Dissident Veteran For Peace

Below are two short excerpts from a longer interview in Bethlehem with a HAMAS leader, pseudonymously named Mohammed. The interview begins on page 204 of a fascinating and courageous book, Tea with Hezbollah: Sitting at the Enemies Table, Our Journey Through the Middle East by Ted Dekker and Carl Medearis (Doubleday Religion, 2010).

Mohammed: We know that people are different from their government. The [US government] is made up from about fifty thousand people, but the other 250 million are victims of that government. So we believe that America should free itself before freeing any other country. ...

Ted: Is there any one last thing you would like to say to Americans?

Mohammed: I say love yourselves and you will love others. Live in peace with yourself and you will live in peace with others.

Labels: Hamas, Palestine, quotations, United States

See also:

• "Hamas: We will win war in Gaza" on al-Jazeera
• "Hamas Flag Flies in Berlin"
• "We Are All Hamas!"

Labels: Hamas, Palestine, resistance, video

Yesterday, I wrote on solidarity with Hamas and included reports from the West Bank, Cairo, London, and Vancouver. Below are a few excerpts from a report on a demonstration in Berlin on Saturday.

The demonstration was incredible. There were approximately 15 thousand people, nearly all Arab youth, broken informally and fraternally into sections that were more religious in chanting and signs or more secular-political in their chanting and signs. There were also mass sections of the demo made up exclusively of young women, whose chants tended towards the secular-political. I wandered through the crowd and witnessed the first arrest of many that happened through the march of a young man carrying a Hamas flag. Because Hamas is illegal and classified under the terrorism act, it is illegal to hold a Hamas flag in Germany. It is also (inexplicably) illegal to hold a sign or chant anything to the order of "God is God, there is only one God". The police had interpreters on hand to read Arabic signs for these messages and listen in on chants. ...

The police were a constant presence over every inch of the demo. Although the march stretched for five or six blocks, the police were visible on the sidewalk every inch of the way on both sides of the street; but their presence was most of the time ridiculous. The only time they could make arrests to charge Hamas flag carrying youth with terrorism was when someone was isolated. It was clear that they would pick out anyone who touched a Hamas flag to try to get them later when they were walking outside of a tight throng of marchers. At one such arrest when I was in the surge of the crowd that rushed forward to protest the arrest, I saw a woman who I had been walking alongside (with who looked like her elderly mother and her child in stroller), pull two oranges out of her bag and throw them over the heads of the demonstrators at the police line while shouting "Allah Akbar!" ...

In this case I was also struck by the absurdity of the "left" attitude that I noticed and that was also reported to me by the leftist Palestine solidarity activists I met that many leftists are not comfortable in marches like this one because "Allah Akbar!" is said too often and too broadly. In the context of this march, it is clear to me that "Allah Akbar" is simultaneously a religious statement and a statement of resistance. Especially given the borderline criminalized character of the Islamic faith in Germany, such religious statements take on an even greater meaning / signification of resistance against Zionism in specific and colonialism and imperialism in general. ...

It's been my observation that the left in Germany is divided on the question of Palestine, with the majority of the pro-Palestine section of that divide fairly paralyzed by apologia against accusations of anti-semitism. The result is that they are silent in practice and absent from demonstrations like today's. This is a tremendous failing. As I mentioned, the vast majority of this demo was made up of Arab youth who I found to be open to statements from the left in support of Palestine.

Labels: anti-war movement, Hamas, resistance

As the Jewish state continues to rain bombs, missiles, artillery rounds, white phosphorus, and bullets down upon the people of Gaza, Palestinians are expressing and calling for unity and that includes unity with "the Hamas government -- the only democratically elected government in the entire Arab world." And all over the world people of conscience are answering that call and expressing their solidarity with the Islamic Resistance Movement, better known as Hamas.

Writing from Gaza (5 Jan 09), Safa Joudeh says:

Israel has come into our homes, is fighting us in our streets and is expressing its brutality against us in full force. ...

All Palestinian factions have united and are out facing the enemy, using all of their military capabilities that they collectively have. Although these capabilities are incomparable to the military strength exerted by Israel, yet it has made us more certain than ever that Palestinians will fight to the very end to protect their own. It has shown us that resistance, courage and love are an integral part of the Palestinian identity that will never change despite all the hardships we endure. It has given us a moral boost, which comes at a time when we need it most.

The Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades of The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the al-Quds Brigades of the Islamic Jihad movement, The Izzedin al-Qassam brigades of Hamas, the Salah al-Din Brigades of the Popular Resistance Committees, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Fatah have all come together as one united front and at a high, almost affirmed risk of peril, are out protecting our streets and our homes, ready to die if that means preventing the death of one more helpless child. We are united and we have accepted our fate recurrently, but the people of Gaza -- almost 80 percent of them refugees -- will not be massacred and displaced yet again by people from the outside guided by tyranny and greed.

The New York Times reports (5 Jan 09) that the support extends to the West Bank, which is in the grip of the traitorous Fatah faction:

In a series of interviews, people here [in Nablus] said they were enraged by the photographs and television images of the Palestinian dead in Hamas-controlled Gaza, which they consider part of themselves.

They said that support for Hamas would grow as this conflict went on, and that they were intimidated by the Palestinian security forces of Mr. Abbas and his appointed prime minister, Salam Fayyad — forces subsidized by the United States and trained by Jordan — which have cracked down on a series of demonstrations and banned the showing of the Hamas flag. ...

On Monday afternoon, for example, a march of several hundred students from Birzeit University outside Ramallah toward the nearby Atarot checkpoint was broken up by Palestinian security forces wielding clubs. The students wanted to confront Israeli soldiers at Atarot, and the security forces wanted to prevent the confrontation.

Last Friday, security forces broke up larger demonstrations in Hebron and Ramallah, arresting Hamas supporters, confiscating Hamas flags and ripping up placards with pro-Hamas slogans. For the first time in memory, the Palestinian police used tear gas against their own people.

The Jerusalem Post, covering the same story (5 Jan 09), reports:

The Palestinian Authority Police has proven capable of quelling violent protests and maintaining law and order in the West Bank during Israel's military offensive against Hamas in Gaza, Israeli security officials said Sunday.

"The Palestinian police have succeeded in dealing with the demonstrations in the West Bank over the last week," Judea and Samaria Police spokesman Ch.-Supt. Danny Poleg said.

The PA police, which recently received training from the Americans, had largely been able to contain violent protests in Palestinian-controlled cities, so they didn't spill over into Israeli-controlled areas, Poleg said."They are under the same high alert as we are," he said.

On the instructions of PA President Mahmoud Abbas,the Fatah-controlled security forces have banned pro-Hamas demonstrations.

Hamas supporters in the West Bank said the PA's security forces threatened to arrest them if they raised Hamas flags or chanted slogans in favor of the Islamist movement. ...

"Our security forces have instructions to use an iron fist against anyone who incites and expresses support for Hamas," the [senior PA official in Ramallah] official said.

In "The West Bank: We're all Hamas now - supporters of Fatah unite behind enemy," Ben Lynfield writes (9 Jan 09) in The Independent (UK):

Palestinian Authority security forces are keeping a tight lid on protests, preventing confrontations with Israeli troops and arresting anyone raising Hamas banners at rallies. But displays of identification with the beleaguered Gazans are everywhere. Nine-year-old green-kerchiefed girl Scouts, their foreheads marked with the word Gaza in red ink, were among those who marched through the main al-Manara square in a protest. They held up pictures of bandaged toddlers, and dozens of demonstrators chanted, "With blood and spirit, we will redeem you, O Gaza".

The Daily News of Egypt reports (29 Dec 09): "On Monday between 4,000–5,000 demonstrators carrying Hamas flags chanted 'We are all Hamas' ..." The display of a sign saying "We are Hamas" on the streets of London has set the teeth of quislings and Zionists alike to gnashing. In Vancouver, BC, a Zionist spying on anti-Israel protests "was shocked," shocked, I tell you, at what happened there. Adam Carroll of the Canada-Israel Committee says:

I've probably gone to more anti-Israel protests than most anti-Israel protesters, because I go to them for my job just to keep tabs on what's happening, ... I don't think I've ever been to one as radical and as vicious as the one I went to yesterday. There was a bile in the air that I'd never, never seen before. There's always been "Free, free Palestine" and some of the more benign chants, but "Viva, viva intifada", you know, and those sorts of armed resistance calls, no. Those are new. For me, anyway. And hearing individuals chanting "We are all Hamas" and things along those lines was a bit unsettling.

I'll bet it was unsettling, Adam, that people momentarily threw off the mental shackles to make solidarity with the popular, democratic resistance movement known as Hamas, even though it has been incessantly drilled into our heads that Hamas are "terrorists"--Koran-toting (gasp!) terrorists at that. Maybe, we'll wake up and realize the real problem is the Jewish and Christian terrorists and their enablers and they kill a lot more people.

See also:

• On Fatah's treachery, "Hamas gaining sympathy as onslaught continues" by Khalid Amayreh on the web site of The Palestinian Information Center.
• "We must adjust our distorted image of Hamas" in The Times (UK)
• "Hamas Flag Flies in Berlin"
  

Labels: anti-war movement, critical thinking, Hamas, Palestine, resistance, solidarity

A friend asked me recently why I thought Israel was carrying out it's Hanukkah Massacre in Gaza with such ferocity. I replied that I thought that it was a desperate response to Israel's failure to break the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, especially after the Fatah collaborators in Gaza failed in their attempted coup there in 2007.

The preferred but failed tool was the Israeli "truce," which Israel, not Hamas, broke. It is aptly described by Ali Abunimah:

Under an Israeli-style truce, Palestinians have the right to remain silent while Israel starves them, kills them and continues to violently colonize their land. Israel has not only banned food and medicine to sustain Palestinian bodies in Gaza but it is also intent on starving minds: due to the blockade, there is not even ink, paper and glue to print textbooks for schoolchildren.

As John Ging, the head of operations of the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), told The Electronic Intifada in November: "there was five months of a ceasefire in the last couple of months, where the people of Gaza did not benefit; they did not have any restoration of a dignified existence. We in fact at the UN, our supplies were also restricted during the period of the ceasefire, to the point where we were left in a very vulnerable and precarious position and with a few days of closure we ran out of food."

That is an Israeli truce. Any response to Israeli attacks -- whether peaceful protests against the apartheid wall in Bilin and Nilin in the West Bank is met with bullets and bombs. There are no rockets launched at Israel from the West Bank, and yet Israel's attacks, killings, land theft, settler pogroms and kidnappings never ceased for one single day during the truce. The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has acceded to all of Israel's demands, even assembling "security forces" to fight the resistance on Israel's behalf. None of that has spared a single Palestinian or her property or livelihood from Israel's relentless violent colonization.

They want to break Hamas but the international sanctions and "truce" failed to accomplish that purpose and, so, the Jewish state attacked. I'll make a prediction now: If the Israelis succeed in seriously damaging Hamas then look for them to ferry armed Fatah collaborators from the West Bank into Gaza to "mop-up"--read kill, torture, and imprison Hamas supporters--and to run Gaza for Jews.

Victory to the Palestinian People
Victory to Hamas

Labels: Hamas, Israel, resistance, War, Zionism

Below is an unsigned editorial published yesterday by the New York-based Jewish Daily Forward. It highlights just how thoroughly Jewish supremacism/racism can distort the ethics and reasoning ability of, presumably, otherwise ethical and rational people. My remarks are interspersed in regular font.

Thinking the Unthinkable
Editorial
Thu. Feb 28, 2008

VFPD: The author does not make it clear just what is unthinkable but it is, apparently, "that Israel must talk to Hamas" because the idea that Jews should give up on Jewish supremacy in Palestine is beyond unthinkable. You would first have to admit that is what Israel and Zionism is all about and this the author does not do.

Israel is in a diplomatic and military jam that keeps getting worse, but has no obvious solution.

VFPD: Here's an obvious solution: 1) End the occupation of Arab lands seized in 1967; 2) Equality and democracy for all citizens of Israel; and, 3) Implementation of the Palestinian right of return under UN General Assembly Resolution 194.

It is rapidly approaching the demographic tipping point, when Palestinian Arabs outnumber Israeli Jews in the land now under Israeli control.

VFPD: Too late. According to the US State Department, that "tipping point" was passed around 2004.

When that happens, Israel will find that it has become a minority-rule state, and it will have to make the choice it has avoided up to now: whether to be a Jewish or a democratic state.

VFPD: The decision was made long ago against democracy and for Jewish supremacy. From its bloody inception, Israel was undemocratic and that is why so many Arabs were killed or ethnically cleansed in 1947-1949 and subsequent years. Currently, Israel dominates the lives of millions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank even though they comprise no part of its polity. Just because Arabs are putatively in the minority does not make the situation any less undemocratic than if they constituted the majority.

If it chooses democracy, it will no longer be the Jewish state of Israel. If it gives up on democracy, it will find itself more isolated — and threatened — than ever. Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, put it well last fall: If the peace process does not resume and lead to a Palestinian state soon, Israel is “finished.”

VFPD: And, thus, we find the reason why so many Zionists and faux progressives embrace the "two-state solution"--to preserve Jewish supremacy in the 78% of Palestine stolen in 1947-49.

The only solution is to separate from the Palestinians in the territories, and the only practical way is through Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and partition into two separate states. That process must be carried out by agreement with the Palestinians. Unilateral withdrawal, as happened in Lebanon and Gaza, has been discredited by events.

But negotiations require a partner capable of carrying out its end of the bargain. The Palestinian Authority, Israel’s main negotiating partner, is toothless and incapable of imposing its will. It lost even nominal control of Gaza to Hamas, which bombards Israel daily and rejects the very idea of recognizing Israel.

Out of this impasse, a new consensus is emerging that Israel must talk to Hamas. The Islamist party has offered Israel a long-term cease-fire, lasting decades. It is already negotiating indirectly with Israel, through Egyptian mediators, for a prisoner exchange that would free kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. Egypt is also working to bring Hamas and Fatah back together. With Hamas in tow, Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority could negotiate with Israel for a deal that has some chance of working.

VFPD: I hope that Palestinians will never submit to any negotiations led by the Fatah Zionist collaborator, Abbas. Hamas was demonstrably the choice of the Palestinian people and it is Abbas who should be "in tow" if he participates at all.

As usual, the Israeli public is ahead of its leaders. A new poll conducted by Tel Aviv University and published this week in Ha’aretz shows that 64% of Israelis favor talks with Hamas, and only 28% are opposed. Several Israeli Cabinet ministers have come out in favor, as well. They understand that Israel urgently needs a strong Palestinian leadership to talk to.

Labels: Hamas, Palestine, resistance, Zionism

Last week, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, found himself in the crosshairs of the racist defenders of the Jewish state for remarks in his Christmas message and homily. His "Christmas Message 2007" is worth quoting in its entirety:

Brothers and Sisters,
I wish you all a Blessed Christmas.
1. “The grace and love of God have appeared to us” (Titus 3, 4). We joyfully celebrate Christmas, hoping to see better days in our Holy Land, by the grace of God, by our own contribution to bring peace to this land and by sharing in all the sacrifices that it requires. For this reason, at Christmas, we renew our faith in the One in whom we have believed, the Word of God made man, Jesus born in Bethlehem, the Prince of Peace, and the Savior of humankind. He became man in order to bring us back to God our Creator and to let us know that we are not alone, that we are not abandoned to ourselves as we face the numerous challenges of this Holy Land. Because God is with us, we remain hopeful in the midst of all the daily difficulties we experience as a result of the occupation and of the insecurity and deprivations that arise from it. God is with us, reminding us that the commandment of love, which was given to us by Jesus, born in Bethlehem, still remains valid for the difficult times in which we are living today: our love for one another and for every man and woman. This love consists in seeing the image of God in every human being, of every religion and nationality. It is a love that knows how to forgive and, at the same time, to demand all our rights, especially those given by God to each person and to the entire community, such as the gift of life, of dignity, of freedom, and of the land. A love that requires from every one to care for one another. A love that is dedication and sharing with all who suffer from deprivation and poverty so that the same life, which God has given to all of us, may be lived to the fullest, namely, the “abundant life” that Jesus came to give us.

2. Again this year, we celebrate Christmas still searching for a peace that seems impossible. Nevertheless, we believe that peace is possible. Palestinians and Israelis are capable of living together in peace, each in their own territory, each enjoying their security, their dignity, and their rights. But to attain that peace, it is necessary to believe that Israelis and Palestinians are equal in all things, that they have the same rights and the same duties, and that both parties must adopt the ways of God, which are not the ways of violence, whether they be carried out by the State or by extremists.

The entire region, because of the conflict in the Holy Land, is in turmoil. In Lebanon, in Iraq, as well as here, the forces of evil seem to have been unleashed and to have decided to pursue their course along paths leading to death, exclusion, and domination. Despite all of this, we believe that God has not abandoned us to all these forces of evil. The situation beckons every man and woman of good will to enter into the ways of God in order to establish the reign of good among peoples as well as a sense of and a respect for every human being. We believe that God is good. He is our Creator and Savior, and he has placed his goodness in the heart of every human being. Therefore, everyone is capable of working for good and peace on the earth.

A new peace effort was begun these last few weeks. In order for it to succeed, there must be a firm willingness to make peace. Until now, there has been no peace, simply because there has been no willingness to make it: “Peace, peace! they say, though there is no peace” (Jer 6, 14). The strong party, the one with everything in hand, the one who is imposing occupation on the other, has the obligation to see what is just for everyone and to carry it out courageously. “O God, with your judgment endow the king,” with your justice endow our governments so that they can govern your people with justice (cf. Ps 72).

3. In recent times, there has been some talk about creating "religious " States in this land. But in this land, which is holy for three religions and for two peoples, religious States cannot be established because they would exclude or place in an inferior position the believers of the other religions. A State that would exclude or discriminate against the other religions is not suitable for this land made holy by God for all of humanity.

Political and religious leaders must begin by understanding the universal vocation of this land in which God has brought us together throughout history. They must know that the holiness of this land does not consist in the exclusion of one or the other of the religions, but in the ability of each religion, with all of their differences, to welcome, respect, and love all who inhabit this land.

The holiness and the universal vocation of this land also includes the duty to welcome pilgrims from around the world, those who come for a short visit, and those who come to reside, to pray, to study, or to perform the religious ministry to which the faithful of all religions have a right. For many years, we have been suffering from a problem that has never been solved, that of entry-visas into the country for priests and for religious men and women who, in this land, because of their faith, have duties to perform as well as rights. Every State in this land is not a State like all others because it has special duties stemming from the holiness of the land and from its universal vocation. A State in this land must understand that it must respect and promote the universal vocation of the land with which it has been entrusted and, accordingly, must be open to welcoming all believers of other religions.

4. I pray to God that the grace of Christmas, the grace of the God who is present with us, will enlighten all the leaders of this land. For all our faithful, in all parts of our diocese, may the grace of Christmas renew their faith and help them to live it more fully and to better carry out all their duties in their respective societies.

May you all have a Joyful and Holy Christmas.

The response of Zionist attack-dogs Abe Foxman and Rabbi Marvin Hier was predictable and reminded me of my post " Bishops Tell Truth, Zionists Apoplectic." The Anti-Defamation League was "deeply disturbed" and in a statement on the Simon Wiesenthal Center web site, Hier says (emphasis in original):

“Patriarch Sabbah’s denial of the State of Israel as a Jewish State is nothing less than a campaign to de-legitimize her and is feeding fodder to the majority of the Arab and Muslim world that their long-held dream of a Middle East without a Jewish State is still possible,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center. Hier said that Sabbah’s latest outburst contradicts both Pope John Paul II’s 1987 declaration that, ‘The Jews have a right to nationhood as do all other peoples according to international law and the United Nations Declaration of 1947 that called for an Arab and Jewish State. “Israel does not need lessons from Patriarch Sabbah on how to treat citizens of other faiths and religions,” said Hier. “He would better serve the Christians in the Holy Land by going to Gaza and defending the beleaguered Christian minority there from Hamas extremists.”

“We call on Pope Benedict to reject Sabbah’s demand and all those supporting this insidious campaign to de-Judaize the State of Israel,” Rabbi Hier concluded.

Playing to widespread Islamophobia, the wily Rabbi Hier wants folks to think that Muslims are a major threat to Christians in Gaza. And, of course, the Rabbi neglects to mention that Patriarch Sabbah was, in fact, in Gaza on December 16th. Below are two photos from the trip, you can see the whole album here and you can read (in French) his homily in Gaza here. In his homily, the Patriarch did concern himself with the well-being of Christians in Gaza but he also stressed the unity and equality of Muslims and and Christians as Palestinians and as "enfants de Dieu"--children of God.



And here's a Gazan Christian perspective:

Manawel Musallam - priest, headmaster and Gazan - is a rotund, avuncular man, fond of wearing berets.

I have come to his office to ask how Christians in Gaza were faring on this, their first Christmas under the full internal control of Hamas.

"You media people!" Father Musallam boomed at me when I first poked my head around his door.

"Hamas this, Hamas that. You think we Christians are shaking in our ghettos in Gaza? That we're going to beg you British or the Americans or the Vatican to rescue us?" he asked.

"Rescue us from what? From where? This is our home."

Extended family

The pupils at the Holy Family School, Gaza City, all call Manawel Musallam "Abunah" - Our Father in Arabic.

His is a huge family of 1,200 children and, although the school is part-funded by the Vatican, here, as in all of Gaza, Christians are the minority.

Ninety-nine percent of the pupils here are Muslim. This is one of the reasons Fr Musallam says he does not fear the Islamists.

"They should be afraid. Not me," he chuckled.

"Their children are under my tutelage, in my school. Hamas mothers and fathers are here at parents' day along with everyone else."

Source: "Christmas under Hamas rule" by Katya Adler (BBC; 12/22/07)

And from the CBC ("Little Christmas joy in Gaza for Palestinian Christians") we learn:

"Christmas is destroyed, it's smashed in Gaza," says Father Musallam Manue of Holy Family Church. "There is no more joy in Gaza and because of that there is no more peace in Gaza."

These are tough times in the territory, the CBC's Nahlah Ayed reports.

Under an Israeli blockade imposed after Hamas fighters seized control of Gaza in June, the economy has collapsed, prices have gone through the roof and Gaza is even more isolated than in the past. That's why so many Christians want out, even if just for the holidays.

See also:

• 2007 Sabeel Christmas Message: "Bethlehem not Annapolis"
• "Israel denies entry to Christian clergy" by the Campaign for the Right of Entry via The Electronic Intifada
• "Gaza's Christian Community—Serenity, Solidarity and Soulfulness" in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

Labels: Abraham Foxman, Christianity, Christmas, Hamas, hasbara, Marvin Hier, Palestine, Zionism