Many signs point to Hezbollah’s increasing presence in the Palestinian territories, a sharp departure to Arafat’s model of Palestinian nationalism being the realm of Palestinian groups only. This is among the most serious (and least addressed) developments over the last few years.
The rumors in the Jewish community about Barak Hussein Obama’s "Muslim" connection are embarassing, dumb, and wrong. Every day I get email forwards with silly allegations and fear-mongering. Very sad, not just because it is based on lies and ignorance, but also because it reflects deep prejudice and fear from a religion that has been unfairly tarnished by a minority of extremists who seek to hijack it.
But what nobody in the media has pointed out when they mention how much he has overcome and what testament to progress in America it is that someone whose last name rhymes with "Osama" Bin-Laden and whose middle name is the same as that of the late "Butcher of Baghad", Saddam Hussein, is that Barak has an Israeli first name.
Indeed, "Barak", which means "thunder" in Hebrew, is a common first name as well as a common last name.
So if people are going to make up stories, they might as well balance them out and talk about how he is the product of an Arab-Israeli love affair.
A very interesting article from Reuel Marc Gerecht on Iraq, Afghanistan, Al Qaeda and what I call "pseudo-Islamic terrorists" (militant extremist assassins who usurp and tarnish a noble religion to advance their absolutist aims) appears in the Washington Post. He is either extraordinarily well informed, and providing some real hope, or just engaging in wishful thinking. Either way it is definitely worth a read here or by clicking below.
Here is a note I got today from one of our team members in Gaza:
I know well that you understand the sensitivity of the day to day situation in Gaza, we absolutely experiences the conflict between the moderate people who live unacceptable and unbelievable life and the extremists who enjoy the role they play in governing the others, I’m not the only one who analyze current Gaza as it is now, in short we live in a miserable condition, there is nothing reach the minimum standards starting from the rule of law and not ending by the milk and the medicines for the children.
For one second don’t ever think that we gave up or we hesitate in acting for the goodness of our people and for OV message, we are doing our best to remain in contact with the necessarily people in Gaza and we enlarging our circle day by day, our action may not covered by media or documented by photos but personally and on behalf of [my team] I confirm that we are happy by every step that we take forward toward our goal.
David Troube wrote an insightful article about what is behind much of the "Boycott Israel" movement.
One of my favorite movies ever, which I just saw recently after many years, is The Mission. Like all great movies, its power to entertain and its message stand the test of time…
Taken from this article about the Gaza-Egypt border debacle, this picture struck me as a sad allegory not just to the challenges of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process and of building of a Palestinian State, but further to so many of the challenges faced today in the Middle East, from the peace process, to the struggle between tradition and modernity, to the many divides harming the region, to the threats of nuclear proliferation, etc.
A New York Times Editorial, "An Intolerable Fraud", tells of a "charity" that hides behind a patriotic name – "The Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes" and its sister "Help Hospitalized Veterans" – to bilk unknowing donors trying to send funds to soldiers harmed by the war, only to squander 70% to 80% of their funds.
According to the New York Times, the guy running this outfit, Roger Chapin, spent nearly $125 million (75% of funds raised) in "fund-raising, administrative expenses, fat salaries and perks. Mr. Chapin gave himself and his wife $1.5 million in salary, bonuses and pension contributions over those three years, including more than $560,000 in 2006. The charities also reimbursed the Chapins more than $340,000 for meals, hotels, entertainment and other expenses, and paid for a $440,000 condominium and a $17,000 golf-club membership."
Just as pathetic, much of the funds the troops got was in the form of "’charitable’ phone cards sent to troops overseas in 2006 — not to let them call their families, but rather to call up a stateside business that sells sports scores."
I often carry around old newspapers whose op-eds or articles I hadn’t read. Some times I may be dumb enough to bring one copy across half a dozen trips before getting to it, only to realize I was carrying dead weight.
Not just now, when I caught up with last week’s op-ed page from the New York Times, which included an extraordinary piece from Sarah Vowell and a good column from William Kristol.
From Vowell (whose piece goes far beyond the issues covered here), I read about pure Christian theology’s precepts, as taught by Jesus of Nazareth, to "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you." Too bad many followers intoxicated by organized religion’s quest for power forgot this precept.
But Martin Luther King Jr. did not. He applied the Sermon on the Mount in his ‘loving your enemies’ sermon:
So this morning, as I look into your eyes and into the eyes of all of my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you: ‘I love you. I would rather die than hate you.’
I am a bit embarrassed that I had never heard of this sermon, though I recently went through an experience that made me reflect about similar issues.
Back around late September and early October, when groups that opposed negotiations between Israel and Palestine for a two-state-solution or that did not understand or agree with OneVoice’s mission of mobilizing ordinary citizens to push for an agreement threatened some of our staff and performers, I clumped together attackers and critics, and was overcome with an intense sense of injustice and a hatred that I did not know I had in me.
Postponing the October 18th OneVoice Summit was a painful setback for the team and all our supporters, and it made me feel like I let down so many people and haunted me for a long time (still occasionally now).
Eventually our 18 month campaign not only overcame this setback, but continued to attract support, surpassing 650,000 signatories of the OneVoice Mandate to date, and validating its efforts when the Israeli, Palestinian and American Heads of State committed almost verbatim to the OneVoice Mandate.
But no less important was the internal growth that I experienced during that tough period, when I found myself taking a very wrong path of anger and resentment against those attacking or even just criticizing my team members. Eventually I turned back from that dark alley into a path you can only see from the contrast of the darkness. I felt what it was to hate, and I realized I had to reject it. The experience had a lasting impression and impact on my thoughts about civic activism.
It is not enough to push for the peace process; it is not enough to awaken moderate voices, even though OneVoice recognizes that is tactically the most cost-effective choice to push the process along and highlight there is a partner on both sides. As we gain momentum, we must also truly pursue peace with ALL.
Northern Ireland’s experience is instructive. The movement also started with mainstream grassroots disaffected citizens – Mothers. But eventually it broadened, and it enveloped and involved the leaders from the entrenched militant groups, which were at the table when the deals were struck.
The danger with excluding specific groups and branding them as extremist is that you don’t leave space for the people to evolve in their thought process, but cage them as the enemy, and leave them no other option but to struggle against your vision, which may include the "other", but may exclude some of your own.
Many who believe in a mission of a two state solution think that the only way to get there is to attack those who oppose it, but you end up creating a different type of enemy. Somehow some proponents of peace with the other side have no qualms about fighting with their own.
The journey is as important as the destination. Pursuing peace by demonizing those you consider to oppose it creates a different type of war. Whether it is Israel’s far left which sometimes hates the Israeli right with as much intensity as the Israeli far right hates the Arabs (and the Israeli left), or whether it is someone from Fatah that hates Hamas, or whether it is a Jew who fears or resents a Muslim or vice-versa, all of the paths of hatred must be fought.
As painful as it is to the Israeli left, they need to engage the settlers in a dialogue and welcome them back to the mainstream. This is of course very hard because the settlers are not aching to come in, to say the least, not to mention they want to keep the Israeli left out.
As painful as it is to Palestinian seculars and intellectuals, and to the Fatah power base, they will need to find a way to attract Hamas supporters, many of whom were attracted to the grassroots authenticity of the Hamas movement’s struggle for liberation and turned off by corrupted officials entrenched in power.
And what do you do about those who ideologically cannot reconcile with peace? How do you deal with core Hamas leaders who believe Greater Palestine is an Islamic Waqf (a Trust from the Almighty) which cannot be negotiated away? How do you relate to settlers who feel Greater Israel is a grant to the Jewish people (a Trust from the Almighty), one which cannot be negotiated away?
THESE are the instances where you most must fight all impulses to hate. You must hold on to your principle, and try to reason. But where your reason does not permeate into theirs, you must continue inviting them to come in to your tent one day, and offer that they can reconcile their beliefs with the reality of two peoples destined to co-exist by keeping their spiritual absolutism in their hearts, respectfully, and not forgetting their religious precepts which also require respect and love to other human beings.
It is a very hard thing to achieve an approach of unbending love and respect towards all, and probably only saints like MLK Jr. or Gandhi truly achieve such pure empathy.
After all, when you perceive an injustice to be done, you feel justified, almost morally-bound, to resent the person that commits the injustice. If the injustice is great, you may feel an impulse to hate the aggressor. But I guess you must at least TRY to catch that impulse and fight it. It does NOT mean you don’t fight the injustice; it means you try to get the transgressor to fight it too. And this requires a lot of love.
Otherwise, with so much animosity and pain and fear and suspicions and suffering, it will eat you and turn you into that which you most want to fight.
William Kristol writes about what makes John McCain different from the other Republicans running for their party’s nomination, including being "the not-so-modern type [that is shaped by political consultants, being]…rigid, self-righteous, and moralizing, but (or rather and) manly, courageous, and principled." He tells how McCain memorized as a child, and recited to Kristol on a patchy cell phone call, this extraordinary poem about conviction and courage of the soul:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbow’dBeyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
-William Ernest Henley, Invictus (1875), as quoted by McCain and told by Kristol, who surmises McCain must have recited this more than once during his captivity as a prisoner of war.
What is remarkable about McCain is that for the most part when I hear him (with the notable exception of his California debate against Romney), he seems to be the captain of his soul and to fight to uphold principles he holds dear, including some times supporting a tough military course without hating his enemy and without doing things out of spite. He too lets people like Romney get the best of him. And it is starkly unattractive. But for the most part, he rises above petty politics. He acts out of nobility and puts US interests ahead of himself or his campaign.
One of the best ideas to come to our world in a long time comes courtesy of Shai Agassi and his American-Israeli company, Better Place. He realized that instead of worrying about the manufacturing of electric cars, he could accelerate their acceptance if he focused on the infrastructure network. And he created a model for leasing the batteries that will enable people to exchange their batteries at a ton of spots. Israel has embraced the project wholeheartedly, and I am told Palestine and Jordan will also be on board.
This is a great example of how good business can have so many additional bottomlines, helping the environment and fighting climate change, increasing economic cooperation among neighbors in a conflict region, and decreasing the need for scarce oil.
Read the article here: Israel Is Set to Promote the Use of Electric Cars