Replies to post #1747 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[jbennett53]

brainlessone, Here is some reading of interest. I particularly like the part where the CIA agent shouts "Our boys have done it" Gives me that warm feeling of pride in my great country.


http://www.afsc.org/pwork/0109/010916.htm

http://home.cogeco.ca/~kurdistanobserver/22-7-02-opinion-kani-jew-kurds-us-next.html

[sylvester80]

Jews for Justice
by Michael Lerner
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020520&s=lerner

They call us "self-hating" Jews when we raise criticisms of Israeli policies. Yet most of those Jews who risk this calumny as the cost of getting involved actually feel a special resonance with the history and culture of the Jews--because this is a people who have proclaimed a message of love, justice and peace; they feel a special pride in being part of a people who have insisted on the possibility of tikkun, a Hebrew word expressing a belief that the world can be fundamentally healed and transformed. A Los Angeles Times poll in 1988 found that some 50 percent of Jews polled identified "a commitment to social equality" as the characteristic most important to their Jewish identity. Only 17 percent cited a commitment to Israel. No wonder, then, that social-justice-oriented American Jews today feel betrayed by Israeli policies that seem transparently immoral and self-destructive.

Social justice Jews are not apologists for Palestinian violence. We are outraged by the immoral acts of Palestinian terrorists who blow up Israelis at Seder tables, or while they shop, or sit in cafes, or ride in buses. We know that these acts of murder cannot be excused. But many of us also understand that Israeli treatment of Palestinians has been immoral and outrageous. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in 1948, and recent research by Israeli historians has shown most fled not because they were responding to the appeal of Arab leaders but because they feared acts of violence by right-wing Israeli terrorists or were forced from their homes by the Israeli army. Palestinian refugees and their families now number more than 3 million, and many live in horrifying conditions in refugee camps under Israeli military rule.

Despite its oral promises at Oslo to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories by 1998, Israel actually increased the number of West Bank settlers from about 120,000 in 1993 to 200,000 by the time Prime Minister Ehud Barak met with Yasir Arafat at Camp David. And although the Israeli and US media bought the myth that what was offered to Palestinians there was "the best they could ever expect," and that their rejection of the offer was proof that they wanted nothing less than the full destruction of Israel, the facts show quite a different story. Not only did Barak offer Arafat less than had been promised in 1993 but he refused to provide anything in the way of reparations or compensation for the refugees. Instead, he insisted that Arafat sign a statement saying that the terms being offered by Barak would end all claims by the Palestinian people against Israel and would represent a resolution of all outstanding issues. No Palestinian leader could have signed that agreement and abandoned the needs of those refugees.

Though it is popularly thought that negotiations broke off there, they continued at Taba until Ariel Sharon's election ended the process, which, according to then-Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, was very close to arriving at a full agreement between the two peoples. Sharon did not want that agreement because he has always opposed any deal that would involve abandoning the West Bank settlements, which he had helped expand in the 1980s--precisely to insure that Israel would never give up the occupied territories. Using the excuse of responding to acts of terror by some Palestinians, Sharon recently set out to destroy the institutions of Palestinian society and has done so with murderous brutality, with little regard for human rights and with great harm to many civilians.

No wonder, then, that social-justice-oriented Jews are upset by Israeli policies. They see that the policies are leading to a frightening upsurge in anti-Semitism. And far from providing security for Israel, they are creating new generations of terrorists and convincing the world that Israel has lost its moral compass.

Still, many Jews and non-Jews have been intimidated by the intense campaign being waged by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and by other Jewish organizations. These groups label those critical of Israel "self-hating" if they are Jewish or anti-Semitic if they are not and mobilize large amounts of money to defeat candidates deemed insufficiently pro-Israel. Ethically sensitive non-Jews are vulnerable to the manipulation of guilt about the long and bloody history of anti-Semitism in Christian Europe and Islamic north Africa, plus the US refusal of entry to Jews seeking asylum from the Nazis in the 1940s. There is ample reason for the non-Jewish world to atone for its past oppression of Jews. But non-Jews are doing no favors to the Jewish people when by their silence they help the most destructive elements of the Jewish world pursue immoral policies that almost certainly will generate more hatred of Jews.

It is time for the United States to sponsor a multinational force to physically separate and protect Israel and Palestine from each other, and then to convene an international conference to impose a final settlement. This would include an end to the occupation, evacuation of the settlements, reparations for Palestinian refugees (and also for Jews who fled Arab lands), recognition of Israel by surrounding Arab states and cessation of all acts of terror and violence. Imposing that kind of a settlement, by force if necessary, would provide real security to both sides and open up psychic space for the healing that must happen. What is called for is a new spirit of generosity, open-heartedness, repentance and reconciliation between two peoples who share equally the blame for the current mess and who both have legitimate grievances that must now be left behind for the sake of lasting peace....

This is a goal of thousands of American Jews and our non-Jewish allies who have recently formed the Tikkun Community, a progressive, pro-Israel alternative to AIPAC. Israel/Palestine peace is not only a Jewish issue; our non-Jewish allies will be essential to our campaign to educate the media, opinion shapers and elected officials. The nonviolent civil disobedience sponsored by the Tikkun Community at the State Department in April, at which Cornel West and I were arrested, is only one part of a campaign that will include lobbying, teach-ins, fasting, sending volunteers to be part of an international presence on the West Bank, collecting funds to rebuild Palestinian cities (and Israeli sites destroyed by Palestinian terror attacks) and demands on Jewish and Arab institutions to adopt a path of nonviolence. We are also creating a national student conference in October. Many students face an impossible choice between pro-Israel groups that support Sharon's current policies in lockstep or pro-Palestinian groups that claim the Palestinians are facing Nazi-like genocide at the hands of the Jewish people (an exaggeration that allows right-wing Jews to yell "anti-Semitism" because there is no attempt to systematically murder Palestinians, thereby letting Israel off the hook).

Our goal, both on campuses and in the larger society, is to forge a middle path of "tough love" for Israel--recognizing that the best way to protect Israel and the Jewish people is to use the power of the international community to impose a settlement and end the occupation. That's the path for true self-affirming Jews and non-Jews who care enough about their Jewish brothers and sisters to get involved.

Michael Lerner, a rabbi, is editor of Tikkun and chair, with Cornel West and Susannah Heschel, of The Tikkun Community (www.tikkun.org or [e-mail])

[sylvester80]

Terror is now a matter of who you are, not what you do. But the charade cannot last.
------------------

Terror and anti-terror have departed from the land of reason, and found their mythological haven. There they stand, on top-heavy pedestals, staring down on us with ice-cold eyes: twin towers of faith, unquestioned and unexamined. There is not a single analytical tool that can explain the globalisation of bias that has been infused into these two terms. And there is no moral ground to justify the linguistic apartheid that is now the trademark of US foreign, and domestic, policy.

As it stands now, the concept of terror depends on who you are, not what you do. The murder of civilians for political purposes may be called terror. Or it may be called violence, acts of war, or even legitimate resistance. It all depends on whether the perpetrator is, or is not, listed as terrorist. Forget equality before the law. Forget proof of guilt. Terror is not a crime unless committed by a so-called "terrorist." And everyone is making sure we all know who the terrorists are.

Unlike theft, embezzlement, first- degree murder or traffic offences, you cannot commit terror unless you're a born terrorist, a licensed villain. Otherwise, your worst atrocities will have to be called something else, perhaps an act of survival against ethnic marauders, perhaps a part of the war against terror. Terror today is an act perpetrated by an organisation that has been designated as terrorist by powerful decision makers. If violence is committed in defiance of the existing regime, it is terror. If it is committed by the regime's security forces or an affiliated militia, it is not.

The world, we are told by powerful politicians, is made up of two groups: terrorists and anti-terrorists. This division has ethnic undertones, and a dollop or two of racism. It is this division, not terror, that is new to the international scene. In all cultures, there are groups and religious movements that sanction the wanton murder of civilians for political purposes. In the United States, in Arab countries, and almost everywhere else, people have committed political violence against their own kin, against their ethnic and cultural compatriots. These acts have been designated, rightly, as terrorist. And they are no longer an international concern.

Right now, the international community is less concerned with the definition of the crime than with the individual or group that commits it. Globally speaking, you are either a terrorist or anti-terrorist. If you are not designated as a terrorist, you can, literally, get away with murder.

The underlying premise of the war against terror is that there is a conflict between liberal values and certain cultures, or between liberal cultures and non-liberal (terrorist-breeding) ones. The implied racism is thinly veiled. Cultures are not independent, organic entities. They only transpire through real people, with real interests. These interests can be in conflict, not the cultures. To think otherwise is folly, or bigotry. Unfortunately, this is just the line of thinking favoured by George W Bush.

Since 11 September, the US president, by default and with a fair amount of arm-twisting, has become the world's leading authority on terror. And he has divided the world into good and bad: The good guys (anti-terrorists) are fighting the bad guys (terrorists). Ironically, this is just the kind of attitude that fundamentalists (literally) would kill for. This is the universal rift they always preached and fantasised about: an infantile, untenable, and racist moral dichotomy has become a thriving, globally sponsored, earth shattering policy.

In the past, only fundamentalists and Israeli politicians prayed for this totally idiotic war of good against evil to materialise. Former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, when he was still Israel's young, ambitious emissary to the United Nations, tried, and failed, to get this mad point across. Now, he and the like- minded from across the political and cultural divide need not worry.

As an occupying country, Israel has a vested interest in depicting its quest to oppress another nation as something else, something detached from reality, preferably a mythological fight against terror. The oppression of national movements, colonialist doctrinaires have always attempted to prove, is in the general good of humanity. The natives are often portrayed as somehow genetically violent, inherently dangerous, and ethnically deranged. The quarrel, therefore, is not about land stolen from its true owners. It is about values, of which the natives have none. This is racism at its finest, and it has just been globally packaged, promoted, and acted upon.

The 11 September attacks, with their unspeakable horror, were the brainchild of similar bigotry. The terrorists who launched these attacks subscribed to the dichotomy of good and evil that inspires the current war against terror. These attacks have been Israel's front seat ticket to the international anti-terror show. In this deranged show, the undeniable justice of the Palestinian cause has been sidestepped. Israel has just joined ranks with such nations as Spain, India, Russia, Turkey, and China in an international endeavour that vilifies all violent, secessionist movements.

What everyone has conveniently forgotten, however, is that the Palestinians, endlessly quashed by the most voracious forms of colonialism, are not even secessionists. Israel has not once deigned to propose that the Palestinians live with the Israelis as full citizens in the same state. Israel does not want the Palestinians to be part of the same country, or have their own.

Until they are granted self- determination, the Palestinians are entitled to national resistance. Some of their acts of resistance may be questionable, morally or politically, but not their right to resist. And there is hardly a resemblance between Palestinian struggle and the kind of global terror that has been launched by Al-Qa'eda and the Taliban. The actions of the latter can only be understood as a fundamentalist quest, a throwback to the Cold War era, a knee-jerk reaction to globalisation and the deformed modernisation it has brought about.

What the Palestinians are grappling with is much more immediate than the abstract concepts of morality and justice. They are faced with a daily reality of colonialist oppression, of an occupation that gets uglier with every passing moment. The Israeli occupation is not a traders' bridgehead that might go away, or an international mandate that might relapse one day. It is an attempt by one group of people to replace another. Israel's violence against the Palestinians is both structural and endemic. This is why Israel is so desperate to win anti-terror approval for its worsening acts of violence. It can only do that by branding the Palestinians as culturally violent, ethnically deranged. After 11 September, the world, spearheaded by the United States, created just the right mythology for such mad views to prosper.

But crude distortions of reality cannot last. Democracy, when applied to the colonial community but denied to the natives, is not worth its name. Ethnicity, when it supersedes citizenry, is a recipe for disaster. The current distortion of language, and the concomitant debasement of an entire nation, is licence for murder. In the current uproar of the anti-terror chase, fairness and justice may have been forgotten. But they remain the only hope for ending the nightmare.

http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2002/573/op33.htm