Thought Picnic: Palestine

Cannot stand the spin

The news junkie in me has started a news Lent very early; I have completely starved myself of news and completely switched off the news channels because they are all camped out on the matter of Gaza.

I have channel-hopped between Cartoon Network and Boomerang keeping my mind away from the misery, the suffering and the lies.

The news has been spun off the realms of information and it has become atrocious propaganda peddling of the most absurd kind, we are expected to believe all sorts of convoluted opinions rather than address the basic facts on the ground.

Addressing legitimacies

The legitimate needs for the nationhood of Israel in some place of approximation derived from some adherence to a holy writ that asserts the promise of Canaan to Abraham and his seed in Biblical times cannot be disputed for all sorts of reasons.

However, the legitimate rights of the people of Palestine who were displaced 60 years ago by the writ of the United Nations where 55% of the land was given to the Jews for the land of Israel and the contemporaneous occupiers then shunted into the remaining 45% without adequate redress cannot be ignored.

This constitutes the powder keg that the Middle East has become and represents how peace would almost be impossible in the Middle East until a man or woman properly weighs those different and critical legitimate concerns and brings an unambiguous, even-handed, visionary and accommodating deal to both sides.

The rhetoric within the history

The whole idea that Israel can be completely wiped off the map by any force or nation is hogwash. It just feeds the rhetoric necessary to run untrammelled through the disputed lands with matchless force in the unattainable quest for peace.

We cannot divorce the creation of the state of Israel from the deep contrition of Europe and the United States for allowing the Holocaust and the compelling expiatory exercise that expedited the creation of Israel without properly negotiated terms for the people of Palestine with respect to the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

It sometimes gives weight to the thought that President Ahmedinejad suggested at one time that a land for the Jews which would probably not be called Israel should really have been created somewhere in Europe rather than in the Middle East.

Is there a new Biblical captivity about?

At the back of my mind I remember the Biblical histories of Jews that suggest that Israel and Judea has always been a nation in flux depending on the relationship of their leaders and the people with God. They were mostly in conflict with the neighbouring tribes and sometimes overrun and taken into captivity until they re-established their relationship with God.

It makes one wonder if the nation is kicking against the goads for another wave of the cycle of Biblical events since the all claims derive from those historical links. It would send a shudder down the spines of all protagonists if the natural ebb and flow of the Jewish nation is interfered with by belligerence that simply exacerbates an untenable situation.

Getting to solutions

This is where the United States has not been a useful broker for peace, brow-beating Palestine into terms they would just have to accept because of the status quo will not kill the aspirations of a people for a land to a call theirs and it would not obliterate the claims of dispossession that others have made for over 60 years.

Be it the 1948 lines, the 1967 lines or the new lines drawn by the wall as a demarcation boundary between Israel and Palestine; some force for good has to be dispassionate about this issue regardless of old allegiances and deliver a plan that all can gather round and all can accommodate with compromise and negotiated for all the people in the dispute.

The Middle East conflict is no more a matter of who is right or who is wrong; the issue of defence and/or revenge is simply symptomatic of a deeper conflict that needs bold and courageous unravelling.

It cannot be assuaged by inaccurate missiles or precision guided missiles – just imagine if Palestine were just as formidably armed as Israel and matched Israel bomb for bomb and missile for missile – I am sure the guarantee of mutual self-destruction would have yielded a kind of peace settlement a long time ago. There are uneven hands in this game.

Between genocide or peace

The implacable extremists (be they settlers, fundamentalists or terrorists, they are all undesirable for peace in the Middle East ) on both sides have to be made to see the futility of efforts for better offers to the majority of the people on sides of the conflict.

In the end, tanks and amazing military force can destroy buildings, institutions and kill people but if anyone thinks the bullets and bombs of one mighty nation seeking peaceful co-existence can subjugate a cause just as passionate as it draws support and the compassion from humanity and deny the legitimate yearnings of a people for land, peace, justice and fairness – you will need a genocide worse than the Holocaust to achieve that.

The war must stop.

References

Blogs on Israel

The old men say, talk with the enemy

Learning lessons from the past

If they before us have anything to bequeath to generations after them it would be a history of how they lived their lives and hopefully some insight into making the best choices by learning from their mistakes.

There are people today now in their 80s who seem to have a wealth of experience about politics, economics, social policy and general participatory or observational view of changes that have created the world we have now - we would do well to heed their views – they can neatly count on 50 years of experience at the least on world affairs.

They may not be relevant in terms of having the power to change things now but their opinions are anything but irrelevant.

Gore Vidal – Beyond the perceived view of history

I had the pleasure of watching Gore Vidal (82) on BBC World Hard Talk last weekend, he was quite excoriating about George W. Bush but he gave some perspectives into contemporary American history. The interview on BBC (RealPlayer).

A week earlier, he was at the Los Angeles Times – Festival of Books – and he was interviewed by Amy Goodman, the transcript of which reads almost like the Hard Talk interview.

Much as John F. Kennedy is revered in America and the world over, he does not believe JFK did much more than polarise the world even more, JFK did not achieve much but his assassination created a legend of renown.

It is amazing that it is mainly intellectuals that seem to see the way the state is running roughshod over our privacy and liberties in the quest for security whilst breaking every law in the book on the premise of being at war – no greater indictment can be made of a President than to say that the America constitution has been shredded by the sitting President.

The Congress is also culpable in this travesty of democracy that was hard-won in the 20^th Century, some way into the interview Gore Vidal indicated it was better to be a writer than a politician considering the way elected people seem to be marionettes controlled by lobbyists.

More on historical perspectives

Vidal is considered one of the foremost commentators on American socio-political life, his despair with his country is exemplified in the phrase United States of Amnesia - the collective inability of Americans to learn from history to know when they are being cajoled.

That brings us to the speech that President George W. Bush gave on the 15^th of May at the Knesset in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel where he labelled as appeasers in the context of the appeasement of Hitler those who advocate talking with American enemies.

This is no doubt a distortion of historical context and Bush is no scholar of history as he is both making history and failing to learn from history.

Worse still is to forklift historical events from one time in history to accentuate a flawed logic, that is unconscionable and disingenuous.

President Bush appears to be living in a glass house casting boulder-like stones considering some records of history which had his grandfather Senator Prescott Bush “unwittingly” involved in businesses and banks that “inadvertently” bankrolled the Nazis and helped bring them to power in Germany.

You can read into this research and report what you like, but the mere fact that one of those company’s assets where he was a director were seized under the Trading with the enemy Act in 1942 is interesting enough though Senator Bush was not cited for wrongdoing.

Hero or heroics?

That speech has been criticised as an attack on Senator Barrack Obama who as Democratic Presidential candidate aspirant has suggested that the United States talks unconditionally with its enemies, most especially Iran.

Senator John McCain took on this speech and used it to ram home a few points about Senator Obama’s naivety about world politics, but before we get carried away with the perceived war credentials of John McCain; Gore Vidal does not think John McCain is a hero in the same class as John Kerry.

He says John McCain smashed his plane which would normally attract a court martial; interesting because I would reckon that would not be the case if your father and grandfather were four star Navy admirals – though this is not to discount anything about his political life and savvy.

Then the Financial Times takes Henry Kissinger (85) to lunch (interview); Kissinger who could well be a war criminal in some countries is quite well received in many other countries as a proponent of realpolitik and probably an authority on global diplomacy - a rather busy travelling man he has been, lately.

It is all well today to view some of the ideas and actions in the 1970s and draw conclusions that give us the benefit of hindsight, but it does not detract from the fact that a changing world required some tough and sometimes illegal activity to keep the world at peace.

Comprehensive negotiations with Iran

Mr. Kissinger, is German-born but also a Jew says during a discussion about diplomacy and the way the world has changed – “I have advocated that the United States have comprehensive negotiations with Iran ... We need to have an open discussion of all differences.”

The difficulty comes when he says that Iran has to decide whether it is a nation or a cause – now, that is a difficult, the nation has to defend itself against its enemy on both sides in Iran and Afghanistan and it has a cause which is to remain seriously relevant in the Middle-East where the possibility of having nuclear weapons is looking like a national cause. This is the Iran we are told wants to obliterate Israel.

Talking with the enemy

The Economist in its leader last week pooh-poohed the President Bush’s slanted view of appeasement with the byline; when talking to the enemy. “Sometimes it makes sense; sometimes it doesn't; sometimes not talking can be appeasement”.

Appeasement is not so much the talking but the action that could follow the talking, like how Chamberlain sold Czechoslovakia down the river. And no one would call Secretary James Baker talking to the Saddam Hussein regime after the invasion of Kuwait appeasement; however, if America had not driven Iraq out of Kuwait, it would have been appeasement. Should I mention North Korea?

There is no way real dialogue would happen between America and Iran, if preconditions that give America the upperhand in negotiations are doggedly insisted upon.

In fact, talking to the enemy might well be the best way of keeping with the proven policies of containment and deterrence, if not engagement to secure the peace and eliminate threats.

President Jimmy Carter (83) visits Syria in April and insists that Syria and Hamas are integral to the peace process, they need to be involved.

Then Archbishop Desmond Tutu (76) visits Gaza and sees the international appeasement of Israel that allows for the blockade of Gaza to continue without any condemnation from those who can really change things. He called it an abomination.

But the most important statement he made was “conflicts were resolved through talking to enemies not friends”, surely; the man of the cloth knows something about this kind of thing.

It leaves one in no doubt that we have to talk before we can decide on what conditions are necessary to keep talking – a difficult thing for the Bush administration to comprehend because they probably have no knowledge of history to be able to make any sense of history and hence learn the lessons thereof.

Surely, these old men can not all be speaking nonsense.

For Alan Johnston

We are gathered

The subtlety of the way our secular world pervades all aspects of life could not have been more poignant than when the colleagues, friends and well-wishers of Alan Johnston - the BBC journalist captured in Gaza 3 weeks ago - gathered outside Bush House (Home of the BBC World Service) in London to demonstrate, protest, support and call for the release of their friend.

The head of BBC Journalism addressed the crowd highlighting other people who had joined in support to demand his release.

Then his entreated everyone to join in a minute of silence for Alan Johnston and his family.

A switch went off in me; I thought minutes of silence were for recognition, remembrance or memory of those who had crossed to the great beyond.

This is not to suggest that some other party amongst the clamour knows more about the welfare of Mr. Johnston than we all know, but I more expected either a moment of silent prayer or even having a priest leading people in some short devotion of supplication.

I do believe in the efficacy of prayer driven by faith, the significance of a moment of silence in seeking the release of a hostage does leave me a bit befuddled and definitely not convinced that this show would lead to much - a gesture it was, but it can be argued, it was quite empty.

However, I do add my voice to the call to release Mr. Johnston, unconditionally and forthwith - this man provides a perspective of the Palestinian situation that we rarely get to see or understand, the captors are doing their cause no good at all.

Attaching the burden of history to the Middle-East

The Middle-East conflicts

I have been fielding comments on some of my write-ups about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the current events in Gaza and Lebanon.

I am concerned that most commentary fails to gather the sense of history in this conflict that dates back at least 58 years at the creation of the state of Israel, but has it roots in quite a number of earlier events in Europe from the first Aliyah (migration) around 1881 after extensive persecution of Jews around Europe.

Israel and the Jews have a longer history than the events of the last 130 years with biblical and historical commentary about their living in the Promised Land but never exclusively.

The conflict could even date back to the times of Abraham between mother-child Ishmael and mother-child Isaac – that is a completely different story for now.

I have written a series of blogs on the Israeli-Palestinian issue - it would be difficult to read the context of my views from that one blog or my most recent blogs.

The quest to annihilate Israel is as a result of a long-running scenario where Israel was carved out of the then Palestine without due consideration the displaced people.

New organizations for old problems

Hamas (1987), Hezbollah (1982) and Islamic Jihad (Used by different organisations since the 1980s) are relatively new organisations, which have developed as a result of no movement or inadequate leadership required to resolve that issue of the displaced people and the occupied areas.

Up till when Pope John Paul II visited those lands, I did not know that the largest refugee camp of internally displaced people was really in Palestine.

People have been living in camps in their own land since 1948, it is no wonder that Israel can never be at peace till some justice and movement is seen on the part of Israel.

That agenda unfortunately is mostly hijacked by religious interests that are usually not indigenous and political interests that are neither pragmatic nor diplomatic.

It is important that reviewers and commentators get a general overview of the whole historical context on this matter, fork-lifting current events out of that context provides a poor balance of perspective.

I am not claiming to be an historical expert on the conflicts, but my views, I hope, do attempt to review the whole picture for a perspective on today.

Regardless of the strong religious persuasions on the bless-Israel/curse-Israel divide, having a good critique of that situation from all perspectives is essential and it should not preclude seeking a fair and just resolution even if it does not favour the Jews.

References

The Nation of Israel

Palestine

Israel related blogs

Palestine related blogs

30 years after the Raid on Entebbe

Gaza is not Entebbe

30 years ago yesterday, the Israelis would have celebrated the raid on Entebbe when Idi Amin of Uganda gave refuge to a situation where pro-Palestinian militants took over a 100 Israeli/Jews hostage in the terminal building of Entebbe airport.

The advantage the Israelis had to mounting a rescue effort successfully involved the fact that Israelis built the terminal and had enough information from blueprints and so on as to how to approach the building.

There was occasion where the Israeli government would have acceded to the demands of prisoner release especially if the planned raid failed.

In the end, the success celebrated the death of all the hostage takers and good number of Uganda soldiers and unfortunately some of the hostages and the ground commander of the operation - Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu - the big brother of Binyamin Netanyahu.

Those were a time when the bravado of Israeli daring-do was lauded and that was only a few years after the 6-day-war.

Men of war and peace

The prime minister of that time was Yitzhak Rabin who seven years later shook the hand of Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn in front of Bill Clinton and on November the 4th 1995 was assassinated by a Jewish extremist.

Today, such swash-buckling days are over, the crux of the moment centres on the taking of Gilad Shalit, a 19-year old conscript with the rank of corporal.

He is probably somewhere in Gaza, but since the Israelis do not have the blueprints and plans of the ghettos of refugee desperation and suffering, it is unlikely that they have smoke him out as they did in humiliating Idi Amin and Uganda.

However, since the current fledgling government of Ehud Olmert need to prove tough, something Ariel Sharon would not have had to do, what has been smoking ahs been power plants, bridges and the main infrastructure of the deprived Palestinian people.

Conventionally flouting civil engagement

Poignantly, once again the Geneva Convention rears its head inconveniently for the United States and Israel.

First in the United States where the prisoner detention at Guantanomo bay and the suspension of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum for the inmates puts the government at variance to its constitutional remit and the 3rd Geneva Convention on the treatment of Prisoners of War - this enemy combatants moniker drew no praise from the Supreme Court.

So now, Switzerland as the depository of the Geneva Conventions has accused Israel of violating what might be the 4th Convention pertaining to the protection of civilians in the time of war. This is evident in the fact that the destruction of civil infrastructure cannot be said to provide the adequate channels that could lead to the release of the hostage.

A dead soldier for more righteous indignation

Whilst is it understandable that Israel with all its might not want to negotiate with puny Palestinians, thinking people are wondering if the release of the hostage is desired or there is an ulterior motive of harassing the Palestinians to a point of losing faith in the Hamas government.

Sometimes, it appears that Israel is interested in the return of the soldier, but has not considered whether they want him back dead or alive. Returned alive would make him a hero for days before recriminations set in; where returned dead would create a martyr for the nation, a celebration of the dead and worse treatment of the Palestinians.

I would presume the win-win situation for Israel is both to have a dead body and the rage to wreak more havoc, destruction and suffering on Palestine with the element to retain their actions as just.

So, as the Israeli Prime Minster warns of escalation of hostilities as home made rockets like home made pies land in Israel, fired by resourceful Palestinian improvisers, one only wonders how much more Israel wants to do to ensure Corporal Gilad Shalit is returned in a box.

Pray for the young man as his people sacrifice his innocent soul to a goal that brings no peace.

Blasting the hostage out of Gaza

Mighty Israel

Writing about Israel is a difficult task, every question you raise about their actions regardless of the objectivity gets you labelled as anti-Semitist on the one hand and an appeaser of terrorism on the other.

Having heard the news about the events in Gaza as Israel tries to obtain the freedom of the 19 year old conscript, whilst blowing up bridges might prevent the movement of the hostage, how does blowing up transformers help in the resolution of this conflict.

Then flying over the summer palace of the Syrian President looks like a military-political command structure run amok.

The unequal matching of the sticks and staves of Palestinians to the high-tech weaponry of the Israelites leaves one at a point of conflicts of faith and fairness.

The faith from the perspective of evangelical or devout Christians commands a stubborn adherence to blessing Israel regardless of what they do and the fairness leaves one in empathy for the Palestinians and their plight in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

That faith element precludes America from supporting any resolution against Israel; it is like an unwritten law in the American polity that remains unbroken.

So, if as Israel amasses her tanks and razes down buildings and infrastructure they happen upon their gravely wounded quarry within the ruins of the damage they have caused; culpability would be difficult to apportion.

As might and obstreperousness lords it over wisdom and restraint with outrageous belligerence, man has no chance on this matter as people have advised care and restraint – Did God not say they are a stiff-necked people?

In the light of this and other issues, someone ask, was a soldier really kidnapped and taken hostage? If indeed they did, how did they do it? – the pictures tell a story I cannot better – take a look.

What Really Happened – The Gaza Tunnel Attack

Living with the results of true democracy

In search of Arabian Democracy

The clamour for reform on the basis of democratic change in the Middle East has been so deafening that one is surprised that unexpected news filters through loud and clear.

Part of the supposed goal of winning the war on terror is to help Arabians have more say in the way they are governed and loosen the grip of those potentates that have been in power since the world began.

We, the mortals in leadership

In the last 6 months death has separated four of the rulers from thrones of their fiefdoms; they being, Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Maktoum of Dubai and Sheikh Jaber al-Sabah of Kuwait.

More so, human frailties of health lead the successor to the Emir of Kuwait to give up the throne by the urging of parliament having ruled for just 8 days – Oh! That he be so honoured with a portrait in the chamber of kings – caption “He ruled with great wisdom for a week and a day”.

Apparently, these developments about human mortality and vulnerability might not have been read and understood those who have lead their countries into abject privation in Africa; having plundered resource and reserves leaving legacies of corruption and disaster.

Then there have been ripples of reform in Syria, waves of tumult in Israel with the forming of Ariel Sharon’s Kadima; the cantankerous but interesting pronouncements of the Doctor-Engineer Ahmadinejad in Iraq with the enduring prominence of the Pharaoh Mubarak of Egypt.

New home for the insurgency

One could nervously say that the war in Iraq has brought change on the wings of missiles and laser-guided bombs, as they are enlightened with white phosphorus and the people entertained by the insurgency of emigrants wielding terror who have settled in Iraq from Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Now that we are getting what we have wished for, there is a lot of back-tracking that one wonders what we really want for the people.

The White House usually promotes democracy as just the ability to go out and vote; so vote they have done in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Iran, in Egypt and in Palestine.

The people have spoken

The people have chosen their leaders; that is democracy. Democracy does not include the refinement; you are only democratically elected if you will be a stooge of the West or are liked by the West.

It explains why America cannot get on with the popularly elected Hugo “do not meddle in my backyard” Chavez of Venezuela as they definitely did not speak up loud enough about the coup that overthrew him for 4 days.

More so, with Evo Morales in Bolivia, it would be interesting to see how they deal with another popularly elected leader of the people who also happens to champion the growing of coca.

Somehow, the Americans have not noticed that the drug problem is at home in the United States and not the coca growing fields of Central America that are rendered useless for anything else because of pesticides.

Anyway, the West has tried to pre-empt the electioneering in Palestine by warning that an elected Hamas cannot be a partner for peace.

Doers are deserving of government

However, Hamas is a multi-faceted organ of Palestinian desire, they fight for the land through what is commonly known here as terrorism, but known there as freedom fighting – intafada. They are also the only organ apart from NGOs that have done well to provide social services to their people.

Even without having the kind of funds that Fatah and the Palestinian Authority have, hospitals, schools, jobs and daily essentials to alleviate suffering form another platform of their principles.

It is unfortunate that they still look to see the end of Israel and though that is contemporaneously wrong; there is a grievance of deprivation, oppression, exploitation and global diffidence if not indifference to be assessed as it fuels the clash of civilisations that now plague the West.

Indeed, the people have spoken

The fact is, the people have voted for those they think can best represent them and shunned those who the West has feted and befriended without engaging them properly about reforming themselves for electoral success.

This is the case especially for Palestine, though not as clear from Iran.

With Hamas having taken 58% of the seats of the parliament, better than George W. Bush in his second term victory of 51% percent, it can be said that the Hamas has a better mandate than the American president to speak for and govern their people. So, it can be said for the leaders of Venezuela, Bolivia, Iran and even Chile.

Democracy however, would not go scot-free, as work would commence to destabilise ‘so-called’ hostile regimes that are unfriendly to America just because they have refused to conform to that standard that allows the embodiment of their civilisation to be emasculated by markets and ideas that provide no local value.

Read the results out loud again

We hear that the current president of the Palestinian people who happens to have lead the blundering and corrupt Fatah movement is being urged to retain his seat; in the light of not having a legislative base to carry out reforms he could not pass through the erstwhile parliament that he supposedly should have had more influence over.

It makes one wonder whether we all know the many meanings of democracy.

Whilst the last time I looked, it appeared that it was purely the government of the people, by the people, for the people – somehow, the first is right and the last two have gone by way of the wind.

We end up being governed no doubt, but by some people for their pockets.

The Secretary of the Arab League clearly depicts the dilemma of democracy – “America cannot promote democracy and then reject the results of this democracy” [1] – even I cannot fail to see the insincerity of purpose in this one.

[1] BBC NEWS | Middle East | In quotes: Reaction to Palestinian poll