Om Malik is reporting that Matt Mullenweg’s company Automattic has raised $29.5 million Series B funding. We were all reassured that Om is taking it easy and has not returned to full-time blogging so that he can make a full recovery sooner than later.
That doesn’t stop him from getting a huge scoop however.
Matt stopped by to see Om to talk about things and in doing so, intentionally or unintentionally shared that the company raised a round of funding led by TrueVentures. The round included a strategic investment from The New York Times Co, which is indicative of NYT’s commitment to exploring and building its Social Media foundation.
WordPress.com hosts 2.2 million blogs and is making a name for itself withing the old media publishing world as many media companies are looking limit the amount of infrastructure development, including CNN, Fortune and Fox.
According to Mullenweg, the money will expand the team’s engineering department to continually enhance the infrastructure and also to improve the company’s Askimet blog spam prevention service. Askimet saves us from thousands of lame spam comments each and every month.
As Om points out however, Automattic is reportedly close to breaking even…so, we’ll stay tuned to what Matt and company are up to.
In the meantime, best of luck to them. Om, keep getting better.
If the Internet consisted of real brick and mortar buildings there would be a construction boom going on right now like the world has never seen. The Internet is not in a recession or on the road to a depression, rather it is experiencing an economic and social explosion of activity.
The reason ... Google Adsense.
Most people think of Google Adsense as being a game-changer for advertising, but what Google Adsense has also done is to create a huge incentive to build sites around topics to place Google Adwords on. Where this seems to work best is with gadgets. There is no topic left untouched by the Adsense content builders, but gadgets are at the heart of this new Internet construction boom.
The Gadget Content Explosion...
On November 5th, 2007 Google announced the name of its Google phone project ... Android.
Name announcements are where it all starts because domaining is at the heart of SEO which is important to getting free traffic which is critical to new Internet projects getting Adsense funding. Literally, hundreds of domains have been registered since this announcement with the Android name and other variations that mean the same.
All of those domains now rank in the top ten results when searching for "android blog" in Google! Trademark Infringement? Nope!
A more schooled business person might wonder about all of this trademark infringement and think cease and desist letters will be flying to all of these new sites. Think again my old school friend! The legal community may not be aware, but trademarking is no longer enforced by a large army of corporations on the Internet. The reason is because companies have finally figured out that Internet content centered around their brands is rather GOOD for their brands!
The majority of the content I am talking about is of the good kind where these newly constructed websites become the hub for discussion, commenting, reviewing, supporting and in general getting down to the nitty-gritty of every new gadget (or every new anything) introduced to the world. Google and the other search engines then crawl this content and in effect help turn these new web construction sites into thriving neighborhood hangouts where thousands of real people actually go.
These people become the first drivers of new products and are the early adopters who will wait in line to buy. An example of this is the recently launched Blackberry Storm available for Verizon customers. Lines were out the door at Verizon stores and most locations sold out. The word of mouth on this product spawned from thousands of websites, many of which were created to focus exclusively on the Blackberry Storm.
Search Google for "blackberry storm forum" (without quotations) and you will see these sites in the top listings:
These sites were produced to build a community that clicks Adwords ads. They were created because of the Adsense program, but they still do serve a greater good in my opinion, which is to be an independent source of information and Q&A.
The two most common types of sites created for Adsense are blogs and forums. Others include software downloads, niche directories and news headline type sites. Over time, domains with the product name followed by generic words that are typically searched for such as ... forum, forums, blog, video and news tend to rise to the top of search results. Website builders around the world know this and build accordingly.
Is the content of bad quality?
Yes and no. There are of course many spammy scraper sites that steal content from others and then automatically update the sites. However, those are not the ones usually showing up in the top search results. The site winning the search result wars for "android blog", for instance, is googleandroidblog. blogspot.com which is the number one result. The site appears to be a real hub for Google Android content and reader comments and also contains a column of Google Adwords ads!
Search for any popular gadget and you will see quality blogs, forums and news sites in top results that were created to cash in from Google Asense:
1. Follow the announcements on the tech news gadget sites and grab domains as soon as names are announced.
2. Build a blog or forum ASAP on the topic. It is important to build first so that Google crawls you first.
3. Create quality content written by you or experts (your friends :). It is important to not plagiarize other content on the Internet. Be distinct with your voice by using humor or technical savvyness. Do not use paid writers that write $20 articles unless you know they write quality. Quality is king, even when building for Adsense!
4. Participate in related forums and comment on blogs and news articles that relate to your topic. Be real though, do not be a comment spammer. This will get your site linked so that Google crawls it.
5. Update your site a couple times a day and make your content unique.
I’ve recently become impressed with the potential for making money from a website by selling text link ads. During May I generated over $250 USD from selling text links on my blogs just from the brokerage service provided by Text-Link-Ads.com. It’s not a huge amount of money but it’s cash I didn’t have before. If you are aiming to become a full time blogger then any extra sources of income helps, so you may want to try selling text links yourself.
John Webster from AdBrite Guide contacted me about his new website aimed at helping publishers and advertisers maximize their return from another text link broker, AdBrite.com. AdBrite offers a similar service to Text-Link-Ads.com, brokering deals between website publishers and advertisers. As a blog publisher this means you can leave the selling of your advertising inventory to companies like AdBrite while you just work on making the best blog you can. All you have to do is add your site to their system, place some code on your site, then watch the money roll in (theoritically at least!).
Of course factors such as how much traffic you have, what industry your site is in, your site’s PageRank (What is PageRank?) and where you place the add code will determine how much you make, but as I said, anything is better than nothing, so it’s worth a try.
John kindly offered a list of tips for me to publish to help you get the most out of AdBrite as a publisher and an advertiser. I’m posting the tips for AdBrite publishers (those wanting to make money from text links) here. The AdBrite advertiser tips (those wanting to generate traffic from buying links) are posted on my other blog, Small Business Branding.
Tips To Maximize Your AdBrite Income
Never start your pricing too high. It is better to error on the low side and get advertisers hooked, because then they will be willing to pay higher prices for your inventory when the pricing increases.
Make sure your placement is worth buying, the popular sellers in the marketplace tend to be sites with the most premium inventory.
Spend some time tagging your site and giving proper demographic information.
In your site description provide ideas of advertisers that you think might convert well. You know your audience best.
AdBrite is more successful if you sell a FEW premium placements as opposed to just MANY backfill placements.
Hard code all placements because of the concreteness of “your ad hereâ€Â. Putting AdBrite in rotation doesn’t perform as well.
Allow a ramping period. AdBrite is a tool to help sell your own inventory, and think of it as a virtual salesperson for you. Any salesperson needs some time to gain traction. Just like an auction, the beginning price is never the final price.
Entice advertisers with specials. You have full control to set pricing so make occasional specials to entice advertisers.
Enable AdBrite’s auto pricing which will raise automatically as inventory sells, and lower itself as vacant inventory sits unsold.
Google AdSense Tip #1: Find your keywords Before serving ads on a web page, check its keyword density. A free and advanced tool for finding the most prominent keywords in a page can be found here: SEO Density Analyzer. Copy the most important keywords to a text file ([web page name]-Google AdSense-keywords.txt).
Google AdSense Tip #2: Improve your keywords Get keyword suggestions from Overture Search Inventory and from Google AdWords Sandbox. Get new keywords that can help you improve your ad relevance. Enter the keywords from [web page name]-Google AdSense-keywords.txt and save the suggestions to [web page name]-Google AdSense-suggestions.txt.
Google AdSense Tip #3: Keep your website focused on a theme Use the keyword suggestions to enhance your web pages and to build theme-based content. And also try to get your keywords into the anchor text of your incoming links as much as possible. Don’t forget that Google Google AdSense is keyword-targeted advertising: Google Google AdSense bases its advert topics on your websites content, this means that content-rich websites of a popular topic should attract a large amount of ads.
Google AdSense Tip #4: Write a new page every day One of the best tips is to add a new page to your web site every day. The more content you have, the more visitors you will get. Put an Google AdSense unit on each and every content page of your site. But where? You will find more about that from the next Google AdSense tips.
Google AdSense Tip #5: Choose the right Google AdSense format Wider formats are successful because the ads are compact, easy to read and are complementary to the content. The top three Google AdSense formats are:
336×280 large rectangle
300×250 medium rectangle
160×600 wide skyscraper
Another successful format is the 468×15 horizontal ad links, that can be placed under your navigation bar.
Google AdSense Tip #6: Color tips When creating your Google Google AdSense ads it is recommended to use the color scheme and style of your website so that the ads blend in well. Ads without background color and borders perfom better than ads within borders with background color.
Create a custom Google AdSense palette:
border color = background color of your web site
background color = background color of your web site
link color = blue, color of your links
url color = black, #999999
text color = black, #333333, color of your main content
You can also rotate your color palette: select multiple color palettes that blend with your site to create variety.
Google AdSense Tip #7: Position tips Visitors tend to look at the big headlines to see if your page is worth reading. If you get them interested, they will read the text and look for your navigation links.
Place the Google AdSense ads in a prominent place around the top/left part of your page or under your headlines, where your visitors are most likely to look at.
If you have an article page with a long body of text, the bottom of that article is a good place for Google AdSense ads because your visitors read the text and then they want more resources.
Google AdSense Tip #8: Increase the number of ads If you have a lot of text on a page, use multiple Google AdSense units. You can use up to three Google AdSense units on a page, two Google AdSense search boxes and one unit of ad links.
Link units allow the user to refine what they’re interested in. So if they may not be interested in specific ads on your page, they might be interested in a particular topic, and by clicking on a link unit and a link in the link unit, they’ll be able to specify that they’re interested in that specific topic and get a lot more options and variety on the ads that might appear.
Google AdSense for Search allows visitors to search Google.com or your sites (up to 3 domains). You earn money whenever they click on the ads that come up on the search results. If you click the Open search results in a new browser window checkbox in the Google AdSense for Search settings, you won’t lose your visitors.
Google AdSense Tip #9: Preview Google ads You can find out what ads will be served by Google Google AdSense if you install Google Google AdSense Preview Tool, a very simple tool available only for Internet Explorer 6.0. Click to advertiser sites without generating invalid clicks, and easily add their URLs to your URL filter list. Because Google AdSense uses geo-targeting, Google serves different ads for other countries. Instead of faking your IP or travelling abroad to test your ads, use this Google AdSense tool to see what ads see your visitors from France, Germany or other countries.
It’s possible there are no Google Google AdSense adverts available for your webpage. Hide Public Service Ads, using alternate colors or images. Make sure you include the image in a simple html file as a link (use target=”_top”). The image size should be the same as the dimension of Google AdSense units. In the alternate url box, enter the absolute url of the html file.
Read more about alternate ads.
Google AdSense Tip #10: What not to do Don’t click your own ads
Don’t ask others to click on your Google ads
Don’t manually change Google AdSense code
Don’t place Google ads on sites that include prohibited content (e.g.: adult sites)
Don’t employ cloaking, hidden text or farm links
Don’t use Google AdSense ads on the same page with similar ads (e.g.: Yahoo Publisher Network)
Google AdSense Tip #11: Show images above or next to your ads Placing images above Google AdSense ads is not necessarily prohibited by program policies. However, depending on the method of implementation this could be considered encouraging users to click on ads. So you should include a border line between the ads and the images. Don’t show specific products in your images, in order not to mislead the visitors. Just use generic images that will increase the visibility of your ads.
Google AdSense Tip #12: Use section targeting Use section targeting to emphasize some content in your page. On your site, place this code where you want to emphasize.
Content you want to emphasize.
If you want some content to be ignored, use
Google AdSense Tip #13: Alternate the colors of your ads Google AdSense allows you to have up to 4 color variations for each variable for which you can specify color. You should do that if you put Google AdSense ads on pages that receive many impressions from the same visitors (for example forums) to reduce ad blindness. For example:
Google AdSense Tip #14: Your Google ads should be visible Make sure your text ads are visible to the surfers in all screen formats. If you put the ads in a table give sufficient breathing room, i.e. proper cell padding and cell spacing to make the ads stand out from the rest of your content.
Google AdSense Tip #15: Use Google AdSense channels You can categorize the content of your website into channels and then track your performance. This way you can experiment with different types of ads and see which is performing the best. Instead of buying an Google AdSense tracker, you can enter the most important pages in your site and see how they are doing. Create up to 200 channels for Google AdSense.
William Mok is one of the internet marketing company CEO and he is a successful internet marketer.To receive more internet marketing tips and free e-book , please visit http://www.marketonair.com
Bila diajak untuk berbagi, apa yang ada di pikiran anda? Mungkin berbagi dana, berbagi pakaian layak pakai, sembako dan susu atau berbagi makanan. Ya, semua jawaban biasanya dalam bentuk materi. Itu mungkin karena dikepala kita telah tertancap ide–ide materialistik yang sudah menglobal : mengukur segala sesuatunya dari material dan kasat mata.
Pengalaman nyata dari ayah angkat saya mungkin bisa menjadi pelajaran bahwa berbagi tidaklah mesti berbentuk materi.
Setiap tahun ayah angkat saya punya kebiasaan berkeliling ke berbagai panti asuhan dan rumah anak yatim, kunjungan biasanya dilakukan di dua kali, yaitu awal Ramadhan dan akhir Ramadhan. Kunjungan pertama adalah survei untuk mengetahui kebutuhan panti asuhan atau rumah yatim.
Kunjungan ke dua membawa bantuan sesuai dengan kebutuhan Yang diperlukan.
Ketika berkunjung kesalah satu rumah yatim, ayah angkat temen saya bertemu dengan seorang bocah manis dan lucu, Dia masih sekolah kelas nol besar.
"Siapa namamu, nak?" sapa ayah
"Nama saya nina, Om ," jawabnya manja.
"Nina sudah punya sepatu baru?" tanya ayah "Sudah, Om ,dikasih Abah (peminpin panti ). Nina juga sudah punya baju baru," urai Nina.
"Kalau begitu Nina mau apa?" tanya ayah
"Nggak ah…… ntar Om marah," jawab Nina.
"Nggak sayang, Om nggak akan marah", ayah menimpali.
"Nggak ah…… ntar Om marah," Nina mengulangi jawabannya.
Ayah berpikir, pasti yang diminta Nina adalah sesuatu yang mahal. Rasa keingintahuan ayah semakin menjadi. Maka dia dekati lagi Nina.
"Ayo, nak, katakan apayang kamu minta sayang," pinta ayah "Tapi janji, ya, Om tidak marah", jawab Nina manja.
" Om janji tidak akan marah sayang ," tegas ayah "Bener Om nggak akan marah?"sahut Nina agak ragu.
Ayah menganggukkan kepala. Nina menatap tajam wajah ayah Sementara ayah berpikir, `Seberapa mahal sih yang bocah kecil ini minta sampai dia harus meyakinkan bahwa saya tidak akan marah?'
Sambil tersenyum ayah saya mengatakan, "Ayo, nak, katakan, jangan takut, om tidak akan marah Nak."
"Bener ya Om nggak akan marah?" ujar nina sambil terus menatap wajah ayah saya.
Sekali lagi ayah saya menganggukkan kepala. Dengan wajah berharap- harap cemas, Nina mengajukan permintaannya, " Mmmmm, boleh nggak mulai malam ini saya memanggil Om dengan panggilan Ayah? Nina sedih nggak punya ayah"
Mendengar jawaban itu, Ayah saya tak kuasa membendung air matany.
Segera dia peluk Nina. " Tentu, anakku……tentu anakku….. mulai hari ini Nina boleh memanggil Ayah, bukan Om.
Sambil memeluk erat ayah saya, dengan terisak Nina berkata, "
Terimakasih ayah…terimakasih ayah."
Hari itu adalah hari yang tak akan terlupakan buat ayah saya. Dia habiskan waktu beberapa saat untuk bermain dan bercengkrama dengan Nina.
Karena merasa belum memberikan sesuatu berbentuk material kepada Nina, sebelum pulang Ayah bertanya lagi pada Nina, " Anakku sebelum lebaran nanti ayah akan datang lagi kemari bersama ibu dana kakak- kakakmu. Apa yang kamu minta nak?"
" Kan udah tadi, Nina sudah boleh memanggil ayah," jawab Nina.
" Nina masih boleh minta lagi sama ayah. Nina boleh minta sepeda.
Otoped atau yang lain, pasti akan ayah kasih." Jelas Ayah saya.
"Nanti kalau ayah datang sama ibu kesini, aku minta ayah bawa foto bareng yang ada ayah, ibu dana kakak-kakak Nina. Boleh kan, Ayah?"
Nina memohon sambil memegang tangan ayah saya. Tiba-tiba kaki ayah saya lunglai. Dia berlutut didepan Nina. Dia peluk lagi Nina sambil bertanya, "Buat apa foto itu, nak?"
"Nina ingin tunjukan kepada sama temen-temen Nina di sekolah, ini foto ayah Nina, ini ibu Nina, ini kakak-kakak nina."
Ayah saya memeluk Nina semakin erat, seolah tak mau berpisah dengan gadis kecil yang menjadi guru kehidupannya dihari itu.
Terimakasih, Nina. Meski usiamu masih belia kau telah mengajarkan kepada kami tentang makna berbagi cinta.
Berbagilah cinta, maka kehidupan kita akan lebih bermakna
Berbagilah cinta agar orang lain merasakan keberadaan kita di dunia
Ada dua orang gadis, salah satu dari mereka cara berpikirnya MATEMATIS (M) dan yang lainnya cara berpikirnya mengandalkan LOGIKA ( L) .
Mereka berdua berjalan pulang melewati jalan yang gelap, dan jarak rumah mereka masih agak jauh. Setelah beberapa lama mereka berjalan....
M : Apakah kamu juga memperhatikan, ada seorang pria yang sedang berjalan mengikuti kita kira2 sejak tigapuluh delapan setengah menit yang lalu? Saya khawatir dia bermaksud jelek.
L : Itu hal yang Logis. Dia ingin memperkosa kita.
M : Oh tidak, dengan kecepatan berjalan kita seperti ini, dalam waktu 15 menit dia akan berhasil menangkap kita. Apa yang harus kita lakukan.
L : Hanya ada 1 cara logis yg harus kita lakukan, yaitu berjalan lebih cepat.
M : Itu tidak banyak membantu, gimana nich.....
L : Tentu saja itu tidak membantu, Logikanya kalau kita berjalan lebih cepat dia juga akan mempercepat jalannya.
M : Lalu, apa yang harus kita lakukan? Dengan kecepatan kita seperti ini dia akan berhasil menangkap kita dalam waktu dua setengah menit...
L : Hanya ada satu langkah Logis yang harus kita lakukan.. Kamu lewat jalan yang ke kiri dan aku lewat jalan yang kekanan. sehingga dia tidak bisa mengikuti kita berdua dan hanya salah satu yang diikuti olehnya.
Setelah kedua gadis itu berpisah, ternyata Pria tadi mengikuti langkah si gadis yang menggunakan logika (L ). Gadis matematis ( M) tiba di rumah lebih dulu dan dia khawatir akan keselamatan sahabatnya. Tapi, tidak berapa lama kemudian, Ga dis Logika (L ) datang.
M : Oh terima kasih Tuhan... Kamu tiba dengan selamat. Eh, gimana pengalamanmu diikuti oleh Pria tadi?
L : Setelah kita berpisah dia mengikuti aku terus.
M : Ya.. ya.. Tetapi apa yang terjadi kemudian dengan kamu?
L : Sesuai dengan logika saya langsung lari sekuat tenaga dan Pria itupun juga lari sekuat tenaga mengejar saya.
M : Dan... dan...
L : Sesuai dengan logika dia berhasil mendekati saya di tempat yang gelap...
M : Lalu.. Apa yang kamu lakukan?
L : Hanya ada satu hal logis yang dapat saya lakukan, yaitu saya mengangkat rok saya..
M : Oh... Lalu apa yang dilakukan pria tadi?
L : Sesuai dengan logika... Dia menurunkan celananya...
M : Oh tidak.... Lalu apa yang terjadi kemudian?
L : Hal yang logis bukan, kalau gadis yang mengangkat roknya larinya lebih cepat dari pada lelaki yang berlari sambil memelorotkan celananya... So akhirnya aku bisa lolos dari pria itu...
Pada tahun 1998, Joseph Cohen seorang Yahudi Ortodoks kelahiran AS hijrah ke Israel karena keyakinannya yang sangat kuat pada ajaran Yudaisme. Ia kemudian tinggal di pemukiman Yahudi Gush Qatif di Gaza (Israel mundur dari wilayah Jalur Gaza pada tahun 2005).
Cohen tak pernah mengira bahwa kepindahannya ke Israel justru membawanya pada cahaya Islam. Setelah tiga tahun menetap di Gaza, Cohen memutuskan untuk menjadi seorang Muslim setelah ia bertemu dengan seorang syaikh asal Uni Emirat Arab dan berdiskusi tentang teologi dengan syaikh tersebut lewat internet. Setelah masuk Islam, Cohen mengganti namanya dengan nama Islam Yousef al-Khattab.
Tak lama setelah ia mengucapkan syahadat, istri dan empat anak Yousef mengikuti jejaknya menjadi Muslim. Sekarang, Yousef al-Khattab aktif berdakwah di kalangan orang-orang Yahudi, meski ia sendiri tidak diakui lagi oleh keluarganya yang tidak suka melihatnya masuk Islam.
"Saya sudah tidak lagi berhubungan dengan keluarga saya. Kita tidak boleh memutuskan hubungan kekeluargaan, tapi pihak keluarga saya adalah Yahudi dengan entitas ke-Yahudi-annya. Kami tidak punya pilihan lain, selain memutuskan kontak untuk saat ini. Kata-kata terakhir yang mereka lontarkan pada saya, mereka bilang saya barbar," tutur Yousef tentang hubungan dengan keluarganya sekarang.
Ia mengakui, berdakwah tentang Islam di kalangan orang-orang Yahudi bukan pekerjaan yang mudah. Menurutnya, yang pertama kali harus dilakukan dalam mengenalkan Islam adalah, bahwa hanya ada satu manhaj dalam Islam yaitu manhaj yang dibawa oleh Rasululullah saw yang kemudian diteruskan oleh para sahabat-sahabat dan penerusnya hingga sekarang.
"Cara yang paling baik untuk membuktikan bahwa Islam adalah agama untuk semua umat manusia adalah dengan memberikan penjelasan berdasarkan ayat-ayat al-Quran dan yang membedakan antara umat manusia adalah ketaqwaannya pada Allah semata," ujar Yousef.
"Islam bukan agama yang rasis. Kita punya bukti-bukti yang sangat kuat, firman Allah dan perkataan Rasulullah saw. Kita berjuang bukan untuk membenci kaum kafir. Kita berjuang hanya demi Allah semata, untuk melawan mereka yang ingin membunuh kita, yang menjajah tanah air kita, yang menyebarkan kemungkaran dan menyebarkan ideologi Barat di negara kita, misalnya ideologi demokrasi," sambung Yousef.
Ia mengatakan bahwa dasar ajaran agama Yahudi sangat berbeda dengan Islam. Perbedaan utamanya dalam masalah tauhid. Agama Yahudi, kata Yousef percaya pada perantara dan perantara mereka adalah para rabbi. Orang-orang Yahudi berdoa lewat perantaraan rabbi-rabbi mereka.
"Yudaisme adalah kepercayaan yang berbasiskan pada manusia. Berbeda dengan Islam, agama yang berbasis pada al-Quran dan Sunnah. Dan keyakinan pada Islam tidak akan pernah berubah, di semua masjid di seluruh dunia al-Quran yang kita dengarkan adalah al-Quran yang sama," ujar Yousef.
Lebih lanjut ia mengatakan bahwa Yahudisme di sisi lain berpatokan pada "tradisi oral" misalnya kitab Talmud yang disusun berdasarkan informasi dari mulut ke mulut yang kemudian dibukukan. Para rabbi sendiri, kata Yousef mengakui, bisa saja banyak hal yang sudah orang lupa sehingga keabsahan kitab tersebut bisa dipertanyakan.
Yousef mengungkapkan, kitab Taurat yang diyakini kaum Yahudi sekarang memiliki sebelas versi yang berbeda dan naskah-naskah Taurat itu bukan lagi naskah asli. "Alhamdulillah, Allah memberikan rahmat pada kita semua dengan agama yang mudah, di mana banyak orang yang bisa menghapal al-Quran dari generasi ke generasi. Allah memberkati kita semua dengan al-Quran," tukas Yousef. Meski demikian, ia meyakini dialog adalah cara terbaik dalam berdakwah terutama di kalangan Yahudi.
Ditanya tentang kelompok-kelompok Yahudi yang mengklaim anti-Zionis. Yousef menjawab bahwa secara pribadi maupun dari sisi religius, ia tidak percaya dengan Yahudi-Yahudi yang mengklaim anti-Zionis. "Dari sejarahnya saja, mereka adalah orang-orang yang selalu melanggar kesepakatan. Mereka membunuh para nabi, oleh sebab itu saya tidak pernah percaya pada mereka, meski Islam selalu menunjukkan sikap yang baik pada mereka," paparnya.
Yousef menegaskan bahwa pernyataannya itu bukan untuk membela orang-orang Palestina ataupun atas nama seorang Muslim. Pernyataan itu merupakan pendapat pribadinya. "Allah Maha Tahu," tandasnya.
Sebagai orang yang pernah tinggal di pemukiman Yahudi di wilayah Palestina, Yousef mengakui adanya diskriminasi yang dilakukan pemerintah Israel terhadap Muslim Palestina. Yousef sendiri pernah dipukul oleh tentara-tentara Israel meski tidak seburuk perlakuan tentara-tentara Zionis itu pada warga Palestina.
"Saya masih beruntung, penderitaan yang saya alami tidak seberat penderitaan saudara-saudara kita di Afghanistan yang berada dibawah penjajahan AS atau saudara-saudara kita yang berada di kamp penjara AS di Kuba (Guantanamo) ," imbuhnya dengan rasa syukur.
Allah memberikan hidayah pada umatnya, kadang dengan cara yang tak terduga. Seperti yang dialami Cohen atau Yousef yang justru masuk Islam setelah pindah ke wilayah pendudukan Israel di Gaza. (ln/readingIslam)
Salam hangat Sobat Blogger semua.. terima kasih Sobat sudah berkunjung ke blog sederhana ini, mari kita saling belajar dan berbagi serta jalin persahabatan. Semoga apa yang ada disini meskipun kecil bisa bermanfaat...
John Webster from 