The Arab Spring and "the War on Terror"

[bickster]

Yes, a pedantic argument about the meaning of the word semitic.  That'll sort everything out.

Its not pedantry, its about how Israel and its friends have been distorting the media since WWII to the extent that its a generally held belief (if you believe what is written in the media) that to be against Israel equates to racism. So much so, that Israel its supporters are allowed to bandy the accusation about at free will in a clear attempt to throw mud at any opposition without challenge.

[peterms]

Yes, a pedantic argument about the meaning of the word semitic.  That'll sort everything out.

Its not pedantry, its about how Israel and its friends have been distorting the media since WWII to the extent that its a generally held belief (if you believe what is written in the media) that to be against Israel equates to racism. So much so, that Israel its supporters are allowed to bandy the accusation about at free will in a clear attempt to throw mud at any opposition without challenge.

And by doing so, to weaken opposition to Israeli actions. With the consequences we see.

[maqroll]

Important viewing--bookmark it if you don't have an hour straight to watch it. It's critical that the world knows that just because one is Jewish doesn't mean they automatically support the political actions of the Israeli government. Even if that person is an Israeli general, or his son, who is speaking here:

 

[omariqy]

So Israel have admitted the soldier wasn't kidnapped after all.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Another UN run school bombed. Arseholes.

[Awol]

Another UN run school bombed. Arseholes.

Yeah but they might have grown up to be terrorists, see.... At any rate the survivors will.

[chrisp65]

 

I would imagine that the thinking here is that if the Palestinians can be condensed down even further then a number of events automatically follow:

 

Eventually 'settlers' can start taking this land (as it was always there's historically / the arabs aren't using it / god said they could).

 

Displaced teenage orphans without money or prospects will be persuaded by genuine terrorists and nutjobs to lob home made ordnance at the settlers in protest.

 

Israel will have no option but to retaliate with overwhelming force.

 

The leaders of both sides and all states with any influence will stay quiet and nonchalant as it really doesn't matter and might even look to suit their overall purposes of making Israel and / or the others look bad and weaken their position on some other abstract thing. It will prove to the world side a / side b doesn't want peace.

 

Whoever the current leader of the democratic free world is will write a fairly strongly worded if non-specific letter to freedom loving democratic Israel asking them to be cautious when bombing. This letter will be put in with one of the crates of shiny new 'smart' bombs to save on postage.

 

Due to the condensed living conditions these mucky arabs choose to live in there will be unplanned unfortunate civilian deaths around legitimate military targets such as UN schools and hospitals.

 

The solution will be an exclusion zone.

 

Some Gazans will moan about having to live in the sea, as Israel sometimes shoots fishermen.

 

(repeat)

[blandy]

another maybe tl:dr thing, but I found it helpful in understanding some of the why as regards the U.S. actions, or lack of.

It's only one person's take, but still...

Peter Schwartz 

I am writing to respond to your note about Gaza and how America is responding. It deserves a response.

My feelings and the actual realities are complex on several levels; the realities of the Arab-Israeli history and conflicts, global politics and modern American history/demographics. All three levels interact to create the current situation. And to understand the US posture you have to consider the history. Let me say, that, as you know, I am an immigrant and child of Holocaust survivors. I am culturally Jewish, but with no religious or spiritual inclinations, an atheist. And I believe that creating the Jewish state of Israel was a historic mistake that is likely to destroy the religion behind it. The actions nation states take to assure their survival are usually in contradiction to any moral values that a religion might espouse. And that contradiction is now very evident in Israel’s behaviour. Israel will destroy Judaism.

First, the history has two important intersecting threads, Zionism and the end of the Ottoman Empire. Zionism began near the end of the 19th century as a response to a millennium of anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe. An end to the diaspora and a return to the biblical homeland were seen as the only hope of escaping the persistent repression of places such as Hungary, Ukraine, Russia, etc. The British government with its Balfour declaration (1917) and the League of Nations Palestine Mandate (1922) gave impetus to that hope. And of course, the Second World War and the Holocaust sealed the deal. The murder of six million Jews was seen as sufficient reason to pursue a Jewish state, and the UN granted that wish with the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states in 1947. The seven Arab states declared war and urged the Palestinians to flee. After defeating the Arab armies, Israel made it very hard for them return. Hence we ended up with a large Palestinian refugee population.

Those Arab states themselves were the result of a combination of British/French artistry in drawing the maps of the post-Ottoman world as well as the subsequent tribal military campaigns that left the Saudis in charge of the Arabian peninsula (vast oil wealth soon to be found) and the Hashemites driven up into Transjordan. Other than the war with Israel, the conflicts and rivalries among the various Arab and Persian factions have shaped Middle Eastern and North African politics ever since then.

Over the subsequent decades following the 1948 war, there was a persistent Arab bombing campaign and two more large-scale Arab attacks on Israel, 1967 and 1973. Until the mid-1970s, Israel was seen as having the moral high ground based on the Holocaust and Arab behaviour. But beginning with the Israeli incursion into Lebanon in the early 1980s, that moral position began to erode.

  

Israel’s behaviour in Lebanon was the first major example of aggressive action and attacks against vulnerable populations. Israel began to develop a moreright-wing and aggressive political faction of which Netanyahu is the worst current example. The settlements in Arab territory in the West Bank are the direct result of that evolution (and, of course, the mass migration of the 1990s mainly from Russia). Suicide bombings and missile attacks were the Arab response. Walling themselves in was yet another ironic Israeli response. Today’s horrors are a continuing extension of those conflicts following a ceasefire of a few years.

Once Israel declared itself a Jewish state in 1948, the Palestinians had only three options: accept a division of the land into two states, accept being second-class citizens in the Israeli state or perpetual conflict because they could not win. The Arab states chose the third option because it is in their interest to maintain unity against their common enemy, Israel. They could even share a common enemy with the hated Persian Shia in Iran. So rather than helping the Palestinians to develop by investing in education, healthcare, jobs and infrastructure, etc. the Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, help to keep them poor but well armed. Palestinian refugees would remain a festering sore in the Middle East to remind the world of Israel’s perfidy. And any aid that did come ended up in corrupt pockets, not in helping development.

The obvious counter example was Jordan, which developed itself, with little help from its Arab brethren and eventually made grudging peace with Israel. The difference in Jordan was good Arab leadership that recognised that Israel was not going way and war for ever was not a good development policy.

At the geopolitical level, several threads played out. The UN became a place where the Israel and Arab conflicts became a symbolic pawn in the Cold War, especially in the Security Council with the US on the Israeli side and the USSR on the Arab side (with exceptions, ie the Saudis). That hardened the US position and associated in American minds Israel with our side and the Arabs with the other guys.

Even though I have no support for the Israeli position, I find the opposition to Israel questionable in its failure to be similarly outraged by a vast number of other moral horrors in the recent past and currently active. Just to name a few: Cambodia, Tibet, Sudan, Somalia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Argentina, Liberia, Central African Republic, Uganda, North Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Venezuela, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Zimbabwe and, especially right now, Nigeria.

The Arab Spring, which has become a dark winter for most Arabs and the large-scale slaughter now under way along the borders of Iraq and Syria, are good examples of what they do to themselves. And our nations, the US, the Brits, the Dutch, the Russians and the French have all played their parts in these other moral outrages. The gruesome body count and social destruction left behind dwarf anything that the Israelis have done. The only difference with the Israelis is their claim to a moral high ground, which they long ago left behind in the refugee camps of Lebanon. They are now just a nation, like any other, trying to survive in a hostile sea of hate.

We should be clear that, given the opportunity, the Arabs would drive the Jews into the sea and that was true from day one. There was no way back from war once a religious state was declared. So Israel, once committed to a nation state in that location and granted that right by other nations, has had no choice but to fight. In my view, therefore, neither side has any shred of moral standing left, nor have the nations that supported both sides.

So now let’s at look at why the US behaves as it does with a nearly uncritical support of Israel. You are right to criticise our media in so many ways, but that only makes things worse. It does not really explain why. They are simply doing what they think their audiences want to hear. And they are mostly right.

Part of it has to do with post-war American evolution and perceptions of Israel and the Arabs. When I was a boy in the 1950s, through my teenage years anti-Semitism was still common in America. If you were Jewish you did not go to work for IBM or GE. You did not join the navy. You did not go to Harvard, Princeton or Yale. I could not play tennis at my local country club. I regularly heard derisive, anti-Semitic comments from some of my classmates. But by the mid-1960s along with the civil rights movement, toleration in general increased and anti-Semitism declined, almost vanishing. Support of Israel was part of that tolerance and was seen as a noble response to the Holocaust.

 

The Arabs were seen as the oppressors and enemies of the US. That perception was given particular impetus by the oil embargo of 1973 and the Iranian revolution, even though it was Persians not Arabs, because Americans don’t see that distinction. (We should never forget that we have a Republican-dominated Congress, half of whom do not own a passport and see ignorance as a virtue.)

The Israelis were seen as innovative and benign, people who made the desert bloom. To this was added the growing and ironic support from the US religious right who saw the route to salvation as the Israeli defeat of the Arabs leading to a second coming of Christ. (Of course, we Jews would have to convert to Christianity to survive the second coming.) The attacks of 9/11 amplified the American antipathy to the Arab world. Seeing the delight throughout the Arab world at the fall of the twin towers did not endear the Arabs to the American people. We can add Saddam, Gaddafi and Osama bin Laden to the pantheon of American villains. The UN is no longer seen as legitimate and almost always acting against US interests.

So my generation and most of today’s American leadership grew up with the Israelis as heroic good guys and Arabs/Persians as greedy bad guys. Those of the younger generation, my son Ben’s age (24), have a much more balanced view. Israel’s behaviour in their youth, the past two decades, has destroyed whatever moral standing the Israelis had with them. In addition, the pro-Israeli lobby in America has been very effective in the political arena and their Arab counterparts have been counterproductive. So our leaders who grew up with noble Israel and evil Arabs and supported by Jewish political contributions are unequivocally pro-Israeli while young people are more divided, as is at least some of the Jewish community. Eventually demography will win out as a new more sceptical generation comes to power, a generation for whom Israel will not carry the same moral weight as it did for their parents.

I don’t think there is any honour to go around here. Israel has lost its way and commits horrors in the interest of its own survival. And the Arabs and Persians perpetuate a conflict-ridden neighbourhood with almost no exceptions, fighting against each other and with hate of Israel the only thing that they share.

It is also worth noting that the largest Muslim populations are not Arab and the largest, Indonesia, is fairly peaceful. So it is not about religion. The Arabs have been engaged in tribal conflicts for centuries that from time to time have been quelled by imperial powers such as the Ottomans and strong men such as Saddam and Ibn Saud. And in those wars they have committed horrors on their own people. Observe the genocidal destruction of Homs by Hafez Assad, just to point to a recent example.

The Zionists brought another tribe to the war. It is a tribe that is also divided, like the Arabs, into factions, some of which are fanatical and war like and others more moderate. The comments about the racism of the Zionists are fair, but the Arab world does not lack for similar attitudes. One need only see how the vast number of South Asian, Philippine and African near-slaves are treated even in the more benign countries such as the UAE.

Given that history and current reality, and even though I believe the creation of Israel was a historic disaster, I am a member of the tribe (perhaps its more pacifist, atheist wing). I find objectionable the unique singling out of Israel for condemnation. So if we are prepared to boycott, condemn and shame the Saudis, the Qataris, the Iranians, the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Russians, the Nigerians, the Taliban, the Venezuelans, the Zimbabweans, the Sudanese, the South Sudanese, the Central African Republicans, and let’s not forget the Americans and the British, all of whom are as guilty as Israel, then I will join the demonstration. (Two small things that might help would be if the rich Arab states provided some funding and development assistance for the Palestinians and if the Palestinian government didn’t steal all the aid.)

We find ourselves at a historic impasse. There is no way back. Israel will do whatever it takes to survive. They will not leave. And the Arab identity has become opposition to Israel. It will be centuries, if ever, before they accept the existence of Israel. So both sides will always rightly feel threatened. There will be no other state there but perpetual tribal war with an occasional truce. And in that perpetual state of tribal war there be ample opportunity for horrors on both sides. We can only hope to lower the level of violence, but true peace will remain elusive.

Brian Eno's original letter can be found on the Indie website as well, but it mainly says exactly the same as most of us have been saying and asking..

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

In my view, it won't end until a) the Palestinian people have moderate leadership and b ) Israel is brave enough to compromise.

 

In the end I think a one state solution is the only option and in order to prevent an apartheid state, Israel will have to move away from its Jewish identity.

 

I don't think the latter will happen in our lifetime, and the former will require getting rid of Hamas, who have proven to be difficult to shift.

 

Pie in the sky etc, but I don't see another option. Both sides have to accept each other as equals and accept each other's claims to the land.

Edited August 3, 2014 by CarewsEyebrowDesigner

[packoman]

[MakemineVanilla]

In my view, it won't end until a) the Palestinian people have moderate leadership and b ) Israel is brave enough to compromise.

 

In the end I think a one state solution is the only option and in order to prevent an apartheid state, Israel will have to move away from its Jewish identity.

 

I don't think the latter will happen in our lifetime, and the former will require getting rid of Hamas, who have proven to be difficult to shift.

 

Pie in the sky etc, but I don't see another option. Both sides have to accept each other as equals and accept each other's claims to the land.

 

Why doesn't Gaza become part of Egypt and the West Bank become part of Jordan?

 

The displaced people could be offered monetary compensation for their loss of land from the British tax-payer because the UK caused the problem in the first place.

 

If the Arab countries would only show solidarity with the Palestinians and offer them the right to immigrate and full citizen rights, surely many Palestinians would emigrate from the war zone and start a new life elsewhere.

 

After all these areas were controlled by Egypt and Jordan for 19 years but for some reason they don't seem to want to help the Palestinians, which is a mystery.

[AVFCforever1991]

After all these areas were controlled by Egypt and Jordan for 19 years but for some reason they don't seem to want to help the Palestinians, which is a mystery.

 

How much U.S aid does Egypt receive every year?

[MakemineVanilla]

On average, about $2bn a year.

[DanishVillan]

So 1 month of money printing equals 30-40 years of Egyptian aid.

[Risso]

It's hard to see how there can be a peaceful solution in the short to medium term.  The whole situation is a complete mess.  When you have a group of people whose country has been foisted on another set of people, and both sets of people have devout belief in their "God-given" right to be there, it doesn't bode well.  Even if Israel were to say that there would be no controlling of Palestinian resources, and that Gaza and the West Bank could be free countries to run themselves as they see fit, is it likely that they'd all live in peaceful coexistence?  Somehow I think not.

[MakemineVanilla]

It's hard to see how there can be a peaceful solution in the short to medium term.  The whole situation is a complete mess.  When you have a group of people whose country has been foisted on another set of people, and both sets of people have devout belief in their "God-given" right to be there, it doesn't bode well.  Even if Israel were to say that there would be no controlling of Palestinian resources, and that Gaza and the West Bank could be free countries to run themselves as they see fit, is it likely that they'd all live in peaceful coexistence?  Somehow I think not.

 

The trouble is that it is difficult to decide whether it can be be considered the Palestinians' country.

 

Palestine belonged to the Ottomans from 1516 onwards and the British even recognised that fact, when the Ottomans were ousted, by handing it back to the Ottomans in 1840.

 

If we are to give validity to the treaty of 1839 which led to British entry into the war in 1914, then surely their recognition of Ottoman sovereignty in 1840, must be equally valid?

 

Historically, it is a proper can of worms.

[Risso]

I agree.  History and religion complicate things, but on the basis that there's an area called Gaza with a million Palestinians in it, and there's an area of land called Israel with lots of Jews in it, it's probably a good a basis as there is.  Whoever suggested Egypt look after Gaza was probably onto something.

[OutByEaster?]

In terms of solving the problem, Israel's current process of removing one of those two areas forever would probably put an end to some of the troubles. It's genocide, but it'd probably solve the problem.

[peterms]

 

It's hard to see how there can be a peaceful solution in the short to medium term.  The whole situation is a complete mess.  When you have a group of people whose country has been foisted on another set of people, and both sets of people have devout belief in their "God-given" right to be there, it doesn't bode well.  Even if Israel were to say that there would be no controlling of Palestinian resources, and that Gaza and the West Bank could be free countries to run themselves as they see fit, is it likely that they'd all live in peaceful coexistence?  Somehow I think not.

 

The trouble is that it is difficult to decide whether it can be be considered the Palestinians' country.

 

Palestine belonged to the Ottomans from 1516 onwards and the British even recognised that fact, when the Ottomans were ousted, by handing it back to the Ottomans in 1840.

 

If we are to give validity to the treaty of 1839 which led to British entry into the war in 1914, then surely their recognition of Ottoman sovereignty in 1840, must be equally valid?

 

Historically, it is a proper can of worms.

 

 

I don't think it's very hard at all to decide whether it is the Palestinians' country.  They were living there, when other people decided first that they would like to live there as well, and later that they would like to live there instead of the Palestinians.  This is people still alive, people who hold they keys to properties which Israel won't let them return to, not people who say that hundreds of generations ago their distant relatives had a claim to the land.

 

I'm not aware that modern-day Turkey wishes to press any claim to the land on the grounds that the Ottoman Empire once colonised it, any more than the UK claims India on similar grounds.  It's not an issue, is it?

[peterms]

This too is a war crime.

 

 

Israeli Soldier Leaks Accounts of Revenge Attacks Against Civilians by Troops in Gaza

 

An Israeli soldier has published accounts of Israeli soldiers being authorized by their commanders to carry out revenge attacks against civilians in the Gaza Strip “to enable the soldiers to take out their frustrations and pain at losing their fellow soldiers”.

 

Eran Efrati reports, “Soldiers in two different units inside Gaza leaked information about the murdering of Palestinians by sniper fire in Shuja’eyya neighborhood as punishment for the death of soldiers in their units. After the shooting on the Israeli armored personnel carriers, which killed seven soldiers of the Golani Brigade, the Israeli army carried out a massacre in Shuja’eyya neighborhood.

“A day after the massacre, many Palestinians came to search for their relatives and their families in the rubble. In one of the videos uploaded to YouTube, a young Palestinian man Salem Shammaly calls the names of his family and looking for them between the ruins when he is suddenly shot at in his chest and falls down. A few seconds after that, there are two additional shots from snipers into his body, killing him instantly.

“Since the video was released, there was no official response from the IDF spokesperson. Today I can report that the official command that was handed down to the soldiers in Shuja'eyya was to capture Palestinian homes as outposts. From these posts, the soldiers drew an imaginary red line, and amongst themselves decided to shoot to death anyone who crosses it. Anyone crossing the line was defined as a threat to their outposts, and was thus deemed a legitimate target. This was the official reasoning inside the units.

“I was told that the unofficial reason was to enable the soldiers to take out their frustrations and pain at losing their fellow soldiers (something that for years the IDF has not faced during its operations in Gaza and the West Bank), out on the Palestinian refugees in the neighborhood. Under the pretext of the so-called “security threat” soldiers were directed to carry out a pre-planned attack of revenge on Palestinian civilians.”

Richard Silverstein, who works with the publication Tikkun Olam, wrote in response to Efrati’s account, “What Efrati is revealing is an semi-officially sanctioned My Lai-type massacre. The man in green murdered in cold blood in the YouTube video wasn’t killed by a lone gunman operating on his own. His murder was approved as an act of vengeance on all of Gaza. Let’s remember that 120 Palestinians died that night in Shejaia. This was no accident. They weren’t collateral damage. They were the targets.”

The reports of authorized revenge attacks come in the midst of a massive bombing attack by the Israeli airforce Tuesday morning, an admission by the Israeli military that their missile hit a UN school in Beit Hanoun, and another school was hit by an Israeli strike on Monday.

In an article in the Israeli paper Yedioth Ahronoth on July 18th, as the ground invasion began, the paper reported, "The tanks, which serve as the heart of the assault force, received an order to open fire at anything that moved. The area and the targets are due to be seized by the morning hours. From here on, [the army] will start to clear the ground, in what could last for several days, depending on political developments."

Note: A previous version of this story contained a reference to Eran Efrati being a member of the Israeli group ‘Breaking the Silence’. The current spokesperson for 'Breaking the Silence' contacted the IMEMC to say that Efrati is no longer a member of that group.