Three must read articles

1) “Story of a Land Grab“, by Hagit Ofran of Peace Now. Not so much an article but an illuminating slideshow. This visually helps chronicle how one settlement started off by only colonizing a small amount of land and then began to slowly take over more land. It’s all too easy to forget how the settlements sliced and diced the West Bank up into so many pieces that the two state solution is effectively finished because of land grabs like this.

2) “Is Israel its Own Worst Enemy?“, by Nicholas Kristoff. Over the last few years Kristoff has become more critical of Israel and has devoted quite a few columns to the issue. He makes a very strong point about the occupied Palestinian territories that you’d rarely hear from a New York Times writer, “So where do we go from here? If a peace deal is not forthcoming soon, and if Israel continues its occupation, then Israel should give the vote in Israeli elections to all Palestinians in the areas it controls. If Jews in the West Bank can vote, then Palestinians there should be able to as well.” This is the one state argument plain and simple and if you’ve read my previous posts you know I’m inclined to think that would be the best solution as well. I don’t normally enjoy Kristoff nor do I fully agree with the whole column here, but it makes for a very interesting read.

3) “Creation Myth“, by Malcom Gladwell. The article is a piecemeal history of the creation of the computer mouse  with Gladwell’s always interesting take on things. He provides a unique history of the mouse while making you think about what ‘innovation’ really is. As a rule of thumb for me, no matter what the topic is, if Gladwell is writing it it’s sure to be fantastic. What is so great about his writing style is that it usually systematically refutes the conventional wisdom on the issue; this piece is no exception.

Three must read articles

1) “Question about America’s enemies“, by Glenn Greenwald. For those of you that know me, Greenwald is probably my favorite blogger out there today, and I love almost every article he churns out. Forgive me in the future if he ends up on the must read list too frequently. This piece is about how freedom fighting violent militant allies of the U.S. become evil scary terrorist enemies. He starts off with the Haqqani clan, as they are the newest of the official enemies (although they were once proclaimed as “goodness personified” by Charlie Wilson when they were terrorizing the Soveits). By the end of the article he has you, as always, seeing the hypocrisy and stupidity of U.S. foreign policy. If you haven’t read him before, this is a great one to start off with.

2) “Discrimination Against Palestinian Citizens of Israel”, by the Institute for Middle East Understanding. While more of a fact sheet then an article, this is an important piece of information that clearly and systematically lays out the institutionalized discrimination within Israel proper. It’s essential to know the facts when all to commonly the defense, “but Israel is a democracy!” censures any criticisms of the state and its laws.

3) “The Revenge Killing of Osama bin Laden”, by Noam Chomsky. This piece was written shortly after bin Laden’s assassination and at the time was a sobering bit of a reality amongst the standard American nationalistic hysteria found in the mainstream media. Reminding the American public about simple facts like, “Pakistani and international law require inquiry whenever violent death occurs from government or police action,” and, “Obama undercut that possibility with a “hasty ‘burial at sea’ without a post mortem, as the law requires,” keeps the citizenry  inquisitive and adversarial to government power, as they should be.  Though bin Laden and  al-Awlaki are very different people, this article can’t ring truer now after  al-Awlaki’s assasination.

A sad day for American democracy

Anwar-al-Awlaki was killed yesterday by U.S. airstrike. If you’ve just been watching the U.S. mainstream media, then you know like bin Laden’s assassination, this is a joyous occasion for all Americans. We killed another one of the bad guys!

Under the guise of stopping terrorism there is now a new power invested to the president: the power to assassinate any American citizen without trial or due process of the law. This extraordinary power can now be used against anyone in the world, close or far from any battlefield, without any legal ramifications.

Al-Awlaki’s family sued the government when they learned that the CIA was trying to kill their son. From the Christian Science Monitor, “The suit asked the judge to issue an injunction prohibiting the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Department from intentionally killing Mr. Awlaki unless the government could first demonstrate that he posed an imminent threat to life or safety, and that no nonlethal means were available to meet the threat.” The Obama DOJ invoked the state secrets privilege to dismiss the lawsuit. The DOJ argued that any check on the dictatorial power to kill whomever the president wanted would reveal state secrets that would harm national security. The disturbing trend of using state secrets to shield executive accountability began as just a trend under the Bush Administration. Since Obama’s election this once rarely invoked judicial maneuver is now standard and used routinely. As Glenn Greenwald puts it, “What was once viewed as the signature of Bush/Cheney radicalism is now official, bipartisan Washington consensus: the policies equally of both parties and all Serious people. Thanks to Barack Obama, this architecture is firmly embedded in place and invulnerable to meaningful political challenge.”

It should be quite worrisome for any American that simply because the president deems someone is a threat to the United States (a completely unchecked claim based on no evidence to the public or to the courts), they can be killed with no judicial oversight. As put aptly by Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU, “If the court’s ruling is correct, the government has the unreviewable authority to carry out the targeted killing of any American, anywhere, whom the president deems to be a threat to the nation… It would be difficult to conceive of a proposition more inconsistent with the Constitution or more dangerous to American liberty.”

The Pro-Palestinian/Pro-Israeli labels are useless and meaningless

What comes to mind when you think of someone who identifies as pro-Israeli? pro-Palestinian? All of this depends on what camp you sit in, and what your perception of the ‘other’ is. Like the word liberal and conservative, pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian are foolish to use. They are overused and mean so many things to such a large number of people, that it makes them have no true meaning whatsoever.

This pro-Israeli pro-Palestinian dichotomy also enforces the belief that there are two sides to a conflict. Generally what follows after is that my side is right and good, and your side is wrong and bad. I reject a side-based understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (and of all others as well). I don’t ever see a scenario where something that is good for Israelis is bad for Palestinians, and vice-versa. If pro-Israeli meant in favor of the interests of Israelis (and the same for pro-Palestinian), I am the most pro-Israeli (and pro-Palestinian) person you’ll ever meet! In fact I am pro all peoples, so just attach pro-[insert national, ethnic, or religious group] and, I’ll fit that label if it means supporting their true interests.

The same goes for the liberal versus conservative ‘divide’. Depending on where you stand, these words have radically different meanings to them. They could mean hundreds of things. Conservative could mean for freedom and also against the poor. Liberal could mean for equality and could also connote authoritarianism. I like some things about ‘conservative values’ (i.e. freedom and efficient government), and dislike other values (like not helping the poor and bigotry against immigrants). In the same way, I agree with the ‘liberal values’ of human rights and equality, while I dislike large government and centralization of power.  What matters more are the actual policies that people support and what the consequences of those policies are. If modern political discourse continues to focus on using small, condensed buzz words, phrases, and labels, the quality of the discussion, by design, will never be fruitful. People should always strive to speak of the relevant issue and not get bogged down in whether the other person supposedly is ‘pro’ or ‘anti’.

The problem is now the label pro is used to describe supporting policies that generally the government is in favor of, but that may be harmful to the people’s interests. To take one example of many, I think that Israel staying a Jewish state is harmful to Israeli’s interests, Palestinian’s interests, Jew’s interests, Muslims’s interests, and everyone else’s interests! If Israel were to become a secular democracy, and eventually incorporated the occupied Palestinian territories into its borders, this would greatly benefit everyone in the region. Some might disagree with this policy proposal. Many people would. What they cannot say is that I am anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, or that I don’t care about Israelis; I’m making the decision with careful thought, and with the best interests of Israelis in mind. That highlights why using the pro-[insert group here] language makes no sense. Unless one openly admits to favoring one group over another, they should never be labeled as pro one group. Let’s eliminate all the Pro-Israeli and Pro-Palestinian talk. You are either trying to find a solution that has the best interests of all parties in mind, or you are favoring one group over another. I don’t think the latter can be justified on any grounds. It makes more sense to view the conflict in terms of what will help the people immersed in the conflict, regardless of political views, religious beliefs, or ethnicity.

Some conflict humor with Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart, along with the always funny correspondents John Oliver and Aasif Mandvi, pokes some serious fun at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the video’s focus is mainly on the disputed historical and religious claims of both parties. I don’t want to give too much away so watch the short clip for yourself:

Three must read articles

As part of the new blog, I will link and provide a brief description to three of what I deem ‘must read articles’ every Sunday at 12:00 (Jerusalem time). While my blog’s focus is on Israel/Palestine, I will write about and link to other things as well. Here are the three that made the cut for the first week:

1) “The Dissenters“, by David Remnick. This is about everything that is Haaretz. It provides a great history of the founding of the paper, its subsequent owners, and the very current problems it faces. Even if you don’t read the paper (which I recommend you do if you follow the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), it’s a great read and Remnick hits it out of the park as usual.

2) “Mr. President, we don’t want a shortcut, we want our freedom“, by Abir Kopty. A response to Obama’s UN speech on Palestinian statehood. This is from the perspective of a Palestinian activist who so eloquently highlights Obama and the U.S.’s hypocrisy and moral shortcomings. There have been some other great breakdowns of his speech, but no other I’ve read feels so powerful and stateswoman-like.

3) “Palestinian Activist: Why I’m not celebrating statehood”, by Diana Alzeer. This comes from the point of the view that a two-state solution is way less desirable than the one-state solution, and therefore the bid for statehood might even be a step in the wrong direction. This article had a large effect on me when thinking about the pros and con of the statehood bid. If you’re still mixed on whether you support the declaration, or better yet, if you are certain either way about statehood, try reading this and see where you stand after.

Unilateral statehood declarations: not just a tactic of the Palestinians

The Palestinian bid for statehood is remarkably similar to the Zionist bid for statehood in 1948. As far as I know, only Gideon Levy has commented on this fact, but it strikes me as odd that not more of the liberal blogosphere has used this in their writing. While Gideon Levy does exemplify how this comparison can be used as the basis for a column, this idea front and center in an American publication like the New York Times would resonate very strongly with the world’s Jewry; in contrast writers who identify as pro-Israel are currently more mainstream among otherwise liberal Jews. The current talking point that’s being tossed around from pundits against statehood is the ‘unilateralism’ of the declaration. In addition, the U.S. and Israeli leadership keep repeating that the harm in going to the UN is mainly due to the ‘unilateral’ nature of the action. This is ironically the same type of unilateralism that the Zionist leadership took part in when forming the state of Israel; the same leaders who are criticizing (to put it mildly) the Palestinians for this would say without flinching that they are proud of Israel’s very similar action. It is quite odd that not even most Palestinian writers and intellectuals are highlighting the blatant similarities present here.