Yes, I confess: I went to Israel. With the Shalom Hartman Institute, which is proudly Zionist, unlike me, and entirely opposed to BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions), unlike me. More than that, I didnt go alone. I went with 15 other American Muslims leaders. They had their own reasons, just as I had mine: America -- and the Iraq War. Back in college, I was the very picture of the earnest activist: Enough demonstrations and well change the world! I helped bring tens of thousands to the streets to stop a belli without casus. Forget the Arab street: This was the American street. But Operation Iraqi Freedom, a war as unnecessary as it turned out tragic, proceeded as if our numbers meant nothing. We were steamrolled. Ignored. Disregarded. Even though we were in the right, even though we couldve saved our country so much harm -- and Iraq so much more. I wondered what I might do to prevent this from happening again. For one thing, I needed to contribute to the conversations that led to these kinds of decisions. That meant I needed to be in the rooms where they happened. But I also needed to bring more than my identity to the table. Because I was usually reduced to an identity. Muslim. Pakistani. Foreign. Other. Which meant biased. Partial. Insufficient. This is why Reza Aslan gets challenged (not very successfully, I happily might add) over his right to write a book about Jesus, while Duck Dynasty gets to pontificate about radical Islam while looking like radical Islam. So I enrolled at Columbia University, where I study the modern Muslim world. I worked for prestigious think tanks in New York City and Washington, D.C. I traveled the world to educate and to be educated. I wrote widely. But time and again, Israel and Palestine stopped the conversation, especially when it was between most American Muslim and American Jewish communities. It was the giant rampaging elephant in the room, sucking up all the oxygen and destroying the furniture. So Shalom Hartman Institute (SHI) entered the picture at exactly the right time. For those who dont know it, SHI is a very influential Jewish academic institution headquartered in New York City and Jerusalem. SHI teaches many prominent American and Israeli Jewish leaders, and works with the Israeli military, unaffiliated Christian leaders, and, so they hoped, Muslim leaders. I was asked to join the inaugural class of the Muslim Leadership Initiative, or MLI. Together with 15 other Muslim leaders, wed learn how Israeli and American Jews understand Judaism, Zionism, and the idea of a holy land. (We werent paid for this -- our transportation and accommodation expenses were covered, but nothing beyond that.) I did not make the decision to go lightly, but I also knew that my work could proceed no further without firsthand knowledge of Israel -- and Palestine.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 06:43:00 +0000
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