I lived in southern Africa from 1978-83, and published a book about the anti-apartheid struggle (Freedom Rising, 1985). When I visited the Palestinian West Bank in May 2001, I witnessed both similarities and differences. Possibly the biggest difference between anti-apartheid southern Africans and Palestinians was that the southern Africans knew much of the world was on their side, and that they would probably eventually win (even though most of us thought the fight would take much longer and be even more violent than it was).
I found a different attitude among Palestinians: the conviction that the rest of the world stigmatized them, dismissed them as homicidal savages, or ignored them altogether. When I got back to the United States, I wrote a couple of modest articles for the alternative press, (and I was censored from the opinion page of the Washington Post, which had published me on southern Africa and other subjects).
After my articles appeared, I got some moving e-mails. One man wrote, “As an Arab-born U.S. citizen for over 32 years, this is the first time I have read within the boundary of the U.S. media somebody with guts to say something fair about the problem in Palestine.”
Today, thanks to this website and other venues, awareness here in America is growing. But I’m sure that Palestinians, even more so in Gaza, still feel stigmatized and isolated, quite in addition to the terrible physical privations caused by the blockade. The arrival in the New Year of more than a thousand Gaza Freedom Marchers should have the intangible but vital effect of showing them they are not alone – and that there is a movement in the outside world, so far still too small, and that there may be a way to achieve justice in Palestine without turning to total violence.
-
-
- Rafah march for deteriorating hunger strikers as family appeals for … 0
- Rafah’s nicest tunnel: Siege meets surf in Gaza 2
- Iranian talks fail after neocon ‘blitz’ — as Obama dispatches … 22
- Saving Illinois from Senator Kirk 7
- Human rights activists will hardnose the highway from Woodstock to … 0
- American Zionist responses to Tel Aviv riots– largely indifferent, but … 26
- Division: Romney supporter puts kibosh on Wasserman Schultz appearance at … 6
- US to differentiate between ‘personally displaced’ Palestinian refugees and their … 80
-
- BDS victory: South Africa strips Ahava’s ‘made in Israel’ label 709
- ‘New York Review of Books’ calls it ‘apartheid’ and prepares … 566
- Video: Israeli mob demands all African refugees be deported from … 453
- Neverending Nakba: Israel breaks lull, attacks Gazan farmers 412
- March of the Flags 334
- Day after pogroms, Likud MK calls for internment camp for … 333
- Neocons in Washington Post: Military strike on Iran would ‘calm … 305
- Nabi Saleh’s Bassem Tamimi convicted by Israeli courts based on … 287
-
- The Messiah’s Donkey: Settlers fire on Palestinian villagers as the … 235
- Aharon Appelfeld’s rage at the German language (and Arendt’s need … 156
- March of the Flags 125
- Feeling the hate in Long Island 97
- Israeli judge to issue verdict in Rachel Corrie case 94
- WaPo’s Walter Pincus says US is ‘going above and beyond … 87
- Video: Israeli mob demands all African refugees be deported from … 85
- Bill Kristol celebrates Republican Party purge of ‘oldfashioned Arabists’ Scowcroft, … 83
-
Recent Comments
click link to see last 100 comments- Munayyer in the ‘NYT’: ‘For all the talk about shared values between Israel and the United States, democracy is sadly not one of them’ (10)
- Annie Robbins: Then the article disappeared from the digital edition rather quickly. it’s still there:...
- G. Seauton: Interestingly, the Times ran this op-ed only in its digital edition, if I’m not mistaken. It...
- Because of all my father and mother did to liberate Europe (I go to the West Bank) (43)
- American Zionist responses to Tel Aviv riots– largely indifferent, but some outrage (26)
- dbroncos: piotr, The terms ‘cracker’ and ‘redneck’ originate in England. They were terms the...
- Affirming a Judaism and Jewish identity without Zionism (73)
- Hostage: The question is where lays his Jerusalem-here on land or somewhere in the sky. No it isn’t, the...
- A portrait of a former Zionist (Part 1) (347)
- Annie Robbins: 1. Which ethnic and religious nationalist movements around the world do you support other than your...
- Hostage: some things never seem to change. from the link at the bottom of hostages first link.. A/AC.24/SR.45 . . ....
- Division: Romney supporter puts kibosh on Wasserman Schultz appearance at Miami temple (6)
- Krauss: That’s a bit too much. The reason why pols pander to Jews to the extreme extent they do has more to do...
- Philip Roth on the Israel lobby (14)
- Erasmus: …The reality is that most government policy now deviates significantly from popular opinion. Makes no...
- Munayyer in the ‘NYT’: ‘For all the talk about shared values between Israel and the United States, democracy is sadly not one of them’ (10)
Our Writers
- Philip Weiss
- Annie Robbins
- Kate
- Adam Horowitz
- Paul Mutter
- Today in Palestine
- Alex Kane
- Eleanor Kilroy
Blogroll
“censored by the Washington Post”.
The west’s perspective about Palestinians will change most by compelling moral leadership, that is compelling beyond the single issue of Israel/Palestine, and in the same language as the morally ambiguous forms.
The Code Pink version of disrupting speeches does not inspire, does not really change assumptions, it actually confirms the negative assumptions.
Code pink disrupts speeches in which speakers are praising and defending war crimes.
There were plenty of disrupted speeches during the struggle for South Africa, violence a plenty, and plenty of boycotts.
When the main stream media begins seeing the Palestinians as humans, equal in worth to Israeli’s, when the MSM stops censoring the Palestinian side, and when people like you Witty stop white washing Israeli crimes, then and only then will their be peace.
Do you think Code Pink encourages the press to think of Palestinians as human beings, or do you think that they suggest to the media that the issue should be dismissed as conducted by fanatics.
For example, at the Elie Wiesel speech, the Code Pink sign carriers stated that they “invited” Elie Wiesel to see for himself, when the fact is that their mode was taunting, no where a dialog, nowhere a sincere invitation.
Witty, the media chooses how to portray a situation and a people.
The media has chosen to portray the Palestinians and their supporters as savage animals due to pressure from Zionist organizations in the United States.
When proponents of South African Apartheid were boo’d off stage, boycotted, had things thrown at them, etc, the media applauded those actions.
When people who act on behalf of Palestine do the same thing, they are labeled as fanatics according to you.
In any case, if the media were to actually report what was going on in Palestine, then Medea Benjamin’s actions would have been portrayed by the media as being akin to those who protested for civil rights in America and Apartheid in South Africa.
Instead her actions are taken out of their context and the media then spins her actions to promote another nefarious perspective on the event. It doesn’t matter what miss Benjamin does, she can protest peacefully with a picket, call out Eli Wiesel on his hypocrisy, or begin a boycott campaign, in the end it won’t matter because the MSM has already decided that the Palestinians are savages due to the incredible amount of Zionist pressure on the American media in regards to the I/P conflict.
Until the media and people like you begin viewing the Palestinians as humans and equal of the same rights as Israelis, this portrayal of the conflict in the media will not change.
Witty, stop pretending like you even care about the Palestinians. Everything you say is engineered to deprive them of even a voice, let alone their honest day in court or even their rights as human beings. Or has your opinion about ethnic cleansing in the West Bank or the vicious siege on Gaza changed?
Witty is being a troll in this thread. He’s namecalling people as “fanatics” under the guise of caring.
“Until the media and people like you begin viewing the Palestinians as humans and equal of the same rights as Israelis, this portrayal of the conflict in the media will not change.”
That pretty much sums it up.
I actually stated that they are PERCEIVED as fanatics, whether they are or not.
The purpose of a demonstration, of a civil disobedience, is to communicate. So, if a part of the message is “we don’t listen to you nor seek respectful intersection in views, but have concluded to condemn only”, that will be perceived (and be) fanatic, actually by definition.
Most that attend lectures, are already partially informed of the issues, usually more informed than a slogan on an unrolled sign.
Maybe some will say to themselves “I didn’t know that. Maybe there’s more to this.” and maybe others will say “those leftists are so far out of reality that I can’t trust anything that they have to say, let alone what they attempt to shame others to think.”
Witty, they are only perceived as fanatics because people like you are so diligent about spreading your mischaracterizations. You don’t think your motives are transparent? You support Zionism, no matter what the cost. How many times have we heard you troll out justifications for breaking the cease fire on November 4th, for derailing boycotts against Israel while simultaneously endorsing embargoes on Palestine, for permitting the funding of settlement expansion even with US dollars, etc.
Honestly. Who do you think you have fooled?
That sort of criticism would apply to almost any demonstration. Personally, I don’t like demonstrations myself–I’d much rather read an article or a book than some clever or not-so-clever slogan on a sign. I also don’t like TV ads on political subjects–too shallow, too superficial. That’s just me.
But in your case it’s not really the tactics that bother you–it’s anyone who criticizes Israel’s crimes more fully than you do. There’s a tradition in the US of not allowing criticism of Israel beyond a certain point, on pains of being accused of antisemitism. The rule is this, basically–you can criticize the settlements, but not what happened in 1948 and if you mention violence, you speak almost exclusively of Palestinian terror, never of Israeli terror, you speak of Shalit and not of nonviolent Palestinian prisoners of conscience, you speak of Israeli over-reactions to Palestinian terror, never of Israeli war crimes often preceding Palestinian violence. And you tacitly support the Gaza blockade, while never suggesting that something one tenth as brutal should be applied to Israel.
That’s the rule. As best I can tell, you adhere to it scrupulously. More to the point, it’s the attitude adopted in the US political mainstream. It’s why the peace process has been a joke. Until Palestinians are seen as people with the same rights as Israelis, it’s not going to change.
James North presents a critical difference between the situation of black South Africans under apartheid and Palestinians under Israel’s updated version; the South Africans knew that the world was with them and the Palestinians see that the powers that be in the world stand with Israel. The main reason for this is that the South African apartheid regime did not have the benefit of a powerful lobby working on its behalf.
To illustrate the difference, here is something that I wrote for Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “City Lights Review,” in 1990:
If South Africa had a lobby as powerful as the Israeli lobby…
* Nelson Mandela would not be free.
* There would be no sanctions against South Africa.
* South Africa would be the largest recipient of US aid.
* The African National Congress would still be outlawed.
* Congress would have endorsed the idea that apartheid is not racism.
* Pro-apartheid forces cloaked as peace-makers would try to control the
anti-apartheid movement.
* Public television would require “balanced” reporting to
counteranti-apartheid programs.
* Journalists. academics and others who criticized apartheid would be
targets of character assassinations.
* The struggle of the Boers against the British for control of South
Africa would be considered a “national liberation struggle.”
* South Africa would ultimately be defended as the only “democracy” in
Africa.
*__________________________________________________________________
(Fill in whatever we forgot and send to your local congressperson)
(First of a series of Public Service Advisories)
How do we work to counter act the effects of the lobby?
Dealing with the lobby depends on where one lives and who is his or her member of Congress. In some instances, if a member of Congress is totally in Israel’s camp and there is a small Jewish constituency, it is likely that that congressperson does not let the voters know how he or she bows or scrapes for the lobby, so it is possible to make a local campaign, publishing his or her pro-Israel votes and put out a flier that asks why the member never communicates this to the public on his or her website. If the member of Congress has taken pro-Israel money that should be publicized as well. Particularly when people are hurting for jobs and schools are cutting back, the notion that aid for Israel is an untouchable will rub people the wrong way. Letters to the editor and calling in on local talk shows at the same time will enhance the campaign.
Wise words Blankfort, I think its imperative that a website is created detailing what each person can do, a unified movement.
I don’t believe that the reason for the invisibility of the Palestinians is the Israel Lobby.
I believe it is significantly a residue of the ACTUAL mode of dissent applying gruesome and intimate terror. That combined with the absence of sensitivity of the left to that rational residue, convinces the world to dismiss the concerns.
But, many of the concerns are real, even if the rhetoric used to describe them are exagerated and alienating.
So, I suggest an ADULT approach to dissent in this case that is careful (full of care) and engaging, rather than only loud.
Yeah. There were people like you around telling those “uppity Negroes” that they were being “too loud” in the ’60s, too, huh.
“That combined with the absence of sensitivity of the left to that rational residue, convinces the world to dismiss the concerns.”
Actually, a large part of the world sympathizes with the Palestinians. That’s the knock against the UN, that they care too much about the Palestinians and not enough about other human rights violators. To the extent that it is true, it’s for the same reason South Africa got so much attention–Israel represents a blatant example of the old Western colonial mindset.
What Witty means is the white Western world, hypocritical “liberals” of the PEP type.
Witty, are you speaking of “gruesome and intimate terror” applied by Israel against the Palestinians which far exceeded anything done by their fellow apartheiders in South Africa?
What is a curious twist of history, that official apartheid in both countries, that is Israel and South Africa, was born in the same year, 1948.
Until 1966, that is 18 years after the Jewish state’s establishment, the Palestinians who remained in Palestine (now occupied and renamed Israel by the victors), lived in an apartheid situation under military rule, a not indignicant piece of history that the Zionists have tried to bury.
I sympathize with the Palestinians. And, in the idiocy of the far left’s condemnation of anyone that doesn’t adopt their simplistic formula, the majority of us (the majority of American and even MANY Israeli Jews) have been totally turned off from bothering.
You had the potential of mass movement, and destroyed it, and continue to.
It is in Israel’s interest to orderly and by consent transfer sovereignty to Palestine at approximately the green line (I recommend that Israel transfer 101% of the prior land mass).
Its not in Israel’s interest to do so under the continuing threats of removal from the map (single-state), nor under any threat of violence.
Blankfort KNOWS the terror that I’m speaking of. He is trivially naive to imagine that that is forgotten. It is a different beast even to carelessly harm civilians in an otherwise valid military operation than to directly target children, elderly, civilians of all ethnicities in the Hamas terror of a solid decade.
For him to advocate for it, to apologize for it, to accept it, in any form, puts him in solidarity with gruesome murderers, actual ones, planned, targeted, designed solely for maximum civilian suffering without warning.
Hamas claims that it had stopped the shelling of Sderot, but it resumes.
You are not currently yet advocating for justice, but something more vengeful.
November freakin’ 4th, 2008.
You do not get to ignore the fact that Israel broke the cease fire first, Witty.
There you go again Richard…
Changing history! Hamas agreed and abided by the cease fire… EVERY cease fire they have ever made with Israel.
Israel violated the cease fire with an airstrike and countless other killings prior.
Hamas accepted the 2 state solution based on the 67 borders. Israel has not.
When will you understand that.
“I sympathize with the Palestinians. And, in the idiocy of the far left’s condemnation of anyone that doesn’t adopt their simplistic formula, the majority of us (the majority of American and even MANY Israeli Jews) have been totally turned off from bothering.”
I grew up around white racists and this is exactly the sort of thing a certain type of self-identified liberal white racist would say. “I sympathize with the blacks, but the idiocy of the radicals totally turns us off from bothering.” In other words, Witty in his majesty still has compassion but he can hardly blame his fellow Israel defenders if they are turned off by the fact that some lefties are obnoxious (in his view). He’s not upset by the callous racism of his fellow Israel defenders–no, he understands them. The sheer naked sense of arrogance and privilege really comes out here, Richard. You are, of course, totally unaware of this. Racists say the darndest things sometimes.
“Blankfort KNOWS the terror that I’m speaking of. He is trivially naive to imagine that that is forgotten. It is a different beast even to carelessly harm civilians in an otherwise valid military operation than to directly target children, elderly, civilians of all ethnicities in the Hamas terror of a solid decade.
For him to advocate for it, to apologize for it, to accept it, in any form, puts him in solidarity with gruesome murderers, actual ones, planned, targeted, designed solely for maximum civilian suffering without warning.”
Ah, the veil comes off and the real Witty shows his face because he’s angry and can’t toss out the usual word salad. So Blankfort is a terrorist defender? Blankfort can speak for himself. I have seen lefties who defend Hamas terrorism and I’ve seen Israel defenders defend Israeli mass murder, as you do here. So Israel “carelessly harms” civilians in an otherwise justified assault, while Hamas is the depraved murderer of civilians? You’re half-right, Richard. Both sides are the depraved murderers of civilians, and you’re the classic racist with a sense that it’s not nice to treat the Palestinians too harshly, inferior as they are, but you “know” that the “careless” killing of Arabs is not to be compared to the fiendish depravity of an Arab who kills Jews.
It’s good, though, that you dispensed with your customary narcoleptic verbal fog and just let all the naked hatred, tribalism, and sense of privilege out into the open. Stop pretending you’re something you’re not. You’re never going to heal if you go around acting like you’re Gandhi, when you’re telling yourself “They’re evil, we’re not so bad.”
Chaos,
Was the tunnel being built into Israel a mistake? Did these Hamas members smoke too much hashish and accidentally build one of their tunnels into Israel instead of into Egypt?
Ismael Haniyeh would disagree James:
link to jpost.com
Here he mentioned Hamas will not stop until ALL of Palestine is liberated. (December 13th 2009)
Even if he did call for the liberation of all of Palestine its totally within his right do so Yonira, after all it is HIS Land. Furthermore, your taking an ambiguous statement Haniya made in a speech vs what his actual position is.
Next, Hamas is headed by Khaled Meshal, not Ismael Haniyeh, and Meshal agreed with Jimmy Carter present to the 67 borders as a basis for a FULL peace. This also does not change the fact that virtually all of the top leadership of Hamas agreed to the Arab Peace Proposal.
But that’s not even the point Yonira… the point is that Hamas poses ZERO threat, existential, or real to the state of Israel. Even if Hamas was really committed to the destruction of your racist state, it wouldn’t even matter, simply because a group armed with bottle rockets does not stand a chance against one armed with nuclear weapons, f-16s, and state of the art tanks.
Oh and here’s what Haniyeh actually said:
“Brothers and sisters, we will not be satisfied with Gaza,” he declared. “Hamas looks toward the whole of Palestine.”
Big difference from liberating all of Palestine. He used ambiguous language, because hes a politician. The whole of Palestine can mean 67 borders which means he hopes to liberate the West Bank or it could actually mean the whole of historic Palestine. He has an audience to cater too, an audience that has seen that trying to do peace talks with Israel is useless, that Israel only gives concessions when its soldiers are captured (Shalit) or when it faces a formidable opponent on the battlefield (Egypt 73, Hezbollah).
Was the tunnel being built into Israel a mistake?
Only Israel is on record stating that the airstrike was in response to a tunnel being built into Israel. They never offered any proof of this claim. Furthermore, Israel had killed dozens of Palestinians even prior to this bombing, virtually all of them being civilians. On top of that, Israel NEVER eased the siege one iota, even though that was a requirement of the cease fire. Finally, Hamas has every right to build tunnels in its OWN territory, just like Israel builds its own fortifications on its own territory.
Case in point, Hamas kept its end of the bargain, and Israel once again did not.
Richard, I have seen the whole apartment blocks in Beirut in 1983 and again in 2007, that had been destroyed by the Israeli Luftwaffe, acts of sheer terror and mass murder committed by Israeli flyboys who were in as much risk of being hit as if they were out on a turkey shoot. I watched on Al-Jazeera as the white phosphorous lit up the Gaza sky last January.
As terrible as were the actions (as well as politically self-defeating) of those Palestinian suicide bombers, one can at least make rationalizations for what they were driven to do after more than 30 years of a sadistic dehumanizing occupation. One cannot say the same for the Israeli airmen who having fired their missiles, having committed murder, flew back to Israel for a nice warm dinner.
My single state would have them facing war crimes tribunals along with the officers and elected officials who sent them and face imprisonment. My single state would have a de-zionization process and those whose crimes were of a sufficiently criminal nature and who were born elsewhere, such as Brooklyn or Kiev.
Of course, I am dreaming. It will be another generation that will realize that dream.
Thank you for your insight, James North. We can only hope that Palestinians will soon feel as optimistic as the southern Africans you met decades ago. As you have seen, the tide appears to be turning, but ever so slowly considering the level of misery imposed, and the tide does not turn by itself.
Last night, I heard a speaker who had been to Gaza in March and will be going back for the Freedom March. She said that she was a bit confused at first by the “celebrity welcome” her small delegation was given in Gaza. It was later explained to her just how much the fact that people outside the Gaza “open-air prison” know and care about its “inmates” means to them.
Thanks James, for bringing up this important aspect of the GFM.
The big world (I don’t except myself) makes efforts to have it both ways. It wasn’t totally different in South Africa – we had no good words for apartheid but we wanted stability and a supply of minerals and that desire was visible in our policies. These days Hamas does not seem very nice and Islam in action is frightening to us Westerners. But if the all arguments supporting Zionism are invalid it follows that Israel is not a legitimate polity. Does it not then follow that the only legitimate government anywhere in Palestine is one arising from the will of the unjustly dispossessed and disfranchised Palestinians? And since that it how the Hamas government arose does it not mean that we should recognise Hamas as what its more forthright members say it is?
I don’t welcome this conclusion but how is it to be avoided unless I go back over the arguments and see the justice in Zionism that I am having trouble in seeing now?