On the afternoon of November 3, 2009, the United States House of Representatives voted in favor of House Resolution 867 (H.Res.867), an AIPAC-backed bill that urges both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to "oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the "Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict," referred to commonly as the "Goldstone Report." With this vote, the US Congress has not only enshrined its opposition to investigations into war crimes and crimes against humanity found to be committed during last winter's Israeli massacre of over 1,400 Palestinians in the closed-off Gaza Strip, but has also affirmed its outrageous and unconscionable commitment to Israel's continuous unfettered aggression and singular unaccountability to international law, rules of military engagement, human rights and basic morality.

In their successful effort to (yet again) shield the State of Israel from any and all scrutiny or criticism over its illegal use of collective punishment and excessive force against an imprisoned, impoverished and defenseless civilian population, Congressional supporters of H.Res.867 sought to discredit the UN's 575-page report of meticulously-documented human rights violations. After visiting Gaza, conducting 188 individual interviews of victims and witnesses, studying more than 300 reports, submissions and other documentation including medical reports and forensic analysis of weapons and ammunition remnants collected in Gaza, amounting to more than 10,000 pages, and reviewing over 30 videos and 1,200 photographs, the Mission, led by South African Justice Richard Goldstone, concluded that "violations of international human rights and humanitarian law and possible war crimes and crimes against humanity" were committed by both parties (Israel and Hamas) during the Israeli assault on Gaza (A/HRC/12/48, p.423).

Goldstone's impeccable and unimpeachable credentials cannot be overstated. As a member of the South African Standing Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, Goldstone was responsible for uncovering and publicizing allegations of the extensive violence committed by Apartheid South African security forces, paving the way for subsequent investigations by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after South African democratization. He served as a judge for the Constitutional Court of South Africa, chairman of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and was a member of the International Panel of the Commission of Enquiry into the Activities of Nazism in Argentina (CEANA), tasked to identify and prosecute Nazi war criminals who had emigrated to Argentina. In 2004/5, he was a member of the Volker Committee investigation into the UN’s Iraq oil-for-food program.

The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports that, according to a lecture Goldstone delivered in Jerusalem in 2000, he "believes bringing war criminals to justice stems from the lessons of the Holocaust," which he described as "the worst war crime in the world." In Goldstone's view, the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the lessons learned by the international community in the wake of their discovery have "shaped legal protocol on war" and "constituted the basis for the concept of universal jurisdiction."

Not only this, but in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, his own daughter Nicole (once a resident of Israel) even described Goldstone, who is Jewish, as "a Zionist" who "loves Israel." Goldstone currently serves as a trustee at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Nevertheless, the harrowing conclusions and reasonable recommendations of the UN commission were quickly denounced by many US officials (not to mention the pathetic 'who, me?' outrage and phony self-righteousness exhibited by their Israeli counterparts), most of whom had not even read the report in its entirety; their smug derision of the dispassionate facts presented in the report made perfectly clear their intention to cover-up Israeli war crimes and, in so doing, legitimize and endorse Israel's ongoing suppression, dehumanization, starvation, occupation and slaughter of the Palestinian people.

As it has in the past, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) and Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), rushed to Israel's defense. This is the same team that, almost two weeks into the Israeli bombardment, co-sponsored House Resolution 34, a Pelosi-led non-binding declaration that "recogniz[ed] Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza" and "reaffirm[ed] the United States strong support for Israel." H.Res.34 called upon the House of Representatives to express "vigorous support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security and survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure borders, and [to recognize] its right to act in self-defense to protect its citizens against Hamas's unceasing aggression," in addition to claiming that Israel had "facilitated humanitarian aid to Gaza" during the assault. The resolution also called on "all nations" to "condemn Hamas for deliberately embedding its fighters, leaders and weapons in private homes, schools, mosques, hospitals and otherwise using Palestinian civilians as human shields, while simultaneously targeting Israeli civilians" and "to lay blame both for the breaking of the 'calm' and for subsequent civilian casualties in Gaza precisely where blame belongs, that is, on Hamas."

The resolution made no mention whatsoever to the crippling Israeli blockade, the devastating and ceaseless air and ground assaults by the Israeli military, or the fact that it was the IDF that had, in fact, broken the ceasefire in the first place. The resolution passed almost unanimously (390-5) on the very same day that the Palestinian death toll in Gaza reached 765, half of them children and women, with thousands more wounded, including hundreds in critical condition. As Congress affirmed its "vigorous support [of] and unwavering commitment" to Israel, municipal buildings, homes and mosques in Gaza were shelled relentlessly by the Israeli military using US weaponry. Five days earlier, the Israeli Air Force had launched an attack on a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya, killing over 40 people and wounding over 100 more.

Over seven months later, when the Goldstone Report was released, Representatives Berman and Ros-Lehtinen returned to the drafting table.

Howard Berman, the self-described liberal who voted for the invasions of Iraq in 1991 and 2003 as well as the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, was described in an article in the Jewish Daily Forward as a "staunch supporter of Israel" and "a cautious backer of the peace process" whose "interest in the Jewish state was one of the main reasons he first sought a seat on the [House Foreign Relations] committee." Berman, possibly in an effort to one-up Joe Biden, boasts that "Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist." Larry Weinberg, an AIPAC board member, confirms Berman's ethno-supremacist credentials saying, "I have known Congressman Berman for many years, and I am continually impressed by his personal commitment to strengthening the bond between the United States and Israel…He is not only a leader on our issues, but he is a friend to many in the pro-Israel community."

Berman is adamant about placing harsh sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, which he constantly mischaracterizes as a "nuclear weapons" program. He, along with his trusty sidekick Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, has recently proposed HR 2194, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, which seeks to impose sanctions on companies that help Iran to import refined petroleum products or that help it to increase its domestic refinery capacity. In a September speech, Berman claimed that the United States "will be in a much stronger position to maximize our ability to obtain crippling sanctions because of our sincere effort to engage [Iran]." What an enticing proposal for Iran to engage! The speech also contained this brilliant nugget regarding the terrifying menace of a nuclear-armed Iran: "We’re not talking about a regime that has the same calculus – that same sense of restraint – as we do about the use of such a weapon." Perhaps the Congressman forgot that, in addition to being the biggest stockpiler of nuclear weapons on the planet in clear violation of its obligations to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the United States is also the only country in the history of the world to ever use nuclear weapons. And it used them on innocent civilians. Twice.

Ros-Lehtinen, meanwhile, is not only the most senior Republican woman in the US House, a hawkish Zionist, and a supporter of the Patriot Act, the invasion of Iraq, the Military Commission Act, drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the military coup in Honduras. She is also against the funding of stem cell research, affirmative action (scoring a 31% favorability by the NAACP), and civil rights (scoring a dismal 14% by the ACLU) encourages continued sanctions against Cuba (the country of her birth), and has openly called for the assassination of Fidel Castro.

Additionally, as journalist Franklin Lamb points out, Ros-Lehtinen, along with Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, is a pillar of the “fake US Congressional Human Rights Caucus, founded in 1983 which in its quarter century of self congratulatory investigations of Human Rights abuses has yet to find a single human rights abuse by Israel, irrespective of any murders, slaughtering of innocents, home demolitions, political incarcerations, religious bigotry, illegal use of American weapons, illegal siege of Gaza and serial invasions of Lebanon, and the continuing theft of Syria’s Golan Heights. Over the past few years the CHRC has become an Iran-bashing forum for all manner of Zionist zealots and kooks spreading falsehoods and defamations against Islam and the Islamic Republic."

Once H.Res.867 was drawn up, it was rapidly co-sponsored by over 200 other representatives before hitting the House floor for a vote.

The resolution itself neither addresses nor disputes any of the Goldstone Report's actual findings or conclusions. Instead, via a series of deliberately misleading, factually inaccurate and unrelated "whereas" clauses, it seeks to delegitimize the entire Fact Finding Mission as a whole, oftentimes personally attacking its members in an effort to show anti-Israel tendencies or bias. What the resolution actually amounts to is a repetition of Israeli propaganda and Zionist apologia masquerading as a legal and moral defense of indefensible Israeli military aggression.

The wide support it received in Congress demonstrates that the United States House of Representatives is determined only to promote human rights and international law with regards to how it relates to the protection of Israeli Jews and, in equal measure, proves its unequivocal and unabashed disregard, if not outright contempt, for the rights and lives of Palestinians.

The text of H.Res.867 is rife with blatant inaccuracies, decontextualized mischaracterizations and a thorough lack of historical perspective. Many of these factual errors were addressed and corrected in a letter written by Judge Goldstone himself to both Berman and Ros-Lehtinen on October 29.

For instance, in one of its 33 "whereas" clauses, the resolution claims:

"…the mandate of the 'fact-finding mission' makes no mention of the relentless rocket and mortar attacks, which numbered in the thousands and spanned a period of eight years, by Hamas and other violent militant groups in Gaza against civilian targets in Israel, that necessitated Israel's defensive measures."

This is a deliberate, decontextualized falsehood. The mandate called for the UN Mission "to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after." (A/HRC/12/48, p.13)

Palestinian rocket attacks, in addition to Israeli military operations, were clearly included in this mandate. Additionally, had those who wrote and supported the House resolution actually read the contents of Goldstone Report rather than simply making things up, they would have been well aware that, in addition to Palestinian rocket attacks and their consequences being mentioned at length in the report's Introduction, there is also an entire 20-page chapter (XXIV, p.346-366) entitled "The Impact on Civilians of Rocket and Mortar Attacks by Palestinian Armed Groups on Southern Israel," which practically begins with the following statement: "Since April 2001, Palestinian armed groups have launched more than 8,000 rockets and mortars from Gaza into southern Israel."

After exhaustively documenting the impact of these rocket attacks, including Israeli fatalities, physical injuries, psychological trauma, mental health, damage to property, the impact on the right to education and on the economic and social life of affected communities (both Israeli and Palestinian within southern Israel), the Mission states that "There is no justification in international law for the launching of rockets and mortars that cannot be directed at specific military targets into areas where civilian populations are located" and concludes that because these rockets cannot be aimed at specific targets, "one of the primary purposes of these continued attacks is to spread terror," an act which it explicitly states is "prohibited under international humanitarian law." (A/HRC/12/48, p.365) It continues:

"…the launching of unguided rockets and mortars breaches the fundamental principle of distinction: an attack must distinguish between military and civilian targets. Where there is no intended military target and the rockets and mortars are launched into civilian areas, they constitute a deliberate attack against the civilian population…

…From the facts available, the Mission finds that the rocket and mortars attacks, launched by Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, have caused terror in the affected communities of southern Israel and in Israel as a whole. Furthermore, it is the Mission’s view that the mortars and rockets are uncontrolled and uncontrollable, respectively. This indicates the commission of an indiscriminate attack on the civilian population of southern Israel, a war crime, and may amount to crimes against humanity. These attacks have caused loss of life and physical and mental injury to civilians and damage to private houses, religious buildings and property and have eroded the economic and cultural life of the affected communities." (A/HRC/12/48, p.366) (emphasis mine). 

The Goldstone Report is perfectly clear. The House Resolution is deliberately false. Furthermore, as Jeremy R. Hammond of Foreign Policy Journal deftly points out, the resolution "ignores the fact that even if Israel’s military operations were justifiable as 'defensive measures,' Israel would still be legally obligated to conduct its operations in accordance with international law, and to conduct investigations into alleged war crimes conducted by its own forces."

The resolution and its supporters repeatedly refer to the Goldstone Report as "one-sided," referencing comments made by both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan E. Rice, who called its initial mandate "unbalanced, one sided and basically unacceptable." However, as Goldstone himself explains, "the House resolution fails to mention that notwithstanding my repeated personal pleas to the Government of Israel, Israel refused all cooperation with the Mission. Among other things, I requested the views of Israel with regard to the implementation of the mandate and details of any issues that the Government of Israel might wish us to investigate," continuing,

"This refusal meant that Israel did not offer any information or evidence it may have collected regarding actions by Hamas or other Palestinian groups in Gaza. Any omission of such information and evidence in the report is regrettable, but is the result of Israel’s decision not to cooperate with the Fact-Finding mission, not a decision by the mission to downplay or cast doubt on such information and evidence."

The Israeli government even denied the Mission entry to Israel in order to interview witnesses and tour affected communities such as Sderot [sic; the real name of the town is Najd] and Ashkelon [sic; the real name of the town is al-Majdal]. Israeli witnesses had to be flown to Geneva or Jordan to be interviewed. Other interviews were conducted over the phone and via the internet. "I believed that Israel would cooperate," Goldstone told Ha'aretz. "It turned to be a naïve expectation."

So what was Congressman Berman's response?

"Justice Goldstone is correct. The Government of Israel decided not to cooperate with the Mission, based on its biased mandate, as well as the UNHRC's long history of anti-Israel bias. I find that position, at the least, understandable."

Understandable or not, Berman's resolution omits Israel's refusal to cooperate, while at the same time claiming that Hamas, which did cooperate with the Mission and allowed its members full access to Gaza, was "able to significantly shape the findings of the investigation mission's report by selecting and prescreening some of the witnesses and intimidating others." In turn, Goldstone replied, "The allegation that Hamas was able to shape the findings of my report or that it pre-screened the witnesses is devoid of truth. I challenge anyone to produce evidence in support of it."

Berman's only "evidence" is his subsequent claim that "the commission conducted some of its proceedings through holding televised open hearings in Gaza. Given its total control of Gaza and its ability to intimidate, Hamas almost certainly would have been able to control the access and message of each witness attending a televised open hearing. What is beyond doubt is that witnesses were keenly aware that Hamas was monitoring the televised proceedings and likely to inflict reprisals for any unwelcome testimony." The only thing that seems "almost certainly" "beyond doubt" is Berman's ceaseless proclivity to make baseless assumptions about a place he's never been and an incredibly stalwart and resilient people he's never met.

It is doubtful that Berman would also conclude that past testimonies given by Israeli soldiers regarding the gross misconduct and war crimes committed in Gaza were also the result of militaristic intimidation, most likely agreeing with the aborted military probe that, unsurprisingly, found the allegations to be "based in hearsay" and "rumors," and declared an end to the probe. According to Congressman Berman, the only apparent trustworthy source on what happens in Gaza is the Israeli government. What a relief.

In reality, the Goldstone Report's findings are unequivocal and unambiguous. Among many other conclusions, it found that Israel's "repeated failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians appears to the Mission to have been the result of deliberate guidance issued to soldiers, as described by some of them, and not the result of occasional lapses" and that "the destruction of food supply installations, water sanitation systems, concrete factories and residential houses was the result of a deliberate and systematic policy by the Israeli armed forces. It was not carried out because those objects presented a military threat or opportunity, but to make the daily process of living, and dignified living, more difficult for the civilian population." (A/HRC/12/48, p.407)

The Mission found that Israeli operations, in many cases, constituted "an assault on the dignity of the people" and included not only "the use of human shields and unlawful detentions sometimes in unacceptable conditions, but also in the vandalizing of houses when occupied and the way in which people were treated when their houses were entered. The graffiti on the walls, the obscenities and often racist slogans, all constituted an overall image of humiliation and dehumanization of the Palestinian population." (A/HRC/12/48, p.407)

Because the Israeli government has consistently claimed that all phases of "Operation Cast Lead" were thoroughly and extensively planned, that legal opinions and advice were given throughout the planning stages and at certain operational levels during the campaign, and that, according to the Government of Israel, almost no mistakes made during the planning or operation itself, the Goldstone Report concludes that "what occurred in just over three weeks at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 was a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability." Furthermore, "Whatever violations of international humanitarian and human rights law may have been committed, the systematic and deliberate nature of the activities described in this report leave the Mission in no doubt that responsibility lies in the first place with those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw the operations." (A/HRC/12/48, p.408)

Clearly, these revelations are far too damning for the US Congress, which funds the Israeli military apparatus to the tune of $3 billion each year and provides devastating weaponry with which to slaughter Palestinians by the hundreds, to bear and therefore must be buried. With this in mind, it is all too obvious that H.Res.867 is meant to be a distraction from the truth; it is a deliberate and disingenuous deflection of well-documented, substantiated, and widely corroborated evidence of Israeli war crimes that, in its reflexive self-righteousness, reveals itself to be no more than a study in double standards, moral relativism and selective outrage.

As such, the resolution and its uncreative backers in the House, resorted to obvious repetitions of hasbara in a well-coordinated effort to silence all criticism of Israeli actions, cover-up evidence of Israeli war crimes, and condone any and all military aggression, invasion, and occupation – no matter how illegal, inhumane, or truculent – committed by any so-called "democracy" in the name of "self-defense."

When the resolution made it to the floor of the House on Tuesday afternoon, Congress members from all over the country lined up to lend their vocal support to Reps. Berman and Ros-Lehtinen and the resolution. They all basically said the same thing: that the wicked, blood-lusting terrorists of Hamas used Palestinians as human shields and that a victimized, peace-loving, democratic Israel, via the findings of the Goldstone Report, is being unfairly condemned for merely acting out of self-defense.

Ros-Lehtinen, in her defense of H.Res.867, called the Goldstone Report a "575-page hatchet job" that "persecut[ed] Israel for defending herself," claiming that the Mission "disregarded evidence that Hamas and other such groups in Gaza used innocents as human shields and deliberately launched attacks from schools, from hospitals, from mosques." (Congressional Record H12234 11/3/09)

By the time these statements were made, Judge Goldstone had already addressed them thusly: "It is factually incorrect to state that the Report denied Israel the right of self-defense," he wrote in his letter to Berman. "The report examined how that right was implemented by the standards of international law."

The Report itself even addresses Israel's claim to self-defense. It concluded:

"While the Israeli Government has sought to portray its operations as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right to self-defence, the Mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole.

In this respect, the operations were in furtherance of an overall policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population for its resilience and for its apparent support for Hamas, and possibly with the intent of forcing a change in such support. The Mission considers this position to be firmly based in fact, bearing in mind what it saw and heard on the ground, what it read in the accounts of soldiers who served in the campaign, and what it heard and read from current and former military officers and political leaders whom the Mission considers to be representative of the thinking that informed the policy and strategy of the military operations." (A/HRC/12/48, p.406)

In response to the unsubstantiated, albeit constantly repeated, claims that Hamas militants hide behind innocent civilians as a defensive strategy, Goldstone notes that the Mission found no conclusive "evidence that Hamas forced civilians to remain in their homes in order to act as human shields. Indeed, while the Government of Israel has alleged publicly that Hamas used Palestinian civilians as human shields, it has not identified any cases where it claims that civilians were doing so under threat of force by Hamas or any other party."

Nevertheless, because the issue of Hamas using civilians as "human shields" is so deeply ingrained in the Zionist propaganda talking points of both Israeli and American apologists for Israeli atrocities, any contradiction of this assumed justification for the willful murder of vast numbers of innocent Palestinians by the Israeli military is brushed aside as an absurd fabrication and distortion of reality. As such, despite relevant facts and evidence to the contrary, it is repeated again and again by Israeli and American officials, parroted by an uncritical media, and in entrenched in the psyche of the gullible public to become indisputable doctrine.

Desmond Travers, who was one of the four members of Goldstone's UN Mission, addressed the "human shield" allegation in a recent interview with Harper's Magazine. A retired Colonel of the Army of the Irish Defence Forces and the former Commandant of its Military College, Travers has also served in "command of troops with various UN and EU peace support missions." In response to a question regarding whether "Hamas deliberately inserted its fighters among civilians" and therefore was responsible for deliberately increasing the civilian death toll of the conflict, Travers said this:

"We found no evidence that Hamas used civilians as hostages. I had expected to find such evidence but did not. We also found no evidence that mosques were used to store munitions. Those charges reflect Western perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion. Gaza is densely populated and has a labyrinth of makeshift shanties and a system of tunnels and bunkers. If I were a Hamas operative the last place I’d store munitions would be in a mosque. It’s not secure, is very visible, and would probably be pre-targeted by Israeli surveillance. There are a many better places to store munitions. We investigated two destroyed mosques — one where worshippers were killed — and we found no evidence that either was used as anything but a place of worship."

As part of the House floor debate, Congressman Ron Klein (D-FL) claimed that the Goldstone Report "does nothing to advance peace and security in the Middle East" but rather "serves to reinforce the deep mistrust that pervades the region and excuses the actions of terrorist groups and their state sponsors." He did not discuss how identifying war crimes and human rights violations would be anathema to promoting peace and security.

"The Goldstone Report ignores the facts," Klein continued. "The terrorist threat surrounding Israel's defensive actions in Gaza require a decisive response, and any sovereign nation would have and should have done what Israel did," adding, "I would urge U.N. member states to devote time and thoughts to the realities of human rights around the world, not Israel." (CR H12233 11/3/09) Clearly, for Ron Klein, the 'realities of human rights around the world' and 'Israel' are mutually exclusive.

Eliot Engel (D-NY) claimed that the Goldstone Report is "part of an ongoing effort at the U.N. to single out Israel and to deny Israel the same rights accorded to other nations" and that it "equates Israel's long-delayed acts of self-defense [sic] with Hamas' 12,000 intentional, indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians since 2001." He closed his comments by urging Congress to "stand by" Israel. (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Eric Cantor (R-FL) claimed that "For years, without provocation, Hamas and other terrorists in Gaza launched thousands of deadly rockets at Israeli civilians. The attacks laid siege to entire swaths of Israelis. By last December, Israel said enough was enough." (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Steny Hoyer (D-MD) echoed Cantor's statements, saying,

"The Goldstone Report largely neglects the context within which Israel's action took place. Why is that context so vital, and why is the report so empty without it? Because for years — for years — Israel has been the target of asymmetrical warfare for terrorists who hide behind civilians and aim to kill civilians. For 8 years before Operation Cast Lead, Hamas, aided by Iran and others, launched deadly rockets and mortar fire into Israel, even after Israel dismantled its Gaza settlements, even after it withdrew its military. More than 6,000 rockets have fallen indiscriminately on southern Israel’s cities and towns. I can't imagine there is one of us in this Chamber that if Canada or Mexico rained down six missiles on our civilian population — not 6,000 on our population — that there would be a Member here who would not want decisive response to stop that assault." (CR H12238 11/3/09)

Dan Burton (R-IN) also chimed in with a short speech that sounded like it was written in a joint fit of Alzheimer's disease and Tourette's syndrome. In it, he declared that "Israel has been our friend forever," which is an odd thing to say considering that Burton was already ten years old by the time the colonial European Zionist founders of the State of Israel unilaterally declared its independence. Burton continued:

"Ariel Sharon tried to reach out in a peaceful way to give Gaza back to the Palestinians [sic]. And what happened? Hamas goes in there and starts launching missile after missile after missile at innocent people, blowing them up, trying to kill them. They want to destroy Israel, as does Iran [sic]…

…There shouldn’t be one vote, not one vote in this place against Israel.

And the people who are making these comments on the other side of the aisle really bother me, because Israel has been such a great friend of ours and they have been trying to reach peace over there forever [sic]. And, instead, they keep getting rocket attack after rocket attack, and then they are criticized for human rights problems because they defend themselves [sic].

If we launched missiles into Michigan, I guarantee you, Michigan would be really ticked off at us and would want to stop it and would do everything they could to stop it. We ought to support Israel." (CR H12236 11/3/09)

Against her better judgment, even Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) decided to lend her version of recent history to the Congressional Record:

"In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza to allow the Palestinians to begin building a state. They didn’t. Instead, Hamas used the Gaza to terrorize the Palestinian people and as a launch pad to rain missiles on Israeli cities, 8,000 rocket attacks in a 3-year period. In the fall of 2008, even more rockets fell on innocent Israelis and the situation became untenable…For those who suggest that Israel used disproportionate force, I say Israel used extraordinary restraint: missile after missile, injury after injury, death after death, and year after year." (CR H12236 11/3/09)

The issues raised by these Representatives are indicative of a staggering amount of misinformation that permeates the halls of Congress and beyond. Hoyer's suggestion that the Goldstone Report neglects to contextualize last winter's assault is a statement devoid of all fact, due either to the Congressman's intentional desire to obfuscate the truth or, perhaps more likely, his unfamiliarity with the Report's actual contents. Part One includes extensive historical background of Israel's policies toward Palestinians, including the devastating three-year blockade (A/HRC/12/48, p.82-85), and Palestinian resistance to ongoing oppression, subjugation, apartheid, and aggression in both Gaza and the West Bank (albeit beginning in 1967, thereby omitting the true context of a century of Zionist colonization in Palestine, the Nakba, and almost two decades of martial law for Arab citizens of Israel; chances are, however, this is not the missing information Steny Hoyer wishes to include). The Report clearly states the importance of context:

"The Mission is of the view that Israel's military operation in Gaza between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009 and its impact cannot be understood or assessed in isolation from developments prior and subsequent to it. The operation fits into a continuum of policies aimed at pursuing Israel's political objectives with regard to Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole. Many such policies are based on or result in violations of international human rights and humanitarian law." (A/HRC/12/48, p.404)

Also included is the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005. Whereas the Representatives speaking in favor of adopting H.Res.867 refer to the withdrawal as an Israeli move toward peace that was met by Palestinian violence, the Report provides a much more fact-based assessment of the Gaza narrative, revealing that under the disengagement plan, "the Israeli armed forces continued to maintain control over Gaza’s borders, coastline and airspace, and Israel reserved 'its inherent right of self-defence, both preventive and reactive, including where necessary the use of force, in respect of threats emanating from the Gaza Strip.'" (A/HRC/12/48, p.49)

Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, in an article written in the midst of the Gaza massacre early this year and published in the Guardian, elaborates on the implications of the Israeli withdrawal:

"To the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But in the year after, another 12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further reducing the scope for an independent Palestinian state. Land-grabbing and peace-making are simply incompatible. Israel had a choice and it chose land over peace.

The real purpose behind the move was to redraw unilaterally the borders of Greater Israel by incorporating the main settlement blocs on the West Bank to the state of Israel."

The Goldstone Report, both in its "Context" section (A/HRC/12/48, p.46-61) and Chapter IV (entitled "Applicable Law," p.71-81), discusses how the Israeli military occupation of Gaza did not end with the withdrawal, stating,

"Israel removed both settlements and military bases protecting the settlers from the Gaza Strip, redeploying on Gaza’s southern border and repositioning its forces to other areas just outside the Gaza Strip. In addition to controlling the borders, coastline and airspace, after the implementation of the disengagement plan, Israel continued to control Gaza's telecommunications, water, electricity and sewage networks, as well as the population registry, and the flow of people and goods into and out of the territory while the inhabitants of Gaza continued to rely on the Israeli currency." (A/HRC/12/48, p.49)

Shlaim is even more direct in his description of the aftermath of Israeli "disengagement":

"Gaza was converted overnight into an open-air prison. From this point on, the Israeli air force enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs, to make sonic booms by flying low and breaking the sound barrier, and to terrorise the hapless inhabitants of this prison."

The focus on the number of Palestinian rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into southern Israel (a statistic that ranges generally from 6,000 to 8,000) is oft-repeated and used, most recently by members of Congress, to demonstrate the "asymmetrical warfare for terrorists" in Gaza inflicted upon the innocent Israelis.

A quick look at the facts reveals a very different perspective of what "disproportionate" really means. The Goldstone Report states that, in the mere fourteen months from the September 2005 disengagement until November 2006, "the Israeli armed forces fired approximately 15,000 artillery shells and conducted more than 550 air strikes into the Gaza Strip. Israeli military attacks killed approximately 525 people in Gaza. Over the same period, at least 1,700 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel by Palestinian militants, injuring 41 Israelis." (A/HRC/12/48, p.51-52)

Such statistics show that for each homemade rocket we are told terrorizes and traumatizes the children of Sderot, there are at least nine Israeli shells on Gaza that bring death and destruction to Palestinian children who are already forced to live in constant horror and humiliation.

In all of 2007, five Israelis, none of whom were children, were killed in Israel in incidents involving Palestinian violence. The same year, over three hundred Palestinians in Gaza, 29 of which were children, were killed by Israeli violence (another 91, including 14 children, were killed by Israeli or settler violence in the West Bank). The following year, up through October 2008, a total of 30 Israelis, including 4 children, were killed by Palestinian violence. In contrast, in the first ten months of 2008, 389 Palestinians, including 69 children, were killed by Israel in Gaza alone, not to mention the 56 Palestinians killed in the West Bank and Israel. Between December 27, 2008 and January 21, 2009, the Israeli air force, navy, and army murdered 926 Palestinian civilians, including 313 children, 116 women, 497 civilian men, and 255 non-combatant police officers, wounded over six thousand, and left tens of thousands homeless. 236 Palestinian combatants were also killed. Disproportionately, 10 of the 13 Israelis killed in those 26 days were Israeli soldiers, four of whom died by friendly fire.

The actual "asymmetry" of Israel's bombardment of Gaza is also evident when considering that, as Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups fight with conventional weapons, homemade rockets, and thrown stones, the IDF employs tanks, helicopters, fighter jets, unmanned drones, howitzer artillery, as well as the illegal use of such destructive weaponry as white phosphorous, flechette missiles, dense inert metal explosive (DIME) munitions, and even depleted and non-depleted uranium. (A/HRC/12/48, p.194-199)

Although resolution advocates like Eric Cantor describe Palestinian rocket attacks as being initiated "without provocation," the truth reveals something completely different. It is clear from such New York Times, Reuters, Ha'aretz, Guardian, Yediot Ahronot, The Times (UK), BBC, and Amnesty International reports that Israel broke the ceasefire, leading to an escalation of events eventually culminating with Operation Cast Lead. It has even been conclusively proven that, with regard to who breaks ceasefires more often, the Israeli military or Palestinian militants, "a systematic pattern does exist: it is overwhelmingly Israel, not Palestine, that kills first following a lull. Indeed, it is virtually always Israel that kills first after a lull lasting more than a week."

Even the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a governmental think tank that, according to its own website, "serves shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress" and whose "experts assist at every stage of the legislative process" providing "Congress with the vital, analytical support it needs to address the most complex public policy issues facing the nation" found in a February report titled Israel and Hamas: Conflict in Gaza (2008-2009):

"For the first five months [of the Egyptian-mediated, six-month tahdiya beginning in June 2008], the cease-fire held relatively well. Some rockets were fired into Israel, but most were attributed to non-Hamas militant groups, and, progressively, Hamas appeared increasingly able and willing to suppress even these attacks. No Israeli deaths were reported…" (CRS R40101, 2/19/09)

This corroborates the reporting of New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner, who wrote on December 18, 2008 (over week before Israeli launched its ruthless assault) that, in its efforts to abide by the truce, "Hamas imposed its will [over other armed resistance groups] and even imprisoned some of those who were firing rockets."

In fact, the terms of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas included, not only the halting of rocket fire from Gaza, but also the Israeli agreement to lift its brutal economic blockade of Gaza, which had been in place before Hamas was even voted into power. The siege, nevertheless, continued unabated. Therefore, whereas Hamas upheld their obligations to the ceasefire, Israel did not. Hamas leaders even offered to extend the ceasefire beyond its December 19 expiration date. Israel ignored the proposal, opting instead to carpet bomb civilian neighborhoods and incinerate, mutilate, and dismember children with banned and experimental weaponry.

Essentially, the Congressional claims of relentless and unprovoked Palestinian aggression against a peaceful Israeli population are not only unfounded, they assume the exact opposite of the truth. The "What-if-Mexico or Michigan" analogies also fall short under even the most cursory scrutiny. All real evidence turns such suggestions into a preposterous joke at which no one is laughing.

At one point, during the Congressional debate over H. Res.867, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer's effort to place the blame for Israel's brutal blockade, deprivation, starvation, collective punishment and massacre of Palestinians in Gaza squarely on the democratically-elected leadership of Hamas took a tellingly racist turn. "Tragically, civilians in Gaza suffered and continue to suffer. They suffer in major part from the determination of their imposed leaders to pursue indiscriminate terror," he began.

"Is there anybody here who doubts that if those children living there for decade after decade after decade were European children or American children or Jewish children that they would still be there in those [refugee] camps? I say to you, not the case. Why are they there? Because the Arab community does not want to absorb them, and their leaders will not seek a meaningful peace. That is why they’re there." (CR H12238 11/3/09)

Why Hoyer believes that "the Arab community" would be responsible, let alone obligated, to "absorb" Palestinians is never explained. Palestinians in Gaza don't ask for absorption elsewhere; their home is Palestine, not Jordan, Lebanon or Egypt. They were expelled from what is now Israel and, under international law, are entitled – not to be "absorbed" by other countries – but to return to their homes.

Gary Ackerman (D-NY), who actually traveled to Israel with NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly (on the Mayor's private jet) during the Gaza Massacre to show his support for the murder of hundreds of defenseless Palestinians by the Israel military, entered his remarks into the Congressional Record, calling the Goldstone Report "a pompous, tendentious, one-sided political diatribe" that, for all its "facts" and "context" contains "very little truth" and "very little wisdom." (CR H12244 11/3/09)

Ackerman makes clear his contempt for the authors of the Report by stating, "In the self-righteous fantasyland inhabited by Judge Goldstone and his colleagues, there's no such thing as terrorism; there's no such thing as Hamas (and if it does exist, it's certainly nothing to fear); there's no such thing as legitimate self-defense; and war is like a sporting event, rather than the most ghastly, destructive, chaotic phenomenon we human beings are capable of creating." Ackerman himself could benefit from a reality check in the form of testimony by a young Israeli reservist who, upon reflecting on his role as a remote operator of Predator drones conducting airstrikes on civilian centers and residential neighborhoods in Gaza, said the following:

"It feels like hunting season has begun…Sometimes it reminds me of a Play Station game. You hear cheers in the war room after you see on the screens that the missile hit a target, as if it were a soccer game."

Although Congressional opponents of H.Res.867 were few and far between, a number of courageous Congress members took up the mantle of human rights, international law and even American legislative process by voicing their dissent and urging their colleagues to side with morality and legality, rather than denial and impunity.

Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison led the opposition, stating that the resolution "should be opposed because it suppresses inquiry, inquiry that is the hallmark of democratic societies" (CR H12234 11/3/09) and asking, "Why are we going to pass a resolution without holding a single hearing? Why is the House voting for a resolution which condemns a report that few Members have fully read?" (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) addressed Palestinian rocket attack and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, remarking, "The urgency and the gravity of these harsh realities on both sides require that Congress act always with an eye toward peace and reconciliation." She concluded that supporting H.Res.867 "doesn’t lead us to securing Israeli peace and security nor Palestinian peaceful coexistence and for their citizens a life of respect." (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) called the resolution "blatantly biased," stating that it "damages U.S. credibility" and "seeks to hide the ugliness of the Gaza war by covering up violent excesses committed against innocent civilians by both Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces," including the use of "American-made white phosphorous shells" in civilian areas and the needless killing of "hundreds of Palestinian women and children and elders." McCollum also noted that the resolution calls for double standards when evaluating war crimes. "There must be only one standard for respecting human rights," she said. "A single standard by which we must hold ourselves and our friends and our adversaries accountable. Establishing situational standards for respecting human rights is dishonest and only encourages actions that destroy human dignity and life." (CR H12239 11/3/09)

Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) called the resolution "a deliberate diversion" and challenged Congress "and the committees of jurisdiction to invest their time and resources into more constructive efforts that further the cause of peace." (CR H12236 11/3/09)

Rep. John Dingell (D-NY) rose to oppose the resolution by stating, simply, "This is a bad bill. It’s a bad resolution. It is unfair. It is unwise. It contributes nothing to peace. It establishes a bad precedent, and it sets up a set of circumstances where we indicate that we’re going to just arbitrarily reject a U.N. finding and a U.N. resolution and that we’re going to have that as a precedent. This is bad." Dingell spoke to the universality of international law:

"Neither Israel nor Hamas, nor any other country or other non-state political act is exempt from international human rights laws or free of consequence for violations of them. If nothing else, the Goldstone Report should serve as a document from which Israel and Hamas, and the rest of the international community can use to ensure that future human rights violations do not take place in civilian areas and that their militaries and fighters are actively working toward minimizing civilian casualties in the future." (CR H12237 11/3/09)

Two of the strongest opponents of the resolution were Brian Baird (D-WA) and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). Baird, in a statement released the night before the vote, stated, "if our own country is truly to stand for human rights and the rule of law, and if facts matter, how can we do other than insist that legitimate questions and evidence are followed by further investigation and, if necessary and warranted, appropriate consequences?" The statement continued:

"H.Res. 867 is very serious business. If, as Goldstone asserts and the evidence I have seen supports, there were in fact gross violations of international law and human rights on all sides, we cannot in good conscience support H.Res. 867.

This is about much more than just another imposed political litmus test that we are all too often asked to perform. This is about whether we as individuals and this Congress as an institution find it acceptable to drop white phosphorous on civilian targets, to rocket civilian communities, to destroy hospitals and schools, to use civilians as human shields, to deliberately destroy non-military factories, industries and basic water, electrical and sanitation infrastructure. This is about whether it is acceptable to restrict the movement, opportunities and hopes of more than a million people every single day." 

On the floor of the House, Baird, who has visited Gaza and seen first-hand the affects of Israel's assault, made one last appeal to his colleagues. "Do not pass this resolution. Support this fine jurist," he said. "Give justice, true justice, a chance to be heard." (CR H12237 11/3/09)

Kucinich reprimanded fellow Congress members for their suppression of the truth in supporting H.Res.867, declaring, "Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist," continuing, "Behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian." The Ohio Representative stated that "if this Congress votes to condemn a report it has not read concerning events it has totally ignored about violations of law of which it is unaware, it will have brought shame to this great institution." He accused resolution supporters of "tacitly approv[ing] violations of international law and international human rights" and warned that "if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation?" (
CR H12237-8 11/3/09)

Nevertheless, despite the noble objections of these representatives and the call of numerous human rights organizations to oppose the bill and support the Goldstone Report's findings and recommendations, Congress voted overwhelmingly to pass H.Res.867, thereby white-washing war crimes in a successful bid to allow Israel to unconditionally slaughter Palestinians with impunity.

Brooklyn Representative Yvette Clarke was one of only 36 members who voted against the legislation. The day after the vote, a statement appeared on her website, explaining her position. "Consideration of this resolution completely circumvented the legislative process, preventing an accurate and thorough vetting of the findings of the Goldstone Report," she wrote. "This highly unusual legislative maneuver, which denied members a single subcommittee hearing, raises questions regarding the claims in this resolution." She also stated that the "language stating that it should be U.S. policy to 'oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration…in multilateral fora' is excessively broad and inconsistent with our national commitment to human rights and the rule of law."

This national commitment to human rights and the rule of law was recently affirmed by Dr. Esther Brimmer, Assistant Secretary of the US Bureau of International Organization Affairs in her September 14, 2009 remarks to the High-Level Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, in which Brimmer declared that the United States was pleased to rejoin the community of nations on the United Nations Human Rights Council due to the Obama Administration's renewed efforts to advance "one of the most fundamental roles of the state: to protect and advance human rights." Brimmer continued,

"We can not pick and choose which of these rights we embrace nor select who among us are entitled to them. We are all endowed at birth with the right to live in dignity, to follow our consciences and speak our minds without fear, to choose those who govern us, to hold our leaders accountable, and to enjoy equal justice under the law. These rights extend to all, and the United States can not accept that any among us would be condemned to live without them."

During a press briefing two week later, Brimmer added that the United States "must do everything in our power to end the suffering of innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians." Addressing the findings of the Goldstone Report, she said, "We encourage domestic investigations of credible allegations of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law."

The United States Congress, at the bidding of AIPAC and the Israeli government, did not heed this call, nor did they act as true representatives of their constituents. A Rasmussen poll from December 31, 2008, taken just days after Israel launched its devastating assault on Gaza when Israeli propaganda was at its height and revelations of war crimes were far from being exposed, found that Americans generally "are closely divided over whether the Jewish state should be taking military action against militants in the Gaza Strip." While the American public at large slightly favored Israeli aggression (44-41%, with 15% undecided), Democratic voters overwhelmingly opposed the Israeli offensive – by a 24-point margin (31-55%). Despite such a majority of Democratic disapproval of Israeli military action at the time, a staggering 70% of Democratic Representatives (179 out of 255) voted in favor of H.Res.867 on Tuesday.

On January 2, 2009, Salon.com commentator Glenn Greenwald posed the following query:

"Is there any other significant issue in American political life, besides Israel, where (a) citizens split almost evenly in their views, yet (b) the leaders of both parties adopt identical lockstep positions which leave half of the citizenry with no real voice? More notably still, is there any other position, besides Israel, where (a) a party's voters overwhelmingly embrace one position (Israel should not have attacked Gaza) but (b) that party's leadership unanimously embraces the exact opposite position (Israel was absolutely right to attack Gaza and the U.S. must support Israel unequivocally)? Does that happen with any other issue?"

The answer is a resounding no because the US Congress adheres to the strict doctrine of "Israel Über Alles" at all times, no matter what the facts are.

The late Edward Said wrote, "The paramount thing is that the struggle for equality in Palestine/Israel should be directed toward a humane goal, that is, co-existence, and not further suppression and denial."

The Goldstone Report came to the same conclusion, echoing the voices of those struggling for the universal values of human rights, social justice, legal equality, and basic morality, when it stated:

"The international community as well as Israel and, to the extent determined by their authority and means, Palestinian authorities, have the responsibility to protect victims of violations and ensure that they do not continue to suffer the scourge of war or the oppression and humiliations of occupation or indiscriminate rocket attacks. People of Palestine have the right to freely determine their own political and economic system, including the right to resist forcible deprivation of their right to self-determination and the right to live, in peace and freedom, in their own State. The people of Israel have the right to live in peace and security. Both peoples are entitled to justice in accordance with international law." (A/HRC/12/48, p. 404)

With the passing of H.Res.867, two days after what would have been Edward Said's 74th birthday, Congress made perfectly clear that it not only seeks to deny and suppress the truth, but is itself, in the words of its own resolution, "irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy."

Not only does the United States House of Representatives not accurately represent the views of the American people, let alone those of the rest of world, it is – unequivocally – no home to morality.

*****

A response to the first entry in Palestine Think Tank and Tlaxcala's First Word War:
“Logos", plural “Logoi” is Greek , meaning “Word” or “Reason”. In Arabic “Kalimah” means “Word”, Plural “Kalaam” Hence, “’Elmul-Kalam” means “Science of word” which means “Linguistics”. It is also worth mentioning that the “word” is sharper than a mighty sword.

Well, linguistically speaking, the human language is a highly organized system basically composed of three elements functioning independently and inseparably:

The individual sounds which are called “Phones”
The combination of these sounds into meaningful units which is called “Morphs”, and
The combination of these meaningfull units into a larger utterance which is called “Syntax".

So far, the Zionist ugly lyre has had the above three chords, and they keep stroking them, composing their propaganda campaigns for serving their unjust, twisted cause.

Mr. Ayman El-Kayman has cleverly explained the first stage “The combination of individual sounds aka PHONES in his article. He also touched on the subliminal messages involved.

The second stage “The combination of meaningful units aka MORPHS” is abundant in the Zionist propaganda; their choice of certain suggestive “WORDS”, such as: Islamists, the improper usage of words “fundamentalists” and “Madrasa”, the improper usage of the comprehensive word “Arabs” instead of the selective word “Palestinians” (though Palestinians are Arabs), but the point is their suggestion (their hate to the Palestinians). The Palestinians are Arabs. Therefore Arabs are to be hated, too – a twisted logic where the implied quantitive “all” is judged by the implied quantitive “some”, hence logically yielding a wrong conclusion.

The third stage “The combination of meaningful units aka Syntax. Mr. SANTIAGO ALBA RICO cleverly covered this stage. But languages have more features for the Zionist cabals to manipulate such as: Adjectives, adverbs, and tenses.

In my preparation for exposing the perversion of the Zionist rabbis, I came across this piece of news:

“ Muslim' rabbi flees sex scandal
Thursday, 13 January 1994

JERUSALEM (AFP) – A rabbi at the centre of a sex scandal has run off to his native Morocco and converted to Islam.”

Rabbi Shimon Dadon, who in Israel had enticed schoolgirls by giving away exam results, is working in a mosque. A rabbinical court is to decide whether to grant a divorce to his wife, Myriam. Under Jewish law, the husband must agree."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/muslim-rabbi-flees-sex-scandal-1406526.html

For God sake, why use the word “Muslim” in description of the word “rabbi”? How can it be possible that some one is “Muslim” and a “rabbi” in the same time? If he is a Muslim, then he is not a rabbi. And if he is a rabbi, then he Jewish, not Muslim.

In conclusion, what really bothers me is Journalists nowadays are foolish; parrots intentionally mimicking the Jewish propaganda machine, or unintentionally out of ignorance, and sometimes out of fear of getting smeared with anti-Semitism; a dirty card the Zionists always wave in the face of whoever opposes them.

So what is the solution? – We have to fight fire by fire.

SEE: http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/10/02/the-first-word-war-palestine-think-tank-and-tlaxcala-declare-war-against-disinformation/

SEND your contributions to contact@palestinethinktank.com or tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es

What is so  generously termed today by the International Women's Media Foundation as my lifetime achievement  needs to be corrected.  Because it is Failure.  Nothing more than a  failure.   A lifetime failure.

Come to think of it, the lifetime part is just as questionable: after all, it is about a  third of my life, not more, that I have been engaged  in Journalism.

Also, if the 'lifetime' part gives you the impression that I am soon going to retire  – then this impression has to be corrected as well. I am not planning to end soon what I am doing. 

What am I doing?   I am generally defined as a reporter on Palestinian issues.  But, in fact,  my reports are about the Israeli society and policies, about Domination and its intoxications.  My sources are not secret documents and leaked out minutes which were taken at meetings of  people with Power and in Power.  My sources are the open ways by which the subjugated are being dispossessed of their equal rights as human beings.

There is still so much more to learn about Israel, about my society, and about Israeli decision makers who invent restrictions such as:  Gazan students are not to study in a Palestinian university in the West Bank, some 70 kms away from their home.  Another  ban: Children (above the age of  18) are not to visit their parents in Gaza, if the parents are well and healthy.  If they were dying,  Israeli order-abiding officials would have  allowed the visit.  If the children are younger than 18 – the visit would have  been allowed.  But, on the other hand,  second degree relatives are not allowed to visit dying or healthy siblings in Gaza.

It is an intriguing philosophical question, not only journalistic. Think of it: what, for the Israeli System, is so disturbing, about reasonably healthy fathers or mothers?  What is so disturbing about a kid choosing and getting a better education?  And these are but two in a long, long list of Israeli prohibitions.  

Or when I write about the progressively decimated and fragmented Palestinian territory of the West Bank.  It's not just about people losing their family property and livelihood; it's not only about the shrinking opportunities of people in disconnected, crowded enclaves.  It is in fact a story about the skills of Israeli architects.  It is a way to learn about how Israeli on the-ground planning contradicts official  proclamations, a phenomenon  which   characterizes the acts of all Israeli governments, in the past as in the present.  In short, there is so much to keep me busy for another  lifetime, or at least for the rest of my lifetime.    
   
But, as I said, the real correction is elsewhere.   It's not about achievement that we should be talking here, but  about a failure.

It is the failure to make the Israeli and international public use and accept correct terms and words  – which reflect the reality.  Not the Orwellian Newspeak that has flourished since 1993 and has been cleverly dictated and disseminated by those with invested interests.

Source: http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=9176&lg=en

To see other entries of this First Word War please click

The First Word War is an initiative by Palestine Think Tank

The First Word War

AUTHOR:  Julio C. SÁNCHEZ

Translated by Christine Lewis Carroll and edited by Machetera

Piracy on the Somali coasts, armed violence in the East of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the explosive situation in Darfur, and the harmful impact all these matters have on neighbouring countries fill the news headlines. But the media merely describe the phenomena without analysing the real causes.

One of the most misleading terms used by the media, and which can also be found in certain academic publications, is that of “armed conflict”. It is even alternated with the term “war”. However, when referring to conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa, the media use adjectives such as “ethnic conflict”, “civil war”, etc. But where military operations take place in other places and the United States of America is an actor, such as Afghanistan or Iraq, the term “war” is used.

So where is the difference? Aside from the technological, military or legal aspects, the difference lies in the ideological assumptions which try to justify the presence of the Empire in Afghanistan and Iraq. By doing this, these media make legitimate the consequences of the aggressive speech delivered by the then president George W. Bush at the West Point Military Academy on September 20th 2001, later legislated as U.S.A. National Security Strategy in 2002, where it was clearly declared that the country had initiated a war. The evasion is, that beyond the fight against terrorism, the aggressions carried out by the United States hide its hegemonic interest in controlling the natural resources of a vast area including the whole African continent and part of Asia. Plus, there is the favourable geographical situation of the latter and the fact that the achievement of the Empire’s objectives will provide an advantage to the United States over its main allies and the countries considered by it to be competitors.

Defining the causes of the aggressions against Afghanistan and Iraq is not the object of this article, but rather the identification of common occurrences in the wars affecting Sub-Saharan Africa. We must insist that economic interest – the reason behind the invasion of these countries by the United States – is also at the heart of the conflicts which have been draining Somalia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for decades.

It is our opinion that the term “civil war” used by the media to describe the military operations developed in these three African countries should be reviewed because in all three cases, there is a significant presence of international actors, both as instigators as well as direct and/or indirect participants; these international actors even plan through these wars, to redistribute amongst themselves the areas containing important quantities of natural resources.

The presence of international actors, the flow of displaced people and refugees as a result of military proceedings, and the problems suffered by host countries or safer areas within the same country have obliged experts in International Humanitarian Law to redefine the concept of civil war. In reports carried out by the International Red Cross, when they analyse conflicts such as those affecting the afore-mentioned African countries, the term “internationalised armed conflict” is used.

In this line of analysis there is an article titled “Towards a unique definition of armed conflict in humanitarian international law: A criticism of internationalised armed conflicts” by James G. Stewart, qualified in humanitarian international law, lawyer and attorney of the Supreme Court of New Zealand . Whilst this author refers to the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an internationalised armed conflict, the ex-Yugoslavia is most representative of this kind of conflict.

This line of analysis, i.e. studying internationalised armed conflicts in all their dimensions, can also be found in the work of Cuban experts, belonging to the Study Centre for Africa and the Middle East, concerning Sub-Saharan Africa. The results of their studies have been published in the magazine RAMO and the digital bulletin CEAMONITOR, and describe the concept they have elaborated of interconnected armed conflict with a view to understanding the complexity of the wars affecting the region.

This concept stems from a holistic approach to the causes of war and acknowledges that whilst the interference of external actors can be analysed as a catalyst to internal conflicts, for these to come about, they need the existence of a whole set of objective conditions ranging from the uneven distribution of power, economic interests associated with post-independence states and an uneven appropriation of natural resources. For this reason, in their conceptual assessments, the investigators of CEAMO shun the terms “coltan war” for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or “diamond war” for Sierra Leone. They do, however, acknowledge the control of resources as one of the factors which have stimulated the destabilising presence of external actors.

At the present time, and bearing in mind the international interconnection of actors present in the conflicts of Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan, there is also an interconnection of international agendas to resolve them. However, these agendas do not address the essence of the problem, only its external manifestations; they simply advocate pacification, disarmament of the belligerent elements and their subsequent political normalisation. The real causes of these wars, which lie in the underdevelopment of large majorities, find no solution in these complicated post-conflict agendas, which do however contemplate the overpowering presence of foreign troops, which in lieu of reconstructing these war zones become a new destabilising factor.

The true solution to the current conflicts should be the end of inequality and the adoption of an international order where cooperation towards development prevails , rather than wars of conquest and militarization.

To see other entries of this First Word War please click here

Source: CEAMOnitor Vol. 6 Nº 6 - Breves comentarios sobre la denominación de “conflictos armados internacionalizados”

Original article published on 14 October 2009

About the author

Christine Lewis Carroll is a member of Rebelión. Machetera is a member  of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, translator and editor are cited.

URL of this article on Tlaxcala: http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=9112&lg=en

Der erste Wortkrieg

Kurze Anmerkungen zu den sogenannten „internationalisierten bewaffneten Konflikten“

AUTOR: Julio C. SÁNCHEZ

Übersetzt von  Isolda Bohler 

Die Piraterie an den somalischen Küsten, die bewaffnete Gewalt im Osten der Demokratischen Republik Kongo und die explosive Situation in Darfur und ihre schädlichen Auswirkungen auf die Nachbarländer füllen die Presseschlagzeilen. Aber diese Medien beschränken sich auf die Beschreibung des Phänomens, ohne ihre wahren Ursachen zu ergründen.

Einer der verlogensten Begriffe, wie sie von den Medien und in gewisser akademischer Literatur gebraucht werden, ist der des bewaffneten Konflikts. Er wird sogar auf gleiche Weise als Ersatz für den des Krieges benutzt. Dagegen haben die Medien für die Konflikte in Afrika südlich der Sahara Bezeichnungen geprägt, wie ethnischer Konflikt, Bürgerkrieg, etc. Aber für die Aktionen auf anderen Schauplätzen mit Militäroperationen wie Afghanistan und der Irak, wo es eine direkte US-Präsenz gibt, dort wird der Begriff  Krieg angewendet.

Worin liegt der Unterschied? Mehr als in Aspekten der technisch – militärischen oder juristischen Art, liegen diese Unterschiede, wenn man Phänomene ähnlicher Wesensart analysiert, in ideologischen Beweggründen, die die imperiale Präsenz der USA in Afghanistan und im Irak zu rechtfertigen versuchen. Durch sie legitimieren diese Medien die Handlungen, die als Konsequenz des aggressiven Diskurses ausgebrochen sind, der von dem damaligen Präsidenten George W. Bush an der Militärakademie von West Point am 20. Dezember 2001 gehalten und der danach in der Strategie für die Nationale Sicherheit der USA 2002 bestätigt wurde, in der man eindeutig erklärte, dass dieses Land einen Krieg initiiert hatte. Es wird, jenseits des Kampfes gegen den Terrorismus, beiseite geschoben, was hinter den US-Aggressionen steckt, nämlich das hegemonische Interesse für die Kontrolle der Bodenschätze in einer breiten Zone, die den gesamten afrikanischen Kontinent und Teile Asiens einschließt. Dazu muss ihre günstige geographische Lage hinzugezählt werden, und dass die erfolgreiche Umsetzung dieser imperialen Ziele der Kontrolle es den USA erlaubten, Vorteile gegenüber den wichtigsten Verbündeten und auch gegenüber jenen Ländern, die von der imperialen Agenda als Konkurrenten definiert worden sind, zu erlangen.

Obgleich es in dieser Arbeit nicht unser Ziel ist, die Ursachen, die zu den Aggressionen gegen Afghanistan und den Irak führten, zu definieren, sondern einige Regelmäßigkeiten im Verhalten der Kriege, die heute die Region Afrikas südlich der Sahara betreffen, zu definieren, müssen wir aber betonen, dass das ökonomische Interesse, das in letzter Instanz die US-Streitkräfte dazu führte, jene Länder zu überfallen, auch die Grundlage der Konflikte, die seit Jahrzehnten Somalia, den Sudan und die Demokratische Republik Kongo ausbluten lassen, bestimmt.

Wir meinen, dass der Begriff des Bürgerkriegs, mit dem die Medien die bewaffneten Handlungen, die sich in diesen drei afrikanischen Ländern abspielen, geprägt haben, revidiert werden sollte, denn in den drei Fällen gibt es eine wichtige Präsenz internationaler Akteure, sowohl als Anstifter von bewaffneten Aktionen, als auch als direkte und/oder verdeckte Teilnehmer und sie haben sogar Terminkalender projektiert, um Lösungen für die Kriege auszuloten, die in jedem einzelnen dieser Länder eine neue Verteilung jener Gebiete, wo es bewiesenermaßen wichtige Naturvorkommen gibt, mit sich bringen würde.

Die Präsenz internationaler Akteure, die Vertriebenen- und Flüchtlingsströme als Folge der bewaffneten Aktionen, sowie die Probleme der Aufnahmeländer von den Massen von Menschen, die gezwungen sind, ihr Land zu verlassen oder sich gezwungen sehen, sich in sichereren Gebieten ihres Landes niederzulassen, führte dazu, dass Experten des Internationale Humanitären Rechts das Konzept des Bürgerkrieges neu definierten. An seiner Stelle wird der Begriff des bewaffneten internationalisierten Konflikts in vielen vom Internationalen Komitee des Roten Kreuzes ausgearbeiteten Arbeiten gebraucht, wenn Konflikte wie die, die heutzutage die zuvor erwähnten afrikanischen Länder betreffen, analysiert werden. 

Auf diese Linie der Analyse stellt sich der Artikel „Für eine einzige Definition von bewaffnetem Konflikt im internationalen humanitären Recht: Eine Kritik an den internationalisierten bewaffneten Konflikten“, ausgearbeitet von James G. Stewart, diplomiert in Internationalem Humanitären Recht (CICR), sowie Anwalt und Prozessbevollmächtigter am Obersten Gericht Neuseelands (1). Es ist zu betonen, dass, obwohl der Autor einen Bezug auf den Krieg in der Demokratischen Republik Kongo macht und ihn als einen bewaffneten internationalisierten Konflikt definiert, er in seinen Äußerungen über diese Art von Konflikten, die meisten von ihm aufgezeigten Beispiele denen aus dem früheren Jugoslawien entsprechen.

Diese Linie der Analyse, die so benannten bewaffneten internationalisierten Konflikte in ihren Multidimensionen zu sehen, können wir auch bei kubanischen Akademikern finden, die sich dem Studium der Region südlich der Sahara in Afrika widmen. Die Mehrheit von ihnen befinden sich am Studien – Zentrum für Afrika und dem Mittleren Osten (Centro de Estudios de África y Medio Oriente, CEAMO). Als Ergebnis der veröffentlichten Arbeiten, sowohl in der Zeitschrift Afrika und Mittlerer Osten (Revista África y Medio Oriente, RAMO) als auch im Digitalbulletin CEAMOnitor, arbeitete diese kubanische Einrichtung das Konzept des bewaffneten, miteinander verbundenen Konflikts aus, um die Komplexität der Kriege, die die Region betreffen, zu verstehen.

Das Konzept geht von einem ganzheitlichen Ansatz an die Ursachen der Kriege aus und erkennt, dass, obgleich die Einmischung externer Akteure als Katalysatoren von internen Konflikten analysiert werden können, sie zu ihrer Entfesselung die Existenz einer Ansammlung von objektiven Bedingungen brauchen, die die ungleiche Verteilung von politischer Macht, die mit den Staaten der Nach – Unabhängigkeit verbundenen ökonomischen Interessen und das Vorhandensein einer ungleichen Aneignung der Bodenschätze umfassen. Deswegen lehnen die Forscher vom CEAMO in ihren konzeptuellen Bewertungen die Bezeichnungen von Krieg des Koltans im Fall der Demokratischen Republik Kongo, oder Diamantenkrieg, wie der beendete Krieg in Sierra Leone bezeichnet wurde, ab. Trotzdem erkennen sie die Kontrolle über die Bodenschätze als einen der Faktoren an, welche die destabilisierende  Präsenz von externen Akteuren stimulierten.

Aktuell und in Entsprechung mit dem internationalen Verbund von anwesenden Akteuren in den Konflikten von Somalia, der Demokratischen Republik Kongo und dem Sudan finden wir uns auch in Gegenwart von einem Verbund von internationalen Terminkalendern zu ihrer Lösung. Aber die Selben greifen nicht das Wesen des Problems an, sondern nur ihre externen Bekundungen, nur sie werden verfochten: die Befriedung, die Entwaffnung der Kriegführenden und die nachfolgende Eingliederung ins politische Leben. Aber für die realen Ursachen dieser Kriege, die in der Unterentwicklung, in der die große Mehrheit lebt, liegen, haben diese komplizierten Terminpläne für die Zeit nach dem Konflikt keine Lösung, zumal die in jedem der Fälle eine erdrückende Anwesenheit von internationalen Truppen implizieren, die, anstatt in jenen Kriegsschauplätzen aufzubauen, sich in einen neuen destabilisierenden Faktor verwandeln.

Die wahre Lösung der aktuellen Konflikte müsste als leitende Achse eine Strategie haben, die auf den Weg führt, der den Ungleichheiten ein Ende macht und auch zur Annahme einer internationalen Ordnung führt, in der die Kooperation zur Entwicklung vorherrscht, anstatt der Eroberungskriege und der Militarisierung.

Verweise:

(1)            Stuart, James G.: „In Richtung auf eine einzige Definition von bewaffneten Konflikten im Internationalen Humanitären Recht: Eine Kritik an den bewaffneten internationalisierten Konflikten“, Zeitschrift des Internationalen Roten Kreuzes, 30.6.03

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Über den Autor

Isolda Bohler ist ein Mitglied von Tlaxcala

URL dieses Artikels auf Tlaxcala: http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8987&lg=de

La Primera guerra mundial de las palabras

Breves comentarios sobre la denominación de “conflictos armados internacionalizados”

AUTOR: Julio C. SÁNCHEZ 

La piratería en las costas somalíes, la violencia armada en el este de la República Democrática del Congo y la explosiva situación en Darfur, y su nocivo impacto en los países vecinos ocupan importantes titulares. Pero, esos medios se limitan a describir el fenómeno sin desentrañar sus verdaderas causas.

Uno de los términos más engañosos usados por los medios y por cierta literatura académica, es el de conflicto armado. Incluso se usa de manera indistinta en sustitución del de guerra. Sin embargo, para los conflictos en África subsahariana los medios han acuñado calificativos como conflicto étnico, guerra civil, etc. Pero, para las acciones en otros teatros de operaciones militares, como Afganistán e Iraq, donde existe una presencia directa de Estados Unidos sí se emplea el término de guerra.

¿Dónde radica la diferencia? Más que en aspectos de tipo técnico-militar o jurídico, esas diferencias al analizar fenómenos con esencias similares, descansan en presupuestos ideológicos que tratan de justificar la presencia imperial de Estados Unidos en Afganistán e Iraq. Con ello esos medios legitiman las acciones desencadenadas como consecuencia del agresivo discurso pronunciado por el entonces presidente George W. Bush en la Academia Militar de West Point el 20 de septiembre del 2001 y que fue posteriormente refrendado en la Estrategia de Seguridad Nacional de Estados Unidos de 2002, donde claramente se declaraba que ese país había iniciado una guerra. Se soslaya que más allá de la lucha contra el terrorismo, lo que esconden las agresiones estadounidenses es el interés hegemónico por el control de los recursos naturales en una amplia zona que incluye el total del continente africano y parte de Asia. A eso habría que sumar su favorable ubicación geográfica, y cómo el logro de esos objetivos imperiales de control permitirá a Estados Unidos adquirir ventajas sobre sus principales aliados, y también sobre aquellos países que la agenda imperial ha definido como competidores.

Aunque definir las causas que originaron las agresiones a Afganistán e Iraq, no es nuestro objetivo en este trabajo sino definir algunas regularidades en el comportamiento de las guerras que hoy están afectando a la región de África subsahariana. Pero, debemos destacar que el interés económico, que en última instancia condujo a las Fuerzas Armadas estadounidenses a invadir aquellos países, también constituye la base de los conflictos que desde décadas desangran a Somalia, Sudán y la República Democrática del Congo.

Consideramos que el término de guerra civil, con el que se ha acuñado por los medios a las acciones armadas que se desarrollan en esos tres países africanos, debe ser revisado porque en los tres casos existe una importante presencia de actores internacionales, tanto como instigadores de las acciones armadas, como en participantes directos y/o encubiertos, e incluso tienen proyectadas agendas para intentar soluciones a las guerras que conllevarían en cada uno de esos países a un nuevo reparto de aquellas zonas donde se ha probado la existencia de importantes recursos naturales.

La presencia de actores internacionales, el flujo de desplazados y refugiados como consecuencia de las acciones armadas, así como los problemas de los países receptores de las masas de personas obligadas a abandonar su país de origen, o que se ven obligados a reasentarse en áreas más seguras de su país, ha conducido a que expertos en Derecho Internacional Humanitario hayan redefinido el concepto de guerra civil. En su lugar, muchos trabajos elaborados por el Comité Internacional de la Cruz Roja, cuando analizan conflictos como los que afectan actualmente a los países africanos mencionados antes, se usa el término de conflicto armado internacionalizado.

En esa línea de análisis se ubica el artículo “Hacia una definición única de conflicto armado en el derecho internacional humanitario: Una crítica de los conflictos armados internacionalizados”, elaborado por James G. Stewart, diplomado en Derecho Internacional Humanitario (CICR), así como abogado y procurador del Tribunal Supremo de Nueva Zelandia.(1) Debe destacarse que si bien ese autor hace referencia a la guerra en la República Democrática del Congo, y la define como un conflicto armado internacionalizado, en su abordaje de las manifestaciones de ese tipo de conflicto, los mayores ejemplos que señala, se corresponden con la ex Yugoslavia.

Esta línea de análisis de ver los denominados conflictos armados internacionalizados en su multimensionalidad, también podemos encontrarla en académicos cubanos dedicados al estudio de la región de África subsahariana. La mayoría de ellos radican en el Centro de Estudios de África y Medio Oriente. Como resultado de los trabajos publicados tanto en la Revista África y Medio Oriente (RAMO) como en el boletín digital CEAMOnitor, esa institución cubana ha elaborado el concepto de conflicto armado interconectado para poder comprender la complejidad de las guerras que afectan a la región.

El concepto parte de un abordaje holístico de las causas de de las guerras y reconoce que si bien las injerencia de actores externos pueden ser analizadas como catalizadores de conflictos internos, para que estos se desencadenen necesitan la existencia de un conjunto de condiciones objetivas que abarcan la desigual distribución del poder político, los intereses económicos asociados a los Estados de la post-independencia y la existencia de una desigual apropiación de los recursos naturales. Por ello, los investigadores del CEAMO en sus valoraciones conceptuales rehúyen los calificativos de guerra del coltán en el caso de la República Democrática del Congo, o de guerra de los diamantes como era calificada la finalizada guerra en Sierra Leona. No obstante, reconocen que el control de los recursos como uno de los factores que han estimulado la presencia desestabilizadora de los actores externos.

En la actualidad, y en correspondencia con la interconexión internacional de actores presentes en los conflictos de Somalia, República Democrática del Congo y Sudán, también estamos en presencia de una interconexión de agendas internacionales para solucionarlos. Sin embargo, las mismas no atacan la esencia del problema, sino solo sus manifestaciones externas, por ello únicamente se propugna: la pacificación, el desarme de los beligerantes y la posterior incorporación a la vida política. Pero las causas reales de esas guerras, que descansan en el subdesarrollo en que viven las grandes mayorías no tienen solución en esas complicadas agendas post-conflicto, las cuales en cada uno de los casos implican una abrumadora presencia de tropas internacionales, las que en lugar de construir en aquellos escenarios bélicos se convierten en un nuevo factor desestabilizador.

La verdadera solución de los actuales conflictos tendría que tener como eje conductor a una estrategia encaminada a poner fin a las desigualdades y también a la adopción de un orden internacional donde predomine la cooperación para el desarrollo, en lugar de las guerras de conquista y la militarización.

Referencias:

(1) Stuart, James G.: “Hacia una definición única de conflicto armado en el derecho internacional humanitario: Una crítica de los conflictos armados internacionalizados”, Revista Internacional de la Cruz Roja, 30-06-03.
 

Para leer otras entradas de esta Primera guerra mundial de las palabras, pinche aquí

Fuente: CEAMOnitor Vol. 6 N.º 6 

Artículo original publicado en junio de 2009

Sobre el autor

Tlaxcala es la red de traductores por la diversidad lingüística. Este artículo se puede reproducir libremente a condición de respetar su integridad y mencionar al autor y la fuente.

URL de este artículo en Tlaxcala: http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8986&lg=es

In many parts of the West, certain political parties or movements are treated as if they come from the Moon or are alien to any body politic. Their existence among the people is always scrutinised as negative, transitory and something created in a boardroom or a backroom, imposed upon an unsophisticated public that is unable to differentiate a true political programme from empty and simplistic rhetoric. These parties or movements are depicted as if they only address the margins of society who are disenfranchised from any “normal” democratic bodies, and thus, are ramshackle bands that represent a minority constituency. Given their oppositional nature to pre-existing parties, they are outfitted with the label that will serve to keep them isolated from the structures that are already in operation. All of this is to destroy the party or movement by propaganda work rather than analysis of reality.

An entire mythology has been built around the Palestinian resistance movement (which morphed into a party) Hamas. This construct has actually taken on more legitimacy as a factual interpretation of Hamas than the facts themselves. In most of the Western media, no matter if it is on the right or the left, and in some of the “moderate” media in Arab countries, the very name of the party is coupled with terms such as “fundamentalist”, “radical” or “terrorist”. Clearly, this serves to create a fear trigger that will remove the word from being critically and honestly evaluated. The listener will immediately identify Hamas with a negative connotation and is removed from responsibility for understanding that this is a manipulation of reality. The listener is expected to accept the claims that Hamas is “anti-democratic” and “fanatical”. It is child’s play to then convince the listener that Hamas is Bad, that it is the Enemy of all We represent (in our own eyes, tolerance, democracy, Goodness itself). It is possible to then extend that reading to the belief that action must be taken against them, that they are a “cancer that must be gotten rid of”, as quoted by the institutional peacenik, Noa. How does one eradicate a cancer, once it has been diagnosed? By extirpation or bombardment. With cancer treatment, one “bombards” even the healthy parts of the body with toxic agents, waiting to see if after the battle there were enough healthy parts remaining to allow the organism to continue to exist. Once you have set into the minds of millions of people the idea that destruction is good, because the enemy is just so damaging and evil if allowed to exist, the risk of bringing the entire organism to its grave by weakening it dramatically is taken as a viable risk to run. This is a way to make them justify actions that their own eyes don’t see as therapeutic, but are pure horror and evil.

How did it work that the world was so fooled and allowed Israel to destroy Gaza to “get rid of Hamas”? It was quite simple, and it’s always the same answer: Israel and its allies keep people disinformed. Those who actually will go slightly below the screaming headlines of the newspapers might find out a few facts buried that that will contradict the spin, but not that many people will go that far, given that they are exposed to something with an element of truth buried deep within. If that were not problematic enough, even the “progressives” have done meritorious services to rendering Hamas untouchable. They might accept them as a “resistance movement” but they won’t allow their personal ideological bias to see Hamas as a progressive force for their own people’s advancement. This may be out of conviction, convenience or even lack of research or a blindspot that does not allow variations on the theme of the class struggle, where everything is “international” and the same type of rules and ideals should be considered applicable and necessary for all, going so far in some cases to “import democracy” under various more or less aggressive forms.

These people, many of whom are armed with good intentions, have chewed, swallowed, and are spitting back quite a few of the outright lies and distortions that are part of the mythology created by opponents of Hamas, created in Israel and the West, primarily.

What are the components of that mythology?
1) Hamas was created by the Israeli Mossad.
2) Hamas represents a marginal portion of the Palestinians.
3) Hamas turned democratic enough just to be able to obtain some legitimacy to later take over and turn the Palestinian Territories into an Islamic State.
4) Their victory in the polls was nothing more than a protest vote against the corruption of Fatah.
5) Hamas is comprised of a bunch of illiterates and their electors are sucked in by their own ignorance.
6) Hamas is a fundamentalist group and therefore inflexible and incapable of any modification or evolution. The oft cited Charter is used against them to stress that they are simply a radical, destructive group poised for Holy War.
7) Hamas does not seek any kind of compromise with other Palestinian political parties or factions, and are therefore the divisionary element that prohibits of the unity of the people.
8 ) Hamas operates to indoctrinate their people with hate propaganda in order to utilise them as cannon fodder.
9) Hamas is a terrorist group that exists only thanks to financing by “fundamentalist regimes”.

That Hamas is merely a resistance movement has been thoroughly disproved by the elections, but this seems to be the safe place that activists can cluster in order to allow themselves to be able to tolerate Hamas, while wishing for their quick demise. They are not viewed then as having a true heritage as a political party that can be compared to those of “democratic nations” of the “international community”, and thus, analysis of them can remain at an elementary level, lending itself to hasty generalisations.

I ask my readers to kindly forgive all the inverted quotation marks, but these words do become ironic and empty of true meaning when they are applied to the objects indicated by the spin doctors, whose task it is to do the bidding of the hegemonic powers. How can a minority of a handful of nations that always pits itself against the will of the remainder of the world community in the UN be considered as the “international community”? It’s a boy’s club that excludes practically everyone. How can a country that puts in office the candidate who obtains the lesser amount of votes be called a “democracy”? It is when we start to question our own foundations that we can detect that there is a lot of convenience in presenting any opposition as being an enemy and outside of paradigms that we consider to be core to our expectations of how to establish a just and equitable world.

It’s time to debunk a few of these myths with facts.

1) Hamas was not created by Mossad. Although Israel does like to claim credit for many things, this one is not their doing. Political Islam in Palestine has had a presence since the early 40s in Mandate Palestine, and Hamas was born as part of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan), with many of its early leaders formally affiliated. It was the experience of refugeehood that turned Hamas into a more autonomous element with a particular nationalist basis to it, a natural result of the urgent and real human situation of displacement and loss of their cultural and national identity.

There were close relations of this group with the Egyptian base, and the first offices of the Ikhwan in Palestine were created in Gaza in 1945, led by a member of one of the most important families of the zone, Sheykh Zafer al Shawwa. During the first Arab-Israeli war, Islamist volunteers reinforced the ranks, coming primarily from Jordan and Syria, and this support showed the refugees that the Ikhwan had the courage to defend itself, even during the “Israeli War of Independence”. The growing number of refugees gave a stronger identity and sense of purpose to the Islamist movement in Palestine. Therefore, in the civil society and in the population in general, a motivation from any other source was not required to be able to pledge: “I promise to be a good Muslim in defending Islam and the lost land of Palestine. I promise to be a good example for the community and for others.” These were the words spoken by those who swore their loyalty to the Ikhwan in Palestine (source: Beverly Milton Edwards, “Islamic Politics in Palestine”, p. 43). The local Ikhwan had its own agenda, defending its lost land. It didn’t require fanaticism, outside influence or even propaganda. The refugees themselves were living proof of the horrors of deportation and suffering. The identification as part of an international movement was concomitant with the recognition of the particularity of the Palestinian experience. The official foundation, dating 9 December 1987, was only the culmination of an organisation in the works for decades. Organised Islamic resistance was further utilised when the situation precipitated dramatically in 1967 and a new generation was born as refugees. For this generation, a return to Islam was considered as a necessity for the moral and political future of a people that was being literally destroyed. The cause of the Nakba was seen by many as the result of the distancing from a normal society, the Palestinian one, in which the ethical, religious, cultural and traditional values had been devastated by the occupation, and the descent into further degradation, poverty, disenfranchisement and social instability was seen not only as the result of the occupation, but part of its cause.

The “international community” would not come to the rescue of these people, the rest of the Ummah was not caught up in their national struggle, largely because they were not directly involved or were even prohibited from involvement. The extreme pain and disgrace of losing one’s land at that time was a new element to the area, where previous colonisation avoided expelling the indigenous inhabitants, and throwing off the usurpers was not complicated with the total loss of roots and a base. The basis for the formal dimension of Hamas was thus present for decades prior to its official birth. In order to operate, being under the thumb of the occupation, these organised groups that existed had established charities and benefit organisations for their people. These institutions were tolerated by Israel in the Occupied Territories. Israel conceded some operating space through granting of licenses. As General Yitzhak Sager said in an interview to the International Herald Tribune in 1981, the Israeli government “…gave money that the military governor allocated to the mosques […] the sums were used both by the mosques and the religious schools, with the purpose of reinforcing a subject that would contrast that of the Left that was in favour of the PLO.” If there was some motivation for Israel to be involved, it was really as an act of ‘divide and rule’, a bit of tolerance, a bit of economic support to the various religious associations in order to see if an opposition to the nationalists of the PLO could develop. They really were only looking for a way to see the weakening of the PLO, which was gaining some support in the West, and they did not found, provide major financing or in any way influence a movement that they would in some way infiltrate or control. That is pure mythology. Why give Israel credit where none is due?

2) That Hamas represents only a marginal portion of Palestinians is another myth to debunk. It is indeed true that all Palestinians are not refugees, and it is also true that virtually all of the leaders of Hamas were born in exile or at some point were subjected to the experience of expulsion and loss of their homes and possessions. This is a core Palestinian experience, and it is true that even those (few) Palestinians who were not uprooted can identify with the loss of their cultural and national identity, and all of them know that their national aspirations and cohesion as a group have been destroyed by Israel. Thus, even a movement or party that has its own identity in the refugee camps and in exile or in religious roots, is recognised as an intrinsic, legitimate and natural representative of Palestinians as a whole. They even obtained the majority vote in areas of the West Bank that were not considered as Hamas strongholds, as well as obtaining votes from many Christian areas.

3) The myth that Hamas turned “democratic enough” just to get its foot in the door as the first step of forcing an Islamic State upon the entirety of Palestine is a very widespread one, especially in the progressive circles that do not recognise the popularity of the movement or who have an ideological prejudice against any religious movement. There is much to be said in favour of separation of church and state, but this of course is something that cannot be imposed from afar, and furthermore, there are many levels of separation to take into consideration. Those who subscribe to this position of “Hamas buying time before introducing the Sharia” tend to deny that a democracy has certain characteristics, and it is not necessarily a synonym of “secularism”. When the word “democracy” is applied correctly, it has certain characteristics, and Hamas meets these. Hamas has popular consensus. It has an internal structure that is autonomous and recognised as legitimate by its constituency. It follows the rules of elections, meeting the requirements for participation. Once elected, it assumes its role within the existing system, not having overthrown or staged coups against established structures. It is a political movement with several factions (some of them armed, as is true of many parties in areas under occupation, Fatah included) with a history and an organisation. There is widespread discussion among its constituencies, including those who are political prisoners, prior to making decisions, and the majority decides the actions to be undertaken. If one thing must be said about it to set it apart from parties that Westerners are familiar with, highest level leaders generally do not assume the governing roles. This is understandable in a party where a great quantity of the leaders are routinely assassinated by Israel. That the current political director, Khaled Meshaal, must live in exile after having once been victim of an attempted assassination says more about this anomalous situation than a thousand words can.

4) That Hamas’s victory in the Legislative Council election was nothing more than a protest vote (another pet theory of the left) was brilliantly illustrated as false by Paola Caridi in her very good book (despite the sensationalist subtitle) “Hamas, What it is and what the Radical Palestinian Movement Wants”, published by Feltrinelli and only available in Italian at this time. I am translating a few paragraphs that deal with this question.

“There is a precise political reason for which the majority of Palestinians voted for Hamas. It is a reason that concerns the decision made by the Islamist movement formally on 23 January 2005. (translator’s note, a year prior to the Legislative elections): a unilateral truce, reached together with the Islamic Jihad (that had instead broken it on several occasions), which had turned words into facts: that there would be the end of the season of terrorist attacks made by Hamas inside Israel as indicated within the confines of the 1949 armistice, the Israel within the Green Line, in other words. The ending of suicide attacks in Israeli cities, substantially bringing an end to the Intifada as well as (Hamas’s) participative choice is interpreted by the Palestinian population as a precise political proposal: an alternative to those who had governed and controlled them, holding the hegemony up to that moment. A proposal that poses at the same time new de facto limits to Hamas’s resistance strategy. The Islamist movement has not been, therefore, chosen only as a protest against the corruption, patronage and inefficiency of Fatah, which as a party is often confused with the PA. Corruption, patronage and inefficiency that are related, at least from a temporal point of view, with the failure of the Oslo Accords and the “facts on the ground” realised by the Israelis.

“The people of Hamas were considered people who are serious, who did not enrich themselves at the expense of the population, in fact, they continued to live in normal neighbourhoods and in the refugee camps.” (Caridi, p. 171).

5) An extremely offensive smear, oft repeated, is that Hamas’s followers and its leaders are a “bunch of illiterates” or “religious fanatics”. Almost all the leaders are (or were, given the number of assassinations within their ranks, the past tense is de rigueur) university graduates in fields ranging from medicine and physics to jurisprudence, economics and theology, is testament itself that this smear is merely to throw dirt on them and paint them as having read only religious texts and therefore “under-developed” when compared to other movements. Education has always been one of the pillars of Hamas and its charity work. The people of Palestine don’t need to be told this, it is a reality for them, where in many cases without this foundation, Palestinians would be left wanting in this area.

6) The inflexibility of Hamas is another myth, especially yanked out when speaking of the 1988 Charter (Mithaq). Shiekh Hamed Bitauri, “religious authority of Nablus, president of the Union of the Palestinian Ulemas, known for his radical positions had no problem confirming that ‘the Charter is not the Qu’ran. We can change it. It is only the synthesis of the positions of the Islamist movement in its relations with the other factions, and its politics.’ Aziz Dweik, founder of the Department of Geography of the University of Nablus, later to become the spokesman of the Palestinian Parliament after the 2006 elections, and imprisoned in Israeli jails since the summer of that year, went even further, declaring the political and pragmatic necessity of distancing from the Mithaq of 1988 to Khalid Amayreh, Palestinian journalist that is sensitive to Islamist positions, he said that ‘Hamas would not remain as a hostage to rhetorical slogans of the past like those of the ‘destruction of Israel’.” (Khalid Amayreh, Hamas Debates the Future: Palestine’s Islamic Resistance Movement Attempts to Reconcile Ideological Purity and Political Realism, in “Conflicts Forum”, Nov. 2007, p.4) (Caridi p. 90).

Haniyeh has mentioned on many occasions that the Charter has been surpassed in its substance by the other official documents, the most important of which, the Electoral Programme of the Reform and Change List (the list in which Hamas ran for office). This programme is structured like a document that goes far beyond the needs of a political campaign, according to the leader of Hamas, and it indicates the policy of the movement. It was not written in the heat of the revolution of the Intifada, and reflects the evolution of the party. The changes present are not ideological so much as ones of a strategic and political nature. The positions have been reiterated so many times in interviews and public interventions, it seems incredible that the complexity and maturity of Hamas should by now not be apparent to everyone. It is clear that they are still dedicated to the liberation of Palestine, but they are attempting to achieve it through reaffirmation of the rights of the people, knowing full well that as a party, Hamas is not equipped to overthrow the occupation in any practical way or to destroy what they recognise as a reality.

Many of us who follow events in the Middle East hope that they do not surrender to pragmatism so far as to recognise Israel not only as a reality, but as a “Jewish State”, however, we must watch from the sidelines and evaluate facts. The people of Palestine will be vigil about what rights are being surrendered, if any, and many of us believe that backs to the wall, they will not capitulate and lose what they know is theirs for reasons of political expediency. Hamas too is aware of this fact.

7) Hamas has been far less divisionary than its principle counterpart, Fatah. The Gaza “coup” that shocked and saddened the world was actually a preventive measure to the thwart the planned takeover by the Fatah forces faithful to Dahlan (in collaboration with Israel). That Hamas was the party that was awarded victory by its own people has never been recognised by the “international community” that nevertheless pushed for elections and insisted that this was the necessity for Palestinians, because this would mean that the resistance had been granted legitimacy and would become policy within the governing body, the rejection of negotiations as sub-alternates with Israel, which was Fatah policy, had been officially sanctioned by the populace and it would only be a matter of time before the programme would become policy. So, any steps by the Fatah “Security Forces” to overtake Gaza would actually have been the coup. But in the backwards way of viewing events, fuelled by disinformation, the tragic bloodbath between Palestinians prevented the real overthrow of democracy that would have taken place had Dahlan had the chance. Again and again, Hamas has sought to work together with the opposition party, and this is something they would not tolerate in the vain hope that their economic advantage and political nulla osta from the boy’s club would allow them to command even in absence of the popular mandate to do so.

8 ) It’s not necessary to use propaganda to show to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and in exile, and even to many within Israel, the ongoing destruction of the Palestinian civilisation and people. Blockades, bombardments, assassinations, war, checkpoint humiliations, restrictions, separation of families, imprisonment and further abuses are not isolated incidents, but they are the daily bread and water of Palestinian life. No one needs to invent a rage over a phantasmagoric enemy. There is a real one that is subjecting the people of all ages and conditions to humiliation, deprivation and death. Showing a man in a mouse costume to insist that children are being indoctrinated in hate might go down well with the uninformed masses, but a glimpse into the reality makes Farfur look like the sweetest kind of way for a child to assimilate and tolerate that he or she is a prisoner doomed for life to suffer in the most atrocious way for being born as a lesser being in the oppressors’ eyes.

9) The worst smear against Hamas is the one to keep them as the symbol of evil: that they are a terrorist group, financed by “rogue States in the axis of evil”. Bearing in mind that their financing is abysmally inferior to the gigantic economic and “military aid” package given to Israel by America, Canada and many other nations in the “international community” in an official way, why should the claim of foreign financing be considered as unacceptable when it is simply the way the that Israel keeps afloat through billions of dollars annually, up front, and heaven only knows what other financing comes in through the thousands of “charities” that are really little more than fronts for mass immigration to Israel to curtail Arab growth? If Zionism and its charities are considered as legitimate and noble, why are Islamic ones put on blacklists and the donors treated as if they are financing terrorism? There is a double standard here.

That Hamas has rejected terror operations against civilians and did its best to do so in the service of achieving a realistic improvement for the life conditions of its people is an authenticated fact, corroborated by none other than the USA Congressional Research Service, a Think Tank that basically presents its conservative and Israel-friendly positions to the Congress so that they become policy. In fact, in the document coordinated by Jim Zanotti http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R40101.pdf  Israel and Hamas, Conflict in Gaza (2008-2009), we see that the quoted “reason” for the onslaught of Gaza to “cleanse it of Hamas”, the rockets fired into Israeli territory, was nothing but an excuse that the West drank down with gusto as if it were cherry juice. The extremely rudimentary rockets were recognised as NOT having been launched by Hamas, and not only that, Hamas was viewed as being able and willing to suppress the attacks. It is significant that the first victims of the Israeli attacks in Gaza were the regular police forces who had just been trained, perhaps also for this purpose. Zanotti writes:

For the first five months, the cease-fire held relatively well. Some rockets were fired into Israel, but most were attributed to non-Hamas militant groups, and, progressively, Hamas appeared increasingly able and willing to suppress even these attacks. No Israeli deaths were reported (although there were injuries and property damage), and Israel refrained from retaliation.

Nevertheless, each party felt as though the other was violating the terms of the unwritten ceasefire. Hamas demanded—unsuccessfully—that Israel lift its economic blockade of Gaza, while Israel demanded—also unsuccessfully—a full end to rocket fire and progress on the release of Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit from Hamas’s captivity.

Israel cited the sporadic rocket fire as justification for keeping the border crossings and Gaza’s seaport closed to nearly everything but basic humanitarian supplies. Hamas, other Arab leaders, and some international and non-governmental organizations involved in aiding Gazan civilians complained that Israel was reneging on its promises under the unwritten cease-fire agreement.

If that were not enough, the author, certainly not sympathetic in any way to Hamas, makes statements about the aftermath of the war where even Israel admits that Hamas was not responsible for the rockets:

Since Israel’s unilateral ceasefire began on January 18, 2009, there have been about 40 sporadic rocket launches into southern Israel, far fewer than occurred on average per day just before Operation Cast Lead. Moreover, Israeli officials believe that smaller militant groups, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, and not Hamas, have fired the rockets, as they did during the cease-fire (although it is possible that Hamas is enabling or acquiescing to these attacks while preserving deniability).

So, Israel used the excuse of Hamas rocket launches to justify the elimination of Hamas (by means of destruction of the entirety of Gaza) through what they call “military operations” but the rest of humanity knows is war, while they were aware that Hamas was neither the author nor the facilitator of the rockets, any kind of excuse they pull out of the magic hat to justify their actions should fall on deaf ears. Complaints about arms smuggling through the most rudimentary of tunnels should stink to high heaven when we see the Defense Budget Appropriations for US-Israeli Missile Defense Programs in that same Congressional Report. Iron Dome, David’s Sling and other “military aid” costing the American people billions of dollars are described briefly. For every five ineffective bottle rockets that are smuggled through a tunnel, the USA is flying in full cargoes of arms and cases of cash to be spent by Israel for their military “needs”. The double standards here also draw innocent blood in violation of international law at the expense of your hard-earned money. Again, from the Congressional report:

Israel may have used weapons platforms and munitions purchased from the United States in its military operations in Gaza, reportedly including, among others, F-15 and F-16 aircraft, Apache helicopters, and, according to Israeli press reports, GBU-39 small diameter guided bombs approved for sale by the 110th Congress following notification in September 2008.

Additionally, all unilateral truces between Israel and Hamas (called by Hamas, not by Israel) were broken in every case by Israel. In many cases, making incursions into the Occupied Territories, which legally they are prohibited from doing, as civilian populations under occupation (even if the “settlers” have left, Gaza is kept under siege by Israel) are required to be protected by the occupier, not attacked. Israel, using weapons and planes supplied for them by the good graces of the people of the United States, bombarded streets where their targets (politicians and clerics that Israel terms as “militants” if not worse) were located, killing in an indiscriminate way anyone in the range, children included. If that’s not terrorism, the word has no meaning.

These are only a few of the myths in circulation. They represent just a portion of the lies, disinformation and hasbara that circulates about one of the major Palestinian parties, born from within, developing as all parties do, from below, and legitimised by fair and legal elections. Debunking these lies is a duty. One doesn’t need to agree to the entire programme of Hamas, but one is obligated to recognise that they are entirely different from the image that they have been straightjacketed into. What Jessica Rabbit said in the film, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” could very well apply to Hamas: “I’m not bad, they just draw me that way.”

This article is part of the Palestine Think Tank and Tlaxcala initiative The First Word War against Disinformation. If you would like to contribute your own original articles to this initiative, send them to contact@palestinethinktank.com or to tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es

visit www.tlaxcala.es and www.palestinethinktank.com

While preparing the insertion of the article by Nahida Izzat About anti-Semitism, as do all of her thoughtful and intense contributions, many segments caused me to reflect. Her analysis and especially her questions are so important and meaningful, that it would only be logical to address them bit by bit, and I would like to begin with a segment that I believe holds the core to so many of the difficulties of keeping the Palestinian Nakba on the table… it’s that presence in the room of the elephant of the Holocaust.

Incredible, it seems as though it is often the primary argument discussed. I don’t mean only by those who back Israel tooth and nail, but even by those who claim that Israel as a Jewish State must come to an end. Nahida’s first question:

Why is it that we Palestinians are constantly reminded of the horrors of the holocaust, when we had nothing to do with it? 

Yes. Why? Why is it the argument in a UN General Assembly the week that the Goldstone Report on the Gaza War was released? Why is it that we have to bear yet again with the Israeli PM raging on about the Holocaust and about how Ahmadinejad denies it, so therefore, “all good people of the world, keep the light of the Holocaust burning bright and let’s keep the focus on Israeli victimhood, current vulnerability and the danger Iran poses” becomes the leitmotif of the day, week, month, year… It is permanent, fuelled constantly.

The Goldstone Report was no small feat of the UN to pull off, and some focus there would have been something close to a dream come true: it was the outcome of an official UN commission headed by a respected judge (a Jewish South African) which revealed that Israel engaged wilfully, deliberately and recklessly in war crimes against the people in Gaza… not in the 1940s, but just last winter.  So why did Netanyahu rant and moan? The response is simple: to shift focus with the justification for it that “Ahmadinejad is denying the Holocaust”. But the question begs… Did he?

Had he mentioned the Holocaust in the speech to the UN? I could find not one reference to the Holocaust, much less it’s being denied or not. It was not even mentioned. Yet, what does Netanyahu do? He brings the argument there, because it is beyond doubt that it is effective for Israel’s goal of achieving world sympathy as well as condemnation of Iran, which is a goal of a big part of the “International Community”, and for various nefarious reasons. It gets “sexed up” with the nuclear threat, as if this is indeed the major problem and issue regarding humankind, and we get more and more of these claims that are not really ever verified, “Iran’s got it,” “not yet but close,” “Iran could strike Israel very soon.” All of it backed a few days later by the most intense PR mistake that Iran could muster, long range missile tests. It doesn’t matter now what they do or say, we see the film of the missile set off in a loop for hours and hours on every news show or even commentary.

As I often do, I wonder who’s advising Ahmadinejad, because it sure works wonders for pushing the “Israelis in danger” narrative. Are nuclear weapons going to help bring down the Zionist regime? I really do doubt it, but they sure do a lot to gain them support from the wealthy international community and the political and public backing that would keep Israel’s survival (as a Jewish State) as the priority. I would say that on the face of it, it looks like backward logic.

While Netanyahu and the West rant and rage about the alleged sins of Iran’s President in order to help Israel stay on the top of the game, we see another really bizarre trend in this “constant reminder of the Holocaust”. Surprise surprise, it’s not only the main theme for those whose purpose for existing is to enable Israel who are keeping the “constant reminders of the Holocaust” in the place of prominence. It is also the committed anti-Zionists who like to keep this fil rouge of Ahmadi and the Holocaust running.

Gilad Atzmon, whose views about Zionism are almost always astute, makes the same mistake that Netanayahu does. In his recent paper about Ahmadinejad, Who is a Jew? just a few days after the UN brou-ha-ha he writes: “It is pretty much impossible to deny the fact that Ahmadinejad's take on the holocaust and Israel is coherent, consistent and valid. He seems to have three main issues with the narrative…” and he elaborates on these elements which include numbers, the relevance of historical revision and on the Western responsibility for it.

In the past few years, and in quite a noticeable way, the references to the Holocaust have been decreasing. Did Ahmadinejad deliberately omit the issue of the Holocaust in his important UN speech (which obviously, and predictably, no one seems to know the content of or its theme?) Quite apparently this is the case, and it is indeed plausible that he did it because this was his intention. Nor was the Holocaust mentioned in his speech in Geneva at the International Conference on Racism. 

In fact, there is deliberate omission of the matter, and if the translation is to be trusted, we see that he actually says what is not even his own theory, but rather something close to a fact, that is repeated as well by Netanyahu, that the establishment of Israel in Palestine was “in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe.” Following is the entire quote:

Following World War II, they resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless on the pretext of Jewish sufferings. And they sent migrants from Europe, the United States, and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine… [Delegates walk out in protest. Applause] And in fact in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe… Okay, please. Thank you. And in fact in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive, racist regime in Palestine. [Applause]

One may ask themselves the classic questions: If we know that the Israelis are always up in arms about Ahmadinejad/Holocaust, and that they use this as justification for reinforcing their garrison mentality and use it effectively to get more money, arms and support, and then if Ahamdinejad has actually reduced this kind of intervention from his international speaking appearances – why is this focus constantly there even by those who are against the Zionist State and its garrison mentality as if he had indeed said what Netanyahu wants everyone to believe he said? If we are getting our information from Ynet and the Western mainstream media, of course we are using distortion as our resource. We have to be careful to avoid that error. When we are debating, discussing the Holocaust of the Second World War, an event that is over, finished and (as both Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad concur) compensated for at least for the Jews, what space does that leave us for debate, discussion and dissemination of information on TODAY’S Holocaust, the Nakba of the Palestinian people? Has a single Palestinian EVER been compensated for the losses which started at the beginning of the last century and are increasing in violence and frequency? No. Certainly not. Nor have the Lebanese been compensated for the losses they have suffered in the brutal war raged against them… no, not in the past century, but just three years ago.

Is it very productive to reiterate the same narrative of Netanyahu even when it’s an instrumental distortion of reality and the Palestinians are tired of it? Is it productive for the Palestinian people?

Another question by Nahida: Why is it that we Palestinians, are to suffer the same fate as the victims of the holocaust by the hands of those who brag worldwide to act for “never again”? 

I would venture to guess, Nahida, that your situation is always pushed to the margins because it is simply not deemed as being interesting enough, and Jews and Israelis have been successful in rendering their own situations more appealing, even by way of deceit and distortion.

It seems obvious that while the Holocaust was indeed used as a pretext for the establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine, it had a lot more than that “going for it”. It was always used by the West to cover its own sins such as Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden occurring in the same years. It was used to have an “ultimate evil” to point to… in this way, there is no self-reflection that would lead to change, which is actually what political writing in the West often aims to do. Once you have an evil that is defined as something that will be unequalled, once you have established clearly that there is a group that is represented as being a victim more worthy of pity than any other victim (so that any other suffering is going to be relatively inferior), the mechanism of turning a blind eye to Palestinian and Arab suffering can become the norm. And, suffer they must, if there is to be a Jewish State in Palestine, which is simply a racist construct that dictates that Jews have rights that “non-Jews” (the negation terminology is interesting) shall never have. In fact, those who are non-Jews are also peddled as “enemies” even by the institutional peaceniks adored in the West and used for the Hasbara, such as David Grossman and Noa. When you have an enemy, naturally, the narrator is a good guy and almost “forced” into “defence”. It’s a great and handy little game for the Israelis, and the Palestinians have not yet been able to show the world the full extent of their situation. Part of that is because Palestinians are denied a voice and they are often told that it would be preferable for them to follow the arguments that those in Europe or North America are dictating. The very most they can do is to learn to be satisfied with assuming the passive victim role in some progressive sites.

I’ve been running Palestine sites for a long time, but before that, I’ve been reading these sites. It is quite interesting that aside from independent blogs, the Palestinian voice is the exception, not the rule,  in the progressive or pro-resistance media. I believe that Palestine Think Tank is a happy exception, because most of our contributors and editors are Palestinians, as well as the majority of our content being written by Palestinians. However, just a glance on almost any site about Palestine in English, you are going to find out quite soon that the Palestinian voice is nearly absent. You will see papers (mostly) by Jews and Israelis, articles taken from Haaretz, books by Americans and Britons, but the Palestinian voice is not given its due space.

It certainly is not because they do not have opinions and do not express them well. PTT alone is testament to the variety, vibrancy and originality of these writers.  Sometimes, it seems, there is a lot of gatekeeping surrounding what Palestinians say, and by those who make a point of defending freedom of speech for those whose main or sole argument is the Holocaust. I will enter into detail further in this article.

Self-criticism and self-analysis are the basis of any transformation, personal and national alike. Active transformation in the form of popular uprising, which by now a vast majority of Palestinians see as inevitable and necessary, given the failure of politics, also entails the awareness of the level of distress that is growing, distress that time is running out and that even the most basic Palestinian requirements and demands will not be met, as even the most steadfast resistance movements contemplate the realpolitik of recognition of Israel as a Jewish State. This would ratify an enormous injustice, and cancel forever the chance of return. It is necessary for Palestinians to voice all of their views and to act, as the feeling is strong that time is not on their side.

Revolutions imported from anywhere else but internally, among the people, are by necessity viewed with suspicion. The foundation of a popular revolt is always internal. It entails coming into consciousness of the corruption and ineffectiveness of the system or leaders, and thus instilling and encouraging the active, revolutionary spirit of resistance. It is an overthrowing of the mentality that “the people” are passive subjects who must be controlled and must surrender their consent, even against their better judgment. There is no ruling or governing body in the world that tolerates too much dissent.

Every Western country prides itself on claiming that it tolerates dissent. Whether they actually do or not is questionable, but this is at any rate one of the yardsticks to measure the level of democracy they have achieved. Within activism, the dissenting voice is indeed the dominant one. Thus, promotion and support of self-critical voices, whenever they have the freedom to arise, as this is always a risk, is a necessary basis for changing a negative status quo. Fighting gatekeeping within our ranks is a primary concern, and Palestine Think Tank has never backed off on fighting this unhealthy censorship mechanism. Especially vocal gatekeepers, as we know, are the Jewish activists, who always have been very effective in keeping their agendas as the dominant ones. They tend to impose focus on arguments that are more interesting to them, and ones they presumably feel are interesting to others. These arguments are invariably the “Jewish experience”, past, present and future. This naturally includes the two hot topics that always stir up attention, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. These issues are woven into every discourse, as we have seen, by Zionists and anti-Zionists alike, as if the Jewish experience is indeed the interesting one, and the Palestinians simply have to adjust to playing second fiddle, even at the cost of “constantly being reminded” of these issues, precisely the complaint that Nahida has made in her recent article. As both Meshaal and Nasrallah have said, with the blood of their people still fresh from Israeli aggression, “there is a real Holocaust going on today”, the Holocaust against the people of Palestine and Lebanon.

It is with the goal of keeping the Palestinian and Arab demands for freedom and the necessity of promoting their own voices, that this site has published hundreds of articles by Palestinians and Arabs which call for a more active involvement in building their own future, and refusal to negotiate away their rights, or allow anyone else to set their agenda. At the end of the day, they ought to know what is best for themselves more than a European, American, Israeli or Jew does. This was the spirit of the excellent article by Mohamed Khodr, An Embarassment of Riches and Riches of Embarassments where he pointed out the vast level of the failure of governments in Arab nations to be true to the principles of Islam, often at the expense of the Palestinians. Another important article that was similarly self-critical was by Sami Jamil Jadallah What is Wrong with the Palestinian People? It was his appraisal of the apparent Palestinian complacency in the face of betrayal of the Palestinian people at every level. Anyone who engages regularly with Palestinians knows that this is a big part of the content of their conversations. There was nothing really new or shocking in these positions, despite the enormous pain being expressed of being unable to get angry enough at this state of affairs. The apathy, caused by years of neglect of their cause and the extreme subservience they have in the global sphere, leads to a lack of hope and the feeling that there is no chance to control their own destiny. There is also a frequent tendency of activists who are neither Muslims nor Palestinians to be unaware of this condition of frustration, and they prefer as well to not “offend” Palestinians and insist upon viewing them exclusively in the prism as the “victim” who is waiting for rescue from afar.

Certainly, Palestinians and Muslims are the victims of the worst sort of oppression and war. Their ability to counter the multitude of factors keeping them defeated can’t be denied by anyone. However even “victims” have the capacity to rise up and contribute to the discourse in all of its dynamics. They have the right to mobilise themselves, to speak their minds against not only the Israelis, but also against the “House Arabs” who sell them out or bend to pragmatism when it will run counter to their fundamental demands.

The only effective resistance has only ever been when people stop waiting for approval from outside, when they stop hoping for reform or rescue and when they point their fingers at traitors and encourage healthy rage. Effective resistance has only been determination to not be subjects of someone else’s projects for them or to fit into a profile people have outfitted for them, but to see themselves as the creators of their own destinies. The case of Palestinians is more complicated than one might imagine. It seems as if new hurdles are set in front of them at every turn: they have been unfortunately abandoned by the world when they applied the democratic principles of elections and their situation is further complicated by their’s being a dynamic and complex society that is divided into factions and geographically separated. Acquisition of one’s own narrative, of one’s own power to dissent, being recognised as the protagonists and not the side issue, this is something Palestinians are attempting to gain and their efforts are necessary to enable their own resistance at all levels, and the unity they need to succeed. One is free to disagree with the content of their discourse, but one has the obligation to not discourage the necessary act of their right to free speech.

While circulating especially thought-provoking or controversial papers, as I do at times to a small mailing list of readers, I encouraged the reading of this bitter, painful but powerful essay that offered many points for discussion. I was included in a group mailing of some dozen or so people started by a Jewish activist primarily focused on the subject of the Holocaust who has written a half dozen or so essays, some of which I’ve published. The fact that I may not agree with everything he has written did not however prevent me from encouraging him to write more often so that his right to say unpopular things that could be discussed was safeguarded by me. This is what he wrote:

I don't think this piece should have been written (certainly not in English) and should certainly not have been posted on your website.

I had to wonder if this the same person who wrote back in 2006, published on my previous site, Peacepalestine:

The last point on Ernst and Ingrid (Zundel) has become something of a mantra that I have had to recite so many times in the last year or so: Neither Ingrid nor Ernst has ever used violence, nor have they ever called on anyone else to use violence. Neither has ever discriminated against anyone on ethnic or religious grounds, nor have they called on anyone else to do so. Finally, and for me, most importantly, neither has ever suppressed anyone's right to think, speak and write freely or called on anyone else to do so. Can the same be said for their opponents – particularly those anti-Zionist, and often Marxist Jews?

Whatever I say or write is always characterised by doubt and hesitation. Some have said that this is because I'm afraid of coming clean about my beliefs. But that's not true. It's simply that I am never so sure about anything, other than the value of keeping an open mind and tolerating other opinions.

Evidently, the value of keeping an open mind and tolerating other opinions, well, at least a Palestinian one, has been scrapped.

Besides the fact that the Palestinian author has a long track record for actively demanding redress from the Jews without renouncing the Palestinian right of return, calls for justice, truth and comprehensive archives of all the appropriations of Palestinian property and of all crimes committed against his own people, something hindered time and again by the PLO, calling for his silencing or censorship of him on a Palestinian site is quite inappropriate.

Is tolerance of others’ opinions only a value if those opinions coincide with one’s own or if they are being expressed by a Westerner, Israeli or Jew? Wouldn’t it be more constructive, rather than suppressing someone else’s right to think, speak or write freely or telling an editor they should certainly not have published work one disapproves of, to debate the author? To understand his views? To challenge his claims that one disagrees with and ask him to substantiate them?

Well, my contact in the mailing group didn’t only ignore that invitation to him to do so, something I’ve always encouraged all to do with his own writing, he also chose to not participate in the lively debate between the author and many other people, most of them Palestinians. It seems as though the issue was of great interest and relevancy to quite a few people. Well, that’s his loss, because others have gained by the experience. Someone who is by and large considered to be the maximum expert on and opponent of the Israeli and Jewish lobby, Jeff Blankfort, had this to say in the comments:

Sami, your opening piece on this thread has really made me look at the reality with new eyes. The time has indeed come to put away the bombast, romanticism, and delusions that have contributed to the current situation and not wait for another generation yet to be born to liberate the land.

As an editor and translator of activists for a decade, particularly for writers whose focus is the occupation of Palestine, quite a few of them Palestinians, in fact, I have seen and edited and published every type of argumentation: obviously, this fact would prevent me from agreeing with all of the content, but it is not my duty to censor, but to facilitate discourse. The arguments are so varied in their dominating theme, be it religious, secular, socialist, revolutionary, feminist, Arab Nationalist, pragmatic, strategic, focused on sensitising Westerners, aimed at an Arab public, even satirical pieces that refer to themes that are quite particular. For many of these writers, getting their issues to a broad public is an infrequent event. Although the material is extremely enlightening, the lack of exposure of their voices keeps their issues in the margins. Just the idea that Arab Nationalism as a means of gaining Palestinian liberation, a major item of discourse in the Middle East, is all but unheard of in many progressive sites should not be surprising. These sites are busy (still) thinking about the Holocaust rather than issues that interest Palestinians and are part of a strategic paradigm. As a Palestinian person once wrote in comments on the site, “If I convert to Judaism, I think I will all of a sudden start becoming interesting to people. Should I do it?”

So, with all of this in mind, I have a few modest proposals to make for those who are involved in any way in the Palestinian issue:

1)      Freedom of speech should be the right of everyone. This would include the right and duty to critique people’s arguments as well as criticise across the board, “House Arabs”, “censors and gatekeepers”. They aren’t really serving the Palestinian cause, are they? If they are, we need to know how.

2)      Demand broader dissemination of the Palestinian and Arab voice. They alone are the victims of Western, Imperialist and Zionist domination, and indeed, they are the last victims of the Holocaust. Anyone who can, should encourage their right to dissent, just like Westerners expect for themselves.

3)      To get the Holocaust issue once and for all in its perspective and not as the core issue of international policy and the consequential activist focus. Just like 9/11 has shown us, focus on one single dramatic event, even when all the facts will never be made available, serves as a pretext to legitimise things such as the Global War on Terror and the actual wars against nations that are the consequence of this. New wars are being planned and justifications made for them in the same moment that old wars are still producing their scores of victims. This precaution should be heeded since it is proven again and again that this is the modus operandi. If focus on Holocaust we must, let us focus on the Holocaust of epic proportions going on in Gaza right now.

4)      Ahmadinejad is not Iran. He is the President who governs in a situation of major internal dissent on the verge of further popular explosions. He should not be used as a convenient instrument to attack the sovereign nation of Iran. His words about the world situation may be sincere, but he must be judged (primarily by his own people) by his actions, not all of which do gain popular support and some of which feed the Israeli paranoia. But, his words MUST actually be the ones he is using, not some narrative of him that can be pulled out as an instrument for any cause, be it Zionist or anti-Zionist.

The active choice for those who seek true and complete Palestinian liberation has to be openness to the voices that do not accept compromise or surrender of their rights. Support of people who will not betray the Palestinian and Arab search for freedom. We have to have faith in the power of the Word, in the power of popular uprising, and continue to have faith in the future of the Arab populations who WILL set their own agendas and speak their own minds without waiting for anyone’s permission or approval. Like all of us, they are seeking solutions to their problems and analysing their own reality, putting it in the spotlight, where it belongs. They are tired of being “constantly reminded of the Holocaust”, and who can blame them?

The diversity of their voices is an asset that needs to be consolidated, not a liability to eliminate. Different thoughts contribute to growth, and the more we hear, the more we learn. Variety, diversity, space for participation and discussion of the issues that Palestinians find important is the key to keeping their agenda on the table and raising the consciousness that is at the basis of all resistance. Free Minds for a Free Palestine is not just the motto of our site. This IS a THINK tank, after all!

Reclaiming Significance: Palestine Think Tank and Tlaxcala declare the First Word War
WRITTEN BY MARY RIZZO 

There are some words that are used as emotional triggers and mental blinders. They serve the purpose of directing the mind to a specific direction where its critical faculties are set in temporary congealment so that the terminology itself remains vivid and indeed obtains an emotional response from the listener, but its connotations are modified either wholly or in part by whoever is propagating the message. There are many terms and short phrases that are part of our lexicon and which have been utilised for the purpose of influencing our opinions and thus, obtaining our “moral” backing of certain political or ideological goals, obviously, with an intent in mind, gaining our consensus either implicitly or explicitly, since consensus is required by the dictates of “democracy”.The use of linguistic instruments of persuasion is true especially in the most sophisticated fields of Psyops (psychological operations enacted by governments, particularly during wartime or crisis), but it is also utilised in basic journalistic communication and becomes part of the “public discourse”. Since language is the instrument we all use, its codification is essential so that there is no need to define all terms, facilitating the communication of ideas, but there are those whose task is to bend these terms into weapons and functional propaganda devices. Experience tells us that Israeli Hasbara (“Propaganda Plus”, a term that a psychologist friend of mine has coined), is organised at many levels in creating consensus that reiterates their own bias, which can be defined as “Israel first and foremost”, and they do it through the use of rhetoric and language.

This language is so thoroughly imbued in contemporary Western thought that Orwell’s Ministry of Truth seems to be nothing less than the prediction of what the Hasbara Ministry (and all of its more or less formal or official off-shoots around the world) does all in a day’s work. While watching the evening news, one barely raises an eyebrow anymore when becoming aware of acts committed against civilian populations living under military occupation – war crimes under any circumstances, reported as if they are legitimate and necessary acts when not even outright humanitarian deeds. These same atrocities are being bandied as steps towards peace and co-existence and the element of human suffering is wiped out or negated. Yet, when the victim of the suffering is a Westerner or “in the same Democratic camp”, the opposite mechanism is set off and we are to feel moral indignation.

We who are the clients of the Western Media are spoon-fed certain information that would be morally repugnant if the tables were turned and rather than being the perpetrators, we would be the victims. Those who compose and compile their reports give higher intrinsic value to the lives of those they feel are within their constituencies and they assemble the information to reinforce this bias and turn it into normative thought. When a Western Soldier falls he is treated as a hero, no matter where he was or what he was doing at the time, the same is true of Israelis who occupy lands “cleansed” of the non-Jewish population. Whenever the target of any violent action is shown, their moral stature is commensurate with how closely they fit into our own image of ourselves. When the victims reported number among the official “bad guys”, we almost are expected to feel relief and a surge of patriotism that tells us a message indicating that “good is indeed prevailing”. Likewise, we are expected to “root for” someone living in Sderot, treated as if their hardships, nervous cats and “defiance” are naturally our primary concern. During the war waged against Gaza, a group of teenagers complaining that they felt confined between their schools, homes and bomb shelters was given the same space and gravitas in the mainstream mass media as Palestinian parents mourning in grief at the destruction of their homes and the murder of their children by Israeli soldiers and weapons. It would be absurd in any context to make any kind of equivalence between these two levels of suffering, but we are expected to not blink an eye at this kind of reporting.

It is exactly the same as the way we are expected to accept Israeli justifications of their status as “the most moral army in the world” no matter what the photos filtering out of the inferno of Gaza were showing us. In the words of the Prime Minister of Israel immediately following some public outcry: “As a moral army without peer, the IDF took care to act in accordance with international law and did its utmost to prevent harming civilians who were not involved in the fighting, including their property, and to this end, inter alia, distributed very many flyers and also used the local media and the local telephone network in order to deliver timely general and detailed warnings to the civilian population. The IDF also acted to provide for the humanitarian needs of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip during the fighting.”

What is hidden in that press briefing, besides the value judgment about being a moral army without peer, is the wickedness of the content of these “humanitarian” flyers and the “use” of the local media and telephone network. The flyers warned people of the intent of destruction that would soon follow if the people (trapped as they were) did not simply “leave”. This demonstrated pre-meditated intent to cause harm and the warning of death and destruction of property belonging to civilians. Regarding the use of phones, in an article published in USA Today, it was reported that Palestinians received calls on both cellular phones and land lines, warning them that their home was about to be bombed. The calls could not be traced or blocked because they came from international carriers. The Israeli officials claimed this was a service towards Palestinians, (prior obviously to the real service rendered), yet, Maj. Jacob Dallal, the military spokesman interviewed, declined discussing just how the Israeli military obtains cell phone numbers in Gaza, which are not listed anywhere.

The “use” of local media was actually the IDF hacking into Al Aqsa TV as well as breaking into local radio stations including those of Hamas, the PFLP and the Islamic Jihad. According to accounts by Kamal Abu Nasser, during broadcasts on the Voice of Jerusalem, the IDF would break the signal on an hourly basis and broadcast messages blaming Hamas for all the problems in Gaza. This claim was backed by many Gazans who had become dependent upon the radio for a connection with the world, and instead were bombarded with propaganda by those dropping bombs over their heads.

The detailed warnings and humanitarian aid is also easily debunked. The IDF did not explain even to the doctors what type of weapons were being used and how to treat the very strange wounds that were typical of DIME and white phosphorus use. As everyone is by now aware, the Gaza Strip was under total blockade by land, sea and air, with any goods entering coming in through the tunnels, which the Israelis and Americans ran to quickly define as being used for “arms smuggling”, and not simply the only way to move goods of all sorts when all above-ground access was cut off by both Israel and Egypt, where the security forces responding to Fatah were also located. Reading any statement made by Israel always takes a great deal of effort. The truth is there, but it is the opposite of what is stated. Yet, these statements are taken at face value and even elevated to humanitarian status.

Do those who write them and disseminate them take us for blind, deaf and dumb? Or are we all of these things and more? Has our placement on the globe as privileged beings “outside the axis of evil” eliminated the possibility of seeing ourselves how others might see us, and make us exempt from being thoroughly disgusted at the importance we give ourselves and the disregard for others? Have we become the insensitive monsters we must look like or are we just indoctrinated and brainwashed enough to prohibit us from thinking critically?

Since the mass media can’t censor and prevent everything from coming to the surface, those who control it run for cover in furnishing the canonic interpretation of events that we are expected to accept as “fact” or even as “truth”. If we are still able to see, the goal of the Hasbara experts is to prevent us from thinking. This is why these fear triggers and catch phrases are so handy. They do the work for our brains. It is necessary for us to feel “informed” but not necessary for us (and actually detrimental to them) to elaborate and think. Once we have stopped thinking, we will remain silent in the face of the violence used to oppress the weak.

Totalitarian regimes have always depended on either ignorance or fear to help them carry out their work of establishing, consolidating and maintaining their dominion over those who otherwise would rebel against them. The same appears to be true in today’s “democracies”. Pressure is put on Islamic charities, groups that combat occupation are categorised as being terrorist movements and diplomatic relations are also dependent upon the blessing of whoever holds the purse strings. Conditions are set that prohibit openly supporting political movements and even governments that are critical of the Zionist state, as if this itself is the barometer of the validity of an entire nation in the global spectrum. In short, even democracies (again, quoting my psychologist friend, “demonocracies”) implement strong indoctrination to instil their hegemonic advantage politically, economically and even morally. They utilise the media, both as information and entertainment, to brainwash and form their model of a good citizen so that the society is fully supportive of whatever political plans their government will back. The effects filter down all the way to the bottom, even to our children, who are asked to a-critically salute “heroes of peace” armed to the teeth in Afghanistan and Iraq. It seems that Orwell had gotten it right after all.

Fighting the empty rhetoric, deconstructing the lies one by one and taking back the power of our critical thinking is something that is no longer a luxury, but an absolute necessity. To contribute to this ideal of consciousness-building, Palestine Think Tank and Tlaxcala are launching a series of essays that examine many of these terms and phrases, one at a time, in order to construct an alternative lexicon and to present a more accurate reading of the words that surround us at the moment primarily as propagandistic emotional triggers. We ask our contributors, members and affiliates to reflect upon and write about these issues, and we also invite our readers to contribute essays for publication, translation and dissemination.

Which terms interest us? There are actually very many to choose from, so the choice is left to the writers. By no means do we wish to limit the essays to one alone on each theme, as each author may wish to contribute his or her own point of view or argumentation to deal with a theme already touched upon. We hope that this international collaborative effort can contribute to a better understanding of world issues, and a greater awareness of how we play an active role, and not only can we reject the flawed definitions given to us, but we are able to fill these terms with content and understand them in their true dimensions. 

Please send your contributions to contact@palestinethinktank.com or tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es

The First Word War on Tlaxcala http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8839&lg=en

The First Word War

Israel’s ultimate secret weapon

WRITTEN BY AYMAN EL KAYMAN

Translated by Manuel Talens and edited by Machetera 

Every time that Shimon Peres, Tzipi Livni or Ehud Barak (not to mention the indescribable Olivier Rafkowicz, the Francophone spokesman the IDF) pronounce the word, one would say they are expectorating, spitting, insulting. They never say Hamas, but Khamas, substituting the Arab H for a rude “Kh”.

Hamas — an acronym of harakat al-muqâwama al-'islâmiya (حركة المقاومة الإسلامية), i.e. Islamic Resistance Movement — it’s spelled in Arabic with H, that is to say, with ح, but in Zionist lips such a ح transforms into خ.

The problem is that in modern Hebrew, Khamas means “robbery, plundering.”

For that reason, the subliminal message that comes out of the mouth of the mob State’s more insignificant spokesman every time he/she speaks of “Khamas” is, to begin with, negative, both for Hebrew and Arab speakers, since in Arabic the letter “khâ” means… shit. A mother tells her son: “Don’t touch that, it’s khâ.” For the same reason, for any Arab in the world the Egyptian Foreign Minister deserves the name he has, Abul Gheith (pronounced “khait”, literally the father of shit).

This deliberate phonetic selection by smart Israeli linguists is an absolute perversion, since the “Heth” (ח) — eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet — (equivalent to the Arabic خ), traditionally represents light and life. But how can one be surprised at what these leaders do if they are the same who chose Hannukah’s Sabbath — a celebration of light — to launch Operation Cast Lead on Gaza?

I wonder if press correspondents and Western media’s special envoys in Israel, who repeat like parrots the Israeli pronunciation of “Khamas”, are aware of the fact that they are serving as accomplices in the use of a secret linguistic mass destruction weapon.

International jurists should study with supreme urgency the notion of linguistic war crimes.

Ayman El Kayman, researcher at the ILEA (International Linguistic Energy Agency). 

Israel's ultimate secret weapon on Tlaxcala http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8852&lg=en

The First Word War is an initiative by Palestine Think Tank and Tlaxcala.

The authors who wish to participate in this First Word War can send their texts to: contact@palestinethinktank.com or to: tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es

 Manuel Talens and Machetera are members of Tlaxcala, the Translator’s Network for Linguistic Diversity. Talens is also a member of Rebelión and Machetera is editor of the blog http://machetera.wordpress.com/. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, translator and editor are cited.

The First Word War

Syntactic terrorism

WRITTEN BY SANTIAGO ALBA RICO

Translated by Manuel Talens and edited by Machetera 

(image by Abbe Nozal) “A Palestinian gunman shoots to kill in Jerusalem,” states the front page of the digital edition of El Mundo newspaper. Then my eyes reverse toward the heading’s introduction: “At least one person wounded.” Next, those people patient enough to read the body of the news will find out that the only dead victim of this action was in fact its executor. Let’s leave aside the term “gunman”, a cipher of unyielding violence so de-politicizing that it legitimizes any bad naming all by itself, so negatively flat that we refuse even to apply it to these lunatics who kill people at random in USAmerican schools and restaurants. Let’s also leave aside the fact that El Mundo hides the murdered Palestinians — as they keep growing in number, hour after hour — at the bottom of the page, in “Other News.”

But we’d better pay attention to the even subtler syntactic terrorism, to the structural distortion of sentences. Have we ever noticed that Palestinians are always the “subjects” — both active and passive — of all sentences? “A Palestinian gunman shoots to kill in Jerusalem,” “A Palestinian dies as consequence of an exchange of shots with the IDF.” Do we perceive the enormous distance separating “A Jewish settler shoots to death three Palestinians” and “Three Palestinians die at the hands of a Jewish settler?” The true “agent” of all problems in Palestine hides behind syntactic positions and, crouched down there, erases all the footprints of his/her responsibility.

Palestinians do kill (a negative decision, freely chosen). Palestinians do die (as if it was a law of nature). Palestinians always die indeed as a consequence of a missile shot from a helicopter, after an incursion of tanks in Nablus, after a shooting between Fatah and Israeli soldiers. But who kills them?

If I say that my grandmother died a few minutes after the beginning of bombing in Afghanistan, nobody in his/her right mind would establish such a relationship between both events as to blame USAmerican B-52s. However, syntactic terrorism juxtaposes two actions and links them by a causal and indissoluble relationship.

“Three Palestinian children die in hospital after an Israeli raid.” The reader has to make an effort to re-establish the true subject — both semantic and moral — of this sentence. Couldn’t they have died from measles? What if they fell from a wall? Every single day Palestine witnesses coincidences like my grandmother’s, with such frequency that it is surprising that the streets of Jerusalem are not crowded by parapsychology experts. “Seven Palestinian youths die natural deaths after an Israeli missile pulverizes their house.” “A Palestinian woman collapses, victim of a cardiac arrest, at the same time that a soldier shoots at her heart.”

There is nothing more paradoxical that journalists having finished taking refuge, without even being aware of it, in the philosophy of medieval Muslim Al-Ghazali (Iran, 1058 – Tus, Iran, 1111), who felt forced to deny all causal links in nature to defend the absolute freedom of God. No matter if Occupation and Intifada are coeval or consecutive, Israelis shoot and blow up children without any relationship whatsoever. God is free of doing what He wants and of tying two phenomena as He fancies. Israel only seems to be guilty because our conventional chronological scale states that shots always precede dead people. Wouldn’t it be enough that Palestinians died first and Israelis shot later for us to have the revelation — like journalists do — of the Occupant’s innocence? 

From Torres más altas
Numa Ediciones (Valencia 2003)
ISBN: 9788495831057 
Syntactic terrorism on Tlaxcala: http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8842&lg=en

The First Word War is an initiative by Palestine Think Tank and Tlaxcala. 

The authors who wish to participate in this First Word War can send their texts to: contact@palestinethinktank.com or to: tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es. 

Manuel Talens and Machetera are members of Tlaxcala, the Translator’s Network for Linguistic Diversity. Talens is also a member of Rebelión and Machetera is editor of the blog http://machetera.wordpress.com/. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, translator and editor are cited.

Convocatoria internacional de ensayos contra la desinformación 

La primera guerra mundial de las palabras – Palestine Think Tank y Tlaxcala declaran la guerra contra la desinformación

WRITTEN BY MARY RIZZO

Traducción de Manuel Talens 

Hay vocablos que se utilizan para desencadenar emociones y ofuscar la mente. Han sido diseñados para embrutecer de forma transitoria las facultades críticas del intelecto, pues aunque permanecen fonéticamente vívidos y capaces de despertar una respuesta emocional en quienes los escuchan, sus connotaciones semánticas han sido parcial o totalmente modificadas por quien las propaga como emisor del mensaje. Nuestro léxico actual incluye muchas palabras y locuciones especialmente diseñadas para inspirar opiniones y obtener un apoyo “moral” a proyectos políticos o ideológicos específicos. Su objetivo último es la creación de consenso, el requisito indispensable de la “democracia”. 

El uso de herramientas lingüísticas de persuasión es uno de los aspectos más sofisticados de la denominada “guerra psicológica”, a saber, las operaciones de orden psíquico puestas en marcha por los gobiernos, particularmente en tiempos de guerra o de crisis [1]. Pero la guerra psicológica también forma parte de la comunicación periodística básica y del “discurso público”. Dado que todos utilizamos la herramienta del lenguaje, su codificación es esencial para que no sea necesario definir todos sus fonemas, lo cual facilita el intercambio de ideas. Sin embargo, hay individuos cuya única tarea consiste en convertir las palabras en armas e instrumentos funcionales de propaganda. Sabemos por experiencia que la Hasbará israelí está organizada de tal manera que crea consenso mediante la continua reiteración retórica de su indiscriminado y tendencioso apoyo a Israel [2]. 

Este lenguaje, artificialmente modificado, está imbuido de forma tan meticulosa en el pensamiento occidental contemporáneo que el orwelliano Ministerio de la Verdad se ha convertido en la predicción novelística de lo que en Israel hacen a diario el Ministerio de la Hasbará y todas sus ramificaciones más o menos oficiales distribuidas por el mundo. Cuando uno mira las noticias por la noche, ya prácticamente ni se extraña al enterarse de los actos cometidos contra poblaciones civiles que viven bajo ocupación militar: crímenes de guerra bajo cualquier circunstancia se comunican como si fuesen actos legítimos e indispensables o incluso realizados con fines humanitarios. Esas mismas atrocidades circulan camufladas como pasos imprescindibles para la paz y la coexistencia, mientras que el sufrimiento humano que provocan permanece oculto o desmentido. Sin embargo, cuando la víctima del sufrimiento es un occidental o pertenece “al mismo campo democrático”, se pone en marcha el mecanismo opuesto, que desencadena nuestra indignación moral. Somos la clientela sumisa de los medios occidentales, cuyas informaciones ya totalmente digeridas nos parecerían repugnantes si se cambiasen las tornas y, en vez de ser los verdugos, fuésemos las víctimas. 

Quienes escriben y compilan sus informes prestan más valor intrínseco a las vidas de los de su bando y ensamblan la información de manera que refuerce este sesgo tendencioso y lo convierta en pensamiento normativo. Cuando muere un soldado occidental se lo glorifica como héroe, sin que importe dónde estaba o lo que hacía en el momento de morir, y lo mismo sucede con los israelíes que ocupan territorios sometidos a la “limpieza étnica” de la población que no es judía. Cuando se nos explicita el objetivo de cualquier acción violenta, la estatura moral que se le otorga es proporcional a su cercanía con la imagen que tenemos de nosotros mismos. Si las víctimas pertenecen a los “malos”, casi se espera que sintamos alivio y una descarga de patriotismo con el mensaje implícito de que “el bien ha prevalecido”. A la par, se espera de nosotros que nos pongamos del lado de quienes viven en Sderot, que sintamos como si sus dificultades, su actitud “altiva” o el nerviosismo de sus gatos fuesen naturalmente nuestra principal preocupación. Durante el cerco de Gaza, los medios de masas concedieron el mismo espacio informativo y otorgaron la misma gravitas a un grupo de adolescentes que se quejaban de su confinamiento entre la escuela, el hogar y los refugios antibombas que a los padres palestinos desesperados ante la destrucción de sus hogares y el asesinato de sus hijos por parte de los soldados y las bombas israelíes. Una equivalencia entre sufrimientos tan desproporcionados como éstos sería absurda en cualquier contexto, pero lo que pretenden tales reportajes es que no parpadeemos al contemplarlos. 

De igual manera, se espera que aceptemos las justificaciones israelíes, según las cuales su ejército es “el más moral de todo el mundo”, y ello con independencia de las fotografías que se fueron filtrando desde el infierno de Gaza. El primer ministro de Israel trató de acallar las quejas internacionales con las siguientes palabras: “El ejército israelí, de una moralidad sin parangón alguno, se ha preocupado celosamente de actuar de acuerdo con el Derecho internacional y ha hecho todo lo posible para impedir cualquier daño a la población civil que no estuviese implicada en el combate, así como a sus propiedades. Con este fin, entre otras cosas lanzó desde el aire muchas hojas explicativas y utilizó los medios de comunicación y la red telefónica local [3] para advertir de antemano y con todo detalle a la población civil. El ejército israelí también se ha ocupado de cubrir las necesidades humanitarias de la población civil durante los combates en la Franja de Gaza.” [4]

Aparte del juicio de valor inherente a esa afirmación, según la cual el ejército israelí es de una moralidad sin parangón alguno, lo que oculta el comunicado de prensa es el contenido de las hojas explicativas “humanitarias” y el “uso” de los medios locales y de la red local de teléfonos. Las hojas advertían a la gente, que estaba en una ratonera y sin posibilidad de escapar, de la destrucción a la que se expondrían si no “se iban”. Esto demuestra la intención premeditada de causar daño y la advertencia de muerte y destrucción de propiedades civiles. Con respecto a las llamadas telefónicas, un artículo publicado en USA Today afirmó que los palestinos recibieron llamadas tanto a sus teléfonos celulares como a los fijos, en las que se les advertía que sus hogares iban a ser bombardeados. Era imposible rastrear o bloquear tales llamadas, porque provenían de compañías telefónicas internacionales. Según los funcionarios israelíes, fue este un servicio que prestaron a los palestinos (antes del auténtico “servicio”, es obvio), pero el comandante Jacob Dallal, portavoz del ejército, se negó a revelar cómo habían obtenido los números celulares de Gaza. 

El “uso” de los medios locales se debió a la efracción del ejército israelí en las imágenes de Al Aqsa TV, así como en la sintonía de las emisoras de radio, entre ellas las de Hamás, el FPLP y la Jihad Islámica. Según Kamal Abu Nasser, durante las retransmisiones de la Voice of Jerusalem, al ejército israelí interrumpía la señal a lo largo de una hora cada día para emitir mensajes en los que acusaba a Hamás de todos los problemas de Gaza. Estas afirmaciones fueron corroboradas por muchos gazanos que dependían de la radio como única conexión con el mundo exterior y que, a su pesar, se veían bombardeados con propaganda por los mismos que lanzaban bombas sobre sus cabezas. 

Las detalladas advertencias y la ayuda humanitaria también son fáciles de refutar. El ejército israelí ni siquiera comunicó a los médicos el tipo de armas que estaba utilizando ni cómo tratar las extrañas heridas que éstas producían, típicas de los explosivos de metal inerte denso y del fósforo blanco. Como todo el mundo sabe en la actualidad, la Franja de Gaza sufrió un bloqueo total por tierra mar y aire y únicamente permanecieron permeables los túneles subterráneos bajo la frontera del Sinaí. Tanto los israelíes como los usamericanos no tardaron en denunciar que estaban siendo utilizados para “introducir ilegalmente armas”, no como la única manera de que disponían los palestinos para recibir productos de todas clases cuando los accesos de la superficie fueron sellados por Israel y Egipto, donde estaban asimismo localizadas las fuerzas de seguridad que se enfrentaron a Fatá. La lectura de cualquier declaración de Israel exige siempre un gran esfuerzo. La verdad está en ellas, pero es lo opuesto a lo que dicen sus palabras. Y, sin embargo, tales declaraciones se aceptan sin rechistar e incluso alcanzan un estatus humanitario. 

¿Nos toman por ciegos, sordos y estúpidos quienes las escriben y difunden o es que somos todo eso y mucho más? ¿Acaso el hecho de vivir como seres privilegiados en este planeta, “fuera del eje del mal”, nos impide vernos tal como otros nos ven y nos exime de sentirnos asqueados ante la importancia que creemos tener y el desprecio que sentimos por los demás? ¿Nos hemos convertido en los monstruos insensibles que seguramente parecemos o sólo hemos sido adoctrinados y nos lavaron el cerebro hasta bloquear nuestras facultades críticas? 

Dado que los medios de masas no pueden censurar ni impedir que todo salga a la superficie, quienes los controlan se cubren las espaldas ofreciendo una interpretación políticamente correcta de acontecimientos, que nosotros hemos de aceptar como si fuesen “hechos reales” o incluso como la “verdad”. Si todavía somos capaces de ver, el objetivo de los expertos de la Hasbará es impedir que pensemos. Por eso, los mensajes que despiertan el miedo y las frases fabricadas a modo de eslóganes están siempre a mano. Hacen ese esfuerzo en lugar de nuestro cerebro. Necesitamos sentirnos “informados”, pero no necesitamos discurrir y pensar (de hecho, sería perjudicial para ellos). Y cuando hayamos cesado de pensar guardaremos silencio frente a la violencia utilizada para oprimir al débil.

Los regímenes totalitarios han dependido siempre de la ignorancia o el miedo para establecer, consolidar y mantener su dominio sobre quienes, de otra manera, se rebelarían contra ellos. Lo mismo parece ser verdad en las “democracias” actuales. Se presiona a organizaciones benéficas islámicas y se tacha de terrorismo a grupos que combaten la ocupación, mientras que las relaciones diplomáticas dependen del beneplácito de quienes controlan los hilos financieros. Se establecen condiciones que prohíben explícitamente el apoyo a movimientos políticos o a gobiernos que mantienen una postura crítica con respecto al Estado sionista, como si ése fuese el criterio que inhabilita a toda una nación en el espectro global. En pocas palabras, incluso las democracias (¿demonocracias?) practican un potente adoctrinamiento destinado a inculcar su ventaja desde los puntos de vista hegemónico, económico o incluso moral. Se utilizan los medios, tanto en su vertiente informativa como de entretenimiento, para lavar el cerebro y configurar un modelo de “buen ciudadano”, con el fin de que la sociedad apoye mayoritariamente cualquier plan político que el gobierno defienda. Los efectos se hacen sentir de arriba abajo en todos los estratos sociales, incluso en nuestros hijos, de quienes se espera que aclamen acríticamente a “héroes de la paz” armados hasta los dientes en Afganistán e Iraq. A fin de cuentas, parece ser que Orwell tenía razón.

La lucha contra la retórica vacía, la deconstrucción de las mentiras y la reconquista de nuestro pensamiento crítico han dejado de ser un lujo para convertirse en una absoluta necesidad. Con el objetivo de contribuir a esta toma de conciencia, Palestine Think Tank y Tlaxcala lanzan hoy una campaña de ensayos centrados en la deconstrucción analítica de muchos de esos términos y locuciones, con el fin de construir un léxico alternativo y ofrecer una lectura más cabal de las palabras que en estos momentos ejercen su asedio sobre nosotros como instrumentos emocionales de propaganda. Pedimos a nuestros autores asociados, miembros y afiliados que reflexionen y escriban sobre estos asuntos e invitamos también a nuestros lectores a que colaboren con ensayos originales para su publicación, su traducción y su difusión. 

¿Que palabras nos interesan? Hay muchas para escoger, así que dejamos la elección al criterio de los escritores. De ninguna manera deseamos limitar los ensayos a una sola palabra en cada tema, ya que podría ser que cada autor desease aportar su punto de vista o sus argumentos a temas ya discutidos. Esperamos que este esfuerzo de colaboración internacional pueda contribuir a una mejor comprensión de los asuntos mundiales y a una mayor conciencia de cómo podríamos representar un papel activo, no meramente rechazando las definiciones viciadas que pretenden imponernos, sino llenándolas de contenido y comprendiendo sus dimensiones de verdad. 

Notas

[1] Véase http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerra_psicol%C3%B3gica

[2] Véase http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbar%C3%A1

[3] Véase http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2009/IDF_warns_Gaza_population_7-Jan-2009.htm

[4] Véase http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2009/Humanitarian_aid_to_Gaza_following_6_month_calm.htm

La primera guerra mundial de las palabras en Tlaxcala: http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8844&lg=es

Los artículos relacionados con esta “guerra de las palabras” pueden enviarse a contact@palestinethinktank.com o a tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es. 

Mary Rizzo y Manuel Talens son miembros de Tlaxcala, la red de traductores por la diversidad lingüística. Talens pertenece asimismo al colectivo de Rebelión. Esta traducción se puede reproducir libremente a condición de respetar su integridad y mencionar a la autora, al traductor y la fuente.

La primera guerra mundial de las palabras - Palestine Think Tank y Tlaxcala declaran la guerra contra la desinformación

El arma secreta definitiva de Israel

AUTOR:  AYMAN EL KAYMAN

Traducido por Manuel Talens

Cada vez que Peres, Livni o Barak (sin olvidar al inenarrable Olivier Rafkowicz, encargado francófono de relaciones públicas del ejército israelí) pronuncian la palabra parece que expectoran, escupen un insulto. Jamás dicen “Hamás”, sino “Khamás”, pues sustituyen la H árabe por una “Kh”, equivalente a la J española.

Hamás, acrónimo de harakat al-muqâwama al-'islâmiya (حركة المقاومة الإسلامية) –Movimiento de la resistencia islámica– se escribe en árabe con H, es decir, con ح, pero en labios sionistas la ح se convierte en Kh, es decir, en خ.

El problema es que en hebreo moderno Khamás significa "robo, expolio".

Por eso, el mensaje subliminal que sale de los labios del menor portavoz del Estado canalla cada vez que habla de “Khamás” es, de entrada, negativo, y ello tanto para oídos hebreos como árabes, puesto que en árabe la letra “khâ” representa… la mierda. Una madre le dice a su hijo: "No toques eso, es khâ”. Por la misma razón, para cualquier árabe el ministro egipcio de Asuntos Exteriores se merece el nombre que tiene, puesto que se llama Abul Geith (pronunciado “jait”, literalmente el padre de la mierda).

Esta elección fonética deliberada de los grandes lingüistas israelíes es de una perversión absoluta, puesto que la “Jet” (ח), octava letra del alfabeto hebreo, equivalente a nuestra J (como la خ árabe), representa tradicionalmente la luz y la vida. Pero cómo extrañarse de lo que hacen unos dirigentes que escogieron el shabbat de la Hannuka –la Fiesta de las Luces– para iniciar su llamada operación “Plomo fundido” (que en realidad significa “Plomo lanzado”) sobre Gaza.

Me pregunto si los corresponsales y enviados especiales de los medios audiovisuales de Occidente en Israel, que repiten como papagayos la pronunciación israelí de “Khamás”, son conscientes de ser cómplices del uso de un arma lingüística secreta de destrucción masiva.

Los juristas internacionales deberían analizar con suma urgencia la noción de crimen de guerra lingüístico.

Ayman El Kayman, investigador de la AIEL (Agencia internacional de la energía lingüística).

¡Buena semana a todos!
¡Que la fuerza del espíritu sea con vosotros!
¡… y hasta el martes que viene! 

Fuente: La dernière arme secrète d'Israël

Artículo original publicado el 20 de enero de 2009

Sobre el autor  Manuel Talens es miembro de Rebelión y Tlaxcala, la red de traductores por la diversidad lingüística. Esta traducción se puede reproducir libremente a condición de respetar su integridad y mencionar al autor, al traductor, al revisor y la fuente.

El arma secreta definitiva de Israel en Tlaxcala http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=6883&lg=es

La primera guerra mundial de las palabras es una iniciativa de Palestine Think Tank y Tlaxcala.  

 

 

 

La primera guerra mundial de las palabras - Palestine Think Tank y Tlaxcala declaran la guerra contra la desinformación  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Terrorismo sintáctico
SANTIAGO ALBA RICO  

 

 

 

“Un pistolero palestino dispara a matar en Jerusalén”, titula la primera página de El Mundo digital de esta mañana. Después la vista recula hacia la entradilla montada sobre el encabezamiento: “Al menos una persona herida”; a continuación, los que tenemos la paciencia de leer el grueso de la noticia, nos enteramos de que la única víctima mortal de esta acción ha sido precisamente su ejecutor. Dejemos a un lado el término “pistolero”, cifra de la violencia irreductible, tan despolitizador que legitima en sí mismo cualquier respuesta, tan negativamente plano que se evita incluso para los locos indiscriminados que matan en los colegios y restaurantes de EEUU; no atendamos tampoco al hecho de que los palestinos asesinados El Mundo los contaba ayer -a medida que, hora tras hora, iba creciendo su número- a pie de página, en el bolsillo de atrás de “Otras Noticias”.

Más sutil aún, hay que prestar atención al terrorismo sintáctico, a la torsión o tortura de las frases en su estructura misma. ¿Hemos reparado alguna vez en que los palestinos son siempre los “sujetos”, activos o pasivos, de todas las oraciones? “Un pistolero palestino dispara a matar en Jerusalén”, “Un palestino muere como consecuencia de un intercambio de disparos con el ejército israelí”. ¿Percibimos toda la distancia que media entre decir “Un colono judío mata a tiros a tres palestinos” y  decir, en cambio, “Tres palestinos mueren a manos de un colono judío?”. El verdadero “agente” de todos los problemas en Palestina se retira a posiciones sintácticas retrasadas y, allí agazapado, borra todos los rastros de su responsabilidad. Los palestinos matan (decisión alboral, libre, irrumpiente, negativa); los palestinos mueren -como si fuera una ley de la naturaleza. Los palestinos, en efecto, siempre mueren a consecuencia de (el más volátil de los “causales”) un misil lanzado desde un helicóptero; a continuación de una incursión de tanques en Nablus; después de un tiroteo entre fuerzas de Al-Fatah y soldados israelíes. ¿Quien los ha matado?

Si yo digo que mi abuela murió pocos minutos después del comienzo de los bombardeos sobre Afganistán, a nadie se le ocurrirá establecer una relación hipotáctica entre los dos acontecimientos y echar la culpa a los B-52 norteamericanos. El terrorismo sintáctico yuxtapone dos acciones que están relacionadas, en cambio, por una indisoluble relación causal. “Tres niños palestinos mueren en el hospital después de una incursión israelí”: el lector tiene que hacer un esfuerzo para restablecer el verdadero sujeto, semántico y moral, de esta frase. Esos niños, ¿no habrán muerto de sarampión? ¿No se habrán caído de una tapia? En Palestina se dan todos los días coincidencias como las de mi abuela, con una frecuencia tal que sorprende que no haya más especialistas en parapsicología en las calles de Jerusalén. “Siete jóvenes palestinos mueren de muerte natural después de que un obús israelí pulverice su casa”. “Una mujer palestina se derrumba, víctima de un paro cardiaco, al mismo tiempo que un soldado le dispara al corazón”. Nada más paradójico que el que los periodistas hayan acabado refugiándose, sin saberlo, en la filosofía del viejo musulmán Algacel (o Al-Gazzali, muerto en 1111), el cual para defender la libertad absoluta de Dios se vio obligado a negar los encadenamientos causales; contemporáneas o sucesivas, la Ocupación y la Intifada, los disparos israelíes y los niños reventados no guardan entre sí ninguna relación. Dios es libre de hacer lo que le dé la gana y de ligar dos fenómenos como se le antoje; Israel sólo parece culpable porque, en nuestra escala cronológica convencional, los disparos preceden a los muertos. Pero, ¿no bastaría que los palestinos se murieran primero y que los israelíes dispararan después para que se nos revelase, como a los periodistas, toda la inocencia del Ocupante? 

De Torres más altas
Numa Ediciones (Valencia 2003)
ISBN: 9788495831057 

Terrorismo sintáctico en Tlaxcala: http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8843&lg=es

La primera guerra mundial de las palabras es una iniciativa de Palestine Think Tank y Tlaxcala

Los autores que deseen participar en esta “primera guerra mundial de las palabras” pueden enviar sus textos a contact@palestinethinktank.com o a tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es. 

Este artículo se puede reproducir libremente a condición de respetar su integridad y mencionar al autor y la fuente. 

La première guerre mondiale des mots :

Palestine Think Tank et Tlaxcala déclarent la guerre à la désinformation

par Mary Rizzo

Traduit par Fausto Giudice, Tlaxcala

 

Il y a des mots qui sont utilisés comme gâchettes émotionnelles et œillères mentales. Ils ont pour but d'orienter l'esprit dans une direction particulière où ses facultés critiques sont temporairement congelées, de sorte que la terminologie elle-même reste vivace et déclenche de fait une réaction émotionnelle de l'auditeur, mais que ses connotations soient modifiées en totalité ou en partie, par quiconque propage le message. Il existe de nombreux termes et phrases courtes qui font partie de notre lexique et qui ont été utilisée dans le but d'influencer nos opinions et, par conséquent, d’obtenir notre soutien «moral» à certains objectifs politiques ou idéologiques, avec une intention évidente : capter notre consensus, implicite ou explicite, car le consensus est un des commandements de la «démocratie». 

 

Les instruments linguistiques de persuasion sont utilisés en particulier dans les domaines les plus sophistiqués des Psyops (opérations psychologiques déclenchées par des gouvernements, en particulier en temps de guerre ou de crise), mais ils sont aussi utilisés dans la communication journalistique de base et deviennent partie intégrante du « discours public ». Puisque le langage est l'instrument que nous utilisons tous, sa codification est indispensable pour qu'il n'y ait pas lieu de définir tous les termes, en facilitant la communication des idées, mais il y a ceux dont la tâche est de tordre ces termes pour en faire des armes et des dispositifs fonctionnels de propagande. L'expérience nous apprend que la hasbara israélienne (la «propagande plus», un terme inventé par un ami psychologue), est organisée à plusieurs niveaux pour créer un consensus qui réitère un postulat exclusif, qui peut être défini comme « Israel über alles», et cela est réalisé par l'utilisation de la rhétorique et du langage.Les proclamations israéliennes sur les avertissements détaillés et l'aide humanitaire peuvent également être facilement déconstruites. L'armée israélienne n'a pas même expliqué aux médecins quel type d'armes avaient été utilisées et la façon de traiter les plaies très étrange qui étaient typiques de l’usage de DIME et de phosphore blanc. Comme tout le monde le sait maintenant, la bande de Gaza était sous blocus total par terre, mer et air, les seules marchandises y entrant le faisaient par les tunnels, que les Israéliens et les Américains se sont empressés de définir comme étant utilisés pour la "contrebande d'armes», et pas simplement le seul moyen de faire passer des marchandises de toutes sortes quand tous les accès en surface étaient coupés à la fois par Israël et l'Égypte, où des forces de sécurité dépendant du Fatah étaient également stationnées. La lecture de toute déclaration faite par Israël demande toujours beaucoup d'efforts. La vérité est là, mais c'est le contraire de ce qui est déclaré. Pourtant, ces déclarations sont prises au pied de la lettre et même élevées au rang de déclarations humanitaires. Ce langage imprègne est tellement la pensée occidentale contemporaine que le ministère de la Vérité Orwell semble être rien de moins que la prédiction de ce que le ministère de la Hasbara (et l'ensemble de ses filiales et annexes plus ou moins formelles ou officielles de par le monde) fait jour après jour. Quand on regarde le JT du soir, on hausse à peine un sourcil plus lorsqu'on enregistre des actes commis contre des populations civiles vivant sous occupation militaire – des crimes de guerre en tout cas, qui sont présentés comme des actes légitimes et nécessaires, ou même carrément comme des actes humanitaires. Ces mêmes atrocités sont colportées comme des étapes vers la paix et la coexistence et l'élément de la souffrance humaine est effacé ou nié. Mais quand la victime de la souffrance est un Occidental ou un ressortissant "du même camp démocratique ", c’est le mécanisme inverse qui est déclenché et nous sommes induits à ressentir une indignation morale. Nous, qui sommes les clients des médias occidentaux, sommes nourris à la cuillère de certaines informations qui seraient moralement répugnantes si les rôles étaient inversés et si, plutôt que d'être les auteurs, nous étions les victimes. Ceux qui composent et compilent leurs reportages accordent une plus grande valeur intrinsèque à la vie de ceux qu'ils estiment faire partie de leur public et ils rassemblent les informations qui renforcent ce préjugé pour produire une pensée normative. Quand un soldat occidental tombe, il est traité en héros, peu importe où il était ni ce qu'il faisait à ce moment-là, la même chose est vraie vaut pour les Israéliens qui occupent des terres «nettoyée» de leur population non-juive. Chaque fois que la cible d’une action violente est montrée, sa stature morale est directement proportionnelle à la façon dont elle correspond à notre propre image de nous-mêmes. Lorsque les victimes signalées font partie  des «méchants» officiels, nous sommes presque exhortés à ressentir un soulagement et une poussée  de patriotisme qui nous envoie un message indiquant que «ce sont bien les bons qui ont gagné». De même, nous sommes appelés à soutenir et défendre quelqu'un qui vit à Sderot, traité comme si ses difficultés, ses crises de nerf et sa crânerie étaient naturellement notre première préoccupation. Pendant la guerre menée contre Gaza, un groupe d'adolescents se plaignant de se sentir confinés entre leurs écoles, leurs domiciles et leurs abris ont reçu le même espace et la même importance dans les médias dominants que des parents palestiniens accablés de douleur face à la destruction de leurs maisons et l’assassinat de leurs enfants par des soldats et des armes israéliens. Il serait absurde dans quelque contexte que ce soit de faire une quelconque équivalence entre ces deux niveaux de souffrance, mais on attend de nous que nous ne bronchions pas face à ce genre de reportages.

 

 Il en va exactement de même avec les justifications israéliennes de leur statut d’ «armée la plus morale du monde», que nous étions censés accepter sans tenir compte de ce que nous montraient les photos qui ont filtré de l'enfer de Gaza. Pour reprendre les mots du Premier Ministre d'Israël immédiatement après quelques protestations publiques : «En tant qu’ armée morale sans égal, les FDI ont pris soin d'agir en conformité avec le droit international et fait tout leur possible pour éviter de porter atteinte aux civils qui n'étaient pas impliqués dans les combats, y compris à leurs biens et, à cette fin, entre autres, ont distribué beaucoup de tracts et aussi utilisé les médias locaux et le réseau téléphonique local afin de délivrer à temps des avertissements généraux et détaillés à la population civile. Les FDI ont également pris des mesures pour répondre aux besoins humanitaires de la population civile dans la bande de Gaza au cours des combats. "

 

Ce qui est caché dans ce communiqué de presse, outre le jugement de valeur sur le fait d’être une armée morale sans égal, est le caractère abject du contenu de ces tracts "humanitaires" et de "l'utilisation" des médias et du réseau téléphonique locaux. Les flyers avertissaient les habitants de l'intention de destruction qui allait bientôt suivre si les gens (pris au piège comme ils l’étaient) ne « partaient » pas tout simplement. Cela démontre une intention préméditée de causer des dégâts et c’était un avertissement de mort et de destruction de biens appartenant à des civils. En ce qui concerne l'utilisation des téléphones, dans un article paru dans USA Today, il a été signalé que les Palestiniens ont reçu des appels à la fois sur leurs téléphones portables et fixes, les avertissant que leur maison allait être bombardée. Les appels n'ont pas pu être retracés ou bloqués car ils venaient de fournisseurs internationaux. Les responsables israéliens ont prétendu que c'était un service rendu aux Palestiniens, (avant évidemment le vrai service rendu), et pourtant, le Commandant Jacob Dallal, le porte-parole militaire interrogé, a refusé de répondre à la question de savoir comment l'armée israélienne obtient les numéros de téléphones mobiles à Gaza.

 

Quant à "l'utilisation" des médias locaux, elle a consisté en un piratage d’Al Aqsa TV  par les FDI ainsi que l’irruption par la force dans les stations de radio locales, dont celles du Hamas, du FPLP et du Jihad islamique. Selon un récit de Kamal Abu Nasser, lors d'émissions sur La Voix de Jérusalem, les FDI interrompaient les émissions toutes les heures pour diffuser des messages rejetant la faute sur le Hamas pour tous les problèmes à Gaza. Cette affirmation a été confirmée par de nombreux habitants de Gaza qui était devenus dépendants de la radio pour rester connectés avec le monde, et au lieu de cela ont été bombardés de propagande par ceux-là mêmes qui larguaient des bombes sur leurs têtes.

 

Est-ce que ceux qui les rédigent et les diffusent croient que nous sommes aveugles, sourds et muets? Ou sommes-nous tout cela et plus encore? Est ce que notre positionnement sur le globe comme des êtres privilégiés "en dehors de l'axe du mal" a éliminé la possibilité de nous voir comme d'autres pourraient nous voir et nous exempte d'être dégoûtés de l'importance que nous nous donnons à nous-mêmes et du mépris pour les autres? Sommes-nous devenus les monstres insensibles dont nous avons l’air, ou sommes-nous simplement assez endoctrinés et soumis au lavage de cerveau pour nous interdire de penser de manière critique?  

 

 

 

Puisque les médias de masse ne peuvent pas censurer et empêcher tout de venir à la surface, ceux qui les contrôlent se mettent à couvert en fournissant l'interprétation canonique des événements que nous sommes appelés à accepter comme des «faits» ou même «la vérité». Si nous sommes encore en mesure de voir, l'objectif des experts en hasbara est de nous empêcher de réfléchir. C'est pourquoi ces déclencheurs de peur et ces phrases-choc sont si pratiques. Ils font le travail pour notre cerveau. Il nous est nécessaire de nous  sentir «informés» mais pas nécessaire de conceptualiser et de penser (ce qui serait à leur désavantage). Une fois que nous avons cessé de réfléchir, nous garderons le silence face à la violence utilisée pour opprimer les faibles.

Les régimes totalitaires ont toujours dépendu de l'ignorance ou de la peur pour les aider à effectuer leur travail d'établissement, de consolidation et de maintien de leur domination sur ceux qui autrement se révolteraient contre eux. La même chose semble être vraie dans les "démocraties" d'aujourd'hui. Des pressions s'exercent sur les organisations caritatives islamiques, les groupes qui combattent l'occupation sont classés comme mouvements terroristes et les relations diplomatiques sont également tributaires de la bénédiction de ceux qui tiennent les cordons de la bourse. Des conditions sont fixées, qui interdisent de soutenir ouvertement les mouvements politiques et même les gouvernements qui sont critiques envers l'État sioniste, comme si cela était le baromètre de la validité de toute une nation à l’échelle mondiale. Bref, même les démocraties (là encore, pour citer mon ami psychologue, les «démonocraties ») mettent en œuvre un endoctrinement fort pour instiller leur avantage hégémonique politiquement, économiquement et même moralement. Ils utilisent les médias, tant pour l'information que pour le divertissement, pour endoctriner et de former leur modèle d'un bon citoyen afin que la société soutienne pleinement les plans politiques du gouvernement, quels qu’ils soient. L’effet de ce lavage de cerveau se fait sentir à travers tout le spectre social, jusqu’à nos enfants, qui sont invités à saluer de manière acritique les « héros de la paix » armés jusqu'aux dents en Afghanistan et en Irak. Il semble bien qu’Orwell avait raison, en fin de compte.

 

Lutte contre la rhétorique vide, déconstruire les mensonges un à un et reprendre le pouvoir de notre pensée critique est une chose qui n'est plus un luxe mais une nécessité absolue. Pour contribuer à cet idéal de conscientisation, Palestine Think Tank et Tlaxcala lancent une série d'essais qui examinent beaucoup de ces termes et phrases, un et une à la fois, afin de construire un lexique de substitution et de présenter une lecture plus précise des mots qui nous entourent pour le moment principalement comme déclencheurs propagandiste d’émotions. Nous demandons à nos contributeurs, membres et associés de réfléchir et d’écrire sur ces questions, et nous invitons également nos lecteurs à contribuer par des textes pour publication, traduction et diffusion.

 

Quels termes nous intéressent-ils ? Il y en a en fait beaucoup parmi lesquels choisir, le choix est donc laissé aux auteurs. En aucun cas nous ne voulons limiter les essais à un seul sur chaque thème, car chaque auteur peut souhaiter contribuer avec son propre point de vue ou ses arguments pour affronter un thème déjà abordé. Nous espérons que cet effort de coopération internationale peut contribuer à une meilleure compréhension des problèmes mondiaux, et une plus grande conscience de la façon dont nous jouons un rôle actif, ne nous contentant pas seulement de rejeter les définitions erronées qui nous sont données, mais nous mettant en capacité de donner un contenu à ces termes et de les comprendre dans leur véritable dimension.

 

La première guerre mondiale des mots sur Tlaxcala: http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8841&lg=fr 

La Première guerre des mots est une initiative de Palestine Think Tank et Tlaxcala Les auteurs souhaitant y participer peuvent envoyer leurs contributions à contact@palestinethinktank.com et à  tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es.  

La Première guerre des mots
La dernière arme secrète d'Israël

AUTEUR: AYMAN EL KAYMAN

Peres, Livni, Olmert, Barak, sans oublier l’inénarrable Olivier Rafkowitz, chargé des relations publiques francophone de Tsahal : chaque fois qu’ils prononcent ce mot, ils ont l’air d’expectorer, de cracher un gros mot. Ils ne disent jamais « Hamas », mais « Khamas », remplaçant le « H » par un « kh », équivalent de la jota espagnole.

Hamas, acronyme de harakat al-muqâwama al-'islâmiya (حركة المقاومة الإسلامية) – mouvement de la résistance islamique – s’écrit avec un « h », ح en arabe, mais dans leur bouche, le ح devient خ .

Or, khamas, en hébreu moderne, veut dire « vol, spoliation»!

Ainsi donc, le message subliminal qui sort de la bouche du moindre porte-parole de l’État-voyou, chaque fois qu’il parle du « khamas », est d’emblée négatif, aussi bien pour les oreilles hébreues que pour les oreilles arabes, puisque, en arabe, la lettre « khâ » exprime la …merde. Une mère de famille dit à son enfant : « ne touche pas ça, c’est khâ ». Ainsi pour tout Arabe, le ministre égyptien des Affaires étrnagères mérite bien son nom puisqu’il s’appelle Abul Gheith (littéralement le père de la merde).

Ce choix délibéré de la part des Grands Linguistes Israéliens est d’autant plus pervers que le « Chet » (ח), la huitième lettre de l’alphabet hébreu, représente traditionnellement la lumière et la vie. Mais il ne faut s’étonner de rien de la part de chefs qui ont choisi le shabbat de la Hannoukah – la Fête des Lumières – pour déclencher leur opération « plomb jeté » (et non pas « plomb durci », comme on s’obstine à nous le répéter) sur Gaza.

La question que je me pose est celle-ci : les correspondants et envoyés spéciaux des médias audiovisuels occidentaux en Israël, qui reprennent presque tous cette prononciation israélienne de « khamas » sont-ils conscients qu’ils se font complices de l’utilisation d’une ALSDM (arme linguistique secrète de destruction massive) ?

Les juristes internationaux devraient de toute urgence se pencher sur la notion de crime de guerre linguistique.

Ayman El Kayman, enquêteur de l’AIEL (Agence internationale de l’énergie linguistique)

Bonne semaine, quand même !

Que la Force de l’esprit soit avec vous !

…et à mardi prochain !

Source : Coups de dent – Le blog de Ayman El Kayman

Article original publié le 20/1/2009

Sur l’auteur
Ayman El Kayman est un auteur associé de Tlaxcala , le réseau de traducteurs pour la diversité linguistique. Cet article est libre de reproduction, à condition d'en respecter l’intégrité et d’en mentionner l’auteur et la source.

La dernière arme secrète d'Israël sur Tlaxcala : http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=6882&lg=fr

La Première guerre mondiale des mots

Tuer, mourir : terrorisme syntaxique

Santiago Alba Rico

Traduit par Fausto Giudice, Tlaxcala 

"Un pistolero palestinien tire pour tuer à Jérusalem" : c’est le titre de Une de l’édition électronique de El Mundo de ce matin. Puis le regard se pose sur le surtitre : « Au moins une personne blessée ». Ceux d’entre nous qui ont le courage de lire l’info apprendront que la seule victime mortelle de cette action a été justement son exécutant. Laissons de côté le mot "pistolero", emblème de la violence irréductible, qui a un tel effet de dépolitisation tel qu’il légitime en soi tout type de riposte, si négativement plat qu’on évite de l’utiliser même pour les fous qui tuent de manière indiscriminée dans les lycées et restaurants aux USA.

Laissons aussi de côté le fait que les Palestiniens assassinés hier étaient comptés hier –au fur et à mesure que d’heure en heure, leur nombre allait croissant – dans le même El Mundo en bas de page sous la rubrique Autres infos.

Nous devons prêter attention à quelque chose d’encore plus subtil, le terrorisme syntaxique, la torsion des phrases dans leur structure même. Avons-nous jamais remarqué que les Palestiniens sont toujours les «sujets», actifs ou passifs de chaque phrase? " Un pistolero palestinien tire pour tuer à Jérusalem", "Un Palestinien meurt suite à un échange de tirs avec l'armée israélienne". Percevons-nous toute la distance qu’il ya entre dire «Un colon juif tire et tue trois Palestiniens», et dire : «Trois Palestiniens tués par un colon juif?". Le véritable «agent» de tous les problèmes en Palestine se retire sur des positions syntaxiques, et, accroupi là, supprimer toute trace de leur responsabilité. Les Palestiniens tuent (une décision libre, agressive, négative) ; les Palestiniens meurent, comme s'il s'agissait d'une loi de la nature. Les Palestiniens, en effet, meurent suite à (le plus volatile terme de causalité ») un missile lancé d’un hélicoptère, ou à une incursion de tanks à Naplouse, ou encore une fusillade entre forces du Fatah et soldats Israéliens. Qui les a tués?

Si je dis que ma grand-mère est morte quelques minutes après le début des bombardements sur l’Afghanistan, personne ne songera à établir une relation entre les deux événements et à blâmer les B-52 usaméricains. Le terrorisme syntaxique juxtapose deux actions qui sont liées, cependant, par une relation causale indissoluble. « Trois enfants palestiniens meurent à l'hôpital suite à un raid israélien »: le lecteur doit faire un effort pour rétablir le vrai sujet, sémantique et moral de cette phrase. Ces enfants, ne seraient-ils pas morts de la rougeole? Ne seraient-ils pas tombés d’un mur? En Palestine, il ya des coïncidences tous les jours comme celle de ma grand-mère, avec une fréquence  telle qu’il est surprenant qu’il n’y ait pas plus de spécialistes en parapsychologie dans les rues de Jérusalem. « Sept jeunes Palestiniens meurent d'une mort naturelle après qu’un obus israélien pulvérise leur maison. » « Une femme palestinienne s'effondre, victime d'un arrêt cardiaque, alors qu'un soldat lui tire au cœur. » Rien de plus paradoxal que de constater que les journalistes ont fini par se réfugier sans le savoir dans la philosophie d’ Al-Ghazali (1058-1111), qui pour défendre la liberté absolue de Dieu fut contraint de refuser les chaînes causales; contemporaines ou successives, l'occupation et l'intifada, les tirs israéliens et les enfants explosés n’ont aucune relation entre eux. Dieu est libre de faire ce qu'il veut, et de relier deux événements comme il lui plaît, Israël ne semble coupable que parce que, dans notre échelle chronologique classique, les tirs précèdent les morts. Mais ne suffirait-il pas que les Palestiniens meurent d’abord et que les Israéliens tirent ensuite pour que se révèle à nous, comme aux journalistes, toute l’innocence de l’occupant ?

Source : le livre Torres más altas, Numa Ediciones (Valencia 2003) – ISBN: 9788495831057 

La Première guerre des mots est une initiative de Palestine Think Tank et Tlaxcala. Les auteurs souhaitant y participer peuvent envoyer leurs contributions à contact@palestinethinktank.com et à tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es.   

If you have ever visited a blog or on-line discussion group on the Middle East you have doubtless had the misfortune to run into them.

They are known by the language they use: depraved sexual insults, bile, bigotry, threats, disinformation and character assassination. That’s right: I’m talking about “hasbarats,” Zionist trolls who infect the Internet with hasbara, pro-Israel propaganda. Of course, mainstream media hasbarats have been around for decades, as have “hasbaratchiks,” fifth-columns in foreign governments who subvert national policies to serve Israel. The Internet, though, is the latest, some might say the greatest, propaganda playground, and Israel cannot cope with factual, passionate, well-documented stories that expose its war crimes and unrepentant criminality.

If you’ve come across a hasbarat, on-line or otherwise, you have learned that no amount of reasoned argument or intellectual maturity has any effect. That’s because hasbarats don’t care if they come across as ignorant, obnoxious, nasty or inane. All that matters for them is sabotaging criticism of Israel and support for Muslims. They're like anti-intellectual stink bombs: designed to cause maximum discomfort but have little if any real power.

This deliberate proliferation of on-line hasbarats raises two points. The first concerns why anyone would spend hours a day to prostitute themselves for Israel. Money, of course. Ilan Shturman, deputy director of the Israeli foreign ministry’s hasbara department (!), told an Israeli business newspaper in July that US$150,000 had been allocated for the first stage of a campaign to seed the Internet with hasbarats:

“Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the hasbara department of the Israeli foreign ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis. They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the foreign ministry developed.”

The second point is why Israel felt it had to resort to intellectual fraud on an international scale. The Internet has shown that Israel is a failed oppressor state that commits crimes against humanity as a matter of policy. The last straw for many was “Operation Cast Lead,” an act of such unspeakable unapologetic sadism that allusions to Nazi Germany are entirely appropriate.

Every day, it seems, the mythic foundations of Israel’s legitimacy—the holocaust, Jewish victimhood, Jewish “people,” Israeli “democracy,” “evil” Muslims—are exposed for all to see.

In January, Amir Gissin, Israel’s consul-general in Toronto, sent out a hasbara recruitment letter, which read in part: “If you are frustrated or concerned with the portrayal of Israel in Canadian News and with biased [sic] depictions, your voice can be heard. Now, think that you’re not alone 10,000 voices like yours can respond every day: praise, protest, inform, correct on leading Canadian news websites, in real time, effectively.”

The weakness with this tactic, as you probably figured out, is that hasbarats will inevitably shout and whine themselves into irrelevance. Eventually, intelligent people will tune out the Zionist boilerplate, the anti-Muslim smears, and the interminable drone about the holocaust. Already, the once-dreaded epithet “anti-Semite” has lost all significance, as if it ever had any, and the person who hurled it is more likely to be mocked than feared.

Two recent events demonstrate the growing desperation and ineptitude of Israel’s propaganda industry. Today, we look at an example of “positive hasbara.”

Toronto International Film Festival

A major tactic of hasbarats is to project the illusion that Israel is a normal Western democracy, thereby taking focus away from Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians. Also, countries that buy into the deceit will be unwilling to criticize Israel for fear of calling into question their role in covering up Zionist war crimes.

This tactic was tried at the recent Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) as Tel Aviv was spotlighted in a City-to-City program with Toronto. The ostensible purpose was to use an apolitical, cultural event to obscure the tyranny that Tel Aviv represents, but more than 1,000 filmmakers and performers, weren’t fooled. They put their names to The Toronto Declaration: No Celebration of Occupation, an open letter to the TIFF that protested the co-optation of the festival by the Israeli propaganda machine.

The protest accomplished precisely what the hasbarats tried to prevent. “Rather than talking about Israel’s rich cinematic culture, the buzz this week in Toronto has centered on the one thing Israeli officials had sought to avoid: the conflict with the Palestinians,” reported the Jewish Telegraph Agency.

The hasbara campaign to ‘re-brand’ Israel during the Toronto International Film Festival failed miserably. So much attention was paid to the protest that it overshadowed the political objectives of Israel’s propaganda machine.

Another major defeat for Israel came courtesy of Chicago Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert. After offering a knee-jerk condemnation of the City-to-City protests, he reversed himself the next day:

“I wasn't prepared with enough facts about the events leading up to the Festival's decision to showcase Tel Aviv in the City-to-City section. I [initially] thought of it as an innocent goodwill gesture, but now realize it was part of a deliberate plan to ‘re-brand’ Israel in Toronto, as a pilot for a larger such program. The Festival should never have agreed to be used like this. It was naïve for the plan’s supporters to believe it would have the effect they hoped for.”

Speaking of naïve, how about Ron Huldai, mayor of Tel Aviv! Whether out of overconfidence or stupidity, he publicly admitted the underlying hasbara in an interview with the JTA: “While the City to City program was initiated by the festival, the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs was involved as part of its Brand Israel media and advertising campaign, which was launched last year.”

Quite obviously, Israel would have been better off if the hasbarats had not tried to manipulate the festival. Even the predictable pro-Israel counterprotest merely added to the protest’s notoriety and detracted from the cultural propaganda. Moreover the standard claim that the protest was an attack on Israel and artistic freedom was demonstrably false. If anything, the protest highlighted Israel’s active suppression of Palestinian culture.

According to the authors of the Toronto Declaration:

“Many Palestinian artists and filmmakers, denied freedom of movement by Israel’s Occupation and pass system, are de facto boycotted, unable to communicate with their communities or travel freely. The double standard is mind-boggling and, slowly, these are the issues we are helping to put under a spotlight.”

Finally, it is important to note that the Declaration’s authors succeeded without any media help. They had no money to place ads, and no newspaper would publish their open letter. On the other hand, hasbarats had the full support (read: “obedience”) of Canada’s national media, and lost.

If a modest, unfunded, popular protest can effectively defeat an orchestrated propaganda campaign, what does that say about Israel’s ability to pose as a legitimate, democratic state? Even though hasbarats get their disinformation out with relative ease, it is not clear that is generally accepted.

Visit : http://www.gregfelton.com/media/2009_09_30.htm

Let's talk
But not about ethnic cleansing
Forget Dier Yassin
Don't speak of apartheid
Or the destruction of Jennin
Be blind to the pain in Gaza
The hunger, the disease
The rubble, the fires
The uprooted trees
Sewerage floods and darkness
Drones and the Siege
Most of all
DON'T MENTION THE RIGHTS OF REFUGEES
When we talk

Let's talk
Let our words float in the air
Devoid of meaning or clarity
We'll establish our own facts on the ground
And you will be paid your salary
Never before has talking of peace
Caused so much damage and agony
Yet still we talk

So let's talk
let's negotiate
We can have a conference, a summit, a debate
A multifaith dialogue to eliminate hate
We'll shake hands and smile
And make the six o'clock news
For supporting the peace process
Between Arabs and Jews
And we will only talk
http://www.bdsmovement.net/?q=node/68

Take action: Support the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)

“The Israel Project”, a US media advocacy group, has produced a revised training manual to help the worldwide Zionist movement win the propaganda war, keep their ill-gotten territorial gains and persuade international audiences to accept that their crimes are necessary and conform to “shared values” between Israel and the civilized West.

It’s a clever document.

The manual teaches how to justify the slaughter, the ethnic cleansing, the land-grabbing, the cruelty and the blatant disregard for international law and UN resolutions, and make it all smell sweeter with a liberal squirt of the aerosol of persuasive language. It is designed to hoodwink us ignorant and gullible Americans and Europeans into believing that we actually share values with the racist regime in Israel and that its abominable behaviour is therefore deserving of our support.

Israel is hoping for a public relations massacre. The other side – the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization – don’t take communications seriously and have neglected to correct Israeli distortion. They are happy, it seems, for Israel’s one-sided definitions to prevail, which of course makes the task for Israel so much easier. This latest propaganda offensive is potentially the “coup de grace” to finish off the tormented Palestinians. See it here.

And the manual will no doubt serve as a communications primer for the army of cyber-scribblers that Israel’s Ministry of Dirty Tricks is recruiting to spread Zionism’s poison across the internet.

This quote at the beginning sets the tone: "Remember, it’s not what you say that counts. It’s what people hear."

Top priority: demonise Hamas

The manual’s numerous messages are aimed at the mass of “persuadables”, primarily in America but also in the UK. The strategy from the start is to isolate the democratically-elected Hamas and to rob the resistance movement and the Palestinian population of their human rights.

• “Clearly differentiate between the Palestinian people and Hamas. There is an immediate and clear distinction between the empathy Americans feel for the Palestinians and the scorn they direct at Palestinian leadership. Hamas is a terrorist organization – Americans get that already. But if it sounds like you are attacking the Palestinian people (even though they elected Hamas) rather than their leadership, you will lose public support. Right now, many Americans sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians, and that sympathy will increase if you fail to differentiate the people from their leaders.”

The plight of the Palestinians under Israel’s heel was an international concern long before Hamas appeared on the scene.

But this is familiar ground. We scorned George Bush and Tony Blair and had to differentiate between them and their respective peoples. We now have to do the same with Barack Obama and Gordon Brown. We are tired of having to make that same differentiation between the Israeli people and the dreadful leaders they produce.

• "ISRAEL’S RIGHT TO DEFENSIBLE BORDERS: With more than three years of violent history since Israel’s agreement to withdraw from Gaza and portions of the West Bank [sic], Americans have had time to take stock of the situation and form opinions. The big picture: they believe that Hamas’s leadership of Gaza has made Israel and the region less safe, while some are more receptive to what they perceive as a moderate approach in the West Bank by Mahmoud Abbas. Based on these experiences, they are willing to grant Israel more leeway in resisting calls to give more land for more peace."

Here we clearly see the motive for demonizing Hamas – Israel wants more leeway to continue its land-grabs and other criminal activities.

• “If… If… If… Then”: Put the burden on Hamas to make the first move for peace by using If’s (and don’t forget to finish with a hard then to show Israel is a willing peace partner). “If Hamas reforms… If Hamas recognize our right to exist… If Hamas renounces terrorism… If Hamas supports international peace agreements… then we are willing to make peace today.”

How one-sided and daft can you get? Substitute Israel for Hamas.

Words that work

The manual sets out numerous examples of “words that work” – supposedly.

• “We know that the Palestinians deserve leaders who will care about the well being of their people, and who do not simply take hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance from America and Europe, put them in Swiss bank accounts, and use them to support terror instead of peace.”

No mention here of the billions of tax dollars Israel takes from the US and spends on munitions to obliterate and vaporize its neighbours.

• “Peace can only be made with adversaries who want to make peace with you. Terrorist organizations like Iran-backed Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad are, by definition, opposed to peaceful co-existence, and determined to prevent reconciliation. I ask you, how do you negotiate with those who want you dead?”

Hamas and Hezbollah are only regarded as terrorists by the White House and Tel Aviv and by US-Israeli stooges and flag-wavers in Westminster and elsewhere.

In Executive Order 13224 – "BLOCKING PROPERTY AND PROHIBITING TRANSACTIONS WITH PERSONS WHO COMMIT, THREATEN TO COMMIT, OR SUPPORT TERRORISM" – Bush used this definition: “The term “terrorism” means an activity that –

(i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and
(ii) appears to be intended —
(A) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(B) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(C) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking.”

It describes the antics of the US and Israel perfectly.

• "There is NEVER, EVER, any justification for the deliberate slaughter of innocent women and children. NEVER… there is one fundamental principle that all peoples from all parts of the globe will agree on: civilized people do not target innocent women and children for death.”

Quite so. Where does that leave Israel, which recently killed 320 children in Gaza and 773 civilians, including 109 women? From 2000 (the start of the second Intifada – the Palestinian urising against the Israeli occupation) up to the end of last year Israel had slaughtered 4,936 Palestinians in their homeland, including 952 children, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. In the same period Palestinians killed 490 Israelis in Israel including only 84 children. So, Israel’s kill-rate is at least 10 to 1, and rising since the blitzkrieg on Gaza.

Iran-backed or US-backed – take your pick

• “Use humility. ‘I know that in trying to defend its children and citizens from terrorists that Israel has accidentally hurt innocent people. I know it, and I’m sorry for it. But what can Israel do to defend itself? If America had given up land for peace – and that land had been used for launching rockets at America, what would America do? Israel was attacked with thousands of rockets from Iran-backed Palestinian terrorists in Gaza. What should Israel have done to protect her children?’”

Palestinians too have a right to defend themselves. Hamas was the popular choice of Palestinians at the last election and is entitled under international law to take up arms against an illegal occupier and invader. If it is supported by Iran, so what? Israel is extravagantly funded and supplied by the US. Here’s part of their begging-bowl “Military Aid Speech”:

• “Israel makes the request for military assistance out of self-defense. As a democracy, they have the right and the responsibility to protect our borders. As a democracy, they have the right and the responsibility to protect their citizens.
  

• “Israel does not ask for US troops to protect itself. It does not ask for a single American soldier to protect its borders. It only asks for the funds for them to protect themselves. They need the equipment so that their own troops can ensure the safety of their civilian population through this gathering conflict with the enemies of democracy.
  

• “They didn’t ask to have our nation built in range of Iranian missiles. They didn’t ask that their nation be a focal point for religious extremists who have declared war on the West and on democracy.
  

• “But they are, and they need your help."

And here’s the rationale behind it:

• “Americans fundamentally believe that a democracy has a right to protect its people and its borders. And while Americans don’t want to increase foreign aid in a time of significant budgetary deficits and painful spending cuts, there is one and only one argument that will work for Israel (in four easy steps):
  

(1) As a democracy, Israel has the right and the responsibility to defend its borders and protect its people.

(2) Terrorist groups, including Iran-backed Hezbollah and Hamas, continue to pose a direct threat to Israeli security and have repeatedly taken innocent Israeli lives.

(3) Israel is America’s one and only true ally in the region. In these particularly unstable and dangerous times, Israel should not be forced to go it alone.

(4) With America’s financial assistance, Israel can defend its borders, protect its people, and provide invaluable assistance to the American effort against the war against terrorism.”

It’s evident that Americans don’t believe in democracy enough to allow Palestinian democracy to flourish.

• “When the terror ends, Israel will no longer need to have challenging checkpoints to inspect goods and people. When the terror ends we will no longer need a security fence.”

There are no rockets coming out of the West Bank, so why is the security fence still there – and still being built? Why are the occupation troops still there? Why are hundreds of checkpoints still there? Why is Israel still stealing land, demolishing Palestinian homes and building settlements there?

• "Remind people – again and again – that Israel wants peace.

Reason One: If Americans see no hope for peace – if they only see a continuation of a 2,000-year-long episode of “Family Feud” – Americans will not want their government to spend tax dollars or their president’s clout on helping Israel.

Reason Two: The speaker that is perceived as being most for PEACE will win the debate. Every time someone makes the plea for peace, the reaction is positive. If you want to regain the public relations advantage, peace should be at the core of whatever message you wish to convey."

Israel has never met its peace agreement obligations. It doesn't want peace – every action is directed at keeping the conflict going until the Israelis have stolen enough land and established enough 'facts on the ground' – Jews-only settlements, highways, disconnected Palestinian bantustans – to enable them to redraw the map to suit their expansionist agenda and make the occupation PERMANENT.

Gaza in a vice

• “Israel made painful sacrifices and took a risk to give peace a chance. They voluntarily removed over 9,000 settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, abandoning homes, schools, businesses and places of worship in the hopes of renewing the peace process. Despite making an overture for peace by withdrawing from Gaza, Israel continues to face terrorist attacks, including rocket attacks and drive-by shootings of innocent Israelis. Israel knows that for a lasting peace, they must be free from terrorism and live with defensible borders.”

Israel never left. It still occupies Gazan airspace, coastal waters and airwaves, and controls all borders except Rafah where it nevertheless exerts a veto. Israel has Gaza in a vice, which is crushing the tiny enclave’s economy, starving its 1.5 million citizens and creating a huge humanitarian crisis in an attempt to bring the elected government to its knees.

• "Draw direct parallels between Israel and America – including the need to defend against terrorism… The more you focus on the similarities between Israel and America, the more likely you are to win the support of those who are neutral. Indeed, Israel is an important American ally in the war against terrorism, and faces many of the same challenges as America in protecting their citizens."

Note how Israel’s strategy is almost totally dependent on the false idea that they are victims of terror and Western nations need to huddle together with Israel for mutual protection. Fortunately, level-headed people are beginning to realize who the terrorists really are.

It must be blindingly obvious by now that allowing parallels to be drawn between Israel and America only serves to increase the world’s hatred of America. US citizens need to wake up to this, and British citizens should avoid falling into the same trap.

Inject with “core values” and repeat over and over again…

• "The language of Israel is the language of America: 'democracy', 'freedom', 'security', and 'peace'. These four words are at the core of the American political, economic, social and cultural systems, and they should be repeated as often as possible because they resonate with virtually every American."

If so fluent in this language, why doesn’t Israel acknowledge its neighbours’ rights to democracy, freedom, security and peace and end their military oppression?

• "A simple rule of thumb is that once you get to the point of repeating the same message over and over again so many times that you think you might get sick – that is just about the time the public will wake up and say 'Hey – this person just might be saying something interesting to me!' But don’t confuse messages with facts…"

Never let facts get in the way of a good message!

• “How can the current Palestinian leadership honestly say it will pursue peace when previous leaders rejected an offer to create a Palestinian state just a few short years ago and now refuse to live up to their responsibilities as outlined in the Road Map?”

This must be a reference to Ehud Barak's so-called "generous offer”, another of the myths Israelis love to peddle. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip, seized by Israel in 1967 and occupied ever since, comprise just 22 per cent of pre-partition Palestine. When the Palestinians signed the Oslo Agreement in 1993 they agreed to accept the 22 per cent and to recognize Israel within “Green Line” borders (i.e. the 1949 armistice line established after the Arab-Israeli war). Conceding 78 per cent of the land that was originally theirs was an astonishing compromise on the part of the Palestinians.

But it wasn't enough for greedy Barak. His “generous offer” required the inclusion of 69 Israeli settlements within the 22 per cent remnant. It was plain to see on the map that these settlement blocs created impossible borders and already severely disrupted Palestinian life in the West Bank. Barak also demanded the Palestinian territories be placed under "temporary Israeli control", meaning Israeli military and administrative control indefinitely. The “generous offer” also gave Israel control over all the border crossings of the new Palestinian state. What nation in the world would accept that? The unacceptable reality of Barak’s offer, contained in the map, was hidden by propaganda spin.

Later, at Taba, Barak produced a revised map but withdrew it after his election defeat. Don’t take my word for it – the facts are well documented and explained by organizations such as Israel’s Gush Shalom.

• “Why is the world so silent about the written, vocal, stated aims of Hamas?”

And why is the world so silent about the written, stated aims of the racist regime and its political parties? Read their manifestoes.

• “Successful communications is not about being able to recite every fact from the long history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is about pointing out a few core principles of shared values – such as democracy and freedom – and repeating them over and over again… You need to start with empathy for both sides, remind your audience that Israel wants peace and then repeat the messages of democracy, freedom, and peace over and over again… we need to repeat the message, on average, 10 times to be effective.”

Is democracy a shared value? Israel is an ethnocracy not a democracy. Is freedom a shared value? The world is still waiting for Israel to allow the Palestinians their freedom.

• “The situation in the Middle East may be complicated, but all parties should adopt a simple approach: peace first, political boundaries second.”

Renounce resistance while still under Israel’s jackboot? The correct approach is for the international community to insist first that Israel complies with international law and the many UN resolutions it has contemptuously ignored. The boundaries are already defined. Whatever issues remain to be decided, Palestinians should not have to negotiate under occupation or duress.

Rockets, bombs and atrocities: the language of peace

• "Bottom line: What will happen if we fail to get the world to care about the fact that Israeli parents in southern Israel need to literally dodge rockets when they drive their children to kindergarten in the morning? What will happen if the world allows Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, to get nuclear weapons? What will Israel do if bad press causes American citizens to ask [their] government to turn its back on Israel? Why do I care so much about the success of your communications efforts? I care because I never want our children to live through what my family and yours lived through in the Holocaust."

Only one in 500 makeshift Qassam rockets causes a fatality, small beer compared to the devastation and carnage resulting from Israel’s state-of-the-art rocketry targeted on Gaza. How does it look when Palestinians are forced to pay the price for the Holocaust? And how much does Israel care about the Palestinian holocaust it has caused?

The manual then gives a long glossary of terms. Here’s a sample:

• “Deliberately firing rockets into civilian communities”: Combine terrorist motive with civilian visuals and you have the perfect illustration of what Israel faced in Gaza and Lebanon. Especially with regard to rocket attacks but useful for any kind of terrorist attack, deliberate is the right word to use to call out the intent behind the attacks. This is far more powerful than describing the attacks as “random”.

Israelis know all about bombarding civilian targets. And they are careful not to mention that Sderot, until recently the only Israeli township within range of Gazan rockets, is built on the ruins of an ethnically cleansed Palestinian village whose inhabitants were forced from their homes by Jewish terrorists.

• “Economic Diplomacy”: This is a much more embracing and popular term than the current lexicon of “sanctions”. It has appeal across the political spectrum: the tough economic approach appeals to Republicans, and the diplomacy component satisfies Democrats.

We can all play this game. Israel is now beginning to suffer “economic diplomacy” in the form of worldwide boycotts.

• “Economic Prosperity”: Whenever Israel talks about the “economic prosperity” of the Palestinians, it puts Israel in the most positive light possible. After all, who can disagree?

What sort of prosperity is it when nothing can be imported or exported without Israel's approval and fisherman can't even put to sea in their own waters without having their boats shot up by the Israeli navy?

• “Human to Human”: “We know that the average Palestinian and the average Israeli want to come together and make peace. They want to live in peace. Israeli leaders have come together with Arab leaders to make peace in the past. But how do you make peace with Hamas and Hezbollah?”

Simple. You get off their land and stay off. There can be no peace under occupation. You have to be very stupid not to understand that.

• “Humanize Rockets”: Paint a vivid picture of what life is like in Israeli communities that are vulnerable to attack. Yes, cite the number of rocket attacks that have occurred. But immediately follow that up with what it is like to make the nightly trek to the bomb shelter.

Would Israel care to tell the world how many bombs, rockets and shells (including the illegal and prohibited variety) its US-supplied F-16s, tanks, armed drones and navy gunboats have poured into the densely-packed humanity that is Gaza?

Still more advice…

• “Living together, side by side”. This is the best way to describe the ultimate vision of a two-state solution without using the phrase.

Sounds cute but is worn out. Who would want to live alongside bigots and extremists who have made your life a misery for 61 years?

• "When talking about a Palestinian partner, it is essential to distinguish between Hamas and everyone else. Only the most anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian American expects Israel to negotiate with Hamas, so you have to be clear that you are seeking a 'moderate Palestinian partner'."

Where are the moderate Israeli partners?

• "The fight is over IDEOLOGY – not land; terror, not territory. Thus, you must avoid using Israel’s religious claims to land as a reason why Israel should not give up land. Such claims only make Israel look extremist to people who are not religious Christians or Jews.”

If the fight isn’t about land, why did Israel steal it at gunpoint? And why won’t they give it back when told to by the UN?

• "Think PRO-PALESTINIAN. While I have spoken about Israeli casualties, I want to recognize those Palestinians that have been killed or wounded, because they are suffering as well. I particularly want to reach out to Palestinian mothers who have lost their children. No parent should have to bury their child.”

Israel won’t even allow cement into Gaza to build the graves.

• "And so I say to my Palestinian colleagues … you can stop the bloodshed. You can stop the suicide bombings and rocket attacks. If you really want to, you can put an end to this cycle of violence. If you won’t do it for our children, do it for your children.”

Effective Israeli sound bite. Speechless.

• "I want to see a future where the Palestinians govern themselves. Israel does not want to govern a single Palestinian. Not one. We want them to govern themselves. We want them to have complete self-determination."

Is that why Israel tried to snuff out Palestine's democracy – and the people’s right to self-determination – immediately after the 2006 elections?

• "The big picture approach is this: You must isolate Hamas as:

– A critical cause of the delay in achieving a two-state solution

– The biggest source of harm to the Palestinian people, and

– The reason why Israel must defend its people from living in terror.

Read from the Hamas Charter. Now, here’s how to attack Hamas: indict them with their own indoctrination materials. Yes, people know Hamas is a terrorist organization – but they don’t know just how terrifying Hamas can be. The absolute best way to heighten their awareness is to read from the Hamas Charter itself. Don’t just “quote” from it. Read it. Out loud. Again and again. Hand it out to everyone."

At last Israel makes a good point. After three years of “government” Hamas must be mad to persist with its ill-advised charter. They have been severely tested. They have matured. They have earned credibility in many eyes. Israel’s behaviour makes Hamas look good. But all that will count for nothing if they don't rewrite their charter as a matter of urgency.

Regev’s pearls of wisdom. But how safe is the region under the threat of Israel’s nukes?

• "It’s not just Israel who refuses to speak to Hamas. It’s the whole international community… Most of the democratic world refuses to have a relationship with Hamas because Hamas has refused to meet the most minimal benchmarks of international behaviour." – Mark Regev

Isn’t that a little cheeky, Mr Regev, coming from a regime widely condemned for war crimes, piracy and mega-lawlessness?

• "It was the former UN secretary-general, Kofi Anan, that put four benchmarks on the table. And he said, speaking for the international community…
  

That if Hamas reforms itself … – Mark Regev

If Hamas recognizes my country’s right to live in freedom…

If Hamas renounces terrorism against innocent civilians…

If Hamas supports international agreements that are being signed and agreed to concerning the peace process… then the door is open. But unfortunately – tragically – Hamas has failed to meet even one of those four benchmarks. And that’s why today Hamas is isolated internationally. Even the United Nations refuses to speak to Hamas.

Which of those benchmarks has Israel met, Mr Regev?

• "Israel is very concerned about the Iranian nuclear programme. And for good reason. Iran’s president openly talks about wiping Israel off the map. We see them racing ahead on nuclear enrichment so they can have enough fissile material to build a bomb. We see them working on their ballistic missiles. We only saw, last week, shooting a rocket to launch a so-called satellite into outer space and so forth. The Iranian nuclear programme is a threat, not just to my country, but to the entire region. And it’s incumbent upon us all to do what needs to be done to keep from proliferating.” – Mark Regev

Why is Israel the only state in the region not to have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Mr Regev? Are we all supposed to believe that Israel's 200 (or is it 400?) nuclear warheads pose no threat? Would you also like to comment on why Israel hasn’t signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and why it has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, similarly the Chemical Weapons Convention? What proof do you have of Iran's nuclear weapons plans?

And why do you persist in misquoting Mr Ahmadinejad?

The Holy City is not up for grabs

• "The toughest issue to communicate will be the final resolution of Jerusalem. Americans overwhelmingly want Israel to be in charge of the religious holy sites and are frankly afraid of the consequences should Israel turn over control to the Palestinians. Consider:
  

– 71 per cent of Americans trust Israel most to protect the holy sites in Jerusalem, compared to 6.1 per cent who trust the Palestinian authority most. 8.5 per cent per cent trust neither.

– 54 per cent of Americans believe that ‘Jerusalem must remain united under Israeli sovereignty’ while just 23.9 per cent believe that ‘Jerusalem should be divided into Israeli controlled and Palestinian controlled areas’.

Given the choice between the two, Americans of all political and demographic stripes trust Israel to protect and have sovereignty over Jerusalem."

Israel is in control right now and prevents Muslims and Christians from outside the city visiting the holy places. No way can Israel be trusted. The UN's partition plan decreed that Jerusalem should become a ”corpus separatum” under international management. It is unlikely that the UN would wish to see its resolutions torn up or international law rewritten for Israel’s sole benefit, regardless of America’s misinformed opinion.

Get the name-calling right

I’ll close with the following extract:

• “Many on the left see an ‘Israel vs. Palestinian’ crisis where Israel is Goliath and the Palestinians are David. It is critical that they understand that this is an Arab-Israeli crisis and that the force undermining peace is Iran and their proxies Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. You must not call Hamas just Hamas. Call them what they are: Iran-backed Hamas. Indeed, when they know that Iran is behind Hamas and Hezbollah, they are much more supportive of Israel.”

By the same token we must call the racist regime what it is – US-backed Israel.

Iran’s support for Hamas is difficult to quantify and probably less than we think. More funding has probably come from Sunni Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In any case, it is peanuts compared to America’s support for Israel.

Hamas is an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhhod and was founded in 1987 during the first Intifada. Hezbollah came into being in 1982 in response to US-backed Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. So, the territorial ambitions of US-backed Israel provoked the rise of both. Israel’s problem is entirely self-inflicted and shouldn’t concern the rest of us.

Hamas’s election manifesto in 2006 called for maintaining the armed struggle against US-backed Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, which seems a perfectly valid aim.

Our obligation to respect and promote human rights

The Israel Project’s training manual is an unpleasant piece of work. It runs to 116 pages and I have only scratched the surface. It recycles many of the discredited techniques used by the advertising industry before standards of honesty, decency and truthfulness were brought in to protect the public.

And it serves to undermine with clever words the inalienable rights pledged by the UN and the world’s civilized nations to all peoples, including the Palestinians.

When you have to stoop this low you simply don’t have a case.

The Palestinian side urgently needs to strip away the deception and re-frame the Holy Land situation in truthful language. And it needs to debunk this Zionist handbook. If the PA and the PLO won’t do it, who will?

Everyone should bear in mind the following, written nearly 61 years ago:

“Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.”

It would seem that Israel has not read or understood the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which all nations signed up to. Attempts to wipe out the rights of people who happen to be in the way of the Zionist vision of a “Greater Israel” deserve no support whatever.

Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.
Source

The U.S. Palestinian Community Network is appalled that the government of the United States not only continues its unconditional support for Israel, but has engaged in establishing a Palestinian contra forces in the West Bank, aimed at deepening Palestinian internal division and engaging in arbitrary arrests and assassinations of political activists. We demand an immediate end to all such programs and the immediate withdrawal of U.S. Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton and his mercenaries from Palestine!

U.S. Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, the U.S. Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, has overseen the creation of a paramilitary force serving the occupation under the title of Palestinian Authority 'security forces.' While Israeli occupation soldiers regularly abduct, injure and kill Palestinians, Dayton's contras have engaged in a campaign of intimidation against the Palestinian populace, including arbitrary arrests, raids on charitable institutions and non-governmental organizations, assassinations, and torture of political opponents of the Palestinian Authority.

Furthermore, the focus on 'security' comes at the expense of the Palestinian people's real needs. While Palestinians continue to organize to resist occupation and strengthen their communities by building schools, hospitals and community-centered institutions that support the steadfastness of the Palestinian people, the U.S. has poured money, arms and resources into 'security forces' that  provide no security for Palestinians who face daily threats from settlers and occupying forces, but instead act as threats against Palestinians on the ground.

The actions of these squads are fully coordinated with the Israeli military occupation. They carry out arrests, abductions and raids at the direction of Israeli military forces and provide the occupation forces with information about the location of Palestinian activists. Israeli officials have bragged about the success of these paramilitary forces in repressing Palestinian resistance.

In addition, this force is designed to prop up a subservient and collaborationist Palestinian authority. The training for these forces is provided by a number of repressive Arab regimes, who themselves maintain their power due to U.S. funding and support.

These paramilitary squads are not an internal Palestinian question alone.  As taxpayers and residents of the United States, we demand that the U.S. ceases its funding and training of Dayton's mercenaries. U.S. involvement in paramilitary death and terror squads is nothing new - from Colombia, to the Philippines, to El Salvador, to Nicaragua, to Angola and Mozambique, the U.S. has funded trained and armed paramilitary forces to serve U.S. interests and/or support reactionary local rulers.

We call upon all Arab American community organizations, anti-war coalitions, and progressive institutions to take action to end Dayton?s contras program in Palestine by:

1.      Signing on to this statement! Email your endorsement to stopdayton@palestineconference.org. 

2.      Organizing a visit to your Congressional representative. Deliver him or her letter from your community urging that Congress end all funding to Dayton's contras program. 

3.      Issuing a statement from your local community group demanding the immediate withdrawal of  Dayton and his team from Palestine.

U.S. Palestinian Community Network (Palestinian Popular Conference)

September 8, 2009

http://www.palestineconference.org   +   stopdayton@palestineconference.org

The arguments against establishing a Jewish state in Palestine raised by anti-Zionist and non-Zionist Jews going back to the early years of the last century were well known and all have been proved correct. So it should not be a matter of surprise that Israel's legitimacy has not been accepted by the Palestinians and the other peoples of the region. It was advertised by Zionists worldwide as a colonial settler enterprise with pride, in fact, until such terminology fell out of favor. That it was established at a time when the rest of the world was engaged in a period of decolonization was even a further guarantee of its rejection and had it not been for the influence of its supporters in the US and Europe and the arms that flowed from that support, Israel, like French Algeria, would have become another episode in history. (And it is noteworthy that it was Israel's support for the French against the Algerian resistance that led to France being Israel's chief supplier of weaponry until 1967).

You are also well aware that to maintain Israel as the Sparta of the Middle East, the "Pro-Israel Lobby," has long held the US Congress in thrall, strangling what little is left of American democracy. Do you not recall writing how one president after another tried to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict and how each one was forced by The Lobby to retire from the field defeated? And with each defeat, the theft of Palestinian land and the growth of the settlements continued. Who has paid the price for that?

As you have already assumed, I am against the existence of the state of Israel or a Jewish state by any other name which is based on the notion that a Jew from anywhere in the world has more of a right to live in what most of the world knew and accepted as Palestine than a Palestinian Arab who was born there or her or his family members. If that is not both immoral and racist, we need new definitions for those words. And yet you, apparently, do not find it so, and reject the opinions of those who do. (The notion that Israel or any country can be a homeland for a person not born there and who cannot trace a single relative that was born there is but another example of how Zionists have twisted the language to justify the unjust.)

Your desperation for an argument against the idea of a single state becomes apparent when you write that the French and the Germans did not agree to live together. Do you really believe there is any comparison to be made between the two situations. Are the French sitting on German land or vice versa?

I continue to be mystified at your continuing efforts to separate the settlers from those Jews living within the Green Line as if the majority of those in Israel proper are not as responsible for electing a series of professional killers as their prime ministers year after year, all of whom have expanded the settlements. There hasn't been a single poll of Israeli Jews that I have seen going back to 1988, in the early days of the first intifada, where half of those polled did not call for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza. How many settlers were there in 1988?

In your wonderful democracy, every able-bodied Jewish man or woman, with the exception of the chassdim, has served as an occupier in the West Bank or Gaza for the past 42 years. Are they not culpable? Yesterday, I watched on Al-Jazeera as Israeli soldiers fired waves of tear gas and some smelly green liquid on non-violent Palestinians who were marching to demonstrate the steel fence that cuts through their land at Ni'ilin and who then began targeting the Al-Jazeera reporter. Are we expected to embrace these young thugs wearing an Israeli uniform? Are those who hate them to be condemned and not the thugs and those who sent them there?

You repeatedly use the word peace but not once do you use the word justice. And that is what separates you and your fellow Zionists from the Palestinians and those who genuinely support them. The occupation bothers your conscience, your sense of idenity as an Israeli but how much does it affect your life? Ending the occupation no matter how it is arranged will bring you peace of mind and time to finish your memoirs. Now, try if you can, and imagine yourself as a Palestinian who has been under an Israeli jackboot all of his or her life. Would you be simply looking for peace, an absence of that Israeli jackboot, or would you be seeking and demanding justice?

Your conclusion expresses your confusion. You write that you want "Israel to be a state belonging to all its citizens, without distinction of ethnic origin, gender, religion or language; with completely equal rights for all," yet you assume there will be a "Hebrew-speaking majority" that will allow its "Arab-speaking citizens…to cherish their close ties with their Palestinian brothers and sisters…" If there is no distinction between one citizen and another, Jewish or Arab, how can you assume that the majority will continue to be Hebrew-speaking (or are you allowing for the possibility that Israel's Palestinian Arab population which already is largely bi-lingual will become the majority at which point Israel will no longer be a Jewish state?) If that is so, perhaps there is hope for you yet.

Hi,

Hope this may interest you.

Many readers have sent my thoughtful comments on my last

article. I am unable to answer them in detail. I am writing

my memoirs on top of my regular political and journalistic

work, and therefore can only answer laconically. Please

excuse.

Shalom, Salamaat,

uri

In a way, each of us has such a bed, into which we put everything new. Confronted with a novel situation, we tend to equate it with a situation we have known in the past.

In politics, this method is especially pervasive. It relieves us of the irksome necessity of studying an unfamiliar situation and drawing new conclusions.

Once, the pattern of Vietnam was applied to every struggle around the world - from Argentina to North Korea. Nowadays, the fashion points to South Africa. Everything resembles the struggle against apartheid, unless proven otherwise.

SINCE SENDING out last week’s article, "Tutu’s Prayer", I have been flooded with responses, some laudatory, some abusive, some thoughtful, some merely angry.

Generally, I don’t argue with my esteemed readers. I don’t want to impose my views, I just want to provide food for thought and leave it to the reader to form his or her own opinion.

This time I feel that I owe it to my readers to clear up some of the points I was trying to make and answer some of the objections. So here we go.

I HAVE no argument with people who hate Israel. That’s entirely their right. I just don’t think that we have any common ground for discussion.

I would only like to point out that hatred is a very bad advisor. Hatred leads nowhere, but to more hatred. That, by the way, is a positive lesson we can draw from the South African experience. There they overcame hatred to a remarkable extent, largely thanks to the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" headed by Archbishop Tutu, where people admitted their past offenses.

One thing is certain: hatred does not lead towards peace. Let me be quite explicit about this, because I sense that some people, in their righteous indignation over Israel’s occupation, have lost sight of this.

Peace is made between enemies, after war, in which awful things invariably happen. Peace can be made and maintained between peoples who are prepared to live with each other, respect each other, recognize the humanity of each other. They don’t have to love each other.

Describing the other side as monsters may be useful in waging war, but singularly unhelpful in waging peace.

When I receive a missive that is dripping with hatred of Israel, that portrays all Israelis (including myself, of course) as monsters, I fail to envision how the writer imagines peace. Peace with monsters? Angels and monsters living side by side in peace and harmony in one state, hating each other’s guts?

The view of Israel as a monolithic entity composed of racists and brutal oppressors is a caricature. Israel is a complex society, struggling with itself. The forces of good and evil, and many in between, are locked in a daily battle on many different fronts. The settlers and their supporters are strong, perhaps getting stronger (though I doubt it), but are far - even in their own view – from a decisive victory. Neve Gordon, for example, has been left unmolested in his post at Ben-Gurion University, because any attempt to remove him would have caused a public outcry.

I ALSO have no argument with those who want to abolish the State of Israel. It is as much their right to aspire to that as it is my right to want to dismantle, let’s say, the USA or France, neither of which has an unblemished past.

Reading some of the messages sent to me and trying to analyze their contents, I get the feeling they are not so much about a boycott on Israel as about the very existence of Israel. Some of the writers obviously believe that the creation of the State of Israel was a terrible mistake to start with, and therefore should be reversed. Turn the wheel of history back some 62 years and start anew.

What really disturbs me about this is that almost nobody in the West comes out and says clearly: Israel must be abolished. Some of the proposals, like those for a "One State" solution, sound like euphemisms. If one believes that the State of Israel should be abolished and replaced by a State of Palestine or a State of Happiness - why not say so openly?

Of course, that does not mean peace. Peace between Israel and Palestine presupposes that Israel is there. Peace between the Israeli people and the Palestinian people presupposes that both peoples have a right to self-determination and agree to the peace. Does anyone really believe that racist monsters like us would agree to give up our state because of a boycott?

The French and the Germans did not agree to live in one joint state, though the differences between them are incomparably smaller than those between Jewish Israelis and Arab Palestinians. Instead, they set up a European Union, composed of nation-states. Some 50 years ago I called for a similar Semitic Union, including Israel and Palestine. I still do.

Anyway, there is no sense in arguing with those who pray for the disappearance of the sovereign State of Israel, rather than for the appearance of the sovereign State of Palestine at its side.

THE REAL argument is among those who want to see peace between the two states, Israel and Palestine. The question is: how can it be achieved? This is an honest debate and is generally conducted in a civil manner. My debate with Neve Gordon is in this framework.

The advocates of boycott believe that the main, indeed the only way to induce Israel to give up the occupied territories and agree to peace is to exert pressure from the outside.

I have no quarrel with the idea of outside pressure. The question is: pressure on whom? On the government, the settlers and their supporters? Or on the entire Israeli people?

The first answer is, I believe, the right one. That’s why I hope that President Barack Obama will publish a detailed peace plan with a fixed timetable and apply the immense powers of persuasion of the USA to get both sides to agree. I don’t think that this is politically possible without the support of a large part of Israeli society (and, by the way, of the US Jewish community).

Some readers have lost all hope in Obama. That is, without doubt, premature. Obama has not surrendered to Binyamin Netanyahu - indeed, it is quite conceivable that the opposite is happening. The struggle is on, it is a hard struggle against determined opposition, and we should do all we can to help Obama’s peace policy to prevail. We must do this as Israelis, from inside Israel, and thereby show that this is not a struggle of the US against Israel, but a joint struggle against the Israeli government and the settlers.

It follows that any boycott must serve this purpose: to isolate the settlers and the individuals and institutions which openly support them, but not declare war on Israel and the Israeli people as such. In the 11 years since Gush Shalom declared a boycott of the products of the settlements, this process has been gaining momentum. We must laud the Norwegian decision, this week, to divest from the Israeli Elbit company because of their involvement with the "Separation Fence" that is being built on Palestinian land and whose main purposeis to annex occupied territories to Israel. This is a splendid example: a focused action against a specific target, based on a ruling of the International Court.

I think that far more can be done by a concentrated national and international campaign. A central office should be set up to direct this effort throughout the world against clear and specific targets. Such an effort could be helped by world public opinion, which recoils from the idea of boycotting the State of Israel, and not only because of the memory of the Holocaust, but will identify itself with action against the occupation and the oppression.

I have been asked about the Palestinian reaction to the boycott idea. At present, Palestinians do not boycott even the settlements, indeed it is Palestinian workers who are building almost all the houses there, out of economic necessity. Their feelings can only be guessed. All self-respecting Palestinians would, of course, support any effective measure directed against the occupation. But it would not be honest to dangle before their eyes the false hope that a world-wide boycott would bring Israel to its knees. The truth is that only the close cooperation of Palestinian, Israeli and international peace forces could generate the necessary momentum to end the occupation and achieve peace.

This is especially important because our task in Israel today is not so much to convince the majority of Israelis that peace is good and the price acceptable, but first that peace is possible at all. Most Israelis have lost that hope, and its revival is absolutely vital on the way to peace.

TO REMOVE any misconceptions about myself, let me state as clearly as possible where I stand:

I am an Israeli.

I am an Israeli patriot.

I want my state to be democratic, secular, and liberal, ending the occupation and living at peace both with the free and sovereign State of Palestine that will come into being next to it, and with the entire Arab world.

I want Israel to be a state belonging to all its citizens, without distinction of ethnic origin, gender, religion or language; with completely equal rights for all; a state in which the Hebrew-speaking majority will retain its close ties with the Jewish communities around the world, and the Arab-speaking citizens will be free to cherish their close ties with their Palestinian brothers and sisters and the Arab world at large.

Author's note: This article was started and mostly completed in December 2008. Then the Israeli massacre in Gaza intervened, followed by an intensification of organizing efforts for the Batsheva Dance Company protests After that, it gathered dust in the Drafts folder while I moved cross-country. An extended, remix version of "People Not Places" was just dubbed "Greatest Hip-Hop Song for Palestine Ever" by blogger Will on Kabobfest. The text that appears below is substantially the same as the one completed last December.

Recently, I got an e-mail from someone about a Jewish Israeli-American rapper who uses the stage name, "Invincible" (pictured at left). The message was a forward of an e-mail from the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) promoting Invincible's song, "People Not Places." One of IJAN's points of unity is "Challenging the privileging of Jewish voices in conversations and negotiations about Palestine." It is, at least partly, in this spirit that I proceed.

So, I listened to the song and read the lyrics. My first impression was of appropriation of Palestinian culture even though Invincible is not entirely insensitive to the issue of "Erasing the culture." It is said that imitation is the highest form of flattery but I wonder. There is a harmful, ongoing process of Jewish appropriation of Arab culture–"theft" is what some people call it.

For example, Israeli linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann says "Modern Hebrew" is "a semi-engineered Semito-European hybrid language." He continues, "The formation of so-called 'Israeli Hebrew' … was facilitated at the end of the nineteenth century by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda … to further the Zionist cause. … it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that the language was first spoken." Some words for this new language were simply invented but others were adapted or lifted from Arabic.

Consider sabr, the English transliteration of the Arabic name for the prickly pear cactus. As Farsoun and Zacharia, authors of Palestine and the Palestinians, note:

The prickly cactus bush called the sabr became a national symbol because it dots Palestine, marking the areas of destroyed villages. In Palestinian folklore it is known as a symbol of patience and perseverance. Like the enduring cactus, the Palestinians remained steadfast (samedoun or samedin) in their struggle despite great pressures threatening to separate and destroy the people's relationship with their land and cultural heritage.

To many Jews, though, the sabra (Hebrew for the same plant) is a metaphor for the idealized, tough Israeli-born Jew.

On food, Jana Gur writes:

The Zionist enterprise brought to Israel Jews from all over the world, each carrying memories of food they grew up on. At first, the ethos was rejection of everything that reeked of Diaspora and an eager, almost childish, embrace of the Levant. The infatuation with falafel and hummus, staples of Arabic cuisine, started there. … While not a single Israeli will claim that this chickpea and tahini concoction [hummus] is anything but Arabic, the status it has reached in Israel is unprecedented anywhere in the Middle East.

Gur's "not a single Israeli" remark is, perhaps, not so easy to sustain (see here and here). Or see the web site of Sabra Hummus (yes, that "sabra") where hummus is referred to as a "Mediterranean" food. (An Israeli company, the Strauss Group, owns a 50% stake in the company that makes Sabra Hummus and, therefore, Sabra Hummus is being boycotted by people of conscience).

In the aptly titled "Culinary Zionism: an ingathering of the edibles," Eythan-David Volcot-Freeman writes:

When asked to define "Israeli food," Diaspora Jews invariably point to hummus, falafel ["Israel's national snack"], and shawarma. … Presented with the same query, a sabra (native-born Israeli) would likely describe a typical Israeli meal featuring Middle Eastern hummus as a starter … The early halutzim (settlers) found inspiration in their Arab neighbors, whose lifestyle recalled that of the biblical Hebrews. Shawarma, falafel and hummus soon became "sabra" foods.

And here is a passage from "The Jewish Keffyieh":

"I hate the idea" confesses Hasan Nusseibeh, 27, a teacher at Al-Quds University. "They stole our land I guess it’s normal that they steal our Keffiyeh too", comments his little sister Sahar, a student. Their brother Munir reminds that this country dress is part of the culture of the region and that "Israelis are looking for new bonds with this ground". He believes that the "keffiyeh" is only another "effort" they're making in this sense. This young lawyer then enumerates the previous cases of cultural appropriation: traditional dress and embroidery, falafel and hummous. "Soon they'll claim that the Konafa (Arabic pastry) is Jewish!" jokes Ma'moun M. Kassem, responsible for an Italian NGO, who accuses Israelis of being "arrogant" and "thieves".

Pictured at the left is Naji al-Ali's character "Handala" in front of prickly pear cacti. Handala and the key he holds are symbols of the Palestinian refugee right of return. This particular image comes from a mural design for display at San Francisco State University. The mural was held hostage to the demands of Zionists that Handala and the key be removed and so they were.

Overall, Invincible's rap song "People Not Places" calls to mind Edward Said's critique of Orientalism–"A Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient." Here, we have Invincible, an Israeli-American Jew, using a primarily Black spoken word form with the backing of an Arab instrumental track to speak out about the Palestinian Nakba or catastrophe.

In Orientalism, Gustave Flaubert's representation of an Egyptian dancer stage-named Kuchuk Hanem is described by Said: "she never spoke of herself, she never represented her emotions, presence, or history. He [Flaubert] spoke for and represented her." Have things changed so much since Flaubert's time?

Today, the Palestinian voice or 'cause' is frequently mediated through or represented by Jews like Invincible, Ora Wise, Anna Baltzer, Norman Finkelstein, Jeff Halper, Noam Chomsky, Joel Kovel, Michael Lerner, Gila Svirsky, Phyllis Bennis, Susan Nathan, Marc Ellis, Hannah Mermelstein, Daniel Barenboim, Uri Avnery, Mitchell Plitnick, David Wesley, etc. (on mainstream representations of Arabs/Muslims by the predominantly Jewish Hollywood, even by Jewish actors, see "Planet of the Arabs").

The problem is twofold: First, these folks don't typically content themselves with bringing their message to primarily Jewish audiences; rather, they crowd out Palestinian and other non-Jewish voices–they disproportionately occupy the finite social space devoted to 'Israel-Palestine.' And, thus, they enable–inadvertently or not–others who are uncomfortable having Arabs represent themselves. One result is a self-fulfilling prophecy I've personally heard too often: "People won't come to hear Arabs."

Commenting on an earlier draft of this section, a friend wrote "… its high time that more anti-Zionist Jews should step up to the plate. We always hear about the deep moral failings of 'the good Germans' of the Nazi era: where are all 'the good Jews'?" The "good German" is, of course, a trope for Germans who did not oppose the Nazis in the 1930s and 40s. My reply is yes, but the "good Germans" should have been working on/against other Germans not explaining to the French or Swedes that "we're really good people and not all Germans support the Reich's occupation policies." And, certainly, the "good Germans" should not have been displacing Roma/Sinti, Poles, Jews, and other victims of the Nazis and lecturing them and their allies on the 'proper,' philo-Teutonic way to oppose the Nazis.

Frankly, there is something perverse about the prominence in the US Palestinian solidarity movement of so many people who hail from and identify with the oppressor group, especially when one considers that Jews comprise less than two percent of the US population. Do/should we allow male "allies" to so dominate the discourse on sexism? How about White "allies" controlling discussion of anti-Black racism? I know of only one historical parallel and that is the early American anti-slavery movement. Dominated by Whites, it was conservative, reformist rather than abolitionist, segregationist, and had no room in it for the likes of articulate former slaves such as Frederick Douglass or Sojourner Truth. Needless to say, it was largely counterproductive and racist, too.

The second problem is that their presence and prominence allow Jews to strongly influence the agenda and the parameters of 'acceptable' discourse. This often, but not always, means a focus on the occupation of 1967 but not the occupation of 1948, a reiteration of the narrative of Jewish victimhood and the crucial importance of combating 'anti-Semitism', support for the "two-state solution," and a blackout of the BDS campaign. This is understandable as we are all creatures of our own backgrounds and experiences but it is not excusable. To paraphrase Said: For a Jew working on Israel-Palestine there can be no disclaiming the main circumstances of her actuality: that she comes up against Palestine as a Jew first, as an individual second. And to be a Jew in such a situation is by no means an inert fact.

Let us now examine Invincible's lyrics. In the first verse she says:

museum of the holocaust
walkin outside- in the distance-saw a ghost throwing a Molotov
houses burnt with kerosene-mass graves-couldn't bare the scene
it wasn't a pogrom-it was the ruins of Deir Yassin

Prior to this she contrasts "a land without a people for people without a land?" with "But I see a man standing with a key and a deed in his hand". It is clear that she means to expose hypocrisy by contrasting Yad Vashem with the massacre at Deir Yassin but why is it that a pogrom is not a pogrom if it happens to Arabs? As a rapper, words are her medium. Can it be that she does not know that "pogrom," usually applied to attacks on Jews, can also refer to attacks on non-Jews? Even former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert referred to Jewish violence against Arabs as a "pogrom." And since when are rappers bound by linguistic convention? If that is the issue then why not smash that Judeo-centric convention and liberate the word? If that was Invincible's actual intent then it is by no means obvious.

And why is it that the 1933-1945 pogrom(s) detailed in Yad Vashem are implicitly bearable/'bareable'(?) but the pogrom of 1948 against Arabs in Deir Yassin is not? Is it because Jews were the perps just three years after the end of WW II? And as one of my Arab sisters pointed out "ghost throwing a Molotov" is obscure. Why is that? Who's throwing Molotov cocktails at whom? Is all this, as Edward Said put it in "Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims," some expression of discomfort with "treading upon the highly sensitive ground of what Jews did to their victims"?

Invincible begins the chorus with "my Ima misses people not places". Invincible's "Ima" (Hebrew for mother) is not unknown to me. Although her mother, Tamar, lives in the US now, she is a determined Israeli nationalist who does not shrink from interjecting her opinion at Palestinian solidarity events to support Israel and the "two-state solution" to permanently lock-in the violent theft by Jews of 78% of Palestine in 1947-48.

In an interview last Summer, Invincible said, "Recently my mom took a trip back home and her sister kicked her out of the house for protesting the Wall." But her mom is not above getting her own licks in. Just last month she chastised me for quoting Palestinians who dare to refer to "Israeli apartheid" and said that Palestinian calls for cultural and academic boycotts of Israel are "wrong." Further, Tamar, is a member of a Zionist synagogue that poses it's children with armed Israeli soldiers and supports a rabbi who gave a justification for torture from the bima.

So, Invincible's Ima seems pretty committed to Israel as a Jewish place even if she doesn't "miss" it. It is clear that Invincible does not let her mother's remark go unchallenged. As she (and Abeer) indicates, the places and the people cannot be so easily disconnected. But, perhaps, one lesson of this is that Invincible should consider focusing even more exclusively on challenging Zionism within the nerve center of Zionism–the Jewish community.

Certainly, as Israeli Jew, she potentially has entree to the Jewish community that few, if any, non-Jews, esp. Arabs, could hope to achieve. Anti-Zionist Jews can't expect gilded invitations from the Jewish mainstream but there are plenty of Jewish communal events to infiltrate and quietly subvert or to protest and disrupt. No doubt this, in part, explains her connection with the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network but the organization appears afflicted by many of the shortcomings discussed by Gilad Atzmon concerning a not dissimilar Jewish group (see Atzmon's "'NOT IN MY NAME'  An analysis of Jewish righteousness").

Invincible, again in the chorus, tells us "You'll never be a peaceful state with legal displacement." True enough but why not openly and forthrightly interrogate the very "legality" of this "displacement" when in fact all of it violated international law whatever Israeli law may say? "You'll never be a peaceful state with phony legal displacement" works, doesn't it? Also, the implication is that the state will be peaceful when the displacement ends but how realistic or desirable is it that "Israel" would continue to exist if Palestinians were allowed to return?

In the second verse, Invincible tells us:

This aint about a Quaran or a synagogue or Mosque or Torah
The colonizer break it into acres and dunums

This denial of religious motivations in invading and occupying Palestine comes just a few lines after Invincible acknowledges performing a profoundly religious act at one of the most important sites in Judaism:

At the wailing wall I’m rollin a wish
Then stick it in between the hole in the bricks

Although in recent decades Islam has become more prominent as an important ideology in organizing the resistance of Jewish occupations of Lebanon and Palestine (Hizbullah and Hamas were both founded in the 1980s), it is true that–on the part of Palestinians–the conflict in Palestine is not mainly about religion. In "Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims," Edward Said notes, "… Jewish colonizers in Palestine (well before World War I) always met with unmistakable native resistance, not because the natives thought that Jews were evil, but because most natives do not take kindly to having their territory settled by foreigners."

Conversely, the Zionist invasion and occupation of Palestine is very much "about" synagogue and Torah. "The colonizer" who broke it "into acres and dunums" was a Jewish colonizer on a self-consciously Jewish mission to suppress or remove non-Jews in order to build a Jewish country. As with the Molotov thrower discussed above, Invincible obscures the identity of the "colonizer"–the power of naming is foregone. This is a pattern Invincible repeats in the third verse:

200 year old Olive trees uprooted the groves
to build a wall now Their future enclosed

Who uprooted those groves? Who built that wall? Again, the power of naming is kept in check.

The 'secular Zionism' fairy tale is one that distracts folks from, as Ludwig von Mises put it, "the ideology that generates war"–in this case, Judaism. As noted elsewhere, in The Jewish State, Theodor Herzl, the key figure of modern political Zionism, claimed, "we [Jews] feel our historic affinity only through the faith of our fathers …" and the Jewish "Faith unites us." In The Origins of Zionism, David Vital writes "characteristically, on the day [in 1897] before the [first Zionist] Congress opened, a Saturday, Herzl attended the morning service at the local synagogue and was duly honoured by being called to the reading of the Law …" (p. 355). Also, Herzl described the reaction of his "only spiritual mentor and intimate confidant," the Chief Rabbi of Vienna, Moritz Guedemann, to Herzl's book, The Jewish State, as follows: "Guedemann has read the first proofs and writes me in rapture. He believes that the tract will strike like a bombshell, and work wonders."

And as the Chief Rabbi of Britain, Hermann Adler, said in a sermon published in the Jewish Chronicle in 1898: "Every believing and conforming Israelite must be Zionist …" Adler's successor, Hertz, gave a clear and strong religious imprimatur to the infamous Balfour Declaration before its issuance. After a visit to Palestine in 1925, Chief Rabbi Hertz affirmatively described Jewish colonization there as follows: "Religious zealots and fanatic free-thinkers alike rejoice in the redemption of the soil by Jewish labor, and look upon it as the holiest of human duties." In 1967, the immediate past Chief Rabbi of Britain, Immanuel Jakobovits, called "upon the Anglo-Jewish community to mobilise all its resources in the defence of Israel" which had just launched the Six-Day War. In 1977, Jakobovits wrote:

The origins of the Zionist idea are of course entirely religious. The slogan "The Bible is our mandate" is a credo hardly less insistently pleaded by many secularists than by religious believers as the principal basis of our legal and historical claim to the land of Israeli … Modern Political Zionism itself could never have taken root if it had not planted its seeds in soil ploughed and fertilised by the millennial conditioning of religous memories, hopes, prayers, and visions of our eventual return to Zion … No rabbinical authority disputes that our claim to a Divine Mandate (and we have no other which can not be invalidated) extends over the entire Holy Land within its historic borders and that halachically we have no right to surrender this claim.*

With reference to Jakobovits' "credo" above, in 1936, when asked about the basis for the Jewish claim to Palestine, Ben-Gurion told the British Peel Commission: "The Bible is our mandate." On the matter of Judaism and Zionism see also the 1942 statement declaring Zionism to be an "affirmation of Judaism" and signed by 757 Rabbis–"the largest number of rabbis whose signatures are attached to a public pronouncement in all Jewish history."

Returning Invincible's lyrics, am I the only one uncomfortable with Palestinians being likened to slow, passive marine mammals? Granted, it's not as bad as Israeli general and government minister Rafael Eitan likening Palestinians to "drugged cockroaches" (NY Times 11/24/2004) but, still, it is dehumanizing. From the third verse:

Disguising lies extincting lives like manatees
Callin it a transfer? Please-
More like a catastrophe!
Birthright tours recruiting em, confuse em into moving in

"confuse em into moving in"? Please. This comes across as another example of the victimizer cast as victim. Jewish victimhood of one form or another is a persistent theme and as Norman Finkelstein has observed:

… The Holocaust has proven to be an indispensable ideological weapon. Through its deployment, one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a "victim" state, and the most successful ethnic group in the United States has likewise acquired victim status. Considerable benefits accrue to this specious victimhood–in particular, immunity to criticism, however justified.

So, why is Invincible reinforcing one of Zionism's most potent weapons? The entire song is a narrative of a Birthright Israel trip. In notes, Invincible writes:

The song takes the listener on a journey through a haunted "birthright" tour where the buried Palestinian significance of each location comes to light. Along the route i expose the process of historic and continued colonization as being even deeper than land seizure and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, but one that is invested in erasing the Arabic language, culture, and memory.

Is Invincible or the (at least partly autobiographical) protagonist of the song the only Jew capable of seeing through Zionist propaganda? Is she the only one who can "superimpose the truth"? Do those Jews who emigrate to Israel have no responsibility for their choices, no duty to learn, see, and refuse to become colonizers and instruments of injustice? How can it be that they are just confused?

If the Birthright Zionists are portrayed as passive in "People Not Places," they are not the only ones. Except in one instance, i.e. "their grandkids is the ones that's throwing rocks at borders," Palestinians are merely passive victims, not a resisting people with their own sense of agency.

It's time to bring this to a close. Some will no doubt object to my critique above. It may be argued that Invincible has the support of some Palestinians such as Abeer, who performs on "People Not Places." I would point out that even Gone with the Wind had Black actors. It's not for me to judge Abeer or, for that matter, Butterfly McQueen or Hattie McDaniel but I think the comparison bears some consideration.

The Billy Jack movies of the 1970s–starring Tom Laughlin, a White man playing an American Indian–also come to mind. As Amanda J. Cobb (Chickasaw) observes in Hollywood's Indians, the films:

… say more about white Americans coming to terms with their feelings about the Vietnam conflict than they do about the lives, experiences, or feelings of actual Native American people. These images have contributed to the conceptualization of American Indians not as distinct nations of people or as distinct individuals or even, in fact, as people at all, but rather as a singular character or idea, "the Indian" - an idea that helps whites understand themselves through "play." … Using the idea of the Indian, especially in terms of "playing Indian," time and time again is an act of cultural appropriation - an act that threatens the continuance of Native cultures and Native sovereignty.

Summing up, in the first part of this post I examined how Jews and, in particular, Israeli Jews have appropriated or stolen Arab culture. With that background, I situated Invincible's performance of "People Not Places" in the context of Edward Said's work on Orientalism. In the second part I took a closer look at the lyrics of "People Not Places" and argued, implicitly, that they validate concerns about cultural appropriation and Orientalism. It is my hope that this article will prompt a larger discussion about Jewish representations of Jews, Palestinians, and the Israel-Palestine conflict and also about the dearth of Palestinian self-representations of their own lives and issues.

Note
* Except as otherwise noted, the source for the preceding three paragraphs is Immanuel Jakobovits, The Attitude to Zionism of Britain's Chief Rabbis as Reflected in Their Writings, (London: Jewish Historical Society of England, 1981).

Thanks to LH, H. Samuel, LN, Khawla, and Joseph for their pre-publication comments on this post.

Michelle J. Kinnucan's writing has previously appeared in CommonDreams.org, Critical Moment, Palestine Chronicle, Arab American News, Electronic Intifada, Palestine Think Tank and elsewhere. Her 2004 investigative report on the Global Intelligence Working Group was featured in Censored 2005: The Top 25 Censored Stories (Seven Stories Pr., 2004) and she contributed a chapter to Finding the Force of the Star Wars Franchise (Peter Lang, 2006). Click here for information on how to contact her.

Israeli strategists rely on game theory models to ensure the intended response to staged provocations and manipulated crises. With the use of game theory algorithms, those responses become predictable, even foreseeable—within an acceptable range of probabilities. The waging of war “by way of deception” is now a mathematical discipline.

Such “probabilistic” war planning enables Tel Aviv to deploy serial provocations and well-timed crises as a force multiplier to project Israeli influence worldwide. For a skilled agent provocateur, the target can be a person, a company, an economy, a legislature, a nation or an entire culture—such as Islam. With a well-modeled provocation, the anticipated reaction can even become a powerful weapon in the Israeli arsenal.

For instance, a skilled game theorist could foresee that, in response to a 911-type mass murder, “the mark” (the U.S.) would deploy its military to avenge that attack. With phony intelligence fixed around a preset goal, a game theory algorithm could anticipate that those forces might well be redirected to invade Iraq—not to avenge 911 but to pursue the expansionist goals of Greater Israel.

To provoke that invasion required the displacement of an inconvenient truth (Iraq played no role in 911) with what lawmakers and the public could be deceived to believe. The emotionally wrenching nature of that incident was essential in order to induce Americans to abandon rational analysis and to facilitate their reliance on false intelligence.

Americans were (predictably) provoked by that mass murder. The foreseeable reaction—shock, grief and outrage—made it easier for them to believe that an infamous Iraqi Evil Doer was to blame. The displacement of facts with beliefs lies at heart of how Israel, the world’s leading authority in game theory, induces other nations to wage their wars.

False but Plausible

To displace facts with credible fiction requires a period of “preparing the minds” so that the mark will believe a pre-staged storyline. Thus the essential role of a complicit media to promote: (a) a plausible present danger (Iraqi weapons of mass destruction), (b) a plausible villain (a former ally rebranded as an Evil Doer), and (c) a plausible post-Cold War threat to national security (The Clash of Civilizations and “Islamo-fascism”).

Reports from inside Israeli intelligence suggest that the war-planners who induced the 2003 invasion of Iraq began their psyops campaign no later than 1986 when an Israeli Mossad operation (Operation Trojan) made it appear that the Libyan leadership was transmitting terrorist directives from Tripoli to their embassies worldwide. Soon thereafter, two U.S. soldiers were killed by a terrorist attack in a Berlin discotheque. Ten days later, U.S., British and German aircraft dropped 60 tons of bombs on Libya.

The following is a senior Mossad operative’s assessment (published in 1994 in The Other Side of Deception) of that 1986 operation—five years before the Gulf War and 15 years before the murderous provocation that preceded the invasion of Iraq:

After the bombing of Libya, our friend Qadhafi is sure to stay out of the picture for some time. Iraq and Saddam Hussein are the next target. We’re starting now to build him up as the big villain. It will take some time, but in the end, there’s no doubt that it’ll work.

Could this account by former Mossad case officer Victor Ostrovsky be correct? If so, Tel Aviv’s Iraqi operation required more pre-staging than its relatively simple Libyan deception.

America the Mark

From a game theory perspective, what is the probability of a violent reaction in the Middle East after more than a half-century of serial Israeli provocations—in an environment where the U.S. is identified (correctly) as the Zionist state’s special friend and protector?

During the 1967 War, the Israeli killing of 34 Americans aboard the USS Liberty confirmed that a U.S. president (Democrat Lyndon Johnson) could be induced to condone murderous behavior by Israel. Two decades later, Operation Trojan confirmed that a U.S. president (Republican Ronald Reagan) could be induced to attack an Arab nation based on intelligence fixed by Israel.

For more than six decades, the U.S. has armed, financed, befriended and defended Zionism. This “special relationship” includes the U.S.-discrediting veto of dozens of U.N. resolutions critical of Israeli conduct. From a game theory perspective, how difficult was it to anticipate that—out of a worldwide population of 1.3 billion Muslims—19 Muslim men could be induced to perpetrate a murderous act in response to U.S support for Israel’s lengthy mistreatment of Arabs and Muslims, particularly Palestinians?

Israeli game theorists operate not from the Center for Morality or the Center for Justice but from the Center for Rationality. As modeled by Zionist war planners, game theory is devoid of all values except one: the ability to anticipate—within an acceptable range of probabilities—how “the mark” will react when provoked. Thus we see the force-multiplier potential for those who wage war with well-planned provocations and well-timed crises.

Israeli behavior is often immoral and unjust but that does not mean it is irrational. For Colonial Zionists committed to the pursuit of an expansionist agenda, even murderous provocations are rational because the response can be mathematically modeled, ensuring the results are reasonably foreseeable. That alone is sufficient for a people who, as God’s chosen, consider it their right to operate above the rule of law.

Jeff Gates is author of Guilt By Association, Democracy at Risk and The Ownership Solution. See www.criminalstate.com.

Palin Sidetracks Scrutiny of Obama's Communitarian Plan

Yes, President Obama is a socialist. He's a free trade communist. He's a free trade capitalist, too. He's Christian, he's Muslim, he cares about people and he has lots of hope. Obama is all of this, and much, much more. Obama knows that all opposing economic, religious and social theories were finally resolved in one perfect solution, called communitarianism.

"Fortunately, many, including many liberals, have come to view as mistaken a liberalism with such a strong principle of neutrality and avoidance of public discussion of the good. Some think the change a result of the critique provided by communitarianism; others see it as a clarification of basic liberal philosophy. Regardless, a refined view has emerged that begins to create an overlap between liberalism and communitarianism." http://defsi.typepad.com/deafening_silence/2009/08/under-the-skin-of-health-care-reform-dr-ezekiel-emanuel-in-his-own-words-pt-2.html

The communitarian theory of Community Rights is shared by every appointee in Obama's administration. From his Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske (who created the COMPASS database when he was a Grants Director at COPS) to his new Health care advisor (Zeke Emanuel, who advises we withhold medical care from citizens unable to "participate"), the Obama administration follows the Clinton and Bush leadership into merging the former United States under a global justice system rejecting US constitutional supremacy in favor of the supremacy of Communitarian Law.

"Emanuel's thesis adviser at Harvard was Prof. Michael Sandel, a noted communitarian who has argued that our political debates bracket gut-level values to our detriment. Emanuel writes in the tradition of a communaritan who believes that procedural liberalism — the reigning philosophy of government today — does not allow for priorities among health care services because it "cannot appeal to a conception of the good." Emanuel writes: "But without appealing to a conception of the good, it is argued, we can never establish priorities among health care services and define basic medical services." Emanuel sketches out a "civic Republicanism" telos — that is — our health care decisions as a society should be yoked to a system that "promote[s] the continuation of the polity-those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations-are to be socially guaranteed as basic." He notes that such a system would deny "services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens." " http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/08/the_death_panel.php

The "change" Obama promised to bring to America is entirely based in his expert, high level training in communitarian thinking. Communitarianism, like communism, socialism and capitalism, has a history and a philosophy that can be verified by a second grader. A simple google search for the word "communitarian" produces millions of returns. With more mainstream and credible sources describing the Obama administration as communitarian every day now, you'd think the Americans would be all over it and wanting to know more. Every day I do see a few more who are interested and studying it, but, (and especially since Palin jumped in) for the most part, Americans are not even considering it. They ignore it at their national peril.

This isn't the International Jewish Banker's theory or the Illuminati and Alien agendas, although many would hope that you think it is, just so that they can easily discount you and laugh at your racism, ignorance and gullibility. The Communitarian Philosophy is well documented in upper academia and insider news reports since 1990, it's the topic of numerous grad school programs and international legal seminars; it's just not often discussed in view of the "unwashed masses." They have a Communitarian Network at George Washington University in D.C. They have extremely well connected leaders and mentors, like Dr. Amitai Etzioni, MaryAnn Glendon and Dr. John McNight, as well as an entire active network of Community activists (including Michelle and Barack Obama). The Communitarian Network published a Platform, it's signed by real people (some of the names you may even recognize) and they've published thousands of documents about their agenda. Dr. Etzioni isn't called a "guru" and the "everything expert" because he wrote one or two unread, obscure books. His latest book, "Security First" is quoted as an expert source in daily Pentagon briefings (and I still think I should get daily Pentagon briefings too, since I am the one who alerted a Pentagon intelligence analyst to Etzioni's Palmach terrorist ties to the Israeli Defense Force. As of June 2008, Etzioni was not even in the US Army's database of known international terrorists operating inside the USA!).

It should come as no surprise that the Communitarian Update #36 begins thus:

"The first ever workshop on bioethics from a communitarian perspective will take place at George Washington University on 6/5/2001. Papers by Ezekiel Emmanuel (A Communitarian Perspective on Research), Mark Kuczewski (Organ Donation and the Common Good), Leonard Fleck (A Communitarian Perspective on Health Resource Allocation), and Eric Meslin (Human Cloning). Participation is by invitation only. Send nominations to Joanna Cohn at comnet@gwu.edu with "bioethics" in the subject line." http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/communitarian_update_n36.html

In Europe, the terms for communitarian legal supremacy over national courts and political systems exists in thousands of EU documents, national integration departmental procedures and established free trade (WTO) case law. To say there is no evidence for communitarianism or that the theory is benign or ineffective is a lie of epic proportions. The reason the Anti Communitarian League website grew to become such a huge research site is because there's more evidence for communitarianism than one person has time to gather in one lifetime. How much longer can it remain so neglected and unimportant? How many communitarian accompanying laws must be passed before the American people are allowed to examine the principles it upholds?

Obama's communitarian mentors came to the USA from the 1850s to the 1990s to "shore up the moral, social and political environment." They continue to come here from the UK, Europe, Israel, the Soviet Union, the Vatican, the City of London, Brussels, the Hague and Communist China, advising US officials to make significant illegal changes to our political system. Communitarians open doors formerly locked and guarded by We the People under state and federal constitutional law. They help formerly free state citizens to advance harmoniously into a new specific idea of responsible global citizenship (aka slavery). They guide our leaders to foster interdepartmentalized privacy and property invasions. They advise our elected officials which people should be allowed to live, and ominously predict which people need to die for the "good of the community."

"Emanuel, however, believes that "communitarianism" should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. '96). " (Betsy McCaughey, founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and a former New York lieutenant governor writing in "Deadly Doctors" about Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Obama's health policy advisor and brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel)

An ever changing target is difficult to identify or to launch an counter-attack against. That's why adept communitarians continuously shift their focus and hide their true ideology behind whatever ideology upsets you the most. When the American "right" accuses Obama of being a socialist or a communist, they play directly into the "capitalist-libertarian versus socialist" debate. The final outcome of the debate is not allowed into the debate itself. The left owns an ample arsenal of dis missives (red-baiting, McCarthyist, etc.) that keeps the controlled "right" exactly where the communitarians need them — stuck in the outdated (and over) capitalist v communist divide. For example, Sarah Palin's right wing introduction of leftist communitarian policing to her hometown of Wassilla was never an issue in the last presidential campaign. Palin's recent facebook attack on Emanuel may be designed to take the focus OFF communitarianism (http://neveryetmelted.com/2009/08/16/dowd-palin-strafing-ezekiel-emanuel/ ). Here's a place where the 103 comments show where the attention's been diverted to: http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/08/dr-death-panel-ezekial-emanuel-lashes.html .

The true nature of the current debate cannot be exposed to the average American, as it appears close to 91% will be most likely to object to eliminating the US Constitution in favor of Communitarian Values (see ACL homepage poll: http://nord.twu.net/acl ).

As for Obama's new advisor on health care,

"His views aren’t limited to this one [the Lancet ] article. In 1996, he wrote a short article for the Hastings Center, in which he expounded upon the role that communitarianism might play in healthcare. Dr Emanuel’s bio-ethical views are heavily fueled by adherence to this philosophy of communitarianism. Briefly put, communitarianism is a fairly new political philosophy that emphasizes the role of the community in defining and shaping individuals. Communitarianism focuses on the need to balance individual rights and interests with that of the community as a whole, and that individual people (or citizens) are shaped by the cultures and values of their communities." http://www.politicalevidence.com/2009/08/obamas-ration-man-ezekiel-emanuel.html

What happens when Americans are actually introduced to the term communitarianism, and why is is always placed inside special quotes?

"Finally (really), because this is a blog about discrimination, I need to relate Dr.Emanuel’s health care “communitarianism,” i.e., his subordination of individual rights to the needs of the community, to the “communitarianism” that is at the root of much racial preference theory. Mickey Kaus noted, in the first of his posts linked above, that civic republican communitarianism is a version of modern liberalism popularized (to a degree) by the Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel. As some of you with long memories may recall, we have encountered Sandel and his theory here a couple of times, way back in 2003, in discussing how preferentialists have abandoned individual rights in favor of group rights (discriminating against individual whites and Asians isn’t discrimination because whites and Asians as a group suffer no undue hardship)" http://www.aarp.org/community/groups/displayTopic.bt?pageNum=1&groupId=1162&topicId=3474092

There's no doubt what-so-ever that Obama's (and Hillary's) National Health Care program is based entirely in communitarian principles. Nobody's ever explained it better than the writers for the natural health site Mercola.com did almost five years ago:

"A communitarian ethic increasingly governs health care in the U.S. It places a greater value on the health of the community, on society as a whole, than on the health of particular individuals. Public health officials have put together a vaccination schedule designed to eliminate infectious diseases to which the population is prey.

"Officials recognize that these vaccines will harm a small percentage of (genetically susceptible) individuals, but it is for the common good. The communitarian code posits that it is morally acceptable, if necessary, to sacrifice a few for the good of the many. Or as one observer more bluntly puts it, "Individual sheep can be sheared and slaughtered if it is for the welfare of their flock." This information is provided by Mercola.com, the world's most visited and trusted natural health website.

Communitarianism, by Obama's mentor's definition, is supposed to be the final synthesis of all conflicting political, racial, and religious ideologies. It's based entirely on Georg Hegel's interpretation of "God's Idea." Hegel said men will only be free when they make themselves total slaves to the state. He also said only a very enlightened few can comprehend how this works out for mankind. Hegelians helped force the world into social evolution by promoting violent conflicts between opposites. Now they brilliantly offer us their preplanned and more "moral" solutions to their own staged conflicts. The real conflict, the one between us and them, has barely surfaced as a possibly yet. That's the one they know they'd lose.

The only thing the communitarians have not been prepared to debate is an anticommunitarian argument. Since they claim their final synthesis is so perfect it gives rise to no antithesis, they can never acknowledge the existence of any credible counter-theory, no matter how well presented it is or how well backed up it is with published documents. All American colleges teach communitarian programs and policy, but most are savy enough to disguise it with vague terms like sustainable community development and rebuilding faith-based communities. On the rare occassion that our anti thesis is introduced to a class as an assignment or under "further reading," the result is always the same — dead silence.

When a communitarian uses the word "community" in a public program, they're quietly imposing Community Rights on unsuspecting people holding legal claim to the protection of their natural born Individual Rights. The term "community" can be used to define anything from the global merchant community to the local community's Neighborhood Watch program. The emerging global communitarian system is a data driven experiment in micro-managing all aspects of human life. It's no accident that the US Census expanded into the invasive American Community Survey, just as it's not an accident that rural college programs like the Natural Resources and Community Development Program offered by the University of Alaska, Fairbanks primarily teaches "Workshops using GPS for navigation and mapping." How can they make us all "participate" if they don't know who we are, where we live and how many guns we own?

Communitarianism is the global change ideology of the 21st century. It's the foundation for global COPS, US-UK peacekeeping invasions and UN-NATO wars of liberation. It's the purpose for intrusive international efforts to achieve sustainable community development. It's the foundation for the European Union (and CAFTA/NAU/SPP/Wildlife & Trade Corridors, et.al.) and the primary reason for the failure of the Lisbon Treaty. Considering the recent anticommunitarian developments in Germany, Ireland, Portugul and the Czech Republic, now might be a very good time for Americans to get up to speed on Obama's real agenda and join their allies in what's left of the free thinking world.

"In essence, the court has ruled that by passing the so-called "accompanying law" to the Lisbon Treaty, which determines the rights of the German parliament to participate in European legislation, Germany had relinquished significant monitoring rights to the "Brussels EU". According to the judges, this unconstitutionally subjects the German people to the whims of a bureaucracy that lacks sufficient democratic legitimacy." (www.eu-facts.org )

The EU constitution and the Lisbon Treaty are being soundly rejected by the voters and judges (?!?!?) in several European countries. Nothing bothers the communitarian promoters of global peace and democracy more than people's insistance on peaceful, fully informed democratic voting. The Responsive Communitarians feel they have zero obligation to respond to legitimate questions and requests for their insider planning documents. If the communitarians have their way, Americans in the US will never get the chance to vote on communitarian integration. Obama and the fully committed communitarian US Congress will just slip it down our throats like we're all special guests at Jim Jones' cocktail party.

Their superior community morality knows no limits and has no organized opposition in the USA. The communitarians don't even worry about public scrutiny… the left v right divide works wonders at keeping people confused and way off target. How did the American press miss the fact that Obama appointed a communitarian to the US Supreme Court (Sonia Sotomayor)?

"Anyone who, without preconception, examines the life of Norman Thomas emerges with the sense of a deeply moral and morally subtle man who called himself a Socialist – even while he was repudiated by myriad Socialists – because he believed that a communitarian philosophy is truer to democracy than the everyone-for-himself libertarianism that represents the opposite pole in American politics." ("So, Who the Hell is Norman Thomas?")

Today I think anyone who still calls communitarianism a conspiracy theory or too difficult to pronounce or understand is purposefully diverting your attention from the only thing you may need to know about Obama. If you understand communitarianism, you understand it all. If you know just a piece of it, like the communist piece or the socialist agenda, you may not be able to see how capitalism and libertarianism play a role to further the overall communitarian agenda. Each "side" had a role in the final solution, so yes, they must all be studied and understood. But why stop midway in the dialectical drama? We're already into the final act where everything balances into one perfect theory of achieving world peace and harmony.

Etzioni assumed that once Obama won the presidency, all Americans would learn the actual terms for the new American system of injustice. Apparently Americans still need be kept in the dark regarding the purpose and objectives of the Obama administration. References to communitarianism continue to be short and appear benignly insignificant. It's so not. As Marc Ambender at the Atlantic assures us,

"Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich aren't debating the moral philosophy of John Rawls, whose formulations Emanuel borrows." (Zeke Emanuel, The Death Panels, And Illogic In Politics)

There's a very short window of opportunity being presented on the global stage.. who will speak for the Americans before the final curtain falls? The Irish? One can only hope.

Stop Communitarian Laws. The country you save may be your own.

Further reading:

Volume 10, Number 4, December 2000
E-ISSN: 1086-3249 Print ISSN: 1054-6863
DOI: 10.1353/ken.2000.0025
Gauthier, Candace Cummins.
Moral Responsibility and Respect for Autonomy: Meeting the Communitarian Challenge
Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal – Volume 10, Number 4, December 2000, pp. 337-352
The Johns Hopkins University Press

"The principle of respect for autonomy has come under increasing attack both within health care ethics, specifically, and as part of the more general communitarian challenge to predominantly liberal values. This paper will demonstrate the importance of respect for autonomy for the social practice of assigning moral responsibility and for the development of moral responsibility as a virtue. Guided by this virtue, the responsible exercise of autonomy may provide a much-needed connection between the individual and the community."

About — Niki Raapana is the co-founder of the Anti Communitarian League, http://nord.twu.net/acl, a tiny, unfunded private research tentsitute that studies communitarianism from a commoner's perspective. Her blog is Living Outside the Dialectic, and with her email box so spammed by right and left wing propagandists lately, she now prefers all online comments about her articles be presented there. Niki is also the author of "2020: Our Common Destiny" (an introduction to communitarian law and the corresponding global political system) and co-author of "The Anti Communitarian Manifesto," presented in 2 parts, "Part One: What is the Hegelian Dialectic?" and "Part Two: The Historical Evolution of Communitarian Thinking."
SOURCE: http://nikiraapana.blogspot.com/

Yes, the good ones are going into combat

By Moshe Tur-Paz

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1106972.html
Richard Cohen, a columnist for The Washington Post, recently wrote about how proud his graduating class from a school in Queens, New York was of three of its students who went on to win Nobel Prizes, another who became a renowned psychologist and yet another who was a trailblazing women's basketball player." That is how Gideon Levy describes his vision for school achievement in Israel ("Kfir wants you?" – August 10). He contrasts his vision with the fact that Yedioth Aharonoth actually paid tribute to the schools that came in first in the "combat unit and draft evasion index."

The school at which I am principal, Shaked-Sde Eliyahu, is a regional religious school in the Emek Hama'ayanot area near Beit She'an. The school came in first in the "combat unit competition," with 87 percent of its graduates serving in combat units, commando units and volunteer units for soldiers lacking combat qualifications.

I am not ashamed of this achievement. On the contrary, I am proud of it. My school has a success rate of more than 70 percent on the matriculation exams. It has a rich curriculum, varied and creative course offerings, and a broad range of Jewish studies. Most of its graduates, especially students from the religious kibbutz movement, complete a year of community service before serving their full army service or alternative national service.

Richard Cohen is a good Jew who has chosen not to live in Israel. He can write his column in his safe haven. Meanwhile, the graduates of the Shaked School, the Hispin yeshiva and the Sulam Tzur comprehensive school from my area will lay in wait on ambush duty, serve at roadblocks and endanger their lives in all those activities that Gideon Levy so abhors. Service in the Israel Defense Forces is a necessity very much connected to education.

Service in a combat unit isn't just an existential need of the State of Israel. It is also an expression of friendship, love of the land, ambition, leadership, physical and mental stamina and an awareness of collective duty. The Education Ministry should develop, encourage and reward the teaching of values in schools. Values education includes volunteerism, compassion, tolerance of the other, development of humanitarian values and creativity as well as contributing to the state even if it means risking one's life.

Israelis are entitled to know the matriculation rates at their children's schools, but that's not enough. They are also entitled to know about the values taught at these schools. I, too, am very concerned about the results of the army survey. I am concerned that the top 10 schools with graduates in combat units (five religious and five secular) all belong to the rural education school network. I am concerned that the large cities (especially those between Hadera and Gedera) are underrepresented on the list. I am concerned that the things that have been said about the contribution of the "State of Tel Aviv" to the defense of the state could turn out to be correct.

Last Shabbat, soldiers from the army's Nativ course, most of whom are about to be converted to Judaism, were hosted by families on my kibbutz, Tirat Zvi. This week a new group of immigrants whose parents had left Israel joined the kibbutz. And two weeks ago, my kibbutz hosted children from Ilan, the organization for disabled children, for an enrichment summer camp. For many years now, the religious kibbutz movement has taken a leading role in volunteering and community service.

The Education Ministry would do well to continue to encourage and develop values education. Parents and schools would do well to examine educational outcomes from a value and societal standpoint, including enlistment in the IDF. The graduates of "Kochav Nolad" (the Israeli version of "American Idol"), will apparently fight for their right to the recognition and success Cohen has achieved. To our regret, we will have to lean on our sword for many more years and rely on our graduates, who are fighting for the state's existence.

The writer is the principal of the Shaked School at Sde Eliyahu, whose graduates were ranked first by the IDF and Education Ministry according to participation in combat units.

Here is the text from the site, which omits translating into English some of the text (about the most moral army in particular). See the video to see (badly) subtitled text.
רוצים גם אתם להפיץ את הבשורה? שלחו את המילה טיל ל 5000 וקבלו את הטרוטון של Xplain היישר למכשיר הסלולרי שלכם!

I wake up in the morning and suddenly fall on me TIL
How would you feel if someone throws on you TIL
לא בשביל זה בנינו בית יהודי

The children theysit in M.M.D
We cant go to MAKOLET, we cant go to school
But you don't understand because you live LACHEM BECHUL
How would you feel if in Paris they throw on you TIL
You ask for croissant but instead they throw on you TIL
Our army is הכי מוסרי בעולם
או לפחות בין החמישה המוסריים מכולם
טוב אולי אפשר לסגור
על הכי מוסרי באזור

They throw on us TILIM, we come with METOSIM
But remember who started shooting on EZRACHIM
How do you feel if in London they shoot on EZRACHIM
You want LASHUT in the TEMZA but instead they shoot on EZRACHIM 

If you ask why we fight
we say
They started
If you ask why we bomb
we say
They started
If you ask what we want
we say
…..

It's so hard when there is TZEVA ADOM
We have to לארח תושבות מהדרום
They walk naked in the house, they are so MISKENOT
Because גראד פגע להן בחדר ארונות

You support us or we take Benayun from Liverpool
And we tell Noa Tishbi to take back BETIPUL
We take Bar Refaeli, נשאיר את ליאו בלי כלום
Lets see (Leo Di Caprio) him dating with Um Kultum
How do you feel if Leo was dating Um Kultum
And in "Sports Illustrated" instead of Bar there's Um Kultum

Look on us
Look on them
מי יותר דומה לכם
We have McDonalds
תיכף H&M
אפילו סודוך לא הגיע אליהם
אם לא תהיו בעדינו, לא תהיה ברירה
נזכיר לכם מה פעם באירופה קרה.
(הדי ג'יי: ) "שריפה אחים שריפה"….
נראה לי שהנקודה ברורה

Now you know how it feels if someone throws on you TIL
I hope they know how it feels if someone throws on you TIL
Support us, Hate them!
X-Plain!

מילים: אסף שלמון, אסף גפן, אילן שפלר
לחן: דודוש קלמס, גל תורן

http://www.mako.co.il/tv-erez-nehederet/fd82c9a2478a8110/Article-f85dd0df440de11004.htm

WRITTEN BY Iqbal Jassat – Pretoria

The current standoff between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the issue of 'settlements' has raised the prospect of defining a new chapter in US/Israel relations.

Media reports suggest that since Obama’s administration took office a new sense of optimism prevails regarding a “peace deal” between the Zionist state and the Occupied Palestinians.

Yet, many skeptics have justifiably raised the question about whether America’s first black president is the harbinger of real relief for Palestinian quest for freedom or merely an excuse for a new false dawn.

Their skepticism arises from the fact that Obama has either failed to recognize the inherent deception in the “Oslo Accords” of the 1990s or is willing to pursue a phantom process. By remaining stuck to the concept of a “peace process” without any hint of a major departure from Israel’s recurrent ruses seems to indicate that the Zionist enterprise remains free to write it’s own script.

After all, in 1995, one of the so-called “architects of peace”, Shimon Peres, reassured the Israeli public: “The deal kept the following in Israeli hands: 73 per cent of the lands of the [occupied] territories, 97 per cent of the security, and 80 per cent of the water.”

Commenting on this, John Pilger said that many Palestinians understood this and suspected the collusion of Yasser Arafat and his elite, who would receive unaccountable petrodollars from the Gulf States and at least $100 million from the US for a “security” apparatus that had all the trappings of a pampered palace guard that also acted on Israel’s behalf.

What’s changed between then and now? Faces. And hardly much else, except Israel’s bloodied nose in the Gaza where in violation of all norms, values and the provisions of International Laws, its military machine caused massive devastation but failed to dislodge Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas occupies Arafat’s chair, and despite lacking legitimacy, remains tied to the current rightwing Netanyahu government’s “security” apparatus and on America’s payroll.

Obama’s showdown with Israel centres on his demand for a complete freeze of settlement activity. The defiance displayed by Netanyahu with its attendant arrogance appears to signal to America and the rest of the world that Israel remains adamant in continuing its oppressive control of Palestine.

Dispatching his emissary George Mitchell to the region, which is tantamount to playing an unending game of political “yo-yo” between Abbas and Netanyahu, Obama has yet to flex his muscles. Short of placing the Israelis on terms, Obama will face similar conundrums encountered by his predecessors, albeit that his inclination to secure “peace” may contain elements of determination rarely seen in American politics.

A crucial defect in Obama’s diplomacy is reflected in his foolish practice of continuing the Bush administration policy of isolating Hamas as a “terrorist” movement. Limiting Mitchell’s travels to Jerusalem and Ramallah without extending it to Gaza; retaining the terror listing and consequent criminalization of Hamas; and propping up Abbas reveal that Obama’s “peace” efforts will not advance beyond Israeli dictates.

John Steinbach warned of this syndrome during the Clinton era, when he described Ariel Sharon’s policy known as the “Matrix of Control” and how Clinton’s pursuance of the “peace process” provided perfect cover to implement it.

The “Matrix of Control” policy formulated by Sharon in 1977, called for the establishment of strategic hilltop settlements throughout the West Bank, to be connected by ‘bypassing roads’ and reserved for the exclusive use of settlers and the Israeli army.

According to Steinbach, the “Matrix of Control was the tail that wagged the entire Clinton ‘peace process’. It brought Israel seven years of feverish settlement activity [the number of settlers more than doubled during the years of the ‘peace process’] and enabled the construction of a web of Israeli army forts and twenty-nine highways, on which Palestinians were banned, funded by the Clinton administration.”

It will remain a huge tragedy if the Obama administration remains blinded to its own complicity in Palestinian suffering while chasing shadows in pursuit of a “peace process” whose architects are the perpetrators of colossal crimes.

- Iqbal Jassat is chairperson of the Media Review Network (MRN), an advocacy group based in Pretoria, South Africa.

source: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15312
or
http://obamboozled.blogspot.com/2009/07/us-israel-relations-new-horizons-or.html