Dissident Veteran For Peace

"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America." —Alexis de Tocquevile. Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter XV.

With a nod to the Most Rev. Dom Helder Camara: When I support Palestinians some call me an 'anti-Semite', when I try to explain why I stand in solidarity with Palestinians they call me a Nazi.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." —Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (ret.)

"... no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end." —character of O'Brien in 1984, part 3, ch. 3 by George Orwell.

"Every prophet has realized that nobody loves you for being the enemy of their illusions. Every prophet has realized that most of us want peace at any price as long as the peace is ours and somebody else pays the price. That is why the prophet Jeremiah said, ' "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace,' ..." —The Rev. William Sloane Coffin. "Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword."

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

On Recognizing Israel's "Right to Exist"

Saree Makdisi has a brilliant op-ed piece in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times entitled "In the war of words, The Times is Israel's ally." He manages to simultaneously expose the absurdity of the demand that Palestinians "recognize Israel" and how the media colludes in the Zionist enterprise by uncritically propagating the Zionist rhetorical framework. I'd quote Makdisi's piece here but you really ought to read the whole thing yourself. The article is mirrored here at CommonDreams. Thanks to F. for the tip-off.

Labels: Israel, media, Palestine, Saree Makdisi