The Flashlight, Nov. 18-24, 2006
THE FLASHLIGHT, Nov 18-24, 2006
Lebanon
NY Times, W Post, Daily Star (Beirut), An-Nahar (Beirut) Nov. 21-23.The political crisis in Lebanon became worse on account of the assassination of Pierre Gemayel, 34, member of the Cabinet and of a powerful Maronite Christian family [Roman Catholic]. Gemayel, like the five other Lebanese politicians assassinated in the last two years, was an enemy of Syria. His car was rammed from behind and blocked ahead by two other vehicles and three gunmen carrying automatic guns with silencers at point blank range shot his head and chest with 24 bullets through the glass windows. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
The next day was Lebanese Independence Day but instead of a celebration there was a huge funeral in Beirut conducted by Cardinal Sfeir and attended by an estimated 800,000 people. The funeral went from mourning to angry protest against Syria, which wants to reoccupy Lebanon; and Hizbollah, which is demanding a veto over all government decisions and is threatening street demonstrations until the government is overthrown. With the resignation of six Hizbollah ministers and the death of Gemayel the government is just one man short of losing its quorum. The ruling government coalition of Christians and Sunni Muslims, who call themselves the May 14 Movement in honor of the great demonstration on that day against Syria, is reinvigorated and fighting mad.
The issue at stake is the organization of an international tribunal by the Security Council of the UN to investigate the murder of the billionaire Rafiq Hariri in May, 2005, and the five other murders of anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians that followed. The Syrians, who are suspected of all six murders, want to thwart the investigation, and send in troops to reoccupy Lebanon. Hizbollah, their ally, wants to take over the government. Iran, the sponsor of Hizbollah, wants the defeat of the May 14 Movement, which is sponsored by the US and Western European states. The American University of Beirut, founded my missionaries in 1866, has had a profound cultural influence in Lebanon. It currently has 7,200 students.
US Politics
An op-ed piece in the NY Times, 11-21, by Steven Johnson, argued that the organizing units of American politics are not states, blue and red, but urban versus rural areas. In the last election 70% of Americans in cities over 500,000 voted Democratic. More mountain states voted Democratic because they are urbanizing. Only 20% of Americans live in rural areas and most vote Republican.
Cities are the new centers of American cultural experience. Yet Republicans have spent the last thirty years demonizing urban culture.
Two New Books on the Israeli-Palestine Conflict
Ilan Pappe. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oxford, 2006.
Ilan Pappe is an Israeli liberal historian connected with the University of Haifa. In this book he used primary Israeli sources to demonstrate the “truthiness” of the Israeli story that the Palestinian left their homes in 1948 on their own volition or because their leaders told them to. The Zionist leadership drew up a plan, called Plan Daleth (D) for their systematic forcible expulsion. The “unofficial” Zionist militias, the Irgun and the Stern Gang, executed the Plan between March and September, 1948. Both in cities and rural areas the Zionists laid siege to Palestinian quarters and villages, and bombarded them. Then they set fire to their homes, properties, and goods. The next step was forcible expulsion: 800,000 Palestinians were dispossessed of their property and uprooted. In a few villages the population was completely massacred and news of this was deliberately disseminated to inspire terror. Following that, the Arab homes were demolished, and over the rubble trees and bushes were planted to erase all trace of the former residents.
The euphemism “ethnic cleansing” appeared in the early 1990’s when the Serbs tried to forcibly evict their Muslim neighbors from Kosovo. Today forcible expulsion is considered both contrary to human rights and international law.
Jimmy Carter. Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid. NY, Simon and Shuster, 2006.
President Carter believes that the US must try again to bring peace to the Holy Land. He thinks that the primary obstacles is “Israel’s continued control and colonization of Palestinian land.” Israel, he says, has deprived the Arabs in these lands of their basic human rights. “No objective person could observe existing conditions in the West Bank and dispute these statements.” (208-209)
Carter believes that a settlement is possible if the following measures were adopted.
1. Two viable states, one Jewish and one Arab, were established.
2. Israel withdrew within its 1967 borders.
3. The illegal Israeli West Bank settlements were dismantled.
4. The West Bank and Gaza were demilitarized.
5. The Arab refugees were given financial compensation for their lost homes and lands and were given a qualified right to return.
Lebanon
NY Times, W Post, Daily Star (Beirut), An-Nahar (Beirut) Nov. 21-23.The political crisis in Lebanon became worse on account of the assassination of Pierre Gemayel, 34, member of the Cabinet and of a powerful Maronite Christian family [Roman Catholic]. Gemayel, like the five other Lebanese politicians assassinated in the last two years, was an enemy of Syria. His car was rammed from behind and blocked ahead by two other vehicles and three gunmen carrying automatic guns with silencers at point blank range shot his head and chest with 24 bullets through the glass windows. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
The next day was Lebanese Independence Day but instead of a celebration there was a huge funeral in Beirut conducted by Cardinal Sfeir and attended by an estimated 800,000 people. The funeral went from mourning to angry protest against Syria, which wants to reoccupy Lebanon; and Hizbollah, which is demanding a veto over all government decisions and is threatening street demonstrations until the government is overthrown. With the resignation of six Hizbollah ministers and the death of Gemayel the government is just one man short of losing its quorum. The ruling government coalition of Christians and Sunni Muslims, who call themselves the May 14 Movement in honor of the great demonstration on that day against Syria, is reinvigorated and fighting mad.
The issue at stake is the organization of an international tribunal by the Security Council of the UN to investigate the murder of the billionaire Rafiq Hariri in May, 2005, and the five other murders of anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians that followed. The Syrians, who are suspected of all six murders, want to thwart the investigation, and send in troops to reoccupy Lebanon. Hizbollah, their ally, wants to take over the government. Iran, the sponsor of Hizbollah, wants the defeat of the May 14 Movement, which is sponsored by the US and Western European states. The American University of Beirut, founded my missionaries in 1866, has had a profound cultural influence in Lebanon. It currently has 7,200 students.
US Politics
An op-ed piece in the NY Times, 11-21, by Steven Johnson, argued that the organizing units of American politics are not states, blue and red, but urban versus rural areas. In the last election 70% of Americans in cities over 500,000 voted Democratic. More mountain states voted Democratic because they are urbanizing. Only 20% of Americans live in rural areas and most vote Republican.
Cities are the new centers of American cultural experience. Yet Republicans have spent the last thirty years demonizing urban culture.
Two New Books on the Israeli-Palestine Conflict
Ilan Pappe. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oxford, 2006.
Ilan Pappe is an Israeli liberal historian connected with the University of Haifa. In this book he used primary Israeli sources to demonstrate the “truthiness” of the Israeli story that the Palestinian left their homes in 1948 on their own volition or because their leaders told them to. The Zionist leadership drew up a plan, called Plan Daleth (D) for their systematic forcible expulsion. The “unofficial” Zionist militias, the Irgun and the Stern Gang, executed the Plan between March and September, 1948. Both in cities and rural areas the Zionists laid siege to Palestinian quarters and villages, and bombarded them. Then they set fire to their homes, properties, and goods. The next step was forcible expulsion: 800,000 Palestinians were dispossessed of their property and uprooted. In a few villages the population was completely massacred and news of this was deliberately disseminated to inspire terror. Following that, the Arab homes were demolished, and over the rubble trees and bushes were planted to erase all trace of the former residents.
The euphemism “ethnic cleansing” appeared in the early 1990’s when the Serbs tried to forcibly evict their Muslim neighbors from Kosovo. Today forcible expulsion is considered both contrary to human rights and international law.
Jimmy Carter. Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid. NY, Simon and Shuster, 2006.
President Carter believes that the US must try again to bring peace to the Holy Land. He thinks that the primary obstacles is “Israel’s continued control and colonization of Palestinian land.” Israel, he says, has deprived the Arabs in these lands of their basic human rights. “No objective person could observe existing conditions in the West Bank and dispute these statements.” (208-209)
Carter believes that a settlement is possible if the following measures were adopted.
1. Two viable states, one Jewish and one Arab, were established.
2. Israel withdrew within its 1967 borders.
3. The illegal Israeli West Bank settlements were dismantled.
4. The West Bank and Gaza were demilitarized.
5. The Arab refugees were given financial compensation for their lost homes and lands and were given a qualified right to return.
posted by THE FLASHLIGHT at 6:35 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home