Os pesquisadores terão talvez de examinar nada menos que 14 séculos, do século 3 AC até o início do século 17, para encontrar outro regime que construa muros e barreiras em tal frenesi, na tentativa desesperada de conseguir manter-se sobre terras roubadas, semelhante ao que nós logo veremos também aqui, no sul do Líbano, na fronteira com Israel.
Por Franklin Lamb no Counterpunch
24 de Abril de 2012, Vermelho http://www.vermelho.org.br (Brasil)
No ano 221 AC, para proteger a China contra a invasão do povo Xiongnu da Mongólia – e a tribo Xiongnu era, então, o principal inimigo da China, e lutava para reconquistar terras que acusava os chineses de terem roubado –, o imperador Qin Shi Huang ordenou que se construísse um muro, para preservar as conquistas territoriais chinesas.
Ao longo da história, construíram-se muitos muros, para proteger terras ocupadas. Os romanos construíram o Muro de Adriano na Grã-Bretanha, para manter os pictos do lado de fora; e os alemães do leste construíram o Muro de Berlin, para manter do lado de dentro quem quisesse sair dali [nota da redação: o muro foi construído sob o argumento de dar um fim às provocações e sabotagens realizadas pelo regime capitalista da Alemanha ocupada pelos Estados Unidos]. Mas nenhum regime na história construiu, em 60 anos, a quantidade de muros que foram e continuam a ser erguidos pelo paranoico governo de Telavive. Agora, planejam outros cinco novos muros, chamados "barreiras de proteção antiterroristas", entre os quais um, cuja construção deve ser iniciada em breve, sobre a fronteira entre Líbano e Palestina, na cidade libanesa de Kfar Kila. E esse muro pode vir a criar problemas ainda mais graves que outros.
A decisão de erguer um muro "para substituir a barreia técnica israelense existente" ao longo da Linha Azul, junto à cidade de Kfar Kila, foi anunciada por Telavive na semana passada. O anúncio aconteceu depois de uma reunião entre militares israelenses e a UNIFIL [orig. United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon, Força Provisória da ONU no Líbano] e os dois lados continuam estranhamente silenciosos sobre esse novo muro; mas o porta-voz da UNIFIL, Neeraj Singh, deixou escapar, em conversa comigo, que a primeira parte do muro terá cerca de 500m comprimento e cerca de 5m de altura.
Moradores do sul do Líbano opõem-se fortemente à construção da muralha, dentre outras razões, porque bloqueará a visão das belas paisagens da Palestina que se veem dali. Outros tem rido das razões apresentadas pelo lobby EUA-Israel, que pedirá ajuda aos contribuintes norte-americanos para as despesas de construção do muro.
David Schenker, conhecido militante pró-Israel (até quando ser pró-Israel implica ser contra os EUA; em ing. Israel firster), ligado ao Institute for Near East Policy, em Washington, associado ao AIPAC, disse em audiência no Congresso, recentemente: "O sul do Líbano é área obviamente muito sensível [para Israel], muito próxima de Metula e via pela qual o Hezbolá e palestinos podem infiltrar-se. A preocupação de Israel é legítima. O governo israelense crê que o muro, naquele ponto, impedirá que terroristas lancem ataques diretos com foguetes e morteiros. Impedirá também que turistas que visitam a região lancem pedradas contra Israel, o que muitos fazem e já se tornou praticamente um hábito."
Observadores locais, oficiais da UNIFIL e especialistas como Timor Goksel, que trabalhou por 24 anos como porta-voz da UNIFIL na área da Linha Azul, têm-se mostrado surpresos e intrigados por Israel andar falando tanto de Kfar Kila como região particularmente perigosa, que necessitaria de muros.
Nada, de fato, jamais aconteceu ali; aquela área nunca foi perigosa nem "sensível", sequer quando a OLP controlava a região, nos anos 1970s. Goksel explicou: "Nos meus 24 anos de experiência, jamais houve ataques nesse ponto, porque é muito próximo de uma cidade libanesa; ataques nesse ponto criariam dificuldades, sobretudo, para os libaneses que vivem ali. Que eu saiba, ninguém jamais pensou em atacar ali. Além do mais, mesmo que alguém invada o território israelense por Kifa Kula, é preciso andar muito até encontrar o primeiro posto israelense. Não faz sentido algum atacar aqui. Atacariam quem, nesse local?"
Moradores locais comentam que o verdadeiro motivo para Israel querer erguer um muro em Kfar Kila é impedir que soldados israelenses troquem ali armas e informações, por drogas; como todos sabem na região, o problema do consumo de drogas entre soldados de Israel no "Comando Norte" aumentou muito, desde a campanha mal-sucedida de Israel, naquela região, na guerra contra o Líbano, em julho de 2006.
O mais novo muro da vergonha em Israel seguirá o traçado de outro muro, que está já em construção, ao longo dos 700 km de fronteira entre os desertos do Sinai e do Negev. Esse muro deverá estar construído até o final de 2012. Então, se se somar o muro de Kfar Kila, Israel estará quase completamente cercada por aço, arame farpado e concreto; com uma única abertura, na fronteira com a Jordânia, entre o Mar Morto e o Mar Vermelho, onde não há barreira física. Mas logo também haverá um muro nesse ponto, segundo informação de Shenker; explicou que o muro é necessário também ali, porque há "incerteza" na Jordânia e o reino mostra-se cada vez mais vacilante.
Há mais muro, a cerca de 11km do Mediterrâneo, ao longo da fronteira sul, que se encontra com a jaula que Israel já construiu em torno de Gaza. Esse muro estende-se por 51km e é protegido por uma faixa de terra fortemente minada; os palestinos não podem andar ali, e o muro invade cerca de 1km da estreita Faixa de Gaza; por causa desse muro, os palestinos proprietários não conseguem chegar às suas melhores terras para a agricultura. Esse "muro de segurança" mantém os palestinos enjaulados dentro de Gaza, mas não impediu que o soldado Gilad Shalit, do exército de Israel, fosse capturado, bem ali, em 2006.
Depois que Israel foi expulsa do Líbano, em 2000, depois de 22 anos de ocupação, a barreira ao longo da fronteira Palestina-Líbano foi reconstruída. Essa barreira não impediu que o Hezbolá, em 2006, invadisse território israelense e capturasse dois soldados israelenses, que adiante foram usados numa troca, para libertar militantes que Israel mantinha prisioneiros. Também não impediu que o Hezbolá disparasse seus muitos mísseis, em guerra de retaliação que durou 33 dias, depois que Israel bombardeou e destruiu vastas áreas no sul do Líbano.
Apesar disso, os "muros de proteção" continuam a brotar do chão, como cogumelos depois da chuva.
Mais para o leste do Líbano, está sendo erguido outro muro, sobre a linha do cessar-fogo traçada ao final da guerra de 1973, do Yom Kippur; passa entre as colinas do Golan - que Israel ocupa ilegalmente há cerca de 45 anos - e a Síria. Exatamente por aí centenas de manifestantes pró-palestinos entraram em território palestino ocupado, em maio passado, pelo Golan e ao longo da fronteira libanesa. Mais de dez manifestantes foram mortos, e muitos foram feridos, quando o exército sionista abriu fogo contra manifestantes civis desarmados.
Um posto de passagem em Quneitra, atualmente operado pela ONU, permite alguma mobilidade ao pessoal da ONU, dá passagem a alguns caminhões carregados de maçãs, a uns poucos estudantes drusos e a uma ou outra esporádica noiva síria de véu e grinalda[1].
Poucos quilômetros ao norte de Quneitra está a Colina dos Gritos [orig. Shouting Hill], onde famílias drusas do Golan gritam, de um lado de uma faixa de terra minada, para serem ouvidos pelos parentes e amigos que vivem na Síria, do outro lado da faixa minada de território sírio ocupado por Israel[2].
Rumo ao sul, por campos e colinas pesadamente minados, a linha do cessar-fogo de 1973 é semeada de bases militares e zonas militares vedadas, restos de tanques que sobraram de outros combates, até que se conecta com a fronteira com a Jordânia. Ali se une a um dos primeiros muros construídos por Israel, ainda no final dos anos 1960s, e que hoje se estende quase desde o Mar da Galileia, pelo Vale do Jordão, até o Mar Morto. A maior parte dessa linha não é fronteira de Israel; é, simplesmente, mais um muro, para separar a Jordânia, de um lado; e, de outro a Cisjordânia ocupada por Israel.
A cerca de dois terços do caminho, a barreira liga-se ao sempre infame muro de aço e concreto da Cisjordânia. Esse muro acompanha a linha do armistício de 1949, engolindo, na passagem, muitas áreas plantáveis de terras palestinas, rasgando ao meio vilas e comunidades e separando sitiantes e agricultores de suas plantações de oliveiras. Como sobre outros 18 muros e barreiras, o regime sionista diz que se trata de simples medida de segurança. Mas, para muitos, o muro marca o limite de um futuro estado palestino, e já consumiu mais 12% do território da Cisjordânia. Cerca de dois terços dos quase 748km de muro já estão prontos, quase todo ele uma barreira de aço, com largas faixas de exclusão dos dois lados. Segundo o traçado atual, 8,5% do território da Cisjordânia e 27.520 palestinos vivem do lado ‘israelense' da barreira. Outros 3,4% da área (com 247.800 habitantes) está completamente ou parcialmente já cercada pelo muro.
Duas outras barreiras semelhantes - a que separa Israel e a Faixa de Gaza; e o muro que Israel construiu, 7-9m, que separa Gaza do Egito (que foi temporariamente derrubado dia 23/1/2008), atualmente sob controle dos egípcios -, também têm sido amplamente criticadas pela comunidade internacional.
De volta ao tema do novo projeto de novo muro, cada vez mais o regime sionista dedica-se a impedir discussões, audiências, visitas, expressões de solidariedade com os palestinos; agora já tenta impedir, até, que, do sul do Líbano, se aviste o estado sionista militar. O movimento de impedir que se veja e reveja uma paisagem que há milênios fascina os viajantes é mais um passo na direção do autoisolamento de Israel, cada vez mais xenófobo.
Depois da reunião conjunta em Kfar Kila, o major-general Serra, da UNIFIL, disse: "A reunião foi convocada para ajudar Israel a implantar medidas adicionais de segurança ao longo da Linha Azul, na área de Kfar Kila, para minimizar as causas de tensões esporádicas ou de desentendimentos que poderiam levar a uma escalada da situação". O mais provável, de fato, é que o muro em Kfar Kila provoque efeito exatamente oposto.
Em recente visita ao campo palestino de Ahmad Jibril no vale do Bekaa, e em conversa com grupos salafistas em Saida, pude ver bem claramente que o muro logo virará alvo para prática de tiro; o que só dificultará o trabalho da UNIFIL e do Hezbolá, que tanto se esforçam para manter calma a região de fronteira.
Em comentário sarcástico, recentemente publicado no Yedioth Ahronoth, o jornal de maior circulação em Israel, Alex Fishman, conhecido analista da Defesa, escreveu: "[Israel] Nos tornamos uma nação que se autoaprisiona atrás de muros e cercas, que se encolhe aterrorizada por trás de escudos de defesa". Já é, disse Fishman, "uma doença mental nacional."
[1] Referência ao filme "A Noiva Síria" (dir. Eran Riklis, 2004). Mais sobre o filme em http://www.adorocinema.com/filmes/filme-59151/ [NTs].
[2] Sobre a Colina dos Gritos ver 23/2/2009, "Families Shout Their Love Across Minefields in Golan Heights" [Famílias gritam seu amor, sobre a fronteira minada de território sírio ocupado por Israel, no Golan] em http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=e276b8706a88aca9e3a98dbbd5526d1d (NTs)
Mostrando postagens com marcador Yom Kippur. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador Yom Kippur. Mostrar todas as postagens
segunda-feira, 30 de abril de 2012
segunda-feira, 22 de agosto de 2011
THE RETURN OF THE GENERALS
20 august 2011, Gush Shalom גוש שלום http://zope.gush-shalom.org (Israel)
Uri Avnery*
SINCE THE beginning of the conflict, the extremists of both sides have always played into each other’s hands. The cooperation between them was always much more effective than the ties between the corresponding peace activists.
“Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” asked the prophet Amos (3:3). Well, seems they can.
This was proved again this week.
AT THE beginning of the week, Binyamin Netanyahu was desperately looking for a way out of an escalating internal crisis. The social protest movement was gathering momentum and posing a growing danger to his government.
The struggle was going on, but the protest had already made a huge difference. The whole content of the public discourse had changed beyond recognition.
Social ideas were taking over, pushing aside the hackneyed talk about “security”. TV talk show panels, previously full of used generals, were now packed with social workers and professors of economics. One of the consequences was that women were also much more prominent.
And then it happened. A small extremist Islamist group in the Gaza Strip sent a detachment into the Egyptian Sinai desert, from where it easily crossed the undefended Israeli border and created havoc. Several fighters (or terrorists, depends who is talking) succeeded in killing eight Israeli soldiers and civilians, before some of them were killed. Another four of their comrades were killed on the Egyptian side of the border. The aim seems to have been to capture another Israeli soldier, to strengthen the case for a prisoner exchange on their terms.
In a jiffy, the economics professors vanished from the TV screens, and their place was taken by the old gang of exes – ex-generals, ex-secret-service chiefs, ex-policemen, all male, of course, accompanied by their entourage of obsequious military correspondents and far-right politicians.
With a sigh of relief, Netanyahu returned to his usual stance. Here he was, surrounded by generals, the he-man, the resolute fighter, the Defender of Israel.
IT WAS, for him and his government, an incredible stroke of luck.
It can be compared to what happened in 1982. Ariel Sharon, then Minister of Defense, had decided to attack the Palestinians and Syrians in Lebanon, He flew to Washington to obtain the necessary American agreement. Alexander Haig told him that the US could not agree, unless there was a “credible provocation”.
A few days later, the most extreme Palestinian group, led by Abu Nidal, Yasser Arafat’s mortal enemy, made an attempt on the life of the Israeli ambassador in London, paralyzing him irreversibly. That was certainly a “credible provocation”. Lebanon War I was on its way.
This week’s attack was also an answer to a prayer. Seems that God loves Netanyahu and the military establishment. The incident not only wiped the protest off the screen, it also put an end to any serious chance of taking billions off the huge military budget in order to strengthen the social services. On the contrary, the event proved that we need a sophisticated electronic fence along the 150 miles of our desert border with Sinai. More, not less, billions for the military.
BEFORE THIS miracle occurred, it looked as if the protest movement was unstoppable.
Whatever Netanyahu did was too little, too late, and just wrong.
In the first days, Netanyahu treated the whole thing as a childish prank, unworthy of the attention of responsible adults. When he realized that this movement was serious, he mumbled some vague proposals for lowering the price of apartments, but by then the protest had already moved far beyond the original demand for “affordable housing”. The slogan was now “The People Want Social Justice”
After the huge 250,000-strong demonstration in Tel Aviv, the protest leaders were facing a dilemma: how to proceed? Yet another mass protest in Tel Aviv might mean falling attendance. The solution was sheer genius: not another big demonstration in Tel Aviv, but smaller demonstrations all over the country. This disarmed the reproach that the protesters are spoiled Tel Aviv brats, “sushi eaters and water-pipe smokers” as one minister put it. It also brought the protest to the masses of disadvantaged Oriental Jewish inhabitants of the “periphery”, from Afula in the North to Beer Sheva in the South, most of them the traditional voters of Likud. It became a love-fest of fraternization.
So what does a run-of-the-mill politician do in such a situation? Well, of course, he appoints a committee. So Netanyahu told a respectable professor with a good reputation to set up a committee which would, in cooperation with nine ministers, no less, come up with a set of solutions. He even told him that he was ready to completely change his own convictions.
(He did already change one of his convictions when he announced in 2009 that he now advocates the Two-State Solution. But after that momentous about-face, absolutely nothing changed on the ground.)
The youngsters in the tents joked that “Bibi” could not change his opinions, because he has none. But that is a mistake – he does indeed have very definite opinions on both the national and the social levels: “the whole of Eretz Israel” on the one, and Reagan-Thatcher economic orthodoxy on the other.
The young tent leaders countered the appointment of the establishment committee with an unexpected move: they appointed a 60-strong advisory council of their own, composed of some of the most prominent university professors, including an Arab female professor and a moderate rabbi, and headed by a former deputy governor of the Bank of Israel.
The government committee has already made it clear that it will not deal with middle class problems but concentrate on those of the lowest socio-economic groups. Netanyahu has added that he will not automatically adopt their (future) recommendations, but weight them against the economic possibilities. In other words, he does not trust his own nominees to understand the economic facts of life.
AT THAT point, Netanyahu and his aides pinned their hopes on two dates: September and November 2011.
In November, the rainy season usually sets in. No drop of rain before that. But when it starts to rain cats and dogs, it was hoped in Netanyahu’s office, the spoiled Tel Aviv kids will run for shelter. End of the Rothschild tent city.
Well, I remember spending some miserable weeks in the winter of the 1948 war in worse tents, in the midst of a sea of mud and water. I don’t think that the rain will make the tent-dwellers give up their struggle, even if Netanyahu’s religious partners send the most fervent Jewish prayers for rain to the high heavens.
But before that, in September, just a few weeks away, the Palestinians – it was hoped - would start a crisis that will divert attention. This week they already submitted to the UN General Assembly a request to recognize the State of Palestine. The Assembly will most probably accede. Avigdor Lieberman has already enthusiastically assured us that the Palestinians are planning a “bloodbath” at that time. Young Israelis will have to exchange their tents in Tel Aviv for the tents in the West Bank army camps.
It’s a nice dream (for the Liebermans), but Palestinians had so far showed no inclination to violence.
All that changed this week.
FROM NOW on, Netanyahu and his colleagues can direct events as they wish.
They have already “liquidated” the chiefs of the group which carried out the attack, called “the Popular Resistance Committees”. This happened while the fire-fight along the border was still going on. The army had been forewarned and was ready. The fact that the attackers succeeded nevertheless in crossing the border and shooting at vehicles was ascribed to an operational failure.
What now? The group in Gaza will fire rockets in retaliation. Netanyahu can – if he so wishes – kill more Palestinian leaders, military and civilian. This can easily set off a vicious circle of retaliation and counter-retaliation, leading to a full-scale Molten Lead-style war. Thousands of rockets on Israel, thousands of bombs on the Gaza Strip. One ex-military fool already argued that the entire Gaza Strip will have to be re-occupied.
In other words, Netanyahu has his hand on the tap of violence, and he can raise or lower the flames at will.
His desire to put an end to the social protest movement may well play a role in his decisions.
THIS BRINGS us back to the big question of the protest movement: can one bring about real change, as distinct from forcing some grudging concessions from the government, without becoming a political force?
Can this movement succeed as long as there is a government which has the power to start - or deepen - a “security crisis” at any time?
And the related question: can one talk about social justice without talking about peace?
A few days ago, while strolling among the tents on Rothschild Boulevard, I was asked by an internal radio station to give an interview and address the tent-dwellers. I said: “You don’t want to talk about peace, because you want to avoid being branded as ‘leftists”. I respect that. But social justice and peace are two sides of the same coin, they cannot be separated. Not only because they are based on the same moral principles, but also because in practice they depend on each other.”
When I said that, I could not have imagined how clearly this would be demonstrated only two days later.
REAL CHANGE means replacing this government with a new and very different political set up.
Here and there people in the tents are already talking about a new party. But elections are two years away, and for the time being there is no sign of a real crack in the right-wing coalition that might bring the elections closer. Will the protest be able to keep up its momentum for two whole years?
Israeli governments have yielded in the past to mass demonstrations and public uprisings. The formidable Golda Meir resigned in the face of mass demonstrations blaming her for the omissions that led to the fiasco at the start of the Yom Kippur War. The government coalitions of both Netanyahu and Ehud Barak in the 1990s broke under the pressure of an indignant public opinion.
Can this happen now? In view of the military flare-up this week, it does not look likely. But stranger things have happened between heaven and earth, especially in Israel, the land of limited impossibilities.
Uri Avnery*
SINCE THE beginning of the conflict, the extremists of both sides have always played into each other’s hands. The cooperation between them was always much more effective than the ties between the corresponding peace activists.
“Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” asked the prophet Amos (3:3). Well, seems they can.
This was proved again this week.
AT THE beginning of the week, Binyamin Netanyahu was desperately looking for a way out of an escalating internal crisis. The social protest movement was gathering momentum and posing a growing danger to his government.
The struggle was going on, but the protest had already made a huge difference. The whole content of the public discourse had changed beyond recognition.
Social ideas were taking over, pushing aside the hackneyed talk about “security”. TV talk show panels, previously full of used generals, were now packed with social workers and professors of economics. One of the consequences was that women were also much more prominent.
And then it happened. A small extremist Islamist group in the Gaza Strip sent a detachment into the Egyptian Sinai desert, from where it easily crossed the undefended Israeli border and created havoc. Several fighters (or terrorists, depends who is talking) succeeded in killing eight Israeli soldiers and civilians, before some of them were killed. Another four of their comrades were killed on the Egyptian side of the border. The aim seems to have been to capture another Israeli soldier, to strengthen the case for a prisoner exchange on their terms.
In a jiffy, the economics professors vanished from the TV screens, and their place was taken by the old gang of exes – ex-generals, ex-secret-service chiefs, ex-policemen, all male, of course, accompanied by their entourage of obsequious military correspondents and far-right politicians.
With a sigh of relief, Netanyahu returned to his usual stance. Here he was, surrounded by generals, the he-man, the resolute fighter, the Defender of Israel.
IT WAS, for him and his government, an incredible stroke of luck.
It can be compared to what happened in 1982. Ariel Sharon, then Minister of Defense, had decided to attack the Palestinians and Syrians in Lebanon, He flew to Washington to obtain the necessary American agreement. Alexander Haig told him that the US could not agree, unless there was a “credible provocation”.
A few days later, the most extreme Palestinian group, led by Abu Nidal, Yasser Arafat’s mortal enemy, made an attempt on the life of the Israeli ambassador in London, paralyzing him irreversibly. That was certainly a “credible provocation”. Lebanon War I was on its way.
This week’s attack was also an answer to a prayer. Seems that God loves Netanyahu and the military establishment. The incident not only wiped the protest off the screen, it also put an end to any serious chance of taking billions off the huge military budget in order to strengthen the social services. On the contrary, the event proved that we need a sophisticated electronic fence along the 150 miles of our desert border with Sinai. More, not less, billions for the military.
BEFORE THIS miracle occurred, it looked as if the protest movement was unstoppable.
Whatever Netanyahu did was too little, too late, and just wrong.
In the first days, Netanyahu treated the whole thing as a childish prank, unworthy of the attention of responsible adults. When he realized that this movement was serious, he mumbled some vague proposals for lowering the price of apartments, but by then the protest had already moved far beyond the original demand for “affordable housing”. The slogan was now “The People Want Social Justice”
After the huge 250,000-strong demonstration in Tel Aviv, the protest leaders were facing a dilemma: how to proceed? Yet another mass protest in Tel Aviv might mean falling attendance. The solution was sheer genius: not another big demonstration in Tel Aviv, but smaller demonstrations all over the country. This disarmed the reproach that the protesters are spoiled Tel Aviv brats, “sushi eaters and water-pipe smokers” as one minister put it. It also brought the protest to the masses of disadvantaged Oriental Jewish inhabitants of the “periphery”, from Afula in the North to Beer Sheva in the South, most of them the traditional voters of Likud. It became a love-fest of fraternization.
So what does a run-of-the-mill politician do in such a situation? Well, of course, he appoints a committee. So Netanyahu told a respectable professor with a good reputation to set up a committee which would, in cooperation with nine ministers, no less, come up with a set of solutions. He even told him that he was ready to completely change his own convictions.
(He did already change one of his convictions when he announced in 2009 that he now advocates the Two-State Solution. But after that momentous about-face, absolutely nothing changed on the ground.)
The youngsters in the tents joked that “Bibi” could not change his opinions, because he has none. But that is a mistake – he does indeed have very definite opinions on both the national and the social levels: “the whole of Eretz Israel” on the one, and Reagan-Thatcher economic orthodoxy on the other.
The young tent leaders countered the appointment of the establishment committee with an unexpected move: they appointed a 60-strong advisory council of their own, composed of some of the most prominent university professors, including an Arab female professor and a moderate rabbi, and headed by a former deputy governor of the Bank of Israel.
The government committee has already made it clear that it will not deal with middle class problems but concentrate on those of the lowest socio-economic groups. Netanyahu has added that he will not automatically adopt their (future) recommendations, but weight them against the economic possibilities. In other words, he does not trust his own nominees to understand the economic facts of life.
AT THAT point, Netanyahu and his aides pinned their hopes on two dates: September and November 2011.
In November, the rainy season usually sets in. No drop of rain before that. But when it starts to rain cats and dogs, it was hoped in Netanyahu’s office, the spoiled Tel Aviv kids will run for shelter. End of the Rothschild tent city.
Well, I remember spending some miserable weeks in the winter of the 1948 war in worse tents, in the midst of a sea of mud and water. I don’t think that the rain will make the tent-dwellers give up their struggle, even if Netanyahu’s religious partners send the most fervent Jewish prayers for rain to the high heavens.
But before that, in September, just a few weeks away, the Palestinians – it was hoped - would start a crisis that will divert attention. This week they already submitted to the UN General Assembly a request to recognize the State of Palestine. The Assembly will most probably accede. Avigdor Lieberman has already enthusiastically assured us that the Palestinians are planning a “bloodbath” at that time. Young Israelis will have to exchange their tents in Tel Aviv for the tents in the West Bank army camps.
It’s a nice dream (for the Liebermans), but Palestinians had so far showed no inclination to violence.
All that changed this week.
FROM NOW on, Netanyahu and his colleagues can direct events as they wish.
They have already “liquidated” the chiefs of the group which carried out the attack, called “the Popular Resistance Committees”. This happened while the fire-fight along the border was still going on. The army had been forewarned and was ready. The fact that the attackers succeeded nevertheless in crossing the border and shooting at vehicles was ascribed to an operational failure.
What now? The group in Gaza will fire rockets in retaliation. Netanyahu can – if he so wishes – kill more Palestinian leaders, military and civilian. This can easily set off a vicious circle of retaliation and counter-retaliation, leading to a full-scale Molten Lead-style war. Thousands of rockets on Israel, thousands of bombs on the Gaza Strip. One ex-military fool already argued that the entire Gaza Strip will have to be re-occupied.
In other words, Netanyahu has his hand on the tap of violence, and he can raise or lower the flames at will.
His desire to put an end to the social protest movement may well play a role in his decisions.
THIS BRINGS us back to the big question of the protest movement: can one bring about real change, as distinct from forcing some grudging concessions from the government, without becoming a political force?
Can this movement succeed as long as there is a government which has the power to start - or deepen - a “security crisis” at any time?
And the related question: can one talk about social justice without talking about peace?
A few days ago, while strolling among the tents on Rothschild Boulevard, I was asked by an internal radio station to give an interview and address the tent-dwellers. I said: “You don’t want to talk about peace, because you want to avoid being branded as ‘leftists”. I respect that. But social justice and peace are two sides of the same coin, they cannot be separated. Not only because they are based on the same moral principles, but also because in practice they depend on each other.”
When I said that, I could not have imagined how clearly this would be demonstrated only two days later.
REAL CHANGE means replacing this government with a new and very different political set up.
Here and there people in the tents are already talking about a new party. But elections are two years away, and for the time being there is no sign of a real crack in the right-wing coalition that might bring the elections closer. Will the protest be able to keep up its momentum for two whole years?
Israeli governments have yielded in the past to mass demonstrations and public uprisings. The formidable Golda Meir resigned in the face of mass demonstrations blaming her for the omissions that led to the fiasco at the start of the Yom Kippur War. The government coalitions of both Netanyahu and Ehud Barak in the 1990s broke under the pressure of an indignant public opinion.
Can this happen now? In view of the military flare-up this week, it does not look likely. But stranger things have happened between heaven and earth, especially in Israel, the land of limited impossibilities.
segunda-feira, 1 de agosto de 2011
RAMADAN & AV: CONNECTIONS & COLLISIONS
1 August 2011, The Shalom Center http://www.theshalomcenter.org (USA)
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Last night, with the coming of the New Moon’s sliver of light, Jews entered the month of Av; Muslims, the month of Ramadan. I want to take this moment to examine ways in which Jewish-Muslim relations have become entangled in the broader crisis of Europe and America that has led to attacks on Muslims and to the atrocious murders in Oslo last week.
Today, I want to share some sense of the spirit-lifting meanings and possibilities of this moment. Tomorrow, I want to examine the broader question of the wave of anti-Muslim feeling and action we are experiencing in America and Europe -- and what to do about it.
For Jews, the month of Av is one of foreboding, sorrow, and slow recovery – all built around memories of the Destruction of two Holy Temples in Jerusalem, one by the Babylonian Army in 586 BCE; the other by the Roman Army in 70 CE. The ninth day of Av – in Hebrew, Tisha B’Av -- has been set aside to mourn these disasters.
Jewish tradition blamed these disasters partly on Imperial arrogance, but partly on internal Jewish failings and corruptions.
And the tradition sought to transcend these traumas: In the Biblical era, on the seventh day after the commemoration of Destruction there was a rejoicing with erotic overtones: On the Full Moon of Av, young women danced in the fields and chose their husbands. In the Rabbinic era, seven Sabbaths of Consolation after the day of disaster were set aside to read Prophetic passages of hope, leading in seven steps to the renewal of Rosh Hashanah.
But efforts at transcending the trauma never fully worked. These two destructions helped set the tone of Jewish history as a series of traumas and victimizations – a tone that, after many later repetitions and especially the Holocaust, still deeply colors Jewish responses to history, even though a “Jewish state” now holds considerable political and military power.
For observant Muslims, Ramadan is a month of spiritual self-examination and redirection. Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset each day in order to turn their attention from physical satisfactions to spiritual growth; read the entire Quran during the month; increase their sharing with the poor; and late in the month celebrate the first revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. They end the month with Eid ul-Fitr, the Feast of the Break-Fast.
What can we learn from each other, living this “moonth” alongside each other?
The effort to transcend trauma is not for Jewish hearts and minds alone. Islam as a whole has during the last several centuries been conquered, colonized, subjugated by various Western powers, from Morocco to Indonesia. Palestinians in particular have tried to elevate this experience into a kind of Tisha B’Av of their own, observing the Naqba – the “Disaster” that came upon their community as Israel was established.
For them and for many other Muslims, the Disaster still means military weakness, less-creative arts and sciences, stagnant economies. Can the Disaster itself be turned into fertile soil for a new Islam --as Rabbinic Judaism flowered from the ashes of the Second Temple and as the Rabbis taught that Tisha B’Av was the birthing day of the Messiah?
And in the other direction, what can Jews learn from Ramadan? In Jewish tradition, the forty days from the beginning of the month of Elul to Yom Kippur were intended to be days of religious study and spiritual self-examination. But for most Jews, the currents of Modernity and its pressure for swiftness have swept away this practice, and even the Ten Days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur are rarely taken as a time for self-assessment, repair of wrongs, reconciliation, and forgiveness.
Perhaps the daily practice of fasting is what helps to hold the great majority of the world’s Muslims to observance of Ramadan. Perhaps Jews should be rethinking what daily practice for a full month would have such an impact on our lives. (There is a tradition of blowing the shofar every morning of the forty days that lead to Yom Kippur, but the Jews who do this are rare today. And perhaps the ritual is too “ritualistic,” too little a dent upon our earthy daily lives, to raise our consciousness as fasting does.)
Perhaps there is even a hint of what Jews could do, in the cultural history of Morocco. There the Jewish and Muslim communities feed each other – literally – at the end of Ramadan and the end of Passover. Muslims bring Jews the first post-Passover bread -- for a celebration that became known as “Maimouna,” “Prosperity-time.” And Jews bring Muslims the first food for the great Break-Fast at the end of Ramadan.
Here and there in America during the last few years, Mosques and synagogues have been connecting during Ramadan. Precisely in the face of the tensions between the two communities that have arisen in the last decade, what if they agreed that every evening – or even just every Sunday evening -- during Ramadan, Jews would eat with Muslims, in synagogues or mosques (and as individuals got to know each other, in private homes)?
What if synagogues agreed that during every Shabbat during Ramadan, they would read and study a passage from the Quran?
Or what if the lesson were transposed into Jewish time – so that despite the rush of business and the craving for mid-summer vacation, Jews ceremoniously set aside 18 minutes every morning in Av or from the First of Elul to Yom Kippur to dedicate some money to healing the world – pursuing peace, seeking justice, protecting the Earth?
May your Av, your Ramadan, help lift you into a fuller awareness of the loving care we owe each other!
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Last night, with the coming of the New Moon’s sliver of light, Jews entered the month of Av; Muslims, the month of Ramadan. I want to take this moment to examine ways in which Jewish-Muslim relations have become entangled in the broader crisis of Europe and America that has led to attacks on Muslims and to the atrocious murders in Oslo last week.
Today, I want to share some sense of the spirit-lifting meanings and possibilities of this moment. Tomorrow, I want to examine the broader question of the wave of anti-Muslim feeling and action we are experiencing in America and Europe -- and what to do about it.
For Jews, the month of Av is one of foreboding, sorrow, and slow recovery – all built around memories of the Destruction of two Holy Temples in Jerusalem, one by the Babylonian Army in 586 BCE; the other by the Roman Army in 70 CE. The ninth day of Av – in Hebrew, Tisha B’Av -- has been set aside to mourn these disasters.
Jewish tradition blamed these disasters partly on Imperial arrogance, but partly on internal Jewish failings and corruptions.
And the tradition sought to transcend these traumas: In the Biblical era, on the seventh day after the commemoration of Destruction there was a rejoicing with erotic overtones: On the Full Moon of Av, young women danced in the fields and chose their husbands. In the Rabbinic era, seven Sabbaths of Consolation after the day of disaster were set aside to read Prophetic passages of hope, leading in seven steps to the renewal of Rosh Hashanah.
But efforts at transcending the trauma never fully worked. These two destructions helped set the tone of Jewish history as a series of traumas and victimizations – a tone that, after many later repetitions and especially the Holocaust, still deeply colors Jewish responses to history, even though a “Jewish state” now holds considerable political and military power.
For observant Muslims, Ramadan is a month of spiritual self-examination and redirection. Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset each day in order to turn their attention from physical satisfactions to spiritual growth; read the entire Quran during the month; increase their sharing with the poor; and late in the month celebrate the first revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. They end the month with Eid ul-Fitr, the Feast of the Break-Fast.
What can we learn from each other, living this “moonth” alongside each other?
The effort to transcend trauma is not for Jewish hearts and minds alone. Islam as a whole has during the last several centuries been conquered, colonized, subjugated by various Western powers, from Morocco to Indonesia. Palestinians in particular have tried to elevate this experience into a kind of Tisha B’Av of their own, observing the Naqba – the “Disaster” that came upon their community as Israel was established.
For them and for many other Muslims, the Disaster still means military weakness, less-creative arts and sciences, stagnant economies. Can the Disaster itself be turned into fertile soil for a new Islam --as Rabbinic Judaism flowered from the ashes of the Second Temple and as the Rabbis taught that Tisha B’Av was the birthing day of the Messiah?
And in the other direction, what can Jews learn from Ramadan? In Jewish tradition, the forty days from the beginning of the month of Elul to Yom Kippur were intended to be days of religious study and spiritual self-examination. But for most Jews, the currents of Modernity and its pressure for swiftness have swept away this practice, and even the Ten Days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur are rarely taken as a time for self-assessment, repair of wrongs, reconciliation, and forgiveness.
Perhaps the daily practice of fasting is what helps to hold the great majority of the world’s Muslims to observance of Ramadan. Perhaps Jews should be rethinking what daily practice for a full month would have such an impact on our lives. (There is a tradition of blowing the shofar every morning of the forty days that lead to Yom Kippur, but the Jews who do this are rare today. And perhaps the ritual is too “ritualistic,” too little a dent upon our earthy daily lives, to raise our consciousness as fasting does.)
Perhaps there is even a hint of what Jews could do, in the cultural history of Morocco. There the Jewish and Muslim communities feed each other – literally – at the end of Ramadan and the end of Passover. Muslims bring Jews the first post-Passover bread -- for a celebration that became known as “Maimouna,” “Prosperity-time.” And Jews bring Muslims the first food for the great Break-Fast at the end of Ramadan.
Here and there in America during the last few years, Mosques and synagogues have been connecting during Ramadan. Precisely in the face of the tensions between the two communities that have arisen in the last decade, what if they agreed that every evening – or even just every Sunday evening -- during Ramadan, Jews would eat with Muslims, in synagogues or mosques (and as individuals got to know each other, in private homes)?
What if synagogues agreed that during every Shabbat during Ramadan, they would read and study a passage from the Quran?
Or what if the lesson were transposed into Jewish time – so that despite the rush of business and the craving for mid-summer vacation, Jews ceremoniously set aside 18 minutes every morning in Av or from the First of Elul to Yom Kippur to dedicate some money to healing the world – pursuing peace, seeking justice, protecting the Earth?
May your Av, your Ramadan, help lift you into a fuller awareness of the loving care we owe each other!
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