Between Worlds

A CBS, Bob Simons Report

2011-06-24T00:18:00.000+03:00

No Surprise: More Conquest by Israel

2011-04-04T22:11:00.002+03:00

To those familiar with Israeli policies, the news today are an absolute non-event.

But it's worth reminding folks that Israel has no credibility has pursuing peace when it continues conquest, home demolitions and settlement expansion.

Well -- no credibility except with 90% of the US Congress and about half to 60% of the US Jewish and Christian population--the loud constituency--which believes it is Israel's God-given, sorry G-d-given right to "cleanse" the land of Arabs. Well, either God or simply good old fashion racism.

NYT article about new constructions here.

Peace

Elrig

Picture source.

You "support Israel" - Answer me three simple questions

2011-03-31T15:12:00.004+02:00

There is a column in today's Washington Post about a Knesset (Israeli Parliament) Committee investigation of the US Group J Street. J Street is a US Jewish Political Action Committee, which is pro-Israeli and--wait for it--also pro-Peace.

This means among other things that J Street opposes the pursuit of settlements by Israel.

Because of this, a Committee of the Knesset is investigating whether J Street should be called "pro-Israel".

The author of the column, Harold Meyerson, looks at this through the lens of McCarthyism. A fair critique.

I want to look at this through another lens and ask Israel-First people, including the Christian Zionists of America and 90% of the US Congress, a simple set of questions.

If the Israeli government (or a part of it) questions whether you can be pro-Israeli and against settlements, can you infer that the Israeli government (or part of it) is pro-settlements and consider settlements a step forward toward the greater Zionist ideal, Eretz Israel?
[Hint: the answer is "Yes".]
Is there any scenario possible whereby settlements don't lead to land confiscation, conflict, more deaths and ultimately the deportation, encampment or death of Palestinians?
[Hint: the answer is "No".]
Can a government which pursues or even simply allows such policies be credible in peace negotiations? Can you, at the same time, be conquering the land and lives of your enemy and negotiating a peace in good faith?
[Hint: the answer is "No".]

See, I don't think there is a debate to be had about the answer to these three questions, but I'm sure you will find a way if you ever get to read them.

To be a 21st Century Zionist (I don't mean being pro-Israel, its safety and right to exist, but for its expansion and domination of its neighbors, which is what it means more and more), you need to be able to dance around these simple questions. You need to be able to distort the facts, the identity of Palestinians, the history and geography of the place, even the humanity of your neighbors.

Many conquerors have done well with creating their own facts and truths in the pursuit of their ideology. You may win many battles.

But if you're Jewish or Christian... then you have to accommodate your professed faith and ethos with embracing The Lie.

I have only one word for you: "Haram!"

If you don't know what it means, look it up.

Shalom - Salaam - Pax.

Elrig

Link to Meyerson's column: "In the Israeli Knesset, some undemocratic activities"

Read Oxfam's Call As Violence is Raised a Notch

2011-03-25T14:46:00.005+02:00

I always have to remind people that when violence "is not raised", it mostly means that it's unilateral and there's marginally less death -- but just as much violence against the Palestinian population. Still recent trends are not helping anyone.

Reposting the call from Oxfam --

Elrig

*****

As tensions rise, aid agency calls for calm

25 March 2011

With violence escalating over the past week, now is the time for both Palestinians and Israelis to show immediate restraint, says humanitarian aid agency Oxfam. Oxfam says that all sides must do everything they can in order to protect innocent civilians. With tensions running high across the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel, the stakes are too high to wait for the conflict to take a turn for the worse, warned Oxfam.

“At a time of great uncertainty in the Middle East, we cannot afford to let senseless casualties mount. The protection of civilians on both sides of the conflict must be prioritized and the international community must call upon the government of Israel and all other parties to the conflict to abide by international law as a first step towards a just peace in the region,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs.

Ten consecutive days of violence between the Israeli army and Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip have caused injuries to 24 Palestinians, claiming the lives of 6 civilians, including 4 children. A strike on a Gaza suburb two days ago left 4 civilians dead, including 3 children. Three Israeli civilians have also been injured in the crossfire. A bomb planted at a Jerusalem bus station Thursday claimed the life of a woman tourist and caused injuries to over 30 people. To date, no one has claimed responsibility for the bombing.

“For over two years, Palestinians in Gaza have been struggling to rebuild their lives shattered from the military operation Cast Lead. As the ongoing Israeli blockade continues to block reconstruction and recovery, escalating violence will only move people away from peace and towards hopelessness and despair,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs.

***For media inquiries please contact: Willow Heske, Oxfam Media Lead in Jerusalem

+972 (0) 59 7133646 or +972 (0) 54 6395002 or willow.heske@oxfamnovib.nl

Gaza Manifesto (Gaza Youth Break Out)

2011-01-23T20:09:00.004+02:00

When someone shouts "help!" I don't have to argue with their punctuation. When a group of people call for freedom, life and peace, I don't really care if they use words their moms would reprove.

Read the Gaza Manifesto and let's hope these guys go somewhere. Hear their voices and let's stop ignoring Gaza. Support them if you can.

During that time, people on the other side of the prison wall--in the little town of Sderot--are also indicting the failure of political leaders and the word's conscience. Have a look at the Gaza-Sderot International Conference site. Send them a buck or two, register for the conference.

Peace - Salam - Shalom

Elrig

Palestine-America: One Year Away, a Million Miles

2011-01-15T23:02:00.007+02:00

Well, it's been a whole year since I last set foot in Palestine, and this blog has been dormant for even more than that. But this morning I woke up self-reflective about the distance this has put between me and Palestine, Israel, the unevolving situation and my friends there. This quickly led me to some thoughts about living in the US after having witnessed the Israeli occupation and conquest, in a universe of bias and ignorance.

This is not going to be a happy blog entry. If I can muster it, I'll make it hopeful.

Don't ask too much of me this morning.

After a year, I've gotten used to living here. Life in America is pleasant, work is stimulating, and there's still a sense of openness to new ideas and new people, which makes my work quite often stimulating. Our neighborhood is lovely, peaceful, well kept but not too suburban -- it's still lively and close to places of culture. In spite of the stereotype, there are a lot places for cultural expression in the US, for art, for creativity, even for community. The city where we live is international enough, that you will run frequently into first and second generation immigrants, as well as old-blood Americans with ties to the Peace Corps and other opportunities to see the world. You can find places of eclectism, diversity, culture and intellect.

The dominant flavor is one of ease, peacefulness and comfort. Although weekend conversations can drift to the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, which presumably is over, those are distant, potential risks for the nation, not pressing threats. The news are full of crises, as everywhere, but there was far more debate about the potential invasion of privacy of the TSA's new procedures, than the why and how we ended up in a Total Recall-like brand new world. The news are full of Tea-Party folks trying to "take back the country". And it seems that their main source of anger against the current president (who is black but this has nothing to do with it) is that he is a tyrant who is increasing health insurance coverage to the American working class. Also he pursued the Bush policy of saving capitalism by bailing out the banks -- a clear sign that he is an anti-capitalist set on establishing socialism (which I hear is a bad thing). Also he is black, but this has nothing to do with it.

That's what the news cover. That and the fact that a lunatic used a semi-automatic to kill a dozen people or so because he was deranged and having a bad day. The news debate whether this proves the danger of the right-wing's "lock and load" rhetoric, or the dangers of the left's criticism of the "lock and load" rhetoric. There's also a debate about whether Obama's speech asking people to mourn together and get along without blaming each other, wasn't a treasonous attack on the right. That and the fact that he's black, but this has nothing to do with it.

In this context, it's already hard to pay attention to Afghanistan were the US and NATO Coalition are at war. How is one to pay attention to Israel and Palestine?

When circumstances or my own sheer stupidity lead me to breach the topic, I am faced with three types of responses:

1- Absolute total and crass ignorance. I will try to describe what is happening, and how the US are heavily involved, subsidizing and arming the military occupation and terrorizing of a civilian population, and I will get blank stares, occasional gratitude for having brought some "awareness of the larger world", and the kind of nods Stephen Hawkins must get from his aunt Irma when he explains his theory about a negative value of time preceding the Big Bang.

2- Vague interest and concern for "those poor people who are suffering, but what can we do?". This gets compounded with a lot of different strands, from the classic "It's been going on for thousand of years - there's nothing to do about it.", to "Those poor Palestinian people; it's really the fault of politicians -- they never try to help the people.", or "We should remain neutral; it's not our job to intervene" (based on the assumption that arming and funding the most powerful military in the Middle East is somehow "neutral").

3- Finally, the implied or articulated cold rhetoric of "there will be more Palestinian blood spilled if they don't get the point that Israel will have its way."

It's almost refreshing to run into people who really do get what is happening. "The Palestinians have a boot on their face, a gun to their temple, and we'll pull the trigger if they continue being a nuisance." Now, it doesn't always come out as harshly. A lot of this is implied, muted, hidden behind the propaganda tales of Ehud Barak's "generous offer", clear convictions that Israel is a peaceful state, a democracy, faced by rabid fanatics who do not want peace and who want to kill all Jews. I'm serious, it's almost refreshing when someone stops the pretense for just one second and says--as I've heard--"listen, you may be right, and all this peace talk may sound sensible, but at the end of the day we just have to make sure that, when all hell breaks loose, we are left standing and they learn the lesson."

As I said, refreshing... Or something like this.

So, at some point, given the pleasant environment and the option of an interaction that leaves you dumbfounded, frustrated, or fuming, you start going along with the flow. Put a cartoon on your office door. Hang a keffyah over a window frame. Post an article on Facebook. "Like" someone's comment. On occasion go to a movie. Refrain from listening or watching the news on the networks or even on cable. Listen on NPR until the lesser but still present bias makes you sick. Switch to Radio Pacifica and Democracy Now, ill-comforted by the thought that you're listening to a broadcast which most people ignore or would consider "alternative". In this case it is truly "alternative".

So, you spend days without raising the issue with anyone. What's the point?

You grew weary of writing to Congressmen and Senators who reply with ready-made politically correct (aka Israel-first) language and who, for 90% of them, supported the bombing of Lebanese children during the last war, voted resolutions of support to Ariel Sharon, or supported Israel in its massacre of the Gaza population.

Even trying to get a church to pray for peace and examine the US astounding investments in weapons of targeted or massive destruction is like pulling teeth. I think it would be easier to turn the annual Christmas nativity scene into a version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, than to try and show Little Town of Bethlehem, a brilliant movie about a Christian, a Muslim and a Jewish non-violent peace activists.

Once in a while, you run into a Palestinian friend, an Israeli heroic peace activist, someone with conscience and awareness who comforts you, reminds you that this isn't just a bad dream, that it is a reality that gnaws at your soul and joy. Then you return to the office.

For your own sake, you make an effort not to bring up the topic all the time.

One of my clients once asked me to share my experience living in Palestine. I did, with all due sensitivity and civility. She thanked me profusely. A month later Israel sent troops to board a Turkish boat in international water and killed I think nine people on that boat, before towing it to Ashkelon and arresting the international travelers for "illegally entering Israeli territory." Normal, regular, expected insanity. My client asked me why the Turks had not "used the normal channels for providing assistance to Gaza?"

How do you stay polite and respond to this. I think I had a split second choice to make. I could--option 1--smile and move on. Or I could--option 2--yell, "Do you have any idea what you're saying, you f***ing a**hole? Are you so racist and blind to call normal what is happening there? Does not your total ignorance and blindness throw even one grain of sand in the well-oiled propaganda which passes for an opinion in your p*ss-poor s**t of a brain?"

I still have my job, so I'll let you guess which option I took.

In the end, it gets difficult to call or write to my Palestinian friends whom I've left behind. At least when I lived there, I had the impression--the illusion perhaps--that I was at least sharing the struggle and the suffering in some small manner. Now, I can drive to California and back without a checkpoint. And, with all its weaknesses, America is still a place where a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian or a Zoroastrian have the same rights in front of the law. No one has to take a separate road and face hours at a checkpoint to go to work. All people enjoy the same roads. Along with me.

To seal the deal of my alienation from Palestine, I just have to read the newspaper. Even "balanced" reporting is so skewed. You get ecstatic when a journalist suggests that Palestinians are not monsters who eat their children and dream of nothing but 74 virgins. "Waw; this guys is more balanced", you find yourself saying, even if the article suggests that Israel is "helping" the Fayyad government establish rule of law in West Bank cities. Once you've read Charles Krauthammer and Georges Will, anyone not cheering for the death of Palestinian children as a humanitarian necessity sounds like a peacenick.

So, when I think of my friends, Bassam, Nassim, Saheer, Fyrial, all the children, Mahmoud, Abdallah, Wajdi, Hanadi, Ali, Nadira, Bishara, our church community in Jerusalem, my former colleagues, I feel close to those who are in exile because they share the powerlessness of distance. I know not to believe this feeling, but I feel somewhat guilty when I think or talk to my friends in Gaza, Bethlehem, Nablus, or Ramallah. I am literally worlds apart and years apart.

The one thing that raises my spirit is when I hear of Palestinian or Israeli groups' initiatives for peace and reconciliation in the land. I'm so grateful for those Israeli, often Jewish friends, like Other Voice, who have taken a stand for conscience, as well as groups like the Holy Land Trust who are pushing for freedom from any alienation in the land of Palestine, foreign or domestic. The illusion about my own relevance has disappeared, so I have to have faith and support them, as modestly as I can.

Finally, I have tried to participate in a prayer initiative.

I know what the less religious among you will think: prayer is a sign of surrender, weakness and despair.

To which I can only respond: point well taken. Yes to all of the above. Haven't you just read about how I feel here?

So, prayer is surrender. And certainly, if I felt any less powerless and weak, I would dodge prayer. But it's sometimes the only thing which turns despair into hope. The least I can do is strive to keep hope, and with this hope and my words and small actions, try to encourage the peacemakers who do the real world. Try to see them persevere also in hope, with persistence and vision, against all obstacles.

Soumoud and Peace.

Elrig

A Guide to Understanding the Peace Talks by the Most Excellent Uri Avnery

2010-09-04T21:14:00.003+02:00

Today's column by Avnery in Gush Shalom gives as good information as the "real" news. His is an exercise in imagination--reading the thoughts of Netanyahu, Abbas and Obama--but I find it far more insightful than a lot of news coverage.

If I ever get the courage again, I'd like to write the thoughts of Ismael Hanyeh (the Hamas Prime Minister) and the average Jo (average Mohammed I guess) in the West Bank and the average Amal in Khan Younis.

But I don't have the courage today.

Read Avnery:

***

Damage Control

04/09/10

A DUTCH journalist asked me last Wednesday to try and divine the thoughts of Binyamin Netanyahu on his way to Washington.

It seems that she was satisfied with the results, because she asked me to divine the thoughts of Mahmoud Abbas, too.

She must have liked that as well, because then she asked me to do the same for Barack Obama.

Here, then, is what I told her:

NETANYAHU’S THOUGHTS on the way to Washington:

The main thing is to minimize the damage.

Just now, someone asked me how I see our situation in four years time. Four years! I am thinking about what is going to happen in four weeks, when the settlement freeze is due to come to an end!

I feel like an officer on the bridge of the Titanic, who sees the awful iceberg looming up.

These settlers (yes, yes, I know I should call them “inhabitants of Judea and Samaria”) cannot be trifled with. Impossible to reason with them and convince them to keep silent while we look for ways to get around the freeze.

Arik [Sharon] tried. When he planned the separation, he told the settlers: let’s sacrifice a dozen small settlements in order to save the hundreds of others. Let’s amputate a little finger in order to save the entire body. It didn’t help. The settlers decided to fight for every single settlement.

Last year, when we started to discuss the freeze, I fought like a lion to limit it to ten months, instead of a year, as Obama had demanded. We both understood the difference: the ten months come to an end at the height of the American election campaign. A year would have finished after the elections. I thought that if the freeze came to an end in September, Obama wouldn’t dare to press me to extend the moratorium. Jewish votes and Jewish money would make the difference.

I grew up in the States. I know how things work. AIPAC rules Congress. The politicians are afraid of us all the time, and even more so at election time. They know very well that if they don’t support Israel, they will be kicked out.

But now we have a mess. Obama wants at all costs to do something that can be presented to the voters as a great achievement. But Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] refuses to negotiate if we restart building in the settlements. So Obama pressures me to continue with the moratorium. If I agree, my coalition will break up. I have not forgotten that last time, in 1999, it was not the left that toppled my government, but my rightist partners.

For sure, Obama and his people will come up with all sorts of compromise solutions. A “symbolic” freeze that will not really prevent us from building. Or a “symbolic” lifting of the moratorium, that will really prevent building. Or something on the lines of the Meridor proposal. That’s a trial balloon I asked Dan to float in his name. [Minister without portfolio Dan Meridor proposed building only in the large settlement blocs that the government intends to annex to Israel.] But the settlers don’t agree to that either.

So what to do? I don’t know. I must rely on my talent for improvisation and get round this obstacle. But even if I succeed in postponing this matter until after September 26, it may blow up then. The main thing is to make sure the blame falls on Abu Mazen.

And peace? Don’t make me laugh. I have no time for such foolishness. Clearly, the maximum I can offer does not even come close to the minimum they can accept. What, I should partition Jerusalem? I should dismantle the hundreds of settlements and outposts? I should give up the Jordan valley? I should agree to the return of even one refugee? Even if I wanted to – and I most decidedly do not! – I would be unable to do it. What, to break up the good coalition I have now and be dependent on that dreadful woman?

I shall not say so, of course. On the contrary, I shall shower them with highfalutin’ words. I shall tell Abu Mazen that he is my partner. I shall talk about painful concessions. I shall sell myself as the New Netanyahu. (My God, how many times must I become the New Netanyahu?)

The main thing is to get safely out of this mess and preserve the status quo. The status quo is the best of all worlds.

ABBAS’ THOUGHTS on the way to Washington:

The main thing is to minimize the damage.

Nothing good can come out of this. That’s clear. But the blame must not fall on us.

I am sure that Abu Amar [Yasser Arafat] thought the same, when in 2000 he was dragged to Camp David. He knew that Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton would form a nutcracker, with him as the nut to be cracked.

OK, Obama is no Clinton. I trust him. He does indeed want to make peace. But can he? Until now, every time he tried, he gave in to Netanyahu in the end. Now he must compel Netanyahu to extend the settlement freeze. Can he do it?

I can’t retreat from this demand. Hamas, may Allah punish them, is breathing down my neck. They are already cursing me for going to Washington at all (as if I had a choice). It would be ridiculous to negotiate while the settlements are being enlarged. As that young fellow, Michael Tarazi, so aptly put it: “It’s like talking about dividing a pizza while they [the Israelis] are eating the pizza.”

Hamas is trying to undercut me in every possible way. The killing of the four settlers near al-Khalil [Hebron] was designed to hurt the negotiations. It’s really amazing how Hamas and the settlers are cooperating in trying to stop the peace process. But the incident also has a good side: the entire world has now seen what can be expected if I fail.

Hamas says that I serve the Americans. What do they propose as an alternative? To renew the armed struggle? They are even afraid to launch their Qassams! The attacks have achieved nothing. International public opinion cannot be relied on, either. Our only option is to rely on Obama. When they understand in Washington that the conflict hurts their own national interests, as this what’s-his-name general [David Petraeus] has said, they will impose peace on the Israelis.

Abu Amar fixed the parameters, and no one among us can accept less: a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, the June 4, 1967 borders, limited 1:1 swaps of territory, the removal of all settlements from our territory, an agreed solution of the refugee problem with a symbolic return of some tens of thousands. I am ready to accept an international force on our land, but definitely not an Israeli armed presence. If I get such an agreement, Hamas will have no alternative but to go along with it. Palestinian public opinion will force them to.

They, too, have read the results of Dr. Nabil Kukali’s poll this week: an unequivocal 2:1 majority of Palestinians support the two-state solution.

Can one rely on Obama? They say that after the elections in November he will be free of Jewish pressure. But then he will already start to think about the presidential election in two years’ time. Only if he is reelected – and I am not at all sure that this will happen – will he be able to act without fear of AIPAC.

In the meantime, we must hold on. That is the main thing: to hold on and wait for time to do its work.

OBAMA’S THOUGHTS on the eve of the conference:

The main thing is to minimize the damage.

Before my election, I believed that one could influence people with logic. After all, peace is essential for the Israelis as much as for the Palestinians. What chance has Israel, if within a few years the entire Arab world falls into the hands of the extreme Islamists? And what chance will moderate Palestinians have? Don’t they understand this? They drive me crazy.

[Henry] Kissinger said that Israel has no foreign policy, only domestic policy. That is true also for the Palestinians, and – alas – for us Americans, too. Domestic politics is dominant everywhere.

The economy is in a mess. The situation in Afghanistan is as bad as possible. (What the hell got into me during the election campaign, when I promised to go on with this war?!) The crackpots of the Tea Party are gathering momentum. I suspect that the Jewish lobby is secretly helping them. Who is running the campaign about me not having been born in the United States? A Jewish Israeli woman. And the campaign about me being a Muslim? Another Jewish woman. They want to bring me down. And why? Because I want to make peace, which is in Israel’s best interest!

Now the main thing is to get through the elections in November without too heavy losses. As I told Rahm [Emanuel], at this point in time we must suck up to the Jews. That’s why I appeased again and again that repugnant guy, Netanyahu. Now we must find some compromise about the settlement moratorium.

My God, here we are, leaders who are responsible for the fate of nations, busy with nonsense like the freeze, instead of concentrating on forging a peace that will save the lives of thousands and tens of thousands!

The main thing is to get September 26 behind us, when the moratorium comes to an end, and then the November 2 elections. After that, God knows. Perhaps I shall succeed, after all, in creating a situation which will allow me to present my own peace plan and impose it on them. Ever so softly, of course.

What the hell, aren’t I the goddam President of the United States of America?

Interesting Notes from a Young World Traveler

2010-07-05T07:01:00.003+03:00

Well, truth be told, I'm pretty dormant these days in terms of updating this blog.

Why don't you have a look at this young lady traveling the holy land and sharing her thoughts about peace, humanity and it inner contradictions.

Click here to read her last blog entry.

Click here to read my favorite entry so far: Dancin' in the Street.

[I discovered she links to presumably a friend of hers - which presents a much more "technical" appreciation of the situation in the land. Worth reading: Hydro-Terrorism.]

I'll get back to writing some time.

Peace,

Elrig

Picture Source:

http://www.elca.org/~/media/Images/Our%20Faith%20In%20Action/Justice/Peace%20Not%20Walls/Trips/SC%20WI/Wall.jpg

A Simple Perhaps Healing Jewish Testimony

2010-06-24T01:56:00.003+03:00

Thanks to Sami Awad for pointing out to this resource. Mark Braverman was apparently visiting Holy Land Trust this week. I was stunned by the simplicity and veracity of his short video testimonial.

Robert Fisk: Western leaders are too cowardly to help save lives [Robert Fisk - The Independent]

2010-06-01T17:17:00.002+03:00

I am foaming at the mouth - so I can't articulate words. Here's a column from Robert Fisk in the Independent.

Elrig

*********

Western leaders are too cowardly to help save lives
Has Israel lost it? Can the Gaza War of 2008-09 (1,300 dead) and the Lebanon War of 2006 (1,006 dead) and all the other wars and now yesterday's killings mean that the world will no longer accept Israel's rule?
Don't hold your breath.
You only have to read the gutless White House statement – that the Obama administration was "working to understand the circumstances surrounding the tragedy". Not a single word of condemnation. And that's it. Nine dead. Just another statistic to add to the Middle East's toll.
But it's not.
In 1948, our politicians – the Americans and the British – staged an airlift into Berlin. A starving population (our enemies only three years before) were surrounded by a brutal army, the Russians, who had erected a fence around the city. The Berlin airlift was one of the great moments in the Cold War. Our soldiers and our airmen risked and gave their lives for these starving Germans.
Incredible, isn't it? In those days, our politicians took decisions; our leaders took decisions to save lives. Messrs Attlee and Truman knew that Berlin was important in moral and human as well as political terms.
And today? It was people – ordinary people, Europeans, Americans, Holocaust survivors – yes, for heaven's sake, survivors of the Nazis – who took the decision to go to Gaza because their politicians and their statesmen had failed them.
Where were our politicians yesterday? Well, we had the ridiculous Ban Ki-moon, the White House's pathetic statement, and dear Mr Blair's expression of "deep regret and shock at the tragic loss of life". Where was Mr Cameron? Where was Mr Clegg?
Back in 1948, they would have ignored the Palestinians, of course. It is, after all, a terrible irony that the Berlin airlift coincided with the destruction of Arab Palestine.
But it is a fact that it is ordinary people, activists, call them what you will, who now take decisions to change events. Our politicians are too spineless, too cowardly, to take decisions to save lives. Why is this? Why didn't we hear courageous words from Messrs Cameron and Clegg yesterday?
For it is a fact, is it not, that had Europeans (and yes, the Turks are Europeans, are they not?) been gunned down by any other Middle Eastern army (which the Israeli army is, is it not?) there would have been waves of outrage.
And what does this say about Israel? Isn't Turkey a close ally of Israel? Is this what the Turks can expect? Now Israel's only ally in the Muslim world is saying this is a massacre – and Israel doesn't seem to care.
But then Israel didn't care when London and Canberra expelled Israeli diplomats after British and Australian passports were forged and then provided to the assassins of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. It didn't care when it announced new Jewish settlements on occupied land in East Jerusalem while Joe Biden, the Vice-President of its erstwhile ally, the United States, was in town. Why should Israel care now?
How did we get to this point? Maybe because we all grew used to seeing the Israelis kill Arabs, maybe the Israelis grew used to killing Arabs. Now they kill Turks. Or Europeans. Something has changed in the Middle East these past 24 hours – and the Israelis (given their extraordinarily stupid political response to the slaughter) don't seem to have grasped what has happened. The world is tired of these outrages. Only the politicians are silent.
Diplomatic storms
*Goldstone report, November 2009
Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 with the declared aim of halting rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the three-week conflict along with 13 Israelis. The South African jurist Richard Goldstone's report into the conflict found both Israel and the Hamas movement that controls the Strip guilty of war crimes, but focused more on Israel. Israel refused to co-operate with Goldstone and described his report as distorted and biased.
* The al-Mabhouh assassination, January-May 2010
Britain and Australia expelled Israeli diplomats after concluding that Israel had forged British and Australian passports used by assassins to kill a Hamas commander in Dubai. Israel has neither confirmed or denied a role in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in his hotel room in January. Britain said such misuse of British passports was "intolerable". Australia said it was not the behaviour of "a nation with whom we have had such a close, friendly and supportive relationship".
*Settlements row, March 2010
Israel announces plans, during visit by US Vice-President Joe Biden, to build 1,600 homes for Jews in an area of the West Bank annexed by Israel. The announcement triggers unusually harsh criticism from the United States. Washington said it damaged its efforts to revive the Middle East peace process. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the project was an insult. Netanyahu said he was blindsided by planning bureaucrats and apologised to Biden. Today's meeting with Barack Obama at the White House, called off by Mr Netanyahu so he could return home to deal with the flotilla crisis, was supposed to be another part of the fence-mending between the two allies.
*Nuclear secrecy, May 2010
Israel, widely assumed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, has faced renewed calls to sign a global treaty barring the spread of atomic weapons. Signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) last week called for a conference in 2012 to discuss banning weapons of mass destruction throughout the Middle East. The declaration was adopted by all 189 parties to the NPT, including the US. It urged Israel to sign the NPT and put its nuclear facilities under UN safeguards.

Meanwhile Back at the [Palestinian] Ranch - Israeli Control and Eviction Continues

2010-04-13T19:36:00.005+03:00

I've often written that the status quo is not a status quo.

That "freezing" settlements or not freezing settlements is of little consequences.

The heart of the issue is, does Israel have the right and the justification to consider Palestinian Arabs as theirs to be controlled, dominated, told what to do, who to see, where to live, where to go and not go. Basically, as Israel conquers more land, it demands "security" conditions which only those that people with rights can ask of people without rights, and which are only a thin veil for continued control and ultimately expulsion.

In the Torah, after Joshua conquered the Holy Land, foreigners were allowed to live if they accepted the status of wood cutters. I don't know what a "wood cutter" is, but I suspect it's not the same thing as a "Landlord." I actually have come to think that -- although it's not repeated often in polite conversation -- a number of Israeli Jews and their Christian Fundamentalist supporters actually are pretty much in line with that thinking. "We do OK with the Palestinians if they know they have been conquered, if they know their place." Others are more straightforward and advocate loud and clear for "transfer", aka expulsion and accelerated ethnic cleansing. (I once perused a nice glossy brochure which left me absolutely speechless. My Hasidim friend had shared it with me to explain how humane their plans to transfer were!)

Anyway, last week Israel took one more measure -- poorly understood in the US -- to increase pressure, control and prepare for the next step. As the world's leaders came to DC for the Nuclear Summit, there was a full page ad by an Israeli group portraying all the villains here to justify its warmongering (from Nasrallah to Ahmedinejad). And 2 pages later, a small text blurb referred to this new Israeli rule on the life of those it is not supposed to administer, those who live in the Palestinian Territories. Ironic how visible one was--the possible terror of tomorrow; and how invisible the other was--the actual terror of today. Except the Transgressor, just re-equipped with more US weapons for free, prefers to be painted as Eternal Victim.

Read 'Ethnic Cleansing by Another Name' by Yousef Mounayyer to have a clear and paused treatment of this new rule applied by Israel to people living inside Palestine.

There is no status quo. There is conquest and occupation and oppression and dispossession.

Paid by US tax dollars.

The US has taken sides, remember this.

Elrig

An Ordinary Palm Sunday

2010-03-31T19:19:00.006+03:00

On that same day, one of my good friends from the US was making his first visit to Israel and Jerusalem, discovering the city, its history, architecture, its smells and colors.

Funny thing -- did I say "funny"?--because he's Jewish, he could apply for citizenship and move to Jerusalem tomorrow. Birthright, some call it.

Those people--on the video below--are from the land; have been for generations.

On Palm Sunday, they tried to walk from the Church of the Nativity (Bethlehem) to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (Jerusalem).

To my US friends, please tell me: how do you feel about paying taxes to turn Bethlehem into a prison?

Please watch. Listen to the comments after the first 4 minutes.

Elrig

Israeli Activist: There is a New Left in Town

2010-03-12T01:14:00.005+02:00

There's a moment in history, when young idealists step up. The old crowd smirks - "kids! what do they know? they don't understand the real world." Then the smirk turns to a frown. Then the frown turns to a silent scream. Then the old guard walks away in silence with head bowed in embarrassment and shame. The real world has changed.

This is the first time I hear of Sara Benninga -- an Israeli activist, but she sounds like other young idealists I know. And she's speaking loud and clear. [Text of her speech in Sheikh Jarah pasted below. From coteret.com.]

Mazel Tov Sara. This old guy is smiling at you and your friends.

Elrig

******

Sheikh Jarrah, March 6, 2010

There is a new Left in town!

There is a new Left and it is a Left that is not satisfied with peace talks. It is a Left that fights!

There is a new Left that knows there are things you must fight against even when they are identified with the State and even when they enjoy the protection of the law!

There is a new Left that knows that this fight will not be won on paper but on the ground, in the hills, in the vineyards and in the olive groves.

There is a new Left that is not afraid of the settlers, even when they descend on it from the hilltops, blindfolded and armed.

This Left does not surrender to the police’s political repression, and does not care what they write about it in Maariv. There is a new Left in town!

This Left does not want to be loved, does not fantasize about town squares and does not bask in the memory of the 400,000. This Left is a partnership between Palestinians, who understand the occupation will not be defeated by missiles and bombs, and Israelis, who understand that the Palestinian struggle is their struggle.

The new Left joins hands with Palestinians in a cloud of tear gas at Bil’in and gets beaten up together with them by settlers at the South Hebron Mountain.

This Left stands by refugees and labor migrants in Tel Aviv and fights against the Wisconsin Plan.

The new Left is us — all of us!

Everyone who came here tonight. Everyone who dared cross the imaginary line between West and East Jerusalem, despite the threats and intimidation.

We are all the new Left that is emerging in Israel and Palestine.

We are not fighting for a peace agreement. We are fighting for justice. But we believe that injustice is the main obstacle to peace.

There will be no peace until the Ghawi and Hanoun and al-Kurd families return to their homes. Because peace does not grow on a soil of discrimination, oppression and theft.

There is a new Left in town and that Left stands with the people of Sheikh Jarrah tonight and will continue standing with them until justice defeats fanaticism.

But there is also a new Right in town.

A Right awash with fanaticism and racism that seduces the masses with nationalist rhetoric.

The new Right does not care about the welfare and well-being of human beings. The new Right only cares about ethnic, tribal, Liebermanistic loyalty.

For the new Right charity begins at home only for Jews. And what makes a person a Jew is the fact that they are not an Arab.

The new Right has nothing to offer except for endless war.

The new Right is the empty wagon that went off the rails: religious and secular Jews who have nothing but hatred of the other: the Arabs the refugee, the leftist.

That new Right manufactures the deluded settlers, because of whom we are demonstrating tonight.

Those settlers hate Jerusalem. They do not love the Jewish people and they do not love mankind. They love only themselves.

Among the settlers there are many with whom we should speak. But the settlers of Sheikh Jarrah, who sing canticles to Baruch Goldstein — they must be defeated.

The new Right created Nir Barkat. A technocrat who does not understand Jerusalem and does not care about Jerusalem. A mayor who uses administrative terror against the residents of East Jerusalem and neglects the residents of West Jerusalem, while reciting endless clichés.

If Jerusalem is a powder keg, the match that might light it is called Nir Barkat.

But we are not afraid of Barkat, nor are we afraid of the settlers, nor are we afraid of Lieberman.

We will keep coming to Sheikh Jarrah and to every place where justice is trampled by the forces of occupation and oppression.

Look around you. We are not as few as we thought! And we will win!

Reposting: Fear of Peace Will be the Death of Israel"

2010-02-03T17:34:00.005+02:00

A thought provoking piece by Bradley Burston in today's Haaretz.
Conclusion from the Israeli Defense Minister?

"The lack of a solution to the problem of border demarcation within the historic Land of Israel - and not an Iranian bomb - is the most serious threat to Israel's future."

No comments.

[For explanations about Sheikh Jarrah, the neighborhood of Jerusalem being forcibly ethnically transformed, see a report by Tony Davis, with pictures and maps, or a blog by Marijke Peters.]

Elrig
Picture source - Palestine Think Tank.

*******

Fear of Peace will be the Death of Israel - Bradley Burston

SHEIKH JARRAH, Jerusalem - As the grandson of anarchists, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for fanatics. Expressions of extremism, and passionately reasoned, exquisitely twisted world views make me feel, how shall I put this, at home.

So it was with a certain relish that I approached the cover story of a recent issue of Commentary, "The Deadly Price of Pursuing Peace," written as it was by a talented colleague and friend, Evelyn Gordon.

The thrust of the piece, which Commentary Editor John Podhoretz understandably calls "groundbreaking," is that Israel's international standing has plummeted to an unprecedented low - and the number of Palestinians killed by Israel has concurrently soared - specifically because of Israel's having done much too much for peace.

"The answer is unpleasant to contemplate, but the mounting evidence makes it inescapable," she writes. "It was Israel's very willingness to make concessions for the sake of peace that has produced its current near-pariah status."

The essay has the seamless, compellingly elegant, hyper-lucid, parallel universe logic of a hallucination - or a settlement rooted in the craw of the West Bank. Until I read it, it was difficult for me to comprehend the current runaway-freight recklessness of Israeli authorities and a certain segment of the hard right, bolstered by shady funding from abroad.

It was hard to fathom why Israeli police in this quiet hollow of the Arab half of Jerusalem, would choose to openly flout and violate the rulings of an Israeli court. I was unable to grasp why they would manhandle and arrest non-violent demonstrators - among them the executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel - for protesting the official expulsion from their homes of more than two dozen Palestinian families here, driven out and into the street, so that subsidized and sheltered settlers could move in.

It was beyond my understanding why an Israeli government which views the idea of a Palestinian Right of Return as tantamount to annihilation of the Jewish state, would set a legal precedent that paves the way for just such a right.

Just as I was clueless as to why the Knesset was to vote Wednesday on a bill that would make aiding asylum seekers fleeing African genocide, granting them shelter, medical care, food, a crime subject to up to 20 years in prison.

Or why there were vigorous new campaigns to increase gender segregation at the Western Wall and on public buses, and why women have been arrested and interrogated on suspicion of having worn prayer shawls while praying on their side of a barrier raised so that they would no longer be able to watch their sons' bar mitzvah on the mens' side.

Or why a sudden and ferocious campaign against human rights organizations and charity work agencies in Israel is coinciding with new human rights outrages against Palestinians and foreigners, some of them unable to leave, others forced to.

It was not until I saw the title of the Commentary piece that it all made sense.

The right is terrified of peace. And, in the end, the right's fear of peace will be the death of Israel.

They are afraid of peace, in part, because it threatens the core of what has come to replace other values as the goal of Judaism: permanent settlement of the West Bank. But that is only a part of it.

They are afraid of peace because they are afraid of the world. They dismiss fellow Jews who want to see a two-state solution - a majority of Israelis - as unrealistic, as living in a bubble. The name of the bubble these moderates live in, however, is planet Earth.

The right, meanwhile, wants to wall off Israel as the world's last remaining legally mandated Jewish ghetto. A place where all the rules are different, exit and entry, citizenship and human rights, because the residents within are Jews. A place where non-Jews, dehumanized as congenital Jew-haters, are rendered invisible. A place which, if suffocating and insufferable, still seems safer than the scary world outside.

A place which, because of its walls and its politics and its cowardice, is losing its ability to function as a part of the world, reveling in cheap-shot humiliations of key foreign ambassadors, deliriously proud of its sense that of all the world, including most of its Jews and Israelis - only the right sees the real truth.

This braid of thought was venomously endorsed this week both by an uncharacteristically Kahane-sounding Alan Dershowitz, and the obscenely infantile Im Tirtzu movement. According to them, where Cast Lead was concerned, the real war criminals are Richard Goldstone and Naomi Chazan - two people who are open about their love of Israel, and who have worked their whole adult lives for its well-being.

The fears of the right are not mere devices of rhetoric. The risks of making peace are real. Every bit as real as the risks of failing to make peace.

It all comes down to belief. It comes down to the kind of country the believer wants Israel to be. And for that reason, there is a civil war going on for Israel's soul.

It will not be weaponry that decides this war, but courage. People who care about the direction that Israel is moving, and whose watchword is moderation, would do well to choose one facet of the fight, and join. One place to start, is to support the New Israel Fund and the groups it supports.

Another place to start is this one. At the weekend, challenging the threats of rightist thugs and law-scorning police, the weekly demonstration on behalf of the Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah doubled in size. The police backed down on their vow to break up the protest, and the Kahanists barely showed.

If non-violent peace activism scares the right to this extent, there must be a great deal of power in it.

After all, most Israelis can sense that if peace is to be the enemy, more dangerous even than the threat of war, this is one doomed ghetto.

Things have reached such a devastating point, that for the first time in recent memory, even Ehud Barak is beginning to get it: "The simple truth is, if there is one state" including Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, "it will have to be either binational or undemocratic," Barak told the Herzliya Conference Tuesday.

"If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state."

The fear of peace has left Israel as a country which is prepared for nuclear warfare but not for non-violent protest on behalf of Palestinians. The fear of peace, and the blackmail of the right on behalf of settlement, has contorted Israel into a body which, unable to countenance the perils of treating the sickness of occupation, will eventually be killed by it.

Israel's defense minister, for one, is convinced : "The lack of a solution to the problem of border demarcation within the historic Land of Israel - and not an Iranian bomb - is the most serious threat to Israel's future."

Les mots de la propagande.

2010-01-15T19:41:00.000+02:00

Alain Gresh du Monde Diplomatique présente un résumé du manuel de communication pour les blogueurs et internautes recrutés par Israel pour avancer sa propagande. Blog très instructif à lire ici.

C'est vraiment the B-A-Ba de la propagande. Mais ça marche.

Le manuel "The Israel's Project 2009. Global Language Dictionary" peut être téléchargé également.

Elrig

In English - click here.

Words of Propaganda

2010-01-15T19:35:00.004+02:00

Read about the Propaganda 101 Manual for bloggers and Internet debaters put together by the "Israel Project'. Very educational.

Dan Ephron writes a short analysis, which you can access here.

The manual itself can be downloaded here. You will find in it such innate wisdom as:

“The arguments about demolishing Palestinian homes because they are not within the Jerusalem building code tested SO badly that we are not even going to dignify them with a Word’s That Don’t Work box. Americans hate their own local planning boards for telling them where they can and can’t put swimming pools or build fences. You don’t need to import that animosity into your own credibility issues. Worse yet, talking about ‘violations of building codes’ when a TV station is showing the removal of a house that looks older than the modern state of Israel is simply catastrophic.”

Guess we all have problems eh?

Elrig

EN FRANCAIS - Cliquez ici.

Israeli Army attack on Village of At-tuwani

2010-01-08T19:51:00.002+02:00

Samuel Nichols writes a direct witness of the events here.

See US Campaign update and call to action here.

Remember, today the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not in the news.
"Nothing" is happening.
Tomorrow, we'll wonder again why people are so hungry and what's wrong with them.
We'll have to wonder because "nothing" happened today.

"There was an army invasion in the village last night, and today there was this. It was the ugliest thing I have ever seen, yet that's a superlative, but so be it. It was evil I tell you, evil. Pushing old women, throwing tear gas at kids, concussion grenades at pregnant women, throwing men to the ground, hitting them in the back with rifles, breaking cameras. It was like a mob of angry "professional"-soldier-thugs. The soldiers were holding each other back from doing worse things. Why did they do this? Because Palestinians were trying to feed their goddamn sheep. Unbelievable.
This occupation has to end, it has to. People can't endure this forever."
Sam Nichols--

Elrig - voice in the desert? Cassandra?

Watch a little recent history about At-tuwani.

End of 2009 - Message from Other Voice in Sderot

2009-12-31T16:46:00.002+02:00

Concluding the year with a voice of sanity from good friends in Sderot.
Shalom - Salam
Elrig

*** Their Lives = Our Lives ***

We, residents of the Sderot/surrounding Gaza region, wish to live with peace and quiet.

Our neighbors in Gaza, wish to live with peace in quiet.

Life for them = Life for us!

We, members of Other Voice, call for an end to the siege, an end to the collective punishment, that is harming innocent people. We call for the co-creation of good neighborly relations, that are built on mutual respect and non violence.

Life for us = Life for them!

Visit our website - www.othervoice.org - and share your support for ending the siege on Gaza.

Please forward this message to your email contacts

אנו, תושבי האזור, רוצים לחיות בשלום ובשקט.

שכנינו בעזה רוצים לחיות בשלום ובשקט.

חיים להם = חיים לנו!

אנו, חברי 'קול אחר', קוראים להסרת המצור על עזה ולהפסקת הענישה הקולקטיבית הפוגעת באזרחים חפים מפשע. אנו קוראים לבנייה משותפת של יחסי שכנות תקינים, המבוססים על כבוד הדדי ואי אלימות.

חיים לנו = חיים להם!!

תבקרו באתר שלנו - www.othervoice.org - והביעו תמיכה בהסרת המצור.

אנא - תשלחו מייל זה הלאה לרשימות התפוצות שלכם!

The Gaza I know (Reposting Nancy Murray)

2009-12-21T22:58:00.003+02:00

I have nothing to add - just pain and sorrow.
O yes, and shame.
Our church has this ongoing Christmas tree decoration throughout Advent. I went and placed Gaza on the tree. We, the noble "we" of the intelligent and powerful human beings, regularly decide that some people are a little less than people, a little less deserving of rights than others. Once the Blacks. Another time, another place, the Jews. Many times the "Natives." Today - Gazans, by all means.
Salam, ya salam!
Elrig

***

For most Americans, the Gaza Strip is, at best, unknown territory. At worst, it is a hostile land whose "terrorist infrastructure" must be dismantled, no matter what the cost to its million and a half residents.

The Gaza I have been visiting for the past twenty-one years bears little relation to the dehumanizing imagery to which it has been reduced by the mainstream media. The Gaza I know is home to friends and strangers who are as welcoming and humane as they are resilient and determined to achieve their freedom. They have maintained their humanity despite enduring a brutal forty-two-year-old Israeli occupation that has cost them the destruction of their homes, land, economy and future and the loss of more than 4,000 lives since the dawn of the twenty-first century.

For the past two and a half years, this spit of sand--just twenty-five miles long and a few miles wide--has been virtually a closed prison. Since June 2007 Israel's blockade has prevented the entry of all but a handful of basic items, and the exit of patients who urgently need medical treatment and students with scholarships to study abroad. Then, a year ago, came the "shock and awe" of Israel's "Operation Cast Lead," intended as a knockout blow not just to the crude rockets fired from Gaza but to its life-sustaining infrastructure and the will of its people to resist.

A month ago, I finally obtained permission from the Israeli military to cross into Gaza to visit therapy programs for traumatized children. Half of the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million inhabitants are children, and many have not emotionally recovered from Israel's military attacks.

And how could they? They are still living in the ruins of war. Blasted buildings tilt dangerously over streets. Unexploded ordnance lurks beneath concrete rubble. Israel, with the blessing of the United States, has prevented reconstruction materials and heavy machinery from entering the Gaza Strip - and just about everything else.

Aid agencies have at the ready the equipment needed to fix the destroyed sewage and waste water systems - but it is not permitted to enter. And so each day up to 80 million liters of untreated sewage spill into the Mediterranean and leach into the aquifer. Thousands of babies have "blue baby syndrome" and risk dying of nitrate poisoning; fish are dead; and the long sandy beaches--which had been the sole place of recreation in one of the most densely crowded places on earth --are now off limits.

The hundreds of dangerous, hand-hewn tunnels into Egypt through which Gazans haul bottled water, food and other supplies are at present a lifeline. So it is with a sinking heart that I read that Egypt, at the urging of Israel and the United States, is installing metal sheets under the ground to "curb smuggling."

I wonder how the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, John Ging, is digesting this latest calamitous news. When I met with him in November he told me that hope for tomorrow is just about gone. "We have run out of words to describe how bad it is here. Things are moving rapidly in the wrong direction. The best help we can get is to lift the siege and to begin to deal with human beings on a humane and legal basis."

In late December, to mark the first anniversary of Israel's war, some 1,200 internationals from forty-two countries will be doing what they can to get things moving in the right direction. They intend to enter Gaza from Egypt to participate in the Gaza Freedom March. Marchers include an 85-year-old American Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein, the acclaimed writer Alice Walker, civil rights movement veterans, Ronnie Kasrils, a leader of the South African liberation struggle and a substantial delegation from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).

Invoking the spirit of Gandhi's Salt March and the Civil Rights Movement, these internationals of conscience will encounter the Gaza I know - the vibrant civil society of children, students and teachers, refugee groups and women's organizations, doctors and therapists, farmers and fishermen, musicians and dancers who are planning a tremendous welcome.

Together they will take part in cultural and solidarity activities. Then, on New Year's Eve, they will call for an end to the blockade in a massive march toward the Erez Crossing with Israel, as Israeli solidarity marchers converge on the other side.

Simultaneously, around the globe there will be "end the siege" actions demanding that the prison doors be opened. The lives of Gaza's babies hang in the balance.

Nancy Murray - The Nation 12/21/2009

To find out more, go to Gaza Freedom March .
Later this month thousands of international solidarity activists will take part in the Gaza Freedom March to end Israel's blockade. They deserve your support.

Nancy Murray is president of the Gaza Mental Health Foundation and a member of the international steering committee of the Gaza Freedom March.

Understanding East Jerusalem Policies of Israel

2009-12-17T02:26:00.004+02:00

I wrote about a year ago (see here) that security was not the #1 concern of Israel. To understand Israel's policies, you need to first consider its demographic and then its geographic ambitions, which trump everything. Everything.

The video embedded below is well worth watching - it's a 20 minute documentary explaining the "Green Rule" of the municipality of Jerusalem--a totally out-of-thin air law, which allows to keep the pressure on Palestinians and force them out of their land. Sometimes indirectly, sometimes directly by way of home demolition.

In the meantime, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports today that:

House demolitions and displacement affecting East Jerusalem continue to be of concern. Israeli settler organizations intensify their efforts to take control of land and property in East Jerusalem and establish a sustained presence in Palestinian neighbourhoods. The Jerusalem municipality approve the construction of 900 new housing units in Gilo settlement. In Gaza, as winter approaches there is increasing concern for the families whose homes were destroyed or damaged as a result of the ?Cast Lead? military offensive. The continuing blockade has resulted in negligible reconstruction and repair, as essential materials continue to be denied entry: thousands of families continue to live in homes without window panes or solar panels due to the ban on the import of glass.

Watch the video and pass it forward.

Elrig
ps: thanks to David and Nassim for pointing out the material in this entry.

Green Zone from Nimrod Zin on Vimeo.

Israeli and Arab Youths - Common Ground. Common Sense! Peace!

2009-11-23T19:44:00.000+02:00

From Common Grounds.

Jeff Halper - a great Israeli and great man - on Palestinian Statehood

2009-11-21T16:06:00.005+02:00

This article by Jeff Halper, from the Network of Spiritual Progressives. Go to this link, or read below.

And check out the Palestinian-Israeli youth on the music video I posted yesterday.

Elrig
*************************
Why Palestinians Might Declare Statehood
by Jeff Halper
OK, so the Palestinian Authority will not unilaterally declare an independent Palestinian state. In fact, the whole issue seems a misunderstanding. Concerned that the US has backtracked on a two state solution based on the 1967 borders and that Israel was getting the world used to the “fact” that the settlements and the Wall, rather than ’67 borders, now defined the parameters of a future Palestinian state (on only 15% of historic Palestine), the PA simply wanted the Security Council to reaffirm that principle. “What should we do while the Israeli government is busy with fait accompli actions,” asked Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, “but to turn to the Security Council to preserve the option of two states? We want the Security Council to declare that the two-state solution is the only option and that it would recognize the state of Palestine on the '67 borders and to live side by side with the State of Israel.” The PA hoped, perhaps even expected, that the US would go along. Through an escalation of rhetoric this simple clarification became the basis of speculation, against the background of President Mahmoud Abbas’s threatened resignation, that the Palestinians would attempt to force the hand of the international community and announce the establishment of their state.

But what if it did happen? What if Abbas would actually announce the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, ask the nations of the world to recognize it and then apply for admission to the UN?

The Palestinians are caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock is the steadily tightening noose that is the Israeli occupation. Israel’s concentration of settlers in strategic blocs in East Jerusalem and the West Bank destroy any Palestinian territorial contiguity, and do so even if Israel removes the dozens of tiny settlements within the densely populated Palestinian “cantons.” Those settlement blocs have already been incorporated into Israel proper through the construction of some twenty-nine major Israeli highways, meaning that Israel has expanded organically from the 1967 Green Line to the border with Jordan. Even if the Separation Barrier is dismantled, the entire country has been fundamentally reconfigured; there is simply no more room for a coherent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state. And the suffering grows progressively worse. Hostile, callous Israeli soldiers continue to man hundreds of checkpoints throughout the Occupied Territories – checkpoints that, when incorporated into the Wall, take the form of massive terminals in which tens of thousands of men, women and children are subjected to long hours of waiting and humiliating treatment. The pace of house demolitions increases daily; 24,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel in the Occupied Territories since 1967, while Israeli courts have forced at least another 10,000 homeowners to demolish their own homes under threats of unbearable fines. The Palestinian presence in Jerusalem, the heart of Palestinian religious, cultural, political and economic life, is rapidly disappearing under a concentrated policy of settlement, expulsion of Palestinian residents from their homes and land expropriation intended, as Israel declares explicitly, to “judaize” the city. Without a meaningful Palestinian presence in Jerusalem there is no possibility of peace; indeed, no possibility to reconciliation between the West, which is seen as enabling Israeli expansion, and the entire Muslim world.

The hard place is the unlikelihood that negotiations with Israel, supported by the US and a compliant Europe, will go anywhere. The Oslo Process, which lasted seven years (1993-2000), saw Israel’s settlement population double to 400,000, while Palestinians found themselves imprisoned in Areas A and B – some 70 islands on but 40% of the West Bank – and that largest prison of all, Gaza. Oslo was followed by the Road Map which was followed by the Annapolis Process,” all leading to the present impasse in which the Obama Administration has announced it has no plan. “Peace process” or not, negotiations or not, stalemate or not, Israel has never been prohibited from continuing to establish “facts on the ground” intended to foreclose a truly sovereign Palestinian state.

For the most part the Palestinian people have resisted. Two intifadas (four if you include the 1936-39 revolt against British immigration policies and the inability of the Palestinian majority to make its voice heard, and the 1948 war), plus ongoing armed struggle and thousands of non-violent actions from rebuilding demolished homes to the Beit Sahour tax strike. Occasionally the Palestinian leadership took a bold initiative, as when it succeeded in bringing Israel’s construction of the Separation Barrier before the International Court of Justice and, subsequently, the UN General Assembly, where it was condemned by both bodies. The current campaign of boycott, divestment and sanction (BDS) against key Israeli pillars of the Occupation and companies profiting from it represents yet another pro-active initiative of Palestinian civil society.

And then there’s the idea of unilaterally declaring a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, which the Palestinian Authority has floated, intentionally or not, over the past few weeks. It’s not a new idea. The PLO declared Palestinian independence back in 1988, but without reference to borders such a move had little effect. During Oslo, a frustrated Arafat again threatened to unilaterally declare Palestinian sovereignty, but was dissuaded by Israel and the US. What would make another attempt more significant? Several things:

· Rather than a general declaration of independence, the Palestinian Authority would declare a Palestinian state within specified borders, those of 1967 (the 1949 armistice line), which have already been recognized de facto over the years, from UN resolution 242 to the Road Map. Specifying the borders is what would differentiate this initiative from previous declarations based on principle of independence but without territorial claims, the latter supported even by Israel since it relieves it of pressures to end the Occupation by giving the Palestinians symbolic sovereignty.

The reasoning behind such an initiative is clear: to reverse both the balance of power and the dynamics of the negotiations. Because it occupies Palestinian territory, Israel is able to negotiate from a position of strength, while the Palestinians, with no leverage whatsoever, have no way to pressure Israel to meaningfully withdraw. Appeals to international law, which would have leveled the playing field, were nullified after the US, de facto supporting Israel’s claim that there is no occupation, classified the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza as disputed territories. Instead of requiring Israel to relinquish its illegal settlements and other forms of control, this policy forces the Palestinians to negotiate every settlement, road and centimeter of land, unable in the end to compel Israel to make any concessions it does not want to make. By seeking international recognition of the Palestinian state within recognized borders, including membership in the UN, the Palestinians seek, finally, to end the Occupation while transforming Israel’s presence from that of an occupying power to one of an invader whose unilateral military and settlement activities, as well as its extension of its legal and planning systems into Palestine, constitute nothing less than an intolerable violation of Palestinian national sovereignty.

· If the Palestinians’ declared their state within the boundaries accepted by the international community since 1967, it would be doing so not unilaterally but by agreement with the member states of the UN. The hope would be to secure American agreement, despite frantic Israeli attempts to head off such an initiative, after which the European countries would fall into place. The vast majority of countries in the rest of the world would at any rate recognize the Palestinian state.

Predictably, the US has rejected the rumored (or floated) initiative. The State Department lost no time issuing a statement that “It is our strong belief and conviction that the best means to achieve the common goal of a contiguous and viable Palestine is through negotiations between the parties.” Two senators who happened to be in Israel, Kaufman and Lieberman, let it be known that the US would veto any such resolution in the Security Council. The EU immediately fell into lock-step, with the Swedish Foreign Minister, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, declaring that “conditions are not yet ripe” for such a move. Still, the Palestinians could decide to abandon – or at least balance – their long-standing American-centric approach to achieving self-determination by turning to the broader international community. Abbas is exploring such an option among the Arab, Muslim, Latin American, African and Asian blocs of nations. If the Security Council is unwilling to entertain such an initiative, the Palestinians, with broad-based international support, could turn to the UN General Assembly, which is empowered by a two-thirds majority to call a special emergency session and pass a resolution of approving the move, thus by-passing the US veto.

The Security Council cannot be by-passed completely; its approval is necessary before a state can become a member of the UN. But even a symbolic call from the majority of members in the General Assembly to recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders and its urging the members of the Security Council to admit such a state into the UN would send a strong message to the Americans and their European clients. Unfortunately, the Palestinians’ declaration of statehood, in conformity to international agreements though it may be, conflicts with the concerns of other Security Council members regarding restive peoples in their own countries. Russia, which opposed the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo, faces similar actions in Chechnya, South Ossetia and elsewhere. China has a similar problem with the Uigars; France with Corsica; Britain (perhaps) with Wales and Scotland; Turkey with the Kurds; and so on. The US, which did support the Kosovars unilateral action and thus has no grounds to deny the Palestinians, nevertheless faces the perpetual challenge of Puerto Rican independence, not to mention the struggles of insurgents throughout the world. And yet, having the issue of Palestinian statehood come up before the Security Council – potential sponsors from among the rotating members might be Libya, Burkina Faso or Uganda – would spur a useful debate and help focus on the responsibility of Israel, the US and Europe for disappearing Palestinian rights. And, again and again, the Palestinians have to drive home forcibly and repeatedly that their declaration of statehood stands in complete conformity to the internationally agreed upon end-game of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. It is defiant only in the sense of their asserting their right to self-determination after years of being let down by the international community and having nowhere else to go.

· Most important, such a Palestinian initiative would force a solution to their conflict with the Israelis. If it were to be accepted, years of drawn-out pseudo-negotiations and the deaths of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis could be avoided. It would also go a long way towards redeeming Obama’s Cairo address and, as is likely, would facilitate better relations with the Muslim world which would open new possibilities in regards to withdrawing militarily and achieving accommodation and stability. If the US agreed, of course, Europe, and perhaps Russia and China, would fall into place.

It should be remembered that in a two-state solution represented by the Palestinian declaration, Israel would remain on 78% of historic Palestine, despite the Jews becoming a minority population with the return of even some of the refugees – a pretty generous Palestinian compromise. Hamas rejected Abbas’s initiative by stating: If you want to declare a state, do so from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. Yet, if a Palestinian state would actually emerge on all the Occupied Territories, it is likely that Hamas could not stand in the way of popular support for it – including in the refugee camps. The state that then arises would have sovereignty over its borders with Egypt and Jordan and the ability to enter into foreign alliances. It would possess a coherent territory, control of its natural resources (including water, its airspace and the communications sphere), a viable economy (especially given the inclusion of the Old City of Jerusalem and Bethlehem as tourist venues) and East Jerusalem as its political, religious and cultural capital and the ability to repatriate refugees. None of these things will the Palestinians get in negotiations with Israel. Given an agreed upon quid pro quo such as a shared Jerusalem, an extra-territorial passage between the West Bank and Gaza and a qualitative exchange of territory, the Palestinians may cede to Israel certain symbolic sites: a special status in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and the historic core of the Etzion Bloc, making such a settlement more palatable to them. While the remaining settlements would become part of Palestine, though the Palestinians would earn points if they invited the settlers to stay and live in integrated communities.

A unilateral declaration, if refused by the US with no prospect of genuine negotiations aimed at a Palestinian state in all the occupied territory within a strict time-line, would signal the definitive end of the two-state solution. At that point the Palestinians could unite on a program of a one-state solution, be it a democratic state of equal citizens or, more workable, a bi-national state. Crucial to this shift would be a vigorous Palestinian campaign showing that it was Israel that created a bi-national situation through its settlement project and Israel that eliminated the two-state solution, which the PLO had accepted way back in 1988. If Israel implements the steps it has threatened in response to a Palestinian declaration of independence – in particular the annexation of Area C, some 60% of the West Bank containing the settlements – the apartheid situation that emerges is clear and unacceptable even to the US and Europe. Israel has thereby torn the veil from the de facto apartheid that already exists and which Israel seeks to perpetuate. By its own hand Israel has reconfirmed the bi-national reality of Palestine/Israel and driven the stake into the heart of the two-state solution.

For all the risks it involves, a declaration of Palestinian statehood within the 1967 borders – which would garner recognition from the vast majority of states in the world – would seem a win-win proposition. At least it would break the vessels of an impotent, ineffective and less than honest American-led “peace process” that is going nowhere – indeed, can’t go anywhere because it requires a level of assertiveness on Israel, perhaps even the imposition of a solution, that is completely lacking in either the American or European governments. It would also galvanize the civil society forces abroad, initiating a kind of ultimate BDS (boycotts, divestment, sanctions) campaign. Given the failure of the Palestinian Authority to effectively communicate its case, a unilateral declaration would thrust the underlying issues of the conflict – and Israel’s responsibility in particular – into the limelight, generating the sort of discussion in the media and elsewhere that is sorely needed.

All this, of course, is a highly unlikely scenario, though given Abbas’s anger and frustration at the American’s failure to stop Israeli settlement building (as I write this the Israeli government has just announced the construction of 900 housing units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Gilo), it is not altogether inconceivable. Although indicative of mounting Palestinian desperation, not all Palestinians support such a move. Hamas has rejected it, saying the Occupation must end before a state is declared. Palestinian policy-makers fear that the declaration, if it is seen as merely symbolic, could lock the Palestinians into a position where Israel could claim they now have self-determination but without the ability to actually claim their borders – a limbo reminiscent of the “state without borders” formulation of stage 2 of the Road Map, seen as a mortal danger by Palestinians. And supporters of the one-state solution, primarily in the Palestinian Diaspora but increasingly in the camps and the Occupied Territories themselves, have already moved on. But something must be done, and given the failure of the international community to either protect the Palestinians or reign in Israel, I, for one, am at a loss to suggest alternatives that address the urgency of a way out of Israel’s growingly genocidal occupation.

(Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at .)
Jeff Halper (born 1946 in Minnesota[1]) is a professor of anthropology,[2] author, lecturer, political activist, and co-founder and Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). In 1997, Halper co-founded ICAHD to challenge and resist the Israeli policy of demolishing Palestinian homes in the occupied territories, and to organize Israelis, Palestinians and international volunteers to jointly rebuild demolished Palestinian homes. He has created a new mode of Israeli peace activity based on nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience to the Occupied Territories.[1] Dr. Halper was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the American Friends Service Committee for his work "to liberate both the Palestinian and the Israeli people from the yoke of structural violence" and "to build equality between their people by recognizing and celebrating their common humanity."

Halper is the author of several books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is a frequent writer and speaker about Israeli politics, focusing mainly on nonviolent strategies to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflic.

Picture source: http://www.thecornerreport.com/media/blogs/links/jeffhalper2.jpg

Meanwhile Back at the [Darfur] Ranch, it's Rape and Death as Usual

2009-11-13T23:32:00.003+02:00

I'm talking about Darfur today. By the time I have my evening drink, I assume dozens of women will have been raped, mutilated or killed. And a few more before my morning coffee. And we will do nothing, not Obama, not Sarkozy, not Gordon Brown, not Putin, and not Jintao Hu. Why?

Absence of choice is a choice. And the choices we made yesterday constrain those we can make today.

Yesterday, the US chose to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Its troops are wearing thin and tired.
Perhaps understandably, the EU continues to fail to choose a coherent foreign policy and corresponding allocation of resources. It remains a fairly impotent giant.

That was yesterday.
What about today?

China has decided to carry its weight on the international scene and be present in Africa. It has decided there is good business to be made with Sudan. And it has decided not to get into the moralizing business with other nations--a very welcome move by despots, dictators and skunks everywhere.
I don't blame the UN--it's like blaming the puppet instead of the puppet master.
I'm not sure I want to talk about Egypt, but if my neighbor was raping women and banging their heads on my wall, I might want to call 911 - what about you Mr Moubarak? Guess there's no money to be made there. It's not like letting Palestinians bribe you for a chance to get out of Gaza.

So, women will be raped, men will be killed and children will become soldiers in Darfur.

Let's face it--it's not that the US is in charge of everything, it's that it has this little thing it is so proud of: leadership. That's a fact. An evolving fact, but still a reality.

And today the US is even less well placed to push action against Darfur (some in the Obamesque administration have raised that flag high at some point), because its credibility as a source of Rule of Law Principles, Human Rights, and basic morality is in the dumps. Particularly when it comes to the Muslim world.

Of course there's been Abu Ghraib and there is still Guantanamo. But the main thing is the obvious (to anyone watching) hypocrisy of the US policy toward Palestine. As long as the US chooses to remain blind and complicit to ethnic cleansing -- I'm calling a spade a spade, as I'm in a bad mood -- it has a credibility of zilch with the Muslim world. Consequently, we're not about to send the 82nd airborne and deliver President Bashir to the International Court of Justice (which the US does not recognize anyway).

We--all of us--live with the choices made yesterday. And we will live with those made today. I think it will affect us, even if it's not our daughter, sister, mother, or wife being raped out there.

Read the column from Michael Gerson in the Post today.
Don't let it ruin tonight's drink.

Elrig

Photo source and story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15718844/ns/nightly_news_with_brian_williams/

------- Losing the Fight in Darfur ---------

The genocide in Darfur is no longer a trendy, breathless global cause. But the women of Darfur haven't gotten the message.

On May 15, a woman near the Al Hamadiya camp in Zalingei was collecting firewood. Three armed men in khaki uniforms raped her, stabbed her in the leg, inflicted genital injuries and left her bleeding. She spent 45 days in the hospital. In 2003, the same woman was raped and shot while fleeing her village.

Her story is in a recent, exhaustive, chilling report on Sudan written by a panel of experts at the United Nations. A U.N. official told me, "We have not talked to a single woman [in Darfur] who has not stated that sexual violence is their first concern." The panel documented sexual assaults against pregnant women and 12-year-old girls. Prosecutions are nonexistent. Local officials are indifferent.

The Darfur revealed in the report is a heavily armed state of nature. Uniformed troops, Janjaweed militias and rebel groups all abuse civilians. The Sudanese government routinely violates the Darfur arms embargo imposed by the U.N. Security Council in 2004, unloading weapons, according to the U.N. official, "openly, in front of you." Arms and ammunition manufactured by Chinese companies can be found everywhere. Child soldiers are recruited. Political dissent is repressed.

This is not, at present, the active phase of Darfur's genocide, involving mass attacks on civilians. Instead, it is the evidence of a genocide that has succeeded. The Sudanese regime achieved its policy aims -- targeting disfavored ethnic groups, destroying their way of life and forcing millions into camps. And now it is threatening to forcibly relocate these victims in 2010 -- a plan of Stalinist scale and brutality.

Global attention has been diverted by the complexity of the conflict, the unsympathetic nature of Darfur's fractious rebels and the threat of renewed war between Sudan's north and south -- a war that would overwhelm the region.

But the suffering in Darfur is also being actively hidden from view. In March, the Sudanese regime expelled several international relief organizations, including those dealing with sexual violence. This cut an important pipeline of humanitarian information to the outside world -- which was precisely the goal. Sudan's regime is pulling a curtain across Darfur that may also be a shroud.

The Obama administration's lengthy review of U.S. Sudan policy culminated in October with more of a whimper than a bang. The administration presented Sudan with a choice between two roads: one path of cooperation, engagement and incentives; the other of defiance, isolation and disincentives. But neither carrots nor sticks were specified. And the administration seems divided on how the engagement of Sudan -- lifting sanctions, moving toward more normal relations -- should proceed. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice wants such benefits to follow major concessions by Sudan's government. Scott Gration, the special envoy to Sudan, would distribute carrots liberally and preemptively.

But all this has been tried before. The Sudanese regime receives small threats with insolence. It views minor American concessions as signs of weakness.

The administration's Sudan policy was produced by an exhaustive, interdepartmental process in which no one won or lost completely. As a part of the previous administration, I saw this kind of process at work -- and it is incapable of producing boldness.

Yet boldness -- much larger carrots and much larger sticks -- is needed. The ultimate carrot would be to offer Sudan's leader, Omar al-Bashir -- currently under international indictment for war crimes -- the legitimacy he seeks, in exchange for the peaceful independence of south Sudan and unconditional cooperation in Darfur. This would be distasteful. But it might be worth repressing our gag reflex to gain permanent, irreversible limitations on the power of Sudan's regime to do harm.

This approach, however, could not succeed without serious consequences for its rejection -- economic, political and military pressure, by a coalition of willing nations. No bureaucratic process would produce such ambitious options. Only a president and his secretary of state can insist on boldness.

Absent that insistence, America's Sudan policy is in a holding pattern, waiting for the next crisis to refocus global attention. Meanwhile, women are raped, with impunity. Weapons are illegally imported, with impunity. Civilians are attacked, with impunity. And at some point, impunity becomes permission.

The world looks at Darfur and responds, in effect: We can live with that. There are many in Darfur, however, who will not live.

Netanyahu: 5 - Obama: 0

2009-11-06T18:51:00.003+02:00

Points very well made by Robert Dreyfuss following Palestinian President Abbas announcement that he wouldn't run for another term. Except one thing, where I disagree with Dreyfuss: I firmly believe that it is possible to negotiate with Hamas. I do not deny that, as many groups in the region including states, Hamas has made terrorism a tool in its arsenal. The point is they are open to negotiations -- history proves this. At least as much as you can negotiate with the Israeli government. [See for example the comments on Hamas of Brother Andrew, a leading and global Christian (even Evangelical!) activist, or by Uri Avnery (former Israeli MP).]

Dreyfuss and I at least agree on the utter waste of a Secretary of State that is Hilary Clinton (that was my last entry).

Column from Dreyfuss pasted below.

Elrig

****** Obama Fails in Middle East ******
Robert Dreyfuss

The announcement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he will not run for reelection is the exclamation point on the utter collapse of the Obama adminstration's Middle East policy. Launched to great expectations -- the appointment of George Mitchell, Obama's Cairo declaration that the plight of the Palestinians is intolerable -- it is now in complete disarray. It is, without doubt, the first major defeat for Obama's hope-and-change foreign policy.

Here's how it unraveled. First, Obama began a test of strength with Israel over that country's policy of illegal settlements, an expansion of its occupation of the West Bank driven by extremist, right-wing settlers who are fanatical, Bible-believing cultists who think that Israel has some God-given right to that territory. The settler-kooks -- indeed, one of their past leaders was named Rabbi Kook -- are supported by ultra-hardliners in Israel's security establishment, who see the West Bank as strategic depth in Israel's defense posture. What happened after Obama told Israel it had to stop settlements? Nothing. Score: Netanyahu 1, Obama 0.

Next, the Obama adminstration capitulated, refusing to insist on any penalty for Israel's defiant intransigence. Not even a hint of any retaliation by the United States to enforce what it had called the path to a peace deal. No talk of reducing US aid to Israel, or cutting back on US-Israeli military cooperation, or anything. Score: Netanyahu 2, Obama 0.

Then, while all this was going on, Obama hinted that he might announce, this fall, something like a comprehensive US plan for the Middle East. Everyone knows what a solution looks like: withdrawal by Israel from the West Bank, dismantling of the settlements, an end to the Gaza embargo, the division of Jerusalem, some swapping of land to account for slight changes in borders (especially around the capital), and a formula to account for the Palestinians' right-of-return, involving financial compensation -- plus security arrangements. But months later, Obama has refused to even hint at his own plan for the region, caving in to Israel's demands that all of that be saved for "negotiations." Score: Netanyahu 3, Obama 0.

Finally, the United States cravenly supported Israel over the Goldstone Report on Gaza, the report that accused Israel (and Hamas) of war crimes during the December-January conflict there. Score: Netanyahu 4, Obama 0.

Secretary of State Clinton then put the final icing on the rotten cake, praising Netanyahu, an extremist, far-right ultra-nationalist, for his decision to expand, not halt, settlements. Clinton's blunder, which shocked and stunned Palestinians and Arab leaders, represented the ultimate cave-in to Netanyahu and Co. Final score: Netanyahu 5, Obama 0.

Reports the New York Times today:

"Mrs. Clinton's visit, which she characterized as a success, sowed anger and confusion among Palestinians and other Arabs after she praised as 'unprecedented' the offer by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to slow down, but not stop, construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank."

One of the Palestinians' most experienced, veteran deal-makers, Nabil Shaath, a Fatah old-timer said of Obama's collapse:

"There was high expectation when he arrived on the scene. Now there is a total retreat, which has destroyed trust instead of building trust."

Abbas may or may not reconsider his decision, and of course the elections that are supposed to take place in January are still in limbo over the inability of Fatah and Hamas to strike a deal. But, by refusing to compel Israel to make a real offer to the Palestinians, the United States has once again shafted Palestinian moderates like Abbas, who can't credibly claim to have won anything for their constituents. In so doing, Obama is fueling the extremists, bomb-makers, and rocket launchers in Hamas, a fundamentalist, Muslim Brotherhood-founded movement that wants no compromise. Heck of a job, Baracky!

Abbas said that he was "surprised" -- bitterly angry and really pissed off, is more accurate, I am sure -- by Clinton's comments on Israel's settlements policy. And Clinton, asked about Abbas' move, delivered an insouciant fuck-you to Abbas: "We talked about his own political future. I look forward to working with President Abbas in any new capacity."

Mrs Clinton's Irrelevant Verbiage

2009-11-03T16:48:00.007+02:00

So the news are full of Hilary Clinton's diplomatic rally through the Middle East, Israel and Arab capitals. (Here's a quick update if you've missed it.)

Here's a recap in my own words:

the Obama administration comes to power after closing its eyes on the Gaza war--the last lethal insult to Arabs of a Bush administration which has never lost an opportunity to ask for more bloodshed.
soon thereafter, with very hopeful statements of intent by Obama, a new diplomatic initiative is launched for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
the first step, according to the White House, is a "freeze" on Israeli settlements (aka illegal construction of cities on land conquered from the Palestinians).

THIS is the first if not mistake, certainly disingenuous statement. Why?
(1) You cannot "freeze" settlements: people make babies and more babies demand more space ultimately. So, a freeze has no long term viability.
(2) The problem is that the settlements are illegal, are a form of conquest and dispossession, make the life of Palestinians hell, and their ultimate logic is the elimination of Arabs from the land. Transfer is preferred today. Massacre will be acceptable tomorrow. (See Gaza December 2008 pilot study.) [On this, see an old post of mine. And this one. Why not this one?]

So, freezing the settlements would achieve nothing, and making this the topic of negotiation ensures that time is wasted talking about nothing of significance. In the meantime, houses are demolished, occupation is not challenged, and new outposts and settlements are built.

So, now what happened after that?

As planned negotiations have dragged for months, and as stated above they've dragged about nothing of substance or consequence.
Finally, after Secretary of State Clinton's visit to Israel, the Netanyahu government essentially said that 'well, maybe, if possible, if the creek don't rise, in some cases, it could be considered to curb the settlement expansion, we'll think about it, don't call us we'll call you.'
Clinton immediately had to talk to the media and say that Israel was making "unprecedented" efforts.
Now she caught a little heat from Arab governments, and she's jumping through some diplomatic hoops, saying the Obama policy (inconsequential as it is) has not changed, she's even blessed the Palestinian West Bank leadership with also saying they did something "unprecedented" - so there! Everyone is unprecedented - no more complaining!

And that's where we're at.

To the newspapers and TV channels who essentially comment on each others comments, this passes for news. To the American elector who reads local news, this is a page 10 paragraph with words like Clinton and Arab in the same sentence--certainly of low interest--but the note that Israel (yet again) is doing something "unprecedented", so let's hope those ungrateful Palestinians stop complaining for awhile. To the Israeli settler on the hills of Hebron, it's a sign that the expulsion of Arabs must accelerate before "they" all turn against the Jewish manifest destiny of conquest of Erez Yisrael. (Why is it a sign? Because everything is a sign once you have a manifest destiny.) And to the Palestinians, it's just one among a millions times that the West -- yesterday the Brits, today the US, with stellar irrelevancy of the Europeans and marginal contribution of the UN -- just beats around the bush while history is being written violently on the ground.
To the Arab League, Clinton's verbal sucking up might actually be considered as a victory -- after all, no one treats the Palestinians worse than the Egyptians do. (Ok - maybe I exaggerate, maybe on bad days the Israelis do worse than the Egyptians, but not necessarily on their good days.)

So, maybe Mr Obama has a long term hyper-strategic vision and I'm missing it. After all, you can't push for change and be re-elected president of the US. Bush Sr sort of proved that in a way.
Mrs Clinton's commitment to the hard-liners in Israel is nothing new. Perhaps Obama is using her to stay this side of politically-correct on Israel during his first term. Perhaps. From an electoral politics perspective, maybe it makes sense.

But people live, die, revolt, lose their minds or find new hope based on a reality not dictated by the US electoral calendar.
What dictates their reality is called this little thing: "facts on the ground." And faced with these facts, Mrs Clinton's verbiage is fully irrelevant today.

Elrig

People Have the Power! World March for Peace

2009-11-02T19:47:00.000+02:00

'Washington needs to finally say no to Israel and the occupation'

2009-11-01T23:00:00.004+02:00

Nothing to add to this column by Gideon Levy:

Three quotes before giving you the full piece:

Before no other country on the planet does the United States kneel and plead like this.
...
Israel the occupier, the stubborn contrarian that continues to mock America and the world by building settlements and abusing the Palestinians, receives ... another massage to the national ego in one video, more embarrassing praise in another.
...
Israel of 2009 is a spoiled country, arrogant and condescending, convinced that it deserves everything and that it has the power to make a fool of America and the world. The United States has engendered this situation, which endangers the entire Mideast and Israel itself. That is why there needs to be a turning point in the coming year - Washington needs to finally say no to Israel and the occupation. An unambiguous, presidential no.

Israel and the US are accomplice in creating self-fulfilling prophecies of death and hopelessness. There is the same value and ethics in their delusion as there is Radical Islam's angry shouts. I, for one, would expect better of the Jewish State and the United States than I would of Islamic Jihad. This just shows I'm biased. And this shows I am sadly wrong.

Elrig

America, stop sucking up to Israel
Gideon Levy

Barack Obama has been busy - offering the Jewish People blessings for Rosh Hashanah, and recording a flattering video for the President's Conference in Jerusalem and another for Yitzhak Rabin's memorial rally. Only Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah surpasses him in terms of sheer output of recorded remarks.

In all the videos, Obama heaps sticky-sweet praise on Israel, even though he has spent nearly a year fruitlessly lobbying for Israel to be so kind as to do something, anything - even just a temporary freeze on settlement building - to advance the peace process.

The president's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, has also been busy, shuttling between a funeral (for IDF soldier Asaf Ramon, the son of Israel's first astronaut Ilan Ramon) and a memorial (for Rabin, though it was postponed until next week due to rain), in order to find favor with Israelis. Polls have shown that Obama is increasingly unpopular here, with an approval rating of only 6 to 10 percent.

He decided to address Israelis by video, but a persuasive speech won't persuade anyone to end the occupation. He simply should have told the Israeli people the truth. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who arrived here last night, will certainly express similar sentiments: "commitment to Israel's security," "strategic alliance," "the need for peace," and so on .

Before no other country on the planet does the United States kneel and plead like this. In other trouble spots, America takes a different tone. It bombs in Afghanistan, invades Iraq and threatens sanctions against Iran and North Korea. Did anyone in Washington consider begging Saddam Hussein to withdraw from occupied territory in Kuwait?

But Israel the occupier, the stubborn contrarian that continues to mock America and the world by building settlements and abusing the Palestinians, receives different treatment. Another massage to the national ego in one video, more embarrassing praise in another.

Now is the time to say to the United States: Enough flattery. If you don't change the tone, nothing will change. As long as Israel feels the United States is in its pocket, and that America's automatic veto will save it from condemnations and sanctions, that it will receive massive aid unconditionally, and that it can continue waging punitive, lethal campaigns without a word from Washington, killing, destroying and imprisoning without the world's policeman making a sound, it will continue in its ways.

Illegal acts like the occupation and settlement expansion, and offensives that may have involved war crimes, as in Gaza, deserve a different approach. If America and the world had issued condemnations after Operation Summer Rains in 2006 - which left 400 Palestinians dead and severe infrastructure damage in the first major operation in Gaza since the disengagement - then Operation Cast Lead never would have been launched.

It is true that unlike all the world's other troublemakers, Israel is viewed as a Western democracy, but Israel of 2009 is a country whose language is force. Anwar Sadat may have been the last leader to win our hearts with optimistic, hope-igniting speeches. If he were to visit Israel today, he would be jeered off the stage. The Syrian president pleads for peace and Israel callously dismisses him, the United States begs for a settlement free ze and Israel turns up its nose. This is what happens when there are no consequences for Israel's inaction.

When Clinton returns to Washington, she should advocate a sharp policy change toward Israel. Israeli hearts can no longer be won with hope, promises of a better future or sweet talk, for this is no longer Israel's language. For something to change, Israel must understand that perpetuating the status quo will exact a painful price.

Israel of 2009 is a spoiled country, arrogant and condescending, convinced that it deserves everything and that it has the power to make a fool of America and the world. The United States has engendered this situation, which endangers the entire Mideast and Israel itself. That is why there needs to be a turning point in the coming year - Washington needs to finally say no to Israel and the occupation. An unambiguous, presidential no.

Nouveau livre par Charles Enderlin

2009-10-30T19:01:00.004+02:00

Pour information--Charles Enderlin a un nouveau livre (Le Grand Aveuglement) dont l'avant-propos est disponible sur son blog. Cliquer ici pour le lire.

Si vous ne connaissez pas Enderlin, c'est un journaliste, j'allais dire un vrai, qui habite à Jérusalem. Il est français et israélien, et il a publié ou diffusé maintes fois sur la situation et le conflit en Israël et Palestine. Quelqu'un à lire et découvrir. Je recommande en particulier 'Le Rêve Brisé' ('Shattered Dreams' en anglais) et ses multiples reportages TV.

Visitez son blog.
Bonne lecture.

Elrig

The much defamed but essential Goldstone Report

2009-10-28T21:50:00.006+02:00

The US news have barely not covered the Goldstone report [available here], and the Obama administration has played its role in dismissing this essential document. Many progressives have great hope for Mr Obama. Although the Palestinian occupation is a stumbling block for any US politician, especially one already dealing with a very nasty opposition on the home front on top of a financial collapse--we can only hope that true leadership (one that would be deserving of a Peace Prize) will be forthcoming in the future.

In the meantime, here's one news journal -- Bill Moyers -- which actually talked to Goldstone.
Just two things to point out to:
- notice even Moyers starts from the premise that it all starts with rockets shot from Gaza and then "retaliation" from Israel. (Presumably, if there weren't rockets being shot, all would be well in the best possible world.)
- beyond that however, Goldstone comes out as the Honest and Righteous guy that he must be to keep his sanity after the kind of human crimes he's seen throughout the world.

Watch this video: Part 1 and Part 2.

There can't be peace if we call crimes justice.
I say God bless Mr Goldstone. Shalom to you.

Elrig

ps: thanks to RD for sending the link

ps2: In the meantime - Jon Stewart, the brilliant Jon Stewart had Mustafa Barghouthi and Anna Baltzer on his show. Watch here.

A very painful read - after the Obama-Netanyahu-Abbas empty meeting

2009-09-25T15:49:00.006+02:00

Uri Avnery does not need editorializing or introduction. He's usually right and here's a painful extract from the article reproduced in full below.

Any negotiations that start, if they start at all, can go on until the coming of the Messiah. Nothing will come out of them.For Netanyahu, the threat of peace has passed. At least for the time being.

I pray another time will come.

Elrig

From Gush Shalom - THE DRAMA AND THE FARCE. By Uri Avnery

NO POINT denying it: in the first round of the match between Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu, Obama was beaten.

Obama had demanded a freeze of all settlement activity, including East Jerusalem, as a condition for convening a tripartite summit meeting, in the wake of which accelerated peace negotiations were to start, leading to peace between two states – Israel and Palestine.

In the words of the ancient proverb, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Netanyahu has tripped Obama on his first step. The President of the United States has stumbled.

THE THREEFOLD summit did indeed take place. But instead of a shining achievement for the new American administration, we witnessed a humbling demonstration of weakness. After Obama was compelled to give up his demand for a settlement freeze, the meeting no longer had any content.

True, Mahmoud Abbas did come, after all. He was dragged there against his will. The poor man was unable to refuse the invitation from Obama, his only support. But he will pay a heavy price for this flight: the Palestinians, and the entire Arab world, have seen his weakness. And Obama, who had started his term with a ringing speech to the Muslim world from Cairo, now looks like a broken reed.

The Israeli peace movement has been dealt another painful blow. It had pinned its hopes on the steadfastness of the American president. Obama’s victory and the settlement freeze were to show the Israeli public that the refusal policy of Netanyahu was leading to disaster.

But Netanyahu has won, and in a big way. Not only did he survive, not only has he shown that he is no “sucker” (a word he uses all the time), he has proven to his people – and to the public at large – that there is nothing to fear: Obama is nothing but a paper tiger. The settlements can go on expanding without hindrance. Any negotiations that start, if they start at all, can go on until the coming of the Messiah. Nothing will come out of them.

For Netanyahu, the threat of peace has passed. At least for the time being.

IT IS difficult to understand how Obama allowed himself to get into this embarrassing situation.

Machiavelli taught that one should not challenge a lion unless one is able to kill him. And Netanyahu is not even a lion, just a fox.

Why did Obama insist on the settlement freeze – in itself a very reasonable demand – if he was unable to stand his ground? Or, in other words, if he was unable to impose it on Netanyahu?

Before entering into such a campaign, a statesman must weigh up the array of forces: What power is at my disposal? What forces are confronting me? How determined is the other side? What means am I ready to employ? How far am I prepared to go in using my power?

Obama has a host of able advisors, headed by Rahm Emanuel, whose Israeli origins (and name) were supposed to give him special insights. George Mitchell, a hard-nosed and experienced diplomat, was supposed to provide sober assessments. How did they all fail?

Logic would say that Obama, before entering the fray, should have decided which instruments of pressure to employ. The arsenal is inexhaustible – from a threat by the US not to shield the Israeli government with its veto in the Security Council, to delaying the next shipment of arms. In 1992 James Baker, George Bush Sr’s Secretary of State, threatened to withhold American guarantees for Israel’s loans abroad. That was enough to drag even Yitzhak Shamir to the Madrid conference.

It seems that Obama was either unable or unwilling to exert such pressures, even secretly, even behind the scenes. This week he allowed the American navy to conduct major joint war-games with the Israeli Air Force.

Some people hoped that Obama would use the Goldstone report to exert pressure on Netanyahu. Just one hint that the US might not use its veto in the Security Council would have sown panic in Jerusalem. Instead, Washington published a statement on the report, dutifully toeing the Israeli propaganda line.

True, it is hard for the US to condemn war crimes that are so similar to those committed by its own soldiers. If Israeli commanders are put on trial in The Hague, American generals may be next in line. Until now, only the losers in wars were indicted. What will the world come to if those who remain in office are also accused?

THE INESCAPABLE conclusion is that Obama’s defeat is the outcome of a faulty assessment of the situation. His advisors, who are considered seasoned politicians, were wrong about the forces involved.

That has happened already in the crucial health insurance debate. The opposition is far stronger than anticipated by Obama’s people. In order to get out of this mess somehow, Obama needs the support of every senator and congressman he can lay his hands on. That automatically strengthens the position of the pro-Israel lobby, which already has immense influence in Congress.

The last thing that Obama needs at this moment is a declaration of war by AIPAC and Co. Netanyahu, an expert on domestic American politics, scented Obama’s weakness and exploited it.

Obama could do nothing but gnash his teeth and fold up.

That debacle is especially painful at this precise point in time. The impression is rapidly gaining ground that he is indeed an inspiring speaker with an uplifting message, but a weak politician, unable to turn his vision into reality. If this view of him firms up, it may cast a shadow over his whole term.

BUT IS Netanyahu’s policy wise from the Israeli point of view?

This may well turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory.

Obama will not disappear. He has three and a half years in office before him, and thereafter perhaps four more. That’s a lot of time to plan revenge for someone hurt and humiliated at a delicate moment, at the beginning of his term of office.

One cannot know, of course, what is happening in the depths of Obama’s heart and in the back of his mind. He is an introvert who keeps his cards close to his chest. His many years as a young black man in the United States have probably taught him to keep his feelings to himself.

He may draw the conclusion, in the footsteps of all his predecessors since Dwight Eisenhower (except Father Bush during Baker’s short stint as hatchet man): Don’t Mess With Israel. With the help of its partners and servants in the US, it can cause grievous harm to any President.

But he may also draw the opposite conclusion: Wait for the right opportunity, when your standing in the domestic arena is solid, and pay Netanyahu back with interest. If that happens, Netanyahu’s air of victory may turn out to be premature.

IF I were asked for advice (not to worry, it won’t happen), I would tell him:

The forging of Israeli-Palestinian peace would mean a historic turnabout, a reversal of a 120 year old trend. That is not an easy operation, not to be undertaken lightly. It is not a matter for diplomats and secretaries. It demands a determined leader with a stout heart and a steady hand. If one is not ready for it, one should not even start.

An American President who wants to undertake such a role must formulate a clear and detailed peace plan, with a strict timetable, and be prepared to invest all his resources and all his political capital in its realization. Among other things, he must be ready to confront, face to face, the powerful pro-Israel lobby.

This will not succeed unless public opinion in Israel, Palestine, the Arab world, the United States and the whole world is thoroughly prepared well in advance. It will not succeed without an effective Israeli peace movement, without strong support from US public opinion, especially Jewish-American opinion, without a strong Palestinian leadership and without Arab unity.

At the appropriate moment, the President of the United States must come to Jerusalem and address the Israeli public from the Knesset rostrum, like Anwar Sadat and President Jimmy Carter before him, as well as the Palestinian parliament, like President Bill Clinton.

I don’t know if Obama is the man. Some in the peace camp have already given up on him, which effectively means that they have despaired of peace as such. I am not ready for this. One battle rarely decides a war, and one mistake does not foretell the future. A lost battle can steel the loser, a mistake can teach a valuable lesson.

IN ONE of his essays, Karl Marx said that when history repeats itself: The first time it is as tragedy, the second time it is as farce.

The 2000 threefold summit meeting at Camp David was high drama. Many hopes were pinned on it, success seemed to be within reach, but in the end it collapsed, with the participants blaming each other.

The 2009 Waldorf-Astoria summit was the farce.

**********************************************

Photo source: US President Barack Obama (C) sits with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (R) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a trilateral meeting at President Obama's hotel in New York September 22, 2009. [Xinhua] . http://www.china.org.cn/international/2009-09/23/content_18581227.htm

Had to Share This. Peace is Possible.

2009-09-22T20:01:00.002+02:00

Palestine's Peaceful Struggle [Md Khatib]

2009-09-13T19:25:00.003+02:00

This text is from The Nation and doesn't need editorializing.
A testimonial of what happens here and now in the beautiful Holy Land.
Have a read.

Elrig
Picture source: http://www.imemc.org/attachments/apr2009/1240593059westbank_internationals_soldiers.jpg

*****

Palestine's Peaceful Struggle

A few weeks ago, in the dead of night, dozens of Israeli soldiers with painted faces burst violently into my home. If only they had knocked, I would have opened the door. They arrested me. My wife, Lamia, was left alone with our four children. My youngest, 3-year-old Khaled, woke up to the image of Israeli soldiers with painted faces who were taking his father away. He has not stopped crying since. A few nights ago he woke up in terror, sobbing: "Daddy, why did you let the soldiers take me?" That's the way our children sleep--in a constant state of fear.

Many Americans know that the Obama administration has been pushing the Israeli government to accept a freeze on settlement construction. What is not commonly known is that even as Israel negotiates with the United States, it has been taking steps, including my arrest, to crush the growing Palestinian nonviolent movement opposing Israel's construction of settlements and the wall on Palestinian land in the West Bank.

For over five years the residents of Bil'in and other villages have been protesting against Israel's separation wall, which cuts off our village's land for the sake of Israeli settlement expansion. We have even taken the struggle to the courts. The International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled in July 2004 that the wall, where it has been built inside the West Bank, is illegal under international law, as are all Israeli settlements. In September 2007, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the wall in Bil'in, which separates us from 50 percent of our land, is illegal according to Israeli law. The wall has yet to have moved.

The Israeli army is using more-lethal weapons and greater violence against protesters, and arresting many people, including many protest organizers. In Bil'in alone, twenty-nine residents have been arrested in the past three months. Twelve of them are children. Almost all were arrested during military raids in the middle of the night. Their detention has been extended repeatedly.

But the charges against them are baseless. As one example, I have been charged with stone throwing. I was released on bail with draconian terms only after my lawyers showed the court passport stamps proving that I was abroad at the time of the alleged offense. My friend, Adeeb Abu-Rahme, 37 years old and the father of nine, has been imprisoned for more than six weeks, though the charges against him are just as absurd.

Every Friday in Bil'in, we march to the wall in peaceful protest, along with our Israeli and international partners. Once a year we hold an international conference about the popular nonviolent struggle. Together we learn and gain inspiration. We struggle together to bring down the many walls between people that the occupation is creating. We've repeatedly addressed the Israeli soldiers here, telling them we are not against them as people, but that we oppose their actions as an occupying military force.

Still, nineteen demonstrators have been killed by the Israeli army in these nonviolent demonstrations against the wall. Many have been injured, including Israeli and international activists protesting with us. Here in Bil'in we recently lost our friend Bassem Abu Rahme, who was fatally shot by soldiers in April while he was imploring them to stop shooting at demonstrators.

Several months ago we were warned by Israel's occupation forces that they intended to crush the popular struggle.

Why has the Israeli government decided now to increase the suppression of demonstrations and to break the spirit of protest leaders? Maybe because they realize that the nonviolent struggle is spreading, that more and more villages have created popular committees that are organizing demonstrations. Perhaps the crackdown is a result of their concern and the growing international movement for the boycott of companies and businessmen such as Lev Leviev who are involved in Israel's land grab. Or maybe they fear that the new American government could learn through our demonstrations that Israel's wall is a means to annex land for the growing settlements, and that nonviolent Palestinian protests are being brutally suppressed.

Israel's actions suggest that it is intimidated by people struggling for their rights in a nonviolent manner. The Israeli government seems to believe that Palestinians who struggle while partnering with Israeli activists endanger Israel's occupation and that tearing down human walls is a dangerous act. Perhaps what the state of Israel fears most of all is the hope that people can live together based on justice and equality for all.

Mohammed Khatib is the secretary of Bil'in’s Village Council and a leading member of Bil’in’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements.

Hannah Mermelstein on Blatant Racism & Israel's Deepest Fear

2009-09-01T22:17:00.004+03:00

Hannah's blog is linked on this page. But I found this July entry well worth re-posting (below). It starts with graffiti and signs you do see throughout the land. It's worth reading through to the concluding paragraph about Israel's deepest fear.

I think Hannah's quite right.

You could argue that those who fight for the right of Palestinians to an equal measure of human dignity and self-determination, through the formation of a Free Palestinian State are probably the only ones actually offering the hope of a viable, moral and secure Israeli State. Right now, Israel is willing to sacrifice morality for a false security to ensure its viability. It's a real quandary, a philosophical dead-end. I mean, trying to build a Jewish state at the expense of morality!?

Shalom.

Elrig

****** Read below sections pasted from Hannah in Palestine ******
(click on the link to read the full text and more)

“The war is with the Arabs.”

I saw this sign as I was entering Nablus last week, again on my way to Ramallah, and again near Bethlehem. The phrase is printed in Hebrew, presumably by Israeli settlers, on huge signs throughout the West Bank. Israeli racism rarely shocks me anymore, but its blatant display still makes me stop and catch my breath as I translate it into other contexts. Imagine driving through the middle of a predominantly black neighborhood in a US city or town and seeing a humongous sign that says, “The war is with the Blacks.”

I think about security. Israel’s abuse of the word has rendered the concept almost meaningless in the region, but the importance of security on individual and communal levels cannot be underestimated. However, most discussions I see in the media about security ignore the Palestinian people’s right to security. “The war is with the Arabs” is a new sign, as far as I know, but for years in the West Bank I have seen stars of David scrawled on Palestinian shops and homes, and signs like “Death to Arabs” and “Kahane was right” (Kahane was an extremist political leader who promoted ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people; this sign is essentially equivalent to “Hitler was right” in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood). [...]

A Palestinian friend with Israeli citizenship told me he has heard a rumor that a huge piece of land in Jordan is being cleared and built up for the eventual arrival of the Palestinian population of Israel after they are transferred from their homes. “It may be conspiracy theory,” he said, “but I don’t know.”

“I’d like to think that Israel couldn’t get away with that,” I responded.

“Of course they can,” another friend from Lyd said, “and if the conditions are right, they will.”

Imagine living day to day thinking you might be expelled from your country in the near future. Or in Gaza, wondering if you will be killed tomorrow, or if you will ever be able to come in and out of your country at will. Or in the West Bank, if your son will be arrested, or if you will be able to get through the checkpoint in the morning to get to work. Or in Jerusalem, if your residency will be stripped or your house destroyed. [...]

A friend of mine from the West Bank once told me that she never feels safe, so safety is not a consideration for her in making decisions. As much as I may try, I cannot truly imagine this lack of control.

I met a woman in Jerusalem who was displaced from her home by settlers, physically removed from her house by dozens of Israeli soldiers in the middle of the night. Twice a refugee (1948 and 2008), Um Kamel currently lives in a tent near her house that has been destroyed and re-pitched six times in the past six months. This is perhaps the height of insecurity, and yet Um Kamel stays strong and determined. Many in Palestine would call it sumoud, or steadfastness.

This kind of strength is seen remarkably often in Palestine, and indicates a deeper security that comes in part from faith. Faith in God, sometimes, but also faith in each other, in the justice of one’s cause, in the tide of history that has shown that no single occupation in Palestine lasts forever. This, of course, is also Israel’s deepest fear. That no matter how many walls they build, how many people they imprison, how many homes they destroy, how many signs they erase, and how many people they expel, true security will remain elusive, and eventually, Zionism will fail. As many older Palestinian people have said to me, with security, “We have lived through many occupations. This too shall pass.”

*****

Picture source: http://www.thewe.cc/weplanet/news/middle_east/palestine/i_refuse.htm

Roger Waters on 'The Wall'

2009-08-31T15:59:00.003+03:00

Not much new, but worth watching. [Thanks to Nassim for passing this on.]

Part 1:

Part 2:

(I owe my readers an essay, but I'm doing some background reading of Rashid Khalidi before blabbering too much nonsense.)

Salaam,

Elrig

Small picture, bit picture, and 'narratives'

2009-08-13T00:05:00.005+03:00

While I'm still not back to full speed on keeping this blog up, I invite you to check out the following stories.

First - if you just want a look at what the status quo, an ordinary day, looks like from inside the Palestinian world, have a look at this very short reports of how soldiers treat people at checkpoints. (Not all the time, just when they're having a bad day - and don't forget checkpoints are often totally within the Palestinian territories; they simply serve to hinder freedom of movement. Why? Just because.) Read here. (That was the 'small picture' piece.)

For a 'big picture' analysis, have a read of this column by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley in the NYT. (Read here.) I don't totally agree with the title, which sounds like a conclusion--'The two-state solution doesn't solve anything.' I think the two-state solution is a bad but necessary solution. Good fences (i.e. borders, not concrete walls built in your neighbor's backyard) make good neighbors. They won't solve the refugee problem, but they're a first step to stop the delusion that a State calling itself Jewish should, can or will be able to exert total control over a Palestinian population requested to just submit and surrender. This being said, Agha and Malley make some good points about things that go back to 1948 (rather than the border issue which goes back to 1967).

Finally, if you want to watch something that will depress the heck out of you, watch this 9-part documentary about an Israeli Jewish mother who lost her daughter in a suicide attack back in 2002, and about the Palestinian Muslim mother of the teenage girl who carried out the bombing. See video link on my Facebook or go to YouTube.
I don't want to divulge too much about the last part of the documentary, but what got to me was the total impossibility for the women to understand one another given that one narrative totally ignores the life and reality which frames the narrative of the other. I know "narrative" has gained popularity as a word of our post-modern era, but if there's a story and example showing how it plays out, this is one. Funny thing (not 'funny') is that I could replace myself in discussions with people living with each of these two totally irreconcilable frames of reference. It brought me back to a paper, called "You should know better: Expression of empathy and disregard among victims of massive social trauma" and written by some excellent social psychologists in Sderot.* Pain sometimes does not unite victims, it can make us deaf and blind to the pain of others.

(To be clear, just because we all build 'narratives' and in this case both women fail to grasp the possibility opened by the other side, doesn't mean that some narratives are not more grounded in a reality, a somewhat objective reality. By this I mean that, yes - there is a violent occupation going on, and asking people to 'take it easy' as if it wasn't ongoing and getting worse is simply not going to work. You can forget about the occupation if you live in Tel Aviv. You do not have this option in Bethlehem.

As insane, immoral and counter-strategic as suicide bombings have been, you almost feel - for example from the exchanges in the documentary - that there's an attempt at validating them as a way of saying to the world "see, the situation does hurt and it is untenable." The opposite of this is Tony Blair, bobbing around and holding court to try and "reform" Palestinian pretend-government institutions--"let's pretend you are a real government which could collect its own taxes and make decisions and let's pretend we are improving your governance, and this is what is going to improve the life of your citizens, and let's stop all this fussing about some occupation. Come on! A drone attack last night? Well, walk on the sunny side of life, old chap!"
A kid with C-4 around the belt - that's a story that tends to drown out the 'narrative' of this silly nonsense. It's still crazy. But maybe that's it. It's all crazy.)

Well - I didn't write my essay, but I can still ramble.

In the meantime, thanks for your patience--
Salaam = Shalom.

Elrig
* Julia Chaitin and Shoshana Steinberg. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma, 7 (2), 197 – 22

How comfortable is your god with ethnic cleansing?

2009-07-30T22:32:00.005+03:00

This kind of profile of Jewish settlers brings me back to an old entry about scenarios that can only lead to death.

If you're still having trouble understanding this conflict at this point, look at a quote (from the NYT article) from Noam Rein, a father of 10, looking at Ramallah, a major Palestinian city which he calls “temporary:

“The Torah says the land of Israel is for the Jewish people. This is just the beginning. We will build 1,000 homes here. The Arabs cannot stay here, not because we hate them, but because this is not their place.”

You agree with that? Then you believe in ethnic cleansing. End of the story. I don't care much whether you support ethnic cleansing because of your beliefs in the Torah, Hashem, Jesus, the Bible, the Quran, Enlightenment, the US Constitution, the Tooth Fairy, or just because you're racist.

You believe in ethnic cleansing? You are part of the evil of this world which I must stand against--even if you're really nice to your pets, even if your grandfather was a victim of no matter what, even if you once met 'someone from a lesser race' and were nice to her, and even if you have a plan for a nicer softer form of ethnic cleansing. It may well be that trauma from the past, personal or collective, has negatively influenced your view of the world. It's also possible that President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan was not breastfed enough as a baby. And if there's a way to deal with him and you that is more charitable, God bless the Peacemakers! But let's be clear: you are for ethnic cleansing? Then you are an enemy of your human brothers and sisters, you are the enemy of your neighbor, you are a dangerous person, your actions and your intentions are evil and must be opposed.

I'll add one thing: the god you worship is an ethnic god, a mere idol or figment of your self-centered fears and arrogance.

The issue Mr Obama must deal with is not the freeze of settlements, it's their removal or their integration within a Palestinian state (waiting for settlers to raise their hand to volunteer for that).

Elrig

Clear here for the NYT article.

Photo: Givat Egoz, near the Neria settlement, was inaugurated as American emissaries visited the region.
Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

A couple necessary reads

2009-07-16T16:26:00.005+03:00

First recommended reading with a tinge of irony from David, called "A Quick and Snarky Guide to Food Security in Palestine." David put a few miles on his sneakers working in Jerusalem and the West Bank. In addition to some humor, his piece is also full of realism, links and references.
Have a look - click on this link. (And see blog links for other pieces from David's.)

Second must-read: testimonies from Israeli soldiers involved in the war in Gaza keep coming and confirming what first hand witnesses have told us from Day 1. The fact that these soldiers are speaking out is an indicator that all of us--even when pushed to the worst extremities and horrors--yearn at heart to be moral people. The fact that these soldiers did what they did, shows that you can turn people who want to me moral into pegs and tools of an immoral destruction machine.

And in case you are tempted to ask me: "what about the Qassam rockets and the suicide bombers?"
I will say,

"you are absolutely right to raise the question, and thus acknowledge that, between Hamas and Djihad sending teenagers to blow themselves up (to fight an occupation, but still) and the Israeli government sending teenagers in uniform to kill an occupied civilian population, we are dealing with immoral endeavors.* Indeed. Thanks for bringing this up. Now, how do we make progress and change this?"

Read here.

Elrig

* What "moral equivalency" means, I'm not sure and it's a pointless question. It's like asking if you'd prefer being shot twice in one leg or once in each leg. Stupid pointless and sophistic arguments. I'd rather we deal with the morality of each action and try to fix the world we have to live in.

Aid must come with an apology

2009-07-14T20:16:00.004+03:00

I heard yesterday that there's a UN project to help Gaza remove the rubble of the war -- the houses, schools, mosques, even a few clinics that were turned to dust. (The Near East Council of Churches saw one of its clinics pulverized.) Last April when I was there, some of the destroyed houses still had the bodies underneath.

I'm not bashing the UN at all, but I just need to say that, whatever amount of our taxes go to fund the UN and this "humanitarian" project should go with a label.

"Branding" has become big in the humanitarian and development worlds. "From the American People" here, and the incessant UN Agency "my logo is bigger than yours" battles for the rest. The message is: 'Here's some help. We'd like you to know where it comes from and maybe see us in a positive light at some point.' All good and well.

But I do think that for Gaza the assistance should come with a different label. Maybe a bit like German Euros have been spent to support Israel: without a lot of bragging and with a little sense that this may be restorative assistance for past ills, even if they remain unspoken.

After all, Gazans really don't need "assistance" to get the rubble out. They need to be allowed to buy bulldozers, trucks, gasoline, pay their workers and use their land-- like some of the landfills of the West Bank currently used by illegal Israeli settlements. The only reason Gaza "needs" the UN to have a rubble removal project is because we--we the international community--have decided that Gaza is not entitled to the basic liberties promised by the rules of international law. So, I think all this humanitarian assistance should come with a label that would say something like:

With the apologies of the free nations of the world. We're so sorry that you have to pay the price of our ancestors' crimes (for Europeans) and our current spinelessness; and we also regret that we just find it more expedient to give carte blanche to Israel to continue your occupation (with the required hardware; that's for Americans). Please, remember we do care about human rights and the international rule of law we've tried to build. It's just that, well ... in your case ... it's not convenient. Don't take it personally -- there are others we are neglecting and you get more money than most. It's just that we also have to keep paying for the drones that pulverize your homes into dust. Sorry about the kids. Have some more milk and biscuits (notice the extra Vitamin A by the way!). Enjoy the trickle down per diems too. Please remember Gandhi and MLK and don't get angry.

We'll have to think of a nice logo to go with it.

Elrig

Post-Scriptum: It's worth visiting the website of Dr Izzeldin Abulaish, read his words and share a memory of his three beautiful daughters. You can choose English, Arabic or Hebrew. Click here.

Picture source: http://www.alkhair.co.uk/format/images/gaza/gazahouse.jpg

Falk, Jewish UN humanitarian law expert on Free Gaza ship hijacking

2009-07-04T00:12:00.004+03:00

I think I mentioned the Free Gaza movement at least once. More news today about the hijacking of the 7th of these ships who break the Israeli illegal blockade (I had the pleasure of being there for the arrival of the 3rd -- breath of fresh air and hope.)

UN's Richard Falk: IDF seizure of Gaza-bound ship is 'criminal' [Reuters. In Haaretz today]

A United Nations human rights investigator on Thursday called Israel's seizure of a ship carrying relief aid for the Gaza Strip "unlawful" and said its blockade of the territory constituted a "continuing crime against humanity". Israeli authorities on Tuesday intercepted the vessel, which was also carrying 21 pro-Palestinian activists, and said it would not be permitted to enter Gaza coastal waters because of security risks in the area and its existing naval blockade. Richard Falk, an American Jew and the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said the move was part of Israel's "cruel blockade of the entire Palestinian population of Gaza" in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting any form of collective punishment against "an occupied people".

Falk, who is an expert on international law, said Israel's two-year blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza restricted vital supplies such as food, medicine and fuel to "bare subsistence levels". The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a report this week that Israel was also halting entry to Gaza of building materials and spare parts needed to repair damage from its 22-day invasion late last December. "Such a pattern of continuing blockade under these conditions amounts to such a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions as to constitute a continuing crime against humanity," Falk said in a statement released in Geneva. Prior to leaving Cyprus, the ship was inspected by Cypriot authorities in response to Israeli demands to determine whether it carried any weapons, according to the UN investigator. "None were found and Israeli authorities were so informed." "Nonetheless, the 21 peace activists on the boat were arrested, held in captivity and have been charged with 'illegal entry' to Israel even though they had no intention of going to Israel," Falk added.

***

The article goes on to give the retort of Israel's Ambassador to the UN, which contends that:

"Clearly the purpose of that ship was to create a buzz and serve as a propaganda vehicle against Israel"
That is called chutzpah, as the only reason the ship draws attention is because Israel not only kidnapped the people on the ship, but is choking Gaza and strangulating it. Let's remember one simple fact here: the ship left Cyprus, sailed international waters, with passengers as dangerous as a Nobel Prize Laureate, and tried to sail into a territory on which Israel has no claim, a.k.a. Gaza.

Oh - and it carried humanitarian goods - maybe some pasta, which Israel deems--in its wisdom as the 'natural' rulers of Arabs in Palestine--cannot be entrusted to the Palestinians of Gaza.

If you want another piece of irony, after hijacking and kidnapping the passengers of the ship and bringing them against their will to Israel, Israel charged them with "illegal entry."

If Iran did stuff like this, we would be SCREAMING and saying they are breaking international law, are trespassing beyond their national authority, they are a pariah state and must be brought to abide by the rules of human civilization.

With all due respect, I say the same goes for Israel. Period. It's not more complicated than that. Don't give me any incoherent security ramblings and justifications. This is a clear case of unlawful oppressive behavior.(1)

This conflict is not all that complicated once you look at things as they come.

I--for one--would like to see the US Ambassador to the UN call for the end of such behavior.

Period. The US will have no credibility in the Middle East until it does so -- apart from that of dollars, which I hear might run out if Beijing calls it off, and that of the gun.

If you are priviledged enough to be a citizen of a free country with some international clout, consider writing to your elected officials and asking them to respond to this outrageous action. (For US citizens, it's really easy by going to http://www.congress.org/).

Peace, one day. Happy July 4th to the Americans- hoping Palestinians can soon know in-dependence.

Elrig

(1) Of course I have a hidden agenda. It's not so much the fate of internationals on a goodwill mission that worries me. If we taken on that battle, and the next and the next and the next, pretty soon it's the entire premise of the subjection of the Gazans to the capriciousness of Israel that we want to take down. We don't want to improve the conditions in which an entire population is held hostage. We want the occupation to end. (And if you don't know that Gaza is occupied, you haven't been reading.)

ps: Those of you who visit somewhat regularly this site are of multiple origins and background: Humanist, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, even a few goold old Leftists, and yes even a few Conservatives who deserve a medal for coming. For those of you enclined to believe we need a "Higher Power" to get us out of that mess while we try our best, "people of faith" [in the commonly accepted sense, which is a misnommer as I think more people are "of faith" than is accounted for], there's a site (Christian site) trying to encourage prayer for peace--for a real peace. Here's a plug for it: http://prayforrealpeace.blogspot.com/

Picture Source: http://students.stlawu.edu/theweave/images/FreeGaza003.jpg

The most moral army in the world

2009-07-02T23:26:00.005+03:00

This video was shot about a year ago, and a judgement finally came through.

Watch it here in raw footage, or whatch on youtube with commentary.

The point is not this incident. The point is that it is not a rare event. It is the reflection of the concept of "damam mutar" ("permissible blood") in Hebrew. In this case, the point seems to have been only to "teach a lesson." How do you think that philosophy translated when troops (aka kids with guns) were sent into Gaza in December. Yes - nearly 1,400 deaths.

When a person, a recognized human being, goes crazy and gets violent, the police arrests him.
When an Arab demonstrates against illegal actions by Israel, he gets shot by rubber bullets.
If an Arab gets violent, the police, army, or any rambo with a gun simply kill him.
If a Palestinian reacts to settler violence, the army and police turn on him or let armed settlers settle the account.
Sometimes, you don't have to do anything to get killed.

Israel thinks that as long as it can avoid moral equivalency debates about Apartheid (we're way past this) or Nazi Germany (the forbidden comparison), it can hold its moral ground.
My view is that, no--Nazi policies and Israeli policies are clearly not the same. Genocide motivated by racial hatred is not the same as the conquest of land. The problem as I see it, is that ultimately to maintain the momentum for conquest, the control of the people, you cannot avoid drifting into racial hatred. It simply would be unbearable if an Arab were a person, with full rank and rights, created in the same divine image. And so, a group of people have to become less than human, so the conquest can continue. Their blood has to become acceptable collateral. And pretty soon your young people in uniform, or your colonists in their beards, simply don't see why they shouldn't shoot, or grab a rock to break a leg, humiliate or kill one of these lesser people. Look at the video - it's not the most horrible crime ever. But it is so cold-bloodedly calculated and implemented. You simply cannot do that to your equal.

So, genocide is not conquest of land. But guess what, racial hatred is racial hatred--under any sky. A bullet in the leg--a bullet in the head-- do the same thing to an Arab, a Jew, or a Goy.

And forgive me for saying this, but... we are talking about a political and national movement which claims its roots in the Jewish faith - not in national socialism! Since when is Judaism satisfied to simply not be morally equivalent to one of the most abject and inhuman political philosophies of history? We've come a long way down this road of perdition.

There's a key Jewish concept that comes to mind when I think of this, or when I rewatch this video. The concept is simple, it is called 'repentance.'

Shalom.

Elrig
ps: If you're going to reply that the Israeli judgement of this crime is sign that things are not perfect but that there is a justice, I'll ask you how many news from exactions of settlers you have read in the last 10 days? How many deaths in Ni'ilin in the last 3 months? How many home demolitions? What about Tristan Anderson? How about the number of lethal gun shots inflected by police and army? And finally -- do you think there would have been a trial had there not be a video camera?

Building just and democratic institutions - but whose exactly?

2009-06-08T22:03:00.006+03:00

When world leaders speak of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it is of good form to ask a few things of the Palestinians, like building democratic institutions, strengthening the rule of law, and renouncing violence. Even Obama's speech (which was remarkable) did not fail to make those points.

Such requests are never made to the Israeli government.

The assumption is no doubt that Israel is "like us" (I'm not even sure we always meet our own standards by the way) -- except for this little problem of the occupation, settlements and of course being occasionally "heavy handed." As in 22 days, 300 dead kids. That's "heavy handed." Sometimes we even raise the tone and say "it's not helpful." Then Israel trembles. But basically, institutions are THEIR institutions and they are fine. Israel IS by nature democratic, and who are we to ask anything. And as for violence, well... one just has to defend oneself. (And were it not for the occupation and violation of international law, I would agree.)

Now, Obama told the Palestinians that violence does not resolve anything. (In this particular case, I agree. But I haven't seen the US, the UK, or Israel adopt non-violence as a national defense strategy yet. Calling for Gandhis and MLK's is nice, but I haven't seen the US name a Mennonite as head of the DOD either.)

When it comes to institutions, forget the fact that Palestine [did you notice that Obama used that State Department-forbidden word?] has had more successful free elections than any other Arab country around and that the opposition won the last one; forget the fact that we forced on them the institution of a Prime Minister then forced a reversal to a presidential regime by-passing the office of the Prime Minister (and pushed for a civil war in the process). Forget all these things. Palestinians need institution strengthening, well... because they are Palestinians and they can't be trusted to run their own country without our interference.(1)

When it comes to rule of law, let's not talk about the fact that the last Israeli President resigned under prosecution for rape. That would be rude and interfering. Let's not mention that Ehud Olmert had to resign because of charges of corruption or that the current foreign minister is already being investigated. We don't challenge allies with their petty internal problems. But of course Palestinian corruption is a "HUGE" problem and we--still "we"--must demand that they do something about it. Especially during an occupation - they should have plenty of time to deal with that after all.

What triggers this post is not just the constant irony and injustice of this maddening conflict, it is a little bit of news. Something only remarkable because it was caught on tape. It happens, not daily but weekly or monthly in the hills of Hebron, but usually there is no camera.

I invite you to read and tell me whether our concerns for the respect of the rule of law are well placed.

The Haaretz article is pasted below and can be accessed here online.

Elrig
(1) Believe me, I'm well aware of the weaknesses of Palestinian national institutions. I just don't think that they are comparatively worse than any other place. It does sadden me that some ministers and bureaucrats dream of nothing more than being the equivalent of their Egyptian equivalent and fail to see the richness of Palestinian civil society. But that's a topic for another day.

*******************
Prosecution drops indictment against settler filmed shooting Palestinians

The prosecution has announced that it is dropping the indictment against Ze'ev Braude, the West Bank settler who was alleged to have shot two Palestinians at close range during the evacuation of a disputed house in Hebron in December 2008, and was caught on film doing so.

Ze'ev Braude, 51, of Kiryat Arba, is alleged to have shot two Palestinians at close range during the evacuation of a disputed house in Hebron.

Braude, a Kiryat Arba resident, turned himself in to police last week after an activist with the B'Tselem human rights group caught him on film shooting at Palestinians at short range and hitting two.

During the evacuation of the house in Hebron, Braude approached the Matriya family residence, drew his gun and shouted at the family members to go inside, the indictment says.

Hosni Matriya, 44, went up to Braude and told to leave. Braude struck him and aimed his gun at him, said the indictment. Hosni's father, Abed el-Hai, 67, walked up and asked Braude to leave. Braude pushed el-Hai. Other family members came to help push Braude away and he fired at them. The first bullet passed close to one man's head and the second one hit Hosni's chest. A third bullet hit el-Hai's arm. El-Hai and two family members attacked Braude and stopped him from again firing his gun. They held him until Kiryat Arba residents arrived and took him away, the indictment says.

Hosni, who was shot in the chest, is awaiting surgery to take out shrapnel that remains around the wound. El-Hai, whose arm was broken, has been operated on twice and his arm has been set with screws.

The prosecution said that the evidence proves that "Braude initiated the incident at the plaintiff's house, which was out of his way. During the argument with the plaintiffs he struck his fist into the face of one of them. At this stage none of the plaintiffs was acting violently. The father of the family wrestled with him to stop the shooting - during the wrestling the defendant shot him as well."

Jamal Abu Safan, a relative of the injured Palestinian, told Haaretz that the court's decision shows "how racist Israel and its justice system are." He demanded that an independent body investigate the case.

Braude's lawyer, attorney Ariel Atari, responded that the Palestinian claiming to have been injured can be viewed in the video getting up after allegedly being shot and continuing to hurl stones and strike Braude.

Photo source: http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/local/cache-vignettes/L400xH301/israeli_settlers_in_hebron_city_2-29116.gif

Obama's Speech

2009-06-04T18:40:00.004+03:00

My last post commented on some anticipation of Obama's speech. Here's the full text of this speech.

It may be optimism on my part, but if there is action behind those words, something good may come of it. Even a cynic like myself has to find some hope in the "leader of the free world" addressing the ills of the region in this manner.

Okay, it's words for now. But eight years ago, the words (implied) from the man in the same seat were essentially, "hunting season is open -- shoot at will" followed by the blessing of Ariel Sharon as a "man of peace" (which even the Israelis laughed at) and culmination in a letter providing cover for settlement expansion. We've seen what followed.

Dreyfuss in The Nation provides a good analysis of the speech and I make mine his conclusion: "Okay, it's a speech. But it's a good start." I scrolled down and looked at some of the comments on Dreyfuss' text. I found one that is illustrative of the challenges ahead. Here's what that reader wrote:

"This was pure political spin in an art form. Obama ... will even help with the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people if it will draw him acceptance among those who are in greater number (the Muslims) ...Christians and Jews should be concerned about what levels this man will sink to, in selling out to Islam."

I'm not naive about where Islam is at in its history and the diversity of expressions it has found and--let's face it--as other religions have in the past and still do, it is faced with a few monsters it hasn't tamed yet. Yet, to hear/read Obama's speech and come out with the sense that Obama "will help with the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people" shows a degree of paranoia which is dangerous and pathological.

Unfortunately, this paranoia still exists and it drives a pathological action-reaction downward spiral of death and hopelessness. (See past blog entry.) This is why the US has such a role to play as the foremost ally of Israel in forcing change in Palestine and reassuring Israel. But reassuring does not mean enabling or legitimizing every crazy impulse.

For today however I will take this speech as a small possible sign of hope.
And pray that hope becomes reality.

Salaam - Shalom.

Elrig

Photo: A Palestinian shop owner displays mugs for sale with portraits of US President Barack Obama at a souvenir shop in Gaza City on Sunday (AP photo by Hatem Moussa). Source: www.jordantimes.com/?news=17168

Obama's coming speech in Cairo: Words and Deeds

2009-06-02T18:20:00.006+03:00

President Obama is going to Cairo to pronounce a speech.

His fine oratorical skills not withstanding, and even possibly his good intentions cannot change the reality of power politics in the US. When President Bush (the statesman) put pressure and led to the Rome Conference on Israel/Palestine and then the Oslo agreement he was staunchly warned of the risk to become a "one term president." Whether his status as a one-term president had anything to do with this, or was the fluke result of Ross Perot is another discussion topic, but merely the threat that was made to him shows something of the sensitivity of the topic in American politics--I've commented before on the US Congress voting 90% in favor of resolutions which had no weight, except to make a statement of support against very questionable policies and actions. (When else does the Congress vote 90% in favor of anything?)

Robert Fisk writes a good column about the low expectations from the Arab world of Mr Obama's speech. What is needed is action: while comforting Israel that its core ally will remain its core ally, exert strong pressure to force a change of course--and by change I mean 180 degrees. The end of the deadly illusion that the Jewish State is mandated to rule the lives of Arabs on their own land, and ultimately to take that land.

Below are the concluding paragraphs from Fisk--you can read his full column here.

"Arabs, I find, have a very shrewd conception of what goes on in Washington – the lobbying, the power politics, the dressing up of false friendship in Rooseveltian language – even if ordinary Americans do not. They are aware that the "new" America of Obama looks suspiciously like the old one of Bush and his lads and ladies. First, Obama addresses Muslims on Al-Arabiya television. Then he addresses Muslims in Istanbul. Now he wants to address Muslims all over again in Cairo.
I suppose Obama could say: "I promise I will not make any decision until I first consult with you and the Jewish side" along with more promises about being a friend of the Arabs. Only that's exactly what Franklin Roosevelt told King Abdul Aziz on the deck of USS Quincy in 1945, so the Arabs have heard that one before. I guess we'll hear about terrorism being as much a danger to Arabs as to Israel – another dull Bush theme – and, Obama being a new President, we might also have a "we shall not let you down" theme.
But for what? I suspect that what the Arab world wants to hear – not their leaders, of course, all of whom would like to have a spanking new US air base on their property – is that Obama will take all his soldiers out of Muslim lands and leave them alone (American aid, doctors, teachers, etc, excepted). But for obvious reasons, Obama can't say that.
He can, and will, surely, try his global-Arab line; that every Arab nation will be involved in the new Middle East peace, a resurrection of the remarkably sane Saudi offer of full Arab recognition of Israel in return for an Israeli return to the 1967 borders in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolution 242. Obama will be clearing this with King Abdullah on Wednesday, no doubt. And everyone will nod sagely and the newspapers of the Arab dictatorships will solemnly tip their hats to the guy and the New York Times will clap vigorously.
And the Israeli government will treat it all with the same amused contempt as Netanyahu treated Obama's demand to stop building Jewish colonies on Arab land and, back home in Washington, Congress will fulminate and maybe Obama will realise, just like the Arab potentates have realised, that beautiful rhetoric and paradise-promises never, ever, win against reality."

It's counter-intuitive, but in the big scheme of thing, this American disconnect between words and deeds (not an American exclusive, but an exceptionally weighty disconnect given the place of the US in today's world) will have far greater consequences than the bankrupcy of GM.

Until the moment of their crash, however, empires tend to concern themselves with things which cease to matter the minute after the crash.

Elrig

Palestine: is it time for Hello or Farewell?

2009-05-29T23:19:00.009+03:00

Palestine is the place to go to if you're an avid natural pessimist like I am. But you always want to find hope and be an optimist if you are to survive. So what should we be now: optimistic or pessimistic?

I posted an innocuous Quick Update after reading David's blog (look right on this page ->) about a Freudian slip by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism in an advertisement in the London subway (see the BBC news report here). In the poster (see picture), the Palestinian Territories, which could become Palestine tomorrow, are simply wiped off the map ("oops, sorry, we forgot" was the heartfelt apology from the Embassy). At the same time, the chief of the Arab League restates what everyone knows, that peace is impossible with the settlements. Of course, Israel (and by that I mean the State of Israel and its traditional advocates in the US) strongly resists the newly rising US statements (not quite pressure yet) to, at least, freeze settlement activities. At the same time, Israel and supporters (the neo-cons are not dead, just "badly badly wounded") continue to suggest that Palestinians might just have to move or be integrated into Jordan (for the West Bank) or Egypt (for Gaza). Not that either party (Palestinians, Jordanians or Egyptians) is interested, but that doesn't stop Israel and US politicians from promoting the idea.

Informed voices keep saying louder and louder that "time is running out" for a peace agreement based on a two-state solution (while of course the one-state solution is further away than ever). What prompted my opening about pessimism and optimism is that even such high power players as Saeb Erekat (the Palestinian chief negotiator) don't seem to know which way to blow. In this Haaretz article, Erekat is presented as being "encouraged" by the meeting between Presidents Oabama (US, in case you missed that) and Abbas (president of the Palestinian non-state). I can't find it now, but I could swear I just saw an article covering the same interview, but emphasizing his statement that the chance for a negotiated agreement on a two-state settlement is "running out." Not so encouraged it seemed...

So are we on the edge of abysmal failure and disaster? Nakba, 2. Or are we at the dawn of new opportunities? Finally peace.

Ahmed Qureia (former Palestinian Prime Minister, known as Abu Ala, and chief negotiator for the PLO) even goes as far as proposing solutions in the event of the establishment of Palestine behind internationally recognized borders (Green Line) for Jewish settlers who don't want to leave their homes. These suggestions are not new (I heard Michael (Ala) Tarazi present them back in 2004); they are self-evident if you think people are people; and they are terrifying if you are naturally scared of any Arab institution, say nothing of living under Palestinian rule.

It seems we are on the edge of our seats and many things depend on what the United States will do and decide. And this hinges probably in part on what President Obama actually wants to do, but also on what his advisers and Cabinet members will help him achieve and negotiate with a US Congress, which is more supportive of Israeli policies than Israel itself.

I don't know which way we will go, and predicting failure is always a surer bet in the Middle East than putting one's own money on hope. But I will go with this Malysian writer who borrows from Obamesque litterature to speak of 'the audacity of hope in Palestine.' The reason I lean this way is because of analyses I've already made in the past: either we find a path to peace, or the alternative scenarios--a farewell to the idea of Palestine--will lead nowhere but to more chaos and destruction. (Read here on suicidal policies and here on a simple argument for the two state solution.)

If we--"we"--don't find the courage for a drastic turn in current policies (and in my view this includes both dialogue with Hamas and harsh choices for Israel--not an easy plan to sell) it won't just be "farewell Palestine," it will be "hello" to chaos and to more suffering. More suffering than we've seen so far, if we can imagine that. Probably not just for Palestinians.

Optimist? Pessimist?
Trying to be a "person of faith", I will pray as if I were an optimist. Sabah el-kheir ya Philistiin! Shalom wa Salaam for Israelis and Palestinians. We hope.

Elrig

Silencing Reality in Israel/Palestine- Thank you New York Times!

2009-05-21T18:51:00.005+03:00

To be honest, the NYT is one of my favorite US daily newspapers -- at least when it comes to the Opinions Page. But here's a clear debunking of how it misdirects the news when there's some uncomfortable reality to be pushed aside. The following article shows how it's not always opposing truth and creating lies, but more gently reporting without reporting, not allowing a certain story line to emerge. When the facts cannot be denied (in this case the small problem of an ongoing conquest of land and displacement of Palestinian population), anything that would suggest something to be looked into needs to be just sidelined.

Just read for yourself how this is done in the case of the Netanyahu-Obama encounter. Concluding paragraphs below:

"This analytic piece concludes with two paragraphs of Israeli doubts about any dealings at all with Iran, and Israeli doubts about Obama. There is a rushed, single paragraph in the middle, on Palestine. No second analytic piece about Palestine as a subject of Monday's news conference has yet been posted at the New York Times on-line.
The Times story by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and the Times analysis by David Sanger both tell the same story. It says that Iran is the major business between the U.S. and Israel in the coming year. The story is false, as an impartial viewer or reader of Monday's news conference will recognize. The giant gamble of the Times is that by repeating the story they can shape events and help to make it true. This double distortion was policy, not accident."

The current stalemate in Israel / Palestine rests on a huge lie. Yes, there are issues on the two sides, but no one thinks of the Palestinian political groups in totally dreamy fashion (if anything they are demonized more than is useful -- particularly Hamas). On the other hand, we treat the Israeli government as an a-priori innocent, progressive, trustworthy and peaceful entity. And that is the great lie.

The NYT is, for reasons of its own, part of that deception. This may not require grand conspiracies. A friend of mine once told me, "the best deception is self-deception."

Elrig

nb: picture borrowed from David's blog, who stole it from someone else.

A picture worth a thousand words

2009-05-14T00:43:00.006+03:00

Two pictures borrowed from "Just World News," which say a lot.

The first from South Africa in the evil days of Apartheid and bantustans.

The second from the West Bank (aka the Eastern part of Palestine) in the evil days of occupation and dispossession. What the authors have done is represent the map (which is pretty accurate) as a nautical map, with Palestinian enclaves shown as land and Jewish settlement zones and bypass roads as the ocean.

A Doctor in Galilee writes to President Obama

2009-05-12T16:25:00.003+03:00

This letter from Dr Kanaaneh in Galilee was circulated by Tikkun. There's nothing new under the Palestinian sun; we keep repeating the same facts as they repeat themselves day after day, hoping and praying that we will awake from our slumber and dare to demand of Israel that it behave as a civilized nation. In so doing, we will also behave as civilized nations, and will have a better leg to stand on as we go on the business of preaching morality, democracy and rule of law to everyone and his brother.
Elrig

-----

Dear President Obama:

In approaching the task of addressing you directly about a personal issue, I feel daunted by the abyss that separates the two of us in status and power. I am a retired public health physician, attempting to maintain a hold on his sanity and physical health by puttering around his garden in a Palestinian village in Galilee. You are the president of the nation most of humanity envies and desires to join, burdened with the task of saving the world from economic and political chaos and now from nuclear war.

Yet I find enough shared experiences between us to embolden me to speak to you as an equal in humanity if in no other regard. Like you, I am a product of Hawaii , where I attended university at the time your late parents did, and of Harvard, where we both received our professional training. I subsequently returned to my village and worked among my people to treat their illnesses and improve their wellbeing physically, mentally and socially with varying degrees of success and frustration. Unlike you, I came up fast against the glass ceiling set very low for Palestinian citizens of Israel like me. I have written a book of memoirs (see last below) that documents my professional struggle over three and a half decades. It would be a great honor for me if you were to read it as part of your education on the issues of my community and of our potential as a bridge for peace in the Middle East .

Now to the subject of my message, Mr. President: The newly-elected prime minister of Israel , Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, and his foreign minister, Mr. Avigdor Lieberman, plan evict me from my home and to take away my garden. These two persons and their fellow ministers were democratically elected to their positions and will use 'democratic' means at their disposal to legitimize my disenfranchisement as have previous Israeli governments done in the past. The difference is that the current leaders are explicit and aggressive about disadvantaging me based on my ethnicity. They have devised a way to blame me for my victimhood. They intend to ask me to sign an oath of allegiance to Israel as a Jewish state, a state that defines itself as exclusive of me and my people.

Democracy, Mr. President, may be the best political system, but, alas, it is no guarantee of justice and equality when it is abused to give unrestricted power to an exclusivist majority. My community, citizens of Israel since its establishment, makes up a fifth of the country's population but owns a constantly shrinking share of the land that currently stands at 3% of the total. Our towns and villages receive 3-5% of municipal budgetary allocations. Our infants and children die at over twice the level of our Jewish co-citizens -- and the relative ratio is rising of late. Our two communities continue to live in racially segregated residential areas often separated by walls and barbwire. Mr. President, I am not writing of the West Bank or Gaza but of neighborhoods in 'mixed cities' within the Green line.

You are the lead protector and promoter of true democracy in the world. As such, I call on you, Mr. President, to stand up to such corrupting practices presented to the world under the guise of sound democratic principles.

And as a fellow human being, I ask you, Mr. President, to put yourself momentarily in my position and consider how I should react to the racially-based transfer designs of these politicians. Here, in the person ofAvigdor Lieberman, is another presumably equal co-citizen of Israel who calls openly for my disqualification from our shared citizenship because I want to be equal to him under the laws of our common country. He insists on having me step down from our presumed common stand of equality and kowtow openly to his privileged status as the son of a certain race and religion. Would you do that, Mr. President, were it to be demanded from you by a fellow American citizen, be he Anglo-Saxon, Hispanic or Asian immigrant, or even a Native American?

As an alternative, Mr. Lieberman wants me transferred out of the country though I have lived on land I inherited legally from forefathers who almost surely have better claim to descent from the ancient Hebrews thanhis. And mind you, Mr. President, my residence in the home he wants me evicted from predates the establishment of the state he wants to appropriate as his, and his alone, while he is a recent immigrant fromMoldova . Would you, Mr. President, take a loyalty oath confirming your second-class status?

Mr. Lieberman's best-case scenario for tolerating my existence in his vicinity is to have the homes of the likes of me re-zoned into one of the Bantustans he envisions, to be created and run by remote control from behind an ethnic separation wall. Would you succumb gracefully, without protest, to such a scheme, Mr. President?

You have to understand, sir, that I speak here of life-and-death issues for me and my family. Mr. Lieberman, Israel 's Foreign Minister, attained his impressive status through an openly racist election campaign that featured mass rallies at which calls of "Death to Arabs" were standard. Would you trust such a man with your future in the international arena, Mr. President? I surely hope not: but the majority of Israeli citizens seem to have done exactly that.

That is where I sense danger, sir; in the assigning of my fellow countrymen of responsibility for our common future to fascist and untrustworthy representatives. Past injustices, and those were many and massive against my people, were never so clearly foretold as the ones the current Israeli government threatens to perpetrate against me, my family, my village and my people. It is with this clearly articulated plan of my transfer in mind that I call on you to use the undeniable prestige of your office to stop such plans from being implemented. I ask you, sir, to reassure me that you will never permit such schemes to be on any agenda discussed in the presence of representatives of the United States of America . I need that in order to be able to sleep, Mr. President.

With my best wishes for a peaceful and happy Easter for you and your family and for all of humanity, I remain,

Sincerely,

Hatim Kanaaneh , MD , MPH
Author of 'A Doctor in Galilee : the Life and Struggle of a Palestinian in Israel ', Pluto Press, 2008
Active Blog: http://a-doctor-in-galilee.blogspot.com

The Blogger's Dilemna

2009-05-06T01:22:00.003+03:00

No Comments - in the words of Garry Trudeau (click on cartoon to enlarge).

Alert by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)

2009-04-30T23:29:00.004+03:00

An important alert from different Jewish peace groups. Please read and follow up on some of the calls for action.Shalom = Salaam,

Elrig
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Alert—from Sydney Levy

Let me cut down to the chase. We have just learned that a number of Israeli peace activists have had their computers confiscated, have been called for interrogations, and have only been released upon signing agreements not to contact their political friends for 30 days. We are asking you to contact the Israeli Attorney General to demand an immediate stop to this harassment.

The activists targeted are members of New Profile, a group of feminist women and men daring to suggest that Israel need not be a militarized society. They are being wrongfully accused of inciting young people—like the shministim—not to enlist in the army. The charge is not true. While New Profile does not tell youngsters not to enlist, they certainly support those who do not: pacifists, those who oppose the occupation, and others. New Profile informs them of their rights and gives them legal support when necessary. But Israel is a country that does not acknowledge the basic human right to conscientious objection.

The government's accusation against New Profile is not new. It has been out there for some time, as a source of harassment. Today's police actions tighten the screws considerably. We've seen how international pressure has helped get many shministim out of jail. Now it's time to put as much pressure so that Israeli peace activists can do their work free of intimidation.

I leave you with a note from New Profile: "These recent acts confirm what we have been contending for many years: the militarism of society in Israel harms the sacred principles of democracy, freedom of expression and freedom of political association. One who believed that until now criminal files were conjured up "only" for Arab citizens of Israel saw this morning that none of us can be certain that s/he can freely express an opinion concerning the failures of society and rule in Israel."

MORE INFORMATION
Read more - click here.
Support Israeli activists - here.

For interviews:
Dr. Diana Dolev, telephone: 052 872 8300
Attorney Smadar Ben Nathan, telephone: 052 358 9775

For further details:
Ofra Leith, telephone: 0502 4372
Eilat Maoz, Coordinator of the Women's Coalition for Peace, telephone: 050 857 5729

On trauma, its memory, its future, its repetition?

2009-04-20T21:45:00.008+03:00

Tonight started Yom Shoah, the day of remembrance of the holocaust- a sobering day for all of us. And I mean all of us.
Roger Cohen writes an interesting piece on Israel's need for closure in today's NYT. Two quotes I can only agree with:

“The biggest risk to Israel is Israel.”

The second is from Ehud Barak:

“Every attempt to keep hold of this area as one political entity leads, necessarily, to either a non-democratic or a non-Jewish state, because if the Palestinians vote, then it is a binational state, and if they don’t vote it is an apartheid state ...”*

In an older post I wrote that "The beliefs we feed now create the world we will live in tomorrow." (See The Words of War to the Death in Palestine.) Cohen for his part concludes:

"Closure ... cannot be attained through the inflation of threats, the perpetuation of fears, or retreat into the victimhood that sees every act, however violent, as defensive."

The current tone promoting paranoia, racism and more and more radical (aka lethal) "solutions" certainly does not encourage closure.

Shalom.

Elrig
PS: As always good column by David, also related to this topic. See http://hoseyblog.blog.com/4848847/

* I would ask what about a Federation of a Jewish State and a Multicultural Palestinian State, where members of one state can be resident in the other? That would solve the "Jewish identity" issue, allow settlers to get their Palestinian green card if they so desire to live in "Judea and Samaria", and give a viable option for Jerusalem residents. (I did not make that up - I heard a former Palestinian negotiator raise that option once in public.)

Picture Source: http://college.usc.edu/vhi/images/01_26_07.jpg

Wrong and Wronger

2009-04-17T11:34:00.004+03:00

In the last three weeks, there have been two incidents whereby authorities -- once Israeli and once Palestinian -- disrupted and suppressed peaceful cultural events (all by Palestinians). Both were wrong, but this is a good illustration of how Palestinians let themselves get caught in a corner. Israelis were wrong, but served their purpose, while Palestinians were wrong and hurt their cause.

1- First there was the cultural festival of "Jerusalem, Cultural Capital of the Arab World 2009," with dance, music, art exhibit all around the West Bank and Jerusalem. The teenage daughter of our landlord desperately hoped we would see her group dance the Dabka in their traditional dance costume. In a place that's too often bleak, it's wonderful to see kids and adults get excited about something creative and joyful.

Now, of course from the Israeli standpoint the entire premise of the expansion of Israel's territory and the 'indivisible Jerusalem' is to deny the very obvious reality of the Arab presence in Jerusalem. It takes walls, house demolitions, expulsions and subjugation to make that denial a reality--it's a very active policy. And letting Arabs celebrate Jerusalem as any kind of a capital is obviously not something "tolerable" to this ethno-political ideology.

For all those who question, "why don't the Palestinian do peaceful things rather than encourage suicide bombers?" here's a case in point. Hopelessness is not the inherent fruit of Arab culture - no matter what its flaws - it is a product of the occupation. So the Israeli government sent in the police and all events around Jerusalem were canceled. (Read here.) My landlord's daughter didn't get to dance with her group. She was reminded that she is a non-citizen of a non-state and thereby not entitled to the common rights of all people. Even though her parents, grand parents, great grand parents and so forth have been in this place through generations.

Israel is wrong. Dead wrong. But this wrong is serving its political ideology of crushing the Palestinians into submission, denying existence and expression. It's a wrong which serves a purpose -- even if it's an immoral one.

2- Next comes the Palestinian example of Wafa Younis, a violinist and peace activitist who gives lessons to children in Jenin. Not only that, but she goes back and forth between Jenin (West Bank) and Israel and uses music as a way to create a different reality than checkpoints, soldiers, freedom fighters and terrorists. She uses art to recognize the humanity of all and the value of all humans. Not to mention that these kind of activities are desperately needed by children and youth in the grey world of refugee camps (where she works) and West Bank cities.

Now as part of her efforts, Mrs. Younis performed for survivors of the Holocaust as well as for Palestinian families who lost a member of their family to war and occupation. What a statement: 'let us acknowledge our diverse losses and traumas, acknowledge our humanity, and use art to speak healing to all of us (rather than use our respective traumas and pains to invalidate the Other).' That's serious peace work and it's gutsy.

What happened (read here) is that the Palestinian security forces in Jenin ended up closing down her operation because she had played for Holocaust survivors (presumably because of concerns that it showed 'fraternizing with the occupier and normalizing relations while Jenin is very much still occupied and suffering).

The first thing of interest is the narrative of how this happened. If you trust the Haaretz article, it seems that the security personnel sent to interrupt her wasn't too happy about it and pulled some legalese (e.g. being an Israeli citizen she is not allowed in the West Bank by the Israelis--something which usually does not concern the Palestinians). Then it seems the orders came from the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, which itself has done a lot to show goodwill and cooperation with the Israelis (perhaps too much). So, it's unlikely that President Mahmoud Abbas or Prime Minister Fayyad were really personnally upset at these activities. No, it seems they decided to react because of the accusation put by Hamas that they are "normalizing relations" (aka collaborating) with the Israelis.* The bottomline motivation was internal politics and posturing.

End result: we see that a security forces officer did something he did not believe in, under orders from a government which did not believe in it either, to appease internal political posturing against a political group which has been excluded from government of the West Bank.

This is my point: the Palestinians were here just as wrong as the Israelis in the previous example. The only difference is that in the Israeli case, actions were taken from top to bottow (law enforcement) to pursue a clear and single agenda (essentially the judaization of Jerusalem** in this case). While, in the Palestinian case, each level of action was motivated by a different short-view agenda and the ultimate result did nothing to advance the overall Palestinian strategy. (What it did is reinforce anti-Palestinian propaganda on the lines of "the Palestinian Authority opposes playing music to Holocaust survivors and hence, perhaps, is still denying the Holocaust, even worst planning the new one, etc.")

My conclusions?

Short-sighted political idiocy abounds, but when the field is not even and you're losing the battle, you have to be smarter and better than the other team. Otherwise you keep losing.
People like Wafa Younis are the people who will create the change we need. Some of my friends see those with a gun as "realists" and those with a violin as "idealists." Well - feel free to call them what you want, they impress the heck out of me and I'm betting my life that the violin beats the gun in the end. That's what faith tells me.

Wafa - and others like her, Palestinian, Jewish, Christian, Muslim or Secular - are the ones telling a story for the people, all the people. Holocaust survivors and Nakba survivors. More importantly she is telling a story for today and tomorrow, one where we can all live in peace.

Idealists change the world.

Salaam - Shalom,

Elrig

* This is happening in the context of national reconciliation discussions taking place in Cairo.
** For a glimpse of the personal significance of this to flesh and blood individuals, read Marlin's interesting vignette here.

Picture source: http://z.about.com/d/middleeast/1/0/6/6/-/-/0329-wafa.jpg

The U.S. sacrificed 120,000 lives to an idol since 9/11 only

2009-04-14T11:56:00.007+03:00

Guns seem to be the topic du jour...(See the excellent column by Bob Herbert in today's NYT.)

I regularly go into circular debates about gun deaths in America with some of my more conservative friends. We usually go nowhere. It is not that we disagree on what needs to be done, but my friends disagree that anything either (1) can be done, or (2) should be done. Alternatively they argue that if anything is done, well... in the 80's the commies were going to come and take over the Capitol, or there's always the Government, or someone ill-defined which currently is dissuaded from invading not by the US Armed Forces or Police, but by the heat packed by average Jo's, plumbers and all -- anyway "they" are going to come and it will be the end of that if we surrender our guns.

I usually try to point out that common sense gun laws don't even have to 'take away the guns,' but that a nice licensing and registration program and proscribing of anonymous gun sales would go a long way in reducing the Uzzi distribution in American inner-cities. I also point out that the French only have 30% fewer guns than the Americans per capita but simply don't die in the calamitous proportions observed in the US.

I'm faced with the same slogans: 'if we take the guns away, the bad guys won't listen to the law and the good people will not be safe.' As if they were safe now; as if we were powerless to have a rule of law at all. And I always ask, 'what about the French bad guys?' Either the French police and gendarmerie are exceptionally more gifted than their American counterparts at taking the guns away from bad guys, or the French bad guys are inherently better people than the American bad guys. If we assume that 'bad guys always get the guns' then those are the only explanations. [I must say that the inherent sinlessness of the French is a thought-challenging and original implied suggestion from my American friends. We are deeply grateful and we concur!]

With Christian friends, I also get lost in long discussions about every solution being purely symptomatic but that the root problem is sin, which is better left to spiritual efforts. The implied conclusion is still that we (1) can't or (2) shouldn't do anything about guns. This baffles me, because--while the concept of sin is not unfamiliar to me--my friends also don't mind using the rule of law to proscribe gay marriage, proscribe abortion, enforce speed limits, prevent or punish theft and robbery, etc. It's just on this one issue -- guns -- that nothing practical can be done.

I have come to the conclusion that this issue reveals a mixture of two things:

A cultural blind spot. It seems almost all societies have their blind spots which they can't look into, no matter how much evidence there is. The French have theirs, Arab societies have theirs, the Brits must have theirs and Americans have this one.
A peculiar form of idolatry. I use the word with caution, but this gun-worship comes along with an inordinate societal attraction for violence. Everyone in France has heard of Malick Houssekine, a young man who died of police violence in the 1980's in the aftermath of a large scale demonstration. Many Americans have never heard of Amadou Diallo, a West African American Resident who was shot 41 times by five police officers in New York City in the early 2000's. The point is not to focus on police violence but to recognize that America can't keep up with its violent deaths, gang deaths, office shootings, suicide by guns, accidents, school shootings, etc.

Bob Herbert presents it very articulately. The figure is astounding:

Since 9/11 only, there have been 120,000 gun deaths in the US.
120,000.
120,000 lives.
One every 17 minutes.
8 kids every day.
8 kids
every day
day after day.

You can do something: license, register, close the anonymous sale loopholes, enforce. And not at a local level, unless you want checkpoints between Maryland and Virginia.

But I agree with my friends-- it is a spiritual issue. People need to turn back from gun-worship. In religious terms, "turning back" is called repenting. But it's so rooted in many people's psyche, I also don't think political lobbying and activism will suffice. Prayer might help break the hold of the idol on people's mind. That will help pass common sense laws and save lives. Let's say half of those 8 kids a day. That's a start.

Peace,

Elrig

(Go to the excellent column by Bob Herbert in today's NYT.)

PS: After the exchange of comments with Alexis below - I went back and dug this out:

TITLE: Australia's 1 996 gun law reforms: faster falls in firearm deaths, firearm suicides, and a decade without mass shootings.
ABSTRACT:
Background: After a 1996 firearm massacre in Tasmania in which 35 people died, Australian governments united to remove semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns and rifles from civilian possession, as a key component of gun law reforms. Objective: To determine whether Australia's 1996 malor gun law reforms were associated with changes in rates of mass firearm homicides, total firearm deaths, firearm homicides and firearm suicides, and whether there were any apparent method substitution effects for total homicides and suicides. Design: Observational study using official statistics. Negative binomial regression analysis of changes in firearm death rates and comparison of trends in pre-post gun law reform firearm-related mass killings. Setting: Australia, 1979-2003. Main outcome measures: Changes in trends of total firearm death rates, mass fatal shooting incidents, rates of firearm homicide, suicide and unintentional firearm deaths, and of total homicides and suicides per 100 000 population. Results: In the 18 years before the gun law reforms, there were 1 3 mass shootings in Australia, and none in the 10.5 years afterwards. Declines in firearm-related deaths before the law reforms accelerated after the reforms for total firearm deaths (p=0.04), firearm suicides (p=0.007) and firearm homicides (p=0.15), but not for the smallest category of unintentional firearm deaths, which increased. No evidence of substitution effect for suicides or homicides was observed. The rates per 100 000 of total firearm deaths, firearm homicides and firearm suicides all at least doubled their existing rates of decline after the revised gun laws. Conclusions: Australia's 1996 gun law reforms were followed by more than a decade free of fatal mass shootings, and accelerated declines in firearm deaths, particularly suicides. Total homicide rates followed the same pattern. Removing large numbers of rapid-firing firearms from civilians may be an effective way of reducing mass shootings, firearm...
SOURCE: Injury Prevention; Dec2006, Vol. 12 Issue 6, p365-372

From Tikkun: Morality, Judaism and The Crimes in Gaza

2009-03-23T11:28:00.003+02:00

Jewish believers, friends of a viable Israeli State and American supporters of Israel must read the comments from Tikkun and Rabbi Michael Lerner.

In the meantime, listen to and read this letter to Obama from an Israeli woman, written back on the day of his inauguration. The price for having a conscience is such a "pain in our stomachs."

Elrig

************************************ FROM TIKKUN***************************

Whenever human rights violations have occurred, the Israeli propaganda machine in the US and Israel proclaim that Israel has "the most moral army in the world and adheres to a doctrine of "tehorat haneshek" (purity of arms) that is a higher standard than any other fighting force in the world. Yet Occupation always and inevitably undermines such intentions. And as Ethan Bronner documented in theNY Times on March 22, there is a significant voice of religious Jews who no longer believe that they have a moral obligation to treat Palestinians by such higher standards, and that group has increasing influence in the Israeli Army's actual practice. Yet you don't have to be a Jewish religious extremist to treat Palestinians harshly--the logic of Occupation itself pulls for a disregard for the humanity of the occupied by the occupiers. And now we have concrete proof--supplied by the soldiers themselves. And what will the Israeli propaganda machine do? What it always does--it will set out to attack those who have raised the issue rather than addressing the substance of the charges.

All this deeply saddens us at Tikkun. We reject the notion that Israel is worse than all the other countries of the world--a notion that is too prominent in some circles of the Left. Similarly, we reject the notion that Judaism or "religion" automatically leads to these kinds of distortions. What is happening is a product of a specific set of historical circumstances--the Occupation, the moral failure of the Israeli Left to challenge the ethical distortions of the Occupation, the blind loyalty of American Jewish institutions to the Israeli government no matter what it does, the capitulation of Congress and every American Administration including the current Obama Administration to the political pressure from the Israel Lobby (which is composed not only of Jewish forces but also of the Christian Right), and the failure of the American media to honestly report what is happening while excluding from public presence voices like that of Tikkun which provide a different narrative and analysis to that of the propagandists. From our perspective, all this is tragic, will likely lead to decreased support for Israel in the long run and also to a growing rejection of Judaism on the part of young Jews who cannot accept a Jewish world that has lost its ethical moorings. So we send out this information not to rejoice in some "gotcha" but in mourning for the high values of the Jewish people, as well as in sympathy with the suffering of the Palestinian people and the people of Israel who are not served by this Occupation.

Please read the details of the latest revelations, plus the latest analysis of them by Gideon Levy, at www.tikkun.org/article.php?story=20090322141045456

Economic Crisis and Life-Giving Spirituality

2009-03-16T12:28:00.006+02:00

I've got to admit, more often than not I write about political issues. I was going to say 'about political issues, not spiritual issues,' but I don't understand how you can be 'spiritual' without being political. You can be political and not spiritual. Maybe. But you sure as heck can't be concerned with the Life of the Human Spirit -- whether you consider our connection to one another or to a Higher Power -- without at least putting politics in the equation.

Let me restate: if you think you can, it's because your forefathers were never under slavery, victims of a genocide or ethnic cleansing, you never spent a day in a slum, you never met someone dying for lack of access to health care, and you've never seen a mother separated from her kids at a checkpoint.

So when I write about political issues, particularly in a Land which has the arrogance of calling itself Holy, I am (also) writing of spiritual things.

But this time, allow me to foray into a spiritual meditation. I believe in clarifying language, so allow me a longer introduction to clarify my use of spiritual lingo.

You can be spiritual without being a Christian, a believer in any Monotheistic religion, or any religion at all. A Chinese friend of mine told me that when Communism crashed as an ideology in China, the country found itself without any known spiritual values (and everything needed to be reinvented). I personally think that Communism was probably as bankrupt spiritually as Greed -- I mean Capitalism -- but it nonetheless had a spiritual component. End of the digression: "spiritual" does not mean "religious."

And correspondingly being "Christian" or "religious" does not mean you're necessarily more spiritual than the next guy. It probably should, but it's not always the case. Religious people can be militaristic, materialistic, violent and hateful as much as the next guy. (Come visit the Holy Land!) I suppose all these things have a spiritual component -- even admiration for an F-16 -- but not the kind of life-giving, healing, redemptive spiritual value I'm interested in.

So, after these caveats, allow me to continue.

We're in a context of economic crisis. I don't feel it because I haven't lost my job or my home. If I did, I'm sure I'd perceive this much more as a reality. But it is a reality for many.*

But the extent of this economic crisis and its relationship with our unsustainable mode of production and consumption is--for once--well described by Thomas Friedman. I usually disagree with Friedman, notably on his views of the Arab world, but since he seems to get it this time, I recommend his column (click here).

I'm not going to go into further analysis and recommendations, as I have none. But I want to post here and excellent writing by Robb Davis on what Life-Giving Spirituality might mean in a time of not only economic crisis, but quite possible collapse of references particularly in the US where the prosperous have been sheltered from the un-prosperous so effectively. I have few readers but they are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and Agnostic -- I think there's something of value to all in Robb's text.

You can click here to visit Robb's page, but I'm pasting his last entry below and invite you to read it. (I kind of assume Robb is allowing me to do so. Hey! It's the blogosphere; if we can't pillage and plunder, what good is it?)

Thanks Robb,

Elrig

* The crisis seems for now to be better shouldered in Europe than in the US, because Europe has kept relatively stronger elements of social protection than the US. This burdens us economically (yes, it does) and those who can climb can't climb as high as fast as their Americans counterparts can when things go well, but when the going gets tough and we start falling, we fall slower and we buffer the fall a little better than the Americans.

*******************

On Weakness (a Lenten Reflection) - [Robb Davis]

I listen closely to a broad array of top economists who, collectively in this time, communicate a message of uncertainty, fear and warning about the potential for a severe and long-lasting economic downturn. Some are already experiencing the leading edge of this storm (here in CA unemployment is already near 16% in the central valley, areas in the rust belt can't be far behind), and it is a storm that is likely to lead to many changes--most of which no one can predict. There will be much pain, suffering, perhaps violence and, with all of this, the opportunity to live out the gospel in novel and life changing ways.

This much perhaps is not earth-shaking news. Many are wondering how to live faithfully in this time of uncertainty. I share that "wondering" and am thinking about how we might walk forward in this time. I don't have any economic solution to these present woes. I offer no "strategic plan". I offer merely a few reminders and an exhortation about faithfulness.

First, I think about the meaning of this season of Lent which is a time of reflection concerning the cross--the crux of history. As Jesus approached Jerusalem he did so in a spirit of service and with a clear sense that he would lay down his life. This embrace of weakness is remarkable and, in itself, stands as both a model for the way of the kingdom but also a judgment of world systems, principalities and powers who dehumanize and dominate by force. However as Marva Dawn points out in "Powers, Weakness and the Tabernacling of God" (if you have not read it I recommend it) Jesus' decision was not a simple one as he was confronted with an ongoing temptation to choose the way of domination. This temptation began before his public ministry began and clearly continued throughout that ministry and into the garden the night before his crucifixion. In other words, the choice of weakness was constantly challenged and the way of worldly power always present as a choice for Jesus. This makes his decision to take up the cross an amazing illustration of his love for us.

Dawn points out that the theme of weakness dominates the writings of Paul and other New Testament writers and suggests that Paul's words in I Corinthians 12 would best be translated this way:

...(B)ut he has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for your power is brought to its end in weakness." All the more gladly, then, will I boast in my weakness that the power of Christ (not mine!) may tabernacle upon me.

Powerful words--the tabernacling of God--the dwelling of Christ in us--comes when we acknowledge and embrace our weakness.

And so as we walk towards the cross--the crux--in this season, a season full of doubt, uncertainty and fear my exhortation to myself, to others, is to embrace this weakness and to publicly acknowledge that we have no solutions. We have no grand plans. We have no power to effect the kind of change that the world is clamoring for. What we have is weakness, and in that weakness we have hope that the Christ will powerfully use our humble obedience to accomplish his kingdom purposes on our midst (things like healing, freedom, sight, justice). Jacques Ellul in "L'homme et l'argent" makes it clear that "Mammon" is one of the powers that Jesus defeated at the cross. I will not, therefore, encourage people to trust God until the economy "turns around". Nor to "hunker down" until the storm blows over. Rather I encourage myself and others to meditate on a theology of weakness--that our trust in our own power might come to an end and that God might reveal God's power in us. We must envision, not some ideal economic order nor a return to the status quo of the "business cycle", but a way of walking each day in generosity--an open hand--in a time of testing. Only this can enable our liberation from the false promises of a modern economic system that has promised (but failed to deliver--as it must) security, comfort or "a better life".

I will demonstrate my commitment to this kind of walk by fasting and praying on Good Friday. May our prayers on that day be prayers of thanks that our power has come to an end. May they be prayers in which we "boast" in our weakness. And may we seek God's wisdom and guidance as we prepare to faithfully serve the suffering, oppressed and fearful in the days ahead. I agree with John Howard Yoder that the church carries the "inner meaning of history" in that God (for reasons that are a mystery) has chosen this entity to bring about the great unwinding of the fall.

************************

Stimulating read on radical living

2009-03-11T11:30:00.003+02:00

Well, I'm not a radical, but here's a Young Turk* who's putting some serious thinking about what this might mean. Visit David's blog and read his entry on Christian Peacemaker Team member, Tom - who died three years ago in Iraq. I am not always sure what I think of such 'radical' people, but in a world which relishes "heroes" and "martyrs," you have to respect someone willing to lay down HIS life to love and help friends and enemies alike -- as opposed to someone willing to kill friends with enemies through an act of suicide; or someone willing to live with the collateral damage of his/her acts of war.

[And if you want a good read about people putting into question the US's excessive reliance on the military, check out David's blog entry just before that. (Click here.)]

Elrig
* There's a long tradition of me calling David names -- it has to do with all the beer he's plundered out of my fridge.

What kills the people of Darfur? (With footnote on mistaken comparisons between tragedies.)

2009-03-09T10:58:00.008+02:00

If I look at a map, and go West and South from the (un)Holy Land, I see Sudan and I hear Darfur.

What kills the people of Darfur? (I link below to a must-read article from Kristof in the NYT.)

According to Mouammar Qadhafi, it's Israel. O well--even though former President W Bush and even the EU bestowed Kadafi the "good student" award and he is now an "ally" (sorry, trying not to choke on that), I don't pay much attention to this guy. [Side note: unlike Saddam Hussein, he directly involved himself in terrorist attacks against civilians.]

No, Israel is not killing Darfurians. Actually Israel is trying to deal with the problem of Sudanese refugees -- I don't know enough to judge whether it is doing better or worst than a lot of our Western countries.

It seems that what is killing Darfurians is:

1- extreme poverty and limited resources, which created a conflict around means for maintaining livelihood. With that seem to come barbaric standards for the respect of human life and the treatment of women.

2- a genocidal Sudanese governmental policy, with murder, rape and mayhem institutionalized at the highest level. It's very hard to qualify it as "racist" because the eye does not catch the race element in this conflict. The ethnic separation comes from identification to Arab culture and the respective weight of traditional beliefs and Islam in tribal culture. It's still horrible. And let's remember the Sudanese government only has violent, fatricidal problems with (1) the South of the country--which can't wait for independence after 2010, (2) the East of the country, and (3) Darfur, aka the West of the country. This is a government which only has legitimacy with a regional minority. It would be easier to have the North of the country and Khartoum demand annexation by Egypt and let the other regions become independent, than work with this abject and backward government.

3- The last thing which kills Darfuris is complacency from the West, from those with power; a complacency of nations manifested through their collective UN organ. (I don't blame the UN: the UN is doing some absolutely necessary work there. I've seen the UNICEF, WHO, UNHCR and WFP folks in two of the three Darfur capitals and I couldn't do what they do. NGOs also do a remarkable work. And no, the UN and the NGOs don't cost the same; but they also don't do the same thing.) But the problem remains one of insecurity and war and chaos.

Now, there are many reasons why the West doesn't want to push for what could lead to war with a Muslim regime. The Sudanese do have oil, but honestly not that much, and... last time we followed the hawks, well... Fallujah comes to mind. And at least they have coffee shops in Fallujah. There's nothing in Darfur. Lots of sand.
The last eight years have made such a mockery of international law and international responsibility, that the US -- in this case the indispensable leader, that's a fact -- is reasonably afraid of ending up with the bill. And there are a lot of bills to pay these days.

So, we do nothing... And people die. I think 40,000 died in the camps in 2007 alone. Say nothing of rape and forced displacement.

Read Nicholas Kristof's article: "Watching Darfuris Die."

But let me segway to mistaken comparisons with a familiar topic of this blog -- the Palestinian situation.

From the Israeli side, you often hear about the severity of the situation in Darfur and there are a number of citizen and NGO initiatives to try and do something. That's great and laudable.
You also hear of the death differential between Darfur, where many agree a genocide is occuring, although it's a strange genocide to be sure, and Palestine. If I remember correctly 600 Palestinians were killed in 2007. With the Gaza war, that number will have jumped to maybe around 2,500 for 2008. The Israeli government and advocates are prompt to compare that number with the stagering figures in Darfur. Usually, the implication of the comparison is that: (a) Israel is not committing genocide [I'll agree with that and I'm never comfortable when that term is used loosely]; and (b) the only reason the world cares about Palestinians (and not about Darfuris) is because we're all a bunch of antisemites (see a previous entry on this).

I disagree with that last assessment. I think the West's and the US's roles in these two conflicts is shameful, but the shame is of a different nature, just as the two conflicts are of a different nature.

* In Sudan, an Arab (or so it claims to be) backward fundamentalist underveloped autocrat is killing his own people by the thousands to pursue some weird ethno-religious ideology.
* In Israel/Palestine, a modern somewhat-democratic Western-like democracy (or so it is claimed) is pursuing a slow but effective strategy of ethnic cleansing without the name (migration would be preferred to war and death, but both can do the job), dispossession, and domination over another ethnic group, which made the mistake of being there first. Israel also wants to be a good guy; it's only when it comes down to the land on which Palestinians live that a 'higher mandate' demands ignoring principles.

Faced with this, the US and the West have a different burden of responsibility:

* For Sudan, we (Western nations) have identified the bad guys and we are either impotent or complacent, moving at the speed of a snail, and providing some efforts at protection of the population. The question is how forcefully we will oppose Bashir, the criminal president of Sudan?

* For Israel/Palestine, the US (more than its Euro-partners) funds Israeli efforts, equips its military, and votes resolutions of support for its wars. Band-aids thrown to Palestinians while undermining and destroying the structure of society simply don't redeem a conscience. America is not complacent (leave that to the Europeans); the question is when do we stop aiding and abeiting lawlessness? The question is - whether we like that idea or not - how complicit are we of occupation policies?

I hope and pray Obama and our leaders get us out of both complacency and complicity. It's time to at least make an effort to be moral again.

Elrig

Non-Violence in Palestine and Israel

2009-03-08T07:41:00.004+02:00

I often hear questions like: "why don't the Palestinians choose non-violence as a strategy?" This always stimulates a lot of thinking since I don't know of any people who have. Indians didn't. Ghandi did and achieved a huge following -- until the Pakistan-Indian split and his own violent death. Americans didn't either. Ever. Even African-Americans. MLK did and achieved a huge following -- until his own violent death. Both those landmark movements gathered critical mass and made history. But none was the choice of an entire people. So the answer to the question above is simply, "because no people ever do - we're just to dumb for this as the human race."

A more interesting question then becomes, "how are non-violent movements and efforts faring in Palestine and Israel?"

Here are two stories from yesterday about non-violence in Palestine (click here and here); and one link to an exciting Israeli group in Sderot (click here) - I visited them yesterday and will tell you more about it soon. (Finally, you can access Sami Awad's blog through the links on this page -- always a mine of inspiration about Palestinian non-violent struggle.)

Peace,

Elrig
Photo : flickr.com/photos/84896044@N00/179289357/

10 minutes to understand the basic issues for Israel / Palestine.

2009-03-06T11:08:00.006+02:00

This short report from CBS / 60 minutes presents the issues very very clearly and simply. I encourage you to take just 10 minutes to watch and understand (2 part video below).

Part 1

Part 2

Only one correction, the report starts by saying that Palestinians hoped to build their state in the West Bank -- well that's not totally true. They hoped to build a state over all of historic Palestine and were crushed by the British in the late 1930's. Recently, following the 1967 war and the Oslo 1994 agreements, they have hoped to build a state over internationally recognized borders, i.e. all of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

The key quote in this report is from the Mayor of a Settlement who says very clearly: "Settlements prevent the establishment of a Palestinian State."

The episode of the IDF soldiers occupying a home in Nablus is a common occurrence. Courageous soldiers have started speaking out about this and have videos documenting all this. (Visit Breaking the Silence.)

The reporter makes a clear and simple case about the dead end of current policies. And dead end must be taken very literally -- see my entry these suicide and death policies.

We ask Hamas to recognize the Israeli State and stop violence. Should we not ask Israel to recognize a Palestinian State and should we not stop funding, supplying and cheering this violence?

Elrig

Me and Hillary in Jerusalem

2009-03-05T06:11:00.004+02:00

Well, Hillary and I arrived in Jerusalem at the same time, but no, we were not on the same plane. We have another point in common: both she and I are absolutely useless to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's only mildly more worrisome for her as she is the flag bearer of American democracy abroad. To be fair, I only listened to 5 minutes of a press interview and those 5 minutes were enough to tell me that no matter how brilliant she is (and the lady is smart!), no matter how many gestures she makes (and she's writing checks left and right), and no matter how many great speeches she delivers, she is irrelevant to the pursuit of peace in this country.

So, what's the indicator I used to identify her as a non-player? It's simple; she repeats the dead-end verbiage that, no matter what anyone does, "we" cannot talk to or deal with Hamas." End of the story. We cannot have peace without putting enemies at the table, and even less by cheering one on and crushing the other -- that's called being party in a war.

I'll skip the obvious parallel and contradictory process where "we" will not only talk to but pay up to whichever Prime Minister Israel names -- including Benjamin Netanyahu who long ago buried the peace process after the assassination of Yitrach Rabin and who now promises Palestinians they will live happily in their little city-prisons.

Now, tell me what we think of foreign figures who claim to love the people of Europe and the US, but only want to kill our leaders, blow up our military, and (only if absolutely necessary) are ready to destroy our cities to make their point? No matter how many nice things they might say about the American people, we would consider such people enemies of our societies.

If you are a Palestinian, even more so if you are a Gazan, you may have voted for Hamas through a free and fair electoral process. Or if you didn't your husband or cousin did. You may have voted against them, even hate their guts, but they won the election and they represent resistance to a cruel occupation* and an attempt to run society according to their ethos. Then people who reserve the right to lock you down and visit you with lethal force virtually every night sent their soldiers in. The chief of the soldiers said they should be "very violent" and use "disproportionate means." The rabbis came to pray and bless the soldiers. The US sent money, weapons and amunition. President-elect Obama at the time chose to be silent. The US Congress voted 90% in favor of Israel sending the soldiers in. These soldiers killed 1,400 people - about a third were women and children. Acceptable collateral-damagism we've been told. Now, Mrs. Clinton comes, signs checks for some blankets and flour (how about getting a permit from the Master, Israel, for people to be able to buy cement? no? OK, never mind.). But Mrs. Clinton also says Hamas must simply cease to exist. Essentially, next time the Israeli Prime Minister is itchy or having a bad political day, and wants to send soldiers to kill more people, there is already a US State Department blessing, as long as all dead body are labelled as "Hamas militants" or collateral damage. So, once again, if you are a Palestinian from Gaza, how likely are you to see the gestures of the US Department of State as pro-peace, no matter how many checks get written and squandered.**

So, Mrs. Clinton's promise to love Palestinians and kill their political leaders probably does not win a lot of hearts and minds. And if it's a matter of trying to kill, refusing to have a partner for peace (remember Israel always decides who is not a partner for peace - strategic avoidance) and allowing Israel's madness to continue, why does Israel need Hillary? We already have Bibi and Lieberman and a whole host of crazies - she adds nothing.***

There is a war going on. One group is winning and crushing the other. Crushing more and more viciously and cruelly. The losing team is confused, disorganized, and getting seriously dysfunctional (sorry guys, but that's true whether we look at Hamas' Medievalism or Fatah's spinelessness and second fiddle politics). And Hillary says: "the change we can believe in is to continue supporting the strong party unconditionally, regardless of right or wrong or even pretenses of justice."

Right now, I sort of lack in optimism as you can tell.
Every mention of more humanitarian aid to Gaza irks me. I know Gazans; they don't need our humanitarian assistance. They need freedom and peace. And I hope it doesn't come too late to defeat the ideology of Hamas, allowing the Palestinian culture to be restored, to heal and move away from dogmatism and other forms of obscurantism, just as much as the energy and intelligence of Palestinian civil society must overcome the mediocrity and pettiness of Fatah. As those things progress, elections are lost and elections are won. And political leaders learn lessons. But those lessons are not taught with phosporous bombs.

Once upon a time, America understood this. But not Hillary. Not today.
I hope America remembers soon, because right now Israel is diving into its own paranoid, racist, conquering obscurantism. And it needs a sane friend to shake it out of this madness.
Sooner would be better than later.
See you Hillary; don't let the door hit your back on your way out.

Elrig

* Side note on the resistance from Hamas: yes it is violent, and yes, it is terrorist resistance -- but it's only us, comfortably hidden behind our widescreen plasma TV CNN programs who can make the difference between a terrorist attack on Sderot, and a little girl decapitated by a US-donated missile in her house in Khan Younis. For information, the latter is not terrorism it's collateral-damagism. At least for the last five years, collateral damagism has killed a lot more civilians than terrorism. Basically 100 times more. The innefficiency of one form of terror does not make it more moral than the more modern and efficient one. But at least I try to call a cat, a cat.
** That's an alltogether different topic, but can you imagine the waste of trying to pour millions of aid in a tiny place like Gaza but keeping any form of local government out of the picture? Apart from Rush Limbaugh, I don't think anyone thinks you can manage a people without government. Gazans are remarkable. Paris or Los Angeles would be sheer chaos by now.
*** Either Hillary is truly convinced of this never ending war logic, or she just doesn't want to lose the political support and funding of American Jewish Polical Action Groups for future campaigns. In any case, she needs Israel's support more than Israel needs hers.

What the "Status Quo" looks like from the wrong side of a wall (reprise)

2009-02-23T14:52:00.009+02:00

Reprise on a theme --the status quo which isn't one -- this is about the West Bank. Remember, where Hamas does NOT rule but the US-supported and Israeli-recognized Fatah government of President Abu Mazen and Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad? So, that's where there's no threat from the Palestinians, no rockets, no enticement to violence. What does the status quo look like?

Read the report from Gush Shalom - and consider taking action.

Elrig

***

Nightly invasions to Palestinian villages in the West Bank
Imagine being awakened to the sound of a stun grenade. Imagine such a grenade landing in your front yard every night. This is the reality that residents of Palestinian villages who are struggling against the apartheid wall are forced to deal with since the attack on Gaza.

These nightly invasions by the army, which terrorize villagers, are becoming ever more frequent. Invasions take place three to four time a week in the villages of Beit Likia and Bil'in. In the last week, the villages of Ma'asara, Ni'ilin and Jayus too have joined the list, as troops have been harassing those who participate and organize the village protests.

During the invasions soldiers shoot tear gas and stun grenades into civilian's houses. They also use rubber coated bullets and live rounds. On 13.2.09, two children were injured in their homes in Beit Likia, and a 60 year old woman was hit in the stomach. On that same night, soldiers reached the homes of Ma'asara popular leaders Muhammad Barjia and Mahmoud Zoahara, kept them for hours outside their homes in the cold with very little cloths, and caused damage to their property, threatening to arrest the two if demonstrations in the area were to continue. A report by Zoahara is attached hereunder.

The media does not report these incidents, which have become a tiring routine of the reality of occupation. It seems that under this media blockade, army commanders feel free to carry out these crimes.

RAISE A VOICE AND STOP THEM!
A link to a video from Wednesday 18.2.09. The army invaded during the day to set a checkpoint and later at night, just to shoot some teargas and bullets.

***

Background to the Villages
The village of Bil'in has become renowned for its on going struggle against the wall, and Beit Likia too has been known to participate in the struggle. Three Beit Likia children were killed by soldiers and private security guards. The village of Ma'asara has for two years now been leading the popular struggle of the Beit Lehem district villages, in quite demonstrations against the land grabs committed by both settlements and the wall. Jaaus was the first village that conducted a struggle against the wall, back in 2003 and Ni'ilin is protesting for the last year. Four people were killed by the army in Ni'ilin, two of them were children.

Testimony: The night after the demo in AL-Ma'sara village
At the mid of the night 7 Israeli army cars entered the village, they have two target places to attack on is the house of Mohammed BRYJYA The spoken man of the popular community against the wall in the village and the second is the house of Mahmoud Zwahre the coordinator of the popular community against the wall.

Around 12:30 at night the solders knock the door of my house asking me to open the door in a non pilot way then I opened the door more than 10 solders entered my house without my permission, then they asked for my ID and my wife also, and then the check the house putting everything on the other destroying the furniture of the house , at that time they push me out side in the cold weather wit very light clothes, asking the same questions for the demonstration many questions, they told me that they are going to arrest me and they blind me and they tied then they remove the things on my eyes and they start taking pictures for my, while im on the ground on my knees at that time I thought that im in Gwantanamo , then they tied off me and then he told me this week we came and we will not arrest you, the massage this week take care we are going to arrest you next week we are going to come in more difficult way.

So don't come to demonstrate, don't organize demos.

At that time I preferred to be quite no answers and I refuse to talk to them because I know the mode that they are in at that time.

While they was checking in my house they found emails for many friends from solidarity associations from Europe I dint know if they are going to use them or not?

After three hours they left me then I phone Mohammed and I found that they did the same to him.

All of what they are doing we expect it since long time.

All of that is a sign of victory.

Today or tomorrow we are going to win because we have the faith.

Mahmoud

***

Visit Gush Shalom and write a letter to the Israeli Ministry of Defense (Gush Shalom provides a sample letter). In the US, write to your representatives (Congress.Org makes it easy for you) and ask them to request State Department action.

***

If you wonder how exceptional this is, view this older video:

Photo Source: Gush Shalom / ActiveStills.org

Curious about Israeli Elections?

2009-02-16T09:49:00.002+02:00

Israeli elections and the naming of a new government are based on a proportional legislative process, somewhat confusing to US observers. The French have the experience of the disastrous IVth Republic to look at, so have a "been there, done that" to the mess presented by this unstable system. At any rate, here's a great summary of the groups involved, the issues at stake and the options being considered by Gush Shalom's Uri Avnery.

[Avnery was a soldier in the 1948 war and once an MP in the Knesset. I believe he is up in age and battling cancer, according to what I read. If you are the praying kind, pray for such a man. If you are not the praying kind, wish him good luck and long life. There are far too few giants like this Mr Avnery - a man or character, intelligence and vision.l

There are other links pertaining to this election in the 'Quick Updates' section. ------>

Elrig

The Words of "War to the Death" in Palestine

2009-02-14T16:42:00.000+02:00

This entry is for the next time you hear about tanks or shells in Gaza. Or Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem. It is about next time when there won't be 1,400 dead Palestinians and 5,000 wounded, but when there will be 14,000 dead and 50,000 wounded. Or more. It is about the next time we'll shrug it off as just a terribly sad thing that "we only wish someone could do something about," while really believing nothing can actually change.

This is about the words and thoughts which inhabit our readiness to accept war and justify death, particularly when it comes to Arab and Palestinian lives. It is somewhat about beliefs and explanatory models among some Jewish groups.* Not exclusively Jewish however.

[Now, I must immediately take a break and respond to a question before going any further: "What about the Israeli deaths? What about the words and thoughts which allow sending suicide bombers in pizzerias and shooting rockets indiscriminately at civilians?" I'll respond two things: 1- "What about" questions are rhetorical gimmicks and I don't respond to rhetorical questions. 2- On the more serious topic of protecting Jewish lives (actually any life) and facing the crimes of terrorism, yes it is important. It's simply not the topic of this particular post. Maybe one of these days I should write about my views of radical Islam, since I've written in favor of speaking to Hamas. Just not in this post. End of parenthesis.]

It started with a column I mentioned before ('Damned if they do but Israel's dead if they don't.' by Ralph Peters in the New York Post).** This column was circulated among US groups in support of the Gaza war. I just use it because it is illustrative of other papers, pieces and speeches. In fact, I've started reading and hearing similar thoughts in emails and in discussions with Israeli friends. I'm still under the shock of hearing 'normal' people in the 21st Century think that what the world needs is 'one more good war'.

I'll skip all the circular logic and implied warrants of arguments, which Peters fails to defend and just summarize what he tells us.

Claim #1- Peters tells us something about Israel, something about the world, and something about Arabs in general and/or Palestinians specifically.

Israel is by definition peaceful and the sole point of light in a dark Middle East.
The world is, continues to be, and will always be fundamentally antisemitic (a.k.a. anti-Jewish). Nothing has changed since 1933.
Palestinians are illegitimate in their identity and in their claims and -- the two themes are used interchangeably -- Arabs and Muslims are untrustworthy, dangerous, lesser people, with a single dedication to killing Jews.

Those are presented as self-evident facts, the premise upon which today's history pages unfold. They are the assumptions which allow to judge any event intelligently. If it were just propaganda and rhetoric, this would be one thing. I don't know Peters, I have no idea who he is, but what scares me is that I meet more and more people who actually think that way.

Claim #2- Peters tells us two things about how to judge the events which were unfolding in Gaza:

Violence against Palestinians is violence against terrorists and is thus justified (as much as we may regret the unavoidable collateral damage).
Criticism of Israel at any time, including when women and children are dying by the hundreds, is simply a sign of antisemitism.

To support claim number 2, simply refer back to claim number 1 and loop the loop. There's a lot more in Peters' text and each theme has a number of variations, which I summarize as an end note.*** But where does that lead us?

Claim #3- The conclusion of Peters is implied, but his job is to lead you to conceive of it, to be ready for it, maybe to wish for it. And when you talk to some people in Israel and in the US, you realize it is working. There's only one conclusion we have to be ready for:

No path of peace or negotiation is possible (once again, go back to 1).
[In the same vein, there were a number of editorials in the US during the active phase of the Gaza war telling the public: "Isn't it a shame for the poor children? But nothing can be done. It's better to leave it alone for now and not worry about it. Please return to your normal activities."]
Absolute violence will be needed and will have to go on until the Arabs are either subjugated or destroyed.

Now, if that doesn't send shivers up your spine, it's probably simply because this is all too far away from you and we humans are not designed to see, without great effort, the consequences which distant and remote catastrophes will have on our daily lives tomorrow.

My point is not to take all of these claims and disprove them one by one (a good place to start for that is Gush-Shalom's Truth vs. Truth). My point is to ask what happens when you view the world with such hopelessness? What happens when you believe that hatred against you is so pervasive? What happens when you see one people group as inherently lesser - lesser than you, lesser than others - lesser than human? What happens?

It's actually not all propaganda. Of course these themes are part of a propaganda campaign, which is well analyzed elsewhere. But for many this propaganda has become a core belief, a reality to live with.

Many people living in Southern Israel, for example, have accepted the authorized history of this land in the 20th Century. They are (though not all) impervious to the successive deceptions of governments playing the game of a fictitious 'road map to peace' while allowing conquest by illegal settlers and pushing all the wrong buttons at the wrong time to ensure the continuation of the conflict. In that context who wouldn't be traumatized by rockets flying over one's city -- the fact that these rockets killed 20 of your own people in eight years, while about 3,000 of "them" were killed during that same period gets hidden by a few acts of humanitarianism and generosity. (And if you start to question those facts, go back to claims #1 and 2.)

Whether it's propaganda or you honestly (even if perhaps blindly) believe in the first set of claims, you then have to agree with the second set. And pretty soon, you don't even have to agree with the third set, you just have to be ready and to accept it. You just have to make it an acceptable idea. A thought. A possibility.

The other thing that happens is that you don't have to look at the facts, you don't have to question the news and you don't have to learn history: it's all written. Black and white, no grey, no room for compromise. Those who would not believe in the necessary return to brutish times which these beliefs demand--us vs. them--are naive fools who believe in fluffy concepts of peace and goodwill to men; they are appeasers and dreamers.

I am many things but hardly naive but I believe something else is possible. I believe, as do Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Uri Avnery, Elias Chacour, Naim Ateek and others that good fences make good neighbors. That should Israel pull back behind its recognized borders and--with the Western powers--allow the Palestinians to resolve their own internal questions, there would be a partner for peace and someone to bring order against extremist groups, assuming Israel dares to bring order to its own extremist groups. (Click here for more of my essays.)

What I believe is, however, hardly the point. The point is that if the beliefs captured in these three sets of claims are true, then we will have slaughter, mayhem, blood and chaos on a new scale in the Middle East. Some coldly say: "So be it. Just as long as Israel wins." It is the blind arrogance of fear and rage speaking. If we continue going down that path, the whole world--maybe even Smalltown, USA--will take another hellish turn.

The beliefs we feed now create the world we will live in tomorrow.

So, I am certainly asking those who call themselves 'friends of Israel' what they are doing to either feed or heal this nihilism?

Elrig

* I sort of trust readers of this blog know where I stand for the most part; that I am equally amazed at the workers of peace and justice on the Jewish, Muslim, Christian and secular fronts and equally sickened by the culture of death which can reside in those same groups. I assert the freedom to express my views about any influence on peace and war and the future of our common world. I may be right, I may be wrong, but I don't think I can be accused of lumping any one type of people into a single undifferentiated group in order to point the finger at that group. What this post does is try to look at a reality among members of a global community and how it can affect our collective history - let the reader judge if it is accurate and pertinent on the ground of the analysis provided, without misjudgment of intent ("procès d'intention" in French).

** I actually did a line-by-line deconstruction of the Peters piece, which I can send as an MS Word file to anyone interested.

*** Among Peters' variations on a theme: the righteousness of Israel means that all of Israel's wars are moral wars; the IDF (Israeli army) is going out of its way to be a moral army and always uses restraint; finally Israel has left Gaza alone and ended its occupation since 2005 (the objectively most blatant lies of all). The world's unquenched antisemitism shows in the UN, the embodiment of the world's hatred for the Jews; the concern of the global community for the Palestinians is just one more sign of antisemitism; and even Jewish criticism for Israeli behaviors can only be due to naive self-hating Jews. On the Arab side of the equation, Palestinians are not from Palestine and there is no occupation; Palestinian grievances are mere excuses to blame and hate Jews; and Arab states conspire to maintain the Palestinian refugee problem simply to create problems for Israel. (I'll grant Peters that Arab states' treatment of Palestinian refugees has been shameful.)

Source of picture: Martin Niemoeller's poem inscribed on a stone in the New England Holocaust Memorial. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

Quick News - Legal Kidnapping (and release) in Egypt

2009-02-12T09:23:00.006+02:00

OK, I said I wouldn't follow the news too closely [ADDENDUM -- AND HERE'S A GOOD REASON WHY: 2 HOURS AFTER POSTING THIS HEARD THE GOOD NEWS THAT PHILIP HAS BEEN RELEASED. GOOD. WILL LEAVE POST FOR THE LINKS AND LESSONS TO BE LEARNED FROM IT.]- but I'm making an exception.

* Let me take you to Egypt, and see how the "Mother of the World" (nickname Egyptians give to their country) treats people who are interested in the people of Gaza. Philip Rizk was kidnapped now almost a week ago by the secret police. Philip wouldn't know me from a tea kettle but I've met him twice - looked like a really good guy. Read about his kidnapping here (very enlightening about Egypt, the 2nd largest recipient of US aid - we really pick the winners!). There's a Facebook group to coordinate support for his release.

* Finally, just yet another link to a Gideon Levy paper (this guy is good really) about the death of the Israeli Left and the meaninglessness of the term Zionism. If you are pro-Israel, you really should read this. (I'm also pro-Israel, simply pro-Israel behind borders just as any other state on earth.)

Now, skip this and go to my previous analysis of the fear and hatred which feeds the kind of Zionism Levy denounces: "The Words of 'War to the Death'."

Peace is possible. Collective Suicide - not so fun.

Elrig

Nations can do something about the higher death rate of poor children

2009-02-03T10:31:00.007+02:00

This is about poverty and the health of children in "rich" nations. In fact it looks at the death of children, which is a pretty bottom-line measure of health. (My next topic on Israel/Palestine is hard to finish - so for once, I'll speak about something else.) The figure posted here* shows how the relative poverty of a nation relates to the mortality rate of children under five.

For the very few technicians among my few readers, this is obviously an ecological association, but still this makes a strong argument for fighting poverty seriously. Note that "relative poverty" is relative to the country's wealth (below 50% of median household income); it is not an absolute number.

The authors of the commentary,* which is the source of this note, point out that the UK, France, Australia, New Zealand and the US all have relative child poverty rates above 25% before (THAT"S THE IMPORTANT PART) any welfare benefits or effects of taxation. Now, after considering the effect of taxation and benefits [effectively socially-progressive** measures] this relative child poverty drops down as follows:

France: from 28% to 7%;
England, Australia and New Zealand: from about 28% to 15%; and
US: from 27% to only 22%.

Now, I'm sure there are pros and cons to "redistributive" income policies. (Remember 'spreading the wealth' during the presidential campaign?) But look at the graph and how this reduced relative child poverty impacts the death of children under five in these five countries. Although the cause-effect is not direct, the US which reduces relative poverty very little compared to France, also has a 33% higher mortality rate for its children. (Of course, another factor is that access to health care is so much better in France particularly for the poor.)***

Certainly, being 'pro-life', we will pay attention to this and consider the value for a nation of actively protecting the poor and equally actively fighting poverty. (For a bit of practical thinking about poverty and 'class', read the very personal account of Robb.)

Peace / Shalom / Salaam, is also found in preserving our children from the aggression of poverty.

Elrig

* Source: Relative Child Poverty, Income Inequality, Wealth, and Health. Eric Emerson. JAMA. 2009;301(4):425-426.
** The funny thing is that my readers from any country but the US just skim over a word like "socially progressive"; for Americans we're working at reintroducing a sound appreciation for well-designed and managed social programs (yes, we can?)--reversing 25 years of Reaganism and anti-poor policies.
*** Yes I'm happy to brag, when - for once - the French get it right.

You Make Peace With Your Enemy - Gerald Kaufman's Speech

2009-01-29T15:42:00.005+02:00

I keep being delayed in writing my next entry as far greater people than I keep writing far more important things.

I strongly encourage you to read the full text of Sir Gerald Bernard Kaufman, a British MP, who made a short but powerful speech in Parliament on January 15th, 2009. I grew up believing we had passed the age when we referred to people and had to say: he's a Catholic, she's a Jew, they're Communists, he's from India and a Budhist. But apparently I was raised wrong. In this day and age, it seems we need those attributes to qualify or disqualify each other. Well, in this case, Sir Kaufman is a Jew, who speaks with a loud moral voice on the Palestinian situation, specifically Gaza.

The text isn't long - there's no point in my summarizing it. Click here and read this powerful text.

I heard today from two people from Ashkelon. It is undeniable that even the threat of a random rockets--regardless of the fatality ratio--causes stress, distress and has led people to want their government to 'just do something' (and maybe forget all their government has done to cause the situation in the first place).

The insanity is that, if you wonder why (some) people in Gaza are still tempted to throw rockets rather than rebuild their country, you have to remember that...
there's no cement (Israel controls that),
there's little fuel (Israel controls that),
there's very little heavy machinery to remove the rubble (Israel controls that),
there's no legal way to bring in the money (Israel controls that),
money and equipment can only come through the tunnels (the US will spend 30 million dollars closing those) or by sea (the French have sent two war ships to help Israel control that),
and the BBC in its wisdom is keeping British NGOs from raising money through TV ads to help Gaza.

God have mercy on us fools! Jewish fools, Muslim fools, Christian fools, goys and koufars

Elrig

The Status Quo is not a Status Quo

2009-01-28T13:08:00.006+02:00

Since world news mostly only report when there's a flare up of violence from Palestinian groups, the less informed follower of the news is left to wonder: "why didn't they leave things in peace this time?"

So, just to remind everyone that the status quo is actually not a status quo; that there is a conquest of land going on which forces the control of a people and the necessary violence to enforce conquest and control, PEACE NOW - as quoted by Haaretz - reports that Israel in 2008 has increased the number of "settlements" by nearly 57% from 2007, and doubled the number of "outposts."

Settlements are internationally illegal Jewish-only urban developments on Palestinian land, claimed as legal by Israel. 1,257 new structures were built in 2008.

Outposts are the same thing but not recognized as legal by Israel (for now). Although Israel claims them illegal, the army protects them. They often start being more temporary structures (trailers, etc.) which ultimately develop into towns. These are then later generally made "legal" settlements. 261 structures were built in 2008.

In both cases, this requires an infrastructure to expropriate Palestinians.
That is the status quo, which is not a status quo --

Its end point? ... As I tried to explain before: unending violence (link). The starting basis for peace is to stop the conquest and the occupation (link). In that context, we (Israelis, Palestinians, Friends of either or both groups and engaged world citizens) will get beyond terrorism and put it behind us.

Elrig

Photos : www.cnn.com/.../mideast.settlements/index.html and picasaweb.google.com/.../4vfcM9Wgy_JMxHJM8ArAPg

Interesting and Less Interesting Critiques

2009-01-27T10:27:00.008+02:00

Short entry today (pending a serious post), but someone has cared enough to leave an insult on this blog. I'm touched. I've decided for now to let it go and post the comment. I suspect that the comment in question (which calls me names, hints at population transfer, and suggests weird ways to peace) is actually paid counter-blogging, but maybe I'm just flattering myself. Click and follow the comments on on my December entry: "Israel's Dead End: My Own Best Thinking Brought Me Here."

More interesting, this Foreign Policy analysis of where Tom Friedman gets it close but wrong (again). Click here to read this analysis, but the take home message is again -- sadly -- that the US public largely fails to understand the role the US government has been playing in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And it's not about anti-Americanism, believe me, but about getting a clearer picture of reality, so we can reform and make progress. (Hmm - should I say 'Yes, we can?').

Peace to all--following the footsteps of his O'ness*--to Christians, Muslim, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Humanists and Non-Believers; and I'm still hoping to post my analysis of some pro-war widely spread rhetoric (which I promised a while back) soon.

Elrig

* I'm like most quite not believing the contrast between the new and old US President models. But it's never too soon to be a little bit of an iconoclast with the powerful, right?

Israel in Gaza: A Critical Reframing

2009-01-17T23:21:00.012+02:00

As inauguration day announces the promise of a truce (see my prediction below), I learned today that a Palestinian physician who works in Israel but lives in Gaza saw half of his family killed by a tank shell while he was being interviewed by Israeli TV. This is not only tragic, but it is also ironic. This man, thinking that I was Jewish after we had met and interacted about research projects, sent me his best wishes for Pessah last year. There are many Palestinians Israel (I should say the Israeli government and military apparatus) could work with to build peace, if -- and only if -- it wanted peace.

But this is not the narrative which justifies today's war. So, speaking of narrative, I'll leave room for this analysis done by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).

Elrig
[And yes, I stole the link from David's blog - again.]

[Photo Credit: http://www.wrmea.com/images/April_2008/twair2.jpg]

************************

Israel in Gaza: A Critical Reframing
Israel's core messages, listed below, argue for the justice of its cause in Gaza, cast Israel as the victim and ensure that its war is seen not in terms of occupation but of the broader Western struggle against terror. The critical reframing we offer, that of Israelis committed to human rights, international law and a just peace as the only way out of this interminable and bloody conflict, argues that security cannot be achieved unilaterally while one side oppresses the other and that Israel's attack on Gaza is merely another attempt to render its Occupation permanent by destroying any source of effective resistance. It argues that Israel could have avoided all attacks upon it over the last twenty years, and the rise of Hamas, if it had genuinely negotiated a two-state solution with the Palestinian leadership. Israel, the strong party and the Occupying Power, is not the victim. Indeed, its attack on Gaza is a form of State Terrorism.

Israeli PR: Like all countries, Israel has a right and duty to defend its citizens. Israel, acting as any life-loving nation would, has a right to be a normal country living in peace and security.

Critical Reframing: To pursue offensive policies of prolonged occupation as well as sanctions, boycotts and closures that impoverish a civilian population, and to then refuse to engage with that population's elected leaders, is not defending ones' citizens. To expect your citizens to live in security while a million and a half subjugated people just a few kilometers away live in misery is both unrealistic and presumptive. Israel will only be able to defend its citizens - which is indeed its duty - if it addresses the causes of their insecurity, a 41 year-old occupation.

Israeli PR: Israel had no choice but to attack in response to the barrage of 8,500 Hamas rockets fired from Gaza into Israel over the past eight years that have killed 20 Israeli civilians.

Critical Reframing: In the past three years alone Israel - together with the US, Europe and Japan - imposed an inhumane siege of Gaza while conducting a campaign of targeted assassinations and attacks throughout the cease-fire that left 1,700 Palestinians dead. Hamas' barrage did not exist in a vacuum. This war is no "response:" it is merely a more deadly round of the tit-for-tat arising out of a political vacuum. The rocket firings could have been avoided had there been a genuine political horizon. To present the "barrage" as an independent event disassociated from wider Israeli policies that led to them is disingenuous.

Israeli PR: There is no occupation - in general, but specifically in Gaza. Israel ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005 with the "disengagement." Gaza could have flourished as the basis of a Palestinian state, but its inhabitants chose conflict.

Critical Reframing: Economic development, not to mention a political process which might have prevented the violence on both sides, was actively prevented by both Israel and its international supporters, which share responsibility for the present tragedy in Gaza. At no time since the "disengagement" did Israel ever relinquish or even loosen its control. The closure remained in force, including by sea; Gazans were never allowed to reopen their sea or air ports; nor were any conditions conducive to economic development allowed. Israel's claim that there has never been an occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza is rejected by every member of the international community. Neither does it accept Israel's claim that occupation ended in 2005, since the definition of occupation in international law has to do with exercising effective control of a foreign territory, which Israel obviously does over Gaza.

Israeli PR: Only Hamas violated the cease-fire, and thus it carries full responsibility.

Critical Reframing: Israel and Hamas agreed to a truce (through Egypt) by which Israel would allow the opening of the Gazan border crossings (at least partially) in return for an end to rocket fire on Israel. Hamas largely, though not entirely, kept its part of the bargain; Israel almost never did. Killings of Palestinians from the air continued, and on the American election day in early November it attacked the tunnels (which functioned as alternative means of supplying Gaza in the absence of open borders, which would have allowed control over the movement of arms), killing a number of Hamas people. In response Hamas launched rockets and....the truce began breaking down.

Israeli PR: Israel is only attacking the "infrastructure of terror" in Gaza and only targets Hamas fighters.

Critical Reframing: Being the elected government, all the infrastructure, from traffic cops to schools to military installations, "belong" to Hamas. It is clear that Israeli attacks go beyond "the infrastructure of terror." Who's a "Hamas fighter?" The graduating class of traffic cops that was slaughtered in the first aerial attack on Gaza? Professors and students who attend the "Hamas" Islamic University? Family members of Hamas military figures? People who voted for Hamas? All, but for those actively participating in hostilities, would be defined as civilians under international law.

Israeli PR: Civilians may die, but it's because Hamas hides its fighters and weapons factories among ordinary people.

Critical Reframing: Israel's military headquarters are located in the center of Tel Aviv, the military headquarters over the West Bank are in the densely populated civilian settlement Neveh Ya'akov in East Jerusalem, the Pentagon is located in downtown Washington D.C. and the British Ministry of Defence is located in central London. Hamas, of course, as both a government and a military organization, carries responsibility for protecting the civilian population and keeping the fighting away from them but the question that should be asked, and never is, is why western nations who do the same are not faced with such criticism?

Israeli PR: Hamas is a terrorist organization that refuses to recognize Israel or enter into a political process.

Critical Reframing: Which Israel should Hamas recognize? 1947 U.N. partition borders? 1967 borders? With annexed East Jerusalem? With the settlement blocs? So long as Israel refuses to define its borders then there is only an abstract concept available for recognition. Hamas has openly declared that it will de facto recognize Israel on the 1967 borders. Israel has made no such offers to any Palestinian faction, government or representatives.

Israeli PR: Hamas is a global problem, part of Islamist fundamentalism together with Iran and Hezbollah and therefore Israel is only doing its part in the West's agreed-upon War on Terror.

Critical Reframing: Hamas started as a social welfare organization that was allowed by Israel to develop as a political force in Occupied Palestine to weaken the standing of the secular PLO. There also, was no Hezbollah prior to the 1982 Israeli invasion. The theocrats in Iran were an organized but quite small political force until the U.S. overthrew Iran's democracy. The local population will always resist when foreign countries try to oppose their will and the resistance will not always be pretty. Painting Hamas as part of a global conspiracy when it's a product of the Occupation itself is disingenuous and a gross distortion of history.

Gaza: my forecast for the coming weeks

2009-01-16T01:21:00.017+02:00

Before anything -- ignore my blog, but read Gideon Levy of Haaretz, "Someone must stop Israel's rampant madness in Gaza." Or read Laila El-Haddad. What is there to say or write that hasn't been written? I suppose in addition to so many lies and so much propaganda. Aren't we trying to out-blog each other? As if blogs could undo phosporous bombs and bullets.

The Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace also provides links to some excellent articles. Between people like this, and my Gaza friend hiding in his basement in a wasteland but still speaking of rebuilding and forgiving, I feel chastised for giving way to despair too easily. This is the true religion.

But if you are a US citizen, please answer yes or no: "if my government provides the guns and the funds, if Congress by a 90% majority supports the war, if my president and secretary of state stated their support for the war, are we--yes or no--ourselves at war against Gaza?" I think it's important in a democracy to know when you are at war.

This is a tragic story only if Arab lives matter. But do they?
This is only a catastrophe if God loves all people in the same manner. But does He?
This is only a stain on our conscience if we are our brothers' keepers. But are we?

Now - on to my forecasting abilities:
---------------------------------------------
Even though "making predictions is difficult, particularly about the future," here are my fearless predictions about the coming weeks with regards to Gaza:

January 16th to January 19th:

Massive escalation in casualties and destruction by the IDF in Gaza.
Hamas, Jihad, and whomever shoot rockets toward Sderot, time permitting.
The PNA / Ramallah restates on occasion it's not happy with Gazans being blown up and threatens to release another condemnation.
UN continues to say progress is being made toward a solution.
Egyptians continue to hold all kinds of meetings. Tea is provided at breaks in the patio.
EU and everybody else agitates around the idea that it's not cool to blow up Gaza and Israel should go easy on the phospore.
The USA already voted 90% in favor of a House Resolution stating its approval of current activities in Gaza (conducted with its money and its weapons). It is currently otherwise quite busy with the economy and Washington DC preparations for the inauguration. Please call back in a few days.

January 20th:

Barack Obama is inaugurated as the first Black American President in history.
The civilized world bids farewell to the previous President, who is on record as being "disappointed" that there were no WMDs in Iraq--bummer! Eight years ago same exiting president found that Ariel Sharon was a "man of peace." 98% of the literate world will not really regret him.
Israel congratulates President Obama. Shoots a few things and people in Gaza, but nothing really special.
Gazans seem to boycott watching the inauguration on TV. Unless it's because there's no electricity .

January 21st-24th:

President Barack Obama makes an eloquent statement about the need for hostilities to stop in Gaza, the necessity to protect Israel against rockets and terrorism, the importance of protecting civilians in Gaza, and commits to engaging full force to finding a resolution to the conflict
Hillary Clinton boards an airplane for somewhere in the Middle East, probably Israel, or Egypt.
Phone calls are made (and reported) from the White House to Ehud Olmert (exiting Israel PM), Ehud Barak (Israeli Minister of Defense and aspiring new PM), Tzipi Livi (Israeli Foreign Minister and aspiring new PM), then Abu Mazen (PNA President although his term has expired).
Nobody calls Hamas in Gaza. First we don't speak to them, then phone lines are down in Gaza and - detail - most of the leadership will be dead by then. But some calls are made (secretly) to Syria, who will pass the message.
Israel bombs a few more things, but the Washington Post reports that after a call from Obama or Clinton, it commits to slowing military activities in hope that terms for a truce will be found.
Ehud Olmert states that it really really doesn't have anything at all against Palestinians. Some of his good friends happen to be Palestinians, actually...

January 25th-31st:

Hostilities cease.
Basic terms of a truce are agreed upon in Cairo.
The UN and the EU are asked to come up with bright ideas about how to run Gaza - well, by "running" we mean jump start and rebuild, but avoid working with an elected government. Brilliant success of Iraq is suggested as a template. Hillary Clinton shows great mastery of Middle Eastern affairs and flies to all kinds of places. A fair and balanced ratio of visits to Israelis and Palestinians is computed. As a sign of great urgency, visit to Yad Vashem is postponed until next month. Clinton is even seen smiling at an Arab child.
The Washington Post reports on page A5 that a total of 600 children died in the war, including 3 in Southern Israel. A picture of a grieving Israeli mother is provided side by side with the picture of a grieving Palestinian mother. Take that, Fox News!
Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak, 'Tzipi' Livni all give press conferences committing to providing assistance to the civilian population in Gaza. 'Bibi' Netnanyahu comments that Israel should be ready to resume bombing if need be. Tzipi Livni proves her moderation by saying Hamas has been crushed and efforts should now go to developing good Palestinian governance in Gaza. Tony Blair wears a new tie for a photo-op and sounds concerned.

February:

A road map to a road to a map to rebuilding a road where a map can be displayed is drafted by the world community to figure out what the heck to do with 1.5 million Gazans (minus 1,000-2,000) now that there's no government and no police. President Obama thinks for a second that maybe someone in Gaza should be consulted - Rahm Emanuel assures him he's got friends in Tel Aviv who can do that, so don't worry about it.
Elections in Israel bring a new government coalition led by the first woman Prime Minister since Golda Meir. The Washington Post prints profiles of Golda Meir and Tzipi Livni.
Commentators write that Palestinians now have a unique opportunity to embrace peace.
Barack Obama makes a really good speech on peace.
Tony Blair misses the speech for unknown reasons, notices that President Abu Mazen's term has expired and asks around about what to do about that.

Away from any camera, a woman in Deir el Balah cries over the death of her husband, two of her children, and the ashes of her family house. Her eight-year old, Ahmed, and her seven-year old, Layla, listen to a new song on the radio about the suffering of the Palestinian people.

No one has a clue what Ahmed and Layla will be ten years from now.
Benjamin Netanyahu has a dream where he's the PM and it's his turn to launch a widescale military intervention. Maybe against Nablus this time. Ah! Give it a couple years...

I cry.

Elrig

ps: please don't blame ME for the cynicism. Lord, G-d, Allah, have mercy on us.
ps2: scroll down and read the letter from the Director of PMRS about the health situation especially for women and children in Gaza.

PMRS: Don't Forget Gaza

2009-01-15T04:41:00.001+02:00

I leave this space for a short report by Jihad Mashal, a very nice man who is also the Director General of the Palestinian Medical and Relief Services, the largest non-governmental provider of health services in West Bank and in Gaza.

Elrig

**************

Dear Friends

As more rumors are spreading that we are approaching the end, protection of civilians becomes more and more important since history tells us that the Israeli army will do their best to end the War with maximum amount of gains at the expense of more civilians killed.

While we all are waiting the end of this War, hundreds of Palestinian who took refuge in the UNRWA schools were targeted by Israel tank shelling for the third time, Many were killed or injured.

The situation for medical personal and hospitals is alarming , injured persons are left to bleed to death, we demand that civilians and the injured must have access to medical care and all medical personnel and their facilities be protected at all times .

Due to the focus on Emergencies, and trauma care, management of chronic disease and routine care of pregnancies and deliveries are becoming major areas of concerns and neglect. 40000 women are forecasted to be pregnant at any point of time exposed to all kinds of stress ,150-170 deliveries per day ,most of them do not receive proper care at home or in the Hospital ,they are unseen victims of the current situation.25-30 women should perform C-section on daily basis which is not possible now . Since the beginning of the incursion into Gaza an estimated 3150-3570 babies have been born many are premature exposed to hypothermia due to the lack of electricity or heat .

Do not forget the civilian population innocent women, children and men who continue to die. Do not forget Gaza

Regards

Jihad Mashal
Director General - Palestinian Medical Relief Services

An Army of One Casualty: Perplexed Meditation on Suicide Bombers

2009-01-14T22:28:00.005+02:00

Haaretz reports on Israeli casualties engaged in fights with "Hamas militants." (I actually suspect that some Gazans may take up arms against an invading army killing civilians,* regardless of affiliation with Hamas, but that's another topic.) One thing caught my eye.

Haaretz--which is generally a credible source of information--reports that IDF soldiers killed a number of suicide bombers.

And here's something to pause about, if this is true.

Now, I'm looking at this from a purely tactical point of view. There's no moral discussion in what follows. We're in a context where two groups are trying to kill each other, a somewhat normal and popular human activity in any given century. Here are my perplexed observations:

a. This is obviously not terrorism; these guys are involved in street / guerrilla warfare with the mighty IDF soldiers. The name of the game is kill the other guys.
b. You're not going to come cozy up with the soldiers dressed as a civilian and - bam! - surprise them as you blow up the C4. I mean, the soldiers are already there and they're shooting at whoever they see. This is a workable tactic to kill civilians, but soldiers?
c. Why in the world would you ever choose to attack soldiers with a method of warfare which has one and only one guarantee: that your own guys will die?

I mean, think about it: you're a sergeant and you're sending five soldiers off to battle. Your last pep talk is: "now remember, whether or not you inflict casualty on the enemy, just make sure to pop one and shoot yourself dead!" If this whole mess wasn't so tragic, this would have a Monty Pythonesque flair to it.

I take a glib and cynical tone when human absurdity gets too much for me. It annoys some people and I apologize. But while I certainly am 200% against the occupation; I condemn Israel's oppression of Gaza and its conquest of the West Bank every day; I think this Gaza war was avoidable [and I think it's not just a stain on the conscience of Israel, it's drinking the blood of pigs straight into your conscience**]; this nonetheless shows us that there is something fundamentally off and wrong in the thinking of some of Palestinian armed groups.

"This" (the absurdity of suicide bombing) does not justify "that" (the occupation). Maybe "that" created "this." I don't know. (Suicide bombers also exist as far away as Indonesia.) But the fact is, there is a sickness in society, which will need to be healed. Of course killing more children is unlikely to start the cycle of healing and recovery any time soon. Unless you want to kill them all. (And make no mistake, some do.)

But as we condemn the atrocities of Israel today, let's also realize that healing and recovery will be needed on the two side to get us to sustainable peace. I suppose this will have to wait until Obama is inaugurated or Olmert feels he has killed enough Arabs to have a legacy, whichever comes last.

Sad and perplexed.

Elrig
* All this "targeting militants" is not a lot more than good propaganda to start with.
** Welcome to Middle Eastern Over-Inflated Metaphores-R-us.