Consider the following data:
(a) "Genocide is the systematic destruction of all or part of a racial, ethnic, religious or national group via (a) Killing of members of the group..."
(b) "Israel has killed 1 in every thousand Gazans. That's the equivalent of 300,000 Americans." (Saree Makdisi tweet, 19/8/14)
(c) "Murad, the head of Gaza's bomb squad, estimated that Israel had dropped between 18-22 thousand tons of explosives on Gaza since 7 July... If Murad's estimate is right, then the explosive power Israel has fired on Gaza by land, sea and air so far is roughly equivalent to one of the atomic bombs the United States dropped on Japan in August 1945." (How many bombs has Israel dropped on Gaza? Ali Abunimah, electronicintifada.net, 19/8/14)
Given the astonishing scale of death (now over 2000) and devastation wrought by the Israeli military on the population of the Gaza Strip, you'd think the 'G' word would at least occasionally crop up in msm reporting on the subject, right?
I haven't seen it used even once.
Sydney Morning Herald columnist Waleed Aly, however, had no trouble yesterday calling a genocide a genocide when talking about ISIL's rampant violence in northern Iraq, referring to its "campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide" against the Yazidis. (The oldest terrorist tactic: provoke an overreaction, 22/8/14)
I note that he made no use of the 'G' word in an earlier column on Gaza, MH17, Gaza & the value of human life (25/7/14).
Interesting, eh?
Showing posts with label Saree Makdisi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saree Makdisi. Show all posts
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Monday, June 20, 2011
Hartcher Brings the House Down
Here's the Sydney Morning Herald's political editor Peter Hartcher, writing in Saturday's SMH on former prime minister Kevin Rudd's alleged appearance on what Hartcher calls "the leadership catwalk":
"But Rudd's reach for moral leadership went beyond associating himself with organised religion. Consider two of his first acts as Prime Minister. The first was to sign the Kyoto Protocol, promising to address the 'great economic and moral challenge of our time'. The second was to apologise to Aborigines. Both were things that John Howard had extravagantly refused to do. Howard had given Rudd a precious gift. Both acts by Rudd were popular, as testified by the polls, and both bestowed a kind of moral benediction on a country that had been troubled by the government's failure to act on either... Rudd's critics were scornful of his symbolism. They completely missed an important dimension of Rudd as leader. Symbols are powerful because they are the visible signs of invisible realities. And while each symbolic act touched different invisible realities, the uber-appeal was moral. Religious voters and atheists alike found in Rudd a moral leader." (A transformer's sequel: Kevin Rudd understands why the people turned against him as PM - and what he could do to regain their trust, 18/6/11)
I think we can safely assume from the above that Hartcher approves of Rudd's February 2008 apology to Australia's indigenous people, an apolgy, you'll note, containing many references to past mistreatment:
"Today we honour the indigenous peoples of this land... We reflect on their past mistreatment... The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past... We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians... We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians... A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed... A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia."
I think we can also assume from what he's written that Hartcher is prepared to give due recognition to the importance of symbols and "invisible realities" in politics.
Imagine my surprise then when the very same Peter Hartcher, on the very next day, speaking as a panelist on Israel & Palestine in the New Middle East at the Sydney Opera House's Ideas at the House, contemptuously dismissed fellow panellist Saree Makdisi's references to the Palestinian refugees of 1948, their inalienable right of return, and the need for an inclusive one-state solution, taking in the present Jewish population of Israel, Israel's Palestinian citizens, returned Palestinian refugees and those Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, as "a reversion to old narratives," completely "unrealistic," and an example of "Marrickville Council syndrome."
What possessed him, I wondered, to ramble on, quite irrelevantly, about Koreans, Tibetans and Maoris, and to arrogantly dismiss any discussion of the historical roots of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict as little more than the airing of "old grudges" or "old illusions on a Marrickville Council scale"?
Damn silly questions, of course. The only question really worth asking in this context is surely: Who sponsored Hartcher's trip to Israel in 2009? (See my 15/3/10 post Pawns in a Propaganda Game)
"But Rudd's reach for moral leadership went beyond associating himself with organised religion. Consider two of his first acts as Prime Minister. The first was to sign the Kyoto Protocol, promising to address the 'great economic and moral challenge of our time'. The second was to apologise to Aborigines. Both were things that John Howard had extravagantly refused to do. Howard had given Rudd a precious gift. Both acts by Rudd were popular, as testified by the polls, and both bestowed a kind of moral benediction on a country that had been troubled by the government's failure to act on either... Rudd's critics were scornful of his symbolism. They completely missed an important dimension of Rudd as leader. Symbols are powerful because they are the visible signs of invisible realities. And while each symbolic act touched different invisible realities, the uber-appeal was moral. Religious voters and atheists alike found in Rudd a moral leader." (A transformer's sequel: Kevin Rudd understands why the people turned against him as PM - and what he could do to regain their trust, 18/6/11)
I think we can safely assume from the above that Hartcher approves of Rudd's February 2008 apology to Australia's indigenous people, an apolgy, you'll note, containing many references to past mistreatment:
"Today we honour the indigenous peoples of this land... We reflect on their past mistreatment... The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past... We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians... We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians... A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed... A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia."
I think we can also assume from what he's written that Hartcher is prepared to give due recognition to the importance of symbols and "invisible realities" in politics.
Imagine my surprise then when the very same Peter Hartcher, on the very next day, speaking as a panelist on Israel & Palestine in the New Middle East at the Sydney Opera House's Ideas at the House, contemptuously dismissed fellow panellist Saree Makdisi's references to the Palestinian refugees of 1948, their inalienable right of return, and the need for an inclusive one-state solution, taking in the present Jewish population of Israel, Israel's Palestinian citizens, returned Palestinian refugees and those Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, as "a reversion to old narratives," completely "unrealistic," and an example of "Marrickville Council syndrome."
What possessed him, I wondered, to ramble on, quite irrelevantly, about Koreans, Tibetans and Maoris, and to arrogantly dismiss any discussion of the historical roots of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict as little more than the airing of "old grudges" or "old illusions on a Marrickville Council scale"?
Damn silly questions, of course. The only question really worth asking in this context is surely: Who sponsored Hartcher's trip to Israel in 2009? (See my 15/3/10 post Pawns in a Propaganda Game)
Saturday, September 19, 2009
He Just Doesn't Get It
"During that time [in the Communist Party], I fell hopelessly in love with Jews. No, not with Judaism. With Jews. It was a consequence of realising that a remarkable number of people I most liked and admired were secular Jews. And I met a great many in the Communist Party... By now I was writing for The Bulletin... And I began to realise that without the Jews the Victorian Symphony Orchestra and the Melbourne Theatre Company would have found it hard to survive. For the Jews were central to Melbourne's culture - to its music, its literature, its theatre. The tiny community of Jews made a disproportionate contribution to the arts, literature, science, philanthropy and the nascent civil rights movement everywhere I looked. At the age of 16 I found myself wishing I'd been born Jewish." ('I am proud that', Phillip Adams, October 1998, jmm.aaa.net.au)
What follows is an extract from Phillip Adams' 25 minute interview with Saree Makdisi, nephew of the late Edward Said, professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA, and author of Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation (2008), on Adam's "little wireless program" Late Night Live on 16/9/09. Adams just doesn't seem to get it:
Makdisi: My understanding is that, for there to be genuine reconciliation between the 2 peoples, there must be one state where all its citizens are treated as equals. What that means for Palestinians is that they would not have an independent Palestinian state, which is what they've been struggling for for the past 60 years. What it means for Jewish Israelis is that there would be no more Jewish state as such...
Adams (alarmed, interrupting): But they would see this as demographic suicide, would they not, given the population patterns?
Makdisi: But the point is that one people achieving what it wants at the expense of another is unworkable. Reconciliation has to happen when both peoples realise that they're both there to stay and that they have to find a way to live and find self-expression, and even self-determination, with an understanding that they have to do so equally and with each other rather than against each other.
Adams (surprised, as though hearing the one state idea for the first time - despite Ali Abu Nimah's conversation with him last year): A singular... single secular state with Israelis and Palestinians living side-by-side with what? equal rights?
Makdisi (incredulous): Yes, which is not that (laughing) difficult to imagine. Most countries in the world do work like that. That's what the basis of the modern liberal state is...
Adams (interrupting): Saree, let me ask you a question. Could it be called Israel?
Makdisi: Israel has constituted itself legally and officially as a Jewish state. That's why, legally speaking, there's no such thing as an Israeli nationality, it's only Jewish nationality [indistinct] So can that state become truly democratic? I don't think so. It understands itself, defines itself, not just juridically and institutionally as a Jewish state - even at the expense of its own Palestinian citizens. I think the path to peace and reconciliation is one where such exclusivist claims have to be abandoned and equality has to be embraced.
Adams: How long would it take before the Jewish Israelis were a minority in Israel?
Makdisi: I don't know. I don't even know that that question really matters. The whole question of minorities...
Adams (interrupting, testy - for the avuncular Adams): It sure as hell matters to them.
Makdisi: It may, but does it really matter in terms of the way a state is constituted? Should a state be constituted to guarantee minority rights at the expense of the majority? I don't think so. I believe in a state where everybody's equal. That's certainly the state I grew up in in the US. It's the model that the American constitution enshrines. That's the kind of polity I personally believe in.
Adams (divert! divert!): Can we look at another state in the time we have together, which needs a solution, and that's California?
Unbelievably, the remaining 5 minutes of the interview was devoted to the troubles of California and Obama. Saree Makdisi deserves a medal for his patience and forbearance.
What follows is an extract from Phillip Adams' 25 minute interview with Saree Makdisi, nephew of the late Edward Said, professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA, and author of Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation (2008), on Adam's "little wireless program" Late Night Live on 16/9/09. Adams just doesn't seem to get it:
Makdisi: My understanding is that, for there to be genuine reconciliation between the 2 peoples, there must be one state where all its citizens are treated as equals. What that means for Palestinians is that they would not have an independent Palestinian state, which is what they've been struggling for for the past 60 years. What it means for Jewish Israelis is that there would be no more Jewish state as such...
Adams (alarmed, interrupting): But they would see this as demographic suicide, would they not, given the population patterns?
Makdisi: But the point is that one people achieving what it wants at the expense of another is unworkable. Reconciliation has to happen when both peoples realise that they're both there to stay and that they have to find a way to live and find self-expression, and even self-determination, with an understanding that they have to do so equally and with each other rather than against each other.
Adams (surprised, as though hearing the one state idea for the first time - despite Ali Abu Nimah's conversation with him last year): A singular... single secular state with Israelis and Palestinians living side-by-side with what? equal rights?
Makdisi (incredulous): Yes, which is not that (laughing) difficult to imagine. Most countries in the world do work like that. That's what the basis of the modern liberal state is...
Adams (interrupting): Saree, let me ask you a question. Could it be called Israel?
Makdisi: Israel has constituted itself legally and officially as a Jewish state. That's why, legally speaking, there's no such thing as an Israeli nationality, it's only Jewish nationality [indistinct] So can that state become truly democratic? I don't think so. It understands itself, defines itself, not just juridically and institutionally as a Jewish state - even at the expense of its own Palestinian citizens. I think the path to peace and reconciliation is one where such exclusivist claims have to be abandoned and equality has to be embraced.
Adams: How long would it take before the Jewish Israelis were a minority in Israel?
Makdisi: I don't know. I don't even know that that question really matters. The whole question of minorities...
Adams (interrupting, testy - for the avuncular Adams): It sure as hell matters to them.
Makdisi: It may, but does it really matter in terms of the way a state is constituted? Should a state be constituted to guarantee minority rights at the expense of the majority? I don't think so. I believe in a state where everybody's equal. That's certainly the state I grew up in in the US. It's the model that the American constitution enshrines. That's the kind of polity I personally believe in.
Adams (divert! divert!): Can we look at another state in the time we have together, which needs a solution, and that's California?
Unbelievably, the remaining 5 minutes of the interview was devoted to the troubles of California and Obama. Saree Makdisi deserves a medal for his patience and forbearance.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Checkpoint Zero's Heartless, Paranoid Thugs
Checkpoint Zero is a play by Don Mamouney and Assad Abdi currently (28/7-24/8) showing at Marrickville's Sidetrack Theatre. It's a boy-meets-girl story. Specifically, Palestinian student boy meets Israeli soldier girl while the latter's on checkpoint duty. Mamouney has described the play as "a plea for a new way of imagining the future of Palestine/Israel. Not two separate ethnic states but a modern, multi-ethnic, multi-religious country able to sustain both Palestinians and Jews."
Checkpoint Zero was reviewed in The Australian Jewish News of 15/8/08 by David Kary. The final paragraph of his review reads as follows: "Sadly, despite the strong staging and the intentions set out by the playwrights, the play was unbalanced and came across as deeply pro-Palestinian. For this kind of play to work it just has to come across as even handed. What sticks out above all is the insulting portrayal of the male Israeli security guards who come across as heartless, paranoid thugs."
Just imagine: 'Sadly, despite the strong staging and the intentions set out by the playwrights, the play was unbalanced and came across as deeply pro-Jewish. For this kind of play to work it just has to come across as even handed. What sticks out above all is the insulting portrayal of the male German security guards as heartless, paranoid thugs.'
Anyway, what the AJN's reviewer fails to understand is that Israel's hundreds of checkpoints (and its occupation generally) produce "heartless, paranoid thugs." Just listen to this Israeli soldier: "I don't believe in it: I think this is not the way to do anything to anyone, surely not to someone who has done nothing to you, but you can't help but enjoy it. People do what you tell them. You know it's because you carry a weapon. Knowing that if you didn't have it, and if your fellow soldiers weren't beside you, they would jump on you, beat the shit out of you, and stab you to death - you begin to enjoy it. Not merely enjoy it, you need it. And then, when someone suddenly says 'No' to you, what do you mean no? Where do you draw the chutzpah from, to say no to me? Forget for a moment that I actually think that all those Jews [i.e., the settlers] are mad, and I actually want peace and believe we should leave the territories, how dare you say no to me? I am the Law! I am the Law here! And then you begin to understand that it makes you feel good. I remember a very specific situation: I was at a checkpoint, a temporary one, a so-called strangulation checkpoint, it was a very small checkpoint, very intimate, four soldiers, no commanding officer, no protection worthy of the name, a true moonlighting job, blocking the entrance to a village. From one side a line of cars wanting to get out, and from the other side a line of cars wanting to pass, a huge line, and suddenly you have a mighty force at the tip of your fingers, as if playing a computer game. I stand there like this, pointing at someone, gesturing to you to do this or that, and you do this or that, the car starts, moves towards me, halts beside me. You come here, you go there, like this. You barely move, you make them obey the tip of your finger. It's a mighty feeling. It's something you don't experience elsewhere. You know it's because you have a weapon, you know it's because you're a soldier, you know all this, but it's addictive." (from Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, Saree Makdisi, 2008, pp 53-54)
It's the occupation, stupid.
Checkpoint Zero was reviewed in The Australian Jewish News of 15/8/08 by David Kary. The final paragraph of his review reads as follows: "Sadly, despite the strong staging and the intentions set out by the playwrights, the play was unbalanced and came across as deeply pro-Palestinian. For this kind of play to work it just has to come across as even handed. What sticks out above all is the insulting portrayal of the male Israeli security guards who come across as heartless, paranoid thugs."
Just imagine: 'Sadly, despite the strong staging and the intentions set out by the playwrights, the play was unbalanced and came across as deeply pro-Jewish. For this kind of play to work it just has to come across as even handed. What sticks out above all is the insulting portrayal of the male German security guards as heartless, paranoid thugs.'
Anyway, what the AJN's reviewer fails to understand is that Israel's hundreds of checkpoints (and its occupation generally) produce "heartless, paranoid thugs." Just listen to this Israeli soldier: "I don't believe in it: I think this is not the way to do anything to anyone, surely not to someone who has done nothing to you, but you can't help but enjoy it. People do what you tell them. You know it's because you carry a weapon. Knowing that if you didn't have it, and if your fellow soldiers weren't beside you, they would jump on you, beat the shit out of you, and stab you to death - you begin to enjoy it. Not merely enjoy it, you need it. And then, when someone suddenly says 'No' to you, what do you mean no? Where do you draw the chutzpah from, to say no to me? Forget for a moment that I actually think that all those Jews [i.e., the settlers] are mad, and I actually want peace and believe we should leave the territories, how dare you say no to me? I am the Law! I am the Law here! And then you begin to understand that it makes you feel good. I remember a very specific situation: I was at a checkpoint, a temporary one, a so-called strangulation checkpoint, it was a very small checkpoint, very intimate, four soldiers, no commanding officer, no protection worthy of the name, a true moonlighting job, blocking the entrance to a village. From one side a line of cars wanting to get out, and from the other side a line of cars wanting to pass, a huge line, and suddenly you have a mighty force at the tip of your fingers, as if playing a computer game. I stand there like this, pointing at someone, gesturing to you to do this or that, and you do this or that, the car starts, moves towards me, halts beside me. You come here, you go there, like this. You barely move, you make them obey the tip of your finger. It's a mighty feeling. It's something you don't experience elsewhere. You know it's because you have a weapon, you know it's because you're a soldier, you know all this, but it's addictive." (from Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, Saree Makdisi, 2008, pp 53-54)
It's the occupation, stupid.
Monday, May 26, 2008
A Tale of Two Exhibitions
The corporate media's idea of what is and isn't newsworthy never ceases to amaze.
Screaming headlines, front page reports, assorted commentary and opinion pieces, photographs, and soundbites from Kevin Rudd ("absolutely revolting") on down, all occasioned by Bill Henson's abortive NSW Police-interdicted exhibition of photographs of naked child models, have rained down on us for days now. That's the news that's fit to print.
Another abortive NSW Police-interdicted exhibition received no such media attention, apart from a May 13 report in the Sydney Morning Herald and a May 14 piece on Radio National's PM program. No, this exhibition wasn't about what could, in the eyes of some, be construed as porn, but about worse, much worse. It was about Palestine.
The Herald reported that plods from the NSW police anti-terrorism squad had paid a visit to Sydney's Leichhardt Council on the eve of an exhibition about the Palestinian Nakba set up in the library's foyer by local group Friends of Hebron. This had led to Council canning the exhibition because, in the words of the mayor, "it hadn't met the council's criteria for such projects, which include not being divisive." A police media spokesman was reported as saying that "the officers were from the community contact unit, which falls within its Counter Terrorism Operations. They had not visited the library to tell it to cancel the exhibition, but only to 'say hi' to Friends of Hebron." (We're just here to say hi: terror squad)
The mayor apparently objected to some of the photographs' captions, "including one that said Palestinian children going to school needed protection from children from Israel who were throwing stones," and was quoted as saying, "Being in a public library is different to being in an exhibition space. If you're in an exhibition space and someone knows they are going into the exhibition, they expect to be educated and confronted. But most people going into a library just want to return books."
The mayor's superb grasp of the issues, not to mention her way with words, were further aired on PM: "The sort of thing was Israeli children throwing stones at the Palestinians on the way to school and another thing was that they are destroying this house so that they can get it, the Israelis are. There was another thing about... there was the first image was a bombed down house with a how would you feel if the Israelis did this to your house."
The head librarian, apparently too traumatised to speak herself, was quoted by a FoH spokesperson, as saying that the police "had put the fear of God into her and the staff and everyone in the library felt intimidated by... the 'Men in Black'."
However, the piece de resistance (If I can use that word without exciting the attention of Men in Black who just want to drop in and say hi) was the PM reporter's hilarious exchange with Peter Dein, "Assistant Commissioner of NSW Police in charge of counter terrorism":-
PETER DEIN: Police from the Community Contact Unit have no interest in that particular exhibition and they haven't said anything to anybody about the fact, or the content of that particular exhibition. They were there simply to make contact with the people that were running that exhibition, not in relation to the exhibition itself.
EMILY BOURKE: So it's a complete coincidence that the exhibition was happening on the afternoon that the officers arrived?
DEIN: Most certainly, yes. As I said, they were there for the purpose of tracking down the people that they wanted to speak to so that they could start building this relationship and they thought it was a convenient place to attend because they were led to believe that they were actually at the library that afternoon. As it turned out they weren't and they left messages for the people to contact them and it appears as if somehow the message got twisted.
BOURKE: There's been an allegation that the actions by the police were... intimidatory... they have been described as 'Men in Black'. That they put the fear of God into the librarians, that it's a throwback to McCarthyism...
DEIN: That's outrageous. That is just incredible to even hear that. God only knows where that's coming from. It's very disappointing to find out that this has come to that. What they were trying to do was exercise a proactive, positive initiative for the purpose of making contact with people in communities that need our assistance and need us, need to become very acquainted with police for the purposes of looking after them and that's just totally outrageous that someone would even think that."
Oh dear! "... they were led to believe..." Were they now? Now who, I hear you asking, was it that alerted the 'Men in Black' to the nefarious goings on of the FoH sleeper cell in the library foyer? Search me (No, not you, Men In Black!).
Interestingly, a group(uscle?) of alert - and highly alarmed - citizens, name of Inner West Chavurah, who recently issued a press release thoughtfully summarised as "The FoH had not abided by their undertakings, and seem upset at the consequences"?
Herewith its somewhat arcane theoretical introduction, followed by my plain English translation:-
"The FoH wished to convey a narrative of suffering by the Palestinian people at the hands of Israel. The Chavurah indicated that this approach invites the competing narrative of suicide bombing in Israel and constant shelling of Israeli towns from Gaza even though Israel withdrew unilaterally from there." Palestinians don't suffer. And even if they do, it's got nothing to do with Israel. And even if it has, Israelis suffer just as much, if not more, at the hands of the Palestinians. And quite undeservedly too, seeing as how when Israel recently did them a good turn by exiting the Gaza Strip, the buggers just up and bit her on her ample (khaki-clad) bum.
"Portrayed in these terms the Middle East conflict gets replicated in Leichhardt with tensions felt in the community and tit-for-tat accusations of who is the victim, and who is the perpetrator. The reality is that everyone in the Middle East suffers, and many respond by perpetrating and the violence continues." FoH terrorists have imported this cosmic cycle of Mid-East violence into Pleasantville such that its once pleasant and placid streets are no longer... well, placid or pleasant.
"The dilemma for Council was: should Council facilities be used in activities that have the potential to cause disharmony, anxiety, and dissention [sic] in the Leichhardt community?" Because FoH terrorists are out and about scaring the bejesus out of Pleasantville's horses, Pleasantville Council has been forced to act to prevent the very Decline and Fall of Pleasantville as we know it.
"The Chavurah posed a positive way forward: why not celebrate the courageous people, on the ground, Israeli and Palestinian, who at some risk to themselves extend a hand of friendship and trust and undertake joint projects to improve each others lives and demand that a two-state solution* be enacted by their leaders." The Chutzpah, in its unrelenting search for peace (and at some considerable risk to itself) extended its trembling white hand, fairly dripping with beads and mirrors, towards the ticking bombs of the FoH, in a most generous offer: the FoH extremists would get 90% (or 95%, or 97%, or whatever) of the grassy sward out back of Pleasantville Library, while Chutzpah would keep the Library and the Council (which Abraham had long ago earmarked as Chutzpah territory anyway).
[* Deciphering Chutzpah's utterances is not always easy. I take its reference to "a two-state solution" to mean that part of the West Bank should be annexed to the state of Israel, while the rest is given over to an Israeli settler state. And the Palestinians? What Palestinians?]
"A joint effort by IWC and FoH would replicate the many peace initiatives being practiced in the Middle East." Let's play a game. We'll pee on your leg, and you pretend it's raining.
Given that this is Middle East Reality Check, it is appropriate to conclude this post by moving beyond the high farce of our NSW plodders, the ignorance and timidity of council seatwarmers, and the unctuous platitudinising of the IWC Zionists to the awful reality of Hebron under Israeli occupation - the whole point of the exhibition we weren't allowed to see:-
"It is a scene repeated, with minor variations, virtually every day: a group of Palestinian schoolgirls, huddled together with their mothers, their teachers, and a team of international volunteers, is picking its way across a rocky hillside. Behind them is the school from which they have just departed... Before them is the path along the hillside, terminating in a narrow set of stairs leading down to a paved road. In between, there is a group of Jewish settler girls, accompanied by a detachment of heavily armed Israeli soldiers... They see the Palestinian schoolchildren approaching and stand up to obstruct the path, heaping verbal abuse at the Palestinian girls and their mothers. Pushing and shoving follows... The Israeli soldiers... try to intervene, but they are under strict orders. Their duty is to protect the Jewish girls: they are not allowed to physically restrain them. The girls are emboldened because they know there's nothing the soldiers can do to stop them - and that if any Palestinian so much as lifts a hand to them, the soldiers will instantly step forward to protect them. The soldiers plead with the girls to make way for the Palestinians; at the same time they bark orders at the Palestinian mothers and daughters, 'Yalla, imshi!' (Come on, get moving!) Finally, the procession breaks through the crowd of settler girls.
"The Palestinian children's ordeal is not over, however. As they approach the top of the steps, Jewish settler boys... start pelting them with stones. The path narrows and bottlenecks as it reaches the top of the stairs. The stairs themselves are narrow and slippery: they descend along the side of a building, but there is no bannister facing the street side, no protection of any kind - an open drop to the street below. The Palestinian children and their mothers, crowded together and gingerly picking their way down the slippery steps one by one, are exposed to the stones. Some of the Jewish boys pelting them are as young as 5 or 6. There are adults - Jewish settlers - watching them. None intervenes. There is another detachment of Israeli soldiers here as well; but the boys, like their sisters on the hillside above, know that the soldiers are incapable of stopping them. The stoning continues.
"The main entrance to the [school] was sealed with razor wire by the Israeli army in 2002: this dangerous path is the only way for the Palestinian schoolchildren to get to and from their school. Because of the nature of the harrassment and intimidation the children face, there are at least 3 different international organizations providing escorts and observers to accompany them as they come and go from school, including Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) and the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), sponsored by the World Council of Churches. The escorts observe and record what happens on a daily basis, and relay their observations, pictures, and videos, but they can't physically protect the Palestinian children or their mothers. On the contrary, they must frequently practice the Christian virtue of turning the other cheek. In June 2006, Duduzile Masango, a young South African Christian volunteer with EAPPI, was assaulted by an elderly settler woman near the [school], who attempted to smother her with a towel. In April of that year, a German social worker, a Norwegian sociologist, and a Swiss lawyer, all also with EAPPI, were stoned by settlers near the school while accompanying Palestinian children. The lawyer needed several stitches for a head wound as a result.
"In November 2006, Tove Johansson, a Swedish human rights worker with TIPH, was among a group of international volunteers accompanying Palestinian schoolchildren when the group was surrounded by Jewish settlers - adults this time... The settlers closed in and started spitting on the Palestinian children and their international escorts - so much spit that one of the observers said it felt like rain. Pushing and kicking followed. Then one of the Jewish men reached forward and broke a glass bottle on Tove's face, shattering her cheekbone. As she fell to the ground, the crowd of settlers surged forward, cheering and chanting. At that point, the Israeli soldiers who had been so far standing by called for the crowd of settlers to back off. They backed off a little, but continued jeering. The Palestinian children were terrified; their young escorts, tending to Tove, were hardly less shaken. Finally, the Israeli police intervened - threatening to arrest the international human rights workers if they did not move off.
"The international observers come and go. For the Palestinian children of Hebron, however, these are scenes of everyday life. It doesn't always end in blood, but they face this ordeal twice each day, going to and from school." (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, Saree Makdisi, pp 209-211)
Screaming headlines, front page reports, assorted commentary and opinion pieces, photographs, and soundbites from Kevin Rudd ("absolutely revolting") on down, all occasioned by Bill Henson's abortive NSW Police-interdicted exhibition of photographs of naked child models, have rained down on us for days now. That's the news that's fit to print.
Another abortive NSW Police-interdicted exhibition received no such media attention, apart from a May 13 report in the Sydney Morning Herald and a May 14 piece on Radio National's PM program. No, this exhibition wasn't about what could, in the eyes of some, be construed as porn, but about worse, much worse. It was about Palestine.
The Herald reported that plods from the NSW police anti-terrorism squad had paid a visit to Sydney's Leichhardt Council on the eve of an exhibition about the Palestinian Nakba set up in the library's foyer by local group Friends of Hebron. This had led to Council canning the exhibition because, in the words of the mayor, "it hadn't met the council's criteria for such projects, which include not being divisive." A police media spokesman was reported as saying that "the officers were from the community contact unit, which falls within its Counter Terrorism Operations. They had not visited the library to tell it to cancel the exhibition, but only to 'say hi' to Friends of Hebron." (We're just here to say hi: terror squad)
The mayor apparently objected to some of the photographs' captions, "including one that said Palestinian children going to school needed protection from children from Israel who were throwing stones," and was quoted as saying, "Being in a public library is different to being in an exhibition space. If you're in an exhibition space and someone knows they are going into the exhibition, they expect to be educated and confronted. But most people going into a library just want to return books."
The mayor's superb grasp of the issues, not to mention her way with words, were further aired on PM: "The sort of thing was Israeli children throwing stones at the Palestinians on the way to school and another thing was that they are destroying this house so that they can get it, the Israelis are. There was another thing about... there was the first image was a bombed down house with a how would you feel if the Israelis did this to your house."
The head librarian, apparently too traumatised to speak herself, was quoted by a FoH spokesperson, as saying that the police "had put the fear of God into her and the staff and everyone in the library felt intimidated by... the 'Men in Black'."
However, the piece de resistance (If I can use that word without exciting the attention of Men in Black who just want to drop in and say hi) was the PM reporter's hilarious exchange with Peter Dein, "Assistant Commissioner of NSW Police in charge of counter terrorism":-
PETER DEIN: Police from the Community Contact Unit have no interest in that particular exhibition and they haven't said anything to anybody about the fact, or the content of that particular exhibition. They were there simply to make contact with the people that were running that exhibition, not in relation to the exhibition itself.
EMILY BOURKE: So it's a complete coincidence that the exhibition was happening on the afternoon that the officers arrived?
DEIN: Most certainly, yes. As I said, they were there for the purpose of tracking down the people that they wanted to speak to so that they could start building this relationship and they thought it was a convenient place to attend because they were led to believe that they were actually at the library that afternoon. As it turned out they weren't and they left messages for the people to contact them and it appears as if somehow the message got twisted.
BOURKE: There's been an allegation that the actions by the police were... intimidatory... they have been described as 'Men in Black'. That they put the fear of God into the librarians, that it's a throwback to McCarthyism...
DEIN: That's outrageous. That is just incredible to even hear that. God only knows where that's coming from. It's very disappointing to find out that this has come to that. What they were trying to do was exercise a proactive, positive initiative for the purpose of making contact with people in communities that need our assistance and need us, need to become very acquainted with police for the purposes of looking after them and that's just totally outrageous that someone would even think that."
Oh dear! "... they were led to believe..." Were they now? Now who, I hear you asking, was it that alerted the 'Men in Black' to the nefarious goings on of the FoH sleeper cell in the library foyer? Search me (No, not you, Men In Black!).
Interestingly, a group(uscle?) of alert - and highly alarmed - citizens, name of Inner West Chavurah, who recently issued a press release thoughtfully summarised as "The FoH had not abided by their undertakings, and seem upset at the consequences"?
Herewith its somewhat arcane theoretical introduction, followed by my plain English translation:-
"The FoH wished to convey a narrative of suffering by the Palestinian people at the hands of Israel. The Chavurah indicated that this approach invites the competing narrative of suicide bombing in Israel and constant shelling of Israeli towns from Gaza even though Israel withdrew unilaterally from there." Palestinians don't suffer. And even if they do, it's got nothing to do with Israel. And even if it has, Israelis suffer just as much, if not more, at the hands of the Palestinians. And quite undeservedly too, seeing as how when Israel recently did them a good turn by exiting the Gaza Strip, the buggers just up and bit her on her ample (khaki-clad) bum.
"Portrayed in these terms the Middle East conflict gets replicated in Leichhardt with tensions felt in the community and tit-for-tat accusations of who is the victim, and who is the perpetrator. The reality is that everyone in the Middle East suffers, and many respond by perpetrating and the violence continues." FoH terrorists have imported this cosmic cycle of Mid-East violence into Pleasantville such that its once pleasant and placid streets are no longer... well, placid or pleasant.
"The dilemma for Council was: should Council facilities be used in activities that have the potential to cause disharmony, anxiety, and dissention [sic] in the Leichhardt community?" Because FoH terrorists are out and about scaring the bejesus out of Pleasantville's horses, Pleasantville Council has been forced to act to prevent the very Decline and Fall of Pleasantville as we know it.
"The Chavurah posed a positive way forward: why not celebrate the courageous people, on the ground, Israeli and Palestinian, who at some risk to themselves extend a hand of friendship and trust and undertake joint projects to improve each others lives and demand that a two-state solution* be enacted by their leaders." The Chutzpah, in its unrelenting search for peace (and at some considerable risk to itself) extended its trembling white hand, fairly dripping with beads and mirrors, towards the ticking bombs of the FoH, in a most generous offer: the FoH extremists would get 90% (or 95%, or 97%, or whatever) of the grassy sward out back of Pleasantville Library, while Chutzpah would keep the Library and the Council (which Abraham had long ago earmarked as Chutzpah territory anyway).
[* Deciphering Chutzpah's utterances is not always easy. I take its reference to "a two-state solution" to mean that part of the West Bank should be annexed to the state of Israel, while the rest is given over to an Israeli settler state. And the Palestinians? What Palestinians?]
"A joint effort by IWC and FoH would replicate the many peace initiatives being practiced in the Middle East." Let's play a game. We'll pee on your leg, and you pretend it's raining.
Given that this is Middle East Reality Check, it is appropriate to conclude this post by moving beyond the high farce of our NSW plodders, the ignorance and timidity of council seatwarmers, and the unctuous platitudinising of the IWC Zionists to the awful reality of Hebron under Israeli occupation - the whole point of the exhibition we weren't allowed to see:-
"It is a scene repeated, with minor variations, virtually every day: a group of Palestinian schoolgirls, huddled together with their mothers, their teachers, and a team of international volunteers, is picking its way across a rocky hillside. Behind them is the school from which they have just departed... Before them is the path along the hillside, terminating in a narrow set of stairs leading down to a paved road. In between, there is a group of Jewish settler girls, accompanied by a detachment of heavily armed Israeli soldiers... They see the Palestinian schoolchildren approaching and stand up to obstruct the path, heaping verbal abuse at the Palestinian girls and their mothers. Pushing and shoving follows... The Israeli soldiers... try to intervene, but they are under strict orders. Their duty is to protect the Jewish girls: they are not allowed to physically restrain them. The girls are emboldened because they know there's nothing the soldiers can do to stop them - and that if any Palestinian so much as lifts a hand to them, the soldiers will instantly step forward to protect them. The soldiers plead with the girls to make way for the Palestinians; at the same time they bark orders at the Palestinian mothers and daughters, 'Yalla, imshi!' (Come on, get moving!) Finally, the procession breaks through the crowd of settler girls.
"The Palestinian children's ordeal is not over, however. As they approach the top of the steps, Jewish settler boys... start pelting them with stones. The path narrows and bottlenecks as it reaches the top of the stairs. The stairs themselves are narrow and slippery: they descend along the side of a building, but there is no bannister facing the street side, no protection of any kind - an open drop to the street below. The Palestinian children and their mothers, crowded together and gingerly picking their way down the slippery steps one by one, are exposed to the stones. Some of the Jewish boys pelting them are as young as 5 or 6. There are adults - Jewish settlers - watching them. None intervenes. There is another detachment of Israeli soldiers here as well; but the boys, like their sisters on the hillside above, know that the soldiers are incapable of stopping them. The stoning continues.
"The main entrance to the [school] was sealed with razor wire by the Israeli army in 2002: this dangerous path is the only way for the Palestinian schoolchildren to get to and from their school. Because of the nature of the harrassment and intimidation the children face, there are at least 3 different international organizations providing escorts and observers to accompany them as they come and go from school, including Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) and the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), sponsored by the World Council of Churches. The escorts observe and record what happens on a daily basis, and relay their observations, pictures, and videos, but they can't physically protect the Palestinian children or their mothers. On the contrary, they must frequently practice the Christian virtue of turning the other cheek. In June 2006, Duduzile Masango, a young South African Christian volunteer with EAPPI, was assaulted by an elderly settler woman near the [school], who attempted to smother her with a towel. In April of that year, a German social worker, a Norwegian sociologist, and a Swiss lawyer, all also with EAPPI, were stoned by settlers near the school while accompanying Palestinian children. The lawyer needed several stitches for a head wound as a result.
"In November 2006, Tove Johansson, a Swedish human rights worker with TIPH, was among a group of international volunteers accompanying Palestinian schoolchildren when the group was surrounded by Jewish settlers - adults this time... The settlers closed in and started spitting on the Palestinian children and their international escorts - so much spit that one of the observers said it felt like rain. Pushing and kicking followed. Then one of the Jewish men reached forward and broke a glass bottle on Tove's face, shattering her cheekbone. As she fell to the ground, the crowd of settlers surged forward, cheering and chanting. At that point, the Israeli soldiers who had been so far standing by called for the crowd of settlers to back off. They backed off a little, but continued jeering. The Palestinian children were terrified; their young escorts, tending to Tove, were hardly less shaken. Finally, the Israeli police intervened - threatening to arrest the international human rights workers if they did not move off.
"The international observers come and go. For the Palestinian children of Hebron, however, these are scenes of everyday life. It doesn't always end in blood, but they face this ordeal twice each day, going to and from school." (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, Saree Makdisi, pp 209-211)
Friday, December 21, 2007
Greg Sheridan: Charmed by Israel's "Most Dangerous Politician"
Greg Sheridan is The Australian's Foreign Editor. He is also a recipient of the Zionist Federation of Australia's Jerusalem Prize "for his support for Israel." (The Australian Jewish News, 27/4/07) Currently in Israel, he's been talking to some VIPs - VIPs like Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, dubbed by Hebrew University's Professor Zeev Sternhell, "Israel's leading academic specialist on fascism and totalitarianism...[as] 'perhaps the most dangerous politician in the history of the state of Israel.' " (Extreme right-winger to join Israeli government, The Scotsman, 23/10/06)
Lieberman, who heads a party called Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home), was born in Moldova and emigrated to Israel in 1978. As a Jew he became an instant citizen under Israel's Law of Return. This parvenu, whom Sheridan found "charming in a rough, Russian way," (Israeli right-winger redraws the battle lines, The Australian, 17/12/07) has a bellicose bee in his Moldovan bonnet about the indigenous peoples of the area, whether Israeli Arabs (who should be moved out of Israel), inhabitants of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (who should be treated like the Russians treat the Chechens), or other Arabs, such as Egyptians (whose Aswan dam should be bombed). (Israel must treat Gaza like Russia does Chechnya: hardliner, AFP, 1/11/06)
Sheridan really digs Lieberman, finding him, "...more open to compromise than many Israelis." But what could Sheridan possibly mean here by "compromise"? Does Lieberman believe in ending the 40-year Israeli occupation of the territories, allowing for a contiguous Palestinian state on 22% of historic Palestine? As if! No, Lieberman believes that "as well as territory, Israel should give away people too, in particular its Muslim Arab citizens. He doesn't want to expel them exactly, just redraw some borders so that some Arab towns and villages move into a new Palestinian state nextdoor, thus making Israel a more Jewish state." Seems that in Israel the word 'compromise' is as movable as the word 'borders'.
At first Sheridan seems to recoil from such a Clayton's "compromise": "The idea of excluding people on the basis of their ethnicity or religion is anathema to every liberal principle..." But, where Israel is concerned, "liberal principles" can always be compromised and excuses found: "Yet it conforms to the reality of the Middle East. Hamas extremists are trying to kill, convert or drive into exile the tiny Christian minority in the Gaza Strip. The Jewish minorities have been driven out of virtually every Arab state. And even the logic of objecting to every Jewish settlement in the West Bank can be seen as endorsing the notion that Israel should bequeath the Palestinians a state which contains not a single Jew."
Let us examine these bold but specious assertions. First, that the reality of the Middle East is ethno-religious exclusion. This is certainly the case with Israel, and does not depend on whether or not Lieberman's brand of ethnic cleansing is one day implemented. As a Jewish state, representing not its citizens (one fifth of whom are Arabs), but 'the Jewish people' from Moldova to wherever, Israel privileges Jews over non-Jews. This is true both for its own non-Jewish citizens, who are denied access to land and resources within Israel, and to the stateless Palestinian refugees expelled by Zionist forces in 1948 from their homes and lands in what is now Israel, who are denied the right of return. As American-Palestinian academic Joseph Massad puts it: "...Israeli racism...manifests in its flag, its national anthem, and a bunch of laws that are necessary to safeguard Jewish privilege, including the Law of Return (1950), the Law of Absentee Property (1950), the Law of the State's Property (1951), the Law of Citizenship (1952), the Status Law (1952), the Israeli Lands Administration law (1960), the Construction and Building Law (1965), and the 2002 temporary law banning marriage between Israelis and Palestinians of the occupied territories." (Israel's right to be racist, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007836/op1.htm) No other Middle Eastern state, whatever their failings, comes anywhere near the Israeli reality of ethno-religious exclusivism.
Second, that Hamas is "trying to kill, convert or drive into exile the tiny Christian minority in the Gaza Strip." One recent source, the Jerusalem Post, no less [Gaza: Christian-Muslim tensions heat up, 25/9/07], reports an attack on an 80 year-old Christian woman by "a masked man" who "demanded her money." This led to an appeal by Palestinian Christians to Hamas "to make an effort to protect Christians." Curious that they should be appealing to a movement allegedly involved in "killing, converting and exiling" Christians. In fact, as Palestinian academic, Khaled Hroub, has written: "In its conduct towards the Palestinian Christians Hamas has shown extraordinary sensitivity...there have been no religious-driven or sectarian friction or riots in Palestine during the lifetime of Hamas that could be linked directly to the movement." (Hamas: A Beginner's Guide, pp. 90-1)
Third, that "The Jewish minorities have been driven out of virtually every Arab state." Pushed or pulled, Mr Sheridan? Consider the following extract from CIA adviser, Wilbur Crane Eveland, who was in Iraq at the time (early fifties): "Just after I arrived in Baghdad, an Israeli citizen had been recognized...his interrogation led to the discovery of 15 arms caches brought into Iraq by the underground Zionist movement...In an attempt to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the US Information Service Library and synogogues, and soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel. Embarrassed, the Iraqi government launched a full-scale investigation, and shared its findings with our Embassy. Iraqi Chief Rabbi Sassoon Khedouri...was urging his people to be calm and remain, remembering that they were native Iraqis first and that Judaism was only their religion, which they could practice freely as always. In spite of our constant reports that the situation in Iraq was exaggerated and artificially inflamed from without, the State Department urged us to intervene with the government to facilitate an air-lift that the Zionists were organizing to 'rescue' Iraqi Jews...Although the Iraqi police later provided our Embassy with evidence to show that the synogogue and the library bombing, as well as the anti-Jewish and anti-American leaflet campaign, had been the work of an underground Zionist organization, most of the world believed that Arab terrorism had motivated the flight of Iraqi Jews, whom the Zionists had 'rescued' really just in order to increase the Israeli Jewish population..." (Ropes of Sand (1980) pp. 48-9)
Fourth, the laughable assertion that "the logic of objecting to every Jewish settlement in the West Bank can be seen as endorsing the notion that Israel should bequeath to the Palestinians a state which contains not a single Jew," is like asserting that, because the French objected to the German occupation of France in WW2, they must have been prejudiced against Germans.
Of course, there's more, much more, but let's fast forward to Sheridan's oh so understanding conclusion: "What [Lieberman's] political rise does show is just how weary people are getting of the failure to solve the conflict and how longingly many Israelis are looking to straightforward notions such as separation as their salvation." What the rise (and rise?) of Lieberman actually reveals is the rising racism at the very heart of the Jewish state. As Palestinian-American academic, Saree Makdisi, has pointed out, the only difference between Lieberman and mainstream Israeli politicians is that while they both "agree that a line of concrete and steel ought to be drawn with Jews on one side and as many Arabs as possible on the other," the latter "argue that it is OK to have a few Arabs on the inside, as long as they behave themselves, and don't contribute too heavily to what Israelis refer to as 'the demographic problem'." (http://www.counterpunch.org/makdisi03312006.htm)
Partisan journalism doesn't get much better than this.
Lieberman, who heads a party called Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home), was born in Moldova and emigrated to Israel in 1978. As a Jew he became an instant citizen under Israel's Law of Return. This parvenu, whom Sheridan found "charming in a rough, Russian way," (Israeli right-winger redraws the battle lines, The Australian, 17/12/07) has a bellicose bee in his Moldovan bonnet about the indigenous peoples of the area, whether Israeli Arabs (who should be moved out of Israel), inhabitants of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (who should be treated like the Russians treat the Chechens), or other Arabs, such as Egyptians (whose Aswan dam should be bombed). (Israel must treat Gaza like Russia does Chechnya: hardliner, AFP, 1/11/06)
Sheridan really digs Lieberman, finding him, "...more open to compromise than many Israelis." But what could Sheridan possibly mean here by "compromise"? Does Lieberman believe in ending the 40-year Israeli occupation of the territories, allowing for a contiguous Palestinian state on 22% of historic Palestine? As if! No, Lieberman believes that "as well as territory, Israel should give away people too, in particular its Muslim Arab citizens. He doesn't want to expel them exactly, just redraw some borders so that some Arab towns and villages move into a new Palestinian state nextdoor, thus making Israel a more Jewish state." Seems that in Israel the word 'compromise' is as movable as the word 'borders'.
At first Sheridan seems to recoil from such a Clayton's "compromise": "The idea of excluding people on the basis of their ethnicity or religion is anathema to every liberal principle..." But, where Israel is concerned, "liberal principles" can always be compromised and excuses found: "Yet it conforms to the reality of the Middle East. Hamas extremists are trying to kill, convert or drive into exile the tiny Christian minority in the Gaza Strip. The Jewish minorities have been driven out of virtually every Arab state. And even the logic of objecting to every Jewish settlement in the West Bank can be seen as endorsing the notion that Israel should bequeath the Palestinians a state which contains not a single Jew."
Let us examine these bold but specious assertions. First, that the reality of the Middle East is ethno-religious exclusion. This is certainly the case with Israel, and does not depend on whether or not Lieberman's brand of ethnic cleansing is one day implemented. As a Jewish state, representing not its citizens (one fifth of whom are Arabs), but 'the Jewish people' from Moldova to wherever, Israel privileges Jews over non-Jews. This is true both for its own non-Jewish citizens, who are denied access to land and resources within Israel, and to the stateless Palestinian refugees expelled by Zionist forces in 1948 from their homes and lands in what is now Israel, who are denied the right of return. As American-Palestinian academic Joseph Massad puts it: "...Israeli racism...manifests in its flag, its national anthem, and a bunch of laws that are necessary to safeguard Jewish privilege, including the Law of Return (1950), the Law of Absentee Property (1950), the Law of the State's Property (1951), the Law of Citizenship (1952), the Status Law (1952), the Israeli Lands Administration law (1960), the Construction and Building Law (1965), and the 2002 temporary law banning marriage between Israelis and Palestinians of the occupied territories." (Israel's right to be racist, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007836/op1.htm) No other Middle Eastern state, whatever their failings, comes anywhere near the Israeli reality of ethno-religious exclusivism.
Second, that Hamas is "trying to kill, convert or drive into exile the tiny Christian minority in the Gaza Strip." One recent source, the Jerusalem Post, no less [Gaza: Christian-Muslim tensions heat up, 25/9/07], reports an attack on an 80 year-old Christian woman by "a masked man" who "demanded her money." This led to an appeal by Palestinian Christians to Hamas "to make an effort to protect Christians." Curious that they should be appealing to a movement allegedly involved in "killing, converting and exiling" Christians. In fact, as Palestinian academic, Khaled Hroub, has written: "In its conduct towards the Palestinian Christians Hamas has shown extraordinary sensitivity...there have been no religious-driven or sectarian friction or riots in Palestine during the lifetime of Hamas that could be linked directly to the movement." (Hamas: A Beginner's Guide, pp. 90-1)
Third, that "The Jewish minorities have been driven out of virtually every Arab state." Pushed or pulled, Mr Sheridan? Consider the following extract from CIA adviser, Wilbur Crane Eveland, who was in Iraq at the time (early fifties): "Just after I arrived in Baghdad, an Israeli citizen had been recognized...his interrogation led to the discovery of 15 arms caches brought into Iraq by the underground Zionist movement...In an attempt to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the US Information Service Library and synogogues, and soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel. Embarrassed, the Iraqi government launched a full-scale investigation, and shared its findings with our Embassy. Iraqi Chief Rabbi Sassoon Khedouri...was urging his people to be calm and remain, remembering that they were native Iraqis first and that Judaism was only their religion, which they could practice freely as always. In spite of our constant reports that the situation in Iraq was exaggerated and artificially inflamed from without, the State Department urged us to intervene with the government to facilitate an air-lift that the Zionists were organizing to 'rescue' Iraqi Jews...Although the Iraqi police later provided our Embassy with evidence to show that the synogogue and the library bombing, as well as the anti-Jewish and anti-American leaflet campaign, had been the work of an underground Zionist organization, most of the world believed that Arab terrorism had motivated the flight of Iraqi Jews, whom the Zionists had 'rescued' really just in order to increase the Israeli Jewish population..." (Ropes of Sand (1980) pp. 48-9)
Fourth, the laughable assertion that "the logic of objecting to every Jewish settlement in the West Bank can be seen as endorsing the notion that Israel should bequeath to the Palestinians a state which contains not a single Jew," is like asserting that, because the French objected to the German occupation of France in WW2, they must have been prejudiced against Germans.
Of course, there's more, much more, but let's fast forward to Sheridan's oh so understanding conclusion: "What [Lieberman's] political rise does show is just how weary people are getting of the failure to solve the conflict and how longingly many Israelis are looking to straightforward notions such as separation as their salvation." What the rise (and rise?) of Lieberman actually reveals is the rising racism at the very heart of the Jewish state. As Palestinian-American academic, Saree Makdisi, has pointed out, the only difference between Lieberman and mainstream Israeli politicians is that while they both "agree that a line of concrete and steel ought to be drawn with Jews on one side and as many Arabs as possible on the other," the latter "argue that it is OK to have a few Arabs on the inside, as long as they behave themselves, and don't contribute too heavily to what Israelis refer to as 'the demographic problem'." (http://www.counterpunch.org/makdisi03312006.htm)
Partisan journalism doesn't get much better than this.
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