Compromise, Delegitimise or Misunderstood

Is Zionism racism?



There has been an interesting discourse surrounding a couple of Jewish dominated blogs, the higher traffic being generated on Mondoweiss, which has a much higher following than the other, the Magnes Zionist, run by Jeremiah Haber. In fact, Haber got the inspiration to write his latest FAQ on Zionism as a response to an initial post by Jeremy Slater on Mondoweiss. Both had the main protaginist as Zionism and both defended the ideology from the accusation being flung around that it is a racist ideology that discriminates. Slater and Haber themselves both identify heavily with Zionism and both have strong ties to the state of Israel and Haber is an orthodox who lives both in the US and Israel. He admits to living in an ethnically cleanse city and recognises that fact that he lives in a former Palestinian residence. Slater I'm not up to detail with to his leanings or identification but it is not far to assume that he has strong ties to his religion, whether he practices or not is another thing.

Now as entertaining as it has been to reading all of this, and it really has sent me back to the laptop to get writing again in what has been a rather stagnate area of interest for myself, things really are at a point where the tinkering of what Zionism is or what it means to be a Zionist has been a lesser issue and one that is of little alarm that the talk of Zionism has become somewhat an exercise for intellectuals and scholars and students everywhere which detracts from the bigger issue of Palestinian justice and suffering. While it is important to battle where the battlelines are drawn, and Israel and its supporters everywhere tend to toe the ideological line fairly often as well as the hypocrisy line, that anti-Zionists and leftists and opponents of injustice everywhere tend to show up and give them the fight they deserve, it is definitely the lesser importance to undertake especially when homes are being razed and random Riad in Lebanon is feeding off the scraps in a refugee camp that UNWRA is running pathetically with no end in sight and poor Iya in Gaza has no clean water and little future to look forward to as another flotilla gets intercepted on its way to give fleeting relief. Because in the grand scheme of things, Palestinians will care little to grasp if Zionism was a legitimate project when cast into the light of history, nor will Israelis care if intellectuals worldwide have disdain at a state which privileges one over the other when there is injustice everywhere and Romas are being expelled and Tamils are being turned away from the border and Aborigines are being put in the slammer for petty crimes and the States increases its prison population with a giant black and Latino population behind bars all the while giving no rights or reparations to the Natives who live in squalor. It is just word acrobatics which only titilate to those who have the privilege to meander such topics as imperialism, capitalism, nationalism and Zionism. Danger looms ahead for the Palestinians and the action that is of dire consequence is Boycott, sanctions and Divestment. The dialogue is important and it is of necessity if we are to win the war, especially for those who are misinformed or just on the fence on what to do about it; but, although the key to understanding the conflict requires the knowledge of Zionism, it is less significant when lives are at stake. Undercutting Zionism is not a prerequisite to ending an occupation or giving people better lives; it only is when it becomes the sole factor in keeping the imbalance permanent.

With that said, the debate has re-sparked something within me and I found inspiration to finally return to the conflict at hand, and hopefully I have something more with a better outlook on what really makes power tick more attuned with a broader scope rather than the narrow focus of just the competing narratives of Israel and Palestine. Upon indulging in the matter, it must not be mistaken that there are bigger issues at hand and this talk is just that, talk. But Zionism provokes the most outrageous responses, both for and against it, that one such as myself cannot pass it up, even though it's best that you let it go since it is quite time-consuming and sometimes brain-draining.

So let's revisit: Is Zionism racism?

Typified above, it is either Yes with an "if" or No with a "but". Nothing in this world is ever as black and white which is easily answered with a Yes or a No, especially one as complicated and as historic as Zionism, which has over 100 years of history right about now. And if you ask a plethora of people you would get a plethora of answers, probably evenly tied down the middle on the yay or nay side. The thing is one needs to have studied it studiously in order to make the best informed comment on such a polarising question. One also needs to study not only Zionism, but other forms of nationalism AS WELL as racism itself. The ante just got upped somewhat since no bystander can come by and make an informed commentary on what Zionism was or what it means to so many who call themselves Zionist, or even to the opposite, anti-Zionist, since it would need to have existed before one can be opposed to it. Haber had to define what racism is for him so he could answer it, and I would have to do the same.

In my small time on this earth, I have always defined racism as discrimination pertaining to one's skin colour. Being of a minority myself, I experienced it many times growing up in a settler state which raped and destroyed a native population of its own and now residing in another country which did the same to its own natives (natives are really non-peoples, aren't they?), but of a much lesser extent since my background is of one which has probably the least of the negative stereotypes than others. Exclusion of one because of what they believed was of a different matter since one can be a Christian and be of a different colour altogether; on the one hand if one could be accepted as a white but could be excluded if that person was Jewish or a Muslim or sometimes just ugly, and another could be accepted if they were seen as part of them even though they could practice another religion but were of the same skin colour. It's not hard to see where this is going. And I think that is why the question of "Is Zionism racist?" makes it that much harder to answer IF this was not in a disclaimer to begin with as Zionists can be of all colours and races; I'm positive there are black Jews who are Zionists just like there are arab Jews who are ultra-Zionists; those transcend skin colour and therefore in my classic definition, it is not racist at all since one just needs to ascribe to one form of belief, Judaism. Hence this is where the confusion begins to most as Zionism is inclusive of EVERY colour as it places no emphasis on race at all and never has as long as the people being subjected to it were Jewish, practicising or not. In its simplistic and most banal form, Zionism was meant to be some kind of salvation, a Jewish self-determination, for a world where Jews were unwanted. How hard is that to fathom in a world where dictators and pogroms were so rampant?

But things do get a bit hazy when you look into its murky past. Herzl, the founder and father of Zionism, certainly was no saint, in my eyes anyway. Zionism in general originated in Eastern Europe, and try as you might but its founders, supporters and shapers were not those who were victim of pogroms but ones who were of a higher class, ones who were free enough to hold conferences and form groups such as World Zionist Congress and hobknob with heads of state and others who held sway with power. People like these were the ones running the Zionist show, not poor Nikolas in Lodz finding the self-life preposterous or Sigi in Dusseldorf pondering on the Jewish question in Western Europe and its fate. It wasn't refugees who fashioned a movement, although it did reach their coffers once Zionism took its form and build an enormous amount of capital around the idea of a Jewish state, but the bourgeoisie who had parties and drinks and committed themselves to the fight for a new state for their "nation". Hence, here lies the problem.

Any study of the attitudes of Europe in 19th Century and you would find not only latent racism but blatant racism and prejudice also. Colonialism was the flavour of the day. Policies were done in the prism of white domination, especially when you dealt with the likes of the Orient, as you were the ones to dominate the lesser beings of the rest of the world. One can even say linking the project of colonialism is related to the outcome of the Holocaust (Arendt). It's not hard to sift through the shit and find what is rotten here. Zionism, while not a classic form of colonialism in the form of exploitation and servitude to capital, its attitude to its unintended victims were of the same consequence as colonialism itself. Zionism, borne out in the 19th Century in the age of nationalisms, is now an anachronistic ideology in the age of post-nationalism and multiculturalism and pluralism. For the founders, despite the testaments for those who want to believe that Zionism's sole purpose was for Jews to run their own affairs, its exclusion of all things native is what hampered this construct from its non-discriminatory equation. For, how could you ever consider it to be non-racist when you hold your own affairs to be of higher importance than those you are living upon? How could you believe that the fate of your own "people" is of bigger proportion than those whose lives you intend to change forever? How could you ever live on a land of peasants and not think that the rights of the bourgeois European supersedes the minute rights of the fellaheen? To me, this is discrimination in its finest form. Would a pioneer not be racist if he believed in Manifest Destiny? Or is he just sympathetic to the rights of a pioneer to self-determine his way across the plains and damned anyone if they resist? Would an power-elitist, educated in the finest schools that Europe has to offer, not be inclined to thinking that brown/black/red/yellow people are lesser humans whose lives have little meaning, so little in fact, that they do not even register as people in the first place ("A land without people for a people without land.")? Can a racist not make racist policies when it comes to the fate of their "people"?

Haber, Slater and others would recite the many forms of Zionism that has existed and they would be correct to do so but that is irrelevant, personally speaking. Zionism has been supported and opposed by so many that anyone can add their two cents to what Zionism is and is not that the true form can become morphed into something that it really wasn't to begin with. As much respect I hold for Haber, and he has to be commended for the criticism that he engages in daily, especially where he lives where lives (can Australians, Americans and Canadians ever think as critically to where they live as he does?), his inclusion of Magnes and Buber and the binationalists of Zionism is really a red herring. I mean not that he does this on purpose in order to distort the reality but the usefulness of such figures as Magnes is akin to the usefulness of a binationlist Palestinian of the same era (yes, there were some who advocated such a proposal too); Magnes, while important, so much so that he has followers from the Zionist critical of Israel, registered such a little impact that I barely even remember reading his name in two of Tom Segev's anthology of the history of Israel (One Palestine, Complete and 1949: The First Israelis). In both of those books, together over 1000 pages long with endnotes, the main cogs in the machine were Zionists who excluded from the Arabs, who organised Jews against Arabs, and those who made legislation with Arabs as an enemy. In fact, so much so was the dichotomy that Ben-Gurion was viewed as a binationalist at first and even Chomsky expresses DBG as such, even though you can look at all his quotes in Palestine Remembered and you would know that one doesn't harden their opinion of Arabs just by living in the country with respect to their "rights" and then ethnically cleanse them later on. I'm sure you can ask any Palestinian living in Gaza right now about Magnes and they will furrow their brow but I'm sure the answer would be different if you asked them about Ben-Gurion, about Weizmann, about Jabotinsky, about Begin, about Rabin, about the Palmach, the Irgun, the JNF, the Histadrut, the kibbutz, the Haganah and who ran those outfits and you would find little, if any, binationalists who were sympathetic to the Muslims they wanted to expel. For it is these organisations and those behind it who eventually would definte what it meant to self-determine as Jews, and it meant doing it at the expense of another in the other's land and not even considered to the views of those they were usurping. Colonists they drank with, and colonialism they pissed out when it became a project to save their skin from tyranny. Zionism had the opportunity to show that they could do what it intended but its position when in power decided that it would expel, refuse and also resist any kind of non-discrimination when it came to the "enemy" ie the Palestinians. It welcomed the Mizrahim and substituted them for the Palestinians, becoming the lower class. It then brought in more whites from the ex-Soviets, funneling in more classes all the while the elite of Ashkenazim got drunk with their own idiocy as the lower started organising to get power they had been lacking. In another shocking non-racist Zionist turn, it flooded itself with plenty of slave-labour from the poor Asian nations to give themselves a serf-class. All of this while refusing to acknowledge the Palestinians all around them. No, this isn't discrimination at all. Funny, if the Magnes of years yore had ANY momentum at all, it has a weird way of showing its binationalism when the Israel idea of a one-state is one with a totally weak Palestinian politi-power that it cannot make any laws in such a state.

Could Zionism not have been racist? In a utopian world where they found a place bereft of people and they harmed not one single soul, then perhaps. But what state would have formed? One completely Jewish 100%? There would still be problems with such a state, as the interpretations of who is Jewish enough and who gets accepted to such a state would only lead to complications that should be saved for another post. As romantic as they want to make it sound, this form of nationalism did not mimick others that arised amidst the struggle against colonial powers. In fact, in a bitter twist of irony, Zionism, while suturing its Jewishness with independence, it could only do so with the help of colonial power and had no real grassroots struggle within it as Zionism was thrust upon many in light of the atrocities that were happening in the march towards World War II. It did not resemble the black struggles against white power in the US, nor the fight against the French in Algeria nor the African uprisings in Kenya, Ghana, Angola, Nigeria and South Africa. While provoked by tyranny of one, it did not attempt to emancipate but only one to escape, to another people's land, to find its own way. The nationalisms of those we have known has always been inclusionary, one that wanted to transcend hierachies that perpetuated the system of master and peasant, owner and the owned. Zionism's pre-determined subjects did not hold a common cause for the most part, and most did not even register in its radar, some were even opposed to it. There were so many spectrums it needed to mend but it just could not as a revolutionary struggle in Cuba of the lower class would no way find common cause with one that deciding the fate of the Jewish Question. As to my latest readings, Zionism had no revolutionary content to it at all. For its most part, it had NO qualm with the present system in Europe, sought not change from it but form its own way which benefited themselves in the same style as Europe, for Jews, in Palestine, without recourse to anyone who opposed it.

As stated above, this in no way has no bearing as to where things should go from now. Little will be determined as to what Zionism is, not by the UN, not by AIPAC and certainly not by blogs. The only reason why this is of any significance is because attempting to shape the narrative often makes for writing such as this and the claims of "hypocrite" can only go so far until you mark it out clear to that person that you care little for your choice to "self-determine", and that you do not DENY their people to determine their fate, it's just they should stop determing other people's fate too.But make no mistake about it, Zionism is not just any other form of benign nationalism. It is another form of colonialism conned with self-determination rhetoric.

Why no sane person likes Israel: Part II

Israelis celebrate the flotilla murders at the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv



Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempts to pull the fast one



MSNBC's "impartial" coverage of the flotilla attack with Glenn Greenwald the only one having a brain



Stupid assholes on the internet trying to justify their murder

Y Ben-David said:
It is not obvious to me that the IDF had no right to intercept the flotilla on the high seas (I am no expert in international law). They quite openly stated that they intended to defy the blockade. The blockade is recognized as legal by most of the international community.

Gibson Block said:
As for the activists on board the ship. They obviously decided to fight in advance and they had to know things were going to get rough if they did.

bacci40 said:
not justified?

http://www.flix.co.il/tapuz/channel.asp?c=27

weapons found among the aid from the ships

surprise

that is what your donations went to.

to kill your fellow citizens.

(The moron bacci40 linked a year old video. And those three were just off one blog.)

Anonymous said:
1) Did you see the IDF's video of what happened? It shows that the "activists" on this ship were intent on violent confrontation, which the Israelis were clearly not prepared for. The first commando to descend from the helicopter is in critical condition. The second commando down was shot. The third is in the hospital. If you were on that team and seeing your buddies maimed like that you would also open fire.

zacharyesterson said:
Even during the raid, troops did not fire on those on board at first, instead simply trying to go about their business of inspecting the cargo. When they were attacked with venomous force by the activists, they were left with no choice but to respond in kind. Those are the only facts that matter here, and all the kneejerk Israel-hating in the world won't absolve the activist aggressors from their share of guilt for the horrific events that unfolded today.

Eric M on this comments section. They want approval so bad but they won't find it where people use their eyes and have an independent brain. The comments need to be read in its totality in order to see the absurdity and the lengths Israeli-fuckers want to go to to show that they did nothing wrong. I'm not going to rife through more of their cockspittle or even reference the terrible Ledrew "debate" that aired here in Canada (and the two stupid callers who don't know a thing about this conflict) but this is just the tip of the iceberg for these Zionist thugs.

I echo: This is a fight against a state like no other. It is bigger, badder and more established in propaganda and espionage. This is not going to be easy...

Why no sane person likes Israel

I do realise that it has been quite a while since I have written but things have looked so bleak for the Palestinians even back in 2008, and to remind everyone that's when Bush was still in office, that nothing seemed to have changed things. No amount of reading books, blogs and press releases from activist groups (bless them) did ever make a dent on the Godzilla killing machine that is Israel and its impugnity. Many liberals pined for Obama to do something, and secretly many on the left had hope that he could actually make a little bit of a difference (but most like Ali Abunimah and the Angry Arab [as well as myself] did not suffer from such delusions that a man who is tied to the military money could EVER scale back on anything related to Israel's artillery, because that's what counts here, not pathetic words or summits and meetings and "unhelpful" diatribes that we have heard it all before, even for a younger generation like myself to grow weary of), and yet, after Gaza 2008-09, still things are still the same, or even worse depending on who you speak with in Gaza and the West Bank and the refugee camps (because the real tragedy is that even with all the effort being put into Gaza and the actions in B'ilin and N'ilin and Jayyous, Palestinians still are being given shit treatment in the neighbouring states) and Obama was helpless to do anything about it. Simply helpless. He's more adept in bombing people than stopping the bombs and the fire. Check out Pakistan and Afghanistan if you haven't been convinced about the first black American president. So unfortunately, I grew jaded about the conflict, because it's the same old tired hacks doing the same old spin and the same old story that we are being fed for decades now and STILL the Palestinians are being fucked. On top of that, it's people who actually care about their situation who are starting to get fucked over also. And then you have these incidents, or perpetrated killings for a more precise description, as the video above. Then what else can you say about it?

I found myself powerless for as long as I can remember about this conflict and it's easy to be in that skid because there really is no avenue you can travel without disappoint and more corpses lying in wake the day Israel does it is time to strike at the heart of Palestine and their supporters. Reading Mondoweiss et al didn't make a diddly of difference on whether Israel did this or that or was wrong in this or that and battling it out with their comments section seemed less and less relishing and more like an exercise on which idiot can be more of an idiot when the time came. The only saving graces are the few that are still worth visiting (Lawrence of Cyberia, Jews Sans Frontieres and The Angry Arab). You can only keep trooping on if you actually think you have a chance in making progress but here we are, 2010, 43 years on of occupation, and all we get is a shoe-throwing Iraqi who actually gets close enough to those responsible for war crimes. (Bless the man who attempted the citizen's arrest here in Canada though.) More material for weaponry and all the op-eds wouldn't make any difference on myself because I already knew what was vital to this conflict and what makes it tick, and I already knew what makes the other side want to keep their lies hidden, so no amount of flyer handouts and blog posts would satiate me because Israel kept rolling over the bodies and starving children. This shouldn't deter those who are steadfast in this struggle, and I wish I shared their strength, but unfortunately being so far and very detached from the struggle itself, it seemed more a burden to bear rather than a revolution to carry on. I decided I would be better suited doing other things while still holding true to the struggle and solidarity and attempt to give it a new light in a different medium. (More on that if I am successful at it.) Best to leave the blogging and writing to those who write better and are more dedicated and personally who have more time to write and read than a worker who is raising two very young boys.

And then you have this.

But what really kills me over this is not the actual crime itself but the spin we are already hearing and going to hear for months until Israel actually admits the truth after it has committed more crimes which they lied about and then would admit to after... well, that's the Dante's circle of hell. Palestinians have no chance at peace or a normal life and yet Israel insists that it's their own fault. THIS IS WHY NO SANE PERSON LIKES ISRAEL. Enough of the "nuances", or complexities, or the bullshit, and we are going to hear them. (Ambush? You cannot be serious.) It's not the fact that Israel does commit these acts and gets away with it, but it's the fact that they have the nerve to insult everyone's intelligence into believing that they did this for the good of someone else, for the betterment of men, for the future of humanity, for the saving grace of Abraham and all that kefuffle that is not even worthy to mention in a Kafka short story. The sad truth is this has been happening for an awfully long time, and you thought Gaza 18 months ago was atrocious, just have a look at what Israel is capable of doing and that is the future of Palestine. This is the future of the conflict; more deaths, more propaganda, and more bullshit, mostly by Israel. You don't have to be a genius to figure out what the fuck is wrong with this picture, all you have to do is have a good look at the surroundings, at the dysentery and all the death tolls and you should be able to do the math.

Another bitter pill is that we have all failed Palestine. Yes, many people are helping and this ship was trying to do just that and they are truly made of harder stuff than the rest of the world but we have all failed. All the emails, letters, protests and pretty signs, t-shirts, press releases, conferences and confrontations was not enough to spare the lives of those activists and it is not the salvation that little child in Lebanon could suffice with because he is a Palestinian born to a refugee who only wants to find his way home. Sure, it may give them a nice, warm feeling that we are on their side, but we are the affluent and they are the invisible and yet we cannot find it within our own power to take control and stop this madness. 62 years of Israel and 62 years of getting away with fucking murder; will this make a change? Will it be another added to the list of "turning points" that was meant to take down this Apartheid? Will it be enough for pussies such as J Street to even publish a condemnation of this ugly piece of shit they call Israel? Get it through your goddam heads: you ended lives for your shitty Zionism. Look at it the footage. It really means that much to you to kill innocent people and then blame them for you having to kill them. No wonder normal people don't like you.

It's times like these that should remind us that we have not done enough. We have to do a whole lot more; and modeling this struggle against the struggle in South Africa will not be enough. It may have the cosmetic look of segregation but this is not South Africa and this is not 1994 and this is not a conflict between blacks and whites. This is West vs a bunch of anti-imperialists, Jews, Arabs and muslims and other internationals. Why some blacks support Israel, some Arabs also do. Asians support Israel. Pretty much the rest of the world does business with this pit stain they call Israel; they do business in the Congo, they do it in Australia, they do it even in fucking Turkey, so this is a huge beast to take down all alone, because not even the PA is on our side (they do business with Israel), not even Israel's neighbours are on our side (Jordan and Egypt, please stand up) and I don't see Cuban troops sending themselves into Palestine like they did in Angola to help stop South Africa (also Namibia). South Africa had business on their minds but it relied on the backs of blacks; Israel couldn't give a shit about the backsides of Arabs, they have shown that they don't need them for anything. This is bigger than we can image, because everything is related to Israel (even your cellphones), and every company does business with them as the list of those who boycott are about the number of a my digits.

Perhaps it's just me who this has finally got the best of but I know that this is the highest uphill battle to take on. It's rather easy tackling the IMF, the World Bank and the economic establishment that depletes the world and keeps the peasants hungry and angry; it's simple to see the limits of US imperialism and it's ugly wrath that has 700 plus bases worldwide; it's not controversial to go after failed systems that burn out First Nation lands and other indigenous rights that colonialism plundered a long time ago; it's not uncommon to take on the UN and their bias and their attitudes towards Africa; but all of that is nothing when you take on the giant (and the ironic thing is all of that is connected, even to the conflict in Palestine).

Now I have come to terms that I will not live to see a free Palestine but perhaps if we really push it and left the niceties at the door (because where has being "civil" gotten us? Where is the fucking anger?) and took on our spineless representatives and threaten their taxes and their services and really strike at their hearts and wallets (or maybe just wallets will suffice) we can make them not see the truth because they don't really care what version is true or not, but show that we won't stand for an injustice that makes all of us sick then we can let the world off of our back and finally sleep at night.

Hamas' Chutzpah

Sderot aftermath of a Qassam rocket.

By ETHAN BOMBER

GAZA – It has been over a month since the fatal strikes by Israel destroyed most of Gaza. Infrastructure is still mostly just ruins, rubble and pieces all blown in bits. Even with reports of a ceasefire being agreed to by both sides, the three-week campaign to destroy Hamas has left a deepening imprint on life for Gazans, as sporadic fire is traded near the border, threatening another spark for a bigger retort by Israel.

But this time, Hamas will be on the ready. According to a recent appearance by Hamas’s prime minister, Ismail Haniya, Hamas will not be fooled again and have a new tactic up their sleeve next time Israel chooses to wield its deterrence against the terrorists.

“Israel used the ceasefire as a trap to lure Hamas into thinking that Israel was serious about opening the borders. If they think it can do what they did again, they are wrong. Hamas is ready.” Haniya then hints at Hamas’s new secret weapon. “We will drop leaflets.”

Leaflets?

It has been a point of contention that when the IDF warns their enemy of the area that is being targeted for elimination, it will either drop leaflets or send text messages to anyone who could inhabit the intended target. By simple logic, anyone who remains behind is a legitimate target as they are there to fight. Now Hamas is going to use this moral compass that is unique to the IDF.

I visited a Hamas official who requested anonymity because the terrorist did not want to be liquidated. Upon entering his dilapidated quarters, I noticed that it was missing a roof. “I have been unable to fix this place since the IAF bombed the area.”

I wondered how a top-ranked Hamas member was living in such poor circumstance with all the aid and food that was going in the Strip via Israel. Then the explanation: underneath his stone-aged rubble was a tunnel filled with weapons. I adduced another factor into his destitute living: fifteen children with three different wives.

After being asked about Haniya’s latest comment, he informed me that this latest tactic was inspired by Israel’s massive offensive that left 1,300 civilians dead. He was under the impression that an intensive bombing campaign against a civilian population would ignite the civilians to revolt against the administration currently in power.

“We are weaker militarily and politically. But we must kill the Jews for this.” There were hints of great envy at Israel’s ability to leave such destruction while not being held accountable. He seemed to dismiss the fact that Israel has been condemned internationally for Operation Cast Lead, his point being that Hamas is “condemned” also but does not get to trade with the rest of the world like Israel does. Apparently he did not receive the warnings from Israel that consistent Qassam fire into Southern Israel would warrant a military response from Israel.

It was troubling that his many sons were in the weapons facility scraping off what seemed to be tags off of the munitions. After a query about the children’s activity, it appeared that they were removing the Farsi serial numbers so as to divert attention from their sole supplier of terror.

Further into Gaza City, conversations with several Hamas leaders all but confirmed the leaflet initiative with the main objective of inflicting as many casualties as possible on Israeli civilians. With greater review, it seems that their recent pragmatic stance has taken less of a stronghold and their radical wing is now closer to the fray and the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead has only reaffirmed the ridiculous belief that Israel is not serious about peace. Questions about Israel allowing in the little aid into Gaza were met with run-around answers about Israel refusing to let it food and medical supplies as well as injured Palestinians into Israel for hospital care.

I spoke to Captain Z., a military head commander of Hamas at his office, or what was left of it as Israel took out the main Hamas infrastructure. He delved into further as to why Hamas has adopted this new strategy.

“We are out to show that Hamas has morals too. We don’t want to kill civilians; we just don’t have the capability to decipher civilian from military. What do you expect us to do? Just sit here and let Israel do what they want to us?” Captain Z. started getting more contemptible the longer he spoke.

“If only we could inflict as much damage to Israel as Israel did to us? Imagine the possibilities?”

I contended that dropping leaflets would be ineffective as the Qassams were too indiscriminate to aim at a limited area and most Israelis may decide to leave the area for safer plains.

“We’re dropping them at Ashkelon and Sderot. That’s the range of our missiles right now. Anyone living there can leave if they want to but if you stay, you’re a legitimate target.” The fact that Ashkelon and Sderot were not military outposts did not deter Captain Z.’s zeal for death. In the midst of his histrionics about Israel targeting civilians with no gunmen nearby, he inferred that “Israel has a draft, they all end up being in the army.” He even dismissed that Israel takes every measure to distinguish a terrorist from a civilian and that if the terrorists didn’t used civilians as part of the battlefield there wouldn’t be any civilian casualties.

“In case you didn’t notice, we’re terrorists. What do you expect us to do? Play by the rules? Not kill civilians? Jews are responsible for all of this. My children are ready to be martyrs. We will fight until we free Palestine.”

The desperation amongst Hamas leaders to give birth to new ideas for a form of terrorism seems to be reaching new depths with this leaflet plan as it seeks to absolve itself from prosecution of the intent to do harm to Israel. The extent of how deep the grave Hamas is digging is shown on their T.V. sets as it was programmed on reruns of, not Hollywood movies about past U.S. military failures, but of the 90s show MacGyver. This was a strange occurrence but a Hamas leader seemed more than eager to answer my question as to why every Hamas military member was watching this obscure American show.

“MacGyver has the innate ability to create weapons out of ordinary household items. We Palestinians need to learn this trait in order to free Palestine.”

A short stroll through Gaza City’s main center has the factories totally leveled. Talks with the United Nations personnel concerning the cargoes that were stolen by Hamas were fruitful. The image given was that Hamas is rounding up the majority of food to gain some form of control over Gaza and that has led the United Nations to temporarily suspend the imports of certain goods. Upon further study of other Hamas hideouts, there were filled with U.N. shipments and equipment. Also present were numerous children removing more tags while being indoctrinated by imams about Jewish conspiracies to control all the money in the world.

Talking with a Hamas representative about the lack of funds and goods to poor Gazans, I posited a logistics of using the leaflet initiative, where they would find paper to use and how they would go about dropping it in southern Israel. “We get all the paper we need from the U.N,” He quipped. “And we’re just going to launch those leaflets like how we do the rockets.”

Further information about an operation like this led this Hamas representative to demonstrate a firing for me. Strolling nearby a learning institution, he pointed around 300 yards eastward and implied that he would hit it with precision. After eight attempts where rockets went wayward both south and west and some even falling quite short of the intended destination, he rejoiced at the success of the operation.

“Praise Allah! We’re ready for round two!”

I evinced at how there were many warnings that if the Qassams continued to land in Israel then Israel would have no choice but to inflict a bigger “shoah”. He remained not phased in his pride. “Our children are ready. Israel can kill them all and we will fight them all.”

“I just don’t get it.” Added another soldier in plain ragged clothes. “You know the extent of those Qassams and yet Israel doesn’t evacuate their citizens. Now you will have written evidence of where they will land. What are our choices?”

The tough choices for Hamas are more of an ideological problem than humanitarian. Instead of providing responsible governance, they just choose on sillier and more asinine ways to fight Israel who are the sole nation responsible for feeding Gazans. Whether this latest tactic would be successful is not conceivable. Terrorists only have a losing hand. Giving up is the best choice for Hamas.

Isabel Kershamner contributed reporting.

Lesley Hughes gets Finkelsteined

Election season is nigh and it’s hard not to get lost in the muzzle and hazing that is typical of the campaigning. Here in North America, we are treated to two elections in the short span of a month, with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper calling for a new government over the “no confidence” and the incumbent youngster Barack Obama taking on the experienced old-timer John McCain, engulfed in the dramatics on who will unseat the ever-more obsolete George W. Bush. You get the mudslinging, the slurs, the jokes, the speeches, and even a fixed vote. It is the time when a nation gets shaken up and we get to hear the elitist-of-the-elite duke it out, using all means necessary in order to embarrass their opponent in defeat by the polls. All etiquette is out the window here; the old adage of “all is fair in love and war” rings true. We had the pinnacle of it earlier this year when Obama was called a Muslim; after all, in these times, being a Muslim is a “smear” when you aren’t one. The odd thing was that this was pushed by members of his party.

The gloves come off and everything and everyone you have ever breached upon is up for scrutiny; well, except if you’re John McCain and his “war-hero” and POW status. Just last week Canada was privy to quite a “nude scandal” when NDP candidate Julian West in British Columbia resigned when it became public that his antics “at an environmental conference in 1996”, which involved “skinny dipping with a group of teenagers”, as well as other reports that had him exposing himself to teenage females. Not exactly the model candidate to run your community taxes, I guess? Naturally, it is just part-and-parcel of the gossip columns that has us steering away from serious issues such as the falling economy and fledgling businesses in Canada. In addition, economist Michael Hudson laid out the nightmare that would befall the Canadian dollar thanks to the casino mortgage crashes down south. These aren’t real issues: what’s really important is if our local candidate was too frivolous in his younger years.

This makes for entertaining viewing/reading about the skeletons in our officials’ past. I mean, who would have guessed that we were close to electing a man with a flair for “nudist” practices. Or even worse, vote for a woman who is so odious that she invokes anti-Semitic notions in relation to the attacks of 9/11. Yes, this is the one Lesley Hughes.

Hughes, to those who aren’t aware or who hasn’t googled her name already, was the Winnipeg-area Liberal candidate forced to step down thanks to Liberal leader and PM candidate Stephane Dion. Rumours are flying abound and the usual canard of “anti-Semitism” is making sparks across Canada, and with Dion being pressured as an unfit “leader”, whatever that means anymore in politics, felt the need to strengthen this attribute to show voters that he has the fortitude to fire someone who is deemed a liability towards the campaign. And with all the configurations about North American politics, it’s hard not to fault that decision by Mr Dion on a realpolitik perspective. But Dion left his fellow party member to the wolves as Hughes, still on the ballot because of the late dismissal, is scraping to keep some sort of dignity amidst all the horror that has her respected image going down the drain.

Not a lot of information has been divulged about Hughes’ career. In fact, it’s a very arduous task to try to find any snippet of it at all online. The fruit of my findings is limited to one article where Hughes herself is the sole figure in exchanging any kind of information about her background, as she

“had written a biography of a leading figure in Winnipeg's Jewish community, had dramatized the Holocaust in a play, and taught the Holocaust for 15 years in her classes at the University of Winnipeg.”

This is by no means ossified as concrete evidence that she is not an anti-Semite. Without further information about her then all we have is her writings, which from the looks of things is pretty clear of anything offensive since she has skimmed through unchecked after all these years. What I mean by this is that anti-Semitism is not a phenomenon that is latent for so long and then manifests itself in some marginal publication somewhere only to dissipate, remaining dormant again for another decade or so. It isn’t like a light switch you can keep off and flick on at a whim. It resembles more like the drunken ranting of Mel Gibson.

Here's where all this controversy is rooted from: her one article written back in 2002 where she hints at prior Israeli knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Of course, this is nothing to new to anyone. Her precise words as thus:

“German Intelligence (BND) claims to have warned the U.S. [about the terrorist attacks] last June, the Israeli Mossad and Russian Intelligence in August. Israeli businesses, which had offices in the Towers, vacated the premises a week before the attacks, breaking their lease to do it. About 3000 Americans working there were not so lucky.”

Naturally, whenever you connect 9/11 with Israel that has you in cahoots with Robert Faurisson, David Irving and David Duke: the epitome of evil, a peddler of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and a disciple of the Protocols of Elders of Zion. The reaction of much of the bloggers and the press was normally outlandish and from the Canadian Jewish community, it was predictable. The Black Rod, a notorious right-wing blogland for all things Conservative, was not very courteous when they refer to Hughes, calling her a “wacko nut” and Sylvain Abitol, Co-President of the Canadian Jewish Congress asserted, “Ms. Hughes crossed a line which cannot be crossed under any circumstances because there is no place in Canada for 9/11 Jewish conspiracy theories.” Not to be outdone was Bernie Farber who lavished Dion for his decision to dismiss Hughes and stated that “[t]here is no room in Canada or anywhere for these modern-age twists on the age-old anti-Semitic calumnies with these odious and dangerous conspiracy theories." The only thing missing is for Hughes to be given the illustrious skill of being a Holocaust-denier or even a Nazi. To her credit, Hughes has stuck to her guns and there was even an online poll showing dismay at her removal. But it seems like the damage has been done and this will forever be burned on Hughes’ career.

Not that anything I write here will change the recent events nor even halt the blathering that is gathering steam in the blogs and the press. The National Post had an editorial that was filled with glee at Hughes’ misfortune (and defending Tory MP Lee Richardson). There has been scant reaction from the left spectrum, not wanting to touch the issue as if it was a hot potato that they don’t want to be burned with (with few exceptions, the Canadian Dimension, Paul Graham and Henry Makow).

What seems to have been the common denominator in the flawed analysis of Hughes’ comments is the grave deception of what she really represented or embodied. In comments, it is circulating that Hughes wrote that the Mossad knew in advance of the terrorists attacks and selfishly evacuated their own, meaning Jewish, kept the intelligence for “themselves”, the collective that Jews supposedly have over us Westerners, and left the rest to burn. That seems to have been the summary that everyone is focusing on. The more I see the same quoted line, the more I am under the belief that they are just limiting themselves to the highlighted print and not reading the article in its full text, or even in its full paragraph.

Here’s what The Black Rod is shamelessly accusing Hughes of:

“[T]he Israeli government tipped off their co-religionists who sneakily moved without warning those who don’t share their religion and letting them die in a terrorist attack. Yeah, no anti-Semitism there, not if you look at it with one eye closed and squint with the other while turning in circles till you get dizzy.”

Another blog seems to have followed this line of thought, omitting the earlier part of the paragraph that mentioned

“German Intelligence (BND) claims to have warned the U.S. [about the terrorist attacks] last June, the Israeli Mossad and Russian Intelligence in August.”

Similarly Jonathan Kay of the National Post was guilty of this pathetic display of journalism. It seems that in their haste to get to the most offensive nature of Hughes' article they decided to skip one part of the paragraph, possibly thinking that it was irrelevant and decontextualised. (To its credit, The Black Rod quoted it fully but seems to have come to the same conclusion anyway.)

Why am I reporting on this seemingly harmless work of journalism? Because I do not find it harmless at all. Not in the least. If you scroll back up the page to the original quote on Hughes’ article and then hit page down to the flubbered one quoted by the right then you really have two different pictures. The entire paragraph had “German Intelligence” warning “the US” in June, the Israelis and the Russians in August.

Let’s step back here: the Germans informed the Americans in June, two months before the Israelis who were informed in August. The fact that this doesn’t seem abnormal to anyone accusing Hughes of anti-Semitism here is rather preposterous or selfish in their own right to benefit from a Liberal candidate having to step down, no matter the issue; it just so happens that this one is around 9/11 and Israel, ie Jew. This sentence contradicts everything that the right has been stating, that the Israelis were selfish in keeping this information for themselves. This seems to be more of a stinging account of US incompetence since they were informed three months before the attack but it was just ignored. The Israelis seemed to have taken this piece of information as sound and did what they had to do. While we can all speculate as to how much the Israelis knew, and I have dealt with this subject before, it is up to the Americans’ own government to inform their citizens of a danger in their country. Israel, as an ally, may have been obliged to do so. I can never know and neither can anyone else here unless there is a major investigation into the operation (which there never will be until it is too late) to what extent the relationship was, but it has been reported consistently that the Bush Administration had ample evidence that a terrorist attack was imminent and did nothing about it.

What Kay, his National Post cohorts, The Black Rod and others want you to think is that Hughes claimed Israel had foreknowledge of these events and decided to evacuate without informing the US about what was going to happen, even though they were already informed two months prior. What is also telling is the word Jew is not evident in Hughes’ original post; in fact, that is a phenomenon that Kay, etc. are guilty of as they have put it upon themselves that “Israeli businesses” means Jew, and therefore that anything condemning “Israeli businesses” means something of an anti-Semitic slant. You’d be hard-pressed to find any of these sites having the word Jew in quotation marks: that means Hughes never wrote that word at all. All she was guilty of was reporting that “Israeli businesses” did something unusual in breaking their lease before a major attack.

This is a classic defense of all Israel’s apologists. What Israel’s defenders have up their sleeve is a major card: the anti-Semitism card. You need not mention the word Jew, or even refer to a Jew; you can complain about Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza and you’ll end up in the Jimmy Carter end of the dividing line here. Steve Walt and John Mearsheimer, two scholars who have distinguished careers, were not immune to the attacks when they published a best-seller last year. Israel could be guilty of as many war crimes as possible and that will not be enough for anyone to detach the anti-Semite card. It is the classic defense mechanism that has kept Israel and its supporters in a bubble free from criticism. The list of victims is a long one and we can add Leslie Hughes to the growing list.

And the list can only grow longer, not shorter. As we have it, it is in the interests of those who support Israel to equate Israel with Jewishness. It’s hard not to make that distinction since Israel is known as the Jewish state. But this only curries favour with those who are not in the know about Israel and about the inner workings of the Jewish state and its caliphates. For Israel is not just a state with Jews, it has 1.4 million Arab citizens among it, plus a good portion of non-Jews who immigrated from the former Soviet who have no desire to be Jewish. It also has a healthy number of Bedouin; it even has Arab members in the Knesset (though only in single digits). But yes, immediately we tend to think Israelis as Jewish, as it gets clearer by the day that this Jewishness is the one thing that counts when you are a citizen of Israel. (Let's not forget about those Israelis who do not wish to be identified with the policies of its own government, similar to Americans who wish to be detached from the conflation that Bush and his cronies speak them since he is the leader of the US. These courageous Israelis see the folly in blindly supporting everything Israel does in its name, going to lengths as facing assassination.)

It is a perfect ploy to deflect it from the real issues here: it’s difficult to stem the tide when you are painted as an anti-Semite. No one wants to be invoked as a neo-Nazi, a Holocaust denier or a terrorist sympathiser (unless you are one). When you deride critics of Israel as someone with an axe to grind from anachronisms dating back to past centuries, it minimises what they have to say no matter how truthful it might be. For how can you take an anti-Semite seriously? This is what happened to former President Jimmy Carter and apparently for Hughes also. It is eerily similar to those who fear of being depicted as unpatriotic, not supportive of troops, or, dare I say it again, terrorist sympathiser. These are standard practices to neglect the issues and facts that are presented and instead focus on the presenter’s character; analysis of their background and history is all up for grabs, similar to those running for office.

There is also a spectacular omission from the original blog entry. Hughes averred to internet journalism and their findings, therefore relying on the reports of other journalists, which is what we all do here. It reminds me of what Mehrene Larudee said,

“We rely on the truths of others.”

We must do our own research but we depend on the ability of a reporter to tell the truth. That’s what the academics do and that’s what the journalists should be doing. That really seems to be missing by the guys from the National Post or else they would have done their duty and read the blog entry in full.

Here’s what else you would have missed if you perused through the right-wing blogs and press:

“If the work of Internet journalists is correct, then the war [in Afghanistan] is neither a holy war, not a grand clash of civilizations between East and West, and our soldiers were lost to us and to their families to keep drugs and oil profits flowing in the U.S.

Until we know the truth, we should refuse to add one more Canadian body to the pile of dead in Afghanistan.”

Hughes covered her tracks here. The “If” is the operative word here. She did not testify that what she wrote is dogma as she is relying on the research she has done. For if she believed everything that she wrote, would she have written “if”? She even ends with “until we know the truth”, meaning she doesn’t know the truth of the matter just yet, just that there is a lot of evidence showing that what the leaders of the free world are saying was not airtight when analysed by experts who are not on the company payroll. Rather, it seemed more like a position for a further inquiry instead of a belief in an Israeli role in 9/11. As the saying goes, “inquiring minds want to know”. I’m positive Hughes was not the only one curious to the very covert Israeli activity in the US.

Was Hughes right?

Despite the obvious condescension from those who simply want to dismiss this as a pure conspiracy theory, there had been a lot of reports that can lead one to believe that the Israelis had plenty of information about the hijackers of 9/11. What happened was scores of Israelis being detained after the attacks, and there were some 140 who were taken into custody before that also. They were arrested along with 1,000 Muslims under the rubric of “Special Interest”, as INS officials in Cleveland and St. Louis testified that they were “of special interest”.

Now this may seem harmless but coupled with the great expose by Christopher Ketcham in Salon, Carl Cameron in Fox News, yes, that’s right, Fox News, about the role of the Israeli art student spy ring, then there are too many hunches not snuffed out just yet. The suspicious disappearance of anything related to these events from Fox and Salon only adds more curiousity about its magnitude. The DEA reported “suspicious activities” by Israeli art students, as there were reports of them “visiting the homes of numerous DEA employees” and attempted “to circumvent the access control systems at DEA offices, and when these individuals began to solicit their paintings at the homes of DEA employees.” These aren’t rantings of some sidelined anti-Semite, these are serious reporters doing their job digging at something that happens in the US all the time: espionage. We can invoke Jonathan Pollard, Larry Franklin and even the USS Liberty here.

As we have it, even the Jewish publication Forward admits to this fact. This does not seem like that Hughes was very far off from what other journalists were reporting about six years ago. If you follow all of this, you will find out that the Israeli spy students had accommodation in close proximity to four hijackers in Hollywood, Florida and had followed their movements very closely for months, some even as early as January 2001. None of this was made public to the US UNTIL they were caught doing so. As one reporter (who I can’t remember) put it, “how could they have not known?”

On top of all of this, we get the even more suspicious activity of the trio who were cheering as the Twin Towers burned. As it turned out, these were employees of a mysterious moving company called Urban Moving Systems. It’s funny how we want to forget but they were all photographed “smiling” as the towers collapsed. These incidents seem too much of a coincidence to be ignored.

All of this is missing from the right’s account of Hughes’ blog entry. It’s easier to relegate it to conspiracy theories so you don’t have to do any work in debunking her accusations about the Israeli intelligence. One blog even put on the ridiculous Anti-Defamation League publication that was meant to finally put the myth to rest. The sad thing about it was that this poster had no clue of the contents of the publication and wanted to keep the faith that Abe Foxman was a man of great fortitude, which he is not. The paper is rife with assertations of “myths” without ever citing a fact against the reported findings about the Israeli spy ring. Their best defense is guilt by association: since the neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers all believe this, then it must be false because they are men for white power and people who don’t think the Holocaust ever happened. They can say that AIPAC is powerful and cite many AIPAC members boasting of its power and even Israeli MK members gloating of its lobby in the US, show the numbers of AIPAC donations, and still call it “myth” because the neo-Nazis believe it is true. Not a good defense. Maybe the guys at The Black Rod should read Walt and Mearsheimer’s book since they sneer at James Petras and “affluent Jews” and “powerful Jewish organizations”. What is ignored, possibly on purpose, is that there are many prominent Jews who hold very powerful seats in the Bush Administration and even in past Administrations. This structure and pattern was so adamant and blatant that the Camp David Accords were featuring heavily on Jewish influence with the lack of an Arab voice. Because of this, Dan Kurtzer dubbed them Jim Baker's "Jewboys" in his latest book. It led to some "embarrassing" moments, as "[t]here was no expert on our team on Islam or Muslim perspectives", not surprising since it was filled mainly with Israel supporters.

It has been seven years since the attack and still we are no closer to the truth about these matters, thanks to a very obedient Administration that wants nothing to be exposed that could incriminate its own people who were asleep at the post. It also wants to guard their greatest ally, the special of special friends, Israel; it has many positions paid for and pushes many bills into Congress. The only attempted response was from The Black Rod on the issue of the Odigo messengers that were sent to two employees on the morning of 9/11. While The Black Rod cites a story from Ha'aretz (unlinked even though I was able to find it) that

"two of its workers received messages two hours before the Twin Towers attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen, and the company has been cooperating with Israeli and American law enforcement, including the FBI, in trying to find the original sender of the message predicting the attack."

Further down he recalls the interview with one Alex Diamandis, the Odigo Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Not specifically the head honcho or even one that is related to anything about security issues; he's a marketing man and sales person. But there is a discreptancy here: Diamandis revealed that "something big was going to happen in a certain amount of time, and it did -- almost to the minute". That's funny: the earlier account was TWO HOURS prior to the attacks. Diamandis has it happening instantly. Upon further review, a book available online has the FBI still investigating the matter two months later, with Diamandis and co. unwilling to provide "more details" as it "would only lead to more conjecture." If it was no secret, then what is the harm in finding out or making it public?

While The Black Rod was correct in pointing out that Odigo's office was not located within the World Trade Center (but close enough from Ground Zero), that does not mean the case is closed that Hughes was incorrect in stating "Israeli businesses" vacating "the premises a week before the attacks". The Black Rod assumed that Odigo was the only Israeli business apparent in the 9/11 conspiracy theory: the folk at The Black Rod were unaware of the Zim-American Israeli Shipping Co. There was a timeframe where the company moved from the 16th floor of the WTC to Norfolk, Virginia, planned six months earlier. The company is half owned by the Israeli government. All attempts for more information from the company about its move, breaking its year lease, were rebuffed.

This is all available to anyone willing to grant more than five minutes of research. I guess that was too much to ask for the right blognuts. I was even able to locate the English summaries of the Der Spiegel and Der Zeit articles that were published damning the Israeli intelligentsia role in 9/11 and its subsequent role in being idle in the wake of the most sophisticated terrorist attack we have known. Here’s the evidence written:

“According to research by ZEIT, between December 2000 and April 2001 a whole horde of Israeli counter-terror investigators posing as students were on the trail of Arab terrorists and their cells in the United States," SPIEGEL writes. "In their secret investigations the Israelis came very close to the later perpetrators of Sept. 11. In the town of Hollywood, Florida, they identified the two former Hamburg students and later terror pilots Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi as suspected terrorists. Agents lived in the vicinity of the apartment of the two seemingly normal flight school students, observing them around the clock.”

Hughes didn’t even state this, but it may have been implied. She also used the German intelligence line but never alluded to anything close to a spy ring syndicate, only that German intelligence “claims” to have done so. This does not mimic the imagery of Hitler to me; more or less Hughes was relying on the integrity of the German authorities and not of some maligned fascist or noted anti-Semite; Hughes was going on the evidence given by the German intelligence agency. Hughes was just inquisitive on certain auspicious reports about Israel’s Mossad according to these claims; the more appropriate and reasonable thing to do was check out these claims and if it was by some anti-Semite planting falsehoods to give Israel a bad name (and Jews automatically), it would be the German intelligence that’s guilty, not Hughes. None of that was ever undertaken and that’s why these “theories” still fly about.

But why would Israel withhold information from its greatest ally?

Exactly the same reason why it does its espionage: to benefit Israel. Jonathan Pollard divulged American secrets to the Soviets in exchange for a massive influx of Soviet Jews; Larry Franklin eavesdrop key American intelligence on Iran to AIPAC in the hope to push for a hard stance on Iran, ie bombs; and the USS Liberty? Well I’m not quite sure about that one just yet but we still do not have the proper inquiry on that matter. But what we do know is that Israel cannot be exculpated from spy activity in the US even to the detriment of the Americans. So how can 9/11 be any different?

Thanks to hindsight of seven years, we can really put the pieces together. We knew of the strong pro-Israel crowd that pushed for the war in Iraq. There was the co-ordinated paper of the Project for a New American Century called “The Clean Break”, authored by key members of the Bush Administration written for then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Its prime objection was to restructure the map of the Middle East in order to benefit Israel.

“Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.”

Iraq was the first to go. Iran was meant to be next. Revelations?

Without 9/11, all of this would have been incomprehensible. The attacks was the perfect prerequisite in order to implement the doctrine to reshape the Middle East in Israel’s favour: that puts a different light on why those spy students were so jubilant when the attacks happened, which they may have foreknowledge of. How could they have taken that photo without knowing? How about the getaway with the same type of van and the same company name?

Without 9/11, Israel could not justify their beefed up military package with the US. Without the “war on terror”, Israel would not be able to do what it does to the Palestinians, the Lebanese, and the Arab world in general without condemnation from the rest of the world. Because of the “common interests” of both parties involved, an attack on the US would mean a gung-ho revenge mentality that would have its guns aimed at Israel’s enemies: the Islamic world. By letting 9/11 happen, it would benefit immensely by letting America get rid of its problems of hegemony in the region.

9/11 gave both nations carte blanche for their militarism. Every contraversial measure could be justified as a response to 9/11. The Israelis had a great stake in the aftermath. This is the information that they withheld from the slanders of Hughes.

Now it certainly is not anti-Semitic to bring up these charges against Israel even when the Israeli press reported on these findings also. (It’s normal for Israel to be more open about their role than it is in a very compliant press here in North America.) But it’s a new world order and we are nudging closer to a very broad definition of anti-Semitism here. The classical defintion is being thrown out the window; it is being replaced with a new conglomerate, one that lumps in all that is critical of Israel and its policies into one that is part of a conspiracy to destroy the Jews. This is a dangerous sphere we find ourselves in as this only complicates the matter of accepted speech and dialogue and true anti-Semitism.

We have come to expect this sort of pandering to the Jewish community here in North America. Dion celebrated Israel’s anniversary; Harper backed Israel’s decimation of Lebanon two years ago and Canada was the first country to boycott Hamas. Little will change when every candidate who is deemed a danger to the status quo is fired for being an “anti-Semite”.

Anti-immigrants is alright by us

In glaring contrast, Richardson caused a bit of a furore when he blamed immigrants for the rise in crime. He excoriated the “kid” who did not grow up “next door”, who worshipped “a difficult culture” and “don’t have the same respect for authority”. Richardson “regretted” the remarks but he seems to have a job still. This just shows how easy it is to demean “immigrants”, the scapegoat of all things wrong with the economy and crime, without there being a threat of losing your job.

Harper came to Richardson’s defense, stating that it was "an extreme example of a non-story being blown up," putting the blame on “gotcha journalism that have nothing to do with anything that voters care about in this campaign." For Harper and his Conservative pals, this does not remind them at all of what happened to Hughes. This was an example of a media too involved in minutae, going through every little detail to sensationalise a story and nitpicking over every little thing said or written by a candidate. The difference is the target of the “attack”: for Richardson, the poor immigrant who aren’t the kids we knew, and Hughes at Israel, which was immediately dubbed equated to affluent Jewish power.

I do not advocate the firing of eithern, or is it a defense of the allegation that Israel was “behind” the horror of 9/11; there is no evidence that points to Zionist responsibility in forming the attack or even colluding with the perpetrators; but it seems both were the victim of Harper’s “gotcha journalism”. But this is an example of who the real whipping boy is and what is accepted, even though Richardson recanted in his statements and Hughes has not. And I do not believe that this is a prime example of the work of a powerful Zionist cabal that wants to control every little thing the media says over Israel, even though there is ample evidence that directs us to that conclusion. Dion was pandering to a political base that he knew he could not offend; Farber and his CJC gang are strong and influential. In the past, Farber has been known to believe that “the Internet must be tamed”, because it is a medium that is dangerous to control, a “wild frontier”. There is no such equivalent for the immigrant lobby. It is painstakingly clear of their absence here, what Steven Plaut would vouch for (a strong Arab and liberal lobby), but yet they are unequipped to take down a candidate who tied crime to immigrants and unable to defend a woman who uses Israel’s supposed past crime as a beneficiary. Fittingly, this would have been the opportune time to “take control” of the talking points.

Whether Hughes was right or not (a matter that was of less importance to everyone), it seems that she will be another victim of the smear campaign by Israel’s supporters. Pressured into stepping down by her party leader, Dion can only be seen as an opportunist and not a loyal party leader. The momentum is stinging and Hughes will be relegated to pariah status.

The lesson learned is if you are in the political running, know who you are criticising; it might cost you your career. Choosing your words carefully so you can be as benign as possible is the ticket. It makes for a very entertaining election campaign. (One that is absent of any foreign policy debate vis-à-vis Israel. And that’s the way we like it.)

Zionist to the Core

On a couple of revered blogs by Jewish progressives there has been a fair bit of commotion, mostly limited to the responses in the comments section, a couple of which would merit a good deal of analysis as the debate rages on in the blogosphere about what to do with the current impasse between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and who is one to fault them? Aren’t we exhausted about the round-a-bouts that lead us back to Square 1 or the “One step forward, two steps back” scenario that only contribute to the deepening separation of the two embattled nationalities that a solution seems even more out of reach? I know I am done with it all and I can put a wager that the Palestinians and the Israelis (and even the Syrians, Lebanese, Egyptians and Jordanians can be lumped in too) caught in the middle between two weak party players attempting to mediate what has been the unmediatable are tired and inured to the hopelessness.

Dan Fleshler, an accomplished insider Jew who has many credentials as well as plenty of insight about the AIPAC lobby, lashed out at the “bloggers from the Israel-can-do-no-right crowd”, whose salient “silence” on Ethan Bronner’s latest piece in the New York Times gave Fleshler a reason to smile, not just at the positive Bronner article but at the pundits who are like wolves to any negative Israeli press. For Fleshler, the residents of Jenin who are intent on rebuilding after such a tragic episode back in 2002, “[p]roductive cooperation between the occupiers and the occupied, and possible models for cooperation between two states, has no place in the worldview” of those who are in the firm belief that Israel’s “real motive” is “to hide the ongoing colonization”. The example of Gilboa, whom Jews and Arabs “defy skeptics” by setting initiatives that might suture the dividing rifts together, is a true anomaly for anti-Zionists and harsh critics of Israel who find it “discomforting” that Palestinians are “now trying to figure out how to work with, rather than against, their neighbors.”

Unintentionally (since Fleshler and I are not in any capacity linked except via blogging) I am part of Fleshler’s critique. Just perusing through this blog and it is patently obvious who is (majorly) at fault for the situation we are at now in my view. Just over a week ago, I titled my post “Failure for Expansionism”, a rigorous review of Israel’s successful migration from an occupier by force into an occupier by proxy, a systemic approach to give PR credentials to gain assent by the international bodies to continue its encroachment into occupied land. Without the contextualisations, this could be interpreted as vituperative and written with rancour. Not necessarily a bright light in the “darkness”. (In addition, it demeaned Mahmoud Abbas and the late Yasser Arafat as a “satrap” and an “occupier by proxy”, the Oslo period as a Trojan horse that led to the“abortion of the Palestinian resistance movement”, and that Israel “chose to make its own path” to the delegitimisation of Arafat and Abbas as “nothing more than a puppet of Israel’s doing”. This is all too well represented in Fleshler’s piece on “cranky bloggers” from the “Israel-can-do-no-right crowd”.)

Now I do have little bones to pick at Fleshler’s remarks, and one really needs no defense here as I am under the impression that Fleshler has grown too weary of reports that only exacerbate the tensions rather than corral the differences to mend the hurt. And certainly, Fleshler and I are not at opposite polarities on the issue of the solution here: while there may be nuanced agreements and proposals, the central focus of the struggle for peace is to end the occupation and end the (accelerated) settlements of the West Bank, engage Hamas in Gaza and (I cannot speak for Fleshler in all of this) dismantle the wall. It really is a no-brainer for all invovled: two states, with an agreed guideline on final borders, whether including the Negev, the Arab Triangle and the settlements near Jerusalem as an exchange. Fleshler has not “given up quite yet” on two states, largely because the alternatives are too simplistic and impractical. Unforunately, Fleshler immediately relegates those who advocate another solution, ie the one-state solution, as one who has “given up” on two states. Very true, but why have they gone that path?

Despite the groundbreakers in Jenin and Gilboa (who must be commended), there are too many infractions by Israel to actually take notice of it. It’s as if this example was a flashlight in a deserted forest at midnight, with the batteries about dead. Who’s going to recharge the batteries to lead us out from the darkness and the unknown road ahead? We can see safety but what barriers are stopping us from reaching sanctuary?

Personally, I have been on record to support a unitary state, whether binationalism or a “one man, one vote” federalism. Either way, this land has to be shared, and since it is quite tiny, why not attempt to live with each other instead of splitting into a partition that has no spectacular paradigms that are exemplary (India-Pakistan, Ireland, Korea). We look to the lessons of South Africa as the hope for resolution and restitution, but South Africa today is far from the utopia and things remain largely unchanged there. But because of the idealist notion that a true democracy has to espouse every citizen of this country, whether Jew or Arab, is one that I (and most of us) are endeared to, we must apply it to all nations to avoid discrimination and dehumanisation. As a humanist, the plight of the Palestinian of being nobodies has to cease, and if it’s in the case where all Palestinians have a choice to return to their former lands of Jaffa, Beersheba and Tiberias then that would be justice at its finest.

(Since when do we ever get the justice we seek? Most of us still long for her, others sit in a chair and get a lethal injection, while millions can languish in refugee camps subsisting on close to nothing. Only a minority can ever achieve the restitution they fight for.)

Because of this thinking and support for Palestinian solidarity, many (and Fleshler included) have attributed it to a myopic view of the conflict, one that has only regarded the Palestinian camp of the issue and neglecting the Israelis who must also be taken in the equation here. Fleshler is not incorrect in this analysis but he is also not totally correct either. I believe Fleshler’s real objection is that this neglect will only alienate and marganlise those Israelis who do want to help the Palestinian cause but not at the total expense of the Israelis as to most Zionists and post-Zionists, support for the Palestinians usually is the equivalency of the destruction of the Zionist ideology of Israel, ie that Israel cannot be a Jewish state. Now I cannot speak for the rest who show sympathy for the a unitary state, and I do believe that that’s what most academics and scholars who hold symposiums advocating a one state feel it as, but everyone wants this occupation to end. That is the main thing to document here and that’s what most reporters and journalists write about: the damning nature of making Palestinians submit to the omnipotence of Israel’s power. Think about it: those scathing pieces about settlements are not (totally) ideological, it’s recording what Israel has approved (again and again). Those reports about Palestinian life under occupation are not because those reporters are anti-Israel or sadists who live in the shadows of evil, it’s because they are unreported in the mainstream media and that it is a determined dig into what is mostly unknown to the rest of the Western world. It is also meant to be a debunker of propaganda, a demystification of the myth that Palestinians are all terrorists. It can even be a pretext for further violence that might erupt by a bulldozer in Jerusalem.

And it has been Israel’s intransigence and belligerency in the face of international bodies that has led to its criticism (in the alternative media), culminating into calls for boycott and sanctions. But most of this is not the fault of Fleshler and the rest who are still Zionists to the core: there must be room to maneuver, and it has to include both Israeli narratives and Palestinian narratives. I don’t know any who attempt to erase Israel’s side of the story, just their myths of how it came into being and its treatment and history of Palestinians.

My major bone to pick is for Fleshler, Zionism is still not at fault here. He has reason to believe that Zionism can co-exist with the Palestinians even though its founding thesis was exclusion of non-Jews itself. What is this meant to mean to Israeli Arabs, normalisation with a state that discriminates them, or forced into expulsion, or better yet, submit to a second-class citizenship that excludes them from land rights? Zionism co-existence already has a pinnacle paradigm: it’s called Nazareth and the Arab Triangle. It has enacted laws that revoke Israeli citizenship to those married to Palestinians in the occupied territories; it has prevented any effort of a newly built village for the Arabs; and it ceaselessly calls them a “demographic threat”, a “timebomb” and a potential fifth column. While Fleshler can beam in the handshakes in Gilboa, what are residents of Jaffa, which was a predominantly Arab city, to think of when they are told to be nice with Zionism? This has existed for over 60 years, and it has gotten worse, not better during these latter years.

Don’t get me mistaken, all positive elements should be illuminated. Zochrot, Breaking the Silence, Machsom Watch; all are extraordinary organisations working with Palestinians. I am sure there are many more (ICAHD, B’Tselem). Yes, we should all get the appropriate information here and maybe Fleshler is correct that we focus too much on the negative, especially the negative when it comes to the occupier. But that’s the thing here, Israel IS THE OCCUPIER. This is not an attempt to blanket every Israeli as a supporter of expansionism; I doubt they all are. But what do we make of the phenomenon of regimes such as Netanyahu, Sharon, Begin, or even Barak and Olmert: all have just expanded Israel’s potential borders and with the exception of Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza, not one of them dismantled a (major) settlement bloc (Gush Etzion, anyone?). Furthermore, each of these coalitions had been voted in by Israelis themselves. There has been no real peace coalition; everyone just continues to recycle the same statesmen who were military folk heroes in yesteryear. Despite calls for “two states”, there has not been anything remotely close to resembling a Palestinian state. (No, a Bantustan does not count.) Oslo? Camp David? Madrid? Taba? Road Map? Annapolis? Where did that all lead us again? Was it a genuine attempt to give Palestinians the self-determination that they have been struggling for or was it just lip service? Did we witness any concession that would have led to a contiguous Palestinian state? Did we even refer to the refugees, East Jerusalem or water or the wall? I guess if you are really genuine about conceding, you keep the most contentious issues “off the table”. That does make sense to me. But yet Fleshler is adamant that these proposals are of something concrete, that they mark a key consensus that Israel is willing to make peace and withdraw, or well at least some parts of their society is. I don’t really think that is news at all: haven’t we been aware of courageous Israelis condemning the occupation, its annexation of the West Bank and its treatment of Palestinians before? The doves are not silenced; more or less just powerless, marginalised, who are obsolete in the face of strong people who hold the reigns.

Now I do not want it to come to a “Zero-sum equation” and I do not intend to expose my criticisms as such. There definitely has to be room for those Israelis who aren’t “evil” or support each of its initiative to suffocate Palestinian life, or maybe even those that do. But one thing is certain: there has to be people who are left out of the equation here. All solutions are going to have someone left out in the dark. Two states leave the settlers in a quandary, the Palestinians inside Israel in a conundrum and the Palestinian Diaspora largely ignored and unable to ever realise their “right of return”. The single state eliminates the very ideology that Israel was created by, supported by and even fought by all these years. Its institutions are built upon Zionism and the Jewish Diaspora has been emboldened by Israel’s example of success. It also dismisses the notion of “aliyah” and the missive of a “safe haven” from anti-Semitism. The occupation keeps the Palestinians everywhere disheartened, cold and battered, reaching out to any depth in a (vain) hope to get them out of their purgatory. How can any solution hope to do justice to all those who have a stake in this conflict? Which one do you advocate? What has history taught us so we can learn from it?

Over at Philip Weiss’s blog, it is filled with activity from both liberal Zionists and strong left anti-Zionists. There had been a few calls to “nuance” the narrative here and that Weiss is too abstract in his outlook of Israel. What’s interesting is the fact that most who visit Weiss’s blog are mostly progressive who call for the end of the occupation, just what is the best way is still undetermined. It really is the forefront of a good discussion about where the two sides can go and both blogs are blessed with very inquisitive and insightful commenters who all make good points.

Mostly, the call for “nuance” is to broaden the horizon to house in the Israeli-good side, very similar to Fleshler’s line of thought. (It even has a post about Fleshler.) What is the central thesis is that this occupation is detrimental to both sides, and it is imperative for the future of both parties to come to an agreement here and that Israel has nothing to gain for its impugnity.

For instance, a couple of commenters call to account for the settlers’ fait accompli. Fleshler attests that “situation coarsens and brutalizes both peoples”. Another commenter insists that Israel is willing to make sacrifices for a Palestinian state. This is all meant to make everything crystal clear; Israel has a stake here too, not just the Palestinians.

What this reminds me of is the Iraq War and what type of story has to come out of it. It also is similar to those who supported the war and still support to this day that disdain the “liberal” media for publishing too many negative stories and how they miss out on the “feelgood” stories about building schools and helping ordinary Iraqis out. What it also reminds me of is the American-centred narrative from those who are for “supporting the troops” as the war debilitates Americans and they come back “brutalised”. What I’m allaying here is that both are occupations, and both were/are created and funded (still) by the occupier when both can just withdraw and be done with it: the ultimate sacrifice. Yet we still hang on to those because of some flimsy pretext here. (Now the analogy is nowhere near close; Americans can go thousands of miles away; Israel can only go so far for a withdrawal of troops. But it does have a powerful army.) Here we have an invasion that was the main culprit of the suffering for both sides but predominantly for the indigenous and yet we’re focused too narrowly on the negatives when there are so many positives to talk about? I’m sorry, when you destroy a nation (or a people, if you want to continue that path) and then you subject them to misery, it’s an oversight that your misery is not deemed important; I was too busy trying to save the “other” from dying or starving.

What about the Iraqis/Palestinians? I’m sure the occupation is not a happy environment but Zionism had been the impetus, if not for the creation, then for the continuation of the occupation. Security? Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon; they’ve all suffered defeats and want to have normal relations with Israel. That leaves the Palestinians to fend for themselves: What army do they have? While it is a sad state of affairs that your troops are coming back with syndromes and broken limbs and missing organs, and it is a shame, it truly is, but they were part of a machine that helped make life miserable for Palestinians. That was Jeffery Goldberg’s main argument in his latest book Prisoners but which left out a major technicality: that Israelis who serve have a choice not to do those acts that house Palestinians in a checkpoint, beat them down, arrest them and oppress them. That Israelis may feel debased by occupying another people, but they get to go home, watch TV, eat cooked meals, have clean drinking water, be not harassed on their way to work, not have their crops burned, more or less a free person with a country to call their own. Or as Weiss put it

“I think he's [Fleshler] giving too little agency to the Israeli soldier; there are actually things he can do. Too little agency to American Jews, implicitly. And actually equating the victimization level of Palestinian and Israeli. I don't see it. As for the real lives of soldiers, yes, their lives are hurt for three years in Israel, if they're serving the occupation, then they spend another year unwinding in India or Argentina, a wanderjaar, and then they get to have their dreams, without checkpoints. Palestinian hopes are far more limited.”

I know they must suffer; occupations aren’t easy but the suffering is not equivalent here. One has total power with a chance for normalcy afterward; the other has no rights at all and is left to scramble for what little they have on offer. For Palestinians, their hope rests on the whims of another state, what Michael Neumann called Israel as having “soveriegnty” over the Palestinians. Palestinians cannot go to Hebron to Jerusalem without being questioned or even without an identity card. A settler can get on a road and be as free as they choose, and even free to harass Palestinians if they choose. And the IDF is complicit in all of this: they protect the settlers, not the Palestinians. That really does not depict a soldier being “brutalised”, except only by settler’s anger at them for not evicting the Palestinians in the first place.

I do not mean to minimise their suffering, I want to maximise the “other’s” suffering. I mean, what can we make of this report of confiscating “a herd of cows in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley yesterday under the pretext that that they were near a military camp.” This is what you can best describe as a security measure? Has Zionism truly lost its reason (if it had any)? We are too mired in the centrality of the suffering we relate with, let’s not forget about those who we trampled on.

Truthfully, the life of an Israeli is a polar opposite of the life of a Palestinian in the occupied territories or even in the refugee camps in the surrounding states. In fact, Eric Alterman’s article shows the different side of Israel, one that is not encased in occupation fervour. I can tell you, the life of a Palestinian does not resemble a place

“with shiny new skyscrapers, shopping malls, pricey boutiques and expensive, decidedly nonkosher gourmet eateries…[g]alleries…everywhere, and the theater and film industries are thriving…hedonistic beaches…”

What the Palestinians have is a pittance of that. We get calls for humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the worsening situation in the West Bank. To assume that there is some equivalence of suffering here is to delude oneself into thinking that Israel is also arrested when this peace process fails. And fail it will.

Hindsight might prove disastrous to this piece, and the future can hold many things. Gilboa and Jenin could be a turning point or it could just be what it is for now: an anomaly in the midst of polemics. Even though progressives and liberal Zionists want to believe that Israel is willing to do what it takes to reach a final agreement to end this occupation, sadly it just isn’t the case. The polls indicate that Israelis want to hold on to these territories; it doesn’t sound like sacrifice to me, or maybe they just want to sacrifice those pesky outposts that do nothing for nobody. Rest assured, Israel has plenty to gain by continuing what they do. Psychologically it may be hurtful but they still remain on the land and they still have no real opponent to stop them from doing so. Who is going to stop them from finishing this wall, from shooting at protestors, from stealing water, from warehousing Palestinians?

(I write this on the anniversary of the massacres of Sabra and Shatilla. There really is no equivalency here and it was the war in Lebanon in ’82 that begun the movement against aggression by Israel. The main architect was Ariel Sharon, who is lambasted as a “man of peace”.)

I know there are many so-called “experts” who call for one state, but unless I can pry open into their heads, I doubt it is more than just an idle threat to Zionists in Israel to really oppose the occupation, cease settlement activity and get their act together. The thing is, two states can happen, one state can happen, or this occupation can just continue the way it is. It can be more humane, but that could be too oxymoronic to posit. Whatever the practicality of any of it is, all I know is that the current situation is unsustainable in the long run. One side or both is going to implode and time really is running out here.

Is countenance of Israel’s own suffering going to be the platform that sets us on a course for a better chance for resolution? There is no easy way out of this mess. One thing is for certain, Israel benefits greatly from the status quo and the Palestinians get zilch.