This is the first installment of what will be a weekly column entitled Ask a Shiite. Our resident expert will be fielding questions of a philosophical, physical, and political nature in regards to Shiite Islamic belief and Middle East perception from his own eyes. Interested in asking a question? Send an email to alec.

Question: What is the overall effect of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict on Muslim perspectives of the United States role in the Middle East? And what is the general perception of America given the current political climate for Muslims?

Answer: The simple answer is that there is no difference on the US image in these circumstances except that the muslim sentiment and rage is building up and is giving us all the more reason to fight back. This question is kind of an easy one not too detailed. But I have still given a bit more of my opinion on this ‘topic’.

Given PBH’s recent success of declaring jihad on Natasha Mitra, I am ready to declare another jihad, this time on American society. I know, I know, it’s not Fatwa Friday, but alas, this 9 year old girl gets baked and fried to look like a fucking oompa loompa with the prodding encouragement of her mother. All so that she can look like Linsday drug-riddled, anorexic-harpy Lohan for her yearbook picture. I hate you America:

In today’s edition of Haaretz (liberal Israeli daily), there’s a rather pallid article called Shin Bet arrests three Hamas militants who tried to attack IDF troops. Nothing to see here — it’s your typical Israeli-Palestinian situation of shoot, retaliate, and arrest. But check out this gem in the Web 2.0 of Haaretz’s instantaneous discussion and feedback for articles, evidenced no greater than by the zinger at #7 titled ‘to all the ubove’:

Can any one of you(from your past experience in Europe)suggest few romantic,unhurtfull ways to resist militery occupation,humilation and seggrigation?please!!

Zinged to irony and beyond! Nothing like inflicting the same treatment on others like you received yourself for karmic reprisal, because when you suffer greatly, why bother learning from it? Because otherwise, you are entitled to a life of guilt-free mistreatment of anyone who gets in the way of your crazy nationalistic dreams!

When a percentage of Muslims support civilian casualties, it’s called an internal threat and terrorism. When an even higher percentage of Americans support intentionally attacking civilians, what do we call it?

The past week, a highly publicized Pew Research Center poll was released on the beliefs and political perceptions of Muslim Americans. The survey concluded, that Muslim-Americans are “largely assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world.” Yet on prominent mainstream media outlets, the survey was slanted as “Supporting Terror?” on a CNN crawl, on CBS News online, the headline incorrectly stated that 26% OF YOUNG U.S. MUSLIMS OK BOMBS, and in USA Today, more scare tactics: POLL: 1 IN 4 YOUNGER U.S. MUSLIMS SUPPORT SUICIDE BOMBINGS.

Yet the poll actually showed only 8 percent of US Muslims said suicide bombing can be justified with 83 percent saying suicide bombing can never be justified. Says Hussein Ibish, “I can almost guarantee that the overwhelming majority who were asked the suicide-bombing question were thinking about Palestine—not Iraq or America. They’re not willing to say it’s never OK because they think Palestinians have no other options. They’re wrong, but that’s what they think. It’s exactly the same kind of statistic you’d get if you asked young Israelis about torture, demolition of villages, assassinations—they’d say yes because they know the Israelis have done it but loathe to say it’s wrong. I’m sure, knowing the Muslim community, that if you resolved the occupation in Palestine, that number would go very close to zero.”

The Article: The Last Nail in the GOP’s Coffin by David Frum of AEI. Yes, AEI.

The Text: The Republican party is hurtling toward disaster in 2008. The latest polls report that 61 percent of Americans think that the Iraq war was a mistake. More than 70 percent of Americans think the country is on the “wrong track”–an astonishingly bad number for a non-recession year.

Historically, Democrats have been perceived as the more caring and compassionate party; Republicans as the more honest and effective party.

Yet today, Democrats enjoy a 5:3 advantage over Republicans on the question, “Which party can manage government better?” They hold a 2:1 advantage on integrity and ethics. They even outpoll the Republicans on national security, for the first time since the Johnson-Goldwater race of 1964!