March 2010
Vol 10, No.3
THE WORLD IN 2020 By Michael T. Klare PART 1
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s the second decade of the twenty-first century begins, we find ourselves at one of those relatively rare moments in history when major power shifts become visible to all. If the first decade of the century witnessed profound changes, the world of 2009 nonetheless looked at least somewhat like the world of 1999 in certain fundamental respects: the United States remained the world’s paramount military power, the dollar remained the world’s dominant currency, and NATO remained its foremost military alliance, to name just three. By the end of the second decade of this century, however, our world is likely to have a genuinely different look to it. Momentous shifts in global power relations and a changing of the imperial guard, just now becoming apparent, will be far more pronounced by 2020 as new actors, new trends, new concerns, and new institutions dominate the global space. Nonetheless, all of this is the norm of history, no matter how dramatic it may seem to us. Less normal — and so the wild card of the second decade (and beyond) — is intervention by the planet itself. Blowback, which we think of as a political
phenomenon, will by 2020 have gained a natural component. Nature is poised to strike back in unpredictable ways whose effects could be unnerving and possibly devastating. What, then, will be the dominant characteristics of the second decade of the twenty-first century? Prediction of this sort is, of course, inherently risky, but extrapolating from current trends, four key aspects of second-decade life can be discerned: the rise of China; the (relative) decline of the United States; the expanding role of the global South; and finally, possibly most dramatically, the increasing impact of a roiling environment and growing resource scarcity. Let’s start with human history and then make our way into the unknown future history of the planet itself. The Ascendant Dragon That China has become a leading world power is no longer a matter of dispute. That country’s new-found strength was on full display at the climate summit in Copenhagen in December where it became clear that no meaningful progress was possible on the issue of global
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warming without Beijing’s assent. Its growing prominence was also evident in the way it responded to the Great Recession, as it poured multi-billions of dollars into domestic recovery projects, thereby averting a significant slowdown in its economy. It spent many tens of billions more on raw materials and fresh investments in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, helping to ignite recovery in those regions, too. If China is an economic giant today, it will be a powerhouse in 2020. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), that country’s gross domestic product (GDP) will jump from an estimated $3.3 trillion in 2010 to $7.1 trillion in 2020 (in constant 2005 dollars), at which time its economy will exceed all others save that of the United States. In fact, its GDP then should exceed those of all the nations in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East combined. As the decade proceeds, China is expected to move steadily up the ladder of technological enhancement, producing ever more sophisticated products, including advanced green energy and transportation systems that will prove essential to future post-carbon economies. These gains, in turn, will give it increasing clout in international affairs. continued next page
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paid scant attention to Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) from 1 to 7 March 2010. ...................................p.3
AN AMERICAN ATTACK ON IRAN WOULD LEAD TO US COLLAPSE SAYS TOP RUSSIAN GENERAL By Juan Cole ................................................page 4 ALL IN THE FAMILY By Alison Weir .......................................... page 6
MOSSAD AND THE DUBAI MURDER .......The
KHMER RICHE By Andrew Marshall ................................... page 8
GLOBAL C AMPAIGNS A GAINST ISRAEL GATHERING MOMENTUM ....The world has
Dubai Police has displayed a degree of courage in pursuing investigations into the murder of senior Hamas leader ................................................................p.4
ALLAH’ IN THE QUR’AN AND SCHOLASTIC T HEOLOGY By Mohammad Hashim Kamali ................ page 10
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continued from page 1 China will undoubtedly also use its growing wealth and technological prowess to enhance its military power. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China is already the world’s second largest military spender, although the $85 billion it invested in its armed forces in 2008 was a pale shadow of the $607 billion allocated by the United States. In addition, its forces remain technologically unsophisticated and its weapons are no match for the most modern U.S., Japanese, and European equipment. However, this gap will narrow significantly in the century’s second decade as China devotes more resources to military modernization. The critical question is: How will China use its added power to achieve its objectives? Until now, China’s leaders have wielded its growing strength cautiously, avoiding behavior that would arouse fear or suspicion on the part of neighbors and economic partners. It has instead employed the power of the purse and “soft power” — vigorous diplomacy, development aid, and cultural ties — to cultivate friends and allies. But will China continue to follow this “harmonious,” non-threatening approach as the risks of forcefully pursuing its national interests diminish? This appears unlikely. A more assertive China that showed what the Washington Post called “swagger” was already evident in the final months of 2009 at the summit meetings between presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao in Beijing and Copenhagen. In neither case did the Chinese side seek a “harmonious” outcome: In Beijing, it restricted Obama’s access to the media and refused to give any ground on Tibet or tougher sanctions on key energytrading partner Iran; at a crucial moment in Copenhagen, it actually sent lowranking officials to negotiate with Obama — an unmistakable slight — and forced a compromise that absolved China of binding restraints on carbon emissions. If these summits are any indication, Chinese leaders are prepared to play global hard-ball, insisting on compliance with their core demands and giving up little even on matters of secondary
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importance. China will find itself ever more capable of acting this way because the economic fortunes of so many countries are now tied to its consumption and investment patterns — a pivotal global role once played by the United States — and because its size and location gives it a commanding position in the planet’s most dynamic region. In addition, in the first decade of the twenty-first century Chinese leaders proved especially adept at nurturing ties with the leaders of large and small countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that will play an ever more important role in energy and other world affairs. To what ends will China wield its growing power? For the top leadership in Beijing, three goals will undoubtedly be paramount: to ensure the continued political monopoly of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), to sustain the fast-paced economic growth which justifies its dominance, and to restore the country’s historic greatness. All three are, in fact, related: The CCP will remain in power, senior leaders believe, only so long as it orchestrates continuing economic expansion and satisfies the nationalist aspirations of the public as well as the high command of the People’s Liberation Army. Everything Beijing does, domestically and internationally, is geared to these objectives. As the country grows stronger, it will use its enhanced powers to shape the global environment to its advantage just as the United States has done for so long. In China’s case, this will mean a world wideopen to imports of Chinese goods and to investments that allow Chinese firms to devour global resources, while placing ever less reliance on the U.S. dollar as the medium of international exchange. The question that remains unanswered: Will China begin flexing its growing military muscle? Certainly, Beijing will do so in at least an indirect manner. By supplying arms and military advisers to its growing network of allies abroad, it will establish a military presence in ever more areas. My suspicion is that China will continue to avoid the use of force in any situation that might lead to a confrontation with major Western powers, but may not hesitate to bring its military to bear in any clash of national wills involving neighboring countries. Such a situation could arise, for example, in a maritime dispute over control of the
MAIN ARTICLE energy-rich South China Sea or in Central Asia, if one of the former Soviet republics became a haven for Uighur militants seeking to undermine Chinese control over Xinjiang Province. The Eagle Comes in for a Landing Just as the rise of China is now taken for granted, so, too, is the decline of the United States. Much has been written about America’s inevitable loss of primacy as this country suffers the consequences of economic mismanagement and imperial overstretch. This perspective was present in Global Trends 2025, a strategic assessment of the coming decades prepared for the incoming Obama administration by the National Intelligence Council (NIC), an affiliate of the Central Intelligence Agency. “Although the United States is likely to remain the single most powerful actor [in 2025],” the NIC predicted, “the United States’ relative strength — even in the military realm — will decline and U.S. leverage will become more constrained.” Some unforeseen catastrophe aside, however, the U.S. is not likely to be poorer in 2020 or more backward technologically. In fact, according to the most recent Department of Energy projections, America’s GDP in 2020 will be approximately $17.5 trillion (in 2005 dollars), nearly one-third greater than today. Moreover, some of the initiatives already launched by President Obama to stimulate the development of advanced energy systems are likely to begin bearing fruit, possibly giving the United States an edge in certain green technologies. And don’t forget, the U.S. will remain the globe’s preeminent military power, with China lagging well behind, and no other potential rival able to mobilize even Chinese-level resources to challenge U.S. military advantages. What will change is America’s position relative to China and other nations — and so, of course, its ability to dominate the global economy and the world political agenda. Again using DoE projections, we find that in 2005, America’s GDP of $12.4 trillion exceeded that of all the nations of Asia and South America combined, including Brazil, China, India, and Japan. By 2020, the combined GDP of Asia and continued next page
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Even America’s military advantage will be much eroded. The colossal costs of the disastrous Iraq and Afghan wars will set limits on the nation’s ability to undertake significant military missions abroad. Keep in mind that, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, a significant proportion of the basic combat equipment of the Army and Marine Corps has been damaged or destroyed in these wars, while the fighting units themselves have been badly battered by multiple tours of duty. Repairing this damage would require at least a decade of relative quiescence, which is nowhere in sight.
simply can’t afford to ignore the price of these wars.”
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continued from page 2 South America will be about 40% greater than that of the U.S., and growing at a much faster rate. By then, the United States will be deeply indebted to more solvent foreign nations, especially China, for the funds needed to pay for continuing budget deficits occasioned by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon budget, the federal stimulus package, and the absorption of “toxic assets” from troubled banks and corporations. Count on this, though: in an increasingly competitive world economy in which U.S. firms enjoy ever diminishing advantages, the prospects for ordinary Americans will be distinctly dimmer. Some sectors of the economy, and some parts of the country, will certainly continue to thrive, but others will surely suffer Detroit’s fate, becoming economically hollowed out and experiencing wholesale impoverishment. For many — perhaps most — Americans, the world of 2020 may still provide a standard of living far superior to that enjoyed by a majority of the world; but the perks and advantages that most middle class folks once took for granted — college education, relatively accessible (and affordable) medical care, meals out, foreign travel — will prove significantly harder to come by.
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The growing constraints on American power were recently acknowledged by President Obama in an unusual setting: his West Point address announcing a troop surge in Afghanistan. Far from constituting a triumphalist expression of American power and preeminence, like President Bush’s speeches on the Iraq War, his was an implicit admission of decline. Alluding to the hubris of his predecessor, Obama noted, “We’ve failed to appreciate the connection between our national security and our economy. In the wake of the economic crisis, too many of our neighbors and friends are out of work and struggle to pay the bills…. Meanwhile, competition in the global economy has grown more fierce. So we
Many have chosen to interpret Obama’s Afghan surge decision as a typical twentieth-century-style expression of America’s readiness to intervene anywhere on the planet at a moment’s notice. I view it as a transitional move meant to prevent the utter collapse of an ill-conceived military venture at a time when the United States is increasingly being forced to rely on non-military means of persuasion and the cooperation, however tempered, of allies. President Obama said as much: “We’ll have to be nimble and precise in our use of military power…. And we can’t count on military might alone.” Increasingly, this will be the mantra of strategic planning that will govern the American eagle in decline. END OF PART ONE 6 January 2010
Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College A documentary film version of his book, Blood and Oil, is available from the Media Education Foundation at Bloodandoilmovie.com. Copyright 2010 Michael T. Klare
Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/ klare060110.htm
STATEMENTS GLOBAL CAMPAIGNS AGAINST ISRAEL GATHERING MOMENTUM The world has paid scant attention to Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) from 1 to 7 March 2010. This is largely because the mainstream print and electronic media have ignored this event. IAW was initiated by the Arab Student Collective at the University of Toronto in Canada in March 2005 to correct misrepresentations and distortions of the just Palestinian struggle for self-determination. It also seeks to show why many Israeli policies in occupied Palestine mirror the blatant discrimination and oppression that denoted apartheid in South Africa. Today, IAW is observed in 40 cities in 5 continents, namely, North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Cultural activities, multi-media events, seminars and demonstrations mark the week.
There has been tremendous pressure to stop IAW. In 2008, room bookings for an IAW organizing conference in Toronto were cancelled, allegedly as a result of pressure from local Zionist groups. In 2009, the University of Pisa in Italy denied any university venue to IAW organisers. But IAW organisers and supporters have persevered against great odds. It is partly because of their perseverance that IAW has now become integral to yet another mass Palestinian campaign. This is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement initiated by more than 170 civil society organizations in July 2005 aimed at persuading governments, public institutions and private corporations to divest from Israeli companies and enterprises that are involved directly or
indirectly in the occupation of Palestinian land and the oppression of the Palestinian people. In September 2009, Norwegian state pension funds were divested from Israeli military contractor, Elbit Systems. In February 2009, the Board of Trustees of Hampshire College in the United States decided to divest from six Israeli companies involved directly in gross human rights violations against the Palestinians. These are encouraging signs that suggest that even in Europe and the US, more and more groups are prepared to censure Israel. In fact, yet another recent development also shows that scrutiny of Israel for its often criminal behaviour against the Palestinians is increasing significantly. On 3 March 2010, the first session of the Russell Tribunal on continued next page
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continued from page 3 Palestine (RTP) began its proceedings in Barcelona, Spain. The RTP will examine not just Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law such as the Fourth Geneva Convention but also the moral responsibility of the international community to act against Israel for its continuous violation of more than 60 United Nations resolutions on a whole gamut of issues ranging from illegal settlements to the right of return of the Palestinian people. A concrete example of how contemptuous the Israeli
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leadership is towards international institutions and international law can be found in its stubborn refusal to accept the World Court’s 2004 advisory opinion on the wall that it has built on the West Bank (of occupied Palestine) which the Court regards as illegal and contrary to international law. In the last few weeks, the Israeli leadership has become even more defiant of international law and international public opinion. It has accelerated the Judaisation of Jerusalem through the usurpation of heritage sites and place
A R T I C L E S names— in spite of protests from even some of its own staunch allies. It is because of this arrogance that it has become even more imperative to strengthen activities associated with the Israeli Apartheid Week, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement and the Russell Tribunal on Palestine. Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, President, International Movement for a Just World (JUST). 5 March 2010.
MOSSAD AND THE DUBAI MURDER The Dubai Police has displayed a degree of courage in pursuing investigations into the murder of senior Hamas leader, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. The Chief of Dubai Police, Dahi Khalfan Tamim, has been quoted as saying that he is 99 percent, if not 100 percent, certain that Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, is behind the 19 January 2010 assassination. It is not easy for the Police Chief to be so emphatic about Mossad’s role, considering that Dubai has close informal ties with Israel. The Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Liberman, has neither confirmed nor denied Mossad’s involvement. Israel, he says, maintains “a policy of ambiguity” on intelligence matters. There is some pressure from within Israel upon the government to take action against Mossad. The Israeli daily, Haaretz, has demanded that the head of Mossad, Mier Dagan, be removed. This is unlikely to happen.
British, Irish and French government leaders have also made some noise about the murder since passport details of their citizens were apparently, fraudulently, used by members of the hit squad. Passport details of six British citizens, three Irish and I French, were involved in the sordid episode. Since these governments have been protective of Israel in the past, however serious its misconduct, no one expects them to apply any pressure on the Netanyahu regime on this occasion. It is because most governments, especially those in the West, have not taken the Israeli government to task for its lawless behaviour that it has literally got away with murder, time and time again. In 1988, for instance, the Mossad, it is alleged, killed Abu Jihad ( Khalid alWazir) the second in command to Yasser Arafat. Arafat himself, it is widely believed, was poisoned to death by Mossad. Prominent Hamas leaders like
Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the movement’s spiritual founder, and his successor, Rantissi, were both assassinated by the Israeli security forces. One of Hamas’s current leaders, Khaled Mishal, was almost killed in an Israeli operation in Jordan in the late nineties. It is this diabolical track record that prompted the renowned Israeli human rights activist, Uri Avnery, to observe a few days ago that, “the Dubai affair is reinforcing the image of Israel as a bully state, a rogue nation that treats world public opinion with contempt, a country that conducts gang warfare, that sends mafia-like death squads abroad, a pariah nation to be avoided by right-minded people.” This is why by revealing the truth about the murder in Dubai, the Dubai Police may be helping, in a small way, to tame the rogue state. Chandra Muzaffar,
21 February 2010.
AN AMERICAN ATTACK ON IRAN WOULD LEAD TO US COLLAPSE SAYS TOP RUSSIAN GENERAL By Juan Cole It appears that, the International Atomic Energy Agency is at least allowing for the possibility that documents allegedly found on a laptop some years ago —but discounted by the US Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency as of dubious provenance and incompatible with other intelligence gathered in Iran — point to a nuclear weapons program that no one has been able to locate. Some close observers have concluded that the laptop documents are forgeries. A new IAEA report that declines to dismiss the alleged documents will certainly cause the war
Forged documents on the supposed purchase of yellowcake uranium by Iraq from Niger were used by George W. Bush to promote a war on Iraq. It was at that time the Intelligence and Research division of the Department of State that attempted to throw cold water on these “documents,” but was ignored by the president. Then head of the IAEA, Mohammed Elbaradei, was able to show them false in one afternoon.
frustrated with Iran, which has allowed inspections of its Natanz nuclear enrichment site, but which has not been completely transparent or adhered to the letter of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But the sum of those frustrations does not point to a nuclear weapons program, unlike the disputed laptop documents. In statements to the press this fall, US intelligence officials have said that they stand behind the conclusions first reached in 2007, that Iran has no nuclear weapons program.
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lobby in the United States to redouble its efforts to get up an attack on Iran.
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continued from page 4 The Obama administration wants stricter sanctions on Iran, and the Sarah Palin/ Daniel Pipes lunatic fringe wants a military attack on Iran.
But Russia’s General of the Army Nikolay Makarov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, warned that an American attack on Iran now, when the US is bogged down in two wars, might well lead to the collapse of the United States. He said that such an attack would roil the region and have negative consequences for Russia (a neighbor of Iran via the Caspian Sea). And, he said, the Russian military is taking steps to forestall such an American strike on Iran. Makarov made the remarks in Vzglyad on Friday, February 19, 2010, and they were translated or paraphrased by the USG Open Source Center: ‘Makarov also commented on the recent rumors about the possibility of an attack upon Iran by the United States. In his opinion, this would be complete madness on the part of the American military. He said: “Admiral Michael McMullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently said that, in the United States, there is a plan for carrying out strikes against Iran but the United States clearly understands that now, when it is conducting two military campaigns, one in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan, a third campaign against Iran would simply lead to a collapse. It would not be able to withstand the strain.” Nevertheless, in proportion to the winding down of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, (the plan for) a war with the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the opinion of General Makarov, may again come out to the foreground.
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tougher United Nations Security Council sanctions, however, depend on Russia and China going along. Despite Washington’s optimism that Russia is softening toward the idea of stricter sanctions, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cast the severest doubts on that idea on Friday. In a radio interview on Friday with Ekho Moskvy Radio, which was translated by the USG Open Source Center, Lavrov was asked, “What is the situation with Iran’s foreign policy today? And is it true that we now have as a whole a united position with the United States on Iran?” The foreign minister replied, “I don’t think that we have a united position.” He said that both Washington and Moscow agree on the importance of not allowing “a violation of the regime of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.” He said the two countries have the same position on this issue, “although we do not coincide 100 per cent in methods of implementing it.” So what Lavrov is saying is that the US and Russia do not actually have a common position or agree on really tough sanctions. They just both have a vague similar position that proliferation is bad. Lavrov said that Moscow’s independent stance toward Iran is rooted in the two countries’ historical relationship as well as in Russian desire to get Iranian cooperation on such issues as the disposition of resources in the Caspian Sea. (For a quick overview of Russian-Iranian relations, see N.M. Mamedova, who also mentions Iran’s tacit support for Russia against Georgia in the Caucasus.) Lavrov said:
General Makarov, Chief of the General Staff, said: “The consequences of such an attack will be terrible not only for the region but also for us. Iran is our neighbor and we are very carefully following this situation. The leadership of our country is undertaking all measures in order not to allow such a (military) development of events.” ‘
‘ But Iran for us, unlike the US, is a close neighbour, a country with which we have had a very long, historically conditioned relationship, a country with which we cooperate in the economic, humanitarian and militarytechnology fields alike and, let me note this particularly, a country that is our partner in the Caspian along with three other Caspian littoral states.
The less potentially catastrophic path,
Therefore, we are not at all indifferent
A R T I C L E S to what happens in Iran and around it. This applies to our economic interests and our security interests alike. This also applies . . . to the task of early settlement of the legal status of the Caspian Sea, which is not an easy task and in the approaches to which the Iranian position is close enough to ours. Therefore, speaking of the proliferation threats, yes, we are concerned about Iran’s reaction. ‘ Lavrov is less convinced there is anything sinister about Iran’s civilian nuclear research, though he admits that questions remain: ‘ in the process of work, questions arose both from the IAEA’s inspectors themselves and on the basis of the intelligence which the IAEA obtains from various countries. They were questions that aroused suspicion as to whether there might in reality be some military aspects to Iran’s nuclear programme. These questions were presented to the Iranians, as required by the procedures applicable in such cases. And, some time ago, Iran answered most of them. In principle, its answers were satisfactory, in a way that was considered by the professionals in Vienna normal. However, some of the questions are still on the table. ‘ So Lavrov thinks Iran’s answers are largely ‘satisfactory,’ though there remain small areas of uncertainty. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was in Moscow earlier this week calling for ‘crippling sanctions on Iran.’ Lavrov’s remarks clearly indicated that Moscow disagreed that that situation was so perilous as to call for such a step. But just to be sure there was no misunderstanding, Lavrov sent out his own deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, to denounce any such talk. Ryabkov said, according to Xinhua, “The term ‘crippling sanctions’ on Iran is totally unacceptable to us. The sanctions should aim at strengthening continued next page
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continued from page 5 the regime of non- proliferation . . . We certainly cannot talk about sanctions that could be interpreted as punishment on the whole country and its people for some actions or inaction . . . “ He said that Russia sought to settle differences with Iran through dialogue and engagement. He also pledged that Russia would honor its deal to provide Iran S-300 air defense systems. He said, “There is a contract to supply these systems to Iran and we will fulfil it. The delays are linked to technical problems with adjusting these systems”
So on Friday, even as the hawks in Washington watered at the mouth at the prospect of being able to use the new IAEA report as a basis for belligerency
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against Iran, Russia’s foreign policy establishment was engaged in a whirlwind of activity aimed at challenging the notion that Moscow is was in Washington’s back pocket on Iran sanctions. The chief of staff predicted American collapse in an Iran conflagration, and vowed in any case to try to block any such attack. The foreign minister pronounced himself largely but not completely satisfied with Iran’s answers concerning its nuclear activities, and underlined that Russia needs Iran because of Caspian issues (and he could have added, because of Caucasus and Central Asian ones). And then the deputy foreign minister was enlisted to slap Netanyahu around a little, presumably on the theory that it would sting less coming from someone with ‘deputy’
ALL Recent exposés revealing that Ethan Bronner, the New York Times’ IsraelPalestine bureau chief, has a son in the Israeli military have caused a storm of controversy that continues to swirl and generate further revelations. (See my piece for CounterPunch, The NYT’s Ethan Bronner ’s Conflict With Impartiality.)
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Times management at first refused to confirm Bronner’s situation, then refused to comment on it. Finally, public outcry forced Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt to confront the problem in a February 7th column. After bending over backwards to praise the institution that employs him, Hoyt ultimately opined that Bronner should be re-assigned to a different sphere of reporting to avoid the “appearance” of bias. Times Editor Bill Keller declined to do so, however, instead writing a column calling Bronner’s connections to Israel valuable because they “supply a measure of sophistication about Israel and its adversaries that someone with no connections would lack.”
in his title. Those who have argued that Russia’s increasing willingness to acquiesce in tougher UNSC sanctions might influence China to go along, too, should rethink. Russia doesn’t seem all that aboard with a brutal sanctions regime. China not only has its own reasons not to want its own deals with Iran to be declared illegal, but its leaders doubt Iran has the capacity to construct a nuclear warhead anytime soon. 20 February, 2010 Juan Cole is an American scholar, public intellectual, and historian of the modern Middle East and South Asia. As a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, he has appeared in print and on television, and testified before the United States Senate. His weblob can be found at www. juancole.com
IN THE FAMILY By Alison Weir
If such “sophistication” is valuable, the Times’ espoused commitment to the “impartiality and neutrality of the company’s newsrooms” would seem to require it to have a balancing editor equally sophisticated about Palestine and its adversary, but Keller did not address that. Bronner is far from alone
Many people find such a sign of family partisanship in an editor covering a foreign conflict troubling – especially given the Times’ record of Israelcentric journalism.
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As it turns out, Bronner’s ties to the Israeli military are not the rarity one might expect. • A previous Times bureau chief, Joel Greenberg, before he was bureau chief but after he was already publishing in the Times from Israel, actually served in the Israeli army. • Media pundit and Atlantic staffer Jeffrey Goldberg also served in the Israeli military; it’s unclear when, how, or even if his military service ended. • Richard Chesnoff, who has been covering Mideast events for more than 40 years, had a son serving in the Israeli military while Chesnoff covered Israel as US News & World Report’s senior foreign correspondent. • NPR’s Linda Gradstein’s husband was an Israeli sniper and may still be
in the Israeli reserves. NPR refuses to disclose whether Gradstein herself is also an Israeli citizen, as are her children and husband. • Mitch Weinstock, national editor for the San Diego Union-Tribune, served in the Israeli military. •The New York Times’ other correspondent from the region, Isabel Kershner, is an Israeli citizen. Israel has universal compulsory military service, which suggests that Kershner herself and/or family members may have military connections. The Times refuses to answer questions about whether she and/or family members have served or are currently serving in the Israeli military. Is it possible that Times Foreign Editor Susan Chira herself has such connections? The Times refuses to answer. • Many Associated Press writers and editors are Israeli citizens or have Israeli families. AP will not reveal how many of the journalists in its control bureau for the region currently serve in the Israeli military, how many have served in the past, and how many have family members with this connection. • Similarly, many TV correspondents continued next page
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such as Martin Fletcher have been Israeli citizens and/or have Israeli families. Do they have family connections to the Israeli military? • Time Magazine’s bureau chief several years ago became an Israeli citizen after he had assumed his post. Does he have relatives in the military? • CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, while not an Israeli citizen, was based in Israel for many years, wrote a book whitewashing Israeli spying on the US, and used to work for the Israel lobby in the US. None of this is divulged to CNN viewers. Tikkun’s editor Michael Lerner has a son who served in the Israeli military. While Lerner has been a strong critic of many Israeli policies, in an interview with Jewish Week, Lerner explains: “Having a son in the Israeli army was a manifestation of my love for Israel, and I assume that having a son in the Israeli army is a manifestation of Bronner’s love of Israel.” Lerner goes on to make a fundamental point: “...there is a difference in my emotional and spiritual connection to these two sides [Israelis and Palestinians]. On the one side is my family; on the other side are decent human beings. I want to support human beings all over the planet but I have a special connection to my family. I don’t deny it.” For a great many of the reporters and editors determining what Americans learn about Israel-Palestine, Israel is family. Jonathan Cook, a British journalist based in Nazareth, writes of a recent meeting with a Jerusalem based bureau chief, who explained: “… Bronner’s situation is ‘the rule, not the exception. I can think of a dozen foreign bureau chiefs, responsible for covering both Israel and the Palestinians, who have served in the Israeli army, and another dozen who like Bronner have kids in the Israeli army.”
Cooks writes that the bureau chief explained: “It is common to hear Western reporters boasting to one another about their Zionist credentials, their service in the Israeli army or the loyal service of their children.” Apparently, intimate ties to Israel are among the many open secrets in the region that are hidden from the American public. If, as the news media insist, these ties present no problem or even, as the Times’ Keller insists, enhance the journalists’ work, why do the news agencies consistently refuse to admit them? The reason is not complicated. While Israel may be family for these journalists and editors, for the vast majority of Americans, Israel is a foreign country. In survey after survey, Americans say they don’t wish to “take sides” on this conflict. In other words, the American public wants full, unfiltered, unslanted coverage. Quite likely the news media refuse to answer questions about their journalists’ affiliations because they suspect, accurately, that the public would be displeased to learn that the reporters and editors charged with supplying news on a foreign nation and conflict are, in fact, partisans. While Keller claims that the New York Times is covering this conflict “evenhandedly,” studies indicate otherwise: * The Times covers international reports documenting Israeli human rights abuses at a rate 19 times lower than it reports on the far smaller number of international reports documenting Palestinian human rights abuses. * The Times covers Israeli children’s deaths at rates seven times greater than they cover Palestinian children’s deaths, even though there are vastly more of the latter and they occurred first. * The Times fails to inform its readers that Israel’s Jewish-only
colonies on confiscated Palestinian Christian and Muslim land are illegal; that its collective punishment of 1.5 million men, women, and children in Gaza is not only cruel and ruthless, it is also illegal; and that its use of American weaponry is routinely in violation of American laws. * The Times covers the one Israeli (a soldier) held by Palestinians at a rate incalculably higher than it reports on the Palestinian men, women, and children – the vast majority civilians – imprisoned by Israel (currently over 7,000). • The Times neglects to report that hundreds of Israel’s captives have never even been charged with a crime and that those who have were tried in Israeli military courts under an array of bizarre military statutes that make even the planting of onions without a permit a criminal offense – a legal system, if one can call it that, that changes at the whim of the current military governor ruling over a subject population; a system in which parents are without power to protect their children. * The Times fails to inform its readers that 40 percent of Palestinian males have been imprisoned by Israel, a statistic that normally would be considered highly newsworthy, but that Bronner, Kershner, and Chira apparently feel is unimportant to report. Americans, whose elected representatives give Israel uniquely gargantuan sums of our tax money (a situation also not covered by the media), want and need all the facts, not just those that Israel’s family members decree reportable. We’re not getting them. 2 March 2010 Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew and a board member of the Council for the National Interest (CNI). For more information on Ethan Bronner and his upcoming speaking tour on college campuses, join IAK’S email list. Alison can be reached at contact@ifamericanskne Source: Counterpunch.org
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KHMER RICHE By Andrew Marshall “I’m going to drive a little fast now. Is that okay?” There is one place in Cambodia where you can hold a cold beer in one hand and a warm Kalashnikov in the other, and Victor is driving me there. We’re powering along Phnom Penh’s airport road with Oasis on his Merc’s sound system and enough guns in the boot to sink a Somali pirate boat. Victor is rich and life is sweet. His father is commander of the Cambodian infantry. He has a place reserved for him at L’Ecole Speciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, France’s answer to Duntroon. And, in his passenger seat, there is a thin, silent man with a Chinese handgun: his bodyguard. “His name is Klar,” says Victor. “It means tiger.” Victor is only 21, but when reach our destination—a firing range run by the Cambodian special forces—the soldier at the gate salutes. Devastated by decades of civil war, Cambodia remains one of the world’s poorest nations. A third of its 13 million people live on less than a dollar a day and about 8 out of every 100 children die before the age of five. But Victor— real name Meas Sophearith—was raised in a different Cambodia, where power and billions of dollars in wealth are concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite. This elite prefers to conceal the size and sources of their money—illegal logging, smuggling, land-grabbing— but their children just like to spend it. The Khmer Rouge are dead; the Khmer Riche now rule Cambodia. I first met Victor at a fancy Phnom Penh restaurant called Café Metro. Outside, Porsches, Bentleys and Humvees fight for parking spaces. The son of a powerful general, Victor has his future mapped out for him. He went to school in Versailles, speaks French and English, and now studies politics at the University of Oklahoma. “My mother wanted us to get a foreign education so we could come back and control the country,” he says. The shooting range is where Victor and his friends go to relax. “I’ve grown up
with guns and soldiers all around me,” he says, laying out a private arsenal on a table: two automatic assault rifles, two Glock pistols, one sniper’s rifle, one iPhone. “My mother wanted us to get a foreign education so we could come back and control the country”. Victor and his generation are Cambodia’s future. Will they use their education and wealth to lift their less fortunate compatriots out of poverty? Or will they simply continue their parents’ fevered pursuit of money and power? Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID), which gave almost $US30 million of its taxpayers’ money to the country in the last fiscal year, offered one answer in June, when it announced the closure of its Cambodia office by 2011. The official reason? “It was felt UK aid could have a larger impact … where there are greater numbers of poor people and fewer international donors,” said a DFID statement. But the development agency might also have tired of throwing money at a nation where so much poverty can be blamed on a grasping political elite— and their luxury-loving children. (Australia clearly has not: it has allocated $61.4 million in development assistance to Cambodia for 2009-10.) Depressingly, the Khmer Riche Kids sometimes seem indistinguishable from the old colonial ruling class. They were educated overseas—partly because their families’ wealth made them targets for kidnapping gangs— and often speak better English than Khmer. They carry US dollars – only poor people pay with Cambodian riel – and live in newly built neoclassical mansions so large that the city’s old French architecture looks like Lego by comparison. And their connection to the Cambodian masses is almost nonexistent. Sophy, 22, is the daughter of a Deputy Prime Minister. Rich, doll-like and selfobsessed, she could be the Paris Hilton of Cambodia. She imports party shoes
from Singapore, brands them “Sophy & Sina” (Sina is her sister-in-law), hen displays them in her own multistory boutique. It has six staff, no customers and a slogan: “It’s all aboutme.” Sophy’s name is spelled out in sparkling stones on the back of her car, a Merc so pimped up that I have to ask her what make it is. “It’s a Sophy!” she replies. We meet at her hair salon, where she is prepping a model for a fashion shoot for a magazine she is starting up with her brother Sopheary, 28, and their cousin Noh Sar, 26,. All three were educated abroad and prefer to speak English together. Sopheary, who studied in New York state, seems both amused and slightly embarrassed by his wealth and privilege. “What can you do?” he asks. “Your parents give you all these things. You can’t say no. If someone gives you cake, you eat it.” Talk to Sopheary and his friends, and Cambodia’s tragic history seems very far away. The genocidal Khmer Rouge blew up banks and outlawed money before being driven from power in 1979. Later came the 1991 Paris Accords, and the plunder of Cambodia’s rich natural resources— forests, fisheries, land –began in earnest. Cambodia’s official economy largely depends on garment, exports, but there is a much larger shadow economy in which only the ruthless and the well-connected survived and prosper. “If you’re doing business, you have to know someone high up, so he has your back,” says Victor. The closer you get to Hun Sen, Cambodia’s autocratic Prime Minister, the better connected you are. Hun Sen staged a bloody coup d’etat in 1997 and has kept an iron grip on power ever since. Opponents have been silenced while loyalists have grown rich. This includes ministers, a handful of tycoons and generals. Cambodians are often driven from their land by soldiers or military police. Formerly a French possession, Cambodia has been colonized all over again, this time by its own greedy elite. continued next page
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But the Khmer Riche have a problem. “None of them can answer a simple question: where does all your money come from?” says a Western journalist in Phnom Penh. Ask Cambodian ministers how they got so rich on a meager government salary, and they will reply, “My wife is good at business.” When I ask Noh Sar, whose father is a senior customs official, why he is so wealthy, he gives me a slight variation: “My mother works a lot.” Victor ’s mother is also good at business, according to “Country for Sale,” an investigation into the elite published by the London-based corruption watchdog Global Witness in February 2009. “She is a key player in RCAF [Royal Cambodian Armed Forces] patronage politics, holding a fearsome reputation among her husband’s subordinates on account of her frequent demands for money,” says the report. “RCAF sources have told Global Witness that military officers sometimes bribe [her] in order to increase the chances of her “close connections” to a major timber smuggler. It is only in the past few years that the children of Cambodian’s elite have grown confident enough to show off their family’s wealth. “If you want people to respect you in Cambodia, you must have a good car, good diamonds, a good cell phone,” explains Ouch Vichet, 28, better known as Richard. “It’s an I’m-richer-than-you competition.” Richard is quite a competitor: he drives a $US150,000 Cadillac Escalade and wears a $US2,500 Hermes watch and a $US13,000 2.5-carat diamond ring. He doesn’t have a bodyguard, although some friends keep them as status symbols. Richard was sent to New Zealand to be educated after a gang tired to abduct his brother. He is a short, affable man with an impish grin. In a city where the elite have a tribal suspicion of outsiders, he is refreshingly candid about his wealth. “My money is from my parents,” he says, and then breaks
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it down. They gave him a villa, half a million US dollars, and a 400-hectar rubber plantation that will generate income for the rest of Richard’s life. His parents-in-law gave him $US100,000 in cash and another villa, worth $200,000, which he sold and invested in real estate. Richard also runs a busy Phnom Penh nightclub called Emerald – his parents made their first fortune in gems – which provides him with “pocket money”. A party of rich kids can spend $US2,000 on drinks in a single night, more than an average Cambodian earns in 3 years. His parents’ second, much larger, fortune comes from real estate. A few years ago they bought about five hectares of land just outside Phnom Penh for $US14 a square metre, then sold it for $US120 a square metre two years later, making more than $US5 million in profit. “Where else can you make profits like that?” grins Richard. “It’s crazy money.” He has a daughter called Emerald and a son called Benz. (His other Benz is a GL450.) They all live with his parents in a newly built mansion. Yet Richard’s house is modest by the operatic standards of Phnom Penh’s Tuol Kuok precinct, part of which was once a notorious red-light district. A taxi driver shows me the neighborhood – it’s like a “homes of the stars” tour in Beverly Hills, except that Tuol Kuok’s backstreets are piled with rubbish. My driver points out giant mansion after mansion, and tells me who lives there. Hun Sen’s son, Hun Sen’s daughter, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Labour. A Deputy PM—Sophy and Sopheary’s dad. A four-mansion compound with lots of razor wire, and a gate guarded by special forces soldiers – Victor’s family. Tuol Kuok’s houses are well-guarded for a reason: until there was real estate to invest in, many wealthy Cambodians kept their money at home in bricks of cash. “We don’t trust banks,” says Richard. “The old generation kept their money under the bed. The new generation keep it in safes in their houses.” Victor says his family also stays away from banks, but for a slightly different reason. “If
A R T I C L E S you put your money in a bank, everyone will know how much you have,” he explains. I had also heard that rich Cambodians had repatriated hundreds of millions of dirty dollars from Singapore banks after a post-September 11 shake up of global banking, and that his money had helped fuel the land speculation. For the children, the wealth comes with one big condition: they must do what Mum and Dad tell them. “I wanted to go to art school but my parents wouldn’t let me,” says Sopheary. Most kids dutifully join the family business— Richard translated for his father during overseas gem-buying trips. For some, that business is politics. Concept like nepotism and conflict of interest don’t count for much in Cambodia. Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh— whose giant house resembles an airport departure hall, one with its own jet-ski lake – gave a ministry position to his wife and made his daughter his chief of cabinet. Cambodia’s ambassadors to Britain and Japan are brothers, and their boss is also their father: Foreign Minister Hor Namhong. He says he hired his sons on merit. “It’s not nepotism,” he insists. Their parents also expect them to marry young—men in their 20’s, women in their teens—and strategically, meaning to someone from a rich and influential family. These marriages are often arranged. “It’s like medieval times in France,” complains Victor, still a bachelor. This means that many highsociety Cambodians soon find themselves trapped in loveless unions; affairs are common. Sophy was married off at 17 to the son of the rich and powerful Interior Minister. The web of marriages binds together Cambodia’s political and business elite and ensures the ruling Cambodian People’s Party’s stranglehold on power. At the centre of the web sits Prime Minister Hun Sen. His three sons and two daughters are all married to the children of senior ruling party politicians or, in the case of his son Hun Manit, to the daughter of the late national police chief. Now in his 30’s, Hun Manit is being groomed to succeed his father. He graduated from West Point, the US continued next page
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“The Phnom Penh Post”, told Hun Chea: “Don’t worry. It wasn’t your mistake.” Hun Chea walked away. The motorcyclist bled to death on the road.
Senior Khmer Rouge figures such as Comrade Duch, the mass-murdering commandant of Tuol Sleng prison, are currently on trial at a United Nationsbased tribunal in Phnom Penh. The Khmer Riche, on the other hand, remain above the law. Victor displays a military VIP sticker on the front dash of his Mercedes. “It means the police cannot touch me,” he says. Richard is an advisor to a military police commander, which also effectively grants him legal immunity.
Hun Sen has yet another bad-boy nephew, the widely feared and megawealthy Hun To (“Little Hun”). In 2006 a newspaper editor filed a lawsuit against Hun To for alleged death threats, then fled overseas to seek asylum with the United Nations’ help. Hun To was also once spotted sitting in his luxury speedboat, its sound system cranked up high, being towed around Phnom Penh by a Humvee. A few weeks before, Victor had been in Los Angeles, where he test-drove Hun To’s latest acquisition before it was put in a Cambodia-bound shipping container: a $US500,000 Mercedes McLaren SLR supercar.” He has already built a special garage for it,” says Victor.
Many of his generations abuse such privileges. Last August Hun Chea, a nephew of the Prime Minister, hit a motorcyclist with his Cadillac, ripping off the man’s leg and arm. Hun Chea tried to drive off but couldn’t because the accident had shredded a tyre. Military police arrived, removed the car’s license plates and, according to
Victor will not – dare not – criticize Hun To. But he is critical of Cambodian society. “From top to bottom, everyone is corrupt,” he says. He hopes to one day set up a foundation to help poor Cambodians send their children to study overseas. “We want to change things, but we’ll have to wait until our parents retire,” he says.
‘ALLAH’
IN THE
The extraordinary sensitivity that Malaysian Muslims have manifested over the non-Muslim use of ‘Allah’ leaves one in no doubt that theoretical generalities would fail to address the situation we are faced with. It is clear that Malaysia is untypical of much of the rest of Muslim world and the issue we face here is one of its kind in that it touches on acute religious sensitivities one has little choice but to recognize. To address the issue on its own terms is also the correct Islamic advice as conveyed in a legal maxim of Syariah: ‘Harm must be eliminated’ as a matter of priority. According to another legal maxim “prevention of harm takes priority over the attraction of benefit.” HRH the Sultan of Selangor’s directive to keep ‘Allah’ for
QUR’AN
A R T I C L E S But older generation shows no sign of retiring – not when there’s so much cake left to eat. In January, foreign donors pledged $US1 billion to Cambodia, its biggest aid package yet. The Government relies on foreign aid for almost half its budget. It could break this reliance by exploiting its reserves of oil, gas and minerals: the International Monetary Fund estimates Cambodia’s annual oil revenues alone could reach $US1.7 billion by 2021. Could, but probably won’t. Why? Because the same elite who cut down the trees and sold off the land are now poised to extract the oil and minerals, with the help of their children. Some Hun Sen loyalists have already been allocated exploratory mining licences. One of them is General Meas Sophea, the army chief. He recently hired a temp to act as his foreign liaison officer. The temp is his son. His son’s name is Victor. 12 December 2009 Andrew Marshall is a British author and journalist based in Southeast Asia who writes for TIME magazine and other leading publications worldwide. His website is andrewmarshall.com Source: Good Weekend Magazine for the Sydney Morning Herald.
AND SCHOLASTIC By Mohammad Hashim Kamali
the use only of Muslims captures the essence of these guidelines. The harm that emanates from acts of violence and destruction of places of worship provided concrete evidence to support that decision. The word ‘Allah’ derives from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al “the” and ilaah “diety, god” to allaah meaning the “the sole deity, God”. The Qur’an engages in Allah’s reality, His various names, His actions, and how He relates to his creatures. Allah is unique, the only Deity, creator of the universe and the whole of humanity, which means that in reference to all monotheists, there should be no restriction to mentioning ‘Allah’ in the spirit of remembrance, invocation and doa.
THEOLOGY
‘Allah’ has made Himself known to mankind by His Excellent Names, alasma’ al-husna, which are revealed in the Qur’an and are numbered at 99. That total does not, however, include ‘Allah’. This is because Allah is the proper name(ism al-dhaat) of God whereas the asma’ al-husna are all attributes(sifaat). Among the 99 names, the ones most favoured and frequently employed in the Qur’an are ‘the Merciful’ (al-Rahman) and ‘the Compassionate’ (al-Rahim). One of the consequences of this numerical specification at 99 is, according to majority opinion, that the believer is discouraged from coining new names and attributes for God. Since the continued next page
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Almighty has described Himself by these attributes, it is through these that we seek knowledge of Him. Rational theology provides much detail as to how to understand the meaning of these attributes and their relationship with the Self of Allah. The Qur’an is emphatic on the one hand on the transcendence of Allah- He is utterly beyond the human and no one can define Him. Yet the Qur’an is also replete with passages wherein the Almighty personifies Himself with human-like descriptions not only by references to His Exalted face, soul, eye, hand, fingers , foot etc., but also that He speaks, listens, answers, loves and hates - and yet despite all this the text says emphatically that “there is nothing like unto Him;” (42: 11) that “sight cannot perceive Him but He encompasses sight and He is the Subtle, the Aware (al-Lateef al-alKhabeer). These last are two of the asma’ al-husna. Thus no one is able, not even the Prophet Muhammad, to actually see Allah; except perhaps in the Hereafter on Resurrection Day (ru’yat Allah) in the opinion of some theologians. The Prophet has also instructed the faithful to “ponder upon the creation of Allah and not on His Exalted Essence.” Thus the question arises whether Allah’s attributes and self description should be understood literally or metaphorically. The latter is discouraged for leading to speculative indulgence, while literal interpretation amounts to anthropomorphism (likening Allah to humans). The prevailing Ash’ari school of theology holds that we should keep to the literal meaning of Allah’s attributes and view them in as being in some manner separate or distinct from the divine Essence, but not questioning ‘how’ this can be (the doctrine of bi-laa kayf). However the more rationalist Mu’tazilah school (expired 600 years ago) taught that such a distinction between Allah’s Essence and His most important attributes (between His dhaat
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and sifaat) violates the reality of Divine Oneness – That Allah’s illustrious essence naturally includes His seven most essential (Life, Power, Knowledge, will etc) without any distinction or separation. So Ash’arites developed the doctrine of mukhalafah “difference”; everything about Allah is different from all that is known to humans. Thus when we read in the Qur’an that Allah is ‘All- Merciful- alRahman’ it cannot mean that He has the human quality of mercy. He has only given Himself that Name and how or why this Name is chosen we cannot know nor should we enquire. Since human knowledge of the universe is incomplete, knowledge of the Creator of the universe must also be a continuing effort. We are thus encouraged to investigate the world around us, to acquire knowledge of the mysteries of creation, and through it also to increase our understanding of Allah’s exalted names and attributes. The Qur ’an is expressive of the manner Allah relates to mankind, which He clearly made the prize of His creation and endowed him with nobility of the highest order: When Allah decides to create, He merely commands to ‘be and it is’ as the Qur’an tells us ( 2:117 ). But in the case of man, Allah created him with His own hands(Q., 38:75), fashioned him in the best of moulds ( 95:4 ), breathed into him of His own illustrious Spirit( 38:72 ), appointed him as His vicegerent in the earth(2:30), taught him the names (and thus essential knowledge and ability to forming concept of) all things(2: 31), and dignified him above the rest of His creation (Q., 17:7). Then Allah, to Him be all praise, asked the angels to prostrate to the archetypal man, Adam, which they did in full submission to the Lord’s command (7:11). In sum Allah has endowed in man some of His own important attributes on a limited scale and in suitable quantities. Man has been given the capacity and power “and subjected to him (for his use) all that is in the heavens and the earth” (31:20)
A R T I C L E S so as to harness their resources for his own benefit, yet with a sense of responsibility as a trustee and custodian of the earth. We may invoke any of the Excellent names of Allah in prayer and supplication (Cf., Q, 7:180).It is usual for the worshipper to address the Almighty by that name or attribute which he wishes to appeal to. For example, in praying for pardon, one will address God as either al-‘Afuw “the forgiving” or al-Tawwab “the receiver of repentance.” Yet of all these, the one name which the Almighty has used most frequently is ‘Allah’. This name and its derivatives occur in the Qur’an (2,697) times, mostly in the singular. For ‘Allah’ does not have a plural form. Yet one of its derivatives, ilaah, does occur in both singular and plural(the latter as aalihah). Compare this to alRahman, which is the most favoured name, next to ‘Allah’ (Q.17:110), but which occurs only (57) times in the text. The Qur’an does not provide a clear explanation for this preferential use of ‘Allah’, but the Prophet, pbuh, has asked the faithful in a hadith to “call upon God by His greatest name (biismih al-a’zam), He will respond to your call, and accept your prayer.” The hadith did not, however, specify the ‘ism al-a‘zam’ it referred to, and how, if at all, did it differ from the rest of ‘asma’ al-husna’. But another hadith alludes that the ‘ism al-a’zam’ occurs in two verses of the Qur’an (i.e., 2:163 & 3:2). When we look at these verses, ‘Allah’, occurs five times whereas ‘alRahman’ and ‘al-Rahim’ only once each in these short verses with a combined number of only 16 words then it becomes clear that the ism ala’zam is none other than ‘Allah’. 1 March 2010
Professor Mohammad Hashim Kamali is founding chairman and CEO of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (IAIS)Malaysia.He is also a member of JUST’s International Advisory Panel
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