The Independent echoed the common Western views of Salam Fayyad’s resignation. The Palestinian prime minister’s exit had “thro[wn] into doubt the future of the Palestinian Authority and the peace process with Israel,” observed the liberal British newspaper. Has Fayyad’s parting really caused – or rather reflected – the crisis facing the Palestinian government and the...
I’M SADDENED by the bloody mayhem rocking Bangladesh, where I lived and worked through two turbulent decades. Street fights between the country’s secularist government forces and Islamist activists have claimed dozens of lives. The clashes were triggered by a death sentence handed by a Bangladeshi court to a leader of the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami. ...
John Kerry’s recipe to meet U.S. foreign policy challenges appeared to have been copied from the neoconservatives’ play book: trade, aid and democracy. All these have been tried. They didn’t work.
ISLAMIST GUERRILLAS are fighting back French and Malian forces in northern Mali, from where they were expelled last month by invading French forces. The Muslim militant group Mojwa (Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa) has twice engaged the French in sustained gun battles in Gao, the region’s largest city. The guerrillas have vowed...
President Obama told the U.N. General Assembly that Muslims must shun “extremism” and exercise “tolerance” for their adversaries. He was referring to the violence-prone protest rallies that the American film “Innocence of Muslims” has triggered in many Muslim countries. The amateurish video shows the Prophet Muhammad in pornographic poses and other demeaning postures. Some Muslim...
The Obama administration knows by now that Russia will not let any action against the murderous Syrian dictatorship get the green light from the U.N. Security Council. In response, the administration is taking baby steps to help the Syrian uprising, dedicated to overthrowing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. These steps include sharing intelligence with...
“The revolution goes on,” said Mohammed Mursi, on being declared president of Egypt in its first-ever democratic election. He ran for president as the head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party. The transnational Brotherhood has been the world’s oldest Islamist movement. The president-elect has called for national unity. Mursi wouldn’t,...
By Mustafa Malik SYLHET, Bangladesh — Aunt Salima Khatun, my mother’s sister, barged in to see me here in the Bangladeshi town of Sylhet. I spend part of my Bangladesh vacations in Sylhet, known for its tea gardens, cane furniture and the shrine of the famed Muslim saint Hazrat Shah Jalal. Behind Aunt Salima was...
By Mustafa Malik (Published in the Columbus Dispatch, October 12, 2011) Bangladesh has had a big political surprise since my last visit here a year ago. Its staunchly secular Awami League party government has amended the constitution, making Islam the “state religion”! The amendment also gave the constitution this opening statement from the Quran: “In...