Browsing PBH By Articles

Whither Palestine?

The Article: Whither Palestine? by Daoud Kuttab in the American Prospect.

The Text: Since 1967, and before, the aspirations of Palestinians to liberty and independence have repeatedly hit one snag after another. There is plenty of room to place the blame on Palestinians themselves, Arabs, and the international community. Palestinians have failed to measure accurately their own powers in comparison to the Israelis. The Arab states gave plenty of lip service to the Palestinian cause and the international community spent more on weapons to the region rather than efforts to encourage all sides to a peaceful resolution.

But while Palestinians and others could have done more to try to enable their own independence, the biggest single power that actually was causing the continuation of the occupation was Israel. As an occupying power with military control over the land, Israel has given lip service to peace but in reality hesitated in ending its illegal occupation. Despite their legal and political spin, this Israeli refusal to leave the occupied territories was in direct contravention to what the preamble to the Security Council Resolution 242 termed the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.”

This year, 40 years after the passing of that resolution, many felt that the Palestinian cause was finally on the verge of a political resolution. The Arab peace plan, which calls for normalization by all 23 Arab countries with Israel in return for its withdrawal to the ’67 borders (reiterated with more zeal this year), responds to the deepest Israeli aspiration of being accepted in the Middle East.

The current American president and his secretary of state seemed focused on seeing the birth of the state of Palestine alongside Israel on the ground, and not just in words. This spring Jordan’s King Abdullah gave the strongest pro-Palestinian speeches ever made to the joint sessions of Congress. He argued that a breakthrough is needed quickly before the Americans get bogged down with the ’08 presidential elections and another window of opportunity is closed. The Israelis, while reeling from an unsuccessful war in Lebanon, also seem ready to make what Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert called “painful compromises.”

With all this potential — or possibly because of it — the Gaza strip erupted in internal violence last week, which ended in Hamas militants taking over Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s security offices. That left the Palestinian president no choice but to declare a state of emergency, dismiss the Hamas-led government, and appoint an independent former banker (who is close to Condoleezza Rice) as interim prime minister.

Many today feel that the situation in the Gaza strip threatens to evaporate the dream of Palestinian statehood. But does it really?

Forty years after the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank (including Jerusalem) Palestinians have failed to find the magic formula for their liberation. They have attempted cross border violence, Arab and international diplomacy, secret talks, nonviolent resistance, suicide attacks, cross-border rockets, regional Arab initiatives, and international peace envoys, but nothing has succeeded in cracking this difficult nut called the Israel occupation.

After the initial small guerrilla attacks across the Jordan River in the late 1960s, highlighted by the battle of al Karameh (the name means “pride” in Arabic), the Palestinian Liberation Organization quickly assumed the role of representing the Palestinian people fighting both inter-Arab and international battles of legitimacy.

While the Palestinian intifada in 1987 refocused attention to the occupied territories, it also succeeded in toning down the PLO’s rhetoric, ultimately resulting in Yasser Arafat declaring a Palestinian state on the ’67 borders. And thus the Palestinians adopted the two-state solution which has now become an international mantra.

The blind rejection by Israel of the PLO in the 1970s paralleled the feeling of impotence from dependence on pan-Arab nationalism, and gave birth to an Islamic movement that worked for some time on building its grassroots institutions and concentrating on social welfare.

The failure of the Palestinian national movement played into the hands of Islamists who felt, as their logo states, that “Islam is the solution.” The Islamic Resistance Movement (its acronym in Arabic is Hamas) entered the anti-Israeli arena during the first intifada in 1987, but grew more powerful after the return of Arafat and the creation of the Palestinian Authority. The Authority, which came about as a result of the Oslo Accords (rejected immediately by Hamas), was considered to be yet another failure because it didn’t produce the coveted end to the Israeli occupation — or even the end of the illegal Jewish settlement activities. Some argue that, unlike secular Palestinian nationalists who were looking for a speedy resolution based on the two-state solution, Hamas Islamists were in no such rush. They were still looking for a change of Palestinian society along with the aspiration that all Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to the state of Israel.

When the Al Aqsa Intifada erupted in 2000, enough light weapons had entered the Palestinian territories to ensure that this uprising would be violent. For its part ,Hamas, which saw in the failure of the Barak-Arafat-Clinton Camp David plan the death of Oslo, became more daring in its attacks, causing more civilian Israeli fatalities and provoking a strident Israeli response.

Not only did the second Palestinian intifada push farther away the possibility of a compromise settlement, it reintroduced the Israeli fear that any deal was unlikely to stick. With mistrust ruling the day, the aspiration of a truly independent, viable Palestinian state with territorial integrity has become increasingly remote.

On the ground, the die was set for a split between Gaza and the West Bank when Hamas suicide attacks became more common. Since then, movement between the two sectors of Palestine (separated from each other by Israeli territory) became extremely difficult and the idea of a large Gaza prison began to take shape.

The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza two years ago, and the nearly full sealing of the Erez checkpoint between Gaza and Israel, meant that the Rafah crossing point was the only point of entry or exit for Gazans to the rest of the world. With Rafah being closed many more days than open, the national claustrophobia of Gazans began to grow. The physically encircled Gaza strip also had to deal with the unjust economic siege that was placed on the elected Palestinian government. The Hamas lead government was internationally ostracized for a position on recognition of Israel similar to that of the Saudis and many other Arab countries.

While Hamas calls for an Islamic state in all of mandatory Palestine, in the recent Mecca agreement they accepted that the PLO negotiate so long as the outcome is put to a referendum. Hamas has accepted the concept of a Palestinian state on the ’67 borders without explicitly mentioning Israel or agreeing to formally recognize it. Saudi Arabia and many Arab states have similarly refused to recognize Israel until it withdraws to the ’67 borders.

The latest violence in Gaza has created a de facto Islamic (i.e. Hamas) security control over Gaza and a nationalist (i.e. PLO) control — along with a new emergency government — in the West Bank. The international community will quickly open up the money faucet to the non-Hamas government, and Gaza will be left to burn and starve under the rule of the Palestinian Islamists. George Bush has called President Abbas and pledged a renewal of diplomatic and financial support to the emergency government in the West Bank. International aid will most likely also come to UN agencies serving in Gaza to alleviate the human suffering, but it is unlikely that anyone will support the de facto government there.

Ironically as a result of the current emergency situation, Palestinian statehood is a very serious possibility today in parts of the West Bank without the old city of Jerusalem and without a corridor to Gaza. But is it the contiguous territory and viable independent state that Palestinians have dreamed of? That seems unlikely. A Palestinian state is therefore either a real possibility or next-to-impossible depending on what shape and borders such a state would have.

The Analysis: This article is well formulated but a little too smooth on the edges. In the words of a person I respect, the recent internal crisis in Palestine has inspired some of the “greatest shit journalism in recent times.” The reality is that Palestinians feel a lot more strongly towards Palestine than they do to the political parties. I don’t expect this to be blown up into a full-out confrontation — there just isn’t any support within the Palestinian populace for this to occur. This is not a mass uprising against one or the other, rather vendettas being settled in the strongholds for the respective parties (Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank). The reason why the battle between Fatah and Hamas has been a civil strife rather than a civil war is we are basically seeing a political struggle carried out in the streets by local armed militias.

How dare you say anything honest about the origins of 9/11!

This isn’t in my usual style to write a serious rant where my ‘truthiness’ isn’t slathered with a thick layer of disdain and sarcasm. But here goes:

I am really fed up with the idea that if you discuss the origins of 9/11, you are somehow a coward, not a patriot, not an American, a terrorist sympathizer, or somewhere else between bottom feeding scum and social pariah who thinks too much for one’s own good. I’ll be honest, I’ve never been the biggest fan of the Ron Paul Phenomena and I didn’t watch the majority of the Republican debate. In fact, I only was able to watch the part of the debate with the most significance — where Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani exchange words over the origins of (Watch the exchange and read a more extensive briefing of the exchange at the Nation).

Now, the basis of the argument that occurred is the following: Ron Paul had the fucking audacity to say that September 11th and the rising Islamic/Jihadist movement may have some origins in America’s less than stellar record in the Middle East. Never mind that the 9/11 Commission reported on the blowback from American involvement in the Middle East as a contributing factor and that anyone with a functioning frontal lobe could connect the dots between September 11th, and say, a couple century’s worth of outside interference by the West. After Paul stated the case between these connections, Giuliani quickly stepped in and said in so many words, you are one anti-American fuck and twisted Ron Paul’s words around to make it seem like he insinuated we deserved the attack. And with that, a crowd of overweight arm-chair bullies started hooting and hollering at the South Carolina Republican Debate.

All I could think about when I watched this was these are the people were interested enough in politics to attend a debate and this is their appropriate level of discourse. All that has to be done or said is September 11th and suddenly everyone feels very coy and shy about their beliefs. The sacred cow is also the most profitable one: I never thought Rudy “September 1tth” Giuliani could win the nomination simply by talking about September 11th until my mind explodes, but it’s seemingly working. Despite being a social liberal, Rudy is pretty much coasting through the polls as the Republican front runner because his speeches are jingo games of ‘terrorism’, ‘9/11?, ‘jihadists’, and ‘Islamo-Fascists’. And sadly enough, people eat this shit up. Well, not quite people, but Republicans, but my sense is this would play out in a similar method in the general election as well.

Anyway, I’ve digressed. My point being is that September 11th was not an event in which upon reflection should cause us to curl into a ball and cry for Rudy Giuliani or George Bush to save us. I’m not saying that America deserved to be attacked by a bunch of crazed religious zealots or that we brought this upon ourselves. I am saying that September 11th should have woken us up to the fact that America’s foreign policy has been seriously misguided since the start of the Cold War. We’d do a tremendous favor to ourselves if we realized the cost of an invasive, military-dependent foreign policy bent on serving our short term interests.

Keep Reaching For The Golden Ring America

Four years of hot XXX American Occupation, and those damn brown people still can’t get it right! Oh jeez louise:

Iraq has emerged as the world’s second most unstable country, behind Sudan, more than four years after President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, according to a survey released on Monday.

The 2007 Failed States Index, produced by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace, said Iraq suffered a third straight year of deterioration in 2006 with diminished results across a range of social, economic, political and military indicators. Iraq ranked fourth last year.

As eloquently stated by Amanda at Pandagon:

As of today, we’ve spent $436,458,000,000 on this adventure war, and still Bush failed to make Iraq the #1 most fucked-up country on the planet.

Keeping up with my community services of all things feminist and Pandagon related (since we inherently hate females due to our hilarious blog logo), and to do some poetic reiterating, you’re stretching when you say:

Translation: We can accept advertising of sexual devices if they are advertised as benefiting men. But if they insinuate something as crazy as the concept that men should respect women’s bodies, health, and choices, then they’re way out of line.

Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure men and women both benefit from use of contraceptives.

In the international blogosphere, CA has a post with commercial from different countries on military recruitment. The Russian one forgot to mention the wonders of officer-inflicted hazing. Publius has a post on if Russia Supplying Attack Aircraft to Syria, ThreatsWatch on the Net-Centric Operations of Terrorist Groups, and read his take on 54 Million Dollar Pants Lawsuit which has taken on the uncomfortable element of race and Korean/Black relations.

Other thoughts and sounds across the BLOGOSPHERE: Being Middle Class in America Sucks (and if you think that, I think you should try being lower class, say, in Zambia), China Overtakes U.S. As Leading CO2 Polluter, 5 Reasons Not to Drink Bottled Water, This Woman is Supposed to Disgust You, and ‘Exercise pill’ switches on gene that tells cells to burn fat.

That Pound of Cocaine Sounds Mighty Good

Yesterday was not a good day for Rudy Giuliani. Apart from being exposed as part vampire, A report says he was kicked off the Iraq Study Group for poor attendance and his South Carolina finance chair was caught with a pound of cocaine. Now, call me crazy, but when I’m on a coke binge, the last thing I want to do is be around a bunch of uptight white fucks talking about Iraq. Actually, when I’m on a coke binge, I like to be in the darkness of a strip club backroom with the majority of my torso exposed and a pair of sunglasses put on sideways. But that’s just me.

Anyway, to those who says socialism doesn’t work:

I am sick and tired of reading ignorant people who’ve never read anything Marx or Engels wrote (except possibly the Communist Manifesto) baselessly claim that ’socialism doesn’t work’.

My simple response to people who spout this empty rhetoric is to ask: how do you know?

Ever since the West witnessed the horror that was the Soviet Union and red China, the dream of socialism has been inexorably married in our literature, politics, rhetoric and culture to these perverse manifestations of totalitarianism. The impact of these horrors has struck all sides of the political spectrum from the left to the right. On left, we have seen them seemingly no longer willing to call themselves ’socialists’ so they go by monkiers like “anarco-socialists” which, at least under the original definition of the term, is as redundant a phrase as PIN number, ATM machine, or NDP party.

Updated: Socialism, and this, give me an erection.

Remember Those Missing Emails? Looks Like Staffers Accidentally Sent 500 Emails to georgewbush.org, Not georgewbush.com. Domain Operator? Anti-Bush Activist Who Holds the Evidence:

I’m listening to Greg Palast on Democracy Now! talking about how Karl Rove’s lackeys totally screwed up when they were sending emails about firing US Attorneys for not being Republican Party and Karl Rove friendly. It seems that instead of sending the emails they typed up to georgewbush.com they sent it to georgewbush.org which is a domain that friends of Greg Palast’s own. Greg Palast now has 500 of the Karl Rove emails. What was revealed in the emails reviewed by RFK Jr. had him saying (paraphrasing) that “Rove et al should be in jail, not in office.”

Other things worth a glance: First Potentially Habitable Planet Outside the Solar System, Most People Are Depressed For a Very Good Reason, Hip Hop Isn’t Dying, It Just Sucks, Reality Check: Who’s the bigger terrorist – the USA or Al Qaeda?, and The Problem with the 8-Hour Workday.

Update Number 2: This is one incoherent fucking blog round-up. I’ll be putting up a new one Friday morning.

Life as the only Muslim chaplain in the US Marine Corps

The Article: Muslim face of the US Marines by Matthew Wells in the BBC News documents the views and experience of the only Muslim chaplain in the US Marine Corps.

The Text: Navy Lieutenant Commander Abuhena Saifulislam welcomes everyone with a broad smile and prefers to be called “Chaplain Saif”.

He is the only Muslim chaplain in the elite US Marine Corps, and one of only two in the US Navy overall.

It is a classic immigrant’s tale. He arrived in America from Bangladesh at the end of the 1980s, with a masters degree in business and every intention to serve Wall Street, not his newly adopted country.

As a boy, he had always been fascinated by movie sequences featuring white naval uniforms of the World War II and the code of honour they represented.

“When my family came to know that the navy was going to accept me, they were thrilled,” he says, talking in his spacious new home, a short commute from Washington DC.

“I am living the American Dream,” he is proud to admit. But his importance as a military role model and ambassador extends way beyond cars, kitchens and new living room suites in suburban Virginia.

Diverse group

There may be more than 100 faiths represented now throughout the armed services, but no relationship is more sensitive than the one between the Pentagon and Islam.

Chaplain Saif is the public face of that – a veteran of hundreds of interviews and sound bites, personifying the notion that there is nothing incompatible about serving both Islam and the US military.

His commitment is much deeper than just public relations.

Until he arrived a few years ago, the vast Marine Corps base at Quantico had nowhere for Muslim service people to pray.

Some just knelt beside their cars or behind buildings on their own.

Now they have a modest prayer centre where several dozen meet each Friday.

It is a diverse group, including an officer from the Moroccan Air Force, and several female servicewomen who change behind a curtain at the back, substituting combat fatigues for ankle length robes.

One of them, a Military Police officer, says she looks forward to serving in a Muslim land, such as Iraq or Afghanistan.

“The frightening part is the extremists that make us look bad (there), they create a difference where there really isn’t one,” she says.

Another soldier – an Egyptian American who has completed a recent Middle East tour – says Islam and the Marines have the same values.

“Honour, courage and commitment – those are the same three philosophies that Islam teaches us. The bond that we have is a bond as Muslims, as brothers,” he adds.

The chaplain spends much of his time away from Virginia, lecturing and preparing troops who are heading for war zones in the heart of the Muslim world.

For many of the young faces staring out at him, Saif is the first Muslim they have ever met.

Guantanamo

I caught up with him at a training session at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.

Several hundred uniformed men sit in a darkened theatre, being given the opportunity to learn the basics of a religion that many media outlets in America’s heartland treat with barely concealed hostility.

It was more a practical guide than a theological lesson. The chaplain is realistic about what can be absorbed.

He teaches that the rift between Shia and Sunni has no religious basis but that it cannot be ignored in the field.

He understands that much of the Arab world hates the US military and the occupation of Iraq, but he wants both those cynics and his own soldiers to realise one thing:

“Don’t see the entire religion, or judge it, through one set of eyes. The Arabs shouldn’t generalise (either)…The majority of Americans may not approve of many things that we do outside, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t love the country.”

The biggest test of his diplomatic skills came when he was the first Muslim chaplain to enter the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

During his three-month deployment he introduced the call to prayer, and tried to encourage better treatment of detainees.

There was never any doubt that he was there to follow his commanding officers’ orders: “We all agreed that I should be in uniform, because that’s what I am.”

“There were some who never accepted me. They said, ‘he’s the devil’,” he added, saying that some saw him as a traitor to their fundamentalist doctrine.

“I knew where they were coming from. That’s why they ended up being there (in Guantanamo) to begin with.”

He believes that Guantanamo served a purpose, but points, diplomatically, to the fact that even President George W Bush has previously expressed a desire to see the prison closed.

The Analysis: I don’t envy him, but he’s doing it.