Hillary, Iraq, Now You're Talking money

THE ABSURD TIMES

ILLUSTRATION: Hillary Clinton when offered a subscription to the Absurd Times and then asked about Wyoming.

Today, five more American soldiers were killed in Iraq. Somehow, the media seems determined to keep the "count" below 4,000.

However, I have another figure for you -- I've seen a calculation that every minute we spend occupying Iraq costs about $14,000,000, or fourteen million dollars. What could you accomplish for the good of mankind with one minutes' worth of Iraq spending? I have heard another estimate that with one months' spending, we could end poverty, sickness, and provide education, forever, to everyone on the planet -- and we are only talking about billions here. The total is in the trillions.

George Bush, Republicans, Patriots, all of you, have you every wondered why welfare is gone and we can not afford health care?

Rugh Limbaugh and his ilk are threatening to vote for Hillary if McCain is the candidate (and he is). I can't understand what is going on? Are they trying to get people to switch over to the Democratic Party primaries to get Hillary nominated as they know Obama would win over McCain (one of you calls him McVain) in a landslide? That he might even get a 2/3rds majority in both houses? Remember that Hastert's seat just went to a Democrat. Also remember that Hillary was a Goldwater Republican.

***************************

I do not think I've published this yet. It is an article provided by the Tom Dispatch, a part of the Nation. I'm leaving the links in so you can follow them if you like. This news service provides all with facts and truths that our media does not cover.

Tom Dispatch

posted 2008-02-24 17:43:07

Tomgram: Jen Marlowe, Gaza Struggling under Siege

From Chiapas, Mexico <http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174881> and
Vietnam's Mekong Delta <http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174885> to West
Africa (where a war against women
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174895/ann_jones_the_war_against_women_never_ends>
is now underway), Tomdispatch has lately been traveling to some of the
more scarred places on the planet. Today, Jen Marlowe, a documentary
filmmaker and human rights activist (as well as the author of Darfur
Diaries: Stories of Survival
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1560259280/ref=nosim/?tag=nationbooks08-20>)
offers an account of her journey into the desperate human tragedy of the
besieged Gaza Strip.

Marlowe has been visiting the Gaza Strip periodically since 2002, when
she was living in Jerusalem while working on an Israeli/Palestinian
peace-building program. She has participated in nonviolent
demonstrations with Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists
resisting the Israeli separation barrier
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1285/how_to_build_a_wall> being built,
in part, through Palestinian lands and the growing system of
Israeli-only roads on the West Bank. The deepening degradation of Gazans
living under a merciless siege, visibly a living hell, is something she
vividly captures at a personal level. /Tom/

The Tightening Noose

*Gaza under Hamas, Gaza under Siege*
By Jen Marlowe

Images from Rafah flicker on my computer screen. Gazans blowing up
chunks of the wall that stood between them and Egypt, punching holes
in the largest open-air prison in the world and streaming across the
border. An incredible refusal to submit.

I learn via email that my friend Khaled Nasrallah rented a truck in
order to drive food and medicine from Egypt into the Gaza Strip. He
was acting for no humanitarian organization. He's just a resident of
Rafah, a Palestinian town which borders Egypt, with a deep need to
help and an opportunity to seize.

Rarely does our media offer images so laden with the palpable
despair that has become daily life in the Gaza Strip. The situation
has bordered on desperate since the outbreak of the Second Intifada
in October 2000, when Gazans could no longer work inside Israel and
the attacks and incursions of Israel's military, the IDF, became a
regular occurrence. Closures on the Strip progressively intensified.

On January 25, 2006, Hamas, an acronym for "the Islamic Resistance
Movement," won the Palestinian Authority parliamentary elections,
defeating the reigning secular, nationalist Fatah Party. Israel, the
United States, and the European Union all refused to recognize the
new Hamas government and many elements within Fatah also went to
great lengths to ensure that it failed.

Tension and violence mounted between the Palestinian factions,
culminating in June 2007 in Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip.
Israel responded by sealing the Strip. On September 19, following
the repeated firing of crude Qassam rockets from the Beit Hanoun
neighborhood in the northern Gaza Strip into the Israeli town of
Sderot, the Israeli government unanimously labeled all of Gaza a
"hostile entity." Since then, restrictions by the IDF on who and
what is permitted to enter Gaza have grown harsher still. There are
not many witnesses to testify to the plight of Gazans these days. I
was lucky: In early January, in order to visit the participants of a
peace-building program I once worked for, I got in.

It was a brief visit, so I didn't stroll down largely empty
supermarket aisles or visit hospitals to check on which supplies
were unavailable. Instead, I used the time to talk to Gazans
involved in responding to the international siege and the internal
crisis that had led to it.

There were even rare moments when the dual crises faded into the
background, such as the afternoon when I drank coffee in Rafah with
Khaled Nasrallah, his brother Dr. Samir Nasrallah, and their wives
and children. Rachel Corrie, a 23 year-old peace-and-justice
activist from Olympia, Washington, had been killed on March 16, 2003
while standing in front of their home trying to prevent its
demolition by an Israeli military bulldozer. Between October 2000
and October 2004, the IDF destroyed 2,500 homes in the Gaza Strip.
Nearly two-thirds of them, like the Nasrallah's, had been the homes
of refugees in Rafah.

Now double refugees, like so many residents of Rafah, they ushered
me into the living room of the apartment they have occupied since
their home was destroyed in 2004. It was sparsely furnished, but the
family's spirit more than compensated. When, for instance, thin,
quiet Dr. Samir saw an opportunity to make his young daughters or
nieces smile, his own face lit up. He clowned around as pictures
were taken, encouraging the girls to find ever sillier poses.

Only as I was leaving did the siege make its presence felt. I pulled
a few chocolate bars and a carton of Lucky Strikes from my backpack,
saying, "I understand these are hard to find these days."

Dr. Samir accepted the gifts with an odd solemnity. He then
unwrapped a single bar of chocolate, carefully broke it into small
pieces and distributed a section to each of the little girls. With
an equal sense of gravity, they sat on the thin, foam mats that
lined the room, slowly biting off tiny pieces, letting the chocolate
melt in their mouths. They were still sucking on the final bits as I
said goodbye.

*Entering Gaza *

When I first found out that I had permission to enter Gaza, I
wondered what I should bring with me. How much could I carry? What
did a people under siege need most? I imagined filling my backpack
with bags of rice, coffee, sugar, beans ? until I called my friend
Ra'ed in Beit Hanoun.

"Hey, Ra'ed. I'm coming to Gaza on Wednesday. What can I bring you?"

There was a short pause. "Can you bring cigarettes? Lucky Strikes?"

Requests from other friends started coming in. Could I bring a
carton of Marlboros? Viceroy Lights? Rania requested chocolate.
Ahmad asked for shampoo.

There was something tragic and yet comic in these requests. Were
they a sign that the situation wasn't as desperate as I feared? Or
maybe, given the sustained stress Gazans have been enduring, the
need for psychological relief took priority even over the staples of
survival?

Ra'ed called back with an additional request. "Can you bring one of
those rechargeable florescent lights? The power's being cut off now
for eight hours at a time and my kids have exams. They can't study
without light."

Erez border is the only crossing point for internationals entering
the Gaza Strip. The border between Rafah and Egypt had been sealed
since the Hamas takeover. I arrived at Erez, struggling with my
three brimming bags and two rechargeable lights. The terminal had
been completely rebuilt since my last visit a year ago. The modest
building housing a few soldiers and computers was gone and in its
place was a slick, spotlessly clean, all-glass complex. It felt as
if I were entering the headquarters atrium of a multi-million dollar
corporation.

My passport was stamped and I continued along a maze of one-way
revolving gates. Crossing through the final gate, I found myself in
Gaza, the sleek glass building and its sanitized version of the
Israeli occupation suddenly no more than a surreal memory. I was on
a cracked cement pathway, covered by dilapidated plastic roofing, in
the middle of an abandoned field filled with nothing but stones and
rubble. Realities, even small ones, change so quickly, so grimly here.

* The Siege *

Soon, I was in Ra'ed's car heading south to Rafah with Rania Kharma,
a coordinator for the Palestinian-International Campaign to End the
Siege on Gaza. I handed her the chocolate bars she had requested.
"Thanks, habibti [my dear]" she said. "You know how important
chocolate can be for a woman." Normally remarkably passionate, Rania
now spoke and moved with the air of someone smothered by wet blankets.

We passed carts piled with bananas and oranges. "So there's fruit
here. What exactly is getting in?" I asked.

Before the siege, she explained, there used to be 9,000 different
items allowed into Gaza. Now, the Israelis had reduced what could
enter the Strip to 20 items or, in some cases, types of items.
Twenty items to meet the needs of nearly 1.5 million people. It felt
like some kind of TV fantasy exercise in survival: You're going to a
deserted island and you can only bring 20 things with you. What
would you bring?

Medicine was on the list, Rania told me, but only pre-approved drugs
registered with the Israeli Ministry of Health. Frozen meat was
permitted, but fresh meat wasn't (and there was a shortage of
livestock in Gaza). Fruit and vegetables were allowed in, but --
Ra'ed quickly inserted -- less than what the population needed and
of an inferior quality. It was, he felt, as if Israel were dumping
produce not fit for their citizens or for international export into
Gaza.

"I cut open an avocado last week and found the inside completely
rotten," he added.

Diapers and toilet paper were allowed entry, as were sugar, salt,
flour, milk, and eggs. Soap yes, but not laundry detergent, shampoo,
or other cleaning products.

"I'm not sure about baby formula," Rania said. "Sometimes you can
find it, sometimes you can't."

Tunnels under the Egyptian border, once used mainly to smuggle
weapons into the Strip, were now responsible for a brisk black
market trade. Hamas, which controlled the tunnels, reportedly
earning a hefty profit from the $10 it now cost Gazans to buy a
single pack of cigarettes. Chocolate couldn't be found, not even on
the black market. A bag of cement that once cost about $10 reached
$75, and, by the time of my visit, couldn't be found at all. All
construction and most repair jobs had ground to a halt.

The Ramadan fast is traditionally broken with a dried date. A
special request for dates was made to the Israelis and granted --
but only as a substitute for salt. To get their Ramadan dates,
Gazans had to sacrifice something else.

"Israel says they're not going to starve us," Rania remarked with a
wry grin as we neared Rafah. "They're just putting us on a really
tight diet."

I was traveling to Rafah in order to purchase handmade embroidery
from the Women's Union Association, a women's fair-trade collective.
I was planning to bring the embroidery back to the U.S. for the
Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project, initiated after the death of
Rachel Corrie and working to realize her vision of connecting the
two communities.

Rafah's economy used to be based on agriculture and on the resale of
goods from Egypt, according to Samira, the energetic program
director of the association. Over the last seven years, however,
most of the orchards and greenhouses in the town had been uprooted
by Israeli military bulldozers. Then, once the siege began for real,
Rafah's merchants could no longer obtain goods from Egypt. By the
time I arrived, only about 15% of the population was working, most
employed in government ministries.

Samira brought out a large plastic bag brimming with embroidered
work. I fingered beautiful shawls and wall hangings as she eagerly
described an exhibition of the women's hand embroidery held in Cairo
last May. Every piece had sold out. The women had then stitched new
pillowcases, bags, and vests at a frenetic pace for an exhibition in
Vienna scheduled for September 2007. The Gaza Strip, however, was
sealed in June. Neither the women, nor their embroidery could leave.
That plastic bag contained what should have gone to Vienna. The
project had already come to a standstill as the necessary raw
materials, chiefly colored thread, were now unavailable. Once these
pieces were sold, nothing would be left.

Samira encouraged Rania to try on a stunning, exquisitely stitched
jacket, its joyous blaze of color strangely out of place in that
bare office. It had taken a year to complete, she said proudly. I
hesitated to buy it. It felt wrong, somehow, to remove that splash
of color from decimated Rafah. But who else would be arriving in
Rafah soon to buy from the collective? I asked Samira to prioritize
which items she wanted me to purchase. She packed up the jacket, and
as many other pieces as I could afford in that same plastic bag, and
handed them over to me.

While Ra'ed and Rania argued energetically in Arabic on the drive
back to Gaza City, I stared out the window, noting the green Hamas
flags and banners that decorated nearly every street corner and
intersection. As we neared our destination, I asked Rania if she
wanted to join me that evening.

"I'd love to, habibti, but I have to get back to my apartment before
6:30. The electricity will be cut after that and then -- no
elevator. I live on the ninth floor and, since my knee injury a few
years ago, it's really painful to walk up all those stairs."

*Gaza in Darkness*

Mahmoud Abo Rahma, a young man with intense green eyes, spent much
of his time with me discussing Gaza's acute electricity crisis in
his office at the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights. Israel's fuel
restrictions were his primary concern. It wasn't just transportation
that suffered when fuel was sanctioned, he explained. Without fuel
for Gaza's sole power plant, the ensuing electricity shortage
constrains health and education services, leading to an acute
humanitarian crisis.

Mahmoud broke the situation down, jotting figures and connective
arrows on a small sticky pad. Gaza needs 237 megawatts of
electricity a day, 120 megawatts of which are supplied directly by
Israel. The Gaza power plant used to supply 90 megawatts, which
meant the Strip remained 27 megawatts a day short, even in what
passed for "good times." Then, in June 2006 after the kidnapping of
Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, the Israelis bombed the power plant,
truncating its capacity. With the siege and its acute fuel shortage,
the plant could generate even less. Mahmoud feared that it might
have to stop operating altogether. On top of this, he added, Israel
was threatening to curtail the electricity it provides.

Sixty-eight people, he said, had already died as a result of the
sanctions. Others had certainly suffered siege-related deaths in
which multiple factors were involved. For those 68, however, a clear
red line could be drawn directly to the siege -- to disruptions in
critical services or to the simple fact that someone couldn't reach
Israel or Egypt for needed medical care unavailable in Gaza.

As Mahmoud scribbled down numbers and drew his arrows, my mind
wandered from the 68 extreme cases to the thousands of day-to-day
small sufferings that have become part of the fabric of life for
Gazans. I imagined the Nasrallah family huddled under blankets
trying to keep warm without a functioning electric heater, or
Ra'ed's children studying for exams by candle or flashlight, or
Rania climbing those nine flights of stairs on an injured knee.

* The Hamas Takeover *

Suhail is the director of the Rachel Corrie Cultural Center for
Children and Youth in Rafah and its sister center in Jabalya Refugee
Camp. Both centers are under the umbrella of the Union of Health
Workers. "We are sometimes asked," Suhail told me, "how a children's
center fits under the umbrella of a health organization, but the
connection is very clear. According to the World Health
Organization, health is not measured only by lack of illness. A
healthy child is also healthy socially, emotionally, and mentally --
and this is the role we play."

The obstacles to their work were large, he assured me. "Our
activities are designed to help support children mentally,
emotionally, but they don't want to leave the house. The kids are
depressed. Everyone is depressed."

In 2005, the teens who made up the center's dabke troupe -- /dabke/
is a traditional Palestinian folk-dance -- traveled to Britain,
touring and performing in 15 cities. Now, they can't leave the Gaza
Strip. "We want Al Jazeera to broadcast them performing in a local
celebration," Suhail said. "The youth are also making their own
movies, showing their daily realities. There are different ways to
break a siege."

Their problems, Suhail made clear, didn't all stem from
international isolation. "Yes, the siege makes everything much, much
more difficult, but the internal crisis even more so. Religious
conservatism is taking a stronger hold."

Nujud, a freckled young female student-volunteer, offered an
example. "We used to have a mixed-gender community. There were even
more girls participating than boys. Now, it's the opposite. Boys and
girls are hesitant even to be in the same room with each other for
fear of attack by Hamas." She pointed to a young male volunteer. "We
have to be very cautious in our interactions with each other."

Suhail ended our meeting with the comment, "Making cultural change
takes a lot of time. And it has a lot of enemies."

Samira, too, had indirectly brought up the impact of the Hamas
takeover in Gaza. "After you leave here today," she said, "it's very
likely that someone will come and ask about you. Who are you? What
were you doing here?"

I sat a moment sipping sweet tea from a plastic cup and taking in
her comment. "Did we put you in danger by coming today?"

"Nothing will happen to us," she answered. "They will just ask."

Samira sounded nonchalant. I felt less so. Comings and goings, it
seemed, were being carefully, if unobtrusively, monitored.

*New Levels of Violence*

At the pristine offices of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program
(GCMHP), Husam al Nounou and Dr. Ahmad Abu Tawahina brought into
focus the degree to which the Hamas takeover had affected life in
Gaza. Husam, the program's director of public relations, was
soft-spoken and Dr. Abu Tawahina, its director general, was
animated; both men radiated self-assurance and dignity.

By then, the large-scale, bloody political violence between Hamas
and Fatah militants had ended. There were no longer shoot-outs on
street corners. Military actions against Fatah-connected individuals
were on-going, however. Dr. Abu Tawahina described cases of people
leaving their houses only to find the body of a relative dumped on
the street, or frantic Gazans calling police stations after a family
member "disappeared," only to be told that there was "no information."

The margins of free speech, never large in Gaza, had decreased
significantly, Husam told me. Direct or indirect messages of fear
and intimidation are now regularly passed on to journalists and
human rights workers. Fatah affiliates are beaten up, detained,
their cars burned; Fatah-related organizations have been totally
destroyed. I was reminded of Mahmoud's reply when I asked him if Al
Mezan's ability to work, exposing human rights abuses to the people
of Gaza, has been affected since the takeover.

"We are not changing our work at all," he said, choosing his words
slowly. "We are not allowing ourselves to be intimidated."

Ideological and political differences between the movements have
certainly played a major role in the internal fighting -- Dr. Abu
Tawahina carefully explained -- as has the regional factor:
Washington supports Fatah, while Hamas is backed by Syria and Iran.
But, as Husam pointed out, other factors should not be ignored.
"There is no tradition of democracy or transfer of power in
Palestinian society," he said. "Fatah was not prepared to lose the
January 2006 elections or give authority over to Hamas."

Add to this mix the adamant refusal of both the Bush administration
and Ehud Olmert's government in Israel to recognize the
democratically elected Hamas government, as well as their support
for Fatah's attempts to sabotage it.

"What would have happened," I asked, "if Hamas had been given a
chance to actually govern in the first place?"

After a long pause, Husam responded, "There's no way to know for
sure. But I think there's a good chance that Hamas would have
changed. There are lots of indications that they were initially
willing to."

Dr. Abu Tawahina then widened the context of the discussion. Many
Fatah officials had spent years in Israeli prisons, he commented,
enduring torture at the hands of Israeli interrogators and soldiers.
After signing the Oslo peace agreements in 1993, members of the
Palestine Liberation Organization (in which Fatah is the most
powerful faction) were permitted to establish a self-governing
apparatus called the Palestinian Authority (PA). Israel put pressure
on the PA to arrest those who opposed the Oslo process, particularly
when opposition groups carried out attacks in Israel.

As a result, thousands of Hamas members, most of whom had not been
involved in the violence, spent time in PA jails. Fatah
interrogators then applied the same techniques to the prisoners in
their hands as the Israelis had once used against them, even ramping
the methods up a notch or two.

"In psychology, we refer to it as 'identification with the
aggressor,'" Dr. Abu Tawahina told me.

Now, the very people Fatah abused in prison are in charge in the
Gaza Strip and they are seeking revenge for a decade of mistreatment
under Fatah. The phenomenon can be found in Gazan civil society as
well. One hundred thousand Palestinian laborers used to work inside
Israel, suffering daily humiliations at the hands of Israeli
soldiers at the Erez crossing. If they directed their anger and
frustration at their abusers, they would lose the permits that
allowed them to work inside Israel. Instead, many erupted in rage at
home at their wives or children, creating new victims.

The present level of internal violence in Gaza, however, has no
precedent. Hamas took the detentions and torture that were part and
parcel of Palestinian life under Israeli rule and later under the PA
and added the previously unimaginable -- Algerian-style executions
and disappearances. These were something new as acts among
Palestinians.

No one knows how many people have gone missing in these last months
or the details of their torture. Hamas won't allow Gaza Community
Mental Health Program staff to visit the prisons as they once did
regularly. Human rights organizations are trying to compile lists of
the missing, but there are no comprehensive statistics.

Meanwhile, frustration and anger inside the pressure cooker that is
Gaza only mounts. Violence in the society as a whole, including
domestic violence, is on the rise. New victims continue to be created.

"We attempted to work with the Fatah government when they were in
charge," Husam said. "We tried to warn them of the long-term
consequences their torture could bring. They didn't want to hear it."

Dr. Abu Tawahina tried to describe his fervent hope of one day
building a community that would enjoy genuine democracy and the rule
of law, no matter who was in charge. But in that office, his dream
felt, at best, remote.

"Let's say," he added, "that Israel and the U.S. manage to overthrow
Hamas and reinstall Fatah. Do you think that Fatah would now
institute a program of reconciliation?"

Dr. Abu Tawahina let the question fill the room, unanswered. But
from a barely perceptible shake of his head, I knew what his
response was.

*Society Unraveling*

Because of an ever more traumatized population, the mental health
program's services are desperately needed. The staff work
feverishly, trying to develop new techniques to meet the catastrophe
that is Gaza, but nothing, not telephone counseling, nor bringing in
other NGOs, nor holding community meetings to give larger numbers of
people coping tools can meet the escalating needs of the community.

"Peace is crucial for mental health services," Dr. Abu Tawahina said
pointedly. "Our staff feel inadequate in helping our clients. When
the source of someone's mental symptoms comes from physical needs
not being met, then there is very little that therapeutic techniques
can do."

At the moment, the community's most crucial resource -- itself -- is
fraying. In Palestinian society, the extended family has always
served as the center of a web of support and protection. Previously,
the mental health project used this incredibly powerful social
network as part of its outreach, making special efforts to educate
family members in how to take care of each other.

With the split between Fatah and Hamas growing ever deeper, Dr. Abu
Tawahina suggested that loyalty to political parties might be
growing stronger than loyalty to family. In many families, the
cracks are showing. Husam told me of families where one brother,
loyal to Hamas, gave information to the Hamas leadership about
another brother, active in Fatah, leading to his detention. I had
even heard rumors of brother killing brother. The implications of
this go far beyond the work of one mental health group. The very
foundations of Palestinian endurance and survival are now threatened
as the social fabric, their strength as a people, begins to unravel.

As our meeting was drawing to a close, Husam suddenly broached a new
subject. "The level of hate towards those behind the siege --
Israelis and Americans -- is increasing. We need to show the human
face of people from the U.S."

His comment reminded me that Samira and Suhail had also spoken about
their desire to launch an Internet program between young people in
Rafah and teenagers in Olympia, Washington, Rachel Corrie's
hometown. In itself, there was nothing shocking about the fact that
anger towards Americans, whose government strongly supported the
siege and had also backed Fatah in the internecine struggle in Gaza,
was on the rise. If anything, what was surprising, touching, and
human was the urge of a few Palestinians to challenge that hatred
and put a human face on Americans.

Dr. Abu Tawahina concluded with a sober warning. "Empirical studies
show that collective punishment isn't limited to those who are
directly subjected to the punishment. It affects the international
community as well. What is happening now in Gaza may someday very
well affect what happens later in Europe and the United States."

*Small Hope*

Now, back in the U.S., I stare at those images from just a few weeks
ago of Gazans flooding into Egypt. I feel myself on some threshold
between paralysis and hope -- anguished by the unending desperation
that led to the destruction of that wall and yet inspired by the way
the Gazans briefly broke their own siege.

Dr. Abu Tawahina, I believe, is right. What we are allowing to occur
in Gaza -- and we /are/ allowing, even facilitating, it -- will come
back to haunt us. Still, despite all the indicators of a society
locked into an open-air prison giving in to violence and possibly
fragmenting internally past the point of reconciliation, I hold onto
a small hope. Perhaps those of us outside that prison will be
affected by more than the explosive rage that inevitably comes from
an effort to collectively crush 1.5 million people into submission.
Perhaps we will also be affected by the Gazans who refuse to submit
to their oppressors, be they from outside or within. Ultimately, I
hope we'll choose to stand in solidarity with them.

/Jen Marlowe, a documentary filmmaker and human rights activist, is
the author of Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1560259280/ref=nosim/?tag=nationbooks08-20>
(Nation Books). She is now directing and editing her next film,
Rebuilding Hope <http://www.rebuildinghopesudan.org/>, about South
Sudan, and writing a book about Palestine and Israel. Her most
recent film <http://www.darfurdiaries.org/> was /Darfur Diaries:
Message from Home/. She serves on the board of directors of the
Friends of the Jenin Freedom Theatre
<http://www.friendsofthejeninfreedomtheatre.org/> and is a founding
member of the Rachel's Words initiative
<http://www.rachelswords.org/>. Her email address is:
jenmarlowe@hotmail.com/

Copyright 2008 Jen Marlowe

Back to the Times

THE ABSURD TIMES

We have gone back to the Absurd Times because search engines would not find the Absurd Tribune.
What could be more Absurd?

Well, just about anything involving human beings, whether apparent now or later.


Hope those of you who couldn't find us now can.

Fw: the Primaries and thier discontents

 

The Absurd Tribune

 

 

      The cartoon is illustrative of what I see in this election, even though it is still the primaries.  That stupid commercial about 3am hot-line phone calls plays to the worst in the American electorate and makes one wonder if it would not be wiser simply to opt out of that group altogether.  I do wonder why the phone rings 7 times.  Surely, someone was there?  Perhaps an answering machine finally picked it up, or the commercial ran out of time. 

      The NAFTA is another issue.  Canada had a fierce debate over supposed leaking of a memo about Nafta, which both candidates oppose but tell others they are not going to change.  Finally, Canada, which I know fairly well, said, in essence, to paraphrase Chevy Chase "We're Canada, and you're NOT!"

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following is from znet, then CounterPunch.  First it show how much easier it is to be even-handed on Israel while in Israel than it is in the United States.  Second, it reveals the truth about both countries and also points to a few problems with the politics of fear.

 

 

  Good Morning, Hamas

 

 

      CounterPunch

 

March 08, 2008 By *Uri Avnery*

Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery03042008.html

 

Uri Avnery's ZSpace Page

We Israelis live in a world of ghosts and monsters. We do not conduct a

war against living persons and real organizations, but against devils

and demons which are out to destroy us. It is a war between the Sons of

Light and the Sons of Darkness, between absolute good and absolute evil.

That's how it looks to us, and that's how it looks to the other side, too.

 

 

 

Let's try to bring this war down from virtual spheres to the solid

ground of reality. There can be no reasonable policy, nor even rational

discussion, if we do not escape from the realm of horrors and nightmares.

 

 

 

After the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections, Gush Shalom said

that we must speak with them. Here are some of the questions that were

showered on me from all sides:

 

 

 

Do you like Hamas?

 

 

 

Not at all. I have very strong secular convictions. I oppose any

ideology that mixes politics with religion - whether Jewish, Muslim or

Christian, in Israel, the Arab world or America.

 

 

 

That does not prevent me from speaking with Hamas people, as I have

spoken with other people with whom I don't agree. It has not prevented

me from being a guest at their homes, to exchange views with them and to

try to understand them. Some of them I liked, some I did not.

 

 

 

It is said that Hamas was created by Israel. Is that true?

 

 

 

Israel did not "create" Hamas, but it certainly helped it along in its

initial stages.

 

 

 

During the first 20 years of the occupation, the Israeli leadership saw

the PLO as its chief enemy. That's why it favored Palestinian

organizations that, it was thought, could undermine the PLO. One example

of this was Ariel Sharon's ludicrous attempt to set up Arab "village

leagues" that would act as agents of the occupation.

 

 

 

The Israeli intelligence community, which in the last 60 years has

failed almost every time in forecasting events in the Arab world, also

failed this time. They believed that the emergence of an Islamic

organization would weaken the secular PLO. While the military

administration of the occupied territories was throwing into prison any

Palestinian who engaged in political activity - even for peace - it did

not touch the religious activists. The mosque was the only place where

Palestinians could get together and plan political action.

 

 

 

This policy was, of course, based on a complete misunderstanding of

Islam and Palestinian reality.

 

 

 

Hamas was officially founded immediately after the outbreak of the first

intifada at the end of 1987. The Israeli Security Service (known as

Shabak or Shin Bet) handled it with kid gloves. Only a year later did it

arrest the founder, Sheik Ahmad Yassin.

 

 

 

It is ironic that the Israeli leadership is now supporting the PLO in

the hope of undermining Hamas. There is no better evidence for the

stupidity of our "experts" as far as Arab matters are concerned,

stemming from both arrogance and contempt. Hamas is far more dangerous

to Israel than the PLO ever was.

 

 

 

Did the Hamas election victory show that Islam was on the rise among the

Palestinian people?

 

 

 

Not necessarily. The Palestinian people did not become more religious

overnight.

 

 

 

True, there is a slow process of Islamization throughout the region,

from Turkey to Yemen and from Morocco to Iraq. It is the reaction of the

young Arab generation to the failure of secular nationalism to solve

their national and social problems. But this did not cause the

earthquake in Palestinian society.

 

 

 

If so, why did Hamas win?

 

 

 

There were several reasons. The main one was the growing conviction of

the Palestinians that they would never get anything from the Israelis by

non-violent means. After the murder of Yassir Arafat, many Palestinians

believed that if they elected Mahmoud Abbas as the new president, he

would get from Israel and the US the things they would not give Arafat.

They found out that the opposite was happening: No real negotiations,

while the settlements were getting larger every day.

 

 

 

They told themselves: if peaceful means don't work, there is no

alternative to violent means. And if there be war, there are no braver

warriors than Hamas.

 

 

 

Also: the corruption in the higher Fatah echelons had reached such

dimensions, that the majority of Palestinians were disgusted. As long as

Arafat was alive, the corruption was somehow tolerated, because

everybody knew that Arafat himself was honest, and his towering

importance for the national struggle overrode the shortcomings of his

administration. After Arafat, tolerating the corruption became

impossible. Hamas, on the other hand, was considered clean, and its

leaders incorrupt. The social and educational Hamas institutions, mainly

financed by Saudi Arabia, were widely respected.

 

 

 

The splits within Fatah also helped the Hamas candidates.

 

 

 

Hamas, of course, had not taken part in previous elections, but it was

generally assumed - even by Hamas people themselves - that they

represented only about 15-25 percent of the electorate.

 

 

 

Can one reasonably expect the Palestinians to overthrow Hamas themselves?

 

 

 

As long as the occupation goes on, there is no chance of that. An

Israeli general said this week that if the Israeli army stopped

operating in the West Bank, Hamas would replace Abbas there too.

 

 

 

The administration of Mahmoud Abbas stands on feet of clay - American

and Israeli feet. If the Palestinians finally lose what confidence they

still have in Abbas, his power would crumble.

 

 

 

But how can one reach a settlement with an organization that declares

that it will never recognize Israel and whose charter calls for the

destruction of the Jewish state?

 

 

 

All this matter of "recognition" is nonsense, a pretext for avoiding a

dialogue. We do not need "recognition" from anybody. When the United

States started a dialogue with Vietnam, it did not demand to be

recognized as an Anglo-Saxon, Christian and capitalist state.

 

 

 

If A signs an agreement with B, it means that A recognizes B. All the

rest is hogwash.

 

 

 

And in the same matter: The fuss over the Hamas charter is reminiscent

of the ruckus about the PLO charter, in its time. That was a quite

unimportant document, which was used by our representatives for years as

an excuse to refuse to talk with the PLO. Heaven and earth were moved to

compel the PLO to annul it. Who remembers that today? The acts of today

and tomorrow are important, the papers of yesterday are not.

 

 

 

What should we speak with Hamas about?

 

 

 

First of all, about a cease-fire. When a wound is bleeding, the blood

loss must be stemmed before the wound itself can be treated.

 

 

 

Hamas has many times proposed a cease-fire, Tahidiyeh ("Quiet") in

Arabic. This would mean a stop to all hostilities: Qassams and Grad

rockets and mortar shells from Hamas and the other organizations,

"targeted liquidations", military incursions and starvation from Israel.

 

 

 

The negotiations should be conducted by the Egyptians, particularly

since they would have to open the border between the Gaza Strip and

Sinai. Gaza must get back its freedom of communication with the world by

land, sea and air,

 

 

 

If Hamas demands the extension of the cease-fire to the West Bank, too,

this should also be discussed. That would necessitate a

Hamas-Fatah-Israel trialogue.

 

 

 

Won't Hamas exploit the cease-fire to arm itself?

 

 

 

Certainly. And so will Israel. Perhaps we shall succeed, at long last,

in finding a defense against short-range rockets.

 

 

 

If the cease-fire holds, what will be the next step?

 

 

 

An armistice, or Hudnah in Arabic.

 

 

 

Hamas would have a problem in signing a formal agreement with Israel,

because Palestine is a Waqf - a religious endowment. (That arose, at the

time, for political reasons. When Caliph Omar conquered Palestine, he

was afraid that his generals would divide the country among themselves,

as they had already done in Syria. So he declared it to be the property

of Allah. This resembles the attitude of our own religious people, who

maintain that it is a sin to give away any part of the country, because

God has expressly promised it to us.)

 

 

 

Hudnah is an alternative to peace. It is a concept deeply embedded in

the Islamic tradition. The prophet Muhammad himself agreed a Hudnah with

the rulers of Mecca, with whom he was at war after his flight from Mecca

to Medina. (By the way, before the Hudnah expired, the inhabitants of

Mecca adopted Islam and the prophet entered the town peacefully.) Since

it has a religious sanction, its violation by Muslim believers is

impossible.

 

 

 

A Hudnah can last for dozens of years and be extended without limit. A

long Hudnah is in practice peace, if the relations between the two

parties create a reality of peace.

 

 

 

So a formal peace is impossible?

 

 

 

There is a solution for this, too. Hamas has declared in the past that

it does not object to Abbas conducting peace negotiations, on condition

that the agreement reached is put to a plebiscite. If the Palestinian

people confirm it, Hamas declared that it will accept the people's decision.

 

 

 

Why would Hamas accept it?

 

 

 

Like every Palestinian political force, Hamas aspires to power in the

Palestinian state that will be set up along the 1967 borders. For that

it needs to enjoy the confidence of the majority. There is no doubt

whatsoever that the vast majority of the Palestinian people want a state

of their own and peace. Hamas knows this well. It will do nothing that

would push the majority of the people away.

 

 

 

And what is the place of Abbas in all this?

 

 

 

He should be pressured to come to an agreement with Hamas, along the

lines of the earlier agreement concluded in Mecca. We believe that

Israel has a clear interest in negotiating with a Palestinian government

that includes the two big movements, so that the agreement reached would

be accepted by almost all sections of the Palestinian people.

 

 

 

Is time working for us?

 

 

 

For many years, Gush Shalom was telling the Israeli public: let's make

peace with the secular leadership of Yasser Arafat, because otherwise

the national conflict will turn into a religious conflict.

Unfortunately, this prophecy, too, has come true.

 

 

 

Those who did not want the PLO, got Hamas. If we don't come to terms

with Hamas, we shall be faced with more extreme Islamic organizations,

like the Taliban in Afghanistan.

 

 

 

/Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He

is a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.  /