Of Evil Zionists and the Great Satan

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t,

``memon mainly from your kathiawar or kutch``

are you saying Jinnah was (shock, horror) a Bania ???

Romair / Semiprciousme

`` What happened to that girl/lady is an off-shoot of the feudal/tribal mentality of Pakistan. This is why I have always stated that feudalism/tribalism has to be removed from Pakistan, in any sort or form; even if it has to be done by force. ``

First off, yes, pretty sure they will be punished. Not becuse of any genuine desire to reform society, but to whitewash it.

With regards to the rape being an off-shoot of the feudal/tribal society, I completely disagree. The same thing happens in India, in non-tribal societies. The reason such a thing happens is two-fold: 1. The belief that they can get away with it. 2. The macho desire to subjugate, use sex as a weapon. Both these factors exist in the sub-continent.

The rape of this woman is no different from dowry deaths in India, basically looking at women as property. I agree that these people need to be punished, but more importantly, women in south asia need to be empowered. Exemplary punishment needs to go hand in hand with education for women, and institutional and social support for women who choose to live life on their own terms.

In a desi context, ``masculine`` needs to be redefined.

What if Asad Zaidi turned out to be a Hindu?? Maybe he is one, masquerading as a Muslim??

Will the Wah Wahs then turn to Gaalis? Would Ram Kishan (hypothetically Zaidi`s real name) be called a typical saffron wearing, Muslim bashing RSS chaddiwala???

Just wondering....

Has it ever occurred to Asad Ali Zaidi that the half million Hindu Sindhis who were driven into exile at India`s partition have a far better cause for grievance than the half million Palestinians who went into exile at Palestine`s partition? The Palestinians can easily choose to be be at home in any of the 22 Arab countries who speak the same language as them. Such is not the case with the Hindu Sindhis who were forced to go into Diaspora in 1947 and who must live in lands where the Sindhi language can at best try to survive unobtrusively in a non-Sindhi land.

At partition, Sindh became the wild west of the subcontinent as the Urdu-speaking so-called Mohajirs, lured by better career prospects in Islamic Pakistan, arrived in the province in droves. I have sympathy for Muslims of East Punjab who had to make it to West Punjab in 1947 to survive. But I have absolutely no sympathy for the Urdu-speaking carpetbaggers from places in UP or Bihar who streamed into Karachi so that Liaqat Ali Khan could have a home constituency in Karachi.

Once ensconced in key positions in the administration and in the police force of Sindh, these Urdu-speaking Mohajirs embarked on a campaign of terror to drive out the Hindus. The object was two-folds, to rid Sindh of all Hindu competition in the business world and in the work force and, more importantly, to take over abandoned land, property and business of the fleeing Hindus.

A friend`s father had stubbornly stayed back in Karachi at independence. His Muslim friends and colleagues had applauded his decision to stay put in his ancestral land. But as the Mohajirs took control of the province, the position of the Hindus became untenable.

In December of 1947, a huge mob of Mohajirs broke open the iron-gate of their house. They slaughtered a goat in their front yard and collected the blood in a pail. The mob raised slogans that Pakistan had no place for Hindus as the ring-leaders sprinkled the blood on our doors and windows. Two days later, an old servant was found murdered in the compound. His throat had been slit and he had bled to death like the slaughtered goat.

On Christmas day (which was also Jinnah`s birthday) they left Karachi for good. Their house was promptly occupied by a high ranking Mohajir police officer. What really hurt was when they found out, years later, that the police officer`s uncle was a prominent Congress politician in Moradabad. Much of the officer`s immediate family had stayed back in India and continued to prosper even as my friend`s father struggled in the very same town in Hindustan for the rest of his life to bring up his kids.

Furthermore, Palestinian grievance seems particularly overblown in view of the fact that what happened in partitioned Palestine was more an exchange of population than an one-way exodus. Arab rage at Palestine`s partition forced Jews in Arab countries from Morocco to Iraq to leave for Israel. Contrary to the myth propounded by the ruling class in Arab lands, the majority of Jews in Israel are not the Ashkenazi Jews of European descent but are Shepardic Jews who have either lived in Israel for millenia or are exiles from Arab countries like Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Iraq.

THE HINDIANS IN TOTAL DENIAL,.... A PATHOLIGICAL STATE OF MIND ,....TO BE TRUE ,CANT CALL A DUCK EVEN WHEN IT WALKS, LIKE A DUCK ,TALKS LIKE A DUCK & ALL LOGIC SAYS THEN IT IS A DUCK .

SO IS ADVANI NOT AN AVERAGE HINDU BUT A FANATIC ANTI MUSLIM -ISLAM .MAYBE BECAUSE HE HAS PERSONAL REASON BEING FROM MUSLIM PAKISTAN & A REFUGEE ,BUT SOME WORSE SUFFERER OF PARTITION HAS NOT TURNED OUT DEMONIC LIKE HIM E,G. jOYTI bASU ,GUJRAL ,GULZAR,& THIOUSANDS OTHER WHO WERE BORN AS A MINORITY ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BORDERS.

The irresistible rise of L.K. Advani

Jul 4th 2002 | DELHI

From The Economist print edition

AP

[AP]

India`s leading Hindu demagogue moves a step closer to the top

Get article background

ATAL BEHARI VAJPAYEE, India`s prime minister, this week performed his most sweeping ministerial reshuffle since coming to power four years ago, swapping the foreign-affairs and finance portfolios of Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha, and strengthening the leadership of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP ). But it is another appointment that could have longer-term political significance for India, not to mention for Pakistan and the wider world. The elevation of L.K. Advani (pictured left, with Mr Vajpayee), the home minister and Mr Vajpayee`s long-time political comrade and rival, to the additional post of deputy prime minister is a milestone.

Mr Advani`s promotion and the lack of dissent from the ruling coalition appears to mean that the coalition`s members have accepted him as the prime ministerial heir to Mr Vajpayee, who is 77 and has visibly aged in the past couple of years. This is a coup of sorts for Mr Advani, who is universally seen as the government`s leading Hindu-nationalist hardliner, a reputation he first earned ten years ago when he led a movement that demolished an ancient mosque on a disputed religious site in Ayodhya, sparking widespread riots.

Although Mr Advani has since said that he regrets the demolition, there is little doubt that if the government were not constrained by its coalition partners, he would have wanted it to implement the BJP`s Hindutva (?Hinduness?) agenda. This would include rebuilding a Hindu temple at Ayodhya and reversing laws that favour India`s 12% Muslim minority. A few weeks back, Mr Advani caused alarm by threatening Pakistan with dismemberment, as in 1971. And he has several times clashed with Mr Vajpayee recently, with Mr Advani generally on the side of intransigence towards Pakistan and India`s Muslims.

The nervous will see this week`s appointment as a sign that the government is swinging to the right and that the BJP will not in future be prepared to see its hawkish Hindu nationalism tempered by political allies. Optimists argue that, for the time being at least, things will not work out like that. Mr Advani is ambitious. He has been softening his hardline image and trying to play down his rivalry with Mr Vajpayee. This week, at his boss`s request, he persuaded Narendra Modi, the BJP ideologue who is chief minister of Gujarat, where 2,000 people died in Hindu-Muslim riots in April, to postpone a controversial yatra, or tour of the state, that would almost certainly have exacerbated already deeply worrying religious tensions.

No one believes that Mr Advani?seen in the BJP as Mr Vajpayee`s undisputed successor as party leader?has really tempered his nationalist fervour. But he has been careful to make himself appear more acceptable to the BJP`s coalition allies. They must reckon that he is here to stay. Although only three years younger than Mr Vajpayee, he has led a more ascetic life, giving him a leaner and sharper look. By contrast, Mr Vajpayee is not expected to remain in active politics much beyond the next general election, due by mid- to late 2004?if he lasts that long.

Mr Vajpayee`s administration has anyway been in urgent need of a facelift. Its defeats in elections and its failure to quell the Gujarat riots have helped the opposition Congress Party to look nationally credible again after six years in the doldrums. As well as promoting Mr Advani, this week`s cabinet reshuffle is intended to reverse that trend in elections over the next 18 months in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, as well as in troubled Gujarat.

The Singh-Sinha job swap is, at first glance, puzzling. Both men have had their posts since 1998, when the coalition first came to power. Mr Sinha needed to be moved because he had failed to win much support for reform. This forced him to water down some of the main proposals in his five annual budgets, and he was blamed for adding to the BJP`s unpopularity this year when tax increases hit the middle classes. Though presiding over some serious financial-market liberalisation, including opening up the insurance sector, he has failed to tackle the growing fiscal deficit and a stream of market scams.

By contrast, Mr Singh has been acclaimed as one of India`s most effective foreign ministers, maintaining a strong stand through India`s peace bids and crises with Pakistan, and transforming relations with America, where he became popular with senior officials in both the Clinton and Bush administrations.

Mr Sinha`s logical replacement would have been one of the government`s younger members, probably Arun Shourie, who has been a successful privatisation minister. But Mr Shourie was regarded as too insensitive a reformer. Mr Singh, Mr Vajpayee`s first choice for finance in 1998, emerged as a logical fall-back. It then made sense to replace him with Mr Sinha.

This compromise may yet work out reasonably well for Mr Vajpayee. He now has a staunch ally in charge of the finance ministry. He can also call the shots on foreign policy through Brajesh Mishra, his national security adviser. But all this supposes that the fast-rising Mr Advani is content for the present to be a co-operative deputy prime minister, holding his instincts in check and refraining from encouraging the hardline Hindu nationalists behind the scenes. That is probably going to be the tricky bit.

BAY AREA WELL-WISHERS OF SOUTH ASIA RELENTLESS IN THEIR QUEST FOR PEACE

By Hina Wyne

Lytton Plaza, downtown Palo Alto, was the site this Saturday, June 29th,

of the sixth of a series of monthly vigils, organized

locally by the Friends of South Asia (FOSA).

The idea of simultaneous monthly peace vigils held around the globe was

conceived by peace groups in India and Pakistan. The program of

simultaneous vigils calls for peace-loving people all over the world to

gather in the name of peace on the same day every month. The hope is

that a global effort will help influence the policies of India and

Pakistan and shake the rest of the world out of their indifference to a

conflict that would directly affect a fifth of humanity and lead to a

global catastrophe of unthinkable proportions. The first of these

monthly vigils was held simultaneously on January 27 in 18 cities around

the globe. Thousands of people attended the vigils in India, Pakistan

and the US. FOSA -- having already held two vigils in the Bay Area for

Peace in South Asia -- joined this effort and has been holding monthly

vigils since.

Twenty-two concerned citizens turned up for this Saturday`s vigil. The

appointment of L.K. Advani as the Deputy Prime Minister of India was

noted with dismay and concern as a blow to improving the peace and

stability in the region.

Attendees at the June 29th vigil said prayers, sang a South Asian

version of ``We Shall Overcome``, and listened to speeches and briefings.

Sabahat Ashraf MC`ed the speaking part of the vigil. He gave a brief

account of the recent developments in South Asia noting a slight ease

in tensions following the visits of American diplomats. He reminded the group

that South Asia is still far from long-lasting peace because the basic

ingredients of the conflict remain intact and tensions can flare up

anytime. He said that the work of building peace will not be considered done till

every citizen of South Asia can live a peaceful, prosperous life without the

fear of life, limb, or for any of his or her basic rights. He also noted

the recent increase in incidents of outright terror in Pakistani cities.

Addressing the crowd Aniruddha Vaidya narrated the struggle of people

movements protesting the construction of the dams in the Narmada river

valley in central India. He talked about how we need to cherish groups

such as the Narmada Bachao Andolan that are shining examples of peaceful

and non-violent struggle for basic human rights. Vaidya lamented how the

Indian and Pakistani governments ignored and stifled the legitimate,

democratic, peaceful voices and were only woken up when people resort

to violence and terror. He attempted to make the case that people across

the world need to increase the currency of peaceful non-violent

struggles and methods of dissent, de-legitimize the use of terror and

violence whether by state or non-state players, and that diplomacy,

negotiations and inclusive democratic processes need to be the basis of

solutions to political problems such as the Indo-Pak conflict.

Speaking to the participants of the vigil Ali Hasan Cemendtaur said that the

main emphasis of the governments of South Asian countries should be to

improve the living conditions of their populace. Common South Asians

are not too concerned with which country controls which piece of land;

they care more about clean water, food, employment, and feeling secure.

He noted with frustration that the venom spewed by the political leaders

has infected the masses and there is an unbelievable level of animosity

between common Indians and Pakistanis. He hoped to fight the hatred

with love. ``Peace-loving people of India and Pakistan should tie their

localities and their towns in bonds of friendship. South Asian cities

need to be declared sister cities.``

Also speaking to the crowd, Ravi Rajan narrated an interesting

dream that came to him the previous night. Mr. Rajan, describing

himself as a nationalist Indian, dreamt that he had enrolled in the

Indian Army and found himself fighting in a hand-to-hand combat

with a Pakistani soldier. He delivers a blow to his adversary that sends

the Pakistani`s helmet flying.... revealing, more clearly, the face of

his ``enemy``... as Sabahat Ashraf, a fellow member of FOSA whom he knows

personally. Mr. Rajan lays down his arms and tells the Pakistani that he

cannot kill him. Ashraf, too, cannot kill Rajan. Building on this theme

Mr. Rajan said that ``One can only kill an enemy that is an

abstraction,`` making the point that if Indians and Pakistanis get to

know each other on a personal level, then it will become impossible for

them to have baseless feelings of hatred towards each other.

In his speech Usman Qazi said that the governments of India and Pakistan

have always negotiated with each other in bad faith. ``The only way to

deal with the `other side` has been through violence. It is time to

reject that stupid approach. It is time to start building

people-to-people contacts. People thus educated and empowered will

ultimately prod their respective governments to use peaceful means in

negotiating with the `Other`.``

Several of the demonstrators present at the vigil carried homemade signs

with slogans such as `Cowards Make War, the Brave Make Peace`; `When

Governments Go to War, Citizens Die`; and `No One Wins a Nuclear War.`

FOSA plans to continue its participation in the Global Vigils. The next

event is on Saturday, July 27, at Lytton Plaza, Palo Alto. All

peace-loving people are encouraged to participate.

Founded in the Silicon Valley/San Francisco Bay Area, FOSA is a group of

people with roots in various parts of South Asia, as well as other

well-wishers of the region. Its mission is to achieve a peaceful,

prosperous, and hate-free South Asia. The group works towards a

demilitarized, nuclear-free South Asia. FOSA brings together people.

Another aspect of FOSA`s work is celebrating and promoting respect for

the diversity and plurality of South Asia, promoting amity between

countries and communities, and working towards a South Asia where the

rights of all minorities are respected and protected, regardless of

religious, ethnic, sexual or other differences. FOSA carries out its

work through people-to-people contacts, dialog, and other non-violent,

non-exclusionary means; working as a group and with other organizations

that share similar aspirations.

Lates News from Jang, July 9th.

Saudi Arabia banning Umrah pilgrims from Pakistan, (temporarily).

Talk about arab friends.

Lates News from Jang, July 9th.

Saudi Arabia banning Umrah pilgrims from Pakistan, (temporarily).

Talk about arab friends.

http://www.jang-group.com/thenews/index.html

re urstruly

`Today Iran is the only Muslim country that stands tall against all kind of western agression on itself. `

It is apparently also the only `Muslim` country that will allow a Sunni mosque to be built in its capital.

If murdering dissenters, locking up learned ayatollahs, and beating up students is your idea of resisting Western aggression, well I have heard a few Iranian ambassadorships are open!

Various aspects of Islam have been tried out and rightly led to their logical conclusions/demises. Particularly - Islam as a political force, Islam as a scientific force, Islam as an economic force and more importantly Islam as a dominant philosophy for the betterment of humanity. The same happened to Christianity and more recently to Communism. Islam is the last monolith that belongs to the ranks of the old `One solution to all problems` paradigm. Clearly all of these systems have failed. But, each of these systems has offered sepcific solutions that we must consider without dismissing them en masse.

Reply Veeresh # 65

Further to Temporal’s post

Veeresh Unkil

Memons are divided into Kutchi Memons (from Kutch) and Halai Memons (from Kathiawad). Both groups are descended from about eighty families who converted to Islam about two hundred years before it became fashionable in (surprise, surprise!) Thatta in Sindh – half went to Kathiawad, the other half to Kutch. (So all Sindhi Maadus, if you come right down to it. Thabhi tho business ka shauq hai.) They were converted by a certain (possibly apocryphal) Baba Yusufuddin from Baghdad.

Halais and Kutchis generally tell jokes about each other. Both groups are traditionally endogamous. The only really interesting Memon identity is, I must admit, Tiger Memon (a Halai).

In India you’ll find Kutchi Memons in Bombay (the main adda, there’s even a Memon Mohullah there), Bangalore (where they own half the shops on Commercial Street and are also known as Saits, or Seths) and other cities down the West Coast (Cochin, etc.), Belgaum, Calcutta, East Africa and Singapore. (There are a few left in Kutch, still, but not in any great numbers.)

My grandmother’s generation spoke Kutchi, but the language used is now mostly a variety of Bombay Urdu (except in East Africa where they are dour and traditional minded, aka “sudd”.)

Good point of contact is the Jamaath ka Seth of either Bombay or Bangalore (look up the Cutchi Memon Union in the phone book) – there are a lot of business and family connections with uss paar.

But why you are asking? Do you want to buy car at discount?

THE EXCLUDED MIDDLE

From ``The Guardian`` - an excellent piece - and a portend of what I am convinced, is a coming upheaveal, unless there are some major changes in the American policy and government - one which will alter the world as we have known it, not a swift revolution but sustained anarchy - NO power will escape unscathed and those held responsible will not evade ``justice``.

``Middle Eastern gulf separates EU and US

On either side of the Atlantic, fundamentally different attitudes towards the problems of Israel and Islamic unrest are hardening, writes Brian Whitaker

Monday July 8, 2002

When continents drift apart they usually move so slowly that nobody notices, but since George Bush became president the Atlantic has widened perceptibly.

In the pre-Bush era, disputes between Europe and the US could often be passed off as differences of nuance rather than substance. What is emerging now, however, particularly in relation to the Middle East, is a fundamental difference of approach that will be hard to ignore or resolve.

Let`s start, on the eastern side, with Sherard Cowper-Coles, a classics graduate from Oxford, who has spent almost 25 years in the British diplomatic service and is currently Britain`s ambassador to Israel.

A couple of weeks ago, largely unnoticed by the media, he gave a lecture at Tel Aviv university entitled ``Israel and the Palestinians - a European view``.

As befits a classicist, his talk was sprinkled with scholarly references to Thucydides and the devastating Peloponnesian War between ancient Athens and Sparta.

As befits a diplomat, his talk also gushed with expressions of affection for Israel while delivering a few home truths in the delicate manner of someone who broaches the subject of a close friend`s body odour.

Without mentioning Israel`s increasingly permanent military grip on the Palestinian territories or the massive iron wall now under construction, Mr Cowper-Coles said:

``It must be obvious to every decent Israeli that, whatever short-term measures Israel chooses to take, more than three million Palestinian men, women and children should not be kept for ever confined by military force to a series of security zones in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.``

Turning to the question of Palestinian reform - but ignoring the strident calls from Israel and the US for Yasser Arafat`s removal - he supported reform but gave it an unexpected and (for Israel) unwelcome twist:

``In my own personal view, what will be required is nothing less than a large-scale and lasting international presence, led by the United States, overseeing and underpinning first the reform, and then the development, of the Palestinian polity, economy and security apparatus.``

``Surely,`` he continued, ``there can be no serious question over the principle of such a benign international intervention, intended to give Palestinians the help with nation-building they deserve, and Israelis the confidence they need to end occupation and settlement.``

Israel, of course, has long opposed any idea of international intervention and if the ambassador`s remarks did not bring audible gasps from the audience they must at least have caused some shuffling in the seats.

Finally, Mr Cowper-Coles took a swipe at those who spread what he called ``the contagion of anxiety and isolation``.

``Knowing your enemy is one thing,`` he told the audience. ``Convincing yourself, in elaborately researched detail, that he is an anti-Semite or a terrorist [...] doesn`t seem to me to help much.

``In fact, it can be worse than that: the rigorous application of the law of the excluded middle - those not wholly with us are wholly against us - can be deeply destructive of rational discussion. Believe the best of people, and you get some good from them. Believe the worst, and you reap the whirlwind.``

These, the ambassador stressed, were personal opinions, not the views of the British government, but in many ways his talk epitomised the European approach to international relations: cajole people along (even if you detest them), highlight the common ground rather than the points of difference, minimise the risks and, if you must rock the boat, rock it gently.

On the opposite side of the Atlantic, none of this goes down well nowadays. It`s seen as wimpish, ineffectual and hopelessly old-fashioned.

Like Mr Cowper-Coles, Victor Davis Hanson knows a thing or two about Thucydides - he`s Professor of Classics at California State University - but there the similarities stop.

Professor Hanson`s area of expertise is ancient warfare, around which he has built a theory of western superiority claiming that certain cultural values - democracy, free markets, the rule of law, etc - bring success on the battlefield.

He expounds these ideas in a book, Carnage and Culture, which has found its way on to college reading lists in the US and is reviewed favourably on Amazon`s website by Newt Gingrich, the maverick former Speaker of the House and champion of the new right.

Professor Hanson also has a 60-acre fruit farm in California and writes polemics for the American media, including a regular column in the National Review magazine.

In one recent column, he debunks Edward Said`s famous book, Orientalism, as ``simplistic`` and ``superficial``. The real problem, he says, is not western misunderstanding of the Arab world but ``occidentalism`` - which he defines as the Arabs` desire for western products that they either cannot understand or ``blindly and in ignorance`` loathe.

He backs this up with a series of examples which, presumably, he regards as neither simplistic nor superficial:

``Sheikhs from Saudi Arabia go to London or New York for bypass surgery - not to Cairo or Amman; they buy their Viagra from the States, not from apothecaries in Yemen.

``The Arab street purchases appliances that are made in China or Japan on western blueprints, rather than producing them en masse in Damascus or improving on their designs at Baghdad University.``

His latest polemic, in Commentary magazine, takes the form of an attack on Saudi Arabia.

``After the murder of 3,000 Americans, and the various anthrax, dirty-bomb, and suicide-attack scares,`` he writes, ``Americans are finally seeing militant Islam not merely as a different religion, or even as a radical Jim-Jones-like cult, but as a threat to our very existence.

``Saudi Arabia is the placenta of this frightening phenomenon. Its money has financed it; its native terrorists promote it; and its own unhappy citizenry is either amused by or indifferent to its effects upon the world.``

While many of Professor Hanson`s other complaints about Saudi Arabia - discrimination against women, human rights abuses, corruption - are obvious, the solution that he offers is anything but.

The US, he says, should destabilise the entire Middle East in order to contrive the sort of upheaval that befell the Soviet Union.

``Only by seeking to spark disequilibrium, if not outright chaos, do we stand a chance of ridding the world of the likes of Bin Laden, Arafat, and Saddam Hussein,`` he says.

``Just as a reconstituted Afghanistan eliminated the satanic Taliban and turned the region`s worst regime into a government with real potential, so too a new Iraq might start the fall of dominoes in the Gulf that could wipe away the entire foul nest behind September 11.``

It is tempting to dismiss this as the ramblings of a clever but slightly unhinged academic, but Professor Hanson is by no means alone in his views. His remedy for the Middle East is not so much a proposal as a statement of the direction in which US policy appears to be heading.

Iraq is already a declared target and President Bush has indicated, though his speeches, that Iran and Syria are also in his sights. The Israelis, meanwhile, are doing their best to turn the US against Saudi Arabia.

There are several reasons why this is happening. One is that Ariel Sharon, having won approval for his idea that there can be no peace without re-moulding the Palestinians in a form that is more to his liking, has begun to extend it to the rest of the Middle East.

Palestinian terrorism, he argues, is funded and encouraged by Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and others - so those countries must be changed too.

The second reason is that both Israel and the US persist in their rigorous application of the law of the excluded middle - exactly what the British ambassador warned against.

Those who are not wholly and unreservedly committed to the ``war on terrorism`` are considered to be siding with terrorists.

Those who disapprove of Ariel Sharon`s policies are labelled anti-Israeli or even anti-Semitic.

Worse than that, under the law of the excluded middle positions become more and more polarised, the problems become magnified and require ever more drastic solutions.

The third but perhaps the most important factor is that deliberately creating turmoil throughout the Middle East diverts attention from the underlying problem - the Israeli occupation that has blighted the region for more than half a century and has played a large part in the rise of Islamic militancy.

In the current American climate, it`s politically more acceptable to talk of sending a quarter of a million troops to change the regime in Iraq (and to threaten Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia with similar treatment), than it is to talk of imposing a fair peace for Palestinians.

That, in essence, is where the US and Europe part company. Europeans see the world as it is and seek to deal with its problems; Americans see the world as it would like it to be and seek to change it.

But it`s one thing to attempt wholesale change and another to achieve it. As ambassador Cowper-Coles told his Israeli audience: ``In the real world, constructive politics is the art of the possible, not the impossible.``

ULTIMATE INSULT

It is sad that a nation created for islam, people who believed that being muslim they cannot live with the kafirs have been denied the ultimate islamic worship. The pak ministers who are concerned about the slaughter of islamic terrorist in kashmir have nothing to say about this indignity on their own people. From dawn of today.

Pakistanis stopped from performing Umra

RIYADH, July 8: Saudi Arabia has slapped a temporary ban on all Pakistanis and Syrians from performing Umra to the kingdom because of visa irregularities, a newspaper reported on Monday.

Al-Watan said the ministry of Haj issued the ban because of widespread ``trading in Umrah visas`` last year that left around 10,000 pilgrims from the two countries stranded in Saudi Arabia.

re: ...``Unless we identify the western agents among ourselves and purge society of them-we are going nowhere...``

Do explain how that would be done.