Jewish Voices of Dissent on Gaza

Excellent article by my friend, the prolific social commentator César Chelala: Jewish Voices of Dissent on Gaza in Middle East Times.

2 crises

No answers today, just a question. Today's El País is dominated by two "stories", as journalists call them, though neither one has a clear narrative yet. One is the massive bombardment and now invasion of Gaza by the Israelis. The other is the gobal financial crisis. My question: How will these two huge events affect each other? Because in our closely interconnected world, the vibrations of any major shock are felt throughout the network.

There are other big "stories", i.e., events waiting for their narrative. The Russian pressure on the Ukrainians and the constricting of gas pipelines to most of Europe, for example. The big offensive by the government of Sri Lanka, etc. And down through other events whose ripples beyond their own regions may be felt less intensely. But for now let's just look at the first two.

Did the financial pinch have anything to do with the Israeli move against Gaza? War has always proven an excellent distraction from other troubles. And with no economic surplus, what else besides war can the candidates for premier offer to their citizens? The far more severe pinch in Gaza may also have a lot to do with the Hamas government's allowing, or encouraging, reckless and senseless missile attacks on Israeli civilians. People in the strip are so frustrated that they have to lash out at somebody, and Hamas must figure, better the Israelis than us.

And how will this huge escalation of violence affect global finance? Is it going to escalate the already widespread hostility toward Jewish financiers (and toward the far more numerous non-Jewish financiers wrongly suspected of being Jewish, just because they are financiers)? Probably it will, I think, and that is likely to be a pretext for more isolationist, nationalist economic policies by, for example, Muslim countries in Asia (Indonesia among them). Will it make a rapprochement of the U.S. and the Arab countries even more difficult, because of the U.S.'s knee-jerk support of Israel? Almost certainly. And is that going to further limit the U.S.'s power to affect markets?

As I said, no answers, just questions. These are some of the things to watch for, I think. In the long run, I don't think this invasion is good for the Jews or for anybody. Though it might be good for the short run aspirations of some Israeli politicians.

Middle East finance headlines (Financial Times)
Rice cancels Mideast trip to help with financial crisis (CNN)
Turning a crisis into an opportunity. By Nehemia Shtrasler (Haaretz)
Finance Minister: No Israel banks will collapse in global crisis (Haaretz)

For a happier new year

Happy new year -- I mean, let's all work to make this year happier than the way it is starting out.

The Israeli bombardment of Gaza is a great crime, partly but only partly provoked by the crimes of Hamas. I can understand the terror and rage of Israelis, who on top of all their other fears now find that places as far from Gaza as Barsheeba can be hit by Hamas rockets, but this latest massive response is no more likely to succeed than any of its predecessors. The continuing asymmetric reciprocity of violence (you kill 4 of my people, I'll kill 400 of yours) has never brought peace but has instead intensified the desire for revenge by Palestinians. And with or without kassam rockets, vengeful people always find some ways -- suicide bombs, runaway bulldozers, etc. -- to wreak their vengeance. Israeli politicians surely know this. So why do they, counter to the advice of their own generals, wage such an offensive at this moment? I think The Independent's Adrian Hamilton has the only plausible answer: Adrian Hamilton: Pure politics is driving this war.

I'm back at my desk (actually a new desk, in a new house) in Spain now and plan to resume more frequent blogging, mostly on events in Spain, which I am following closely. But sometimes more distant events, like Gaza, are so great that they demand comment even from non-experts. I am no expert on Mideast politics, but as a sociologist I do know how to recognize patterns of human conflict. This one won't be easily resolved, because the forces driving the conflict include powerful political pressures in both Hamas (which can't surrender its unyielding hostility to Israel without dissolving into nothing) and the two big right-wing Israeli parties, all of whom need to be seen to be violent. Best bet for the U.S. is to step back; U.S. government interference has always been naive and ended up being used by the hostile parties (mostly by Israel) for their own hostile ends. See How Not to Make Peace in the Middle East by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley in the New York Review of Books -- just out and already outdated by this latest attack, but with good historical analysis of the past failures of U.S. intervention. Also interesting are these Egyptian views of the conflict.

Birnbaum: Obama in the Lion's Den

I was impressed by this insightful essay by Norman Birnbaum in today's El País (in Spanish translation), so I looked for the original in English. Thanks to Snuffy Smith for posting it. Snuffysmith's Blog: Obama In The Lion's Den Norman Birnbaum

If you're concerned about US foreign policy, I urge you to read this in whatever language. If you are not, well, I urge you to find another planet, because this one is in trouble.

Obama: Is this a real change?

Read Mark Engler (link below) on "The World after Bush" before you listen to Barack Obama on U.S. foreign policy. The best we can say is that Obama wants to get us out of Iraq sooner than McCain (though it's still not clear how). But otherwise he's completely vague (what about relations with Europe? China? Korea? and so on -- has he even thought about them?). And on Hamas and Israel he comes out on the right of Bush, saying not only that he would refuse to negotiate with Hamas, but even criticizing Bush for insisting on holding elections in Gaza, because the wrong guys -- Hamas -- won. What kind of democratic vision is that? As Israeli war veteran and peace activist Uri Avnery never tires of pointing out, it is precisely with your enemy that you need to negotiate, if you want to end a conflict. (Here's Avnery's latest column.) And why not negotiate with Hamas? They won the election in Gaza and are the only ones with potential of controlling the civil population there.

I'm still for Obama for prez, given our options, but we can't let up the pressure for change even if he wins. He's going to need a strong push from the Left in order to stand up straight.

Becoming brutal

And do you think this isn't happening to our boys (and even our girls -- remember Abu Ghraib) in uniform in Iraq? Not to mention the un-uniformed Blackwater guys and their kin. Israel shaken by troops' tales of brutality against Palestinians

"The sleeping giant of Christian Zionism...

has awoken!" thunders pastor John Hagee. And where is St. George the Dragon Slayer when we need him? This dreadful giant is made of mass hysteria, defending the indefensible. A few good pricks from a sharp lance should let all the venomous steam out, but so far no brave knight appears. Inside America's powerful Israel lobby | Salon News

Israel's right to be racist

Sadly, this summary of Israel's arguments through the years appears to be exact. And yet Israel's defenders express outrage whenever anyone points out that "Zionism is racism" -- so we'll have to ask them what they mean by "racism." We already know what they mean by "Zionism," and it sure looks like racism to me. Al-Ahram Weekly | Opinion | Israel's right to be racist

"Israel's right to exist"

The phrase keeps coming up, and every time, I wonder what is it supposed to mean? Which Israel? In what boundaries? Exist how? Most recently, I saw it in a letter from Rabbi Michael Lerner, a mostly reasonable man I always find worthwhile listening to. He criticizes "those who deny Israel's right to exist—and hence deny to the Jewish people the same right to national self-determination that they grant to every other people on the planet..."

First off, the "right to national self-determination" is not granted "to every other people on the planet." We need go no further than the Chechens. Or the Kurds. And a score or more other groups that consider themselves "nations" (they have their own language and historical myths) but are denied statehood.

More importantly, "national self-determination" is obsolete and unsustainable in our "globalized" world of the 21st century. It's an idea that belongs to the 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was advertised as the way to cast off colonial oppression. But "national liberation" (not to mention "national socialism" and other varieties) quickly came to mean individual and minority-group suppression or even extermination. It means that only people of "our" national group have full rights in "our" state. Today, populations everywhere are on the move, and every state is ethnically mixed. Such exclusionary states are asking for trouble, and their decision-makers (not their people, of course) deserve all the trouble they invite.

In the case of Israel, "national self-determination" is an especially incoherent concept. What is the "nation," and whom does it exclude? Are the "ins" all Jews, everywhere? Or only those accepted as true Jews by Israeli religious authorities? No, probably not. How about all Hebrew-speakers? Or maybe what is meant is, All those who feel themselves to be Israelis. But then, what about non-Jewish, Christian, Muslim or atheist people who have lived in Israel all their lives?

If those last groups are included, then, thankfully, we have got past gab about "nations" and can think in terms of "citizens," whose rights are civil and legal, not ancestral. The Israel that can and should exist would not be a Jewish state, but a modern one that recognizes the citizenship (regardless of the religion or the lack of it) of all the people in the territories it administers.

As always, I invite comment. For more by Rabbi Michael Lerner, see Tikkun — A Jewish Magazine, an Interfaith Movement

What 'Israel's right to exist' means to Palestinians | csmonitor.com

This piece by John Whitbeck may help clear up some rhetorical confusion. What 'Israel's right to exist' means to Palestinians | csmonitor.com

Ethnic cleansing in Israel

Here is a 15-minute talk by Ilan Pappe, an Israeli and professor at Haifa University, delivered at Northeastern University in Boston, November 19, 2006: The Cleansing of Palestinians. Pappe traces the Israeli campaign to expel Palestinians from Palestine to the very origins of the Jewish state. Zionism's two founding impulses were, first, to find a safe haven for the Jews (quite necessary and urgent in an era of pogroms in the late 19th century), and second, to redefine Judaism as a national movement. It is this second impulse that, according to Pappe, is used by the entire Israeli political elite to justify any action -- including individual and mass killing, rape and destruction of property -- in its ethnic-cleansing campaign; Pappe hopes to stir a movement to end this policy.

See also Ilan Pappe: Israeli Jewish myths and the prospect of American war

And on the other side, ILAN PAPPE... Advocate of Israel's Destruction;

and finally, for details on his books, interviews, etc., Welcome to the official website of Ilan Pappé

As you will see, there is intense debate (especially in Israel) over some of his historical interpretations, which I'm not in a position to judge (e.g., were the Camp David accords really designed to establish "two Bantustans"?). What he says in this 15-minute talk seems to me persuasive.

Israel/Palestine: The One-State Solution

Miko Peled provides arguments for what I too think is the only reasonable, humane and sustainable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A single state, with equal rights for all regardless of ethnicity or religion, and a democracy embracing all and guaranteeing basic civil rights, could be the model for transformation of the entire Middle East. (Thanks to Khalil Nakhleh for signaling this article.) ZNet |Israel/Palestine | The Answers Have Changed

Legislating history: Holocaust denial ban

Prison sentences for those who deny the Holocaust of 1939-45 or Armenian genocide, 1915-17, are among the worst imaginable ways to "combat racism and xenophobia," their supposed purpose. For one thing, such laws probably won't work where they are proposed--they go against hard-won conquests of free speech in western Europe, as well as the commercial interests of a lot of mass media delighted to stir up a storm about anything. But the greater threat is that they might work, at least somewhat, not to make people feel more tolerant toward other races, but to shut up about their unofficial, unsanctioned opinions. And then where will we be? In something like Putin's Russia, where only the official story gets expressed, or maybe Iran, with its deep and complex apparatus for control of opinion.

Curiously, last year the then-leading candidate for president of that country (he lost, though) argued that censorship wasn't working. The man who did win, Ahmadinejad, has not dismantled the censorship apparatus, but has come up with imaginative ways to test the West's tolerance for dissent: a cartoon contest lampooning the Israels leaders' supposed Holocaust-complex.

History should be left to the historians, to debate and argue out their interpretations. The evidence for the so-called "Holocaust" (the real event, or series of events, was far worse than any real holocaust) is overwhelming, it appears to me and should appear to most people. So those who claim it didn't happen can be refuted by evidence. Denying those "deniers" a voice is denying ourselves a chance to debate and clarify many details of a very complex history, in which vast parts of European society--not only in Germany--were complicit. As for the Armenians, the debate is not over whether tens of thousands or more died, but over whether (a) their death was deliberate policy by the Ottoman leadership and if so, (b) what responsibility modern Turkey, the secular nation-state created by Attaturk, has for its imperial predecessors. We should do everything we can to get Turkey to acknowledge the issue and join an open search for the historical truth; punishing in France those who denied that it happened is as obnoxious to free speech as punishing in Turkey those who argue that it did.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Push for EU Holocaust denial ban

See also The fight against Holocaust denial by Raffi Berg (BBC)

But most of all, see Index on Censorship

A glimpse into Israeli collective psychosis

Thanks to Lois and Khalil Nakhleh for pointing me to this analysis. It will help us understand a psychopathology in which our U.S. Government has become complicit. A glimpse into Israeli collective psychosis

Boycotting the Enemy, boycotting oneself

Sensible words from Uri Avnery: "This distinction between "moderates" and "fanatics" on the Arab side is superficial and misleading. Basically, this is an American invention. It evades the real problems. It contains a large measure of contempt for Arab society. It leads to a dead end." Grossman's Dilemma - Gush Shalom - Israeli Peace Bloc

Meanwhile, BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraqi death toll hits record high

Massacre in Beit Hanoun: Gush Shalom - Israeli Peace Bloc

See Uri Avnery's column in Gush Shalom - Israeli Peace Bloc: In One Word: MASSACRE! And on the impact of the U.S. elections on the near future:

A cynic might say: Democracy is wonderful, it enables the voter to kick out the moron they elected last time and replace them with a new moron.

But let's not be too cynical. The fact is that the American people has accepted, after a delay of three years and tens of thousands of dead, what the advocates of peace around the word - including us here in Israel - were saying already on the first day: that the war will cause a disaster. That it will not solve any problem, but have the opposite effect.

The change will not be quick and dramatic. The US is a huge ship. When it turns around, it makes a very big circle and needs a lot of time - unlike Israel, a small speed-boat that can turn almost on the spot. But the direction is clear.

Of course, in both new houses of Congress, the pro-Israeli lobby (meaning: the supporters of the Israeli Right) has a huge influence, perhaps even more than in the last ones. But the American army will have to start leaving Iraq. The danger of another military adventure in Iran and/or Syria is much diminished. The crazy neo-conservatives, most of them Jews who support the extreme Right in Israel, are gradually losing power, together with their allies, the crazy Christian fundamentalists.

Some Palestinian voices: Captured Prisoners

Moving testimonies by Palestinian former prisoners and "detainees" (imprisoned without charges and often without provocation) of the Israeli military can be seen and heard here: Captured Prisoners

That the Israeli punishment of the people they have conquered is generalized, arbitrary and cruel, and that it has gone on for decades, is not surprising. That is what occupying forces do. It is what U.S. forces are doing in Iraq (not just in Abu Ghraib, but the rapes of teenagers, the destruction of whole cities and all the rest), what the Spanish conquistadores did when they mutilated and massacred inoffensive people in the "New World," the Japanese to the Chinese in Manchukuo and elsewhere, the Germans of the 1940s everywhere in Europe that they conquered. Israelis are only human, which means they can be as savage as the rest of us, no matter what their humanitarian traditions.

What I find harder to explain, and impossible to justify, is the elaborate structure of denial of this cruelty and savagery, maintained by U.S. and British opinion-formers (Rupert Murdoch and friends, other TV and newspapers, preachers, politicians). And especially their insistent claim that Israel is a "democracy." Democracy means "government by the demos, i.e. by the people governed." But in Israel half of the demos it governs is crushed under its army's boots -- including those Arabs to whom it has deigned to grant citizenship and especially all those in the occupied territories to whom it has not.

People in most of the world are not taken in by this; it seems mainly a U.S. and British self-deception (and not all the Brits are convinced, either). So, though it doesn't solve anything, it gives a certain sporting pleasure to see and hear George Galloway go after one of those media people committed to supporting the deception. Check out YouTube - George Galloway Vs. Sky News - SKY NEWS KO'D!!!

Israel: "From mania to depression"

From Uri Avneri of Gush Shalom - Israeli Peace Bloc: "THE ISRAELI public is now in a state of shock and disorientation. Accusations - justified and unjustified - are flung around in all directions, and it cannot be foreseen how things will develop.

Perhaps, in the end, it is logic that will win. Logic says: what has thoroughly been demonstrated is that there is no military solution. That is true in the North. That is also true in the South, where we are confronting a whole people that has nothing to lose anymore. The success of the Lebanese guerilla will encourage the Palestinian guerilla."

Photo Fraud in Lebanon

The Israelis wreaked plenty of real damage on Lebanon, so there should be no need to exaggerate. But, yes, there has been exaggeration in at least some of the photojournalism. I suspect that such "photo fraud" is career- rather than politically-motivated. That is, the photographer just wants to get (or to fabricate) the most dramatic shot possible to call attention to his (her?) work and self. Whatever the motives, we should be aware that it's going on. Check out Photo Fraud in Lebanon.

Some other consequences of Israel's war

This from César Chelala, M.D. and political analyst: The Japan Times Online - Children died as Western leaders stared

LRB | Yitzhak Laor : You are terrorists, we are virtuous

This is the clearest explanation I have yet read of why Israel waged the kind of war it did, and especially why the Israeli public overwhelmingly supported it. This popular support, regardless of how many Lebanese lives and livelihoods were destroyed, I found astonishing from a people so familiar with the horrors of state violence. Regarding the first question, Laor writes:

The IDF is the most powerful institution in Israeli society, and one which we are discouraged from criticising. Few have studied the dominant role it plays in the Israeli economy. Even while they are still serving, our generals become friendly with the US companies that sell arms to Israel; they then retire, loaded with money, and become corporate executives. The IDF is the biggest customer for everything and anything in Israel. In addition, our high-tech industries are staffed by a mixture of military and ex-military who work closely with the Western military complex. The current war is the first to become a branding opportunity for one of our largest mobile phone companies, which is using it to run a huge promotional campaign. Israel’s second biggest bank, Bank Leumi, used inserts in the three largest newspapers to distribute bumper stickers saying: ‘Israel is powerful.’ The military and the universities are intimately linked too, with joint research projects and an array of army scholarships.

And on the second question, he says (in part)

There is no institution in Israel that can approach the army’s ability to disseminate images and news or to shape a national political class and an academic elite or to produce memory, history, value, wealth, desire. ...

The mainstream left has never seriously tried to oppose the military. The notion that we had no alternative but to attack Lebanon and that we cannot stop until we have finished the job: these are army-sponsored truths, decided by the military and articulated by state intellectuals and commentators.... Military thinking has become our only thinking.

You can read the rest of this angry, sorrowful analysis at the London Review of Books: LRB | Yitzhak Laor : You are terrorists, we are virtuous

Cluster attacks and international law

César Chelala is a good friend and a serious essayist, especially knowledgeable about medical affairs. What he reports here confirms what I've seen in other reports in The New York Times and elsewhere, but with greater detail on these terrible weapons. We should not tolerate their use anywhere, by anybody. Here's his article: Cluster attacks and international law

For more on these weapons (before their reported use by Israel), see:

What are cluster weapons?
Al-Ahram Weekly | Special | Butchery by any other name (illustration above is from this site)
BBC NEWS | In Depth | Fact file: Cluster bombs - introduction (includes more illustrations)

Not quite all Israelis pro-war

Prominent front-page headline in today's NYT: Left or Right, Israelis Are Pro-War. Pretty depressing. Even the peaceniks in "Peace Now" see it as a "necessary" war rather than a "war of choice" that Olmert could easily have avoided if he had only agreed to talk to the other side (about those prisoners, to start with). But not quite all Israelis have gone berserkly jingoistic. Check out Uri Avnery's sad, angry analysis: Junkies of War

Petition for U.S. Jewish Solidarity with Muslim and Arab Peoples of the Middle East

I'm not Jewish, nor were any of my known ancestors (but then, one never really knows about ancestors), but I am a human being with the usual human capacity for empathy -- especially with those who like Jews, Lebanese and other Arabs, Serbs and Kosovars and Bosniacs, Chechens, Uighurs, Sudanese, and too many others have been victims of mass historical outrages during my lifetime. One outrage does not justify another, as this petition states eloquently. The drafters of the petition have asked Jews to sign. If you consider yourself (or are considered by others) a Jew, maybe you can bring yourself to add your name, to stop the reciprocal outrages. Petition for U.S. Jewish Solidarity with Muslim and Arab Peoples of the Middle East

Ending the neoconservative nightmare - Haaretz - Israel News

Daniel Levy asks, "After this crisis will Israel belatedly wake up to the implications of the tectonic shift that has taken place in U.S.-Middle East policy?" Ending the neoconservative nightmare - Haaretz - Israel News

Finding themselves somewhat bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire, the neoconservatives are reveling in the latest crisis, displaying their customary hubris in re-seizing the initiative. The U.S. press and blogosphere is awash with neocon-inspired calls for indefinite shooting, no talking and extension of hostilities to Syria and Iran, with Gingrich calling this a third world war to "defend civilization." ...

Israel does have enemies, interests and security imperatives, but there is no logic in the country volunteering itself for the frontline of an ideologically misguided and avoidable war of civilizations. ...

A U.S. return to proactive diplomacy, realism and multilateralism, with sustained and hard engagement that delivers concrete progress, would best serve its own, Israeli and regional interests. Israel should encourage this. Israel may even have to lead, for instance, in rethinking policy on Hamas or Syria, and should certainly work intensely with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in encouraging his efforts to reach a Palestinian national understanding as a basis for stable governance, security quiet and future peace negotiations. A policy that comes with a Jerusalem kosher stamp of approval might be viewed as less of an abomination in Washington. ...

Internationalist Republicans, Democrats and mainstream Israelis must construct an alternative narrative to the neocon nightmare...

Daniel Levy was a member of the official Israeli negotiating team at the Oslo and Taba talks and the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative.

WorldNetDaily: Our moral culpability for Qana

It's sometimes surprising how much sense Patrick Buchanan can make. WorldNetDaily: Our moral culpability for Qana

"Let me be serious now ": Zbig has some things to say

"Let me be serious now because this is a serious time that calls for serious reflection,"says Zbigniew Brzezinski in an address in Washington, .

I hate to say this but I will say it. I think what the Israelis are doing today for example in Lebanon is in effect, in effect--maybe not in intent--the killing of hostages. The killing of hostages. Because when you kill 300 people, 400 people, who have nothing to do with the provocations Hezbollah staged, but you do it in effect deliberately by being indifferent to the scale of collateral damage, you’re killing hostages in the hope of intimidating those that you want to intimidate. And more likely than not you will not intimidate them. You’ll simply outrage them and make them into permanent enemies with the number of such enemies increasing.

Can I say something?: KERBLOG

Drawings by Beiruti artist and musician Mazen Kerbaj in his KERBLOG.

And yes, finally some people ARE saying something that makes sense. Paul Krugman's essay in today's NYT, Shock and Awe, makes a lot of sense to me.

"For Americans who care deeply about Israel, one of the truly nightmarish things about the war in Lebanon has been watching Israel repeat the same mistakes the United States made in Iraq. It’s as if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been possessed by the deranged spirit of Donald Rumsfeld," he writes.

There is a case for a full-scale Israeli ground offensive against Hezbollah. It may yet come to that, if Israel can’t find any other way to protect itself. There is also a case for restraint — limited counterstrikes combined with diplomacy, an effort to get other players to rein Hezbollah in, with the option of that full-scale offensive always in the background.

But the actual course Israel has chosen — a bombing campaign that clearly isn’t crippling Hezbollah, but is destroying Lebanon’s infrastructure and killing lots of civilians — achieves the worst of both worlds. Presumably there were people in the Israeli government who assured the political leadership that a rain of smart bombs would smash and/or intimidate Hezbollah into submission. Those people should be fired.

And the full page ad sponsored by Tikkun is exactly what is needed to end this conflict and build for an enduring peace -- even if we can't agree on every point (wisely, perhaps, they have omitted any mention about what to do about Jerusalem. "Stop the Slaughter in Lebanon, Israel and the Occupied Territories!" Yes! Right away!

The signers printed in today's NYT ad are all identified as "The Network of Spiritual Progressives," headed by Rabbi Michael Lerner, Sr. Joan Chittister and Prof. Cornell West. I don't know if I'm a "spiritual" progressive (seems to imply some religious affiliation), but I was eager to sign. Read the ad, and if you agree you'll sign too.

Meanwhile, as Mazen Kerbaj reminds us, it's awfully hard to maintain the optimism of music with bombs raining down upon you.

Why the Israeli offensive was doomed to fail

Very interesting and, when you think about it, very logical. Hezbollah stays as far away from civilians as it can, most of the time, for their own good. See The "hiding among civilians" myth | Salon News

This does not mean that Hezbollah is particularly concerned about avoiding civilian casualties, however, as blogger USS Neverdock points out, with evidence. Rather, Hezbollah stays away from civilians for their own safety.

Actually, this is only one among several reasons that the Israeli offensive had to fail, world opinion -- slow to move but finally under way -- being another. But the military mind can only think of military solutions to every problem, and the political minds in Israel were too inexperienced and too awed by the helmeted ones to see the flaws.

A triple loss for Israel?

By failing so ostentatiously to meet its objectives (destroying Hezbollah or at least reducing the rocket attacks), Israel has already lost this war by its own military estimates (which doesn't mean the other side has "won"; Hezbollah's goals are equally unrealizable, but they are at least surviving this battle). Israel has also lost world-wide support in its public relations campaign, sustained now for over half a century at enormous cost, depicting the country as the victim rather than victimizer; outside of the U.S. (where the current administration seems to think it needs Israel, no matter what the cost, and where the pro-Israel lobby is strongest), hardly anybody still buys into that argument (well, except Blair, to the disgust of most of his constituents).

This article by Oren Ben-Dor seems to argue that there is another loss: Israel's "soul," if you will permit the metaphor, the state's whole reason and justification for being.

"What exactly is being defended by the violence in Gaza and Lebanon?" he asks in London's Independent.

Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state? I suggest the latter. Israel's statehood is based on an unjust ideology which causes indignity and suffering for those who are classified as non-Jewish by either a religious or ethnic test. To hide this primordial immorality, Israel fosters an image of victimhood. Provoking violence, consciously or unconsciously, against which one must defend oneself is a key feature of the victim-mentality. By perpetuating such a tragic cycle, Israel is a terrorist state like no other. (...)

In Hebrew, the word elem (a stunned silence resulting from oppression or shock) is etymologically linked to the word almut (violence). Silence about the immoral core of Israeli statehood makes us all complicit in breeding the terrorism that threatens a catastrophe which could tear the world apart.

Independent Online Edition > Commentators: "Oren Ben-Dor"

And who is Oren Ben-Dor, who speaks so authoritatively of Israeli history and Hebrew etymology? He has been in the news before, for attempting to organize a UK boycott of Israeli scholars. (See Counterpunch.) He describes himself as an "ex-Israeli" (he grew up in Israel), and currently teaches law at the University of Southampton. For more info and a photo, see his U. of Southampton web page.

Latin America: protests against Israeli attacks

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, which "covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990." Write to wnu@igc.org for a free one-month subscription.

We sometimes forget how many people of Lebanese and Palestinian descent live in Latin America, including the current president Elias Antonio Saca of El Salvador -- who has sent troops to Iraq and is being condemned by his compatriots "for not condemning the aggression." And the Lebanese-Colombian Shakira (left), who is condemning it -- though that's probably not what she was doing in this photo.
---------------------------
Thousands of people demonstrated across Latin America the week of July 17 to protest Israel's air and ground attacks in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip starting the week before.

About 500 protesters rallied on July 17 outside the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in a demonstration organized by Argentine Arab associations, leftist groups and activist organizations, including the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Anibal Veron piquetero ("picketer") organization of the poor and unemployed. "Today the state of Israel is applying state terrorism and a plan for extermination the way the [1976-1983] Argentine dictatorship did," Confederation of Arab Entities of Argentina vice president Roberto Ahuad told the French news service AFP.

The protest came the day before the anniversary of the still unsolved July 18, 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA), in which at least 85 people were killed and 300 were injured; this was the worst antisemitic terror attack anywhere since World War 2. Asked if the protesters would attend the ceremonies commemorating the victims, Ahuad said: "Yes, as we do every year. We have always been with the relatives of the victims. We don't have an anti-Jewish feeling. On the contrary, there are Jews who defend our position of condemning the government of Israel." There are about 300,000 people in Argentina's Jewish community and 700,000 to one million in its Arab community. [AFP
7/7/06]

Some 2,000 Lebanese living the Triple Border region, where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet, rallied in the Plaza of Nations in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, on July 19 to call for peace and solidarity with the people of Lebanon and Palestine. Brazilian Arab Commission in Support of the People of Lebanon president Aly Osman, whose wife and daughter managed to leave Lebanon for Syria, said the current attack on Lebanon
was the worst ever. "Not even the 1982 invasion [by Israel] was this cruel," he said.

"They say there are terrorists in the Triple Border," Manuel Rocha, Catholic bishop of Foz do Iguacu, told the protesters while a Paraguayan police agent in plain clothes filmed the demonstration. "We are the terrorists of peace, of hope," the bishop said. The Triple Border region has one of the highest concentrations of Lebanese and other Arabs in the world. Some 500 Triple Border residents are currently trapped in Lebanon, and two adults and three children from Foz do Iguacu have been
killed by Israeli bombardments in southern Lebanon. [La Nacion (Paraguay) 7/20/06]

In Mexico, supporters of The Other Campaign of the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) held a rally at the US embassy in Mexico City on July 19 in solidarity with the people of Lebanon and Palestine. The protest followed a rally at the federal Attorney General's Office (PGR), also on the Reforma avenue, to protest the mistreatment and illegal detention of activists in San Salvador Atenco and Texcoco on May 3-4 [see Updates #849, 853]. Speakers noted the importance of
international solidarity protests, saying that rallies outside Mexico in May had helped get word out about the repression at Atenco. One speaker charged that Israel trains elite groups in Mexico's Federal Preventive Police (PFP) and the Federal Investigation Agency. The protesters announced plans for another demonstration at the US embassy on July 29. [Chiapas Indymedia 7/19/06]

On July 20 members of Mexico's Lebanese community rallied outside the UN's Mexico City offices to call for a ceasefire in Lebanon. They then went to the Lebanese embassy, where they placed roses in an urn and held a minute of silence. Francisco Jammal, former president of the Lebanese Center, said Mexico's effort to evacuate Mexicans from Lebanon was "enormous." [La Opinion (Los Angeles) 7/21/06 from AP] Mexico organized a convoy to evacuate 121 Mexicans and one Guatemalan from Beirut to
Istambul, Turkey. [La Nacion (Paraguay) 7/19/06]

In Venezuela some 2,000-3,000 people marched to the Israeli embassy in eastern Caracas on July 20 to deliver a document protesting Israel's actions. Carrying Lebanese and Palestinian flags and photographs of children killed or injured in the attacks, marchers chanted "Murderers!" and slogans against the US and burned an Israeli flag. Many protesters were of Lebanese or Palestinian origin. About 400,000 Venezuelans are Lebanese or of Lebanese origin. The Foreign Ministry is trying to
evacuate 400 Venezuelans from the Middle East. President Hugo Chavez Frias has harshly criticized Israel and the US for the attacks. [El Universal (Caracas) 7/20/06 from AFP]

Representatives of Salvadoran social, political and religious organizations demonstrated in front of the Israeli embassy in San Salvador on July 20 to protest what they called the "terrorist escalation against the people of Palestine" and to criticize Salvadoran president Elias Antonio Saca, who is of Palestinian origin, "for not condemning the aggression." Jhon Nasser, from the Friends of Palestine
Association, also condemned the United Nations (UN), "which is showing total indifference to these massacres." Legislative deputy Carlos Castaneda of the leftist Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) announced that he was going to ask the Legislative Assembly to issue a public condemnation of "the policy of extermination." [La Opinion 7/21/06 from AP]

Castaneda was also trying to engineer a vote against Saca's plan to send another rotation of 380 Salvadoran soldiers to participate in the US-led occupation of Iraq. This would be the seventh six-month rotation since El Salvador's participation began in August 2003. Saca announced his decision to send the troops on July 19, at the same time that he announced the death of Sgt. Jose Miguel Sanchez Perdomo on July 18 in Al Kut, Wasit province, in Iraq. Sanchez Perdomo was killed by an explosive
device. He is the third soldier from the Salvadoran forces killed inIraq. One was killed by insurgents in April 2004 [see Update #741], and another died in a highway accident in June 2005. El Salvador is the only Latin American country with troops in Iraq. [La Nacion (Costa Rica) 7/19, 7/20/06 from ACAN-EFE, La Prensa Grafica (El Salvador) 7/20/06]

About 1,000 people demonstrated in Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, on July 21 to protest the attacks in Lebanon. The protesters--many carrying Lebanese flags and photographs of relatives in Lebanon or of victims of the violence--chanted "Israel out!" and called for Mercosur, a trade bloc made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, to end commercial ties with Israel. "We need for Brazil to help Palestine and Lebanon to end this war," Sheikh Kamal Yahya of the local Santo Amaro mosque told the government news agency Agencia Brasil. According to the Foreign Ministry, at least seven Brazilians have been killed in the attacks in Lebanon; an estimated 70,000-200,000 Brazilians live there, most of them Lebanese who lived in Brazil and became citizens but later returned to Lebanon. The government has sent at least two of the Air Force's Boeing 707s to start evacuating 1,000 Brazilians from
Beirut, Damascus and Amman. [Europa Press via Yahoo Argentina 7/21/06]

A dozen people demonstrated at the Plaza Israel in Guatemala City on July 22 to protest the bombing of Lebanon. According to Associated Press, no members of the Arab community participated. [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 7/22/06 from AP]

About 600 Lebanese and Colombians of Lebanese origin marched in Bogota on July 23 from the Club Colombo-Libanes to a UN office, where they handed over a communique. The document condemned Israel's "unilateral and disproportionate attack" and warned of a "humanitarian catastrophe," according to a spokesperson for the march, Mario Helo. [La Cronica de Hoy (Mexico) 7/23/06 from EFE]

On July 21 the popular Colombian rock singer Shakira Mebarak Ripoll, on tour in Europe, called on "the leaders of the US and of the world's great powers to stop this war, since we all know they could stop it. We want something better for our children, for the children of Colombia, the children of Israel, the children of Palestine, the children of Lebanon, the children of the world." Shakira is of Lebanese origin on her father's side. [AFP 7/22/06]

From Rasha in Beirut

My friends in Ramallah just forwarded to me the latest letter from Rasha, dated July 26 (yesterday). Her letters are very, very moving and reveal a sensitive appreciation of Arab politics. She describes herself in the July 26 letter as "a secular egalitarian democrat," but she understands the appeal of the Islamic radicals and especially Nasrallah, who (from everybody's point of view except Israel's) appears to be winning simply by successfully surviving and continuing to attack.

She apparently does not have her own website, and I've had trouble finding all her letters, which you will want to read. Here are those from July 20 & 21. NO QUARTER: From Rasha in Beirut. I don't know her surname; Rasha is a common name in Lebanon, and if you Google "Rasha Lebanon" as I did you will find a journalist named Rasha Saad, a computer science major named Rasha Ockaili, and an un-surnamed Lesbian activist interviewed by the BBC. I don't think she is any of these (well, possibly the last, but I kind of doubt it -- that Rasha doesn't express anything political). Rasha Salti sounds more likely, from the style and content of this year-old by-lined report: Beirut Diary: April 2005.

On the Face :: Another Israeli point of view

On the Face :: Another Israeli point of view

Hezbollah: an empire worth millions - Haaretz - Israel News

If reporter Zvi Bar'el of Ha'aretz is right, then it looks like the Israeli bombing campaign is not only murderous, it is futile. Hezbollah is also murderous, but on the evidence of this article, hardly futile:

According to Hezbollah spokesmen interviewed in the Arab media in recent years, at least 14,000 children are enrolled in the movement's school system, which employs several thousand teachers. For these children, Hezbollah is not only a system of studies, teachers and buildings, but also summer camps, youth movements, excursions and parties such as the celebration mentioned above of Victory Day.
...

The numerous services granted by Hezbollah, such as the water system it built in the southern neighborhood of Beirut, which supplies water to about one-half of its residents, have essentially supplanted the Lebanese government, which is not present along the border with Israel and does not come close to matching Hezbollah in providing services to residents along the southern border. Hezbollah is believd to be currently providing services to more than 200,000 people. But according to another estimate, it provides services to about 10 percent of all of Lebanon's citizens - about 350,000 people.

Even if Hezbollah is miraculously disarmed, it will continue to dominate Lebanon's public life, and not only in the south, and that the government's declared ambition of controlling the border area would at best be translated into partial control, unless it takes full responsibility for providing services to the villagers.

Hezbollah: an empire worth millions - Haaretz - Israel News

Lebanon: Winners and Losers- by Justin Raimondo

Lebanon: Winners and Losers- by Justin Raimondo

Contradictions of the Israeli campaign

My friends in Ramallah, Lois and Khalil Nakhleh, just sent me the latest article by Jonathan Cook, Five Myths That Sanction Israel's War Crimes. A useful recap in case you get into an argument with anyone who is defending the Israeli attacks. More stuff here: Jonathan Cook's News Archive - Israel Palestine.

I also found this argument partly persuasive, on the unattainable (and undefined) goals of the Israeli bombing campaign: The IDF Will Become Even More Violent: Why Israel is Losing By ASHRAF ISMA'IL. He may be right in very broad terms, but he doesn't seem to know much in detail about Israeli politics. I thought it prudent to check Ha'aretz, where I found this article: Tory MP: Lebanon raid reminiscent of Nazi atrocity on Warsaw ghetto - Haaretz - Israel News. Wow! If they're losing the Tories, it looks like their public relations campaign is not going brilliantly.

This Israeli view of the contradictions of U.S. policy is also interesting: D.C. argument / Operation time - Haaretz - Israel News

From Rasha in Beirut

My good friends Khalil and Lois Nakhleh in Ramallah forwarded these letters, which I then found on the web; maybe you've seen them already. They are very moving, intelligent and surprisingly sensible in the midst of the panic from bombings. publish.nyc.indymedia.org | Three Letters from Beirut

Rasha (I presume) must be Rasha Salti, who also wrote these entries in Beirut Diary: April 2005. Khalil & Lois describe themselves thus: "Lois is a Botanical Painter; Khalil is an independent thinker, researcher, and writer." Khalil, an Arab Israeli from a Christian family, was my colleague in the Sociology & Anthropology Department (before becoming independent, he was an anthropologist) at St. John's University in Minnesota about 30 years ago.

Ends & means in Lebanon and beyond

Is the attack on Lebanon "proportional" to the damage, or the threat of damage, to Israel? Is it "justified" before God, or international law, or history, or anything? And just what are "roots" of the Israeli-Arab conflict? Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers, as Condoleeza Rice has proclaimed? Or something much deeper, much older, like, for example the Balfour Declaration of 1917, or any of the many offenses Arabs, Israelis and their respective allies have committed against each other in the decades since? Or something even older?

Whatever my opinion, it's not going to persuade you. People remain very unpersuadable on questions framed this way. But if you want to read some opinions, here are a bunch: "public opinion" Israel Lebanon - Google News

But these are the wrong questions. Whether the attack is "proportional" depends on the question, for what ends? And whether it is "justified" can only be answered, not in terms of holy scripture or revelation, or even history, but its known or likely consequences.

I agree with that great philosopher of pragmatism Leon Trotsky, who argued that the problem was not whether the ends justify your means; the problem is to justify your ends. 1936: Their Morals and Ours. Let's look at Israeli ends and means.

Ehud Olmert said at first that his aim was to secure the release of three soldiers, one seized by Hamas and two by Hezbollah. That sounds absurd, because an air attack (in Lebanon) and tank assault (in Gaza) seem like the least likely ways to achieve it. Olmert is new at this governing business, but he can't be such a fool as that.

The second, more plausible announced aim is destroying Hezbollah's central command and its capacity to fire rockets into Israel. This I believe. But if so, it raises two further questions:

First, is this bombing campaign an effective means to that end? Maybe, but only for a time. But if Hezbollah is the target, the main victims are the Lebanese whom Israel officially regards as innocent. Even if all the present leadership of Hezbollah were killed, don't you think some other group, with or without the same name, would arise to avenge them?

Second and much more importantly, why such a puny goal? A lull in the attacks from Lebanon, rather than a permanent peace? And at such expense in terms of Israel's long-range security. Compare this to the visions that many other Israelis have had of Israel's future: a country with respectful, if often tense, relations with neighboring states and with its own growing Arab minority. Trade relations would strengthen other ties, and extending further rights to Palestinians with the opportunities to lead productive lives would (it was expected) evaporate much of the hostility and be beneficial to both parties. Among those with such a vision was a famous general: Yitzhak Rabin

The Israeli offensive is not getting at "the root cause," because there are always deeper roots. It is not making Israelis safer in the short run -- scores have already been killed in what Hezbollah describes as reprisal missile attacks. And it certainly isn't going to make them safer in the long run. Yes, Israel must defend itself because it has enemies who want to destroy it utterly. But this response to its enemies is increasing their passion and their number.

And not to mention the agony of Lebanon and the continued punishment of the Gazans.

Samson Option: Israel's Plan to Prevent Mass Destruction Attacks

I referred to this in a comment (in answer to Bill Wheaton, in the note below on the "Lebanese bloggers"). I thought you (and I) might want to know more: Samson Option: Israel's Plan to Prevent Mass Destruction Attacks. This is mostly a paraphrase and summary of Seymour Hersh's 1992 book of that title. And here's a review of a more recent book on the same subject: The Samson Option