Dearest Gilad
Listening to your above vedios , explained to me why you happen to agree with every word I said there.
The Holly text is Holly, the human understanding is not. The History is not.
Indeed, here we are on the same page.
Uprooted Palestinian
Filed under: Judaism, Religion, Supremacism | Tagged: Arab Jews, Gilad Atzmon, Islamophobia | Comments Off on Gilad Atzmon: The Enlightenment is nothing but self love
Though, I disagree with the writer, I undestand his anger, passion, and totally agree with all he said on Arafat and fatah. Comments are belew the article
Sami Jamil Jadallah – What is wrong with the Palestinians? A whole lot.
By Sami Jamil Jadallah • Jul 25th, 2009 at 13:11 • Category: Analysis, Culture and Heritage, Israel, Newswire, Palestine, Religion, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Zionism
There is something very wrong with people who claim to be smart, intelligent, educated, hard working, honest, nationalists, and decent to accept such a stupid, corrupt, incompetent, reckless, useless leadership and organization for the last 45 years that failed at everything it set out to do -turning the PLO to a manager and contractor of the Jewish Occupation with leadership that at best can be described as self serving, racketeering mafia that made financial fortunes for itself and members of their families fleecing national treasury, while claiming to represent and lead the Palestinian people toward liberation and independence. The Palestinians remain under Occupation till now.
There is something very wrong with people who never held the leadership accountable for its failing, for lack of accountability and transparency, for the numerous disasters that befell the Palestinians in exile and under Occupation, where tens of billions wasted, tens of billions remain unaccounted for, where tens of thousands perished and died in the cause of liberation and where hundreds of thousands were exiled (Kuwait) and lost everything because of the reckless and irresponsible behavior of the leadership.
There is something wrong with people where “intellectuals” who are supposed to be the conscious of the nation and guardians of the people’s interests and rights collude with Arafat, the PLO and Fatah leadership and remained silent while witnessing firsthand the abuse of power and authority by Arafat, lack of collective leadership, lack of financial accountability, lack of holding the leadership and officers responsible for the many repeated failures.
There is something wrong with intellectuals who became self serving of a system that corrupted their body and soul. Rather than standing up for the people’s rights, became a tool and apologists for a failed leadership. They simply sat on their face all these years while knowing the PLO and its leadership are nothing more than a lie, a fraud, bunch of crooks and thieves, unfit to lead let alone liberate. The failures and the mess we see today did not take place overnight. They were there years ago, when Arafat became the sole dictator, dispensing financial favors for loyalty, making sure that all those around him are “eunuchs” with no voice bought and sold with money and privilege and subordinated powers accepting personal insults and humiliations by the “Old Man”.
There is something wrong with a business community and leadership failed to dedicate its money, access to power to building a viable economy with professional and skilled jobs for the people it chose collusion with a corrupt and failed leadership, benefiting from the corrupt leadership of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority with rewards of monopolies and business opportunities that added billions to their wealth while the rest of the people could hardly have a decent job to live on. A business leadership that “cornered” wealth rather than “spreading” wealth, robbing average small entrepreneurs from business opportunities, becoming part of the mafia that is the Palestinian Authority.
There is something with leaders of so-called “civil societies” that rather than serving the general interest of the people and public became self serving of their own pockets accumulating substantial wealth from donations they get from foreign donors anxious to do some good for the miserable people of Palestine. So many leading names became corrupted by access to Arafat and the Palestinian Authority and the business opportunities created through such relations that they became silent and blind, failing to speak out on corruption, incompetence, ineptness, abuse of power and authority, civil rights abuse, never speaking out for accountability and transparency in government and public service, muzzled by the dollars they get. To them the Occupation is a business, a big business.
There is something wrong with people and their so called representative (PNC) who never demanded any sort of accountability and who never held the leadership responsible for it failures and mistakes in Jordan, in Lebanon, in Tunis, in Kuwait.
There is something wrong with people who failed to demand accountability and public inquiry into the many massacres committed against the Palestinian people in Tal-Zaater, in Sabra and Shatilla, in Jenin, in Hebron. Who would believe that Israel’s of Begin form a public and independent commission to hold hearing into the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla but says nothing about Palestinian leadership’s failures to hold a similar hearing? Something very wrong with such people and such leadership.
Who would believe that the leadership never made public accounting of the billions at its disposal, people’s money, with no accounting of SAMED Industries, no accounting of tens of billions of investments in Africa, in Europe, North America and the Middle East with no one knowing what happened to these tens of billions? And more troublesome is the deafening silence as they see and witness financial corruption and thefts of public funds on a daily basis.
Who would believe that Israel charges its hero and prime minister, Rabin, with failing to adhere to its laws limiting bank accounts of officials outside Israel, forcing him to resign yet accept Yasser Arafat’s private and personal decision to transfer millions of dollars of the “people’s money” to the private accounts of his wife so she can enjoy the high standard of living in Paris. Israel dismisses its prime minister over few thousand dollars while the Palestinians worship a man who robbed them blind and failed them.
Who would believe the Palestinian accept a leader who agrees and accept hundreds of millions transferred into his personal and private account, money collected by Israel from taxes it collects on Palestinian imports, rather than having all the funds going to the people’s treasury?
Who would accept but Palestinians their leaders to have public money deposited into private accounts of their leader’s entrusted to retired Mossad agents and crooked bankers in France and in Switzerland? Why Israel punishes its leaders for keeping several thousands of dollars in foreign accounts, yet the Palestinians do not demand to know where are the billions hidden and lost in the private accounts of Arafat.
Who would believe that there are so many traitors, informers and collaborators working for and on behalf of the occupying enemy making it very possible for Israel to target and assassinate key leadership such as Sheik Ahmed Yassin, Abdul-Aziz Rantisi, Engineer Abuy-Ayash and many many more resistance fighters gunned downed in cold blood based on information and intelligence provided by members with Hamas and Fatah?
Who would believe there are tens of thousands of such collaborators and informers within the highest levels of government of Hamas, Fatah, and Palestinian Authority to the drivers of the donkey carts in the streets of Gaza or Nablus?
Who would believe that Palestinians accept, say nothing and do nothing about having to wait for hours and days, by the hundreds of thousands if not millions at more than 650 security checkpoints while more than 3,000 VIPs of Fatah, PLO and Palestinian Authority speed through these Israeli security points? One has to wonder what kind of people the Palestinians are made of and what kind of a leadership that negotiate for itself such privilege while the people its suppose to represent languish for hours and days at these humiliating and degrading security checkpoints with so many women, sick and very young dying while waiting to go through. I am sure the leadership is very proud of its achievements for itself. It never cared about the people when in Beirut, Tunis and now Ramallah.
One has to wonder what kind of people that accept a leadership that promised liberation for 45 years, only to come back as manager and partner with the occupation. A leadership that continues to meet and negotiate while Israel continues to expropriate and steal more and more land for its settlements, while settlers are terrorizing village and destroying farms, with some 70,000 Palestinians under virtual 25 hours curfew in Hebron and does nothing to chase this leadership out of Ramallah?
Abbas’s partner Olmert succeeded to build 2,500 housing units in settlements, 400 Km of the Apartheid Wall, while Abbas, Saeb, Quari and Abed-Rabou were having regular visits and drinks with Olmert, Livni and Barak. They even met with these killers and murderers after the war on Gaza.
Who would believe that leaders from around the world make the efforts to visit Gaza to see the devastation caused by the Palestinian Authority negotiating partners yet not Abbas, not one single leaders of the Ramallah authority bothers to make the efforts to visit Gaza?
Who would believe that Palestinians accept the lies of both Hamas and Fatah as they talk of liberation when the only thing they are interested in is “who gets what of the financial pie” that is the Jewish Occupation?
Who would believe the lies of Hamas that it is Israel that detonated a truck load of explosive during a “Resistance Ceremony” killing some 40 innocent people and lies about its reckless and irresponsible behavior and total disregards of the people’s safety and security as it parked the loaded truck next to the people?
Who would believe that a leadership like Hamas turns the absolute and honorable right to resist and fight the occupation including armed means, into an act of ‘terror” through the reckless, irresponsible and immoral use of “suicide bombings” that kills innocent people, yes innocent people in cafes, buses and restaurants and turned resistance into a self serving business, with families celebrating the death of a son in a suicide mission rather than celebrating his or her life and graduation from college, making families accept “blood money” from such killers and murderers like Saddam. It is one thing to carry a gun and shoot and kill an Israeli soldiers or an armed settler in the Occupied Territories, it is another thing to murder people on a bus in Tel-Aviv. Hamas leadership blurred the lines between what is right and what is wrong, and what is honorable and legitimate resistance and acts of terror. Hamas reckless behavior and leadership deprived the Palestinians from such a noble right to fight and resist the Occupation. Hamas failed to liberate and managed to pull the rugs and legitimacy from underneath legitimate armed resistance.
Who would believe that smart and intelligent people believe that the useless worthless Qassam rockets will liberate Gaza and that Hamas fighters will defend the people of Gaza when in fact such irresponsible resistance managed to kill not more than a dozen Israel soldiers while Israel managed to destroy some 30,000 homes made more than 500,000 homeless and killed some 1,800? Where is the smart intelligent resistance? Certainly it is not in Gaza. Why does Hamas leadership put the fate and lives of millions of people in the hands of reckless, irresponsible resistance fighters and fails to take charge and fails to take responsibility for its failed strategy?
One has to wonder what kind of people the Palestinians are for accepting the daily abuse and misuse of power and authority by the Palestinian Authority Security Forces with a mission to protect the soldiers and settlers of the Occupation, retreating to its barracks when the Israeli army decided to carry out a military operation or an assassination, leaving the Palestinians without any security or safety and open to Israeli fire?
Who would believe that people who suffered for so long under occupation with more than 700,000 spending time in Israel jails since 67, tens of thousands dead at the hands of the Jewish Occupation accept the abuse and criminal behavior of Arafat’s Preventive Security Forces in Gaza and the West Bank where more Palestinians died in its jails than those who died in Israel’s jails? Who would believe that Palestinians accept and remain silent while Arafat and his cronies turned the Preventive Security Forces into a mafia, racketeering and protection organizations for its leadership and officers accumulating millions in the process? Who would believe that the leadership and commanders of the Preventive Security Forces, during the shameful and criminal commands of Dahlan and Rajoub, of course with the blessings of Arafat, and who acted so tough and rough subjecting average Palestinians to torture, physical and verbal abuse are rewarded with promotions as they ran away scared, abandoning their posts before the advancing Israeli forces leaving behind their staff and political prisoners locked behind bars? Fulfilling the old saying “assadon alaya wa fel hurubi na’amatun” Loins when it comes to me but an ostrich when it comes to war and enemy.
It is difficult to believe how the PLO leadership of the last 45 years turned and transformed the Palestinian people from a nation and people dedicated to education, hard work with ambitions to become doctors, engineers, lawyers, industrialists and teachers and turned them into unskilled laborers for Israeli market killing their hopes and ambition to have a university degree. Young people now can look forward to joining gangs, joining “Sulta” and join the Palestinian Authority and becomes a security officer or a functionary, dedicated to protecting the Authority, the leadership and the Jewish Occupation?
It is even more difficult to accept the utter silence, bordering on cowardliness where people fails to rise up against such an Authority where more than 80% of the people are below poverty line while the elites; the “returning” leadership enjoys million dinars homes, luxurious cars with drivers for themselves, their wives and mistresses, spending thousand of dinars on dinner and drinks enough to feed several families for a month.
Never understood how brave individuals who faced Israeli tanks and guns with stones and rocks, could become a nations of cowards failing to take up the challenge of popular sustainable and persistent uprising against the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Fatah and against the Israeli Jewish Occupation that lasted some 42 years?
Why are the people so brave before Israeli guns and tanks yet do not take the challenge and march on Ramallah and Gaza and chase the leadership out of office and out of the country?
It is also not so surprising that the Palestinian people accepted the role of refugees, living in miserable camps, with open sewers, waiting for the end of the month to collect their rations of dry milk, flour, and cooking oil from UNRWA rather than take the challenge taking over such services themselves.
No wonder the Palestinian people and leadership became a nation of beggars, “shahadeen”with no self respect and dignity and a leadership of thieves. Too bad for the Palestinian people after being the model of well educated hard working intelligent people they became the laughing stock of the Arabs, and the world. Thanks to such a self serving corrupt incompetent inept leadership of thugs, thieves and collaborators. Never seen a case where a leadership not only failed to liberate but succeed in destroying a people and a dream.
Thank you Yasser Arafat, thank you Mahmoud Abbas, thank you Ahmed Qurai, thank you Farouk Qadoumi, thank you Saeb Eurikat, thank you Yasser Abed-Rabou, thank you Mohamed Dahlan, thank you Jibril Rajoub, thank you Tayeb Abdul-Raheem, thank you Khalid Mishaal, thank you Hakam Balawi and thank you Azzam Al-Ahmed, thank you all for succeeding where Israel failed. For and on behalf of more than 7 million people for your successful dedicated leadership. We deserve you, as you deserve us.
http://www.jeffersoncorner.com/what-is-wrong-with-the-palestinians-a-whole-lot/#more-468
Dear Sami
I fully agree with al you wrote about Fateh and the old man,
You asked, “Who would believe that Israel charges its hero and prime minister, Rabin, with failing to adhere to its laws limiting bank accounts of officials outside Israel, forcing him to resign yet accept Yasser Arafat’s private and personal decision to transfer millions of dollars of the “people’s money”
I BELIEVE, because in case of Rabin, it is Israeli money, while in the case of the old man it not their money and its transferred to their man, Their Jewish man ARAFAT.
Who would believe that ARAFAT, ABU AMMAR, who said “Shaheedan, Sahaheedan” is a Jew?
Don’t be surprised. I shall explain how Arafat managed to turn the smart, intelligent, educated, hard working, honest, nationalist Palestinians into a nation of buggers, and many, many into traitors, informers and collaborators working for and on behalf of the enemy. And if you agree with my “Conspiracy” theory, you will find answers for all the question you have asked, and would stop blaming the Palestinian people, the victims of Arafat.
In a famous lecture (after oslo) in London, Hani al-Hassan (an old Fateh Guard, the poltical adviser of Arafat) tried to Justify going to Oslo. He claimed (Hanging Fateh treason on Nasir’s hook) that after 1967 war Nasir told Arafat and Fateh leaders close to Arafat: its over, you has no choice other than reaching a peace deal with Israel.
Consequently, according to Al Hassan, after 1967, Fateh decided its time for preparing the Palestinians to accept a peace deal with Isreal.
Based on Al-Hassan’s statement, I am one of Palestinians who claimd that, the Massacres of Palestinians, in Black September, in Jordan, in Lebanese civil war, the performance of Fateh during the 1982 war on Lebanon, its alignment with Saddam that lead to the Nakba of half million Palestinian living in Kuwait, starving Palestinians, especially those on the PLO payroll, for several months before Oslo, were steps in the process of preparing the Palestinians for “peace” that paved the way Oslo, and selling Oslo to Palestinians, and the return of “Victorous” Afrafat to Ramallah to achieve what Israeal failed to achive put an end to the First Intifadah.
II am, here, saying Fateh was created to do what it dit during the 51 years (not 45) as you mentioned.
In adopting armed struggle, Fateh put itself to the Left of Nasir and Arab nationalist movement.
Fateh was not the only player, the Syrian Seperation coup funded by Sauda undermined the Liberation Nationalists option, and bosted Fatah and its Palestinian Option.
Both Fateh, based in Syria and, and Pre-assad Syrian regime, pushed, jointly Nasir to 1967 trap, that paved the way in 1969 for:
Here, let us remember that Nasir’s rejected Baghdad Pact , known as Dwight Eisenhower‘s Project, to contain the Soviet Union by having a line of strong states along the USSR’s southwestern frontiercontain.
Nasser felt that the pro-western Baghdad Pact posed a threat to Arab Nationalism. As a response, Egypt and Syria united into the United Arab Republic. At that time, 1958 Syria was as described by Patrick Seal, a feather in wind storm. It is Nasir who protected Syria from the wind storm blowing from Iraq, Turkey, and Lebanon.
The United Arab Republic boasted 1958 revolution in Iraq.
“On July 14, 1958, the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown in a military coup. The new government was led by General Abdul Karim Qasim who withdrew from the Baghdad Pact, opened diplomatic relations with Soviet Union and adopted a non-aligned stance; Iraq quit the organization shortly thereafter. The organization dropped the Baghdad Pact moniker in favor of CENTO at that time.”
“The toppling of a pro-Western government in the Iraq 14 July Revolution, along with the internal instability, caused President Chamoun to call for U.S. assistance.”
The United Arab Republic boasted also in the same year, 1958, the setting up of the first cells of the Fateh movement in Kuwait
The formation of Fatah was the first nail driven in the coffen of Arab nationalist movement at its 1958 peak, and 1967 and the death (poisoning) of Nasir was the last nail.
I remember, and understand how and why, after the the success of Algerians revolution and the 1961 Syrian seperation coup, tens of Palestinian faction have grown like mashrom within Palestinian in Daispora. Mainly in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Gaza. But I failed till this very moment to find a reason for creation of Fatah in 1958 (the peak of Arab nationalism).
All events, many meetings, discussions, I held since early sixties confirmed my old theory.
I always argued, how Israel succeeded in assasinating almost all Fatah founders, such as Kamal Edwan, Kamal Nasir, Abu Jehad, Abu Iyad, Abu Alhall, etc.. and fail to get Arafat. His life was saved many, many times, after Balck September in Jordan, The western fleet arrived twice to Labanon to save his ass, Americans rescued him when his plane crushed in Lybian desert. I know many stories about Israel bombing places, building, in both Syria and Lebabon, few minures after Arafat leaving it.Some would say, how would Israel kill such asset??
My answer is:
After his great sevices to zionist project, in putting Palestinians on the “Peace track” that lead to Oslo and his “Victorous” return to end the first Intifada, Arafat became a liabilty more than an asset.
In Camp David two, he reached and agreement with Barak, but he needed time sell it to Palestinians, Arabs and Muslems, but he failed to deliver. Barak left the office to Sharon, to complete the “Independance” And Arafat lost controll on the Palestinian street with the second Intifidah.
The asset became a Liability. Zionist Elders decided to keep the profile of Arafat as the “Historic God father of Palestinian Armed Resistance” rather than exposing him and paving the way for a New Fatah leader like Barghouti. Especially with the Bahae Mahmoud Abbas Merza, ready to complete the mission.
A Dead “Palestinian HERO” is better than a living EXPIRED EXPOSED SPY.
A reply to my comment at Palestine Think Tank
Originally Posted By Jeff Blankfort
You are lucky to be alive to tell your tale. I remember speaking in Irbid, Jordan in late July or August of 1970, before Black September to the head of the PLO office in that town and had not yet taken the measure of Arafat. Nasser had reportedly just agreed to the Rogers Plan which dismayed his supporters within Fatah.. I suggested to the PLO and Fatah member in Irbid, naively that Nasser was jealous of Arafat. He said, no, Arafat is jealous of the Palestinian people, that,in fact, Arafat had been selected to be the head of Fatah because he was the least charismatic, the poorest Arabic speaker, and the worst looking of the founding cadre and was the least likely to become a dominating figure like Nasser or Khadfi. Little did they know that he excelled them all in deviance and deceit. Not longer after our conversation, which I had repeated to one, he was purged.Another and one of the last myths of Arafat was that he was under essentially house arrest by the Israelis in Ramallah and was unable to leave his compound where he would entertain and befuddle international solidarity activists on a routine basis. It was clear going by the compound when I was there in 2003, that there was nothing preventing him from leaving except fear of being confronted with the complaints of “his people.” There were no guards, no Israelis anywhere in sight and life went on outside the compound as normally as possible considering the circumstances. The group I was with requested a visit to see the “rais,” which was apparently visiting groups were obliged to do and I was looking forward to seeing the old man and ask him why he just didn’t leave but his schedule was full and I never got the chance. Being suspicious of everything Arafat did, I noticed on several occasions that when complaints against the lack of democracy in the PA and other problems began building up and inside or not, Arafat was being criticized on the street, the Israelis would start making threatening noises about doing something to him and, of course, the criticism would stop and people would rally around their threatened leader. It’s an ancient game and always seems to work.
If one wants further evidence that Arafat was working for the Israelis, this might do the job. The leader of the same group with whom I was in Ramallah had visited Arafat in Tunis during the First Intifada and had seen him a number of times. A conversation about US aid to Israel came up and my friend and her companion were shocked to hear Arafat tell them that he was opposed to stopping US aid to Israel (and for sure, we never have seen any kind of major campaign in the US calling for such an obvious essential measure while he was alive. Add to that, Arafat was very cozy with a former Yeshiva student and ardent Zionist named Alan Solomonow who just retired after many years as the head of the Middle East Desk of the American Friends Service Committee in San Francisco where he had been boycotted for years because of his failure to include Palestinians and other Arab-Americans in the committee that dealt with the region.
Back in the 90s, the Council of Arab Presidents had many meetings with the AFSC leadership, including a visit from one of its top officials in Philadelphia, in an effort to get him replaced, in which I was involved,and the Council was told that they had to work with Solomonow if they chose to work with the AFSC and so they boycotted the organization, as well. (I wrote a long article about this situation for a magazine I edited at the time which, unforunately, has yet to be put online). In any case, the president of the Council sent a long letter to Arafat in Tunis, describing in detail Solomonow’s actions that had been detrimental to the interests of the Palestinian cause. They never got an answer, well, at least, not in writing. A couple of months later I saw a picture in a magazine dealing with the Middle East and there was a photo of the two Israeli agents, Arafat and Solomonw with their arms around each other. The title of my article had been, “With friends like these who needs enemies?”
Originally Posted By Sami Jamil Jadallah
Uprooted Palestinian. As a former soldier with JD in law from top ranking school, I believe that people under occupation have every right to fight and resists the occupation by all means including armed means. There is no exception in international law for Jewish Occupation. However smart resistance is a must, not reckless and irresponsible. I think the Palestinians were more effective in resisting the Occupation with rocks and stones during the First Intifada than they were effective during Second Intifada which was ill planned, ill organized and recklessly mismanaged by Arafat and his gangs. Keep in mind that it was Arafat who undermined the First Intifada and was generously rewarded by Israel for putting an end to the Itifada.
As a practicing Muslim, well versed in the Quran and with some intelligence, I do not need the opinions of these �ulamas� with irresponsible �fatwa�s� that gave justifications for murder and killings through suicide bombing whether it is Gaza, Jerusalem, Baghdad or Kabul. These �Ulamas� are the main source of retardation, ignorance, failures, violations of human values and lives in the Muslim world. They have hijacked Islam and gave themselves a role that is simply not there in Islam and became to act like the Rabbis in ancient Israel. I do not need an idiot and a fool to give me a �fatwa� and teach me Islam.
There is a big difference between Hamas and Hezbollah leadership, a very big difference. Hezbollah has a responsible leadership that acts with discipline and have control over its armed staff. Sheik Hassan Nasrallah admitted his mistake not taking into account the consequences for kidnapping Israeli soldiers. Hezbollah gave Israel a fight for its life, Hamas simply allowed Israel to devastate Gaza. Please it is unfair to Hezbollah and its political and military leadership to compare it with Hamas political and military leadership. Yes, Hamas political and military leadership was reckless and irresponsible before, during and after the War on Gaza. Hezbollah never ever used suicide bombings even when Israel was occupying South Lebanon. Suicide bombing if not against Islam and its values, then it is against human value system and morality. Hamas leadership that recruited, trained and set recruits on suicide mission is guilty of cold blooded murder. Hamas that transformed the mourning of a dead son to a celebration to collect a check for $20,000 is as guilty as those who fund such blood money. Well that is my opinion. I am for fighting the Israeli Occupation soldiers and armed settlers but not through suicide bombings. Frankly I think a civil uprising like we saw in Iran and burning of all Israeli issued IDs is a good start, and tattooing Israeli issued numbers on wrest, reminding Israel of its Nazi past is a second good step. All the bravado of Hamas and they managed to kill little more than a dozen of Israeli soldiers. Common please give me a break.
We need to keep in mind that both Hamas and Fatah are not committed to ending the Occupation First, they are committed to their own ideology and agenda first, ending the Occupation will put both Hamas and Fatah and Jihad out of business. Then they have to learn how to build schools, build and operate hospitals, clean garbage, run traffic, have professional police force that respect civil and human rights of citizens. All are simply not ready for that. It is not their agenda to build a nation. It is their agenda to perpetuate their self interest. In the end I think what we need is for the UN to take over releasing our people from being held hostage by Israel, PLO, Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front, Democratice Front, and Stupid Front.
Originally Posted By Shaukat
It’s amusing to read the writer how he pushes all Palestinian groups – Islamists, secular and nationalists – under his imaginary carpet with the same broom. By discrediting everyone – maybe, he is suggesting that the Palestinians have no choice but to live under Zionist/Jewish yoke.Maybe, the author should open is eyes and tell us which nation is not ruled by corrupt leaders? I am not going to mention Chevez or Ahmadinejad – because both can jolt some sensitive nerves. Afterall, both have not much of respect for the Arab rulers or the USrael – and too bad, Ahmadinejad is a Shia, who supports Hamas and Islamic Jihad while considers Fatah and other nationalist groups working for their personal gains.
The past history of Palestinian resistance have proved again and again – that Palestinian will never regain their land without the help of the non-Arab Muslim Ummah. Without Islam – Arabs have no history of international achievements for the last 1400 years.
Originally Posted By Issam
My question to Sami Jamil Jadallah is: What would have happened to the Palestinian cause should dahlan’s mob succeeded in their Gaza coup ? It seems to me that the author is more interested in oslo, road maps, futile peace negotiations and more PA atrocities.As for suicide bombing of innocent people is abhorrent and counter-productive, however, and this is in no way accepting it, should be taken in the proper contexst. While israel, its protectors and its cohorts in the pa, hav a free hand killing innocent Palestinians, as has been demonstrated in Gaza and the WB.
It is healthy to ctiticise a methoodolgy, but failure to provide a workable, reasonable and achievable alternative will certainly lead to the ultimate treason to our Palestinian rights.
A communist, socialist, anarchist, so called progressive, and nationalist solutions, brought us to our current miserable situation. Fire should be faught with fire. Roses & olive branches have been burnt by the occupiers & their gangs. The last 60 years of our Nakba demonstrates the pity state of some of the so called writers & thinkers, they are in great need to shread their blinders in order to see the big picture!Issam.
Originally Posted By Sami Jamil Jadallah
True, Islamic culture and civilians enriched Arabs and what we think is Arab civilization is in fact Islamic civilization. No one can deny that Islam was and is enriched by non-Arabs who were the backbone of Islamic civilizations from architecture, to science to philosophy, sociology, to mathematics even philosophy. But Islam of the past is not Islam of today. If Islam was to come now, I doubt it will spread beyond Mecca. What we have now is Islam of the Taliban�s, Islam of the terrorists in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Iraq, in Kashmir, in India, in Somalia, in Yemen, and in Indonesia, Islamist terrorists who never built a school, built a hospital or clinic, of even a bakery. Their business is death and not life. I think my long history toward the Jewish Occupation is well established and I do not need any one to teach me or give me lessons on nationalism, on Arabism certainly not on Islam and the Umma. The Muslim world is in such a mess, because illiterate retarded drug blushers have hijacked Islam. I am sure you agree with me, that the terrorists of Pakistan or India or Kashmir or Afghanistan could never build such a magnificent civilization as the one we seen from Spain, to Mali to Iran, to India, and Indonesia. Before Palestinians can call on Umma for help, they need to clean their act. Thank you for your input.
Originally Posted By Sami Jamil Jadallah
Issam.. I suggest you reread the essay to truly understand what I think of Oslo, Road Map, Peace Negotiations. Oslo is nothing more than a management contract between Israel and the PLO, whereby Israel got rid of the First Intifada, got rid of substantial financial burden of funding the civil affairs of the Occupation and passed all the expense to the PLO while keeping the benefits of continued occupation such as expanding settlements and water resources. The PLO got its chance again to do what is was doing all alone, fleecing the national treasury. Oslo was nothing more than financial windfall for Arafat and his cronies to feed their own private bank account. As for Dahlan, has he won in Gaza, it would have given Israel peace and security Fatah agreed and contracted to provide, and he could have made money like never before. Of course he will end up setting a network of barbershops to shave the beards and heads of some 500,000 Hamas members on weekly basis, and could make millions operating such a network of barbershops. Let us keep in mind that it was the American Zionist Jew Elliot Abrams who developed and is considered the Godfather of the Road Map. It was designed so that Israel keep doing what it does best, confiscate land and build settlements and Jewish Roads. Never understood
Originally Posted By Izabella
Hmm. What do you suggest the Palestinian people do to have a change of leaders? Revolt when they have the arab leaders, Us, Europe against them backing the PA? Im not sure that would work.You know, If the zionists wanted to create a state in some other country then we would see the same scenarios there as these scernarios were planned and set in to action by the enemy (like making sure the mainstram Palestinian organisation would be someone like fateh). It is not fair to blame the Palestinian people for it. And as for corruption, name one arab country where the rulers arent corrupted? You make it sound as if Palestinians are the only arab people that live under a corrupt leadership when that is the case of all the Arabs. Education is still as important to Palestinian (people) as it was before, people are obessesed about education in Palestine, the first thing they ask you is either “what do you study” or “what did you study”. of course, that is no thanks to the PA, but it is thanks to the people that you seem to be very angry with for reasons i cant relate to as i dont blame the people for the wrongs comitted by the leadership.
The only way the PA managed to get young men in their security force was by handpicking youngsters with little education to join them by offering them the salary of a doctor and giving them the illusion that they are defending Palestine, of course a young occupied man would accept such an offer.
There are refugee camps in Palestine that are in a better shape than poor areas in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world so i dont see how you can make it sound like Palestinians are the failures of Arabs when clearly that is not the reality. I support your harsh tone against the leadership but not against the people that have suffered for a long time, what should they do, start a civil war when there is a good chance it will backfire on them, tarnish their image in the media (that by the way chose to be supportive of mosavis demonstrations for selfish reason and not because they actually cared about the cause).
As for your opinion on suicide bombings, i definatly agree with you on that part and that is one of the reasons why i despite being religious and despite of my hate for fateh and the PA, PLO, Arafat and the corrupted politics crew cant bring myself to consider hamas as the best option for Palestine. They made such a stupid misstake by adopting the suicide bombings (which were actually introduced to Palestine by secular organisations) that i cant see them as a leadership that can deliver what Palestinians need. It is OK to make a misstake, but such a STUPID misstake is not allowed if u claim to be working for the Palestinian cause and people as they were supposed to know better had they really been working for the greater good of Palestine. Even if 100 percent of the Palestinian people had supported it (which of course isent the case), the leadership must reject it and make sure to proove to the people how it is a bad action.
By the way, you should attack the failed leadership in Arabic in a Palestinian website or newspaper as at the end of the day, in order for your message to actually make a change, it has to first be sent to the Palestinians in Palestine and the refugee camps around Palestine. I do respect what you want to say because i believe all you say comes from love for your people, i only disagree with being unfair in your judgement against the people as i have read many purely unfair and racist comments on various websites sent by arabs that hate the Palestinians thanks to the misstakes of mainly fateh and these guys end up writing totally untrue statements and stuff they know nothing about, i dont want them to find ammunition in your article. All the misstakes that exist in Palestine exist in their own countries as well yet they only see the wrongs in Palestine when they have the same misstakes in their own countries taking place and this comes from their hate for Palestinians, none of them mention how Palestinians built Jordan and helped out in the Arab Gulf states like Kuwait, none of them mentions how the top med students in AUB as an example have been Palestinians year after year, (but cant work in Lebanon as doctors) they dont see any of that because they are only interested in seeing bad stuff , like this other day i saw a extremly nationalistic jordanian on youtube that referred to Palestinians as “falasTIZIYE and mokhayamjiye”, never mind that Palestinians built up next to everything that fools like him take pride in when it comes to Jordan. Such racists should not be given free ammunition by people like you who have the heart in its right place, that is why i wish you would have chosen your words more carefully.
Ps. My father came back from Nablus recently, he told me everyone he met there hated mahmoud Abbas, and my brother (who also was there recently) used the words “emwall3a ma3on”, he was referring to how angry people were with the sulta.
Originally Posted By Sami Jamil Jadallah
Issam.. I suggest you reread the essay to truly understand what I think of Oslo, Road Map, Peace Negotiations. Oslo is nothing more than a management contract between Israel and the PLO, whereby Israel got rid of the First Intifada, got rid of substantial financial burden of funding the civil affairs of the Occupation and passed all the expense to the PLO while keeping the benefits of continued occupation such as expanding settlements and water resources. The PLO got its chance again to do what is was doing all alone, fleecing the national treasury. Oslo was nothing more than financial windfall for Arafat and his cronies to feed their own private bank account. As for Dahlan, has he won in Gaza, it would have given Israel peace and security Fatah agreed and contracted to provide, and he could have made money like never before. Of course he will end up setting a network of barbershops to shave the beards and heads of some 500,000 Hamas members on weekly basis, and could make millions operating such a network of barbershops. Let us keep in mind that it was the American Zionist Jew Elliot Abrams who developed and is considered the Godfather of the Road Map. It was designed so that Israel keep doing what it does best, confiscate land and build settlements and Jewish Roads. Never understood why Saeb always insists on adhering to the Road Map as developed by Elliot Abrams.
Originally Posted By Sami Jamil Jadallah
Izabella� thank you. I do not care about corruption within the Arab world, they are not under occupation and I am not my brother�s keeper. I am focused on Palestine and ending the Jewish Occupation. Yes, I think the Palestinians should march on Ramallah with sticks and stones and chase Mahmoud Abbas and all of the PA, Fatah and PLO out of Ramallah and I would suggest the same thing the people of Gaza should do. Then they should call on the UN to come in and take over from Israel, the Palestinian Authority and then Hamas in Gaza. They should demand the opening of Gaza sea port and keep access to Egypt and Israel closed for ever. Civil uprising that does not quit until the Occupation end. As for Arab media.. No one will ever print such criticism of the Palestinian people or authority not even Alquds Alarabi of London. I am convinced that the Palestinian Trio of Arafat, Abbas and Qurai all colluded with Israel to keep the Occupation going while becoming managers. One has to wonder where Fatah gets the money to support and pay its some 30,000 active members if it does not skim money for the people�s budget. Nabil Amr (remember PA thugs shot him, his leg was amputated and he never demanded to know who did it? I guess the price was right), just admitted the need for self financing and funding of Fatah and the money can only come from Israel in exchange for service rendered such as �down payment� on prime land forming the main settlement blocks as suggested by Qurai or by stealing the money from the national treasury. If the people have any respect or dignity they would have chased the Ramallah leadership out long time ago.
Originally Posted By Al khansa
I always find people who have to quote their qulaifications tp make a point, a trifle boorish..
and I have to wonder about the motivations here…
Love them or hate them……Hamas, in the words of .Interior Minister Fathi Hammad
�We managed to achieve what was not achieved by 22 Arab states when we say �No, we will not give up our rights to the USA and Israel,��
As for the suicide bombing…..people left with little choice will do what they will to make a point…
Originally Posted By uprooted palestinian
“As a practicing Muslim, well versed in the Quran and with some intelligence, I do not need the opinions of these â��ulamasâ��Sami
You are repeating my words, ” I claim that I know Islam quite well and don’t need fatwas from anybody.”, Since you are well versed in the Quran. I would like to draw your attention to some verses instructing yous to fight aganst those who started the fight against you. To slay them wherever you find them, and drive them out of the places they drove you out , And to attack them like manner as they attacked you .
2.190 . Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you , but begin not hostilities . Lo! Allah loveth not , aggressors .
2.191 . And slay them wherever ye find them , and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out , for persecution is worse than slaughter . And fight not with them at the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there , but if they attack you ( there ) then slay them . Such is the reward of disbelievers .
2.192 . But if they desist , then lo! Allah is Forgiving , Merciful .
2.193 . And fight them until persecution is no more , and religion is for Allah . But if they desist , then let there be no hostility except against wrongdoers .
2.194 . The forbidden month for the forbidden month , and forbidden things in retaliation . And one who attacketh you , attack him like manner as he attacked you . Observe your duty to Allah , and know that Allah is with those who ward off ( evil ) .
So, sami, Quran instruct you to fight your occupier, untill ending the occupation, and I assume you agree with me that the so called Isarel is also a Palestinian occupied land. Setllers are not only those occupying 1967 land. Consequentely, I consider all “peacful jews” even our friend Uri, they are settler until they go to where they come from.
Human Freedom is the first pillar of Islam, God created you and me free even to deny his existance, and therefore I am against anybody who picks the above verses out its historical context, to divide the world in Dar Al Islam and Dar Al Harb.
I fully agree with what you wrote about “âlulamas” being the main source of retardation, ignorance, failures, violations of human values and lives in the Muslim world. They have hijacked Islam and gave themselves a role that is simply not there in Islam and became to act like the Rabbis in ancient Israel. I do not need an idiot and a fool to give me a â��fatwaâ�� and teach me Islam.” but it’s unfail to generalize. I call them Ulama aLsultan. Its not them who hijacked Islam,
Islam was Hijacked by Moawiya 30 years after the death of our prophet. I shall e-mail you a part of my deserted Draft of a book wriiten several years ago, to know where I stand.
Yes there is a big ideological difference between Hezbollah, and Hamas, and its politics, and resistance that btoght them together.
Since 1400 years Suna were the Rulling Party, and shea were the opposition Party. Shea, are looking foward prepairing the stage for the appearance of Mahdi, like the Jews christoan zionists preparing the stage for the appearance of Messeeh, While Sunna are looking backwords to Sadre Al Islam.
Politically, yes there is a big diffreance in discipline and control over armed staff. But again it is unfair to compare, Gaza Getto with Lebanon open to Syria and Tahran. Geopolitics acted all the time for Hezbollah and acted all the time against Hamas. Should I remined you what Hasralla said about learning from palestinians and building on it. Should I remind you what he said and promised during the war in Gaza. to be fair, and taking into consideration Gaza conditions, topograhy, neigbours, logistics, the internal fifth pillars, I would say that Hamas performed better than HEZBOLLA in July war.
Finally, I agree, the first intifadah is great, But Sami, the first intifada is history now, Arafat retuned to end that Intifada, and his PA was created to prevent a second intifada fighting occupation with stones.
I would add If arafat stayed in Tonis, Israel would have left Gaza without condition, like it did in Lebanon several years after.
Filed under: Palestine, Ramallah Traitors, Religion | Tagged: Arafat, Culture and Heritage, Fateh, Hamas Resistance movement, Occupation Terrorism, Occupied W Bank, Rizzostine, The Axis of Resistance, The Zio-temporary entity, This is Zionism | Comments Off on What is wrong with Sami Jamil Jadallah?
By Gilad Atzmon • Jul 25th, 2009 at 13:24 • Category: Analysis, Gilad Atzmon, Gilad’s Choice, Israel, Newswire, Opinions and Letters, Our Authors, Religion, Zionism
Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest invention is a grotesque Austrian gay celebrity who comes to America to try to boost the ratings of his fashion television program. Bruno is one of the most repugnant characters ever to appear on the big screen, something Baron Cohen probably takes pride in. Bruno is Cohen’s third gross character in succession. At times it seems as if Cohen is seeking pleasure in being repelling. After mimicking an ignoramus stereotype of a non-black suburban male who revels in Black and Jamaican culture (Ali G) and a Kazakh misogynist, racist buffoon and anti-Semite (Borat), Bruno can be grasped as another creative attempt to challenge the Western liberal discourse.
Those who insist on approving Cohen’s intellectual aspirations argue in his favor that he manages to bring to light some of our inherent Western diseases: racism (Ali G), xenophobia (Borat) and homophobia (Bruno). I am slightly doubtful of such an interpretation of Cohen’s intellectual endeavor. None of Cohen’s protagonists can evoke empathic feelings amongst the people they harass. Instead they seem to compete amongst themselves for the ultimate Vulgar Award. Whether it is Borat, who approaches his host’s dinner table and his guests with his excrement in a plastic bag, or Bruno, who shares with us his anally intimate love games, Cohen’s protagonists are rejected for being truly and genuinely disgusting.
Yes, Cohen’s characters can be entreating, they can make us laugh; yet, the fact that they are rejected contemptibly is far from telling about our society. However, these scenes may throw some light about their creator, Mr Baron Borat Bruno Ali G Cohen and the social conditions he himself is imbued in.
Two years ago while in the process of gathering information about Cohen previous film Borat, I found out that Cohen had put back his wedding to former Home and Away star Isla Fisher due to some deep ‘religious’ reasons. “The couple,” so I learned, “have postponed the big day so Isla could study the Bible in Israel before converting to Sacha’s religion of Judaism.” This was enough to convince me at the time that Cohen wasn’t that different from his chauvinistic, tribally-orientated protagonist Borat. For those who fail to understand the meaning of the above, Cohen is not just Jewish, he didn’t just ask his fiancée to join his extended family, he didn’t send her to a London Rabbi either. He really went for the ‘full Monty,’ that is: the Israeli experience. Cohen is in fact a devout Zionist and it would be interesting to elaborate and analyze his work from a Jewish Identity-politics perspective.
Though Ali G, Borat and Bruno have nothing to do with Judaism or Zionism, their identity struggle is, interestingly enough, a complete repetition of the Zionist identity complex. As in the case of Zionism, Ali G, Borat and Bruno are in a state of a complete dismissal of others. As if this is not enough, they are also celebrating their symptoms in public and at the expense of their victims.
Zionism, similarly, is a celebration of a newly-invented Jewish Identity. The Zionists set themselves to do it all on the expense of the Palestinian people. Until recently, some Zionist leaders refused to acknowledge the existence of Palestinian people. Zionism is a political setting that inherently dismisses others. One can look at the IDF’s brutality towards Palestinians, another can reflect on David Ben Gurion’s famous quote: “It doesn’t matter what the Goyim say, all that matters is what Jews do”. Interestingly enough Ali G, Borat and Bruno are celebrating a very similar form of dismissal. They are self-centered protagonists who care mostly about themselves and their own unique actions and symptoms.
However, as much as Bruno is by far Cohen’s most repulsive character to date, he is also, emotionally at least, the most developed character out of the three. Unlike Ali G and Borat, Bruno is self-conscious. He has clear desires and he struggles to fill his inner void. In fact the audience is mobilized as a witness to Bruno’s evolving self-awareness. As great as Bruno’s desires are, his repeated failures are no less than a total devastation. He is desperate to be accepted as a celebrity. He would do whatever it takes to get there. He would swap his iPod for an African cute little toddler just to ‘appear’ like Madonna; he would try to drag Ron Paul into a porn scene just to hit the news with an ‘item’. He interprets success in symbolic terms rather than anything that is related to merit.
Jewish nationalism is very similar. It is a project run by Israelis who crave to be a people like other people. But for some bizarre reason they fail to understand what the notion of ‘other people’ stands for. They can only understand it symbolically in terms of a set of material identifiers.
When you ask an Israeli ‘how can you be so cruel to the Palestinians?’ The answer will be thrown back at you, “Haven’t the Americans been cruel with their Indians? Didn’t the Brits do the same in India?”
The Israeli may even interpret state terrorism and barbarism as a natural symbol of sovereignty.
Bruno yearns to be a celeb amongst celebrities. The Zionist is craving to join the family of nations. Like Bruno, Zionists understand their nationhood in symbolic terms, they have a flag, an air force, nuclear bombs and wars. For some reason, it is just a genuine compassion which they lack–probably because genuine feeling and authenticity cannot be reduced into mere symbolism. It is the real love to their alleged ‘historic land’ which the Zionist fail to exhibit when shredding it with walls of separation. Like the Zionist, Bruno is pretty much stuck; he cannot transcend himself beyond the symbolic order. As much as the Zionists find it difficult to become an ordinary nation considering their symptoms (non-ethical existence together with racial supremacy), Bruno finds it very hard to integrate into society considering who he is (lacking ethical awareness and imbued in his gay solipsistic (1) universe).
While in his early work Baron Cohen managed to fail to distinguish between Identity and being, in his latest work he may have become aware of this crucial dichotomy. Gay and homosexuality, for instance, are very different categories. While ‘Gay’ refers to an Identity largely associated with a set of symbolic identifiers, homosexuality refers to a sexual preference.
Interestingly enough, throughout the film Bruno operates as a Gay icon. He is totally imbued within the Gay symbolic realm, he swings his buttocks without leaving any room for doubt about who he is and what he stands for: he wears the right clothes and uses the right manner of speech. But then, towards the very last scene, it all changes, Bruno for the first time surrenders to his true authentic sexual desire.
At a certain stage Bruno realises that in order to become a celebrity he would have to be ‘straight’. In the final scene we meet Bruno in a wrestling arena surrounded by rednecks. Bruno, the natural chameleon (2), is now an anti-Gay macho figure. He manages to evoke cheers from his new crowd by spitting some rabid homophobic statements. For a second it works. For the first time in the film Bruno is accepted by his surrounding social reality. Very much like the Assimilated Jew who follows Moses Mendelssohn’s (3) line of thought ‘be a Goy in the street and a Jew in your dwelling’, Bruno is mimicking the ‘straight’ on stage while keeping his true identity hidden, but the truth is chasing him and cannot be concealed.
All of a sudden, his ex-assistant, an authentic homosexual who has been loving Bruno all the way through appears from the crowd. “You are Gay” he shouts to Bruno as he makes his way through the throng. The assistant’s role in the film is similar to Herzl’s and Weizmann’s task within the Zionist epic narrative. Herzl and Weizmann are there to tell their fellow assimilated Jews, ‘stop pretending at being American, French, British, Bolsheviks, Cosmopolitans and Atheists, you are primarily Jews and you better behave accordingly.’
In the film it doesn’t take more than a few seconds before Bruno and his assistant depart into a same-sex act of genuine love making. Seemingly, for the first time Bruno follows his heart rather than banal symbolism. This is obviously a repetition of the Zionist message. As opposed to Mendelssohn deceitful dualism, the Zionists would tell their followers: do not pretend to be a Goy, do not pretend to be a cosmopolitan, do not pretend to be a Marxist, just surrender to your real and true Jewish reality.
But here we do encounter a slight problem. While Bruno has a homosexual reality to safely land upon, it is not clear at all whether there is any Jewish coherent genuine reality except Judaism. The Jewish socialist identity (bund) collapsed half a century ago. The Zionists had been trying to claim a valid and coherent Jewish national secular identity, but all they really present us with is merciless conduct and a barbarian state terrorism that have very little in common with humanity. If there is a Jewish humanist school, the nature of its (uniquely Jewish) value system remains unclear. The lack of a coherent and consistent Jewish secular Identity may explain why all forms of Jewish secularity are highly engaged in symbolism. Whether it is Zionism, Jewish anti-Zionism, Jewish secularism or even Jewish humanism, it is almost always engaged in conveying a symbolic image rather than aiming at the real thing (4).
As much as I find it hard to cope with Cohen’s latest repugnant character, I may as well have to admit that in light of the above realizations of Bruno as an insightful metaphor, the film may not be that bad after all.
1. Solipstic: the belief that the only thing somebody can be sure of is that he or she exists, and that true knowledge of anything else is impossible.
2. Not only is Bruno is a chameleon he is also invented and performed by Britain’s NO 1 chameleon namely Cohen.
3. Moses Mendelssohn (September 6, 1729 – January 4, 1786) was a Jewish thinker largely associated with Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) and with ideas to do with Jewish assimilation.
4. Judaism is also saturated with symbolism, yet, one would expect that Jewish secularization would lead towards an authenticity that goes beyond mere symbolism.
Tagged as: Gilad Atzmon, Jewish Identity, Sacha Baron Cohen, Zionism 
Gilad Atzmon is a jazz musician, composer, producer and writer.
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Filed under: Jews, Religion | Tagged: This is Zionism | Comments Off on Gilad Atzmon – Bruno: A Glimpse into Zionism?
By Gilad Atzmon • Jul 24th, 2009 at 13:40 • Category: Biography, Gilad Atzmon, Gilad’s Choice, Newswire, Our Authors, Religion
“I am what you call a matchmaker,” Rosenbaum is quoted as saying at a July 13 meeting with the two undercover agents.
“I’m doing this a long time,” the complaint says Rosenbaum told the two agents. He then added: “Let me explain to you one thing. It’s illegal to buy or sell organs. … So you cannot buy it. What you do is, you’re giving a compensation for the time.”
As we learn from Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne that “Britain is setting a shameful new record in anti-Semitic incidents this year,” we also happen to be informed by every press outlet about the massive New Jersey Corruption Sweep: A shocking tale of money-laundering and human organ trading led by a bunch of Rabbis.
The NY Times reports “It was replete with tales of the illegal sales of body parts; of furtive negotiations in diners, parking lots and boiler rooms”. In an article titled the “Jewish Launderette” the Israeli Ynet takes it further providing the juicy details. “The FBI raided synagogues and arrested a few Rabbis. One of those who are held in custody is Rabbi Yitzchak Levi Rosenbaum of Brooklyn who is suspected of trading in body parts. He is charged with a decade-long activity selling kidneys, exploiting both ill and poor donators. He would convince a donator to sell his kidney for $10.000. Rabbi Levi Rosenbaum would then sell the kidney to the needy for $160.000.”
I may raise the inevitable question here, can you imagine your local priest or Imam trading in ‘body parts’? Can you think of a Muslim cleric or a pastor trying to buy your kidney or sell you one in a ‘parking lot’ or in a ‘diner’?
I do not think so.
Here is my suggestion to Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary and everyone else who happens to be ‘concerned’ with the ‘rise of anti-Semitism’.
In the light of Israeli brutality, the conviction of gross swindler Madoff and the latest images of Rabbis being taken away by FBI agents, it is about time we stop discussing the rise of anti-Semitism and start to elaborate on the rise of Jewish Crime.
Tagged as: anti-Semitism, Gilad Atzmon, Rabbi Organ sales scandal, Rabbi Rosenbaum
Gilad Atzmon is a jazz musician, composer, producer and writer.
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Three city mayors and several rabbis held in New Jersey corruption inquiry
Filed under: Judaism, Religion | Tagged: anti-semitism, anti-Zionism, Biography, Jewish Crimes | Comments Off on Gilad Atzmon – Time to Talk about the Rise of Jewish Crime?
July 24, 2009 at 6:49 am (Humour, Internet, Religion)
The Western Wall now has its own address on the social networking service, allowing believers around the globe to have their prayers placed between its 2,000 year-old-stones without even leaving their armchairs.
The service’s Web site says petitioners can tweet their prayers and they will be printed out and taken to the wall, where they will join the thousands of handwritten notes placed by visitors who believe their requests will find a shortcut to God by being deposited there.
The wall, in Jerusalem’s Old City, is all that remains of the second biblical Jewish temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. It stands where the bible says King Solomon built the first temple, which was destroyed by the Babylonians more than 600 years earlier.
The Tweet Your Prayers site does not identify its founders, saying only that the driving force behind it is a “young man from Tel Aviv”.
No charge is made for placing a prayer at the wall. Visitors to the Web site are invited to make donations by credit card and it has sponsored links to an outdoor reception hall on the nearby Mount of Olives and a publisher of custom-made prayer books.
Throughout the ages, Jews have prayed at the Western Wall, and many others have made courtesy calls.
Recent VIP visitors include Pope Benedict XVI, Barack Obama when he was a U.S. presidential candidate and film star Leonardo DiCaprio, whose bodyguards were arrested for allegedly assaulting three photographers during a scuffle at the site.
Tweet Your Prayers opened earlier this month but for several years, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation has operated a fax hot line and a Web site where people overseas can send their prayers and have them printed out and placed in the wall’s crevices.
Twice a year, at Passover in the spring and the Jewish New year in the fall, the wall’s rabbi clears out the accumulated notes which are buried in accordance with Jewish custom, which forbids the destruction of writings that mention God, such as worn or damaged Torah scrolls, prayer books and other religious articles.
The Tweet Your Prayers site’s Frequently Asked Questions page asks what recourse users have if their prayers are not answered.
“Take it up with the Big Guy upstairs,” is the reply. “We’re just the middlemen!”
Filed under: Internet and Communication, Judaism, Religion | Comments Off on TWEET THE LORD
By Adel Samara • Jul 23rd, 2009 at 12:23 • Category: Analysis, Culture and Heritage, Israel, Newswire, Opinions and Letters, Palestine, Religion, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Zionism
(In the picture, all woman march in Bil’in, poster says, “We will protest the wall till it falls!”) While writing my coming book about women, I had the opportunity to read two books published in Arabic and dealt with Palestinian women in West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBG).
What I offer here is not a review of these books, rather a few comments focusing on the following aspects:
□ Western feminists who came and wrote on Palestinian feminism.
□ The response of Palestinian feminists.
□ The absent dimensions in both.
The criticism of Palestinian feminists to western feminists is based on the latter liberal and radical orientation. Unfortunately, Palestinians fell into two pitfalls:
□ Their use of the general term “western” avoiding the importance of differentiation between the large variety of peoples in the west, i.e. Capitalists, leftists, religious, Marxists, liberals…etc. This will not be discussed below.
□ Distancing themselves, i.e. Palestinian feminists, from class dimension in the Palestinian struggle, including that of women.
It is clear that “western” feminists did not deal with the class issue, because they themselves are not Marxists and some are actually opposed to Marxism. Their point of reference, therefore, was not class analysis since they are either liberal or radical feminists. That is why, they failed to deal with the class weakness in the Palestinian feminist discourse and struggle, and hence the focus of their critique was the weakness of Palestinian feminism. Both groups, the Western and the Palestinian feminists, lack class dimension, and this is my point of criticism for both.
But, Palestinian women were and still are the real component of the Palestinian resistance movement, so class weakness in analysis, struggle and discourse is shared. (See below).
The writings that I referred to above shows that “western feminists” were aware for the future of Palestinian women after independence that their fate will be in “kitchen”, which is true but it is nothing new and therefore, does not constitute a new contribution. It is rather a repeat, in a colonial manner of a well known fact, of other experiences that Palestinians are familiar with. Their only contribution was that Palestinian feminism must be rooted, more deeply in feminism itself to protect itself from being seized in the “kitchen”. At best, it is a pre-emptive step.
The irony came from the ground crystallized in the fact that Palestinian resistance, the “secular” current, reached a point of deadlock, it failed to liberate Palestine or even the Occupied Territories of 1967, but even internalized the defeat and accepted the conditions and terms of their triad enemy. [1] Oslo Accords which is no more than a self – rule under the Zionist regime. All these developments took place while “western” feminists continue to agitate against the “coming” threat of national independence, and the Palestinian feminists not consider the importance of class dimension for their struggle. The result, thus far, is that the Palestinian resistance movement internalized the defeat, but the main loser was Palestinian women since they lack a movement that will continue its struggle within social/class bases. On the other hand, women are oppressed in both developments, victory and defeat, as they did not consolidate class struggle, first within the political organizations and then the entire society in general.
The failure of feminists in compounding class and gender on the one hand, and the compromise which the national movement fell into, made the conditions of women more critical, especially since Political Islamists jumped to lead Palestinian national resistance. Finally, Palestinian women seized in the “kitchen’ which is not even equipped for cooking as the West Bank and Gaza Strip are still under the Triad siege.
There is no doubt that class education, culture and struggle might flourish in more developed social formations. But, this is not an absolute condition. Women in the capitalist west still are in the “kitchen” or between the “kitchen”, the office and the factory!
How would it be if the “Cooperatives” Continued?
The following argument is not inclined to attribute all pitfalls to the objective factor, i.e. the underdevelopment of the peripheral capitalist social formation in West Bank and Gaza Strip. People in reality are able to make a change through producing new means according to their real life and its conditions. There is no doubt that real material circumstances create opportunities for development and change that we must grasp.
Since the very beginning of first Palestinian Intifada (1988) as a popular initiative, people raised the slogan of boycotting working for the Zionist economy and consuming its products. Palestinian workers ceased to work inside 1948 – Occupied Palestine, and pioneer women initiated “home cooperatives”, and peasants were encouraged to re-cultivate the land. Those are the three main components of social change.
I don’t have the courage to say that it was a conspiracy when millions and millions of dollars and Dirhams (currency of most Arab Gulf regimes) “rained” on WBG since the first months of the beginning of Intifada! The same happened when resistance movement started in 1967!
Home cooperatives were articulating women, workers and peasants in a model that I called Development by Popular Protection (DBPP). Cooperatives used agricultural products to provide local markets of basic food. This encouraged peasants to cultivate more and encouraged women in Palestinian villages and cities to build simple agro-industries and offered those workers who quit working in Zionist enterprise an employment whether in the agriculture or in local factories which started reshaping their system and orientation. Cooperatives started a line of products to meet the basic food needs of the majority of the Palestinian population.[2] This process strengthened the working relationship among popular classes: workers and poor peasants including women from both, villages and cities. What a great network for grassroots development!
What is most important is that those cooperatives were relatively low-cost. They did need a lot of money, what is called by capitalists “capital”. Raw materials, while cheap, rescued agricultural products which were about to perish as result of the siege.[3] Through this popular social cooperation, there was an early development of a local law of value.
As I noted above, the blockade of the popular initiative was not caused only by the Zionist occupation which is to be expected. Two other parties have also contributed to that blockade:
1) The PLO leadership which empowered it cadres in the WBG with a lot of money to direct the Intifada to become political, dreaming of political independence, a dream that I opposed since the first few months of that Intifada.
2) And the Arab, foreign, mainly western, governments, NGOs, international organizations which also pumped enormous amount of money into the WBG.
To stay in the subject of this article, the “western” feminists and their NGOs were a major source of financing which in the end curtailed local cooperatives, absorbed young women leftist cadres in their modern and well furnished offices, equipped with lap tops, organizing workshops on women rights and gender equality, democracy, hijab, …etc.
While it is true that wage labor never liberated women, but work and cooperation contributed to their real liberation.
Why did the donors, (foreign capital and NGOs), then destroy all that?
The result of the blockade of popular initiatives and women’s class orientation was a golden opportunity for NGOs, or even for an expanded NGOization of the Palestinian resistance movement.
NGOs offered money and resources to liberal, progressive, feminist, academic and politicized women, while women of cooperatives “traditional women in villages and cities” were not included. Yes, bribing was always limited to the elite. If money were to be distributed to the entire society, it will be real charity, luxury, and even “lazy socialism”. That is reason why one would see in the market place in the WBG many posters, books and booklets with elegant and expensive multi-color covers, but they lack any meaningful content and more than that, they have no readers.
The real bitter defeat was when women of radical organizations aligned themselves with “western” feminist NGOs enjoying high salaries and air-conditioned offices. Women of renegade left added to that an open normalization with Zionist women, like the cadres of FIDA organization to give an illustrative example.
Briefly, NGO’s monies were wasted in the so-called Research Offices, and were not invested in the production of basic needs. Not too bad of a result for some women who, instead of being jailed in kitchen, are being jailed in “research” centers!
Between the PLO leadership dreaming of independence and women’s education of “western” feminist NGOs (mainly directed against national and class struggle), the Intifada failed and was aborted from developing into a social and productive Intifada. Yes, the Intifada as a popular initiative was betrayed.
The offspring of Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority, as a formation caged between national independence and colonialism, contained access to social struggle, an area which the left must fill and use especially under a regime of defeat, corruption and comprador policies in spheres of politics, culture and economy. This made lines of class differentiation much clearer.
Moreover, the last elections in WBG (January 2006) presented a route for competition inside factions of Palestinian bourgeoisie. These elections led to a military conflict between:
□ the bureaucratic comprador bourgeois of Ramallah under the name of Fateh, and
□ the bazaar merchant comprador mainly in Gaza Strip under the name of Hamas.
But both were using the same class as a fuel for the semi-civil war, the popular classes!
Unfortunately, since the leftist organizations were dependent on the PA, and women organizations were absorbed by political organizations, there was a lack of a third force to fill in the social and national gap with a class program.
Women, once again missed the golden opportunity.
[1] Core capitalist ruling classes, Zionist Ashkenazi regime and Arab comprador regimes including the Palestinian Authority.
[2]The elite continued shopping in the Zionist Malls.
[3]Since the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the WBG, most of local agricultural products had stopped because the PA decided to end the boycotting of Israeli products.
SOURCE: http://kanaanonline.org/ebulletin-en/ Kana’an eBulletin – Volume IX – Issue 1953
Tagged as: Fatah, Feminism, gaza, Hamas, Intifada, Israel, NGOs, Palestine, PLO, Resistance, WBG (West Bank Gaza), West Bank, Zionism
Adel Samara is PhD in political economy and development, University of Exeter, England. Writer and Communist Political and Class activist. He has been arrested by Jordan, Israel, and the PA.
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Filed under: Palestine, Religion | Tagged: Besieged Gaza Strip., Culture and Heritage, Fateh, First Intifada, Palestinian Liberation Movement PLO, The Axis of Resistance, This is Zionism | Comments Off on Adel Samara – What if Palestinian Feminism was Class Oriented?
By Sami Jamil Jadallah • Jul 22nd, 2009 at 21:36 • Category: Analysis, Education, Features, Israel, Newswire, Palestine, Religion, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Zionism
For a number of years I was an avid participant on “talkback” of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. I quit the forum a couple of years back because I find the majority of the participants; rude, racist, obnoxious, arrogant, contemptuous, vicious, conceited, hypocrites, condescending, inhuman, liars, vengeful, hateful and of course with lots of Chutzpah, they are “Jews” by name only and Zionists by ideology and faith. I guess in so many ways these descriptions define the nature, behavior, ideology, morality and faith of Israeli “Jews” with some important exceptions. Seriously the people and the country are suffering serious mental problems, and are quite sick in so many ways. Perhaps this explains why most leading psychoanalysts are Jewish. Yes, I may be accused of being “Anti-Semitic” but I don’t give a damn, TOZ.
Of course it all started out with the lies that “Palestine was a land without people for people without land”. There is a double lie in this infamous statement. As if Palestinians, the indigenous people of the land for thousands of years, did and do not exist and as if the “Jews” from all over the world constitute “people” in the sense that Germans, Russians, French, Egyptians, Indonesians are one people. The Zionists were able to market the idea because the Christian West was simply too racist and too Anti-Semitic to have too many “Jews” and wanted the “Jews” simply out of Europe. That is why it started out with the Russian Pogroms and ended in the German Holocaust. I think the support Israel gets from Europe and the West is an extension and continuation of this Anti-Semitic feeling that never ceased to exist. Of course with such a tragic history, one can understand why the “Jews” of Israel are really messed up people.
More troublesome is the belief and conviction they are God’s “Chosen People” as if the rest of humanity is God’s trash, and if this is the case, then I wonder why there are some 1.3 Billion Muslims and some 1.7 Billion Christians who simply stuck to their faith knowing they are not God’s “Chosen People”, but God’s trash. I could not imagine what the rest of humanity thinks of all of this if all are deemed “trash” and outcast and not covered with God’s grace. With the likes of Shamir, Begin, Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Peres, Barak, Livni, Olmert, Sharon, Netanyahu, Lieberman, Sheetrit, Aharonovich, Jabotinsky, Ashkenazi, Rabbi Kahane, Rabbi Goldstein and Rabbi Ovadia Josef, one has to question God’s judgment if HE/SHE ever thought that one day this kind of people can claim they are the “Chosen Ones” and who at best can only be described as racist, hateful, criminal killers, murderers, terrorists and land thieves, and they will commit the crimes they committed in Palestine and recently in Gaza all in HIS/HER name.
I am not aware that the ALL Mighty was desperate to have his human creation believe in HIS/HER “Oneness”, but to have the likes of these people as HIS/HER Chosen Ones is a desperate, hasty and regretful act with long historical consequences that we see today in the Apartheid Wall, in the ever expanding Jewish Settlements, in the siege and starvation of Gaza, in the daily humiliations of millions of people at some 650 “security checkpoints” and in the daily theft of land and water. I am sure God and Moses regrets such hasty decision and promise, and I am sure God and Moses never imagined the “Chosen Ones” would turn away from Judaism and embrace Zionism as the true faith of Israeli Jews and most Jews around the world. They simply believe they have to kill whoever is living on the land, they believe in exiling and transferring those remaining on the land, depriving them of their rights to life, liberty and property. I guess Zionism and the unsubstantiated notion of the Promised Land transformed “Jews” from the believers of the Book to land thieves and murderers. They went even further calling the land thieves, trespassers and terrorists, Gush Emunim, the “Block of Faithful”, what Chutzpah. Only Israel’s Zionist “Jews” can do this.
However this is only part of the story. They also believe that when one tells lies and keeps repeating the lies they will become the truth, especially when the cowardly West does not dare to challenge their truth. The world and especially the West does not have what it takes to challenge Israeli “Jews” on the notion of “natural growth in Jewish Settlements” let alone have they the courage to challenge them on their daily crimes in Occupied Palestine and especially Gaza, their continued violations of international laws and their Occupation.
That is why their soldiers commit cold blooded murder; use human shields, kill innocent people, commit massacres and Israelis see nothing wrong with it. They simply adore some one like Rabbi Meir Kahane, they worship Rabbi Goldstein who mowed down Muslim worships in Hebron, they adore their own army that fires tank rounds at children playing on the beach, target civilian apartments, destroy farms and uproot century-old Olive trees for the hell of it. They simply stand up and cheered as their tanks, jets, artillery level Gaza, killing so many innocent women and children and simply destroying the entire Gaza Strip. It looked like the 4th of July and they were cheering as the jets dropped phosphorous bombs on civilian targets. They cheered the power of their destructive force and they simply have no remorse for what they have done to so many hundreds of thousands of people. They are taught in their Yeshivas, killing Arabs is simply an act of divine order and is part of the new Zionist’s faith.
They try to create facts on the ground, through land and water theft, and they claim they are building a “security wall” rather than an “Apartheid Wall” knowing well they are simply stealing the land, the water, destroying farms simply because they see nothing wrong with it and then they tell the world it is for “security” as if only the Israeli Jews are entitled to have peace and security and the Palestinians are simply God’s trash. If they are talking security then let them build their own wall a mile high along the 67 borders and no one will give a damn. Let them live in the Ghetto they have formed around themselves.
The daily humiliations, millions of Palestinians had to endure should tell all of us something about this new Israeli “Jewish” psyche as part of a grand scheme to dehumanize the Palestinians just like the Nazis did when they commenced to dehumanize the Jews and ended up putting them in death camps. Palestinians have to wait for hours simply to go from one village to an adjacent village or to access their farms, and Israelis do this to supplement their land theft, ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Jerusalem, destruction and demolition of thousands of homes, with 6,000 Palestinian homes slated for demolition in Jerusalem. The Israelis simply do not see anything wrong with their occupation; they see nothing wrong with what they and their army and government are doing to the Palestinians. Israelis and their cousins in the US have some serious issues.
Soldiers manning these security checkpoints make a young man from Nablus play the fiddle so they can have a laugh while hundreds of old, men and women – some very sick – have to wait for hours just to go through security, in scenes reminding us of old Cowboy movies when cattle had to go through revolving metal doors. Some soldiers bored with their job stay talking with their boyfriends or girlfriends or simply entertain themselves while hundreds if not thousands wait in the hot sun or cold rain – waiting their turn to go through. And Bibi Netanyahu offers Palestinians “economic peace” so his “Jewish” people can make load of money selling Israeli products – as if buying an Israeli product is a substitute for freedom and liberty. Some Arab villages do not have drinking water so that adjacent Jewish settlements can have swimming pools and green gardens. These land thieves do not think there is something wrong, of course they never cared because they simply believe Arabs are God’s trash.
I am sure so many of us who traveled to or live in Palestine have stories to tell. I am sure visiting Europeans feel this unique Israeli behavior as they arrive at Tel-Aviv airport, certainly they feel it more as they depart Israel.
Having said all of this in favor of Israeli Jews, I have to say there some very noble and honorable exceptions. There is the Peace Now movement, there is the Machsom Watch, there is the Women in Black, there are the demonstrations against the war on Gaza, there are the editorials in such papers as Haaretz, there are the novelists, the writers the journalists, the philanthropists and the tens of thousands of Israel Jews who are against the continued Jewish Occupation, and who reach out and extend their hands in peace, toward follow man and fellow neighbors the Palestinians. There are the brave soldiers who refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories and who have the courage to speak out and challenge their commanders and their lies especially during the War on Gaza. There are my personal friends who I have the honor and privilege to call my friends and brothers. That is why there is hope that one day the Israeli “Jews” and beyond them the American Jews will reclaim their faith again, and become true Jews and embrace Judaism as God meant it to be, a light onto other nations.
Note: I will devote my next posting to the Palestinians, and I have a whole lot to say.
Tagged as: anti-Semitism, Israel, Jews, Palestine, Zionism
Sami Jamil Jadallah is Palestinian-American born in El-Bireh, Palestine, an international business and legal consultant, and a veteran of the US Army. His comments are posted at his website http://www.jeffersoncorner.com.
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By Gilad Atzmon • Jul 20th, 2009 at 12:33 • Category: Analysis, Culture and Heritage, Gilad Atzmon, Gilad’s Choice, Ideas and Projects, Newswire, Our Authors, Religion
Introduction by Gilad Atzmon
In the light of the rise of Islam and Islamic resistance to Western colonialism and Israeli barbarism, I become more and more interested in the philosophy of Islam and the answers provided by contemporary Muslim scholars to questions having to do with Being.
It had become clear to me recently that most of the West’s so-called ‘progressive minds’ (the ‘enlightened’ leftist, the proponent of what is ‘secular’ and ‘rational’) are in the dark when it comes to Islam: the faith, the politics, the philosophy and the value system. It had become clear to me that as much as the West tends to praise itself for its ‘enlightened’ discourse of ‘Modernity’ and ‘Rationalism’, Islamic scholarship actually presents a coherent valuable and valid counter argument to the above. It offers a dynamic hermeneutic body of thought that transforms the notion of ‘post-modernism’ from being an empty intellectual rant (on the verge of self-indulgence) into vivid existential resistance.
I would maintain that in order to say anything valuable about Islam and the Muslim world we better start to grasp what Islam is, what it stands for and what it can offer. I would also argue that if we in the West want to learn about Islam there is no source more appropriate than that which can be found in Islamic scholarship. As things stand we left that discourse for too long in the hands of the so-called ‘progressive minds’ who seemingly have very little to offer on this very subject because they are more than likely to be alien to spiritual hermeneutic thinking and largely blind to the religious discourse in general.
The following is a set of answers offered by Muqtedar Khan, Ph.D on issues concerning modernity and post-modernity in the light of Islam. Khan (born 1966) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware. He is also the Director of the Islamic Studies Program. Regardless of Khan’s political views which can be debated somewhere else or even here, the man is an Islamic philosopher of the highest possible caliber. Khan can assist us in extending the critical discourse of Western supremacy. He manages to point out that the core of the conflict between the West and the Near East is in spirit, in philosophy; it is epistemological and metaphysical. To a certain extent Khan manages to redeem us of the banal materialist discourse that evidently failed to bring liberation to the region nor has it managed to offer any meaningful argument.
“Islam,” says Khan, “has survived the experiment called modernity and will survive the bonfire (postmodernity) that is threatening to burn down the lab along with the experiment.” I would argue that our relevance in the Palestinian and anti-colonial discourse would be defined by our seriousness and respectful approach towards Islam, the faith, the politics, the resistance, the value system, in short, the very many things that are included in the notion of Islam.
Islam, Postmodernity and Freedom
Answers to Questions posed by Discourse Magazine (October 2002).
Muqtedar Khan, Ph.D.
(1) What is post-modernism? Does it have a universal definition?
A question asking for any definition that is universal implies the existence of an essential quality that transcends local context. This would according to the postmodern dogma constitute an unforgivable sin. The primary moral agenda behind postmodern attempts to destabilize the foundations of modern knowledge and modern ethics is to challenge essential theorizing claiming universal applicability. The postmodern thinker seeks to privilege the now and the here – the local over the global.
Postmodernist discourses come in various forms. They include and are not limited to postcolonial narratives, literary theory and its criticism, poststructuralist analysis, postmodern feminism, deconstruction, genealogies, archaeologies of history and often simple cultural relativist arguments that reject rationality and rationalism. Because of their diversity it is difficult to describe what postmodern discourses really are. But it is easy to infer what they are not. They are not grand narratives which claim justification on the basis of some transcendent ethic or infallible reason and boast of validity across time and space. Postmodern narratives take pride in their cultural and historically specific character.
Postmodernism, I believe, may not have a universally applicable definition, Lyotard’s famous claim “postmodernism is an expression of incredulity at grand narratives” not withstanding; but it is most certainly is a universal phenomenon. I think that postmodernism as a reaction and even a rejection of the constitutive elements of post-enlightenment modernity, it is a widespread collection of phenomena. In a postindustrial society, like that of Western Europe, postmodernism manifests as a rejection of modern institutions such as marriage, traditional family structure, gender roles and even nationalism. In the Muslim World postmodernism manifests in the form of religious resurgence which rejects modernist institutions such as secularism and nationalism and instead advocates a different moral/political ethic and a different political unit (Ummah).
(2) How did post modernism evolve from modernist views?
This is a very complex question and begs a long and historical narrative. Nevertheless in the interest of brevity let’s assume that there is indeed a human impulse for freedom. It is this impulse for freedom which discovered that modernity had become a tradition. In a curious way being a modern society, under the benevolent protection of a nation state, worshipping reason and science, meant living in a traditional society. Postmodernism in that sense is the exasperated, and to some extent, an irrational response to the stifling quality of modern institutions.
The culture of centrist liberalism with its politically correct discourse that dominates advanced societies is in many ways emaciating the human spirit rather than emancipating it. Postmodernism is a violent reaction to this form of modern political culture.
Let me make a bold claim here. The most spectacular postmodern manifestation is the contemporary explosion of terrorism. Notice how terrorism is seen as an enemy by the most powerful of all modern institutions – the nation state. Terrorism defies all the ethics anchored around the principle of sovereignty. Today terrorists and nation states are locked in a global struggle. Notice how terrorist see themselves as freedom fighters and states fighting terrorists claim that they are protecting freedom. This is about freedom. Postmodernism is about rediscovering freedom.
The postmodern challenge to modernity manifests itself in two separate but equally devastating, forms. One is cultural and the other is philosophical (epistemological). On the cultural front, postmodern manifestations in the form of new social movements whether in art forms, politics or lifestyles, are joyously disrupting the neat order of things that reason had established in the heyday of modernity. On the epistemological front, postmodern incursions are subverting not only the foundations of truth, but also the possibility of ever establishing any truth claims.
If the cultural assault of postmodernism is devastating, than its epistemological assault cannot be described as anything but as “writing the epitaph of modernity”. While modernity decenterred God and in its place crowned reason as the sovereign authority that alone determined the legitimacy of truth claims, postmodernity has chosen to dethrone not only reason but the very notion of authority and the very idea of Truth with a capital T.
How then in the postmodern vision will the project of civilization survive or progress? The answer is more than startling. All projects are illegitimate because they undermine competing projects and because it is power, not any intrinsic worth, that determines which project becomes the civilizational project. Progress is a myth. Without God, without reason, without a worldview, how do we live? The postmodern answer is let life itself find the way. So just live, “just do it” and life will lead you to life.
The prophets of postmodernity and their cohort have little to offer. Foucault says power is god. Derrida says dance to the sound as human civilization is deconstructed — god by god and idea by idea. Rorty says let life be guided by success, it does not matter if there is no intrinsic good in life or success.
Because modernity in an attempt to institutionalize freedom (oxymoron?) has created and proliferated regimes of discipline, the human spirit is rebelling in the form of postmodern moments of insanity.
(3) Is the phenomenon of globalization a product of post modern thinking?
There is no such phenomenon as globalization. We however are experiencing a phenomenon that can be described more accurately as glocalization (hence my website http://www.glocaleye.org). Structural processes and discourses of identity and difference are tearing the modern era apart. We live in a strange world. We are at the peak of scientific achievements; the gnome project has been completed, we are on the verge of cloning human beings, simulations and artificial intelligence are paying dividends and yet the Talibans and Hindutvavadis in the East and Jerry Springers and Jerry Falwells in the West enjoy supporters in millions.
Glocalization therefore is a crucial site where the forces of modernity and Postmodernity are waging an unlimited war. If the modernists win the nation state, and along with it reason and science will reassert sovereignty over the human subject. If the terrorists, the cultural crazies, the environmental junkies, the religious fanatics win, then contingency and not reason, locality and not globality, anarchy and not sovereignty will prevail.
(4) Do you see any possibility for the co-existence of religious/ fundamentalist thinking and post modernist philosophy?
Yes I do. In fact I believe that the contemporary resurgence of religion is a postmodern phenomenon. Both postmodern philosophy and Religious theology reject the modernist claim in the infallibility of reason.
For over three hundred years, Islam has faced the challenge of European enlightenment and modernity. While compared to other religions, Islam has performed formidably and by far. While the significance of nearly all religions has receded to the private domain or even into vestigial customs and occasional rituals, Islam has experienced a major resurgence in the twentieth century. The scars of modernity, however, are easy to see on the face on the Muslim World. Secularism and Nationalism, two of modernity’s worst diseases, are now well entrenched in many parts of the Muslim World. Ideologies emerging from the conditions of modernity such as Marxism and liberalism continue to compete with Islam in trying to shape Muslim societies. Even Muslim intellectuals who are seeking authenticity are compelled to succumb to modernist discourses, thereby furthering the agenda of modernity at the expense of Islam.
Islam and modernity, one must remember are not necessarily antithetical. Indeed one could argue that the genesis of enlightenment and modernity can be found in thriving medieval Islamic civilization. However modernity has taken many wrong turns in the last century by corrupting its own foundational principles. The value of freedom, understood by Kant as freedom to do good is now understood as freedom to do anything. Reason has been displaced by instrumental reason. Knowledge has become the servant of power. Wisdom has been replaced by public opinion. Even as Muslims enjoy the fruits of modernity, Islam continues to struggle against the dark side of modernity.
As a contemporary Islamic philosopher, living in the dusk of modernity and in the heart of the West, deeply nostalgic for a divinely ordained order of things which is consistent with reason and justice, full of compassion and mercy, I am fascinated by the systematic deconstruction of modernity by the very forces it engendered and unleashed upon itself. The normative structure of boundless freedom and a culture of irreverence that modernity has deliberately fostered to subvert God has now turned upon its creator.
Skepticism based on the assumed infallibility and universal sovereignty of reason was the constitutive character of modernity. It was designed to eliminate faith and re-channel Man’s inherent compulsion to submit and worship. New Gods and new traditions were invented, new prophets were proclaimed and new heavens were imagined. But religion has not only survived the five hundred year assault on God and his messages, but has returned with an increased fervor that baffles the postmodern being.
The postmodern being, whose heart without faith is empty and mind without reason is immature, can destroy the fragile foundations of modernity, ridicule the memories of tradition but can neither comprehend and nor deal with the postmodern resurgence of faith.
Those waging a losing battle for Modernity against Postmodernity reject the resurgence of faith as a return to backward premodernity. Their shortsightedness precludes them from imagining the resurgence of faith not as a return but as a leap forward.
For those who were always with God and comfortable with reason, in the tradition of Al Ghazali, Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Rushd, the resurgence of religion is merely the continuation of the divine way. Islam never succumbed either to modernity nor is losing out to postmodernity. Islam’s decline was geopolitical and economic, never epistemological. The entire musical chairs of authority, God, Reason, Conventions, Text, and Nothing, is Western and limited to those societies who have succumbed to the forces of modernism completely.
Islam was from the beginning comfortable with reason. Recognizing its immense potential and necessity but also remaining acutely cognizant of its limitation. The Al Ghazali-Ibn Rushd debate on the nature of causality is an excellent chronicle of Islam’s position on reason. Islam simultaneously recognized the absoluteness of Truth as well as the relativity of truth claims. For nearly 1300 years Muslims have believed in one Shariah but recognized more than four different, competing and even contradictory articulations of this Shariah (madhahib).
Islam has survived the experiment called modernity and will survive the bonfire (postmodernity) that is threatening to burn down the lab along with the experiment. There is sufficient play within Islam in terms of epistemological pluralism, whether it is recognition of the validity of different legal opinions based on different contexts or time or based on different discursive epistemes such as burhan– illumination, jadal–dialectics, and khatabah–rhetoric, that will allow Islam to negotiate postmodernity’s epistemological rampage.
SOURCE: http://www.ijtihad.org/discourse.htm
Tagged as: Islam, Modernism, Post-Modernism, Religion
Gilad Atzmon is a jazz musician, composer, producer and writer.
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Three huge granite stones rest comfortably on the top of Midbar Sinai Street in Givat Havatzim, Jerusalem’s northernmost district. Cut to specification, the imposing stones represent one of several preparations by the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement to erect a Third Temple on the Haram Al-Sharif Temple Mount. Since the Islamic Waqf owns and controls all the property on the Haram Al-Sharif, by what means can these stones be transferred to the Temple Mount and how can a temple be constructed there? Not by any legal means.
The stones are a provocation, which the Israel government refuses to halt. Neglect and passivity have led to a belief that an eventual Muslim reaction to the increasing provocations will give Israel an excuse to seize total control of the Holy Basin — the properties that Israel intends to incorporate into a greater Jerusalem.
For decades, the Israeli authorities have spoken of a united Jerusalem — suggesting a spiritual quality to their message — as if Israel wanted the home of the three monotheistic faiths to be solid and stable. By being guided from one central authority, a united Jerusalem would also offer the preservation of a common and ancient heritage.
However, by stressing the word “united”, Israel disguises the lack of a supporting and verifiable historical narrative that could bolster its thrust to incorporate all of an artificially created Greater Jerusalem within its boundaries. Coupled with inconsistencies and contradictions, Israel’s eagerness to create a Greater Jerusalem under its total control becomes suspect. The intensive concentration on a “united” Jerusalem reveals a hidden agenda that debases Jerusalem’s religious ingathering and heightens division, hatred and strife.
Extensive commentary has enabled these 2000 years of lack of control and presence to seem as if they never happened and that today is only a short time from the years of Hezekiah. Some remains of Jewish dwellings and ritual baths can be found, but few if any major Jewish monuments, buildings or institutions from the Biblical era exist in the “Old City” of today’s Jerusalem. The often-cited Western Wall is the supporting wall for Herod’s platform and is not directly related to the Second Temple. No remains of the Jewish Temple have been located in Jerusalem — not even a rock.
According to the religious writer Karen Armstrong, Jerusalem Jews did not pray at the Western Wall until the Mamluks allowed them to move their congregations from a dangerous Mount of Olives and pray daily at the Wall in the 15th century. At that time she estimates that there may have been no more than 70 Jewish families in Jerusalem. After the Ottomans replaced the Mamluks, Suleiman the Magnificent issued a formal edict in the 16th century that permitted Jews to have a place of prayer at the Western Wall.
The only remaining major symbol of Jewish presence in Jerusalem’s Holy City is the Jewish quarter, which Israel cleared of Arabs and rebuilt after 1967. During its clearing operations, Israel demolished the Maghribi Quarter adjacent to the Western Wall, destroyed the Al-Buraq Mosque and the Tomb of the Sheikh Al-Afdhaliyah, and displaced about 175 Arab families.
Although the Jewish population in previous centuries comprised a large segment of the Old City (estimates have 7,000 Jews during the mid-19th century), the Jews gradually left the Old City and migrated to new neighbourhoods in West Jerusalem, leaving only about 2,000 Jews in the Old City. Jordanian control after the 1948 War reduced the number to zero. By 2009, the population of the Jewish quarter in the Old City had grown to 3,000, or nine per cent of the Old City’s population. The Christian, Armenian and Muslim populations are the principal constituents and their quarters contain almost the whole of the Old City’s commerce.
In an attempt to attach ancient Israel to present day Jerusalem, the Israeli authorities continue to attach spurious labels to Holy Basin landmarks, while claiming the falsification is due to the Byzantines. King David’s Tower’s earliest remains, for example, were constructed several hundred years after the Bible dates David’s reign. It is a now an obvious Islamic minaret. King David’s Citadel’s earliest remains are from the Hasmonean period (200 BCE). The citadel was entirely rebuilt by the Ottomans between 1537 and 1541.
King David’s tomb, located in the Dormition Abbey, is a cloth-covered cenotaph (no remains) that honours King David. It is only an unverified guess that the casket is related to David. The Pools of Solomon, located in a village near Bethlehem, are considered to be part of a Roman construction during the reign of Herod the Great. The pools supplied water to an aqueduct that carried water to Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The Stables of Solomon, under the Temple Mount, are assumed to be vaults that King Herod built in order to extend the Temple Mount platform. Absalom’s Tomb is obviously a Greek sculptured edifice and therefore cannot be the tomb of David’s son.
The City of David contains artefacts that date from before and during David’s time. However, some archaeologists maintain that there is an insufficient number to conclude any Israelite presence, including that of King David, before the late ninth century. In any case any Israelite presence must have been in a small and unfortified settlement.
The Jerusalem Archaeological Park within the Old City, together with the Davidson Exhibition and Virtual Reconstruction Centre, tell the same story. Promising to reveal Hebrew civilisation, the museums in fact shed little light on their subject. The Davidson Centre highlights a coin exhibition, Jerusalem bowls and stone vessels. The Archaeological Park in the Old City contains among many artefacts, including Herodian structures, ritual baths, a floor of an Umayyad palace, a Roman road, Ottoman gates and the façade of what is termed Robinson’s Arch, an assumed Herodian entryway to the Temple Mount. However, the exhibitions do not reveal many, if any, ancient Hebrew structures or institutions of special significance.
Reliable archaeologists, after examining excavations that contain pottery shards and buildings, have also concluded that the archaeological finds do not substantiate the biblical history of Jerusalem and its importance during the eras of a united Jewish kingdom under David and Solomon.
Margaret Steiner, for example, in an article entitled “It’s Not There: Archaeology Proves a Negative” in the journal Biblical Archaeology Review for July/August 1998, states that “from the tenth century BCE there is no archaeological evidence that many people actually lived in Jerusalem, only that it was some kind of public administrative centre… We are left with nothing that indicates a city was here during their supposed reigns [of David and Solomon] …It seems unlikely, however, that this Jerusalem was the capital of a large state, the United Monarchy, as described in Biblical texts.”
West Jerusalem is another matter. With banditry prolific and the Old City gates closed before nightfall, living outside the city gates did not appeal to the population. However, the wealthy philanthropist Moses Montefiore wanted to attract the Jewish population to new surroundings, and he constructed the first Jewish community outside the Old City — Yemin Moshe’s first houses were completed in 1860. From that time onwards the Jewish presence played a role in creating a West Jerusalem.
Other institutions — Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Russian Orthodox and Muslim — soon ventured forth and began to own property in the evolving West Jerusalem.
In 1948, after the Israeli army seized control of West Jerusalem, the new Israeli government confiscated all West Jerusalem property owned by Muslim institutions. The reason given was that this was “enemy property”. Few Muslims and no mosques remain in today’s West Jerusalem.
However, there was a contradiction. By attacking and ethnically cleansing the Christian Arab communities of Deir Yassin and Ein Kerem, Israeli forces characterised Christian Palestinians as their enemy. Nevertheless, Israel did not confiscate Christian properties, many of which are apparent in West Jerusalem. The Greek Orthodox Church owns extensive property in West Jerusalem, much of which is marked by its “T…” symbol, interpreted as the word “sepulchre”.
Another contradiction is that Israel has cared for the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives and expanded it as a heritage site. Part of the famous Muslim Mamilla Cemetery in West Jerusalem has been classified as refugee property and is being prepared for demolition to build the new Museum of Tolerance.
East Jerusalem reveals more contradictions. The repeated warning by Israeli leaders that co-existence is not feasible and that it is necessary to separate the Jewish and Palestinian communities is contradicted by Israel’s desire to incorporate East Jerusalem into Israel. Incorporation would mean accepting somewhere between 160,000 and 225,000 Palestinians into a Jewish state.
Or would it? Whereas the older historical Jewish neighbourhoods in West Jerusalem have had their characters meticulously maintained, or have been rebuilt in their original style, the older Arab neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem have been entirely neglected (all of Arab East Jerusalem is neglected) or destroyed. How much deterioration and destruction can Palestinians absorb before they decide to leave?
Construction of Jewish homes in East Jerusalem Arab neighbourhoods proceeds, and the destruction of Arab homes, either declared to have been illegally constructed or illegally purchased, continues. On 44 dunums of land confiscated from Palestinian families, a private company has constructed the gated community of Nof Zion, and conveniently separated Palestinian Jabal Al-Mukabir from other parts of East Jerusalem. No Arabs need apply. The million-dollar condominiums are advertised for American investors.
The Israeli Ministry of Interior has approved a plan to demolish a kindergarten and wholesale market in East Jerusalem’s Wadi Joz neighbourhood in order to construct a new hotel close to the Old City and near the Rockefeller Museum. The result will be the destruction of an Arab neighbourhood and its replacement by Jewish interests, which will one day join other Jewish interests.
These are only two examples of a master plan to replace the centuries-old Arab presence in East Jerusalem with a modern Jewish presence. The ancient Arab presence is further subdivided by the Annexation Wall, which runs through the East Jerusalem landscape and detaches East Jerusalem from the West Bank, making it unlikely that a Palestinian state could have its capital in East Jerusalem.
The master plan extends the boundaries of Jerusalem to include the large Israeli settlement (city) of Maale Adumim. Between Maale Adumim and East Jerusalem, Israel proposes to construct the E1 Corridor, which would join the settlements in a ring and add to the separation of East Jerusalem from the West Bank. The E1 Corridor will divide the northern and southern West Bank and will impede direct transit between Palestinian Bethlehem, which is south of E1, and Palestinian Ramallah, which is north of E1. Construction of the E1 corridor, portions of which are owned by Palestinians, could thus prevent the formation of a viable Palestinian state.
If Israel is destroying Jerusalem’s heritage and subjugating its spiritual meaning, why does Israel want to unify Jerusalem?
Israel is a physically small and relatively new country with an eager population and big ambitions. It needs more prestige and wants to be viewed as a power broker on the world stage. To gain these things Israel needs a capital city that commands respect, contains ancient traditions and is recognised as one of the world’s leading cities. Almost all of the world’s principal nations, from Egypt to Germany to Great Britain, have capitals that are great cities. To succeed in its objectives, Israel wants an oversized Jerusalem that contains the Holy City.
However, that is not all. Jerusalem has a significant tourism market that could be expanded. It could provide new commercial opportunities as an entry to all of the Middle East. An indivisible Jerusalem under Israeli control would be worth a lot of shekels.
Israel competes with the United States as the focus of the Jewish people. It needs a unified Jerusalem to gain recognition as the home of Judaism. By controlling all the holy sites, Israel would command attention from Muslim and Christian leaders. These leaders would be forced to talk with Israel, and Israel would have a bargaining advantage in disputes.
Whatever Israel gains the Palestinians are denied. Even if Israel agrees to the establishment of a Palestinian state, it will direct its policies to limit the effectiveness of that state. Since East Jerusalem and its holy sites greatly benefit the Palestinian economy and increase Palestine legitimacy, Israel will do everything it can to prevent East Jerusalem being ceded to the new state of Palestine. An “indivisible” Jerusalem is part of that effort.
West Jerusalem only gives Israel a north/south capital. An undivided Jerusalem would give Israel a forward look towards an east/west capital, or a centralised capital for the land of previous biblical Jewish tribes.
Zionist socialist ideals and the cooperative Kibbutzim movement received support from idealistic people across the world for many years. Israel’s attachment to the tragedy of the Holocaust extended that sympathy and support. With the end of the Zionist dream, the decline of kibbutz life, and the vulgarising of the Holocaust, Israel needs a new symbol of identity that will capture world attention.
If Israel has legitimate claims to Jerusalem, then those claims should be heard and discussed in a proper forum. However, that is not the process that is underway. Instead, the Israeli government is using illegal and illegitimate procedures, as well as deceitful and hypocritical methods, to force its agenda. Israel is not so much presenting its case as exerting its powers to trample all legal, moral and historical considerations.
In the Museum of the Citadel of David there is an inscription: the land of Israel is in the centre of the world, and Jerusalem is the centre of the land of Israel.
This self praise was echoed at a West Jerusalem coffee house recently during a conversation I had with several Israelis. A youthful Israeli sitting at the table abruptly entered the conversation with the words “the world looks to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the centre of the world, and Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Everyone needs Jerusalem, and they will need to talk with Israel.”
That is why Israel desperately wants its Greater Jerusalem.
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By Gilad Atzmon • Jul 14th, 2009 at 8:48 • Category: Analysis, Gilad Atzmon, Gilad’s Choice, Israel, Newswire, Our Authors, Palestine, Religion, Resistance, Zionism
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” — Karl Marx 1843
Before I launch into a disclosure of liberal and leftist delusional treatment of religions, Islam and Palestine in particular, I would like to share with you a bad racist joke. Beware; you may not want to share this short tale with your feminist friends.
An American female activist who visited Afghanistan in the late 1990s was devastated to find out that women were marching 15 ft behind their men. She soon learned from her local translator that this was due to some religious guidelines that ruled [this is the way we show] respect for the ‘head of the family’. Once back in America the devastated activist launched campaigns after campaigns for women’s rights in Afghanistan. As it happened, the same devoted activist visited Kabul last month. This time she was amazed to find a totally different reality. Women were actually marching 30 ft ahead of their husbands. The activist was quick to report to her headquarters in America: “The Women rights revolution is a great success here in Afghanistan. While in the past it was the man who marched in the front, now it is the women who takes the lead.” Her Afghani translator, who overheard her report, took the activist aside and advised her that her interpretation was totally wrong. “The women” he said, “are walking in front because of the landmines.…”
As tragic as it may sound to some, we are not as free as we believe ourselves to be. We are not exactly the author of most of our thoughts and realizations. Our human conditions are imposed on us; we are a product of our culture, language ideological indoctrination and in many cases, victims of our intellectual laziness. Like the semi-fictional American female activist above, in most cases we are trapped within our preconceived ideas and that stops us from seeing things for what they really are. Accordingly, we tend to interpret and in most cases misinterpret remote cultures employing our own value system and moral code.
This tendency has some grave consequences. For some reason ‘we’ (the Westerners) tend to believe that ‘our’ technological superiority together with our beloved ‘enlightenment’ equips us with a ‘rational secularist anthropocentric, absolutist ethical system’ of the very highest moral stand.
The Lib-Left
In the West we can detect two ideological components that compete for our hearts and minds; Both claim to know what is ‘wrong’ and who is ‘right’. The Liberal would insist on praising individual liberty and civil equality; the Leftist would tend to believe to possess a ‘social scientific’ tool helping to identify who is ‘progressive’ and who is ‘reactionary’.
As things stand, it is these two modernist secularist precepts that act as our Western political ethical guard. But in fact, they have achieved the opposite. Each ideology in its own peculiar way has led us to a state of moral blindness. It is these two so-called ‘humanist’ calls, that either consciously prepare the ground for criminal interventionalist colonial wars (the Liberal), or failed to oppose them while employing wrong ideologies and faulty arguments (the Left).
Both Liberal and Left, in their apparent banal Western forms suggest that secularism is the answer for the world’s ailments. Without a doubt, Western secularism may be a remedy for some Western social malaise. However, Western Liberal and Left ideologies, in most cases, fail to understand that secularism is in itself a natural outcome of Christian culture, i.e., a direct product of Christian tradition and openness towards an independent civic existence. In the West, the spiritual and the civil sphere are largely separated [1]. It is this very division that enabled the rise of secularity and the discourse of rationality. It is this very division that also led to the birth of a secular ethical value system in the spirit of enlightenment and modernism.
But this very division led also to the rise of some blunt forms of fundamental-secularism that matured into crude anti religious worldviews that are no different from bigotry. It is actually that very misleading fundamental secularism that brought the West to a total dismissal of a billion human beings out there just because they wear the wrong scarf or happen to believe in something we fail to grasp.
Progressive vs. Regressive
Islam and Judaism, unlike Christianity, are tribally orientated belief systems. Rather than ‘enlightened individualism’ it is actually the survival of the extended family that is at the core interest of those two belief systems. The Taliban that is regarded by most Westerners as the ultimate possible darkest political setting, is simply not concerned at all with issues to do with personal liberties or personal rights. It is the safety of the tribe together with the maintenance of family values in the light of the Qur’an that stands at its core. Rabbinical Judaism is not different at all. It is basically there to preserve the Jewish tribe by maintaining Judaism as a ‘way of life’.
In both Islam and Judaism there is hardly a separation between the spiritual and the civil. Both religions stand as systems that provide thorough answers in terms of spiritual, civil, cultural and day to day matters. Jewish enlightenment (Haskalah) was largely a process of Jewish assimilation through secularization and emancipation, and spawning various modern forms of Jewish identities, Zionism included. Yet Enlightenment values of universalism have never been incorporated into the body of Jewish orthodoxy. Like in the case of Rabbinical Judaism, that is totally foreign to the spirit of Enlightenment, Islam is largely estranged to those values of Euro centric Modernism and rationality. If anything, due to the interpretation of the Scriptures (hermeneutic), both Islam and Judaism are actually closer to the spirit of post modernity [2].
Neither the Left ideology nor Liberalism engage intellectually or politically with these two religions. This fact is disastrous, for the biggest current threat to world peace is posed by the Israeli-Arab conflict; a conflict rapidly becoming a war between a Jewish expansionist state and Islamic resistance. And yet, both the Liberal and the Left ideologies are lacking the necessary theoretical means to understand the complexities of Islam and Judaism.
The Liberal would dismiss Islam as sinister for its take on human rights and women in particular. The Left would fall into the trap of denouncing religion in general as ‘reactionary’. Maybe without realizing it, both Lib and Left are falling here into a clear supremacist argument. Since both Islam and Judaism are more than just religions, they convey a ‘way of life’ and stand as a totally thorough answer to questions regarding being in the world, the Western Lib-Left are at danger of a complete dismissal of a large chunk of humanity [3].
I have recently accused a genuine Leftist and good activist of being an Islamophobe for blaming Hamas for being ‘reactionary’. The activist, who is evidently a true supporter of Palestinian resistance was quick to defend himself claiming that it wasn’t only ‘Islamism’ that he didn’t like, he actually equally hated Christianity and Judaism. For some reason he was sure that hating every religion equally was a proper humanist qualification. Accordingly, the fact that an Islamophobe is also a Judeophobe and Christiano-phobe is not necessarily a sign of a humanist commitment. I kept challenging that good man; he then argued that it was actually Islamism (i.e., political Islam) which he didn’t approve of. I challenged him again and brought to his attention the fact that in Islam there is no real separation between the spiritual and the political. The notion of political Islam (Islamism) may as well be a Western delusional reading of Islam. I pointed out that Political Islam, and even the rare implementation of ‘armed jihad’, are merely Islam in practice. Sadly enough, this was more or less the end of the discussion. The Palestinian solidarity campaigner found it too difficult to cope with the Islamic unity of body and soul. The Left in general is doomed to fail here unless it elaborates by means of listening to the organic Islamic bond between the ‘material’ and the so called ‘opium of the masses’. For the Leftist to do so, it is no less than a major intellectual shift.
Such a shift was suggested recently by Hisham Bustani, an independent Jordanian Marxist, stating:
“The European left must make a serious critical assessment of this ‘we know better’ attitude and the ways it tends to deal with popular forces in the south as ideologically and politically inferior.”
Palestine
Solidarity with Palestine is a very good opportunity to review the gravity of the situation. As it happens, in spite of the murderous Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, solidarity with Palestinians has yet to become a mass movement. It may well never make it as such a movement. Given the West’s failure to uphold the rights of the oppressed, Palestinians seem to have learned their lesson, they democratically elected an Islamic party that promised them resistance. Interestingly enough, very few leftists were there to support the Palestinian people and their democratic choice.
Within the current template of conditional political solidarity, we are losing campaigners on each turn of this bumpy road. The reasons are as follows.
1. The Palestinian liberation movement is basically a national liberation movement. This acknowledgment is where we lose all the Left cosmopolitans, those who oppose nationalism.
2. Due to the political rise of Hamas, Palestinian resistance is now regarded as Islamic resistance. This is where we are losing the secularists and rabid atheists who oppose religion, catapulting them to being PEP (progressive except on Palestine) [4].
In fact the PEP are divided largely into two groups.
PEP1. Those who oppose Hamas for being ‘reactionary’, yet approve Hamas for their operational success as a Resistance movement. Those activists are basically waiting for the Palestinians to change their mind and revert to a secular society. But they are willing to conditionally support the Palestinians as an oppressed people.
PEP2. Those who are against Hamas for being a ‘reactionary’ force; and dismiss its operational success. These are waiting for the world revolution. They prefer to let the Palestinians wait for the time being, as if Gaza were a seashore holiday resort
With these rapidly evaporating solidarity forces we are left with a miniature Palestinian solidarity movement with an embarrassingly limited (Western) intellectual power and even less positive performance on the grass roots level. This tragic situation was disclosed recently by Nadine Rosa-Rosso, a Brussels-based independent Marxist. She states: “The vast majority of the Left, including communists, agrees in supporting the people of Gaza against Israeli aggression, but refuses to support its political expressions such as Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon.” This leads Rossa-Rosso to wonder “why do the Left and far Left mobilize such small numbers? And indeed, to be clear, are the Left and far Left still able to mobilize on these issues?”
Where Next?
“If the left’s support for human rights in Palestine is conditional and dependent on the Palestinians denouncing their religion and ideological beliefs, cultural heritage, and social traditions and adopting a new set of beliefs, alien values and social behaviours that matches what its culture deems acceptable; that means the world is denying them a most basic human right, the right to think, and to live within a chosen ethical code.” Nahida Izzat.
The current left discourse of solidarity is futile. It estranges itself from its subject, it achieves very little and it seems to go nowhere. If we want to help the Palestinians, the Iraqis and the other millions of victims of Western imperialism we really must stop for a second, take a big breath and start again from scratch.
We must learn to listen. Rather than imposing our belief on others we better learn to listen to what others believe in.
Can we follow Bustani’s and Rossa-Rosso’s suggestions and revise our entire notion of Islam, its spiritual roots, its structure, its unified balance between the civil and the spirit, its vision of itself as a ‘way of living’? Whether we can do so or not is a good question.
Another option is to reassess our blindness and to encounter humanist issues from a humanist perspective (as opposed to political). Rather than loving ourselves through the suffering of others, which is the ultimate form of self-loving, we better for the first time, exercise the notion of real empathy. We put ourselves in the place of the other accepting that we may never fully understand that very other.
Rather than loving ourselves through the Palestinians and at their expense, we need to accept Palestinians for what they are and support them for who they are regardless of our own views on things. This is the only real form of solidarity. It aims at ethical rather than ideological conformity. It puts humanity at its very centre. It reflects on Marx’s deep understanding of religion as the “sigh of the oppressed”. If we claim to be compassionate about people we better learn to love them for what they are rather than what we expect them to be.
[1] Something to do with a low Roman heritage and the early development of Christianity as an expansionist concept aiming to spread itself to remote cultures and civilizations.
[2] It can be argued that the primary agenda behind postmodern attempts is to destabilize the foundations of modern knowledge and [ethics by challenging the possibility of modern universal applicability. As eloquently put by Muqtedar Khan, the postmodernist seeks to privilege the ‘here and now’ over the global. Both postmodern philosophy and Religious theology, says Khan “reject the modernist claim in the infallibility of reason”. Like the postmodernist, Islam and Judaism are skeptical towards the sovereignty of reason and discourses of rationality.
[3] The rather common bizarre Marxist suggestion that ‘quite a few out there’ are in fact ‘reactionary’ for being religious entails the necessary assumption that the Marxist himself is settled comfortably in an absolute moral high ground. Such an assumption is rather faulty for two obvious reasons:
The obvious problem with the Marxist implementation of the ‘progressive vs reactionary’ dichotomy is that the Marxists suitably claim to be among progressives and conveniently claim that the ‘adversary’ is found among the reactionaries. This is obviously slightly suspicious or even dubious to say the least.
[4] Phil Weiss in his invaluable MondoWeiss blog recently coined the useful political term PEP: progressive except on Palestine term.
a version of this (without footnotes) appeared on: http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15280
Tagged as: Gilad Atzmon, Islam, Islamism, Marx, Palestine, Resistance, Zionism
Gilad Atzmon is a jazz musician, composer, producer and writer.
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Question:
Having read the great Article of Gilad, the great friend of palestine, How do you classify the “Christian”, “nationalist”, “Secular”, “prograsive” “Pundit”??
PEP 1 or PEP 2?
Read this before answering
Tony I asked you: What caged Hamas can do??
Anonymous
06.11.09 – 7:50 pm #
========
“Tony I asked you: What caged Hamas can do??”
Answer: Not to be caged in, in the first place.
Tony Sayegh Homepage 06.11.09 – 8:04 pm #
=============
Tony: Ok How can Hamas get out of the cage?
Anonymous
06.12.09 – 7:31 am #
That requires a long answer, but if Hamas followed that strategy Hamas would no longer be Hamas.
Very briefly, it will have to transform itself into a true revolutionary movement and not align itself with the reactionary Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and in Jordan, who traditionally have been used by Western powers.
Instead it will need to align itself with progressive forces in Egypt and make toppling the Pharaoh a top priority. It will have to stop counting on the puppet Arab regimes (especially Saudi Arabia) and a non-existing “Umma.”
It will have to declare an end to the child of Oslo, the PA, and to declare the PA as the enemy. It will have to stop the silliness of make-believe “government” and “ministries,”…etc. It will have to dissolve all that trash. Haniyyah should go back to teaching (if he can still teach anything).As any serious resistance movement fighting an occupation, against tremendous odds, it will have to be totally underground and adopt extreme secrecy.
And much more.
Tony Sayegh Homepage 06.12.09 – 9:25 am #
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I would clasify him donkey ONE
Filed under: Religion, Supremacism | Tagged: Gilad Atzmon, Islamophobia, Mollistine, Solidarity, The Axis of Resistance, This is Zionism | Comments Off on Gilad Atzmon – Thinking out of the Secular Box: The Left and Islam
Should one be defined as anti-Semitic for quoting from Talmud texts that preach for committing or justifying crimes? Texts that define the Talmud supporters – at least – as collaborators, or even instigators to commit, a crime?
This question is a serious one, since the modern State of Israel forces on its citizens the religious views of the Pharisees descendants, namely the rabbis. The rabbis act according to the Talmud teachings. In such a way, Israel is accepting the Talmud and its teachings. What does that mean?
Who were the Pharisees?
In 539 BC the Persians conquered Babylon, where many Jews were exiled. He let them return to Jerusalem, where the Sadducees – the priests – became the de facto authority of them. While the priests controlled the Temple, the scribes monopolized the study of the Torah, which was read publicly on market-days.
However, after the fell of the Kingdom of Judah and the exile to Babylon – where the people could witness a more developed society – the prestige of the Sadducees was in decline. The scribes took advantage of that and began the process of organizing themselves into a political party that claimed to possess the correct interpretation of the Bible, what they called the Oral Law. They based the claim on their erudition – they were among the few that could read – and on the failure of the priests to restore the splendor of the former kingdom. “Something is wrong with their interpretation,” whispered the Pharisees to the people.
Much later they became the religious leaders of the people and in a brilliant marketing event they changed their title to “rabbi” (“my master,” or literally “my much”).
What is the Talmud?
The Old Testament was considered dangerous by the Pharisees. Simply, many of the Mosaic Laws were uncomfortable – and inconvenient – to fulfil. Moreover, the prophecies regarding Jesus – their archenemy – in the Bible were difficult to ignore.
Facing such a problem, these industrious men operated a two stages plan. First, an Oral Law was created. These were laws that defined how the Mosaic Laws in the Pentateuch should be interpreted. Using them, they could turn around any law to their convenience. They claim the Oral Law was given verbally by Moses to their ancestors. The Bible does not support this claim.
At certain stage – before Jesus was born – the compilation of this Oral Law into books began. The result was the creation of a new layer of books – collectively known as the Talmud – that included all the formal interpretations of the Pentateuch – the Bible’s first five books. All the other books in the Bible were considered little more than fables by the Pharisees.
Nowadays, the rabbis – the Pharisees spiritual descendants – consider the Talmud as the main book of law. Since then, the Pharisees and rabbis can manipulate the law interpretations to their personal benefit.
Jesus and the Talmud
In the times of Jesus the Talmud was still incomplete, but its foundations already managed the Pharisees behaviour. The manipulation of the Mosaic Law for the Pharisees personal profit – the main task of the Talmud – is time and again denounced by Jesus. The strongest text on the issue is the whole of Chapter 23 in the Gospel of Matthew.
But not only there. He also said:
Matt. 15:6-9 … Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.
15:7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
15:8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
15:9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
And:
John 8:44: Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because the truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it.
Soncino
The Talmud – written in Hebrew and Aramaic – was largely ignored by the world until the Jews’ College translation was published through Soncino Press between 1935 and 1948. This was the first complete English translation, produced by authoritative Jewish scholars in the world and is considered a reliable text. It is important to keep that in mind while judging the next sections.
Elizabeth Dilling
Once this task was accomplished, the way was open for an international examination of the text. Elizabeth Dilling published the first critique of the Talmud, a book called The Jewish Religion: Its Influence Today. She used the Soncino Talmud, and quotes also the Jewish Encyclopedia, the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia and other publications. Her analysis is considered serious.
My readers can download here her book and here the bulky exhibits accompanying it.
Before continuing with the answer of the Jewish community to Dilling’s publication, I would like to bring some of the commentaries appearing in her book.
Racism
Moses taught again and again that the stranger is to be treated the same as the Israelites:
Lev 19:34 But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
19:35 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure.
Deut 10:19 Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Numbers 9:14 …ye shall have one ordinance, both for the stranger, and for him that was born in the land.
Yet, the oral law, or the Traditions of the Pharisees, as recorded in the Talmud, reverses Moses teachings. In Baba Mezia 108b it says: “Only ye are designated as ‘men.'” The Baba Mezia passage is about the graves of Gentiles which rank like the graves of animals. “The graves of Gentiles do not defile,” is the edict.
No wonder Christ said:
Matt 15:3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?
Mark 7:13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.
Non-Jews Have No Property Rights
The Talmud teaches in Baba Bathra, Folio 54b, that non-Jews have no property rights. Their possessions are “like unclaimed land in the desert.” The passage appears on page 222 of the Soncino edition: “Rab Judah said in the name of Samuel: The property of a heathen is on the same footing as desert land; whoever first occupies it acquires ownership.”
Doesn’t the occupation of Palestine appear now in a new light?
Bestiality
The Talmud is obsessed with pornographic issues, touching some of them here is unavoidable. Moses commanded that if a woman have intercourse with a beast, both should be killed (Leviticus 20:16), and that a priest must not marry a harlot or woman who is profane (Lev. 21:7), the Talmud inverted that and teaches that “unnatural intercourse does not cause a woman to be forbidden to marry a High Priest,” since then “you will find no woman eligible …” (See Exhibit 157, from the Yebamoth, Folios 59a-59b)
Then, the ruling of the rabbis is: “A woman who had intercourse with a beast is eligible to marry a priest — even a High Priest,” and “the result of such intercourse being regarded as a mere wound, and the opinion that does not regard. More
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Anne Barker, an Australian journalist with the ABC, caught in the mob’s hate in occupied Jerusalem, with an audio testimony. So called Christian zionists might be interested to see how these fanatics, which the zionist entity apparently and not surprisingly fails to bring to heel as with the fanatic illegal settlers, brook no reasonable acceptance of any others who wish to do normal things on Saturdays but rather must conform to their narrow religious dogmas — or be spat on and set upon by hundreds in orthodox Hasidic Jewish mobs. See also some important observations from Dan Lieberman that follow about historic co-existence in the Holy City and the apartheid state’s hidden agenda for Jerusalem.
As a journalist I’ve covered more than my share of protests. Political protests in Canberra. Unions protesting for better conditions. Angry, loud protests against governments, or against perceived abuses of human rights.
I’ve been at violent rallies in East Timor. I’ve had rocks and metal darts thrown my way. I’ve come up against riot police.
But I have to admit no protest – indeed no story in my career – has distressed me in the way I was distressed at a protest in Jerusalem on Saturday involving several hundred ultra-Orthodox Jews.
This particular protest has been going on for weeks.
Orthodox Jews are angry at the local council’s decision to open a municipal carpark on Saturdays – or Shabbat, the day of rest for Jews.
It’s a day when Jews are not supposed to do anything resembling work, which can include something as simple as flicking a switch, turning on a light or driving.
So even opening a simple carpark to accommodate the increasing number of tourists visiting Jerusalem’s Old City is highly offensive to Orthodox Jews because it’s seen as a desecration of the Shabbat, by encouraging people to drive.
I was aware that earlier protests had erupted into violence on previous weekends – Orthodox Jews throwing rocks at police, or setting rubbish bins alight, even throwing dirty nappies or rotting rubbish at anyone they perceive to be desecrating the Shabbat.
But I never expected their anger would be directed at me.
I was mindful I would need to dress conservatively and keep out of harm’s way. But I made my mistake when I parked the car and started walking towards the protest, not fully sure which street was which.
By the time I realised I’d come up the wrong street it was too late.
I suddenly found myself in the thick of the protest – in the midst of hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in their long coats and sable-fur hats.
They might be supremely religious, but their behaviour – to me – was far from charitable or benevolent.
As the protest became noisier and the crowd began yelling, I took my recorder and microphone out of my bag to record the sound.
Suddenly the crowd turned on me, screaming in my face. Dozens of angry men began spitting on me.
I found myself herded against a brick wall as they kept on spitting – on my face, my hair, my clothes, my arms.
It was like rain, coming at me from all directions – hitting my recorder, my bag, my shoes, even my glasses.
Big gobs of spit landed on me like heavy raindrops. I could even smell it as it fell on my face.
Somewhere behind me – I didn’t see him – a man on a stairway either kicked me in the head or knocked something heavy against me.
I wasn’t even sure why the mob was angry with me. Was it because I was a journalist? Or a woman? Because I wasn’t Jewish in an Orthodox area? Was I not dressed conservatively enough?
In fact, I was later told, it was because using a tape-recorder is itself a desecration of the Shabbat even though I’m not Jewish and don’t observe the Sabbath.
It was lucky that I don’t speak Yiddish. At least I was spared the knowledge of whatever filth they were screaming at me.
As I tried to get away I found myself up against the line of riot police blocking the crowd from going any further.
Israeli police in their flak jackets and helmets, with rifles and shields, were yelling just as loudly back at the protesting crowd.
I found them something of a reassurance against the angry, spitting mob.
I was allowed through, away from the main protest, although there were still Orthodox Jews on the other side, some of whom also yelled at me, in English, to take my recorder away.
Normally I should have stayed on the sidelines to watch the protest develop.
But when you’ve suffered the humiliation and degradation of being spat on so many times – and you’re covered in other people’s spit – it’s not easy to put it to the back of your mind and get on with the job.
I left down a side street and walked the long way back to the car, struggling to hold back the tears.
~~~
In Why Jerusalem?, Dan Lieberman notes how the Ottomans permitted Jewish worship, unlike the intolerance and planned exclusion of other faiths by the current apartheid entity:
According to Karen Armstrong, Jerusalem, Jews did not pray at the Western Wall until the Mamluks in the 15th century allowed them to move their congregations from a dangerous Mount of Olives and pray daily at the Wall. At that time, she estimates that there may have been no more than 70 Jewish families in Jerusalem. After the Ottomans replaced the Mamluks, Suleiman the Magnificent issued a formal edict in the 16th century that permitted Jews to have a place of prayer at the Western Wall.
The only remaining major symbol of Jewish presence in Jerusalem’s Holy City is the Jewish quarter, which Israel cleared of Arabs and rebuilt after 1967. During its clearing operations, Israel demolished the Maghribi Quarter adjacent to the Western Wall, destroyed the al-Buraq Mosque and the Tomb of the Sheikh al-Afdhaliyyah, and displaced about 175 Arab families.
The full piece is worth reading in full, in which he argues that “Israel is destroying Jerusalem’s heritage and subjugating its spiritual meaning” in an effort to redirect attention away from the US as a focus for world Jewry toward Jerusalem, and reap tourism shekels and a baragaining chip against Palestinians in the process:
Jerusalem has significant tourism that can be expanded. It can provide new commercial opportunities as an entry to all of the Middle East. An indivisible Jerusalem under Israeli control is worth a lot of shekels.
Israel competes with the United States as the focus of the Jewish people. It needs a unique Jerusalem to gain recognition as the home of Judaism.
By controlling all of the holy sites, Israel commands attention from Moslem and Christian leaders. These leaders will be forced to talk with Israel and Israel will have a bargaining advantage in disputes.
Whatever Israel gains, the Palestinians are denied. Even if Israel agrees to the establishment of a Palestinian state, it will direct its policies to limit the effectiveness of that state. Since East Jerusalem and its holy sites greatly benefit a Palestinian economy and increase Palestine legitimacy, Israel will do everything to prevent East Jerusalem being ceded to the new state of Palestine. An “indivisible” Jerusalem is part of that effort.
Lest we forget:
In the Museum of the Citadel of David is an inscription: The land of Israel is in the center of the world and Jerusalem is the center of the land of Israel.
This self-praise was echoed at a West Jerusalem coffee house in a conversation with several Israelis. A youthful Israeli abruptly sat at the table and entered the conversation with the words: “All the world looks to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the center of the world and Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Everyone needs Jerusalem and they will need to talk with Israel.”
And that is why Israel desperately wants its greater Jerusalem.
Along with the illegal squatters, those fanatic hasidic Jews are all part of the plan in this hidden agenda.
Filed under: Jerusalem, Judaism, Religion | Tagged: Ethnic Cleansing, hatred, This is Zionism | Comments Off on A fanatical ultra-orthodox welcome
By Adib Kawar • Jul 1st, 2009 at 22:04 • Category: Analysis, Israel, Newswire, Palestine, Religion, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Zionism
Arabs call the very Zionist Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, “Nitin ya ho” that is “O you the dirty”, but we disagree to a certain extent, because unlike other Zionist politicians, he at least speaks his dirty plans out in the open and says what is going in his head. He openly declares his plans about stealing all of Palestine’s land, and in the end he wants to complete the Zionist ethnic cleansing project that started in 1948, and still continues up to this date, other Zionist politicians were doing the dirty work while giving a form of sweet talk.
But Netanyahu, like other Zionist leaders. on the other hand is relying on the power of the might of arms and declared his plans for completing land theft that was initiated by his so-called leftist predecessors, under unjustifiable excuses, which is like all the Zionist project, with what he called “natural growth”!!! The joke is natural growth of what? He and his fellow Zionist colonialist racist thieves are talking about Zionist colonies that are being built on the 1967 the West Bank land, occupied by the Zionist military forces stationed in the 1948 occupied land and which the enemy forged its named from Palestine into “The State of Israel”!!!
News agencies wrote “139,000 dunums from Jerusalem’s land shall be confiscated for expending “Maaleih Adomim”. It is trying to fool Obama: Freezing colonization for three months!!! 139, 000 dunums to be further stolen to be added to the biggest colony already built on East Jerusalem land which is a part of the occupied West Bank, is this also what Netanyahu calls “natural growth” when many of its completed housing units are not inhabited?!
The Zionist entity forestalled the meeting between its minister of war, Ehud Barak, with the U.S. Presidential special emissary for Middle East, George Mitchell, in New York, and leaked a proposition that ordains the freezing of all settlement activities for a period of three months, with the exception of 200 housing units in the West Bank and Jerusalem, which shall include “natural growth”. At the time “Israeli” newspaper “Yadiout Ahronaut” wrote information in this matter, but explained what Barak shall suggest that the freezing shall not include work in 2,000 housing units that are under construction in the West Bank, as well as proceeding in building colonies in East Jerusalem.
The United States, the rest of the western world, the so-called “moderate Arab regimes” and of course the Zionist entity insist on that Hamas government to recognize all previous agreements that “The Palestinian Authority” that had previously accepted and recognized including the “Quartet” (the U.S., E.U., Russia, and the U.N.) in 2003.
The Central Conference of American Rabbis, which represents nearly 2,000 Reform rabbis, including a significant percentage of Brit Tzedek supporters issued a statement in support of President Obama’s call for “a complete freeze on settlements”, including natural growth, as “in the best interest of the United States, of the State of Israel, and of peace.” in answer to the question of What is U.S. and Israeli policy on “natural growth”? said: The U.S. and Israeli governments agreed to freeze “all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements),” in Phase One of the Road Map to Peace, signed by Israel, the Palestinian Authority, the “Quartet” (the U.S., E.U., Russia, and the U.N.) in 2003.
But according to Israeli officials, however, the Bush administration, (Former president George W. Bush gave himself the right to rule that the Zionist entity could annex all major blocks of colonies already built in the West Bank!!!) had an oral agreement with Israel that building could continue within the boundaries of certain settlement blocs — under the condition that no new land was expropriated, no special economic incentives were offered, and no entirely new settlements were built. Former Bush administration officials have given conflicting accounts of these discussions. The Obama administration has said that it will not be bound by informal oral agreements for which Israel can produce no record. In reference to the signed Road Map agreement, the current administration insists that a “settlement freeze” means a complete cessation of all new building in settlements, with no exceptions.
On the other hand the Central Conference of American Rabbis reads in answer to: “Is all settlement expansion for purposes of “natural growth”?
Not to date. According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, 63% of population growth in the settlements in 2007 resulted from “natural growth” (the excess of births over deaths) and 37% of the growth came from immigration (the excess of newcomers moving in over those moving out). Bottom line, there are today more than 50,000 additional settlers living in the West Bank than at the time that the Sharon government signed the Road Map to Peace in 2003.”
And proceeds saying: “Overall, the annual population growth in settlements, at 5.6 percent, far outstrips the Israeli average of 1.8 percent. The settlements’ disproportionately high level of state-supported building and other subsidized services compared with most regions of Israel has long been used a state-backed incentive to encourage Israelis with or aiming to have large families to relocate to these communities. It’s worth noting that within the internationally recognized borders of Israel, there is no such government commitment to provide economical housing for adult Jewish children wishing to remain in the community in which their parents live, nor to provide larger homes for expanding Jewish families.”
We take the liberty of quoting long sectors of the article of the “Israeli” journalist and not an Arab enemy of the Zionist entity that was established on his own land: Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent wrote in an article entitled: “What about the Arabs’ natural growth? http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1092430.html
“Maybe it is no coincidence that the government spokespeople insist on describing the homes for “sons returning from the army” rather than homes for young couples, or students. Someone might dare to check the housing situation in Arab villages or East Jerusalem, whose residents actually on Israeli soil? as opposed to the settlers.”
Eldar further added: “According to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), the construction of 2,200 apartments was completed in 2006 in the settlements, which boasted 271,000 residents at the time. This number, 2,200, is similar to the number of apartments that were built within the same time frame in the districts of Jerusalem (882,000 residents), and Haifa (869,000 residents). During the same year, the Housing Ministry offered 390 housing units to the entire Arab sector in Israel, whose rate of natural growth is only slightly lower than that of the settlers (2.6 percent to the settlers’ 3.2 percent). The rate of natural growth among Israeli Jews in general stands at 1.6 percent.”
As Eldar wrote re facilities granted by the only democracy in the Middle East to its “Israeli Arab” citizens they receive, if any, promises but only if any a fraction is executed of building or what is budgeted examples:
· In August of last year, the Housing Ministry promised in a letter to Arab rights group Musawa that 1,800 housing units would be built in 15 Arab villages and towns. In 2000 the government adopted a plan to build 50,000 apartments for Arab Israelis within five years. The plan was never carried out and the housing crisis in the Arab sector is getting worse and worse.
· Research conducted by Musawa revealed that in 80 percent of the Arab towns there were absolutely no approved housing plans. In 2007, only 21 percent of the budget allocated to housing for minorities was actually used. The result is unauthorized construction by Arab residents, which prompt the government to issue demolition orders, and contribute to crowding. (The density of the Jewish population is 0.84 people per room, while in the Arab sector it is 1.43 people per room).
· “Israel, which takes such good care of the settlers’ natural growth, is trying to fight against our natural growth because we are a ‘demographic threat’,” said Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (Ra’am-Ta’al)
But official figures, compiled by human rights groups, show that the housing situation of Israeli Arabs is much better than that of the Palestinians in East Jerusalem: although the number of Palestinian Arabs increased almost four times from 69,000 to 270,000, which requires the construction of a minimum 1,500 housing units, the Zionist municipality of occupied Jerusalem gave between 1992 and 2001 authorised the building of 400 hundred units per year, “The result: Illegal construction and demolition orders”.
“Since 1967, less than 600 government subsidized homes were built in the Palestinian sector, the last of which was built 30 years ago.” And, “Only 13% of the land Israel annexed from the West Bank into Jerusalem is available to the Palestinian population. The lands that were annexed were mainly used to house 50,000 apartments for Jews.”
In what is known as zone “C” of the occupied West Bank in which 150,000 Palestinian Arabs live in on their own property “Between 2000 and 2007 only 91 construction permits were issued there, accounting for 5.6% of the requests filed by Palestinians. The result: housing crisis, illegal construction and demolition orders.”
The Zionist goal is understood and very clear, the Zionist entity under all its governments and ruling parties and coalitions are trying to strangle Palestinian Arabs in their own occupied land and force them to commit self transfer til Palestine is free of its Palestinians; so as to become only a “Jewish state”.
Tagged as: East Jerusalem, Israel, occupation, Palestine, Settlements, West Bank, Zionism
Adib Kawar is a writer, researcher, translator Arab and/Palestinian and Zionist affairs – Hobby painter. Bachelor of Arts, American University of Beirut 1954. Was born in Nazareth – Palestine, residing in Beirut – Lebanon. Retired ex-Manager of an industry and marketing. من مواليد الناصرة فلسطين، مقيم في بيروت – لبنان. خريج الجامعة الأمريكية في بيروت 1954 المهنة سابقا – مدير مؤسسة صناعية وتسويق، متقاعد حاليا. كاتب، باحث، مترجم متخصص في القضية الفلسطينية والصهيونية، الهواية الرسم المؤلفات: “شكل الدولة العربية العتيدة”، “المرأة اليهودية في فلسطين المحتلة”، “الدعاية الصهيونية في الرواية الأمريكية” (عربي و إنجليزي) “شهادات لمقتلعين فلسطينيين) و “التعليم الفلسطيني تحت الاحتلالين”
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For the coming 15 days ,
I beg of you all to carefully watch
which Media shall mention that Michael Jackson
has converted to Islam , and which Media shall never do it.
Make your own statistics
and then make your own conclusions.
As if ,
it were “wrong” to convert to Islam
as Michael obviously did , therefore it is rather irrelevant…..
but otherwise it is perfectly alright to do as Madona recently did,
….converting to Judaism !!
Bearing in mind that you cannot convert into a “race “
…..although Jews pretend to be a race-people-nation-culture.
When it is normal to convert to Islam , which is
a brotherhood of beleivers , a Religion…..the Religion !!
Madona can now ” inherit ” the Land of Canaan
while probably Michael Jackson , would in theory
enter the Heavens….without ever stealing Mecca…..
nor stealing Jerusalem.
Bearing in mind that Madona , “legaly” ,
may steal Jerusalem now that she became a Jew….
Back to our story !
Watch the news , please ,
and tell us who or what shall ever reveal to us
and indeed to the large public, that Michael Jackson
died as , a converted-Muslim-person ?
and who shall not mention it ?? and how often ??
Raja Chemayel
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By Guest Post • Jun 25th, 2009 at 20:38 • Category: Analysis, Israel, Newswire, Palestine, Religion, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Zionism
In this my first week back in North America, I was reminded that there are two Americas: a decent caring one and one of delusion.
This is as if there are two trains heading to different destinations. The hypocrisy train has big PR budgets, has a huge lobby that managed to get most of the politicians in its pocket and speaks of constant threats to poor Israel (and “democracy”). Its agents in the media like Wolf Blitzer (who used to be a Zionist lobbyist before he became a CNN anchor) push openly for confrontation with Iran after they pushed for confrontation with Iraq. They now interview protestors in Iran who are opposed to the government but will not present the other side. The same cabal refuses to even interview one Palestinian protestor fighting a far more repressive apartheid government of Israel. That is the train that has many starry-eyed passengers, a train that uses double standards and contorted logic to justify ethnic cleansing and distracts attention from other realities with lies and new conflicts. This is the train whose willing and unwilling soldier passengers marshal on the path of destruction thinking they have no choice.
Subservient/obedient academics on panels in Toronto in the last three days at the conference on mapping models for the future in Israel/Palestine provided excellent examples. Many stated things like this (some with blinking eyes, others apparently sincerely believing this stuff): that refugees have no right to return to their homes and lands, that religion makes a nationality, that Jews are unique and special, that the victims need to assure those who robbed them of their lands that they are safe and guilt free, that if you advocate for equality and justice then you are an anti-semite (or anti-peace at best), that if you are for a one-state solution then you are advocating endless conflicts, that if you speak for boycotts and won’t collaborate with apartheid elites then you are hateful, and much more. What is bizarre is that some of those folks are considered the moderates (there were protestors passing out flyers with even worse attitudes). These people recline onto their train chairs ignoring mountains of evidence and mountains of experiences of failure in the past. They lack self-introspection and are unable or unwilling to question where their train is heading even as the warning signs of the approaching cliff are everywhere.
The other train is finally beginning to get its engine revved up and voices of conductors are beginning to speak truth to the powers that be. They invite deluded passengers from the other train to find out what is going on and some do switch trains but others hurl insults. In the conference at York, voices were heard from both trains. (Read abstracts for the talks). On the subject of Palestine, it cannot be any clearer despite the valiant attempts by defenders of Zionism to hide it: you are either with morality and justice or you are with apartheid, ethnic cleansing and oppression. In the conference at York, the best speech I heard was by George Bisharat which I hope I can share with you soon. In the meantime, perhaps a taste of the thinking is George’s article “Maximizing Rights: The One State Solution to the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict”
The question that kept coming to my mind is, “why can’t we live together?” Why do some believe in “solutions” based on segregation and ghettos in the guise of endless peace process industry which may lead to “two states”.
Now for a brief comment on Iran. IMHO, the first thing the US has to do is demonstrate convincingly (and not via a pathetic speech in Cairo) that the West will act fairly to challenge oppression wherever it occurs. To demonstrate that convincingly, we must start with our ‘allies’ especially Israel (and Egypt and Saudi Arabia). The US could change the dynamic in Iran in two months if it gives Israel two months to comply with all relevant United Nations resolutions including withdrawal from the occupied territories and allowing the refugees to return to their homes and lands. The US government does have that power to do this (see Eisenhower’s strong stance in 1956 as an example). That message of real change would indeed change the political landscape in the Middle East. The US should then meet with ALL political forces in the Middle East (Israel, Hamas, and Hizballah included) to chart a new future in that part of the world that is based on justice. That will unleash the enormous economic potential of an integrated, liberated Middle East in which people of various religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc.) can build a more equitable future.
The hypocracy train thinks it is heading to a destination of subservient masses of Muslims under a dominance of Zionism using western proxy armies (they saw Iraq and Afghanistan as first stations and now have Iran in the cross hairs). But it actually will lead to the same destination as the second train (just with far more bloodshed and a far longer, more tortuous road). Those in the peace movement are being confused by propaganda. They are being told that the Iraq invasion was imperialist (without clarifying that Zionism now sits at tables of power if not at the throne of imperialism). Facts about who pushed for the war on Iraq and is pushing for conflict in and on Iran are being suppressed diligently. Instead of fighting for democracy here in the US where AIPAC and other special interests rule the show, many are being distracted with things they have no understanding of.
How many have been to Iran and really know what is going on in that country of 60+ million? How many know that not one Iranian lost his home and land in the last 30 years of this (admittedly not a nice) government rule? How many know that 7 million of the 10 million Palestinians in the world are refugees or displaced people (all thanks to “Western” support of Zionism or more accurately, Zionism’s hold on Western countries). How many know the real history of the “Western Wars” (World War I and II) let alone the eastern ones (the history of US and British destructive meddling in Iran and Iraq beginning with the 1919-1920 occupations through the engineered toppling of any democratic governments to install people like the Shah and Saddam Hussein). That is what makes the Western Media (managed by special interests and with Zionists in key positions) focus on Iran as a “threat”. As one US ex Secretary of State said “you tell me Israel is our only friend in the region, I tell you that before Israel we had no enemies in the region”. Before Israel indeed, we had no radical Islamic movements and the population in the Middle East was moving towards modernity (just look at old Egyptian movies as one of millions of examples). Of course we cannot blame Israel for everything. The people need to take responsibility. As individuals we have a choice. But I have already rambled on too much and let us leave that for another email.
On to more events in the US. I’ll be in Pittsburgh for the next three days. For those of you in Boston area, here is an event you can attend:
We are pleased to invite you to this Cambridge presentation, which will be followed by a Q&A session.
Wednesday, July 1st, 7 pm
Senior Center, 806 Mass Ave, Central Sq
Cambridge, MassachusettsMazin Qumsiyeh is here from Palestine on a month-long North American tour. “Israeli colonization of Palestine: why it matters to the US and the world”
Free, open, accessible, to be videotaped.
Note that we can allow in only the first 120 people; others will have to be turned away, unfortunately. Report from the ground: After we will move to Andala’s: 286 Franklin St, Central Square, Cambridge. Andala’s is a short walk from the Senior Center.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
A bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home
http://qumsiyeh.org/
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_56146.shtml
Tagged as: AIPAC, Israel, Palestine, pro-Israel Media Bias, US foreign policy
Guest Post is the author as indicated in the tagline. He/she (or the source that is indicated within the post) reserves the rights to the material published.
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By Nima Shirazi • Jun 24th, 2009 at 21:53 • Category: Analysis, Biography, Newswire, Religion, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance
Douter de tout ou tout croire, ce sont deux solutions également commodes, qui l’une et l’autre nous dispensent de réfléchir.
To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the need for thought.
– Jules Henri Poincaré, La Science et l’Hypothèse (1901)
By now, we all know the story:
Still high from Barack Obama’s Cairo speech and Lebanon’s recent elections that saw the pro-Western March 14 faction barely maintain its majority in the Chamber of Deputies, the mainstream media fully expected a clean sweep for “reformist” candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Iran’s June 12th presidential election. They reported surging poll numbers, an ever-growing Green Wave of support for the challenger, while taking every opportunity to get in their tired and juvenile epithets, their final chance to demonize and defame the incumbent Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom they were convinced had absolutely no chance of winning reelection.
The turnout was a massive 85% by most estimates, resulting in almost forty million ballots cast by the eligible Iranian voting public.
Before the polls even closed, Mousavi had already claimed victory. “In line with the information we have received, I am the winner of this election by a substantial margin,” he said. “We expect to celebrate with people soon.” However, according to the chairman of the Interior Ministry’s Electoral Commission, Kamran Daneshjoo, with the majority of votes counted, the incumbent president had taken a seemingly unassailable lead.
And so it was. Ahmadinejad won. By a lot. Some said by too much.
It didn’t take long before accusations started flying, knee-jerk reactions were reported as expert analysis, and rumor became fact. As Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei congratulated Ahmadinejad on his landslide victory, calling it a “divine assessment,” the opposition candidates all cried foul. Mousavi called the results “treason to the votes of the people” and the election a “dangerous charade.” Karroubi described Ahmadinejad’s reelection as “illegitimate and unacceptable.”
The Western media immediately jumped on board, calling the election a “fraud,” “theft,” and “a crime scene” in both news reports and editorial commentary. Even so-called progressive analysts, from Juan Cole to Stephen Zunes to Dave Zirin to Amy Goodman to Trita Parsi to the New Yorker‘s Laura Secor, opined on the illegitimacy of the results. They cited purported violations, dissident testimony from inside sources, leaked “real” results, and seeming inconsistencies, incongruities, and irregularities with Iran’s electoral history all with the intention of proving that the election was clumsily stolen from Mousavi by Ahmadinejad. These commentators all call the continuing groundswell of protest to the poll results an “unprecedented” show of courage, resistance, and people power, not seen in Iran since the 1979 revolution.
To me, the only thing unprecedented about what we’re seeing in Iran seems to be the constant media hysteria, righteous indignation, and hypocritical pseudo-solidarity of the West; a bogus, biased, and altogether presumptuous and uncritical reaction to hearsay and conjecture, almost totally decontextualized in order to promote sensational headlines and build international consensus for foreign intervention in Iran.
The foregone (and totally unsubstantiated) conclusions drawn by a rabid, clucking media have led to an ever-growing outrage over the elections results. Weak theories are tossed around like beads on Bourbon Street and assumed to be “expert analysis” and beyond reproach. By now, the accusations are well-known. However, with a little perspective and rational thought, the “evidence” that purportedly demonstrates proof of a fixed election winds up sounding pretty forced. With closer inspection and added context, the arguments crumble and are revealed not to be very compelling, let alone convincing.
We read that the reelection of Ahmadinejad was impossible, unbelievable. It was a sham, a hoax, and a coup d’etat. But, in fact, there is no alleged, let alone substantive, proof to suggest that the results were fixed beyond mere speculation, biased and baseless assumptions, and suspect hearsay. It appears quite clear that the pre-election predictions of a soaring Mousavi victory by the Western press were nothing more than the consequence of presumptuous wishful thinking. Analyst James Petras tells us,
“What is astonishing about the West’s universal condemnation of the electoral outcome as fraudulent is that not a single shred of evidence in either written or observational form has been presented either before or a week after the vote count. During the entire electoral campaign, no credible (or even dubious) charge of voter tampering was raised. As long as the Western media believed their own propaganda of an imminent victory for their candidate, the electoral process was described as highly competitive, with heated public debates and unprecedented levels of public activity and unhindered by public proselytizing. The belief in a free and open election was so strong that the Western leaders and mass media believed that their favored candidate would win.”
Most of these claims rest on the brash and offensive assumption that these “experts” know how Iranians would vote better than Iranians do. Clearly, they argue, Mousavi would win his hometown of Tabriz in the heart of East Azerbaijan, since he’s an ethnic Azeri with an “Azeri accent” and Iranians always vote along geographical and ethnic lines. And yet, Ahmadinejad won that province by almost 300,000 votes. Curious, no?
Well, no.
As Flynt Leverett points out,
Ahmadinejad himself speaks Azeri quite fluently as a consequence of his eight years serving as a popular and successful official in two Azeri-majority provinces; during the campaign, he artfully quoted Azeri and Turkish poetry – in the original – in messages designed to appeal to Iran’s Azeri community. (And, we should not forget that the Supreme Leader is Azeri.) The notion that Mousavi was somehow assured of victory in Azeri-majority provinces is simply not grounded in reality.
Furthermore, in a pre-election poll Azeris favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi. Furthermore, Petras notes, “The simplistic assumption [of the Western media] is that ethnic identity or belonging to a linguistic group is the only possible explanation of voting behavior rather than other social or class interests. A closer look at the voting pattern in the East-Azerbaijan region of Iran reveals that Mousavi won only in the city of Shabestar among the upper and the middle classes (and only by a small margin), whereas he was soundly defeated in the larger rural areas, where the re-distributive policies of the Ahmadinejad government had helped the ethnic Azeris write off debt, obtain cheap credits and easy loans for the farmers. Mousavi did win in the West-Azerbaijan region, using his ethnic ties to win over the urban voters.”
Additionally, it should be noted that, although there is a wide diversity of ethnic groups within Iranian society, most of them share a common history and Iranian identity. This is certainly the case within the Azeri community of Northwest Iran. We have been told for quite some time now that “public opinion polls suggest that foreign pressure to discontinue Iran’s nuclear program has contributed to a rise in patriotism because public support for the Iran’s nuclear program has been strong. Support for the program transcends political factions and ethnic groups.” Considering that Ahmadinejad’s four years of standing strong in the face of such aggressive and threatening foreign pressure has played well with the public, as opposed to Mousavi’s more conciliatory tone with regards to bettering relations with Western powers, it is hardly a stretch or a surprise that Ahmadinejad would be supported by such large swaths of the population across all demographics.
The voting habits of ethnic Lur voters in reformist candidate Mehdi Karroubi’s home province are also assumed to be known by Western analysts. If he won five million votes in 2005, why did he only clear about 300,000 this time around? How could Ahmadinejad win in Tehran, when Mousavi’s base of upper and middle class cosmopolitan youths, university students, and wealthy business-owners reside there? Plus, Mousavi is said to have been popular in urban areas, where Ahmadinejad was seen as holding less sway. So how could Mousavi possibly lose? These questions are valid, for sure, but they have equally rational answers.
Karroubi wasn’t a contender in this race like he was four years ago. There was no incumbent president at that time (President Khatami had just completed his second term) and the candidate field was wide open. Karroubi had a pro-reform and pro-populist message that appealed to many unsure of whom to vote for. He did well in his hometown. But 2009 is not 2005. After four years of Ahmadinejad’s presidency, the rural Iranian voting bloc strongly supports his economic, domestic, and foreign policies. It is irresponsible to assume that Karroubi’s “reformist” support would turn heavily to Mousavi since Karroubi had no chance of winning this year. He has long been a staunch opponent of Iranian political stalwart and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is closely aligned with Mousavi. Karroubi’s populist approach to the economy is more like Ahmadinejad’s than Mousavi’s.
Esam Al-Amin, writing for Counterpunch, astutely observes,
The double standard applied by Western news agencies is striking. Richard Nixon trounced George McGovern in his native state of South Dakota in the 1972 elections. Had Al Gore won his home state of Tennessee in 2000, no one would have cared about a Florida recount, nor would there have been a Supreme Court case called Bush v. Gore. If Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards had won the states he was born and raised in (South and North Carolina), President John Kerry would now be serving his second term. But somehow, in Western newsrooms Middle Eastern people choose their candidates not on merit, but on the basis of their “tribe.”
The fact that minor candidates such as Karroubi would garner fewer votes than expected, even in their home regions as critics charge, is not out of the ordinary. Many voters reach the conclusion that they do not want to waste their votes when the contest is perceived to be between two major candidates. Karroubi indeed received far fewer votes this time around than he did in 2005, including in his hometown. Likewise, Ross Perot lost his home state of Texas to Bob Dole of Kansas in 1996, while in 2004, Ralph Nader received one eighth of the votes he had four years earlier.
Ahmadinejad didn’t win Tehran, even though this falsehood is repeated constantly in the Western press as evidence of vote tampering. He won Tehran province, yes, but not the metropolitan area. In Tehran proper, which has a total population of about 7.7 million, Mousavi received 2,166,245 votes, which is over 356,000 more than the incumbent Ahmadinejad, and in Shemiranat – the affluent and westernized Northern section of the greater Tehran area, abounding with shopping malls and luxury cars – Mousavi beat Ahmadinejad by almost a 2 to 1 margin, winning 200,931 votes to Ahmadinjead’s 102,433. In fact, according to the official numbers, Ahmadinejad lost in most cities around the country, including Ardabil, Ardakan, Aqqala, Bandar Torkaman, Baneh, Bastak, Bukan, Chabahar, Dalaho, Ganaveh, Garmi, Iranshahr, Javanroud, Kalaleh, Khaf, Khamir, Khash, Konarak, Mahabad, Mako, Maraveh Tappeh, Marivan, Miandoab, Naghadeh, Nikshahr, Oshnavieh, Pars-Abad, Parsian, Paveh, Pilehsavar, Piranshahr, Qeshm, Ravansar, Shabestar, Sadooq, Salmas, Saqqez, Saravan, Sardasht, Showt, Sibsouran, Yazd, Zaboli, and Zahedan. This deficit was more than made up for, however, in working class suburbs, small towns and rural areas. (Since the election, Ahmadinejad’s detractors have enjoyed flaunting the statistic that only 30% of Iranians live in the countryside, without realizing that the adjoining blue-collar neighborhoods and less affluent suburban sprawl of urban centers are not counted as “rural” areas.)
But weren’t the pre-election polls indicating an easy victory for Mousavi? No, they weren’t. An Iranian opinion poll from early May, conducted in Tehran as well as 29 other provincial capitals and 32 important cities, showed that “58.6% will cast their ballots in favor of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while some 21.9% will vote for Mousavi.” Even though Western media likes to tell us that polling is notoriously difficult in Iran, there was plenty of pre-election data to analyze. Al-Amin writes,
More than thirty pre-election polls were conducted in Iran since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main opponent, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, announced their candidacies in early March 2009. The polls varied widely between the two opponents, but if one were to average their results, Ahmadinejad would still come out on top. However, some of the organizations sponsoring these polls, such as Iranian Labor News Agency and Tabnak, admit openly that they have been allies of Mousavi, the opposition, or the so-called reform movement. Their numbers were clearly tilted towards Mousavi and gave him an unrealistic advantage of over 30 per cent in some polls. If such biased polls were excluded, Ahmadinejad’s average over Mousavi would widen to about 21 points.
One poll conducted before the election by two US-based non-profit organizations forecast Ahmadinejad’s reelection with surprising prescience. The survey was jointly commissioned by the BBC and ABC News, funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and conducted by the New America Foundation‘s nonprofit Center for Public Opinion, which, “has a reputation of conducting accurate opinion polls, not only in Iran, but across the Muslim world since 2005.” The poll predicted an election day turnout of 89%, only slightly higher than the actual 85% who voted (that’s a difference of fewer than 2 million ballots). According to pollsters Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty, the “nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin – greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday’s election.”
Moreover, we hear incessantly about Iran’s all-important youth vote. According to many estimates, about 60% of Iran’s population is under 30 years old; however, what isn’t often reported is that almost a quarter of the population is actually under 15 years old. There are about 25 million Iranians between 15 and 29, which is about 36% of the population of the entire country. Voting age in Iran is 18. Additionally, Ballen and Doherty conclude,
“Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access to the Internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.
The only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, and the highest-income Iranians. When our poll was taken, almost a third of Iranians were also still undecided. Yet the baseline distributions we found then mirror the results reported by the Iranian authorities, indicating the possibility that the vote is not the product of widespread fraud.”
Furthermore, this poll was conducted before Ahmadnejad’s impressive showing in widely watched televised debates against his opponents. The debates, aired live nightly between June 2nd and 8th, pitted candidates one-on-one for ninety minutes. According to news reports, the Ahmadinejad-Mousavi debate was watched by more than 40 million people. Leverett notes,
American “Iran experts” missed how Ahmadinejad was perceived by most Iranians as having won the nationally televised debates with his three opponents – especially his debate with Mousavi.
Before the debates, both Mousavi and Ahmadinejad campaign aides indicated privately that they perceived a surge of support for Mousavi; after the debates, the same aides concluded that Ahmadinejad’s provocatively impressive performance and Mousavi’s desultory one had boosted the incumbent’s standing. Ahmadinejad’s charge that Mousavi was supported by Rafsanjani’s sons – widely perceived in Iranian society as corrupt figures – seemed to play well with voters.
Similarly, Ahmadinejad’s criticism that Mousavi’s reformist supporters, including former President Khatami, had been willing to suspend Iran’s uranium enrichment program and had won nothing from the West for doing so tapped into popular support for the program – and had the added advantage of being true.
Anyone who actually watched the debates (one wonders how many Western reporters, pundits, Iran “experts,” and commentators are included in this demographic) would have known first-hand how singularly uncharismatic Mousavi was and how particularly lackluster was his debating style. Mousavi is a mumbler, a low-talker, and has about as much on-screen personality as Ben Stein on Klonopin. (How this man, absent from Iranian politics for the past twenty years, could become the leader of an energetic protest movement is anyone’s guess, but you might want to ask the CIA first.)
Conversely, Ahmadinejad – as both his supporters and detractors would readily admit – is nothing if not an engaging, animated, and impassioned speaker. His outspoken nature and refusal to be bullied by opponents is apparent to anyone who has ever heard or seen him speak, whether they agree with what he says or not. Anyone who believes Mousavi won these debates either didn’t actually watch them and/or decided to uncritically believe talking points distributed by the Mousavi campaign about their candidate’s inspired performance.
Opponents of Ahmadinejad in the Western press – or, more accurately, everyone in the Western press – consistently refer to Ahmadinejad as an entrenched, establishment politician who has the unconditional backing of Iran’s powerful theocratic hierarchy. As such, the current unrest in the nation’s capital has been described as a grassroots, largely secular movement aimed at upsetting the religious orthodoxy of the government – embodied in such reports by Ahmadinejad himself – in an effort to fight for more personal freedoms and human rights in defiance of the country’s revolutionary ideals. These reports betray the journalists’ obvious misunderstanding of Iranian politics in general, and certainly of President Ahmadinejad’s personal politics in particular.
In fact, Newsweek reported that, on Wednesday morning of last week, Mousavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard, who was with her husband throughout the presidential campaign, felt the need to remind a group of students that she and her husband still believe in the ideals of the revolution and don’t regard anti-Islamic Revolution elements as their allies.
Furthermore, even though here in the US, he is variably referred to as “hardline” and a religious conservative, Ahmadinejad is far more of a populist politician, consistently favoring nationalization, the redistribution of Iran’s oil wealth, controlled prices of basic consumer goods, increased government subsidies, salaries, benefits, and insurance and continued opposition to foreign investment over his opponents’ calls for more free-market privatization of education and agriculture, as well as the promotion of neoliberal strategies. Leading up to the election, Mousavi condemned what he called Ahmadinejad’s “charity-based economic policy.” I wonder how that attack played with the middle, lower, and impoverished classes of Iran’s voting public. Oh right, Ahmadinejad got 63% of the vote, even if Juan Cole didn’t want him to.
Ahmadinejad has often drawn the ire of both Iranian clerics and legislators alike for his outspoken views. In March 2008, The Economist noted that influential conservative clerics are said to be irritated by his “folksy and superstitious brand of ostentatious piety and his favouritism to men of military rather than clerical backgrounds.” The conservative Rand Corporation even reminds us, “He is not a mullah; public frustration with rule by mullahs made this a very positive characteristic. He comes from a working-class background, which appealed to lower-income Iranians, the bulk of the electorate, yet he has a doctorate in engineering.” In the 2005 presidential election, Ahmadinejad emerged as a dark horse to challenge front-runner and assumed shoe-in, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. As the son of a blacksmith, “Ahmadinejad benefited from the contrast between his modest lifestyle and Rafsanjani’s obvious wealth, commonly known to stem from corruption.” The Rand report even reiterates that “Rafsanjani is extraordinarily corrupt.”
During both his presidential campaigns of 2005 and 2009, Ahmadinejad focused far more on “bread and butter” issues to win over his constituents, rather than on religion, saying things like this in his speeches: “People think a return to revolutionary values is only a matter of wearing the headscarf. The country’s true problem is employment and housing, not what to wear.”
In the past three months of campaigning for reelection, the incumbent made over sixty campaign trips throughout Iran, while Mousavi visited only major cities. Throughout the recent debates, Ahmadinejad took the opportunity to attack rampant corruption among high-ranking clerics within the Iranian establishment. The New York Times reported that “He accused Mr. Rafsanjani, an influential cleric, and Mr. Rafsanjani’s sons of corruption and said they were financing Mr. Mousavi’s campaign. Mr. Ahmadinejad also cited a long list of officials whom he accused of unspecified corrupt acts, including plundering billions of dollars of the country’s wealth.” The article continued,
Mr. Ahmadinejad contended that the early founders of the Iranian revolution, including Mr. Moussavi, had gradually moved away from the values of the revolution’s early days and had become “a force that considered itself as the owner of the country.”
He suggested that some leaders had indulged in an inappropriately lavish lifestyle, naming, among others, a former speaker of Parliament, Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri, who has opposed some of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s policies. Mr. Nouri, a conservative, ran unsuccessfully for president in 1997. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s remarks seemed to suggest a deepening divide between the president and a number of influential leaders, including some conservatives who belong to a faction that has supported Mr. Ahmadinejad.
Whereas these remarks may have struck a chord with the Iranian public, they provoked a stern rebuke from Supreme Guide Khamenei at last Friday’s post-election prayer service. Khamenei, breaking a long-standing tradition of not mentioning specific people during his address, defended Rafsanjani’s reputation by describing him as “one of the most significant and principal people of the movement in the pre-revolution era…[who] went to the verges of martyrdom several times after the revolution,” also pointing out his bona fides as “a companion of Imam Khomeini, and after the demise of Imam Khomeini was perpetually a comrade of the leader.”
Rafsanjani is currently the speaker of the Assembly of Experts, an 86 member elected council of clerics responsible for appointing and, if need be, dismissing and replacing the Supreme Guide of the Islamic Republic. In September 2007, Rafsanjani was elected speaker after decisively defeating a candidate supported by Ahmadinejad. He is also currently the leader of the Expediency Council which is “responsible for breaking stalemates between the Majlis and the Guardian Council, advising the Supreme Leader, and proposing policy guidelines for the Islamic Republic.” As such, the Expediency Council limits the power wielded by the conservative Guardian Council, a body consisting of twelve jurists who evaluate the compatibility of the Majlis [Parliament]’s legislative decisions with Islamic law and the Iranian constitution. Moreover, in 2005, Khamenei strengthened the role of the Expediency Council by granting it supervisory powers over all branches of government, effectively affording the Expediency Council and its leader, Rafsanjani, oversight over the presidency. As a result, Rafsanjani retains a tremendous amount of power within Iranian politics. His strong support, both outspoken and financial, for Mousavi should show clearly that Mousavi – who was the Iranian Prime Minister during the Iran-Iraq War – is not some scrappy reformist challenger to the upper tiers of the Islamic Republic. He is as establishment as anyone else, if not more so.
But that’s not all. Asia Times correspondant M.K. Bhadrakumar explains,
For those who do not know Iran better, suffice to say that the Rafsanjani family clan owns vast financial empires in Iran, including foreign trade, vast landholdings and the largest network of private universities in Iran. Known as Azad there are 300 branches spread over the country, they are not only money-spinners but could also press into Mousavi’s election campaign an active cadre of student activists numbering some 3 million.
The Azad campuses and auditoria provided the rallying point for Mousavi’s campaign in the provinces. The attempt was to see that the campaign reached the rural poor in their multitudes who formed the bulk of voters and constituted Ahmadinejad’s political base. Rafsanjani’s political style is to build up extensive networking in virtually all the top echelons of the power structure, especially bodies such as the Guardian Council, Expediency Council, the Qom clergy, Majlis, judiciary, bureaucracy, Tehran bazaar and even elements within the circles close to Khamenei. He called into play these pockets of influence.
The Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri has already come out against the election results, once again showing that the dynamic of the Iranian government is not that of a monolithic dictatorship, but a complex network of power plays. Basically, what we’re seeing is all politics, and not a revolutionary uprising.
As allegations of fraud spread, Mousavi supporters in the United States seemed not to be able to get their stories straight. In co-ordinated mass emails, sent widely to promote protests across the country (and with all the “grassroots” pizzazz of those corporate-sponsored Republican Teabagging Parties in April), a number of unsubstantiated claims are noted as “Basic Statistics.”
Some claim that there were not enough ballots available to the voting public, while others suggest that there were too many ballots in an attempt to stuff ballot boxes with pro-Ahmadinejad votes. It is claimed that “Voting irregularities occurred throughout Iran and abroad. Polls closed early, votes were not counted and ballots were confusing.” Without providing any evidence of any of these accusations, the message reveals its own inaccuracy by deliberately spreading misinformation. Because turnout on election day was so high in Iran, polls actually remained open for up to four extra hours to allow as many people to cast ballots as possible. If Iranian authorities were prepared for a totalitarian takeover of the country after a faked election, why bother to keep polls open?
Also, the ballots weren’t confusing. They had no list of names or added legislative initiatives. They had one single, solitary question on them: Who is your pick for president? There is one empty box to note a number corresponding to the candidate of your choice and another box in which you are to write the candidate’s name. No hanging chads, no levers to pull, no political parties to consider. Just write the name of the guy you want to win. How is this confusing?
The suggestion that the ballots were counted too quickly to reflect a genuine result is in itself bizarre and unfounded. Al-Amin tells us, “There were a total of 45,713 ballot boxes that were set up in cities, towns and villages across Iran. With 39.2 million ballots cast, there were less than 860 ballots per box…Why would it take more than an hour or two to count 860 ballots per poll? After the count, the results were then reported electronically to the Ministry of the Interior in Tehran.”
The elections in Iran are organized and monitored. The ballots are counted by teachers and professionals including civil servants and retirees, much like here in the US. An eyewitness from Shiraz provides this account:
“As an employee in City Hall, I was assigned to be a poll worker/watcher at the University of Shiraz on election day and here it was impossible for cheating to have taken place! There were close to 20 observers, from the Guardian Council, the Ministry of the Interior, and more than four-five representatives/observers from each candidate. Everybody was watching every single move, stamp, piece of paper, etc. from the checking of the Shenas-Nameh (personal indentification documentation) to the filling of the ballot boxes, to the counting of each ballot under everyone’s eyes, and then registering the results into the computer and sending them to the Interior Ministry…Also, we had extra ballots in Shiraz. It’s possible that in some of the smaller villages they ran out of ballots, but the voting hours were extended.”
The opposition messages state that “The two main state news agencies in Iran declared the winner before polls closed and votes were counted.” Actually, as mentioned above, it was Mousavi who declared his own victory several hours before the polls closed. Paul Craig Roberts, who is himself a former US government official, suggests that Mousavi’s premature victory declaration is “classic CIA destabilization designed to discredit a contrary outcome. It forces an early declaration of the vote. The longer the time interval between the preemptive declaration of victory and the release of the vote tally, the longer Mousavi has to create the impression that the authorities are using the time to fix the vote. It is amazing that people don’t see through this trick.”
Circulating emails even contain this tidbit: “Two primary opponents of Ahmadinejad reject the notion that he won the election.” Talk about proof!
Even Mousavi’s own official letter of complaint – delivered to the Guardian Council after five days of promoting protests and opposition rallies on the streets of Tehran – is short on substantive allegations and devoid of hard evidence of anything remotely suggestive of voter fraud. The letter, which calls for an annulment of the election results and for a new election to take place, expounds on many non-election related issues, such as the televised debates, the incumbent’s access to state-owned transportation on the campaign trail and use of government-controlled media to promote his candidacy. All previous Iranian presidents, including the reformist Mohammad Khatami, who is a main supporter of Mousavi, have used the resources at their disposal for election purposes. Plus, whereas the last point certainly seems unfair, it hardly amounts to fraud. The debates – the first ever held in the history of the Islamic Republic – also served to even up the score for Ahmadinejad’s challengers.
Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, writing for the Asia Times, explains further:
Mousavi complains that some of his monitors were not accredited by the Interior Ministry and therefore he was unable to independently monitor the elections. However, several thousand monitors representing the various candidates were accredited and that included hundreds of Mousavi’s eyes and ears.
They should have documented any irregularities that, per the guidelines, should have been appended to his complaint. Nothing is appended to Mousavi’s two-page complaint, however. He does allude to some 80 letters that he had previously sent to the Interior Ministry, without either appending those letters or restating their content.
Finally, item eight of the complaint cites Ahmadinejad’s recourse to the support given by various members of Iran’s armed forces, as well as Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki’s brief campaigning on Ahmadinejad’s behalf. These are legitimate complaints that necessitate serious scrutiny since by law such state individuals are forbidden to take sides. It should be noted that Mousavi can be accused of the same irregularity as his headquarters had a division devoted to the armed forces.
Given the thin evidence presented by Mousavi, there can be little chance of an annulment of the result.
In response to the accusation of there being more votes in certain areas than registered voters, it must be acknowledged that in Iran, unlike in the United States, eligible voters may vote anywhere they wish – at any polling location in the entire country – and are not limited to their residential districts or precincts as long as their information is registered and valid in the government’s database. Families vacationing North to avoid the stifling heat of the South would wind up voting in towns in which they are tourists. Afrasiabi even points out that, whereas “Mousavi complains that in some areas the votes cast were higher than the number of registered voters…he fails to add that some of those areas, such as Yazd, were places where he received more votes that Ahmadinejad.”
Are these irrefutable examples of an election that was free of all outside interference, irregularities, or potential problems? No, of course not. But there is also no hard proof of a fixed result, let alone massive vote rigging on a scale never before seen in Iran, a country that – unlike the United States – has no history of fraudulent elections.
Tagged as: Ahmadinejad, Iran, Iranian Elections, Mass media, Mousavi, US foreign policy
Nima Shirazi is a writer and a musician. He was born and raised in Manhattan. Now living in Brooklyn, he writes the weblog Wide Asleep In America under the moniker Lord Baltimore.
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Filed under: Mass media, Religion, US Foreign Policy | Tagged: Ahmadinejad, Biography | Comments Off on Nima Shirazi – In Fraud, We Trust?
By Guest Post • Jun 22nd, 2009 at 19:14 • Category: Analysis, Counter-terrorism, No thanks!, Culture and Heritage, Israel, Newswire, Opinions and Letters, Palestine, Religion, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, War, Zionism
Following this article please watch the short video (in Arabic and English)
Bill Clinton, ADC’s most zionist invitee with the most Arab blood on his hands, attracts the highest number of attendees at its convention. The NAACP invites the Ku Klux Klan’s president to its convention.
The former sentence is true, the latter might as well be. I’ve seen “my people” celebrate the occupation of Baghdad. So by now I should be used to seeing perfectly intelligent Arabs prostrating themselves to those who annihilate their brethren. But I wish it were easy to just write them off and desensitize one’s outrage towards their self-defeating betrayals of their homelands.
If this represents what it means to be an Arab-American, I declare my independence of Arab-America. If these people embody today’s Arabhood, I’d gladly choose the companionship of ghosts floating in the cemeteries of Jenin, Gaza and Falluja over that of my fellow Arab-Americans here in the US.
I’m amazed nobody thought of throwing a shoe at Clinton (not really surprised; I’m used to it by now). There appears to be a minority ADC position. Nothing against the author personally, but this is loyal opposition to the politics of the Arab-American establishment, not really dissent. My comments in red. Emphasis in the original article mine.
The Minority Position on Bill Clinton’s ADC Address
By Will
http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/06/the-minority-position-on-bill-clintons-adc-address.html
One of the most notable features of this year’s American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s annual convention in Washington, DC was the appearance of ex-President Bill Clinton. This was a major development for the Arab-American community. It reflected ADC’s re-energization as well the Obama administration’s openness towards consulting a wider variety of stakeholders, probably. Symbolically, it stands for a sign of legitimation that a former president speak to the group. [That’s the name of the game for Arabs in America. Legitimation. If the US doesn’t consider us “legitimate”, that leaves us illegitimate children born out of wedlock. Hence, the need for inviting a mass murderer is perfectly understandable]
Even if I detested his policies towards Arabs, I can understand the need for political engagement by our institutions. [this is the formula for Arab self-humiliation in America. Engage the establishment and sell your cause. We’re more powerful if we work outside the establishment. That’s why I don’t vote. Our dignity and our cause remain intact if we follow in the footsteps of radical Black and Native people like Malcolm and the Panthers and American Indian Movement. Please read Black Power by Carmichael and Hamilton and tell every Arab you know to read it. It’s a handbook for advocating your cause as an oppressed group in America while maintaining your dignity: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Power-Liberation-Charles-Hamilton/dp/0679743138/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245353878&sr=8-1]
I was too curious to see what he would speak about, especially in the hope he would deliver some message from the administration or suggest something that offers substantive support for our foreign policy positions. But now, we are not THAT strong, yet. [we’ll have a valid cause and our dignity will be restored after we become as powerful as our role model, the Zionists!]
He arrived with a grotesque fanfare, with Arab-Americans jumping from their seats to grab pictures of him and to shake his hands like we are trained Pavlovian fans. Instead of giving him the cool reception [see the spectrum of possible treatments: warm reception –> cool reception –> cruel reception (also known as a Zaidi welcome) –> no reception.]
His speech was the subject of much debate afterward. I felt it was barely relevant, elementary, and yet implicitly condescending. Others suggested we could not expect anything better or more, and even asked why should he cater to his audience? [he naturally can’t give more than the audience demands, and this audience clearly was placing assimilation and photo ops with Clinton above demanding cessation of the oppression of Arabs in Iraq and Palestine]
Most refused to read between the lines of his speech. Many were compelled by the soft ambiguity of his talk to take away some positive message. I could not help but read the speech at a deeper level. So what I saw was an implicitly insulting lecture [on top of the explicitly insulting presence? How dare he?!], one that boosted a dangerous misperception of Arab-American political issues.
His talk focused on the reality of global interdependence. The world is so connected that what happens in one part, impacts the other. Swine flu outbreak and the financial crisis are two examples; and the environment is the most urgent issue perhaps [I’m sure this resonated deeply with the Arab-American audience considering that melting icebergs have killed far more Arabs than US empire and Zionism combined], with a disaster possible resulting in a breakdown in social order such as the world depicted by a Mad Max Road Warrior film (his example, not mine).
The way the world system is structured, the world is “unstable, unequal and unsustainable.”
Most conflict in the world, he argues, is driven by identity, even though divisions are blind to the fact that we all share 99.5% genetic commonalities. Therefore, we can be proud if our identities and celebrate our diversity, but not let pride in identity turn to hate: “You teach your children their ethnic heritage; their religious heritage; their cultural heritage with no negative reference to anyone else because it’s the only shot we’ve got to make the most of our interdependent world.”
The speech contained some insights, and was mostly full of textbook liberal politics and current world events. Who would disagree with his emphasis on AIDs and the lack of health care systems in the underdeveloped world, the demonstrated shortcomings of unimpeded free market capitalism (despite the Washington Consensus under his administration), the urgency of the environment, that Muslims and Arabs were among the victims on September 11, 2001, and the dangers of hate?
Sounds reasonable and bland enough, right? If taken out of context, the insult is missed. [actually, his presence per se is insulting. Even if Clinton had read Gamal Abdulnaser speeches, his presence at an Arab event would still be unjustified]
First, the focus on identity trivializes the material bases of our positions and politics. We are not angry at U.S. foreign policy and Israel because of identity differences, but because of invasions, occupations and displacements. While he acknowledges the inequality of the world system, he does not consider that our resentment may come from being on the receiving end of oppression. [of course he doesn’t consider that; he’s the oppressor!] Talking about identity while ignoring this crucial context is in line with analysis that considers Arab resistance to American and Israeli agenda as `civilizational’ or `cultural,’ or based on ancient hatreds.
Second, I felt he belittled our concerns with the fate of the Palestinians when he mildly encouraged the Arab-American community’s efforts on it after talking about the big issues such as the prospects of environmental apocalypse. So silly was his analysis, he compared the outcome to a mad max road warrior movie – then he excoriated the crowd for laughing? “It’s not funny.” I think his juxtaposition was intended to suggest we are over-concerned with this problem. He was trying to shift our agenda to care about nebulous problems, while discrediting our issues — all implicitly, meaning without direct intents. [He was addressing exactly the kind of audience that is happy to shift its agenda on demand.]
Third, he tried to disclaim his failure to say anything substantive, of interest to us, by suggesting he is limited since whatever he says reflects on Hillary, and he will not say anything not within her talking points. That is understandable, but he could have won important points by tying in the administration’s opposition to the settlements to his rudimentary analysis of identity. [Had he only stated opposition to the very settlements he’d facilitated as president, I would’ve found it in my heart to forgive Clinton for sanctioning the life out of half a million Iraqi children] Does anyone deny interdependence and exhibit negative identity more than the Israeli settler movement?
Like I said, he was not interested in giving the community ANYTHING. [except humiliation, which mainstream Arab America invited on itself] And why should he, we’re not powerful enough to get more than a visit. [the problem isn’t lack of power. It’s lack of self-respect. African-Americans in this country didn’t secure “power” before they decided to assert themselves and show a backbone via the civil rights movement. If sucking up to Clinton is what’s necessary to become “powerful” in this country, I’d rather remain un-powerful and dignified. You do not defeat empire by joining the empire. You empower yourself with solid, self-respecting politics, not by drooling over your butchers] Sadly, that was a major development in and of itself.
Fourth, I read his remarks on identity, especially the last one as suggesting that Arab-Americans should be proud of who they are, without hating others, i.e. Jews. Who else could that refer to?
He may have softened that insinuation with an anecdote about a tall Egyptian-American who he saw after September 11, 2001. He had tears in his eyes in fear of the backlash. He told Clinton he was afraid his country would never accept him. It was a compelling story until he said he thought about that story every two or three weeks, which seemed too much like a politician’s feigned nostalgia.
He also referenced Flying while Arab, winning applause, and thereby further camouflaging the speech’s intents. Did the crowd remember that he proposed using secret evidence in deportation proceedings against Arabs and Muslims? And that many of those cases targeted political involved members of communities with minor immigration violations? This is far worse than most of the humiliations and discrimination suffered by many Arab-Americans at airports.
It was vague enough to leave divergent interpretations, I admit. So some progressive activists were pleased with the speech and were gald he did not get into hard politics, since we would have been angrier with the content. [The progressive activists were happy with the speech because they didn’t want to be inconvenienced with anger! You can’t blame them for being concerned for their blood pressure] That makes sense, but we cannot accept the content of the speech he did give uncritically. [Great point! I’ll invite Netanyahu, Olmert, and Livni to the next ADC convention so that we may also listen to their speeches “critically”]
It seems that by not reading between the lines, we miss the richness of a saavy politician’s work. In terms of politicians, he is great. There he was as a president who authored the Oslo illusion, led a sanctions regime that left one million dead in Iraq, bombed Sudan and Afghanistan unilaterally, sponsored anti-terror legislation and, in sum, paved the way for Bush in many respects [nobody disputes those historical facts. The dispute lies in how we Arabs in America react to it. Arabs in Arab countries throw stones and shoes at their oppressors. Arabs in the US throw flowers and speaking invitations]. After giving a 35 minute low-energy speech, he wandered out to hordes of conference attendees and fanfare that only comes from his former position, rather than what he did with us. [that, combined with our pathologically low collective self-esteem. This piece’s direction sheds light on the parameters of mainstream Arab-American assimilationist politics. There are two options. Invite a mass murderer and take pictures with him, or invite a mass murderer and read between the lines of his speech. By the author’s logic, if Clinton had said the “right things” and sounded less condescending and more pro-Arab, inviting him would’ve been viewed as a positive step towards much yearned-for power, and there would’ve been no dissent from the official ADC position whatsoever. By this same thinking, if George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld learn how to say “assalamu alaikum” and show passion for hummus, they’ll be receiving invitations from the Arab-American establishment in 10 years. That’s not speculative; the ADC invited Colin Powell to its 2003 convention, months into the occupation of Iraq.]
(in the picture, ADC Legislative Director Christine Gleichert with Bill Clinton and her former boss, Arab-American Congressman Nick J. Rahall, II)
Saja is a writer, activist, translator
Filed under: Palestine, Religion, War Crimes and Criminals | Tagged: Culture and Heritage, The Axis of Resistance, This is Zionism | Comments Off on Saja ("Arab with Camera") – Throw Shoes, Not Invitations (plus video FLOWERS FOR ABEER)
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By Guest Post • Jun 21st, 2009 at 10:29 • Category: Analysis, Ideas and Projects, Internet and Communication, Newswire, Religion, Resistance
In a June 16 Op-Ed column in the New York Times entitled “The Virtual Mosque,” Thomas Friedman declares that events in Iran have raised “three intriguing questions” for him:
“Is Facebook to Iran’s Moderate Revolution what the mosque was to Iran’s Islamic Revolution? Is Twitter to Iranian moderates what muezzins were to Iranian mullahs? And, finally, is any of this good for the Jews — particularly Israel’s prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu?”
Friedman goes on to explain that, over the past 8 years in certain parts of the Middle East, “spaces were opened for more democratic elections,” but that “[u]nfortunately, the groups that had the most grass-roots support and mobilization capabilities — and the most energized supporters — to take advantage of this new space were the Islamists.” Leaving aside the issue of why Friedman thinks it is up to him to decide which manifestations of democracy are fortunate and which are not, we are informed that the reason the Islamists have been able to exploit the opening of democratic spaces is that they have mosques, places where they “were able to covertly organize and mobilize… outside the total control of the state.” Over the next few paragraphs Friedman appears to arrive at the conclusion that people who attend mosques are less entitled to rights as citizens than, for example, the more than 50,000 fans that Mir Hossein Mousavi is reported to have on Facebook. Friedman points out that 50,000 exceeds the capacity of a mosque, although he does not speculate as to whether all of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads listed on Facebook are real.
As for covert organization, mobilization, and evasion of state control, Friedman asserts: “In Lebanon, Hezbollah took the country into a disastrous and unpopular war. Ditto Hamas in Gaza.” He does not explain why George W. Bush is not also dittoed, or why it is necessary to contradict Israeli admissions as to the lack of spontaneity of their wars.
Moderate Middle Eastern revolutions are meanwhile eulogized as follows:
“What is fascinating to me is the degree to which in Iran today — and in Lebanon — the more secular forces of moderation have used technologies like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, blogging and text-messaging as their virtual mosque, as the place they can now gather, mobilize, plan, inform and energize their supporters, outside the grip of the state.”
It thus appears that in certain cases it is admissible to function as a state within a state, depending on the nature of the state. Additional benefits of mobile phone technology in the Middle East are outlined in Friedman’s June 13 Op-Ed “Winds of Change?” and include the possibility of “monitor[ing] vote-rigging by posting observers with cellphone cameras”—a process unequivocally embraced by other bastions of democracy such as the state of Florida.
Friedman tempers his euphoria over technological breakthroughs by moderates by cautioning in the June 16 article that “we should not get carried away,” based on the fact that “‘moderates’ is a relative term”—especially in the case of Iraqi prime ministers who are less attached to mosques but power-hungry nonetheless—and that “even if defeated electorally, the Islamists and their regimes have a trump card: guns. Guns trump cellphones. Bang-bang beats tweet-tweet.” Further research reveals that the latter stipulation is not a reference to the 2004 Israeli attack on the aviary at the Rafah zoo.
Friedman’s response to the last of the “three intriguing questions” posed in “The Virtual Mosque” (“Is any of this good for the Jews?”) is less intriguing than his responses to the first two, and he limits himself to discussing such things as how “Israeli officials have been saying they would much prefer that Ahmadinejad still wins in Iran — not because Israelis really prefer him but because they believe his thuggish, anti-Semitic behavior reflects the true and immutable character of the Iranian regime.” The commitment of Israeli officials to maintaining enemies does not, however, earn Israel the title of virtual reality.
Backtracking several days from Iran’s virtual election, we find in Friedman’s June 9 Op-Ed column on the Lebanese elections that “in Lebanon it was the real deal, and the results were fascinating: President Barack Obama defeated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.” President Barack Obama’s provenance is not specified, although he is presumably not of Lebanon—thus adding a twist to Friedman’s subsequent claim that the victorious Lebanese coalition was that which “wants Lebanon to be run by and for the Lebanese.” The expansion of democratic spaces in the Middle East is nonetheless confirmed by the fact that “[t]he Lebanese mainstream, armed only with ballots, not bullets, won.” (It would later dawn on Friedman that the mainstream was armed not only with ballots but with Facebook, as well.)
Friedman, who claims in the article that he is a “sucker for free and fair elections” and that it “warms [his] heart to watch people drop ballots in a box to express their will,” chose to experience Lebanese heart-warming in the overwhelmingly Christian summer resort town of Brummana in Mount Lebanon, where there was no danger of coming into contact with any non-virtual mosques. The Quaker cemetery in Brummana also happened to host the gravesite of Palestinian scholar Edward Said, who in a 2002 article entitled “What Price Oslo?” had noted that Friedman “still has the gall to say that ‘Arab TV’ shows one-sided pictures,” in addition to being “insufferably conceited.”
Further evidence of one-sidedness found in Said’s article is that “there aren’t two sides involved here, but only one state turning all its great power against a stateless, repeatedly refugeed, and dispossessed people, bereft of arms and real leadership.” Said ignores the fact that the stateless contingent is in possession of mosques and guns; Friedman meanwhile confirms the role of power in George Bush’s democratic contributions to Syrian expulsion from Lebanon: “Power matters.”
We come up against a slight problem if we employ the Mir Hossein Mousavi model in order to calculate the exact extent of President Bush’s power, in that a Facebook search of “George W. Bush” produces as its first result a group with 58,531 members entitled “One Million Shoes for George W. Bush.” The second result is a group with 35,646 members entitled “Thankful for President George W. Bush”; other noteworthy presences on Facebook include “I Love Thomas Friedman” and “I Hate Thomas Friedman.” Friedman is not, however, included on the list of important visitors to Brummana found on the website http://www.brummana.org.lb/, although Lawrence of Arabia is.
T.E. Lawrence had once asserted that Arabs were as unstable as water; Friedman, for his part, had merely asserted in a 2004 Op-Ed in the New York Times that Palestinians were “gripped by a collective madness, committing suicide,” and that the Muslim world was undergoing an “unstable and at times humiliating catch-up” following its long-term “vacation from globalization, modernization and liberalization.” Friedman mentions in this article that one of the threats to Israel posed by instability consists of “an explosion of Arab multimedia — from Al Jazeera to the Internet,” thus highlighting the dangers of combining mosques and technology. As for other important visitors to Brummana, these include Coca-Cola and petroleum conferences hosted at the Printania Palace hotel in 1967 and 1968, respectively; the 1950s were meanwhile dominated by visits from Lebanese president Camille Chamoun, who is described on the Brummana site as having tried out most of the hotels in the area, and whose dependence on US invasions provided evidence for Friedman’s hypothesis that “power matters.”
I had visited Brummana twice, once with a Maronite friend who claimed that the town’s only important visitors were Saudi princes pursuing sexual relations with Lebanese pop stars, and once with a Palestinian friend who claimed that I should have figured out how to say “Quaker cemetery” in Arabic prior to departing for Brummana from Beirut. We thus spent several hours searching first for the cemetery and then for the key to the cemetery, which it turned out was kept at the house of an elderly woman who invited us in for tea, cake, and duels between her cats. Friedman described his own interactions with elderly Lebanese women in Brummana on election day:
“People came by car, by wheelchair, by foot — young, old and sick. One very elderly lady walked in hooked up to a small oxygen tank. The tube was in her nose helping her to breathe. A young man was carrying the silver oxygen canister on one side of her and a young woman was holding her steady on the other side. But, by God, she was going to vote.”
Edward Said had proved less smitten with democratic commitment by the young and old, and in 2002 had tacked the question “Will the new generation do any better?” onto the end of his allegation that Arab rulers “haven’t learned the power of systematically disseminated information as a way of protecting their people from the onslaughts of those who consider all Arabs militant, extremist, terrorist fanatics.” Whether Said is suggesting that Arab rulers acquire their own New York Times columnists or their own Facebook accounts is not clarified; he does, however, offer some fine-tuning of Friedman’s onomatopoeic model, in which tweet-tweeting technology can be interpreted as merely complicit in the bang-bang of guns:
“What is at stake [when it comes to exorbitant national defense budgets] are material interests that keep rulers in power, corporations making profits, people in a state of manufactured consent, just so long as they don’t get up one morning and start to think about where, in this mad technologised rush to bomb and kill, we are going.”
Tagged as: Iran, Iran elections, Lebanese elections, Lebanon, Mass media, media bias, Obama, Thomas Friedman, US foreign policy
Filed under: Internet and Communication, Religion | Tagged: The Axis of Resistance | Comments Off on >Sentimental moments at the ballot box: Thomas Friedman warms his heart in Brummana, Lebanon
By Guest Post • Jun 14th, 2009 at 11:26 • Category: Analysis, Middle East Issues, Newswire, Religion, Resistance
Filed under: Religion, The Islamic Republic of Iran | Tagged: Corporate Media, Elections, The 5 Seas Region, The Axis of Resistance | Comments Off on spinning reality around the Iranian elections
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UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 
