Palestine

No Sweat Apparel is a company I have plugged before and which I purchase clothes from. I have shoes, flip flops, shirts and pants from them. Their products are all fair trade and/or union made. Most of their stuff is good quality (though occasionally shoes wear out fast) and their flip flops are really cool, designed by Indonesian children with some of the proceeds going to fund the education of that child. All in all, a good company with cool products that are fair to workers.

They are starting a new project that ideally will help peace between Palestine and Israel. This appeals to me because during my one trip to Israel I had the chance to talk to many people and it made me realize that one major key to peace is economic prosperity. While my wife and I were there (between the assassination of Rabin but before violence broke out...and on the same trip we got engaged on Santorini in Greece and where we almost got caught in the big Turkish earthquake...) everyone, Arab and Israeli, was tensely optimistic. Everyone we talked to WANTED peace. Why? "Because it's good for business." This is the key. If people feel they have stake in peace, they will work for peace. I have written about this before and discussed companies and organizations that work to further economic cooperation and prosperity in Israel/Palestine. I also have written about another important facet of peace in the Middle East: environmental projects that can help the prosperity of all concerned.

It was probably inevitable that a major Presidential candidate with an Arabic name would, sooner or later, be confronted with questions about the relationship between the United States and its closest Middle Eastern ally. Equally inevitably, after five years of war in an Arab country and seven after a terrorist attack carried out on this country by an Islamist terror network, that discussion will touch on America's fractured relationship with the Islamic world in general and our posture towards the Jewish state in particular.

A look back is in order. In 1820, New York State's Grand Island was proposed as the location of a new Jewish homeland, understood as a gathering place for Jews before aliyah to Zion became possible. Emma Lazarus, author of The New Colossus, was an agitator for proto-Zionist and proto-feminist ideas in New York's 19th Century Gilded Age. The connection between New York and the idea of Zionism is long and deep.

The United States was one of the first countries to recognize Israel itself, somewhat to the chagrin of the British Empire; and before Washington endorsed the fact of Israel's independence, there had been a bipartisan consensus of sympathy to the Zionist experiment.

President Wilson expressed his support for the Balfour Declaration when he stated on March 3, 1919:

The allied nations with the fullest concurrence of our government and people are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundations of a Jewish Commonwealth.

After Wilson left office, his successors expressed similar support for the Zionist enterprise. "It is impossible for one who has studied at all the services of the Hebrew people to avoid the faith that they will one day be restored to their historic national home and there enter on a new and yet greater phase of their contribution to the advance of humanity," said President Warren Harding.

Calvin Coolidge expressed his "sympathy with the deep and intense longing which finds such fine expression in the Jewish National Homeland in Palestine."

"Palestine which, desolate for centuries, is now renewing its youth and vitality through enthusiasm, hard work, and self-sacrifice of the Jewish pioneers who toil there in a spirit of peace and social justice," observed Herbert Hoover.

Of course, Hoover's observation rested on one glaring error: that the Cis-Jordanian Imperial mandate of Palestine was terra nullius, an empty land awaiting settlement. The land was not empty, and the question of how to reconcile the legitimate claims of competing (and, one could argue, complementary) nationalisms has been contentious and unresolved ever since.

Following independence, the relationship between the United States and the new nation of Israel quickly cooled, responding to the patterns of alignment set in the developing Cold War. A major portion of the weaponry that secured the new state's independence came from Czechoslovakia prior to that country's complete absorption into the Soviet orbit. In 1956, President Eisenhower forced an Anglo-French-Israeli expedition force to retreat from the Suez Canal, recently seized by Egypt's Arab nationalist President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Further frost was added to the bilateral relationship by the conservative Eisenhower administration's distrust of Israel's nascent structure as a socialist economy characterized by strong labor unions, led by the labor coalition Histadrut, and a parallel internal economy of collectivist enterprises in the Kibbutzim. A rapprochement of sorts between the Labour government of Levi Eshkol and the Kennedy/Johnson administration was capped in the 1967 Six Day War, another Cold War proxy battle, when American arms shipments to Israel obviated comparable shipments to Arab combatant states by the Soviet Union and resulted in a stunning Israeli victory.

As a result of that victory, Israel became an occupying power over territories previously belonging, de facto or de iure, to Egypt, Syria and Jordan. It is the fate of these territories that ultimately will decide a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In 2004, the Democratic Party platform embraced the concept of a two-state solution for the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, following in the footsteps of the Clinton administration's developing Middle Eastern policy. The current republican administration embraced the idea of two states for two peoples some time into its first term as well. Despite the overall fraying of the post-war foreign policy consensus along partisan lines, therefore, it can be considered settled American policy that the legitimate national aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians, to live in peace, security, within recognized borders as fully sovereign members of the international community, are an objective of the American national interest. Firmly embedded within that consensus is the assumption that America, due to the kinship between our domestic institutions and Weltanschauung with those of Israel as a Western democracy, will continue to support Israel's security and aid that country's defense.

Barack Obama stands equally firmly within this consensus. So why the controversy?

Rudy Giuliani has, in essence, announced a lack of policy regarding Palestine. Rudy has decided to emulate the early Bush policy of ignoring Palestine as a legitimate player in the game of Middle East politics, a policy that failed miserably, aiding the rise of Hamas.

From Salon.com:

Outlining his foreign policy views in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Giuliani said "too much emphasis" has been placed on brokering negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians -- an apparent swipe at President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who have been pushing both sides for final status negotiations despite Hamas's takeover of Gaza in June.

"It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism," the former New York City mayor said.

"Palestinian statehood will have to be earned through sustained good governance, a clear commitment to fighting terrorism, and a willingness to live in peace with Israel," Giuliani said...

Interestingly, when Bush first took over the Presidency, he too ignored the United State's role in brokering negotiations between Israel and Palestine, allowing the situation between Israel and Palestine to spiral into violence and chaos. This helped the rise of Hamas, a true terrorist regime.

[UPDATE: Saw on Current TV this morning a report that the Palestinian government wanted the Hamas Mouse axed and said that the strategy of indoctrinating Children with political messages was unacceptable. Of course the Current TV host interpreted this to mean, "Okay, guys, you caught us so we will have to stop." It is unclear whether Hamas will comply...after all they are not known for their sensitivity. I wonder if it was political pressure or threats from the Disney Imperial Lawyers that led to the Palestinian government's statement...]

Hamas has a new spokesmouse. Yes...spokesmouse. Hamas is using a mouse to encourage Palestinians to deliver its message calling for the complete destruction of Israel. Problem is, the mouse, named Farfur, is a dead ringer for a certain Disney icon:

Image from Palestinian Media Watch (an Israeli organization)

The show that uses Mickey...er, I mean Farfur, is reported to be sophisticated and funny, even if it's main character is ripped off from Disney. This is where Hamas has great skill. They know to target future generations with their message. While Bush is creating enemies for generations and Olmert is botching wars, Hamas is teaching the next generations of Palestinians that the destruction of Israel is god's will and something that they should dedicate their lives to. Much as I find Hamas to be a disgusting terrorist organization, their strategic skill is currently better than that of either Bush or Olmert, and we need to learn lessons from them. Now I am not suggesting a Moishe Mouse character teaching kids about the two state solution, but Hamas got where it is by reaching out to people, setting up schools and hospitals and, basically, community activism. They don't just strap explosives to people and send them off to kill innocent civilians. They also build the trust and confidence of the Palestinians. I advocated since before 9/11 that you don't win by being the world's bully. You win by working with people to build a stable life. Look at Afghanistan and Iraq. Look at Palestine. We have not done there what we did for defeated Germany and Japan. And the consequences are pretty much what you would expect.

Some years back I read Jared Diamond's excellent book Collapse. It covers a wide range of issues and locations in its analysis of the collapse of civilizations and draws parallels with modern soceity and past societies with the intent of finding ways in which our society can survive rather than collapse.

One of the most important points to me in the book was the critical role of forests in ANY society's economic well being and long term stability. A contrast between Haiti and the Dominican Republic dramatically showed the difference between a nation that was nearly completely deforested and one that preserved its forests. Preserving forests maintained soil productivity as well as protected fisheries that were downstream.

Global warming gives us added reason to be tree huggers. Trees are the most effective long term way of removing carbon from the atmosphere. Nothing else can do so much at such low cost. Combine their protection of the soil, water resources, downstream fisheries, etc. with their ability to sequester carbon, and preservation of forests and tree planting are about the best thing any of us can do to stabilize human society in the face of current challenges.

An area where this is most critical is one that is dear to my heart: the Middle East. I am a pro-Israel Jew. I am also pro-Palestine. But having read a great deal of history, I know that the existance of a Jewish nation is very important to me and to my children. Even the most welcoming of nations has turned anti-Semitic in the past, and so the well being of Israel seems to me kind of like an insurance policy for all Jews. It gives us a place where we can go if and when the nations that hold the diaspora turn on us...again.

At a time when extremists are increasingly dominating the situation in the Middle East, sometimes it is good to remember the efforts for PEACE between Palestine and Israel.

According to Guysen.Israël.News:

Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas met on Saturday evening in Jerusalem to renew their commitment to agreements signed previously. The two leaders also agreed to work to reach a political arrangement of two states based on the Road Map...Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas agreed on several points during their suprise meeting in Jerusalem on Saturday evening, according to Nabil Abu Rudeina, advisor to Abbas.

For those who want to help moderate Muslims and Jews achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East, what follows is something I wrote back in July that is just as important right now.

Israel, Palestine, Lebanon...all are nations that deserve full recognition and viability. Forget sides. Forget who started what. Forget borders. I am not aiming for a solution. I am aiming for the conditions that will allow a solution to be possible and lasting. I don't care, for the purposes of this effort, who committed what terrorist act or which government is the worse. I care about people, whatever their religion or culture, and I care that people will continue to die if something isn't done. Political solutions from the top have failed since 1948, devolving repeatedly into war. Time for bottom up efforts.

A Palestinian doctor and 5 Bulgarian nurses have been found guilty of intentionally spreading HIV to Libyan children and are slated for execution by the Libyan government. They have been jailed since 1999 on charges that they spread the HIV virus deliberately to more than 400 children at a Benghazi hospital. Western nations, themselves not always to be trusted when it comes to accusations against Muslim nations, blame the infections on unsanitary conditions at the hospital and believe Libya is using the nurses and doctors as scapegoats to avoid dealing with their own problems. In this case, the opinion of Western nations is not based on crap that Bush got from Chalabi, but is for once based on reality and Libya is guilty of ignoring reality.

This is not only a travesty of justice, but of science as well since all scientific evidence exonerates the Palestinian doctor and Bulgarian nurses. Libya is about to execute innocent people because they refuse to listen to science.

According to one of the world's most respected scientific journals, Nature, all scientific evidence shows the nurses are innocent. From the article:

In 1998, outbreaks of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection were reported in children attending Al-Fateh Hospital in Benghazi, Libya. Here we use molecular phylogenetic techniques to analyse new virus sequences from these outbreaks. We find that the HIV-1 and HCV strains were already circulating and prevalent in this hospital and its environs before the arrival in March 1998 of the foreign medical staff (five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor) who stand accused of transmitting the HIV strain to the children.

I have been absolutely horrifed by how the world is decending into chaos, even as our great leader is giving unwanted massages to the German Chancellor, and how so few people can find the compassion and balance to sympathize with Israelis, Palestinians and Lebanese alike. Our world leaders, from Hamas to Kadima to Hezbollah to Bush, are failing. The result is death and chaos. The solution...just may be you and me and a thousand other regular people who care.

Sometime back I began a project that I called an Integrated, Grassroots Development project for East Africa. People responded well to it and one of the beneficiaries was Kiva.org whose efforts to generate microloans to small businesses originally in East Africa, now globally, were greatly aided by the blogsphere. Inspired by this I tried generating interest in a more global effort, which didn't get as much attention. I now want to apply my ideas regarding Integrated, Grassroots Development to the horrible situation in the Middle Easte. If not now, then when? If not us, then who? It is up to us.

A lifetime ago, when I was a young and relatively carefree college student, I had an International Politics professor at New York University who non-chalantly declared that in 20 years time the United States would be fighting World War III and that it would not be in Europe and against Russia but in the heat of the dessert and against guerrillas in the Middle East.

I am notoriously bad with names --I guess because, if he had any, I didn't read any of books. Bertell Ollman's Alienation was a must given I was still a Marxist; but this guy (Silverman? Silverstein?) I blocked out of my mind but for his prediction. In a classroom filled with no neck jocks** that gushed over Ronald Reagan's hairdo, those words stuck with me like glue. The Berlin wall was 3 years away from being torn down, so the idea that a war of that magnitude could be waged in the Middle East and, even more incredibly, spearheaded by Israel .... well, let's just say I was young and naive.

It's happening.

When I was ready to publish this post, 24 hours ago, three major incidents had happened. In an alleged attempt to snuff out a senior Hamas activist (whatever that means), Israel dropped a missile in the middle of a residential area, killing 6 people, including 2 children. 48 hours before that report, Israel not only had bombed the residential area but they bombed Lebanon's airport by midnight EST and now, at 3:45 EST reports are coming in that they've also bombed the Palestinian foreign ministry in Gaza City.