Hear O Israel.. A Rabbi speaks the truth!
Rabbi Brant Rosen
http://shalomrav.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/gaza-crisis-letter/
Here’s a letter I recently sent off to the editor of the Chicago Sun-Times:
To the editor,
I recently traveled with a Brit Tzedek v’Shalom (Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace) delegation to Israel and the Palestinian territories. We met with academics, peace activists, and politicians, including Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and Palestinian Prime Minister Fayad. Among other things, we learned much about the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, circumstances reflected in the 1/22/08 article, “Tens of thousands of Palestinians flood into Egypt through breached Gaza wall.”
Critics of Gaza’s Hamas-led government blame the destitution on the firing of Qassam rockets into southern Israel and clearly, such attacks are intolerable. No country should be expected to remain passive under attack.
But are Israel’s economic blockade and military incursions providing the answer? Currently 860,000 Gazans – more than half the population – now rely on the UN for food. In recent military operations, some twenty Palestinians were killed, including a three-year-old girl. Israel may hope its tactics will turn Gazans against Hamas, but given the choice to hate Hamas or hate Israel, Palestinians will most certainly choose the latter.
Economic deprivation is clearly not working, and we know that there’s no military solution. As always, the only answer is negotiation, as President Bush indicated at the Annapolis peace conference. In the short term this means a negotiated ceasefire between Israel and Hamas; long term, it means a two-state solution.
This won’t be easy. It won’t happen in one step, and more blood may be shed. Bush’s path is far from clear, but those who support Israel must support his efforts towards peace and encourage him to follow up his words with strong actions.
Clearly, war and collective punishment aren’t the answer. If Israel and the Palestinians want true peace and security, the only solution will occur across a table.
Sincerely,
Rabbi Brant Rosen
Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation, Evanston
Brit Tzedek v’Shalom Rabbinic Cabinet
January 24, 2008 - Posted by Rabbi Brant
Friday, February 1, 2008
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Israel's false friends
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/suncommentary/la-op-mearsheimer6jan06,1,7071372.story?coll=la-headlines-suncomment&ctrack=1&cset=true
Moderator: If Israeli population can press hard with their government to adopt a justness posture in dealing with the Palestinians, Americans or any one in the world, their security will become sustainable. Right now, they are constantly on the mercy of the men and women of no-conscience in the US Senate and the house.
Israel's false friends
U.S. presidential candidates aren't doing the Jewish state any favors by offering unconditional support.
By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
January 6, 2008
Once again, as the presidential campaign season gets underway, the leading candidates are going to enormous lengths to demonstrate their devotion to the state of Israel and their steadfast commitment to its "special relationship" with the United States.
Each of the main contenders emphatically favors giving Israel extraordinary material and diplomatic support -- continuing the more than $3 billion in foreign aid each year to a country whose per capita income is now 29th in the world. They also believe that this aid should be given unconditionally. None of them criticizes Israel's conduct, even when its actions threaten U.S. interests, are at odds with American values or even when they are harmful to Israel itself. In short, the candidates believe that the U.S. should support Israel no matter what it does.
Such pandering is hardly surprising, because contenders for high office routinely court special interest groups, and Israel's staunchest supporters -- the Israel lobby, as we have termed it -- expect it. Politicians do not want to offend Jewish Americans or "Christian Zionists," two groups that are deeply engaged in the political process. Candidates fear, with some justification, that even well-intentioned criticism of Israel's policies may lead these groups to turn against them and back their opponents instead.
If this happened, trouble would arise on many fronts. Israel's friends in the media would take aim at the candidate, and campaign contributions from pro-Israel individuals and political action committees would go elsewhere. Moreover, most Jewish voters live in states with many electoral votes, which increases their weight in close elections (remember Florida in 2000?), and a candidate seen as insufficiently committed to Israel would lose some of their support. And no Republican would want to alienate the pro-Israel subset of the Christian evangelical movement, which is a significant part of the GOP base.
Indeed, even suggesting that the U.S. adopt a more impartial stance toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can get a candidate into serious trouble. When Howard Dean proposed during the 2004 campaign that the United States take a more "evenhanded" role in the peace process, he was severely criticized by prominent Democrats, and a rival for the nomination, Sen. Joe Lieberman, accused him of "selling Israel down the river" and said Dean's comments were "irresponsible."
Word quickly spread in the American Jewish community that Dean was hostile to Israel, even though his campaign co-chair was a former president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Dean had been strongly pro-Israel throughout his career. The candidates in the 2008 election surely want to avoid Dean's fate, so they are all trying to prove that they are Israel's best friend.
These candidates, however, are no friends of Israel. They are facilitating its pursuit of self-destructive policies that no true friend would favor.
The key issue here is the future of Gaza and the West Bank, which Israel conquered in 1967 and still controls. Israel faces a stark choice regarding these territories, which are home to roughly 3.8 million Palestinians. It can opt for a two-state solution, turning over almost all of the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians and allowing them to create a viable state on those lands in return for a comprehensive peace agreement designed to allow Israel to live securely within its pre-1967 borders (with some minor modifications). Or it can retain control of the territories it occupies or surrounds, building more settlements and bypass roads and confining the Palestinians to a handful of impoverished enclaves in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel would control the borders around those enclaves and the air above them, thus severely restricting the Palestinians' freedom of movement.
But if Israel chooses this second option, it will lead to an apartheid state. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said as much when he recently proclaimed that if "the two-state solution collapses," Israel will "face a South African-style struggle." He went so far as to argue that "as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished." Similarly, Israel's deputy prime minister, Haim Ramon, said earlier this month that "the occupation is a threat to the existence of the state of Israel." Other Israelis, as well as Jimmy Carter and Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have warned that continuing the occupation will turn Israel into an apartheid state. Nevertheless, Israel continues to expand its settlements on the West Bank while the plight of the Palestinians worsens.
Given this grim situation, one would expect the presidential candidates, who claim to care deeply about Israel, to be sounding the alarm and energetically championing a two-state solution. One would expect them to have encouraged President Bush to put significant pressure on both the Israelis and the Palestinians at the recent Annapolis conference and to keep the pressure on when he visits the region this week. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently observed, settling this conflict is also in America's interest, not to mention the Palestinians'.
One would certainly expect Hillary Clinton to be leading the charge here. After all, she wisely and bravely called for establishing a Palestinian state "that is on the same footing as other states" in 1998, when it was still politically incorrect to use the words "Palestinian state" openly. Moreover, her husband not only championed a two-state solution as president but he laid out the famous "Clinton parameters" in December 2000, which outline the only realistic deal for ending the conflict.
But what is Clinton saying now that she is a candidate? She said hardly anything about pushing the peace process forward at Annapolis, and remained silent when Rice criticized Israel's subsequent announcement that it planned to build more than 300 new housing units in East Jerusalem. More important, both she and GOP aspirant Rudy Giuliani recently proclaimed that Jerusalem must remain undivided, a position that is at odds with the Clinton parameters and virtually guarantees that there will be no Palestinian state.
Sen. Clinton's behavior is hardly unusual among the candidates for president. Barack Obama, who expressed some sympathy for the Palestinians before he set his sights on the White House, now has little to say about their plight, and he too said little about what should have been done at Annapolis to facilitate peace. The other major contenders are ardent in their declarations of support for Israel, and none of them apparently sees a two-state solution as so urgent that they should press both sides to reach an agreement. As Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. national security advisor and now a senior advisor to Obama, noted, "The presidential candidates don't see any payoff in addressing the Israel-Palestinian issue." But they do see a significant political payoff in backing Israel to the hilt, even when it is pursuing a policy -- colonizing the West Bank -- that is morally and strategically bankrupt.
In short, the presidential candidates are no friends of Israel. They are like most U.S. politicians, who reflexively mouth pro-Israel platitudes while continuing to endorse and subsidize policies that are in fact harmful to the Jewish state. A genuine friend would tell Israel that it was acting foolishly, and would do whatever he or she could to get Israel to change its misguided behavior. And that will require challenging the special interest groups whose hard-line views have been obstacles to peace for many years.
As former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami argued in 2006, the American presidents who have made the greatest contribution to peace -- Carter and George H.W. Bush -- succeeded because they were "ready to confront Israel head-on and overlook the sensibilities of her friends in America." If the Democratic and Republican contenders were true friends of Israel, they would be warning it about the danger of becoming an apartheid state, just as Carter did.
Moreover, they would be calling for an end to the occupation and the creation of a viable Palestinian state. And they would be calling for the United States to act as an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians so that Washington could pressure both sides to accept a solution based on the Clinton parameters. Implementing a final-status agreement will be difficult and take a number of years, but it is imperative that the two sides formally agree on the solution and then implement it in ways that protect each side.
But Israel's false friends cannot say any of these things, or even discuss the issue honestly. Why? Because they fear that speaking the truth would incur the wrath of the hard-liners who dominate the main organizations in the Israel lobby. So Israel will end up controlling Gaza and the West Bank for the foreseeable future, turning itself into an apartheid state in the process. And all of this will be done with the backing of its so-called friends, including the current presidential candidates. With friends like them, who needs enemies?
John J. Mearsheimer is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Stephen M. Walt is a professor of international affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. They are the authors of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," published last year by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Moderator: If Israeli population can press hard with their government to adopt a justness posture in dealing with the Palestinians, Americans or any one in the world, their security will become sustainable. Right now, they are constantly on the mercy of the men and women of no-conscience in the US Senate and the house.
Israel's false friends
U.S. presidential candidates aren't doing the Jewish state any favors by offering unconditional support.
By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
January 6, 2008
Once again, as the presidential campaign season gets underway, the leading candidates are going to enormous lengths to demonstrate their devotion to the state of Israel and their steadfast commitment to its "special relationship" with the United States.
Each of the main contenders emphatically favors giving Israel extraordinary material and diplomatic support -- continuing the more than $3 billion in foreign aid each year to a country whose per capita income is now 29th in the world. They also believe that this aid should be given unconditionally. None of them criticizes Israel's conduct, even when its actions threaten U.S. interests, are at odds with American values or even when they are harmful to Israel itself. In short, the candidates believe that the U.S. should support Israel no matter what it does.
Such pandering is hardly surprising, because contenders for high office routinely court special interest groups, and Israel's staunchest supporters -- the Israel lobby, as we have termed it -- expect it. Politicians do not want to offend Jewish Americans or "Christian Zionists," two groups that are deeply engaged in the political process. Candidates fear, with some justification, that even well-intentioned criticism of Israel's policies may lead these groups to turn against them and back their opponents instead.
If this happened, trouble would arise on many fronts. Israel's friends in the media would take aim at the candidate, and campaign contributions from pro-Israel individuals and political action committees would go elsewhere. Moreover, most Jewish voters live in states with many electoral votes, which increases their weight in close elections (remember Florida in 2000?), and a candidate seen as insufficiently committed to Israel would lose some of their support. And no Republican would want to alienate the pro-Israel subset of the Christian evangelical movement, which is a significant part of the GOP base.
Indeed, even suggesting that the U.S. adopt a more impartial stance toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can get a candidate into serious trouble. When Howard Dean proposed during the 2004 campaign that the United States take a more "evenhanded" role in the peace process, he was severely criticized by prominent Democrats, and a rival for the nomination, Sen. Joe Lieberman, accused him of "selling Israel down the river" and said Dean's comments were "irresponsible."
Word quickly spread in the American Jewish community that Dean was hostile to Israel, even though his campaign co-chair was a former president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Dean had been strongly pro-Israel throughout his career. The candidates in the 2008 election surely want to avoid Dean's fate, so they are all trying to prove that they are Israel's best friend.
These candidates, however, are no friends of Israel. They are facilitating its pursuit of self-destructive policies that no true friend would favor.
The key issue here is the future of Gaza and the West Bank, which Israel conquered in 1967 and still controls. Israel faces a stark choice regarding these territories, which are home to roughly 3.8 million Palestinians. It can opt for a two-state solution, turning over almost all of the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians and allowing them to create a viable state on those lands in return for a comprehensive peace agreement designed to allow Israel to live securely within its pre-1967 borders (with some minor modifications). Or it can retain control of the territories it occupies or surrounds, building more settlements and bypass roads and confining the Palestinians to a handful of impoverished enclaves in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel would control the borders around those enclaves and the air above them, thus severely restricting the Palestinians' freedom of movement.
But if Israel chooses this second option, it will lead to an apartheid state. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said as much when he recently proclaimed that if "the two-state solution collapses," Israel will "face a South African-style struggle." He went so far as to argue that "as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished." Similarly, Israel's deputy prime minister, Haim Ramon, said earlier this month that "the occupation is a threat to the existence of the state of Israel." Other Israelis, as well as Jimmy Carter and Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have warned that continuing the occupation will turn Israel into an apartheid state. Nevertheless, Israel continues to expand its settlements on the West Bank while the plight of the Palestinians worsens.
Given this grim situation, one would expect the presidential candidates, who claim to care deeply about Israel, to be sounding the alarm and energetically championing a two-state solution. One would expect them to have encouraged President Bush to put significant pressure on both the Israelis and the Palestinians at the recent Annapolis conference and to keep the pressure on when he visits the region this week. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently observed, settling this conflict is also in America's interest, not to mention the Palestinians'.
One would certainly expect Hillary Clinton to be leading the charge here. After all, she wisely and bravely called for establishing a Palestinian state "that is on the same footing as other states" in 1998, when it was still politically incorrect to use the words "Palestinian state" openly. Moreover, her husband not only championed a two-state solution as president but he laid out the famous "Clinton parameters" in December 2000, which outline the only realistic deal for ending the conflict.
But what is Clinton saying now that she is a candidate? She said hardly anything about pushing the peace process forward at Annapolis, and remained silent when Rice criticized Israel's subsequent announcement that it planned to build more than 300 new housing units in East Jerusalem. More important, both she and GOP aspirant Rudy Giuliani recently proclaimed that Jerusalem must remain undivided, a position that is at odds with the Clinton parameters and virtually guarantees that there will be no Palestinian state.
Sen. Clinton's behavior is hardly unusual among the candidates for president. Barack Obama, who expressed some sympathy for the Palestinians before he set his sights on the White House, now has little to say about their plight, and he too said little about what should have been done at Annapolis to facilitate peace. The other major contenders are ardent in their declarations of support for Israel, and none of them apparently sees a two-state solution as so urgent that they should press both sides to reach an agreement. As Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. national security advisor and now a senior advisor to Obama, noted, "The presidential candidates don't see any payoff in addressing the Israel-Palestinian issue." But they do see a significant political payoff in backing Israel to the hilt, even when it is pursuing a policy -- colonizing the West Bank -- that is morally and strategically bankrupt.
In short, the presidential candidates are no friends of Israel. They are like most U.S. politicians, who reflexively mouth pro-Israel platitudes while continuing to endorse and subsidize policies that are in fact harmful to the Jewish state. A genuine friend would tell Israel that it was acting foolishly, and would do whatever he or she could to get Israel to change its misguided behavior. And that will require challenging the special interest groups whose hard-line views have been obstacles to peace for many years.
As former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami argued in 2006, the American presidents who have made the greatest contribution to peace -- Carter and George H.W. Bush -- succeeded because they were "ready to confront Israel head-on and overlook the sensibilities of her friends in America." If the Democratic and Republican contenders were true friends of Israel, they would be warning it about the danger of becoming an apartheid state, just as Carter did.
Moreover, they would be calling for an end to the occupation and the creation of a viable Palestinian state. And they would be calling for the United States to act as an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians so that Washington could pressure both sides to accept a solution based on the Clinton parameters. Implementing a final-status agreement will be difficult and take a number of years, but it is imperative that the two sides formally agree on the solution and then implement it in ways that protect each side.
But Israel's false friends cannot say any of these things, or even discuss the issue honestly. Why? Because they fear that speaking the truth would incur the wrath of the hard-liners who dominate the main organizations in the Israel lobby. So Israel will end up controlling Gaza and the West Bank for the foreseeable future, turning itself into an apartheid state in the process. And all of this will be done with the backing of its so-called friends, including the current presidential candidates. With friends like them, who needs enemies?
John J. Mearsheimer is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Stephen M. Walt is a professor of international affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. They are the authors of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," published last year by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
If Americans Knew Israel
If Americans Knew
Palestinians, Israeli’s, and Americans Would be Free
Mohamed Khodr
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2008/01/01/if_americans_knew_palestinians_israeli_s
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has”. –-Margaret Mead
“Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander”. --Holocaust Museum, Washington D.C.
“Her name was Itemad Ismail Abu Mo'ammar. Israeli soldiers had been beating her husband because he wasn't answering their questions. Foolishly or valiantly, how is one to say, the 35-year-old woman had interfered. She tried to explain that her husband was deaf, screamed at the soldiers that her husband couldn't hear them and attempted to stop them from hitting him. So they shot her. Several times…she didn’t die …after five hours an ambulance took her. She was pronounced dead; a few days before Ramadan…She left 11 children... All together, five Palestinians were killed that day…None of this was reported in most of America's news media, and so the American public never learned about a mother bleeding to death in front of her children, or young shepherds being blown to pieces. Apparently, it just wasn't newsworthy…..There was nothing on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, PBS, NPR, Fox News”. -Alison Weir; “Just Another Mother Murdered, Counterpunch, October 6, 2006
But one American woman, Alison Weir, the author of the above narrative, did not let this young innocent Palestinian woman’s death go unreported. This courageous, dedicated, and compassionate journalist abandoned a successful career to become a voice for the voiceless Palestinians, a people who lost their land, continue to lose their lives, limbs, and property; a people imprisoned as refugees in concentration camps, who’ve lost all their freedom to a western imposed artificially created state—ISRAEL---a nation founded and established through the deliberate forceful expulsion and ethnic cleansing of an indigenous population, Christian and Muslim Palestinians. This Zionist entity, a “Jewish” only land is the world’s last colonial Apartheid state, a term many Israelis and Diaspora Jews use to describe Israel’s prejudicial discriminatory policies toward Israeli Arabs and occupied Palestinians.
Out of political, economic, military expediency, pandering and fear, the world has turned a blind eye to Israel’s brutal, and yes, evil treatment of millions of Palestinians, the world’s largest refugee population, scattered as refugees within their own land and in exile for 60 years. The primary supporter of this Zionist, Apartheid “Jewish” is our government, a government beholden to the power, money, and media intimidation of the Israel Lobby.
It’s not a coincidence that Pro-Israel Jewish Americans, like Eliot Abrams, Dennis Ross, and Martin Indyk, are usually appointed in charge of Middle East policy, especially the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
Our media’s reporting on the Israeli Palestinian issue is incredulously biased regularly accentuating Israel’s alleged positives and eliminating its negatives. To our media, Israeli lives and psychological stress are worthy of countless front page stories while the lives of Israel’s victims, the Palestinians, are faceless, nameless, and unworthy of media reporting.
Is it any wonder that Americans are uninformed as to our “democratic” ally’s daily brutality against the Palestinians? Many American politicians, diplomats, academicians, and military officers have repeatedly written and spoken about the power and influence the Israel Lobby has over Congress and the White House easily manipulating our foreign policy to serve Israel’s interests, not America’s.
Yet, such patriots are seldom, if ever, invited to appear on television to present their argument and ask for an honest national debate on Israel’s role in our foreign policy. In fact, the great majority of “experts” who appear on television to discuss the MidEast are Pro-Israel pundits.
BUT, there is one voice, among others, that tirelessly works to inform Americans of our complicity on Israel’s injustice and brutality against the Palestinians. That humanitarian voice is Alison Weir’s.
"The news and truth are not the same thing”. --Walter Lippmann
Based on historical research and extensive travel through the Palestinian occupied territories Ms. Weir decided to dedicate her life to justice and freedom from occupation for the Palestinians.
Thus, this special American woman founded an organization, “If Americans Knew”, with one purpose—to tell the American people the truth about Palestinian suffering and to oppose and correct our media’s Pro Israel bias with the noble belief that if Americans knew the truth about Israel, its Lobby’s power and influence upon our government that ensures Israel annually receives billions of our tax dollars despite its being one of the world’s richest nations, our latest military weaponry used to attack Palestinian civilians, villages, and infrastructure, while providing political cover against any international criticism or condemnation of Israel’s contemptible brutality against Palestinians, then they would demand that our government stop all support for Israel until it ends its occupation and accepts the generous peaceful offer made by the Arab League since 1982 that entails peace, recognition of Israel, and full political, economic, and diplomatic relations in exchange for total withdrawal from all occupied Arab lands. However, peace is anathema to Israel, a Zionist entity with a lust for military expansionism and land annexation.
Today the world watches in silence as 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza are besieged and blocked from receiving life’s basic sustenance of food, water, medicines, electricity, and any financial help from anywhere in the world. Only Israel can commit such war crimes and yet be supported by the west in its claim that it’s the besieged victim fearing for its very existence. If this is the civilization, freedom, and democracy the west claims to be exporting to the Muslim world, Muslims have the absolute right to reject such generosity by any means necessary.
Given that our own government and media are the supporters, facilitators, and appeasers of Israel, right or wrong, Ms. Weir felt it was her duty as an American and human being to bring to light the enormous suffering of the Palestinians who daily lose their lives, limbs, and freedom to work, speak, pray, get an education, or travel. Israel at will has bombed Palestinian infrastructure, schools (even a school for the blind), hospitals, farms, demolishing homes, stealing drinking water to fill illegal settler’s swimming pools, uproot olive trees, surround villages and cities with concrete walls, barbed wires, and an Apartheid Wall deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice that snakes through the West Bank annexing more Palestinian land and cutting through the heart of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
People’s lives and death in the Holy Land are simply acceptable “collateral damage” to the west given its historical guilt over the Holocaust, a guilt that has killed western consciousness and compassion to the suffering of the Palestinians, a people innocent of the Holocaust.
While Israel’s deathly siege of Gaza is slowly extinguishing its life and livelihood, America, Europe, the U.N., and Arab world are hypocritically feigning a peace process that leads nowhere except allowing Israel more time to solidify its theft of Palestinian land and further expulsion of its inhabitants, including the possibility of expelling Israel’s Arab citizens. The world’s conscience, humanity, and outrage lies dormant at the entrance of Auschwitz. In time, even the Christian and Muslim faiths themselves will be ethnically cleansed from their Holy Land.
How can such a “democratic” nation live with its conscience knowing that its very existence meant the expulsion, murder, persecution, oppression, and occupation of another people? How can our nation support such inhumanity? How can the world be ultra-sensitive to Jewish concerns while in silence damn the lives of the Palestinians, today’s “Unpeople”, a termed coined by the British historian Mark Curtis to describe the unknown millions of British colonial victims around the world, the same colonialism that dispossessed Palestinians to resolve Europe’s “Jewish Problem?”. How can Arab and Muslim leaders surrender their lands, resources, and freedom of fellow Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land? Not even the wise men of today can enter Bethlehem without Jewish permission, the Romans of today.
Israel, America’s only “democratic ally”, has made killing Palestinian children an acceptable policy for its soldiers, a crime for which they’re never found guilty despite irrefutable evidence.
Chris Hedges, a former New York Times MidEast Bureau reporter, wrote a tragically moving article for Harper’s Magazine titled: “A Gaza Diary”, (Harper's Magazine, October 2001) in which he recounts the cold blooded murder of Palestinian children, often for sport.
"Yesterday at this spot the Israelis shot eight ..., six of whom were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve.... Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered -- death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo -- but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.”
If Americans only knew that the root of Muslim animosity, shared by the majority of the world, toward our foreign policy is primarily due to our unbridled support of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people in direct defiance of international law and world opinion.
Many prominent American Jews formed the “Jewish Committee on the Middle East” (JCOME) to oppose Israel’s occupation and oppression of millions of Palestinians as well as America’s pandering support of Israel’s policies, especially by Congress that Out-Israel’s Israel.
JCOME published an Ad in “The Nation” on February 3, 1988, a part of which is quoted below.
“How tragic that in our own time the very state established by Jews in the aftermath of this evil (Holocaust) has become a place where racialism, religious discrimination, militarism and injustice prevail; and that Israel itself has become a pariah state within the world community. Events taking place today are all too reminiscent of the pogroms from which our own forefathers fled two and three generations ago -- but this time those in authority are Jews and the victims are Moslems and Christian Palestinians”.
The famed British historian Arnold Toynbee captured such immoral bias when he said:
"Right and wrong are the same in Palestine as anywhere else. What is peculiar about the Palestine conflict is that the world has listened to the party that committed the offence and has turned a deaf ear to the victims."
Ms. Weir’s devotion to truth and accurate media reporting on the Israeli Palestinian conflict has subjected her, like others around the globe, to death threats and intimidation. Pro-Israel groups and individuals have used intimidation, boycotts, and character assassinations to silence those who dare to speak out against Israel’s brutal policies, people such as President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmund Tutu, Nelson Mandela, George Galloway, Clare Short, Uri Avnery, many U.N. officials, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Professors Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappe, and many others, simply for their opposition to Israel’s inhumanity toward the Palestinians. Many courageous Israeli journalists like Amira Hass, Gideon Levy, Ari Shavit, and others, also risk their lives to expose Israel’s brutal occupation.
Yet Alison Weir did not and will not surrender to fear and intimidation. In response to such tactics to silence her, she said: “We will not be silenced. I hope others will join us.”
For her tireless advocacy for truth and justice Ms. Weir was inducted into honorary membership of Phi Alpha Literary Society, founded in 1845 at Illinois College. The award cited her as a: “Courageous journalist-lecturer on behalf of human rights. The first woman to receive an honorary membership in Phi Alpha history.”
It’s the foreign media, especially in Israel, that has the integrity and courage to inform the world about Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinians that has turned their lives into a hell whose fire is unseen by the majority of Israelis and westerners alike.
Here are some editorial and op-ed headlines from Israeli, British, and other newspapers that none of our mainstream media would dare print.
“The "summer rains" we are showering on Gaza are not only pointless, but are first and foremost blatantly illegitimate. It is not legitimate to cut off 750,000 people from electricity. It is not legitimate to call on 20,000 people to run from their homes and turn their towns into ghost towns. It is not legitimate to penetrate Syria's airspace. It is not legitimate to kidnap half a government and a quarter of a parliament. A state that takes such steps is no longer distinguishable from a terror organization”. --Gideon Levy, “A Black Flag”, Ha’aretz, July 3, 2006
“We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities. Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories, we developed two judicial systems: one - progressive, liberal - in Israel; and the other - cruel, injurious - in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an APARTHEID REGIME in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day” --Michael Ben Yair, “The War’s Seventh Days”, Haaretz March 3, 2002 (The author was Israel’s Attorney General from 1993-96)
“Livni (Israel’s Foreign Minister) Behind Closed Doors: Iran Nukes Pose Little Threat to Israel”;
“Jewish terrorist kills four on bus in Arab town” (Washington Post uses “settler”);”A Racist Jewish state”;; “Ethnic Cleansing Returns to Israel’s Agenda”; “Americans Tortured in Israeli Jails”; “Legitimization of Land Theft”; “Israeli Rabbi Calls on God to Annihilate Arabs”; “Hezbollah “did not use civilians as cover”; “Does Israel Want Peace”; “Christians In Jerusalem Want Jews to Stop Spitting on Them”; “ Pro-'surge' group is almost all Jewish”; “Apartheid in the Holy Land (Archbishop Desmund Tutu, Guardian, April 29, 2002); “Zionists Using Holocaust to Silence People, Chief Rabbi” (Moishe Arye of Austria);
“Poll: 50% in U.K. Think Jews More Loyal to Israel than Home Nation”;
“Civil Rights Group: Israel Has Reached New Heights of Racism”; “Colored Tags for Arabs’ Luggage at Ben Gurion Airport Discontinued”;”Defense Minister: Israel Now World’s Fourth Largest Weapons Exporter”
One of the most shocking examples of Pro-Israel bias in our government is the use of the official website of the State Department to advertise the movie “A Mighty Heart” that recounts the murder of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. Never before has the federal government served as an ad agency for a private movie. Neither the White House, nor the Justice Department, nor Congress deemed this illegal or an abuse of precious tax dollars.
Compare this official endorsement and free advertisement of a movie on Daniel Pearl (along with enormous media exposure) to our government’s total silence and neglect of the murder of a young idealistic American woman, Rachel Corrie, by an Israeli bulldozer as she bravely tried to protect a Palestinian home from demolition. According to our government and media the murder of these two Americans is not “morally equivalent” since one was killed by Muslims and the other by Israel. The message is quite clear---Israel can get away with murder even if the victims are Americans, the very taxpayers who unknowingly support and protect it.
"Look, if you think any American official is going to tell you the truth, then you're stupid. Did you hear that? - stupid." --Arthur Sylvester, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, 1965
From Alison Weir’s website: “IfAmericansKnew.org”
“In a democracy, the ultimate responsibility for a nation’s actions rests with its citizens. The top rung of government – the entity with the ultimate power of governance – is the asserted will of the people. Therefore, in any democracy, it is essential that its citizens be fully and accurately informed.
It is our belief that when Americans know the facts on a subject, they will, in the final analysis, act in accordance with morality, justice, and the best interests of their nation, and of the world. With insufficient information, or distorted information, they may do the precise opposite”.
In today’s inflamed world where terror, death, and violence are the tools of diplomacy none of us can afford to remain silent. No greater regional conflict than the Israeli Palestinian issue has the capacity to engulf our nation in a worldwide conflict unless we all join the struggle for peace and justice for the Palestinians and Israelis. Our government out of ideology or fear has chosen to ignore this conflict and give Israel the means and protection to abuse the Palestinians at will in total defiance of international law.
Thank God for Alison Weir, a noble American woman, willing to risk her very life to bring to light the suffering and persecution of Palestinians, a suffering covered up our media. Israel, our ally, shamelessly glorified by our politicians for a few dollars and positive media exposure, has easy access to our treasury and weapons; even to our youth who die fighting its regional wars; offering America nothing in return but turmoil and hatred around the world.
“All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing”. --Edmund Burke
Only when Palestinians are free can America be free from fear and terror, a fact our media and bought politicians will never admit.
I will let Alison Weir’s words; far more eloquent than mine, to spark our conscience and humanity to do what’s right.
“As Americans - and as human beings - we must oppose such dismissal of another's tragedy with every fiber of our being. We must speak out against the view that some people matter, and that others don't; that the "right" orphans are to be helped, the "wrong" ones ignored; that suffering within powerful populations is to be shared, while sufferers without power must weep alone and unseen”.
Alison and her organization, If Americans Knew, are most worthy of our financial support in her noble cause, a cause few of us are informed about or heretofore have been involved in. For whatever reason, if we can’t be personally involved in this cause for peace and justice, than at least let’s give those willing to speak on our behalf and on behalf of the oppressed the resources they sorely need to continue the good fight.
Please seize this opportunity and every opportunity to make a difference in our world. So far our foreign policy has been “Bombs R Us”, let it be “Peace R Us” this coming year.
God bless all who seek peace and justice for their fellow man and woman.
SOURCES:
http://ifamericansknew.org/ (Alison Weir’s website replete with articles, media studies, statistics, available DVD’s, books, brochures, and handouts: Alison is also available for speaking engagements)
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3260.shtml (A MUST READ account of Israeli soldiers deliberately killing innocent Palestinian children in cold blood, plus an excellent website)
http://video.state.gov/?fr_story=76f8b258b7e94570724d6c80beb79413de5a76bb (State Department Website with Daniel Pearl Movie, an Interview meant to advertise the movie)
http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ (Please visit Rachel Corrie’s memorial website and read her emails from Palestine to her parents: an American woman killed by Israel, the very nation our taxes, weapons, and dozens of U.N. Vetoes support)
http://www.ncccusa.org/ (National Council of Churches)
http://www.cactus48.com/truth.html (Brief Overview of Israeli Palestinian Conflict written by U.S. Jews: a must read)
http://www.jfjfp.org.uk/background1_generalhist.htm (Jews for Justice in Palestine)
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/index_en.html (Israeli Peace Movement led by Uri Avnery)
http://www.alnakba.org/ (History, Chronology, Photos of Israel’s Founding and Palestinian Refugees)
http://www.btselem.org/English/ (Israel Human Rights Organization in Occupied Palestine)
http://www.peacenow.org/index1.asp (Americans for Peace Now)
http://www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org/taxonomy/term/102?page=2 (Great Articles/Resources)
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/
http://www.nimn.org/Resources/wall_landing_page/000025.php (Not in My name: Jewish Voice)
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Famous-Zionist-Quotes/Story637.html
Http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/ (International Solidarity Movement)
http://www.vtjp.org/background/wallreport11.htm (Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel)
Palestinians, Israeli’s, and Americans Would be Free
Mohamed Khodr
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2008/01/01/if_americans_knew_palestinians_israeli_s
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has”. –-Margaret Mead
“Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander”. --Holocaust Museum, Washington D.C.
“Her name was Itemad Ismail Abu Mo'ammar. Israeli soldiers had been beating her husband because he wasn't answering their questions. Foolishly or valiantly, how is one to say, the 35-year-old woman had interfered. She tried to explain that her husband was deaf, screamed at the soldiers that her husband couldn't hear them and attempted to stop them from hitting him. So they shot her. Several times…she didn’t die …after five hours an ambulance took her. She was pronounced dead; a few days before Ramadan…She left 11 children... All together, five Palestinians were killed that day…None of this was reported in most of America's news media, and so the American public never learned about a mother bleeding to death in front of her children, or young shepherds being blown to pieces. Apparently, it just wasn't newsworthy…..There was nothing on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, PBS, NPR, Fox News”. -Alison Weir; “Just Another Mother Murdered, Counterpunch, October 6, 2006
But one American woman, Alison Weir, the author of the above narrative, did not let this young innocent Palestinian woman’s death go unreported. This courageous, dedicated, and compassionate journalist abandoned a successful career to become a voice for the voiceless Palestinians, a people who lost their land, continue to lose their lives, limbs, and property; a people imprisoned as refugees in concentration camps, who’ve lost all their freedom to a western imposed artificially created state—ISRAEL---a nation founded and established through the deliberate forceful expulsion and ethnic cleansing of an indigenous population, Christian and Muslim Palestinians. This Zionist entity, a “Jewish” only land is the world’s last colonial Apartheid state, a term many Israelis and Diaspora Jews use to describe Israel’s prejudicial discriminatory policies toward Israeli Arabs and occupied Palestinians.
Out of political, economic, military expediency, pandering and fear, the world has turned a blind eye to Israel’s brutal, and yes, evil treatment of millions of Palestinians, the world’s largest refugee population, scattered as refugees within their own land and in exile for 60 years. The primary supporter of this Zionist, Apartheid “Jewish” is our government, a government beholden to the power, money, and media intimidation of the Israel Lobby.
It’s not a coincidence that Pro-Israel Jewish Americans, like Eliot Abrams, Dennis Ross, and Martin Indyk, are usually appointed in charge of Middle East policy, especially the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
Our media’s reporting on the Israeli Palestinian issue is incredulously biased regularly accentuating Israel’s alleged positives and eliminating its negatives. To our media, Israeli lives and psychological stress are worthy of countless front page stories while the lives of Israel’s victims, the Palestinians, are faceless, nameless, and unworthy of media reporting.
Is it any wonder that Americans are uninformed as to our “democratic” ally’s daily brutality against the Palestinians? Many American politicians, diplomats, academicians, and military officers have repeatedly written and spoken about the power and influence the Israel Lobby has over Congress and the White House easily manipulating our foreign policy to serve Israel’s interests, not America’s.
Yet, such patriots are seldom, if ever, invited to appear on television to present their argument and ask for an honest national debate on Israel’s role in our foreign policy. In fact, the great majority of “experts” who appear on television to discuss the MidEast are Pro-Israel pundits.
BUT, there is one voice, among others, that tirelessly works to inform Americans of our complicity on Israel’s injustice and brutality against the Palestinians. That humanitarian voice is Alison Weir’s.
"The news and truth are not the same thing”. --Walter Lippmann
Based on historical research and extensive travel through the Palestinian occupied territories Ms. Weir decided to dedicate her life to justice and freedom from occupation for the Palestinians.
Thus, this special American woman founded an organization, “If Americans Knew”, with one purpose—to tell the American people the truth about Palestinian suffering and to oppose and correct our media’s Pro Israel bias with the noble belief that if Americans knew the truth about Israel, its Lobby’s power and influence upon our government that ensures Israel annually receives billions of our tax dollars despite its being one of the world’s richest nations, our latest military weaponry used to attack Palestinian civilians, villages, and infrastructure, while providing political cover against any international criticism or condemnation of Israel’s contemptible brutality against Palestinians, then they would demand that our government stop all support for Israel until it ends its occupation and accepts the generous peaceful offer made by the Arab League since 1982 that entails peace, recognition of Israel, and full political, economic, and diplomatic relations in exchange for total withdrawal from all occupied Arab lands. However, peace is anathema to Israel, a Zionist entity with a lust for military expansionism and land annexation.
Today the world watches in silence as 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza are besieged and blocked from receiving life’s basic sustenance of food, water, medicines, electricity, and any financial help from anywhere in the world. Only Israel can commit such war crimes and yet be supported by the west in its claim that it’s the besieged victim fearing for its very existence. If this is the civilization, freedom, and democracy the west claims to be exporting to the Muslim world, Muslims have the absolute right to reject such generosity by any means necessary.
Given that our own government and media are the supporters, facilitators, and appeasers of Israel, right or wrong, Ms. Weir felt it was her duty as an American and human being to bring to light the enormous suffering of the Palestinians who daily lose their lives, limbs, and freedom to work, speak, pray, get an education, or travel. Israel at will has bombed Palestinian infrastructure, schools (even a school for the blind), hospitals, farms, demolishing homes, stealing drinking water to fill illegal settler’s swimming pools, uproot olive trees, surround villages and cities with concrete walls, barbed wires, and an Apartheid Wall deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice that snakes through the West Bank annexing more Palestinian land and cutting through the heart of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
People’s lives and death in the Holy Land are simply acceptable “collateral damage” to the west given its historical guilt over the Holocaust, a guilt that has killed western consciousness and compassion to the suffering of the Palestinians, a people innocent of the Holocaust.
While Israel’s deathly siege of Gaza is slowly extinguishing its life and livelihood, America, Europe, the U.N., and Arab world are hypocritically feigning a peace process that leads nowhere except allowing Israel more time to solidify its theft of Palestinian land and further expulsion of its inhabitants, including the possibility of expelling Israel’s Arab citizens. The world’s conscience, humanity, and outrage lies dormant at the entrance of Auschwitz. In time, even the Christian and Muslim faiths themselves will be ethnically cleansed from their Holy Land.
How can such a “democratic” nation live with its conscience knowing that its very existence meant the expulsion, murder, persecution, oppression, and occupation of another people? How can our nation support such inhumanity? How can the world be ultra-sensitive to Jewish concerns while in silence damn the lives of the Palestinians, today’s “Unpeople”, a termed coined by the British historian Mark Curtis to describe the unknown millions of British colonial victims around the world, the same colonialism that dispossessed Palestinians to resolve Europe’s “Jewish Problem?”. How can Arab and Muslim leaders surrender their lands, resources, and freedom of fellow Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land? Not even the wise men of today can enter Bethlehem without Jewish permission, the Romans of today.
Israel, America’s only “democratic ally”, has made killing Palestinian children an acceptable policy for its soldiers, a crime for which they’re never found guilty despite irrefutable evidence.
Chris Hedges, a former New York Times MidEast Bureau reporter, wrote a tragically moving article for Harper’s Magazine titled: “A Gaza Diary”, (Harper's Magazine, October 2001) in which he recounts the cold blooded murder of Palestinian children, often for sport.
"Yesterday at this spot the Israelis shot eight ..., six of whom were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve.... Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered -- death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo -- but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.”
If Americans only knew that the root of Muslim animosity, shared by the majority of the world, toward our foreign policy is primarily due to our unbridled support of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people in direct defiance of international law and world opinion.
Many prominent American Jews formed the “Jewish Committee on the Middle East” (JCOME) to oppose Israel’s occupation and oppression of millions of Palestinians as well as America’s pandering support of Israel’s policies, especially by Congress that Out-Israel’s Israel.
JCOME published an Ad in “The Nation” on February 3, 1988, a part of which is quoted below.
“How tragic that in our own time the very state established by Jews in the aftermath of this evil (Holocaust) has become a place where racialism, religious discrimination, militarism and injustice prevail; and that Israel itself has become a pariah state within the world community. Events taking place today are all too reminiscent of the pogroms from which our own forefathers fled two and three generations ago -- but this time those in authority are Jews and the victims are Moslems and Christian Palestinians”.
The famed British historian Arnold Toynbee captured such immoral bias when he said:
"Right and wrong are the same in Palestine as anywhere else. What is peculiar about the Palestine conflict is that the world has listened to the party that committed the offence and has turned a deaf ear to the victims."
Ms. Weir’s devotion to truth and accurate media reporting on the Israeli Palestinian conflict has subjected her, like others around the globe, to death threats and intimidation. Pro-Israel groups and individuals have used intimidation, boycotts, and character assassinations to silence those who dare to speak out against Israel’s brutal policies, people such as President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmund Tutu, Nelson Mandela, George Galloway, Clare Short, Uri Avnery, many U.N. officials, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Professors Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappe, and many others, simply for their opposition to Israel’s inhumanity toward the Palestinians. Many courageous Israeli journalists like Amira Hass, Gideon Levy, Ari Shavit, and others, also risk their lives to expose Israel’s brutal occupation.
Yet Alison Weir did not and will not surrender to fear and intimidation. In response to such tactics to silence her, she said: “We will not be silenced. I hope others will join us.”
For her tireless advocacy for truth and justice Ms. Weir was inducted into honorary membership of Phi Alpha Literary Society, founded in 1845 at Illinois College. The award cited her as a: “Courageous journalist-lecturer on behalf of human rights. The first woman to receive an honorary membership in Phi Alpha history.”
It’s the foreign media, especially in Israel, that has the integrity and courage to inform the world about Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinians that has turned their lives into a hell whose fire is unseen by the majority of Israelis and westerners alike.
Here are some editorial and op-ed headlines from Israeli, British, and other newspapers that none of our mainstream media would dare print.
“The "summer rains" we are showering on Gaza are not only pointless, but are first and foremost blatantly illegitimate. It is not legitimate to cut off 750,000 people from electricity. It is not legitimate to call on 20,000 people to run from their homes and turn their towns into ghost towns. It is not legitimate to penetrate Syria's airspace. It is not legitimate to kidnap half a government and a quarter of a parliament. A state that takes such steps is no longer distinguishable from a terror organization”. --Gideon Levy, “A Black Flag”, Ha’aretz, July 3, 2006
“We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities. Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories, we developed two judicial systems: one - progressive, liberal - in Israel; and the other - cruel, injurious - in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an APARTHEID REGIME in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day” --Michael Ben Yair, “The War’s Seventh Days”, Haaretz March 3, 2002 (The author was Israel’s Attorney General from 1993-96)
“Livni (Israel’s Foreign Minister) Behind Closed Doors: Iran Nukes Pose Little Threat to Israel”;
“Jewish terrorist kills four on bus in Arab town” (Washington Post uses “settler”);”A Racist Jewish state”;; “Ethnic Cleansing Returns to Israel’s Agenda”; “Americans Tortured in Israeli Jails”; “Legitimization of Land Theft”; “Israeli Rabbi Calls on God to Annihilate Arabs”; “Hezbollah “did not use civilians as cover”; “Does Israel Want Peace”; “Christians In Jerusalem Want Jews to Stop Spitting on Them”; “ Pro-'surge' group is almost all Jewish”; “Apartheid in the Holy Land (Archbishop Desmund Tutu, Guardian, April 29, 2002); “Zionists Using Holocaust to Silence People, Chief Rabbi” (Moishe Arye of Austria);
“Poll: 50% in U.K. Think Jews More Loyal to Israel than Home Nation”;
“Civil Rights Group: Israel Has Reached New Heights of Racism”; “Colored Tags for Arabs’ Luggage at Ben Gurion Airport Discontinued”;”Defense Minister: Israel Now World’s Fourth Largest Weapons Exporter”
One of the most shocking examples of Pro-Israel bias in our government is the use of the official website of the State Department to advertise the movie “A Mighty Heart” that recounts the murder of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. Never before has the federal government served as an ad agency for a private movie. Neither the White House, nor the Justice Department, nor Congress deemed this illegal or an abuse of precious tax dollars.
Compare this official endorsement and free advertisement of a movie on Daniel Pearl (along with enormous media exposure) to our government’s total silence and neglect of the murder of a young idealistic American woman, Rachel Corrie, by an Israeli bulldozer as she bravely tried to protect a Palestinian home from demolition. According to our government and media the murder of these two Americans is not “morally equivalent” since one was killed by Muslims and the other by Israel. The message is quite clear---Israel can get away with murder even if the victims are Americans, the very taxpayers who unknowingly support and protect it.
"Look, if you think any American official is going to tell you the truth, then you're stupid. Did you hear that? - stupid." --Arthur Sylvester, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, 1965
From Alison Weir’s website: “IfAmericansKnew.org”
“In a democracy, the ultimate responsibility for a nation’s actions rests with its citizens. The top rung of government – the entity with the ultimate power of governance – is the asserted will of the people. Therefore, in any democracy, it is essential that its citizens be fully and accurately informed.
It is our belief that when Americans know the facts on a subject, they will, in the final analysis, act in accordance with morality, justice, and the best interests of their nation, and of the world. With insufficient information, or distorted information, they may do the precise opposite”.
In today’s inflamed world where terror, death, and violence are the tools of diplomacy none of us can afford to remain silent. No greater regional conflict than the Israeli Palestinian issue has the capacity to engulf our nation in a worldwide conflict unless we all join the struggle for peace and justice for the Palestinians and Israelis. Our government out of ideology or fear has chosen to ignore this conflict and give Israel the means and protection to abuse the Palestinians at will in total defiance of international law.
Thank God for Alison Weir, a noble American woman, willing to risk her very life to bring to light the suffering and persecution of Palestinians, a suffering covered up our media. Israel, our ally, shamelessly glorified by our politicians for a few dollars and positive media exposure, has easy access to our treasury and weapons; even to our youth who die fighting its regional wars; offering America nothing in return but turmoil and hatred around the world.
“All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing”. --Edmund Burke
Only when Palestinians are free can America be free from fear and terror, a fact our media and bought politicians will never admit.
I will let Alison Weir’s words; far more eloquent than mine, to spark our conscience and humanity to do what’s right.
“As Americans - and as human beings - we must oppose such dismissal of another's tragedy with every fiber of our being. We must speak out against the view that some people matter, and that others don't; that the "right" orphans are to be helped, the "wrong" ones ignored; that suffering within powerful populations is to be shared, while sufferers without power must weep alone and unseen”.
Alison and her organization, If Americans Knew, are most worthy of our financial support in her noble cause, a cause few of us are informed about or heretofore have been involved in. For whatever reason, if we can’t be personally involved in this cause for peace and justice, than at least let’s give those willing to speak on our behalf and on behalf of the oppressed the resources they sorely need to continue the good fight.
Please seize this opportunity and every opportunity to make a difference in our world. So far our foreign policy has been “Bombs R Us”, let it be “Peace R Us” this coming year.
God bless all who seek peace and justice for their fellow man and woman.
SOURCES:
http://ifamericansknew.org/ (Alison Weir’s website replete with articles, media studies, statistics, available DVD’s, books, brochures, and handouts: Alison is also available for speaking engagements)
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3260.shtml (A MUST READ account of Israeli soldiers deliberately killing innocent Palestinian children in cold blood, plus an excellent website)
http://video.state.gov/?fr_story=76f8b258b7e94570724d6c80beb79413de5a76bb (State Department Website with Daniel Pearl Movie, an Interview meant to advertise the movie)
http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ (Please visit Rachel Corrie’s memorial website and read her emails from Palestine to her parents: an American woman killed by Israel, the very nation our taxes, weapons, and dozens of U.N. Vetoes support)
http://www.ncccusa.org/ (National Council of Churches)
http://www.cactus48.com/truth.html (Brief Overview of Israeli Palestinian Conflict written by U.S. Jews: a must read)
http://www.jfjfp.org.uk/background1_generalhist.htm (Jews for Justice in Palestine)
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/index_en.html (Israeli Peace Movement led by Uri Avnery)
http://www.alnakba.org/ (History, Chronology, Photos of Israel’s Founding and Palestinian Refugees)
http://www.btselem.org/English/ (Israel Human Rights Organization in Occupied Palestine)
http://www.peacenow.org/index1.asp (Americans for Peace Now)
http://www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org/taxonomy/term/102?page=2 (Great Articles/Resources)
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/
http://www.nimn.org/Resources/wall_landing_page/000025.php (Not in My name: Jewish Voice)
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Famous-Zionist-Quotes/Story637.html
Http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/ (International Solidarity Movement)
http://www.vtjp.org/background/wallreport11.htm (Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel)
Monday, December 31, 2007
Happiness for Sale
A sale transaction requires consideration for exchange of products and services. The consideration in buying happiness is your effort. Happiness is on Sale, it is on sale, because the effort required is minimal against the gain. Though a lopsided transaction, the supply is plentiful and does not take away anything from anyone but enrich every one with a heart felt smile.
Remember the last time you helped someone? You got some one up when he or she fell and you were thanked profusely for that act of kindness, do you recall that joy? You were beaming and your fellow workers and friends wanted to know what it was; you humbly shared the small experience.
Do you recall the twinkle in your eyes and wanted to praise those two that made the national news recently? When a man fell on the tract in New York subway, the other man jumped to save his life risking his own. Then a Bangladeshi student stood up against the bullies who beat up the subway passengers who wished Happy Hanukkah to that bully.
Life becomes meaningful and powerful when you do things for others; it is the anecdote against sorrow that surrounds us from time to time. That is the wisdom in Bahai, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islam, Jain, Jewish, Native religions, Shinto, Sikh, Wicca, Zoroastrian and other faiths – living for the sake of others, a proven formula for happiness.
Way back in 1978, my Peugeot 504 failed me on a Saudi Freeway to Dhahran, I stood there in 116 degrees heat waving at every vehicle that drove on a full throttle going over 140 MPH. I was dying with thirst and blisters were all over my lips and my face, I looked like some one from the western movies. The drivers, who wanted to stop, could not do so within a walking range. After nearly five hours of eternity, a man finally stopped and drove his Toyota truck the full half mile in reverse. His Burqa Clad wife was with him on the passenger’s side and in the back were a couple of goats and sheep. I was imagining sitting with the goats and started feeling faintly, but he pulled his wife closer to him and asked me to hop in that little Toyota. I was too tired to worry where I was going. He gave me the life giving water and drove.
We barely communicated with my minimal Arabic and his English, we went to his home some where in the outer rim of the town of Abqaiq. His family brought in the tea and other refreshments followed by a huge dinner with several of his friends. He had one of his friends haul off my car and was getting it fixed; the fuel injection vehicles don’t work very well in that kind of heat. I had purchased that Car from Nick Gruev, an Albanian American friend out of Houston.
The Sheikh’s friends came were fixing the Hubbly Bubbly (Huqqa) and passing it between their friends, I was dreading to put that thing in my mouth should it come to me, sure enough it did and reluctantly I pretended puffing it. Around 8 PM, his mechanic friend drove up with my car.
As I was ready to leave, I thanked Shaikh Ahmed Al-Sabah profusely and pulled my wallet to pay, he pushed my hand and said “Aqhi, you are my guest and don’t even think of it.” I pleaded, it was the greatest favor a stranger has done to me and I asked, how I can pay.
He looked at me intently and asked, would you promise me something? In gratitude I said yes, but shuddered what now? He took time and looked at me again and said these life changing words to me “Next time, if you see some one needing help, would you stop and help?” I eagerly said Yes, satisfied; he asked again, are you sure? I gave an emphatic yes, to which he said, “Alhamdu Lillah (praise the lord) that is my reward.
I buy happiness at every nook and corner; it is very satisfying to see other people in their full human form when they give their beautiful smile. A genuine smile is the most beautiful thing on the earth, nothing compares to it.
Every day, you have those opportunities. Make an effort in doing things for others and see how easy it is to be happy.
Here are a few thoughts for you to ponder:
Push yourselves to be prejudice free against people from every meeting, incident, TV shows, and work or news items that you come across.
Find excuses to greet other people and wish them well, don’t worry what they think of you, just do it and see the response and counter response.
Work on bringing humility and fight off every thought and action that gives you the idea that your race, faith, nation, culture, language or life style is superior to others.
Commit to yourselves that your words and actions do not flare up conflicts, but mitigate them.
Commit yourselves that you are going to do your share of living for others, for starters one hour a week will enrich you with joy.
It does not take any money; it is your goodwill that brings you the joy. It is yours to keep and is on sale.
Best wishes for 2008
CommentstoMike@Gmail.com
© MIKE GHOUSE 2007- ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker, Writer and a Moderator. He is president of the Foundation for Pluralism and is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television network discussing Pluralism, politics, Islam, Religion and civic issues. He is the founding president of World Muslim Congress with a simple theme: Good for Muslims and good for the world. His comments, news analysis, opinions and columns can be found on the Websites and Blogs listed at his personal website www.MikeGhouse.net. Mike is a Dallasite for nearly three decades and Carrollton is his home town. He can be reached at MikeGhouse@gmail.com or (214) 325-1916
Monday, November 26, 2007
Annapolis - Include Hamas
Don't Ignore Hamas
Hamas won't attend this week's peace talks, but it can still sink them.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1126/p09s02-coop.html
By Yossi Beilin
Moderator: " Although some of us may not like Hamas, they need to be in the picture to get decisions implemented. We cannot bring peace unilaterally without the parties to conflict participating in it. " I wrote that on 20th of November, in the very first article of this blog. I debated about it, as the extremists will pounce on me, but then, that is the precise reason why things don't happen; People don't speak up. Since then 2 Israelis have called for including Hamas.
Hamas's victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006, and its violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in June, were very bad news for those who believe in Israeli-Palestinian peace. But as Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) prepare to launch formal negotiations on final status – for the first time in seven years – Israel should seek to reach a cease fire with Hamas as soon as possible.
This is not an easy position for an Israeli to take. Hamas is a religiously fanatical organization that has used the worst kind of terrorist violence against Israelis. That Hamas won parliamentary elections does not automatically render it politically legitimate. Democracy is about more than winning elections, and Hamas's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip was a flagrant demonstration of its readiness to defy democratic principles.
But politics is full of paradoxes, and Hamas's takeover of Gaza did create an opportunity. Put schematically, as Gaza fell to the "bad guys," the West Bank was reclaimed by the "good guys," who quickly distanced themselves from Hamas and set up their own pragmatic (in some ways, liberal) government. For Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas could now be recast as the politically sanitized partner that Mr. Olmert had insisted he so dearly wanted.
Yet even as the new status quo has allowed Olmert and Mr. Abbas to embark on a serious process, it also presents both leaders with unprecedented challenges. Hamas's control of Gaza gives it a political and geographical platform from which to disturb – even to spoil – any peace talks. Already Hamas permits the constant firing of Qassam rockets into Israel, and it threatens to carry out suicide bombings inside Israel. If it continues to be sidelined, Hamas will probably try to thwart the upcoming meeting in Annapolis, Md., and the process the participants hope to ignite, by escalating the violence to such a degree that the parties will find it difficult even to meet, let alone negotiate peace.
In other words, precisely because Israel and the PLO are ready to sit down and talk, Hamas cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, a broad coalition has formed of those who believe that it not only can be ignored but should be. This coalition includes the majority of Arab states, which support an embargo on Gaza for fear that Hamas's political success there would strengthen radical Islamism in their own countries, as well as in the US, the European Union, and the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, which is determined to force Hamas to admit failure and give up power.
Against such a broad coalition, it is hard for an Israeli to talk about engaging Hamas, let alone about a cease fire. But unlike many others, Israel cannot afford to pretend that Hamas does not exist. Hamas is our next-door neighbor, not that of Washington or Brussels or (with all due respect to Egypt's sensitivity to the dangers of fundamentalist fervor) Cairo. We are responsible for the lives and security of our citizens, whether they live within range of the Qassam rockets or in the bustling centers of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Israel also continues to share residual responsibility for the welfare of the 1.4 million Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied for nearly 40 years. The fact, moreover, that Israel continues to exercise control over all but one of Gaza's entry and exit points, as well as over its airspace and sea territory, places additional responsibilities on it.
Given that the current policy of containment has not quelled the violence across its border, Israel should opt for another way. The only option that I see serving the cause of peace is to enter into a dialogue with Hamas through a third party in order to reach a cease fire. Such an agreement would include the total cessation of mutual violence; arrangements at the border to allow goods and services to pass in and out of the Gaza Strip; the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier abducted in June 2006; and a commitment by Hamas to prevent all attempts to undermine this week's meeting in Annapolis and the resulting process.
The prospects for making progress on peace will be greater if we establish peace on the ground here and now.
Yossi Beilin is a member of the Israeli Knesset and chairman of the Meretz-Yachad Party. He is a former justice minister as well as the architect of the unofficial Geneva Initiative, a comprehensive and detailed draft agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. ©2007 The Washington Post.
Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links
Hamas won't attend this week's peace talks, but it can still sink them.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1126/p09s02-coop.html
By Yossi Beilin
Moderator: " Although some of us may not like Hamas, they need to be in the picture to get decisions implemented. We cannot bring peace unilaterally without the parties to conflict participating in it. " I wrote that on 20th of November, in the very first article of this blog. I debated about it, as the extremists will pounce on me, but then, that is the precise reason why things don't happen; People don't speak up. Since then 2 Israelis have called for including Hamas.
Hamas's victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006, and its violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in June, were very bad news for those who believe in Israeli-Palestinian peace. But as Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) prepare to launch formal negotiations on final status – for the first time in seven years – Israel should seek to reach a cease fire with Hamas as soon as possible.
This is not an easy position for an Israeli to take. Hamas is a religiously fanatical organization that has used the worst kind of terrorist violence against Israelis. That Hamas won parliamentary elections does not automatically render it politically legitimate. Democracy is about more than winning elections, and Hamas's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip was a flagrant demonstration of its readiness to defy democratic principles.
But politics is full of paradoxes, and Hamas's takeover of Gaza did create an opportunity. Put schematically, as Gaza fell to the "bad guys," the West Bank was reclaimed by the "good guys," who quickly distanced themselves from Hamas and set up their own pragmatic (in some ways, liberal) government. For Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas could now be recast as the politically sanitized partner that Mr. Olmert had insisted he so dearly wanted.
Yet even as the new status quo has allowed Olmert and Mr. Abbas to embark on a serious process, it also presents both leaders with unprecedented challenges. Hamas's control of Gaza gives it a political and geographical platform from which to disturb – even to spoil – any peace talks. Already Hamas permits the constant firing of Qassam rockets into Israel, and it threatens to carry out suicide bombings inside Israel. If it continues to be sidelined, Hamas will probably try to thwart the upcoming meeting in Annapolis, Md., and the process the participants hope to ignite, by escalating the violence to such a degree that the parties will find it difficult even to meet, let alone negotiate peace.
In other words, precisely because Israel and the PLO are ready to sit down and talk, Hamas cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, a broad coalition has formed of those who believe that it not only can be ignored but should be. This coalition includes the majority of Arab states, which support an embargo on Gaza for fear that Hamas's political success there would strengthen radical Islamism in their own countries, as well as in the US, the European Union, and the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, which is determined to force Hamas to admit failure and give up power.
Against such a broad coalition, it is hard for an Israeli to talk about engaging Hamas, let alone about a cease fire. But unlike many others, Israel cannot afford to pretend that Hamas does not exist. Hamas is our next-door neighbor, not that of Washington or Brussels or (with all due respect to Egypt's sensitivity to the dangers of fundamentalist fervor) Cairo. We are responsible for the lives and security of our citizens, whether they live within range of the Qassam rockets or in the bustling centers of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Israel also continues to share residual responsibility for the welfare of the 1.4 million Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied for nearly 40 years. The fact, moreover, that Israel continues to exercise control over all but one of Gaza's entry and exit points, as well as over its airspace and sea territory, places additional responsibilities on it.
Given that the current policy of containment has not quelled the violence across its border, Israel should opt for another way. The only option that I see serving the cause of peace is to enter into a dialogue with Hamas through a third party in order to reach a cease fire. Such an agreement would include the total cessation of mutual violence; arrangements at the border to allow goods and services to pass in and out of the Gaza Strip; the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier abducted in June 2006; and a commitment by Hamas to prevent all attempts to undermine this week's meeting in Annapolis and the resulting process.
The prospects for making progress on peace will be greater if we establish peace on the ground here and now.
Yossi Beilin is a member of the Israeli Knesset and chairman of the Meretz-Yachad Party. He is a former justice minister as well as the architect of the unofficial Geneva Initiative, a comprehensive and detailed draft agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. ©2007 The Washington Post.
Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links
Annapolis - the Iran factor
Behind Mideast summit – the Iran factor
The Annapolis talks on Tuesday are shadowed by a nation not there.
By Howard LaFranchi Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Moderator - Is this a farce democracy agenda our President is pursuing? Decisions are made for the people without their presence, without their participation? At Annapolis on Tuesday, everyone will be there to party, except the affected party. The Palestinians of Gaza or their represenative must be there for us to be sincere with spreading democracy. It is about them as much about the Palestinians of the west bank and Israelis, we are calling this conference for them, without them? How arrogant can we be to believe that we are right?
WASHINGTON - When the Bush administration holds a meeting this week to formally relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, one uninvited guest will be looming large over everyone's shoulder: Iran.
Tuesday's meeting in Annapolis, Md., was once envisioned as a three-day conference to kick off the negotiation of final-status issues. It's now an incredibly shrinking 24-hour gathering, but its occurrence at all is in no small measure a result of the rise of Iran and its brand of radical Islam in the Middle East.
Consider how Iran plays into the picture for the following players:
• If President Bush has finally bought into a process he eschewed for seven years, it is not so much because he really believes now is a propitious moment for progress on peace. Instead, analysts say, Mr. Bush sees the need to contain Iran. He also sees how bringing Arab moderates to the table with Israel could work toward that goal.
• Saudi Arabia said it would attend a conference only if it addresses the core issues for establishing a Palestinian state. That won't happen, but still Riyadh will attend – in large part because the Saudis see as desirable any action that ties the United States into the region and challenges Iran's rise.
• And the attendance of Syria – something that both the Bush administration and Israel hoped for – reflects how Damascus is seeking to hedge its bets after having aligned itself increasingly with the regime in Tehran.
For the US, moderate Arab states, Israel, and the Palestinian supporters of Mahmoud Abbas, "finding a way to counter the threat from Tehran … is fueling this peace meeting more than any other factor," says Martin Indyk, a former US negotiator on the Middle East who is now director of the Brookings Institution's Saban Center on the Middle East in Washington.
Expectations for the Annapolis meeting, to be held at the US Naval Academy in Maryland's capital, are "lower than the Dead Sea," says David Makovsky, director of the project on the Middle East Peace Process at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Neither Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert nor the Palestinian president, Mr. Abbas, is coming from a position of domestic political strength that would allow for compromise.
The best to be expected from the gathering may be a "road map-plus" formula, Mr. Makovsky says. Under such a scenario, the parties would formally agree to undertake steps – security measures on the Palestinian side, a settlement freeze and steps easing Palestinian living conditions for the Israelis – while launching final-status negotiations on issues like refugees and Jerusalem.
Still, the meeting will draw participants anxious for anything that might stall Iran's hegemonic rise in the region, Makovsky says.
The reputation of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has risen in the Palestinian territories and the region as he has advocated violence over accommodation to address the Palestinians' plight. He has also skewered moderate Arab leaders for agreeing to work with Israel on peace.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has focused much of her attention this year on Iran containment, hopes to use the Annapolis meeting to "pull Syria out of Tehran's orbit," Makovsky says. As one Arab diplomat told Makovsky, the real purpose of Annapolis is to "take the Palestinian card out of Ahmadinejad's hand," he notes.
But not everyone is so sure the Annapolis meeting will have the desired geopolitical impact, while some even caution that it could end up playing into Tehran's hands.
"This is rigged for Iran to win," says David Wurmser, a former Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.
The objective of Tehran and in particular Mr. Ahmadinejad is to stoke a "civilizational struggle," pitting a weak and compliant Islam that is tethered to the West against an aggressive and resurgent Islam, Mr. Wurmser says. In that context, it actually serves Iran's purposes if a "humiliated" Arab world joins Israel at the conference table and doesn't receive anything concrete in return.
If the Saudis, Egyptians, and Jordanians are seen to "march off to Annapolis to surrender" before the US and Israel, Wurmser says, "that could be a greater gift to the Iranians than anything else Iran could achieve."
Others are not so categoric, but do see cracks in Secretary Rice's strategy of containing Iran with a relaunched Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
The idea that a convergence created by a fear of Iran could compel the parties to make unprecedented concessions has "elements of truth," says Dennis Ross, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and former peace-process coordinator for the Clinton administration. But that vision, he says, fails to grasp another reality: that Iran's rise is seen by many in the region through the "prism" of the Sunni-Shiite divide.
One result of that particular perspective is that Sunni states like Saudi Arabia are still holding out the possibility of producing a bridge between Abbas's moderate Fatah organization and the radical Hamas, which took control of Gaza after it won elections in January. Hamas is a Sunni organization but has relied increasingly on support from Shiite Iran as the international community has sought to isolate it.
"The assumption that a common threat would produce a common approach faltered," Mr. Ross says.
The Annapolis meeting will actually kick off with a dinner at the State Department Monday, when Bush is to hold White House talks with Mr. Olmert and Abbas. Bush is also scheduled to wrap up the event Wednesday with further talks with the two key leaders.
The impact of Annapolis will really be in what comes after it, experts say. For clues on that, most will be watching for two things: who actually attends the meeting and what Bush says in the speech he will give in Annapolis on Tuesday.
Rice pressed hard for Saudi Arabia to send its foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, as a sign of its commitment to the process. He will attend, though somewhat grudgingly.
Likewise, the administration wanted Syria to send its foreign minister and publicly assured it that the Annapolis microphone would be open to them to put their chief concern with the Israelis – the occupied Golan Heights – on the conference table. But Syria's announcement that it will settle for sending its deputy foreign minister, Faysal Mekdad, reflects a hedging of its bets: While Damascus holds out hope for improved relations with Washington, and wishes to demonstrate some distance from Tehran, experts say, it does not to appear to be playing wholly into the US game plan.
As for Bush's speech, the key will be if the president sets out any kind of an agenda and timeline for the peace process – and if he outlines any of the tough issues to be addressed with specifics. Mr. Indyk of the Brookings Institution says he will watch for any mention of the "territorial compensation" the Palestinians can expect in return for the West Bank settlement blocks that Israel will not be asked to hand over to a new Palestine.
And then, what mention does Bush make of a follow-up agenda to Annapolis? Many ears will be attuned to any reference to a review conference by which point certain progress would be expected. Indyk says talk is already circulating of such a conference occurring in Moscow.
Noting that the US and the international community are basically "reinstating a process after seven years of not having a process," Ross says the crucial question will be: "What is the day-after strategy?"
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1126/p01s03-usfp.html?page=1
The Annapolis talks on Tuesday are shadowed by a nation not there.
By Howard LaFranchi Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Moderator - Is this a farce democracy agenda our President is pursuing? Decisions are made for the people without their presence, without their participation? At Annapolis on Tuesday, everyone will be there to party, except the affected party. The Palestinians of Gaza or their represenative must be there for us to be sincere with spreading democracy. It is about them as much about the Palestinians of the west bank and Israelis, we are calling this conference for them, without them? How arrogant can we be to believe that we are right?
WASHINGTON - When the Bush administration holds a meeting this week to formally relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, one uninvited guest will be looming large over everyone's shoulder: Iran.
Tuesday's meeting in Annapolis, Md., was once envisioned as a three-day conference to kick off the negotiation of final-status issues. It's now an incredibly shrinking 24-hour gathering, but its occurrence at all is in no small measure a result of the rise of Iran and its brand of radical Islam in the Middle East.
Consider how Iran plays into the picture for the following players:
• If President Bush has finally bought into a process he eschewed for seven years, it is not so much because he really believes now is a propitious moment for progress on peace. Instead, analysts say, Mr. Bush sees the need to contain Iran. He also sees how bringing Arab moderates to the table with Israel could work toward that goal.
• Saudi Arabia said it would attend a conference only if it addresses the core issues for establishing a Palestinian state. That won't happen, but still Riyadh will attend – in large part because the Saudis see as desirable any action that ties the United States into the region and challenges Iran's rise.
• And the attendance of Syria – something that both the Bush administration and Israel hoped for – reflects how Damascus is seeking to hedge its bets after having aligned itself increasingly with the regime in Tehran.
For the US, moderate Arab states, Israel, and the Palestinian supporters of Mahmoud Abbas, "finding a way to counter the threat from Tehran … is fueling this peace meeting more than any other factor," says Martin Indyk, a former US negotiator on the Middle East who is now director of the Brookings Institution's Saban Center on the Middle East in Washington.
Expectations for the Annapolis meeting, to be held at the US Naval Academy in Maryland's capital, are "lower than the Dead Sea," says David Makovsky, director of the project on the Middle East Peace Process at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Neither Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert nor the Palestinian president, Mr. Abbas, is coming from a position of domestic political strength that would allow for compromise.
The best to be expected from the gathering may be a "road map-plus" formula, Mr. Makovsky says. Under such a scenario, the parties would formally agree to undertake steps – security measures on the Palestinian side, a settlement freeze and steps easing Palestinian living conditions for the Israelis – while launching final-status negotiations on issues like refugees and Jerusalem.
Still, the meeting will draw participants anxious for anything that might stall Iran's hegemonic rise in the region, Makovsky says.
The reputation of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has risen in the Palestinian territories and the region as he has advocated violence over accommodation to address the Palestinians' plight. He has also skewered moderate Arab leaders for agreeing to work with Israel on peace.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has focused much of her attention this year on Iran containment, hopes to use the Annapolis meeting to "pull Syria out of Tehran's orbit," Makovsky says. As one Arab diplomat told Makovsky, the real purpose of Annapolis is to "take the Palestinian card out of Ahmadinejad's hand," he notes.
But not everyone is so sure the Annapolis meeting will have the desired geopolitical impact, while some even caution that it could end up playing into Tehran's hands.
"This is rigged for Iran to win," says David Wurmser, a former Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.
The objective of Tehran and in particular Mr. Ahmadinejad is to stoke a "civilizational struggle," pitting a weak and compliant Islam that is tethered to the West against an aggressive and resurgent Islam, Mr. Wurmser says. In that context, it actually serves Iran's purposes if a "humiliated" Arab world joins Israel at the conference table and doesn't receive anything concrete in return.
If the Saudis, Egyptians, and Jordanians are seen to "march off to Annapolis to surrender" before the US and Israel, Wurmser says, "that could be a greater gift to the Iranians than anything else Iran could achieve."
Others are not so categoric, but do see cracks in Secretary Rice's strategy of containing Iran with a relaunched Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
The idea that a convergence created by a fear of Iran could compel the parties to make unprecedented concessions has "elements of truth," says Dennis Ross, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and former peace-process coordinator for the Clinton administration. But that vision, he says, fails to grasp another reality: that Iran's rise is seen by many in the region through the "prism" of the Sunni-Shiite divide.
One result of that particular perspective is that Sunni states like Saudi Arabia are still holding out the possibility of producing a bridge between Abbas's moderate Fatah organization and the radical Hamas, which took control of Gaza after it won elections in January. Hamas is a Sunni organization but has relied increasingly on support from Shiite Iran as the international community has sought to isolate it.
"The assumption that a common threat would produce a common approach faltered," Mr. Ross says.
The Annapolis meeting will actually kick off with a dinner at the State Department Monday, when Bush is to hold White House talks with Mr. Olmert and Abbas. Bush is also scheduled to wrap up the event Wednesday with further talks with the two key leaders.
The impact of Annapolis will really be in what comes after it, experts say. For clues on that, most will be watching for two things: who actually attends the meeting and what Bush says in the speech he will give in Annapolis on Tuesday.
Rice pressed hard for Saudi Arabia to send its foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, as a sign of its commitment to the process. He will attend, though somewhat grudgingly.
Likewise, the administration wanted Syria to send its foreign minister and publicly assured it that the Annapolis microphone would be open to them to put their chief concern with the Israelis – the occupied Golan Heights – on the conference table. But Syria's announcement that it will settle for sending its deputy foreign minister, Faysal Mekdad, reflects a hedging of its bets: While Damascus holds out hope for improved relations with Washington, and wishes to demonstrate some distance from Tehran, experts say, it does not to appear to be playing wholly into the US game plan.
As for Bush's speech, the key will be if the president sets out any kind of an agenda and timeline for the peace process – and if he outlines any of the tough issues to be addressed with specifics. Mr. Indyk of the Brookings Institution says he will watch for any mention of the "territorial compensation" the Palestinians can expect in return for the West Bank settlement blocks that Israel will not be asked to hand over to a new Palestine.
And then, what mention does Bush make of a follow-up agenda to Annapolis? Many ears will be attuned to any reference to a review conference by which point certain progress would be expected. Indyk says talk is already circulating of such a conference occurring in Moscow.
Noting that the US and the international community are basically "reinstating a process after seven years of not having a process," Ross says the crucial question will be: "What is the day-after strategy?"
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1126/p01s03-usfp.html?page=1
Annapolis - Jewish Question
On the Jewish Question
By BERNARD LEWIS
November 26, 2007; Page A21, WSJ
MODERATOR: Agree with the writer, this is the way to narrow down the issues. If it is the size of Israel, then the issue is on the table for discussion, but if it is existence, then the Arab states have to pinch themselves and wake up into a real world. CAVEAT: As World Citizens, we need to ponder if other nations were to accept the refugees, then we may be opening the doors of legitimacy for nations that will throw sons and daughters of the soil out. Moving Jews out of Germany legitimized Germany's illegal crimes of throwing out her own citizens. Should we subscribe to this value? What will happen in the future if one nations throws its inhabitants out and occupies, should the world continue to accept the refugees so that nation can continue occupation?
Herewith some thoughts about tomorrow's Annapolis peace conference, and the larger problem of how to approach the Israel-Palestine conflict. The first question (one might think it is obvious but apparently not) is, "What is the conflict about?" There are basically two possibilities: that it is about the size of Israel, or about its existence.
If the issue is about the size of Israel, then we have a straightforward border problem, like Alsace-Lorraine or Texas. That is to say, not easy, but possible to solve in the long run, and to live with in the meantime.
If, on the other hand, the issue is the existence of Israel, then clearly it is insoluble by negotiation. There is no compromise position between existing and not existing, and no conceivable government of Israel is going to negotiate on whether that country should or should not exist.
PLO and other Palestinian spokesmen have, from time to time, given formal indications of recognition of Israel in their diplomatic discourse in foreign languages. But that's not the message delivered at home in Arabic, in everything from primary school textbooks to political speeches and religious sermons. Here the terms used in Arabic denote, not the end of hostilities, but an armistice or truce, until such time that the war against Israel can be resumed with better prospects for success. Without genuine acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State, as the more than 20 members of the Arab League exist as Arab States, or the much larger number of members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference exist as Islamic states, peace cannot be negotiated.
A good example of how this problem affects negotiation is the much-discussed refugee question. During the fighting in 1947-1948, about three-fourths of a million Arabs fled or were driven (both are true in different places) from Israel and found refuge in the neighboring Arab countries. In the same period and after, a slightly greater number of Jews fled or were driven from Arab countries, first from the Arab-controlled part of mandatory Palestine (where not a single Jew was permitted to remain), then from the Arab countries where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries, or in some places for millennia. Most Jewish refugees found their way to Israel.
What happened was thus, in effect, an exchange of populations not unlike that which took place in the Indian subcontinent in the previous year, when British India was split into India and Pakistan. Millions of refugees fled or were driven both ways -- Hindus and others from Pakistan to India, Muslims from India to Pakistan. Another example was Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, when the Soviets annexed a large piece of eastern Poland and compensated the Poles with a slice of eastern Germany. This too led to a massive refugee movement -- Poles fled or were driven from the Soviet Union into Poland, Germans fled or were driven from Poland into Germany.
The Poles and the Germans, the Hindus and the Muslims, the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, all were resettled in their new homes and accorded the normal rights of citizenship. More remarkably, this was done without international aid. The one exception was the Palestinian Arabs in neighboring Arab countries.
The government of Jordan granted Palestinian Arabs a form of citizenship, but kept them in refugee camps. In the other Arab countries, they were and remained stateless aliens without rights or opportunities, maintained by U.N. funding. Paradoxically, if a Palestinian fled to Britain or America, he was eligible for naturalization after five years, and his locally-born children were citizens by birth. If he went to Syria, Lebanon or Iraq, he and his descendants remained stateless, now entering the fourth or fifth generation.
The reason for this has been stated by various Arab spokesmen. It is the need to preserve the Palestinians as a separate entity until the time when they will return and reclaim the whole of Palestine; that is to say, all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel. The demand for the "return" of the refugees, in other words, means the destruction of Israel. This is highly unlikely to be approved by any Israeli government.
There are signs of change in some Arab circles, of a willingness to accept Israel and even to see the possibility of a positive Israeli contribution to the public life of the region. But such opinions are only furtively expressed. Sometimes, those who dare to express them are jailed or worse. These opinions have as yet little or no impact on the leadership.
Which brings us back to the Annapolis summit. If the issue is not the size of Israel, but its existence, negotiations are foredoomed. And in light of the past record, it is clear that is and will remain the issue, until the Arab leadership either achieves or renounces its purpose -- to destroy Israel. Both seem equally unlikely for the time being.
Mr. Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, is the author, most recently, of "From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East" (Oxford University Press, 2004).
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119604260214503526.html
By BERNARD LEWIS
November 26, 2007; Page A21, WSJ
MODERATOR: Agree with the writer, this is the way to narrow down the issues. If it is the size of Israel, then the issue is on the table for discussion, but if it is existence, then the Arab states have to pinch themselves and wake up into a real world. CAVEAT: As World Citizens, we need to ponder if other nations were to accept the refugees, then we may be opening the doors of legitimacy for nations that will throw sons and daughters of the soil out. Moving Jews out of Germany legitimized Germany's illegal crimes of throwing out her own citizens. Should we subscribe to this value? What will happen in the future if one nations throws its inhabitants out and occupies, should the world continue to accept the refugees so that nation can continue occupation?
Herewith some thoughts about tomorrow's Annapolis peace conference, and the larger problem of how to approach the Israel-Palestine conflict. The first question (one might think it is obvious but apparently not) is, "What is the conflict about?" There are basically two possibilities: that it is about the size of Israel, or about its existence.
If the issue is about the size of Israel, then we have a straightforward border problem, like Alsace-Lorraine or Texas. That is to say, not easy, but possible to solve in the long run, and to live with in the meantime.
If, on the other hand, the issue is the existence of Israel, then clearly it is insoluble by negotiation. There is no compromise position between existing and not existing, and no conceivable government of Israel is going to negotiate on whether that country should or should not exist.
PLO and other Palestinian spokesmen have, from time to time, given formal indications of recognition of Israel in their diplomatic discourse in foreign languages. But that's not the message delivered at home in Arabic, in everything from primary school textbooks to political speeches and religious sermons. Here the terms used in Arabic denote, not the end of hostilities, but an armistice or truce, until such time that the war against Israel can be resumed with better prospects for success. Without genuine acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State, as the more than 20 members of the Arab League exist as Arab States, or the much larger number of members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference exist as Islamic states, peace cannot be negotiated.
A good example of how this problem affects negotiation is the much-discussed refugee question. During the fighting in 1947-1948, about three-fourths of a million Arabs fled or were driven (both are true in different places) from Israel and found refuge in the neighboring Arab countries. In the same period and after, a slightly greater number of Jews fled or were driven from Arab countries, first from the Arab-controlled part of mandatory Palestine (where not a single Jew was permitted to remain), then from the Arab countries where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries, or in some places for millennia. Most Jewish refugees found their way to Israel.
What happened was thus, in effect, an exchange of populations not unlike that which took place in the Indian subcontinent in the previous year, when British India was split into India and Pakistan. Millions of refugees fled or were driven both ways -- Hindus and others from Pakistan to India, Muslims from India to Pakistan. Another example was Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, when the Soviets annexed a large piece of eastern Poland and compensated the Poles with a slice of eastern Germany. This too led to a massive refugee movement -- Poles fled or were driven from the Soviet Union into Poland, Germans fled or were driven from Poland into Germany.
The Poles and the Germans, the Hindus and the Muslims, the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, all were resettled in their new homes and accorded the normal rights of citizenship. More remarkably, this was done without international aid. The one exception was the Palestinian Arabs in neighboring Arab countries.
The government of Jordan granted Palestinian Arabs a form of citizenship, but kept them in refugee camps. In the other Arab countries, they were and remained stateless aliens without rights or opportunities, maintained by U.N. funding. Paradoxically, if a Palestinian fled to Britain or America, he was eligible for naturalization after five years, and his locally-born children were citizens by birth. If he went to Syria, Lebanon or Iraq, he and his descendants remained stateless, now entering the fourth or fifth generation.
The reason for this has been stated by various Arab spokesmen. It is the need to preserve the Palestinians as a separate entity until the time when they will return and reclaim the whole of Palestine; that is to say, all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel. The demand for the "return" of the refugees, in other words, means the destruction of Israel. This is highly unlikely to be approved by any Israeli government.
There are signs of change in some Arab circles, of a willingness to accept Israel and even to see the possibility of a positive Israeli contribution to the public life of the region. But such opinions are only furtively expressed. Sometimes, those who dare to express them are jailed or worse. These opinions have as yet little or no impact on the leadership.
Which brings us back to the Annapolis summit. If the issue is not the size of Israel, but its existence, negotiations are foredoomed. And in light of the past record, it is clear that is and will remain the issue, until the Arab leadership either achieves or renounces its purpose -- to destroy Israel. Both seem equally unlikely for the time being.
Mr. Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, is the author, most recently, of "From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East" (Oxford University Press, 2004).
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119604260214503526.html
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