Iraq in Fragments
January 26, 2007
Dir: James Longley, 2006, USA, Documentary, 96 mins
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, Media Monitors Network, January 28, 2007; Dissident Voice, January 29, 2007; Atlantic Free Press, January 29, 2007, Electronic Iraq, January 30, 2007; Counterpunch, February 3-4, 2007
The realism means that both films are restrained from taking a political stance and depicting the wider context of the events…This lack of “cognitive mapping” is crucial. All we see are the disastrous effects. — Slavoj Zizek on WTC and United 93
In the years since the invasion of Iraq, many documentaries have attempted to record its consequences: the violence; the occupation; the plunder. The focus has ranged from the anthropological to geopolitical, just as the production has varied from the bland to the spectacular. With the urgency of the political reality taking preeminence, the myriad documentary renderings have hitherto failed to present a sustained portrait of life in occupied Iraq. Iraq in Fragments – the distilled product of more than two years and 300 hours of filming – is James Longley’s splendid contribution towards filling this void.
The title, like the rest of the film, is open to interpretation: it could be a description of present day Iraq disintegrating into Sunni, Shia and Kurdish fragments; of the internal fragmentation of the Iraqi society; or the three fragments from which the film is constructed. What distinguishes the film from all others, is the hypnotic intimacy that puts the viewer into the heads of Longley’s subjects. The stunning cinematography and the profound subjectivity add depth to this masterful work of art.
Muhammad of Baghdad, the first part, follows an 11-year-old Sunni orphan who apprentices for a mechanic while struggling at school. Despite the abuse he has to endure at work, Muhammad continues to look up to the boss, whose frequently cruel treatment is interspersed, at times, with avuncular generosity.
Sadr’s South, the second part, follows Sheikh Aws al-Khafaji, a 32-year-old member of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Hawza movement as he organizes local elections to preempt the American orchestrated electoral charade designed to give legitimacy to appointed surrogates. Hope, apprehension and fear, in a backdrop of slow burning rage. The insistent beat of the self-flagellation in an Ashura procession could be the rhythm driving the inexorable march of history that carries the Shia, with their new found confidence, towards the dominance long denied them; here is a People asserting its identity in bloody rituals long suppressed under Saddam’s imposed secularism.
Kurdish Spring, the third part, follows two families in the almost idyllic setting of Koretan, near Erbil, straddling the contradictions of the promised “liberation and progress” with the tangible reality of their daily lives, yet to see the promises materialize. An appropriately bleak motif is lent the story by the dark billowing smoke of a brick factory. The deep friendship between the children of the two families develops oblivious to the developing circumstances, even as unemployed men – able bodied, “with big moustaches” – find it harder to ignore as they are turned away from the brick factory empty handed.
In his superb use of Cinéma vérité techniques, Longley has developed an impressionistic portrait rich in moving detail. By spending endless hours following his subjects without inserting himself into the narrative, he allows their stories to develop organically. The occupation itself receives a second billing where all the references to it are passive. It is clear, however, that the occupation has added another layer of complexity to lives already disrupted by the crippling privation of two brutal regimes: Saddam’s; and the US-UK imposed sanctions.
The film’s greatest achievement is perhaps also its biggest weakness: the film’s intimate focus and the virtual absence of the occupation — except in the occasional ruminations of subjects – fails to take into account its all encompassing embrace. It is the saturated, often dazzling, hues of the beautifully shot images, as much as the endless grays of the narrative that perhaps account for its appeal, which transcends ideological boundaries. The film, in the end, is vague enough that it could serve to reinforce views whether for, or against the war. This might ensure a wider audience for the film, but contributes little to the understanding of what afflicts the subjects, so beautifully humanized in the film.
The immorality of the invasion and occupation of Iraq is unquestionable; there are incontrovertible standards — the Nuremberg laws and Geneva Conventions for instance — to judge it by. For all its brilliance, the film scrupulously avoids articulating a position on the occupation. For this –while it deserves each one of the awards it has receieved, not to mention those, like the Oscar, which it may receive in the future – it remains a compelling work of art, rather than an instrument of political change.
Rage Against the Machine Reunite!
January 23, 2007
This is one news from the music world that I cannot possibly remain indifferent to. Rage Against the Machine, listening to whose first Album constituted a transformative experience for me, are reuniting!
It has to start somewhere, it has to start now; what better place than here, what better time than now?
Guerrilla Radio
Transmission third world war third round
A decade of the weapon of sound above ground
No shelter if you’re lookin’ for shade
I lick shots at the brutal charade
As the polls close like a casket
On truth devoured
A Silent play in the shadow of power
A spectacle monopolized
The camera’s eyes on choice disguised
Was it cast for the mass who burn and toil?
Or for the vultures who thirst for blood and oil?
Yes a spectacle monopolized
They hold the reins and stole your eyes
Or the fistagons
The bullets and bombs
Who stuff the banks
Who staff the party ranks
More for Gore or the son of a drug lord
None of the above fuck it cut the cord
Lights out
Guerrilla Radio
Turn that shit up
Contact I highjacked the frequencies
Blockin’ the beltway
Move on D.C.
Way past the days of Bombin’ M.C.’s
Sound off Mumia guan be free
Who gottem yo check the federal file
All you pen devils know the trial was vile
An army of pigs try to silence my style
Off ‘em all out that box
It’s my radio dial
Lights out
Guerrilla Radio
Turn that shit up
It has to start somewhere It has to start sometime
What better place than here, what better time than now?All hell can’t stop us now
All hell can’t stop us now
All hell can’t stop us now
All hell can’t stop us now
Big Brother and the Coloured Lens
January 23, 2007
For almost a week, the big news in Britain has been the manifestation of racist behavior towards an Indian participant, bollywood-star Shilpa Shetty, by others in the media circus known as Big Brother. Everyone from news paper columnists, cultural icons, to Gordon Brown, chancellor of the exchequer, have weighed in. Endless columnspace has been devoted to the controversy; besides the opporbrium it garnered for the prime malefactor, Jade Goody, there is talk of the show being axed altogether…And I couldn’t be happier for it.
In the first place, one would have to be a freak to participate in …errr… the freakshow. The show thrives on freakish behavior, but the hoopla surrounding this one is of a different nature: the casual display of racism has cracked the veneer of respectability that masks the racism endemic to the society. As an unintended consequence, the row over the program will make such racial abuse less acceptable in a society that tolerates racism of a far cruder vareity, so long as it is off screen. Secondly, the freakshow will hopefully come to an end.
At the same time, the tsunami of outrage over the behavior of one individual has washed over news of far higher import: the systemic racism that non-Whites routinely encounter at Britain’s airports.
Gary Younge — who, in my opinion, is one of Britain’s finest journalist; always consistent, perceptive and eloquent — writes in the Guardian about the recently published Home Office report, Exploring the Decision-Making of Immigration Officers, which”provides further evidence of … the practice of profiling on the basis of race, ethnicity and religion persists at borders around the world.”
“These abuses are not systematic” he says, but “the abuses are systemic.”
For what looks like an individual’s hunch is little more than the accumulated weight of assumption, presumption and prejudice, entrenched by global economics and sustained by local politics. Capital, we are told, must flow freely around the world to ensure international prosperity. The trouble is, this prosperity remains elusive to many in a world where about half the people live on less than $2 a day and the rules of international trade are weighted against the poor. Facing hunger and destitution, the poor move in search of work. But when they seek to gain access to the wealthiest countries – the very ones which created the rules that keep them poor – the doors are closed. Politicians desperate to galvanise popular support at home argue not for correcting the global inequalities in wealth but instead for stiffer immigration laws to keep the poor out. Since most, but by no means all, of these impoverished people are not white, racism almost inevitably informs and infects these immigration laws and the debate that surrounds them…
By the time it gets to the gatekeepers, the damage has largely been done. What immigration officers describe as instinct is, in truth, little more than playing the odds. “We’re making decisions based on … a balance of probability,” said one immigration officer…So non-white travellers fall foul not of the law of the land but the law of probabilities…
Non-white South Africans are 10 times more likely to be subjected to further questioning and non-white Canadians nine times more likely than their white countrymen…
The authors of the report insist that this has nothing to do with racism, insisting instead that socioeconomic factors play a key role…Not only do the researchers provide no evidence for their conclusion. But the evidence they do provide suggests the contrary. When the figures were adjusted to take occupation into account, the discrepancy widened dramatically for all but the Americans. Non-white South Africans became 18 times more likely to be stopped and non-white Canadians 13.5 times. Moreover, when translated into sterling, the mean income of a black Canadian is almost double that of a white South African. Yet a black Canadian is four times more likely to be stopped than a white South African. Their efforts to understand race and class separately in this manner effectively lead to a complete misunderstanding of both.
The basic right to the freedom of movement was championed as one of the central criticisms of the eastern bloc. But as soon as the wall came down we built another huge one to replace it…Politics once kept people in; now economics keeps them out.
For the wealthy, however, it is a different matter. The report claimed that immigration officers have learned to “no longer … ask a well-travelled American businessman how much money he has brought with him or for details of his bank balance”. So the man most likely to steal your pension walks through without a word, while the one most likely to flip your burger or clean your house hugs the bottom of trains because legitimate means of entry are barred to them. So much for global citizenship.
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
January 18, 2007
by Jimmy Carter
Simon & Schuster, 320 pp., November 2006, 978-0743285025
Review by Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States is no stranger to controversy. As the first American President to speak of a Palestinian “homeland”, to encourage Israel to give up occupied lands, to force Israel from captured territory[1], to establish contacts with the PLO, it was inevitable that Carter should draw the wrath of the Israel lobby. Menachem Began and Ed Koch – the Prime Minister of Israel and Mayor or New York respectively — were soon exposed plotting Carter’s defeat in the upcoming presidential elections.[2] Andrew Young, the UN Ambassador who met Arafat and a longtime friend of the President’s, was made to resign, and Carter lost his reelection, receiving only 48 percent of the Jewish vote.
Despite his departure from public office, Carter’s engagement in the region continued in the form of peacemaking initiatives and election monitoring through the Carter Center. The Center monitored last year’s elections in the Occupied Palestinian Territories that brought Hamas to power; Carter’s certification of the election’s fairness, and his subsequent encouragement for the US and Israel to engage in dialogue with the elected Palestinian government got a cold reception in the implacably rejectionist US-Israeli camp.
Faced with these disappointments, Carter has embarked on a new project — to appeal directly to the people of the United States and Israel.
A prolific writer, Carter has penned more than twenty books, including poetry and fiction, on subjects ranging from politics, religion, history to ethics. Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, his latest, is perhaps the most controversial — not because of anything he says, but rather because of who he is. Since leaving office, Carter’s name has become synonymous with human rights, peace making and democracy promotion (before the term was stripped of its meaning by the Reaganites and neo-Reaganites); the facts in the book may not be new or controversial, but Carter’s name carries prestige and credibility that threatens to bring the facts to a mass audience, hitherto denied the unadulterated truth. The fact that the book is topping Best Seller lists, despite the carefully orchestrated campaigns to defame Carter and discredit his book, may explain why the Israel lobby is so concerned.
With plenty of interesting anecdotes and details from nearly three decades of involvement in the region’s politics, Carter’s book is highly readable. While the history of the conflict may not be Carter’s purpose or forte, it is the sections of the book dealing with the present situation in Palestine that bear notice. Here Carter is forthright and graphic in his depiction of the daily humiliations and oppression meted out to the Palestinians by Israel’s brutal Apartheid regime. The use of the South African analogy is deliberate, as Carter seeks to spark a debate by using a word with an ugly historical resonance. A proof of its effectiveness is the sheer venom directed at Carter by the Israel lobby and its minions in the congress and media.
There is hardly anything novel about Carter’s use of the Apartheid analogy; many in Israel itself, including its former Minister of Education, Shulamit Aloni, its preeminent Human Rights organization, B’Tselem have used the word, while outside, a figure no less than Bishop Desmond Tutu has likened Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to how Apartheid South Africa treated its Blacks. But in the United States, where Israel has heretofore escaped criticism, this analogy is hitting raw nerve; for the main argument in Israel’s defense has always been that the historical suffering endured by Jews – the persecution, the discrimination — entitles them to special exemption. The Jewish State itself shown to be implementing a system of Apartheid — a vile form of institutionalized racial discrimination — could easily cost it the special exemption.
The glimpse that Carter presents of Palestinian life under occupation makes for harrowing reading. A matrix of control that includes checkpoints, Jewish-only roads and the Wall corrals Palestinians into smaller and smaller ghettoes as Israel’s march towards the completion of its land grab continues unimpeded. Water and agricultural resources are confiscated, olive groves destroyed — all in the continuing shadow of house demolitions, closures and curfews.
The population of Gaza, more than half which is less than fifteen years of age, is “being strangled since the Israeli ‘withdrawal’”, Carter says, with Israel retaining control of its land, sea and air exits. With police, teachers, nurses, and social workers deprived of salaries the poverty rate has reached 70 percent and acute malnutrition is at a record high with ”more than half of Palestinian families eating only one meal a day”. (p.176)
Carter points out that “more than 630,000 Palestinians…have been detained at some time by the Israelis” since ’67 including many women and children. Children aged twelve to fourteen “can be sentenced for a period of up to six months, and after the age of fourteen Palestinian children are tried as adults, a violation of international law”. (pp.196-7)
Carter dismisses the “security” rationale for what he calls Israel’s “imprisonment Wall”,
The wall ravages many places along its devious route that are important to Christians. In addition to enclosing Bethlehem in one of its most notable intrusions, an especially heartbreaking division is on the southern slope of the Mount of Olives, a favorite place for Jesus and his disciples, and very near Bethany, where they often visited Mary, Martha, and their brother, Lazarus. There is a church named for one of the sisters, Santa Marta Monastery, where Israel’s thirty-foot concrete wall cuts through the property. The house of worship is now on the Jerusalem side, and its parishioners are separated from it because they cannot get permits to enter Jerusalem. Its priest, Father Claudio Ghilardi, says, “For nine hundred years we have lived here under Turkish, British, Jordanian, and Israeli governments, and no one has ever stopped people coming to pray. It is scandalous. This is not about a barrier. It is a border…The Wall is not separating Palestinians from Jews; rather Palestinians from Palestinians.” …The 2,000 Palestinian Christians have lost their place of worship and their spiritual center. (pp.194-5)
Carter also exposes the history of Israeli rejectionism sustained by unswerving US support which has preculded any possibility of a just peace; more than forty US vetoes have provided Israel special immunity from censure at the United Nations, even as the whole world, with the exception of the United States, is unanimous in its condemnation of Israeli brutalities. Carter also dispatches the popular myth of Barak’s “generous offer” at Camp David — popularized, amongst others, by Clinton’s envoy and former (and present) Israel lobbyist Dennis Ross. As Carter reveals, once one looks at the details of the offer, it doesn’t appear generous at all. In fact,
There was no possibility that any Palestinian leader could accept such terms and survive, but official statements from Washington and Jerusalem were successful in placing the entire onus for the failure on Yasir Arafat.
Contrary to the popular myth, Carter states, the Palestinian have always been willing to negotiate. From Oslo, Camp David, to Bush’s Roadmap, the Palestinians have made major concessions which went unreciprocated by Israel, even as it keeps insisting it does not have a partner for Peace. It will come as a surprise to Carter’s audience that Hamas, as he reveals, has honoured an 18 month unilateral ceasefire even as Israeli attacks go on unabated. The Palestinian Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, Carter writes, has already accepted the ”prisoners document”, a proposal for a peaceful settlement with broad support amongst the Palestinians.
Where Carter fails, however, is in insisting that the label applies to the Occupied Territories only; perhaps in an effort to mollify critics, he insists Israel within its own borders is a “vibrant democracy” with “equal voting rights” for all. If voting rights were all that mattered, then Carter’s claims would be valid, but people don’t live to vote. There are more immediate needs, such as shelter, health, community, and the citizenship that ensures these rights. The Arab citizens of Israel, through various legal and informal means, are denied the same health, education and economic opportunities available to its Jewish citizens. Unlike Apartheid South Africa, where 87% of the land was off limits to its non-White citizens, in Israel nearly 93% of the land is unavailable for lease or purchase to its Arab citizens through a sophisticated sytem of Basic Laws and quasi-governmental institutions like Jewish National Fund. There are nearly 350 unrecognized villages with an Arab population exceeding 150,000 and various Bedouin villages have been demolished altogether. One Israeli law prohibits a Palestinian citizen of Israel to bring a spouse to live with him in Israel from anywhere in the world, except from the Occupied Territories. In short, the system that obtains within Israel’s borders can be described as anything but a “vibrant democracy” for its Arab citizens.
The book, to be sure, has some inaccuracies, but none of these impinge on the main thesis of the book. For instance, in the historical overview we are told that Israel launched the ’82 invasion ”in response to terrorist attacks” (p.7). In reality, there were no attacks against Israel in the preceding year; Israel, according to the analyst Avner Yaniv, launched the assault to avert PLO’s “peace offensive”. Carter also suggests the United States has acted as an honest broker until recently (p. 16). With the exception of rare initiatives by Carter and James Baker, in fact, the United States, since 1962, has alone sustained Israel’s continued rejectionism. Carter states Israel appeared “vulnerable to punishing Arab attacks” until ’67 (p.22). This is a curious statement, as Israel had already invaded and occupied Egyptian territory in ’56 and its border raids against its neighbours had continued unabated since its creation (see Israel’s Border Wars, by Benny Morris). Carter refers to Yitzhak Rabin as one of the “heroes” of the ’67 war (p.22). In fact, Rabin suffered a nervous breakdown and his participation in the war was minimal. In another place Carter blames Palestinians for the “single-mindedness amounting to tunnel vision” with which they see “the restoration of their rights, defined by international law, as the key to peace throughout the broader Middle East, including the Gulf states” (p.187). Israel’s latest assault on Gaza, we are told, came as a response to the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants (p.197). To his credit, Carter in his media appearances has expounded on the context and the reason for the Palestinian operation — to secure the release of the nearly 9200 civilians, including a 100 women and 293 children.
The shortcomings, nevertheless, are minor compared to the great service Carter has rendered. He is the first President of the United States to dare speak the unvarnished truth about Palestine; and his opinions carry the weight and credibility of his achievements. He has ensured that the issue receive a national platform as a corrective to the “powerful political, economic and religious forces in the United States” which ensure that “Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned or condemned”. “[V]oices from Jerusalem dominate in our media” he maintains.(p.209) He has since braved the vituperative – and always vicious — assaults of these powerful forces without giving an inch. For this, Carter — “the only American president approaching sainthood”, in Fisk’s words — deserves unreserved support and respect. [3]
– References –
[1] In the wake of “Operation Litani” — Israeli invaded Lebanon during which it killed 2,000 civilians — Carter demanded Israel withdraw from the captured territory, in accord with UN resolutions. When Israel delayed, Carter threatened to cut all aid within 24 hours, forcing a hasty Israeli retreat.
[2] The plot was uncovered in an NSA evesdropping operation. Earlier, Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, had similarly exposed the secret meeting between Andrew Young and Arafat through a wiretap.
[3] Under pressure from the Israel Lobby, Amazon.com recently put a hatchetjob by an Israeli military veteran, Jeffrey Goldberg, in the space reserved for editorial reviews. A petition campaign that gathered more than 18,000 signatures within a matter of days soon brought Amazon to heel, and the defamatory review was withdrawn.
– Acknowledgement –
Some of the important quotes from Carter’s book were already extracted by Norman G. Finkelstein in his review, which I have reproduced here.
US Foreign Policy in the Middle East
January 18, 2007
The Role of Lobbies and Special Interest Groups
by Janice J. Terry
Pluto Press, 168pp, July 2005, 978-0745322599
Review by Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
The publication of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy has broken what Edward Said had referred to as “America’s last taboo” by opening the debate on the influence of the Israel lobby over US foreign policy. What they left out, however, is the political architecture that allows this and other highly motivated and organized formation of special interests to skew the country’s foreign policy in their desired direction. In a book published a year before the celebrated Walt & Mearsheimer paper — U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East – Janice J. Terry had already provided a detailed and accessible analysis of structure and processes central to the formulation of foreign policy in the United States.
The book received little attention at the time, as its thesis went against the Leftist conventional wisdom of Israel as a “strategic asset” to the US imperial project. A lot changed in the year since: the Mearsheimer & Walt paper encouraged people to start taking this issue head on without having to fear the inevitable labelling and smears. The two authors, however, focused mainly on the effects of the lobby’s machinations, while the causes, including the structural context within which special interests thrive, remained unexplored. These are the issues Terry addresses with admirable acuity in this very important book.
Using an opera metaphor, Prof. Terry introduces us to the disparate elements that blend seamlessly into a successful production. Starting with the structure – the architecture of the US government where, since WWII, foreign policy has remained largely within the purview of the executive branch – Terry proceeds to identify agency: the various lobbies and special interests that seek to influence US foreign policy in the interests of their respective constituencies. Terry illustrates the flaws in the electoral system that allow a well organized activist minority to influence policy in areas, such as the Middle East politics, to which the larger part of the population remain indifferent. This success, however, is only possible if the policies are seen to be in the nation’s best interests. This is where the other elements of the opera, such as the score – media and pop culture; and the stage – images and attitudes, come into play. Given the history of bias against Arabs and Muslims and the prevalent stereotypes reinforced through the media, most Americans are predisposed to see them with suspicion, whereas the Jewish character always receives a positive representation. These stereotypes are magnified and projected onto the whole groups, and in the case of the Arabs and Muslims, they are mostly seen as undifferentiated masses, who frequently serve as the bulk of clumsy victims to a Hollywood protagonist’s righteous rage. Policy makers are no more immune to these impulses. Within this cultural backdrop it is always easier for them to make decisions in accord with existing predispositions. This explains why the pro-Israel and Greek lobbies have been far more successful than their Arab counterparts.
The composition, motivations and tactics of the various lobbies offer other clues to their relative success or failures. By juxtaposing the activities of the different lobbies during key episodes in the Carter and Ford administrations Terry illustrates why the Israel lobby has been so much more effective than its counterparts. With ample documentation from the Ford and Carter libraries Terry provides us a glimpse into the different pressures and considerations that policy makers have to contend with routinely. The clout of the Israel lobby is already in evidence with the enormous access that it is afforded through financiers and sympathetic staffers. Fear of the very active Jewish voting block concentrated in populous urban states further diminishes the desire of shrewd politicians to take any decisions that might antagonize them. Many developments have taken place since, which have further enhanced the power of this lobby, prominent among them is the network of think tanks that the lobby has spawned. With Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a spin-off from AIPAC, established to counter the more moderate Brookings Institution, the lobby now directly engages in policy formulation. Similar policy prescriptions published by other think-tanks with ties to the lobby, such as the Hudson Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and more recently, even the Brookings Institution with its Saban Center, create an illusion of a consensus, resulting in hard-line policies invariably favouring Israel. While many former professional lobbyists for Israel were already part of the Clinton administration, the ascendance of the Neocons has placed them key decision making posts. Security of Israel was declared one of the key motivations behind the invasion of Iraq.
While the book does an admirable job of vulnerabilities of the system which are exploited by the lobbyists and the processes which constitute a successful lobbying campaign, all the examples herein are dated. Things have evolved considerably since the time Carter left office, and the lobbying processes have grown more sophisticated. Some of Carter’s more famous encounters with the Israel Lobby, such as the machinations of New York mayor Ed Koch in foiling Carter’s re-elections are absent in this volume.
This book provides an excellent introduction to an issue that still confounds many. Perhaps what would be invaluable at this moment is a study of the lobby’s advances in the past decade, as the unchecked influence of this lobby is sending the world in a trajectory which could easily end in nuclear annihilation. In the coming days when people start looking for answers as to how this lobby came to dominate US foreign policy in the Middle East, Professor Terry’s book will prove indispensable.
The Politics of Denial: Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Problem
January 16, 2007
by Nur Masalha
Pluto Press, 304 pp., October 2003, 978-0745321202
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, Spinwatch
Mainstream discourse on the question of Palestine confines itself largely to the land occupied by Israel in ‘67 and the fate of the people living therein. In the various peace processes convened under American aegis, the refugees of ’48 and their right of return, enshrined in UNGAR 194, received scant attention. This trend, curiously, has been replicated on the left by even some of its luminaries. Some have arrogated themselves the right to decide whether the fate of more than four million Palestinians living in the squalor of refugee camps is a “realistic” consideration to burden Israel with in a prospective settlement. In The Politics of Denial: Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Problem, Nur Masalha lays to rest the notion that sustainable peace in the region is possible without addressing the rights of the Palestinian refugees. Masalha also exposes concerns that inform Israel’s persistent denial of its responsibility in creating the refugee problem and its history of foiling attempts at repatriation and restitution.
Masalha’s scrupulously researched analysis of the Palestinian refugee question begins with the early twentieth century arrival of Jewish settlers who are accompanied by an ideology that aims to, and to a large degree succeeds in, ridding the land of its native population. Zionism seeks self determination for its people on a land inhabited by another; hence it must not only expel the native population, but also deny the reality of their dispossession. Thus are laid the foundations of the Palestinian tragedy.
Beginning with Ahad Ha’am’s description of the abuse of Palestinian peasants by the early Zionist settlers, Masalha reconstructs the story of the colonization of Palestine, culminating in al Nakba, the Palestinian tragedy of 1948. In discussing the contributions of Israel’s “New Historians” towards the understanding of the events of ’48, Masalha exposes the egregious shortcomings in the work of the most famous among them: Benny Morris. Contrary to Morris’s claims, Masalha reveals that the expulsion of Palestinians was born not of war, but of designs going back all the way to Herzl, the founder of political Zionism. Referred to euphemistically as “transfer” the idea of ethnic cleansing remained central to the Zionist project.
With painstaking attention to detail, and copious documentation Masalha deconstructs the myths surrounding the expulsion of Palestinians in ’48 and the subsequent expropriation of their lands. He describes the massacres, intimidation, armed eviction and destruction of villages that precipitated the Palestinian flight. There were fifty major and a hundred minor massacres committed by the Zionist forces. Operation Dalet, which preceded the creation of the state of Israel, was responsible for the widespread panic which was exploited by the Zionist military to drive out the Palestinians. Operation Hiram took care of those left behind.
The most important part of this study deals with the mechanisms employed by the Jewish state to expropriate Palestinian lands. The Jewish National Fund – an organization that still retains tax-deductible charitable status in Britain, Canada, US and Australia – worked in conjunction with the Transfer Committees to pave the way for the ultimate ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Operating as a quasi government, the JNF and Jewish Agency had already established the structure of a government before the formation of the State. On partition, the Zionists therefore had an advantage over the Palestinians whose organizations and institutions had been destroyed by the British colonial authorities during earlier uprisings.
Once Palestinians were driven out, Israel sold Palestinian lands to the JNF to stave off anticipated international pressure to repatriate the refugees. Israel could then claim that the land was now owned by a private organization over which it had no authority, except that JNF is a quasi governmental organization, and more importantly, its charter prevents the land it owns from ever being sold or leased to someone who is not a Jew. Although the JNF itself owns only 13% of Israeli land, it appoints half the board members on Israel Land Authority which controls most of the rest of Israel’s lands. Through this mechanism, the Jewish state conceals its Apartheid policies.
There were also 220,000 of those who were internally displaced, i.e. they were driven from their homes but they remained within the borders of Israel. Absurd legal designations like “Present-Absentees” were invented to keep them from their lands. Many were expelled in the following years.
The emergency regulations enacted have remained in place since and military expropriation of their lands continues to date. Restitution and repatriation was strictly prevented for the fear that it might set a precedent.
Having denied dispossessed Palestinians the right to return to their homes after the end of hostilities, Masalha documents the various proposals that were floated to resettle the refugees – in neighboring Arab countries, Libya, even South America. Attempts were also made to link the Palestinian refugee issue with the issue of the Jews who immigrated to Israel from other Arab countries. What is generally overlooked in these cases of course is the role of Mossad-B in precipitating their flight through acts of sabotage and intimidation to encourage them to immigrate to Israel.
Come ’67 another 250,000 Palestinians found themselves homeless as a result of Israel’s latest offensive which inter alia destroyed many ancient sites in Jerusalem. Destroyed Palestinian villages of Imwas, Yalu and Bayt Nuba were helpfully concealed under the Canada Park, developed through funds donated to the JNF by Canadian Jews to “make the desert bloom” (elsewhere, the British Park conceals evidence of a similar atrocity). Denial of the Palestinian reality was necessary to the Zionist project, and the ruins bore witness to the ugly crimes sustaining it.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, another 200,000 were expelled from the West Bank. By now the idea of “transfer” had entered the mainstream and even espoused by liberal Zionist authors, poets and intellectuals. Various plans were mooted to take care of Israel’s “demographic problem”, the alternatives being “transfer” (ethnic cleansing) or Apartheid (isolated Bantustans). The Oslo peace process conformed to the latter with Israel refusing to accept any responsibility for creating the refugee problem.
In Madrid, and subsequently in Oslo, the Palestinian negotiator’s failure to link the refugee question to UNGAR 194 made it easy for Israelis to relegate it to a secondary status. At Camp David, Masalha reveals there was “no progress on the issue, in fact no real negotiations on the subject”. For this, and its numerous other shortcomings, the process was doomed to failure. However the death of the “peace process” has once again revived the question of the Right of Return and Israeli responsibility in creating the refugee problem. As Masalha rightly concludes, there is no possibility o f a just and lasting peace, or for that matter negotiation towards that end, unless Israel acknowledges its responsibility in creating this the refugee problem.
The Power Of Israel in the United States
January 15, 2007
by James Petras, Clarity Press, 191pp., £ 8.79, November 2006, 978-0932863515
Review by Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
The ruckus occasioned by the publication of the Mearsheimer & Walt paper in the London Review of Books — specifically, their claim that the war against Iraq would not have happened absent pressure from the Israel Lobby — would have one believe that their thesis is in some way novel. It is not. What is new, however, is that for the first time someone from the heart of the establishment is making an argument that had hitherto remained confined to the margins. Many, like Robert Fisk, wrote persuasively about it, but there were few takers. Only old school conservatives, foreign policy realists – James Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft, Anthony Zinni et al — and sections of the Left recognized that the neocon plan for reshaping the Middle-East had for its primary aim extending Israel’s regional hegemony by eliminating a potential Arab deterrent.
While many welcomed Mearsheimer & Walt’s contribution, objections were immediately raised about its provenance. As loyalists of the US imperial project, their conclusions may be accurate, but there are legitimate reasons to be wary of their motivations; as proponents of US “national interest” they see Israel as a liability insofar as it hampers US relations with right-wing Arab regimes and consequently its hegemonic ambitions. Rather than dismissing their conclusions, therefore, it is necessary that the issue be looked at from the perspective of universally recognized principles of justice and human rights. This service, at last, has been rendered by James Petras in his new book The Power of Israel in the United States.
James Petras, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Binghamton University, is an author of 62 books and numerous articles in professional journals, national press, magazines and the web. With an exceptional reccord of confronting some the most challenging questions of our times, James Petras now brings his superlative analytical skills to bear on the most pressing contemporary issue: the conflict in the Middle East. With a bloody disaster unfolding in Iraq, Lebanon in ruins and a creeping genocide in Palestine, some elements of the American political elite, even now, are determined to drag the country into a potentially apocalyptic confrontation with Iran. With business, military and diplomatic elites all opposed, only the Israel Lobby and its vanguard, the neocons, are egging the Bush administration on towards a new war. It is imperative then that the methods and composition of this pernicious political force be exposed, confronted and neutralized . It is the first of these tasks, that Petras undertakes with remarkable alacrity – and effectiveness — in this book.
Petras dispatches the popular myth that Big Oil dragged the United States into the war against Iraq. His research of hundreds of articles, industry journals and press releases reveal no evidence that big oil had an interest in the prosecution of this war. Far from it, the industry had been urging the US government to lift sanctions in order to secure new concessions. There is also no evidence that Iraq had any reservations about selling oil to its erstwhile patrons in the US and UK.
As Petras demonstrates, the policy was mostly formulated by a small group of unaccountable neoconservative political appointees and rammed through in the face of strong resistance from career civil and military professionals in the State and Defence departments. The architects of the war in the administration were Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, who have no connections to the oil industry. Their devotion to Israel, however, is well established. The same is true of Elliot Abrams and Douglas Feith, strong proponents of “Jewish Purity” and Israeli expansion and settlement policy.
Petras offers a lucid description of the structure of this parallel system that was developed to bypass normal channels of checks and balances. The intelligence used in the case for war was furnished by the Office of Special Plans, established by Wolfowitz and Feith at the Pentagon’s Near East and South Asia affairs section. OSP was headed by Abram Shulsky who ran it with fellow neocon William Luti. The unit cherry picked intelligence and used uncorroborated evidence to prepare talking points which were then passed on to the vice-Presidents office via Irving “Scooter” Libby – another Zionist zealot.
At the State Department, another neocon John Bolton was strategically located to coordinate with the Pentagon and the vice-President’s office. The case was further reinforced by Richard Perle , chairman of the Defense Policy Board, and other neocons on the board, such as Kenneth Adelman, Eliot Cohen and James Woolsey, .
Outside, an eco-chamber consisting of influential think-tanks – such as WINEP, JINSA, CSP, Brookings Institution, AEI, and well placed columnists and commentators – such as Charles Krauthammer, George Will, William Safire, Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, further amplified the threat of the non-existent WMDs and Saddam-Al-Qaidah link with a deluge of alarmist reports and widely circulated op-eds. The warnings were further echoed by mainstream Jewish organizations such as ADL, CPMJO, AJC, ADL and ZOA and their activists – doctors, dentists, philanthropists, real estate magnates, financiers, journalists, media magnates and academics. In the end, as Petras argues, the relentless campaign waged by what he describes as the Zionist Power Configuration overwhelmed resistance.
The first part of The Power of Israel in the United States is an analytical tour de force that exposes the manner in which Zionist interests have embedded themselves in the US political system and manipulate its processes. Many important issues from which other intellectuals have hitherto shied away are dealt with compellingly in successive chapters. Beginning with the pertinent and timely question of the real beneficiaries of the Iraq war, Petras proceeds to demolish the conventional view of Israel as a proxy for US imperialism. Far from behaving as a loyal surrogate, he reveals, Israel has used its clout in the US to draw a massive annual tribute and ensure its regional hegemony. It receives the latest in American military technology and benefits from the R&D to bolster its own burgeoning military industry. Massive loan guarantees, resettlement assistance and loan waivers are other channels through which money has been siphoned to Israel. The labour movement in the US is also beholden to Israeli interests as the retirement funds of the AFL-CIO are invested in Israel Bonds, thus making the retirement benefits of American workers conditional on the health of Israeli economy.
Petras reveals that the Zionist Power Configuration is intent on creating a US-Israeli co-prosperity sphere in the middle-east, and towards this end, it doesn’t just influence US foreign policy but often formulates it – as in the case of the war against Iraq. Shedding further light on the composition of the Lobby he shows that it is more than just AIPAC, CPMJO, AJC, ADL or ZOA; there are many federations and councils at the State, City and Local level all of which identify US interests with Israel’s interests. Money plays an important role as close to 60% of the funds for the Democratic Party and 35% for the Republican Party come from pro-Israel Jews. But for every dollar spent, Israel receives $50 in aid. This influence is also pervasive in the media and academy where it gets to set the parameters of debate on all issues bearing on Israel. Dissenting voices are discredited through charges of anti-Semitism and debate is stifled through censorship and intimidation. The country’s major media, such as New York Times and Washington Post manifest a discernible pro-Israel bias.
Through his analysis of the Libby affair and the AIPAC spy trial, Petras reveals that resistance to the Zionist encroachment on the US political system is already manifesting itself with FBI using the opportunity provided by the debacle in Iraq to start investigating the role of key Zioncons in manufacturing the case against Iraq. The pace and scope suggest however that FBI has to tread carefully as a single misstep could bring powerful friends of the lobby in the Congress and Washington – who, even then, were flocking to the AIPAC annual conference en masse – down hard on the investigation. The Mearsheimer & Walt paper in itself is a sign of the growing disenchantment with America’s compromised political system.
In the second part of the book, Petras focuses his attention on the brutal wars waged by Israel that the Lobby helps facilitate. Beginning with America’s own wars in Central America and elsewhere, Petras shows a line of continuity between the house of horrors of yore with the torture, assassination and genocide of today. While the horror show employs many of the same actors, Petras argues, the directors and producers have change. In the past it was fanatic anti-Communism and defence of corporate interests that provided the agency, today it is Zionist militarism. Many of the apologists for today’s horrors come in the respected garbs of academics, intellectuals and lawyers from some of americas most prestigious institutions.
Petras describes in vivid detail the recent assault on Gaza – “Israel’s Final Solution” – as destroying the elementary conditions of Palestinian survival. The horrors were then replicated in Lebanon with large scale indiscriminate destruction killing more than 1300 innocent people. These atrocities were not just supported, but cheered on from the sidelines as Israel’s supporters in the United States rushed shipments of new weapons and secured resolutions of support. The mainstream media abetted the crimes with uncritical reproduction of the official Israeli narrative. Petras’s brief review of the BBC – considered a reputed media organization – is telling.
Petras proceeds to expose present machinations by Israel and the lobby to manufacture pretexts for a war against Iran. As the different components of the Israel lobby and their adjuncts in the media ratchet up the fear of an Iranian nuclear threat, they face growing resistance within and outside the administration. The military establishment and sectors of the State Department and CIA in particular are reluctant to sign on, but more importantly, even financial and oil interests have expressed reservations. Only Israel stands to benefit from such a war – as lined out by the neocons in the famous “A Clean Break” document and the Israel Lobby is alone in pushing for this war. As things stand, war seems unlikely since there seems to be no domestic support for it. However, as revealed in the analysis of the Danish cartoons controversy, such support can be easily manufactured. More alarming is the virtual absence of any active opposition to this inexorable push towards war.
Petras is at his finest in the third section of the book where he takes on the “terror experts” (TE) and explores the moral basis of resistance. He exposes these experts as the setup people who provide the vocabulary for war and ideological justifications for torture and rape – by projecting the psycopathy of the executioner onto the victims in a ludicrous combination of old school Orientalism with junk-psychology. Verbal assassins whose credibility is always proportionate to the consistency with which they overlook the rape and torture of their patron states. The systematic failure to establish a causal relationship between the depredations and violence inflicted and the desperate reactions bestows authority. The TE thus were horrified by the pictures of Abu Ghraib, but not by acts, since they showed the homo and heterosexual rape and sequential genital mutilation as merely an extension of their expert prescriptions.
Most of these experts originate of course from the same prestigious think-tanks and institutions that constitute the lobby. Petras’s indictment is lucid, penetrating and passionate. He ends by posing some questions to the TE’s themselves, and in doing so, he unravels the whole intellectual foundation of their trade.
Unlike the media terrorologists Petras’s analysis of the Suicide Bombing phenomena offers a holistic view of the political as well moral basis of such actions. Petras shows that in the course of waging a “total war” the aggressor eliminates the distinction between military and civilian targets. The physical as well as the spiritual universe of the victims is under assault. Borrowing from the doctrine of Israeli colonial occupation, the Anglo American practitioners of total war have stripped the victims of that which sustains the spiritual self. In the end, Petras argues, Suicide Bombing is more than just reciprocal violence, its an attempt to redeem the sacred from the desecrators.
The last part of the book is essentially a recap of the arguments made earlier and a call to arms to all who are serious about confronting the crimes of Zionism. Petras argues that the effectiveness of the anti-War movement has been greatly hampered by the views of one of its greatest icons, Noam Chomsky, who has historically downplayed the role of the lobby. In a point-by-point refutation of Chomsky’s “15 erroneous theses” Petras reveals the same shortcomings in his analysis that he has routinely criticized others of. Petras asserts that specious arguments absolving the Israel Lobby of its role in the machinations for war the anti-War movement is denied the clarity necessary to know the enemy and foil its designs. Ritualistic denunciations of “Big Oil” are convenient and cost-free, and also eminently ineffective. Unless the real source of the war-agenda is identified and challenged, it is unlikely that the next war could be averted. Petras has made an indispensable contribution in this respect by opening up the debate and making a compelling case.
The book is not without its flaws. Many chapters in the book are updates of articles previously published elsewhere and they vary in quality and documentation. Some chapters clearly lack the analytical depth and impeccable scholarship that one has come to expect from Petras. Others, like the chapter on the cartoon controversy makes assertions which are not backed up by evidence. The critiques of BBC and Seymour Hersh are not rigorous – although understandable since they are not central to the book’s thesis. There is considerable repetition and other important things such as the composition of various think-tanks, which are central to the Lobby, remain unexplored. There are, however, enough facts packed into this small book to encourage further exploration and open up a more constructive debate.
Little Mosque on the Prairie
January 15, 2007
Disclaimer: In the second episode of this program, I notice that it has already descended into sexual innuendo and anatomical commentary — a staple of sitcoms vying for audience attention on the cheap. The posting of the first episode, therefore, should not be construed as an endorsement of the show.
From CBC’s website:
Little Mosque On The Prairie is an unabashedly comedic look at a small Muslim community interacting with the denizens of a little prairie town. The sitcom reveals that although different, we are all surprisingly similar when it comes to family, love, the generation gaps and our attempts to balance our secular and religious lives while trying to understand those of others in the community.
Starring Zaib Shaikh as Amaar, a young big-city lawyer who finds his true calling as an Imam and moves west to become the spiritual leader of the small Muslim community. Carlo Rota is Yasir, a contractor married to Sarah (Sheila McCarthy), a Muslim convert. Sitara Hewitt is Rayyan, their smart, outspoken devout daughter. Manoj Sood ss Baber the former Imam who harbours as many fears about western society as they do about his; Arlene Duncan is Fatima, who runs a diner; Derek McGrath is Reverend Magee; Debra McGrath as Mayor Popowicz; and Neil Crone as the inciting host of a local radio program.
Getting it Right: Brzezinski Weighs In
January 14, 2007
The most cogent analysis and scathing rebuke by far of Bush’s Iraq war escalation comes from the ageing Cold War hawk, Zbigniew Brzezinski. In his scathing critique, he doesn’t mince words and states the obvious in pointing out the neocon-Israel Lobby push for a new war against Iran. Brzezinski’s language in particular is noteworthy, as he eschews establishment euphemisms to describe American engagement in the region as a “colonial war”. He also takes the opportunity to ridicule notions such as Iraq’s “sovereignty”.
Following are highlights of Brzezinski’s analysis of the Bush speech:
Its language was less Islamophobic than has been customary with President Bush’s rhetoric since Sept. 11, though the president still could not resist the temptation to engage in a demagogic oversimplification of the challenge the United States faces in Iraq , calling it a struggle to safeguard “a young democracy” against extremists and an effort to protect American society from terrorists. Both propositions are more than dubious…
The commitment of 21,500 more troops is a political gimmick of limited tactical significance and of no strategic benefit…
The decision to escalate the level of the U.S. military involvement while imposing “benchmarks” on the “sovereign” Iraqi regime, and to emphasize the external threat posed by Syria and Iran, leaves the administration with two options once it becomes clear — as it almost certainly will — that the benchmarks are not being met. One option is to adopt the policy of “blame and run”…The other alternative…is to widen the conflict by taking military action against Syria or Iran. It is a safe bet that some of the neocons around the president and outside the White House will be pushing for that. Others, such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman, may also favor it.
The speech did not explore even the possibility of developing a framework for an eventual political solution…[which] would require a serious dialogue about a joint American-Iraqi decision regarding the eventual date of a U.S. withdrawal with all genuine Iraqi political leaders who command respect and wield physical power. The majority of the Iraqi people, opinion polls show, favor such a withdrawal within a relatively short period…The U.S. refusal to explore the possibility of talks with Iran and Syria is a policy of self-ostracism that fits well into the administration’s diplomatic style of relying on sloganeering as a substitute for strategizing.
The speech reflects a profound misunderstanding of our era. America is acting like a colonial power in Iraq. But the age of colonialism is over. Waging a colonial war in the post-colonial age is self-defeating.
United States of Israel
January 13, 2007
Robert Fisk has called America the United States of Israel. Here are yet more reasons why that description is apt.
This is where the next American president will be chosen. Yes, they get ranked according to their utility for Israel. This signals to the Lobby in the United States where its precious funds are to be directed. In the end all the debate on an issue, which is very likely to precipitate the final demise of the American empire, will be reduced to the candidate’s bid to out hawk each other in forwarding Israel’s regional agenda. Hillary Clinton and John McCain are the Democratic and Republican candidates of choice. Both were Iraq war hawks and are now pushing for a more aggressive policy towards Iran. Clinton has already received endorsement from within the Israeli military. In YNet, Brigadier General Oded Tira writes:
President Bush lacks the political power to attack Iran. As an American strike in Iran is essential for our existence, we must help him pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party (which is conducting itself foolishly) and US newspaper editors…We must turn to Hillary Clinton and other potential presidential candidates in the Democratic Party so that they publicly support immediate action by Bush against Iran.
But Israel’s alliances are not limited to Europe and Washington,
We must clandestinely cooperate with Saudi Arabia so that it also persuades the US to strike Iran.
According to Japan Times, Bandar Bin Sultan is already doing Israel’s bidding.
General’s Exit
As we continue to follow Ha’aretz to find out who Israel will chose as America’s next leader, there is atleast one name that we can safely discount: Former Nato Supreme Commander and Democratic presidential candidate, General Wesley Clark.
Clark was stating the obvious when in an interview he told the Huffington Post that the only constituency rooting for a war against Iran is the Israel Lobby. For this, Ha’aretz and the Republican Jewish Coalition branded him an anti-Semite, and a call from the Grand Wizard of ADL, Abe Foxman, soon had the General saluting a new flag.
Interestingly enough, the same point was made only recently by Zbigneiw Brzezinski who stated that support for the policy comes only from the neocons and other Israel lobby hawks such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman. But the lobby is made up of pragmatists and they wouldn’t be foolish enough to smear one of the most implacable Cold-War hawks and not expect some kind of a backlash. The lobby’s strategy after all is predicated on identifying American interests with Israeli interests and smearing one of the best known proponent of American interest could only undermine this carefully cultivated myth.
Get Carter
For the second time in two months, Amazon has chosen to act as an auxiliary of the Israel lobby and tried to undermine an author deemed critical of Israel. First it took Norman Finkelstein’s Beyond Chutzpah off its website (which it subsequently restored in the face of boycott threats) and now it relaxes its own policy to provide a platform for a former Israeli Occupation Forces veteran to smear Carter.
Please read and sign the following Petition:
To: Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com
As longtime Amazon customers, we are deeply disturbed by your treatment of Jimmy Carter’s important new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
Under the “Editorial Reviews” heading – a space normally used either for the publisher’s own description of a book, or for short, even-handed summaries from listing services such as Booklist and Publishers Weekly – you insist on running the complete, 20-paragraph, 1,636-word text of a review unabashedly hostile to Carter’s viewpoint. You have refused to add information shoppers should have in evaluating this review: the fact that the reviewer, Jeffrey Goldberg, is a citizen of Israel as well as the United States, and that he volunteered to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, for which he worked as a guard at a prison for Palestinian detainees. And you have refused to balance his negative review by giving comparable space to a favorable assessment of the book, even though positive reviews by qualified experts have appeared in many reputable publications.
Because giving so much space in this location to such a negative review is so unusual – if not unprecedented – for Amazon, and because you have refused requests from many customers that you take a more balanced approach, we can only conclude that you are deliberately trying to discourage shoppers from ordering the former President’s book.
This is contrary to Amazon’s own interests as a bookseller. More important, it’s also contrary to the interests of understanding, peace, and justice for all parties to the Israel/Palestine conflict
We are not interested in supporting a corporation that uses its power in the marketplace in such a biased and unconstructive way on such an important issue.
Accordingly, if you do not, by Jan. 22, remove the Goldberg review, move it to the more appropriate “See all Editorial Reviews” page, or restore a semblance of balance by giving comparable space and prominence to a more positive evaluation of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, we the undersigned pledge to:
1. Stop shopping at Amazon.com;
2. Completely close our accounts on your service; and
3. Encourage our friends, family, and associates to do likewise.Sincerely,
