Archives Editorial - Resistance is not futile by Steven Gan

An editorial opinion piece by Steven Gan, one of the co-founders of Malaysian Kini, which started in November 1999, and has since become a full fledged subscription based online newspaper.

This is extracted from my yahoo group archives in which Mr Gan lamented the arbitrariness of the US superpower (choosing which countries to invade) when flexing its military might during the height of the Iraq war. More problematic is America’s track record of “liberating” the oppressed people.

Here is the excerpt of his opinion piece, “Resistance is not futile”:

… … Now that Baghdad has fallen, the real war begins - the battle to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis. But given Washington’s track record, that will be a tough sell. While one may give the Anglo- American forces the benefit of doubt - that they are indeed there to ‘liberate’ the Iraqis - the way it was done, without United Nations’ approval, should be roundly condemned.

And even if they were successful to win over the Iraqis, the invasion has unwittingly created a new problem for the United States. If it wants to play global cop, it better be consistent in its action. What will it do next, liberate Palestine?

In Asia, there is no shortage of countries deserving of ‘liberation’ as much as Iraq. Take Burma. Here is a regime which has enslaved its population for almost half a century. The military junta runs a government stolen from the opposition. Some 1,600 political prisoners are languishing behind bars. Ethnic minorities are systematically expelled. Half a million refugees lived in dilapidated camps along its borders - even Slobodan Milosevic would find this hard to match with his ethnic cleansing of Kosovo… …

… … Indeed, it is only through the International Criminal Court - a mechanism where individuals can be prosecuted for crimes against humanity - that dictators should be brought to face justice.

No doubt, it is unfair to compare George W Bush to Saddam. But the two do have at least one thing in common. Of the 148 countries gathered in Rome five years ago to consider the International Criminal Court, seven voted against it. Among them - United States and Iraq. And, yes, Burma too. [Editor: Let's not forget $ingapore who didn't sign.]

The message written on the Tomahawks is clear - if a tin-pot dictator wants to commit genocide, his regime better kowtow to the West. That way, the West can turn a blind eye. Ask Suharto.

Indeed, the world is not so much threatened by Iraq, Iran and North Korea as by a rogue superpower and its crony states, who speak of liberty but trample on global democracy, and who talk about the rule of law, but stomp on international laws. They are, if you will, the global mafia.

The US decides which terrorist organisation be eliminated and which be given money and arms; which mass expulsion of populations to aid and which to label ethnic cleansing; which economies to prop up through loans and trade, and which to destroy through sanctions and currency speculations. It can select with impunity which international laws and agreements to honour and which to ignore - as when the World Court found Washington guilty of terrorism for mining Nicaraguan ports… …

More interview excerpts with Azmi Bishara from Al Jazeera

This is another post of an interview excerpt with Azmi Bishara by Al Jazeera published on its website on the 25th April. Azmi Bishara, the leader of Balad, who resigned from Israel’s parliament or Knesset in Cairo on the 22nd April, has been accused of “aiding enemies of the country during last year’s war against Hezbollah”. The interview is conducted by Jane Dutton in Qatar on Talk to Al Jazeera.

Excerpts of the interview:

Al Jazeera: You are being investigated by Israeli police for unpublished charges. You have been in this situation before. Do you think that, being an Arab member of the Knesset, you are being targeted?

Ans: Well, yes, I have been targeted. It is a reality now because, in the last few years, I was two times brought to court and this is the third investigation.

The first two times had to do with my political opinions. Once because I was not recognising the Jewish character of the state and calling for a state of its citizens.

The second time was for visiting an enemy country. They consider Syria and Lebanon as enemy countries. I was charged with that.

Al Jazeera: How do you balance your interests? You say that Syria and Lebanon, particularly Hezbollah, are not your enemy, but they are enemies of the Israeli state?

Ans: The Israeli state was established in 1948 on the ruins of the Palestinian people. Now if you want, in the language which will be known probably in Australia or America or even in South Africa, we are indigenous people, the natives of the place.

And Israel was built on our ruins. We did not immigrate to Israel in order to become Israelis like many French people would like the Algerians to integrate into France or to accept as equal citizens.

But these people immigrated to France and they chose to be French. We did not choose to be Israelis. Israel came to Palestine, destroyed Palestine and emerged from the ruins of Palestine.

We are Arab Palestinians. Israeli identity does not exist even according to Israel, they insist their identity is Jewish. There is no such thing as Israeli identity.

Our Israeli citizenship was forced upon us. Now we use it as a framework for work to demand for equality. But this does not amount to identification with the goals of the country in the region, which we do not accept. We are not Zionists and we do not consider Syria and Lebanon our enemies, on the contrary.

Qns: So you are advocating the destruction of Israel?

Of course not. We do not identify with everything that other organisations demand.

We live in the state of Israel and in the framework of such a regime and we think that Israel should be accepted if it accepts a just peace, which means a just settlement with the Palestinians to co-exist in justice and equality.

But we do not accept a kind of apartheid reality with the West Bank and Gaza and third- or fourth-class citizenship for the Arabs in Israel. We also do not accept Israel to be the policeman of the region. In that sense, yes we do identify, for example, with the victims of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza as victims of the occupation, Lebanon as a victim of Israeli aggression and we do not conceal this…

Al Jazeera: How do you find your working with other Israelis on the Knesset?

Ans: The Knesset is not the worst political culture in Israel. The street could be even more racist than the parliament. But in the parliament, I think Israel is democratic within the limits of being a Jewish state.

I would call it trivial democracy. It is a democracy for Jews, and Arabs are granted rights because they are a minority and because they can be endured.

What is amazing or what would be amazing for Westerners who think that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, is the media. It is totalitarian actually. There is one orchestrated incitement calling for ousting us etc, while in the Arab media there are different opinions.

Al Jazeera:You said that the Arabs are persecuted in Israel. Give us a sense if you will of the conditions in which they live?

Ans: First of all, not all Arabs are persecuted. If you are a loyal Arab or a good Arab as many Zionists would say, you are not persecuted of course. It depends on what the definition of a good Arab.

Al Jazeera: What makes a good Arab?

Ans: Accepting to be marginalised, accepting to be a second-class citizen and being pleased and thankful because you live better than in Gaza. You have to be grateful… …

Al Jazeera: How do the bad Arabs live then?

Ans: Well, the bad Arabs have to do with not accepting to be just tolerated. They have the pride of the indigenous people that this is their country and actually you are not doing them a favour that you are in the Knesset. Probably if you look at it from my side, I am doing them a favour that I am in the Knesset because this gives them legitimacy. And many Arabs blame us for being in the Knesset… …

Al Jazeera: Do you think that Israeli state is in a state of flux at the moment? Do you think what is happening in the Middle East at the moment will determine Israel’s future?

Ans: It could be. If Israel does not grab now and does not jump on the opportunity of the current Arab peace initiative, I think, they are going into catastrophe. Because at the end what will impose itself is the fact that this is an apartheid country. And the two state solution will fail because people will live in inequality and in the end people will not accept to be second-class citizens… …

An interview with Ali Abunimah

A lengthy yet thorough interview by Laila on her “Raising Yousuf, Unplugged: diary of a Palestinian mother” blog. The interviewee is Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada and the author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. (Metropolitan Books, 2006).

In the interview, he explains why a proposed one state solution may be more viable .

Excerpts of the interview:

Qns: You have repeatedly described efforts to push forth a two-state solution as “flawed conventional wisdom”. What do you mean by that?

… … You can’t partition something that is inhabited by the same people. That’s why partition failed in Ireland and brought about misery in India where still to this day [people] remember where they were displaced from and many bloody wars have since taken place.

Partition is about trying to create on the ground a purity that exists only in people’s minds. Human reality is always about mixing.

Qns: But are Palestinians as ready to live with Israelis as blacks were with whites?

… … Another common misunderstanding is that most Palestinians want their own state. In the West Bank and Gaza you have about 60% consistently over time that say they support a two-state solution.

But you also have consistently between a quarter and third who say they support a bi-national state or a secular democratic state. Not an Islamic state- but a state for Palestinians and Jews with equal rights. Support for an Islamic state gets 3 or 5 or 15% maximum.

So it’s remarkable that support for a two-state solution is so tepid even in the West Bank and Gaza when there is a full industry- a multi billion dollar industry, to promote the two-state solution. I also think its remarkable that support for a one state solution is so high and increasing given the fact that there is no official leadership that is advocating it… …

According to a recent poll of Arab-Israelis, only 14% of respondents thought that Israel should remain a Jewish democratic state in its current form. 57% said they wanted a change in the character and definition of the state, whether a state for all its citizens, a bi-national state, or a consensual democracy.

In other words, the clear majority want a bi-national state.

… … They are intertwined in the way that Catholics and Protestants are intertwined in Northern Ireland, a place I’ve traveled to quite a lot. Also in the sense that they are geographically completely interspersed, you have a million plus Palestinian in what is supposed to be Israel, and half a million Israelis inside what is supposed to be the Palestinian state…

And that situation remains-you cannot have a Jewish state without the forced transfer of Palestinians or a Palestinian state without forced transfer of Jews.

Qns: What do you see as the biggest challenge to a one-state solution?

There are many. But the biggest challenge is getting there… … I think peace of any kind, justice of any kind, seems very far from the perspectives of today. When you look at South Africa, the darkest period came before the dawn, let’s say. And I think we are going through the darkest period.

And we have to bring light to it, and I argue in two ways: one is to engage in principled resistance in what Israel is doing and the other is to offer an alternative vision-and it has to be a vision that both Palestinians and Israelis can identify with.

And we have to realize that Israelis will not look for a way out unless they feel they have to. And that’s how it was with white South Africans. With a clear message that at the end there is a vision that everybody is part of.

Click here to read the entire interview