I take great exception to certain parties who, while insisting that the entire world bleed for “Palestine”, show an striking indifference to other conflicts that have killed an order of magnitude more people. Just as particular lobby groups might value the life of a Christian more than a Muslim, I cannot help but notice that the same is true of Arabs vis-a-vis Blacks.

I suppose it is only natural that groups feel a certain empathy with those that are like them. Christians, for example, will naturally concern themselves with the plight of Christians around the world; and Muslims will likewise focus their attentions more on the suffering of other Muslims. Likewise, people of similar political or sexual persuasion will feel some concern for the suffering of those with whom they share some common sense of identity. I don’t think this is the problem but rather what I find troublesome is when a conflict is given more symbolic value than it deserves (relative to other conflicts) and demands are then made for intervention which, in turn, ends up prolonging a conflict rather than allowing the respective sides to reach a peaceful settlement of their own accord.

“However, as the same New York Times article reminds us, the Darfurians had long excluded Arab nomads from access to their grazing areas and had, in 2003, initiated the conflict by attacking police and military.”

So they wanted to exclude a bunch of interlopers from their property, and to secede from the national government for good measure. Perfect and good luck to them! I’ll be cheering at their victory parade.

PS – I take great exception to certain parties who, while insisting that the entire world bleed for “Palestine”, show an striking indifference to other conflicts that have killed an order of magnitude more people. Just as particular lobby groups might value the life of a Christian more than a Muslim, I cannot help but notice that the same is true of Arabs vis-a-vis Blacks.

It is hard for me to belive, after all the work that brothers like Abdur-Rahman Idris and Ismail Kemal have done, that there are any serious Muslims who support an “intervention” in Sudan.

I haven’t read anything from Abdur-Rahman Idris and would be interested in seeing anything that is available online. I’ve read some pieces by Ismail Kemal in response to the calls for USC (I think) to divest from Sudan and he makes some compelling arguments against it.

As an aside, I wonder whether the Palestinian issue might have reached some sort of peaceful conclusion if the conflict hadn’t assumed such symbolic importance (on both sides) in the West. i.e. if Jews and Arabs were left to their own devices to sort out a solution between themselves.