Israel, 'an outpost of civilization against barbarism'

"The description of Israel as 'the only democracy in the Middle East' has been received wisdom in the Wes for decades. The idea of Israel as 'one of us', a home for Western values in a region of religious extremism and political instability, is voiced and understood by politicians, journalists, analysts,and the general public... [T]he conception of Israel's status as regionally anomalous -- a liberal,  parliamentary democracy -- remains unshaken. When President Barack Obama can call Israel a 'small nation' in a 'tough neighbourhood', remarkably little has chained since Theodor Herzl, the father of political Zionism, wrote in 1896 that a jewish state in Palestine would be 'an outpost of civilization against barbarism' (from the Introduction).

Yet, as Ben White so ably demonstrates, nothing could be further from the truth. From the beginning, when European Zionists first began to enter it, Palestine was considered an "empty" land. In 1902, Max Nordau, co-founder of the World Zionist Organization, wrote that Zionists desired "to irrigate with their sweat and to till with their hands a country that is today a desert, until it again becomes the blooming garden it once was." Nothing could have been further from on the ground reality. Palestine was full of productive farms, busy cities and thriving trade. Seeing the land as "empty" "was not a  matter of ignorance of the Arab population but a question of European chauvinism." "Palestine at the time of first Zionist settlement was not empty of people, but of people deemed worthy by Europeans of controlling their own country." This was not traditional European (and by extension, American) chauvinistic conquest: when you desire something, go in and take it, the natives be damned. With that in mind, literally anything is permissible. 

This is not the narrative I grew up with, which depicted Israel as a brave nation surrounded by bitter enemies who wished to erase it from the earth, and the Israeli people and their leaders as heroic defenders of democracy and human rights. As Ben White ably shows, little could be further from the truth. 

Citing Israel's own laws and policies, White shows that, from the beginning, Israel has treated Palestinians -- including its own Palestinian citizens -- as if they are invisible and, as invisible, have no rights. Citing chapter and verse from Israeli laws and policies, he shows how Palestinians are discriminated against in every way imaginable, and I am not exaggerating in saying that. In the Occupied Territories and Gaza, it is worse and is much more publicized. Within Israel itself, it really isn't any better. In the Galilee and the Negev, Palestinians are pushed aside, their homes demolished in Israel's push to "Judaize" the areas -- culturally "drown" the Negev and Galilee with Jewish residents; in the Occupied Territories they are called "settlers" -- in order to support Israel's as a Jewish state.

The problem with this is that it negates Israel's claim of being a democracy, as it is not a state of all its citizens. (Legally, non-Jews are second-class citizens.) Far from the paradise it is presented as being, reality shows Israel an aggressive, openly racist, and increasingly paranoid nation that defends itself by creating more oppressive laws and violent behavior toward Palestinians in Israel itself and in the Occupied Territories. Israel is, and has been, a contradiction of Herzl's contention that a Jewish nation in Palestine would be "an outpost of civilization against barbarism". What Israel has come to resemble is barbarism itself. 

White's book has already garnered charges of "anti-Semitism" and White charged with being an "anti-Semite", a charge routinely made against all critics of Israel. Israeli journalist Yaniv Halili, for instance, claims the book "presents a blatant anti-Israel approach". It doesn't at all. What it does, and does thoroughly, is cite the sources, which are unimpeachable. Palestinians in Israel may not be a comfortable book to read, but it is an important one, a necessary antidote to all the propaganda and alarmist accusations of anti-Semitism. What Ben White has done, and done very well in this book is reveal the chauvinism and cruelty of the modern State of Israel in all its ugliness.  

A final note: It seems to me that Israel's behavior towards the Palestinian people, which it justifies in terms of "security needs", is itself anti-Semitic for the simple reason that it ignores and denies the brutal behavior that is common knowledge everywhere. In justifying behavior that decent people regard as reprehensible, Israel paints a negative picture of what Jewish people and their culture are like. And that is offensive and wrong.  

If Israel really wishes to rid the world of anti-Semitism and enjoy life as a respected member of the world community of nations, then it must change its behavior. Accusing people who point it  out of anti-Semitism only makes the problem worse.

A 5 star review.

  

Israel's experiments in human despair

British journalist Jonathan Cook knows his subject intimately. The only Western journalist based in Nazareth, the capital of the Palestinian minority in Israel and married to a Palestinian woman, he experiences Israel’s experiments in human despair on a daily basis. The experience is not a pleasant one, and “Disappearing Palestine” is not an easy book to read. In fact, I found the experience -- though enlightening -- a deeply depressing one. His subtitle -- “Israel’s experiments in human despair” -- is attention-grabbing, biting, and deadly serious. It is also deadly accurate. Israel’s consistent goal has, from before it became a nation in 1948, been to rid Palestine of its Arab residents and claim the whole thing for Jews alone. Here is how the author explains it in his Introduction: “It is my contention that Israel has turned the increasingly confined spaces left to the Palestinians not only into open-air cages but also into laboratories where experiments to encourage Palestinian despair, and ultimately  emigration, are being refined. In fact, these experiments were begun inside Israel, only being ‘exported’ to the occupied territories after their conquest in the 1967 war,” something that is confirmed by Hatim Kanaaneh’s “A Doctor in Galilee: The Life and Struggle of a Palestinian in Israel”. “Without the constraints impose by trying to maintain its image as a Western-style democracy inside its own borders, Israel has been able to develop a more aggressive and transparent form of imprisonment for the Palestinians under occupation. It has ‘industrialized’ Palestinian suffering through curfews, checkpoints, walls, permits and surveillance systems, creating a lucrative ‘homeland security’ industry that has grown in importance since the US began a similar occupation of Iraq. The holding pens in which the Palestinians are kept today are ideal places for testing new methods of urban warfare, crowd control and ghettoization, as well as developing techniques for excluding observers such as journalists and aid workers. The gradual ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from their homeland, on both sides of today’s Green Line, is likely to take place with few witnesses to record it” (pages 7, 8). Within these enclosed areas, “Palestinians are being deprived of any economic prospects -- even the basic ability to subsist. Their immiseration ... is designed with one end in mind: the encouragement of ‘transfer’, the word Israelis prefer to ‘ethnic cleansing’.” (page 8)

The rest of the book’s 251 pages of text (plus 30 pages of notes) is a detailed description of what goes on in Israel and the Occupied Territories on a daily basis. As the old saying goes, the Devil is in the details, and the details are horrendous. If reading them is like taking an acid bath, imagine what living them every day of your life must be like. There hasn’t been a single Israeli leader who has not been directly complicit in this horror. Nor a single U.S. president -- with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter -- who hasn’t steadfastly supported Israel’s abhorrent behavior, all of it justified in the name of “security needs”. 

There is no excuse at all for supporting Israel in its inhuman treatment of Palestinians and its blatant racism concerning anyone who is not a Jew. This book ought to be required reading for every US Senator and Representative, and anyone running for those offices. The same goes for political leaders in the UK and Europe. That the West continues to condone and outright support Israel in this is a bitter indictment of all of us. 

If you don’t know this book, go to your local book store or one of the online booksellers and buy your copy today. It is an eye-opener, even if you consider yourself knowledgeable on the subject, as I did. I didn’t know the half of it.

A  5 star read. 

A beautiful, profound book of poetry by one of the best

“Poetry slows us down, cherishes small details. A large disaster erases those details. We need poetry for nourishment and for noticing, for the way language and imagery reach comfortable into experience, holding and connecting it more successfully than any news channel we could name.” About her “Palestinian grandmother who lived till she was 106” she has this to say: “She wanted people to worship in whatever ways they felt comfortable. To respect one another, sit together around the fire cracking almonds and drinking tea, and never forget to laugh no matter what horrible things they had been through. What wisdom,” she asks, “did  she know that all these men can’t figure out?” (from the Introduction.)

In “Different ways to pray”, she writes

“There was the method of kneeling,

a fine method, if you lived in a country

where stones were smooth.

Women dreamed wistfully of

hidden corners where knee fit rock.

their prayers, weathered rib bones,

small calcium words uttered in sequence,

as if this shedding of syllables could

fuse them to the sky.

There were men who had been shepherds so long

they walked like sheep.

Under the olive trees, they raised their arms --

Hear us! We have pain on earth!

We have so much pain there is no place to store it!

 But the olives bobbed peacefully

in fragrant buckets of vinegar and thyme.

At night the men ate heartily, flat bread

    and white cheese,

and were happy in spite of the pain,

because there was also happiness.

In “Passing the refugee camp” she writes after describing how

“Yesterday the soldiers smashed

Lena’s sink and tub and tiles” and

“They whipped a father in front of his sons

ages 2 and 4” and later

“On the steps of the National Palace Hotel

soldiers peel oranges

throwing back their heads so the juice

runs down their throats” she asks

They know what sweetness lives within

How can they know this and forget

so many other things?”

It is difficult for me to pick poems in this wonderful book that are favorites, because so many of them are. Painful, beautiful, poignant, wonderful poems. In “All things not considered”, she has this to say:

“You cannot stitch the breath

back into this boy.

A brother and sister were playing with toys

when their room exploded.

In what language 

is this holy?

TheJewish boys killed in the cave

were skipping school, having an adventure.

Asel Asleh, Palestinian, believed in the field

beyond right and wrong where people

    come together

to talk. He kneeled to help someone else

stand up before he was shot.

If this is holy,

could we have some new religions please?”

In “Blood”, she writes:

I call my father, we talk around the news.

It is too much for him,

neither of his two languages can reach it.

I drive into the country to find sheep, cows,

to plead with the air.

Who calls anyone civilized?

Where can the crying heart graze?

What does a true Arab do now?

I first encountered Naomi Shihab Nye when I read one of her poems, “Kindness” that  haunted me until I found the book it was in and bought it. She is also the author of the young adult  novel “Habibi”, which I have also reviewed, and other novels and poetry collections. 

This is a book I keep nearby to read again and again and again. Go to your nearest bookstore and buy a copy. Get one from amazon.com or The Book Depository. But get one,read them out loud and listen to the voices there. 

This time Israel went too far: "Operation Cast Lead" as a genocidal campaign

A review of “This Time We Went Too Far: Truth & Consequences of the Gaza Invasion”, by Norman Finkelstein, Or Books, Kindle edition, 2011. Hardcover published by Or Books, 2010.

Contents: Foreword, 1/Self-Defense, 2/Their Fear, and Ours, 3/Whitewash, 4/Of Human Shields and Hasbara, 5/Inside Gaza, 6/Ever Fewer Hosannas, Epilogue, Appendix and Notes.

“It’s not that you are to carry out a massacre, but ……” — Israeli commander on the eve of the Gaza invasion (quote located just before the Foreword).

The name given to the attack by the IDF, “Operation Cast Lead,” says it all. When an army casts lead indiscriminately at a population, the underlying purpose is shock and awe, and the result is massacre. No amount of self-justifying verbiage – and there has been plenty of that – can minimize it. From the testimony provided by eyewitnesses and IDF combat soldiers, a massacre is exactly what happened. Followed by a blizzard of justifications, denial, obfuscation and outright lies, all of which Professor Finkelstein carefully documents. Amnesty International called the attack “22 days of death and destruction.” The Israeli government called it justified.

But this time they went too far. Operation Cast Lead was so far over the top and so overwhelming and indiscriminate (they even attacked UN installations) that they caused a tsunami of negative reaction from around the world. Their response? To build a political firewall of propaganda around themselves that had and has a very focused purpose: to seek out, delegitimize and destroy Israel’s critics using every means possible, including character assassination, misinformation, intimidation and destruction of their resources and their organizations. This plan is outlined in detail in a report by Israel’s Reut Institute published in February 2010 following a tsunami of negative response to the Gaza war. The report, which I have read and own a copy of, can be obtained, in PDF format, from http://reut-institute.org/data/uploads/PDFVer/20100310%20Delegitimacy%20Eng.pdf  It is well worth a careful read. An article by Ali Abunimah in the February 16, 2010 edition of The Electronic Intifada calls it “Israel’s new strategy: ‘sabotage’ and ‘attack’ the global justice movement.”

Israel made it even more difficult for itself when, several weeks later it attacked the Mavi Marmara, one of the boats in a peace flotilla headed for Gaza, killing a number of the people on board. Again, the Israeli government justified it and launched a massive propaganda campaign of justification. But even the Reut Institute said they had gone too far.

Israel is very good at being its own worst enemy. Instead of trying to partner with Palestine’s indigenous Arab population and build a nation together, they set about vigorously uprooting and attacking them, a process that continues in both Gaza, the West Bank and within Israel itself. “Under the guise of what is called the ‘peace process’,” Professor Finkelstein writes, “Israel has effectively annexed wide swaths of the West Bank and shredded the social fabric of life there and in the Gaza Strip.” All, of course, justified whilst thumbing its collective nose at world opinion and the UN. Again, all carefully documented by Professor Finkelstein and others … and justified and denied by the Israeli government.

Israel justifies its behavior on the grounds of “security”, but the question that arises in reading this and other books on the subject raises this significant question: Would Israel have any security problems had they treated Palestine’s indigenous population as respected partners? Would they have any security problems today if they treated Palestinians with respect instead of contempt? I very much doubt it.

“This Time We Went Too Far” is a book that I recommend and have as part of my library. It is not, however, at all popular with those for whom Israel can do no wrong. Read it with an open mind. I give it 4 stars.

A Powerful Testimony to Courage and a Call to Action

Letters from Palestine: To do nothing is to join the persecutors.

 

 Kenneth Ring, PhD and Ghassan Abdullah, editors: Letters from Palestine: Palestinians Speak Out about Their Lives, Their Country, and the Power of Nonviolence. Paperback, $26.95. Wheatmark, Tucson, Arizona, 2010. Website: www.wheatmark.com.

For Palestinians, 1948 was a catastrophe. When Israel was born, between 700,000 and 800,000 Palestinians were expelled from their ancestral homes, farms, villages and towns and became permanent refugees. For them this murderous ethnic cleansing was their Holocaust. Sixty-two years later, it continues. For those who live in what was Palestine, the experience is one of contempt, persecution and eradication.

The following quote from professor and peace activist David Shulman’s book Dark Hope is a description of what it is like on the ground. “What we are fighting in the South Hebron Hills is pure, rarefied, unadulterated, uncontainable human evil. Nothing but malice drives this campaign to uproot” people from their homes. … “They led peaceful, if somewhat impoverished lives, until the settlers came. Since then, there has been no peace. They are tormented, terrified, incredulous, as am I. What black greed, what unwitting hatred, has turned Israeli Jews into the torturers of the innocent?”

The stories in Letters from Palestine are by people who live this reality on a daily basis. Some are refugees who cannot return. Most live in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. In reading their stories, two things are clear: no human being should have to endure what they have endured, on a daily basis, for sixty-two years. It is immoral to allow it to continue.

***

What is it like to be Palestinian? The last five lines of writer and filmmaker Hind Shoufani’s masterful poem “Pick me up” tell us from her experience –

you were born a refugee,
and this is what it is to be
Palestinian. This is what it is to be Palestinian.
This is what it is to be, and be and be,
and not be.

***

You live in a village. Your small daughter catches a virus that brings with it a high fever, diarrhea and vomiting. Because your small West Bank village is under curfew, you not allowed to take her to a doctor. When the curfew is lifted, Israeli soldiers refuse permission to take her for medical care. They offer no explanation. Eventually she suffers renal failure. Permission to seek needed medical care is again denied. Imagine her being your child or grandchild.

***

Though your family has farmed the same West Bank land for generations, and though Jewish settlements are illegal, one is established near your farm. Though illegal, it soon encroaches on your land with the blessing of the Israeli government. Though you spend thousands of dollars fighting it, the settlers neither give up nor give in. They are backed by the IDF and the government; you are backed by your determination and a lawyer.

***

You are twenty-four, a journalist, and you have won a prestigious award in London. Returning from the presentation, you are accompanied by a representative of the Dutch Embassy. You are stopped by agents of Israel’s Secret Police (the Shin Bet), questioned and viciously tortured. You suffer severe physical injuries, a nervous breakdown and PTSD. Though your injuries require surgery for which you must travel to Europe, it doesn’t happen until the Dutch Embassy put enough pressure on the Israeli government to permit it. Reading the story I experience a flashback to a point in history: the Shin Bet agents remind me of the Gestapo. When you behave the way the Gestapo behaved, you come to resemble them.

***

Move the scene to Gaza. More people are crowded into this tiny strip of land than lived in the whole Palestine before Israel became a state. Unemployment is at 80%. During Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s murderous, all-out three week military assault in late December 2008 and early January 2009, no one can escape because the borders are sealed. It is like shooting fish in a barrel. You think you are in Hell. Most of the casualties are women and children. Many are killed when their homes are turned to rubble by bombs and bulldozers. Israel’s government justifies the operation. They are backed in this by their principle benefactor, the US government, my government. I feel an overwhelming sense of disgust and shame.

***

In spite of mind-numbing odds and sixty-two years of unbelievable persecution, the Palestinian people continue their struggle to build meaningful, productive lives. Letters from Palestine is a testimony to that struggle. It is also a call to action. To do nothing is to join the persecutors.

"We used to be a calm and gentle people” writes 14 year old Dominic Buoni in his poem on page vii, “But have turned furious and outraged / For what has become of our land.” “Palestine isn’t just my home, / Palestine is me.”

Kenneth Ring and each of his thirty-one contributors are heroes. I bow to each of them.

[This review appeared in the online magazine The Palestine Chronicle http://palestinechronicle.com/ on August 3,2010. 

Ramzy Baroud: My Father Was a Freedom Fighter

The more I read about the history of the Palestinian people, the more I am reminded of the history of America’s indigenous people since Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola in 1492. In both cases ethnic cleansing with its accompanying genocide were norms, especially when the indigenous peoples fought back. In both cases the indigenous populations were treated with disrespect, contempt and removal. And in both cases, genocide and ethnic cleansing were denied by the conquerors and their friends. In the public discourse, we’re the good guys, they the villains. As Israeli historian Shlomo Sand says “what history does not wish to relate, it omits,” as if omitting it wipes the slate of history clean. It does not. Eventually, liked or not, truth emerges and has to be faced.

For the Palestinians, many people still believe the old story. Just recently I heard someone say “it’s hard to feel much sympathy for them when they spend so much time killing innocent people.” That’s the approved story, and vested interests would like to keep it that way, but with the advent of the Internet and the vocal voice of Palestinian journalists like Ramzy Baroud, this is rapidly changing. It is way past time that we all hear the Palestinian side of the story of what has happened to them since Israel became a nation in 1948 with the blessing of the UN, the U.S., Britain, France and other European powers. The truth, it is said will make us free when we hear and understand it. It is not always a pleasant experience, nor should it be.

Ramzy Baroud’s book, My Father Was a Freedom Fighter is an important book. It is more than the story of his father, grandfather, their ancestral village of Beit Daras, its obliteration and their flight to Gaza. It is the story of the Palestinian people since 1948 when a well-trained army of 65,000 attacked them, making over 700,000 of them refugees. It is the story of their heroic will to live, to educate themselves, and to provide for their families. It is also the story of constant persecution and agony that culminates in the apocalyptic destruction of Gaza during Israel’s monstrously-named “Operation Cast Lead”.

Ramzy Baroud is a fine writer, his book is well-researched, and the story of his family’s experience one that is easily understood. It doesn’t make for pleasant reading, nor should it. I came away from it with an appetite to learn more. Pick up a copy, read and reread it, quarrel with it, listen, and do more research on your own. That’s what I do.

The book is available from Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/My-Father-Was-Freedom-Fighter/dp/0745328814/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283669309&sr=1-1)  and The Book Depository http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9780745328812/My-Father-Was-a-Freedom-Fighter.

Where is the humanity in this?

Recently I wrote an article about Israel's attack on a flotilla of ships seeking to bring food and medical supplies to the Palestinian's and others living in Gaza.
The article was titled "Israel's Final Solution" suggesting that Israel's long running treatment of the Palestinians bears a strong resemblance to Hitler's "Final Solution". The article was published on June 18th in "The Palestine Chronicle" (http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16070 ).
 
Today I read another fine article in the same publication titled "Blockade 'Eased' as Gaza Starves more Slowly". The article is by Jonathan Cook, a writer and journalist based in Nazareth. He cautions us not to get our hopes up about adequate food supplies and building materials suddenly appearing in Gaza so people can enjoy good nutrition and health and the luxury of repairing and rebuilding damaged and destroyed homes and hospitals.

Since Israel controls the crossing points and the number of trucks allowed into Gaza, currently at 1/4 the number that used to be allowed in, and forbids shipments of cement and steel, this "easing" isn't likely to improve anyone's lives any day soon.

Worse, Mr. Cook reports, is the fact that the Netanyahu government views the blockade as "economic warfare" against the Gaza population, setting out the "minimum calories" or "red lines" as they are called, according to age and sex.
(To read the entire article, click on the following link: http://palestinechronicle.com/, or copy and paste it into your browser.) 

Here is an excellent video about the same situation
:( http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/kenneth-okeefe-says-it-all-must-see-video.html).

Does this ring any bells for you as it does me? This is clearly a crime against humanity, in violation of International Laws, and needs to be condemned and those countries supporting shamed into forcing the issue and bringing this to a speedy end.


All for now,



Toasty

 

Gaza

Would there be a Palestinian problem if Israel treated Palestinians the way it treats Jews? No, because Palestinians would be and would have have been treated as neighbors and as partners in building a homeland for them both. But politics intervened and we have what we've had since 1948 -- a divided land seething with resentment and violence.

This has particularly been the case since the 1967 war when Israel took the West Bank and Gaza from Jordan and Egypt respectively and occupied it, promising the Palestinian residents their freedom but never giving it to them. As journalist Robert Scheer writes, "There is no such thing as a morally acceptable occupation, and as the oppressed resist they will become more violent in their desperation. In turn the occupiers will show their true colors as oppressors."

The secret to stopping the violence and improving Israel's security needs is, as Scheer so eloquently says, to treat Palestinians the same way as Jews are treated, with dignity and respect.

The other day Israel again tried to crush dissent and protest by attacking it. The attack, in which 9 civilians were killed and 600 arrested ("kidnapped" is perhaps the better word), backfired. New boatloads of nonviolent protesters bearing building materials, medical supplies and food are on their way and more are planned.

If Israel wishes peace and the respect of its neighbors and the world, it must immediately cease its blockade of Gaza, discontinue the illegal settlements in the West Bank that have but one purpose, and that is to occupy the whole of the West Bank and prevent any hope of the Palestinians having their own homeland. If Israel wishes to destroy itself, the best way to do it is to continue what it's doing. If it wishes to live and prosper, the only way to do that is to begin treating everyone with respect as human beings.

The Palestinian people are good people who deserve better. Two excellent resources to increase your understanding are Naomi Shihab Nye: "Habibi", and Ramzy Baroud: "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story".

All for this post,

Toasty