Category: Politics

Edward Said has written a powerful, profoundly moving account of the present horror of the Israeli/Palestinian death dance. It’s not especially brief, but it carries the reader breathlessly along its argument. The pain is not in the read, but in the message.

Israel is frequently referred to as a democracy. If so, then it is a democracy without a conscience, a country whose soul has been captured by a mania for punishing the weak, a democracy that faithfully mirrors the psychopathic mentality of its ruler, General Sharon, whose sole idea — if that is the right word for it — is to kill, reduce, maim, drive away Palestinians until “they break”. He provides nothing more concrete as a goal for his campaigns, now or in the past, beyond that, and like the garrulous official in Kafka’s story he is most proud of his machine for abusing defenceless Palestinian civilians, all the while monstrously abetted in his grotesque lies by his court advisers and philosophers and generals, as well as by his chorus of faithful American servants. There is no Palestinian army of occupation, no Palestinian tanks, no soldiers, no helicopter gun-ships, no artillery, no government to speak of. But there are the “terrorists” and the “violence” that Israel has invented so that its own neuroses can be inscribed on the bodies of Palestinians, without effective protest from the overwhelming majority of Israel’s laggard philosophers, intellectuals, artists, peace activists. Palestinian schools, libraries and universities have ceased normal functioning for months now: and we still wait for the Western freedom-to-write-groups and the vociferous defenders of academic freedom in America to raise their voices in protest. I have yet to see one academic organisation either in Israel or in the West make a declaration about this profound abrogation of the Palestinian right to knowledge, to learning, to attend school.

[again, a report from Steve, still in Palestine, relayed through Donald]

Steve and company walked through the checkpoint outside nablus no
problem.
ISM people are doing a checkpoint watch to advocate for people not
allowed through. Steve stayed there a couple hours and helped get
people through, including sick people. He witnessed an entire family
get turned away, luggage and all. They were trying to get back home
to Jordan.
Steve went to Balata refugee camp. He says it is “carnivalesque”.
Even during curfew it is packed with people, vendors hawking. There
are 30,000 people in the camp. Packed.
Internationals have a definite role to play in stopping the
demolition of Palestinian homes. Steve and others from his group
spent the night in Askar refugee camp, outside Nablus, with 4
different families of people shot by the Israeli military.
Meanwhile, in the old city of Nablus, a home was demolished that was
not housing an international.
The demolitions are usually done around 2 in the morning.
Today Steve watched a tank go down a street in Nablus shooting at
rock throwing kids. His group visited a house in Nablus. It’s a
big, beautiful house, and it has a great view of the city, so it has
been taken by the Israeli military. The twenty Palestinians who
lived there have been shoved into a single apartment. confined to one
apartment. Folks from JATO brought medicine and food to those people,
Outside the building there are two trucks being held for driving
during curfew. One of the trucks is full of food which will rot.
Steve and his group hope to persuade military officers to release the
truck (they also have one of the driver’s ID papers, which means he
can’t go anywhere until he gets them back).
That’s all for now.
Dsg

I’m including below additional information about what people might do to help make a diffference.
[this was a postscript on today’s message from Donald, so I’m not sure who wrote it]

Ps In the last post I mentioned ISM organizing support for the Olive
Harvest. You can get lots of information on this action at
www.palsolidarity.org

[these items are from Steve]

To phone me in Palestine from the United States, dial 011-972-67-308192. I’ll be delighted to hear from you. (Palestine is 7 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time.)
You’re welcome to share my phone number in Palestine with anyone you like. You may also forward this email to anyone you like; just erase the originating email address from the header.
I prefer not to receive email while I’m away.
For information on New York area organizing for direct action in Palestine (or to make a donation), go to www.directactionpalestine.com.
For the extremely informative website of New York’s Jews Against the Occupation, the group with which I’m most active, go to www.jewsagainsttheoccupation.org.
For up-to-date, first-hand, news from Palestine, go to Indymedia Palestine at http//:jerusalem.indymedia.org.
For diaries and photos from the last delegation, and lots of other excellent information, see www.ccmep.org. For diaries from an activist currently in Palestine, go to http://georgie.ripserve.com. For general info on the International Solidarity Movement, see www.palsolidarity.org.

Um . . . where do we stand with this right now? Is it so wrong to ask the questions? Instead, isn’t it very wrong not to ask the questions?
Back in June, the columnist Bob Herbert predicted that there will be an investigation.

Eventually, almost certainly, a distinguished bipartisan commission will be convened to examine the conditions that led to the catastrophe of Sept. 11.
The Bush administration doesn’t want this. And Republicans in Congress are fighting to prevent it. But it will happen.

Regardless of its length, the interval between September 11, 2001, and whatever day the investigation begins is simply a political move at best and criminal negligence, even a major crime, at worst. What is most important, more than blame or justice, worthy as those purposes are, is the avoidance of additional catastophe now and in the future. There’s no excuse for further delay.

The NYTimes yesterday illustrated Frank Rich’s disection of Dubya’s domestic and foreign obsessions with a line drawing and its graphic text, “Big Hat–No Cattle,” but I’m told by my reliable source that the customary usage in Texas is my own caption above. In any event, there is definitely no humor to be found in Rich’s piece itself, except perhaps for the pun-ish dedicated headline, “The Waco Road to Baghdad.”

The White House keeps saying that no decision has been made about Iraq, but of course a decision has been made. Richard Perle, an administration Iraq hawk, gave away the game in yesterday’s Times: “The failure to take on Saddam after what the president said” would lead to “a collapse of confidence.” Translation: If Mr. Bush doesn’t get rid of Saddam after all this saber rattling, he will look like the biggest wimp since — well, his father. Democrats, as timid in challenging Mr. Bush on Iraq as they were in letting his tax cut through Congress, keep calling for a “debate.” What world are they living in? Mr. Bush is no sooner going to abandon his pursuit of Saddam than his crusade to eliminate the estate tax. These are his only core beliefs.

This is serious.

The only mystery is when D-Day will be. Given the administration’s history, I’d guess that it will put on the big show as soon as its political self-preservation is at stake. Certainly the White House’s priorities are clear enough. It has guarded the records of Dick Cheney’s energy task force and the S.E.C. investigation of Harken far more zealously than war plans that might endanger the lives of the so-called real Americans who will have to fight Saddam.

[somebody else is not taking this Putsch-ring thing very well! This is from Mark Morford’s email list]

To All My Friends Who Bought Me The Election
They are Republican “Pioneers,” the raisers of the early cash that made the machinery of presidential politics purr for George W. Bush as he sought and won the 2000 GOP nomination. Eighteen months after he entered the White House, President Bush is putting on a party [this past friday, just after his programmed Waco economic forum] for the hundreds of deeply corrupt and snickering, oil-drunk, pro-corporate money slugs whose efforts helped raise a record $100 million as he hurtled through the 2000 primary season like some sort of dense hunk of rock caught in a wind tunnel. More than 200 Bush Pioneers, most of whom snort powdered shredded accounting records for breakfast and directly equate that numbing and dead feeling inside their shriveled hearts with true success, pledged to raise at least $100,000 each for the Bush 2000 campaign, and never in your life have you see such a blisteringly odious array of corporate toe suckers, all assembled in one place like some sort of mutated WASP Godfather gang-leader summit, except without the sex and cool clothes and nice cinematography but with enormous amounts of body fat and trophy-wife swapping and inbreeding.

We did it for oil then*.
We’re doing it for oil now.
Almost all Americans cheered our depredations then.
Almost all Americans are cheering the planned war now.
This is a democracy, we tell the world, so all Americans become responsible for the government’s policy whatever its moral value.
If our policy does evil, or is even perceived to be doing evil, we are not truly innocent, and we definitely cannot expect to be perceived as innocent. In a democracy, we can’t escape responsibility by accepting our individual (hugely various) amounts of freedom and prosperity, but rejecting “politics” altogether, and just voting once every year or so doesn’t get us off the hook either; it’s a messier business than that, but nobody said it would be easy or pretty. I notice we also show absolutely no inclination to give up our decades-long orgy of cheap oil and the militarily-enforced worldwide economic hegemony needed to support it. Think SUV.
Iraq is not a democracy, we (correctly) tell the world, so Iraqis are not reponsible for their government’s policy.
There are therefore, strictly speaking, no American civilians, but on the other hand, there may, strictly speaking, be almost nothing but civilians in Iraq, even including its army, made up of men otherwise without hope or any livelihood.
The U.S. is in a very awkward position, but one largely of its own making. We have succeeded in making American civilians real and potential targets for the anger and resentment of people of other cultures, but we are unable to justify making the civilians of those cultures into our own targets, whether in Mesopotamia, Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world.
A state unable to access its military power and unsuccessful in employing its moral authority, could easily find itself disintegrating, especially if it is not able to address, or to even recognize, the needs of peoples outside. We don’t seem to be doing well right now. If there is a war going on, we’re not winning it.
Americans have to start operating with our minds and our hearts instead of our phalluses and our fears.
____________________
* “During the Iran-Iraq war, the United States decided it was imperative that Iran be thwarted, so it could not overrun the important oil-producing states in the Persian Gulf.” [NYTimes]

[message from Steve in Palestine as relayed through Donald here in New York]

Sunday 8/18. I spoke with Steve at 9 AM New York Time (4PM Palestine
Time)
Still not much action to report, but lots of travelling. Steve says
his affinity group are all staying in the Balata refugee camp at
Nablus, where many homes are slated for demolition by
Israeli “security”. Steve was on the road there when I spoke with
him.
Yesterday Steve went with his friend Said to the West Bank. They
visited the family of Said’s cousin, who was murdered by Israeli
soldiers. They spent the night there, and had lots of opportunity to
watch Israeli tanks drive around the streets of the village.
Today Steve got into Ramallah through a special route through a
cement factory, by-passing roadblocks. He met with one of the
leading organizers of ISM, and they talked about publicizing and
recruiting for an ISM action during the West Bank olive harvest:
Internationals are needed to help minimize shooting of farmers by
settlers during the harvest. The occupation and the settlers have
devastated the Palestinian economy, and
reserving/defending/supporting the olive harvest is crucial to
Palestinians.
Steve was surprised at how bustling and animated Ramallah in contrast
with the curfew times.
Travel News: (this part is conversational notes)
When I spoke with Steve he was in transit from Ramallah to Nablus.
He had passed through the first check point. The check points are
typically humiliating, requiring Palestinians to line up and wait
huge amounts of time just to get from one part of their country to
another.
After passing through the first check point, he got a cab. The
driver knew how to gain access to some settler roads, which meant
they could circumvent road blocks. It also meant some really
circuitous paths taken to get on and off the settler road. When I
spoke to him he was on his way to the check point for getting into
Nablus.
Steve comments that the countryside is very beautiful. But it’s also
very strange to look out and see little Palestinian communities in
some places and fortified settler communities in others. The
settlements are in violation of a section of the 4th Geneva
convention, which forbids transfer of invading population to invaded
territory. Ironically, this section of the convention was instituted
in response to the [historical German geopolitical concept, Lebensraum especially as modified and implemented by the Nazi regime.]
That’s all for now.
dsg

[not much today, but this is a short update of Steve’s activity, relayed through a friend]

Just got of the phone with Steve. It’s around 8 on Saturday morning.
He was at a checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, on his way
back to Jerusalem.
He is meeting a Palestinian American friend who is arriving at Ben
Gurion, and they will spend the night in the friends village. Then
they will go to Ramallah tomorrow, and finally to Nablus.
There is serious need for internationals in Nablus, where there are a
lot of home demolitions going on.
Steve says the training in Bethlehem was very good, and that folks
heard shelling last night from the hotel in Bethlehem.
That’s all for now. Things are mostly still just logistics at the
moment.

[The text of the caption is from an Israeli bumper sticker which is deliberately intended to reflect current Israeli confusion. The words suggest both that all of the West Bank and Gaza be given back to the Palestinians and that Israel should really “give it to them!”]
Ira Glass’ “This American Life” went to Israel and the West Bank recently to see, after “two years in which each side has done terrible things to the other side …. what that’s done to people living in Israel and the West Bank, and to see if anyone is feeling hope.”
It was a great piece of radio journalism, and I link the complete program episode here, in case you missed it on air. Just click onto the “RealAudio” file icon below the program logo.

[I’m posting the verbatim texts of messages from Steve and three people travelling with him at this time.]
Hi all,
Four of the JAtO [Jews Against the Occupation] affinity group–me, Lisa, Jeremy, and Ryan–are now in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem. A fifth member, Erica, is in Askar refugee camp in Nablus, where there has been a lot of shooting and home demolitions. We all are fine. The four of us are being trained here by the International Solidarity Movement tomorrow. We’ll then be deployed to whereverwe’re needed, and Erica will join us.
All for now.
–Steve
Hey all,
I had a horrific experience at Newark Airport this
morning and thought I should share. I was tagged
while waiting in line for a direct flight on El-Al and
was pulled aside for a ridiculous series of questions.
An obnoxious security guard questioned me repeatedly
about my ethnicity, being that I have a South Asian
father and therefore an Indian last name. He got so
absurd that he actually began asking me if I was sure
if my father was in fact Indian. At that point I
became visibly flustered and he fed off that. He then
enrolled me in a Judiasm 101 course where he fired
questions about Judiasm at me for over 10 mintues.
Even though I have been raised Jewish he failed to
believe me and sent me out of the line while everyone
else got to pass on through without problems. I was
sectioned off and approached by two more guards who
asked the same insane questions and continued to
question the validity of my answers. I was then,
after an hour, escorted by a security guard into a
special room with all the other “brown” people on the
flight. All our luggage was dumped out on large
tables and thrown around. A security guard rifled
through my bras and underwear snickering at the guard
to his left. My bag was taken out of the room for
over 45 mintues and no one told me what was going on.
The guards laughed at our powerless circumstances
taking pictures with my camera of the other people in
the room “just to make sure the camera was working.”
I was taken back behind a curtain and had to undergo a
body search (thank god I was allowed to keep my
clothes on). When I came out another family was being
taken in. The kids ran around while their parents had
to undergo the humiliation of the search process.
After almost two and a half hours of waiting I finally
expressed my concern at missing my flight. Finally a
woman decided to fill the paperwork required for
“someone like me”. Three forms were filled out with
all my info, my luggage was tagged wtih special red,
high security risk, tags, and then I was escorted onto
the plane. A form with all my information was handed
to the stewardess as I boarded the plane. She looked
at me with fear and disgust and then let me on the
plane. I was seated in a special seat. When the
family next to me saw who I was they conviently moved.
After almost three hours I was finally in my seat
ready to go. I got treated like shit the entire
flight.
Lisa
I have arrived safely to Palestine. My flight was
uneventful and I had no problems with security.
It feels very strange to be back in Palestine just 14
months after my previous trip. The first thing to
strike me was the amount of new construction occuring
between Ben Gurion airport and Tel Aviv. While I am
sure this is indictative of some political program I
have not been able to give it much thought and thus
have no particular political analysis to offer. Once
in East Jeruslum the obvious less bustle on the
streets is griping. The West Bank also feels very
different with less people on the streets and no
Palestnian security personel to be seen, who a year
ago were very common. Last year, while the Infitfada
was a year old, you still sensed a liveliness on the
streets but today you feel the eerie quiet of
desperation and hopelessness. (My apologies for this
scattered stream of obvervations. My section of future
reports will hopefully be more thought out and
insightful.)
Jeremy
We saw a demolished house today, two blocks away from
the Deheisha Refugee Camp we visited. The camp had
been visited by the Pope on his trip to Bethlehem for
the Bethlehem 2000 celebration, the effects of which
have now evaporated. The house was destroyed by
explosives, and not by bulldozers. The last remaining
wall, though crooked, held a Palestinian flag, which
rose above the rubble. We were told by a former ISM
organizer, someone now working for the Red Crescent
Society, that the owners of houses scheduled to be
destroyed will fly this flag. On this wall, it was
written in Arabic something to the effect of: You can
destroy our homes, but you can’t destroy our spirit.
She also told us that this very large house was
destroyed because a man who was connected with a
suicide bombing, a man from Jordan, had rented a room
there for two weeks. This is something of the tour we
had today.
For myself, I have only to say that upon arrival in
Bethlehem I was set upon by a sadness not at all
different from the onset of altitude sickness in our
ascent from the Pacific coast to the upper regions of
Peru in July.
It is terrifying to walk through a town, Bethlehem,
deserted by curfew at 5 in the afternoon, to see the
graffiti of Israeli soldiers, leftover from the April
invasion: Stars of David sprayed on doors and
storefronts, “Israel” labelled in Hebrew to claim the
territory, the name of Rebbe Nachman scrawled and
extended across the entrance to someone’s home, Rebbe
Nachman who said that the world is a narrow bridge
whose name appears so wide and distorted. I remember
in Sarnath, the buddhist pilgrimage town outside of
Benares/Varanasi, how Stars of David and Swastikas
were together posted on the front gates of the Tibetan
institute where I stayed. I remember how disoriented
I became. I suffered my first disorientation from the
signs of Jewish power long ago, when I was first
emerging from so many myths. But, perhaps for the
first time, today I saw this Star of David as having
nothing to do with me. It was realizing that the star
had nothing to do with me which is what made walking
through the gates at the Tibetan institute bearable.
But is the same realization now, when I am told at the
airport that this star has everything to do with me,
that, once again, the conditions of this occupation
become unbearable. And any sentimental tone I may
convey I now retract.
Ryan.