Tag Archives: zionist project

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The last step in liberation of Palestine and the rest of humanity: Developing a winning attitude

Mazin Qumsiyeh

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD, writing from Italy

13 Jan 2011

After I finished my last book on popular resistance in Palestine over the past 130 years, I became 100% sure that political Zionism will fail and that Palestinian refugees will return to their homes and lands. My certainty is based on the lessons of history in Palestine and lessons from similar struggles like South Africa, Vietnam, and Algeria. Some of the peculiarities that will be critical for our success are:

- The incredible and inspiring history of the local popular resistance: The subtitle of my book is “A history of hope and empowerment”.   Over 200 forms of popular resistance are practiced including a wide spectrum of what we call in Arabic Sumud.  Resistance is the main thing that stood in the way of the Zionist project.  Five and a half million Palestinians still live in the dreamed of “Eretz Yisrael”.

- The logarithmic growth of the boycotts, divestments and sanctions movement.  In five years alone (2005-2010), we achieved more than what we were able to achieve in BDS movements in South Africa from the 1950s to the 1980s.

- The unrest in in Algeria and Tunisia tell us that the era of backward selfish undemocratic Arab leadership will (and must) come to an end.   There are tremendous intellectual resources in the Arab world that can then be unleashed to build a vibrant society (at levels of culture, economics, scientific, etc.)
- Despite the heavily censored/controlled mainstream media, people of good conscience were and are  able to get the truth out and many of the myths of Zionism were demolished.  The internet only accelerated this.

- The publication of the civil society call to action in 2005 and the Palestine Kairos document in 2009 has given tremendous push to activism around the world including in mainstream churches.

- The growth of International solidarity was unparalleled in history.  Despite the attempts by the Israeli authorities to stop this international support by many methods (including refusing entry to many activists), the movement only grows stronger.  We went from few hundreds to tens of thousands and from one ship to seven; and as many as 60 ships are coming to break the siege on Gaza later this year.

- We are very proud and persistent people.  The thriving art and culture scene in Palestine and among Palestinian community in exile are a testament to this spirit of a people who seek life and refuse to be dehumanized.  We do not and will not resort to the tactics of those who chose to be our enemies.  From Dabka to good food to other cultural traditions, Palestine remained not only physically in our surroundings but deep in our hearts.  We developed the most educated populace in the region.

In Palestine, these and many other reasons increase our certainty in the inevitability of a successful end to our decades of repression, colonization and occupation. We faced, almost alone, the best-organized, best-financed, most western-supported colonial enterprise in history.  Rational human beings see that the spread of fundamentalism is only fostered when Israel is made an exception and is funded and protected while it flouts human rights and International law.   Zionists act to control and manipulate and we must continue to calmly resist and refuse to be enslaved.  We tell our stories with dignity and we explain why this racist/tribalistic system is harmful to all of humanity.  We do it without hatred to any person but with anger and hatred at the inhuman actions of a deluded few who think they can get away with war crimes and crimes against humanity forever.  People around the world increasingly see the reality and join our struggle.  I talk and show reality in Bethlehem area to groups of visitors almost every day in Palestine.  I get invitations to speak abroad frequently but I chose to limit such trips abroad because there is so much to do at home.

We speak to diverse groups sometimes to the consternation of puritans on all sides.  I spoke for example at colleges and schools in the US where the majority of students and faculty were Jewish (e.g. Brandeis, Manhattenville), I spoke at NATO defense college, at conservative Churches, at synagogues and Jewish community centers, at editorial board meetings of influential papers largely owned by Zionists, and we even spoke at a US Naval Academy.  In the West Bank I spoke to visitors ranging from Church leaders, to US congressmen, to British Parliamentarians, to the US consular officers, and even to Israeli academics.  Some people especially on the left balk at these events and some even openly criticized us for these kinds of engagements.  But if we are willing to speak to Israeli soldiers telling them how they are committing war crimes by obeying orders and we manage to occasionally (though rarely) touch a cord in the heart of our direct oppressors, why can’t we talk to all other human beings regardless of their background.   It is counterproductive to imagine the worst in humanity; misjudge the trends in history; and insist that we can only talk to those we agree with or go with the flow.  This is a losing attitude that relegates many on the left to holding signs at street corners without creatively thinking how do we get power.  It also relegates those in power to complacency and corruption and mistrust of people.  Many develop their diagnostic language (the corporate media is controlled, the Zionist lobby is too strong, the politics cannot change, power structures are what they are etc) but are not willing to seriously take action to make this world a better place.

In this year, we will be seven billion human beings on this earth.  The distortions in many countries (including Italy and Israel/Palestine) of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer cannot and will not continue.  Fear of change is what paralyzes many people.  As others have pointed out, our biggest fear is not that we will fail but that for many human beings, the biggest fear is that we can be more successful than our wildest dreams.  I believe indeed it is fear of success that keeps most people complacent.  After all, for many if they really go seriously after their dreams (personal or collective) and succeed then it will show that the years they spent worrying and being afraid have indeed been only because of their lack of courage to change themselves.

Neurobiologists tell us that we humans only use a tiny fraction of our brain (we are told that geniuses use 1-2%).  In the 1950s civil rights movement in the US, a common saying was “free your mind and your ass will follow”.  I think positive change always comes after people changed attitude in life to a positive direction.  This is not only possible but it is imperative and inevitable.  The more people realize this, the quicker we will get there.  And we should all be working on the nature of the society to follow our inevitable win: one based on human rights and the rule of law not of military might and repression.

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh teaches and does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities in occupied Palestine. He serves as chairman of the board of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour He is author of “Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle” and the forthcoming book Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and Empowerment.

A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home
http://www.qumsiyeh.org
http://www.pcr.ps

Articles by Dr. Qumsiyeh on RamallahOnline.com.

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Clegg now singing off Zionist hymn-sheet

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood, 25 Sept 2010

In the space of a few short years Nick Clegg has shot from obscurity to stardom in British politics, joining Conservative leader David “I’m-a-Zionist” Cameron at the head of Britain’s new coalition government.

Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, is deputy prime minister and gets to play PM from time to time, like now when Zionist Dave appears to still be enjoying a perk that’s laughably called ‘paternity leave’.

Cameron too came from nowhere to lead a party that’s said to be 80 percent loyal to Israel. This patron of the Jewish National Fund then became prime minister… with Clegg’s help.

But what exactly is Clegg’s little game on the foreign affairs front? Last year he seemed to be his own man and was writing this about Gaza in The Guardian:

“…And what has the British government and the international community done to lift the blockade? Next to nothing. Tough-sounding declarations are issued at regular intervals but little real pressure is applied. It is a scandal that the international community has sat on its hands in the face of this unfolding crisis.

No doubt the febrile sensitivities of the Middle East have deterred governments, caught between recriminations from both sides. No doubt diplomats have warned that exerting pressure on Israel and Egypt may complicate the peace process.

But surely the consequences of not lifting the blockade are far more grave?”

It was shockingly provocative stuff in the cesspit of pro-Israel Westminster.

Around the same time he was telling the Jewish Chronicle:

“There is simply not a shred of racism in me….The very suggestion that I might explicitly or tacitly give cover for racism, I find politically abhorrent and personally deeply offensive.”

I presumed this to be a warning not to count on his support for the Zionist Project.

But now, following the freaky electoral good fortune that catapulted him to the top, and in the wake of Israel’s murderous assault on the Mavi Marmara, Clegg has begun to change his tune. He welcomed the appointment of Lord Trimble to the racist entity’s farcical inquiry into its own entrails, well aware that Trimble is a founding member of the new international movement “Friends of Israel Initiative”.

And at the Liberal Democrats’ annual conference a few days ago he abandoned any non-racist credentials he may have had by attending a fringe meeting of his party’s Friends of Israel group along with the new deputy Israeli ambassador to the UK.

According to a report in Middle East Monitor http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/articles/europe/1537-lib-dem-leader-clegg-attends-friends-of-israel-fringe-meeting-but-ignores-friends-of-palestine Clegg thanked Friends of Israel for all the work they had done to promote themselves within the party and declared himself an admirer of “the democratic traditions and liberal ethos of life within Israel”.

Clegg has a lot to learn if he seriously thinks Israel is some kind of western-style liberal democracy. He wasn’t even-handed enough to attend a meeting of the Liberal Friends of Palestine where Britain has helped crush a blossoming, non-racist democracy.

And, in harmony with the puppet-masters in the White House, he said that so much hinges on “the talks”. It is remarkable how those who promote “the talks” never speak of the Israelis’ automatic peace-wrecking tactics – their defiance of international law requiring them to get the hell off Palestinian territory and their continuing killing spree and land thieving, which continue unabated while Palestinians are required to meekly submit to the humiliation of going through the motions of negotiation.

Instead, they whisper respectfully of Israel’s partial “moratorium” on its illegal construction of settlements, as if suspending a criminal programme to seize more land and insert more armed squatters to terrorise Palestinian villagers amounts to a major concession.

The international community has unfinished business

And how can Clegg or any other respectable leader go along with talks that stand democratic principle on its head and invite Abbas, whose presidential term ran out long ago, who has no popular mandate from the Palestinians and who assumes brutal, dictatorial powers?

Are they all barmy? Their idea appears to be to get an agreement – any agreement, even one signed by a chancer like Abbas who has no legitimacy – just to save a few worthless faces rather than deliver justice to millions and resolve the decades-old bloody conflict.

They show no respect whatever.

Hamas’s chief is right when he says that the massive imbalance of power on the ground makes negotiation at the present time grossly unfair and would play into the enemy’s hands. That’s another fundamental point of principle studiously ignored by the West’s political élite.

The international community has unfinished business to take care of before meaningful talks can take place. And it stands to reason that the correct sequence of events should be (1) Israel ends the occupation and siege, (2) Israel withdraws behind its pre-1967 borders in compliance with UN resolutions and international law, (3) talks begin with no gun to the Palestinians’ head, (4) the Palestinians are properly represented by their elected leadership, even if that’s Hamas.

If the Americans have a problem with these basics they should keep away from the process and let the UN handle it. Actually the UN should have insisted on handling it in the first place. Why don’t they get a grip on their responsibilities?
Meantime Nick Clegg might find it refreshing to stop and re-read the Preamble to his own party’s Constitution, a very fine document indeed especially where it says:

“We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals, we acknowledge and respect their right to freedom of conscience…”

“We reject all prejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, age, disability, sex or sexual orientation and oppose all forms of entrenched privilege and inequality. Recognising that the quest for freedom and justice can never end, we promote human rights and open government…

“Our responsibility for justice and liberty cannot be confined by national boundaries; we are committed to fight poverty, oppression, hunger, ignorance, disease and aggression wherever they occur and to promote the free movement of ideas, people, goods and services.”

These principles are as good as any for guiding a person through political life. But how many of them are reflected in the coalition’s policy dealing with the scandal of the Holy Land and in Clegg’s recent pronouncements?
I wait with interest to see how he and Cameron react when Israel’s “moratorium” on squatter settlements expires this weekend.

Will our dynamic duo call for sanctions against Israel for persistent land theft, endless breaches of international law, ongoing lethal violence and continuing defiance of UN resolutions?

And, if necessary, will they show the way and take unilateral action, as principled leaders should?

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk

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What sort of Christians become Zionists?

Christian Zionists

Stuart Littlewood, 17 June 2010

“We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as a false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation” – The Jerusalem Declaration

Not all Jews are Zionists. Many reject the Zionist project and fight against it.

So why on earth would a non-Jew wish to be one? Indeed, how could a genuine Christian seriously consider becoming a Zionist? It has puzzled me for a long time. The two ideas are incompatible, are they not?

So consider for a moment Anglican Friends of Israel, as an example. Their stated aims include:

  • To support the people of Israel and to secure defensible borders for the State of Israel.
  • To recall the Church to G-d’s Covenant with the Jewish people and to call the Church to affirm the centrality of Israel to the Jewish faith.
  • To call Anglicans to repentance for the wrongs – of both word and deed – inflicted by Christians on the Jewish people and the nation of Israel.
  • To fight all libels against Israel and the Jewish people and their State.
  • To protect the Christian communities threatened by Islamic extremism in the Middle East.

Are they Zionists? It sounds very much like it. For them Israel can do no wrong and Christians need to apologise to the Jewish people… er, what for?

And what makes them think that Muslims are more of a threat than Israeli extremists to Christian communities?

You should also see the sort of stuff the Anglican Friends of Israel post on their website.

    AFI Press Release: The Mavi Marmara
    Written by Anglican Friends of Israel
    Wednesday, 02 June 2010
    Anglican Friends of Israel are dismayed at international condemnation of Israel following attacks upon Israeli Defence Force personnel [by] a supposedly peaceful aid convoy… Israeli offers of peaceful means to deliver the aid into Gaza were refused. Video footage proves that the violence which tragically resulted in the deaths of some passengers and injuries to others including IDF personnel was begun by Aid convoy members… Terrorists in Gaza continue to fire rockets into Israel – over 60 this year so far – and to explode bombs in order to kill and maim Israeli citizens.
    Western spokespersons might bear in mind that the terror threat to western nations springs from the same source as that faced daily by Israelis and be more circumspect in making demands on Israel before all relevant facts have emerged.

Anyone would be forgiven for thinking it was actually penned by the crapaganda unit in Tel Aviv. These Anglicans (if they are Anglicans) swallowed Israel’s poisonous concoction hook, line and sinker and re-broadcast it while the abducted flotilla aid workers – witnesses to the murderous assault and executions – were incarcerated in Israeli jails and unable to tell the outside world what really happened.

I don’t know of any danger to us from Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran, if those are the “terror” sources referred to. I doubt if groups who wish to see the Israeli nuclear threat to their region neutralised are also gunning for us, even though people like Anglican Friends of Israel and foreign secretary William Hague are doing their best to provoke them. But Israel of course wishes to make the British feel threatened and to draw us for strategic reasons into their schemes for permanent occupation and domination. There are always plenty of useful idiots to do their bidding.

A few days earlier the Anglicans issued a press release stating that the flotilla to Gaza was “a publicity stunt, not a genuine aid convoy”. The item was actually a statement by the Israeli embassy repeated word for word and containing meaningless information like… “Since last year’s January cease fire, 133 million liters of fuel entered Gaza from Israel – That’s more than enough fuel to fill the fuel tank of every car and truck in Israel!” and “Since the ceasefire, well over a million tons of humanitarian supplies entered Gaza from Israel – That’s almost a ton of aid for every man woman and child in Gaza.”

Meaningless, because the figures lacked context. You have to go to the UN for that. Whatever Israel lets in, says the UN, it’s only one-fifth of what’s needed.

Some apparently responsible people, it seems, would rather accept without question the disinformation fed them by the Israeli authorities than on-the-spot assessments and reports by the UN and various charities.

Actually Israel is letting in only a quarter of what it let in before Hamas was elected.

Without question there was a publicity angle to the voyage. The organisers had a political point to make – the whole ugly US/UK-created mess out there is a political cesspit. The Israelis couldn’t afford to see their illegal blockade breached. The evidence points to a planned execution raid on the Mavi Marmara in the dead of night with a pre-prepared hit-list.

And in a letter to the BBC these Anglicans insisted that Operation Cast Lead (Israel’s blitzkrieg on Gaza after breaking the ceasefire with Hamas, subsequently killing 1400, maiming heaven knows how many and making hundreds of thousands homeless) was an act of “self-defense”.

If you are as bewildered as I am why so-called Christians are persuaded to sign up to Zionism, a short paper explaining the phenomenon is available from Sadaka, The Ireland Palestine Alliance – see www.sadaka.ie. I found it very helpful.

    “The destiny of the Jewish people is to return to the land of Israel and reclaim their inheritance promised to Abraham and his descendants forever. This inheritance extends from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates. Within their land, Jerusalem is recognised to be their exclusive, undivided and eternal capital, and therefore it cannot be shared or divided.
    At the heart of Jerusalem will be the rebuilt Jewish temple, to which all the nations will come to worship God. Just prior to the return of Jesus, there will be seven years of calamities and war known as the tribulation, which will culminate in a great battle called Armageddon, during which the godless forces opposed to both God and Israel will be defeated.
    Jesus will then return as the Jewish Messiah and king to reign in Jerusalem for a thousand years, and the Jewish people will enjoy a privileged status and role in the world.”

That’s the Zionist dream in a nutshell.

As I understand it, the Jews were expelled by the Roman occupation in 70AD, when the second temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, and again in 135AD.

These days the right of return is regarded as an inalienable right. But it should be exercised as soon as the reason for expulsion (e.g. foreign occupation) ceases. In the Jews’ case an opportunity would have occurred in the 4th century AD as the Roman Empire collapsed. But they didn’t take it. They can hardly expect to change their mind 16 centuries later. Their right expired a very long time ago.

By comparison the Palestinians’ right of return after being ethnically cleansed in 1948 and ever since is much stronger because the enemy occupation has not yet ended and the UN has endorsed their right.

Nevertheless Zionists claim Jerusalem is theirs by heavenly decree. However, this holiest of cities was already 2000 years old when King David captured it. It dates back 5000 years and was named after the Canaanite God of Dusk.

Historians say that Jerusalem, in its ‘City of David’ form, lasted a mere 73 years. In 928BC the kingdom divided into Israel and Judah, and in 597BC the Babylonians conquered the city and destroyed Solomon’s temple. The Jews recaptured it in 164BC but finally lost it to the Roman Empire in 63BC. Before the present-day conflict the Jews, in total, controlled Jerusalem for some 500 years, whereas it was subsequently ruled by Muslims for 1,277 years. Before the Jews it belonged to the Canaanites. And for nearly 90 years it was also a Christian kingdom. A lot of competing claims, then, which is probably why the UN declared it should be independently administered as an international city.

In 1187 Saladin restored the city to Islam while allowing Jews and Christians to remain. Today Jewish religious groups want control of the city for their spiritual centre and for a third temple to be built in accordance with ancient prophecies. The plan to make the Israeli occupation permanent threatens especially the Muslim but also the Christian holy places and serves to keep political tension boiling. It is no surprise, given Israel’s reliance on ‘black’ propaganda, that when the Iranian president quoted the late Ayatollah Khomeini as saying the unfriendly regime occupying Jerusalem “must vanish from the page of time”, he was immediately reported as wanting to wipe Israel off the map.

Sadaka puts the genuine Christian position by quoting The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism, a statement by the Latin Patriarch and Local Heads of Churches in Jerusalem issued in 2006…

    We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as a false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation.
    We further reject the contemporary alliance of Christian Zionist leaders and organizations with elements in the governments of Israel and the United States that are presently imposing their unilateral pre-emptive borders and domination over Palestine. This inevitably leads to unending cycles of violence that undermine the security of all peoples of the Middle East and the rest of world.
    We reject the teachings of Christian Zionism that facilitate and support these policies as they advance racial exclusivity and perpetual war rather than the gospel of universal love, redemption and reconciliation taught by Jesus Christ. Rather than condemn the world to the doom of Armageddon we call upon everyone to liberate themselves from ideologies of militarism and occupation. Instead, let them pursue the healing of the nations!

The Declaration, explains Sadaka, asserts that “Christian Zionists have aggressively imposed an aberrant expression of the Christian faith and an erroneous interpretation of the Bible, which is subservient to the political agenda of the modern State of Israel… Christian Zionism thrives on a literal and futurist hermeneutic in which Old Testament promises made to the ancient Jewish people are transferred to the contemporary State of Israel in anticipation of a final future fulfillment.”

I haven’t yet seen credible response from the Christian Zionists.

Alarmingly, the US-based Unity Coalition for Israel brings together over 200 organisations and is the largest pro-Israel network in the world. They claim to have 40 million active members and lobby on behalf of Israel through 1,700 religious radio stations, 245 Christian TV stations and 120 Christian newspapers.

The question I’d like answered is this. Are we to believe that an all-powerful supernatural Being has chosen and elevated one group of humans to a position of supremacy above all others, and has approved the use any means including murder and brutal eviction to achieve their goal, and now mobilizes millions of lesser mortals from around the globe, like those who regard themselves as upstanding Christians, to serve as tools and sing the praises of this ‘Grand Design’?

In the meantime I’m with the Churches of Jerusalem on this one.

It took an 89-year old woman, the formidable White House correspondent Helen Thomas, to prick the Zionists’ over-inflated balloon when she said last week that the Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home… to Germany, Poland, America and everywhere else.”

The hatchet squad roaming America’s den of iniquity promptly fell on her. They may have silenced her, and may even have destroyed this frail lady, but the power of her words will live on…

Stuart Littlewood

17 June 2010

Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk