Mondoweiss

Rawabi, and the American mission to civilize the West Bank
Journalist/Birthright veteran who is critical of Israel is detained at Ben Gurion
Homage to the Haitian diaspora
Somehow I doubt it's a hatchet job
An English politician watches Israeli soldiers lose control at a peaceful demonstration and vows to bear witness
Washington Post epiphany: Muslim world cares 'passionately' about Palestinian oppression
If she wrote this in an American paper, they'd call her an anti-Semite and kick her down the stairs
shocker
Mohammad Othman and Jamal Juma' freed from Israeli detention thanks in part to international pressure
Earthquakes and inequality

Rawabi, and the American mission to civilize the West Bank

Posted: 14 Jan 2010 07:49 AM PST

An artist's rendering of Rawabi

The Palestinian Authority, in coordination with the American government, is building a new settlement in the West Bank. This one is intended to provide 40,000 "Palestinians with homes in an American-style development." The Huffington Post carries the whole story.

When I first heard about the Rawabi plan I was repulsed. It took some time for me to distill exactly what made me so uncomfortable. It wasn't the Pavlovian conditioning; direct exposure to the Jewish settler colonies in the West Bank and Gaza has created a psychological association between objectively neutral architectural features – red-tiled roofs, trimmed hedges, cul-de-sacs – and racism and apartheid for me. It wasn't that though; Rawabi seemed more profoundly wrong.

Rawabi is a painful outgrowth of the continued obliteration of Palestine. Here is something so clearly alien, something so obviously conceived in an alien mind, masquerading as Palestinian. Some State Department bureaucrat was saying to me, "We are destroying you and your culture to recreate you in our image." Palestinian cities and towns, which grow organically – really, an amalgamation of family homes and municipal buildings – are now qualitatively inferior. The Palestinian village is old, antiquated, disorganized, dysfunctional, anarchical, loud and dirty. By contrast, Rawabi is new, organized, efficient, beautiful, clean, ordered and 'American.' Rawabi is the tangible materialization of the American mission civilisatrice in the West Bank, not to mention the project to alienate Palestinians from one another.

But it's not only that. All of the classical critiques of the colonial relationship apply. The occupier and its patron state have succeeded in creating a faux and unproductive Palestinian bourgeoisie, one whose primary focus is on the trappings of material living. It is taken for granted that 'Western' means 'virtuous' and Western modes of living, down to the pizza delivery service we wish we had, are culturally superior. The inferiority complex, the overwhelming desire to join the club of 'civilized' people, and the shame of always coming up short must drive men like Salaam Fayyad to anxious near-insanity. More importantly, their energies are almost completely dedicated to the impossible task of gaining acceptance through mimicry. I'll wear my smart suits, comb my hair just so, snigger at the inferiority of the Islamist mind, sleep uneasily in Rawabi, and maybe Ehud Barak will invite me to his next dinner party where I'll make witty and sardonic remarks to impress his wife. Mimicry takes so much effort that there isn't much left over for the humanizing and uplifting task of agitating for equality; the key to national and individual self-esteem and worth.

'Black Skin, White Masks' by Frantz Fanon and 'The Bluest Eye' by Toni Morrison both do a good job of describing the psychological pressures on the oppressed – something I thought Palestinians were mostly immune to. But the quote by the Palestinian in the Huffington Post article, "It's a dream to own a house here, in a new city where you work and live quietly with your kids…. It will be similar to life in the U.S." forces me to reconsider. This man's dream is to mimic American modes of living. He wants to live quietly and see the Mediterranean Sea on a clear day, just there, beyond Tel Aviv. Where is the compulsion to actually visit the sea, off-limits to him because of this race? Where is the denunciation of material and 'quiet' living when that 'quiet' living comes at the expense of your freedom? What corruption forces you into 'quiet' subordination in plain view of your own children? Where is your dignity?

That's saying nothing about the probably predatory contractors and financiers attached to the project. They want us to take out 30-year mortgages for the privilege of living in Rawabi. By all means, export the entire credit market system to Palestine. I'd be overjoyed to buy Rawabi mortgage-backed-securities – with an inflated risk-premium, of course. But tell me, what was the price of access? How did these men manage to curry favor with the Americans and Israelis to build this project? Who do they know who knows whom? How is it that most Palestinians can barely secure permits to build on their own land, but the Jewish National Fund is donating trees to Rawabi? I'll channel Hannah Arendt and say that the banality of profit-making knows no evil.

There's nothing wrong with Rawabi if it existed in a vacuum. It's not my aesthetic preference, but other people are free to live in any type of structure they like. The problem, of course, is that Rawabi does not exist in a vacuum. It is only one more horrifying manifestation of Zionist rot, both Jewish and Palestinian.

Ahmed Moor is a Gaza born Palestinian-American freelance journalist living in Beirut.

Journalist/Birthright veteran who is critical of Israel is detained at Ben Gurion

Posted: 14 Jan 2010 09:17 AM PST

Free speech is a problem in the Middle East. The chief English editor for the Bethlehem-based Ma'an news agency, Jared Malsin, late of Vermont, has been detained at Ben Gurion airport, with a hearing set for Saturday. Apparently he was on El Al. Apparently he is Jewish, or half-Jewish. And has even gone on the birthright trip. (Thanks to Marian Houk). Mya Guarnieri at Huffpo:

Jared Malsin, the editor of the English edition of Maan News Agency, has been detained by Israeli authorities.

Malsin, a Jewish-American who lives and works in the West Bank, was picked up on Tuesday at Ben Gurion International Airport, as he and his partner returned from vacation in the Czech Republic. After being subjected to eight hours of interrogation, Malsin was deemed a security threat and was slated to be deported to Prague Thursday morning.

Why?

Maan states: Hebrew-language interrogation transcripts obtained by Ma'an reveal that Malsin was deemed a security risk on the apparent basis of his political beliefs. Interrogators gathered online research into the journalist's writing history, which the transcripts indicate included news stories "criticizing the State of Israel," among other allegations that he "authored articles inside the territories."

Although Bethlehem-based Maan is identified as a Palestinian news service, it is widely known as an independent media outlet–free of political agendas and noted for its unbiased reporting. As such, it is attracting a steadily growing readership, receiving over 3 million visitors a month.

Malsin appealed the deportation order and was scheduled to stand before a judge in Tel Aviv on Thursday morning. But according to Maan's lawyer, Castro Daoud, the hearing has been delayed until Sunday for unknown reasons.

The Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement on the case:

"Forcing a journalist who has violated no laws to leave Israel and the Occupied Territories is unacceptable," said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ's program coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. "Israel cannot hide behind the pretext of security to sideline journalists who have done nothing more than maintain an editorial line that the authorities dislike. Israel should release Jared Malsin without delay and allow him to resume his work."

It now appears that Malsin's deportation has been temporarily stayed.

Homage to the Haitian diaspora

Posted: 14 Jan 2010 08:29 AM PST

Ordinary Americans are already responding with their characteristic generosity to the earthquake in Haiti. Aside from reliable relief agencies like the American Red Cross and UNICEF, one of my favorites is Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders, whose work I have admired around the world.

In the end, though, much of the help will come from the 1.5 to 2 million Haitians themselves who live outside their country. Even in normal times, the Haitian diaspora sends home an astonishing amount of money — $1.83 billion in 2007 alone. The amount has dipped slightly since then, but it still works out to very roughly $1000 per person a year — even more if you consider that many of the 2 million overseas Haitians are children.

In other words, those hard-working hospital workers in Miami and Boston and taxi drivers in New York City and Montreal already send a considerable portion of their modest earnings to their relatives at home. I know they are already asking for extra shifts so they can help even more.

Somehow I doubt it's a hatchet job

Posted: 14 Jan 2010 07:11 AM PST

On Saturday I shared a cab into Amman from the Allenby Bridge with two Palestinians, a lovely grandmother from Beit Hanina who was very worried that I should get lost, and a Diaspora chemical engineer filled with theories about American Jewish power, which I half-agreed with, because I don't think the special relationship can be discussed without some reference to the remarkable American Jewish sociology of the last generation. I told him I'm Jewish and told him about non-Zionist stirrings inside the Jewish community, which impressed him, but as he got out of the cab he advised me not to advertise the fact that I'm Jewish in the Arab world. A few minutes later, in the city center, I passed this book stall. Can someone translate for me? Thanks. Update: commenters know the story!

An English politician watches Israeli soldiers lose control at a peaceful demonstration and vows to bear witness

Posted: 14 Jan 2010 09:05 AM PST

Last Friday I went to three demonstrations against the occupation with Israeli activist friends. I reported on the first already. Chapter two was slightly frightening.

We drove south past the walled city of Bethlehem toward Hebron and passed the long settlement of Efrat that winds its way along a ridge, collecting as much territory as it can for Jewish colonization of biblical lands. Efrat's enterprising Jews have claimed strategic hills up and down the ridge line. The army has pretty much let them do so, for several miles.

At the southeast edge of Efrat is a Palestinian village that winds down a gentle slope: Al Masara. Because the Israeli wall is being constructed east of the Green Line to enclose large portions of Efrat—"deep in Palestine," as Assaf Sharon, my companion in the back seat, put it—the people of Al Masara are losing access to many of their ancestral lands. The same old story. So every Friday they have a demonstration.

The occupying army was waiting for us. As we drove into the little town, we could see them on the western end of the main road. The had several jeeps and had laid out loops of concertina wire to prevent our getting anywhere near the settlement.

Our demonstration began in the village, of grayish cinderblock houses, and proceeded west towards the barrier. The drummers were there, a group of young Israelis with piercings and odd getups, who play a wicked drumming to inspire you forward. One of them is at the front, with a whistle, coordinating.

There were probably 200 of us, including several well known activists, Yonatan Shapiro and Ezra Nawi and actor Samieh Jabbarin. When we came to the concertina wire, we had a demonstration. The Palestinian way is to chant in a kind of song, their list of grievances and declarations. First the chanting was done in Arabic, and then Yonatan called out to the soldiers in Hebrew. Finally Sami Awad spoke in English. "These villagers seek to live in peace. But living in peace means living in dignity and respect…." That means visiting their grape vines and olive trees that are waiting for them on their lands.

The villagers seek to make their voices heard, that is all, Awad said to the internationals. We are grateful to you but we ask you not to be confrontational.

There were many camera crews there. From Reuters and Al Jazeera and Al Quds satellite TV. I do not think there was any American press. Most of the demonstrators were international. The reporter for Al Quds told me that though the demonstrations are led by Palestinians, and have been for six years, the Palestinians are weary of them. They seem to achieve nothing.

As the demonstrators chanted, including chants saying that the soldiers were enforcing an immoral occupation, I looked into the Israeli soldiers' faces. They seemed bored or upset. Yonatan had talked to them about their orders, and they were being hectored, and some of them had big eyes. You can see their lack of composure in Nathan Stokes's photo of the demonstration here and at Flickr. Their guns are too ready, and they seem agitated.

Awad declared the demonstration over and said the village insisted on nonviolence, and then something curious happened. Maybe one of the internationals said something angry. Or the soldiers said that a rock had been thrown. I didn't see it. But abruptly the Israeli soldiers cried out and a couple of them jumped over the concertina wire with their hands on their guns and pushed forward into the crowd. We stepped back.

The whole line of soldiers now reformed closer to us, and began urging us backward. After that there was pandemonium.

Some of the internationals, angered at the provocative soldiers, wanted to sit down in the road. The Palestinians and Israelis began yelling at us to come back, we are not confronting them. We staggered back, and now the soldiers were angry. They pushed against us. Assaf Sharon was upset. I could see that his face was red, he'd been pushed around. He held his camera up, documenting the soldiers' behavior, still they crowded us. Yonatan Shapira is big, he wore a wide hat and a tight black shirt saying We Will Not Be Silent and stood his ground, even as he challenged the soldiers about their orders. Look at him here– brave guy.

A Palestinian woman confronted the soldiers. She stood out in the road by herself. She was about 50. The soldiers said they were going to arrest her and she cried out, Please arrest me, that way I will see my son. Her son is in an Israeli jail. She held up a photograph of hinm. Her husband was killed by the occupation forces, I was informed. Here she is, again picture by Nathan Stokes.

The soldiers did not think we were moving fast enough. Assaf came up to me and said, "Don't be afraid of what they are going to do, it is just a stun grenade."

Suddenly an Israeli soldier threw a black can the size of a shaving cream can into our midst and it went off with a puff of smoke and a loud crack. People ran. Over the next five minutes they threw four or five more of them. I found the sound pretty terrifying and got out of the way. Adam Horowitz says the sound of a stun grenade operates inside your brain.

It did not make any sense that they would throw the grenade, and I wondered what else they would do. Behind them crawled the jeeps. In this way they forced the crowd back down into the village.

I stood at a turn in the road, talking to a woman of about 40 wearing a red scarf. Catharine Arakelian of England is running for the Labor party for Parliament from a London district. She was as upset as I was.

"It was a very peaceful protest. Suddenly out of nowhere the whole thing became very frightening. I could only see violence coming from the Israeli side. The stereotpye is that the Israelis actually dispense violence. And I see it.

"I've learned that the Israelis see themselves still as at war. There is no peacekeeping function, there's only a protective function for themselves. They do not want peace, because they don't know anything about peacekeeping. I'm shocked and horrified.

"I said to a soldier, 'Why do you do this, wouldnt you rather be at university, then go out to work and become a man?' 'It's to protect my country,' he said. And another said, 'This makes us a man.' You're not a man unless you have done this. You cannot be a man in Israeli society unless you do that. It's not right for young people.

"It's makes them tough. It's a really horrible way.

"I can now bear witness. I can talk about it back home. I can got to meetings."

What about the two-state solution? I asked her.

"I do not see any possibility of a viable Palestinian state here. The Palestinians have been sold that idea by their leadership, and they feel let down. They are being de-developed."

Washington Post epiphany: Muslim world cares 'passionately' about Palestinian oppression

Posted: 14 Jan 2010 06:18 AM PST

Because I'm provocative, I want to do the next Daisy ad. You remember the nuclear ad that Johnson's people came up with in '64 to show that Goldwater was unstable? My ad has the little girl calmly pulling off the little daisy leaves and the voiceover says:

It killed Bobby Kennedy… it blew up the World Trade Center… it got us into the Iraq War… It killed 13 people at Fort Hood… It just blew up a CIA station, killing 7 agents… It's our special relationship with Israel. When will you say enough?

David Ignatius has a good column in the Washington Post talking about the elephant in the room.

But in truth, the strategy that Obama proposed in Cairo is more important now than ever. Critics speak as if peacemaking and battling Muslim extremism should be seen as an either/or proposition. What Obama understood a year ago is that the two are linked. The best way to undercut extremists in Iran or al-Qaeda is to make progress on issues that matter to the Muslim world. Guns alone won't do it; if it were otherwise, the Israelis would have battled their way to peace long ago. [This passes for a revelation, truly, in Washington; still we pump them with guns]

You can't turn this anger around just by drinking tea or showering development money. The United States must address issues that people care passionately about, such as the Palestinian problem.

The administration is struggling to revive the stillborn Palestinian peace process. George Mitchell, the president's special envoy to the Middle East, is said to be drafting terms of reference for negotiations and letters of assurance for the parties that will offer more clarity about U.S. positions on key issues. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested the outlines last week when she called for "an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines with agreed swaps" of territory. [is it viable, Ignatius? Go look and see. I'm not sure it is...]
Even as he fights al-Qaeda and its allies, Obama needs to be Obama. He needs to continue voicing the Cairo message of outreach to the Muslim world — not as an alternative to battling extremism but as a necessary component of that fight. We are confronting an enemy that wants to draw us deeper into battle, so that America is more isolated and unpopular. We avoid that spider's trap by solving problems that matter.

If she wrote this in an American paper, they'd call her an anti-Semite and kick her down the stairs

Posted: 14 Jan 2010 06:04 AM PST

Israelis of conscience struggle to fight the racism in their society. And what help do they get from liberal Americans? Very little. Avirama Golan in Haaretz:

Ever since they were sworn in, the cabinet and Knesset have been competing over which will make life harder for the state's Arab citizens. And the climax of this frenzy was reached over land.

The land grabs that both the executive and the legislature have been perpetrating are the height of evil and folly. Evil, because all the new laws and reforms are explicitly intended to deny Arabs the self-evident civil right of buying a plot of land and residing on it…

We need to set up community towns for Arabs too, the law's sponsors said sanctimoniously – knowing full well that since the establishment of the state, not a single new Arab community has been established in the Galilee, and that every Israeli government has shown great efficiency in demolishing every scrap of illegal construction in Arab communities.

shocker

Posted: 14 Jan 2010 07:24 AM PST

Remember the Senate race that was no-holds-barred in Minnesota? But somehow Al Franken and Norman Coleman didn't fight over Gaza? No they got together on it. And now Harold Ford Jr. is thinking of running for Senate in New York against Kirsten Gillibrand and of course he's going to separate himself from her on any issue he can, except this one. And now from the Jewish Advocate in Massachusetts:

On one issue Senate hopefuls agree: Israel

[Dem Martha] Coakley stresses her record, [Republican Scott] Brown his passion at Jewish forum

By Kenneth H. Kaplan

I always say here, that Lincoln helped start the Republican Party in the 1850s because the existing parties, Whigs and Democrats, were engaged in what he called a "conspiracy" to support slavery.

No related posts.

Mohammad Othman and Jamal Juma' freed from Israeli detention thanks in part to international pressure

Posted: 13 Jan 2010 10:24 PM PST

Jesse Rosenfeld reporting for The Daily Nuisance:

After almost four months in Israeli custody without charge, nearly half that time spent in the legally dubious administrative detention, Mohammad Othman left the prison walls behind, taking his first free steps in months, before crossing Israel's wall, heading home.

"I'm still in shock about being free, but am so happy and relieved," the youth coordinator from the Stop the Wall campaign told me on the phone while riding with his brother to see his family in the West Bank for the first time in months. "We were constantly under surveillance in the jail; the Israelis were always trying to get information to incriminate us with. I was in a cell with other people, but couldn't trust talking politics with anyone."

Othman was beaten, threatened with death and subjected to various forms of psychological torture during his interrogation and detention, according to his lawyer. Indeed, his experience is becoming a reality for an increasing number of Palestinians involved in community organizing and popular resistance to the occupation.

Stop the Wall, a Palestinian movement based on grassroots popular resistance to Israel's wall in the West Bank, has faced increased military pressure as it strengthens its connection to the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The same fate has been made for Palestinians living along the wall's route, fighting ghettoization and annexation of their land.

Just 24 hours before Othman's release another lead organizer with Stop the Wall, Jamal Juma, was released from nearly a month of changeless detention and interrogation. Juma was taken from his Jerusalem home on December 15 and, despite having an ID from the city – entitling him to similar rights on paper as Israeli citizens – he was brought before military courts and held under the same terms as a West Bank Palestinian under military rule.

However, the same international attention and connection to a global movement that is landing activists in prisons, is one of the few factors providing some refuge from the relentless Israeli campaign to break them. Speaking anonymously for security reasons, one Stop the Wall activist credited the releases of Juma and Othman to the broad campaign both locally and in the West.

"We had pressure for their release coming from all directions and it must have had an effect," said the activist. "But we're not going to stop now that they're released, this campaign [against Israeli detention] will continue and now we have more people to lead it."

You can read the entire report here. Upon being released Juma' issued the following statement:

"Like for the other Palestinian human rights defenders in Israeli jails, there was never a case in the courtroom. Not a single charge has been put forth. The reason for my arrest was purely political – an attempt to crush Stop the Wall and the popular committees against the Wall. Therefore, the reasons for my release are also outside the courtroom: The impressive support of international civil society has moved governments and used the media to an extent that made our imprisonment too uncomfortable.

"This international solidarity has given our popular struggle against the Wall further strength. We are deeply thankful for all the efforts. Yet, the latest arrests and continuous repression show that we have not yet defeated the Israeli policy as such, as Israel remains determined to silence Palestinian human rights defenders by all means".

"We therefore need to ensure that the campaign for the freedom of all anti-wall activists and Palestinian political prisoners continues to grow. We have to combine our energies to ensure that the root cause – the Wall – will be torn down and the occupation will be brought to an end."

Earthquakes and inequality

Posted: 13 Jan 2010 07:44 PM PST

The awful news from Haiti is still unclear, but one fact stands out already. On October 17, 1989, an earthquake registering 7.1 on the Richter scale hit the San Francisco Bay area. 62 people died. The earthquake that hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti, yesterday was the same intensity, 7.1. But the death toll is already estimated in the thousands.

Poor people build unsafe houses in unsafe areas. How, then, can we speak of "natural" disasters?

Readers of this site may remember the Haitian photographer, Daniel Morel, who I wrote about recently. He is in Port-au-Prince, safe, and photographing. twitter.com/photomorel Also thankfully alive and well there is Richard Morse, the founder of the band RAM and owner of the legendary Oloffson Hotel; you can follow him at twitter.com/RAMhaiti.

--
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On one side is the traditional, orthodox view -- six million Jewish casualties, gas chambers, cremation ovens, mass graves, and thousands of witnesses. On the other is the view of a small band of skeptical writers and researchers, often unfairly labeled "deniers," who contend that the public has been gravely misled about this emotion-laden chapter of history.

The author establishes that the arguments and findings of revisionist scholars are substantive, and deserve serious consideration. He points out, for example, that even the eminent Jewish Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg acknowledged that there was no budget, plan or order by Hitler for a World War II program to exterminate Europe's Jews.

This book is especially relevant right now, as "Holocaust deniers" are routinely and harshly punished for their "blasphemy," and as growing numbers of people regard the standard, Hollywoodized "Holocaust" narrative with mounting suspicion and distrust.

The author of this book, who writes under the pen name of "Thomas Dalton," is an American scholar who holds a doctoral degree from a major US university.

This is no peripheral debate between arcane views of some obscure aspect of twentieth century history. Instead, this is a clash with profound social-political implications regarding freedom of speech and press, the manipulation of public opinion, how our cultural life is shaped, and how power is wielded in our society.

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Peace.

Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
Call anytime: 917-974-6367
ReporterNotebook@Gmail.com

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