The United Nations will suspend its food distribution to half of Gaza’s 1.5 million people on Thursday after Israel blocked… Read More »Un to suspend food distribution in Gaza after Isarael blocks aid supplies
Malaysia PM called on Islamic banking to work on clarifying and resolving conflicts in interpretation over what products are allowed under religious laws.
The global economic crisis presents an opportunity for Islamic banking to show it is a viable alternative to conventional finance, Malaysia’s premier said according to reports Wednesday.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the meltdown showed the need for laws enshrined in Islamic banking, which prohibits speculation and high levels of debt, and which has so far been relatively unscathed by the credit crunch.
"These ethical and moral safeguards are missing in the conventional system," Abdullah said in a speech, adding that the crisis was caused by trade in loans which few truly understood.
"In reality these repackaged sub-prime loans were nothing more than artful works of deception that fed the speculative excesses and hubris in the financial markets," he said at the launch of an Islamic law research academy.
However, he called on Islamic banking — a booming 1.0 trillion dollar global industry — to work on clarifying and resolving conflicts in interpretation over what products are allowed under religious laws.
"The Islamic finance community should not be complacent or unduly proud. We must continue to critically evaluate ourselves," he said according to the state Bernama news agency.
"For instance, have we truly established an alternative system or are we still very much mimicking the established conventional system?"
Islamic law prohibits the payment and collection of interest, which is seen as a form of gambling, so highly complex instruments such as derivatives and other creative accounting practices are banned.
There have been calls for the conventional banking industry to take a leaf out of the book of Islamic finance, which also shuns investments in gaming, alcohol and pornography in favour of ethical investments.
Agencies
Read More »Malaysia pm global crisis a chance for islamic banking to shine
The UN relief and works agency has said it will run out of food within the next 48 hours as the blockade imposed on Gaza by Israel continues.
Christopher Gunness, the agency’s spokesman, told Al Jazeera the people in Gaza were being put through not just a "physical sense pf punishment but also a mental one".
"That’s how serious it is. We feed 750,000 people in Gaza and these are some of the poorest and most disadvantaged people in the Middle East," he said on Wednesday.
"Something very unusual is happening here. This is becoming a blockade against the UN itself."
The blockade, which has prevented deliveries of essential items including food and fuel, was imposed after rocket attacks by Palestinian fighters, who said they were responding to an Israeli raid that killed six people on November 4.
Gunness said the agency was trying to get material into a school for blind children but that it had been barred.
‘Blind Children’
"These blind children, as far as I am aware, are not firing rockets. And the material we are trying to get to them would make a pretty floppy rocket if they tried to make one from it," Gunness said.
"We have a situation where hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, including blind children who would have been assisted, are effectively being punished for the irresponsible acts of a few."
He added: "We condemn the firing of rockets. We do it every single time … We cannot punish whole communities. This has got to stop. The blockade against the UN itself has got to come to an end."
Gunness said a team in Gaza was starting a human rights education programme in the run up to the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, but he added that it would be hard telling children to respect people’s rights.
"They are telling children in Gaza that they have to respect rights universally. How can we tell those same children, ‘Oh, by the way, you have to respect rights of people in Israel but they are actually stopping us giving you food?’ It doesn’t make sense," he said.
Gunness said the agency had made phone calls and sent emails seeking permission to deliver aid to Gazans, but it was getting no response
"We are told it is not possible … it is difficult … this stuff and the other. This sort of prevarication is leading to misery. A population is being radicalised in the Middle East," he said.
Renewed Deliveries
On Tuesday, Israel partially renewed fuel deliveries to the Gaza Strip, ending a week-long suspension of supplies that led to blackouts in the homes of Palestinian families.
Palestinian workers said the first delivery was received at the Nahal Oz fuel depot and was sent on to Gaza’s only power plant.
The plant shut down on Monday due to what Palestinian officials said was a lack of fuel, leaving about half of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents without power.
An Egyptian-brokered ceasefire that began in June has been disrupted following the imposition of the blockade.
Israeli’s foreign ministry accused Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, of exploiting the situation for political gain.
"The cynical Hamas exploitation of the civilian population in Gaza is contemptible," a ministry statement said.
Kanan Obeid, a Gazan energy official, criticised the move as an example of "Israel’s policy of collective punishment".
The Gaza City plant provides about a quarter of Gaza’s electricity, while most of the rest comes over lines from Israel. Egypt also provides a small amount.
(Aljazeera.net English and agencies)
By Gideon Levy
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The march of parochialism started right away. The tears of excitement invoked by U.S. president-elect Barack Obama’s wonderful speech had not yet dried, and back here people were already delving into the only real question they could think to ask: Is this good or bad for Israel? One after another, the analysts and politicians got up — all of them representing one single school of thought, of course and began prophesizing.
They spoke with the caution that the situation required, gritting their teeth as though their mouths were full of pebbles, trying to soothe all the fears and concerns. They searched and found signs in Obama: The promising appointment of the Israeli expatriates’ son, whose father belonged to the Irgun, and maybe also Dennis Ross and Dan Kurtzer and Martin Indyk, who may, God willing, be included in the new administration.
But in the background, a dark cloud hovered above. Careful, danger. The black man, who had associated with Palestinian expats, who speaks of human rights, who favors diplomacy over war, who even wants to engage Iran in dialogue, who will allocate more funding for America’s social needs than to weapons exports. He may not be the sort of "friend of Israel" that we have come to love in Washington, the kind of friend we have grown accustomed to.
What’s the panic all about? The truth needs to be said: At the base of all of these fears is the angst that this president will push Israel to end the occupation and move toward peace.
Well, maybe Obama will not be a "friend of Israel." May the great change he is promising not omit his country’s Mideast policy. May Obama herald not only a new America, but also a new Middle East.
When we say that someone is a "friend of Israel" we mean a friend of the occupation, a believer in Israel’s self-armament, a fan of its language of strength and a supporter of all its regional delusions. When we say someone is a "friend of Israel" we mean someone who will give Israel a carte blanche for any violent adventure it desires, for rejecting peace and for building in the territories.
Israel’s greatest friend in the White House, outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush, was someone like that. There is no other country where this man, who brought a string of disasters down upon his own nation and the world, would receive any degree of prestige and respect. Only in Israel.
Only in Israel does the prime minister place George Bush’s portrait in his den, in his private home. Only in Israel does the prime minister travel to visit him in the White House.
That’s because Bush was a friend of Israel. Israel’s greatest friend. Bush let it embark on an unnecessary war in Lebanon. He did not prevent the construction of a single outpost. He may have encouraged Israel, in secret, to bomb Iran. He did not pressure Israel to move ahead with peace talks, he even held up negotiations with Syria, and he did not reproach Israel for its policy of targeted killings.
Bush also supported the siege on Gaza and participated in the boycott of Hamas, which was elected in a democratic election initiated by his own administration.
That’s just how we like U.S. presidents. They give us a green light to do as we please. They fund, equip and arm us, and sit tight. Such is the classic friend of Israel, a friend who is an enemy, and enemy of peace and an enemy to Israel.
Let us now hope that Obama will not be like them. That he will reveal himself to be a true friend of Israel. That he will put his whole weight behind a deep American involvement in the Middle East, that he will try to solve the Iranian issue through negotiation — the only effective means. That he will help end the siege on Gaza and the boycott of Hamas, that he will push Israel and Syria to make peace, that he will spur Israel and the Palestinians to reach a settlement.
We should hope Obama will help Israel help itself, because that is how friendship is measured. That he will criticize its policy when he must, because that, too, is a test of true friendship.
Let him use his clout to end the occupation and dismantle the settlement project. Let him remember that human and civil rights also apply to the Palestinians, not only to black Americans. And apropos world peace, he needs to start with peace in the Middle East, home to the most dangerous of conflicts, which has been threatening the world for a century now, and is feeding international terrorism.
A true friend of Israel needs to remember that Israel may be "the only democracy in the Middle East," but not in its own backyard. That next to Sderot, which he visited, is Gaza. That "common values" must not include a cruel occupation. That friendship does not mean blind and automatic support.
Let him speak with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, as often as he can and with whomever is willing to talk. And let him do it before the next war, not after it. Let him remember that he has the power to do all that.
Changing the Middle East was in the power of each and every U.S. president, who could have pressured Israel and put an end to the occupation. Most of them kept their hands off as if it were a hot potato, all in the name of a wonderful friendship.
So bring us an American president who is not another dreadful "friend of Israel," an Obama who won’t blindly follow the positions of the Jewish lobby and the Israeli government. You did promise change, did you not?