Roger Cohen's False Balance

Roger Cohen's July 24th essay in the New York Times is a masterpiece of deceptive construction and lying by omission. "Hamas establishes a stranglehold over 1.8 million Palestinians squeezed into ... the 'open-air prison' of Gaza" — as if it were Hamas that maintains that prison; as if Palestinians had not chosen Hamas because the grossly corrupt and ineffectual Palestinian Authority had not proved itself more loyal to Likud than to Palestinians.

No mention of attacks on civilians sheltered at UN facilities.

No mention of Palestinian-hating Israelis like Rabbi Dov Lior or Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman ... or Benjamin Netanyahu.

No mention of the support of American anti-Palestinian bigots like Michael Bloomberg or Chuck Schumer. ...Or Barack Obama, who will never dare support the kinds of sanctions against Israel that he has brought against Russia, though by _any_ measure Israel's crimes are far worse.

No mention of how the "Middle East's only democracy" is clamping down on free speech and democracy for Palestinians _and_ for Israelis like those at B'Tselem, which has been barred from airing the names of the children Israel has killed.

Israel is firmly convinced it can win because of American support. And many people who claim to support peace refuse to condemn Israeli crimes or American support for those crimes — people like Roger Cohen.

Israel Uses Facebook . . . and What Else?

It turns out, not surprisingly, that Israel made use of Facebook to identify and track pro-Palestinian activists recently. This is probably only a tiny fraction of Israel's overall effort to track critics.

First, most (possibly all, given post 9/11 developments) electronic communications are monitored by the anglophone countries, especially the U.S., U.K., Canada, N.Z., and Australia. This has been the case for many years. The Echelon facility, based in Britain, has been monitoring electronic communications for decades. It is located in Britain precisely to avoid US government violations of American law. Mention something like this in the hearing of a Times editor or reporter (like John Burns or Thomas Friedman) and you will instantly be labeled a "conspiracy theorist," despite the fact that such media figures know this to be the case.

Second, the Obama administration has repeatedly made clear than even unambiguous speech-acts are now being taken to constitute "material support" for whatever organization is in the sights of the U.S. government. The U.S. has dug itself into a nice hole on this one (possibly with some malice aforethought). The Supreme Court has ruled (and Obama, Democrats, and Republicans have endorsed the view) that spending money is a speech act. Of course, money can be essential to material support of an enterprise. Thus, the groundwork is laid for extending restrictions on freedom of speech by likening, say, vocal support for Palestinian rights to "yelling fire in a crowded theater." And this indeed is a rhetorical/political/legal move made by diehard Israel-supporters and their willing slaves in the U.S. government and media as they seek to choke off any and all support for Palestinians.

Finally, we know that the U.S. shares "intelligence" with Israel. Likewise, we know from recent reports that Google shares information on users to varying degrees with various countries. The U.S. leads in demands placed on Google, and Google usually complies. Israel likewise enjoys near-total compliance. We also know that the major telecoms have raised no word of objection whatsoever to U.S. demands for secret access. What Israel has demanded and received we can only guess, but given the hysterical support that Israel enjoys in the U.S., I wouldn't be surprised to find that it sees greater compliance than the U.S. government. Furthermore, there is a small army of extremist, pro-Israel fanatics ready to level any and every charge at any and every critic of Israel. Computing technology has made the collection and sorting of all this information very easy for years.

Thus we have three components that reduce Facebook to what is likely a tiny component of a much larger monitoring (and control) apparatus:

1. Technological means;
2. Vastly expanding conceptions of what constitute (a) threats and (b) legitimate means; and
3. A disparate, dispersed but nevertheless organized body of very willing participants.

The advantages for those who support human rights, whether Palestinians' or anybody's (since I think it is safe to say that every last person on Earth _not_ in the top 5% of the most privileged is under attack) are:

1. Sheer numbers;
2. Growing ease of communication;
3. Commitment to a stable, sustainable, humanitarian solution.

I think the strategy for We the People should be

1. Absolute openness (combat secrecy with openness);
2. Ever-repeated commitment to non-violence;
3. An extended, open hand even to those with whom we disagree.

Democracy's End

Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss has some comments on a current Ethan Bronner story in The New York Times. Weiss notes Bronner's effective recognition of the death of the Two State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If I read Weiss correctly, he thinks it may portend the end of the Jewish State. I think it may mark an alternative, depending on how wedded Israelis and their American champions are to Democracy. Israelis and Americans are facing, largely independently, a parallel choice between preserving two increasingly incompatible Articles of National Faith. In Israel's case, they are the notions of Democracy and Jewish Statehood (which were arguably incompatible from the start, emphasis on arguably — not necessarily in my view). In the case of the US, the two are Democracy and (unlimited acquisition of) Wealth (termed free enterprise, private property — it has several names).

If the US and Israel are not already at a Moment of Truth (drumroll), they soon will be. The Jewish State may be finished, or — if Americans and Israelis choose to junk some other cherished notion — it may continue in radically altered form.

The obvious alternative to be junked is democracy. My view is that it will be the democracy that is dumped — not explicitly, but in substance and with a widespread, unstated recognition that this is what is happening.

There are calls in the Knesset for a more systematic denial of rights to Palestinians, but this has been true for some time. Likewise, there is a systematic denial of equal rights to non-Jews in Israel. The vast majority of non-Jews are Palestinian, so that systematic denial does the work, not just of latent racism, but of preserving the "Jewish character" of the Jewish state.

A further emphasis on protecting "Jewish character" to resolve the tension between a Two State Solution and Jewish Statehood will also bring denials of democracy to Jews in Israel. This, too, is happening with the grossly disproportionate power of the religious right. Israel is also seeing some evidence of liberal-intellectual flight.

How is the de-democratization of Israel to be managed in The World's Greatest Democracy? A good deal of Orwellian linguistic construction aided by the non-quite-coincidental de-democratization of the United States. Economists, first on the left and now increasingly among liberals, are noting this. And progressives generally have been warning of this since the Reagan years, when the "Danger of Too Much Democracy" was first attacked with malice aforethought.

In an interview with Bill Maher, Paul Krugman said, "The American Dream isn't dead, but it's dying pretty fast." Dean Baker has an essay on the service Congress renders to Wall Street and corporate America — not to us. Essential to Democracy are social mobility and some ideal of socio-economic equality serving as a goal. Both are near-dead in the US. Our politicians are becoming a political class. They become wealthier, use their elected positions to ensure or promote their own wealth and, if they leave office, go to work for precisely the companies they regulated (or didn't) through legislation. Their children take office after they leave. If we haven't already, when will we see a third-generation Kennedy take office — or a Murkowsi, Paul, Cuomo, Bush . . . ?

Elections are becoming near-irrelevant in the US. The great beacon of Change and Hope — Obama — has proved to be anything but, indeed almost the opposite. Who could imagine that Obama would not just fail to address Bush crimes, but actually further some of Bush's worst?

The decline of democracy in the US — coupled crucially with Orwellian language to perpetuate the Myth of Democracy — will make it easier for Israel-idealogues in the US to maintain the pretense that Israel is a democracy.

The irony in Israel's case is that a profound change in Judaism itself may be a consequence. If Judaism is identified with the Jewish State (as it is, above all by conservatives), then as Israel becomes more right-wing, less democratic and more discriminatory, Judaism will, sadly and possibly tragically, be also so identified. Liberal Jews will seek religious solace elsewhere, some abandoning Judaism, others seeking to create a true, liberal Jewish faith. Judaism will evolve in a way exactly counter to, and as a consequence of, what conservatives intend.

What will happen in the US is anybody's guess. Legal institution of oligarchy? Perhaps that is already happening with the formal protections granted Wall Street and corporate profiteering.

Israel's Humiliation of Normally Docile American 'Leaders' Backfires, But Only a Little

Israel's toying with the morons who pass for 'leaders' in the United States is nothing new. The difference is that Obama is of above average intelligence and, most important, has something resembling a conscience. George W. Bush was profoundly stupid and a true believer, a true racist, a true advocate of a Crusade to defeat Islam.

Obama genuinely believes that Arabs, including Palestinians, have rights. That puts him in a bind never faced by Republicans or most Democrats. Like all but five or six Democrats, Obama's main mission is the balancing act of pleasing the most powerful people as much of the time as possible — Wall Street, health insurers, military contractors, etc. — the American Oligarchs. But because he has something like a conscience, he actually believes in something like democracy — and (rare among Americans) not just for Americans and other members of the Judeo-Christian Western tradition.

What to do then when Israel must be appeased to appease powerful interests in the US but justice actually requires saying no to the Middle East's leading war criminal state? What to do when Israel is doing exactly what it has been doing for over 40 years and has promised to continue doing?

Answer: Orwellify! Send two messages designed to sound like one (or maybe I mean one message designed to sound like two). Have Biden prate about the 'demographic threat' to Israel while uttering the word "Palestine" (a word that the New York Times still can't print, that Israelis still choke on). Have Hillary issue "strong language". Behind closed doors — in Israel, at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center, in speeches to AIPAC, etc. — promise that Israel will always enjoy the full backing of the US.

The Orwellian game is complicated these days by the growing delusion in Israel that Israel has a divine right to whatever the hell it demands. There's always been a minority that believed this, but that minority may now be a majority. Bad timing. The nation that enabled Israel's national psychosis is weakened worldwide by almost twenty years of war crimes in Iraq, absurd military expenditures, a steady economic decline and its own national psychoses.
_____
An aside: Israel propagandist Martin Indyk has a piece on the Brookings website about Netanyahu's political calculus behind humiliating the pathetic Biden.

Father of Rachel Corrie Challenges President Obama

What the Times or the BBC Will Likely Never Show You About Israel's Occupation

Below is a map of the West Bank (in French, but it's easily read).

The red line — the Wall. Note how most of it runs well inside Palestinian territory.

Yellow squares — permanent checkpoints (there are far far more 'temporary checkpoints')

Black triangles — settlements started after Israel agreed to cease new settlement activity.

Orange — the glaring truth-teller — land barred to Palestinians. Note especially the Jordan River Valley, a crucial source of water. Israel gets approximately 40% of its fresh water from the West Bank. Be assured that Israel has no intention at all of ever leaving the Jordan River valley.

Orange lines — "Jewish-only" roads. Sound like apartheid?

Test Case for a Double Standard

As often happens, events have provided us with an excellent test case of the double standard applied in events received by Arabs and Muslims versus those received by Israelis and Jews as such.

The BBC reports that Israel's Supreme Court has okayed construction of the "Museum of Tolerance" which will involved destroying part of an ancient Muslim cemetery. Some of the graves date back to the times of the Crusades, centuries ago.

Palestinians and Muslims are understandably infuriated. Many Israeli Jews are likewise upset. Israel's idolaters are, by contrast, displaying just how bigoted they are. The BBC cites Rabbi Marvin Hier, from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who "said the museum was a sensible use of 'derelict land'." The Wiesenthal Center has been the driving force behind the 250 million dollar museum.


We have to marvel at the sheer audacity and hypocrisy in building a "Museum of Tolerance" on land cherished by Muslims. It speaks volumes of the Israeli perception of Arabs.

And interestingly, there are some cases against which to compare reactions. In New York City in 2006, a Jewish cemetery abutting a construction site suffered some damage from falling debris. People were understandably upset. (New York Times. "Debris Falls on Historic Jewish Cemetery", June 9, 2006)

Then, Rabbi Marc D. Angel, senior rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel said, "It's a big deal because the cemetery is very important to us. . . . We are highly sensitive to anything that happens in that cemetery."

Likewise, when an African American burial site was revealed in lower Manhattan, great effort was made to preserve remains and the site itself. Had people responded in the way Marvin Hier has, there would have been wholly appropriate charges of racism. But not so when Israelis treat Palestinians as beneath them.

The "Museum of Tolerance" or "Proof on Intolerance" has already brought controversy, as the New York Times reported in August 2004:

At the most hyperbolic edge of the debate, the American architect and critic Michael Sorkin claimed in Architectural Record that the Gehry design's use of large, irregular stone blocks ''uncomfortably evokes the 'deconstruction' of Yasir Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah into a pile of rubble by Israeli security forces.'' The leftist Israeli politician Meron Benvenisti, the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, denounced the museum in the newspaper Ha'aretz as ''so hallucinatory, so irrelevant, so foreign, so megalomaniac.'' Even mainstream Israelis are dubious that a museum conceived, financed and designed by Americans can possibly fathom, much less redress, the political and social chasms here. Palestinians, who usually agree with Israelis on so little, express similar skepticism.

The Wiesenthal Center's Marvin Hier has also demonstrated just how tolerant he is of Palestinians. The Museum will avoid much, perhaps any, mention of the occupation of Palestinian territory or conflict with Palestinians (either those resident in and citizens of Israel or those in the Occupied Territories). Hier's enlightened comment: "It's not about the experience of the Palestinian people. When they have a state, they'll have their own museum." The obvious question with whether Marvin Hier supports Palestinian statehood.

One point not raised by the BBC: Once the "Museum" is built, that area will of course become off-limits to Arabs, or at least one to which access is severely restricted. Indeed this is already happening. The BBC reported in 2006 that Palestinians accustomed to visiting grave sites in the cemetery were already being barred from so doing.

So much for tolerance.

[Return to this site for the response of Gehry Partners and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. I will try contacting them on Tuesday, 10 November]

References

Gehry Partners

Simon Wiesenthal Center

Times article on Manhattan cemetery

Times article on Museum

2006 BBC article on Museum. The Times article notably omits any mention of the damage mentioned here.

November 2008 BBC article

2007 Jerusalem Post article

The War Criminals' Delight

American media are waving their hands, Thomas Friedman is blubbering, Condoleeza Rice is preaching, and American and Israelis generally are doing the standard line: "It's all the Palestinians' fault".

What's actually happening? Israel occupies Palestine for 40 years, systematically rapes the land, kills the people. The US arms Israel to do still more of same. Palestinians demand the very rights Israelis and Americans demand for themselves. Palestinians exercise their democratic rights. Israel and the US apply ever harsher measures. Palestinian society falls apart.

And then the Americans and Israelis say, "See? We told you so."

There is no people, no animal, that could be treated as Israelis and Americans treat Palestinians without cries that a crime is being committed. Yet in the case of the Palestinians, Friedman, Dershowitz, Rice, Cheney, their fellow war criminals blame the victims without fail.

Later this year -- in September -- we will see the 25th anniversary of the Israeli (particularly Sharon) orchestrated massacre at Sabra and Shatila. My prediction: the US and Israel will ignore it. Or they will blame the Palestinians. And if anyone dare criticize Israel for that crime, that person will be attacked in the style exemplified by Dershowitz.