Politics

By Dean Obeidallah

CNN

Hillary Clinton is not the lesser of two evils in this election. There’s only one “evil” in this race, and his name is Donald J. Trump. That was on clear display during Trump’s speech Wednesday, which was riddled with falsehoods.

I say this as a person who passionately supported Bernie Sanders during the primaries. After all, Clinton was — and continues to be — the less progressive candidate on issues both domestic and foreign. She maintains uncomfortably strong ties to Wall Street and remains hawkish on international affairs.

Of course, there are other issues that have given Sanders supporters room for pause. Clinton received extremely large paychecks for speeches at Goldman Sachs and other big banks after leaving the State Department. She supported a controversial 1994 crime bill that disproportionally affected minorities and then referred to young black men involved in criminal activity as “super predators.” (She has since apologized for the use of that term.) Then there’s Clinton’s email server controversy — though frankly this is an issue raised more by conservative opposition than by progressive liberals.

And all of this has taken a toll on her overall favorability. A new CNN poll out Tuesday finds that Trump and Clinton are tied with an abysmal six in 10 Americans viewing both of them as unfavorable candidates.

Why Trump is wrong on ‘political correctness’ (Opinion)
But the difference between Clinton and Trump is about more than their divergent views on tax law, immigration, or foreign policy. It’s about the battle of good versus evil.

The “evil” in Trump’s campaign has been evident since the day he declared his candidacy. He kicked off his campaign a year ago this month, telling Americans to fear Mexicans because, in his words, Mexico was sending “rapists” and people who are “bringing drugs” across our borders. (Trump’s statement has been proven false by a group of non-partisan fact checkers.)
Since then, Trump has continued to serve up a steady diet of bigoted, racist and sexist fare. There was Trump’s sexist remarks about Carly Fiorina’s face, his recent racist comments about the so-called “Mexican” judge, and his mocking of a disabled reporter for failing to back up Trump’s baseless claim that “thousands” of Muslims were cheering in New Jersey on September 11.

Speaking of Muslims, Trump has offered a master class in how to demonize one particular faith group. He kicked off his jihad on Muslims last December with his proposed Muslim ban that was less a well-reasoned policy proposal and more a tactic designed to stir up xenophobic sentiment across the country. He then gave us in March “Islam hates us.” And Trump recently took his fearmongering one step further, suggesting that Muslim Americans know about terror plots but do not come forward to the authorities. In other words, Trump insinuated that all Muslim Americans are one degree removed from ISIS and other Islamic extremist networks.

Clinton, in stark contrast, has neither demonized any minority group nor made any bigoted or racist remarks. In fact, she’s done the exact opposite. In her Super Tuesday speech, Clinton proclaimed, “Trying to divide America between us and them is wrong, and we’re not going to let it work.”

And just last week, a day after the Orlando shooting, she actually stood up for the Muslim community. This was a bold a move — and one for which she has been given virtually no credit. Sadly, there is little upside to defending Muslims in American politics today, but particularly the day after a shooter pledges allegiance to ISIS and kills 49 innocent club-goers.

Yet Clinton did just that, declaring that “millions of peace-loving Muslims live, work and raise their families across America.” She added, powerfully, “We should be intensifying contacts in those communities, not scapegoating or isolating them.” In doing so, Clinton changed the tenor of the conversation from that of fear and hate to one of love and kindness.

Our nation appears to be at a true crossroads in this election in the battle between Trump and Clinton. Some would say our nation’s soul hangs in the balance. If you don’t want to vote for Clinton, that’s your democratic right. But stating that Clinton is the lesser of two evils is not just factually wrong — it makes you an apologist for Donald J. Trump’s “evils.”

Source: www.cnn.com

BY SARAH AZIZA
New Republic

On a ramshackle industrial block in southern Brooklyn, an Arabic call to prayer can be heard over the humming traffic of the nearby Belt Parkway. The sound rises from Bay Ridge’s Beit-al-Maqdes mosque, a white-and-green building whose stubby minaret barely crests the high walls of abutting warehouses. From the outside, the house of prayer looks moderately reverent, but on the inside its linoleum floors and poster-pasted walls are more reminiscent of a school cafeteria. On weekdays, between fajr and thuhr prayers, the drafty main hall grows raucous as dozens of women in black abayas and colored hijabs arrive in waves of banter and warm greetings. They split into groups, squeezing into desks designed for children, arraying purses and plastic bags around their feet. Between each “classroom” are flimsy room dividers that give some semblance of order, but they do little to corral the breathless chatter of the 50-plus students and volunteers. 

At one end, ten women in a lopsided circle face their teacher, Stephanie Boyle, who on this day is dressed in a tracksuit, her dark hair pulled like an exclamation point atop her head. Boyle, a professor of history at New York City College of Technology, moves with a martial gait around the circle, warming up her students with a few brisk greetings. Her expression is cheerful, but her squared shoulders match the crisp urgency of her voice as she launches into the day’s lesson: “What are the first three words of the Constitution?” She presents the question to Sutrallah, a middle-aged Yemeni mother of seven whose fingers knot nervously in her lap. 

Most of the classes at Beit-al-Maqdes teach English, but on Fridays Boyle and her students gather for another purpose: to prepare for the U.S. Naturalization Test. Boyle’s students are all Green Card holders with aspirations of becoming American citizens, and the test, comprised of reading, writing, and oral examinations, is the bar they must clear to achieve this. The group works from a study guide that lists the exam questions—all 100 of them—alongside the answers. Two weeks into the class cycle, and they’ve made it to question number three. On paper, the full question reads: 

The idea of self government is in the first three words of the Constitution. What are these words?

In several months of teaching, Boyle has yet to have a student pass the exam, although a few have tried. Among those who have gambled the $680 application fee is Aisha, an 81-year-old Moroccan widow who speaks of the experience in soft, slow tones. Although she is fluent in Arabic and French, she struggles with English. “I fell [failed] on the writing portion,” she tells me in Arabic. Her eyes, pale green and framed with delicate wrinkles, flicker with shame at the memory. After a few weeks recovering from the disappointment, Aisha rejoined her classmates in struggling through passages on market capitalism and civic history. Progress is glacial and discouragement a constant companion, yet in recent months the women of Beit-al-Maqdes have drawn inspiration from an unlikely figure: Donald Trump. 

Though they cannot vote, these women are attuned to the election cycle and have been deeply shaken by Trump’s repeated calls for a “ban on Muslims” and similar proposals targeting Arab and Muslim communities. While some commentators have dismissed these threats as mere political grandstanding, the rhetoric has espoused real fear among many, including Boyle’s students. While some of these women report experiencing mild discrimination in the past, the political vitriol of recent months has whittled their former optimism into anxious pragmatism. Now, many of them are reaching for American citizenship as insurance against their worst fear: mass deportation. When asked why they want to become citizens, they no longer mention cultural attachment or civic aspiration; rather, their immediate and unanimous response is: “so they can’t send us away!” 

The Beit El-Maqdis mosque, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.Sarah Aziza
For some, these insecurities are augmented by direct experience. Saada, a dimpled, effusive mother of five, still quakes a little as she recalls her first attempt to rent an apartment in Brooklyn. The landlord, seeing her headscarf, immediately rejected her application. “He said he can’t have anyone wearing hijabs in this building.” Saada’s face strains to hold an unconvincing smile as she relates the story to me in Arabic. “It upset me. But I controlled myself, I gathered myself up and walked out. Because, what can you do?” Another woman in Boyle’s class says she was approved for an apartment in a nearby building, but the landlord almost “changed his mind” when the woman brought her elderly, veil-wearing mother to live with her. “He was angry,” says the young woman, dark eyelashes dipping towards the floor. “He said, ‘Headscarf, okay, niqab, no.’”

Many of these women also fear these hostile attitudes could translate into physical violence— fears that are not unfounded. Following 9/11, hate crimes directed at Muslims—and those mistaken for Muslims—became a familiar phenomenon in the United States. In 2015, the FBI reported these incidents at a rate of about 12 per month, but the number tripled in the weeks following the Paris attacks in November of that year. The Council for American-Islamic Relations also reported unprecedented rates of vandalism at mosques and Islamic centers following the attacks, while the atrocities in San Bernardino and Orlando have further stoked Islamophobic attitudes. Anti-Muslim aggression has spiked in schools in recent months, prompting the Department of Education to release a nationwide advisory in February expressing concern over a “level of anti-Muslim bias and bullying” unmatched “’since the days and months immediately after September 11.”

Sutrallah has been struggling to learn English for years, but this year is the first time she’s attempted to become naturalized. “It’s different now, because, you know, Trump.” She says his name with the trill of an Arabic rolling “r,” a look of dismay spreading across her face as she holds her citizenship textbook with a desperate grip. She hopes to take the exam in July, but admits she is far from ready. “Please, help. Please. English … no good,” she pleads after class, thrusting her dog-eared workbook towards Boyle in supplication.

The 100-question test confronting Boyle’s students is a recent phenomenon. For most of American history, would-be citizens presented their petition to any local, state, or federal court. Judges were given full power of arbitration, charged with determining whether the person was “of good moral character,” demonstrating “an attachment to the principles of the Constitution.” Predictably, interpretations of these criteria varied widely. The twentieth century centralized the procedure, but also brought a much heavier emphasis on surveillance and control. Under the Alien Registration Act of 1940 (also known as the Smith Act), millions of non-citizens were fingerprinted and thousands were taken into custody under suspicions of anti-American associations. 

These wartime developments represented a decisive shift in the American immigration model, which had gradually moved from an economic to a national security approach. A glance at the series of government bodies that have overseen immigration captures this evolution with poetic concision: originally handled by the Treasury Department and what was then the Department of Commerce and Labor, immigration was moved to the Department of Justice around World War II, and, in the wake of 9/11, handed over to the Department of Homeland Security.

The Arab women of Beit-al-Maqdes, while largely unaware of this history, feel keenly the impact of the current security-driven environment. “They think we are bad people, crazy people,” says Saada, shaking her head. Despite her nine years in the United States, she feels her place in America has grown only more tenuous since the rise of Trump. Aisha shares this anxiety. “I don’t know what will happen to us if he wins,” she says. “They can’t send us all back, right?” Her question rings like a plea. While these women understand—and share—American outrage at the atrocities of Islamic extremists, they are largely bewildered that so many people appear ready to make sweeping generalizations about Muslims and Arabs. “This killing, this ISIS, is not us!” blurts Saada, her hands flapping and her smile full of pain.

While the political climate has cast a pall on their lives, the women try to keep their sights set on what drew them to America in the first place: political freedom, economic opportunity, reprieve from violence. Sutrallah keeps her focus tight, carefully navigating the demands of American parenthood: parent-teacher conferences, doctor visits, grocery shopping, balancing the family budget. Her husband works in a Queens convenience store with two other Yemeni men, and the family splits his earnings between their own expenses and remittances to family back home.

Even after eleven years in the country, Sutrallah admits that she is not yet at home here. While she is vivacious among her Arabic-speaking peers, she is ashamed of her imperfect English, and seldom ventures outside her Bay Ridge enclave—a choice many of her similarly insecure classmates share. This sense of alienation sparks nostalgia for the communal living and familiar customs of Yemen. Despite the turmoil, she says, people in her hometown looked out for one another. “Everyone knows each other there, and everyone helps each other,” she recalls. “You are never alone.” On lonely days in  Brooklyn, Sutrallah consoles herself that she is helping ensure a “better future” for her children, who, she boasts, speak “100 percent American English.”

Shura, a fellow Yemeni and Sutrallah’s classmate, is also thrilled that her children will grow up “a part of America”—but she’s not ruling herself out, either. “I want to make American friends, inshallah, when my English is better,” the 23-year-old tells me. “I think we could learn a lot from each other.” Arriving early for her lessons in a rustle of black gauze, Shura’s dark eyes harbor a spark so distinctive that I am able to recognize her even when, on the occasion a man is present, she pulls her niqab across her nose and mouth. While it’s been less than a year since she arrived in the United States, Shura has an instinctive grasp of English and can already hold simple conversations with volunteers from the Arab-American Association of New York. When we chat about her transition to the United States, though, we speak in Arabic, allowing her speech to match her soaring enthusiasm.              

Sarah Aziza
“Most of the people we meet here are really kind.” (Shura uses the Arabic word “lateef,” which connotes goodness of heart, wholesomeness, and beauty.) Shura arrived in New York City with her husband and infant just as the autumn air began to chill. When snow fell, she was enchanted. “I’d never seen it, except in movies,” she says. “We were all at the window the first day, taking pictures to send to our family in Yemen. We said, ‘See, the whole world is white! And beautiful!’ Subhanallah—glory to God.”

For now, Shura is concentrating on her language skills, but her aspirations extend far beyond Beit-al-Maqdes. “I want to go to college,” she repeats, frequently. She would like to work in translation, she says, in order to “help other Arabs in America, because it is very hard for them when they don’t speak the language.” She gestures with her hand, mime-like, as if pressing up against a solid wall. “Language keeps us apart from people. We want to speak. I want to say … but I don’t know how.” Shura’s hands fall, palms up, on her lap. A moment later, she adds, in English, “It makes me feel … stupid.” 

While naturalization is an often graceless process, the women of Beit al-Maqdes are still eager to praise their new country. One frequent point of admiration is American law enforcement, especially for those who left behind neighborhoods run by vigilantes or government thugs. “You don’t have to be afraid of police here,” remarks one Egyptian woman. “Back home, if you are taken by the police, that’s it—maybe you’ll never come back.” Shura nods, adding, “In America, if someone takes your rights—you can go to the courts. The law protects you.” When, during a citizenship lesson, Boyle touches on religious freedom, Sutrallah chimes in, saying, “This is good, very good.” Later, she remarks, “In Yemen, I only knew Muslims. Here, you meet all kinds of people: Jews, Christians, people with no religion. And this is good. Didn’t God make us all?” 

Similarly, many of the women at Beit-al-Maqdes speak with delight about their expanded horizons. “In Yemen, many people don’t like their girls to go to school, and women don’t leave the house much,” says Shura, grinning, “but here, you have the right to go out, and move around, and do anything!” Sutrallah challenges Shura, reminding her that not all families in Yemen restrict their daughters—“just some of the tough-minded people, the uneducated ones. The ones who don’t understand Islam correctly.” Saada is conflicted, and wonders: What do young American children do, when their mothers are at work all day? On the issue of employment, the class is divided; about half of the women at Beit-al-Maqdes say they hope to attain higher education and find jobs—social work, nursing, teaching, and childcare are among the most common goals. 

Standing across from Sutrallah’s cramped desk, Boyle returns to question number three. “What are the first three words of the Constitution?”

Sutrallah hesitates, and her comrades erupt into a chorus of unsolicited assistance. “Con-stit-ushon! Distoor,” offers one, translating the word to Arabic. “Yiiiii, sister,” murmurs another, “What did she say?” Sutrallah begins to laugh helplessly, cupping small fingers over her mouth and sending thin bangles jingling down her black-sleeved arms. Boyle switches to Arabic, addressing Sutrallah in the lilting Cairo accent she picked up during her doctoral research in Egypt. “La itkhaefi—don’t get nervous. Listen carefully.” Sutrallah and her companions do listen—with painful concentration—as she scrawls the answer on the whiteboard: “We The People.” Those who can read English squint, mouthing the words, while the rest wait to hear their teacher repeat orally: “We. The. People.”

Hunching in their undersized chairs, contemplating America’s founding document, the women are caught up in the moment, forgetting the often hostile landscape they will have to negotiate once they leave the mosque. They are practicing the letter “p,” a sound not heard in the Arabic language. Having grimaced and laughed through many failed attempts, most of the women have now mastered the consonant—and it’s an important one. 

“P-Pea-poll.” They repeat after Boyle. “We. The. Pea-poll.” Boyle gives high-fives. Encouraged, they continue their chorus. “We. The. Pea-poll. Yiii, tamam! [alright!]”

Source: newrepublic.com

As the United States grapples with many conflicting views of Islam’s role in the United States, a group of Muslims who work for the CIA are asked by the agency’s deputy director to speak to the Washington Post about their roles as Muslims in the CIA. Amidst terrorist attacks and growing political rhetoric aiming at … Continued

By KATIE GLUECK 

Politico 

Bernie Sanders supporter Cornel West was painted as “anti-Israel” in new ads by the Republican Jewish Coalition. 

Republicans are seeking to drive a wedge into an issue that’s already emerging as a highly sensitive one in the Democratic platform: Israel.

The latest salvo will come from the Republican Jewish Coalition this week, as the group — which is home to some of the biggest donors in GOP politics — launches an online advertising campaign attacking members of the Democratic National Committee’s platform drafting committee.

The RJC plan, first shared with Politico, comes as Democrats are already grappling with the possibility that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will emerge as a major flash point at their national convention next month, given the sharp disagreements some on the platform drafting committee have with one another on the issue.

The RJC ads will target Arab-American activist James Zogby, public intellectual Cornel West and Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress. The RJC’s five-figure social media campaign characterizes the three platform committee members as “radical” Democrats who are “stridently anti-Israel,” “hand-selected member[s] of the Democratic platform committee.” All three were selected by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“Sadly, this isn’t the old Democratic Party,” each spot intones, as an image of the late President John F. Kennedy splashes across the screen. Switching to an image of Hillary Clinton, the voice-over continues, “It’s today’s Democratic Party.”

Clinton herself is generally considered — especially in Democratic circles — a staunch supporter of Israel, as are a number of her allies on the platform drafting committee. But even as Republicans face a much bigger fight over party unity than Democrats do, the RJC and others in the GOP see the potential Democratic platform fight over Israel language as an opportunity to highlight divisions on the other side.

The issue of Israel is a touchy one in Democratic circles: There was a public and embarrassing flare-up over Israel in the 2012 platform, when language declaring Jerusalem Israel’s capital was removed and then reinstated into the platform, engendering some boos. Some attendees maintain that those in the room were booing procedural methods, not the substance of the language, but the moment — and the larger back-and-forth over the language — sparked controversy nonetheless.

This time around, Democrats desperately want to avoid anything that detracts from Clinton’s efforts to project unity. But there are significant differences between the party establishment, starting with Clinton herself, and the more progressive grass roots, led by Sanders, with regard to posture toward Israel, leaving open the possibility for conflict on the issue.

Sanders and some of his supporters, including those on the platform committee, are eager for what many refer to as a more “even-handed” approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even as Sanders has also said he believes in Israel’s security.

The RJC is hoping to force those Democratic disagreements into the open.

“As we’ve seen over the last couple months, the Democratic Party is getting nervous about the amount of real estate these voices are taking up,” said Mark McNulty, a spokesman for the RJC, of the Sanders picks. He went on to add, “From 2012 on, and sometimes before that, we have seen divisions within the Democratic Party when it comes to Israel and pertinent Jewish issues. This is just another time for us to make the case to Jewish voters that their interests are better served by Republicans.”

Those disagreements within the Democratic Party were highlighted last week, when, during a DNC platform hearing in Washington, West and Zogby clashed with former Rep. Robert Wexler, a Clinton supporter (though not on the committee this year), over whether the word “occupation” should be used to describe Israel’s control of Palestinian territories, a word that makes staunch Israel supporters cringe, but that more progressive voices — as well as the State Department — consider an accurate description.

At the meeting, Wexler said that it isn’t the party’s place to call Israel an occupier, while West and Zogby maintained it is essential for Democrats to use the term.

That debate underscored the sharp disagreements in the party on the issue, tensions Democrats acknowledge.

Asked whether the issue of Middle East peace could be a key flash point, Dwight Bullard, the Democratic chairman of heavily Jewish Miami-Dade County replied, “Politically speaking this could be it. I think there’s enough red meat out there of issues that [it] could be contentious.”

Added Dennis Ross, a veteran of Middle Eastern policy who served as a special adviser to Clinton at the State Department, “I think there are some divisions within the Democratic Party on the issue. Clearly I think the more mainstream, centrist part of the party tends to believe support for Israel is the kind of standard of principle by which it wants to be identified. Looking at what might be described as the more Sanders wing, [they] are ready to raise questions about that.”

The committee is set to continue hammering out language at a draft committee meeting this weekend in St. Louis. Clinton has six allies on the committee, to Sanders’ five, along with four other members selected by the DNC.

“We’re still in the process of creating the platform,” said Dana Vickers Shelley, a spokeswoman for the DNC platform committee. “I’m comfortable that the party’s words and actions will be consistent in support of Israel’s security and safety.”

Ross and other Clinton allies downplayed the notion that that debate will unfold via the platform committee at the convention, noting that Sanders has spent much more time prioritizing economic issues than he has the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Sen. Sanders and the vast majority of his delegates, his strongest supporters, are rightfully most concerned about economic justice, about income inequality, and the many economic issues, domestic issues that Sen. Sanders based his presidential campaign on,” Wexler said. “Foreign policy was not Sen. Sanders’ focus. And while he did make a statement or two regarding Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s not the focus of his campaign, nor do I think it will be the focus of the convention.”

Matt Duss, a Middle East expert who testified last week at the behest of the Sanders campaign, said the Clinton camp’s more centrist approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would likely prevail at the convention — but that won’t paper over the significant areas of disagreement that remain on the issue.

“I’m happy to have been asked by the Sanders campaign to share my views, but at the end of the day, Clinton is the nominee, so her choices are probably going to carry the day,” Duss said. “But I just hope there’s an understanding that this is a debate that’s not going to go away.”

Source: www.politico.com

Zaid Jilani
The Intercept

DONALD TRUMP TOLD CBS News over the weekend that the United States should consider religious and ethnic profiling to prevent terror attacks.

“I think profiling is something that we’re going to have to start thinking about as a country,” Trump said. “Other countries do it, you look at Israel and you look at others, they do it and they do it successfully. And I hate the concept of profiling, but we have to start using common sense and we have to use our heads.”

Israel’s most systematic use of racial profiling occurs at its borders and has been rife with abuses that stand in contrast with American values of equal treatment and safeguarding personal liberties.

The Arab American Institute has collected stories of Arab and Muslim Americans who have been harassed or detained while entering Israel. They offer a window into the human impact of racial profiling.

For example, Najwa Doughman, a New York City architect with no ties to terrorism, was sent to a waiting room in Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport after being asked what her father’s name was. “Bassam,” she replied, setting off what she later called a “14-hour nightmare.” During an extended interrogation, she said she was asked questions like “Do you feel more Arab or American?” and was subjected to an invasive pat-down where she was asked to remove her clothes. After an overnight stay at a detention facility, she was denied access to the country and put on a plane to France.

“It’s an issue serious enough that our own State Department has a travel advisory that’s posted permanently on the website that advises anyone who is traveling to Israel basically to expect this kind of treatment, if they are of Arab American background,” Maya Berry, executive director of AAI, told The Intercept.

Even former senior government officials are not exempt from Israel’s system of profiling. Former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, who was president of the University of Miami at the time, was detained and questioned for nearly three hours during a trip through Ben-Gurion Airport in 2010. Shalala is of Lebanese Christian descent.

If the U.S. were to adopt this level of intrusive, racially based profiling, it wouldn’t be the first time officials adopted an Israeli security program. A former chief security officer at the Israel Airports Authority helped design the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) program, a sort of checklist that TSA officers use to identify suspicious passengers. In interviews with The Intercept last year, a number of former TSA officers decried the program’s checklist as “ridiculous” and a “license to harass.”

Pragmatists in the U.S. intelligence and security communities oppose racial and ethnic profiling. Former Department of Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff explained that, shortly after the September 11 attacks, Bush administration officials briefly debated the use of profiling in response to terrorism. “There was a unanimous belief that racial and religious profiling would not only be ineffective, but counterproductive from a security standpoint,” he said. “The problem with using racial and religious profiling is it takes you down a road to looking at people who you don’t need to look at and avoiding looking at people that you should look at.”

That would be the obvious conclusion from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s secret spying program that targeted Muslim New Yorkers. For years, the New York Police Department mapped and infiltrated Muslim communities, using only their religious identity as justification for targeting. Yet this massive religious-profiling program did not generate a single terrorism case.

Racial profiling can also have lethal results. A Washington Post investigation published last year found that African Americans make up a disproportionate number of traffic-stop deaths; the findings corresponded with other studies that show that blacks have a higher chance of being pulled over by police, an event that can lead to deadly confrontations.

Additionally, a 2009 study authored by a leading statistician found that racial profiling is no more effective than a random screening.

Given these facts, there has been progress in officially curtailing the use of this form of profiling.

Then-Attorney General Eric Holder issued new guidelines in late 2014 barring federal law enforcement from profiling based on gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, and race. Those rules explicitly exempted airports and border crossings.

Source: theintercept.com

By George S. Hishmeh, Special to Gulf News
Published: June 17, 2016

The aftermath of the bloodiest massacre in the history of the United States, since 9/11, which happened at a popular nightclub in Orlando last week, has seriously fractured the American establishment. US President Barack Obama has angrily denounced Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, for his “dangerous” mindset. “We hear language that singles out immigrants and suggests entire religious communities are complicit in violence,” he said.

The New York Times underlined that Obama did not mention Trump’s name, but his statement, according to the New York Times, was “an extraordinary condemnation by a sitting president of a man who is to be the opposing party’s nominee for the White House”.

Obama continued: “Are we going to start treating all Muslim-Americans differently? Are we going to start subjecting them to special surveillance? Are we going to start discriminating against them because of their faith?” Obama wondered whether Republican officials actually agree with this. Because this is not the America we want. It does not reflect our democratic ideals. It won’t make us more safe. It will make us less safe.”

In turn, the Washington Post reported that top Republicans joined with Obama and other Democrats in “sharply condemning Trump’s reaction to the Orlando massacre, “decrying his anti-Muslim rhetoric and his questioning of Obama’s allegiances as divisive and out of step with America’s values”.

The Orlando incident prompted various groups to launch conflicting theories about the objectives of the US-born gunman, Omar Mateen, who, two years ago, had been reportedly in touch with another American who had driven a truck loaded with explosives into a hilltop restaurant in Syria.

The horrific incident in Orlando triggered several oral blasts from leading American figures like Trump, who, according to the Washington Post, “Escalated his already controversial rhetoric about immigrants … even though the shooter was born in New York”. The paper added that in a speech “laden with falsehoods and exaggerations”, Trump accused American Muslims of “harbouring terrorists and blamed them for the Orlando attack, as well as for last December’s shooting in San Bernardino, California”.

Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said she wasn’t shying away from using the term “radical Islamism” to describe the attack in Orlando, and that she had a plan to address the threat. She told NBC she had a plan to defend America from “lone-wolf” attacks. But “I’m not going to demonize and demagogue” like Trump because “it’s plain dangerous”.

Meanwhile, the Washington-based delegation of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation took an unprecedented step last week of strongly condemning “the violent terrorist” action in Florida, stressing that the threat of extremist groups like Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) reaches far beyond our regions … a threat against all humanity that must be confronted by all of us”.

In contrast to Trump’s racist remarks, last weekend saw the memorial service that praised Muhammad Ali, the legendary American boxer who had converted to Islam. Speaking at the ceremony among many others was Rabbi Michael Lerner, the popular radical editor of Tikkun magazine, who said: “We will not tolerate politicians or anyone else putting down Muslims and blaming Muslims for a few people,” — a comment seen as a thinly-veiled criticism of Trump for favouring a ban on Muslim immigration into the US.

Another comment, assumed to be directed at Hillary, was loud and clear: “Tell Israeli Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu that the way to get security for Israel is to stop the occupation of the (Palestinian) West Bank and help create a Palestinian state.”

In reaction to the rising tide against Trump was his decision this week to bar Washington Post journalists from covering his events — a step he has already taken against more than 10 prominent news outlets. In a surprise report out last Monday, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank revealed that Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center found that top news outlets gave Trump the equivalent of $55 million (Dh202.29 million) of free advertising last year, and about two thirds of Trump-coverage was positive. “The question is,” according to Milbank “is whether news organizations will recognize that Trump’s ban is not just an attack on the Post, but a call to conscience for all who believe in a free press”.

George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com

Source: gulfnews.com