Happy Hanukah. -Ed
TIKKUN (To heal, repair and trans-for the world)
Muslim Leader Critiques Holocaust Denial by the President of Iran
How many times have you heard claims that Muslims never speak out to
denounce the extremism in their community, while Jews and Christians do?
It's a lie that is part of the larger assault on Muslims that has replaced
anti-communism as the primary way that reactionary forces in the U.S.
deflect attention from their own extremism, militarism and ongoing war in
Iraq. We are pleased to present to you one of the many voices in the Muslim
world raised in opposition to the disgusting and outrageus Holocaust denial
sponsored by the President of Iran. Here is a statement from the Muslim
American Society.
***************************************************************************
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, Most Merciful
True Muslims Must Never Deny the European Holocaust
By Ibrahim Ramey
History will recall the tragedy of the genocide that slaughtered some
six million European Jews between the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi
Party in 1933 and the culmination of the Second World War in Europe in May,
1945.
The evidence of this crime, and the horrible magnitude of this
killing, is irrefutable. From sources as varied as Nazi war records, film
documentation, and most importantly, the testimony of survivors and
witnesses, we know that the mass murder of European Jews was, indeed, the
single greatest crime of genocide in the twentieth century.
Yet the world now witnesses yet another wave of historical revisionism
and Holocaust denial, this time emerging not from European Anti-Semites, but
from none other than the President of Iran. Indeed, this head of state has
taken the unprecedented act of hosting an international conference of
anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and even white racists like former Klan
leader David Duke, to gather in Tehran to deny the magnitude, if not the
very existence, of this barbaric act.
As a Muslim of African decent in the United States, whose ancestors
were victimized by the enormous crime of slavery, I object. And I believe
that all Muslims, like other human beings who value compassion and truth,
must vigorously object to this gathering as well.
Like many in the global Muslim community, I regard the occupation of
Palestinian land and the policies of the State of Israel as issues of
extreme importance. I am certainly among those who believe that the
occupation of Palestinian territory and the denial of full human rights to
Palestinians, and even to Arab people regarded as Israeli citizens, is
deplorable.
But I find it to be morally unconscionable to attempt to build
political arguments and political movements on a platform of racial hatred
and the denial of the suffering of the human beings who were victimized by
the viciousness of Hitler's genocidal rampage through Europe.
President Ahmedinejad should recognize that the issue of the
Palestinian people must not, and cannot, be transmogrified into the ugly and
spiritually bankrupt context of racial hatred. The cause of freedom must
never drink from the well of hatred and racism.
And indeed, as the Holy Qur'an compels Muslims to demand justice for
the oppressed, we are also called to witness against ourselves when we are
in error.
And in this case, the President of Iran most certainly is.
********************************
The writer is the Director of the Human and Civil Rights Division of
the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation
***
----- Original Message -----
From: Jeffrey Blankfort
Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2006 12:11 PM
Subject: Uri Avnery on Baker versus The Lobby
"Since 1967 and the beginning of the occupation, several American
Secretaries of State have submitted plans to end the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. All these plans met the same fate: they were torn up and thrown in
the trash.
"The same sequence of events has been repeated time after time: In
Jerusalem, hysteria sets in. The Foreign Office stands up on its hind legs
and swears to defeat the evil design. The media unanimously condemns the
wicked plot. The Secretary of State of the day is pilloried as an
anti-Semite. The Israeli lobby in Washington mobilizes for total war....
"For example: the Rogers Plan of Richard Nixon's first Secretary of State,
William Rogers. In the early 70s he submitted a detailed peace plan, the
principal point of which was the withdrawal of Israel to the 1967 borders,
with, at most, "insubstantial alterations".
"What happened to the plan?
"In face of the onslaught of "the Friends of Israel" in Washington, Nixon
buckled under, as have all presidents since Dwight D. Eisenhower, a man of
principle who did not need the Jewish votes. No president will quarrel with
the government of Israel if he wants to be re-elected, or - like Bush now -
to end his term in office with dignity and pass the presidency to another
member of his party. Any senator or congressman who takes a stand that the
Israeli embassy does not like, is committing Harakiri, Washington-style."
(For more than 20 years, Israeli journalist Uri Avnery has been observing
and
commenting on the ability of the Jewish lobby to determine US policy
regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. Here he spells it out again in
commenting on the Baker-Hamilton Report. Note: Baker was backed in the
actions Avnery describes by Pres. George Bush St., who also refused to
knuckle under to the lobby and paid a political price for it. JB)
Uri Avnery
09.12.06
Baker's Cake
NO ONE likes to admit a mistake. Me neither. But honesty leaves me no
choice.
A few days after the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, I
happened to go on a lecture tour in the US.
My message was optimistic. I expected some good to come out of the tragedy.
I reasoned that the atrocity had exposed the intensity of the hatred for the
US that is spreading throughout the world, and especially the Muslim world.
It would be logical not only to fight against the mosquitoes, but to drain
the swamp. Since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was one of the breeding
grounds of the hatred - if not the main one - the US would make a major
effort to achieve peace between the two peoples.
That was what cold logic indicated. But this is not what happened. What
happened was the very opposite.
American policy was not led by cold logic. Instead of drying one swamp, it
created a second swamp. Instead of pushing the Israelis and Palestinians
towards peace, it invaded Iraq. Not only did the hatred against America not
die down, it flared up even higher. I hoped that this danger would override
even the oil interests and the desire to station an American garrison in the
center of the Middle East.
Thus I committed the very mistake that I have warned others against many
times: to assume that what is logical will actually happen. A rational
person should not ignore the irrational in politics. In other words, it is
irrational to exclude the irrational.
George W. Bush is an irrational person, perhaps the very personification of
irrationality. Instead of drawing the logical conclusion from what had
happened and acting accordingly, he set off in the opposite direction. Since
then he has just insisted on "staying the course".
Enter James Baker.
SINCE I am already in a confessional mood, I have to admit that I like James
Baker.
I know that this will shock some of my good friends. "Baker?!" they will cry
out, "The consigliere of the Bush family? The man who helped George W steal
the 2000 elections? The Rightist?"
Yes, yes, the very same Baker. I like him for his cold logic, his forthright
and blunt style, his habit of saying what he thinks without embellishment,
his courage. I prefer this style to the sanctimonious hypocrisy of other
leaders, who try to hide their real intentions. I would be happy any time to
swap Olmert for Baker, and throw in Amir Peretz for free.
But that is a matter of taste. More important is the fact that in all the
last 40 years, James Baker was the only leader in America who had the guts
to stand up and act against Israel's malignant disease: the settlements.
When he was the Secretary of State, he simply informed the Israeli
government that he would deduct the sums expended on the settlements from
the money Israel was getting from the US. Threatened and made good on his
threat.
Baker thus confronted the "pro-Israeli" lobby in the US, both the Jewish and
the Christian. Such courage is rare in the United States, as it is rare in
Israel.
THIS WEEK the Iraq Study Group, led by Baker, published its report.
It confirms all the bleak forecasts voiced by many throughout the world -
myself included - before Bush & Co. launched the bloody Iraqi adventure. In
his dry and incisive style, Baker says that the US cannot win there. In so
many words he tells the American public: Let's get out of there, before the
last American soldier has to scramble into the last helicopter from the roof
of the American embassy, as happened in Vietnam.
Baker calls for the end of the Bush approach and offers a new and
thought-out strategy of his own. Actually, it is an elegant way of
extricating America from Iraq, without it looking like a complete rout. The
main proposals: an American dialogue with Iran and Syria, an international
conference, the withdrawal of the American combat brigades, leaving behind
only instructors. The committee that he headed was bi-partisan, composed
half and half of Republicans and Democrats.
FOR ISRAELIS, the most interesting part of the report is, of course, the one
that concerns us directly. It interests me especially - how could it be
otherwise? - because it repeats, almost word for word, the things I said
immediately after September 11, both in my articles at home and in my
lectures in the US.
True, Baker is saying them four years later. In these four years, thousands
of American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died for
nothing. But, to use the image again, when a giant ship like the United
States turns around, it make a very big circle, and it takes a lot of time.
We, in the small speed-boat called Israel, could do it much quicker - if we
had the good sense to do it.
Baker says simply: In order to stop the war in Iraq and begin reconciliation
with the Arab world, the US must bring about the end of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He does not say explicitly that peace must be
imposed on Israel, but that is the obvious implication.
In his own clear words: "The United States will not be able to achieve its
goals in the Middle East unless the United States deals directly with the
Arab-Israeli conflict."
His committee proposes the immediate start of negotiations between Israel
and "President Mahmoud Abbas", in order to implement the two-state solution.
The "sustainable negotiations" must address the "key final status issues of
borders, settlements, Jerusalem, the right of return, and the end of
conflict."
The use of the title "President" for Abu Mazen and, even more so, the use of
the term "right of return" has alarmed the whole political class in Israel.
Even in the Oslo agreement, the section dealing with the "final status"
issues mentions only "refugees". Baker, as is his wont, called the spade a
spade.
At the same time, he proposes a stick and carrot approach to achieve peace
between Israel and Syria. The US needs this peace in order to draw Syria
into its camp. The stick, from the Israeli point of view, would be the
return of the Golan Heights. The carrot would be the stationing of American
soldiers on the border, so that Israel's security would be guaranteed by the
US. In return, he demands that Syria stop, inter-alia, its aid to Hizbullah.
After Gulf War I, Baker - the same Baker - got all the parties to the
conflict to come to an international conference in Madrid. For that purpose,
he twisted the arm of then Prime Minister Itzhak Shamir, whose entire
philosophy consisted of two letters and one exclamation mark: "No!" and
whose slogan was: "The Arabs are the same Arabs, and the sea is the same
sea" - alluding to the popular Israeli conviction that the Arabs all want to
throw Israel into the sea.
Baker brought Shamir to Madrid, his arms and legs in irons, and made sure he
did not escape. Shamir was compelled to sit at the table with
representatives of the Palestinian people, who had never been allowed to
attend an international conference before. The conference itself had no
tangible results, but there is no doubt that it was a vital step in the
process that brought about the Oslo agreement and, more difficult than
anything else, the mutual recognition of the State of Israel and the
Palestinian people.
Now Baker is suggesting something similar. He proposes an international
conference, and cites Madrid as a model. The conclusion is clear.
HOWEVER, THIS baker can only offer a recipe for the cake. The question is
whether President Bush will use the recipe and bake the cake.
Since 1967 and the beginning of the occupation, several American Secretaries
of State have submitted plans to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All
these plans met the same fate: they were torn up and thrown in the trash.
The same sequence of events has been repeated time after time: In Jerusalem,
hysteria sets in. The Foreign Office stands up on its hind legs and swears
to defeat the evil design. The media unanimously condemns the wicked plot.
The Secretary of State of the day is pilloried as an anti-Semite. The
Israeli lobby in Washington mobilizes for total war.
For example: the Rogers Plan of Richard Nixon's first Secretary of State,
William Rogers. In the early 70s he submitted a detailed peace plan, the
principal point of which was the withdrawal of Israel to the 1967 borders,
with, at most, "insubstantial alterations".
What happened to the plan?
In face of the onslaught of "the Friends of Israel" in Washington, Nixon
buckled under, as have all presidents since Dwight D. Eisenhower, a man of
principle who did not need the Jewish votes. No president will quarrel with
the government of Israel if he wants to be re-elected, or - like Bush now -
to end his term in office with dignity and pass the presidency to another
member of his party. Any senator or congressman who takes a stand that the
Israeli embassy does not like, is committing Harakiri, Washington-style.
The fate of the peace plans of successive Secretaries of State confirms, on
the face of it, the thesis of the two professors, John Mearsheimer and
Stephen Walt, that caused a great stir earlier this year. According to them,
whenever there is a clash in Washington between the national interests of
the United States and the national interests of Israel, it is the Israeli
interests which win.
WILL THIS happen this time, too?
Baker has presented his plan at a time when the US is facing disaster in
Iraq. President Bush is bankrupt, his party has lost control of Congress and
may soon lose the White House. The neo-conservatives, most of them Jews and
all of them supporters of the Israeli extreme Right, who were in control of
American foreign policy, are being removed one by one, and this week yet
another, the American ambassador to the United Nations, was kicked out.
Therefore, it is possible that this time the President may listen to expert
advice.
But that is in serious doubt. The Democratic Party is subject to the
"pro-Israeli" lobby no less than the Republican Party, and perhaps even
more. The new congress was indeed elected under the banner of opposition to
the continuation of the war in Iraq, but its members are not jihadi suicide
bombers. They depend on the "pro-Israeli" lobby. To paraphrase Shamir: "The
plan is the same plan, and the trash bin is the same trash bin."
In Jerusalem, the first reaction to the report was total rejection,
expressing a complete confidence in the ability of the lobby to choke it at
birth. "Nothing has changed," Olmert declared. "There is no one to talk
with," - immediately echoed by the mouth and pen brigade in the media. "We
cannot talk with them as long as the terrorism goes on," a famous expert
declared on TV. That's like saying: "One cannot talk about ending the war as
long as the enemy is shooting at our troops."
On the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis I wrote that "the dog is wagging the tail and
the tail is wagging the dog." It will be interesting to see which will wag
which this time: the dog its tail or the tail its dog.
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