Fresh Squeezings

WHY PALESTINE? A speech on Solidarity prepared for the G-8 Protests

To all of you gathered here together to protest this meeting of leaders in secret, when the fate of nations is determined by the nodding of a few tired old men, where the gathered so-called leaders of the countries bent on dominating the world meet, on the day when they parade their anointed puppet leader of an occupied nation and falsely proclaim him true president of the Iraqi people, we in Atlanta Palestine Solidarity send you this message of support and solidarity.

This is a significant time in the history of the Arab Palestinian People. Thirty-seven years ago, on June 7, 1967, to the day 859 years after the Crusader armies besieged it, Jerusalem fell to Israeli troops. Entire neighborhoods and villages were destroyed; hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled as refugees to join those who had already suffered too long in exile. The longest lasting military occupation in the world had begun. The destruction of Palestine begun fifty years before was nearly complete.

But we do not just protest that, reason enough though it might be. We must work to help build a movement in this country working in solidarity with the people of Palestine and helping them to gain their freedom to the greatest extent that we can. Some may wonder why there is need for such a movement. Some may wonder why we even have groups like Atlanta Palestine Solidarity. And the reason is easily told:

Our government, our dollars, our names all of them are used to justify the oppression of the Palestinian people. Our silence is our complicity in the crimes that have been committed and are being committed against them. We, all of us, directly pay for their suffering. We are bound to help them relieve that, to do more than turn away in disgust and to actively work to change a situation we, all of us, have helped to create.

We have helped in the dispossession of the hundreds of thousands who fled before Israeli guns in 1948; we have helped deny those refugees their right to return to their homes for all these years and caused them to languish and suffer in their exile; we have funded occupation; we have given comfort to theft and murder; we have stood silent as a people have slowly been driven to the brink of destruction; we have aided a state where apartheid is the law.

There are other causes, worthy causes throughout the world but few where our complicity is more obvious, few where our failure to speak out and resist has done more harm. We cannot let it remain so forever. We must act, we must organize, we must resist. Our voices must be heard saying that we will no longer tolerate the oppression of the Palestinian people, we will no longer pay for it, we will no longer be silent, we will no longer ignore them in their travails. Some will say that to imagine that a few voices here in this state can do much. Perhaps. And that is why we must not limit ourselves to just one day or one deed; we must act, we must resist, we must work to change the way the struggle for Palestine is viewed in this country.

We can look back at how slavery was abolished world wide, at how equal rights came to America and how apartheid was ended in South Africa to know that struggles such as this one can be won and we can even see how they were won. Some struggled within, using a thousand tactics. And, outside, activists shown the bright lights of public scrutiny onto the dark places of oppression. They spoke, they talked they organized and what had once been viewed as normal came to be seen as abhorrent throughout the world. We can do the same for Palestine.

We in ATLANTA PALESTINE SOLIDARITY have begun to work in this time and this place to support the survival of the Palestinian people and to end the illegal, immoral, and brutal Israeli occupation through education, advocacy, and action. We are committed to the principles of self-determination for the Palestinian people and full civil and political rights for all Palestinians. We have called for:
-- an end to U.S. aid to Israel.
-- the United States government to cease its uncritical support of Israel in international forums.
-- the removal of all illegal Israeli settlers and settlements from all the territories occupied in 1967.
-- the recognition of the Right of Return with compensation for the Palestinian refugees as per UN. Resolution 194.
-- an end to the illegal, immoral, and brutal Israeli occupation from all of the Palestinian territories in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
-- self-determination for the Palestinian people and full civil and political rights for all Palestinians.
-- recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to resist Occupation and struggle for their rights and freedom by whatever means are necessary to achieve them.

For too many years, too many in this country fell silent when it came to Palestine. Too many who had important things to day about a thousand issues, who sought to change the world in a thousand ways fell silent when it came to addressing the dispossession and oppression of the people of Palestine. But that has begun to change.

Now, more and more voices ring out to speak of Palestine, more voices in this country tell of what is going on and what must be done by us.

Already, we've actually accomplished a lot in changing things if we think of all the things that haven't happened. In 1948, the Palestine Solidarity movement was miniscule outside a few of the Arab cities; the world witnessed massive ethnic cleansing. Today, because of the work of millions around the world, the Israelis do not dare to implement transfer and speak of leaving Gaza and the West Bank (just as they left Lebanon); that is a victory of this movement ... millions mobilizing against the war on Iraq stopped the war repeatedly (under Clinton and in 2002) and placed some restraints on the invaders. Look at their rhetoric and you can see that we are heard and that we have had an impact; they worry now not just about US casualties (the legacy of Vietnam) but also attempt to convince us that they are careful and concerned about Iraqi civilians.

But we cannot relax. Every day, the objective conditions in Palestine worsen. News comes to us of vast home demolitions in Rafah, of massacres committed by the occupation forces against peaceful demonstrators, of a vicious wall snaking its way across the West Bank and engulfing all before it, of widespread despair and even of hunger. We must go on.

We must realize that the Arab Palestinian people suffer under the weight of three mountains of oppression as the forces of Zionist Colonialism, Western Imperialism and local Arab reaction conspire and combine to squash their just and legitimate struggle for freedom in a trident-like vise of destruction.

At the beginning of the century now past, Europeans cast their covetous eyes upon the fast crumbling Ottoman Empire and conceived the notion of forming a colonial state, a state exclusively for Jewish immigrants and built on the blood of the native people. This Zionist movement robbed the Arab Palestinian people of their birthright and their patrimony, of their chance to develop as a free and independent people. This movement aligned itself with the forces of Western Imperialism and made itself the point of the spear with which the empires of the west would work to rule the Arab East. First, the Zionist movement gladly served as proxy for the British and then the French until those powers, weakened, left the Middle East. And the, Israel made itself the attack dog of the United States, waging war through blood and fire against the peoples of the Middle East and beyond. Meanwhile, other states and forces in the region, especially those that wished to gather the crumbs left over from the imperial plundering of the world, worked to suppress the Palestinian people, locking them in refugee camps and stomping on any attempts of the Palestinian resistance movement in exile to link up with local progressive and national forces. This tale of blood and woe brought massacres in Jerash and Amman, in Tel Az-zaatar and Shatila.

But, even though the blood of the Palestinian people stains many hands, outside of Israel herself, the most vicious enemies of the Palestinian people are the same ones as now slaughter and torture the people of Iraq. Yet, George Bush and the rest of his coterie claim that they are working to achieve peace between Palestinians and Israelis. It is a strange peace they envision for, in this peace process, no Palestinians are included, not even those classes who formerly aligned themselves with American Empire. Instead, the negotiating is to be done by Bush himself.

Bush has neither the right nor the power to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinian people and certainly has no authority to give away their lands and their rights any more than the Palestinian Authority (or anyone else) has the power to cede California to Canada. By bypassing the Palestinians and even the other Arabs, Bush has demonstrated that the United States is not an impartial arbiter in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Rather, the United States is fully partisan and stands squarely behind Ariel Sharon and the expansionist right wing within Israel. George Bush has spoken forcefully of his full support for Sharon's past crimes and future plans, throwing out any hopes for negotiations in his rush to quash the Palestinians' legitimate rights to their own homes and a life free of occupation and dispossession. In doing so, Bush gave Sharon and his minions the go-ahead to carry out further acts of brutality and terror; without doubt, the vicious murder of Palestinian political and religious leaders and the destruction of Rafah must be added to the butcher's bill of all those people George Bush has had murdered. Their names join the sadly long list of victims that number in the tens of thousands, from Texas to Afghanistan and Iraq and now on to Palestine, all of them killed
by Bush's decree.

The only way to prevent further violence is to bring about a complete end to the Israeli occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. So long as the occupiers continue to use murder, destruction and brutality as the instruments of their repression of the legitimate rights of the Palestinians, there will be resistance and some of it will be violent. If the cycle of violence is to broken, then the time has come for a truly free and democratic Palestine.

So long as George Bush and his cohorts continue to back the most brutal and vicious policies of the Israeli state with full force, this seems unlikely. The only path left open to the people of Palestine is to continue their legitimate resistance and to continue the struggle.

It is this American governmental support for Israel that makes the Palestinian cause a moral imperative for Americans would be true regardless of whether we see the moral issue as one of "occupation" or as one of "apartheid". Other anti-occupation movements in this country, such as the "Free Tibet" movement, have less of an imperative for Americans because there is less American culpability -- and, no matter how much noise is made in the US calling for Chinese withdraw from Tibet, Dr. Hu et al in Beijing couldn't care less ... while building a sturdy grassroots Palestinian solidarity movement in this country can -- and, I dare say, will -- have an effect on both American and Israeli policies. But, in terms of morality, we need to distinguish several issues.

We all, I believe, support the principle of national-self-determination. Yet, we are not out in the streets decrying the lack of rights for many small nations (Kurds, Baluchis, Oromo, Lapps, South Sudanese, etc, etc). Lack of self-determination clearly is not what makes the Palestinian case "special".

We all, I think, agree that military occupation is wrong. I doubt that any of us would have defended the brutality of Indonesian rule in East Timor, the long occupation of the Baltic States, Kuwayt under Saddam, the Serbs in Krajina, Eritrea, or any of a hundred others now, thankfully, ended or of the ongoing repression in Kashmir, Western Sahara, Tibet or anywhere else.

To dismiss these as merely "disputed territories" fails to make a crucial difference; legally speaking that IS what the status of the West Bank and Gaza IS. Israel did not occupy an existent Palestinian state; as the Israelis are fond of reminding us, the West Bank was under Jordanian military rule (that is, occupation) on June 1, 1967 and only the United Kingdom and Pakistan had ever recognized it as anything but Occupied land. Gaza was, quite openly, "UAR Occupied Palestine" at that time.

So what is it that makes Israel a special subject of ire? It has to be what can best be described as "apartheid'. Yes, the use of that term to describe Israel's system of government is new. In 1948, when Israel was created, apartheid was just a Dutch word; it did not become the term for South Africa's racialist system until that year (before then, South African blacks had had more rights). But, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, this Afrikaans term so rich with history carries exactly the right weight and meaning to describe Israeli policy. Yes, in 1967, few people railed against Israel's racist system. But there were some even in this country then.

And, we must not forget, that it was a different world then. Israel was far less an aberration than it is now. South Africa had only just been kicked out of the Commonwealth and, only months earlier, been first condemned for its rule in Namibia. Zimbabwe was still Ian Smith's Rhodesia; Portugal enforced race laws in Angola and Mozambique; five years earlier, massacres of Arabs were still going on to protect the settlers of "Algerie Francaise"; Catholics had few legal rights in Ulster; most of Africa was just emerging from long years of European rule; Johnson had signed the Civil Rights act only two years earlier and America's milder "Jim Crow" form of legal apartheid was still dying.

A generation later and the world has changed as surely as it did when, in a few short generations (1789-1868), chattel slavery went from first an unquestioned commonplace to a hotly debated issue to a memory throughout the western world. Now, race-based apartheid states are fast becoming a memory. Yet, still, Israel abides.

It took years for a global struggle against South African apartheid to grow from being a few frail voices to an unstoppable movement; we are still, unfortunately, in early stages of this struggle yet we cannot lose sight of why we struggle. A new generation has grown up here, there, and everywhere that rejects the concepts of Apartheid out of hand.

To say that a full Israeli withdraw behind the green-line would somehow make things perfect is to deny reality. The Palestinian resistance did not wait until Nablus was taken to take up arms; it recognized that the struggle was about equal rights in Jaffa and Haifa as well as in Ramallah and Gaza.

If anything, the struggle for equality inside the green lines is even more crucial; when Israel ceases to be a Zionist, Jewish exclusive state and the refugees can return home in peace, it will not matter what is occupied. If anything, to concede the struggle for freedom and the right of return is a tacit admission that Israel has been far too gentle in its rule over the West Bank and Gaza; if only they had applied the methods of barbarism of 1948 and expelled the majority of the Palestinians in the June War, then there'd be no debate.

But we cannot, we must not allow the idea that might makes right to stand and we must not allow the idea that even a single square foot of earth anywhere should be ruled by an apartheid government to stand. We must struggle ceaselessly to end apartheid everywhere it remains; in Jaffa and Haifa, in Khan Yunis and Ramallah, everywhere!

Some have argued that challenging on Israel's Apartheid structure isn't a good use of time but is futile because Israel is unlikely to make such concessions and that it makes more sense to put pressure where it will have an effect. But merely saying that Israel is unlikely to unmake itself as a Zionist state is looking at too narrow a horizon. It is entirely possible that at some point in the not too distant future, Israel may unmake itself as a Zionist state.

Such change is not without precedent; South Africa leaps to mind as an immediate example. In South Africa, de Klerk and the rest of his faction knew perfectly well that they were surrendering white political power forever. Yet they did it nonetheless. Most of the Soviet-bloc states similarly unmade themselves without a shot being fired.

And, if anything, Israel's leaders are in a better position to unmake their own ideology than were the South African Nationalists; in the unlikely event that every Palestinian exile returned home immediately, they would only slightly outnumber Israeli Jews at the polls, not overwhelm them in the way that black South Africans outnumber Afrikaaners: a Jewish head of state is imaginable in a post -Zionist state in a way that a white president of South Africa is not.

But we need not just look to South Africa for inspiration. Outside Haiti and the American South, slavery was unmade peacefully; in the British Empire, the northern American states, Brazil (which has a proportionately much larger black population than the US), the Dutch and French West Indies, and the Spanish states, the slave-owners undid their own power. Desegregation in the US involved the granting of a great many concessions by whites (the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was, after all, signed by a southerner).

And all these struggles do tell us something about our own role: the anti-slavery, anti-apartheid, and civil rights movements would NOT have succeeded in getting those concessions if they had simply said, we'll never win. Instead, movements of the oppressed inside the oppressing societies worked hand in hand with some degrees of military pressure and large political movements outside.

Abolitionists and anti-apartheid activists both worked to build awareness and bring economic pressure to bear (there were boycotts in western Europe of slave-sugar, the divestment campaigns of the 1980's, etc) ... and they created a situation where the once "favored sons" were gradually socially and politically isolated, made to feel economic hardship, etc until, at last, they threw in the towel …

we can do the same.

We must do the same.

We must, all of us, struggle alongside our comrades in the Arab Palestinian resistance movement, we must express our solidarity with them, we must do all we can not to let them down but to build the struggle against Zionism, Imperialism and Reaction here until a day will dawn when a free Palestinian Arab Palestinian people take their place among the other free peoples of this Earth.

We must join them in struggle and solidarity, join them in calling for a FREE PALESTINE!
LONG LIVE THE ARAB PALESTINIAN REVOLUTION!
FREE PALESTINE!

ULSTER: A NATION?

Sinn Fein and its friends and allies bombard us with claims that they are the progressive voice of the people of Ireland and that they are a purely secular group. They merely want, they say, to expel the British and the Settlers from All Ireland. Simple enough, eh?

Of course, this is premised on several shaky notions, such as the idea that, because Ireland is a geographical unit, it has and should be a single state and that the 'non-Settlers' (that is non-Protestant, non-Jewish, ie, Roman Catholic) people of All ireland form a single whole.

Personally, I think that Northern Catholics share far more in terms of language, culture, and other aspects of civilization with their Protestant neighbors than they do with their co-religionists in the Free State. (A simple line to me is the scallions/green onions line; Ulsterfolk regardless of sect eat scallions -- as do Scots -- while Free Staters, like English, eat green onions). In Angela's Ashes, one sees folk in Limerick look at Northern Catholics as something alien and that, I think, is very true. North and South are, in my mind, as separate as Canada and the USA, if not more so; two nations sharing much (including a language) but not the same.

Much of how things are looked at in the present (or envisioned for the future) is shaped by how one views the past. If one begins by saying that the conflict in Northern Ireland is between Irish Nationalists and colonial settlers, one inevitably will see SF as the correct path; if one sees it as a sectarian conflict, one throws ones hands in the air and waits for the Messiah; if it is seen as one between the forces of law and order and subversives, the British crown seems the answer; and, if as I do, one sees it as a struggle between a minority identifying with a foreign state and a majority seeking self-determination, Ulster Nationalism seems almost inevitable.

To me, an examination of the history of the North (whether the Six
Counties or the larger Province of Ulster -- the six plus Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal), makes clear that the North has had a separate identity from the South going back well before Plantation or Reformation. In an age before Christianity, even, the Tain Bo Culaigne celebrates the resistance of the Men of Ulster led by Cuchulhain to the Men of Ireland (incidentally, the last name MacCullough comes from Mac Cu Ulaidh -- son of the Hound of
Ulster -- and is a Scots and Scotch Irish name raher than an Irish one). Eventually, of course, Ulster was conquered by the Southern invaders and the Ulster leaders and many of their followers (the Scotti of Dal Riada) were pushed into the sea, moving to Pictland which they then conquered and renamed Scotland after themselves. Some of the descendants of these Ulster exiles ultimately returned a thousand years later and joined with the Protestant descendants of the Ulster folk who hadn't left to become the Ulster protestant community (in addition, the North of Antrim was settled by Scots Catholics who to this day remain ambivalent about both camps).

These new settlers of the early 17th century soon set down roots
and formed a culture distinctly their own. Interestingly, the vast
majority were Protestant sectarians rather than Anglicans and had no
political rights as such any more than did the Catholics (the lie that Presbyterians and other dissenters are at the forefront of Catholic oppression shows how well the English plans worked; the English killed and dispossessed the Irish and then set up the Scots to take the blame).

Actually, the whole use of the term "Settlers" by ultra-Republicans really hits the heart of the issue and is one of the things that most frightens Ulster Protestants with its echoes of how 'settlers' have been dealt with around the world and how the term is used to dehumanize them.

It also comes off as a word loaded with anti-Protestant bigotry. In Eire, the most common last name is Walsh, a name that means 'Welsh' and denotes the origin of the family in Wales. Other common names (esp. in Leinster) are names like Evans (purely Welsh) or beginning with Fitz- (a Norman French name). My own Irish ancestors were mainly from Meath and Tipperary and bore names like Kerwin (Breton) and Evans (Welsh). But, these 'settlers' were Catholics who had come to Ireland after the Pope gave the
French Norman king of England (Henri II) sovereignty over a land he didn't rule (just as the Papacy had granted England to the Duke of Normandy a hundred years before). So, they are not considered foreigners while those who are of 'pure' Irish origin and had, during the Reformation or later, joined one of the new churches are.

It seems odd. Too, people recall things like how a quarter of a million protestants were forced out of the Irish Free State (many from Eire's part of Ulster; Monaghan was abt 40% Protestant before partition) between 1922 and 1930. Irish Nationalism came, after partition, to mean essentially Church rule -- not soemthing much welcomed in the North.

Anyway, after 400 years or more, it is odd that Settler is a term for Protestants only.

The north was never a part of a United Ireland, except under the British Crown (1594-1800) so, logically, there is no real argument for it except that it makes a fair amount of geographic sense; both Ulster and Eire are on the Island of Ireland so they should be one. But it isn't as simple as that. To me, it is the same logic as saying that Portugal and Spain, Sweden and Norway or the USA and Canada ought to be unified. In each case, geographically a certain logic argues for it, and, in each case, the cultures and peoples are closely related. But unity is not desired by the majority in the smaller state. Forcible unification has failed in the
past (like when the US invaded Canada or Spain annexed Portugal) and one can, I think, safely say that, regardless of geography or culture, the fact that Canadians don't think of themselves as 'lost' Americans should suffice just as whatever their origin, the fact that Ulsterfolk don't want to part of Eire should be enough (and, with canada, of course, Anglo-Canada has a the strong parallel of basically being founded by the Loyalist refugees and the Maritime colonists who didn't want to leave the Empire).

Anyway, the British don't much want Ulster and would leave if the
Ulsterfolk would let them go. The Republic hasn't in the past much wanted the North either; before recent secularization in the South, having 1/3 of the country non-Catholic would have much complicated life and even now importing sectarian conflict is in no one's interest.

So, the way out strikes me as one that almost happened; turning the
Province of northern Ireland into the Dominion of Ulster, constitutionally on a par with Canada or Australia inside the Commonwealth and on a par with Eire and the UK in the EU & UN. Then, Britain can declare a victory and go home and the Republican paras can claim the British have been driven out.

Slowly, I think, large parts of the Loyalist community are moving towards a view like this, even though a separate Ulster has always been the unspoken option and much of Ulster has been moving that way and away from British Identity. Several of the smaller parties (esp. the PUP and other more working class Protestant movements) are close to that view and even Trimble has made some noises towards a free Ulster.

RETURNING REFUGEES

A group of Iraqi exiles who fled when the monarchy was overthrown are considering taking legal action in Iraq to recover former properties while the United States remains in control. Perhaps, they will do it, perhaps not. But what does precedent tell us?

Interestingly, the US authorities and puppets in Iraq could look to
American law for a perfect precedent on this question.

At the end of the American War of Independence, almost half a million people (white, black and native) fled the new United States, mainly to Canada, the Bahamas, British Florida and Sierra Leone. Their properties were seized by the American government and redistributed to regime supporters (properties included most of lower Manhattan, northern Virginia, and the vast Iroquois lands in New York state) and their right of return was explicitly denied in American law. No US court has ever recognized any right to property for Loyalists or their decendants (probably because two of the greatest beneficiaries of the stolen land were John Marshall and George Washington). Similair actions were taken towards the Confederado diehards who fled for Latin America as well as
refugees of conscience who fled to Mexico, Canada or elsewhere at various times (Mormons and Mennonites fleeing religious persecution at the end of the 19th century or during the world wars, Muslims more recently)

A case has been filed in Canada for recovery of properties looted in the USA and for reparations; they are estimated to be now worth several trillion dollars.

I would think that any Iraqis who left (for whatever reason) should be welcomed back except for those who took up arms against their homeland. For those who migrated to Israel, there ought to be some sort of penance process (denunciation of Israel, Israeli citizenship, etc). Other states (Yemen, Egypt) could follow and welcome back any Arab Jews who were willing to denounce Zionism fully.

Anything less would show that Iraq is a fully owned subsidiary of Israel and the United States.

DO WE REALLY NEED LEADERS?

I keep hearing calls from self-proclaimed progressives to develop something called 'leadership' in individuals and 'leaders'. While I'm sure some mean something else than what their words imply, the words themselves raise serious hackles for me.

Come on, do we really need leaders? The term itself implies that the majority of people need to be lead. I think that it is one of the most positive things that can be said about any group that no one can be pointed at and called 'the leader' but instead all are "leaders" and none are led.

Breaking away from the old models of needing a dichotomy of leaders/followers to me is one of the most positive advances of recent years and is something that should be embraced, not scorned. It's certainly far more democratic than sitting around waiting for the Man on a White Horse or whatever hero or messiah is to come to lead a movement.

While truly egalitarian movements may be more messy in terms of getting done and may spend longer getting through the process of getting to decisions (and may often appear unfocussed), I think that is a good thing in and of itself. We could have a very tight, focussed movement that was organized strictly hierarchically, and avoid some of these pitfalls but end up with a movement that "the leaders" could sell out at the drop of a hat or might disintegrate with the loss of one or two crucial people. Unless the ends justify
the means and what happens on the journey doesn't matter except the
arrival, then I, for one, see no need for leaders.




RECENT FAILURES?

Another criticism that I have heard of late is that these movements of the recent past are failures. Yes, electoral politics have shifted rightward in some ways. But to look at that alone is to fail to see that things move as a dialectic.

Already, we've actually accomplished a lot in changing things if we think of all the things that haven't happened. In 1948, the Palestine Solidarity movement was miniscule outside a few of the Arab cities; the world witnessed massive ethnic cleansing. Today, because of the work of millions around the world, the Israelis do not dare to implement transfer and speak of leaving Gaza and the West Bank (just as they left Lebanon); that is a victory of this movement ... millions mobilizing against the war on Iraq stopped the war repeatedly (under Clinton and in 2002) and placed
some restraints on the invaders. Look at their rhetoric and you can see that we are heard and that we have had an impact; they worry now not just about US casualties (the legacy of Vietnam) but also attempt to convince us that they are careful and concerned about Iraqi civilians.

It's a dialectic process and we are changing things, gradually but surely.



TODAY'S MOVEMENT

Some of the gray-hairs say that today things are a hodge-podge of mixed ideas and issues forming an incoherent whole, not as in the pas. But to say this is to forget that that is nothing new: I recently saw a film (Berkeley in the Sixties) and saw the
movement of those days depicted as at least as much a hodge
podge (free-speech pro-civil rights activists singing Zionist youth
movement songs, etc), counter-cultural dropouts combining with old left and new left ...

An even earlier generation saw a movement against slavery to which other causes attached themselves (an 8 hour day, woman suffrage,
spiritualism, etc) ...

It's part of the nature of the struggle for increased democracy that we won't all agree on everything and that some will be pushing stonger on some aspects that others might think should be
secondary ... and that is a good thing ...

THE KING'S MEN

Recently, we encountered some die-hard Iraqi monarchists (children of those who had fled after the Revolution of 14 July) and they were probably more rabid in denouncing Arab Nationalism and the Palestinians than in theoir spewing of hate towards other Iraqis (Saddam for these guys is only a secondary devil after Abd'el-Karim Qasim).

It is, in my mind, fairly ironic that some of these Iraqi royalists would be so anti-Palestinian; the actual record of the Kingdom of Iraq was that it had one of the better (for the states of that time) policies towards Israel -- King Ghazi personally set up radio stations for Palestine and sent aid as early as the outbreak of the first Intifada in 1936 and the Iraqis alone refused to sign a
truce with israel in 1949. (Arguably, Qasim, Aref, Bakr, and Saddam
merely continued policies towards Israel and Palestine that they had
inherited from the monarchy; the Iraqi treatment of Palestinian refugees in Iraq wasn't a Baathi policy). (On a side note, the couple of actual Hashemites I've known have been pretty pro-Palestinian)

Anyway, I think some of it is that 'enemy of my enemy' thinking and some of it has to do with the fact that a lot of these guys who 'got in bed' with the neo-cons accepted the whole thing. I think that it's worth remembering that a lot of the anti-Saddam Iraqis who have a genuine basis in the masses are also very
pro-Palestinian. I don't think we need to go further than Muqtada al-Sadr, a man who fought Saddam and has declared himself to be a representative of Hamas or the fact that during the Shia uprising in 1991, the Shia called it an "intifada" and all their propaganda made the parallel of Saddam = Israel.

I have heard pro-west Turks and Persians be very pro-Israel though much of that seems to come from a hostility to Arabs and Islam and a desire to appear as past of a superior Europeanoid civilization. I don't know too much about the Kurds (of course, they did get arms from Israel ...)

SUICIDE BOMBING OR MARTYRDOM OPERATION?

I can honestly say I do not understand how anyone can disparage suicide bombing while remaining silent about other forms of violence. Perhaps, I am either very stupid or hopelessly naïve. All I know is that I cannot comprehend what it is about those Palestinian “suicide-bombers” that earns so much moral condemnation from, first, various establishment figures in the US and Israel and, now, from our so-called friends and allies who expect us -- including me -- to do the same. It bothers me that we are
expected to condemn this when they are the ones who remain silent on so much else.

I keep expecting that, as soon as I hear yet another condemnation of
‘suicide bombers” that it will shortly be followed by condemnations of killers who strike from aircraft, from tanks, or from behind
fortifications. I expect to hear of the depravity of the stock-pilers of nuclear weapons. I assume that anyone who finds someone blowing himself up and killing a handful of occupiers so repugnant will surely have his stomach turned when he learns of men who kill by the hundred from the safety of an aircraft at thirty thousand feet and, rather than dying alongside their victims, knock off from the killing fields to relax behind a cold can of Pabst Blue Ribbon with a clear conscience.

Is that somehow more moral? Is it better to kill and then go home
afterwards and receive a medal? To kill and live to brag about it?

I'm sorry, but to me, the suicide-bomber is a far more moral creature than the homicide bombers they hold parades for and tie yellow ribbons around trees in anticipation of.

Those ones live free of the moral consequences of their act. In the
Torah, the teaching stands "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". Does not the suicide bomber pay that consequence? Does the occupier? Who is on a higher moral field?

Like I said, I fear I'm being very naive here so correct me, please, if I'm not catching it. What is it that is so terrible about a suicide bomber as opposed to any other type of warrior? I'm not speaking of whether such tactics are wise but whether they are moral -- and I've got to admit I just don't get it.

THE LAWS OF THE WORLD

A friend has been arguing that using the texts of UN Resolutions, international conventions, and so on as a basis for arguing the Palestinian case is wrongheaded. While I do agree that the UN is often little more than a club of rulers and as the recent history of Iraq shows, is often a tool of oppression, it is the closest thing to a world legislature and as such has a very important role (along with the international judiciary system) in terms of the Palestine Struggle.

First off, the UN, world court and the body of international law form a set of binding rules for conduct and can be appealed to; in terms of this body, the Palestinians have a clear and legal case. The morality of it doesn't need to be argued as, in my opinion, the law is fairly clear.

I think it is very much like looking at the role of US Constitutional law in ending slavery and later in civil rights; regardless of who had written them, the law stood as such and the goal of forcing the American State to live up its stated principles was certainly worthy.

The Palestinian case is a matter of getting the stated laws and principles to be applied. We have to work with what we have and try to get those real existent institutions to live up to their high and lofty goals. At the very least, it makes our job easier.

FRESH MEAT

I did a little research on-line and asked a few people about the question of whether eating raw meat was forbidden in Islam. And, it appears that it isn't but ... some of the rulings I found said it was ok so long as it was of animals with no blood, others said always ok, others that it was permissible but disliked.

I also spoke to some more people and got the same mix of answers, ranging from totally forbidden to 'what's the big deal?' I did learn that in Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan, the consumption of raw meat (kifto, etc) is considered haram for Muslims even though it is very popular amongst the Christian and Animist communities (there, it is a marker of Islam since little pork is eaten by anyone); I also found an article saying that HIV is very rare among the Muslim communities there partially due to not eating raw meat (it is very prevalent in Ethiopia).

Anyway, even if it isn't forbidden, I think it interesting that at least some people believe that it is (which would then, I suppose, make it part of 'folk Islam', like some of the people who believe women should be clad in Ninja garb without Quranic support) ...

Next question? Where to get kibbeh nayeh in Atlanta ...

QUICK DOWN THE MEMORY HOLE

Today, the US occupation authority is saying that they have captured
members of the Saddam Fedayeen - Baathi holdouts - and say that they are responsible for the execution of Nick Berg. The news says that a nephew of Saddam planned and ran the operation but he is still at large.

Last week, they announced that they had conclusively identified the
perpetrators as Abu Musab Zarqawi and other foreign Islamicist fighters. The US even imposed sanctions on Syria as a result.

Has anyone else noticed that they are assuming we have no memories?

Over the past couple of years, I've noticed several of these memory hole stories -- the experts, etc assert something fairly clearly and as being more than conjecture, then do an aboutface to the new oficial reality and assume we don't remember last week's truth.
Orwell (or maybe even Dick!) seem more prophetic daily ...

On the Berg thing, here's something to think of: the guys in the video look military (all are about the same size, build, etc all in shape) while when we see images of groups of alQaeda or other militants, they are in all shapes and sizes (a scrawny little guy next to a fat guy next to a really tall guy, so on) ... so, one assumes whoever is in the video, they are probably from a state-military formation (ex-iraqi army? US army?) Anyway, the whole life history of Berg is very, um, odd ... almost makes
one smell a conspiracy ...

ABU GHRAIB

(I'll post more on this, I'm sure, but for now ... )


The thing that I've heard that really sends chills more than anything else
is the story about the insurgent attack on Abu ghreib a few weeks ago; at
the time, it seemed very bizarre. Guerillas shelled the prison and
prisoners ran into the gunfire. No one understood and it sounded like
Iraq was a land of the insane. Now, it appears taht prisoners inside
asked their friends on the outside to come kill them as an act of mercy.

That has really shaken me, that the prisoners would rather die. It sounds
to me like the sort of story one could easily imagine in Poland in 1943;
Jews in a work camp asking partisans to come kill them rather than
continue to suffer, not something that I would ever have imagined to be
happening with American involvement.

A statement on a statement and a state or two

On the issue of the Rantissi statement that I drafted and the apparent controversy and concerns that it has elicited, I'd like to make a few points.

Several persons have found the last paragraph objectionable and wondered if it meant a change in APS's lack of a position on the One-State-vs.Two-States question. The paragraph reads:

"As Dr Rantissi said last month, "we will fight them until the liberation of Palestine, the whole of Palestine. Even if the Zionists kill all of us leaders, they cannot kill the resistance.""

First off, I would like to state that when I composed the piece, I intended the close to be a chance to allow the man who had been silenced for speaking to have a last say and wanted to include his own words of a few weeks before his own death as a fitting 'epitaph'. I found them eerily prophetic and thought others would, too. (The quote actually reminded me of Churchill's first speech as Prime Minister with its defiance and willingness for self-sacrifice.) I thought that others might also see the futility of Israel's murderous policies as a supposed 'path to peace' made clear by Dr. Rantissi own words. I thought others would recognize in these words a clear expression of the idea that the Palestinian resistance springs not from one or two men, whatever the power of their ideas, but directly from the suffering of an entire people and their natural desire to obtain their rights and freedom. Perhaps, I was wrong and others don't see these things or find them objectionable. I really don't know.

I do see, though, that some might object to the phrase "until the liberation of Palestine, the whole of Palestine". My personal belief is that simply ending the Occupation, while materially and immediately beneficial to several millions of human beings, should not be the end process to the struggle for Palestinian liberation so long as Israel continues to exist as a racist and apartheid state denying equality for all its citizens and denying several millions of Palestinian refugees their most fundamental right to their own homes. I believe that the liberation of Palestine will not be completed until all of Palestine is free and democratic, not simply the West bank and Gaza. Just as anti-apartheid activists refused to accept the South African homelands as they left most of South Africa under racism (even though the creation of the homelands for Black South Africans was far more generous with land and resources than even the most 'generous' offers made to the Palestinians), I don't believe that we can speak of justice in a Palestine 22%-free and 78-under apartheid. As to whether Palestine should be divided into two states or be one, I really don't think it matters so long as there is freedom and equality for everyone in all of it. I don't think a one state solution is fundamentally better (or worse) than a tw, three, or a fifty state solution, so long as all are founded on principles of Justice and Equality. It could be called Israel, Palestine, Canaan or Cloudcuckooland -- I don't think that matters as much as the issues of freedom and equality.

But, I realize that this is a concept not shared by all. Many of those who support an end to the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza do so out of a desire to de-link their vision of a Jews-only State from the fate of the victims of Occupation or a simple (and understandable) desire to end or alleviate bloodshed without serious attempts at justice or democracy. And I understand that we do work with many who desire a 'beautiful Israel' freed of the blemish of the pesky Palestinians and I in no way meant to drive them off.

Certainly, had anyone suggested that the draft I submitted sounded like I was committing APS to a position on the One vs. Two State Question, I would gladly have changed the text, perhaps to read something like:

"Less than a month before he died, Dr. Rantissi said, "we will fight them until the liberation of Palestine, the whole of Palestine. Even if the Zionists kill all of us leaders, they cannot kill the resistance.""

or perhaps:

"Dr Rantissi said last month, "even if the Zionists kill all of us leaders, they cannot kill the resistance.""

Perhaps, such a text could be the one that is posted on the web-site. I, for one, would have no objection to such ammendation.

WHY WE STARTED APS
I think it might be worth rehashing why we started APS almost two years ago rather than simply working through
other organizations and coalitions (like IAC, ADC or NION) that agreed with most of our views:

as i recall it, our idea was that by forming a group that was specifically focussed on Palestine and solidarity with the Palestinian people, we could make sure that, in Atlanta, the Palestinian issue was always on the table and was consistently upheld rather than simply being a subpoint of other campaigns.

We decided that, by being somewhat separatist, we could insure that a constant supply of energy went into building solidarity on behalf of Palestine. At the same time, we also intended to work in coalition with other organizations that shared many of our goals and values. By being a formally separate organization, rather than simply a loose affiliation of
people who shared concerns, we thought we could achieve far more and could work with many, many more other organizations.

As we close in on the two year mark, I think we've been tremendously succesful in doing so; March 20 was a great reminder of that. Our hard work and constant presence has helped place the issue of Palestine front and center in the anti-war movement here; that's simply undeniable. We have developed positive working alliances with a wide
range of other progressive groups and have gotten many of them (at least locally) to really put our issues on the front burner. i don't think that that is osmething we could have done if we simply subsumed ourselves into broader coalitions.

ETHNIC SUCCESS

Someone recently told me that WASPs (a term I find objectionable) are the most successful group in the USA followed by Irish catholics. But ... Ever been to Appalachia? Plenty of Anglo-protestants with no money, no shoes, nothing ... or go to Southie and places like that to see 'Irish America' ...

With the descendants of English settlers, one definitely finds many wild successes amongst the descendants of the planter classes but there are just as many (often descendants of the indentured) who never prosepered. Rural America is full of 'poor whites' (or WASPs if you prefer) and for every George Bush there are a hundred 'Swamp Yankees' or others who never joined in the wealth. The same holds true for Irish Catholics; there are many spectacular success stories but far more who were left behind.

While I have heard that, in terms of wealth per capita, Iranian-Americans have the highest household income in the USA and that, as of 1990, Egyptian-Americans were the best educated (though that was probably skewed by a lot of grad students and few children), I think ethnic success can be seen in more ways that one

Certainly, in terms of relative lack of poverty within the group, overall economic success and high over all education, Jews in America are in the top tier of ethnic groups. And, if success is seen in influence relative to numbers, American Jews have been tremendously successful in such fields as literature, film, music as well as journalism and politics -- Jews in
America have had a huge impact (domestically overwhelmingly positive) here, probably far more than some groups who are more numerous and of a similar age (like Italians or Poles).

politically, again, in terms of numbers versus influence, Jews have been extremely successful in influencing American opinion and policy. Some of that has surely been shaped by the confluence of ethnic-politics and foreign policy goals; in the same way, the relatively small Cuban exile community has shaped American policy towards Cuba (by pushing it further
to the right) while some well organized groups with a large amount of money have largely failed (I think of Armenians and Greeks trying to shape US Turkey-policy). What is unusual about the Jewish Community is that in most cases, political passion towards a 'homeland' withers after a few generations (even if sentiment remains) -- two large groups, the 20 million or so Ulster Protestants or the 35 million or so African Americans far outnumber Jews in the USA but have had little influence on US policy in Northern Ireland or Africa as they are far away in time and thus in concern. In other groups, such as Arab-Americans, Irish Catholics, East european Slavs, etc, one finds high levels of interest and concern about the homeland in the immigrant generation and its children -- after that, concern seems to fade. Among Jews, though, it is not unusual to find individuals whose grandparents and great grandparents are all US born but are still very passionately committed to Israel --- that is definitely a major difference ...

WHITE SUPREMACY, CAPITALISM AND ZIONISM

White Supremacy in the USA and South Africa was invented by capitalism as a means of imposing upper class rule; before the middle of the seventeenth century, race simply wasn't a conscious factor in determining the course of empire but race was'invented' as a concept to divide working people against one another as a form of false consciousness so as to prevent social upheaval and maintain the status quo. In that, capitalism triumphed; three hundred plus years later, racial divisiveness remains one of the most important facts of American politics and obstacles to serious social change. The fact that we are even discussing it now shows how well they succeded.

Capitalism doesn't prop up white supremacy; white supremacy was created and, for much of its history was propped up by capitalism.

Israel is distinctly a separate case in that Zionism as an ideology was formulated as a supremacist system not to augment capitalism but for its own goals. This makes it that much harder to dislodge.

Outside non-ideological supporters of Zionism (in Britain, France or the USA) however have interpretted Zionism as a form of white supremacy/colonial rule and have treated Israel as though it were merely an economically driven settler state with the same sort of place in the international system as other such states (liek SOuth AFrica, Australia, or, before it achieved hegemonic power on its own, the USA); Israel would be the regional bridgehead for the West and hegemonic within its region, keeping the neighboring states subservient to global Empire. Those supporters of Israel have also pushed things like the Roadmap and other plans that propose maintaining Israel as hegemon while ameliorating
Palestinian suffering and, perhaps, allowing a number of Arab faces to be involved in management. Israel's repeated rejection of such proposals has been caused by its own ideological needs; if Israel were simply a South African-style state, there would almost surely be a small subservient Palestinian state by now.

The Arab collaborationist classes (those groups & states that have made their peace with Western world domination like theArab princes, the current Egyptian rulers and the new ruling class in Iraq) have made the same mistake; they have started from the assumption that Zionism is on a par with white supremacism in South Africa and that it is based on
economics. They have repeatedly made known that they are willing to make peace with Israel so that both groups can get wealthier in the world economy. And those drives have all failed because Zionism is not driven by the goal of maximizing profits.

COLONIALISM'S PLAN B

On the issue of Christians & colonialism in the Middle East, I think it might be worth recalling that, just a few miles north of Palestine, there is an Arab Christian community that made itself readily available for European dominance: the Maronites of Lebanon. This community approached the West asking that it be able to play a role as colonial wedge into the Middle East and regional hegemon in an age of European Empire well before European rule actually arrived in the Arab East.

As with the Zionist settlers, a Maronite Greater Lebanon would be dependent for its independence from Muslim rule on its relations with the West (and, thus, both Zionists and Maronites were much better colonial subordinates than any Muslim state could be) while, unlike the Zionists, being better placed culturally to serve as an economic/political bridgehead into the region (the Maronites after all are Arab-speakers).

The Maronites (primarily vis-a-vis France) and the Armenians (who had similar relations with Czarist Russia) were not the only Christian communities in the Middle East but, unlike the others (Melkhites, jacobites, etc), they formed geographically compact proto-nations that could play a role as local fronts for imperial rule. The British might have prefered to work with one of them over the Zionists, but, they were 'already taken" by France and Russia; to achieve he same kind of local
bridgehead, the British needed to help in the inventing of a new people in the region.

I think that the history of Greater Lebanon shows a great many parallels to that of Zionism in Palestine and, had Zionism not worked out so well for its patrons, one miight now wonder why the USA sends billions to the Phalangists ...

WHAT'S WHITE?

I've been in some discussions lately about white supremacy and it seems to me that a fundamental question is often unanswered:
-- What is 'white'?

It seems like it is used in several non-synonymous ways. Is it a racial/physiognomic description and if so what does that
mean (the old paper bag test?)? Is it an ethnic description and if so where do 'white' people come from historically? If so, that needs to be precise. Is it a cultural thing? Linguistic? What?

(Many of the terms one finds in these discussions are of mixed origin: white and black are colors, arab and semite are linguistic, jewish is religious, palestinian and american are geographic ... etc)

These aren't easily answered and have been answered variously: white at one time had a legal definition in this state, one that Arabs and Jews successfully lobbied to be included in (notice where the old synagogues and Arab churches are in this town vs. the old segregation lines) -- is that what we mean? "Not African American"? Or "not otherwise defined with a hyphen"? "Caucasian"? "European"? "Pale-complected"?

further:

-- What is a nationality? What defines one? Are religions nations?
-- Are Jews a nationality (oppressed or otherwise)? This is also one of the core questions for discussions of Zionism, anti-Semitism, etc. If the 1943 Warsaw ghetto rising was done by Poles of Jewish faith, it has one meaning; if it was of Jews who happened to be in Polen it has another ...

And, if Jews are a nationality, esp. an oppressed one, then the quest for a Jewish national home is reasonable; if not, then the end of Jewish oppression would be tolerance and assimilation in the assorted countries they live in ...

It might help to have some clarity on such when such topics are raised.

to that end, here are my own definitions for two:
white and jewish.

On the first, WHITE, my own usage is to term as white anyone who would have been labelled as such in the segregated south (to be specific, that is anyone I or my sister could have legally married in the Commonwealth of
Virginia prior to the overturning of miscegenation laws in 1967). As defined at that time, anyone came from or who was descended from the historic peoples of Europe, Africa north of the Sahara, the (now former) USSR, and Asia west of Pakistan (Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, and the Arab lands) was considered white with all the legal rights that that meant.
(Of course, that doesn't mean that all such were accorded equal rights in practice -- religious bigotry and ethnic chauvinism also play a role, sometimes more than racism).

Anyway, in my personal usage, to refer to Jews, Irish, Poles, Lebanese, etc 'becoming white' is nonsense as they were always white and most certainly never experienced the de jure and de facto effects of slavery and segregation; I would refer to becoming assimilated to the dominant American culture (initially that of English settlers) -- as did other,
earlier waves of French Huguenots, Ulster Scots, Palatinate Germans, New Amsterdam Dutch, Sephardic Jews, etc ...

(on a similar note, I also find the use of the term "anglo-saxon" problematic and not just as a synonym for white; the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons aren't the ruling class anywhere, certainly not in England except under Oliver
Cromwell -- England itself was conquered by the Norman French and their descendants -- the British aristocracy -- are by no precise meaning Anglo-Saxon; but that is just a further quibble)

As to JEWISH, that also has several meanings; in Israel, there've been serious debates as to 'who is a jew' and what that even means. Of course, the easiest definition is 'whoever says they are' but quickly we run into
the confusion: is Jewish a term for practicing members of a religion, those born into it but no longer practicing, an ethnic group, a race ... ?

On the last, one finds that many anti-semites and Zionists agree; Jewish-ness is heritable and one doesn't have to be aware of it to possess it (hence, the various degrees of mischling under the Nazis or the granting of immigrant status to Israel of Russian Christians and Ethiopian Muslims) ...

I think that jewishness has varied over time so that some, but not all, Jews are the biological descendants of people who emigrated from, essentially, the southern West Bank, some are converts and the descendants of converts to the religion of those emigrants, and so on ...

I don't have a precise definition beyond that of self-identification -- (of course, can one be 'half-jewish' if jewish-ness is purely a matter of religious practice? i don't think one can be half-muslim or half-presbyterian ...)

WHEN A JOLT IS NEEDED

Sometimes, one finds that one cannot help but to offend; calling a racist a racist or a fascist a fascist may cause them to turn a deaf ear but ...

and sometimes a jolt is needed, even though it may turn people off.

A personal anecdote:
Growing up in the South in the 70's and 80's, I had never thought of the Confederate flag as being particularly racist. it was simply a symbol of courage, honor, and chivalry from the past even if it were a bit declasse to wave one. If it were offensive, I and the people I grew up around, thought of it as being offensive to the people who hated white Southerners and deserved to be offended. We knew it as 'the rebel flag' and, if any connotation other than Southern heritage clung to it, it was one of rebellion against authority. I left the south at 15 and moved to Ohio. There, I was beaten up by other kids for having a (since lost) Virginia drawl and heard repeatedly that southern people were mentally deficient, toothless inbreds ... something one gets from the media culture. Anyway, not long after, I put up a little Confederate flag and a picture of Robert E Lee in my locker as symbolic defiance (alongside an anarchy symbol and various communist and punk stuff; part of a general adolescent 'fuck alla y'all').

As soon as I came of age and proved I was smarter than any of the Ohio kids, i went back to the south (and have stayed basically ever since), no longer needing to carry much southern pride ...

Anyway, when I was in college, a black student graphically equated the Confederate flag with the swastika. I was initially offended; it struck me, initially, as far-fetched and really offensive to make the comparison between a bunch of racist thugs and a valiant lost cause. But I didn't simply turn a deaf ear -- I thought about what was being said, talked with friends and realized that i was being totally oblivious to how such a symbol appeared to African-Americans. And my thinking on it changed drastically.

Sometimes, being less than polite does work; I doubt if I had merely heard that black students found the Confederate flag bothersome would I have given more than a second's thought to the matter where seeing something initially shocking did arrest my thinking and caused me to reconsider.

HOW NOT TO SPEND YOUR WINDFALL

Once upon a time, there was an Arab state that had huge oil reserves and, rather than investing its money in US banks while the common people languished, built roads, schools, hospitals and invested heavily in building factories for import-substitution of everything from cigarettes to cars --

They also spent some money on funding inter-Arab cultural and political organizations but that money was seen as a threat as was the fact that, not only had they nationalized oil, but they were now using it to better themselves ...

so, of course war was made against them and that country was destroyed. The oil was redivvied up among western concerns ...

and not just Iraq; the only other Arab state to have as its goal the use of oil wealth for the betterment of the common person (rather than the enriching of the elite and investors in western banks) was Libya ---- and they too ended up bombed by the USA and under sanction ....

odd that the two Arab states that the USA has waged open warfare against and the UN has imposed economic sanctions on happen to be those two,

is it?

BUSH MEETS SHARON

On April 14, American President George W. Bush met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and afterwards publicly announced a new American policy that contradicts stated American policy goals of the past and effectively endorses all the worst aspects of current Israeli policy. Some are already calling Bush's announcement a 'new Balfour' (after
the 1917 British declaration that officially endorsed the notion of establishing a Jewish state in the newly conquered and overwhelmingly (92%+) Arab Palestine) and are warning that it could lead to catastrophe for the people of Palestine on a level not seen since the 1940's.

What has happened and what are the consequences of this reversal of policy? What does it imply for the future?

Sharon came to Washington seeking three commitments from the USA: backing for the unilateral Gaza withdrawal, American recognition that Israel would hold on to large portions of the West Bank, and an American rejection of the right of millions of Palestinian refugees from the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 and their descendants to return to their lands in what is now Israel.

Bush gave him all three in return for a promise by Sharon to trade something Israelis overwhelmingly do not want any more: the Gaza settlements and a handful of settlements in the West Bank. Further, Sharon won these without having to negotiate with the Palestinians themselves.

Sharon had previously announced his intention of removing Israeli settlements and most (though not all) military installations from the occupied Palestinian Gaza Strip as well as Israeli pull-outs from small portions of the Occupied West Bank. In return, Israel would keep large portions of the West Bank and prepare them for eventual annexation into the Israeli State. In addition, Israel intends to maintain control over Gaza's links to the outside world.

Sharon has packaged the planned pull-out from Gaza as a 'painful concession' but this is patently nonsense; Gaza, with its seething camps and restive population, has been a burden rather than an asset to Israel, a wretched place full of poverty and violence, and has neither historic resonance nor religious significance for Jews and Zionists, never having been part of any of the historic Jewish kingdoms. Since at least the late 1980's when Yitzhak Rabin spoke of his desire that Gaza fall off into the sea, Israeli leaders of both the left and right have searched for a way to 'get rid of' the
burdens and responsibilities occupying Gaza has brought them.

Bush responded to Sharon's plan by calling ut "historic and courageous actions." This is a complete break not only from Bush's own road map - which called for a negotiated rather than imposed settlement - but also from 37 years of US policy, under both Democratic and Republican administrations. The abandonment of even the attempt to appear to be an honest broker in the Middle East is a departure from the post-1945 US consensus without precedent.

The new developments have several obvious meanings and consequences:

1. Ends the Peace Process: ever since the Madrid Conference organized by the administration of the first President Bush in 1991, the United States government has been publicly committed to engaging all the parties to the Middle East conflict in talks and negotiations with the goal of ending conflict through negotiation and peaceful settlement. While often rocky and frequently leaving itself open to charges of pro-Israel bias, for thirteen years the USA has been the driving force keeping Israel committed to the various peace talks and plans -- Madrid, the Oslo process, Wye River, Taba, and so on through last year's Road Map. Bush has now effectively tossed that history and all that it has attained out the window, instead endorsing the position of one side with no regard for the others.

2. Legitimizes the concept of "land through war": Bush has taken the unprecedented step, contrary to all International Law and previous American policy of recognizing military invasion and conquest as legitimate. Previous American policy, as stated by President Bush's father, that "occupation is provocation and it must end" and applied towards the Iraqi-Kuwaiti conflict is turned on its head. American policy is now to back military conquest and occupation as legitimate.

3. Legitimizes an illegal land grab: no longer does Washington regard settlements as illegal and "obstacles to peace" but instead sees them as "new realities on the ground" to be recognized. For the first time in American diplomacy in the Middle East, Bush announced that major Jewish settlements on the West Bank had achieved the status they aimed for: rooted "facts on the ground," or, as Bush called them, "already existing major Israeli population centers." Every American president since 1967 (including Bush himself) has said that all settlements are illegal (as per the Geneva Conventions which names such settlements as a major war crime); now they are to be supported.

4. Nullifies the Right of Return: Bush has stated that "seems clear that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue, as part of any final status agreement, will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than Israel." This is far from just or fair and flies in the face of International law (the Geneva Conventions), UN resolutions (194 and after) and Israel's own agreed commitments (UN resolution 278, admitting Israel to the UN on the condition that Palestinian refugees
had the right to return to their homes). The Palestinians who were driven forcibly from their homes within Israel in 1947-1949 and have languished ever since as refugees have the moral and legal right to return to those homes and to receive compensation for their losses. This is undeniable. Their homes are not in Gaza and the West Bank and it is not negotiable. Israel has a moral obligation to allow these people, many of whom still possess the keys and the titles to
their lost homes, to return to their homeland.

5. Recognizes Israel as a racial state and not a democracy: Bush stated that "the United States is strongly committed to Israel's security and well being as a Jewish state". Denying the rights of the indigineous people of Palestine to self-determination and the right of return (see above) on the basis that such a move might jeopardize the "Jewish character" of the State of Israel is deeply immoral and problematic. It flies clearly in the face of America's stated commitments to democracy and self-determination.

6. Undermines US allies: British Prime Minister Tony Blair persuaded a reluctant parliamentary Labour party to vote for war on Iraq last year with the promise that he would push Bush to act on Israel-Palestine. His reward was the much-delayed publication of the road map, which was hardly a great triumph: merely a set of toothless guidelines and a hoped-for timetable. Other European and Arab allies similarly have called for American action on behalf of the people of Palestine.
Yet, Bush has shown his contempt for commitments made to Britain and other historic American allies, turning away from them in his embrace of Sharon. This hardly enhances American security or any remaining credibility in American stated policy objectives.

7. Leads towards further violence and away from peace: by negating the possibility of gaining anything through negotiations and peaceful tactics of resistance, Bush sends the clear message to the Palestinian people and the world that the only way to achieve self-determination and other goals is through armed struggle. As Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said Wednesday afternoon, the endorsement would end "the chances of peace, security and stability
in the area" and would unleash "the cycle of violence." One cannot imagine that anyone desires this yet, sending the message that the United States will back what is gained by force (the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza) and will torpedo anything gained by negotiation (the former Middle East peace process), this is exactly what Bush has done. As Mohammed Hindi, a senior leader of the Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, said of the agreements "they prove that resistance is the only choice that will benefit the Palestinian people."



Bush has neither the right nor the power to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinian people and certainly has no authority to give away their lands and their rights any more than the Palestinian Authority (or anyone else) has the power to cede California to Canada. By bypassing the Palestinians and even the other Arabs, Bush has demonstrated that the United States is not an impartial arbiter in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Rather, the United States is fully partisan and states squarely behind Ariel Sharon and the expansionist right wing within Israel.

The only way to lasting peace in the Middle East is by returning to the concept of the precedence of internationally agreed upon standards of conduct as detailed in the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations Charter, and numerous UN Resolutions. From that basis, genuine peace can be acheived on a basis of fairness, justice and democracy. To that end, we call for:

-- an end to U.S. aid to Israel.
-- the United States government to cease its uncritical support of Israel in international forums.
-- the removal of all illegal Israeli settlers and settlements from all the territories occupied in 1967.
-- the recognition of the Right of Return with compensation for the Palestinian refugees as per UN. Resolution 194.
-- an end to the illegal, immoral, and brutal Israeli occupation from all of the Palestinian territories in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
-- self-determination for the Palestinian people and full civil and political rights for all Palestinians.
-- recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to resist Occupation and struggle for their rights and freedom by whatever means are necessary to acheive them.

STATEMENT ON RANTISSI

Atlanta Palestine Solidarity Condemns the Assassination of Dr Abd al-Aziz Rantissi
October 23, 1947 - April 17, 2004

Atlanta Palestine Solidarity condemns in the strongest terms possible the cowardly assassination of Dr Abd al-Aziz Rantissi Saturday by Israeli Occupation Forces. We extend our sympathies and condolences to the families, friends, comrades and compatriots of all those who died in what APS considers to be the essence of state-supported terrorism. We voice our outrage at an American Administration that has aided and abetted this act of criminal barbarism.

Yesterday, Dr Rantissi's car was attacked by missiles launched from a helicopter of the Israeli Occupation Force while he was driving through Gaza City. His two companions and his son were with him in the car and died instantly while Dr Rantissi was rushed to Shifa Hospital where he died from his wounds. With this terrorist act of extra-judicial murder,
Israel finally silenced one of its strongest and most consistent critics.

Like so many Palestinians, Dr Rantissi's entire life had been shaped by the force of Israeli dispossession and occupation. He was born on October 23, 1947, just as the Nakba, the Palestinian Catastrophe, began. His home village of Yebna was attacked and destroyed by Zionist forces in early May 1948 (before Israel had declared its existence) and its people were driven out in a brutal campaign. Dr Rantissi and his 11 siblings spent their youth in the Gaza Strip refugee camp of Khan Yunis, living for some years in a tent while their home was turned into a settlement for European Jews.

Rantissi remained in Gaza until 1965 when he left for medical studies in Alexandria. Six years later, he returned to work as a pediatrician in the Camp hospital and found Gaza under brutal occupation. Soon, he began to work against the Occupation and he was first jailed in 1982 for refusing to pay taxes to the state that had taken first his home and then imposed the Occupation. Two years later, he was dismissed from his post at the hospital for his beliefs by the Israeli Occupation Authority.

Dr Abd al-Aziz Rantissi did not let this stand as an obstacle but quickly became one of the most forceful proponents for the right of Palestinians to resist occupation. He was one of the seven founders of HAMAS (the Islamic Resistance Movement) in 1987 and, for many years, was considered by many as second only to the group's spiritual leader, the late Sheik Ahmad Yassin, in its political wing. Dr. Rantissi had a long standing commitment to his Islamic faith and to his fellow Palestinians, especially the refugees consigned to the camps of Gaza. He gained prominence both for his social work in establishing free clinics and schools in Gaza and for his political activities opposing Israel's continued misrule of Gaza.

In late 1992, the doctor was among more than 400 Palestinians deported to Lebanon and summarily dropped on a freezing mountain side. There, he gained world notice as the spokesman for his fellow deportees in the Marj
al-Zahur Camp. Returning to Gaza after Oslo, he proved no more popular with the Palestinian Authority than he had been with the Israeli government. Iin 1998, he demanded that a number of senior PA figures resign due to corruption and the failure of their politics. The PA placed him under arrest but the High Court of Justice ordered his release two
months later. Despite his imprisonment, he remained one of the most outspoken critics of the PA, condemning it for its apparent willingness to compromise with Israel as part of the roadmap peace plan and he criticized Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas for participating in a conference with Sharon and Bush in Jordan in June 2003.

That same year, his eventual murderers attempted to assasi nate him. He did, however, suffer leg, arm and chest wounds from the US-made Apache helicopter gunship attack. The helicopter fired seven missiles on his
car, and killed two passers-by - a mother and her five year-old daughter. Despite this attack and many threats against his life by the Israeli Occupiers over the years, Dr Rantissi refused to go into hiding or alter his stance to mollify his eventual killers. Instead, he lived a public life and continued to the day he died to be one of the most outspoken and
consistent critics of Israel, its supporters, and its collaborators.

Dr Rantissi's ?crime?, like that of so many others before him, was in the words of his assassins to ?provide inspiration?. Likewise it appears that the stone throwing teenagers mowed down by Israeli tanks and the men, women and children whose lives have been torn apart by zealous aggression on the part of the Israeli security services are criminalised as terrorist for receiving this inspiration though the right to defend oneself and one?s land is enshrined in the UN Charter and throughout international law. Time and again the Palestinian cause has been shown to be legal, moral and right yet Palestinians are condemned when ever they exercise any sort of right of self-defense or resistance.

After the death of Yassin, Sharon took this policy to a further height of lunacy, vowing that Israel would murder, not just those accused of 'terrorism' but anyone who so much as thought about harming a Jewish life. Sharon's mentality of murdering men, women, and children, pregnant women, the disabled and all others is not new to the Palestinians. The IDF, with Sharon?s full support, has killed close to 3,000 civilians and injured over 30,000 since Sharon instigated the current intifada in the year 2000. Earlier, he was the mastermind of literally tens of thousands of deaths of Lebanese and Palestinians during the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and has a history of mass murder dating back into the 1950's.

Nor will this be the last such terrorist act of murder, the Israelis promise. One of Sharon's cabinet ministers, Gideon Ezra named HAMAS's political bureau chief Khalid Mishal as the next target, barely seconds after Dr Rantissi's funeral procession had gotten underway and before he was even buried. Ezra threatened Mishal with "an identical fate" to that
of Rantissi and the wheel-chair bound Sheik Ahmad Yassin. Though Mishal lives in exile in Syria, the Israeli minister vowed that his "fate will be identical to that of Rantissi. When the opportunity comes to strike at Damascus, we will do it."

The assassination of Dr Rantissi, like that of Sheik Yassin before him, will not bring the Palestinians to their knees as Sharon hopes. The Palestinians are determined to continue the struggle until the liberation of their land is complete. Israel has not been able to defeat the Palestinians militarily and will not be able to as every Israeli act of
repression has sown the seeds of a hundred acts of resistance. Dr Rantissi's death at the very moment when the true face of Israel and its ally has become clear will no doubt unite the people of Palestine and their supporters all over the world in redoubled efforts to resist the terror of Zionist colonialism.

The murder of Rantissi by missiles from a US supplied Apache helicopter is but the latest of over 200 other similar extrajudicial executions carried out by Israel. It has sent off a storm of protest by governments and leaders across the world, from Europe through the Middle East even to the South Pacific, as the international community has condemned this terrorism as a violation of international law and as a war crime. This horrific act further shows that Israeli leaders are only interested in perpetuating violence and state-sponsored terrorism to avoid having to address the root cause of the conflict: the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Practically the whole world has condemned this blatant act of terrorism and murder. Yet the American government has praised Israel's action in fighting what it. hypocritically, condemns as 'terrorism'. It does not even acknowledge that Israel has violated American law (the Arms Export Control Act of 1976) by using American supplied weaponry in this illegal
act. The United States ignores the numerous UN resolutions that have called for an end to the Israeli Occupation (242, 338, et al.) and the Right of the Palestinian Refugees to Return home and, while condemning the lawful and just resistance of the Palestinians to occupation, condones the illegal and immoral use of force to repress them.

This past week, George Bush has spoken forcefully of his full support for Sharon's past crimes and future plans, throwing out any hopes for negotiations in his rush to quash the Palestinians' legitimate rights to their own homes and a life free of occupation and dispossesion (see APS's previous statement). In doing so, Bush gave Sharon and his minions the
go-ahead to carry out this latest act of brutality and terror; without doubt, this vicious murder must be added to the butcher's bill of all those people George Bush has had murdered. Dr Rantissi's name joins the sadly long list of victims that number in the tens of thousands, from Texas to Afghanistan and Iraq and now on to Palestine, all of them killed
by Bush's decree.

The only way to prevent further violence is to bring about a complete end to the Israeli occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. So long as the occupiers continue to use murder, destruction and brutality as the instruments of their repression of the legitimate rights of the Palestinians, there will be resistance and some of it will be violent. If
the cycle of violence is to broken, then the time has come for a truly free and democratic Palestine.

So long as George Bush and his cohorts continue to back the most brutal and vicious policies of the Israeli state with full force, this seems unlikely. The only path left open to the people of Palestine is to continue their legitimate resistance and to continue the struggle.

As Dr Rantissi said last month, "we will fight them until the liberation of Palestine, the whole of Palestine. Even if the Zionists kill all of us leaders, they cannot kill the resistance."

RACISM AS MOTIVATING FORCE

I believe that there is a crucial difference between the role of racial supremacy in Israel/Palestine on the one hand and in the USA or South africa on the other. And that is that, fundamentally, racism here or in South Africa was always a secondary consideration while, in Israel, it was primary. Realizing that is something fundamental to our understanding of what can be taken from the struggles for freedom and equality in the American South and in South Africa and applied to the Palestinian cause and what cannot.

To begin with, I think it necessary to briefly review the origin of White Supremacy in America before seeing how that stacks up against that in Palestine.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Virginia was established not as a haven for English people or for any ideological consideration but, rather, as a commercial proposition with the goal of maximizing profits for investors. The initial colonists weren't particularly racist (they weren't anti-racist either) and saw the Powhatans and the other indigeneous peoples simply as people who could be exploited for a higher return on yield. Due to the unintended demographic collapse of the First Peoples in Virginia under the impact of European germs, American Indians were not numerous enough to be easily exploited but were quickly pushed aside. Yet, in the early days of colonization, intermarriage occured with non-white indians (famously Pocahantas who was an ancestor of much of the Virginia elite) without particular racial stigma.

Similarly, in 1619, when the first Africans arrived in the Chesapeake as indentured servants, they didn't face particular racial hostility but only the same sort of conditions as poor white contract laborers arriving from Britain met. At that time, the only racial dividing lines were between those who took part in the new English-speaking Christian and technological society (whether from England, Africa, or assimilated Indians) and those who did not. Of course, early Virginia was hardly idyllic but was in many ways practically a hell-hole (high mortality, super-exploitive labor, etc) but it wasn't a racist society. Africans who had ended their indentures took part in the head-right system of land distribution and in the early days of commercial tobacco growing as equals to white laborers who had similarly completed tehir indentures.

By the third quarter of the seventeenth century, however, major class divisions had emerged within the new society. On the one hand, a white elite that had vast landholdings along the James and other waterways employed large numbers of heavily exploited indentured field laborers (both black and white) participating in a growing trans-Atlantic economy had emerged and, on the other, there was a growing class of the poor who possessed little beyond their labor and, at most, small plots of land back from the prime real estate along the tidal estuaries or up-river from the fall lines. Social revolution broke out along the frontier in Bacon's Rebellion (1676). Poor whites and blacks united to seek to overthrow the planter elite and establish a more equitable society. After initial successes, they were crushed and, in the aftermath, the Planter-elite struggled to come up with ways to prevent a repeat.

They were tremendously successful; the last three hundred years of American history have been intensively shaped by the decisions that they made in the late 1670's. In short order, the importation of African slaves increased rapidly while the importation of indentured servants from either Europe or Africa declined. The ruling class began to invent an ideology of racial supremacy; bars were placed on the advancement of non-whites, African no longer were free at the end of their indenture but became chattell slaves and slavery was made heritable, and slavery became the main source of labor in the plantations. The poor whites were divided from poor blacks through the advancement of a growing ideology of white-ness; they were encouraged to view themselves as part of the ruling elite based on the color of their skin and to align themselves with the Master class on that basis rather than with black fellow workers on the shared conditions of their class and labor.

As we all know, the scheme worked; the danger of social revolution in Virginia (and, later, throughout America) subsided and , when slave revolts occured later, the Masters could count on white workers siding with them in putting down the blacks. Poor whites imbibed the notion of an innate superiority of their white skin; they might have it rough but, at the very least, they were 'better than any nigger'. The rest of American history is filled with the history of class solidarity being broken down by racial division being sown. So successful was the hoodwinking of the white working class that, by the end of the twentieth century, racism was widely viewed as a cheif characteristic of them (and an accusation used by the upper classes to put them down).

A similar process happened at the Cape of Good Hope where a colony that was set up initially as no more than a larder for passing Dutch ships became a commercial proposition in its own right. When profits were threatened, an ideology of racism emerged.

In both South Africa and the American South, white supremacy emerged as a convenient tool of early modern capitalism for the maintenance of elite rule. In both, over time the notions of white supremacy took on a life of its own but, fundamentally, neither society was founded with racism as its core proposition; racism was simply the easiest way to maximize profits and maintain the rule of the wealthy. American racism (or South African) is not, fundamentally, a failing of American capitalism but, rather, one of its crowning success stories.

In both societies, legal white supremacy was ended not so much when it became clear that it was wrong but when the elite was persuaded that it was no longer profitable. Here, in Atlanta, the white elite (the Buckhead coalition and other such groups) decided that power-sharing with African-Americans would allow them to better maintain their economic control and to see continued economic growth where fighting to hold on to white racial rule would soon lead to political convulsions and economic disaster. When African Americans were brought into city government here it was because they (people like Maynard Jackson, Shirley Franklin, et al) were seen as 'non-threatening' to the economic interests of the wealthy and as potential members of a new, multi-racial coalition of the rich and powerful who would continue to suck the profits off the working classes (black, white, etc). A black elite and black middle class would arise that would share in the riches.

In South Africa, Apartheid ended when Afrikaner and other white (English, Jewish, etc) members of the ruling elite became convinced that the ANC was not going to take over the mines on the Rand or the diamond fields but that having black members of the Board of Directors would see continued -- and increased -- profits (a black ruled South Africa would not be subject to sanctions and could take its 'rightful place' as the economic powerhouse of a sub-Saharan Africa where black and white rulers would get wealthy together while ruling over the poor of all races).

But the same scheme is not what has occured in Palestine.

Zionism, unlike Jim Crow, the Slave Trade, or even Apartheid, is not an economically driven ideology of white supremacy. It is, instead, fundamentally, an economy driven by ideology. Jewish settlers in Palestine arrived with the notion of forming an exclusively Jewish homeland, even at the cost of economic hardship, rather than arriving with the idea that they were there to make money; if the Jewish State turned a profit, that was wonderful, but that was never the motivation. (Jewish emigres from Europe who wanted to make money went to the USA or other settler-societies rather than to Palestine)

From the beginning, especially in Labor Zionist writings, we see the notion of "Jewish Labor" as being crucial in building new industries, agriculture, etc, even when significantly cheaper Arab labor was readily available. Rather than exploiting an already existing Palestinian peasantry, Zionism drove them from the land and has accepted the costs of their dispossession, politically and militarily, as being worth paying even though a system of agricultural exploitation like that found in Southern africa probably would have been both more profitable and easier for the rest of the world to digest.

The fact that racial separatism (the 'race' in question being the self-defined 'Jewish People') was the motivating force rather than the usual capitalist/imperialist drive for maximum profits explains some of the more apparent contradictions of Zionism. Unfortunately, it makes our struggle much harder. Divestment and economic sanctions worked in South Africa because they ultimately convinced white South Africa that racism didn't pay as well as non-racism; in Israel, it is not so easily repeated because the profit margin is not the ultimate arbiter of Israeli politics. Zionism was formed as an ideology that needed a colony rather than as a colonial project that needed an ideology. In fact, one sees emerging from Israel's current economic problems a harsher ideological line rather than a more compromising one.

Today, from a straight economic viewpoint, it could be easily argued that Israel should be begging the Palestinians to have a state in all the West Bank and Gaza; ending the occupation would save Israel billions in direct costs while an end of the Intifada would bring back tourists and foreign investors. A meaningful peace with the Palestinians could, potentially, open huge markets for Israeli business throughout Middle East and the world (in the way that ending Apartheid has meant South African investment throughout formerly hostile states). But, the ideologically driven engine of Zionist politics is not primarily interested in that; a poorer but more Jewish state is more desirable to the Zionist than a compromised wealthy one.

In all three cases (South Africa, the USA, and Israel), the combination of technological superiority and the apparent ease with which the indigenous peoples (or in the USA, imported Africans) have been exploited has helped to build notions of racial superiority. That, though, I think is a fairly widespread human instinct of any successful conquering people. One finds the same sort of smug sense of racial superiority elsewhere where conquest and exploitation have been easily achieved (among the Japanese towards the native peoples of Japan, among the Han towards their conquered neighbors, in Peru and Mexico, the Normans in England, and, quite explicitly, one finds it in the records of the Early Caliphate where Arab racial superiority was lauded over the easily conquered Persians, Egyptians and Aramaeans). Of course, such notions have, in the present and in the past broken down over time through the assimilation of conquered and conquering or when the conqueror is overcome. Perhaps, Zionism's racism could be overturned if it is defeated or if a bi-national state were to emerge. I don't know.

YOUTHS WITH GUNS

Recently, I ran into a series of pictures of Palestinian youths training with what appeared to be guns and hand grenades. I was told that I should be shocked and dismayed by this slander.

But I'm not.

I personally don't see much particularly disturbing about images of children with guns. Of course, that may be because of my own background; where I grew up (in rural Appalachia), probably half the boys in my elementary school could have produced photos of themselves with guns and, for all I know, there may well be a photo somewhere of me age 12 or so in a paramilitary looking scout uniform blazing away with a rifle.

Heck, in my public school, we had to take a gun safety class (how to clean, proper storing, etc) -- of course, that was well before Columbine and all that but still it wasn't anything sinister.

Regularly, I see youths here dressed in military fatigues or playing at war.

If american youths are (or at least were in the recent past) able to pose with guns, why shouldn't Palestinians have the same right of (at worst) being stupid?

Also, in the context of the West Bank and Gaza, I do think it is also worth bearing in mind that, before Oslo, it was illegal for Palestinians to possess firearms; that was a privilege reserved only for Jews. I know personally of numerous Palestinians from the territories who bought guns in the USA not because they intended to use them but because it was a 'badge' of finally being free (rather like going out drinking on one's 21st birthday) ...

In the American South, gun ownership was for a long time similarly restricted and developed a similar cachet of being a mark of full citizenship. and, just as Palestinians inside enjoying images of youths training with weaponry, one need only remember groups like the Black Panthers who similarly relished an image of American blacks in paramilitary garb toting guns -- which had similar shock value to those who preferred to see them defenseless.

Jewish youth groups do weapons training in Israel (and Jewish youths undergo compulsory military training) so, to me, to be upset to see Palestinians doing the same suggests almost an odd doublestandard; Palestinians are to remain defenseless either (if one is pro-Israel) to make them easier targets or (if one is pro-Palestinian) to enhance an image of angelic victims rather than as simply human beings, no better and no worse than any other people, who are simply trying to survive and protect themselves under horrendous pressures.

THE ASSASSINATION OF SHEIKH YASSIN

Atlanta Palestine Solidarity condemns in the strongest terms possible the
cowardly assassination of Sheik Ahmad Yassin along with nine others
Monday by Israeli Occupation Forces. We extend our sympathies and
condolences to the families, friends, comrades and compatriots of all
those who died in what APS considers to be the essence of state-supported
terrorism. Thus far today (March 22, 2004), Israeli forces have killed at
least 16 and injured 93 Palestinians, according to the Red Crescent
Society. Thirty homes have been crushed by bulldozers, leaving nearly
fifty families homeless.

Sheikh Yassin was a refugee from the village of Jourah near Al-Majdal
(renamed by Israel Ashkelon). Disabled in a sporting accident while still
in his teens, Yassin overcame personal difficulties and dedicated his life
to building a strong Islamic community first in Gaza and later throughout
Palestine. He founded and was the spiritual guide of several initially
non-violent Islamic movements that eventually developed into the Islamic
Resistance Movement (known by its Arabic acronym of Hamas), founded in
1987. As one of the largest political movements in Palestine, Hamas has
built and run free schools, mosques, and medical clinics as well as
building up a strong movement for a free Palestine.

Yassin's, a 67 year old quadripelegic, ‘crime’ in the words of his
assassins was to ‘provide inspiration’. Likewise it appears that the
stone throwing teenagers mowed down by Israeli tanks and the men, women
and children whose lives have been torn apart by zealous aggression on the
part of the Israeli security services are criminalised as terrorist for
receiving this inspiration though the right to defend oneself and one’s
land is enshrined in the UN Charter and throughout international law.
Time and again the Palestinian cause has been shown to be legal, moral and
right yet Palestinians are condemned when ever they exercise any sort of
right of self-defense or resistance.

The murder of Yassin by missiles from a US supplied Apache helicopter,
like 200 other similar extrajudicial executions carried out by Israel, is
strongly condemned by the international community and human rights
groups across the globe as violations of international law and as war
crimes. This horrific act further shows that Israeli leaders are only
interested in perpetuating violence and state-sponsored terrorism to avoid
having to address the root cause of the conflict: the ethnic cleansing of
Palestine.

Sharon's mentality of murdering men, women, and children, pregnant women,
the disabled and all others is not new to the Palestinians. The IDF, with
Sharon’s full support, has killed close to 3,000 civilians and injured
over 30,000 since Sharon instigated the current intifada in the year 2000.
Earlier, he was the mastermind of literally tens of thousands of deaths
of Lebanese and Palestinians during the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon in
1982 and has a history of mass murder dating back into the 1950's.

The assassination of Sheik Ahmad Yassin, will not bring the Palestinians
to their knees as Sharon hopes. The Palestinians are determined to
continue the struggle until the liberation of their land is complete.
Israel has not been able to defeat the Palestinians militarily and will
not be able to as every Israeli act of repression has sown the seeds of a
hundred acts of resistance. Sheik Ahmad Yassin's death will no doubt
unite the people of Palestine andtheir supporters all over the world in
redoubled efforts to resist the terror of Zionist colonialism.

Practically the whole world has condemned this blatant act of terrorism
and murder. Yet the American government remains no more than "troubled"
and merely asked for "restraint', something they seldom ask of Sharon and
his minions. The American government claims to be fighting terrorism but
hypocritically funds the greatest state-sponsor of terrorism in the world
today. It does not even acknowledge that Israel has violated American law
(the Arms Export Control Act of 1976) by using American supplied weaponry
in this illegal act. The United States ignores the numerous UN
resolutions that have called for an end to the Israeli Occupation (242,
338, et al.) and the Right of the Palestinian Refugees to Return home and,
while condemning the lawful and just resistance of the Palestinians to
occupation, condones the illegal and immoral use of force to repress them.

The time has come for an end to the pervasive racist double standard that
sees Palestinian lives as being worth less than those of Israelis and for
an end to unquestioned American acquiescence in Israel's crimes against the
people of Palestine. Israel's extra-judicial killing of an Islamic
religious leader can only serve to perpetuate the cycle of violence
throughout the region. The international community must now take concrete
steps to help protect the Palestinian people against such wanton Israeli
violence.

The only way to prevent further violence is to bring about a complete end
to the Israeli occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. So long as
the occupiers continue to use murder, destruction and brutality as the
instruments of their repression of the legitimate rights of the
Palestinians, there will be resistance and some of it will be violent. If
the cycle of violence is to broken, then the time has come for a truly
free and democratic Palestine.

KERRY AND FONDA

In the past few days, John Kerry has tried to disassociate himself from jane Fonda after pictures showing the two of them at an anti-war rally during Vietnam came to light. Fonda has been attacked for several decades now for going to Hanoi and being shown with a North Vietnamese flag while American soldiers were dying not terribly far away.

Yet, Fonda, so far as I know, never took part in any military exercises of the forces that attacked Americans.

But Kerry did.

John Kerry was an officer in the US Navy in 1967 so one would expect that he might have heard about the unprovoked attacks on an American navy ship, the USS Liberty, and the deaths of a huge portion of its crew when the ship was attacked by aircraft from a foreign power.

Apparently, though, Kerry holds his fellow sailors in contempt. He goes about flying in a plane belonging to the military of the country that slaughtered American troops and does so proudly.

He shouts out his loyalty to that foreign power and brags about it.

Jane Fonda never flew a Vietnamese jet. Jane Fonda never proclaimed her first loyalty as being to a foreign power.

One would think that people like Jane Fonda would want to disassociate themselves from men like Kerry, men who pride themselves for being traitors to America.

But wait, that foreign power Kerry loves is Israel ....

SELF FULFILLING PROPHECIES

Mel Gibson's film on the Passion is about to be released widely and some interests are campaigning against it, saying that it will lead to heightened anti-semitism by depicting scenes from the Gospels that might be interpretted as anti-semitic. They attack him for not consulting with learned rabbis and other Jewish elders. So what of that?

One wonders whether Steven Speilberg invited people who deny that the Holocaust ever happened to help him in filming Schindler's List.

I, for one, am sure he did not and would think he was quite insane if he had.

I'd wonder, too, if he had re-edited that film for fears that it might exacerbate violent anti-Nazism. I'd question, too, if he worried it might play into the hands of ultra-right wing Jewish groups who'd use it to push for further seizures of further Palestinian land.

So, if Holocaust deniers have no business working on flms about the Holocaust, why should it matter what those who deny the Crucifixion have to say about it?

If someone thinks that the Crucifixion and the Resurrection did not happen, don't go see this movie. In fact, if you deny the truth of these events, do what the Jewish community has done for almost two thousand years; Don't become Christian!

But don't go trying to force your denial of Christianity on those who believe it. When the film "The Message" came out, non-Muslims did not attack it as a fiction. Why can't Jews give Christians the same respect Christians give to Muslims?

It is amazing that this writer assumes that Jews' position in America is so precarious that he assumes that film-goers seeing what occured 2000 years ago (according to those who were there) will be roused to fury at Jews.

I'd think instead that Christians might be roused to fury at Jews by people like him who openly write of their hatred and contempt for Christian beliefs and believers, Jews who want to have the power to rewrite Christian scripture and doctrine while themselves standing outside, scorning Christ and the Christians.

If any such thing wre to happen here, I'd not blame Gibson but call it the self-fulfilling prophecy of Emanuel Winston, Abe Foxman and the other foam-mouthed anti-Christian bigots of the ADL.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END?

Did today see the beginning of the end of the American Empire? It just might have ...

Before the US government set out to reshape the Arab East to its liking, before the Cold War, before the World wars, there was the Monroe Doctrine. The United States declared in 1823 that outside powers were not to intervene in the independent states of the Americas; that was to be the USA's baliwick.

At first, the United States did little more than proclaim its goal of an imperial sphere in the Americas and was too weak to stop the Spanish reconquest of the Dominican Republic or the French occupation of Mexico but, after the American Civil War, more and more the states of Latin America came to be recognized as an American Exclusive Zone; only the USA could invade them, occupy them or overthrow their governments (as the United States did numerous times over the next 135 years). Since 1868, the only non-American military adventures in the Americas were the Falkland Islands War and the brief attempt by the USSR to base missiles in Cuba.

But, apparently, not for much longer.

Today, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin discussed publicly the possibility of sending French troops as peace-keepers to restore order in Haiti, a place from which they've been absent for two centuries. Colin Powell says the US has no enthusiasm to do so itself ...

Apparently, one of the first 'costs' of the Iraq war is becoming apparent; the USA has reached the point of Imperial Overstretch and can no longer maintain military control over the core of its 'old empire'. Instead, France may return to Haiti .......

A year ago, such a possibility was unthinkable. Of course, fifteen years ago, the idea that American troops would be based in Uzbekistan, Bulgaria and Hungary was equally unlikely-----

That Empire fell; is this one beginning to totter?

THE PENTATEUCH

I've read recently a few things dismissing the accounts given in Genesis and Exodus of Hebrew origins but I don't agree with such dismissals. I don't know of how much value it is to argue that the events of the Patriarchal narrative and the Exodus couldn't have happened really is.

From my understanding, the patriarchal narrative (the saga of Abraham-Isaac-Jacob-et al), isn't inherently impossible (if you remove the divine elements) as, around that time, Semitic pastoralists were moving around the steppe fringes of the fertile crescent and beginning to
infiltrate the older, non-semitic civilizations (around the period of Abraham, non-Semitic languages like Sumerian die out and are replaced by Babylonian, Assyrian, and Hebrew -- the Semitic languages of tribes of "Amorites" who emerged from the deserts to the South). Certainly, in later periods, nomadic clans have moved back and forth over more considerable areas.

Abraham (and Terah, Lot, etc) weren't city folk of Ur but rather Bedouin nomad/traders who hung around the city. At that era, other merchant adventurers left the 'civilized' areas of Iraq and Syria and headed out as far as Afghanistan, Russia and the British Isles, all far more barbaric frontier zones than Canaan.

The Patriarchal narrative also contains historic/geographic information corresponding to the period in which it occurs that wasn't easily known to the scribes who composed the Torah centuries later, suggesting that the traditions are authentic and date from the actual period of the Middle Bronze Age.

As to the Exodus, again there's nothing impossible or unlikely about a group of slaves led by a prophetic leader running away to the desert (look at the many escaped slave communities that sprang up in the Americas or Southern Africa more recently) though the Plagues are, of course, unlikely and would be far more likely to turn up in Egyptian records.

Presumably something like the Exodus occured though it was probably a very small band who went out to Sinai -- so of course the Egyptians records (which aren't exactly exhaustive) would ignore it. Those escapees formed the nucleus (possibly combining with a group of nomads from Iraq) of the tribal confedracy of the Hebrews; many others of the tribes may well have had other origins -- indigenous peasant farmers and pastoralists of the
West bank hills largely -- but the initial leadership and identity came from those who came up out of Egypt or were from the clan of Abraham.

Gradually, this confederacy absorbed most of the other peoples of central Palestine and ultimately formed the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel (though even in the Biblical account, the conquest of Canaan took centuries)

Ultimately, though, whether these stories happened in exact detail or not, what is more important is that the ancient Israelites believed them to be true and believed that they were descendants of Abraham and of the people of the Exodus. National myths of origin such as these aren't necessarily true for everyone -- otherwise the Mayflower would have been a very, very big boat (as would the ships of Hengist and Horsa or of Amergin and the
ancestors of the Irish) -- but they 'explain' to the people where they came from and who they are; even 2 or 3 thousand years ago, the people who eventually became Jews saw themselves as having a special and common origin separate from that of the other nations around them.

SADDAM'S FLAG?

A friend recently objected to people flying the Iraqi flag with "Allahu Akhbar" at demonstrations. While it was designed by Saddam himself, that flag with "God is Great" is still the official flag of Iraq. There were debates about changing it but no one could agree as
to what to change it to (the pre-1958 flag, the Qassim flag, the pre-1991 flag) so it has been left for now. So, it is not simply the Saddam flag as it is quite simply The Official flag of Iraq.

Even had the flag been changed, though, this would make good sense as a flag to carry as this is the flag of the Iraq that was under sanction, the Iraq that was bombed and invaded, the martyred Iraq of a million war dead at the hands of the USA, not the Iraq of any other flag. An older Iraqi flag would suggest that we weren't in solidarity with the Iraqis who had lived and died under this banner.

NON-VIOLENCE TAKES TWO PARTIES

Regularly, we hear the same complaint and critique come from many would-be
friends of the Palestinian people that, if only the Palestinians would
embrace non-violence and abandon armed struggle, their demands would be
met. But is that necessarily so?

Such arguments are based on what we see in the western press; endless
accounts of the horrible violence of the Palestinians versus. the (sometimes
overly harsh but always justified) reaction of the peace-loving Israelis.

Of course, this ignores all of the history that we don't see or hear about
in this country. The truth of the matter is that the Palestinians have
been using tactics of mass non-violent resistance first to Zionism and
British colonial rule and, later, to their dispossession and, since 1967,
to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza virtually continuously since
the beginning of the British Mandate in the early 1920's. In 1936, the
Arab Higher Committee began mass strikes and boycotts, participated in by
virtually the whole Palestinian population and continuing for years in an
attempt to bring about independence from Britain. In the years after the
birth of Israel, the tactic of 'sumud' (steadfastness) developed among the
Palestinians under Israeli rule. In this conception, every individual
Palestinian was to use passive, non-violent resistance to Israeli rule.

When the First Intifada began in December 1987, mass non-violent
resistance spread throughout the Occupied Territories. There were general
strikes, sit-downs, and protests. How did the Israelis respond?

The first Palestinian to be identified by the Israelis as the "leader" of
the Intifada, Mubarak Awad, was jailed, deported to the USA, and banned
from returning to his homeland. What was his crime? A Quaker, Awad had
organized peaceful demonstrations such as planting olive trees.

Consistently, the Israeli military has responded to non-violent
demonstrators with violence. We need only remember the fates of
non-Palestinian peace activists like Rachel Corrie (American), Tom
Hurndall (Briton), and Gil Nima’ati (Israeli), all killed in the past year
while participating in non-violent resistance to the Occupation. While
they are better known to the world, there are literally hundreds of
Palestinians who have died in the same sorts of circumstances, shot while
they were using non-violence.

While there is no Palestinian leader today calling for an exclusively
non-violent struggle for Palestinian freedom on a level of prestige with
King or Gandhi, we must also realize that there is no Israeli leadership
willing to listen. King's non-violent movement succeed not simply because
it was non-violent but because white people in the South and throughout
the USA were willing to listen; many brave southern politicians like
Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen accepted the moral argument for desegregation
even if, as Lyndon Johnson noted when he signed the Civil Rights Act of
1964, the coming of civil rights could mean the end of their political
future. As of the present, there is no Israeli leadership willing to
abandon their positions of power to do what seems morally right.

Instead, what we see today is a situation more akin to that of the Deep
South fifty, seventy-five, or a hundred years before the successes of
Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement. Had mass non-violent
resistance spread across the South then, we can, I believe, safely assume
that it would have been quickly ended through brute force. Something very
like that actually did happen at the end of Reconstruction when campaigns
of terror, lynching and horrific violence were launched by the Klan and
other white supremacist groups to drive African-Americans out of the
political process.

Until the Israelis advance to a receptive state on a par with what the white
South had achieved by the 1950's and 1960's, I think advising Palestinians
to lead non-violent marches is simply an invitation for more repression.
A mass campaign launched today using King's tactics would not meet the
success that his movement did. Instead, it would be an open invitation to
hundreds if not thousands of Palestinians to go to their deaths. While we
should not discourage Palestinians from continuing to use non-violence as
a key part of their freedom struggle, we do not need to tell them that
this will guarantee their success. Instead, if we really care about the
fates of both peoples, we should be urging the Israelis to listen to the
Palestinians and to respond positively to their struggle.

DRAFT INTRODUCTORY SPEECH, "Why Palestine?"

Thank you all for coming out tonight.

Most of us are gathered here, I think, to hear David sing his songs of love and solidarity and of resistance to the oppression that threatens to overwhelm the world. We are also here to celebrate the release of his new album, Behind the Barricades.

But we are not just here for that, reason enough though it might be. We are here to help build a movement in this city, in this country working in solidarity with the people of Palestine and helping them to gain their freedom to the greatest extent that we can.

Some may wonder why there is need for such a movement. Some may wonder why we even have groups like Atlanta Palestine Solidarity. And the reason is easily told:

Our government, our dollars, our names all are used to justify the oppression of the Palestinian people. Our silence is our complicity in the crimes that have been committed and are being committed against them. We, all of us, directly pay for their suffering. We are bound to help them relieve that, to do more than turn away in disgust and to actively work to change a situation we, all of us, have helped to create.

We have helped in the dispossession of the hundreds of thousands who fled before Israeli guns in 1948; we have helped deny those refugees their right to return to their homes for all these years and caused them to languish and suffer in their exile; we have funded occupation; we have given comfort to theft and murder; we have stood silent as a people have slowly been driven to the brink of destruction; we have aided a state where apartheid is the law.

There are other causes, worthy causes throughout the world but few where our complicity is more obvious, few where our failure to speak out and resist has done more harm.

We can not let it remain so forever. We must act, we must organize, we must resist. Our voices must be heard saying that we will no longer tolerate the oppression of the Palestiian people, we will no longer pay for it, we will no longer be silent, we will no longer ignore them in their travails.

Some will say that to imagine that a few voices here in this hall will not make a difference. Perhaps. And that is why we must not limit ourselves to just listening to a few songs; we must act, we must resist, we must work to change the way the struggle for Palestine is viewed in this country.

We can look back at how slavery was abolished world wide, at how equal rights came to America and how apartheid was ended in South Africa to know that struggles such as this one can be won and we can even see how they were won. Some struggled within, using a thousand tactics. And, outside, activists shown the broight lights of public scrutiny onto the dark places of oppression. They spoke, they talked they organized and what had once been viewed as normal came to be seen as abhorrent throughout the world. We can do the same for Palestine

We in ATLANTA PALESTINE SOLIDARITY have begun to work in this time and this place to support the survival of the Palestinian people and to end the illegal, immoral, and brutal Israeli occupation through education, advocacy, and action. We are committed to the principles of self-determination for the Palestinian people and full civil and political rights for all Palestinians. We call for:
An end to U.S. aid to Israel.
The United States government to cease its uncritical support of Israel in international forums.
The removal of all illegal Israeli settlers and settlements.
The recognition of the Right of Return with compensation for the Palestinian refugees as per UN. Resolution 194.
An end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine


We ask little, no?

For too many years, too many in this country fell silent when it came to Palestine. Too many who had important things to day about a thousand issues, who sought to change the world in a thousand ways fell silent when it came to addressing the disposession and oppression of the people of Palestine. But that has begun to change. Now, more and more voices ring out to speak of Palestine, more voices in this country tell of what is going on and what must be done by us. David's has not been least among them; few others can claim to have written as many songs about Palestine.

And so we gladly greet him here, for this benefit and on behalf of all who work in solidarity with the people of Palestine.

Thank you.

PALESTINE CALENDER PROJECT

JANUARY
1/1 Fatah launches armed struggle (1965)
1/14 Dbayeh camp sacked (1976)
1/14 Abu Iyad and Abu al-Hol assasinated (1991)
1/18 Tel Aviv gets scudded (1991)

FEBRUARY
2/17 Israeli Defense Minister Lavon forced to reisgn after exposure of spy
ring terror attacks in Egypt "Lavon Affair" (1955)
2/22 Jerusalem day
2/25 Napoleon invades Palestine (1799)
2/25 Hebron Massacre (1994)

MARCH
3/8 International women's day
3/15 Israel declares Abseentee Property Law, exporpriating all lands
belonging to Palestinians (1950)
3/16 Rachel Corrie killed in Rafah (2003)
3/21 Mother's day (Palestine)
3/21 Heraclius captures Jerusalem from the Persians (629)
3/21 Defeat of Israel by Palestinians at Battle of Karameh (1968)
3/26 Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty (1979)
3/28 Destruction of Nahhalin (1954)
3/30 Land Day
3/30 Israel kills six marchers at Sakhnin (1976)

APRIL
4/6 Basil al-Kubaisi assasinated in Paris (1973)
4/7 Crucifixion of Issa bin Miriam (30)
4/9 Deir Yassin Massacre (1948)
4/9 Kamal Nasser, Mahmoud Najjar and Kamal Adwan murdered (1973)
4/13 Phalangists attack Palestinian bus on Ain al-Rummaneh; beginning of
Lebanese Civil War (1975)
4/16 Masada captured (73)
4/16 Abu jihad's assassination (1988)
4/17 Palestinian prisoners day
4/18 Qana Massacre (1996)
4/19 First Intifada Begins in Jaffa (1936)
4/25 Arab Higher Committee formed (1936)

MAY
5/7 Mass non-violent resistance to British begins (1936)
5/8 End of Crusader Rule in Palestine (1291)
5/11 Israel admitted to UN on condition that it withdraw from occupied lands
and allow refugees to return (1949)
5/13 Fall of Jaffa (1948)
5/14 Israel declares independence as a Jewish State; USSR and USA compete to
recognize it(1948)
5/14 Nakba Day
5/14 British mandate expires (1948)
5/15 Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon declare war on Israel (1948)
5/25 Israel defeated in Lebanon by Hezbollah (2000)
5/27 Julian the Apostate's attempt to rebuild Jewish Temple fails (363)


JUNE
6/1 Int'l day of the child
6/2 Plo creation (1964)
6/4 Israeli invasion of Lebanon begins (1982)
6/5 Israel attacks Egypt, Jordan and Syria, occupation of West Bank and Gaza
Strip, Egyptian Sinai and Golan Heights begins (1967)
6/7 Israel bombs Iraqi nuclear facility (1981)
6/8 Israeli fighter jets attack the USS Liberty(1967)
6/15 Golda Meir claims that Palestinians do not exist (1969)
6/28 Israel annexes all of Jerusalem's Old City and announces the beginning
of the settlement program (1967)
6/20 End of Al-Nakba (1949)
6/28 Muhammad Boudia assasinated (1973)
6/28 Jisr al-Basha Camp falls (1976)

JULY
7/4 Horns of Hattin (1187)
7/8 Peel Commission recommends partition of Palestine and creation of Jewish
state (1937)
7/8 Celebrated Palestinian poet and novelist Ghassan Kanafani assasinated by
Mossad (1972)
7/10 Saladin captures Akko (1187)
7/10 Maghribi Quarter in Jeruslem destroyed (1967)
7/12 Richard Couer-de-Lion captures Akko (1191)
7/14 Britain initiates MacMahon Correspondence, promising full Arab
Independence (1915)
7/15 Jerusalem captured by Crusaders (1099)
7/15 Arab Nationalists disrupt oil pipeline (1936)
7/15 Israel declares the Law of Return, allowing any Jew anywhere to claim
Israeli nationality (1950)
7/16 Beginning of Islamic Era (622)
7/18 Jerusalem falls to Babylonians (586 BC)
7/20 Abdullah bin Husayn killed (1951)
7/22 Zionist Irgun Terrorist group blow up the King David Hotel killing 80
(1946)
7/24 League of Nations gives Palestine as Mandate to Britain, confirms
Balfour Declration (1922)
7/30 Martial Law declared in Palestine (1936) Remains in effect in some
areas to present

AUGUST
8/6 Nabaa Camp falls (1976)
8/12 Tal al za'tar massacre (1976)
8/12 Establishment of the Geneva Conventions (1949)
8/15-8/20 Battle of the Yarmouk (636)
8/21 Fire at al-Aqsa Mosqye (1969)
8/21 Withdraw from Beirut begins (1982)
8/23 Organized anti-Zionist actions in all Palestine (1929)
8/24 Arafat born (1929)
8/27 Abu ali mustafa's assassination (2001)
8/28 Jerusalem Temple destroyed by Romans (70)
8/29 Naji al-ali's assassination (1987)
8/31 Newly-created Zionist Death Squad "Unit 31", led by Ariel Sharon,
launches a nocturnal raid on Al-Bureij refugee camp, randomly shooting
homes, slaughtering approx. 50 civilians (1953)

SEPTEMBER
9/2 Israel expells 4000 Bedouins from Negev (1950)
9/3 Israel's state-run TV and radio ban the use of Arabic names of
Paletsinians villages and towns, requiring all broadcasters to refer to them
by their "Biblical" names (1990)
9/5 Munich incident (1972)
9/6 Multiple hijackings (1970)
9/10 Saladin begins rule (1171)
9/13 Oslo Accord signed (1993)
9/16-9/18 Sabra & Shatila massacre (1982)
9/17 Church of the Holy sepulchre dedicated (335)
9/17 King Hussein attacks Palestinians (1970)
9/17 UN Mediator Count Folke Bernadotte assassinated by Zionist Militia
(1948)
9/19 Battle of Armageddon, end of Muslim rule in Palestine (1918)
9/21 US Congress endorses Balfour Declaration (1921)
9/28 Start of alaqsa intifada (2000
9/30 Beginning of Al-Aqsa Intifada (2000)

OCTOBER
10/1 Israel bombs Tunisia (1985)
10/2 Saladin captures Jerusalem (1187)
10/6 Ramadan War begins (1973)
10/10 Fatah founded (1959)
10/10 Formation of Rejection Front (1974)
10/11 Qalqilya Massacre (1956)
10/14 Qibya massacre (1953)
10/16 Golda Meir announces Israeli policy of attacking Palestinians without
provocation (1972)
10/16 Wael Zuaiter assasinated in Rome (1972)
10/22 UN Resolution 338 (1973)
10/26 Fathi Shiqaqi assasinated in Malta (1995)
10/29 Kafr Qasem Massacre (1956)

NOVEMBER
11/2 Balfour declaration (1917)
11/10 UN res. 3379 issued, recognzing Zionism as a form of racism (1975)
11/12 Izz al-din al-Qassam begins armed struggle (1935)
11/13 Arafat addresses UN (1974)
11/14 Fall of Beersheba (1948)
11/15 Palestinian Decalration of Independence issued in Algiers, recognizing
Israel within its pre-1967 borders (1988)
11/19 'Izz al-Din al-Qassem hanged (1935)
11/19 Sadat appears before Knesset (1977)
11/22 UN Resolutin 242 passed (1967)
11/25 PLO gains observer status at UN (1974)
11/29 Palestine Day
11/29 Issuance of UN Partition Plan (resolution 181) (1947)

DECEMBER
12/1 Jerusalem brought under Ottoman rule (1516)
12/6 UN confirms Palestinian right to struggle "by all available means"
(1971)
12/8 Jordan annexes west Bank (1948)
12/9 Jerusalem falls to British (1917)
12/9 First intifada begins (1987)
12/11 Issuance of UN GA Resoution 194 establishing the Right of Return(1948)
12/11 PFLP formed (1967)
12/14 Israel announces unilateral annexation of 500 square miles of Syria
(Golan Heights, 1981)
12/15 Industry Minister Ariel Sharon takes an apartment in the middle of the
muslim quarter in Jeruslaem's Old City (1987)
12/25 Issa Bin Miriam born in Bethlehem, 1 AD (traditional date)
12/25 Destruction of Ikret (1951)
12/31 Thabet Ahmad Thabet assasinated (2001)

GETTING WHAT YOU ASKED FOR

In the summer of 1989 when I was still fairly politically naive, I worked as a dishwasher alongside several Palestinian guys. I recall talking to one Palestinian friend at that time about the PLO's recent recognition of the State of Israel and what that meant for him. He had come to the US from a refugee camp in Beirut; his family was from the city of Akko. I asked what this meant for him as someone who had spent many years struggling for Palestine. He explained that it promised nothing, that if Israel withdrew from the West Bank and Gaza and a Palestinian state was formed, he'd still have to struggle. He joked about forming, at that time, a "Galilee Liberation Organization" to carry on the struggle. I laughed and said I'd try to organize a support group over here.

I was reminded of those conversations recently as I read over some of the criticisms of the Geneva Accord. All of the problems with it were implicit in the position that the PLO and its member groups took in November and December 1988 when they decided to recognize the State of Israel and seek a Palestinian State limited to the West Bank and Gaza.

My friend and I knew as we scrubbed dishes that following summer that the full right of return for all the refugees was no longer on the PLO's agenda; hence, the need for a GLO. No conceivable Israeli government in the foreseeable future is going to welcome several millions of Palestinians into its territory and grant them citizenship; that would be, for want of a better term, political suicide for Israel as, almost immediately, the non-Jewish Israeli population would become the majority. And Arafat and company implicitly recognized that Israel is to be a Jewish state; Israel's base law defines it as such and any unqualified recognition of Israel's 'right to exist' implies acceptance of such.

The Geneva Accord does, one must admit, recognize that the refugees do have such a right; it just refuses it for most of them. I don't know that much more can be expected from any Israeli government beyond, perhaps, a larger number of returnees allowed in (100 or 300 thousand instead of 30?) and compensation for the remainder. Beyond that is asking more than they'll give -- for now.

And yes, Geneva does leave many settlements in place, trading away that land for equivalent land elsewhere. Again, what more can reasonably be expected?

The Accord envisions a Palestinian state as a truncated and dependent state; that, again, was implicit from the beginnings of the 'peace process' in the 1980's: a small Palestinian state was always expected to be dependent on either Jordan or Israel (or both) and, at best, only de jure fully independent. To expect otherwise is to live in a world free of maps or economics. No one could ever reasonably expect a small Palestine to be anything more than a weak and dependent state, reliant on international aid and investment and on the goodwill of its neighbors.

The Geneva Accord is flawed but it is the possible end result of what many, many people have stated that they desired; a small Palestine alongside of Israel. The only way to really acheive justice for the Palestinians now is the same as it was in 1989; by working to create a secular and democratic state in all of historic Palestine. Anything less will fall short of justice and will lead to endless exploitation.

The problems with Geneva are the problems of getting what one has asked for and realizing that that wasn't really what you wanted anyway.

,,,

VIRTUES OF POVERTY/POVERTY OF VIRTUE

Recently, I've been thinking of how the necessities of our daily lives shape our ideals, goals, and the things we value in ourselves. Of course, since economic station is one of the greatest factors in development, it is only natural that relative economic poverty will shape some of us to find virtue in our economic status.

When I was in school, I knew many women and not a few men who asserted the desirability of virginity and stated their intentions of "waiting". Most of them were, to put it bluntly, less than stunning and had few if any suitors beating down their doors. For them to assert their virtue was a way of turning an unfortunate circumstance into a point of pride.

Similarly, I know, I have turned my own lack of economic clout into something that becomes a source of pride and increased self-worth rather than self-loathing. Never was it conscious; it simply happened.

Recently, I was watching television with a friend and an ad came up for a cruise line. I stated that that held no appeal for me. She replied that, actually, cruises were a great deal of fun and referred to a couple she'd been on with her family. To me, I realized, the whole notion of taking time off to travel without purpose but merely to relax (or even to sight see) was something alien.

When I was growing up, my family never took a vacation. The only times I traveled were, very occasionally, to visit relatives or along with my father when work took him somewhere (and, even then, I often enoough was paying my own way). Sight-seeing was something done along the way to somewhere one needed to be. Even then, it was usually to museums, battlefields, historical sites. Until I was seventeen, I'd never been to an amusement park or seen a roller-coaster up close.

When I began making my own way in the world, I followed the patterns I'd learned. Spring breaks were times to work on that research paper or pick up a few extra shifts to pay for food the remainder of the semester. The times I did travel were always for a reason; to work on the anti-war movement, to study Arabic and so on. After college, the same pattern persisted. Almost anytime I went somewhere, I consciously or unconsciously formed a statement of purpose to justify the trip: "I am going to X because I will do Y".

The number of times I've traveled merely to get away, relax, see somewhere new, or other "frivolous" reasons I can probably enumerate on the fingers of one hand: in 1993, I went to New Orleans for a weekend and the same year went to New York just to be with friends; in 1997, I took a honeymoon to Carolina; in 1999, I went on an anniversary trip; in 2003, I went to the Alabama coast for a few days ... that's just about it. Meanwhile, of course, work, study or settling questions had gotten me across the continent or the ocean a few times but, then, fun was at best a side effect. I could rarely justify to myself spending money to travel simply to see a place or a concert or relax when that money could better be spent paying for necessities. "Frivolous" travel -- to go on a cruise or go to Disney World or anything like that -- was so far outside the parameters of my experience of reality that I eventually found myself as viewing them as being not merely impossible but actually undesirable. I suppose I have become a bit like the wolf and the grapes.

More seriously, I realized some time ago that in my world view self-denial is a very positive quality. Whenever I've turned down drugs, alcohol, a second helping, or a one night stand, I find my self-esteem increased; I am the sort of person, I tell myself, who can deny himself an easy pleasure and stay focussed. But is it because I am some sort of ascetic? Or is it because long experience has taught me that pursuing something merely "fun" usually means sacrificing necessity? When I was in school, I rarely bought pot or other things because the trade-off was skipping meals in the near future. Joining a fraternity meant sacrifcing more essential things and so on. Fasting, however, meant having a bit more cash for the water bill. Self-indulgence came with, quite literally, a price tag. And, seeing a price I couldn't pay caused me to think that I'd be better off without it. And, then, I could pride myself as the person who said 'no', pat myself on the back for how great I was because I had turned down so much. I could indulge in the smug satisfaction of the poor.

GOD AND RACISM

Recently, I got into an argument with some friends as to whether Zionism derived its colonialist racism from general European thought exclusively or from Jewish teachings. I argued that it was a far more dialectic process. To say that it is purely an importation is to absolve the religions at least as much as to call it a purely Talmudic matter is to engage in anti-Semitism.

As I see it, the concept of the Jewish People as God's Chosen People has been extremely fundamental to Jewish religion and easily lends itself to racist thinking. One need only think of non-jews who have borrowed the concept (the World Church of the Creator is based on
British Israelitism -- the concept that the British are the true Israelites -- and other white supremacists use the same concept. One thinks of the scriptural foundations (the Curse of Ham and such) used for apartheid and much of European racism. The Mormon teachings. or, even, the Nazi conception of German destiny, like all manifest destinies, a concept strongly colored by Biblical images) ... Christian Europe derived many of the ideological underpinnings of racism from the Hebrew Bible ...

To go from the concept that God himself likes one group of people over all others to practices of a racist nature isn't a giant leap at all.

Some have claimed that Judaism's racism comes not from the Covenant itself ("Iraised you up from among the Nations ...") but from the post-Biblical Talmud. I doubt one need go that far (unless the goal is to absolve Christianity of carrying over any racism from its Jewish roots). As I am not trained in Talmudic studies, I can't comment one way or another
on that but i do know that the concept of the Chosen People is very fundamental and ... it is certainly used by both Jews and Christian Zionists as an excuse for discriminatory practice in Israel. I've heard members of both groups state that God gave us/the Jews this land and that makes it right or that non-Jewish concerns in Palestine are secondary because "the Jews are God's Chosen people". One need not find obscure verses to see this; it's all over practically every Zionist writing. And it comes directly from a religion.

European racism also has a strong scriptural foundation; the development of the concept of the nation in medieval and early modern Europe was largely derived from readings of the history of ancient Israel (kings from Charlemagne to Louis Quinze modelled themselves
directly on David while, during the volkerwanderungs, practically every groups that embraced Christianity immediately latched onto the idea of themselves as 'Lost" Tribes of Israel). The concept of a warrior people with a special mission from God fitted the semi-barbarian peoples much better than classical concepts of the state. European racists, xenophobes and ultra-nationalists could always appeal to their people as 'the new Israel' -- and in virtually every European nation, that concept has long stood. this proto-
nationalism of course cycled back into Jewish thought and influenced the founders of zionism.

RELIGION AND OPPRESSION

One of the most aggravating things, in my humble opinion, is that all Muslims are held culpable by the West for the actions of all other Muslims. Muslims around the world are expected to defend or to criticize issues affecting any muslim society.

Yet the same standard is never used for Christians. consider: Rios Montt in Guatemala
justified the slaughter of indigineous peoples with his (fundamentalist) christianity, apartheid was defended as a 'christian' thing by the Boer leadership, in Ireland women were kept under lock and key in the Magdalene Laundries and denied the right to divorce because of Christian teaching, and so on and so forth (and of course crimes by christians in christian-dominated societies are innumerable). Yet, no one would speak of 'christian
attrocities' in Central America or Europe or Africa or anywhere else. No one criticizes the widely declared Holy War of some Christians or the large-scale oppression of women in countries across Europe, the Americas and Africa as being emblematic of a "Christian
mindset'. Yet, again and again, real oppression of women found in various Islamic societies is laid at the feet of the religion. It is a really serious doublestandard -- I don't mean in any way to excuse any such oppression; it is vital for those in societies where any form of oppression exists to fight it. I just think it is vital to remember that Islamic societies are
as diverse and disparate as Christian societies (if not more so) and to collapse them all into a single amorphous lump does nothing to solve real existent problems or to understand them.

HIDDEN VICTIMS OF THE OCCUPATION



recently, I've seen the same article on Honor-Killings in Palestine several times. It is an important issue but I think one of the most important aspects to those of us in the USA is how the women killed in honor-killings are among the "hidden" victims of the occupation.

As stated in this article, the number of victims seems to have increased since the re-occupation and second intifada began. Why?

Certainly, an increase in societal stress (long periods under curfew can lead to "cabin fever") and a normalization of extreme violence in war time leads to more assaults on family members. I've seen articles discussing correlations between violent crime in the USA and warfare and of dramatic increases in violence agst women among Israeli men who have served in the territories. This past Sunday, an article in the AJC discussed murders in Columbus, GA by GIs returning from Iraq. Palestinians who live in a war zone are simply put more likely to see violence as a solution to problems and, when people are dying all about, one more death doesn't seem like a big deal.

There's also the issue alluded to in the article of how private justice has come to be a norm in much of the occupied territories. Where people in middle class America are more likely to resort to a magistrate in a case of theft, rape, murder, etc, in much of the OT this is simply not a reasonable possibility; going to 'the police" or to court means an Israeli soldier or an Israeli military court, not options that many Palestinians would take as these are the activities of a collaborator (and that's assuming that any Palestinian victim would expect to be treated as a human when approaching the IDF for aid). So, without normally functioning courts or police, how does one respond to crime? Through private justice and by returning to outdated tribal codes.

I think it interesting that in Jordan, a large campaign is underway to end honor-killings; in Jordan, people have recourse to the law and the law can change. Parents who kill their children can be punished (as well as rapists and other criminals); in Palestine, it is simply not an option.

One would assume that, with real peace, many of the social ills caused directly and indirectly by the occupation will disappear and Palestinian civil society will be better able to deal with its own flaws and advance peacefully. Endless occupation will only bring an ever increasing level of misery to the Palestinian people and, as they grow more miserable, they will be only more likely to turn to all kinds of disfunctional behaviors.

FROM FORT BENNING TO THE GAZA STRIP


(Between November 22-23, 2003 Atlanta Palestine Solidarity joined the thousands of people from across the Americas in protest at the gates of the U.S. military base Fort Benning in Georgia - the home of the School of the Americas. The article I prepared below explains the connections between the Palestinian/Israeli struggle and the wars in Latin America.)

Some people might wonder why a Palestine Solidarity group is going to join a protest against the WHINSEC/School of the Americas at Fort Benning. They may think that we are being purely opportunistic, that there are no connections between either Fort Benning and the struggle in Palestine or between the Palestinian/Israeli Struggle and the wars in Latin America.

They would be wrong.

Over the past two and a half decades, the United States has directed its military adventures and its support of military proxies in two directions: towards Latin America and towards the Middle East. Though they might at first seem to be discrete, the two thrusts are intimately bound together.

In both arenas, the United States has often fought through proxies. In Latin America, its favored recipients have been the right-wing dictators and the rightist para-militaries. Regular military officers as well as death squad leaders have been brought to the US for training. In the Middle East, the same two categories have also received the same US comfort (though the paramilitaries have been less of a factor) and, in addition, the USA has armed and aided Israel and its own adventures.

Interestingly, the Israelis have reciprocated for the USA by arming and aiding American allies in Central American wars and by training many of them.

No clearer demonstration of the intimate contacts between the two could be made than the infamous Iran-Contra affair of the 1980's. Then, as most will recall, the Reagan Administration used Israeli proxies to sell weapons to Iran for use against the Iraqis in order to fund arming the Contras.

But this was only the most infamous of Israeli dealings with Central America. From the early 1970's, Israel has trained and armed the militaries of the Central American states. During the height of the war in Guatemala, the largest arms supplier to the government was Israel. Meanwhile, Israel also armed and trained the death squads of El Salvador. No less a figure than Roberto D'Aubisson, the head of the Death Squads, stated that Israeli training was preferrable to American training.

According to the Hebrew press, Israel maintains extensive intelligence operations in Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, Chile, ecuador and Paraguay in addition to its weapons sales throughout the region. Israeli military advisers have been found in the company of Rightist para-militaries in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and with the Contras.

Certainly, Israel has been involved to a very great extent in the repression of freedom and democracy in Latin America. But what of Fort Benning? Are there deeper connections between this establishment and repression in the Middle East?

The answer is clearly yes.

The current Intifada has seen a direct US connection in training some members of Israeli death squads in addition to the long standing support given in money and military equipment. Israeli assaults and invasions occur on a near daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza over the past two years and many who were trained by the US have been involved in these actions.

A recent story from the New York Times reveals how an Israeli army commander trained in Fort Benning was responsible for leading an invasion into the crowded town of Beit Hanun in Gaza. Under the cover of darkness, the Israeli commander, 'Ron' (name withheld by the NYT) directed more than two dozen tanks, armored personnel carriers, bulldozers and Humvees into Beit Hanun. The result was the killing of three youths aged 12, 14 and 18 in addition to the assassination of two ‘militants’. The invasion army also forced families out of their homes
after which they destroyed them. At dawn, the army's day of destruction continued using D-9 bulldozers to systematically flatten hundreds of trees in large orange groves surrounding Beit Hanoun.

Support to regressive elements in the Middle East also includes Maj. Saad Haddad (a pro-Israel Lebanese militia Leader) who, like many of the most criminal of Latin America's soldiers, was trained at Fort Benning. Major Haddad's militiamen of the South Lebanon Army (SLA) were financed, trained and armed by Israel. The SLA's actions have included torture, the shelling of Lebanese civilian centers and even aggressions against United Nations peacekeepers.

One of the most startling symbols of Israel’s reign of terror in Lebanon was the Khiam Prison that was administered for Israel by the SLA. In Khiam, Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners were held without trial and routinely tortured. According to Human Rights Watch, Israel has acknowledged that personnel from Israel's General Security service, or Shin Bet, held "meetings several times annually with SLA interrogators" and "cooperate[d] with members of the SLA, and even assist[ed] them by means of professional guidance and training." Israel also admitted that Israel and the SLA "consult[ed] each other regarding the
arrest and release of people in the Khiam facility." According to Tanios Nahra who was a guard at Khiam from 1985 until 1987, the Israelis "weren't just present; they themselves hung people on the pole and electrocuted them. The Lebanese interrogators imitated the Israelis because they were in charge. The Israelis were present less often but as for torture they we re even worse."

The bloody path that leads from Fort Benning to the mass graves and torture chambers of Central America leads in other directions as well; to mass graves and torture chambers on the far side of the world where Palestinian and Lebanese civilians have suffered and died at the hands of the graduates of Fort Benning's infamous "Schools of the Assasins". We come here to remember all those who have fallen victim to the graduates of this hideous and ghoulish place and work to see that it is shut down so that no more need suffer, whether in Colombia or in the Gaza Strip.

ROCK THE BOAT

A letter I wrote printed in creative loafing:

I feel that I must take exception to Roni Sarig's recent comments regarding David Rovics' song, "Jenin" (Sharp Notes, Nov. 6). Sarig states, "One that'll get Rovics crossed off our not-just-a-knee-jerk-lefty-with-no-moral-compass list: 'Jenin,' in which he romanticizes the suicide bomber as a freedom fighter with a valid mission, rather than simply a brainwashed kid."
After listening to the song and reading the lyrics on Rovics' website (davidrovics.com ), I can only conclude that Roni was listening to something else entirely. Instead of hearing a romanticization of a suicide bomber, I found an attempt to contextualize and understand the motivation of someone usually held in contempt by the American media culture. Jewish-American folksinger Rovics attempts to show how the direct experience of overwhelming violence by the Palestinian people living under Israeli occupation, as exemplified by the widespread killing and destruction in the city of Jenin last year and in the face of a largely apathetic if not complicit world, leads to a furthering of a cycle of violence.

As he states in the liner notes to the record, "You reap what you sow, Israel. It's harsh, I know -- it's the same here, too (see New York City for more information). But that's reality, like it or not, whether or not it fits neatly in your moral Geiger counters. The way to peace is through justice. End the occupation."

// posted by Tom @ 04:46 (0) comments

IS IRAQ VIETNAM II?

I've been thinking lately whether there is a historical analogy to the current war in Iraq. Some are already calling it a second Vietnam War for the US. Is it?

I don't think so. In Vietnam, the US intervened in a civil war. The government of the South faced both regular troops of the North and guerillas aligned with the North; the US stepped in on what was clearly the losing side and, in the process lost. In Iraq today, there is no Arab Hanoi and no Arab Ho Chi Minh. Rather than a clear alternative to American supremacy, there is the defeated remnant of the previous regime. So the Vietnam analogy fails.

Perhaps, instead, a better parallel is the Boer War? There, after inventing false threats to British security and exaggerating Boer repression all in a bid to control the greatest source of mineral wealth then known, the British Empire quickly defeated the regular field armies of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal (though the fighting was harder and lasted longer than British war planners had expected). But, rather than surrender, most of the Boer forces simply melted away to regroup and begin a long drawn out struggle. After three years of war (and numerous attrocities on the part of the British, including the invention of the Concentration Camp), the last Boer dei-hards surrendered. Of course, the results of that war, even though it was a victory for the British, were Pyrrhic: eight years later, the whole of South Africa was given independence under Boer leadership, becoming the Union of South Africa (and Boer nationalists soon invented apartheid to guarantee their rule). Even worse for Britain, the fact that Britain had had such a rough go of it convinced the other European powers -- especially the German Empire -- that Britain's Century of Supremacy was over and speeded up German desires to challenge British world domination; twelve years later came the Great War.

But that, too, may be an inexact parallel. Saddam and his cohorts aren't Paul Kruger and one would be hard-pressed to see much in common with the results of any imaginable peace. Perhaps, instead, we should look beyond the Anglo-Saxon world. I am becoming convinced that, rather than Vietnam II, we may be seeing the American version of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. There, the Russians entered a war with little opposition and had some allies in the populace (the persistence of groups like RAWA and other secularist modernists in Afghanistan shows the popular base of the pro-Soviet government) though they were a minority. Meanwhile, every ethnic faction and political splinter began fighting the Soviets independently. Foreign fighters arrived. Eventually, the Russians found that they and their allies barely controlled anything out of the immediate line of sight of Soviet arms. And no clear unified opposition emerged. We know how that ended; endless chaos in Afghanistan that has persisted fourteen years after the Russian withdraw and the end of Russia as a superpower. At the end of the war, the Russians weren't looking just at a safe exit out of Afghanistan but at how to pull Russian troops out of Czechoslovakia and Kazakhstan.

The US in Iraq faces the same sort of situation; already, there are Baathi diehards, foreign Islamicists, local Islamic and national groups, and at least one Shia militia activelyfighting the USA. How many more will there be in another year?

Is this the beginning of the end of the Empire? Maybe. In Afghanistan, after all, the Russians took fewer than ten thousand casualties (a rate over ten years about what the US faces today) and that led to a long plummet ...

What was the term being debated fifteen years ago about the fate of the USA? "Imperial overstretch" (paul kennedy etc) ... then, it was argued that the USA had reached economically the end of its dominance and that military and politics would follow. But, when the Cold War ended, such ideas were forgotten. Perhaps, it was too soon; maybe, a century or so from now, the 1990's will be remembered as the indian summer of the American Empire?

ORIGINS OF HIJAB

A friend recently sent me an article that claims that the hijab, the Islamic women's head covering, is a modern invention. The article is so far fetched as to be almost funny; it claims the hijab was invented in 1977!

After reading it, I went to my bookshelf and pulled off the first book I saw published before 1977, a 1963 tour guide to the Holy Land. Within about twenty seconds, i found pictures of Palestinian women in hijab ...

Of course, that might be mere coincidence. So, if that weren't strong enough refutation, a little logic should do the trick ...

The article makes several assumptions:

-- that anyone outside the southern Lebanese Shia community would pay the slightest bit of attention to Musa Sadr.

-- that he was making an innovation for anyone outside that community. What stands to reason was that he was promoting the use of the more commonly Sunni headscarf hijab as opposed to the Shia chadour (black sheet); in Iraq today, you can easily tell if traditionally dressed women are Shia or Sunni depending on whether they are wearing a scarf vs. a sheet

-- that his innovation would have caught on quickly beyond his marginalized community and spread literally overnight to all corners of the world, crossing cultural and linguistic boundaries with ease, and finding special welcome among traditional agricultural and conservative communities.

-- that having spread so rapidly, almost immediately regional variations and developments would emerge so that, just a few years later, there would be distinct styles in each of the major population groups, from Morrocco to Indonesia, that would be readily recognizable to any observer.

-- that the milions upon millions of Muslim women living before 1977 would just happen to have worn scarves or veils on whims.

Anyway, it seems incredibly silly to see this.

So, now, the actual truth of the matter:

In pre-modern times, most women (and not a few men) normally kept their heads covered when out doors. Medieval European Christians wore wimples etc ...

In several of the religions, women were enjoined to keep their heads covered; there is a Talmudic injunction to do so as well as a teaching of St Paul. To this day, Orthodox Jewish women normally go out wearing coverings. Catholic women used to wear hats to church and, in my own childhood, the Mennonite Church was in the process of dropping the covering of women (though the more conservative splinters and the Amish still do)

So, when Islam emerged, most of the women in Arabia and the neighbroing lands were already wearing something much like hijab and believing it was divinely inspired. One would have found notions of dress and female comportment in Byzantine Syria, Palestine, and Egypt not too different among the middle and lower classes in the cities and villages from what there is today: women in headscarves not kept under lock and key and no veiling.

So, Islam at the time of Muhammad (pbuh) adopted these standards and also cited scipture. As Islam expanded under the Rashidun Caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali), however, the early Muslims did encounter veiled women kept in purdah --- among the Greek Christian upper classes (as well as in Iran).

In Greece, women had been made to wear the veil and had been kept in seclusion from early times: look at the Socratic Dialogues or other Greek classical writings -- where are the women? They were locked up around back and kept in a Taliban-style level of oppression. Herodotos and other Greek ethnographers often remark on the freedom of dress and of society of "barbarian" women (the Celts, Scythians, etc) though the barbarians freedom is more at a norm with what we think of as "traditional western" levels of sexism -- even the Romans were scorned by the Greeks for letting "their" women run wild (as an aside, it is interesting to note that the Pashtuns of today share a view of young boys in common with the Greeks of the High Classical period).

These Greek traditions were adapted by the new Muslim upper classes and the rest, as they say is history ... non-Arab, non-Islamic custom was justified through quotes from Koran and Hadith, and became standard as Islam spread further.

here are some old poems I just found:

SURAT 115

Thus spoke the Living One to me, saying:

I am fever breaking, I am an Earthquake shaking
I am the Sun arising

I am the oppressed, I am the distressed
I am the masses

I am no mystery, I am true history
I am what is

I am all things possible, I am the least probable
I am True Revolution

I am what must be, I am what will be
I am what I am.


THE STORM

We
While the God laughs
In the Eye of the Storm
Stand
On a sloping slanting
Storm tossed deck
Where shall we wash up
When no safe harbor remains
To where do we go
Now that all are against us
Will this storm pass
Return us to the calms
Of our native shore
Or shall we drown
Here in the midst
Of the final storm?




ENUMA ELISH

Marduk, you were mighty in your time
God over all that you surveyed
You made your worshippers so wealthy
And brought down wealth on any who disobeyed

Now your temples all are crumbled
Back to the dust from which they came
Even the cities of your people
Are but names on tired tongues

What becomes of gods like you
When none can even say their names?
What matters then a mortal’s life
When even gods are soon forgotten?


1917

There is at my house
A drawer full of medals
My Grandfather earned them
A long time ago
Pretty ribbons colored
With victor nations
They were won fighting for
God and Country
Or wielding a machete
In a forgotten rearguard action

So long ago
The Great War
The War to End All Civilization
Or to Save
Or Something
(What to End? What to Save?)
And he’s gone
And so is all
He thought he was fighting for.

IRGUN

Someone else said to me recently that the left supported groups like the FLN when they fought for independence, so why not smile on the Irgun? Well ...

The violent acts of the Irgun are hardly comparable to those of the FLN in the War of the Million Martyrs in Algeria (1954-1962). Yes, the Irgun and the Stern Gang were fighting to create an independent state out of a European Empire but where the FLN was made up of the disenfranchised native people of Algeria fighting against colonial settlers and a government bent on dispossessing them, the Irgun was made up of and led by men like Isaac Izernitski ("Yitzhak Shamir") and Menachem Begin who had but recently arrived in British Palestine from Europe.

No doubt you will recall that Begin joined the Irgun only after deserting the Polish Army in its hour of need. In 1939, he was an officer in the Polish military but, as soon as Hitler invaded Poland (and Britain declared war on Germany in defense of Poland), he deserted his post and, while other Polish soldiers both Jew and Gentile either went underground and formed the KA (the Polish Home Army of the various uprisings) or formed Free Polish units outside Poland that battled Nazism valiantly, Begin aligned himself with Hitler and joined a guerilla group that fought AGAINST Britain and for a Nazi victory. Begin and his cohorts in the post-war period demonstrated that they had learned well from their erstwhile allies and were proud of Irgun's role in such attrocities as the Deir Yassin Massacre (a defenseless Palestinian village where the entire population was put to death brutally by the iRgun).

If refusing to support violent terrorists, mass-murderer, Nazi collaborationists, and colonialists like the Irgun is anti-Semitic, that is hardly an insult.

Far better to show support for the many groups of Jews, Christians, Muslims, and others who are working for a just solution in Palestine/Israel that is not based on the rule of one group over another and premised on such radical notions as secularism, democracy and the equality of all individual human beings regardless of whether they identify as Israeli or Palestinian.

THE GROWING NAZIFICATION OF ISRAEL AND THE USA

Lately, counter-terrorism experts and their hangers on have been talking about wrapping Muslim corpses in pigskins and things like that; settlers in the West Bank are talking of employing pis as guard dogs. These ideas about having pigs guard against Muslims or spattering people with pigs' blood because it offends their religious (islamic) sensibilities and other such ideas currently being floated around (forcibly removing women's hijab, etc) seem very reminiscent to me of the sort of daily tactics that were used by the Nazis in the ghettoes of Europe.

I still recall seeing the pictures of rabbis being forcibly shaved by laughing Nazis and of other such humiliations of Jews. (Saying you can eat in the work camp ---- but only pork)

Sometimes, the same people (like Allen Dershowitz) advocate retributive mass violence in response to bombings; destroting whole villages. Again, a Nazi tactic (one recalls Lidice).

I remember not so long ago -- twenty, even ten years ago -- when those even in Israel who offered such ideas as ways of dealing with terrorism were considered lunatics, madmen, and neo-Nazis. It is a sad commentary that such ideas no longer are taboo but have entered the mainstream discourse in both Israel and the USA.

It is this discourse and the actions that it leads to that, more than anything else, insures a future of ever greater violence and evil.

WHO'LL USE WMD's?

Recently, I was challenged as to whether or not I thought that Iran or the Palestinians could be trusted with nuclear weapons. Yes, I reply.

I don't think that the Iranian government (or that of any of the Arab states including the now defunct Iraqi regime) is any more likely to use a nuclear weapon or would be any less "trustworthy" as custodians of nuclear weapons than were Mao or Stalin (or Ron Reagan for that matter).

None of these regimes are suicidal. As no doubt you will recall, back in the 1991 war, the Iraqis definitely possessed chemical weapons (no inspections etc had occured then) but, knowing that using them would cause the US to unleash its more deadly arsenal, they stayed in their bases ...

And would Arafat use a nuclear weapon if he possessed one? I think the likelihood of that is so low as to reach the infintisemal ... why? Because of the nature of a nuclear weapon: one detonated in Jerusalem, Haifa or Tel Aviv would lead not just to the death of millions of Israelis but also to the death of millions of Palestinians and would turn much of Palestine into an irradiated wasteland. For the same reason, I think the likelihood of any Israeli using a nuclear weapon on the Palestinians also approaches nil. For either to nuke the other makes less sense than it would for the USA to nuke Tiajuana or Windsor, Ontario; any scenario where this happens is already so far past the "doomsday" point as to be not worth thinking about (we can assume that at such a point, billions are already dying).

But what about the Arab states & Iran and Israel?
Again, I cannot imagine any Arab or Islamic leader dropping a nuke on Jerusalem or elsewhere in a land that they hope to "liberate" and one which is filled with millions of Muslims and Arabs they would be intending to "free" by such an act. Their own ideology would work as a constraint -- unless nuclear weapons had already been unleashed on the major Arab cities and it was a retaliation in kind.

I can, however, imagine an Israeli first strike against Teheran or even Cairo or Damascus. Israelis with responsible positions in government and the military have openly discussed using nuclear weapons against Iraq, Syria, and Iran as well as detroying the Aswan High Dam --- doing things that would kill by the millions. The destruction of Teheran, Damascus or of all the Nile Valley would not bring about the deaths of more than a scant handful of Jews so no constraints would exist of the sort that might hold back an Islamicists who might care nothing about killing Jews but would stop before slaughtering millions of Muslims.

THE GENEVA ACCORD

We grees the recent Draft Permanent Status Agreement (the Geneva Accord) drawn up by independent, non-governmental delegations of Israelis and Palestinians as a positive step but assert that, while a step in the correct direction, it is only a beginning.

The Geneva Accord breaks through many of the stumbling points of the so-called Road Map and other recent initiatives in that it sees the ongoing violence as more than simply the terrorism of one side and attempts to take real steps forward towards defusing it rather than merely condemning the resistance of one side while calling for further crackdowns. It also asserts the principle of a full Israeli withdraw from the territories and the dismantling of the Israeli colonies there, two principles fundamental to any long-term peace effort. The ongoing efforts to build a popular base, through mass petitions, for such an accord on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide is also commendable as any lasting peace will need to have strong popular sentiment behind it.

Yet we also hold certain reservations about these efforts. Chief among them is a certain astonishment that, while acknowledging the importance of previous UN Resolutions (242, 338) and International Law as a basis, the Accord completely ignores UN Resolution 194 and 278, resolutions clearly stating the Palestinian Right of Return and Israel's agreement to it. Confining the Right of Return to return to the areas of Palestinian self-rule or to resettlement in Arab countries and making the whole at the discretion of the Israeli government before negotiations have even begun abandons one of the fundamental principles of justice for which Palestinians have struggled and makes a mockery of the relevant UN Resolutions. Nor is mention made of the necessary dismantlement of discriminatory laws and other state-sanctioned policies against Palestinians within Israel or of other vital issues to a lasting peace based on the ideal of the maximum of justice and equality.

We can however hope that the Geneva Accord will be the first step away from the current impasse and towards a meaningful peace, one with justice and freedom for all.

ANTI-ZIONISM IS ANTI-SEMITISM?

The idea that "Anti-Zionism = Anti-Semitism" and that criticisms of Israel are bey definition anti-Semitic is often expressed but is based on several unanswered hypotheses.

First, what exactly is a nation?
Are Jews a nation? Or are they members of a religious group? Are all religions nations and is denying a right to an independent state whatever the appropriate equivalent of anti-semitism is? (For instance, the Zoroastrians (or Parsees); do they have a right to form an independnet Zoroastrian state in their historic homeland (Iran)? Sikhs (in the Punjab)? Mormons in Utah? Jains? Druze? What about sects of larger religions -- Shia Muslims or Presbyterians, for example -- do they also qualify?)

Jews do not speak a uniform language but the languages of wherever they live as well as several languages and dialects spoken especially by Jews (Yiddish, Ladino, etc). Is linguistic separation a necessity as well as religious? Surely then the Pennsylvania-Dutch speaking Amish (who also meet the religious identity test and have a long history of being victims of insidious persecution) have a right to an independent state in Lancaster, PA, ne c'est pas?

Or is a nation defined by some identifiable ethnic or racial category? Is denying African-Americans the right to an independent homeland racist?

Or must a nation have existed in the past? Do Southern Whites or Texans qualify as Nations? Does denying the neo-Confederate movement the right to re-secede equate with anti-southern bigotry?

Assuming that Jews are in fact a nation, is Zionism the only expression of a right to national self-determination? What about other Jewish national movements, like the Bundists, who called for a Jewish, Yiddish-speaking homeland in Europe? Were they anti-semitic?

What about Jews who are anti-Zionist? There are many secular and religious Jewish organizations that vehemently oppose Zionism. Are they anti-semitic?

What about assimilationist Jews who identify with the USA rather than Israel as their "nation". Are they anti-semitic?

If Jews are a nation apart from their neighbors (Americans, French, British, etc) who belong to those nations, then does that not make Jews outside Israel foreigners? Should American Jews be stripped of American citizenship and sent to Israel? Is condemning such an act anti-semitic?

Where does the madness end?

IF JORDAN IS PALESTINE, THEN MICHIGAN IS VIRGINIA

The argument that "Jordan is Palestine" and that the Palestinians have no rights in their homeland is fallacious and stupid. Yes, between 1920 and 1922, what is now the kingdom of Jordan was administered as part of the British Mandate of Palestine but that does not change the facts of Palestinian oppression west of the Jordan.

A perfect analogy could be made with the situation in Virginia in 1830. At that time, slaves were rebelling against the legal slave system in Virginia but, prior to 1787, what are now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin were the northwestern districts of Virginia. In that year, they were separated out to form the Northwest Territory. Under the Northwest Ordinance forming the new territory, slavery was banned north of the Ohio river ---

By the logic of the Zionists, one could have said that Nat Turner need not have rebelled because over 90% of Virginia was free territory -- if Blacks didn't want to be slaves, they should simply have moved to Wisconsin.

"WHY DO THEY HATE US?"

A little while ago, the US Occupation authorities closed down two Iraqi businesses -- for the crime of trying to set up cel-phone services in Baghdad.

Apparently they were competing with the exclusive contracts being given out to Israeli and American companies (MCI also received one).

So, as I understand it, the occupiers claim they are there to bring the benighted Iraqis capitalist democracy. To do this, they jail political opponents, taking special care to go after parties that have criticized the cancerous state to the west of the Jordan and close down businesses that might compete with the businesses of the colonists from said cancerous state.

And they will wonder "why do they hate us?" ... (if I were an Iraqi, I'd consider anyone with one of these Israeli phones the blackest of traitors, fit only for the noose.)

THE ARAB STREET?

OK, we all hear these claims that the collectivity of the Arabs (all three hundred million or so without exception presumably) are all united in blaming all their problems on Israel repeated endless in all types of Western media.

While living and travelling in several Arab states and following the Arabic press, I never heard this said by anyone other than by hypothetical "straw-men". I heard anger and resentment over Israeli, American, and other western colonialism and interventionism in the Middle East, the forced (at point of arms) dependency of the Arab states and many, many people blaming the leaderships' collaborationism for the failure to end this situation ... but no one ever pinned all blame on Israel.

Similairly, I have yet to see a call for the extermination of all Jews from any Arab whatsoever. I have seen many, many slogans such as "No Arabs = No Terror", "It would be easier to kill them all", etc coming from Israel's far right as well as the numerous "kill'em all and let God sort'em out", "Nuke Baghdad", etc slogans in the USA.

Would the people making these accusations regarding the collective will of "the Arabs" please provide documentary evidence and proof that such attitudes are normative? Something more than a poorly translated quote taken out of context?

ELON VISITS ATLANTA

So, the Israeli Minister of Tourism is coming to town as part of an American tour where he'll be primarily visiting conservative Christian leaders. What's the big deal? It would seem logical that someone charged with increasing tourism to the Christian Holy Land might want to reach out to people who would be most interested in pilgrimages to Nazareth, Bethlehem and the Holy Sepulchre, right?

Except Benny Elon isn't here to promote low-priced package tours and budget hotels. He's not even here to spread a message that Israel is a safe place for pilgrims and other holiday makers.

And the people he is meeting with aren't primarily interested in Israel as a place to snap photos of sites associated with sacred histories.

So, what's going on? Who is Benny Elon? Who is he meeting? And why?

Benny Elon is a member of Ariel Sharon's cabinet but he has long staked out a position considerably to the right of Sharon himself. As well as being a member of Sharon's coalition, Elon is a party leader in his own right. His party, Moledet (Homeland), was started by General (res.) Rechavam (Gandhi) Ze´evi and, for many years, remained beyond the pale of the acceptable limits of Israeli politics as Ze´evi revived the idea of ´transfer´ (the forced removal of the non-Jewish Palestinian Arabs from the Occupied Territories). Moledet´s 1988 election campaign slogan was, "Us here; them there." Transfer meratzon - voluntary transfer - became the new terminology. Moledet wasn´t banned from the elections and they won one seat.

Even so, Moledet remained on the fringes for the next few years. With the outbreak of the Al-Aksa Intifada, ideas in the Israeli body politic have crystallized. Moledet was welcomed into Sharon's coalition and ´Transfer´ as a viable idea revived substantially, becoming less a fantasy of the far right and something openly debated. On its website, Moledet states that the party is "an ideological political party in Israel that embraces the idea of population transfer as an integral part of comprehensive plan [sic] to achieve real peace between the Jews and the Arabs Living in the Land of Israel."

As leader of the party since Zeevi's death in late 2001, Elon has shown that he doesn't necessarily see transfer as the end of Israel's struggle. He has openly discussed the idea of fomenting a campaign of extermination to wipe out Islam (a genocide that would be far vaster than the Holocaust):

"It's clear that Islam is on the way to disappearing," Elon asserts with certainty. "What we are now seeing across the Muslim world is not a powerful surge of faith but the dying embers of Islam. How will it disappear? Very simply. Within a few years a Christian crusade against Islam will be launched, which will be the major event of this millennium. Obviously, we will be up against quite a large problem when only the two great religions of Judaism and Christianity remain, but that's still a long way off."

While even Sharon has agreed in principle to Bush's Road map and the creation of an independent Palestinian State in Gaza and the West Bank (though a much more truncated state that any Palestinian leader is likely to accept), Elon has stood adamantly against it. In response to the Road Map, he issued his own "Right Road to Peace" that calls for a dissolution of the Palestinian Authority, the immediate destruction of all Palestinian refugee camps, and the remaking of Jordan into the "Palestinian State". He has said that he sees the forced resettlemet of Palestinians into the Sinai Desert as a positive good and, recently has proposed the expulsion of all Palestinians from Jerusalem and inside Israel itself.

Of course, such talk of creating an ethnically pure state is more in line with the "ethnic-cleansing" policies of Milosevic if not those of the Nazis than with any sort of commitment to peace. In most of the more democratic countries, such talk has been relegated to the lunatic fringe since 1945. In Israel, however, Elon has led the effort to make it a respectable option. As he has said, "people are saying we have had enough, we have seen wars and we have seen the Oslo agreement with all of its bloodshed. I want to remind them of this platform and to remove the taboo from public discussion."

Elon himself currently resides in the illegal West Bank settlement of Beit El, a place that overlooks the Palestinian towns of Ramallah and El Bireh, both of which have long had large and prosperous Christian populations. Presumably, when Elon looks out his window, he sees land to develop and people to expel from their homes, regardless of religion.

So why on earth would Christian ministers want to consort with a man who wants to kick out the last Christians in Jesus's homeland? Aren't they supposed to be Evangelicals? Shouldn't they want to see more rights granted to the Christians in Israel/Palestine? Why would they want them eliminated?

Well, the people Elon will be meeting -- Roberta Combs (President of The Christian Coalition of America), Mike Evans (Chairman of The Jerusalem Prayer Team), Ed Mcateer (Founder of the Moral Majority), former Presidential Candidate Gary Bauer, Janet Parshall (national Christian radio talk show host), and a variety of others -- are hardly normative Christians but are rather adherents to a peculiar theology known as "Dispensationalism". Dispensationalists aren't particularly interested in bettering the lives of people in the here and now or even much in the saving of souls but, rather, have as their unifying principle the goal of hurrying on the Apocalypse and the Return of Christ to Earth. To bring about the series of events that they foresee as ushering in the end of the world, they believe it necessary to bring about the emigration of the world's entire Jewish population to Israel. Once there, they believe, a fraction of the Jews will become Christians while the rest are slaughtered.

If anything, one would think that a group of Christians who want to see American Jewry forced to emigrate and look forward to the mass slaughter of the world's Jewish population would hardly be the sort of Christian any self-respecting Jew would want to meet. But Elon has stated repeatedly how much he enjoys working with the Dispensationalists. Why? Because unlike much of the American Jewish community, they are staunchly committed to the continuation of Israel's Occupation of the West Bank, the growth of the settlements and, even, the more extreme elements of the proposed transfer. To that end, dispensationalists have raised over sixty million dollars for building new settlements and some, such as televangelist Mike Evans with his (and Benny Elon's) Adopt-a-Settler Campaign, have shown a deeper commitment to the most extreme policies of the Israeli state than all but the most right-wing of American Jews. They have villified the last three American Presidents as (unwitting) tools of the Anti-Christ every time an initiative that might lead to any alleviation of Palestinian suffering has appeared on the American political horizon.

It is because of this apparent commonality of interests that Elon is coming to Atlanta: he hopes to help rally Dispensationalist Christian Zionists against the Road Map and the Peace Process and unleash them on Congress and the Republican Party. They will, he believes, neutralize Bush's tiny steps towards peace between Israel and the Palestinians and pressure Ariel Sharon to take an even harder line against the Palestinians.


Benny Elon hopes to destroy the truce that has emerged over the past few months, torpedo the peace process, and bring a far bloodier conflict that we've yet seen as Israel adopts his ideas of a "final solution" of the Palestinian problem. And the far-right Christians who support him only increase the dangers.

NAWAL EL SAADAWI

Recently, I had several conversations regarding Nawal el Saadawi. Several years ago (1992), she was supposed to speak at a conference in Chicago that I attended but had to cancel due to illness (it was of a leftist Palestinian women's organization whose name I forget). At the time, I knew little of her other than of the general awe many of the conferees had of her; Samiha el-Khalil was substituted as keynote speaker and even she was clearly seen as second best.

Sometime after that, I first encountered the critique of her -- that she was somehow serving the "enemy" by airing "dirty laundry". And, certainly, she has benefitted (in terms of finding publishers in the USA, for instance) from the simple fact that a large portion of those in power (or sitting near enough to it) are more than happy to see anything that appears to back-up their belief that Arabs and Muslims are backwards peoples who need the guidance of the Great White Fathers (or, in, say Betty Friedan and others cases, the Great White Mothers) to show them the way to a reasonable level of modernity. Of course, that thinking is the path of those who seek to bring "democracy" and "free enterprise" to Iraq and such people have embraced Saadawi as saying what they want to here.

She, of course, is not the only Arab writer to be so embraced and unlike some others -- Kenan Makiya and Fouad Ajami come immediately to mind -- has not taken their embrace to heart (consider how both of those two went from being supporters of the Palestinian cause and critics of the Arab establishment to being promoted as talking heads who heap praise on Israel and US occupation forces (and grown immensely rich doing so) while Saadawi has an unblemished record of support for the Palestinian struggle and against the American wars on Iraq). She is also far from the only one not given over to the 'other side' who's been criticized for airing Arab errors; I more than once have received strong worded attacks on Dr Said and Said Aburish for daring to criticize Arafat.

But, unlike these others, Saadawi has not made a name criticizing the affairs of state over which all but a handful have much power in the Arab East (if even they really do); rather, she has challenged the inherent sexism in Arab masculine culture. So, of course, that is something over which individuals can do more than just complain and, so, they'll be more personally affronted ... and more likely to come to join in her rebuking than they would over, say, Edward Said's.

Of course, Saadawi is cited for actual factual reasons in many sources that have attempted to create the "black legend" of the Arabs (and have largely succeded); that fantastical muddle where the most backwards sexist aspects of the Taliban and the Wahhabis are made general rules (quite a number of American soldiers were shocked on arrival in Iraq that women weren't kept in purdah or all veiled or banned from driving and so on). In that hosile myth, female genital mutilation, a custom of rural Egyptians, Sudanese, Eritreans, Ethiopians and Somalis regardless whether they are Christian, Muslim, or other (and predating Islam by millenia), is made to be the norm for all Muslims even though it is as alien to Iraq or Palestine as it is to Norway. Can Saadawi be blamed for the use others make of her texts? Of course not.

I'm reminded of a recent "scandal" involving Norman Finkelstein. Finkelstein is a vocal critic of Israel, of the Zionist use of the Holocaust, and, in general, of much of American Jewish culture. I've read a number of his books and they ring true. Unbeknownst to Finkelstein, some neo-Nazis got hold of his books and were promoting them, putting his material on websites and so on. Soon enough, a number of Jewish activists became aware of this and, before long, the libel that Finkelstein was somehow a neo-Nazi supporter made the rounds; he is very much the opposite of course ...

Anyway, as I ramble on this subject, I also find myself in an odd position regarding problems internal to the Arab world, that of the passionate and partisan outsider. As an outsider supporting the Arab cause, how am I to deal with blemishes on the cause and the culture? How much energy should I exert in calling Arabs and Muslims to task for their faults when I am neither? Is it even appropriate? Or appropriate only over a few beers or a backgammon board but not in the public sphere? It's an old dilemma, one of which I am sure I'm not the first to find myself in and one to which I have no easy answers. I want to be honest, yes, but, at the same time, I don't want to be the source of things used as ammunition against. It's something I struggle with.

Anyway, here's a quick quote in closing from Dr Saadawi that seems appropriate:

"Despite these historical facts the racism still prevalent in Western societies continues to link veiling of women with Islam alone . This is an integral part of the anti - Arab policies followed by Western ruling circles . It is one of the many arguments used to depict the Arabs and Islam as being the only religion which oppresses women and to justify pro - Israeli policies in the eyes of the public ."

http://www.nawalsaadawi.net/articlesby/racialdiscrimination.htm

MIDEAST "CALM"

Today's AJC (8-12-03) ran a headline saying "Bombers shatter calm in Mideast" and stating that the killing of two Israelis in a pair of suicide-bombings rattled a "shaky mideast truce". While the bombings are deplorable and certainly do nothing to build an environment conducive to building a lasting peace, they are hardly the first events to shake the truce.

Israel has in July alone carried out 854 violations of the truce according to human rights groups in the region. Israelis have killed seven Palestinians including four children under 18, one man who was assassinated by Israeli troops and two others, who were killed by Israeli settlers. Israeli tanks shelled residential districts and houses 299 times while public and private establishments were bombed 312 times. A mosque, a church and six security posts were also destroyed during repeatedly Israeli incursions into Palestinian territories while 189 Palestinian homes were also demolished in July.

Calling such a season of violence and constant violation of the truce a time of "calm" so long as no Israeli civilians are injured does a tremendous disservice to both Palestinians and Israelis -- and, by obscuring actual events, only serves to build a climate of one-sided and biased reporting. For those killed or suffering from closings and deolitions, it has hardly been "calm" at all.

ISRAEL-IRAQ CONNECTION

A recent New York Times article discusses the flight of an Israeli plane bearing six Iraqi Jews to Israel. In it

THE BLOOD SUCKERS OF IRAQ

A group of American war criminals who were captured red-handed in their genocidal activities (murdering Iraqi civilians in indiscriminatory terror bombings) in 1991 have had the gall to sue the Iraqi state and people for psychological damages, alleging that they were tortured (a fact that was disproved in 1991).

These cowardly mercenaries, hired killers for the first Bush junta, claim that they were cruelly set upon by the wicked Iraqis who captured them. Now, an American kangaroo court has rewarded these professional killers nearly a billion dollars of Iraqi money. This is perhaps one of the most odious decisions in American legal history, ona par with the Dred Scott decisionin terms of its utter immorality.

If an international criminal court existed, these "men" would deserv to be dragged before it: at the time that they were shot down over Iraq, they were engaged in mass-murder. They are lucky that the former Iraqi government followed international norms of behavios, capturing them and paroling them at war's end. Had the Iraqis used the standards of the Bushite Junta, they'd have been declared "enemy combatants" and sent to disappear inside torture camps forver with no word of their fate.

Of course, were these murderers Ukrainians and were the Iraqis Jewish, the US courts would now be ordering their deportation to Israel and allowing Israel to execute them.

REBUILD THE MUKHABART?

The New York Times ran an article the other day about how the US Occupation government is working closely with Ahmed Chalbi to revive the Iran arm of the former Iraqi government's intelligence service. The possibility of recruiting the other international Iraqi espionage units is also raised as well as the fact that the US is trying to establish firm contacts and control over Saddam's old allies in the Mujahideen e Khalq, the Iranian collaborationists of the Iran-Iraq war.

One wonders whether the rehabilitation of Iraqi Secret Police is supposed to aid in the alleged "democratization" of Iraq and how long it will be before they are turned on internal dissidents. After all, they do have a long history of keeping tabs on many of the groups who were opposed to both Saddam and the US ...

Certainly, it is strange that the US makes such a big propaganda effort talking about the horrible, terrible deeds done by the old regime yet is already hiring its most notorious elements ....

US EXPERIENCE IN IRAQ EXPLAINS SUPPORT OF ISRAEL

For years, I've heard people wondering why the USA sends billions every year to aid Israel. It's obvious to nearly everyone what the Israelis get out of their relationship with the USA ... but what does the American government gain?

It's simple, really.

Israel does for itself -- and on the American behalf -- exactly what the US is now trying to accomplish in Iraq. It holds Arab land, controls a strategic area, serves as an advance base, divides up the Arab and Muslim countries ... and does it all at an exceedingly low price.

For what the Americans are spending on its troops every 40 days in Iraq (not counting other costs), Israel provides a year's worth ... under budget and ahead of schedule ...

Plus, support of Israel brings more positive domestic consequences than does direct rule in Iraq ...

The British figured out that an Israeli base was cheaper than a British colony and the Amercicans took over their role as patron ... the only mistake they made was thinking they could do it better themselves.

ARAB JEWS: FORGOTTEN REFUGEES?

In the past few months, various Zionist groups have begun promoting the cause of Jewish "refugees" from the Arab states as an equivalent cause to that of the Palestinian refugees. Some have gone even further and have begun to press the United States to restore lost properties to them in Iraq and elsewhere.

The tragedy of the Arab Jewish communities is one that should not be forgotten. These communities, the most ancient Jewish communities in the world, have all but disappeared in a relatively brief period after thousands of years of prosperity and lack of persecution. The Arabic speaking Jews, once they moved to Israel or the West, were discouraged from speaking their native language or idntifying themselves with their homelands but were largely forced to accept a European notion of Jewish identity.

Centuries of peaceful coexistence between Muslim and Jewish Arabs collapsed after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. There were riots in some cities that involved the looting of Jewish owned businesses. Many soon moved to Israel. But are they refugees on a par with the Palestinians?

(Of course, a True Zionist must deny that they were refugees because how can one be a refugee when one leaves a temporary home for one's True Home? And is not Zionism based on the notion that, outside Israel, Jews can only ever be passing strangers?)

Here are a few interesting things to note about the so-called Jewish refugees from Arab lands:

-- Israel's intelligence services undertook coordinated campaigns of bombing and terror AGAINST JEWS in Iraq and Egypt with the intention of frightening them into leaving their homelands (the Lavon Affair, etc)

-- The CIA deliberately fomented anti-Jewish feeling in Iraq and elsewhere by promoting the notion that Jews were behind Communism and funded anti-Communist Islamic groups that they supplied with anti-semitic propaganda.

-- Many Jews who departed Arab lands between 1948 & 1967 left as part of the decolonization process; Jews in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco were heavily identified with the departing colonial regimes and often served in the British and French gendarmeries and colonial governments. Speaking French or English rather than Arabic, they were widely viewed as not identifying ith their homelands but with Europe. Along with these Jews, many Christian traders (largely Greek, Maltese, and Italian) left the newly independent Arab states. This process had nothing to do with Israel; similair phenomena affected colonial trading classes throughout Africa and Asia (the departure of the Hindus from Uganda is the best known).

-- Many, if not all, Jews who moved from some areas were actually economic migrants rather than either refugees or Zionists. The clearest example of this is the movement of the extremely poor and backwards Yemeni Jewish population (Yemen at the time was one of the poorest and most isolated countries on Earth -- roughly a million Yemeni Muslims also migrated out during the same period (though principally to the Gulf States). Such people, given the opportunities available in Israel, would have been foolish not to migrate.

-- Most third-world Jewish communities migrated to Israel during the same years, regardless of the local political situation or other factors. The combined lure of greater economic opportunities in a vastly wealthier and more developed Israel and the lure of the Zionist enterprise spelled the end of the ancient Jewish communities of Hindu India and Christian Ethiopia. The same causes that spelled the end of the Cochin Jewish community on the Malabar Coast pulled migrants from Yemen and Morocco and had nothing to do with persecutions.

-- In Lebanon, the Jewish community only departed during the Civil War and the Israeli Invasion in 1982 --- after the main synagogue in Beirut was bombed by an errant Israeli missile -- spelled the end of the community.

-- Finally, what were the persecutions Jews faced in the Arab states? They were banned from the armies of most countries (and so did not have to fight against other Jews) and some faced economic hardship. A few shops were burnt in rioting. But were many killed? No. The only Jews executed by the Arab states in the period were executed for treason and espionage, a crime which American Jews like the Rosenbergs also faced at the time.

To imagine that willing migrants can be equated to refugees is preposterous and is pure propaganda. Interestingly, in a handful of Arab states, restrictions were placed on Jews denying them the right to emigrate! This, too, has been used as evidence of the vast Arab anti-semitic conspiracy ...

Apparently, the Muslim and Christian Arabs are damned if they want Jews to live with them, damned if they don't.

THE REJECTIONISTS OF TODAY

Conventional wisdom in the USA says that the potential for peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors has collapsed because the Arabs reject peace and refuse to live alongside Israel. But is this really true?

Among the Arab groups who have publicly stated their willingness to live in peace with Israel so long as it withdraws completely from the West Bank and Gaza and fulfills its other obligations according to UN Resolutions 194,242, 338, 273, etc. (what was, before the Clinton-era, the standard American policy stated by every President) are:

-- The Arab League
-- The PLO
-- Fatah
-- The DFLP
-- The PFLP
-- HAMAS
-- The Palestinian Authority
-- Hizbollah
-- The governments of the following Arab states: Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria, kuwait, and the former (pre-April 2003) government of Iraq

Last March, the Saudis proposed a peace plan and called an extra-ordinary session of the Arab League. The League agreed with the principle of full recognition of Israel in return for full Israeli withdraw to the buundaries of June 1, 1967. Even Saddam Hussein accepted the two-state solution in principle.

But nothing came of it. Why not? A few short days later, Ariel Sharon began the massive incursions into the West Bank (best remembered for the events that occured in Jenin and Ramallah) and the Arab League's plans were shelved.

Of course, the fact that virtually every Palestinian organization and virtually every Arab state actor has agreed to the principle of a two-state solution has been conveniently forgotten by the American media and Israel's backers.

So why is there no peace? Is it because the Arabs are unwilling to compromise? Maybe in the past, but in recent years, no. More likely, because Israel's governing coalitions refuse to fully withdraw but remain in thrall to the radical settler movements that advocate the complete removal of a Palestinian presence.

Every Arab state has publicly stated its commitment to the idea of Israel as a neighbor, a neighbor within its 1966 boundaries and no longer occupying the territories. All the major Palestinian organization have also accepted this position.

Yes, Arab rejectionism was a problem in the past but today?

The Rejectionist Camp is that of the Israeli Right.

Israel could have real peace with its neighbors immediately if it would fully withdraw from all the territories occupied in 1967 (Gaza, West Bank, Golan Hts, and Jerusalem). All the Arab state actors are committed to this as well as the majority of the population.

Israel refuses.

And that is why there is war.

IRAQI SOVIETS?

Yesterday morning, I heard an interesting piece on NPR. It discussed how, at the Sumer Cigarette Factory in Baghdad, workers had driven off the former Ba'th Party management and elected their own Workers' Council to run the plant. As one of the few state run enterprises that wasn't looted, the Cigarette Factory could easily serve as a model for a democratizing Iraq.

One could easily imagine workers in other sectors organizing themselves and putting themselves back to work. Clearly, this story was showing what democracy really looks like.

But, guess what?

Our pal Paul Bremer has declared that workers cannot hold elections. There are to be no elected management teams in Iraq but only ones appointed by the Vice-Roy.

Yet again, Bremer shows that all the American talk about democracy was just that, talk; Bremer is fast imposing a Likudnik's dream of a perfect colonial state in the General Gouvernement of Iraq. Anti-Saddam political parties are being banned and their leaders incarcerated for opposing Bremer's will; Bremer hides behind more fortifications than Saddam ever did; the US bombs a mosque in Fallujah; Night and Fog operations are being undertaken against any who oppose the New Order ...

SOME THOUGHTS ON ZIONISM

Lately, some people have been expressing the idea that Anti-Zionism equals Anti-Semitism. They argue that this is so saying that "it denies, by definition, Jews a right to national self-determination." Of course, this notion is based on several extremely debatable hypotheses, namely that 1) Jews are a Nation, 2) That Zionism is the expression of Jewish Nationalism, 3) All self-proclaimed Nations have a right to self-determination, and 4) That denying such a right is a form of racism.

First off, what exactly is a nation? This, of course, is not an easily answered question but a classical nation would be a community of people who speak a common language, share common customs and folkways, share a common homeland, share a common history, and feel a bound of unity among themselves that separates them from other communities. Ideally, said nation will not overlap in territory or language with others. Of course, few imagined communities meet all criteria and some meet few but are generally recognized as nations. Perhaps the best definition of a nation is that the people in it thinki of themselves as a people apart from all others and have no loyalties to other nations.

So, then, are Jews a nation? While I would argue that Israelis have been in the process of becoming a distinct nation over the past century or so (most speak a common language -- Modern Hebrew, have a clear geographic area, and are developing a shared history and culture) and that several of the Jewish communities in the diaspora form either distinct nations or sub-nations (such as the now dying Yiddish speaking East European Jewish People), Jews throughout the world are a collection of communities sharing a common religion.

But can religious communities be the basis of nations? Surely, Jews are not alone in defining themselves as a Nation based on a religious community: Armenian-ness comes quickly to mind as another religiously defined community as do the peoples of former Yugoslavia, the Serbs, croats and Bosnians who separate themselves based on religious lines. Other nations have also grown up around religious definitions; think only of how non-Catholics have been deemed outsiders fit only for extermination by the Irish Nationalists regardless of how many thousand years they have been in Ireland or of the divides in the Indian sub-continent.

So, then, are all religions either themselves nations or at least potential ones? Is denying a right to an independent state for any of them then whatever the appropriate equivalent of anti-semitism is? Do the Zoroastrians (or Parsees) have a right to form an independent Zoroastrian state in their historic homeland (Iran)? What of the Sikhs in the Punjab? Closer to home, how about the Mormons in Utah? Or the Jains? The Druze? What about sects of larger religions -- Shia Muslims or Presbyterians, for example -- do they also qualify?

Such a simple definition quickly descends into madness as there are nearly an infinite number of competing religious claims.

So what then of language as a test for nation-hood? Jews do not speak a uniform language but the languages of wherever they live as well as several languages and dialects spoken especially by Jews (Yiddish, Ladino, etc). Is linguistic separation a necessity as well as religious? Surely then the Pennsylvania-Dutch speaking Amish (who also meet the religious identity test and have a long history of being victims of insidious persecution) have a right to an independent state in Lancaster, PA, ne c'est pas?

Or is a nation defined by some identifiable ethnic or racial category? Is denying African-Americans the right to an independent homeland racist? Certainly, many, many feel themselves to be a Nation and even speak frequently of "the Black Nation".

Or must a nation have existed in the past? Do Southern Whites or Texans qualify as Nations as both do have histories of independence and distinct cultures? Does denying the neo-Confederate movement the right to re-secede equate with anti-southern bigotry?

But to move on. Assuming that Jews are in fact a nation, is Zionism the only expression of a right to national self-determination? What about other Jewish national movements, like the Bundists, who called for a Jewish, Yiddish-speaking homeland in Europe? Were they anti-semitic when they refused Zionism's answers?

What about Jews who are anti-Zionist and do not see Judaism as a Nation? There are many secular and religious Jewish organizations that vehemently oppose Zionism. Are they anti-semitic?

What about assimilationist Jews who identify with the USA rather than Israel as their "nation". Are they anti-semitic?

If Jews are a nation apart from their neighbors (Americans, French, British, etc) who belong to those nations, then does that not make Jews outside Israel foreigners? Should American Jews be stripped of American citizenship and sent to Israel? Is condemning such an act anti-semitic?

Where does the madness end?

THE SELLING OF IRAQ

Paul Bremer, Bush's Vice-roy in Baghdad, has proven himself as incompetent as any of the other neo-cons at rebuilding Iraq (of course, we all know that was never their real objective). He claims to want to see an Iraqi democracy but, when one of the American generals actually took the Administration seriously and began working towards fair and free elections in Najaf (registering voters, allowing political organizing), Bremer struck it down, banning the election and jailing Iraqi politicians who had questioned American intentions.

And, now, he has announced that the United States plans to transform Iraq's economy into a "free market" and make the country "open for business" to the world's multinational companies. At a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Jordan, he said that the changes will include introducing property rights and anti-trust laws, cutting subsidies, opening up the country to trade and foreign investment and privatizing government businesses.

"I want to say to them that I am optimistic that the coalition will succeed in transforming the Iraqi economy from a closed, dead-end system to an open vibrant place to do business," said Bremer. "Without the discipline of the market, state-owned enterprises not only failed to create value, they destroyed it."

Bremer said the US's immediate priorities are reforming Iraq's financial sector in order to provide liquidity and credit for the economy, followed by simplifying regulations to lower barriers for new firms, "domestic and foreign". In the next phase, officials will change Iraq's commercial laws, lift restrictions on property rights and develop anti-trust and competition laws. . One option to create a safety net, Bremer said, was to distribute some oil revenues to Iraqis as "dividends", similar to the system used by the US state of Alaska. Or, revenues could be deposited in a national "trust fund" used to finance public pensions or other elements of a social safety net during the transition period, he said.

Of course, Bremer's colonial mentality doesn't seem to register the fact that the Iraqis had done a bit of work on investing those dividends themselves. While more pro-US oil states like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia had invested the bulk of their oil earnings in western stocks, hotel properties and second homes, the Iraqis had built capital improvements to their country. Import-substitution had been a goal and, before the American invasions began, Iraq had one of the most developed economies in the Arab states.

Now, all those gains will be sacrificed and sold off to the gnomes of Wall Street. "Privitization" and the selling of national asets has worked so well in Argentina, Russia and elsewhere it is no wonder that the neo-cons want to import it to Iraq!

Of course, if the US Occupation Government sells off Iraqi public property to private interests (Iraqi or foreign), it will be committing a gross violation of the Geneva Conventions. Any future independent Iraqi government will not just be justified in ignoring such privatizations but will actually be impelled to tear up any contracts. This theft of the Iraqi patrimony makes any looting by Iraqis seem like child's play; the real looters are not in Sadr City; the real looters are the ones who come with Halliburton or hide within the Republican Palace (beneath more layers of defense than Saddam ever needed!)!

U. S. INVADES SYRIA!!!!!!!!

I don't know whether anyone else noticed but the US military invaded yet another country over the weekend.

In an operation that was mainly publicized for the possibility that, this time, the US might finally have succeded in assasinating Saddam and his sons (a posibility that had been dismissed by the time I sat down), US Special Forces attacked a convoy believed to be carrying high-level officials from the last legal Iraqi government. The action happened "near the Syrian border", between the Iraqi town of Qaim and the Syrian town of Abu Kamal (both along the Middle Euphrates).

In the fighting, six Syrian border guards were injured and were then taken away by the Americans.

This fighting, which appears to have been inside Syria, was dismissed by Reichsmarshall Rumsfeld and other members of the illegal Bush junta and its officers in charge of dismembering Iraq. The Americans are refusing to release the six Syrians that were kidnapped by their mercenary troops and are presently holding them as hostages inside Occupied Iraq.

Why isn't the UN meeting right now about this violation of Syrian sovereignty? What the USA has done is an act of war and aggression; if the UN wants to be taken seriously, it should assemble a coalition to force the American occupiers out of Iraq and protect Syria from further aggression.

After all, that was the precedent established in 1990.

SETTLERS

This was sent to me as an email:

Subject: Exchange With a Zionist
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2003 08:32:02 -0700

One of my students, a self-described "ardent Zionist", in a brief exchange, asked me why I was concerned about the slaughter of Palestinians by the Israeli forces but said nothing about the "terrorism"--and victims--of the Palestinians. I responded "Could I answer your question with a question or some questions?" This student said go ahead. I asked if this student knew that in addition to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the uprising at Treblinka, there were other uprisings by Jewish and non-Jewish partisans who routinely killed not only nazi soldiers but also German settlers who had been brought in to create and hold "Lebensraum". The student said he was aware of that fact. I asked how many nazi soldiers or German settlers were killed by partisans. The student said he did not know. I asked the student if he cared how many nazi soldiers or German settlers had been killed by partisans and he said "no, I do not care." I asked if it was likely that some children of nazi soldiers or German settlers had also been killed and he said it was likely. I then asked if he thought the partisans should have ceased their resistance to nazi occupation given the prospects that some children might also be killed and he said of course not.

I then noted that in answering my questions he had also answered the question he had posed to me.


Sending this on, several people wondered about those German settlers and whether they did exist. German settlers has both a longer and a more narrow definition :

from the High Middle Ages onwards, Germans moved eastwards in waves of organized settlement, colonizing large parts of what were Slavic and Baltic inhabited lands (at the turn of the last millenium, the German-Slavic frontier ran roughly along the Elbe River in what is now central Germany). In Prussia, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Brandenburg and Upper Saxony and some areas of what are now Poland and the Czech Republic, the German settlers overwhelmed the locals (who became oppressed peasants) and thoroughly Germanized the areas. Further east, in Latvia and Estonia, as well as in Slovenia, the German settlers formed a military aristocracy. Further east still, in Hungary, the Ukraine, parts of South Russia, and Romania, German settlers formed distinct communities without either conquering the locals or overwhelming them (many of the cities of eastern and central Europe were originally founded by Germans and many were still largely German and Jewish until the 19th century and later; recall that Kafka wrote of his native Prague in German and not Czech).

The Nazis drew inspiration from this history of colonization and intended to found new German agricultural and urban communities in the conquered territories of Poland and the Soviet Union. After exterminating the Jews, they intended to gradually eliminate the Poles and other Slavic peoples (through death camps, hard labor and mass forced resettlement east of the Urals) and replace them with German settlers. During this period of gradual de-slavification, German settlements would be founded and their existence would create "facts on the ground" to drive the process. In addition, colonies of German veterans would form a ready militia to hold the newly conquered "lebensraum" (literally. "living room", space for further German expansion in Europe). Warsaw, for instance, was to be destroyed as a Polish city and replaced with a German farming town. Some "volksdeutsch" were moved eastwards from the Italian Tyrol but, in general, population expansion was seen as the driving mechanism for this growth.

Does this policy sound familiar?

Of course, along with these settlers, partisans attacked German civilians doing government work and collaborationists ...

Perhaps, the Americans in the new Mesopotamian territories should heed this history as well as the settlers of Yesha ....

Pro-Israel Resolution in Georgia House Sparks Debate

Sara Totonchi, an activist involved with Atlanta Palestine Solidarity, was at the Georgia State Capital on other business one morning lin February. She happened to take a glance at what business the State Legislature was taking up that day and saw, in addition to numerous local concerns, a bill that would put the State of Georgia on record as aligning itself with the most right-ward tendencies in Israeli politics.

Introduced by Representatives Don Wix (D-Mableton) and Doug Teper (D-Dekalb) the resolution was designed to provide an unconditional approval from the state of Georgia to all of Israel’s policies. Ms. Totonchi was outraged by what she read and immediately began placing calls to other activists to let them know what was going on. E-mails and phone calls began coming in to legislators from throughout the state while other activists personally lobbied against the bill.

Due in no small part to this grass-roots activism, House Resolution 50, never made it out of the Rules Committee of the Georgia House by the end of the session.

The introduction of HR-50 signals an increased interest in groups trying to link local politics and US foreign policy. Last February, the Atlanta City Council adopted a resolution (03-R-0195) opposing the war on Iraq and also calling for the US to, “secure a just and lasting peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Georgians who are opposed to HR-50 see it as unrepresentative of their positions, viewing it as one-sided. Leah Lunsford, a member of a local advocacy group named Atlanta Palestine Solidarity believes that, “HR-50 was attempting to portray Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land as part of the so-called US 'war on terrorism'.” Members of the Palestinian-American community were also concerned that the resolution did not even refer to them by name, but rather by calling them ‘Arabs’ thus implicitly dismissed their nationality. Yosef Abu-Neaj, a descendant of Palestinian refugees considers it blatant racism that in the resolution, “the right to return is accepted for Israelis whose ancestors left 2000 years ago and not for Palestinians, many of whom were forced out within the last five decades.”

Many argued that the issue with HR-50 is more of what it fails to mention. Rani El-Hajjar, a member of Palestine Media Watch says, “No where in HR-50 is there word about the settler terrorists or the apartheid wall that Israel is building to lock-in the Palestinians.” He believes that the failure to recognize the various forms of Israeli terrorism is what makes this resolution one-sided. Samir Moukkadam, Middle East Program director at the American Friends Service Committee (Southern Office) credits the outreach to the entire progressive community that generated calls and emails to the House representatives. He believes that it was not difficult to convince progressive communities whether Arab or Jewish that HR-50 was a bad idea, he said he put the resolution as simply, “bad for Israel, bad for Palestine.”

The sponsors of the resolution were awarded the "People's Business" Award from Creative Loafing, a local alternative weekly as part of their annual ‘Golden Sleaze Awards’. The award cited the sponsors for “hoping to take advantage of the post-Sept. 11 anger towards all things Islamic”. They noted how the resolution “neglected to mention the 32 U.N. resolutions Israel has violated since 1968, most egregiously for continuing to build settlements in occupied territories.”

The debate about HR-50 is now over. However, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and continuing tensions in the Middle-East are likely to continue being issues affecting Georgia politics.

A ROAD MAP TO NOWHERE

After much anticipation, the so-called "Quartet" of the United States, European Union, United Nations, and Russian Federation has belatedly offered its long-awaited "Roadmap" for a comprehensive and final solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

While we applaud any and all genuine efforts to achieve a lasting and just peace to this conflict, we cannot help but look at this plan as one that is deeply flawed. Rather than reaching towards mutual understanding and compromise, it uses the fig-leaf of international effort to push a hegemonic vision of American power and Israeli control while offering little more than thinly veiled threats to the Palestinians.

Recent events support this analysis, as neither of the parties summoned to Aqaba by President Bush (the Government of Israel represented by Ariel Sharon and the Palestinian Authority represented by Mahmoud Abbas) has shown a genuine enthusiasm about it. In fact, the situation has deteriorated, as violence has become more widespread with attacks emanating from Israel, counterattacks from the Palestinian resistance movements, and further reprisals.

The Sharon government, after initially rejecting the plan, has indeed paid lip-service to the Road Map; however, the actions of Israel's military speaks far louder. After widely publicizing their demolition of a scant handful of outposts of outposts (an empty trailer, a guard tower that guards nothing) in what are termed "illegal" settlements (a new term that misleadingly suggests some of the settlements are, in fact, legal), the Israelis have continued in recent days with their relentless drive towards increasing the size and scope of the illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories; they have carried out multiple assassination attempts against Palestinian political leaders, killing by-standers in the process; they have indiscriminately shelled civilians going about their daily lives; they have continued the policy of aggressive home demolitions purportedly banned under the roadmap; and they have actively encouraged mass demonstrations of Jewish extremists calling for the elimination of the Palestinian people in their homeland. Such an act of ethnic cleansing appears to be nearing possibility as the Israeli army is threatening to kill all members of HAMAS (the Islamic Resistance Movement) "from the lowliest to Sheik Yassin." Threats of violence on such a scale, if carried through, could easily approach the level of genocide.

Amongst the Palestinians, unease with the proposed roadmap has been widespread and the capitulationist statements of Mahmoud Abbas at the Aqaba summit and elsewhere have been roundly criticized by all the major Palestinian political movements of Left, Right, and Center (the PFLP, HAMAS, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah). These statements appear to give away all Palestinian rights and be little more than the begging of Abbas for a few crumbs of rights to be granted. Most recognize that the plan is not a road map to a lasting peace but a path towards permanent recognition of perpetual Israeli domination over Palestine; the crushing of the legitimate hopes, dreams and aspirations of the Palestinian people, and American Imperial supremacy as the final arbiter in all things.

Even the Bush Administration has failed in its plans for domination of the Arab Middle East. Recent days have brought news of massacres of Iraqi resisters to American occupation forces and nearly continuous word of the failure of American power to establish any semblance of legitimacy beyond that acheived through the barrel of a gun. As the Iraqi experience shows, this Administration is incapable of working towards peaceful solutions through diplomacy, but rather relies purely on brute force. Recent history shows that such military solutions to the Palestinian/Israeli have invariably failed.

The problems with the road map are many. We present the following objections to it:

1. The Right of Return: the Road Map evades the issue of the Right of Return of the Palestinian Refugees to the homes they fled from or were forced out of by Israelis in 1947 and later. Israel's membership in the United Nations was made conditional in UN GA Resolution 273 upon its acceptance of the Right of Return with compensation for the Palestine refugees detailed in UN Resolution 194. Abandoning this fundamental right at this point will not bring peace but will leave several millions homeless and stateless. It will inevitably lead to future resistance. So long as the several millions of Palestinians who either themselves or their immediate ancestors were expelled or fled from the incipient State of Israel during the 1947-1949 Conflict are denied the fundamental right to live in their own homes, there can be no peaceful and just resolution to the conflict.

2. Jerusalem: the status of Jerusalem is left to final status negotiation. This is unacceptable. The shrines of the Haram al Sharif and the Holy Sepulchre in Arab East Jerusalem are central to the religious lives and identities of Palestinian Muslims and Christians and the city itself has long been the focus of Palestinian economic and social life as well as of Palestinian national aspirations. The UN and the other members of the Quartet have repeatedly deemed Israel's annexation of Arab East Jerusalem as illegal in UN Resolution 252 and elsewhere. It must end.

3. Borders of the Palestinian State: these, too, are left undefined and pressed off into the final stages. Sharon’s Israel has consistently and adamantly refused to return to the lines of the 4th of June, 1967 as the UN has demanded in Resolutions 242, 338, and others (and Israel has agreed to in principle). But, Sharon himself repeatedly said he would give no more than 42% of the West Bank back to the Palestinians, meaning that the original people of Palestine would eventually get less than 10% of their ancestral homeland. Rather than a Palestinian state divided between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, all Israeli proposals show nothing more than a scattered archipelago of Palestinian cantons, cut off from each other by highways built exclusively for the use of Israeli Jews, military outposts and settlements. Such a state will not be viable.

4. Settlements: the “peace” plan asks the Israelis merely to remove the “illegal” settlement outposts, e.g. those that were established without government approval. Aren’t all settlements illegal and illegitimate since they were built on occupied land in violation of international law? A single standard must be upheld, that of International Law as outlined in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which clearly states that "…the occupying power [Israel] cannot make demographic or territorial" changes to the territory it occupies by force.

5. Water and other environmental rights: no mention is made of the rights of the Palestinians to their own resources, including water, minerals, and agricultural products seized by Israel since 1967. Without access to the basic resources of its own territory, a Palestinian state cannot be viable, but will be forever dependent on Israel ofr the very survival of its inhabitants.

6. Restores the Status Quo of the Summer of 2000: the Road Map refers repeatedly to the military-political situation of 2000 as being a goal to be acheived. Israel will pull back its troops from areas it has re-occupied since that time as a reward for palestinian "good behavior". Such a pull-out should not be a result of the Road Map but should be a precondition for the start of negotiation. The violence that began after Ariel Sharon's infamous visit to the Al-Aksa Mosque in September 2000 did not spring forth in a vacuum; it emerged because the status quo at that time was unacceptable.

7. No Guarantees of Basic Human Rights: the Oslo era agreements failed because they disregarded human rights and international law and relied too much on Israel’s “good will.” Human rights and humanitarian law (such as those relating to medical and humanitarian access) are left out of the Road Map except as benchmarks for a process of trust-building. This is unacceptable. In the words of the UN Secretary-General's report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict: "The effective protection of civilians is a critical element in laying the foundations of the peace process. The durability of peace is dependent on a commitment to the protection of civilians from its very inception."

8. An Insult to Democracy: the entire Road Map envisions a small cadre of Palestinians deemed "acceptable" by the Israelis and their patrons over-riding the desires and sensibilities of the Palestinian people as a whole. Those who disagree with the Road Map are to be crushed, either by the Palestinian security services or by the Israelis themselves. The brute enforcement of the Road Map on its doubters makes nonsense in the terms of any normative concept of democracy.

9. One-sided view of Reform: the Road Map demands a Palestinian polity "practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty" and demands the writing of a Palestinian constitution with a strong Prime Minister. Yet it makes no such demands upon Israel, a state without a constitution governed by a maze of Emergency regulations and laws that privilege one ethno-religious group over all others. So long as the Israeli state is based on religious intolerance and apartheid-like laws privileging Israeli Jews over all others and denying non-Jews fundamental rights, it is an insult to demand Palestinian reform.

10. One-sided Restrictions on the Activities of Extremists: the Road Map outlines the ways and means with which Palestinian dissidents and hard-liners are to be crushed and views Palestinian intransigence as the sole source of failure. Yet the historic record has shown that the gravest threats to negotiated settlements come not from Palestinian extremists but from Israelis. Individuals such as Baruch Goldstein have perpetrated massacres (and been posthumously treated as heroes) with the goal of ending a peace-process. Entire Israeli political movements remain dedicated to destroying any hopes for peace through whatever means necessary, including terror, massacre, bombing, and assasination as well as through ongoing agitation. If the Palestinian authorities are expected to crackdown on dissent, so, too, should the Israelis be expected to do the same, disarming the settler militants and taking meaningful steps to insure the security of the Palestinians from extremist violence.

11. Demands a Palestinian Civil War: Israel has emphasized that a negotiated halt to terror is not sufficient and what is required is a visible clash between the new security forces and the opposition organizations (namely, a civil war). This is unacceptable. Forcing people to kill each other is a crime, not a basis for anything resembling "peace".

12. No Right of Resistance: the Road Map makes no distinction between legitimate resistance to foreign occupation, a right enshrined in International Law (specifically the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and the UN Charter), and terrorism. Failure to make this distinction suggests that the Quartet condones the ongoing Israeli slaughter of Palestinians while condemning any type of self-defense and is unacceptable.

13. A Separate Peace Rather than One in a Regional Context: the Road Map envisions the Palestinian-Israeli process occuring in isolation from other negotaiated settlements, specificlly resolution of the thirty-six year old Israeli Occupation of the Syrian Quneitra district (the Golan Heights) and a negotiated settlement of outstanding issues with Lebanon. This is unacceptable. Israel has pressed for separate settlements with each of its neighbors refereed by the Americans so that the Palestinians and their supporters can be dealt with individually in a "divide-and-rule" policy. This concept has been shown to have led to nothing but devastation on other fronts whenever the Israelis negotiate on one. All parties to the conflict must be involved as they were at the Madrid Conference.

14. Choses Palestinian Leadership: the Road Map was kicked into action by the appointment of a Palestinian Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas, as the American proposals were all based on the unacceptability of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat as an interlocutor. Arafat was deemed acceptable in earlier negotiations and, unlike George W. Bush, was elected by a wide margin in a widely monitored popular vote found to be free and fair by outside monitors. By refusing to negotiate with him but rather with a Palestinian "leadership" of their own choosing (but without popular support), the Israelis and their patrons doom the Road Map to failure. Historically, states that are interested in real negotiations do not choose who will speak on behalf of the other side. To do so makes non-sense of the negotiation process.

15. Guarantees American Hegemony: the overall thrust of the Road Map is to guarantee and legitimize American power over the Arab Middle East, one of the most strategic areas in the world and source of much of the world's oil. As the experiences of the past century have shown, Imperial control is neither democratic nor the guarantor of the rights of any. Rather than working towards American control, the peace-process should aim towards a goal of independent peoples governing themselves in harmony with one another.

16. Intelligence services are the only minders: the only guarantors of compliance with the Road Map are European and American (specifically the CIA) intelligence services. As their track-records show, intelligence services are historically unconcerned with the protection of human rights or basic democracy. Using them to monitor makes no sense.

The Road Map as it currently stands is nothing more than a Palestinian Versailles and like that "agreement" demands abject surrender by the Palestinians rather than meaningful negiotiation. Rather than envisioning a truly independent Palestinian State, it would create a Palestinian Vichy, a pseudo-"state" where the Israeli occupation continues to be enforced by Palestinian collaborationists rather than Israeli troops. It does not build on the positive steps towards a lasting peace and Palestinian Statehood achieved in the 1980's and 1990's. It is, instead, a recipe for further disaster as is already being played out in Palestine and in Israel. It rewards naked aggression on the part of Israel and punishes all resistance to what are recognized internationally as criminal acts. It does nothing to alleviate current suffering but works to insure endless conflict.

REFERENCES:
A Text of the Road Map: http://www.palestinemonitor.org/Special%20Section/Road%20Map/Roadmap_fulltext.htm
Collection of Articles on the Road Map: http://www.palestinemonitor.org/Special%20Section/Road%20Map/Articles_roadmap.htm
Maps of Sharon's proposed Palestinian State: http://www.palestinemonitor.org/Special%20Section/Road%20Map/Sharons_plan.htm
Relevant UN Resolutions: http://www.palestinehistory.com/doc07.htm

SOME CLAIMS FROM YESHA REFUTED

A friend of mine passed on an e-mail to me and asked me for comments. The e-mail reads almost as though it originates with the "Yesha Council", the settlers' main advocacy organization in Israel and is a bit, um, out in right field.

The article was really poorly researched, relying heavily on a small handful of secondary sources that are far from unbiased and could easily be termed "propaganda" (it attempts to 'prove' that Arafat is tied in with Hitler, via Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini, which is a fairly shaky claim -- the Mufti met Hitler after being kicked out by the British, true, and even proffered an alliance. But so did various other British colonials during the European Wars; Gandhi corresponded with Hitler and the Axis raised several Indian units (some of them toured the Third Reich) while even the founders of the Likud offered an alliance with Hitler (he rejected them though they maintained good relations with Mussolini) ... hardly a smoking gun ...)

Anyway, this propaganda makes six claims that I'd like to repeat and refute:

"1) That the media (at least the American media) has a uniformly pro-Israel bias;"

-- I think this sentence is formed so as to be irrefutable. Of course, it isn't uniformly pro-Israel. I doubt anyone would claim that seriously.

"2) That Arafat's Fatah is a secular nationalist organization trying to combat the fundamentalist influences of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Islamist terrorists; "

-- Fatah has historically been less secular than other nationalist groups (the PFLP, PCP, DFLP, Baath, etc) who were explicitly clear on separation of mosque and state. Until the late 1980's, Fatah was the 'conservative' wing of the PLO and used religion much as, say, the Republican Party has in this country and used the 'Muslim' issue as a key (especially when talking to outside Muslims). During the 1970's, Fatah tilted towards a more secular line as that was where political growth seemed to be -- and, in the last few years, they have tried to take back the "Islamic values" issues from HAMAS.

{Of course, not differentiating among Islamicists is also an easy thing for these propagnadists but there are big differences; the Taliban kept women uneducated and under burkas, the man that the US alleges is the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Dr. Sami al-Arian)'s daughter just graduated from Georgetown!}

So, of course, Arafat is trying to combat the political appeal of the Islamicists. Is he trying to stop "terror"? Who knows? Certainly, he and the whole PA are trying to prevent acts inimical to their own interests ...... beyond that?

"3) That Palestinian terrorism is not anti-Semitic, but aims at national liberation;"

-- This of course depends on how one defines anti-Semitism. If being anti-Israel is anti-Semitic, then, yes. However, I would say that even the most militant Palestinians would act in the same way were the Israelis not Jews but, say, Korean Buddhists -- that is, it is not the Jewish-ness of Israel that incites Palestinians against Israel but rather Israel that incites Palestinians against (Israeli) Jews ... that, to me, is not anti-Semitism which i would say would necessarily be based on the Jewishness of Israel rather than its colonial nature.

Of course, too, the test for this for these propagandists is that numerous Palestinian groups have called for the destruction of Israel. this is then likened to genocide. However, states are not peoples and calling for an end of the State of Israel doesn't mean the end of the people. Off hand, I would venture to say that even the most militant HAMAS guy would be perfectly happy if every Israeli moved to the USA and lived happily ever after there.

"4) That the Palestinian leadership has attempted to implement the Oslo accords in good faith, but the Israelis have sabotaged the process;"

-- I would say that, immediately after Oslo, both Arafat and his inner circle and Rabin and his proceded in good faith. After Rabin's death, some Israelis continued to do so and so did some Palestinians. However, from the get-go, people on both sides (HAMAS, Jihad, the Settler movements, etc) did not and, certainly, the governments of Netanyahu and Sharon did not do so. From very early stages, there were attempts (like the Hebron massacre in 1994 or Sharon's infamous stroll in the mosque) to sabotage efforts ....

"5) That Israel is a state overwhelmingly made up of European and American Jews who moved into Palestine and displaced Middle Eastern natives; "

-- I don't know who claims this but, even though somewhere around half of Israelis are Mizrahi and other non-european jews, there is no question as to who "owns" the state and its leadership. Israel's political, military and economic leadership is almost entirely made up of Ashkenazis and the state was founded by them on a distinctly European basis. (In the same way, someone could argue that the USA is not a western European colony as maybe a majority are no longer of west European origin but almost every President has been British in origin, the few exceptions being Dutch, German, and Irish and American culture remains in many ways very derivative of British culture) .... Certainly, too, the settlers are much more American than Israelis are in general.

A good argument for the racial nature of Israel can actually be made on the basis of Israel's "internal" ethnicism --- non-European Jews take a second place to Europeans and the more "Arab" they appear, the more they are discriminated against. In the 1970's, Middle Eastern Jews formed a group calling themselves "Black Panthers", in opposition to Ashkenazi dominance. Look at the treatment of Russian immigrants (or American) and compare to the treatment of the Falasha or the Arab Jews: Mizrahi were sent to desert towns to live in tents while Russians (who may not even have been Jewish) were settled in apartments on the coast ...

"6) That historically, Jews were well-treated in the Arab world, and that current Arab hostility therefore stems from the current conflict. "

-- This is one of those relative things. Yes, Jews were not treated as well as Muslims in the Arab lands before 1900. Yes, they were not treated as well as Jews in the USA or western Europe are now. However, the situation of the Jewish communities in the Muslim countries was much, much better than anywhere in the Christian ones before 1600 and, after that, in nearly all (partial exceptions being the Netherlands and the UK) until the last two hundred years.

Up until the modern era, Jews fled persecution from Christians by going to Muslim countries, never the reverse. Before the 20th century, no Muslim state did what nearly every Christian country did at some point -- expel all Jews. About five thousand Jews were killed by Muslims between 622 and 1947. In the same era, how many were killed by Christians? Ten, twenty million?

In Islamic history, there were severe persecutions of Christians at various points (Armenia comes quickly to mind) though, on the whole, these too were milder than the continuous burnings of Islamicizers in europe (down to about 1800) and mass expulsions. Islam did develop an anti-Christian rhetoric but, before 1900, not an anti-Jewish one: Jews were basically not considered important enough to hate and were viewed as much closer to Islam than were christians (plus, they had no armies beyond the frontiers). When Muslim anti Jewish feeling emerged in the 20th century, its founders had to import it from Europe (the first specifically anti-Jewish text in Arabic was a translation of a French book on the blood libel made by French missionaries in the Lebanon.)

So where did Muslim anti-Semitism come from? From a change in politics ... it is a modern invention and not a timeless tradition at all!

WHY CAN'T G.I. JOE DRIVE?

I've been following the news over the past few months and, every couple of days, similair stories appear:
- American soldiers in Iraq flip their Humvee in freak accident, killing all.
- American soldiers killed in head-on collision with other American soldiers.
- Helicopters collide in mid-air.
etc., etc. ...

It seems like nearly as many American soldiers have been killed in car crashes, helicopter crashes, etc as were killed in combat.

Does anyone else think that over a hundred traffic fatalities is a bit much?

Is something else going on? We don't regularly hear of American soldiers colliding at bases in the USA or in Europe -- and when they do, they aren't always fatal ...
Yes, males age 18 to 25 are more likely to die in car wrecks but not at this rate ...

Are these combat deaths the US is afraid to admit? Have vehicles been sabotaged? What gives?

ALL FALL DOWN

I.
Guns! Tanks! Airplanes!
Rolling carcasses of steel
Caress the levelled hillsides
With Death's Icy Gaze
Leaders chanting endlessly:
"Deutschland uber alles,
Brittania rules the waves,
Roma aeterna victoriaque,
God Bless the USA"
America, Germany, Britain,
Rome, Babylon, and Ur
"Dust to Dust,
And Ashes to Ashes"
Hurry up now and get past the "to"!
Who shall be next?
Stand in line and wail!
We all fall down
Lord Protector, Guide us now!
Defend us against the Devil
And the Fury of the Northmen!
The Enemy of God and Man
Will forever have power enough and more
(Hitler was elected, too.)

II.
The Sky breaks
The Sun streams in
Skulls in Mountains
Mark Hulagu's Novus Ordo Seculorum's wake
Where were ye birds
And your pebbles
To send this Abraha's elephants back
Beyond the Sea?
Alas! O, Attila! O, Alaric! Alas!
You never left a scar like this!
Ya Haroun, what thanks did Karlos Magnos' kin
Send for Abu'Abbas?
A burning city?
A ruined land?
By the Sweet waters of Babylon,
We will sit, weep, and remember
And in the mountains of Nineveh,
We will rend our clothing and lament!
Do not fear, O Babylon!
Now their walls are covered, too:
"Mene, mene, tekel, upharson"
happy shall be the Collector
Of your debts!

III.
Blinding flash! Heat!
Scorching earth!
Is today Black Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday?
Another Guillotin stands proudly by
Watching his brilliance shine.
Like Bulgars, we've been blinded
Only we have done it to ourselves.
The silence you requested is granted
Now go thou
And do likewise!
O You Proud King!
O You Proud Kingdom!
Men pray to you saying:
"None is like you,
None can war against you!"
Forty two months of you!
Enough!
Too much!
Like the Nephilim, like them of Gomorrah,
You too shall drown!
I hope against hope
I pray to whoever hears it is so.

IV.
Suddenly,
I look up
A woman stands before me
In one hand, she holds a torch
A Red Light blazes.
And in the other?
A placard:
"I am
America the Great
The Mother of Prostitutes
And of all the
Abominations of this Earth!"
And I knew!
Liberty was drunk!
You Lying Whore!
You Prostituted Lush!
Mother!

V.
Like Oedipus,
I plot to kill a king
But I, I shall kill you too, O Mother!
"Rache! Rache!"
A bloody finger writes.
Widows and orphans
Sonless mothers
And motherless sons
Attest that, yes, you are no wimp.
Now, if only, your mother
Were sonless
And wife a widow ...
But, you were not alone!
Revenge will be great!
Revenge will be bloody!
And a long way off.
Play amidst the rubble
Dance among the Ashes.

VI.
"Ring around the Rosies,
Pocketful of Posies,
Ashes, Ashes,
We all fall ..."

DR. KNOWITALL’S ALL-IN-ONE PERSONALITY AND INTELLIGENCE EXAM


This test is infallible and shows both personality and intelligence. Scoring is based on an elaborate and scientific procedure I have developed in my lavatory. You gain points by answering correctly, lose by answering incorrectly. Some answers have more weight than others. On the factual questions, you can still gain points even if you don’t know the answers (but I cannot explain how). Feel free to add any comments you might have; these may increase your score.
Prizes will be given to those who score highest

DIRECTIONS: Please write your responses after the questions and e-mail them back to me.

PART ONE: BASIC FACTS

1. What is your full name?

2. What is your quest?

3. What is the loneliest number?

4. If you weren’t here, where would you rather be?

5. If you could live someone else’s life, who would you be?

6. What’s the last book you finished?

7. Have you ever seen the children’s faces they get so excited waking up long before the winter sun’s ignited?

8. Have you ever made it around McDonald’s in a 1.5?

9. Have you ever had sex with a dog?

10. Does the idea turn you on?

11. Did you ever make a Freudian slip and curse audibly during a religious service?

12. Did you ever get it on in a place of worship?

13. Did you ever curse while getting it on with a dog in a place of worship?

14. Which part of this sentence is incorrect?

15. Would you rather be a hammer or a nail?

16. Does your bologna have a first name?

17. What would be the price for you to sell your soul?

18. Do you play the accordion?

19. Got any allergies?


PART TWO, MULTIPLE CHOICE

20. How would you describe your diet? A. Omnivorous B. Carnivorous C. Herbivorous D. Of Worms E. Kosher F. Vegan G. Hallal H. Barbecue I. What I finds, I eats

21. How do you fry your chicken? A. In Canola B. In Olive Oil C. In Lard. D. In Vegetable Oil E. In Bacon Drippings F. I get it take-out G. I told you: I’m a veg H. Under the moonlight

22. If your great grandmother were alive now, she’d probably: A. Envy you your freedom B. Disapprove of your life C. Say something unintelligible D. Look with pride at your accomplishments E. Want somebody to remove the nails from the Coffin and dig her up.

23. Where’d you get that tattoo? A. Little Five Points. B. In the Navy. C. I wish I knew. D. In Prison. E. On Spring Break F. Somewhere far away. G. What tattoo?

24. Where do you prefer to be licked? A. Neck B. Forehead. C. Breast D. Y’know, uh, down there …. E. Stomach F. Feet G. The Back Door H. Texarkana

25. The voices in your head sound most like A. Your mother B. Your father C. Me D. Jesus E. Satan F. Bob Saget G. The Three Stooges H. David Niven I. Elvis J. Elvira K. Mr Ed L. Bill Clinton M. George Clinton N. John Lennon O. Vladimir Lenin P. George W. Bush

26. You are on a desert island with the following people. To insure survival of the rest, one person must be killed. Who’d you choose? A. Yourself B. Me C. Kathy Lee D. Frank Sinatra E. Chou En Lai F. Father Guido Sarducci G. Lorne Greene H. Shemp Howard I. Tiffany J. The Wolfman K. Donna L. Hosni Mubarak M. Al Gore N. Ralph Nader O. The big fat lead singer from Canned Heat P. Nick Cave Q. Larry Millsap R. My mother S. Your Mother

27. If you were the absolute ruler of the world, you’d A. Disarm everyone B. Have a global sing-along C. Start a crash program to develop cold fusion D. Give it all up just to make sweet love to me E. Track down all your childhood enemies and have them slowly tortured to death F. Eat Truffles everyday G. Commission a monument to yourself that dwarfed the Statue of Liberty H. Dance the night away I. Retire to an estate in the South of France J. See whether Total Thermonuclear War was as much fun played solitaire K. Force Them all to Bow down and Worship you

28. You are the last woman alive. Only the following men have survived. Who would be the father of the next generation of human beings? A. The Wolfman B. The Rock C. Bobby LaBonte D. Tito Jackson E. Shemp Howard F. Ralph Nader G. The Pope H. Hosni Mubarak I. Gary Coleman J. Bill Clinton K. Gulliver Foyle L. Fidel Castro M. Michael Valentine Smith N. Gene Simmons O. Moe Sizlak P. The human race is run; I’ll stay celibate

29. Which song would you most like to have played at your funeral? A. Amazing Grace B. The Old Rugged Cross C. Kool and the Gang’s Celebration D. Abide With Me E. Dust in the Wind F. Dustin Hoffman G. If you don’t know me by now H. It’s a long way to Tipperary


PART THREE, MATCHING

DIRECTIONS: Match one of the numbered words or phrases with the lettered item that best fits it. Not all letters will have a numbered match. Some may have more than one right answer.

30. “Kill ‘em all and let God sort’em out!”
31. “Let the boy try!”
32. “Franks and beans!”
33. “It has now been ten years since I first saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles …”
34. “Ha Shahrad you are”
35. “Devil bunnies, devil bunnies, I snort the nose, banana, banana”
36. “Whenever two or three are gathered together”
37. “Inverted Jenny”
38. “I did it my way”
39. “Farewell Leicester Square”
40. “In the Darkness, Bind them”
41. “It’s time for me to ramble on”
42. “The horror! The horror!”


a. Jean-Luc Picard
b. Airmail
c. The Big-haired Lady
d. Sauron
e. Bill the Cat
f. The Great War
g. Rambo
h. Gollum
i. Edmund Burke
j. John Lydon
k. Beziers
l. Bushmills
m. The Wall
n. Brian Friel
o. Ben Stiller
p. Marlow
q. Animals
r. De Sade


PART FOUR, MORE QUESTIONS

43. If I were to send you flowers, what variety would you want?

44. What brand of liquor do you order by choice (money doesn’t matter)?

45. Is the world basically benign?

46. True or false: There are no stupid questions, only stupid people.

47. How does it feel to be on your own with no direction home?

48. True or false: Most people are out to get me.

49. True or false: Most people are out to get you.

50. When you dream of flying, how do you move? A. Like Superman B. I just sort of float C. In a 747 D. Like in that Dragon, Tiger film E. Like a butterfly F. Like a bee G. I don’t dream

51. Rank the following books in order of importance to you (not based on literary merits!) : A. Ulysses B. Tarzan of the Apes C. War and Peace D. Stranger in a Strange Land E. The Inheritors F. Bring the Jubilee G. Rebecca H. Peyton Place I. Valley of the Dolls J. The Children of Nowhere K. Beowulf L. Pride and Prejudice M. Gone with the Wind N. Lest Darkness Fall O. The Third Policeman P. The Naked and the Dead Q. The Grateful Dead Scrapbook

52. If your life were a film, who’d play you?

53. You have survived the nuclear war. In what order would you eat the following items? A. Spam B. The family pet C. The
neighbors’ rotting corpses D. Kudzu E. Cockroaches F. Twinkies G. The guy who wrote this idiotic test

54. Have you ever used any of the following phrases to refer to activities you intend to do but just not yet (i.e., quit smoking, read War and Peace, hike the Appalachian Trail, etc)? (Choose all that apply) A. After I make my first million B. After the Revolution C. After I’m married D. After I sell my novel E. After my children are out of the house F. After I finish taking this test G. After the Rapture H. After we finally get a real Republican in the White House I. After we finally get a real Democrat in the White House J. When Ireland is finally free K. When Susan Lucci finally gets the credit she deserves L. After the next commercial break

55. Please rank the following in the order in which you’d smoke them: A. Corn Silk B. Cigar butts I gather and boil to roll into ersatz cigarettes C. Marlboro Menthols D. Kools E. Benson and Hedges F. Rothman’s G. Dunhills H. Sumer I. Gold Star J. Lucky Strikes K. hand rolled Cubans L. Anything Joe Camel promotes

56. Who ought to win the Nobel Prize for Peace next year?

57. Have you ever had a drink to fortify yourself before undertaking a difficult task, such as unplugging your electric blanket?

58. To celebrate the fact that the mail came early?

59. What does the phrase “fried shoes” mean to you?

PART FIVE, PHRASE ORIGINS
Please tell me the origins of the following ten words and idioms:

1. Hocus Pocus
2. Parting shot
3. Cut the mustard
4. Hubba hubba
5. Pussy cat
6. Gringo
7. Mountjoy
8. To cross the Rubicon
9. “Pocket full of posies, ring around the rosies, ashes, ashes …”
10. “Hold the Fort”

PART SIX, STILL MORE QUESTIONS


60. What animal would you most like to have as a pet?

61. What animal would you most like to eat?

62. Would you be willing to kill an animal and eat it?

63. What’s your favorite plague?

64. What’s the furthest you’ve ever run?

65. Which of the following languages would you like to be fluent in (assuming endless time and ability)? A. Manx B. Sorbian
C. Pennsylvania Dutch D. Cornish E. Aroumanian F. Romansh G. Klingon H. Occitan I. Aramaic J. Galician K. Sardegno L. Coptic M. Ladino N. Gullah O. Norn P. Faroese Q. Gothic R. Icelandic S. Lapp T. Mordvin U. Breton V. Yolda W. Kasshubian X. Old Prussian Y. Etruscan Z. Sorry, English is all that I need

66. How would you best describe the origins of your finances? A. Independently Wealthy B. Trust Fund C. Playing the market D. Salary E. What I finds, I keeps F. In a society based on greed, all’s fair G. I don’t want my parents to know exactly what their baby’s done to earn it G. By the hour H. Indentured servitude I. Other __________________

67. How many god/s are there really?

68. Ever pray for someone else’s destruction?

69. How often do you lie? A. never B. only when I need to protect someone C. If it makes me money D. Whenever convenient E. Every other word out of my mouth is bull

70. When you were a child, A. the only time me father ever touched me was to beat me B. I was constantly hugged and kissed C. no one ever touched anyone else D. I sometimes wondered if all that hugging was appropriate E. I was kept locked in the attic F. I ran away from home before my memory begins

71. If you could record the music in your head, what would it sound like?

72. What’s the hardest substance you’ve ever abused?

73. Why?

74. Would you take soma were it offered to you?

75. How would you best describe the aliens who abducted you? A. Small grays B. Tall blonds C. Hairy dwarfs D. Shoggoths E. Slug creatures F. Lizard men G. USAF personnel H. Three Mexican guys in a beat up El Camino I. Vulcans J. Jabba the Hutt K. Beings of Pure Light L. Other _______

76. Did they do any experiments on you?

77. Historians and fantasists have postulated alternative histories based on small changes in the past. Were you able to change the outcome of one event, what would it be? A. The American Civil War B. World War II C. The Kennedy Assasination D. The Break-up of the Beatles E. The Death of Elvis F. The Death of Alexander the Great G. The Fourth Crusade H. The Fall of the Western Roman Empire I. The Fall of Jerusalem, 70 AD J. The Siege of Paris, 886 K. The Battle of Tours L. Waterloo M. The Glorious Revolution N. Gallipoli O. Black September P. Bacon’s Rebellion Q. The Conquest of Constantinople, 1453 R. Justinian’s reconquests S. The Capetian succession crisis T. The Battle of Hastings U. Pearl Harbor V. The Fall of the Aztec Empire W. Disco-mania X. The Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore Y. The Fall of the Berlin Wall Z. Other ______________

78. Why?

79. When the Feds come looking for me, will you: A. respond “Dr Knowitall? Never heard of him.” B. Tell them exactly where I am C. Tip me off D. Join me in heading towards Mexico E. Stash me in your secret annex F. Introduce me to your friends in the Underground G. Provide documentation for travel in Europe H. Contact the President and ask for a complete pardon on my behalf

80. Got any piercings? A. No B. My ears C. Eyebrow D. Nose E. Navel F. Nipple G. Someday, Dr. K., you may find out if you’re lucky

81. Please complete the following “I was born in the wrong time and place. I really should have lived in _____________________.”

82. If you were to found a religion, which one would it be most like?

83. If you could live on one food only, what would it be?

84. If you had to dress the same way every day, how would you dress?

85. Ever been arrested?

86. I’ve got endless currency. I think we should go out of town together for a while. Where’d you like to go?

87. How do arm-chair psychologists usually diagnose you?

88. Is this the most idiotic test you’ve ever taken?

89. Are there any questions you would add?

90. What's your name?

91. Who's your daddy?

92. Is he rich?

93. Is he rich like me?

94. Has he taken any time to show you what you need to live?

95. Why do you think this test was really written?

THANK YOU FOR WASTING YOUR TIME. PLEASE E-MAIL THE COMPLETED RESULTS TO “askdrknowitall@hotmail.com” AND YOUR RESULTS WILL BE TABULATED

SURAT AL-THAWRA

Then, the Merciful put these words about himself in the mouth of the Teacher and caused him to recite them, saying:


I am fever-breaking, I am an earthquake shaking
I am the sun arising

I am the oppressed, I am the dispossessed
I am the teeming Masses

I am no one's special mystery, I am the force of all history
I am all that is

I am everything that's possible, I am the least probable
I am the true revolution

I am what has to be, I am what will be
I am is who I am

ON THE DAMASCUS ROAD:
An Adventure

Summer 1992, I am studying Arabic at the University of the Yarmouk in Irbid, Jordan. The school is named for the battle fought nearby where the young armies of the newborn Caliphate destroyed the Byzantines, opening the gates to Syria, Jerusalem and the lands beyond. The city is even older; this is the land called Gilead, where once a balm was found. Ruins dot the landscape where once Christ walked and stretch back even further into the mists of the Bronze Age.

I take classes in a semi-air-conditioned, proctored by a monolingual with an overbite and filled with assorted American orientalists and ethnic romantics. After several weeks of study, we have a break of a week. Some scatter to Syria, to the West Bank, or to the westernized flesh-pots of Amman. I choose to go to Syria, a decision I will not regret until some months later.
Classes finished, I set out alone, my few needs in a duffel-bag tossed over my shoulder. Out at the edge of town, I wander the grimy bus-station swept by dry winds blowing off the desert. I find what I seek, a sign for shared cars going to Dimashq-ash-Sham, Damascus-of-the-Sun.

As I wait, familiar faces join me. Here is the Wolfman - we call him this after a late-night furniture salesman back home - a constantly troubled Michigan student. Formerly, he’d done relief work in the Galilee. There is Mehdi, an Azeri Kurd from Iran by way of Charlottesville. Others head off in the same direction, bound for adventure in little bands with clicking whirring cameras, sunglasses, all the aspects of America on tour. But we three are loners, the ones whose greatest dream is to ‘ditch the gringos’ and bodily taste the culture around us. We make a silent pact to go together a ways and each scatter to our separate ends.

Two more join us, sons of the Camps

MIRROR TO HEART TOLD IN ELLIPSIS

A young man lost in wandering clouds of hero-tales of former ages half-absorbed, here is where I begin. Too long lonely, I dreamed myself a champion and imagined tales where it was I who slew the dragon, saved the princess, freed the land. And, so, when I met her, it was easy to weave a web of fancy around ourselves. I had had dreams of a white horse running along the beach at dawn, fires burning of apocalyptic death and rebirth stretching to the far horizons. She gave me reason to make my dreams seem real. She was an Exile, chased out from Promised Land. Even her name was Struggle.

And, so, we found ourselves in what we called love. We promised each other things, made oaths that we both secretly knew we could never fulfill. I’d throw away all to follow her, I thought, and she for me.

But, such are the things of this world, that these Myths were melted in the harsh light of dawn. True reality and hard choices had to be made, first by her, then by me. Long before I’d met her, she had been promised to another, a man of her kin. And, when the time came, she chose the firm and material grasp of bittersweet past against the gossamer promises of future untold. I cannot blame her now. But I did, then. Angry, spiteful, scorned, I raged against the unkind turn of fate, the cruel exigencies of a world determined to take that which I desired most away from my grasp. I dreamt of great deeds done beyond the seas, deeds where I rescued her or she raced to me across waving fields of blood-red anemones. But those were not to be. I raged against the foolish, rash things I’d said and done. I desired my own destruction. If I could not save one, how, then, was I to save the whole?

And, then, I realized I was not Hero, at least not of this tale. No need to end in bitter hail of bullets or dangling from a tree. To go on, to live again - and fully - that was all the triumph that I’d need. For I was only twenty one.

Time passes. Scars heal over. Passing fancies come and go and dalliances ease the pain that remains. No longer bitter, I meet another in a place I’d least expect, a place from which I’d fled. She is nothing of what I have expected but we still find each other perfected. Long days turn into evenings, evenings into nights, time passes into weeks and we are finding ourselves, unwilling, dragged into heady talk of love and life. All this time is gentle and proper, no bitter fates bewail us, no doom dogs our trail - and no false myths of martyrdom blossom in our paths.

Before we’d met, she was leaving and heads now across the sea. I follow at some distance and hope to find kind lover’s embrace, gentle talk and dreams of forever. Yet, heavy hearted I return; the magic of the summer that, for both of us, had existed in some sort of faerie time beyond normal worries is gone now that talk is all of practical things.

And, so, I return. Not so despondent, true, but saddened; another dream, of pre-Raphaelite destinies thwarted by the cold gray snow off the Baltic … I fall into a simple life of writing, reading, learning and doltish work interrupted only by idle chatter of my varying coterie. A few dalliances, all regretted, pass.

I begin working with a woman and words slide from our mouths. We fall in embrace and are carried along by the glamour of our own rhetoric. Accidents and half-planned incidents occur to only speed us on a spiraling path. Where once I’d wished to be the Dragon-slayer and then played at the bohemian, now I run headlong towards some half-imagined bourgeois utopia. Tripping over my own words, I find myself caught in a web I’ve woven. Instantly, I regret it but I see no simple escape; where once I’d been in rebellion, now I am caught up in the hopes and pleasures of others beyond me. I cannot disappoint them, mother, father, friends and all. But, inevitably I will.

For I am living in falsehood to myself. Each day is a lie, a further infamy. My face, my flesh reflect my inner turmoil, that which I voice to no one. Instead, I go on, each step moving inevitably, I think, towards an eternity. Somewhere, I believe, it will all change; the despondence, the bitterness. But passivity is better than action. And so, I roll on for years through all the hoops and formalities she presents. But nothing gets better.

Instead, I wish for external source to come and spare me the pain of making hard choices I know I will regret. And, in time, they do. The pretty picture we have presented together is rent; the sour sketch beneath is revealed. It is, finally, over.
The curtain falls on performance. The crowd scatters to go its own way, to chatter over wine or coffee, but, inevitably, eventually, to return to daily rut as memories fade. The actors take off their costumes and remove their make-up; the fantasy they have led for the night is done. They, too, go back to a world of bread and taxes. All dreams vanish with the dawn, even those we cling to as we awaken and try to prolong long after our dreaming self has fallen dormant. We must arise.

And I am free though embittered by betrayals that I should have seen, betrayals I had hoped for yet again. At last, I think, I am able to look back and reflect on all that has gone before, to think of all those mistakes made and try to learn their lessons.
I slowly break out into a new self, a self that finally, I believe, is true. No longer ruled by others’ dreams, no longer falsely self-deluding … I pass through sorrow, through bitterness and allow them to become strength. I go back to ancient dreams and hopes and listen to my own small voices.

For a passage, I go off following one of those chimerical shadows, a dream I'd dreamt when I was younger, a dream of one who'd, as they say, gotten away. And I pursue that one long enough to know that what was meant to be has been and, if it were, I am far too late now to go backwards.

At last, I think, I know something of who I have been, who I am, who I want to be, and who I am becoming. The dreams remain but are clearer; now, I separate hope and fantasy. Still, I hold that glint in my eye, that bit of me that’d stretch to the sky. I am finally happy. And this new, integrated self is the true I, the I with which I meet the world.

Or so I tell myself as darkness descends and then is gone, an eclipse that comes and goes without warning. In the bright sun, as shadows begin to gather on the horizons, shadows of a storm about to break, I see a ray of light come streaming from afar. I follow it as drums of doom pound all about, no longer pounding from within, and find a new dream of escape and peace. And, for a time, I think I am freed and am where I ought to be. But, before long, reality comes up. Hard decisions need be made. And in those decisions, I know that that which I want is not the prima but secunda for her.

Sadly, I go now backwards. I realize that my own rhetoric os not so powerful, so awe-inspiring as I'd hoped; the realities of daily life must pull us back to earth.

And, in returning, I speak with a friend. We joke, he and I, about what I hope to find. I imagine someone, someone so unlikely and so specific that we both know that she, put simply, does not exist. A few days pass and I go on almost a whim to an event. As I approach, an old, lost friend stands outside. I speak to him and his associate. Later, we fall into conversation. As soon develops, I find myself amazed; the unlikeliest of persons exists!

So, naturally, I follow heart and, naturally enough, soon flub up. Brief visions I thought I had glimpsed of future seem unreconcilable to present and I cannot reconcile the two. Confused and more, I go back to myself and cannot sort out how wrong I could have been.

But a year later, after trial by fire and more, I know the answer ...

SHOULD THEY ASK

I wrote this poem in the voice of a Palestinian refugee, somewhere not far from the border looking homeward:

Battles lost and battles won
yet nothing changes but the names
of martyred sons and widows newly made.

Over there, come spring, they'll laugh and sing and play
as they have for forty springs. And, they won't ask,
'Whose house is this? Whose field?
Whose tree is this that gives me shade?'

And, over here, should they ask,
we'll gladly answer. .And, until they do,
we'll barely live but bravely die.
Still, nothing will change
but the names.

Next Saturday, there's going to be a big anti-war march in Atlanta. Here's the e-mail flyer I drafted for our organization:

NO TO ENDLESS WAR!

THIRTY SIX YEARS IS TOO LONG!

June 7, 2003, 2 pm

March and Rally Against Endless War and Occupation

From Grant Park to the King Memorial

A CALL FOR A PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY BLOC


On June 7, 1967, to the day 859 years after the Crusader armies besieged it, Jerusalem fell to Israeli troops. Entire neighborhoods and villages were destroyed; hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled as refugees to join those already suffering in exile. The longest lasting military occupation in the world had begun.

Today, after receiving near universal condemnation for its continued ocupation of Jerusalem, the rest of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (UN Resolutions 242, 338, et al.) and its illegal settlements, Israel's occupation continues unabated. If anything, the brutal denial of Palestinian rights and suppression of legitimate aspirations has grown worse. Since the outbreak of the current Rising in September 2000, the Israelis have murdered over 2100 Palestinians (the overwhelming majority being unarmed civilians). To put that in perspective, that is proportionately the equivalent of over seventy September 11ths!

While the United States government has verbally condemned terrorism, the Bush Administration continues to fund this illegal occupation and war on the Palestinian people carried out through state-sponsored terrorism while condemning the legitimate resistance of the Palestinians. This year alone, the US government will give nearly ten billion dollars to Israel to aid it in its war against the people of the world.

Together, America and Israel have declared war on the hopes and aspirations of the vast majority of the people of the Middle East. They have destroyed cities, slaughtered tens of thousands, and imposed their own often brutal military rule in Iraq and in Palestine.

We say No More! Thirty Six years is too long!

There can be no true peace or security in the Middle East without justice for the Palestinian people. In the wake of the war on Iraq, the Sharon government has stepped up a campaign of land confiscation, enclosure and isolation of Palestinian communities, and attacks on nonviolent human rights workers.

The Sharon government is rapidly moving ahead on the second phase of construction of a mammoth security fence--in reality an apartheid wall which dwarfs the Berlin wall. A thirty-foot high concrete wall with gun towers in some areas, in others, a giant electrified fence surrounded by a wide swathe of no-man's land, it strays far from the 1967 borders to confiscates more than thirty percent of the proposed Palestinian state. It encloses the illegal settlements that have undermined peace negotiations since Oslo, annexes water resources and the traditional lands of Palestinian villages without compensation, and will turns Palestinian cities into giant, open-air prisons.

In Gaza, construction of the security zone along the Egyptian border has resulted in destruction of olive groves and homes. On March 16, Rachel Corrie, a human rights worker with the International Solidarity Movement, was deliberately killed by an Israeli Occupation Forces bulldozer driver while trying to prevent home demolitions. The Israeli military has refused to seriously investigate her death, and the United States government has declined to pressure them.

The result has been tacit encouragement of attacks on nonviolent peace workers and inconvenient witnesses. In Jenin, Brian Avery was shot in the face on April 5 by soldiers in an armored personnel carrier that opened fire on clearly visible, unarmed members of the ISM. On April 12, ISM member Tom Hurndall was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier on the Rafah border as he attempted to rescue children who were under fire from Israeli sniper tower. On April 20, Palestinian journalist was shot dead by a gunman from an
Israeli tank as he attempted to cover an incursion into Nablus. These attacks on human rights workers make visible the ongoing violence against Palestinian civilians. In Rafah, more than two hundred and fifty people have died since the beginning of the intifadaÐforty-five of them were children.

Unless the international community responds strongly to these attacks, no human rights workers, medical personnel, journalists or NGOs will be able to operate safely in the occupied territories. Without those who are prepared to intervene against, witness, or report on acts of aggression by the Israeli military, the way is open for even further escalations of
violence and repression against the Palestinian people.

Linked actions by groups within the territories, within Israel and by the international community would send a powerful message to the Israeli government. Moreover, they would break the isolation of the Palestinians, encourage and support the nonviolent resistance within Palestine, making that aspect of the struggle more visible, highlight the ongoing violence against Palestinian civilians and shift the climate of public opinion that allows this injustice to continue.


Join us on June 7th as we march against endless war and occupation, together with supporters of peace and justice from the southeast. The occupation of Palestine and the dispossession of the Palestinian people are closely tied to American imperialist expansion abroad and the eradication of civil liberties at home. We will form a solid pro-Palestinian bloc, speaking out on this day that marks the beginning of the Occupation of Jerusalem, in the regional anti-war march and join other groups as we all say

NO TO ENDLESS WAR!

Look for the Palestinian flags and bring your own signs, banners, and flags.

June 7, 2003, 2 pm

March and Rally from Grant Park to the King Memorial

Speakers will include Beth Corrie, cousin of Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist murdered by Israel in the Gaza Strip and Laila al-Arian, daughter of jailed Palestinian activist Sami al-Arian.

For more information on the march, visit:

http://www.june7.org/

ATLANTA PALESTINE SOLIDARITY (APS) works to support the survival of the Palestinian people and to end the illegal, immoral, and brutal Israeli occupation through education, advocacy, and action. We are committed to the principles of self-determination for the Palestinian people and full civil and political rights for all Palestinians. We call for:


An end to U.S. aid to Israel.
The United States government to cease its uncritical support of Israel in international forums.
The removal of all illegal Israeli settlers and settlements.
The recognition of the Right of Return with compensation for the Palestinian refugees as per UN. Resolution 194.
An end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine
APS has organized a weekly protest every Monday from 4:30 pm to about 6:00 pmopposite the Israeli consulate. Here in Atlanta we are fortunate to have an opportunity to tell the Israeli government personally how we feel about it. Please come out and show your opposition to apartheid!


Where: The Israeli Consulate, 1100 Spring St.
When: Every Monday, 4:30 pm—6:00 pm
For more information on APS, visit:
http://www.atlanta4palestine.org

TRUSTAFARIANS?

One of the myths that the Right Wing likes to spread is that those who protest their wars are a pack of wealthy college students living off trust-funds and in rebellion against their parents' mores. They push the idea that these "dope-smoking trustafarians" are in no way representative of the American people but are mere dupes of left-wing professors.

Perhaps this was true in the Indochina Wars (though I doubt it). I will say that, when I was a college student at an elite private college during the first gulf war (1991), there was a corollation between wealth and opinions on the war:

virtually every single one of us who actively opposed the war, organized teach-ins, rallies, etc. was either on scholarship or near total financial aid. While most of us were solidly middle class rather than poor by general societal standards, we were from much more impoverished backgrounds than the vast majority of our fellow students. We came from milltowns and inner-cities, immigrant ghettoes and grinding poverty but did not forget what we had escaped. We came from ordinary places, not elite enclaves. Many of us were motivated by feeling for our friends and loved ones who weren't as fortunate in winning scholarships as we and had gone straight into basic after high school. Several of us were children of career military and had grown up on bases (at least two of us had served in the military before college).

We were hardly trust fund kids. But there were certainly trust-fund kids about and many of them were, indeed, spending the war in a haze. But those trust fund kids were too busy with fraternities and sororities, options not open to us who had to pay our own way in the world. They were living a college life not so separate from our own current Dear Leader in his days at Yale.

From my conversation with student anti-war activists today, the same holds true now as then. You'll find, I believe, few children of the elite in the protests ........
except among those throwing eggs or curses at us!


THE IRAQI CONSTITUTION

So, the new Iraqi Constitution is to be written not by an Iraqi nor even by an Arab but by some Orthodox Jewish professor at NYU, Noah Feldman who just so happens to be a part of the neo-con New America Foundation, one of the groups that campaigned incessantly for the ongoing genocide in Iraq and for an out and out American Empire that would destroy and occupy all the Muslim Middle East). He has clearly written that the only reason he supports "democratization" in the Arab states is that it would benefit Israel.

Feldman has written extensively on the "need" for the Arab states to be "democratized" (without, of course, ending neo-colonial rule) as a way of co-opting Political Islam and "preventing" terrorism. He has never called for an end of occupation; based on his new role on Iraq, he must see it as a good thing.

He has written about separation of religion and politics in the United States and around the world. But he does NOT call for a separation of synagogue and state. No, quite the opposite; this is a man absolutely dedicated to theocracy, so long as the theos in question is the god of the Talmud and not that of either Gospel or Koran.

This type of Judaeo-Supremacist makes me sick. They campaign for secularism and democracy when it is to their benefit -- that is when the majority are Muslims or Christians. But will Feldman ever write a constitution that defines Israel as a secular, democratic state of all its inhabitants? I doubt it. I am sure he sees it as the Base Law proclaims it, a state for one faith and one faith alone; the rest are merely to be "tolerated" (though that toleration will include expelling Christian missionaries, burning down churches, surrounding mosques with a thousand policemen, shooting worshippers, and so on).

But I deviate from my main point. One wonders at the gall of the Bushite Imperialists in appointing this man to write a constitution for Iraq. Did it occur to them that there might be some few Iraqis as capable?

I doubt it. They have stocked the new colonial office not with Americans versed in Iraqi history and politics nor with people sympathetic to the Iraqis but with those who see them as barely human. These new servants of Empire see the Iraqis (and all Arabs) as a Lesser Breed outside the law, half-devil and half-child, and so incapable of framing their own legal needs. No, the "Sand-Niggers" (as the American Occupation forces call them) are too stupid and too sullen to write their own laws ...

It makes me sick.

HOLLYWOOD

I keep seeing Rightists express contempt for every actor or musician who expresses an opinion regarding war and empire. They suggest that these people have no business having opinions on political matters and, even if they do have them, they should not share them.

Well, while I agree that many of the "Hollywood Left" sound like idiots when opining on politics and many pop stars sound even worse, I'd say it is pretty hypocritical for any Republican to even complain.

Why?

Two words:

Ronald Reagan.

Next time you hear someone ranting on this subject, try using those two words and let me know what the results are for you!

IS THE NAME "PALESTINE" MODERN?

It's sad that certain hard-line partisans of Israel refuse to acknowledge actual history, even when it comes to easily discernable names. Lately, I've seen it said that the name "Palestine" is a fiction. They claim that, while the name derives from the Philistines (who are denounced as invaders from Crete), it was imposed on the land by the Romans as a means of "hiding" its Jewish identity after the end of the Jewish War. It is further claimed that the name was only revived by the British and that the Arab Palestinian use is illegitimate (the Palestine Arabs being merely the offspring of wandering Aramaeans -- er, Arabs -- and Egyptians).

This is simply not so. Palestine, or in Greek and Latin Palistina and in Arabic Filasteen, has long been the "generic" geographical name for the territory at the east end of the Mediterranean north of Egypt and south of Syria and Lebanon (or, earlier, south of Phoenicia).

The name probably derives from that of the Philistines. The Philistines were an ancient people who lived in the same land, at the time generically called "Canaan". The Philistines' main cities were Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Rafah, and Jaffa (now a part of Tel Aviv) and were always independent of the two Hebrew (or Jewish) states in the interior, Judah (centered first on Hebron and later, after David captured it from the Jebusites, Jerusalem) and Israel, centered near Nablus.

According to Hebrew scriptures, the Philistines arrived in Canaan, then inhabited by a "mixed multitude" of Canaanites, Hivites, Horites, Jebusites, Hittites, Kenites, Amalekites, and others, shortly before the Hebrews themselves arrived from Egypt. They are said to have come from Crete and archaeology bears out a strong correlation between the cultures. Minoan Crete, probably the most advanced culture of the time (many believe it to be the source of Plato's Atlantis), had recently been conquered by the Greeks and some of its people may have indeed fled. Certainly, according to Israeli archaeologists, the Philistines were far more advanced than the Hebrews or the other peoples of Canaan as they introduced such things as iron-working, indoor plumbing, and higher standards of art (especially fresco painting) to Canaan.

The Philistines struggled with the Israelites for mastery over the whole land, fighting wars with them throughout all of what is now Israel/Palestine (the great battle of Mount Gilboa was fought just north of Jenin). Eventually, both sides made a grudging peace with the Philistines in the cities along the coast and the Hebrews in the hills (though after the Assyrian deportations, the Hebrews were limited to just the area around Jerusalem and the southern West Bank, losing that, too, after the Babylonian deportations. The Philistines had a much less chequered relationship with the outside world; its cities endured down through the Roman period and beyond).

Philistine soon became synonymous with Canaanite to refer to the non-Jewish people of the land; when the Torah was written, it included such anachronisms as referring to Abraham living as a foreigner in the land of the Philistines (when he was in Hebron). Clearly, Philistine was understood by the post-Exilic Hebrews as being synonymous with Canaanite.

During the Achaemenid Persian Empire, Gaza and other Philistine ports began to be Arabized and enjoyed large scale commerce with Greece. The Greeks used the name "Palestina" as a generic term for both the lands of the Philistines and the peoples behind them (the Persians called the region "Yehud"). Herodotos, the Greek "father of History", refers to the land as Palestine and makes clear that he is including all the peoples of the land (c 430). He even makes reference to how some Palestinians claim to have come out of Egypt where they learnt to circumcise themselves (it was a Pharaonic as well as Jewish practice).

The Romans continued the Greek practice of using Palestine as the general name. Yehud -- now latinized as Judaea -- was used to refer to a small part of Palestine that was ruled by the client Hasmonean and Idumaean kings. When these states were overthrown in the first century, the name lapsed and disappeared just as the name Israel had vanished along with its ten "lost" tribes 800 years earlier.

The name Palestine remained and was passed on to the rest of the ancient world and on to the Medieval and Islamic eras. During the later Roman Empire, the parts of the Talmud written in what is now Israel (primarily at Safed in the Galilee) were called the "Palestinian Talmud" and all the peoples, Christian, Samaritan, Jewish and other called themselves "Palestinian".

When the Arabs conquered the region, they used the common name Palestine and formed a province called Jund Filasteen.
And so, the name remained as the name for the region undisputed until 1948.

Now, if the ones claiming the Palestinians have no right to their name could explain what right Israel has to its? After all, Israel was destroyed over 2700 years ago and its people were scattered. They were NOT the ancestors or antecedents of the Jews -- hold on, this isn't an invocation of the Khazars -- asthose would be the people of the southern Kingdom of Judah. Too, according to the Bible, the Hebrews were immigrants like the original Philistines; shouldn't their state be elsewhere (either in the "land of Goshen" where Moses came from or around "Ur of the Chaldees" where Abraham started)?

EULOGY FOR JENIN
(also from last spring)

Today, all across the globe, persons of good will find themselves in mourning. We have all heard the bitter news coming from Palestine. We have heard of the thousand new made martyrs, of mother-less sons, and sonless mothers, of widows and orphans newly made. We have heard of the bodies piled in the streets, of the torture of innocents, of the destruction of houses and holy sites, we have heard of the starving and the rapes. All of us are filled with a just anger just as we are filled with sorrow and a thirst for justice.

We mourn for all those who have lost their lives to the dark forces of hate in the past two weeks, all those who have suffered rape and torture in the days since that Maundy Thursday when the fascist Sharon unleashed his Zionist minions upon the people of Palestine even as Prince Bush and his henchmen gave them the green light.

Though we are angry, we still remain hopeful. For we know that, so long as we still live, the martyred heroes of Jenin, of Nablus, of Beit Lahm, of Ramallah, of all the towns and villages, cities and camps of these past two weeks will live within us. We will carry the cherished memory of their lives with us as a hope, as a light in the darkness shining forth against the black cloud rising over the Earth. We will add their names to the long list of honored martyrs for freedom and justice; to the fallen of Deir Yassin and Tel Az Zaatar, the heroes of Karameh and Beirut, they will be joined.

We will honor them through our words and our deeds and we will never forget them. They have died for all of us; they have stood and they have fallen for all of us who believe in freedom, in justice, for all who believe in morality and equality, for all who fight for democracy and human rights and struggle against oppression, against racism and against fascism.

Their killers might have known how to shape these words of freedom with their lips but they were hollow in their mouths. Those murderers and rapists, torturers and child-killers who were gathered from the gutters of Brooklyn and Kiev, Tel Aviv and Warsaw, claimed high ideals while they killed the ones whose only crime was to defend their homes, their lives, their dignity, to aspire for freedom, for democracy, to be treated as human beings.

Their murderers say that the victims earned their fate; they tell us that they deserved to die. Why? Because they committed that most unforgivable crime -- of being born Palestinian, of being inconvenient to the Zionist enterprise, of daring to contemplate resistance. They tell us that it is wrong to resist oppression and that it is right to slaughter by the hundred when one is working to defend racist oppression.

But they are wrong. The day this attack began was the very anniversary of the day when, nearly two thousand years ago, we are told by the Christians, another Palestinian young man went willingly to his death, as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. And for Him, praise is offered. How then can we condemn those who offer their lives for the simple dream of a whole people for freedom, for justice, for democracy, for the right to live their own lives in their own homeland?

I do not condemn them but praise those who died struggling for justice and freedom. Their names are now written on the stars; their dream and their hope will burn bright wherever there is oppression until the day when all the world is free. For myself alone I can speak and say only that I should wish no more than that I would have such courage, such steadfastness were I in their position one day.

We must all work to uphold the dream of the fallen. We must work to rebuild Palestine. We must work to see Zionism and all other forms of racial oppression eliminated completely through education and through revolution waged until victory. We must work for the day when all the refugees, in Palestine and everywhere, return to their homes, when all the settlements are removed, for the day when just compensation is given by the oppressors to all they have wounded and displaced, to all who have survived eighty five years of the Zionist onslaught.

We must work for the day when a democratic and secular state arises, one that encompasses all Palestine, from the river to the sea. We will help to build it as a model for the entire region; we will use the power of the people who have arisen from the ashes of the martyred nation as a burning brand that will liberate the whole region from local reaction and neo-colonialism.

Just as the struggle at Karameh brought honor back to a defeated people, just as the Intifada of Stones taught the world that a free people cannot be broken and the Intifada of Al-Aksa has brought hope, now we hope that the whole world will react to the obscenities perpetrated in Palestine and a global Intifada will be ignited against the forces of racism, of Zionism, of Imperialism all around the world. The whole world is watching Palestine; the whole world is Palestine.

To the Non-Zionist Jews, we ask that you tell your coreligionists in the settlements that the time has come to go home; leave Kiryat Arba and Ariel, Maale Adumieh and Rishon Zeevi, Netzarim and Netanya. Tell them to go back to their homelands; planes leave Lydda every day for Warsaw, Kiev, and New York. Rebuild your religious institutions around the message of the Prophets, base it on justice, on freedom, clean out all the garbage of eighty-five years of racist cant. To the so-called "progressive" and left Zionists; show that you are truly opposed to oppression and begin work to demolish the racist nature of the Zionist state or go, go back to the lands from whence you came.

To the Arab leaders, we ask that you no longer stand idle, no longer endorse the ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people through your silent complicity with the Zionist enterprise. Do not sign more peace treaties with the butchers of Jenin; we know from Beirut how much Sharon and his minions word is worth --- were his promises written on water, they would last longer. Bring home all the Arab Jews; welcome them back to Baghdad, to Sanaa, to Tunis and Marrakech, to all the places they once dwelt before they were lured away by the siren songs and lies of the Zionists. They are your people; bring them home.

To all the right-minded people in Europe and America, we ask that you show the same courage, the same fortitude with which you joined the South African struggle. Just as then you did not fear the hurling of insults that you were anti-white when the racists hurled them, do not listen to those who say you are motivated by hatred for Jews; we know you are not, we know that you are motivated by love for freedom, for democracy, by your hunger for justice. Just as you did when facing apartheid, you must be firm; all forms of Zionist racist dominion must be ended. Comprehensive sanctions must be imposed on Israel and, while we wait for those, we must begin to boycott all Israeli goods and the goods of those companies, which refuse to divest themselves from the Zionist enterprise.

We must be unrelenting and uncompromising in facing the darkness; we must not flinch from fear of failure. We must work together to educate and build a movement that together will bring down Zionism and bring freedom for all Palestine in its place. We must do this for, when we do so, we will have created the only truly suitable monument to all those who have fallen, to all the heroes and martyred dead of eighty five years in struggle.

One day -- and the day is not so very far-off now -- a secular and democratic state will emerge in Palestine. There, one human will have one vote, whether that one is Muslim, Christian, Druze, or Jew. That state will have made the sacrifices worth it. For, by the ballot or the bullet, by the olive branch or the gun, any which way, freedom must come.

That will be the lasting tribute to all the martyred heroes of Jenin. They will not have died in vain.

Fascism in the name of "PEACE"

The self-appointed spokespeople for the oh-so-sacred and sanctified mythical mainstream denounce the people who kept bringing up "irrelevant" issues like the Palestinian Struggle at anti-war rallies. I have seen more than one article circulated suggesting that the anto-war movement failed to stop the war, not because Bush and his posse were unstoppable but because these "radicals" drove away the masses. I have even seen it said that the Palestinian solidarity movement "stabbed" the anti-war movement in the back.

(That allegation reminds more than a little of what Hitler said the Jews did to the German war effort in the Great War.)

These same ones who seek to suppress what they cannot control could do no better than organize the posting of lawn signs and never turn out vast numbers. When the war ended in a Bushite victory, they vanished faster than the Republican Guards, leaving only a few behind to call for UN control in Iraq and a handful to attack the Left and, as ever, any who opposed Israeli Occupation.

They claim that they speak for the "silent majority".

And announce repeatedly that their vaunted claims were held by all opposed to this damnable war (they always speak to the press about how the anti-war movement speaks with a unified voice and ubnified line, that is, their line): We are all supposed to say that we support the (presumably American) troops and detest the damnable Iraqis, disagreeing with the Bush junta only on the means of their disemboweling (we are alleged to have prefered the slow death of endless sanctions and inspections to depose the despised Saddam rather than the hawkish desire to kill quickly with weaponry) ... we are all supposed to avoid making connections with that other ongoing occupation and slow motion genocide of an Arab people paid for with our dollars and done with our weaponry ...

We are asked to be against the war because we "support the troops and don't wish them to die" ... and ignore the suffering of those not so priveleged to be born in this unholy America.

I PROTEST!

We need to stand firm with the oppressed, all the oppressed, the people of Iraq and the people of Palestine, the downtrodden in Atlanta, Baghdad, and Gaza ...

We need to stand against Empire and, if we must "support the troops" we must support those fighting against the Empire (as the old Polish slogan went "They fight for their freedom --- and Yours!")

We need to make the connections between this brutal war and that other one going on next door ...

Many Arabs and Arab-Americans came out to antiwar events. Many of themweare demanding that attention be paid to Palestine and internal repression in the United States. Were we to ignore the actual voices of the oppressed in this war and instead listen only to some coterie of self-important Quakers, zenmasters and navel gazers who cannot organize a rally or lead a march?

I think not!

I will not!

They ask us to moderate our radical leftist stances. They tell us we must go towards the middle because that is where the majority of the people are. But I say to them that our goal should not be to move towards the center but to move the center TO US! As for me, I intend never to moderate my positions and I intend that, when I am old, they will call me a "conservative".

WARSAW AND JENIN

(from last Spring)

In the summer of 1944, the Polish Home Army heard the news of the D-Day landings, of the advance of the Red Army across the Eastern Front. After five long years of steadfast resistance to the Nazi Occupiers of Poland, the KA began a massive and sustained popular uprising throughout the city of Warsaw. They believed, falsely, that the Allies would aid them.

Instead, the Red Army stopped in its tracks and watched as the Nazis surrounded the city and began one of the most brutal anti-insurgent campaigns in history. House by house, block by block, they advanced into the city, destroying everything before them. The stories of the heroism of the hopelessly outgunned Poles, struggling desperately for their lives as food gave out, as surrendering prisoners were executed, make a sad yet uplifting saga.

In the end, the German High Command made the decision that Warsaw was to be destroyed, utterly extinguished from the maps of Europe. Not one stone was to stand upon another. And nearly all of the Old City of Warsaw was levelled. The non-KA civilians were expelled and forced to wander town to town throughout the countryside of Occupied Poland. A vision was presented of a new German farming community to take Warsaw's place along the banks of the Vistula. Tens of thousands were slaughtered.

A few months ago, news broke in Israel that Israeli army planners were studying the "lessons" of the Warsaw Rising. They were not looking at the heroic tales of futile resistance, the stories of freedom fighters driven into the sewers, half-starved, yet still struggling on in the darkness to combat the genocidal occupiers of their country.

No, instead, they were studying the methods of barbarism used by the Nazis to crush the Uprising. In Israel, when the news broke, there was a modest scandal; how could Jews studying the methods of the perpetrators of Auschwitz as a model of correct behavior?

But, in recent days, events have proved that those officers learned their lessons well. In the villages around Jenin, tens of thousands of women and children wander, homeless, cast out from the ruins of their home. Jenin lies in rubble, the bodies of fighters and civilians gather flies in the streets. We hear of surrendering resistors executed at point blank range by the soldiers of the Occupying army. It is the same tale as 1944 only with new names.

One day, will a liberated Jenin be like Warsaw and have a carefuly rebuilt quarter? Will the names and memories of the fallen heroes of Jenin be placed side by side with those who fought Hitler? I wonder.

And, too, I fear the analogy. Eventually, the Nazis left Warsaw but not by some brokered peace deal. Instead, they were chased out by the tanks and divisions of the Red Army, the same army that had sat in the suburb of Praga while the Germans vented their rage against Polish civilians.

Like the Allied fear of a truly independent Poland that lead to the massacre of the Katyn Forest, the Arab states stand ready to betray the cause of Palestine. Like the killers of Katyn, the perpetrators of Tel Al Zaatar and Black September go unpunished. And their armies do not even stand poised ready along the Jordan.

Yet hope still springs; despite the fury the Nazis vented on the Poles, despite killing nearly one in four of them, ultimately, the Poles won their freedom and the fourth partition was undone. So, too, despite the hardships on the road to freedom, despite the many thousands martyred dead, Palestine will one day triumph over Ariel Sharon and his minions.

The martyrs of Jenin will not have fallen in vain.

A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR PEACE

(From a few months ago)
As I listened to Congressman Dick Armey’s call for the transfer of the Palestinian people out of the territory under Israeli control and thought about how, over the past few days, both houses of the United States Congress (as well as numerous state legislatures) have competed in showing their unequivocal support of the continued existence of an independent Jewish state within secure boundaries, their whole-hearted support for the Sharon government, and the full backing of the US to insure those, I realized that there was a solution to the current impasse; all that is needed is for those same American leaders to really show their resolve by leading their own people forward and placing their own prestige upon the line.

Israel, unfortunately, is located in the ever fractious Middle East and the whole of its national territory is also claimed by the Palestinians as their own homeland. Israel – and Palestine – together take up only a tiny fraction of the world’s surface but their conflict echoes globally. There is little room for both peoples in what is already a densely inhabited region of the Earth. Just as the Israelis do, so, too, do the Palestinians have certain natural interests in recovering the lands of which they feel unjustly deprived.

Therefore, bearing in mind the legitimate concerns of both peoples and the clearly stated feelings of the American people (as represented by their sole legitimate interlocutors) for a Jewish State, I would like to make the following proposals in interest of lasting peace in the Middle East:

-- that Israel will evacuate all its Jewish citizens from the whole of the territory of the former Palestine Mandate along with that movable portion of their properties.
-- that the said territory will be handed over in its entirety to the Palestinian Authority which will henceforth assume full responsibility for the territory and for the resettlement of all the Palestinian refugees.
-- That the United States of America will cede the State of California to the Israeli government as the new National Home for the Jewish communities of Israel and elsewhere.
-- That “California” will hence forward be known as “New Israel” and will be resettled by the Israeli people as well as all members of the American and world Jewish communities.
-- That the government of the United States will undertake the removal and resettlement of the non-Jewish inhabitants of New Israel.
--That Mexico and the United States will sign border and defense agreements with New Israel and that New Israel will enter into the North American Free Trade Accord.

I believe that this plan is imminently practicable as:

-- several generations of American political leadership has been out spoken in its view of the need for an independent Jewish State. Clearly, no such consensus would have emerged had Americans not been willing to make the same sacrifices that they have requested of the Arab peoples.
-- New Israel is much larger than the current State of Israel. Zionism is predicated upon the notion of the ingathering of the whole of the Jewish diaspora and, should such an event come to pass, the current territory of Israel is far too small. New Israel will have room enough for all. In addition, its wide variety of climates and topographies will ease the resettlement tasks.
-- While many Palestinian communities had existed for centuries (if not millennia) in their pre-1947 locations, most of the Californian population has shallow roots in the area. Before the Gold Strikes of 1848-49, California held fewer than 100,000 people. Thus, the resettlement of the Californians will be a simple matter as most can be returned to either their own or their families’ places of origin. Recent immigrants from outside the United States will also doubtlessly welcome an opportunity to return home.
-- The United States has forty-none other states; the alleged “loss” of one will be relatively easy for most Americans to ignore, especially as they will draw benefits from free trade with New Israel.
-- California’s location at the western rim of the Continental United States also will soften any perceived loss of prestige among Americans. It is far more marginal to Americans than Palestine ever was in the Middle East.
-- Already, the majority of the territory of California lies outside the scope of the State of New Israel. This territory, known as “Baja” California might easily serve as the appropriate place for the expression of a Californian identity among any persons descended from pre-1849 Californians. They could easily set up their own state as they will soon outnumber the Baja Californians.

This is an idea that’s time has come! As Americans, we need to accept responsibility for our own actions: how better than by doing to ourselves what we ask others to do?

AM I NAIVE? OR MERELY STUPID?

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that I am either very stupid or hopelessly naïve. Why? Because I cannot comprehend what it is about those Palestinian “suicide-bombers” that earns so much moral condemnation from the political and military leadership of the United States and of Israel and from the various establishment commentators when they remain silent on so much else.

I keep expecting that, as soon as I hear yet another condemnation of ‘suicide bombers” that it will shortly be followed by condemnations of killers who strike from aircraft, from tanks, or from behind fortifications. I expect to hear of the depravity of the stock-pilers of nuclear weapons. I assume that anyone who finds someone blowing himself up and killing a handful of occupiers so repugnant will surely have his stomach turned when he learns of men who kill by the hundred from the safety of an aircraft at thirty thousand feet and, rather than dying alongside their victims, knock off from the killing fields to relax behind a cold can of Pabst Blue Ribbon with a clear conscience. But, then, I fear that these commentators do not espouse any form of pacifism, do they? Well, they apparently do -- when they expect their victims to blithely turn the other cheek, to hand over their infants for the slaughter and, when the victims refuse, these pompous goats complain that Palestinians, Iraqis, and other Middle Eastern peoples reject Gandhian tactics.

Ah, I think when I have discounted the possibility that George Will and Rush Limbaugh have not converted to some Christian pacifist sect, perhaps their criticism is based on some half-understood Maoist military critique? Perhaps they mean to point out the strategic folly of sending one’s most committed fighters to a certain death rather than fighting – and surviving to fight another day? After all, the logical corollary of condemning “suicide-bombers” while advocating militarism is to call for Palestinian militants to lay mines, to obtain mortars, to plant bombs and blow up people from afar … isn’t it? Surely, these guardians of democracy shake their heads whenever Nathaniel Hale is mentioned?

And, then, a strange thought comes to my mind from out of some hidden recess of my mind: perhaps, the reason for the deafening silence of these nattering nabobs and general staff officers when it comes to the use of fuel air explosives, thermobaric bombs, depleted uranium shells, “targeted killings”, rubber bullets, butterfly mines, nuclear weapons, armored bulldozers, F-16’s, and Stealth bombers, their silent chorus when it comes to slaughters inside mosques, the shelling and destruction of churches, the killing of children inside their homes, of mothers as they clutch their infants, the destruction of cities and of camps, is easily understood. Perhaps, all these crimes are utterly inconsequential to them.

After all, when we speak of the million martyrs of Iraq, of the fallen ones of Palestine, aren’t we talking about the deaths of mere Arabs?

They don’t feel pain like we do, do they?

And, though the deaths of the Palestinian victims of Israeli terrorism outnumber the deaths of their tormentors by a factor of twenty or so and that of the Iraqi civilians to the Americans by close on a few thousand fold, these victims do not count.

They will not count for so long as they inconvenience the wealthy, western folk, make them nervous about their offspring going out for a long night of dissolute clubbing or wonder about the wisdom of wandering aimlessly about one’s stolen promised land while on leave from Brooklyn. Can we possibly muster compassion for a bunch of damned dirty Arabs who are merely starving and under siege, dying of cancers from our weaponry, living as refugees within sight of ruined homelands? After all, there are upper class Americans in New York and Maalot Adumeh who fear visiting the mall!

If those misshapen subhumans dare to even contemplate striking down members of the Master Race, well, then, clearly they are wicked and evil, fit only for the destruction to which their suicide bombers have condemned them.

And if the Brave and Noble Soldiers of the Twin Empires of the Master Race slaughter a few dozen convalescents in a hospital?

Well, they are heroes who wiped out another terrorist nest and deserve our praise! After all, they bring the day closer when we can wander half naked through the shopping mall again!

BUT IS IT POSSIBLE?

Some have argued that challenging on Israel's Apartheid structure isn't a good use of time but is futile because Israel is unlikely to make such concessions and that it makes more sense to put pressure where it will have an effect (yes, I am simplifying a more complex argument).

I would like to object that saying that Israel is unlikely to unmake itself as a Zionist state is looking at too narrow a horizon.

It is entirely possible that at some point in the not too distant future, Israel may unmake itself as a Zionist state. Such change is not without precedent; South Africa leaps to mind as an immediate example. In South Africa, de Klerk and the rest of his faction knew perfectly well that they were surrendering white political power forever. Yet they did it nonetheless. Most of the
Soviet-bloc states similarly unmade themselves without a shot being fired.

And, if anything, Israel's leaders are in a better position to unmake their own ideology than were the South African Nationalists; in the unlikely event that every Palestinian exile returned home immediately, they would only slightly outnumber Israeli Jews at the polls, not overwhelm them in the way that black South Africans outnumber Afrikaaners: a Jewish head of state is imaginable in a post -Zionist state in a way that a white president of South Africa is not.

But we need not just look to South Africa for inspiration. Outside Haiti and the American South, slavery was unmade peacefully; in the British Empire, the northern American states, Brazil (which has a proportionately much larger black population than the US), the Dutch and French West Indies, and the Spanish states, the slaveowners undid their own power. Desegregation in the US involved the granting of a great many concessions by whites (the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was, after all, signed by a southerner).

And all these struggles do tell us something about our own role:

the anti-slavery, anti-apartheid, and civil rights movements would NOT have succeded in getting those concessions if they had simply said, we'll never win. Instead, movements of the oppressed inside the oppressing societies worked hand in hand with some degrees of military pressure and large political movements outside. Abolitionists and anti-apartheid activists
both worked to build awareness and bring economic pressure to bear (there were boycotts in western Europe of slave-sugar, the divestment campaugns of the 1980's, etc) ... and they created a situation where the once "favored sons" were gradually socially and politically isolated, made to feel economic hardship, etc until, at last, they threw in the towel ...

we can do the same.

we should do the same.

WHY PALESTINE?

American governmental support for Israel making the Palestinian cause a moral imperative for Americans would be true regardless of whether we see the moral issue as one of "occupation" or as one of "apartheid".

Other anti-occupation movements in this country, such as the "Free Tibet" movement, have less of an imperative for Americans because there is less American culpability -- and, no matter how much noise is made in the US calling for Chinese withdraw from Thibet, Dr. Hu et al in Beijing couldn't care less ... while building a sturdy grassroots Palestinian solidarity movement in this country can -- and, I dare say, will -- have an effect on both American and Israeli policies.

But, in terms of morality, we need to distinguish several issues.

We all, I believe, support the principle of national-self-determination. Yet, we are not out in the streets decrying the lack of rights for many small nations (Kurds, Baluchis, Oromo, Lapps, South Sudanese, etc, etc). Lack of self-determination clearly is not what makes the Palestinian case "special".

We all, I think, agree that military occupation is wrong. I doubt that any of us would have defended the brutality of Indonesian rule in East Timor, the long occupation of the Baltic States, Kuwayt under Saddam, the Serbs in Krajina, Eritrea, or any of a hundred others now, thankfully, ended or of the ongoing repression in Kashmir, Western Sahara, Thibet or anywhere else.

To dismiss these as merely "disputed territories" fails to make a crucial difference; legally speaking that IS what the status of the West Bank and Gaza IS. Israel did not occupy an existent Palestinian state; as the Israelis are fond of reminding us, the West Bank was under Jordanian military rule (that is, occupation) on June 1, 1967 and only the United Kingdom and Pakistan had ever recognized it as anything but Occupied land. Gaza was, quite openly, "UAR Occupied Palestine" at that time.

So what is it that makes Israel a special subject of ire? It has to be what can best be described as "apartheid'.

Yes, the use of that term to describe Israel's system of government is new. In 1948, when Israel was created, apartheid was just a Dutch word; it did not become the term for South Africa's racialist system until that year (before then, South African blacks had had more rights). But, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, this Afrikaans term so rich with history carries exactly the right weight and meaning to describe Israeli policy.

Yes, in 1967, few people railed against Israel's racist system. But there were some even in this country then.

And, we must not forget, that it was a different world then. Israel was far less an aberration than it is now. South Africa had only just been kicked out of the Commonwealth and, only months earlier, been first condemned for its rule in Namibia. Zimbabwe was still Ian Smith's Rhodesia; Portugal enforced race laws in Angola and Mozambique; five years earlier, massacres
of Arabs were still going on to protect the settlers of "Algerie Francaise"; Catholics had few legal rights in Ulster; most of Africa was just emerging from long years of European rule; Johnson had signed the Civil Rights act only two years earlier and America's milder "Jim Crow" form of legal apartheid was still dying.

A generation later and the world has changed as surely as it did when, in a few short generations (1789-1868), chattel slavery went from first an unquestioned commonplace to a hotly debated issue to a memory throughout the western world. Now, race-based apartheid states are fast becoming a memory. And Israel abides.

It took years for a global struggle against South African aparthied to grow from being a few frail voices to an unstoppable movement; we are still, unfortunately, in early stages of this struggle yet we cannot lose sight of why we struggle. A new generation has grown up here, there, and everywhere that rejects the concepts of Apartheid out of hand.

To say that a full Israeli withdraw behind the green-line would somehow make things perfect is to deny reality. The Palestinian resistance did not wait until Nablus was taken to take up arms; it recognized that the struggle was about equal rights in Jaffa and Haifa as well as in Ramallah and Gaza.

If anything, the struggle for equality inside the green lines is even more crucial; when Israel ceases to be a Zionist, Jewish exclusive state and the refugees can return home in peace, it will not matter what is occupied. If anything, to concede the struggle for freedom and the right of return is a tacit admission that Israel has been far too gentle in its rule over the
West Bank and Gaza; if only they had applied the methods of barbarism of 1948 and expelled the majority of the Palestinians in the June War, then there'd be no debate.

But we cannot, we must not allow the idea that might makes right to stand and we must not allow the idea that even a single square foot of earth anywhere should be ruled by an apartheid government to stand. We must struggle ceaselessly to end apartheid everywhere it remains; in Jaffa and Haifa, in Khan Yunis and Ramallah, everywhere!

IRAQ AND ME

As you might have noticed, the items I've posted on this site so far have been heavy with Iraqi content. Of course, that has a lot to do with the fact that a war has just ended with the American Conquest of Iraq and that land has now become an American colony, de jure and de facto. So, of course, just writing topical comments would give things a heavy Iraqi flavor.

But I have a bit more of a history with that unfortunate land.

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was a great deal younger and began reading all I could about Ancient Mesopotamia, specifically the SUmerian civilization. In a notebook, I even jotted down every Sumerian word I came across in secondary texts with its meaning, etc. and thought about putting together a conected rewrite of all the Sumerian mythic and heroic tales (something like one of those mythological handbooks we are all familiar with that tell the Greek or Norse myths as a single continuous narrative).

Not too much later, I began reading books on modern Middle Eastern history. But all this was still just a thing to do to kill endless hours in study halls and in-school detentions.

My first year in college, I took a class, the only one on offer, on Art History of the Ancient Near East (Mesopotamia plus Turkey, Iran, and Syria-Palestine). As chance would have it, all the other students dropped the class so it became, for all practical purposes, a tutorial.

I was rather inspired and had signed up for some more Near East Studies classes for the following semester.

That summer, I was back at my parents house in Ohio when the Iraqis invaded Kuwait and American troops were dispatched to Saudi Arabia. When I returned to Atlanta a few weeks later, I assumed that a vast anti-war movement would soon spring into life (I was, after all, on one of the most 'liberal' campuses in the South) and I assumed that I would show up at some events, argue with people, etc.

Of course, I was wrong about a vast movement springing into life. I went around to the various campus groups -- Emory for Peace (or something like that), Amnesty International, and so on -- and soon discovered that no one wanted to do anything, not even have an opinion ... so I was discouraged. On Labor Day, I ran into some folks leafleting in Piedmont Park so I was soon connected to people opposing the war in the city.

Meanwhile, I decided that if no one else would, I would do something to try and organize against the war. I went to the computer lab and typed up my own flyer (I saw it years later and was amused at my own amateurish-ness), found a comic strip to use as a graphic and made a few dozen copies. I posted them around campus and called my own meeting. A handful of people showed up (including a heckler).

Soon, we began organizing on campus. But we had no experience and little support. All fall, we tried to get things going but were not overly successful. Meanwhile, I had called every anti-war group I could think of and asked them to send me information (this was long before the internet). Some responded.

One of them, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, contacted me. They were organizing a student anti-war delegation to Iraq in January. Might I be interested? I said I was and filled in their applications. So, in January 1991, I went to Baghdad and, though in retrospect it seems rather silly, tried to stop a war. Of course, by the time I got back, the war had started. I was now involved in speaking all over, organizing, etc. From a handful a few months earlier, our campus rallies had grown to hundreds. Things seemed to be moving (of course, I was so busy with activities that I destroyed my health and nearly flunked out .. but that's another story).

Any way, post-war, I switched my major to Near Eastern Studies, started studying Arabic and so on. I also got very involved in political work on behalf of the Palestinians.

As I neared completion of my studies a bit later, I began considering graduate school. I wanted to do Modern Near Eastern History but realized that to specialize in Palestine/Israel was to immediaely enter a minefield. Everything said would have a political importance and one misstep might be fatal. Every academic was viewed as being on one "side" or another and most career tracks involved using academia for purposes of empire.

Iraqi studies, on the other hand, were not nearly so politicized. I had become interested in the British colonial era in Iraq. British policy had had severe deforming impact and, in some ways, predicted Saddam (the British gassed the Kurds, massacred the Shia, schemed to drain the Marshes, plotted to invade Iraq, and ruled by massacre) as well as serving as a parallel to Britain's policies in the Palestine Mandate (originally under direct rule from India, the British wanted to resettle Sindhis and Bengalis in Southern Iraq by the millions and establish a Jewish free state near Baghdad). Best of all, colonial rule in Iraq was a distant thing with no obvious public policy impact; I could do serious work and never have to worry about it being used for the service of Empire.

Of course, I realized recently, that, had I stayed the course, I'd not have avoided a politicized landscape. I would have had to choose between service of Empire and service of truth.

Perhaps, by never sending off those applications I'd begun, I made the right choice?

Vote Democrat?
Mountain tribes
Relief for Pain
So long suckas

THE IRAQI CONSTITUTION

So, the new Iraqi Constitution is to be written not by an Iraqi nor even by an Arab but by some Orthodox Jewish professor at NYU, Noah Feldman who just so happens to be a part of the neo-con New America Foundation, one of the groups that campaigned incessantly for the ongoing genocide in Iraq and for an out and out American Empire that would destroy and occupy all the Muslim Middle East). He has clearly written that the only reason he supports "democratization" in the Arab states is that it would benefit Israel.

Feldman has written extensively on the "need" for the Arab states to be "democratized" (without, of course, ending neo-colonial rule) as a way of co-opting Political Islam and "preventing" terrorism. He has never called for an end of occupation; based on his new role on Iraq, he must see it as a good thing.

He has written about separation of religion and politics in the United States and around the world. But he does NOT call for a separation of synagogue and state. No, quite the opposite; this is a man absolutely dedicated to theocracy, so long as the theos in question is the god of the Talmud and not that of either Gospel or Koran.

This type of Judaeo-Supremacist makes me sick. They campaign for secularism and democracy when it is to their benefit -- that is when the majority are Muslims or Christians. But will Feldman ever write a constitution that defines Israel as a secular, democratic state of all its inhabitants? I doubt it. I am sure he sees it as the Base Law proclaims it, a state for one faith and one faith alone; the rest are merely to be "tolerated" (though that toleration will include expelling Christian missionaries, burning down churches, surrounding mosques with a thousand policemen, shooting worshippers, and so on).

But I deviate from my main point. One wonders at the gall of the Bushite Imperialists in appointing this man to write a constitution for Iraq. Did it occur to them that there might be some few Iraqis as capable?

I doubt it. They have stocked the new colonial office not with Americans versed in Iraqi history and politics nor with people sympathetic to the Iraqis but with those who see them as barely human. These new servants of Empire see the Iraqis (and all Arabs) as a Lesser Breed outside the law, half-devil and half-child, and so incapable of framing their own legal needs. No, the "Sand-Niggers" (as the American Occupation forces call them) are too stupid and too sullen to write their own laws ...

It makes me sick.

(I drafted this wrap-up summary of Atlanta anti-war activities the other day)

ATLANTA AND THE WAR


The bombs had barely begun falling over Baghdad when the first voices of protest and resistance were raised locally. The War began a few minutes after 10 pm on March 18 as heavy rain fell over Atlanta. Within half an hour, a handful of activists were protesting at Five Points.

The following day, the activist community came alive throughout Atlanta. Students walked out of classes in protest at many campuses. Georgia State students formed a day long spontaneous teach-in. At Emory, activists established a camp in the midst of the quad. Hundreds of Spellman students marched as a bloc downtown.

At Five Points that afternoon, nearly a thousand people met up to protest the beginning of the war in response to a call that had been put out for a day-of demonstration. They came from all aspects of the anti-war movement: students, religious pacifists, self-described revolutionaries, environmentalists, anti-racist activists, Arab immigrants, "poets for peace", Palestine solidarity groups, and people who had never taken part in a demonstration before. For two hours, the motley and unorganized group blocked traffic on Peachtree. Motorists, initially irritated by traffic delays, honked and waved in support when they saw what was causing the back-ups. Marchers later set-off for CNN to protest what they saw as biased coverage.

More demonstrations followed at Five Points in the following days and weeks. Elsewhere in Metro Atlanta -- in Decatur, in Marietta, in Little Five Points, in Virginia Highlands, even in Buckhead -- others took to the streets. While Atlanta's numbers might seem small when compared to the hundreds of thousands who marched against the war in New York, San Francisco and
overseas, they were still large considering Atlanta's history of activism.

"I was involved in organizing during the 1991 War," one activist who called himself Orange Juice said, "and this is totally different. Then, we'd think a turn out of a hundred and fifty people was a huge success; this time out, we're calling it a failure.
It just shows how huge the feeling is against the war."

Orange Juice called attention to the large number of demonstrations that had happened in the weeks and months before the war. A candlelight vigil of two thousand lined Ponce De Leon in Decatur in February; five thousand had marched against the war downtown in November; Not In Our Name organized multi-point demonstrations.

In the aftermath of the war, many activists were dispirited though others said that the real job of exposing and stopping the growth of an American Empire had just begun. New wars and new challenges lie ahead as well as a great deal of work related to the continuing deplorable situation in Iraq.

(I wrote this a while back but am reposting it here)

Had there Never Been a Zionism, Israel Still Would Be:
The Anti-Semitic Analysis of the Palestine Conflict and American Foreign Policy

All too frequently, whenever discussion rises regarding the roots of the American role in the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict, some one or other interjects what we can call the "Anti-Semitic" theory of politics. This holds that the root of the conflict is in a natural Jewish malevolence towards non-Jews and that there is, at some level, a "Jewish plot" to dominate the world. Sometimes, Judaism is held to be the root of the Middle East Conflict, other times Zionism in some shape or other.

In dealing with the American role, the theory holds that a naturally benevolent American foreign policy has been hijacked by more-or-less foreign Jewish elements who, through various means, have turned American policy towards blind support of Israel, in particular the ongoing occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and the dispossession of the Palestinian people.

Frankly, I find the belief as silly as it is repugnant. It is premised on several false beliefs regarding Judaism and Jewish culture that have been refuted elsewhere. More importantly, it is also premised on a fundamental misunderstanding of what current American (and past British) policy in the Middle East is based on.

Contemporary American foreign policy generally has at its root not an isolationist impulse, a fervent anti-Communism, or even the much-heralded anti-terrorism. Instead, it is based on the fundamental objective of sustained American political and economic hegemony globally. In a word, it is based on imperialism.

To a large extent, the United States inherited the mantle of British hegemony in the Middle East and, with it, patronage of the State of Israel. Like the British earlier, American objectives in the Middle East center on two issues. The first and more widely known is maintenance of control over the Gulf oil fields. Britain maintained a military presence in Iraq until 1958, elsewhere in the Gulf until 1972, and twice during the twentieth century invaded and occupied much of Iran. Currently, Britain maintains a large military presence in the Sultanate of Oman. One of the core principles was the maintenance of British naval access to Persian Gulf oil.

The second fundamental for Britain was the control of the sea-lanes. From 1839 onwards, Britain maintained naval posts at Aden and elsewhere. Even more important was, after 1869, the control of the Suez Canal, the main maritime link between the Atlantic basin and the Indian Ocean. To protect the Canal, Britain occupied Egypt and built an empire from Cairo. So important was Britain's interest in controlling the Canal that, in the middle of the Battle of Britain, troops were removed from homeland defense and sent to defend the Canal. The last major British imperial adventure, of course, was the 1956 invasion of Egypt alongside Israel and France.

America inherited both these strategic objectives and with them some of the means of control. The past quarter century has seen American paramount power in the region challenged in Iran. A decade ago, the largest war America has fought in a generation was waged against Iraq. A massive American military presence remains on a more or less permanent basis in the Gulf while a system of asymmetric alliances has been established throughout the region. America is the avowed guarantor power of the status quo in the Gulf.

Into this imperial framework, Israel fits nicely. For both Britain and America, the existence of a well-trained, well-armed Israel is far cheaper and more effective in maintaining control than basing a second military group in the region. Israel, by its nature, cannot fit easily into the region and remains on a permanent war footing, forever dependent on its alliance with the West for its ultimate survival.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Britain - and to a lesser extent France?was casting about for a regional ally that would be able to further British control without entailing a massive British military presence. The French had developed a "special relationship" with the Lebanese Maronite community. In return for promoting French ambitions, the Maronites were rewarded with the largest possible Christian majority state in the post-Ottoman settlement. Czarist Russia had similar relations with the Armenian and Orthodox communities. Britain, as a latecomer, was without such an easy alliance yet approached the Druze community in the Levant and, briefly, the Assyrians in Iraq.

It was in this environment that the Zionist movement emerged. Chaim Weizmann and others presented Britain with a priceless opportunity: they would undertake most of the costs of colonization and self-organization, building a paramilitary for themselves, and would further British objectives. The Zionist movement would colonize and develop Palestine at virtually no cost to Britain. In return, all they asked was that Britain be the colonial power and protect the movement. Naturally, the British government wholeheartedly supported the creation of a Jewish home in Palestine and, for thirty years, allowed the gradual building of a large Jewish community and a para-state under the British mandate.

Perhaps, by use of counter-factual, we can understand the significance of the British mandate for the future State of Israel. In 1917, Zionism was a small idiosyncratic movement within the Jewish community. Far larger political movements dominated most of Jewish thought and, in general, the Zionists were few and fairly marginal within the Diaspora. A few tiny agricultural settlements had been established in Ottoman Palestine but, in 1917, they were no more than simply an interesting experiment. One can assume that, had Britain not committed itself to Zionism, these settlements would have continued but solely as a small footnote in Palestinian and Jewish history, no more significant than the German Christian agricultural settlements in Palestine. The Palestine Jewish community at about a tenth of the overall population was one of the larger Jewish communities and, we can guess, that that community would have played a role similar to that which was actually played by the Christian Arab community.

Zionism, however, had not sprung up in a vacuum. Quite simply put, it had emerged for the British Empire as the right ideology in the right place at the right time. Palestine is situated at crossroads of Eurasia and Africa; an ideology that supported the formation of a western-oriented settler-state there was a godsend to those who wished to see Western domination of the whole globe continue indefinitely. Support for the Zionist movement and, later, the State of Israel was far cheaper for both Britain and America than establishing permanent military garrisons of their own military.

Certainly, it was helpful that much of the population of both Britain and America was mentally prepared for a "return of the Jews to their homeland" by dispensationalist Christian belief. Certainly, the history of anti-Semitism in Europe, especially after the Holocaust, created waves of sympathy and support. Similarly, Israel's greater level of democracy than its neighbors has helped elicit support. However, had there never been a Holocaust, had there been no religious sympathy, had Israel been a military dictatorship, support for Israel would have still been strong. Had the Zionist movement been made up of Korean Buddhists, Britain and America still would have supported it so long as it promised a client state in the region eternally bound to the West for support. Had Israel become a military dictatorship, like South Vietnam or any of a great number of American clients, support would have remained strong. Had no Zionist movement emerged, one would have been invented.

The Anti-Semitic analysis ignores this basic fact. Instead, by focusing on the Jewishness of the new state, it ignored the actual culpability of Britain and America in the dispossession of the Palestinian Arabs and their continued oppression. Other than the rather singular exception of Benjamin Disraeli in the nineteenth century, neither Britain nor America has ever been led by persons of Jewish origin yet the Anti-Semitic analysis is predicated upon the concept of nefarious Jewish control of both countries. Certainly, as a prosperous and well-educated community in both states, the Jewish communities in Britain and America have been well-represented in the governments of both states yet even the most cursory of glances reveals communities that are far from monolithic in thought and, in truth, generally among the more progressive and anti-imperialist segments of both populations. The Anti-Semitic view ignores any such acquaintance with facts.

Naturally, the Anti-Semitic analysis has had a great appeal to the most reactionary elements within the Arab world. It is much simpler for conservative regimes reliant on American and British support for continued existence to tell their populace that, rather than the guarantor power and themselves being responsible for continued social, economic, and political backwardness, it is all the fault of "the Jews". So long as these states remain dependent on the United States (I am thinking here primarily of the Gulf States, post-Nasser Egypt and Jordan though the same holds true for the somewhat more independent Ba'athi states), directing the populace's legitimate ire away from both themselves and their patrons is incumbent.

For American official dealing with the Arab regimes, the Anti-Semitic analysis offers much. American Christians can decry the existence of a "powerful pro-Israel lobby" in and out of Congress that will take out full page ads in the NY Times, Washington Post, etc. and pass sense-of-Congress resolutions, claiming that it is all done against the actual will of the "American people" (a rather Anti-Semitic image) when, in fact, such apparent domestic pressure serves American policy makers with a deniability factor. "Don't worry Arabs, we love you, but we have to support Sharon's policies because of the Israeli lobby," they say and too many believe it.

The Palestinian national movement that emerged in the late sixties of the last century had, at its core, several ideas dangerous to these reactionary powers: it was popularly based and has advocated both a greater degree of democratization and social upheaval within the Arab world. Palestinian success in creating a bi-national, democratic, secular state would have been as inimical to the reactionary Arab regimes as it would have been to the Zionist movement. Naturally, it was violently opposed in most of the Arab countries and, when attacked by Israel, supported only by the loud ringing of hands. No Arab government has ever truly supported the Palestinian struggle beyond a propagandistic level; it is too dangerous for those dependent on the West to actually allow a popular movement to emerge next-door. Better to let Israel crush the Palestinians while the Arab leaders can misdirect their people from their own misdeeds by denouncing Israel. Within the Palestinian movement, the Arab states - as well as Israel and the United States - promoted the careers of those most given to compromise, those least committed to popular struggle and most likely to form a truncated Palestinian state even more dependent than themselves on the West (in a word, Arafat).

Yet, "The Jews" are still held solely responsible. No, Judaism has nothing to do with it whatsoever. Jews do not order the continuous bombing of Iraq; Jews do not hold the whole of the Iraqi people hostage; Jews do not exploit the oil-wealth of the Gulf; Jews do not sail fleets of warships through Suez. Men with names like Bush, Clinton, Reagan, and Carter order these things. The Israeli Jewish community has made itself a willing tool for them. It has willingly done some of the dirtiest work for the American Empire in the Middle East. It is a relationship of client and patron: power and influence flow from London and Washington to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, not the other way around.

There will not be a sudden flash of enlightenment when the Czar will finally learn of the suffering of the peasants; President Bush will not wake up tomorrow and say that what Israel has done to the Palestinians is wrong and must be ended. The American leadership is fully aware; they see the price in Palestinian and Arab lives, in Israeli dead, as being worth it for the maintenance of Empire.

No amount of education will change American policy so long as American policy is predicated upon Imperialism and American dominance in the region. Only when America abandons the Imperial Impulse in the Middle East as its guiding light and chooses to treat with the Arab people - as well as the Israeli - on a basis of equality and dignity will American policy change. When it does, and only then, will the Middle East know lasting peace, democracy and justice; until then, the region will remain stuck in a process of de-colonization and an era of endless war.

In the meantime, the way ahead is for all the peoples of the Middle East to move past the false analysis of Anti-Semitism and understand the root cause of conflict. Then and only then can Palestinians and Israelis work together to create lasting peace and build true democracy within both communities. Then, perhaps, a radically democratic, secular, and bi-national state in Israel/Palestine could be a firebrand in pulling down the whole edifice of empire.

FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL?

Recently, a friedn forwarded me a piece about how there was no such thing as a Palestinian and that the Palestinians were all interlopers of recent vintage in the land, Arab emigrants who had arrived after the time of Muhammad. (I think this argument is usually based on Joan Peters' book "From Time Immemorial").

I doubt that many people would question the direct biological connection of modern Egyptians and ancient Egyptians, ancient Greeks and modern, Sumerians and Iraqis, etc. With a few fairly obvious exceptions (i.e., the USA, Australia, etc), most agricultural peoples of 4000 years ago are the primary ancestors of the people living around the ruins today. In most places, the modern people celebrate a heritage dating back into antiquity ("notre ancetres, les Gaulois" ...).

So what about Palestine? What sort of connection is there between ancient and modern?

When Abraham arrived in Canaan (as the land was then known), he found the land thickly populated by a wide range of peoples: Jebusites, Hivites, kenites, Canaanites, Amalekites, Philistines, Hittites, etc. These peoples are described in the Bible as living in cities throughout the land. Archaeology bears this vision out: by 1900 BC, agricultural had existed for perhaps four thousand years in Palestine and the oldest cities (Jericho is considered the oldest in the world) stretch back nearly that far. Some of the cities left a reach material culture, all long before Abraham.

In Biblical times, after the Jewish state had been established, a large portion -- though far from the whole population of Israel/Palestine -- were of Jewish faith. Even at that time, what is now the Gaza Strip was considered the home of the non-Jewish philistines and throughout the Hebrew Bible, it is very clear that there are many "gentiles" living all around (otherwise why would the Hebrew prophets constantly be struggling against paganism and non-Jewish traditions? Why all the laws of ritual cleanliness if there were no community of the other?) ... Nablus was the center of the Samaritans, etc.

Where did the Canaanites, Jebusites, Hivites, and Philistines go? They are still around at the end of the Bible. One assumes, since they are never said to have been wiped out or driven forth, they were still there living in the days of the Roman Empire and on through Arab and Turkish rule.

Meanwhile, what about the largely Jewish population around Jerusalem, Hebron, Ramallah (the Biblical Bethel), etc? Many emigrated and created the Jewish Diaspora. Many others stayed on ... and a great many of both groups converted to Christianity (after all, virtually all of Jesus's initial followers were practicing Jews).

Some of those Christianized Jews who stayed on later converted to Islam (or went directly from Judaism to Islam) so we should assume that a very large portion of the Palestinians are direct descendants of the builders of the Temple.

This argument seems so obvious it strikes me as strange to even make it.

In addition, there were post-biblical migrations into Palestine, most notably the Arabs and the Crusaders. The Crusaders left little but a few names and some towns where you would guess everyone had come from France. The Arab migration north began long before Islam; Herodotus refers to Arabs in Gaza and the Nabataeans (the builders of Petra in Jordan) and Idumaeans (the ethnic group of King Herod) were generally considered Arabs in the time of Jesus.

The oldest inscription in classical (Koranic) Arabic is from southern Israel and dates to about 100 CE.

The steady migration of Bedouins into the settled lands is a common feature in Middle East history (see the story of Abraham and the Hebrew exodus) and, by the year 1, the herders and long-distance caravan traders were Arabs. Their Semitic dialect gradually displaced that of the Aramaeans (also herders who had come into the settled areas a thousand years earlier) just as Aramaic had replaced Hebrew.

(Some scholars actually argue that Modern Arabic, Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, Phoenician, Babylonian, etc aren't really separate languages but are dialects of one Semitic language separated over time and space so that Arabic really stands to Hebrew as this language stands to Anglo-Saxon.)

After the advent of Islam, Arabic also had military and cultural prestige as well as being an economic necessity for anyone engaged in long distance trade. There are no accounts of any massacres of the native peoples by the Arab conquerors so one must assume the conquered peoples survived -- and are today's Palestinians (of course, some Bedouins and some descendants of military families are the descendants of the people who followed Islam north but they are the exception rather than the rule).

LOOTING

If Americans had been paying attention to the rest of the world, maybe somebody in the military might have done something to prevent the burning of the Iraqi museums and libraries. Instead, American soldiers just stood and watched, ignoring the pleas of Iraqis for help, as major monuments of human civilization burned.

Of course, the US military quickly set up a perimeter to defend the Ministry of Oil just as the first war aim that Bush bragged of was the securing of the oilfields. People? History? Unimportant if there's oil to be pumped!

Some people are suggesting that the US deliberately encouraged the looting; some even report that Kuwaitis came to burn Baghdad (others hint that the Israeli soldiers known to have been in Iraq were responsible. Perhaps they were the people Rumsfeld described as 'former Iraqis'?) ... true? Doubtful ... but ...

The Iraqis who have engaged in looting are intelligible. When law and order have broken down in the US, people have gone out and stolen things they wanted (think of Los Angeles in 1992) or thought that they might later sell.

But arson? Hmm ... well, one can easily understand people burning down police stations and similair buildings associated with government repression. Again, it is has happened before. But the wholesale burning of civil services, museums, libraries and so?

No one commits arson unless they think they have something to gain; after the fall of the Czar, looting overwhelmed parts of Petrograd, Moscow and elsewhere but, there, it was most famously, the looting of the Czar's wine cellars and so on. No one torched the Hermitage.

Iraqis report seeing blue and white buses carrying teams of arsonists office to office. Who were they?

Among the sites burned was a library of Islamic texts, dating back centuries ... no Muslim would knowingly burn Korans. Even Iraqi Christians or Communists would be unlikely and motive-less. So whom?

Any which way, the US government is responsible for a major violation of International Law and has committed a war crime ...

IRAQI RESISTANCE?

These days, the US is shooting into crowds and killing by the fives and tens all over Iraq; suicide bombers blow themselves up; crowds of thousands scream at American troops to leave; all over Iraq grafitti calls for resistance ...

And who is surprised that the Iraqis have no desire to be occupied? I think it was Gandhi who said that people prefer a bad government of their own to a good government of the foreigner.

Of course, the US is hardly a good government for Iraq. Electricity is intermittent at best (in a country that was fully reliant on electricity), running water still doesn't exist (in a country that once had near universal clean water), schools are closed, people wait for days in gas lines (in Iraq!!!!!!!), looters run rampant and buildings smolder ... hardly inspires confidence in US rule ...

Meanwhile, the US is setting up checkpoints, ransacking houses, beating up protesters ... I guess they see how well those policies have worked for Israel in winning the hearts and minds of the Palestinians ...

The Americans promise to undo everything positive done in Iraq in the past 45 years. They have already announced plans to de-nationalize Iraqi oil, granting new concessions to favored firms (this is a crime under international law). They say they are there for democracy but have made membership in some political movements a crime. Iraqi institutions are being sold to the highest bidder. The US says it will impose an Israeli led "free trade" zone on Iraq.

Amazing how the Iraqis don't like being treated as demented children and rebel!

And the Iraqis have been watching the news from Gaza for years; does anyone else think they've taken a few pointers? How many dead on both sides will there be before the American Legions withdraw?

ON TO SYRIA?

So what's next? Is Syria in the crosshairs? The neo-cons are pressing their case with some of the same fake evidence from this war. They claim Syria supports terrorism, has WMDs, threatens the USA, is a rogue state ...

But maybe they won't.

Syria doesn't have much oil; it used to import from Iraq. They did say that this last war wasn't fought on Israel's behalf; the proof given by several was that if it was war for Israel, Syria would be targetted, not Iraq ...

Hmmm.

The smoke has not yet begun to clear off the battlefields of Iraq and, already, the hawks in the Bush Regime are beginning to pound the war-drums once more. Now, even as fighting continues in the hills of Afghanistan ans the streets of Baghdad, come new threats and hints of war against the Syrian Arab Republic.

If the war against Iraq was unjustified (none of the fabled "weapons of mass destruction" have yet come to light nor have any ties between the former government and the perpetrators of September 11th), illegal (violating as it did the sovereignty of the Iraqi state and done in contempt of the United Nations), and, frankly, immoral (to what loftier law can Bush and his cronies appeal to excuse the mass slaughter of Iraqis, the destruction of a nation, and the decimation of its cultural heritage?), then, surely, a new war against Syria is even less so.

Just as they did with Iraq, the neo-conservatives and bloodthirsty savages of the Bush Regime now and laying a host of accusations at the feet of the Syrian government as they begin the drive for a new war. They say that Syria sold weapons to Iraq, that Syria supports terrorism, that Syria is an occupying power, that Syria possesses weapons-of-mass-destruction, that Syria has sheltered Iraqi exiles, that Syria sent fighters to Iraq, that Syria is a "rogue state".

But what is the truth?

Below, I have attempted to answer several frequently asked questions regarding Syria, questions we will be hearing over and over again in the coming days:

Where is Syria?
-- Syria is a medium-sized state in the Middle East, somewhat larger than the American state of Georgia. It stretches from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean on the west to the plains of Mesopotamia on the east. On the north, it is bounded by Turkey, on the east, Iraq, Jordan lies to the south and Lebanon and the israeli-occupied "Golan Heights" are to the southwest. The northwestern province of Alexandretta was detached by France (then Syria's colonial ruler) and given to the Turkish Republic as appeasement at the time of Munich in 1938 to prevent a Turkish alliance with Nazi Germany. The southwestern province of Quneitra was largely overrun by the Israelis during the June War of 1967 and about 180,000 Syrians were ethnically cleansed from the area to make way for Jewish vintners and other colonists.

Who lives in Syria?
-- About 18 million people presently live in Syria. About 94% of them are Arabs, 5% Kurds (mainly concentrated in the extreme northeast), and the remainder are Armenian, Turkish, and Circassian as well as a tiny Aramaic-speaking minority. About 84% of Syrians are Muslim. The majority (74%) are of the Sunni sect with the extreme-Shia Alawi sect comprising about 8% of the population. Another 4% or so are members of the secretive Druze religion. About 12% of Syrians are Christian. There is also a small Jewish community.

Who rules Syria?
--

Isn't Syria a repressive Muslim state?

Don't the Syrians support al-Qaeda and other Islamic fundamentalists?

What about Hezbollah? Didn't they transit Syria en route to Iraq?

Syria is used as a base by terrorists, isn't it?

Isn't Syria run by the same party as ran Iraq under Saddam Hussein?

Wasn't Syria allied with Iraq against "us"?

Isn't Syria occupying Lebanon the same as Iraq occupied Kuwait?

Doesn't Syria refuse to make peace with Israel?

What about the oil?

So what's the real goal of the American hawks?

What do they have in mind for Syria?

What can we do to stop this madness?

ABU ABBAS

The Americans are bragging about having captured Muhammad Abbas, Abu'l Abbas, the head of the Palestine Liberation Front. His most infamous escapade, of course, was "masterminding' the hijacking of the Achille Lauro back in the 1980's. Rumsfeld is ballyhooing this as the proof that Iraq supported terrorism ...

Of course, he fails to mention a few salient facts:
-- It was well known that Abu'l Abbas lived in Baghdad and hardly a secret.
-- The terror link they were claiming was between Iraq and al-Qaeda. No one has found that. The PLF was yet another secular group.
-- Charges against Abu'l Abbas have been dropped BY ISRAEL! He has actually travelled through Israel to Gaza openly several times in the past few years.
-- The United States is treaty bound by agreements with Israel and the Palestinians not to prosecute any charges dating before 1993.

So, yet another bit of propaganda garbage: the US is obligated to release this man ...

ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISTS TO RULE IRAQ?

Could someone please remind me what the US claims to be fighting? My memory was that the official "enemy" was Islamic fundamentalism (or at least it was last year). Neo-cons prattled about the need to "drain the swamp" that led to the rise of Islamicist militants, reform education in the Arab states away from religious texts, and so on ...

So, in order to accomplish this goal, the US has just overthrown one of the most militantly secular governments in the Middle East (Did you notice how all of Saddam's palaces have well-stocked bars? Notice how one of the most prominent of the Iraqi leaders was a Christian (Tariq Aziz)? Notice how Iraq fought a nine year war against Islamic Fundamentalism?) ... Now, it threatens Syria, probably the only Arab government MORE secular than Iraq (the Syrians' big black mark in the press was the crushing of the Hama revolt in the early 1980's; a revolt led by Islamicists seeking to replace the government with a fundamentalist one --- many of the surviving leaders of the revolt ended up in Afghanistan or elsewhere with al-Qaeda) ...

And, back in Iraq, the US military is not patrolling half of Baghdad: in the former Saddam City (now renamed Sadr City for a Shia Imam), the sprawling Shia slums, local security has been handed to Shi'ite fundamentalist Imams ... Cities all over the south have been handed directly to Shia religious parties ... The secular Ba'ath party (which predated Saddam and includes many ani-Saddam factions) is to be banned ... Arab Nationalism is to be removed from textbooks (rewritten with American corporate consultants) ...

Secularism is shown, again, as a failure. Just as the pro-western monarchists failure during the Nakbe (1947-1949) led to the collapse of pro-western governments in the Arab confrontation states (Syria, 1949, Egypt, 1952, Iraq, 1958) and the failure of the military nationalists in the June War (1967) brought another wave of collapse, and the failure of Oslo built HAMAS, the destruction of the last strongholds of secular Arab nationalism underlines the Islamicist analysis:

Only through a return to Islam and an abandonment of secularism and westernization can the Arab peoples advance and gain a position in line with their place in the world. Political Islam is the Solution.

Am I missing something? Isn't Rumsfeld's policy the best way to insure the greatest flow of recruits to the Islamicists imaginable?

BRING BACK THE HASHEMITES?

Here's a dumb idea that was getting some play among the Occupation authorities:

Sharif Hussein Bin Ali, second cousin of the last king of Iraq, has returned from Jordan and wants his family throne back.

Sounds good, right?

Well, the Hashemites came to Iraq in 1921 with the British Army. Earlier, the Hashemites had been the hereditary governors of the Hijaz (Mecca and Medina) in the Ottoman Empire and had risen up against the Turks on British prompting (Lawrence of Arabia and all that). After failing to secure a Kingdom based in Damascus, Faisal bin Husayn was left jobless. Meanwhile, Britain's first attempt at ruling Iraq (as a colony under direct rule through the Indian Empire) had failed as massive rebellions had broken out (which were put down through the use of chemical weapons). So, Faisal was brought in as a more "acceptable" face of British rule (along with a coterie of Ottoman army officers like Nuri Said). Hashemite rule lasted a few decades and ended when the last British troops were expelled in 1958. They only held their throne at Britain's pleasure (one King was murdered when he questioned British tutelage), having been restored to power by British arms twice, and have only slightly more than zero backing in Iraq ...

But, then, none of the exiles coming in with the Americans have much support.

Back in 1991, the US called a conference of the Iraqi opposition with the support of the other Arab states. Virtually every faction came to the Saudi city of Taif. There were representatives of the Islamic movements, Communists, Royalists, Kurdish nationalists, dissdent Baathists, Nasserites, and so on. Virtually all of them pledged resistance to Israel (criticizing Saddam for being weak on Palestine) and claimed Kuwait as part of Iraq.

So, the 95% of the opposition that refused these American planks were fired and the US began inventing a new Iraqi opposition from the minority of pro-Israel, pro-Kuwait faction. They named Ahmed Chalabi the leader of Iraq's opposition and, with CIA backing, found him some guerillas. They spent $100 million and accomplished nothing (beyond getting Chalabi some snappy new suits) ...

So now? Well, most of the major Iraqi factions (Islamic groups, Communists, Arab Nationalists) are calling for the US to leave. As we've seen, the Islamic groups (both Shia and Sunni) are already able to organize massive street demonstrations. The Communists had the first newspaper out in Baghdad. The Nationalist groupings (mainly Baathists) have organized all over, including armed resistance. Some Iraqi towns are already under the control of or another faction. ...

So, the US has said an Islamic government is unacceptable and has made membership in the Ba'ath Party a crime.

Hmmm. Can anyone say prolonged civil war?

SHIAS and SUNNIS

I keep hearing about the implacable hatred of Shia and Sunni Muslims. Could someone tell me what the basis of this is? Yes, there was a Shia Islamicist rising against the government in 1991 but, other than that? I can't recall much of a history of violence ...

Shi'ites and Sunnis are not as far apart as people seem to think, more like Methodists and Baptists than like Protestants and Catholics ... and with about the same level of communal hatred. They intermarry, they work together ...

Yes, in Iraq, Shia tend to be poorer and live more in the South ... and have had little political power but they are hardly disfranchised.

The Shiat Ali, of course, began as a political division within Islam. After the death of Muhammad, political supremacy was given to first Abu Bakr, then Omar and Othman, each of them selected by the other companions of Muhammad as the most fit to lead the Muslim community. Muhammad's nephew and son-in-law, Ali ibn Abu Talib, was overlooked until 656 (he was considered to immature by the elders). The Shia view this as a mistake, that temporal and spiritual power was to remain within the family of Muhammad (Ali was overthrown by Muawiya who established the first Islamic dynasty and put down several revolts of the "Partisans of Ali' (the Shiat Ali), executing Ali's sons Hassan and Husayn)

From at least the eighth century, when the Abbasids used the Shia Black Banner of Revolt, Shi'ism has been associated with the poor and oppressed among Muslims. Shia doctrine preaches a coming age when the Rightful Imam will come to power and justice will be restored. Naturally, the notion of a Heroic Savior King who will come in the future appealed (and continues to appeal) to those who had the most to gain.

Similair notions of a great once and future king animated the native British after their defeat by the English (like King Arthur who is said to dream in Avalon, the last of the direct line of Shia leaders, the Twelth Imam, is said to be in occlusion, sleeping in a cave until he returns to right all wrongs) or the lasting support for the Stewart pretenders among the Celtic peoples of Britain. The Jacobites, too, imagined that power must stay within the family and that only a true descendant of James II could bring social justice.

As a sect of the poor, Iraqi Shi'ism has attracted a more visible spiritualism than its Sunni cousin. As most of us have seen, Shia piety involves such things as self-flaggelation and hitting one another with swords. Such acts may seem odd but, in this country, one need only think of some of the pietism of the more impoverished churches; snake-handling springs to mind.

But religions of the poorer majority are not excluded from power just in Iraq. In the US, after all, the two largest Christian groups, the Catholics and the Southern Baptists, have had between them a total of three presidents (Kennedy, Carter and Clinton). Pentecostals have had none.

Episcopalians, who make up less than 1% of the population, have provided at least a dozen presidents and countless generals, senators, and cabinet ministers ... So is the US a High Church Protestant Dictatorship biased against Baptists?

MESOPOTAMIA

Something that bothered me all during the recent war and that's only now crossing the media consciousness:

Iraq is one of the most prominent nations in world history.

So why didn't any reporters notice where they were? Was it because names have changed? Think about these:

Sumeria: all those southern Iraqi Shia areas used to be called Sumeria. You might recall it from history 101: the places where man learned to read, write, build cities, make laws, etc ...

Nasiriya, where the American POWs were captured, used to be called "UR" or Ur of the Chaldees. The chief city of the Sumerians, it is said to be Abraham's hometown. (Remember him? The common founder of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism?)

Hilla, a city fought over during the march to Baghdad, is probably much better known by its older name: Babylon. I think a few people have heard of it.

(Babylonia, proper, is the region around Baghdad while the marshes of the far south of Iraq were called Chaldea.)

Mosul in the north used to be called Nineveh, the city of the Assyrians, site of Job's mission, etc ...

All that middle Tigris around Tikrit, Mosul, Samarra, Kirkuk, etc used to be called Assyria ... (speaking of Samarra, remember that story "An Appointment in Samarra"?)

Baghdad is a new city by Iraqi standards: it's only 1250 years old. Did anyone ever mention how it was the setting for the 1001 Arabian Nights? Did we even see jokes about flying carpets?

I hear that the Southern Babdists and some other Christian right groups are planning to use the US army to bring Christianity to the benighted Iraqis. Has anyone told them that Christianity has a continuous history in Iraq since shortly after the Crucifixion?

No one even mentioned all the other Biblical associations of Iraq: the Garden of Eden, Noah's Flood, the Tower of Babel, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Waters of Babylon, etc, etc. Other than Palestine, there is probably no country more crowded with Biblical associations than Iraq. The Hebrews begin their peregrinations in Iraq with Abraham, go back there during the Exile, and, afterwards, think endlessly of Iraq as good (Eden), evil (the Apocalyptic visions of Babylon), or jut a place to be reckoned with.

So why did not the American press make more of this?

My assumption (biased as it may be) is that the fear is that, if they had, anyone who'd been half-paying attention in World History 101 or in Sunday School might realize that there was more to Iraq than just ol' Saddam and might start seeing the Iraqis as something approaching human, with all the normal human emotions of pride, love, etc.

They might start worrying about the fates of Iraqi people or denounce the destruction of Iraq. And that just wouldn't have done.

IRAQ: AN ARTIFICIAL STATE?

In the run-up to the war, we constantly heard from both pro-war hawks and anti-war doves that Iraq was an artificial state, cobbled together from three disparate Ottoman provinces (Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul) by the British and easily broken down into several constituent parts. Comparisons to Yugoslavia (created after World War One from two states recently independent of Turkey and provinces of both Austria and Hungary) were rife. Some suggested that Iraq should be partitioned. Now that the war is over, though, this myth seems to have faded over the horizon (maybe along with those WMDs?).

Certainly, many people throughout the Arab East will tell you that the states established after World War I by the French and British are artificial. But they do not mean that they should therefore be broken down into smaller constituent parts but, rather, that a greater unity (whether a greater Syria, united Arab state, or reunified Umma) is desired.

Yet, even so, Iraq is now and has been for most of the past few millenia a basic unity: certainly,the older western name of "Mesopotamia" points in that direction.

Since the time of Sargon of Akkad (about 2300 BC), the "land between the rivers" has usually been ruled as a unit and has usually had its center in the area around Baghdad: Akkad is lost somewhere beneath Baghdad's sprawl (and probably below the water table) while Babylon, Ctesiphon, and Seleucia, other imperial cities, lie in ruins within an hour's drive.

The initial Akkadian unification of Mesopotamia was followed by dynasties based in Ur (today's Nasiriya) and Babylon (al-Hilla or Babil). Babylonian supremacy was challenged by the Assyrians based around Nineveh (a suburb of Mosul). The Assyrian Empire was overthrown (612) by the "Neo-Babylonians" of Nebuchadrezzar and they, in turn, were followed by centuries of foreign rule: the Persian Achaemenids (539-331 BC), the Greeks under Alexander the Great and his Seleucid successors (331-126 BC), the Iran-based Parthians (126 BC-227 AD) and the Persain Sassanids (227-637). Alexander intended Babylon to be the capital of his World Empire; Seleucus founded a new capital (Seleucia) a few miles from what is now Baghdad for his empire and the Parthians made Ctesiphon, a suburb of Seleucia, theirs.

With the advent of Islam in the seventh century and the Arabization of Mesopotamia (now called Iraq), the unity of the country remained through most of the following centuries. For five hundred years (750-1258), Baghdad was the seat of a gradually shrinking Abbasid Caliphate (in its later centuries, the Abbasid territory corresponded almost exactly to modern Iraq). From the beginning of the sixteenth century until the first British Invasion (1516-1915), all Iraq was an integral part of the Ottoman Empire.

But all that is mere historical trivia. More important, the modern Iraqi state has existed for more than eighty years as an undivided whole. Few now living remember a time before there was a state called Iraq. Certainly, that length of time is more than enough to create some sense of nation-hood: Before 1989, Germany had only been unified for 74 years and few doubted the urge for reunification. The USA at the time of the American civil War was of the same age: certainly the winners in that conflict didn't doubt the US was a country.

Now, Iraqi Shia, Sunni, and Christians are demonstrating for a unified independent state. This wasn't too hard to predict: back during the Iran-Iraq War, Khomeini counted on the Shia siding with Iran ... but, with a few exceptions. they proved loyal to the Iraqi state ...

THE COALITION OF THE WILLING?

Did you hear the talk from the government about America's massive "Coalition of the Willing"? The USA claimed to have forty odd allies as part of "The Coalition".

But, after Britain, coalition forces consisted of 2000 Australians, 200 Poles and a Danish submarine ...

The rest of the "Coalition"? It consisted of states like Iceland and Micronesia ... their militaries are non-existent as both states simply allow the USA to provide for all their defenses. Or like the Solomon Islands: their Prime Minister was shocked to learn that they were part of the coalition. (They also listed Turkey as a member ... because it let American planes pass over without being shot.)

Some alliance, huh?

Now, though, the coalition members are being rewarded by being handed occupation zones inside Iraq. I haven't yet seen a comprehensive break-down of the Occupation Zones (I'll try and post a link if I find one) but have read that both Poland and Spain have been granted small provinces in addition to the British Zone in the South (including Basra and Umm Qasr) and the much larger American Zone. Apparently, the Spanish are unhappy with their share of the spoils and the Poles have invited the Germans to join them in policing their area.

COLIN POWELL AND THE CEMETERIES

While speaking to some West Europeans, Colin Powell recently claimed that the US had never gained land through foreign wars ("And did we ask for any land? No, the only land we ever asked for was enough land to bury our dead.")

Supposively, he was met by shocked European silence.

My guess is that they were stunned into silence by either his incredible ignorance or blatant lying.

Has the US taken more than just land for cemeteries in foreign wars?
Well, the US has fought four declared foreign war (I am not going to even consider the various wars of conquest waged against the American Indians or, even, the vast tracts of privately held land seized by the federal government during the Civil War). In them ...

The Mexican War: the US annexed a giant cemetery that stretches across all of the present day states of California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and into Wyoming, Colorado and Texas. After occupying Mexico City ('the Halls of Montezuma'), the US forced the Mexicans to cede nearly half their patrimony. If that wasn't a war of conquest, I don't know what is.

Spanish American War: the US permanently annexed Guam and Puerto Rico (both against the wills of the people). After fighting a bitter, bloody war of conquest against the locals (who had set up a western-style indepenent government) the Philippines as a colony for forty eight years. Meanwhile, Cuba was under American military rule for four years and, when the Americans left, the laws were set up so that Cuba remained a dependency of the US until Castro's time. At the eastern end of Cuba, Guatanamo Bay was "leased" to the USA as a major naval base. (They also used cover of war to annex the Republic of Hawaii)

World War I: no conquests! Wow! However, the US bailed out Denmark during the war by buying the Virgin Islands ... (in the first years of the twentieth century, US gunboat diplomacy had also brought about the cession of the Panama Canal Zone and Samoa)

World War II: the US gained control over the Japanese Pacific territories. Some were given independence in the 1980's (Micronesia, Marshall Islands), others remain under colonial control to this day. (And the US certainly treated the colonized well; remember all those nuclear tests at Bikini atoll?) In addition, the Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa, etc) were under US colonial rule into the 1970's, before being returned to Japan.

Elsewhere, direct colonial rule was not seen as the goal. Once the American Occupation authorities had handed power over to locals, the US maintained (and maintains) huge bases across South Korea, Japan, Germany, Italy, etc. These are certainly more than cemeteries and the locals weren't given much choice in the matter.

Hmmm ...

So, is Colin Powell an idiot or does he just play one on TV?

TAKE UP THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

Kipling wrote this poem after the American conquest of the Philippines, as the US debated whether or not to be a colonial power. Maybe it should be the new American anthem?:

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!

CONTACT INFO

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