The Moebius Strip image was inspired by the January 5, 2009 Daily Show by Jon Stewart. http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=213378
This one-sided surface was immortalized in an Escher poster available from:http://www.worldofescher.com/gallery/A29.html
What is it about this Israeli/Palestinian situation?
What is it about this Israeli/Palestinian situation that makes it so difficult to resolve? that makes it so difficult for opposing sides to even discuss in the same room? that inflames passion to such an extent that people on extreme opposite sides deny facts that are obvious to everyone except those who share their extreme positions?
Some issues are not resolved through violence. Alexander Hamilton did not resolve his differences with Aaron Burr by participating in a dual that resulted in his death. Nation states can be militarily defeated as was the case in World War II and in the Gulf War. Thatcher’s action with the British military in the Falklands in the 1980s appeared to resolve the issue (at least it has not been in the news in the past two decades.)However, when ideology is involved as is the case when the word “terrorist” or “terrorism” is now used, it appears that military might or oppressive dominance of one people by another does not work over the long-term. Even though the United States and its allies won what appeared to be a quick victory in Iraq, the conflict drags on. Even though the United States and its allies won what appeared to be a quick victory in Afghanistan, the conflict drags on and after seven years, the Taliban have actually been gaining strength in some parts of the country.
The situation in Palestine/Israel can be characterized as follows:
Israeli security requires Palestinian freedom. Palestinian freedom requires Israeli security. Palestinians must share the land with Israelis. Israelis must share the land with Palestinians.
This kind of conundrum will never be resolved with violent military force whether sophisticated weaponry supplied to Israel by the United States or crude missiles or suicide bomber vests supplied by Iran or Al Qaeda. I am not a pacifist. I believe that there are situations where violent force can and must be used to end a conflict. However, when there are ideological differences that involve competing underlying claims with a legitimate basis, then it is unlikely those differences can be resolved by violent force. Even this definition is problematic because there are Nazis today who believe that Hitler’s claims about Aryan superiority are valid and they would support another Holocaust. This is a small minority of the billions of people who inhabit this planet and most of the world with ethical principles would condemn such ideas. Most countries would punish anyone who acted on their ideology that states another group deserves to be killed. Treating others with dignity and respect is part of what we usually think it means to be civilized and our religious ideologies and institutions mostly teach treating others with dignity and respect.
Some Israelis and some Palestinians refuse to accept the conundrum stated above. Some Israelis want all of the land from the Jordan River to the Sea. The hundreds of settlements in the West Bank suggest that the Israeli government may want all of the land from Jordan to the Sea. Some Palestinians want to drive the Israelis into the sea and create a Caliphate. Some Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel because they believe that recognizing Israel means accepting the oppressive controls that Israel exerts in the West Bank in the name of security. Some Israelis and American citizens refuse to recognize that there is a group of people called Palestinians and instead use the word Arab. In fact, some people believe that if you use the word Palestinian, as I have throughout this blog, then you are against Israel and there is no basis for talk about our differences. Listen carefully to the comments of the Israeli Möbius Strip Crowd and you will find that they refuse to acknowledge criticism of Israel or that those folks who inhabited the land (and especially not their descendants) when Israel was created (whatever name you call them) have legitimate grievances.
Powerful Jewish groups (AIPAC) and Christian fundamentalist groups threaten any politician or academic who criticizes Israel or who advocates that Palestinians have legitimate grievances. The Israeli public relations apparatus is alive and well throughout the American media and throughout the established world of politics in Washington, DC. I marvel at the depth and breadth of this public relations apparatus. However, when any PR campaign masks underlying realities or denies underlying realities, actions and decisions will be based on propaganda. Remember, my fellow Americans, the propaganda that Hitler used in the 1930s committed sins of commission that at the time were swallowed by the German public. The Israeli PR campaign is much cleverer in that it creates sins of omission that even today are swallowed hook, line and sinker by the American public. However, the affect is the same. Contrary opinions are silenced and the propaganda becomes the reality even if it omits important realities that would lead some or many to reach different conclusions from the propagator.
As an American citizen, I am outraged that politicians or academics are prohibited from criticizing the Israeli government or from saying that Palestinians have legitimate grievances. Although it may not be known to the American public, there are certainly some and probably many Senators and Representatives who were sickened by the Israeli invasion of Gaza. I don’t know how many and I would never identify the names of those that I know wanted to vote against the resolutions in the House and Senate. The suppression of criticism of Israel and support of Palestine resulted in a lopsided vote this past week with only 5 nays in the House and none in the Senate. AIPAC, the Christian fundamentalists and the secularists who share their views have the right and obligation to lobby, but their desire and their action to crush free speech is dangerous to our democracy.
As an American citizen, I am outraged about the suppression of free speech for politicians and academics. Suppression of free speech by politicians and academics must be condemned and changed. Some elected officials have explicitly said that if their constituents will provide support for their free speech by replacing the money that they get from organizations like AIPAC, Christians and secular people who share the view that Israel has the right to do whatever she wants in the name of security, then they will speak out. Politicians also want to hear that there are constituents who agree if not with their views then at least in their right to speak their minds without threat of annihilation. Many academics have been denied tenure (for example, Finkelstein at DePaul in 2007) solely because of their criticism of Israel and their advocacy of Palestinian causes. Several politicians have been defeated when they came up for re-election solely on the basis of their views about the Israeli/Palestinian situation. President Elect Obama was smeared as a radical and innuendos were made about terrorist inclinations because he associated with Professor Rashid Ismail Khalidi when he was at the University of Chicago over a decade ago. How can Americans make these kinds of charges against one another? If politicians and academics cannot speak their minds or meet with professors who do speak their minds, then on this issue our country is in deep trouble. Most Americans are oblivious to this dangerous suppression of free speech. How can we as Americans address this issue? Frankly, I do not know. But if President Obama is ever to make progress on this mess in the land called Holy, we must replace silence with public debate.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
YouTube Video
This clip has been watched by almost 1.5 million people. Perhaps if several million Americans watched it, they would be less reluctant to swallow hook, line and sinker the Israeli Möbius Strip Crowd’s framing of Israeli/Palestinian issues:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3P12aqVeZkQ
The words from this clip are below:
Look into my eyes
And tell me what you see.
You don't see a damn thing,
'cause you can't possibly relate to me.
You're blinded by our differences.
My life makes no sense to you.
I'm the persecuted Palestinian.
You're the American red, white and blue.
Each day you wake in tranquility,
No fears to cross your eyes.
Each day I wake in gratitude,
Thanking God He let me rise.
You worry about your education
And the bills you have to pay.
I worry about my vulnerable life
And if I'll survive another day.
Your biggest fear is getting ticketed
As you cruise your Cadillac.
My fear is that the tank that just left
Will turn around and come back.
American, do you realize,
That the taxes that you pay
Feed the forces that traumatize
My every living day?
The bulldozers and the tanks,
The gases and the guns,
The bombs that fall outside my door,
All due to American funds.
Yet do you know the truth
Of where your money goes?
Do you let your media deceive your mind?
Is this a truth that no one knows?
You blame me for defending myself
Against the ways of Zionists.
I'm terrorized in my own land
And I'm the terrorist?
You think you know all about terrorism
But you don't know it the way I do,
So let me define the term for you,
And teach you what you thought you knew.
I've known terrorism for quite some time,
Fifty-five years and more.
It's the fruitless garden uprooted in my yard.
It's the bulldozer in front of my door.
Terrorism breathes the air I breathe.
It's the checkpoint on my way to school.
It's the curfew that jails me in my own home,
And the penalties of breaking that curfew rule.
Terrorism is the robbery of my land,
And the torture of my mother,
The imprisonment of my innocent father,
The bullet in my baby brother.
So American, don't tell me you know about
The things I feel and see.
I'm terrorized in my own land
And the blame is put on me.
But I will not rest, I shall never settle
For the injustice my people endure.
Until the day our homeland is secure.
And if that time shall never come,
Then we will never see a day of peace.
I will not be thrown from my own home,
Nor will my fight for justice cease.
And if I am killed, it will be in Falasteen.
It's written on my every breath.
So in your own patriotic words,
Give me liberty or give me death.
Flip Side of the Israeli Narrative
The Moebius Strip image was inspired by the January 5, 2009 Daily Show by Jon Stewart. http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=213378
This one-sided surface was immortalized in an Escher poster available from:http://www.worldofescher.com/gallery/A29.html
The following two articles challenge the Israeli talking points that dominate the American discussion of Israeli/Palestinian issues. If these articles were widely published and read by American politicians, then perhaps there would be a return to a discussion of the issues instead of regurgitating Israeli talking points.
http://www.icahd.org/eng/news.asp?menu=5&submenu=1&item=655
Critical Reframing: To pursue offensive policies of prolonged occupation as well as sanctions, boycotts and closures that impoverish a civilian population, and to then refuse to engage with that population’s elected leaders, is not defending ones’ citizens. To expect your citizens to live in security while a million and a half subjugated people just a few kilometers away live in misery is both unrealistic and presumptive. Israel will only be able to defend its citizens – which is indeed its duty – if it addresses the causes of their insecurity, a 41 year-old occupation.
Israeli PR: Israel had no choice but to attack in response to the barrage of 8,500 Hamas rockets fired from Gaza into Israel over the past eight years that have killed 20 Israeli civilians.
Critical Reframing: In the past three years alone Israel – together with the US, Europe and Japan – imposed an inhumane siege of Gaza while conducting a campaign of targeted assassinations and attacks throughout the cease-fire that left 1,700 Palestinians dead. Hamas’ barrage did not exist in a vacuum. This war is no “response:” it is merely a more deadly round of the tit-for-tat arising out of a political vacuum. The rocket firings could have been avoided had there been a genuine political horizon. To present the “barrage” as an independent event disassociated from wider Israeli policies that led to them is disingenuous.
Israeli PR: There is no occupation – in general, but specifically in Gaza. Israel ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005 with the “disengagement.” Gaza could have flourished as the basis of a Palestinian state, but its inhabitants chose conflict.
Critical Reframing: Economic development, not to mention a political process which might have prevented the violence on both sides, was actively prevented by both Israel and its international supporters, which share responsibility for the present tragedy in Gaza. At no time since the “disengagement” did Israel ever relinquish or even loosen its control. The closure remained in force, including by sea; Gazans were never allowed to reopen their sea or air ports; nor were any conditions conducive to economic development allowed. Israel’s claim that there has never been an occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza is rejected by every member of the international community. Neither does it accept Israel’s claim that occupation ended in 2005, since the definition of occupation in international law has to do with exercising effective control of a foreign territory, which Israel obviously does over Gaza.
Israeli PR: Only Hamas violated the cease-fire, and thus it carries full responsibility.
Critical Reframing: Israel and Hamas agreed to a truce (through Egypt) by which Israel would allow the opening of the Gazan border crossings (at least partially) in return for an end to rocket fire on Israel. Hamas largely, though not entirely, kept its part of the bargain; Israel almost never did. Killings of Palestinians from the air continued, and on the American election day in early November it attacked the tunnels (which functioned as alternative means of supplying Gaza in the absence of open borders, which would have allowed control over the movement of arms), killing a number of Hamas people. In response Hamas launched rockets and….the truce began breaking down.
Israeli PR: Israel is only attacking the “infrastructure of terror” in Gaza and only targets Hamas fighters.
Critical Reframing: Being the elected government, all the infrastructure, from traffic cops to schools to military installations, “belong” to Hamas. It is clear that Israeli attacks go beyond “the infrastructure of terror.” Who’s a “Hamas fighter?” The graduating class of traffic cops that was slaughtered in the first aerial attack on Gaza? Professors and students who attend the “Hamas” Islamic University? Family members of Hamas military figures? People who voted for Hamas? All, but for those actively participating in hostilities, would be defined as civilians under international law.
Israeli PR: Civilians may die, but it’s because Hamas hides its fighters and weapons factories among ordinary people.
Critical Reframing: Israel’s military headquarters are located in the center of Tel Aviv, the military headquarters over the West Bank are in the densely populated civilian settlement Neveh Ya’akov in East Jerusalem, the Pentagon is located in downtown Washington D.C. and the British Ministry of Defence is located in central London. Hamas, of course, as both a government and a military organization, carries responsibility for protecting the civilian population and keeping the fighting away from them but the question that should be asked, and never is, is why western nations who do the same are not faced with such criticism?
Israeli PR: Hamas is a terrorist organization that refuses to recognize Israel or enter into a political process.
Critical Reframing: Which Israel should Hamas recognize? 1947 U.N. partition borders? 1967 borders? With annexed East Jerusalem? With the settlement blocs? So long as Israel refuses to define its borders then there is only an abstract concept available for recognition. Hamas has openly declared that it will de facto recognize Israel on the 1967 borders. Israel has made no such offers to any Palestinian faction, government or representatives.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/14/when-israel-expelled-palestinians/
The Washington Times
When Israel expelled Palestinians
By Randall Kuhn
January 14, 2009
"Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico." Within hours scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Barak's comparisons almost verbatim. In fact, in this very paper on January 9 House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an opinion piece by saying "America would never sit still if terrorists were lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana." But let's see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy.
Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters, but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the baseball players.
What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns, creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I may be called anti-Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I'm Jewish and the scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza. But this analogy is just getting started.
What if the United Nations kept San Diego's discarded minorities in crowded, festering camps in Tijuana for 19 years? Then, the United States invaded Mexico, occupied Tijuana and began to build large housing developments in Tijuana where only whites could live. And what if the United States built a network of highways connecting American citizens of Tijuana to the United States? And checkpoints, not just between Mexico and the United States but also around every neighborhood of Tijuana? What if we required every Tijuana resident, refugee or native, to show an ID card to the U.S. military on demand? What if thousands of Tijuana residents lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their children, their sense of self worth to this occupation? Would you be surprised to hear of a protest movement in Tijuana that sometimes became violent and hateful? Okay, now for the unbelievable part.
Think about what would happen if, after expelling all of the minorities from San Diego to Tijuana and subjecting them to 40 years of brutal military occupation, we just left Tijuana, removing all the white settlers and the soldiers? Only instead of giving them their freedom, we built a 20-foot tall electrified wall around Tijuana? Not just on the sides bordering San Diego, but on all the Mexico crossings as well. What if we set up 50-foot high watchtowers with machine gun batteries, and told them that if they stood within 100 yards of this wall we would shoot them dead on sight? And four out of every five days we kept every single one of those border crossings closed, not even allowing food, clothing, or medicine to arrive. And we patrolled their air space with our state-of-the-art fighter jets but didn't allow them so much as a crop duster. And we patrolled their waters with destroyers and submarines, but didn't even allow them to fish.
Would you be at all surprised to hear that these resistance groups in Tijuana, even after having been "freed" from their occupation but starved half to death, kept on firing rockets at the United States? Probably not. But you may be surprised to learn that the majority of people in Tijuana never picked up a rocket, or a gun, or a weapon of any kind. The majority, instead, supported against all hope negotiations toward a peaceful solution that would provide security, freedom and equal rights to both people in two independent states living side by side as neighbors. This is the sound analogy to Israel's military onslaught in Gaza today. Maybe some day soon, common sense will prevail and no corpus of misleading analogies abut Tijuana or the crazy guy across the hall who wants to murder your daughter will be able to obscure the truth. And at that moment, in a country whose people shouted We Shall Overcome, Ich bin ein Berliner, End Apartheid, Free Tibet and Save Darfur, we will all join together and shout "Free Gaza. Free Palestine." And because we are Americans, the world will take notice and they will be free, and perhaps peace will prevail for all the residents of the Holy Land.
Randall Kuhn is an assistant professor and Director of the Global Health Affairs Program at the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He just returned from a trip to Israel and the West Bank.
This one-sided surface was immortalized in an Escher poster available from:http://www.worldofescher.com/gallery/A29.html
The following two articles challenge the Israeli talking points that dominate the American discussion of Israeli/Palestinian issues. If these articles were widely published and read by American politicians, then perhaps there would be a return to a discussion of the issues instead of regurgitating Israeli talking points.
http://www.icahd.org/eng/news.asp?menu=5&submenu=1&item=655
Israel in Gaza: A Critical Reframing
ICAHD
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Israel’s core messages, listed below, argue for the justice of its cause in Gaza, cast Israel as the victim and ensure that its war is seen not in terms of occupation but of the broader Western struggle against terror. The critical reframing we offer, that of Israelis committed to human rights, international law and a just peace as the only way out of this interminable and bloody conflict, argues that security cannot be achieved unilaterally while one side oppresses the other and that Israel’s attack on Gaza is merely another attempt to render its Occupation permanent by destroying any source of effective resistance. It argues that Israel could have avoided all attacks upon it over the last twenty years, and the rise of Hamas, if it had genuinely negotiated a two-state solution with the Palestinian leadership. Israel, the strong party and the Occupying Power, is not the victim. Indeed, its attack on Gaza is a form of State Terrorism.
Israeli PR: Like all countries, Israel has a right and duty to defend its citizens. Israel, acting as any life-loving nation would, has a right to be a normal country living in peace and security.
Critical Reframing: To pursue offensive policies of prolonged occupation as well as sanctions, boycotts and closures that impoverish a civilian population, and to then refuse to engage with that population’s elected leaders, is not defending ones’ citizens. To expect your citizens to live in security while a million and a half subjugated people just a few kilometers away live in misery is both unrealistic and presumptive. Israel will only be able to defend its citizens – which is indeed its duty – if it addresses the causes of their insecurity, a 41 year-old occupation.
Israeli PR: Israel had no choice but to attack in response to the barrage of 8,500 Hamas rockets fired from Gaza into Israel over the past eight years that have killed 20 Israeli civilians.
Critical Reframing: In the past three years alone Israel – together with the US, Europe and Japan – imposed an inhumane siege of Gaza while conducting a campaign of targeted assassinations and attacks throughout the cease-fire that left 1,700 Palestinians dead. Hamas’ barrage did not exist in a vacuum. This war is no “response:” it is merely a more deadly round of the tit-for-tat arising out of a political vacuum. The rocket firings could have been avoided had there been a genuine political horizon. To present the “barrage” as an independent event disassociated from wider Israeli policies that led to them is disingenuous.
Israeli PR: There is no occupation – in general, but specifically in Gaza. Israel ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005 with the “disengagement.” Gaza could have flourished as the basis of a Palestinian state, but its inhabitants chose conflict.
Critical Reframing: Economic development, not to mention a political process which might have prevented the violence on both sides, was actively prevented by both Israel and its international supporters, which share responsibility for the present tragedy in Gaza. At no time since the “disengagement” did Israel ever relinquish or even loosen its control. The closure remained in force, including by sea; Gazans were never allowed to reopen their sea or air ports; nor were any conditions conducive to economic development allowed. Israel’s claim that there has never been an occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza is rejected by every member of the international community. Neither does it accept Israel’s claim that occupation ended in 2005, since the definition of occupation in international law has to do with exercising effective control of a foreign territory, which Israel obviously does over Gaza.
Israeli PR: Only Hamas violated the cease-fire, and thus it carries full responsibility.
Critical Reframing: Israel and Hamas agreed to a truce (through Egypt) by which Israel would allow the opening of the Gazan border crossings (at least partially) in return for an end to rocket fire on Israel. Hamas largely, though not entirely, kept its part of the bargain; Israel almost never did. Killings of Palestinians from the air continued, and on the American election day in early November it attacked the tunnels (which functioned as alternative means of supplying Gaza in the absence of open borders, which would have allowed control over the movement of arms), killing a number of Hamas people. In response Hamas launched rockets and….the truce began breaking down.
Israeli PR: Israel is only attacking the “infrastructure of terror” in Gaza and only targets Hamas fighters.
Critical Reframing: Being the elected government, all the infrastructure, from traffic cops to schools to military installations, “belong” to Hamas. It is clear that Israeli attacks go beyond “the infrastructure of terror.” Who’s a “Hamas fighter?” The graduating class of traffic cops that was slaughtered in the first aerial attack on Gaza? Professors and students who attend the “Hamas” Islamic University? Family members of Hamas military figures? People who voted for Hamas? All, but for those actively participating in hostilities, would be defined as civilians under international law.
Israeli PR: Civilians may die, but it’s because Hamas hides its fighters and weapons factories among ordinary people.
Critical Reframing: Israel’s military headquarters are located in the center of Tel Aviv, the military headquarters over the West Bank are in the densely populated civilian settlement Neveh Ya’akov in East Jerusalem, the Pentagon is located in downtown Washington D.C. and the British Ministry of Defence is located in central London. Hamas, of course, as both a government and a military organization, carries responsibility for protecting the civilian population and keeping the fighting away from them but the question that should be asked, and never is, is why western nations who do the same are not faced with such criticism?
Israeli PR: Hamas is a terrorist organization that refuses to recognize Israel or enter into a political process.
Critical Reframing: Which Israel should Hamas recognize? 1947 U.N. partition borders? 1967 borders? With annexed East Jerusalem? With the settlement blocs? So long as Israel refuses to define its borders then there is only an abstract concept available for recognition. Hamas has openly declared that it will de facto recognize Israel on the 1967 borders. Israel has made no such offers to any Palestinian faction, government or representatives.
Israeli PR: Hamas is a global problem, part of Islamist fundamentalism together with Iran and Hezbollah and therefore Israel is only doing its part in the West’s agreed-upon War on Terror.
Critical Reframing: Hamas started as a social welfare organization that was allowed by Israel to develop as a political force in Occupied Palestine to weaken the standing of the secular PLO. There also, was no Hezbollah prior to the 1982 Israeli invasion. The theocrats in Iran were an organized but quite small political force until the U.S. overthrew Iran’s democracy. The local population will always resist when foreign countries try to oppose their will and the resistance will not always be pretty. Painting Hamas as part of a global conspiracy when it’s a product of the Occupation itself is disingenuous and a gross distortion of history.http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/14/when-israel-expelled-palestinians/
The Washington Times
When Israel expelled Palestinians
By Randall Kuhn
January 14, 2009
"Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico." Within hours scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Barak's comparisons almost verbatim. In fact, in this very paper on January 9 House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an opinion piece by saying "America would never sit still if terrorists were lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana." But let's see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy.
Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters, but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the baseball players.
What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns, creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I may be called anti-Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I'm Jewish and the scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza. But this analogy is just getting started.
What if the United Nations kept San Diego's discarded minorities in crowded, festering camps in Tijuana for 19 years? Then, the United States invaded Mexico, occupied Tijuana and began to build large housing developments in Tijuana where only whites could live. And what if the United States built a network of highways connecting American citizens of Tijuana to the United States? And checkpoints, not just between Mexico and the United States but also around every neighborhood of Tijuana? What if we required every Tijuana resident, refugee or native, to show an ID card to the U.S. military on demand? What if thousands of Tijuana residents lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their children, their sense of self worth to this occupation? Would you be surprised to hear of a protest movement in Tijuana that sometimes became violent and hateful? Okay, now for the unbelievable part.
Think about what would happen if, after expelling all of the minorities from San Diego to Tijuana and subjecting them to 40 years of brutal military occupation, we just left Tijuana, removing all the white settlers and the soldiers? Only instead of giving them their freedom, we built a 20-foot tall electrified wall around Tijuana? Not just on the sides bordering San Diego, but on all the Mexico crossings as well. What if we set up 50-foot high watchtowers with machine gun batteries, and told them that if they stood within 100 yards of this wall we would shoot them dead on sight? And four out of every five days we kept every single one of those border crossings closed, not even allowing food, clothing, or medicine to arrive. And we patrolled their air space with our state-of-the-art fighter jets but didn't allow them so much as a crop duster. And we patrolled their waters with destroyers and submarines, but didn't even allow them to fish.
Would you be at all surprised to hear that these resistance groups in Tijuana, even after having been "freed" from their occupation but starved half to death, kept on firing rockets at the United States? Probably not. But you may be surprised to learn that the majority of people in Tijuana never picked up a rocket, or a gun, or a weapon of any kind. The majority, instead, supported against all hope negotiations toward a peaceful solution that would provide security, freedom and equal rights to both people in two independent states living side by side as neighbors. This is the sound analogy to Israel's military onslaught in Gaza today. Maybe some day soon, common sense will prevail and no corpus of misleading analogies abut Tijuana or the crazy guy across the hall who wants to murder your daughter will be able to obscure the truth. And at that moment, in a country whose people shouted We Shall Overcome, Ich bin ein Berliner, End Apartheid, Free Tibet and Save Darfur, we will all join together and shout "Free Gaza. Free Palestine." And because we are Americans, the world will take notice and they will be free, and perhaps peace will prevail for all the residents of the Holy Land.
Randall Kuhn is an assistant professor and Director of the Global Health Affairs Program at the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He just returned from a trip to Israel and the West Bank.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Does Israel have the right to exist?
The Moebius Strip image was inspired by the January 5, 2009 Daily Show by Jon Stewart. http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=213378This one-sided surface was immortalized in an Escher poster available from:http://www.worldofescher.com/gallery/A29.html
What are the facts? How are the facts interpreted? What is the world view or set of assumptions that are used to define the meaning of the facts? What facts are taken into account and what facts are simply ignored? Reality is not self-explanatory: One group’s terrorists are another group’s freedom fighters. Read the following two articles that are supportive of Israel and then read the third article that was written by some Gazan Palestinian artists.
Rabbi Marvin Hier published his op-ed entitled “The Jews Face a Double Standard” in The Wall Street Journal on January 8, 2009.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123137495711862883.html#printMode
Investors Business Daily published an editorial entitled “War Without End” on January 8, 2009.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=316222999854619
A contrasting and challenging point of view entitled “Does Israel have the right to exist?” was written by Palestinian artists in Gaza. http://www.resistanceart.com/
Do the ideas in any of these articles resonate with you? As an American citizen, what U.S. foreign policy will support U.S. interests and at the same time address these clashing perspectives? Does unconditional support of Israel put the U.S. in the position of being a Palestinian Nakba denier? The PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist in 1988. Have the past two decades resulted in a better life for the Palestinians? Can the two double standards in Rabbi Hier’s article and the Gazan’s article co-exist or does reality required us to deny one but not the other?
What are the facts? How are the facts interpreted? What is the world view or set of assumptions that are used to define the meaning of the facts? What facts are taken into account and what facts are simply ignored? Reality is not self-explanatory: One group’s terrorists are another group’s freedom fighters. Read the following two articles that are supportive of Israel and then read the third article that was written by some Gazan Palestinian artists.
Rabbi Marvin Hier published his op-ed entitled “The Jews Face a Double Standard” in The Wall Street Journal on January 8, 2009.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123137495711862883.html#printMode
Investors Business Daily published an editorial entitled “War Without End” on January 8, 2009.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=316222999854619
A contrasting and challenging point of view entitled “Does Israel have the right to exist?” was written by Palestinian artists in Gaza. http://www.resistanceart.com/
Do the ideas in any of these articles resonate with you? As an American citizen, what U.S. foreign policy will support U.S. interests and at the same time address these clashing perspectives? Does unconditional support of Israel put the U.S. in the position of being a Palestinian Nakba denier? The PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist in 1988. Have the past two decades resulted in a better life for the Palestinians? Can the two double standards in Rabbi Hier’s article and the Gazan’s article co-exist or does reality required us to deny one but not the other?
Friday, January 9, 2009
The Imperative of Destruction
The Moebius Strip image was inspired by the January 5, 2009 Daily Show by Jon Stewart. http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=213378
This one-sided surface was immortalized in an Escher poster available from:
http://www.worldofescher.com/gallery/A29.html
A basic mantra of the Israeli Möbius Strip Crowd is that Israel has the right to defend itself. These views appear frequently in The Wall Street Journal and Investors Business Daily as well as media across the United States. Charles Krauthammer’s editorial entitled “Mideast Peace Possible Only If Hamas Loses” [http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=316308160577446] reflects a powerful intellect that when framed narrowly is a brilliant piece of writing. Krauthammer ups the ante and says the war aim that must be achieved is “the disintegration of Hamas rule in Gaza.” I encourage you to print his op-ed, read it carefully and write any comments in the margin. Then print, read and write comments about a blog published today by Sam Bahour entitled “No Other Option?!” [http://epalestine.blogspot.com/]. After reading these two articles, read one other article that appeared today in The Wall Street Journal. George E. Bisharat published an op-ed entitled “Israel Is Committing War Crimes” [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123154826952369919.html]. This is a point of view rarely found in The Wall Street Journal. Yet, many inhabitants of this planet who do not read this publication share this point of view.
If you are an American, what ideas in these three articles resonate with your American values? If you are Christian, what ideas in these three articles resonate with your Christian values? If you are Jewish, what ideas in these three articles resonate with your Jewish values? If you are Muslim, what ideas in these three articles resonate with your Muslim values? If you are Israeli, what ideas in these three articles resonate with your understanding of what is required for you to be secure? If you are Palestinian, what ideas in these three articles resonate with your understanding of what is required for you to live a normal life? If you are ___________________ (insert your own label), what ideas in these three articles resonate with your values?
What ideas in these three articles will resonate with your Congressional Representative? Your Senators? Your President? Your Secretary of State? What ideas in these three articles will resonate with the American People?
What assumptions made in these three articles will create the kind of world you want your children and your grandchildren to inhabit?
This one-sided surface was immortalized in an Escher poster available from:
http://www.worldofescher.com/gallery/A29.html
A basic mantra of the Israeli Möbius Strip Crowd is that Israel has the right to defend itself. These views appear frequently in The Wall Street Journal and Investors Business Daily as well as media across the United States. Charles Krauthammer’s editorial entitled “Mideast Peace Possible Only If Hamas Loses” [http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=316308160577446] reflects a powerful intellect that when framed narrowly is a brilliant piece of writing. Krauthammer ups the ante and says the war aim that must be achieved is “the disintegration of Hamas rule in Gaza.” I encourage you to print his op-ed, read it carefully and write any comments in the margin. Then print, read and write comments about a blog published today by Sam Bahour entitled “No Other Option?!” [http://epalestine.blogspot.com/]. After reading these two articles, read one other article that appeared today in The Wall Street Journal. George E. Bisharat published an op-ed entitled “Israel Is Committing War Crimes” [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123154826952369919.html]. This is a point of view rarely found in The Wall Street Journal. Yet, many inhabitants of this planet who do not read this publication share this point of view.
If you are an American, what ideas in these three articles resonate with your American values? If you are Christian, what ideas in these three articles resonate with your Christian values? If you are Jewish, what ideas in these three articles resonate with your Jewish values? If you are Muslim, what ideas in these three articles resonate with your Muslim values? If you are Israeli, what ideas in these three articles resonate with your understanding of what is required for you to be secure? If you are Palestinian, what ideas in these three articles resonate with your understanding of what is required for you to live a normal life? If you are ___________________ (insert your own label), what ideas in these three articles resonate with your values?
What ideas in these three articles will resonate with your Congressional Representative? Your Senators? Your President? Your Secretary of State? What ideas in these three articles will resonate with the American People?
What assumptions made in these three articles will create the kind of world you want your children and your grandchildren to inhabit?
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