The Horrible Truth about Gaza

by Samah Sabawi

This article first appeared on the web site of Australians for Palestine and is being published here, slightly revised, with the permission and approval of the writer and the editor of the original web-site

INTRODUCTION: With the surfeit of attacks on the Greens and
BDS in our media and then the timely Goldstone recantation,
no one bothered to report on Gaza. Perhaps for some, Israel’s
latest round of attacks could easily be dismissed as border
skirmishes, but for people in Gaza, it was shades of “Cast Lead”.


If you haven’t experienced the sounds of supersonic war planes
streaking across the sky and the thunder of artillery fire, let alone
the exploding bombs and shells that can kill and do, you might taken
note of what a Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius wrote in the 17th
century: “Wars, for the attainment of their objects . . . must
employ force and terror as their most proper agents.”(Book3,
Chapter 1:VI). Israel has made an art of that.


The escalation of attacks and their grisly death toll gave way
to news about twoIsraelis injured by a rocket fired into
Israel and landing on a bus.


Terrible and frightening to be sure for those affected, but not
more heinous than what Israel has been doing every day to
Palestinians in Gaza already suffering from a draconian siege
that Israel keeps tightening, despite reports to the contrary. If
that were not enough, Israeli politicians have been suggesting
another “Cast Lead” and predicting that one is around the corner.


So, to be told that the papers are not interested in headcounts
and the re-hashing of the same arguments is truly insulting to
people whose lives are in perpetual jeopardy. What is there
that is “deeper” than people’s lives – talking about the
implications of declaring a state in September, as was suggested?
In truth, that is another way of spinning a gossamer screen to
camouflage reality.

It’s time we asked how many Palestinian voices have we heard in
the obscene rush to dump on anything critical of Israel. If Israeli
apologists are so convinced of their own arguments against the
one nonviolent measure left to the Palestinians –BDS – to hold
Israel to account, then they should not be worried about letting
others air their views. But, that is not how propaganda works!

Sonja Karkar
Co-founder, Australians for Palestine

The media coverage of Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza that left many dead and many more injured echoes Israel’s claim that it was part of an escalation that began on Thursday when Hamas militants fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus, critically wounding a teenager and lightly injuring the driver. Such claims ignore the reality that systematic violence against the Palestinians has never stopped.

In fact, in the weeks before the school bus incident between 16-29 March, according to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Israel has killed a total of fourteen Palestinians, including six civilians, and injured fifty two Palestinians, including at least forty civilians (nineteen children). In that same period, three Israeli civilians were injured. OCHA’s report makes it clear that all the civilian fatalities and nineteen of the Palestinian injuries occurred as a result of Israeli tank shelling and mortar fire.

So while both Hamas and Israel have targeted civilians, Israel has used force far more lethally against the civilian population. And as tragic as the wounding of an Israeli boy on a bus is, his injury was not a trigger to Israel’s bombardment of Palestinians in Gaza which has continued on and off for the better part of this last decade, and certainly was not what started this current escalation .

Unfortunately, Palestinian deaths and injuries and Israeli incursions don’t make the daily news. But the death of every child, man and woman is indeed felt deeply in the close-knit community of Gaza and the rest of Palestine. Failing to understand this is failing to understand the impact of the human tragedy on this conflict. On the political level, this failure to comprehend the human tragedy and how it inflames Arab and Muslim public opinion has (and continues to have) disastrous consequence for world peace and security. Western audiences are spared the images of grieving Palestinian mothers and fathers, but in the Arab and Muslim world, such images are a constant reminder of the brutality of the Israeli occupation and of the hypocrisy of the world powers supporting it.

This gap in reporting leaves many with the false impression that since Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, there has been “calm” between Israel and the Palestinians. But reality tells a different story. In fact, since Cast Lead and up to February this year, Israeli Human Rights organization B’Tselem reported a total of 151 Palestinians killed in the Occupied Territories, 19 of them minors. During that same period 9 Israeli civilians were also killed by Palestinians including 1 minor. These statistics, as horrid as they are, don’t even begin to describe the daily violence of occupation including the travel restrictions, the lack of access to medical care, clean water and electricity.

Indeed, the violence of Israel’s occupation comes in many forms. Perhaps the most poignant of which is Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza. Keeping the economy “on the brink of collapse”, confirmed as an Israeli policy by diplomatic US cables revealed by Wikileaks, is the goal of the inhumane siege that has made 55 percent of the population in Gaza food-insecure and 10 percent of Gaza’s children a victim to stunting and malnutrition. Israel’s periodic attacks, incursions and invasions that involve the killing of large numbers of civilians and the systemic destruction of agricultural lands, demolition of homes and destruction of civilian infrastructure have not stopped for one day since the siege intensified in 2007. Restricting the movement of people, prohibiting patients and students from leaving Gaza, prohibiting loved ones and relatives visitation rights to the world’s largest open air prison is a form of violent and extreme collective punishment that targets the entire population.

Let us not forget that 75 percent of Gaza’s population is made up of refugees denied for 63 years the right to return to their homes inside what is now Israel. Israel’s denial of the rights of refugees and its 43 year old occupation and colonization of Gaza and the West Bank is at the root of all the violence. Those who point at the latest set of incidents as the cause for the violence are simply missing the big picture.

NOTE: Samah Sabawi, recently appointed Public Advocate for the Melbourne based advocacy group Australians for Palesine, is a Human Rights and Social Justice advocate. She has lived and worked in many countries around the world and is currently residing in Melbourne, Australia. In addition to numerous articles and poems (published in as many publications and web-sites), she has also co-authored with her father, Abdel-Karim Sabawi, a play “Cries from the Land”, produced the play “Three Wishes” based on her adaptation of Deborah Ellis's book "Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israelis Speak Out", and is former Executive Director and Media Spokesperson for the National Council on Canada Arab Relations.

HONORING THE QURAN, VIOLATING ITS TEACHINGS

By: Gulamhusein A. Abba

“It is all very well to talk about the freedom of speech and expression. But such freedom cannot extend to committing acts designed to deliberately incite people to violence.”

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“If freedom of religion and peace between different religious faiths is to be maintained, there must be respect and civility between those who profess different faiths.”

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“Often one hears the question “Where is the voice of moderate Muslims” whenever a particularly atrocious deed is done by some group acting in the name of Islam. In this case, it would be appropriate to ask, “Where is the voice of moderate Christians” with regards to pastor Terry Jones burning the Quran.”

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The burning of the Quran by pastor Terry Jones was vicious and a deliberate provocation. It was most reprehensible, deserving of condemnation by all, no matter what their faith.

What he did was immeasurably worse because he well knew what the reaction would be among some of the fanatic and misguided Muslims.

He had threatened to burn the Quran on an earlier occasion when the protest against the proposed construction of the so called “Ground Zero Mosque” was at its height. At that time the pastor had been briefed thoroughly about the repercussions that would follow and the danger it would pose to the lives of American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. He had then refrained from carrying out his threat.

A little more than a year later, he went ahead and burned a copy of the Quran. If reports are to be believed, the expressed purpose of the burning was to provoke violence so that it could be used to “prove” that Islam was a violent religion! As if the actions of a few fanatically misguided Muslims can be attributed to Islam itself.

In these circumstances, for him to have done what he did makes him the prime inciter of the ensuing violence and he needs to be held accountable for it.

It is all very well to talk about the freedom of speech and expression. But such freedom cannot, should not, and, to the best of my knowledge, does not extend to committing acts designed to deliberately incite people to violence.

If freedom of religion and peace between different religious faiths is to be maintained, there must be respect and civility between those who profess different faiths.

That having been said, those who raided the UN compound and went on a rampage, killing innocent people, beheading them, injuring them, destroying property, deserve the strongest condemnation possible.

Among those on the rampage at the UN compound many chanted “Death to Americans” and “Death to the Jews”, and those killed included four Nepalese. The UN had nothing to do with the burning of the Quran. Nor did the Americans or Jews as such have to do anything with it. And certainly the Nepalese were not involved in any way. The killing of these innocent people can neither be excused nor forgiven under any circumstances.

One can understand their outrage and anger, and perhaps even admire their zeal to protect the honor of the Quran, but in thus protesting the burning of the “book” they violated and gravely assaulted the spirit of the teachings therein. Violence of the kind they perpetrated is not the way to express outrage. There are more civilized ways of doing it, as indeed others so outraged did, by taking out huge non-violent processions and making their feelings known.

It is to be hoped that the authorities in Afghanistan will take the strictest possible action against perpetrators of the atrocity and their inciters, and that the relevant authorities in the US will take suitable action against the pastor and those in his congregation who aided and abetted him.

In the meantime, it would be fitting for responsible leaders in the faith community, specially those of the Islamic and Christian faiths, to condemn both, the burning of the Quran and the violent reaction to it.

Often one hears the question “Where is the voice of moderate Muslims” whenever a particularly atrocious deed is done by some group acting in the name of Islam. In this case, it would be appropriate to ask, “Where is the voice of moderate Christians” with regards to pastor Terry Jones burning the Quran.

Gulamhusein A. Abba,

Danbury

WHY DO WE HATE THEM

Anis Hamadeh, March 19, 2011

http://www.anis-online.de/1/essays/25.htm

Editorial Note The German version of the following piece
by Anis Hamadeh, a German artist and writer, was published at
http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=16285 TheEnglish
version, also written by Anis Hamadeh,is published here with
his permission.It may be copied/published/distributed freely.

There are far more than 100.000 Google entries for "Why do they hate us?". This question has engaged US Americans since 9/11 and Noam Chomsky provided some sound answers in a video shown on Youtube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pfcW0_sSuw). "Why do they hate us" gained new momentum with the beginning of the Arab Revolution, as certain discrepancies became transparent concerning our Western attitude towards Arab countries. Yet the hate question is of special significance for another reason, too, one that goes almost unnoticed: it reflects the discourse of the ruling in which hate is a sentiment exclusively reserved for the antagonist, i.e. the enemy. The underlying deeper question is: why do we hate them?

In the original German version of the article at hand, - published by the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (www.nrhz.de) on March 16 -, mention is made of Otto von Bismarck and his strategy of unifying the Germans by providing a common enemy to them - France. Later, Adolf Hitler continued the strategy and introduced a new object of hatred to establish a strong in-group feeling among his fellow countrymen, namely the Jews. Anti-Semitism was, in fact, a traditional European idea that came up in the time of the crusades. The Nazis carried it to extremes, and added the communists, the Sinti and Roma, free artists, homosexuals and genetically deviant people. All those were permissible to be hated. In this way, the Germans developed their national identity: 'we are not them'.

'Enemy thinking', both as a method and as an unconscious habit has severe negative effects on one's own society and on others, as it uses the notion of "we against them" to build an in-group feeling, a strong We.

Unfortunately, the story of hate continued even after the nightmare of World War II, and not only in Germany. As soon as the Nazi enemy was overcome, communism took its place, defining a new supra-national entity: the West or the "free world".

The issue of 'enemy thinking' did not reach the top of the school curricula, and politicians and media would not refrain from institutionalizing it. Of course, this behavior can also be found in non-Western societies, but this fact does not redeem our own behavior for which we are fully responsible. A bank robber will hardly convince a judge by asserting that there are far worse bank robbers around in other areas of the planet.

But what about 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union disappeared? People had discarded enemy thinking by then, abolished the NATO, and had gone back to reason, hadn't they? Not at all. It was not long until a new enemy was found, another dormant one, saved for a rainy day. Because we got hooked on the 'enemy', like a heroin addict gets hooked on the drug.

Similar to the case of anti-Semitism, the enmity toward the current antagonist, Islam and the Orient, has historical roots as reference points. And like in Nazi ideology, we have additional secondary enemies: this or that dictator, China, some internal suspects etc. Yet, after 9/11 (with all its open questions), the "free world" has zeroed in on Islam, covering the respective Arab and Muslim countries with wars of aggression (as opposed to defensive wars) and with threats, while Muslims in our own Western societies are being "critically" eyed.

So why do we hate them? Because, without an enemy we hardly have an identity. It is an expression of decadence by societies that persistently refuse to learn from history. The peak is reached with the phantasm of a "Christian Jewish tradition", a new fashionable term in the German discourse, probably not restricted to Germany. It is a kind of trick to get the former enemy into the boat against his successor. The context was understood even by the Central Council of the Jews in Germany, an institution that is not generally regarded as being progressive and one that much too often has appeared as an apologist for the state of Israel, a state seemingly obsessed by the use of violence.

In January 2011, CCJG Vice President Salomon Korn said in an interview that the emphasis on "Christian Jewish roots of the Occident" might be agenda-motivated, in the sense of integrating the Jews in a common front-line against Muslims. Such "embraces" should be regarded with caution, according to Korn. Another trick is to regard the genocide of the Jews as unique in a way that it leaves the historical frame, becoming an incomparable act, so that we cannot remotely be in danger of committing such a crime ourselves. What we do in our war zones could never be so cruel.

But do we really hate Islam so much? Is it not an exaggeration? Some insignificant or casual remarks on Fox News, CNN, and in the mainstream media? This won't make the world stop, will it? Isn't it rather like in sports? Be a sport! - The thing is that "Islam" and "Arabs" are only on-the-surface issues. It really is about the eternal and inevitable enemy that we create and maintain - and kill. We need him, because we have no identity without him.

Take Iran, a country that is targeted and threatened by us. Is it because of the bomb that Iran does not possess while Israel possesses it? Or is it because "they hate us"? In 1953, the CIA was instrumental in toppling Prime Minister Mossadegh and supporting the Pahlevi reign until the theocratic revolution which - closing the circle - has been serving as a convenient setting for Western enemy thinking ever since. And why has the USA to mess around in Palestine, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with a long trail of blood? Is it not an addiction? An obsession?

Of course, not everybody subscribes to enemy thinking. Even the mainstream media at times broadcasts and publishes sophisticated and fair contributions within its limits. So there is hope. Yet the problem remains: we hate systematically, up to killing. Today we lead and support wars of aggression, jettison our own values and fail to adequately acknowledge our responsibility. Even after Hitler. This is the real issue. We call it "freedom", but it is not freedom. Free are those who are sensitized, who know the value of life and who do not need an enemy. Those who recognize self-realization to be the meaning of life, the pursuit of happiness. Those who understand that art has a meaning and that culture enriches the world. Those who have a self-identity and are proud of it.

It is a long way there, still. For the schools, the parental homes, the cliques, the media, the political parties, and the corporations.

In Egypt, tens of millions of people stood up for change. We can learn a lesson from that.

Anis Hamadeh is a German artist with Arab roots, MA in Islamic Studies, author of "Islam für Kids" (345 pp, in German), website: www.anis-online.de/index_engl.htm

WEST'S SELECTIVE CONCERN FOR LIBYAN REBELS

By Gulamhusein Abba

Principally the US, UK and France have started taking “all measures necessary” to stop Libya, a duly constituted, independent, sovereign nation from, in effect, putting down a rebellion by a few Libyan tribes who were determined to effect a regime change.

At time of writing, according to news reports, 112 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from American and British ships and submarines. French fighter jets fired salvos, carrying out several strikes in the rebel held east. RAF Tornados, flying from Norfolk, bombed targets near Tripoli. Tomahawk missiles fired from a Royal Navy submarine hit targets around the coastal cities of Tripoli and Misrata.

This pounding of Moammar Gadhafi’s forces and air defenses with cruise missiles and air strikes hit 20 to 22 targets leaving targeted tanks and jeeps burning and causing “various levels of damage”. Libyan state TV reported that civilian areas of Tripoli as well as fuel storage tanks supplying the western city of Misrata hat been hit. A Libyan government spokesman claimed that many civilians had been hurt and ambulance crews had been doing their best to save as many lives as they could.

The overriding reason for this essentially western military intervention is claimed to be saving the lives of innocent Libyans being “massacred” by Gadhafi. The justification was that the world could not stand idly by when such a massacre was being carried out.
No figures are available as to the number of people that have been killed by Gadhafi forces.

This military intervention raises questions about international law, more particularly as to how far can a government go in putting down a rebellion and when any outside power or coalition of powers or even the UN can throw in its weight to support one side or the other in what is essentially a civil war raging in an independent sovereign nation.

Without going into the legal and political implications, a couple of puzzling and disturbing questions arise.

If the intervention was because, as president Obama said, Gadhafi was shooting at his own people, what about Yemen and Bahrain? Are not those governments also firing “on their own people”? Strikingly absent is any real harsh denunciation or even criticism of these two governments.

And where were these “world leaders”, who today are carrying out strikes against Libya, when China was subjugating and colonizing Tibet or putting down the uprising in Tiananmen Square, shooting their own people? And why did these powers not intervene when Israel was firing mortars and missiles and dropping mega bombs, in wave after wave of “operations” bearing fancy names against Gazans who were trying to overthrow Israel’s long running, illegal and brutal occupation of their land?

Also, Obama has warned Libya that it will face the wrath of the combined forces of US, UK, Franc and several other members of the latest “coalition of the willing” if it prevents humanitarian aid reaching Libya. Fair enough. But why was such a warning not given to Israel when it prevented ships carrying humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza?

Is it any wonder that the rest of the world (5 countries - Russia, China. India, Germany and Brazil - abstained from the UN vote) looks with suspicion about the real motives of this selective concern for the rebellious tribes of Libya?

Further, the claim that the reason for and purpose of the intervention is solely to protect the ‘innocent Libyan civilians’ who are being “massacred’ by Gadhafi becomes suspect when persons like the former British ambassador to Libya, Oliver Miles says it was clear that the long-term aim of the military action by the latest ‘coalition of the willing’ was to overthrow Colnel Gadhafi, and the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague says he cannot see a future with Colnel Gadhafi in charge. He told Sky News bluntly “We want him to go”.

The US will do well to remember that not all enemies of our enemy are necessarily our friends and that sometimes the one chosen to replace an undesirable ruler turns out to be worse!

MURDER MOST FOUL

Time for Muslims to save the essence of Islam

By: Gulamhusein A Abba

I am a Muslim. I hold Prophet Muhammed in high esteem and have great admiration, respect and regard for him. But that cannot and does not prevent me from condemning in the strictest terms possible the murder on Wednesday, February 2, of the only Christian federal government minister in Pakistan for allegedly blaspheming Islam.

Shahbaz Bhatti was a Minister for Minorities in the Government of Pakistan.. He was a prominent opponent of the blasphemy law in Pakistan that mandates the death penalty for insulting Islam and or Prophet Muhammed.. He is the second senior official this year to be murdered for opposing that law. Provincial governor Salman Taseer was shot dead by his own bodyguard just a month earlier, in January.

Neither Shabaz nor Salman blasphemed. They merely opposed the blasphemy law as it stood and asked for amendments to it.. Even if they had blasphemed, that does not allow private individuals to take the law into their own hands and kill them. There is the blasphemy law. They could have been tried under it.

I go further and say that even if they had been found guilty under that law, it would have been disgraceful, to say the least, to put them to death for that..

I understand that religion is a sensitive subject. People who will not ordinarily harm a fly will die, and kill, for religion!

But Islam is not served by putting blasphemers to death. I am certain that were Prophet Muhammed alive today, he too would have opposed the death penalty mandated under this particular law in Pakistan .

The self styled protectors of Islam who put Shabaz and Salman to death bring not glory to Islam but ridicule and contempt.

In this time and age, putting people to death by stoning, or in any other manner, for any crime, is archaic.

What Muslims need to do understand that the way to counter blasphemies is to make greater efforts to spread the truth about Islam and Prophet Muhammed. The weapon against untruth is neither guns nor the guillotine but truth.

When Gandhi started the Quit India movement to rid India of British rule, I supported and participated in the movement. However, I also supported and worked for the creation of Pakistan.

Just as my love and respect for Islam and Prophet Muhammed does not prevent me from condemning the assassins who killed Shabaz and Salman, my having worked for the creation of Pakistan does not prevent me for censuring the Pakistani Government for having a law that mandates death for insulting Islam or speaking ill of Prophet Muhammed, and more particularly for the way it has handled the cases of Shabaz and Salman.

Shabaz was very aware of the assassination of Salman. He had received death threats. He knew his life was in danger. He even made a video about it. The Government had been informed about the danger to his life. Yet he was shot eight times, in broad daylight, in his car near his home as he was heading to work in Islamabad .

The windshield of Shabaz's car had four or five bullet holes. Blood covered the back seat. According to his driver, Gul Sher, a white car stopped near the car carrying Shabaz near a crossing. One of the four people sitting in the car got out, came in front of the car and opened fire from a Kalashnikov.

Surely it was the responsibility and the duty of the Government to have seen to it that Shabaz had protection as he travelled to work. But there was no security there whatsoever. Just Shabaz and Gul Sher.

Chilling is the fact that Salman's killer was lionized in Pakistan. Huge processions were taken out in his honor. Shockingly, lawyers, in their black robes, joined in.

True that government officials condemned Mr. Bhatti's killing Wednesday. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani condemned the killing and ordered the Ministry of Interior to investigate.

But, after the Punjab province governor was killed in January, Gillani and other politicians disowned advocacy of reform of laws that make insulting Islam a capital crime. In fact, Sherry Rehman, a ruling party lawmaker who had proposed legislation to reform the anti-blasphemy laws, withdrew the bill, saying the party did not support it. The government of President Asif Ali Zardari has repeatedly said it would not change the blasphemy law, and officials have distanced themselves from anyone calling for amendments

And, significantly, neither President Asif Ali Zardari nor Prime Minister Gillani attended Salman's funeral.

These two assassinations represent a severe blow to Pakistani liberals, who are increasingly being silenced by Muslim hard-liners willing to use violence against those who do not share their harsh views.

Farahnaz Ispahani, a spokesman for President Asif Ali Zardari, said in a statement, "The time has come for the federal government and provincial governments to speak out and to take a strong stand against these murderers, to save the very essence of Pakistan."

If the Government of Pakistan is serious about dealing with the Taliban and violent extremist and radical Islamists, it must do more than issuing formal condemnations of such killings and ordering investigations.

For starters, the government must systematically arrest those who incite and praise murderers.

For its part, Mr. Zardari's Pakistan People's Party (PPP), which has not championed the views of Shabaz or Salman, needs to mobilize its large voting base to take to the streets in support of tolerance.

Leaflets distributed as the scene of the shooting claimed responsibility on behalf of "Al Qaeda and the Taliban of Punjab," and read: "This is the punishment of this cursed man."

The note went on to say that "with the blessing of Allah, the majahideen will send each of you [anti-blasphemy law campaigners] to hell," according to The Guardian.

While who goes to heaven and who to hell can only be determined by God, the Government of Pakistan must do all in its power to arrest and send into jail those who distribute such leaflets.

This does not concern the Government of Pakistan or the Muslims of that country alone. Muslims all over the world must speak out on this issue, and, whatever their views may be on the blasphemy laws in Pakistan and other countries, they need to unequivocally condemn murders by private individuals who style themselves as protectors of Islam and go about committing mayhem in the name of Islam.

PEACE WITH PALESTINIANS NO LONGER A LUXURY

A message from Egypt:

By Uri Avnery
February 5, 2011


WE ARE in the middle of a geological event. An earthquake of epoch-making dimensions is changing the landscape of our region. Mountains turn into valleys, islands emerge from the sea, volcanoes cover the land with lava.

People are afraid of change. When it happens, they tend to deny, ignore, pretend that nothing really important is happening.

Israelis are no exception. While in neighboring Egypt earth-shattering events were taking place, Israel was absorbed with a scandal in the army high command. The Minister of Defense abhors the incumbent Chief of Staffand makes no secret of it. The presumptive new chief was exposed as a liar and his appointment canceled. These were the headlines.

But what is happening now in Egypt will change our lives.

As usual, nobody foresaw it. The much-feted Mossad was taken by surprise, as was the CIA and all the other celebrated services of this kind.

Yet there should have been no surprise at all - except about the incredible force of the eruption. In the last few years, we have mentioned many times in this column that all over the Arab world, multitudes of young people are growing up with a profound contempt for their leaders, and that sooner or later this will lead to an uprising. These were not prophesies, but rather a sober analysis of probabilities.

The turmoil in Egypt was caused by economic factors: the rising cost of living, the poverty, the unemployment, the hopelessness of the educated young. But let there be no mistake: the underlying causes are far more profound. They can be summed up in one word:Palestine.

In Arab culture, nothing is more important than honor. People can suffer deprivation, but they will not stand humiliation.

Yet what every young Arab from Morocco to Oman saw daily was his leaders humiliating themselves, forsaking their Palestinian brothers in order to gain favor and money from America, collaborating with the Israeli occupation, cringing before the new colonizers. This was deeply humiliating for young people brought up on the achievements of Arab culture in times gone by and
the glories of the early Caliphs.

Nowhere was this loss of honor more obvious than in Egypt, which openly collaborated with the Israeli leadership in imposing the shameful blockade on the Gaza Strip, condemning 1.5 million Arabs to malnutrition and worse. It was never just an Israeli
blockade, but an Israeli-Egyptian one, lubricated by 1.5 billion US dollars every year.

I have reflected many times - out loud - how I would feel if I were a 15 year-old boy in Alexandria, Amman or Aleppo, seeing my leaders behave like abject slaves of the Americans and the Israelis, while oppressing and despoiling their own subjects. At that age, I myself joined a terrorist organization. Why would an Arab boy be different?

A dictator may be tolerated when he reflects national dignity. But a dictator who expresses national shame is a tree without roots - any strong wind can blow him over.

For me, the only question was where in the Arab world it would start. Egypt - like Tunisia - was low on my list. Yet here it is - the great Arab revolution taking place in Egypt.

This is a wonder in itself. If Tunisia was a small wonder, this is a huge one.

I love the Egyptian people. True, one cannot really like 88 million individuals, but one can certainly like one people more than another. In this respect, one isallowed to generalize.

The Egyptians you meet in the streets, in the homes of the intellectual elite and in the alleys of the poorest of the poor, are an incredibly patient lot. They are endowed with an irrepressible sense of humor. They are also immensely proud of the country and its 8000 years of history.

For an Israeli, used to his aggressive compatriots, the almost complete lack of aggressiveness of the Egyptians is astonishing. I vividly remember one particular scene: I was in a taxi in Cairo when it collided with another. Both drivers leapt out and started to curse each other in blood-curling terms. And then quite suddenly, both of them stopped shouting and burst into laughter.

A Westerner coming to Egypt either loves it or hates it. The moment you set your foot on Egyptian soil, time loses its tyranny. Everything becomes less urgent, everything is muddled, yet in a miraculous way things sort themselves out. Patience seems boundless. This may mislead a dictator. Because patience can end suddenly.

It's like a faulty dam on a river. The water rises behind the dam, imperceptibly slowly and silently - but if it reaches a critical level, the dam will burst, sweeping everything before it.

My own first meeting with Egypt was intoxicating. After Anwar Sadat's unprecedented visit to Jerusalem, I rushed to Cairo. I had no visa. I shall never forget the moment I presented my Israeli passport to the stout official at the airport. He leafed through it, becoming more and more bewildered - and then he raised his head with a wide smile and said "marhaba", welcome. At the
time we were the only three Israelis in the huge city, and we were feted like kings, almost expecting at any moment to be lifted onto people's shoulders. Peace was in the air, and the masses of Egypt loved it.

It took no more than a few months for this to change profoundly. Sadat hoped - sincerely, I believe - that he was also bringing deliverance to the Palestinians. Under intense pressure from Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter, he agreed to a vague wording. Soon enough he learned that Begin did not dream of fulfilling this obligation. For Begin, the peace agreement with Egypt was a separate peace to enable him to intensify the war against the Palestinians.

The Egyptians - starting with the cultural elite and filtering down to the masses - never forgave this. They felt deceived. There may not be much love for the Palestinians - but betraying a poor relative is shameful in Arab tradition. Seeing Hosni Mubarak
collaborating with this betrayal led many Egyptians to despise him. This contempt lies beneath everything that happened this week. Consciously or unconsciously, the millions who are shouting "Mubarak Go Away" echo this
contempt.

In every revolution there is the "Yeltsin Moment". The columns of tanks are sent into the capital to reinstate the dictatorship. At the critical moment, the masses confront the soldiers. If the soldiers refuse to shoot, the game is over. Yeltsin climbed on the tank, ElBaradei addressed the masses in al Tahrir Square. That is the moment a prudent dictator flees abroad, as did the Shah and now the Tunisian boss.

Then there is the "Berlin Moment", when a regime crumbles and nobody in power knows what to do, and only the anonymous masses seem to know exactly what they want: they wanted the Wall to fall.

And there is the "Ceausescu moment". The dictator stands on the balcony addressing the crowd, when suddenly from below a chorus of "Down With The Tyrant!" swells up. For a moment, the dictator is speechless, moving his lips noiselessly, then he disappears. This, in a way, happened to Mubarak, making a ridiculous speech and trying in vain to stem the tide.

IF MUBARAK is cut off from reality, Binyamin Netanyahu is no less. He and his colleagues seem unable to grasp the fateful meaning of these events for Israel.

When Egypt moves, the Arab world follows. Whatever transpires in the immediate future in Egypt - democracy or an army dictatorship - It is only a matter of (a short) time before the dictators fall all over the Arab world, and the masses will shape a new reality, without the generals.

Everything the Israeli leadership has done in the last 44 years of occupation or 63 years of its existence is becoming obsolete. We are facing a new reality. We can ignore it - insisting that we are "a villa in the jungle", as Ehud Barak famously put it - or find our
proper place in the new reality.

Peace with the Palestinians is no longer a luxury. It is an absolute necessity. Peace now, peace quickly. Peace with the Palestinians, and then peace with the democratic masses all over the Arab world, peace with the reasonable Islamic forces (like Hamas and the Muslim Brothers, who are quite different from al Qaeda), peace with the leaders who are about to emerge
in Egypt and everywhere.
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Note: This article was first published under the title: A Villa in the Junglee. Th original can be viewed at: http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1296857067/

Uri Avnery created a world sensation when he crossed the lines during the battle of Beirut and met Yassir Arafat on July 3, 1982 -- the first time the Palestinian leader ever met with an Israeli. Several Israeli cabinet ministers called for Avnery's indictment for high treason, while peace activists hailed the meeting as a historical breakthrough. It was the culmination of an effort started by Avnery many years earlier.

After the expulsion of 415 Palestinians in the end of 1992, Avnery, together with Jewish and Arab Israelis, put up a protest tent opposite the Prime Minister's office, in which they lived for 45 days and nights, during some of which Jerusalem was covered by snow. This experience led to the creation of Gush Shalom, the Peace Bloc, which has become since then the leading (and often sole) voice in Israel calling for the creation of the State of Palestine in all the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the release of all Palestinian prisoners, the dismantling of all settlements and the recognition of Jerusalem as the joint capital of both states.

Since its creation, the Gush has organized hundreds of demonstrations, mostly together with Palestinian activists, and numerous other political actions, including an ongoing boycott of the products of the settlements and the manifesto "Our Jerusalem", signed by 750 prominent Israelis and the Palestinian leadership. This manifesto, written by Avnery, calls for the recognition of Jerusalem as the joint capital of the two states: Israel and Palestine.

In 1999 Avnery called for the election of Ehud Barak, but was soon disappointed by the inability or unwillingness of Barak to move decisively towards peace and by his continued settlement activity. Since most other peace movements support the government unconditionally, Gush Shalom has remained nearly alone in the field criticizing the Israeli government and organizing joint Israeli-Palestinian demonstrations against settlements, house demolitions and land confiscation.

Gush Shalom has organized dozens of demonstrations against these policies, generally together with Palestinian organizations. It has also organized a petition by prominent Israelis in support of a Palestinian state in all the territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, and published a statement on the refugee problem, calling for a recognition of the Right of Return and a pragmatic approach to its realization.

AFTER MUBARAK, WHAT?

By Gulamhusein A.Abba

The long oppressed Egyptians groaning under a corrupt regime have at long last realized their raw power and have taken to the streets to oust those who have been sucking their blood for so long.

The Tunisians have unleashed a genie -- the power of the people. Inspired by their action, people all over the region are losing their fear and revolting openly and publicly against their oppressive regimes.

The Western powers find themselves walking a tight rope. It is their patronage and support that has made the continued existence of these autocratic regimes possible. They are the client states of the US. Their rulers have been befriended and feted by the West.

Now the US and its Western allies are in a delicate situation. They cannot be seen to be against the people demanding democracy. And yet, they know that if the people are left to choose for themselves, there might be anti-US governments put in place. We are beginning to see them hedging. Even as the masses in Egypt were demanding the ouster of Mubarak, Joe Biden, US Vice President, interviewed by Jim Lehrer on PBS, said, “ Egyptians have the right to protest. Many are middle class folks, with legitimate concerns. But we should not refer to Mubarak as a dictator. It’s not time for him to go. He has been a key ally of the U.S. and Israel, in the ‘Middle East peace process’ and the War on Terror….The U.S. should encourage those protesting and Mubarak to talk. Everyone should avoid violence.” (emphasis mine).

One hopes that these revolutionary actions give to the people the
government they need and deserve and it does not turn out to be a case of getting something worse than what they had.

It is encouraging to see that among the slogans shouted by the crowds were: ““The crescent and the cross are against killing and torture”; “Muslims and Christians, we’re all demanding change.” Clearly, at least a section of the crowd on the streets was appalled by the bombings in Alexandria over the holidays, in which 21 Copts were killed and 97 were wounded as they came out of a church on New Year’s Day. But whether these slogans herald an upsurge of national solidarity and a proclamation of interfaith harmony or are just a feeling voiced by a few, remains to be seen.

Already various parties are vying to put themselves in a leadership position. Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, rushed back to Egypt two days after the protests had started and, on Sunday, in Tahrir Square, took up a bullhorn, addressed the thousands of protesters gathered there and called for Mubarak to resign.

He has a following among young secular democracy activists but is dismissed by many as an expatriate long removed from Egypt's problems.

The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, after lying low when the protests first erupted, is slowly moving towards a more prominent role. This is a well-tried tactic when a popular, grassroots movement erupts. Lie low. Let the movement build up. When it nears a point when it can sustain itself no longer or is nearing its zenith, then come forward and lead.

Among the opposition groups, Muslim Brotherhood is the best organized. It is poised to take over.

Hundreds of protestors, men and women, performing prayers on the streets, indicates a strong Muslim Brotherhood presence.

Many Egyptians may find that Muslim Brotherhood coming into power, though it may be an improvement over the Mubarak regime, is not exactly what they had in mind and hoped for.

The situation is very fluid at this point. The only thing certain is that all are united in wanting Mobarak to leave. Once he is gone, who will be in charge of the country? That remains a big question mark at the moment.

Note: This was written on Feruary 1, 2011