Our Jerusalem bureau has sent a very interesting report about criticism within the Israeli army of the Gaza offensive in January. What caught my eye was that it brings up the issue of a religious war, a term usually used in relation to Muslims.

(Photo: Israeli air strike near Gaza-Egypt border in southern Gaza Strip, 26 Feb 2009/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)

The story starts off as follows:

Rabbis in the Israeli army told battlefield troops in January’s Gaza offensive that they were fighting a “religious war” against gentiles, according to one army commander’s account published on Friday.

“Their message was very clear: we are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the gentiles who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land,” he said.

The account by Ram, a pseudonym to shield the soldier’s identity, was published by the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper on the second day of revelations about the Gaza offensive that have rocked the Israeli military. (www.haaretz.com “Shooting and Crying, 2009″)…

The officer felt there was a “huge gap between what the Education Corps sent out and what the IDF rabbinate sent out”.

The corps distributed pamphlets about the history of Israel’s fighting in Gaza from 1948 to the present, he said.  But the rabbinate’s message imparted to many soldiers the sense that “this operation was a religious war”.

Read the whole article here.

It’s hard to know when to use terms like “religious war” for violence such as what we’ve seen in the Middle East, Northern Ireland or Afghanistan. The opposing sides in these conflicts have different religious labels, so there is — at least superficially — a religious angle there. But there is also an underlying political struggle which often plays a far bigger role than those labels. Northern Ireland, for example, is not about religion but has often been presented mostly as a struggle between Catholics and Protestants. By contrast, the unrest in Sri Lanka pits secessionist Tamils (Hindus) against majority Sinhalese (Buddhists), but nobody calls that a religious war. Some seem to evolve — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has taken on more religious overtones over time while the Taliban are now seen more as insurgents than the Koran students their name signals.

What do you think? When is a conflict a religious war and when is it more a political struggle going on behind those labels? Or is it impossible to disentangle the two?

Here is our video report on the story and the script (including translations).

A group of academic and civil rights organisations has written to the Obama administration asking it to end U.S. visa refusals to foreign scholars apparently because of their political leanings. Probably the best known of these cases is that of Tariq Ramadan, the Swiss-born Islamic scholar who was just about to take up a chair at the University of Notre Dame in 2004 when a visa already issued to him was suddenly revoked. Ramadan is a leading Muslim intellectual in Europe with a strong following among young Muslims who like his message that they can be good European and good Muslims at the same time.

(Photo: Ramadan at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome during a Muslim-Catholic Forum, 6 Nov 2008/Alessandro Bianchi)

Currently teaching Islamic theology at Oxford University, he is viewed with deep suspicion in France but well received in Britain (see, for example, the cover of Prospect magazine pictured below). Pope Benedict received him at the Vatican last November as part of a delegation of Muslim scholars to a Muslim-Catholic dialogue. No matter what one thinks of his views, he is an active figure in the debate about Islam and the West and deserves to be heard in serious discussions on the topic.

The American Civil Liberties Union will plead his case for lifting the ban before the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York on March 24. Given the way President Barack Obama has rolled back several policies of the preceding Bush administration, there could now be a chance that Washington will simply lift the ban and let Ramadan take up the many invitations to speak that he would probably get from U.S. universities and think tanks. That would be a victory for academic freedom, but it still leaves one question unanswered.

When a U.S. federal judge upheld the ban in 2007, Ramadan was told he had been barred because he gave 1,670 Swiss Francs ($1,487) to the Association de Secours Palestinien (Palestinian Aid Association — ASP) from 1998 to 2002. Washington banned ASP in 2003, saying it supports terrorism and had contributed funds to Hamas, and the government has argued Ramadan should have known he was giving to a group that supported terrorism. He has replied that he could not have known that before the U.S. government did.

This official explanation has never sounded convincing and it always seemed Ramadan was being punished for his political views, which are left-wing, pro-Palestinian and critical of the Bush administration. I suspect there was something else going on behind the scenes, either a political decision made by administration officials or a direct intervention by someone or some body outside the administration who was opposed to letting him speak freely in the U.S. Ramadan himself has blamed Daniel Pipes, a controversial U.S. commentator on Islam who welcomed the ban. Other suggestions are French government officials or intellectuals who dislike the way he promotes a kind of Muslim pride and ensures religion remains a public issue.

If the Obama administration does lift the ban, let’s hope it goes all the way and publishes any Bush administration paperwork explaining it, so we can see a more convincing explanation for keeping him out of the United States.

Rabbi Marc Schneier, a New York Jewish leader who has helped to build bridges with American Muslims, is planning to bring his campaign to Europe to help ease the anger fed by bloodshed in Gaza. “In the light of the recent conflict in Gaza, Jewish-Muslim tensions have been exacerbated,” Schneier, vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, told Reuters during a recent visit to London. “We have seen a rise, I would say an exponential growth in anti-Semitic attacks, rhetoric coming from the Muslim world. We cannot allow for Islamic fundamentalism to grow.”

(Photo: Rabbi Marc Schneier/FFEU)

Schneier helped to bring together thousands of Jews and Muslims across America last November in an initiative in which 50 mosques were twinned with 50 synagogues over a weekend. Jews and Muslims worked together in community projects, formed study groups and got a better understanding of each other’s faith. They publicised this in the short video below and a full-page ad in the New York Times available here in PDF.

An eloquent and persuasive speaker, Schneier has advocated closer links between Jewish and Afro-American communities through the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, where he has worked with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons.

Schneier feels there is a need for action at the grass-roots level to help heal the rift between Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe.  He is planning to repeat his ”Weekend of Twinning” this November and wants to extend it to Britain from North America.  “Jewish-Muslim relations are a great concern here in Europe, so we wanted to bring this programme across the Atlantic,” he said.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews told me they were very interested in the project and wanted to develop it here, building on their own linking programme. However, the climate is not easy.  Israel’s invasion of Gaza in which more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed has sparked fresh tensions between the two groups in Europe.

An umbrella group of French Jewish groups last week asked French President Nicolas Sarkozy to ensure that authorities do more to stem a rise in anti-Jewish crime. Britain has also seen protests over Israel’s campaign.

(Photo: Pro-Palestinian protesters in Paris, 24 Jan 2009/Gonzalo Fuentes)

Schneier dismissed concerns that members of close-knit Muslim communities in European countries such as Britain and France would be harder to reach than their counterparts in the United States, who tend to be better integrated into U.S. life.

“The challenge here is more of a language barrier than a social or cultural barrier. What we did in North America wasn’t an easy task either. There was much hesitation on both sides,” he said. “I see around the world there are pockets of moderation emerging within Islam. We cannot spurn the hands of the moderates in the Muslim world.”

Schneier’s initiative seems to be working in the United States, but can it be transplanted to Europe? We’d like to hear your comments here.

The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the author’s alone. The author is Program Director at the Interfaith Center of New York. He is writing a book about Interfaith and Civil Society.

By Matthew Weiner

The last day of 2008 was a bad day for interfaith relations in New York City. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had his annual Prayer Breakfast at the New York Public Library, where several hundred religious leaders gathered (see video here). As usual there were prayers offered from many faiths. The Hindus were miffed, because a Sikh got their usual slot. Instead of praying, the Sikh explained Sikhism for a bit too long. The Buddhist monk also prayed too long, and the translation took forever. But poor staging was not the reason for the dark cloud that hung over us all.

(Photo: Mayor Michael Bloomberg, 3 Nov 2008/Lucas Jackson)

Instead, it was the bombing of Gaza. Or rather it was the Mayor’s response the day before that created  tension in the audience. The night before, Bloomberg had sided with Israel in the conflict. “I feel very strongly that Israel really does have a right …to defend itself,” he said. The mayor said nothing about the loss of innocent life on the Palestinian side.

For him, the current situation is not a story with two sides. While he is the mayor for all of New York, and while there are more or less as many Muslims as Jews here these days, on this day he spoke for one side of his city.

This, anyway, is the way the Muslim leaders in New York who I spoke to see it. Their frustration is not that Bloomberg criticized Hamas, but rather that he took sides instead of calling for peace or a cease fire. The many Muslims who came to the breakfast were ready for battle.

“I thought not to come,” said one leader. “Then I was reading Gandhi on Non Violence, and I realized that I could not let his one sided political response stop me from joining a public forum.” Another Imam added, “If he had repeated what he said last night, I would have had to stand and walk out.”

Every Muslim I spoke to agreed. They also did not stand when the mayor got an otherwise standing ovation. Nor did not laugh at his jokes, the way others were. When I asked a rabbi afterwards if he noticed this silent protest, he had not.

In further quiet protest, the Muslim Consultative Network handed out a protest statement to participants. It was eloquent: “While one generally agrees with his simple point about self defense…it ignores the Palestinians, who have been dying in great numbers.” It goes on to say that there is a need to acknowledge the common humanity of both Jews and Arabs.

Bloomberg did not repeat his comments in front of this interfaith audience, and one can only guess that he was astute to the tension in the air. Perhaps this is a good thing.

(Photo: New York Public Library, 14 Dec 2004/Mike Segar)

But there is, I think, a serious problem here. It is not one of life and death, but one of perception and honesty when it comes to the public sphere. Interfaith events are intended to serve two basic purposes: to create a symbol of unity (call it the unity model), or to discuss and debate a problem at hand (call it the discourse model). In the unity model, religiously different groups stand together to condemn something, call for peace, you name it. It is a symbolic act, but a powerful one, and one done with a shared conviction of its power.

In the discourse model, interfaith can serve as a venue for debate and discussion. Interfaith is a part of civil society, and therefore a kind of public sphere. It’s what the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas calls communicative action, where rational people debate an issue with the goal of a shared better understanding of the truth and the potential for shared action. Both kinds of interfaith happen in New York City and around the world every day. Every day, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and others join together successfully in this kind of public interfaith. It makes for a better democracy.

And Bloomberg has been good on interfaith in many ways. He was the first mayor to hold regular interfaith services and work with leaders from every faith. The problem with Bloomberg’s interfaith service this particular time around is not his own opinion (he is entitled to one) but that he held an interfaith event, while skipping both legitimate reasons for having one. He talked about the good work of his administration and the economic crises. Yes, this is indeed a shared issue for all, but it totally ignored the issue at hand, and (most importantly) his opinion on it. It left one side of his citizenry very angry- not because he did not take their side, but because the moral reasons for joining interfaith — to make a symbolic statement, or to discuss truth and shared action — were ignored.

Jewish groups may be happy with the mayor’s strategy, but what do we lose in the process?  Many mainline Jewish groups will not even discuss the conflict with their Muslim colleagues who they work with on so many other issues. As one rabbi who works for a Jewish agency said during breakfast, “My hands are tied.” This means that regardless of what he thinks (and I cannot pretend to know what he thinks), his agency will not let him work on a shared statement about the current crises. And yet he is mandated to work with Muslims on other issues.

While interfaith appears to go on as normal here, the tension and frustration run deep. It at least must lead us to ask the question of which public sphere we want interfaith to help create? Maybe this is a New Year’s question, as opposed to a contrite resolution, to hold onto.

Seven years after it was shut in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, a leading U.S. Islamic charity and five men linked to it have been convicted on numerous terrorist financing charges related to the funnelling of over $12 million to the militant Palestinian group Hamas. You can read our report here.

The guilty verdicts delivered on Monday by a federal jury in Dallas cap an arduous process that included a debacle last year that saw a mistrial on most of the counts, leading to this year’s lengthy retrial. Many years of investigation and probably millions of dollars in tax payer money went into the case against the Holy Land Foundation that finally resulted in a rare judicial victory for the out-going administration of U.S. President George W. Bush in its efforts to curtail the financing of overseas organisations it considers to be terrorist.

The stakes were high — a failure to secure convictions this time round would have probably brought the whole affair to an end. Investigators and prosecutors may now have more confidence to bring similar cases to trial down the road.

For the retrial the prosecution narrowed its case and simplified its narrative in a bid to reduce the complexity for the jury — a lesson learned from last year’s confusing mess. There were still 108 counts in all and the jury deliberated for eight days.

The Islamic community has said the case highlights the unfair scrutiny that U.S. Muslims have been subjected to since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and that such action criminalizes legitimate charitable activities which are central to the Islamic faith.

Support web sites such as “Freedom to Give” say the charity and the men were guilty of nothing more than supporting Palestinian refugees in need; the U.S. government maintains it was all a front to support Hamas.

There are still Islamic charities still operating in the United States such as Islamic Relief USA. But as we have reported on elsewhere — see two recent Reuters articles on the U.S. elections and fear of Muslims — many Americans of this faith live in a climate of suspicion.

What do you think of this verdict? Did the Holy Land Foundation get a fair trial?

(Editor’s note: Doug Hamilton, one of our most experienced correspondents and lively writers, recently took up a new post in Jerusalem. Here’s the back story to his latest feature “A Biblical view of peace high in the Holy Land.”)

(Photo:the West Bank Jewish settlement of Psagot, 17 November 2008/Eliana Aponte)

When I began my assignment to Israel & the Palestinian Territories two months ago, I was determined to get out and about and see as much as possible for myself. I wanted to find out up close what life was like for the people who live here — from the Palestinians lining up obediently to get through intimidating Israeli checkpoints, to the nightlife crowd a world away in chic Tel Aviv, to the Orthodox Jews in 16th century attire in their Jerusalem districts where you dare not drive on the Sabbath, to the Palestinian olive groves and to the settlers on the occupied land of the West Bank.

I bought a GPS navigator to help me get around and the first thing I discovered was that my desired West Bank and Gaza destinations were “in an unreachable area”, according to the device. The occupied territories show up as dark grey background on the GPS. But its warnings can be overridden and  it will then guide you  pretty accurately to the “unreachable destinations” you seek.

As the little green arrow that designates your car moves along corridors through the dark grey background, isolated splodges of beige show up on the map. These are Israeli settlements, mostly on the hilltops. You look up from the highway and see new roads going up the slopes leading to new houses with red-tiled roofs. They are protected by steel gates and coils of razor wire and electric alarm fences, or set behind Israel’s formidable security barrier of concrete and watchtowers. The further out you go from Jerusalem, the more there is a frontier feeling to these strangely suburban-looking little communities, surrounded by rocky terraced hillsides that have barely changed down the centuries.

A settler group recently organised a visit for foreign media to correct what they view as our misperceptions about their movement. The people I met on this little tour — which provided the material for my feature — betrayed not a flicker of self-doubt. They had a few sharp answers ready for any challenge to their fundamental premise: God gave this land to the Jews and nothing over the 3,500 years since the Old Testament — the book they live by — has changed or can change that fact. The settlers we met were all friendly and polite. I have also witnessed young settler activists in less genteel circumstances, calling for the killing of young Palestinians who throw rocks at police guarding security-barrier constructions and demanding the displacement of Palestinian villagers in the way of their project to make the occupation of what they call Judea and Samaria a permanent fact.