"Noam Chomsky raises a second objection against against the ability of the pro-Israel lobby to influence policy on its own steam. 'No pressure group', he maintains, 'will dominate access to public opinion or maintain consistent influence over policy-making unless its aims are close to those of elite elements with real power'. One problem with this argument is easily stated. It pits the Jewish lobby as one 'pressure group' arrayed against all the others that hold real power. This equation of the Jewish lobby with a narrowly defined 'pressure group' is misleading. We have argued - a position that is well supported by the evidence - that Jewish protagonists of Zionism have worked through many different channels to influence public opinion, the composition of political classes, and political decisions. They work through the institutions and media that shape public opinion to determine what Americans know about Israel, how they think about Israel, and what they can say about Israel. Once we recognize the scale of financial resources the Israel lobby commands, the array of political forces it can mobilize, and the tools it commands to direct public opinion on the Middle East, we would shrink from calling it a lobby*." (Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, M. Shahid Alam, 2009, pp 199-200)
"Since the creation of Israel, anti-Semitism has performed a third vital function in the history of Zionism. In the postwar period, when Western nations occupied the moral high ground with their rhetoric of human rights, the Zionists had to ensure that Israeli violations of Palestinian rights did not enter the public discourse in Western societies. Similarly, they would seek to prevent Americans from questioning their country's partisanship toward Israel and the role that the Israel lobby plays in creating this special relationship. In order to stifle any debate on Israel, American relations with Israel, or the influence of the Israel lobby on US policies toward the Middle East, the Zionist organizations have worked with great effectiveness to equate any criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. They have routinely employed charges of anti-Semitism to discredit, ostracize, intimidate, and deny employment to Americans - especially politicians and academics - who criticize Israel, the Israel lobby, or the deeply partisan relations that the United States maintains with Israel." (ibid p 119)
Of course Zionist lobbies don't exist, and even if they do, their reach hardly extends to the high ground of policy-making in Western colonial-settler states such as Canada, Australia and the United States, and even if it does, our most basic freedoms are not under threat.
If you believe this, you're surely asleep and in need of the following wake-up call: Canada clamps down on criticism of Israel: In an affront to free speech, government committee declares that criticism of Israel should be considered anti-Semitic, Jillian Kestler-D'Amours, english.aljazeera.net, 22/7/11:
"Nearly 2 years after the first hearings were held in Ottowa, the Canadian Parliamentary Committee to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA) released a detailed report on July 7 that found that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Canada. While the CPCCA's final report does contain some cases of real anti-Semitism, the committee has provided little evidence that anti-Semitism has actually increased in Canada in recent years. Instead it has focused a disproportionate amount of effort and resources on what it calls a so-called 'new anti-Semitism': criticism of Israel. Indeed, the real purpose of the CPCCA committee seems to be to stifle critiques of Israeli policy and disrupt pro-Palestinian solidarity organizing in Canada, including, most notably, Israel Apartheid Week events. Many of the CPCCA's findings, therefore, must be rejected as both an attack on freedom of speech and freedom of protest, and as recklessly undermining the fight against real instances of anti-Semitism.
"The CPCCA was born out of a conference held in London in February 2009 by the Inter-Parliamentary Committee for Combating Anti-Semitism. Formed in March 2009 and not directly linked to the Canadian government, or to any NGO or advocacy group, the CPCCA included 22 Canadian Parliament members from across party lines... Between November 2009 and January 2010, the CPCCA held 10 separate hearings during which times representatives of various non-governmental organizations, religious institutions, police departments and Canadian and Israeli universities presented papers meant to assess the level of anti-Semitism in Canada. While groups critical of Israel were denied the chance to address the committee, major Zionist organizations like B'nai Brith Canada, Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWCHS), and the Canadian Jewish Congress were welcomed. 'Much of today's anti-Semitism manifests in anti-Israel agitation around boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS)', said Avi Benlolo, President and CEO of the FSWCHS, during a hearing in November 2009. 'It deploys an unfair double standard against the Jewish state, singling out Israel alone for one-sided, harsh criticism and calls for punitive actions'. Throughout the consultation process, the CPCCA regularly focused on Canadian university campuses, which were routinely described as hotbeds of anti-Semitism, where Jewish students or students with pro-Israel leanings are often intimidated or threatened. This accusation was made repeatedly, and included in the CPCCA's final report, despite the fact that Dr Fred Lowy, President Emeritus of Concordia University in Montreal, stated in his address to the CPCCA that, 'by and large, Canadian campuses are safe and are not hotbeds of anti-Semitism of any kind'.
"In its final report, the CPCCA made about 2 dozen recommendations on how best to fight anti-Semitism in Canada. While the report states that 'criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is wrong', it also found that 'singling Israel out for selective condemnation and opprobrium... is discriminatory and hateful' and many of its recommendations deal with combating this 'new anti-Semitism'. A major recommendation issued by the CPCCA was that the Canadian government should promote the working definition of anti-Semitism used by The European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism & Xenophobia (EUMC). This definition categorizes 'applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation' as anti-Semitic. In other words, the CPCCA is supporting a definition whereby individuals who focus their attention on Israeli human rights violations, can be labeled as anti-Semitic. This is obviously problematic since Palestine solidarity activists - like any other people - have commitments that make it impossible to engage with every issue they are otherwise interested in. They shouldn't be labeled as anti-Semitic due to their inability to participate in every single human rights struggle happening around the world.
"Another dangerous recommendation made by the CPCCA was that Canadian university administrators should condemn 'discourse, events and speakers which are untrue, harmful, or not in the interest of academic discourse, including Israeli Apartheid Week'. Even the use of the word 'apartheid' in relation to Israel is anti-Semitic, the CPCCA found, since it amounts to the 'denial of the Jewish people their right to self-determination... by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour'. This clearly violates freedom of speech and an open exchange of ideas at Canadian universities, and also unfairly and inaccurately labels Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) as anti-Semitic. In reality, IAW has since 2005 brought together respected activists, academics, journalists and cultural figures from around the world, including Judith Butler, Ronnie Kasrils, Noam Chomsky and Ali Abunimah, among others, to openly discuss ideas related to Israel/Palestine. IAW provides an educational space for understanding Israel's apartheid policies - as evidenced, for example, through the separate legal systems used by Israelis and Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank or the discriminatory land ownership laws operating inside Israel - and supports the growing campaign for BDS, which aims to nonviolently pressure Israel to respect international law. It is far from the 'uniformly well-organized, aggressive [campaign] designed to make the Jewish state and its supporters pariahs' the CPCCA report makes it out to be.
"The CPCCA also recommended that the Canadian Committee of Foreign Affairs undertake a study on the United Nations Human Rights Council, 'particularly regarding its over-emphasis of alleged human rights abuses by Israel, while ignoring flagrant human rights abuses of other member states'. This clearly demonstrates how the committee has confounded anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel and is prepared to levy dubious suspicions against UN bodies and tarnish Canada's international standing in the process.
"In a statement released in July 8, Thomas Woodley, president of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), said that the CPCCA's recommendations, 'if implemented, will inhibit public discussion of Israel's conduct'. CJPME believes that conclusions and recommendations generated by a process by which the same body - the CPCCA - is prosecutor, jury, and judge, are not credible. Although a few of the witnesses recounted incidents that were indeed indicative of genuine anti-Semitism, many were complaining about merely being exposed to criticism of Israel's conduct, the CJPME press release stated.
"Independant Jewish Voices Canada also criticised the committee stating that the 'CPCCA's goal was to criminalize criticism of Israel and Zionism, not to hold impartial hearings. Therefore, we oppose the CPCCA as an ideologically biased organisation with an agenda that will harm free speech and human rights activity in Canada. We oppose the CPCCA's Orwellian distortion of anti-Semitism. It is a danger to both Canadian liberties and to the genuine and necessary fight against anti-Semitism'.
"While labeling critics of Israeli policy as anti-Semitic is nothing new, the level at which this accusation is now being used in Canadian discourse must be seen as a reflection of the Canadian government's official and current policy on the Middle East. 'When Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand. Demonization, double standards, de-legitimization, the three D's, it is the responsibility of us all to stand up to them', Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in 2010 at the Ottawa Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism, which was supported by the CPCCA. Harper added: 'Harnessing disparate anti-American, anti-Semitic and anti-Western ideologies, it targets the Jewish people by targeting the Jewish homeland, Israel, as the source of injustice and conflict in the world and uses, perversely, the language of human rights to do so. We must be relentless in exposing this new anti-Semitism for what it is'.
"Under Harper, Canada has routinely defended Israeli intransigence and disregard for international law and the human rights of the Palestinian people under its control. In return, trade cooperation and military and security technologies ties have been strengthened between the two states. In May of this year, it was reported that Harper was adamantly opposed to making any reference to the 1967 borders in a G8 Summit statement calling for renewed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Far-right Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman thanked Harper for his position, and stated, 'Canada is a true friend of Israel'. In 2010, Canada announced it would discontinue its financial contributions to the United Nations Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA), the organisation that provides support and resources to approximately 4.7m registered Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the occupied Palestinian territories, and funnel the money into greater policing and security institutions run by the un-elected and corrupt Palestinian Authority leadership instead. In January 2009, as the Israeli army continued its disproportionate attack on the besieged civilian population in Gaza that left 1,400 Palestinians dead in the span of 3 weeks, Canada was the only country out of 47 that voted against a motion at the UN Human Rights Council condemning the Israeli violence. In addition to providing diplomatic cover for Israel, the Canadian government has attacked and cut funding to various non-governmental organizations working on issues related to Israel/Palestine, including Kairos Churches and Alternatives International. Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration & Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney, who led the formation of the CPCCA and is an ex-officio member, has also repeatedly alleged that the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) promotes anti-Semitism and hatred. While Kenney never backed up these claims, the CAF's contracts with the government - which helped finance language programs for Toronto-area immigrants (the majority of whom are of Chinese origin) - were not renewed in 2009.
"Anti-Semitism, like all other forms of racism, is appalling and must be strongly and unequivocally condemned. But by defining legitimate criticism of Israeli policy and pro-Palestinian activism in Canada as anti-Semitic, the CPCCA is not only threatening free speech and freedom of protest, but it is undermining the fight against real cases of anti-Semitism and weakening the seriousness with which such cases should be dealt. This is something that Canadians, and people everywhere, should be adamantly against."
Watch this space...
[* James Petras' preferred term is Zionist power configuration (ZPC): "The ZPC can best be understood as a complx network of interrelated formal and informal groupings, operating at the international, national, regional and local levels, and directly and systematically subordinated to the State of Israel." (The Power of Israel in the United States, 2006, p 46)]
Showing posts with label M Shahid Alam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label M Shahid Alam. Show all posts
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Monday, November 8, 2010
Israel: Going, Going, Gone
"You are pitiful, isolated individuals. You are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on, into the dustbin of history." Leon Trotsky
"There are signs that Israel's years are numbered. They became clear to me in 2006 when a bunch of youngsters in South Lebanon humiliated its arrogant army. The people of South Lebanon were most impressed by the cries and screams of retreating Israeli soldiers around Marun Ar-Ras. But for me, the signs of Israel's demise can also be seen in its clumsy and comical propaganda. I never thought I'd live to see Israeli propaganda mimic Ba'athist propaganda. These are signs that one relishes from a historical perspective. There are those who worry about the new Israeli (& US) insistence that Arabs recognize the permanent, Jewish character of the state. Are you kidding? This is another sign of Israel's demise. It shows real panic at the inevitability of its demise and the demographic trend. What will Israel do 50 years from now when the Jews in the 'holy land' are outnumbered by Arabs? No pledge of the Jewishness of the state will preserve it. Don't get me wrong: I don't believe Israel will be around in 50 years time. Then, you will most likely be landing at George Habash International Airport (formerly known as Ben Gurion Airport). I'm already discussing plans for a visit to Palestine after its liberation. I know what I'd do there." (As'ad AbuKhalil, angryarab.blogspot.com, 4/11/10)
"The secret of Zionist success lies in the manner in which it overcame the chief flaw in its design: it did not have a natural mother country to support its colonial project. By winning over the Jews in the Western diaspora, and galvanizing them to use their wealth, intellect, and activism to promote Zionist causes, the Zionists succeeded in substituting the West for the missing natural mother country. Over time, nearly every major Western country (including the Soviet Union) has offered critical help in the creation, survival and success of Israel. Most importantly, the two greatest Western powers, Britain and the United States, successively, have placed their military might squarely behind the Zionist project despite the damage that this inflicted on their vital interests in the Middle East.
"The United States has already paid dearly for its pro-Zionist policies since 1948. Over time, these costs would include the hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to Israel and its Arab allies, the alienation of the Arab world, an oil embargo, higher oil prices, the rise of Islamic radicalism, and several close confrontations with the Soviet Union in the Middle East. After September 11, 2001, under strong pressure from Israel - working in league with their neoconservative allies - the United States launched a costly but unnecessary war against Iraq. In turn, this war galvanized the Islamist radicals, giving them a new theater where they could engage the United States. The United States has financed this war - and the war in Afghanistan - by borrowing from China and the oil-rich Arabs. We must also add two other consequences of the Iraq War to the debit in America's Israeli account: the rise of Iran and the growing challenge to US hegemony in Latin America.
"The costs that the United States - and the rest of the Western world - might incur in the future are likely to be much greater. We can only speculate about these costs, or when they will come due. The repressive, pro-American regimes in the Arab world are not sustainable. When these unpopular regimes begin to fall, and are replaced by Islamist governments, it may become difficult for the United States to maintain its presence in the region. Indeed, it is likely that the United States itself or Israel might trigger this outcome with an attack on Iran. In the opinion of some, this is an accident waiting to happen.
"Should Israel wither away, the United States will bear much of the collateral damage of this collapse. The withering of the Jewish state could occur due to international pressures against its apartheid regime, a slow loss of nerve as Jewish settlers lose their 'demographic war' with the Palestinians, or loss of deterrence as Israel continues to engage in failed attempts to destroy the Hizbullah and Hamas. Israel and the United States have been joined at the hip for many years. In America's public discourse, the two have become more and more like each other: they are two exceptional societies, marked by destiny, chosen by God, created by brave pioneers, who have shaped and continue to shape their common destiny through territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing. Should the Jewish state wither away, its much larger twin may begin to wobble.
"Some consequences of the withering away of Israel might be easy to predict. Over the past century, the successes of the Zionist movement have galvanized many American Jews and Zionist Christians; they will now be disillusioned, in despair, confused, and angry. Probably, most Israeli Jews will want to migrate to the United States, which most Americans will be loath to refuse. Yet, this will give rise to frictions between some sections of Gentiles and Jews and may give rise to pockets of anti-Semitism. Tensions will also arise between Jews and Muslims. In all likelihood, the United States will experience growing conflicts among different sections of its population; there will be more racism, hate crimes, and, perhaps, worse. None of this will be good for America's image as a great country.
"Although the domestic fallout of the withering of the Israeli state will be serious, the more serious losses for the United States will flow from the erosion of its control over the oil-rich states in the Persian Gulf. It would be foolhardy to predict the contours of the new map that will eventually emerge in the Middle East and the Islamicate. Whatever new structures emerge, these transformations are likely to be violent. On the one hand, the fragmentation imposed on the Islamicate has created local interests that will seek to maintain the status quo. These local interests now will confront Islamist movements that seek to create more integrated structures across the Islamicate. These conflicts will be deeply destabilizing, as India, China, Europe and Russia may choose sides, each eager to replace the United States. Once the US-Israeli straitjacket over the region has been loosened, it will not be easy to fashion a new one made in Moscow, Beijing, Brussels or New Delhi. The Islamicate world today is not what it was during World War I. It is noticeably less inclined to let foreigners draw their maps for them." (Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, M Shahid Alam, 2009, pp 218-220)
"There are signs that Israel's years are numbered. They became clear to me in 2006 when a bunch of youngsters in South Lebanon humiliated its arrogant army. The people of South Lebanon were most impressed by the cries and screams of retreating Israeli soldiers around Marun Ar-Ras. But for me, the signs of Israel's demise can also be seen in its clumsy and comical propaganda. I never thought I'd live to see Israeli propaganda mimic Ba'athist propaganda. These are signs that one relishes from a historical perspective. There are those who worry about the new Israeli (& US) insistence that Arabs recognize the permanent, Jewish character of the state. Are you kidding? This is another sign of Israel's demise. It shows real panic at the inevitability of its demise and the demographic trend. What will Israel do 50 years from now when the Jews in the 'holy land' are outnumbered by Arabs? No pledge of the Jewishness of the state will preserve it. Don't get me wrong: I don't believe Israel will be around in 50 years time. Then, you will most likely be landing at George Habash International Airport (formerly known as Ben Gurion Airport). I'm already discussing plans for a visit to Palestine after its liberation. I know what I'd do there." (As'ad AbuKhalil, angryarab.blogspot.com, 4/11/10)
"The secret of Zionist success lies in the manner in which it overcame the chief flaw in its design: it did not have a natural mother country to support its colonial project. By winning over the Jews in the Western diaspora, and galvanizing them to use their wealth, intellect, and activism to promote Zionist causes, the Zionists succeeded in substituting the West for the missing natural mother country. Over time, nearly every major Western country (including the Soviet Union) has offered critical help in the creation, survival and success of Israel. Most importantly, the two greatest Western powers, Britain and the United States, successively, have placed their military might squarely behind the Zionist project despite the damage that this inflicted on their vital interests in the Middle East.
"The United States has already paid dearly for its pro-Zionist policies since 1948. Over time, these costs would include the hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to Israel and its Arab allies, the alienation of the Arab world, an oil embargo, higher oil prices, the rise of Islamic radicalism, and several close confrontations with the Soviet Union in the Middle East. After September 11, 2001, under strong pressure from Israel - working in league with their neoconservative allies - the United States launched a costly but unnecessary war against Iraq. In turn, this war galvanized the Islamist radicals, giving them a new theater where they could engage the United States. The United States has financed this war - and the war in Afghanistan - by borrowing from China and the oil-rich Arabs. We must also add two other consequences of the Iraq War to the debit in America's Israeli account: the rise of Iran and the growing challenge to US hegemony in Latin America.
"The costs that the United States - and the rest of the Western world - might incur in the future are likely to be much greater. We can only speculate about these costs, or when they will come due. The repressive, pro-American regimes in the Arab world are not sustainable. When these unpopular regimes begin to fall, and are replaced by Islamist governments, it may become difficult for the United States to maintain its presence in the region. Indeed, it is likely that the United States itself or Israel might trigger this outcome with an attack on Iran. In the opinion of some, this is an accident waiting to happen.
"Should Israel wither away, the United States will bear much of the collateral damage of this collapse. The withering of the Jewish state could occur due to international pressures against its apartheid regime, a slow loss of nerve as Jewish settlers lose their 'demographic war' with the Palestinians, or loss of deterrence as Israel continues to engage in failed attempts to destroy the Hizbullah and Hamas. Israel and the United States have been joined at the hip for many years. In America's public discourse, the two have become more and more like each other: they are two exceptional societies, marked by destiny, chosen by God, created by brave pioneers, who have shaped and continue to shape their common destiny through territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing. Should the Jewish state wither away, its much larger twin may begin to wobble.
"Some consequences of the withering away of Israel might be easy to predict. Over the past century, the successes of the Zionist movement have galvanized many American Jews and Zionist Christians; they will now be disillusioned, in despair, confused, and angry. Probably, most Israeli Jews will want to migrate to the United States, which most Americans will be loath to refuse. Yet, this will give rise to frictions between some sections of Gentiles and Jews and may give rise to pockets of anti-Semitism. Tensions will also arise between Jews and Muslims. In all likelihood, the United States will experience growing conflicts among different sections of its population; there will be more racism, hate crimes, and, perhaps, worse. None of this will be good for America's image as a great country.
"Although the domestic fallout of the withering of the Israeli state will be serious, the more serious losses for the United States will flow from the erosion of its control over the oil-rich states in the Persian Gulf. It would be foolhardy to predict the contours of the new map that will eventually emerge in the Middle East and the Islamicate. Whatever new structures emerge, these transformations are likely to be violent. On the one hand, the fragmentation imposed on the Islamicate has created local interests that will seek to maintain the status quo. These local interests now will confront Islamist movements that seek to create more integrated structures across the Islamicate. These conflicts will be deeply destabilizing, as India, China, Europe and Russia may choose sides, each eager to replace the United States. Once the US-Israeli straitjacket over the region has been loosened, it will not be easy to fashion a new one made in Moscow, Beijing, Brussels or New Delhi. The Islamicate world today is not what it was during World War I. It is noticeably less inclined to let foreigners draw their maps for them." (Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, M Shahid Alam, 2009, pp 218-220)
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
The Big Picture
Here's the little picture:
"Imagine if, an hour from now, a robot-plane swooped over your house and blasted it to pieces. The plane has no pilot. It is controlled with a joystick from 11,000km away, sent by the Pakistani military to kill you. It blows up all the houses in your street, and so barbecues your family and your neighbours until there is nothing left to bury but a few charred slops. Why? They refuse to comment. They don't even admit the robot-planes belong to them. But they tell the Pakistani newspapers back home it is because one of you was planning to attack Pakistan. How do they know? Somebody told them. Who? You don't know, and there are no appeals against the robot. Now imagine it doesn't end there: these attacks are happening every week somewhere in your country. They blow up funerals and family dinners and children. The number of robot-planes in the sky is increasing every week. You discover they are named 'Predators' or 'Reapers' - after the Grim Reaper. No matter how much you plead, no matter how much you make it clear you are a peaceful civilian getting on with your life, it won't stop. What do you do? If there was a group arguing that Pakistan was an evil nation that deserved to be violently attacked, would you now start to listen?
"This sounds like a sketch for the next James Cameron movie - but it is in fact an accurate description of life in parts of Pakistan today, with the sides flipped. The Predators and Reapers are being sent by Barack Obama's CIA, with the support of other Western governments, and they killed more than 700 civilians in 2009 alone - 14 times the number killed in the 7/7 attacks in London. The floods were seen as an opportunity to increase the attacks, and last month saw the largest number of robot-plane bombings ever: 22. Over the next decade, spending on drones is set to increase by 700%. The US Government doesn't even officially admit the program exists... But [the Obama] administration says, behind closed doors, that these robot-plane attacks are 'the only show in town' for killing suspected jihadis... True, the program has certainly killed some real jihadis. But the evidence suggests it is creating far more jihadis than it kills - and is making an attack on you and me more likely with each bomb.
"Drone technology was developed by the Israelis, who routinely use it to bomb the Gaza Strip. I've been to Gaza during some of these attacks. The people were terrified - and radicalised. A young woman I know who had been averse to political violence and an advocate of peaceful protest saw a drone blow up a car full of people - and she started supporting jihad and crying for the worst possible revenge against Israel. Drones have bombed much of Gaza, from secular Fatah to Islamist Hamas, to the brink of jihad. Is the same thing happening in Pakistan?" (Rise of the killer drones, Johann Hari, The Weekend Australian Magazine, 30/10/10)
And here's the Big Picture:
"Few Zionists would deny the escalating violence that has attended the insertion of Jewish colons into the Middle East. Mostly, however, the Zionists draw attention to the Arabs as the source of this violence and blame it on their rejection of Israel. Moreover, they maintain that Arab rejection of Israel is rooted in their ancient and religiously inspired hostility toward Jews. The Zionist movement in Palestine has generated endemic violence between Jewish settlers and Palestinians. Since 1948, this violence has repeatedly pitted Israel against the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors. It has dragged Western societies, especially the United States, into ever widening and deepening conflicts with the Islamicate.* It is the thesis of this... book that the history of these ever-expanding circles of conflict and instability was contained in the Zionist idea itself. Instability and violence are integral to Zionism: they have flowed from its inner logic. They are not incidental to it." (Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, M. Shahid Alam, 2009, pp 25-26)
"This study has employed a dialectical framework for analyzing the destabilizing logic of Zionism. We have examined this logic as it has unfolded through time, driven by the vision of an exclusionary colonialism, drawing into its circuit - aligned with it and against it - nations, peoples, forces, and civilizations whose actions and interactions impinge on the trajectory of Zionism, and, in turn, who are changed by this trajectory. It would be a bit simplistic to examine the field of interactions among the different actors in this historic drama on the essentialist assumption that these actors and their interests are unchanging. Instead, we need to explore the complex ways in which the Zionists have worked - and, often have succeeded - to alter the behavior of the other political actors in this drama: and, how, in turn, the Zionists respond to these changes. Most importantly, we need to explore all the ways in which the Zionists have succeeded in mobilizing the resources of the United States and other Western powers to serve their specific objectives. Consider a list of the political actors who have had more than a passing connection to the Zionist project and, who, at one time or another, have affected or have been affected by this project. First, there are the different Zionist factions, the Jewish diaspora, and, later, the state of Israel. These entities are overlapping, with the degrees of overlap between any two of them changing over time. The second set of actors consists of Western powers - especially, the United States, Britain, and France - the Christian Zionists especially in the United States, and the Soviet Union and its allies in Eastern Europe. Finally, there are actors who are direct and indirect victims of the Zionist project, those who have paid the costs of Zionist success. They form four concentric circles around Israel, including the Palestinians, the Arabs, the Middle East, and the Islamicate. These three sets of actors make up the dramatis personae in the unfolding tragedy of the Zionist project. Clearly, the number of actors involved, their variety, and, not least, the multilayered power commanded by the Zionists and their allies would indicate that Zionism is no sideshow. Directly, it has involved much of the Western world, on one side, and the global Islamicate on the other side, who will soon make up one-fourth of the world's population." (ibid, pp 213-214) [*Following Marshall Hodgson, 'Islamicate'... will refer to a society comprising mostly of Muslims.]
"Imagine if, an hour from now, a robot-plane swooped over your house and blasted it to pieces. The plane has no pilot. It is controlled with a joystick from 11,000km away, sent by the Pakistani military to kill you. It blows up all the houses in your street, and so barbecues your family and your neighbours until there is nothing left to bury but a few charred slops. Why? They refuse to comment. They don't even admit the robot-planes belong to them. But they tell the Pakistani newspapers back home it is because one of you was planning to attack Pakistan. How do they know? Somebody told them. Who? You don't know, and there are no appeals against the robot. Now imagine it doesn't end there: these attacks are happening every week somewhere in your country. They blow up funerals and family dinners and children. The number of robot-planes in the sky is increasing every week. You discover they are named 'Predators' or 'Reapers' - after the Grim Reaper. No matter how much you plead, no matter how much you make it clear you are a peaceful civilian getting on with your life, it won't stop. What do you do? If there was a group arguing that Pakistan was an evil nation that deserved to be violently attacked, would you now start to listen?
"This sounds like a sketch for the next James Cameron movie - but it is in fact an accurate description of life in parts of Pakistan today, with the sides flipped. The Predators and Reapers are being sent by Barack Obama's CIA, with the support of other Western governments, and they killed more than 700 civilians in 2009 alone - 14 times the number killed in the 7/7 attacks in London. The floods were seen as an opportunity to increase the attacks, and last month saw the largest number of robot-plane bombings ever: 22. Over the next decade, spending on drones is set to increase by 700%. The US Government doesn't even officially admit the program exists... But [the Obama] administration says, behind closed doors, that these robot-plane attacks are 'the only show in town' for killing suspected jihadis... True, the program has certainly killed some real jihadis. But the evidence suggests it is creating far more jihadis than it kills - and is making an attack on you and me more likely with each bomb.
"Drone technology was developed by the Israelis, who routinely use it to bomb the Gaza Strip. I've been to Gaza during some of these attacks. The people were terrified - and radicalised. A young woman I know who had been averse to political violence and an advocate of peaceful protest saw a drone blow up a car full of people - and she started supporting jihad and crying for the worst possible revenge against Israel. Drones have bombed much of Gaza, from secular Fatah to Islamist Hamas, to the brink of jihad. Is the same thing happening in Pakistan?" (Rise of the killer drones, Johann Hari, The Weekend Australian Magazine, 30/10/10)
And here's the Big Picture:
"Few Zionists would deny the escalating violence that has attended the insertion of Jewish colons into the Middle East. Mostly, however, the Zionists draw attention to the Arabs as the source of this violence and blame it on their rejection of Israel. Moreover, they maintain that Arab rejection of Israel is rooted in their ancient and religiously inspired hostility toward Jews. The Zionist movement in Palestine has generated endemic violence between Jewish settlers and Palestinians. Since 1948, this violence has repeatedly pitted Israel against the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors. It has dragged Western societies, especially the United States, into ever widening and deepening conflicts with the Islamicate.* It is the thesis of this... book that the history of these ever-expanding circles of conflict and instability was contained in the Zionist idea itself. Instability and violence are integral to Zionism: they have flowed from its inner logic. They are not incidental to it." (Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, M. Shahid Alam, 2009, pp 25-26)
"This study has employed a dialectical framework for analyzing the destabilizing logic of Zionism. We have examined this logic as it has unfolded through time, driven by the vision of an exclusionary colonialism, drawing into its circuit - aligned with it and against it - nations, peoples, forces, and civilizations whose actions and interactions impinge on the trajectory of Zionism, and, in turn, who are changed by this trajectory. It would be a bit simplistic to examine the field of interactions among the different actors in this historic drama on the essentialist assumption that these actors and their interests are unchanging. Instead, we need to explore the complex ways in which the Zionists have worked - and, often have succeeded - to alter the behavior of the other political actors in this drama: and, how, in turn, the Zionists respond to these changes. Most importantly, we need to explore all the ways in which the Zionists have succeeded in mobilizing the resources of the United States and other Western powers to serve their specific objectives. Consider a list of the political actors who have had more than a passing connection to the Zionist project and, who, at one time or another, have affected or have been affected by this project. First, there are the different Zionist factions, the Jewish diaspora, and, later, the state of Israel. These entities are overlapping, with the degrees of overlap between any two of them changing over time. The second set of actors consists of Western powers - especially, the United States, Britain, and France - the Christian Zionists especially in the United States, and the Soviet Union and its allies in Eastern Europe. Finally, there are actors who are direct and indirect victims of the Zionist project, those who have paid the costs of Zionist success. They form four concentric circles around Israel, including the Palestinians, the Arabs, the Middle East, and the Islamicate. These three sets of actors make up the dramatis personae in the unfolding tragedy of the Zionist project. Clearly, the number of actors involved, their variety, and, not least, the multilayered power commanded by the Zionists and their allies would indicate that Zionism is no sideshow. Directly, it has involved much of the Western world, on one side, and the global Islamicate on the other side, who will soon make up one-fourth of the world's population." (ibid, pp 213-214) [*Following Marshall Hodgson, 'Islamicate'... will refer to a society comprising mostly of Muslims.]
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
About That Falling Man
Surprise! Surprise! The Australian has bookended Christopher Hitchen's Dear Virginia, there really is an Israel lobby in its Saturday edition with Benny Morris' Look at moi, look at moi, Chrissy, look at moi please... in its Monday edition.
While Morris hearts Hitchens on his fingering of those bloody Arabs/Muslims as corrupt, violent, autocratic, nihilistic, medieval etc, he complains that, alas, "he still has a soft and blind spot for the Palestinians, who can apparently do no or little wrong..." (Portraying Palestinians as victims who can do no wrong is one-eyed, 11/10/10)
"In Hitch-22," moans Morris, "Hitchens approvingly cites (and expands) a metaphor coined (I think) by Jeffrey Goldberg, a correspondent for The Atlantic* : a man (the Zionist Jew), to save himself, leaps from a burning building (in anti-Semitic and Holocaust Europe) and lands on an innocent bystander (a Palestinian), crushing him. To which Hitchens adds - and the falling man lands on the Palestinian again and again (the conquest of the West Bank and Gaza, the suppression of the intifadas, the construction of settlements in the territories, etc). But the metaphor is disingenuous, and it requires amplification to conform to the facts of history." [*Wrong. It was coined by Isaac Deutscher.]
Now Morris is correct about Hitchens' metaphor being disingenuous, but not for the reasons he thinks. The falling man metaphor is based on the false premise that the Zionist project in Palestine was first and foremost a rescue mission for persecuted European Jewry, when, as American academic M Shahid Alam argues convincingly, it was more of a Jewish power-trip:
"It is unlikely that anti-Semitism was the chief catalyst in the thinking of the Zionist precursors. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Jews of Western and Central Europe were moving toward legal equality with the Gentiles; they were making their mark in Europe's finance, industry, politics, science, academia, and in artistic and literary circles. At this time, Jews were keenly aware of their success; they were acquiring a sense of their growing economic and social power. The Zionist precursors wanted to leverage this power, only recently acquired, to claim nationhood for the Jews. Anti-Semitism may not have been too far from the minds of these Zionist precursors, but, primarily, they were seeking Jewish national self-expression, a chance for the Jews to become important actors on the stage of history." (Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, 2009, pp 55-56)
IOW, to place Alam's insight in the context of Hitchens' misleading metaphor, the crushing of the innocent Palestinian bystander did not arise as the result of a desperate leap from a burning building, as this self-serving Zionist fairytale would have it, but rather as the inevitable result of a colonial-settler project set in train by the latest and strangest of all the species of toxic, ethnic European nationalisms.
Erstwhile historian, now unbuttoned Zionist propagandist, Morris continues: "In fact, as the leaping man nears the ground he offers the bystander a compromise - let's share the pavement, some for you, some for me. The bystander responds with a firm 'no' and tries, again and again (1920, 1921, 1929, the Arab revolt of 1936-39 and the 1947-48 War of Independence), to stab the falling man as he descends to the pavement. So the leaping man lands on the bystander, crushing him. Later, again and again, the leaping man, now firmly ensconced on the pavement, offers the crushed bystander a compromise ('autonomy' in 1978, a 'two-state solution' in 2000 and in 2008), and again and again the bystander says 'no'. The falling man may have somewhat wronged the bystander, but the bystander was never an innocent one, he was an active agent in and a party to his own demise."
Ho hum. What gives the game away here, though, is Morris' reference to the falling man somewhat wronging the bystander. Somewhat wronging! Ain't that a doozy? Morris was actually far more forthcoming in a 2004 interview with Haaretz journalist Ari Shavit:
"I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which truly underwent a hard tragedy... Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which the overall, final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history." For the real Benny Morris, as opposed to the crafty apologist for the Zionist project on display in Monday's Australian, see my 11/5/08 post Benny Unhinged.
What a fraud!
While Morris hearts Hitchens on his fingering of those bloody Arabs/Muslims as corrupt, violent, autocratic, nihilistic, medieval etc, he complains that, alas, "he still has a soft and blind spot for the Palestinians, who can apparently do no or little wrong..." (Portraying Palestinians as victims who can do no wrong is one-eyed, 11/10/10)
"In Hitch-22," moans Morris, "Hitchens approvingly cites (and expands) a metaphor coined (I think) by Jeffrey Goldberg, a correspondent for The Atlantic* : a man (the Zionist Jew), to save himself, leaps from a burning building (in anti-Semitic and Holocaust Europe) and lands on an innocent bystander (a Palestinian), crushing him. To which Hitchens adds - and the falling man lands on the Palestinian again and again (the conquest of the West Bank and Gaza, the suppression of the intifadas, the construction of settlements in the territories, etc). But the metaphor is disingenuous, and it requires amplification to conform to the facts of history." [*Wrong. It was coined by Isaac Deutscher.]
Now Morris is correct about Hitchens' metaphor being disingenuous, but not for the reasons he thinks. The falling man metaphor is based on the false premise that the Zionist project in Palestine was first and foremost a rescue mission for persecuted European Jewry, when, as American academic M Shahid Alam argues convincingly, it was more of a Jewish power-trip:
"It is unlikely that anti-Semitism was the chief catalyst in the thinking of the Zionist precursors. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Jews of Western and Central Europe were moving toward legal equality with the Gentiles; they were making their mark in Europe's finance, industry, politics, science, academia, and in artistic and literary circles. At this time, Jews were keenly aware of their success; they were acquiring a sense of their growing economic and social power. The Zionist precursors wanted to leverage this power, only recently acquired, to claim nationhood for the Jews. Anti-Semitism may not have been too far from the minds of these Zionist precursors, but, primarily, they were seeking Jewish national self-expression, a chance for the Jews to become important actors on the stage of history." (Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, 2009, pp 55-56)
IOW, to place Alam's insight in the context of Hitchens' misleading metaphor, the crushing of the innocent Palestinian bystander did not arise as the result of a desperate leap from a burning building, as this self-serving Zionist fairytale would have it, but rather as the inevitable result of a colonial-settler project set in train by the latest and strangest of all the species of toxic, ethnic European nationalisms.
Erstwhile historian, now unbuttoned Zionist propagandist, Morris continues: "In fact, as the leaping man nears the ground he offers the bystander a compromise - let's share the pavement, some for you, some for me. The bystander responds with a firm 'no' and tries, again and again (1920, 1921, 1929, the Arab revolt of 1936-39 and the 1947-48 War of Independence), to stab the falling man as he descends to the pavement. So the leaping man lands on the bystander, crushing him. Later, again and again, the leaping man, now firmly ensconced on the pavement, offers the crushed bystander a compromise ('autonomy' in 1978, a 'two-state solution' in 2000 and in 2008), and again and again the bystander says 'no'. The falling man may have somewhat wronged the bystander, but the bystander was never an innocent one, he was an active agent in and a party to his own demise."
Ho hum. What gives the game away here, though, is Morris' reference to the falling man somewhat wronging the bystander. Somewhat wronging! Ain't that a doozy? Morris was actually far more forthcoming in a 2004 interview with Haaretz journalist Ari Shavit:
"I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which truly underwent a hard tragedy... Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which the overall, final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history." For the real Benny Morris, as opposed to the crafty apologist for the Zionist project on display in Monday's Australian, see my 11/5/08 post Benny Unhinged.
What a fraud!
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