"In essence, Palestine was 'empty' because it could be easily emptied of its population." (M. Shahid Alam, Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, 2009, p 77)
Israeli historian, Tom Segev, is coming to Australia as a guest of Monash University's Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation.
The Australian's Middle East correspondent, John Lyons, has written a welcome profile of Segev, which focuses on a matter which has rarely, if ever, disturbed the complacent Zionist orthodoxy of Murdoch's Australian flagship: the primacy of mythology, ideology and indoctrination over the historical record in Israel, particularly in relation to the Palestinian Nakba of 1948.
Lyons writes that Segev "is one the 'New Historians' from the 1980s when Israel released its first wave of archival documents. 'You could take out a document and say, 'Wow, this is not how we learnt it at school. It was less heroic, less noble than we had learnt at school. Until then we had no history, we had mythology, we had ideology and we had a lot of indoctrination.' Children were taught that when Israel was established in 1948 it had been empty - it was a land without people for a people without land. These historians demolished that myth with documents showing almost half the Arabs who left were forced out, many violently." (Israeli widows reveal the reality of land built on myths, 11/8/12)*
This kind of plain-speaking, of course, is like a red rag to a bull for those who've made it their business to patrol ms media discourse on the subject of Palestine/Israel lest it deviate in any way from Israel's official line, that is from Israeli mythology and ideology. Hence the following letter from Tzvi Fleischer of the Australia-Israel Review, published in The Australian on August 14:
"John Lyon's article on historian Tom Segev... made the absurd claim that before the 'new' historians such as Segev, Israeli 'children were taught that when Israel was established in 1948 it had been empty - it was a land without people for a people without land'. This is not true. There has certainly been criticism of past Israeli curriculums for having paid insufficient attention to the 1948 Palestinian refugees, and Palestinian plight generally, but students were never taught that the land was completely empty. Indeed, the line about 'a land without people for a people without' has nothing to do with the 1948 refugees. It is the core of a twisted criticism of the whole Zionist movement from 1895 onward by Edward Said and his followers. The misrepresentation is two-fold. First, while there was a slogan used by a small part of the Zionist movement for a few years after 1900 that spoke of 'a land without a people for a people without a land', this is materially different from 'a land without people'. The early Zionists were aware that Palestine had Arab inhabitants but noted they were not considered a separate nationality or people at that time."
To interrupt Fleischer's letter here and draw out his meaning:
What he's saying is that the early political Zionists were certainly aware of the existence of Arabs in Palestine but believed that, unlike the Jews, they did not rate as 'a people'. They saw them, if you will, as generic Arabs, equally at home in other parts of the Middle East where Arabic was spoken and Islam practised. In other words, they were eminently portable, or transferable (to adapt the Zionist buzzword 'transfer' - in use in back rooms whenever Palestine's pre-state Zionists met to discuss their 'Arab problem').
On the other hand, these same Zionists took very seriously indeed the idea that Jews were 'a people', at a time when being part of a people, separate from other people, seemed so terribly important. With religion, including Judaism, generally on the skids at the time, and tribalism and nationalism all the go, these Jewish nationalists conned themselves, and the rest of the world, into believing that being a Jew meant so much more than just being the adherent, to a lesser or greater degree, of the Jewish faith. It meant, they believed, belonging to 'a people' who had once had a glorious past in the land of Palestine, which was cruelly terminated by the Romans, and were now living in doleful 'exile' outside Palestine (or the the Land of Israel as they preferred to call it), a state of affairs which could only be relieved by the reconstitution of ancient Israel in today's Palestine.
Mind you, some of them, and they were all European Jews you'll note, really had to wrestle with the idea of finding a common identity with non-European, Arab, Jews, so concerned were they with matters of pedigree:
"The Jaffa colonists outclass the Halukah Jerusalemites as a shire stallion would a worn-out coster's pony. The Yemenites are for the most part undersized and rather poor-spirited natives. They are not racially Jews. They are black, long-headed, hybrid Arabs." (Palestine Reclaimed: Letters from a Jewish Officer in Palestine, Redcliffe N. Salaman, 1920, p 28) [Italics in the original.]
If the concept of 'a people' has more than a touch of arbitrariness and artificiality about it, how much more so that of concocting a people out of a religion? The simple fact is that anybody today who can't bring himself to acknowledge (and celebrate) our hybridity has a problem with reality. And so, for Zionist true believers in such bunkum, whether they be the first Zionists or the likes of Fleischer today, to pose as authorities on who is or who is not worthy of the designation 'a people' is rich indeed, and to be honest, entirely misses the point.
Whether the Arabs of Palestine, especially the majority fellahin, regarded themselves as 'a people' or not, they had been rooted in the land of Palestine for centuries and had prior occupancy of it. The simple fact of the Palestinian Arab's native title to Palestine may not be quite as entertaining as Zionist mythology, but at the end of the day it is one of those basic moral and legal principles we reject at our peril. Upholding it means, quite simply, that Palestine was, still is, and always will be the land of the Arabs who lived there (and in some parts, against incredible odds, still do).
Returning to the rest of Fleischer's letter:
"But for those dedicated to Israel's destruction, such as Said, it is more convenient to dishonestly rewrite the slogan to pretend that the 'racist' Zionists declared Palestinians were not people. Moreover, to characterise Zionist and Israeli history on the basis of this single slogan, employed by a few Zionists for only a few years more than 100 years ago, is to indulge in the crudest form of propaganda."
Fleischer should be careful of accusing others of dishonesty. If he had any respect for its converse, he'd acknowledge that the early Zionists, whether they used the 'land without people' slogan or not, acted as if it were true:
"The fact of an overwhelming indigenous Arab majority confronted the Zionists with an imposing ethical problem, which for the most part they chose not to acknowledge. The earlier Zionist writings almost entirely ignored the Arab issue, forwarding the idea of a Jewish national revival in Palestine without regard to the reality that an exclusively Jewish state would entail the expulsion of the existing population. What reference there was to the Palestinian Arabs was generally derogatory and detached, denying their claim to the land and status as a people. The dehumanized image of the Palestinians which the Zionists developed and propagated was instrumental in displacing the moral issue and establishing an aura of legal justification around Zionist goals and activity." (The Zionist Mind: The Origins & Development of Zionist Thought, Alan R. Taylor, 1974, p 48)**
A more ethical (and therefore marginal) Zionist, Judah Magnes, speaking of Palestine's Arab population, warned in 1930 that '[t]he fact is that they are here in their overwhelming numbers in this part of the world, and whereas it may have been in accord with Israelitic needs in the time of Joshua to conquer the land and maintain their position in it with the sword, that is not in accord with the desire of plain Jews or with the long ethical tradition of Judaism..." (The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis & Reader, Arthur Hertzberg, 1997, p 449)
Another, the armchair Joshua and ideological father of today's dominant Likud strain of Zionism, Vladimir Jabotinsky, recognised the Arab claim to Palestine, but only to dismiss it by asserting (in 1937) that, although "there is no question of ousting the Arabs," they had better get used to the idea of being a minority in the coming Jewish state because their claim on Palestine "is like the claims of appetite versus the claims of starvation." (ibid, p 562)
Needless to say, those actual Joshuas who followed, the Ben-Gurions and the Begins, having the advantage of a Zionist army, trained and armed over the previous decades for the coming confrontation with Palestine's indigenous Arab majority, had no qualms whatever about "ousting the Arabs," and transforming them, in Zionist parlance, into 'absentees', a term that sits cosily with the old 'land without people' slogan.
Finally, here's a most interesting response to Fleischer, published the next day, 15 August:
"Tzvi Fleischer claims history is being dishonestly misrepresented on the basis of a 'single slogan' used by a few Zionists for only 'a few years more than 100 years ago'. In 1935, my husband (then a teenager, now deceased) spent 6 months in a training camp for German Jews being prepared to work on kibbutzim in Palestine. He was told the land of Palestine was empty except for a few nomadic Arabs down in the desert. Similar 'indoctrination' (my husband's word for the training) must have been practised on Australian Jewish youth in that period, as I've heard older Australians born and educated here reciting similar untruths. Funnily enough, another slogan I've heard recalled implicitly admits the land was already occupied and farmed: 'Yard by yard, goat by goat'." (Robyn Walton, Toorak, Vic)
[*Segev, author of One Palestine, Complete: Jews & Arabs Under the British Mandate (2000), 1967: Israel, the War & the Year that Transformed the Middle East (2006), and other books, also made the following points in Lyons' report:
1) "Demographically, the Arab population and the ultra-orthodox population in Israel are growing. What that means is that the Zionist element is becoming weaker. In Jerusalem now, in first grade, a majority of children are either Arab or ultra-orthodox. This means Israel is rapidly losing on the front of being Jewish and democratic."
2) "Israel is still trying to project the 'fiction' that the occupation of the Palestinian territories is temporary. 'It is almost 50 years on since we took the territories. The official policy of the Israeli government is a two-state solution but I don't think that the present government actually believes in a two-state solution'... Politically it was 'very clever' of Netanyahu to publicly commit to a two-state solution. 'it enabled him to play for time'..."]
[**For JMN Jeffries' commentary on Zionism's wilful blindness, see my 7/11/11 post None So Blind.]
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Bob Carr Rewrites Jordanian History
"Foreign Minister Bob Carr has stressed Australia's desire to see a negotiated, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a meeting in Jerusalem with Israeli President Shimon Peres, Senator Carr said the need for the resumption of negotiations was 'urgent'." (Australia supports two-state solution: Carr, John Lyons, The Australian, 7/8/12)
That is, the need to resume the world's longest-running diplomatic charade. Meanwhile, outside in the shrinking scrap of land that is supposed to host the mythical Palestinian statelet, the bulldozers roar, the olive trees burn, the bullets whine, the kids are ripped out of their beds at 2 in the morning by uniformed thugs and taken away, and the desperation mounts. But Bob and Shimon are too busy indulging in a little mutual back-scratching to notice such things:
"Senator Carr and Mr Peres emphasised the warmth of relations between Australia and Israel. They deplored the ongoing violence of the Assad regime in Syria... and noted the stresses the Syrian crisis was placing on neighbouring Jordan, which has a growing refugee problem." (ibid)
Poor little Jordan, they tut. How can the little king there cope with all those refugees?
Jordan? Refugees? Sure, Bob may be a history buff but you can't expect him to remember the time when Israel was packing Palestinian refugees off to Jordan (not to mention Lebanon and Syria too). After all, when the Israelis were busy ethnically-cleansing Palestine in 1948, Bob was less than 2 years old. And anyway, his forte, American history, is so incredibly sexy it really doesn't leave much time for the rest of the planet, especially the bits inhabited by brown people. So when Bob talks about refugee camps in Jordan, he's not talking about those who ended up there from US-occupied Iraq (remember them?), and as for those who ended up there from Israeli-occupied Palestine 6 decades ago, well they aren't even on his radar:
"I have just spent 3 days in Jordan speaking to its leadership, visiting refugee camps..." (Jordan's tolerance shines a light on rest of the world, Bob Carr, The Australian, 10/8/12)
No, no brushing up on the history of modern Jordan for Bob. There are more important things on his mind:
"... and holding discussions on interfaith dialogue and the overlap of cultures." (ibid)
But all that's just by way of introducing today's gripe. This is what really got me going:
"It was hard not to be impressed by the worldliness of a leadership that has steered the country since it gained independence in 1946. Jordan lives in a tough neighbourhood. It lost the West Bank to Israel in 1967 and withstood an attempted Palestinian coup in Black September 1970."
Typical! Those bloody Palestinians again! Not content with remaining mere stateless refugees in Jordan (because Israel doesn't do interfaith dialogue or overlapping cultures), would you believe that these ingrates actually tried to stage a coup against King Hussein in 1970!
Except that they didn't.
I mean does this sound like the opening round of a Palestinian coup to you?:
"At five minutes to five on the morning of the 17th [September 1970], [King] Hussein's army launched a full scale military operation against [Palestinian] guerilla positions in Amman. The King confidently expected it to be complete within 48 hours. Patton tanks of the 60th Armoured Brigade, supported by armoured car units, moved into the city from all sides and concentrated heavy fire on guerilla strongholds, and in particular on their bases on Jebel Hussein, and in the Wahdat and Al-Husseini refugee camps. It was the first time Jordanian armour had invaded the country's capital, and the effect was devastating: any house from which fire was directed at the advancing armour was obliterated, and the commandos responded with anti-tank and sniper fire. The people of Amman, caught helplessly in the crossfire, sought refuge in their cellars, or tried to escape to parts of the city which they believed would be safe." (Hussein: A Biography, Peter Snow, 1972, p 223)
Remind you a bit of Syria today?
Tough neighbourhood indeed. (You really dig that cool Israeli talk, don't you Bob?) Here's how the neighbourhood toughs experienced the massacre that came to be known as Black September:
"Amman is burning and death roams in it... The criminal whom they call king used to boast about his love for his people and tribes. He kills the women in their homes and the children in their streets. His name used to be Hussein, but brothers, his name today is Nero - the hateful madman and murderer. Amman is burning at the hands of Nero." (Voice of Palestine Radio, Damascus, 17/9/70)
Here's how the international press saw it:
a) "In almost a quarter of a century of foreign reporting, I cannot recall anything remotely similar to what I have seen in Jordan. I have witnessed inter-tribal massacres in Africa and the slow blood-letting in Vietnam. But there has been nothing like the urban devastation - both in lives and property - that Amman has suffered. And that includes Budapest, when the Russians smashed the Hungarian revolt in 1956." Arnaud de Borchgrave, Senior Editor, Newsweek, 5/10/70)
b) "For ten days and nights during the civil war in Jordan, the [Palestinian] commandos were telling me about the massacre being perpetrated by the Royal Bedouin Army. I believed them - but proof was not available. Now I have found the evidence and I was able to photograph what the Jordan government is trying to hide by various means: The wholesale liquidation of the Palestinians. The king's soldiers (Bedouin) have cut the Palestinians to pieces and stabbed them to death - men, women and children - with hatchets and knives. In the mosque square, on the steps leading into the mosque, in the mosque itself and even on the steps of the minbar (mosque platform). And in their thirst for blood, the Bedouin moved from there to the Ashrafiyah Hospital, where they snatched the wounded Palestinians from their beds and stabbed them with knives in front of the doctors. Then they forced the nurses and doctors to leave the hospital. The decisive point in all that has happened is the following: Hussein cannot behave as if the massacres did not take place and he cannot undo what has been done. Regardless of whether the number of those killed and wounded in the refugee camps is 2,000 (as the Army Command says) or 20,000 (as Arafat says), this will not have a big effect on Jordan's future. The decisive fact is that conciliation between Hussein and the Palestinians has become impossible and that the Palestinians now demand what Hussein has made possible for his Bedouin: Revenge. I hadn't advanced a few steps inside the mosque on Jabal Ashrafiyah in Amman when I felt that my feet were wet. Blood had penetrated through my canvass shoes. I had to walk over torn bodies and through dismembered heads and limbs. The atmosphere was suffocating. I wanted to go out quickly into the open air. Then I saw the child, a girl about 8 years old, laid down in front of the mosque, that holy place. The head was bashed down to the nose, and the lips were parted with the last scream of terror."(Gerd Heidemann, Stern, No 42, October 1970)
King Hussein's shabiha!
And finally, here's the view from the palace:
"It is a sad time here. But we are putting our house in order and soon it will all be organized." (Leila's Hijack War, Peter Snow & David Phillips, 1970, p 102)
Some Palestinian coup that was!
That is, the need to resume the world's longest-running diplomatic charade. Meanwhile, outside in the shrinking scrap of land that is supposed to host the mythical Palestinian statelet, the bulldozers roar, the olive trees burn, the bullets whine, the kids are ripped out of their beds at 2 in the morning by uniformed thugs and taken away, and the desperation mounts. But Bob and Shimon are too busy indulging in a little mutual back-scratching to notice such things:
"Senator Carr and Mr Peres emphasised the warmth of relations between Australia and Israel. They deplored the ongoing violence of the Assad regime in Syria... and noted the stresses the Syrian crisis was placing on neighbouring Jordan, which has a growing refugee problem." (ibid)
Poor little Jordan, they tut. How can the little king there cope with all those refugees?
Jordan? Refugees? Sure, Bob may be a history buff but you can't expect him to remember the time when Israel was packing Palestinian refugees off to Jordan (not to mention Lebanon and Syria too). After all, when the Israelis were busy ethnically-cleansing Palestine in 1948, Bob was less than 2 years old. And anyway, his forte, American history, is so incredibly sexy it really doesn't leave much time for the rest of the planet, especially the bits inhabited by brown people. So when Bob talks about refugee camps in Jordan, he's not talking about those who ended up there from US-occupied Iraq (remember them?), and as for those who ended up there from Israeli-occupied Palestine 6 decades ago, well they aren't even on his radar:
"I have just spent 3 days in Jordan speaking to its leadership, visiting refugee camps..." (Jordan's tolerance shines a light on rest of the world, Bob Carr, The Australian, 10/8/12)
No, no brushing up on the history of modern Jordan for Bob. There are more important things on his mind:
"... and holding discussions on interfaith dialogue and the overlap of cultures." (ibid)
But all that's just by way of introducing today's gripe. This is what really got me going:
"It was hard not to be impressed by the worldliness of a leadership that has steered the country since it gained independence in 1946. Jordan lives in a tough neighbourhood. It lost the West Bank to Israel in 1967 and withstood an attempted Palestinian coup in Black September 1970."
Typical! Those bloody Palestinians again! Not content with remaining mere stateless refugees in Jordan (because Israel doesn't do interfaith dialogue or overlapping cultures), would you believe that these ingrates actually tried to stage a coup against King Hussein in 1970!
Except that they didn't.
I mean does this sound like the opening round of a Palestinian coup to you?:
"At five minutes to five on the morning of the 17th [September 1970], [King] Hussein's army launched a full scale military operation against [Palestinian] guerilla positions in Amman. The King confidently expected it to be complete within 48 hours. Patton tanks of the 60th Armoured Brigade, supported by armoured car units, moved into the city from all sides and concentrated heavy fire on guerilla strongholds, and in particular on their bases on Jebel Hussein, and in the Wahdat and Al-Husseini refugee camps. It was the first time Jordanian armour had invaded the country's capital, and the effect was devastating: any house from which fire was directed at the advancing armour was obliterated, and the commandos responded with anti-tank and sniper fire. The people of Amman, caught helplessly in the crossfire, sought refuge in their cellars, or tried to escape to parts of the city which they believed would be safe." (Hussein: A Biography, Peter Snow, 1972, p 223)
Remind you a bit of Syria today?
Tough neighbourhood indeed. (You really dig that cool Israeli talk, don't you Bob?) Here's how the neighbourhood toughs experienced the massacre that came to be known as Black September:
"Amman is burning and death roams in it... The criminal whom they call king used to boast about his love for his people and tribes. He kills the women in their homes and the children in their streets. His name used to be Hussein, but brothers, his name today is Nero - the hateful madman and murderer. Amman is burning at the hands of Nero." (Voice of Palestine Radio, Damascus, 17/9/70)
Here's how the international press saw it:
a) "In almost a quarter of a century of foreign reporting, I cannot recall anything remotely similar to what I have seen in Jordan. I have witnessed inter-tribal massacres in Africa and the slow blood-letting in Vietnam. But there has been nothing like the urban devastation - both in lives and property - that Amman has suffered. And that includes Budapest, when the Russians smashed the Hungarian revolt in 1956." Arnaud de Borchgrave, Senior Editor, Newsweek, 5/10/70)
b) "For ten days and nights during the civil war in Jordan, the [Palestinian] commandos were telling me about the massacre being perpetrated by the Royal Bedouin Army. I believed them - but proof was not available. Now I have found the evidence and I was able to photograph what the Jordan government is trying to hide by various means: The wholesale liquidation of the Palestinians. The king's soldiers (Bedouin) have cut the Palestinians to pieces and stabbed them to death - men, women and children - with hatchets and knives. In the mosque square, on the steps leading into the mosque, in the mosque itself and even on the steps of the minbar (mosque platform). And in their thirst for blood, the Bedouin moved from there to the Ashrafiyah Hospital, where they snatched the wounded Palestinians from their beds and stabbed them with knives in front of the doctors. Then they forced the nurses and doctors to leave the hospital. The decisive point in all that has happened is the following: Hussein cannot behave as if the massacres did not take place and he cannot undo what has been done. Regardless of whether the number of those killed and wounded in the refugee camps is 2,000 (as the Army Command says) or 20,000 (as Arafat says), this will not have a big effect on Jordan's future. The decisive fact is that conciliation between Hussein and the Palestinians has become impossible and that the Palestinians now demand what Hussein has made possible for his Bedouin: Revenge. I hadn't advanced a few steps inside the mosque on Jabal Ashrafiyah in Amman when I felt that my feet were wet. Blood had penetrated through my canvass shoes. I had to walk over torn bodies and through dismembered heads and limbs. The atmosphere was suffocating. I wanted to go out quickly into the open air. Then I saw the child, a girl about 8 years old, laid down in front of the mosque, that holy place. The head was bashed down to the nose, and the lips were parted with the last scream of terror."(Gerd Heidemann, Stern, No 42, October 1970)
King Hussein's shabiha!
And finally, here's the view from the palace:
"It is a sad time here. But we are putting our house in order and soon it will all be organized." (Leila's Hijack War, Peter Snow & David Phillips, 1970, p 102)
Some Palestinian coup that was!
Monday, August 13, 2012
Zionising the Draft Modern History Curriculum 5
ACARA's 7th dot point reads as follows:
"The attempts to settle conflicts between Arabs and Israelis, including: the 1949 Armistace, Security Council Resolution 242 (1967), Egypt/Israeli Peace Accords (1973), Camp David Accords (1978/9) and Camp David Summit (2000), and the role of the United Nations."
ECAJ's Peter Wertheim suggests the following corrections...
"The seventh dot point refers to the 'Egyptian/Israeli Peace Accords (1973), Camp David Accords (1978/9)'. There were no 'Egypt/Israeli Peace Accords' in 1973. In fact, Egypt and Israel fought a war against each other in 1973 and eventually signed a Peace Treaty in 1979. The Camp David Accords were signed in 1978 (not 1978/9). We suggest that the necessary corrections be made."
... and adds:
"Further, in this item, which is dedicated to 'the attempts to settle conflicts between Arabs and Israelis', the entire post-1993 Oslo process has been omitted, as has the Israel-Jordan peace treaty of 1994, the establishment of the Palestinian Authority under the Interim Agreement in 1995; Palestinian elections in 1996 and 2006; the Camp David Summit in 2000, the Taba Summit in January 2001, the Road Map of 2003 and the Olmert Peace offer of 2008. We suggest that these items be added."
Since Wertheim's referencing of the various highly mythologised milestones of the so-called peace (or Oslo) process (1991/1993-?) gives scope for students to be exposed to the false idea, peddled by the Zionist propaganda mill and uncritically broadcast in the ms media a thousand times since, that the process amounts essentially to a chronicle of missed opportunities by obdurate Palestinians unwilling to compromise, students need to be reminded of the following basics:
a) The Palestinian leadership's starting point was an acceptance of a Palestinian state on just 22% of their historic homeland, ie in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a quite unbelievable concession (Edward Said saw it as a Palestinian Versailles);
b) The Israelis, on the other hand, have spent the past 20 or so years of the process arguing that the Palestinians should accept less than this 22% in order to accommodate their illegally-built settlements.
(To take but the best known and most mythologised 'peace process' milestone, the Camp David II Summit of July 2000 (often spun as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's 'generous offer') amounted to offering the Palestinians a capital in the village of Abu Dis (not in East Jerusalem); an Israeli insistence on an 'end of conflict' declaration, neutralising UN resolutions 194 and 242; the Israeli retention of its main settlement blocs in the West Bank; allowing other Israeli settlements to remain in the Palestinian state with the option of living under Palestinian rule until further notice; ditto for Israeli assets in the Jordan Valley. With Israeli settlements, their lands, roads and defensive areas remaining in situ, the Palestinian mini-state would have become a mere parody of itself with only around 40-50% of the West Bank under its control. (See Israeli Rejectionism: A Hidden Agenda in the Middle East Peace Process, Zalman Amit & Daphna Levit, 2011, pp 132-135))
c) During this period, Israel's colonization of the West Bank with thousands upon thousands of settlers has proceeded apace, giving the lie to its international posturing as an earnest seeker after peace.
d) The US, which, under one Zionised administration after another, has facilitated the process, can in no way be described as an honest broker.
e) In short, what we are dealing with here is what Henry Siegman has correctly labelled "the most spectacular deception in modern diplomatic history."
I'd suggest, therefore, that ACARA's dot point be amended as follows: 'The attempts to settle conflicts between Arabs and Israelis, including: UN resolutions 194 (1948) [conveniently omitted by Wertheim] and 242 (1967), the 1949 Armistace, the Egypt/Israeli Peace Accords (1978), and the US-brokered (UN-sidelined) 'peace process' (1991/1993-?).'
Further, given that the process' oft-stated goal of a viable and contiguous Palestinian mini-state has been rendered increasingly unattainable by Israel's escalating colonization of the occupied Palestinian territories, there should be included room for discussion of a one-state solution to the 'conflict' with all that that entails for the dismantling of Israel's apartheid legislation and the transition from a 'Jewish' supremacist to a genuinely democratic state embracing both its Jewish and non-Jewish populations, including the returned Palestinian refugees of 1948 and 1967.
"The attempts to settle conflicts between Arabs and Israelis, including: the 1949 Armistace, Security Council Resolution 242 (1967), Egypt/Israeli Peace Accords (1973), Camp David Accords (1978/9) and Camp David Summit (2000), and the role of the United Nations."
ECAJ's Peter Wertheim suggests the following corrections...
"The seventh dot point refers to the 'Egyptian/Israeli Peace Accords (1973), Camp David Accords (1978/9)'. There were no 'Egypt/Israeli Peace Accords' in 1973. In fact, Egypt and Israel fought a war against each other in 1973 and eventually signed a Peace Treaty in 1979. The Camp David Accords were signed in 1978 (not 1978/9). We suggest that the necessary corrections be made."
... and adds:
"Further, in this item, which is dedicated to 'the attempts to settle conflicts between Arabs and Israelis', the entire post-1993 Oslo process has been omitted, as has the Israel-Jordan peace treaty of 1994, the establishment of the Palestinian Authority under the Interim Agreement in 1995; Palestinian elections in 1996 and 2006; the Camp David Summit in 2000, the Taba Summit in January 2001, the Road Map of 2003 and the Olmert Peace offer of 2008. We suggest that these items be added."
Since Wertheim's referencing of the various highly mythologised milestones of the so-called peace (or Oslo) process (1991/1993-?) gives scope for students to be exposed to the false idea, peddled by the Zionist propaganda mill and uncritically broadcast in the ms media a thousand times since, that the process amounts essentially to a chronicle of missed opportunities by obdurate Palestinians unwilling to compromise, students need to be reminded of the following basics:
a) The Palestinian leadership's starting point was an acceptance of a Palestinian state on just 22% of their historic homeland, ie in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a quite unbelievable concession (Edward Said saw it as a Palestinian Versailles);
b) The Israelis, on the other hand, have spent the past 20 or so years of the process arguing that the Palestinians should accept less than this 22% in order to accommodate their illegally-built settlements.
(To take but the best known and most mythologised 'peace process' milestone, the Camp David II Summit of July 2000 (often spun as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's 'generous offer') amounted to offering the Palestinians a capital in the village of Abu Dis (not in East Jerusalem); an Israeli insistence on an 'end of conflict' declaration, neutralising UN resolutions 194 and 242; the Israeli retention of its main settlement blocs in the West Bank; allowing other Israeli settlements to remain in the Palestinian state with the option of living under Palestinian rule until further notice; ditto for Israeli assets in the Jordan Valley. With Israeli settlements, their lands, roads and defensive areas remaining in situ, the Palestinian mini-state would have become a mere parody of itself with only around 40-50% of the West Bank under its control. (See Israeli Rejectionism: A Hidden Agenda in the Middle East Peace Process, Zalman Amit & Daphna Levit, 2011, pp 132-135))
c) During this period, Israel's colonization of the West Bank with thousands upon thousands of settlers has proceeded apace, giving the lie to its international posturing as an earnest seeker after peace.
d) The US, which, under one Zionised administration after another, has facilitated the process, can in no way be described as an honest broker.
e) In short, what we are dealing with here is what Henry Siegman has correctly labelled "the most spectacular deception in modern diplomatic history."
I'd suggest, therefore, that ACARA's dot point be amended as follows: 'The attempts to settle conflicts between Arabs and Israelis, including: UN resolutions 194 (1948) [conveniently omitted by Wertheim] and 242 (1967), the 1949 Armistace, the Egypt/Israeli Peace Accords (1978), and the US-brokered (UN-sidelined) 'peace process' (1991/1993-?).'
Further, given that the process' oft-stated goal of a viable and contiguous Palestinian mini-state has been rendered increasingly unattainable by Israel's escalating colonization of the occupied Palestinian territories, there should be included room for discussion of a one-state solution to the 'conflict' with all that that entails for the dismantling of Israel's apartheid legislation and the transition from a 'Jewish' supremacist to a genuinely democratic state embracing both its Jewish and non-Jewish populations, including the returned Palestinian refugees of 1948 and 1967.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
The Ba'th Party: Credit Where Credit's Due
OK...
"Wherever you go in the Middle East today, you see the Arab Spring rapidly turning into the Christian winter. The past few years have been catastrophic for the region's beleaguered 14-million strong Christian minority." (Fatal lot of Christianity's homelands: Syria faces a hardline salafist takeover, William Dalrymple, The Australian, 9/8/12)
Yes...
"Most catastrophically, in Iraq, two thirds of the Christians have fled the country since the fall of Saddam... 'Before the war there was no separation between Christian and Muslim,' I was told on a recent visit by Shamun Daawd, a liquor-store owner who fled Baghdad after he received Islamist death threats... 'Under Saddam no one asked you your religion and we used to attend each other's religious services,' he said. 'Now at least 75% of my Christian friends have fled.'" (ibid)
Hang on!
"[W]hile the regime of the Assad dynasty was a repressive one-party police state in which political freedoms were always severely and often brutally restricted, it did allow the Syrians widespread cultural and religious freedoms. These gave Syria's minorities a security and stability far greater than their counterparts anywhere else in the region. This was particularly true of Syria's ancient Christian communities. The reason for this was that the Assads were Alawite, a syncretic Shia Muslim minority regarded by Sunni Muslims as heretical..." (ibid)
So the Asads protected Syrian Christians from Syria's Sunni Muslims because the Asads are Alawi, but Saddam protected Iraqi Christians from Iraq's Sunni Muslims because he was a... Sunni?
The above contradiction is what you get when you haven't done your homework. What Dalrymple has omitted from his too-superficial argument is any reference to the role of the Ba'th Party, in both its Iraqi and Syrian forms, in combating and suppressing sectarianism (not to mention regionalism and tribalism). The Ba'thist current of Arab nationalism, whatever its other defects, has always vigorously promoted secularism.
Perhaps the best study of the Syrian Ba'th and the issue of sectarianism is Nikolaos van Dam's The Struggle for Power in Syria: Sectarianism, Regionalism and Tribalism in Politics, 1961-1980 (1981):
"In the past, the Arab nationalist movement had always been interwoven with a kind of Sunni Islamism. And the Sunni Arabs, who usually played first fiddle in this movement, assigned in their Arabism such an important and central role to (Sunni) Islam, that heterodox Muslims, let alone Christians, were allotted a secondary place: 'timid subordinates' tolerated by (Sunni Arab) 'superiors'. In fact, many Sunni Arab nationalists tended to regard members of the Arabic-speaking religious minorities as 'imperfect Arabs' because they were heterodox Muslims or not Muslims at all. Equally, the religious minorities tended to suspect Arab nationalism as a disguise for unrestrained Sunni ascendancy, similar to the situation that pertained during the Ottoman Empire, the only difference being that Arab rather than Turkish Sunnis now held power.
"Ba'th ideology had a quite different basis. The Ba'th wanted a united secular Arab society with a socialist system, ie a society in which all Arabs would be equal, irrespective of their religion. This did not imply that Islam was of secondary importance to Ba'thist Arabism. In the Ba'thist view Islam consituted an essential and inseparable part of Arab national culture. Other than the Sunni variants of Arabism, however, the Ba'th considered Islam to be not so much an Arab national religion as an important Arab national cultural heritage, to which all Arabs, whether Muslim or Christians, were equal heirs apparent. In the opinion of Michel 'Aflaq, the Ba'th Party's ideologist, Christian Arabs therefore need feel in no way hindered from being Arab nationalists: 'When their nationalism awakens in them completely and they regain their original nature, the Christian Arabs will realise that Islam is their national culture with which they should satiate themselves, in order that they may understand and love it and to covet it as the most precious thing in their Arabism.'
"It was thus only natural that the Ba'th ideology appealed strongly to Arabic-speaking religious minority members who may have hoped that the Ba'th would help them to free themselves from of their minority status and the narrow social frame of their sectarian, regional and tribal ties.
"Finally, the minority members must have been attracted by the idea that the traditional Sunni-urban domination of Syrian political life might be broken by the establishment of a secular socialist political system as envisaged by the Ba'th, in which there would be no political and socio-economic discrimination against non-Sunnis or, more particularly, against members of heterodox Islamic communities." (pp 32-33)
One of the great ironies of the struggle in Syria today is that, by backing Syria's armed sectarian Sunni opposition movement, the Western powers, who once posed as the protectors of Syria's minorities against Sunni domination (whether Ottoman or post-Ottoman), are now lending material support to their Syrian Sunni oppressors, seemingly with no regard whatever for the fate of these minorities.
"Wherever you go in the Middle East today, you see the Arab Spring rapidly turning into the Christian winter. The past few years have been catastrophic for the region's beleaguered 14-million strong Christian minority." (Fatal lot of Christianity's homelands: Syria faces a hardline salafist takeover, William Dalrymple, The Australian, 9/8/12)
Yes...
"Most catastrophically, in Iraq, two thirds of the Christians have fled the country since the fall of Saddam... 'Before the war there was no separation between Christian and Muslim,' I was told on a recent visit by Shamun Daawd, a liquor-store owner who fled Baghdad after he received Islamist death threats... 'Under Saddam no one asked you your religion and we used to attend each other's religious services,' he said. 'Now at least 75% of my Christian friends have fled.'" (ibid)
Hang on!
"[W]hile the regime of the Assad dynasty was a repressive one-party police state in which political freedoms were always severely and often brutally restricted, it did allow the Syrians widespread cultural and religious freedoms. These gave Syria's minorities a security and stability far greater than their counterparts anywhere else in the region. This was particularly true of Syria's ancient Christian communities. The reason for this was that the Assads were Alawite, a syncretic Shia Muslim minority regarded by Sunni Muslims as heretical..." (ibid)
So the Asads protected Syrian Christians from Syria's Sunni Muslims because the Asads are Alawi, but Saddam protected Iraqi Christians from Iraq's Sunni Muslims because he was a... Sunni?
The above contradiction is what you get when you haven't done your homework. What Dalrymple has omitted from his too-superficial argument is any reference to the role of the Ba'th Party, in both its Iraqi and Syrian forms, in combating and suppressing sectarianism (not to mention regionalism and tribalism). The Ba'thist current of Arab nationalism, whatever its other defects, has always vigorously promoted secularism.
Perhaps the best study of the Syrian Ba'th and the issue of sectarianism is Nikolaos van Dam's The Struggle for Power in Syria: Sectarianism, Regionalism and Tribalism in Politics, 1961-1980 (1981):
"In the past, the Arab nationalist movement had always been interwoven with a kind of Sunni Islamism. And the Sunni Arabs, who usually played first fiddle in this movement, assigned in their Arabism such an important and central role to (Sunni) Islam, that heterodox Muslims, let alone Christians, were allotted a secondary place: 'timid subordinates' tolerated by (Sunni Arab) 'superiors'. In fact, many Sunni Arab nationalists tended to regard members of the Arabic-speaking religious minorities as 'imperfect Arabs' because they were heterodox Muslims or not Muslims at all. Equally, the religious minorities tended to suspect Arab nationalism as a disguise for unrestrained Sunni ascendancy, similar to the situation that pertained during the Ottoman Empire, the only difference being that Arab rather than Turkish Sunnis now held power.
"Ba'th ideology had a quite different basis. The Ba'th wanted a united secular Arab society with a socialist system, ie a society in which all Arabs would be equal, irrespective of their religion. This did not imply that Islam was of secondary importance to Ba'thist Arabism. In the Ba'thist view Islam consituted an essential and inseparable part of Arab national culture. Other than the Sunni variants of Arabism, however, the Ba'th considered Islam to be not so much an Arab national religion as an important Arab national cultural heritage, to which all Arabs, whether Muslim or Christians, were equal heirs apparent. In the opinion of Michel 'Aflaq, the Ba'th Party's ideologist, Christian Arabs therefore need feel in no way hindered from being Arab nationalists: 'When their nationalism awakens in them completely and they regain their original nature, the Christian Arabs will realise that Islam is their national culture with which they should satiate themselves, in order that they may understand and love it and to covet it as the most precious thing in their Arabism.'
"It was thus only natural that the Ba'th ideology appealed strongly to Arabic-speaking religious minority members who may have hoped that the Ba'th would help them to free themselves from of their minority status and the narrow social frame of their sectarian, regional and tribal ties.
"Finally, the minority members must have been attracted by the idea that the traditional Sunni-urban domination of Syrian political life might be broken by the establishment of a secular socialist political system as envisaged by the Ba'th, in which there would be no political and socio-economic discrimination against non-Sunnis or, more particularly, against members of heterodox Islamic communities." (pp 32-33)
One of the great ironies of the struggle in Syria today is that, by backing Syria's armed sectarian Sunni opposition movement, the Western powers, who once posed as the protectors of Syria's minorities against Sunni domination (whether Ottoman or post-Ottoman), are now lending material support to their Syrian Sunni oppressors, seemingly with no regard whatever for the fate of these minorities.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
One Incredibly Dumb Idea
Where are those much maligned 'thought police' when you need them?
An odd question, I know, but it came to me when I began reading about a new Australian drama called Last Dance, to be screened at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival.
The film's director, David Pulbrook, a former creator of 'cops & robbers' series for the idiot box (Homicide, for one), is quoted as saying that he had first started thinking about it 30 years ago, it being a movie that involved "putting an elderly Holocaust survivor and a young Palestinian in a room, and seeing what happened." (Hostage plot twist still under wraps, Philippa Hawker, Sydney Morning Herald, 3/12/11).
(Er, David, if you don't mind my asking, would a Holocaust survivor these days be anything other than elderly?)
Anyhow, moving along - and just so as we're clear here - I should add that the The Australian Jewish News (27/7/12) and the Brisbane Times (7/8/12), to cite but two press items on Last Dance, both describe the said young Palestinian as a 'terrorist'. Are you getting the picture?
OK, so this Pulbrook bloke once had an incredibly dumb idea in his 30s. Forgiveable, you might argue, at such a tender age. But here he is today, at the advanced age of 64 (having made zero effort to learn anything about Palestine or Palestinians, if the plethora of press reports on his film are anything to go by), turning this utter foolishness into a film!
With Pulbrook's 'brilliant' idea nagging at me, I began asking myself: what the hell was he thinking when he conceived it (if, that is, what was going on in his head at the time can be described as 'thinking')?
Let me speculate: 'If I take an elderly Holocaust survivor, a woman to boot, with the kind of past which, Hollywood tells us, confers infinite wisdom and a holiness akin to that of the saints, and put her in a room with one of those stir-crazy, fire-breathing, anti-Semitic Palestinian terrorists, again straight out of Hollywood, what's going to happen? Will he go straight for the jugular? Will there be blood on the carpet, the walls and the ceiling as well? Will the room be transformed into a makeshift Auschwitz? Will the terrorist do a strutting, goose-stepping Hitler? Or at least a smiling, moustache-twirling Haj Amin Al-Husseini?' (No, not the latter. Pulbrook wouldn't know who he was.)
'Or will he fall under the spell of the Holy One, and beg her forgiveness for his grandparents' having once cumbered the soil of Eretz Israel before being sent packing by the heroic Zionist poet-warriors of Ben-Gurion in 1948? Will he perhaps try to make amends by volunteering to work in a Holocaust museum, or even better, embark on an 'Israel - What's Not for a Palestinian to Love?' lecture tour with Vic Alhadeff and the lovely Linda?'
OK, MERC, you may ask, aren't you jumping the gun here a little, sounding off before having seen this masterpiece? Shouldn't you maybe give it the benefit of the doubt?
Well, having dug up a thing or three about it on the net, I don't think so:
1) Our Palestinian terrorist, Sadiq, you see, was actually one of a pair who tried to blow up a synagogue (the other succeeding, our guy chickening out but wounded in the blast nevertheless). A synagogue, no less! Now how many Palestinians do you know of who've ever blown up a synagogue?
2) As he flees from the fuzz, Sadiq finds refuge (as is only to be expected!) in the flat of a Holocaust survivor, Mrs Lippman, whereupon, noticing her obviously Jewish paraphenalia, he puts a knife to her throat and tells her he'd be happy to "rid the world of one more Jew." So forget about Israeli targets, Palestinian terrorists are apparently nowadays scouring the globe for Jewish targets. Well, I'll be damned, why has nobody told me?!
3) And you know what Mr Palestinian Terrorist's gripe is? Apparently, some Palestinian boofheads climbed up onto the roof of his house and, just for a lark, started taking pot shots at innocent Israeli bystanders (who just happened to be hanging around in army uniform and armed to the teeth), thus drawing fire from some equally innocent Israeli tanks that just happened to be sauntering by. This perfectly understandable Israeli reaction - The first law of Palestinian/Israeli dynamics: Palestinians act - Israelis react - apparently deprived our terrorist of his family. Now being your common and garden ornery Palestinian (as opposed to our eminently rational friends, the Israelis), who does this klutz blame for the loss of his family? Why the Israelis, of course! Can you believe it? This even had the AIJAC reviewer scoffing: "... as though accidental deaths in the midst of war justified murdering Jews in Melbourne." (Film review: Last Dance, Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz, aijac.org.au, 6/8/12)
4) Now, as it happens, our Holocaust survivor, Mrs Lippman, once lived in Israel where she had a son, Ari, killed in the line of soldierly duty, presumably by Palestinian 'terrorists'. The problem here, of course, is Pulbrook's historically false linking of the Holocaust with the state of Israel, as though Israel was first and foremost conceived as a refuge for Holocaust survivors, rather than being, as is actually the case, the culmination of an aggressive process of Zionist colonization which began long before the Holocaust was even a gleam in Hitler's eye. Ah, but that'd involve Last Dance's creator in a bit of reading, wouldn't it? Perish the thought!
5) And wouldn't you know it: Mrs Lippman sees something of her dead son in Sadiq, and when he collapses from his wounds, she nurses him through the night instead of calling the police! But surely that's only to be expected from Mrs Lippman? After all, didn't that Yiddishe mama of all Yiddishe mamas, Golda Meir, once quip authoritatively: "Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us"? There you go, the second law of Palestinian/Israeli dynamics: Palestinians kill - Israelis nurture.
6) Pulbrook says the film "digs beneath the stereotypes to reveal the basic humanity of the... protagonists and transcends the tragedy of their pasts and speaks of optimism, possibilities and tolerance." And yet, by deploying the Holocaust in the way that he has, failing in any meaningful way to factor in the context of Palestinian dispossession and occupation, and falling back on the Hollywood cliche of the Palestinians as irrationally angry, dyed-in-the-wool, anti-Semitic terrorists who wreak havoc on Israeli Jews and non-Israeli Jews alike (even those, heaven forbid, who live in faraway Melbourne), he's built stereotypicality into the very foundations of the film.
7) Pulbrook says also that "[w]e were careful not to take sides and worked closely with Palestinian and Jewish communities to ensure a balanced point of view." With respect to working closely with members of the Palestinian community, I simply don't believe him, and challenge him to produce his alleged Palestinian consultants. That, as he also claims, he liaised closely with the Jewish Holocaust Museum and interviewed Holocaust survivors I can believe.
Finally, a word on actor Firass Dirani, who plays the Palestinian terrorist Sadiq. Granted that young Australians of Arab origin (Dirani was born here of Lebanese parents) who happen to be aspiring actors may well find it more difficult to obtain film roles than actors of Anglo-Australian background, the question still needs to be asked: what self-respecting person of Arab origin, with even a modicum of understanding of what is going on in the Middle East today, could possibly stoop to aid and abet that demeaning Hollywood stereotype, the Arab terrorist?
Quite frankly, the deracinated Dirani obviously has no idea what he's doing:
"Firass Dirani... took the role, he says, precisely because 'it scared me', and he relished the challenge of 'creating the journey of the character, and pulling it off convincingly'. Dirani, whose background is Lebanese, had to adopt a Palestinian English accent, learn Arabic phonetically, and most of all, work on the physical and psychological drama of what happens to Sadiq over a short space of time... The other challenge, he says cheerfully, is that he had to grow a beard for the first time. It took a couple of months, and it was like having a pet - 'I shampooed it, I combed it, I fed it from time to time'." (Hostage plot twist still under wraps, Philippa Hawker, Sydney Morning Herald, 3/12/11)
Nor does it appear that he even knows what a stereotype is:
When asked if he worried about being stereotyped playing violent, Middle Eastern characters, Dirani answered: "You've got to outperform the stereotype and maybe they'll give you a chance to spread your wings." (Firass Dirani aims to make killing in Hollywood, Herald Sun, 13/2/12)
Outperform the stereotype?! Have you ever heard such nonsense?
Finally, as if the thought of Last Dance packing them into Australia's cinemas isn't galling enough, add the fact that Award-winning director Julian Schnabel's powerful exploration of the Palestinian tragedy, Miral (2010), has to date been totally ignored by Australian distributors.
An odd question, I know, but it came to me when I began reading about a new Australian drama called Last Dance, to be screened at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival.
The film's director, David Pulbrook, a former creator of 'cops & robbers' series for the idiot box (Homicide, for one), is quoted as saying that he had first started thinking about it 30 years ago, it being a movie that involved "putting an elderly Holocaust survivor and a young Palestinian in a room, and seeing what happened." (Hostage plot twist still under wraps, Philippa Hawker, Sydney Morning Herald, 3/12/11).
(Er, David, if you don't mind my asking, would a Holocaust survivor these days be anything other than elderly?)
Anyhow, moving along - and just so as we're clear here - I should add that the The Australian Jewish News (27/7/12) and the Brisbane Times (7/8/12), to cite but two press items on Last Dance, both describe the said young Palestinian as a 'terrorist'. Are you getting the picture?
OK, so this Pulbrook bloke once had an incredibly dumb idea in his 30s. Forgiveable, you might argue, at such a tender age. But here he is today, at the advanced age of 64 (having made zero effort to learn anything about Palestine or Palestinians, if the plethora of press reports on his film are anything to go by), turning this utter foolishness into a film!
With Pulbrook's 'brilliant' idea nagging at me, I began asking myself: what the hell was he thinking when he conceived it (if, that is, what was going on in his head at the time can be described as 'thinking')?
Let me speculate: 'If I take an elderly Holocaust survivor, a woman to boot, with the kind of past which, Hollywood tells us, confers infinite wisdom and a holiness akin to that of the saints, and put her in a room with one of those stir-crazy, fire-breathing, anti-Semitic Palestinian terrorists, again straight out of Hollywood, what's going to happen? Will he go straight for the jugular? Will there be blood on the carpet, the walls and the ceiling as well? Will the room be transformed into a makeshift Auschwitz? Will the terrorist do a strutting, goose-stepping Hitler? Or at least a smiling, moustache-twirling Haj Amin Al-Husseini?' (No, not the latter. Pulbrook wouldn't know who he was.)
'Or will he fall under the spell of the Holy One, and beg her forgiveness for his grandparents' having once cumbered the soil of Eretz Israel before being sent packing by the heroic Zionist poet-warriors of Ben-Gurion in 1948? Will he perhaps try to make amends by volunteering to work in a Holocaust museum, or even better, embark on an 'Israel - What's Not for a Palestinian to Love?' lecture tour with Vic Alhadeff and the lovely Linda?'
OK, MERC, you may ask, aren't you jumping the gun here a little, sounding off before having seen this masterpiece? Shouldn't you maybe give it the benefit of the doubt?
Well, having dug up a thing or three about it on the net, I don't think so:
1) Our Palestinian terrorist, Sadiq, you see, was actually one of a pair who tried to blow up a synagogue (the other succeeding, our guy chickening out but wounded in the blast nevertheless). A synagogue, no less! Now how many Palestinians do you know of who've ever blown up a synagogue?
2) As he flees from the fuzz, Sadiq finds refuge (as is only to be expected!) in the flat of a Holocaust survivor, Mrs Lippman, whereupon, noticing her obviously Jewish paraphenalia, he puts a knife to her throat and tells her he'd be happy to "rid the world of one more Jew." So forget about Israeli targets, Palestinian terrorists are apparently nowadays scouring the globe for Jewish targets. Well, I'll be damned, why has nobody told me?!
3) And you know what Mr Palestinian Terrorist's gripe is? Apparently, some Palestinian boofheads climbed up onto the roof of his house and, just for a lark, started taking pot shots at innocent Israeli bystanders (who just happened to be hanging around in army uniform and armed to the teeth), thus drawing fire from some equally innocent Israeli tanks that just happened to be sauntering by. This perfectly understandable Israeli reaction - The first law of Palestinian/Israeli dynamics: Palestinians act - Israelis react - apparently deprived our terrorist of his family. Now being your common and garden ornery Palestinian (as opposed to our eminently rational friends, the Israelis), who does this klutz blame for the loss of his family? Why the Israelis, of course! Can you believe it? This even had the AIJAC reviewer scoffing: "... as though accidental deaths in the midst of war justified murdering Jews in Melbourne." (Film review: Last Dance, Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz, aijac.org.au, 6/8/12)
4) Now, as it happens, our Holocaust survivor, Mrs Lippman, once lived in Israel where she had a son, Ari, killed in the line of soldierly duty, presumably by Palestinian 'terrorists'. The problem here, of course, is Pulbrook's historically false linking of the Holocaust with the state of Israel, as though Israel was first and foremost conceived as a refuge for Holocaust survivors, rather than being, as is actually the case, the culmination of an aggressive process of Zionist colonization which began long before the Holocaust was even a gleam in Hitler's eye. Ah, but that'd involve Last Dance's creator in a bit of reading, wouldn't it? Perish the thought!
5) And wouldn't you know it: Mrs Lippman sees something of her dead son in Sadiq, and when he collapses from his wounds, she nurses him through the night instead of calling the police! But surely that's only to be expected from Mrs Lippman? After all, didn't that Yiddishe mama of all Yiddishe mamas, Golda Meir, once quip authoritatively: "Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us"? There you go, the second law of Palestinian/Israeli dynamics: Palestinians kill - Israelis nurture.
6) Pulbrook says the film "digs beneath the stereotypes to reveal the basic humanity of the... protagonists and transcends the tragedy of their pasts and speaks of optimism, possibilities and tolerance." And yet, by deploying the Holocaust in the way that he has, failing in any meaningful way to factor in the context of Palestinian dispossession and occupation, and falling back on the Hollywood cliche of the Palestinians as irrationally angry, dyed-in-the-wool, anti-Semitic terrorists who wreak havoc on Israeli Jews and non-Israeli Jews alike (even those, heaven forbid, who live in faraway Melbourne), he's built stereotypicality into the very foundations of the film.
7) Pulbrook says also that "[w]e were careful not to take sides and worked closely with Palestinian and Jewish communities to ensure a balanced point of view." With respect to working closely with members of the Palestinian community, I simply don't believe him, and challenge him to produce his alleged Palestinian consultants. That, as he also claims, he liaised closely with the Jewish Holocaust Museum and interviewed Holocaust survivors I can believe.
Finally, a word on actor Firass Dirani, who plays the Palestinian terrorist Sadiq. Granted that young Australians of Arab origin (Dirani was born here of Lebanese parents) who happen to be aspiring actors may well find it more difficult to obtain film roles than actors of Anglo-Australian background, the question still needs to be asked: what self-respecting person of Arab origin, with even a modicum of understanding of what is going on in the Middle East today, could possibly stoop to aid and abet that demeaning Hollywood stereotype, the Arab terrorist?
Quite frankly, the deracinated Dirani obviously has no idea what he's doing:
"Firass Dirani... took the role, he says, precisely because 'it scared me', and he relished the challenge of 'creating the journey of the character, and pulling it off convincingly'. Dirani, whose background is Lebanese, had to adopt a Palestinian English accent, learn Arabic phonetically, and most of all, work on the physical and psychological drama of what happens to Sadiq over a short space of time... The other challenge, he says cheerfully, is that he had to grow a beard for the first time. It took a couple of months, and it was like having a pet - 'I shampooed it, I combed it, I fed it from time to time'." (Hostage plot twist still under wraps, Philippa Hawker, Sydney Morning Herald, 3/12/11)
Nor does it appear that he even knows what a stereotype is:
When asked if he worried about being stereotyped playing violent, Middle Eastern characters, Dirani answered: "You've got to outperform the stereotype and maybe they'll give you a chance to spread your wings." (Firass Dirani aims to make killing in Hollywood, Herald Sun, 13/2/12)
Outperform the stereotype?! Have you ever heard such nonsense?
Finally, as if the thought of Last Dance packing them into Australia's cinemas isn't galling enough, add the fact that Award-winning director Julian Schnabel's powerful exploration of the Palestinian tragedy, Miral (2010), has to date been totally ignored by Australian distributors.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Zionising the Draft Modern History Curriculum 4
ACARA's 4th and 5th dot points have been spared Wertheim's criticism:
*The significance of the Iranian Revolution for relations within the Middle East and with the West.
*Reasons for, and consequences of, other conflicts in the Middle East, with particular reference to the Lebanese Civil War, the Iran/Iraq War, and the Gulf Wars I (1990-1991) and II (2003)
But not the 6th:
*The role of the Arab League in establishing peaceful cooperation among the nations of the Middle East.
I would amend this as follows: The role of the Arab League in establishing peaceful cooperation among the nations of the Middle East and seeking a measure of justice for the dispossessed Palestinian people.
Wertheim, of course, will have none of this, seeing the Arab League as merely another impediment on the road to Israel's normalization in the region:
"The sixth dot point refers to 'The role of the Arab League in establishing peaceful cooperation among the nations of the Middle East'. This suggests that the role of the Arab League has always been a positive one. In fact, for many decades the Arab League led a primary and secondary boycott campaign against Israel (which technically remains extant) and committed its members to maintaining a state of war with Israel. We would suggest that the dot point be amended to read: An assessment of the role played by the League of Arab States as a regional organisation in the Middle East."
A key feature of Zionist propaganda, of course, is its hypocrisy, the Zionist movement happily deploying the boycott tactic to further its interests when required. For example, the Zionist leadership of Palestine's colons advocated and enforced the boycott of non-Jewish labour during the period of the British mandate. And more recently, we have the ongoing spectacle of Israel's crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip.
As for the Arab League's primary and secondary boycott of Israel, correctly imposed in response to the Palestinian Nakba over 60 years ago, this was indeed a positive strategy, as was the League's adoption of the famous 3 No's (no peace, no recognition, no negotiation with Israel) of the Khartoum summit in the wake of Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights.
Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, the boycott is now a shadow of its former itself, as is the Khartoum Resolution, dealt a catastrophic blow by Egypt's President Sadat in 1979 when he broke Arab ranks and made peace with Israel.*
As Egypt's most famous journalist, Mohamed Heikal wrote in 1983:
"Egypt's opting out had a centrifugal effect on all other Arab countries, diverting their attention from what had for long been the dream of unity - however imperfectly understood or pursued, yet a noble and stimulating dream - into barren territorial rivalries, religious conflicts and social strife. The Arab world had become well and truly balkanized. No contrast could be greater than the increased practical support by all Arab governments for the Palestinians in general, and for the PLO in particular, during the 1960s and 1970s, and the reluctant agreement by these same governments in the summer of 1982, under American pressure, to receive some of these same Palestinians, after they had fought the Israeli army for nearly 3 months without support, as permanent and unwanted exiles. On foreign insistence the Arabs were dismantling all they had tried for the past generation to achieve. Nor is the Palestinian cause the only one to suffer by Egypt's defection. The Arab League, removed from Cairo to the periphery of the Arab world in Tunis, has lost most of its former authority; the Organization of African States and the non-aligned movement are shadows of what they once were. Under Nasser the 3 circles of which he saw Egypt as the centre - Arab, Islamic and African - had a reality; Sadat made Egypt the centre of nowhere." (Autumn of Fury: The Assassination of Sadat, Mohamed Heikal, 1983, p 285)
[*See my 15/2/09 post A Likud Peace.]
To be continued...
*The significance of the Iranian Revolution for relations within the Middle East and with the West.
*Reasons for, and consequences of, other conflicts in the Middle East, with particular reference to the Lebanese Civil War, the Iran/Iraq War, and the Gulf Wars I (1990-1991) and II (2003)
But not the 6th:
*The role of the Arab League in establishing peaceful cooperation among the nations of the Middle East.
I would amend this as follows: The role of the Arab League in establishing peaceful cooperation among the nations of the Middle East and seeking a measure of justice for the dispossessed Palestinian people.
Wertheim, of course, will have none of this, seeing the Arab League as merely another impediment on the road to Israel's normalization in the region:
"The sixth dot point refers to 'The role of the Arab League in establishing peaceful cooperation among the nations of the Middle East'. This suggests that the role of the Arab League has always been a positive one. In fact, for many decades the Arab League led a primary and secondary boycott campaign against Israel (which technically remains extant) and committed its members to maintaining a state of war with Israel. We would suggest that the dot point be amended to read: An assessment of the role played by the League of Arab States as a regional organisation in the Middle East."
A key feature of Zionist propaganda, of course, is its hypocrisy, the Zionist movement happily deploying the boycott tactic to further its interests when required. For example, the Zionist leadership of Palestine's colons advocated and enforced the boycott of non-Jewish labour during the period of the British mandate. And more recently, we have the ongoing spectacle of Israel's crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip.
As for the Arab League's primary and secondary boycott of Israel, correctly imposed in response to the Palestinian Nakba over 60 years ago, this was indeed a positive strategy, as was the League's adoption of the famous 3 No's (no peace, no recognition, no negotiation with Israel) of the Khartoum summit in the wake of Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights.
Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, the boycott is now a shadow of its former itself, as is the Khartoum Resolution, dealt a catastrophic blow by Egypt's President Sadat in 1979 when he broke Arab ranks and made peace with Israel.*
As Egypt's most famous journalist, Mohamed Heikal wrote in 1983:
"Egypt's opting out had a centrifugal effect on all other Arab countries, diverting their attention from what had for long been the dream of unity - however imperfectly understood or pursued, yet a noble and stimulating dream - into barren territorial rivalries, religious conflicts and social strife. The Arab world had become well and truly balkanized. No contrast could be greater than the increased practical support by all Arab governments for the Palestinians in general, and for the PLO in particular, during the 1960s and 1970s, and the reluctant agreement by these same governments in the summer of 1982, under American pressure, to receive some of these same Palestinians, after they had fought the Israeli army for nearly 3 months without support, as permanent and unwanted exiles. On foreign insistence the Arabs were dismantling all they had tried for the past generation to achieve. Nor is the Palestinian cause the only one to suffer by Egypt's defection. The Arab League, removed from Cairo to the periphery of the Arab world in Tunis, has lost most of its former authority; the Organization of African States and the non-aligned movement are shadows of what they once were. Under Nasser the 3 circles of which he saw Egypt as the centre - Arab, Islamic and African - had a reality; Sadat made Egypt the centre of nowhere." (Autumn of Fury: The Assassination of Sadat, Mohamed Heikal, 1983, p 285)
[*See my 15/2/09 post A Likud Peace.]
To be continued...
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
The Incredible Lightness of Being...
... the Dalai Lama:
Q: His Holiness, around the time Tibetans lost their rights when they were occupied by China, another nation faced a similar tragedy, the Palestinians. The Israeli occupation of Palestine continues with full support from the United States and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Millions of indigenous Palestinians have been made refugees and are denied the right to return to their homeland. We sometimes read your statements sympathetic to Israel but not the suffering of the Palestinians. Could you please enlighten us with your view on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine under illegal Israeli occupation?
A: The Jewish viewpoint of Israel is one of ancient times where they were made refugees thousands of years ago. I met groups of Palestinians who wanted their rights. It is difficult to judge but they should live together and help each other. In Jerusalem the land is greener and they use every technique. The side of Palestine is dry and not green. They should use the skills of the Jews and live together. On my second visit to Tel Aviv, I met a small group of Palestinians and Israelis living together in harmony. Israeli President Shimon Peres I know him, he is genuine for peace. With more interactions both for peace, sooner or later a clash will sort the problem. Palestine is an older issue than the Tibetan issue but violence is still involved. It is very sad." (From Challenging the Dalai Lama on his views on the Israeli occupation, Shareefa Panchbhaya, peaceandcommunity.wordpress.com, 19/6/12)
Q: His Holiness, around the time Tibetans lost their rights when they were occupied by China, another nation faced a similar tragedy, the Palestinians. The Israeli occupation of Palestine continues with full support from the United States and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Millions of indigenous Palestinians have been made refugees and are denied the right to return to their homeland. We sometimes read your statements sympathetic to Israel but not the suffering of the Palestinians. Could you please enlighten us with your view on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine under illegal Israeli occupation?
A: The Jewish viewpoint of Israel is one of ancient times where they were made refugees thousands of years ago. I met groups of Palestinians who wanted their rights. It is difficult to judge but they should live together and help each other. In Jerusalem the land is greener and they use every technique. The side of Palestine is dry and not green. They should use the skills of the Jews and live together. On my second visit to Tel Aviv, I met a small group of Palestinians and Israelis living together in harmony. Israeli President Shimon Peres I know him, he is genuine for peace. With more interactions both for peace, sooner or later a clash will sort the problem. Palestine is an older issue than the Tibetan issue but violence is still involved. It is very sad." (From Challenging the Dalai Lama on his views on the Israeli occupation, Shareefa Panchbhaya, peaceandcommunity.wordpress.com, 19/6/12)
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