Benghazi celebrates UN resolution
Phil has asked me to expand on a comment I left over the weekend regarding Libya. Some of this is new, and some of this I took from that previous comment.
I want to say from the beginning that I realize my opinion is very unpopular among the circles I run in and I am getting a lot of grief for it and though I waiver on whether I should be vocal about my position, I still haven’t waivered on my actual position. Also, I reserve the right to decide what my position on the NFZ is on a day to day basis based on what Libyans inside of Libya are asking for and whether this international force is massacring Libyan civilians. So, I do understand and can even agree with the positions of As`ad Abukhalil here and Max Ajl here and I appreciate that those voices are a part of the discussion, but I can’t personally say that I reject what Libyans are asking for. I’m also disturbed by leftists that are beginning to question the motivations of the Libyan opposition, the false rumors about an alleged alliance with Al Qaida and I am disturbed when I hear Americans talk about the cost of this intervention. Arab lives are always reduced to dollar amounts and the cost of oil.
I can’t help but be incredibly moved by the courage that the Libyan resistance is showing and I don’t want them to be massacred and their uprising crushed by Qadhafi. I’m Palestinian, I know what indiscriminate bombing and shelling looks like but I have seen really grisly videos of defecting soldiers with their hands and feet amputated and reports that they were raped, I’ve had nightmares and don’t watch most of the violent videos I post on my news list. If I can’t even handle watching those things, what right would I have to opine that Libyans don’t have the right to get help from whoever is willing to offer it? Also, I am optimistic that a people oppressed for so long will not settle for anything less than complete freedom and will not allow the Americans to hijack their impending freedom and mandate what the future of their country will be.
But, I am also very upset about the air strikes in Gaza today and the double standards over which Arab lives the West views as worthy and which are not. Even the Israeli press is saying that Hamas is likely not responsible for the bombing, yet we are watching indiscriminate bombings of Gaza today, why? My frustration extends to the collaborationist Palestinian Authority, which waited until today to give lip service to the children killed while playing soccer in Gaza on Wednesday while issuing their customary condemnations of any violence that the Israelis decide to blame on Palestinians –and the Americans that have no shame and almost trampled themselves to issue the first condemnation about the incident in Jerusalem. And while I’m at it why is their still a gag order on Itamar and what happened to the Thai workers that were detained and questioned
These things all dampen my feelings towards international intervention in Libya, but I keep reminding myself that Libyans are not at fault for immoral American and European policies towards Palestine. And from what I have seen, regardless of what popular Arab (non-Libyan) opinion may be, Libyans were begging for help from anyone, unfortunately anyone turned out to be the West. I so wanted Egypt to be the ones that went into Libya to help for so many reasons–not just because I wanted them to help their Arab neighbors who wanted the same exact thing that their countrymen have just struggled so beautifully for–but because I would have liked to see Egypt continue to elevate itself rapidly in the Arab world. But they didn’t do anything. So I do understand all of the things that some leftists are troubled by but I would have a pretty hard time making any of those arguments to the people that are living in terror of Qadhafi right now or to the crowd in Benghazi that cheered the decisions with Tahrir-like delight.
Oh and they had a Palestinian flag in Benghazi during the announcement and they chanted anti Zionist slogans. So, I trust the Arabs who are risking their lives for what they believe in. Arabs don’t have to sit there and get killed just so the rest of us can have a great time watching the revolutions on Al Jazeera. Oh and I think Iran and Hezbollah should help Bahrainis, Yemenis and Palestinians. Arabs everywhere have the right to live and they don’t need to be ultra selective about who helps them while they are being massacred.
