More about: NIMA SHIRAZI &
WIDEASLEEPINAMERICA.COM
Nima Shirazi
Nima Shirazi is an independent author and musician. He
is a contributing writer for Foreign Policy Journal, Palestine Think Tank,
and The Rag Blog. His analysis of United States policy and Middle East
issues, particularly with reference to current events in Palestine and Iran,
can be found in numerous other online publications, such as Palestine
Chronicle, Information Clearing House, OpEdNews, World Can’t Wait, CASMII,
Kenya Imagine, What Really Happened, and InfoWars, as well as his own
website “Wide Asleep in America.” During the aftermath of the recent Iranian
elections, Nima was interviewed by Dr. Wilmer Leon on the XM radio program
“On With Leon.” He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife and books.
"Living is easy with eyes closed /
Misunderstanding all you see."
- John Lennon
"This is no dream. This is really happening!"
- Rosemary Woodhouse, Rosemary's Baby (1968)
"Humankind can not bear very much reality."
- T.S. Eliot
A
few days ago, I was unlucky enough to
read one of the horribly racist and
offensive Obama-bashing emails that have
been traversing the cybertubes and
scaring ignorant Americans into fearing
big bad Barack because his name is typed
out in close proximity to the bogus term
"Muslim male extremist."
Needless to say, it made me furious.
Frustrated with the rampant racism of
America and demonization of "the other,"
I decided to pen a response, in the
style of the original, that speaks to
fears of a nation and encourages
learning from history. Whom should we
really fear and how should that
influence our vote come November 4th?
I knew there was something I didn't like
now I know what it is. If you plan on
voting, read this first.
This is not a matter of opinion.
Opinions are subjective. These are
facts.
My personal opinion? I agree with facts
because they're factual.
If after reading this email you
disagree, please, feel free to reply
back to me. Your opinion is yours and
that's fine, but you should be able to
justify it, don't you think?
(a
fact-check of Israeli military
justifications, hasbara propaganda,
and outright lies concerning the
on-going Gaza massacre and
collective punishment dubbed
'Operation Cast Lead')
(an
analysis of Ahmadinejad's
much-maligned speech at the 2009
United Nations World Conference
Against Racism; includes
some additional commentary in
the comment section)
(a
response to the misguided
attitudes of so-called
"progressives" or "liberals" to
Ahmadinejad, mostly with
reference to reactions to the Durban
II speech)
(a look
at the history of deep
involvement and intervention,
both overt and covert, of the
United States in Iran and how it
may have affected the
post-election situation)
(an
analysis of the recent burying of
the UN Goldstone Report by the House
of Representatives and what
protecting Israel from war crime
investigations really means)
A lot of Americans have become so
insulated from reality that they imagine
that America can inflict horrific damage
upon the rest of the world without any
facing any consequences.
Moreover, there seems to be a whole lot
of fear-mongering going around these
days, exploiting the xenophobia, racism,
mistrust and misunderstanding of "the
other," and the cultural and
ethnosupremacy of many white Americans,
who are the descendants of European
Christians.
So, please, pause a moment, reflect
back.
These events are actual events from
history.
They really happened!!!
Do you remember?
1. 1095-1291: The Crusades, a series of
religiously-motivated military campaigns
with the intent of brutally conquering
and claiming the Holy Land and fought
primarily against Muslims, were waged by
white Christian men. Death toll: 3-5
million human beings.
2. 1478-1834: The Spanish Inquisition, a
bloody effort to create a politically
and religiously homogeneous kingdom
wrested from the hands of Muslims and
Jews through forced conversion,
censorship, repression, and torture, was
sanctioned and carried out by white
Christian men. Death toll: 32,000 human
beings.
3. Over the course of four hundred
years, beginning in the fifteenth
century, witch hunts led by white
Christian men were responsible for the
deaths of about 60,000 human beings.
4. 1562-1598: For thirty-six years,
religious battles were waged in France
among different factions of white
Christian men. Death toll: 2-4 million
human beings.
5. 1618-1648: The Thirty Years War, also
fought among conflicting factions of
white Christian men, cost the lives of
about 7 million human beings.
6. 1803-1815: The Napoleonic Wars,
immediately following the French
Revolutionary Wars, had a death toll of
upwards of 6 million human beings and
were waged by white Christian men.
7. 1415-1914: Over the course of five
centuries, white Christian men
consistently, compulsively, and
competitively conquered and colonized
the majority of five continents, in an
effort to expand economy, exploit
resources, subjugate native populations,
and exert unabashed hegemony,
imperialism, and chauvinism upon the
non-European world.
8. The conquest of the New World by
European explorers, beginning in earnest
in 1492, led to the systematic and
deliberate genocide of over 100 million
human beings, an unspeakable act of
ethnic-cleansing in the name of Manifest
Destiny and perpetrated by white
Christian men.
9. 1500-1880: The African Slave Trade in
the Americas was responsible for
forcibly removing over 24 million human
beings from their homes. Fewer than 50%
survived the trip to the New World and
spent the rest of their lives in brutal
bondage. This abhorrent crime against
humanity was funded, executed, promoted,
and fought for by white Christian men.
10. Over the course of 150 years,
beginning in 1770, the indigenous
population of Australia (who had lived
sustainably on their own land for over
40,000 years) was all but wiped out, due
to colonization, violent re-settlement,
disease, and cultural disintegration
inflicted by white Christian men.
11. Even after the abolition of slavery
in the United States, Jim Crow Laws that
limited or denied the civil rights and
liberties of minority groups were in
place for almost a century, until 1965.
This legalized racism, segregation, and
the paradoxical bigotry of the "separate
but equal" doctrine were conceived and
enforced by white Christian men.
12. 1899-1902: U.S. Marines slaughtered
over a million Filipino civilians, as a
result of the American occupation of the
Philippines after the Spanish-American
War, one of the first imperial exercises
of the United States government, which
was controlled (as always) by white
Christian men.
13. 1938-1945: Well over 30 million
civilians were killed by the Nazis and
Fascists during World War II, an
estimated 12 million of those in
concentration camps. Who's to blame for
this genocide? Yup, white Christian men.
14. February 13-15, 1945: In an
unjustified and unnecessary series of
air raids, the U.S. and British Air
Forces dropped about 4,000 tons of bombs
on the city of Dresden, destroying about
13 square miles and at least 30,000
human beings. Who gave the orders? White
Christian men.
15. August 6 & 9, 1945: After six months
of devastating firebombing of almost 70
other cities, atomic bombs were dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing the
deaths of over 220,000 human beings.
These criminal acts of civilian murder,
and the only attacks using nuclear
weaponry in the history of the world,
were carried out by an executive order
by a white Christian man.
16. For over 40 years, beginning in
1948, the Apartheid system in South
Africa legally dictated the domination
of one race over all others via
institutionalized discrimination and
segregation that affected citizenship,
identity, freedom of movement, living
locations and conditions, marriage,
education, employment, and health care.
As in the U.S., people of different
races were prohibited from using the
same restaurants, restrooms, and
swimming pools. This violation of human
rights, with its wholesale contempt and
rejection of equality, freedom, and
justice, was enacted, supported, and
administered by white Christian men.
17. Between 1950 and 1975, militaries
led by white Christian men caused the
deaths of over 7 million civilians in
Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Over
2.5 million tons of bombs were dropped
on Laos and Cambodia alone, more than
double the amount dropped on Nazi
Germany and about 14 times the number
dropped on Japan during WWII.
18. Since 1893, the sovereign
governments of Hawaii, Cuba, Costa Rica,
Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Honduras,
Brazil, Greece, Iran, Guatemala,
Afghanistan, Iraq, Chile, Grenada, and
Panama, among many others have been
overthrown by U.S. government and
CIA-supported coup d'etats, incited by
white Christian men.
19. Since its creation in 1865, the Ku
Klux Klan has advocated white supremacy
and violently supported their racist
agenda with intimidation, lynching,
murder, terrorism, and hate speech. At
its peak, the Klan boasted over 4
million members, all of whom were (and
still are) white Christian men.
20. The recent illegal and immoral
invasions and occupations of Afghanistan
and Iraq, including atrocities at Abu
Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, bombings of
wedding celebrations, massacres in
Haditha and Mahmudiyah, and the
Blackwater shootings in Baghdad,
committed by and the behest of white
Christian men, have cost the lives of
well over a million human beings and
have displaced over 3 million others.
21. Assassins John Wilkes Booth and
Charles Guiteau, serial killers Jack the
Ripper, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and
Jeffrey Dahmer, dictators Augusto
Pinochet and Francisco Franco,
terrorists Ted Kaczynski and Timothy
McVeigh, bigots Billy Graham, James
Hagee, Rush Limbaugh, and David Duke,
cult leaders Jim Jones and David Koresh,
as well as every single U.S. President
and Vice President in history have all
been white Christian men.
Clearly, there's a pattern here. As a
result, I think all Americans should be
very wary of electing another leader of
such dubious character and affiliation.
The next U.S. President will be the
commander-in-chief of the most active
and most expensive military on the
planet. The U.S. spends over $600
billion dollars a year on its military,
more than the rest of the world combined
(Our nearest competitor, China, spends
one-tenth what we do). The U.S. sells
more weapons to other countries than any
other nation, has more than 700 military
bases in 130 countries around the world
and over 6000 bases in the U.S. and
U.S.-controlled territories.
Would you want to place this devastating
amount of power in the hands of another
white Christian man?
Have the American People completely lost
their Minds, or just their Power of
Reason?
Also, in response to the bogus claims of
the "Book of Revelations" prophecy...
The ridiculous statement, as repeated in
numerous e-mail forwards attempting to
link Barack Obama's popularity to the
end of the world, is as follows:
"The
Anti-Christ will be a man, in his
40's, of MUSLIM descent, who will
deceive the nations with persuasive
language, and have a MASSIVE
Christ-like appeal....the prophecy
says that people will flock to him
and he will promise false hope and
world peace, and when he is in
power, he will destroy everything."
Ok, just some
simple corrections:
1. There is no "Book of Revelations" in
the Bible. It's called the "Book of
Revelation." Singular.
2. Nowhere in "Revelation" is the word
"Anti-Christ" mentioned.
3. There is also no mention of a man in
his 40's (or of any age for that
matter).
4. The mention of a "Muslim" is clearly
absurd considering Islam (and thus the
term Muslim) was a religion founded in
the early 7th Century, about five
hundred years after the New Testament
was written. Nice try, idiots.
5. The subsequent descriptions of the
so-called Anti-Christ are found nowhere
in the Book of Revelation. They are
pieced-together ideas from disparate
parts of the Bible, taken completely out
of context, and filtered heavily through
End Times theology and Rapture
mythology.
Basically, the whole thing is made up.
Kudos, racists.
It would behoove all those flag-waving
church-over-state patriots to remember
the words of our founding father Thomas
Jefferson, from his Notes on Virginia:
"Millions
of innocent men, women, and
children, since the introduction of
Christianity, have been burned,
tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet
we have not advanced one inch toward
uniformity. What has been the effect
of coercion? To make one half of the
world fools and the other half
hypocrites."
Too wordy?
Maybe this other Jefferson quote sums it
up better:
"Christianity is the most perverted
system that ever shone on man."
And what about
this gem from Thomas Paine's The Age of
Reason:
"Of all
systems of religion that ever were
invented, there is no more
derogatory to the Almighty, more
unedifying to man, more repugnant to
reason, and more contradictory to
itself than this thing called
Christianity."
There you have it. Amen.
********************************
So, hey, if you've gotta vote on
November 4th, it's safer to vote against
the white guy. Those fuckers are
dangerous.
Is
a youth movement that attempts to bring truth and tolerance to its
elders actually encouraging the deep-rooted bigotry of the very
population it is hoping to influence? Can the movement’s good
intentions be undermined by its own unconscious racism?
As Sarah Palin would say, "You betcha!"
The last several weeks have seen a growing mobilization on the part of the Jewish Council for Education and Research and its election year pet project JewsVote to get out a pro-Obama elderly Jewish vote in the Sunshine State come November 4th. It's called The Great Schlep
and is, as its own website states, aimed at having "Jewish
grandchildren visit their grandparents in Florida, educate them about
Obama, and therefore swing the crucial Florida vote in his favor." The
grassroots campaign is supposedly focused on discrediting false
information, allaying undue fear, and dispelling mudslung mythologies
about the Junior Senator from Illinois.
Unfortunately, The Great Schlep's
seemingly noble concept, whimsical Yiddish name, and immensely popular
endorsement video by comedienne Sarah Silverman hides a disappointing
truth. Not only are many of the grandparents of self-described
progressive Jews apparently extremely racist,
xenophobic, and ill-informed, but their grandchildren, who are signing
on to this project in droves, are hardly any better informed - they
just think they are.
The Great Schlep is explicitly
Rovian in its desire to exploit cultural bias in a coordinated effort
to manipulate a specific demographic to vote a certain way come
election time. It makes no attempt to dismantle the general racist
ideologies of certain elderly Jews or to actually disseminate any
factual information or analysis beyond simple ethnocentric bullet
points. The tact of appealing to the lowest common denominators of
Jewish and American exceptionalism and extreme Zionist jingoism is
troubling and does a great disservice to the project's mantra of
education, truth-telling, and myth-debunking.
According to its own helpful Talking Points guide, aimed at facilitating a discussion with one's elders by having fun facts at the ready, The Great Schlep's Weltanschauung is that of noble American imperialism and hegemony, frightening and untrustworthy schwartzes,
evil Arab terrorists, and Israeli righteousness - essentially the exact
world view shared by the ignorant "Country First" crowd. Pandering to
the fears and racist beliefs of this segment of the population, even in
order to swing a vote from the inevitable Fascism of a McCain
administration to the slightly better pseudo-Fascism of an Obama
administration, is dishonest and serves only to solidify and further
enable the offensive ideologies of a misinformed community.
These
Talking Points, as well as Silverman's video clip, are awash with
pandering statements and arguments, made-to-order for a discussion
based on incorrect assumptions and oft-repeated lies, all which
carefully (and purposefully) side-step the underlying issues of whether
or not the assumptions themselves are false and racist. The Great Schlep,
in a bombshell, affirms American (not only elderly Jewish) racism while
attempting to project Barack Obama as "one of us" rather than the scary
and unpredictable "one of them." Obama is shown to be a friend to the
Jews, intent on blindly supporting Israel, a black man cut from a
whiter cloth than those radical activists who fought for equal rights
and the abolition of segregation. Obama is presented as safe and
palatable for an audience (and citizenry) who prefers white American
and Jewish superiority to continue to dominate the globe, while
avoiding criticism, resistance, or outrage. The Great Schlep is
designed not to promote Obama's unifying strengths over racial and
divisions, but instead to fit Obama's political platforms and
statements into an already established racist framework. Rather than
demonstrating Barack's ability to transcend race, it proves that he can
be just as racist as you are. At the bottom of some squalid cesspool in
hell, George Wallace is laughing his ass off.
THE GOOD, THE BLACK, AND THE ZIONIST
According to The Great Schlep's
organizers, the only type of black man fit for the highest office is
one who will strengthen American hegemony, disassociate himself from
the black community, and credit his success and the progress of the
civil right movements to American Jews. Basically, this means a black
guy who behaves like a Zionist white guy. This effort to whitewash
Barack Obama's true ethnicity is evident in bullet points such as this
one from the Talking Points memo:
Obama represents a
different kind of black leadership, less interested in the
confrontational tactics favored by many who came of age in the 1960s
and 1970s.
It is obvious that a community that idolizes
Theodor Herzl, David Ben-Gurion, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ariel Sharon
for promoting ethnic cleansing and selective democracy would shun or
denounce the tactics of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Medger Evers and
Bobby Seale that fought against discrimination, white supremacy, police
brutality, and espoused a primarily socialist ideology? Perhaps Florida
Jews should pay more attention to the Guess Who's Coming To Dinner style comments of self-described Zionist Joe Biden, who referred to Obama as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."
The Schlep's Talking Points, too, clearly point out that Barack Obama is a new breed of educated black man, someone different than Jesse Jackson and Jeremiah Wright,
one passive enough to ignore the glaring injustices in this country but
will pledge undying fealty to Zionism and the oppression of foreigners,
intent on "dramatically increas[ing] America’s influence with other
nations" and unafraid to engage in "aggressive diplomacy coupled with a
willingness to use force when necessary." Peaceful candidates need not
apply. The language of violent nationalism and military intervention
apparently speaks to those elderly folks who suffered from perhaps the
most horrific ethnic oppression and racially-motivated genocide in
modern history.
One of the very first issues for Schleppers
to address with their racist elders, we are told, is that Barack Obama
"is a Christian and has never been a Muslim." This frantic
disassociation with one of the world's most popular religions is
disgraceful and offensive. Sure, Obama and his supporters should
correct the misperceptions, the simple truth being that, no, Obama is
not a Muslim. But this McCarthy-esque statement, echoed emphatically on
Obama's own website
("Obama is not and has never been a Muslim"), clearly reveals that
being called a Muslim in the current American atmosphere is a "smear" tantamount to being a terrorist, an anti-Semite, and a threat to national security. Nowhere on the Schlep
site (or on Obama's site for that matter) does it condemn the broad
racism that underlies the statement in the first place. Jews, having
been victims of the same kind of blind bigotry, should know better and
not be at all susceptible to such racist propaganda. The Great Schlep’s
perspective is that being a Muslim is a bad thing, something to be
condemned and abhorred, a sign of anti-American and anti-Semitic
treachery and malevolence. Whereas John McCain is rightly castigated for claiming that Arabs or Muslims are mutually exclusive
of decent, family-oriented, or law-abiding American citizens, elderly
Jews seem to get a pass on the same matter, as if the trauma of the
Holocaust somehow justifies their anti-Islamic suspicions. For the
record, let's just remember that absolutely none of the Germans in
concentration camp watchtowers and at gas chamber controls were Arabs
or Muslims. They were all Christians.
The xenophobia of both the grandparents and grandchildren involved in The Great Schlep is evident in the following statement by Sarah Silverman in her endorsement:
"You
know why your grandparents don't like Barack Obama? Because his name
sounds scary, it sounds Muslim, which he's obviously not. Yes, Barack
Hussein Obama, it's a super fucking shitty name...The name Barack is a
Hebrew word, it means lightening."
Not only does this blithely offensive statement demonstrate the lack of understanding and clarity of the Schlep, but it's also patently untrue.
Obama's first name is not the same as the Hebrew word "barak," which
does mean "lightening" (though, granted, they sound identical); it is a
Swahili derivative ("baraka") of the Arabic word "bariki" meaning
"blessing." Its Hebrew equivalent is actually the word "baruch." Sorry,
Sarah, you should do your homework.
[Incidentally, Obama's own website feels the need to go one step further by asserting that the candidate's middle name is not Mohammed,
a fact they repeat three times in quick succession, with no other
explanation: "OBAMA'S MIDDLE NAME IS NOT MOHAMMED. Barack Obama's
Middle Name Is Not Mohammed. Barack Obama's middle name is not
Mohammed." Check it out, it's weird.]
The most important issue raised by the Schlep (under the Talking Points title: Obama ♥ Israel And So Do You) addresses the actual fears of Jewish retirees from Boca to Palm Beach: Is Barack Obama good for Israel?
With this question should come a bevy of counter-queries, rather than a
race to scream "Yes!" at the top of one's Zionist lungs. First, is
what's good for the United States the same as what's good for Israel?
And also, what exactly does "good" mean?
Realistically, can a
history and institutionalized policy of genocide, displacement, illegal
immigration, land theft, house demolitions, arbitrary incarceration,
paramilitary violence, martial law, military conquest, colonial
expansionism, occupation, apartheid, limiting freedom of movement,
collective punishment, and a total disregard for international law or
human rights of a native population be good for Israel?
There
is little doubt that two illegal invasions and occupations, the use of
private mercenary armies, unconstitutional domestic spying and
wiretapping, offshore torture, extraordinary rendition, and an
unwillingness to conduct genuine diplomacy with countries that won't
backdown to American bullying and aggression has not been good for the United States. Just look at the damage it's done to the economy and our reputation around the world.
Do
checkpoints, expanding settlements, segregated roads, and a separation
barrier ensure the safety and security of the Israeli population? Is it
not obvious that brutal occupation, rampant militarism, cultural
destruction, and systematic dehumanization justifiably breed fear,
anger, resentment, and resistance in the oppressed society? Shouldn't
Jews, with their own tragic history, promote equality and human rights
above all else, strive to create a unified society that values and
rewards diversity, tolerance, and justice, and eschew fierce
nationalism, cultural superiority, and racial exclusion at all costs?
But
these questions are never asked. Israeli actions are assumed to be
noble. US-backed and bankrolled military strength is paramount.
Resistance groups and legitimate political parties like Hamas and
Hezbollah are labeled "terrorist" entities. Iran is called an
existential threat to the state, and the word “Palestinian” appears
nowhere in the Talking Points. What is the result of these repetitive
and spurious claims? The organizers and supporters of The Great Schlep
become just another conservative mouthpiece, using the language of the
Bush administration and the McCain campaign to promote American Empire
and Israeli hegemony and reinforcing the long-established framework of
dangerous US foreign policy and Zionist mythology. This is not the sort
of change we should count on because, obviously, this is no change at
all.
In her four-and-a-half minute YouTube presentation, Schlep-supporter
Sarah Silverman asserts that "Jews are the most liberal, scrappy,
civil-rightsy people there are. Yes, that's true, but you're forgetting
a whole, large group of Jews that are not that way.” While she is
clearly generalizing and referring only to Jewish septua-, octo-, and
nonagenarians living out their twilight years in stubborn suspended
animation, Silverman would be more accurate if she just said what the UN General Assembly stated
back in 1975: Zionism, by its nature of exclusion, aggression,
militarism, colonialism, and nationalism, is “a threat to world peace
and security,” a “racist and imperialist ideology,” and “a form of
racism and racial discrimination.” Zionists, young or old, liberal or
conservative, Democrat or Republican, are racists.
The Great Schlep's
intentions are clearly to sway a vitally important demographic in a key
battleground state with a dubious voting history into favoring an
obviously superior, more qualified and dignified candidate into the
White House. But in its effort to assuage the damage done by McCain's
negative rumor mill, the movement absentmindedly adopts the same
hateful language and racist prejudice of the very campaign its
attempting to defeat. In so doing, The Great Schlep utilizes racial stereotypes to undo others.
And, by legitimizing the hypocrisy of their Jewish elders, Schleppers feed the fires of Jewish nationalism and reaffirm the false and racist mythologies that plague much of the elderly Jewish community. Unfortunately, members of The Great Schlep don’t seek to teach old dogs new tricks, but rather to trick the old dogs into throwing them a bone.
Are you going
to watch the VP debate in order to learn
about the candidates, or in order to see
just how stupid Sarah Palin actually is
and how badly Joe Biden can blow a
perfect opportunity? Why has politics
turned into a Real World/Road Rules
challenge? Would the debate get better
ratings if Biden was debating William
Hung? How would Hung fair against the
Alaska governor (no flutes allowed)?
The answer to all these questions is
kill me.
In anticipation of tonight's sad
entertainment (no, not The Joe Girardi
Show on the YES Network), here's a quick
run down of what we're all in store for:
mentions
"diplomacy": 4
mentions "killing Bin Laden": 1
mentions "justice": 0
mentions
"The Bridge to Nowhere": 1
begins sentences to nowhere: 16
mentions "hardworking Americans": 6
refers
to various dark-skinned foreigners as
"terrorists": 4
praises Israel: 2
scratches crotch/picks wedgie: 3
mentions
"victory in Iraq": 5
refers to various dark-skinned
foreigners as "terrorists,"
"evil-doers," "bad guys," and/or "people
who wish us harm": 8
says that she'll "sure up" the economy:
3
repeats
lie about Russia attacking Georgia: 2
stares in disbelief at his opponent's
idiocy: 4
makes off-color, racist joke: 57
mentions
"strong fundamentals": 2
mentions, but doesn't elaborate on,
reform: 7
brings up freedom or 9/11: 9
lies
about totally legal Iranian nuclear
program: 2
In
order to actually achieve a realistic
and substantive peace between Israelis
and Palestinians, a top Israeli
government official has conceded that a
near-total withdrawal from occupied
Palestinian and Syrian territories,
encompassing West Bank, East Jerusalem,
and the Golan Heights, is the only
viable solution to the seemingly
intractable situation. He also admitted
that the institutionalized
militarization that permeates all of
Israeli society is worthless and, in
fact, destructive to any hopes for
security in the region. He also called
Israeli saber-rattling against a
sovereign nation of 70 million people a
symptom of Zionist megalomania and
demonstrates a complete loss or lack of
Israeli self-awareness.
So who is this left-wing, pinko nut job?
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Guh?
Yes, it's the year 5769 and it seems
like the out-going Israeli Prime
Minister might be taking the upcoming
Yom Kippur atonement more seriously than
ever. In an interview with Israeli
newspaper Yediot Ahronot on Monday, Ehud
Olmert
expressed
regrets and ideas that, until now, have
never been uttered by a prominent (if
any) Israeli leader - let alone by the
top executive. Whereas none of his
comments
during the so-called "legacy
interview"
could be viewed as a complete paradigm
shift of policy (say, from a staunchly
pro-Kadima, ethnic democracy, Eretz
Yisrael stance to a progressive,
humanitarian desire to see a viable,
binational one-state solution prevail),
the solutions and revelations opined by
Olmert are profound nonetheless.
After a military and political life
dedicated to Israeli supremacy,
Palestinian subjugation, and the
maintenance and expansion of an illegal
settler society, Olmert's interview took
a startlingly pragmatic approach to the
Israeli/Palestinian conflict. In fact,
he sounded more like post-Zionist peace
activist and former Irgun militiaman and
MK, Uri Avnery, than the political
partner of militarized right-wing ethnic
cleanser Ariel Sharon - sort of.
Olmert's comments are a departure
(though not necessarily an about-face)
from a strict policy of avoiding
responsibility for the plight of the
Palestinians and the lack of Israeli
security held by most pro-Zionist
Israeli hard-liners. His statements, as
Time's Scott MacLeod
puts it,
"form a swan song of historical
importance. Peace advocates, Israeli
dreamers, Arab skeptics and U.S.
mediators in a future McCain or Obama
Administration should read his words
carefully and take note."
Such vital final status issues such as
settlements and Israeli infrastructure
(illegal according to the UN, Geneva
Conventions, and the International Court
of Justice) and land-for-peace
"compromises" were discussed candidly
(from a two-state solution point of
view, that is), with the Prime Minister
revealing,"We
have to reach an agreement with the
Palestinians, the meaning of which is
that in practice we will withdraw from
almost all the territories, if not all
the territories, including in East
Jerusalem and in the Golan Heights,"
adding, "We will leave a percentage of
these territories in our hands, but will
have to give the Palestinians a similar
percentage, because without that there
will be no peace."
When pressed for a more specific
indication of the territorial swap
between the Israelis and Palestinians,
were Israel to maintain control of major
settlements on Palestinian land, Olmert
said
the exchange would have to be a "more or
less one-to-one" ratio. This is
certainly a shift towards reason,
responsibility, and equality by an
administration whose ideological
doctrine is defined by the opposite.
Regarding the controversial (from the
Zionist perspective only) issue of
Jerusalem, Olmert
revealed
his (sudden?) realization that the
Zionist fantasy of an undivided and
ethnically cleansed capital of Israel is
just that - a fantasy - saying,
"I am the
first who wanted to enforce Israeli
sovereignty on the entire city. I
admit it. I am not trying to justify
retroactively what I did for 35
years. For a large portion of these
years, I was unwilling to look at
reality in all its depth.
"Whoever wants to hold on to all of
the city's territory will have to
bring 270,000 Arabs inside the
fences of sovereign Israel. It won't
work.
"A decision has to be made. This
decision is difficult, terrible, a
decision that contradicts our
natural instincts, our innermost
desires, our collective memories,
the prayers of the Jewish people for
2,000 years."
Perhaps more
surprising were Olmert's comments
regarding the Israeli obsession with its
own military capabilities and strength.
Of the military generals and strategists
who seem content with the 60 year old
policy of the methodical conquering of
foreign land, violent displacement of
the native population, and the
establishment and defense of settlements
and Israeli outposts, Olmert said, "With
them, it is all about tanks and land and
controlling territories and controlled
territories and this hilltop and that
hilltop," adding, "All these things are
worthless. Who thinks seriously that if
we sit on another hilltop, on another
hundred meters, that this is what will
make the difference for the state of
Israel's basic security?"
In reference to the previous Israeli
threats of a unilateral and unprovoked
assault on Iran, professed numerous
times by Olmert himself, the Prime
Minister dispelled the rumors as empty,
bellicose rhetoric and admitted, "Part
of our megalomania and our loss of
proportions is the things that are said
here [in Israel] about Iran. We are a
country that has lost a sense of
proportion about itself." Truer words
have never been spoken - by an Israeli
Prime Minister, at least. One must
wonder if war criminal John McCain, upon
hearing this, rolled over in his
soon-to-be-grave,
crying
in disbelief that people might say what
they mean, "Now, you don't do that. You
don't say that out loud!"
So, wait, is Olmert going to join the
ranks of organizations like B'Tselem and
Gush Shalom? Of course not. Scott
MacLeod
explains,
"Olmert is
no Arab-loving pacifist. As Prime
Minister, he ravaged half of Lebanon
in 2006 in a military offensive
after Hizballah killed and kidnapped
Israeli soldiers. He has
unmercifully turned the screws on
Hamas-controlled Gaza. Olmert's
comments reflect a profound shift
toward realism among Israeli
rightists, akin to what Palestinian
and Arab nationalists started going
through three decades ago, when
Israel was in the prime of its
strategic strength. The shift is
evident not only in Olmert's
prescription for a peace settlement,
but also in his severe critique of a
righteous Israeli mind-set that has
turned out to be self-destructive.
"'Forty years after the Six-Day War
ended, we keep finding excuses not
to act,' Olmert says. 'We refuse to
face reality ... The strategic
threats we face have nothing to do
with where we draw our borders.'"
Olmert even
touched upon the issue of the Syrian
Golan Heights, annexed and occupied by
Israel since 1981, a move never
legitimized by the international
community. In reference to the
"disputed" territory, Olmert
said,
"I'd like see if there is one serious
person in the State of Israel who
believes it is possible to make peace
with the Syrians without eventually
giving up the Golan Heights."
Maybe this is less of a surprise than it
seems. As
reported
by Tim McGirk in Time, Olmert, in the
last cabinet meeting of his tortured
tenure as Israeli PM, "told his
ministers that 'the notion of a Greater
Israel no longer exists, and anyone who
still believes in it is deluding
themselves' — suggesting that Israel
will have to give up settlements built
outside its 1967 borders, often on the
claim of a Biblical right, if its wants
peace with the Arab world."
Also, as we recall, his commitment (in
words, at least) to a two-state solution
for Israel and Palestine is consistent
and is based upon the fear that Israel
may lose its "Jewish character," a
racist notion central to the Zionist
ideology. Last November, he
warned
during the Annapolis Conference that,
"If the day
comes when the two-state solution
collapses, and we face a South
African-style struggle for equal
voting rights (also for the
Palestinians in the territories),
then, as soon as that happens, the
State of Israel is finished."
He continued,
"The Jewish organizations, which were
our power base in America, will be the
first to come out against us because
they will say they cannot support a
state that does not support democracy
and equal voting rights for all its
residents," thereby tacitly (or maybe
explicitly?) admitting that the 41-year
old Israeli policy of occupation,
separation, humiliation, and Jewish
supremacy in the Palestinian Territories
is, in fact, comparable - if not
tantamount - to Apartheid.
MacLeod writes that Olmert's interview
seems to admit his feeling "that Israel
never went quite far enough in
accommodating the Palestinians' basic
requirements for peace," and that "the
realism behind Olmert's change of heart
is of tremendous import, summed up by
one sentence: 'The international
community is starting to view Israel as
a future binational state.'"
"Echoing
views he initially expressed in
2003, Olmert reasons that without an
Israeli withdrawal from the West
Bank, the Jewish state faces the
self-inflicted, mortal danger of
being destroyed by demographics,
overwhelmed by Muslim and Christian
Arabs demanding political
representation. Olmert fears that
the international community could
ultimately favor a one-state
solution, thus spelling the death of
the two-state partition that has
been at the core of an acceptable
Israeli-Palestinian solution for
decades. "Time is not on Israel's
side," Olmert says. "I used to
believe that everything from the
Jordan River bank to the
Mediterranean Sea was ours ... But
eventually, after great internal
conflict, I've realized we have to
share this land with the people who
dwell here — that is, if we don't
want to be a binational state."
In his 2006
book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,
former President Jimmy Carter
states
that "Israel's continued control and
colonization of Palestinian land have
been the primary obstacles to a
comprehensive peace agreement in the
Holy Land." It appears that Ehud Olmert
has finally come around to the Carter
way of thinking. But why? An attack of
conscience after a lifetime of racism?
Are these the desperate words of a
disgraced lame duck? Now that he's on
his way out, after being maligned at
home and abroad and having enjoyed worse
approval ratings than even his moronic
American counterpart (due mostly to the
clear defeat of the Israeli military by
Hezbollah during the 2006 war on
Lebanon), maybe he just has nothing to
lose. And when you've got nothing to
lose, why not tell the truth, right?
"What I am saying to you now has not
been said by any Israeli leader before
me," Olmert said frankly. "The time has
come to say these things."
Unfortunately, Ehud, the time was when
you were still in power and every single
day for the past 41 years. As Walid Awad,
a Fatah official who termed Olmert's
remarks "excellent, but too late,"
adds,
"If he believed in these things why
didn't he do them when he was properly
in office?"
Post-related comments, positive or negative, are
always encouraged. Whereas excessive praise and
disgusted invective are welcome, please try to
be respectful regardless. I am happy to discuss
any or all of the issues raised here on
WAiA.
Contact Me!
If you are uncomfortable with the
public forum, or simply want to get in touch
directly, feel free to contact me personally via
email:
wideasleepinamerica (at) gmail
(dot) com
Israeli settlements,
apartheid wall and fence, closures, and
territorial fragmentation.
CLICK IMAGE FOR
DETAILS.
Words of
the Wiser
"The roots of
violence: wealth without work, pleasure
without conscience, knowledge without
character, commerce without morality,
science without humanity, worship without
sacrifice, politics without principles."
- Mahatma Gandhi
"When machines and
computers, profit motives and property
rights are considered more important than
people, the giant triplets of racism,
materialism, and militarism are incapable of
being conquered."
- Martin Luther King,
Jr.
"The world is a
dangerous place, not because of those who do
evil, but because of those who look on and
do nothing."
- Albert Einstein
"I prefer to be true to myself, even at
the hazard of incurring the ridicule of
others, rather than to be false, and to
incur my own abhorrence."
-
Frederick Douglass
"If I sit silently, I have sinned."
- Mohammad Mossadegh
"One must always try
to be as radical as reality itself."
- Vladimir Lenin
"They must find it difficult, those who have
taken authority as truth, rather than truth
as authority."
- Gerald Massey
"If tyranny and oppression come to this
land, it will be in the guise of fighting a
foreign enemy."
- James Madison
"In times of universal deceit, telling the
truth becomes a revolutionary act."
- George Orwell
"Fear can only prevail when victims are
ignorant of the facts."
- Thomas Jefferson
"Those who can make you believe absurdities
can make you commit atrocities."
- Voltaire
"The struggle of people against power is the
struggle of memory against forgetting."
- Milan Kundera
"Under democracy one party always devotes
its chief energies to trying to prove that
the other party is unfit to rule - and both
commonly succeed, and are right."
- H.L. Mencken
"The propagandist's purpose is to make one
set of people forget that certain other sets
of people are human."
- Aldous Huxley
"Many people would sooner die than think. In
fact they do."
- Bertrand Russell
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for
those who maintain their neutrality in times
of moral crisis."
- Dante Alighieri
"When fascism comes to this country, it will
be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
- Sinclair Lewis
"Those who would give up essential liberty
to purchase a little temporary safety,
deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin
"My loathings are simple: stupidity,
oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music."
- Vladimir Nabokov
A
few days ago, I was unlucky enough to
read one of the horribly racist and
offensive Obama-bashing emails that have
been traversing the cybertubes and
scaring ignorant Americans into fearing
big bad Barack because his name is typed
out in close proximity to the bogus term
"Muslim male extremist."
