‘Who is to define a terrorist?’ - By Bella Jaisinghani - TNN - The Times of India, Mumbai

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Updated: Thursday, 05 November, 2009 11:37:04am

‘Who is to define a terrorist?’

Bella Jaisinghani | TNN 

Mumbai: “The Taliban is not the enemy of the US. The only reason US soldiers are being killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan is because the Americans are in that country.’’ Words that caused heads to turn at an Islamic conference in the city which had invited a former detainee of Guantanamo Bay as Wednesday’s main speaker. 

    Straightaway, James Yusuf Yee drew an interested crowd of listeners, some sympathetic, most curious. The New Jersey-born cleric had been held at the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba for purported links with the Al-Qaeda even as he served as a chaplain with the US military.

 
    Charged with serious offences that include sedition, espionage and aiding the enemy, as well as minor ones like storing pornographic material on his official computer, Yee was held in Gitmo where he served for 76 days in 2003.However, a year later, the US government dropped court martial charges and granted him an honourable discharge from service. 

    Since his release, the 40-year-old Chinese-American convert has written a book and become a sought-after speaker at international conferences, the latest being a ten-day peace meet organised by Zakir Naik’s Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) at the Somaiya Grounds in Sion. Naik and his brother Mohammed flanked Yee as he freely expressed his feelings about the country of his birth without fear of retribution upon his return. 

    Even as he declared his pride in being American, his discourse was peppered with sardonic references to the “demonisation of Muslims’’ in that country and the “so-called war on terror that uses Islam as a weapon’’. “Who is to decide the definition of a terrorist?’’ Yee added. “Civil society must grant every person who is accused of terrorism the right to a full trial in a criminal court.’’ 

    As his defence assumed combative tones, he was asked to comment on the rights of victims of terrorism. “Well, there are bereaved families in America who feel that Gitmo detainees should be severely punished. But equally several others have forgiven them because they do not want others to experience a similar loss. At any rate, I do not think a single prisoner of Guantanamo Bay is actually involved in the 9/11 attacks,’’ Yee said. 

    Inevitably, a point was raised about President Obama’s premature Nobel being a direct result of his famous Reconciliation-with-Islam speech. Admitting that he had campaigned for Obama’s nomination over that of Hillary Clinton, then proudly recalling that he was present at the presidential inauguration, Yee went on to express disappointment with his former hero. “Obama has failed to come good on his word to close Guantanamo down,’’ he said, even though the closure is due in January 2010.

MAKING A POINT: Former US army chaplain James Yusuf Yee

Jonathan Cook - A British Freelance Journalist - based in Nazareth - writes first hand account of the real face of Israel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Cook

Jonathan Cook

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jonathan Cook
Born	1965 Buckinghamshire, England
Education	Southampton University (B. A., 1987) Cardiff University (Post-graduate diploma, 1989) School of Oriental and African Studies, London University (M. A., 2000)
Occupation	Freelance writer
Ethnicity	British
Official website

Jonathan Cook (born 1965) is a British independent freelance journalist and writer based inNazareth, Israel.^[1] He has written about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for a number of newspapers, and is the author of three books, Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State (2006), Israel and the Clash of Civilizations: Iraq, Iran and the plan to remake the Middle East (2008), and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (2008).

Contents  [show]

[edit]Background

Cook was born, educated and raised in Buckinghamshire, England.^[2] He received a BA Honours in Philosophy and Politics from Southampton University in 1987, a postgraduate diploma in journalism from Cardiff University in 1989, and a Masters degree in Middle Eastern studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies in 2000.^[3]

[edit]Career

Cook was a reporter and editor with regional newspapers 1988-94, a freelance sub-editor with several national newspapers 1994-96, and a staff member^{[citation needed]} of The Guardian andThe Observer 1996-2001.

Since September 2001, he has been a freelance writer based in Nazareth, Israel, covering theMiddle East, and publishing his articles in The Guardian, The International Herald Tribune, Le Monde Diplomatique, and Al-Ahram Weekly, among others.^[4] In February 2004 he founded the Nazareth Press Agency.^[3] Cook has said he is the first foreign correspondent to be based in Nazareth,^[5] and as such has a perspective unavailable to Western journalists based in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv in Israel, or Ramallah in the West Bank.

In an article in The Guardian, Cook wrote that there was, "a relentless campaign to target, discredit and silence critics of Israel."^[2]

[edit]Works

Cook's Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State was published in 2006. The book argues that Israel's recent treatment of its own Palestinian citizens, a group also known as Israeli Arabs, has exposed the contradiction between the state's Jewish anddemocratic claims.

In 2008, Cook published Israel and the Clash of Civilizations: Iraq, Iran and the plan to remake the Middle East^[6] That same year,Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair was also published.^[7] This book is broken into two parts. The first half is an essay that seeks to trace the overarching principle guiding Israeli policies in the conflict. Cook's thesis in the essay, as identified by reviewer Gabriel Ash in Electronic Intifada, is that, "the goal of Israeli policy is to make Palestine and the Palestinians disappear for good."^[8] The second half of the book consists of a selection of articles Cook has published over the last six years in various media outlets.^[8]

[edit]Written works

[edit]Books

• (2008), Israel and the Clash of Civilizations: Iraq, Iran and the plan to remake the Middle East, Pluto Press, ISBN 978-0745327549
• (2008), Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair, Zed Books, ISBN 978-1848130319
• (2006), Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State, Pluto Press, ISBN 0-7453-2555-6
• (2005) Catastrophe Remembered: Palestine, Israel, and the Internal Refugees, Zed Books, Nur Masalha, ed. (Cook, a co-contributor) ISBN 1842776231^[9]

[edit]Journals

• When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? Letter from Nazareth (May 2009); Review of Shlomo Zand's book in Holy Land Studies. Volume 8, pp. 113-117.
• The Stand-Tall Generation; Review of Coffins on Our Shoulders in Holy Land Studies. Volume 5, pp. 121-124.
• Crime and Punishment on Israel's Demographic Frontier (May 2005); Co-authored by Peter Lagerquist in Middle East Report. No. 237, pp. 46-64.

[edit]Newsletters

• Israeli Constitutional Committee Faces Double Bind (August 2004); Adalah's Newsletter. Volume 7, pp. 1-7.

[edit]Newspapers

• Cook's profile page at The Guardian with links to his articles from 1999-2007

[edit]References

1. ^ Masalha 2005, p. viii
2. ^ ^a b ""Disappearing Palestine" by British journalist". TimeTurk. November 18, 2008. Retrieved 2009-10-25.
3. ^ ^a b Jonathan Cook, Jkcook.net,Short Biography
4. ^ Catastrophe remembered: Palestine, Israel and the internal refugees, p. viii.
5. ^ Cook, Jonathan. "Jonathan Cook website". Jonathan Cook News Archive. Retrieved 2006-10-14.
6. ^ Raymond Deane (11 February 2008). "Book review: "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations"". The Electronic Intifada. Retrieved 2009-08-31.
7. ^ Pam Hardyment (May 18, 2009). "Disappearing Palestine, Israel's Experiments in Human Despair by Jonathan Cook". Retrieved 2009-08-31.
8. ^ ^a b Gabriel Ash (February 12, 2009). "Book review: Un-erasing the erasure of Palestine". The Electronic Intifada. Retrieved 2009-08-31.
9. ^ "(Review of) Catastrophe Remembered: Palestine, Israel, and the Internal Refugees". Journal of Refugee Studies 19 (2). 2006.

[edit]Bibliography

• Masalha, Nur (2005). Catastrophe Remembered: Palestine, Israel and the internal refugees: Essays in Memory of Edward Said. Zed Books. ISBN 978-1-84277-623-0.

[edit]External links

• Interview (33 min.) with Cook conducted by Ali Abunimah and Maureen Clare Murphy of Electronic Intifada

Categories: 1965 births | British journalists | Living people