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"RIGHT OF RETURN" AMERICAN STYLE - PART 3
April 4, 2001
"RIGHT OF RETURN"? OF COURSE!
THE COMING DEMONSTRATION? HARDLY!
"The famous journalist of The Independent Robert Fisk...
derided the Arab American 'Lobby' for its laziness
(and being) out of touch with reality..."
"These conferences are more like entertainment events
for Arab Americans than political mobilization events
aiming towards political change."
"Isn't it about time that serious-minded Arab American
activists told these quisling organizations to stuff it
and went on to form their own serious organizations?"
MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 9/11/00:
Saturday a few thousand Arab Americans are planning to make it to Washington
"demanding" the "Right of Return" for Palestinian refugees. What should one
think about this?
A few days ago we published an article about the April "Right of Return" conference
in Boston which was the precursor to this upcoming mini "march". Sadly, with
the tragic history of misorganizing, self-delusion, and co-optation the Arab
Americans already have, it was "a disaster". That article was written by a highly-committed
woman of American Jewish background who attended the conference, herself with
a long record of strongly supporting Palestinian rights and fiercely opposing
Israeli policies.
Today's article, Part II, also about that Boston "Right of Return" conference
is written by a Palestinian student who also attended the conference -- "a farce"
he concludes. "These conferences are more like entertainment events for Arab
Americans than political mobilization events aiming towards political change."
Now the problem isn't the "Right of Return". Indeed, the nearly four million
Palestinian refugees and descendants are well entitled to that as has been acknowledged
far and wide for quite a long time, plus considerable compensation to boot.
The problem is in the disengenuous, bumbling, naive, and dishonest ways the
Arab American organizers go about all this, terribly misleading those few who
often sincerely, though usually innocently and gullibly, follow them. And there
are so few willing to follow precisely because of the long and sad history of
such stumbling along and tripping over themselves that preceeds current efforts.
Remember the famous scene in "Lawrence of Arabia" where the new "Arab Council",
triumpant in battle against the Turks, meets in Damascus with everyone screaming
and shouting at everyone else and with General Allenby just sitting in his headquarters,
practising fly casting, just waiting for the Arabs to shoot themselves in their
feet so Sykes-Picot can be put into practice?
Well...sadly...things are about the same today, both in the Middle East itself,
and with the Arab American community that constantly parrots those representing
the regimes here who always keep them on short leashes and mischannel their every
energy.
This time around, while the Arab Americans pretend to finally be doing something
important, the new "peace agreement" -- cleverly designed to dissect and fragment
the Palestinian people still further and to permanently prevent the "Right of
Return" from ever being implimented -- is being polished for signing. Yet those
coming to Washington will shout their simple slogans -- heard almost exclusively
by themselves -- without even going to demonstrate at the various Arab Embassies
which are birthing this latest miserable apartheid-laden deal that has already
further terribly fractured Palestinian lands and society. It is, afterall, these
Arab "client regimes" who bear at least co-responsibility for both the original
and the ongoing plight of the Palestinian people, not to mention for so much
bloodshed, corruption, and cowardice, including the ongoing genocidal devastation
of Iraq.
THE "RIGHT OF RETURN" CONFERENCE -- MORE DELUSIONS
REFLECTIONS ON THE ARAB AMERICAN SCENE
By Rageb Damian*
On Saturday 8 April in the auditorium of the Boston University Law School a daylong
conference titled the Right of Return was held. The conference was organized
by a new organization called Trans Arab Research Institute (TARI) -- but it was
really the same old failed people and groups from the past.
The conference speeches dealt with the Palestinian refugees' right of return
to their homes in pre-1948 Israel. After the dispossession of the Palestinians
in the War of 1948, or the (Nakba) as Arabs call it, the United Nations issued
resolution 194 that stated that the refugees of the war had the right to return
or be repatriated. The conference was an intensive daylong affair of lecture
after lecture, speaker after speaker, who iterated the right of the Palestinians
to return to their homes and addressed various issues of importance to the Palestinian
situation.
In terms of the information given, one could say that the speakers did a good
job of explaining various details about the Palestinian problem, dispossession
of the Palestinians and challenges the Palestinians face today. The conference
and the conditions that surround it are illustrative of several realities of
the Arab-American scene in the US and how it relates to the Middle East conflict.
News about the conference had been circulating through e-mail lists and Arab-American
organizations-affiliated news groups through the Internet. While the issue is
important and key to understanding the Middle East conflict, the little efforts
to accommodate a larger number of people (the total number who attended finally
did not exceed 550 people), was disheartening. "TARI is a little organization
that cannot do much", everyone was told. A video "hook-up" was arranged at
the last minute to accommodate the rest of the attendees who were seated in an
adjacent room. Conditions were stifling warm. By the end of the day the conference
had lost more than half the number of people who were there in the morning.
As usual, most of the attendees were Arab American and/or people involved with
the very Arab American organizations that arranged it.
The conference started with the organizers congratulating each other for holding
the conference. The two people linked with of TARI were Mr. Naseer Aruri, the
president of TARI, a Palestinian American (Professor Emeritus, University of
Massachusetts) and a lecturer on Palestinian issue and a critic of Arafat's regime,
and Ms. Elaine Musallem Hagobian, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Simons College,
Boston, a frequent lecturer at Arab-American conferences. Aruri started by congratulating
his colleague for her wonderful work in helping bring about the conference.
He then proceeded to criticize the Arafat regime, rightly, for its ruinous effect
on the Palestinians.
The big star of the event was the acclaimed Dr. Edward Said, a Palestinian American
Professor at Columbia University, a man whose books and articles are essential
to understanding Palestinian and Arab issues. His lecture was very interesting
and insightful, explaining the Oslo trap the Palestinians have been led into,
and using Palestinian art to explain the Palestinian psyche of dispossession.
For a couple of minutes, the slides projector he was trying to use failed to
work, visibly frustrating Said, because the organizers couldn't even get that
right.
Said however failed to make light of the reality of the Arab American organizations
that use him as the main attraction to their events. There was not one single
comment about the failure of organizations like the American Arab Anti Discrimination
Committee (ADC), and the various groups that orbit it, in bringing about an Arab
American political force in Washington, DC. Said never fails to keep coming
to Arab-American conferences, if health permits, no matter if the organization
hosting him is effective or not.
The following panel was excellent in terms of putting the Middle East conflict
in perspective. It featured Dr. Noam Chomsky, MIT, who put in simple terms the
reality of US policy and how futile are attempts to bring justice to the refugees
if not accompanied by education and mobilization in the US. He used the Vietnam
Anti-War protests as an example of what organizing can do, solutions that Arab
American groups have done the exact opposite. Equally illuminating was the next
speaker, Dr. Ilan Pappe, University of Haifa, Israel, who spoke about the Israeli
public opinion on the right of return. The Le Monde Diplomatique paper journalist
Dr. Alain Gresh presented the European Union stance on Palestinian statehood.
The spoil sport was the famous journalist of The Independent Robert Fisk, who
derided the Arab American "Lobby" for its laziness, its out of touch with reality,
and the luxury with which the organizers attempted to treat him for dinner the
previous evening at the Harvard Club, at which he decided not to stay. He rightly
expressed his bewilderment of what the relation is between dining him in the
fancy (luxurious) Harvard professors dining hall and the right of return for
Palestinians languishing in miserable refugee camps. He criticized such a lecture
event as useless since as usual, 95% of the attendees are Arab American, and
wondered why did not each attendee bring any non Arab American so they could
learn about these issues. Half of the attendees applauded. It was later said
that Dr. Edward Said was not favorable of Fisk's remarks about the Arab American
"Lobby"; and in fact in subsequent days Said made very derogatory comments about
Fisk for daring to speak the truth and try to be helpful.
The conference proceeded for the rest of the day with more lectures about legal
and political about the right of return and restitution and issues the Palestinians
face in the refugee camps. It was definitely enlightening to learn about all
these issues that relate to such a topic. A silent candle light vigil to commemorate
the 1947 Deir Yaseen massacre of hundreds of Palestinians by Zionist gangs prior
to Nakba was planned somewhere in Boston that evening. No reference was made
to the unprecedented statement of opposition to the "peace process" published
by Palestinian Intellectuals in the Israeli daily Haaretz a month or so before
the conference, to which many of the lecturers were signatory nor was there a
handout about it among the many given out there. And Dr. Haidar Abdul-Shafi,
the dignified Palestinian personality who headed the Palestinian delegation
in Madrid and Washington but then resigned because of what the Arafat regime
has become, was not invited for fear he would be too critical.
The segment that included Chomsky, Fisk, Pappe, and Gresh was the best part of
the conference. It put everything in perspective and criticized the conference
itself. Yet little did most people know about the reality behind this conference
and the organizations that sponsor it.
While it is definitely challenging to figure out what is really going on the
Arab American scene only from attending the Boston conference, one has to learn
about the real objectives of the so-called Arab American "lobby" in order to
understand. It is not just lazy or out of touch with reality, it is deliberately
deceptive and aims to waste energy and moral. One has to learn about the Arab
elite (in the Middle East and the West) and its many tentacles here in America
to understand how all this work together.
To put matters in perspective let us compare the Arab American "Lobby" to the
Pro-Israel Jewish Lobby "AIPAC". In brief, AIPAC represents a panoply of Jewish
American and Pro-Israeli organizations that lobby, effectively, the US Administration,
the Congress, and the American media to follow and present a policy favorable
to Israel's current government. AIPAC is pretty powerful and has been so for
decades (since 1941). While many Jewish Americans do not consider it representative
of their views, it has managed to marginalize those who oppose it through various
means such as accusations of anti-Semitism, Jewish self-hatred, etc.
The Arab American "Lobby" on the other hand is different. It does not seriously
try to influence the US administration, the congress, nor the US media. Through
an organization like the ADC, it tries to fight negative stereotyping of Arabs
in films, press, etc. On matters relating to the Palestinian issue, it hides
behind simplistic slogans and tiny issues rather than speak about the big picture.
You will find it sponsoring an event on Oslo process, but never coming out to
condemn the Arafat Reigme for being what it really is, nor the Arab regimes in
the area for making possible such a one-sided "peace process". You would find
it lamenting the death of Iraqi children under US-backed sanctions, but never
condemning Saudi Arabia for allowing the American troops to be stationed there
let alone sponsoring an event about that. You sure won't find it making a public
statement about the terrible state of human rights abuses in the Arab World.
WHAT DRIVES THESE GROUPS?
A very good question to ask is who heads these organizations, funds them, and
for what purpose. Why do we have ADC, the Boston conference, and why do those
intellectuals act the way they do? And why won't anything come out of this conference?
The key word here is Incest. One interesting way to understand is by taking
a look at all the Arab American organizations' events throughout the year and
comparing sessions and speakers and organizers with each other, and then comparing
each event to the one the year before. Here is what we will discover: A lot
of the names are the same, many of the session titles are going to be the same
and pretty much will reflect the political "hot" issue of the year. For example,
in 1998, we had variations of the "50 years of dispossession" commemoration throughout
the year. Dr. Edward Said was invited to speak about fifty years of Palestinian
dispossession at the ADC conference. Last year, he was invited again to speak
about Arab American issues. And most likely, if health permits, he will be invited
and come again this year to speak about the Palestinian right of return, if not
at the ADC, them maybe at an affiliate of the ADC. The same is true with other
speakers.
These conferences are more like entertainment events for Arab Americans than
political mobilization events aiming towards political change. The conference
in general will promote a tribal mentality as a way to ensure support and eventually
plays on the identity problem of those who call themselves Arab American. It
will play on the misunderstanding of how US policy works in relation to the Middle
East by suggesting that it is a matter of having more Arab Americans in policy
positions, or blame it all on the Pro-Israel Jewish Lobby, whose influence is
exaggerated for these purposes. There is of course a social aspect to these
conferences (old friends get to see each other), which ensures a good show up
every year.
As for what happens after these conferences, it is rather depressing. Of course,
keep in mind that the purpose is to mislead rather than direct. Many students
and well-meaning people will get enthusiastic at the information and messages
being given by the speakers. They will want to do something. Rather than do
something on their own and start a real serious organization, they will be mislead
into putting their energies into the organization sponsoring the conference and
end up chasing their tail. They will be asked to organize others, write to the
president and congress people. The problem is that the themes that the activity
is conducted under are vague, misleading, and aimless. It will be something
like "promoting Arab American issues" or "making sure the peace process is fair
to the Arabs" or " having more people of Arab American origin in the public offices".
As for the question of who is behind these conferences and organizations. Definitely,
the case of the ADC is illustrative. This organization is headed and pretty
much run by the Maksouds and their friends. Dr. Clovis Maksoud, the former representative
of the Arab League, an umbrella organization for the Arab regimes, and wife Hala
Salam Maskosoud, a nephew of the former 1970's Lebanese prime Minister Saeb Salam
are very much to blame for their corrupting of Arab American organizations such
as ADC. Only two years ago ADC activist signed an open letter to Mrs. Maksoud
wanting more democracy in the organization and calling the ADC convention tasteless.
Not surprisingly, the connections of the former epresentative of the Arab league
include the Arab Ambassadors and the Arab businessmen associated with the regimes.
Those crowds have an interest in making sure no serious criticism or, may Allah
forbid, a mobilization against the dictatorships and corruption of the Arab World
is made. Things are kept under control by directing energy towards criticizing
Israeli and American policy ad infinitum such as what happens in the Arab Media.
The organizers of these events get their pay in the form of residing over an
organization and getting to invite their friends each conference to dine and
wine and giving awards to each other (for nothing really) while the unsuspecting
audience is clapping. Another important side to this is fund raising for their
organizations from gullible Arab American and Arabs in the Middle East who think
their money is being used to defending Arab causes in America. Of course, the
money, like the money the PLO pumped into its US offices in the seventies and
eighties is wasted, embezzled, and misused. Within these organizations, an inefficient
corrupt system that keeps the honest people away is at work, while the self-serving
individuals are kept in power.
THE WIZARD OF OZ
To understand another aspect of this farce, one should think of the Wizard of
OZ fable, where the "wizard" at the end was the little man behind the screen
appearing to be much bigger than he was, projecting himself not as he really
was but how he wanted everyone to believe he was. That is how these groups are
constructed.
A helpful exercise is to get a hold of the names of the people who sit on the
advisory boards of, main figures involved with, and the people always "recognized"
at Arab American events. It is pretty much the same people, and have been the
same for the past 15-20 years. The Maksouds are prominent in this. They have
used their power and influence to include more groups under them. For example,
on the same floor in the same building where the ADC in based in Washington,
DC, two more organizations are located: The American Committee on Jerusalem,
and the American Arab University Graduates. Since December of 1999, the head
of an equally deceptive organization, The National Association of Arab Americans
(NAAA), Mr. Khalil Jahshan, has become the vice president of ADC. There is no
doubt that we will not be told in the coming ADC convention about why NAAA collapsed
and what lessons we will learn from the failure of another Arab American organization.
It is more accurate to say that the same people go about under different organizational
names in order to fool people and hold more than one conference a year, more
dinner parties, and more contributions through attendance fees form gullible
members.
Most of these groups are based in Washington, DC and direct their activities
at the Arab Americans in the DC metro area and the larger Arab communities in
the US such as Detroit, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; San Francisco, California.
Activist Arab American with an urge to do something political come and spend
little time at the conferences, such as Boston's, not enough to figure out what
is really going out. Some do but feel unable to do anything. Others get demoralized
without realizing why. Since these groups dominate the scene with no serious
alternative, they get to be considered by the American Media as representative
of the Arab American community and get called on to give their say on TV reports
and Talk shows. More importantly, they are the convenient representatives of
Arab Americans for the Arab press. Therefore the distorted image of Arab Americans
is also played out to the nsuspecting Arabs who lack any critical news source.
Little do Arabs know the effect of the corrupt Arab system of regimes in having
satellite organizations in the US to further keep the status quo, and keep many
in the dark. Since these groups do some fundraising in the Middle East from gullible
Arabs who think their money is put to good use here in the US, and some such
as the regime-allied businessmen who are comfortable with keeping the status
quo, they get to collect through the same people
monies under the names of different organizations.
What the organizations failed to do in Boston deserves some pointing out. Rather
than invite Dr. Haider Abdul Shafi, a prominent Palestinian speaker on Palestinian
rights to the Boston conference, someone who will surely speak up about the corrupt
Arafat regime, with great credibility, he was not there at all at the conference,
for reasons unclear. In addition, recent attempts to oppose Arafat were not
highlighted by anyone at the conference such as the petition of the twenty people
from Nov. 1999 accusing Arafat of opening the door to corruption. There definitely
was no suggestion of a strategy to follow after the conference or any print out
of stated goals other than the vague aim of supporting the right of return.
May we ask, what is the point of bringing together 550 mostly Arab Americans,
lecture them about the right of return, not preparing any statement for the media
or attempting to go on the talk shows, and then praising the organizations and
their heads? And events of this magnitude will repeat twice or more this year
for sure.
It is a reason to wonder really how long this lethargy on the Arab American scene
will continue. Isn't it about time that serious-minded Arab American activists
told these quisling organizations to stuff it and went on to form their own serious
organizations? Isn't it about time there is a hard-headed discussion in the
mainstream media about the right of return rather than holding a conference 52
years after the fact and keeping it to Arab Americans talking to each other?
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April 2001
ARAB-AMERICANS - PATHETIC STATE OF AFFAIRS (April 30, 2001) Regular readers of MER won't be all that surprised; though many others will be, especially those who misguidedly and in many cases sincerely give their money, support, and most of all their hopes to these pathetic groups.
THE DARK SIDE OF ISRAELI INDEPENDENCE Day (April 30, 2001) Leave it to the Arab Americans to screw things up all the time. As the iconoclastic Israel writer Israel Shamir said as he prematurely departed American shores a few days ago: "With such Palestinian activists, who needs the Israeli lobby?"
ABDULLAH AND THE CIA - LONG HISTORICAL CONSPIRACY AGAINST PALESTINIANS (April 30, 2001) The Israelis and the Americans are busy using the Mubarak Regime in Egypt and the Hashemite Regime in Jordan in an increasingly desperate attempt to quash Intifada II and create still
more years for the Israelis to consolidate and make permanent their grip on the Palestinians.
WAR MACHINES ON THE MARCH - MER FLASHBACK (April 29, 2001) Before the Second Intifada began, before last year's aborted Camp David fiasco, before this year's sweeping victory of Ariel Sharon and the attempt to then position Ehud Barak as Defense Minister, MER was already writing about what was to come while most of the media was sidetracked with and seduced by "the peace process."
THE "APARTHEID PEACE" REMAINS THE GAME BEING PLAYED (April 28, 2001) They -- the same personalities representing the same countries that created this "Apartheid Peace" and its resultant intensified uprising against it -- are at it again.
THE SLAUGHTER IN ALGERIA (April 28, 2001) This book contains shocking testimony about what is happening inside a
country where, according to reliable estimates, more than 150,000 of its
citizens have been slaughtered during the past decade.
THE ARAB AMERICAN and JEWISH AMERICAN SCENES (April 27, 2001) You gotta love all these scams that so many so tragically so often fall for -- especially the confused and naive Arab Americans.
THE GAZA CONCENTRATION CAMP (April 27, 2001) Over the years the Israelis have essentially turned The Gaza Strip from a Ghetto to a kind of Concentration Camp. In this small area today live more than 1 million Palestinians, a large number of whom have never been able to leave and reenter.
ARAFAT'S ESCAPE PLAN - MER FLASHBACK (April 26, 2001) More than $100 million dollars in a secret bank account set up by the Israelis and designed to make it possible for Arafat and friends to flee a coup and set up a "government in exile"?
SHA'ATH and PERES DESERVE EACH OTHER -- BUT HOW TRAGIC FOR THE PALESTINIANS (April 26, 2001) Sharon is sending Peres to Cairo, and Sha'ath visiting Sweden says there is a "crack in the wall of darkensss."
BERKELEY STUDENTS TAKE THE LEAD (April 25, 2001) With the total failure of the Arab American organizations at the national level, and of course provoked now by an Intifada II that is half a year old and the election of Ariel Sharon as PM in Israel, the grassroots are finally stirring a little, students in the lead as at other times in history.
CASINO FIRST! (April 25, 2001) In the old days of Intifada I Yossi Beilin and Shimon Peres were busy pursuing their "Gaza First" strategy. It was never presented, but always designed, as a kind of trap for the Palestinians; and it was continually rejected by the Palestinian negotiating team that went to Madrid and then Washington, headed by Dr. Haider Abdul-Shafi.
Washington Scene: THE TRAGIC STATE OF ARAB AMERICAN AFFAIRS (April 25, 2001) Three things this week underscored the pathetically tragic state of affairs for the Arab American community which remains, well, politically retarded and as a result miserably weak...not to mention oh so co-opted and manipulated.
ISRAEL & TURKEY - MAJOR MILITARY ALLIANCE (April 25, 2001) While the misnomered "peace process" continues to dominate the news, arms continue to flood into the Middle East region and possible war preparations are underway.
SHIMON PERES - NOW HOLOCAUST DENIER! (April 23, 2001) For the past few years we have mentioned the great importance of the new military axis in the Middle East that adds Turkey's size and power to the U.S.-Israeli alliance that dominates and controls the region.
ARAFAT'S TRAVEL NOW RESTRICTED - MAYBE ON PURPOSE? (April 23, 2001) The front-page Washington Post article over the weekend about what the Israelis are up to helps reveal what the new General in charge of the Israeli Army, Ariel Sharon, is attempting to accomplish.
BLOODY SUNDAY AS SIX BOMBS ROCK ISRAEL, GAZA (April 22, 2001) Two explosions hit Israel over the space of several hours, and four
bombs were detonated in Gaza City which is under Palestinian control.
TERROR IN TEL AVIV TODAY AS US PREPARES FOR BIOLOGICAL ATTACK (April 22, 2001) Like so many things in life, terror is a two-edged sword. No doubt the Israelis will use today's bomb blast in Tel Aviv to still further clamp down on and try to choke the Palestinians into submission.
ISRAEL'S ETHNIC CLEANSING SECRETS (April 21, 2001) Israel's prime minister-elect, in the throes of forming a new
government, is known to be a militant nationalist. Ariel Sharon's view
of history is that the Zionists unequivocally have justice on their
side in the conflict over what is known to Jews as the Land of Israel
and to Palestinians as Palestine.
HISTORIC JEWISH STATEMENT SUPPORTING PALESTINIAN INTIFADA (April 21, 2001) Two months after the first Palestinian Intifada began in December 1987, a group of professionals, all American Jews including many professors and lawyers, joined together to publish as a full page ad in THE NATION Magazine of 13 February 1988 this historic statement: "Time To Dissociate From Israel"
ARAB AMERICANS STILL TERRIBLY WEAK (April 20, 2001) Three things this week underscored the pathetically tragic state of affairs for the Arab American community which remains, well, politically retarded and as a result miserably weak...not to mention oh so co-opted and manipulated.
FROM THE FRONT (April 19, 2001) Attempts by Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, to crush Palestinian violence by adopting still harsher military tactics came to nought last night, after guerrillas in the Gaza Strip fired more mortars into Israel, and one of the worst battles for months erupted on the edge of Bethlehem.
MUBARAK - MORE FRIGHTENED THAN ANGRY OR CREDIBLE (April 19, 2001) They use to call him the "laughing cow". Anwar Sadat made him Vice-President thinking he'd never really have to worry much about him. And he himself has never made anyone Vice-President fearing any and everyone.
QANA MASSACRE - 5TH ANNIVERSARY (April 18, 2001) It was only four years ago;
but already it has been mostly forgotten -- the terrible Qana Massacre in
southern Lebanon, and the atrocious cover-up by Israel, the U.S. and the
U.N. that followed.
QANA REMEMBERED (April 18, 2001) It was five years ago today that hundreds of civilians under U.N. protection in southern Lebanon were brutally killed or maimed by the Israeli Army. With Shimon Peres then Prime Minister after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israelis desperately tried to cover it all up and pretend it was just a mistake of war.
LATEST NEWS FROM THE FRONTS (April 17, 2001) With a heavy rocket barrage, Israel seized
nearly a square mile of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, retaking
Palestinian-controlled territory for the first time since 1994 in retaliation for
a mortar attack on a small Israeli desert town.
ROBERT FISK SPEAKS UP OH SO THOUGHTFULLY AND COURAGEOUSLY (April 17, 2001) The famous American Jewish iconoclastic journalist Izzy Stone (I.F.Stone) once told me over a long
dinner in my apartment that the role of real and serious journalists in our day and age needed to be "to
afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted."
ISRAEL STRIKES STILL HARDER, IMPOTENT ARAB "CLIENT REGIMES" COWER (April 17, 2001) We shouldn't be surprised what the Israelis are doing. Ehud Barak may have hesitated, but after all in the end both he and Shimon Peres publicly gave their endorsements to Ariel Sharon and Sharon has been warning and threatening to do just such things for a very long time.
HASHEMITES CONTINUE TO COLLABORATE (April 16, 2001) Today the Jordanian Foreign Minister goes to Israel even as Israeli bombs kill Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians and the whole region is being humbled and shaken by the Israeli Generals, accused war criminal Ariel Sharon now in charge.
CIA BUGS ARAFAT AND ALL P.A. LEADERSHIP (April 14, 2001) Arafat has been paid a very great amount of money for the deals he signed in Washington, Cairo, Sharm, Hebron, et. al. He, his family (the Tawils), and top cronies like Nabil Shaath, Abu Mazen, et. al., now have hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bank accounts as a result.
EPILOGUE TO A DECADE - A SERIOUS ISRAELI ANALYSIS (April 14, 2001) From what would usually be called the far far left in Israel and whose voice is rarely heard these days beyond their own circles -- but which we would term the serious, sophisticated, highly committed and principled Israeli intelligentsia -- there is a magazine published every other month called "Challenge".
EASTER IN THE "HOLY LAND" (April 13, 2001) Two thousand years ago on the ancient streets of Jerusalem it was the Roman army in control, the Jewish people under occupation, and Jesus, a heretical Jewish rabbi, heading to his crucifixation as a result of "official" Jewish and Roman cooperation.
DEATH MY REMOTE CONTROL AS HIT SQUADES RETURN (April 13, 2001) Israel's strategy has always been to overwhelm and suffocate the Palestinians. At various times different tactics have been used ranging from diplomacy to brutality, from talk of "Statehood" to the imposition of neo-Apartheid.
ISRAELI ARMY ON THE RAMPAGE (April 12, 2001) A seven-year-old Palestinian girl was shot in the face by an Israeli rubber bullet while at school in the West Bank village of al-Khader when clashes broke out nearby, medical sources said.
IT'S WAR, MURDER, ASSASSINATIONS AND BEATINGS (April 12, 2001) With Robert Fisk, based out of Beirut and the longest serving Western journalist in the region, and Phil Reeves among the Palestinians and the Israelis, The Independent is usually heads above the English rest in both its coverage and analysis.
ISRAELIS ATTACK EVEN MORE BOLDLY (April 11, 2001) The Israelis won't be returning to "Zone A"; why should they? After all one of the major goals of the Madrid-Oslo "Peace Process" was to get the Palestinians into isolated and controlled "autonomous population centers" and let them fend for themselves.
ISRAEL BEGINS MINI INVASION STRATEGY (April 11, 2001) The Israelis have changed Generals, and the new master General Ariel Sharon is doing things his way. But then nearly everyone else among the Israeli elite has lined up right behind him.
ABDULLAH - KING OF JORDAN, AGENT OF THE ANGLO-AMERICANS (April 11, 2001) Abdullah II, ruler of Jordan, once called TransJordan, once called the East Bank of Palestine, is once again in Washington. The pattern is all too familiar.
ISRAELIS START USING GROUND TO GROUND MISSILES TO ATTACK PALESTINIANS (April 10, 2001) Starting yesterday, and for the first time in the occupied territories against the Palestinians, the Israelies have begun to use surface to surface missiles. In doing so the Israelis are once again throwing down the gauntlet to the entire Arab and Muslim world.
RACISM, MILITARISM, NEO-NAZISM IN THE "JEWISH STATE" (April 10, 2001) Racism, militarism, and a peculiar form of Israeli neo-Nazism thrives in today "Jewish State". Harsh conclusions, true; but buttressed by considerable evidence, both factual and ideological.
"VOICE OF AMERICA" EXPANDING TOWARDS CRUCIAL MIDDLE EAST (April 9, 2001) Just a few years ago, after the original Camp David agreement in 1978, the joke around Cairo was that the "Voice of America" was really all those loud muffler-broken U.S-supplied buses helping choke, or unchoke depending on your perspective, Cairo's teeming streets.
BARAK AND SHARON PLAN NEXT WAR (April 9, 2001) Long before anyone even thought Ariel Sharon might become Israeli Prime Minister...
Long before anyone even thought Shimon Peres would serve as Sharon's Foreign Minister...
While the "Peace Process" and plans for "Camp David II" were riding high...
MER was writing about the coming war being planned by Generals Barak and Sharon in tandem.
DEIR YASSIN REMEMBERED AND "THE QUILT" (April 8, 2001) "It's so unfair... After 50 years the Israelis have nuclear
weapons, the Mossad, Hollywood, a kosher White House,
and their own Assistant Secretary of State; while the
Arabs have corruption, secret-police, pathetic Arab-
American organizations, Arafat, and the 50th
anniversary quilt!"
THE PATHETIC ARAFAT - GIVER AND BEGGAR (April 8, 2001) This guy Arafat, and those who advise him, are truly getting ore pathetic all the time. We now learn that while his people suffer even worse than before as a result of what he and his cronies have done, and not done, Arafat has been busy giving expensive jewelry gifts to the former American President, First Lady, and Secretary of State (and no doubt there is a larger list!).
PASSOVER IN THE TIME OF THE INTIFADA (April 8, 2001) "I have been invited to a neighbor's Seder this year, and in my fantasy I have thought that I would rather sit on a box at home by myself in the dark with my face to the wall for the length of time the Seder lasts, out of a mixture of shame and protest against Israel's denial of freedom to her Palestinian neighbors."
THE LAST PASSOVER (April 7, 2001) "Is this the last Passover that I will celebrate?
My heart is not in the celebration this year.
And it can never be again until freedom for Jews
is also freedom for Palestinians."
THE NEXT EXPULSION OF THE PALESTINIANS? (April 7, 2001) The effect of the four-month-old al-Aqsa intifada has been to
radicalize and polarize all sides and thus the current situation
poses a great danger to the Palestinian people.
ISRAELIS AND U.S. CONGRESS POUND PALESTINIANS (April 6, 2001) What is happening now is the result of all the past years of ineptitude, corruption,
stupidities, and mistakes by the the various Arab "client regimes", Yasser Arafat's
included of course, as well as from the various "client organizations" allied
with them, especially in the US.
ISRAELIS BUILD, AMERICANS DECEIVE, ARABS WINK AND HIDE (April 6, 2001) This little game has gone on quite literally for decades now. The Israelis
twist and turn, delay and obfuscate, but all the while push forward. The Americans
say one thing and do another, and when the going gets hot they provide a little
criticism of Israel for the Arab media but reserve the important things that
really matter for ongoing and escalating cooperation with the Israelis.
"RIGHT OF RETURN" AMERICAN STYLE - PART 4 (April 5, 2001) This time they are going to march down a largely weekend deserted street in New York City, after gathering at a closed Israeli Consulate, to listen to a group of largely unknown speakers familiar only to themselves, with no strategy other than to gather among themselves to listen to themselves and to be able to say for themselves that they are doing something important...
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT AGAINST TOP THREE ARAFAT PEOPLE? (April 5, 2001) Believing the official Israelis is all but impossible at this point; so one
has to do the best one can to put together the pieces in ways that make sense.
What happened yesterday was probably not an actual assassination attempt --
if that's what the Israelis wanted to do to these three they have the capabilities
to do so and not to miss.
THE JORDANIAN POLICE STATE (April 4, 2001) About five days before the convening of the Arab Summit in Amman,
dozens of masked security men armed to the teeth, along with officers
of the Intelligence service (mukhabarat), stormed the house of Siajj
Said Daraghmeh near Jabri on the Gardens Street in Amman.
"RIGHT OF RETURN" AMERICAN STYLE - PART 3 (April 4, 2001) Saturday a few thousand Arab Americans are planning to make it to Washington
"demanding" the "Right of Return" for Palestinian refugees. What should one
think about this?
"RIGHT OF RETURN" CONF A "DISASTER" - PART 2 (April 3, 2001) The region itself has corrupt and incompetent "client regimes", now including
that of Yasser Arafat. And that explains a great deal why such an important
and rich part of the world with over 200 million people is so regularly humbled
and bleeding.
"RIGHT OF RETURN" AMERICAN STYLE - PART 1 (April 3, 2001) This year the selected slogan for Arab Americans is "the Right of Return". A
couple of years ago at the time of the 50th anniversary of the 1948 war -- the
"nakba", the "disaster" -- the slogan was "the Quilt".
"INVASION" PREPARATIONS AS MUBARAK COMES COLLECTING (April 2, 2001) Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has come to Washington once again. His visits have
become customary to in a sense collect his allowance and meet with his new American
keepers, which are in fact really the old Bush crowd he is very familiar with.
PERES 'MORE AGGRESSIVE' THAN SHARON (April 2, 2001) "Peres is more aggressive than I am, (said Sharon). "Peres responded (to the Cabinet), "Yes, he had to restrain me this time."
PLOT TO KILL ARAFAT'S TOP PEOPLE (April 1, 2001) Yesterday the Senior U.S. Senator from New York, Chuck Shumer, went before
the Washington cameras to denounce Yasser Arafat as a "terrorist" and demand
he comply with U.S./Israeli dictate or else.
ANOTHER ARAB SUMMIT COMES AND GOES (April 1, 2001) If the demonstrators going to the Palestinian Rally in New York next weekend
had any guts, and any smarts, after they gather at the Israeli Consulate they
would move on and conduct their serious shouting where the Arab Ambassadors and
the Arab League hang their sorry hats.
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