Ken Stein Interview

Steve Inskeep did his follow up interview with Ken Stein this morning. Comparing the two interviews, I have to say that the final one was a let-down, but a good one. Inskeep put Carter on the defensive and let him battle his way back. But in interviewing Stein, Inskeep just lets him talk--and Stein's accusations don't seem to hold enough weight to make it interesting.

Inskeep: A layman might ask: "Why not call it Apartheid?"
Stein: A layman would have every right to ask that question. That doesn't mean: "If it looks like a duck and it smells like a duck and it quacks like a duck its a duck."
Inskeep: and the difference to you is. . . .
Stein: the difference to me is that part of this problem is that the Palestinians have chosen to use terrorism. . . .

That gives you an idea of the logic here. If the Palestinians hadn't have used terrorism it would be Apartheid. Once again, the Israelis are more noble because they are the recognized State. Palestinians are savages because they are not. And here in the twenty first century we return to the reasoning of Thomas Hobbs in the sixteenth century. What stays the same is the fact that after forty years of Military Occupation in Palestine political theorists can't stop this Sovereign State from killing innocents, no matter the number of books written, interviews conducted, and peace negotiations gone right.

Tags: NPR, Ken Stein, Steve Inskeep, Thomas Hobbs, Israel, Palestine, sovereignity

Thank You Jimmy Carter

I'm convinced that when you become President of the United States something happens to you as a human being. I don't see how it can't. You'd have to represent the most powerful nation in all the world. More than that you have to lead what it has become. Bear in mind that in modern Statecraft a nation is the sum of it's interests. While we're led to believe the democratic State is made up of the interests of its people, in this day and age the people don't care to know the nuts and bolts of how it all operates. So when and if you get to the top it must change you. Therefore, anytime a former President makes the mistake of telling it like it is, the media must yank him back into line.

On NPR's Morning Edition this morning I heard Steve Inskeep ask President Carter an awful lot of stupid questions. You should listen for yourself, but essentially the interview is set up with Carter on the hot seat regarding his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. He gets a call right after his speech at Brandeis University. Stein wants to know if its true that the former president is losing his mind. Is he senile? Did he plagiarize his book? Did he lie? But the real burning question is "Was his use of language unfair to Israel?"

I love Ken Stein's question "How did you write your book?" President Carter's reply is directly to the question: "With a word processor, or computer." This is legendary journalism. Truthfully, in the fifteen years of NPR I've consumed this has got to be the worst interview--ever! And I heard the Fresh Air interview with KISS frontman Gene Simmons! That was at least entertaining. It proves that for as liberal as NPR claims to be, when it comes to the State of Israel, even liberal American journalists jerk to the right. Stein has to make scandal where there isn't any. President Carter is speaking facts about life in the Middle East as it is. What is truly shocking is that even in this day and age the media can't seem to face reality without spin. It needs to slow the world down, reword, rework and feed it back for the consumer.

I have not read Jimmy Carter's book. But at face value I have to tell you that he hasn't said anything out of the ordinary. Desmond Tutu noted the similarities between Israeli treatment of Palestinians and South African Apartheid back in 2002. The same voices that call Carter anti-semitic said that of Tutu back then. Let's look at this clearly people. Israel's use of Military Occupation hasn't worked for forty years. What it has set is a precident that the US is continuing in Iraq today. And we see how well it is working. If anything the occupiers are failing. The circle of hate and violence has spun out of control. The one President who has ever had the guts to admit that is called crazy, anti-semitic, senile---I'm waiting for someone to say UnAmerican.

Doesn't all this circle back onto what the public expects from a President? Carter's use of the word Apartheid together with Israel is brazen and shocking because the US is neck deep in a "war on terror." NPR can criticize George W. Bush all it wants, everyone is doing that, but what Israel has is somehow working. Somehow they're seen to be the stabilizing force in the region. To deny that in the interest of peace is just too much, even for the "liberal" media.

Note: I'm crossposting this on my Occupation blog, which I've been doing since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. If you want to see more info and links on Military Occupation, check it out.

Tags: Military Occupation, Apartheid, President Jimmy Carter, Steve Inskeep

Israeli/Palestinian peacemaking: protecting olive crops at harvest

The Times 
October 09, 2006
Rabbi leads defence of Palestinian olive groves
From Ian MacKinnon in Huwara, West Bank

The olives are stunted, the trees in poor condition. At the top of a ladder, stripping fruit from high branches, the Palestinian farmer Omar Karni is in his element, working his way up a dusty olive grove that has been in his family for generations. For the first time in four years, the family has been able to harvest the crop. Last time Mr Karni tried, radical Jewish settlers set fire to the tinder-dry land and beat him as he fled.  “I’m so happy to be here,” he said, stretching to reach a branch in the relentless sun. “This is my land and if I can’t come here to farm it I feel incomplete. I must do this to keep the land in my family.”

Mr Karni, 58, a Muslim, can go about his business without threat largely because of a rabbi who has co-ordinated with the Israeli Army and police to be on the spot to provide protection. Rabbi Arik Ascherman peers through binoculars towards the Har Berakha settlement near Nablus, in the West Bank, for signs of trouble. Heavily armed Israeli police patrol through the trees and an army Humvee squats across the dirt track to deter unwanted visitors.  Rabbi Ascherman, co-director of Rabbis for Human Rights, will spend the six-week olive season rising at dawn with other volunteers to put his life on the line to protect Palestinian farmers from armed Jewish settlers.

Without the Jewish cleric, the farmers would be fired upon or beaten, their harvest stolen and ancient trees — some dating from Roman times — felled with chainsaws.  “This whole issue of trying to prevent the olive harvest is the ongoing struggle to get Palestinians off the land,” the rabbi said. “But if we Jews are to survive in this land we must restore hope by being here to break down the stereotypes the Palestinians have of Israelis. This is the best single thing I can do to protect my two children.”  The rabbi and his fellow volunteers — some Israeli, some foreign — will help to harvest and to police groves in 30 West Bank villages that sit cheek-by-jowl with Jewish settlements and have become flashpoints.  Last year attacks rose sharply at harvest-time, with feelings running high over Israel’s pullout from the Gaza Strip. Thousands of olive trees were cut down, others damaged, crops stolen, and several Palestinian farmers suffered serious injury at the hands of settler mobs.

Gamilah Biso, an Arabic-speaking Jewish volunteer who was brought up in Damascus, realises that her presence and that of her colleagues is vital to ensure that the olives can be harvested from the West Bank’s ten million trees to produce the 36,000 tonnes of olive oil. That accounts for one fifth of Palestinian agriculture. “If we weren’t here the farmer and his family just wouldn’t be able to come,” Ms Biso said, deftly stripping the green olives from the branches. “It would be too easy for the settlers to shoot them.”  Victory in a two-year court case brought by the rabbis and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel may help to ease tensions. It has guaranteed the farmers access to their land and obliged the army to protect that right.
The Army recently drove away settlers who had come to steal the olives from Mr Karni’s land — yet subsequently barred the family from their 12-acre grove because they had arrived before the agreed schedule. Mr Karni’s early appearance was driven by the desperation of current Palestinian circumstances. The harvest now offers a vital economic lifeline.  “We came to raise money for the Ramadan celebrations,” he said. “No one has any stable work these days. So the harvest has become very, very important to survive. We await the harvest like we await the rain.”

Tags: Rabbi, Olive crops, harvest, Gamilah Biso, Arab, Jew, Israel, Palestine, West Bank, Peacekeeping, non-violence

Life under Military Occupation

I finally have the first video from my 2003 journey to Israel and Palestine uploaded on military occupation. Dr. Elias Rishmawi of Beit Sahour is a wonderful resource. There's more to come from this interview.

Tags: Dr. Elias Rishmawi, Palestine, Military Occupation

Israel/Palestine footage upload planned

I have plans to upload the video footage of my 2003 visit to the West Bank: Beit Sahour, Bethlehem region.
I will post it here to my blog when done. This is, for me, some very intense, painful footage of destruction in the area. After the visit I tried to watch it and could not. You'll see what I mean. It has descriptions and commentary from my friend Samer Kokaly of the Alternative Tourism Group in Bethlehem. It will take some time to transfer it from vhs to digital but I believe will be well worth it. My sister Jen was there. She may be able to offer further recollections.

Tags: Israel/Palestine, video, youtube, upload

America you don't speak for me!

Maybe in Bizzaro world we all gave Israel the greenlight to continue the carnage. I'm too angry for words but I'm sure I'm not as angry as some. I pity my government. I pity Israel. They are bringing the whole world down. God help us all.

Tags: Israel/Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Bombing, USA, anger