On Thursday at the University of Chicago, Norman Finkelstein, John Mearsheimer, and Ali Abunimah will talk about Gaza. What is remarkable about this is only that a realist, a Chomskyan and an Arab binational-state guy will be offering a range of (yes, highly-critical-of-Israel) views to a group gathered by the Muslim Students Association and Amnesty International. Aaron David Miller writes that Hamas is empowered by "the U.S. bias toward Israel." Steve Walt kicks off his Foreign Policy blog today with a challenge to Americans to imagine the Jews of Palestine as a hunted, stateless people. Conservative Andrew Sullivan is finding the Gaza slaughter unjust from a Catholic perspective at his blog (also at the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg condemns J Street for "blowing it" but though quoting Eric Yoffie seems very nervous about jumping on J Street himself). Juan Cole runs Lawrence Davidson's attack on the neocons as a "parochial" cabal, antiwar.com runs Michael Scheuer's attack on Israel-firsters, and at Huffpo, here's Max Blumenthal unloading on Israel's use of white phosphorus and its insanity in destroying the graduating class of the police academy and of "liquidate"-ing (Max's word, god bless him) Palestinian families–Israel "at its best."
Blumenthal says that the Israeli p.r. machine isn't working that well. Thing's are changing. There's an actual debate happening, in the margins mostly, and in the Democratic grassroots, but crowding in. Debate, debate at last! Blumenthal's analysis:
Members of the Democratic base thus stood in sharp contrast to most of their elected representatives (freshman Rep. Donna Edwards is a notable exception), who backed the latest Israeli assault in lockstep, and seem to support Israel no matter what it does. The rift between the progressive base and the party played out on Barack Obama's Change.gov site, which was deluged in recent days with demands for a statement condemning Israel's assault on Gaza. So what accounts for the surprising trend in American opinion on Gaza? The proliferation of progressive online media and social networking sites could be a factor, but I have another theory: The same pundits who are cheerleading Israel's assault on Gaza once sold the occupation of Iraq to America, and with a nearly identical set of arguments.
Related posts:
- The American sea-change is finally happening
- AIPAC should invite Walt and Mearsheimer to a debate at its spring policy conference
- American Jewish Committee and Mearsheimer agree on debate
- Post-Gaza, Palestinian issue has finally entered the American progressive bloodstream
- High noon for the Israel lobby. It’s happening, right now
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A range of views? That's a bit like calling the Wannsee Conference an open debate on the future of Judaism. Which I suppose it was.
Will you stop and reflect about the awful pit into which you've descended?
President Elect Barack Obama is threatening to cancel Jay Z's appearance at his January 20th Inauguration in Washington, D.C. if the rapper born Sean Carter performs new pro Palestinian lyrics that support Hamas. Obama advisers got a preview of the lyrics when David Axelrod accompanied Jay Z and Beyonce to an outdoor fundraiser for Michael Steinhardt. Steinhardt asked Jay Z to do a freestyle rap dissing Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. But Carter declined to get involved in the "beef" saying he is married and avoids beef nowadays "by any means neccesary." Then in a odd scenario of events Jay Z approached Steinhardt 20 minutes later and asked could he rap about Hamas extensive social programs that have gained popularity in Palestinian society by establishing hospitals, education systems, libraries and other services throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. According to Axelrod Jay Z told Steinhardt I will do a rap but "I want to change the dialogue" Jay Z said I want to mention Hamas "beef with Israel as political and not religious or antisemitic and that Hamas is democratically elected but can't get recognition despite Hamas's political wing having won many local elections in Gaza, Qalqilya, and Nablus." Steinhardt said "nobody cares about Hamas" but Jay Z cited that Hamas is not what the mainstream media is depicting and pointed to the recent January 2006, surprise victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, taking 76 of the 132 seats in the chamber, while the previous ruling Fatah party took 43. Steinhardt told Jay Z to forget he mentioned doing a diss song because the rapper was being anti-social. Jay Z popped his collar, brushed his shoulders off and then backed away from his handlers and stood in the cold and hummed underneath his breath the lyrics to a pro Hamas song called "Gaza Strip Club". Axelrod said everybody there could clearly hear him humming this truce song and these actions were passive aggressive." Axelrod told the Associated Press that "Gaza Strip Club" would clearly embarass Obama. When Jay Z was asked would he perform this song he only responded "GSC all day." – source
And, following a huge Gaza Solidarity rally in Boston on Saturday (1000 or more marched throughout downtown — though it went unmentioned in the Boston Globe) the JCRC is calling for a Support Israel rally Thursday
. . . at a suburban Synagogue/Jewish Center!
The Zionists are shaken!
I love that line-up. After years of hearing debates in the US in which Michael Lerner v Dore Gold is supposed to represent "both sides" of the conflict, it's way overdue.
Israel's 'Fait Accompli' in Gaza
by Eric Margolis
There are two completely different versions of what is currently happening in Gaza.
In the Israeli and North American press version, Hamas â "Islamic terrorists" backed by Iran â have in an unprovoked attack fired deadly rockets on innocent Israel with the intent of destroying the Jewish state.
North American politicians and the media say Israel "has the right to defend itself."
True enough. No Israeli government can tolerate rockets hitting its towns, even though the casualty totals have been less than the car crash fatalities registered during a single holiday weekend on Israel's roads.
The firing of the feeble, homemade al-Qassam rockets by Palestinians is both useless and counterproductive.
It damages their image as an oppressed people and gives right-wing Israeli extremists a perfect reason to launch more attacks on the Arabs and refuse to discuss peace.
Israel's supporters insist it has the absolute right to drop hundreds of tons of bombs on "Hamas targets" inside the 360 sq km Gaza Strip to "take out the terrorists."
Civilians suffer, says Israel, because the cowardly Hamas hide among them.
Actually, it is more like shooting fish in a barrel.
Omitting facts
As usual, this cartoon-like version of events omits a great deal of nuance and background.
While firing rockets at civilians is a crime so, too, is the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which is an egregious violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions.
According to the UN, most of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinian refugees subsist near the edge of hunger. Seventy per cent of Palestinian children in Gaza suffer from severe malnutrition and psychological trauma.
Medical facilities are critically short of doctors, personnel, equipment, and drugs. Gaza has quite literally become a human garbage dump for all the Arabs that Israel does not want.
Gaza is one of the world's most-densely populated places, a vast outdoor prison camp filled with desperate people. In the past, they threw stones at their Israeli occupiers; now they launch homemade rockets.
Call it a prison riot, writ large.
Eyeing the elections
When the so-called truce between Tel Aviv and Hamas expired on December 19, Israeli politicians were in the throes of preparing for the February 10 national elections.
Israeli politics are playing a key role in this crisis.
Ehud Barak, the defense minister and leader of the Labour party, and Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and leader of the Kadima party, are trying to prove themselves tougher than Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line Likud party â and one another.
Israel's elections are only six weeks away, and Likud was leading until the air raids on Gaza began. Kadima and Labour are now up in the polls.
The heavy attacks on Gaza are also designed to intimidate Israel's Arab neighbors, and make up for Israel's humiliating 2006 defeat in Lebanon, which still haunts the country's politicians and generals.
A fait accompli
When the air raids on Gaza began, Barak said: "We have totally changed the rules of the game."
He was right. By blitzing Hamas-run Gaza, Barak presented the incoming US administration with a fait accompli, and neatly checkmated the newest player in the Middle East Great Game â Barack Obama, the US president-elect â before he could even take a seat at the table.
The Israeli offensive into Gaza now looks likely to short-circuit any plans Obama might have had to press Israel into withdrawing to its pre-1967 borders and sharing Jerusalem.
This has pleased Israel's supporters in North America who have been cheering the war in Gaza and have been backing away from their earlier tentative support for a land-for-peace deal.
Israel's successes in having Western media portray the Gaza offensive as an "anti-terrorist operation" will also diminish hopes of peace talks any time soon.
Obama inherits this mess in a few weeks. During the elections, Obama bowed to the Israel lobby, offering a new US carte blanche to Israel and even accepting Israel's permanent monopoly of all of Jerusalem.
As he concludes forming his cabinet, his Middle East team looks like it may be top-heavy with friends of Israel's Labour party.
Obama keeps saying he must remain silent on policy issues until George Bush, the outgoing US president, leaves office, but his staff appear happy to avoid having to make statements about Gaza that would antagonize Israel's American supporters.
Obama will take office facing a Middle East up in arms over Gaza and the entire Muslim world blaming the US for the carnage in Gaza.
Unless he moves swiftly to distance himself from the policies of the Bush administration, he will soon find himself facing the same problems and anger as the Bush White House.
Arab deal killed
Israel's Gaza offensive is also likely to torpedo the current Saudi-sponsored peace plan, which had been backed by all members of the Arab League.
The plan, now likely defunct, had called for Israel to withdraw to its 1967 borders and share Jerusalem in exchange for full recognition and normalized relations with the Muslim world.
Arab governments will now be unable to sell the deal as they face a storm of criticism from their own people over their powerlessness to help the Palestinians of Gaza.
Egypt, in particular, is being widely accused of collaborating with Israel in further sealing off and isolating Gaza. It seems highly unlikely they will be able to advance a peace plan with Israel for now.
This is a bonus for right-wing Israelis, who have always been dead set against any withdrawal and strongly supported the attack on Gaza.
Other Israeli factions who were always lukewarm about the Saudi peace plan are now unlikely to reconsider it.
Israel's security establishment is committed to preventing the creation of a viable Palestinian state, and refuses to negotiate with Hamas. Unable to kill all of Hamas' men, Israel is slowly destroying Gaza's infrastructure around them, as it did to Yasser Arafat's PLO.
Israel's hardliners point to Gaza and claim that any Palestinian state on the West Bank would threaten their nation's security by firing rockets into Israel's heartland.
Mighty information machine
Israel is confident that its mighty information machine will allow it to weather the storm of worldwide outrage over its Biblical punishment of Gaza. Who remembers Israel's flattening of parts of the Palestinian city of Jenin, or the US destruction in Falluja, Iraq, or the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in Beirut?
The US media has focused on the rockets being fired on Israel from Gaza.
Though the torment of Gaza is seen across the horrified Muslim world as a modern version of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising by Jews against the Nazis during World War Two, Western governments still appear bent on taking no action.
Though Israel's use of American weapons against Gaza violates the US Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts, the docile US Congress will remain mute.
Israel's assault on Gaza was clearly timed for America's interregnum between administrations and the year-end holidays, a well-used Israeli tactic.
Hamas refuses to recognize Israel as long as Israel refuses to recognize Hamas and the rights of millions of homeless Palestinian refugees.
It calls for a non-religious state to be created in Palestine, meaning an end to Zionism. Ironically, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and late leader of Hamas, had spoken of a compromise with Tel Aviv shortly before he was assassinated by Israel in 2004.
An inherited mess
Israel's hopes that it can bomb Gazans into rejecting Hamas are as ill-conceived as its failed attempt in 2006 to blast Lebanon into rejecting Hezbollah.
The Fatah regime on the West Bank installed by the US and Israel after Yasser Arafat's suspicious death will be further discredited, leaving the militants of Hamas as the sole authentic voice of Palestinian nationalism.
Hamas, the militant but still democratically elected government of Gaza, is even less likely to compromise.
The Muslim world is in a rage. But so what? Stalin liked to say "the dogs bark, and the caravan moves on," and as long as the US gives Israel carte blanche, it can do just about anything it wants.
The tragedy of Palestine will thus continue to poison US relations with the Muslim world.
Those Americans who still do not understand why their nation was attacked on 9/11 need only look to Gaza, for which the US is now being blamed as much as Israel.
Unless Israel can make 5 to 7 million Palestinians disappear, it must find some way to coexist with them. Israeli leaders on the center and right continue to avoid facing this fact.
The brutal collective punishment inflicted on Gaza will likely strengthen Hamas and reverse any hopes of a Middle East peace in the coming years.
January 5, 2009
Eric Margolis [send him mail], contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada. He is the author of War at the Top of the World and the new book, American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World. See his website.
Copyright © 2009 Eric Margolis
Will Ali Abunimeh comment on the wisdom of shelling civilians as a means of "dissent"?
Is that what he considers a means to a democratic single-state?
Will they actually engage the "cycle of violence" as it is, or will they simply talk among themselves?
Witless Witty, the question is: Will the American (not you) quit supporting with its blood and wealth the endless cycle of violence, which is on the backs of the Pals literally, and the backs of average
Americans in terms of endless debt they cannot afford?
You are insane.
Will they actually address legitimate Israeli concerns, rather than self-congratulate themselves on their ability to "slap the racists down."
"Will they actually address legitimate Israeli concerns"
A ceasefire proposal that guarantees free movement in and out of Gaza in exchange for a guarantee of no rocket attacks. Provided, of course, that there are no attacks on Gaza by Israel.
Would that address legitimate concerns, or is Israel concerned about something else?
That's a line up for the ages. First Mr. Electronic intifada. Next the protocols of the elders of zion guy. And bringing up the rear, "the fink" himself. A guy who purports to be the son of survivors without supplying any evidence. and who would have made a dynamite sonderkommando in the camps. You know, the guys who would go into the gas chambers to clear out the bodies. That would would have mad "the fink" a happy guy.
Here is Roman's "source" for his Jay Z story above:
You have reached a link that is no longer in service. That means the link was very naughty, and, much like head lice, had to be eliminated before it spread. [...]
Lysander,
There is no possibility of "free movement in and out of Gaza", if you are speaking of the border crossings between Gaza and Israel and Gaza and Egypt.
Hamas has defined itself as enemy to both states, and it is utterly unreasonable for Israel or Egypt to carelessly open their borders.
Its just a fantasy.
The path for normal borders is normal relations, meaning co-existence, and specifically prohibition from shelling civilians.
There is NO WAY to spin Hamas shelling civilians as somehow legitimate dissent, or as humane.
It really does take two to dance.
Hamas should have talked first, rather than shot first.
Maybe Finkelstein, Abunimeh, and Mearsheimer have something new to say.
Maybe not.
Witty,
Hamas has defined itself as enemy to both states, and it is utterly unreasonable for Israel or Egypt to carelessly open their borders.
That is absolute bullshit. It has been widely reported in every country in the world other than the USA that this is not the case.
Try this one:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-true-story-behind-this-war-is-not-the-one-israel-is-telling-1214981.html
Or read David Bromwich or Glenn Greenwald. Israel has broken the truce each time in the past seven months.
Richard Witty is completely incapable of recognizing that blockades are acts of war. This is recognized by international law. Israel has been committing acts of war against Gaza. International law recognizes the right of Hamas to hurl explosives in response. Not that their response is wise, but it is their right.
Now all the poor Zionist are crying in the wind about how unfair it is for hamas to respond to war with war. Boy these guys are making me sick. Be a man you mouse. Accept what you have wrought. You want war, you have war.
Hey Witty, when are you going to ask if anyone is addressing USA concerns? You milk the USA tit, you prick. Hey SOG, you too. Do us all a favor and waft off to your higher soul in Israel. We won't miss you at all. Also, Witty, Israel has defined itself as a state with an arch mandate to favor Jews uber alles, so why should any other nation state give a crap about Israel? In practice this should mean
Israel gets no special breaks, indeed, it means if anything, it should
get less breaks since it is by definition a racist/ethnic state with a
main interest to usurp via dual loyalty from its diaspora in every
vulnerable nation state. You want the perks, take the companion
darts.
Calling me a prick is not exactly addressing issues.
The reasonable man test is the one that hopefully will guide both American and dissenters' views.
I find the single-state approach appealing ONLY if it ASSERTIVELY commits to a genuine cosmopolitan approach.
Abunimeh has not yet done that. He slips in a few respectful lines (which I expect he feels at times), but then adds the functional support for Arab dominance.
Thats ok for areas and populations that the vast majority (more than incidental majority) submit to.
Its a very different question than which centrist party leads a government.
And, it ignores the critical and liberatory sentiment of self-governance of the Isareli Jewish people, that desire to self-govern, and do so over the long term.
no, richard, but you are a prick, and besides, you never address any real issues, all you do is play sophomoric games with moral jargon.
I've been thinking about the idea of a single state, or more importantly a single community.
In the effort to realize a single community (always preceeding the political), the most important efforts are in NON-POLITICAL realm.
If a council of those that love the land were invited to collaborate, from ACROSS communities, even those that one hates politically, and put the political aside, those elders, those that earn the respect from the degree of their love of the land and of the people, would remain.
It IS an effort that would bridge.
The general sentiment, "WE love the land, WE love the people" would allow individuals with different emphases to express their love of the land and of the people in important ways that resemble community service MORE than political agitation.
Emphasizing the political, and litmus testing divides, "accomplishes" that, it DIVIDES.
Its one reason that I so far don't have much faith in Ali Abunimeh's advertised thesis. That is that it rests on the political, and with severe punishment for those that think differently politically.
When, what the world needs is social cohesion.
Its as if he doesn't mean what he says. The personal either/or for him would be and should be, "advocate for a single state, a single community" OR "advocate for Palestinian nationalism".
The two are oil and water, as much as Zionism and Palestinian nationalism are oil and water.
Moreso, in that a Zionism at peace with a Palestinian nationalism can coexist, whereas a democratic single state focus cannot coexist with a Palestinian nationalism one.
He can certainly harbor sentiments of sympathy for those that he knows most intimately, but as far as political goals its a form of self-censorship.
Hey, check it out–Witty's projecting again:
"He can certainly harbor sentiments of sympathy for those that he knows most intimately, but as far as political goals its a form of self-censorship."
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