So much for “the audacity of hope”

OBAMA’S CAIRO SPEECH

1. Finally Obama, the black President of the United States has made his much awaited speech outlining his views and policies on Islam, the Muslims and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is a carefully crafted speech and certainly it is different from those of George W. Bush or even other US Presidents.

2. The arrogance and the preachings are out but two things American still stand out, and that is the United States is a world super power and that American loyalty to Israel is undiminished. Other things can change but not these two.

3. Hamas is asked to give up terrorism because like the struggles of the blacks of America and South Africa, violence achieves nothing. This is not quite true, at least with other national struggles for freedom and justice. The white Americans themselves fought a war against the British and another war to prevent the break-up of the United States.

4. Elsewhere the struggles for freedom and justice e.g. the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution just to name two, all involve violence.

5. It is not the Palestinians who choose violence. It was the Jews who violently seized Palestinian land, massacred the Arabs and expelled them from their country. With no one prepared to restrain the Jews, the beleaguered Palestinians had to resort to violence. The world, the United Nations, even fellow Muslims have deserted them.

6. I am against violence but when Israel seized more Palestinian land, build settlements, impose military rule, divide the Palestinians with high walls, barred the Palestinians from using roads built by the Israelis on Palestinian territory, denied the Palestinian right to a homeland, denied the right of return of the expelled Palestinian while upholding the rights of return of Jews who for centuries had been citizens of other countries, labelled Palestinians as terrorists while exonerating the Israelis for the massive attacks on Gaza and other places, left the Palestinians helpless when attacked by the Western-armed Israeli Military Forces, incarcerated thousands of Palestinians in Israeli jails, unnecessarily provoke the Palestinians by Sharon’s visit to Jerusalem and many, many more assaults and provocations, is it any wonder that the Palestinians resorted to violence?

7. And now they are asked to stop violence to respect agreements. But what about the Israelis? Shouldn’t they be told to stop their massive violence; shouldn’t they be told to respect agreements and all the UN resolutions, such as those against their setting up settements on Palestinian soil, the occupation of land beyond the UN set boundaries for Israel?

8. Obama stresses America’s strong bond with Israel. It is unbreakable. He recognises the aspiration for a Jewish homeland “rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied”.

9. But what is the tragic history? It is that of European persecution of the Jews, of the regular pogroms culminating in the Holocaust? It is not the doings of the Muslims. Certainly not the doings of the Palestinians.The tragedy was caused by the Europeans through the ages.

10. Obama must know that before there was the United States, the Jews invariably fled to Muslim countries to seek refuge from European persecution. The Muslims did not turn them back. Before Israel there were millions of Jews in Muslim land. Even today quite a few are still there.

11. The Muslims have never been part of the tragic history of the Jews. Why then must they pay the price for the tragedy caused by the Europeans? Had the Europeans offered part of Europe or America for a Jewish state, there would not be the sustained violence that we see in West Asia. But the Europeans expropriated Arab Palestinian land to give to the Jews. Can an injustice in West Asia atone for injustice in Europe? The Muslim Arabs have to pay for the asylum they provided the Jews by having their land taken away to give to the Jews.

12. To make matters worse the Palestinian Arabs, Christians and Muslims, were violently expelled from Palestine. Israel is to be a racist state for Jews only.

13. America accepts people of different races and religious affiliations. But it supports the exclusivity of Israel as a Jewish state.

14. The Palestinians had tried conventional ways of getting back their land. But conventional ways had failed. They have been forsaken by Arab and Muslim countries. Everytime they try on their own they lose more land because the Europeans and Americans gave military support to Israel.

15. It is only after the failure of conventional wars of liberation that they resorted to unconventional attacks. Can they be blamed? Even the tiny mouse when driven into a corner will fight literally with tooth and nail.

16. We can label the methods of the cornered Palestinians terrorism. But they are themselves terrified and those who inflict terror on them cannot be less of a terrorist than them. State terrorism is no less terrifying than terrorism by irregulars. Indeed State terrorism is more terrifying as we witnessed in Nazi Germany and in Cambodia.

17. I will admit that Obama has brought change. It is a relief after eight years of Bush. But there is an area that he cannot change and that is the blind support for Israel. He has no choice. He will become a one-term President of the United States if he does not.

18. For all the talk about democracy in America, the American majority have no power to choose their President or their Government. That power lies with Israel. They can deny this. But that is the truth. The Americans have become the proxy of the Jews. The Americans will pay a heavy price for this. – Tun Dr. mahathir

Compromise!

HANAN 2

February 19, 2009 7:01 PM | Permalink

Dear Hanan,

1. I think I cannot convince you on anything simply because your perception of things is not based on logic or reason but merely on your strong belief that you are always right, even if the whole world says you are wrong.

2. Jews have lived with Muslims in Muslim countries for centuries without any serious problem.

3. On the other hand in Europe, Jews were persecuted. Every now and again there would be pogroms when the Europeans would massacre Jews. The Holocaust did not happen in Muslim countries. Muslims may discriminate against Jews but did not massacre them.

4. But now you are fighting the largely Muslim Palestinians. It cannot be because of religious differences or the killing of Jews living among them. It must be because you have taken their land and expelled them from their homeland. It is therefore not a religious war. But of course as you seek sympathisers from among the non-Muslims, the Palestinians seek sympathisers among the Muslims. That still does not make the war a religious war.

5. Whether you speak Hebrew or not is not relevant. Lots of people who are not English speak English. They don’t belong to England. For centuries you could speak Hebrew but remained Germans, British, French, Russians etc.

6. Lots of Jews cannot speak Hebrew but they are still Jews. Merely being able to speak Hebrew does not entitle you to claim Palestine.

7. The Jews had lived in Europe for centuries. They identify themselves with their domicile. They fought the wars of these countries often against other Jews living in enemy countries.

8. These countries are their homeland. So why should they take Palestinian land to make their own country? They could take any of the European countries as their own country. The United States of America should offer one of its states as Israel.

9. As to history, the Malays had occupied a lot of land in Southeast Asia since time immemorial. Today much of our land has become part of neighbouring countries, having been conquered or because of treaties entered into by the British. We should really go to war to regain our land especially as there are Malays living there.

10. But we want to live in peace with our neighbours. So we accept the borders drawn by the colonialists.

11. You may say it is a joke to believe the Philistines are the forebears of the Palestinians. But what may be a joke to you is a serious belief of much of the non-Jewish world.

12. We did not have a Jewish representative at our conference. But I am sure when you have a conference in Israel you did not have Muslim representatives either.

13. I can sympathise over the killings of the Jews. But show me pictures of total destruction of Israeli towns and villages. Show me the effect of the primitive Hamas rockets on the Israeli people. Compare them with the effects of your bombs, rockets, shells, chemical weapons you used on the Gazans. When did Hamas blockade you and starve Israeli people and deprive them of medical attention. Did Hamas build a wall to separate Israelis from other Israelis including from family members? Did Hamas build settlements in Israel?

14. This idea of out-terrorising the terrorists, of massive retaliation on a scale that horrifies the whole world will not work.

15. Our people who went to Gaza were amazed at the attitude of the people there. Even after the deaths of so many of them, the deaths of their children and babies; even after their towns have been flattened, their schools and hospitals destroyed, they show no fear. Every one of them expects to die at any time because of your attacks but they would never surrender. When asked they simply said it is their land and they would defend it to the last. Even an Arab Christian priest was determined to stay on in Gaza. Those of their children who survive will prepare themselves to defend their land like their parents. Your attacks fail to terrify them or to force them to submit. You only succeed in instilling greater hatred of Israel and the Israelis.

16. When it was pointed out to them that they are no match for the Israeli forces and their weapons of mass destruction, when it was pointed out that their rockets were primitive and cannot compare with the destructiveness of Israeli rockets, they were not disheartened. The Israeli attacks simply strengthened their resolve to go on fighting. The Israeli idea to out-terrorise them has not worked and I believe it would not work.

17. Your arguments simply confirm my belief that the Jews have the same degree of hatred for the Palestinians, despite the fact that you suffer less than them.

18. The war has degenerated into a feud between Palestinians and Israelis. The Palestinians know they cannot win the war but that simply heightened their hatred for Israelis. They will nevertheless try to kill Jews, even if that will intensify Jewish hatred for the Palestinians. And you will retaliate with many times greater ferocity because you cannot force them to their knees. Their resistance simply increase your anger and hatred of them.

19. We have come to an impasse. If Israel is bent on occupying Palestinian land, on building Jewish settlements, on building Berlin walls and on sanctions and blockade, the Palestinians will continue their futile attacks. Arabs will die, maybe 10 for every one Jew. But with the hatred for Jews which they harbour, that is a worthwhile sacrifice. And Jews will kill more Arabs to express their hatred. And so it will go on as it had gone for 60 years, as it will go on for another 60 years or more.

20. Dear Hanan, tell your Government to compromise. – Tun Dr. Mahathir

Split view: a Moslem, a Christian, a Jew and a statesman

PALESTINE

February 10, 2009 12:28 PM | Permalink

1. The Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW) held a special forum on Palestine.

2. In my opening speech I stressed that the war in Palestine is not a religious war between Islam and Judaism. It is a territorial war resulting from the European powers carving out a slice of Palestinian land in order to create the State of Israel.

3. It is grossly unjust for the Europeans to solve their Jewish problem by taking land belonging to the Arab Palestinian to give to the Jews for their homeland. It is grossly unfair that they should transfer their problem to the Arabs.

4. The participants at the forum represented all races, belonging to all religions. There were ethnic European Christians, Chinese Catholics, Hindus, Sikhs, Malay Muslims, Arab Muslims, Chinese Buddhists and many others.

5. They came together because they were moved by the human tragedy that is happening in Gaza, Palestine. That the Palestinian Arabs are mostly Muslims did not lessen the feeling of sympathy felt by the participants.

6. Two doctors from Jordan were present. They had gone to Gaza to show their sympathy and brotherhood and to help treat the casualties. They were not prepared to see the carnage caused by Israeli attacks.

7. The Israeli forces appeared to be using new kinds of shells and bombs which exploded after bouncing off the ground hurling sharp metal shrapnel which cut deep into the bodies of the victims.

8. Many had their arms and legs severed by the shrapnel, while others died when the shrapnel cut deep into their bodies and organs.

9. One man was saved because the shrapnel cut into a small Quran he had in his pocket but stopped short of his chest.

10. Phosphorus bombs scattered white phosphorus all over the victims. The phosphorus sticks to the body and burn as long as there is oxygen in the air. It burns through the skin, through the muscles and through the bones. It is impossible to remove the phosphorus without cutting deep into the tissues and bones.

11. The pictures of decapitated bodies, shrapnel severed arms and legs were horrifying. The surgeons had to operate on stretchers with several operations going on in one room at the same time. There was blood everywhere and yet there was no blood for transfusion.

12. The video also showed Israeli men and women being interviewed. They were quite hysterical, shouting and demanding that the Palestinian children should be killed as they, the Israeli women had lost their children because of rocket attacks by Hamas.

13. The Gaza attacks exposed the horror of modern warfare. No one is spared. The town of Gaza is reduced to rubble and bodies were strewn everywhere. Children were buried under the rubble of fallen buildings, with only their dead heads visible. There were burnt bodies of babies.

14. Professor Gurdial Singh spoke about how Israel could be tried by an International War Crimes Court.

15. Then it was question time. An Englishman voiced his anger that the pictures of the atrocities were not made public in the United Kingdom. He wished that the Jordanian doctors could give their briefings together with the pictures in London.

16. Responding to the remarks, Professor Michel Chossudovsky pointed out that the Western media is owned by a small number of people and they control the news contents. They were obviously pro-Israel and their policy is to promote the Israeli cause against Palestine and Muslims in general.

17. Many of the questions asked showed strong sympathy for the Palestinians. The questions were from all races and religions.

18. Then a young Arab man took the floor. The first thing he said was to emphasise that the Palestinian war is a religious war. Muslims must support the Palestinians because of their faith. There can be no two ways. The Arabs must fight a holy war against the Jews. They must fight because the Jews are the enemies of the Muslims, of the Arabs.

19. I felt uncomfortable, as there were many non-Muslim supporters of the Palestinians in the audience. Making the Palestinian war as a religious war seem to reject the sympathy and support of the non-Muslims.

20. A Chinese Catholic got up to reply that he has full sympathy for the Palestinians who had lost their land, who had been driven out of their country to live as refugees. He thought that the Palestinians were unjustly treated and the Israeli killings of the Palestinians were against all humanitarian values. He did not see it as a religious war but a war against injustice and oppression.

21. I was depressed by the attitude of the young Arab. It seems he was moved only by the hatred of the Jews. On the other hand the demand of the Israeli woman to have Palestinian children killed also exposes her bitter hatred of the Palestinians.

22. This is wrong. Of course enemies must hate each other. But that must not be the reason for the war. Actually it is a product of the war.

23. The real reason for the war is the seizure of Palestinian land to create the state of Israel. The objective of the Palestinians should be the re-conquest of the lost land, including removal of the settlements set up by the Jews. The whole war must be directed with this objective.

24. What I realised when the young Arab vehemently declared that the war is a religious war was that the war would have no end. The objective was to kill Jews because of their religion.

25. On the Jewish side it is the same. They want to kill and destroy the Arabs because they hate the Arabs. That explains their brutality, their targeting schoolchildren, babies and old people. That also explains the diabolical weapons that they use, not just to kill but to cause as much pain and disfigurement as possible.

26. The Israeli leaders, especially the military are said to welcome Hamas rockets. To provoke Hamas into firing their rockets the Israelis blockaded Gaza.

27. When Hamas fired the rockets, Israelis would condemn the deaths, especially of children. The people were angered by the death and demanded retaliation, which the military duly obliged with massive attacks out of all proportion to the damage done by the unsophisticated Hamas rockets.

28. For their part the Palestinians would show the effects of Israeli brutality, the destruction of the towns and the deaths of innocent children. The hatred against the Jews was fanned to red heat, and Palestinians would become ready to kill the Jews in any way they can. They would fire more rockets and the Jews would retaliate with even greater force and brutality.

29. Both sides have now forgotten the reasons for their war. It is like the clan war of old, when for generations the hatred would be kept alive and both sides would want to go on fighting and killing each other.

30. The Palestinians are getting the worse deal in this “I kill your people, you kill my people,” fighting.

31. I was asked by the Jordanian doctor, when will this war end. I think it will have no end because it has degenerated into feuds of old, when Semitic tribes fight each other for generations simply because they were traditional enemies. The original reason for the enmity has long been forgotten.

32. If the war is going to be terminated both sides must try to remember the original cause and negotiate for peace. The backers of the contestants should cease providing money and weapons so they will continue to fight. Instead they should urge both sides to discuss a peace not based on who is more powerful but on justice. – Tun Dr. Mahathir

The more we discuss religious differences, the safer we will be – Janet Daley

FEB 16 – I had just taken part in a television discussion on the coverage of the Gaza conflict and was now paired up with the driver provided by BBC Transport to take me home.

Clearly identifiable from his beard and clothing as a practising Muslim, he led me courteously to his car. On the way back, we chatted about the traffic and the weather, before we got onto the problems of minicab drivers in the recession.

I sympathised with the fact that he was finding it harder and harder to make a living: even coming into central London from where he lived (he mentioned a town well known for its fundamentalist Islamic community) was no solution because it used so much petrol. Cab drivers were, I said, always among the first to suffer in financial hard times.

At various points in our exchanges, he expressed curiosity about what I had been debating on the programme and I avoided answering, sensing that the subject might be inflammatory.

But finally there was a direct question: what subject had I been discussing? So I told him. And what had I said about it, he asked.

So, as tactfully as I could, I told him. Which opened the floodgates. The problem could never be resolved, he said, because it was a battle between Muslims and Jews which meant that it was between, as he put it, “good and evil”.

The Jews in Israel, he said, did not follow the faith of Judaism, but of another religion called “Zionism”.

At this point, I intervened to point out, very gently, that I was Jewish and to suggest that Judaism and Zionism were not actually mutually exclusive.

But at the mention of my Jewishness, he let out a small “Oh!” of surprised dismay and dropped the subject. Whether this was because he regretted possibly causing offence, or because he feared his remarks might get him into trouble with his employers is difficult to say.

After a moment to recover from this impasse, we resumed our previous uncontentious conversation and when I left the car, we wished each other a gracious good night.

It is worth pointing out that throughout our brief exchange about Muslims and Jews being equivalent to the forces of “good and evil”, he had remained soft-spoken and unaggressive: his manner seemed to me much more naive than anything else.

I got the distinct impression that he was simply reciting what he had been urged by his mosque to say to everyone he encountered. This may be why I reacted with as little animosity as I did, and why I am still obscuring any identifiable details of the incident so that it cannot rebound on him.

There are those who would say that I was wrong not to report this to somebody. After all, I had found myself hurtling along the motorway in a car controlled by someone who claimed to believe that I was the embodiment of evil.

And I dare say, being a member of an ethnic minority myself would have strengthened my hand in any complaint: Jews can still lay claim to a legitimate sense of persecution, while Christians, as the General Synod made clear last week, can be discriminated against with impunity.

But what struck me most was the credulousness and vulnerability of this young man who was so prey to manipulation by hate-mongers. It never seemed to occur to him that his passenger might actually be Jewish (presumably, since I did not have any horns).

Perhaps, he had never knowingly met a Jew before. What he had said to me was uttered with almost childlike simplicity and (I know that this is an odd word to use under the circumstances) innocence.

This brings me back to the question of Christians who may be kicked around (and even sacked, it would seem) for talking about their religious beliefs.

It was genuinely childish simplicity that caused the five-year-old daughter of Jennie Cain, a school receptionist who is now threatened with losing her job, to tell another child that people who did not believe in Jesus would go to Hell. This was apparently conceived by that other child, as a “threat”.

Really? I can remember being told precisely the same thing by my Christian playmates. The street where I spent my early childhood in Boston was populated by Irish Catholic and “Scotch Irish” families who (although I was unaware of it at the time) represented the two sides of Ulster’s religious and political history, and whose animosity to one another was as mysterious to me as their religious practices.

I was fascinated by their beliefs and by their mutual hatred which, interestingly, almost never went beyond verbal abuse, perhaps because we all lived in a mixed community.

Staying on good terms with both sides, I visited their churches: the bare, Protestant assembly-like building, and the darkly Gothic, Roman Catholic church, with its statues and mystical trough of holy water. (I was more taken with the latter.) Their prayers, their home bibles, their crucifixes and their plaster saints were all fixtures of my childhood experience, which I still recall with fondness and respect.

And I suspect that having spent their formative years with an inquisitive Jew for company helped to insulate them against adult anti-Semitism.

The idea that overt religious observance – even in its quite strict, forbidding forms – should necessarily be regarded as a form of intimidation strikes me as the opposite of the truth.

It was exactly the exposure to one another’s beliefs in childhood – and even to the direct confrontation between those beliefs – that disarmed our potential enmity.

When the Synod argues for the right of Christians to express, or even openly admit to, their faith, it is making a case for more tolerance in every sense.

The lesson is almost lost: the more we see of each other’s beliefs and customs, the less we can imbue them with the demonic qualities which suit the demagogues and bigots on all sides.

Geert Wilders made a rather ugly film about Islam which should have been the subject of a proper debate about the Koran, but throwing him out of the country served to reinforce the idea that arguing about the meaning of religion is too dangerous for a liberal society to permit.

Evangelical Christians are now treated like pariahs in a society which is still officially Christian. What is being lost in all this cowardice and turmoil is the sense of common humanity that might have seen us through. – The Daily Telegraph – The Malaysian Insider

Typical Jewish Lobby, typical

In the Trenches: Dear Prime Minister Erdogan

Dear Prime Minister Erdogan

Dear Prime Minister Erdogan,

I write as a friend of Turkey.

These days, though, I’m finding it harder to feel well-disposed. I’ve been stunned by things I’ve heard, seen, and read in recent weeks. The outburst of animosity for Israel and the anxiety awakened in the Turkish Jewish community make me wonder what’s going on and what the future holds.

If this only emanated from the “street” or from an extremist fringe, it would be worrisome enough. But it goes deeper – and higher. It starts at the very top. Yours has been the loudest voice, and you have used it to attack Israel in a manner that is not only vicious, but also disconnected from the facts.

Let me step back for a moment.

I have long admired Turkey. Like all countries, it’s not perfect, but there is much to appreciate.

As an American, I have valued Turkey’s strategic partnership with the US and the close ties that have linked our two countries.

As a Jew, I have always remembered the Ottoman Empire’s warm welcome to Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition and the rich history of the Jewish presence in Turkey.

As a democrat, I have appreciated Turkey’s commitment to many values I cherish, including its participation with the Allied nations in the Korean War and its front-line role in NATO.

As a friend of Israel, I have witnessed the strengthening of bilateral links between Ankara and Jerusalem over the years, serving the vital interests of both nations, as many Turks and Israelis have learned to appreciate.

As a peace-seeker, I have been grateful for the role of Turkish peacekeeping forces, including in southern Lebanon, not to mention the facilitation of indirect talks between Israel and Syria.

In that spirit, I have acted on the assumption that friends help friends.

When Ankara has needed assistance in Washington, or even in European capitals, Turkish officials have often turned to American-Jewish groups, ours among them. Whenever we could, as you know, we have been there to help.

When Turkey was struck by a major earthquake in 1999, we were there to build a school in the devastated region of Adapazari as a gesture of solidarity and friendship.

And when Turks in Germany were targeted by hate crimes, we spoke up. Indeed, in 1993, we traveled from New York solely to attend the funeral service at the Cologne mosque after an arson attack killed five Turkish women in nearby Solingen.

I don’t say these things to pat ourselves on the back, but to underscore our deep commitment to the relationship – in many ways, over many years.

Which brings us to the present.

Mr. Prime Minister, you have described Israeli policy in Gaza as a “massacre” and a “crime against humanity” that would bring about Israel’s “self-destruction” through divine punishment. These words are inflammatory, and they are wrong.

You seem to believe that Israel had other ways to deal with the relentless barrage of missiles and mortars fired at its civilians, even though months of restraint accomplished nothing.

You contend that Hamas is a reasonable negotiating partner. You even invited its leaders to Ankara, though it had not met the Quartet’s demands to recognize Israel, renounce violence, and abide by previous agreements. It still has not done so, and it still seeks Israel’s destruction with weapons imported from your neighbor, Iran.

You have accused Israel of deliberately seeking to kill civilians. In reality, as British Colonel Richard Kemp told the BBC, “I don’t think there has ever been a time in the history of warfare when any army has made more efforts to reduce civilian casualties. … Hamas has been trained extensively by Iran and by Hizbullah to use the civilian population in Gaza as a human shield.”

Even if you disagreed, you might have been respectful of such public criticism of Hamas, whether from Col. Kemp, EU official Louis Michel, Egyptian and Saudi leaders, or, in more hushed tones, some Gaza residents themselves. Instead, you accused “Jewish-backed media” of spreading falsehoods.

Mr. Prime Minister, Israel yearns for a secure and lasting peace. No one has more fully embodied that hunger for peace, or worked more tirelessly to achieve a new start for the Middle East, than Shimon Peres – Israel’s president, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and your fellow panelist at Davos last week.

Yet, in your remarks, you essentially called him a child-killer. And, inexplicably, you quoted an obscure ex-Israeli who has turned into a rabid anti-Semite.

And then you left, claiming that the moderator had been unfair. We hope the conciliatory phone call between you and President Peres helped to repair the breach, but, make no mistake, damage has been done. By storming off the stage, you not only insulted him, but you harmed the image of Turkey. Maybe you gained popularity in the Turkish street, where anger against Israel and Jews has been stoked in recent weeks, but you did your country no service by your unstatesmanlike behavior.

Mr. Prime Minister, I wonder what Turkey would do if its population was targeted, day after day, by merciless enemies determined to wreak havoc, terrorize, and intimidate.

But wait. We know exactly how Turkey would act if it saw its national interests endangered.

When Turkey feared union between Greece and Cyprus, it rushed troops to the northern part of the island in 1974. A new government was declared. The UN Security Council later “deplore[d] the declaration of the Turkish Cypriot authorities of the purported succession.” Only Turkey recognized the new state. And over the years, the population of the Turkish part of the island markedly increased. Where did the growth come from? Observers insisted that it was a policy of settlement from Turkey.

Now, however, you assert that Israel should not be “allowed to enter through the gates of the UN” because it has defied the Security Council.

Turkey knows something about terrorism. The PKK has targeted your country for years, initially seeking an independent Kurdish state that included part of Turkey. Now it claims to seek greater autonomy for the millions of Kurds living in Turkey. Even as the PKK has apparently lowered its demands, has Turkey pursued talks with that murderous group?

Absolutely not.

Indeed, I recall a rather blunt threat from Ankara to neighboring Syria in the late 1990s: If the PKK continued to receive protection there, the Turkish army would cross the border and take matters into its own hands. Luckily for Turkey, Syria was smarter than Hamas. It got the message. I also remember last year’s incursion of Turkish forces into northern Iraq to stem PKK attacks from there.

But now, you demand that we “redefine terror and terrorism in the Middle East.”

And wasn’t it Turkey, objecting to Armenian policy toward Azerbaijan, that chose to close its border with landlocked Armenia from 1993 to today? Yet you now accuse Israel of creating “an open-air prison” by sealing its own frontier with a hostile territory.

Please understand me. I am not – I repeat, not – seeking here to pass judgment on Turkey’s actions. Rather, I am simply recounting them to show what happens when the shoe is on the other foot.

It’s so easy to tell another country what it should or shouldn’t do in the face of threats, especially when one’s own country is ten times more populous and 38 times larger. But ultimately, Israel, like its friend Turkey, must make tough choices to protect its citizens.

Mr. Prime Minister, only you know how far you want to take your belligerent posture. It has already resulted in damage to your country’s reputation in the United States, concern for the well-being of the Turkish Jewish community, and, no doubt, joy in Iran and Hamas’ radical circles.

The Turkey I know and admire would recoil from partners like Iran and Hamas. Their central beliefs are antithetical to everything that modern, democratic Turkey ought to stand for.

And so, even as I worry, wonder, and despair, I’ll be watching, waiting, and, yes, hoping.

In the Trenches American Jewish Committee (AJC) Executive Director David Harris  (thumbnailed) assesses challenges to Jewish security worldwide. – The Jerusalem Post

Turkish PM admonishes Israel president over Gaza

DAVOS, Jan 30 — Turkey’s prime minister stalked off the stage at the World Economic Forum red-faced yesterday after reproaching Israel’s president over the Gaza offensive by saying “You kill people.”

The packed audience, which included President Barack Obama’s close adviser Valerie Jarrett, appeared stunned as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli President Shimon Peres raised their voices and traded accusations.

Peres was passionate in his defence of Israel’s three-week offensive against Hamas militants, launched in reaction to eight years of rocket fire aimed at Israeli territory. As he spoke, Peres often turned towards Erdogan, who in his remarks had criticised the Israeli blockade of Gaza, saying it was an “open air prison, isolated from the rest of the world” and referred to the Palestinian death toll of about 1,300, more than half of those civilians. Thirteen Israelis also died.

“Why did they fire rockets? There was no siege against Gaza,” Peres said, his voice rising in emotion. “Why did they fight us, what did they want? There was never a day of starvation in Gaza.”

The heated debate with Israel and Turkey at the centre was significant because of the key role Turkey has played as a moderator between Israel and Syria. Erdogan appeared to express a sense of disappointment when he recounted how he had met with the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert days before the offensive, and believed they were close to reaching terms for a face-to-face meeting with Syrian leaders.

Obama’s new Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, will be in Turkey for talks on Sunday.

Erdogan was angry when a panel moderator cut off his remarks in response to an impassioned monologue by Peres defending Israel’s offensive against the Hamas rulers of Gaza.

“I find it very sad that people applaud what you said,” Erdogan said. “You killed people. And I think that it is very wrong.”

The angry exchange followed an hour-long debate at the forum attended by world leaders in Davos. Erdogan tried to rebut Peres as the discussion was ending, asking the moderator, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, to let him speak once more.

“Only a minute,” Ignatius replied.

“Mr Peres, you are older than me. Your voice is too loud,” Erdogan told Peres, saying his emotion belied a guilty conscience.

“You kill people,” Erdogan told the 85-year-old Israeli leader. “I remember the children who died on beaches. I remember two former prime ministers who said they felt very happy when they were able to enter Palestine on tanks.”

When Erdogan was asked to stop, he angrily stalked off, leaving fellow panellists UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki moon and Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa.

“When it comes to killing, you know it too well,” the Turkish leader said.

When the moderator tried to cut short Erdogan’s remarks, saying it was past time to adjourn for dinner, he answered in frustration, “Don’t interrupt me. You are not allowing me to speak.”

He then said: “I will not come to Davos again.”

Ultimately, Erdogan stressed he left not because of a dispute with Peres but because he was not given time to respond to the Israeli leader’s remarks. Erdogan also complained that Peres had 25 minutes while he was only given 12 minutes.

“I did not target at all in any way the Israeli people, President Peres, or the Jewish people,” Erdogan told a news conference afterwards.

“I am a prime minister, a leader who has specifically expressly stated that anti-Semitism is a crime against humanity,” he said.

Peres and Erdogan raised their voices — highly unusual at the elite gathering of corporate and world leaders, which is usually marked by polite dialogue.

Moussa, a former Egyptian foreign minister, said Erdogan’s action was understandable.

“Mr Erdogan said what he wanted to say and then he left. That’s all. He was right.” Of Israel, he said, “they don’t listen.”

Erdogan brushed past reporters outside the hall. His wife appeared upset. “All Peres said was a lie. It was unacceptable,” she said, eyes glistening.

“I have known Shimon Peres for many years and I also know Erdogan. I have never seen Shimon Peres so passionate as he was today. I think he felt Israel was being attacked by so many in the international community. He felt isolated,” said former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik.

“I was very sad that Erdogan left. This was an expression of how difficult this situation is.”

Earlier yesterday, Israeli election front-runner Benjamin Netanyahu told another session that keeping nuclear weapons out of Iran’s hands was more important than the economy because the financial meltdown is reversible.

“What is not reversible is the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a fanatic radical regime … We have never had, since the dawn of the nuclear age, nuclear weapons in the hands of such a fanatical regime,” said Netanyahu, who is seeking to return to the Israeli prime minister’s office.

Iran maintains that it is seeking nuclear power for peaceful purposes and not for a weapons programme.

An Iranian official in Davos appeared to extend a hand to the Obama administration as discussion broadened to include Iran, oil and what might be expected from the new leaders in Washington.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran would take a “cooperative approach” with the US as long as it saw changes that go beyond words.

“We do believe that if the new administration of the United States, as Mr Obama says, is going to change its policies not in saying but practice, they will find in the region a cooperative approach and reaction,” Mottaki said.

Obama has stressed the importance of engaging Iran, a country the Bush administration often singled out as the most dangerous in the Middle East. — AP – The Malaysian Insider

Brains, but no hearts!

HANAN…

(On Jan 24, 2009, Hanan commented on Boycott – this is my reply)

Dear Hanan,

1. I agree entirely with you that building a great nation doesn’t only take brains, but as you said it sure does help.

2. However brains alone without a heart (feelings) can produce a monster.

3. Israel is undoubtedly a great nation, becoming great through the brains and the numerous achievements you have listed. Yes I have used Israeli originated products like Microsoft Windows and Pentium chips (made in Malaysia) by Intel, an American company.

4. In fact I owe my life ultimately to Israel because there must be something invented by Israelis in the numerous instruments used in heart surgery. However most of the products used were invented and produced by Japanese.

5. I am amazed at the number of Nobel Laureates Israel has produced. I admit we have not produced even one.

6. But when the brain is without a heart it does not care for the misery resulting from the products of the brain.

7. The atom bombs which killed 100,000 men, women, children and babies are the product of Israeli (Jewish) brain. Most of the diabolical weapons now being used to kill millions of people are also the creation of Israelis on Zionist Jews. The depleted uranium and phosphorous shells being used in Gaza are also the product of Israeli brains.

8. The current financial crisis which is destroying the economies of the U.S. Britain and in fact all the countries of the world is due to manipulations of banks, financial institutions and the monetary system by Jewish supporters of Israel.

9. The negation of the freedom of speech when it comes to the alleged killings of Jews in World War II are also inspired by Zionist Jews.

10. But worse of all is the seizure of Palestinian land to create the state of Israel. Not content with the area given to the Jews by the United Nations you have seized more Palestinian land, built settlements on many parts of Palestine, disallowed the use of roads built on Palestinian land to the Palestinians, erected your own check points at the borders of Palestine with Jordan and built your version of the Berlin Wall through Palestinian villages on land that is not part of Israel.

11. Before the creation of Israel, the Jews and Arabs in Palestine lived in peace. Historically Jews had always sought refuge in Muslim countries when the Europeans conducted pogroms against them. This only stopped after the U.S. offered asylum.

12. All the terrorism that we see today, whether state initiated or by irregulars, started after the U.S. backed Israel against Arab attempts to regain their land through conventional wars. Because they were outclassed in terms of weapons by the U.S, / Israel, alliance, then only did the Arabs resort to what is called terrorism. The Israeli response have always been with greater terrorism as is seen in Gaza.

13. I have asked an American what he would do if Texas was given to the Jews to create the state of Israel. He did not answer. But I believe he would fight to get back Texas, employing all the weapons at its disposal.

14. Yet had the United States been willing to create the nation of Israel in the lands under U.S. control or in the U.S. itself, there would be no terrorism in Palestine or in the Middle East. There would be no terrorism in America either because Israel would be wiped out by the U.S. forces. The world would remain peaceful.

15. The brutality committed by your forces in Gaza is out of all proportion to the puny rocket attacks by Hamas. That attack was the result of Israel and the U.S. failing to accept the results of a properly conducted election.

16. Hamas could only establish their Government in Gaza. But you blockaded Gaza, denying them food, medicine, power, fuel etc. If you had not done that I doubt that Hamas would fire rockets at you.

17. Malaysia is well aware that total boycott of Israel is not possible. We are in fact boycotting American products which is an even more impossible task. We would not be able to bring America or Israel down.

18. But what we aim to do is to demonstrate the disgust and the anger that we feel over the inhumanity of the brainy but primitive peoples of Israel and America.

19. You can collect Nobel prizes and other prizes but the world will look down upon you as very primitive people who robbed land through terror against perfidious British and subsequently used your control over the world’s greatest military power to oppress the people whom you had robbed.

20. You have nothing to be proud of, unless of course you take pride in being heartless, in being primitive brutes.

21. The only mitigating factor is the presence among Israelis of a small number who are ashamed of what you have done to the people of Gaza. – Tun Dr. Mahathir

January 24, 2009 1:42 PM

Dr. Mahathir,

Very well established a logical basis leaning on an ex Reagan administration that is having microphones and cameras in the Bush administration, Mr. Paul Craig Roberts. You are always collecting the facts not from the first source just from the second hand washed cloth. Of course an anti Jew will look on anti Jew information. You may refer to Al Qaeda humanitarian organization for more information, they have plenty of it.

You are saying:
“1. I would like to have the Malaysian Armed Forces attack the United States and Israel.”

Oh, great hero. You had the chance to do it while you were the PM in service. Why didn’t you tried out the strength of the Malaysian army and its skills? You had a good chance to become the Muslim hero committing Jihad on the apes and monkeys. To become the Salah ed Din of the modern times. How could you miss that opportunity to demolish both, America and Israel and leaving Iran to do it solely? Oh great rhetoric, do you know how a war looks like?

You care about the babies of Iraq, Palestinians, etc… How lucky we are you don’t need to care about the Jewish children suffering daily rockets from Hamas who is a Muslim charity organization. Oh, their 8 years of rockets in a quantity of thousands were full of candies ammunition that was spreading sweets to the children of Sederot and the Negev.

Since Jews are controlling everyone by proxy, I’m not sure you, Dr. Mahathir are not controlled by them as well. You’ll say that you are not controlled, but I can assure you that I’m controlling you. Can you deny it? Even Malaysia is manipulated by Jews, that’s why they are not attacking the US and Israel. You should check very well among your government ministers and officials and find the Trojan horses there.

You hate Israel not because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but you hate only because the hatred of Muslims against Jews, the apes and swine. Your hate is not political, but religious. You are just sinking into the modern era darkness.

You said once in one of your speeches that Muslims should use their brains to get rid of 13 Million Jews dominance among 1.3 billion Muslims. Are you a role model? Do you have the wisdom to do it? Do you have the power to do it? Do you know why your plan is not accomplished? It is because it is not true, not logical, unjustified, not because the Jew are controlling the world by proxy. History is stronger than any empire, leader or people. The Jews survived more complicated events then you are planning, so don’t be hoping too much, we survive your approach as well.

Shalom from Hanan, a Jew, Israel. – Hanan

GAZA AND THE BRITISH PAPERS

1. I have been in the United Kingdom for more than a week – a long time for me to stay in any place abroad.

2. When I left Malaysia the papers and television were full of reports on the Israeli brutalities in Gaza. There were heart-wrenching pictures of little children half-buried in the rubble of destroyed houses. I was very upset with Israeli brutalities and I thought the whole world would condemn Israel.

3. I was shocked that in the United Kingdom, the land of the free press and free speech there was hardly any report on Gaza and the Israeli invasion. Certainly there were no pictures of the brutal killing of children.

4. I understand that it is the same in America, another great advocate of the freedom of the Press.

5. Maybe by freedom of the Press they mean allowing the Press to pick and choose what they wish to publish. Yet they talk about self-censorship in Malaysia. What our papers fail to report is nothing compared to what the British and American media fail to report. Obviously they are protecting Israel’s interest.

6. All these give credence to the allegation that the Jews control the Western media. When in 2003 at the OIC conference I said that the Jews rule the world by proxy, I was condemned by the Western press and the US Government. It would seem that Jewish control over the ethnic European countries, in particular the United States of America is total. – Tun Dr. Mahathir

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe

by Avi Shlaim

Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state’s legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions

The only way to make sense of Israel’s senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders”. I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel’s vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration’s complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.

I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war had very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism. The aim was to establish Greater Israel through permanent political, economic and military control over the Palestinian territories. And the result has been one of the most prolonged and brutal military occupations of modern times.

Four decades of Israeli control did incalculable damage to the economy of the Gaza Strip. With a large population of 1948 refugees crammed into a tiny strip of land, with no infrastructure or natural resources, Gaza’s prospects were never bright. Gaza, however, is not simply a case of economic under-development but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate de-development. To use the Biblical phrase, Israel turned the people of Gaza into the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, into a source of cheap labour and a captive market for Israeli goods. The development of local industry was actively impeded so as to make it impossible for the Palestinians to end their subordination to Israel and to establish the economic underpinnings essential for real political independence.

Gaza is a classic case of colonial exploitation in the post-colonial era. Jewish settlements in occupied territories are immoral, illegal and an insurmountable obstacle to peace. They are at once the instrument of exploitation and the symbol of the hated occupation. In Gaza, the Jewish settlers numbered only 8,000 in 2005 compared with 1.4 million local residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25% of the territory, 40% of the arable land and the lion’s share of the scarce water resources. Cheek by jowl with these foreign intruders, the majority of the local population lived in abject poverty and unimaginable misery. Eighty per cent of them still subsist on less than $2 a day. The living conditions in the strip remain an affront to civilised values, a powerful precipitant to resistance and a fertile breeding ground for political extremism.

In August 2005 a Likud government headed by Ariel Sharon staged a unilateral Israeli pullout from Gaza, withdrawing all 8,000 settlers and destroying the houses and farms they had left behind. Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement, conducted an effective campaign to drive the Israelis out of Gaza. The withdrawal was a humiliation for the Israeli Defence Forces. To the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But in the year after, another 12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further reducing the scope for an independent Palestinian state. Land-grabbing and peace-making are simply incompatible. Israel had a choice and it chose land over peace.

The real purpose behind the move was to redraw unilaterally the borders of Greater Israel by incorporating the main settlement blocs on the West Bank to the state of Israel. Withdrawal from Gaza was thus not a prelude to a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority but a prelude to further Zionist expansion on the West Bank. It was a unilateral Israeli move undertaken in what was seen, mistakenly in my view, as an Israeli national interest. Anchored in a fundamental rejection of the Palestinian national identity, the withdrawal from Gaza was part of a long-term effort to deny the Palestinian people any independent political existence on their land.

Israel’s settlers were withdrawn but Israeli soldiers continued to control all access to the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air. Gaza was converted overnight into an open-air prison. From this point on, the Israeli air force enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs, to make sonic booms by flying low and breaking the sound barrier, and to terrorise the hapless inhabitants of this prison.

Israel likes to portray itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. Yet Israel has never in its entire history done anything to promote democracy on the Arab side and has done a great deal to undermine it. Israel has a long history of secret collaboration with reactionary Arab regimes to suppress Palestinian nationalism. Despite all the handicaps, the Palestinian people succeeded in building the only genuine democracy in the Arab world with the possible exception of Lebanon. In January 2006, free and fair elections for the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority brought to power a Hamas-led government. Israel, however, refused to recognise the democratically elected government, claiming that Hamas is purely and simply a terrorist organisation.

America and the EU shamelessly joined Israel in ostracising and demonising the Hamas government and in trying to bring it down by withholding tax revenues and foreign aid. A surreal situation thus developed with a significant part of the international community imposing economic sanctions not against the occupier but against the occupied, not against the oppressor but against the oppressed.

As so often in the tragic history of Palestine, the victims were blamed for their own misfortunes. Israel’s propaganda machine persistently purveyed the notion that the Palestinians are terrorists, that they reject coexistence with the Jewish state, that their nationalism is little more than antisemitism, that Hamas is just a bunch of religious fanatics and that Islam is incompatible with democracy. But the simple truth is that the Palestinian people are a normal people with normal aspirations. They are no better but they are no worse than any other national group. What they aspire to, above all, is a piece of land to call their own on which to live in freedom and dignity.

Like other radical movements, Hamas began to moderate its political programme following its rise to power. From the ideological rejectionism of its charter, it began to move towards pragmatic accommodation of a two-state solution. In March 2007, Hamas and Fatah formed a national unity government that was ready to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with Israel. Israel, however, refused to negotiate with a government that included Hamas.

It continued to play the old game of divide and rule between rival Palestinian factions. In the late 1980s, Israel had supported the nascent Hamas in order to weaken Fatah, the secular nationalist movement led by Yasser Arafat. Now Israel began to encourage the corrupt and pliant Fatah leaders to overthrow their religious political rivals and recapture power. Aggressive American neoconservatives participated in the sinister plot to instigate a Palestinian civil war. Their meddling was a major factor in the collapse of the national unity government and in driving Hamas to seize power in Gaza in June 2007 to pre-empt a Fatah coup.

The war unleashed by Israel on Gaza on 27 December was the culmination of a series of clashes and confrontations with the Hamas government. In a broader sense, however, it is a war between Israel and the Palestinian people, because the people had elected the party to power. The declared aim of the war is to weaken Hamas and to intensify the pressure until its leaders agree to a new ceasefire on Israel’s terms. The undeclared aim is to ensure that the Palestinians in Gaza are seen by the world simply as a humanitarian problem and thus to derail their struggle for independence and statehood.

The timing of the war was determined by political expediency. A general election is scheduled for 10 February and, in the lead-up to the election, all the main contenders are looking for an opportunity to prove their toughness. The army top brass had been champing at the bit to deliver a crushing blow to Hamas in order to remove the stain left on their reputation by the failure of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in July 2006. Israel’s cynical leaders could also count on apathy and impotence of the pro-western Arab regimes and on blind support from President Bush in the twilight of his term in the White House. Bush readily obliged by putting all the blame for the crisis on Hamas, vetoing proposals at the UN Security Council for an immediate ceasefire and issuing Israel with a free pass to mount a ground invasion of Gaza.

As always, mighty Israel claims to be the victim of Palestinian aggression but the sheer asymmetry of power between the two sides leaves little room for doubt as to who is the real victim. This is indeed a conflict between David and Goliath but the Biblical image has been inverted – a small and defenceless Palestinian David faces a heavily armed, merciless and overbearing Israeli Goliath. The resort to brute military force is accompanied, as always, by the shrill rhetoric of victimhood and a farrago of self-pity overlaid with self-righteousness. In Hebrew this is known as the syndrome of bokhim ve-yorim, “crying and shooting”.

To be sure, Hamas is not an entirely innocent party in this conflict. Denied the fruit of its electoral victory and confronted with an unscrupulous adversary, it has resorted to the weapon of the weak – terror. Militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad kept launching Qassam rocket attacks against Israeli settlements near the border with Gaza until Egypt brokered a six-month ceasefire last June. The damage caused by these primitive rockets is minimal but the psychological impact is immense, prompting the public to demand protection from its government. Under the circumstances, Israel had the right to act in self-defence but its response to the pinpricks of rocket attacks was totally disproportionate. The figures speak for themselves. In the three years after the withdrawal from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. On the other hand, in 2005-7 alone, the IDF killed 1,290 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children.

Whatever the numbers, killing civilians is wrong. This rule applies to Israel as much as it does to Hamas, but Israel’s entire record is one of unbridled and unremitting brutality towards the inhabitants of Gaza. Israel also maintained the blockade of Gaza after the ceasefire came into force which, in the view of the Hamas leaders, amounted to a violation of the agreement. During the ceasefire, Israel prevented any exports from leaving the strip in clear violation of a 2005 accord, leading to a sharp drop in employment opportunities. Officially, 49.1% of the population is unemployed. At the same time, Israel restricted drastically the number of trucks carrying food, fuel, cooking-gas canisters, spare parts for water and sanitation plants, and medical supplies to Gaza. It is difficult to see how starving and freezing the civilians of Gaza could protect the people on the Israeli side of the border. But even if it did, it would still be immoral, a form of collective punishment that is strictly forbidden by international humanitarian law.

The brutality of Israel’s soldiers is fully matched by the mendacity of its spokesmen. Eight months before launching the current war on Gaza, Israel established a National Information Directorate. The core messages of this directorate to the media are that Hamas broke the ceasefire agreements; that Israel’s objective is the defence of its population; and that Israel’s forces are taking the utmost care not to hurt innocent civilians. Israel’s spin doctors have been remarkably successful in getting this message across. But, in essence, their propaganda is a pack of lies.

A wide gap separates the reality of Israel’s actions from the rhetoric of its spokesmen. It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire. It di d so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November that killed six Hamas men. Israel’s objective is not just the defence of its population but the eventual overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza by turning the people against their rulers. And far from taking care to spare civilians, Israel is guilty of indiscriminate bombing and of a three-year-old blockade that has brought the inhabitants of Gaza, now 1.5 million, to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.

The Biblical injunction of an eye for an eye is savage enough. But Israel’s insane offensive against Gaza seems to follow the logic of an eye for an eyelash. After eight days of bombing, with a death toll of more than 400 Palestinians and four Israelis, the gung-ho cabinet ordered a land invasion of Gaza the consequences of which are incalculable.

No amount of military escalation can buy Israel immunity from rocket attacks from the military wing of Hamas. Despite all the death and destruction that Israel has inflicted on them, they kept up their resistance and they kept firing their rockets. This is a movement that glorifies victimhood and martyrdom. There is simply no military solution to the conflict between the two communities. The problem with Israel’s concept of security is that it denies even the most elementary security to the other community. The only way for Israel to achieve security is not through shooting but through talks with Hamas, which has repeatedly declared its readiness to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with the Jewish state within its pre-1967 borders for 20, 30, or even 50 years. Israel has rejected this offer for the same reason it spurned the Arab League peace plan of 2002, which is still on the table: it involves concessions and compromises.

This brief review of Israel’s record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders”. A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practises terrorism – the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel’s real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination. It keeps compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones. Politicians, like everyone else, are of course free to repeat the lies and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.

• Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at the University of Oxford and the author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World and of Lion of Jordan: King Hussein’s Life in War and Peace.- The Guardian

Sovereign Terrorist

THE UNITED NATIONS

1. Perhaps it would be worthwhile if we read again the Charter of the United Nations to see how we and other countries subscribe to and carry out the objectives of the Charter.

Below is the introduction to the Charter;

“We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generation from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standard of life in larger freedom, and for these ends to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples, have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organisation to be known as the United Nations.”

2. Clearly the United Nations is aimed at saving succeeding generations (we and our children, grand children….) from the scourge of war.

3. Who wars today? Is it us or is it the very country which initiated this Charter, on whose soil the countries of the world gathered to formulate and to sign.

4. Total disregard for the “sorrow to mankind” is shown repeatedly by the United States and Britain.

5. And has the United States shown any “faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small”.

6. Look at the millions killed, millions more injured, cities and towns devastated by wars of aggression by the United States, look at the detention without trial and the torture of suspected “terrorists”, the sanctions which killed hundreds of thousands of children and many other obvious disregard for fundamental human rights; look at them and ask yourselves what kind of people are the Americans who signed the UN Charter.

7. Then there is the obligation “to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law”.

8. Have the United States and Britain, the main signatories of the United Nations Charter “established conditions under which justice and respect for …. treaties and international laws”.

9. Both countries totally ignored the Charter of the United Nations the treaty that established it, when both warred against Iraq without the approval of the United Nations. Numerous international laws on rights of citizens and non-citizens, imprisonment and torture, international agreements on the environment have been flouted by the United States. Even the authority of the World Court has been rejected by the US.

10. Has the United States promoted social progress and better standards of life? Killing people in order to promote democracy is totally contrary to this undertaking.

11. Has the United States practiced tolerance and lived in peace as good neighbours? Has the United States obeyed the injunction not to use armed force and has it used international machinery for the promotion of economic and social advancement of all people? To all these questions, the answer is a resounding “No”!

12. Truly the United States and at times Britain together with Israel have never honored anything that they have undertaken to do in the Charter of the Untied Nations or at any other time.

13. And yet these two countries often take the high moral ground to preach to other people about human rights, about the rule of law, about respect for international law, about respecting treaties and agreements, about equality and freedoms etc.

14. Never has the world seen hypocrisy on this scale. – Tun Dr. Mahathir

Israel: terrorist by choice

TERRORISTS

1. I was shocked when a reporter asked me why I regard the Israelis as terrorists when it is the Muslims who blow themselves up so as to kill children. The Israelis are apparently not considered to be terrorists despite daily reports with pictures of the women, children and babies who have been killed and wounded.

2. Do the suicide bombers deliberately target children? Would they kill children if they could kill Israeli soldiers? What is their objective in killing children? Is it because they know it would win them the war?

3. I have no liking for people who resort to killing by blowing themselves up. But they are not regular soldiers who can be protected by tanks and powerful bombardment before they shoot and kill their victims. In fact the regular soldiers of the Israeli forces need not expose themselves to any danger as they choose their targets. They can shoot missiles from far off. Yet there can be no doubt that civilians including children have been deliberately killed by them in much greater numbers than the suicide bombers have ever done.

4. For the suicide bombers, fear of being discovered before they could blow themselves up must be very real. They have to control themselves and appear calm and innocent as they seek the most effective time and place to blow themselves up. The tension must be great for they know soon they would be dead, killed by the explosives they were carrying.

5. To get close to Israeli soldiers would be a great feat. The soldiers would not allow Arabs to get near them knowing that they might be suicide bombers. Not being able to go back with the bomb unexploded the bombers must blow themselves up somewhere.

6. Have they all targeted children? I don’t think so. The Western media is biased and are controlled by Jews. The Israelis do not allow foreign Press reporters to see them killing the people of Gaza and elsewhere. The reports of the suicide bombers targeting children came from the Israelis. Can we believe them? Do we get any pictures of children being killed like the pictures we see of children in Gaza being killed?

7. In any case we know that the number of Israelis killed by suicide bombers or Hamas rockets are nothing compared to the nearly 1,000 Gazans confirmed killed so far. Even the Red Cross and other international agencies have condemned Israeli atrocities.

8. Yes the suicide bombers are terrorists. But they have no other choice. They don’t have bomber and fighter planes, tanks, guns, rockets and chemical weapons to fight their enemies.

9. The Israelis are terrorists by choice. They have been trained to kill using powerful weapons. We see them killing on television and in pictures in newspapers.

10. The whole world condemns Israeli attacks. It is strange that a Malaysian reporter should think it is all the fault of the people of Gaza and Hamas. – Tun Dr. Mahathir

Mahathir to Obama

Open Letter to Barack Hussein Obama President-elect of the United States of America

Dear Mr. President,

I did not vote for you in the Presidential Election because I am Malaysian.

But I consider myself one of your constituents because what you do or say will affect me and my country as well.

I welcome your promise to change. Certainly your country, the United States of America need a lot of changes.

That is because America and Americans have become the best hated people in the world. Even Europeans dislike your arrogance. Yet you were once admired and liked because you freed a lot of countries from conquest and subjugation.

It is the custom on New Year’s day for people to make resolutions. You must have listed your good resolutions already. But may I politely suggest that you also resolve to do the following in pursuit of Change.

1) Stop killing people. The United States is too fond of killing people in order to achieve its objectives. You call it war, but today’s wars are not about professional soldiers fighting and killing each other. It is about killing people, ordinary innocent people by the hundreds of thousands. Whole countries will be devastated.

War is primitive, the cavemen’s way of dealing with a problem. Stop your arms build up and your planning for future wars.

2) Stop indiscriminate support of Israeli killers with your money and your weapons. The planes and the bombs killing the people of Gaza are from you.

3) Stop applying sanctions against countries which cannot do the same against you.

In Iraq your sanctions killed 500,000 children through depriving them of medicine and food. Others were born deformed.

What have you achieved with this cruelty? Nothing except the hatred of the victims and right-thinking people.

4) Stop your scientists and researchers from inventing new and more diabolical weapons to kill more people more efficiently.

5) Stop your arms manufacturers from producing them. Stop your sales of arms to the world. It is blood money that you earn. It is un-Christian.

6) Stop trying to democratize all the countries of the world. Democracy may work for the United States but it does not always work for other countries.

Don’t kill people because they are not democratic. Your crusade to democratize countries has killed more people than the authoritarian Governments which you overthrew. And you have not succeeded anyway.

7) Stop the casinos which you call financial institutions. Stop hedge funds, derivatives and currency trading. Stop banks from lending non-existent money by the billions.

Regulate and supervise your banks. Jail the miscreants who made profits from abusing the system.

Sign the Kyoto Protocol and other international agreements.

9) Show respect for the United Nations.

I have many other resolutions for change which I think you should consider and undertake.

But I think you have enough on your plate for this 2009th year of the Christian Era.

If you can do only a few of what I suggest you will be remembered by the world as a great leader. Then the United States will again be the most admired nation. Your embassies will be able to take down the high fences and razor-wire coils that surround them.

May I wish you a Happy New Year and a great Presidency.

Yours Sincerely,

Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

(Former Prime Minister of Malaysia)

ASSAULT ON GAZA

When Aggressor Plays Aggrieved

By Michael Vicente Perez |  SUNDAY 4th JANUARY 2009

Gaza represents the white man’s burden of taming native violence for the greater good of Western civilization

On the first day of the New Year, Israel began its sixth round of aerial strikes against the Hamas government in Gaza. Thus far Israeli attacks have killed 485 Palestinians and injured another 2,285. The hospitals are overwhelmed with trauma cases and running short of staff and supplies. With ruthless precision, Israel has destroyed government infrastructure including the interior ministry, police academy, Islamic University, security prison, and presidential compound. It has also attacked residential areas killing scores of civilians including five of the Balousha family’s nine children. Beyond the casualties and destruction also lies the unquantifiable presence of fear and insecurity plaguing Gaza’s population. As Israeli reporter Amira Hass noted, the persistent sound of human screams, screeching missile-fire, and earth-shaking bombs have driven Palestinians from their homes into UNRWA schools seeking shelter and safety. No one is safe.

Perusing international press reports suggests that Hamas bears sole responsibility for Israel’s aggression. With few exceptions, the dominant story contains a melting-pot of colonial representations about native violence and Jewish victims. Hamas, the terrorist organization determined to eradicate the Jewish state, broke the cease-fire and assaulted its innocent Israeli neighbor. Faced with the irrational violence of its anti-Jewish, Arab-Muslim aggressors, the victimized Jewish state was forced to defend its citizens and existence by annihilating the terrorists. Never mind the fact that what Israel calls Hamas terrorists also happen to be government workers like police officers. Forget that air strikes against Hamas in the most densely populated area of the world exposes 1.5 million Palestinian civilians to the merciless effects of indiscriminate explosions. Also, ignore the inconvenient truth that while the Israeli military possesses 3,501 tanks, 393 combat aircrafts, 500,000 troops and a defense budget of $9.5 billion, Hamas’s measly army consists of zero tanks, zero fighter jets, less than 5,000 soldiers, and a defence budget of $50 million. Instead, remember that Israel is always the victim.

For their part, the Arab states and the Palestinian Authority in particular have done their best to uphold the colonial narrative and the time-tested strategy of divide and conquer. On the first day of Israel’s assault, Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas condemned the Hamas government for instigating the sleeping lion. It was Hamas’s intransigence and disdain for the peace process—not Israel’s routine incursions into the Gaza Strip during the ceasefire or its prison-like closure policies—that motivated Hamas rocket-fire and brought Israel’s wrath upon the people of Gaza. Reasserting his commitment to waging war with his own people even in times of apocalyptic violence, Abbas offered to fill the power vacuum should Hamas fall. Egypt was more forceful in its colonial duties. Sealing off Gaza’s border, the Mubarak government opened fire on Palestinians fleeing the Strip in search of safety and much-needed goods while declaring its solidarity with Palestinians by calling off New Year celebrations. With the exception of the so-called Arab street, where protestors in Yemen, Lebanon, Jordan, and other Arab countries expressed their unequivocal condemnation of Israel’s aggression and dismay with government inaction, there has been little meaningful resistance by Arab and Muslim governments to Israel’s siege.

The picture in the West is hardly different. Blaming Hamas for the current destruction, U.S. politicians are fully supportive of Israel’s operations. The violence in Gaza, Bush administration officials have stated, is a reasonable response to Hamas rocket-fire. Despite his love of the law and Israel’s consistent violation of the Geneva Conventions, President-elect Barack Obama has remained conspicuously silent on the attacks using his senior advisor, David Axelrod, to speak instead. According to Axelrod, Obama “understands” Israel’s urge to respond to Hamas’s attacks. Consequently, Obama’s understanding, like Bush, doesn’t seem to extend beyond the colonial borders of the Jewish state. In Europe, neither France nor the U.K. has indicated any sense of repulsion towards the bombardment of Gaza. Like the former colonies, Gaza represents the white man’s burden of taming native violence for the greater good of Western civilization. In this equation, 400 dead Palestinians is a small sacrifice to make for the good of Israeli security and society.

Today, as Israel opens its ground offensive and reoccupation of Gaza, what the Israeli government, Palestinian Authority, U.S. and the E.U. don’t seem to understand is the obvious fact that partition doesn’t work. Indeed the tragedy of Israel’s assault on Gaza isn’t just the human casualties, terrible though they may be. The real tragedy is the uncompromising belief in the idea that division will ensure peace. For the last 80 years, since the pioneers of Zionist colonization set foot on the shores of Palestine during English colonial rule, partition has been the underlying structure of Jewish nationalism. The violence of Europe, it was argued, showed that Jews needed their own home. Fast forward to 1948 and we see that the banished Jews of Europe, much to the disappointment of the Palestinians, received their blessing: Israel. But despite the ideals of Zionist thinking and an international sympathy that ultimately privileged Jewish history over the Palestinian present, can we say that Jews are any safer today? A quick glance at the history of Israel suggests that they are not. From 1948 until today, Israel remains at war. Moreover, not a single effort to legitimize the division between Israelis and Palestinians, including the so-called peace process, has produced even the semblance of peace. Division, violence, and suffering remain the status quo for Palestinians and Israelis.

At some point, after Israel’s misguided fear and appetite for war reside, the siege of Gaza will end. When it does, we will need to revisit the lessons of history and the logic of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Division doesn’t work. The two-state delusion must be abandoned and the irrationality of partition with it. A bi-national, one-state solution and its underlying premise of integration must be declared and defended. Without a divided Israel, Gaza, and West Bank, what reason would Hamas have to exist? Remember that Hamas emerged during the occupation of Gaza. So did the PLO. It was the premise of partition, that is, the colonial logic of segregating people that had no reason to live apart, that rallied the cry of resistance and brought the region to war. Today, we desperately need a more sustained attempt to break with years of division and move towards the goals of integration. As long as Jews struggle to further divide themselves from their Christian and Muslim neighbors, peace cannot exist.

Dr. Michael Vicente Perez is a writer and academic specializing on Palestinian issues.

© MICHAEL VICENTE PEREZ, 2009. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

- Islamica Magazine

Gaza: My Lai

ROB…

(On Jan 9, 2009, Rob commented on Open Letter to Barack Hussein Obama President-elect of the United States of America – this is my reply)

Dear Rob,

1. I hope this is your name. I am always saddened by the ignorance of the average American. Yet America is so powerful that directly or indirectly it rules the world. For a country with ignorant people to rule the world it is an unmitigated disaster.

2. Clearly you have never been to Malaysia. But if I may say so we are not obsolete. But I admit we have only primitive weapons for our defence. You can, with a few nuclear bombs wipe our country from the surface of this earth.

3. Sorry for the 3,000 of your innocent citizens incinerated in their place of employment. At least three of those incinerated were actually Malaysians. I understand hardly any Jews were in the building. They were not incinerated.

4. But consider the 300,000 Vietnamese, 50,000 Afghans, 100,000 Iraqis whom you have killed. Mostly they were not soldiers. They were not working in the offices either. They were babies, schoolchildren, sick men and women in hospitals. Of course they could all be terrorists, including the babies and the schoolchildren.

5. Who are terrorists? Are they only the suicide bombers? What about the countries, which sent their soldiers, air force, navy with tanks and guns and rocket launchers, and bomber and fighter planes to shock and awe and to kill people by the thousands. Aren’t their victims (the children, old men and women, the sick in the hospitals) terrified when they hear bombers flying above, when bombs and shells burst around them, killing their fathers and mothers, their brothers and sisters; when any time they themselves would be blown to pieces. Aren’t they terrified?

6. If they are terrified aren’t the people who terrify them also terrorists? If you have a right to kill “terrorists” (also to detain and torture them), then they have a right to kill the terrorists who attacked and kill them and their people. I don’t like terrorism but I also don’t like terrorism by Governments. Both terrify.

7. We are primitive of course because we defend ourselves with primitive weapons. You train your children to kill by launching rockets from a thousand miles away, bombing with planes beyond the range of the primitive guns of your victims. You don’t have to be frightened of us. But we must be frightened of the murdering bullies whom you think so highly of.

8. Saddam had killed people and buried them in mass graves. You kill many times more Iraqis, Afghans and Vietnamese and left them unburied, to rot and to be eaten by dogs. Remember My Lai?

9. May I know who were fed to the lions by Saddam. You must be absolutely ignorant if you are not aware how unfettered capitalism has actually destroyed your own country.

10. Yes the United Nations is a waste of money. That is because the US prevents it from carrying out its work to restore peace and justice in this world.

11. I think you need to go to school to improve your knowledge and understanding of what is happening around you, not American school of course because obviously they don’t teach anything beyond glorifying the genocides perpetrated by you throughout history. -  Tun Dr. Mahathir

By Rob on January 9, 2009 4:26 AM

Dr. Mahathir Mohamad wants the United States to weaken ourselves because he is intimidated and fearful of our more advanced society. Many countries are becoming obsolete due to advances in technology and don’t know how keep up.

Dr. Mahathir Mohamad pretends the United States did NOT suffer an attack on our homeland where 3000 of our innocent citizens were incinerated in their place of employment. He wants us to let dictators, governments and terrorists organize and plan their acts of evil.

Dr. Mahathir Mohamad wants the United States to stop defending itself and to stop killing terrorists. He thinks the United States is to blame for evil in this world, and it has absolutely nothing to do with primitive cultures, archaic religions, aggressive and torturous fathers who know nothing about how to raise boys to be good and productive adults. The fact that terrorists hide behind women and children is irrelevant to him.

He wants us to stop supporting Israel, who’s citizens are regularly terrorized by suicide bombers and are regularly bombed from Hamas operatives launching rockets from civilian garages.

Dr. Mahathir Mohamad thinks the United States should stop punishing bad behavior and thinks we should have continued to allow Saddam Hussein kill people with poison gas and bury them in mass graves. According to him, the rape and torture rooms should still be open and people continue to be fed to the lions (after all, lions have to eat also).

Dr. Mahathir Mohamad wants us to stop defending ourselves with advanced technology, like missile defense systems and weapons which kill fewer civilians. He also wants the United States to end capitalism, which shares the basic human need for freedom and liberty. He does not want us to have any allies in this world that share these ideals and wants us to sign international agreements to weaken the United States and appease his anxiety over his countries weakness and incompetence. Finally, we should apparently join him in appeasement, incompetence and wasting time and money through the United Nations.

Dr. Mahathir Mohamad should go back to school, perhaps in the United States, and start informing himself somewhat better.

GAZA

(English translation at end of write-up)

1. Dunia ternampak mengutuk Israel kerana serangan tidak berperikemanusiaannya ke atas Gaza. Tetapi seperti biasa dunia tidak membuat apa-apa. Kenapa tidak? Kerana Amerika Syarikat berada di belakang Israel.

2. Dunia seharusnya juga mengutuk Amerika Syarikat. Pesawat pejuang dan bom yang digunakan adalah buatan Amerika. Jika ada kehilangan senjata, Amerika akan menggantikannya. Dan Amerika juga akan membiayai Israel bagi meneruskan keganasannya.

3. Selagi Amerika menyokong Israel kita akan lihat kebiadaban Israel membelakangkan pendapat dunia dan mereka akan terus membunuh orang Arab Palestin dan menghancurkan penempatan dan bandar mereka.

4. Apabila saya katakan yang Israel menguasai dunia secara proksi, media dan Kerajaan Amerika mengutuk saya. Tetapi hakikatnya ialah hanya calon yang direstui Israel sahaja yang boleh menang pilihanraya di Amerika. Tunggu sahajalah pendirian Presiden baru Amerika.

5. Sementara itu kita harus sedar secara kecil-kecilan kita juga bantu Israel. Buah pisang kaki (persimmon) dari Israel ada dijual di pasaraya Kuala Lumpur.

6. Singapura adalah saluran bagi Israel menembusi pasaran Malaysia.

*****

1. The world seem to be condemning Israel for the inhuman attack against Gaza. But as usual the world does nothing. Why not? Because Israel is backed by the United States of America.

2. The world should also condemn the United States. The planes and the bombs are all made in America. If they are lost the US will replace them. And the US will finance Israel so as to continue its bestiality.

3. For as long as the US backs Israel, we will continue to see Israel ignoring world opinion as it murders the Palestinians Arabs, and destroys their towns and cities.

4. When I said Israel rules the world by proxy, the American media and Government condemned me. But it is a fact that only those candidates approved by Israel can win elections in America. So much for democracy in the United States. Lets see the stand of the United States’ new President.

5. Incidentally we should also realise that we are, in a small way, helping Israel. Israeli persimmons (pisang kaki) are sold in supermarkets in Kuala Lumpur.

6. Singapore is Israel’s channel to penetrate the Malaysian market. – Tun Dr. Mahathir

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