la seule solution est un changement de culture
N'oublions pas que, puisque ces bombes ont été larguées des États-Unis / Royaume-Uni / URSS armée de machines industrielles ont construit 1000s des bombes nucléaires. La guerre est une entreprise. Empire a besoin de guerre pour la relance économique. Mais nous n'avons pas à vivre dans l'empire ... ..
États Johann Hari, au Huffington Post .
Qui a imaginé que, en 2009, les gouvernements du monde serait de déclarer une nouvelle guerre sur les pirates? Comme vous lisez ceci, la Marine royale britannique - soutenue par les navires de plus de deux douzaine de pays, des États-Unis à la Chine - navigue dans des eaux somaliennes à prendre sur les hommes nous avons encore image comme un perroquet sur l'épaule méchants pantomime. Ils seront bientôt des navires de combat somaliens et même la chasse aux pirates sur la terre, dans l'un des pays les plus cassés sur terre. Mais derrière la bizarrerie arrr-me-hearties de ce conte, il ya un scandale indicible. Les gens de nos gouvernements sont d'étiquetage comme «l'une des grande menace de notre temps» ont une histoire extraordinaire à raconter - et une certaine justice de leur côté.
Pirates n'ont jamais été tout à fait ce que nous pensons qu'ils sont. Dans «l'âge d'or de la piraterie" - de 1650 à 1730 - l'idée du pirate que l'insensé, voleur sauvage qui s'attarde aujourd'hui a été créé par le gouvernement britannique dans une grande propagande pilonnement. Beaucoup de gens ordinaires pensent qu'il est faux: les pirates ont souvent été sauvé de la potence par des foules de soutien. Pourquoi? Qu'ont-ils voir que nous ne pouvons pas? Dans son livre Villains de toutes les nations, l'historien Marcus Rediker pores à travers la preuve pour le savoir. Si vous êtes devenu un marchand ou un matelot de la marine, puis - plumé des quais de l'East End de Londres, le jeune et affamé - vous vous retrouviez dans un enfer flottant en bois. Vous avez travaillé toutes les heures sur un étroit, à demi-affamés navire, et si vous relâchée pendant une seconde, le capitaine tout-puissant ne vous fouetter avec le chat à neuf queues. Si vous éteinte constamment, vous pourriez être jeté par dessus bord. Et à la fin du mois ou des années de cela, vous étiez souvent trompés de votre salaire.
Pirates ont été les premiers à se rebeller contre ce monde. Ils se sont mutinés contre leurs capitaines tyranniques - et a créé une autre façon de travailler sur les mers. Une fois qu'ils avaient un navire, les pirates élisaient leurs capitaines, et fait toutes leurs décisions collectivement. Ils ont partagé leur butin dans ce Rediker appelle «l'un des plans les plus égalitaires de la disposition des ressources nécessaires pour se trouver n'importe où dans le XVIIIe siècle." Ils ont même pris dans échappé esclaves africains et vivaient avec eux d'égal à égal. Les pirates ont montré «très clairement - et subversive - que les navires n'ont pas eu à être exécuté de la manière brutale et oppressive de la marine marchande et la marine royale." C'est pourquoi ils ont été très populaires, en dépit d'être des voleurs improductif.
Les mots d'un pirate de cet âge ont perdu - un jeune homme britannique a appelé William Scott - devrait faire écho dans ce nouvel âge de la piraterie. Juste avant, il a été pendu à Charleston, en Caroline du Sud, il a déclaré: "Ce que j'ai fait pour me garder de périr. J'ai été forcé d'aller un-piratage de vivre "En 1991, le gouvernement de la Somalie -. Dans la Corne de l'Afrique - s'est effondré. Ses neuf millions de personnes ont été chancelant sur la famine depuis - et beaucoup de forces le plus laid du monde occidental ont vu cela comme une excellente occasion pour voler l'approvisionnement alimentaire du pays et déverser nos déchets nucléaires dans leurs mers.
Oui: les déchets nucléaires. Dès que le gouvernement avait disparu, de mystérieux navires européens ont commencé à apparaître au large des côtes de la Somalie, le dumping de barils dans l'océan immense. La population côtière a commencé à tomber malades. Au début, ils ont souffert des éruptions cutanées étranges, de nausées et des bébés malformés. Puis, après le tsunami de 2005, des centaines de barils l'objet de dumping et fuit échoués sur le rivage. Les gens ont commencé à souffrir de la maladie des rayons, et plus de 300 morts. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, l'envoyé de l'ONU pour la Somalie, me dit: «Quelqu'un le dumping des matières nucléaires ici. Il ya aussi du plomb et métaux lourds comme le cadmium et le mercure - vous l'appelez «Beaucoup d'entre elles peuvent être retracée dans les hôpitaux européens et des usines, qui semblent être les transmettre à la mafia italienne de« disposer »des bas prix.. Quand j'ai demandé à M. Ould-Abdallah ce que les gouvernements européens ont été faites à ce sujet, dit-il avec un soupir: «Rien. Il n'y a pas eu de nettoyage, aucune indemnisation, et pas de prévention. "
Dans le même temps, d'autres navires européens ont pillé les mers de la Somalie de leur ressource la plus précieuse: les fruits de mer. Nous avons détruit nos propres stocks de poissons par la sur-exploitation - et aujourd'hui nous sommes passés à la leur. Valeur de plus de 300 millions de dollars de thons, crevettes, homards et autres mer-vie est volé chaque année par les chalutiers de vastes illégalement voile dans les mers non protégés de la Somalie. Les pêcheurs locaux ont soudainement perdu leurs moyens de subsistance, et ils sont affamés. Mohammed Hussein, un pêcheur dans la ville de Marka 100 km au sud de Mogadiscio, a déclaré à Reuters: «Si rien n'est fait, il ya bientôt ne sera pas laissé beaucoup de poissons dans nos eaux côtières."
C'est le contexte dans lequel les hommes que nous appelons «pirates» ont émergé. Tout le monde s'accorde ils étaient pêcheurs somaliens ordinaires qui au début a eu des vedettes rapides pour tenter de dissuader les chalutiers et les dumpers, ou au moins le salaire d'une «taxe» sur eux. Ils se font appeler les garde-côtes bénévoles de la Somalie - et il n'est pas difficile de voir pourquoi. Dans un entretien téléphonique surréaliste, l'un des leaders des pirates, Sugule Ali, ont déclaré que leur motif était «d'arrêter la pêche illégale et le déversement dans nos eaux ... Nous ne nous considérons pas comme des bandits de la mer. Nous considérons que les bandits de la mer [à] ceux qui ont illégalement du poisson et de vidage dans nos mers et décharge de déchets dans nos mers et de porter des armes dans nos mers. "William Scott serait à comprendre ces mots.
Non, cela ne rend pas la prise d'otages justifiable, et oui, certains sont clairement simplement des gangsters - en particulier ceux qui ont eu lieu jusqu'à approvisionnements du Programme alimentaire mondial. Mais les «pirates» ont l'appui massif de la population locale pour une raison. Les indépendants somaliens Nouvelles du site WardherNews réalisé les meilleures recherches que nous avons dans ce que les Somaliens ordinaires sont la pensée - et il a trouvé 70 pour cent pendant la guerre révolutionnaire en Amérique ", fortement soutenu la piraterie comme une forme de défense nationale des eaux territoriales du pays." George Washington et les pères fondateurs de l'Amérique a payé des pirates pour protéger les eaux territoriales américaines, parce qu'ils n'avaient pas la marine ou de leur propre garde-côtes. La plupart des Américains les ont soutenus. Est-ce si différent?
Nous attendions-nous affamer les Somaliens à se passivement sur leurs plages, de patauger dans nos déchets nucléaires, et nous regarder arracher leurs poissons à manger dans les restaurants à Londres et à Paris et Rome? Nous n'avons pas agir sur ces crimes - mais lorsque certains des pêcheurs ont répondu en perturber le transit du corridor pour 20 pour cent de l'approvisionnement en pétrole du monde, on commence à crier à propos Si nous voulons vraiment lutter contre la piraterie, nous avons «mal». besoin d'arrêter sa cause profonde - nos crimes - avant d'envoyer dans les canonnières d'extirper des criminels de la Somalie.
L'histoire de la guerre 2009 sur le piratage a été le mieux résumée par un autre pirate, qui vécut et mourut dans le IVe siècle av. Il a été capturé et amené à Alexandre le Grand, qui a exigé de savoir «ce qu'il voulait dire en gardant la possession de la mer». Le pirate a souri, et répondu: «Qu'est-ce que vous voulez dire en saisissant toute la terre; mais parce que je le fais avec une petite bateau, je suis appelé un voleur, tandis que vous, qui le font avec une grande flotte, sont appelés empereur "Une fois encore, notre grand voile impériales flottes d'aujourd'hui -. mais qui est le voleur?
Guerre contre le terrorisme, guerre contre le piratage - des guerres contre quiconque s'oppose à l'empire et de son mois de mars de "progrès" pour transformer toute la vie sur cette planète en produits, les bénéfices et la mort. La civilisation a toujours déclaré la guerre à ceux qui tentent de défendre eux-mêmes et de leurs landbases de la civilisation.
Par Chris Floyd , le centre d'information.
Voici un scénario purement hypothétique. Disons que vous étiez un militaire dédié impériale qui croyaient que la sécurité de votre pays, le prestige et les intérêts financiers pourraient être mieux servis par la guerre et la menace toujours présente de la guerre. Disons que vous avez eu quelques opérations très chaude et juteuse se passe, interminables conflits meurtriers qui ont été déverser des centaines de milliards de dollars dans votre machine de guerre et enraciner la politique nationale encore plus profondément dans la philosophie militariste - le Machtpolitik - que vous croyez po
Mais il ya un problème. Le grand public - le troupeau de vaches-comme là-bas qui ne comprennent pas la grande stratégie de la façon dont vous et vos compagnons ne les élites - est de plus en plus fatigué, et méfiants, de votre longue guerre. La trésorerie nationale est en faillite, l'infrastructure nationale est pourri, les communautés de la nation meurent; des millions de personnes sont sans travail, perdent leurs maisons, perdant leurs rêves, en spirale vers le bas dans le souhaitez, les privations et le désespoir. Pourtant, vous avez de grands projets pour intensifier la guerre, développez votre machine de guerre, et de maintenir la domination mondiale que vous croyez que c'est le rôle juste et naturel pour votre nation particulière - et ses élites. Que faire? Comment galvaniser les truculent, égocentrique troupeau dans votre agenda avec enthousiasme le soutien indispensable une fois de plus?
Eh bien, voici une approche purement hypothétique que vous pourriez essayer. Vous aiguillon et des groupes extrémistes violents provoquent en représailles contre vos attaques, vos civils abattage invasions et incursions dans leur territoire. Etre incapable d'affronter directement votre machine de guerre - la plus grande, la force militaire la plus avancée dans l'histoire du monde, soutenue par un tsunami d'argent public qui dépasse chaque année les dépenses militaires du reste du monde - ils réagissent naturellement avec "asymétriques "opérations. Au début, ce sont dirigés vers des cibles à proximité: les lignes d'approvisionnement, les forces de vos mandataires locaux et des alliés, et d'autres le chaos induisant déprédations dans les régions les groupes eux-mêmes, conçus à encrasser les lignes de votre commande et vous chasser. Tout aussi naturellement, vous utilisez ces attaques pour justifier une présence militaire encore plus grande dans leurs régions. Le cycle inévitablement, inexorablement vers le haut et cliquets vers l'extérieur, jusqu'à ce qu'enfin les extrémistes frapper à votre patrie - soit avec votre connivence, ou votre acquiescement secrètes, ou, en tout cas, avec votre prescience qu'une telle attaque était sûr à venir. C'est le moment que vous avez attendu, ce qui est exactement ce que tu voulais. Maintenant, vous pouvez fouetter le troupeau de retour dans une frénésie martiaux, garder la longue guerre en cours, et de repousser la petite de la populace, mesquins désirs pour une vie paisible et prospère, à la maison, s'occuper de leurs propres affaires.
On ne sait jamais exactement ce qui se passe derrière les rideaux dans les palais impériaux Potomac, bien sûr; citoyens ordinaires américains ont été longtemps transformé en kremlinologues de leur propre gouvernement, en essayant de discerner - à travers des signes cérémoniels, des potins de coulisse, et de légères déviations dans la rhétorique ritualisé - tout ce que leurs maîtres sont vraiment à. Mais certains cyniques sombrement soupçonner que quelque chose de scénarios comme celui esquissé ci-dessus ont déjà été adoptées; par exemple, dans le «nouveau Pearl Harbor» qui a frappé l'Amérique le 11 Septembre, 2001 - un an après une canalisation de groupe les points de vue de l'avenir de l'administration Bush gros bonnets (y compris Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Scooter Libby et bien d'autres) avaient ouvertement languissait pour une " poire nouveau port »à« catalyser »le peuple américain dans leur agenda soutenir militariste, qui comprenait une invasion de l'Irak - que Saddam Hussein était au pouvoir ou non.
Mais en laissant de côté pour l'instant la question toujours épineuse de la divination, la proportion variant de connivence, d'acquiescement, prescience, l'exploitation, l'incompétence et le destin impliqués dans 9 / 11, on peut dire cela comme un fait établi: C'est la politique des Etats-Unis le gouvernement de provoquer les groupes extrémistes violents dans l'action. Une fois qu'ils sont en jeu, leurs réponses peuvent ensuite être utilisés quelle que soit la façon dont le gouvernement qui les a provoqué le juge opportun. Et nous savons aussi que ces provocations sont utilisés, comme une question de politique délibérée, de réveiller des groupes violents sur la «Af-Pak" front pour lancer des attaques terroristes.
En d'autres termes, tout comme j'ai d'abord écrit dans le Moscow Times plus de six ans (et suivi trois ans plus tard ), les États-Unis sont délibérément fomenté des attentats terroristes dans le but de poursuivre ses objectifs politiques et militaires.
[Pour en savoir plus sur la façon dont ces politiques et des utilisations similaires de terrorisme et d'escadrons de la mort ont été réalisés en Irak et ailleurs, voir « Un Seal'd Fournaise: escadrons de la mort merveilleuse de l'élite américaine »,« l'Ulster sur l'Euphrate: les Anglo- américaine sale guerre en Irak, »et« bourreaux volontaires: l'Amérique s'aggrave Atrocity Bipartisan en Somalie "].
Eagle-eyed Jason Ditz au Antiwar.com tire la connexion entre cette politique et la plus récente "asymétrique" grève par un "chatouiller" groupe terroriste au Pakistan: l'attaque meurtrière contre un centre de police à Lahore au Pakistan par le Tehreek-e Taliban ( TTP). Le groupe, dirigé par Baitullah Mehsud, a déclaré l'attaque était en représailles à la campagne américaine de frappes de drones dans les régions frontalières du Pakistan - ". Militants" grèves qui ont tué de nombreux civils ainsi que généralement non identifiés Comme le note Ditz, un but de la campagne - qui a été intensifiée par Barack Obama - est précisément ce qui précède fomenter des activités terroristes:
L'administration Obama a lancé un nombre toujours croissant d'attaques dans les FATA, généralement destiné à des installations de formation de Mehsud dans le Nord et le Sud-Waziristan. En Septembre, alors directeur de la CIA Michael Hayden a déclaré que les attaques étaient une tentative de «provoquer une réaction" des groupes de militants dirigés par Mehsud. Il semble que maintenant, six mois plus tard, ils ont finalement fait. [Hayden a décrit cette stratégie comme ensanglanté " chatouiller "terroristes dans une réponse.]
Qui plus est, Mehsud a juré de mener le combat de retour sur le sol américain. Comme le note Times, (via Antiwar.com):
"Bientôt, nous allons lancer une attaque à Washington qui va étonner tout le monde dans le monde", [Mehsud déclaré.] "Le maximum qu'ils peuvent faire est martyr, moi. Mais nous allons exacte notre revanche sur eux depuis l'intérieur de l'Amérique ».
Que ce soit ou non le chiffon-tag TTP pourrait effectivement mener à bien une telle menace est une autre affaire, comme des notes Juan Cole . Mais ce n'est pas vraiment le point. Le point est que, une fois encore, un groupe violent a été sciemment poussés à l'action meurtrière. Mieux encore, il s'est maintenant mis en place comme une «menace terroriste mortelle" à la patrie sacrée elle-même: encore une autre super-vilain fait sur commande de la coulée centrale.
Et étonnamment, cette nouvelle menace ouverte à semer la terreur dans l'Amérique profonde intervient quelques jours après Barack Obama a annoncé sa hausse vantée lors de la guerre Af-Pak , citant - quoi d'autre? - La nécessité de protéger les Etats-Unis contre les terroristes basés en Afghanistan et au Pakistan comme son principal motif pour l'escalade et l'expansion du conflit. Pourtant, une autre coïncidence étonnante pour justifier l'ordre du jour militariste, qui a besoin d'un approvisionnement constant de PR-plausibles méchants et hyped-up, la nation cliquetis des menaces comme un junkie a besoin claque. Et une fois encore, il nous reste à déchiffrer la proportion variant de connivence, l'acquiescement, l'exploitation, la chance, etc, impliqués dans ce jumelage heureux hasard des déclarations d'Obama et de Mehsud.
II.
Il est intéressant de regarder à nouveau les implications de cette politique de terrorisme chatouiller. Comme nous l'indiquions récemment, de telles choses ne sont pas seulement les compteurs sur le plateau de Grande: ce sont des réalités meurtrières qui tuent, mutilent et dépouiller des multitudes de gens innocents à travers le monde. Alors revenons aux premières lueurs de cette stratégie dans son contexte la Seconde Guerre Terreur. Ceci est de l'article de Moscow Times en Novembre 2001:Dans [un Los Angeles Times] article de l'analyste militaire William Arkin ... [vient] de la révélation du plan de Rumsfeld à créer un «super-intelligence Support Activity» qui «rassemblera CIA et militaire des actions secrètes, guerre de l'information, l'intelligence et la couverture et la tromperie "Selon un document classifié préparé pour Rumsfeld [Donald] par son Defense Science Board, la nouvelle organisation - le". proactive, préventive Groupe Opérations (P2OG) "- effectuera des missions secrètes visant à« stimuler des réactions "parmi les terroristes groupes, les provoquant à commettre des actes violents qui seraient alors les exposer à des "contre-attaquer" par les forces américaines.
En d'autres termes - et disons cela simplement, clairement et sobrement, de sorte que nul ne peut contester l'intention du plan de Rumsfeld - le gouvernement des Etats-Unis envisage d'utiliser "la couverture et la tromperie" et les opérations militaires secrètes pour provoquer meurtrières attaques terroristes innocents les gens. Répétons le encore: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush et les autres membres du régime non élu dans le plan de Washington pour fomenter volontairement la assassiner des personnes innocentes - votre famille, vos amis, vos amants, vous - afin de continuer à leurs ambitions géopolitiques.
Pour P2OG n'est pas conçu uniquement pour débusquer les terroristes et les traduire en justice - un objectif louable en soi, bien que la façon de combattre le terrorisme Rumsfeld en provoquant elle est pure folie ... Pas de morale, il semble que le Pee-deux ont de plus gros poissons à frire . Une fois qu'ils ont suscité des terroristes en action - en tuant les membres de leur famille? les attirant avec leur butin? les alimentant avec des médicaments? entre eux sillonnent la propagande du djihad? déconner avec leurs mamans? ou avec des agents provocateurs, peut-être, qui infiltrent des groupes, puis planifient et dirigent les attaques elles-mêmes? - Ils peuvent alors prendre des mesures contre les «Etats / acteurs sub-étatiques responsables" pour "héberger" le Donald Rumsfeld-réveillé les gangs. Quel genre de mesures exactement? Eh bien, le programme du Pentagone classé met de cette façon: "Leur souveraineté sera à risque».
Le Pee-deux sera donc venir dans maniable quand le régime soupire pour ajouter un peu d'huile chargées de l'immobilier ou une nouvelle base militaire au portefeuille florissant de l'Empire. Il suffit de trouver un nid de mécontents violents, remuez-les avec un bâton, et hop: instantanée "justification" de n'importe quel niveau d'intervention / conquête / rapines vous pourriez désirer.
Lorsque l'administration Obama parle de «continuité» dans la politique étrangère américaine, c'est une partie intégrante de ce dont ils parlent. Alors regardez pour voir beaucoup plus sur les TTP et le démon de jure, Baitullah Mehsud, comme la guerre bipartisane long grince encore et encore, avec son omniprésente nécessité de "catalyser" - et terrorisant - le peuple américain dans le soutien pour le projet militariste .
Article original à IslamOnline .
Comme leur armée poursuit son blitz de meurtrières dans la bande de Gaza bombardée, les agriculteurs israéliens font état d'un boycott à grande échelle de leurs produits par les pays arabes et européens sur l'offensive israélienne à Gaza.
«Nous exportons des kakis, et à cause des combats un certain nombre de pays et de distributeurs ont annulé les commandes», Giora Almagor, un producteur de fruits, a déclaré au Yediot Aharonot le vendredi 16 Janvier.
Il a déclaré que de nombreuses expéditions de fruits vers la Jordanie ont été annulés.
"Les produits emballés dans des entrepôts reste, et cela nous cause des pertes massives.
"Le plus le fruit attend dans le stockage après le tri, plus sa qualité diminue. Nous avons aussi à payer pour le refroidissement de la marchandise qui aurait déjà quitté, et le coût de considérable. "
Beaucoup de pays scandinaves ont également annulé les livraisons de fruits en provenance d'Israël au cours des attaques en cours à Gaza.
"C'est surtout la Suède, la Norvège et le Danemark", a déclaré Ilan Eshel, directeur de l'Organisation des Producteurs de Fruits d'Israël.
«En Scandinavie, la tendance est générale, et il peut venir d'inclure toutes les chaînes."
Un certain nombre d'entreprises britanniques ont également stoppé traite potentiels avec des entreprises israéliennes.
"Il ya eu deux ou trois petites compagnies de technologie de l'information qui a refusé les propositions des compagnies israéliennes pour faire des affaires», Gil Erez, l'Israélien attaché commercial en Grande-Bretagne, a déclaré jeudi.
Écrivains britanniques ont également publier des articles appelant à un boycott des produits israéliens au cours des attaques à Gaza.
En Turquie, l'union de coopératives turc a annoncé un embargo sur les achats de financement en provenance d'Israël.
Commerçants malais ont également mené une campagne de boycott des produits américains et israéliens.
It's Gaza
Israeli farmers blame the world boycott of the Israeli products on the deadly Israeli attacks in Gaza.
“Until the operation began we had excellent business,” said Almagor, the fruit grower.
At least 1,143 Palestinians, including 355 children, have been killed and 5,130 wounded in a three-week Israeli onslaught in Gaza.
A 14-year-old Palestinian boy was killed early Friday and several people were wounded in an Israeli air strike on the Shabura refugee camp in southern Gaza.
Israeli planes also attacked 40 targets across the densely-populated strip on Friday.
Israeli tanks withdrew from the Gaza City neighborhood of Tal Al-Hawa, where clashes leveled parts of the residential area and set a hospital ablaze.
At least 23 bodies were pulled from the rubble in Tal Al-Hawa and elsewhere.
Israeli farmers warn that more world countries will boycott Israeli products as long as Israeli attacks in Gaza continue.
“It's getting worse, and more voices can be heard calling to boycott Israeli merchandise,” said Almagor.
And the Palestine Chronicle reports that academics and artists are signing their opposition to Israel's genocidal invasion.
By UK Academics – London
The massacres in Gaza are the latest phase of a war that Israel has been waging against the people of Palestine for more than 60 years. The goal of this war has never changed: to use overwhelming military power to eradicate the Palestinians as a political force, one capable of resisting Israel's ongoing appropriation of their land and resources. Israel's war against the Palestinians has turned Gaza and the West Bank into a pair of gigantic political prisons. There is nothing symmetrical about this war in terms of principles, tactics or consequences. Israel is responsible for launching and intensifying it, and for ending the most recent lull in hostilities.
Israel must lose. It is not enough to call for another ceasefire, or more humanitarian assistance. It is not enough to urge the renewal of dialogue and to acknowledge the concerns and suffering of both sides. If we believe in the principle of democratic self-determination, if we affirm the right to resist military aggression and colonial occupation, then we are obliged to take sides… against Israel, and with the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
We must do what we can to stop Israel from winning its war. Israel must accept that its security depends on justice and peaceful coexistence with its neighbours, and not upon the criminal use of force.
We believe Israel should immediately and unconditionally end its assault on Gaza, end the occupation of the West Bank, and abandon all claims to possess or control territory beyond its 1967 borders. We call on the British government and the British people to take all feasible steps to oblige Israel to comply with these demands, starting with a programme of boycott, divestment and sanctions.
By Artists Around the World
We regard Israel's indiscriminate killing in Gaza as a crime against humanity. We protest against Israel's exterminating tactics and offer our wholehearted support to the people of Gaza.
In the Name of God; the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
Reprinted from Palestinian Chronicle.
Since the letter was sent, Venezuela has broken off diplomatic ties with Israel, as has Bolivia.
President Hugo Chavez,
Your Excellency, President Hugo Chavez,
We, the people of Palestine, commend your courage to speak and act upon your conscience regardless of your detractors' criticism or cowardice.
Mr. President, we have watched death rain upon our families and children in Gaza for weeks; and yet we stand proud and ready for any outcome. We are a resilient people who wish for peace but will fight rather than bow to injustice. We live and die by the codes of our forefathers – codes of honor, integrity, truth and bravery.
Throughout history, in a just conflict, there always emerges a champion, a single hero who, by his actions, embodies all the virtues the masses aspire to. You have demonstrated that you are such a man.
We have observed your commitment to the destitute and disenfranchised since you first took office. The Americas are fortunate that your presidency has not only survived but emerged as a paradigm to be emulated. You have boldly said what the world's masses feel – from speaking out against the sulphur of imperialism at the United Nations in 2006 through to the recent expulsion of the devil's minion.
Mr. President, we were eager to meet you in the summer of 2007; but unfortunately yet another blockade by the Israelis, who control our ports and borders, suspended our plans. As we began the truce which we initiated, they were already planning the destruction of our infrastructure.
The Israelis slowly and deliberately began reducing the presence of journalists and denying humanitarian groups access to Gaza over the past 6 months. They reduced the number of trucks bringing supplies from several thousand to a handful each month. And since they began their bombing campaign, food and fuel are scarce. In fact, only 9 of 47 bakeries produce bread, only 5% of industrial operations function and wastewater pumping stations have shut down, flooding raw sewage into populated areas, farmland and the sea.
We do not know who among us will remain alive once this barbaric onslaught is ended. But we remain, as a people and a government, undeterred in our belief that justice will reign.
We can ask no more of you than you have already done – for you have proven that a nation cannot be cowed simply because it drives its own destiny, nor will a leader lose his throne for challenging imperialism. We salute the citizens of Venezuela for choosing President Chavez; and we commend you for being among the few leaders of this age who put people before politics.
I may not live to honor our commitment to meet you; but our people will not rest until they have sent a delegation to meet the man who put politics aside, spoke with honor and acted with courage.
Very Truly Yours,
Dr. Ahmed YousefDeputy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs
Former Political Advisor to the Prime Minister Ismael Hanniya
By Juan Santos.
In loving memory of the late Mayan priestess Jo'b No'j Chomiha (Rosa Maria Cabrera)
It can no longer be hidden. What is happening in Gaza is, transparently, ethnic cleansing – genocide.
That genocide has been ongoing for sixty years, sometimes in intense, rapid, and explosive junctures, sometimes more slowly, routinely – but always, methodically.To see clearly the historical and cultural trajectories toward genocide in Palestine or elsewhere, one has only to map the intersection of stated intentions of the perpetrators and their actions over time – or experience a sudden revelation or flash of deep insight.
J'étais un de ceux qui l'ont vu à la fois. À seize ans, il m'a frappé avec une force indescriptible, qui exigerait un essai de son propre chef, je n'avais été en regardant un documentaire sur la télévision publique sur l'Holocauste nazi. Puis il m'a frappé: Qu'est-il arrivé dans l'Holocauste n'a pas été l'exception à la règle - il a été l'expression la plus profonde de la règle, c'était une expression concentrée de la façon dont les choses sont dans la vie quotidienne, dans le culte aveugle de la vie quotidienne. L'Holocauste ne pouvait pas venir de nulle part, ce n'était pas une aberration, elle est née à partir de certaines conditions, comme un bouton d'une peau grasse - et, comme la tache elle-même, la Shoah n'était qu'un symptôme de ce qu'il sous-tend - les conditions à partir de laquelle il est issu. Les épidémies de l'horreur génocidaire sous forme concentrée naissent des normes qui les sous-tendent. S'il n'y a aucune base pour une chose d'exister, elle ne peut pas venir à l'existence.
Qu'est-ce qui se passe aujourd'hui à Gaza n'est pas un accident, elle est une expression des logiques sous-jacentes, des attitudes sous-jacentes et les tout-imprégnant et de tonalités de sentiment dans la culture israélienne, les logiques, les attitudes et les sentiments qui reposent sur un ensemble de principes fondamentaux.
Le premier de ces locaux est partagée par toutes les civilisations et de l'empire sur la Terre au cours de la période historique de la dernière plusieurs milliers d'années: que les membres d'une culture donnée sont vulnérables, qu'il s'agisse de la vulnérabilité est d'ennemis humains ou les conditions de la nature, et que cette vulnérabilité se traduit à juste titre, dans un état d'esprit de tuer ou de mourir, tuer ou être tué, conquérir ou être conquis. Chaque culture empire a déterminé à être le tueur plutôt que celui qui meurt ou qui est tué, le conquérant, plutôt que les vaincus, et le souverain plutôt que les gouvernés. Chaque empire visages ce qu'il considère comme une menace existentielle (en effet, chaque incarne une mentalité que l'existence - la vie elle-même -. Est une menace)
Sans cette menace, l'empire ne peut pas justifier son existence. Presque tous les «progrès» est mesurée en termes de surmonter les menaces perçues. Il est important de comprendre, par exemple, que les Israéliens aujourd'hui, voir le génocide à Gaza comme «progrès». C'est pourquoi les sondages d'opinion montrent leur soutien écrasant pour elle. De même que les nazis avaient fait des "progrès" dans le traitement de la "Question juive", jusqu'à ce qu'ils atteignent le point où il semblait possible de progresser au point d'un remède à la «maladie juive" ils ont dit menacé le peuple allemand. Appelez cela la promesse d'une guérison définitive, une solution définitive, une étape final. Appelez cela la promesse d'une rédemption finale, une libération culturelle de la menace existentielle, la promesse de l'ultime «réussite». Il n'ya rien d'inhabituel en elle. Chaque aspect de notre vie quotidienne est imprégnée de telles promesses, et chacun d'eux est un mensonge. It is the job of politicians to make such promises, and that is why we tend to despise them, even though every one of us is looking forward to the “final solution” of something or another.
Every TV commercial is a walking, talking final solution, a new “miracle” cure, real progress.
Every time we buy an advertised commodity we aren't buying an object, we are buying an idea, a culture, a promise, a solution; whether the solution is to the “threat” of bad breath or the “threat” of “global terrorism.” As we make our purchase we are also buying into the basic notion that life is a threat and that civilization is its cure. For most Israelis, excluding a tiny conscious minority, the white phosphorous Israel is raining on the people of Gaza is not a burning poison – its medicine – it's a cure, a solution.
Mais écoutez - ne les blâme pas, vous êtes pas à l'abri, que ce soit, vous achetez dans le même mensonge, sous une forme ou une autre. "Ils" ne sont pas différents; vous n'êtes pas différent. Ils sont de la même culture que vous et moi; l'une des cultures Empire - dans ce cas, l'Occident. Dans l'Ouest, comme dans toutes les cultures Empire, «menaces» sont traitées par les éliminer. Ainsi, les nazis ont cherché à éliminer les Juifs, les Juifs en Israël aujourd'hui cherchent à éliminer les Palestiniens - ils l'appellent les Palestiniens "menace", de sorte que le nom même de «palestinien» est venu à représenter une menace dans la sous-textes émotionnels de l'Ouest la culture empire.
L'écrivain israélien Uri Avnery, l'écriture sur le génocide à Gaza , indique clairement:
«Chaque bébé métamorphosé, dans l'acte de mourir, dans un Hamas« terroriste ». Chaque mosquée bombardée devient instantanément une base du Hamas, chaque immeuble d'habitation une cache d'armes, chaque école un poste de commandement de terreur, chaque bâtiment du gouvernement civil un "symbole de la domination du Hamas." Ainsi l'armée israélienne a conservé sa pureté, comme «l'armée la plus morale du monde ... »
Et, si seulement Israël sourire comme ils tuent, envoyer un peu de médecins et de certains médicaments pour anesthésier la douleur, ils seraient à la fois «moral» et «gentil». Et personne ne pouvait s'opposer. Le massacre pourrait se poursuivre non dilué.
Tout comme Israël est en place pour éliminer les Palestiniens, vous, cow-boy, a demandé et cherchent toujours à éliminer les Indiens. «Sauvage» d'hier est aujourd'hui «terroriste» ... menace ...
Aux États-Unis, les Noirs sont une «menace», de sorte que leur suppression est demandée par d'autres moyens diluée, moyens qui ne ressemblent pas à un génocide - par l'incarcération de masse de millions sous le couvert de «lutte contre le crime» ou la «guerre au Drogues », ou la guerre contre les gangs," tout ce qui peut être faite moralement justifiable et obtenir l'appui des «gentils» les gens. Mais la réalité est que nous non dilué, les descendants d'Africains et d'Amérindiens, sont vos Gazaouis. Et votre perception de nous comme une menace opère dans votre culture de la même façon que la perception israélienne des Palestiniens. Vous avez volé notre terre, notre corps, tout comme Israël est construite sur des terres volées aux Palestiniens, mais seulement dans ce cas nous parlons grandeurs d'échelle beaucoup plus loin qu'une petite bande de terre sur la côte de la Méditerranée. Nous parlons deux continents dans cet hémisphère, et l'asservissement et la conquête de l'Afrique, et en Australie ainsi.
Ici, dans les Amériques, vos ancêtres ont tué 95% de mes ancêtres - David Stannard dans son séminal Holocauste américain , publié par Oxford University Press, estime le nombre à environ 100 millions de morts. Et vous pensiez que les 20 millions que les nazis ont tué était sans précédent. C'est ce qui vous a été enseigné, que les nazis étaient une exception de mal à «civilisé» règle.
Non, les nazis n'étaient pas une exception à la règle, pas plus que Israël est une exception à la règle. Ni les Européens dans les Amériques.
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, la conquête des Amériques, la conquête de l'Afrique, avec ses cinquante millions de morts, la Nakba (la conquête initiale de la Palestine), la guerre des Etats-Unis / Mexique de la conquête - elles sont toutes faites de la même dynamique: « Progrès "et de l'expansion, l'élimination de la« menace », et le besoin de cohérence interne de la culture contre la menace.
Your upbringing was little more than an indoctrination into that internal cultural coherence, and a way of aligning your life-purposes toward your culture's promise of the elimination of the threat. To be a “success” means that you have eliminated threats in a way that can be construed or falsified as “nice”. That's what you buy into with every product and lie you buy. You buy into genocide; you buy into ecocide. You buy into the elimination of life on Earth. Life itself, after all, is the most fundamental existential threat; life embraces its complement, death. Life is full of wild things, threatening things. The word “wild” in its origins, pertains to life which is unbroken, untamed, undomesticated, uncivilized. In its origins, “wild” means self-willed. Life itself is a threat that must be eliminated. That's the final logic of the final solution.
The “dark” “wilderness” is simply full of threats, you know. We were taught that, too. And if you are a white “American” it is manifestly your destiny to conquer the wild threat, to tame it, to break it- to eliminate it. If you are part of Nazi Germany, your purpose is not so different; if you're Israeli, Greater Israel is your manifest destiny; or South Africa; or Australia. Name your colonial settler state. It may shake you to look at Gaza as a mirror: but, regardless, you are part of the same genocidal and ecocidal pattern.
This is the most elementary of understandings necessary for an honest approach to and assessment of our current global crisis. It is the single most important factor in understanding white European culture and its dynamics in the Americas and as a global Empire. It is fundamental to any understanding of the basic cultural assumptions that guide our daily lives and understandings of one another. It is an understanding so important, it describes a reality so all pervasive, that without it one simply cannot be an ally to oppressed peoples – in Gaza or anywhere else.
Without this understanding one has understood nothing. One's “compassion” reduces to do-good-ism and elite rescue missions to the poor miserable brutes beneath one. Without this understanding one cannot be an integral part of the healing that we as humans, the Earth as a living being and the animals we love, so urgently need. Without this understanding one cannot conceive of the actual realities of the “old mind” vs. the “new mind.” Without this understanding one doesn't even know what the old mind is.
Thank the spirits that the denial that has shaped us is, as we speak, at last, beginning to shatter.
Without having immersed oneself in fundamental understanding of the culture driven realities of genocide and ecocide, one does not know where we are, the conditions we face, or the depths of denial that surround us about our current crisis. In fact, without this understanding having been deeply integrated into one's world view, one is by definition in denial. One is by definition part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Without this understanding one hasn'ta clue about the indigenous experience so many would like to emulate. Much less has one approached anything akin to indigenous American “wisdom” – or, for that matter, African experience and wisdom. If that is what you are looking for, then, here is some indigenous wisdom:
In the US today, Lakota men's life expectancy on the rez in the US doesn't just “happen” to be 44 years –the lowest on Earth. Lakota teen suicide rates don't just “happen” to be 150% of the norm in the US. The Lakota unemployment rate and the extremities of Lakota poverty don't just “happen” to be the case. Native Americans don't just happen to have the highest incarceration rate on planet Earth, higher, even, than that of African Americans. These conditions are all are a direct result of having been conquered and being kept in subjugated state by an enemy people who promised and intended to wipe Native Americans off the face of the Earth – just as the Nazis intended to wipe the Jews off the face of the Earth. The rez is white America's Warsaw ghetto (by the way, they don't call the Black ghetto a “ghetto” for nothing) and people of indigenous descent, be they Lakota or Mexican, are, along with Black people, the “Jews.” Better put – the Palestinians.
In fact Hitler openly admired the extermination of the Indians, and the reservation system, and consciously took them as models. The South African Bantustans and the system of Apartheid had a similar origin, as does the division and colonial settlement of Palestine. Gaza is a temporary Indian reservation, “Indian Territory” only waiting to be taken, an open air concentration camp. Here and there, it's the same.
Where did you think you were?Palestine is everywhere.
If one hasn't faced the historical, ongoing reality of genocide and of the US as a white colonial settler state and global empire immersed in, permeated by, and oozing genocide from every pore, then one doesn't grasp the pain of oppressed peoples, its daily meaning, or the context of the daily experience of oppressed people here in the US or anywhere else on the planet. One cannot but react – be a reactionary (and I use the term advisedly, deliberately and consciously) when encountering the pain of oppressed people. One cannot understand the anger engendered by utter invisibility felt by those who face the realities of cultural and physical genocide everyday and when who, most often, face it alone, with no recognition from their supposed white “allies.” One will fail to see that what is happening in Gaza has a particular meaning for those who are living through it and dying in it. The drama of the mass slaughter of an innocent people there is only a concentrated expression of the blind cult of oppression that constitutes their every day lives, of the cult of everyday life.Without conscious understanding of the dynamics of genocide, one can only blame the victim for their pain and anger, and fail to understand that one's own blindness to the most elementary and basic of realities of everyday life presents a locked box to the oppressed – the same locked box oppressed people confront with their active persecutors and overt enemies – the locked box of denial.
Most of all, without such a conscious understanding one cannot see the reality facing the world today, the utter congruity and continuity between genocide and ecocide, and the ways that the denial and operation of one mirrors the denial and operation of the other, or the ways in which the daily details of a killing culture flow into the stream, the river and the sea of planetary death.Without understanding genocide, one doesn't understand anything essential -much less is one among the ranks of the “wise.” Without having faced the fundamental reality that shapes one's culture and its daily interactions with other cultures, one cannot fully approach “wisdom” or humility or self-reflection, or even understand in a mature way what is happening around and in oneself.
What's happening is that a choice is being made between life and death on a global scale. The choice before is also an individual one to be made in the context of one's own, particular culture. But the choice is not between killing or bring killed, killing or dying; it's between killing and living. And like the choices of the ancient peoples who chose Empire, the choices we make now will affect life at every level and on every scale. It will be Killing or Living…
Life on Earth isn't “dying.” The furry ones, the four footed ones, aren't “dying.” They're being killed by a culture that is their conscious and self-declared enemy.
Here, in the midst of the greatest mass extinction in 65 million years, all that is “wild” doesn't just “happen” to be dying, any more than Gazans “happen” to be dying. The Wild happens to be being killed by a culture that has openly and confessedly intended to eradicate, eliminate the wild, to conquer, tame, subjugate and destroy it all – a culture that is the active enemy of all life – certainly of all self-willed – wild life.
It is a culture that uses dynamite to blow up wolf cubs in the den as if they were so many Palestinian children; and that, death squad style, Israel-in-Gaza style, then uses helicopters to hunt their parents down from the sky.
Si la vie est en danger, si «en danger» d'espèces sont un symbole de cela, alors c'est ce qu'ils sont "en danger" par - tueurs conscient. Ils ne sont pas mis en danger par accident, non pas par «sens bien", mais des gens ignorants, mais par des tueurs - une culture de tueurs - même si, par hasard, il pourrait être dit à juste titre que les tueurs ne comprennent pas, et n'osent pas faire face en tant tel. (La raison peuple opprimé trouver un soulagement à traiter ouvertement racistes, c'est que c'est un soulagement pour le visage de quelqu'un qui sait ce qu'ils sont. La plupart des gens de classe moyenne blanche aux États-Unis ne font pas face à la nature de leur culture. Ils ont le sentiment qu'ils ne peut pas se permettre d'y faire face.
Pour ce faire serait de briser la loi du silence qu'on appelle être «gentil». Et être «gentil» est ce que cela signifie à sourire comme vous tuer. On doit tuer. Il ya une menace. Mais on ne peut que continuer à tuer se prétendant que ce que vous faites autre chose. Assassiner de masse est «la défense de la démocratie»; Conquest est «répandre la Parole de Dieu et de sauver les âmes." Comme je l'ai été informé par un ami cher, un radical lesbiennes féministes blanches, étant "gentil" fonctions quelque chose comme une anesthésie. Maintenant, cela ne fait pas de mal, n'est ce pas?)
Il ya des couches superposées de directives erronées, l'obfuscation, double sens, un double langage, demi-vérités et manipulations qui permettent de tuer, et qui forment le contexte culturel dans lequel le meurtre peut aller sans reconnaissance ou un sentiment.
Sagesse, dans ce contexte, signifie, en partie, être sage sur la façon de composer avec une culture de tueurs. "Sagesse" ne peuvent être dissociées du contexte, pas plus qu'elle ne peut être dissociée de la culture, ou de l'expérience dans une culture donnée, ou comment nous naviguons - médiation - entre les cultures.
Sans une compréhension profonde de la dynamique du génocide, on n'a même pas commencer à obtenir cette culture, et on est tout à fait inapte à servir de médiateur entre les cultures de l'oppresseur et l'opprimé, et encore moins est l'un ajustement afin de guider la création ou la fondation de ce qui est le plus urgent - une nouvelle culture et une authentique "nouveau" l'esprit - qui, en pratique, peut être que le résultat et le produit d'une culture nouvelle qui se met en place que celui-ci s'effondre et que nous avons consciemment démanteler la conscience qui a conduit elle. Un «nouvel esprit» sera le signe de la nouvelle culture à venir à maturité au cours des générations à venir.
Au-delà, sans une solide compréhension de la réalité du génocide, et donc l'écocide, on ne peut pas aimer le monde - non pas avec compétence, et non pas si l'amour est la capacité et la volonté de se prolonger pour la croissance spirituelle des autres. On ne peut pas prolonger soi-même pour guider les autres dans un terrain ne comprennent pas - non sans les trahir. Non, si l'amour, comme «sagesse», est un verbe; une capacité dans un contexte.
Et voici notre contexte comme le monde et de la Terre autour de nous sont sur le bord de la désintégration: c'est le contexte de l'agonie d'un système de mort; l'orgasme d'un nécrophile.
Une capacité de maturité de l'amour, dans ce contexte, est caractérisée par quatre activités: 1. Guider les autres pour voir ce qu'ils font partie d';
2. En les guidant à rejeter ce qui doit être rejetée;
3. Les aider à apprendre qu'ils sont sûrs alors qu'ils re-émerger et déprogrammer eux-mêmes de la matrice culturelle de la «menace» et «solution», et;
4. Aider à restaurer ou à jeter les bases d'une culture qui est totalement différent, tout en économisant de ce que nous pouvons, dans les limites de nos capacités, de la vie sur cette Earth.These cinq choses seront, par nécessité, faire partie d'une nouvelle mythologie. Ils sont, fondamentalement, tasks.They religieuses deviendra et doit devenir une fondation pour la compréhension d'une culture de la vie, et ils doivent être encodés dans la nouvelle culture qui naît de la mort de celui-ci.
Une nouvelle culture doit savoir d'où il vient, où il va, où il refuse d'aller, où il est sur le chemin et dans son stade de développement, et pourquoi. Sinon, il pourrait facilement répéter et reproduire les aspects les plus dévastateurs de la culture de mort qui est en train de s'effondrer autour de nous.
If we don't know where we are, and where we come from, we cannot know where we need to go, why we need to go there, and we can provide no means for others to gauge where they are in the stages of development from the old to the new. In other words, lacking such knowledge, we are useless to the future as any kind of leaders or guides; rather, we represent a dead end and a failure of understanding.
It is, by the same token, very dangerous to assume that one “knows” what the “new mind” is or will be. That is in part because what we (both as a species and as specific cultural groupings) do now and in the future will become part of the myth/ story that shapes the new mind and the culture that it arises from. Since we don't know what we are going to do, at best, some of us who intend to help lay the foundations for a new culture can only live as if our story might come to embody worthwhile lessons for the coming generations, if there are to be any. But we cannot predict the outcomes or the meanings of the stories and myths they will comprise.
In the same way, the Hopi who lived through the experiences later embodied in their Emergence Stories could not know the outcome before it unfolded. As they moved thru the passageway – following the destruction of the Third world into the Fourth World, they did not know they would be followed by a “witch” who would corrupt the new world, or other key elements of the story that would give full shape to their culture as it deepened and evolved.
It is such stories that deeply shaped the traditional Hopi world experience or “mind,” and our story, as it will be told by our children's children's children, based on how we have actually lived it, will shape the “new mind” of the coming generations. This will happen in the same way that those who lived long ago, who lived and shaped the story of the “existential threat” and the “final solutions” of Empire, shaped our culture and our minds.
So, yes, Gaza is our mirror, it is the shattering mirror of a shattering world system of Empire and domination; it is the magic mirror into which we can look to see the truth of our cultural situation and the forces that drive our psyches, the painful mirror that can lead us to grief and transformation, in which we can see what is revealed, and what, and who, must change, and how. What is happening in Gaza is a Revelation. That is why we cannot tear our eyes – or our hearts – away.
And as we watch the drama, the tragedy of Empire, oppression, genocide and ecocide unfold before us in Gaza, we will no doubt find occasion to feel both deep grief and rage.
Grief over, and rage at genocide is completely justified. But it is important- central – to remember that the worst thing oppression does to us is make us someone we're not, to rob us of choice, to reduce us to being reactive, limiting our ability to feel and think clearly and with compassion about ourselves and others.
It forces us into the mindset wherein what “threatens” us determines our being, and our existence becomes little more than a reaction to that “threat.” Then the Empire mentality has “got” us. To the extent that the oppression reduces and limits our abilities to make conscious choices, we have become the victims of genocide within ourselves, we have become less than the promise of our full humanity; we are robbed of our birthright. The ultimate freedom is the freedom to choose from the deepest place of authenticity within us – from our hearts in right relation with all life. We must learn to live and act from love of our peoples, of the land and all life, and not from mere hatred of those who have foolishly made of themselves our enemies.
This freedom – the freedom to love, foster and nurture life, can never truly or entirely be stripped from us, as the indigenous ancestors and elders – all of those who have handed down the still living traditions from before the time of Empire – have shown us with their lives.
The spiritual elders and guides of the Maya of Guatemala are a recent and deep example of this. The Maya are just recovering from a genocide that took the lives of a quarter million of their people in the latter part of the 1900s; but, even though the denial had not yet shattered, even though the world was silent about their condition then, in that time just before the internet, they kept faith with their ancient traditions, knowledge, and prophecies, and emerged as a people who hold a deep spiritual light for a world in crisis. They re-emerged, as if according to schedule, for this time.
Let us live, to the best of our capacities, like them.
By Naomi Klein, at the Nation.
Il est temps. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.
In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on “people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.” The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions–BDS for short –was born.
Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause, and talk of cease-fires is doing little to slow the momentum. Support is even emerging among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors stationed in Israel. It calls for “the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions” and draws a clear parallel with the anti apartheid struggle. “The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves…. This international backing must stop.”
Yet many still can't go there. The reasons are complex, emotional and understandable. And they simply aren't good enough. Economic sanctions are the most effective tools in the nonviolent arsenal. Surrendering them verges on active complicity. Here are the top four objections to the BDS strategy, followed by counterarguments.
1. Punitive measures will alienate rather than persuade Israelis. The world has tried what used to be called “constructive engagement.” It has failed utterly. Since 2006 Israel has been steadily escalating its criminality: expanding settlements, launching an outrageous war against Lebanon and imposing collective punishment on Gaza through the brutal blockade. Despite this escalation, Israel has not faced punitive measures–quite the opposite. The weapons and $3 billion in annual aid that the US sends to Israel is only the beginning. Throughout this key period, Israel has enjoyed a dramatic improvement in its diplomatic, cultural and trade relations with a variety of other allies. For instance, in 2007 Israel became the first non-Latin American country to sign a free-trade deal with Mercosur. In the first nine months of 2008, Israeli exports to Canada went up 45 percent. A new trade deal with the European Union is set to double Israel's exports of processed food. And on December 8, European ministers “upgraded” the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a reward long sought by Jerusalem.
It is in this context that Israeli leaders started their latest war: confident they would face no meaningful costs. It is remarkable that over seven days of wartime trading, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's flagship index actually went up 10.7 percent. When carrots don't work, sticks are needed.
2. Israel is not South Africa. Of course it isn't. The relevance of the South African model is that it proves that BDS tactics can be effective when weaker measures (protests, petitions, back-room lobbying) have failed. And there are indeed deeply distressing echoes: the color-coded IDs and travel permits, the bulldozed homes and forced displacement, the settler-only roads. Ronnie Kasrils, a prominent South African politician, said that the architecture of segregation that he saw in the West Bank and Gaza in 2007 was “ infinitely worse than apartheid .”
3. Why single out Israel when the United States, Britain and other Western countries do the same things in Iraq and Afghanistan? Boycott is not a dogma; it is a tactic. The reason the BDS strategy should be tried against Israel is practical: in a country so small and trade-dependent, it could actually work.
4. Boycotts sever communication; we need more dialogue, not less. This one I'll answer with a personal story. For eight years, my books have been published in Israel by a commercial house called Babel. But when I published The Shock Doctrine, I wanted to respect the boycott. On the advice of BDS activists, I contacted a small publisher called Andalus . Andalus is an activist press, deeply involved in the anti-occupation movement and the only Israeli publisher devoted exclusively to translating Arabic writing into Hebrew. We drafted a contract that guarantees that all proceeds go to Andalus's work, and none to me. In other words, I am boycotting the Israeli economy but not Israelis.
Coming up with this plan required dozens of phone calls, e-mails and instant messages, stretching from Tel Aviv to Ramallah to Paris to Toronto to Gaza City. My point is this: as soon as you start implementing a boycott strategy, dialogue increases dramatically. And why wouldn't it? Building a movement requires endless communicating, as many in the antiapartheid struggle well recall. The argument that supporting boycotts will cut us off from one another is particularly specious given the array of cheap information technologies at our fingertips. We are drowning in ways to rant at one another across national boundaries. No boycott can stop us.
Just about now, many a proud Zionist is gearing up for major point-scoring: don't I know that many of those very high-tech toys come from Israeli research parks, world leaders in infotech? True enough, but not all of them. Several days into Israel's Gaza assault, Richard Ramsey, the managing director of a British telecom company, sent an e-mail to the Israeli tech firm MobileMax. “As a result of the Israeli government action in the last few days we will no longer be in a position to consider doing business with yourself or any other Israeli company.”
When contacted by The Nation, Ramsey said his decision wasn't political. “We can't afford to lose any of our clients, so it was purely commercially defensive.”
It was this kind of cold business calculation that led many companies to pull out of South Africa two decades ago. And it's precisely the kind of calculation that is our most realistic hope of bringing justice, so long denied, to Palestine.
By Sam Bahour – The West Bank, Palestinian Chronicle.
I watch in shock, like the rest of the world, at the appalling death and destruction being wrought on Gaza by Israel; and still it does not stop. Meanwhile, we see a seemingly never-ending army of well-prepared Israeli war propagandists, some Israeli government officials, and many other people self-enlisted for the purpose, explaining to the world the justifications for pulverizing the Gaza Strip, with its 1.5 million inhabitants. Curious about how Israel, or any society for that matter, could justify a crime of such magnitude against humanity, I turned to my Jewish Israeli friends today to hear their take on things. One after another, the theme was the same. The vast majority of Jewish Israelis has apparently bought into the state-sponsored line that Israel was under attack and had no other option available to stop Hamas' rockets. More frightening is the revelation that many Israelis – including one person who self-identifies as a former “peace activist” – are speaking of accepting the killing of 100,000 or more Palestinians, if need be.
I have a problem with this logic.
I am a Palestinian American based in Al-Bireh, the sister city of Ramallah in the West Bank. I can see how an observer from abroad could be blind to the facts, given the blitz of Gaza war propaganda orchestrated by the Israeli military. But I know better. Like all other Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, I am not an observer from abroad. We live every day under the bitter burden of Israeli military occupation and we know that this question, presented as rhetorical – did we really have an option? – has a rational answer. Allow me, from my vantage point as an economic development professional, to touch on some of the other options that could have been chosen. Moreover, many of them will be forced on Israel anyway, sooner or later, whether after the next “war” or in the coming days under the ceasefire agreement and the Egyptian-sponsored implementation mechanism being discussed as I write this. Meaning: all this death and destruction could have been easily avoided.
Dear Israeli citizen, short of ending the occupation, you could have:
1. Opted to agree on how to disagree: There are two bodies of law that deal with international relations in this world, International Law and the Law of the Jungle. Until today, your government – and maybe you – refuse to accept the global consensus that the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are all militarily occupied territory. The occupying power is Israel – as attested in dozens of United Nations resolutions over the past four decades. By ignoring this fact that Israel is an occupying power, thus removing (unsuccessfully, of course) any internationally recognized baseline for the conflict, you have created an environment that can only be described as the “Law of the Jungle,” where might is right and where, as we see in Gaza now, anything goes. You could have accepted international humanitarian law, as stipulated in the Fourth Geneva Conventions regulating occupations, and avoided many of the seemingly impossible positions you find yourself in today: from the albatross of the settlement enterprise to the reality of missile attacks from the Gaza Strip.
2. Opted to allow for an international presence in the occupied territory: For over 30 years – yes, 30 years! – the Palestinians have begged the international community to create and maintain a serious presence in the occupied territory, something to stand between us and protect the civilians on both sides. Israel repeatedly refused to consider this. Instead your government chose to deal with the Palestinian territory as if it was its own, always behaving in line with its meta-objective: getting a maximum of Palestinian geography with a minimum of Palestinian demography. You could have avoided dealing directly with the natural reaction of any occupied people to resist their occupation, by allowing international players to get involved and serve as a sort of referee between you and those you are occupying militarily.
3. Opted to accept lawful non-violent resistance to your occupation: For over 40 years, Palestinians have tried everything to remove the Israeli boot of occupation from our necks (all documented, for anyone interested enough to do the research): tax revolts, general strikes, civil disobedience, economic development, elections, and on and on. Your response every time was to rely on violence, on control; your message was that you respect nothing other than your own desires. Your children on the front line in Gaza may be too young to recall, but you might remind them, so that they will at least be informed as they march ahead to your drummers: Let them know you deported duly elected mayors back in the 1980s; let them know that you closed down entire Palestinian universities for years on end; let them know that you have imprisoned over 650,000 Palestinians since your occupation began, creating a virtual prison university for the resistance movement and stunning any possibility for a new leadership to arise; let them know that even after Oslo you prohibit, to this day, Palestinians from building fully independent utilities – not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank as well. You could have tried a little harder to understand that people under occupation do not throw flowers and rice at their occupiers and resolve to surrender to a slow death.
4. Opted to accept the results of Palestinian democracy: For Palestinians, and believe it or not Israelis too, the best thing that happened in the recent past was when Hamas was chosen in peaceful elections to take over the governance of Palestine. Prior to those elections, where was Hamas? They were in their underground bunkers carrying out atrocities that were disrupting your daily agenda – and mine – with absolutely no accountability whatsoever. When they accepted the Oslo process and ran for office and were duly elected, they stopped, for all intent and purpose, attacking inside Israel (by which I mean, inside the Green Line). Your citizens become significantly safer! Your government (and the US) responded by refusing to accept the results of our elections and imposed sanctions on the elected Palestinian government. This was long before any violent infighting took place in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah. How did the Palestinians react to your intransigence? They pressed Hamas to replace its Hamas-only government with a unity government that had all the significant Palestinian political factions represented. You were thus presented with an accountable body that encompassed all Palestinian political flavors. Your government again responded by refusing to accept the results of our elections and continued with sanctions against the Palestinian government, repeating over and over the mantra that “there is no partner.” Beyond that, the Israeli government intensified its campaign of assassinating and arresting Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and introduced a whole new range of draconian punitive measures against the Palestinian public at large. Like what, you ask? Well, one such measure was that your government began blocking foreign nationals – people like me – from entering or doing business in the occupied territory, thus hindering any real chance to create a new, forward-looking reality. You could have accepted Palestinian democracy instead of propping up your own version of a failed Palestinian leadership.
5. Opted not to interfere in Palestinian internal politics: When Hamas violently struck at Fatah in Gaza – for reasons that have been well documented elsewhere – your government chose to punish all 1.5 million Palestinians by installing a hermetic seal on Gaza and allowing only a trickle of normal traffic to go in or out, meeting only a small fraction of Gaza's needs. Lest you suspect me of indulging in empty clichés, I shall explain. International agencies have estimated that Gaza's daily basic needs amount to 450 truckloads a day. For 18 months prior to your aggression on Gaza, your government allowed 70 truckloads a day on average. Yes, seventy! And these were allowed to enter only when the border crossings that you control were open, which was only 30% of the time. You could have chosen not to use food, medicine, education, cement, water, electricity, and so forth, as tools of repression. If you saw yourselves accurately as the occupying power you are, you could have kept in place a lawful security regime on the borders without creating a humanitarian disaster which led to irrational acts (such as missiles being lobbed over the border) by those you tried to starve into submission. You could have made a firm distinction between your political desires and your humanitarian obligations as an occupying power.
This list could go on and on.
The fact of the matter is that you had a long list of options open to you! So many, indeed, that it boggles the mind that your government has apparently been able to blind you to all of them…so that today, as the bombs shriek over Gaza, you can say, and evidently sincerely mean it: We had no other option.
Nevertheless, even with all these options effectively invisible to you, there is nothing on this earth – not law, not politics, not even a desperate and lengthy campaign of rockets creating widespread fear and even some civilian deaths on your side of the border – there is nothing that can justify, by Israel or any other country on this earth, the decision to opt for a crime against humanity as your chosen response. Rien!
You accepted your government's path to separate unilaterally from occupied Palestinians; you accepted an illegal barrier to be built on confiscated Palestinian lands; you accepted a unilateral disengagement that simply redeployed your occupation from the heart of Gaza to its perimeter, on land and sea and in the air, rather than actually removing it; you accepted the continuing expansion of your settlements and their systematic harassment of their Palestinian neighbors while talking peace; you accepted, and sadly continue to accept, a consensual blindness to the fact that the majority of Palestinians live as refugees, far from your occupation (practically, not geographically), and feel much more rage than you have lately been creating in the Gaza Strip. I urge you to stop acquiescing in this policy of managed unreality. I urge you to open your eyes and wake up. If not for our sake, then for your own.
You may not see us over the Separation Wall you built; you may not see us from the cockpits of your F-16s or from the inside of your tanks; you may not see us from the command and control center in the heart of Tel Aviv as you direct your pilots to launch their ton of munitions over our heads. Still, I can assure you of one thing. Until you wake up and demand that your leaders choose a different path, a path toward a life as equals and neighbors instead of trampler – on and trampled-on, you and your warrior sons and daughters will continue to see us – all of us, living and dead – in your nightmares, where we will continue to demand peace with justice.
After almost two weeks of impotence, during which an estimated 790 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, including 230 children, a further 1080 children among the 3300 injured, the UN Security Council passed — with US abstention — a weak and indeterminate resolution that has failed to force the State of Israel to halt its criminal onslaught on the occupied people of Gaza, encircled and unable to avoid being massacred.
Today, the security cabinet of the Israeli government, proving again its contempt for its obligations as a member state of the UN, rejected this resolution in no uncertain terms, saying that the State of Israel has never agreed that “any outside body” would determine its military policy, deeming the resolution “not practical” — this a resolution that was even biased towards it, failing to mention Hamas, the elected government in Palestine. In other words, the slaughter will continue whether the Security Council demands that it end or not.
Israeli impunity, UNSC complicity
This outcome is proof that Israel acts with systematic impunity. It is also proof, as recognized by President of the UN General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto-Brockmann, that the Security Council is “dysfunctional”, excusing by omission massive and grave human rights abuses when perpetrated by one of its permanent members or their allies.
In doing so, and in the face of overwhelming evidence — much televised — of Israel war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, amounting to substantive evidence of the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people, the Security Council has effectively shown that it cannot — or is not willing to — maintain international peace and security and satisfy the Palestinian people's national right to live peacefully, free on its land.
Uniting for peace resolution
The world need not endure this horror. A mechanism exists that can take the protection of international peace and security, and the Palestinian people, out of the hands of the Security Council and give it to the world community as a whole, represented by the General Assembly.[1] General Assembly President d'Escoto-Brockmann supports this mechanism and Malaysia already fulfilled the procedural obligation that one UN member state proposes it.
Hours before the Security Council voted on a resolution made so weak and bereft of mechanisms of enforcement that Israel could dismiss it, a General Assembly emergency session was due to be held. There is evidence that this prospect alone forced the Security Council to act, largely to block invocation of Resolution 377. Given the result, and given Israel's rejection of Security Council authority, it is urgent that this session convenes and imposes upon Israel an immediate ceasefire, according to the overwhelming will of the international community and people everywhere, or face international ostracism.
Israel fears Resolution 377
According to UN General Assembly Resolution 377, emergency special sessions of the General Assembly are warranted to act when the Security Council “fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.”[2] The government of Israel itself has ensured the failure of the Security Council to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.
That Israel's violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Gaza are so flagrant, and that Israel rejects the authority of the Security Council prime facie, suggests as the only route possible — a last resort for the Palestinian people in Gaza — the convening of an emergency session of the General Assembly where no veto could be invoked, to impose on Israel an immediate ceasefire backed by credible collective measures.
Urgent call for action
As stated by the Palestinian human rights community in their 30 December call to invoke Resolution 377[3]: “The civilian population of the occupied Gaza Strip will inevitably continue to suffer heavy losses without the external intervention of the international community.”
In renewing the call to invoke Resolution 377, we support Special Rapporteur Richard Falk's demand on “all Member States, as well as officials and every relevant organ of the United Nations system, to move on an emergency basis not only to condemn Israel's serious violations, but to develop new approaches to providing real protection for the Palestinian people.”
Only the General Assembly can impose, where the Security Council fails, an immediate ceasefire on Israel.
We call upon human rights groups, lawyers and legal organizations, trade unions, intellectuals, the anti-war movement and all people of conscience to support President d'Escoto-Brockmann, demand that an emergency session of the General Assembly be convened under authority of Resolution 377, and to participate in the growing international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel.
We call upon the UN human rights system to authorize an effective investigation of Israel's war crimes and crimes against humanity, including its wilful killings, use of internationally prohibited weapons, destruction of civilian infrastructure, targeting of schools, higher education institutions, mosques and civilian shelters, and even international humanitarian aid workers. The UN Human Rights Council has an obligation to investigate these elements of genocide and in doing so contribute to ending it.
As a signal to Israel, we call upon all states to cut diplomatic relations with Israel forthwith and for the High Contracting Parties of the Geneva Conventions to hold an immediate conference to re-establish respect for international humanitarian law. On the basis of its past and present impunity, Israel should be expelled from the United Nations.
All should demand an immediate Israeli ceasefire, the immediate withdrawal of all belligerent Israeli military forces, and the end of the blockade. Upon realization, collective measures should be taken at all levels to end Israel's occupation of Palestine and to oblige Israeli society to respect the equality of human rights. Until the occupation of Palestine ends, we underline the legal and guaranteed right of the Palestinian people to resist Israeli aggression by all means.
The BRussells Tribunal Committee
9 Janvier 2009
Please sign and circulate this statement widely.
For individual and organizational endorsements: info@brusselstribunal.org
By Brenda Norrell, Censored News
American Indian activist Russell Means said President-elect Obama was selected by the colonial powers as president to improve the US image globally in the aftermath of George Bush. Further, Means said Obama's appointments show that he is a Zionist controlled by Israel. Speaking on Red Town Radio today, Means said what is happening now to Palestinians is what happened to American Indians.
“Every policy the Palestinians are now enduring was practiced on the American Indian,” Means said on the Blog Talk Radio show, hosted by Brenda Golden, Muskoke Creek. “What the American Indian Movement says is that the American Indians are the Palestinians of the United States, and the Palestinians are the American Indians of the Middle East,” Means said. Further, he points out that the Zionists who control Israel now control the United States. “The power of the US in world politics diminishes every day.”
“Now they have found a house servant by the name of Obama.” Means said Obama was selected as a “man in charge to take the heat,” because of the “bad cop” image that Bush put forth in the world. “Now, all of a sudden, it is, 'We're so great. We elected a black man to be president.'”
Means added that Obama is a black man who was raised by his white grandmother and has appointed Zionists to key positions and that the US is headed for a new era of menial jobs. On Indian lands, Means reminds us, the only people who get ahead are those who sell out to the colonial system. Now, there is massive and sophisticated propaganda by the Zionists and the US Both countries, he said, are liars. In the US, American Indians have been shut out of history, philosophy and the arts, in a “total blackout.” The United States does not want to be reminded of the smallpox blankets, theft, colonialism and mistreatment of the American Indian, he said.
Means said most Americans do not realize that the financial collapse of this country is only beginning: “Americans cannot continue the lifestyles of consumers when there is no production. Low income jobs and menial jobs are the only ones left.” “Health care in the US reveals how the policies used in experimentations on American Indians became US policies. The US health care system is now stringent and calloused, with constant refusals of treatment. This has always been the case with the Indian Health Service. Now it is the policy of the HMOs. Family ranchers and family farmers are now in the way of progress, the same way the American Indian was once viewed. Now, family farmers and family ranchers are being gutted, because they function on massive credit. They are trying to pay back debts, which is not possible with manipulated agriculture prices. The family farmer and family rancher are now going to be extinct.”
Means points out that the federal government has also taken over and polluted the educational system; “Americans don't even know their own history. Along with this federal control, came the passage of English-only laws in many states. However, for Indigenous Peoples it is positive to know many languages. If you speak two languages, you are speaking with two brains. That is the way it is to us. That's how we look at life. In the mid-Twentieth Century, US schools listened to the communities and local governing boards.”
“However, now the US educational policy has taken away local control and mandated federal guidelines. So now education has become a matter of money. Meanwhile, the real history is silenced. While the United States attempts to portray itself as a peace loving nation, the fact is the United States is at war every year. The United States breaks a host of international laws every year, which has been the pattern since 1946. American Indians were aware of what the US was doing, because the US had already broken all treaties with American Indians; treaties guaranteed by the US Constitution,” he said.
About the American revolution to throw off the British, Means pointed out how “his-story” has been manipulated; “There is a great deal of propaganda about why the US broke away from England. But the fact is that George Washington, the largest landowner, along with the slave owners, broke with England so that the original treaties of England with American Indians in the west would not have to be honored. The US broke with England, to invade the west and take the land. "
The US was created to break international laws,” Means said, adding that it is obvious today that this is the pattern of the US Means said the United States was initiated as an outlaw and renegade nation and that “today, its imperial policies mean that Israel is a surrogate of the US, receiving aid from the US With the combined US and international aid, Israeli receives $12 billion a year for its “military and the settlers in the West Bank.”
Means said 80 percent of the people in the West Bank are paid to stay there. “It is America who pays them to stay there. But even in Israel, where there is a free press and not everyone agrees with Israel waging war on Palestine. He said 20 to 30 percent of the people in Israel are against the war on Palestine. Like the United States, Israel has been at war every year of its existence.”
Means often refers to Israel as the 51st state, of warmongers and imperialists. “America and Israel are based on lies, resulting in the massive deaths in Iraq. Now, the US and Israel are focused on Iran because its oil reserves.” Means said Indian lands have become “open air concentration camps.” “If you chose to stay on the reservation, you are guaranteed to be poor, unless you are part of the colonial apparatus set up by the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” he said.“On Indian lands, everyone fights to be part of the tribal governments because that is where the money is. Everyone fights to be part of the colonial system. The only way you can be part of the colonial system is to obey. Those returning home to Indian lands cannot 'rock the boat,' demand their treaty rights or their rights guaranteed by the US Constitution.”
Means said the American Indian Movement made people aware that the US Constitution was based upon that of the Iroquois Six Nations. “However, the US Constitution only includes one-third of the Great Law of Peace. If all of the Great Law of Peace had been adopted, this country would be much different and much wealthier.” However, it was turned into a country of consumers. He said what you get with a country of consumers is greed. “What is going on in Palestine is going on in America. The United States is taking away the homes of the people.” Now in the United States, there is “communism from the left” and “right-wing socialism.” He said the problem with socialism is that it is bereft of consensus and spirituality.
Means, now 70, said he has experienced the US when it reached its zenith in the world in the 1950s, “At that time, America was a productive country. In the years that followed, the ruling elite sold out the unions, as the labor movement was razor thin close to taking over politics in America. The most watershed event was Brown vs. Board of Education, the US Supreme Court ruling which desegregated schools. The white male started losing his power. Then, in the social revolution that followed, white males lost control of their women and their women's vote, and lost control of the work place. While civil rights was the chosen remedy of most social movements, American Indians remained dedicated to 'sovereign rights,' individual sovereign rights. We are the only ones that held on to the sovereign concept, he said. The other social movements were saying, “Please Mr. White Male let me be equal to you.”
Means said things will be different now, “ Our grandmother the Mother Earth is tired of the human race. She is going to eliminate it and I champion her, Mother earth .” Means said matriarchy is what Indigenous people are all about. “We know that women are the givers of life and men are the takers of life. We have to follow the woman in order to gain balance.” He said in a matriarchal society, there is a balanced society, as each celebrates their strengths together. “True individual freedom has to be done by consensus, otherwise it is mob rule.” In the US, now there are fake elections. “The people are convinced they are actually electing a president. However, it is the Electoral College that actually selects the US president.”
The charade is now coming to a close, as the 'Patriot Act' means that Posse Comitatus is dead and buried. Means said everyone has the responsibility to be free. “You are free to be responsible. That is the essence of freedom.” He said everyone should know their rights. Otherwise, they are guaranteed slavery.
“Einstein said, 'The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome,'” “That's America, that's the Indian reservation. That's pathetic and an injustice to human beings.” He said “human brains are doped up with all this ignorance and greed.”
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