So, let's begin with a few items from the press.
Here's a very interesting article about the CIA documents and Israeli license plates found in the Palestinian Authority security buildings found by Hamas which show the CIA/Israeli involvement with Fatah at the highest levels. Here's some more;
World Net Daily's Aaron Klein first broke the story of the document stash yesterday, publishing an interview with a spokesman for the Hamas allied Popular Resistance Committee, Muhammed Abdel-El. He told Mr. Klein, "The CIA files we seized, which include documents, CDs, taped conversations, and videos, are more important than all the American weapons we obtained the last two days as we took over the traitor Fatah's positions."
A CIA spokesman yesterday declined to comment. But a former CIA operations officer who worked in the Middle East, Robert Baer, said it was a major blow to Fatah, the party founded in 1966 by Yasser Arafat that America sought to prop up during the Oslo process as the CIA and Egyptian security services trained its members in the hopes that they would take action against jihadists such as Hamas.
"They are going to identify Fatah with the CIA. Fatah equals CIA is not a good selling point. They are going to show a record of training, spying on Hamas, that's about it. It's what we all knew. But the point is they have undermined the secular Palestinians for a long time. No one wants to be publicly associated with the CIA in the Middle East, except for maybe the Albanians," Mr. Baer said.
The article goes on to describe the assistance the CIA gave Fatah as a partof the Oslo process, from funding to improving their abilities at... well, torturing other Palestinians. States Mr Baer, "What we did was throw money at them. We give them dumb training, soft interrogation techniques, reports writing. All this stuff is a total waste of time. They will never get to the point where they do anything more than transmit a report verbally to someone they trust. That is just the culture."
The culture? Oh, whatever!
And next what do we have, well, I would very much recomend checking out tha cartoons of Latuff, especially "Divide and Conquer" and "Hamas versus Fatah." Whatever else one wants to say about Latuff (and I'm sure that you all have many such opinions on him), these cartoons pretty much speak to the current nature of the Israel/US driven conflict in occupied Palestine.
Here is some commentary from, the Guardian, which makes a very good point about the hippocrisy of Israeli/US support for Fatah vs Hamas;
Those who denied poll result were the real coup plotters
The reality is that the only people who are really behind Salam Fayyad are the European and US diplomats who have long sung his praises behind the scenes to any journalist prepared to listen.
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday June 17, 2007
The Observer
Here is how democracy works in the Alice in Wonderland world of Palestinian politics under the tutelage of the US and international community. After years of being hectored to hold elections and adopt democratic norms, a year and a half ago Palestinians duly elected Hamas with 44 per cent of the vote, ahead of Fatah on 41 per cent.
It was a good election, as former US President Jimmy Carter observed at the time, a free, fair and accurate expression of the desires of a Palestinian people sick of the uselessness, corruption and gangsterism of Fatah. The problem was that it didn't quite reflect the wishes of Washington and the international community.
And while there can be no denying that Hamas, which refutes the existence of Israel and has backed suicide bombings, is a threatening organisation, there was no attempt at engagement, in the way that Fatah, whose militants have perpetrated scores of attacks, has been engaged with for years.
And as the conflict between Fatah and Hamas, how is it manifesting itself in Gaza and the West Bank? And how will Israel deal with such developments?
Well, check this out;
But Samir al-Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, said that 150 Hamas supporters have been "abducted" in the West Bank in what he called a "real coup and terrorism". He warned that Hamas would take "all steps to end these crimes".
Palestinians in Gaza were said to be looting scrap metal and furniture at abandoned police positions on the Palestinian side of the closed Erez border between Gaza and Israel. And at least three people were reportedly injured in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis as Hamas forces continued a round-up to seize weapons not held by their own forces.
The Israeli Interior Minister, Avi Dichter, said Israel would continue to ensure essential humanitarian aid was allowed to pass into Gaza. He said that Hamas's victory in Gaza last week had signalled the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, which was formed after the Oslo peace accords in the 1990s. The "new reality", he added, had created opportunities for Israel. The Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip should be treated as a "terror entity", which could mean Israeli forces deploying along Gaza's border with Egypt to halt weapons smuggling into the strip.
We all know about the mentality of those who feel that they are an 'empire now' and have no need for a 'reality-based' approach to the world; hell, they can just do what they want and 'create' and adapt to new realities, no matter now many must die and suffer in the process.
And more on the increasing ghettoization and strangulation of Gaza, the largest open-air prison in the world, looking more and more like a concentration camp every day;
Dor Alon, a private Israeli energy company that supplies all of Gaza’s gasoline, said it was stopping deliveries, Israel Radio said, though it would supply fuel for Gaza’s electrical power station.
The Israeli infrastructure minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who oversees fuel supplies, told Army Radio: "We should simply increase the isolation of Gaza. I want to stop everything until we understand what is going on there."
Other reports said Dor Alon did not deliver the gasoline on Sunday because its trucks found nobody to receive it on the Palestinian side. Gaza is believed to have about a two-week supply of gasoline left.
And last but not least, say hello (or goodbye?) to the Bush strategy... of making bad situations infintely worse;
"The Middle East is in flames. Over the past week, war erupted among the Palestinians and their government collapsed. A Shiite shrine in Iraq was bombed -- again -- as the new U.S. military faction in the north as a leading politician was assassinated in strategy showed no sign of diminishing violence. Lebanon battled a new al-Qaeda faction in the north as a leading politician was assassinated in Beirut. And Egyptian elections were marred by irregularities, including police obstructing voters, in a serious setback to democracy efforts... "It's close to a nightmare for the administration," Ellen Laipson, president of the Henry L. Stimson Center and former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, said in an interview from Dubai. "They can't catch their breath. . . . It makes Condi Rice's last year as secretary of state very daunting. What are the odds she can get virtually anything back on track?" Each flash point has its own dynamics, but a common denominator is that leaders in each country -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak -- are each pivotal U.S. allies...
And before I get to the book quote, here is parts of an email from a Palestinian friend of mine in Jerusalem on the situation;
Salam for everyone.
It is no secret what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank now. As Palestinians, we have been through worse situations. In 1982 something like this conflict also happened in Lebanon between the Palestinians. Also in 1999, there was a conflict between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, most of the Hamas people were put in prison.
The answer to this question is that nobody can deny that we are still currently under occupation. Because Hamas and Fatah are the only strong military groups in Palestine, it is easier for them to enforce their will upon the entire population. All of this happened while we are under occupation... Even if part of the population supports military resistance to the conflict, it is only because we see the violence and injustice of a military occupation on a daily basis.
We must know that the Fatah and Hamas groups are part of the Palestinian people and as I wrote above, sooner or later they will sit together and they will solve the differences between them. This is the only way, they have no other choice because we will never become a divided people.
All of you are welcome in Palestine.
So, I think that I will blog some more on the quote later, hopefully tomorrow, but here it is, for some initial thoughts. On page 26 of King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild there is a quote by the African "explorer" Stanley, early in his career while covering the genocide of the Native Americans in the West. He states;
The Indian war has at last been fairly inaugurated... the Indians, true to their promises, true to their bloody instincts, to their savage hatred of the white race, to the lessons instilled in their bosoms by their progenitors, are on the warpath.
There is so much there to unpack, and in such important relevance to the Israel Palestine situation and it's history, I really don't have the time today to do it justice, but I will point this out; can you think of anything more absurd than blaming the situation in the USA on the natives and their "savage hatred of the white race," which has been "instilled in their bosoms by their progenitors?" It is pretty obvious to most sane people that the native Americans hated the Euro-American settlers due to their eradication of native peoples, the taking of the land and the destruction of their way of life. Do they need to give themselves lessons and imbue their offspring with 'anti-white' racism, or do they just react to the inhuman situation that they were (and still are) put in by the US government?
And now in Palestine, there is always the argument about their textbooks, their culture of hate, their using their children, their so scary, etc etc etc. This is the same textbook way of denying the conditions made, systematically by the oppressor, which push the native peoples to resist, by force if necessary and containing within a menagerie of savagery and violence on the 'frontier,' and focusing on their culture, or the very lack of, or degenerate culture, as it is depicted. So by ignoring the agency of the oppressor, one can smooth over that nagging conscience thing and just out rightly hate and despise the obviously inferior enemy... these days all one has to do is hop over to LGF or Free Republic... and other places... and you'll see it in full swing.
And so, let's finish with the three books I read & some pics from DC; Here are the books, all highly recommended;
The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The title of this moving, well-crafted book refers to a tree in the backyard of a home in Ramla, Israel. The home is currently owned by Dalia, a Jewish woman whose family of Holocaust survivors emigrated from Bulgaria. But before Israel gained its independence in 1948, the house was owned by the Palestinian family of Bashir, who meets Dalia when he returns to see his family home after the Six-Day War of 1967. Journalist Tolan (Me & Hank) traces the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the parallel personal histories of Dalia and Bashir and their families—all refugees seeking a home. As Tolan takes the story forward, Dalia struggles with her Israeli identity, and Bashir struggles with decades in Israeli prisons for suspected terrorist activities. Those looking for even a symbolic magical solution to that conflict won't find it here: the lemon tree dies in 1998, just as the Israeli-Palestinian peace process stagnates. But as they follow Dalia and Bashir's difficult friendship, readers will experience one of the world's most stubborn conflicts firsthand. 2 maps. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Coffins on Our Shoulders: The Experience of the Palestinian Citizens of Israel by Dan Rabinowitz, Khawla Abu-Baker
Book Description
This highly original historical and political analysis of the Arab-Israeli conflict combines the unique perspectives of two prominent segments of the Middle Eastern puzzle: Israeli Jews and the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Written jointly by an Israeli anthropologist and a Palestinian family therapist born weeks apart to two families from Haifa, Coffins on Our Shoulders merges the personal and the political as it explores the various stages of the conflict, from the 1920s to the present. The authors weave vivid accounts and vignettes of family history into a sophisticated multidisciplinary analysis of the political drama that continues to unfold in the Middle East. Offering an authoritative inquiry into the traumatic events of October 2000, when thirteen Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed by Israeli police during political demonstrations, the book culminates in a radical and thought-provoking blueprint for reform that few in Israel, in the Arab world, and in the West can afford to ignore.
From the Inside Flap
"A fascinating work. Rabinowitz and Abu-Baker succeed not only in challenging many basic assumptions and stereotypes about the victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but also in undermining much of the public discourse on the Palestinian minority inside Israel. An outstanding work of scholarship combining social science research tools with [auto-] biographic intimacy." --Salim Tamari, Director, The Institute of Jerusalem Studies
"Coffins on Our Shoulders is a profound, worrying, and insightful excursion into the lives and times of a new generation of young Palestinians in Israel. This unusually impressive volume makes it clear how deeply a politics of difference, mounted in the name of collective entitlement, calls into question the limits of liberal democracy. "--John L. Comaroff, Professor, University of Chicago, Research Fellow, American Bar Foundation
"Coffins on our Shoulders is an absorbing portrait of contemporary life in Israel. Rabinowitz and Abu-Baker give us a thoughtful, multi-vocal chronicle about Jewish majority, and Palestinian minority relations in Israel."--Susan Slyomovics, Professor of anthropology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and author of The Object of Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village
"Rabinowitz and Abu-Baker examine the making of a new generation of Palestinians in Israel who are challenging the basic ideological core of Israel as a self-defined Jewish state and redefining the asymmetrical power configuration that governs the relationship between the Jewish majority and the Palestinian minority within Israel. This bifocal look, based on a very well-informed and perceptive reading of the current scene in Israel, is complemented by the personal narratives of the two authors, giving us an illuminating and rare glimpse into the juxtaposed lives of real people, across the divide."--Anton Shammas, professor of modern Middle Eastern literature, University of Michigan
"The lucid sociological analysis of recent transformations in patterns of political behavior and conceptions of self identity among Israeli Palestinians becomes an opportunity for both authors to reflect upon their own identity and personal history. The juxtaposition of their two life stories, which have thrown them so far apart yet kept them so close together, and the integration of these stories into the theoretical analysis makes this book truly moving and exceptional."--Adi Ophir, professor, The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv University
And last but not least, a truly great book,
Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine by Joel Kovel
One of the best books on Zionism , June 15, 2007
By anti-zionist Jew "antizionist"
This book stands with, if not surpassing Uri Davis' Apartheid Israel, Akiva Orr's Israel, and John Rose's book The Myths of Zionism. With a unique combination of history, psychoalalytic insight, and truly excellent writing, it weaves so many important threads together, from the bad consicience that haunts the modern Zionist to the political machinations that have given rise to the state of Israel and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
As someone that has travelled to Occupied Palestine on a number of occaisons and volunteered with the ISM, this book should be read by activists and all who are concerned about the people of Israel/Palestine. Forget the usual political analysis, the dogmatic attachment to the 2 state solution, the never ending "peace (piece?) process," that never brings peace, this book identifies the illness which is Zionism, and the need for Justice for Palestinians, which will bring peace someday.
So, more on all this later this week, here's some pictures;
Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom
Our Ad
Their Ad (notice the difference?)
my friend Greta Berlin, who will be sailing to Gaza this summer/fall!
can't remember if I posted this one of the Corries & the Capitol
Bye now! Thanks!
