GUNNING DOWN ISRAEL SHAMIR
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GUNNING DOWN ISRAEL SHAMIR

May 3, 2001

Washington Scene:

HOW AND WHY THE ARAB AMERICAN CROWD (ADC IN THE LEAD)

SCREWED THE WRITER ISRAEL SHAMIR

Part 1

"Principal among the failures of these graft-ridden and incompetent regimes has been their refusal to accept that Israel is home to more than just the Ariel Sharons of this world. It also features people like Israel Shamir, whose passionate and eloquent words in defense of Arab rights graced this page yesterday... If Arab countries were competently ruled, this man would have more invitations than would be possible for him to accept..." Editorial, Daily Star (Beirut)

MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 5/03: The worst thing that happened to the people of the Middle East in recent history was the imposition on them by the Western powers of the "Client Regimes" -- those who read MER regularly know what we are talking about; and those who are just getting started can go back and read much of what we have published before. Incidentally, we are all extra indebted to Noam Chomsky for imprinting this term into our consciousness and for giving it so much depth and context over the years.

And the worst thing that has happened to Arab Americans (and in fact to all those trying to support Palestinian rights and real justice in both the Middle East and the United States) is the imposition on them of "Client Organizations"; which in turn has been done primarily by the "Client Regimes" to protect their own interests which means keeping a tight lid on information, analysis, and criticism about what is really going on in the region and why.

Control at home, and control abroad, are what it's all about -- that's control of information and analysis, as well as wealth and power.

Thus in the end, this little mini-story in the past few weeks of how the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and its current two top media enforcers -- named Ibish and Abunimah -- worked mightily to screw the brilliant and iconoclastic writer Israel Shamir who had become the darling of grassroots Arabs and Palestinians, is paradigmatic of how things are done. .Indeed, it was a number of grassroots Arab and Palestinian persons and organizations who invited Shamir to come to speak to them in a few cities around the US. And then it was the self-appointed "leadership", the "client organizations", who cut him down.

A week ago tomorrow, after learning that some speaking engagements had been cancelled and then getting a kind of last straw message from Versa Books that they were cancelling his inclusion in a new book about the Intifada, Shamir headed to the airport and prematurely returned home to Jaffa.

He's a very optimistic man by nature, rather spiritual as well in his determination to spread humanism, compassion, and understanding, everywhere he goes. In the past year since Intifada II began his writings have relentlessly focused on the urgent need for equality among Jews and Palestinians, as well as the great dangers pregnant in contemporary Israeli society and the also urgent need to protect and defend the Palestinian people from the Israeli and Jewish "supremacists" (to use Shamir's term) of our era. These writings have gained Shamir a very unusual and widespread following. Indeed, it's a following especially among the more sophisticated grassroots Arabs and Palestinians who have in many cases been moved to tears and excited to hopes upon reading his essays. But remember, that's at the more sophisticated grassroots level; and precisely why in the end the "enforcers" of the "client organizations" went after him to undermine his following.

One sophisticated and dedicated Palestinian businessman applauding Shamir's writings wrote to say he wanted to promote Shamir for the Presidency of the new democratic State, if and when such a State of equal citizens should ever be. Another, that Shamir should be nominated for a Nobel Prize. And the English-language Daily Star in Beirut had such uplifting things to say about Shamir just a few weeks ago in the editorial reproduced below:

But for all of Shamir's literary gifts and personal humanism, when it came to the political labyrinth of the Middle East jungle he just was not prepared. And so when his US tour exposed him to the political diseases somewhat unique to the "Washington Scene" he was very vulnerable. Indeed Shamir appeared rather bewildered that those who were supposed to be his friends and allies in some cases turned out to be repeatedly stabbing him in the back. With enforcers Ibish and Abunimah out front doing the dirty work, it was really ADC and the "client regimes" doing their usual when it comes to anyone Israeli or Jewish who doesn't come to them for "guidance" and whom they don't control -- spreading rumors aiming to divide and confuse and which their usually naive flock usually follows like lemmings -- he must be an "agent" of the Mossad; he's a " Zionist" of one kind or another; and in this particular case, he's really an "anti-semite" in disguise.

Stay tuned for more about this little paradigmatic story whose implications go so far beyond; and as usual for much more about the "Washington Scene" from MER:

Opinion: THE ELUSIVE PEACE

For right-minded people everywhere, the quest for peace if the first thing that comes to mind whenever the subject of the Middle East is broached. Some of the best intellects in the world have been applied to this quest, constantly probing in a decades-old expedition to arrive at the solution for one of the world's most compelling conflicts. But the reason they have been unsuccessful so far is because they have failed to accurately define that which they so avidly seek: They know full what they want for the region but have absolutely no idea what it will look like when and if they find it.

This unfortunate state of affairs was made almost inevitable by the nature of the Zionist dream and by the massive resources required of the Zionist project.

The belief that God himself promised Palestine to the Jews was troublesome enough, implying as it does that non-Jews were somehow inferior. To make matters worse, though, "building the Land of Israel" would have been impossible without heavy funding from international Jewry, and it was determined very early on that attracting such donations could best be accomplished by selling the process as a venture allowing "pioneers" to "make the desert bloom."

The prime obstacle to this scenario was the inconvenient presence of a people, the Palestinians, on the land in question and so they were ascribed the role of "savages" whose lack of civilization justified Jewish claims to be "taming a hostile climate" in "uncharted territory."

From this troublesome seed came all that has followed, so that even today, many Israelis advocate what amounts to apartheid as a means to achieve the "peace" that has been so elusive. They don't call it apartheid, of course, but the term "separation" fools no one, especially when one considers the collective fate of those Palestinians who have accepted Israeli citizenship.

Their "separate" villages, "separate" municipal councils, "separate" schools, and "separate" state services all have in common that they pale in comparison to those enjoyed by Israel's Jewish citizens: The Arab-Israeli community has horrendous unemployment, grossly under-funded municipalities, a comparatively dilapidated educational system, and paltry access to household and irrigation water. To make matters worse, they are banned from certain types of employment, and their political representation has been deliberately diluted.

This sprawling collection of economic and socio-political depredations cannot help but fuel distress when one considers that so far, official Israeli visions of peace whether they contemplate a "final-status" agreement or unilateral "separation" must of necessity have an even worse fate in store for the Palestinians, who would not enjoy the "benefits" of Israeli citizenship.

On top of all these temporal issues sits the Holy City of Jerusalem, one held dear by all of the monotheistic religions but illegally annexed politically and steadily devoured culturally by a state that freely admits to speaking only for one: Judaism.

Against this backdrop of institutionalized racism has grown up an Arab response whose sorrows have been outnumbered only by its failures. US aid to Israel made military victory impossible, but that was never the most essential front in the first place: The key venue was the ideological one, the one that decided the outcome of the propaganda struggle, the one that determined the two sides' claims to credibility the one on which the Arab world has failed more spectacularly than on any battlefield because its leaders lack the cloak of legitimacy that democracy alone can provide. The Arabs have not fallen behind in this all-important race because they are stupid, but because their governments have ranged from the benignly dictatorial to the unforgivably despotic.

Principal among the failures of these graft-ridden and incompetent regimes has been their refusal to accept that Israel is home to more than just the Ariel Sharons of this world. It also features people like Israel Shamir, whose passionate and eloquent words in defense of Arab rights graced this page yesterday. This is hardly the first time Shamir has expressed such enlightened opinions, and his views carry considerable influence on public opinion in the Jewish state. If Arab countries were competently ruled, this man would have more invitations than would be possible for him to accept. Anyone who can help the Arab cause is ipso facto a friend, be he Israeli or Martian, Jew or fire-worshipper.

What sort of entity rules out the possibility of making new friends and therefore the chance to change the thinking of its enemies? One whose faculties are clouded by the laughable notion that governments know best and must therefore prevent their citizens from mixing with their opposite numbers on the other side of the great divide; one whose outmoded dogma seeks to further a siege mentality by keeping its people from discovering how much they have in common with those whom they have been told to despise; one whose greatest fear is that "peace," whatever it looks like, will make tyranny that much more untenable and therefore jeopardize its own ability to retain power.

Israel Shamir should be warmly invited to visit Arab countries such as Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, where he would no doubt find that the great majority of people harbor no intrinsic hatred for him or his religion: After all, Jews lived among Arabs Muslims and Christians both for an awfully long time before all of the tragedies engendered by Zionism. The resentments that exist in Lebanon, for example, are the result of what his governments have done to our country, not of anything that he as an individual has ever done to any one of us.

After all the stops and starts, after all the conflicting effects of local and world wars, Arab nationalism, Arab socialism, the Cold War, and the staggering peace process, the principals Arab and Jew are still the same. Much of the clutter has been lifted, but we still cannot see what peace looks like. That's why bringing people like Shamir here would be so helpful. Real peace looks like him but only if we are willing to take him by the hand and look him in the eye. DAILY STAR, Beirut, 3-22-01.


May 2001


Magazine



FEISAL HUSSEINI - DEAD AT 60 IN KUWAIT
(May 31, 2001)
Feisal Husseini will be buried tomorrow in Jerusalem with great circumstance. However whatever else he was, and many think he was a good and committed man, he was a fairly simple man and he certainly was not a great man.

SHARON SHOULD SURRENDER TO HISTORY
(May 25, 2001)
Like many nation states born out of war, Israel must re-evaluate its past in order to move forward, argues Mark Mazower*

THE GAZA GHETTO/PRISON
(May 25, 2001)
The "Gaza Strip" is a huge ghetto; created of course by the Israelis. In a sense it is also the largest prison in the world as the great majority of those who reside in Gaza are unable to leave and return through any of the handful of Israeli army checkposts which control who comes and goes.

APARTHEID ISRAEL
(May 24, 2001)
"There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies -- not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy."

WATER WARS
(May 24, 2001)
In the end its not really the "settlements" that will determine which civilization will prosper in the once Holy Land now so fought over by the descendants of Abraham. Control and use of WATER is even more at the heart of the conflict between the two competing societies.

CONTINUE THE INTIFADA
(May 23, 2001)
It's a terrible deal for the Palestinians actually -- they expected to give up their very justifiable struggle against the occupier in exchange for another promise to "freeze settlements". Gee...it was just last year that Yasser Arafat was proclaiming ad infinitum that no matter what there would be a Palestinian State by the end of the year!

WHAT THE "MITCHELL COMMISSION REPORT" REALLY SAYS
(May 23, 2001)
"Here's your lifeline Yasser, Nabil, Jabril, and all you Palestinian VIPs -- and you better grab it because it may be the last one you get".

THE MITCHELL COMMISSION REPORT -- A LONG SORDID HISTORY
(May 22, 2001)
The big fix is on of course with the "Mitchell Commission Report". Other madmen desperately scampering from one TV studio to the next are "Ambassador" Dennis Ross, now back at the Israeli/Jewish lobby from whence he came, and of course Senator Mitchell, himself retired from the most pro-Israeli political body on the planet ...

ARAFAT AND THE WORLD FORCED TO DANCE TO SHARON'S WAR TUNES
(May 21, 2001)
The Israelis are pushing their lies, schemes, deceptions, and brutality more than ever these days. It's all designed of course to demoralize and confuse the Palestinians, to twist and torture them into submission.

BREAKING NEWS - RAJOUB HIT
(May 20, 2001)
Jibril Rajoub is a favorite of the CIA, the headquarters of which he has personally visited numerous times in recent years on his visits to Washington. His force is the main one trained by the CIA in order to keep the Arafat Regime in power ...

TRUE MARTYRDOM
(May 20, 2001)
Mahmoud Ahmed Marmash -- 21 and now departed -- never knew anything other than Israel's brutal military occupation. He never knew anything other than Arab "client regimes" and the Arafat "Authority". He never knew anything other than a savage Israeli army, fueled by an increasingly racist ideology, armed and financed by America.

ISRAEL - APARTHEID IN THE MIDDLE EAST
(May 20, 2001)
A little trip back in history's lane will result in all kinds of close connections between Israel and South Africa in the days of Apartheid. And during that trip one will discover that Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin were at the top of the list of those promoting those relations.

THE ARAB AMERICANS and their "CLIENT ORGANIZATIONS"
(May 19, 2001)
There are many desperate and depressed people out there these days, especially among Palestinians, their friends, and the Jewish left that is mortified to awaken to find itself with Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister, the hoped for salvation of the Oslo "Peace Process" destroyed, and one of their false prophets, Shimon Peres, at Sharon's side.

SUICIDE BOMB, ISRAELI AIR STRIKES CAUSE NEW CARNAGE
(May 18, 2001)
A suicide bombing followed by retaliatory Israeli air strikes killed 16 people and injured 200 on Friday in one of the bloodiest days since a Palestinian uprising erupted nearly eight months ago.

ISRAEL'S ARMY - A NEW, PERHAPS DANGERSOUS, FREEDOM
(May 18, 2001)
TRIGGER-HAPPY troops set loose? Questions about the response of Israeli soldiers facing Palestinian demonstrators are being asked, and not just by Palestinians. But suspicions about individual behaviour are less relevant than the clear fact that the army, given its head by Ariel Sharon, has made a deliberate decision ...

SEVEN KILLED, OVER 50 INJURED IN SUICIDE BOMB ATTACK
(May 18, 2001)
A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to the Hasharon shopping mall in the center of the coastal town of Netanya at around 11.30 A.M on Friday morning. Seven people were killed in the blast, one of them most likely the bomber himself.

ISRAELI ARMY ON THE RAMPAGE
(May 17, 2001)
The Israelis are more and more specifically targeting children, journalists, and Palestinians at all levels. The goal is to create such fear, such intimidation, such apprehension, that ...

MORE BLOOD AND MEMORIES FLOW ON "DISASTER DAY"
(May 16, 2001)
Yesterday was the 53rd anniversary of what the Israelis believe was the start of their independence and the Palestinians believe was the start of their ongoing and tortuous "disaster", the "nakba".

"SCHOLARS, INTELLECTUALS, EXPERTS BETRAY THEIR VOCATIONS..." - MER FLASHBACK
(May 15, 2001)
The recent orgy of 'activism' surrounding the new "Har Homa" settlement has given 'peace groups' and various Arab Americans groups something to do again.

THERE WERE WARNINGS THEN, THERE ARE WARNINGS NOW
(May 15, 2001)
It's 53 years now since Palestine was fractured, a Jewish State was born, the Palestinian refugee crisis created. There were warnings from both Arab and Jewish leaders what would result if a "Jewish State" were declared when the British withdrew from Palestine in 1948.

NO JUNITY, NO ALLIES, NO FUTURE
(May 14, 2001)
Let's get right to the bottom line here first. Those American Jews, and whoever else for that matter have been looking to what is called "JUNITY" (that's "Jewish Unity For a Just Peace" so they say) ...

AN AFFRONT TO CIVILISATION
(May 13, 2001)
I was on my way to Khan Yunis, a desperately poor Palestinian refugee town in the Gaza Strip, when we learned it was under heavy bombardment. Please, urged my Palestinian guides, could I postpone my visit to the next day?

IN MEMORY OF PROF. CHARLES BLACK
(May 12, 2001)
"Against hugh odds...they decline to submit, and instead go out on the streets and pick up stones. They are beaten without let or mercy. They are imprisoned under obscene conditions, after kangaroo trials, or no trials at all.

THREATENING WRITERS AND MORE ASSASSINATIONS
(May 12, 2001)
Of course what the Israelis are doing in so many areas to many classes of people is dastardly and deserves widespread condemnation. The first article details what the Israelis are doing to Palestinian writers who are citizens of Israel; the second to Palestinian activists who are struggling against Israel's occupation.

HASHEMITE COLLUSION AND REPRESSION
(May 11, 2001)
The Hashemite Regime of King Abdullah the Second is running more and more scared; and for good reason. After all, the collusion of this regime with the Israelis, going way back to the beginning of the conflict...

MAHMOUD DARWISH ON 53RD NAKBA ANNIVERSARY
(May 11, 2001)
Next Tuesday, 15 May, is the 53rd Anniversary of what the Palestinians call the Nakba, the "Disaster", and what the Israelis call their Independence. In a very unusual move some 250 Arab Professors and Intellectuals have issued a call for their own countries to finally join in a serious way the Palestinian struggle.

FROM HERZL TO SHARON - STEALTH DISPOSSESSION
(May 10, 2001)
"The removal of Arabs bodily from Palestine is part of the Zionist plan to 'spirit the penniless population across the frontier' by denying it employment... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."

THE POLITICAL PROSTITUTION OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN PALESTINE
(May 10, 2001)
We're talking here about political prostitution; for it too is an age-old profession and it too leads to many other vices.

THE POPE GOES VISITING
(May 9, 2001)
With the creation of a "Jewish State" in the Holy Land, in a sense a new era began twisting the modern-day concept of nationality back to one of ethnic and religious identification.

FROM HELL WITH LOVE
(May 8, 2001)
Ironically, in the early years of this ignoble "Peace Process", Dr. Sarraj himself -- a dignified psychiatrist and recipient of the Physician for Human Rights Award -- was arrested three times, tortured, and threatened with death...not by the Israelis but by the forces of the Arafat "Palestinian Authority".

ISRAELIS SEE THROUGH GLOSS OF LIFE AMID ORANGE GROVES
(May 7, 2001)
When the real estate sharks of California began to coax Americans to Los Angeles early in the last century, they stuck oranges on the trees to make the desert more alluring. The oranges are real enough in the groves on the hills around Jerusalem, but the hard selling is just the same.

WE ARE ACCUSED OF TERRORISM
(May 7, 2001)
The incomparable Nizar Qabbani was buried in Damascus earlier this week. "We Are Accused Of Terrorism" was one of his last poems first published a year ago; key excerpts from that poem follow.

GUNNING DOWN ISRAEL SHAMIR - Part II
(May 4, 2001)
Previously we outlined how the regimes-sponsored Arab American establishment, using the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) to try to control everyone as usual...

SHARON'S RISE TO THE PINNACLE OF POWER - HELPED BY THE ARABS THEMSELVES
(May 3, 2001)
Ariel Sharon's becoming Prime Minister of Israel didn't happen overnight. He pursued the job for a very long time and whatever one thinks of his person and policies he carried out a masterful political coup.

GUNNING DOWN ISRAEL SHAMIR
(May 3, 2001)
The worst thing that happened to the people of the Middle East in recent history was the imposition on them by the Western powers of the "Client Regimes" -- those who read MER regularly know what we are talking about...

ARAB REGIMES COWER AND BEG; ISRAELIS CONTINUE TO KILL AND DESTROY
(May 2, 2001)
Shimon Peres runs around the world, especially to the gullible American media, and especially to CNN and PBS, with soothing rhetorical jibberish while his Generals further demolish Palestinian homes making fools of those who believed in the "Oslo Peace Process" and its associated "agreements".

FORMER SHIN BET HEAD TALKS SOME SENSE IN PUBLIC....BUT WHY?
(May 2, 2001)
Motives are of course a very important aspect of life and politics...as is timing. And when it comes to someone who has been head of the Shin Bet, like Ami Ayalon, and who is saying these things now, at this particular crucial and sensitive time, there are good reasons to have many suspicions, and many questions, and many doubts.

EXTINGUISHING THE INTIFADA
(May 2, 2001)
A major effort is underway to somehow smother and snuff out the Intifada, one way or another. Those heading up the effort, in order of importance, are:

ARAFAT'S FIRST INTERVIEW SINCE THE INTIFADA BEGAN
(May 1, 2001)
Yasser Arafat often describes his struggle as a "long march" to the "spires and minarets" of Jerusalem, capital of his Palestinian state-to-be.




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