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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

I decided to google just now on : comparison chart israel lebanon war

One of the first sites I found seems worthwhile and objective.

I shall begin to read through this site. My apologies in advance if it seems to anyone to be biased or inaccurate in some fashion.

Here is what the site claims as its goal and mission:

http://www.israelipalestinianprocon.org/aboutus.html

Our goal is to publish the best available pro and con responses to the question: "What are the solutions to the Israeli - Palestinian conflict?" and related questions.

3. Mission:

The Mission Statement of ProCon.org is:

Promoting informed citizenship by presenting controversial issues in a simple, nonpartisan pro-con format.

Here is an elaborate outline of issues and sub-issues:

http://www.israelipalestinianprocon.org/issues.html

Some excerpts from my reading:

(Here are some excerpts from my reading on the CON side of the issue, i.e. in favor of Palestine. I concentrate on the CON side, since I personally lean towards Israel, and have a great fear of the historical colonial aggression inherent in Islamic ideology. I want to take an honest look at arguments which support the other side.)

The late Edward Said, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columia University, in his book Culture and Resistance: Conversations with Edward W. Said p. 36, stated:

"To say that the United States is an even-handed broker is a preposterous mischaracterization. The United States is very much in Israel's camp. All the information we have on the negotiations during the last seven years of the peace process has shown that the United States has presented the Israeli point of view in the discussions and remains a partisan of Israel."
2003 Edward Said

Adnan Abu Odeh, former Jordanian ambassador, in a 10/21/03 The Daily Star commentary entitled "The United States: Israel’s agent or honest broker?" wrote:

"America’s abuse of its veto power [in the U.N. Security Council] to cover Israel’s transgressions against international law...makes it seem, in Arab and international eyes, as if the U.S. is Israel’s legal agent rather than the honest broker it claims to be."
10/21/03 Adnan Abu Odeh

Ramzy Baroud, editor-in-chief of the Palestine Chronicle, in a 11/09/00 Media Monitors Network commentary entitled "Leaving the Honest Broker Myth Behind, and Looking Inward," wrote:

"The US government’s support of Israel is arrogant, decisive and unconcealed...it is time for the 'honest broker' myth to die."
11/09/00 Ramzy Baroud

Robin Wright, Global Affairs Correspondent for The Los Angeles Times, in a 1996 essay entitled "Islam and Liberal Democracy: Two Visions Of Reformation," wrote:

"Reformers [of Islam] contend that human understanding of Islam is flexible, and that Islam's tenets can be interpreted to accommodate and even encourage pluralism. They are actively challenging those who argue that Islam has a single, definitive essence that admits of no change in the face of time, space, or experience -- and that democracy is therefore incompatible or alien. The central drama of reform is the attempt to reconcile Islam and modernity by creating a worldview that is compatible with both."
1996 Robin Wright

Louay Safi, a board director of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID), as quoted by Brian Hadwerk in an October 2003 National Geographic article entitled "Can Islam and Democracy Coexist?":

"I think that Islam as a set of norms and ideals that emphasizes the equality of people, the accountability of leaders to community, and the respect of diversity and other faiths, is fully compatible with democracy."
October 2003 Louay Safi

Khaled Abou El Fadl, Distinguished Fellow in Islamic Law at UCLA, in an essay entitled "Islam and the Challenge of Democracy," published in the April/May 2003 issue of Boston Review, wrote:

"Democracy is an appropriate system for Islam because it both expresses the special worth of human beings...and at the same time deprives the state of any pretense of divinity by locating ultimate authority in the hands of the people rather than the ‘ulama [Islamic religious leaders}."
2003 Khaled Abou El Fadl

Abdolkarim Soroush, Iranian scholar of Islam, as quoted by Robin Wright in an essay entitled "Islam and Liberal Democracy: Two Visions Of Reformation,":

"Islam and democracy are not only compatible, their association is inevitable."
1996 Abdolkarim Soroush

Asghar Ali Engineer, an Islamic scholar, in an August 2003 commentary posted on the Dawoodi Bohra website entitled "Is Islam compatible with democracy and modernity?" wrote:

"The absence of democracy in Muslim countries is by no means on account of Islamic teachings or the incompatibility of democracy with Islam, but due to a host of factors political, historical and cultural."
August 2003 Asghar Ali Engineer

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