Hi. Neil Macdonald is Canadian, Moshe Machover is Israeli. Powerful and related essays. Today's concert should be wonderful. Ed
http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_macdonald/20041203.html CBC News Analysis | December 3, 2004 | Defining 'terrorism' is harder than you'd think By Neil Macdonald The UN's new report on its own relevance has a surprisingly candid and sensible passage, especially coming from an institution whose default position on controversial issues is usually no position at all. The section is titled "Defining Terrorism." Yes. That problem. Defining terrorism, especially post-9/11, practically guarantees a public lambasting from somebody. The term has been appropriated by governments, movements and zealots, all of which vigilantly seek to ensure that only their definition carries legitimacy. In fact, the term is so inflammatory nowadays that not using it seems to attract a ferocious response. (Ask any news organization that prefers to avoid the issue by using terms such as killer, bomber, attacker, etc.) The Americans, at the moment, assert particular ownership of the word. Hence military reports here of cornering "thousands of terrorists" in downtown Fallujah. The United States seems to regard any attack on any American target, military or civilian, under almost any circumstances, as terrorism. And as President Bush has famously declared, you're either with us or with the terrorists. To the United States, whole countries can be terrorists. And Bush's ill-defined "War on Terror" has been internalized, virtually without question, by the American political class, by the media here, and by the public. Other nations brandish the term, too, of course, but modified to their specifications. Israel, Russia, Great Britain, the Palestinians, Spain, Morocco and Turkey, to name a few, constantly blast the term at their adversaries. It goes without saying, naturally, that those states never apply it to their own actions, or, for that matter, the actions of anyone whose agenda happens to dovetail with their own interests. As one British writer put it, "terrorism is violence we disapprove of." But in shamelessly bending the term to their own ends, governments have cheapened the real and growing use of violence against civilians. The fact is that there is simply no international strategy for dealing with the issue; the UN has never been able to fashion one because its member states simply cannot agree on what constitutes terrorism. As the UN report soberly notes: "Lack of agreement on a clear and well- known definition undermines the normative and moral stance against terrorism and has stained the United Nations image. Achieving a comprehensive convention on terrorism, including a clear definition, is a political imperative." The report singles out two reasons why an international definition of terrorism has been impossible to achieve. The first, it says, "is the argument that any definition should include states' use of armed forces against civilians." Well, yes. One could certainly understand how the average Iraqi, with 100,000 of his countrymen and women dead at the hands of the U.S. military and its allies, might think that Islamists blowing up a pizzeria isn't much different from tanks annihilating an innocent family whose crime is to live in a country Washington has decided could develop into a threat. But there is a difference. When states target civilians or use military force with wanton disregard for civilian populations, it is a war crime. There is black-letter law against it. The UN report points that out, and suggests that an international definition of terrorism might be more acceptable if it contained "recognition … that State use of force against civilians … if of sufficient scale, constitutes a war crime by the persons concerned or a crime against humanity." The trouble is that such wording would be hollow, and everyone knows it. War crimes are almost never actionable. Powerful nations have seen to that. There are only two specific tribunals at the moment set up to deal with war crimes: the Arusha tribunal, to deal with the genocide in Rwanda, and the tribunal in The Hague dealing with the Yugoslavian civil war. The International Criminal Court itself is not empowered to act against states that have elected not to participate. And several have done just that. The United States, for example. It is also a safe bet that the five real powers at the UN – the U.S., France, Russia, China and Great Britain – are never going to agree to an anti-terrorism strategy that might eventually condemn their military tactics or those of their client states. And, of course, as long as states can evade responsibility for war crimes, "non-state actors," as the UN labels groups like al-Qaeda, will be able to claim they are merely doing what governments the world over do. The second argument standing in the way of an international definition of terror, says the UN, "is that peoples under foreign occupation have a right to resistance and a definition of terrorism should not override this right." What the report is talking about here, although it avoids naming names, is Israel. That second argument is the argument of the Palestinians, who have for decades waged diplomatic war with Israel at the UN, with the majority of member states taking their side. The UN report suggests finally taking a stand against that sort of thinking: "there is nothing in the fact of occupation that justifies the targeting and killing of civilians." Which would seem a simple enough truth. (Although one suspects that if Texas were occupied by a foreign power, its citizens would pull out their guns and start shooting at any enemy target that presented itself, civilian or not). But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not as easy to characterize as the UN report might wish. The Israeli soldiers who enforce the occupation kill a great many Palestinian civilians. If Palestinians have committed terror, the Israelis have certainly committed war crimes. There is also the question of whether the Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, thousands of whom are well armed and overtly bellicose, constitute civilians or combatants. Nonetheless, the UN report is courageous even to consider the matter. At the end of the section, it tentatively provides this definition of terrorism: "Any action … that is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants, when the purpose of such an act … is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act." Simple enough. Sensible enough. And, for all sorts of reasons, likely doomed to languish in a report. *** http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=5560&CategoryId=5 Is it Apartheid? by Moshe Machover 10 November 2004 In recent months there is a growing tendency among opponents of Israeli oppression and defenders of Palestinian rights to refer to Israeli policy towards the Palestinians as "apartheid". The "separation wall" that Israel is constructing on Palestinian lands is often denounced as the "apartheid wall". An International conference on Palestine scheduled for 5 December 2004 at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London is entitled by its organizers as "Resisting Israeli Apartheid: Strategies and Principles". I would like to warn against an unthinking use of this misleading analogy between Israeli policy and that of the defunct apartheid regime in South Africa. It is theoretically false and politically harmful. To be sure, the two have many features in common. Both are perniciously racist; both impose a degree of separation between ethnic groups. And this is no accident: both are instances of the genus colonial settler state. Indeed, Israel and apartheid South Africa were, until the latter's demise, the last two surviving active instances of this genus.[1] Now Israel is the only remaining one. But the point is that they belong to two distinct species of the genus. All colonial settlers' societies built themselves up on exploiting the resources of the country that they colonized: primarily its land, which they wrested from the indigenous people, who became dispossessed. The decisive difference between the two species was what was to become of the dispossessed natives. In one model of colonization, labor power became one of the indigenous resources - indeed, the main resource - to be exploited by the settlers. The ethnic conflict between the two groups thus assumed the nature of a kind of class struggle. This model is represented, in almost pure form, by apartheid South Africa. In the other model, the native population was to be eliminated; exterminated or expelled rather than exploited. Israel is an active instance of this model. If you wish to find an instructive parallel, look not at South Africa. Rather, read Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. Apartheid was a device for keeping the exploited natives - the majority of the population - as part of the same economy, and therefore essentially also of the same society, as the settler exploiters; but without actually admitting it, and without giving the former rights of citizenship. Officially, the natives were citizens of fake states, the Bantustans. But the last thing the architects of the apartheid state wanted was a real departure of the black Africans, whose labor power was vital for its economy. Zionism never intended to create a Palestinostan for the Palestinian Arabs. >From the very start, it planned to get rid of them, to create a purely Jewish "Land of Israel". This premeditated policy - referred to in Zionist literature as 'transfer' - was largely implemented in the 1948 war. The Palestinian Arab minority whom - for lack of time or opportunity – the nascent Israeli state failed to expel from its territory did not seem to represent a major "demographic threat". To be sure, their lands were for the most part expropriated and given over to Jewish settlements, they were severely discriminated and for many years kept under military rule. But, crucially, they were not denied rudimentary citizenship rights. They are Israeli citizens, who can vote for the Knesset. A new problem arose following the June 1967 war. Israel found itself controlling the whole of Palestine as well as a part of Syria. But, from the Zionists' viewpoint, this great territorial acquisition of their wet dreams came with an encumbrance: a large Arab population, many of them refugees of the 1948 ethnic cleansing and their descendants. This population, which "remained 'stuck' to their places," the Zionists realized, "may destroy the very foundation of our state."[2] Israel managed to ethnically cleanse some of the newly occupied territories, such as the whole of the Golan Heights, the Latroun salient in the approaches to Jerusalem, and some refugee camps near Jericho. But the bulk of the population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip still "remained stuck to their places." Zionists of all major parties - Labor and Likud alike - ardently wished to 'transfer' as many Palestinians as possible. The only difference was about what was considered possible. The more pragmatic or cautious among them thought that the 'world' (which for Israel meant primarily US politicians and opinion-manufacturers) would not allow a massive ethnic cleansing. On the other hand, it was becoming clear, especially during the first Intifada, that Israel could not afford to control the Palestinian population directly. These more pragmatic Zionists looked for Palestinian leadership to do the job for them: to control and repress the Palestinians, thus guaranteeing the security of Israel. This was the essence of the Oslo Accord, which Peres managed to sell to Rabin and, no less important, to Yasser Arafat.[3] The Oslo plan, had it materialized, would indeed have led to something like a Palestinian Bantustan, resulting in a convergence of the Zionist settler state towards the apartheid model. But this was not to be. The plan was vigorously opposed by more optimistic or fundamentalist Zionists, such as Ehud Barak in the Labor Party and most of the leaders of Likud. Just in time, Rabin was assassinated. The Netanyahu government which followed stalled the implementation of Israel's side of the Oslo bargain, thus subverting it. The next Israeli prime minister, Labor's Ehud Barak, continued this policy at Camp David by a more subtle means: dictating to Arafat new conditions, falsely packaged as a 'generous offer', that even he could not accept. The next prime minister, Ariel 'Bulldozer' Sharon, true to his legendary brutality and blood lust, has pursued yet another tactic: smashing the Palestinian Authority's resources and at the same time deliberately provoking Palestinian suicide bombings, so as to expose Arafat's inability to serve as Israel's security guard, and thus prove his uselessness and irrelevance from a Zionist viewpoint. What Sharon & Co are planning is not really an apartheid regime. They are not interested in keeping the Palestinians permanently in place, as a subjugated population. They are planning to ethnically cleanse as many Palestinians as possible. Of course, this requires what in Zionist parlance is referred to as she'at kosher, an opportune moment. A general upheaval in the Middle East may present a suitable opportunity. If necessary, it could actually be provoked. Meantime, as a purely temporary measure, the Palestinian population is to be atomized and separated - not only from the Israeli Jews but also within their own community, village from village, neighborhood from neighborhood. And make no mistake: this is not going to be like a Bantustan, more like a series of Indian Reservations. Conflating this with apartheid in fact misses the most essential point. Incidentally, it can also backfire: defenders of Zionism can easily show that the Palestinian citizens of Israel, while not enjoying equal rights, are nevertheless considerably better off than Black Africans used to be under apartheid. But, much more importantly: talk of Israeli 'apartheid' serves to divert attention from much greater dangers. For, as far as most Palestinians are concerned, the Zionist policy is far worse than apartheid. Apartheid can be reversed. Ethnic cleansing is immeasurably harder to reverse; at least not in the short or medium term. To be sure: there is one great difference between the Zionist colonization project and that of the United States. When the US achieved its 'manifest destiny' and reached from ocean to ocean, grinding to dust the indigenous people - that was that: no more 'Red Indians' to hunt and uproot. In the case of Zionist Israel, no matter how far it can expand - and surely it will need to expand further in order to protect and defend its former expansion - it will always be confronted and surrounded by Arabs. If the Arab world will one day unite, it can defeat and reverse Zionist expansionism. But this will require a far-reaching transformation of the Arab World, defeat of its present ruling classes and unification of the Arab nation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. There are of course several other states that started off in this way; but they have ceased to be active in a sense similar to that in which an extinct volcano still exists as a mountain, but is no longer active as a volcano. 2. Joseph Weitz, 'A solution to the refugee problem: a State of Israel with a small Arab minority', Davar, 29 September 1967. Davar was the Histadrut daily, in effect organ of the Israeli Labor Party. Weitz was member of that party, an apparatchik who had played a central role in planning the transfer before 1948 and implementing it during 1948/49. 3. I have dealt elsewhere with the reasons for Arafat's acquiescence in accepting what amounted to little more than the job of Israel's proxy Palestinian Police Chief. _______________________________________________ Rad-Green mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green *** On Sunday, December 19 at 3 pm, Uncle Ruthie Buell of KPFK, presents a concert for animal admirers of all ages, called "Some Sing Low, Some Sing Higher: A Musical Celebration of Stan's Peaceable Kingdom." Various artists will perform, including Ross Altman, Dan Crow, Pete McCabe, Fred Sokolow, April Wayland, Eric Gordon, and Ruthie Buell. Admission for the concert will be $10 for the public, $8 for Workmen's Circle or Sholem Community members, and FREE for persons under the age of 13. The Peaceable Kingdom: Sculpture by Stanley Schwartz Workmen’s Circle, 1525 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles Sculptor Unveils Whimsical Passengers from a Modern-day Ark Artist Stanley Schwartz offers the world another look at his collection of marvelous sculptures of the animal kingdom. Most of the larger pieces are one-of-a-kind creations, while a few are limited editions for home décor. Stanley Schwartz is a native Angeleno whose technically masterful beasts are animated with a lively charm. Stanley Schwartz's creations not only pay tribute to the particular genius of each animal, but are also homage to his varied materials. The viewer stands back, or crawls up close, in awe of a mind that could perceive in the rawness of a block of wood the finished, polished creature before us. His ebony rhinoceros lumbers stolidly over the land, though it stands but a few inches tall. His parrot seems to have just touched down from a foraging flight through tropical vines. His rabbit bears a soft coat of fur mimicked in the grain of wood. These animals coexist in an enviable “peaceable kingdom.” Contact the office to receive images of the show in digital format, Gallery hours are Monday-Thursday 10-5, Friday 10-3; group and guided viewings can be arranged. The exhibition will also be on view during regular events at the Workmen's Circle. For additional information, please call us at 310.552.2007 or e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $4.98 domain names from Yahoo!. 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