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The Rubble-Bucket Challenge

Posted August 26th, 2014 by Lesley Hazleton

If you happen to live in Gaza, the one problem with accepting the ice-bucket challenge is that it requires a plentiful supply of ice. After seven weeks of bombardment, water is in short supply in Gaza, and electricity is scarce, so there’s no way to make ice. As journalist Ayman al-Aloul noted, however, what Gaza has in abundance is rubble. In fact thanks to the Israel Defense Forces, it has whole neighborhoods of it. Thus: the rubble-bucket challenge, which I accepted this afternoon halfway round the world in Seattle.  Please consider this an open invitation to take the challenge too:

rubble_compo

(The rubble I used came, either ironically or appropriately, from a building site.)

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File under: Middle East, war | Tagged: Tags: Gaza | 6 Comments
  1. Nuzhat says:
    August 26, 2014 at 8:32 pm

    Too much of a chicken….for both, ice and rubble!
    Instead, we have a rice bucket challenge started in India yesterday. A great cause here too.
    We just got to take a pail of cooked rice to the nearest poor locality. Not too difficult for us, surrounded by starving fellow beings that we encounter each day. A practical and humanitarian move!
    Nuzhat.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      August 27, 2014 at 10:56 am

      Totally love the rice-bucket challenge, which actually makes a difference: kudos!
      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/26/india-rice-bucket-challenge_n_5710481.html

  2. Guy de la Rupelle says:
    August 27, 2014 at 2:17 am

    Brilliant!

  3. amin tan says:
    August 27, 2014 at 5:21 am

    Dear Lesley Hazleton,
    You have been polite and assuage their ego that you use a passive or docile description of Israel armed forces as Israel Defence Forces. By doing so you are encouraging or embolden the Israel soldiers that their killing, destruction and bombing are strictly defensive in nature.
    I think it is grossly a misnomer.
    There is no such thing as Defence Forces. The prevailing fighting strategy is always attack as the best form of defence or the American calls it pre-emptive strikes.
    It would do humanity, goodwill and human welfare a lot of good if israeli is sincere by uplifting the blockade and removing all the road blocks and other humiliating treatment of human race in Palestine. What is the point of Israel continue to impose atrocities upon the Arabs of Palestine on the daily basis and at the same time they are shouting to the world that they are the vIctims.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      August 27, 2014 at 10:53 am

      There is an irony in the affairs of men…

  4. Zmurrad says:
    August 28, 2014 at 3:56 am

    I think it is really ‘cool’. May be we can all help rebuild Gaza bucket by bucket through this challenge. Where will they begin? Overwhelming!

Aron Kader’s War Against War

Posted July 30th, 2014 by Lesley Hazleton

aron kaderI am going to wage peace upon everyone who disagrees with me. It will be an aggressive, offensive and hostile strike that will continue until I inflict the final death blow to misunderstandings and conflict. I will gather all my available resources & weapons for this assault. I will never surrender until the foes of harmony surrender. I declare war on war. I will inflict peace on everyone and occupy your fear with understanding. You will suffer under my brutal campaign of tranquility. The enemy will endure the horrors of justice, tolerance, compassion and freedom. I will indoctrinate the aggressors with acceptance until the resistance is futile. I will show no mercy for hate. If you are not with me you are against warmth, love and little furry baby animals.

This brief manifesto was posted on Facebook earlier today by Palestinian-American stand-up comedian Aron Kader, followed by this update:

My war against war begins tomorrow. I will be on CNN tomorrow on the Brooke Baldwin program to talk about the murder of my cousin Mohammed Abu Khdeir and the police beating of Tariq Abu Khdeir. Also my plea for ceasefire in Gaza and how you will never convince me we cannot have peace.

To say I’m an instant fan doesn’t begin to cover it.  Finally, a war I can support!

 

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File under: Middle East, sanity, war | Tagged: Tags: Aron Kader, Gaza, Israel, Mohammad abu Khdeir, waging peace, war on war | 9 Comments
  1. Nuzhat says:
    July 30, 2014 at 10:35 pm

    I would join this war whole-heartedly….let’s do it instantly, it’s unbearable out there. Pleas and prayers in support….
    Nuzhat

  2. Khaled Hakim says:
    July 30, 2014 at 10:41 pm

    I think, Leslie, that true (and I know how much you hate the word Truth with a capital T, but this true could be capitalized and I’m sure you’d still be on board) martyrs are the ones that die fighting this kind of war.

    I support this war too.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      July 31, 2014 at 9:39 am

      Enough martyrs, Khaled. Let’s declare the age of martyrs well and truly over, no matter what the cause.

      • Khaled Hakim says:
        August 1, 2014 at 1:49 am

        I can accept that, blindly.

  3. Anita Sloan says:
    July 30, 2014 at 11:16 pm

    This is the only war worth supporting… we must save the children from their suffering; I weep when I see the fear in their eyes. Sending my prayers and support . God bless. Anita

  4. joezias says:
    July 31, 2014 at 3:34 am

    On the other hand, Israeli frnd who lives near the Jerusalem Forest where the body was found, erected with others in the village, a monument in memory of the 16 year old who was beaten and burned to death. That evening it was destroyed by right wing activists, they rebuilt it , the next day and again in the morning it had been destroyed. When the Arab families whose sons killed in cold blood, the three young teenagers who were hitchhiking in the West Bank I may have a change of heart vis a vis the present conflict. Meanwhile it’s time to sent Hamas, ISIS, Islamic Jihad and their supporters, back to the Stone Age.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      July 31, 2014 at 9:26 am

      The point is this: In the spirit of your friend who helped erect and then rebuild that monument — and who I hope will continue to rebuild it every time it gets pulled down — let’s get beyond sending anyone at all “back to the Stone Age.”

  5. pah says:
    July 31, 2014 at 9:34 am

    let’s fight a peace war, and stop the weeping of all the mothers….let;s fight a peace war in the name of all children, regardless of origin.

  6. joezias says:
    July 31, 2014 at 11:03 am

    Several yrs ago when i was much younger I had been asked by a local Rabbi, to come to a synagogue, something which I never do here in Israel, to maintain along with others a strong physical presence when things would ‘get out of hand’, which they did. The speaker was a Palestinian living in the US who was in favor of a non-violent confrontation with the on going situation, a Palestinian Martin Luther King like figure.

    Kahanist like males were scattered through out the the audience and interrupted his presentation, time and time again and each time they interrupted young guys, wearing kippas physically tossed them out of the synagogue. At times it was a bit violent.

    His presentation was impressive and spoke to us Israelis, Peace Now, Meretz types, however when I spoke with my Arab friends, no one had ever heard of him.

Gaza Morgue

Posted July 20th, 2014 by Lesley Hazleton

I still have no words that I trust.  Only this photo of a doctor weeping in the overflowing morgue of Shifa hospital in Gaza:

Gaza doctor

(photographer: Oliver Weiken, for the New York Times).

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File under: Middle East, war | Tagged: Tags: deaths, doctor, Gaza, Israel, morgue | 5 Comments
  1. Niloufer Gupta says:
    July 21, 2014 at 2:57 am

    Yes the throat chokes at the sights i have experienced thru al jazeera! I thought there would be a breakthru today- it has nt .

    Niloufer gupta

  2. Aijaz A. Mahesar says:
    July 21, 2014 at 3:26 am

    A picture speaks a thousand words, unspoken words, that do not even require to be remembered. They go deeper in hearts, deeper than we mortals know – they write themselves in our DNAs – for eternity.

  3. Rabab Maher (^_^) رباب ماهر says:
    July 21, 2014 at 1:24 pm

    The incessant ethnic cleansing of Palestine renders one speechless and anger and shame take the place of (unspoken) words (-_-).

  4. Lisa Kane says:
    July 21, 2014 at 6:35 pm

    Heartbreaking. When will this madness end?

  5. Zmurrad says:
    July 21, 2014 at 7:56 pm

    We are all ‘ DEAD’ people walking on earth. We have no humanity left. We are not moved by anything as if we are stones. Where is the power of collective conscience of human beings?

Gaza Beach

Posted July 16th, 2014 by Lesley Hazleton

My disgust with the Israeli government is so deep that I don’t trust myself with words.

But really, two articles in today’s New York Times say it all.

In the first, foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman is quoted advocating the Israeli invasion of Gaza in order to ensure “a normal summer vacation for our kids”  (the quote is way down in the 14th paragraph of the story).

In the second, we see what appears to be Lieberman’s idea of a kids’ summer vacation in Gaza:  four boys, ages 9, 10, and 11, killed by Israeli bombs while playing soccer on the beach.  It’s accompanied by this photo by the award-winning Tyler Hicks:

gaza beach

Reports from eyewitness foreign journalists here.

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File under: Middle East, war | Tagged: Tags: "summer vacation", bombing, four boys, Gaza, Israel, Palestine | 5 Comments
  1. Guy de la Rupelle says:
    July 16, 2014 at 5:07 pm

    This is really too, too sad. There’s a silly movie called “Groundhog Day” whereby the main actor (Bill Murray) wakes up to the same day, again and again and again, and it becomes a nightmare. Every few years I wake up to see almost the same news, the same hatred, the same anger, the same rockets, the same out-of-proportion Israeli response with high-tech militaria, hundreds of homes demolished in the Gaza strip, and the photos…of limp bodies of children, tear-streaked faces of Palestinian women grieving, smug-looking Israeli tanks commanders and also the frightened faces of Israeli conscripts who would rather be in their homes in Tel Aviv or elsewhere…
    And I think to myself, Will there ever be peace in that part of the world? (sigh..)

  2. Cory says:
    July 17, 2014 at 11:49 am

    This reminds me of Tom Friedman’s recent column on arsonists vs firefighters. The thrust was that the leadership in Mid-East countries are the arsonists, fanning the flames for short term political gain. If left alone, however, the general populace is quite capable of living peacefully with various factions intermingled. But I begin to wonder whether there are any “firefighters” among Israelies and Palestinians.

    Do you find any reason for hope in this dysfunctional place? Any chance of a grass roots uprising? A growing chorus of “Enough”?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      July 17, 2014 at 1:42 pm

      Reason for hope? I hate to say it, but no, not right now. After the massacre of kindergarteners in Sandy Hook, Long Island, for instance, I thought “maybe now” there’d finally be a move toward serious gun control in the US. I mean, a whole room of five-year-olds gunned down? How much worse could it get? But no. After seeing these boys blown up in Gaza, it’s tempting to again think “maybe now,” but everything tells me not. After 47 years, the ugly mentality of occupation is deeply institutionalized, and the thuggish dehumanization and demonization of the “other” seems only to be worsening, from the top on down.
      Do I hope nonetheless? Clearly, despite everything, and reason be damned. The fact that I cannot see something happening does not mean that it can’t happen. Human beings may be infinitely manipulable, but we can also be defiantly unpredictable.
      Re “firefighters,” they’re there, of course, but we hear little about most of them because as always with the news, the adage is “flames lead.” They need support more now than ever. Inflammatory leadership and biased reporting on both sides means that those who advocate dialogue instead of violence are branded “traitors” and then attacked by thuggish extremists on “their own side” as “worse than the enemy.” I have huge admiration for all those, Palestinian and Israeli, who continue this advocacy nonetheless. It takes no courage to speak out against violence from afar; it takes real courage to do so when you know that a death threat awaits you and your family.

      • Lesley Hazleton says:
        July 17, 2014 at 1:53 pm

        And I should add this from Nick Kristof in today’s NYT, starting with the families of both Naftali Fraenkel and Muhammad abu Khdeir calling for an end to violence, but to no avail — as I wrote the reply above, the ground invasion of Gaza began.
        http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/17/opinion/nicholas-kristof-leadership-israel-gaza.html?smid=tw-share

  3. fatmakalkan says:
    July 18, 2014 at 4:55 pm

    Since Israel started bombardment of Gazza I became unhappiest person on the earth, their arrogance, justifying their aggressions, not caring about safety of Plastenian women, children, elderly, sick, not respecting their life’s and property is despicable. Their heart became like a stone, no mercy, no compassion left in their hearts. If Moses was alive he would be a shamed by Israeli government and he would help Palestinians because they are oppressed by Israel. He would lead them to freedom. Instead of searching the murderer of 3 Jewish boys at West Bank they are bombing 2 million people at Gazza. They needed an excuse to attact Gazza and used this crime. It is Ramadan and they ruined 1,8 Billion Muslims Ramadan with their attack. We can no longer watch news, read news. We are fed up with them. Since US behind them all muslim world is afraid and helpless:(

Welcome, Palestine!

Posted November 30th, 2012 by Lesley Hazleton

So here’s where all you sophisticated cynics get to tell me I’m being naïve, and yesterday’s UN recognition of Palestine as a non-voting member state is merely symbolic, and it makes no difference to what’s actually happening etc etc.

To which my reply is:  Never underestimate the power of symbolism.  Or the sense of an alternate historical inevitability strengthened by this move.

Historical inevitability is exactly what Israel has been trying to create since 1967 with “facts on the ground,” aka “settlements” — a totally misleading term since it calls up images of small outposts, while the bulk of the Israeli settlement project in the West Bank is by now huge swathes of urban and suburban housing.  As if to underline this, today’s Israeli reaction to the UN move was to formally announce yet another urban expansion, this one intended to cut off Ramallah and Bethlehem from Jerusalem.

The New York Times seems to imagine that this is in retaliation for the UN vote, but they’re wrong.  It’s part of Israel’s long-term plan, which has been, since the late 1960s, to create an “irreversible” pattern of Israeli settlement in Palestine — I reported on this way back in the 1970s — and to make daily existence so burdensome for Palestinians in so many ways that they will up and leave “of their own accord” (a kind of ethnic cleansing lite.)

But history is nothing if not a long pattern of reversals.  And it now looks very much like both Israel and the United States (along with Palau, Panama, Micronesia, Canada, and the Czech Republic — the less-than-impressive array of countries voting against acceptance of heightened status for Palestine) are on the wrong side of history.

I have absolutely no idea how this might work out in the long run.  In fact when I try to imagine it, I find myself in despair.  The hard truth is that a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza is in all probability economically, geographically, and politically non-viable — a “two-state solution” that solves nothing at all.  And while the “one-state solution” thus seems the only logical outcome, logic has nothing to do with the politics of identity.  One state would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state, since it would then have a non-Jewish majority;  whether you support the idea of a Jewish state or not, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see that Israel will never agree to dissolve its foundational raison d’être. 

Which leaves us where?

Without a vision of a positive outcome, the all-or-nothing hardliners are in the ascendance, promising nothing but more violence.  So could the rest of us be suffering from a dismaying lack of imagination?  Is there a third way?  Or a fourth or a fifth?  I have no answers, just the stubborn faith that there has to be.  For the first time in over a decade, the UN decision gives me a sense of forward movement.  If that’s illusory, I’ll take it for now.

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File under: Middle East | Tagged: Tags: Gaza, Israel, one-state solution, Palestine, settlements, two-state solution, UN, West Bank | 4 Comments
  1. cloakedmonk says:
    November 30, 2012 at 1:40 pm

    Reblogged this on Cloaked Monk's Blog and commented:
    Some thoughts from Lesley Hazleton on the recognition of Palestine as a non-voting member state. For all those advocating for a one state solution, what does it do to Israel’s identity to have to create a world that is not inherently Israeli? Hmm. I must think on this.

  2. Trying God's Patience says:
    November 30, 2012 at 1:56 pm

    I’ll take your naivete and raise you.
    Perfectly put.
    As usual.

  3. zummard. says:
    December 2, 2012 at 6:40 am

    Don’t despair. Make a prayer.

    ” Oh God of SARAH, HAGAR, MARIAM, KHADIJA and everyone else!!!!!!
    Mothers are running out of tears for their children.
    WHEN WILL YOU RUN OUT OF PATIENCE?
    Our moral decadence has desensitized us to the misery of humanity. So YOU do something to restore peace and justice on earth.

  4. Ibrahim says:
    December 3, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    Isn’t it strange, as soon as one mentions the need for collective action to come up with a plan that has concrete contribution to resolving a situation, how few of us immediately appeal to the mothers of Ismail and Ishaq.
    Leaving the occupied territories has less existential challenge for Israel than the one-state solution. The “settlements” should present no important issue as it did not in the 1978 agreement with Sadat.
    What we need to do is to convince the politicians that the other alternative is Kissinger’s prophecy.
    This can be done if we were to force the issue of military assistance from US to become contingent upon move in that direction.
    If prayers were helpful, i am sure the issue would have been resolved as thousands of good people from both sides have been praying for a long time for a miraculous resolution.

No Gaza Ceasefire

Posted November 20th, 2012 by Lesley Hazleton

Hillary Clinton’s tight-lipped glare says it all.  The expected ceasefire in Gaza today did not materialize.  Israel still bombing, Hamas still launching rockets.

I watch as the hardliners on both sides reinforce each other — delegitimizing not Israel, nor Hamas, but the Palestinian Authority.

Worse still,  they knowingly do so at the cost of other people’s lives.

I watch in wordless misery.

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File under: Middle East, ugliness, war | Tagged: Tags: Gaza, Hamas, Hillary Clinton, Israel, Netanyahu, Palestine | 18 Comments
  1. lavrans123 says:
    November 20, 2012 at 3:40 pm

    It is stunning to watch this. Sad, infuriating.
    Part of me wonders if the people living there will ever rise up and toss these hardliners and their militants out. They aren’t going to leave on their own, and it looks to me like they have the same problem we do here- the squeaky wheels are given bullhorns, and everyone not on the fringe watches in near silence.

  2. Lynn Rosen says:
    November 20, 2012 at 11:55 pm

    Wordless misery. That says it all. Dammitt.

  3. lavrans123 says:
    November 21, 2012 at 1:54 pm

    OK- here’s my question for you.
    What drives this war? I keep running into discussions online, and the language always seems the same. The Israelis I know make the very good point that the Palestinians are indiscriminately shooting rockets at them and that they can’t exchange land for peace.

    On the Palestinian side the argument is that they want their land, they want the blockade to end, and that the Israelis use their armies superior technology and firepower to respond with indiscriminate killing… and that all the dead are “martyrs”.

    Why does it seem to me that using the same language will inevitably bring the same results? Where are the moderates? Who is using different language to define the problem, and to produce solutions?

    Right now I see the two sides apparently speaking different languages (figuratively in addition to the rather obvious literal aspect). How do they expect to create understanding without creating common language?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      November 21, 2012 at 4:50 pm

      Ah, but what makes you assume that either the Israeli government or the Hamas leadership is interested in understanding? They do already have a common language, however: hardline irredentism.

  4. lavrans says:
    November 21, 2012 at 7:32 pm

    Ah- I guess I should be more specific. I see posts and read a lot of stuff from people on the far sides of this issue. What’s the language, what are the stories, the talking points of the people who aren’t on the militant end of this stick? I’m sure they are out there; why aren’t they heard more and louder? Too hard to listen to reason when there is easy hyperbole that needs so much less thought?

    And where do we find that reasonable language? How does one help spread it? How do I reply to my Jewish friends who state that it is not possible to trade “land for peace” and that inevitably leads to why all Israel does is defend its people, or the Palestinian sympathizers (sadly, I can’t say I have any Palestinian friends who are muddying up my social media) who post the “martyr” dogma.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      November 22, 2012 at 10:20 am

      Lavrans — You’re right, the moderates are there (and here), but as usual, out-shouted, drowned out by the violence, noise, and bombast of extremists. One thing that strikes me is how absolutist both Israeli and Palestinian partisans in the United States are, often arguing almost cartoon stances. The emotional investment is undeniable, but however deep our anger and disgust, we need to remember that it’s also ruthlessly manipulated by hardline irredentists on all sides. We all need to resist this, since as you say, it only makes it all the harder to have any kind of productive exchange — of words, let alone territory. It serves the interests of nobody but the hardliners, those whose greatest fear is the prospect of the difficult mutual compromises necessary for any kind of long-term resolution. Those who thrive, that is, on conflict — and who oppose the current (non-Hamas) Palestinian bid for full UN status, which I totally support.

  5. AJ says:
    November 22, 2012 at 4:22 am

    How can we say…one side do this and other side do blah blah.
    Any so called even handed analysis would be justification of mass killing by apparent powerful and aggressor.

    We are deceiving ourselves and feigned to be naive.

    • lavrans123 says:
      November 22, 2012 at 12:28 pm

      That’s what I’ve been arguing, to some extent. That to use the common method, which is to count bodies and try to decide who’s actions are more justified can only lead to entrenched positions, rather than conversation.

      Better, it seems to me, that the conversation turn to the common ground that is so much harder to find. It takes the work of reason and restraint- to not think about that boy when thinking of the wrongs, but to think about the real lesson of his death. His death isn’t a beacon to the evil of one side, and it’s not an example of the callousness of one side, nor is he a martyr to a cause- his death is an example of what happens when two groups are willing to ignore the consequences of their actions.

      No act of retribution will bring him back.

      • AJ says:
        November 23, 2012 at 3:22 am

        Conversation is meaningless when weaker side could be slapped around to bow to unjustified demands…work of reason and restraint is luxurious fantasy in this case.

        Stronger A would never kill the child of weaker B, if he knows B can also kill his child in retribution.

        We as outsider should have enough courage to call a spade a spade..yes why not count the bodies…after all these numbers are human beings..lets decide who is aggressor by number of bodies then quit saying “Israel has right to defend”…Mass killing in so called self defence is no defence rather terrorizing the neighboring inhibitants of different race and creed….oops !!!…I should not have used “terrorist” exclusive copyright of west.

        The best we can do from outside…to not give Israeliz any moral justification of mass killing as their right to defend.

        Lets not bomb Israeli kids in retribution, at least make them feel guilty…let them feel what they have done…do not give them justification by calling it two side problem.

        No one knew the power of benevolence, patience and defeat unless Imam Hussain gave his life in utmost humaneness.

        • lavrans123 says:
          November 23, 2012 at 8:47 am

          And yet, Netanyahu’s line also has perfectly good reasoning behind it:

          “The moment we draw symmetry between the [intentional] victims of terror and the unintended casualties that result from legitimate military action against the terrorists, the minute that false symmetry is drawn, the terrorists win.”

          Both tear at the heart strings, both are rational seeming words. The Israeli’s have their “martyrs”, too. They know the terror of rockets and what it is like to lose a child. When Palestine complains about the blockade, the Israeli’s can complain about the Hamas leaders agreeing to a two party state, so long as “Israel isn’t one of the parties”. When Gaza complains about the blockade, Israel can complain about being surrounded by hostile countries who want them eliminated merely because they are Jewish.

          You look at a child’s body and say he was killed by Israelis, I can’t help but note that it was two hands that killed him, one a Palestinian hand, the other an Israeli hand. Perhaps you can excuse the blood on that Palestinian hand, but I cannot see the difference in his blood no matter which hand it is on.

          More importantly- how can you say you want peace if you want the children of Israel to feel shame? From outside I know that all you get with shame is anger.

          • AJ says:
            November 25, 2012 at 10:36 pm

            International terrorist wins but not against Israel…they win against their own Muslims.
            A people who are defenseless, innocent, out-powered and outgunned are being attacked and killed while the world watches.
            Gaza is a prison, where the inmates are killed for very little provocation, if any. They are being attacked for existing. That is enough provocation. It is not only the misery of a brutal death, but also dying in the knowledge that the world does not care, or perhaps, is with the aggressor.
            However, the world does not watch in silence. Worse, excuses are being made for the killers. The victim is being blamed. The murdered has brought it upon him. Can it be termed a war if only one side does all the killing? Nothing has been done to provoke the aggressor, yet it remains provoked, because it wants to be provoked, because it can. Innocent women and children murdered in cold blood. Even before the killing takes place, the apologists have the script ready. Sounds familiar, all of this, does it not? A state of affairs that is easy to condemn. It seems not.

            Who made these Palestinians hostile..you sould not worry about hostile countries…they all sit when commanded to sit..they are obedient monarch of west installed as western interest Tyrant on their people.

            How those Palestinians who give their land and home to Jews in the first place, becomes hostile.
            Friendly neighbor doesn’t suit Israel…they need hostile neighbor as reason for further expansion…and to carry on as watch dog for western interest in oil rich territory.

            All these Saudi kings and midget of Jordan and Arab Sheikhs does not fear west…geogrophically they are no threat but YES they fear Israel and that we call purpose served.

  6. AJ says:
    November 22, 2012 at 4:26 am

    I wish I could cut n paste this kids smiling dead body

    They took away his life but not his smile. His smile is a sad reflection of cruel reality of global politics of hate. Shame.

  7. AJ says:
    November 26, 2012 at 11:13 pm

    I also see all the blame is put on hardliners from both sides.
    Plaestinian hardliners(Hammas) were recently added in the picture…History of Palestinian suffering is well before any hardliners exist.

    We come up with such gems when we are not ready to face the reality but always ready to hide the truth

    • lavrans says:
      November 26, 2012 at 11:35 pm

      AJ- look at your words.
      They are the words of recrimination, that ask to dredge up the crimes, the insults, the slights of the past. I have heard your line of reasoning, and the accompanying refrain from Israel.
      I am not an Israeli, I am not a Palestinian.

      My question is what you would do, what would you ask, if you were to make peace in the region. What would you ask in order to live in peace and without the sword of Damocles hanging over your neighborhood? How would you make it possible to have a neighborhood that is equally filled with Israelis and Palestinians?

      What would you do to make yourself and your neighbors proud to have Israel as a neighbor, as an ally? What would you do to make Israel want to have Palestine as a neighbor, and to be proud of calling Palestine their ally?

      We all know the past well enough- how do you get beyond the history to a place where both can live in harmony? That’s what I am curious about. I don’t need to hear about the recriminations, about the pain and shame and fear. I know those stories. I don’t know the stories about how that is overcome.

  8. AJ says:
    November 27, 2012 at 1:32 am

    lavrans
    Pointing a crime with the culprit is not dredging the crime.
    And truth should never be taken as insult…Yes past history establish the running course.

    Apologist with ready script always come up with “Israel has a right to defend”.
    Defend against whom…stone throwing kidz…and with assumption that neighboring Plaestinians are hostile…now we need history.

    People are against each other due to race,creed and religion..Palestiniana happened to be Muslim.
    Three time Jews were expelled from Jerusalem by Christians and all the three times Muslims welcome them back.
    First Khalifa Umar Bin Khattab welcome them back then Saladin Ayubi and third time today’s Palestinians….all happened to be Muslim and Arabs. Historically they are not hostile towards Jews.

    I am glad you point my refrain toward Israel, not Jews.
    You right on spot ask for a solution…Although its not easy but very much possible…a greater responsibility lies on Israel….Hammas ready for 67 border…do you think Israel would agree.

    Israel in 21st century can not aford policy of apartheid….one neighbor is rich with tall buildings and top notch schooling and best health facilities…other side is blocked even for necessary medicines and milk and food for babies.
    For the sake of argument I buy that in the name of food, arms are smuggled into Gaza. Israel should take matters in its own hands and capture all the shipment and then supply on their own all the food and medicine to Gaza..that will win the heart of people there…first step necessary towards peace but eventually lead to lost effect of “hostile neighbor” rhetoric.

    You know and all of us know Israeli blockade is nothing but to punish whole nation of Gaza…in my opinion Gazans are human being, hopefully you will agree with this opinion…no pun intended.

    I wish I were a Jew to say all these words…my being Muslim will not compromise my zeal for justice.
    We are human being, if we can not feel the pain of other human beings then we are apologist zombies, who is not ready to do the least he/she can do i.e. point the culprit and held him responsible.

  9. Lesley Hazleton says:
    November 27, 2012 at 8:52 am

    May I suggest that justice is one thing, coexistence another? That there is no perfect justice in this world? That all sides need to compromise? [see here what I’ve written in the past about the impossibility of perfection.]
    Lavrans has an excellent question: how do we get beyond history? Can we? Or are we doomed to keep digging the pit deeper and deeper? Are we so bound by the past that we can no longer imagine a future?
    (I say ‘we’ with some trepidation, since whatever ‘we’ come up with here, it’s the people living there who have to do the hard work.)
    Worth remembering too, AJ: I don’t know the percentage, but a sizable number of Palestinians are Christian, and have been for close on two millennia.

    • AJ says:
      November 27, 2012 at 11:58 am

      A solution I suggest has nothing to do with past…Lets win the hearts of people…treat them equal…a Palestinian baby died due to lack of medicine and food, should also be considered death of a human being..is it to much to ask….and all my suggestions addressed to those who think Israel has right to defend…a lesser hostile Palestinian is best defence.

      I have another suggestion but that will earn me great disrespect from apologists….Lets equip Palestinians with 1/10th of arms Israel have…that will greatly reduce loss of life and better living conditions for Gazan…Israel won’t dare stopping their food supply in the name of arm smuggling.

      I was not talking about perfection in anything…after all we are human being, we are endowed with senses and common sense and we can see the obvious…we don’t have to be rocket scientist to tell who is aggressor and who is suffering.

      Lesley does not believe in perfection so she should not be believing in absolute imperfection…a whole nation is declared terrorist because their kidz can throw stones and they have few missiles too.
      Their suffering is justified because their kidz are terrorist.

      A killer always have a motive and justification for his act…we should not hold him accountable because our judgment against him could never be perfect…thats silly, though I was not talking about perfection…yes I was talking about the result of killer’s act…loss of human life and human suffering.

      Palestinians are predominantly Muslim…many of them are African aborigine but still they are known as Arab…Lesley and I could never be on same page in any set of discussion.

  10. AJ says:
    November 28, 2012 at 3:00 am

    When Will the Killing War in Iran Begin? It Already Has

    “Economic sanctions are, at their core, a war against public health.” –The New England Journal of Medicine [1]

    By Stephen Gowans

    November 06, 2012 “Information Clearing House” – While campaigns are organized to deter the United States and Israel from acting on threats to launch an air war against Iran, both countries, in league with the European Union (winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize) carry on a low-intensity war against Iran that is likely to be causing more human suffering and death than strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities would. This is a war against public health, aimed at the most vulnerable: cancer patients, hemophiliacs, kidney dialysis patients, and those awaiting transplants.

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32958.htm

Believing in Peace

Posted February 24th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

“I can’t believe you don’t believe in anything!” someone wrote on this blog a while back, commenting on my agnosticism (actually, she used capital letters and lots of exclamation marks, but I’ll refrain).   And I was a bit shocked by that.  What kind of human being can I claim to be if I don’t believe in anything?  A nihilist?  A god-forsaken creature left to the whims and mercies of fate?    A craven whimpering coward afraid to commit herself?

So in between keeping up with what’s happening in Egypt and Tunisia and Bahrain and Yemen and Jordan and Iraq and Iran and oh-my-god Libya, I’ve been haunted by what she said — and have realized that she placed the stress on the wrong word.  It doesn’t belong on the word ‘anything,’ but on the word before it:  ‘in.’

Of course there are things I believe.  I just don’t generally feel the need to believe in them.  I may well believe that such-and-such a thing is true, though in fact this is much the same thing as saying “I think that…” or the more amorphous “I feel that…”  and I’m trying not to be amorphous here.  And in fact there are some things I do believe in, prime among them the possibility of some seemingly impossible form of peace between Israel and Palestine.

If I look at Israel/Palestine rationally right now, I see no way to a peaceful resolution.   So in the lack of empirical evidence, I have no choice but to fall back on belief – that is, on the conviction that peace is possible, despite all evidence to the contrary.

I’m not being over-idealistic here.   The first step in any thinking about peace is to get rid of all those images of doves fluttering around all over the place and everyone falling on each others’ shoulders in universal brother/sisterhood.  Peace is far more mundane than that.  It’s the absence of war.  It’s people not being killed.  It’s the willingness to live and let live.  And that will do just fine.

There’s no love lost between England and Germany, for instance, but they’re at peace after two utterly devastating wars in the first half of the 20th century.  There’s less than no love lost between Egypt and Israel – in fact it’s safe to say that for the most part, they detest each other —  but that peace treaty, signed by an Egyptian dictator and an Israeli former terrorist, has lasted three decades.  It’s nobody’s ideal of peace, but however uneasily, it’s held, and will likely hold whatever the changes in Egypt – a frigid kind of peace, but peace nonetheless.

But even thinking in terms of pragmatic, undramatic, boring peace, which once seemed as impossible for England and Germany, and for Egypt and Israel, as for Israel and Palestine, I still can’t see it.  Of course this may simply mean that I have a very limited imagination, and so can’t see the forest for the trees.   But to think that something is impossible because I can’t see it is not only an absurd assumption, but also a dangerous one.

What we believe affects how we act.   If we stop believing that Israel/Palestine peace is possible, or even desirable, as the Israeli government seems to have done, then that affects how we act:  we really do make it impossible.  That is, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy of unending conflict.   We act in our own worst interests.

I’d rather be naïve than nihilistic.  So in face of the despair that often overtakes me at the latest news from Gaza or from the West Bank, I have to fall back on belief in the possibility of peace, no matter how seemingly irrational.  After all, if it was rational, it wouldn’t require belief.

One definition of despair is in the inability to imagine oneself into the future.  It is, in a very real sense, a failure of the imagination.  So perhaps this is what belief really is:  an act of imagination.   The astonishing human ability to imagine something into existence, and to act in accordance with that imagination.

That’s what we’ve seen these past few weeks in Tunisia and Egypt and Bahrain (and maybe even in Libya), and that’s what’s been so inspiring about it:  belief transformed into possibility.   Belief not as faith in the divine, but as faith in the human ability to act and to change the future.   Belief, that is, in ourselves.

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File under: agnosticism, existence, Middle East | Tagged: Tags: Bahrain, belief, conflict, Egypt, faith, Gaza, Germany, imagination, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Libya, nihilism, Palestine, peace, Tunisia, West Bank, Yemen | 15 Comments
  1. Sue says:
    February 24, 2011 at 2:44 pm

    Thank you for your distinction between ‘believing’ and ‘believing in’ – I think that’s fabulous.
    Regarding ‘Peace’ – I believe it to be more than just the absence of war – it is a whole other force in itself. It’s people’s determination to live differently and better and to care for each other and their communities, and so much more.
    And perhaps something to think about – it occurs to me that you use the word ‘believe’ (ie. you choose to believe in peace in the Middle East despite all evidence to the contrary) is used in the same sense as others would use the word ‘faith’, eg. I have ‘faith’ that there will be peace in the middle east. I do love words and how we use them, and I do love it when people can string a fabulous sentence together – you do that so well – thank you.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 25, 2011 at 2:34 pm

      So glad you pointed put my conflation of ‘belief’ and ‘faith’, Sue — it’s one of those things I was vaguely aware of doing, but hadn’t really paid attention to. Yes, I think there is a difference, but will have to work on figuring it out (it has to do, I think, with intention — a kind of willed decision — but am not sure, so will muse, and write about it at a later date). Thanks for the sharp eye. — L.

  2. Kate McLeod says:
    February 24, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    What these countries who want to go to war with each other need are football teams. They can take out their aggression in the viewing stands, wear war paint, wave flags–all that.
    Also my new rules about war in the world must be followed: no one under the age of 50 goes to war. I think it’s probably the fastest route to peace.

  3. Sana says:
    February 24, 2011 at 7:37 pm

    My husband always tells me that what I lack is belief. I give up too easily, hence abandoning any fight in me. My husband is the opposite, if he believes he achieves – and he makes it happen no matter what the odds are. Your article has made me realize how dangerous it is not believe….. its a bit daunting actually. Now comes the hard part – what do i believe? …….

  4. Lynn Rosen says:
    February 24, 2011 at 10:37 pm

    There is no point in believing IN war as an inevitable solution. Peace is the default. That is in what I believe.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 25, 2011 at 2:35 pm

      Perfectly in-put!

  5. Lana says:
    February 24, 2011 at 11:26 pm

    Thank you 🙂
    i hope u add a “like” button under your posts … sometimes i realy like an article but has nothing else to add 🙂

    best wishes

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 25, 2011 at 2:36 pm

      Thanks Lana — will poke around and see if I can find out how to do it. — L.

      (Best way to ‘Like’ — click the Facebook button!)

  6. Moes says:
    February 25, 2011 at 9:05 am

    I enjoyed very much your TED talk about Kuran.
    We have a woman a bit like you in France, Annick de Souzenelle (except she’s not an agnostic). She has read the Bible in the languages it was written (she studied years and years to learn Aramean and Hebrew, symbology and theology). If you go back to the source, it’s the best way not to be misguided by translations and interpretations. And her books about the bible explain how deep and beautiful this book is. Far away from the interpretation men have made of it through the centuries, trying to control people out of it. Much more universal than we think it is (not to mention the stupid and childish “creationist” interpretation of it.)
    I guess Kuran is the same. It’s the fragility of beauty, when taken over by gridy and bad intentional people.
    Please continue your struggle for beauty and peace (and excuse my poor english.)
    all the best.

  7. Elisa Sparks says:
    February 26, 2011 at 9:29 am

    Have you seen the bumper sticker: “Militant agnostic: I don’t know, and neither do you”? Virginia Woolf’s father, Leslie Stephens, was famous for his statement of rational agnosticism.

  8. Anneza Akbar says:
    March 1, 2011 at 10:39 am

    Very interesting piece,
    I am curious as to what your view is on the idea of:

    “Peace is not the absence of war but the presence of justice”
    in comparison to:
    “peace is the absence of war”

    Could it be that perhaps “no war” and therefore “peace” could come about after a sense of justice is established?

    of course then the question would arise what would be justice in any specific case?

    Thank you for sharing your thoughts 🙂
    Anneza

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 1, 2011 at 1:12 pm

      Good question, and a tough one. “Peace and justice” is a much-used phrase, yet how exactly they go hand-in-hand is not clear, at least to me. The core problem being, of course, what we mean by justice. Are we talking justice as harmony, as moral rightness (and if so, whose morality?), as retribution, as equitability, as divine justice (in which case, whose concept of the divine?).

      I do think that any kind of peace, however minimal in concept, does have to involve a sense on both or all sides that nobody is being advantaged to the disadvantage of others. In practice, I think that might well mean that both/all sides will have to feel not that they’ve gotten what they think is right or what they deserve, but that they’ve had to give up a certain amount of what they think is right or what they deserve. In other words, that far from being perfect, peace is an imperfect compromise on all sides. And possible only when everyone is willing, finally, to make those compromises. I know it seems like there should be a “win-win” option, but in fact “lose-lose” may be the only realistic one — and thus, paradoxically, in fact a win-win.

      Have you heard of the Prisoner’s Dilemma? It’s a central paradigm in conflict resolution, in which the only rational solution is the one in which both sides lose an equal amount. Hard-headed, and worth thinking about. Here’s the Wikipedia entry on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

  9. Sunny says:
    March 1, 2011 at 5:12 pm

    War and peace are two sides of the same coin, just as light and darkness are. Just as light cannot exist without darkness, peace cannot exist without war – just as God and Satan cannot exist, atleast in two Abrahamic religions, by themselves. The principle of duality seems to be all-encompassing.

  10. Kathleen says:
    March 4, 2011 at 12:50 pm

    Very though provoking and written – as usual – Leslie. 🙂 I came across a book’s paragraph about an underlying social dynamic (‘bargains with God) that are suppose to guarantee peace (except the world keeps cheating on the bargain by going to war) : During WWI. The protagonist is looking at a stained glass window in a cathedral of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son. ‘Behind Abraham was the ram caught in a thicket by his horns and struggling to escape…You could see the fear. Whereas Abraham, if he regretted having to sacrifice his son at all, was certainly hiding it well, and Isaac, bound on a makeshift altar, positively smirked’. …[This represents] ‘the bargain on which all patriarchal societies are founded. If you, who are young and strong, will obey me, who am old and weak, even to the extent of being prepared to sacrifice your life, then in the course of time you will peacefully inherit, and be able to exact the same obedience from your sons. [and this one sacrifice to the gods is enough to appease them, instead of thousands] Only …. [being at war is ] ‘breaking the bargain… all over the inheritors were dying…. while old men, and women of all ages, gathered together and sang hymns. *”Regeneration” by Pat Barker, pg 149 (book 2 of a trilogy based on a Psychologist trying to heal shell shocked solders in England during WWI.) Just an interesting twist on the concept that older men (and women) sit in hallowed-halls and declare war and it’s planning, while the young die to execute the plan. Don’t know that it adds anything to your dialogue on peace but just thought to add it. No comment back needed 🙂

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 4, 2011 at 4:44 pm

      I totally agree: the Pat Barker trilogy (‘Regeneration,’ ‘Eye in the Door’ and ‘Ghost Road’) is stunning, and perhaps the most sustained and subtle anti-war fiction ever written. — L.

Gaza Youth Manifesto: ‘Fuck Them All!’

Posted January 2nd, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

London’s The Guardian newspaper calls it “an incendiary document written with courage and furious energy…  an extraordinary, impassioned cyber-scream.”  It’s the Gaza Youth’s Manifesto for Change, written just three weeks ago by a group of cyber-activist students in Gaza — three women and five men — as enraged by Hamas as they are by Israel.

It demands to be read, so here it is, in full:

Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community! We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16’s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in; we are like lice between two nails living a nightmare inside a nightmare, no room for hope, no space for freedom.

We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in; sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, homemade fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.
There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of canalizing this energy into something that can challenge the status quo and give us some kind of hope. The final drop that made our hearts tremble with frustration and hopelessness happened 30rd November, when Hamas’ officers came to Sharek Youth Forum, a leading youth organization (www.sharek.ps) with their guns, lies and aggressiveness, throwing everybody outside, incarcerating some and prohibiting Sharek from working. A few days later, demonstrators in front of Sharek were beaten and some incarcerated. We are really living a nightmare inside a nightmare.

It is difficult to find words for the pressure we are under. We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the shit out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams. They did not get rid of Hamas, as they intended, but they sure scared us forever and distributed post traumatic stress syndrome to everybody, as there was nowhere to run.

We are youth with heavy hearts. We carry in ourselves a heaviness so immense that it makes it difficult to us to enjoy the sunset. How to enjoy it when dark clouds paint the horizon and bleak memories run past our eyes every time we close them? We smile in order to hide the pain. We laugh in order to forget the war. We hope in order not to commit suicide here and now. During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to erase us from the face of the earth. During the last years Hamas has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behaviour and aspirations. We are a generation of young people used to face missiles, carrying what seems to be a impossible mission of living a normal and healthy life, and only barely tolerated by a massive organization that has spread in our society as a malicious cancer disease, causing mayhem and effectively killing all living cells, thoughts and dreams on its way as well as paralyzing people with its terror regime. Not to mention the prison we live in, a prison sustained by a so-called democratic country.

History is repeating itself in its most cruel way and nobody seems to care. We are scared. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed. We are afraid of living, because every single step we take has to be considered and well-thought, there are limitations everywhere, we cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want, sometimes we even cant think what we want because the occupation has occupied our brains and hearts so terrible that it hurts and it makes us want to shed endless tears of frustration and rage!

We do not want to hate, we do not want to feel all of this feelings, we do not want to be victims anymore. ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart aching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want!

We want three things. We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask? We are a peace movement consistent of young people in Gaza and supporters elsewhere that will not rest until the truth about Gaza is known by everybody in this whole world and in such a degree that no more silent consent or loud indifference will be accepted.

This is the Gazan youth’s manifesto for change!

We will start by destroying the occupation that surrounds ourselves, we will break free from this mental incarceration and regain our dignity and self respect. We will carry our heads high even though we will face resistance. We will work day and night in order to change these miserable conditions we are living under. We will build dreams where we meet walls.

We only hope that you – yes, you reading this statement right now! – can support us. In order to find out how, please write on our Facebook wall (Gaza Youth Breaks Out — GYBO) or contact us directly: freegazayouth@hotmail.com

We want to be free, we want to live, we want peace.
FREE GAZA YOUTH!

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File under: Middle East | Tagged: Tags: Gaza, Gaza Youth Breaks Out, Hamas, Israel | 11 Comments
  1. lavrans says:
    January 2, 2011 at 10:25 pm

    You know what this makes me think of? It’ll take a moment to lay the foundation;

    I have moved a lot- I’m the antithesis of the Palestinian youth who has never been free to go anywhere. But at the same time, a lot of that moving wasn’t by my own volition, but by the will of others (parents) who were moving. Still- what this did was scatter my moments throughout a large area of the Western United States.

    By moments I mean those incidents that change you, that mark a point in time when you changed. That could be my first crush, my first kiss, the first time I saw someone shot, the first time I got beaten. I often think of those moments as ghosts.

    The ghost of that moment lurks by the place where it happened. I can’t pass the corner where I lost my virginity without remembering it. I can’t pass the corner where I found a friend after she was raped without remembering it. All those corners are little bits of the past that will always haunt me.

    Which gets me to the Gaza youth, who have all the same corners I have. The Gaza youth with all the same incidents I’ve lived through, plus many more that I really can only guess at from my safe distance of freedom. And all of their incidents are pasted onto a “postage stamp” smaller than some of the counties I’ve lived in.

    I don’t know if I could live easily in a place where every corner has at least one ghost to haunt me.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      January 4, 2011 at 8:30 am

      Yes, this is part of why I ran the manifesto here on the AT. It’s written with a vivid freshness that goes beyond the usual news reports to give a real feel of what it’s like to live in Gaza right now, so that it resonates with an American who has never been confined this way. As you say, the sense of place, of belonging, is full of ‘corners where…’ — where this happened, that happened. It is full of significance, of moments and places that are like signposts, defining our sense of who we are. The fact that you can recognize yourself in the experience of these students, so different from yours and so incomparably harder, is I think a tribute to the power of their cry — and to your capacity for empathy.

    • Dr. Anwar Shah says:
      January 4, 2011 at 10:47 am

      Freedom is not cheap. Palestinian youth are at a disadvantage through no fault of their own but a sad series historical events. World community should take a more active role to help alleviate this misery of Gaza youth.

      • lavrans says:
        January 4, 2011 at 12:45 pm

        Freedom certainly isn’t cheap, but it’s easily squandered.

        So- how does one go about getting the world community to take a more active role? Letters to our Senators here? Letters to Israel and Hamas (what’s their address, anyhow)?

        It seems like reading and commenting on blogs & forums might do a little, but also feels like preaching to the choir.

        Maybe I could go to Gaza and start building a house? I could do that… (well, I’d like to, if I had the money and connections) but would it mean anything for some American atheist to help build a house? Might be a nice symbol though. Probably already happening? Would they even let me in?…

  2. Brad says:
    January 4, 2011 at 4:53 pm

    A few thoughts come to my mind. First, while no comfort to this particular group. I think about the suffering and lack of freedoms in many places around the world. I think back to the Holocaust, the genocide in Darfur, Somalia, Thailand and many other places around the world.

    I’m also reminded of something I read around 15 years ago in a document entitled the Prosperity of Humankind, in which it talks about “leaders” making decisions for all of us with little to no input from those most affected. Not only does is happen in Israel and Palestine, but many would argue it also happens here in the US.

    We need to recognize that we are all one mankind. “The earth is one country and mankind its citizens.” The decisions we make should be for the benefit of all, not just one country. While those of you who are agnostic or atheist might see this life as all that there is, at the same time most of us hate to see the suffering of others. We need to recognize that what harms one, harms us all. If we compare mankind to teh human body, each of us is part of that body of mankind. We do, I believe, have a responsibility to all the inhabitants of the planet.

    We are all going to have different ideas of how to accomplish those ideals, but the trick is not to be so arrogant as to believe that any one of us (or group or us) has the Truth. We need to consult and seek out the best ideas. Select an idea and then all support the idea, even if we disagree with it. Let the idea succeed or fail on its own. If the opposition immediately seeks to undermine a decision, therre is very little chance it can succeed.

    As to what to do for the Gaza Youth, other than getting directly involved, whcih some have the ability and means to do, for many of us, it is continuing to pressure our representatives to take stands based on character, not based on whether we can hold onto our positions of power.

    We have, IMHO, a lamentably defective system that exists in our country at this time. We must seek to eliminate partisan politics and seek a system that is focused on what is best for all peoples of the world. If we help the rest of the world to help themselves, and if we stop fighting over land, which is ultimately our graves, and recognize that we are all brothers and sisters regardless of race, creed, nationality, etc. Only then can we achieve peace throughout the world. We won’t eliminate problems, but we can work together to solve them as they arise. Up until now, it seems it takes a catastrophe to for us to come together.

    “The well-being of mankind,” Bahá’u’lláh wrote more than a century ago, “its peace and
    security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.”

    • Shishir Pandey says:
      January 6, 2011 at 1:19 pm

      Ah Bahá’u’lláh, and he created yet another religion..didn’t we have too many of them already?

      Jews-Christians-Muslims-Hindus and all theistic religions are the same, they are actually rather limited attempts to explain reality as the people living then saw it but people are stupid enough to follow them even today. Of all these religions Islam has the most advantages primarily because it is young and hence more nimble.
      We are now in a better position and so must evolve our own new religion, preferably one in which there is no god, son of god, or prophet a religion of curiosity, of science, of scientific method and inquiry.
      At least we can conduct experiments and see for ourselves what is accurate description of reality.

      The problem lies in the concept of a nation or nation state if you do away with boundaries than all that remains are humans, going a tad further if you take
      away the stupid religions all that separates people are their physical traits, which of course we can’t change but slowly most people accept and adapt to it.
      You are complaining about humanity yet you lament the state in your country, are you able to see beyond the narrow concept of a country or nation.

      Go ahead write on their Facebook wall, but that is just a load of bs, social networking will get them out of there, well they can always try. This is just propaganda, yes they are being bombed and they are persecuted but yet they can set up a Facebook page and ask for support..are they asking for funds yet if not that may follow or people may just volunteer the money.

      Yes go ahead you can call me callous, cruel, godless or just plain stupid.

      • Kiran Vasudeva says:
        January 12, 2011 at 4:34 am

        It IS true that the problem we have in Gaza, Kosovo, Bosnia etc are but manifestations of how we see each other as different. The perception of difference,by itself, would not be as much a problem but for the tendency of one to extrapolate it into something that is seen as a threat to their religion, nation and self. Things that make us stand out will always exist. While it is quite unpractical to expect an Utopian world where everyone is equal, the present conflicts do demand a more lasting solution. The only solution that comes close to achieving this “Education in tolerance”. This might not happen in one lifetime. But we surely should encourage our children to see all points of view of everything they encounter. To take educated decisions – always. To understand that since no one else can think and feel exactly like their selves, it should be acceptable and natural that “these others” arrive at different perspectives to the same situation – be it ideological, theological or existential. My vote goes not for Gaza, Palestine or Israel, but for Humanity. ONLY HUMANITY.

  3. Chemical _turk says:
    January 5, 2011 at 4:55 am

    After reading this I am hopeful about the middle east for the first time. I takes the generation of living in this situation to add clearity and simplicity to solve this Gordian knot.

  4. paul skillman says:
    January 5, 2011 at 8:45 pm

    The tragity that is still taking place in humanity today seems like somehow we can solve these situations with all the knowledge & human suffering our species has gone through down through the ages. What a species God or Fate has created.
    If the Jews had not suffered so much under Hitler there would not be this recoil in the Middle East.
    Somehow the Palestinians are the victums of what Hitler did to the Jews.
    Unfortunately I see no soluations.
    Why must Humanity keep suffering?

    • Concerned says:
      January 24, 2011 at 10:46 pm

      That is not entirely correct. While many Jews came to Palestine after WW2, Jews started immigrating to Palestine well before WWII to escape the Russian pogroms and anti-Semitism in the Arabic world.

  5. Huub Vos says:
    January 10, 2011 at 6:54 am

    Skillman study some history and stop telling tales

Wagering on Peace

Posted June 10th, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Is it rational to believe that peace is possible in the Middle East?  Sometimes it seems not.   A good friend in New York, a long-time Middle East peace activist, confided that the Israeli use of deadly force against the Gaza-bound flotilla had brought her close to despair.   Yet historian Tony Judt in an op-ed today sees some form of peace as inevitable:

As American officials privately acknowledge, sooner or later Israel (or someone) will have to talk to Hamas.  From French Algeria through South Africa to the Provisional I.R.A., the story repeats itself:  the dominant power denies the legitimacy of the “terrorists,” thereby strengthening their hand; then it secretly negotiates with them;  finally, it concedes power, independence or a place at the table.  Israel will negotiate with Hamas:  the only question is why not now.

I respect Judt’s historical certainty — he’s right, of course — but do I believe it?    I should, since I know how blindly mistaken despair can be.

I was close to despair when Menahem Begin was elected prime minister of Israel in 1976, yet just a few months later came the phone call from a well-informed friend telling me to turn on the radio for the next newscast, since Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was about to announce that he was coming to Jerusalem to visit Yad Vashem and talk to all 120 Members of Knesset.    I thought he was joking .  Sadat?  The arch-enemy?  No way.  And then I turned on the radio.

I remember staring at the plane as it landed in November 1977, as the door opened and then, for a long while, remained blank:  an empty black space against the white of the airplane body.  An unwanted part of my mind whispered that Egyptian commandos were about to burst out and gun down all of Israel’s leadership gathered on the tarmac at the bottom of the stairs.  Or that worse still, nobody at all would appear — that the opening would remain blank and empty, and it was all a cruel hoax.

I remember the heavy sinking feeling of September 1978 when after so much hope, it sounded as though the Camp David summit convened by Jimmy Carter between Begin and Sadat was going nowhere.  There was a blackout on news of the negotiations, and as they dragged on, commentator after commentator confidently declared that they were doomed.   Yet the Camp David accords were signed, and the following year, a full peace treaty.

So I need to remind myself that if even I can’t muster Tony Judt’s certainty,  hope is not irrational.  In fact it may be the only rational response to the seemingly ever-worsening mess in the Middle East.

My model is Pascal’s wager, an early form of game theory applied to the existence of God, and on my mind right now because I recently rented Eric Rohmer’s classic 1969 movie My Night at Maud’s, which includes the kind of Pascalian discussion that could only take place in a nouvelle vague French movie (worth a look, if only to instantly burnish your artsy credentials, let alone your philosophical pretensions).

Since the essence of the divine is “infinitely incomprehensible,” Pascal argued in  his Pensées, reason can neither prove nor disprove the  existence of God.  Basically, it comes down to a coin toss:  on the one side, reason, and on the other,  the possibility (given that he was in Catholic France) of eternal afterlife happiness.

(This doesn’t quite work for me, of course, since eternal life seems to me at best a nightmare and at worst a curse — as it was for the creators of the legends of the Wandering Jew and of Dracula and of Frankenstein — but I’ll bear with Pascal for now.)

To believe in the existence of God, he argued, demands no cost (sic) but results in high possible gain (the infinite happiness bit).  That is, the reward for belief is infinite if it turns out to be justified, and there is no penalty if it does not.  It makes no difference how slim the possibility of that reward might be.   “If you gain, you gain all,” he concluded,  “and if you lose, you lose nothing.”    Thus the only rational option, per Pascal, is to be irrational, and believe.

Why focus on this when the whole idea of betting on the existence of God seems to me an exercise in absurdity?   Because while I may not be a big fan of Pascal when it comes to God or not-God, the principle behind his thinking strikes me as extraordinarily apt when the subject is Middle East peace.  So let me try it out here — a kind of minimalist Pascalian argument, as distorted by myself, for hope:

If you give up hope and assume that peace in the Middle East is impossible, you essentially render it impossible.  That is, you stop envisioning peace or anything remotely approaching it.  You accept the status quo, which is in fact not a status quo, but an ever-downward spiral.    This appears to be the assumption of the current Israeli government, and the use of deadly force in the assault on the Gaza flotilla is yet another result of such an assumption.    It is the penalty for not believing in the possibility of peace.

If you follow Pascal’s logic, this is irrational.    Deny all possibility of peace, and you doom yourself to unending conflict.  To assume that peace is possible, no matter how slim the chance appears to be,  is thus the only rational option.    (And yes, this applies as much to Hamas as to Israel.)     The fact that you cannot see how to make peace does not mean that it’s impossible.   It may merely mean that you can’t see.

In  those months leading up to Sadat’s announcement of his visit to Jerusalem, when everything seemed so dark and no rational observer would have predicted anything remotely resembling peace, quiet negotiations were going on far from the public eye.  Does that mean such negotiations are going on now?   I seriously doubt it, though I obviously don’t know.   Nevertheless, for my own sanity, let alone for the future sanity of the Middle East and everyone in it, I have no option but to believe not only that negotiations could be going on, but that they should be — to believe, that is, in improbability instead of impossibility.   Or hope instead of despair.

Next post:  what peace really looks like.

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File under: agnosticism, atheism, Christianity, Middle East | Tagged: Tags: Anwar Sadat, Camp David, despair, Egypt, Eric Rohmer, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Menachem Begin, Pascal's wager, peace, Tony Judt | 2 Comments
  1. Lilly says:
    June 10, 2010 at 10:19 pm

    That was like a beautiful graceful ballet Lesley. It is vaguely familiar to me, I have used a version of it in moments of deep despair, mine is called act as if you really want to live. Using Pascal you made it possible for some of us not to fall down that hole of seeing our present situation as the natural outcome of a sequence of historical decisions and events that have taken us to this unbearable moment in time where peace does not appear possible. I mean even Aaron Miller, after 20 years of negotiating, doesn’t see peace prospects. .

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 11, 2010 at 10:12 am

      Thank you, especially from you, Lilly. Your perseverance against the odds is part of what keeps me going.

Can Wisdom Prevail?

Posted June 3rd, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Can something good be coming out of the Israel-Gaza-blockade-flotilla mess?  This lead story in today’s NYT indicates maybe so:

The Obama administration considers Israel’s blockade of Gaza to be untenable and plans to press for another approach to ensure Israel’s security while allowing more supplies into the impoverished Palestinian area, senior American officials said Wednesday.The officials say that Israel’s deadly attack on a flotilla trying to break the siege and the resulting international condemnation create a new opportunity to push for increased engagement with the Palestinian Authority and a less harsh policy toward Gaza.

“There is no question that we need a new approach to Gaza,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the policy shift is still in the early stages. He was reflecting a broadly held view in the upper reaches of the administration.

And later in the day, on the NYT website:

After insisting all week that its blockade of Gaza was essential to its security, the Israeli government is now “exploring new ways” of supplying the coastal enclave, an official said Thursday.In the face of unrelenting international outrage over a deadly raid on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza this week, the official said that Israel was determined that every ship heading to the enclave be inspected to prevent the smuggling of rockets and other weapons. But at the same time, the government wants to facilitate the entry of civilian goods, said the official, who described the latest thinking within the government on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Could some real movement toward at least easing the siege, if not ending it, be underway?  Could wisdom actually prevail?  Or am I just reading tea leaves?

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File under: Middle East | Tagged: Tags: blockade, flotilla, Gaza, Israel, Obama, Palestine | 2 Comments
  1. jennifer says:
    June 10, 2010 at 3:35 pm

    Mint tea leaves, I hope.

    Said Irshad Manji: “Our people are desperate. There are no jobs. There haven’t been for a very long time.” “But what about all the foreign aid the Palestinian Authority gets from the West?” I counter. I didn’t bother to bring up the additional monies from a …“United Nations relief agency that devoted to Palestinian refugees for three generations now. We’re taking millions of dollars that can be used for labs and hospitals in schools and business enterprise zones. Why do you still have refugee camps? Where does all the aid go?” “I don’t know about all of it, but some of it . . . “ She gestures as through placing cash into a pocket.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 10, 2010 at 4:49 pm

      Thanks Jennifer — mint tea, yes. Or sage tea. In a glass, with lots of honey.

      Re Irshad Manji’s ‘What’s Wrong with Islam Today,’ I admire her guts while still doubting her motives. Her point about corruption in Palestine and Gaza is hardly unique to the Middle East, so to fold it into a criticism of Islam, rather than of the specific governments involved, seems somewhat dubious. I think feminist scholars of Islam such as Fatima Mernissi (‘The Veil and the Male Elite’), Leila Ahmed (‘Women and Gender in Islam’) and Amina Wadud (‘Inside the Gender Jihad’) may be far more productive in bringing about change.

      As regards prospcts for negotiation, surely all sides have to work with what is, not with what they would want to be or what should be. That’s the only way to start moving from here to there.

Speechless in Gaza

Posted May 31st, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Seventy miles off the coast of Gaza, “at least 10”  more lives now need to be remembered on this USA Memorial Day.

I am all but speechless.

Military commandos dropped from helicopters onto a Free Gaza civilian ship in international waters and, per an Israeli government spokesman, were astonished when some people on deck stood their ground and attacked them with knives and iron bars. The commandos, he said, were unprepared for such resistance.  They had no option but to use guns.

No option?   Did nobody consider teargas?  Is Israel really going to claim that it was the victim here?

The simplest solution would have been for Israel to stand back and let the flotilla through.   But that would have been to acknowledge that the three-year siege of Gaza — let alone the three-week ‘Operation Cast Lead‘ assault on it eighteen months ago — has been self-defeating.    As Bradley Burston put it  in Haaretz:

Here in Israel, we have still yet to learn the lesson: We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege. The siege itself is becoming Israel’s Vietnam.

Indeed.  By laying siege to Gaza,  Israel is only laying siege to itself.  Perhaps now, under the rapidly building storm of international condemnation (this time, after all, it was not “only Palestinians” who were killed), the Israeli government will finally have  no option  but to use words instead of bullets, and face reality — the need not just to lift the blockade, but to start negotiating with the Hamas-led government of Gaza.

———————

End of the day postscript:   The deaths on the largest ship in the Free Gaza flotilla may yet achieve the goal that the flotilla itself could not — forcing Israel to lift the siege.  I can’t see how Israel can continue it now (though this may be simply a failure of my political imagination).  If indeed the siege/blockade is lifted or at least eased, could Israel finally come to terms with the reality of Hamas?  Or am I just desperately looking for a silver lining to this very black day?

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File under: Middle East | Tagged: Tags: assault, blockade, flotilla, Free Gaza Movement, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Palestine, siege | 4 Comments
  1. Ted Blackwell says:
    June 2, 2010 at 6:52 am

    I must admit that my reaction was very different than yours in that I was not, in the least, surprised at the Israeli commando interdiction of the lead ship. From what I have read, the commandos did not open fire (even though they were under physical attack) until they received permission from their tactical commander. I am surprised that their rules of engagement did not already give them the right of self-defense. While I agree that the Israeli political decision to isolate Gaza is a topic that could generate hours of debate, I would say that it is totally unreasonable to think that Israel would allow anyone by any means (land, sea, air) to breach that siege. That is not how they operate. Tear gas on the deck of a ship at sea would be “blowing in the wind” as Bob Dylan might say.

  2. Lesley Hazleton says:
    June 2, 2010 at 1:05 pm

    Ted — I don’t think the issue is “rules of engagement.” This was a military assault on a civilian vessel at night in international waters, and even in Israel, military experts acknowledge that it was bungled. Politically, the assault was clearly ill-conceived, or to put it another way, idiotic. But arguing over who is ‘right’ and who ‘wrong’ will get nobody anywhere. Self-righteousness only digs the rut deeper. The real issue here is not even the siege itself, which has placed one and a half million impoverished people for three years (plus a year before that under slightly less stringent conditions) in what is essentially a 140-square-mile internment camp, and which is highly questionable under international law. The real issue is the refusal to negotiate. The Israeli government and the Hamas-led government of Gaza hate each other, but in the long term, they have no option but to talk to each other. The terrible question is how many more people have to die before that happens.

    • Ted Blackwell says:
      June 2, 2010 at 5:02 pm

      Lesley, I’m not raising the “rules of engagement” to the issue level, it was more of a side comment. The biggest issue, as you said, is how to get Hamas and Israel to talk and negotiate … an almost impossible task, given that Hamas’ goal is the destruction of Israel. What is absolutely confounding to me is: why did any of those activists believe Israel would allow them to pass, and why did they believe they could attack commandos and not be engaged? The Turks are sending a larger vessel to challenge the blockade. This is “upping the ante” with much larger consequences for both nations, as I know you understand. I’m hoping Turkey and Israel can avoid an escalation. They are two nations with huge military resources.

      • Lesley Hazleton says:
        June 2, 2010 at 10:22 pm

        It’s hard to say for sure right now, but it appears (per a report in The Guardian quoting Turkish news sources) that among the loose alliance of groups on board there were a dozen or so radical Islamists who were determined to fight no matter what, though that still does not explain the Israeli use of such disproportionate force. As for the expectations of the vast majority of the Free Gaza activists, their point, as I understand it, was not so much to actually reach Gaza as to draw world attention to the siege and blockade. That’s why I wrote in my previous post, Heading for Gaza, that I wished I were on board. The next boat aiming to run the blockade, within the coming week, is apparently from Ireland, and presumably will also be stopped, though this time without deadly force.

        Meanwhile, re Hamas and Israel talking — I know, I know, it seems impossible. But then, when a well-informed friend called me one morning in 1977 and told me to turn on the radio for the next newscast because Egypt’s Anwar Sadat would announce that he was going to visit Israel, that was impossible too. Seriously, I thought he was joking. And then I turned on the radio.

Heading for Gaza

Posted May 29th, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Where I wish I was right now:  on board a Free Gaza boat heading for the coast with relief supplies.  From Friday’s NYT:

Israel braced for a showdown with a flotilla of nine vessels carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists and thousands of tons of supplies headed for Gaza. It was the most ambitious attempt so far to break Israel’s maritime blockade of the Hamas-run coastal enclave.

The naval police in Gaza City on Wednesday made preparations for the arrival of a flotilla carrying activists and supplies.

The flotilla of cargo ships and passenger boats, led by the Free Gaza Movement and a Turkish organization, Insani Yardim Vakfi, converged at sea from a number of countries over the last 10 days.

Israel, which says it allows basic supplies into Gaza through points along the land border, denounced the flotilla as a political provocation and has vowed not to let the boats reach Gaza.

The Israeli blockade has been going on nearly three years, to what should be Israel’s utter shame.   It may well be what Ariel Sharon had in mind when he ordered Israel’s “withdrawal” from Gaza in 2005 — get out, surround the whole strip with barbed wire and military, establish absolute control over what and who comes in and out, and  turn it into a kind of huge internment camp.  On paper:  withdrawal.  In practice:  a stranglehold.

It makes me want to scream.

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File under: Middle East | Tagged: Tags: Ariel Sharon, blockade, Free Gaza Movement, Gaza, Israel, Palestine | 2 Comments
  1. Linda Williams says:
    May 29, 2010 at 9:29 am

    Perhaps, if we all SCREAM loud enough, we will eventually be heard.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      May 29, 2010 at 10:02 am

      I wish: The Worldwide Gaza Scream.

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