Posts from Aref Nammari (goplayer)

Istiqbal (Welcoming)

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:34:25 +0000

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On The 62nd Anniversary of Partition

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:48:15 +0000

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Sunday is the anniversary of UN GA R181, the “Partition Resolution”. Partition remains the elephant in the room. No one wants to talk about it. The supporters of the so-called “2 state solution” don’t talk about Partition because they don’t question the justice of Partition or its inevitable consequences. They recognize the State of Israel’s “right to exist”. Like the supporters of UN GA R181, they deny the right of the people of Palestine to exercise sovereignty over Palestine. What about the dissident supporters of the so-called “one-state solution”? They don’t turn their minds to how one gets from here to there. They somehow believe that a democratic one-state solution will fall from the sky, peacefully, without revolution. That is why these same well-meaning people attribute no role to the actual social and class forces living under Israeli rule and suffering from Israeli rule in besieged Gaza and the refugee camps. By not recognizing the need for revolution, the one-staters take no interest in the people who have an interest in revolution, those who can and will make a revolution, those for whom the daily struggle contains within it the unripe seeds of that revolution.

As a result of Partition, only the Zionist state was formed in former Mandate Palestine. For the Zionists, Partition presented a “sh’at kosher” – an opportunity, a pretext – to carry out what was always inherent and implicit in the Zionist program – the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. First, incrementally and reactively starting in December 1947, then deliberately, proactively and following a plan, 1/3 of the indigenous people of Palestine were driven out before the target date for the implementation of Partition. After the target date, the newly formed Jewish state, legitimized by Partition, acted aggressively to carry out its political program: settler colonialism, racist discrimination, and ethnic cleansing.

When British imperialism retreated from Palestine, it left behind not an independent secular republic, but a new colonial-settler regime. In that sense, the State of Israel, proclaimed on May 15, 1948, is the direct heir of the colonial British Mandate regime made possible by Allenby’s conquest of Ottoman Palestine. Unlike other former British colonies, Palestine never underwent de-colonization and democratization. Thanks to Partition, colonialism was reorganized in Palestine, and took a new form: the State of Israel.

At the time, some of the most prominent Jewish intellectuals opposed the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine. These “soft Zionists” projected a Jewish or Hebrew homeland, in which Jewish people did not exercise sovereignty, certainly not state hegemony, over the Holy Land. The soft Zionists were swept aside by the hard Zionists of Mapai and Herut, who have been taking turns at the helm of the State of Israel and the Zionist movement ever since.

Partition was supported by the democratic imperialist United States and by the counter-revolutionary Stalinist Soviet Union, and both supported the Zionist Yishuv’s unilateral Proclamation of statehood, So did their respective satellites and allies. The majority of the members of the United Nations General Assembly fell into line. The people of Palestine were left alone to face the Zionist onslaught, poorly organized, poorly armed, poorly led, and lacking a democratic revolutionary political program.

The isolated forces within the Palestinian working class movement, Arabs and Hebrews, who opposed Partition and proposed working class unity, did not have a snowflake’s chance in hell. They, too, were swept aside by triumphant counter-revolution.

Partition could have been prevented only by a successful revolution.

This weekend, Israeli radicals are celebrating in Old Yafa the 80^th birthday of veteran activist Reuven Kaminer. Reuven can look you in the eye and, keeping a straight face, assert that the 1947-48 war was, for the Zionist Yishuv, a “just war of national defence.” Israeli Communist Party leader Benjamin Gonen can describe with pride his role in the conquest of Haifa as part of the Hagana. Gush Shalom leader Uri Avnery will never say there was anything wrong – from the point of view of democracy or solidarity – with his participation in a Zionist militia in that war. We are not talking about personal accountability for personal choices and personal errors. We are talking about a political tradition that treats as axiomatic the perpetuation of the bitter fruits of Partition – the Israeli state on one hand, and denial of the right of return of the Palestine refugees on the other. All the soft Zionists work hard and make sacrifices for a better, more peaceful, more democratic State of Israel, but they will not admit that the Zionist regime is the number one obstacle to peace and coexistence. Re-considering Partition, formulating a political strategy for the de-colonization of Palestine -- that, for them, is beyond the Pale.

This past Friday, Gush Shalom published its weekly ad in Haaretz as follows:

Ad in Ha'aretz, Nov. 27, 2009

DO IT!

Freeing

Gilad Shalit

Is a

Moral

Act

Freeing

Marwan Barghouti

a

Wise

Act

From the point of view of democracy, release of Fateh-Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti would be the “moral” act, as would be the release of PFLP leader Ahmad Sa’adat, as would be the release of all the political prisoners. But, when one places oneself politically and morally in the Zionist camp (albeit “soft Zionist”) one gets things confused. One is then compelled to treat the Palestinians as objects of “she’at kosher”, objects of an “opportunity” that one should be “wise” enough to exploit. Real solidarity with Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat and their followers and their Palestinian political rivals would require a completely different political morality, one that breaks free from the “morality” of Partition.

Where does this leave the heroes of the alternative “one state solution”? Without exception, all are working hard to support the “BDS campaign”. But what is the purpose of BDS as advertised by its most prominent supporters? I have heard 2 goals articulated for BDS. One is “to punish the Israelis”. The other is “to pressure Israel to recognize Palestinian rights”. Both goals presume the continued existence of the Zionist regime. One seeks to punish the Israelis, the other seeks to force the regime to self-reform. Neither sees any role for the people actually living, suffering, and struggling under the Zionist regime. No one offers any analysis of these social forces. No one discusses these human beings as agents of regime change and beneficiaries of regime change. No one believes that, from within the oppressed people, Hebrew Israelis and Arab Palestinians, will come the forces that will overthrow the Zionist regime and replace it with a democratic regime. I have never heard BDS promoted as part of a strategy of SUPPORTING the people of Palestine, of STRENGTHENING their struggle, of HELPING them gather the forces for a democratic revolution.

All the “friends of Palestine” have made their peace with Partition. They do not challenge it. They can live with it. They can agitate politically without reference to it. But the workers and farmers of Palestine, and the refugees in the camps, need a program to overcome Partition, to decolonize Palestine, to overthrow the Zionist regime, and to open up the prospects for peace, democracy and coexistence.

Partition could have been prevented only by revolution. Peace, democracy and coexistence can be achieved in the foreseeable future only by revolution. On November 29^th, that is the message that needs to be discussed seriously and acted upon resolutely.

Regards,

Henry Lowi

Fiction?

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:27:01 +0000

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Hasta Siempre Comandante

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:13:49 +0000

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Women

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:01:59 +0000

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A speech given by Nurit Peled Elhannan whose 13 year old daughter was killed by a suicide bomber. The speech was given at the occasion of Women's Day earlier this year. This speech should become a must read in all the schools around the world. This is a woman who deserves the Nobel Peace Prize rather than the one who was awarded the prize this year and who is poised to increase and escalate the war in Afghanistan.

WOMEN

by Nurit Peled-Elhanan

Thank you for inviting me to this today. It is always an honour and a

pleasure to be here, among you (at the European Parliament).

However, I must admit I believe you should have invited a Palestinian

woman at my stead, because the women who suffer most from violence in

my county are the Palestinian women. And I would like to dedicate my

speech to Miriam R`aban and her husband Kamal, from Bet Lahiya in the

Gaza strip, whose five small children were killed by Israeli soldiers

while picking strawberries at the family`s strawberry field. No one

will ever stand trial for this murder.

When I asked the people who invited me here why didn't they invite a

Palestinian woman, the answer was that it would make the discussion

too localized.

I don't know what is non-localized violence. Racism and discrimination

may be theoretical concepts and universal phenomena but their impact

is always local, and real. Pain is local, humiliation, sexual abuse,

torture and death, are all very local, and so are the scars.

It is true, unfortunately, that the local violence inflicted on

Palestinian women by the government of Israel and the Israeli army,

has expanded around the globe, In fact, state violence and army

violence, individual and collective violence, are the lot of Muslim

women today, not only in Palestine but wherever the enlightened

western world is setting its big imperialistic foot. It is violence

which is hardly ever addressed and which is halfheartedly condoned by

most people in Europe and in the USA.

This is because the so-called free world is afraid of the Muslim womb.

Great France of "la liberte égalite et la fraternite" is scared of

little girls with head scarves. Great Jewish Israel is afraid of the

Muslim womb which its ministers call a demographic threat.

Almighty America and Great Britain are infecting their respective

citizens with blind fear of the Muslims, who are depicted as vile,

primitive and blood-thirsty, apart from their being non-democratic,

chauvinistic and mass producers of future terrorists. This in spite of

the fact that the people who are destroying the world today are not

Muslim. One of them is a devout Christian, one is Anglican and one is

a non-devout Jew.

I have never experienced the suffering Palestinian women undergo every

day, every hour, I don't know the kind of violence that turns a

woman's life into constant hell. This daily physical and mental

torture of women who are deprived of their basic human rights and

needs of privacy and dignity, women whose homes are broken into at any

moment of day and night, who are ordered at a gun-point to strip naked

in front of strangers and their own children, whose houses are

demolished , who are deprived of their livelihood and of any normal

family life. This is not part of my personal ordeal.

But I am a victim of violence against women insofar as violence

against children is actually violence against mothers. Palestinian,

Iraqi, Afghan women are my sisters because we are all at the grip of

the same unscrupulous criminals who call themselves leaders of the

free enlightened world and in the name of this freedom and

enlightenment rob us of our children.

Furthermore, Israeli, American, Italian and British mothers have been

for the most part violently blinded and brainwashed to such a degree

that they cannot realize their only sisters, their only allies in the

world are the Muslim Palestinian, Iraqi or Afghani mothers, whose

children are killed by our children or who blow themselves to pieces

with our sons and daughters. They are all mind-infected by the same

viruses engendered by politicians. And the viruses , though they may

have various illustrious names--such as Democracy, Patriotism, God,

Homeland--are all the same. They are all part of false and fake

ideologies that are meant to enrich the rich and to empower the powerful.

We are all the victims of mental, psychological and cultural violence

that turn us to one homogenic group of bereaved or potentially

bereaved mothers. Western mothers who are taught to believe their

uterus is a national asset just like they are taught to believe that

the Muslim uterus is an international threat. They are educated not to

cry out: `I gave him birth, I breast fed him, he is mine, and I will

not let him be the one whose life is cheaper than oil, whose future is

less worth than a piece of land.`

All of us are terrorized by mind-infecting education to believe all we

can do is either pray for our sons to come back home or be proud of

their dead bodies.

And all of us were brought up to bear all this silently, to contain

our fear and frustration, to take Prozac for anxiety, but never hail

Mama Courage in public. Never be real Jewish or Italian or Irish mothers.

I am a victim of state violence. My natural and civil rights as a

mother have been violated and are violated because I have to fear the

day my son would reach his 18th birthday and be taken away from me to

be the game tool of criminals such as Sharon, Bush, Blair and their

clan of blood-thirsty, oil-thirsty, land thirsty generals.

Living in the world I live in, in the state I live in, in the regime I

live in, I don't dare to offer Muslim women any ideas how to change

their lives. I don't want them to take off their scarves, or educate

their children differently, and I will not urge them to constitute

Democracies in the image of Western democracies that despise them and

their kind. I just want to ask them humbly to be my sisters, to

express my admiration for their perseverance and for their courage to

carry on, to have children and to maintain a dignified family life in

spite of the impossible conditions my world in putting them in. I want

to tell them we are all bonded by the same pain, we all the victims of

the same sort of violence even though they suffer much more, for they

are the ones who are mistreated by my government and its army,

sponsored by my taxes.

Islam in itself, like Judaism in itself and Christianity in itself, is

not a threat to me or to anyone. American imperialism is, European

indifference and co-operation is and Israeli racism and its cruel

regime of occupation is. It is racism, educational propaganda and

inculcated xenophobia that convince Israeli soldiers to order

Palestinian women at gun-point, to strip in front of their children

for security reasons, it is the deepest disrespect for the other that

allow American soldiers to rape Iraqi women, that give license to

Israeli jailers to keep young women in inhuman conditions, without

necessary hygienic aids, without electricity in the winter, without

clean water or clean mattresses and to separate them from their

breast-fed babies and toddlers. To bar their way to hospitals, to

block their way to education, to confiscate their lands, to uproot

their trees and prevent them from cultivating their fields.

I cannot completely understand Palestinian women or their suffering. I

don't know how I would have survived such humiliation, such disrespect

from the whole world. All I know is that the voice of mothers has been

suffocated for too long in this war-stricken planet. Mothers` cry is

not heard because mothers are not invited to international forums such

as this one. This I know and it is very little. But it is enough for

me to remember these women are my sisters, and that they deserve that

I should cry for them, and fight for them. And when they lose their

children in strawberry fields or on filthy roads by the checkpoints,

when their children are shot on their way to school by Israeli

children who were educated to believe that love and compassion are

race and religion dependent, the only thing I can do is stand by them

and their betrayed babies, and ask what Anna Akhmatova--another mother

who lived in a regime of violence against women and children--asked:

Why does that streak o blood, rip the petal of your cheek?

Twenty Years Ago

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:22:03 +0000

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Twenty years ago, the Berlin wall fell. Today, many celebrated this event. On the BBC, NPR and many other TV and radio stations the commemoration took the form of recalling this historic event with sound bites of politicians celebrating the triumph of "good" versus "evil" of freedom versus authoritarianism. I heard exerpts of speeches given at the time by politicians from the "civilized" west where they celebrated the human spirit and its triumph in its struggle to attain and realize the dream of liberty and freedom.

Yet at the same time that all the celebrating was going on not a word was mentioned about the walls being constructed right now along the US-Mexico border and on Palestinian land surrounding the West Bank. Not a word was said about the fence that encloses Gaza transforming it into an open air prison and its people into sitting ducks easy targets for the bullets of the oh so brave Israeli soldiers.

I wonder why not a word was mentioned of those racist walls?? Is it because they are built by so-called democracies or is it because they exclude brown skinned people: barbarians (to be direct and not beat about the bush)? Are walls OK if they are built by white western states? Would those walls be welcome if they were built by Mexico or the Palestinians to keep Americans or Israelis out?

Just something to think about when celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall.

This is how the people of Nilin in the West Bank celebrated the fall of the Berlin wall with no fanfare and no politicians giving speeches about the human spirit and how its yearning for freedom will overcome the prison walls attempting to enclose it !!! Food for thought.

Thank you Rep. Dennis Kucinich

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:13:43 +0000

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Yes another shameful day in the House of Representatives in Washington DC. A few days ago, they voted on a resolution to encourage the administration to reject any consideration of the "Goldstone Report" which found that both Israel and Hamas have comitted war crimes during the onslaught on Gaza last December-January.

One Representative with great integrity and compassion who is willing to take a stand for justice and fairness is Dennis Kucinich (Dem. Ohio). Here is what he had to say on he house floor:

“Today we journey from Operation Cast Lead to Operation Cast Doubt. Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist.

“Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian.

“The resolution before us today, which would reject all attempts of the Goldstone Report to fix responsibility of all parties to war crimes, including both Hamas and Israel, may as well be called the “Down is Up, Night is Day, Wrong is Right” resolution.

“Because if this Congress votes to condemn a report it has not read, concerning events it has totally ignored, about violations of law of which it is unaware, it will have brought shame to this great institution.

“How can we ever expect there to be peace in the Middle East if we tacitly approve of violations of international law and international human rights, if we look the other way, or if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation?

“How can we protect the people of Israel from existential threats if we hold no concern for the protection of the Palestinians, for their physical security, their right to land, their right to their own homes, their right to water, their right to sustenance, their right to freedom of movement, their right to the human security of jobs, education and health care?

“We will have peace only when the plight of both Palestinians and Israelis is brought before this House and given equal consideration in recognition of that principle that all people on this planet have a right to survive and thrive, and it is our responsibility, our duty to see that no individual, no group, no people are barred from this humble human claim.”

Thank you Representative Kucinich I wish that more had your integrity rather than self-serving political expediency.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Today former President Jimmy Carter reminded the readers of the New York Times that while Congress is grand standing in covering up war crimes, the people of Gaza are still under siege and their daily suffering is still the norm. Here is his Op Ed piece in the New York Times:

New York Times

November 6, 2009

Op-Ed Contributor

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/opinion/06iht-edcarter.html?_r=1&ref=global

Goldstone and Gaza

By JIMMY CARTER

Judge Richard Goldstone and the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict have issued a report about Gaza that is strongly critical of both Israel and Hamas for their violations of human rights. On Wednesday, a special meeting of the U.N. General Assembly began a debate on whether to refer the report to the Security Council.

In January 2009 rudimentary rockets had been launched from Gaza toward nearby Jewish communities, and Israel had wreaked havoc with bombs, missiles, and ground invading forces. Judge Goldstone’s claim is that they are both guilty of “crimes against humanity.” Predictably, both the accused parties have denounced the report as biased and inaccurate.

It is good to remember that Judge Goldstone, from South Africa, is one of the world’s most widely respected jurists, with an impeccable record of wisdom, honesty and integrity. He is a devout Jew and has long been known as a fervent defender of Israel’s right to peace and security.

In April 2008 I personally visited Sderot and Ashkelon, Israeli communities near enough to have been hit by rockets fired from within Gaza. While there, I condemned these indiscriminate attacks on civilians as acts of terrorism, and I consider their condemnation by Judge Goldstone to be justified.

A year later, after the Israeli attack on Gaza, I was able to examine the damage done to the small and heavily populated area, surrounded by an impenetrable wall, with its gates tightly controlled. Knowing of the ability of Israeli forces, often using U.S. weapons, to strike targets with pinpoint accuracy, it was difficult to understand or explain the destruction of hospitals, schools, prisons, United Nations facilities, small factories and repair shops, agricultural processing plants and almost 40,000 homes.

The Goldstone committee examined closely the cause of deaths of the 1,387 Palestinians who perished, and the degree of damage to the various areas. The conclusion was that the civilian areas were targeted and the devastation was deliberate. Again, the criticism of Israel in the Goldstone report is justified.

He has called on the United States, Israel and others who dispute the accuracy of the report to conduct an independent investigation of their own. Hamas leaders have announced that their investigation is under way, but Israel has rejected Judge Goldstone’s request.

Putting this dispute aside, it is important to examine present circumstances and the need to prevent further suffering. The rocket fire from Gaza is now being severely restrained, perhaps because of the certainty of Israeli retaliation, but the punishment of the 1.5 million Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza continues. Now and for the past 10 months, Israel has not permitted cement, lumber, panes of glass, or other building materials to pass their entry points into Gaza. Several hundred thousand homeless people suffered through last winter in a few tents, under plastic sheets, or huddled in caves dug into the debris of their former homes. The weather was warmer when I was there several months later, but the description of suffering through the winter cold was heartbreaking.

Another winter is now approaching, and neither the Israelis nor the international community has taken steps to alleviate the Gazans’ plight. United Nations agencies and leaders in the European community have offered to provide an avenue of channeling funds and building materials directly to the people in need, completely bypassing the Hamas political leaders. These officials, both in Gaza and in Damascus, have assured me that they would accept this arrangement.

There would be no chance for the misuse of such assistance for weapons, military fortifications, or other non-humanitarian purposes.

I was informed recently by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia that he has pledged $1 billion, and other Arab leaders have added an additional $300 million for this purpose. There is little doubt that other nations would also be generous.

Without ascribing blame to either of the disputing parties, it is imperative that the United States and the international community take steps to assure that the rebuilding of Gaza be commenced, and without delay. The cries of homeless and freezing people demand relief.

Jimmy Carter was president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 and is a member of the Elders.

Olmert not welcome in San Fran

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 03:34:08 +0000

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Helen Keller: How I became a socialist

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:38:56 +0000

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http://socialistworker.org/2009/10/19/how-i-became-a-socialist

How I became a socialist

Statement: Helen Keller

October 19, 2009

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Politicians gathered at the U.S. Capitol October 8 to unveil a bronze statue of Helen Keller. But while they honored Keller's work organizing on behalf of people with disabilities, they ignored the radical politics that was at the heart of Keller's activism. Keller was a fierce opponent of war, a socialist and a member of the Industrial Workers of the World.

Here, we reprint an essay by Keller, first published in 1912 in one of the leading socialist newspapers of the time, the New York Call.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

FOR SEVERAL months, my name and socialism have appeared often together in the newspapers. A friend tells me that I have shared the front pages with baseball, Mr. Roosevelt and the New York police scandal. The association does not make me altogether happy, but, on the whole, I am glad that many people are interested in me and in the educational achievements of my teacher, Mrs. Macy (Anne Sullivan). Even notoriety may be turned to beneficent uses, and I rejoice if the disposition of the newspapers to record my activities results in bringing more often into their columns the word Socialism.

In the future, I hope to write about socialism, and to justify in some measure the great amount of publicity which has been accorded to me and my opinions. So far, I have written little and said little about the subject. I have written a few letters, notably one to Comrade Fred Warren, which was printed in the Appeal to Reason. I have talked to some reporters, one of whom, Mr. Ireland of the New York World, made a very flattering report, and gave fully and fairly what I said. I have never been in Schenectady. I have never met Mayor Lunn. I have never had a letter from him, but he has sent kind messages to me through Mr. Macy. Owing to Mrs. Macy's illness, whatever plans I had to join the workers in Schenectady have been abandoned.

On such negative and relatively insignificant matters have been written many editorials in the capitalist press and in the Socialist press. The clippings fill a drawer. I have not read a quarter of them, and I doubt if I shall ever read them all. If on such a small quantity of fact so much comment has followed, what will the newspapers do if I ever set to work in earnest to write and talk in behalf of socialism? For the present, I should like to make a statement of my position and correct some false reports and answer some criticisms which seem to me unjust.

First--jow did I become a Socialist? By reading. The first book I read was Wells' New Worlds for Old. I read it on Mrs. Macy's recommendation. She was attracted by its imaginative quality, and hoped that its electric style might stimulate and interest me. When she gave me the book, she was not a Socialist, and she is not a Socialist now. Perhaps she will be one before Mr. Macy and I are done arguing with her.

My reading has been limited and slow. I take German bimonthly Socialist periodicals printed in Braille for the blind. (Our German comrades are ahead of us in many respects.) I have also in German Braille Kautsky's discussion of the Erfurt Program. The other socialist literature that I have read has been spelled into my hand by a friend who comes three times a week to read to me whatever I choose to have read. The periodical which I have most often requested her lively fingers to communicate to my eager ones is the National Socialist. She gives the titles of the articles and I tell her when to read on and when to omit. I have also had her read to me from the International Socialist Review articles the titles of which sounded promising. Manual spelling takes time. It is no easy and rapid thing to absorb through one's fingers a book of 50,000 words on economics. But it is a pleasure, and one which I shall enjoy repeatedly until I have made myself acquainted with all the classic socialist authors.

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IN THE light of the foregoing, I wish to comment on a piece about me which was printed in the Common Cause and reprinted in the Live Issue, two antisocialist publications. Here is a quotation from that piece:

For 25 years, Miss Keller's teacher and constant companion has been Mrs. John Macy, formerly of Wrentham, Mass. Both Mr. and Mrs. Macy are enthusiastic Marxist propagandists, and it is scarcely surprising that Miss Keller, depending upon this lifelong friend for her most intimate knowledge of life, should have imbibed such opinions.

Mr. Macy may be an enthusiastic Marxist propagandist, though I am sorry to say he has not shown much enthusiasm in propagating his Marxism through my fingers. Mrs. Macy is not a Marxist, nor a socialist. Therefore what the Common Cause says about her is not true. The editor must have invented that, made it out of whole cloth, and if that is the way his mind works, it is no wonder that he is opposed to socialism. He has not sufficient sense of fact to be a socialist or anything else intellectually worthwhile.

Consider another quotation from the same article. The headline reads:

SCHENECTADY REDS ARE ADVERTISING; USING HELEN KELLER, THE BLIND GIRL, TO RECEIVE PUBLICITY.

Then the article begins:

It would be difficult to imagine anything more pathetic than the present exploitation of poor Helen Keller by the Socialists of Schenectady. For weeks, the party's press agencies have heralded the fact that she is a Socialist, and is about to become a member of Schenectady's new Board of Public Welfare.

There's a chance for satirical comment on the phrase, "the exploitation of poor Helen Keller." But I will refrain, simply saying that I do not like the hypocritical sympathy of such a paper as the Common Cause, but I am glad if it knows what the word "exploitation" means.

Let us come to the facts. When Mayor Lunn heard that I might go to Schenectady, he proposed to the Board of Public Welfare that a place be kept on it for me. Nothing was printed about this in The Citizen, Mayor Lunn's paper. Indeed, it was the intention of the board to say nothing about the matter until after I had moved to Schenectady. But the reporters of the capitalist press got wind of the plan, and one day, during Mayor Lunn's absence from Schenectady, the Knickerbocker Press of Albany made the announcement. It was telegraphed all over the country, and then began the real newspaper exploitation. By the Socialist press? No, by the capitalist press.

The Socialist papers printed the news, and some of them wrote editorials of welcome. But The Citizen, Mayor Lunn's paper, preserved silence and did not mention my name during all the weeks when the reporters were telephoning and telegraphing and asking for interviews. It was the capitalist press that did the exploiting. Why? Because ordinary newspapers care anything about socialism? No, of course not; they hate it. But because I, alas, am a subject for newspaper gossip. We got so tired of denying that I was in Schenectady that I began to dislike the reporter who first published the "news."

The Socialist papers, it is true, did make a good deal of me after the capitalist papers had "heralded the fact that I am a Socialist." But all the reporters who came to see me were from ordinary commercial newspapers. No Socialist paper, neither The Call nor the National Socialist, ever asked me for an article. The editor of The Citizen hinted to Mr. Macy that he would like one, but he was too fine and considerate to ask for it point-blank.

The New York Times did ask me for one. The editor of the Times wrote assuring me that his paper was a valuable medium for reaching the public and he wanted an article from me. He also telegraphed asking me to send him an account of my plans and to outline my ideas of my duties as a member of the Board of Public Welfare of Schenectady. I am glad I did not comply with this request, for some days later the Times made me a social outcast beyond the range of its righteous sympathies. On September 21, there appeared in the Times an editorial called "The Contemptible Red Flag." I quote two passages from it:

The flag is free. But it is nonetheless detestable. It is the symbol of lawlessness and anarchy the world over, and as such is held in contempt by all right-minded persons.

The bearer of a red flag may not be molested by the police until he commits some act which the red flag justifies. He deserves, however, always to be regarded with suspicion. By carrying the symbol of lawlessness he forfeits all right to respect and sympathy.

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I AM no worshiper of cloth of any color, but I love the red flag and what it symbolizes to me and other Socialists. I have a red flag hanging in my study, and if I could I should gladly march with it past the office of the Times and let all the reporters and photographers make the most of the spectacle. According to the inclusive condemnation of the Times, I have forfeited all right to respect and sympathy, and I am to be regarded with suspicion. Yet the editor of the Times wants me to write him an article! How can he trust me to write for him if I am a suspicious character?

I hope you will enjoy as much as I do the bad ethics, bad logic, bad manners that a capitalist editor falls into when he tries to condemn the movement which is aimed at this plutocratic interests. We are not entitled to sympathy, yet some of us can write articles that will help his paper to make money. Probably our opinions have the same sort of value to him that he would find in the confession of a famous murderer. We are not nice, but we are interesting.

I like newspapermen. I have known many, and two or three editors have been among my most intimate friends. Moreover, the newspapers have been of great assistance in the work which we have been trying to do for the blind. It costs them nothing to give their aid to work for the blind and to other superficial charities. But socialism--ah, that is a different matter! That goes to the root of all poverty and all charity. The money power behind the newspapers is against socialism, and the editors, obedient to the hand that feeds them, will go to any length to put down socialism and undermine the influence of socialists.

When my letter to Comrade Fred Warren was published in the Appeal to Reason, a friend of mine who writes a special department for the Boston Transcript made an article about it and the editor-in-chief cut it out.

The Brooklyn Eagle says, apropos of me, and socialism, that Helen Keller's "mistakes spring out of the manifest limitations of her development." Some years ago, I met a gentleman who was introduced to me as Mr. McKelway, editor of the Brooklyn Eagle. It was after a meeting that we had in New York in behalf of the blind. At that time, the compliments he paid me were so generous that I blush to remember them. But now that I have come out for socialism, he reminds me and the public that I am blind and deaf and especially liable to error. I must have shrunk in intelligence during the years since I met him. Surely it is his turn to blush. It may be that deafness and blindness incline one toward socialism. Marx was probably stone deaf and William Morris was blind. Morris painted his pictures by the sense of touch and designed wallpaper by the sense of smell.

Oh, ridiculous Brooklyn Eagle! What an ungallant bird it is! Socially blind and deaf, it defends an intolerable system, a system that is the cause of much of the physical blindness and deafness which we are trying to prevent. The Eagle is willing to help us prevent misery provided, always provided, that we do not attack the industrial tyranny which supports it and stops its ears and clouds its vision. The Eagle and I are at war. I hate the system which it represents, apologizes for and upholds. When it fights back, let it fight fair. Let it attack my ideas and oppose the aims and arguments of Socialism. It is not fair fighting or good argument to remind me and others that I cannot see or hear.

I can read. I can read all the socialist books I have time for in English, German and French. If the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle should read some of them, he might be a wiser man and make a better newspaper. If I ever contribute to the Socialist movement the book that I sometimes dream of, I know what I shall name it: Industrial Blindness and Social Deafness.

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Blair: a neutral peace broker?

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:13:45 +0000

Aref Nammari (goplayer) has added a post:

Read the Electronic Intifada article about the UB event where the video was taken

here

FIFA urged to give the red card to Israel

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:29:46 +0000

Aref Nammari (goplayer) has added a post:

FIFA urged to give the red card to Israel

Press release, various undersigned, 13 October 2009

The following press release was issued on 7 October 2009:

FIFA's declared mission to use football to bring about "a better world" requires that clear signals be given to the apartheid state, Israel. The undersigned organizations call on FIFA to tell Israel it is off-side and to show it a red card for the World Cup.

Three Palestinian football players from the national team were killed during the Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. Because of the Israeli blockade and travel restrictions, the Palestinian national team there cannot practice with their teammates in the West Bank in their native land. They can only rarely take part in international competitions.

Palestinian athletes suffer constant discrimination and violent assaults. This is part of Israel's decades-long refusal to guarantee the Palestinians their rights, freedom, dignity and their physical and spiritual integrity. This policy should be called apartheid. It is not only a violation of international law, but also of FIFA's regulations against discrimination, and of the Olympic Charter.

South Africa's exclusion from the world sports community until 1991 helped to bring about the end of racial separation in that country. Now, almost 20 years later, the World Cup will be hosted by South Africa in 2010. Decency, dignity and sporting fair play towards the hosts and the participating teams demand that Israel be subjected to the same sanctions. Numerous organizations and personalities in Israel and world-wide hope that increased pressure on Israel will induce it to respect the rights of the Palestinians. This is a prerequisite for peace.

We challenge FIFA to live up to the letter and the spirit of its statutes and to seize this opportunity to prove to the world that it stands for a more just world by sending Israel an unmistakeable threat of exclusion. This would be an important victory for human rights -- not only for the Palestinian people, but also for the international football community.

No to apartheid!

Undersigned organizations: Basler Frauenvereinigung fuer Frieden und Fortschritt (BFFF), Bewegung fuer den Sozialismus (BFS/MPS), Collectif Judeo Arabe et Citoyen pour la Paix de Strasbourg, Collectif Urgence Palestine Vaud, Collectif Urgence Palestine Neuchatel, Frauen fuer den Frieden Region Basel, Frauen fuer den Frieden Region Biel, Gerechtigkeit und Frieden in Palaestina (GFP) Bern, Gesellschaft Schweiz-Palaestina (GSP/ASP), International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) France, Juedische Stimme fuer gerechten Frieden in Nahost (EJJP Deutschland), Kampagne Olivenoel, Neue PdA Basel, Mahnwache Bern, Palaestina-Solidaritaet Basel, Palaestina-Solidaritaet Zuerich, Sozialistische Alternative (SoAL) Basel, Union Juive Francaise pour la Paix (UJFP)

Source: www.electronicintifada.net

Dissolve the PA

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:15:43 +0000

Aref Nammari (goplayer) has added a post:

UN must act on Goldstone and the PA must be dissolved

Omar Barghouti, The Electronic Intifada, 5 October 2009

The Palestinian Authority has no legitimacy to claim to represent these Palestinian children in Gaza, or Palestinians anywhere. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

Palestinian civil society has strongly and almost unanimously condemned the Palestinian Authority's decision to delay action regarding the UN Fact-Finding Mission's report, headed by justice Richard Goldstone, which investigated the recent Israeli war of aggression against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip. A common demand in almost all Palestinian statements was for the UN to adopt the report and act swiftly on its recommendations to bring the report to the Security Council and failing meaningful investigation by responsible parties, take the case to the International Criminal Court in order to bring an end to Israel's criminal impunity, and to hold it accountable before international law for its war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and, indeed, all over the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Succumbing to US pressure and unabashed Israeli blackmail, Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Ramallah Palestinian Authority (PA), was reportedly personally responsible for the decision to defer council consideration of the Goldstone report. This dashed the hopes of Palestinians everywhere as well as those of international human rights organizations and solidarity movements, that Israel would finally face a long overdue process of legal accountability and that its victims would have a measure of justice. The PA decision -- which delays adoption of the report at least until March 2010 -- gives Israel a golden opportunity to bury it with US, European, Arab and now Palestinian complicity, and constitutes the most blatant case yet of PA betrayal of Palestinian rights and surrender to Israeli dictates.

History of betrayal

This is not the first time, though, that the PA has acted under orders from Washington and threats from Tel Aviv against the express interests of the Palestinian people. The historic July 2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), finding Israel's wall and colonies built on occupied Palestinian territory illegal, presented a rare diplomatic, political and legal opportunity to isolate Israel just as apartheid South Africa was isolated after the ICJ's 1971 decision against its occupation of Namibia. Alas, the PA squandered the opportunity and systematically -- quite suspiciously, actually -- failed even to call on world governments to comply with their obligations stated in the advisory opinion.

The whole clause on Israel and Palestinian rights that was to be discussed at the recent UN Durban Review Conference in Geneva was dropped after the Palestinian representative gave his green light. Efforts by non-aligned nations and former UN General Assembly president Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann to push for a UN resolution condemning Israel's war crimes in Gaza and establishing an international tribunal were thwarted mainly by the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, causing several prominent diplomats and international law experts to wonder which side the official Palestinian representative was on.

The Mercosur-Israel Free Trade Agreement was almost ratified by Brazil last September after the Palestinian ambassador there expressed approval, only urging Brazil to exclude Israeli settlement products from the agreement. With prompt action by Palestinian and Brazilian civil society organizations and eventually by the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), this ratification was averted and the responsible Brazilian parliamentary committee recommended that the government refrain from approving the agreement until Israel complies with international law.

In all these cases and many similar ones, the instructions to the Palestinian representatives came from Ramallah. The PA government there has, however, illegally appropriated the PLO's authority to conduct Palestinian diplomacy and set foreign policy, conceding Palestinian rights and acting against Palestinian national interests, without worrying about accountability to any elected representatives of the Palestinian people.

The PA's latest forthright collusion in Israel's campaign to whitewash its crimes and escape accountability came a few days after the far-right Israeli government publicly blackmailed the PA, demanding that it withdraw its support for adopting the Goldstone report in return for "permitting" a second mobile communications provider to operate in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

This collusion undermines the great efforts by human rights organizations and many activists to bring justice to the Palestinian victims of Israel's latest massacre in Gaza, the more than 1,400 killed (predominantly civilians), the thousands injured, the 1.5 million who are still suffering from the wanton destruction of infrastructure, educational and health institutions, factories, farm lands, power plants and other critical facilities, and from the long criminal Israeli siege against them.

It is nothing short of a betrayal of Palestinian civil society's effective boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, with all its recent, remarkable growth and achievements in mainstream western societies and among leading unions. It is also a betrayal of the global solidarity movement that has worked tirelessly and creatively, mainly within the framework of the fast-spreading BDS campaign, to end Israel's impunity and to uphold universal human rights.

It is crucial to remember that the PA does not have any legal or democratic mandate to speak on behalf of the people of Palestine or to represent the Palestinians at the UN or any of its agencies and institutions. The current PA government has never won the necessary constitutional approval of the democratically elected Palestinian Legislative Council. Even if it had such a mandate, at best it would only represent the Palestinians living under Israel's military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, excluding the great majority of the people of Palestine, particularly the refugees.

Israel's strongest weapon, the PA

Only the PLO can theoretically claim to represent the entire Palestinian people, inside historic Palestine and in exile. For such a claim to be substantiated and universally accepted, though, the PLO would need to be revived from the grassroots upwards, in a transparent, democratic and inclusive process involving Palestinians everywhere and encompassing all political parties that are outside PLO structures today.

In parallel with this popular take-back of the PLO by the people and their representative unions and institutions, the PA must be responsibly and gradually dismantled, with its current powers, particularly the representation seats at the UN and other regional and international institutions, returned to where they belong: a revived and democratized PLO. Dissolution of the PA, however, must at all times avoid creating a legal and political vacuum, as history shows that hegemonic powers are often the most likely to fill such a vacuum to the detriment of the oppressed.

The fact is the PA has been gradually and irreversibly transformed since its establishment 15 years ago. It began as an often powerless, obsequious and coerced sub-contractor of the Israeli occupation, relieving Israel of its most cumbersome civil duties, like providing services and tax collection. Most crucially, the PA very effectively helped Israel safeguard the security of its occupation army and colonial settlers. Now, the PA has gone beyond those roles, becoming a willing collaborator that constitutes Israel's most important strategic weapon in countering its growing isolation and loss of legitimacy on the world stage as a colonial and apartheid state. Israel's hundreds of nuclear weapons and its fourth most powerful military in the world proved impotent or at least irrelevant before the growing BDS movement, particularly after Israel's acts of genocide in Gaza. The almost unlimited diplomatic, political, economic and scientific support Israel receives from American and European governments and its unparalleled impunity have also failed to protect it from the gloomy fate of apartheid South Africa.

Even before Israel's war on Gaza, many unions around the world had joined the BDS campaign. After Gaza, BDS leaped into a new, advanced phase, finally reaching the mainstream. Years of careful groundwork facilitated this, but international shock at Israel's white phosphorus showers of death visited upon the children of Gaza cowering in UN shelters, and the universal feeling that the international order has failed to hold Israel accountable or even end its slaughter, or the ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, has provided an enormous boost.

In February, weeks after the end of Israel's Gaza bloodbath, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) made history when it refused to offload an Israeli ship in Durban. In April, the Scottish Trade Union Congress followed the lead of the South African trade union federation, COSATU, and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in adopting BDS to bring about Israel's compliance with international law. In May, the University and College Union (UCU), representing some 120,000 British academics, reiterated its annual support for the logic of boycott against Israel, calling for organizing an inter-union BDS conference to discuss strategies to implement the boycott.

And in September, Norway's government pension fund, the world's third largest, divested from an Israeli military contractor supplying equipment for construction of the illegal West Bank wall. Shortly after that, a Spanish ministry excluded a team representing an Israeli college illegally built on occupied Palestinian land from participating in an academic competition. Also in September, the British Trades Union Congress, representing more than 6.5 million workers, adopted the boycott, ushering in a new phase reminiscent of the beginning of the end of the South African apartheid regime. According to concrete, persistent and mounting indicators, Palestinians are witnessing the arrival of their South Africa moment.

Amidst all this came the Goldstone report, quite surprisingly -- given the judge's strong connections with Israel and Zionism -- providing the straw that may well break the camel's back: irrefutable evidence, meticulously researched and documented, of Israel's deliberate commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Despite its clear shortcomings, this report presented Israel with the daunting possibility of standing trial at an international tribunal, effectively ending its impunity.

In this dire situation, only one strategic weapon in Israel's arsenal could fend off a crushing legal and political defeat: the PA. And Israel indeed used it at the right time, almost killing the Goldstone report.

Ultimately, the failure of the UN Human Rights Council to adopt the Goldstone report is another proof, if any is needed, that Palestinians cannot hope at the current historical moment to obtain justice from the US-controlled so-called "international community." Only through intensified, sustainable and context-sensitive civil society campaigns of boycott and divestment can there be any hope that Israel will one day be compelled to end its lawlessness and criminal disregard of human rights and recognize the inalienable Palestinian right to self determination. This right, as expressed by the great majority of the Palestinian people, comprises ending the occupation, ending the legalized and institutionalized system of racial discrimination, or apartheid, and recognizing the fundamental, UN-sanctioned right of Palestine refugees to return to their homes of origin, like all other refugees around the world.

We simply cannot afford to give up on the UN, though. Human rights organizations and international civil society must continue to help the Palestinian struggle to pressure the UN, at least its General Assembly, to adopt and act upon the recommendations of the Goldstone report at all levels. If the UN fails to do so it will send an unambiguous message to Israel that its impunity remains intact and that the international community will stand by apathetically the next time it commits even more egregious crimes against the indigenous people of Palestine. This would gravely undermine the rule of law and promote in its stead the law of the jungle, where no one will be protected from total chaos and boundless carnage.

Omar Barghouti is a founding member of the BDS movement (www.BDSmovement.net).

The Chronic Submissiveness of Abbas and his "Palestinian Authority"

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:47:53 +0000

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By: Amira Hass

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1118892.html

In a single phone call to his man in Geneva, Mahmoud Abbas has demonstrated his disregard for popular action, and his lack of faith in its accumulative power and the place of mass movements in processes of change.

For nine months, thousands of people - Palestinians, their supporters abroad and Israeli anti-occupation activists - toiled to ensure that the legacy of Israel's military offensive against Gaza would not be consigned to the garbage bin of occupying nations obsessed with their feelings of superiority.

Thanks to the Goldstone report, even in Israel voices began to stammer about the need for an independent inquiry into the assault. But shortly after Abbas was visited by the American consul-general on Thursday, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization got on the phone to instruct his representative on the United Nations Human Rights Council to ask his colleagues to postpone the vote on the adoption of the report's conclusions.

Heavy American pressure and the resumption of peace negotiations were the reasons for Abbas' move, it was said. Palestinian spokespeople spun various versions over the weekend in an attempt to make the move kosher, explaining that it was not a cancelation but a six-month postponement that Abbas was seeking.

Will the American and European representatives in Geneva support the adoption of the report in six months' time? Will Israel heed international law in the coming months, stop building in the settlements and announce immediate negotiations on their dismantlement and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories? Is this what adoption of the report would have endangered? Of course not.

A great deal of political folly and short-sightedness was bared by that phone call, on the eve of Hamas's celebration of its victory in securing the release of 20 female prisoners. Precisely on that day, Abbas put Gaza in the headlines within the context of the PLO's defeatism and of spitting in the face of the victims of the attack - that is how they felt in Gaza and elsewhere.

Abbas confirmed in fact that Hamas is the real national leadership, and gave ammunition to those who claim that its path - the path of armed struggle - yields results that negotiations do not.

This was not an isolated gaffe, but a pattern that has endured since the PLO leadership concocted, together with naive Norwegians and shrewd Israeli lawyers, the Oslo Accords. Disregard for, and lack of interest in the knowledge and experience accumulated in the inhabitants of the occupied territories' prolonged popular struggle led to the first errors: the absence of an explicit statement that the aim was the establishment of a state within defined borders, not insisting on a construction freeze in the settlements, forgetting about the prisoners, endorsing the Area C arrangement, etc.

The chronic submissiveness is always explained by a desire to "make progress." But for the PLO and Fatah, progress is the very continued existence of the Palestinian Authority, which is now functioning more than ever before as a subcontractor for the IDF, the Shin Bet security service and the Civil Administration.

This is a leadership that has been convinced that armed struggle - certainly in the face of Israeli military superiority - cannot bring independence. And indeed, the disastrous repercussions of the Second Intifada are proof of this position. This is a leadership that believes in negotiation as a strategic path to obtaining a state and integration in the world that the United States is shaping.

But in such a world there is personal gain that accrues from chronic submissiveness - benefits enjoyed by the leaders and their immediate circles. This personal gain shapes the tactics.

Is the choice really only between negotiations and armed-struggle theater, the way the Palestinian leadership makes it out to be? No.

The true choice is between negotiations as part of a popular struggle anchored in the language of the universal culture of equality and rights, and negotiations between business partners with the junior partner submissively expressing his gratitude to the senior partner for his generosity.

Israel: A Zionist State Not A Jewish State

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:40:18 +0000

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Akiva Orr

Tuesday, 01 September 2009 23:45 Akiva Orr for the Alternative Information Center (AIC)

Israel: Not a Jewish State, A Zionist State

Photo: David Ben-Gurion reads the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948.

The Zionist movement and its State—ISRAEL, do not represent the Jewish people. They never did. They represent a particular trend within the Jewish people, namely—the nationalist trend. To find out whether Israel is a Jewish State or a Zionist State one need only ask any religious Orthodox Jew anywhere. His answer will be unambiguous: a Jewish State must be ruled by Jewish religious law—“Halakha.” Israel is not ruled by “Halakha” laws, but by secular laws. Therefore Israel is not a Jewish State. The fact that it provides refuge to Jews does not make it a Jewish State. Zionism and Judaism are different entities. They have contradictory qualities.

Although Zionists claim to represent all Jews the Zionist movement is merely the JNP (Jewish National Party) within the Jewish people. It is one of two trends which emerged in European Jewry in the 19th Century. These trends are: 1) The Cosmopolitan secular trend, and 2) The Nationalist trend (“Zionism”). Marx, Freud, Einstein, Bob Dylan and Abbie Hoffman, belong to the Cosmopolitan trend. Herzl, Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Begin, Sharon, Netanyahu, belong to the Nationalist trend. The misleading image of Israel as representative of world Jewry is due to the fact that Israeli politicians participate in international forums and make public statements purporting to represent all Jewish people. Actually they represent Zionist interests, not Jewish interests. In every case of a conflict between Jewish and Zionist interests the latter prefers its own interest. The best example is the treatment of Holocaust survivors in Israel. Though Germany paid the Israeli government money to compensate them the Israeli government used the money for its own purposes without passing it on to the Holocaust survivors living in Israel. The survivors had to resort to strikes and demonstrations against the Israeli government to get their money. The issue is not settled to this very day.

Until the 19th Century all Jews everywhere lived every act of daily life according to religious rules. To be “A Jew” meant one thing—to live ordinary daily life according to 613 religious rules for the conduct of every act of daily life. Religious rules dictating daily behaviour—not common language, common history, circumcision, or genetic features—kept the Jewish communities, dispersed all over the world, as a single coherent, unified, entity.

During the 19th Century, after the “Codex Napoleon” banned all legal restrictions against Jews and the Industrial Revolution offered them many new economic opportunities, most European Jews moved from their Ghettoes into the host societies and a process of fragmentation began in European Jewish communities. They split into three major fragments: 1) Religious 2) Secular and 3) Nationalist. Each of these fragments split further into secondary fragments: The Religious split into Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Traditional. The Nationalists—into Assimilationists, and Zionists, the Secular—into Marxists, Liberals and Cosmopolitans.

Within 100 years (1800-1900) 80% of European Jews ceased to live daily life according to the 613 religious rules. They became secular Cosmopolitans, Assimilationists, or Zionists. Only some 20% continued to live according to the religious rules. This happened in all Jewish communities in Germany, Austro-Hungary, Russia, Lithuania, Poland, Britain, France, USA, Italy, Holland, and Belgium. In 1900 only 20% of European Jews still observed all 613 religious rules while 75% became secular assimilationists, socialists, or cosmopolitans. Only 5% became Zionists. Most Zionists were atheists. Like all atheists they saw all religions as superstitions and obstacles to enlightenment, modernization and progress. A similar fragmentation process began among Jews in Asia and Africa a few decades later.

The relative sizes of the fragments (20%-Religious, 75%-Secular, 5%-Zionists) changed after the Nazis came to power in Germany, to 20%-50%-30%. The Jewish response to the rise of Nazism was a rise in Zionism. German nationalism culminated by creating Auschwitz and by trying to conquer Russia. Jewish nationalism culminated by conquering Palestine and by creating a Zionist State. Contrary to its claims, a Zionist State is not a Jewish State as a Jewish State is one ruled by Jewish religious law (“HALAKHA”) whereas the Zionist State is ruled (mainly) by secular law. Religious law is based on worship of God. Secular law is based on worship of the Nation. Zionism is Ethnocentric and worships the Jewish Nation. Judaism is Theocentric and worships the Jewish God. Religious Judaism considers the worship of the Jewish nation as blasphemy. Orthodox Jews in Israel refuse to serve in the Israeli Army, not because they are pacifist, but because they oppose a secular State pretending to be “Jewish.” Some refuse to vote in the elections, or to stand at attention when the national Anthem is played, some refuse to carry an Israeli passport. They consider Israel a State of blasphemers, not a “The Jewish State.”

Although the desire to resurrect Biblical Jewish independence in Palestine is expressed in every Passover meal for millennia religious Jews relegate this task to God. Rabbis emphasize that only when all Jews repent, return to worship God alone, and cease to worship false gods like money, nation, or state, will God relent and resurrect Jewish independence in Palestine (Biblical “Zion”). They warned against any human attempt to carry out this task. Their warnings went unheeded when many European Jews supported the Jewish Kabbalist Shabbtai Zevi (1626-1676) trying to resurrect Jewish independence in Palestine in the 17th century. His opponents were vindicated when his movement ended in a fiasco. He converted to Islam, disbanded his movement, and caused a major crisis in Judaism. No wonder this episode is glossed over by the Zionist state-education in Israel.

The fragments mentioned above formed political parties in Israel and their relations and deals shape Israeli politics. From 1922 to 1977 the major fragment in the Jewish community in Palestine, consisting mostly (but not entirely) of Zionists, was the Zionist Labour movement. It was a Social-Democracy committed to nationalism and atheism. Labour Zionism created all Israeli State institutions, the Knesset, the Legal system, the Police, the Army, the educational and health systems, and most of the economy. After the UN resolution to create two States in Palestine, one for Jews and one for the Palestinians (29.11.1947) Ben-Gurion, leader of Labour Zionism, acted to prevent a conflict between Religious Jewry and a Zionist state. He offered a compromise (known as “The Status-Quo Agreement”) between the Zionist State and Religious Jewry. He proposed that all traditional Jewish Holydays will be State Holydays, and all matters of marriage, divorce, and burial, be decided by religious law. Most Religious Jews accepted this compromise which has been in force ever since 1947. It averted Religious Jewish opposition to Israel. B/G. wanted to prevent a situation where Religious Jewry—all over the world – would challenge a secular Zionist state and its image as “The Jewish State.” His “Status-Quo” agreement achieved this. That is why there is no civil marriage in Israel and no Constitution (the religious demanded a religious one) and why Israeli children of mixed marriages born to non-Jewish mothers are legally bastards.

To understand the mutual relations between the secular majority and the religious minority in Israel one must understand the Jewish religion.

Most people assume that since Judaism is Monotheistic—like Islam and Christianity—it hardly differs from them. This is a mistake. Judaism differs qualitatively from Christianity and Islam. The first difference is the bond between Jewish religion and ethnicity. The Jewish religion is not Universalist like Christianity or Islam. It is an ethnic religion. It is the religion of the Jews, not of Humanity. Jews make no attempt to convert non-Jews to Judaism. Rabbis raise obstacles to those who wish to convert to Judaism. As for Jewish ethnicity—all its qualities have a religious character. Jewish religion is ethnic and Jewish ethnicity is religious. In Judaism religion imparts an ethnic identity. A Jewish believer is a member of the Jewish ethnic group. A convert to Judaism becomes a member of Jewish ethnicity. This is not the case in Christianity or Islam who do not endow one with ethnic identity. A convert to Christianity does not become a member of a Christian ethnic group. He keeps his former ethnicity. In Christianity and Islam the community of the believers is a religious entity, not an ethnic entity. In Judaism it is both. A German convert to Judaism becomes a member of the Jewish nation. He may hold a German Passport and speak German but—if he lives his daily life according to the 613 religious rules—he is not only a Jew by faith but also a member of Jewish ethnicity. This unusual bond baffles many people, including most Jews, but it was confirmed in Israeli Law by the verdict of the Israeli High Court (1962) in the case of Oswald Rufeisen (“Brother Daniel”). The verdict stated that as Rufeisen converted to Christianity he lost his Jewish ethnicity and ceased to be a member of the Jewish nation.

The bond between religion and ethnicity in Judaism is the source of a unique problem for “lapsed Jews” who do not live daily life according to the 613 religious rules but insist that they are still Jews by ethnicity. Defining their secular Jewish ethnicit6y is problematic. Any specific quality they try to attribute to secular Jewish ethnicity exists also among non-Jews. Moreover, no definition of secular Jewish ethnicity can achieve consensus among all Jews. Most “Lapsed Jews” provide personal definitions that suit their personal taste, but none of these is accepted by all Jews. Group identity is a quality determined by the group, not by its individual members. No member of, say, “Manchester United F.C.” can determine the qualifications for membership in the club. This is determined by the club’s management, not by individuals. Definitions suiting an individual are not recognized by the club. Various attempts in the last 150 years to define secular Jewishness in a way that would be accepted by all Jews have been tried— and failed. They continue—and so do their failures. The continuation of these efforts testifies to their failures.

The State of Israel itself is the central effort to define a core for secular Jewish ethnicity. The Zionist secular State is expected to play the role that God plays for the religious. The question is—Can a secular State be Jewish? Religious Jews say: NO! Secular Jews who insist that they are still Jews, say: YES! But they cannot define features that make a secular State—specifically Jewish. Speaking Hebrew is not—and never was—a hallmark of all Jews. Circumcision is performed also by non-Jews. Moral considerations guide Christians more than they guide religious Jews. Declaring all Jewish Holydays as official Holydays exacerbates the problem, as all Jewish Holydays have a religious character. They either commemorate a religious event or fulfil a religious function. A secular State celebrating religious Holydays does not provide a secular identity; it only deepens the confusion of the confused.

The only way to maintain Israel as a pseudo “Jewish” State is to maintain in it a numeric majority of “lapsed Jews” who no longer live according to the 613 religious rules but keep insisting they are Jews even though they cannot define their Jewishness. Anyone who thinks this is an abstract psychological problem should be reminded that Israel’s atheist PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, in his recent reply to US President Obama’s speech in Cairo, which demanded that Israel accept the principle of a Palestinian State, insisted that the Palestinians must first recognize the “Jewish character” of Israel. This unusual demand by an atheist (no religious Jew would demand this) expresses the anxiety of secular Zionists that unless they maintain a numeric majority in Israel they will lose their ethnic identity. When the guarantee of ethnic identity is mere quantity—rather than specific qualities—a psychological anxiety dictates politics. Religious Jews do not fear to be in minority. Their ethnic identity is shaped by their daily observance of the 613 religious rules. They never ask others to recognize the “Jewish nature” of Israel. Only Zionist “lapsed Jews” demand this.

The central aim of Israeli politics is to secure Israel’s “Jewish Identity” (rather than its military security or economic stability) by maintaining a numeric majority of secular, lapsed Jews, in Israel. Israel’s “Jewish” identity worries them far more than its Defense or economy. The latter are means to ensure the former. The former is not a means, but an end. The “Jewish Identity complex” of “lapsed Jews” does not affect the religious Jews who have a secure religious and ethnic identity with—or without— any state. They do not fear to be a minority and do not seek refuge in numbers

To rebuff Netanyahu the Palestinian need only tell him: “We shall do so only when the Orthodox religious Jews recognize Israel as a Jewish State.”

No honest secular Jew can contest this requirement. No honest Orthodox Jew will recognize a secular State as “A Jewish State.”

The second unique feature of the Jewish religion, which does not exist in Christianity or Islam, is the duty of the believer to live daily life according to the 613 religious rules for the conduct of ordinary life. Every issue of food, dress, work, leisure, sex, cleanliness, etc. must be carried out according to strict religious rules. A religious Jew practices his belief not only by prayers but by obeying these rules in every daily act. The point is to live every act of daily life as an act of worship of God. This is a consequence of the third unique feature of Judaism—its Theocentrism. In Judaism—unlike in Christianity or Islam—worshipping God is done for God’s sake alone, not for the sake of the believer. This Theocentric principle is illustrated and publicized by the Bible story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to God. The believer is tested by demanding that he perform an act which violates morality and his own interests. Only those who are willing to obey such a demand and put loyalty to God before loyalty to Humanity, morality, or self, are true Jewish believers. Christianity overturned this principle by positing a God who sacrifices his son to save humanity. Christianity and Islam are Anthropo-centric; they worship God as a means to improve the lot of Humanity—or of the believers. Judaism is Theo-centric. It posits God’s worship for its own sake—whatever the cost to the believer, or to humanity. Religious Jews believe this practice elevates its practitioners from a state of mere physical existence to a state of spiritual existence wherein they constantly feel the presence of God. In Christianity and Islam religious worship is a means to an end—the welfare of the believer—or of humanity. In Judaism worship of God is not a means to an end but the end itself. It has precedence over all interests of the believers—or of humanity. It does not serve life. It defines the purpose of all existence.

Two more features of the Jewish religion play a role in Israeli politics today:

1) The idea that whatever happens in history is due to God’s will

2) The idea that eventually God will redeem the Jewish people, send his saviour (“Messiah”) to resurrect the religious Jewish State, and rebuild His Temple in Jerusalem.

These two ideas motivate Israeli Religio-Nationalist settlers in occupied Palestine today.

Until 1948 most Orthodox religious Jews opposed Zionism. After the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 some argued that this is God’s will and joined the coalition headed by the atheist Labour Party. They were a subordinate partner puzzled by what God meant in using atheist Zionists to set up Israel. However, after the stunning Israeli victory in the 1967 war, when all of Palestine—especially the holy city of Jerusalem—came under Israeli sovereignty, the trend of Religio-Zionists began to attract many young believers, who argued that this victory signified God’s will and the “Countdown to Redemption.” Although the atheist Levi Eshkol, Israel’s Labour PM in 1967, forbade any settlement in the territories conquered in 1967 hoping to trade them for peace, Rabbi Moshe Levinger entered occupied Hebron as a tourist and then declared that he intends to settle there, because God promised it to Abraham. The Deputy PM, [Yigal Alon]—a militant atheistic Socialist Zionist—.went to negotiate with Levinger, but instead of evacuating him, congratulated him. This was the Kanossa of Labour Zionism. At the zenith of its political power Labour Zionism—committed to atheism— capitulated ideologically to Religio-Zionism. The reason? as socialists Labour Zionists opposed colonialism and justified the colonization of Palestine by arguing that Palestine was desolate and unpopulated, and therefore the Zionist project was not Colonialism. Until 1967 Labour Zionism argued that Palestine was “A country without a people for a people without a country.” The conquest of 1967 revealed the Palestinian people inhabiting hundreds of villages and dozens of towns in Palestine. The traditional Labour argument collapsed, but not its wish to colonize the whole of Palestine. As the religio-nationalists substituted a religious argument (“God gave this country to the Jews”) Zionist Labour bowed down to the new colonizatory zeal of the religio-nationalists. From that time on the ideological hegemony in the Zionist colonization of Palestine was in the hands of the religio-nationalist minority. It created facts and all Israeli governments accepted them. The religious minority ideologically dominated the “lapsed Jewish” majority due to two reasons: First—it had a clear (religious) justification for colonizing Palestine, and second—it had a clear definition of Jewish identity.

All Jews today accept two definitions of Jewish identity: the Rabbinical and the empirical. The Rabbinical definition states: “A Jew is one born to a Jewish mother.” The empirical states: “A Jew is one obeying daily the 613 religious rules for the conduct of daily life.” All other definitions are not accepted by all Jews. “Lapsed Jews” do not contest these two definitions. They contest their exclusivity, arguing that there are other valid definitions.

The Rabbinical definition is flawed on three counts—1) It is logically circular. What has to be defined (“Jewishness”) is a condition of the definition (the “Jewishness” of the mother). 2) As it depends on the Jewishness of the mother—and of her mother—one must check the Jewishness of the matrilineal line. How far back? 3) It ignores the person’s actual own faith. A person converted to Christianity, whose mother was Jewish, is considered by all Rabbis as “A Jew” (though a “sinner”) because his mother was Jewish. All Rabbis agree on this. The Israeli secular High Court in its verdict on Oswald Rufeisen (1962) endorsed this. However, the Israeli Court ruled that since Israeli law is NOT religious Jewish law, the secular court does not recognize Rufeisen as “A Jew” because he converted to Christianity. The empirical definition is easy to assert, clear, and unambiguous. It takes into account the person’s actual adherence (not just his declarations) to Judaism as practiced daily in ordinary life. Anyone living daily life according to the 613 religious rules is a Jew. No Jew contests this definition. What “Lapsed Jews” contest is its exclusivity. They argue that in addition to this definition there are other valid definitions of “Jewishness.” However, all other definitions have two flaws – 1) Many non-Jews qualify as well (e.g. circumcision is practiced by many non-Jews). 2) Many other Jews, especially the religious, reject all other definitions.

As 80% of those who define themselves today as “Jews” do not live their daily life according to the 613 religious rules their “Jewish” ethnic identity is vague. This vagueness often generates an obsession to resolve it and becomes an identity complex. If it is acute it becomes a neurosis and as it is shared by many people it becomes a collective neurosis. This collective neurosis is the source of Zionism—and of Israeli politics. Unlike all other politics the prime aim of Israeli politics is to secure Israel’s secular Jewish identity, not its military security or its economic stability. The latter are means, not ends. The end is a secure SECULAR—Jewish ethnic IDENTITY. Zionism created the secular Zionist State as the core of the secular Jewish identity. Loyalty to the secular State has replaced loyalty to God. Loyalty to Israel has become the core of Jewish Identity for most “Lapsed Jews” everywhere.

But this is only a semblance of a solution, not a genuine solution, because the basic problem remains: Can a secular State qualify as “Jewish”? If yes, then what specific qualities make it “Jewish”? As there are no universally accepted answers to both questions (since all religious Jews reject them) Zionism— and Israeli politics— seek refuge in the numbers of “Lapsed Jews” who suffer from the Jewish ethnic identity complex. Their solution to this problem is to have a numeric

majority in Israel of “Lapsed Jews” who share this situation. The recent demand of Israel’s PM that the Palestinians recognize the “Jewish nature” of Israel (which he is unable to define) or the fear of “the demographic threat” (i.e. that Palestinians become a majority in Israel) reveals the urgency of the problem. No religious Jew would ask others to “recognize” his Jewishness that he practices by obeying the 613 rules. For him such recognition is irrelevant. In matters of identity religious Jews have a clear advantage over “Lapsed Jews”, they have a secure, universally accepted, definition of their Jewishness “Lapsed Jews” lack a secure, universally accepted, definition of their Jewishness.

In Israel 80% of the electorate do not live their daily life according to the 613 religious rules. Only 20% do. Therefore, despite its numeric inferiority the 20% minority has superiority in ideological controversies concerning the nature of the State of Israel. One of these controversies concerns the future of the Palestine territories conquered in 1967.

According to the Bible these territories were promised by God to Abraham and therefore belong to Jews even though they were inhabited continuously for 1300 years by Palestinian Arabs. Israeli TV often shows religious Jewish immigrants from the US in a new settlement in territories conquered in the 1967 war, cutting down olive trees planted by Palestinian owners of the land, who have inhabited it continuously for many centuries, cursing the Palestinians as intruders. Many Israeli “Lapsed Jews” oppose this behaviour but cannot present Jewish arguments against it. They can present Humanist arguments but these carry no weight with religious (or nationalistic) Jews since Judaism is Theocentric, not Anthropocentric.

PM Rabin’s assassin (1995) the Religio-Nationalist Ygal Amir, when asked by the police interrogator why he refused to admit that he has committed a crime, replied: “I did not act according to my own whim. Before acting I consulted some Rabbis. They said that if a Jew endangers the lives of many Jews it is a religious duty to kill the one and save the many.” The interrogator then asked: “And what about morality?” Amir replied: “If I were a soldier in Joshua’s army conquering Jericho, and God ordered me to kill all the babies in Jericho (as stated in the Bible A.O.) I would do it without any moral scruples. If it is God’s command morality is irrelevant.”

Amir’s Religio-Nationalist colleagues, who spearhead the settlement of occupied Palestine, feel the same about morality—and legality. Convinced that they obey God, they consider morality or legality irrelevant. One can distinguish them visually from traditional Orthodox Jews as they wear ordinary clothes and a knitted, blue-white, skullcap. Traditional Orthodox Jews wear black clothes and a black silk skullcap. These two groups are hostile to each other since the Orthodox worship the Jewish God alone, while the religio-nationalists worship also the Jewish nation and the territory of Palestine. Their motto is: “The Land of Israel to the People of Israel by the Bible of Israel.” In Israel today the traditional Orthodox number some 15% while the Religio-Nationalists number some 10%.

Most Zionists today are “Lapsed Jews” living outside Israel. Their emotional support of Israel shores up their insecure Jewish identity. Most of them are nationalistic and support Israeli politics uncritically. A small minority is critical of Israeli politics. Zionists visit Israel but have no intention to immigrate. Ben-Gurion used to say: “A Zionist is a Jew who pays another Jew to immigrate to Israel.” Today most Israelis are not Zionists. Being born and raised in Israel they relate to it as a Frenchman relates to France. They have their own, Israeli, nationalism. Their Israeli identity is shaped by speaking Hebrew as a mother-tongue, by serving three-years in the Israeli Army, and by daily life in Israel. Most of them rarely visit a Synagogue, rarely pray, and totally ignore the 613 religious rules for conduct of daily life. Israeli sociologists describe Israelis as “Hebrew-speaking gentiles.” When they live outside Israel they find more in common with local non-Jews than with local religious Jews. The Israeli Ministry of Education became worried when it realized that the Israeli identity is replacing Jewish identity among Israelis and de-Zionizes them. To counter this process the Ministry of Education organizes regular visits of Israeli High-School pupils to Auschwitz. They are shown the heaps of suitcases, shoes, eyeglasses, and hair left by the Jews killed there. Then their teachers lead them to draw two conclusions: 1) Hatred of Jews is a permanent feature of Humanity. 2) Only a Zionist State can save Jews from persecution. The first conclusion fits the Zionist argument that as Jew-haters define Jews it hardly matter how the Jews define themselves. The second conclusion fits the Zionist argument that Jews fleeing from the Nazis died because no country was willing to accept them. Therefore a Zionist state is necessary as a reliable shelter for Jews. Both conclusions are flawed. 1) If persecution defines one’s ethnic identity one develops dependence on persecution.

One has a vested interest in its continuation since its absence threatens one’s identity. 2) Positing Israel as a shelter for persecuted Jews ignores the possibility that the shelter itself might be attacked. Suppose a Zionist state existed in the 1930s and Jewish refugees from the Nazis found shelter in it. Had Rommel won the battle of El-Alamein in 1942 and conquered Egypt and Palestine, the fate of the Jews there would have been the same as in Nazi-occupied Poland. Jews were saved in all places that Nazis did not conquer. A Zionist state is no shelter. Today lives of Jews in Israel are threatened far more than lives of Jews in other countries. A “shelter” is often a trap rather than a safe place. To overcome racist persecution one must defeat racism, rather than seek shelter from it.

Some “Lapsed Jews” become Zionists or Israelis to secure their Jewish Identity, but manyy—whose numbers grow constantly—reject both options. Their fuzzy “Jewish Identity” creates a problem. They assimilate formally but feel culturally alien. This is due to another feature of Jewish religion, namely, its ban on symbolizing God. Religious Jews are forbidden to make any picture, sculpture, or sign symbolizing God. They are forbidden to mention His name and must refer to Him only as “Blessed be he.” The reason for this ban is simpley—people tend to worship symbols rather than what they symbolize. By banning symbolization of God Judaism almost escaped symbol-worship common to other religions, almost but not quite, because most Jewish believers worship Biblical texts. Biblical texts are “Holy” and are worshipped by many Jews. The Religio-Nationalists are steeped in Biblical text-worship.

The insistence on God’s worship as an end in itself with the ban on symbol-worship created reverence for abstract entities. This often persists even when believers become a-theists or anti-theists. Though they no longer believe in God they retain respect for the abstract. For this reason the percentage of “Lapsed Jews” among Pure Mathematicians or Theoretical Physicists far exceeds their percentage in the population. Respect among Jews for abstract entities is a cultural—not a genetic—quality. It also explains why many Jews do not consider physical reality as the only—or the main—force determining human behaviour. This causes many assimilating Jews to feel “outsiders” in a sympathetic (but materialistic) host society that does not discriminate against them. Obsession with materiality bores them. Feeling “Jewish” without being religious, Zionist, or nationalistic, often produces a creative urge. Those afflicted by it seek to assert their uniqueness by creating something new. This is a positive response to the “Jewish-Identity Complex.” Despite all resistance all over the world Tribal-Identity gradually gives way to Ethnic-Identity which gradually gives way to Cosmopolitan Human-Identity. Electronic communication, TV, Internet, and Mobile phones, enhance this process.

Concern for ALL human beings, rather than for one’s own tribe or nation, is a positive trend. “Lapsed Jews” can use their ethnic-identity-complex to promote a new “All-Human” loyalty, superseding all ethnic, tribal, or religious, loyalties. It is a worthy role. Far worthier than narrow ethnic loyalty fearing and fighting other ethnic loyalties.

Source: http://www.alternativenews.org/akiva-orr/2134-israel-not-a-jewish-state-a-zionist-state.html

Akivah Orr

Born in Berlin in 1933. He immigrated to Palestine with his parents after the Nazis came to power in 1934. Akiva served in both the Haganah and the IDF. After the seamen's strike of 1951 in Haifa, in which he participated, Akiva decided to join the Communist Party of Israel and became critical of Zionism, ideologically and practically. In 1962 Akiva was expelled from the CPI and, along with Moche Machovar, Oded Pilavsky and Jeremy Kaplan formed Matzpen - Socialist Organization in Israel.

Justice This Time Around?

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:54:17 +0000

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From Counter Punch

Justice This Time Around?

The Goldstone Report and Israeli Impunity

By RAMZY BAROUD

"We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the era of impunity," Nadia Hijab, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Palestine Studies, said in response to the findings of a 574-page report by a four-member United Nations Fact finding mission. The mission, led by internationally-renowned former South African supreme court justice and chief prosecutor in the international tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, investigated alleged war crimes committed by Israeli troops in Gaza in a 23-day bloody, unprecedented onslaught against a largely defenseless population.

But Hijab was not the only one who expressed optimism. Others did, encouraged perhaps, by the report’s use of terminology unfamiliar in a conflict where empirical experience has shown that Israeli actions, no matter how outrageously violent, will have no meaningful legal repercussions whatsoever.

Goldstone’s report, released on September 15, made some important recommendations, following a most thorough investigation that was carefully compiled by the mission – which was organized by the UN Human Rights Council last April.

One is that the UN Security Council should set up a team of experts to monitor Israel’s investigations of the war crimes committed in Gaza. If Israel fails to do so, then the situation should be referred to the Prosecutor in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

This raises many questions, lead amongst them is: did Israel commit war crimes in Gaza, and, second, is Israel capable of conducting an honest investigation into those crimes, considering the state’s bloody legacy and lack of any serious legal accountability.

Goldstone answers both questions.

“The mission concluded that actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly in some respects crimes against humanity, were committed by the Israel Defense Force,” Goldstone told reporters on September 16. He also said that the Israeli government has carried out no credible investigation.

Despite his recommendations that UN experts follow the progress of the internal investigation by Israel, and the Palestinians (since they too were accused of violating international law by lobbing home-made rockets into Israel, without taking into account the possible harm to civilians) it’s puzzling why Goldstone would think that any genuine investigation is possible in the first place.

Goldstone knows, as many of us already do, that the events in Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of 1,387 (other estimates put the number at 1,417, mostly civilians, including over 300 children), the wounding of thousands more, the targeting of an already dilapidating infrastructure (hospitals, police stations, factories, schools, and even chicken farms) of a deprived and besieged society was very much a political decision made at the highest levels by the likes of Olmert, Livni, Barak and other serial criminals who have tormented Palestinians for too long.

Palestinians were also chastised for rockets fired from besieged Gaza. Of course, Goldstone was not expected to justify or applaud the homemade rockets, or even underline their lack of effectiveness, as four Israelis were killed by rocket fire, during the period of the war. Out of the nine Israeli soldiers killed in the fighting, four were killed in friendly fire.

While both Hamas and the PA fully cooperated with Goldstone and his colleagues, Israel fully rejected the mission, refusing entry into Israel or Gaza, forcing the use of alternative routes into the besieged strip, through Egypt.

Israeli officials claim that the report was pre-written, rendering it biased from the start. They used the same predictable pattern of smears, redundant diatribes and predictable language.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said the report created unjust “equivalence of a democratic state with a terror organization,” in reference to Hamas.

Following the good old democracy reference, racism kicks in. “We have nothing to be ashamed of, and don’t need lessons in morality from a committee established by Syria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Somalia,” Levy said. Apparently dark-skinned people of the South are both incapable of being democratic or moral. Only Israel and her allies are capable of those qualities.

“The Goldstone report has set a new standard for equating the behavior of democratic nations and terrorists,” wrote Richard Sideman, President of the New York-based American Jewish Committee in a letter published in the New York Times on September 18.

The same disingenuous sentiment utilized by Levy and Sideman (how curious that both seemed to be using the same script) echoed by many Israeli officials and their lobbyists abroad, who went into crisis management mode following the release of the report.

But why should they care?

Could it be because Goldstone called on the 192-member General Assembly to establish an escrow fund so that Israel can compensate Palestinians in Gaza? Israel would never spend its hard-earned US tax payers money on such frivolous matters.

Could it be because the Human Rights Council is convening on September 29 in Geneva to discuss the report, and could call for its transfer to the Security Council, and even the ICC?

Could it be because the report’s findings might empower an already growing boycott movement world-wide?

Could it be because it’s much harder to doubt the credibility of Goldstone, to smear him as anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew?

Could it be because all these factors are escalating Israeli fears that the “era of impunity” is indeed over?

“Perhaps next time we set out to wage another vain and miserable war, we will take into account not only the number of fatalities we are likely to sustain, but also the heavy political damage such wars cause,” wrote Israeli columnist Gideon Levy.

One would have to wait for the next miserable war, the next massacre to find out whether Israel has learned its lesson. Until then, thousands of starved, desperate yet resilient Palestinians in Gaza continue to live in their makeshift tents, atop the rubble, which was once called home, awaiting food, cement and international justice.

Ramzy Baroud is an author of several books and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London), and his forthcoming book is, “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon.

Ommi -- امي

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:11:50 +0000

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Marcel Khalife sings the poem Ommi by Mahmoud Darwish.

Comandante Che Guevara

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:01:44 +0000

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website update

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 03:49:34 +0000

Aref Nammari (goplayer) has added a post:

Excuse this shameless self-promotion. I just wanted to let those of you who are interested know that my website has been revamped and updated. Your thoughts are very welcome. Soon I will be adding another feature to the site--a journal or a "magazine": a space to post other photographers' work.

I wish you all a very nice and happy weekend.

No Celebration of Occupation -- Naomi Klein on Democracy Now

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:12:46 +0000

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TODAY'S DEMOCRACY NOW!:

* No Celebration of Occupation: 1,500 Artists and Writers Sign Letter Protesting Toronto Film Festival Decision to Spotlight Tel Aviv *

A protest at the Toronto International Film Festival has taken center stage after a group of artists and writers signed a letter of protest against the festival's decision to spotlight the city of Tel Aviv. Activists say the TIFF spotlight plays into Israel's attempt to improve its global image in the wake of the assault on the Gaza Strip and the ongoing occupation of Palestinian land. Over 1,500 people have signed the letter, called "The Toronto Declaration: No Celebration of Occupation," including Jane Fonda, Viggo Mortensen, Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte. We speak with journalist and author Naomi Klein, who helped draft the letter.

Listen/Watch/Read

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/14/no_celebration_of_occupation_1_500

* Naomi Klein on "Minority Death Match: Jews, Blacks and the 'Post-Racial' Presidency" *

We speak with journalist Naomi Klein about her latest article for Harper's Magazine, "Minority Death Match: Jews, Blacks and the 'Post-Racial' Presidency." The piece examines the World Conference Against Racism that was held in Geneva this past April, a follow-up to the first racism conference in Durban, South Africa in 2001. There was a major boycott with the Obama administration refusing to attend, claiming the conference would unfairly target Israel. Critics say the controversy over Israel could have been an excuse to avoid dealing with the conference's key issues, including addressing the legacy of slavery.

Listen/Watch/Read

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/14/naomi_klein_on_minority_death_match

Time for Boycott

nobody@ipernity.com (Aref Nammari (goplayer)) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:36:10 +0000

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Time to boycott Israel

For the sake of our children, I am convinced that an international boycott is the only way to save Israel from itself

Neve Gordon

Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokeswoman, an actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is gaining many followers around the world.

Not surprisingly, many Israelis – even peaceniks – aren't signing on. A global boycott can't help but contain echoes of antisemitism. It also brings up questions of a double standard (why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights?) and the seemingly contradictory position of approving a boycott of one's own nation.

It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organisations, unions and citizens to suspend co-operation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.

I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country's future.

The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews – whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel – are citizens of the state of Israel.

The question that keeps me up at night, both as a parent and as a citizen, is how to ensure that my two children as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbours do not grow up in an apartheid regime.

There are only two moral ways of achieving this goal.

The first is the one-state solution: offering citizenship to all Palestinians and thus establishing a binational democracy within the entire area controlled by Israel. Given the demographics, this would amount to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state; for most Israeli Jews, it is anathema.

The second means of ending our apartheid is through the two-state solution, which entails Israel's withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders (with possible one-for-one land swaps), the division of Jerusalem and a recognition of the Palestinian right of return with the stipulation that only a limited number of the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, while the rest could return to the new Palestinian state.

Geographically, the one-state solution appears much more feasible because Jews and Palestinians are already totally enmeshed; indeed, "on the ground," the one-state solution (in an apartheid manifestation) is a reality. Ideologically, the two-state solution is more realistic because fewer than 1% of Jews and only a minority of Palestinians support binationalism.

For now, despite the concrete difficulties, it makes more sense to alter the geographic realities than the ideological ones. If at some future date the two peoples decide to share a state, they can do so, but currently this is not something they want.

So if the two-state solution is the way to stop the apartheid state, then how does one achieve this goal?

I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren't citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics is moving more and more to the extreme right.

It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.

I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.

In Bilbao, Spain, in 2008, a coalition of organisations from all over the world formulated the 10-point campaign meant to pressure Israel in a "gradual, sustainable manner that is sensitive to context and capacity". For example, the effort begins with sanctions on and divestment from Israeli firms operating in the occupied territories, followed by actions against those that help sustain and reinforce the occupation in a visible manner. Along similar lines, artists who come to Israel to draw attention to the occupation are welcome, while those who just want to perform are not.

Nothing else has worked. Putting massive international pressure on Israel is the only way to guarantee that the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians – my two boys included – does not grow up in an apartheid regime.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/21/israel-international-boycott