Untold Facts

Egyptian Uprising Rattles Muslim Rulers

It may not be the Arab Revolt of the Lawrence of Arabia vintage, but the ferocity of events in Egypt has turned many Muslim rulers sleepless. Amidst the fear of a domino effect hitting others, susceptible Arab rulers have undertaken necessary preparation to steer through any unexpected crisis. And, backed by other Arab rulers, President Hosni Mubarak has managed to dodge a major political earthquake. “He is safe for now,” said a diplomatic source, although, hours before, Egypt seemed teetering on the verge of a revolution. The source said Arab rulers are overly concerned about the fate of a nation that has for centuries been the cradle of the Arab - Islamic civilization.

Yet, seemingly caught by total surprise, it took about a week for President Mubarak to mobilize a counter-attack and hit back at nearly a million anti-regime activists who were hell bent on ensuring Mubarak’s immediate removal from power.

The spark

The latest events mirrored the uprising as being a classical Marxist class conflict; the rural Egyptians siding with Mubarak while the urban elites bidding to maximize their economic, social and political interests by resorting to unconstitutional methods to change the nation’s political structure and its leadership. For both camps, it’s still proving as tough as growing grapes in the desert.

For a layman, however, the story unfolded like movie sequels. The Egyptian revolt erupted following the recent uprisings in Tunisia where a 23-year-old authoritarian ruler, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, fled in a huff to Saudi Arabia after a month-long street agitations. As copy-cat street demonstrations followed in Yemen, where demonstrators demanded the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh after his 32-year long iron-fisted rule, tweeter-savvy, urban Egyptians followed suit.

To appease the crowd, Mubarak came out on nationwide TV, asking his government to resign and to offer a reform package that could address the needs of the Egyptian people. A clever manipulator and a ruthless ruler of the largest Arab-Islamic nation since 1981 (Egypt has 81 million population), Mubarak first appointed a new Vice President and a Prime Minister, both with military background. The military having been pacified, he then made an assuring public declaration that he would not seek a re-election in the upcoming Presidential poll in September 2011 and, reforms would take place as per the demonstrators’ desire.

Military factor

Beneath the surface, it was the Egyptian military which swayed the balance. Like Pakistan, Egyptian military is deeply embedded in the national political manoeuvrings, thanks to the 1952 military - led revolution which ended the Egyptian monarchism and bestowed the nation with a chain of military leaders since; from Gamel Abdul Nasser through Anwar Sadat to Husni Mubarak. Mubarak deployed the army last Friday after police forces were accused of using excessive force on protesters.

The army played it with cool nerve so far, insisting it would not attack peaceful demonstrations. But, following the televised speech on Tuesday, the former air force General ordered the military to urge the demonstrators to return home. Aware that the demonstrators have external backing and may not yield, he then resorted to mobilizing counter-demonstration by his party loyalists.

“Your message is received … (your) demands became known,” a Defence Ministry spokesman said on state-run television, adding, “We are here and awake to protect the country for you … not by power but by the love to Egypt. It is time to go back to normal life.”

That call for return to normalcy fell in deaf ears; leading to Mubarak loyalists’ gathering around Tehran’s Tahrir square since Wednesday noon. Armed with machetes and Molotov cocktails, they charged through the anti-government demonstrators, overturned military vehicles and blasted volleys of cocktails to scare the gathering mass. Reportedly, one anti- government demonstrator was killed and nearly 400 injured in the ensuing pandemonium, but the showdown has had the desired effect of changing the dynamic of an uprising which many thought would snow ball across the region.

Social factor

Observable in this anti-climax of a much vaunted revolution was the faces and the facades of the demonstrators in both camps. The anti-government activists were urban, educated and blue-coloured. Most of them, unlike ordinary Egyptians, spoke English with neatly-polished accents. Many even sported foreign passports. The pro-government demonstrators, who lurched into the fray in their thousands on February 1, were ordinary Egyptians. They were more bothered about the widespread instability and its impact, and wanted the 30-year-long ruler to have an honourable exit from power. “Mubarak had accepted their demand. What else they want?” yelled one of Mubarak loyalists.

That does not mean the game is up for either side. Also unknown is what might follow. What, however, seems certain is that further instigation from external powers to keep the uprising on the boil is bound to recoil to the detriment of the greater Egyptian-Arab interests, as well as the overall geopolitical interest of leading Western nations; which are given into the habit of using rulers from Arab-Islamic nations as puppets when needed, only to dispense them away like tissue papers once the core interest changes.

That is precisely why all the externally-instigated uprisings recoiled detrimentally in the Arab world. The anti-Shah uprising in 1979 turned Iran into an Islamic Republic. In 2002, George Bush’s famous Beirut spring—that the political status quo could not and should not be maintained in the Middle East—proved so futile in Lebanon that it had resulted in the brutal assassination of another pro-Western leader, Rafic Hariri of Lebanon, in February 2005. Subsequently, it also sparked Hezbollah’s pre-eminence in Lebanon, prompting Israel to wage another war against Lebanon in 2006 in which, for the first time, Israeli military was disgracefully routed by few thousand Hezbollah guerrillas.

Those lessons seemed lost when the West began to insist on bringing democracy in the Palestine long before the Palestinian people could be liberated first, leading to Hamas winning the January 2006 election and becoming the lawful rulers of Gaza. Earlier, the Algerian civil war started when the Western nations prodded the military to take over power following winning of an election in 1991 by Islamic forces. An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 Algerians have perished in that civil conflict ever since.

Limited choice

Until the election to office of President Barack Obama in late 2008, the US had no standing in the Arab streets. That pauperized perception will take time to bounce back. Two recent polls indicated nearly 80% of Egyptian population dislikes the US while 59% preferred the Islamists to the so called modernizers who are supported only by 27% of Egyptians. The ongoing ‘twitter revolution’ in Egypt, — which is credited for having kicked off by the Tunisian uprising and the twitter activism among the Egyptian youths it had unleashed—is backed by this tiny minority.

Such a reality proves another of Mubarak’s assertion that, in Egypt, the choice is between him and the Islamic Brotherhood, there being no other organized political group. Even the Kifaya movement of the past has been taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood. Its leader, until recently, was Abdel Wahhab al-Messiri, a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Muhammad el-Baradei, newly-injected leader of the reformist movement and the former head of the IAEA, is, on the other hand, blamed by many as being a US agent and a stranger to the nation of Egypt.

One wonders what kind of democracy is the West seeking in Egypt where no democratic institutions and parties were allowed to flourish. The Time magazine also raised the same concerns lately. “Democracy movements are attractive to Washington when they target a regime such as Iran’s, but in allied autocracies, they’re a problem. There’s no way for Egypt to be democratic and exclude the Islamists from political participation. The same is true for most other parts of the Arab world — a lesson the U.S. ought to have learned in Iraq, where Islamists have dominated all the democratically elected governments that followed Saddam Hussein’s ouster,” the Time observed.

Vanguard nation

Egypt is a vanguard Arab nation. Since the 1970s, it started gradual liberalization of its economy amidst enormous hardship caused by successive wars with Israel in which its military played a central role among other Arab armies. President Sadat’s signing of a peace deal with Israel in 1979 led to his assassination in 1981 and brought to power then Vice President, Hosni Mubarak. In the 1990s, Mubarak was forced to speed up privatisation process when a daunting foreign debt crisis sparked by international lending organizations made privatisation a pre-condition for aid.

An agrarian economy until recently, the Egyptian economy is bereft of much resources. As a trusted US ally, Mubarak managed over $1 billion in US aid per year since the end of the Cold War. Meanwhile, a middle class resurgence, spearheaded by privatization-induced business elites, occurred, resulting 20 per cent of the seats of the People’s Assembly, the lower chamber of the Egyptian parliament, going to business elites in the 2005 election. The power thus got shared between and among the elites while the military buttressed it from the barracks.

Reforms undertaken

Yet, the vagueness of the Western cry for reform never ebbed, compelling Mubarak to embark upon the much needed political reforms. In a speech on Feb. 26, 2005, he pronounced that Article 76 of the Constitution would be amended to allow multi-candidate presidential elections. The amendment was approved in a national referendum on May 25, 2005. The establishment of a Higher Elections Commission under the chairmanship of the Minister of Justice followed.

The oppositions’ demand for reform too remains vexing, vacuous and largely unspecified. Contrary to public perceptions, it’s not the lack of political or economic reforms that had sealed Mubarak’s fate. In preceding years, global economic crisis posed an enormous challenge to the Egyptian economy; the GDP growth reducing to 4.5% in 2009 (totalling $470 billion) and further slowing down export and manufacturing. In desperation, Mubarak injected into the economy a $2.7 billion stimulus package, which did little to mitigate the slowdown. By late 2010, unemployment reached 10%. Meanwhile, a number of terror attacks reduced income from tourism which constitutes over 12% of the GDP.

If the crisis lingers, a potential closure of the Suez Canal, a vital artery between Europe and Asia accounting for about 10% of global sea-borne trade, will shoot oil price past $100 mark it is now, due to the week-long agitation in Egypt. That will add more burden to the moribund Egyptian economy. Unlike many Arab nations, Egypt is a net oil importer.

External pressures

The crisis also poisoned anew the US-Arab relations; at a time when President Obama had just begun to recuperate from a staggering slump in popular rating. The Daily Telegraph of UK claimed the Egyptian revolt was prepared with the US secret support. The paper said the US had prepared Egyptian oppositions for three years to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak, adding, “The Washington Administration publicly poses as Mubarak’s ally, while secretly providing support for the opposition forces.” The paper quoted US diplomats’ reports from Cairo, made public by the WikiLeaks website.

That may or may not be true, notwithstanding that the CIA has had, until recently, the notorious reputation of acting as the government within a government. In the Arab capitals, however, Obama’s latest call to Mubarak to undertake reform ‘now’ did not go down well. Egyptian foreign ministry has told the US and other foreign powers last Wednesday that their pressure for reforms tantamount to interfering in Egypt’s internal affairs.

As the saga lingered, Saudi King and other Arab monarchs had reportedly told Mubarak to suppress the uprising without any hesitation to quarantine its spreading in other vulnerable Muslim nations.

Author: M. Shahidul Islam
Source: Weekly Holiday

BEYOND THE GAZA FLOTILLA ATTACK: WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE, AND HOW

The opening moves in the reaction to the Israeli interception of the first wave of the Gaza flotilla have now been made. Israel visibly underestimated the international response to its attack and the casualties it inflicted. Widespread condemnation ensued almost everywhere, many Americans became aware for the first time that something was seriously amiss in that part of the world, and attempts were made to bring both the UN and NATO into play.

But Israel also understood clearly that no matter what it did to whom, or how the rest of the world reacted, its dominance of the mainstream media (MSM) in the US and its lock on the US Government (USG) assured that its view of the event would be the one most Americans received. More importantly, it could count on the USG to refrain from joining in the general condemnation, and to ensure that whatever formal responses emerged from the UN Security Council and NATO were little more than platitudes, lacking teeth and allowing it as the offender to investigate itself, if it chose to do so. “Such a deal,” as the saying goes.

What Needs to be Done

And that is precisely what seems to be happening to date, although the appearance of the MV Rachel Corrie under Irish sponsorship can fuel the still-bubbling cauldron of global unhappiness — Israel and the US mostly excepted, of course. An Israeli interception of that ship, with or without casualties, would further enrage almost everyone concerned with this issue. It would also give Obama an opportunity to see just how much political damage is caused him by outraged Irish-Americans, the majority of them Democrats, if once again he does the “Yassuh, massa” routine with Netanyahu.

And Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman’s remark that “… the Security Council resolution [on Israel's attack] is unacceptable and contributes nothing to the promotion of peace and stability in the Middle East” is on the mark, although not in the way he meant it. It is unacceptable because it lacks direct condemnation of Israel and sanctions, and defers to USG intransigence on Israel’s behalf — I sometimes wonder that USG leaders, including President Obama and Secretary Clinton, dare use the bathrooms in their offices without first asking Netanyahu’s permission. It is doubly unacceptable because anything that does not bring Israel to heel and hold it accountable for its actions cannot in any way further peace or stability in that region.

What is needed is not difficult to enumerate, and others have noted one or more in the past. First and foremost is a formal condemnation of Israel by name in both the UN and by NATO, one of whose members (Turkey) is an aggrieved party in this latest incident.

Second, Israel should be suspended from membership in the UN, pending the outcome of an independent investigation into the incident (or incidents, as the MV Rachel Corrie may well have been intercepted before anything can be done) and a complete lifting of the blockade on Gaza.

Third, a phased set of sanctions needs to be imposed on Israel, beginning with a complete banning of flights and ships to and from Israeli destinations, or the transshipment of passengers and goods to and from Israeli airports and seaports. Formal embargoes and the seizure of overseas Israeli assets would follow if needed.

Finally, a multinational naval force under both national and UN flags is needed to escort relief ships to and from Gaza, to prevent any future assaults like the one that just happened to the aid flotilla, and to keep the Gaza coastline free of Israeli naval forces. Egypt should be commended for opening its crossing with Gaza and encouraged to keep it open.

Making it Happen

I do not for a moment underestimate the practical difficulty of implementing these measures, or others like them. What makes it even worse is that many governments are overwhelmed by a sense of inertia: they are so accustomed to seeing good efforts fail on the wall of US vetoes and leverage protecting Israel, that they are reluctant to do anything except make a nominal effort and go away grumbling after losing.

That need not happen now. In the aftermath of the latest incident with the flotilla, more countries across the globe are coming together condemning Israel than even after the submission of the Goldstone Report. France and Britain have joined Russia and China in calling for a lifting of the Gaza siege. India and Brazil have condemned the attack. Turkey, a key regional state and a member of NATO, is enraged, and many European states that would once have supported Israel or at least abstained from votes against it, are now likely to support measures that end Israel’s blockade of Gaza and protect the flow of aid to Gaza itself. Having their own citizens among Israel’s victims has been enlightening for many.

But the longer it takes for the international community to begin doing something and not just talking about the incident, the more likely it is that the essential element of outrage will wane, thereby undercutting any punitive initiatives and the momentum needed to carry them though. And it is absolutely certain that Israel and its supporters in the USG are counting on precisely that happening.

To forestall this, there are two visible mechanisms for putting principles into action, neither of which is hostage to a US veto. One — often discussed but not yet done on this issue — is to invoke the “Uniting for Peace” Resolution in the UN General Assembly, which gives the UNGA the enforcement mechanisms available in other circumstances to the Security Council. My reading of the reaction to this incident is that at this time, there are more than enough votes in the UNGA to do this.

Remember that a resolution designed by the US to circumvent Soviet intransigence and vetoes in the Security Council of its day, can and should with equal justice be directed against the US for the same reasons today on this issue. All countries would not take all of the actions enumerated above, but enough would take some of them to make life very interesting for Israel and its minions in the USG.

Second, there is NATO itself. Turkey has said it would provide escort to future efforts at sending aid to Gaza, presumably on Turkish-flagged ships. It is a key regional player and has been a good ally for decades, and it should not be required to act alone on something that ought to have activated the collective defense provisions of the NATO treaty: between 9/11, used as a pretext for NATO to become engaged in Afghanistan, and the attack on the Turkish part of the Gaza aid flotilla, is a difference only of degree and not of kind.

A NATO multinational naval presence off the Gaza coast is just what is needed for openers, and if it is supplemented by another under UN auspices, so much the better. Indeed, even a single warship from any other country joining even one from Turkey to escort the next ship through Israel’s illegal blockade would send a much-needed and long overdue signal neither Israel nor the USG could ignore. Israeli arrogance has given the world an opportunity to change things, if it dares — and perhaps it will.

Author: Dr. Alan Sabrosky
Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College.

Does Israel rule the world?

With many of the major powers bowing to Tel Aviv, those aboard the Freedom Flotilla should be praised for risking their lives

Yesterday, the Israeli military attacked and boarded one of the Turkish aid ships sailing to Gaza as part of a flotilla, killing 19 and injuring many more. As this occurred in international waters, it is not only an act of piracy but could also be construed as an ‘act of war’. This attack on unarmed civilian men and women illustrates the moral depths to which the Jewish state has sunk.

An Al Jazeera reporter on board the vessel says the Israelis fired live bullets even after a white flag was hoisted. This atrocity and the potential fall-out should merit loud condemnation from the international community … but don’t hold your breath! We have yet to witness the extent of Turkey’s response.

Why are so many nations bending to Israel’s will or staying silent on its crimes? What is it about this minuscule country that enables it to have so much control on decisions made by larger and more powerful nations? It refuses to abide by international laws and treaties. It illegally occupies great swathes of Palestinian land and it’s imposing an illegal blockade on Gaza. Moreover, it is the only country that could get away with assassinating its enemies on foreign soil.

* If any other country or territory with a smaller population than New York behaved as outrageously as Israel, it would be isolated, boycotted and, perhaps, even invaded. Yet, Israel gets away with ignoring a long list of UN Security Council resolutions — as opposed to Saddam’s Iraq, which was invaded, plundered and occupied on those same grounds.
* Israel has a stockpile of undeclared nuclear weapons and, as documentation recently released by Pretoria confirms, was prepared to sell nuclear warheads and technology to South Africa during apartheid; a reality that counters US claims that Israel is a responsible democracy that would never supply weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to rogue states.
* Iran, on the other hand, which does not have nuclear weapons — and, unlike Israel, is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — is being subjected to UN sanctions.
* Last Friday, all 189 signatories to the NPT — including the US — agreed to hold a conference during 2012 “on the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons …” Sounds good! President Barack Obama has espoused the idea of a nuclear-free Middle East.
* The entire Arab world has been pushing for a nuclear-free Middle East and Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has long called for a nuclear-free region.

But wait! The usual suspect, Israel, is none too pleased because it believes it is being singled out. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the call as “deeply flawed and hypocritical”, while his office has issued a statement that reads: “As a non-signatory state of the NPT, Israel is not obligated by the decisions of this conference, which has no authority over Israel”.

No surprise there! But then Obama promptly does an about-turn, saying, “We strongly oppose efforts to single-out Israel and will oppose actions that jeopardise Israel’s security”. His message begs the question, how on earth can the region ever be free of nuclear weapons if Israel is kept out of the equation when it is the only nuclear country in the area?

Change of heart

Now here’s a turn of events that makes me wonder whether America’s capital city is actually Tel Aviv.
When the proposed uranium swap between Iran and Brazil that is slated to take place on Turkish soil was recently announced, the White House dismissed it as a delaying tactic on the part of Tehran and began to pressurise UN Security Council members to agree to a new round of anti-Iranian sanctions.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says a proposal that buys time for Iran “makes the world more dangerous, not less”.

In response, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the US and its allies of “lacking a fair and sincere approach”.

He is absolutely right and it appears that the Brazilian president agrees with him.

In a break from protocol, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has leaked a letter he received from his US counterpart in April this year in which Obama warmly supported the uranium swap, provided Iran were to agree to Turkey holding its low-enriched uranium “in escrow” for up to a year.

“Iran has never pursued the ‘escrow’ compromise and has provided no credible explanation for its rejection,” Obama wrote. Now that Tehran has rubber-stamped the very procedure Obama advocated in the missive, it seems that he is unable to take ‘yes’ for an answer. Could it be because Netanyahu has denounced the fuel deal as “trickery” intended to avoid international sanctions?

The US is far from being the only country allowing Israel to call the tune. Greek Cypriot authorities attempted to prevent a group that included 17 Irish, Bulgarian and Swedish members of parliament from travelling on small ferry boats to join the aid flotilla attempting to break the siege of Gaza in order to protect the island’s “vital interests”.

When much of the western world bows and scrapes in front of the Israeli standard, those aboard ships in the Flotilla should be applauded for risking their lives to do what is right. It’s beyond time that the international community grew a backbone and followed suit!

By Linda S. Heard, Special to Gulf News June 1, 2010
- Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs.

Obama Won’t Restrain Israel

Obama Won’t Restrain Israel - He Can’t

His error has been not to think through the clout of America’s pro-Israel lobbies

( The Muslim World, particularly the Arabs, can see it clearly that when it come to a difference between the USA and Israel, it is resolved by submission by the US. Israel will continue to destablise the Middle East on its own and South and South East Asia through India and Singapore. If the USA really wants to restrain Israel, it does not need to put phoney pressure, it just needs to look the other way when neo-imperialist states of India and Israel suffer the consequences of their policies. Usman Khalid )

March 18, 2010 “The Independent” — All you can say is, we’ve been here before. “Who the **** does he think he is? Who’s the ******* superpower here?” Bill Clinton spluttered in fury to his aides back in 1996. The “he” in question was Benjamin Netanyahu, then as now the Prime Minister of Israel.

Barack Obama, a cooler character than the last Democrat to be president, may not have used quite such salty language about the behaviour of the current Netanyahu government that has so incensed the US. One thing though may safely be predicted. Mr Netanyahu will get away with it.

More than a week on, the in-your-face effrontery of the announcement that a new swathe of Israeli homes will be built in disputed East Jerusalem still amazes. Not only was it another pre-emptive strike on one of the toughest issues to be resolved in the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to which even Mr Netanyahu pays lip service. It came just 24 hours after painstaking diplomatic efforts by Washington had secured agreement on “proximity talks” in which both sides agreed to talk to each other, albeit indirectly. The fate of even these modest contacts are now in the balance.

And it came at the very moment that Vice-President Joe Biden – a true friend of Israel if ever there was one – was in the country promising America’s “absolute, total and unvarnished” commitment to Israel’s security. Mr Netanhayu maintains he was blindsided by the announcement. But close friends don’t treat a superpower protector like that.

Worse still, Mr Netanyahu raised his two fingers just when there was an opportunity to move the tectonic plates of the Middle East crisis. Israel and the moderate Arab states are united in their fear of a nuclear-armed Iran bestriding the region. Serious progress on the Palestinian dispute would not only remove the biggest obstacle dividing them; it would also blunt Iran’s most potent appeal to the region’s Islamic population, as the one champion Palestinian rights that dared stand up to the Israeli and American oppressors.

Now that opportunity has all but vanished. For the Palestinians and other Arabs, Israel’s move has confirmed what they suspected all along, that the Jewish state – at least under its present management – is concerned not with concessions, even symbolic ones, but with creating facts on the ground. Mr Netanyahu however believes he can call Mr Obama’s bluff and ride out the storm. The plan to build 1,600 settlements, he says, will go ahead, whatever Washington’s demands to the contrary. And on all counts, he’s probably right.

And the reasons for such confidence? The first is his calculation that for Washington, whatever its anger at Israel’s behaviour, the need for strategic co-operation with its closest ally in the Middle East against the Iranian nuclear threat will trump its concern for the Palestinians – even if the two issues are connected. The second is his confidence that the President will never ultimately defy the mighty pro-Israel lobby in Washington.

Beyond the shadow of a doubt, Mr Obama is more sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians than any recent president. In his Cairo speech last June, he spoke movingly of the daily humiliations faced by a people living under occupation: the situation for the Palestinian people, he said, was “intolerable.” He followed up by demanding a total freeze on settlements, as proof the Israelis were serious about a peace deal.

But Mr Netanyahu said no, and the Obama administration, essentially folded. It was forced to content itself with a limited and partial freeze, from which East Jerusalem was excluded. When Hillary Clinton praised this modest step as “unprecedented,” disappointed Palestinians and Arabs concluded that for all the fine words in Cairo, it was business as usual in Washington. When push came to shove, the proclaimed “honest broker” tilted invariably and irretrievably in favour of the Israelis.

Mr Obama’s defenders now say that if he misplayed his hand, it was because he had too much on his plate, obliged to corral up crucial healthcare votes one moment, plot the future of the US banking system the next, and then make a flawless move in the three-dimensional chess game that is Middle East policy. In fact, his greatest error was not to think through the clout of America’s pro-Israel lobby.

When the university professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt published The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy in 2007, some intitial reaction was scornful. Critics dismissed the book’s thesis as exaggeration at best, sheer fantasy at worst. There was no sinister lobby, only the instinctive collective sympathy felt towards Israel by ordinary Americans.

But power lies in the perception of power, and no organisation in Washington is perceived to wield more power than AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. For proof, look no further than January 2009, when most of the rest of the world was horrified at the Israeli offensive in Gaza. At that moment the US House of Representatives, by a vote of 390 to five, chose to blame the entire crisis on Hamas.

Now the lobby is working to defuse the present row, naturally on Israel’s terms. First AIPAC expressed its “serious concern” at events, reminding (or perhaps warning) of the “vast bipartisan support in Congress and the American people” for the US/Israeli relationship. Then the Israeli ambassador here issued a statement claiming he had been “flagrantly misquoted” in reports saying he had warned his staff of the worst crisis in 35 years between the two countries. By Tuesday evening Ms Clinton herself, who last week was accusing Mr Netanhayu of insulting the US, poured further oil on the already quietening waters: “I don’t buy the notion of a crisis.”

And there we have it. The settlements in East Jerusalem will go ahead whatever the US thinks. The proximity talks, even if they do proceed, are doomed in advance. And next week AIPAC holds here what it bills as the largest policy conference in its history. The Israeli Prime Minister will be in town to address it, so will Ms Clinton.

President Obama however will be about as far away as possible, on a long-planned visit to Indonesia and Australia. And probably just as well. Grovels, even the most elegant grovels, are not an edifying spectacle.

Author: Rupert Cornwell

Zionism and Jewish nationalism

Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu once remarked to a Likud gathering, “Israel is not like other countries.” Oddly enough for him, that time he was telling the truth, and nowhere is that more evident than with Jewish nationalism, whether or not one pins the “Zionist” label on it

Nationalism in most countries and cultures can have both positive and negative aspects, unifying a people and sometimes leading them against their neighbours. Extremism can emerge, and often has, at least in part in almost every nationalist/independence movement I can recall (e.g., the French nationalist movement had The Terror, Kenya’s had the Mau Mau, etc).

But whereas extremism in other nationalist movements is an aberration, extremism in Jewish nationalism is the norm, piting Zionist Jews (secular or observant) against the goyim (everyone else), who are either possible predator or certain prey, if not both sequentially. This does not mean that all Jews or all Israelis feel and act this way, by any means. But it does mean that Israel today is what it cannot avoid being, and what it would be under any electable government (a point I’ll develop in another article).

The differences between Jewish nationalism (Zionism) and that of other countries and cultures here I think are fourfold:

1. Zionism is a real witches’ brew of xenophobia, racism, ultra-nationalism, and militarism that places it way outside of a “mere” nationalist context - for example, when I was in Ireland (both parts) I saw no indication whatsoever that the PIRAs or anyone else pressing for a united Ireland had a shred of design on shoving Protestants into camps or out of the country, although there may well have been a handful who thought that way - and goes far beyond the misery for others professed by the Nazis.

2. Zionism undermines civic loyalty among its adherents in other countries in a way that other nationalist movements did not - e.g., a large majority of American Jews, including those who are not openly dual citizens, espouse a form of political bigamy called “dual loyalty” (to Israel & the US) that is every bit as dishonest as marital bigamy, atempts to finesse the precedence they give to Israel over the US (lots of Rahm Emanuels out there who served in the IDF but not in the US armed forces), and has absolutely no parallel in the sense of national or cultural identity espoused by any other definable ethnic or racial group in America - even the Nazi Bund in the US disappeared once Germany and the US went to war, with almost all of its members volunteering for the US armed forces.

3. The “enemy” of normal nationalist movements is the occupying power and perhaps its allies, and once independence is achieved, normal relations with the occupying power are truly the norm, but for Zionism almost everyone out there is an actual or potential enemy, differing only in proximity and placement on its very long list of enemies (which is now America’s target list).

4. Almost all nationalist movements (including the irredentist and secessionist variants) intend to create an independent state from a population in place or to reunite a separated people - it is very rare for it to include the wholesale displacement of another indigenous population, which is far more common of successful colonialist movements as in the US - and perhaps a reason why most Americans wouldn’t care too much about what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians even if they did know about it, is because that is no different than what Europeans in North America did to the Indians/ Native Americans here in a longer and more low-tech fashion.

The implications of this for Middle East peace prospects, and for other countries in thrall to their domestic Jewish lobbies or not, are chilling.

The Book of Deuteronomy come to life in a state with a nuclear arsenal would be enough to give pause to anyone not bought or bribed into submission - which these days encompasses the US government, given Israel’s affinity for throwing crap into the face of the Obama administration and Obama’s visible affinity for accepting it with a smile, Bibi Netanyahu’s own “Uncle Tom” come to Washington.

The late General Moshe Dayan, who - Zionist or not - remains an honoured part of my own Pantheon of military heroes, allegedly observed that Israel’s security depended on its being viewed by others as a mad dog. He may have been correct But he neglected to note that the preferred response of everyone else is to kill that mad dog before it can decide to go berserk and bite. It is an option worth considering.

Author: Dr Alan Sabrosky
(Alan Sabrosky (PhD, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College)

Mossad goes to US

In the face of worldwide condemnation (except from the White House and US Congress), the PMAJO backs any brutal murder commited by the Israeli secret police anywhere in the world and at anytime. The recent assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud Mabhouh in Dubai is a case in point The PMAJO has defended all of Mossad’s criminal actions leading up to the murder, including extensive identity theft and the stealing or falsification of passports from several European countries.

Among the Mossad agents who entered Dubai to kill Mabhouh, 12 agents used stolen or forged British passports, three Australian, three French, one German and six Irish. These agents assumed the identity of European citizens in order to commit murder in a sovereign nation.

Once again the PMAJO demonstrates that its first loyalty is to Israel even when it violate the sovereignty of major US allies. No doubt the PMAJO would readily support the Mossad, even if it had used US documents to assassinate Mabhouh. In fact, two of the 26 Israeli assassins, carrying fake Irish and fake British passports, are known to have entered the US after the killing and may still be here.

The position adopted by the DA and the PMAJO in defence of Israel’s international terrorist act followed several lines of atack.

These include:

Blaming the victim

Claiming that extra-judicial, extra territorial murders are legal

Minimising the murder of ‘one’ individual

Deflecting atention from the Zionists by blaming other Arabs

Discrediting the Dubai police investigators rather than the Israeli perpetrators.

Articles have appeared in the op-ed pages of several US, UK, Canadian and Israeli newspapers, as well as in magazines like Forbes and Commentary. The mainline Zionist propaganda technique is to avoid any discussion of Israel’s egregious crimes against sovereignty, due process, international law and the personal security of individuals. In doing so, the Daily Alert adopts the propaganda techniques common to all totalitarian regimes practising state terrorism.

On February 22, the DA headlined two articles, which were entitled: “Killed Hamas Official betrayed by Associates says Dubai Police Chief” and “Hamas: Assassinated Operative put Himself at Risk”.

The DA forgot to mention that Israeli secret police had been tracking their prey for over a month. Needless to say, if we were to accept the American Zionists’ argument that any leading opponent of Israel, who travels without an army of bodyguards, is “puting himself at risk”, then we must acknowledge that ours is a lawless world where Israeli hit squads are free to commit murder anywhere, any time.

If Israel’s murder of an adversary in Dubai is legal, why not assassinate opponents in the US, Canada, England or any other country where they might travel, live, work or write? What if the critics and opponents of Israel decided that it was now “legal” to murder Israel’s supporters wherever they lived citing the DA’s definition of legality? We would then find ourselves in a lawless world of “legal” murder and totalitarian cross-border surveillance.

The February 22, 24, and 25 issues of the DA deflect atention from the Mossad murder by making comparison to the hundreds of Afghan civilians killed by US drone atacks. The claim is that “targeting individuals” is less a crime than mass killings. The problem with this argument is that for decades Mossad has “targeted” scores of opponents overseas and killed thousands of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Moreover, this argument linking Israel’s extra judicial assassinations with US colonial killing of Afghans is hardly a defence of either. By implicating the US in its defence of state terror, Israel is holding up the worst aspects of US imperialism as a standard for its own political behaviour. One state’s crimes are no justification for another’s.

In other words, all the forged or stolen European passports of Israeli dual citizens, and the Dubai security videos of Mossad operatives in various costumes was in reality ‘Arab tricks’. This crude propaganda ploy reveals their own descent into a fantasy land of self-delusion, possible only in the closed world of US Zionist politics.

The DA published several articles praising the technical details of the Mossad assassination in Dubai, an aspect of the operation, with which few Israel security experts would agree. The February 24 DA article entitled, “Assassination Shows Skilful Planning” chastises Israel’s critics for not recognising the ‘high quality’ of the killings and recommends its “lessons for all intelligence services around the world”. Like sociopaths and serial killers, US Zionists openly promote Israeli death squad techniques to all fellow state terrorists.

The DA on February 25 cited a long and tendentious atack on the Dubai police, published in Forbes, which ridiculed their meticulous investigations uncovering Mossad’s roles in the murder. In the article, the Dubai authorities were condemned for uncovering Israeli involvement while not investigating the source of the murder victim’s Iraqi passport! The US Zionist propaganda campaign in defence of Israeli state terror and, specifically, murder of the Hamas leader, relies on lies, evasions and specious legal arguments.

This “defence” violates all precepts of a civilised society as well as the most recent US federal laws prohibiting all forms of support for international terrorism. The PMAJO can pursue its defence of Mossad’s acts of terrorism with impunity in the US because of its power over the US Congress, the White House and the US media.

This ensures that only its version of events, its definition of legality and its lies will be heard by legislators, echoed by Zionist activists and embellished by its solemn defenders in academic and journalistic circles. To counter the Zionist defence of Israel’s practice of executions by the Mossad, we need American writers and academics to step forward. It is time to expose their flimsy arguments, bold-faced lies and immorality.

It is time to speak out against their impunity, before another Israeli secret police murder takes place, possibly inside the US itself and with the shameless complicity of Zionist accomplices.

The authorities in Dubai have found clear evidence that the Mossad assassination team received support from European Zionists. The hotels, air tickets and expenses were paid with credit cards issued in the US. Two of the killers may be in the US now. Will a time come when American Zionists cross the line between propaganda for the deed to become accomplices of the deed? The robust American Zionist defence of Mossad’s overseas assassinations does not augur well for the security of Americans in the face of Israel’s willing US accomplices.

James Petras is a Bartle Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of 64 books published in 29 languages. For comments, write to opinion@khaleejtimes.com

Recalling Cars and Listening Posts at home Nasir Mahmood (At Home)

6 March 2010 All major car companies, it seems, are recalling some of their top brands these days. I too, am going to ‘recall’ cars, albeit in a different perspective.

Over the years, many things that were once an inseparable part and parcel of one’s life here in the UAE, have given way to new innovations. What I recalled the other day was just how fast one adapts to a new lifestyle, adjusting to new realities - almost as if that thing in the past did not exist at all!

Of a plethora of such changes, two phenomena simply stand out for me. One is the cars. Some 10 to 15 years back, and both hurtling on the horizon were huge and long cars (in length and width-wise), mainly American gas guzzlers, such as Chevrolet Caprice, Buick, Cadillac, Plymouth, Dodge and Camaros, not to forget the German BMWs and Mercedes that ruled the roost (sorry roads) in the UAE.

As time rolled by, the increase in population and shrinking income gave way to Japanese Corollas and Nissans, and most recently, the much smaller and fuel-efficient versions-Yaris and Tiidas.

General Motors, which once made giant cars, has also shifted to making shorter versions, the fairy-like Sparks and people have lapped up these smaller versions for easy commuting. Though SUVs as-big-as-a-room-like Armadas, Sequoias and Ford’s Flex continue to flex their muscles on the roads, the cars that really rule the roads these days are the smaller ones. But just 15 years ?back, it was almost unthinkable for anyone to go for small cars. For, the ‘giants’ were affordable. Weren’t they? Now, in the presence of cars like Picantos (by Kia), such giants as well as those considered to be classic cars have taken a back seat

The second major change that leaves me dumbstruck is the phone. How a man flits from one technology to another is evident from the changes ?witnessed in this small gadget that man cannot do without Before the onslaught of cell phones in the UAE, the common medium for expatriates to ?get in touch with someone back home was the telephone booths, which are now largely abandoned, merely collecting dust But think of yesteryears ?when the mere sight of a free telephone booth on the corner of a street would fill one’s heart with joy, because that was the easiest-available means to talk to your near and dear ones. Now, these booths wear a forlorn look and are used mainly by people for pasting advertisements.

Hardly would you find any booths these days that have not been plastered with ‘bed-room-space’ or ‘car-lift available’, ads. The invasion of the cell phones have moved a large chunk of expatriate and local population away from these once much-loved ‘listening posts’.

Remember those Fridays? How people would form long queues, waiting for their turn at the phone. This was a common sight on holidays. An insignificant chunk of the population still relies on these listening posts. These booths have remained part and parcel of one’s life for so long that they have given way to many interesting anecdotes. Much has changed around Dubai and the UAE. Modernisation and development at a break-neck speed has left the common man, especially the expatriates, in a world of their own - recalling all those days in nostalgia. God knows what the future beckons for them?

Author: Prof James Petras
Source: Internet

So When Are You Going To Make War On Israel, Mr. Brown?

There could not be a more graphic illustration of the double-standard that drives Western foreign policy and has prevented a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict than Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s explanation to the Chilcot Inquiry on why he, when he was Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer and wrote the cheques for it, backed the war on Iraq.

He said, “It was the right decision for the right reasons.”

What were they?

Not 9/11 or the WMD assertions.

In an effort to distance himself from America’s neo-cons and their soul-mate in London, Prime Minister (at the time) Tony Blair, Brown said: “I never subscribed to what you might call the neo-conservative proposition, that somehow, at the barrel of a gun, overnight liberty or democracy could be conjured up. What I believed was that the case for intervention was that international law had to be observed.”

Putting some flesh on that bone, Brown said his view was that if the international community could not act together over Iraq, he feared that “the new world order we were trying to create would be put at risk.”

Meaning?

“Aggressor states that refuse to obey the laws of the international community” have to be confronted. Iraq was a “serial violator of the rules of the international community.”

There is, of course, some truth in that, but not nearly as much truth as in the statement that for 62 years the Zionist state of Israel has been, and continues to be, the biggest single violator of international law. No state on Planet Earth has been allowed to get away with defying UN resolutions for so long. And, I say, no state poses a bigger threat to the peace of the region and the world than Israel on its present course.

As I have previously written, the double-standard which allows Israel to behave as it likes with impunity was effectively put into place when the major powers, all of them, refused to condemn Israel as the aggressor in 1967 and demand that it withdraw from occupied territories without preconditions.

If Mr. Brown means what he says, and if by chance he remains prime minister after Britain’s imminent election, logic suggests that he will take the lead with President Obama in putting together a coalition to require Israel, by war if necessary, to comply with “the rules of the international community.”

Of course he won’t because logic, like truth and reality, has no place in politics, domestic or international.

Footnote:

A book by Karl Rove, once described as President “Dubya” Bush’s brains, is about to be published. The memoir is titled Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. In it Rove says he doubts that Bush would have invaded Iraq and taken Britain into a disastrous war if he had known that intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was simply wrong. “The Bush administration itself would probably have sought other ways to constrain Saddam.”

If Rove is right (and is being something other than self-serving), what would Prime Minister Tony Blair’s position have been? He is firmly on the BBC’s record as saying that he probably would have moved ahead with removing Saddam Hussein from power even had he known that the narrative about weapons of mass destruction was fictional by finding different ways to justify it. As I have previously written, I never saw Blair as Bush’s puppet. I think he was and is a neo-con in spirit. And I think it’s more likely than not that he was firmly in the camp of those pressing Bush to go to war. So if Rove had done what he now seems to be saying he should have done – played a part of exposing the intelligence on WMD for the nonsense it was, Blair might not have got the war he and apparently Gordon Brown wanted.

Author: Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent.
Source: Web

Stop evicting Palestinians from Jerusalem

As on every Friday for months now, several hundred Israelis gather here in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighbourhood in Arab East Jerusalem, to stand in vigil as a protest against the eviction of Palestinian families from homes they have lived in for decades.

In August, seven families-about 50 people, including 35 children-were forced out of their homes, and immediately replaced by eight families of Jewish Israelis, members of extremist setler groups. The Palestinians have been living in tents across the street from their house ever since. Six other nearby families have received eviction notices.

I spoke with one of the evicted fathers, Fouad Ghawi, who had lived in the house since 1954, when he was 8. He and his family were Palestinian refugees from Jaffa during the 1948 war, and his father traded in his UN refugee card, which guaranteed him basic support, for the right to move into the house the UN Relief and Works Agency and Jordan were building on vacant land. In return for finishing the house, the Ghwai family would get the legal deed. Three generations of the Ghawi family had lived there ever since-until last August, when an Israeli court ordered them out They had no deed because, he told me, “the Jordan government would not put it in our name until we had proper plumbing, and then the 1967 war broke out” Jordan’s authority ended.

One of the organisers of the protest vigil, Zvi Benninga, a 24-year-old Israeli medical student and Jerusalemite, told me, “It is so blatant because they were expelled for a second time by Israel-first in 1948, and now again.” The protest engages several critical issues. The government evictions depend on cloudy questions of pre-1948 ownership rights which, in most of Israel, have been simply deleted.

Equivalent enforcement of “absentee property” laws elsewhere in Israel would lead to evictions of tens of thousands of Jewish Israelis.

The evictions also raise the larger question of Israel’s “creeping annexation” of East Jerusalem, not only through the expansion of setlements, which Benjamin Netanyahu, defying President Obama, refuses to freeze, but also through legally dubious removal of Palestinians from other Jerusalem neighborhoods like Silwan, just down the slope from the old city.

That other key Arab neighbourhoods, like Abu Dis, have been cut off from Jerusalem by the so-called “security barrier” points to the even larger question - whether, as far as the current Israeli government is concerned, the hard-won consensus that the promised Palestinian state would have its capital in East Jerusalem no longer applies. “This will stop any peace agreement,” Benninga told me.

The weekly demonstrations are being led by younger Israelis, although veterans of the Israeli peace camp have shown up, too - including prominent figures like the novelist David Grossman, the philosopher Moshe Halbertal, and the literary critic Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi. “J Street,” the American Jewish lobbying group, has sent a petition of support signed by 10,000 Americans.

Today, Avrum Burg, the former speaker of the Israeli Knesset, is here to support the evicted families. When I asked him what the vigil meant, he said, “This is an iconic group.

Intellectuals, blue collar people, Jews, Arabs, old, young-representing thousands of people. This is a permanent reality.”

Untie this knot in the nearly hopeless Israeli-Palestinian tangle and many others could be untied as well. The demonstrators are not interested in being valourised as champions of a vibrant Israeli democracy. Instead, they look to be bolstered by the broader world against the once-marginal figures who have more and more power in Israel. (The foreign ministry is headed by the far-right Avigdor Lieberman. This week, his deputy snubbed five US congressmen, including William Delahunt of Massachusets, while Tzipi Livni, the opposition leader, warned “The Jewish state has been taken hostage by the ultra-orthodox parties.”)

A critical stage has been reached, with the government-encouraged status quo showing up as disaster in the making, as much for Israel as for Palestine.

Jamalat Ghawi, a mother of four, told me from her place in the ad hoc tent across the street from her house, “I feel frustration and anger, and worry for my children. They dream of their house at night They are terrified. They have no idea where they are going.” Today, they are not alone.

Author: James Carroll

Muffled screams of Gaza

The recent Egyptian government’s decision to seal the few “tunnels of life” that allowed people of Gaza to bypass the on-going inhumane economic strangulation, its harassment and cruel treatment of the participants of Gaza Freedom March and the Viva Palestina humanitarian convoy earned it a prominent position in history’s page of shame. A page crowded by wealthy Arab nations who failed the Palestinian people and abandoned them at their most vulnerable time.

However, by no means should that sideline drama veil or in any way divert attention away from the root cause of the problem- the over six decades long oppression imposed upon the Palestinian people.

Truth be told: in that period, the state of Israel has occupied Palestine with iron fist; denying Palestinians the right to self-determination and coercing part of their “elite” to surrender into what seems like a condition of eternal subjugation. However, the gravest of all the Palestinian sufferings is embodied in the suffering of the people of Gaza as they endure a vicious economic strangulation unilaterally imposed by Israel . And despite world wide condemnation of that egregious draconian policy, Israel continues to operate with impunity devoid of any conscience.

In their 575 pages report released last September, the fact-finding mission on Israel ’s disproportionate use of force in Gaza appointed by the UN Human Rights Commission has confirmed the ugly truth that most of the Western media were inoculated to under report, or outright ignore.

The mission was led by Judge Richard Goldstone- former member of the South African Constitutional Court and former Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda . And while the report also blamed Hamas, it highlights that “there was strong evidence to establish that numerous serious violations of international law, both humanitarian law and human rights law, were committed by Israel during the military operations in Gaza…actions amounting to war crimes and possibly, in some respects, crimes against humanity, were committed by the Israel Defense Force.”

According to article 39 of the report, the Israeli forces have intentionally targeted and attacked Al Quds Hospital in and the adjacent ambulance depot in Gaza with white phosphorous shells- an internationally banned chemical substance that, among other things, instantaneously burns the human being into skeleton.

However, despite the condemning findings in the report; sadly, it too, has proven yet another exercise in futility. And, though the key recommendation of Goldstone was for the UN Security Council to pass a resolution mandating a credible investigation into the war crimes allegations by the International Criminal Court, no such action has been taken.

In reaction to the report, the US Congress-while succumbing to the “Israel Lobby”-has passed a non-binding resolution condemning the Goldstone Report. The resolution was intended to express unequivocal blind loyalty to Israel , and to pressure the Obama administration to use its veto power (as a permanent member of the Security Council) against any resolution that might expose Israel . Apparently, the strategy worked; and the report is now piling dust in the oblivion.

For whatever it’s worth, it is this kind of culture of impunity that, according to Goldstone, “emboldens Israel and her conviction of being untouchable.” However, this concern was immediately dismissed as anti-Semitic by the vocal blind loyalists and the supporters of oppressive Zionism. Never mind that Judge Goldstone is Jewish, and he is a supporter of Israel ’s right to exist.

Make no mistake, anti-Semitism is a real racist phenomenon; however, the politically motivated excessive use of the term to character assassinate and silence legitimate critics and peace and justice advocates such as former President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu simply defeats the purpose.

Meanwhile, though the Obama administration is showing signs of discomfort with the current Israeli government, the U.S. foreign policy toward Middle East is still driven by blind loyalty.

As the Obama administration tries to reduce the post 9/11tension between US and the Islamic world and rein in on the rapid growth of extremism, the Palestine issue remains an open sore that is festering in America ’s foreign policy. And, while the current administration has attempted to demonstrate its intention of becoming an honest broker by appointing a credible diplomat-former Senator George Mitchell-as the Middle East Envoy, Israel continues its belligerent oppression and expansionist policy by defiantly building new settlements.

Led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Israel is adamant to continue the ever-expanding land grab driven by illegal home demolitions and confiscations, daily dreadful human rights abuses at check points, random imprisonment and assassinations, suppression of independent media, and systematic ethnic-cleansing of Palestinians. This, needless to say, has frustrated the Obama administration whose out of the ordinary reaction to Netanyahu’s visit to the US has caused Israel a big embarrassment.

Not since 1990 when then Secretary of State, James Baker, sent a blunt (public) message to then Israeli Prime Minister, Ytsakh Shamir, telling him “call us when you are serious about peacetthe telephone number is 1-202-546-1414” has US leadership sent Israel a stern message that its actions are unacceptable.

And though this was not a decision to stop or even suspend the roughly $3 billion unrestricted aid given to Israel every year, it still turned many heads and galvanized the usual suspects to come after Obama with all sorts of accusations.

In an article intended to rally the troops against Obama, Jerusalem Post’s hawkish columnist, Caroline Glick, wrote “It isn’t every day that a visiting leader from a strategically vital US ally is brought into the White House in an unmarked van in the middle of the night rather than greeted like a friend at the front door; is forbidden to have his picture taken with the president; is forced to leave the White House alone, through a side exit…”.

However, at the end of the day, convincing Israel to do the right thing and to stop establishing new facts on the ground to further complicate an already complex political issue will require more than symbolism. And nothing substantive is likely to happen till the US modifies its one-sided Middle East policy. Meanwhile, Israel will continue business as usual. It might invade Gaza again. Some opinion makers in Israel are already boasting about how “Operation Cast Lead 2″ would look like with the use of “advanced Israeli-made Marakava 4 Tanks”.

Nothing equates to oppression more than the choice that an apathetic witness makes to not, at least, hate the cruelty that he or she witnessed in the mind and heart. And oppression is what Pharaoh and Hitler have done to the Jews and indeed what Israel does to the Palestinian people on a daily bases.

Author: Abukar Arman

(Abukar Arman is a writer who lives in Ohio . His articles and analysis are widely published. Abukar Arman is a writer who lives in Ohio . His articles and analysis are widely published. Source: Just Commertary)

An odyssey for justice

The recent actions of people from around the world in support of the Palestinian people in Gaza have arguably represented the closest manifestation of international solidarity since the International Brigades against fascism during the Spanish Civil War. A bold assertion?

Admittedly, I may not be as in tune with reality as I should be. Born and raised in a Gaza refugee camp where most refugees felt that no one cared about their plight, it was easy to believe that nothing could possibly break away from the ever tenuous and redundant stances by Arab and other countries - whose acts of solidarity went no further than hollow words of condemnation.

The recent noble stances by activists from all over the world therefore seem like an unprecedented act of solidarity which, dare I believe, indicates the direct mass involvement of civil society as a real party in the ongoing Palestinian struggle for political and human rights.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), when various European powers were turning blind eye to the atrocities committed in Spain, almost 40,000 men and women, representing 52 countries, made the decision to fight fascism. The global consciousness culminating in such a direct, unprecedented action was absolutely baffling considering the lack of powerful communication technology available at the time.

“How pertinent these words are, as one reads with anxiousness, pride and exhilaration the notes and messages that have come in from Cairo, El Arish and Gaza “The 2,800 American volunteers included a black man - Canute Frankson - who was a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. He wrote to a friend from Madrid in 1937: “Why am I, a Negro who have fought through these years for the rights of my people, here in Spain today?

Because we are no longer an isolated minority group fighting hopelessly against an immense giant. Because t we have joined with, and become an active part of, a great progressive force, on whose shoulders rest the responsibility of saving human civilization from the planned destruction of a small group of degenerates t Because if we crush fascism here we’ll save our people in America, and in other parts of the world from the vicious persecution, wholesale imprisonment, and slaughter which the Jewish people suffered and are suffering under Hitler’s fascist heels.”

How pertinent these words are, as one reads with anxiousness, pride and exhilaration the notes and messages that have come in from Cairo, El Arish and Gaza. They convey the support of countless people, who have demonstrated with blood and tears their commitment to humanity in Palestine, and indeed everywhere.

The Gaza Freedom March, a coalition of several groups, consisted of 1,362 activists from more than 40 countries who were on a mission to cross to Gaza and, along with Israeli, Palestinian and international peace activists, to march simultaneously to the Israeli Erez checkpoint. That border point, along with a few others, has completely cut off Palestinians in Gaza from the outside world, leaving 1.5 million people in a frightening state of siege. Gaza has been embroiled in the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe for years due to the Palestinian people’s exercise of their democratic rights.

The people of Gaza have endured one-sided wars, and have been left to exist in a state of near starvation.

The valiant peace warriors of Viva Palestina have truly set new standards for how far a peace and justice activist is willing to go to back up his/her words with actions.

Many millions around the world watched - despite the mainstream media’s shameless disregard of the unfolding drama - as nearly 500 activists and their 200 vehicles, laden with badly needed medical supplies for besieged Gaza, took off on a historic odyssey to break the siege. Just as they neared Gaza, they were forced by the Egyptian government to backtrack due to a technicality, and then began an arduous journey across the desert and sea and several countries.

And as they approached Gaza again, in the Egyptian port of El Arish, they were blocked and dozens were left injured.

The Gaza Freedom March was similarly met with intimidation, assaults and violence.

These are not Palestinians, but internationals. From Malaysia to South Africa, from the UK to the U.S., men, women, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, people of different cultural and political backgrounds showed themselves as unified in their belief in justice and human rights.

While Palestine has always enjoyed universal solidarity, with many fearless activists - who can forget Rachel Corrie? - a collective action of this magnitude and of this level of commitment is a new addition to a conflict that has been reduced over time to that of beleaguered Palestinians and a militarily powerful Israel.

The Gaza Freedom March, Viva Palestina, the Free Gaza Movement, and others are redefining the conventional discourse pertaining to the Middle East’s most intricate and protracted conflict.

Civil society is not a group of NGOs to be strategically funded and manipulated by Western governments, but encompasses powerful, self-assured and truly representative communities from all over the world; people can be united beyond religion and ideology, and collectively cross continents, seas and deserts to put their beliefs into action.

The activists’ ability to overcome the shameful silence of the mainstream media also highlights the importance of alternative media as the single most important tool in achieving camaraderie. “Throughout the Gaza Freedom March presence in Cairo, our brothers and sisters from the South African delegation dynamically articulated the connections between injuries that indigenous Africans suffered under the white supremacist regime in Pretoria and the inequalities that Palestinians now face at the hands of the Israeli government,” wrote Joshua Brollier, a co-coordinator for Voices For Creative Non-Violence, in the Palestine Chronicle.

Many heroes and heroines emerged from the activists’ action-packed journey to Gaza. Hedy Epstein, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor whose parents both perished in Auschwitz, deserves a special mention. She went on a hunger strike when she, along with many others were blocked from entering Gaza. Epstein didn’t stand in solidarity with the Palestinians despite the Holocaust, but because of the Holocaust. Similarly many activists drew their solidarity from their specific experiences and have fought for democracy and justice back at home.

Maybe I am in tune with reality after all. Maybe the words and actions of our African America hero Canute Frankson weren’t in vain. Maybe the quest for justice can in fact cross all physical and psychological boundaries. One thing is for sure, though. Gaza is not alone; in fact, it never was.

Author: Ramzy Baroud