to do business with those who think that they can get their way through power-tripping and manipulations and threats.

This struggle between two world views is the core of the debate today in the U.S. and the reason that the militarists have the upper hand is because the Obama Administration, fearing that it might be ridiculed as believing in “kumbaya politics,” used its first six years to pursue policies that better fit the Strategy of Domination than the Strategy of Generosity. Predictably, now it finds itself without a popular base for turning toward a more rational path in regard to Iran, having to frame its policies in terms of his policies’ toughness rather than in terms of their humanity and reflection of higher ethical values.

I know so many people who shake their heads in despair at the growth of the right-wing consciousness in the US in every sphere except identity politics, but really what other discourse are they ever exposed to? Obama should embrace the Biblical call for “love the stranger/the other” and challenge Americans to take that call seriously. Instead, he tries to measure up against the criteria set by the militarists. Guess what? In that coercion-oriented arena liberals and progressives will always fail, because you have to be unscrupulous to win there.

Netanyahu is a master of manipulating the fantasies that the right-wing discourse advances. For example, the view of the world that sees “our side” (whether that ‘our’ be the U.S. or Israel) as always innocent and good, and “the other” as intrinsically evil.

* So consider his claim that it is Iran that has been making war against countries in the Middle East. No…actually it is the U.S. that has been making war against those countries in the past 12 years. You will have to look very hard to find any Iranian troops in Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, or Egypt in the past 12 years. But you will find tens of thousands of American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq in the past twelve years. Similarly, it is Israel that has been decimating Gaza, not Iran decimating a neighboring city or province or country. From a global perspective, and based on the behavior of these countries in the past two decades ever since the peace-oriented prime minister of Israely Yitzhak Rabin was murdered by a right wing religious Zionist, the world has more to fear from the US and Israel and our indomitable sense of self-righteousness than it does from Iran.

*Iran is the biggest violator of human rights in the region. Not so fast. Iran has some stiff competition with America’s ally Saudi Arabia, not to mention the U.S. torture operations in Abu Ghraib. In fact, the US still won’t release the full U.S. Senate report on its torture operations around the world because they would be too shocking to the US population. And the CIA chief recently appointed by President Obama insists that the CIA was not involved in torture, and the Obama Administration refuses to bring charges against any CIA agents who were engaged in torture, thus giving a signal to future torturers that they will be exempt from any punishments. We will deplore their behavior, but then let them continue it.

Undermining negotiations with Iran by continuing sanctions and offering no serious benefits for Iran to agree to anything would lead to Iran accelerating its nuclear program out of fear that it might soon be facing a war with Israel and the U.S. and perceiving itself as vulnerable unless it quickly develops nukes for itself. So following Netanyahu’s path would actually create the very situation he claims to fear–a renewed commitment on the part of Iran to develop nuclear weapon capability.

* Israel is a beacon of democracy. Well…not so fast. Palestinians living within the West Bank and Gaza are living under the effective control of Israel on most matters of life, pay taxes to the Israeli government, must get permission from Israel to lave those areas, yet have no vote in the elections (though Jews living in the West Bank do have the right to vote). It’s certainly better than what faces people in many other middle eastern countries, but it’s a stretch to call Israel a democracy as long as the Occupation continues.

* Iran with nuclear weapons would be a danger to everyone. Well, that’s partially true and partially false. It’s true to the extent that any country having nuclear weapons is a danger to everyone on the planet (though the US is the only country in the world to have ever actually used nuclear weapons in a war). But it’s not true that Iran would use those weapons. While I detest the current regime in Iran and hope for its nonviolent overthrow by the people of Iran, I see nothing in their behavior that leads me to believe that they are suicidal. On the contrary, they have a strong desire to make their Islamic republic the model for all future Islamic societies.

Iranian leaders know full well that Israel has the capacity, should Iran strike at Israel, to use its 200 nuclear bombs to wipe Iran off the face of the planet, if the US didn’t do that first in the event of an Iranian use of nuclear weapons against Israel. So Netanyahu’s paranoid fantasy only seems plausible if you think that Iran is the equivalent of the Nazi regime. And that is precisely where political analysis has to yield to psychological investigation. In my book Embracing Israel/Palestine (check it out at www.tikkun.org/eip) based in part on research I did while living in Israel and doing research at Tel Aviv U. and Hebrew U in Jerusalem, I describe the devastating consequences of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder on the capacity of those who have suffered extreme stress or oppression to make rational decisions for themselves. The PTSD is most acute in both the Israeli and Palestinian population, but far less so among Iranians who have never suffered in the past 70 years the way Jews and Palestinians have. So if we have any worries about possession of nuclear weapons, that concern should direct us to seeking nuclear disarmament from Israel. But for the impact of PTSD, having those 200 nukes should have yielded Israel a payoff in feeling secure. Instead, Israel continues to live under the cloud of the 70 year old trauma of the Holocaust, and the Prime Minister of Israel comes to the U.S. to shout “Never Again.” But that slogan was originally meant to be a slogan concerning all peoples–so that no one should ever suffer what Jews suffered. The path to a war with Iran would make a mockery of that slogan. So it was tragic to see Elie Wiesel allowing himself to become a political pawn in Netnayahu’s fantasy trip.

All this plays well for the US militarists and their cheerleaders among Christian Zionists and the rightwing of the Jewish Zionist movement. They raise the same fears and solutions they raised 55 years ago when they hoped to push the US into a war with the Soviet Union when it developed nuclear weapons. That war would have cost millions of lives, and saner voices prevailed. President Eisenhower warned about the dangers of the military/industrial complex and its ability to push the US toward wars. But Democrats, fearful of being called weak, brought us the War in Vietnam, and refused to cut off funds when the Republicans led us into the trillion-dollar debacle of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now those same moral idiots who led us into the Iraq war want to let Netanyahu’s brilliant manipulation of our quite justified desire to see Israel remain safe and strong lead us into a war with Iran. We should resist such a folly. We could have used that trillion dollars to end global and domestic homelessness, hunger, poverty, inadequate health care, inadequate education, and to repair the destruction advanced indsutrial societies both capitalist and socialist have done to the global environment. Such a Global Marshall Plan might be dismissed as “unrealistic,” just as the movements to end apartheid and segregation, provide equal rights for women, end legal discrimination against gays and lesbians, were also dismissed at first as unrealistic, naive, utopian or even “dangerous.”

But the only way we can succeed in stopping the Republicans and AIPAC Democrats from following like lemmings the Netanyahu path is to present and powerfully advocate for an alternative–the Strategy of Generosity and a Global Marshall Plan modeled on the one we at Tikkun and our interfaith and secular-humanist-welcoming Network of Spiritual Progressives have developed (d0wnload the full version of our Global Marshall Plan at www.tikkun.org/gmp).

Please join us in developing this path rather than in the futuile path of domination that will only confirm the fears of the most paranoid elements of all sides.

You dont have to believe in God or be part of a spiritual or religious tradition or practice to be a “spiritual progressive.” You are a spiritual progressives by our definition if you want institutions, social practices, government policies, corporations, our educational system, our legal system to be judged “efficient, rational or productive” to the extent that they maximize our capacities to be loving, caring for each other and the earth, supporting generosity instead of domination, and responding to the universe not solely as “a resource” for human purposes but with a sense of awe, wonder and radical amazement at the grandeur and preciousness of life itself and the universe in which it has evolved!

Please join the Network of Spiritual Progressives at www.spiritualprogressives.org (when you join you will get a one year free sub to Tikkun magazine).

Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun, co-chair with Indian environmental activist Vandana Shiva of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, holds a ph.d. in philosophy and a second ph.d. in psychology and was principal investigator of research on stress for the NIMH.

04 March, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Bill Van Auken

The speech delivered Tuesday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to an extraordinary joint session of the US Congress consisted of a hysterical anti-Iran tirade and an implicit denunciation of the Obama administration for what was portrayed as an outright betrayal of the security interests of both Israel and the US.

Netanyahu’s appearance, organized behind the back of the White House, marked an unprecedented—and constitutionally dubious—bid by an American political party to bring a foreign head of state before Congress in order to condemn and undermine the policies of a sitting president.

For Netanyahu, who described his trip to Washington as a “historic, even fateful mission,” the political motives were transparent. With Israeli elections just two weeks away and polls showing his support fading, the speech provided Netanyahu with a means of shifting attention from deteriorating economic and social conditions in Israel to the supposed “existential threat” posed by Iran’s nuclear program.

It also gave him the opportunity to be televised accepting multiple standing ovations from the US Congress. Democrats and Republicans proved equally obsequious to the Zionist lobby, rising to their feet at least 15 times during the 39-minute diatribe.

While roughly 55 of the 232 Democrats in both houses of Congress stayed away from the address—not out of disagreement with Israeli policy, but out of loyalty to Obama—the party’s congressional leadership showed up.

The speech was delivered simultaneously with a third session of talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in the Swiss town of Montreux. The negotiations between Iran and the P5+1—the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany—are proceeding under the pressure of a March 31 deadline to reach a tentative agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.

Netanyahu’s clear aim was to derail any deal with Tehran. US officials had feared he would use the speech to disclose classified information on the negotiations in order to achieve this aim. Instead, the Israeli prime minister relied on crude scaremongering and Islamophobia in what was clearly an attempt to convince Congress to intervene and disrupt the talks.

He portrayed Iran as both a terrorist state and an expanding empire that would resort to nuclear war to achieve its aims.

“We must all stand together to stop Iran’s march of conquest, subjugation and terror,” he said, adding that “the greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons.”

The deal being negotiated by the Obama administration, he charged, would “inexorably lead to a nuclear-armed Iran whose unbridled aggression will inevitably lead to war.”

No one in either major party or in the corporate media pointed out the hypocrisy that saturated Netanyahu’s speech. The head of the Israeli government, which possesses hundreds of nuclear weapons and refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, charges Iran, a signatory to the pact, with nuclear malfeasance. The Israeli government, which has waged repeated wars of aggression against the Palestinian people and all of its Arab neighbors, while recognizing no restrictions on its borders, accuses Iran, which has invaded no one, of “aggression.”

To promote these lies, Netanyahu equated Iran not only to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), but even to Nazi Germany.

At one point, he turned the attention of Congress to the presence in the gallery of Elie Wiesel, who has made a lucrative career as Washington’s semi-official Holocaust spokesman, and repeated the refrain “Never again.” Wiesel was seated with Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, who finds herself at the center of multiple corruption scandals within Israel itself.

This cheap invocation of the Holocaust to justify a policy of aggressive war against an oppressed country is as fraudulent as it is morally obscene.

President Barack Obama responded to the speech by stating that there was “nothing new” in Netanyahu’s remarks and that he had failed to “offer any viable alternative.”

An unnamed “senior US official” who spoke to the Washington Post was more blunt, declaring, “The logic of the prime minister’s speech is regime-change, not a nuclear speech.” The official added, “Simply demanding that Iran capitulate is not a plan.”

This is the essence of Netanyahu’s policy. His demand that Iran accept the complete dismantling of all of its nuclear facilities—to which it is entitled under international law—cannot be achieved by negotiations, but only through a war to subjugate the country.

Washington has itself repeatedly engaged in saber rattling against Iran, with US representatives insisting even this week that should Tehran fail to accept or subsequently violate a nuclear agreement, the military option remained “on the table.”

Since the end of 2013, however, after it was compelled to back down from its threat to launch an air war against the Iranian-backed regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the Obama administration has shifted its policy toward reaching an accommodation with Iran.

It is this policy, not the danger of nuclear attack, that Tel Aviv sees as an existential threat. The Zionist regime requires a continuous state of war and confrontation to sustain its rule. A deal with Iran would undermine its central claim to legitimacy.

Before the 1979 Iranian revolution, US imperialism relied on the dictatorial regime of the Shah as a pillar of stability and counterrevolution in the Middle East. Elements within the US ruling establishment no doubt harbor the hope that such a relation can be revived. As Netanyahu’s appearance demonstrated, there are sharp divisions within the US ruling elite over how to pursue such a strategy.

In its latest military intervention in Iraq and Syria, Washington has coordinated its actions with those of Iran, which has supplied the Shia-dominated Iraqi regime with substantial military aid. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that in a newly launched operation to retake the Iraqi city of Tikrit, Iran was “throwing drones, heavy weaponry and ground forces into the battle, while the US remained on the sidelines.”

Israel, which has provided logistical support to the Islamist “rebels” in Syria and has tried to forge a de facto anti-Iranian alliance with the reactionary Sunni monarchies of the Gulf, perceives any thaw in US-Iranian relations as a threat to its hegemonic aims in the region, as well as to Washington’s unconditional support for the aggressive policies with which it pursues these aims.

Tel Aviv opposes Iran in large measure because its aid to the Syrian government, to Hezbollah in Lebanon and to Hamas in Gaza, while posing no existential threat to Israel, limits Israel’s ability to militarily impose its dictates on the peoples of the region.

Washington, on the other hand, is pursuing far broader objectives. Its negotiations with Tehran are directed not merely at curbing its nuclear program, but at creating conditions in the region that will facilitate US imperialism’s “pivot” toward escalating military confrontation with both Russia and China.

Speaking in Geneva, Kerry pointed toward this shift, declaring, “Israel’s security is absolutely at the forefront of our minds, but frankly, so is the security of all the other countries in the region, so is our security in the United States.”

Netanyahu’s provocation in the US Capitol has been accompanied by statements from both Democrats and Republicans reaffirming support for Israel, which translates into over $3 billion a year in mostly military aid. In an interview with Reuters Monday, Obama said Netanyahu’s actions would not prove “permanently destructive.”

Such reassurances notwithstanding, Netanyahu’s speech is not the cause of the tensions between Washington and Tel Aviv, but rather a symptom of an increasing divergence of strategic interests between US imperialism and its Israeli client state.

04 March, 2015
WSWS.org

 

By larouchepac.com

U.S. economist Lyndon LaRouche decried today the fraudulent effort to frame up Russian President Vladimir Putin for the murder of liberal Russian politician Boris Nemtsov on the night of Feb 27-28. In fact, LaRouche insisted that the Nemtsov murder was nothing but a provocation directed against Putin, as he had said from the first moment it became known. The evidence is conclusive, and the stakes are life or death: peace or war. Given these circumstances, Obama’s endorsement of this frameup in a Reuters interview yesterday, merits his immediate removal from office as a last-ditch defense of the United States.

First, on the Nemtsov murder, there is no sane way to claim that Nemtsov represented any threat whatsoever to Putin with the latter’s 87% popularity rating. Who can deny that Nemtsov was thoroughly discredited by his role in the Yeltsin administration when Western speculators destroyed Russia, or that his support was minuscule when he was killed?

The prominent French economist and Russia expert Jacques Sapir posted an analysis today titled, “Who Framed Vladimir Putin?” It shows, on the one hand, that Nemtsov’s killing was a professional murder, like a contract murder, but, on the other hand, that it was staged in the open air, virtually under the windows of the Kremlin, in such a way as to greatly increase the risk to the killers and to the whole operation,— in order to frame Vladimir Putin.

Among other considerations, Sapir notes that the shooting from behind implies that one has perfectly identified the target, and the modus operandi implies an expertise only compatible with a contract murder; the risk of missing or inflicting non-lethal wounds is high. Note the large number of shots, eight or more, the lack of a coup-de-grace shot, and the fact that Nemtsov’s companion was unharmed.

“From this point of view one wonders why not wait till Nemtsov returned home? The classic type of contract killing occurs in a spot where one is sure to find the victim: the stairwell of the apartment building, or as the victim exits a restaurant. The very choice of crime-scene could indicate a demonstrative intention, such as to implicate Putin in the murder. In any case, it is evident that the assassins took risks that seem to indicate a political intention. All this makes one think of a set-up, a staging.

“Why would these people kill Nemtsov more or less directly under the windows of the Kremlin?”

This point made by Sapir is confirmed by the dispatch from Moscow of an unnamed, but credible correspondent of former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock, who wrote similarly,

“The Kremlin Walls and the Bekhlimishevskaya Tower frame the scene with St. Basil’s to the right. It is simply difficult to imagine a location that could include more symbols of the Russian state. It looks like a frame-up.”

Sapir continues,

“How would these people have gathered knowledge about Nemtsov’s behaviour after he left the restaurant with a girl on his arm? Again, a killing at Nemtsov’s home would have made much more sense. And, if the girl is linked to the killing (even not directly and not in the intent), that would have necessitated deep connections in Ukraine.”

(Do these have any connection to Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s connections to Ukrainian Nazis, one might ask?)

Sapir totally discredits the notion that this could have been a murder directed by Putin, writing:

“The media, in France and in countries of the West, have put forth the idea of a murder commanded by the Kremlin, or by movements close to Kremlin. We will say right now that the first hypothesis is not coherent with the crime scene. Further, it is hard to see what interest the Russian government would have to have one of the opposition killed, certainly a well-known opponent, but one who had fallen into the political background. When Vladimir Peskov, spokesman for President Putin, said that Nemtsov did not represent any danger nor any threat for power, it was perfectly true. And supposing the murder of Nemtsov was an attempt to frighten the others in opposition, it would have been a lot simpler to hit him at home. The idea of an involvement direct or indirect of the Russian government thus appears highly improbable.”

After equally discrediting the notion that Nemtsov was killed by right-wing Russian nationalists, Sapir says,

“Vladimir Putin and the Russian government have immediately advanced the hypothesis of a provocation. It is easy to see the appeal for them of this hypothesis. But one must have the honesty to say that’s what it is. Putin is actually the target of a deep and widespread hate campaign in the Western media. The killing of someone supposed to be an opponent is just something journalists could not resist. They moved on accusing him of all sins on the earth. The fact that Nemtsov was strongly linked to policies which failed in the 90s, and led Russia to the brink of collapse has been forgotten. The fact that Nemtsov has chosen to advise Orange Revolution Ukrainian governments since 2004 has been forgotten. A lot of people, and not just in Russia, could want to see Nemtsov dead. But all this has been forgotten and the rallying word is now ‘Putin is a killer,’ or ‘Putin has inspired Nemtsov’s killer.’ It is just a shame, a dirty shame. But this is consistent with the war Western media are waging against Russia and Putin.”

Now, Obama has put himself in the middle of this frameup with a March 2 statement to Reuters which characterized Nemtsov’s murder as

“an indication of a climate at least inside of Russia in which civil society, independent journalists, people trying to communicate on the Internet, have felt increasingly threatened, constrained. And increasingly the only information that the Russian public is able to get is through state-controlled media outlets.”

“This means Obama has to go,” LaRouche said.

“Because our defense is getting Obama dumped. And that would save the United States. Because the President of the United States did not deny it; he did not withhold such an allegation, he allowed it to go through. Here we are, the world is now facing a threat of thermonuclear war, global thermonuclear war, which has never happened before in the history of mankind; and you sit back there as the President of the United States and you condone the spread of a false report of this nature, and you have tacitly committed yourself to being thrown out of office. And that’s what we should do. So the dumb son-of-a-bitch knew one thing: what he was doing. And for that, for his allowing that, condoning that, and not going out there and disowning it, he is guilty.

“Want to save the United States? Want to save civilization? That’s what you do.”

3 March 2015

 

Overcoming Extremism and Advancing Peace with Justice

March 3-4, 2015
Yogyakarta and Borobudur Temple
Indonesia

hosted by
Indonesian Buddhist Association (WALUBI) &
Indonesian Council of Ulama (MUI)
organized by
International Forum on Buddhist-Muslim Relations (BMF)
(Core Groups: International Network of Engaged Buddhists,
International Movement for a Just World, Muhammadiyah & Religions for Peace)

FINAL STATEMENT: Shared Values and Commitments

We, Buddhist and Muslim leaders, recognize that our followers have developed together a harmonious relationship, which has become the foundation for building peace and prosperity in many parts of the world. Buddhism and Islam share in their respective scriptures and other canonical texts the importance of holistic and positive peace, which encompasses the notions of inner peace, peace among humans, and peace with nature.

We reaffirm that Islam and Buddhism are religions of mercy and compassion committed to justice for all humankind. Both traditions respect the sacredness of life and inherent dignity of human existence, which is the foundation of all human rights without any distinction as to race, color, language, or religion.

We reject the abuse of our religions in support of discrimination and violence. Buddhism and Islam have been misused by some for their own political purposes to fuel prejudice and stereotyping and to incite discrimination and violence. We categorically reject such abuse and pledge to counter extremist religious interpretations and actions with our authentic primary narratives of peace.

We also recognize the need to strengthen governmental measures to prevent religiously motivated discrimination and violence. Based on universally accepted international legal instruments such as Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18, we call on all states to take measures to fulfill their responsibilities to protect their citizens from religious and racial hatred, and incitement to discrimination and violence in the name of religion. Freedom of expression includes the obligation to respect each other.

We reaffirm our fundamental common values shared by our respective scriptures and other canonical texts as follows:

I. Religious Diversity and Peaceful Co-Existence

Buddhism

“All religions should reside everywhere, for all of them desire self-control and purity of heart.” “Contact (between religions) is good. One should listen to and respect the doctrines professed by others. Beloved-of-the-Gods, King Piyadasi, desires that all should be well-learned in the good doctrines of other religions.” “You are true to your own beliefs if you accord kindly treatment to adherents of other faiths. You harm your own religion by harassing followers of other creeds.” (Edicts of Emperor Ashoka, 269-232 BC)

Islam

“O humankind! We [Allah] have created you from a single [pair] of a male and a female and have made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another.” (The Qur’an 49:13). It reminds humanity that they belong to one family, with the same set of parents, a diverse family as it may be. This is a reminder that diversity in unity and unity within diversity are possible.

This is further reinforced by the assertion that diversity is part of the divine plan and is in fact a way of testing human beings. “If God had so willed He would have made you a single people, but (His Plan is) to test you in what he hath given you: So strive as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you all is to God.” (The Qur’an, 5: 48)
ii. Universal Mercy and Compassion

Islam

It is significant that every one of the 114 chapters of the Qur’an — except one — begins with the proclamation “In the name of God, the Compassionate and the Merciful.” Compassion and Mercy are among the most exalted of God’s attributes. This is why the Qur’an says “And [thus, O Muhammad], We have not sent you, but as mercy to all the worlds” (The Qur’an 21:107).

Buddhism

“Let your love flow outward through the universe, To its height, its depth, its broad extent, A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.” Just as a mother would protect her only child at the risk of her own life, even so, cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings. Let your thoughts of boundless love pervade the world.” (Sutta Nipata 149-150)

III. Universal Justice

Buddhism

One who, while himself seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will not attain happiness hereafter. (Dhammapada 131)
While being completely law-abiding, some people are imprisoned, treated harshly and even killed without cause so that many people suffer. Therefore your aim should be to act with impartiality. It is because of these things — envy, anger, cruelty, hate, indifference, laziness or tiredness — that such a thing does not happen. Therefore your aim should be: “May these things not be in me.” And the root of this is non-anger and patience. (Edicts of Emperor Ashoka, 269-232 BC)

Islam

“O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice as witnesses to God, even as against yourselves, or your parents, Or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor; for God can best protect both. Follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest you swerve, and if you distort (justice) or decline to do justice, verily God is well acquainted with all you do.” (The Qur’an, 4: 135)
“We sent aforetime Our apostles with Clear Signs And sent down with them The Book and the Balance Of Right and Wrong, that men May stand forth in Justice. (The Quran, 57: 25)

IV. Human Dignity and Non-Violence

Islam

“Now, indeed, We have conferred dignity on the children of Adam and borne them over land and sea, and provided for them sustenance out of the good things of life, and favoured them far above most of Our creation.” (The Qur’an, 17: 70).
“…if anyone slays a human being, …it shall be as though he had slain all humankind; whereas, if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all humankind” (The Qur’an 5:32)

Buddhism

“Whoever settles a matter by violence is not just. The wise calmly considers what is right and what is wrong. Whoever guides others by a procedure that is nonviolent and fair is said to be a guardian of truth, wise and just.” (Dhammapada 256-57)
“Even though he be well-attired, yet if he is poised, calm, controlled and established in the holy life, having set aside violence towards all beings – he, truly, is a holy man, a renunciate, a monk. (Dhammapada 142)

V. Living in Harmony with the Environment.

Buddhism

As the bee derives honey from the flower without harming its colour or fragrance — So should the wise interact with their surroundings. (Dhammapada 49)
One day a deity asked the Buddha, “Whose merit grows day and night, who is the righteous, virtuous person that goes to the realm of bliss?” Answered the Buddha, the merit of those people who plant groves, parks, build bridges, make ponds, dwelling places etc. grows day and night, and such religious persons go to heaven. (Vanaropa Sutta)

Islam

For the true servants of the Most Gracious are only those who walk gently on earth — (The Qur’an 25:63) What this means is that by reducing one’s ecological footprint one is being faithful to God.
And there are on earth many tracts of land close by one another (and yet widely differing from one another ); and ( there are on it) vineyards, and fields of grain, and date-palms growing in clusters from one root or standing alone, (all) watered with the same water: and yet, some of them have We favoured above others by way of the food (which they provide for man and beast). Verily, in all this there are messages indeed for people who use their reason. (The Qur’an 13:4). This is a clear call to respect the environment as God’s creation.

VI. Pluralism, Tolerance, and Religious Freedom

Islam

“There is no compulsion in religion…” (The Qur’an 2:256) “Will you then compel mankind, against their will, to believe? No soul can believe, except by the Will of God.” (The Qur’an 10.99-100) There are many examples of the Prophet’s tolerance of other faiths. Islam recognizes that there are a plurality of religions on this earth, and gives the right to individuals to choose the path which they believe to be true. Religion is not to be, and was never, forced upon an individual against their own will.

Buddhism

“Let him not therefore think himself better (than others or) low or equal (to others); questioned by different people, let him not adorn himself. (Sutta Nipata 918) The Buddha says, “To be attached to a certain view and to look down upon others’ views as inferior–this the wise men call a fetter.” (Sutta Nipata 798)
Guiding his disciple called Upali on how to treat the follower of another religion, the Buddha clearly stated that he was to treat him with the same respect. Throughout his life the Buddha urged people to respect all religious people in spite of the differences of opinion between them.

VII. Rejection of Hate, Hate Speech, Retaliation, and the Importance of Self-Introspection.

Buddhism

“They insulted me; they hurt me; they defeated me; they cheated me. In those who do harbor such thoughts, hate will never cease. They insulted me; they hurt me; they defeated me; they cheated me. In those who do not harbor such thoughts, hate will cease. For hate is never conquered by hate. Hate is conquered by love. This is an eternal law. (Dhammapada 3-5)

Bad words blaming others. Arrogant words humiliating others. From these behaviors. Come hatred and resentment. …Hence conflicts arise, rendering in people malicious thoughts. (Dhammapada, 8)
“Do not look at the faults of others, or what others have done or not done; observe what you yourself have done and have not done.” (Dhammapada 4.7)

Islam

“O you who believe! Stand out firmly for Allah, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety and fear Allah, for Allah is well acquainted with all that you do.” (The Qur’an 5:8)

Based upon our shared core values mentioned above, We commit ourselves, through the facilitation of the core group of the International Forum on
Buddhist Muslim Relations (BMF: International Network of Engaged Buddhists, International Movement for a Just World, Muhammadiyah and Religions for Peace), to implementing the agreed upon action plan and working to further strengthen BMF to:
• serve as a platform for intra-religious and inter-religious initiatives in education &
• advocacy;
• enable rapid reaction/ solidarity visits/ early warning/ conflict prevention in the event of
• conflict;
• develop and provide tools and materials for constructive engagement and strategic
• common action, and;
• develop the effective use of media for positive messaging, particularly via social &
• alternative media.
We appreciate our Indonesian hosts, Indonesian Buddhist Association (WALUBI) and the Indonesian Council of Ulama (MUI) for their warm hospitality and their offering us a critical opportunity to dialogue among ourselves.

 

 

The High-level Summit of Buddhist and Muslim Leaders:
“Overcoming Extremism and Advancing Peace with Justice”
March 3 – 4, 2015
Yogyakarta and Borobudur Temple | Indonesia
Partial List of Signatories

Bangladesh
1. Most Ven. Mahathero Sreemathsatyapriyorev, Chief Priest of Cox’s Bazar, Buddhist
2. H.E. Mr. Hasanul Haq Inu, Minister of Information, the Government of Bangladesh, Muslim
3. Ven. Bhikkhu Sunandapriyarev, Joint General Secretary, Bangladesh Buddhist Federation, Buddhist
Indonesia
4. Prof. Dr. Din Syamsuddin, Chairman, Ulama Council of Indonesia (MUI) and Chairman, Muhammadiyah, Muslim
5. Mr. Muhyidin Junaidi, Vice Chairman, Ulama Council of Indonesia (MUI), Muslim
6. Prof. Dr. Philip K. Wijaya, Secretary General, Buddhist Association of Indonesia (WALUBI), Buddhist
7. Mr. Arief Harsono, Vice President, Buddhist Association of Indonesia (WALUBI), Buddhist
8. Drs. H. Slamet Effendy Yusuf, M.Si, Vice Chairman, Nahdlatul Ulama
9. Mr. Ahmad Suaedy, Executive Director, Wahid Institute, Muslim
Malaysia
10. Ven. K Sri Dhammaratana, Chief Priest, Kuala Lumpur, Buddhist
11. Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, President, International Movement for a Just World, Muslim
Myanmar
12. Most Ven. Ashin Ariawonthar Biwontha, Mandalay, Buddhist
13. Al Haj U Aye Lwin, Chief Convener, Islamic Center of Myanmar, Muslim
Sri Lanka
14. Ven. Dr. Bellanwila Wimalaratana Anunayaka Thera, President, Sri Lankan Council of Religions for Peace, Buddhist
15. H.E. Mr. Rauf Hakeem, Minister of Urban Development, Water and Supply and Drainage, Government of Sri Lanka: National Leader, Muslim Congress of Sri Lanka, Muslim
16. Mr. Moulavi Athambawa, Vice-President, Sri Lankan Council of Religions for Peace, Muslim
17. Mr. Harsha Kumara Navaratne, Chairman, Sewalanka Foundation; Chairman, Sewalanka Foundation, Buddhist
Thailand
18. Dr. Ismail Lutfi Japakiya, Rector, Yala University, Muslim (represented by Dr. Sukree Langputeh)
19. Ven. Phrakhruudomthammathon, Narathiwas Province, Southern Thailand, Buddhist
20. Dr. Parichart Suwanbubbha, Director, Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies, Mahidol University, Buddhist (represented by Dr. Suphatmet Yunyasit)
BMF Core Group Representatives
International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB)
21. Mr. Somboon Chungprampree, Executive Secretary, International Network of Engaged Buddhists, Buddhist
International for a Just Movement World (JUST)
22. Mr. Hassanal Noor Rashid, Program Coordinator, International Movement for a Just World, Muslim
Muhammadiyah
23. Dr. Alpha Amirrachman, Executive Director, Centre for Dialogue and Cooperation among Civilisations (CDCC-Muhammadiyah)
Religions for Peace
24. Rev. Kyoichi Sugino, Deputy Secretary General, Religions for Peace International
International Forum on Buddhist-Muslim Relations (BMF)
25. Mr. Vidya KV Soon, Interim Secretary, International Forum on Buddhist- Muslim Relations (BMF)