Category: Palestine

فلسطين (Palestine)

+972 is an independent, blog-based web magazine. Today (22 Nov. 2015) it reports that Israelis are removing Arabic language from signs in Israel.

sign.hebrew.Jerusalem
An Israeli road sign that omits Jerusalem’s Arabic name (‘Al-Quds’), instead using the Hebracized Urshalim.

 

It’s consistent with other measures taken to effect ethnic purity in the Levant. Traditional hasbara students are educated in a set of arguments that proclaims Palestinians  unpersons. I have read handbook-quality materials that seek to “explain” that the first Palestinians came into being on a single day in the 1967 war. It is easier to control a people when that people does not exist.

Arabic does not have a “P” sound in its alphabet, Romance alphabets do; for example, Paris in Arabic language is ‘Baris.’ It would not be phonetically logical to expect to hear the word ‘Palestine’ spoken in Arabic. It makes sense to acknowledge that the English equivalent Philistine begins with an “F” sound. Filistine.

A-boy-with-the-word-PALESTINE-written-on-his-face-takes-part-in-a-protest-against-the-Israeli-blockade-of-the-Gaza-Strip-in-Amman-December-5-2008-Reuters

Image from Palestinian Arabic

There are efforts to force (or phorce) the history of the Palestinians into a more convenient geography that better serves their argument by employing the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent. It’s a method that has been effective ever since Homo sapiens lived in a land without a people.

The British Empire efficiently ran their worldwide enterprise by employing a divide and conquer strategy. Sometimes overlooked was their ability to impose the imperial language upon the occupied. The Palestinian scholar Edward Said, in his seminal work Orientalism published in 1978 described the dynamic. From his birth he found himself split between cultures, with a juxtaposition of the English name Edward and the common Arabic surname Said. This caused some difficulty in the multicultural multi faith city of  Jerusalem. In thought he would begin a sentence in English and end it in Arabic, or vice versa.

quote-every-empire-however-tells-itself-and-the-world-that-it-is-unlike-all-other-empires-edward-said-85-49-00

The same British Empire used a puppet mechanism for control of The Raj in India. It’s not always wonderful to live in a culture that writes in the language of the conqueror. English has become the principal  medium of the written word in Indian literature: English is an unfortunate medium that replaces Hindi, a tongue with deep roots.

Aatish Tameer

Under the British Mandate many worked fiercely to have Hebrew included along with English on public signs, as a signal for their cultural and ethnic identity. The irony of witnessing removal of Arabic on signs is not lost on this author.

 

 

 

George Orwell and Stanley Cohen

The William Kunstler of our time, defender of the super-underdog, has been in prison since January 5, 2015. Human rights attorneys are a rare breed. Perhaps an endangered species.

Q.What do lawyers and sperm have in common?
A: A one in a million shot at being human.

-Stephen Fry

So Stanley Cohen is one in a million.

I follow Caged but Undaunted under the byline Marion Heads on WordPress. It maintains focus on the downtrodden, where the exploited live on the edge of existence. The views expressed on the blog are indeed undaunted, opinions often missing in what could be spirited spontaneous political discourse. What does a prison serve? What is the purpose of a jailer? To prevent escape. Pure and unexpurgated arguments should flow with freedom and abandon: you can tell when an author’s thoughts tether to a strict follow-the-line agenda or protocol.

First letters of STANLEY L. COHEN covered by the cage. The freed bird over the last letter. Send a letter to the caged: http://freestanleycohen.xs2.net
Send a letter to the caged: http://freestanleycohen.xs2.net

There are three words most associated with Stanley Cohen: Up the Rebels. His editorial on Prison America is as forcefully expressed as it is true. It’s the pulse of the USA in 2015. The prison-industrial complex beats to its tune. Much there is to know but the last thing the planet needs.

George Orwell as a soldier in Burma knew he was a tool of empire. He knew the imperious every day spent there, but he lived to tell us what happens to the human soul when twisted and contorted. His short stories “A Hanging” and “To Shoot an Elephant” reflect endless empire, endless war. Orwell chose the title 1984 as the simple inversion of the year of publication: 1948. The empire was in the state of dissolution. At a time of personal privation following his British Empire years he informs his readers of being  Down and Out in Paris and London. It is a memoir of the time he worked on the other side of an exclusive restaurant’s swinging doors. Orwell is synonymous with a vision of how the present may know a future.

Stanley Cohen is now in prison, his speech muted. Until January 5th his voice was available on Twitter. Hope we hear from him soon. Defending the disenfranchised is the bulwark of fair and decent society, though it’s safer to join with the tyranny of a majority.  While writing this post coverage of the events in Paris encompass news media. And as a small but vocal voice I continue to write about daily life in Palestine and Israel, where such deaths administered by agents of civil authority are hourly occurrences. Were I to sport a keffiyeh in the local supermarket would I draw attention? Or to wear a Palestinian flag?

Richard Leiby published an article in 2002 on ‘Behind the News in Israel‘. It provides perspective from a dozen years ago.

Thanks for reading.

The Matrix of Control: Jeff Halper

What happens when you deny reality indefinitely?

Anthropologist Jeff Halper and the geography of the matrix.
Anthropologist Jeff Halper and the geography of the matrix.

Making the inexplicable explicable, anthropologist Jeff Halper has authored an expression for a phenomenon: The Matrix of Control. I’ve sought to study both sides of the Palestine/Israel conflict; I find Halper’s well documented publications insightful and pertinent. And “The Matrix” is already in our cultural lexicon.

The geography of the occupied territories
The geography of the occupied territories

Not for the first time do I refer to hasbara (from the Hebrew “to explain”). WordPress’ auto-correct database is large but hasbara is not yet there).

The following is at the Palestine Poster Project. You’ll find some worthy media. A great project, timeless work:

Multiple cards permitted
Multiple cards permitted

Both the Arab and the Jew are semitic. Why limit antisemitism to anti-jew? What then is the word for anti-arab? How about “antisemitism.”

From the blog Displaced Palestinians

Hate speech
Hate speech

Where did the inhabitants of the world’s largest open-air prison come from?

Graphic below from: Gaza’s Untold Story

This infographic visually represents the untold story of Gaza’s refugees. Created by Visualizing Palestine in collaboration with four Palestinian human rights organizations, Al-Haq, the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, the Palestine Centre for Human Rights, and Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights, who launched a joint campaign to document Israel’s attacks during the 2014 offensive against the Gaza Strip. http://visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/gaza-refugee-deaths

Visualizing Palestine

It appears that the proclamation “A land without a people…” is misleading.

As ever, comments (opposing viewpoints as well) are welcome.

The Logical Fallacy of Comparing Gaza to Greece

 

Expressing opinion in public
Expressing opinion in public

I found an obscure op-ed dated 9 July 2015. The opinion by an editorial board: Gaza and Greece are comparable. Offhand I can think of two points for comparison: both border the Mediterranean, both begin with the letter “G.”  GAZA NEEDS WHAT GREECE IS GETTING. thePretty much published on the first anniversary of the 51 Day War, also known as Operation Protective Shield.

The fantasyland of eternal bailouts. The fantasyland of eternal hatred.

The ultimate lesson about Greece is not economic, it’s about Fantasyland. Greece has lived in Fantasyland — just like Gaza.

Greece’s fantasyland is the free lunch. Gaza’s fantasyland is the attitudinal free lunch: hatred without consequences.

The Greek fantasy is the supply of money as automatic as the laws of nature.

The Gaza fantasy is the end of Israel despite the laws of nature.

The Greek fantasy is pensions, wages, holidays, insurance, subsidies, welfare, all based on funds from outside Greece, without limit.

The Gaza fantasy is the destruction of Israel based on  random missile fire and terror tunnels.

The Greeks fight the laws of production. The Gazans fight the laws of decency and self-interest.

The Greeks are finding out the hard way that big bailouts are not forever.

The Gazans need to find out that hatred forever will not destroy Israel.

The Greeks are finding out that there is no way to economic strength other than work, discipline and the end of ridiculous policies, such as huge pensions tied to early retirement.

The Gazans need to find out that there is no path to social achievement other than tolerance, political pluralism and religious freedom.

The Greek bluff was called.

Excellent symbol.

Now the Gaza bluff needs to be called: no more “humanitarian assistance” when it is basic humanitarianism, i.e., the end of the hatred of Jews and Israelis, that Gazans need to cultivate.

Greece banked on the fear of others to let Greece fail. For this, Greece is failing.

Gaza banks on the blindness of others to the true cause of their suffering: themselves. For this, Gaza wins sympathy around the world, yet continues its suffering.

Greece is now getting a dose of reality. Gaza is long overdue for a dose of reality.

Greece turned its good people against the necessary pain and pleasure of hard work, economic reform and national self-reliance.

Gaza turns its people toward the unnecessary pain of dead Gaza children as the inevitable consequence of placing them in harm’s way.

Greece is learning: It is not someone else’s job to fix the mess it created.

Gaza needs the very lesson that Greece is learning: Its poverty is of its own making, not someone else’s responsibility to fix.

Greece is learning: Fantasyland cannot last forever. The day of reckoning inevitably arrives.

Ditto, Gaza.

Greece’s fantasyland is the free lunch

Gaza’s fantasyland is the attitudinal free lunch: hatred without consequences.

Greece is learning: It is not someone else’s job to fix the mess it created.

Gaza needs the very lesson that Greece is learning: Its poverty is of its own making, not someone else’s responsibility to fix.

No. It's not OK to place Greece and Gaza in the same headline
No. It’s not OK to place Greece and Gaza in the same headline