http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=11665
We the Arabs, the Holocaust, and Palestine
by Fawwaz Traboulsi
December 18, 2006
[Translator's note: The following article first appeared in the Beirut daily
as-Safir of 14 December 2006. Its author, Fawwaz Traboulsi, is a historian,
long-time political commentator, and weekly columnist for as-Safir. In this
piece Traboulsi is addressing an Arab audience. The original title in Arabic
"We, the Holocaust, and Palestine" was thus rendered into "We the Arabs, the
Holocaust, and Palestine." -- Assaf Kfoury]
The two-day Tehran conference on the Holocaust, on December 11 and 12, was
attended by an assortment of well-known Holocaust deniers from Europe and
Australia, by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, by anti-Zionist
orthodox rabbis, and by many others. In a speech to the conference, Iran's
president Ahmadinejad predicted that Israel would disappear just as the
Soviet Union did. The majority of the participants vied in denying the
Holocaust, maintaining it is a myth, or putting in doubt the number of its
victims. Nevertheless, the conference concluded with the announcement of the
formation of an international committee to investigate the facts about the
Holocaust.
The Tehran conference epitomizes a kind of discourse on the Holocaust,
Zionism and the state of Israel in general, which is in vogue among certain
Arab (and Iranian) elites. At one time, such conferences and this kind of
discourse were a specialty of the Libyan regime of Colonel Gaddafi. Today,
it is the Islamic Republic of Iran that has taken over the role. The
discourse in question is fraught with delusions, a form of hallucination
which is at once obsessed with the West and incapable of breaking away from
it.
One side of this discourse is the urge to engage the West. More
specifically, they want to do this on terms understood by Western democrats
opposed to Nazism. They thus make analogies between Zionism and Nazism as a
way to explain the hideous crimes perpetrated by Israel's aggressive
policies. "Just as you fought Nazism in the past, we too fight Zionism
today," declared a Lebanese legislator from Hizbullah to visiting Ségolène
Royal, the French Socialist Party's presidential candidate, a few days ago.
The comparison triggered a political storm in France, still blowing unabated
and fanned by right-wing French politicians trying to score points against
Royal.
But there is a second side of the same discourse, contradicting the first.
This is the desire of some Arabs (and Iranians) to emulate the Nazis and
identify with them. Their unstated premise is: "Too bad he didn't finish
them off". The "he" is Hitler and the "them" is of course the Jews. To these
Arabs (and Iranians) we can apply the saying "the suspect nearly asked to be
indicted" -- in that they can barely veil their genocidal intentions. They
wish to be associated with the Nazi crime or to complete a crime left
unfinished by the Nazis!
What business do the Arabs have in all of this? The crime occurred in
Europe, committed by Europeans against other Europeans. Nevertheless, in
internal European debates on the Holocaust, many Arabs find it opportune to
intervene and take sides -- on the wrong side! Thus, a number of Arab
intellectuals hurried to vent their support for Günter Grass this past
August, when his confession, that he had served in the Waffen SS as a
17-year-old at the end of WW2, unleashed a fierce controversy in Germany.
This should not diminish in any way our concern for the human tragedy
resulting from the Nazi crimes, and its implications for the rest of us, in
particular Arabs. Between 1942 and 1945, the Nazi regime organized the
genocidal extermination of the Jews and the Gypsies, in a massive campaign
that also went after anti-Nazi resisters in occupied territories, after
Catholics and after communists, of various nationalities and political
orientations. But just to recall: While Nazi theories of the master race
ranked the Jews among the lowest racial groups, one group they considered
still inferior to the Jews were ... the Arabs!
Although the Zionist movement started several decades earlier, the Holocaust
was the main event that contributed to the success of its project for
establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. The Holocaust supplied Jewish
emigration to Palestine with hundreds of thousands of refugees running away
from the Nazi inferno, just as it aroused an enormous sympathy for the
victims of Nazism that Zionism succeeded in mobilizing to its advantage in
pursuit of its project in Palestine.
Yes, Zionism and Israel have exploited the Holocaust to justify their
policies in Palestine. Serious critics of Zionism, such as Noam Chomsky and
Norman Finkelstein, have shown how the exploitation of the Holocaust was
turned into an "industry" after the June 1967 war. Note carefully: The focus
on Israel as a refuge for the remnants of the Nazi genocide came after, not
before, the Israeli victory in that war! This has become by now a familiar
tactic of Zionist propaganda: Claiming the role of the victim while acting
as the executioner.
How can we ever hope to make a convincing contribution to the unmasking of
the "Holocaust industry" if we deny Nazi crimes against the Jews? How can we
ever hope to draw attention to the crimes of the "new Nazis" against the
Palestinian people if we decrease the number of victims of the historical
Nazis? What is the significance of making comparisons between Nazism and
Zionism, in order to denounce the latter, if we also exonerate the Nazis of
their greatest historical crime, which is the Holocaust? And is this not the
mirror image of what the Zionists have done when they appropriate the role
of victims and deny the Palestinians of even claiming they are victims?
---
Aop via Truthout - Dec 21, 2006
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/122106M.shtml
Ahmadinejad Opponents Win Elections
By Ali Akbar Dareini
The Associated Press
Opponents of Iran's ultra-conservative president won nationwide
elections for local councils, final results confirmed Thursday, an
embarrassing outcome for the hardline leader that could force him to
change his anti-Western tone and focus more on problems at home.
Moderate conservatives critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won
a majority of seats in last week's elections, followed by reformists who
were suppressed by hard-liners two years ago. Analysts said the
president's allies won less than 20 percent of local council seats
across the country.
The vote was widely seen as a sign of public discontent with
Ahmadinejad's stances, which have fueled fights with the West and led
Iran closer to U.N. sanctions.
Ahmadinejad's anti-Israel rhetoric and staunch stand on Iran's
nuclear program are believed to have divided the conservatives who voted
him into power. Some conservatives feel Ahmadinejad has spent too much
time confronting the West and failed to deal with Iran's struggling
economy.
Final results of Friday's local elections announced by the Interior
Ministry show moderate conservatives opposed to Ahmadinejad have won a
majority of the seats.
In Tehran, the capital, candidates supporting Mayor Mohammed Bagher
Qalibaf, a moderate conservative, won seven of the 15 council seats.
Reformists won four, while Ahmadinejad's allies won three. The last seat
went to an Olympic wrestling champion who is considered an independent.
Leading reformist Saeed Shariati said the results of the election
was a "big no" to Ahmadinejad and his allies.
"People's vote means they don't support Ahmadinejad's policies and
want change," Shariati, a leader of the Islamic Iran Participation
Front, Iran's largest reformist party told The Associated Press on
Thursday.
Similar anti-Ahmadinejad sentiment was visible in the final results
of a parallel election held to select members of the Assembly of
Experts, a conservative body of 86 senior clerics that monitors Iran's
supreme leader and chooses his successor.
A big boost for moderates within the ruling Islamic establishment
was visible in the big number of votes for former President Hashemi
Rafsanjani, who lost to Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential election
runoff.
***
Blood Diamond: A Film Review
By Dr. Barbara Ransby, PhD
December 21, 2006, Black Commentator
http://www.blackcommentator.com/211/211_blood_diamond_ransby_ed_bd.html
I went to this film with high expectations. It is touted as a
part of the growing genre of socially conscious Hollywood
productions that have a positive message. In this case the
message is that our frivolous attachment to the world's most
expensive gems is one that fuels violence and friction in
desperate and impoverished African countries like Sierra
Leone. That good message however, is loudly drowned out by the
many bad ones. And the bad messages are not about the
diamonds but about the people of Africa. I walked away from
this movie with the thundering of non-stop explosions and
gunfire still ringing in my head but feeling that I had just
seen a dressed-up, high tech Tarzan flick with Leonardo
DiCaprio as a modern-day Johnny Weissmuller. In scene after
scene the African population serves as backdrop for the main
story about love and ambition involving two white
protagonists, a young liberal reporter (Jennifer Connely) and
a tough ruthless diamond smuggler and former mercenary
(DiCaprio). In a recent review in the New Yorker, David Denby
actually praised the movie because it did not make westerners
(aka whites) feel guilty about the problems of Africa. That's
because it blames ruthless bloodthirsty black â?~rebels' who
prey upon helpless, voiceless black peasants.
DiCaprio, a bitter racist who clings fondly to good old days
of pre-independence Zimbabwe, where he grew up, is the hero of
the movie. He calls himself Rhodesian in open defiance of
black majority rule that came with the end of the Apartheid-
like system in Rhodesia (renamed Zimbabwe) in 1980. And in a
fit of rage he lashes out at his reluctant black collaborator,
Djimon Hounsou, as a 'kaffir,' the African equivalent of the
n-word. His goal in life is to steal, swindle or otherwise
procure enough diamonds to buy his way out of Africa, a place
he sees as God-forsaken and doomed. When there is no other
way out, he finally redeems himself in a gesture of generosity
at the end.
Of course, good fictional characters, like real people, are
always complex so I don't have an issue with Danny Archer,
DiCaprio's character, and DiCaprio's acting is phenomenal.
What is absolutely indefensible, however, is the simplistic
one-dimensional portrayal of almost every single black
character. Each and every one is either a blood-thirsty
mindless killer and pillager or a childlike noble savage and
feeble victim. The talented Hounsou is the later. He is cast
as hapless, helpless and clueless in the land of his birth.
He is a big innocent good guy who would not know whether to
run toward or away from the gunfire if DiCaprio did not pull
him in the right direction. OK, he is a rural fisherman so
perhaps he would not know how to navigate the city streets of
Sierra Leone's capital, but in the rugged terrain of the
jungle he is equally naïve and perpetually confused. In a
classic scene that captures the contradictions of the movie,
Hounsou puts his and DiCaprio's lives in danger by acting with
the impulse of a two-year old in the face of armed opponents.
Moreover, there are no black women in Africa that utter more
than two sentences, either 'help me, help me,' as one is being
kidnapped or a proposition to offer sexual services to the
'big white man who is all alone' in the city. There is no
black agency in this film, except for one school master who
tries to rehabilitate child soldiers only to be shot by one of
them five minutes after he appears on screen. Viewers are
left to conclude the age-old racist stereotype that Africa is
lost without European sympathy, know-how and might.
This genre of film advertises itself as something more than
banal entertainment. It promises to raise awareness and
consciousness about serious problems in the world. At the end
of the credits there are a set of statistics that drive home
that the subject of the film is real and serious. The
narrative and storyline, however, distorts more than it
illuminates the real players involved. For every child
soldier and blood-thirsty rebel there are compassionate social
workers and reformers, intellectuals, writers, and opposition
politicians. There are Africans who are tough and tender,
savvy and sinister and the whole range of personalities and
motivations that we see in any other group. Among blacks in
Africa, 90% of the continent of sub-Saharan Africa, we see
more diversity than among the handful of whites. Hounsou's
character however does not show the intelligence and
creativity that so many Africans have exhibited in response to
inhumane conditions. Real people who have fought to save
their country from violence and internal chaos like human
rights activist FannyAnn Eddy who was tortured and killed in
2004 for her outspoken actions on behalf of lesbians, gays and
women. But that tradition of African self-help and self-
determination does not appear in this movie. This producer
and director, Edward Zwick could not somehow see beyond the
one-dimensional types and simple binaries we have been fed
through television for generations. After African Queen, The
Constant Gardener, the Interpreter, and now Blood Diamond, and
with the notable exception of Hotel Rwanda, when will
Hollywood be able to make a movie about Africa that actually
acknowledges the full humanity of black African people?
[BC Editorial Board member Dr. Barbara Ransby, PhD is an
Historian, writer, and longtime political activist. Dr. Ransby
is currently an associate professor at the University of
Illinois at Chicago in the Departments of African American
Studies and History.]
---
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