REACH OF RELIGION: THEOLOGY AND ETHNICITY DRIVE U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

USCIRF exists for the sole purpose of fanning religious feelings around the world.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an arm of the US State Department, has equated Israel with Hamas and accused the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of striking seven mosques.

This while underplaying Hamas' misuse of these mosques for military purposes by describing the fact merely as IDF's "claim." USCIRF's statement has also quoted one of its Commissioners, Mohamad Magid, as saying, "Claims that violent terrorists represent the whole of Islam-or the Palestinian people seeking their fundamental human rights are ill-founded." While he may be right in not equating a religion with a terrorist group, that quote is ironic, as USCIRF attempts to deny the role of religion and ethnicity in politics even though USCIRF itself exists, as its name suggests, for the sole purpose of fanning religious feelings around the world. Historically, religions have played a central role in politics, whether it was in the creation of Israel, the Protestants fleeing the Catholics and Anglicans for America, the partition of India, the passage of the first and second amendments of the US Constitution, or the setting up of the governments of Islamic countries as theocracies. Religion continues to play an important role, and within the US, the terms "conservative" and "right wing" are primarily used by the so-called "liberals" to label the white Protestants. They also use the terms "right wing," "extremist" and "nationalist" as slurs to describe the members of various religions and ethnicities around the world that they oppose.

Apart from the white Protestants, such groups include Hindus, Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews who defend the policies of Israel, Shia Muslims, and the members of the Russian Orthodox church.