WAWA/WeAreWideAwake is my Public Service to America as a muckracker who has journeyed seven times to Israel Palestine since June 2005.
WAWA is dedicated to confronting media and governments that shield the whole
truth.
We who Are Wide
Awake are compelled by the "fierce urgency of Now" [Rev MLK, Jr.] to raise
awareness and promote the human dialogue about many of the crucial issues of our
day: the state of our Union and in protection of democracy, what life is like
under military occupation in Palestine, the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land,
and spirituality-from a Theologically Liberated Christian Anarchist
POV.
"We're on a mission from God." Jake Blues/John Belushi
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils." George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796
"My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast." Unamuno
"Imagine All the People Sharing All the World." John Lennon
"If enough Christians followed the gospel, they could bring any state to its knees." Father Philip Francis Berrigan
"You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down." Tom Petty
"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution." Emma Goldman
"We have yet to begin to IMAGINE the power and potential of the Internet." Charlie Rose, 2005
Only in Solidarity do "We have it in our power to begin the world again" Tom Paine
"Never doubt that a few, thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
"You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." John 8:32
DO SOMETHING!
Photo of George shown here and in web site banner courtesy of Debbie Hill, 2000.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence
But they are nothing compared to what those enduring under military occupation feel because of our American inability
to perceive ourselves in relation to others [which] is our principal weakness and Freedom can't wait.
November 17, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist, New York Times A Mideast Truce
By ROGER COHEN
I’ve grown so pessimistic about Israel-Palestine that I find myself
agreeing with Israel’s hard-line foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman:
“Anyone who says that within the next few years an agreement can be
reached ending the conflict simply doesn’t understand the situation and
spreads delusions.”
That’s the lesson of early Obama. The president tried to rekindle peace
talks by confronting Israel on settlements, coaxing Palestinians to
resume negotiations, and reaching out to the Muslim world. The effort
has failed.
It has alienated Israel, where Obama is unpopular, and brought the
president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, close to
resignation. It’s time to think again.
What’s gone wrong? There have been tactical mistakes, including a
clumsy U.S. wobble toward accepting Israeli “restraint” on settlements
rather than cessation. But the deeper error was strategic: Obama’s
assumption that he could resume where Clinton left off in 2000 and
pursue the land-for-peace idea at the heart of the two-state solution.
This approach ignored the deep scars inflicted in the past decade: the
killing of 992 Israelis and 3,399 Palestinians between the outbreak of
the Second Intifada in 2000 and 2006; the Israeli Army’s harsh
reoccupation of most of the West Bank; Hamas’ violent rise to power in
Gaza and the accompanying resurgence of annihilationist ideology; the
spectacular spread of Jewish settlements in the West Bank; and the
Israeli construction of over 250 miles of a separation barrier that has
protected Israel from suicide bombers even as it has shattered
Palestinian lives, grabbed land and become, in the words of Michael
Sfard, an Israeli lawyer, “an integral part of the West Bank settlement
plan.”
These are not small developments. They have changed the physical
appearance of the Middle East. More important, they have transformed
the psychologies of the protagonists. Israelis have walled themselves
off from Palestinians. They are less interested than ever in a deal
with people they hardly see.
As Ron Nachman, the founder of the sprawling Ariel settlement, comments
in René Backmann’s superb new book, “A Wall in Palestine,” the wave of
Palestinian suicide attacks before work on the barrier began in
mid-2002 meant that: “Israelis wanted separation. They did not want to
be mixed with the Arabs. They didn’t even want to see them. This may be
seen as racist, but that’s how it is.”
And that’s about where we are.
With Palestinians saying, “Not one inch further will we cede.” The
myriad humiliations of the looping barrier, which divides Palestinians
from one another as well as from Israel, have cemented this “Nyet.”
On the surface, Obama’s decision to tackle settlements first was
logical enough. Nothing has riled Palestinians as much as the continued
flow of Israeli settlers into East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Both
Oslo (1993) and the Road Map (2003) called for settlements to stop, but
the number of settlers has risen steadily to over 450,000.
The president was categorical in his Cairo speech: “The United States
does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”
Nor do I. But facts are hard — and Obama has tried to ignore them. The
history briefly outlined above makes clear that the right-wing
government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t deviate from the
pattern of settlement growth established since 1967.
Indeed, Backmann’s book (from which the Sfard quote is also taken),
demonstrates a relentless continuity of Israeli purpose, now cemented
by a fence whose aim was in fact double: to stop terrorists but also
“to protect the settlements, to give them room to develop.”
That is why, even at 250 miles, the barrier (projected to stretch over
400 miles) is already much longer than the pre-1967 border or Green
Line: It burrows into the West Bank to place major settlements on the
Israeli side, effectively annexing over 12 percent of the land.
The United States condoned the construction of this
settlement-reinforcing barrier. It cannot be unmade — not for the
foreseeable future. Peace and walls do not go together. But a truce and
walls just may. And that, I must reluctantly conclude, is the best that
can be hoped for.
Obama, who has his Nobel already, should ratchet expectations downward.
Stop talking about peace. Banish the word. Start talking about détente.
That’s what Lieberman wants; that’s what Hamas says it wants; that’s
the end point of Netanyahu’s evasions.
It’s not what Abbas wants but he’s powerless. Shlomo Avineri, a
political scientist, told me, “A nonviolent status quo is far from
satisfactory but it’s not bad. Cyprus is not bad.”
I recall my friend Shlomo dreaming of peace. That’s over. The last
decade destroyed the last illusions: hence the fence. The courageous
have departed the Middle East. A peace of the brave must yield to a
truce of the mediocre — at best.
At least until Intifada-traumatized Israeli psychology shifts. I agree
with the Israeli author David Grossman when he writes: “We have dozens
of atomic bombs, tanks and planes. We confront people possessing none
of these arms. And yet, in our minds, we remain victims. This inability
to perceive ourselves in relation to others is our principal weakness.”
U.S. should stand against apartheid in Israel By Sam Jadallah Special to the Mercury News 11/17/2009
November 3 marked, in the words of political blogger Philip Weiss, a "historically dark day" in the U.S. Congress. House Republicans and Democrats lined up to vote against the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission carried out by Justice Richard Goldstone and to bash Goldstone, a committed Zionist, because he had the temerity to detail Israel's war crimes in Gaza this past winter. Expressing not a word of concern regarding the over 300 Palestinian children killed in Israel's attacks, the disappointing resolution places our Congress on the front lines of denying documented war crimes.
Congressional rhetoric continues to place blame on Palestinians, insisting to a large extent that they are responsible for their own misery. But it is absurd to think that Palestinians will simply surrender to life under permanent discrimination and iron-fisted military rule.
Freedom and equality must be centerpieces of American efforts to secure peace in the region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects this with misleading words and ongoing colonization of Palestinian territory. He offers caveats, limitations and conditions to ensure Palestinians will not realize fundamental aspirations and dreams.
His newest condition demands that Israel be recognized as a Jewish state, despite 20 percent of Israel's population being Palestinian. This demand is akin to George Wallace insisting Martin Luther King Jr. recognize the U.S. as a white state. Yet, American leaders, who would never support the United States as a white state, uphold this in Israel despite such language implicitly relegating Palestinian citizens to inferior status.
Already, over 20 Israeli laws favor Jewish citizens and discriminate against Palestinians. And in the Israeli-controlled West Bank, Palestinians face segregated roads, unequal distribution of water and a dual system of law.
The question is how to break the impasse. I look to guidance Nelson Mandela offered from his prison cell. He asked, "What freedom am I being offered when I must ask permission to live in an urban area? What freedom am I being offered when I need a stamp in my pass to seek work?"
I have profound doubts as to Netanyahu's intentions when days ago a university student in Bethlehem was transferred back to Gaza because she was in the occupied West Bank "illegally." Israel's pass stamps for this young woman, Berlanty Azzam, are just as noxious as in apartheid South Africa.
Palestinian lives are increasingly shaped by stunting discrimination and despair. The time is long past for "economic progress," "easing travel restrictions" and other baby steps for Palestinians that avoid a just and legally based solution. Only a focus on the prize — freedom and equality, neither of which can be concessions — will prevent the situation from dramatically worsening, and rapidly.
Americans who fought Jim Crow or apartheid must reject today's version in the occupied Palestinian territories. America's leadership is based on promoting freedom and equality around the world, and we must start with our allies.
South Africa achieved freedom only when President F.W. de Klerk released Mandela and legalized his "terrorist" ANC organization under external boycotts and political pressure. Clearly, Israel's leaders are incapable of providing freedom and equality without a clear and strong message from the U.S. And the longer we support military rule and discrimination, the more we erode our leadership.
It's time for our leadership to step up for our values and call on Israeli leaders to follow the South African path to peace. Any solution starts with a clear and immediate commitment to delivering freedom and equality.
American and Israeli leaders need to replace rhetoric with tangible freedom and equality for all people in a land so overdue these blessings.
Freedom can't wait.
SAM JADALLAH is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, former Microsoft executive and co-founder and chairman of the board of the Institute for Middle East Understanding. He wrote this article for the Mercury News.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. -Article 19.
" In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946
The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright
“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK
Establishment of Israel
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel
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