Dear Hemant, dear all,
Yes, I read about those ships for Gaza entered by the Israeli navy.
Yes, I heard about the 10 dead.
Yes, I think that the situation in Gaza and Westbank is unbearable
Yes, Israel behaved outrageous.
But:
No, 'they' don't have concentration camps in Gaza.
No, 'they' are not abusing all human rights possible.
Please stop and think about this again for a few minutes.
It's very good to not to be "politically correct", please not only this one time but every time. Without honesty we will not learn were we make mistakes and cannot have a meaningful discussion. If we don't speak from our hearts truth will slip away, cynicism and confusion remain. To think about a question and to try to be careful is also not to use euphemisms to hide the problem. On the contrary, and I do not want to convince you that Israel "is not terribly, horribly wrong here", that those killings are f.e. simply a 'defense' or 'natural reaction' etc., no it's another pathology in a pathological conflict, and I want to tell you that blind rage will not bring us anywhere in this conflict or in any other.
Hemant, on your facebook-blog (under the brilliantly motto 'morals vs. greed', Yes! That is pretty much what all is about! But not only in politics, also in thinking about the world) there you posted an article about violence and terrorism in India, of "how both the police and the Maoists claim to be acting in the interests of the people they seem to kill with casual impunity."
Can't the same logic not also be applied to the conflict in the Middle East? What is the real difference of those all kinds of shady actors with dubious agendas provoking conflicts for profit? Do those Islamists attacking the entering naval forces didn't know exactly what they were doing? And is the Turkish Prime Minister who now makes such a fuss really interested in Human Rights and the compliance with UN resolutions, considering Turkeys very 'slow progress' in 'those questions' and 'their' own 'occupied territories' on Cyprus including settlements on stolen, ethnically cleansed land and police state in Eastern Anatolia? Isn't this all just more salt in an open wound?
When I read the brutalities of police and Naxalites in India I thought woefully about Mohandas Ghandis teachings of non-violence, based on Satyagraha – literally “holding on to truth” - called by Martin Luther King the 'Soul Force'. You know that the American Civil Rights movement applied this successfully to their own struggle against injustice and discrimination. Also the Palestinians, whose corrupt leaders for decades allied themselves with Nazis, leftist terrorists, Arab fascists and Iranian Religious fanatics finally learn the art of nonviolent struggle and are organizing boycotts against the products of the settlers.
When Martin Luther King rallied the people, black and white, to end segregation he spoke to them in a language they all understood, he opened a book they all had read to unite their souls in the believe that God is Love and this awoke their passion to overcome their divisions and injustice and to resist the violence done to them and not to answer with it. This was the only way to achieve lasting peace, another step on a journey that continues.
I'm not a Christian, actually I've always had a very hard time believing in anything, but I do believe that true love for mankind, call it philanthropism or humanism or however you want, can be felt by everybody who becomes free from all fetishist ideologies, this perverse love for things untrue, to figments of our imagination, to lazy short cuts of the mind, to the anger that builds walls in our heads of which the real walls and fences in this world are just materializations and in which place there could be promenades for couples holding hands.
Let’s not rage consume us or sorrow or fear, maybe these famous words by Paul of Tarsus also speak to you all: 1 Corinthians 13 - The Gift of Love
http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org/
Are you implying that the participants in this action are radical islamists? That is very far from an “honest” understanding of reality I think. Yes - Hamas are, but this was not a Hamas sponsored event.
Do you also think that they did anything wrong in attacking the Israeli forces with poles on international water? The IDF were not protecting Israeli waters, they were acting like pirates. Protecting ISrael for waht? A bunch of hippies trying to invade them armed with iron poles? If they need to kill ten people to defend themselves against that, they must be in a sorry state.
No, I didn’t say that all the participants of this action are radical Islamists, but the ones that attacked the entering soldiers were on the boat, as far as I am informed. The others (f.e. lot’s of German members of the party ‘Die Linke’) didn’t do this.
Sure Israel overreacted again, but you can’t tell me that they shot those people out of sheer brutality or ‘because they are fascistic’ etc. as commenter on Hemants post did, they would have avoided that and I think the boat-action would have been than a much bigger success, now it looks like to me like a trap to just produce more rage. How sorry do you think Israel would look arresting a “bunch of hippies” without iron poles?
The blockade of Gaza could also be over if Hamas would want that.
All I wanted to say is that we will not overcome this conflict by purring more oil in the fire, we need a better strategy.
Dear Stefan, your is a very thoughtful post. And that you care a lot and feel a lot about the issue is evident. We may disagree on some things, but I get what you are saying.
I have a question: You say: “Do those Islamists attacking the entering naval forces didn’t know exactly what they were doing?”
How did you come to that conclusion?
About concentration camps: They are documented. Why would you just brush them aside?
Let me quote:
Gaza is an immense concentration camp—1.5 million people squeezed into 140 square miles hemmed in on all sides by 25-foot-high walls separated by a vast expanse of bulldozed earth.
http://www.alternet.org/world/120197/gaza_is_a_concentration_camp__/
I am sure you will find a million other references.
But would you believe them?
I think the solving of the Palestine-Israel conflict is really important for the world. But there needs to be a general ceasefire of mistrust.
And an acceptance of mistakes. On both sides.
Regarding what happened on the boat, the official IDF version does not coincide with taccounts from eywitnesses on the boats:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/01/gaza-flotilla-eyewitness-accounts-gunfire
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/2010/06/20106193546785656.html
I think that Israel, as much as any other country, can only emerge brutalized from a war, and there is no point in arguing that the IDF acted with any kind of respect for human rights, or ideas about how their actions would affect the situation afterwards.
What we need is compromise. Before that, we need understanding. before understanding, most of all we need truth. That implies that we must accept that what Israel is doing to the Palestinians is horrible and illegal, and stop dealing with Israel as if it was a normal democratic country.
It is counter productive to compare Gaza to Nazi concentration camps. But when the math is done (January 2009 numbers)...
* “the “annual death rate” is 1.6% for Occupied Palestinian Territory under-5 year old infants ... as compared to 10.2% for Australia prisoners of war of the Japanese in World War 2 (for which war crime Japanese generals were tried and hanged).”
* “Accordingly, in the current conflict the DEATH RATIO of “total violent and non-violent excess Palestinian deaths from Israelis”/“Israeli deaths from Gaza missiles” = 974/4 = 244 (lower estimate) to 1,620/4 = 405 (upper estimate) and the DEATH RATIO of “total Palestinian deaths from Israelis”/“Israeli deaths” = 974/6 = 162 (lower estimate) to 1,620/6 = 270 (upper estimate).”
Yes, that is compared to WWII stats in the article. Yes, it is hard to read because it is so passionately anti-Bush and anti-Zionist. But argue with the numbers.
Then remember miserable conditions, poverty, disease and death causes desperation, extremism. It has been said by many great people including a US President:
“Necessitous men are not free men. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”
On a blog about solving issues such as child mortality, poverty, global partnership how should we ignore the illegal and violent enforcement of an illegal blockade of an illegally occupied territory?
Except of course Gaza isn’t occupied - by Israel at least - a bit quick on the keyboard there.
Here’s the latest:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/01/gaza-flotilla-eyewitness-accounts-gunfire
Israelis opened fire before getting on the ship. Or are we going to discount these eyewitnesses because they are..?
Whom to blame is a secondary issue. Thanks to IDF, Flotilla of Freedom is a complete victory of the activists (maybe except those killed). Whether this is victory of the Palestinians is another matter - ongoing world-wide publicity of Israeli atrocities so far had little leverage on easing their sufferings.
@Daniel:
I agree about the brutalisation of Israeli society through this conflict, people cheering when civilian areas are bombed are for sure sign for a social pathology. I do think that everybody knows that ‘what is done to the Palestinians’ is ‘horrible and illegal’. The problem I see is a spiral of violence and counter-violence and mutual amplifying extremism that now spreads throughout the world. But I don’t want to hold only Israel responsible here, the Palestinian leadership as well resorted to tactics that only worsened the situation -esp. for their own people- in the last decades.
@Benno:
It is not only counter productive to compare Gaza to Nazi concentration camps, but factually wrong and politically demagogic. If you want to use allegories from Jewish history ‘Getto’ might fit better, but why would one want to do something like that other than making this a conflict about ‘the Jews’ instead of Israelis and Palestinians? Of course the conditions there are horrible, but I think if Hamas would be interested in a solution we already would have one, but they are not because they profit from the status quo. Btw. Egypt also takes part in the blockade of Gaza, anybody has thoughts on that? I also agree with you that political conditions should be in focus when we talk about child mortality and so on, but not only in Gaza, everywhere please.
@Robert
Indeed. You have any ideas how to ease the suffering of the Palestinians?
Thought it pretty was clear from my comment but just to be really-really clear:
* I do not endorse the comparison of Gaza to concentration camps
* I do not wish to make this conflict about “the Jews”
* I do not suggest the children of Gaza should have special attention compared to other crisis areas
!!!!!1