Finkelstein on Al Jazeera

Punk Rock Friday

NoMeansNo

Dead Kennedys

The Clash

The Sex Pistols

Save What!?

There is a wave sweeping across college campuses. Kids are starting to organize. There are teach ins, posters, rallies, marches, fliers, T-Shirts and they all are saying the same thing, "Save Darfur."
"Save Darfur" is now the hip thing to be a part of on college campuses while Iraq burns, badly. To them the real tragedy is in Darfur where it is estimated that around 200,000 have been killed, 20% violently. Iraq's violence, being caused by our own government, is far greater than anything going on in Darfur yet that is not worth a T-Shirt.
Yes there is tragedy in Darfur, there is no doubt, but what is the conflict's history? What will it take to stop it? WHo really knows, maybe the college kids could go to China and lobby that government.
Why is it that Darfur is to be saved but not Iraq. By some estimates three times as many people have been killed in Iraq.
The only government one can exert any control over is there own. Yet that is not happening? Why?
If someone wanted to protest against human rights violations going on in Africa they should look into the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Coltan.

Some Live Music Videos

They Might Be Giants


Stereolab


Arctic Monkeys


REM

Israel Week was sidetracked in such an ironic way.

Dr. Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure this weekend from DePaul. It wasn't surprising but absurd. Finkelstein is one of the pre-eminent scholars on the Jewish Holocaust and the Israel/Palestinian conflict. Raul Hillberg, the world's leading scholar on the history of Jews in Europe, had this to say about the tenure.

"It takes an enormous amount of academic courage to speak the truth when no one else is out there to support him. And so, I think that given this acuity of vision and analytical power, demonstrating that the Swiss banks did not owe the money, that even though survivors were beneficiaries of the funds that were distributed, they came, when all is said and done, from places that were not obligated to pay that money. That takes a great amount of courage in and of itself. So I would say that his place in the whole history of writing history is assured, and that those who in the end are proven right triumph, and he will be among those who will have triumphed, albeit, it so seems, at great cost." It must be mentioned that

Hillberg is no lefty, he is a right winger through and through.


Avi Shlaim, Professor of international relations at Oxford University, who is regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on the Israeli-Arab conflict, said this about Finkelstein.

"His last book, Beyond Chutzpah, is based on an amazing amount of research. He seems to have read everything. He has gone through the reports of Israeli groups, of human rights groups, Human Rights Watch and Peace Now and B'Tselem, all of the reports of Amnesty International. And he deploys all this evidence from Israeli and other sources in order to sustain his critique of Israeli practices, Israeli violations of human rights of the Palestinians, Israeli house demolitions, the targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants, the cutting down of trees, the building of the wall -- the security barrier on the West Bank, which is illegal -- the restrictions imposed on the Palestinians in the West Bank, and so on and so forth. I find his critique extremely detailed, well-documented and accurate.

Then there is Noam Chomsky. ptI

pt. II


How it all started. pt.I
If you watch this you will understand, outside of it being about Israel/Palestine, why I admire Finkelstein’s debating skills. He is like a pit bull constantly holding back. Remember too that he is debating Harvard’s head law professor, one of the men who got O.J. off. Notice how much Dershowitz tries to change the subject from his plagiarism. Finklestein’s research is meticulous and impeccable.

pt.II

Dershowitz wasn’t able to take down Chomsky, due to work in linguistics, so Finkelstein is his proxy.

More Myths

Okay a few more myths about the Israel/Palestinian conflict
“Palestinians are anti-Semitic by nature.”
People like to claim that the real reason that Palestinians attack Israel and its citizens is because of a deep-rooted hatred for Jews. People will point to this fact over and over. “In 1937 the Grand Mufti expressed his solidarity with Germany, asking the Nazi Third Reich to oppose establishment of a Jewish state, stop Jewish immigration to Palestine, and provide arms to the Arab population.” Of course, there is truth to that but how does that tell us anything about the Palestinians today? To me it is irrelevant.
As Prof. Finkelstein likes to point out, Did the Native Americans fight the European settlers because of deep rooted anti-Europeanism? It would be laughable to claim that was the reason.

“These people have been fighting for thousands of years or this is a religious war”
At first the obvious truth is that the Jews weren’t in Palestine for the last couple thousand years. The Romans had kicked them out, in the first century and they didn’t start returning, in any real numbers, until the early 1900’s. These early Zionists had actually hoped to live in peace with their Arab neighbors and share the land and did.
Religion does play a role in the conflict but it isn’t a main factor. Suicide bombing mostly occurs in places on the globe were people feel that their religion is being attacked by another or when people are being ruled by another religious group. The fact is that the majority of all suicide bombing have occurred in Sri Lanka by the more secular Tamil Tigers. This group is not a highly religious organization but they are the minority religion in their land and have no rule.
In addition all one needs to do is go back and reread the latest Bertrand Russell quotes.

“The Palestinians left, in 1948, either as a result of their Arabs leaders telling them to or under their volition.”
There was no Arab leader to tell the Palestinians to leave.
Right-wing Israel Historian Benny Morris has shown that the Israelis ethnically cleansed the Palestinians from the West Bank. His only complaint is that it was done well enough.
Not to mention, I would have gotten the hell out too after this.

“The Arabs are/were going to ‘Push the Jews into the Sea’”
Israel has always had military superiority to all its adversaries combined.

“There is a lot of controversy about the conflict.”
Actually pretty much the entire world in is agreement about the conflict, the solutions, the history, what is happening, what is legal under international law and who are the victims. The only controversy is coming from Israel and the U.S. In fact there doesn’t seem to be any controversy in Israel if one reads the Israeli papers.

That is all I can think of off the top of my head.
Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to tackle one of the biggest myths of all; “At Camp David in 2000, Ehud Barack, Israel’s Prime Minister at the time, made a generous offer, with huge concessions, to Arafat but Arafat just rejected it and started the Second Intifada (uprising in Arabic).”

Ah yes, Gore Vidal

The History of the Six Day War

I think it would be best for Norman Finkelstein to explain the history.
It is 50 minutes long.
Six Day War

Recognition of the Right of Israel to Exist.

Ever since the Palestinians exercised their right to vote and voted in Hamas there have been demands placed on them in order for the Palestinians to get assistance from the world community. One of the main demands is that “Hamas must recognize the Right of Israel to exist as a Jewish State.” There are a few problems with this demand, which has been made numerous times against numerous Palestinian leaders. These problems are so obvious and elementary that they seem to show us that it is the Israeli Government, not the Palestinians, who never want peace and are willing to sacrifice their citizens for the expansion of their State.

What exactly does “recognize the right to exist” mean? Does the state of Mexico recognize the right of America to exist in parts stolen from them? Should they? To many onlookers the state of Israel exists and it seems very silly to deny its existence. To others it means that Hamas should not call for the destruction of the State of Israel, a country with nuclear weapons being threatened by crude rockets. As usual though these things are not as plain and simple.

What constitutes a state? One of the main parts of any state is their border. If a state has ever-evolving borders then what is to be recognized? Israel has ever changing borders. For instance the borders today are not the same as they were in 2000, 1982, 1966 or 1948. With the addition of the euphemistically called “security fence” more and more land is being confiscated by Israel.

The next question is, “Does Hamas need to recognize the State of Israel even though its borders are always in a state of flux?” By recognizing Israel’s right to exist as a state with ever encroaching borders, will this then recognize the right for Palestinians to be forcibly removed from their land the next time Israel wants some aquifer? It would lead that yes, Hamas agreed to recognize and ever expanding state of Israel and has no right crying when Israel continues to expand.

Most people who even remotely know anything about the conflict are aware of what is called the “two state solution”; the most famously negotiated settlement became the Geneva Accords. Both sides have basically agreed in theory to this plan. If Israel, the most powerful state in the region, agrees that there should be a Palestinian state then why don’t they recognize Palestine’s right to exist as a state? I beg any of you to find any Israeli politician who has ever called for a Palestinian state inside the Internationally recognized borders, with its capital in East Jerusalem. It just has never been said.

In March of 2002 the Arab League came up with a detailed peace plan for the region. The participants agreed to full recognition of a secure Israel and diplomatic relations if Israel would do three things. They must pull back to the pre-June ’67 borders, agree to a just solution to the refugee problem and recognize a sovereign Palestine in all the West Bank and Gaza. Israel refused to accept those conditions, all of which are required of Israel under international law, and the conflict rages today.

It is very true that Hamas's charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and replacing it with an Islamic State but this document is old and so much has changed. Hamas has called for a Hudna, or truce in Arabic, to last for 10 years while issues are negotiated. A Hudna is a Koranic idea and Hamas is strongly religious so it leads that they would follow their religion. Yet Israel refused. The current Prime Minister told Ha’aretz, the most influential paper in Israel, "If Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, peace will prevail and we will implement a cease-fire [hudna] for many years." To no avail.

So what does this tell us? It tells us that Israel is making demands of the Palestinians that they refuse to do themselves. On top of that it tells us that Hamas cannot, as the representative of the Palestinians, accept a neighboring state whose borders are always creeping in stealing land for the state you recognized. No country would accept that. Which means in the end that the Israeli Government has no desire for peace with its neighbors and will continue to steal more and more land from the native population with the hopes that things will become so desperate for the Palestinians that they will just leave. It is a sort of “soft” ethnic cleansing.

Israel Week

This Sunday, June 10th, marks the 40th anniversary of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories. In case you have noticed, I haven't been posting much of my own writing. I had absolutely no inspiration, but now there is an anniversary that deserves attention.
I will be writing a series of essays about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict this week. Mostly I will be writing about the myths and red herrings. I have spent a few years arguing with Liberal Jews who support Israel, in varying degrees, and have come up with some fake roadblocks, propaganda and some intelligent debate. So in the next days I will deal with these issues that Israeli policy supporters use to end debate. The first installment will be on the line that "Hamas/PA/Palestinians must recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state."
SInce I have yet to write my first essay I will post my piece I did for my writing class. It deals with the conflict also.

On March 26th 1979 U.S. President Jimmy Carter brought together the leaders of two countries, which had been in a perpetual state of war for twenty-nine years, for a historic moment. After nearly three decades of on again off again war, the two countries, Israel and Egypt, came together to sign a peace treaty, Israel’s only peace treaty until the 1996 treaty with Jordan, which has lasted to this day. So how could it be that 28 years later Carter, a man who helped Israel create some peace in its neighborhood, would be branded an anti-Semite?

Menachem Begin, a former guerilla fighter who fought to free his country from British Occupation, was Prime Minister of Israel at the time. Begin’s legacy is controversial, some say he was a war criminal for his attacks against the British and the killing, terrorizing and displacement of the Arab natives while others view him as a champion of their dream for a Greater Israel, without the original Arab inhabitants. Begin went into the diplomatic dialogue knowing that it would be in his country’s best interest to attempt to negotiate in a one on one setting as opposed to Israel negotiating with the entire Arab world.

Anwar Al-Sadat, the third President of Egypt, also fought against British domination of his country, much like his Israeli counterpart. In 1977 Sadat made a bold and, amongst his fellow Arabs, unpopular move and became the first Arab leader to travel and speak to the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset. Sadat had hoped that this gesture, of essentially recognizing the state of Israel, would please America with the hopes that maybe the US could help the beleaguered Egyptian economy.

In September of 1978 President Carter invited both leaders and their respective negotiating teams to Camp David for secret talks that lasted 13 days. At numerous times, during those 13 days, both sides had wanted to end the peace process each time President Carter brought them back to the table. Carter would shuttle back and forth between the cabins of the two sides and then relay the information to a third party, whom would then inform either side of what has transpired.

Out of these 13 days of tense and trying negotiations came, what is now known as, the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty signed in Washington by Sadat and Begin, a peace treaty that has lasted for almost 28 years without incident. Sadat would later be assassinated for creating peace with Israel by many of the same people who would later fight the Russians in Afghanistan and finance the attacks perpetrated against the U.S. on September 11th 2001.

Since leaving office Former President Carter has become one of the world’s leading champions of human rights and democracy. His Carter Center has monitored 67 elections in over twenty-five countries and he personally won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his humanitarian work around the globe.

Four years after winning the Nobel Prize, President Carter released a book entitled “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid” in which he is critical of the Israeli’s treatment of the Palestinians. The book was condemned even before it was published by future Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi who said, “It is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes ethnically based oppression and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously.” Another fellow Democrat, John Conyers, now chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has said he called the Former President “to express my concerns about the title of the book, and to request that the title be changed. President Carter does not build upon his career as a proponent of peace in the Middle East with this comparison and I hope he and his publisher will reconsider this decision.”

The Anti Defamation League wrote a letter to Carter telling him, “using the incendiary word "Apartheid" to refer to Israel and its policies is unacceptable and shameful” and “Apartheid, that abhorrent and racist system in South Africa, has no bearing on Israeli policies.” But Carter said: "Apartheid is the forced separation of two peoples in the same area and the forced subjugation of one to the other. No one can argue that that is not the situation in the Palestinian territories right now." Later the ADL went on to claim “[Carter has] been feeding into conspiracy theories about excessive Jewish power and control. Considering the history of anti-Semitism, even in our great country, this is very dangerous stuff.”

Some of Carter’s supporters point out that the word “apartheid” is a regular part of Israeli discourse. DePaul Professor Norman Finkelstein, son of Holocaust survivors, reminds us to “take the case of Ha’aretz, Israel's leading newspaper….in their editorials, they routinely refer to the apartheid-like regime in the Occupied Territories.” He then goes on to ask, “so why is it illegitimate for a former American president to use a term which is a commonplace? Why are you in the United States disqualified from participating in what in Israel is part of the mainstream discourse?”

The few book reviews that were published also attacked Carter. Martin Peretz of the New Republic claimed, “Now, I have read this book. Or as much of it as I could stand. It is a tendentious, dishonest and stupid book.” Deborah Lipstadt of the Washington Post said of the book, “It trivializes the murder of Israelis.” She went on to say that by “almost ignoring the Holocaust, Carter gives inadvertent comfort to those who deny its importance or even its historical reality” and that “Carter has repeatedly fallen back … on traditional anti-Semitic canards” Jeffrey Goldberg, also writing in the Washington Post says that “One gets the impression that Carter believes that Israelis -- in their deviousness -- somehow mean to keep Jesus from fulfilling the demands of His ministry.”

Though leading the charge in the criticism of the former President is Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. Professor Dershowitz has written several articles attacking Carter and his book for “His use of the loaded word ‘apartheid,’ suggesting an analogy to the hated policies of South Africa”.

UCLA English Professor, Saree Makdisi, thinks differently. “Israel maintains two sets of rules and regulations in the West Bank,” he tells us, “one for Jews, one for non-Jews. The only thing wrong with using the word ‘apartheid’ to describe such a repugnant system is that the South African version of institutionalized discrimination was never as elaborate as its Israeli counterpart -- nor did it have such a vocal chorus of defenders among otherwise liberal Americans.”

Professor Dershowitz has compared Carter to Nazi sympathizers. “In reading Carter’s statements, I was reminded of the bad old Harvard of the nineteen thirties, which continued to honor Nazi academics after the anti-Semitic policies of Hitler’s government became clear. Harvard of the nineteen thirties was complicit in evil. I sadly concluded that Jimmy Carter of the twenty-first century has become complicit in evil.”

In the early part of 2007 Carter was invited to speak at Brandies University, a university founded by American Jews but is secular in nature. Though there has been debate surrounding the various invitations, according to The Brandies Hoot, the college’s paper, Carter had been invited three times. According to the Hoot, “The first invitation, extended by Faculty Senate Chair Harry Mairson, was declined by Carter after Carter advisor and Brandeis trustee Stuart Eizenstat told Carter he was uncertain if the professor had an agenda behind his invitation.”

Then the university suggested the former president, the first to visit since the 1957 commencement speech by the late Harry Truman, debate Alan Dershowitz. Many saw this as puzzling. “I don’t think you ask a President of the United States to come and debate anyone. It’s just not dignified,” said Brandeis Professor Gordon Fellman. Carter turned down the invitation saying “I don't want to have a conversation even indirectly with Dershowitz… there is no need to for me to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine.” Dershowitz fired back arguing, "President Carter said he wrote the book because he wanted to encourage more debate. Then why won’t he debate?”

Carter responding to a caller on CSPAN, who called him a racist, bigot and anti-semite, said, “The pre-eminent goal that I have had in my mind is to bring peace to the people of Israel.”
In the end all of these attacks against the former President have taken a toll on him. "I've been hurt and so has my family by some of the reaction," Carter said. "This is the first time that I've ever been called a liar and a bigot and an anti-Semite and a coward and a plagiarist. This has hurt me."