The Jewish state's fixation with preventing annihilation actually undermines its security.
By Bill Glucroft
The Christian Science Monitor
August 17, 2009
Haifa, Israel — No people mourn better than the Jewish people. For seven days after death, the family sits shiva, a vigil at home for loved ones to comfort one another and reflect on the life lost. During the following year and then beyond, the stages of mourning develop to allow next of kin to continue their lives while still remembering who is gone from them.
The process is successful for Jews, but it is failing the Jewish state. Six decades since the gravest of their tragedies, Jews have collectively yet to find a sustainable way of moving on without forgetting the Holocaust. The inability to do so poses dire consequences for Israel and the possibility for peace.
For Israel, the Holocaust didn't end in 1945, but reconstituted itself in the country's political and social cultures. It's no accident that Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum, is physically connected to Har Hertzl, Israel's national cemetery. The symbolism hits you over the head: Israel was born out of the Holocaust, and the price to protect the Jewish people from another one is steep. There is truth in that, but also danger. Binding too tightly the slaughter of Jewish civilians by Nazis and the deaths of Israeli soldiers by Arabs turns every threat to Israel into another Holocaust.
"Whenever someone is killed in a terror activity," says Israeli writer and former Knesset member Avrum Burg, "It is one victim on top of seven wars on top of 6 million on top of 2,000 years of problems." There are no isolated incidents in Israel; the past builds up until a whole way of life is buried by it.
Invoking the Holocaust is the way Israeli policymakers evade the difficult decisionmaking needed to shift the status quo; nothing else matters, and anything is justified, when everything is about surviving annihilation — a rationale that serves especially well in delaying the creation of a Palestinian state.
The two-state solution undoubtedly comes with significant security risks to Israel, requiring a trust and confidence that remain to be seen. Should the West Bank become what Gaza became following the 2005 evacuation of Jewish settlements, all of Israel would be vulnerable to rocket attack and Iranian influence.
Less discussed, however, are the moral, social, and security implications of doing nothing, allowing the occupation to fester, settlements to expand, and tensions to grow.
The situation, as it stands, strains Israel's awkward identity as both Jewish and democratic. Eventually, Israel will be forced to choose one or the other because it will become impossible to untangle itself from an unrealized Palestine.
To remain Jewish will require apartheid measures that ensure Jewish minority control over land that will soon have a Palestinian-Arab majority, or (and even more unthinkable) ethnic cleansing. To remain democratic will mean merging Israel proper and the occupied territories — the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
With these alternatives in mind, two states becomes a much more palatable option – not for Palestine's sake, but for Israel's, and that's how it needs to be sold to Israel and its supporters.
Absent occupation, Israel could allocate more money and attention to internal necessities, namely poverty, education, and environment. With the army out of the West Bank, the 1.2 million Palestinians who live as Israeli citizens might begin to feel more Israeli, no longer viewing their state as at war with their people. The world could finally see Israel the way many Jews have long seen it: tranquil and vibrant, with a brash but pensive culture; Zionism, at last disconnected from occupation, would again be understood as a positive force for justice and social welfare.
None of this can happen until Israel gets its mind out of the Warsaw ghetto and embraces its 21st century strengths. It would be a substantial sociological shift, but it could be hastened in the near term politically if the Netanyahu government agreed to truly unconditional talks about two states. Such a move would force the fractured Palestinian camp to decide whether it is more interested in forming its own state or destroying the Jewish one.
Israel risks little by talking because it holds the keys to a home for Palestinians. Palestinians are free to demand right of return, for example, but do so at their peril. Such nonstarters only serve the notion that they aren't serious enough to make the painful choices necessary to obtain a state, as Jews did in 1947 when they accepted an imperfect UN partition. Ultimately, Israel can walk away without affecting day-to-day life. The Palestinians don't have that luxury; the occupation consumes them.
Israel's founders, given only three years between Auschwitz and independence, didn't have time to process the trauma that had besieged their people, entwining the Holocaust into Israel's DNA. Those who today fill their shoes must find a way to remember the Holocaust without reliving it, lest Israel be forever haunted by memory and never see the power it now wields to make peace and save its moral core.
Bill Glucroft is a writer who has worked in Israel for both Zionist and Israeli-Arab organizations. He blogs at mediabard.org.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Iraq’s Ambivalence About the American Military
By Rod Nordland
The New York Times
August 29, 2009
BAGHDAD — Iraqi military officials often refer to their American counterparts as “the friends,” a circumlocution full of Eastern subtlety that is often lost on the friends themselves. Add some more quotation marks, and it comes closer to the sense intended, “the ‘friends.’ ” Not sarcastic, exactly, but rather colored with mixed emotions, as in the sentence, “The ‘friends’ came by yesterday to complain again about payroll skimming.”
Americans find this hard to understand about the Iraq war, that their trillion-dollar enterprise in Iraq has made Iraqis and particularly the Iraqi military not only deeply dependent on America, but also deeply conflicted, even resentful about that dependency. After all, we saved them from defeat at the hands of a ruthless insurgency that a few years ago indeed could have destroyed them, and we spent 4,000 lives doing it, left probably 10 times that many young Americans crippled for life, and they’re not grateful?
That is not, at bottom, how the Iraqis see it. They are grateful, many of them, but gratitude is a drink with a bitter aftertaste. They also chafe at the thousands of daily humiliations they endure from a mostly well-meaning but often clueless American military. An Iraqi politician who wishes to remain nameless (“I have to deal with the friends,” he explains) tells of traveling with the Iraqi Army’s chief of staff, a general in uniform, epaulets bristling with eagles, stars and swords. They were at the Baghdad airport, about to get on one of the few Iraqi military planes, when an American sergeant stopped him and refused to allow him to board. Despite the general’s remonstrations of rank and privilege, the sergeant made sure the plane took off without him.
“Once I had a meeting with the division commander in charge of Baghdad,” the politician went on. “A private meeting. In walks an American colonel and sits there with a translator, taking notes on our conversation. He apologized and said ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do anything about this.’ ”
This indirectly explains a lot about the current state of affairs, post June 30. Iraqis have enthusiastically embraced their newfound military sovereignty, even when, as is often the case, they’re not really ready for it. They can field troops who can fight, but they can’t fix their Humvees. They can mount their own operations against insurgents, but are reluctant to do so without air cover — which so far only the Americans can provide. They can marshal large numbers of soldiers — their army now is more numerous than America’s in Iraq — but they depend on the Americans to handle most of their logistics, since their own are plagued by corruption and mismanagement.
Under the new Status of Forces Agreement between the countries, not only did American troops leave all population centers after June 30, but they’ve also agreed not to get involved, in or out of the cities, unless invited to do so by the Iraqis. And the Iraqi inclination has been not to invite them, partly out of pride, partly out of concern for the political blowback from their own public when they do ask for help.
This was brought into sharp relief by the two ministry truck bombings on Aug. 19, which succeeded because fortifications had been prematurely removed from in front of those ministries. “It was Iraqi aspirations exceeding their ability to secure their country on their own,” says John Nagl, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and an author of influential works on counterinsurgency. “The Iraqi government and the Iraqi security forces are improving steadily but they’re not yet able to handle these threats responsibly,” Mr. Nagl says.
He argues that the Iraqi and American militaries need to set up standing pre-arrangements by which the United States can intervene in an emergency on the ground; such arrangements are entirely possible under the terms of the forces agreement, even if they may cause political difficulties, especially in an election year.
“The government of Iraq is going to have to ask us for our help, and it takes a while for the Iraqi government to process that,” he says. “The Iraqi government is not yet able to make a quick decision. This whole incident should serve as a wake-up call that the U.S. still has a very important role to play in Iraq’s security.”
The tension between Iraq’s desire to embrace its sovereignty and its continuing military shortcomings is likely to last many years, Mr. Nagl says, because the United States has done little so far to give the Iraqi military the ability to defend its country against external threats once Americans leave by the end of 2011.
The most glaring shortcoming is the almost complete lack of an air force, aside from a few transport and reconnaissance aircraft; there is not a single jet. The first T-6 jet trainer, a propeller- driven aircraft that simulates a jet, is on order for next December. Training pilots will take many years more. In a modern world, Mr. Nagl says, “You can’t defend the sovereignty of your country if you can’t defend your air space.”
Lt. Gen. Frank Helmick, commander of the American military’s training command, says that was inevitable in the rush to build large army and police ground forces to counter the insurgency.
General Helmick says he is unconcerned about the lack of an international defensive capability. “What do they need to defend themselves against?”
Nothing, so long as American troops are there in such numbers, but once they’re gone, Iraq will remain surrounded by potential enemies. Turkey has been regularly bombing Iraqi territory in the north, in an effort to wipe out Kurdish guerrillas who use the area as a sanctuary for attacks in Turkey. Iran is a friend now, but in the 1980s it fought a decade-long war involving many divisions of tanks, airstrikes and even chemical warfare. The Sunni Arab regimes to the west and south, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, are all nervous about a Shiite-dominated government in Iraq, and relations have been strained with all of them at times over issues ranging from support for insurgents to war reparations.
In recent days, Iraq and Syria recalled their ambassadors for consultations after Iraq accused Syria of harboring two Baathists it believes are responsible for the truck bombings.
At the highest levels, despite the bluster and the perennial ill-feeling, Iraqis know they will remain dependent on the United States for a very long time, even after the internal insurgency is vanquished. Nationalism, though, can be a dangerous and deluding force. It has, writes the analyst Kenneth Pollack in the forthcoming issue of The National Interest, “led many Iraqi politicians, including the prime minister, to take public positions unsupportive of the American presence, even though most know that America’s role as peacekeeper, mediator, adviser and capacity-builder remain critical to Iraq’s stability and progress.”
There’s an old saying that if you save someone’s life, they become your responsibility forever. It seems counterintuitive, but those it happens to know how true it is. Having interfered so intimately in another person’s fate, or another nation’s fate, it becomes very hard just to turn away.
The New York Times
August 29, 2009
BAGHDAD — Iraqi military officials often refer to their American counterparts as “the friends,” a circumlocution full of Eastern subtlety that is often lost on the friends themselves. Add some more quotation marks, and it comes closer to the sense intended, “the ‘friends.’ ” Not sarcastic, exactly, but rather colored with mixed emotions, as in the sentence, “The ‘friends’ came by yesterday to complain again about payroll skimming.”
Americans find this hard to understand about the Iraq war, that their trillion-dollar enterprise in Iraq has made Iraqis and particularly the Iraqi military not only deeply dependent on America, but also deeply conflicted, even resentful about that dependency. After all, we saved them from defeat at the hands of a ruthless insurgency that a few years ago indeed could have destroyed them, and we spent 4,000 lives doing it, left probably 10 times that many young Americans crippled for life, and they’re not grateful?
That is not, at bottom, how the Iraqis see it. They are grateful, many of them, but gratitude is a drink with a bitter aftertaste. They also chafe at the thousands of daily humiliations they endure from a mostly well-meaning but often clueless American military. An Iraqi politician who wishes to remain nameless (“I have to deal with the friends,” he explains) tells of traveling with the Iraqi Army’s chief of staff, a general in uniform, epaulets bristling with eagles, stars and swords. They were at the Baghdad airport, about to get on one of the few Iraqi military planes, when an American sergeant stopped him and refused to allow him to board. Despite the general’s remonstrations of rank and privilege, the sergeant made sure the plane took off without him.
“Once I had a meeting with the division commander in charge of Baghdad,” the politician went on. “A private meeting. In walks an American colonel and sits there with a translator, taking notes on our conversation. He apologized and said ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do anything about this.’ ”
This indirectly explains a lot about the current state of affairs, post June 30. Iraqis have enthusiastically embraced their newfound military sovereignty, even when, as is often the case, they’re not really ready for it. They can field troops who can fight, but they can’t fix their Humvees. They can mount their own operations against insurgents, but are reluctant to do so without air cover — which so far only the Americans can provide. They can marshal large numbers of soldiers — their army now is more numerous than America’s in Iraq — but they depend on the Americans to handle most of their logistics, since their own are plagued by corruption and mismanagement.
Under the new Status of Forces Agreement between the countries, not only did American troops leave all population centers after June 30, but they’ve also agreed not to get involved, in or out of the cities, unless invited to do so by the Iraqis. And the Iraqi inclination has been not to invite them, partly out of pride, partly out of concern for the political blowback from their own public when they do ask for help.
This was brought into sharp relief by the two ministry truck bombings on Aug. 19, which succeeded because fortifications had been prematurely removed from in front of those ministries. “It was Iraqi aspirations exceeding their ability to secure their country on their own,” says John Nagl, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and an author of influential works on counterinsurgency. “The Iraqi government and the Iraqi security forces are improving steadily but they’re not yet able to handle these threats responsibly,” Mr. Nagl says.
He argues that the Iraqi and American militaries need to set up standing pre-arrangements by which the United States can intervene in an emergency on the ground; such arrangements are entirely possible under the terms of the forces agreement, even if they may cause political difficulties, especially in an election year.
“The government of Iraq is going to have to ask us for our help, and it takes a while for the Iraqi government to process that,” he says. “The Iraqi government is not yet able to make a quick decision. This whole incident should serve as a wake-up call that the U.S. still has a very important role to play in Iraq’s security.”
The tension between Iraq’s desire to embrace its sovereignty and its continuing military shortcomings is likely to last many years, Mr. Nagl says, because the United States has done little so far to give the Iraqi military the ability to defend its country against external threats once Americans leave by the end of 2011.
The most glaring shortcoming is the almost complete lack of an air force, aside from a few transport and reconnaissance aircraft; there is not a single jet. The first T-6 jet trainer, a propeller- driven aircraft that simulates a jet, is on order for next December. Training pilots will take many years more. In a modern world, Mr. Nagl says, “You can’t defend the sovereignty of your country if you can’t defend your air space.”
Lt. Gen. Frank Helmick, commander of the American military’s training command, says that was inevitable in the rush to build large army and police ground forces to counter the insurgency.
General Helmick says he is unconcerned about the lack of an international defensive capability. “What do they need to defend themselves against?”
Nothing, so long as American troops are there in such numbers, but once they’re gone, Iraq will remain surrounded by potential enemies. Turkey has been regularly bombing Iraqi territory in the north, in an effort to wipe out Kurdish guerrillas who use the area as a sanctuary for attacks in Turkey. Iran is a friend now, but in the 1980s it fought a decade-long war involving many divisions of tanks, airstrikes and even chemical warfare. The Sunni Arab regimes to the west and south, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, are all nervous about a Shiite-dominated government in Iraq, and relations have been strained with all of them at times over issues ranging from support for insurgents to war reparations.
In recent days, Iraq and Syria recalled their ambassadors for consultations after Iraq accused Syria of harboring two Baathists it believes are responsible for the truck bombings.
At the highest levels, despite the bluster and the perennial ill-feeling, Iraqis know they will remain dependent on the United States for a very long time, even after the internal insurgency is vanquished. Nationalism, though, can be a dangerous and deluding force. It has, writes the analyst Kenneth Pollack in the forthcoming issue of The National Interest, “led many Iraqi politicians, including the prime minister, to take public positions unsupportive of the American presence, even though most know that America’s role as peacekeeper, mediator, adviser and capacity-builder remain critical to Iraq’s stability and progress.”
There’s an old saying that if you save someone’s life, they become your responsibility forever. It seems counterintuitive, but those it happens to know how true it is. Having interfered so intimately in another person’s fate, or another nation’s fate, it becomes very hard just to turn away.
Rod Nordland is Newsweek's Chief Foreign Correspondent, based in London, after serving two years as Baghdad Bureau Chief.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
The Gazan Jilbab
By Diana Mukkaled
Asharq Alawsat (London)
August 28, 2009
The Hamas movement was enraged by the media and the Agence France Press [AFP] in particular, which published a report that was circulated concerning Hamas’ decision to impose the Hijab and Jilbab [traditional, long, loose-fitting robe] on female students in schools in the Gaza Strip. The report also spoke of the decision that only female staff would be allowed to work in girls’ schools.
The Hamas-affiliated Interior Ministry issued a lengthy statement that condemned the AFP report, describing it as “superficial and lacking the required media transparency and objectivity, as well as being selective.”
The lengthy statement did not refute or deny any of the basic information revealed in the AFP report by school principals, teachers, and female students, nor did Hamas deny that female students would be required to wear the Hijab and Jilbab, and would be subjected to punishment should they fail to comply with this. A number of statements and decisions were made following Hamas’ decision and these were verbally conveyed to school principals.
There is no doubt that the statement of clarification issued by Hamas in response to the media report and the disapproval of the decision it had already taken led to a fundamental dilemma within the movement. This is accompanied by its recent experiences and the numerous, serious mistakes that Hamas has made over the past few years.
Hamas failed to justify this step and was cautious about adopting it; it was happy just to hide behind repeating the same old phrases such as “the Palestinian nation is a conservative and a Muslim one” and that “wearing the Hijab for female students is a personal decision that stems from the family and is not imposed by force.” Therefore, the tolerance that Hamas claimed to have when it seized power in Gaza by force has disappeared on more than one occasion and the issue of Hijab in school will not be the last time this will happen.
This recent restriction that Hamas is imposing on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip that further aggravates the crises is a new step taken by Hamas in an area where nothing has been achieved except more sanctions and continuous suffering for the Palestinians. Once again, Hamas is defending itself by casting accusations against the media and demanding that it focus on the Israeli sanctions and the sufferings caused by the occupation forces (which of course does deserve media coverage and attention), and asks the media to turn a blind eye to its own fatal errors and failures. This is the foundation of the Hamas experience in power. It is not enough that Hamas gives in to the media that is sympathetic towards it, i.e., those who are either refrained from talking about this particular issue or others who side with the movement to the extent that many have warned against such bias.
Once again, the media is the target of ill will, coercion and dismissal. How can it not be when it is held responsible for revealing such intentions and orientations? But on the other hand, how could Hamas believe that a decision such as imposing the Hijab on students would pass unnoticed and uncovered by the media? The Hamas authority is not meant to be ashamed of its decisions but it seems that we are facing an authority that is equivocal in its intentions and one that demands the media to conspire along with it.
Hamas is not supposed to be ashamed of such a decision, especially as it is supposedly in harmony with its constitution and its own doctrine. Its attempt at equivocation is evidence that its doctrine is flawed and Hamas cannot declare this publicly. The media can host such discussions without necessarily having to accept them.
Diana Mukkaled is a prominent and well respected TV journalist in the Arab world, thanks to her phenomenal show "Bil Ayn Al Mojarada" (By The Naked Eye), a series of documentaries around controversial areas and topics which airs on Lebanon's leading local and satellite channel "Future Television."
Asharq Alawsat (London)
August 28, 2009
The Hamas movement was enraged by the media and the Agence France Press [AFP] in particular, which published a report that was circulated concerning Hamas’ decision to impose the Hijab and Jilbab [traditional, long, loose-fitting robe] on female students in schools in the Gaza Strip. The report also spoke of the decision that only female staff would be allowed to work in girls’ schools.
The Hamas-affiliated Interior Ministry issued a lengthy statement that condemned the AFP report, describing it as “superficial and lacking the required media transparency and objectivity, as well as being selective.”
The lengthy statement did not refute or deny any of the basic information revealed in the AFP report by school principals, teachers, and female students, nor did Hamas deny that female students would be required to wear the Hijab and Jilbab, and would be subjected to punishment should they fail to comply with this. A number of statements and decisions were made following Hamas’ decision and these were verbally conveyed to school principals.
There is no doubt that the statement of clarification issued by Hamas in response to the media report and the disapproval of the decision it had already taken led to a fundamental dilemma within the movement. This is accompanied by its recent experiences and the numerous, serious mistakes that Hamas has made over the past few years.
Hamas failed to justify this step and was cautious about adopting it; it was happy just to hide behind repeating the same old phrases such as “the Palestinian nation is a conservative and a Muslim one” and that “wearing the Hijab for female students is a personal decision that stems from the family and is not imposed by force.” Therefore, the tolerance that Hamas claimed to have when it seized power in Gaza by force has disappeared on more than one occasion and the issue of Hijab in school will not be the last time this will happen.
This recent restriction that Hamas is imposing on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip that further aggravates the crises is a new step taken by Hamas in an area where nothing has been achieved except more sanctions and continuous suffering for the Palestinians. Once again, Hamas is defending itself by casting accusations against the media and demanding that it focus on the Israeli sanctions and the sufferings caused by the occupation forces (which of course does deserve media coverage and attention), and asks the media to turn a blind eye to its own fatal errors and failures. This is the foundation of the Hamas experience in power. It is not enough that Hamas gives in to the media that is sympathetic towards it, i.e., those who are either refrained from talking about this particular issue or others who side with the movement to the extent that many have warned against such bias.
Once again, the media is the target of ill will, coercion and dismissal. How can it not be when it is held responsible for revealing such intentions and orientations? But on the other hand, how could Hamas believe that a decision such as imposing the Hijab on students would pass unnoticed and uncovered by the media? The Hamas authority is not meant to be ashamed of its decisions but it seems that we are facing an authority that is equivocal in its intentions and one that demands the media to conspire along with it.
Hamas is not supposed to be ashamed of such a decision, especially as it is supposedly in harmony with its constitution and its own doctrine. Its attempt at equivocation is evidence that its doctrine is flawed and Hamas cannot declare this publicly. The media can host such discussions without necessarily having to accept them.
Diana Mukkaled is a prominent and well respected TV journalist in the Arab world, thanks to her phenomenal show "Bil Ayn Al Mojarada" (By The Naked Eye), a series of documentaries around controversial areas and topics which airs on Lebanon's leading local and satellite channel "Future Television."
The Islamic Republic of Gaza (and my comments)
How can the project to liberate Palestine be saved from collapse, asks Galal Nassar
Al-Ahram Weekly (Egypt)
27 August - 2 September 2009
The culture of exclusion and narrow mindedness, of the claim to a monopoly on the absolute truth, branding those who beg to differ as traitors and heretics, breeds fanatics, militias, sectarian violence and groups that clamour to proclaim entities like an "Islamic Republic of Gaza" over which they have an exclusive right to rule. Such a mode of behaviour proliferates like a particularly virulent weed in times of political decay and military defeat, especially in areas gripped by poverty, unemployment, weakness and frustration, as is the case in Gaza.
The situation in Gaza is further aggravated by an economic stranglehold as well as by an authority that fosters, protects and uses such movements to terrorise the people, intimidate opponents and purge political adversaries. Not infrequently, outside powers and forces have fostered such trends and groups, only to discover that the magic formula they used against others has turned against them. The most notorious example of this phenomenon is the Taliban, bred and fed by the US to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. Then they were termed freedom fighters, later becoming the "terrorist" scourge that provided the grounds for the US invasion. Al-Qaeda took root in a similar manner and for the same purpose. The horrors it subsequently perpetrated provided the US and other Western powers with an excuse to brand the Palestinian liberation struggle and other national resistance movements as terrorism and thus negate the universally sanctioned right to resist occupation and oppression. Yet a further example of the cynical use of terrorism unfolded in Lebanon following crimes committed by the Fatah Islam militia. The militia members took flight and hid out in the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp, giving Lebanese authorities the excuse to invade the camp, destroy it and drive out its inhabitants. These people, whose camp has yet to be reconstructed, are yet another tragic example of how civilians pay the price for organised violence.
The militant Islamist group Jund Ansar Allah emerged in Gaza against the backdrop of both Israel's stranglehold on the Strip and under a brutish ruling authority. After having opted for military force as the means to settle Palestinian differences and seize control of Gaza, Hamas evidently succumbed to the lustre and allure of power. Its subsequent actions, from suppressing other Islamist and political forces on the pretext that their independent political activities or expressions of resistance conflict with the interests of the Palestinian people, their violations of civil rights and individual freedoms, and their oppressive laws and regulations, proclaim their determination to impose their own beliefs on others. Nothing speaks louder of this intent than their edicts compelling women lawyers to cover their heads, making the galabiya the school uniform for girls, and decreeing similar dress codes for female mannequins. More insidious are the interventions in people's private affairs by the morals police. Hamas has an endless store of excuses for its random arrests. It has rounded up and incarcerated most Fatah members in Gaza, just as the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has rounded up Hamas members in the West Bank. Both groups seem bent on undermining the Palestinian national project, pursuing factional interests that have nothing whatsoever to do with the welfare of the Palestinian people and that only serve the American and Israeli regional projects.
Hamas wants to turn Gaza into an Islamic emirate. Towards this end it has issued a series of laws and edicts that accomplish two general aims: they force its vision and beliefs on others, and in so doing ensure that Hamas has a monopoly on truth and on what is in the best interests of the Palestinian people. Ironically, last week Hamas turned its wrath on Jund Ansar Allah, a group with its hearts set on the same goal. Justifying its assault against the rival Islamist militia, Hamas maintained that its members once belonged to the former, Fatah-controlled security agency in Gaza. The pretext is particularly curious given that some Jund Ansar Allah members were closely connected to Hamas and, indeed, carried out many acts of murder and destruction on behalf of, or at least with the cognizance of, Hamas's security agencies.
Force is no way to handle internal relations. It breeds greater extremism and spurs fragmentation. Hamas, with its ideological absolutism and political exclusionism, with the witch hunts and repressive tactics it has used to establish its monopoly on authority, has already served as the catalyst for the proliferation of ever more virulent clones. These can serve only one purpose — to hand the Palestinians' enemies the gift of being able to brand their struggle as "terrorist" and to hand Israel an excuse for perpetuating its occupation, the blockade and other injustices.
Suppressing civil liberties and individual freedoms and disseminating a culture of suspicion, combining this with inquisitorial methods, is a recipe for disaster. The only way out of the current impasse is to guarantee civil liberties and individual rights and institutionalise political plurality. If Hamas wants to market itself abroad as a centrist movement and establish non-extremist credentials the last thing it should be doing is engage in shootouts and pitched battles, precipitating a downward slide into security breakdown. The effect of all this is to perpetuate and aggravate divisions and set people at each other's throats over control of a governing authority that exercises no real power.
It is hard to contemplate what will happen should the Palestinian situation continue in its current, repugnant direction. As if the Palestinians have not suffered enough already from political rifts and infighting, now they face a one-upmanship in fanaticism that will spawn a plethora of preachers and sermonisers, self-proclaimed caliphs and emirs, transforming Palestine into a hotbed of bigotry and religious quackery that violates the most essential tenets of Islam. Nothing could be of greater help to the agendas of forces antagonistic to Palestinian and Arab national causes, especially in this era of mounting hostility towards Islam and Muslim peoples. How could terrorism cloaked as jihad or national liberation conceivably promote a cause for which someone is willing to blow himself up at a wedding, a funeral, a house of worship, or a restaurant, taking dozens of innocent lives along with him? What possible moral points are scored by indiscriminate and senseless killing? Such mindless, gratuitous violence undermines the legitimacy of national struggle and makes a mockery of the right to resist occupation.
If Hamas is to avert the alarming prospects described above it must undertake a comprehensive revision of its practices and policies with regard to the Palestinian national cause and social affairs. The Palestinians still live under occupation. What should be foremost in everyone's mind is to do what it takes to end division, mend rifts and unify behind a common strategy in order to safeguard the project of national liberation from collapse.
Mark says:
It should have been obvious that when suicide bombings started becoming a popular form of resistance in the Arab and Muslim worlds against Western targets in the 1980s that at some point it would be turned inward against Arab and Muslim targets. The justification by those who used suicide bombers against non-Arabs and non-Muslims, and especially against Israelis and Jews, inevitably became the same justification used against fellow Arabs and Muslims: they followed or supported or imposed policies or ideologies or religious beliefs that were "heretical" or "blasphemous" and "went against God and his prophet."
Likewise, when politics is fought out in the realm of religion, your opponents become not merely opponents or people with whom you differ, but heretics and blasphemers and unbelievers and rebels against God who must be killed and destroyed lest God punish you for "allowing" them to corrupt the world. Your opponents who call themselves Muslims are even more dangerous than the United States and Israel who, by the way, use these heretics and unbelievers through unnumbered dark and tangled conspiracies to undermine the "true faith," because they might lead the unknowing and naive into similar heresies and blasphemies.
And thus it has come to pass.
And thus hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Muslims (the two are not synonymous) have been killed by fellow Arabs and Muslims over the past 25 years. The efforts of the United States and Israel to kill Arabs and Muslims seem pitiful and amateurish by comparison although, of course, the conspiracy mongers will claim that the inter-Arab and inter-Muslim violence and murder is all the result of Western and Zionist conspiracies.
So, Galal Nassar should have seen it coming long before. Instead, only now does he ask:
And wait — Galal Nassar will soon be denounced by those who are "pure of heart" for they know what is right and true. They will declaim that Galal Nassar has strayed from the true path — or they will declaim that Galal Nassar's past support of national liberation movements and resistance to Western imperialism and colonialism and Zionism was just a cover and that he was really an agent of Western imperialism and colonialism and Zionism. Or they will declaim that he was both — he strayed and he was a foreign agent.
In any case, he is clearly guilty of "thought crimes." And the penalty is...?
Al-Ahram Weekly (Egypt)
27 August - 2 September 2009
The culture of exclusion and narrow mindedness, of the claim to a monopoly on the absolute truth, branding those who beg to differ as traitors and heretics, breeds fanatics, militias, sectarian violence and groups that clamour to proclaim entities like an "Islamic Republic of Gaza" over which they have an exclusive right to rule. Such a mode of behaviour proliferates like a particularly virulent weed in times of political decay and military defeat, especially in areas gripped by poverty, unemployment, weakness and frustration, as is the case in Gaza.
The situation in Gaza is further aggravated by an economic stranglehold as well as by an authority that fosters, protects and uses such movements to terrorise the people, intimidate opponents and purge political adversaries. Not infrequently, outside powers and forces have fostered such trends and groups, only to discover that the magic formula they used against others has turned against them. The most notorious example of this phenomenon is the Taliban, bred and fed by the US to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. Then they were termed freedom fighters, later becoming the "terrorist" scourge that provided the grounds for the US invasion. Al-Qaeda took root in a similar manner and for the same purpose. The horrors it subsequently perpetrated provided the US and other Western powers with an excuse to brand the Palestinian liberation struggle and other national resistance movements as terrorism and thus negate the universally sanctioned right to resist occupation and oppression. Yet a further example of the cynical use of terrorism unfolded in Lebanon following crimes committed by the Fatah Islam militia. The militia members took flight and hid out in the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp, giving Lebanese authorities the excuse to invade the camp, destroy it and drive out its inhabitants. These people, whose camp has yet to be reconstructed, are yet another tragic example of how civilians pay the price for organised violence.
The militant Islamist group Jund Ansar Allah emerged in Gaza against the backdrop of both Israel's stranglehold on the Strip and under a brutish ruling authority. After having opted for military force as the means to settle Palestinian differences and seize control of Gaza, Hamas evidently succumbed to the lustre and allure of power. Its subsequent actions, from suppressing other Islamist and political forces on the pretext that their independent political activities or expressions of resistance conflict with the interests of the Palestinian people, their violations of civil rights and individual freedoms, and their oppressive laws and regulations, proclaim their determination to impose their own beliefs on others. Nothing speaks louder of this intent than their edicts compelling women lawyers to cover their heads, making the galabiya the school uniform for girls, and decreeing similar dress codes for female mannequins. More insidious are the interventions in people's private affairs by the morals police. Hamas has an endless store of excuses for its random arrests. It has rounded up and incarcerated most Fatah members in Gaza, just as the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has rounded up Hamas members in the West Bank. Both groups seem bent on undermining the Palestinian national project, pursuing factional interests that have nothing whatsoever to do with the welfare of the Palestinian people and that only serve the American and Israeli regional projects.
Hamas wants to turn Gaza into an Islamic emirate. Towards this end it has issued a series of laws and edicts that accomplish two general aims: they force its vision and beliefs on others, and in so doing ensure that Hamas has a monopoly on truth and on what is in the best interests of the Palestinian people. Ironically, last week Hamas turned its wrath on Jund Ansar Allah, a group with its hearts set on the same goal. Justifying its assault against the rival Islamist militia, Hamas maintained that its members once belonged to the former, Fatah-controlled security agency in Gaza. The pretext is particularly curious given that some Jund Ansar Allah members were closely connected to Hamas and, indeed, carried out many acts of murder and destruction on behalf of, or at least with the cognizance of, Hamas's security agencies.
Force is no way to handle internal relations. It breeds greater extremism and spurs fragmentation. Hamas, with its ideological absolutism and political exclusionism, with the witch hunts and repressive tactics it has used to establish its monopoly on authority, has already served as the catalyst for the proliferation of ever more virulent clones. These can serve only one purpose — to hand the Palestinians' enemies the gift of being able to brand their struggle as "terrorist" and to hand Israel an excuse for perpetuating its occupation, the blockade and other injustices.
Suppressing civil liberties and individual freedoms and disseminating a culture of suspicion, combining this with inquisitorial methods, is a recipe for disaster. The only way out of the current impasse is to guarantee civil liberties and individual rights and institutionalise political plurality. If Hamas wants to market itself abroad as a centrist movement and establish non-extremist credentials the last thing it should be doing is engage in shootouts and pitched battles, precipitating a downward slide into security breakdown. The effect of all this is to perpetuate and aggravate divisions and set people at each other's throats over control of a governing authority that exercises no real power.
It is hard to contemplate what will happen should the Palestinian situation continue in its current, repugnant direction. As if the Palestinians have not suffered enough already from political rifts and infighting, now they face a one-upmanship in fanaticism that will spawn a plethora of preachers and sermonisers, self-proclaimed caliphs and emirs, transforming Palestine into a hotbed of bigotry and religious quackery that violates the most essential tenets of Islam. Nothing could be of greater help to the agendas of forces antagonistic to Palestinian and Arab national causes, especially in this era of mounting hostility towards Islam and Muslim peoples. How could terrorism cloaked as jihad or national liberation conceivably promote a cause for which someone is willing to blow himself up at a wedding, a funeral, a house of worship, or a restaurant, taking dozens of innocent lives along with him? What possible moral points are scored by indiscriminate and senseless killing? Such mindless, gratuitous violence undermines the legitimacy of national struggle and makes a mockery of the right to resist occupation.
If Hamas is to avert the alarming prospects described above it must undertake a comprehensive revision of its practices and policies with regard to the Palestinian national cause and social affairs. The Palestinians still live under occupation. What should be foremost in everyone's mind is to do what it takes to end division, mend rifts and unify behind a common strategy in order to safeguard the project of national liberation from collapse.
Mark says:
It should have been obvious that when suicide bombings started becoming a popular form of resistance in the Arab and Muslim worlds against Western targets in the 1980s that at some point it would be turned inward against Arab and Muslim targets. The justification by those who used suicide bombers against non-Arabs and non-Muslims, and especially against Israelis and Jews, inevitably became the same justification used against fellow Arabs and Muslims: they followed or supported or imposed policies or ideologies or religious beliefs that were "heretical" or "blasphemous" and "went against God and his prophet."
Likewise, when politics is fought out in the realm of religion, your opponents become not merely opponents or people with whom you differ, but heretics and blasphemers and unbelievers and rebels against God who must be killed and destroyed lest God punish you for "allowing" them to corrupt the world. Your opponents who call themselves Muslims are even more dangerous than the United States and Israel who, by the way, use these heretics and unbelievers through unnumbered dark and tangled conspiracies to undermine the "true faith," because they might lead the unknowing and naive into similar heresies and blasphemies.
And thus it has come to pass.
And thus hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Muslims (the two are not synonymous) have been killed by fellow Arabs and Muslims over the past 25 years. The efforts of the United States and Israel to kill Arabs and Muslims seem pitiful and amateurish by comparison although, of course, the conspiracy mongers will claim that the inter-Arab and inter-Muslim violence and murder is all the result of Western and Zionist conspiracies.
So, Galal Nassar should have seen it coming long before. Instead, only now does he ask:
How could terrorism cloaked as jihad or national
liberation conceivably promote a cause for which someone is willing to blow
himself up at a wedding, a funeral, a house of worship, or a restaurant, taking
dozens of innocent lives along with him? What possible moral points are scored
by indiscriminate and senseless killing? Such mindless, gratuitous violence
undermines the legitimacy of national struggle and makes a mockery of the right
to resist occupation.
And wait — Galal Nassar will soon be denounced by those who are "pure of heart" for they know what is right and true. They will declaim that Galal Nassar has strayed from the true path — or they will declaim that Galal Nassar's past support of national liberation movements and resistance to Western imperialism and colonialism and Zionism was just a cover and that he was really an agent of Western imperialism and colonialism and Zionism. Or they will declaim that he was both — he strayed and he was a foreign agent.
In any case, he is clearly guilty of "thought crimes." And the penalty is...?
Yale's Misguided Retreat
By Mona Eltahawy
The Washington Post
August 29, 2009
In deciding to omit the images from a book it is publishing about the controversy sparked by Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, Yale University Press has handed a victory to extremists. Both Yale and the extremists distorting this issue should be ashamed. I say this as a Muslim who supported the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten's right to publish the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in late 2005 and as someone who also understands the offense taken at those cartoons by many Muslims, including my mother. After a while, she and I agreed to stop talking about them because the subject always made us argue.
For more than two months in 2006, I lived in Copenhagen, where I debated the issue with Danes — Muslim and non-Muslim — including Flemming Rose, the culture editor of Jyllands-Posten, who commissioned the images, and Naser Khader, Denmark's first Muslim parliamentarian, who launched the liberal Democratic Muslims group just as the controversy unfolded.
Speaking at a conference that Khader hosted at the Danish parliament a year after the cartoons' publication, I warned of two right wings — a non-Muslim one that hijacked the issue to fuel racism against immigrants in Denmark, and a Muslim one that hijacked the issue to silence Muslims and fuel anti-Western rhetoric.
Sadly, both groups are celebrating Yale's decision because it has proven them "right."
The controversy that many might recall as "Danish newspaper publishes cartoons of the prophet; Muslim world goes berserk" was actually much more complex. What occurred across many Muslim-majority countries in 2006 was a clear exercise in manufacturing outrage. Consider:
Jyllands-Posten published the cartoons in September 2005. The widespread protests in majority-Muslim countries that eventually left more than 200 dead did not start until about four months later. Indeed, when an Egyptian newspaper reprinted one cartoon in October 2005 to show readers how a Danish newspaper was portraying the prophet, no backlash was heard in Cairo or elsewhere.
Jytte Klausen, the Danish-born author of the Yale Press's forthcoming book, "Cartoons That Shook the World," recognizes that lag. According to Yale Press's Web site, she argues that Muslim reaction to the cartoons was not spontaneous but, rather, that it was orchestrated "first by those with vested interests in elections in Denmark and Egypt, and later by Islamic extremists seeking to destabilize governments in Pakistan, Lebanon, Libya, and Nigeria."
I'm perplexed why Klausen agreed — even "reluctantly" — to Yale's decision to pull the cartoons. Ironically, she told the Guardian that she wanted to publish the cartoons to make the case "that some of them are Islamophobic, and in the tradition of anti-Semitism" — the latter a view that would hardly inflame many Muslims.
Yale also cut from the book images of the prophet meant to illustrate the history of the depiction of Muhammad in Ottoman, Persian and Western art. Sunni Muslims observe a prohibition on depictions of the prophet — but since when has Yale? It says it pulled the images on advice from Islamic and counterterrorism experts that they could incite violence, but at least one author and expert on Islam, Reza Aslan, has criticized the move as "idiotic" (he also retracted a blurb he had written in support of the book).
The cowardice shown by Yale Press recognizes none of the nuance that filled my conversations in Copenhagen nor discussions I had with Muslims in Qatar and Egypt during the controversy. Many told me they were dismayed at the double standards that stoked rage at these Danish cartoons yet did not question silence at anti-Semitic and racist cartoons in the region's media.
Does Yale realize that it has proven what Flemming Rose said was his original intent in commissioning the cartoons — that artists were self-censoring out of fear of Muslim radicals?
Yale has sided with the various Muslim dictators and radical groups that used the cartoons to "prove" who could best "defend" Muhammad against the Danes and, by extension, burnish their Islamic credentials. Those same dictators and radicals who complained of the offense to the prophet's memory were blind to the greater offense they committed in their disregard for human life. (Indeed, some of those protesters even held banners that said, "Behead those who offend the prophet.")
When a group of Danish imams flew to the Middle East in late 2005 with "offending images" of the prophet — some cartoons from the controversy and other images taken from the Web sites of extremist groups — the timing was ripe for the bandwagon of outrage to roll: The Muslim Brotherhood had become the largest opposition group in the Egyptian parliament. In January 2006, Hamas had just won the Palestinian elections.
One by one, regimes and Islamists competed in outrage, whipping up a frenzy that at times spiraled out of control.
Unfortunately, those dictators and radicals who want to speak for all Muslims — and yet care little for Muslim life — have found an ally in Yale University Press.
Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian-born commentator based in New York, writes and lectures on Arab and Muslim issues. She is a columnist for the Danish newspaper Politiken. Her e-mail address is info@monaeltahawy.com.
The Washington Post
August 29, 2009
In deciding to omit the images from a book it is publishing about the controversy sparked by Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, Yale University Press has handed a victory to extremists. Both Yale and the extremists distorting this issue should be ashamed. I say this as a Muslim who supported the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten's right to publish the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in late 2005 and as someone who also understands the offense taken at those cartoons by many Muslims, including my mother. After a while, she and I agreed to stop talking about them because the subject always made us argue.
For more than two months in 2006, I lived in Copenhagen, where I debated the issue with Danes — Muslim and non-Muslim — including Flemming Rose, the culture editor of Jyllands-Posten, who commissioned the images, and Naser Khader, Denmark's first Muslim parliamentarian, who launched the liberal Democratic Muslims group just as the controversy unfolded.
Speaking at a conference that Khader hosted at the Danish parliament a year after the cartoons' publication, I warned of two right wings — a non-Muslim one that hijacked the issue to fuel racism against immigrants in Denmark, and a Muslim one that hijacked the issue to silence Muslims and fuel anti-Western rhetoric.
Sadly, both groups are celebrating Yale's decision because it has proven them "right."
The controversy that many might recall as "Danish newspaper publishes cartoons of the prophet; Muslim world goes berserk" was actually much more complex. What occurred across many Muslim-majority countries in 2006 was a clear exercise in manufacturing outrage. Consider:
Jyllands-Posten published the cartoons in September 2005. The widespread protests in majority-Muslim countries that eventually left more than 200 dead did not start until about four months later. Indeed, when an Egyptian newspaper reprinted one cartoon in October 2005 to show readers how a Danish newspaper was portraying the prophet, no backlash was heard in Cairo or elsewhere.
Jytte Klausen, the Danish-born author of the Yale Press's forthcoming book, "Cartoons That Shook the World," recognizes that lag. According to Yale Press's Web site, she argues that Muslim reaction to the cartoons was not spontaneous but, rather, that it was orchestrated "first by those with vested interests in elections in Denmark and Egypt, and later by Islamic extremists seeking to destabilize governments in Pakistan, Lebanon, Libya, and Nigeria."
I'm perplexed why Klausen agreed — even "reluctantly" — to Yale's decision to pull the cartoons. Ironically, she told the Guardian that she wanted to publish the cartoons to make the case "that some of them are Islamophobic, and in the tradition of anti-Semitism" — the latter a view that would hardly inflame many Muslims.
Yale also cut from the book images of the prophet meant to illustrate the history of the depiction of Muhammad in Ottoman, Persian and Western art. Sunni Muslims observe a prohibition on depictions of the prophet — but since when has Yale? It says it pulled the images on advice from Islamic and counterterrorism experts that they could incite violence, but at least one author and expert on Islam, Reza Aslan, has criticized the move as "idiotic" (he also retracted a blurb he had written in support of the book).
The cowardice shown by Yale Press recognizes none of the nuance that filled my conversations in Copenhagen nor discussions I had with Muslims in Qatar and Egypt during the controversy. Many told me they were dismayed at the double standards that stoked rage at these Danish cartoons yet did not question silence at anti-Semitic and racist cartoons in the region's media.
Does Yale realize that it has proven what Flemming Rose said was his original intent in commissioning the cartoons — that artists were self-censoring out of fear of Muslim radicals?
Yale has sided with the various Muslim dictators and radical groups that used the cartoons to "prove" who could best "defend" Muhammad against the Danes and, by extension, burnish their Islamic credentials. Those same dictators and radicals who complained of the offense to the prophet's memory were blind to the greater offense they committed in their disregard for human life. (Indeed, some of those protesters even held banners that said, "Behead those who offend the prophet.")
When a group of Danish imams flew to the Middle East in late 2005 with "offending images" of the prophet — some cartoons from the controversy and other images taken from the Web sites of extremist groups — the timing was ripe for the bandwagon of outrage to roll: The Muslim Brotherhood had become the largest opposition group in the Egyptian parliament. In January 2006, Hamas had just won the Palestinian elections.
One by one, regimes and Islamists competed in outrage, whipping up a frenzy that at times spiraled out of control.
Unfortunately, those dictators and radicals who want to speak for all Muslims — and yet care little for Muslim life — have found an ally in Yale University Press.
Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian-born commentator based in New York, writes and lectures on Arab and Muslim issues. She is a columnist for the Danish newspaper Politiken. Her e-mail address is info@monaeltahawy.com.
Friday, August 28, 2009
More precision in discourse (and my comments)
By Ahmad Y. Majdoubeh
Jordan Times
August 28, 2009
Precision is not one of our society’s virtues. Most of the time, when receiving or conveying information, we generalise, stretch, dramatise, over or underemphasise, tell anecdotes that apply to a few implying that they apply to all, select at random, fragment, omit at will, etc. Perhaps this is human nature. Many societies, however, especially the more developed, have learned to be less haphazard or vague, and more orderly and precise, in both their words and acts.
Thinking reflects behaviour (and vice versa). This is why, to me, our discourse is not much different from our traffic situation. The chaos one sees on the roads, created by motorists and pedestrians alike, is reflected in our thinking and expression. This is not, obviously, innate, but an outcome of our modern-day cultural upbringing, education, practices and conduct.
At times, such imprecision is harmless, even understandable. When one is sitting with friends or family members in the comfort of one’s own living room chatting — and when people chat, they address issues of all sorts, from poverty, to food, to the Arab-Israeli conflict — one, with exceptions, of course, is not 100 per cent accurate in what one says. People just chat. At times, they are deliberately silly, provocative and distorting facts.
Generally, however, imprecision can be quite harmful, especially when people express their opinions on sensitive issues. Such imprecision is abundantly seen in our talk shows (hosts, main guests and phone-in participants), newspaper editorials and articles, lectures, books, TV series, movies and all sorts of discussions that take place in formal and informal situations.
Examples about our discourse on politics and international relations are plentiful. In the opinion of some among us, the entire world is conspiring against us. So many dark, evil forces in the world are out there to get us. Day and night, they are scheming to corrupt our youth, lay traps for us at every corner, offend our morality, destroy our religion, eliminate our cuisine, etc. These forces at work include not only occupiers and imperialists (who, through their reckless actions and interventions, enforce such thinking), but also foreign writers, journalists, musicians, singers, dancers, filmmakers, actors, athletes. The same applies to “foreign” food chains, clothes outlets, hotels, tourist attractions.
One is not denying that there is competition in the world, and that countries, big or small, put their interests above all other, and therefore think, plan, scheme and conspire to achieve their goals. There is a lot of cooperation and collaboration in our world, but there is also a lot of competition and conflict.
What does one expect?
Saying this, however, is something, and seeing ourselves constantly as vulnerable, delicate, sensitive, innocent and helpless victims is another thing. The latter could be a manifestation of apathy and paranoia at their worst.
Take also the matter of poverty as an example: There is poverty in our society; those who are poor are significant in number; the country is doing something to alleviate poverty; what it does is serious, though not totally sufficient. These are facts.
But there is also a lot of distortion. Until now, we do not have accurate statistics (the same applies to unemployment) regarding the matter. Furthermore, because of the lack of a clear-cut definition of poverty, it is often hard to tell who is poor and who is not in our society.
This, ultimately, is fine. We can live with a degree of ambiguity. The institutions concerned with studying, determining and dealing with poverty in our society will some day be more efficient and transparent, and provide us with more accurate and precise figures.
What is not fine, however, is the fact that because we take the issue of poverty so seriously, because many are concerned about the matter, from the highest levels of government and NGOs down, and because we talk about poverty so much, almost everybody in our society started seeing him/herself as poor. The poor and the not so poor started to continually complain and nag.
You listen to our talk shows, read our articles, hear our officials, see our movies and TV series, and you get the impression that we are all starving. People complain they cannot afford meat, yet buy tonnes of it. The prices are too high, life is too harsh, is another complaint.
Not long ago, when asked how they were doing, the poor, the not so poor and the wealthy would reply: “alhamdu-lillah” (thank God).
What happened to this dignified feeling? What happened to gratitude and thankfulness? When asked this question, most people explode, complaining and nagging.
The point is that many find a lot of convenience, coziness and comfort in seeing themselves as victims of all kinds of world conspiracies or as poor. This is a fad and a malady.
Clearly, this matter needs to be addressed effectively. One of the best ways of doing it is bombarding — I cannot think of a better word — people with facts, figures, statistics and apt analyses.
Precision is a virtue; imprecision is a vice. Our society needs to invest more in the former, and battle the latter.
Ahmad Y. Majdoubeh is the dean of the Faculty of Arts at Jordan University.
Mark says:
Regardless of how whether one agrees or disagrees with Mr. Majdoubeh's diagnosis or analysis — and I happen to believe that he makes a lot of sense talking about his part of the world — he may be overly optimistic about the efficacy of his prescription for solving the problem he describes, or at least improving the situation: "bombarding... people with facts, figures, statistics and apt analyses." His view may reflect that he is an academic — though there's nothing wrong with that, to paraphrase that well-known philosopher Seinfeld.
He may find that at least some of his fellow Jordanians and fellow Arabs will respond with such comebacks as: "There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics" and "You are entitled to your own set of opinions; you are not entitled to your own set of facts."
As for analyses... all you have to do is read through the range of articles in this blog to see that bombarding people with "apt analyses" is not necessarily going to get people to be more precise, or they may get more precise in directions other than you want, or they may simply disagree with your analyses... and call you names to boot.
But that's just my cynical read on reality. On the other hand, Mr. Majdoubeh does make some important points about precision and knowledge and especially conspiracy theories — and maybe he'll find some useful things in this blog?
Jordan Times
August 28, 2009
Precision is not one of our society’s virtues. Most of the time, when receiving or conveying information, we generalise, stretch, dramatise, over or underemphasise, tell anecdotes that apply to a few implying that they apply to all, select at random, fragment, omit at will, etc. Perhaps this is human nature. Many societies, however, especially the more developed, have learned to be less haphazard or vague, and more orderly and precise, in both their words and acts.
Thinking reflects behaviour (and vice versa). This is why, to me, our discourse is not much different from our traffic situation. The chaos one sees on the roads, created by motorists and pedestrians alike, is reflected in our thinking and expression. This is not, obviously, innate, but an outcome of our modern-day cultural upbringing, education, practices and conduct.
At times, such imprecision is harmless, even understandable. When one is sitting with friends or family members in the comfort of one’s own living room chatting — and when people chat, they address issues of all sorts, from poverty, to food, to the Arab-Israeli conflict — one, with exceptions, of course, is not 100 per cent accurate in what one says. People just chat. At times, they are deliberately silly, provocative and distorting facts.
Generally, however, imprecision can be quite harmful, especially when people express their opinions on sensitive issues. Such imprecision is abundantly seen in our talk shows (hosts, main guests and phone-in participants), newspaper editorials and articles, lectures, books, TV series, movies and all sorts of discussions that take place in formal and informal situations.
Examples about our discourse on politics and international relations are plentiful. In the opinion of some among us, the entire world is conspiring against us. So many dark, evil forces in the world are out there to get us. Day and night, they are scheming to corrupt our youth, lay traps for us at every corner, offend our morality, destroy our religion, eliminate our cuisine, etc. These forces at work include not only occupiers and imperialists (who, through their reckless actions and interventions, enforce such thinking), but also foreign writers, journalists, musicians, singers, dancers, filmmakers, actors, athletes. The same applies to “foreign” food chains, clothes outlets, hotels, tourist attractions.
One is not denying that there is competition in the world, and that countries, big or small, put their interests above all other, and therefore think, plan, scheme and conspire to achieve their goals. There is a lot of cooperation and collaboration in our world, but there is also a lot of competition and conflict.
What does one expect?
Saying this, however, is something, and seeing ourselves constantly as vulnerable, delicate, sensitive, innocent and helpless victims is another thing. The latter could be a manifestation of apathy and paranoia at their worst.
Take also the matter of poverty as an example: There is poverty in our society; those who are poor are significant in number; the country is doing something to alleviate poverty; what it does is serious, though not totally sufficient. These are facts.
But there is also a lot of distortion. Until now, we do not have accurate statistics (the same applies to unemployment) regarding the matter. Furthermore, because of the lack of a clear-cut definition of poverty, it is often hard to tell who is poor and who is not in our society.
This, ultimately, is fine. We can live with a degree of ambiguity. The institutions concerned with studying, determining and dealing with poverty in our society will some day be more efficient and transparent, and provide us with more accurate and precise figures.
What is not fine, however, is the fact that because we take the issue of poverty so seriously, because many are concerned about the matter, from the highest levels of government and NGOs down, and because we talk about poverty so much, almost everybody in our society started seeing him/herself as poor. The poor and the not so poor started to continually complain and nag.
You listen to our talk shows, read our articles, hear our officials, see our movies and TV series, and you get the impression that we are all starving. People complain they cannot afford meat, yet buy tonnes of it. The prices are too high, life is too harsh, is another complaint.
Not long ago, when asked how they were doing, the poor, the not so poor and the wealthy would reply: “alhamdu-lillah” (thank God).
What happened to this dignified feeling? What happened to gratitude and thankfulness? When asked this question, most people explode, complaining and nagging.
The point is that many find a lot of convenience, coziness and comfort in seeing themselves as victims of all kinds of world conspiracies or as poor. This is a fad and a malady.
Clearly, this matter needs to be addressed effectively. One of the best ways of doing it is bombarding — I cannot think of a better word — people with facts, figures, statistics and apt analyses.
Precision is a virtue; imprecision is a vice. Our society needs to invest more in the former, and battle the latter.
Ahmad Y. Majdoubeh is the dean of the Faculty of Arts at Jordan University.
Mark says:
Regardless of how whether one agrees or disagrees with Mr. Majdoubeh's diagnosis or analysis — and I happen to believe that he makes a lot of sense talking about his part of the world — he may be overly optimistic about the efficacy of his prescription for solving the problem he describes, or at least improving the situation: "bombarding... people with facts, figures, statistics and apt analyses." His view may reflect that he is an academic — though there's nothing wrong with that, to paraphrase that well-known philosopher Seinfeld.
He may find that at least some of his fellow Jordanians and fellow Arabs will respond with such comebacks as: "There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics" and "You are entitled to your own set of opinions; you are not entitled to your own set of facts."
As for analyses... all you have to do is read through the range of articles in this blog to see that bombarding people with "apt analyses" is not necessarily going to get people to be more precise, or they may get more precise in directions other than you want, or they may simply disagree with your analyses... and call you names to boot.
But that's just my cynical read on reality. On the other hand, Mr. Majdoubeh does make some important points about precision and knowledge and especially conspiracy theories — and maybe he'll find some useful things in this blog?
The Middle East Matrix
By Mark B. Kaplan
Arutz Sheva (Israel)
August 28, 2009
What if everything you think you know to be true is a lie, and everything you see is just an illusion? Sounds like a promo for The Matrix, but this is the reality of life in the Middle East. The rules that apply to other countries strangely change when applied to Israel. Israel becomes subject to "international law" based upon a legal foundation of facts that don't exist; Israel has leaders, but the leaders would rather suffer the existence of abusive friendships than fight back and protect their children.
The United States is leading the crusade against Israel. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are not only demanding Israel freeze all "settlement construction", including natural growth, but that Jewish rights be curbed in Jerusalem. Obama is also calling Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria an "occupation."
Yes, Israel does have rights under international law, and the Arab propaganda accusation of Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine is another falsehood that needs to end. Israel's government has never stood up for Jewish land rights. Can it be that they don't even know what those rights are?
It's frustrating to see Israeli leaders refuse to challenge the false accusations. The fact is that international law does have a lot to say about Israel's rights in Judea, Samaria and beyond. Israel's leaders, President Obama, and the entire world body should look to international law before declaring that Israel should freeze construction, or even worse, surrender portions of the Jewish National Homeland.
Jerusalem attorney Howard Grief spent twenty five years researching Israel's legal rights under international law. Grief summed up Israel's legal rights in a new 700-page book entitled, The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law. According to Grief, Israel and its legal borders were supposed to be set by the historical formula adopted by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers at the San Remo Peace Conference in April 1920. Those historical borders were supposed to encompass the Biblical formula of "from Dan to Beersheba." Unfortunately, the French and the British conspired to cut off large portions of Jewish national land before the ink on the Mandate was dry.
The Principal Allied Powers at San Remo established the Mandate System that created Mesopotamia (Iraq), Syria, Lebanon, and the Jewish National Home in Palestine. The result of the illegal French-British land deals and the British criminal malfeasance in administering the Mandate was the removal of the northern Galilee, Golan and 78% of Palestine, which today is Jordan. However, the final borders of the Mandate include Judea, Samaria, and all of Jerusalem. Israel's presence in those areas cannot be considered an occupation. The legal title belongs exclusively to the Jewish People.
The Mandate for Palestine was for the exclusive benefit of the Jewish People. No other beneficiary is named in the Mandate. Non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine were guaranteed the civil and religious rights due to any minority living in a democracy. These rights do not include the right to autonomy. If they did, then every religious group would have the right to an autonomous state.
The British never intended on leaving Palestine for the Jews. Despite their obligations under the Mandate, British actions prevented Palestine from becoming Jewish.
Two years prior to the Balfour Declaration, in which the British committed to use their best endeavors to establish a Jewish country in Palestine, the British signed the secret Sykes-Picot Treaty with France, which called for conquering and dividing Palestine between the two signatories. That treaty was eventually declared illegal, but until that point, creating the Jewish state would have violated the treaty. When the British were appointed the administrators of the Mandate, they succeeded in forcing the French out of Palestine.
The Jews remained the obstacle for British plans to keep Palestine. The British knew Palestine could not be turned over to the Jews until the Jews became the majority in Palestine. The British, rather than fulfill their obligation to assist Jewish immigration, instituted the White Papers that severely limited Jewish immigration and where Jews could settle. When the British finally proposed to end the Mandate, they recommended a partition in which the Jews and Arabs would each receive portions of the land, and the British would keep Jerusalem (the grand prize) and the Negev (where the British expected to find oil). The UN rejected the British plan.
The British purposely change the demographics in Palestine to prevent the Jews from becoming the majority. They also turned a blind eye to illegal Arab immigration. Joan Peters, in her book From Time Immemorial, cites the lack of British documentation regarding illegal Arab immigration into Mandate Palestine. Peters quotes a 1934 article in which the governor of the Hauran region complained of the Arab flight to Palestine, saying, "In the past few months from 30,000 to 36,000 Hauranese (Syrians) had entered Palestine...." The official British records say the number of non-Jewish immigrants for the entire year of 1934 was 1,784. This tells us that an overwhelming number of Arabs identifying themselves as "Palestinians" from "time immemorial" illegally immigrated to Palestine during the Mandate.
Furthermore, the Mandate (Article 5) stipulated that "no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of, the Government of any foreign Power." This means that under international law, no one can force the Jewish State to cede any land that is legally recognized as belonging to the Jewish homeland. This renders the 1947 UN Partition Plan an illegal resolution.
The US may not care about International law unless it's in its own interest, but every American high school graduate knows that the US Government must follow Constitutional law, right?
Apparently not.
In 1924, the US signed a treaty with the British in which the Mandate was adopted as part of the treaty. Article VI of the US Constitution calls a treaty the "Supreme Law of the land." The rights conveyed through the treaty still stand, including the prohibition to cede Jewish land, as well as the right of settlement.
Obama's demand that Israel halt settlement construction violates the 1924 treaty. President Obama has no right, under US law, to call Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria an "occupation." Additionally, the establishment of an Arab state within the legal boundaries of Israel is a violation of Jewish rights under both international and US law. Therefore, the "Roadmap to Peace" (which expired in 2005) also violates the United States Constitution.
The Justice Now! organization has begun work to take legal action to compel the Obama administration to stop violating the 1924 treaty. Justice Now! Director Dr. Michael Snidecor compares Obama's demands to a situation in which the British would say they are no longer honoring the 1783 Paris Treaty that granted the thirteen colonies independence, and instead are giving the land to a Native American nation. Justice Now! is also enlisting congressional support to demand Obama obey his own country's laws, as well as international law regarding Israel's rightful borders.
Bringing the Jewish People's rights before the legal system, where propaganda will lose to factual evidence, will end the illusion of illegal occupation and firmly establish the Jewish Nation's legal rights to all of Israel. Once the propaganda is proven to be a lie, then perhaps, just like in The Matrix, the Jewish People will also be able to stop the bullets of anti-Zionism in mid-air. Then, legal and just solutions can be found to end nearly a century of war and bloodshed.
Mark Kaplan is a former producer, news writer, and anchor for Arutz Sheva/INN-TV. Kaplan was recently appointed the media relations director for the Office for Israeli Constitutional Law/Justice Now.
Arutz Sheva (Israel)
August 28, 2009
What if everything you think you know to be true is a lie, and everything you see is just an illusion? Sounds like a promo for The Matrix, but this is the reality of life in the Middle East. The rules that apply to other countries strangely change when applied to Israel. Israel becomes subject to "international law" based upon a legal foundation of facts that don't exist; Israel has leaders, but the leaders would rather suffer the existence of abusive friendships than fight back and protect their children.
The United States is leading the crusade against Israel. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are not only demanding Israel freeze all "settlement construction", including natural growth, but that Jewish rights be curbed in Jerusalem. Obama is also calling Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria an "occupation."
Yes, Israel does have rights under international law, and the Arab propaganda accusation of Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine is another falsehood that needs to end. Israel's government has never stood up for Jewish land rights. Can it be that they don't even know what those rights are?
It's frustrating to see Israeli leaders refuse to challenge the false accusations. The fact is that international law does have a lot to say about Israel's rights in Judea, Samaria and beyond. Israel's leaders, President Obama, and the entire world body should look to international law before declaring that Israel should freeze construction, or even worse, surrender portions of the Jewish National Homeland.
Jerusalem attorney Howard Grief spent twenty five years researching Israel's legal rights under international law. Grief summed up Israel's legal rights in a new 700-page book entitled, The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law. According to Grief, Israel and its legal borders were supposed to be set by the historical formula adopted by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers at the San Remo Peace Conference in April 1920. Those historical borders were supposed to encompass the Biblical formula of "from Dan to Beersheba." Unfortunately, the French and the British conspired to cut off large portions of Jewish national land before the ink on the Mandate was dry.
The Principal Allied Powers at San Remo established the Mandate System that created Mesopotamia (Iraq), Syria, Lebanon, and the Jewish National Home in Palestine. The result of the illegal French-British land deals and the British criminal malfeasance in administering the Mandate was the removal of the northern Galilee, Golan and 78% of Palestine, which today is Jordan. However, the final borders of the Mandate include Judea, Samaria, and all of Jerusalem. Israel's presence in those areas cannot be considered an occupation. The legal title belongs exclusively to the Jewish People.
The Mandate for Palestine was for the exclusive benefit of the Jewish People. No other beneficiary is named in the Mandate. Non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine were guaranteed the civil and religious rights due to any minority living in a democracy. These rights do not include the right to autonomy. If they did, then every religious group would have the right to an autonomous state.
The British never intended on leaving Palestine for the Jews. Despite their obligations under the Mandate, British actions prevented Palestine from becoming Jewish.
Two years prior to the Balfour Declaration, in which the British committed to use their best endeavors to establish a Jewish country in Palestine, the British signed the secret Sykes-Picot Treaty with France, which called for conquering and dividing Palestine between the two signatories. That treaty was eventually declared illegal, but until that point, creating the Jewish state would have violated the treaty. When the British were appointed the administrators of the Mandate, they succeeded in forcing the French out of Palestine.
The Jews remained the obstacle for British plans to keep Palestine. The British knew Palestine could not be turned over to the Jews until the Jews became the majority in Palestine. The British, rather than fulfill their obligation to assist Jewish immigration, instituted the White Papers that severely limited Jewish immigration and where Jews could settle. When the British finally proposed to end the Mandate, they recommended a partition in which the Jews and Arabs would each receive portions of the land, and the British would keep Jerusalem (the grand prize) and the Negev (where the British expected to find oil). The UN rejected the British plan.
The British purposely change the demographics in Palestine to prevent the Jews from becoming the majority. They also turned a blind eye to illegal Arab immigration. Joan Peters, in her book From Time Immemorial, cites the lack of British documentation regarding illegal Arab immigration into Mandate Palestine. Peters quotes a 1934 article in which the governor of the Hauran region complained of the Arab flight to Palestine, saying, "In the past few months from 30,000 to 36,000 Hauranese (Syrians) had entered Palestine...." The official British records say the number of non-Jewish immigrants for the entire year of 1934 was 1,784. This tells us that an overwhelming number of Arabs identifying themselves as "Palestinians" from "time immemorial" illegally immigrated to Palestine during the Mandate.
Furthermore, the Mandate (Article 5) stipulated that "no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of, the Government of any foreign Power." This means that under international law, no one can force the Jewish State to cede any land that is legally recognized as belonging to the Jewish homeland. This renders the 1947 UN Partition Plan an illegal resolution.
The US may not care about International law unless it's in its own interest, but every American high school graduate knows that the US Government must follow Constitutional law, right?
Apparently not.
In 1924, the US signed a treaty with the British in which the Mandate was adopted as part of the treaty. Article VI of the US Constitution calls a treaty the "Supreme Law of the land." The rights conveyed through the treaty still stand, including the prohibition to cede Jewish land, as well as the right of settlement.
Obama's demand that Israel halt settlement construction violates the 1924 treaty. President Obama has no right, under US law, to call Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria an "occupation." Additionally, the establishment of an Arab state within the legal boundaries of Israel is a violation of Jewish rights under both international and US law. Therefore, the "Roadmap to Peace" (which expired in 2005) also violates the United States Constitution.
The Justice Now! organization has begun work to take legal action to compel the Obama administration to stop violating the 1924 treaty. Justice Now! Director Dr. Michael Snidecor compares Obama's demands to a situation in which the British would say they are no longer honoring the 1783 Paris Treaty that granted the thirteen colonies independence, and instead are giving the land to a Native American nation. Justice Now! is also enlisting congressional support to demand Obama obey his own country's laws, as well as international law regarding Israel's rightful borders.
Bringing the Jewish People's rights before the legal system, where propaganda will lose to factual evidence, will end the illusion of illegal occupation and firmly establish the Jewish Nation's legal rights to all of Israel. Once the propaganda is proven to be a lie, then perhaps, just like in The Matrix, the Jewish People will also be able to stop the bullets of anti-Zionism in mid-air. Then, legal and just solutions can be found to end nearly a century of war and bloodshed.
Mark Kaplan is a former producer, news writer, and anchor for Arutz Sheva/INN-TV. Kaplan was recently appointed the media relations director for the Office for Israeli Constitutional Law/Justice Now.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Obama's Mideast vision: Confusion
By Michael Young
The Daily Star (Lebanon)
August 27, 2009
There is great discomfort these days among those who backed Barack Obama’s “new” approach to the Middle East when he took office 10 months ago. That shouldn’t surprise us. Everything about the president’s shotgun approach to the region, his desire to overhaul all policies from the George W. Bush years simultaneously, without a cohesive strategy binding his actions together, was always going to let the believers down.
As the president’s accelerated pullout from Iraq begins to look increasingly ill-thought-out, as his engagement of Iran and Syria falters, as Arab-Israeli peace looks more elusive than ever, and as Americans express growing doubts about the war in Afghanistan, Obama is discovering that personal charisma is not enough to alter the realities of a Middle East that has whittled down better men than he.
For the US president, the clearest articulation of his approach to the region was his speech in Cairo last June. However, there was always more mood to that address than substance. The president put out a wish-list of American objectives, padded with reassurances and self-criticism, but there was no solid core to what he said — a discernible sense of the values and overriding political ambitions the United States was building toward. As Obama himself admitted, no single speech could answer all the complex questions the Middle East has tossed up. However, American behavior on the ground has made things no easier to understand, which is why regional uncertainties are turning to bite the administration in the leg.
For example, what is the policy in Iraq? In recent weeks, following the American military withdrawal from Iraqi cities, the upsurge in devastating suicide attacks has threatened to reverse years of efforts by Washington to stabilize the country. Ultimately, Obama’s priority can be summed up in one word, reflecting his psychological hesitation to commit to an enterprise that he associates, in a dangerously personalized way, with his predecessor. That word is “withdrawal,” and Obama described his Iraqi policy this way in Cairo: “Today, America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future — and to leave Iraq to Iraqis. I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources. Iraq’s sovereignty is its own.”
Those were noble thoughts, but how do they square with other American concerns, such as the containment of Iran, the avoidance of sectarian conflict that might engulf the region, the stability of oil supplies, and much else? Obama feels that an America forever signaling its desire to go home will make things better by making America more likable. That’s not how the Middle East works. Politics abhor a vacuum, and as everyone sees how eager the US is to leave, the more they will try to fill the ensuing vacuum to their advantage, and the more intransigent they will be when Washington seeks political solutions to prepare its getaway. That explains the upsurge of bombings in Iraq lately, and it explains why the Taliban feel no need to surrender anything in Afghanistan.
Engagement of Iran and Syria has also come up short, though a breakthrough remains possible. However, there was always something counterintuitive in lowering the pressure on Iran in the hope that this would generate progress in finding a solution to its nuclear program.
Engagement is not an end in itself, it is a means to an end among countless others. Where the Obama administration erred was in not seeing how dialogue would buy Iran more time to advance its nuclear projects, precisely what the Iranians wanted, while breaking the momentum of international efforts to force Tehran to concede something — for example temporary suspension of uranium enrichment. For Obama to rebuild such momentum today seems virtually impossible, when the US itself has made it abundantly clear that it believes war is a bad idea.
Attacking Iran is indeed a bad idea, but in the poker game he has been playing with Tehran, Obama didn’t need to show all of his cards. He’s virtually folded over Iraq, is stumbling in Afghanistan, and does not occupy himself very much with Lebanon, all places where the Iranians can and are hurting the Americans. By placing most of his chips on engagement, the president has failed to develop a more multifaceted strategy while relinquishing other forms of coercion that could have been effective in Washington’s bargaining with the Islamic Republic.
On Syria, the US has been more steadfast, particularly in trying to deny Damascus the means to reimpose its will in Lebanon. However, the Assad regime has shown no signs of breaking away from Iran, a major US incentive in re-engaging with the Syrians, even as it has facilitated suicide attacks in Iraq and encouraged Hamas’ intransigence in inter-Palestinian negotiations in Cairo. The Obama administration can, of course, take the passive view that Syria is entitled to destabilize its neighbors in order to enhance its leverage; or it can behave like a superpower and make the undermining of vital US interests very costly for Bashar Assad. But it certainly cannot defend its vital interests by adopting a passive approach.
With respect to the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, Obama has taken Israel on over its settlements. It was about time, since the Bush administration’s permissiveness on settlement construction neutralized its own “road map”. However, there is more to Palestinian-Israeli peace than settlements. Obama is exerting considerable political capital to confront Israel, but it may be capital wasted at a moment when Hamas can still veto any breakthrough from the Palestinian side. In other words, Washington is working on a narrow front whereas its failure to weaken Hamas may render the whole enterprise meaningless. But how can the US weaken Hamas when improving relations with the movement’s main regional sponsors, Iran and Syria, remains a centerpiece of American efforts?
Barack Obama’s devotees may imagine that because he spent a few years abroad as a boy, he is well equipped to understand our complicated world. Perhaps he is, but his approach to the greater Middle East, shorn of the soaring rhetoric, has been artless and arrogant. The president is being tied up every which way by his foes, who can plainly see that the Obama vision is an unsystematic one. If ever the US has been close to achieving potentially terminal self-marginalization in the region, it is now.
Michael Young is the Opinion Editor and a columnist for Lebanon’s The Daily Star newspaper. He is also a contributing editor at Reason magazine.
The Daily Star (Lebanon)
August 27, 2009
There is great discomfort these days among those who backed Barack Obama’s “new” approach to the Middle East when he took office 10 months ago. That shouldn’t surprise us. Everything about the president’s shotgun approach to the region, his desire to overhaul all policies from the George W. Bush years simultaneously, without a cohesive strategy binding his actions together, was always going to let the believers down.
As the president’s accelerated pullout from Iraq begins to look increasingly ill-thought-out, as his engagement of Iran and Syria falters, as Arab-Israeli peace looks more elusive than ever, and as Americans express growing doubts about the war in Afghanistan, Obama is discovering that personal charisma is not enough to alter the realities of a Middle East that has whittled down better men than he.
For the US president, the clearest articulation of his approach to the region was his speech in Cairo last June. However, there was always more mood to that address than substance. The president put out a wish-list of American objectives, padded with reassurances and self-criticism, but there was no solid core to what he said — a discernible sense of the values and overriding political ambitions the United States was building toward. As Obama himself admitted, no single speech could answer all the complex questions the Middle East has tossed up. However, American behavior on the ground has made things no easier to understand, which is why regional uncertainties are turning to bite the administration in the leg.
For example, what is the policy in Iraq? In recent weeks, following the American military withdrawal from Iraqi cities, the upsurge in devastating suicide attacks has threatened to reverse years of efforts by Washington to stabilize the country. Ultimately, Obama’s priority can be summed up in one word, reflecting his psychological hesitation to commit to an enterprise that he associates, in a dangerously personalized way, with his predecessor. That word is “withdrawal,” and Obama described his Iraqi policy this way in Cairo: “Today, America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future — and to leave Iraq to Iraqis. I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources. Iraq’s sovereignty is its own.”
Those were noble thoughts, but how do they square with other American concerns, such as the containment of Iran, the avoidance of sectarian conflict that might engulf the region, the stability of oil supplies, and much else? Obama feels that an America forever signaling its desire to go home will make things better by making America more likable. That’s not how the Middle East works. Politics abhor a vacuum, and as everyone sees how eager the US is to leave, the more they will try to fill the ensuing vacuum to their advantage, and the more intransigent they will be when Washington seeks political solutions to prepare its getaway. That explains the upsurge of bombings in Iraq lately, and it explains why the Taliban feel no need to surrender anything in Afghanistan.
Engagement of Iran and Syria has also come up short, though a breakthrough remains possible. However, there was always something counterintuitive in lowering the pressure on Iran in the hope that this would generate progress in finding a solution to its nuclear program.
Engagement is not an end in itself, it is a means to an end among countless others. Where the Obama administration erred was in not seeing how dialogue would buy Iran more time to advance its nuclear projects, precisely what the Iranians wanted, while breaking the momentum of international efforts to force Tehran to concede something — for example temporary suspension of uranium enrichment. For Obama to rebuild such momentum today seems virtually impossible, when the US itself has made it abundantly clear that it believes war is a bad idea.
Attacking Iran is indeed a bad idea, but in the poker game he has been playing with Tehran, Obama didn’t need to show all of his cards. He’s virtually folded over Iraq, is stumbling in Afghanistan, and does not occupy himself very much with Lebanon, all places where the Iranians can and are hurting the Americans. By placing most of his chips on engagement, the president has failed to develop a more multifaceted strategy while relinquishing other forms of coercion that could have been effective in Washington’s bargaining with the Islamic Republic.
On Syria, the US has been more steadfast, particularly in trying to deny Damascus the means to reimpose its will in Lebanon. However, the Assad regime has shown no signs of breaking away from Iran, a major US incentive in re-engaging with the Syrians, even as it has facilitated suicide attacks in Iraq and encouraged Hamas’ intransigence in inter-Palestinian negotiations in Cairo. The Obama administration can, of course, take the passive view that Syria is entitled to destabilize its neighbors in order to enhance its leverage; or it can behave like a superpower and make the undermining of vital US interests very costly for Bashar Assad. But it certainly cannot defend its vital interests by adopting a passive approach.
With respect to the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, Obama has taken Israel on over its settlements. It was about time, since the Bush administration’s permissiveness on settlement construction neutralized its own “road map”. However, there is more to Palestinian-Israeli peace than settlements. Obama is exerting considerable political capital to confront Israel, but it may be capital wasted at a moment when Hamas can still veto any breakthrough from the Palestinian side. In other words, Washington is working on a narrow front whereas its failure to weaken Hamas may render the whole enterprise meaningless. But how can the US weaken Hamas when improving relations with the movement’s main regional sponsors, Iran and Syria, remains a centerpiece of American efforts?
Barack Obama’s devotees may imagine that because he spent a few years abroad as a boy, he is well equipped to understand our complicated world. Perhaps he is, but his approach to the greater Middle East, shorn of the soaring rhetoric, has been artless and arrogant. The president is being tied up every which way by his foes, who can plainly see that the Obama vision is an unsystematic one. If ever the US has been close to achieving potentially terminal self-marginalization in the region, it is now.
Michael Young is the Opinion Editor and a columnist for Lebanon’s The Daily Star newspaper. He is also a contributing editor at Reason magazine.
Swedish article on organ harvesting was cheap and harmful journalism
By Gideon Levy
Ha'aretz (Israel)
August 27, 2009
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman should have sent a big bouquet to [Daniel] Bostrom, the Swedish photographer and journalist who wrote the article claiming that the Israel Defense Forces harvested organs from dead Palestinians. And the Foreign Ministry should write a letter of thanks to the editors of his paper, Aftonbladet. It has been a long time since such a propaganda asset has fallen into the hands of the friends of the occupation. It has been a long time since such damage has been caused to people seriously attempting to document its horrors.
The bizarre Swedish report led to a no-less-bizarre Israeli response. Bad and irresponsible journalism crossed paths with bad and irresponsible diplomacy. Instead of simply denying the report, Lieberman, true to form, acted like a bully. In his fiery response — from his disrespectful mention of the Holocaust to identifying every criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism, to his ludicrous demand that the Swedish Foreign Ministry condemn the article — Lieberman caused great diplomatic damage to Israel. He even scandalously attacked Norway for marking the 150th birthday of its greatest author. However, the article's damage to the fight against the occupation cannot be ignored.
Serious journalism's task is to document, investigate and prove — not to call on others to investigate, as the Swedish tabloid did. One may, for example, accuse the Swedish reporter of a crime, writing that he rapes little boys or girls, all based on suspicions and rumors, and call on the Swedish police to investigate. That's what the reporter did with his claims of trafficking in Palestinian organs. There were cases in which the organs of Palestinians who had been killed were harvested without permission, something the Institute of Forensic Medicine has done to others in Israel, for research purposes. But it's a long way from that to suspicion of trafficking in organs based only on the fact that in 1992 a dead Palestinian was found whose organs had been removed and his body sewn back up. And 17 years later a few Jews were arrested on suspicion of trafficking in human organs. That's not professional journalism, that's cheap and harmful journalism.
The Israeli occupation is ugly enough without the contribution of Nordic fairy tales. Its wrongs are abominable even without exaggerations and inventions. We, a small group of Israeli journalists trying to document the occupation, always knew that we must not publish an unfounded report. One mistake and the whole journalistic enterprise would fall into the hands of official propaganda, which automatically denies all suspicions and is just waiting for a mistake. Look what the IDF Spokesman's Office did to the organization Breaking the Silence, just because it was set up as a nonprofit limited company and not a nonprofit organization; as if that were relevant to the quality of the testimony it presents.
Over the years, the IDF has killed thousands of innocent civilians, among them women and children. The Shin Bet security service has tortured hundreds of people under interrogation, sometimes to death. Israel prevents food and medicine from reaching Gaza. Sick people are extorted by the Shin Bet to become collaborators in return for medical treatment. Thousands of homes in the territories have been demolished for nothing. Dozens of people have been killed by special units when they could have been arrested instead. Thousands of detainees have sat in jail for months or years without trial. Is that not enough to draw a reliable portrait of the occupation? Is that not shocking enough?
Like the perverse comparison to the Nazis, any exaggeration in describing the occupation's cruelty will ultimately damage the struggle against it. It's easy to prove that Israel did not traffic in Palestinian organs, as it's easy to prove that Israeli soldiers do not act like Nazis or that Israel is not commiting genocide. That doesn't mean the occupation is not evil, criminal and brutal. The false stories serve Israeli propaganda: Look, we've issued a denial, we've proved that the occupation is not as cruel as they say, and we've cast doubt on all other, serious and well-founded testimony.
Those who know Bostrom say he's a wonderful photographer and a less-successful journalist. He has proved this by his article. Bostrom is involved in the Swedish solidarity movement with the Palestinians, but that does not necessarily mean he has hidden anti-Semitic motives. He may even have had good intentions, but good intentions are not enough.
Now all serious researchers, journalists and human rights groups have to prove the accuracy of their findings. The truth is that the occupation is very evil, even if not in the way Aftonbladet presented it.
Mark says:
See also on this blog: "Baseless organ theft accuations will not bring Israel to justice" and "Palestinian family: We didn't say organs taken."
Ha'aretz (Israel)
August 27, 2009
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman should have sent a big bouquet to [Daniel] Bostrom, the Swedish photographer and journalist who wrote the article claiming that the Israel Defense Forces harvested organs from dead Palestinians. And the Foreign Ministry should write a letter of thanks to the editors of his paper, Aftonbladet. It has been a long time since such a propaganda asset has fallen into the hands of the friends of the occupation. It has been a long time since such damage has been caused to people seriously attempting to document its horrors.
The bizarre Swedish report led to a no-less-bizarre Israeli response. Bad and irresponsible journalism crossed paths with bad and irresponsible diplomacy. Instead of simply denying the report, Lieberman, true to form, acted like a bully. In his fiery response — from his disrespectful mention of the Holocaust to identifying every criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism, to his ludicrous demand that the Swedish Foreign Ministry condemn the article — Lieberman caused great diplomatic damage to Israel. He even scandalously attacked Norway for marking the 150th birthday of its greatest author. However, the article's damage to the fight against the occupation cannot be ignored.
Serious journalism's task is to document, investigate and prove — not to call on others to investigate, as the Swedish tabloid did. One may, for example, accuse the Swedish reporter of a crime, writing that he rapes little boys or girls, all based on suspicions and rumors, and call on the Swedish police to investigate. That's what the reporter did with his claims of trafficking in Palestinian organs. There were cases in which the organs of Palestinians who had been killed were harvested without permission, something the Institute of Forensic Medicine has done to others in Israel, for research purposes. But it's a long way from that to suspicion of trafficking in organs based only on the fact that in 1992 a dead Palestinian was found whose organs had been removed and his body sewn back up. And 17 years later a few Jews were arrested on suspicion of trafficking in human organs. That's not professional journalism, that's cheap and harmful journalism.
The Israeli occupation is ugly enough without the contribution of Nordic fairy tales. Its wrongs are abominable even without exaggerations and inventions. We, a small group of Israeli journalists trying to document the occupation, always knew that we must not publish an unfounded report. One mistake and the whole journalistic enterprise would fall into the hands of official propaganda, which automatically denies all suspicions and is just waiting for a mistake. Look what the IDF Spokesman's Office did to the organization Breaking the Silence, just because it was set up as a nonprofit limited company and not a nonprofit organization; as if that were relevant to the quality of the testimony it presents.
Over the years, the IDF has killed thousands of innocent civilians, among them women and children. The Shin Bet security service has tortured hundreds of people under interrogation, sometimes to death. Israel prevents food and medicine from reaching Gaza. Sick people are extorted by the Shin Bet to become collaborators in return for medical treatment. Thousands of homes in the territories have been demolished for nothing. Dozens of people have been killed by special units when they could have been arrested instead. Thousands of detainees have sat in jail for months or years without trial. Is that not enough to draw a reliable portrait of the occupation? Is that not shocking enough?
Like the perverse comparison to the Nazis, any exaggeration in describing the occupation's cruelty will ultimately damage the struggle against it. It's easy to prove that Israel did not traffic in Palestinian organs, as it's easy to prove that Israeli soldiers do not act like Nazis or that Israel is not commiting genocide. That doesn't mean the occupation is not evil, criminal and brutal. The false stories serve Israeli propaganda: Look, we've issued a denial, we've proved that the occupation is not as cruel as they say, and we've cast doubt on all other, serious and well-founded testimony.
Those who know Bostrom say he's a wonderful photographer and a less-successful journalist. He has proved this by his article. Bostrom is involved in the Swedish solidarity movement with the Palestinians, but that does not necessarily mean he has hidden anti-Semitic motives. He may even have had good intentions, but good intentions are not enough.
Now all serious researchers, journalists and human rights groups have to prove the accuracy of their findings. The truth is that the occupation is very evil, even if not in the way Aftonbladet presented it.
Mark says:
See also on this blog: "Baseless organ theft accuations will not bring Israel to justice" and "Palestinian family: We didn't say organs taken."
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Candidly speaking: There may be worse to come (and my comments)
By Isi Leibler
The Jerusalem Post
August 25, 2009
President Obama's naïve efforts to appease the Arabs by bullying and distancing the United States from Israel has backfired. However despite increasing unease extending to some of Obama's most fervent supporters, the administration has yet to signal any change in policy.
The futility of trying to appease tyrannies is evident everywhere; the thuggish behavior of the Iranian regime toward its own people makes a farce of Obama's efforts to reason with Ahmadinejad; in response to unilateral US overtures to the Syrians, President Assad visited the Iranian president, congratulated him on his bogus reelection and declared that their alliance had never been stronger; the North Koreans displayed utter contempt for Obama's friendly outreach; Arabs states all responded negatively to Obama's entreaties to provide a few crumbs of recognition in return for Israeli concessions; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was publicly humiliated by the Saudi Foreign Minister, who insisted there was nothing to negotiate unless Israel accepted all Arab demands.
The Palestinian response was even more noxious. Clearly emboldened, the Fatah General Assembly displayed contempt for any initiative that could further the peace process. Their intransigence again demonstrated the absurdity of the notion that this corrupt and duplicitous leadership could be a genuine peace partner. There were even elements of surrealism when the Fatah Assembly unanimously accused Israel of having assassinated Arafat and provided standing applause for a mass murderer.
They decreed that unless Israel acceded to all their demands, no further negotiations would take place and they could renew the "armed struggle." Far from encouraging Arab moderation, Obama's tough approach to Israel simply bolstered the hardliners.
The facts on the ground today make prospects for peace more remote than ever. The only clear message emerging from the Fatah Congress is that, as with Hamas, elimination of Jewish sovereignty in the region remains its ultimate objective. Were that not so, Mahmoud Abbas would have accepted Ehud Olmert's offer, which virtually granted him all his territorial demands and even hinted at a compromise over the Arab right of return.
Obama's advisers must have been bitterly disappointed when their diktats against Israel backfired. Indeed, their one-sided demands and bullying tactics can take credit for having created a rare consensus among the Israeli public, which today overwhelmingly supports Netanyahu.
To add to Obama's problems and despite predictions to the contrary, American Jewish leaders have begun to openly challenge some of his policies. There is a growing unease even among some Jewish Democrats that Obama is betraying the unequivocal undertakings he made during the elections to faithfully preserve the alliance with Israel.
This was exemplified in remarks made by Howard Berman, the influential Democratic chair of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, who in a closed meeting with Jewish leaders explicitly criticized the Obama administration's pressure on Israel over settlements. Berman said Abbas was now "waiting for the US to present him Israel on a platter". Steny Hoyer, the Democratic House majority leader visiting Israel, made similar comments at a Jerusalem news conference.
OBAMA MUST also have been stunned when his friend and loyal supporter Alan Solow, the Chairman of the Presidents Conference representing 52 major American Jewish organizations, condemned his demands to limit Jews settlements in Jerusalem and its suburbs.
In a full page New York Times advert Abe Foxman of the Anti Defamation League stated "The problem is not settlements, it's Arab rejection...Mr. President, it's time to stop pressuring our vital friend and ally". David Harris of the American Jewish Committee expressed similar feelings to a Congressional group. Whilst usually ritually reiterating their belief that Obama would not abandon Israel, Jewish leaders have begun openly criticizing the administration's behavior toward the Jewish state.
Obama's standing with American Jewish activists plummeted further when, contemptuously dismissing a rare virtually unanimous Jewish protest, he personally participated in the ceremony honoring former Irish president and 2001 UN Durban hate-fest convener Mary Robinson with the highest human rights award in the US. This was perceived as yet another manifestation of Obama's new love affair with the UN and its anti-Israel affiliates.
It must also have been disappointing for Obama's Jewish advisers promoting the J Street line when they became aware that despite expensive media promotions, opinion polls indicated that most Jewish activists remained contemptuous of the left-wing Jewish fringe groups urging Obama to force Israel to make further concessions.
However, as of now, while continuing to avoid any initiative which could irritate the Arabs, the US is maintaining its heavy-handed approach toward its erstwhile ally, Israel. While a face-saving compromise may soon eventuate, appreciating the unprecedented backing he currently enjoys from his constituency, Netanyahu would be unwise to capitulate to Obama's demands.
Alas, irrespective of the settlement issues, there may be worse to come from this administration. After Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's recent warm meeting with Obama in Washington, he effusively praised the policy changes introduced by the president and hinted of further impending "positive" US initiatives.
There are also chilling predictions that without prior consultations with Israel, Obama intends to unilaterally submit a US plan for a comprehensive settlement at the UN or elsewhere. It is rumored that this plan would use as a starting point the irresponsible offers made to Abbas by Olmert during the death throes of his tenure — offers which would unquestionably have been repudiated by the Knesset and people of Israel in a referendum. Such a move would be an unprecedented betrayal of a long-standing ally.
UNTIL SUCH time as a genuine Palestinian peace partner emerges, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cannot be expected to create a miraculous magic plan which would bring about a comprehensive final settlement. But his task now must be to preempt a disastrous imposed settlement by the Americans.
In doing so he must he speedily identify the red lines which his government, backed by the vast majority of Israelis, would never contemplate crossing.
To this end he should also marshal the support of the mainstream American Jewish leadership and encourage them to convey to their president that they too have red lines. They have already begun to signal that they will not remain passive if their government attempts to unilaterally impose a solution which could endanger the Jewish state.
The Jerusalem Post
August 25, 2009
President Obama's naïve efforts to appease the Arabs by bullying and distancing the United States from Israel has backfired. However despite increasing unease extending to some of Obama's most fervent supporters, the administration has yet to signal any change in policy.
The futility of trying to appease tyrannies is evident everywhere; the thuggish behavior of the Iranian regime toward its own people makes a farce of Obama's efforts to reason with Ahmadinejad; in response to unilateral US overtures to the Syrians, President Assad visited the Iranian president, congratulated him on his bogus reelection and declared that their alliance had never been stronger; the North Koreans displayed utter contempt for Obama's friendly outreach; Arabs states all responded negatively to Obama's entreaties to provide a few crumbs of recognition in return for Israeli concessions; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was publicly humiliated by the Saudi Foreign Minister, who insisted there was nothing to negotiate unless Israel accepted all Arab demands.
The Palestinian response was even more noxious. Clearly emboldened, the Fatah General Assembly displayed contempt for any initiative that could further the peace process. Their intransigence again demonstrated the absurdity of the notion that this corrupt and duplicitous leadership could be a genuine peace partner. There were even elements of surrealism when the Fatah Assembly unanimously accused Israel of having assassinated Arafat and provided standing applause for a mass murderer.
They decreed that unless Israel acceded to all their demands, no further negotiations would take place and they could renew the "armed struggle." Far from encouraging Arab moderation, Obama's tough approach to Israel simply bolstered the hardliners.
The facts on the ground today make prospects for peace more remote than ever. The only clear message emerging from the Fatah Congress is that, as with Hamas, elimination of Jewish sovereignty in the region remains its ultimate objective. Were that not so, Mahmoud Abbas would have accepted Ehud Olmert's offer, which virtually granted him all his territorial demands and even hinted at a compromise over the Arab right of return.
Obama's advisers must have been bitterly disappointed when their diktats against Israel backfired. Indeed, their one-sided demands and bullying tactics can take credit for having created a rare consensus among the Israeli public, which today overwhelmingly supports Netanyahu.
To add to Obama's problems and despite predictions to the contrary, American Jewish leaders have begun to openly challenge some of his policies. There is a growing unease even among some Jewish Democrats that Obama is betraying the unequivocal undertakings he made during the elections to faithfully preserve the alliance with Israel.
This was exemplified in remarks made by Howard Berman, the influential Democratic chair of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, who in a closed meeting with Jewish leaders explicitly criticized the Obama administration's pressure on Israel over settlements. Berman said Abbas was now "waiting for the US to present him Israel on a platter". Steny Hoyer, the Democratic House majority leader visiting Israel, made similar comments at a Jerusalem news conference.
OBAMA MUST also have been stunned when his friend and loyal supporter Alan Solow, the Chairman of the Presidents Conference representing 52 major American Jewish organizations, condemned his demands to limit Jews settlements in Jerusalem and its suburbs.
In a full page New York Times advert Abe Foxman of the Anti Defamation League stated "The problem is not settlements, it's Arab rejection...Mr. President, it's time to stop pressuring our vital friend and ally". David Harris of the American Jewish Committee expressed similar feelings to a Congressional group. Whilst usually ritually reiterating their belief that Obama would not abandon Israel, Jewish leaders have begun openly criticizing the administration's behavior toward the Jewish state.
Obama's standing with American Jewish activists plummeted further when, contemptuously dismissing a rare virtually unanimous Jewish protest, he personally participated in the ceremony honoring former Irish president and 2001 UN Durban hate-fest convener Mary Robinson with the highest human rights award in the US. This was perceived as yet another manifestation of Obama's new love affair with the UN and its anti-Israel affiliates.
It must also have been disappointing for Obama's Jewish advisers promoting the J Street line when they became aware that despite expensive media promotions, opinion polls indicated that most Jewish activists remained contemptuous of the left-wing Jewish fringe groups urging Obama to force Israel to make further concessions.
However, as of now, while continuing to avoid any initiative which could irritate the Arabs, the US is maintaining its heavy-handed approach toward its erstwhile ally, Israel. While a face-saving compromise may soon eventuate, appreciating the unprecedented backing he currently enjoys from his constituency, Netanyahu would be unwise to capitulate to Obama's demands.
Alas, irrespective of the settlement issues, there may be worse to come from this administration. After Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's recent warm meeting with Obama in Washington, he effusively praised the policy changes introduced by the president and hinted of further impending "positive" US initiatives.
There are also chilling predictions that without prior consultations with Israel, Obama intends to unilaterally submit a US plan for a comprehensive settlement at the UN or elsewhere. It is rumored that this plan would use as a starting point the irresponsible offers made to Abbas by Olmert during the death throes of his tenure — offers which would unquestionably have been repudiated by the Knesset and people of Israel in a referendum. Such a move would be an unprecedented betrayal of a long-standing ally.
UNTIL SUCH time as a genuine Palestinian peace partner emerges, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cannot be expected to create a miraculous magic plan which would bring about a comprehensive final settlement. But his task now must be to preempt a disastrous imposed settlement by the Americans.
In doing so he must he speedily identify the red lines which his government, backed by the vast majority of Israelis, would never contemplate crossing.
To this end he should also marshal the support of the mainstream American Jewish leadership and encourage them to convey to their president that they too have red lines. They have already begun to signal that they will not remain passive if their government attempts to unilaterally impose a solution which could endanger the Jewish state.
Below are some excerpts from Mr. Leibler’s article above with some comments and questions:
Their [Fatah's] intransigence again demonstrated the absurdity of the notion
that this corrupt and duplicitous leadership could be a genuine peace
partner.
Mark says:
Strange — or perhaps ironic — that so many in the Palestinian and Arab commentariats, and especially among Hamas supporters, also described the Fatah leadership as “corrupt and duplicitous.”
They [Fatah] decreed that unless Israel acceded to all their demands, no further
negotiations would take place and they could renew the "armed struggle." Far
from encouraging Arab moderation, Obama's tough approach to Israel simply
bolstered the hardliners.
The great writer Isaac Asimov had one of his characters in the Foundation Trilogy say that “consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” I don’t think that Mr. Leibler lacks imagination — but he is certainly inconsistent. For if I read many of his previous columns and articles correctly, according to Mr. Leibler what Obama or Israel do or don’t do is not going to change the behavior of Arab hardliners, who apparently constitute 99.999 percent of all Palestinian leaders.
The only clear message emerging from the Fatah Congress is that, as with Hamas,
elimination of Jewish sovereignty in the region remains its ultimate objective.
Were that not so, Mahmoud Abbas would have accepted Ehud Olmert's offer, which virtually granted him all his territorial demands and even hinted at a
compromise over the Arab right of return.
However, later in the article Mr. Leibler states:
It is rumored that this [Obama’s] plan would use as a starting point the
irresponsible offers made to Abbas by Olmert during the death throes of his
tenure — offers which would unquestionably have been repudiated by the Knesset
and people of Israel in a referendum.
So, in other words, it wouldn’t have mattered if Mahmoud Abbas had accepted Ehud Olmert’s offers because they “would unquestionably have been repudiated by the Knesset and people of Israel in a referendum.” Perhaps Mr. Abbas was perceptive enough to recognize that and wanted to save himself the resulting political and personal humiliation?
Or perhaps Mr. Abbas, once again, "missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity" because the United States, even under the Bush administration, would have leaped to pressure Israel into accepting a peace plan based on those offers. However, assuming Mr. Leibler’s scenario would have been correct, Israel would then have placed itself in the position of being the intransigent naysayer.
At which point, Mr. Leibler would have written of the administration of George W. Bush (as he is now writing about the Obama administration):
Such a move would be an unprecedented betrayal of a long-standing ally.
It seems that there are always those who inevitably say at some point during the lifespan of every U.S. presidential administration (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama):
Such a move would be an unprecedented betrayal of a long-standing ally.
As Casey Stengel used to say: "You can look it up."
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Palestinian family: We didn't say organs taken
By Khaled Abu Toameh
The Jerusalem Post
August 24, 2009
The family and relatives of Bilal Ahmed Ghanem, the Palestinian at the center of the organ-theft story in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, said on Monday that they didn't know if the accusations were true or not.
The family lives in the tiny village of Imatin in the northern West Bank. Ghanem, 19, was killed by IDF soldiers during the first intifada on May 13, 1992.
He was a Fatah activist who was wanted by the IDF for his involvement in violence.
His mother, Sadeeka, said he was shot by an IDF sniper as he walked out of his home. "The bullets hit him directly in the heart," she said.
Ghanem's younger brother, Jalal, said he could not confirm the allegations made by the Swedish newspaper that his brother's organs had been stolen.
"I don't know if this is true," he said. "We don't have any evidence to support this."
Jalal said his brother was evacuated by the IDF in a helicopter and delivered to the family only a few days later.
The mother denied that she had told any foreign journalist that her son's organs had been stolen.
However, she said that now she does not rule out the possibility that Israel was harvesting organs of Palestinians.
Jalal and two cousins who claimed that they saw the body said the young man's teeth were missing. They also said they saw stitches that ran from the chest down to the bottom of the stomach.
"Obviously, they performed some kind of an autopsy on the body," the brother said. "When the army handed us the body, we were ordered to bury him quickly and in the middle of the night."
Jalal said that he and other villagers recall that a Swedish photographer was in the village during the funeral and that he managed to take a number of pictures of the body before the funeral.
"That was the only time we saw this photographer," he recounted.
Ibrahim Ghanem, a relative of Bilal, said that the family never told the Swedish photographer that Israel had stolen organs from the dead man's body.
"Maybe the journalist reached that conclusion on the basis of the stitches he saw on the body," he said. "But as far as the family is concerned, we don't know if organs were removed from the body because we never performed our own autopsy. All we know is that Bilal's teeth were missing."
Jalal and other members of the family said that "rumors" about Israel killing Palestinians to steal their organs have been circulating for a long time.
"I can't tell you if these rumors are true or not," the brother said. "But in light of the investigative report in the Swedish newspaper, we are demanding an international commission of inquiry into the case."
The Jerusalem Post
August 24, 2009
The family and relatives of Bilal Ahmed Ghanem, the Palestinian at the center of the organ-theft story in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, said on Monday that they didn't know if the accusations were true or not.
The family lives in the tiny village of Imatin in the northern West Bank. Ghanem, 19, was killed by IDF soldiers during the first intifada on May 13, 1992.
He was a Fatah activist who was wanted by the IDF for his involvement in violence.
His mother, Sadeeka, said he was shot by an IDF sniper as he walked out of his home. "The bullets hit him directly in the heart," she said.
Ghanem's younger brother, Jalal, said he could not confirm the allegations made by the Swedish newspaper that his brother's organs had been stolen.
"I don't know if this is true," he said. "We don't have any evidence to support this."
Jalal said his brother was evacuated by the IDF in a helicopter and delivered to the family only a few days later.
The mother denied that she had told any foreign journalist that her son's organs had been stolen.
However, she said that now she does not rule out the possibility that Israel was harvesting organs of Palestinians.
Jalal and two cousins who claimed that they saw the body said the young man's teeth were missing. They also said they saw stitches that ran from the chest down to the bottom of the stomach.
"Obviously, they performed some kind of an autopsy on the body," the brother said. "When the army handed us the body, we were ordered to bury him quickly and in the middle of the night."
Jalal said that he and other villagers recall that a Swedish photographer was in the village during the funeral and that he managed to take a number of pictures of the body before the funeral.
"That was the only time we saw this photographer," he recounted.
Ibrahim Ghanem, a relative of Bilal, said that the family never told the Swedish photographer that Israel had stolen organs from the dead man's body.
"Maybe the journalist reached that conclusion on the basis of the stitches he saw on the body," he said. "But as far as the family is concerned, we don't know if organs were removed from the body because we never performed our own autopsy. All we know is that Bilal's teeth were missing."
Jalal and other members of the family said that "rumors" about Israel killing Palestinians to steal their organs have been circulating for a long time.
"I can't tell you if these rumors are true or not," the brother said. "But in light of the investigative report in the Swedish newspaper, we are demanding an international commission of inquiry into the case."
Baseless organ theft accusations will not bring Israel to justice
By Matthew Cassel
The Electronic Intifada
August 24, 2009
On Friday I was invited to appear on Press TV (Iran's international English-language satellite channel) alongside Donald Bostrom, a Swedish journalist who authored the recent article about the Israeli army stealing the organs of young Palestinian men it had killed in 1992 during the first Palestinian intifada. I surprised the producers at Press TV who I don't think invited me to argue the article's legitimacy, but instead reaffirm its claims.
After the show, a producer in Tehran thanked me and told me that it was nice to get someone from the "other side." But I had to make it clear, that I was not from the "other side" as she meant it. I support uncovering human rights violations and war crimes wherever they occur, especially in Palestine, where I have worked for many years. I do believe Bostrom's intentions were to do much the same but that his process was highly irresponsible. The problem is not that he is accusing the State of Israel of wrongdoing, but that he is making accusations of what would amount to extremely serious war crimes while providing absolutely no evidence to support his claims. Rather than advancing the cause of Palestinian human rights, such behavior hurts the many organizations, journalists, activists and others working tirelessly to expose and document Israel's numerous violations of international law committed against Palestinians and people of other Arab nations in recent decades.
Bostrom's article lacks credibility for a number of reasons. In the opening paragraph he tells the story of Levy Rosenbaum, a Jewish man in New York linked to illegal trafficking in human organs with counterparts in Israel. While Rosenbaum has admitted to buying organs from destitute Israelis, until now there has been nothing outside Bostrom's article to suggest that this trade involved the organs of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army.
Rosenbaum has also admitted to being involved in the trade for the past ten years which is well after 1992, when Bostrom claims the organ theft may have occurred in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Other than Israel being involved, there is no evidence to make a direct link between these incidents. It is poor journalism on Bostrom's part to use a timely event and try to connect it to something that happened nearly two decades earlier without offering any evidence.
Bostrom also refers to Palestinians disappearing for days at a time and who have in many cases returned dead. This is known to have occurred before, especially Palestinians being arrested and taken to detention centers without the Israeli authorities bothering to inform the families. This is something that has been reported on and documented by numerous Palestinian human rights organizations. Israel may have even performed autopsies on the bodies without the families' consent, as Bostrom reports. He publishes a horrific photograph of one of these bodies alongside the article, but again, this is not proof that organs in that person's body were removed and sold, or given to Israelis in need, as the author implies.
One must also ask why this story was not covered in 1992, when Bostrom claims the organ theft occurred. It seems this would be a more appropriate time to expose such a story when bodies of those killed by Israel could have been autopsied to determine for a fact whether or not organs from those Palestinians killed by Israel were in fact removed. In the Press TV interview, Bostrom claimed that he did approach many Palestinian, Israeli and international organizations but none, minus the UN, heeded his call for further investigation. Yet, he only makes brief mention of this in the article and says the UN staff was prevented from doing anything about his findings.
Unlike Bostrom's reporting, when most Palestinian human rights organizations or other journalists have uncovered Israeli violations, they are sure to provide well-documented evidence to prove beyond a doubt that such violations were in fact committed. Even though Israel has made it very difficult for both Palestinian and international journalists and human rights workers to practice inside the West Bank and Gaza Strip, many have risked their lives to see that evidence of Israel's crimes is uncovered and reported.
Many such well-documented violations committed over recent decades include: willful killing of civilians, including children; torture; extrajudicial executions; depriving a civilian population of food and other necessities; blackmailing patients in need of medical care to try to turn them into informers; wanton and deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure; punitive home demolitions; and illegal use of restricted weapons against civilian targets, including white phosphorus and cluster bombs. The list of UN resolutions and international treaties violated by Israel is far too long to list here, although these violations have been carefully documented over many years by human rights organizations that have worked tirelessly for their enforcement.
I am not trying to argue here that Israel or some Israelis could never have trafficked stolen Palestinian organs. In a place like Palestine, however, where evidence of Israeli war crimes has never been difficult to find — despite Israel's consistent efforts to block investigations — those concerned with holding Israel accountable should not level allegations of such seriousness without producing some evidence.
Following Israel's winter invasion of Gaza — during which more than 1,500 Palestinians were killed, the vast majority civilians — several well-known international human rights groups issued reports containing irrefutable evidence of shocking crimes. Israeli soldiers who participated in the attack on Gaza have been quoted in the Israeli press talking about how they or their colleagues committed atrocities, such as shooting dead unarmed civilians, including children.
The fact that Bostrom did not offer evidence for his organ theft claims has given Israel an enormous propaganda gift. Because he offered nothing more than conjecture and hearsay, Israel has launched a major campaign casting itself as an aggrieved victim of "blood libel." This allows Israel to distract attention from the mountains of evidence of well-documented war crimes, and even to discredit real evidence. If there is no evidence behind the organ theft claims, Israel can argue, then maybe all these other claims about crimes in Gaza are equally dubious.
Predictably, Israel and its supporters launched a ridiculous campaign not only targeting Bostrom and his newspaper, but against all of Sweden and its population of more than nine million. Some have started an online petition calling for the boycott the furniture retailer IKEA, founded in Sweden, while the Israeli interior ministry claims it will freeze the entry visas for Swedish journalists. Furthermore, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is demanding that the Swedish government declare its "condemnation" of the article. This is a strategy that Israel could not use in response to the Gaza war crimes reports. With each violation clearly documented and coming from a wide range of credible sources and testimonies, Israel could not demand that governments condemn the human rights groups and publications that disseminated them. Israel predictably objected to the reports issued about Gaza, but tried to bring as little attention to them as possible — understandably, because the reports are irrefutable.
But Israel has done all it can to draw attention and create an international crisis out of the organ theft allegation. Even the president of the Official Council of Jewish Communities in Sweden has condemned the response, saying that Israel "had blown the issue completely out of proportion."
As Israel does with increasingly little discrimination, it has claimed that the article was motivated by "anti-Semitism." So far, Sweden has withstood Israel's hectoring that its government must take a position on an article published in a free press. But given the record of pandering to Israel, it remains to be seen if Sweden will stick to this position. If Sweden does bow down to Israeli pressure, it would set a frightening precedent for journalists whereby Israel can affect a state's policy of freedom for the press.
Israel's tactics of intimidation are not justified by Bostrom's article, which is nothing more than an example of irresponsible journalism and publishing. The editors at the Swedish daily Aftonbladet who published this piece, should've sent it back to the author and told him to investigate the issue further until he found evidence to corroborate his claims. If there is any basis for the organ theft allegations, diligent reporting would bring it out. As Malcolm X said, "Truth is on the side of the oppressed;" all we need is to collect the evidence to prove it.
Matthew Cassel is a photographer and journalist based in the Middle East and is assistant editor of The Electronic Intifada. His blog is http://justimage.wordpress.com.
The Electronic Intifada
August 24, 2009
On Friday I was invited to appear on Press TV (Iran's international English-language satellite channel) alongside Donald Bostrom, a Swedish journalist who authored the recent article about the Israeli army stealing the organs of young Palestinian men it had killed in 1992 during the first Palestinian intifada. I surprised the producers at Press TV who I don't think invited me to argue the article's legitimacy, but instead reaffirm its claims.
After the show, a producer in Tehran thanked me and told me that it was nice to get someone from the "other side." But I had to make it clear, that I was not from the "other side" as she meant it. I support uncovering human rights violations and war crimes wherever they occur, especially in Palestine, where I have worked for many years. I do believe Bostrom's intentions were to do much the same but that his process was highly irresponsible. The problem is not that he is accusing the State of Israel of wrongdoing, but that he is making accusations of what would amount to extremely serious war crimes while providing absolutely no evidence to support his claims. Rather than advancing the cause of Palestinian human rights, such behavior hurts the many organizations, journalists, activists and others working tirelessly to expose and document Israel's numerous violations of international law committed against Palestinians and people of other Arab nations in recent decades.
Bostrom's article lacks credibility for a number of reasons. In the opening paragraph he tells the story of Levy Rosenbaum, a Jewish man in New York linked to illegal trafficking in human organs with counterparts in Israel. While Rosenbaum has admitted to buying organs from destitute Israelis, until now there has been nothing outside Bostrom's article to suggest that this trade involved the organs of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army.
Rosenbaum has also admitted to being involved in the trade for the past ten years which is well after 1992, when Bostrom claims the organ theft may have occurred in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Other than Israel being involved, there is no evidence to make a direct link between these incidents. It is poor journalism on Bostrom's part to use a timely event and try to connect it to something that happened nearly two decades earlier without offering any evidence.
Bostrom also refers to Palestinians disappearing for days at a time and who have in many cases returned dead. This is known to have occurred before, especially Palestinians being arrested and taken to detention centers without the Israeli authorities bothering to inform the families. This is something that has been reported on and documented by numerous Palestinian human rights organizations. Israel may have even performed autopsies on the bodies without the families' consent, as Bostrom reports. He publishes a horrific photograph of one of these bodies alongside the article, but again, this is not proof that organs in that person's body were removed and sold, or given to Israelis in need, as the author implies.
One must also ask why this story was not covered in 1992, when Bostrom claims the organ theft occurred. It seems this would be a more appropriate time to expose such a story when bodies of those killed by Israel could have been autopsied to determine for a fact whether or not organs from those Palestinians killed by Israel were in fact removed. In the Press TV interview, Bostrom claimed that he did approach many Palestinian, Israeli and international organizations but none, minus the UN, heeded his call for further investigation. Yet, he only makes brief mention of this in the article and says the UN staff was prevented from doing anything about his findings.
Unlike Bostrom's reporting, when most Palestinian human rights organizations or other journalists have uncovered Israeli violations, they are sure to provide well-documented evidence to prove beyond a doubt that such violations were in fact committed. Even though Israel has made it very difficult for both Palestinian and international journalists and human rights workers to practice inside the West Bank and Gaza Strip, many have risked their lives to see that evidence of Israel's crimes is uncovered and reported.
Many such well-documented violations committed over recent decades include: willful killing of civilians, including children; torture; extrajudicial executions; depriving a civilian population of food and other necessities; blackmailing patients in need of medical care to try to turn them into informers; wanton and deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure; punitive home demolitions; and illegal use of restricted weapons against civilian targets, including white phosphorus and cluster bombs. The list of UN resolutions and international treaties violated by Israel is far too long to list here, although these violations have been carefully documented over many years by human rights organizations that have worked tirelessly for their enforcement.
I am not trying to argue here that Israel or some Israelis could never have trafficked stolen Palestinian organs. In a place like Palestine, however, where evidence of Israeli war crimes has never been difficult to find — despite Israel's consistent efforts to block investigations — those concerned with holding Israel accountable should not level allegations of such seriousness without producing some evidence.
Following Israel's winter invasion of Gaza — during which more than 1,500 Palestinians were killed, the vast majority civilians — several well-known international human rights groups issued reports containing irrefutable evidence of shocking crimes. Israeli soldiers who participated in the attack on Gaza have been quoted in the Israeli press talking about how they or their colleagues committed atrocities, such as shooting dead unarmed civilians, including children.
The fact that Bostrom did not offer evidence for his organ theft claims has given Israel an enormous propaganda gift. Because he offered nothing more than conjecture and hearsay, Israel has launched a major campaign casting itself as an aggrieved victim of "blood libel." This allows Israel to distract attention from the mountains of evidence of well-documented war crimes, and even to discredit real evidence. If there is no evidence behind the organ theft claims, Israel can argue, then maybe all these other claims about crimes in Gaza are equally dubious.
Predictably, Israel and its supporters launched a ridiculous campaign not only targeting Bostrom and his newspaper, but against all of Sweden and its population of more than nine million. Some have started an online petition calling for the boycott the furniture retailer IKEA, founded in Sweden, while the Israeli interior ministry claims it will freeze the entry visas for Swedish journalists. Furthermore, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is demanding that the Swedish government declare its "condemnation" of the article. This is a strategy that Israel could not use in response to the Gaza war crimes reports. With each violation clearly documented and coming from a wide range of credible sources and testimonies, Israel could not demand that governments condemn the human rights groups and publications that disseminated them. Israel predictably objected to the reports issued about Gaza, but tried to bring as little attention to them as possible — understandably, because the reports are irrefutable.
But Israel has done all it can to draw attention and create an international crisis out of the organ theft allegation. Even the president of the Official Council of Jewish Communities in Sweden has condemned the response, saying that Israel "had blown the issue completely out of proportion."
As Israel does with increasingly little discrimination, it has claimed that the article was motivated by "anti-Semitism." So far, Sweden has withstood Israel's hectoring that its government must take a position on an article published in a free press. But given the record of pandering to Israel, it remains to be seen if Sweden will stick to this position. If Sweden does bow down to Israeli pressure, it would set a frightening precedent for journalists whereby Israel can affect a state's policy of freedom for the press.
Israel's tactics of intimidation are not justified by Bostrom's article, which is nothing more than an example of irresponsible journalism and publishing. The editors at the Swedish daily Aftonbladet who published this piece, should've sent it back to the author and told him to investigate the issue further until he found evidence to corroborate his claims. If there is any basis for the organ theft allegations, diligent reporting would bring it out. As Malcolm X said, "Truth is on the side of the oppressed;" all we need is to collect the evidence to prove it.
Matthew Cassel is a photographer and journalist based in the Middle East and is assistant editor of The Electronic Intifada. His blog is http://justimage.wordpress.com.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Boycotts only harden Israeli opinion (and my comments)
Mark says:
The author of the following article published in the British Independent is Benjamin Pogrund. (Please pardon the fact that I took most of the biographical information on him from Wikipedia.) The South African-born author began his career as a journalist in 1958, writing for the Johannesburg Rand Daily Mail, eventually becoming its deputy editor. The Rand Daily Mail was the only newspaper in South Africa at that time to report on events in black South African townships. In the course of his work he came to know the major players in the apartheid struggle and gained the respect and confidence of leaders such as Nelson Mandela. Pogrund's reporting of police conduct in the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 was considered a "breakthrough." He was chief author of a 1965 series on beating and torture of black inmates.
During his career reporting on apartheid in South Africa he was put on trial several times, put in prison once, had his passport revoked, and was investigated as a threat to the state by security police. Pogrund moved to London in 1985 after the Rand Daily Mail ceased publication (I presume that means it went out of business) and became the chief foreign sub-editor of The Independent. He immigrated to Israel in 1997 and is founder-director of Yakar's Center for Social Concern. He has written books about Robert Sobukwe, Nelson Mandela, and the South African press under apartheid, and he was co-editor of "Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue."
I have also included three of the reader comments to this article — out of the 263 that were submitted. They are by no means a representative sample nor do I include them for "balance." I just found them "interesting" counterpoints to Pogrund's article. "Interesting," of course, is in the eye of the beholder.
Go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/24/israel-boycotts-right-traumatised?commentpage=1 if you want to read all the comments — and beware that it often gets pretty nasty — and that doesn't include the comments that were removed by the moderator.
As you read this article and the comments I included (or all of them if you wish) I would ask you to consider the following points:
- Why is it that many of those who support a boycott of Israel are usually the same people who are against boycotting Iran or Hamas in Gaza or were against boycotting Iraq under Saddam Husayn?
- Why is it that many of those who are against a boycott of Israel because boycotts are "ineffective" support boycotts of Iran and Hamas and supported the boycott against Iraq under Saddam Husayn?
- In both cases is the purpose or aim of those who support boycotts to make the countries or the organizations against which they are directed change their policies or is their aim or purpose ultimately to eliminate those countries or organizations?
- If their purpose is to make them change their policies, why are boycotts justified in some cases but not justified in other cases?
- If the purpose of the boycotts is to eliminate any of those countries or organizations is it all of them or just certain ones?
- If it is against just certain ones, why not the others?
Boycotts only harden Israeli opinion
Far from saving this traumatised nation, boycotts are a gift to the fearmongers — we must educate and persuade Israelis instead
By Benjamin Pogrund
The Guardian (UK)
August 24, 2009
The most inaccurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. That's the exact opposite of what Neve Gordon said on Cif last week. Level whatever criticisms you want against Israel — start with West Bank occupation and oppression of Palestinians, and go on to the domestic discrimination suffered by the Arab minority — but the simple fact is that none of it is the apartheid of the old South Africa. Abundant evidence of this is readily available, in the Guardian and elsewhere.
Why then is the comparison so often made? One reason, in a different context, is in the words of American comedian Stephen Colbert: "Remember kids! In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."
For some, the apartheid accusation is the way to destroy Israel. If Israel can be linked with apartheid then it can be denounced as illegitimate as was white-ruled South Africa and hence be wide open to international sanctions.
Those who pursue this couldn't care less about facts. They have an agenda and are unscrupulous about distortion, lying and exaggeration. Their ultimate purpose is exposed by how they answer a basic question: whether or not they accept the fact of Israel's existence.
Others use the apartheid label because they are genuinely affronted and angered by Israeli behaviour — from the occupation to the attack on Gaza — and it seems an easy way to reduce to digestible size the complexities of the national-religious struggle between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians over a small piece of land. It's wrong and it's lazy but that's how many people behave.
It is surprising, and disappointing, to find Gordon in these ranks. He is a professor of politics at a good Israeli university and one expects a more informed approach. I have never met him but see from his writing that he is a man of conscience. He condemns Israeli misdeeds and has long worked for peace, although to be sure he seems to be at the outer fringe of Israel's peace camp. So active is he that rightwing extremists rant at him and try to pressure his university to get rid of him.
Now, however, not only does he take over the apartheid line but he supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement aimed at Israel. That presumably includes the academic boycott that he has previously opposed; he thus becomes both the arrow and the target. He still has to explain how he will resolve this personal contradiction.
Equally the "double standard" which he rightly describes as a problem. Why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights, he asks. To which he could add the US because of its many human rights sins, Greece and Romania for mistreating their Roma people, India for Dalits, Turkey for Kurds, Lebanon's denial of rights to Palestinians, Cuba, Libya etc etc. He puts a good question, but does not give an answer.
The explanation for his new outlook is: "The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost non-existent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right."
He is venting the left's despair. The left's influence has probably never been lower. Its efforts to foster peace with Palestinians are ignored. It has been ineffective in halting the rise of the right wing. It is powerless against an aggressively rightwing government whose leaders abusively blame it for Palestinian terrorism. Its warnings of settlement growth on the West Bank are trashed.
In dealing with this situation we are entitled to look to a professor of politics for insights and understanding of why it has happened, if only because therein lies possible solutions. It has not come about in a vacuum. But again, nothing.
However, the factors at work are obvious, such as the absence of a brave and visionary leadership (both Israeli and Palestinian). There is also, at bottom, the Jewish psyche shaped by history: the centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust, the triumph of the creation of Israel in 1948 and the immediate invasions by Arab neighbours to eradicate it and the unceasing rejectionism, wars and attacks since then.
The terrorism that Palestinians have resorted to has deeply traumatised Israelis. Suicide bombings have driven many or most Israelis to the right. Thousands of rockets fired by Hamas from the Gaza Strip and missiles by Hezbollah from Lebanon, add to the national anxiety. There is more than buffoonery in Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, wanting to wipe Israel off the map: his nuclear ambitions are scary.
There is certainly Jewish over-sensitivity and over-reaction; some Jews misuse and manipulate antisemitism and the Holocaust to stoke up fears for their own purposes. But allowing for all this, the fact of antisemitism is still a potent and dangerous reality, whether in Arab bloodthirsty threats or the UN Human Rights Council singling out Israel for attack, or a stupid Swedish newspaper article alleging the stealing of human organs.
Day after day, Jewish paranoia is buttressed and justified: Jews see themselves in a world of menace in which their existence is always under threat. In this situation, boycotts, sanctions and divestment are not the way to persuade individual Israelis to change. To believe that it will do the trick is to fail to understand use of boycott as a tactic to achieve defined aims. Applied in this case it will harden Israeli opinion, and make people more determined to tell the world to go to hell. Far from saving Israel from itself, as Gordon wants, it will be a gift to the right wing who will trade on it to foster fear.
That doesn't mean all pressure is useless: it's of a different order when applied, for instance, by the US government through threat of withdrawal of loan guarantees or arms supplies, as has occurred in the past. Such action forces the leaders in government to justify themselves and explain to the public why they have landed the country in such trouble with its most powerful friend.
South Africa offers some lessons. Boycotts were but one of the measures that brought down apartheid and they had variable effects. Sports boycotts sapped the morale of whites; cultural boycotts mainly hurt elites who mostly opposed apartheid; disinvestment, causing loss of jobs, hit the black people whom it was intended to help; industry was not laid low — when Kodak left, Fuji came in; when Ford left, other car makers took over. The most effective action was probably the refusal by US banks in 1985 to roll over loans; that struck the foundations of the economy and was the beginning of the end. Then came the effects of the end of the cold war.
In the case of Israel, resorting to mass boycotts is an admission of failure. It's a cathartic response to despair and floundering. Israelis have turned their backs on Gordon so he blindly lashes out.
Yet there is an alternative. It's old-fashioned: educate and persuade. There is already a head start: opinion polls consistently show a majority of Israelis — and Palestinians too — accept a two-state solution as the means to peace. That must be built on: convince Israelis that they are not going to be murdered and thrown into the sea, and that their children — not only Gordon's two sons — can look forward to a secure future. Convince them that the world — or at least much of it — does not view them as more evil than any other people but wishes them well. Encourage and help maximum contact and co-operation between Israelis and Palestinians.
It's often boring, tedious work, with results that are not always immediately apparent. But it's an affirmation of hope about what can be achieved.
Selected Reader Comments
exiledlondoner
24 Aug 09, 12:37pm (about 8 hours ago)
Mr Pogrund,
The most inaccurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state.I don't agree Neve Gordon's description of Israel as an Apartheid state, as I said on his thread. In Israel, behind the green line, there is a functioning democracy — there may be discrimination, but Apartheid doesn't merely describe discrimination; it describes a policy of forced separation of the races, and the denial of political rights on the basis of skin colour or race.
That's the exact opposite of what Neve Gordon said on Cif last week. Level
whatever criticisms you want against Israel — start with West Bank occupation
and oppression of Palestinians, and go on to the domestic discrimination
suffered by the Arab minority — but the simple fact is that none of it is the
apartheid of the old South Africa. Abundant evidence of this is readily
available, in the Guardian and elsewhere.
However, I would have no problem in describing the situation in the occupied West Bank as Apartheid-like, especially between the green line and the wall. It seems to me that the proliferation of Jewish only settlements, Jewish only roads, roadblocks and checkpoints for Palestinians, and barriers between the two groups are remarkably similar to Apartheid.
The other issue is the future. As Olmert conceded, a failure to create a Palestinian state alongside Israel comes with the risk of a form of Apartheid developing. If Israel is to continue indefinitely to control all of the land west of the Jordan, then it will either have to grant Palestinians rights, or it will have to rule them as second-class citizens. The ever-expanding settlements make the third option — a legal occupation — unachievable.
Day after day, Jewish paranoia is buttressed and justified: Jews see
themselves in a world of menace in which their existence is always under threat.
In this situation, boycotts, sanctions and divestment are not the way to
persuade individual Israelis to change. To believe that it will do the trick is
to fail to understand use of boycott as a tactic to achieve defined aims.
Applied in this case it will harden Israeli opinion, and make people more
determined to tell the world to go to hell.
I agree with a lot of what you say.
For any proposal to be adopted, it first needs to pass one simple test — will it work? The South African experience would seem to suggest yes, but I believe that's deceptive — boycotts didn't bring down Apartheid; targetted sanctions did. As there's no realistic prospect of the sort of sanctions maintained against SA being applied against Israel, calls for boycotts seem to offer little more than a way of making activists feel good.
Secondly, boycotts are indiscriminate — at a time when the conflict is crying out for moderate Israelis to reverse the extremist tide, it simply doesn't make sense to penalise them for nothing else than being Israeli.
I would support sanctions, but only if they were targetted against specific issues — arms sales, the mislabelling of west bank produce, "charitable" support for the settlement program, or settlement building. The problem is not Israel — it's Israel's actions in the occupied territories.
Yet there is an alternative. It's old-fashioned: educate and persuade.Yes, but I don't think it's either/or — carrots and sticks both have their uses. Israel's reaction to any suggestion that Iran should only be educated and persuaded is instructive — they don't believe it works.
There is already a head start: opinion polls consistently show a majority of[R]eassuring as that is, I'm not convinced that you're comparing apples with apples. I suspect that the Palestinian majority is for an agreement on the green line, with a substantial right of return, and full statehood, while the Israeli majority is for an agreement on the wall, little or no right of return, and something that falls way short of Palestinian statehood.
Israelis — and Palestinians too — accept a two-state solution as the means to
peace.
The devil, as always, is in the detail....
DrJohnZoidberg
24 Aug 09, 1:23pm (about 8 hours ago)
quiller-
How can you persuade against the blind politico"GOD PROMISED US THIS LAND". "IT SAYS IN THE TORAH OR BIBLE"
theological arguments:
and if you disagree, you are an anti semite, a Jew hater, etc
The various Qur'anic revelations and Prophetic statements concerning the blessed land of Palestine endeared the land to the Companions (Sahabah) of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) to such an extent that when `Umar ibn Al-Khattab entered the region for the first time he announced that all the lands of Palestine would be part of the Islamic Waqf (endowment) for the Muslim generations to come.
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:QdBdyECj0zoJ:www.islamonline.net/fatwaapplication/english/display.asp%3FhFatwaID%3D74021+waqf+palestine&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
and your point is caller? if it's 'all pixie superstisions are crap', then i'm with ya bro...if not, then it looks like your being selective to suit your own agenda....and i won't make any implication...
afancdogge
24 Aug 09, 7:35pm (about 8 hours ago)
Hello Ragworm
I totally oppose the occupation — biggest mistake Israel ever made. It has become a monster with a mouth at both ends biting everybody.
I am trying to understand what those calling for boycott and sanctions are supporting as a positive outcome. One state — two states — an end to Israeli control of Gaza and WB?
There are so many suggested solutions — on the tail of how many over the past 42 years? — it is now impossible to know who is calling for what. This just opens up more ravines into which the WBankers can fall. It also helps to delay serious negotiations — simply adds more hurdles.
I don't know the answer — in fact there is no one solution simply because we are up against so many entenched attitudes, beliefs and aspiration all round. Pressure from one direction causes a pushing back and increased determination to pursue a destructive agenda.
Both sides lack leadership with any vision or it seems goodwill towards the other. In the meantime people suffer and die.
Leni
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