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The aspiration of the Media Review Network is to dispel the myths and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims and to foster bridges of understanding among the diverse people of our country. The Media Review Network believes that Muslim perspectives on issues impacting on South Africans are a prerequisite to a better appreciation of Islam.

Can Isarael plot the shifting sands of the middle east?

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By Allister Sparks

(source: Businessday, Cape times + Mercury Online)

The tectonic plates of Middle Eastern politics are shifting. Having just returned from my eighth visit in the past six years to the world’s most explosive region, I believe a completely new political landscape will emerge there over the next two years.
Old dominant players are fading and new ones emerging, while the centrepiece of its volcanic core, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is itself undergoing a change of dynamics.

The most significant change is that the US is going to withdraw from the dominant role it has played in the region for decades. The US has exhausted itself in the two wars it has had to wage since George W Bush launched his "shock and awe" attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq seven years ago.

The shock has been the US’s. The unquenchable civil wars those invasions ignited have drained the US of blood and treasure to the point where that weakened superpower no longer has the political will to tolerate the costs. President Barack Obama is committed to withdrawing from both countries by the end of next year, even though they are likely still to be strife-torn and insecure.

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Israeli document Gaza blockade isnt about security

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By Sheera Frenkel

(source: The Wisdom Fund.org)

As Israel ordered a slight easing of its blockade of the Gaza Strip Wednesday, McClatchy obtained an Israeli government document that describes the blockade not as a security measure but as "economic warfare" against the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory.

Israel imposed severe restrictions on Gaza in June 2007, after Hamas won elections and took control of the coastal enclave after winning elections there the previous year, and the government has long said that the aim of the blockade is to stem the flow of weapons to militants in Gaza.

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Dear mr president

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Mr. Barack Obama

President of the United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

By Mirza Yawar Baig

I am sure you know more about the situation with Israel’s attack on the Freedom Flotilla than I do. The question that I and the rest of the world is asking is, ‘What are you going to do?’

We are told that in  1997, a man used to stand outside the White House, your home today,  holding a lighted candle in his hand, a silent protestor against the US sanctions against Iraq. He would turn up there every evening and would stand there for a few hours well into the night. One evening, it was wet, windy and very cold. As usual the man came, wearing a coat with the collar turned up against the bitter cold, and an umbrella to shelter the tiny flame of his candle from the blustery wind.  As he stood there, the guard at the gate, who used to see him every day and occasionally waved to him in friendly camaraderie, came out to him and said, "Man! I know you are committed to this cause. But look at this night! It is so cold and horrible; you are one man, standing here alone, do you think you will change them?"

 The man looked at the guard and smiled. "I don’t do this to change them," he said, "I do this so that they will not change me."

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