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Augusta Chronicle

It’s not about Israel. It’s not about the Palestinians. It’s not even about George W. Bush.

Muslim violence is about itself, and nothing else. It’s about a violent, virulent strain of Islam as bent on world domination as the communists ever were.

It’s not restricted to the Mideast and the maddening politics there. It’s in the Philippines and Thailand — and Indonesia, where yet another bombing on Bali has left 22 dead and more than 100 injured.

In October, three suicide bombers targeted crowded popular restaurants in coordinated attacks that had all the earmarks of Jemaah Islamiah, the al-Qaida-linked Muslim extremist group responsible for other attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombing that killed more than 200.

So what is behind it all, if not the oft-cited Palestinian “cause”?

“If they refuse to be under Islam, it will be chaos. Full stop,” said Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, in prison for the 2002 Bali bombing. “If (Westerners) want to have peace, they have to accept to be governed by Islam.”

Some well-intentioned souls in the West, particularly in Hollywood, want to sell the idea of Muslim violence as a freedom fight by the Palestinians and — what, sympathy pains by other Muslims?

Bali belies all that. The truth, as the radical Indonesian cleric so candidly admits, is that this is a war for the soul of the planet. It’s an attempt by radical Muslims to drive out the unbelievers — one resort, one restaurant, one innocent diner at a time, if need be.

By Bob Egelko
www.sfgate.com

A Contra Costa County (Calif.) school was educating seventh-graders about Islam, not indoctrinating them, in role-playing sessions in which students used Muslim names and recited language from prayers, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a lawsuit by two Christian students and their parents, who accused the Byron Union School District of unconstitutionally endorsing a religious practice.

“The Islam program activities were not overt religious exercises that raise Establishment Clause concerns,” the three-judge panel said, referring to the First Amendment ban on government sanctioning a religion.

During the history course at Excelsior School in the fall of 2001, the teacher, using an instructional guide, told the students they would adopt roles as Muslims for three weeks to help them learn what Muslims believe.

She encouraged them to use Muslim names, recited prayers in class and made them give up something for a day, such as television or candy, to simulate fasting during Ramadan. The final exam asked students for a critique of elements of Muslim culture.

U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled in favor of the school district in 2003, saying that the class had an instructional purpose and that students had engaged in no actual religious exercises.

The appeals court upheld her ruling Thursday in a three-paragraph decision that was not published as a precedent for future cases, which generally is an indication that the court considers the legal issue to be clear from past rulings.

The court cited its 1994 ruling rejecting a suit by evangelical Christian parents in Woodland (Yolo County) who objected to elementary school children reading texts that contained tales and role-playing exercises about witches. In that case, the court said classroom activities related to the texts, which included casting a make-believe spell, were secular instruction rather than religious rituals.

The brevity of Thursday’s ruling “underscores the fact that what the district and its teachers did was entirely within the mainstream of educational practice,” said Linda Lye, attorney for the Byron schools.

Edward White of the Thomas More Center, the attorney in the case for the two children and their parents, said he will ask the full appeals court for a rehearing. He said the panel failed to address his argument that the district violated parents’ rights.

“What happened in this classroom was clearly an endorsement of religion and indoctrination of children in the Islamic religion, which would never have stood if it were a class on Christianity or Judaism,” White said.

www.yahoo.com

Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, who has battled parliament to force it to carry out fiscal belt tightening measures, has submitted his resignation ahead of legislative elections due in January.

Fayyad, a former International Monetary Fund official, said on Saturday he wanted to step down because he was considering running in the polls, and turned in his resignation as required under Palestinian law.

Other officials who asked not to be named said his resignation was in protest against the government’s refusal to implement concrete fiscal reforms.

“Our election law requires that cabinet members considering running for parliament should resign two months before the election date, and I am one of those,” Fayyad told Reuters. He did not say whether he had made a final decision on running.

The aid-dependent Palestinian Authority is under pressure to carry out fiscal reforms, and Fayyad’s resignation followed threats by foreign donors in October to suspend direct budget support unless ballooning public wage costs were reversed.

There was no immediate word on whether Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie would accept the resignation, which comes as Palestinians are under increasing scrutiny over how they run the Gaza Strip — seen as a proving ground for statehood following Israel’s withdrawal after 38 years of occupation.

“His resignation is going to affect the Palestinian Authority very negatively,” political analyst Ali Jarbawi said. “He was trusted by the international community, and this trust will disappear when he goes.”

The World Bank has said boosting the Palestinian economy is crucial to peacemaking. Donors have given an average of $25 million a month this year in budget support for the Palestinian Authority, according to figures from an international envoy