With Fairfax getting sorrier by the day and the Murdoch press up to its usual tricks, I imagine that many news and commentary addicts are falling back on Guardian Australia for their daily fix. But what are they really getting, especially by way of commentary, on Palestine?
Slim pickings, if their last 3 opinion pieces are any indication.
As anyone who follows this site will be aware, I believe that 'getting' Palestine is the litmus test for intellectual and moral courage in our time. Sadly, GA, in its response to the latest Israeli bloodletting in Gaza, fails this test. Here's why:
1) "I understand and feel the suffering of the Israelis who have lost loved ones and are forced to live in fear... Palestinians and Israelis have been angry for a long time but...it has brought death and injustice to ourselves and others... The hope and future safety and freedom of Israel are linked to the security, safety, freedom and future of Palestinians. We are like conjoined twins and any harm induced [?] to one will impact the other. The courageous thing for both sides is to embrace the dignity, grace and strength of the other." (As a father who lost his children in Gaza, I call for an end to this bloodshed, Izzeldin Abuelaish, 18/7/14)
This is truly contemptible stuff. It peddles the nonsensical idea that there is no difference whatever between occupiers and occupied, oppressors and oppressed, colonisers and colonised, ethnic cleansers and their victims. It omits, on the one hand, any mention of Zionist colonisation and apartheid, and, on the other, the legitimate and heroic struggle of generations of Palestinian freedom fighters for fundamental human and political rights. And what is one expected to make of this Palestinian Uncle Tom's talk of his people's need to "embrace the dignity, grace and strength" of the Israelis? Truly obscene.
2) "The moral corruption that comes with any occupation has fused with the collective trauma of the Jewish people. Angela Godfrey-Goldstein is a peace activist in Israel: she tells me that Israel's mentality 'is very easy to understand in a way where people were traumatised over centuries. It bred a sense that people owe us, of 'who are you to tell us what to do?'... The Jewish people faced persecution for milleniums... The all too recent memory of the gas chambers encourages the sense that Israel can never be too strong, and that its people can never be oppressors". (How the occupation of Gaza corrupts the occupier: It's tempting, but futile, to demonise Israelis. To achieve peace, we have to understand the rationales behind the latest offensive, Owen Jones, 21/7/14)
Presenting this kind of nonsense, without challenge, as some kind of mitigating factor in the Zionist long march (1917-?) to wipe Palestine off the map is quite inexcusable. Zionist designs on a Palestine without Palestinians were hatched long before the Nazi genocide, and psychobabble about collective, inter-generational trauma supposedly driving today's Israeli perpetrators merely serves to shift the focus away from the settler-colonial roots of this conflict and the very real trauma of dispossession which the Palestinians have been subjected to now for almost a century. There are no excuses for what we are witnessing today in Gaza. None. (I should add, in Owen Jones' favour, that he deserves to be complimented on his generally critical stance toward Israeli brutality and intransigence. Consider this piece, therefore, an unfortunate lapse.)
3) "How many pictures of dead children do you need to see before you understand that killing children is wrong? [Killing adults, well...] I ask because social media is awash with the blood of innocents. Twitter is full of photos of the murdered children of Gaza... Those who want to say something about the atrocities in the Middle East may indeed be genuinely distraught... They may feel that pictures of the broken bodies of infants trump all talk of the immensely long, complicated nature of the conflict... Binyamin Netanyahu speaks of Hamas actively wanting to 'the telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause'... Pictures of Israelis watching the destruction of Gaza as if it were a fireworks party do the rounds. Again with no context. This was Sderot where children don't play outside but in shelters." (Sharing pictures of corpses on social media isn't the way to bring a ceasefire, Suzanne Moore, 21/7/14)
Eewwww! They're sooo yucky. Take them away! The agony of Palestine has been with us now for almost 100 years but this bovine with bad hair just wants it out of sight and out of mind. Quoting Bibi the butcher's loathsome soundbyte approvingly, and suggesting that the colonial-settler ghouls on the hill outside Sderot, cheering on the slaughter in the Gaza coliseum below, have an equal case tells you all you need to know about Moore. Let me just add this: On 20/7/14 she tweeted: "Cannot stomach anymore Israel/Palestine pieces from people who have not been there and just pumping out simplistic dogma." You want simplistic dogma? Cop this: "At the Erez Crossing we had a picnic and were told of the baddies. Hamas. They are indeed baddies, who do not recognise the existence of Israel..." (Suzanne Moore, Yes, Israel has a right to exist. But so did those blood-soaked Palestinian toddlers on the mortuary slab, The Daily Mail, 11/1/09)
Apart from their content, what really annoys me about these 3 pieces is that they've each occupied a media space that could have gone to weightier and more insightful analyses of the issue.
And another thing: two of the three writers are British. Neither, though, displays any awareness of Britain's historical role in the launching and consolidation of the Zionist colonial project and Britain's concomitant betrayal of the Palestinian people's right to self-determination. Nor, I'd wager, is either aware of the key role of C.P. Scott (editor of the Manchester Guardian - as it was then known - from 1905 to 1929) in introducing the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann to Lord Balfour and Lloyd George, a fateful conclave if ever there was one, and one which led to the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which paved the way for all that has befallen the Palestinian people, including the carnage we are witnessing today in Gaza. (See my 2/1/12 post The Language Spotter.)
Showing posts with label Abuelaish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abuelaish. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Saturday, May 28, 2011
The Right Stuff
Having already written about the Kafkaesque plight of the Rahavan family in my 23/11/10 post Behind the ASIO Assessment, I was reminded of them again by a report in yesterday's Australian, which revealed just how much it was costing the Australian taxpayer to 'protect' us from them:
"They are Australia's most expensive refugees. The Rahavans, a Sri Lankan family of 5, most of whom journeyed to Australia on the ill-fated Oceanic Viking, were until recently costing the Australian taxpayers a staggering $428,861 every 3 months in security bills. Yogachandran Rahavan and his wife, Sumathi, were declared security threats by ASIO 18 months ago over alleged links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or Tamil Tigers... The family had all been found to be genuine refugees, meaning Australia was prevented by law from deporting them to Sri Lanka. But their negative security assessment means they can never be given visas, either, potentially consigning them to a life of perpetual detention. Because of ASIO's concern, guards were assigned to live with the family 24 hours a day. For 9 months they had to maintain their dignity as a family with 2 guards in their house at all times... The Immigration Department said that between November 2010 and February 2011 the cost of placing 'static guards' inside the Rahavan's family compound had run to $428,861. That adds up to about $1.14 million in the 8 months the security remained in place." (Million-dollar refugee family caught in perpetual detention, Paul Maley, 27/5/11)
We know virtually nothing of the heinousness of the Rahavan's 'crimes', all evidence of which is kept strictly under wraps by ASIO. What we do know, however, is shocking in the extreme: "Sumathi had worked as a legal officer in the LTTE-run court system in Sri Lanka's north... [but] it is not known what Sumathi's husband, who came to Australia ahead of his family on a separate boat is alleged to have done." (ibid) OK, I did warn you!
Why revisit this bizarre story from Australia's Gulag then? Well, I'd read the following tale the day before and it got me thinking, a dreadful curse I know:
"Variously described as publicity-shy, secretive, even mysterious, Ivan Glasenberg's most prized asset had been his closely guarded privacy. But that came to an end with his dramatic emergence as Australia's second-richest person on the BRW Rich List, worth an estimated $8.8 billion. Before yesterday, few knew the powerful South African-born businessman was an Australian citizen. The decision to partially float the world's largest commodity trader, Glencore, where Mr Glasenberg is chief executive, has made instant millionaires of 485 senior employees - and catapulted the company's boss into the limelight." (Mysterious financier blitzes the rich list, Philip Wen, Sydney Morning Herald, 26/5/11)
You see, it was Ivan Glasenberg's story, and that of the Rahavan family, that led me to ponder the weighty subject of just who is worthy, and who is not, to enter our little South Pacific paradise, who's in and who's out in Godzone country, so to speak.
Well, obviously the Rahavans are a bit of a worry: that Sumathi, for example, working in the Tiger-infested jungles, sorry, Tiger-administered courts of Tamil Eelam. Now if only she'd made a beeline for Colombo, thrown herself on the mercy of the Rajapaksa bruvvers, denounced the Tigers and all their works, and declared her intention of going public with a heart-rending story of forgiveness and peace in the strife-torn island of Sri Lanka, maybe even penning a little number called I Shall Not Hate, containing maybe a photo of her good self cosying up to the Rajapaksas, and even - why not? - eventually turning up at the Sydney Writers Festival like our good friend Abuelaish... Of course, she'd probably have been raped and thrown into a dungeon somewhere along the way, if not just shot out of hand, but hey, wouldn't that (every cloud having a silver lining, as they say) have saved the Australian taxpayer a pretty penny!
But I digress. You can play what ifs? till the proverbial cows come home - the plain fact of the matter is she's brown!
But Ivan - sorry, our Ivan - what a catch! Yes, yes, he's white, but hey, that's just the beginning. The man's a legend. I mean, who in his right mind would not want Ivan to call Australia home? Among his many assets I need mention but the following:
There's his focus on the things that really matter:
"Glasenberg... became intrigued with commodities trading when studying accountancy in South Africa... 'I observed a man sourcing candle wax from South America and selling it to Japan. I thought, 'That's unbelievable. Talking on the phone in his office, that man made money moving candle wax from one country to another'. It really interested me." (Newsmaker-Ivan Glasenberg's long walk to Glencore billions, Webb & Onstad, Reuters/ my.news.yahoo.com, 5/5/11)
There's his (slag) heaps and heaps and heaps of good work all over the planet:
"News that the London Stock Exchange is on the verge of a mammoth flotation didn't spread quite as far as the Zambian mining village of Mufilira. Even if it had, it's unlikely the villagers there would have seen much cause for celebration. While the rich seams of copper that lie deep in the ground beneath Mulifira have helped to make Swiss-based Glencore the largest and wealthiest commodities trader in the world, the African villagers are still struggling to get by on just a few dollars a day. This is barely enough even to feed their families, let alone pay for the medicine they need to treat the illnesses caused by the dangerous levels of pollution spewed out by Glencore-controlled mines... In Zambia alone, Glencore is accused of manipulating its financial accounts in order to reduce its tax bill, deliberately depriving that poverty-stricken nation of much-needed income. Indeed, the foul-smelling sulphur clouds that hang low over Mulifira are not the only thing about this obsessively secret company leaving a bitter taste in the mouth. The truth is that until now, most people would not have heard of Glencore - it's only as a result of the proposed flotation that questions about its practices are being asked... Its empire stretches from the jungles of Colombia to the plains of Australia. It makes its money from metals, minerals, oil, sugar, grain - commodities that form the very building blocks of world trade. And, armed with the best possible knowledge of global events, its traders buy these at the lowest possible price and sell at the highest possible mark-up." (Flotation to shine light on shadowy Glencore, Sunderland & Davies, thisismoney.co.uk, 4/5/11)
There's his sterling commercial pedigree:
"... Glencore grew out of the business empire of a man cited in the biggest tax fraud indictment in history. American oil trader Marc Rich, who founded the company - originally named Marc Rich & Co - in 1974, arrived in the US as a small boy with his parents in 1941, having fled from the Nazis in Belgium. At the peak of his powers, he dominated the global oil market. He traded with African dictators, Cuban communists and, most notoriously with Iran during the embargo on that country imposed by America during the 1979-1981 hostage crisis. He is also said to have financed operations by Mossad... former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit said Rich helped with the intelligence agency's work in Yemen and Sudan in the Eighties, when Israel was evacuating Jews from those countries. His support for Israel, however, did not prevent him also doing deals with Islamic fundamentalists bent on the destruction of the Jewish state. And he also made a 1.2 billion pound profit selling oil to South Africa during the apartheid years, contrary to an international trade embargo. In 1983, he was charged by lawyer and future New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani with 51 crimes, including evading at least 29m pounds in taxes, racketeering, conspiracy and trading with the enemy, Iran. Rich fled to Switzerland, from where he evaded various attempts by the US authorities to seize him. In 1994, he sold his business empire, handing control to his long-time German associate, Willy Strothotte, who reinvented it as Glencore. Rich was eventually pardoned in 2001 by President Clinton after lobbying by his former wife, a songwriter who has penned hits for such stars as Celine Dion. Today, Glencore may have eliminated all trace of Rich from its website, but his ghost haunts the company. Traders who worked with Rich remain steeped in his philosophy of cut-throat negotiation over prices - operating in a murky world, albeit on the right side of the law." (ibid)
Ivan, of course, has unerringly followed the path of the master:
"During Saddam's rule in Iraq, and the UN sanctions which accompanied its final years, Glencore made handsome profits marketing embargoed oil. In February 2001, Glencore bought 1 million barrels of Iraqi crude oil destined for the US and diverted the black gold to Croatia, where it was sold for a premium of $3 million, according to a UN Security council report." (Glencore: Profiteering from hunger & chaos, Chris Arsenault, english.aljazeera.net, 9/5/11)
But, best of all he's a sportsman. And... and... I can hardly contain myself at this icing on the cake, he's also an... Israeli citizen and so practically one of us already!:
"A 54-year-old champion race-walker for both South Africa and Israel (he has dual nationality), Glasenberg runs and swims every day to maintain his lean physique. Selected colleagues accompany him on his early-morning jogs - some say under sufferance - to display their loyalty to the workaholic Glencore 'cult'." (Sunderland & Davies)
We are indeed a lucky country. Shame about the Rahavans though. If only Sumathi had pulled her finger out and listened up as somebody was making money moving candle wax from one country to another while on the phone. We might even have forgiven her for being brown.
"They are Australia's most expensive refugees. The Rahavans, a Sri Lankan family of 5, most of whom journeyed to Australia on the ill-fated Oceanic Viking, were until recently costing the Australian taxpayers a staggering $428,861 every 3 months in security bills. Yogachandran Rahavan and his wife, Sumathi, were declared security threats by ASIO 18 months ago over alleged links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or Tamil Tigers... The family had all been found to be genuine refugees, meaning Australia was prevented by law from deporting them to Sri Lanka. But their negative security assessment means they can never be given visas, either, potentially consigning them to a life of perpetual detention. Because of ASIO's concern, guards were assigned to live with the family 24 hours a day. For 9 months they had to maintain their dignity as a family with 2 guards in their house at all times... The Immigration Department said that between November 2010 and February 2011 the cost of placing 'static guards' inside the Rahavan's family compound had run to $428,861. That adds up to about $1.14 million in the 8 months the security remained in place." (Million-dollar refugee family caught in perpetual detention, Paul Maley, 27/5/11)
We know virtually nothing of the heinousness of the Rahavan's 'crimes', all evidence of which is kept strictly under wraps by ASIO. What we do know, however, is shocking in the extreme: "Sumathi had worked as a legal officer in the LTTE-run court system in Sri Lanka's north... [but] it is not known what Sumathi's husband, who came to Australia ahead of his family on a separate boat is alleged to have done." (ibid) OK, I did warn you!
Why revisit this bizarre story from Australia's Gulag then? Well, I'd read the following tale the day before and it got me thinking, a dreadful curse I know:
"Variously described as publicity-shy, secretive, even mysterious, Ivan Glasenberg's most prized asset had been his closely guarded privacy. But that came to an end with his dramatic emergence as Australia's second-richest person on the BRW Rich List, worth an estimated $8.8 billion. Before yesterday, few knew the powerful South African-born businessman was an Australian citizen. The decision to partially float the world's largest commodity trader, Glencore, where Mr Glasenberg is chief executive, has made instant millionaires of 485 senior employees - and catapulted the company's boss into the limelight." (Mysterious financier blitzes the rich list, Philip Wen, Sydney Morning Herald, 26/5/11)
You see, it was Ivan Glasenberg's story, and that of the Rahavan family, that led me to ponder the weighty subject of just who is worthy, and who is not, to enter our little South Pacific paradise, who's in and who's out in Godzone country, so to speak.
Well, obviously the Rahavans are a bit of a worry: that Sumathi, for example, working in the Tiger-infested jungles, sorry, Tiger-administered courts of Tamil Eelam. Now if only she'd made a beeline for Colombo, thrown herself on the mercy of the Rajapaksa bruvvers, denounced the Tigers and all their works, and declared her intention of going public with a heart-rending story of forgiveness and peace in the strife-torn island of Sri Lanka, maybe even penning a little number called I Shall Not Hate, containing maybe a photo of her good self cosying up to the Rajapaksas, and even - why not? - eventually turning up at the Sydney Writers Festival like our good friend Abuelaish... Of course, she'd probably have been raped and thrown into a dungeon somewhere along the way, if not just shot out of hand, but hey, wouldn't that (every cloud having a silver lining, as they say) have saved the Australian taxpayer a pretty penny!
But I digress. You can play what ifs? till the proverbial cows come home - the plain fact of the matter is she's brown!
But Ivan - sorry, our Ivan - what a catch! Yes, yes, he's white, but hey, that's just the beginning. The man's a legend. I mean, who in his right mind would not want Ivan to call Australia home? Among his many assets I need mention but the following:
There's his focus on the things that really matter:
"Glasenberg... became intrigued with commodities trading when studying accountancy in South Africa... 'I observed a man sourcing candle wax from South America and selling it to Japan. I thought, 'That's unbelievable. Talking on the phone in his office, that man made money moving candle wax from one country to another'. It really interested me." (Newsmaker-Ivan Glasenberg's long walk to Glencore billions, Webb & Onstad, Reuters/ my.news.yahoo.com, 5/5/11)
There's his (slag) heaps and heaps and heaps of good work all over the planet:
"News that the London Stock Exchange is on the verge of a mammoth flotation didn't spread quite as far as the Zambian mining village of Mufilira. Even if it had, it's unlikely the villagers there would have seen much cause for celebration. While the rich seams of copper that lie deep in the ground beneath Mulifira have helped to make Swiss-based Glencore the largest and wealthiest commodities trader in the world, the African villagers are still struggling to get by on just a few dollars a day. This is barely enough even to feed their families, let alone pay for the medicine they need to treat the illnesses caused by the dangerous levels of pollution spewed out by Glencore-controlled mines... In Zambia alone, Glencore is accused of manipulating its financial accounts in order to reduce its tax bill, deliberately depriving that poverty-stricken nation of much-needed income. Indeed, the foul-smelling sulphur clouds that hang low over Mulifira are not the only thing about this obsessively secret company leaving a bitter taste in the mouth. The truth is that until now, most people would not have heard of Glencore - it's only as a result of the proposed flotation that questions about its practices are being asked... Its empire stretches from the jungles of Colombia to the plains of Australia. It makes its money from metals, minerals, oil, sugar, grain - commodities that form the very building blocks of world trade. And, armed with the best possible knowledge of global events, its traders buy these at the lowest possible price and sell at the highest possible mark-up." (Flotation to shine light on shadowy Glencore, Sunderland & Davies, thisismoney.co.uk, 4/5/11)
There's his sterling commercial pedigree:
"... Glencore grew out of the business empire of a man cited in the biggest tax fraud indictment in history. American oil trader Marc Rich, who founded the company - originally named Marc Rich & Co - in 1974, arrived in the US as a small boy with his parents in 1941, having fled from the Nazis in Belgium. At the peak of his powers, he dominated the global oil market. He traded with African dictators, Cuban communists and, most notoriously with Iran during the embargo on that country imposed by America during the 1979-1981 hostage crisis. He is also said to have financed operations by Mossad... former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit said Rich helped with the intelligence agency's work in Yemen and Sudan in the Eighties, when Israel was evacuating Jews from those countries. His support for Israel, however, did not prevent him also doing deals with Islamic fundamentalists bent on the destruction of the Jewish state. And he also made a 1.2 billion pound profit selling oil to South Africa during the apartheid years, contrary to an international trade embargo. In 1983, he was charged by lawyer and future New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani with 51 crimes, including evading at least 29m pounds in taxes, racketeering, conspiracy and trading with the enemy, Iran. Rich fled to Switzerland, from where he evaded various attempts by the US authorities to seize him. In 1994, he sold his business empire, handing control to his long-time German associate, Willy Strothotte, who reinvented it as Glencore. Rich was eventually pardoned in 2001 by President Clinton after lobbying by his former wife, a songwriter who has penned hits for such stars as Celine Dion. Today, Glencore may have eliminated all trace of Rich from its website, but his ghost haunts the company. Traders who worked with Rich remain steeped in his philosophy of cut-throat negotiation over prices - operating in a murky world, albeit on the right side of the law." (ibid)
Ivan, of course, has unerringly followed the path of the master:
"During Saddam's rule in Iraq, and the UN sanctions which accompanied its final years, Glencore made handsome profits marketing embargoed oil. In February 2001, Glencore bought 1 million barrels of Iraqi crude oil destined for the US and diverted the black gold to Croatia, where it was sold for a premium of $3 million, according to a UN Security council report." (Glencore: Profiteering from hunger & chaos, Chris Arsenault, english.aljazeera.net, 9/5/11)
But, best of all he's a sportsman. And... and... I can hardly contain myself at this icing on the cake, he's also an... Israeli citizen and so practically one of us already!:
"A 54-year-old champion race-walker for both South Africa and Israel (he has dual nationality), Glasenberg runs and swims every day to maintain his lean physique. Selected colleagues accompany him on his early-morning jogs - some say under sufferance - to display their loyalty to the workaholic Glencore 'cult'." (Sunderland & Davies)
We are indeed a lucky country. Shame about the Rahavans though. If only Sumathi had pulled her finger out and listened up as somebody was making money moving candle wax from one country to another while on the phone. We might even have forgiven her for being brown.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Battered Palestinian Syndrome 2
"The white liberal may be a little taken aback to know that from all-Negro audiences I never have had one challenge, never one question that defended the white man. That has been true even when a lot of those 'black bourgeoisie' and 'integration'-mad Negroes were among the blacks. All Negroes, among themselves, admit the white man's criminal record. They may not know as many details as I do, but they know the general picture. But let me tell you something significant: this very same bourgeois Negro who, among Negroes, would never make a fool of himself in trying to defend the white man - watch that same Negro in a mixed black and white audience, knowing he's overheard by his beloved 'Mr Charlie'. Why, you should hear those Negroes attack me, trying to justify, to forgive the white man's crimes! These Negroes are people who bring me nearest to breaking one of my principal rules, which is never to let myself become over-emotional and angry. Why, sometimes I've felt I ought to jump down off that stand and get physical with some of those brainwashed white man's tools, parrots, puppets. At the colleges, I've developed some stock put-downs for them: 'You must be a law student, aren't you?' They have to say either yes, or no. And I say, 'I thought you were. You defend this criminal white man harder than he defends his guilty self!'" (The Autobiography of Malcolm X, p 391)
Izzeldin Abuelaish, the subject of an earlier post by me (Battered Palestinian Syndrome, 24/2/11) is in town for this month's Sydney Writers Festival. Of course, a bit of PR never goes astray when you've come all the way from Canada to flog your wares, and by a process thus far unknown to us, the Herald's Good Weekend mag has come to the rescue with Healing Heart by David Leser.
If my first brush with a piece on Abuelaish had me squirming in my seat, this one's got me coughing and spluttering as well:
"'My God, my God, they killed my daughters. Shlomi, I wanted to save them, but they are dead. They were hit in the head. They died on the spot. Allah, what have we done to them? Oh God'."
What have we done to them?! We?!!
"Abuelaish was trusted and well respected, not just by members of the Israeli media, but by the country's medical fraternity as well. He'd been the first Palestinian obstetrician and gynaecologist to have been given a residency inside an Israeli hospital. He helped scores of infertile Israeli couples realise the joys of childbirth... He'd proven himself a man of peace, someone prepared to condemn his own side's suicide bombings, in private as well as in a public letter to the Jerusalem Post newspaper. 'Israelis are our friends', he would often tell his daughters, 'and we should love them as we love one another'."
The House Arab (see my final paragraph) always has to earn his master's trust. It's not 'Israelis can be our friends once the occupation is over and our rights as human beings have been restored', but Israelis are our friends, full stop. Honestly, if Malcolm X had heard such nonsense, he would've been too busy trying to find a bucket to get physical.
"Abuelaish was born in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza in 1955... [In 1967] Israeli tanks rolled through Abuelaish's street as they sought to secure the territory from Egyptian rule... [In 1970], the streets of the territory were widened so that Israeli tanks could negotiate their way more easily. Hundreds of houses, including Abuelaish's family home, were bulldozed to the ground."
So Abuelaish was a refugee. As Leser explains, "his family's land - located in what is today the northern Negev Desert of Israel - was lost during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (The land is today owned by the now-comatose former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and his family.)." His precarious Gaza refuge was invaded by the Israelis in 1956, about which Leser makes no mention, and again in 1967. And then his family home is bulldozed by none other than Ariel Sharon, the butcher who squats on Abuelaish land in the Negev to this day.
But we are expected to believe that all of this took a back seat to his romance with a kind Jewish family on whose farm (whose farm?) near Ashqelon he worked for just 3 months at the age of 15. Just to clarify, allow me to supplement Leser's sanitised sketch above with an account of what was really going on in the Gaza Strip at this time:
"Between 1967 and 1970, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip's refugee camps engaged in sporadic armed resistance against the Israeli occupation. In August 1970, Sharon began mopping up remnant guerilla cells. He operated systematically and with great brutality, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood and from grove to grove. The army imposed day-long curfews and gathered the entire population of a neighborhood or refugee camp (preferred sites were the Shatti and Jebalia camps), thus enabling the soldiers to make house-to-house searches and ensuring easy access for the military to any part of the Gaza Strip. This meant demolishing thousands of homes [not hundreds as Leser has it] and uprooting large portions of the Gaza Strip's citrus groves, the region's only crops. Orders were given to shoot any suspect without trial or inquiry, and over a thousand people were duly shot dead or executed." (Politicide: Ariel Sharon's War Against the Palestinians, Baruch Kimmerling, 2003, p 61-62)
"'Izzeldin was a special person, with a balanced point of view about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict', Dr Shlomo Usef, the director of Soroka hospital observed. 'He saw it as a conflict with two sides, and himself as the person to bridge the two'."
Just how balanced Abuelaish is may be seen from the inclusion in his book (no, I still don't have a copy) of a 2001 photograph of the good doctor standing, with a broad smile on his face, with Ehud Barak, the war criminal who, as defence minister at the time of Operation Cast Lead directed the murderers of Abuelaish's daughters and hundreds more children just like them. (You can see the photograph at the Youth Against Normalization blog, 13/2/11) The balanced Abuelaish helps perpetuate the pernicious nonsense, referred to again and again on this blog, that the Zionist project of now hot, now cold ethnic cleansing (See my last post), of wiping Palestine and its people literally off the map, is somehow an equal struggle between two right sides which can be bridged if only other Palestinians were more like Abuelaish.
"Now based in Toronto with his 5 remaining children, Abuelaish was last year nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize following the publication of his book 'I Shall Not Hate'... Often a keynote speaker at peace conferences, he is in Spokane to talk at the Second International Conference on Hate Studies, a multidisciplinary forum seeking to combat extremism in all its guises: racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism..."
Hate studies?! My God, you can see this one coming a mile off. Cop this from the Keynote Speech at the First Conference to Establish the Academic Field of Hate Studies by Kenneth S Stern of The American Jewish Committee (AJC):
"But the problem [of anti-Semitism] is also one of definition. A 2002 Anti-Defamation League survey said that while 17% of Americans were anti-Semitic, only 3% of college students were. But during the period when that survey was taken, the ADL and many other Jewish organizations, including the AJC, were spending an inordinate amount of time tackling anti-Semitism on campus... The problems on campus were not coming from those who felt that Jews were greasy or slimy, or who wouldn't live next door to or wouldn't marry a Jew. They were from college students who didn't have a problem with Jews individually, but whose anti-Semitism was manifest in its collective expression, namely in the State of Israel." (The Need for an Interdisciplinary Field of Hate Studies, ajc.org, p 20)
Ah yes, the collective Jew, Israel. What bunkum! But, hey, Stern knows it's a stretch and so he adds the rider, and don't they all?: "This is not to say that criticism of Israel is necessarily anti-Semitism. It clearly is not."
Ah, so we can all go home then? Afraid not, there's a catch, and isn't there always?:
"But to single out only one people on the globe as not having the right to self-determination, or holding their state to a higher standard of behavior than that applied to any other nation, is a form of bigotry that doesn't get picked up in the classic measuring instruments looking at inter-group attitudes."
So this is the agenda Abuelaish is only too happy to lend his name too. Malcolm X has done us all a service in drawing our attention to the phenomenon of the House and the Field Negro*. Now that brown is the new black, if we're incapable of calling a spade a spade here, I'm sorry, but we may as well pack up and go home.
[* See my 21/4/11 post Slavish Devotion]
Izzeldin Abuelaish, the subject of an earlier post by me (Battered Palestinian Syndrome, 24/2/11) is in town for this month's Sydney Writers Festival. Of course, a bit of PR never goes astray when you've come all the way from Canada to flog your wares, and by a process thus far unknown to us, the Herald's Good Weekend mag has come to the rescue with Healing Heart by David Leser.
If my first brush with a piece on Abuelaish had me squirming in my seat, this one's got me coughing and spluttering as well:
"'My God, my God, they killed my daughters. Shlomi, I wanted to save them, but they are dead. They were hit in the head. They died on the spot. Allah, what have we done to them? Oh God'."
What have we done to them?! We?!!
"Abuelaish was trusted and well respected, not just by members of the Israeli media, but by the country's medical fraternity as well. He'd been the first Palestinian obstetrician and gynaecologist to have been given a residency inside an Israeli hospital. He helped scores of infertile Israeli couples realise the joys of childbirth... He'd proven himself a man of peace, someone prepared to condemn his own side's suicide bombings, in private as well as in a public letter to the Jerusalem Post newspaper. 'Israelis are our friends', he would often tell his daughters, 'and we should love them as we love one another'."
The House Arab (see my final paragraph) always has to earn his master's trust. It's not 'Israelis can be our friends once the occupation is over and our rights as human beings have been restored', but Israelis are our friends, full stop. Honestly, if Malcolm X had heard such nonsense, he would've been too busy trying to find a bucket to get physical.
"Abuelaish was born in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza in 1955... [In 1967] Israeli tanks rolled through Abuelaish's street as they sought to secure the territory from Egyptian rule... [In 1970], the streets of the territory were widened so that Israeli tanks could negotiate their way more easily. Hundreds of houses, including Abuelaish's family home, were bulldozed to the ground."
So Abuelaish was a refugee. As Leser explains, "his family's land - located in what is today the northern Negev Desert of Israel - was lost during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (The land is today owned by the now-comatose former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and his family.)." His precarious Gaza refuge was invaded by the Israelis in 1956, about which Leser makes no mention, and again in 1967. And then his family home is bulldozed by none other than Ariel Sharon, the butcher who squats on Abuelaish land in the Negev to this day.
But we are expected to believe that all of this took a back seat to his romance with a kind Jewish family on whose farm (whose farm?) near Ashqelon he worked for just 3 months at the age of 15. Just to clarify, allow me to supplement Leser's sanitised sketch above with an account of what was really going on in the Gaza Strip at this time:
"Between 1967 and 1970, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip's refugee camps engaged in sporadic armed resistance against the Israeli occupation. In August 1970, Sharon began mopping up remnant guerilla cells. He operated systematically and with great brutality, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood and from grove to grove. The army imposed day-long curfews and gathered the entire population of a neighborhood or refugee camp (preferred sites were the Shatti and Jebalia camps), thus enabling the soldiers to make house-to-house searches and ensuring easy access for the military to any part of the Gaza Strip. This meant demolishing thousands of homes [not hundreds as Leser has it] and uprooting large portions of the Gaza Strip's citrus groves, the region's only crops. Orders were given to shoot any suspect without trial or inquiry, and over a thousand people were duly shot dead or executed." (Politicide: Ariel Sharon's War Against the Palestinians, Baruch Kimmerling, 2003, p 61-62)
"'Izzeldin was a special person, with a balanced point of view about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict', Dr Shlomo Usef, the director of Soroka hospital observed. 'He saw it as a conflict with two sides, and himself as the person to bridge the two'."
Just how balanced Abuelaish is may be seen from the inclusion in his book (no, I still don't have a copy) of a 2001 photograph of the good doctor standing, with a broad smile on his face, with Ehud Barak, the war criminal who, as defence minister at the time of Operation Cast Lead directed the murderers of Abuelaish's daughters and hundreds more children just like them. (You can see the photograph at the Youth Against Normalization blog, 13/2/11) The balanced Abuelaish helps perpetuate the pernicious nonsense, referred to again and again on this blog, that the Zionist project of now hot, now cold ethnic cleansing (See my last post), of wiping Palestine and its people literally off the map, is somehow an equal struggle between two right sides which can be bridged if only other Palestinians were more like Abuelaish.
"Now based in Toronto with his 5 remaining children, Abuelaish was last year nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize following the publication of his book 'I Shall Not Hate'... Often a keynote speaker at peace conferences, he is in Spokane to talk at the Second International Conference on Hate Studies, a multidisciplinary forum seeking to combat extremism in all its guises: racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism..."
Hate studies?! My God, you can see this one coming a mile off. Cop this from the Keynote Speech at the First Conference to Establish the Academic Field of Hate Studies by Kenneth S Stern of The American Jewish Committee (AJC):
"But the problem [of anti-Semitism] is also one of definition. A 2002 Anti-Defamation League survey said that while 17% of Americans were anti-Semitic, only 3% of college students were. But during the period when that survey was taken, the ADL and many other Jewish organizations, including the AJC, were spending an inordinate amount of time tackling anti-Semitism on campus... The problems on campus were not coming from those who felt that Jews were greasy or slimy, or who wouldn't live next door to or wouldn't marry a Jew. They were from college students who didn't have a problem with Jews individually, but whose anti-Semitism was manifest in its collective expression, namely in the State of Israel." (The Need for an Interdisciplinary Field of Hate Studies, ajc.org, p 20)
Ah yes, the collective Jew, Israel. What bunkum! But, hey, Stern knows it's a stretch and so he adds the rider, and don't they all?: "This is not to say that criticism of Israel is necessarily anti-Semitism. It clearly is not."
Ah, so we can all go home then? Afraid not, there's a catch, and isn't there always?:
"But to single out only one people on the globe as not having the right to self-determination, or holding their state to a higher standard of behavior than that applied to any other nation, is a form of bigotry that doesn't get picked up in the classic measuring instruments looking at inter-group attitudes."
So this is the agenda Abuelaish is only too happy to lend his name too. Malcolm X has done us all a service in drawing our attention to the phenomenon of the House and the Field Negro*. Now that brown is the new black, if we're incapable of calling a spade a spade here, I'm sorry, but we may as well pack up and go home.
[* See my 21/4/11 post Slavish Devotion]
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Battered Palestinian Syndrome?
I've just read a review, Moving plea for peace, by Stella Clarke, of Izzeldin Abuelaish's just released book, I Shall Not Hate.
Abuelaish, you may remember, was the Palestinian doctor whose grief-stricken cries over the deaths of his 3 daughters during the murderous Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009 were heard by phone-link on Israeli television and broadcast around the world.
I haven't yet read his book, but, in light of Clarke's uncritical review - "a brave, moving and important book" - it'll be so low down on my reading list that I'll probably never get around to it. As you'll see, I have problems with both Abuelaish and his reviewer. However, if anyone out there does read it (and I'm sure, given such reviews as Clarke's, it will sell), please feel free to use your inside knowledge to correct (or confirm) what I'm about to say about it:
"'My God, my god - they shelled my house. They killed my daughters. What have we done?' These few distraught words explain why Palestinian doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish, now associate professor of public health at the University of Toronto, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. This is no scream of hate or blame. Even in extremis, Abuelaish affirms a collective responsibility for what The Guardian recently called 'the world's most intractable conflict'." (The Australian, 12/2/11)
So let me get this right: the Palestinian Arabs - who have been blown from pillar to post ever since the Zionist movement decided in earnest that their patch wasn't really their patch, and that, one way or another, they simply had to go - are equally (or even partly) responsible for the world's most intractable conflict? The ethnically cleansed and the occupied are just as responsible (or at least partly so) for the conflict as their ethnic cleansers and occupiers?
I don't think so.
Abuelaish's in extremis cry - What have we done? - really says it all.
All the Palestinians are guilty of is simply refusing to go quietly into the proverbial good night, as required by every Zionist mover and shaker from Herzl to Netanyahu. Nothing more, nothing less. If Clarke's reference to collective responsibility is in fact the core message of Abuelaish's book, it can hardly be taken seriously.
"An explosion sent him running to his daughter's bedroom, where he found their blasted body parts. Another was still walking, with one eye blown out of her head and her fingers severed."
Oh, I see, a causeless explosion, out of the blue, apropos nothing - certainly nothing whatever to do with the lovely folk who created the Gaza Ghetto and sealed it off from the world, and who, as the mood takes them, like to get back in, boots and all, and give it a real going over.
"Two years later, 'I Shall Not Hate' expresses Abuelaish's credo that it is only through an acknowledgement of shared humanity that the decades of antagonism between Jews and Palestinians can be halted."
So he who lobbed the shell, he who ordered the lobbing of the shell, he who decided that it was time to lob shells on Gaza yet again, and he who voted for him and cheered him on, are models of humanity?
I don't think so.
"This book traces Abuelaish's unrelenting efforts, from childhood, not only to survive but successfully to transcend oppression. His persistence is heroic. He tells of overcrowding, of grinding poverty and deprivation resulting from relentless blockades of essential resources, and diminishing space. He tells of homes bulldozed and lives repeatedly damaged. Yet it is a mistake to view his story as an indictment of Israel."
If, as the book's title suggests, Abuelaish's persistence lies in refusing to say a bad word about Israel and its enablers, and this is supposedly what makes him heroic, then surely his 'heroism' is more akin to that of a battered wife who, despite her regular beatings, is nevertheless determined to stand by her man?
And just why is it a mistake to view Abuelaish's story as an indictment of Israel? Poor Israel just can't help it? He goes a little crazy sometimes? Doesn't know his own strength? Really has a heart of gold? Puh-lease!
"Abuelaish was born in 1955 into a history of unstoppable violence and hatred, partly bought [sic] about by political mechanisms."
Political mechanisms, eh? Well, ain't that enlightening?
"However, he avoids the futility of dwelling on historical injustice."
Yeah, who cares who did what to who? History's irrelevant, injustice is history, and here & now is all that matters. Except that I have the feeling that Clarke wouldn't dare say this to the Zionists.
"Thousands of people have been maimed and killed on both sides."
But don't go into the numbers!
"As a doctor, his business is to heal."
Yes, we wouldn't want him going the way of Dr Habash now, would we?
"Abuelaish has treated people in the Gaza Strip and Israeli hospitals for infertility. He says there is no difference between newborns, before they are taught to hate."
But who better to teach the Palestinians to hate than those who savagely beat the shit out of them on a daily basis, and who have been doing so since 1948?
"He pleads for mutual human respect. How is this to be achieved? Beyond creating opportunities for dialogue and cooperation between inhabitants of Israel and Palestine, he has another idea, which must be understood in the context of the region's patriarchal traditions."
Look, if it's not abundantly clear to everyone by now that Israel doesn't do dialogue (except maybe to stuff around etc) or cooperation, even Abuelaish is now finding it hard to avoid seeing the Israeli finger when it's in his face:
"Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish, who lost 3 daughters when the IDF fired shells at his home during Operation Cast Lead, will file on Sunday a massive damages claim against the State of Israel. I didn't want to file the lawsuit, and until now I didn't want to discuss it, he told Yedioth Ahronot in a phone interview from Toronto, Canada, where he immigrated following the tragedy. I tried to take every step that would allow me to close this with love and goodwill, but they didn't leave me a choice. According to the law, the statute of limitations will apply to this case within a few weeks - but there is no statue of limitations on the blood of my daughters. It will stay with me forever. It's a catastrophe that's impossible to forget... Abuelaish instructed his lawyer to avoid a law suit and reach a settlement with the security forces which would include recognition and compensation. But no such settlement was reached: the Defence Ministry's legal advisor, Ahaz Ben-Ari announced this week that Abuelaish does not deserve compensation." (Bereaved Gaza doctor to sue Israel, Uri Misgav, 23/12/10)
"He believes that giving women a voice is the best basis for optimism... Where you find a hundred angry men in favour of war, he is convinced you would find only a handful of women."
Ah yes, peacemakers all: Tzipi, Golda, Condie, Hillary etc.
A final word about reviewer Stella Clarke, footnoted as "a lecturer on cultural and literary studies in Britain and Australia" with a "PhD in English literature from the University of Warwick." In a review of Searching for the Secret River by Australian writer Kate Grenville, Clarke has shown she can write candidly about the dispossession of Australia's own indigenous population:
"For non-indigenous Australians, it is probably best to leave the family tree alone unless, like Grenville, you are prepared to face up to your ancestors' bad behaviour. Solomon Wiseman grabbed a slab of the Hawkesbury. Records might say he 'took it up', which is as cunningly neutral as the term terra nullius, but the reality is, Grenville sadly conceded, he 'took it from', which is quite another matter. Wiseman took it from under the noses of the local Aboriginal population, depriving them of land and larder." (Searching for the Secret River, The Australian, 7/10/06)
So why does her candour fail completely when writing about the dispossession of Palestine's indigenous population?
Abuelaish, you may remember, was the Palestinian doctor whose grief-stricken cries over the deaths of his 3 daughters during the murderous Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009 were heard by phone-link on Israeli television and broadcast around the world.
I haven't yet read his book, but, in light of Clarke's uncritical review - "a brave, moving and important book" - it'll be so low down on my reading list that I'll probably never get around to it. As you'll see, I have problems with both Abuelaish and his reviewer. However, if anyone out there does read it (and I'm sure, given such reviews as Clarke's, it will sell), please feel free to use your inside knowledge to correct (or confirm) what I'm about to say about it:
"'My God, my god - they shelled my house. They killed my daughters. What have we done?' These few distraught words explain why Palestinian doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish, now associate professor of public health at the University of Toronto, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. This is no scream of hate or blame. Even in extremis, Abuelaish affirms a collective responsibility for what The Guardian recently called 'the world's most intractable conflict'." (The Australian, 12/2/11)
So let me get this right: the Palestinian Arabs - who have been blown from pillar to post ever since the Zionist movement decided in earnest that their patch wasn't really their patch, and that, one way or another, they simply had to go - are equally (or even partly) responsible for the world's most intractable conflict? The ethnically cleansed and the occupied are just as responsible (or at least partly so) for the conflict as their ethnic cleansers and occupiers?
I don't think so.
Abuelaish's in extremis cry - What have we done? - really says it all.
All the Palestinians are guilty of is simply refusing to go quietly into the proverbial good night, as required by every Zionist mover and shaker from Herzl to Netanyahu. Nothing more, nothing less. If Clarke's reference to collective responsibility is in fact the core message of Abuelaish's book, it can hardly be taken seriously.
"An explosion sent him running to his daughter's bedroom, where he found their blasted body parts. Another was still walking, with one eye blown out of her head and her fingers severed."
Oh, I see, a causeless explosion, out of the blue, apropos nothing - certainly nothing whatever to do with the lovely folk who created the Gaza Ghetto and sealed it off from the world, and who, as the mood takes them, like to get back in, boots and all, and give it a real going over.
"Two years later, 'I Shall Not Hate' expresses Abuelaish's credo that it is only through an acknowledgement of shared humanity that the decades of antagonism between Jews and Palestinians can be halted."
So he who lobbed the shell, he who ordered the lobbing of the shell, he who decided that it was time to lob shells on Gaza yet again, and he who voted for him and cheered him on, are models of humanity?
I don't think so.
"This book traces Abuelaish's unrelenting efforts, from childhood, not only to survive but successfully to transcend oppression. His persistence is heroic. He tells of overcrowding, of grinding poverty and deprivation resulting from relentless blockades of essential resources, and diminishing space. He tells of homes bulldozed and lives repeatedly damaged. Yet it is a mistake to view his story as an indictment of Israel."
If, as the book's title suggests, Abuelaish's persistence lies in refusing to say a bad word about Israel and its enablers, and this is supposedly what makes him heroic, then surely his 'heroism' is more akin to that of a battered wife who, despite her regular beatings, is nevertheless determined to stand by her man?
And just why is it a mistake to view Abuelaish's story as an indictment of Israel? Poor Israel just can't help it? He goes a little crazy sometimes? Doesn't know his own strength? Really has a heart of gold? Puh-lease!
"Abuelaish was born in 1955 into a history of unstoppable violence and hatred, partly bought [sic] about by political mechanisms."
Political mechanisms, eh? Well, ain't that enlightening?
"However, he avoids the futility of dwelling on historical injustice."
Yeah, who cares who did what to who? History's irrelevant, injustice is history, and here & now is all that matters. Except that I have the feeling that Clarke wouldn't dare say this to the Zionists.
"Thousands of people have been maimed and killed on both sides."
But don't go into the numbers!
"As a doctor, his business is to heal."
Yes, we wouldn't want him going the way of Dr Habash now, would we?
"Abuelaish has treated people in the Gaza Strip and Israeli hospitals for infertility. He says there is no difference between newborns, before they are taught to hate."
But who better to teach the Palestinians to hate than those who savagely beat the shit out of them on a daily basis, and who have been doing so since 1948?
"He pleads for mutual human respect. How is this to be achieved? Beyond creating opportunities for dialogue and cooperation between inhabitants of Israel and Palestine, he has another idea, which must be understood in the context of the region's patriarchal traditions."
Look, if it's not abundantly clear to everyone by now that Israel doesn't do dialogue (except maybe to stuff around etc) or cooperation, even Abuelaish is now finding it hard to avoid seeing the Israeli finger when it's in his face:
"Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish, who lost 3 daughters when the IDF fired shells at his home during Operation Cast Lead, will file on Sunday a massive damages claim against the State of Israel. I didn't want to file the lawsuit, and until now I didn't want to discuss it, he told Yedioth Ahronot in a phone interview from Toronto, Canada, where he immigrated following the tragedy. I tried to take every step that would allow me to close this with love and goodwill, but they didn't leave me a choice. According to the law, the statute of limitations will apply to this case within a few weeks - but there is no statue of limitations on the blood of my daughters. It will stay with me forever. It's a catastrophe that's impossible to forget... Abuelaish instructed his lawyer to avoid a law suit and reach a settlement with the security forces which would include recognition and compensation. But no such settlement was reached: the Defence Ministry's legal advisor, Ahaz Ben-Ari announced this week that Abuelaish does not deserve compensation." (Bereaved Gaza doctor to sue Israel, Uri Misgav, 23/12/10)
"He believes that giving women a voice is the best basis for optimism... Where you find a hundred angry men in favour of war, he is convinced you would find only a handful of women."
Ah yes, peacemakers all: Tzipi, Golda, Condie, Hillary etc.
A final word about reviewer Stella Clarke, footnoted as "a lecturer on cultural and literary studies in Britain and Australia" with a "PhD in English literature from the University of Warwick." In a review of Searching for the Secret River by Australian writer Kate Grenville, Clarke has shown she can write candidly about the dispossession of Australia's own indigenous population:
"For non-indigenous Australians, it is probably best to leave the family tree alone unless, like Grenville, you are prepared to face up to your ancestors' bad behaviour. Solomon Wiseman grabbed a slab of the Hawkesbury. Records might say he 'took it up', which is as cunningly neutral as the term terra nullius, but the reality is, Grenville sadly conceded, he 'took it from', which is quite another matter. Wiseman took it from under the noses of the local Aboriginal population, depriving them of land and larder." (Searching for the Secret River, The Australian, 7/10/06)
So why does her candour fail completely when writing about the dispossession of Palestine's indigenous population?
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