Indigenous People, Palestine, and History's Judgments. . . .

             In 1840 the Comanche chief Buffalo Hump raised a huge party of warriors and began raiding towns in the Republic of Texas. During the raids they killed approximately 30 whites, nearly burned down the entire town of Linnville, stole hundreds of horses, and stole quiet a bit of bullion. The Great Raid of 1840, as it is now called, was one of the largest single raids by an organized ‘war party’ of  Native Americans in the history of Western “settlement.” And the killing and pillaging by the Comanche raiders was widely used as an illustration of Native “brutality” and “savagery” as the process of “settlement” went on through the rest of the 19^th century.

            However, as we know now, the people of the West commonly used such events to characterize the Native Americans as ‘savages,’ and ‘settler’s’ used the argument “we have a right to defend ourselves”” in their process of genocide. Very few people today, except the most racist, would ignore the fact that it was, in fact, the Native Americans who were defending themselves against an ongoing, concerted effort to take all their land and commit what amounted to genocide. We might look back and be saddened by the deaths of ‘average people’ who were just trying to live their lives at the hands Natives, but we are separated from the history enough to understand that what was really going on was genocide and that the relatively few numbers of whites that died in conflicts with the Natives, though sad for those people and their family members, amounted to the very small efforts that the Natives could go to in fighting against the theft of their land and the destruction of their culture. When Western “settlers” massacred Native communities with the claim of “defense” we know that such an argument could only be made by isolating  individual events from the backdrop of land theft and genocide. (Of course, racism against natives is still extremely wide spread and, sadly, even culturally accepted. However, eve those who have a racist, twisted, or radically misinformed view of North American Indigenous peoples, understand that it was, generally speaking, the Natives who were defending themselves, not the other way around.)

            But the realization of genocide and White atrocities has taken a long, long time. And we can, sadly, conclude that it was only once the theft of the land was assured that anyone began to listen to the idea that whites had acted atrociously and were, in fact, guilty of the worst kinds of human crimes. And this struggle continues even today as a case can be made that North American Governments continue to be guilty of ongoing crimes against humanity in their treatment of the Indigenous peoples.

            However, what I find saddest of all is that we have learned so little from our crimes against the Indigenous population of North America. Today in Palestine, the very same thing is going on. Almost all of the land of the Palestinians has now been taken with the exception of a few, very crowded and isolated areas. Like the Manifest Destiny of the Whites who came to North America, Israel seems bent on taking all the land of Palestine for itself and running the others off or killing them in the process. The Palestinians now live in a series of open-air prison camps and have very few resources at their disposal. Occasionally the Palestinians fight back with their meager resources against the most powerful, per-capita military in the world. And like the White “settlers” of the Old West, Israelis and their apologists claim that they are defending themselves against a “savage” enemy. But just as in the Old West, it is the Palestinians who are, in fact, defending themselves against a much more powerfully armed peoples who are hell-bent on taking all of their land until the Palestinians are little more than a handful of people with nothing to their name and subjugation becomes a really simple matter. It is another genocide, committed with a claim of moral righteousness, and it is no less savage or unjust than the committed against the Indigenous peoples of North America. They don’t want you to look at the “big picture.” They don’t want you to look at the historical facts. They don’t want you to see the maps which illustrated the gradual, but consistent swallowing up of Palestinian land against UN Directives and International Law. Like the White “settlers” of North American, Israel and its apologists want you to look at every effort by the Palestinians in complete isolation so they can mischaracterize it as savagery and characterize themselves as victims simply trying to “defend” themselves. All the while, they continue their illegal settlements, continue talking the land, and continue committing genocide while the West looks the other way.

            But if the human race is still here in a couple of hundred years, the destruction of Palestine will be seen as no less a crime than the destruction of the Indigenous cultures of North America. Perhaps more so. And the few of us who speak against it will be like those few Easterners who spoke against the brutal nature of Western Settlement, people on the right side of history at decidedly the wrong time.

CSIS and 'foreign control' . . . .

So Richard Fadden, the chief spook of Canada tells us, on the eve of the G20 summit mind you, that several Canadian politicians are "under the control of foreign governments"

Really? We needed CSIS to tell us this?

Unfortunately the humorous quality of this story is somewhat dissipated by the fact that our so-called spy service isn't actually referring to the obvious fact that our Prime Minister and several of his cabinet ministers are shameless agents of the US and Israel. Stephen Harper's rather pathetic and frightening dispensationalism surely qualifies Harper for foreign control status.

But of course Mr. Fadden isn't referring to this kind of foreign control. It is perfectly acceptable when the Prime Minister shifts decades of policy to fall into line with US or Israeli goals.

Aha! Watch and wait.If the story wasn't simply an entire fabrication timed to help justify the billion dollar boondoggle of the G20 meeting, we will eventually find out that what Mr. Fadden is talking about is once again pesky communists. Because CSIS has never had a problem with foreign control, as long as it is the 'right' foreign control.

Mossad hit squads. . .

It is something we all know already; something that has never been in doubt; the Mossad is using professional assassination squads to kill leaders of any group or party that opposes the continual, and illegal moves of the State of Israel to take all of the Palestinian land for themselves. Surprise, surprise! Let's not forget that these are the people that invented modern terrorism in guise of the Stern-Gang and other groups. It is remarkable to me that those who blindly support Israel and condemn their opponents as terrorists forget the history that led to the formation of the State of Israel. 

These are the same people that condemn almost every Palestinian group as terrorist, forgetting or ignoring the fact that Israel continually builds illegal settlements on occupied land, pushing Palestinians families off their land and keeping them penned like cattle in terrible refugee camps with no hope for the future. If that is not a form of terrorism, I don't know what is. This is not, and never has been, a religious issue. It is a simple issue of a paramilitary state hungry for power and land which will stop at nothing to get it, including using a warped biblical argument that God promised all the region to the Jewish people. Sadly there will be no peace in the Middle East until the people of Israel admit that Palestinian people are entitled to a state of their own or equal participation in the State of Israel. I think a one state solution is best - a state that treats all the citizens of the region equally, a state in which everyone is a stakeholder together in prosperity, peace and democracy. But if the wounds run too deep and a two state solution is the only one possible, then it is not difficult. Go back to the original UN boarders, give a right of return to the refugees, and put just a fraction of the money that the West has put into Israel to make a Palestinian state viable and prosperous. But the State of Israel has always been just as terroristic and intransigent as the worst of the Palestinian groups and they won't even entertain the possibility of the elimination of the illegal settlements. 

Settlements require compromise and if you are unwilling to compromise then you can hardly condemn others for their intransigence. And if you are willing to rob people of their land and hire assassination squads and build one of the largest militaries in the world then how can you reasonably condemn others for using any means at their disposal to defend their interests. Only when the West is willing to admit that the expansionist moves of the State of Israel are as much moves of terror as missiles and bombs that anyone will be able to move forward to any kind of real peace negotiations. 

Sid Ryan and Jason Kenney

Let us make it clear once and for all. The effort to oppose the expansionist  and militaristic policies of the state of Israel has nothing to do with intolerance of Jews or Judaism ! Period. One can agree or disagree with Sid Ryan and CUPE Ontario’s resolution to boycott Israeli academics, but it is certainly not about Intolerance. Instead it is a rational protest against the policies of an expansionist, militaristic, state that has created the largest outdoor prison in the world and has set about to systematically destroy a people. Jason Kenney, like so many right-wing politicians, is using anti-Semitism as a bogeyman to undermine people who rightfully oppose the policies of a state. Tell me Mr Kenney was it intolerance that inspired people to call for a boycott of South Africa? Of course not. The same applies here. At the heart of Israeli policies is a racist effort to destroy the people of Palestine. I wish it were not so, but it is. I am not sure I agree with Mr. Ryan, but I have no doubt that he harbors no anti-Semitic feelings and to suggest that he is motivated by intolerance is, in itself, based in a policy of intolerance against people who are willing to oppose Israeli policy. 

Obama and the discourse of Empire

What a strange moment to watch the inauguration of the first African-American president. I grew up in the US under the shadow of the War in Indo-China and the gradual end of segregation. It is a day I never thought I would see. Of course, we all know that this is not the end of racism, but it is a great symbolic victory for those who have fought so long and hard against it terrible scourge.

But what strikes me as particularly strange as I watch Barack Obama give his inauguration speech is the notable dichotomy that underlies his words. In recent days, as well as in today’s speech, Obama has talked a lot about returning America to its greatness. And those of us who have been so horrified by the Bush administration’s total disregard for the constitution and the rule of law, hope that Obama will reverse a great deal of what has happened over the past eight years. But as seductive as Obama’s speeches can be, let us not kid ourselves! The prosperity of the United States is not been built upon generosity and the promotion of human rights. On the contrary, anyone who has paid any attention knows that the US has continually undermined democracy when its outcomes has not adhered to its political and economic interests. We all know that US trading policies through institutions such as GATT have been designed to undermine the economic independence and prosperity of the world’s poorest nations. For generations the US economy was built with the sweat of slaves at home, and in more recent years US prosperity has been built on the backs of third world workers who, if they ever had the gall to assert their independent right to built their own economies based upon more cooperative ideals, suffered from US oppression or wars waged by proxy in the interests of Wall Street. In the past eight years the US has openly practiced terrible violations of human rights with the excuse of a ‘war on terror.’ But for the past two hundred years it has consistently violated human rights with other kinds of excuses and spin. From its support of the Shah of Iran, the carpet-bombing of Laos, to the mining of Nicaraguan waters, the US has built its prosperity on raw, ferocious, filthy power. Obama talks about rebuilding American greatness, but the only meaningful discourse would be talk of RE-Making America in the real spirit of truth and democracy.

Obama’s first chance to Re-make America would be to stop its closest military ally, Israel, from keeping the worlds largest prison camp in Gaza and pressure it into giving back the land it has stolen, and in the process ensuring that the people of Palestine can build themselves an independent and prosperous nation in fairness and democracy.

Whenever you feel yourself seduced by Obama’s talk of hope, remind yourself what the United States has really been and hope that it can be the first empire in history that can truly re-make itself into that which it has pretended to be.

Israel, Palestine, and Irrationalism

UN Security Council Resolution 242 has been argued over for forty years now. But I think to even a mildly disinterested observer it is clear that Israel is in the wrong here. The preamble to peace is simple; Israel must pull back from all occupied territory and dismantle all illegal settlements. If your neighbour took half your house and refused to vacate it for forty years, do you think you could ever live in peaceful coexistence with him? I think not. Almost every rational observer on the globe understands that Israel is consistently standing in the way of peace through the act of occupation. Only through abandoning its illegal occupations can Israel empower the process by empower those among the Palestinians who also want peace. There are some on both sides that will try to undermine the move to peace even if it were to arrive, but those will have no power in the face of genuine cooperation and empowerment. The worst tragedy is that so many people in a handful of the world's most powerful countries have so easily bought into the idea that a ragtag group of malnourished individuals in refugee camps are the aggressors who are responsible for all the conflict in the Middle East. It would be like the Roman Empire blaming the Visigoths for all the war on the northern frontiers. Come on, wake up!

Trouble in Gaza

Why is the problem in Palestine made so complicated? Its simplicity is crystal clear to me. The Palestinians were forcibly pushed off of their land and compelled to live in exile refugee camps that, in the case of Gaza, amounts to a huge prison camp. Their children suffer from malnutrition and are deprived of even the simplest essentials of life. Their humanity has been systematically taken away by one of the most powerful military structures in the world supported with billions of dollars from the US government. They have fought back against these conditions in ways that we can always expect an oppressed, poverty ridden people to do; with everything from stones to rockets. It is, no doubt, dangerous to a small number of Israelis, but it is also rather sad and pathetic. Israel and the US may condemn the militants of Palestine for their sometimes deadly tactics but Americans and Israelis would do exactly the same thing if they were robbed of their homes and forced to live under such conditions.

There has always been a small number of Israelis who understand that peace can only come with a decent and prosperous Palestinian state with the original UN boundaries. But there is also a group of Israeli militants who believe that they have a God-given right to all the land of Palestine and in pursuance of this goal they do anything to maintain the conflict with the Palestinians in order to give them the excuse they need to slowly destroy the Palestinian infrastructure and eventually take all the land of the region. They sell this agenda the way fascists always do; through fear. And thus they have effectively convinced the majority of Israelis that they are the victims and that they have the right to do anything to fight back. Of course, on the other side there is a certain number of Palestinians who don’t want peace either because they need their own excuse to fight against what they consider to be an illegitimate Jewish state. But the only way to beat such militancy is not through militarism (which only feeds such madness) but through prosperity and peace. Take away the constituency of the militants and it will fade away. In other words all you need for peace is to make the Palestinians stake-holders in peace and prosperity and they will become partners with the Israelis in the struggle against militancy. This can be done with a genuine commitment from Israel; peace is in their grasp if they want it. This simply illustrates a truism that everyone should understand; that the more powerful party in a conflict always has the upper hand in the struggle for peace. Unfortunately the Palestinians, being the weaker and significantly more vulnerable, have no such power to bring about peace because even those among the Palestinians who want it cannot stop those militants among them, whose numbers continually grow through their conditions of live and lack of freedom.

It is a very simple lesson that union activists have understood since Robert Owen illustrated it so effectively; give employees a stake in the success of a business, make them feel as though they are part of the process, empower them and make them part of a collective effort for success, and you get loyalty, compromise, and prosperity.

There is no doubt that the individuals in Hamas who have shot rockets into Israel have killed individuals. But the militants of the Israeli state have attempted to kill an entire people.

Obama and Change

It is no coincidence that the first policy speech that Obama choose to made after clinching the Democratic Party nomination was to the Israeli lobby to assure them that he would be a good friend of Israel. It makes you wonder how much “Change” we can hope to get from any American politician. And this is no small matter, because of the major problems facing the United States, the blind support for Israel is surely one of the largest. The inability of U.S. politicians to see Israel as the militaristic expansionist state that it is makes it impossible for the U.S. to genuinely pursue peace and create a healthy relationship with people not only in the Middle East but all over the globe. Until the U.S. faces up to the fact that Israel is not some poor, isolated, weak victim of foreign aggression, but is an expansionist state with one of the most powerful militaries in the world that blatantly flouts UN directives and has slowly but intentionally chipped away at Palestinian lands with the clear intention of eventually taking most, if not all, of the Occupied territory for itself, then the US will continue to face aggression from all corners of the world. Everyone knows the way to peace. Israel must pull back to the original UN boarders and properly deal with the right of return. The West must also take an active role in establishing a viable state for Palestinians in those boarders in much the same way that it did when it established the economic viability of Israel. It is no more complicated than that. But the US (and, by the way, the Harper Government) will not face up to this simple truth that the vast majority of the world’s population takes for granted. And for all his talk of change, Mr. Obama is part of this collective blindness.